CHAPTER 2
The wick of the black candle lit quickly, the flame larger than was natural for it to be.
Dean barely paid the odd flame heed as he set it in place at the edge of the circle he kneeled in.
The lot was big and bare, the kind of dirt field that was sat bored and dusty before real estate laid foundations to cover with cookie cutter homes for the coming flood of future home-owners.
There were no homes along this stretch of road. Norwich Drive was nothing but dirt lots and a few sparse weeds.
Dean hadn't really expected much more.
He continued his preparations, laying out perfectly round stones that along the near-perfect outline of a circle he'd drawn and placed himself inside of. He counted in mutters to himself as he placed each rock down.
"...thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three. One, two..." He counted to thirty-three three times. The circle was surrounded now.
Swiveling carefully, so as not to disturb his perfect circle, he made a swift check of everything around him.
The circle was carefully, measured, three feet in radius. Ninety-nine stones that were each three centimeters across lay evenly on the circle's outline, making three sets of thirty-three. Also evenly spaced just inside the circle's outline were three black candles. On each candle was carved the number 33.
Dean blew out a breath then clenched his jaw.
Maybe this was a bad idea.
He ran a hand over his stubbled face and through his hair.
"What are you doing, Dean?" he asked himself aloud.
It had been about five weeks after Ohio when he'd come up with the idea. Sam was just beginning to like driving at that time, Dean could see it. That was good, he'd thought.
Dean didn't care much for driving anymore.
They'd been in one of the Carolina's - he couldn't remember which one - and it had kind of just come upon him while Sam was ordering them food from the same kind of grungy establishment they always seemed to end up at. He'd been thinking about her, naturally; he thought about her alot. He felt weak and stupid for it. But this thought, this inspiration, it was almost as if he hadn't come up with it himself at all. It was like reading a sign, or hearing an ad, because the idea was so foreign and ridiculous that he would never have considered it otherwise.
What if death was one-dimensional?
He'd shaken it off, hating the flare of emotion that had sprung up and flushed through him. It was stupid, he told himself, wishful thinking to think that Anna could be alive somewhere, whole and breathing and beautiful in some dimension that was beyond his reach. It ached to think of her at all.
Sam had asked him if he was alright when he hadn't touched his food. He brushed him off and forced down his rubbery country-fried chicken.
But he couldn't stop. Once the idea was planted, he couldn't keep it from growing. It ate at him, gnawing at the edges of his mind until he was sure he would snap, because it was driving him crazy. Anna was dead, he hadn't saved her, he hadn't kept her alive, he'd left her alone to die...
But Dean had suddenly wanted to be sure, needed to know absolutely. He had an intense desperation to know for certain that he hadn't just abandoned her without checking every option. He couldn't take it if she was out there in her own world, and he was stuck with the memory of being too late, too hesitant, too far away, too empty. He didn't want to believe that burning her massacred body had been the end of it all.
It had made him sick, after a while. Sam hadn't been too concerned, because a lot of people get summer colds. Dean knew, though. He knew what the worry and the secrecy was doing to him. He knew that sooner or later, he was going to have to spill his guts or do something about the possibilities swimming in his head, because he knew that despite how illogical or unfounded they might be, he had to know.
He had to find out if Anna had survived in her own dimension. And he knew then that he was losing it.
It had been simple, really. Sam was easy to distract. When there was something for his little brother to research, he would sneak off to another computer or another section, reading up on the Demon, numerology, and inter-dimensional theory. It was long and hard work, more so because he had to hide it.
He wasn't sure why, but he didn't want Sam to know.
Showers became opportunities too. When Sam was in the bathroom, Dean had free reign on the laptop, and he was careful to have the computer off and away before Sam came back into the room.
He was sure Sammy couldn't see a difference.
And his impossible ideas weren't seeming so impossible anymore. Things were fitting into place, facts were coming together and making sense, and it was mid-August when he'd realized he knew everything he needed to know.
Dean knew then, that he would have to make a decision.
He knew what to do, he knew how to do it, and little by little, he'd begun to collect the things he'd need to do it. He'd found a job in California, close enough to keep Sam from suspicion of his plans. He would be gone a day, maybe two. There was just one problem.
He couldn't take Sam with him.
And that was the most difficult thing he had to consider. The brothers had hardly been apart at all in almost two years, much less the last five months. He didn't want to leave Sammy, he needed to make sure his brother was safe, and he needed to be there to keep him safe.
That was why he'd left Anna in the first place.
It was a long four weeks before Dean could bring himself to decide. Even if he could take Sammy with him, there was no guarantee that it would work anyway; anything could go wrong. He pushed that fact to the forefront of his mind, choosing to believe that he was protecting his brother this way by leaving him behind, keeping him out of it for his own good.
Two days. Two days wouldn't hurt his little brother.
"Two days," Dean told himself, hesitation gone. He looked around himself, glancing into the darkness when he heard the rumble of a car driving along the adjacent road. He turned back to his immediate surroundings, lit only by the flicker light of the black candles.
He would come back. He'd promised. No matter what he found, if he found anything, if he could get there at all, he would come back. I promised, he told himself, I promised Sammy.
Dean reached into his back pocket and pulled out a piece of paper with a long paragraph scribbled on it in a strange language.
On the back of it, ignored by him now, was more scribbling; notes taken from some book or website. Some of it read thus:
Thirty-three/ultimate number of numerology/combines the strongest master numbers:11 + 22 = 33/capable of great changes and wishes/called the Christ number because of power/not all who use it are aware of using it/have to Master choice to make it work/ 33 is the number of choice to make change...
Kneeling in a circle characterized by 33's, Dean began to read, the words sounding rough and unintelligible in the strange language.
He'd made his decision, his choice. He was completing this ritual. He was going to try and travel through the dimensions.
He could only hope that Anna was there to make it worth what it was costing him.
* * *
Sam was cussing out loud, angry and frustrated that he'd taken a wrong street twice. He really wished he'd taken more than a glance at the MapQuest directions.
Finally seeing the sign bearing the name Norwich Dr., he pulled the Impala to the curb across from it and got out, careful not to slam the door. He stepped quickly and lightly across the empty street, and when he turned the corner onto Norwich, he found himself midway along a lengthy, newly paved road lined with dirt lots perfectly proportioned for new homes to be built upon.
A good eighty yards up the street, a soft and slightly jumpy glow caught his attention.
"Dean," Sam muttered before heading toward the light, running almost silently in a stealthy crouch, wondering what the heaping heck his brother was up to.
He was about thirty feet away when he caught sight of the circle and candles. He squinted, seeing that there were markings in the wax; a number…33.
33.
33.
33.
Oh my god. Something clicked in Sam's head, a switch that suddenly let his mind flash through several images and memories of the past five months in rapid succession while he called out to his brother, sprinting towards the circle that Dean was kneeling in, his back to Sam.
The flashes mixed with Sam's thoughts, rushing through his head in the space of a second.
Dean closing the laptop too quickly when Sam came in the room.
Today's date is October 3, which is like it being the 33rd of September.
Dean taking off in the library to research something secret.
This street is where Anna lived in her dimension, that lot is where her house would be.
Dean questioning the number three on their motel room door.
The demon is Temelechus, whose powers of teleportation are rooted in numerology.
Dean promising that he would come back.
He's trying to leave, to go to her dimension.
Dean in a circle of rocks and candles, chanting something he read off of a paper.
"DEAN! N-"
Before Sam was finished shouting the plea, there was a loud sound that was oddly metallic in quality, like a sheet of metal being broken or sliced, and it drowned out Sam's voice. In the back of his frantic mind, Sam was unconsciously expecting a flash of light, maybe a small earthquake, or even a rushing wind to join the noise. He expected to be blinded momentarily, or thrown back by some unexplained force; anything proportional to the magnitude of the situation, something dramatic or at least exceptionally unusual.
Instead, Dean just winked out of his vision, disappearing into thin air with the breaking sound, and Sam hadn't blinked or felt a breeze or seen any light other than the fire from the candles.
Sam skidded up to the ritual's circle, wide-eyed and panting, before falling to his knees with a moan and reaching a hand into the circle's center, where the loose dirt was an good three inches lower, a ditch in comparison to the flat earth that surrounded it outside of the circle of stones.
The dirt that had been there a moment ago was gone.
Dean was gone.
Sam closed his eyes tight, sat on his knees in the middle of the dirt lot, and tried not to sob.
"Dean," he whispered shakily to the quiet California night, "what have you done…"