A/N #1: Here's the second part of that long chapter. No Winchesters in this one, just Castiel, Jimmy et al.
A/N #2: ElenaB, thanks. Oh me of little faith.
A/N #3: Limited internet access equals big time suckage.
And now for the usual disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural. This is for entertainment only, and not for profit.
Chapter 37 - flash point
Jimmy Novak turned his face up to the sunlight and closed his eyes. Golden light flared underneath his eyelids. The color warmed and soothed him.
We appreciate your faith and your service to us, Castiel murmured inside Jimmy's head.
Jimmy nodded. There was no need to respond. Castiel's gratitude made the golden light pulse gently with each whispered word. A thrill of warmth and good feeling coursed throughout Jimmy's body. He'd prayed for service, and Castiel was the answer to his prayers.
The thought of sharing his body with something dark always sent a shudder down Jimmy's spine. Jimmy thought of Dean Winchester at least once a day. He couldn't imagine Gabriel Bender as the answer to anyone's prayers.
Today was visitors day. In one hour he'd see Amelia and Claire one last time.
Jimmy smiled a little to himself. They didn't understand. They never did. The worry in their eyes whenever they looked at him always made him sad. This was his calling, and he didn't expect them to understand. Jimmy didn't understand everything either, but he believed. That was good enough for him.
His cell was one of the nicer ones at Sweetbriar. He had a window, and even the bars on the window didn't detract from the view. The cell was sunny most days. The bed he sat on was one of the newer ones. This was a reward for being obedient, and on one level he could certainly understand that, but there was no comparison between the two.
It was God's will. He was right where he was supposed to be, and so was everyone else.
"God Almighty," Bobby whispered to himself as he surveyed the scene. "What a mess."
All he could think of was Dean. Dean trapped here in his body, in this house, seeing God only knew what each and every damn day, and being unable to stop it. Bobby knew that Dean felt he could have stopped it. Should have. He also knew the kid believed he actively participated in the carnage. Bobby didn't believe that for a second, but Dean did, and that was worrisome.
The hunters found twenty jars of human fingers, teeth and assorted bones, ten wind chimes made from human bones, and that was just on the first floor of the Bender house. In the kitchen the refrigerators and the freezers were emptied out, and the contents piled on the kitchen table.
The upstairs bedrooms were the worst. Two of the searchers found a jar of human ears in one of the back bedrooms. The outer edges of the flesh had been nibbled away on several of the pieces.
Midnight snack, Bobby thought to himself. He fought against the impulse to gag.
Dirty men's flannel shirts and soiled blue jeans were strewn all over the floor in the next bedroom. A patch of long red curly hair lay on the bed. At first Bobby thought it was a wig. His gorge rose up in his throat when he saw ragged edges of grey human flesh just underneath the long strands of hair.
Aaron Fletcher found a pair of hands in a large canning jar in Missy and Gabriel Bender's room. The skin was mummified, delicate dark brown leather, but the hands were long and slender, with short nails, possibly those of a young girl no older than twelve or fourteen.
"Jesus," Aaron Fletcher frowned. He glanced around the room. There was too much to focus on: women's clothes, jars and jars of stuff sitting on the dresser, the table and the floors all around. He didn't want to look too closely at the jars, he really didn't. Fingers and toes, all shapes and sizes, and was that a pair of hazel eyes in that jar on the bed over there?
Aaron turned and stared at Bobby."We need to throw all this in the pit?"
Bobby shook his head. His right foot was singing soprano now, as though it recognized the place all over again and was singing out for its missing little toe. "We play this right, the house will go up along with everything else."
Aaron Fletcher cast one more look at the hands in the jar on the dresser, and then turned away, his otherwise ruddy complexion a bit paler this time.
"Come on," Bobby said mildly, "We gotta talk to Stevie."
Aaron didn't need to be told more than once. It was good to get out of that house. It smelled inside, all kinds of sour, meaty odors that neither man really wanted to breathe in, but the outside wasn't much better, either. The stench of old and new death was in the air.
Men and women worked quietly in the yard around the house. They dug up the earth around the 'spirit stay put' signs, unearthed bones, rotting meat and decaying flesh. Everyone worked quietly, solemnly, with none of the black gallows humor that hunters were known for. They were in a slaughterhouse of nearly biblical proportions, and everyone there knew it.
A nondescript brown panel truck sat in the driveway next to the heavy duty dump truck. The load in the back of the dump truck was covered with a heavy, olive green canvas tarp. A hunter wearing blue denim clothes leaned into the panel truck between the open doors.
Bobby limped over to the figure. "Well?"
"Your tax dollars at work, pilgrim," Stevie Murphy drawled in her best John Wayne imitation as she turned around. She was short and stocky, with a shock of dusty brown chin-length hair. She hefted a plastic wrapped packet about the size and thickness of a good-sized paperback book in each hand. "A little something special that Uncle Sam isn't even gonna miss."
Even at rest, relaxed like this, Stevie still looked dangerous and capable.
God, Bobby thought, I knew her when she was just a little girl, all freckles and pigtails. Several tours of duty overseas in Iraq, and Stevie was the go-to "guy" for special ordinance that hunters in the states might need. She grew up with the Fletcher brothers; she called as soon as she heard the word about them. "Don't ask, don't tell" was her motto. Need special ordnance for a special job? It was best to stay on Stevie's good side. She still had connections in the military, and she wasn't at all shy about calling in favors.
"Run it through for me again?" Bobby growled.
Stevie nodded as she held each package up. "Two compounds, A and B." A had the white plastic wrap; B had medium blue. "Even if you were dumb enough to break open the seals and mix them both together, you get nothing. Nada." She tapped the copper wire and the disk shaped receiver in the top of the packet lightly with her thumb. "Until you hit the ignitors with the right radio signal. That's when the fun begins. Primary explosion is bad enough, but the chain reaction flows through the gases, and that's where your secondary explosion comes in. It doubles the first pop, and you get way more bang for your buck."
She nodded at the dump truck. "Nice thing is, we can load salt and anything else special you want around the packets. Won't affect a thing."
Bobby huffed. He eyed the open panel truck warily; the vehicle was loaded with those packages, from the bed to the ceiling. "You sure we got enough?"
Stevie's cheeks dimpled. Her cocky grin reminded Bobby of Dean's back in the day. "Oh hell yeah. The flame and shock wave won't spread beyond the perimeter. Used them for shake and bake operations overseas. We'd nuke one side of the street and leave the other side untouched."
It was Bobby's turn to smirk a little. "Outstanding."
Alastair purred as he worked. He peeled off the outer layers of the soul's chest, cracked the ribs back from the heart. The skin was freckled, golden and very nice. It fit well over the muscles. Alastair nodded with satisfaction. He stood back, stared hungrily at sandy blond hair, wide green eyes. He always did have an eye for beauty.
It had been a long time coming with this one. Twenty years ago, after the boy's first death, Alastair waited in vain for him to come home. Ordinarily murder victims go to heaven, but not this one. His soul was too blackened already.
Heaven didn't want him. Alastair did.
The boy had so much potential. He'd wasted himself upstairs, with his family. They didn't have vision, none of them did. Any fool could slice and dice and eat their way through screaming human flesh. It took a true artist to carve flesh into new shapes, and from the moment Alastair heard about the Benders, he knew which one he wanted by his side.
The soul on the rack opened his eyes. His back arched and he jerked forward with a shocked gasp. He was sliced open from his collarbone to his bellybutton, and the realization seemed to startle him.
"Hello, beauty." Alastair laughed.
Gabriel's dark green eyes widened in shock. Alastair leaned in until they were nose to nose. Gabriel panted, short, panicked bursts of cool air that fanned against Alastair's dark red skin. "You have the face and name of an angel," the demon rumbled cheerfully. "Who says the Man Upstairs doesn't have a wicked sense of humor?"
"Please…no…" Gabriel gasped. He twisted his wrists and ankles against the straps. Alastair closed his large black eyes and breathed in the boy's scent: sharp steel, blood and fear, canvas rooms, red pills and silent screams, years and years worth. Alastair tilted his head back as though he was inhaling an exquisite bouquet.
Gabriel shook his head uselessly from side to side.
Alastair's eyes clicked open, twin pools of blackness.
"Missy…" Gabriel whispered brokenly. "Abraham…"
"That's soo sweet." Alastair gently ran the tips of his claws up and down Gabriel's inner thigh. Alastair slithered his long mottled blue tongue around Gabriel's left earlobe.
Gabriel shuddered. Alastair's saliva was warm, oil slick and slimy to the touch.
"They can't help you now. They can't stop this, either. I can hack on you like this for all eternity." Alastair huffed, exasperated. "Family loyalty. That's a waste of time down here, you know that? All that suffering and pain, and what good is it? All you have to do to stop me is to say yes. Take my knife, and I'll let you up."
Gabriel didn't say anything. Alastair cocked his head to one side, as though he was listening for something. A crack in the boy's armor, perhaps. It was there, he could sense it, getting wider and deeper.
"Don't fool yourself any longer, Gabriel. Abraham killed you the first time."
Gabriel stared upwards at the cracked, blackened ceiling of the torture chamber, scenes from the past flashing and snapping behind his eyes.
Pl-pleas' A-Abra-ham, dun't…don't hurt me anymor'
Alastair rolled his eyes. "He didn't trust you enough to even ask you what was going on with the little woman. He thought you were fucking his whore. Gunned you down like a dog, stuck your body in that tree. Out of sight, out of mind."
Alastair leaned forward. "And Jerry? Not so dumb. He followed Lee that night. He hurt you, and he left you, and we all know how that worked out, don't we, boyo?"
Come on, Jerry, leave him, we gotta go!
Alastair pulled back with a soft sigh. "I'm offering your family this one time deal."
That was a lie. Alastair's stock in trade.
"First one that says yes gets off the rack and becomes my apprentice. Missy and ol' Abe are right on the edge. Won't take much to push them over. Jerry?" Alastair shrugged. "Don't think I'll need to convince that big lump much, but as a courtesy, I thought I'd offer the deal to you first."
"Not M-Missy…I can't hurt her…I can't…"
"Ah, yes. Missy. The love of your life." Alastair's broad features softened. "Well, one out of four ain't bad, kiddo. The problem is, dear boy, I'll want you all for myself if you take the deal. I don't like to share."
Gabriel stared up at Alastair wide eyed. His exposed heart thumped and beat slowly in the middle of his chest.
"I need an apprentice. You've got skills, but you need to polish them. It's an all you can eat buffet down here, Gabriel. That's one of the perks of the job. You can be my angel, Gabriel. My very own Angel of Death."
Gabriel licked his lips.
Alastair wanted to bend down and kiss that sweet mouth, but there would be plenty of time for that later.
"G-give it to m-me…" Gabriel moaned softly.
"What? What was that?" Alastair waited.
"G-give me the d-damn knife…"
Alastair smiled.
Jimmy waited patiently on the bench inside the visitors' center.
It is time, Jimmy. Castiel sounded stern. Old Testament. Jimmy wondered if the angel had sounded this way in the old times. Visiting hours were over. In his mind's eye Jimmy saw Amelia and Claire slowly drive off the visitors lot.
Jimmy looked around and watched as some of the other visitors sat with their relatives. It was a given that his wife and his daughter would not be present to witness this, but he felt a large twinge of worry and yes, even guilt for the others around them.
It is their time. Castiel's tone softened. This is necessary.
Castiel's power radiated outwards from Jimmy's body in waves that only Jimmy could see. touched the two orderlies standing nearby.
I will lift the veil of secrecy from this place.
Jimmy watched their faces. Their eyes narrowed, and then widened. Their faces filled with a terrible, bright joy. Their fingers and hands twitched, claw-like.
They will no longer be able to hide. The others will bear witness.
Jimmy nodded.
Reidy felt that familiar headache coming on. He sat back in his chair and gingerly pinched the space between his eyes. Medical records and photographs were spread all over the table in front of him. Occasionally raised voices were heard out in the hallway, patients singing, guards barking out orders. Typical background noise for an institution this size.
Hendrickson grunted. He stared down at John Doe 317's medical records on the table before him.
"There's nothing here, Vic. Nothing out there, either." Reidy made a handflap at the walls.
"They've gone deep. Gone off the grid," Hendrickson muttered. "Winchester's got survivalist contacts all over the place. He'd hole up with Dean, get him down off the meds. We get anything from that list of contacts?"
Reidy laughed. "Got one who said he'd turn on Winchester in a heartbeat. Called him a surly sumbitch. The rest? We're not having much luck. Maybe if Winchester showed up with his boys, and someone gets greedy for the reward money that cop association put up."
"That's only twenty five thousand. Might be enough to tempt John Q Public. Nobody else."
"We might not have much luck until this cools off."
"I got two words for you: Katherine Hudak. It's not going to cool off for Johnny and his boys. I'll see to that. They killed a cop. If they didn't, they know who did. They all need to burn in hell."
"Including Beck?"
"Yep. His mouth's no prayer book. Something's not quite right here." Hendrickson sat up in his chair. He ignored the cracking sounds his back made as his spine straightened up. "Later on we're gonna head back out to County General, take another shot at him."
"Good cop, bad cop?"
"That'll work. They're gonna release him in a day or too." Hendrickson laughed. "Heard some rumors that he's on the outs with the administration. We need to stir things up, see how he handles it."
Someone out in the hall screamed.
"No--nononononononono---"
Hendrickson and Reidy froze.
The sound wasn't playful, or even boisterous. People being murdered screamed like that, loud, raw, the one last noise they would ever make in this life, as though saying no over and over again could stop whatever was happening to them.
Other screams followed, different somehow, like the screamer was seeing something they really didn't want to see.
Reidy pulled out his weapon just as Hendrickson stood up with his gun in his right hand.
"No..no…no…please don't, please--"
Hendrickson took point, and Reidy followed him out.
They finished up at the Bender place just as the moon rose full and bleached bone white overhead.
That was fitting somehow.
Stevie walked over with the remote control unit in her hand. She glanced at Bobby and then Aaron. Bobby nodded.
"Here." She handed the small box off to Aaron.
"So…what do I do?"
Stevie shrugged. "Flip the red top open, push the button. That's it."
Aaron nodded.
Doors slammed all around. The heavy dump truck rumbled past with a lighter sound now that its open-box bed in the rear was empty. The rest of the hunters climbed into their cars and trucks, and one by one they filed out down the road to the highway. Stevie pulled her panel truck into the next to last slot at the end of the line.
Bobby drove Aaron's truck. They were the last vehicle out.
Aaron sat there staring at the box in his hand. He thought of his boys, Clyde and Emmett. They were full of life in his memory, and that was the way Aaron wanted to remember them.
Bobby stopped the truck at the gate and waited. He and Aaron watched as the cars and trucks in front of them disappeared into the night. Any direction now was fine, as long as it was far away from this hellhole. They were half a mile from the house. Half a mile. Maybe Bobby wouldn t have taken the word of anyone else on this, but he trusted Stevie.
"You ready, Aaron?"
Aaron stared down at the metal box in his hand. This was payback, sure enough, but it seemed bloodless somehow. He would have preferred his vengeance up close and personal. "Yeah, but…you sure about this? I hear tell you lost something back there too."
Bobby shrugged. "Doesn't compare with what they took from you, Aaron. Go ahead."
Aaron flipped the red cover open.
Lee Bender stared at his body. It lay on its side, just the way Jerry had left him that night. The humans dumped salt all around, and it looked like snow all over his shoulders, his head, and the rest of his body. Two of those weird looking boxy things were in his grave too.
The restless dead milled all around. They were silent, their pale grey faces slack and uncomprehending. They didn't seem to realize what was going on. Lee didn't know exactly what was going on either, but he knew they were all screwed somehow.
The dark night air rippled with a high pitched, shrieking sound. Lee tried to rise up, but he was yanked down to the broken, salted earth. Everything turned bright white. The color seared into him. His eyes melted in their sockets, and his spirit form ran like melted candle wax.
Lee screamed.
Next post? This weekend. Dean reacts to what happened at Sweetbriar, and John goes after Beck.
