Author's Notes:
Dean/ Decanus- The name 'Dean' has two meanings. In Scottish the name means 'From the valley'. From Latin Dean translates to "Leader" or "Leader of Eight" it originated from a title in the Roman army.
Caleb/Hound- Caleb translated from Hebrew means "Bold and Faithful" or "Dog Heart" or "Hound". I realize there's some on going debate about the translation.
The use of phosphorus in weapons- Not my original idea the military has been using white phosphorus in weapons since WWI and it is still used today. Tracer Rounds would be a good example of this. I'm just taking some liberties with Dean and Caleb's delivery system.
ORT- Again not my original idea. Military has been used this basic rehydration formula for years.
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The bullet stopped in midair.
Inches from the strangers head.
Holy Shit!
That shouldn't be possible.
The stranger tilted his head and studied the bullet calmly. "I see the years have done nothing to curb your red-headed temper."
Standing in the doorway Jim slowly lowered his gun. "Back away from the boys, Natas."
The ring on Caleb's finger continued to vibrate in warning. It didn't need to. Their uninvited guest's raw psychic power hit at Caleb's mental shields like a hammer. Natas moved his head in a bizarre jerking motion as he studied Jim. That wasn't good. Only the truly dangerously deranged moved like that. Caleb knew from personal experience.
Elkins had moved that way.
So had his father the night he ended Caleb's innocence with two gun shots.
Dean pushed Caleb off of him and they crawled towards the beds. Caleb wanted to reach his stash of weapons. He was feeling exposed. Natas made his skin crawl and Caleb didn't do vulnerable well. A weapon in his hand right now would make him feel so much calmer.
If you can't run from your fears: Kill them.
It was a John Winchester philosophy that Caleb enthusiastically embraced.
Abruptly, Natas' eyes warmed and something very human rolled into them. It was like a veil lifting. He smiled. The grin lit up his face and even with the facial scars he suddenly became striking. It gave you a glimpse of the man he must have been once. "It is nice to see you again, Jim."
Jim looked like someone sucker punched him. Putting the gun away the pastor swallowed thickly, and replied, "You too, Nate." Jim took a deep breath and you could almost see the effort it cost him to center himself. "It's been a long time. Why did you come?"
Nate looked at them and yet didn't see them. "I felt you on the winds. You always tasted like the stormy, wild places. Blues and browns, like fins, wings, and fur. I sensed your power and two others." Then Nate's glance roamed to Dean and him. "One tasted red and orange, fire and steel. The other like cool deep healing springs and moonlit lakes with mysteries yet to be discovered." He looked at Jim. "Only Jude ever had such brilliant blues and greens." He studied Dean again with intense interest. "I thought perhaps…"
Pain was coming off of Jim in waves. You could practically drown in the agony reflected in his blue-grey eyes. "You thought what, Nate?"
"That he might be another healer like Jude was."
Jim looked like he had been gutted.
From Jim, Caleb got the impression of humming. Almost like whale songs skipping across the ocean. A vast web with all the unique tunes connected and answering one another. Nate's song, however was off-tune, not connected, like a piano with one key badly out of tune. That's all he got before Jim threw up his unreadable walls with a slight mental slap.
Caleb's breath caught in the back of his throat. He and Dean exchanged a look. They both suddenly knew with sickening certainly what happened. What caused Nate's horrifying facial scars.
Gunshot point-blank to the head.
God.
Jim took another deep breath. "Nate, you took that bullet rescuing me. Please let me try to help you."
"Like the rest of the rest of the Brotherhood tried to help me?" Nate demanded. You could see the madness rolling in his eyes like the tide hitting the shore.
Then the doors slammed shut and every window and mirror in the room exploded.
Dean grabbed his head in distress. Caleb felt the raw psychic energy hit his mental shields like a sonic boom. It felt like a bolt of lightening blasting through his head. Everything not nailed down started flying around the room like they were caught up in a tornado's vortex.
Jim stood there, the calm eye of a storm. "Mackland could…"
"Liar!" Nate roared. "I can taste your lie like rotten fruit on my tongue, Guardian. The Scholar would help me like Victor wanted to help me."
Jim looked his old friend in the eye, "Victor did want to help you."
"Victor sided with Porter," Nate hissed. "They wanted to lobotomize me. The Triad voted to hack the remaining 'psychic' part of my brain out. They wanted to put me down like a dog."
Jim looked tired. "That's not true. But they had to do something. You killed, Jude."
Nate gave the pastor a grief stricken look. He suddenly looked like a young child on the brink of tears. "I didn't mean too, Jim. Jude was my best friend. I lost control."
"I know that." Jim reached out and laid his hand on the damaged side of Nate's face and looked him deep in the eyes. "I know you never meant to hurt anyone." The pastor was using the same soothing tone he used when he was trying to calm a child. "Please let us try to help you."
"You were always an older brother to me, Jim," Nate whispered softly. "That's why I came to warn you Janfar and his men are looking for you. They've heard you're back in the region." Jim and Nate's eyes met for a few moments. "And I pray someday you'll forgive me for what I must do."
Without warning Jim flew across the room and hit the far wall.
"Jim!" He and Deuce shouted.
The pastor dropped to the floor, and didn't move.
Deuce bolted for Jim and started dragging the unconscious pastor towards them. With no hesitation Dean was leaving himself completely open.
The stupid fucking idiot.
Caleb grabbed the .45 he kept stashed by his bed. He fired a couple of shots in Nate's direction hoping to draw attention away from Dean. He really didn't think the gun would do him any good. Luck was not being his whore today.
"Because it ends here tonight," Nate stated softly. The air around him started to shimmer with power.
Oh yeah, Nate was definitely a few fries short of a Happy Meal.
"How about we take a rain check on that? Do lunch sometime?" Caleb asked as he dove out of the way of a large piece of antique furniture that was sent hurling in his direction.
Dean dragged Jim over to where Caleb was. It barely passed for cover. Deuce tapped him on the shoulder, and with his hands, signed in Sign Language, 'The Heat and stillness around us. Do you feel it?'
Mackland had taught Dean sign language during the time Dean refused to speak to anyone. It had been a desperate, unconventional, and last ditch effort to get Dean to communicate. The doctor's reasoning at the time had been if Dean would not speak verbally maybe he'd start to communicate by another medium.
They still used it today as a method of communication in situations when they didn't want overheard. Going back and forth also tended to throw telepaths off like suddenly switching gears, like changing suddenly from English to Chinese. Sign Language had a very different flow, framework, syntax, and different parts of the brain.
"Yeah. And that means what exactly, Deuce?" Caleb replied as he bobbed behind the bed to avoid a rather large object flying for his head.
Dean's face became completely blank. "Party time," he responded sarcastically. Then he signed, "If Nate is a strong enough telekinetic to rub air molecules together…"
Nate could ignite the air around them.
Fuck.
Pyrokinesis.
That's new.
Cursing under his breath, Caleb glared at his friend. "You are just the bluebird of happiness shitting on my shoulder today aren't you, Deanna?"
"On Flambé' is not the way I want front row seats to your long anticipated family reunion down south, Damien."
The roof above them groaned as it protested the beating it was taking.
Dean used himself to shield Jim's unconscious form. Dust and loose debris rained down on them. "I'm not sure how much of this punishment the roof supports can take either."
That made two of them.
Caleb glanced as Nate took a step towards where they were concealed. The air around them got a little warmer. He jerked his head towards Nate, "Any ideas about stopping Carrie over there?"
Caleb sensed as Dean's mind quickly sorted through the various scenarios in front of them with incredible speed. It always amazed him how quickly and coolly Dean could break the world down in to trajectories, speed, motion, physical space, and possible angles of attack.
"Maybe. You have any of our experimental ammo clips with you?"
Caleb glanced at his friend and raised an eyebrow. "The ones with the holy water or the white phosphorus?"
"The phosphorus," Dean replied. "We're going to try to fight fire with fire."
"Like firefighters setting back fires?"
The roof supports moaned above them once again and more chunks of wreckage fell.
Dean nodded as he threw himself over Jim again. "We use the ammo and set a fire in the room. The fire we set ought to draw the oxygen towards it. It should keep the air moving and him from broiling us."
Caleb smirked at Deuce as he popped his regular clip out of his .45. "And to think Johnny always bitched at me when I took you down to see the fire trucks. I don't care what that poor traumatized speech therapist said about you."
"Especially, since the cops never bothered to run the prints on that lighter."
"Details. Details." Caleb grabbed the phosphorus clip and loaded it up. He loved this gun. It had been a hand-crafted birthday gift from Deuce. Sending a silent apology to Mujib, for what he was about to do. Caleb aimed for the wall with the curtains. The phosphorus shells hit their target and exploded in to flame.
The fire spread fast.
Nate was totally oblivious to the burning room around them. He studied Caleb for a moment. "You're a telepath. Why do you insist on fighting for them? For Brotherhood? For the Norms? Don't you realize they wouldn't hesitate to turn on you?" In the smoke and light of the burning fires Nate with his scars resembled Lucifer himself escaped from hell.
Caleb was truly starting to understand exactly why his father hated the term 'Norm' and refused to use it.
What a hate filled word.
"That's old news, Nate," Caleb answered. He leveled his gun. "Trust me."
"Step aside young, Hound. I and your friend have much to discuss." Then Nate stated, "Don't we, Decanus?"
Recognizing his name in Latin, Dean stiffened and clutched Jim a little closer to him. "I don't understand."
Then Nate smiled at Dean, but it was the cold, glint of insanity shining in his eyes that alarmed Caleb. "The tastes of old power rising back to being where life and death cross. The long buried fragments of a dream before waking. Handing the staff of Isis to a young man and ordering him to flee. It sings to me Walker of the Veil. I can smell and taste it like the sea on a breeze."
"Back away from him now!" Caleb growled. He didn't want Nate anywhere near Dean. Caleb didn't want to use the phosphorus shells close range but he would if had to. He'd take the chance at accidentally inhaling the stuff.
Ignoring the warning Nate took a threatening step towards Dean. Then he stopped and looked down at Jim. "Playing possum?"
The pastor opened his eyes. For a moment, Caleb swore, they lit with a blue flame. "Asking for help," the Guardian replied mysteriously.
Then in a blinding blur of movement a black panther was there. In a blink of an eye the powerful cat jumped through the open window. Headed straight for Nate's back. With a hundred and eighty pound wall of fur and muscle hitting him straight on, Nate went down.
Hard.
Claws and hands flew in a tangle of motion. Before the leopard could get a kill bite, the panther was sailing across the room. In an incredible feat of aero-gymnastics the huge cat twisted and turned in midair and managed to land on its feet. With a leap the large panther was standing next to Caleb roaring its challenge to Nate.
The sound of wood cracking over their heads signaled fire had reached the roof's main supports.
They didn't have much time to get out of here.
Nate staggered to his feet. He was bleeding badly. "You won this round, Guardian." Then Nate looked at him and Caleb felt pressure building behind his eyes. "A gift from me, Hound."
"Caleb!" Jim shouted.
He didn't even have time to scream.
Caleb's world splinter to pieces as Nate with one psychic shot shattered Caleb's mental shields. They crumpled before Nate's power like brick walls during an earth quake. The voices and thoughts roared in like a tidal wave with no sea wall and no way to resist them. Caleb was pushed under so deep and fast he didn't even have the consideration to scream. He was drowning in the charge of thousands of people's thoughts, hopes and dreams. Being washed away like a river's sudden rush erodes the shore.
He felt arms catch him as he fell, the distant heat of the fire as it drifted closer, and then the sensation of dropping.
Then the flood of voices tore him away.
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He was held by a comforting presence of colors and lights.
It was beautiful drifting on this rainbow-scape of silvers, blues, greens, and violets.
Ice.
He was enclosed by walls of ice. Protected and guarded by water in its hardest, strongest elemental form. One of water's many forms that could cut like razor sharp steel or grind the hardest mountains down. The ice somehow blocked the voices. Either absorbed or reflected the voices back with its frozen, glaciered walls.
That elemental presence wrapped around him and guarded him in this secret, tranquil, inner-world.
It was so quiet here.
He reveled in silence.
But soon the presence called him. It pulled at him softly at first and then louder and with more and more urgently. Flashes of memories danced before him. Green eyes, rope swings, and summer walks in the park. That cord of silver drew him back. It yanked him towards awareness like a river to the sea.
It was a summons he couldn't deny.
The next thing he was conscious of was the warmth of a body, a heart beat, and the soft sound of hymning. Caleb remembered the tune. Dean used to sing Sammy to sleep with it.
He willed his eyes open and his gold eyes met worried jade ones. The hymning stopped and Dean looked down at him. "Damien?"
Caleb licked his lips and tried to arrange his thoughts in something that resembled order. God, he felt like limp spaghetti.
Twice in how many days?
Son of a…
"Nate?" he managed to croak out.
"Gone." Dean replied gently.
"Where are..?" He tried to move his head to see where they were.
"We're in Mujib's underground library," Dean replied. "It was the best psychic triage spot we could think of."
Huh?
Caleb blinked in confusion.
Caleb turned his head just enough to see Jim sitting across from them. The pastor was holding an ice pack to his head with one hand and petting the panther with the other. The midnight black leopard was sitting there purring loudly like a happy, contented kitten.
Caleb eyed the great cat warily.
In response the panther yawned showcasing a set of teeth that reminded him exactly why the leopard was considered one of nature's top killing machines.
Nice kitty.
Jim looked up from where he was stoking the panther's dark fur and added, "After Nate blew your mental shields apart. Dean remembered one of Josh's lessons about warding and multiplying psychic energy through aligned crystals. He proposed that the millions of tiny unaligned quartz crystals in the sandstone bedrock would have the opposite effect and act as a buffer for you. It was very fast thinking on Dean's part." It was hard to miss the hint of pride coloring Jim's voice.
Dean shrugged embarrassed. "I had to do something. Think of what would happen if that head actually exploded? The sudden release of air pressure would devastate hundreds of square miles."
Caleb rolled his eyes. "I'm feeling the love there, Deana." Someday he was going to figure out why Dean was so reluctant to showcase that quick mind of his.
Dean handed him a water bottle and grinned. "Speaking of love. Here. Mujib wanted some fluids down you. It's Dad's ORT."
ORT or Oral Rehydration Therapy was an old military recipe. It was essentially oral IV fluids. It consisted of one tablespoon of sugar, pinch of salt mixed in a liter of water. Despite the numerous sports drinks out on the market it was still considered the best way to keep electrolytes up and fight off dehydration.
The stuff tasted like absolute shit.
Caleb scowled. "Couldn't you have at least put some flavoring in it?"
Dean smiled at him sweetly. "After you and Dad announced I needed more experience at handling 'explosive situations' and made me sleep in the tent with Bobby after he ate baked beans on our last hunt. Be thankful I didn't spit in for a little extra salt."
"Fine. If I drink that crap, "Caleb grumbled, glaring at the bottle, "We're flying to India before we go home to see the Taj."
"If you drink this crap," Dean retorted sarcastically holding the bottle out to him again. "We might be able to stave off one of your brain-fry migraines and me having to hold the barf bucket under your head all night. Now suck it up. Be a man, or at least as close as you can manage Kala, and stop whining."
He took the bottle and slowly sat up with Dean's help. He rubbed his head and tried to look pathetic. It didn't take too much. "Accept it, Florence Nightingmare. We will see the Taj."
"It's a tomb, Damien."
"It's one of the architectural wonders of the world."
"Okay, it's a pretty tomb," Dean stated-matter of fact. "I'm still not getting on a plane to see it."
"How can you not value it? The Taj is considered the finest example of a style that mixes all the elements of Persian, Turkish, Indian, and Islamic architecture." Caleb took a sip from the bottle and grimaced. "What were you? Raised in the wild by wolves?"
Dean raised an eyebrow. "You have met my Father and Bobby right?"
The bottle stopped midway on the way to another sip. "Damn," Caleb grumbled. "I walked in to that one."
Dean grinned at him evilly. "Yes, you did. Point and match."
Jim chuckled. "I think it's time we all went to bed. We all can use the rest."
Twenty minutes later Caleb was staring up at the stone ceiling of Mujib's library taking comfort in the soft sounds of Dean sleeping. He was thinking of Nate and that last shot. Caleb knew Nate had taken to show how powerful of a telepath he was. To demonstrate that he could demolish Caleb's his mental blocks with ease. Scare him shitless.
The plan had worked magnificently.
He looked over at Deuce's sleeping form.
It was amazing, how when Dean was sleeping he resembled the six year-old kid that followed him around the park.
Okay, Nate scared him.
But Caleb spent his entire adult life hunting down and destroying the dark things that terrified him.
This wasn't over.
Not even close.
Nate would be back. Deuce had caught his attention. And Caleb had a very bad feeling Nate wasn't going to quit until he achieved his delusional objectives. Whatever the hell they were.
He looked over at Dean again.
Taking out a character straight from a Steven King horror novel, however, was going to be a tough order even for him.
But hey…
What's life without goals?