Author's Notes:
De oppresso liber- 'To liberate the oppressed'- Motto of the Green Berets, US Army Special Forces.
The urban legend between Nazi Germany and the Occult. Not something I made up.
Recon- Short for Force Recon the US Marine equivalent of the Green Berets or SEALs.
Alphabet Soup- Government slang for the various government agencies with letters in their name.
Brotherhood
Sun Tzu one wrote: Pretend inferiority and encourage his arrogance.
It was a lesson from his father's favorite handbook Dean Winchester held close. He had learned very young perceptions and biases were something you could use against people. For example people tended to correlate mute with dumb. An overly quiet child adults paid no attention too, tended to leave alone to listen in corners or air ducts.
Reflect what people expected to see and they wouldn't look past the surface.
As he got older he learned people tended to have this preconceived notion that pretty was the equivalent of dim-witted. It was something you couldn't fight. Instead he adapted. Discovered that off color comments at right moments, and blank looks went a long way when you got caught in places where you weren't suppose to be. Or that if you threw on tight jeans and an attitude that people tended to remember the outfit and the mannerisms. Not the face wearing them.
Playing dumb worked for him.
Made people underestimate him.
The way Chrome Teeth absently petted Zack in front of everyone like a piece of property made Dean's stomach churn.
The thought of Zack possibly trapped in his own mind screaming?
That made it even worse.
He fought the urge to yank at his bindings. Dean wanted the baddies to misjudge him for a pretty face and give him an opening to kill them. Damien's screams were going to echo through his dreams for a very long time to come. Nate hurt one of his. For that Dean wanted the son of a bitch to bleed.
Nope. Dean wasn't the forgiving type.
But like a crocodile Dean understood patience.
Like Sun Tzu said: He who is prudent and lies in wait for an enemy who is not, will be victorious.
A good hunter knew how to settle in the water and wait for his chance.
Chrome Teeth looked at him again and licked his lips suggestively. Then in heavily accented English, "There's thin line between pleasure and pain."
"If you think you're man enough to take someone that isn't a mindless zombie, Little Man." Dean shot him a challenging glare. It was a look that usually meant something was going to die. Horribly. "Try it."
"Once you get a taste of my touch young one. You will be begging me for it."
The look on Chrome Teeth's face as he stepped forward confirmed Dean's suspicions.
Zack was being psychically coerced.
Chrome Teeth's powers were tied up with physical contact somehow.
Nice to know.
It just might be his ticket to freedom.
"Enough!" Nate commanded. With a simple flick of his head he yanked the bigger man back. Then to Chrome Teeth, "We have no time for this. We are working with a very small window of opportunity. We need the boy."
"Yeah, let's hang around. Who's scared of a little man munching silver?" Dean asked innocently.
"You promised me this one for my help, Natas." Chrome Teeth sized Dean up hungrily again. "That was my price."
"Oh, a lowly human like me is going to work for Human-Trafficking-Are-Us? Really?" Dean replied snidely. "I just can't wait. I hear the union benefits are great."
Yup, Dean was going to enjoy punching this creep's one way ticket straight to hell.
The fact he got his rocks off on Damien's screams only added to Dean's motivation.
"I would advise you to be quiet or I will gag you." Nate glared down at him. "The situation has changed." Nate turned to Chrome Teeth and informed him calmly. "I will keep our agreement. You will have the boy after my use for him is over." Then he looked down at Dean with an amused look. "That is, if you can hold him. That might be a more difficult feat than you realize."
"Real group of high class people you're dealing with here, Nate." That's why Dean blamed the aura that danced before his eyes and the fever frying his brain for him blurting out, "So, why Zack?"
"If you're trying to distract me so our young Knight can try to mount a rescue. It won't work." Nate raised an eyebrow. "Interesting paths your mind wanders down. I shouldn't be surprised. I'll play along. Why Zack what?"
Well that worked well.
Screw it.
In for a penny in for a pound…
His Dad would say setting personal feelings aside and intelligence gathering was always a good thing.
"Zack." He cleared his throat and gestured at the other hunter. He tried to shake off the fuzzy, disconnected feeling of the world around him.
God damn it.
Pull your shit together.
Damien was walking in to a trap.
And there wasn't a damned thing he could do about it in his current position.
He needed an opening.
Dean shook his head trying to clear it.
The world had become a starburst of color in his head.
It had to be the fever.
It all blended in to a deafening chorus of humming like the vibrating song of singing crystal. The song pressed on him. Circle within circle. It bodily pressed on him; earth, fire and water. A scolding hot wind as it danced across his skin. Wisps of memories, fragments of beings danced around him. The night sky of crystal stars above his head glimmered and sparkled.
That's when he realized the fountain represented the galactic center. All things would begin, end, and begin there again. Expanding Universe theory, a more skeptical part of his mind threw out. Circle within circle forming a never ending spiral.
Dean narrowed his eyes.
Wait…
The fountain.
'You summoned us, Rider. We came.'
Dean stiffened. He had heard the voice so clearly in his mind.
Up over his head a silver dragon flew.
No.
What ever the fuck he was seeing and hearing wasn't there.
Concentrate and block it out.
Dean yanked at his bindings again. Pain helped ground him. Ignore the humming and colors. Man, his brain was really cooking. He turned to Nate again. "Why did you choose Zack to brain zap and set as a double agent?"
Nate shot him an amused look. "Come now, you must know why?"
"I'm guessing that Zack is Jim's son." Dean shook his head trying to clear it again and studied his opponent thoughtfully. "I saw that right away. But this is not really about Jim. Is it? If it was you would have used Zack to go gunning for Jim a long time ago. That only leaves you're trying to screw over Julian. I just can't figure out how."
"Very good." Nate tilted his head. The look the other man gave him only helped nail home that Nate was completely bat-shit. Sane was just a mask Nate threw on sometimes to go out in public. "Julian never trusted psychics. We were nothing but expendable in his eyes. Do you have any idea what it is like to serve someone you know you'll never please?"
Yeah, he did.
He laughed bitterly.
Dean understood too well.
Knew how that bitterness at never appeasing an authority figure could dig in and fester if you let it. Appreciated how the anger could make one want to lash out. It was a trap Dean had danced around for years. He was very aware poor Sam got the blunt of it sometimes.
"That still doesn't explain Zack."
The destroyed side of Nate's face crinkled up on one side in a twisted grin. "Doesn't it?"
Not unless Julian….
Jim never looked at other women in all the years Dean had known him. Emma being the only one that held the pastor's heart.
But a Guardian would never do that.
Not that act of ultimate betrayal.
The Guardian was supposed to be the father of all.
A hunter's refuge and safety in the darkness.
Home.
Shit.
"Julian pulled a page out of Merlin's play book with Uther and Igraine." Dean felt physically ill. "He was dying and desperate. With some sort of enchantment he tried to breed the next Guardian didn't he? Zack's mother is from a very old and powerful line of the Brotherhood. Then Julian took the child and hid him away from Jim."
God, Dean knew a cancer ran deep in the Brotherhood.
The fact that they tolerated monsters like Durham in their ranks because he came from an 'Old Family' had nailed that home to him years ago.
But did the rot run that deep?
"Oh, indeed it does my young friend. Be warned. With insights like that 'accidents' tend to happen." Nate replied pointing at his head.
"But you knew didn't you?" Dean whispered softly. "You were a candidate to be the next Scholar and with your powers you knew exactly how bad it was. You and Jim tried to speak out and argue with Victor."
"Griffin Potter did as well and Victor would never listen to any of us," Nate replied bitterly. The insanity was starting to flow back in to his eyes like the tide on a beach. "He was our voice and Victor would do nothing. He was too afraid it would blow the Brotherhood apart to civil war. Instead they shattered the balance. Warrior. Mystic. Psychic. Together we are to stand as equals in the three circles."
Nate's injuries were starting to make a horrifying amount of sense.
"But you wouldn't back down and Jim's call for change got too loud didn't it? Someone tried to kill Jim." Dean whispered. "That's what Jim meant when he said you took a bullet trying to rescue him. You took a bullet in the head that was meant for him."
"Indeed." Nate tapped his head. "James should have let me die that night but he didn't. A fact I will always hate him for."
But Nate survived the head wound.
Damaged. Broken. Unstable.
And dangerously powerful.
So damned powerful the Brotherhood had no idea what to do with him.
Something very similar to what happened to Mac after his car wreck must have happened to Nate Dean theorized. Nate's healing brain switched or rewired something in its efforts to recover from the damage. Mac's accident had switched a completely latent talent to one of the most powerful known. What if something similar happened to an already overt talent?
Drive them right over the edge.
Crap.
Dean so did not want to understand or pity Nate.
It would make it that much harder to pull the trigger on him.
"I would not let Julian lobotomize me." Nate spat out venomously. "I fought back."
"Later Jim did the only thing he could think of to try to shield you." Dean once again shook his head to clear it and studied Nate grimly. "When Julian declared your death sentence Jim demanded the Right of Vidar." He thought about Sal's dead unseeing eyes and wondered if Jim regretted that decision now. Hindsight was a bitch and ultimately 20/20.
"Indeed. Now by the bands we are soul bound together until one of us is dead. That is the price of Vidar."
Dean's world became fuzzy as Nate ranted on.
The dragon over Dean's head continued to circle.
'You summoned us, All Father. We came.'
Brotherhood
The man was known only as Slate.
He had long since given up his real name and two marriages to service to his country.
Like normal Merlin had stirred up a shit kettle of stink.
And like usual Slate's high-up bosses in the CIA weren't happy.
One of the many reasons Jim Murphy was a royal pain in the ass.
Slate always thought it was a shame. Murphy had been one of the best the Green Berets had ever produced. An orphan ward of the state James Murphy had joined up at eighteen. He had won a field officer's commission right out of the gate too. The Army didn't hand those suckers out like candy. There were few snipers out there that not only had his enemy body count but his ability to hide-in-plain-sight intelligence gathering abilities. Given the handle of 'Merlin' in Nam, there were few men that could pull the rabbit out of their pointy hat and win the day like Jim Murphy could.
Then Murphy had followed his heart.
Which was a damned shame.
One day on leave he had met Emma O'Neil a young women heavily active in her church. They had fallen in love and married. Through Emma, Jim had become heavily active in the budding Civil Rights movement bubbling up in churches all through the United States at the time. A movement many in the US government did not support at the time.
Jim had resigned to prevent any conflict of interest.
Merlin had always taken his oath of: De oppresso liber- 'To liberate the oppressed' a little too seriously in Slates humble opinion.
Emma, his church, fighting a good fight, and a quiet life of farming had been Murphy's choice.
Then Emma had died of a sudden heart condition.
And Merlin vanished with all the classified information in his head.
That had sent about every three-letter, alphabet-soup intelligence agency scrambling in panic mode.
Murphy had reemerged out of nowhere roughly two years later with Julian Smith.
Julian Smith's records had been so highly classified not even Slate with his clearances could see them. There had been rumors however. Rumors that said the scary urban legend of Nazi Germany's ties to the powers of Hell and the occult had been true. That Julian Smith had been summoned to the White House in the dead of night and asked by President Franklin Roosevelt to lead a small hand-picked group of men in to Germany to do the impossible.
After hooking up with Julian, Jim had taken on 'special' cases.
He took missions involving the Supernatural or objects tied to it.
That made him a direct pain in Slate's ass through the years.
Not to mention that it had put Merlin on the most wanted list of quite a few nasty artifact smugglers.
Like his good old buddy Janfar.
The underground antiquities trade was big money. Not only did it loot knowledge and rob humanity of its common shared heritage it helped fund very not-so-nice things. Things like ramming planes in to buildings and blowing up marketplaces full of women and children.
Murphy had shut down enough high money-making networks and returned enough looted artifacts to raise a few international eyebrows through the years. Then he later recruited Mackland Ames with his money and connections. Not to mention veteran Recon Marine John Winchester to the ranks of his little group of misfits had raised a few more.
Winchester especially.
Winchester had a dossier as thick and colorful reading as Murphy's with most of it not going to be unclassified for another twenty, possibly thirty years yet. Winchester's grandkids would probably be handed the medals due to the man on behalf of a grateful nation.
And Slate would give his left nut to know what the hell blackmail material Murphy and Winchester had on various high-ranking government officials. Hell, Slate wouldn't have been surprised at the mere thought their shared classified intelligence a few bureaucrats' heads had exploded.
Slate carefully positioned his cane and bad leg carefully as he sat down at the small café table. From the corner of his eye he caught sight of Janfar's approach.
The worst part of his job was faking smiles at scum.
"You summoned me, my old friend."
Janfar nodded and sat down. "You have probably heard I have finally caught my elusive query?"
"I had heard rumors you had the elusive Merlin in your possession." Slate nodded and took a sip of his tea. "I have some men that would be very interested in getting their hands on him. Old scores. And they are willing to pay quite generously." Slate slid a piece of paper towards the greedy artifact smuggler. "You will find the sum is more than enough to compensate for your time and effort."
Janfar had a very doubtful look on his face until he opened the slip of paper and read the number.
Slate thought the goon's eyes just might just bug out of his head.
"You will wire this to my accounts?" Janfar asked as he schooled the shock off his face.
"Of course," Slate replied. "My clients are very interested. The only issue is smuggling him out of the country." He pulled the overnight bag out from under his chair and handed it to Janfar. "I arranged a change of clothes for Murphy and Dr. Raji. My client's conditions are that they are to be cleaned and relatively unharmed at the arranged time of pick up in twenty-four hours."
Janfar searched the overnight bag carefully. "Agreed."
"I will see that the money gets wired to your account."
Slate didn't smirk until he had finished his tea and Janfar had left.
Two nice predictable things about bad guys, you could always appeal to their sense of greed and the fact they didn't check pastor's collars carefully.
Especially when said pastor's collar was carefully packed with C-4.
Slate got up and carefully with his cane and positioned weight on his bad leg.
Slate doubted Jim Murphy even remembered the young Ranger he had refused to leave behind in the jungles of Nam. A young GI the Green Beret he had carried to safety. A man that had lost a chunk of his leg to a land mine and whose rescue had cost Murphy six months in a Vietnam POW camp.
And the man known only as Slate had every intention of keeping it that way.