Chapter 3 A Minute Seems Like a Lifetime
Litteris Hominae, Lebanon
Jerome grimaced as he tried to adjust the signal coming in fits and starts from Ellen. "Ellen, I'm not receiving you, say again," he said.
"Vampire … lore on … cure, Jerome, find … cure!" Ellen's voice faded out as it got higher and he left the set on, the mike on the desk.
"Aaron! Oliver!"
The two associates ran through the library at the bellowed summons, slowing on the stairs that led down to the situation room.
"We need to find anything at all on a cure for vampirism," Jerome snapped at them.
Aaron looked at him doubtfully but Oliver swung around and raced for the hall and the stairs.
"I've never heard of one, Professor Ackers," Aaron said, looking across the direction after Oliver. "Not that we've been all through the books yet, by any means –"
"Aaron, I didn't ask if you'd heard of a cure," Jerome said through his teeth as he spun his chair around. "I told you to look for one. Tell Chuck and Mitch to look through what they've digitalised so far, then hit the stacks – and read fast!"
He turned away as Aaron blinked at him, pushing himself to the computer monitors and typing in the access code for the uplink to the other chapters. If there was such a thing, one of the holds would have it, he told himself. He hadn't caught all of the words that Ellen had tried to tell him, but he was pretty sure that he'd heard Dean's name in the few that he had understood.
TX 70 N, Texas
"You get through?" Bobby asked her as she slammed the mike back on the hook in frustration.
"I don't know," Ellen said, glancing back into the back seat at Mel worriedly. "I think so, enough. I hope so."
"You think they took him to turn him?"
She shook her head, turning away from him to look out the window. "I can't imagine why, but yeah, I think they did."
"Where do you want to stop to patch up Mel?" Bobby glanced in the rearview mirror at the big man lying in the back.
"Take us at least a hundred miles from that place, Bobby," Ellen said tiredly. "At least a hundred."
Behind them, driving the SUV, Joseph's fingers were white around the steering wheel, the silence in the car an audible indication that his tension was shared by the others.
In the rear, Adam stared out the window, aware that Danielle was sitting as far from him as she could, crowding Zoe on the other side. In the front seat, Lee, Christine and Joseph looked rigidly through the windshield.
He didn't know what had happened. He'd turned around, hearing his half-brother's yell of surprise and had seen a wall of them, fangs and shining eyes and dead faces and he'd just been … unable … to move. Unable to do anything as they'd closed around Dean and dragged him away. Unable to speak or swing or blink or breathe. Sam had knocked him into the wall and the … shock … or whatever it had been had gone, but by then it had been far too late.
He could feel their mute accusations, filling the car, filling his head. He'd left his brother to die, to be turned by the monsters without raising a finger to help. He wanted to scream at them, to explain, to justify or rationalise what had happened somehow but he couldn't. Even if he could, it wouldn't help. Wouldn't bring Dean back.
The guns … the training … Rufus and his endless criticisms and sarcastic comments … even the skinwalker pack and Dean killing Isaac … none of it had hit him the way that wall of monsters in the dark had. None of them had been … quite real … not in the way he'd seen death stalking him in the glittering eyes lit up by the flashlights. Was he a coward? Or had he been kidding himself this whole time? Believing that he knew better, knew more than the men and women he'd been living with these last few months. Knew more than his father had, believing that John could've done more, could've made the effort to spend more time with them …
… but at the risk of leading things like that back to them, he recognised slowly. They had been targeted by monsters, years and years after John had disappeared and never come back. Ghouls. Wanting revenge. Dean had reluctantly told him that the ghouls had found him and his mother easily because they'd never left Windom. It was the one thing he allowed that John had slipped up on, not making them move after he'd killed the monster. But how could he have known that, Adam thought helplessly. How could anyone predict what a monster would or wouldn't do?
Sam's look of disbelief and fury flickered through his thoughts again and he felt the hot rush of shame and guilt filling him, burning through everything he'd thought, had believed in. He'd been wrong. Dead wrong. But it wasn't him who had to pay the price for that.
Amarillo, Texas
In the turgid darkness of his mind, Dean saw and heard.
An ancient time. A woman, dark-skinned, with long, black hair and cold, black eyes and a full, round belly, distended in pregnancy, the skin rippling with the movement of the things she carried. Darkness and the fear in the eyes of a man who sat by a flickering camp-fire. Pale, hard skin and blood-red eyes. A spiralling wind, rising up from a wide plain, carrying thousands of children, their arms spread wide, their skin smooth and marble-cold, their eyes glowing vivid in their still faces, blood dripping from every small mouth. A black cloud that covered the land in shadow. A face … smooth and untouched by years of time, aeons of time, pale, bright eyes and a slow, satisfied smile that revealed a single point between the thick, carnelian lips …
He woke abruptly, a distant plink-plink noise sounding like a church bell in his head, too loud, too close. His eyes opened and he realised that he could see, the world stark and flat and two-dimensional in shades of grey and black but visible again. It occurred to him slowly that no one had brought a light into the room. His vision had changed. Was changing. He was changing.
The thought caught him by the throat and wouldn't let go. Behind it, there was a waiting ocean of might-have-beens and could-haves, of sorrow and pain. He rolled to his feet, pushing that ocean aside. He would look at that after … if there was an after.
He stepped forward and stopped, feeling the changes in his body already. Without having to test it, he knew he was stronger. A lot stronger. And faster. He turned his head, identifying the maddening plink-plink noise that was so difficult to shut out. In the tunnel, forty yards away, a pipe was leaking, the droplets falling to the shallow pool on the floor. He listened, deliberately now, and heard. Footsteps, four men, not vampires, moving this way from the tunnel he'd come in through. Sam, he thought. And Peter. He recognised the characteristic tread of Rufus, missing three toes from his left foot and dragging the ball of that foot a little due to it. He didn't recognise the fourth man. Possibly one of the juniors, he thought absently.
Turning, he walked away from them, moving deeper into the labyrinth of tunnels and junctions under the mall. He had work to do here first. Then he would find them, easily, following the sounds of their hearts and the smell of their blood if he had to. He would find them and tell Sam to do what he had to, to put an end to it.
He could hear the muted whispers of the vampires, moving through the tunnels, hunting rats and mice and anything that lived down here that had blood in its veins. He identified the middens of the dead by the faint smell on the damp, cool air. Dried and desiccated corpses that been drained of every last drop. A group of survivors, maybe. Wandering into the wrong place at the wrong time. He noticed that the thought brought no emotion, one way or the other, and his brows drew together a little.
They'd taken his coat, with the flashlight and the Colt but had left the machete and his fingers curled tightly around it, the rough hilt pressing against the palm. He was pretty sure his heart was no longer beating but blood surged through his veins, sparkling with energy, with strength, with a vampire's blood. He slowed a little as the name eluded him for a long moment.
Raoul.
Raoul's blood. Raoul would be spilling a lot more today.
Litteris Hominae, Lebanon
Jerome's brows shot up as he read the replies to his requests from both France and Australia. He shoved the chair back from the desk, swinging it around and driving it at full speed to the ramp that led up to the library. He reached the top with the momentum as Oliver shot into the room from the other end.
"We should have it here – a Campbell invention – check the –" he yelled at the young man.
"I've got it!" Oliver cut him off, waving a tattered, leather-bound book in his hand and striding over to the table.
"How the hell – let me see," Jerome leaned forward as Oliver put the book in front of him, flipping open to the page.
"It was in the Poisons section, that's why I didn't remember it straight away," he said, leaning over the book. "It was tried in 1617 and some modifications were made after the first victims died. The Campbells brought the successful recipe with them to the United States in 1620."
Jerome nodded. "What about after, did anyone else die of it?"
"No, but they found that the recipe could only succeed if the victim had not ingested human blood. Once the new vampire drinks, there is no turning back." He put a second book on the table, this one entitled Supernatural Disease and Infection.
"The exact nature of the transference of the powers and the seeming death of the vampire hasn't been precisely studied, but in this section," he continued, running a nail along the edge of the pages and opening the pages to the chapter. "Here, the infection or mutation is passed through blood contact. The vampire's blood, when ingested only, produces the same effects in the recipient's body as in the original subject. The heart stops pumping, petrification of the body's cells begins, locking the body into the exact moment of their transformation, respiration is still functional but body temperature drops to ambient levels in six hours and then does not rise unless blood is taken internally. It is the victim's blood that provides colour and the feeling of warmth to a vampire, showing whether or not it has fed in the previous twenty four hours. After twenty four hours, the effects diminish until the body is once again cold, and the skin cold and pale and hard."
"Christ!" Jerome said, pushing himself away from the table and down the ramp again.
"What's wrong?" Oliver asked, hurrying down after him.
"We've got everything that cure needs, except the blood of the vampire that turned him," Jerome rattled out, picking up the mike of the SSB. "And they won't know to get it, they don't know there's a cure."
"CQ, CQ. Calling CQ and standing by," he snapped into the mike. "Come on, Ellen, be listening, goddammit. CQ, CQ. Calling CQ. This is Kilo-Lima-Lima-Hotel-Zero-Niner, calling CQ and standing by."
"Roger, Kilo-Lima-Lima-Hotel-Zero-Niner. This is Echo-Bravo-Mike-Zero-Five-Two, receiving you," Ellen's voice sounded loud and clear from the speaker and Jerome closed his eyes in relief.
"Ellen, you have to go back," he said, "We've got a cure, repeat, got a cure for vampirism but it needs the blood of the vampire that initiated the fledgling, over."
"God, Jerome, you're kidding me, aren't you?"
He could hear the frustration and exasperation in her voice clearly. "Negative, Ellen. Not kidding you. You can't let them just kill all the vamps and Dean – he has to be brought back – and someone has to tell them that he can be turned back if he doesn't feed."
"Lemme get this straight," Bobby came on, his voice tense and scratchy. "We can save Dean. But he needs the blood of the vamp that turned him? And if he feeds, it's all over."
"Roger, yeah, that's correct, Bobby."
"But you've got everything else we need, for certain?"
"We do," Jerome promised, glancing at Oliver who nodded vehemently.
"Alright, we're on it. Out."
"Out."
He put the mike back and leaned back in the chair with a deep sigh, closing his eyes.
"Oliver."
"Yessir," Oliver said, straightening up.
"Get everything ready," Jerome told him, opening his eyes and turning to look at him. "Tell Frances to get down to the town and get Kim and Merrin … the whole lot – that cure has to be ready as soon as they get here and give us the blood."
"Yessir!"
Jerome watched him bound back up the stairs, sweeping up both books as he passed the table and heading back down the hall. Now, he only had to tell Alex, he thought uncomfortably.
TX 70 N, Kansas
The pickup and the SUV sat, one behind the other, on the shoulder of the highway as Bobby and Ellen argued.
"Dammit, Ellen," Bobby snapped, slamming his hand on the quarter panel in frustration. "I love you, I do, but you can't tell me what to do!"
"Bobby, you know –"
"No, I'm goin'," he said, turning away from her. "I ain't Jo, Ellen. You need to get Mel back to Lebanon. Christine, you, Adam, Zoe and Lee are riding shotgun in the SUV with Ellen and Mel. You stick together and you kill anything that gets in your way." He turned to the others. "Joe, you and Danielle come back with me, we gotta get back to Sam and Rufus before they find Dean."
He looked at Ellen as the trainees shifted to the different vehicles, Joseph and Adam lifting Mel out of the dual cab pickup and carrying him carefully to the SUV.
"Get him to Dr Kim and do it fast as you can," he told her. "We're gonna be on your heels, even if we have to wrap Dean in chains and leave him in the trunk for the whole ride. I'll see you in Lebanon."
She scowled at him for a moment then strode over and hugged him tightly. "You bring him back. And don't you take any stupid risks, Bobby. I couldn't stand to lose you."
He kissed her hard and turned away, climbing into the pickup and starting the engine. Joseph and Danielle got in beside him, and they watched Ellen manoeuvre the SUV off the shoulder and back on the road, Bobby grunting in approval as he saw her put her foot down. He turned the truck around and bumped them over the meridian strip, putting the accelerator down to the floor. From here, it was a straight run back to Amarillo.
He could feel the curiosity of the two riding with him but he couldn't talk about the cure or Dean or how the hell they were going to find Sam in the maze of the mall and the tunnels at night when all the vampires would be out, prowling for food. He'd spent the last three hours feeling sick to his stomach with worry about the man he considered a son, keeping his fears under lock and key, and fanning the small flame of hope that there was a solution, an answer to save Dean. Now he that had one, he was on the clock to get back there and warn them in time. God's sense of humour, he thought sourly.
Amarillo, Texas
Peter walked along the narrow access tunnel, glancing sideways at the tall man striding beside him. Like most successful hunters, Andante had a vivid imagination, and he needed no prompts to imagine what Sam was feeling. Whether the vamps had taken his brother to feed or to turn, there was little likelihood of being able to save Dean now.
He'd seen the oldest Winchester in action, and he'd seen the respect and loyalty he'd pulled from the disparate ranks of the people he'd gathered together in Michigan. His death, one way or the other, would go hard with the people in Kansas, and those in the northern state. And he wasn't sure that Dean's brother would be able to take up the slack left by his loss.
Sam walked steadily through the tunnel, ignoring the occasional look he felt from Peter, ignoring the fear and thoughts that clamoured for attention in the back of his mind. He would find Dean and get him out, and that was the only thought he had room for now. You'll have to kill him. The knowledge seeped in past his control and he shuddered slightly, his step faltering. A vampire, with Dean's skills, with his knowledge and strength?
He shoved the thought aside. He would do it, at the last, if there was no other way. Until he reached that point, he would believe that he could save his brother.
They'd killed a few fangs already, attacking from the cross-tunnels and had left their bodies lying in the main conduit. Better than breadcrumbs for finding their back, he thought darkly. Down here, the vampires had all the advantages and it was more luck than skill that they'd gotten this far. He didn't know how he was going to be able to find Dean in the lightless labyrinth if his brother didn't want to be found.
At the next intersection, Sam looked up as Rufus stopped dead in front of him. Peering around the older man, he saw the body in the flashlight's beam, sprawled against one wall. The head was gone. He felt a spurt of hope. If Dean was hunting them, he couldn't be dead – and maybe he'd gotten free before he'd been turned.
Lengthening their strides, they moved faster through the darkness, flashlights flickering over the smooth concrete walls and floors. Drawing attention to themselves was unavoidable against creatures whose senses bettered their own in every respect. There was no point to pussyfooting around now.
Fifty yards deeper, at the next junction, they entered a small round chamber with four tunnels leading out from it and Sam stopped, letting his flashlight play across the floor.
There were more bodies. Ten, he counted feverishly, the heads lying where they'd fallen. Ten. All cleanly taken.
Joseph looked at the carnage, leaning past Peter. "Could he have –?"
Rufus answered, glancing at Sam. "No."
"So he's a vampire now?" Joseph asked uneasily.
"It seems to be that way," Peter said, clearing his throat. "Come on, if he's cleaning them out, he'll be easy to follow."
Sam nodded silently, stepping over the first body. Rufus and Peter were right, he thought distantly. A human hunter couldn't take on ten alone. Couldn't move fast enough. Wasn't strong enough. He stopped the thoughts there and followed Peter into the tunnel where a blood trail dripped along the floor.
Bobby stopped the pickup in front of the loading bay and swung out, going to the metal box in the back. Rufus had told Ellen that the there'd been at least sixty fangs inside the mall. They'd taken a lot down, getting Mel and the kids out, maybe twenty or more in the melee in the corridor. He could count on Sam and the others taking a few more. But they'd need something to hold the monsters off them, something to incapacitate them while they butchered the rest. He pulled out his gear bag, looking for the pack of flares that he knew was somewhere in there, smiling slightly in relief as his fingers curled around the distinctive round tubes.
Magnesium flares. They burned hot and white, unbearably brilliant. He rummaged a little more, pulling out the pairs of welding flash glasses that were essential to the flares' use. He had two pairs only. Looking around, he tossed one at Joseph.
"Once the flares go," he told Danielle and Lee. "You get back from wherever we are. They'll blind you as readily as they do the vampires. You'll be watching out for stragglers, got it?"
They nodded. Joseph settled the glasses on his forehead and picked up his machete, following Bobby into the Sears store.
The grate had been left off the access hole and dropping into the tunnel, Bobby could see where Sam and the others had passed easily enough, the splash of blood and the severed head on the floor leading the way.
"We gotta hurry," he said in a low voice. "We need that blood and we need to get to Dean before they do."
Dean stopped, crouching to wipe the edge of the machete on the body at his feet as he listened. Footsteps, a whispered voice, the scrape of a blade drawn free from the leather binding. Who the hell was joining the party, he wondered remotely? It didn't matter. Up ahead, not far, he could hear movement, the soft echoes in a much larger space. That would be the centre of the nest, he thought.
He wiped the back of his hand over his face, eyes screwing shut against the cramp of hunger that bit into him. The need was getting stronger. Pulling at him. Clawing at him. He thought of Famine's assertion, in Emporia, and his mouth stretched out in a cold, humourless grin. Well, he was hungry now, he thought, walking into the tunnel. He was fucking hungry now.
As a human, he'd known how to move without noise. As a vampire, he ghosted along the tunnel, not even the occasional rat noticed his passing. He stopped to one side of the tunnel when he saw the junction ahead, advancing incrementally along the wall to avoid the vampires' enhanced acuity of motion perception. In the encounter he'd just had, taking ten fangs down had been a dance using senses that were so much more powerful than he was used to it'd felt as if he'd known what they were going to do before they did it. There would be more than ten here, he thought, sliding down the wall to look into the area below eye level. He would have to be faster and smoother.
His gaze flickered across the room and he drew back slightly. Twenty two. One other tunnel leading into the junction from his nine o'clock and none near it. The precise layout of the area was in his mind, the location of each fang known, the distances between them, the probable evasions, offensive and defensive tactics they would use. His father had taught him, before he'd ever set foot in a classroom, that any offence had to be the result of strategy and character. Either would not result in victory. Only both could succeed. He'd seen that philosophy prove itself over and over in his life. The strategies of Heaven and Hell had failed because they had failed to recognise that simple fact, failed to recognise the character of those they manipulated. He drew in a deep breath and let it out, releasing at the same time the furious red hunger and the cold, black rage that he'd held back for the past two hours.
Raoul's gaze snapped up as the head flew past him, flicking around the room and seeing body after body falling, the attacker moving too fast for him to catch more than a streaking glimpse. He launched himself blindly at the fledgling he'd made, talons ripping through the thin shirt, skating through the skin and over the hard curves of the ribs as his aim missed the unprotected torso, the newly-made vampire turning faster than he'd thought possible and swaying to one side just far enough. He landed on his feet, and stumbled on the body there, ducking as the singing metal blade split the air above him and lunging for the man's hips.
Dean slammed the point of his elbow into the side of the vampire's head as he swung the blade, and it bit through the vamp's arm, soaking him to the shoulder in a gout of cold blood. Raoul dropped under the blow and rolled away fast, coming to his feet and shaking his head to clear the grey mist that was clouding his vision, the mostly severed arm hanging by his side, his blood pouring out, but not pumped.
"You think to redeem yourself with this slaughter?" he snarled at Dean, circling him, his feet sliding along the slippery floor to avoid tripping over the dead that were tangled in heaps around the room.
"No," Dean said shortly, swinging around to bury his machete in the abdomen of the vampire who'd crept behind him, reversing the turn to take its head as it stumbled back, shrieking in agony.
"No, I don't see myself lasting out this night," he continued, stalking the older vampire across the room, blood flying off the blade in a sweeping shower of droplets as he swung it up.
"No," Danielle said, freezing with her hand against the wall of the tunnel. "This way, Bobby!"
"How –"
"Listen!" She cocked her head at the head of the northern tunnel. Bobby held his breath, listening and nodded slowly.
"You two hang back a little," he said to her and Lee. "Jack, got the flare ready?"
Jack nodded, following Bobby down the tunnel at a run on the old man's heels. The flares had percussion detonators, he remembered, hearing Rufus' voice in his head. Bang 'em hard on the floor, just once, and throw 'em. He gripped in the flare in one hand, the blade in the other and followed the bouncing flashlight beam and the moving shadow through the twists and turns of the narrow passage.
Sam started running when he heard the noise – screams and snarls and guttural roars – all echoing insanely from an enclosed space somewhere up ahead. Beside him, he could hear the pounding of Peter's boots against the smooth concrete floor, from behind, the rasp of Rufus' breaths and footfalls of Joseph. No matter what, he told himself, he would not let Dean see anything in his face except his love, his loyalty. Like a mantra, or a prayer, the thought looped through his mind in time with his steps.
He burst through into a much larger space, his flashlight swinging wildly around, seeing blood and bodies everywhere. Then there was a double-whoompf and light exploded into the room, burning brilliantly and instantly bleeding every colour from the scene as the flare hit the centre.
Twisting away, he threw his arm over his eyes, feeling the spreading heat the flare was generating against his skin, hearing the screams of the fangs in there, unable to tell if one of those screams belonged to his brother.
Bobby and Jack strode into the room after the flares, flash glasses darkened to black. Dean was hunched over near the centre of the room and Bobby ran to him, dragging him away from the flare and thrusting him into the tunnel.
"Which one?" he yelled at him, hand gripping one shoulder tightly. "Which one turned you?"
Dean couldn't see, the light piercing even through his tightly closed eyelids and the arm he held in front of them. He heard the voice beside him, recognition slowly penetrating of who it was and shook his head. The damned flare was cooking him and he turned further away from it, dropping to his knees and hunching up against the wall.
Looking back into the room, Bobby could see one vamp still moving and still with its head. He had the feeling that Dean would've left the vampire who'd turned him to the last.
"The one still alive, Dean?"
Dean nodded as he fought against the sudden grip of blood-lust, his jaw clenched against the smell of the old hunter, against the sound of his blood, rushing through his veins, his heart, beating steadily in his chest. He pressed himself harder against the wall of the tunnel, feeling the fangs begin to descend as the hunger wrestled with his will for control.
"Jack!" Bobby turned from him and shouted to the trainee, pointing to the vamp kneeling and covering his face against the flare's burning brilliance. Jack nodded and they walked to either side, Bobby gripping the wide-mouthed screw-cap bottle in his pocket as Jack swung the machete and the vampire's head toppled onto the floor.
Bobby dropped beside the body, tipping it forward as he got the neck of the bottle under the cold flow of blood. He had no idea how much was needed, but he didn't want to hear he hadn't gotten enough when they got back to Kansas. He'd told Ellen they'd be pushing after her, and he'd meant it. In the brilliant light of the flares, he'd seen Dean flinch from him, muscles tightening as he'd turned away. He knew how strong Dean's will was, he didn't know how long the younger man would be able to control the need for blood.
The light began to dim finally, the flares burning against the bodies they'd fallen on, scorching and charring the fabric of the clothing. From the other tunnel, Sam slowly turned around, blinking rapidly at the sight in front of him, Bobby kneeling beside the dead vamp and catching its blood, Jack standing behind him, watching the corpses for any sign of movement.
"What the hell, Bobby?" he said, straightening up and stepping into the room.
Looking up, Bobby grinned through the dirt and blood and fine ash that coated his face.
"Jerome came through, Sam," he said, screwing on the cap tightly and getting to his feet. "They found a cure."
"What?" Sam stared at him as hope and disbelief warred in his heart.
Bobby shook his head, pushing the glasses up off his face as he turned to the tunnel.
"You didn't feed, Dean?" Bobby asked. Dean shook his head, unwilling to trust his voice, afraid it would be raw with the need that thundered up and down him.
"Good. Jerome said the cure's good but only if the fledgling hasn't fed."
"Bobby, you serious?" Sam hurried up behind him, Joseph, Peter and Rufus on his heels.
"No lie," Bobby told him. "But we gotta get moving. How many do you think are left?"
"I don't know," Sam said, looking for his brother. "We took out nearly twenty in the first attack, another four on our way through, and Dean killed fifteen, not counting what's here." He looked at the bodies on the floor, becoming less and less visible as the flare's light faded.
"Twenty-two," Dean confirmed, his voice deep and thick. "Here."
"We took out another five on the way in," Bobby said, glancing at Jack who nodded his confirmation.
"That's over sixty," Rufus said.
"We'll follow the original plan," Peter added. "Burn this place to the ground and see if anything comes out."
"We gotta get going," Bobby said again. "We won't have time to sit around and wait for stragglers."
"No," Sam agreed, glancing at Rufus and Peter. "You stay, with Joseph and Jack. Burn it out. Bobby and me and Danielle and Lee'll head back to Kansas."
"Sounds like a plan," Rufus said, looking down at Dean worriedly. He could see the deep, shuddering breaths shaking the man, Dean's hands curled tight into white-knuckled fists.
Sam walked to the tunnel mouth and gripped his brother's arm. "Come on, we can do this, we can fix it, Dean. You'll see."
Half-listening to the conversation going on behind him as he fought against the smells of blood that surrounded him, against the ravenous need that flooded through him, Dean looked up at him, his face expressionless but his eyes wide with a mixture of incredulity and hope.
"You sure about this, Bobby?" he asked, straightening slowly as Sam pulled him up, his control over the hunger paper-thin but there finally.
"Hundred percent," Bobby said. "Wouldn't be here if I wasn't. Go!"
The four hunters, four trainees and vampire moved in a tight group back up the tunnel.
They were too loud.
Their voices. Their blood, roaring through them. Their footsteps. The clang of their weapons. The beat of their hearts. The flashlight beams shining over the tunnel walls and floors and ceilings were too bright and Dean walked between Sam and Bobby with his head down, eyes slitted against the light. Instead of a heartbeat, the hunger pulsed in him in the same rhythm as his footsteps. Their smell. Their sweat. Their blood … all of it crowded into his brain and he staggered a little as he walked, fighting off the sudden and shocking urges to turn left or right, rip into the throats that were too close, too enticing, and drain the bodies of blood, stop the agony that filled him. It was like holding onto a vicious animal, trying to anticipate, to block the violent twitches.
As they came out into the mall's main floor, the sky was lightening and Dean lifted his arm again, covering his face.
"Dean," Sam said quietly beside him. He let his arm drop a little, looking under it through half-closed eyes at Sam.
"How do you feel?"
The snort came out automatically, a part of the real him. "Like I might simultaneously burst into flames and implode," he told his brother sourly. "Not good."
"I meant … is it bad yet?" Sam winced at his brother's description.
"It's been bad for hours, Sam." He rubbed a hand over his face restlessly. He could see, in his brother's eyes, how bad it looked, how bad he looked. He felt like hammered crap, and it wasn't going to improve over the seven or eight hour drive back to Kansas. He was turning into a monster and his instinctive reaction was to hide, to let no one see him. That wasn't going to be possible. And maybe it wouldn't matter if the cure didn't work. But whichever way it went, he didn't want Alex to see him like this, didn't want to see in her eyes what he could see in Sam's.
"Listen, when we get back to the keep, make sure that Alex doesn't see me, okay?"
"Why?" Sam looked at him, brow creasing. "She won't be –"
"I don't want this memory burned into her brain!" Dean snapped abruptly. "Just – humour me – alright?"
"Yeah, alright," Sam said, his gaze shifting slightly past him.
"Danielle," Bobby said quietly from behind them, and Dean turned to look around. The dart hit him in the side of his chest, just under the collarbone and he looked at the tall redhead. A second dart struck his shoulder, piercing the muscle through the cloth of his shirts. The dead man's blood flowed sluggishly into him and he swayed as he felt the confusion in his mind, his senses dulling, the extraordinary connection between body and brain dissolving and disappearing.
"Catch him," Peter said sharply, and Sam stepped forward, wrapping his arms around Dean's chest as his brother's knees buckled and he started to drop.
"Alright, we got him," Rufus said, taking his legs and lifting. Peter gripped one arm, pulling out the dart and tossing it back to Lee as Sam lifted the other arm over his head and pulled it around his shoulder.
"We'll take you back to your cars," Bobby said to Rufus, looking around the dim interior. "Then we'll go."
"This won't take long," Rufus said, following Sam and Peter out through the glassless doorframes.
Getting Dean's dead weight into the back seat of the dual cab pickup took a few minutes, and Danielle climbed in with him, pressing herself against the door as she unrolled the four-pack of syringes slotted into the small cloth pouch and lifted his head to her lap.
"Don't wait for him to wake up," Bobby warned her. She looked at him and nodded.
"I won't."
Sam got into the driver's seat and Lee settled himself in the middle as Bobby climbed in and shut the door. Peter, Rufus, Joseph and Jack climbed into the tray and Bobby pulled away from the building.
KS 23, Kansas
"How's he doing?" Sam looked in the rearview mirror at the girl in the back.
"Still out, breathing steadily," Danielle said, looking down at Dean.
Sam flicked a quick glance at Bobby. "I can't believe there's a cure. Why didn't we know about it?"
"Shit, Sam, there's a helluva lot of things we don't know about," Bobby said with a shrug. "Couldn't get through too easily on the radio, so we didn't hear much about it. Just that it needed the blood of the vamp that turned him, and if he'd fed, it wouldn't work."
Sam swallowed uncomfortably. He couldn't have killed Dean. Someone else would've had to. And he wouldn't've been able to live with that either. He understood, now, the burden their father had placed on his brother before he'd died. Understood, now, what Dean had meant when he'd said those words had been screaming in his head. Understood why his brother hadn't been able to take the gun or pull the trigger when Meg had been using him, possessing him, and trying to drive Dean into killing him.
Bobby looked across at him, seeing the tension in the set of his shoulders. "We'll get him back, son."
Sam nodded, his hands tightening on the wheel as he stared at the road rolling on ahead.
"Yeah."
Lebanon, Kansas
"No, he has to sit up to drink this," Merrin said, scowling at the men as they carried Dean into the small examination room. "Can't you restrain him, when he comes to?"
Sam looked at Bobby, who rolled his eyes. "Not really, not if the hunger is deep."
"I'll get the 'cuffs," Ellen said, as they manoeuvred Dean into the wide chair.
On the countertop, Oliver hovered by the ingredients of the cure. "Where's the blood?"
Bobby handed him the jar and he took it, unscrewing the cap and pouring half into a glass measuring jug.
"What's in it?" Bobby asked, his fear for Dean momentarily diverted by the need to know about the cure, to file away the information for the future, as he walked up behind him. Oliver tapped the book beside him without answering, concentrating on what he was doing. Bobby read the list of ingredients in the cure, brows rising.
Hypericum perforatum, taurine (C2H7NO3S), Verbena officinalis, carnitine (C7H15NO3), Crataegus monogyna, silver nitrate (AgNO3), iron oxide (Fe2O3nH2O), Sorbus aucuparia, Allium sativum, Digitalis purpurea, Symphytum officinale. Blood of the infecting vampire.
"An' this works?" he asked Oliver, watching as he burned the twigs of hawthorn in a small metal dish.
"Yes, it's surprisingly scientific actually, considering it was developed in the early sixteen hundreds," Oliver said absently as he scooped the ash from the bowl and added it to the jug. "The originating vampire's blood is required to key the other ingredients to the correct cells that must be removed. The verbena and the hawthorn then act on the vampiric blood, neutralising it in the body at the same time as the silver breaks the connections to the mind – and that's an oddity, although silver is antibacterial and perhaps the mental effect of the disease is more related to that than a viral infection." He shrugged, tipping a small amount of a greenish liquid into the mix. "The taurine draws the blood back, along with the garlic, which although it has no real effect on a vampire, has an extraordinary pull on the creature's blood, drawing it out like a poison or, more to the point, like an infection."
He crushed the rowan berries and the finely chopped verbena leaves together and tipped the mix into the jug. "The rowan berries must be cooked, raw they are bitter and rather poisonous to our systems. But cooked the parasorbic acid is transformed to sorbic, which is a preservative. It acts in reverse on the petrification of the body cells affected by the vampire blood, returning them to living cells and undoing the effects. Not sure why, but an analysis of the actual viral properties of the disease might explain that."
Bobby looked at the mixture in the jug, already turned from red to a greyish-black. He leaned over it and sniffed cautiously, drawing back sharply at the acrid, pungent scent.
"Doesn't smell too good," Oliver agreed, flicking a glance at him. "Probably tastes worse." He scraped the small pile of fine red powder from the board into it. "The iron strengthens the victim's blood during the drawing process, separating the cells from the vampire's, and the digitalis, carnitine and comfrey are present to start the heart beating again, prevent arrhythmia and strengthen the body."
"Huh."
Oliver glanced at him and smiled dryly. "The Campbells experimented with this in 1617 or before, Bobby. It's an amazing use of what they had available at the time."
Ellen came in and passed two pairs of handcuffs to Sam, taking the first of the pair she still held and locking it around Dean's left wrist and the arm of the chair, crouching to lock his left ankle to the chair leg.
She got to her feet as Sam finished with Dean's right ankle and looked at Merrin. "Will we have any warning when he starts to come to?"
The nurse walked over to the chair, resting her fingertips against his forehead. "He's burning up," she said, glancing at Dr Sui. "He was cooler ten minutes ago."
"The virus is still working its way through him," Kim said worriedly. "I don't think we have any way to tell if he's awake or not, aside from observation. I haven't set up the new EEG yet."
Ellen nodded, turning to Oliver. "Is that ready?"
"Almost," Oliver said shortly. He picked up a small bottle of clear liquid and an eye-dropper, filling the dropper and adding six drops to the cure.
"Does he have to drink all of that?" Bobby stared at the jug. It contained almost two pints of fluid.
Oliver picked up the small stick blender and put it into the jug, pulsing the mixture until he was sure that all the ingredients were completely combined. "Yes. The measurements are precise. If he's not capable of controlling himself, we'll have to insert a stomach tube."
"What happens after he's taken it?" Ellen looked at him and back at the unconscious man in the chair.
"The book doesn't specify that," Oliver admitted. "The whole thing is designed to draw out the blood from his body, reversing the way it infiltrated, so I'm guessing regurgitation."
"That'll be fun," Bobby commented. "Where's the bucket?"
Alex ran down the staircase, skidding as she turned the corner at the bottom, her bare feet slapping against the stone floor. She saw Ellen at the door to Kim's rooms and slowed, looking past her.
"Is Dean in there?"
"Alex, now might not be the best time," Ellen said, shifting to block the doorway. She was here because Sam had told her to let no one else in.
"What the hell are you talking about, Ellen?" Alex snapped at her, moving back the other way and staring at her as she moved as well. "Let me through!"
"Wait a minute, okay? Just one second –" Ellen put her hand out, turning to the short hall behind her that led into the room. "Bobby, Alex is here –"
It wasn't Bobby who appeared in the doorway, but Sam. He looked at Ellen and past her to Alex.
"Not yet, Alex," he said quietly. "This is something you don't need to see."
"What is wrong with you?" she said, pushing past Ellen and angling to get past Sam. "I –"
The transition from unconsciousness to awareness was shockingly abrupt. Dean flinched back against the chair at the screaming, high-pitched sound that had catapulted him into consciousness, his hearing overwhelmed by the cacophony of other noise that lay beneath it, jumbled and deafening. He opened his eyes and shut them again, the brilliance of the overhead fluorescents blinding him instantly, a blurred impression of white and colour in the second's glimpse unresolvable.
"He's awake."
The voice rolled like thunder, filling his head as the high-pitched sound ceased, echoing oddly from the hard, slick surfaces in the room. He could hear rushing. Pounding. A clanging noise. Deeper booming in a number of rhythms. Scratching. The too-loud noises and too-bright lights and the overwhelming scent of living blood in the room goaded the voracious hunger, shredding his organs with its ravening teeth, his veins burning, the caustic insistence of the vampire's blood filling and spreading through every cell.
He could feel a thrum in his chest, vibrations in his throat but he didn't realise the deep, wild-animal keening he could hear was coming from him, whistling out between his teeth as he tensed every muscle against the conflagration inside his body.
Sam gripped Alex's arms and pushed her back to the door. "No. Dean was clear, he doesn't want you in there," he said tightly. "Just wait."
The words hit her like a slap and she took a step back from him. "Why?"
"He doesn't want you to see him like this, okay?" Sam said, looking at Ellen. "He's not – it's not all him."
"Alex, listen to him," Ellen said, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her back.
"He said that?" Alex ignored Ellen and looked at Sam.
"Do something!" Bobby yelled at Kim as Dean's head tipped back and his fingers curled around the arms of the chair, muscles rigidly contracted and tendon and sinew standing out with the pain. His lips were drawn back and they could see the fangs, long and bristling, fully descended over the human teeth. The sound forced out of him was primal agony and under it, they could hear the creak of the hardened steel handcuffs, could see the links of the chains connecting them stretching slowly.
"Christ, he'll be out of those in a minute," Bobby yelled, striding across the room. "Sam! Get your ass in here and help me hold him."
He walked behind the chair, wrapping his arms around Dean's head. "Kim, get that tube ready to go, we'll have seconds to get this into him."
Sam looked at Alex and turned abruptly, walking fast back into the room. Alex felt Ellen's hand tighten on her shoulder and she swung around, breaking the hold and following Sam in, hearing the low snarl, her eyes immediately finding the source.
Half-hidden behind his brother and Bobby and Kim, she watched Dean as he fought the restraints and the hands that gripped his shoulders, head and neck; saw his lips draw back from a mass of gleaming, pointed fangs that filled his mouth, his skin smooth and pale and hard, the light freckles over his nose and cheeks standing out against the lack of colour underneath, every muscle contracted and rigid.
Kim nodded and took the lubricated end of the tube from Merrin, stepping reluctantly to the chair as Sam took the other side.
"Oliver, bring it," Bobby snarled, his eyes on the lengthening links. "NOW!"
Oliver grabbed the jug and half-ran to Kim. She looked at Bobby anxiously. "I have to do this slowly, make sure I don't get the trachea!"
"Just do it. We'll hold him still."
Kim lifted the tube as Alex ran to them, dropping in front of Dean, her hand flashing out to grip his. His eyes flew open, the irises blood-red and almost pupilless as he stared at her. She could see the mixture of rage and fear in them, his face unfamiliar, features twisted into a savage mask. Her pulse accelerated and she ignored the shiver that ran through her. Behind the animalistic fury he was in there, she told herself, he was still in there and still himself.
"Dean, come on, fight," she said, leaning closer, her fingers tightening hard around his. "Come back."
He lunged toward her, almost breaking Bobby and Sam's hold on him, pulling them forward and flicking them back, rocking the chair. The soft whine of the stressed metal of the handcuffs could hardly be heard but Bobby's eyes were fixed on the chain links as they stretched out a little further.
"Alex, get away from him!" Sam yelled at her, struggling to hold his brother's shoulders as Kim looked at Bobby, fighting against the vampire strength to pull his head back again.
Alex ignored him, teeth snapping together as she forced herself not to flinch backward, staring into the carnelian irises. She saw Dean's expression flicker, saw him blink rapidly as he sucked in a deep breath, the low, rumbling growl ceasing for a moment before resuming.
"No! He can do this," she said sharply to Sam, raising her voice to be heard over the noise coming from the man in front of her, her gaze fixed on Dean's face. She saw the snarl twisting his mouth falter for a second, saw the tendons in his neck soften minutely. "You can, you can beat it."
She didn't realise she was holding her breath as she watched his eyes slowly focus on her, watched the red film across the whites thin out and his pupils expand, his face smooth out and the growling noise stop. The rigidity vanished and he slumped back in the chair, the cuff chains clinking against each other. Bobby looked at Sam, loosening his hold.
"Dean?"
Dean's eyes were almost closed as he tilted his head to one side to look at his brother. The room stank of blood, thick and red. He felt his mouth fill with saliva at the smell and swallowed hard.
"Stop yelling at me, Sam," he said softly.
"You got it?"
"For now," Dean said, exhaustion shaking his voice. "Comes and goes, but it's getting stronger. We gotta do this."
He looked down at Alex, kneeling in front of him. "I told Sam not to let you in," he said, his voice hoarse.
"He passed along the message," she told him, getting to her feet and moving to the side of the chair as Kim took the jug from Oliver. "I ignored it."
"Dean, you ready?" Bobby asked.
"Yeah," he said, looking at the glass jug warily, nose wrinkling up as he caught the odour. "All of it?"
Oliver nodded. "My advice would be to drink it as fast as you can."
The hunger was barely leashed; Dean could feel it building up again. He nodded abruptly and Kim brought the jug to his lips, tipping it up as he lifted his head. Tasted worse than it smelled, worse than the black crap Ruby had poured down his throat. The thought flashed through his mind as he swallowed the steady flow as fast as he could.
Kim pulled back as the last mouthful emptied the jug, looking at him. The fangs had withdrawn, his irises were still a deep red, the whites tinged with blood, his skin was hard-looking, the bones standing out under it, sharp and angular.
Dean looked around at Oliver. "Is that i–?"
The convulsion struck violently and without warning, and Kim skittered aside as a stream of blood and bile arced from Dean's mouth onto the floor in front of him, his body clenched tight as the cure pulled the vampire blood from every cell and vein and capillary, filling his stomach and being ejected again.
"Get the cuffs off!" Merrin ordered, catching his head and wiping the bloody mess from his mouth as he seized again, eyes rolling back into his head, bone-deep shudders rattling through him. "Get him on the floor!"
Falling to his hands and knees when he was released, Dean dropped onto his side, the blood continuing to be ejected from his stomach, each drop leaving a trail of corrosive agony along the blood paths.
Alex knelt behind him, sliding an arm under his neck and shoulder, talking to him softly and holding him tightly against the spasms that shook through him, his body curled inward around the pain. His skin was hot and paper dry under her hands, and she looked around to Kim.
"He's burning up here."
"Is it working?" Bobby asked, his voice barely a whisper as Merrin passed Alex a cloth soaked in water and she pressed it against his forehead and throat.
"It seems to be," Oliver answered him, watching the process intently. "The blood is definitely being withdrawn. The process would be excruciating, of course."
Sam glared at him. "Is there anything we can do?"
"No," Kim said. "The process isn't static. Once the blood is gone, he'll be exhausted, both from this – procedure – and whatever it was he's gone through before. Then we can do something, but right now, I can't give him anything – I wouldn't know what to give him – in case it counteracts what he's taken."
Deaf. Blind. Paralysed.
Dean lay on his back, his eyes open but unable to make out more than shapes in the dim room.
Kim had told him, when the blood had finally gone completely from his system and he'd returned to the world, that it would take some time to get used to having the normal range of his senses again, and probably a couple of weeks for his body to recover from the punishment it'd taken, super-charged when he'd gone through the nest like a killing machine, everything pushed far past the normal limits.
He felt a hand curling around his and looked down, seeing a blurry shape that slowly resolved into a familiar one as she sat down in the chair beside the bed. He couldn't see her face, but her scent enveloped him and he felt some of his tension leave.
"Good times, huh?" he said, his voice cracked and raw.
"Better than Disneyland," she agreed softly. "You want some water?"
"Yeah." His mouth and throat felt like a desert. Vocal chords had probably taken a beating with all the Wild Kingdom noises he'd been making, he thought, but the cure was dehydrating as well.
She came back to the bed with a glass and a straw, holding it as he sucked the cold water down.
"More?"
He shook his head. "No."
He waited until she'd put the glass on the nightstand and returned to the chair before he looked uncomfortably at her, squinting a little as he tried to get his eyes to focus. "Guess there's no chance of you forgetting that."
She slid her hand under his, fingers closing around it, and he heard the smile in her voice. "No, but that's okay."
"How is that okay?"
"Because being kept out of it, being kept away, would've been worse," she said gently, looking at his expression, doubt underlaid by something else, something that wanted to believe. "You don't really get it, do you?"
"Get what?" he asked warily. He hadn't wanted her to see him as a monster. Hadn't wanted that memory to be there when she looked at him. Or in her dreams. He had enough bad dreams for the both of them.
"It's okay that it's not all rainbows and sunshine, Dean." He felt her lift his hand, felt her smooth skin against the back of it as she held it against her cheek. "It's still you, still –"
He heard her take in a deep breath and let it out. "There isn't anything in you, or about you, that I would want to be different."
Dean felt his breath catch at that. There were a million things he'd change, if he could.
"Every scar, every choice, everything you've thought and felt and done," she continued tentatively, reaching for the words to describe what she felt to him. They were all tangled up in those feelings and she thought there were no words at all for some of what she needed to tell him. "All of it was essential to make who you are, right now, right this minute."
"I might –" he started to say and stopped to clear the thickness in his throat. "I might have been better without a lot of that stuff."
"No. Different maybe, but not better," she said, with a certainty that shook him.
"You don't know that."
"I know it for me."
"You'd rather have a head-case than someone without all the scars –?"
"I'd rather have you, the way you are," she cut him off, her fingers tightening on his.
He didn't know what to say to that. Something, so far down he wasn't even sure where it was, loosened at the words, unwound, a little. Some fear that he hadn't looked at in a long, long time. Hadn't acknowledged. He closed his eyes, returning the pressure on her fingers.
"Oliver gave me a paste for you that's supposed to help with all the wear and tear," Alex said, after a moment. "Feel like a massage?"
He coughed slightly. "Full service?"
She snorted, swallowing the laugh. "If you're up to it."
His mouth lifted at one corner as he opened his eyes, still not seeing her too well, able to make out the gleam of her smile.
Adam sat on the bank of the river, hidden by the sweeping canopy of the willows that lined the edge, staring sightlessly at the gleam and sparkle of the water as it hurried past.
No one had said anything. They hadn't needed to, he thought bleakly. It was in their faces when they didn't look at him. In the silence that fell when he came into a room. In the chill blankness when he managed to catch someone's eye.
He couldn't explain what had happened, not exactly. He'd frozen, seeing the vampires rising up around Dean. For the first time, it hadn't been taking shots at a distance, or hearing about it, or reading about it, but surrounded by it – the brilliance of the blood that had dripped from the long teeth, the overpowering stench of rotted flowers and rotten meat that had choked him as they'd closed in, the unbelievable strength and speed and – and – and otherness of them.
Monsters.
Real.
He hadn't been able to process that thought at all until they'd dragged his brother down and vanished with him.
There was a soft crack behind him and his head snapped around, seeing Christine ducking as she came in between the long, delicate branches.
"Hey," she said, dropping to sit cross-legged beside him.
"Hey," he returned, cautiously. She looked at the river, absently plucking a grass stalk and stripping the seeds from the end.
"You're taking this too hard, you know," she said, turning her head to look at him. "Nobody blames you for what happened."
He snorted, looking at the water. "Sure. Right."
"They don't," Chris insisted. "Rufus said it was a good lesson for everyone, that it's easy to freeze up in the moment and we all had to work on getting through that."
Adam's mouth twisted up. "Funny, he didn't say that to me."
Her brow lifted. "What'd he say?"
Adam ducked his head, the memory still stinging. "He said that until I learn to take it seriously, I'll be training with the keep guards and Franklin."
"What?"
He glanced at her, trying to gauge the genuineness of her reaction. She seemed sincere, her sky-blue eyes wide with surprise. There was a not-so-subtle hierarchy between the civilian guards and the hunters, nowhere more evident than in the trainees of both groups. The hunters considered themselves elite, the guards considered themselves professional. That neither Franklin or Rufus paid any attention to it didn't seem to bother anyone. But he knew she saw the move as a demotion, a severe one.
"It's okay," he said, relaxing a little. "I screwed up. I deserve it."
"It could've happened to any–"
"But it didn't, Chris," he cut in. "It happened to me." He turned away from her. "And it happened because I haven't been looking at this stuff the way I should've been."
"Come on, Adam," she said, shaking her head. "Everyone knows that of all of us, you've seen the least of what's been going on the last three years."
He smiled humourlessly. "Yeah, angel condom."
She frowned at the term. Someone had overheard one of the older hunters use the phrase, and it'd spread around quickly. She'd ignored it, thinking it was fairly typical of the maturity of the young men in both the keep garrison and the hunters enclave.
"That was hardly your fault," she said.
Adam sighed, leaning back. "No," he agreed. "Doesn't matter."
"Look, I can talk to Rufus – or Dean –"
"No!" He sat up fast, looking at her in alarm. "Don't."
Recoiling a little at his vehemence, Christine shook her head. "Why not?"
"Because I told you, it's okay," he said shortly. "Franklin's tough but fair. And I don't – I need some time to figure this stuff out. So … don't, okay?"
"Okay," she said, shrugging a shoulder. "Doesn't mean you can't hang with us, you know that, right?"
He wasn't sure he wanted to. Wasn't sure he could deal with that, quite yet. "In a while, sure."
"Adam," she said, rolling onto one knee and stopping.
"Yeah."
"They're your brothers. You should talk to them," she said quietly.
He shook his head. "I don't think they're acknowledging that relationship any more, Chris."
She bit her lip, looking at his bowed head. He'd been difficult when he'd first gotten here, arrogant, to hide his fear, she'd thought. Renee had told her a little about him, and she'd found it hard to believe that he was functioning at all after what he'd been through. He might've frozen up in combat, but any one of them might've done it as well. His relationship to the Winchesters couldn't have helped any.
Getting to her feet, she slapped a friendly hand on his shoulder and turned away, ducking under the willow fronds and walking back up through the fields.
Adam looked up and watched her go. He wasn't sure if the offer of friendship was such a good idea. He didn't think he could face them now. Fitting in with the keep garrison was hard enough.
Dean was still recovering and he'd avoided Sam whenever possible, breathing a sigh of relief when the tall hunter had returned to order's safehold once he was sure his brother was on the mend. The memory of Sam's face, when they'd been in the tunnel, was one he couldn't shake free. He didn't think there was much chance of getting to know his half-brothers now.
Two weeks later.
Dean walked stiffly into the order's library. The healing ointment Oliver had given Alex was doing wonders, and he could move around without pain now. Kim had been astonished by the rapidity of his recovery, in fact. Another week or so and the stiffness would be gone, he thought. It was gradually working out with exercise. His vision had returned to what it had been and he was getting used to it. His hearing and sense of smell were normal again as well, although he found himself listening in the night, trying to stretch out his senses further.
He looked around the long table as he took the empty chair at the end. Bobby, Ellen, Rufus, Franklin, Boze, Jerome, Peter, Vince, Jasper, Katherine and Davis were seated already, Alex moving to the side to stand with Sam, Maurice and Father Emilio.
"Well?" Bobby looked at him dourly. "What's the good news?"
"Not much on the good news," Dean said slowly. "The, uh, vision I had … it wasn't so much as a vision as more of a 'welcome to the group' promo."
Ellen arched an eyebrow. "And what's that mean?"
"Like a quick-view history lesson," Dean said, shrugging. "And something else, the plans for the future."
The memories of those images were strong and vivid, and he told them what he'd seen in as much detail as he could. The room was silent when he'd finished.
"The dark-haired woman you saw could be Nintu," Katherine said, looking at Jerome. "She was supposed to be the dark side of Creation."
Ackers nodded sharply. "Those were the oldest legends."
"Who's Nintu again?" Bobby looked from Jerome to Katherine. "For the unwashed masses?"
Jerome sighed, pushing his glasses up his nose. "Ninhursag and Nintu, twin sisters of Creation. Ninhursag is the Sumerian name for the mother goddess, the earth goddess, but she's much older than that."
"The two goddesses created all life on Earth," Katherine stepped in impatiently. "Ninhursag made the animals, trees, life in general – natural life, her sister created the creatures that weren't natural, livings forms of evil, the things that go bump in the night."
"Huh," Bobby said, looking back at Jerome. "And this Nintu, she's the one we've got to thank for werewolves and vampires and such?"
Jerome scratched his brow as he nodded. "Yes. But the two goddesses were locked away, in a mountain, their prison sealed, according to the legend." He looked at Katherine, seeing her nod.
"Supposedly," she agreed, somewhat dryly. "In Peru."
"That's all fascinating," Dean said abruptly. "What's it got to do with the vampires?"
"Nintu brought forth vampires and werewolves – every unnatural creature – from her womb," Katherine told him. "She was their mother, as Ninhursag birthed humankind."
Felix cleared his throat, looking around the table. "There is another legend, about Nintu."
Jerome gestured at him. "Well? What is it?"
"That the first children of Nintu were the most powerful, that they could create the species to populate the world. They were also supposed to have been imprisoned when the goddesses were, but in different locations."
"Are we speculating that someone or something released the sisters and now they're releasing their first-born?" Sam asked, looking from Felix to Katherine.
"Ah … I'd need the texts to get this absolutely correct, but yes, I suppose so. The origins of Usiku are quite broadly documented, in African mythology –"
Jasper nodded. "And Raat Bhedeiyaa Bhut was well-known throughout India."
Boze looked at them. "Who?"
"Usiku was supposed to be the first vampire, the one who created all the others. Raat Bhedeiyaa Bhut was the first werewolf, in Hindi lore, born of the goddess and a wolf to take the hearts of men and therefore, their courage in the night," Jerome explained, gesturing at the books behind him. "We have a large selection on the origins of the monsters, but the one thing they all have in common, no matter which country or culture they're from, is that they were all born of a dark goddess, who walked through the land and left evil in her footsteps."
Dean thought of the face he'd seen, dark-skinned and pale-eyed. Usiku. Good to know.
"How the hell are we supposed to find and take them down?" he asked Jerome.
"Well, more importantly," Jasper said, looking around the table. "Who let the goddess out?"
"Slow down," Bobby growled. "We've got not one, but probably two goddesses who were safely locked away, now wandering around, and one of 'em is letting loose her original monster kiddies who can make more of themselves –"
"Provided they can find a population source, yes," Jerome interjected. Bobby scowled at him.
"And this is why we're seeing the packs and nest numbers going up so fast?" he finished, glancing at Dean.
Jasper looked at Jerome, one brow raised. "That just about covers it, I think."
The hunters looked at each other in the silence that filled the room.
"Is it just me, or is anyone else feeling a tad fucking persecuted here?" Franklin said caustically, breaking the silence. "Didn't we just get back from saving the goddamned world?"
Bobby looked across the table to Dean, who gave him a tired shrug.
"Alright, what can we do about it?"
Peter looked at him. "In the vaults, under the Vatican, there is an extensive library. We need what they have. Every Church hunter was trained with those texts and they do cover the origins – and the rituals required to get rid of them."
Turning to Jerome, Dean asked, "Can the French hunters get there? In any time frame that'll do us any good?"
The scholar nodded. "They're already on their way. I don't know how long it will take them, Dean." He gestured to the library. "We have a lot of the ancient mythology here, we will begin with that and the other chapters will begin researching as well."
"Do we think this is connected in any way to the tablets of God?" Davis asked, leaning back in his chair as he looked at Jerome. "The timing is rather … coincidental … after six thousands of no change."
"The timing is not coincidental," Father Emilio said abruptly, walking to the table. "Lucifer was destroyed – utterly. And Hell had no ruler. I suspect that these events are due to the fact that a new ruler has risen in the accursed plane and has been busy." He looked at Jerome. "There has been no response from the Tibetan chapter, has there?"
Jerome shook his head.
"Then it seems probable that they have been destroyed, and whatever it was that the Qaddiysh left there has been taken," the priest said.
"We can't verify that," Jerome said uneasily.
"Do you think that these events are unconnected, Jerome?" Father Emilio asked bluntly.
"No," the scholar admitted reluctantly.
Father Emilio turned to Dean. "Your brother told me that you can call on a angel?"
Dean nodded, his eyes rolling slightly. He should've thought of Cas himself. "Yeah, sometimes."
"It might be that the angel can tell us what has happened in Hell, what is happening in the world," the priest said tightly. "And it might be that he can help us to contact the Qaddiysh, yes?"
Dean stood on the flat roof of the Keep, looking at the stars that filled the clear night sky. Franklin was right, he thought. It did feel like fucking persecution. He pushed the thought aside and closed his eyes.
"Cas? Uh, Dean to Cas, you receiving? Need some help here," he muttered to himself.
The soft beat of wings was behind him, and he turned around, looking at the angel's vessel, trench coat hem lifting in the slight breeze.
The angel looked at him questioningly. "Why have you called me here, Dean?"
Dean wondered where to start. "Seems like killing Lucifer opened up a whole new can of worms," he said. "We're not the only ones looking for the way to shut down Hell, and we've got other problems on the side."