Chapter 5 On the Wings of Maybe

November 2012, Litteris Hominae, Kansas

Sam closed the book with a thud, aware of the priest watching him from the other end of the table.

"Whatever it is, just say it, would you?" he said irritably, sliding the next leather-bound tome across from the pile in front of him.

"I cannot decide if you are searching for answers – or doing penance, Sam," Father Emilio said, looking at the deep shadows under the younger man's eyes.

"Does it matter?" Sam asked, gesturing vaguely around the room.

"Of course," the priest said at once, as if the question was ridiculous. "You cannot serve two masters. If you are searching for answers, then look, with hope in your heart and a keen mind to see the patterns as they emerge." He smiled slightly at Sam's expression. "If you would do penance for your sins, then take it somewhere else, and do it properly – hair shirt, ashes, a small flagellum maybe?"

"There is nothing I can do that will ever pay for what happened, Father," Sam said tiredly. He knew the priest was right. Searching until he was too exhausted to see properly wasn't doing the job. And it didn't matter how much he tried to convince himself that he was paying for his choices, the knowledge of what'd he done, what he'd set into motion and failed to stop, lay as heavily on him now as it had when he'd wrestled control from the angel and forced him out.

"There is a payment for everything, Sam," Father Emilio said gently. "And it will only come when you are ready for it. In the meantime, you should focus on one job, and do that to the best of your abilities."

"I would pay anything right now to not feel the way I do," Sam snapped at him. "To not feel the – what I feel about my life."

"But you are not ready," the priest said. "You still argue with yourself over the choices you made, still seek out the justifications for what you did, what you thought. It is acceptance that you are searching for, Sam."

"Accepting that I did what I did because I was weak?"

"Accepting that you did what you did, and that's all," Father Emilio corrected him. "Accept it and understand it."

Sam opened the book in front of him, staring at the title page without seeing it. In the abstract, he understood what was expected of him. To acknowledge and accept, to take the responsibility without justification or rationalisation or excuse. To just see that it was a part of him. In actuality, however, he realised the priest was right. He wasn't close to that yet. The blood. The demon. The sacrifice and the pain that had followed it. The bitter despair of being unable to find a single thing that would save his brother, that would get him out of the flames and torture Dean had condemned himself to – to save his life. The knowledge that he couldn't bear the responsibility of that decision, the weight of it, couldn't live with it or the stark reminder that he'd been loved so desperately that Dean had thought that the trade was worth it.

"You are not the first to struggle with the consequences of your actions, Sam," Father Emilio continued quietly. "Perhaps you could find some help in the accounts of the struggles of others?"

He looked up at the priest and shook his head. "I don't think I can find comfort in the crappy decisions others have made before me, Father," he said tiredly. "I don't know where to start with learning to accept all of this."

"What is the thing you most regret?"

"You mean aside from breaking the last seal on Lucifer's cage and freeing him into this world, and then giving him the vessel he needed to begin his plans of complete genocide of humanity?" Sam asked, his voice bright with sarcasm.

"Yes, not the things that threatened the world, just the thing that you cannot find your way past because it was personal to you, because it meant the most to you," the priest told him, his tone mild.

"Pride," Sam said slowly. "Thinking I knew what I was doing and not listening – believing that I knew better – than the people who – cared about me."

"Then start with that," Father Emilio suggested, getting up from the table and tucking several books under his arm. "It is in the things that have wounded closest to our hearts that we can find the way to the rest."

He turned and walked away, heading out of the library and down the hall. Sam watched him go, then looked at his watch. Two a.m. He should give it up for the night, he thought. Get some sleep and try again in the morning. Later in the morning. He closed the book and picked up the ones he'd already covered, moving slowly through the stacks to return them to their places.

There was no way to undo the mistakes he'd made. He'd joined with Ruby in the blackest despair, amidst a certainty that Dean had sacrificed himself for nothing, feeling as if revenge was the only possible course that held any meaning for him. There was no way he could find to get into Hell. And no way to rescue a soul from the pit, even if he could find a way in.

It'd taken Dean a while to figure out what their father had done for him, and the guilt had almost killed him when he'd put the pieces together and realised where John Winchester was, and what was happening to him. It had crushed the framework that his brother had lived by, the love that had been the core of his life, under the weight of that burden, and yet he'd done the same thing without a qualm for Sam, knowing how it would feel.

He did the only thing he could, Sam told himself. The same as their father had done the only he could in the face of losing the son he loved. The fact that they'd both chosen to sacrifice themselves for the people they'd loved the most hadn't been lost on Sam. The fact that he would have not made the same choice, in the same circumstances, hadn't been lost on him either. He'd tried to make a deal, a straight swap for Dean's soul and had been refused, not just once but countless times. Each time had reinforced the idea that he was not made of the same stuff as his father and brother.

Bobby had told him, in a long, rambling, drunken conversation when the two of them had been alone in the junkyard one evening, what Dean'd said to the old man when he'd brought Sam back from Cold Oak and Bobby had realised what he'd done. At the time, he'd thought he'd understood what the hunter had been telling him, had thought he'd understood what Dean had felt and why he'd made the deal. He hadn't. And he hadn't realised that until he'd stood in Atlanta, the angel inside his body forcing him to stare across a bleak and barren landscape, to see a world without hope. It just hadn't occurred to him before that his brother had only seen one role for himself, in all the years of growing up together. And having failed that, couldn't see a life that could mean anything.

He was still the protector, Sam thought now, walking up the stairs. Now that protectorate had expanded to include every survivor, but he was still struggling under a weight of responsibility that didn't include whatever dreams he might've had, whatever hopes he might've held for himself.

Tiber River, Italy

Elena looked across the inky river, moving the scull slowly enough to avoid a splash. Behind her, another of the long, narrow-hulled boats moved steadily upstream, both barely visible shadows as they slipped under the bridges and past the ruins.

Michel's scopes flashed silently within the deep, black canvas bags on the floorboards of the boats, Marc's face lit by the dim red light. Thermal imaging would give them warning of anything radiating heat within two hundred yards. The movement detector had less range but greater accuracy, keyed to micro-changes in air density. It would give them some warning of an approach inside the buildings.

"Here," Isabeau's voice breathed in her ear, the sub-vocalisation just audible through the earpiece. "Just past this bridge. Eight hundred feet to the piazza."

The boats drew in close to the stone-walled banks of the river and they tied the lines to the iron rings set into the walls, climbing to the road above. Isabeau gestured to the street opposite and Elena nodded, moving across the open ground and gaining the black shadows under the buildings that lined the other side. Three hundred feet to the Borgo Santo Spirito, which would lead them straight to the Piazza Saint Pietro, and into the Basilica. Flicking the lights off on the detectors, she slid the earpiece for the movement detector into one ear, checking as Marc did the same for the infrared. They moved along the dark street in single file, soft-soled shoes making almost no sound on the pavements.

The vaults and catacombs under the city were extensive, but Maria had explained that the libraries they wanted were limited to the lowest levels under the Basilica and the Sistine Chapel. The entrance was through the easily accessible cave gates. The passages from the caves to the deepest levels had been locked and guarded with a series of hidden doors. They would be the hardest to get through.

They had bags packed within the bags they carried, but she still wasn't sure how they were going to retrieve all the texts they would need. The only two hunters who'd seen those documents were thousands of miles away. The city had been overrun several times now since the release of the virus, and Maria had told them that none of the other Vatican hunters had survived. Peter was in the United States. The hunters she had with her were battle-hardened and experienced, but they were only five and she would not risk losing any one of them to whatever had been living in the ruins of Rome for the last three years.

Blue Earth, Minnesota

Maurice nodded to Danielle, gesturing ahead. Only a few buildings were still intact in the small town, the forests had reached around the edges, tall enough now to block out the sunshine on what remained of the roads.

Moving in pairs, Maurice and Rona led the small group into the town square, stopping opposite the church that sat on one corner. The hunter looked at the doors of the building, frowning as he saw the deep rips through the wood.

"Anyone here?"

There was a rattle of bolts behind the door and it cracked open an inch or two, the long barrel of a rifle emerging, pointed at them, over that a sliver of a man's face, one bright hazel eye under a dark brow.

"Get back."

Maurice glanced at Rona, nodding as he lifted his hands and backed away. "We're friendlies."

"Yeah."

The door opened a little wider and the man stepped out. Over six feet, with dark brown hair to his shoulders and a dark beard, threaded with silver, he kept the barrel pointed at Maurice as his eyes scanned over the others.

"What do you want?" he asked, his voice tired and rough with tension.

"Want to find survivors," Maurice said, gesturing behind him. "We got a place in Kansas, growing food and we're looking for people who need help."

"Funny," the man said coldly. "That's what the demons told us before we got chained together and dragged to Billings."

"We're not demons," Maurice said quietly, wondering if all the small groups they found were going to have the same story to tell. Billings was a new one, but maybe they'd been on their way to Vegas.

"You'll have to do better than that."

"You got holy water in that church?" Maurice gestured to the building. "It'll burn a demon or a human being possessed."

The man's eyes narrowed at him. "We do." He stepped back to the doorway, quarter-turning his head. "Alison, dip a cup into the font and bring it out."

"How many of you are there?"

"Not as many as there were before the wolves started showing up," the man said, reaching back without looking as a slender woman passed him a cup.

"Wolves?" Maurice hesitated. "Animals?"

"What else could they be?" The man stepped forward and held out the cup. "Drink."

The hunter walked to the steps and reached for the cup, swallowing a mouthful. He turned as Rona walked up to him, handing her the cup and she tipped it up, her throat working as she drank the remaining water.

"We're not demons," Maurice said. "These wolves, they only come at night? On the full moon?" he asked, looking at the riven wood. Too deep for animal claws, or at least the sort of animals Minnesota had been home to, once upon a time.

"How'd you know that?"

"Lucky guess," Maurice said distractedly. "How many have you heard?"

The moon had begun waning two nights ago. Would they have enough time to get these people out of here, he wondered?

"There were eight, the first night," Alison stepped into the doorway, and the man moved back a step, covering her automatically. She looked past him. "Then twelve on the next night."

He felt Rona's eyes flick to him. "You lost some folks that first night?"

"Yes, six people were killed." Alison moved past the man, to stand beside him. "Four more were injured. They disappeared the next day."

"Alison," the man's voice held a warning and she looked at him impatiently.

"Drew, what does it matter if they know?" she said sharply, turning back to Maurice. "Those four were bitten."

Maurice nodded slowly. "And they're not dead, but they will have to be killed."

"You're joking," Drew said, his face drawing into a scowl. "They were good men –"

Rona shrugged. "And now they're werewolves."

Drew flashed a derisory look at her. "Werewolves."

"We've got another three weeks to get out of here before they come again –"

Alison shook her head. "No, they're not just attacking on the full moon anymore," she said, looking at the church doors. "They did that last night. They've been coming for over a week now."

Well, that changed things, Maurice thought darkly. "This your only shelter?"

Drew nodded reluctantly. "There's a concrete building," he said, pointing out of the square along the street. "That's still intact but it's too big for us to defend."

"Yeah, well, we've ninety people here with us, and we'll need more space," he said tersely, looking up at the other man. "You can stick with us, or stay here, but if they're coming every night, then everyone'll be safer if we're all together."

"He's right," Alison murmured to Drew, looking at the guns the hunters carried.

"How's it possible?" Drew asked, staring at the man in front of him. "Werewolves."

"You've seen them." It wasn't a question and Drew nodded unwillingly.

"Just takes a bite," Rona said quietly. "But they've been around the whole time, just not in numbers like this, and usually they hunt on their own, solitary."

"But not now?" Alison looked at her.

"Apparently not," Maurice answered, turning around and lifting his arm in a wide swing. Beyond the screening forest, the vehicles drove slowly into the square.

Lightning Oak Keep, Kansas

"Bobby," Doug said, looking up from the radio as Bobby walked past. "Got something – Maurice."

Bobby looked down at the radio and picked up the mike. "Maurice? Where the hell are you?"

"Blue Earth," the hunter's voice came back loud and reasonably clear, a brief crackle of static over it. "Need you to let everyone know about the werewolves."

Bobby closed his eyes. "What about the werewolves?"

"Not hunting on the full moon anymore, for starters," Maurice said shortly. "And they're hunting in packs."

"You know, I've had just about as much good news as I can stand," Bobby said, staring at the radio.

"Yeah, I hear you."

"You found anyone?"

"Yeah, we'll try and take down this pack tonight, get on the road tomorrow. We'll bring about a hundred and fifty back, if we don't find any more."

And if you don't lose any of them, Bobby thought. "You need some backup?"

"Not for this," Maurice said. "I'll let you know tomorrow."

"Roger, out."

"Out."

He handed the mike back to Doug and turned around, heading for the offices behind the store-rooms. Ellen needed to know about this and he'd head over and see Dean straight after.

Chamberlain, South Dakota

Mist obscured the river from the western bank, swirling in the fickle breeze, thickening and thinning as the dawn light played with shadows and shapes that appeared and disappeared.

Rufus stared at the pylons of the bridge morosely. They would be exposed along the road the whole way across. And he didn't like the stillness of the woods. A lot of wildlife had returned in the last six months and he should've been able to hear some of it. But the bank was silent, and the river, and as far as he could tell the opposite side, where the remains of the town were invisible beyond the mist, as well.

Beside him, Jack was crouched silently. Further along the bank, Christine, Elias, Herb and Winifred were waiting for him to make up his mind.

He lifted his arm and dropped it, rising from the crouch and feeling like he'd just made a mistake. How big that mistake would turn out to be remained to be seen, he thought sourly.

Herb and Winifred remained with the civilians, packed in a tight bunch in the vehicles they'd been able to salvage, within the treeline. Jack, Christine and Elias followed Rufus along the bank and onto the gravelled approach to the bridge, moving silently and in single file across the open spans. The river was wide next to the town, the span of the bridge and the partially banked interstate beside it almost a mile in length, and aside from the almost inaudible chuckle of the water around the concrete and steel pylons, they walked through a wall of fog and silence, water condensing on their hair and clothes and weapons, dripping slowly.

Swearing inwardly, Rufus saw the mists thickening on the town side as they approached. He'd been reading nothing but vampire lore since he'd gotten back from Amarillo, and in the oldest writings, there'd been a series of accounts from some dark age hunters about the ability of the old vampires to create illusion, to thicken mist and separate travellers. He glanced back and made a sharp gesture, the hunters closing up closer behind him as they walked past the first of the buildings patchily visible from the road.

Jack looked at it, lifting a brow. Rufus shook his head. Even from here, the torn out siding was visible, showing sharp-edged patches of darkness against the pale steel sheets. Something had been through here. They didn't really want to find out what.

His foreboding increased as he saw the boneyard to the right. Most of it was obscured by the low, ground-clinging fog, but ghouls invariably started out with the dead and worked their up to living flesh. It didn't look like a big one, or an old one, and that was something.

High school or hospital, he wondered, standing at the crossroads. Both were big enough to take a few survivors, built of brick and likely to have remained mostly intact and he could just make out their shapes through the unnatural gloom. The high school was closer; the hospital divided up into a number of smaller buildings.

A scream, muffled and distorted by the mist, was shocking in its raw suddenness, and the hunters froze, eyes flicking from side to side in an effort to pinpoint the location. The automatic gunfire that followed was not ambiguous, a fusillade from the left.

"High school!" Rufus hissed, swinging an arm wide and over. They crossed the road and the dried grass of the front gardens and lawns, moving at a fast run. None of them saw the figures as they emerged from the shadows around the square front of the building, Christine going down first, her gun flying over the grass as the pale-skinned creature sank its teeth into the back of her shoulder.

Elias swung his long-bladed machete and the head flew off to bounce against the school's steps. The concerted whisper of steel drawn from leather was unheard over the firing from the side of the building, Jack and Elias standing back to back over the trainee as Rufus ran for the doors, swinging around at the last minute to duck and swing, barely catching a glimpse of vivid blue eyes and long teeth before the head was gone into the mist. He thumped on the door with one fist, staring over his shoulder at the thick, nacreous fog as a stray beam of sunlight lit it up.

"Get her up here," he called down to them and Elias nodded, watching their backs as Jack picked up Christine and ran for the doors.

"More of them, six o'clock," Elias said, panting as he backed up the steps.

"How many?"

"Four."

"Jack, raise hell on this door," Rufus said, moving out and away from the trainees to stand next to the auburn-haired hunter. "I just got done with goddamned vampires."

"Must like you," Elias said, quarter-turning as the group in front of them spread out.

"Yeah, just my luck."

There was a drawn-out screech from behind them as the door opened, and Rufus saw Jack disappear inside with Christine from the corner of his eye as he watched the vamps slow down.

"What the hell took you two so long?"

The voice was familiar. Risking a fast glance over his shoulder, Rufus saw Nathaniel Winslow behind him. He hadn't seen the hunter in more than eight years.

"You know, two-way radios are called that for a reason, you sonofabitch," he said shortly. "Could've warned us you had company."

"Could've if the vamps hadn't figured out about the two-way part," Nate agreed readily. "Had some kind of jammer going for the last week, and more and more of them just keep showing up."

Elias frowned. "They're monsters, Nate, not Radio Shack geeks."

"Well, someone's teaching them something," Nate said, moving out between them, the blade in his hand glinting softly in the dim light.

The vampires stopped, staring at the three men for a moment then turned and vanished into the mist.

"Odds not so favourable?" Elias wondered aloud.

"Better hope that's the case," Rufus growled, gesturing to the inside of the building. "We've got a vulnerable lot of people sitting on the other side of the river, so let's hear it fast," he added to Nate as the door was closed and locked and chained up behind them.

"Heard some chatter right at the edge of the signal about four weeks ago," Nate said, striding down the linoleum-covered hallway toward the cafeteria. "We started south, thinking the farmland would be better down that way, and got stuck here when something – probably the fangs – knifed every tyre on the vehicles."

"Toby with you?" Elias asked.

"Yep, and a bunch of civilians who figure themselves vampire hunters," Nate said, the smile in his voice not making it to his face.

Rufus looked at him. The man's tall frame was thin, dark brown hair greying now along the hairline, a lot more lines etched into the weather-roughened skin. "How many you got here?"

"Just over a hundred, mostly women and kids," he said. "They came from Boulder, said that they were freed when the city was attacked, but they're not branded."

"There were groups of people who were working for the demons of their own free will," Rufus told him acerbically. "Did they say what happened to the rest of them?"

Nate shook his head. "The lot of them were shell-shocked when we found them."

In the cafeteria, groups of people were huddled on the floor. By the exterior windows, Rufus saw Toby Fulham, the young hunter holding a carbine, ignoring the general cold in a khaki singlet that showed a heavily muscled and broad-shouldered frame. The barrel of the gun lifted slightly in acknowledgement but his eyes didn't leave the window.

There were a few men scattered through the groups, Rufus noted curiously. More kids than anything else. The fearless vampire slayers were standing by the kitchen doors, six of them holding their long chef's knives and cleavers nervously by their sides, none over twenty-five by the looks of it.

"What do you know about these vamps?" Rufus turned to Nate.

"When they ran us in here the first morning – they used the mist from the low ground. The soil's saturated everywhere, every time we get a cold night and some sun in the morning, it rises," he said, dark eyes shifting restlessly around the room. "I thought there were about six or seven of them then. We lost about ten people that night, before we found the school. The next attack there were more."

"So they didn't drain them, they turned them," Elias said.

Nate nodded. "We were better prepared the next time, and there's about ten of them left. Too many for just me and Tobe, and we could hear you guys on the CB, heading this way. Just hoped you'd find us."

Elias lifted a brow at him. "Some hope."

"Not much choice," Nate said, gesturing around the room. "Most of these people can't run, not enough food in the last few weeks."

"Where are your vehicles?"

"Down by that torn-up shed near the bridge."

"You got enough to get all of these folks out?"

"If we can find tyres or get enough time to mend the ones we got, yeah," Nate said with a one-shouldered shrug. "Haven't had any luck so far."

"We'll have to take out the vamps," Elias said, looking at Rufus. "Can't do a running fight with these people, and we'll only lead them back to our own if we try and make a break for it." He looked at Nate. "Any idea on where they're nesting?"

"The boneyard down the road, I think." Nate scratched his eyebrow tiredly. "I thought it was just one of those modern plot ones, you know, no bodies, just crematorium pots, but turns out there's a deep underground vault in the middle. Fucked if I know what happens when the river floods."

Rufus looked away, thinking about that. "Flooding the river might be just what we need to do," he said slowly.

Litteris Hominae, Kansas

The office throbbed and bulged, in and out in time with his pulse. Chuck looked around the room uneasily, seeing the colours smear one into the other, the small desk lamp brightening in his eyes until he had to close them, lifting his arm over his face to block it out.

He hadn't had a headache like this since … the memory came back and he started violently, shoving the chair away from the desk, staggering up from it and feeling his way around the end of the desk.

"Chuck? You okay, man?" Mitch's voice sounded a long way away and Chuck nodded, teeth clenching together as the movement exacerbated the pain behind his eyes.

"Need to lie down," he whispered, feeling his way to the long couch that sat in front of the hearth. The fire was lit, he could see the dancing flames through his closed lids. Too bright as well but he was going throw up if he didn't get horizontal in the next few seconds.

"Chuck?" Mitch watched him pitch headfirst onto the couch, shivering as he rolled onto his side, despite the warmth of the fire. He hurried to the end, looking down at Chuck's paper-white face, hands drawn into white-knuckled fists. Chuck did not look okay. Chuck looked a long, long way from anything like okay.

"I'll get Merrin," he said aloud, making the decision and turning for the door. "I'll be right back."

Chuck didn't hear him, lost in the vortex of pain and image and sound that rocketed through his head as the conduit, almost forgotten but still there, opened up. His eyes rolled up into his skull as the vision overtook him and carried him away.

Lake West, Tawas Lake, Michigan

"Whaddaya mean you can't go?" Dean stared in frustration at Jo. "You and Maurice and Ty are the only ones who know the place!"

"Which word is giving you trouble, Winchester?" she asked him coolly. "I can't go. Not now."

"Why?"

Giving a long, dramatic sigh, she looked at Ty. Her partner shrugged slightly, smiling.

"Because I'm pregnant," she said, looking back at Dean. "And I'm not risking the baby."

Dean looked at her for a moment, then shifted his gaze to Ty. The younger hunter spread out his hands in a gesture of helplessness.

"Oh."

"And Ty's not going anywhere, not for the next nine months," she added, walking to stand beside him. "What about Maurice?"

"Maurice is somewhere up north, looking for survivors," Dean scowled at the floor. "No idea when he'll be back."

"We left the place intact," Ty said pacifically. "Even the plagues won't have done much to the ordnance there. It's not hard to find."

He'd already been over those arguments, Dean thought sourly. He'd wanted someone who'd been there, who could clue him into the layout and the possible booby-traps that Lucifer's demons might've left, if they'd thought the hunters would return for another load.

"Alright, forget it," he said, letting out his breath in an exhale as loud and gusty as Jo's had been. "Boze said you had twenty trainees here? How are they shaping up?"

"Good," Jo said, relieved that the conversation had been dropped. She'd found out the week before and was still going through the ups and downs of what she thought of it, her feelings – hormone-enhanced Bernice had assured her – swinging wildly between a deep, fierce desire to protect her child at all costs, and uncertainty that she was ready for this leap into an adulthood she'd been fighting her mother to establish for the past five years. "They've been doing a lot of the scouting, up north and into the new forests over the last few months, with Ty and Tim and Vince, when he's here, and they're getting there."

"Anything in the forests?"

"Not that anyone's seen so far," she said, frowning. "Why?"

"Not just the good mother who's wandering around," Dean gestured vaguely at her abdomen. "Michigan was always a favourite for wraiths and ghouls, around the lakes."

"Not many bodies or fresh meat for either now. We've got the new protocols in place," Ty said slowly. "Field work finishes an hour before sundown. Everyone's in and checked twice, once through the gate, once into the hall."

"Planting done?"

"Yeah, Dave was insistent on the winter wheat and rye," Jo said dryly. "It's done."

"Good," Dean said distractedly. He'd wanted to head straight for McAlester with Jo and Ty but he'd have to get back to Kansas now, figure out someone else to take. Sam would be agitating to go, he knew. He wasn't sure about that. His little brother had been improving slowly, but he could still see the doubts at the back of his eyes, the fear that he hadn't dealt with. And he needed Sam to keep an eye on things in Lebanon anyway, he told himself. Needed someone who had the same tactical upbringing to watch for the patterns that would show themselves in the event of any kind of planned attack.

"Tell Boze I'm heading back to Kansas," he said to Jo. "I'll check in with him when I get there."

She nodded and stepped closer to Ty as he turned around and walked out of the office. Nothing had changed for Dean, really, she thought a little sadly. He had backup and friends and the loyalty of the people who followed him, who'd follow him anywhere, but the responsibility that had marked him out as different from other guys from the moment she'd first seen him was still there, just as heavy, just as unrelenting.

"He needs someone to help out with running this stuff," Ty remarked, in sync with her thoughts.

"He'd never let anyone do that," she said, not sure how she knew that, just certain of it in her heart.

I-70 W, Missouri

The rumble of the engine, the stereo playing over that, the road, cracked and humped, but open, filling the windshield ahead of him … Dean glanced to the side. If Sam'd been hunched up in the passenger seat, he could've convinced himself that the last three years had just been a dream. Of course, the growth to either side of the road and the lack of houses or cars or people didn't really support the illusion.

The other thought, the one that lurked in the background most of the time, still nagged at him at times like this. Did he want to go back? People wouldn't have died. Or been possessed in such quantities, tortured, their lives torn to shreds, but did he want to give up what had come from that and pretend it didn't matter?

The hits kept on coming. He had the feeling that nothing, no realignment of the threads of destiny or whatever it was Cas kept telling him about, would ever change that. There was a struggle between the forces of light and darkness going on and neither side would stop until they got what they wanted, and the fallout would be significant as it always was. He had no idea why he and Sam seemed to be at the centre of it. Cas and Jerome could talk about angel genetics and the bloodlines but it seemed to him that there was a lot more going on behind the curtains that had nothing to do with that, that had plotted and planned and schemed to use their family for other reasons, more complex ones, insidious ones. He couldn't see the patterns, the shape of them yet, but he could feel them, that occasional sense of being watched, being judged, by something that never slept in the black stillness of the deepest watches of the night.

He had people to put his back against now. People he could trust. People he cared about. In one way, that was something he would never willingly give up. In another, it brought home to him that if he had those things, there must be a reason for it. And behind that was the sure knowledge that when he cared about people, cared about someone, they either left, or they died. He couldn't think of a single reason why that would change now.

Everyone here, and in Michigan, is here and alive because of you, because of what you did. Alex had told him that, a couple of weeks ago, during a meandering conversation about the possibilities of destiny and the way things had worked out. The weight of that responsibility, to these people, to the world, sat no more lightly on him now than it had three years ago, or six or ten.

I want to stop losing people we love. I want you to go to school, I want Dean to have a home. I want ... I want Mary alive. It's just ... I just want this to be over. The motel in Salvation and the utter hopelessness in his father's voice. The knowledge that he needed to be stronger, to help his father rid the world of the evil that invaded their lives. The fear that he wasn't going to be strong enough. Had he known then that it would never be over? That something would always crawl out of the darkness to threaten whatever it was he had and force him onto the battlefield again?

Those with the ability to do the job have the responsibility to see that it gets done. Another touchstone of his life. One he'd believed in for a long time, still did, although he wished that things were different, could be different.

Running the harvesters, hunting for game in the newly grown forests, talking late into the night with Jackson or Bobby or Rufus or Maurice, no shop talk, just conversation about life. Going through the store rooms with Alex, or the ordnance supplies with Franklin, the day-to-day jobs that were all a part and parcel of this life, this new life with its decisions and friends and experiences. It was changing him, he knew. He didn't know how exactly, if it made it easier or harder, but it was changing him from the man he'd been after his father's death, after being raised by an angel, to someone else.

He leaned back against the seat, hands light on the wheel. The temptation was strong to put the tangled mess of his thoughts out of his head, turn up the music and just be – for a while at least. The only trouble was it didn't help.

They'd lost contact with Rufus and Maurice four days ago. That could be for a number of reasons, all of them non-threatening and valid. Bobby'd said that Maurice was looking at a pack of werewolves. That was … unsettling. Because of the bite, they were hard enough to kill anyway; attacking in numbers wasn't going to make it any easier. He thought of the pack that they'd seen in Porter's Mill, drawn there by the Whore. Rufus'd had bullets made up for the M60 he lugged around, and Paul said that a couple of sprays with that had pretty much done the job from behind the barricades. It was something he'd have to talk to Franklin about. Silver was a bitch to make bullets with, the melting point so high that it needed the most skilled people to work with it. He couldn't remember now if Franklin had said anything about useful apprentices.

Jo's condition was a pointed reminder that both the human population and the monster populations were going to be booming in a few short months. There'd been no further contact with the Watchers, or with Peter or any word on how the European hunters were doing. Michel hadn't heard anything for the last two weeks. Again, it didn't mean that something had gone wrong, only that communications were difficult, once line of sight had been passed. He wondered vaguely if they were any techs out there who could get the landlines working again. Even if they had to go back to operators, it'd be a help between Kansas and Michigan. Alex would know, he thought. He'd ask her as soon as he got in.

And that was another thing, another change, another … point of vulnerability that he couldn't face. She didn't say – stay or go. She didn't ask for anything from him. He remembered a lot of times when he'd stayed away from the rooms he'd shared with Lisa because he couldn't face talking or doing anything else, too tired, too filled with the heavy responsibilities that lay over him like a shroud. But that hadn't happened in the last six months. It might've been too early to tell, he thought, frowning at the road that uncurled in front of him. He didn't think so. He was never too tired. Never that tired that he didn't want her, want to be with her, to watch her, listen to her. And she was one of the very few he could talk to without any kind of hesitation, knowing she'd listen, and hear the words, and what lay beneath them, and what lay beneath that as well, knowing that she wouldn't lie, wouldn't sugar-coat an unpalatable truth, wouldn't pretend that everything would work out fine when it plainly wouldn't.

He'd summoned Death. He'd actually threatened that entity to bring her back. But he hadn't said anything about it since then, and she hadn't either. He didn't know what that meant, or why he couldn't get it out of his head, as if there was something there he should've known, should've seen but hadn't. He spent his days careful not to think about her and he didn't know why.

West Keep, Lebanon

The gates stood open, the guards to either side stepping in as the black car pulled up in front of them. Salt. Iron. Silver. Holy water. They nodded, two of Franklin's, Dean thought, and stepped back and he drove through the town which had become a castle, the car growling deeply in first as he avoided the people walking around him and zig-zagged his way to the western bailey and the deep three-sided shelters that lined the northern wall. Turning off the engine, he sat for a moment in the near-silence, listening to the hot metal tick, feeling a measure of relief that he was back. Home.

Alex looked around as he walked into the office, brows rising. "Thought you'd be halfway to Oklahoma by now?"

"Change of plan," he said shortly. "Did you know that Jo was pregnant?"

"No," Alex said, glancing down at the desk top. "But it's not exactly surprising, is it?"

"Surprised me," he said, shaking his head. "Who's around that I can take?"

"Uh, Vince got back yesterday, he's training the juniors this week," she told him. "Sam's free –"

"No, not Sam," he interrupted. "What about the trainees?"

"Joseph, Zoe, Billy and Perry are all on standard rotation this week." She looked down the list of hunters and trainees in Lebanon. "Maggie got back from the recce run to Washington yesterday; she's been up at the library. Bobby's here, by the way, looking for you. I told him you'd back in a few days." Her nose wrinkled up. "He's probably down with Franklin."

"Ellen here with him?"

She shook her head. "No, she's at Lightning Ridge. They moved over while we were in Michigan."

"Can you get Maggie and Billy and Zoe? They'll do," he said abruptly. "Tell them we'll leave in the morning. Did Bobby say what he wanted to talk about?"

"Chuck," she said, closing the files on the desk and following him to the door.

"What about Chuck?"

"I don't know, he didn't go into details."

"Why not?" he asked, turning at the doorway and stopping to look down at her.

She shrugged and walked past him. "I don't know, Dean. He just wanted to talk to you and then he left."

He walked slowly down the hall after her, brows drawn together, turning to go out to the courtyard as she kept going. Alex was kept in the loop about everything, why would Bobby not tell her this?

Franklin had half the bottom of the Eastern Keep and he walked fast down through the narrow tunnel that divided the two sections. There were two trucks they could take in the morning, both ex-Army. Maggie would be a learning curve for the trainees, he thought suddenly, a dry grin curving up one side of his mouth.

The workshop door was open and he could hear the low murmur of voices under an intermittent banging inside, his eyes narrowing as they adjusted to the gloom after the sunshine outside.

"Bobby?"

"Dean, Alex said you'd gone already," Bobby said, turning around and pushing his cap back a little.

"Had to come back," Dean said shortly. "What about Chuck?"

"He's had a vision, he said," Bobby told him, glancing at Franklin who'd put down his tools and was listening.

"A vision – you mean a prophet-type vision?" Dean looked at him questioningly. "About what?"

"Ah," Bobby said slowly, nodding toward the door. "It was a bit confusing, might be better if you talked to him yourself." He looked over his shoulder at Franklin. "Can we do the quantities?"

Franklin nodded. "You find me the silver, I'll make up as much as you need. We've got the blast furnace and taps and dies and moulds for everything now, just need the size and the metal and you're good."

"Good to hear, guess that the silverware will've survived everything that's happened, I'll get some teams out."

"For the werewolf packs?" Dean asked as Bobby crowded him out the door.

Bobby nodded. "Rufus made up a case of silver ammo for his, thought we'd better get on and do the same for the bigger guns, especially the keep defences."

"Okay," Dean agreed readily. "Now, what didn't you want to tell me in front of Franklin?"

"The vision was about you and Sam and something to do with Hell," Bobby said quietly, walking with him down to the curtain wall gate tunnel. "I figured it was best if you got the info first, before the whole damned Keep knew about it."

"Why didn't you tell Alex?"

Bobby looked down at the ground uncomfortably. "Didn't know if you wanted her to know the details or not."

Dean stopped walking, turning to look at him. "Why?"

"You didn't want her to know about the vampire –"

"That was –" he cut himself off, looking away in frustration. "That was different. And I was wrong about that," he added, looking back at Bobby. "She knows everything I know. That's the way it is."

"Sure," Bobby said, lifting a shoulder. "You coming or not?"

"I'll get the car and follow you," Dean said, thinking about getting back. "Sam know about this?"

Bobby nodded. "Chuck passed out yesterday morning. Woke up sometime after midnight, Sam was the first one he told."

"Alright, I'll see you there."

He turned away, walking back up to West Keep. He should've asked Bobby if it had been his decision to keep the details from Alex. It sounded more like a call Ellen or Sam might've made. Things were hard enough without keeping this kind of information from her, he thought exasperatedly.

He saw Alex coming down the steps of the Keep and lengthened his stride as he went to meet her.

"You got a few minutes?" he asked, turning with a short gesture toward the bailey.

"Maggie's still at the library, the trainees'll be ready to go at dawn," she told him as she hurried to keep up with his longer stride. "You're still going then, right?"

"Yeah," he said, walking into the shed and opening the car door for her. "Listen, I don't know why Bobby didn't tell you about Chuck –"

Sliding into the passenger seat, Alex shook her head, waiting for him to open his door. "It doesn't matter, there's probably a lot I don't need to –"

He got in, fingers resting on the keys as he looked at her. "No, you need to know everything, everything I do," he told her firmly, turning the key. For a moment the car's roar drowned out any possible conversation in the confines of the shed, then he reversed out, turning to head for the gates.

She looked out the passenger window without responding, and he flicked a glance at her.

"This started after the vampire thing, right?"

"Around then, yeah," she said.

"Why didn't you tell me?" He looked at the road, dodging people as they stepped out in front of him. "What else have you been kept out of?"

She looked at him then, smiling slightly. "I don't know. It's not that a big a deal, there's a lot of stuff that I just thought was hunter business, you know," she said lightly. "And I didn't tell you because I thought you were the one who'd given the instructions."

"And that didn't worry you?" he asked, an edge of disbelief sharpening his voice. "Why didn't you ask me? Check with me, at least?"

"Ask what?" She shrugged. "Ask you about information I didn't know I wasn't getting? I only found out about it because Merrin came in to find out why Kim wanted to do some cultures on werewolf tissue and whether we had colloidal silver in stock." She turned in the seat to look at him. "I just figured there was a lot of stuff you didn't think I needed to know."

He scowled at a group standing in the middle of the road, watching them scurry to one side as the engine revved slightly, unsure if they were still talking about the Keep business or if the conversation had slid sideways to more personal ground.

"Well, there isn't," he said, approaching the gates. The guards looked surprised to seem him heading out again but stepped clear quickly. "Anything I don't think you need to know, I mean."

Alex looked at his profile as they drove through the gates and he turned left. She wondered if he meant that.

St Peter's Basilica, Vatican City

The vaults had been carved from the soft rock, centuries ago, the steps leading down worn deep in the centres from the passage of many feet. Isabeau walked slightly in front and to one side of Elena, holding the burning torch high above her head as they advanced slowly. They could hear the slurring of feet on the stone in the tunnels below them, smell the faint reek of rotten flowers and rotting meat on the airs that kept the catacombs ventilated. They were here, somewhere, Elena thought coldly, and it would be too easy to become trapped down here, picked off at the monsters' leisure.

"It's widening ahead," Isabeau breathed, her voice transmitted to the earpieces of the wireless headsets.

"Francois, break left and cover; Marc to the right," Elena ordered, equally softly.

There was no chance of being able to take them by surprise or slip past. She tightened her grip on the sabre she carried, the slightly curving blade razor-sharp and lifted, ready for the attack.

Isabeau swung the torch and threw it into the centre of the chamber, following it fast. She was hit from the side, a fragmented glimpse of pale skin, dark hair and eyes and long, white teeth, glistening in the firelight then the vampire was dragged from her, a high-pitched, wavering moan echoing from the stone walls. Rolling to her knees, she stared in disbelief at the grey-skinned, red-eyed creature wrestling with the vampire two feet to her left.

The torch-light flickered violently around the stone, casting shifting shadows over the mass of combatants, staggering and howling and moaning and shrieking in the small space, ragged clothing whipping around over slipping skin, blood-darkened fangs and rotted teeth savagely clamping onto pouched, mottled skin and smooth, hard skin alike.

"Fils de putain!" Francois swung his machete and a head went flying into the wall, its sagging skin hiding the eyes and mouth as it hit with a wet crack. "Casse-toi, salop!"

Elena spun around, the sabre slicing through the hand that had gripped her shoulder, embedding itself in the chest as she lifted a foot and shoved the ghoul off her blade and watching dazedly as it stumbled back into a vampire, turning on it with a snarl.

"Succhiasangue filth! La nostra preda! Il nostro!"

The vampire grinned and opened its mouth, tearing a mouthful from the ghoul's face and spitting it on the floor.

"Comedenti mortuorum, praeda omnis nostra est," it crooned, the crack of the ghoul's neck barely heard under the noise of the melee.

"ELENA!"

She turned around at the shout, familiar but a voice she had not expected to hear again.

"Out! Now!" Peter crouched by the tunnel entrance on the far side of the chamber, a long cylinder held in his hands, goggles covering half his face.

"Tout le monde dehors!" she called, swinging the sabre to cut her way across to the hunter. "Vite! Vite!"

Peter slammed the end of the flare on the floor and threw it across the chamber, the argentine light growing brighter and brighter as it hit the floor, hissing and smoking and bleeding colour and shadow from the stone, burning the vampires and blinding the ghouls.

Ducking his head, Francois grabbed Isabeau, thrusting her ahead of him as he saw Marc and Jean stumbling away from the centre of the chamber, eyes screwed shut and hands outstretched to find the walls. The vampires were doubled-over, falling to the floor and kneeling, arms over their faces as they crawled away from the flare. Peter, goggles darkened to black, reached forward and pulled Jean through the entrance, and set off the second flare, leaving it at the mouth of the tunnel. They would burn for ten minutes or more, emitting ultraviolet strong enough to give the vampires a good case of sunburn, he thought. He dragged the goggles up, settling them over his forehead and gestured down the tunnel.

"Keep going, this way takes us to the library," he snapped at Elena. "They are not the only things to haunt the catacombs now."

Chamberlain, South Dakota

The sun had burned off most of the mist in the town and from the woods on the other side of the river. Rufus looked down the long levee, gaze sharpening on the shaped charges that were visible only as small heaps of earth along and over the hump. There had been a couple of vamps still lurking in the shadows of the building as they'd come out, their bodies lying headless now, but it looked like the rest had retreated until nightfall.

He glanced back toward the bridge and bank where the interstate crossed the river. Elias was almost invisible in the patch of dead reeds and shrubs close to the water's edge. The two lines of charges would take down the bridge, Rufus thought, looking back up the bank. And the water would back up and flow in once the levee was blown. The lay of the land worked for them, a long gentle slope to the nearest buildings and the graveyard beyond them.

"Blow it," he said softly, lifting and dropping his arm.

Daisy-chained together the explosives went off in a staccato burst along the bridge, and in a deeper cannonade across the levee. He watched Elias scramble back from the river's edge, turning and running up the slope as the bridge supports fell into the water, sending a monstrous backwash up river, and the stable bank of the levee was shattered. The water rushed upriver … and down, following the path of least resistance and seeping slowly at first, then faster down the new channel toward the town.

Getting to his feet, Rufus started walking along the high ground toward the buildings, hearing a rustle in the grasses behind him as Jack climbed the bank and followed him. The explosions should've woken the vamps, but it wasn't a sure thing. Christine and Elias would be at the cemetery by now and the sunlight, bright and clear for once, would work in their favour. They could start the civilians across the second, smaller bridge as soon as the butcher work was finished.

"Not bad for an old man, eh?" Rufus said quietly to Jack.

"No, you got your moments, man," Jack agreed with a smile, pulling his machete out of its sheath. "Not many, but you've definitely got 'em."

"Ingrate."

Litteris Hominae, Kansas

Dean saw the look Ellen flashed at Sam as he came into the library, Alex behind him. He'd talk to them later, he decided, looking at Chuck sitting at the long table, head propped up with one hand. Chuck looked like he had in '09, crap from head to foot.

"Visions again?" he asked him, sitting down in the chair to his right.

"Yeah," Chuck said softly, the volume indicative of how his head was feeling, Dean thought.

"Like the last time?"

"Pretty much," the writer admitted. "Like watching it. I got it all down."

He pushed a thick sheaf of paper across the desk toward Dean and closed his eyes. Dean picked it up, looking up at his brother.

"You read this?"

Sam nodded. "Still centred around us."

Dean picked up the first page and started to read, passing each page to Alex as he worked his way through the stack. The room was silent as he read, and he forced himself to concentrate on the pages, instead of looking at the faces that he could feel staring at him.

"Not your usual tight prose, Chuck," he said, passing the last page to Alex and looking at the writer.

"Bite me," Chuck said tiredly.

Dean gave him a lopsided grin, and turned to look at Bobby. "Seems like the Grigori are going to be a problem sooner than we thought."

Bobby nodded. "Has to be them. No idea how they met with that Crowley fella, though."

Jerome glanced at Katherine, who shrugged and looked away. "The gates to Hell can be opened by a blood key."

"First I heard of it," Bobby said, turning to look at him.

"It was a well-guarded secret," Katherine said dryly. "Black magic, forbidden knowledge."

"It isn't the only way to get into Hell, either," Davis said heavily. "At least according to legend."

Sam's brow creased up tightly. "What?"

"The psychopomps can lead a mortal into the other planes," the professor said, lifting one shoulder in a shrug. "Those who guide the dead to their next destination."

"I never found any –" Sam started to say hotly, shooting an accusing glance at Bobby.

"Forget it," Dean cut him off. "Not the real problem here."

"The Grigori – or the nephilim – are not affected by the warding we have around the settlements, are they?" Alex looked at him.

He shook his head. "No, we don't have angel proofing, and I have no clue what the hell to use for half-breed proofing." Turning his head to look at Chuck, he asked, "What's the time frame on this, Chuck?"

"After winter," Chuck said, gesturing vaguely at the pages. "The passes through the Rockies are going to be closed before Christmas, I think. I could see them, snowed-in somewhere, Idaho, I think."

"So they can't zap around, like the angels?"

"No, they have to get around the same way we do."

"That helps," Sam said. "Gives us time."

Alex looked down at the slim sheaf of papers she held. It read like a story, a chilling one at that. Dean and Sam were on the road somewhere, their location unspecified, and the fallen angels, along with at least some of their children and a demon army led by a mysterious man with enormous power, marched across Nebraska toward Kansas. Chuck had been generous with the details, too generous, she thought with a shiver. The army were possessed humans, gathered along the way between Washington state and Wyoming. They didn't have the time to get there and pull the people out before winter – an unusually severe winter, according to the writer – blocked the roads and made travel near impossible.

"This isn't going to go down like this anyway," Dean said and Alex looked up to find his gaze on her. "There's no way I'm anywhere but here knowing this is going to happen."

Sam glanced at Chuck. "That usually doesn't work out –"

"Yeah, well, this time it is," Dean cut him off. "There's nothing that's gonna change it." He stood up, and looked from Sam to Bobby. "Change of plans for McAlester too."

"What?"

"We need some of their specialised stuff, not just the weapons and ammo," Dean said. "Franklin'll know if they have it there."

"Like what?" Bobby asked quizzically.

"Those all-terrain vehicles they use in the artic stations, for one," he said, with a shrug. "If we can move around when everyone else is stuck, it'll make a difference."

Ellen looked at him, seeing the decision already made. He would take the fight away from the population, if he could. She turned to look at Jerome. "We've got information here, and in the other chapters, Jerome. Is it likely we can find protection against the fallen and the half-breeds here?"

"Possible. Yes. Likely? I don't know," he said. "The order tracked the Grigori up until World War II successfully. From there, however, they seemed to have vanished off the face of the earth."

Davis looked at him. "Vanished or split up and started new groups?"

"I don't know," Jerome said, brows drawing together. "Why?"

"Because Hitler was obsessed with the occult for a period of time between '38 and '44," he said slowly. "Perhaps the reason was that they offered him their services?"

"The Thule society?"

"It's a possibility, isn't it?"

"The Thule society?" Sam looked at Davis. "What were they?"

"Aaron, Marla," Jerome turned in his chair to look at the two initiates. "Pull every file and book relating to the Thules – they should be on Level Three."

Nodding, the two left the library. Jerome turned back to see Bobby, Ellen, Sam, Dean and Alex looking at him expectantly.

"The Thules were a group who formed in 1911, ostensibly as occultists who were researching the origins of the Aryan race. They had a lot of theories and myths and virtually no facts. In 1919 they originated the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei – the German Worker's Party –"

"By the end of 1920, that party had become the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, the National Socialist German Worker's Party," Katherine interjected acerbically. "More commonly known as the Nazi Party."

"They became Nazis?" Dean looked at her questioningly.

"Among other things," Jerome cut in. "They were never much interested in the politics, only the power that they could see was coming. Power to further their studies in various aspects of necromancy and black magic without restraint or question."

"An' Hitler gave 'em that power?" Bobby asked dryly.

Jerome glanced at him and nodded. "Along with all the resources they needed."

"Didn't anyone fight them?" Ellen asked.

"Many did," Jerome said. "The order has files on a dozen groups in Europe who fought against them, both openly and through sabotage … the Jews, the Rom, the Magyar … those are the files that Aaron and Marla will bring up, as well as the details on the society itself."

"Alright," Dean said. "And?"

"And after the war, they slipped away like ghosts," Jerome said heavily. "They were never found. Doppelgängers were created, used to fool the authorities into thinking they had captured or killed the most publicly known."

"Doppelgängers?" Sam flicked a look at his brother.

"Creations," Bobby said shortly. "Supposedly from something of the original person, an exact copy could be produced with a certain spell."

"Yes," Katherine agreed. "And programmed to do what the original person wanted it to do."

Dean rubbed a hand over his face. "Alright, so the fallen angels played around with the Nazi party until they lost the war, then made doubles of themselves to take the fall and disappeared?" He looked around the table. "Why are they joining up with the demons and attacking us?"

"Looking for the same thing Hell is, I suppose," Jerome said. "The Word of God."

"Why do they think we have it?"

"I don't know if they think we have the tablets," Jerome said slowly, casting a fleeting glance at Chuck. "But they were angels once, and they probably know that the prophet is here."

"So what?"

"Only the prophet can read the Word," Davis said, smiling a little derisively. "At least, according to the heretical texts on the subject."

"So Chuck's the target?" Dean asked. At the end of the table, Chuck turned white.

"It seems most likely."

Blue Earth, Minnesota

Rona looked around the street as the chilly dawn light spread across the sky. There were a dozen bodies lying there, riddled with bullet holes, the blood drying on bare, blue-tinted skin. The assault rifle in her hands was fully loaded, and she carried it with her finger over the trigger guard, acutely aware that werewolves who didn't need the full moon, might not mind the sun either.

Drew and Alison moved through the dead, nodding as they recognised the survivors who'd been turned when the monsters had first attacked. Maurice watched them, impressed by the control both had over themselves. Drew Ryan had been a Detroit cop, Alison had told him the previous evening before the attack had started. She'd been a high school teacher in the Southside of Chicago. It went a little way to explain their pragmatic approach to problems.

He looked up as Lee and Danielle drove the buses along the road from the square. They'd been lucky. The high school had its own small fleet and all of them had been locked up tight in a steel and brick shed. Four of the people here claimed experience in driving a bus and they followed the trainees to the front of the building, giving the bodies a wide clearance.

"Let's get everyone loaded," he called out to Drew. "We'll be there before nightfall if we get going now."

He hoped that would be the case. They had two hundred and thirteen people now, protected by two hunters, two trainees and a few civilians who could handle themselves. He couldn't risk stop and looking around for more people, not until they got these folks safely to Kansas and within the Keep walls.

"Maurice?"

He turned around, seeing Tilly behind him. "All your people ready, Tilly?"

She nodded, her gaze drawn to the bodies beside the building. "In the books, uh, werewolves only ever hunt on the full moon."

"Yeah," Maurice said, wondering how he was going to explain this. "Normally, that's true. Things have changed a little."

Her voice dropped lower and she leaned closer to him. "There are at least twenty pregnant women in our group, and I think there's probably more."

"What?" he asked, brows rising. "Since when?"

"Four weeks ago, I think, just before the Indian summer ended," she said, looking past him to the people getting onto the buses. "Ray called it moon madness, but I thought it was just people trying to let go of the tension."

He watched the colour rise up her neck and sighed. "We've got doctors, in Lebanon," he said, hoping that would be reassuring. "They'll look after everyone."

"That's not – you know the statistical improbability of a conception rate like that in a group like ours?"

He blinked at her. "No."

"It's astronomical," she told him tersely. "And Alison told me that there are at least ten, probably more, who could well be pregnant in her group as well."

Great, Maurice thought. That ought to give Kim and Merrin something to do come summer.

"I was wondering if the … changes …" She gestured to the bodies. "And these pregnancies might be related?"

Oh, they'll definitely be related, Maurice thought sourly. How, that was anybody's guess, but he had no doubt that they were. "They might be," he admitted.

"Do you think the pregnancies are going to be normal?"

A topic he knew nothing about. "I don't know, Tilly. If the … uh … conception was normal, I can't see why they'd be different. But … um … when we get home, the docs can check everyone out."

"How?"

"We're pretty well equipped, even for the end of the world," he said, hoping it would reassure her.

"I worked in the neo-natal unit of Jefferson in Philly, before," she said. "We were seeing a rise in pre-term and special needs care even then. I'm just worried –"

Maurice nodded. "We don't know what's changed, Tilly. I mean, look around, everything has been growing way out of its normal patterns for months now."

"That's what I mean!" she said to him. "If the trees and the animals are growing like that –"

"We'll be in Lebanon in about eight-nine hours," Maurice cut her off. "I'll take you straight to Dr Sui when we get there, okay?"

She dragged in a deep breath, wrestling with herself for control. "Okay."

He watched walk down to the buses and lifted his gaze to the northern horizon. The last few weeks, the frosts had been hard and bitter. Along the rising ground to the north he could see the clouds building up. It was a little early for a big storm, but they'd be down in Kansas before it could reach them, he thought.

West Keep, Kansas

The small office was warm, the flames licking over the logs in the hearth, and despite its air of organised chaos, somehow soothing. Dean sat in the comfortable armchair, a stack of books piled haphazardly on the edge of the desk beside him, the one in front of him forgotten, his attention on the maple-gold hair on the other side, hiding Alex's face as she made the calculations based on the projections of the numbers of healthy, fertile women in the five fortified settlements and the last figures from Jackson on the harvest.

She lifted her chin from the cup of her hand, pushing back the curls from her face as she focussed on him.

"Well?"

"So far as food is concerned, we'll be fine. Not just for this year, but probably for the foreseeable future, because the land here is good enough to give heavy returns and we have, in real terms, a virtually unlimited supply of it," she said, gesturing at the ledgers to one side. "Accommodation is going to be another matter, especially if Rufus and Maurice have found more people."

"What about moving some people over to Michigan?"

"Same story there, Dean." She exhaled and closed the books. "Barring the usual statistical problems – which I don't think are going to apply, by the way – it looks like we'll double our population by next summer. And that's just on single births. If the fertility effect from this goddess is really powerful, we could be looking at twins or triplets as well as, or instead of single births."

They both turned to look at the narrow windows as the sounds of vehicles penetrated the thick walls.

"Alex, there's – oh, sorry," Maria said, as she pushed open the door and saw them. "Eric sent me to tell you there's a long line of vehicles heading our way from the north."

"How many?" Dean got up and looked at her.

"More than fifty. Adam and Felice are stationed on the outskirts of Hastings, they sent in the report."

"Friendly?"

"Unknown," she said. "But there's about ten school buses coming with them."

"Rufus," Dean said, mouth quirking up to one side as he looked back at Alex.

"We'll come down to the gates, Maria," Alex said. "Thanks."

She followed Dean out and down the hall. "That was pretty quick, wasn't it?"

"Must've found a few," Dean said with a slight shrug. "Hopefully leaving less for whoever's coming."

They walked out of the keep and along the road, joining a stream of people who were also heading to the gates.

"Passed Lightning Oak three minutes ago," Eric called down when he saw Dean.

"It'll take a while to get everyone through the tests," Dean muttered to Alex as he walked up to the gate. "Where do we send them?"

"The East Keep," Alex told him, gesturing to the other closed in court. "Liev finished the floors two weeks ago and they can take two hundred. The rest to Woodland, they're only a quarter capacity."

"What about Michigan?"

"Later, maybe," she said distractedly. "I'd rather get skills and details here and then send them on."

He looked down at her as she seemed to sway in place for a second, her eyes closing. The moment of whatever it was passed and she looked around as if nothing had happened. He wondered if he should ask about it when the first vehicle pulled up in front of the gates and he saw Rufus' wide grin through the grimy windshield.

Sam sat by the fire in the keep hall, looking at the people filling the large space. He turned as his brother came up beside him.

"Another three hundred and sixty, give or take a few," Dean said, dropping into the chair beside Sam and looking over at the small knot of men surrounding Bobby and Ellen. Rufus had brought back six more hunters. Maurice had found a woman who had taught herself and her group how to hunt from Chuck's books, apparently.

"Who're the guys with Bobby?" Sam asked curiously.

"Hunters," Rufus said, walking up behind them.

"Would we know them?" Sam leaned past his brother as Rufus took the chair on the other side of the fire.

"Maybe," he said. "The dark, shifty-looking guy, that's Kelly Kowalski. He came down from Quebec when the virus was released, looking for anyone. Canada got hit pretty hard apparently. He was in O'Neill when we came through Nebraska, running out of ammo and surrounded by skinwalkers," Rufus leaned forward in the chair, looking at the group. "Next to him is Nate Winslow. Knew your dad. He was hunting in Mexico. The guy who looks like he's bench-pressing three hundred is Toby Fulham. Born in Georgia, grew up in Texas."

"What about the girl?" Dean looked at the lean, dark girl standing next to Bobby.

"That's Win, Moses Johnson's little girl," Rufus said. "You might've met him with your Dad at Peggie's, back in the old days?"

"I don't remember him," Sam said, looking at Dean. After a moment, Dean shook his head as well.

"And the other two?" Dean looked at the men on the other side of the woman. One was very tall, lanky, hair thinning back from a high forehead. The other was shorter, broad-shouldered and wiry, the features of the hard face looking like they'd been carved from hardwood by a skilled but time-short sculptor. Thick, auburn hair fell down to his shoulders and a short beard covered his jaw and cheeks.

"The tall one's Herb Tucker," Rufus said. "Worked with Moses and took over looking out for Win when Moses was killed. The redhead is Elias Story."

"Why didn't we find these guys?" Sam looked at Rufus.

"Well, mostly they had their territories and they kept to them," Rufus said, shrugging. "If the roadhouse hadn't been torched after your dad died, you might've seen them there from time to time."

"But you know them, you and Bobby and Ellen," Dean questioned him.

"Yeah, well before the gate in Wyoming opened, and all that crap that followed that, we kept in touch mostly. Afterwards, it got a lot harder, and everyone was that much busier – you two included," Rufus said pragmatically. "By the time Pestilence released the virus; most of the surviving hunters just found someplace to dig in and stayed put until the croats began to move to the coasts."

The fire in the big hearth flared as a downdraft moaned down the chimney. Outside the keep's thick concrete and stone walls, snow began to fall, small, hard, icy pellets at first, pattering against the walls and roofs, rattling on the oilskins of the guards who walked along the battlements.