Chapter 15 When the Pale Moon Dreamed
April, 2013. Boston, Massachusetts
Dimly lit. Dank with the ever-present whiff of the sea and the distant rumble of the waves beating against the cliffs. Low ceilings, the massive hardwood beams strung here and there with chains.
A dungeon.
Chuck looked around nervously. He was in an honest-to-god fucking dungeon.
"Sit down," the demon's voice said from behind him and he dragged his eyes from the stone-lined walls and back to the table under the single, bare lightbulb. "Sorry about the décor."
"I need paper," Chuck said, sitting down in the uncomfortable wooden straight-backed chair and looking at the stone on the table's surface. "I – my process – I'm a writer."
"Of course," Crowley said, his eyes rolling as he gestured sharply to the demon by the door. "I've read your work, some of it, at any rate."
"You have?" Chuck looked up, genuinely surprised.
Crowley heard the faintest trace of pride in the writer's voice and tucked his chin against his chest, eyes closing. "Yes, it was … well, a bit lurid here and there, but overall, very interesting."
"Uh … thanks." Chuck looked down at the table. "I didn't realise at the time that what I was seeing was actually happening, of course."
"No." Crowley took the pile of notebooks from the demon and set them beside the prophet. "We're on something of a time-table here, Chuck. So get to it."
Looking at the stone, Chuck reached for it hesitantly. He didn't know what happened, exactly, when he touched it. He knew he was no longer there. No longer himself. From the reams of paper and the cramping ache in his hand the last time he'd come out of the deep trance, he knew he'd worked non-stop. But it took days for the information that had passed through him to filter coherently into his mind, into his memories, and much of what he wrote under the spell of the stone he didn't remember at all.
The demon watched him pick up the tablet, saw his body contract, fingers gripping the stone tightly and a light flashing deep within it, arcing through the prophet's hand and arm and body. Chuck sat rigidly, eyes wide open and staring and his right hand began to move, filling the page of the notepad under it.
Amazing, Crowley thought. A pipeline, straight to the Word of God. The Machiavellian workings of the mastermind who'd thought it all up never failed to amuse him.
He turned to look at the demon beside the door. "Stay next to him, make sure he keeps going."
The demon nodded and walked to the table as Crowley headed for the staircase, drawing the door of the room closed behind him. The weight of the Colt and the box of bullets were tugging at his suit pocket and he hurried up the stairs and along the wide hall to his study, unlocking the door impatiently and pushing it open.
Moving behind the polished ebony desk that was identical to the less-than-material echo in the plane adjacent to this one, he unlocked and opened the cupboard beneath the return, lifting out the pearwood box and opening it. Replacing the gun and ammunition in the box, he closed the lid and returned it to the cupboard, locking the door.
Eric's rationality had returned with the act of revenge against Winchester, he mused as he poured himself a glass of fine whiskey. He hadn't been sure it would, and he'd been almost positive Dietrich had felt the same, had seen the Grigori's eyes cold and speculative on his brother several times. But it seemed, for now, it was all hunky-dory again and with acquisition of both tablet and prophet, they were well on schedule to gain the knowledge they needed. Not that the question of Winchester had been resolved. Not yet.
The file sat on the desk and he walked slowly back to the leather chair, dropping into it and setting the cut-crystal tumbler on the blotter beside the inch-thick folder. Alicia had been quite thorough, he thought, flipping open the cover. The books had helped enormously, of course, filling in the sort of gaps that no other source could've provided. He wondered briefly if Dean or his brother had read them, had realised just how much of their private lives had been exposed.
Baeder had acted without this knowledge about the man, without knowing how revenge had driven him most of his life. It would be interesting to see if Winchester pursued the Grigori for it now. He had quite a track record for achieving whatever he'd set out to do, the file was filled with accounts of angels and demons defeated and killed outright, archangels thwarted in their plans, escape after escape of the traps that had been set for them. No wonder Raphael had been practically foaming at the mouth to get a chance at him – and still, he'd failed.
The loyalty factor was particularly troublesome. There were, very occasionally, people who inspired that kind of following. But there was no indication that any of the populations in Kansas or Michigan thought that the Winchesters were divinely led, or different in any fundamental way. Rather, the loyalty was drawn by something else, something he had yet to discover. Closing the file, he rested his chin on his hand, thinking about the man who was renowned through all three planes as a spoiler, an uncommon but effective wrench-thrower. What he needed, he decided, was to talk to someone who would know how far it all reached back. Someone who had been there.
Draxler sat in the boy's bedroom, his arms around Jesse as the boy's shoulders shook.
"She just disappeared," Jesse mumbled, his breath coming in small hitches and gasps as his grief rose again. "She was in front of the woman we took, reaching out for her and then she was gone and I couldn't see her or hear her or even feel her anywhere."
The cambion's big hand rubbed the boy's back slowly as he envisioned the situation. It had to be a trap of some kind but he'd only heard of one thing that could trap them, his kind, and it was obvious, not invisible.
"There was no mirror there, large or small?" he asked Jesse gently.
"There wasn't anything there," Jesse said, his cheek resting against the man's chest. "Even after, I couldn't see anything, and I looked, I looked hard!"
"It will be alright, Jesse," Draxler said in a soft voice. "We will find her."
"She isn't …," he stopped, looking up at the man's face. "Do you think she's alive?"
"If you couldn't see a body, then yes, I think so," he said, his thumb wiping the tears from the boy's cheek. "It was a trap, of some kind."
"I can't feel her, Hubert," Jesse said, his voice rising. "I could always feel her, no matter where she was."
"Traps are different, Jesse," the cambion told him. "They hide the essence, the soul."
He lifted the boy easily and drew back the covers of the narrow single bed, setting him down on the pillows. "Go to sleep, it will be morning soon and we will start searching then."
Pulling the covers over the thin shoulders, he wondered how easy that would be. The demon might know of another trap for them, although Crowley had said nothing so far. The Grigori didn't know. He'd questioned them when they'd arrived at the house and they'd shrugged. But if the humans had found such a device, then so could he. He had time.
Litteris Hominae, Kansas
"Sam, look at this," Marla turned to him, handing him a thick sheaf of the notes Chuck had been transcribing. He took it, brow creasing up as he saw a thicker sheet in between the others.
"What is it?" he asked, setting the pile on the table, turning to the anomalous paper. His indrawn breath and glance around the room was automatic, even though he knew his brother wasn't there. Dean had been at the keep for the last week, working with Liev and Ryan on the repairs to the main structures, driving himself physically from dawn to dusk and then well into the night with whatever research anyone could come up with on the gates, the guides and their few scant notes on the first trial and the contract.
The note was in Alex's handwriting, backward slanting, even and neat, affixed to the thin sheet of paper by adhesive, an arrow drawn to the text beside it. It was the thin account of the second trial, he saw, his hand lifting and running through his hair as he read both the account and her opinions of it.
This doesn't give enough detail. But the tablet is not a linear progression of ideas, not a narrative. The prophet was supposed to study it, as the theologists study the Bible and the Qu'ran and every other religious text or inspiration – is there more information within the things that appear to be non-related than we've suspected? We need the priests and Jasper going through the typed pages – studying them as Chuck was supposed to have studied the stone. There must be more information in it. Not necessarily hidden but maybe – misfiled? – a means to force more understanding that a simpler structure would have provided? The transporting of demons through the levels of Hell – gives us information that is vital to the second trial. I think there will be more like that – essential detail within the information.
"Where're the sections on demon transport?" Sam looked up at Marla and she turned away, flipping through the stacked reams of typed transcriptions. She pulled out the section, leaving the coloured sheet of paper marking the divisions between sections in place, and handed it to him.
Skimming over the pages, he saw it and realised what she'd meant. These were the detailed instructions on moving around the accursed plane they needed, from level to level, and through the tunnels and caverns that would move themselves without knowing how to stop them – but they hadn't been included with the trials. Closing his eyes and tipping back his head, he wondered how long it would've taken them to pick this up without her pointer. Too long, most likely.
"The first sections," he said to Marla, gesturing at the stacks of paper. "That were the histories and the hierarchies and the day-to-day stuff of running Hell – they all in order?"
She nodded, pushing a stray lock of dark brown hair back with one wrist. "They're in order and divided into their sections," she told him. "Like that one."
"We need to get Father Emilio and Father McConnaughey over here again," he said, glancing impatiently around. "And Jasper needs to start on this first thing in the morning."
"The additional information, needed for each trial, it's held in different places?" she asked, moving closer to him to read the note again.
"I think so," Sam said, abruptly aware of the brush of her arm against his. "Hidden in very plain sight. We might have enough to get moving on the first trial." Which would work for his brother, he realised. Dean was getting more and more short-tempered every day he was forced to be here instead of being able to get on with the job he wanted to do. He'd already put Ted Miller temporarily out of action when the burly farmhand had made an ill-advised comment after a few too many. Dean'd stopped after the first punch, but he hadn't pulled it and Ted would be spending the next few weeks drinking his food through a straw, his jaw wired shut while the fracture healed.
The hunters, and Franklin's grunts, had shrugged it off, especially those who'd been there. But the civilians weren't as ready to forgive it. Ted's friends had already been spreading the word that those who could kill with a blow should be forbidden from being able to do so to the people who couldn't defend themselves. It was a rather specious argument, considering the situation and the provocation of the moment, but Merrin had told him it had gained some support in some areas of the settlement.
Dean didn't give a rat's about what the population were thinking of him now, Sam knew. He didn't care about anything other than closing Hell, killing Crowley and the Grigori and finishing what he'd mockingly called his deal with Death. Half-tanked and filled with a fury that had crackled through him, Sam recalled that conversation with a slight shiver. His brother had somehow managed to convince Bob to flatline him when they'd returned from Iowa. So that he could talk to the entity, demand to know what'd happened to their deal. Bob had brought him back after seven minutes. He wouldn't talk about what happened in those seven minutes, but the rage had been growing ever since.
Pushing the escalating discomfort of those thoughts aside, he focussed on the pages in front of him. He needed more people but they had to be good, had to know what to look for, what to extrapolate from the fuzziness of the information. He needed someone who could decipher more of Chuck's handwriting than he could, although his ability had improved over the time Alex had been correcting the pages for him.
The Qaddiysh would be useful, he thought. And it would give them something to do other than sit on their heels waiting for the keep's leader to show some interest in the box they'd struggled to bring halfway around the world to him.
"Sam?" Marla's voice pulled him back to the library and he looked at her, noticing the deep shadows around her eyes. "You should probably get some sleep, if we're going to call everyone in tomorrow?"
"Yeah," he agreed, looking down at the papers in his hands self-consciously. "You too."
He got up and shuffled the papers together, leaving them in a pile next to the transportation section. If he could find all those little details, if they could find all those details, he would still have to convince his brother to let him go along. He had no idea of how he was going to do that.
"Bon nuit," Marla said softly, walking from the table to the hall. He nodded and smiled. She'd told him that she was French, but had come to the US in her teens. There was still an occasional hint of an accent, in some words, or in turns of phrase, but she invariably said good morning and good night in the language, and it sounded somehow better than the regular version, he thought as he followed her to the end of the library and turned in the opposite direction to take the stairs to his room. More intimate, the thought bringing a faint flush to his neck.
West Keep, Kansas
The smell of baking bread. Sunshine, pouring in through the wide, multi-paned windows and lighting the scrubbed pine table and wide-board floors to a honeyed gold. Smooth, creamy skin and wide, blue-green eyes that crinkled up as they looked at him and his breath left him in a soft, gentle sigh that was part contentment and part longing, the image clear and sharp in his mind.
His brows pulled together unconsciously as the scene shifted around him, the room gone, the sunlight vanishing as the sky loomed forbiddingly overhead, bitterly cold and everything around grey and brown and lifeless. He shook his head, closing his eyes and seeing it anyway, a slow-motion fall down the hillside and laughter, like a crow's, filling his ears and the echoes of the shots fading away. He turned away and saw the dark-haired woman, staring down at him from the concrete overpass, eyes dark and cold and her lips covered in bright red, kissed with blood given freely from the creatures that stood behind her, the pale-eyed man, mouth bristling with pointed fangs, a tall and slab-muscled man with the head of a wolf, a beautiful woman whose skin melted and reformed as he watched, the tangle of long, red hair lifting in the rising wind to twist and writhe above her. He heard breathing, deep and unsteady and turned around, and the dog stood there behind him, staring at him, crimson eyes glowing from above the wolf's open and dripping mouth –
Dean blinked as his chin slid off his palm, catching himself before he hit the table. He sat up, staring uncomprehendingly at his watch. Three forty-three. Morning or afternoon? A glance at the darkness outside the apartment's narrow windows confirmed morning.
He needed sleep. Wanted it. Looking at the bottle that sat to one side of the piles of books and notes and printouts he'd been searching through, he wondered how much it would take to knock him out past the point that his mind could fill his sleep with nightmares that were becoming worse and worse, every night. Too much, he told himself sourly. Too much to be able to do everything he needed to do. He looked away, closing the open book in front of him and getting to his feet tiredly.
The curtain wall had been extended and the foundations of the extra towers were being poured. Every day, he'd been down there with Liev and the couple of hundred civilians, digging, clearing the rubble, pouring concrete, setting stone. When it was too dark to see and the stocky builder called a halt, he came up here and found something to eat, immersing himself in every bit of lore or myth or real facts he'd been able to find about the gates, the guardian, the guides and Hell itself and what it would take to get it all finished and done with.
He hadn't thought any further than that, and he didn't want to.
Walking aimlessly around the room, looking unseeingly at the shelves, he veered into the kitchen after a minute, pulling a beer from the fridge and opening it, the cap catching on the ring that he was wearing.
The thick silver band had been his mother's. A reminder. That's all.
Seven minutes he'd spent looking for Death, seven minutes and the doughy shade of grey colouring Bob's face when the paddles had brought him back told him that it'd been too long, that Bob had thought he wasn't coming back.
It hadn't helped. He'd searched for Death – for Tessa – for anyone – finally resorting to a string of curses that he'd hoped would goad the entity out, but there'd been nothing. He'd given the middle-aged doc a near-coronary for nothing. The impulse to wear the ring again had been irrational and powerful and he'd followed it without a thought. He'd seen Sam look at it, the next day, but his brother hadn't asked and he couldn't have told him why in any case.
He tipped the bottle neck into his mouth and barely noticed the cold liquid rush down his throat. It didn't matter how exhausted he was by nightfall. Didn't matter how much he pushed at reading through the information he had from nightfall to past midnight, to the deepest watches of the night. He couldn't get tired enough to keep the dreams out. He couldn't get drunk enough.
He finished the beer on the second long swallow and tossed the bottle into the trash can in the corner, walking to the bedroom. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he pulled off his boots, letting them drop to the floor. He left his clothes on top of them and dragged the tangle of bedding more or less over himself. He might get an hour's sleep before he was woken. He might not. He didn't know.
"Dean, for the moment, there is not enough information to retrieve the prophet or the tablet, nor to initiate the trials for the closing of the Gates," Penemue said reasonably, standing beside the framework the hunter was erecting along the side of the wall.
"We have the means to intercept Ninhursag and Nintu in the next few weeks as they cross this continent," he continued, wondering if the man was even hearing him. He'd been trying to get a commitment from the hunter on a course of action for three days now and so far, he'd had zero acknowledgement in return. Dean ran the nail gun down the formwork sheet, nails thudding through the heavy ply into the frame, the close air in the corner of the new bailey sheening him in sweat.
"My priorities haven't changed since yesterday," he grunted, reaching the bottom and straightening up to look at the Watcher as he wiped a bare arm over his face.
"We all understand how important this is to you –"
"Apparently not," Dean said, his tone neutral, turning back to the wall. "Or you wouldn't keep trying to change my mind."
Penemue watched him pick up the next sheet and align it against the straight wooden frame. The clack and hiss and thud of the gun started again and he turned away, giving up.
"You're lucky he's civil to you," Ryan said to him, falling into step with him as they walked out of the half-built bailey. "Most people he either ignores completely or insults until they leave him alone."
Penemue nodded distractedly at the young builder's comment. "Do you know where the other senior hunters are?"
Ryan's brow wrinkled up. "You mean Rufus? Or Bobby? They're over at Lightning Oak, mostly right now. A lot to repair there too."
"My thanks," Penemue said, lengthening his stride as he headed for the gates. He needed someone to take notice of what he was saying, and perhaps the older hunters would know of a way to get through to Winchester that he'd been unable to think of.
Litteris Hominae, Kansas
Elena and Baraquiel sat at the end table, slowly deciphering Chuck's handwritten notes. The Irin picked through the spidery scrawl of words, marking details that seemed more relevant than simply the information stated, looking for the clues that he was sure the Grigori were trying to find as well. He knew that they needed the power of the Word, in the stone itself, believing it would guide them to the tablet that had instructions for controlling the angels, for controlling Heaven. He wondered if they'd realised how much was contained in the tablet they held.
The crossing of the rivers that border the lands is perilous. The boatman must be paid for the crossing, a coin of silver is the price of the journey. All souls being carried from one plane to the other require a payment.
But not all souls need to cross on the boat, he thought. There were places on the rivers where crossing was possible, easier and harder places. Led by the demon, Winchester had found such a place.
The gates determine the approaches to the cliffs of Hell. Each gate has its own parameters. Each gate is controlled by one of the Fallen.
Baraquiel looked up, rubbing his fingers over his eyes tiredly. There were more than nine gates giving entrance to the accursed plane from this world. He frowned at the thought. Perhaps there had only been nine before Lucifer had been given human souls. Did it make a difference? Moloch, Pythius, Mammon and Astaroth had been killed in the siege to raise the soul of Winchester. Abaddon had been destroyed earlier than that, although none really knew the details of what had happened to the archdemon. Were there now only four archdemons still living? How had Crowley taken the Throne of Lucifer if there were? Even singly, they had more power than the demon could ever have hoped to wield against them.
He marked the passage. It was important somehow, although he couldn't work out why he felt that.
In the borderland, the way is closed. The wolf of Hell guards and opens all doorways to the accursed plane. His blood is the key to every entrance, every crack and fissure in the cliffs.
In the texts held in their own library, Baraquiel remembered the books of the dead. The realm Lucifer had built was ringed with sheer cliffs. Impossible to scale, they walled the accursed plane and the doors that led through them were invisible to all but the angels. And the guardian.
Lying on the table in front of him, the black metal blade of the knife that Penemue had brought from Lucifer's hidden tomb gleamed oilily under the golden overhead light.
"What is that?" Elena asked him softly, her gaze following his to the knife.
"A weapon, specifically designed for hellspawn," Baraquiel told her, lifting the knife and handing it to her. It was very light and her brows rose as she took it and felt the balance through her fingers and wrist.
"Japanese?" she asked, looking along the length of the long blade. "The shape is similar to a tachi."
He smiled. "Yes, the man who made it was Japanese."
"Jokoto?" She looked at the edge. "I have never seen a Japanese sword like this."
"Saiko no ken yori mo furui," he corrected. "Very few have ever seen a blade like this. Kajiwara no Tosabô was a man like you, a hunter. A very skilled hunter. He made this knife, and the others, for a war against demonkind in fifteen hundred and ninety-six AD."
"But it's – it's folded," she said, frowning at him as she looked at the distinctive markings on the blade and laid the knife back on the table. "I thought that technique wasn't in use until after Christ?"
"It wasn't," Baraquiel said. "He developed the composite steel blade and added the blood that gives it its colour – and its power. His weapons can kill any hellspawn," he added softly, looking down at the pages in front of him. "Except the Fallen."
"So this blade can kill Cerberus?"
Baraquiel nodded distractedly. "Yes, it will be essential to the first trial."
Watching his face, Elena asked, "What is it?"
"There were four left, that I know of," he told her. "Four archdemons and the crossroads demon took control of Hell. That should not have been possible – for any demon."
"Perhaps he found a way to bind them?"
"Yes," Baraquiel agreed. "Perhaps."
Father Emilio turned over the last page of the first section of Hell's histories and leaned back in his chair. Much of what he'd read he'd already been familiar with, the basics of it, at least. The origins of the pit and the non-corporeal and non-human demonic creatures that had inhabited it. The bottomless abyss. The ancient forces that had been the guardians before Lucifer had fallen and had banished them. Hell, in one form or another, had always existed.
Across the table, Father McConnaughey's head was bent over the papers on the table, bushy silver brows drawn together as he read, the steady rustle of paper signalling another page turned over. At the end of the table, Sam and Marla were talking quietly, heads close together. Father Emilio's attention sharpened a little on them. Marla had begun her initiation into the order, he knew, although all such things were on hiatus until Jerome had recovered fully. He watched as Sam turned to her, his smile washing the tension from his face when she smiled back, then the glossy dark curtain of her hair swung forward as she ducked her head to look back down at the pages in front of them.
Sam had come a lot closer to understanding the things that had driven him along the road he'd chosen, the Jesuit considered. And more essentially, to accepting them. The overwhelming desire for penance, for punishment, was, he thought, being relinquished to the desire for atonement in its place. And hope always came much easier when the future could be envisioned.
"Jasper," Katherine said, looking down the table at him, the urgency in her voice breaking through the priest's thoughts.
"What?" Jasper asked as he got up and walked down to her. "What are you looking at?"
"The third section of the histories of the demons – the human demons," she said, moving her chair to give him room to sit beside her.
"What have you found?" Father Emilio leaned across the table toward her.
Glancing at him, she gestured at the pages that Jasper was reading as he lowered himself into the chair beside her. "I'm not sure but it looks as if it relates to the cambion."
Sam's head lifted and both he and Marla turned to look at her.
"Out loud, Jasper," Katherine said dryly, seeing the interest.
The professor looked up and nodded, going back to the top of the section. "The soul, even perverted, even blackened beyond possibility of redemption, may find entry into the living, into the sons and daughters of Adam. This possession of another may take the form of imprisoning the original soul, using the body to its own ends, or it may go deeper, infiltrating every cell including the very instructions that live in every cell and are passed from generation to generation."
He glanced at Sam. "That's what I was telling you, about the cambion's creation."
Sam nodded impatiently. "What else?"
"The demon may begat another creature in this state – a creature with its own true power and soul, the issue of the tortured soul and the imprisoned soul and the soul of the woman who will bear it and bring it forth. The creature is cambion and an abomination in the eyes of Heaven and of all in the world." He took a breath, his eyes on the page. "Joining the planes, the mind of the cambion draws from both until maturity. As the cambion ages, the ability to draw on the power of the planes diminishes."
"We know that," Father Emilio said mildly.
"Wait a minute," Jasper told him, holding up a hand. "The cambion soul is unique –"
He stopped reading and lifted his head, staring past Sam to the wall of shelving. "I know this," he murmured, half to himself. "I've seen this before."
"Jasper, we've checked every possible source on the cambion here and in the other chapters –" Katherine said, exasperation in her voice.
"Not about the cambion," the old man snapped, getting up from the chair and pivoting on his heel. "It was an account of the different souls, pre-Imperial China … I know this, goddammit!"
Katherine, Sam and Marla stared after him as he almost ran from the library, hearing his footsteps pounding down the hall.
"What's the rest of that text say?" Marla asked Katherine, gesturing to the pages.
"The cambion soul is unique in that with the death of the creature, there is no resting place for it," Katherine continued, pushing her glasses firmly onto her nose. "Neither Heaven nor Hell can accept the soul."
"That's it?" Sam glanced at Marla and then at Katherine. "How does that help?"
"It's the first mention of the cambion from the tablet," Katherine said. "That it's acknowledged here suggests that there will be more about them."
"If Chuck got that far."
The normally stiff expression of the silver-haired researcher softened as she nodded. "Yes, if he got that far."
None of them wanted to dwell on the thoughts that filled their minds on the prophet's current situation.
It was an hour before Jasper came pounding back down the hall, a plastic-wrapped manuscript in his hand.
"I knew I'd seen this before," he said breathlessly, setting the fragile text on the table. "The Mirror of a Thousand Souls."
He threw himself into the chair beside Katherine and unwrapped the text. Sam saw Katherine frown as she stared at the characters on the fine parchment.
"That's not hanzi."
"No, much earlier," Jasper said, dragging on a pair of gloves and picking up the tweezers as he lifted the first page aside. "It was an account of a Chinese magician, a black magician who made deals with demons for power –"
He found the page and leaned closer to it. "The mirror captured the souls of the abominations, leaving their bodies empty and untenanted. The souls were visible behind the glass, the incantation and the metal that backed the backed the mirror holding them there forever."
"The magician passed the mirror to the first Emperor and it was in the royal line for centuries. In 1644, Li Zicheng captured the Forbidden City and it disappeared. It reappeared in the seventeen hundreds in Russia, a part of the treasures taken over by the revolutionary army that destroyed the Romanovs and the Tsarist rule, and it disappeared without a trace again," he told them. "Legend said that it was cursed, and anyone who held it would face treachery from their own people, but the older lore was that it contained the souls of the half-demons and demi-gods, who whispered to those who passed and incited the unrest."
"Any proof that it actually exists?" Katherine asked him dryly.
"Quite a lot," Jasper said acerbically. "There are photographs of it in Alexander Palace."
"But no one knows where it is now?" Marla looked at him, one brow raised.
"No," Jasper said, looking down the library toward the situation room. "But with something solid to search for, the other chapters may have more information."
West Keep, Kansas
Rufus pulled up in the corner of the bailey, the pickup's engine silenced as he turned the key and swung out of the cab. Bobby was still hobbling around, but much of the work had been done on rebuilding the tower in Lightning Oak, and he was glad to be back here, despite the cacophonous noise of the rebuilding that went on from dawn to dusk.
The fallen angel who'd come to see them had been adamant that something had to be organised as soon as possible, and he knew how frustrating Dean could be if he decided to just stonewall. He wasn't sure he was going to be able to make much of a difference to the man's mindset, but they'd agreed, the four of them, that he'd better try.
On cue, he heard the deep voice, snarling at some luckless individual.
"Left foot! Christ, how many times do you have to be told? You wanna get yourself killed?!"
Going through the short tunnel to the other court, Rufus saw Dean first, stripped down to jeans only, sweat lightly gleaming in the warmth of the late morning sunshine, facing Ben who stood, head hanging, a flush of red rising up his neck.
He stopped at the shadowy entrance and watched as Dean dragged in a breath and stepped back.
"Try again!"
The order was snapped out and Ben lifted his head, dropping into a slight crouch as he watched the man circle him. His heart wasn't in it, Rufus thought, seeing Dean's expression harden as he noticed it too. For a moment he thought the man was going to yell at the boy again, but Dean straightened up, turning abruptly on his heel and walking to the steps of the keep to get his shirt.
Behind him, Ben stood watching him, shoulders slumped.
"That's enough for today," Dean said brusquely over his shoulder. "I got work to do."
Nodding, the boy turned away, heading for the tunnel on the other side of the courtyard and the east tower. Rufus walked out of the shadows and over to the steps.
"Get up on the wrong side this morning?" he asked mildly.
Dean looked around at him, dragging the t-shirt that was patchy with sweat over his head.
"He'll never learn if he's treated like a fucking kid," he snapped. "What do you want?"
"Had a visit from one of the Qaddiysh this morning," Rufus said, ignoring the tone. "They dragged that box halfway around the world. They want to get on with it."
Dean tensed for a moment at the unspoken rebuke in the older hunter's voice, then he shrugged. "I need a coffee," he said, walking up the steps to the keep doors without looking back.
Rufus tipped his head back and let out his breath. Not the most gracious of invitations, but better than the possible alternatives, he thought. He walked up the steps and into the keep.
Following Dean into the apartment, Rufus slowed and looked around as the hunter headed for the kitchen. In the last two weeks, Dean had changed, and as he took in the details of the room, he began to understand why.
Nothing had been altered in here, he thought uneasily. It all looked the same, Alex's coats still hanging on the rack by the door, a thick knitted scarf still lay where it'd been thrown over the back of the long sofa, her notes were scattered over and through the piles of books and sheafs of paper that filled the table. The only difference he could see was the profusion of unwashed dishes and mugs that now littered most of the spaces in between the books.
Dean came out of the kitchen, the light from the windows sliding over the planes and hollows of his face as he set two cups of black coffee on the table, pulling out the chair behind one.
He looked … pared back, Rufus thought, walking slowly to the other side of the table, the bones jutting out, a couple of days' worth of stubble dark against the pale skin, every hard muscle delineated beneath the thin shirt, what little fat he'd had stripped away.
"We can't keep those angels waitin' around forever, Dean," he said, shifting a pile of books from the chair to the floor and sitting down.
"No," Dean agreed readily, looking absently at the pile of notes at his elbow. "No, Jasper called. They were right; both of those bitches are in the country now."
"So," Rufus said slowly, picking up his coffee. "What do you want to do?"
"Bobby talked to Boze and Ty this morning," Dean said. "Werewolves are packing up in the forests north of them, they don't know where they came from, or where they found survivors. They talked to Maurice about what he found – it's possible they've come down from Canada."
Rufus saw a flash of irritation pass over the younger man's features, saw the muscle at the point of his jaw bunch for a moment and relax.
"We'll need to divvy up the workload," Dean said, rubbing a hand over his jaw. "I figured Mel and Maurice could get over to Tawas, help out there, take a few trainees with them."
Rufus nodded. "We'll need a strong team for the goddesses, can only take 'em one at a time."
"Sam and Nate can take one of the Watchers, a few of the trainees, go up to Montana and see if they can grab the one coming south now," said Dean. "Michel has movement on the other one, heading south and already past us. Said that they found the location of the lockbox for the first Skinwalker. He thinks she's heading for Texas –"
"Yenaaldlooshii," Rufus murmured. Irritation flashed in Dean's eyes again as he nodded sharply.
"Down in Big Lake. You, me, Penemue," he told him. "We'll take Jack, Perry and Zoe – she's the only one not knocked up from that group. We can't intercept Nintu but we can take out the skinwalker before she gets there, if we leave tomorrow."
"Alright, silver all round."
Dean nodded. "There's a lot more to do here. Bobby, Vince, Elias and Ellen can stick around and keep things going." He looked at the books stacked over the table. "I can't find anything useful here anyway, not enough to get started."
"Bobby said that Jasper might've found a possible way to deal with the cambion –"
"Yeah, he told me," Dean cut him off. "Some kind of mirror. Doesn't help right now. We know they're in Boston, somewhere, but Jerome's tried that spell four times now and the result doesn't change. The Watchers think there's a shield over the location." He shook his head. "If I can't get to Chuck and the gun, I'll need a way in and out of the borderlands to kill Cerberus."
"What about the gate you used before?" Rufus frowned for a moment. "In Pennsylvania."
Dean leaned back in the chair, his eyes slightly hooded as he looked at him. "It's closed. Gone."
Rufus raised a brow. "You had time for a trip?"
He shook his head. "Penemue used a spell, scried for it. Said that someone had been holding it open but whatever they'd done was finished."
It explained a little of Dean's increasing anger, Rufus realised. That would've been a quick way to get to the dog and kill it.
"So, do they know of any others?"
"No." He drained his coffee and pushed the cup aside. "They're looking for them."
"Did you take a look at those knives Penemue brought out of Lucifer's crypt?"
"Yeah," Dean said, shrugging as he got up. "It's got a better reach than Ruby's knife. Supposed to be a killer for demonspawn, but whether it'll work against that dog …"
"Bobby tells me you're planning on going in alone," Rufus said, his voice neutral and without inflexion. Dean glanced at him.
"Trial says only one needed," he answered the non-question expressionlessly.
For a moment, Rufus wondered if he should just leave it. A man had a right to take the action he needed to take. Alex's voice murmured through that thought. He's your friend.
"There're two others after that one," he said carefully. "Might make sense to have backup until it's down to the wire?"
The dark green eyes studied him. "Whatever it is you wanna say, Rufus, get it out. I don't have the time to waste on you hinting around it."
The warning was there, implicit in the tone. Rufus sighed. "Nothing, it's good."
"Good."
Watching the hunter go down the hall to the bedroom, Rufus chewed on the inside of his cheek, wondering if he was making the right call. He looked around the room again. When he'd lost Nance, he'd gone up to Whitefish, spent a year in the cabin there on his own, unable to deal with anyone else, trying to get as far from the memories as he could. Different people handled grief differently, he thought. But living here, like this, it didn't seem like Dean was doing any grieving.
Chambre d'ombres, France
The underground library was warmly lit by lamps and sconces and the low fire. Antoinette leaned back in the deep, comfortable armchair and let out her breath. There were entirely too many legends about magic mirrors, she thought tiredly, setting the book she'd been reading aside for a moment.
"This is it," Alain said from the other side of the room. "Línghún de Jìngzi. The trail stops in St Petersburg, though."
Francesca rose from her chair, the movement reminiscent of a feline as she stalked to the table to look over his shoulder.
"No, not stopped," she said, turning abruptly away. "Jean, those files on the VCheKa, from 1917, please."
The slim dark-haired man turned and walked out of the library.
"You found another lead?" Alain looked curiously at her. Never expressive, Francesca's face was hard and cold as she nodded.
"We were never able to trace the mirror from the Forbidden City to Europe, not even when there was a full complement of us here and in the other chapters, but the Qaddiysh … Baraquiel said that the Grigori had split up, the angel had told him –" she paused as Jean came back in, a bundle of leather-bound files in his arms.
"Look at the faces carefully," Francesca said, opening the first. Affixed to the inside cover, a slightly overexposed black and white photograph showed a group of men, primarily dark-haired, standing together on the steps of a grand building, snow around their feet. Alain stared at them. All wore the same clothing, dark pants and a long, flowing leather coat that came to the middle of the shins, with a high collar and buttoned to the neck. He looked at the note at the bottom.
"Всероссийская чрезвычайная комиссия по борьбе с контрреволюцией и саботажем," he read out. "The All-Russian Emergency Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage." He looked up at her, one brow lifted. "The beginnings of the Russian secret service, yes?"
"The two on the right, Alain," she told him sharply.
"I've seen them before," he said slowly, picking up a magnifying glass from the table and lifting it over the photograph, the magnification picking out more detail in the faces.
"You have," Francesca agreed. "They were also in the photographs of the Thule Society, in 1937."
"Grigori?" Antoinette got up and walked to the table. "They took the mirror from the palace? How?"
"This one is Zhydelev," Francesca told her. "One of the group sent to execute the Romanovs. The other is Yakov Yurovsky. He shot Nicholas, Tatiana and Alexei himself. That was July 1918. By the following year, they had escaped to Germany and had become Erik Baeder and Dietrich Eckart, and the mirror and all the other items they'd found went with them."
"Penemue said that their names are really Ashriel and Mossaque," Alain said. "You think they came to Europe to cause civil unrest?"
"I think they came to study," Francesca said, sitting in the chair to one side of him. "I think they were looking for the spells or artefacts that would further their cause. And the power to conduct whatever experiments they wanted to do in secrecy and with authority. The VCheka's reputation for torture was extensive. The Nazis – certain sections of the Nazi Party were the same."
"According to Shamsiel, they wanted to return to Heaven." A small crease appeared between Antoninette's dark red brows. "How would torture and murder help with that?"
"Yes, they wanted to return to Heaven," Francesca said heavily. "Apparently, they believed that there were ways to do so that were accessible by magic. Why do you think they are searching for the angel tablet?"
"And the mirror is how they're controlling the cambion?" Antoinette asked.
"I don't know, but I would think so." The elegant woman lifted a hand in a dismissive gesture. "The cambion are significantly more powerful than they are, yet the Americans said that they were working under the Grigori's control."
"Michel!" Alain got up and walked down to the situation room. "We need to get a communiqué to the US immediately."
Gallatin National Forest, Montana
The mountains towered over them, still capped and mantled in snow, the temperatures freezing and the gusting wind that blew through the valley icy from the glaciers higher up. Sam blew on his fingers as he picked through the lock on the thick metal door.
"Why'd the military have a base up here?" Joseph asked, looking around the long, narrow valley. "There's nothing here."
"Not a base, son, a ground station," Nate said, pulling his collar higher around his ears. "Uplink to the satellite."
"With no power, how do we get it going?"
"There'll be gennies in here," Sam grunted, the rusted lock giving way finally with a deep clunk inside the door. He straightened up and pressed down on the handle and the door shifted inwards. He looked over his shoulder. "Stay here, Nate and I'll check it out."
Behind Joseph, Shamsiel, Lee and Billy watched the empty valley, guns held loosely, safeties off and rounds chambered. Before they'd left Kansas, Michel had tracked Ninhursag from Alaska to British Columbia, advising that the line of travel had been straight, along the Rockies. The goddess hadn't crossed into Alberta, remaining in the high peaks.
Inside the bunker, the concrete tunnel ran straight for ten yards and a set of stairs led down.
"Safe from nuclear attack, anyhow," Nate said dryly, his flashlight beam illuminating the safety notices still attached to the wall.
Sam nodded, going down the stairs. "Air's dry – and clean," he commented, swinging the light when he reached the bottom. More signs, painted on the grey concrete walls directed them to the various areas within the station. "I'll take the control room. You want to see if you can get the power going?"
Nate shrugged and turned right, heading down another flight of stairs as Sam turned left. The control room was several doors along, and he stepped over the dried-up bodies of the people who'd died from the virus carefully. They were bloodless now, but the deep dark stains that covered their clothing showed that they'd been infected and died while in the first stage of Pestilence's disease, the tight skin around their mouths covered with the same stains. He wondered bleakly if there would any useable equipment left in the building, remembering the rage he and Dean had seen on the first test run in Oregon, the wanton destruction the disease had caused.
He stopped as a series of deep rumbles vibrated through the concrete floors and into his boot soles. The building hummed for a moment, then the lights in the hallway flickered, listless fluorescent tubes coming on one at a time from the end toward him.
"Guess the gennies work," he muttered to himself, turning off his flashlight and walking more quickly to the door marked with a large green-painted 'C'. To his surprise, the door opened readily as he pushed down on the handle, and the banks of equipment inside were intact, lights glowing, flickering and blinking on the expanse of grey metal panels as the current ran through them.
The laptop's screen lit up Sam's face as he found the protocols for the uplink, just where Michel and Mitch had told him. He entered the commands and breathed a sigh of relief as the connection was established, the list scrolling down the screen as it was supposed to. Finding the French chapter's address was simple and he'd established contact a few minutes later, the cheerful bonjour from Michel reminding him of Marla.
The list of coordinates appeared a moment later, steadily moving south-east along the road that ran down the backbone of the mountain ranges. Michel's comment followed.
"Still on target, no deviation shown over the last three hundred miles. She passed Helena this morning. You're in the right position."
The goddess had not taken the easier path of travelling down the roads that ran through the Rockies, keeping between fifty and a hundred and fifty miles to the east of them. Helena was just over a hundred miles from them in a straight line. She would be in the valley before nightfall.
He looked over his shoulder at Shamsiel and Nate, grinning slightly. "Time to lay the trap."
Shamsiel looked at the path of Ninshursag, the coordinates overlaid onto a map of the area now.
"I need to be away from that box," he told the hunters as Sam packed up the laptop and they followed the corridors back to the surface. Both hunters turned to him in surprise. The Irin shrugged.
"I have no soul, nothing to protect me from being drawn in along with her," he explained. "The other planes, they are designed for us, creatures of energy, or those creatures that have been fundamentally altered from their original purpose. It is why you can enter them in your flesh and your blood and your bone, and return, your souls protect you, keep you apart." He gestured to the mountains lifting to the north of them.
"I will move two ridges further north, and let you know when I see the changes she makes."
Nate nodded. "Can you actually see them?"
The Irin smiled, his teeth white against the dark skin. "Now? After so many passes, oh, yes, I'll see them." He stopped as Nate opened the outer door. "And you, my friends, you will feel her when she is close."
Both men swallowed slightly. The effects of the creation goddess were known, although none of them could really imagine how it would affect them, to be so close to her.
He gestured at the bottles of thick, dark red liquid that sat in a line along the hood of the SUV. "The designs will keep you from her notice and they will, to a certain extent, protect you from the effects of the field she generates. So long as the box is open when she enters the valley, it should do most of the work," the Irin continued, chuckling slightly. "The spell is merely a formality, Sam."
"Stay in line of sight, Shamsiel," Nate said to the angel. "Radio won't get through if there's a peak in the way."
"Will do."
They watched him walk fast across the rocky pasture, then Nate looked at the young men in front of him.
"Joseph, you're here with the car," he told him. "Make sure you paint yourself up before she gets here. There's nothing we can do to affect this, so priority is making sure we all get out of here alive and in one piece. Stay on the radio in case we need medical help."
Joseph nodded. Nate looked at Sam who had the box in the bag over his shoulders and had taken two of the bottles. "Sam and me'll take the trapping part, Lee, you and Billy are radio relay. Get to the top of those ridges and pass on whatever Shamsiel tells you."
They turned, each grabbing a bottle from the hood, and headed for the ridge lines on opposite sides of the narrowing valley. Nate looked at Sam.
"Figure we've got that much more control than they do," he said dryly to the younger man. "I'll hang back, two-three hundred yards, but if you fall over, I'll be there to close it."
Sam nodded uncomfortably. "Let's just hope we're both still conscious by the time she gets close."
State Highway 137, Texas
Penemue watched the flat horizon, never getting any nearer, at the end of the road the black car roared along. The man driving hadn't spoken since they'd left the keeps, his attention fixed on the road, avoiding the holes and cracks and abandoned rusted heaps easily. The Irin sensed the rage that was being held down but hadn't seen it. Winchester had good control, he thought.
"What do we do if we're too late and she's already released the skinwalker?" Zoe asked from the back seat.
Dean flicked a glance at Penemue and shrugged. "See if we can pick up a trail and kill him."
"Is that possible?"
"All things are possible," Penemue answered, half-turning to look back at her. "But it will be exceedingly difficult."
Dean's gaze shifted to the mirror, seeing the grey pickup behind them. Rufus was driving, Perry and Jack squeezed into the bench seat beside him. With six, it would be possible, he thought, difficult or not. He had a strong sense that they were too late, the creative forces that were loose moved across the world very fast. And they couldn't catch up, could only intercept. Michel had sent through the last location – Utah – for the first vampire. Usiku was locked within the mountains and that's where they'd be heading as soon as they'd killed the skinwalker. That the Grigori also had a base there was a bonus – if he could find it.
A battered and colourless sign flashed by as he manoeuvred the car around a three-car pile up that looked oddly like a piece of welded modern art, the paint gone and the metal left, rusted to a uniform reddish-brown. Big Lake was ten miles ahead.
Crouching by the side of the well, Dean looked at the four-toed tracks leading away from it. On the ball of the foot, heavy. Around him, chunks of turf and torn earth had been scattered in a fifty-foot radius around the deep hole in the ground, the force exerted from the inside. Penemue had found a small pool of blood, very dark crimson to one side. The sight brought a cold feeling of familiarity to Dean, and he'd shaken it off with difficulty.
He looked up, gaze following the trail which headed straight north-east. The goddess had gone. The skinwalker would be gathering its own children, making more, he thought, remembering what Peter and Elena had told them about the pack they'd encountered in the northern states.
"Loaded with silver," Rufus said quietly beside him as he straightened up.
He nodded. "Sweetwater's that direction. We'll take the road, you follow the trail."
"There's a big water tank at one of the lake," Rufus told him. "We'll meet you there after taking a quick look around."
"This skinwalker," Penemue said slowly, as they got back into the Impala. "It is a man?"
"Shapeshifter," Dean said shortly, starting the engine and easing the car over the dry lake's uneven surface. "One of them."
"It can change form," Zoe said from the back. "Transform into a dog at will."
"A were creature?"
"No," Dean answered. "The werewolf, and all the other variations need a trigger. Like the moon. Skinwalkers and shapeshifters can change without the trigger." He turned to look curiously at the Qaddiysh. "I thought you guys knew all about this stuff?"
Penemue shook his head. "No, we are not like your order of scholars. We were tasked with teaching humanity. Providing the knowledge – slowly – that was needed for the final stage, when Heaven and Hell would no longer be required. Perhaps there are reasons for the monstrosities that God allowed to populate the Earth on the tablets we haven't found, but we have no knowledge of them."
"Typical," Dean snorted. "Doesn't seem like that knowledge was given slowly enough."
"Even within those of us who Fell because we were asked to, there was dissent and argument about the knowledge we had to teach," Penemue said, his fingers pushing the thick, straight black hair back from his forehead. "Azazel enjoyed meddling, and teaching things that mankind was not ready for."
"And that's why Lucifer got him, when he died?"
"Yes." Penemue glanced at him, knowing the history of the Campbells and the Winchesters. "Had anyone been able to foresee that particular line of destiny, it would've been changed."
Dean laughed, a short, humourless bark. "I doubt it. Whatever's going on up there, it's been under construction for a long time. They knew what they were doing."
"They did not realise what they created, in you and your brother, Dean," the Qaddiysh said quietly. "Did not realise the way in which the weapon of their own destruction would be forged and tempered by the trials they put before you."
Dean flicked a glance at him. "You think that's true?"
"We watched a mortal man kill the most powerful of the Fallen," Penemue said with a shrug. "Heaven watched too, though Michael and the Host were here. Raphael saw. And others who have been better at hiding themselves. There was no precedent in any world, or in any dimension, for what you and Sam did that day."
Dean was silent, but the Qaddiysh saw his fingers close a little tightly around the wheel as the car turned onto the asphalt and headed east.
Gallatin National Forest, Montana
There it was, Shamsiel thought, smelling the change in the air, the deepening and thickening of it as every scent became rich and sharp, flooding his senses. He couldn't see her, although he could feel the fecund femininity, the potent charge of a primal arousal that drove every living thing, to join, to procreate, to multiply and be fruitful and to cover the earth. He smiled a little at the throb in his body, unfelt for centuries where mind had overtaken the considerations of flesh, but as well-remembered as any other purely visceral experience he'd had after Falling.
He watched the grasses sway and stretch up, growing as she passed. Watched the animals and birds and reptiles come out of their burrows and dens in the shadows of the clefts in the hills, ears pricked, eyes wide, fur and feathers and scales standing on end.
"Billy, can you hear me?" he said softly into the radio he held. "She's here."
"Roger that, Shamsiel," Billy's voice crackled and hissed in the static. "She's here. Got it."
The crack of the branches behind him didn't register for a moment, but the thick, rank smell washed over him and Shamsiel turned, staring up at the long ursine snout, the small, dark eyes a little red-rimmed from the effects that were filling the valleys and mountains.
The bear's muzzle wrinkled back, revealing long, yellowing incisors and blasting him with a wave of foetid breath. The Qaddiysh crouched frozen in front of it, staring back, trying to recall every piece of information, heard or read, about the descendants of the cave bears. In front of him, the grizzly huffed and shifted its weight, one paw swinging out casually, the sharp, black claws catching only air as Shamsiel scuttled backward and disappeared over the edge of the rock with a startled squawk.
The drop was short but hard, and he bounced down the slightly sloping ledge, fingers scrabbling for a hold as a bolt of pain shot up through his leg, through his groin and into his back. Above him, the bear looked down, mouth opening and a roar of disappointment echoing over the hard rock.
The second drop as he failed to find anything to stop his descent, was much longer. Air exploded from his lungs as he hit the rounded boulder on his back, and his vision greyed and flickered when the bones of his leg ground together with the impact. The protrusion from the slab-sided upthrust of granite was smaller but flatter and he lay there panting shallowly, fingers clenched into fists as he tried to shut away the white fire that was devouring his leg and get some air back into his chest at the same time.
The grizzly stared down at him and Shamsiel saw the mixture of confusion and frustration as it paced along the cliff edge. He was a little over twenty feet below it, safe enough, he supposed from that particular danger now. Turning his head slowly, he saw the sheer cliff below him. The radio was still clutched in one hand, knuckles raw and bleeding from protecting the device as he'd slid down the rough stone. He hoped it was still working.
Joseph swore as he tried to see the design he was painting on himself in the small field of view of the side mirror. The liquid stung and stunk, a double insult, and it was supposed to coat his arms and neck as well. He hadn't heard Shamsiel's transmission, but Billy's response had come through loud and clear and he wondered how long he had before the goddess passed by him.
The answer came as he finished swabbing the thick, stinking contents of the bottle over his shoulders and up his neck, his mind suddenly filling with images, blood rushing through his body and his muscles tightening and contracting as he slid down the door of the car and sprawled on the ground.
On the ridgelines to the south, Billy yanked off his jacket and shirts, pulling out the cork that held the bottle closed with his teeth and pouring a handful of the viscous red liquid into his palm. His nerve endings were prickling and crackling and he slathered the liquid over his arms as fast as he could, shifting position as he realised that his jeans were too tight and he was starting to ache, his concentration faltering as memories and pictures and sensation filled his mind and body.
Sam closed his eyes, dropping to his knees in front of the small wooden box as he felt the first, languid stirrings of the air around him. He unlocked the lid, lifting it back, the cold bite of the wind that rose from within it shocking the images from his mind and stealing the heat from his body, an unimaginable cold, filled with the scent of frozen metal.
Two hundred yards behind and to one side of him, Nate lay on the ground, eyes rolled back in his head. Resolutely keeping his eyes on the box and the incline of the valley in front of him, Sam could nevertheless hear the man's grunts even at that distance.
A zephyr ruffled his hair, soft and warm. He opened his eyes as it strengthened, unconsciously inhaling the scents it carried, the cold of the abyss waiting in the box by his knees forgotten as the rich and complex aromas filled him. The valley was brighter, he thought dazedly, clearer, somehow, every leaf and blade of grass standing out with a razor keenness he couldn't remember encountering before. Looking down at his hand, resting lightly on the lid, every fold and detail was visible, with a clarity that seemed preternatural. And probably was, he told himself, dragging a shred of thought back from the morass of sensations flooding through him. She's here, you have to speak the spell and close the lid.
Heart booming in his ears. The rasp of his breath through a throat that was suddenly dry. An uncoiling heat that advanced in waves, brightening and dimming with his pulse. Every remembered image, every remembered touch, every remembered reaction coruscated through his nervous system, pounding along the marrow of his bones.
"Piamo caosgon," Sam ground out, the Enochian words caught in the mire of his thoughts. "Allar gigipah. Drix saanir … sibsi qaal caosg … haala zacam iadnah."
His vision was dimming, a red film over his eyes. He wiped at them and looked down at the blood that coated his knuckles, feeling a trickle from his nose as it ran down over his lip at the same time.
The wind funnelled down the valley toward him, bending the short grass before it, and Sam felt his heart accelerate unbearably, throbbing in his wrists and the insides of his elbows, pulsing at the hollow of his throat, pounding in his groin, the quickening beat sledging into his ribs. His eyes widened as the air in front of him thickened.
She walked toward him, pale and translucent at first, glowing like a spectre against the dark grey mountain sides, long white hair lifting and swirling around her face. Milk-white skin and pale eyes that were fixed on his. Full, high breasts and curving waist and rounded hips. His breath was caught somewhere in his chest and he was unable to move as she approached him, his heart thundering now, pain filling his side almost unnoticed in the insistent throbbing heat, blood racing along his veins and arteries and spilling down his face.
"Piamo caosgon allar gigipah," Sam murmured, no idea if the words had been said aloud or were just an incoherent fragment of thought. "Drix … saanir sibsi qaal … caosg haala zacam … iadnah."
So close and he could see the porcelain flawlessness of her skin, the flecks of gold against the silver-grey irises, the lush full lips, tinted rose and her breath over his face, scented of meadows and flowers and deep, dark earth.
Pain ripped through his side, shooting from his chest and down his arm, his heart fibrillating and the blood vessels swollen and leaking. She leaned closer and he felt the muscle in his chest stop, the cessation of the beat shaking through him as he lifted his head to her, eyes on her lips.
She was gone, and Sam's hands released the lid of the box as he fell forward.
West Keep, Kansas
Adam lay in the warm room, eyes closed as he listened to the sounds that had become familiar over the past three weeks. Not at all like a hospital, though his memories of hospitals were few and far between. He remembered the bowls of ice-cream when his tonsils came out, and that was about it.
The rooms Kim had – had had, he amended to himself, with a soft sigh – the rooms that Merrin and Bob used for patient recovery had been built around the chimneys from the lower floors, radiating a dry warmth without needing open fires in them. He knew Jerome and Felix were in the room next to his. Rudy was in the bed on the other side of his room, also gut-shot and likely to be here for a few more months, as he was.
This time, no one had blamed him for what had happened when the cambion and nephilim had attacked the order, but he felt the failure for himself. Chuck had just disappeared out of the circle of fire, and nothing he'd been able to do had stopped it. He hadn't even been able to protect the scholars, or his own men.
The room smelled of fresh linen and dried herbs, the strong scents rising on the constant circulation of warm air. Stronger still, the paste that coated his abdomen from ribcage to pelvis, wrapped in thin layers of open-weave gauze, followed him into his dreams with its woodland scent, vaguely reminiscent of mushrooms and moss. Merrin had told him that it had numbing properties and he hadn't had much pain, after the bullet had been extracted.
"Adam?"
He opened his eyes, seeing Chris hovering near his bed. "Hey."
"Hey," she said, her voice filled with relief. "How're you doing?"
He looked up at her and made a small, vague gesture with one hand. "Not bad, all things considered."
She wore a simple shift dress over close-fitting pants, the swell of her stomach pronounced beneath it. He glanced at the bulge and up to her face.
"You're going to have a family?"
"Like everyone else," Chris said dryly, pulling the chair from beside the bed and sitting down. "Twins, due in July."
"Are you going to keep hunting?"
"I don't know," she said, looking down at her hands, clasped on her lap. "I'll have to wait and see how I feel about it. Merrin's organising adoptions – there are a lot of girls who're really too young to be starting families, and a surprising number of women who lost their children, or want them but couldn't have them."
Nodding, Adam remembered the conversation he'd overhead between the nurse and Dr Sui a few months ago. A lot of the slaves that had been rescued from the devil's cities had been tortured to a greater or lesser extent. More women than men. At the time, Merrin had been worried about how the population would get to viable numbers. He shrugged inwardly.
"Are you going to be a father in July?" Chris watched the expressions flitting across his face as he looked back at her.
"Yeah," he admitted reluctantly. Another thing that had been a total failure on his part. He hadn't seen Lily since that night. "Not sure how involved I'm going to be, though."
They turned as Frances came through the door, stopping as she saw Christine sitting by the bed.
"Hey," Adam said, pushing himself a little higher on the pillow behind him. He'd gotten to know the researcher at the order's safehold. "Any news?"
Coming into the room, Frances nodded, her gaze flicking to Chris and back to him. "Jerome's awake. Bob said he was going to make it."
Adam smiled in relief. "That's great."
"I'll, I should get going, I just wanted to see how you were," Chris said, getting to her feet. She had the unmistakable sense that the two had things to talk about that they wouldn't if she were there. She'd met the slim blonde girl when they'd moved to Kansas, all of the trainees had spent their first few weeks learning the basics of the wards and guards for most of the things they would be learning to hunt there. At the time, it'd seemed strange to her that Frances, Taylor and the older researchers had kept themselves separate from the hunters. Now, she understood.
"Thanks for coming to see me, Chris," Adam said uncomfortably. He liked Chris. Like her straightforward approach to everything. But she'd been there when he'd frozen up and he couldn't find a way to get past the feeling that the hunters still held it against him, even if only in small ways now. A lack of trust in him? He wasn't sure.
"Does Bobby know about Jerome?" Chris asked Frances as she paused by the door.
"Yes," Frances said. "They're with him now."
She turned back to Adam as Chris left and sat down in the vacated chair. "How's the pain today?"
"Better," he told her, lifting a hand carefully to his ribs.
Sweetwater, Texas
"Holy cow," Jack's voice breathed his ear and Dean frowned, adjusting the mike on the headset.
"Cut the chatter," he said in a low growl.
Rufus lifted a brow at his tone. They were hidden on the slight rise on the other side of the lake, the Qaddiysh and trainees about four hundred to the north on the same ridge as it descended to the head of the body of water.
In the mauve-tinted dusk, the camp was more than obvious, small fires scattered through the growing darkness on the bare ground between the few remaining brick buildings and the smooth water. Adjusting the field on the binoculars he held, Dean scanned the camp, jaw tightening.
"Razor wire around the prisoners."
Rufus nodded fractionally. "I got over a hundred on the outside. How do you want to do it?"
Staring down, Dean thought about that. He hadn't been able to pick out anyone that looked like the leader, and no matter what else they did, they'd need a diversion to get the people inside the wire out.
He had the medallion, tucked into one pocket. He carried it all the time now.
"I'll go in, get on top of that building," he decided abruptly, the glasses swivelling to the three-story, square brick building. "Start picking off the skinwalkers. They'll come looking for me."
"Some of 'em will," Rufus agreed, looking down at the camp. "Not all."
"No," Dean said. "But you give me ten minutes, see who's going where, and Penemue and Zoe set fire to those woods, on the other side of town." He lifted the glasses and Rufus copied him. "That'll draw away some more, and I think they'll shift – you can be sure of your targets. Jack, you'll stay here while Rufus and Perry cut through the wire and get those people out."
The soft assents came over the headsets. Rufus looked at Dean speculatively.
"You'll be a sitting duck up there," he said.
"They won't see me," Dean said, mouth twisting up as he put the binoculars down and dragged the medallion from his jeans pocket, slipping the chain over his head and turning his head to look at the older hunter coldly. "Just get them out, man."
Rufus watched him slither backwards down the side of the ridge, disappearing into the darkness. He didn't trust the blithe confidence or the faith Dean had in the efficacy of the pendant around his neck. But there was nothing he could do about either and he rolled over, picking up the glasses and returning them to the small pack, his voice a soft whisper.
"Alright, we got a plan, let's get going."
The M40 was the gun he'd learned to shoot long-range with, in Minnesota with Caleb and his father. It was long and heavy and in the hands of someone who knew what they were doing, perfectly deadly up to a thousand yards. Looking at the brick building as he skirted the camp, he knew he was well within that limit.
The grand staircase was gone, built of timber, most likely, Dean thought as he walked through the high-ceilinged main room to the back. The rear stairs had been built of steel and brick and they were still there. Climbing to the roof, he came out into darkness, the faint starlight enough to show him the parapet that ran around the edge. Moonrise was still hours away and it was two weeks from full. He didn't need additional light to see his targets against the fires that dotted the open ground.
The first shots seemed to go unnoticed by the pack, the victims falling and the sound coming after. Then he hit one standing in a group, watching as they stared at the fallen man in their midst, and the baying and howling and yelping filled the night air as they seemed to ripple, dropping to all fours, fur, long and unkempt or short and glossy, gleaming in the firelight covering them. Through the flat two-dimensions of the scope, he saw them turn en masse for the buildings of the town and smiled slightly, finger tightening smoothly on the trigger. Not an automatic, he worked the bolt steadily, picking off the animals that ran toward him, the heavy calibre silver bullets mostly blowing them apart, leaving big holes in their human forms as they transformed back.
He hadn't barricaded the roof door when he'd come through, and he heard it slam open, setting the rifle down unhurriedly and pulling out the .45, hitting the first three to cross the asphalt of the roof in a slow sweep, watching them fall and turn back into people.
Not people, the thought drifted. Just monsters.
More came out through the door and Dean shifted his position slightly, catching them on an angle for a clearer shot to the heart, the rounds pumping out efficiently, his fingers in his jacket pocket for the next magazine as he emptied the gun, ejected the spent clip and slammed the new one in, one flowing motion that didn't slow him down at all.
A whoomf went up to one side of the building and from the corner of his eye, he saw the flames leap through the woods, heard the howling and yipping change note on the ground and watched the distant fire reflected in the eyes of the dogs that burst through the door toward him. The auto fired smoothly, the rounds counted off in his head.
He'd just slammed the next magazine in when the man came through, reddish-brown hair brushing the top of the door-frame. Adjusting his aim automatically, Dean fired, watching the bullets punch into the man's bare chest, black holes distinct against the furred expanse of white flesh, none penetrating the heart. His eyes widened slightly as the man kept coming, the silver slugs emerging from the holes and dropping to the ground.
That'll be him, he thought distantly, his left hand cupping around his right as he gripped the gun tightly and aimed for the heart.
The man was in front of him in the fraction of a second it took to change the grip, one meaty, ham-sized fist closing around the barrel, shots fired in quick succession into his abdomen as the hand crushed Dean's fingers against the unyielding metal and ivory. He flicked his head to one side, feeling the graze of massive knuckles along his cheekbone and twisted slightly, weight and hip into the kick to the side of the knee, the skinwalker's fingers loosening enough for him to yank his hand and gun free.
The gun clicked, magazine and chamber empty and Dean tossed it behind him, eyes narrowing as he calculated all the possible means he had to tackle the man, more than a foot taller and twice his weight. The skinwalker's mouth stretched out into a ferocious smile.
It wasn't in his nature to accept defeat, no matter how impossible the situation appeared, and he backed a few steps, circling around, his hands flexing as he tried to assess the damage the man had done, nothing broken, blood flowing back and tingling as he worked them.
The attack was fast, as he'd expected. He had time to shift his weight to his left foot and then back to the right, dropping under the sledgehammer strike, shoulder hitting the ground and leg flashing out, the outside edge of his boot hitting the skinwalker's knee again, this time feeling a slight amount of give under the blow. Then he was rolling fast, the man's knee dropping onto the asphalt where he'd been with a crack he could hear over the snarling pack around him, a confused impression of long canine fangs and bristling hackles as he came up on his feet.
"Fast, little man," the first-born skinwalker said, turning to track him, hands lifted and spread out, fingers curled into talons.
Dean ignored him, watching the broad expanse of chest, twisting aside as the man moved again, long fingers skating over his side, the heel of his hand driving up into the heavy jaw, snap of teeth together, then the creaking snap of his ribs as the monster's elbow found his ribs and he threw himself sideways and down, rolling again, breath sucked painfully in through the grinding of the ends of the bones.
Yenaaldlooshii was on him when he came to his feet, one arm wrapped tightly around his ribcage and squeezing, feeling a sharp stab as a rib, broken and being bent further, pressed into his lung; the other forcing his head back, exposing his throat, his spine compressing under inexorable pressure. The skinwalker's head crackled and squealed as the bones elongated and flattened at the top, protruding out, cheekbones and nose and jaws stretching out toward him, narrowing, the teeth growing, clearly visible in the open mouth, tongue unrolling, saturated in saliva and panting the foetid breath of a predator over his face.
Dean rolled his eyes, ignoring the increasing pain as he fought against the monster's hold, seeing the mouth open wider, feeling the drops of saliva patter against his neck.