Chapter 23 Being Heroes
Dean looked around as the trees closed in a little more to the sides of the path, the canopies closing overhead. "You get that this isn't real life, right?"
She looked at him, walking quickly to keep up with him. "You don't think this is better?"
He snorted. "Better than my life? Sure. Better than a regular life … I don't know. Why is regular life so boring you want to play make-believe?"
"It's not that it's boring … so much," she said slowly, looking down at the path at her feet. "More that … there's no honour in regular life, no brave deeds seen by others, no sense that good will overcome evil … I don't know."
He was silent for a moment, feeling, hearing, tasting the forest around them. There was nothing there but them, for the moment anyway. Replaying what she'd said, he felt an old wound open up inside of him. He'd thought that way once too.
"Maybe there isn't any good, Charlie," he said quietly. "Maybe that's just a – just a fantasy to begin with? Maybe there's just monsters and people and nothing else, no one looking out for you so you have to look out for yourself."
She slowed, turning to look at him intently. "One day, you're going to tell me what happened to you."
The corner of his mouth lifted slightly, humourlessly. "No. I'm not."
"Trust me, you are," she pressed. "No one can just walk on their own, no friends, no one to share anything with. You need it more than even Sam does."
"No. I don't," he said, irritated by the assertion. "You don't know anything about me."
"You'd be surprised at how much I know about you," she countered.
He looked away, pulling out his phone and holding it up, trying to find a signal. She didn't, he knew. Didn't know a goddamned thing about him and never would. He heard her exasperated huff from beside and kept his gaze fixed on his phone screen. He didn't need people. Didn't need them for anything, but he definitely didn't need them to dump his load on and share his crap with. That was a quick path to betrayals he couldn't afford.
The crack of a twig was loud in the ensuing silence and Dean's head snapped around to look up at the path, a familiar-looking man coming around the curve of the trail and walking toward them.
"There you are, my Queen," Boltar said, holding out his hands toward them and eyeing Dean's cell suspiciously. "Has this oaf attempted to harm you with his blasphemous metalworks?"
"Boltar, he's with me," Charlie said quickly, glancing down at the phone Dean still held. "He's my new … um …"
"Bodyguard," Dean supplied, looking steadily at Boltar.
Boltar raised a questioning eyebrow at the Queen and she nodded. He inclined his head to Dean reluctantly.
"We have been seeking the Shadow King," Charlie added.
Boltar looked at her worriedly. "Oh, these hills are not safe. I beseech you, my Queen, you should return to camp."
"He's right," Dean said abruptly, looking down as Charlie pinned him with a glare and he realised that Boltar was staring at him as well. "Your … uh … worship-fulness. May I have a moment, to, uh, confer, before you take your leaving?"
"Mmm." Charlie nodded and turned away from Boltar with him. They walked down the path the way they'd come for a few yards.
"You take my phone, find Sam, clue him in on what we've got. We'll find the shadow-dorks," he said in a low voice.
"But I can help," Charlie protested, taking the phone as he passed it to her.
"Yeah, you are helping, by finding Sam. Go," he said, jerking his head in the direction of the camp. She looked at him, mouth compressing in an expression he was starting to recognise. Don't have time for this shit, Charlie, he thought and something fleeting caught the edge of his peripheral vision, a rainbow twist of light that he'd seen, once before. He swung around, catching another glimpse, a wild face, surrounded by white hair, then it was gone.
"Did you see that?" he asked and Charlie looked at him, brows drawing together.
"See what?"
Several yards up the path, Boltar turned away from them, drawing something from his pouch and closing his eyes.
"Make it all real," he whispered over the small book he held.
For a moment, nothing happened, then the air thickened, becoming richer, sweeter, wilder, filling his senses with scents and tastes that he'd never imagined before. The trees surrounding the path grew taller and darker, the canopies thickening as they closed over the path completely.
Dean looked up and around as the light changed, and the noises of the forest ceased. "What the –"
Beside him, Charlie stepped back, her arms lifting as the armour she wore, the clothes under and over it, changed, the textures becoming coarser, rougher against her skin. She looked up and saw the tree trunks thickening, the gloom in the forest deepening. Around them, the land moved, rising to a serrated series of shadowy hills to the north, mist rising from the ground in the forest to either side of them.
Dean felt the chain-mail change over his chest and shoulder, becoming longer and heavier. Against his belt, the sword became heavier as well, and he looked down, the double-handed hilt now metal, wrapped in a leather binding, darkened with sweat.
"What's going on?" Charlie whispered to him, staring around.
He shook his head. "I don't know, but whatever killed those guys, I think it's here, now."
He looked back at the man on the path, seeing him standing still, head bowed. A prickle ran up the nerves along the back of his neck, and he turned back to Charlie.
"Come on, we gotta get outta here," he said, reaching for her arm and dragging her along the path.
"Yeah, I think you're right," she agreed, her voice barely audible as she stumbled after him.
From his left, he heard the crackle of movement in the undergrowth, the slur of boots over the ground, the sigh of foliage pushed aside. Dammit, he thought, moving faster, pushing Charlie ahead of him.
"Got your sword?" he asked her in a low voice. She shook her head.
The noises were louder now, closer to the edge of the trees, to the path. "Alright, stay behind me, you just keep me in between you and them, you got that?"
"Between you and what?" Charlie squeaked, her eyes widening as she looked from one side of the path to the other.
"Them," Dean said, pulling the sword free of his belt with a singing of the metal along leather, hoping like hell that the metal blade was a lot sharper than the wooden one had been.
The orc dropped from the bank beside the path with a bloodcurdling shriek, greenish-black leathern skin puckered and sagging, pointed yellow teeth dripping saliva, black eyes gleaming in the dim light that was all the forest was letting through. The remnants of clothing fluttered about its misshapen body, but the sword it held was long, the black metal glistening with ichor as the creature swung it toward him and he met the razor edge with his own blade.
The clash sent Charlie scurrying backward, trying to look behind her at the same time as she kept an eye on Dean and the – orc! – monster he was fighting. She'd seen a leviathan devour a human. She'd seen a ghost throw a leviathan into a wall. She should be able to deal with this.
Dean drove the orc's sword downwards, and turned sharply, disengaging his blade and swinging it around the other way, and the monster's head bounced several feet along the path by the time the body had dropped, dripping a dark green blood from the clean cut through the neck.
"Charlie? You there?" he said, unable to look behind him, his gaze shifting along the tree trunks and undergrowth to either side of the path.
"Yeah, still here," she said, her eyes darting frantically back and forth, freezing on a patch of bracken as she saw it shiver violently. "Dean!"
He heard the rustle and stepped back and around, the long sword hissing as it cleaved the air, ending in a deep thunk when it found the orc's skull. Yanking it free of the bone, he didn't have time to think about anything further, memory and training controlling the sword, the automatic reactions to the movement of the monsters, one down, another three dropping from the high banks to the path, one part of his mind tracking the sounds that Charlie was making just out of his vision, another focussed entirely on attack, parry, block, swing, cut, thrust. His father had taught them the basics of swordsmanship in their teenage years, sparring with split bamboo swords that hurt like hell but did no permanent damage. It'd been a long time, but the reactions that had been drilled into them, drilled into his nerves and muscles and memories, came back without hesitation.
He took the last two in a flurry of strokes, the one flowing smoothly into the next, his concentration so acute that the orcs seemed to be cooperating, stepping into his blade without him having to see where they were. He looked around, the blade raised, and found himself alone on the path. In the forest, mist and darkness filled the spaces between the huge trees, moisture dripping silently from leaf to ground, and he couldn't hear anything but a deep, welling silence.
"Charlie!"
He spun around, looking the other way. "CHARLIE!"
His voice was swallowed and muffled by the trees and mist, and there was no answer at all.
Sam turned in a slow circle outside of the tech tent, his brow creasing up as he watched the tents waver and flicker around him. Under his feet, the grassy road became hard, cobbled with small stones, and around him log huts and stone houses and rough-sawn timber barns filled the spaces where the tents had been. His coat, his suit suddenly gained weight, rough against his skin and he looked down at himself, seeing tanned leather pants, tucked into heavy boots, a thick belt wrapped around his hips, the weight of a long steel sword dragging to one side, loosely-woven homespun against his skin, pressed down by the thick, boiled leather cuirass over his chest and the buckled pauldron over his right shoulder. The printout in his hand shivered and coarsened and he watched it turned from toner and paper to ink and parchment, his eyes widening at the sight. The holster in the small of his back had been transformed into a sheath, and his fingers explored the hilt of the knife it held there, where his gun had been.
The LARPers were gone. In their places, tall, svelte elves walked, dressed in the woodland colours of olive and dove and sand and umber; wearing long, hooded cloaks that lifted as they stopped and turned; with long, fine hair in shades of chestnut and oak, ash and maple, ebony and ivory, braided back to avoid catching on the graceful and elaborately carved bows and arrow-filled quivers hanging over shoulder and back.
The Queen's people were dressed in drab earthen colours of the land and soil and crops, their faces and hands dirty, the weapons slung casually at their hips, solid and deadly and well-used. Where the tech tent had been, a long, low stone and timber building stood, its hipped roof sagging slightly in the centre, the thick thatch pierced in several places by stone chimneys that released streamers of grey and white smoke into the cool, blue sky.
What the –
Real magic. The thought stole in. Faery magic.
He ducked his head, looking down the twisting, cobbled road, walking fast through the thin crowd of people, the scents of cooking fat, of leather being tanned and dyed, the acrid bite of ironworking and the ubiquitous stench of dung and wet mud filling his nostrils. From the corner of his eye, he could see several oxen, pulling carts filled with hay in the fields to one side, could see a small group of riders, heading down another partially cobbled and gravelled road leading south and west. Heading for the Warriors village, he wondered?
Where they'd walked in that morning, from the parking lot by the edge of the playground, there was nothing but fields and forest and hills. Closer to the village, a chequered vista of small farmsteads filled the rolling country, the fields ploughed and resting or perennial pasture. The parking lot was gone. The cars that had been there had gone. A dozen wagons sat in the space, several with horses hitched to them, others with their shafts dropped to the ground. Sam looked around carefully, seeing the battered and black-painted wagon that was taking up the slot where Dean had parked the Impala. He couldn't let his brother see this, he thought irrelevantly, close to panic. Couldn't let him see what his beloved car had become.
A guttural snarl came from his right and he turned to look at the creature that was trapped in the stocks. This morning, that'd been Monty. Now the head was longer than human, the ears rising above the skull were twisted and pointed. The skin was slick and hard-looking, a greyish-greenish colour, the eyes that were fixed on him were black.
"Death to the Queen," it growled. "Death to humankind."
He looked at the upward pointing tusks to either side of the mouth, the pointed and blackened teeth in between them. No doubt now that they were fixed to that slab jaw, unable to fall out. He turned away.
If the elves and orcs had become … real … what else? A shout from behind a row of small mud and frame houses on the other side of the road dragged his gaze in that direction and he ran down a narrow laneway between the row and a roofed but open-sided barn.
Six or seven people stood in a loose circle around another pair of men. One man held a sword and shield, the other was dressed in a full-length cloak of dark material, a slender stick held in one hand.
"Wait –" Sam shouted, running toward them.
The mage lifted and dropped the wand as the warrior dodged to one side, his shield angled sharply, the polished mirror centre deflecting the crawling blue lightning that had emerged from the wand's tip from himself and into the ground. He rolled to his feet within a few feet of the mage, the broadsword in his hand swinging long and fast and the mage jumping back as the sword passed within an inch of his legs.
The next downswing of the wand encased the warrior in a coruscating ball of blue fire. Sam skidded to an awkward stop on the outer edge of the crowd, staring as the warrior's head arched back, fire filling his eyes and mouth, his sword and shield held in tightly clenched fists, his feet rising slowly from the ground. The mage whipped the wand to one side and the warrior was flung in the same direction, the ball of enclosing flame vanishing as he hit the ground.
Perfect, Sam thought, running a hair through his hair in frustration. Dean and Charlie could be anywhere, facing anything out there, and he had no means of finding them. He looked down at the parchment still held in his hand. God knew what his phone had been turned into at the moment of transformation.
"Charlie!" Dean yelled as he jogged through along the path, uncaring of bringing more orcs down.
"Sir, keep your voice down or you will bring us to ruin," a voice hissed from the side of the path. Dean stopped and turned, seeing Boltar's face emerge from a clump of bracken.
"Did you see what happened?" he asked the man. Boltar shook his head.
"An orc attacked me, and I – I fought it off, but I was thrown against the tree and when I awoke, it had gone and I thought you and her Majesty had returned to the village."
He climbed out of the bracken and down to the path, straightening the surcoat. Dean noted without surprise that the colours were darker now, the cloth not as fine as it had been. Boltar looked much the same, however, the watery, pale blue eyes wide in the fair-skinned face, his expression not so overtly superior anymore.
Might need the oaf to keep him safe, Dean thought with a sour amusement. "Come on, Cha– her Highness, the Queen, has been taken by the, uh, enemy and we need to find out where."
"Yes, you might be right," Boltar agreed immediately, looking warily around at the forest. "She might've run for the village, while you were fighting."
Dean looked at him. "Possibly. If not, there's someone there we can question."
He turned and started up the path again at a steady run, the sword in its scabbard bouncing against his thigh with every stride. If she had been taken by the orcs, he thought, he was going to need some better armour and a shield, at least. His gun had gone, replaced by a long knife. He needed back up as well.
Behind him, Boltar's panting breaths were clearly audible as the man tried to keep up. It'd only been a few hundreds yards when they'd come into the forest from the playground, but he'd already gone that far with no sign that the forest was letting up.
Real magic, he thought, remembering the rainbow glimpse just before everything had changed. That had been a faery, he'd recognised it from the last time. And it meant that all bets were off.
Sam walked back up the road toward the – what had been – the tech tent. A faded and peeling painted wooden sign was swinging gently from the roof now and he slowed down to read it. The Boar's Head Inn. Complete with a gruesomely realistic rendition of a severed boar's head. Charming.
He walked past as the door opened and two men walked out, the gust of scent from the doorway, of hops and fermenting wine, roasting meat and sour sweat, matching the scents that blew back to him from the men. Walking behind them, he watched their slightly unsteady progress over the uneven cobbles of the road, slowing as they approached an elven woman, standing on her own.
"Pretty little elf," one of the men crooned to her.
Sam saw her turn around, and blinked at the sight of her face. It was a face of great beauty, but the perfect symmetry of the features, the long, almond-shaped eyes, high cheekbones, pointed chin and flawless, porcelain skin were not, by any stretch of the imagination, human.
"Got a kiss, pretty elf?" The other man flanked her, and Sam reached for the hilt of the sword that hung by his side.
She moved in a blur, seeming to materialise behind the first man with a long, delicate blade held to his throat, the second man staring in drunken disbelief at the gap on his hand as his blood dripping slowly to the road. At his feet, Sam noted the two missing fingers dispassionately.
"Go home, humans, before you lose any more tonight," she said, and her voice was high and sweet, like the notes of a flute. She pushed the man in front of her away and stepped back, her head turning slightly.
"You too," she said to Sam over her shoulder as the men stumbled off up the road.
"I'm, uh, not with them," Sam said pacifically, releasing his sword hilt and holding his hands up, empty and palms out.
She turned and looked at him, her lips curled in a sneer. "You are all alike."
He couldn't help the slightly strangled laugh that came out. "Yeah, not really."
With a flowing movement, the sword in her hand was sheathed and she looked at him, hands tucked into her belt.
"If you're in danger here, why did you come?" Sam asked curiously.
"Some of us still feel the old ways, the old ties to the royal seat of Muindur," she answered warily, lifting a hand to gesture slightly in the direction of the royal tent. Sam followed the gesture and saw a small castle where the tent had been, battlements and turrets carrying pennants with Charlie's crest, flying in the breeze.
"I thought the four kingdoms were separate?"
"A long time ago, we were the allies of the peoples of this land. We were one race, with our own powerful magic and we tended the earth and all livings things that dwelled upon it. We swore fealty to the King of men, here in the valley of Never, and all was peaceful and good."
"What happened?" Sam stepped closer to the elf, distantly aware that he was losing himself in her mellifluous voice, in the depths of her golden eyes. She was almost his height and that added a strange frisson to the odd attraction he felt.
"We were betrayed," she said, her voice hardening. "The Sindar were divided for a thousand years, until we were almost two different peoples, the Silvan, who live in the woods and the valleys, and the Noldor, who live high in the mountains to the east." She shook her head slightly, dropping her gaze to her hands. "There is a prophecy, recited from generation to generation. A Queen to reunite us and the kingdom of Muindur."
She looked at him, her eye level barely below his. "So, some of us still come here, to talk to the Queen, hoping that she might be the one."
Charlie? Sam thought, struggling to keep his doubts from his face. Or had the magic slipped them into a parallel universe, where the kingdoms were somehow real, Moondoor – Muindur – and the game was life here?
"Have you seen this symbol?" He held out the parchment to the elf. She looked down at it and back to him, her eyes darkening slightly.
"Yes, it is the mark of the Shadow King," she said, thrusting the parchment back at him, her expression screwing up in distaste.
"My brother and I, uh, we are hunting the evil that plagues this land," he said, hoping it would be enough of an explanation.
"Evil does not come from the orcs, my people say," she said. "But from he that controls them."
"Who controls them?" Sam frowned at her.
"I thought it was rumour, shadows from the past, then I too, saw the vision, in the fire, in the water, in the mists of the river," she told him, lowering her voice as she glanced around them. "A man, I think, he has the visage of a man, robed and hooded, and he holds a tome of magic, using it to control the Sidhe."
Huh, Sam thought. That put a different slant on things. He wasn't sure if that was going to help or not.
He heard boots on the road behind him and turned, seeing Dean running toward him, the panting and stumbling Boltar staggering along in his wake.
"Sam, Charlie's been taken," Dean said, stopping and dragging in a deep breath. Sam turned back to the elf but she had gone, not even the softest footfall audible.
"In the forest?" He looked back at his brother. Dean nodded as Boltar came up to them.
"The orcs, in the forest, all real now."
"Everything's real now," Sam said, gesturing around the authentic and undeniably solid village. "We'll check Charlie's digs, to make sure she didn't get back on her own."
"We need better armour, and more weapons," Dean agreed, following Sam up the road. "What the hell happened?"
"Hard to say," Sam said pensively. "Someone here is controlling a faery, with a spell. The faery either transformed our world into a fantasy LARPers game, or shifted this whole game into a parallel universe where everything is real. I just talked to an elf who had the whole history down pat."
Dean slowed, looking around uneasily. "We break the spell everything snaps back, right?"
"Yeah, I hope so."
Charlie woke, lifting her hand to her head and screwing her eyes shut as it gave a deep-seated throb behind them. One helluva hangover considering she couldn't remember the party, she thought caustically. After a moment, the throbbing receded to the middle distance and she sat up slowly, looking around.
The room, and she thought it was just one room, was rustic in a fairy-princess kind of way. She was sitting on a four-poster bed, fine, filmy draperies gathered at each corner, the mattress and pillows soft and yielding under her. The log walls had been chinked and smoothed, and the timber gleamed a warm, dark gold in the candlelight that shone steadily from several thick candles positioned around the room.
She slid off the edge of the bed, and stood up cautiously, her gaze taking in the rich tapestries that hung on the walls, her feet sinking deep into soft furs that covered the floor. Upmarket for a game, she thought a little uneasily, wriggling her stockinged toes against the fur.
She came around the end of the bed and stopped, staring at the still figure that stood a few feet from her. The deer skull covered the head completely, antlers stretching out to either side. The body was hidden beneath a long black robe.
"Uh …"
The skull and robe stretched out, distorting and bleeding into the air around them, and Charlie's eyes widened as they dissolved slowly in front of her. The air rippled, a shift of rainbow colours, brightening to an eye-searing brilliant white and slowly fading out.
Where the skull-robe had been, a tall, impossibly slender girl stood.
Not a girl, Charlie reconsidered, taking in the heart-shaped face, framed in a wild halo of silver-white hair, arctic-blue, almond-shaped eyes, fringed by long white lashes, a small, plumply full mouth, the lips the colour of aged burgundy. Not human.
"Don't be afraid."
"Afraid? Me? No, uh … no," Charlie stammered. "Why would I be?"
The girl smiled, one side of her mouth lifting a little higher than the other. "I can hear your heart, Charlene," she said. "I brought you here to help me, not to harm you."
"Oh …" Charlie felt her knees sag slightly and she felt behind her for the end of the bed. "What are you?"
The girl's brows rose sharply. "You don't know? Or you do know but you don't want to admit it yet?"
"All of the above?"
"I am Eolande, of the Aes Sidhe, the Old Ones," Eolande said, her bright eyes narrowing as she looked at Charlie. "I think you've heard of us."
"Yeah, well, no, not really," Charlie prevaricated. "I mean, how much stock can you put into a video game, really?"
"Video game?"
"Never mind," Charlie sighed. "You did all this?"
Eolande looked around and nodded. "A man called me, bound me. I must do as he commands."
"He commanded you to turn our game into a real fantasy world?" She frowned as she heard how that'd sounded. "You know what I mean."
"Yes." The faery shivered, her outline dissolving into a million shimmering motes and reforming again.
Charlie rubbed her eyes. "Why am I here again?"
"You said you wanted to be a hero," Eolande stepped closer to her. "I heard you."
"No, no, no. What I said was that in the game I could be a hero," Charlie corrected her tersely, looking away. "In real life, I'm not."
"Is there a difference?"
"What do you mean? Of course there's a difference!" Charlie said. "In the game no one dies."
"That's not very heroic, if there's no risk."
"Yeah, well." She looked back at the faery. "I'm what you might call risk-aversive."
"I don't think that's true," Eolande said. "I think you think you can't do it."
Charlie dragged in a deep breath. "Yeah, there's that too."
"Courage is not the absence of fear, Charlene," the faery said softly. "It is doing what you must in spite of being afraid."
"You gotta be kidding me?" Dean looked up at the castle walls, thirty feet high and thick stone, the top crenelated and reinforced around the length with machicolations and bossing.
"Welcome to Muindur," Sam said dryly, walking up to the gate. He drew his sword and rapped on the heavy, hard timbers with the pommel.
"Who goes there?"
"Uh, emissaries for the Queen," Sam called back, making a face at his brother. The gate opened slowly, two guards with drawn swords appearing from the dimness of the tunnel between the outer wall and the curtain wall.
"Your business with the Queen?" The taller guard raised the point of his sword toward them.
"Her Majesty has been kidnapped by the Shadow orcs," Dean grated, his patience wearing thin. "Every soldier is needed to rescue her."
The guard's face paled and he turned abruptly, gesturing to the man behind him. "Call the Captain, wake the men."
"Think we'll have enough?" Sam muttered to his brother as they hurried through the tunnel to the bailey and into the castle.
"No idea," Dean said, staring around at the great hall they'd entered. "What's enough against a faery?"
"Armoury'll be through there," Sam pointed to the right at a curving hallway that followed the line of the wall.
The low-ceilinged room was the first door they came to and they pulled off their leather jerkins, finding the padded undershirts and hauberks piled on a long bench along the wall.
"God, this weighs a ton," Dean said, struggling to get the chain-mail shirt over his head. "How did people fight in this stuff?"
"You get used to it, I guess," Sam grunted, pulling his own over his head. He picked up a cuirass of boiled leather, thin sheet metal sewn between the layers, and buckled it on. "Better than ending up full of holes."
"Yeah," Dean agreed, looking along the rows of swords and shields and picking out the best he could find. "The road down to the forest and the, uh, Black Hills where the orcs are hiding out is a lot longer now."
Sam buckled the long belt around his hips, settling the scabbard back slightly so that it lay flat against his thigh, the hilt jutting out toward his hand. "How much longer?"
"Miles longer," Dean said, lifting the oval shield over his head and settling the broad leather strap against his chest. "That's why it took Bolty and me so long to get back."
"Think her Highness has horses here?"
"Better hope, we'll have an advantage if we get attacked again in the forest anyway."
"My lords, the men are ready." The Captain of the Guard stood at the doorway, a stocky, barrel-chested man with short-cut greying hair. Dean and Sam followed him out of the castle and down into the courtyard. Twenty men stood beside their horses, their polished armour and weapons reflecting the bloody colours of the sunset.
"Do you know which way she was taken?" the Captain asked, gesturing to another, smaller group of soldiers.
"The orcs took her," Dean told him. "There's one in the stocks in the village, we'll be asking him where they'd've gone. You got a couple more horses for us?"
"Of course," the Captain said.
"Your mounts," one of the guards said, leading up two horses from behind the group. Dean looked at the heavily built bay gelding, hoping he remembered how to ride the damned thing. Sam's grey was a couple of hands taller, the horse's face and chest protected by curved plates of metal, buckled around the neck and girth.
"We having fun yet, Dean?" Sam said, putting his left foot in the stirrup and bouncing off his right, swinging his right leg over the saddle. He caught a glimpse of his brother's sardonic smile as Dean turned away.
"Yippee-ki-yay."
Boltar stared at the orc held in the stocks, aware that somewhere in the back of his mind, he was looking for zippers, for latex, for an indication that the creature in front of him wasn't real. The congealed yellow matter at the corners of the orc's eyes and the long, black tongue hanging from the open mouth certainly seemed real. He stared in disgusted fascination as a long, ropey string of saliva dripped from the tongue to the ground. The ringing clatter of shod hooves coming down the road dragged his attention back to the current situation.
Dean pulled up his horse next to him and dismounted. "You get the location of the king's hideout?"
He shook his head. "No, I failed."
Dean shrugged and walked over to the orc, drawing his sword and raising the tip until it was level with the orc's eye. "How 'bout it, ugly? Where's the king hiding out?"
The orc stared at him impassively, a pool of saliva dripping slowly from between its tusks.
"We gonna do this the hard way?" He shifted the point slightly lower and flicked the tip across the creature's face, slicing through the thick skin, leaving a flap hanging from the cheek down to the jaw. The orc roared, straining against the iron-hard oak timbers that held it.
"The King does not have your Queen," it screamed at him, spraying spit across the front of his breastplate.
"That's not the right answer," Dean said, moving the tip of the sword to the other cheek as he watched the orc trying desperately to twist away.
"It's the truth." The orc froze as the sword touched its skin. "There is a power in the forest, not in the hills, in the deeps of the forest where the border meets the river, none of us could get close to it, even the elves whisper of it, it's the truth!"
"Dean, wait," Sam said. "I think that is the truth. The elf said it was a man, controlling the faery."
He looked at the orc. "Where in the forest?"
"By Hellenduir's Fall, a deep ravine and a stone building there that was never there before."
Dean looked at Boltar. "You know where he's talking about?"
"No." Boltar shook his head.
"I know Hellenduir's Falls, my lord," a soldier said, from the lines behind Sam. "My family lived on the edge of Shadowness Forest, I've been there."
"Just got yourself point, man," Dean said, sliding the sword back into the scabbard and getting onto his horse. "Bolty, you better stay here. I don't think combat's really your thing."
Boltar stepped back as Dean nudged his horse into a trot, the iron shoes on the horses' hooves drawing sparks from the cobbles as the column of men rode past him.
"No, it is not," Boltar said softly, watching horses and riders increase their pace as they crossed the wide field in front of the forest. He turned and looked at the orc. "I'm afraid I'm going to need one of your teeth."
"How far are these falls?" Dean drew alongside the young soldier leading the way. "You gotta name?"
"Tomas, sir," Tomas said. He gestured across the forest to the south. "The falls are perhaps thirty miles, east of south."
Thirty miles, Dean thought. He didn't know what kind of time they were making on the horses, but it couldn't be too bad. He could do four miles an hour on foot, keeping to a steady run; he thought the horses might be making twenty or so, though they wouldn't be able to keep up this pace for long. The thud of hooves on the hard road softened as they reached the edge of the forest.
"There is a part of forest, between where we are and the falls, that is very dangerous, sir," Tomas volunteered uneasily. "They say the Shadow King has no control over it, that the creatures that live there eat the souls of any who venture in."
"Awesome," Dean said, nodding and reining back slightly, letting the soldier go on ahead, waiting for Sam to catch up with.
"Apparently, we might have to fight our way through to get to this place," he said to his brother.
"You sound surprised," Sam said, looking at the moonlit forest around them.
"You don't," Dean retorted, looking at him. "How's that?"
"Well, a familiarity with the genre, for starter's, I guess." Sam shrugged. "We're on a quest to save a Queen from peril … did you think we'd get away with not having to fight our way through countless dangers to do it?"
Dean smiled sourly. "No breaks, not even in a fairy-tale?"
"Especially not in a faery-tale," Sam confirmed.
"Did your elf friend mention anything else living around here, aside from the orcs?"
"No, but I wasn't asking about the local fauna," he said. "Just keep our eyes open, I guess."
They'd dropped to a walk an hour later as the forest had closed in around them, the few thin shafts of moonlight the could penetrate the canopy providing too little light to go any faster. Dean had debated the pros and cons of lighting torches with himself for fifteen minutes before he finally decided that the dangers of attracting attention were outweighed by getting to the source of the problems in the quickest possible time.
Two of the men were leading them along the ever-narrowing path, their oil-soaked torches shedding enough flickering light around them to keep moving at a reasonable pace.
Shortly after Sam had gone to Stanford, he'd signed up for a few months of paid work, on a working ranch in Colorado. The owner had been a Corp buddy of his father's and he'd found out that the ruse of a possible werewolf in the mountain country had been his father's idea. Between what had happened with Sam's leaving and the disaster of meeting Cassie only a few weeks after that, he'd figured that his father thought he needed some time to himself. Not that he'd agreed, not at first. But, he acknowledged dryly, after the second month there, he'd realised that it had been what he'd needed. The work was simple and he'd liked it. Liked the physicality of it and the peace of the wide-open, silent land. Horses had been the preferred work animal on the place, he'd spent between six and eight hours a day on horseback over that time, and he was surprised now that it was coming back so easily.
The prickle along the nerves at the back of his neck gave them a few seconds' warning of the attack.
"Sam! Close up! They're here!" he yelled, drawing his sword and dropping the reins, hauling his shield over his head as the distinctive whistle of arrows filled the air. The orcs erupted from the forest, barely visible in the near-darkness, the long arrows with their black feather fletching hitting the men and horses to the rear.
"Fire! More torches!" Sam shouted, rolling off his horse and picking up one of the torches that had fallen from the dead guard's fingers and holding it up. Two of the Queen's guards grabbed branches from the side of the path and lit them from the torch, arrows punching into their shields as they spread the light.
Dean rode down a small grouping of orcs at the rear of the column, the creatures turning too late as the big bay thundered up to them, three crushed beneath the war-horse's hooves, his sword taking the heads of two others, and the long, sharp point at the top of his shield driving deeply into the skull of one that had turned to flee. The men rallied at the sight, and the path was filled with the clash of metal on metal, screams of fury and pain, the stench of blood, bright-red and green-black, churned into the ground.
At the other end of the column, Sam fought on the ground, leading five of the Queen's men, their swords drinking deeply from the orcs that swarmed around them, greater skill making up for lesser numbers. The firelight turned the battle into a flickering miasma, where shadows through the light and smoke could be friend or foe, and the grunts and snarls and shrieks from the orcs drowned out the screams of the men who lay dying.
"Attack!"
Dean's deep voice roared over the melee, Sam looking up to see his brother and a dozen of the mounted soldiers, heading for them at a full gallop, four tightly abreast, the horses shoulder to shoulder, filling the path completely.
"Hold!" he yelled at his men, and they backed together, shields up, forming a tight circle as the orcs splintered and scattered around them, many of them throwing down their weapons and racing back into the sheltering darkness of the forest.
The horsemen pulled up next to the group and Dean dropped to the ground, looking first at his brother. "You alright?"
"Yeah, a few scratches, nothing serious," Sam said, lowering his shield and sheathing his sword. "How many did we lose?"
"Not sure," Dean answered, handing his horse to one of the soldiers and walking back along the path, checking each of the men who lay on the ground. Eight had died, four more were injured too badly to continue. He looked back at Sam and shook his head, reaching out to close the staring eyes of Tomas.
"A pyre?" Sam looked at the men. "It would keep them safer than trying to make it back through the night."
Dean nodded, turning to one of the men. "Mikel, choose four men to stay here, protect the injured, burn the dead."
The soldier nodded, and turned away as Dean and Sam mounted again, leading the four remaining soldiers away. Tomas had told him that the path they were on would take them straight to the falls. It would get narrower as the land rose into the hills, but it would still be obvious.
His watch had disappeared at the same time as his gun, and he had no idea of the time. The moon was low in the western sky, the light slanting through the forest, not much but enough for the horses to find their way in the darkness.
"I never wanted you to be a soldier, to go to war, to see men die under your command," his father had said, one long ago evening when they'd been on their own in a little town on the edge of nowhere, cleaning the guns by the light of a kerosene lantern. "It kills something inside, to watch those deaths, waiting for your own. But at the same time, I couldn't've trusted anyone else with their lives, couldn't believe that anyone else would look after them the same way I could."
He hadn't really understood what his father had been trying to tell him that night, although his imagination had furnished the images around the words, and let him see the pain that had lived, mostly buried, sometimes not, inside the man. He understood it now. They'd followed him unquestioningly, not because they knew him or had loyalty to him but, he thought, because he'd gone in ahead of them.
You can't lead an army from the rear. And there was no part of him that could stand aside and send anyone in to do a job that he could do himself. He remembered the burning feeling of shame he'd felt, watching Charlie enter Roman's building through the monitors, from the safety of the anonymous van outside. He couldn't have done what she could do, but that hadn't changed the feeling. And again, they'd involved her in a situation where she could get hurt, or killed.
"We should have sent her away," Dean said softly, turning his head to look at Sam.
"She didn't want to go," Sam pointed out. "People make their own choices, Dean. You've got to learn to let them do that. You can't be responsible for what other people choose to do, can't take responsibility for everything that happens."
He glanced back down the trail. "Whoever's controlling this faery, they chose to work the spell that brought it here. They chose to give the commands that killed those men and created this situation. That's not on you."
In the darkness he heard his brother's deep exhale and frowned. "I chose all the things that happened in my life. You were right about that. I chose to trust Ruby. Chose to drink the demon blood. Chose her over you, thinking that I was stronger than you were," he said quietly. "Those choices brought on the end of the world. And I know what they did to you. And there's nothing I can do to make that right, to fix it. Except try and figure out who I became when I made them." He sighed. "And how to get back to who I was before."
Dean sat still in the saddle, listening to the pain in his brother's voice. He didn't know what to say to Sam. Didn't know if there was anything he could say that could help Sam with what he needed to do for himself. He wanted to tell him that it was okay, that he understood – it wasn't a lie, he did understand what had driven those choices, for the most part. But he didn't say it. He'd spent his life trying to make things right for Sam and it had never worked out. It was time for Sam to make it right for himself, or not.
Like Benny, he thought wearily. Like Cas.
Sam looked over at his brother, seeing his profile dimly in the faint reflected light filtering through the trees above them. He felt the silence between them, a silence that told him that for the first time, Dean wasn't going to tell him it was okay, that it would be okay. A silence that told him that his brother was leaving it up to him to get this right.
"So this is actually Muindur?" Charlie looked at the faery in confusion. "In our time or is it a separate, parallel universe or what?"
Eolande smiled slightly. "It is itself. All worlds lie close together from time to time. Close enough to step to with a little magic."
"That tells me a lot," the programmer said with a sniff. "Is it real?"
"As real as you are," Eolande confirmed.
"And when you remove the spell, what happens then?"
"Everything will return to what it once was."
"The people you killed? The people who've been killed since you changed it?" Charlie pressed. Had the orcs that Dean had fought been people in her world? Were they dead now?
"Sssh!" The faery stood abruptly, and vanished. Charlie shifted back slightly on the bed, her heart thumping as the iron latch to the door lifted.
"My Queen," Boltar said as he came into the room, closing the door behind him and strolling to the fire. "I see you're resting comfortably."
"Boltar, what are you –" she stopped, closing her mouth as the pieces dropped into place in her mind.
"You're the mage who summoned the faery?" Charlie couldn't keep the disbelief out of her voice and Boltar's face darkened at the implication.
"You constantly underestimate me," he said angrily, walking to her. "Why? Why is that?"
"Hey, don't take it personally," she said, wriggling backwards across the bed. "You just – didn't seem the type."
"The type? The type?" He stood in front of her, hands clenched into fists. "What? Like your 'bodyguard' or his friend, the giant? I've got more brains than the two of them together, adding half of the other players in this game."
"Of course you have," Charlie said soothingly, looking around for a weapon. The room was unsurprisingly lacking in them.
"If you'd just seen what I could've offered you, none of this would've happened," he said, walking toward the bed. "A Queen needs a King, a strong and wise King."
Charlie rolled off the other side, brows raised. "Are you kidding me?"
"Eolande!"
The faery appeared beside him. "Make her see that I am the right man for her."
"I can't do that," the faery said acerbically. "I told you."
Boltar turned to look at the faery. "Do as I command!"
"I can't create love, no one can," Eolande looked at him expressionlessly. "Magic can't touch love."
The roar of the waterfall gave them warning that they were close and they pulled up, leaving the horses tied along the path and following it down toward the river on foot, single file. The building the orc had told them of was little more than a single room cottage, Sam thought as he saw the faint lights from the windows, leaking out around the coverings.
Dean felt the prickle on his neck again. "Dammit."
"What?" Sam looked at him. He gestured to the forest around them.
"More uninvited guests." He chewed the corner of his lip for a moment. "We'll have to go full throttle. You and me to get Charlie, and try and find the spell book, these guys keeping the orcs off us until we can break the spell."
"Sounds like a plan." Sam nodded, as Dean turned to the soldiers behind them.
They raced down the hill, hearing the rustlings and grunts in the trees and undergrowth of the forest around them. Dean hit the door with his shoulder at full speed and the timbers splintered around the latch, the door flying open, he and Sam falling through into the room as first of the orcs hit the edge of the clearing.
"Sam! Dean!" Charlie yelled as they rolled to their feet. "It's Boltar!"
Eolande disappeared as soon as the door flew open, but Dean could see her, crouching beside the ornate chest of drawers behind Boltar.
"And faery," he said, looking back at Jerry. "Well, now what, Jerry?"
Jerry stared at him. "My name is Boltar, the Furious!"
He dragged in a deep breath. "My plan was to win the battle tomorrow, having rid myself of all my competition, convincing the Queen that I should be her King. But then you two idiots showed up and I was forced to improvise." He looked away. "Rescue the damsel in distress from orcs, become King, kill you both." He looked at them with a humourless smile. "That'll work too."
"So why'd you go from hobbling to murder?" Sam asked. Boltar shook his head.
"Because I could," he said shortly. "What do you care?"
"What is your problem?" Charlie stepped out from behind the bed. "Why would you hurt people? This is just a game."
"THERE IS NO GAME!" Jerry screamed at her furiously. "There is only Moondoor. I came here to be different, to get away from my crappy life! To be a hero! And guess what?!"
"What? You were a loser in the real world and you're a loser here?" Dean smirked at him. "Shocker."
Jerry drew his sword from its scabbard, looking at Sam. "Eolande, hold him."
Dean saw the faery look at Sam, and his brother was encased in ice. Jerry swung the sword up and Dean pulled his from the scabbard on his belt, feeling the weight and balance in his wrists, stepping away from the wall as the lighter man approached.
The first engagement of blade on blade told him everything he needed to know. Jerry'd been having lessons in swordplay, maybe for a couple of years. He'd developed enough muscle and control in his forearms and shoulders to handle the heavy two-handed sword, but not enough to defeat a more skilled opponent. Which he didn't think the man facing him was. Not enough to understand weight and balance in the fighter, not just the sword. Not enough to move fast, in any direction, to be able to anticipate his opponent, or out-think them. Dean backed, giving Jerry more time to feel confident, watching the emotions in his face, then he drove forward.
Jerry stumbled backward at the weight and power of the sideways cut, his certainty that Dean wouldn't be able to fight as well with a sword crumbling under the bigger man's ferocious attack. He blocked the backswing weakly, the flat of the hunter's broadsword hitting him above the ear, making his head ring, and he only just parried the thrust that followed, sweeping the blade aside, his arms aching from the weight of the sword and the weight of the blows. The next cut was low and he jumped, staggering as he landed against the bedpost behind him, not realising it was there. Another cut rang through his blade, the vibrations numbing his wrist to the elbow and he turned away, rolling across the floor to get some distance.
"Eolande, stop him!" Jerry yelled as he rolled to his feet, the sword's point dragging on the floor.
"NO!"
Charlie dove across the floor between them, her hands outstretched for the book that had fallen from Jerry's pouch. She felt the cover under her fingers and turned the dive into a sideways roll, her arm arching up and the book flying smoothly in a gentle curve into the fire.
Jerry, Eolande and Dean stopped, turning to watch the flames licking at the cover. The book caught all at once, flaring high up the chimney in a twisting vortex of white fire.
"NO-OOOO!" Jerry shrieked, lurching across the floor in a belated attempt to get it. Dean used the flat of the sword to sweep his legs out from under him as Eolande straightened up and spread her arms wide.
The ice encasing Sam vanished. The air thinned and wavered, the scents of the world of Muindur disappearing, leaving the very faintly tainted air of Farmington Hills in its place.
Dean looked at the long wooden sword in his hand, feeling the weight of the mail and armour disappear, his clothing changing back to the costume that Charlie'd insisted he wear. Around them the room and the cottage faded, showing the white canvas walls of a small tent, extremely crowded with five of them inside of it.
The faery opened her eyes and looked at Dean for a long moment. "You are still hunted, you should know that."
He didn't pretend to not know what she was talking about. Nodding abruptly, he turned away, stretching out a hand to Sam and hauling him to his feet. Eolande looked at Charlie.
"You were very heroic," she said, her smile not quite reaching the arctic-blue eyes. "Do you believe you can be, now?"
Charlie shook her head, looking at the brothers who were lifting Jerry to his feet. "Not really. I have my moments, but I know what it looks like, when it's all the time, and real."
Eolande followed her gaze and shrugged. "Some people have no choice in the matter." She turned back to the woman. "You broke my bonds and I am indebted to you," she said softly. "Choose your heart's desire, that I may clear the debt between us."
Charlie's eyes widened as she registered the faery's meaning. "A wish? Really?"
"Really," the fey smiled. "Whatever you want."
Charlie glanced at Dean and Sam, both men watching her and leaned closer to Eolande. She whispered in the faery's ear.
"As you wish," Eolande said. And vanished.
Sam looked around the cramped interior. "She really gone now?"
Dean nodded. "Yep."
The tent was just a half an hour walk back to the camp site of Moondoor. Jerry stumbled and moaned the entire way. Charlie opened the stocks and freed Monty, and Dean forced Jerry into them with only a little unnecessary force as Charlie slid the pins into the locks.
"Couple of weeks?" He turned to look at Charlie with a lifted brow. She looked at Jerry coolly.
"Or months."
They turned away and headed back for the royal tent. "I can't believe I missed out on the castle," she said sadly, looking at the small tent as they got near it. "Was it really, really cool?"
Sam snorted. "Yeah, it was amazing."
"Totally awesome," Dean agreed.
"Damn." She stopped walking and looked at them. "I don't suppose you two would like to give an old friend a hand with the upcoming battle, by any chance?"
Dean looked at the ground and Sam looked away, neither saying anything.
"Okay, say no more." She nodded and kept walking. The brothers followed her, catching up after a moment.
"So, what's next for you, Charlie?" Sam stopped in front of the tent. "New town? New identity?"
"If the last twenty-four hours have taught me anything, it's that escaping isn't what it used to be," she said, looking around them at the people moving around the Moondoor site. "No more replacement characters for me. I gotta face reality from now on. Sadly, reality actually includes monsters, but what are you gonna do?"
She turned her head, looking at Dean. "If you guys need my help anytime, let me know."
"Will do," Dean said, glancing at Sam. "Take care of yourself, Charlie."
She nodded, and went into the tent. Dean looked around for a moment then turned and looked at his brother.
"So, uh, what's next?" he asked Sam. "'Cause, no fun, right?"
Sam's mouth twitched a little.
"Look, before you say anything, I get it," Dean continued, his gaze dropping to the ground. "No amount of fun is going to help you get over what you gave up."
"Oh, I don't know," Sam said slowly, the thoughtful tone of his voice getting his brother's attention. "This job was pretty fun. I had a good laugh seeing you in that hinky costume."
"Yeah, that's hilarious," Dean said, brows drawing together. "What are you saying, Sammy?"
Sam pulled in a deep breath, looking away. "What I gave up, Dean, I did for me. Not for you. Not for the job or the world. It was my choice and it was just for me."
"Huh." Dean found something interesting on the ground to stare at.
"I'm feeling kind of bad on bailing on Charlie in her hour of need," Sam added, tilting his head to look at Dean's face.
"Yeah," Dean said, mouth quirking up on one side. "Me too."
Dawn lit the eastern sky in streaks of pale gold and blushing rose, outlining the streamers of thin cloud that trailed to the west and gilding the mists that rose from the river and the damp soil to wreathe the wide, open ground between the two armies.
The field was not totally silent. The jingle of buckles and rasp of metal over leather, the thunk of heavy weapons dropped onto the moist sod, the sighs and harshly drawn breaths of the men and women lined there eddied quietly back and forth.
Dean drew in a deep breath, his voice dropping a half a register as he walked along the ranks, his sword in his hand, his shield held over one arm, his face drawn and alight with passion.
"My brothers, I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me," he turned at the end of the row, looking back at them. "A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day."
"Is that –?" Charlie looked up at Sam quizzically. Sam grinned at her, nodding.
"An hour of wolves and shattered shields when the Age of Men comes crashing down, but it is not this day! This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good earth, I bid you stand, Men of the West!"
The Queen's army stood, rattling their swords against their shields and shouting at the tops of their voices. And Sam laughed as he ran stride for stride with his brother, sword raised and shield held over shoulder and heart, toward the army that was barrelling across the mist-covered grass straight at them.
The two armies clashed, men going down as body hit body and shield clanged against shield. Black and red and blue and green balls flew through the air over the heads of the combatants, leaving soft puffs of coloured chalk on their victims' faces, hair and clothes as the mages wielded their magic from the sidelines. Dean worked his way across the ranks of the orcs, the heavy clunk of his sword easily audible over the noise of the melee, while Sam had turned the other way and was decimating the ranks of elf and warrior like a berserker, standing a head taller than most of his opponents.
The sun had risen perhaps a hand's breadth over the horizon when the brothers dropped to their knees, leaning against the hilts of their upright swords, surrounded by the twitching dead.
A trumpet sounded and they looked up wearily, getting to their feet as a representative from each of the four kingdoms knelt in front of the Queen of Moons.
"How'd you find this place?" Dean looked around appreciatively, his hand curled around a pint of ale, drawn from the tap. Two empties sat on the table not far from his elbow.
The room was long and low-ceilinged; chunky, varnished timber tables and benches filling most of the centre of the floor, a short bar running along the wall it shared in common with the more modern-looking bar in the next room. A wide hearth in the middle of the exterior wall was filled with a cheerful fire, spilling the scents of burning applewood and pine, and the lighting came from sconces along the walls, the tables lit with candles in glass shields.
"You like?" Charlie asked, looking around contentedly.
"It's awesome," he said, gulping down a few mouthfuls of the beer.
"The owner's been coming along to Moondoor, thinking about setting up a portable brewery there and she let us take over this room. We plastered the walls, built the tables and the bar, and provide our own live music."
On cue, the musicians stepped onto the low, wooden platform at the other end of the room with fiddles and harp, flutes and guitars and bodhran, the first lilting notes of an old folksong lifting above the droning murmur of the voices.
He watched them for a few moments, the toe of his boot tapping unconsciously in time, then turned back to Charlie. "So, that faery gave you a wish?"
She nodded, smiling a little dreamily. He tilted his head to one side, eyes narrowing.
"What'd you wish for?"
"I can't tell you that, it'd break the wish," she said, looking around. Dean studied her, unable to imagine what she could want that she didn't already have, pretty much.
"Come on, you can tell me," he coaxed, feeling a hundred percent relaxed by the action of the battle, the easing of the tensions between him and his brother, the atmosphere in the cheerful room, the three pints sloshing around his stomach … for the first time in a long time, everything felt pretty much okay.
Charlie looked at him for a moment, then leaned closer, her chin resting on one hand. "I wished for someone to love."
Dean blinked. Hadn't thought of that. "I thought the faery said she couldn't mess with love?"
"I didn't wish for someone to fall in love with me," she corrected him dryly. "I wished for someone that I could love."
He wasn't sure he saw the distinction. "Well, yeah. Sure."
"You know how I said I wanted to be a hero?" she asked him. He frowned, vaguely recalling the conversation.
"Yeah. Why?"
"I realised that I don't. I mean, not the way you guys are," she amended. Dean frowned.
"Charlie, we're not heroes. We just do our job, that's it."
"That's kind of what makes you heroes, you know?" She smiled gently at him.
"No, it's not."
"You get paid for this gig, Dean?" Charlie asked, deciding to change tactics.
He looked at her narrowly. "No."
"Not exactly a job, then is it?" she said, waving a hand vaguely. "Not like you're making a living from it, or getting anything out of it for yourselves."
"Doesn't change a thing," he muttered, looking away.
Sam set another pint down next to his brother and sat down on the other side of the table. "What?"
"Would your Highness care to join me in a gamble?"
The three of them looked around at the soft voice, heavy with the burr of an Irish accent. Standing next to Charlie's chair, a young woman, dressed in a simple dark gown, with a long fall of strawberry blonde curls and sky-blue eyes, smiled at the Queen.
"Definitely," Charlie said, getting to her feet and taking her hand. She glanced over her shoulder at them.
"Don't wait up."
Sam lifted a brow at Dean as they watched the pair thread their way through the crowd. "What was that all about?"
Dean watched the two find a place in the crowded dance area, ignoring a faint tug of envy. He shrugged. "No idea."
"You want to head back to Missouri tomorrow?"
"If nothing else comes up in the meantime," Dean agreed readily. "Why do you think Kevin's having trouble with the piece we've got?"
"Failsafe," Sam said, frowning. "When the leviathan tablet broke, he only had to touch the pieces for it to rejoin. I think that when the tablet breaks, it's just unreadable for anyone, even the prophet."
"So we need to find the other piece, pronto."
"Yep." Sam tipped up the glass mug and swallowed down the rest of the beer. "But not tonight."