Chapter 28 There Can Be Only One
Lebanon, Kansas
I carved you into a new animal, the demon whispered against his ear and he jerked away, brought up short by the manacles that bit into his wrists and ankles, feeling the fresh spurts of blood that slicked his skin and the deep, raw abrasions that stung viciously in the sulphurous air.
Something sliding and writhing inside of him, worming in and out of his guts, through the tears in his flesh, pressing against his mind and leaving a slime trail of acid over his soul. When he picked up the razor or the knife, those freshnets of pain filled him, blindingly bright for a second before they faded away and the pain disappeared, leaving a vacuum, an empty, howling wasteland of nothingness in its place. For the time that he held the tools and worked upon the damned, the pain was absent and its absence was almost the same as pleasure.
He learned to tune out the screams and shrieks and the awful, bubbling noises that they made as he cut and probed and broke and tore. He learned to look at the few square inches of flesh that he worked on, oblivious to the whole. He learned to see the way that pain – endless, monstrous pain – could break the mind, twist the soul, until the mind yielded, white turned to black, day to night and the path to becoming a demon was formed. Every day he felt through himself, searched for that path, obsessively, compulsively, looking for the blackness. Every single day he'd become more and more certain that it was there, hiding, just out of sight, but there, waiting.
The wall he cowered behind, the wall that he'd withdrawn behind when the pain was everywhere and he couldn't stand it any longer, was crumbling, parts falling away as agony and desolation and despair washed over and through it. In time, he knew, it would be destroyed completely, and he would have had no place to run to, nowhere to hide. It was his childhood, that wall. His father. His mother. His brother. The fixed and unyielding knowledge that whatever the cost, whatever the sacrifice needed, evil had to be wiped out, had to be eradicated. It was the principles of life he'd learned from the age of four, and the morality and responsibility that had been inculcated into him over his lifetime, drilled into his blood and bone and heart and mind. Courage in the face of the enemy. Loyalty to his blood and to his friends. Fortitude to withstand what had to be withstood. Honour above all else. It was the fear that he wasn't strong enough. It was the guilt that he had to do more. It was the caring that he hid from, pretended not to feel, pretended was not a part of him.
It wouldn't last forever, he knew. But it hadn't had to. He'd been pulled from the pit and given a second chance.
Dirt in his mouth, the pressure around and over him of the earth and the box and his blood and heartbeat thundering in his ears as he'd realised where he was. Buried. Alive.
Dean moaned and rolled over in the bed, his arm swinging out and hitting the nightstand, the crack of his knuckles against the wood bringing him out of the dream. He leaned on one elbow for a moment, running a hand through damp hair, his breath ragged in his throat, then he sat up, throwing the covers back and looking blankly around the room.
It looked like a hotel room, he thought sourly. Like a transient fucking hotel or motel room that he'd be in for a night or two and then gone. He was so goddamned sick of being on the road, on the run, living out of a grease-coated, gun-oil stained, solvent-smelling canvas duffel.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, he dropped his head into his hands. How certain are you that what you brought back, is a hundred percent pure Sam? You of all people should know, that's what's dead, should stay dead. Yellow Eye's voice echoed through his head.
No. No. Sam … what had happened to Sam … he'd been lost. That's all. Lost and the only lifeline he'd had had been Ruby. And it'd been his fault that Sam got lost, lost in grief and loneliness and not knowing what to do next.
If he hadn't made the deal, Sam would be dead.
There was no answer to that riddle, he knew. He'd gone over and over and over it, a thousand times, a million times. He'd failed to keep Sam alive, and he'd failed when he'd left his brother alone. Double-whammy. And the house wins. The house always wins.
Purgatory had brought it all back. The clean black and white simplicity of it. Kill or be killed. No questions. No answers. Just can you do it, or not? He'd done it. And he'd felt no remorse, no wondering about evil or good. Just see the monster and kill it. Until Benny, at least.
His throat contracted sharply at the ambushing thought of the vampire. The last thing he'd ever thought of was a friendship with a monster. By the time they'd gotten out, he'd realised that of the two of them, he was a lot more monster than the vampire was. But by then he no longer cared. He thought he'd no longer cared.
You're white-knuckling it living like this. Like what you are is some bad, awful thing. But you're not.
She'd been wrong about that, he thought, fingers pressing hard against his temples as if he could force the thoughts back, force them away. He was a killer. And he'd failed them as surely as he'd failed his father, his brother. Brought danger and near-death and pain to them just by being there, just by being himself. He couldn't protect anyone. He could do one thing. He could put himself in the way of evil, he could sign up for the suicide missions, and if he died … well, if he died, it wouldn't really matter, would it?
Dean got up abruptly, jacknifing to his feet and walking fast to the door. He could do that, he thought, as he turned down the hall to the bathroom. He could do that.
Warsaw, Missouri
Kevin stared at the tablet, barely conscious of his hand moving over the paper, writing what he saw in his mind, the pen's scratchings underlying the beat of the blood pounding in his head. Sometimes, he could almost see it, almost see the patterns forming and reforming in the place where he was not a man, not a human, but a living conduit to a deeper understanding, to an entity that mankind had no real idea of but had built a long-lasting delusion around.
Fear. Do. Danger. The notes were spread across the table and he hit the block suddenly, the words vanishing and his hand stopping, and pain and hunger and exhaustion returning to him like faithful dogs, swallowing him up in a sea of messages from his nervous system.
Getting up, he crossed to the microwave. He opened the door and stared at the bowl sitting inside, three greenish-looking hot dogs, with wrinkled, puckered skin, lying there. When had he put those in, he wondered vaguely? It didn't matter. He took the bowl out and threw it in the sink, barely noticing the crash of the china as it hit another bowl already sitting there.
In the fridge, the open packet of hot dogs was still on the shelf and he pulled three more out, putting them in a bowl and setting them inside the appliance and pressing the buttons. His head was pounding but he needed food before he could take anything for the pain. Needed food in his stomach before his body began to eat itself in desperation. He seemed to last a couple of days then the block would appear and he'd come back to himself, enough to eat something, to take another couple of aspirin, to lie down on the tangled and damp covers of the bed for an indeterminate period of time before the block disappeared and the symbols began to flow.
Walking back to the desk, he picked up the last page he'd written and carried it to the noticeboard on the wall, pinning it up along with the others. Fragments. Just fragments that meant nothing, had no connection to each other, no matching edges or concepts or … or anything. The microwave beeped and he turned away, going to get the bowl and almost dropping it as the hot ceramic burned his fingers. The dogs were hot too, but he was past caring, stuffing them into his mouth as it filled with saliva, barely chewing them before he swallowed, his tongue and throat burning uncomfortably.
There was an inch of acrid coffee in the bottom of the pot and he picked it up when the dogs were gone, pouring it into a cup and refilling the pot absently. He opened the bottle of aspirin and swallowed three more tablets, washing them down with the bitter, black liquid. Some part of him knew that it wasn't … smart … to take the tablets like this. They had other effects as well as the diminishing of the pain receptors. Effects that could be dangerous to him, in this half-trance that he lapsed in and out of. But he couldn't focus his thoughts enough to worry about it now.
He fell face down on the bed, his eyes closing before his head hit the pillow, darkness swallowing him whole.
When he woke, the headache was still there. He pushed himself upright, not noticing the dime-sized drop of red on the pillow where his head had lain. The block was gone again and he walked straight to the table, sitting down and picking up the tablet, the disorienting shift into the part of him that was not a man, was not a human, was only a conduit, rippling through his hands and through his eyes as he picked up the pen and started writing.
Lebanon, Kansas
Sam closed the book slowly and looked at his watch. Three-fifteen. He picked up the cup beside him, looking into it. Empty. Sighing, he got up and carried the cup to the kitchen, setting it beside the coffee maker, taking the glass jug and rinsing it out, refilling it, his actions automatic.
The order's archives on Hell, on the demons and their hierarchies, on the Fallen and their histories, numbered somewhere in the low thousands. He didn't know exactly what he was looking for so he was reading all of them, one by one. Plodding through them because he couldn't do anything else.
Somewhere, in between the time he'd stopped seeing, stopped hearing Dean's voice, darkness overtaking him and carrying him down … somewhere, and the moment in which he'd seen the light die out of his brother's eyes, something had changed. In him. He'd felt it growing, he thought, but it had been overlaid with everything else, with his escalating fear and despair that he couldn't find the answers to save Dean. That he couldn't feel so much, that he had to be stronger, harder, more like his brother or he'd never survive. That everything they'd tried had failed. That more and more hunters were looking for him, and Dean knew it, tried to ignore it, tried to pretend that wasn't happening. That his brother wanted to die, but was pretending that dying was all that would happen to him. Pretending that he wouldn't be spending eternity in Hell and becoming something else.
Something had changed and he couldn't find what it was.
He remembered standing over Jake, in the cemetery in Wyoming, and pulling the Taurus' trigger over and over. He'd already had his suspicions of what Dean had done. Of what had happened to him. Just suspicions but already fuelling an agony of anger. He remembered killing Gordon, that anger stronger, far stronger by then, strong enough to sever the vampire's head from his neck with a piece of wire when it had exploded out of him. He remembered the fury growing, pushing at him, burning through alcohol and drugs and exhaustion as if they didn't exist. He remembered the dreams he'd had, after Dean had gone. Dreams of desolation and destruction, of ash and blood and bleached white bones covering a landscape that would never see a shade of green again.
The coffee burbled as it dripped steadily into the jug and he closed his eyes. Had that fury been there before? Or had it come after he'd died? None of the books he'd read had given him any answers.
This place, this job, was a sanctuary, of sorts. He'd told Dean that he couldn't be a pure scholar, couldn't sit safe and secure behind illusions and doors of steel and stone and let others fight on his behalf. That'd been true. He couldn't. But he liked the feel of this, of searching through the footnotes and references, of tracking the information like he would track a monster, following the clues and hints and spoor of his prey through the words and thoughts and facts of the men who'd gone before him. He thought that one day, perhaps when they'd closed the gates and vanquished the worst evil of the world, he would return to the peace and the mental hunt, and follow the patterns and the knowledge deeper, lose himself in it.
He couldn't do that until he knew, though. Knew what had changed and why and how to change it back. Knew if it was a part of him or something alien. Knew if it could cleansed from him, acknowledged, forgiven and atoned for, or if in some way it had become a part of him, welded onto his soul, something he would have to live with.
The pot quietened and he looked at it, lifting the full jug out and filling his cup. He carried the cup back to the library and sat down at the table, setting it to one side as he lifted the closed book to the pile in front of him and pulled the next book down, opening the cover and starting to read again.
Sam looked up, hearing a hammering noise from upstairs. It stopped and he looked back down at the book in front of him. The hammering started up again and he ran a hand through his hair, pushing the book aside and tilting his head to listen. After a moment, it stopped again.
He rubbed his fingertips over his brows, vague memories of his brother walking past him several times returning to him. He couldn't think what Dean was doing.
A glance into the cup beside him showed it empty, again. Getting up, he carried it down to the kitchen. The pot was also empty, again.
Another four books. Another zero. He fought for a moment against the feelings of frustration that were circling inside and told himself that this was just going to take some time. He couldn't do anything to find the answers any more quickly than what he was doing.
Turning away from the freshly filled machine and brewing coffee, he walked to the stairs and headed up. Dean had taken the room closest to the other end of the corridor and Sam stopped at the doorway, looking around the bedroom in surprise.
The framed pictures, the order's bullion-stitched bedspread, all the items that had made the room identical to the others had gone. On the walls, weapons had been hung on simple pegs, guns and the stone axe from Purgatory above the bed, a selection of variously sized blades above the desk. From somewhere, Dean had found a turntable and his small collection of records, hoarded and kept upright through the years, sat next to it. On the desk, a desk lamp through a warm spill of light over the new, closed laptop, sitting on a blotter with a collection of notebooks and pens. By the window, an armchair sat in another pool of light, the curving floor lamp standing behind it.
Sam looked around, brow crinkled up. "What brought this on?"
Dean turned around and shrugged slightly. "I … I woke up and it looked like a hotel room."
Sam saw the small photograph of Mary and Dean, leaning against the lamp on the desk. I want Dean to have a home. His father's words filled his mind for a moment and he closed his eyes briefly.
"It looks good."
Dean nodded, looking around self-consciously; suddenly aware of how much of himself was on display around the room. "It smells good," he said. "Clean. No funky motel stains …"
One of the knives hanging on the wall beside the stone axe caught Sam's eye. He walked over to it, his fingers reaching out to follow the sharply curved, semi-circular blade. The hilt and blade were heavily engraved and the knife had a sensuous beauty, belying its deadly purpose.
"I haven't seen this for years."
Dean looked at it. "I found it with your stuff … after you … when you put Lucifer in the Cage," he said uncomfortably. "Dad always said it was the best knife for taking down most things."
Sam nodded, remembering. The knife was Persian, very old. The half-moon cutting edge had made decapitation a breeze, even when he'd been younger and not as strong as his father or brother. His mouth lifted in a half-smile and he turned back to his brother, looking around the room again.
"I like it," Sam said.
Dean shot a wary look at him, wondering what he'd noticed, but Sam seemed to be on the level, nothing to hint his little brother was going to make some smart-ass comment about domesticity.
When they'd been growing up, it'd been Sam who'd always unpacked. In the motels when they'd had family rooms, the two of them sharing a bedroom while their father had taken the main room. In the occasional rented houses or apartments when they'd had their own rooms. At Bobby's or Jim's places, when they'd stayed for periods of time. Sam had been the one to unpack all of his clothes, all of his books, to set them out and create a small illusion that they'd be there for a while, that they'd been there for a while.
He'd never seen the point. Sooner or later everything had to go back in the bags, why take it all out only to have to put it all back. Seemed like a waste of time and effort to him. Sam had been making himself at home, he realised now. Making himself a home. Even on the road. Even if it was just for a night. Surrounding himself with the things that meant something so that when he woke, it wasn't to a blurred impression of yet another reminder that they had no home. It was to familiar things, things that were connected to him.
He understood that impulse now, looking around. Every single thing he'd dragged up from the car had years' worth of memories attached to it. He could look at them and feel those memories wrap around him, instilling a small glow of warmth that he hadn't realised he'd wanted. Or needed.
He cleared his throat and walked past his brother, not wanting to talk about that feeling, not wanting Sam to see it in his face.
"You hungry?"
Warsaw, Missouri
Pain.
Throbbing in his skull, making spots of light dance before his eyes. Kevin screwed his eyes shut for a moment then opened them again and looked at the notes. His vision had cleared a little and he kept writing. Something warm and wet trickled over his lip but he ignored it. He was so close, so close to seeing. He had to keep going, had to get it out of his head, had to get it down, real and tangible.
The block came and he stopped. He picked up the last few notes and got up, walking to the noticeboard and pinning them up. As he lifted his head to look at them, he felt an uncomfortable shift in his head, registering it for a second before the pattern in front of him suddenly coalesced into a whole.
Three trials. The wolves of Hell. The spell of awakening. The closing of gates.
He smiled, his relief emerging in a huff of breath from his lungs. The warm, wet trickle over his lip increased and he lifted his fingers to touch it, looking down at them and seeing the bright red over their tips, then the sensation in his head returned, a rolling, sickening flex inside his skull and the lights went out and sound and smell and taste and touch and he didn't feel himself drop.
Lebanon, Kansas
"What're you reading?" Dean walked into the library, burgers balanced on the plates he carried.
Sam looked up, the tantalising smells reaching him before the plate did. "Everything," he said with a slight shrug.
"Good, somebody's got to dig through all this, and it ain't going to be me," Dean said, turning away to put his food down on the other table.
Picking up the burger absently, Sam took a bite as his gaze ran down the page he'd been reading and he froze as the combination of tastes hit his tongue. He chewed, slowly, drawing out the delicious mix in his mouth and turning his head to look at his brother.
"Are these the –"
"Yeah," Dean nodded, hiding a smile that Sam had remembered.
"The ones with the –"
"Yep."
"And the –"
"Right."
"But you haven't –"
"No," he said, shrugging as he picked up his burger. The burgers had been a favourite with his little brother, when they'd been on their own, their father out hunting, tired of pizza and fried chicken and canned stew. He hadn't made them – or any of the other things he used to cook – since Sam had left for Stanford. "No kitchen."
He turned to look at Sam, the smile widening a little as he saw his brother's expression. "Eat."
Looking down at the burger, he wondered why he hadn't made these for Lisa and Ben, in the year that he'd been there. Because the smell, the taste, brought too many memories of Sam. The thought came to him and he acknowledged it, feeling a small, sharp pain in his chest. It had been something he'd tried to keep clear of, anything that could raise a memory of his brother.
He'd done a bit of cooking there, scrambled eggs because Lisa couldn't make them the way he liked, steak whenever they'd barbecued over the summer, jambalaya from an old recipe he'd somehow memorised on a hunt down in Baton Rouge. Not much, really. It hadn't felt like his place, the little house in Cicero, despite the fact that he'd been paying the bills and fixing the windows and the doors of the cheap rental, living there, dying there.
His phone rang shrilly and he put the burger down, fingers reaching into his pocket and pulling it out.
"Yo?" He picked up the burger again.
"Dean? Come … quick …" Kevin's voice was thin and thready and there was a muted crash from the line.
"Kevin? Kevin!"
Sam looked across at him. "Something wrong?"
Dean looked at him, his face tight. "Guess."
MO-7 S, Missouri
It wasn't a long drive from Lebanon to Warsaw, and they were making good time, the traffic light for once and the road clear. The stereo played softly, just audible above the thrum of the tyres, the warm, deep rumble of the engine that felt like a second heartbeat to him.
He kept his speculations about what might have happened to the prophet pushed aside. There were a thousand possibilities and no way of knowing until they got there and he didn't want to use up the energy he had worrying about them. Beside him, Sam sat silently, lost in his own thoughts, his breath fogging the glass of the window repeatedly with every indrawn and exhale breath.
You are nothing. You're as mindless and obedient as an attack dog. What are the things that you want? What are the things that you dream?
The shard of memory came out of nowhere and he flinched back a little, his hands gripping the wheel as he saw his own face, eyes filled with black, staring at him again.
That was a long time ago, he told himself firmly. A long time and a lot of water under the bridge. But it seemed like yesterday. Seemed like five minutes ago. Because nothing had changed, not really. He'd tried to fight and it hadn't worked out and he'd failed again.
He dragged in a deep breath, flicking a sideways look at his brother. It was about the future, he thought. That's all. Sam had one, had possibilities, had options. So far as he could tell, he didn't. He would hunt. He would close the gates. And he would most likely die when he did. Did he want anything else?
A thin tendril of some feeling, some repressed and ancient feeling curled up inside of him. He squashed it down. Hope was an overrated feeling. He couldn't do what he had to if he had any hope at all. The disappointment was too fucking crushing.
Warsaw, Missouri
The boat looked undisturbed. Garth's small pickup wasn't in the lot and nothing else looked out of place. They'd go in through the forward cabin, Dean thought, gesturing to the bow at his brother, pulling the automatic from his jacket pocket.
Slipping in through the iron door, Dean hesitated, listening. Down the river, birds called. The ripples of another boat's wash slapped softly against the hull. That was all. He moved aft, knowing Sam was checking each of the cabins they passed, his attention fixed on the bulwark door in front of him.
It opened easily and he took two long steps into the cabin, gaze flicking to the side and the companionway steps, his gun twitching in that direction as Sam stepped into the cabin behind him.
The long room looked the same as the last time he'd seen it. Crap piled in the sink and the smell of burned something and the table Kevin worked at covered from end to end in paper and books and the notes on the tablet. Nothing looked like it'd been messed with, although the chaos made that difficult to tell with any certainty.
There were two loud thumps from the head, and Dean stared at the closed door narrowly, moving up the narrow passage between the table and the cupboards that lined the opposite wall.
Unlike the bulwark doors, the head had a regular timber frame door with thin panelling, and he shoved it open, gun raised.
Inside, Kevin was doubled over the toilet, retching helplessly into the bowl. The smell hit Dean and he grimaced, huffing out the foul air, shifting slightly to see Kevin's face.
"Found him," he said quietly to Sam.
Sam walked up beside him, looking in. Kevin gagged and heaved, oblivious to them.
"Kevin? You okay?" Dean asked, thumbing the safety back on his gun and sliding it back into his coat pocket.
Kevin jettisoned another load from his stomach and sucked in a deep breath. "Ate … something …" His stomach clenched again and he shut his eyes tightly as another chunk flew up his throat and arced into the bowl. "G'way."
"Right," Dean said, turning away but leaving the door open. "Leave you to it."
Sam slid the Taurus back into the waistband of his jeans, looking around the cabin. "What's that smell?"
Dean's brows rose. "Aside from the one coming from the head?"
The toilet flushed and they both moved unconsciously away, behind the table as Kevin staggered out, a wad of toilet paper held under his nose.
"God, Kevin, you look like hammered crap," Sam said, looking at him as he collapsed into the chair at the table.
"Yeah," Kevin agreed readily, pulling out the blood-soaked tissue from his nose and tossing it on the floor.
"Are you sleeping?" Sam asked.
"Not really."
"You eating?"
"Hot dogs, mostly," Kevin said, staring ahead of him and waiting for the throbbing to settle down. It did, usually, after a few minutes.
That explained a lot, Dean thought disbelievingly. "Look, I'm going to feel dirty even saying this, but you might want a … salad. And a shower."
"I know," Kevin said, his voice mostly emerging through his nose. "And I've been getting bad headaches and … uh … nosebleeds … and I think … maybe, I had a small stroke."
Dean flicked a glance at his brother, wondering if that could possibly be as bad as it sounded. Kevin was still on his feet. Functioning. Mostly.
"But it was worth it," the prophet looked up at them with a tired smile.
"What was worth it?" Sam asked.
"I figured out how to close the gates of Hell," Kevin said, getting to his feet and tapping the tablet in front of him.
"You –" Dean stared at him, aware that beside him, Sam's mouth had dropped open.
Inside, something switched on. Something he hadn't felt for a long time. Purpose. His eyes narrowed slightly as he looked at Kevin, not seeing him, seeing instead what he needed to do.
"So, what does this mean? What are we looking at?" Sam asked, and Kevin nodded, turning to the noticeboard. They followed him across the room, looking at the incomprehensible collection of words, symbols, scratched notes and diagrams that covered the wall.
"It's a spell," Kevin said, gesturing to the notes. "Just a few words of Enochian."
He picked up the note and handed it to Dean.
Dean took it. "Ah, here we go."
"But … the spell has to be spoken after you finish each of the three trials," Kevin continued, looking at Sam.
"Trials?" Sam took the paper as Dean handed it to him. "Tests?"
Kevin nodded. "The tablet says "One man is chosen. One man only can close the portals. Who chooses to undertake these tasks should fear not danger, nor death, nor …" He frowned slightly. "A word I think means getting your spine ripped out through your mouth for all eternity."
"Good times," Dean commented.
Kevin looked from him to Sam. "Basically, God built a series of tests, and when you've done all three, you can slam the gates."
Sam stared at him. "What kind of tests?"
"Not fun ones," Kevin said, looking at the notes on the board. "I've only been able to crack one of the trials so far. It's gross – you've got to kill a wolf of Hell and bathe in its blood."
"Hellhound?" Dean lifted one brow. "Awesome."
Sam's brow wrinkled up as he looked at his brother. "You've killed a hellhound, in Carthage."
"Did you bathe in its blood?" Kevin asked, looking hopefully at Dean.
"Not so much," Dean said, shaking his head. "Guess that doesn't count then?"
"I don't think so," Kevin said with a sigh of disappointment. "This trials – I get the impression that they're like ingredients for the ritual. Each one has to be followed exactly, or the spell won't work."
"How are we going to find a hellhound, Dean?"
"Well, hounds are used to collect on crossroads deals, so I guess we're looking for someone who signed over his special sauce ten years ago, and we get between him and the hound and take it out."
"Right. Easy," Sam said sourly, looking at the energy crackling through his brother.
"It doesn't sound easy," Kevin said tiredly.
"It's not," Sam said dryly. "Dean –"
"Look, you get on the internet and see what you can dig up," Dean cut him off sharply, turning for the door. "I'm going on supply run. We need goofer dust and the kid needs to eat something that's not ground up hose and pig's anuses – not that there's anything wrong with that." He started up the steps.
Sam looked after him uneasily. He got that Dean was hyped on finally being able to start, but there'd been a recklessness in his face that he hadn't seen for a long time. A long, long time. He frowned as a memory snagged at him, a glimpse of a motel room, but not one that they'd paid for, mattresses piled against the walls and windows, the pervasive scent of mould. It was gone and he closed his eyes briefly, trying to force it back.
"You know," Kevin said consideringly. "I really stink."
Sam opened his eyes and looked at him, mouth rising in a half-smile of acknowledgement. "Shower wouldn't hurt."
He walked to the table as Kevin left the room and looked down at the papers. Here and there he could see spots of a rusty red. Dried blood. Kevin had been pushing himself over the edge for too long. There were still two other trials to figure out and if he managed to give himself a good seizure or stroke, they would have a hell of a time finding the next prophet, of the six that were still out there. And kidnapping them. And convincing them of the importance of what they had to do.
He sat down and closed his eyes. The memory rose again, unbidden, unsought.
Give me your phone. If Gordon knows our cell numbers he can use the cell signal to track us down.
Pulling out the SIMs, stomping on the cases.
So you're the guy with nothing to lose now, huh? Oh wait, let me guess. Because, it's because you're already dead, right?
Dean's face, closed and shuttered, refusing to admit to the wild recklessness that was filling him. Refusing to admit that he didn't care if he lived or died.
Yeah, I've been following you around my entire life! I mean, I've been looking up to you since I was four, Dean. Studying you, trying to be just like my big brother. So yeah, I know you. Better than anyone else in the entire world. And this is exactly how you act when you're terrified. And, I mean, I can't blame you. It's just ... I wish you would drop the show and be my brother again.
Was that what was going on now too, Sam wondered, tipping his head back. His brother had looked at the books in the library and backed away, not seeing himself locked away in there, reading, learning, chasing down the legends.
He sat up, staring at the wall opposite. Dean had come out of Purgatory raw and bloody and … cold, he thought. Colder, darker, than he'd ever seen him. Even after Hell. In fact … after Hell, he'd been scared, mostly. Of what, Sam had never been entirely sure. Dean had barely spoken about it. But he knew that when the angels had come to get him, to torture the demon, Dean had been terrified.
Of what he'd done, locked away, never let out? Of what he'd become? He shook his head impatiently. What he'd thought he'd become, perhaps. It'd taken him a long time to realise – to remember – Dean's weaknesses. His brother was good at hiding them, hiding that deep fissure of caring that lay side by side with his sense of responsibility, both driving him, flogging him sometimes, Sam thought, to protect, to save as many as he could.
He leaned his head against his hand, elbow propped on the side of the table. Caring too much and never believing that anyone cared that much about him. Never letting himself believe it, never letting himself believe that he deserved it.
The thoughts, diaphanous and vague, floated through his mind. He felt as if he was close, close to knowing what was happening, what had happened to his brother.
"Okay, I feel a lot better," Kevin said, coming out of the other cabin and shattering those tenuous connections completely. Sam looked around him, clamping down on his frustration and forcing himself to look at the kid.
"Kevin, buddy, you have to slow down," he said, watching him pick up a cup of cold coffee and chug it down.
"What?"
"Get some shut-eye, take a day off," Sam said, gesturing around. "Open a window."
"No." Kevin stared at him. "You said 'nuking Hell'. That's how I get out. That's how I go home!"
"Right, it is," Sam said placatingly. "But, you can't live like this."
"I can't leave, Sam," Kevin ground out. "Every demon on the planet wants to peel my face off. I can't talk to anyone except you guys, or Garth, when he swings by, or my mom … and when I call her, all she does is cry." He looked away and Sam dropped his gaze, knowing what he was talking about, knowing it so intimately that his pulse had accelerated hearing Kevin say the words.
"I just … I need this to be over," Kevin said, his voice quiet again.
"I know. I do," Sam said, looking up at him. "But trust me on this, this whole saving-the-world thing? It's a marathon – it's not a sprint. You gotta learn to pace yourself, take care of yourself. Because if you don't, if you die before the end – there was no point to everything you've just put yourself through."
Kevin looked at him, nodding a little as the words registered.
They both turned to look at the door as Dean walked in, carrying a couple of plastic bags of groceries, the energy still crackling around him, making him talk faster, move faster. Sam watched his brother's gaze flick around the cabin, knew that Dean had noted every change from the second he'd entered the room, the reactions and senses that he'd come out of Purgatory back at high level, directed by a laser-accurate concentration.
"Did you know that there are, like, six thousand kinds of tomatoes?" Dean said, apropos of nothing, dropping the bags on the other table and walking to straight to Sam. "Did you find anything?"
"Yeah," Sam said, looking down at the laptop. "Demon signs. Ten years ago. All centred on Shoshone, Idaho."
"How long did they last?"
"Four weeks," Sam said, turning the laptop around. "Meet the Cassity's – small time farmers who struck oil on their land in February, '03, which is weird because geological surveys –"
"Yep, you had me at weird," Dean said absently, reading the article. "Alright, we thinking deal?"
"Best lead we got," Sam agreed, getting up and closing the laptop.
"Let's go visit the Beverley Hillbillies." Dean looked at Kevin. "You're staying here. Eating. Sleeping. Working on step number two."
Kevin nodded.
"Oh, and if you come across anything about hellhounds, drop a dime, because between the claws and the teeth and the whole invisibility thing those bitches are … well, real bitches."
He turned away again, his hand diving into one of the grocery bags, pulling out two economy-size pill bottles. "Blue ones are for the headaches. Green ones are for pep."
He tossed them to Kevin. "Don't OD."
Kevin caught them and looked at the labels as Dean turned away and walked to the door. Sam caught his arm as he passed him.
"You sure about that?"
Dean looked at him for a moment, his eyes dark and glittering, voice low and hard. "Sam, we are on the one yard line, it's time to play through the pain."
He walked away, the route fixed in his mind, a rough estimate putting it at around a fifteen hour drive. Speed limits notwithstanding. Three shifts, he'd take two, first and last. He glanced at his watch, nodding slightly to himself. They'd be there early tomorrow morning.
I-80 W, Wyoming
The silence had stretched out for the last four hours, since they'd swapped in Nebraska. Dean heard Sam's indrawn breath and waited.
"You really haven't changed, have you?" Sam said abruptly.
"Pass."
He felt his brother's eyes boring into the side of his head. "Don't think I don't recognise this, Dean, 'cause I do."
"Recognise what?"
"The recklessness. You can't wait to throw yourself to the wolves," Sam said tightly.
He snorted. "Which part of closing the gates of Hell are you having a problem with, Sam?"
"The part where you get killed trying to do it by yourself because you don't give a shit if you live or die."
"You heard Kevin, only one man can do it," Dean said impatiently, ignoring what his brother had said. "That let's you out."
"Why?" Sam twisted in the seat to look at him.
"Not having this conversation," Dean told him, staring at the road unfolding in the bright glare of the car's headlights.
Sam looked at Dean's profile, outlined by the dashlights against the night. His jaw was set, the muscle bunched up at the point. He could provoke him, he thought, chewing on the corner of his lip, but it wouldn't help, not now. If he got pissed, he'd just figure out a way to dump him and keep going on his own.
He hunched back into the corner and closed his eyes. Dean had made a decision, for no reason that Sam could work out. But he wouldn't change it, wouldn't back down or listen to logic. Not now.
Shoshone, Idaho
The black car slowed down as the wide double gates swung open, polished brass letters advising them they were entering the Cassity Farm. To either side of the smooth, asphalt drive, post-and-rail fences delineated neat, green fields and pastures, dotted with mature trees. The drive curved gently around and led them to the buildings, passing a long horse barn and pulling up in between an imposing two storey stone and brick ranch house and several smaller buildings serving as machinery sheds, workshop and bunkhouses. Dean pulled up next to a shiny green and yellow JD tractor, a pair of jean-clad legs visible underneath it.
"What did we find out on who's living here?" Dean asked when he turned off the engine.
"Alice Caffity and husband, Carl Granville, full time residents. I couldn't find anything on staff," Sam said, looking around, "but from the size of the place, I'd say they have a few." He looked back at his brother. "And the plan is?"
"Check them out. Hound's due, so if we see anyone acting like they're hearing and seeing things, you get them out of the way," Dean said, picking up the serrated, bone-handled knife and tucking it into his jacket. "I spike Fido and the crowd goes wild."
Getting out, they both looked down at the sound of the socket wrench spinning under the tractor.
"Hey pal, who runs this joint?" Dean asked.
The creeper rolled out from under the tractor, and a slender woman sat up, looking at them, wary dark eyes checking them out as thoroughly as they looked her over.
"I do," she said, getting up gracefully, the pair of wrenches transferred to one hand. Jeans, close-fitting grey t-shirt shirt tucked into them, red plaid shirt and thick sheepskin vest over set off her smooth tan skin and the jet-black hair that framed her face.
Sam's brow creased a little. "You own the ranch?"
"No. Just manage the property," she said, her voice accented slightly. "You guys here about the job?"
"How'd you guess?" Dean said quickly, glancing sidelong at Sam.
The woman smiled. "We get our share of drifters," she said gently. "Ever worked a farm before?"
"Definitely," Dean nodded. Sam saw her eyes narrow fractionally at his brother's blatant lie.
"We're quick learners," he said, and her gaze shifted to him, a brow delicately rising.
"It's not a hard job," she said slowly. "But I need people who'll pull their weight, not mouth off and do nothing."
Dean smoothed his expression out.
"Ellie?"
They turned to see a beefy-looking man walking from the house path across the drive toward them. Curly brown hair and a short beard and moustache framed a fair-skinned, chubby face, the brown sports coat clashing with the chambray shirt he wore under it.
"What've we got here?"
Dean leaned forward, offering his hand. "I'm Dean, this is Sam."
Carl took it, hiding a moment's surprise at the strength in the grip of the hand around his. "Oh, I'm Carl Granville," he said, turning to Sam. "Pleasure."
"Pleasure," Sam murmured. "So you're not a Cassity?"
"My wife is," Carl said cheerfully. "Her and her family own the place. I'm just one of those, what you call 'trophy husbands'," he said, chuckling.
Sam smiled politely as Dean looked around. Carl looked at Ellie, who was smiling indulgently.
"So, are we hiring the fellows?" he asked her. She glanced back at them.
"Not sure yet."
"Oh, come on, they seem like swell guys," Carl said, smiling at them.
Dean nodded, mouth lifting to one side. "Sure, yeah, we're swell."
Carl nodded to them and walked toward the garages and Ellie looked at them, her expression indicating she thought she was acting against her better judgement.
"Okay," she said. "We'll try you out for a week. I don't like you, you don't like me, it's over, no hard feelings."
"Done," Sam said, sensing his brother about to make a comment that might jeopardise even that tentative arrangement.
"Come with me," Ellie said, turning and walking across the drive toward the bunkhouses. They followed her along the neatly tended path and stopped as she opened a door.
"You bed down in here," she said. Behind her, Dean looked at the room, half workshop, with tools and benches lining one wall, a pair of single beds on the opposite side. "Breakfast is at five, dinner's at eight, and in between, you'll be doing whatever jobs I have for you. Questions?"
"We're good," Sam said, looking at his brother's half-disappointed, half-mutinous expression.
Ellie nodded, leaning against the door frame, her arms crossed. "Why?"
Sam looked at her in confusion. "Why what?"
"You both seem to be reasonably intelligent, educated kind of guys," she said to him. "Why do you want a low-paying, crap job like this?"
Sam blanked for a moment, staring at her. Dean cleared his throat.
"We're travelling," he said, the lie emerging without volition or thought. "Just need to make enough money to keep going."
"Travelling," she repeated slowly, looking at him. "Together."
"We're brothers," Sam clarified. "Taking a road-trip, one of those things."
"Uh-huh," she said. "Okay, the job's yours if you want it."
"Thanks."
"You've got fifteen minutes to get your gear and get settled in," she said briskly, walking out of the room between them. "I'll see you in the barn then."
Fifteen minutes later, they stood in the horse barn and Ellie handed them a pair of stable forks. "Wheelbarrows at the end of the aisles, pick up everything solid and all the wet straw in every stall. Then break out clean straw and refill the beds until they're about this deep," she said, holding her hands eighteen inches apart. "Higher around the walls."
She walked away and Dean opened the stall door closest to him as Sam went to get a wheelbarrow. The piles of manure in the bedding were pungent and obvious, dark against the bright yellow straw.
"Crap," he said looking down at the first pile on the end of the fork. "She literally meant 'crap'."
He dumped the load in the wheelbarrow in the aisle and looked at the horse standing in the stall opposite. "I hate you."
He turned as a strident female voice came from the end of the barn.
"I don't care! It's five times the price!"
The woman, dressed in breeches and polished leather boots, a woollen show jacket and carrying a velvet-covered helmet, strode in front of the doors and stopped. Ellie walked fast around her.
"Since I changed the feed the skin problems have disappeared," she argued, stopping in front of her. "It's working, Ms Cassity, you have to give it a chance."
"My land. My animals. My money. My way! End of story," Alice snapped at her, turning on her heel and walking away.
Ellie watched her go and glanced into the barn, seeing Dean and Sam watching. She walked over to them, her mouth twisting down.
"She's a real piece of work, huh?" Dean said.
Ellie glanced back over her shoulder at the open doors. "Alice Cassity is a real piece of something," she agreed in a low voice. "But, what are we gonna do? She's the boss."
She shrugged and looked past them to the open stalls. "Check underneath, make sure you picked up all the wet straw," she added and walked down toward the other end of the barn.
"So what are we thinking?" Sam said to him when she was out of earshot.
"What? Deal-wise?" Dean glanced at the slim woman as she reached the end of the aisle. "Well, Ellie's the help so that rules her out."
"And Carl doesn't really seem the sell-your-soul type," Sam said. "So … Alice?"
"Ding, ding, ding," Dean said, looking at him.
"Should we talk to her?"
"Why? So she can lie to us and call the cops? No," he said, shaking his head. "No. We're gonna have to go stalker on this one, Sammy."
The terrace fire was lit, logs crackling and glowing in the flames, the sounds of Alice's laughter and the low murmur of their conversation carrying in the cool night air. Dean shifted his position slightly as he felt his leg numbing and let out a soft exhale.
Behind him, Sam leaned against the stone wall, small field glasses against his eyes as he scanned the grounds. This was a long shot, at best, he thought. Alice seemed the most likely to have made a deal, her outburst earlier suggesting that she wasn't entirely used to being wealthy, even after ten years. But they didn't have the exact date of the deal, only that it was close. Hellhounds came at midnight, on the tenth anniversary of the deal. Oil had been found on the old farm on February 3rd. They had another three days, possibly.
He lowered the glasses as he heard the lonely ululation rising from the hills to the north. Below him, Dean shook his head.
"Just a wolf," he said softly. The voices of the wolves of Hell were deeper, rougher. He wouldn't ever forget that sound, or seeing the creature break through the glass doors, a monstrous spectral dog that had seemed sometimes more solid, sometimes less, red eyes aflame with hell's fires as it had stared at him, stalked toward him, snapped at him.
Sam looked back at Alice and Carl, watching them look around. Alice got up, leaning over to kiss Carl and walked away from the table, heading for the horse barn.
"Stay or go?" Sam watched her leave. Dean straightened up.
"Go."
They hurried around the side of the building, increasing speed as they crossed from the house to the barn.
Dean was thirty feet from the open barn door when he heard the scream and stopped dead, spinning around and racing back to the house.
"Keep an eye on her," he called back over his shoulder to his brother, the knife in his hand as he skidded across the wet grass to make the corner.
Carl lay in front of the fire, his chair overturned beside him, a pool of blood spreading out around him. Dean slowed, turning his head from side to side, listening. Far off the single howl of the grey wolf rose into the night again, but nothing answered it.
Dean looked down at the man at his feet. From pelvis to sternum, the deep claw marks were easily visible, through clothing and skin and muscle and fat, the various shades of purple and red showing the organs through the rent meat. His head lay at a right angle to his body, attached to his body by a few thin strips of sinew. Bite, Dean thought, crouching close but keeping out of the blood pool. Through the windpipe and back to the spine. He could see where the bones had been crushed.
Goddammit.
Straightening, he looked again at the wet mess of Carl's abdomen, his hand creeping across his stomach reflexively. There were no scars there. But his nerves, his skin and muscles remembered the feeling of the long, scimitar-shaped claws ripping through him.
Sam arrived at the terrace at the same as Ellie, both staring down at the body helplessly.
Ellie looked at them for a long moment and turned away, going inside the house to call the police.
"Sonofabitch," Dean said, walking away from the body.
"So what do you think?" Sam looked at him.
"I think Carl signed a deal, now he's dog food," Dean snapped. "Hellhound's gone and we were too busy chasing a pile of jack to stop it."
Sam looked at the dark grounds, unable to argue that. He looked up as Ellie came out of the house, her arms wrapped around herself.
"Sheriff's on his way and the coroner," she said, staring at the ground.
"You alright?" Dean looked at her. She nodded, keeping her gaze down.
"He – he was a good man," she said softly. "A kind man. He didn't deserve that."
Sam looked at her, wondering at the odd tone in her voice. She looked up abruptly, her gaze meeting his for a moment, then looking at Dean. "The family will be here tomorrow, for this. I have to – I have to get things ready."
Turning around, she walked back into the house, and they heard the snick of the lock as she closed the door behind her.
"Let's grab our stuff and get out of here." Dean walked down the shallow steps of the terrace, heading for the bunkhouse.
Sam nodded, glancing around again. He walked down the steps and slowed as he saw the barn doors standing open, the light on inside. Changing direction, he walked across to the barn. His work gloves were still in there.
Inside, Alice stood next to her horse, the rich chestnut coat shining as she ran the body brush over it. She looked … different, Sam thought, walking past her and picking up the rawhide gloves, tucked into a rail at the side of the aisle.
"You okay, Mrs Cassity?"
"Fine," she said absently, brushing slowly, her left hand curled loosely around the halter.
"You sure?" He stopped on the other side of the horse. She looked at him, her face expressionless, her eyes a little remote.
"I really am, and … I know I shouldn't be, because I loved Carl," she said, a faint hint of disbelief threaded through her voice. "I think."
She looked down at the brush in her hand, stroking it steadily along with the lay of the coat. "I just can't remember why."
Sam looked at her, taking a couple of steps closer. "What do you mean?"
Alice sighed. "I mean … Carl grew up around here, we went to school together, and he was always mooning around after me, but I never … I used to make fun of him."
"When did you two get together?" Sam asked, a suspicion forming.
"Valentine's Day, 2003. I was at this party, Carl was there. It was like I was seeing him for the first time," she said, her smile a little self-deprecating. "And suddenly he was cute. Smart. And funny … it was magic." She rubbed the horse's cheek, under the halter, looking down. "Carl and I were happy for ten years. Now he's dead … and I'm not sad, angry … I'm just … fine."
Sam looked away, nodding. She turned away, moving the brush down the horse's side, the action dismissive.
Sam walked slowly back to the bunkhouse. Carl had made a deal but it hadn't been for oil, he thought. Someone else had done that. In February.
Demon didn't leave. I never counted on that. After our deal was done the damn thing stayed at Lloyd's for a week. Just chattin'. Makin' more deals. I tried to warn folks, but, I mean who's goin' to listen to an old drunk?
George Darrow. The loft full of extraordinary paintings. Goofer dust along the threshold.
He opened the door to the room. Dean was packing up his bag.
"Hey," Dean turned around. "We got any graveyard dirt?"
Sam frowned, thinking of what was in the trunk. "Should. Why?"
"Yarrow?"
"Yeah," He looked at Dean as the combination registered and held up his hand. "No. Dean – no! We're not summoning a crossroad demon!"
Dean looked at him dryly. "Plan A bombed. So, welcome to Plan B. We get some red-eyed bitch in a trap, we hold the knife on her until she calls in a pooch. Special delivery."
"Yeah, except when Crowley finds out we're dialling up Hell, he won't send one hellhound, he'll send a hundred!" He looked at his brother's insouciant expression, feeling a tightening in his stomach. "That's not a plan, Dean. That's suicide."
"You got a better idea?"
"Yeah, we stay here," Sam said. "I just talked to Alice in the barn. Carl didn't sell his soul for oil – he sold it for Alice."
"His wife?"
"He loved her, she barely noticed him, so he made a deal, and now the time's up, it's like she hardly even knew the guy." Sam looked at Dean. "There's another deal coming due, Dean. And it's here."
"The demon stayed around? Signed up a few deals?"
"Wouldn't be the first time we've seen that," Sam said, shrugging. "Look, Dean, this family is rich because someone booked a one-way ticket downstairs, and you heard Ellie, as of tomorrow, they're all going to be right here."
"And you want to scope them out?" Dean asked.
"I want to kill a hellhound. And not die," Sam said shortly. "How 'bout you?"
Dean looked at him. Sam already knew, he thought, a little surprised by that. Knew what he was thinking about. It'd been a long time since Sam had pegged him that accurately. He wondered briefly if it would change anything, then shunted the thought aside as irrelevant.
"Two days," he agreed. "And we do it my way."