Chapter 32 Of Fire and Knowledge

Lebanon, Kansas

Dean stopped in the hallway as he heard his brother coughing in the bathroom. It was the third night in a row that Sam had been up in the very early hours of the morning, the cough deep and harsh, going on for minutes. He moved away when he heard the tap running, brows drawn as he headed for the stairs.

He wasn't sure when it had started, but he'd seen the first bloodied tissue in the trash two days after they'd gotten back from Missouri, half buried under scrunched balls of notes Sam had been making on the books from the apothecary shelves. More concerning was that his brother wasn't mentioning it … at all.

Going down the stairs, the latest batch of histories under one arm, he knew why. Sam was scared, and as was the Winchester way, he didn't talk about what he was scared of any more than his father or his brother spoke of it. And that scared Dean.

He dumped the books on the table and went through the shelves, looking for more to take to his room and plough through in the deepest watches of the night. He wondered if there were any cross references in the apothecary to what was happening to his brother – some kind of reaction to the trials, perhaps, or … something. The scowl returned and he stacked the books at the end of the table, heading down the hall to make a fresh pot of coffee. It was three-thirty, that was an okay time to start the day.

Sam leaned over the sink, rinsing his mouth and spitting the pale pink water out, his stomach hitching a little with the taste of blood. He turned off the tap and looked into the mirror, seeing the shadows around his eyes, the waxiness of his skin. It was getting worse, he thought bleakly.

He didn't feel like eating, most of the time, not because there was anything wrong with the food, but because hunger seemed to have left him. The hours he spent asleep were shortening as well. When they'd first gotten home, he'd slept seven hours before waking. Last night it'd been four. Tonight, just three. He didn't know why but he could feel the toll it was taking on him and he knew that Dean would notice soon, if he hadn't already.

His lungs burned if he tried to take a deep breath, and images popped into his mind of lesions and bleeding sores pocking them, the blood pooling at the bottom and irritating the membranes into forming more sores. He looked it up. The only disease – normal, natural disease – that affected the lungs like that was TB. Tuberculosis. A disease more or less wiped out by the early twentieth century and one having no business in his body.

Searching through the order's books had yielded nothing. No correlation with the trials, the little they'd found on them. No mention in relation to God's tests even of the faithful … He'd sent afflictions to those He wanted to test, in great, generous bouts, but usually it was leprosy or boils or some other kind of disease designed to drive away any one supporting the testee. Whatever he had, what he'd been afflicted with, it was weakening him, he knew. Day by day.

He wiped his face, leaning close to the mirror to make sure every trace of the blood that had spilled over his lips was gone.

You said you would tell Dean, when it got bad, the insistent voice in his mind reminded him.

He would. It wasn't bad yet. Not bad enough to worry his brother who had plenty of crap to worry about already.

Great Falls, Montana

He looked like a man, but had never been one. The oracles and the philosophers and the magicians had all credited him with the creation of Man, shaped from the clay of Gaia's flesh, brought to life with his breath in their mouths … he'd laughed when he'd heard it first, laughed and then had fallen silent as he'd realised that for all his teachings, for all that he'd brought to them, they were still simple, still searching for meaning in the simple things they knew that lay within their own experience.

And, three thousand years later, not much had changed, he thought tiredly, walking along the side of the highway, the cold biting into his flesh through the thin layer of clothes that he'd been wearing when he'd awoken. Pandora's curiosity had released the ignorance and evil, the unthinking cruelty and carelessness and tainted knowledge he'd hidden away and it had all taken root in the sons and daughters of Man.

His feet ached and he wrapped his arms tighter around himself as he walked, wishing he'd had the forethought to at least bring a damned coat with him from the cabin before walking out. So much for his vaunted gifts and powers, he thought bitterly.

Behind him, driving a five-year old enclosed pickup, Larry Wilson was tired and lonely, drowning his sorrows in a beer picked up from the last gas station. It was the fifth beer of the six pack and so far it hadn't drowned anything, just left him feeling sleepy and with an increasingly urgent need to take a leak. He started awake as the bottle tipped from his nerveless fingers, spilling the last few mouthfuls over his lap, dropping it onto the floor and cursing as he reached for the box of Kleenex that rode shotgun in the passenger seat. What else could go fucking wrong, he wondered miserably, mopping ineffectively at the dampness that had soaked through his crotch and was the car with the smell of brew.

The headlights lit up the figure ahead but Larry didn't see him, his gaze on the damp denim of his lap and his hand reaching out blindly for another handful of tissues. He sensed the change in direction at the last minute, yanking the wheel back to the right as the front of the car hit something and he looked up, mouth dropping open as the man smacked into the windshield and bounced off, falling out of sight to the ground in front of the car. Hitting the brakes, he gripped the wheel tightly as the back end slewed around in the mixture of ice and slush that covered the shoulder, face screwed up in a grimace, expecting the front tyres to lurch over the body. But they didn't.

Larry got out and walked around to the front of the engine, staring down at the man lying in the scrim of snow on the verge. He could see blood, red and sticky over half the face, could see the way the arms and legs didn't look quite right, bending in the wrong directions. He swallowed against the sudden convulsion in his stomach, closing his mouth tightly and turning away. The man hadn't moved.

He pulled out his phone, staring down at the screen, his finger poised over the button marked 'nine' as the events of the evening slowly replayed through his mind. Five beers. Falling asleep at the wheel. Killing someone.

Nothing could bring that man back, he thought to himself, looking at the still figure. Was it fair to ruin two lives? Would anyone gain anything by him calling it in and being arrested, charged, tried and put in jail for god knew how long over what had been a simple mistake? He'd spilled his goddamned beer, for Christ's sake. He hadn't meant to kill the guy, hadn't been trying to do anything but block out what had been the worst week of his life.

Putting the phone back in his pocket, he turned back to the truck and opened the door, getting in. It was a mistake, he thought again. Just a mistake. Putting the car into gear, he eased it off the shoulder and back across the road, one flickered glance in the rear view mirror showing the man still lying there, motionless in the red wash of his taillights.

You won't remember this, he told himself. In the morning, this'll just be a bad, bad dream and you won't remember it. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fucking well fair!

The eagle watched the car speed off, the rear lights bright against the blackness of the night. It turned its head to look down at the man lying on the road. After a moment, it spread its wings and glided down to the man, landing on the firm hipbone, claws digging in through the thin denim as it looked at the man's face. Then it dropped its head to the tee shirt that covered the torso and caught at it in its beak, pulling sharply until the cloth tore away and exposed the smooth, soft skin beneath.

Lebanon, Kansas

Dean looked at the plate by Sam's elbow. Most of the grilled chicken, lettuce and tomato sandwich was still there, untouched. His brother had taken a few bites and then forgotten it.

How long did he want to wait before bringing it up? A bit longer, he decided reluctantly. He'd told Sam he'd trust him with the trials, told him that he'd back him if he said he was good to go. And Sam kept saying he was okay, he was fine. And where had he learned that? He pushed that thought aside sourly, picking up the plate without commenting and taking it back to the kitchen.

It'd been a week of reading and worrying and he was ready to start climbing the walls. Cas was still out of touch but he couldn't afford the time to worry about the angel now. Kevin was still working on the second trial, not even a hint as to what shape it would take, what it would demand of Sam. His dreams were filled with half-seen shadows and dangers that brought him to wakefulness in a cold sweat, sure that whatever it was had been about to kill his brother and he'd been stuck, not able to do anything but watch. He'd rather have the dreams of Hell than face the unknown night after night.

Something had shifted inside of him. Some realisation or revelation or epiphany had started a process that for him was always slow, a process of revisiting the past and reviewing it, seeing things he hadn't noticed before, seeing things from a slightly different perspective. The fatalism that had filled him from the moment he'd gotten out of Purgatory was dissolving, somehow. He wasn't sure why, exactly, only that one of the springs that had been wound too tight inside had been released and he was breathing a little more deeply, a little more easily now.

He put the plate on the counter and poured himself a cup of coffee from the pot, thinking about that. It wasn't that everything had become good and fine and light again, he thought, brow furrowing as he tried to nail the feeling. More like … something had been laid to rest, maybe. Or his hold on something had loosened.

It didn't matter, not now. That process would work its way through and eventually he'd see the end result. Right now, he had other things to consider. He carried the cup back to the library as Sam came up the steps from the war room, waving a piece of paper at him.

"Got a case, I think," he said and Dean walked to him, taking the paper and skimming it.

"Huh." He looked at Sam. "Kind of thin, where'd it come from?"

"Great Falls, Montana. Came through on the police scanner. Sheriff called back on it ten minutes ago." Sam's brow creased up. "Could be a zombie?"

"Could be a lot of things," Dean said slowly. "Could be the cop didn't register what he was seeing."

"Twenty year vet," Sam countered.

"Why didn't he follow the tracks if he was sure the guy got up and walked?"

"I don't know," Sam said, shrugging. "We could go ask him?"

"Why are you so hot to take a case?" Dean asked, looking at him. Sam shrugged.

"You're about at the end of your leash, and I could use some fresh air," he said, gesturing around the room. "We've been reading for five days and we haven't found anything. Change of scenery might help get a fresh perspective."

Dean looked at him thoughtfully for a moment then nodded. "Thousand mile drive to clear the cobwebs? Sure. Why not?"

I-80 W, Nebraska

Dean glanced at the passenger seat as they hit the interstate heading west, his breath escaping in a small sigh as he saw that Sam was already curled awkwardly into the corner, asleep.

It was a fifteen-hour drive, across to Wyoming and then north, he thought, glancing at his watch as he calculated the time and distance. They'd hit Great Falls early in the morning if he drove through the night.

The damned case was incredibly thin. They'd gone across the country for less, but it still felt like it was going to turn out to be a deadhead. People sometimes weren't injured as bad as they looked. He'd read somewhere some guy had fallen out of a plane at thirty thousand feet and had walked away … somewhere in the mountains, he thought, guy'd hit snow, a deep drift, on an angle that had slowed him down enough then hit a bunch of sheep, huddled together and buried underneath the snow, ploughed into them and broke a leg. If luck threw out cards like that, it made other things seem a lot more likely.

On the other hand, he thought, maybe the close proximity for the next few days would force Sam to say something. Or maybe not. He rubbed a hand over his forehead in frustration.

He'd asked him again, under the guise of working the shifts for driving, how he was. Got the same answer as always, and plainly his kid brother wasn't taking a real good look at himself in the mirror when he shaved because that answer just didn't cut it with the bruised-looking eye sockets and the waxen paleness under Sam's normally light olive skin tones.

A promise was a promise. And that's what he'd made, so he could just suck it up and live with it. For a while longer. A little while longer, he thought, glancing again at his brother. In the dim light of the dash, he could see Sam's face twitching, his head moving slightly against the glass of the passenger window as if he was flinching from something in his dreams. He hoped that Sam wasn't having the same sort of dreams as him.

Great Falls, Montana

Dean pulled up in front of the sheriff's office and got out of the car, smoothing down the front of the suit automatically as he locked it and pocketed the keys. He followed Sam inside the building.

Sheriff Jack Baxter leaned back in his chair behind his desk, looking up at the two agents who'd flashed their badges and interrupted his morning routine.

"If you could just tell us what happened, Sheriff?" Dean said, glancing at Sam.

"You didn't see the report?" Sheriff Baxter asked truculently. "It's all there."

"We'd like to hear it direct, Sheriff," Sam said, dropping into the soothing persona he'd learned years ago. "Sometimes, just a retelling can jog another detail loose."

Baxter nodded slowly at that. It was true, and he'd used the technique with witnesses himself. "Alright. I was on the 89, heading back from a four-fifteen, saw a guy lying on the left side shoulder just past mile marker twenty-three. I pulled over and examined him – checked for pulse, for respiration. I found no pulse, no respiration. He'd been lying there long enough for his skin to have frozen. A large raptor was on the body when I pulled up. Pecked a hole in the guy's body big enough to put your hand in, right through the clothing."

Dean nodded, swallowing slightly at the vivid mental image that description produced.

"I returned to my vehicle, got my radio and called it in. Dispatch was ordering the meat-wagon when I turned around … and the guy had gone."

"Gone?"

"Gone. Disappeared. Vanished. Was no longer there," the sheriff clarified sourly. "I walked back to where he'd been lying and there was a single set of tracks, leading away from the road and into the woods. I returned to my vehicle and called in the situation and then I left."

"You didn't follow him?" Dean frowned.

"Son, this is rough country and we got a big population of grizzlies here. It's spring. They're hungry. No one goes wandering around the woods on their own. You have to go in, you have a couple of guys with you and you carry something big enough to take them down. Not a little pea-shooter like what I got on my belt," the sheriff explained slowly. He looked at Sam. "So, I gotta question, what possible interest does the Bureau have in this? You were here awful fast for something that's turned out to be nothing."

"We thought it might've been connected to another case," Dean lied smoothly. "Some guy in –"

"Jack?" The young blonde assistant at the counter turned around and looked at the sheriff. "Think you oughta take a look at this?" She gestured to the computer screen in front of her, showing an initial ME's report with a large photograph of a man whose face had been severely torn up. "Just came in on the wire from Livingston."

Baxter got up and walked around his desk, bending slightly as he peered at the screen. "Bear attack?"

"Yup," the blonde confirmed. "Found early this morning."

Baxter swore softly under his breath. "Pardon my French, Marcie, but goddamn, that's the same guy."

Sam stepped in beside him, looking over Marcie's shoulder at the screen. "The same guy you saw?"

"Yeah," Baxter said, nodding. "I'm sure of it."

Sam glanced over him at Dean. "Uh, Livingston, that's a fair distance, isn't it?"

"A hundred and seventy-three miles," Baxter said, turning to them with a frown. "How the hell he'd get down there in one night and manage to fit in a bear mauling?"

"He could have hooked a ride," Sam said, more to Dean than the sheriff. "Taken him most of the way."

"This time of year, we don't have a lot of passing traffic down there," Baxter said. "And locals wouldn't stop, not for a stranger."

"Well, thanks for your time, Sheriff, and we'll take it from here," Dean said briskly.

"You sure you boys don't want me to come along?" Sheriff Baxter asked, hooking his thumbs through his belt as he straightened. "Might think of some little, overlooked detail?"

"No, we're good," Dean said, turning for the door. Sam smiled at Baxter awkwardly and followed his brother out and down to the car.

"That was smooth," he said, getting in when his brother had unlocked the door.

"Guy's found dead, and gets up and walks away. Gets mauled by a grizzly and is found dead … again." Dean started the engine and glanced at the map beside him. Livingston was a three-hour drive from Great Falls. Even with a ride, which no one had come forward about, it left the timing a little strained.

"See if you can get the ME on the phone and ask them to hold off on the autopsy until we get there," he said to Sam, pulling out and accelerating.

Livingston, Montana

The morgue was in the basement of the County Hospital, several offices surrounding it belonging to the various staff of the ME's department. The medical examiner confirmed that no autopsy had been performed and handed them the preliminary findings report.

"Bear attack, no question," Dr Lui said. "A big one, by the size of the claw wounds and bite marks." He shrugged. "It's spring."

"Thank you, doctor," Sam said, skimming down the report and handing it to Dean. "Can we examine the body?"

"Yeah, it's on the table," the doctor said, gesturing to the door. They walked into the room and looked at the body lying on the table. It had been washed, blood and debris were gone from the wounds, which were deep, penetrating through the muscle to the underlying bone. The man's fair skin was tinted blue, lividity pronounced underneath.

"No ID found on the body?"

Dr Lui shook his head. "Ran his fingerprints too, but no hits."

Sam lifted the sheet, frowning as he saw the deep hole on the side of the body. "What's going on here?"

"Liver was eaten," Lui said, pulling on a fresh set of gloves. "Best guess, a bird got at it."

Dean looked at Sam as the sheriff's description on the scanner came back to both.

"Before or after the bear attack?" Sam asked, frowning at the hole.

"After," the ME said, glancing from him to Dean. "Wouldn't be walking around if it'd happened before."

Weirder and weirder, Dean thought.

"Thanks," Sam said to the ME as they turned and left, walking down the hallway.

"Well?" Sam stopped outside the viewing window.

"Well what?" Dean glanced at the body through the window. "I'm seeing weird, but not much else, Sam. Guy gets hit by a truck, takes a nap in the freezing cold, maybe the sheriff missed the artery when he checked the pulse. Sun comes up, he gets up and takes a detour into some bear's territory … he's dead."

"And the hundred and seventy mile hike?" Sam asked. "And the sheriff says that –and I quote – 'a large raptor' had put a hole in him when he found him, and then after the bear attack a bird is pecking a hole in his side, going for his already-gone liver?"

"I don't know," Dean said, waving a hand at the body exasperatedly. "But he's dead. Case closed."

He looked back through the window. The table was empty.

"Son of a bitch."

They found him halfway down the hall heading for the lift, the cadaver sheet wrapped around his body. He stopped when he saw the guns, lifting one hand as the other kept hold of his make-shift covering.

"You better start talking," Dean said, pushing him back into the autopsy room as Sam moved around the table to the window and closed the blinds tightly.

"What are you?" Dean demanded, slamming him down on the table, the gun pressed against the back of his head.

"What? I'm not anything?" The man said, face pressed against the stainless draining board.

"Two minutes ago you were room temperature," Dean said. "You're something!"

"Look," the man said desperately. "I don't know what I am. I don't know who I am. All I know is I die, every goddamned day, so if you want to shoot me then go ahead, just make sure you do it right because I can't take this anymore!"

Dean uncocked the gun and stepped back. "Get up."

"All you do is die?" Sam asked. "What's that supposed to mean?"

The man turned to face them, hitching up his sheet. "Once a day for as long as I can remember. After a few hours, I'm back."

Dean looked at him, running through everything he'd ever heard about or seen that had to do with resurrections. Aside from their own multiple examples, he couldn't recall a scenario that was even remotely similar to the one this guy was describing.

"Alright, well listen, we're not going to find out what the hell you are in here," Dean said, his gaze cutting aside to Sam. "So you're going to come with us. We're gonna run a few tests, make sure everything's as it's supposed to be. You got a name?"

"Uh … Shane. What kind of tests?"

"Definitive ones," Dean said, gesturing to the door with the automatic. "After you."

Hunters, he thought, as the car drove through the town. That was to be expected. It would be better to play dumb, to be seen as a man. Better for all of them. Who really believed in the old myths these days? Even the hunters had trouble swallowing them, and they were the most inured to unbelievable things in a world that primarily believed in fast digital connections and the latest new thing.

The blade of the silver knife was razor-sharp and slid easily through the skin of his arm, leaving a fine cut and a spill of red blood. He winced at the pain and pressed the cloth the hunter gave him against the wound.

"Seriously? This is FBI sanctioned?" he asked, looking at the hunter who'd made the cut.

"Drink," the taller one said, handing him a small, silver flask. He sniffed at the contents, detecting the subtle scent of water and tipped it up, swallowing a mouthful and handing it back.

Silver would give a reaction in many of the monsters that roamed the night. And the water was probably blessed, he thought, to advise of a possession of evil. Looking at them, he could see that they were rethinking their theories about him.

"Alright, so how long has this dying thing been going on?"

"As long as I can remember," he said. "But my memory only goes back a few years."

"What, so now you have amnesia?" The hunter exchanged a disbelievingly look with the other. Brothers, he thought to himself. A lot of conflict between them, put aside when they work.

"I suppose so," he said reluctantly. "I don't know what my real name is. I was given the name Shane, because, well, I guess people had to call me something."

"Shane, I'm Sam, this is Dean," Sam said. "What do you remember?"

A rational approach, Shane thought. It made a refreshing change.

"I was on a mountain, in eastern Europe. I don't know how or why I was there, but there was an avalanche, and I was rescued, along with others. When I realised my … condition … I knew I couldn't be around other people, so I built a little cabin, learned to hunt … kept to myself," he said, a trace of bitterness edging his voice. "It seemed easiest that way."

"Okay," Dean said. "And?"

"And then a couple of the local 'herbalists' got uneasy with my place being near their crops. They shot me, twice and I figured it was time to move on."

"Right into the grill of that pickup."

He shrugged, looking at them. "You think maybe I could borrow some clothes? Clean up?"

"Uh … yeah," Dean said, walking around to his duffle and dragging out a shirt and a pair of jeans. He tossed them to Shane. "Knock yourself out."

"Thanks," he said, catching them one-handed and walking into the bathroom and closing the door behind him.

"Well, he's definitely something," Dean said.

"Yeah, but maybe he's not the monster," Sam said slowly. "Maybe he's the victim."

Dean looked at him. "Cursed?"

Sam nodded. "Still leaves a wide variety."

"Witch, object, family … yeah." Dean rubbed a hand over his jaw, looking at the closed bathroom door.

"You know what?" Sam said, turning to him. "He's parked here, he's safe … maybe we should get another room until we can figure this out."

"Yeah." He turned to the door. "What about protection?"

"We don't have that much with us, and I'm not sure what to protect against." Sam's brow creased up worriedly. "As curses go, it does seem kind of grandiose …" he stopped for a moment, brows drawing together sharply.

"What?"

"I don't know – just got this sense of familiarity," Sam said, running his hand through his hair. "I can't get it."

His brother shrugged. "I'll get the room."

The room was dark, the muted white noise of the traffic on the highway an unvarying background that didn't draw the senses. He snapped into wakefulness with the soft snick of the lock being withdrawn, his mind trained to alarm at every unknown sound, every shift of the wind and hint of scent.

And that scent, he knew that scent.

She drifted into the room silently, and he closed his eyes, steadied his breathing as he waited. The mattress dipped slightly under her weight as she sat beside him, and he felt the featherlight touch of her fingers along the side of his face.

His hand smacked against her wrist, gripping it tightly as he turned and looked up at her. Dark hair, straight and shining framed a beautiful face, not warm, he thought distantly, but strong. He watched her lips curve up a little in a small smile.

"Who are you?" he asked her and the smile disappeared as she stared into his eyes.

"You don't remember?" she asked him uncertainly. He didn't answer and he saw a deep disappointment flower in her face and vanish.

"Never mind," she said, lifting her right hand. The dim light from the motel parking lot glinted along the edge of the long blade it held.

He watched the tightening of the muscle in her shoulder and intercepted the hand as it plunged toward him, arching up beside her, his greater weight and strength driving her backwards off the bed and onto the floor. Gripping her shoulder and wrist he used her forward thrust against her, lifting and swinging her back into the wall, shifting his stance as she slid off the counter and walked toward him.

Behind them, the door opened, Dean framed in the doorway, a taller shadow behind him that could only be his brother. The ugly Kurdish knife was held in his hand as he took in the situation and took a long stride toward the woman. She dropped to the floor, leg scything out and catching his, and he hit the floor on his back, as Sam was thrown backwards through the doorway into the parking lot with a fast gesture of her hand.

Shane reached out and grabbed the back of her coat as she lifted her long knife above Dean, yanking her backwards and twisting his hip as he transferred weight and motion and threw her against the wall, her knife falling on impact. They both looked down at the knife, gleaming on the floor between them and she lunged forward, fingers curling around the hilt as his closed around her arm, twisting it back up behind her, driving his thumb in between the tendons of the wrist and catching the hilt of the knife as it dropped. He forced her arm back higher, standing close to her side, her breath huffing against his cheek as he lifted the blade and touched the point lightly to her face.

"You used to be faster" he said softly to her, forgetting the men in the room. "Or were you holding back for old time's sake?"

Dean got to his feet, and Sam regained the door as they watched Shane holding the woman.

"I used to love you." She looked at him, lifting her hand and gripping the blade of the knife. "Now? I'm your worst enemy."

He felt her arm vanish from his grip, his fingers clenching where it had been as she dissolved into smoke and disappeared entirely.

"Who the hell was that?" Dean asked belligerently.

He looked at the hunter, and realised that he couldn't go back to the pretence of amnesia now. "Artemis," he said, his voice flat.

In the doorway, Sam's brows shot up. "As in the Huntress? Daughter of Zeus."

"Yes." He turned away, feeling a sharp pain stab through his left arm. He lifted it, closing his fingers into a fist.

"And who the hell are you?" Dean asked him, his voice suddenly deeper.

"I … uh … I'm …" he said thickly, staggering backward as the pain intensified and pressure began to fill his chest. "I'm … Prometheus."

Sam and Dean exchanged identical looks. "The Titan?" Sam asked.

"Son of …" Prometheus gasped, his face crumpling as the pressure grew and the pain suddenly bloomed with it. "… of … of …"

"Hey," Dean said, stepping forward as Prometheus dragged in a sharp breath and dropped to his knees. "Hey!"

His blood was roaring in his ears and cold was spreading from his shoulder down his arm and through his chest to his hip. He couldn't breathe, couldn't see, falling onto his side as the pain ripped through him.

"Is he having a heart attack?" Dean asked Sam.

"Should I call 911?"

"And tell them what?" Dean snapped. "That the dead guy we stole from the morgue is alive and having a coronary?"

They watched helplessly as Prometheus jerked on the floor, then arched back, his eyes open wide, staring at them … then just staring, the life gone, the eyeballs glazing over in death.

"Crap!"

"Pick him up," Sam said suddenly. "Get him on the bed."

Dean looked at him irritably. "Because it's tidier than having him on the floor?"

"Because he's Prometheus," Sam said patiently, going to his feet and picking them up. "He was cursed by Zeus to be killed every day and renewed in the morning."

"I thought Prometheus created man and brought fire?"

Dean picked up his shoulders and lifted, backing up between the beds and easing the man onto the edge.

"Right, he was teaching mankind knowledge – he … uh … managed to trick Zeus, somehow, into choosing the worst offering of a sacrifice and Zeus took back fire. Prometheus broke into Olympus and took it back, and this was his punishment." He put Prometheus' legs down and sat down on the other bed.

"Dammit, there's hundreds of books in the library on the Greek pantheon," he said irritably.

Dean looked at him and shrugged. "Maybe we need to figure a way to get it accessible in the field."

"You know how long it would take to get it digitalised?" Sam shook his head. "The gist should be on the net, I'll get the computer."

"How long do we have to wait till he's back again?" Dean looked at Sam who was sitting at the table, bent over the keyboard of the laptop.

"I don't know," Sam said, frowning at the screen. "The myth is that Zeus had Prometheus chained to the top of Mount Kaukasos – that's Caucasus, which is a mountain range, not just a single peak, in eastern Europe. Probably Mount Elbus, that's the highest. One of the forms of Zeus was a golden eagle and each day the eagle would attack Prometheus and eat his liver. Each night he would be healed and the next day it would start again."

"But this guy was fine all day?"

"Yeah." Sam looked around. "It explains the birds eating the liver, not much else."

"So …" Dean stopped at the sound of light knocking on the motel room door.

He got up, the automatic in his hand and moved to the window, easing the edge of the thin curtain aside. In front of the door, a tall, slender woman in jeans and a jacket was waiting. Shaking his head at his brother, he walked to the door and put the barrel of the gun against the wood as he opened it a few inches. The woman had her arm around a young boy, both of them looking uncomfortable.

"May I help you?"

"Agent Bonham?" The woman looked at him hopefully. "This is going to sound really strange, but I'm looking for a corpse that went missing yesterday? The coroner said that you were the last one to see it?" She glanced down at the boy and back to him. "I'm Hayley, uh, Davis."

Dean felt Sam walk up behind him. "This is Agent Jones."

"Why are you looking for our John Doe?" Sam asked quietly.

"Well, his name is Shane," she said diffidently. "At least … that's what I called him. I'm the mother of his son."

"Oh … okay," Dean said, looking down at the boy. "Hey."

"He's shy," Hayley said, and her gaze sharpened as she looked past him into the room, at the pair of jean-covered legs that were lying on the bed. "Oliver, stay with the nice FBI agents," she added to her son, pushing past Dean.

"Oh, you weren't supposed to –" Dean looked back into the room.

"It's okay," she said, going to the bed.

Dean forced a smile at Oliver, glancing back and watching her sit down on the edge, her hair hiding her face as she looked down at Prometheus.

"How long has he been dead?" She turned to Sam.

"Four hours," Sam said. "You know about it?"

She nodded. "A little."

She got up and walked back to the door. "Has he said anything to you … about his past … or me?"

Sam looked at Dean before answering. "He said he was rescued from an avalanche."

"Yeah," Hayley said, looking out into the lot. "Hey, Oliver, do you want to play on the swings?"

He nodded and she stepped past Sam, taking the boy's hand and leading him to the small playground on the other side of the narrow lot. Dean followed her, and Sam stepped outside, closing the door behind him. Walking to the picnic table on the lawn beside the playground, they sat down and waited for Hayley.

She turned around and walked over to them, pushing her hair back from her face as she sat down.

"It was … one of those trips, finished college, didn't have any immediate job prospects. We were going to climb this mountain, and I don't know … it seemed like a good idea at the time," she said, her mouth twisting slightly. "There was an avalanche and my friends were gone. When I came to, I found him. And he was alive, just barely, I thought. It took us four days to get down, and he … I kept thinking it was shock, you know, the way he'd … he'd seem to stop breathing, or I couldn't find a pulse, and … but he'd come back and he got me down. I wouldn't have made it if he hadn't been there."

"He was in a hurry to leave and we just flew back here, to the States, I mean, and the experience, it changed us – changed everything. He stayed with me, and one night … we were … and he had a heart attack." She looked down at her hands, the fingers twisting around themselves. "I called for an ambulance, but they couldn't save him, and then –"

Sam's eyes narrowed slightly as he watched her. "He turned up, alive again?"

She nodded. "I thought of all the times, all the things I'd told myself before but I couldn't pretend this was a mistake, that I'd made a mistake. I ran."

"And then I had Oliver," she said, looking across at the swings where the little boy was swinging slowly by himself. She looked back at Sam. "I hired a private investigator – I really tried to find him. But … when they gave up, I gave up. Until a couple of months ago."

"And what made you look again?" Sam asked.

Hayley looked at him, her eyes filling with tears. "My son died."

Dean flicked a glance at the boy on the swings. "And he came back. Like his father."

She nodded, wiping impatiently at the wetness on her cheeks. Her gaze shifted from Dean past him and they turned around as they heard the motel door close.

"Hayley?" Prometheus said, looking at her.

She got up, walking toward him. "Hi Shane." Turning to the boy, she called. "Oliver, come here, honey."

With her arm around him, she met Prometheus at the foot of the steps to the rooms. "I thought it was time you two met," she said, looking up at him.

Dean saw him look down at the boy, watched the realisation dawn gradually in his face.

Outside the window, Hayley pushed Oliver on the swing. Prometheus stared through the window, watching them absently.

"I didn't shape men from clay, you know," he said, mouth twisting up derisively as he looked at Sam. "Or breathe life into them. I was allowed to stay out of Tartarus so long as I kept my nose clean and my head down."

"Tartarus?" Dean asked curiously.

"Alternative plane of existence," Prometheus said. "Where the Olympians threw the Titans after the war."

"But you didn't keep a low profile," Sam said.

"No," Prometheus said with a long sigh. "I thought I could help. They were arguing about what parts of an animal to give to Zeus for a sacrifice. I suggested that they wrap the best meat in the skin and put the organs on top, and wrap the bones in the fat, and let Zeus choose the portions he wanted."

"And he chose the bones, thinking it was the meat?"

"Yeah." The proto-god shrugged. "Zeus never had a sense of humour, not really. Took it all too seriously. He took the ability to light fire away from men with that one."

"And you brought it back," Dean said.

Prometheus nodded. "It'd been my idea, the sacrifice thing. I felt I had to make it up to them."

"That's when you were chained to Mount Elbus?"

"Yeah, and Zeus introduced Pandora," Prometheus said. "The first woman – not really, of course, but the first one whose curiosity exceeded her intelligence. I'd had a lot of the bad stuff locked away from humanity, and she managed to find the damned box and open it."

"What bad stuff?" Dean asked.

"You know … cruelty, evil, black magic, the dark arts, the stuff people really weren't equipped to handle."

"So … she opened it and what? All that stuff just flew out?"

"Pretty much," Prometheus said. "And there wasn't a thing I could do about it then."

"You've escaped from the mountain before this?" Sam asked, remembering what Artemis had said.

"Yes, every now again something would happen and I'd get free. The first few times, I was free for awhile." He frowned, and Sam got the impression that the memories were uncomfortable, then he looked back through the window. "I've got to get away from them. They're not safe with me around."

"They're not safe, period, Prometheus," Dean said flatly. "Hayley said that what happens to you has started to happen to Oliver too. So the question is – how do we break Zeus' curse?"

"Break it?" Prometheus shook his head. "You can't. We can't. He'd have to rescind it and along with a poor sense of humour, he really doesn't have an open mind." He sat up as he noticed the swings were empty. The door opened and Hayley came in, Oliver in her arms, blood drying on his face from a wound at the side of his head.

"What happened?" Dean got up, looking past Sam who'd also risen.

"He fell," she said, laying him on the bed. She turned around to look at them. "I told you, it's the same … thing … that –"

"Every day?" Prometheus asked, his face drawn as he looked at the boy.

She nodded. "That's why I came to find you. I have to know how to stop it."

Sam and Dean looked at Prometheus. The son of a Titan shook his head.

"You can't. No one can."

"Don't bet on it," Dean snapped. "We can figure this out, but not here."

Hayley looked at him. "Where?"

"Someplace safe," Sam reassured her. "Someplace we can find the answers without having to worry about anything – or anyone – else."

"I need my car," she said, biting her lip as she realised she couldn't drive and watch over Oliver at the same time.

"Sam'll bring your car," Dean said, looking at Prometheus. "You two and Oliver ride with me."

I-80 E, Nebraska

Oliver was sleeping normally, the head wound had closed up and he lay along the back seat of the Impala, his head resting on Hayley's lap. She was asleep in the corner of the seat, her arm loosely draped over her son's chest.

Dean shifted his gaze back from the mirror to the road. "Instant family."

Prometheus turned to look at him, nodding slightly. "It makes running harder."

"Then don't run," Dean said softly. "Fight for them."

"Against the Father of Gods?" Prometheus snorted. "Killing me might delay him ten seconds on the way to whatever it is he has to do next."

"Everything has a weakness, man," Dean said, glancing sideways at him. "One thing we've learned in this life is that. It's just a matter of finding it."

"He has plenty of weaknesses, Dean." He leaned back into the corner and rubbed his eyes. "Women, wine, humiliating people and gods, pride, wrath … he's full of weaknesses … doesn't translate to a way to make him back down."

"Well, if he's not inclined to change his mind, we'll gank him," Dean said, shrugging.

"Gank him?"

"Kill him."

"Just like that?" Prometheus smiled unwillingly. "With your magic spear, perhaps?"

"We'll find a way."

"Don't gamble on it," he said, the smile disappearing. "Half the gods on Olympus have tried and failed. Multiple times."

"So what was the story with him throwing your family into prison?" Dean asked, not wanting to think about that right now.

"Well, it was all pretty well asked for," Prometheus said tiredly. "His father, Cronus, was a Titan. There was an oracle at Dodone, foresaw that one of his children would overthrow him, so Cronus ate them, one after the other, as soon as they were born."

"What?" Dean turned his head to look at him. "Jesus, that's gross!"

"Yeah, well, old days, old ways. Zeus' mother, Rhea, hid Zeus when he was born, and while he was growing up. When he reached adulthood, he confronted Cronus and made him bring forth his siblings. Cronus regurgitated them."

"Huh."

"Bends the brain to visualise it, don't bother."

"And then?"

"And then he fought against the Titans, with his sisters and brothers, and they defeated them and threw them into Tartarus, becoming the Olympians and ruling the world from Mount Olympus." Prometheus said. "It all happened a long, long, long time ago."

"Why would this curse be passed on to your children?"

"I told you, that's his sense of humour. It's cruel. Capricious. He delights in the suffering of those who've opposed him," Prometheus said, gesturing vaguely.

"In other words, he's a dick," Dean suggested bluntly.

"I guess that's one way to describe him," the god agreed.

Lebanon, Kansas

Dean carried Oliver upstairs to one of the spare bedrooms, Hayley following him and pulling back the covers as he was laid on the bed. She took off his shoes and socks, turning around to nod her thanks to him and he left the room, pulling the door gently shut behind him.

Prometheus had also managed to die in the night. They'd left him on the long sofa in the office next to the library. Sam was pulling out books and stacking them on the table when he reached the long room.

"Dean, you do realise that the only gods we've ever managed to kill have been incredibly minor folk deities?" Sam said, looking up. "Lucifer killed Odin and the others in that motel."

"Well, we've taken out an angel, a couple of high-level demons … we've done alright," Dean said, looking at the books and peeling right down the hall to the kitchen.

"But Zeus is the Father of Gods, he's the equivalent of … hell, I don't even know what he's the equivalent of," Sam muttered, following him.

"There'll be something, Sam," Dean said, refilling the coffee pot and leaning against the counter. "I'm not going to just stand by and watch this go on."

"Of course not."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Dean looked at him, hearing the edge in his voice.

"Nothing," Sam said.

"Not nothing."

"Is there any point that you reach where you stop and say, I can't do anything about this?" Sam asked, exasperatedly. "I mean, you're willing to go after anything, Dean, no matter how impossible, no matter what might happen to you."

"You saying that I should give up?" Dean frowned at him.

"No – no," Sam said, looking away. "I – I don't know what I'm saying, exactly. This … this is – look, I admire the quality, Dean, I do, but I have to wonder if you know that you have limits – that there are limits to what you can do."

The coffee pot burbled behind them in the silence that filled the room, the aroma strong and welcome. Dean wasn't sure what to say to his brother. He didn't consider what could or couldn't be done, only how he could do it.

Sam suddenly realised what had raised the thought in his head, and he went to the cupboard, pulling down the mugs and setting them on the table.

"Lot of reading to get through," Sam said abruptly. "I'm going to get started." He turned and walked out.

Dean watched him go, replaying the disjointed conversation in his head and feeling the pieces fall together. His brother was thinking of his own limits. Of what was happening to him. Of what it meant. He looked at the coffee pot, almost full now, and wondered how to get Sam to talk about it. They could figure something out, if Sam would admit there was a problem.

When he got back to the library, his brother was already reading, skimming over pages.

Hayley came down the stairs slowly, stopping as she reached the library doorway. Dean looked over and gestured to a chair at the table.

"Do you want a coffee?"

"Please," she answered, walking to the table and sitting down. He passed her a cup and sat down opposite her.

"Take it slow," he advised her, seeing the tension in her hands as she reached for the hot cup and wrapped them around it.

"What's happening?" she asked, looking at him steadily despite the shiver that ran through her.

"When did this start happening to Oliver?" Sam looked up from his book, brow creased. "Exactly?"

"When he turned seven," she said, sipping the coffee. "He had a birthday party, and he ran out in front of a car … I spent the night at the hospital and they told me he'd … gone." She looked down at her cup, the tremble increasing for a moment as she struggled to keep those memories in check. "In the morning, he opened his eyes and all the wounds, all the injuries, they were gone."

She put down the cup carefully and rubbed the heel of her hand over her forehead. "I was … delirious, I guess. Overjoyed. But I realised we couldn't stay there, it wasn't a big town and word would get around too fast. We moved to a city, then another one."

Sam nodded. "Age seven marks the first Greek rites of manhood." He turned back to her. "Your son's father is Prometheus. He was the son of a Titan who helped humanity against Zeus, in ancient Greece."

"What?" Hayley's brows shot up. "You're serious?"

"Yeah, I am," Sam said quietly. "He's a god, and Oliver is a demi-god, a child of a god. And this … curse, this punishment that Zeus decided for Prometheus, for some reason, he's extended it to include his children."

She looked at Dean, who shrugged. "Zeus. Ancient Greece. And you two? How is it that you're sitting here in …" She looked around the room as if seeing it for the first time, the walls of books and maps, the scrolls and manuscripts and artefacts held in glass cases. "… this museum, and telling me this without breaking a sweat?"

"This is what we do, Hayley," Dean said. "We're hunters. We hunt down things like this and we deal with them."

"Deal with them?"

"Kill them, mostly."

For a moment, she sat still, looking down at her cooling coffee, one fingertip unconsciously circling her temple. Sam glanced at Dean, who picked up his cup, tipping it up and gulping down the contents.

It was a lot to hit someone with, and he thought she was taking it pretty well, all things considered. He could give her a little time to let it sink in.

Hayley stopped trying to make sense of it all and let it sit instead. Like oil rising slowly to water's surface, the pertinent facts arranged themselves clearly in her mind. Her son was doomed by this curse of his father's. The creature responsible was a god. The men sitting here with her were prepared to do something about it. The choice, her choice, was really quite simple.

"How do I stop it?" She looked up at him, her face hardening. "How do I make it go away?"

Dean pushed a stack of books toward her. "Start reading. We need to find a way to summon and trap Zeus, force him into changing his mind – or find a way to kill him."

"Can you kill a god?" she asked him, pulling the pile toward her and lifting the top book off.

"We're not sure," Sam said with a warning look at his brother.

"We can try," Dean countered, dragging another book toward him and flipping it open. "And we will try."

"And will killing him end the curse?" She stared at him intently.

"Usually the spell dies with the maker," he said. Sometimes not, but usually that was the case. He thought of Prometheus' comments about Zeus, about his pride and his hands-on approach. He thought in this case that the god would want control over everything. Wouldn't make a decision he couldn't change his mind about, if he wanted to. They would have to make sure he wanted to, he thought bleakly.