Title: Tainted
Chapter 2- Ira
Dean knew their already spectacularly crappy day had just gotten a whole lot worse when three policemen came barging into the office with their guns blazing.
There was no time to think.
Dean acted on pure instinct when he pushed Sam back, taking up a protective stance in front of his brother and shielding him as much from the officers' prying eyes as from the guns they were wielding.
"Dean- what-"
"Let me deal with this," Dean cut his brother off in a sharp whisper, knowing that Sam was still rattled from getting attacked by that invisible force and not wanting his little brother to stand in the line of fire when he was weakened and confused like this.
Add to that the fact that they really didn't need anyone asking questions about the brand new embellishment adorning Sam's chest- or even worse- commenting on the fact that Sam was only half clad and looking tousled. Because- so help him god, if Dean was going to hear one more gay joke or implication about him and Sam being together like that he was going to throw punches.
"Get your fucking hands in the air!" one of the officers barked, voice filled with a mixture of fear and excitement as he inched forward, face pale and gun shaking in his sweaty grip, never once wavering from its aim on Dean's chest.
"Hey, wow, calm down and let's talk about this, okay?" Dean said in a placating tone, lifting his palms in a clear show of surrender.
The guy couldn't have been older than 25, red-blond hair cropped short and a dust of freckles covering his nose and cheeks.
He was a goddamned rookie, so much was for freaking sure.
"Look, I don't know what you think you're doing, pointing a loaded gun at two investigating FBI agents, but you've got to know that it won't end well for you if you shoot us-"
"Shut the hell up and step away from him!" the young man hissed, taking an intimidating step forward and Dean's whole body tensed at the sudden movement.
Adrenaline cursed through his veins and his heart was beating frantically in his chest as his gaze was glued to the trembling fingers the red-haired officer had wound around the trigger of his gun. They were shaking so bad that the slightest sound or movement could have startled the man into firing.
"I said step aside!" the guy barked out in a sharp and commanding tone, lifting the muzzle of his gun until it was aimed at Dean's forehead.
"Dean-" Sam protested, seemingly alarmed by the eagerness of the young officer in front of them. "Just get out of the way, c'mon-"
Dean could feel his little brother's huge paws pushing against his back, trying to shove him aside, but he didn't budge.
Sam had another thing coming if he seriously thought Dean was going to step aside and let this uniformed monkey with Parkinson get a clear shot at his injured and defenseless little brother.
Hell would freeze over before he'd let that happen.
Ignoring his brother's feeble attempts to get him to move aside, Dean glanced at the two other police men behind the freckled eager beaver in the front.
They were resting their hand on the butt of their holstered guns, sparks of excitement evident in their eyes as they waited for him to make a move.
It was rather obvious that despite working for the police, these men hadn't dealt with a situation like this very often before- their typical cases probably involving nothing more dangerous than the occasional drunk teenager.
And now they were twitchy and nervous and eager to shoot first and ask questions later.
Great. Just their kind of luck.
"STEP ASIDE, NOW!" the enraged officer bellowed, nose twitching and cheeks turning red with anger. "Do it now, or I'll shoot!"
"Dean!" Sam urged desperately, having realized how close the guy was to firing. "Get out of my way-"
Sam gave him a forceful shove from behind, causing him to stumble and grudgingly comply with the command. Dean clenched his jaw in defeat and took a half step to the left, reluctantly revealing his brother to the armed policemen. He was moving slowly- carefully, not wanting to give the guy any reason to act out, but the man's eyes widened an imperceptible amount as he took in the sight of Sam in front of him.
"What the hell is that on his chest?!" the cop demanded, glancing nervously between the two of them, taking in the blood on Sam's white dress shirt and the wound above his heart that had caused it.
"What have you two been up to? Did you do this to him?!" the red-head directing an accusing glare at Dean, who had to clench his fists to keep his own anger in check at the mere suggestion that he had been the one hurting Sam.
Sam swallowed, searching for an explanation, but Dean beat him to it, eyes sparking with fury.
"Alright, listen here, Chuckie- my partner just had a severe case of PTSD not even ten minutes ago and if you don't stop waving that freaking gun in his face, I'm gonna make you eat it. Do I make myself clear?!"
The police officers exchanged a fleeting glance, insecurity visible in their weary gaze and Dean used their confusion to go on. "How about you tell me what we're even getting accused off before you do something that you'll regret, huh?"
If there was any plausible excuse for the way Sam had acted earlier, it would be a post-traumatic, psychotic breakdown, right?
Dean thought his idea had been pretty clever, especially considering that it wasn't all too far-fetched for a young FBI agent to have PTSD, until the police officer pulled back the hammer of his gun, features twisting into a skeptic grimace.
"As if you don't fucking know Agent McCoy... Why should I believe a single word that comes from your mouth? We just got an anonymous call about two male criminals impersonating FBI agents and guess what,- the descriptions fit your profiles right down to the last detail."
Dean swallowed, mind racing as he exchanged a worried glance with his brother. Anonymous call? But nobody even knew that they were here…
Dean opened his mouth, not wanting to be too obvious with how taken aback he was by the news, when officer Joneson suddenly came rushing into the room.
"What's going on in here?" the captain of the police department wanted to know, looking from the red haired officer to Dean and Sam, eyes widening slightly when his sight caught on Sam's blood-drenched dress shirt.
"O'Brian?" the man demanded in a sharp tone, causing the red haired police officer to whirl around, aim never wavering from Dean's chest.
"These men are not FBI agents, we just received the information by an anonymous caller and checked their records. There's no official entry for either of them in the database."
Joneson's forehead creased as he took in the information and Dean decided that he needed to do something, before the whole situation would get further out of hand.
"Look, I don't know who called you or why, but my name's Dean McCoy and I've been with the FBI for almost 8 years now. This is my partner Sam Smith and he just had a fucking panic attack… That's why he freaked out earlie-"
"NO!" the police officer with the ginger hair screamed, whole frame shaking with aggravation. "He's lying! He's nothing but a dirty imposter, can't you see it in his eyes?!"
Okayyyy… Well somebody had definitely just gone completely coocoo for cocoa puffs.
Dean's mouth fell open and instinctively he met Sam's panicked gaze in a quick sideways glance, finding the same fear in his little brother's eyes that was pumping through his own body.
Because seriously. What the ever-loving hell was wrong with the people in this town?
"Reign it in, O'Brian! This situation does not require a weapon's discharge and even if it did- you sure as hell wouldn't be the one to open fire." Joneson snapped in a stern, commanding tone that didn't leave any room for arguments. "You pull another stunt like that in my office and you can kiss your badge goodbye, kid. I mean it."
Apparently it was the wrong thing to say, because the next second O'Brian's feeble grasp on his composure slipped, revealing an almost manic aggressiveness as he whirled around with a vicious snarl and fired his gun at a completely shocked and defenseless Joneson.
The shot that rang out was deafening and Dean's heart leaped into his throat as he ducked and launched to the side, knocking Sam to the ground with him and seeking shelter behind the sturdy mahogany table that was Joneson's workstation.
Frantic screams rang out, followed by more shooting, followed by the wet and rattling breath of somebody who had just been gravely wounded, lungs probably filling with blood as he tried to gasp in a shaky breath.
"What the hell did you do, Sean?! Are you out of your freaking mind, man?!" another male voice rang out over the jumble of yells and a crying police woman dictating the address of the police station into the speaker of a phone.
Calling for an ambulance.
Shit.
That could only mean that Joneson had been hit by that bullet… that he was probably going to die before the EMTs even got here.
Dean pursed his lips, looking down to meet Sammy's wide-eyed and panicked gaze, as he searchingly waited for Dean to give him directions about what they should do.
Dean pulled his own pearl-handled gun from its holster, ready to fight his way out of the office, when a rage-filled scream suddenly boomed through the air, rattling his bones with the force of its volume.
Sam cried out in pain next to him, hands shooting up to cover his ears, when the window glass suddenly burst into a million pieces, glass flying everywhere.
"AVE SATANA. HEAC IRA DEORUM EST" the voice echoed loudly through the confinement of the room, Dean's ears ringing with the words, as he hurriedly grabbed a pen and a piece of paper from Joneson's desk and started scribbling.
"OMNE FLAMMANS FLAMMA PURGATUS, DOMINE EXTINCTIONIS ET SIGNUM RENEGERATIONIS, IN MEA MANU ENS INIMICUM EDAT!"
The roaring Latin ended almost as abruptly as it had started, leaving Dean completely shell-shocked, whole body shaking and heart beating a mile-a-minute in his chest.
Sam didn't look much better, eyes squeezed shut and body rocking back and forth beneath the wooden table they had used for shelter.
Trying to get a grip on his own emotions, Dean took a deep breath, before clutching his gun and slowly untangling himself from where he was crammed up against Sam's side, knowing he needed to see for himself what had happened and if there were any survivors.
Sam's eyes widened as he fumbled for his own gun, wanting to be able to back his brother up in case that they had to face the demon- or whatever else the guy was.
With the other hand he was fishing for his phone, trembling fingers frantically looking for the audio of the Latin banishing spell he had recorded about a year ago.
Dean straightened up slowly, arms extended and hands clutching his gun, as his eyes frantically scanned the room for the officer who had started the shooting.
His emerald eyes widened when he took in a total of 3 bodies littering the floor.
Joneson lay sprawled across the wooden laminate like a puppet with its strings cut off, one hand clutching at his throat, where the O'Brian's bullet must have grazed his artery.
Dark red blood had spread around his head and torso like a crimson halo and his eyes were wide and unblinking.
Dean had no doubt about the fact that he was dead. Next to him lay another police officer, who must have been shot in the crossfire and was most likely also dead. But Dean's eyes were glued to the person in the middle of the room.
O'Brian, the red-haired officer who had been screaming Latin only seconds before stood completely unmoving, his pupils wide and his eyes protruding from their sockets as he choked out a gasping breath and then crumpled to the ground.
"Suffocation," Sam uttered in a rushed breath, gun shaking in his grasp as he tried to take aim. "He fucking suffocated… Just like Annie."
For a moment Dean didn't comprehend what his brother was saying, but then it suddenly hit him. Annie Cooper.
The woman who had been found dead in her house.
The woman who had screamed herself to death.
And now it had just become painstakingly clear that this guy was their next victim.
Whatever the hell happened here- it must have been pretty much the same thing that had happened to their first victim.
Dean exchanged a frightful look with his brother, realizing Sam must have come to the same conclusion.
Then he drove a shaking hand through his dirty blond hair and bit his lower lip, eyes roaming the room as if they could find a solution for this whole fiasco scribbled somewhere on the walls.
"We gotta get out of here…"
"But-" Sam stammered, shaking his head. "We need to see if there are other victims, Dean- we need to see if anybody needs our help-"
"No," Dean grabbed his brother's discarded jacket from the ground and chucked it at him, before holstering his gun.
"No, we need to get going, okay? Cause whatever just happened- whatever we're dealing with here- It's clearly playing in a higher league than us, okay? Which means we gotta get the hell out of here before it turns us to toast… "
"When are the things we hunt ever in the same league as we are?" Sam protested with an incredulous look on his face, unwilling to accept the fact that his brother was about to turn his back on a case.
Dean's features turned to stone. "Listen, Sam. This isn't up for discussion. We got a room full of dead cops INSIDE a police station full of living cops, who will be hell-bent on getting us into a maximum security prison once they open up this fucking door."
Dean pointed towards the door that separated the office from the rest of the police department as if to emphasize his point. It must have been slammed close and locked from the inside during the chaotic battle that took place, because apart from the muffled screaming and the rattling on the doorknob, the rest of the department was cut off from the horrors that had taken place in here.
Finally seeing reason Sam let himself be dragged over to the window, spreading his jacket over the stuck shards of broken glass that still clung to the frame and climbing out into the cool evening air.
Dean followed him out swiftly, but not before grabbing the piece of paper with his scribbling from the ground and snatching the discarded case file of Annie Cooper's death from the table top.
They would need that for later.
Once they had sneaked around the building to the Impala and gotten in, Sam buried his face in his hands, visibly shaken by what had happened.
Dean wanted nothing more than to comfort him, but there was no time.
They needed to get away from here before anybody noticed their absence and started looking for them.
"We'll figure this out, Sammy," Dean sighed as he speedily maneuvered the car out of the parking lot and floored the gas pedal on his way to the highway.
"You'll be alright, I promise," he added hollowly, not really sure who of them he was trying to convince.
Sam's heart was pounding away like a drum in his chest as he sat forlornly on the dingy mattress of his motel bed and rubbed at the bandage covering his chest.
"Quit it," Dean slapped his prodding fingers away with a motherly scowl before reclaiming his seat at the small kitchenette, where he had pictures of Annie Cooper's crime scene spread out in front of him.
"You getting anywhere with the incantation?" the older brother asked, flipping through the threadbare pages of their Dad's hunting journal. Sam squinted down at his own notes and bit his lower lip with a heavy sigh.
"Yeah. Looks like a summoning spell," he stated, basing his theory on the few words he had already been able to translate from the Latin phrases O'Brian had screamed before dying.
"The first one's easy. AVE SATANA basically just means that he's addressing Satan."
"How reassuring…" Dean murmured, voice dripping heavily with sarcasm. "So this guy tried to summon the devil himself? Well he certainly knows how to haul out the big guns…"
Sam shook his head slowly, wrapping the ratty blanket tighter around his quivering shoulders.
"It gets even worse… The next part says HEAC IRA DEORUM EST, which basically translates to 'this is the wrath of gods'…"
Dean swallowed, features turning grim. "You mean IRA like the brand new set of scars on your chest?"
"Exactly like that," Sam confirms in a somber tone, knowing that the last part of the incantation was even worse. And really, who could have thought that after everything that happened, their day could get even crappier!
"Now get this, OMNE FLAMMANS FLAMMA PURGATUS means forever-burning fire of-"
"Purgatory?" Dean suggested but Sam immediately shook his head in denial.
"Well the root word is the same, but no, actually it means purification. He goes on with DOMINE EXTINCTIONIS- which means lord of destruction and then continues with IN MEA MANU ENS INIMICUM EDAT-" Sam sighed again, meeting Dean's eyes before continuing with the English translation. "Spring forth from my hand and throttle my enemy."
A shiver wrecked down his spine when he said the words out loud, their undeniable connection to the deaths of their victims now even more obvious than before.
"You gotta be kidding me," Dean groaned. "Throttling?"
Sam sighed. "That's what it says on here…"
"So we can cross witches off the list then?"
Sam tilted his head to the side, biting his lower lip in contemplation.
It wasn't exactly untypical for witches to use spells or incantations and they've been known to worship Satan before or be involved in satanic cults, but this whole thing was getting too much out of hand for it to be something as simple as black magic or spell work.
No, they had to be dealing with something else, something more powerful than a witch.
More dangerous, too.
"I'm not sure but with everything we have seen today, I'd say we're dealing with a very powerful demon or a demigod…"
"Goddamnit…" Dean sighed, rubbing a hand along the edge of his jawbone. "Why can't we be hunting a ghost or something for a change? I mean, why do we always get stuck with the crappy jobs?"
Sam shook his head, before taking a tentative sip from the glass of water Dean had put on his nightstand and then hurriedly switched on the audio of the black and white TV they had left on for an extra source of light when he noticed that the News channel was on.
"Dean, look. They are broadcasting a news report on what happened."
His brother immediately got up from his seat and walked over to stand by Sam's side.
"-3 police officers of the Wichita Police Department lost their lives in the crossfire during the attempted arrest of two criminals who were impersonating FBI agents." The woman began describing the occurrences. "However, what is an even greater cause for concern for the local authorities is that the murderers apparently left their signature trademark in form of a single word they carved into one of the corpses' forehead."
Sam's whole body tensed as he leaned forward, eyes wild as he waited for the newscaster to go on. There hadn't been any visible marks on any of the bodies when he and Dean had bailed from the police station...
"The word "GULA" was reported to have been scratched into the skin of 23-year-old Sean O'Brian who had only been working for the department for 3 weeks before this tragic event cost him his life. Could this cruelty be indicating that we're dealing with seriel kil-"
Gula... Sam didn't even consciously hear the woman's voice anymore, too focused on mulling the word over in his head.
Then his breath caught in his throat, when a thought suddenly occurred to him. Looking up to meet his brother's gaze, Sam's eyes went wide with the realization of what they had unwittingly stumbled across.
"I think I know what we're dealing with here, Dean."
"You do?" Dean's eyebrows rose in surprise at his brother's revelation.
"Yeah," Sam nodded enthusiastically. "Remember the guy at the gas station? How angry he was for no apparent reason? And the clerk who tried to rip you off- then Annie Conners, Joneson and then O'Brian?"
Dean's frown deepened at Sam's hurried explanation, but he didn't understand what point his brother was trying to make. "Yeah I remember them. Where are you getting with this?"
"They were angry Dean! They were wrathful. And wrath- or ira is the Latin name of one of the seven deadly sins."
"So what? We are dealing with some fucked up version of SEVEN then?" Dean snorted out, flopping onto the mattress beside his brother.
Sam closed his eyes at the comparison to the movie. He only hoped they would come out of this without getting decapitated in the process. "I think so."
"And gula…?" Dean wanted to know, taking Sam's silence for the affirmation it was.
"Is the Latin term for gluttony or… overindulgence," Sam gave back slowly. "I'm pretty sure that's what we're gonna have to deal with next."
TBC...
I was so happy to hear that the show got renewed for season11 that I had to finish this chapter and vent my emotion! :D Sorry for the long wait, I really hope this chapter turned out okay... So many things happening all at once, I guess that's why it was so hard to write^^ Well the boys are in a tight spot now with the police breathing down their necks and the mysterious deaths occurring all over town and what's wrong with Sam? There are just so many questions. Who's up for more? Please tell me what you thought! Reviews are highly appreciated :D