Hello everyone! New chapter and new puzzles! But we're heading towards more answers and a bigger confrontation is approaching, if not in the next chapter, then the one after that. Happy reading!

Chapter 5

Sam was glaring at the box as if it had just finished insulting him and his family for ten generations backwards and forwards. Under any other circumstances, Dean would have been amused. He could still remember how the box had tried to ensnare him and nearly kill him, though. If he had been on his own, he would have been dead by now. He most definitely wasn't in a laughing mood.

He and Ellison had driven back to the Bunker where Sam had all but bounded on him, since apparently he "looked like crap, Dean, what the hell happened to you?" Dean had been ready to downplay the incident – Sam had enough on his plate keeping his lungs on the inside to worry about cursed brothers – but he had forgotten to inform Jim of his plan. Ellison proceeded to give Sam every sordid detail of what had happened and by the end of his account Sam was pale and wide-eyed and Dean was ready to smack Ellison over the head a few times.

"It wasn't as bad as he makes it out to be," he felt the need to point out.

He regretted it when Sam transferred his glare to him.

"The last person harmed by this box had their head explode," Sam said curtly. "Do me a favor and don't give me crap, Dean. I'm not in the mood."

Dean was tempted to ask Sam if he liked to be on that side of the argument for a change, but now was not the time for such private discussions. Besides, he already knew Sam would find about a hundred ways to prove to Dean how their situations were actually different for some reason.

"So, is this the box?" Blair asked. "The one my grandfather brought from Europe?"

"Either that or something unrelated bit Carl in the ass," Dean said. "I don't think so, though. Two deaths in two antique shops, even though they were decades apart…that's not good."

Sam bent over the box, his hand hovering above it.

"If you think of opening it, I'll break all of your fingers, Sam, I'm not even kidding."

Sam rolled his eyes.

"Why would I open it?"

"Oh, I don't know," Dean quipped. "You have a habit of opening stuff that shouldn't be opened."

Sam's face fell, and Dean instantly wanted to kick himself. He had been trying the usual smartass approach, but Sam had been living in a world of guilt for years. You have a habit of opening stuff that should stay closed. Like freeing Lucifer. Dean had assured Sam plenty of times they were way past that, but he suspected that Sam had never fully believed it. And now Dean had to open his big mouth.

"I didn't mean it the way it sounded," he said quickly.

He would have said more, but they had an audience, and Blair was already looking at the two of them as if he was planning to fix their relationship. Or taking notes for a paper about dysfunctional sibling relationship. Either way, Dean had no intention of humoring him.

"Of course you didn't," Sam said quickly.

Too quickly. He didn't believe Dean, and he had no intention of letting him explain himself.

"The box looks familiar," Sam said then, changing the subject.

"Do you have one here?" Blair asked. "In the Men of Letters Bunker?"

But Sam shook his head.

"I don't think so. At least, I haven't actually seen a box like this here…but…hold on a second…"

Dean watched as Sam rummaged through his books and journals. He finally found what he was looking for in a dusty journal with pages that were coming apart.

"Here," Sam said, laying the journal so the others could see it.

The page held a drawing of three boxes. They all had similar markings, but they were not completely identical. However, Dean was willing to bet that the box in the middle was the same as the one they had recovered from Carl Edwards' shop.

"There's more than one?" Jim asked. "I thought Sandburg's grandfather brought only one from Europe."

Sam nodded quickly.

"Yes, he should have brought just the one, but apparently, there were more."

"What was inside?" Blair asked.

Sam bent over the notebook. His whole demeanor seemed to change then. Dean saw the moment he froze, his eyes wide.

"Oh no," he muttered.

Dean tensed. Sam had spent years in hell and had tangled with just about every baddie imaginable. For him to be this affected, things had to be really bad.

"What?" he asked. "Sam what is it?"

Sam looked up and met his eyes. He was not bothering to hide how concerned he was.

"The boxes contained three very powerful demons. So powerful that unleashing even one of them would be bad. Unleashing the three of them would probably means another apocalypse, or as close as we can get to one."

xxxxXXXXxxxx

Aaron Sandburg had felt no qualms in giving up the box to the Men of Letters. Not at first. He might have been reluctant to deal with them, but he trusted them – more than he did their European counterparts. The British Men of Letters had been discussing breaking off with the American chapter for a while now. Apparently, the Americans were not willing to go all in as far as the supernatural was concerned. Aaron's father had said once that the dedication of the British Men of Letters to exterminate everything supernatural bordered on fanaticism. And fanaticism was never good and always dangerous.

The American Men of Letters were slightly different, and Henry Winchester was more approachable than most. Aaron trusted him, up to a point. He at least trusted him much more than he trusted Arthur Ellison. But it had not been Henry who had been dreaming about the wolf and the panther. It was Arthur.

"Why you?" he asked the next time he met Arthur. "Out of all the people, why you?"

Arthur's lips curled in that unpleasant smile of his.

"Because I'm nothing like you," he said. "That is what is bothering you about the whole thing, right? You know we're connected, but we're so different it disgusts you."

Aaron looked away. That was not too far from the truth. He was also disappointed. When he had been dreaming about the wolf and the panther, he had been expecting something different.

He supposed Arthur Ellison really could be compared to a cat. He was sly and conniving. Or maybe he was more like a fox, he did not know. But what he did know, what he had always thought, was that the panther was a noble animal. The panther of his dreams, at least, was fierce and harsh, but also protective. It walked beside the wolf. It took care of him.

"How do you know it's really you?" he challenged. "The fact that you're dreaming about the panther and the wolf does not mean the panther has anything to do with you."

Arthur scoffed.

"I feel it does. I feel as if the panther is part of my past…and my future. I don't know how to explain it, because frankly this mumbo jumbo makes me nervous. But I know it's real." He paused and looked pointedly at Aaron. "So do you," he added. "Otherwise you wouldn't be here."

Aaron hesitated. He could not deny that. He wished he could, but Arthur would know he was lying. That was why he knew the two of them were connected. They knew things about each other they would not have been able to guess otherwise.

"I wish I wasn't here," he said.

Arthur shrugged.

"Not my business. Now, about the boxes…"

"I only had one box," Aaron said. "And this won't help you. Even if I gave you that one and you opened it, it won't really help you. You need all three of them for whatever it is you're planning to actually work."

Arthur smirked.

"Who says I haven't got them already?"

Aaron stiffened. His last hope for him not to be involved in this business was fading away before his eyes.

"What do you mean? You told me you only had the key."

Arthur leaned back in his chair.

"And you believed me?" he asked pointedly.

Aaron spluttered. He honestly did not know what to believe. Arthur seemed to take pity on him and shook his head.

"Here's the truth: I don't have the other two boxes. But I am in contact with the person who has one and am in the process of procuring it. I've put out feelers about the third, so it's only a matter of time until I have all of them and the key."

Aaron shook his head.

"Wrong. You'll still have only two because one of the boxes – my box – is with the Men of Letters."

Arthur's grin had something predatory in it.

"Well, this is where you come in, my friend. You'll get it for me – won't you?"

Aaron gasped. Now he knew why Arthur had contacted him.

"You can't possibly ask me to do this!"

Arthur shook his head.

"But I am. And you can't say no, because you're a part of this. You're the wolf and I'm the panther, and we're in this together."

Aaron thought of denying this. He thought of protesting because he did not want to believe this was true. All his dreams, all his convictions about the wolf and the panther – and here he was, blackmailed by an opportunist with zero scruples.

"So, this is what you're going to do?" he asked. "You find out you can do this and you're going to use it to your own advantage?"

Arthur shrugged. He seemed annoyed by Aaron's warnings.

"How else am I supposed to use it? It's not as if I intend to destroy the world or anything."

"But what if it leads to exactly that?" Aaron challenged.

Arthur looked him dead in the eye.

"Then I'll come out on top," he said bluntly. "And, if you're really tied to me as you seem to think because of the wolf, then you will too. And you want that, don't you? You've got a new family, don't you? I'd think you would jump at the chance of protecting them."

And that was it. Aaron had no choice. He would have to trick Henry and steal the box from the Men of Letters – and hand it to Arthur Ellison.

"Alright," Aaron said. "I'll do it. But if you're wrong – then we're both damned, Mr. Ellison."

Arthur dismissed that. His face was dark.

"I don't know about you, but I'm already damned, Mr. Sandburg."

xxxXXXxxx

The four of them were gathered in the library. They were all looking at Sam, waiting for him to explain more about his discovery.

"You said demons," Dean said. "We're talking – what? Regular demon? Crowley level demon? Something like Abaddon?"

Sam grimaced.

"We're talking about a different kind of demons. Remember I told you once every mythology had its version of demons? Well, some are completely different from the demons we know."

Jim shifted in his chair.

"You know, the fact that you two chat about demons the way I chat about Cascade's most wanted makes me deeply uncomfortable."

Dean huffed.

"Fine. We'll have a therapy session about this later. We can even braid each other's hair. Well, Sam and Sandburg can."

Sam directed a glare in Dean's direction, but Sandburg, as usually, took the insult in good spirit (if he even considered it an insult).

"Fine by me," he said. "You're aware that in some primitive cultures long hair was actually considered masculine?"

It was Dean's turn to glare. Sam sniggered in spite of himself. He would have to remember that and point it out to Dean the next time his brother called him Samantha or suggested cutting Sam's hair.

"The boxes, Sam," Dean said. "The demons."

Sam nodded quickly, his face growing serious again.

"Completely different from what we know," he repeated. "Crowley and the rest, they possess humans, right? They have a body and they interact with others and looking at them, you wouldn't believe they're different from us."

Dean shrugged.

"Except for the black eyes, super strength, sulfur in their blood and other such minor details," he commented.

Sam swallowed harshly, feeling sick when Dean mentioned the blood. Lately, since the First Trial, the memory of his former demon-blood addiction left him feeling physically ill. He noticed Dean staring at him with undisguised concern and firmly pressed on, before he had the chance to start asking questions.

"The demons in the box are different. The only way I can think of describing them is primal. Elemental."

Dean rolled his eyes.

"And how would you describe them without sounding as if you've swallowed an entire encyclopedia, Sammy?"

Sam took a deep breath and counted to ten.

"Basically, you can't talk to them. You can't reason with them. They're wild. They're bent on causing chaos just for the hell of it. You have a better chance of reasoning with Crowley than with them. And," he added darkly, "They don't really belong in hell."

Sam hoped Dean understood what he meant. Even if he managed to lock the Gates of Hell – and, considering that they did not even know what the second trial was, that one was quite far off – the demons from the box would still be running loose.

"So," Dean said, "How would we put them back in the box? Or, better said, how do we put them back in the box? Because one of them is already loose."

Sam sighed.

"Two of them, actually."

Jim frowned.

"Where did you get that idea from?" he asked sharply.

Sam looked pointedly at him.

"Think about it," he said. "If this is how your grandfather died, then there were two boxes opened. Therefore, two demons were released."

"How do you know the third wasn't released as well?" Blair wanted to know.

Sam ran a hand through his hair.

"Because if all three of them had been released, I doubt we would have been here having this conversation."

He allowed his words to sink in. They all had to know the stakes.

Dean whistled.

"Well, this isn't good," he commented.

Sam's smile was tight.

"No," he confirmed. 'No, this is about as far from good as it gets."

xxxxXXXXxxxx

Jim took Blair and went into town to try to arrange an interview with Carl Edwards' assistant. As they were driving, Jim glanced at Blair. He looked thoughtful, but the tension that had been there ever since he had found out about the death of his grandfather seemed to have faded. So the trip had at least done that much good. Jim shook his head. What did it say about Sandburg, if he preferred the news of end of the world bringing demons to having to face his family issues?

Blair glanced at him, probably spotting the wry amusement.

"What?" he asked.

Jim shrugged.

"Nothing. It's just that you're looking better."

Blair tilted his head in confusion.

"Was there supposed to be something wrong with me?"

"You seemed upset. Understandably so," Jim added quickly. "About the grandfather thing."

Blair snorted.

"The grandfather thing. I'm still upset. It's just I think I found the perfect distraction."

Jim nodded accepting that. They drove on in silence. This time, it was Blair who broke it first.

"How are you doing?' he asked shrewdly. "After all, you've found out some unexpected stuff about your grandfather as well."

Jim chuckled, shaking his head.

"Don't worry about me, Chief. I already knew he was a douchebag. I mean – my father told me that repeatedly, and considering my father isn't far from being one himself…"

He still felt Blair's concerned gaze upon him and wished they could reach their destination quicker. He really was in no mood for a heart to heart.

"What about the rest of it?" Blair asked. "The fact that you might be chosen, you know."

Jim rolled his eyes.

"Stow the cheap fantasy movie lines, Sandburg. I'm not chosen. I'm the one who chooses what to do with my life. From my job, to using my senses, to my partnership with you. Anything in all of this that isn't your choice, Chief? Because I want you with me because you want to, not because you think you're meant to be my Guide."

"I am meant to be your Guide," Blair replied quickly. "I feel very strongly about that one. I've earned the right and the privilege to be your Guide ten times over."

Jim inwardly agreed.

"I never said you didn't, Chief," he mumbled.

Although, as far as he was concerned, the privilege was all his.

"I think I was always meant to be your Guide. I think we were always destined to meet. But that doesn't negate the fact that I want to be here. With every fiber of my being."

Jim cleared his throat. Sandburg had the tendency to say things like that in the same matter of fact way other guys talked about baseball scores or investments. Jim still had no idea how to respond to such honest declarations of loyalty, not even after so many years of knowing him.

Fortunately, Blair did not seem to want any responses from him. His mind had already taken him somewhere else.

"Hey, don't you think there's something odd with the Winchesters?"

Jim chuckled.

"I mean, they're the Winchesters. Odd must be their middle name, Chief."

Blair rolled his eyes.

"Right. I was thinking more than usual."

Jim thought back to the moment he had met the brothers outside their new headquarters. He remembered the steel in Dean's eyes, like that of a warrior taken too soon from the battlefield. And Sam….there was definitely something about Sam. Jim still could not put his fingers on what that was, though.

"I mean, people change all the time, Sandburg," he finally said. "And with a job like that, I don't know if I can still call them sane, not after all those years. Why do you ask?"

Blair shrugged, fiddling with a thread in his jeans.

"I just have a feeling something is about to go down. And I don't know how to steer it to the right track. I don't even know what the right track is in this situation."

Jim glanced at Blair, but Blair's head was turned to the window, as if he was entranced by the scenery outside. Jim was sure he could not even see it.

"Chief, whatever you want to fix, I doubt it's your responsibility."

Blair smiled tightly.

"Somehow I knew you'd say that."

Jim nodded.

"And it's the truth," he insisted. "Look, alright, you're friendly with the Winchesters…"

Blair shook his head, and Jim stopped detecting his friend's impatience.

"It's not about that. It's just…look, years ago, during that Chilean demon thing, when I stumbled across Sam at Rainier something happened. I somehow got thrown into the Winchesters' orbit and it had to have been for some reason."

Jim held his impatience in check. Again with the higher power…

"You think this is because of your grandfather?" he asked sharply. "Because, Sandburg, you've said it yourself: the man threw your mom out on the streets just because she was pregnant with you. If there was a legacy to pass on, he seemed pretty elitist about who got to have it. And now you're his only heir, but that does not mean you owe the guy anything."

Blair's smile was tight.

"Believe me, Jim, I know. Me and mom, we have our issues. But I'm not about to forgive the guy for how he treated her."

Well, at least Sandburg knew how to prioritize his loyalties.

"Then why are you so gung ho about following his destiny, Chief?"

Sandburg ran a hand through his hair.

"I'm not," he insisted. "But…you remember how I told you once about that Chinese proverb? The Blessed Protector thing?"

Jim nodded slowly.

"Yeah, uhhh…you save someone's life you become responsible for that person from now until Doomsday or something like that."

Jim remembered the circumstances, too, although he would have given anything to forget them, considering it had been right after Blair had been kidnapped by a serial killer and had nearly become his victim. Jim had saved Blair's life then, and he would have left it at that, but then Blair had to drop that declaration on him…Not that he had not thought himself somehow responsible for Sandburg's life already, but that was an entirely different matter altogether.

"So," he said clearing his throat and pushing aside the memory of Blair in danger. "What does this have to do with the Winchesters anyway?"

Blair shrugged.

"Well, not that any of us is keeping score or anything, but we've saved each other every time we've run into each other. So…I'm responsible for them."

Ahh, there it was. Sandburg's strange mentality at work.

"Considering their jobs, good luck at keeping them alive," Jim said.

Something dark flickered on Blair's face.

"I'm not one to give up that easily, am I?"

He wasn't, really, Jim mused. After all, Blair had never given up on him, had he? Not when Jim had given him plenty of reasons to do so.

They continued the rest of the drive in silence.

xxxXXXXxxx

Sam glanced at his phone, then slammed it against the table in frustration. He stiffened at the noise it made. Dean was in the garage, checking on his car, as they waited for Jim and Blair to return from their talk with Carl Edwards' assistant. He could not hear Sam even if he dropped an entire stack of thick books on the table – and even if Sam had, Dean would assume it was just Sam being geeky about research and wave it off.

Still, Dean had a knack at guessing whenever Sam was frustrated about something that was not as trivial as research. And Sam did not want Dean to see how frustrated he was now – or guess what he was trying to do.

Surreptitiously, he opened his outbox and deleted his sent messages, then he deleted the new – and very unhelpful - message from his inbox as well – the one that had caused his frustration in the first place. He did the same with outgoing calls. There, he thought. Dean would never know what he had been doing. Not unless he found out from other sources.

San felt a twinge of guilt about going behind his brother's back. But they were out of their league with the boxes, and needed every help they could get. Even help that Sam did not enjoy using himself.

He could just picture Dean's face if he ever suggested it. Hey, Dean, Cas might know a thing or two about the boxes…No, he was not looking forward to veiled looks and days of Dean not talking to him. Especially not now when he thought his time was running out, and he needed to make the days he still had left count. And wouldn't Dean absolutely love that train of thought?

It didn't matter anyway. Because even if Cas knew something, he apparently had other priorities – keeping the Angel Tablet safe, from everyone, apparently, which included the people who had offered him trust plenty of times and always took him back when he made mistakes. And Sam could get that Cas didn't trust him – maybe he never really had, not completely – but the least he could do was have the decency to trust Dean. After all, Dean saw Cas as family and had invested so much in him. He didn't deserve to have that thrown in his face.

Then why are you trying to make contact with the bastard? a treacherous voice whispered in his head. That was difficult to answer. Apart from the obvious – they needed help, they were in over their heads – there was also the fact that Sam understood Cas. After all, he was the first person to get making mistakes for all the right reasons. And he had been given plenty of second chances with Dean. The least he could do was pay it forward.

The door to the bunker opened and Dean's footsteps approached down the steps. Sam placed his phone in his pocket, trying to appear as if he was not doing anything his brother might disapprove of.

"Everything alright in here?" Dean asked.

Sam looked down at the research he had abandoned the moment he was alone.

"Nothing so far," he says. "Nothing on the demons, that is. Except that they can shapeshift. I'm not sure they can take anything as complex as a human form when it's not the three of them together, but they can try animals."

Dean sat down across him.

"Didn't that chick Ellison talked to mention something about a fox?"

Sam nodded.

"According to the police, she's a conspiracy nut and not the most reliable of witnesses," he felt the need to point out.

Dean's mouth twitched.

"You know, these are actually my favorite kind of witnesses. They don't censor their crazy. They tell you exactly what they saw."

Sam huffed.

"Offering their own unhelpful interpretation about the government experimenting on ghosts or whatever," he said.

"Now there's a thought."

Sam looked back at his notes.

"I did find a few things about spirit animals. Apparently, a powerful enough spirit animal could hold the demons at bay."

Dean frowned.

"Do you think Sandburg and Ellison's wolf and panther or whatever could work?"

Sam shrugged.

"That's the ten million dollar question, isn't it? I mean, we keep forgetting that Sandburg and Ellison aren't your garden variety people. Sandburg's a shaman, and Dean, I remember the thing with Cerberus. And with the Chilean demon. Remember what Bobby said? Only a trained shaman could have kicked that thing out of the person it was possessing? Well, Sandburg managed to kick it out of Ellison when he wasn't even aware he was a shaman. So imagine how good he'd be now that he knows and he's trained for this?"

Dean made a non-committal sound, and Sam got what was behind it. to him, Sandburg and Ellison were still civilians.

"I'll have to check if the Men of Letters have something on Sentinels," he said. "Bobby had no idea what they were, Garth hasn't found anything, either. But a library this big, it's got to have something."

Dean made a non-committal grunt.

"I mean, I doubt any of the grandpas were sentinels."

"How do you know?" Sam challenged. "It's genetic, isn't it? If Ellison has it, chances are his grandfather did as well, even if it was latent or dormant."

"You've been up watching too much Discovery Channel, Sam," Dean muttered.

Sam scowled.

"TV's in your room remember? And you usually monopolize it for dirty movies."

"And Game of Thrones," Dean felt the need to add.

"I wonder why," Sam said flatly.

Dean looked like he was considering slapping him, and maybe would have, if he was not worried about Sam spilling his lungs. Somehow, that depressed Sam even more.

Then, suddenly, he tensed. Something had slammed against the door of the Bunker.

"Did you hear that?" he asked Dean.

Dean nodded.

"Are they back already?" he asked.

Sam was certain it was not Ellison and Sandburg, though.

"They said they'd call to give us a heads up."

He got up, gun in hand. Dean followed. At the foot of the stairs, he caught up with Sam and moved in front of him. Sam was ready to protest, but there was a hard look on Dean's face, and he knew his brother's need to protect him had been on overdrive ever since Sam started the Trials. It was not fair for Sam not to give Dean something, and if Dean wanted to be the one to take the lead, then it was the least Sam could do. Besides, Sam was afraid that, if he argued, Dean would end up suggesting that Sam remained in the Bunker while he went to check out their supposed intruder, and that was something that Sam would never allow to happen.

They reached the door. The noises had stopped. Still, Sam could not escape the feeling that something was on the other side. Dean glanced back at him. No words were said. No words were needed. Sam braced himself, and Dean opened the door.

I haven't ended on a cliffhanger in a while. I was missing it. I'm sure you were too :P See you all next week and thanks for reading!