Author's note the First: Well, hello again all! It's July 18, which is the anniversary of my first posting here on Fanfiction dot net. I can't honestly believe it was seventeen long years ago. But here we are. I know I have been missing. I am hoping this is the beginning of a few more posts. A few more stories and several that need finishing. I cannot express how much fanfic has meant to me over my life, and especially here on FF since that first post. Those two brothers that hit the road looking for their missing father brought many words and much joy into my life. Most importantly, they brought me this place—and an amazing group that has seen me through good and bad times. I have a family here—for those that have been here since the beginning and those just finding these stories. Thank you! A huge Sam to Dean-Dean to Sam kind of hug for all of you! Main title and one chapter title from The Who.

Author's note the Second: Extra love and hugs and pie to Merisha for her nearly perishing from evil cliffies many times over the years. Abni for that brilliant analysis of Something Wicked we totally finished. SPNverse for poking me with "I do wonder what those (sorry no spoilers) were doing in the woods." And TraSan for comments (you know) that make me think and laugh. You all know…

Author's note the Third. There are two of my random trivia/geeky things hidden in here. Points if you get them and maybe a story. (One is a quote, if that helps.)

Chapter the First

Several Feet and a Few Classic Cars

The rain that had plagued the area for the last week was finally ending, the heavy overcast giving way to a patchwork of fluffy white clouds and deep blue sky. The trees were so thick, it felt like the Impala was going through a deep green tunnel rather than along a road. Dean had the window cracked, the music cranked and was happily singing along to Black Sabbath as he drove a little too fast down the winding road.

"Do you have to drive like that?" Sam grumbled from beside him.

"Like what?" Dean asked innocently and he threw the car into a long curve.

"Like that!" his brother snapped, trying to keep the laptop from sliding into the door for the fourth time.

"Do you have to do that while I drive?"

"If you want to know what we're walking into," Sam huffed.

"You said it yourself, it's probably a bear or something."

"Then why are we here?" Sam looked over at him.

"Because the daytime high is about 75, not 100. I'm sick of hot weather."

"I thought we were here because of the three bodies."

"You mean the three bits of bodies?"

"Yes." Huff. "The bits of bodies." Huff.

"So?"

"So what?"

"So what have you found out?" Dean asked reasonably, turning the stereo down. For the last week, his brother had been out of sorts, and refusing to talk over the stereo was the latest symptom of that.

"Three hikers went missing in the national forest, on Thursday, a ranger on patrol found a single left foot and ankle in an area of a recent burn. The next day, in a burned-out area less than a mile from that, another left foot and ankle were found and the same thing on Saturday."

"And? Because I can feel a really big and coming."

"I plotted them on a map."

"And?" Dean turned the stereo down a little more.

"They form a triangle, and…" Sam turned the computer so Dean could see.

"What the hell is that?" He said glancing at the screen then looking back at the highway.

"I think it's the beginning of some kind of sigil. It's where the bits were placed within each burn and then the three burns within the triangle."

"So, you're saying it's either not a bear, or a very cunning bear, Boo Boo?"

"What did you say?"

"You know, 'smarter than the average bear'? Yogi Bear?"

"I doubt he's raiding picnic baskets full of feet and ankles."

"Hold on," Dean said as he thought about Sam's diagram. "The ankles and feet aren't together?"

"Nope." Sam smiled. "Took you long enough."

"It's a natural mistake."

"When was the last time we found anything remotely natural?"

"Good point." Dean slowed down when he spotted a traffic light ahead. "Looks like we're coming into town. What's our first stop?"

"The person who found the second set works in downtown, on Mountain Ave. I called and his business is open until five."

"Sounds like a plan." Dean followed the highway and turned into the small downtown area. He was watching for the crossroad they needed when he spotted a sign on the left-hand side of the street. "We need to eat."

"What?"

"We've been on the road for hours, we have plenty of time to get to the store—and that sign says homemade pies on it. Pie can save the world, Sammy." He pointed at the sandwich board across the road. "Look, it's a sign!"

"That says pie?"

"No, look at that car!" Dean said, pulling the Impala in behind a bright red car. "'66 Chevelle! Is that a Galaxy?" He was out of the car, walking past the Chevelle towards a light blue car parked just beyond it. "I think this is a '64!"

"Did you want to look at cars or have pie?"

"I want both," he replied as he headed across the street towards the restaurant. "Look up the street! I think that's a '69 Camaro. We might have stumbled into Paradise."

"Is that your car?" a man asked as they walked into the small restaurant.

"It is."

"Haven't see you out with the group before."

"I just got into town. What group?" Dean asked.

"Classic car club, we meet here every weekend, then once a month have a show over Buckley way." He held out his hand. "Names Gordon, the '66 is mine."

"Dean, this is my brother Sam." Dean shook his hand with a smile. "Nice car."

"Yours too, that's a '67 right?"

"Yep."

"You should join us," Gordon gestured towards the group. "That's Coop, he owns the Camaro. Larry has a Mach1, it's around back. Mort over there has the Galaxy. We're waiting for a couple others, but you're welcome to join in."

"Go ahead," Sam said with a smile before Dean could say anything. "I want to get a little more work done, I'll be over there."

"Thanks, Sam." He pulled out a chair and sat down. "So what's good on the menu?"

Two hours later, they were headed up the street to meet with the store owner. On Gordon's advice, Dean had left the Impala parked by the restaurant and they were on foot. The small downtown was busy and one of those eclectic collections of business that seemed to crop up in smaller towns. Dean wondered if it was because they were all crammed into a few blocks, rather than the sprawl of a city, even so, it always struck him as odd to walk past a sushi restaurant next door to a tack shop, a gourmet coffee place next to a boot maker. This town was no exception. They were almost to their destination when something stranger than usual caught his eye.

"Okay, I'm adding this to the collection," Dean said, stopping and pulling out his phone.

"The collection?" Sam frowned for a moment. "Your monuments that aren't actually monuments collection?"

"Of course. Check it out." He pointed.

Sam walked back and joined him. "Are those…?"

"Pink plastic flamingos behind a wrought iron gate? Yes, yes they are. How awesome is that?"

"I can think of a lot of things, but awesome isn't really one of them."

"Yeah, yeah." Dean snapped several pictures and tucked the phone back in his pocket. "Well?"

"You're the one who stopped to take pictures of lawn ornaments," Sam huffed.

Dean chuckled and let the way to the shop next door. "The Collector's Nook? What do they collect? Junk?" he said as they walked in.

"One man's junk is another man's treasure," the man behind the counter said.

"True," Sam replied with a smile. "Are you Lars Petersen?"

"Yep."

"I'm Sam, this is Dean. We spoke on the phone?"

"Right. Investigating that mess out there, right?"

"Yes."

"Call me Pete."

"Can you tell us what you found, Pete?" Dean asked, wandering over to lean on the counter.

"I was up by the mountain, out early, hoping to spot the big herd of elk up that way. There's a big buck I've been trying to get a picture of for the last few months. Anyway, I was out and smelled smoke. We've had a burn out there about a month ago, big circle burned. It's been dry enough for something left smoldering to become a forest fire real quick, that first one very nearly did. So, I followed my nose. About a quarter mile up the path, I found the burn. There were a few spots still smoking. It was when I walked in to put those out I found the…" He stopped and swallowed.

"Bits?" Dean offered helpfully. He heard his brother huff.

"Yeah. I took a bunch of pictures, just in case something happened to the… bits … before I could get back down in cell range and get someone up there."

"Do you still have the pictures?" Sam asked.

"Uh…" Pete glanced down, then fixed them a searching look. "Yeah, I kept a copy of my card."

"Could we see them?"

"Um, I'm not sure I…"

"We can look at them here. We won't take a copy unless you say it's okay."

After another long look, Pete disappeared into the back and returned with a laptop. He opened it, then turned it so they could see. "There's ten photos in all. I tried as best I could to stay out of the burn, once I realized what I was looking at."

"How big was the burned area?" Sam was flipping through the photos. Dean knew his brother would glance through them, then go back and go through them more thoroughly. It was the way he always researched. Dean thought of it as the hunting and gathering method. He hunted out the things that struck him, then gathered evidence.

"About sixteen feet in diameter."

"Hmmm." Sam was back looking at the pictures.

Dean watched for a minute, then looked up at Pete. "Where were the bits? In relation to the path?"

"About seven feet up from where I walked up on it. They were kind of in the middle. There were some bird tracks in the area. I figured the local carrion eaters had been down cleaning things up." Pete shook his head. "Damndest thing I've ever found up there."

"You've found other things?" Dean asked.

"Oh yes, all kinds of stuff. I have some nice purple medicine bottles over here." He walked out from behind the counter and led Dean to a locked glass case. "They're from the late 1800s. On that second shelf is a bit of a necklace I found out that way. Not exactly where the burn was, but up in the Park."

"Anything else?"

Pete narrowed his eyes, chewed on his lip for a moment, then nodded. "You know, there was something, about three or four weeks ago that was kinda odd."

"Oh?"

"Yep. I thought it was part of a can or something. It was round and buried in loose dirt." Pete opened the case and pulled out a piece of metal and handed it to Dean. "At first, I thought it might be one of those weird Victorian logos that pop up now and then. I knew I'd seen it somewhere, but I couldn't remember where. Then I got back to the shop. I remembered this book I got in about three months ago—from an estate out in the hills. Really weird place that. Anyway, this was in the book." He tapped on the metal in Dean's hand.

Dean looked down. "This looks like…" He stopped himself.

"It's a sigil," Pete said.

"It is?" Dean glanced up at the man, trying to look innocent. "And you said it was in a book you have?"

"Yep. And old one, from the turn of the 19th Century."

"Really?"

"I think you might know more about this than you're letting on," Pete said, frowning at him.

"Pete? What's this?" Sam asked, before Dean could answer.

"What's what?"

"This." Sam pointed at something on the screen.

"It was a piece of realgar, I think. I haven't seen much of it, but there is a mine a bit north."

"Were all four stones the same?"

"All four?" Dean walked back over to his brother, the sigil still in his hands.

"Yep. I left them there, I didn't want to mess up the crime scene more than I already had."

"Sam, look at this," Dean said, dropping the disc on the counter, a sinking feeling in his chest.

"It's the same pattern," Sam said grimly. "What book was it in?"

"Let me grab it. I kept in in back. Things like that bug me. I was planning on sending it to Tacoma. There's a shop down there that has taken stuff like this before, they know how to handle these types of things." Pete went into the back and returned with a book in his hands. "I marked the place with that sigil." He opened the book and handed it to Sam.

Dean watched as his brother looked at the book. Sam paled and the little frown that Dean worried about more than anything, up to and including impending apocalypses, appeared on his face. "Sammy?"

"Carabia, also called Decarabia, Marquess of Hell, commander of the Thirty Legions."

"Well, isn't that just awesome." Dean sighed. "Just freaking great."

The hotel they were staying at was a little nicer than usual, set at the edge of town right by a golf course and the local fairgrounds. According to Pete, in the winter it served as a base for skiers that preferred to drive up to the slopes every day, rather than paying for the lodges at the ski area near Mount Rainier National Park. They planned on dropping off their things, then heading up the mountain to where Pete had found the burn. He'd warned them to be back to their car by dark—the spot was in a heavily forested area, and he said even locals got lost "up that way" more than once. And Dean was starting to worry. His brother had been getting increasingly grim since he'd started researching in the book Pete had loaned them.

"You ready?" he asked as he got into the car.

"Hmm? Yeah." Sam glanced up from the book with a frown. "Let's go," he snapped when Dean hesitated.

"Going, going, sheesh." Dean pulled out and headed up the highway.

The road ran past the golf course, a small house and a gravel company and then they were in the wilderness, or it felt that way. As they went further up the highway, Dean could see why Pete warned them to be back by sundown. The forest was getting increasingly dense, the tree limbs covered with thick moss and the understory filled with fallen trees and branches. It was, for lack of a better word, a little spooky.

"Huh," Sam said after a silent fifteen minutes.

"What?"

"Do you remember what the plants looked like at the edge of the burn?" He was flipping back and forth between the pages of Pete's book and another one he had balanced on his knee.

"Green and leafy?"

"Not a lot of help." Sam frowned in concentration. "Were any of the flowers dark purple?"

Dean tried to remember what was in Pete's photos. "I think so. I know there were a few foxglove."

"That makes sense. Any others?"

"There were a few darker purple ones—almost black in the photo. Was it monkshood?"

"I don't know, was it?" Sam huffed.

"I'm not sure. Why?"

"In one note I found, Carabia is tied to plants, although typically it's 'precious' stones."

"Like that red stuff in the photos?"

"The realgar? I think so. It's not a precious stone, per se, but it's hard to find, and breaks down in light, so that might qualify it as precious?"

"It might. Demonic logic?" Dean said.

"It's also analogous to sulfur."

"As in you know when there is a demon around sulfur?"

"Exactly."

"And it gets better and better." Dean muttered. "We're looking for milepost twenty-seven, right?"

"That's what Pete said. There's supposed to be a wide spot to park in just past it."

"I see it." Dean carefully pulled off the road, avoiding several large potholes. He thought he'd missed them all, when there was a loud thunk as one of the front wheels dropped into a hole. "Sonofabitch! If Baby's hurt, I'll be pissed." He put the car in park and hopped out, checking the tire. "She's okay."

"You missed the worst one," Sam said, walking to the back of the car and pointing towards where they pulled off. "That one might have broken the axle."

"You're right," Dean said, looking at the huge hole. "That would have sucked." He opened the trunk. "What should we take?"

"The basics?"

"A bit of everything it is."

The trail led them into the darkest part of the forest. Moss covered the trees and hung from the branches. There were muddy spots along the north side of the trail, occasionally driving into their path. Every now and then, Dean caught a whiff of something rotting, he hoped it was vegetation in a swampy spot, but he knew better than to discount the worst. As they walked, he could hear movement in the trees, once or twice, he thought he saw a deer move deeper into cover. The animals were hard to spot, so he wasn't sure if it was actually a deer or just a log in an animal shape. A strange call sounded from over their heads, causing Dean to stop and look up into the trees, trying to see what was there.

"What was that?" he asked as his brother stopped beside him.

"I'm not sure. A raven?"

"A duck?"

"Heron?"

"So, we have no idea?" Dean laughed and started walking again.

"No, it sounded…" Sam trailed off.

"Big?"

"Yeah."

"What do vultures sound like?"

"I'm not sure," Sam replied. "I don't think I've ever heard one. Why?"

Dean shrugged. "With bits laying around, they seemed like a good guess."

"Did anything about Pete strike you as odd?" Sam asked a few minutes later.

"Odd?"

"Yeah?"

"You mean like how he didn't even blink when he said it was a sigil, and helpfully had a book?"

"Among other things. He didn't seem all that bothered by us discussing demons in front of him. Although I believe him about getting the book."

"You do?" Dean wasn't sure he believed that.

"There's an inscription in the front, dated 1905. The last of the family died in the last year, and their estate was auctioned off by the executer. I wonder…"

"Sam?" Dean turned to his brother. "I don't like that tone."

"What tone?"

"The 'someone did something stupid and brought hell to earth' tone."

"I have a tone for that?" Sam chuckled, although it sounded forced.

"You do. Every time someone relies on the internet to mess with things they shouldn't be messing with."

"They shouldn't. How many things have we had to deal with that were the result of bad research?"

"Too many," Dean said, starting down the trail again.

The path ran down to the river, then turned sharply up the bank. Even though the sun was out, it was dark along the trail. There was a distinct chill on the air which Dean was sure had nothing to do with the deep shadows and everything to do with what brought them out here. The forest had an eerie silence to it as they made their way through the trees. It all put Dean on edge, so much so when Sam's phone rang, he jumped and reached for his gun before he realized what was going on. He tried to look casual, but he caught the look Sam shot him as he answered his phone.

"Hello? Pete? Yeah?" Sam frowned. "I can barely understand you, you're breaking up. We're up on the way to the burn." Pause, deeper frown. "Birds? What?" Pause. "Not there? What? No, you're breaking up. What?" Sam looked at Dean. "I lost him." He dialed and put it on speaker. "Pete?"

"Sam? Can… hear?"

"What's going on?" Sam asked.

"The… open. They… Birds." The phone crackled. "Me?"

"What are you talking about."

"Get… Don't… Someone…" There was a final crack and the phone went dead again.

"Do you have any idea what he was talking about?" Dean said.

"No. He said something about the birds and something not being there. The words in between were pretty much lost." Sam looked at his phone. "I don't even have a signal anymore."

Dean pulled out his phone and glanced at it. "Me either. Do you think it's because there are no cell towers or something else?"

"Both?"

"Fun. Keep going?"

"We're almost there, according to the directions."

"Okay."

Less than five minutes later, Dean could smell charred wood and grass. Sam veered off the trail to the right, they went up a small hill and the trees abruptly opened up on the burned-out area. It looked like it might have been a natural clearing, the trees along the edge were burned on the side facing the open area, but the rest of the bark was intact. The first thing Dean spotted was… But that couldn't be right.

"Why are the bits still here?" Sam walked towards what was obviously part of a foot. "The realgar is still here too."

While his brother checked out what had been left in the circle, Dean paced along the edge. "It is monk's hood and this looks like henbane. Does that even grow here?" One plant stood out. "Sam? I think this is mandrake."

"Mandrake?" Sam stood and headed towards him. "What's mandrake doing out here?"

"And henbane and hemlock," Dean said as he walked along the edge of the clearing. Something caught his eye, hidden under the leaves of a devil's club. "What's that?" He bent to grab it. The weird bird call they heard earlier sounded from somewhere to his left. "Sounds like the ducks are back." The strange quacking was followed by something that sounded more like—he wasn't sure. "Or maybe not a duck." He was reaching for his gun when something large crossed between them and the sun, casting a deeper shadow in their small space.

"We should take cover," Sam said, pulling out his own sidearm and running towards Dean.

A moment later something dove into the clearing. Dean had the impressing of claws, a huge beak and… He was so surprised he was momentarily frozen in place. Sam's tackle was the only thing that saved him from the creature. His brother's momentum propelled them back into the trees and under the edge of a huge log. He rolled away from Sam and glanced up at the sky. There was a flock of them, they were circling ominously overhead and they were…

"Flamingos? How are there flamingos?" he demanded as the flock cried out in a deafening noise and dove straight towards their refuge. He emptied his clip into the lead bird, he dropped the clip and rammed another one in. "It's not slowing them down!" One of the creatures headed towards Dean broke off at the last minute and dove towards Sam. Dean reacted without thinking and shoved Sam deeper under the huge log they were sheltering under.

"Dean! Look out!"

Dean had time to glance over at his brother before something clamped down on his shoulder, sharp talons cutting through his skin like knives. He was dragged from under the log, Sam reached for him, but before his brother could grab him, another one of the pink monsters dropped down and closed its steely claws around his leg. They pulled him out from under the log, and into the air.

"Dean!"

Something impacted the bird holding his leg. It's hold slipped enough for Dean to turn and bring his gun up. The flamingo on his leg jerked again and as Dean felt its hold give way, he pressed the muzzle of his gun against the leg of the one with its talons dug into his shoulder. Three rounds and the leg gave way. The bird gave an angry cry and tried to grasp Dean as he fell. He heard Sam's gun an instant before he slammed into the ground, the impact combined with a shaft of pure agony stunned him for a moment.

"Dean? Dean?!" Sam's voice had the tone of pure unadulterated panic in it. "Shit! Sorry, this is going to hurt." He felt Sam's hands on his shoulders, then he was dragged over the ground.

To be continued, hurry to next chapter