The Sky is No Man's Land: Part III
She heard below the music the sound of the soldiers' footsteps all in rhythm, a soft sound... it was almost a hush, and if not for the cries of the sergeants at the side, and their pennants in the air to remind her, she would think it was so sad, these men with their rifles on their shoulders making a show of their victory but looking to her eyes like they was indentured as she once was, though maybe not born into it.
-E.L. Doctorow, The March
GRANTSVILLE, UT
2006-08-30 10:23 AM
1253 Amarillo Lane is a squat, dimly-lit apartment building that smells like mothballs and decay. If there are tenants, there aren’t many; the only noise is the rattle of a decrepit air conditioner at the end of the hall as Dean leans against the doorframe of Apartment B.
He turns his head, traces a thumb over a small sigil burnt into the dark oak above the doorjamb. “Demons?”
Cas answers with a disinterested “Yes” and keeps parsing through the random junk scattered in his palm.
Sam’s watching the entryway, one arm casually back to put his pistol within easy reach. Cas is picking carefully through the pockets of his trenchcoat, coming up with bits of paper and a hodgepodge of trinkets - coins, seashells, the brass shine of an empty .44-caliber casing - that Dean hadn't even seen when he`d searched the thing. There must be pockets hidden within pockets in there. Then again, Dean isn't entirely sure where he keeps stashing away that sword, either.
He comes up with a small key, and slips it into the lock. The door swings wide with a smooth click. There isn't even a deadbolt.
There are symbols lining the inside of the doorway, floor to ceiling. Some Dean knows, some he doesn't; some look like they’re cobbled together from a half-dozen separate seals. Of the ones he recognizes, they’re all demon deterrents.
The room itself is small, and cluttered: a desk, a couple filing cabinets, and a small table set back against dirty windows occupy most of the floor space. There’s paper and bits and pieces of electronics - cell phones, laptops, and what looks to be a Commodore 64 - scattered across the table, manila folders fat with papers stacked high on the desk.
On the wall, there’s a sigil Dean doesn’t recognize, painted in the dull rust of dried blood. He doesn’t even recognize the lettering.
“Enochian,” Castiel says, following his stare.
“What’s it for?”
Cas is quiet for a second, then he says: “Angels.”
“Ah, right. Problems in the fam.” So angels play by some kind of rules. He makes a mental note to tell Sam.
Another long silence. Dean pulls a file out of the stack and lays it open. It’s a printout of an FBI work-up; he’s stolen enough to know the look of it. It’s a young woman, early 20s, blonde, pretty - Sarah Angston. Reported missing October 3rd, 2005 from Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. There’s something written in a string of Enochian sigils next to her name, and another handwritten date: February 18th, 2006. Cas points towards the Enochian. “Israfiel. She was in my garrison. This was her vessel.” He stops, considering. “This began with my search for her.”
The Greg chick had said, ‘You remind me of someone.’ And ‘What was her name?’
Israfiel, maybe.
Castiel is pointing towards the pile on the desk. “All of those are angels who have failed to report in. 47, in all. We’ve found 27 of them. Dead, vessels and angels both. The rest, no sign. For 23 of them, we’ve found that their final orders had - discrepancies.” He hesitates. “24, now. I was told to report to North Platte, Nebraska. I’m sure if I followed that trail, I would find much the same evidence. No issuing officer. No stated objective.”
He glances towards the blood sigil on the wall. “I knew, with the orders, it had to be an angel, someone with access to our communications.” He pauses. “Now I have proof.”
Dean starts sifting through the high-tech yard sale scattered across the table. “What’s with all this stuff? You don’t seem like much of a computer guy.” Having watched him puzzling over the radio knobs on the Impala, Dean’s feeling pretty sound in that assessment.
“It’s my brother’s hobby.”
‘Brother’ seems to be a loose term in Castiel’s vocabulary, more in the creepy cult sense of the term than the familial one. Dean glances up. “You’re working with somebody?”
Castiel just keeps on shuffling papers. “I was.”
There’s a folder sitting out of place, one manila corner sticking up from beneath the innards of an old sat phone. Dean picks it up, flips to the cover page: James Novak, 31, smiles up from the page. Reported missing from Pontiac, Illinois on October 5th, 2005. He’s got a wife - Amelia - and a daughter - Claire.
Like the rest, there’s a name written in Enochian, and a date. August 29, 2006. Yesterday.
Dean holds the paper up. “Looks like somebody added you to the list.”
Castiel looks up from his pile. His expression draws into a frown, and then neutralizes out into his usual look of mild displeasure.
“So, you were working with somebody, or--”
“Here.” He holds out a hand. Dean gives the folder over, watches with curiosity as Castiel scrawls something out in hard lines of Enochian.
“What’s that say?”
Castiel gives him a stare.
Dean throws up his hands. “Alright, alright. Personal, I get it.”
He drops back against the table, watches Castiel shuffle. “What’re you trying to find?”
“Sabachiel.”
“A what?”
“He serves as second-in-command to one of my superiors, Zachariah. He was waiting for me when I arrived in North Platte.” Castiel plies an unconscious hand against his shoulder. Dean can guess what the guy was waiting for.
Castiel pulls a sheaf of papers free. “He was missing for three days in June, but he returned; we removed him from the case.”
“So, what, you think they converted him? Some kinda double agent?”
“He’s involved.”
Deadpan, every time. Cas kills all the espionage vibe.
“If I can find him, bring him before the Council to testify-“ He falls back, staring at the paper-strewn desk with a frown. “But he doesn’t have the access to generate falsified orders.”
“Who’d have that?”
Castiel considers the desk for a long time. “Zachariah.”
♤ ♤ ♤
ELKO, NV: OUTSKIRTS
2006-08-31 07:42 AM
Castiel considers the object before his nose with uncertainty. The tortilla wrap of grease, homogenized chicken egg and gray-colored meat rotates slowly in his vision as Dean gives it a small shake. “C’mon. Try it.”
“I don’t-“
“You tell me one more time that you don’t require sustenance I will kick your ass.” Dean considers, and then revises: “I will try very, very hard to kick your ass.”
Reluctantly, he takes the offered substance.
Dean watches unblinking for three, four seconds as Castiel studies the breakfast burrito more closely. At last, he bursts out, “Hey, remember who’s driving your ass to California. You owe me this. One bite.”
Restraining a sigh, Castiel does as asked.
Dean watches in an expectant silence Castiel has come to know well. Today, he makes it fifteen seconds before asking: “So?”
“It’s-“ He searches for a word, and settles on, “Dripping.”
“It’s grease. It’s good for you.” Dean waits. When it’s clear Castiel won’t be attempting a second bite, he reclaims the wrap with a noise of disgust. “You just wait. Two millennia from now, you’re gonna be sitting up on your cloud and you’re gonna have this huge craving for a breakfast burrito and you’re gonna be heartbroken you didn’t monopolize on this opportunity.” He takes a large bite before continuing on through a mouthful of egg and cheese: “This is the pinnacle of human culinary arts.”
“I believe you said that about yesterday’s Philadelphia cheese steak sandwich,” Castiel notes dryly.
“Yeah, well, we’ve had a lot of pinnacles.”
He finishes the burrito in several prodigious mouthfuls, balls the wrapper in his fist, and deposits the trash through the Impala’s open window. Squinting towards the morning sun, he wipes the grease from his hands onto the not entirely clean fabric of his jeans. “Alright, Cas, here’s your problem.”
What had begun as abortive attempts at his name (‘Cas-tee-el’, ‘Cas-dude’) has at some point become solely ‘Cas.’ Now it’s all Dean Winchester calls him by. He supposes it’s preferable to mispronunciation.
They’re standing on the outskirts of a small Nevada city, facing the downward slope of dirt and scrub-brush leading towards a dry riverbed. Dean is intent upon giving Castiel a lesson on the hunters’ method of combat, in what Castiel supposes is some attempt at repayment for the knowledge he’s sharing with them; or possibly an attempt at convincing Castiel that there is worth to their own method of fighting.
“You plant your feet,” Dean is saying. “You never, y’know - dodge. You just take the hit.”
“Damage can be repaired,” Castiel says.
“Okay, sure. Says the guy with a stab wound.”
“Different circumstance, and a different weapon.”
He hasn’t explained to them that that particular wound is self-inflicted. It would likely initiate another exhausting line of query from Sam.
“Yeah, well, I haven’t seen you fight with that sword, but I’ll tell you, your hand-to-hand sucks. That chick was all over you. You got hits in, yeah, but she was giving five to every one of yours. You’ve gotta play some kinda defense. Here.”
Dean lines up against him, folds his hands into loose fists and begins to carry through a practiced sparring method. The motions are somewhat slow, and orchestrated; Castiel dodges with ease. But an unexpected left hook catches him off guard, and Dean lands a solid blow, damaging his own hand in the process.
“Shit.” He shakes the hand loose, grimacing. “Okay. Ow. My point still stands. You’re focusing too much on one hand. The sword hand, I’m guessing?” He waves his right as evidence. “But you’ve gotta pay attention to both.
“What we need to teach you,” Dean says with a grin, “is how to brawl.”
♤ ♤ ♤
ELKO, NV: STARLITE MOTEL
2006-08-31 08:26 AM
Sam hovers with his face three inches off the table, waiting for the crack of shattering plastic from the wire casings between his fingers. Against all odds, it’s a fit; the cable snaps neatly into place.
He drops back on his elbows, surveying his handiwork.
When he’d cracked open the warped shell of Castiel’s discarded cellphone, the SIM card had been in pieces, the board fried, but the internal memory had looked mostly intact. With enough cobbled together pieces off of one of Dad’s old burners he’s got most of a phone scattered across the scratched linoleum of the tabletop. After a long press of the power button, he finds there’s even enough juice left in the battery to get it going. Someone’s smiling on him.
He taps his fingers through the load-up screen, taking a glance towards the motel door. After almost an hour of fitting cables together, he’s got another half an hour, forty-five minutes tops before Dean and Cas are back. Best to have this little bout of subterfuge cleaned up before then.
Any missed voicemails or texts while the phone was out of commission are moot with the dead SIM card, but the contacts come through, and old texts slowly populate through the list. It’s a pleasant surprise. Sam hadn’t pictured Cas as much of a texter.
He pulls out a notepad and starts slowly parsing through the contact list. It’s kind of a disappointment; the phone numbers are a hodgepodge of alphabets - Arabic, Korean, Cyrillic - rather than numbers, and none of them the right length for a 10-digit format. Some kind of encryption? He isn’t sure. The names are the same random jumble, some of them displaying only in the empty blocks of corrupted symbols.
He moves on to texts. Each one seems to be a different language: Spanish, German, Japanese (one, a media message of a sneering bald man in a pin-neat suit: the caption is ‘tous grêle roi de la chauve’). Hell, half are in Coptic, except for the last two received:
FROM: ☦☤☬☸❈✵
MSG: 41.134533 -100.758071
Aug. 29 06 12:43 AM
FROM: ☦☤☬☸❈✵
MSG: where are you?
Aug. 29 06 3:15 AM
The first is the right format for degree decimal coordinates; they both share the same random conglomeration of symbols for the sender. He marks down the coordinates and a careful recreation of the sender’s name. If it even is a name.
That’s as far as he gets before the battery on Dad’s burner runs out and the screen goes abruptly blank. With a muttered “Ah, crap”, he starts digging through the box of old phones and tangled power cords for the right charger. The sudden tinny bugle of a ringtone startles him, but it’s not the Frankenphone on the table that’s ringing. It’s his phone, buried under all the wires. It’s an incoming call, Bobby.
“’bout time.” He tucks the phone against his shoulder, reaching back into the rat’s nest of chargers. “Hey, Bobby.” But the other end is just silence - the low buzz of static. “Bobby?”
There’s two, three beats of more static silence before deafening white noise blares out of the earpiece. Sam drops the phone with a jerk of surprise. It bounces off the carpet and lands screen up. It still reads ‘Incoming call: Bobby S’. After a few more seconds spitting static, the call drops and the screen resolves smoothly to the home screen. It sits quiet for a few seconds, then buzzes: new text message.
Sam stares at the thing for a few seconds before nudging it back to within arms’ reach with a socked toe and picking it up. It’s the same junk text they’ve been getting since Nebraska, except--
FROM: ⏏⏏⏏⏏⏏⏏
MSG: WHERE
Except for the message. Uncorrupted.
Sam takes an uneasy glance towards the cobbled together phone on the table in front of him.
He’s reaching to pull the battery on his own phone when it starts in on a second rendition of the Imperial March.
Incoming call: Bobby S.
Sam accepts the call with the phone at arms’ length. After a few beats without a white noise bomb, he cautiously thumbs on the speakerphone. There’s just silence, under the static spit of an open line. Two, three seconds pass.
Then Sam’s own voice crawls out of the receiver, washed out in static and halting and skipping like a bad recording. “Dean p-p-picked someth-cked someone up in Nor-r-r-rth Platte. Like Salina, Akron, y’k-k-know the ones. I’m-Dean picked someone up in-n-n Nor-Bobby, it’s Sam. D-D-D-Dean pick-on the road--‘b-b-b-b-Salina, Akron-we’re on the r-r-r-r-oad-Dean picked som-m-meone up in North Platte-“
It’s a piecemeal copy of the voicemail he’d left Bobby on some Colorado back road, yesterday. Except protocol isn’t to say someone on a recording. Protocol is to say something.
Just as abruptly, the call drops.
Another text.
FROM: ⏏⏏⏏⏏⏏⏏
MSG: PLEASE
With that, Sam does pull the battery.
He jerks to his feet and tears apart the Frankenphone for good measure, cracking a few of the cable casings in the process. How the hell could something track him through a phone without a SIM card? Except they’ve been getting those messages for days - ever since North Platte. Ever since Dean had picked Cas up. Maybe just fishing at first, reaching out in whatever code that ruined phone had used to any cell within range, trying to make contact with --
Electricity snaps through the mess of wires on the table. The battery resting in his hand gives the same static snap, biting sharply into the meat of his palm. Sam drops it with a jerk that’s half-startle, half-spasm, just as a quick rush of wind washes through the musty air of the motel room. It’s got the hard-edged scent of ozone.
There’s a kid standing just inside a door that’s locked, bolted and salted. Sam doesn’t think he should be particularly surprised by that.
He looks college age, baggy clothes and slouched shoulders and shaggy hair. There’s a solidity to the way his feet are planted and an overbright desperation to his eyes that ruins any naiveté that shabby freshman look gives him.
Sam brushes an elbow against his side, freeing up his shirt for a reach to the gun in his belt. “It’s polite to knock.”
The kid’s throat works a second. “I’m looking for my brother.” He looks surprised at his own audacity.
“And you think I’ve seen him?”
His shoulders hitch up a few more inches, expression tightening. “On the phone. You said.”
Sam shows his hands. “Bad start. Hi, I’m Sam. The one whose phone you’ve been tapping, apparently. You are?”
“You’re a hunter,” he accuses. “You said--”
“I said we’d found something, yeah.”
“Like Akron. And Salina,” the kid answers. He takes quick, ticking glances at the far corners of the room. “Where is he?”
Sam inclines his head. “Your brother, you mean.”
He’s thinking there’s not much of a family resemblance, up until that high-pitch ringing starts up in his ears, dragging every hair on his skin upright. The ceiling light overhead starts to brighten up as the kid rises onto his toes and says: “If you hurt him--”
“Take it easy, alright?” The air keeps humming, but Sam keeps his voice level. “He’s fine, I swear on that. We’ve been giving him a hand.”
The kid stares at him, tight-mouthed.
“He asked us to help him look into something,” Sam elaborates.
He gives a brisk shake of his head. “We don’t talk to you.”
“He decided to make an exception.”
“For what?”
“Look, much as I’d like to, I can’t tell you that.” He’d said he’s one of Cas’s ‘brothers’, and the light show and disregard for warding has Sam inclined to believe him. But by Castiel’s telling, he’s got enemies on both sides of the aisle. “He doesn’t seem keen on interacting with you. The, uh - Host. As it were.”
Despite the static hum singing under Sam’s skin, despite the rising burn of ozone in the air - the kid abruptly fits perfectly into the human suit he’s wearing as his face falls into a frown that’s puzzled, bordering on hurt. “Why?”
“No offense, but I really can’t tell you that until I know who you are, and what you want.”
It’s not an answer he likes, by the way his shoulders twitch another inevitable inch upwards. His eyes are starting to roam again when they land on the mess of dead phones on the table. By the time Sam’s following the stare the air is shifting and the kid is right there, picking the shattered core of Cas’s phone out of the mess.
Sam tenses. “Hey, look--”
Electricity arcs between the kid’s knuckles, jumping through the rat’s nest of cables in loops and whorls, spitting lines of soot across the linoleum. The plastic crumbles under the kid’s tightening grip.
Sam takes two big steps back and pulls the gun free. He’s not sure it’ll do him much good.
“Tell me where he is,” the kid says quietly. The tinny whine of tension in his voice sets the windows shivering.
“If you’re trying to help him, we don’t have a problem. Alright?”
“Tell me where he is.”
That resonates in the floor under Sam’s feet. He thumbs off the safety and pulls the muzzle up to focus on the kid, mid-thigh. Nothing fatal. “I can’t.”
The bulb overhead brightens to a blinding white before it gives out in a shower of glass and sparks. Within that millisecond of bright flash the kid is in his face, iron-hard fingers bearing into his wrist.
“If you hurt him, if you hurt my brother, I’ll--”
“We didn’t,” Sam says.
“If you hurt him--”
Something in his wrist gives with a sickening pop, sending a white-hot spark of pain spasming up his arm. The gun hits the floor hard, right around the same time Dean’s voice is cutting sharp through the thick air: “Let him go.”
Then Castiel’s, sharper still. “Nanael.”
Every ounce of holy righteousness deflates to a dishevelled college kid in the span of a second as he takes in the two standing in the doorway. “Brother.” He’s dropping Sam’s arm and closing the gap immediately, to the twitchy discomfort of Dean, who’s got his own Glock trained on the kid from his position at Castiel’s side. It’s Castiel that pushes Dean’s gun down.
The kid - Nanael - grabs Cas in an awkward hug, all bent elbows and stiff shoulders, then shoves him back to arms’ length and gives him an erratic once over. “You’re all dim. And your wing--”
Dean’s doing his own prodding at Sam’s wrist. Sam pulls back with a hiss. “Leave it--”
Nanael’s just as soon wheeling on him. “S-sorry, I-- here.” He grabs at Sam’s wrist with careful fingers. Sam and Dean are both jolting; Dean raises the Glock, but Sam’s hesitantly waving him off. Warmth spreads slowly under the kid’s touch, leaving a tingling numb in its wake. When Nanael lets go and he gives the wrist a flex, it bends smoothly. Good as new.
Sam clears his throat. “Uh, thanks. I guess.” Miracle healing. Just like that. Okay. That’s... that’s cool.
The kid smiles towards his shoelaces. Castiel breaks the moment, voice cold: “Nanael, you shouldn’t be here.”
“You’re two days late reporting in,” Nanael starts hesitantly, and then it’s off to the races: “Sandalphon was trying to delay on your behalf, but Zachariah already knew somehow, and now he’s asking the Seraphim for an official investigation, and after Balthazar and Adnachiel and the thing in Budapest-- Sandalphon is furious, Castiel, I mean, y’know, furious in his way, and the last I could find you was the park, and the demons, and not even Uriel has the power to do that, I thought you were dead and then this hunter, he had your phone--”
Castiel gives the phone a cursory glance, but disregards it. “You can’t be here.”
“You’re hurt. Your wing--”
“It will heal.”
“Let me call Sandalphon. He’ll set it right, he can--”
“Do not tell Sandalphon of this,” Castiel snaps, and Nanael shrinks. Castiel stills, and softens his tone. “Please. I shouldn’t have involved you in this to begin with. Don’t involve anyone else. Just go.”
The dynamic resolves for Sam there. Hell, he’s lived it. The older brother and the false aire of control - and the obstinate little brother that refuses to be denied.
True to form, Nanael plants his heels. “This isn’t something you have to do alone. I found the orders, I can find the source--”
“Nanael, please. Go.”
Sam surprises them both when he interjects, “Wait.”
The two angels stare at him. Dean, too. Sam clears his throat. “On your phone. Uh-- sorry about that, by the way. But the last two texts you got. One was asking where you were, but the one before that, it was coordinates. For North Platte, maybe? They had the same sender.” He grabs the notepad off the table and shows its jumble of symbols to them both. Castiel’s expression hardens. Nanael’s twists into surprise. Sam hazards a guess: “From you, right? They’re both from you.”
Nanael’s already tugging his own phone free from his back pocket. “I didn’t--”
“I know,” Castiel says.
“They couldn’tve gotten into my system, not the same way, the garrison’s phones are on a private network. It had to have been someone that could access my phone, someone that could’ve--”
“Stop,” Cas snaps. That one is for Sam and Nanael both, judging by the glare he’s getting. “Nanael.”
Nanael nods to the floor. “The garrison’s been reassigned; surveillance in Boston. But I’ll be listening.”
Castiel softens, dropping a hand on Nanael’s shoulder. “I’ll return as soon as I can.”
Whatever brotherly love there’d been vanishes with the kid. Castiel rounds on Sam, wrathful. “What were you doing? How did he track you?”
“Through a voicemail, I think. I mentioned North Platte in it. Guess that was enough for him to go on.” Sam retrieves his phone off the floor. “He’s pretty tech-savvy, huh?”
“Very.”
Dean’s the one to ask: “We need to worry about him?”
“No. But we need to worry about whoever might be watching him. We shouldn’t stay.” Castiel picks the remains of his cell phone from the table and grinds it into his fist. This time, there’s nothing left to salvage.
Part II | Part III | Part IV