The Devil You Know : Chapter 2
See part 1 for disclaimer and notes.
Chapter 2
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Castiel exits the motel room, twisting sideways so his trailing wing doesn’t get caught in the door. The ifrin had not only known he was an angel, they had sensed he was an injured angel, and went straight for his crippled right side as soon as he had stumbled. Not being able to step up into the air takes some getting used to.
He wanders over to Dean’s borrowed car and reaches over the roof, skating his fingers lightly across the ward. Claw marks crisscross the paint, but they haven’t broken the symbol he’d sketched there. Dean and Sam will still be shielded from angels’ view, and as long as he keeps still and silent and doesn’t do anything stupid like purging Hell creatures with Grace, he should be hidden also.
Castiel drifts back from the car. Sam is yelling, and Dean is pouring fear and dismay through the door, so he moves away, to the end of the cement walkway. Dean’s angry with him, and isn’t going to want his interference.
He leans carefully against a support pillar and gazes across the fields. He can see Hopewell in the distance, a dark smudge of clustered trees and buildings, and he’s not sure they’re far enough away from where the trackers caught them.
They should not stay here. Once Sam and Dean have finished with the holy water and their discussion, they should leave this town behind. Castiel twists the ends of the bandage tighter around his bleeding arm and leans more heavily on the pillar.
He’s going to need Dean’s help getting the wing folded back up again.
There are no wingbeats to alert him, only a great wind that suddenly cyclones violently around him. Dry grass and dust blast outward, leaving a wide target of swept-clean ground with Castiel at the bull’s-eye.
An angel hurtles down, wings pinned snug to his sides, one foot extended, and lands nearly on top of him.
Castiel flings himself back, mouth opening to shout a warning, but the other angel’s hand shoots out and snaps Castiel in the center of his chest, right at the top of his breastbone.
“Silence.”
The shout withers on his tongue. He is able to spin aside, getting the pillar between him and the other, and then he lunges for the door. The steely hand strikes out again, lightning fast, and seizes his arm, wringing tight around the bandaged bit.
“Come.” There’s a rumble of authority beneath the simple command, that doesn’t fit the wizened, kindly appearance of the angel’s elderly vessel. “Or I am authorized to employ violence.”
His chest fills with pins and needles when he tries to resist the order. The grip on his arm tightens even more, and with a violent jerk, Castiel is wrenched into the sky in a dizzying rush of wind.
-----
“Where is he? Goddamn angel.” Dean’s pacing between the car and the stoop, gravel spitting from beneath his boots with every step. “Cas!”
“Dean.” Sam snatches at his arm the next time he tacks past the walkway. “We have demonic trackers tailing us; yelling might bring them down on us.”
Dean freezes in his tracks. “What’re you saying? Demons got him?”
“I don’t know! Maybe. He said those ifrin knew he was an angel; you said he couldn’t fly away. You don’t think demons wouldn’t love getting their hands on an angel?”
“Holy fuck.” Dean shoves shaking hands through his hair. His stomach folds over in a painful cramp. “Where would they have taken him?”
“Could be anywhere, but if I had to guess? Not too far, because they’d probably be afraid he’d break free while they’re moving him.”
“Okay. Okay.” Dean scrubs his hands down his face. Think, dammit. “Okay, the demons were tracking me with those ifrin. They don’t want me killing Lucifer, so they probably won’t quit. They found Cas, but they’ll be back for me.” He draws a deep breath and nods. “Got it. Devil’s traps-we need to set up devil’s traps so we can catch one.”
“Catch a demon? For what?” Sam’s eyes widen.
“We catch a demon, I can make it talk,” Dean says flatly.
The cold resolve in his brother’s voice rocks Sam back. “We need paint or something, then,” is all he says.
“I think I saw a Sharpie in the glove compartment.”
They ready the room as best they can-Dean draws traps while Sam blesses water to fill every drinking glass in the cupboard, placing them strategically around the room. The salt lines are still mostly intact, but Dean reinforces them anyway, before settling on the bed with the weapons in arm’s reach.
On the other bed Sam makes an impatient noise and snaps the laptop closed. “Signal keeps crapping out on me.”
“Call Bobby. See what signs he’s picking up.”
In the distance, thunder rumbles. Dean rolls to his feet and twitches the drapes apart. “Tell him to check the latest weather charts for Iowa.”
Green-tinged clouds boil along the eastern horizon. Dean watches the flicker of lightning along their underbellies while behind him Sam murmurs to Bobby, opens the laptop again, shakes it in frustration, and pushes it aside. He sounds focused as he talks, and Dean sneaks a glance at his brother. He’s twirling the Sharpie in his fingers, but that’s just normal Sam-concentrating habit. The withdrawal jumpiness seems to have been banked down under adrenaline for the moment.
“National Weather Service just posted tornado warnings for the Iowa border,” Sam relays, and Dean nods.
“Ask him if lightning strikes are concentrated in any one place.”
“He’s not seeing any defined pattern yet,” Sam says after a pause. Thunder rumbles, louder this time, and Sam winces and pulls the phone away from his ear. After a second he replaces it gingerly. “Bobby? You still there?”
A gust of wind whirls past outside, flattening the weeds and kicking up miniature dust-devils. The darkening sky lights up in a brilliant flash, revealing thunderheads piling ever higher.
“You seein’ strike clusters yet, Bobby?” Dean calls.
“You hear that?” Sam murmurs into the phone, and then, “He says ‘One damn minute, ya idjit’.” Sam pulls the phone from his ear again and taps it against his palm. “What was that, Bobby? Tornado touched down at… Burlington, I think he said. Bobby? Bobby! My signal’s dying.”
“We crossed the Mississippi at Burlington,” Dean mutters. He flings the drapes open and ducks instinctively as a long bolt of lightning stretches jagged fingers silently across the sky. Another gust of wind accompanies the thunderclap, setting the Vacancy sign out by the office to seesawing crazily.
“Let me try your phone,” Sam says as Dean watches the clouds roll closer. He touches the knife hilt in his belt and shakes his head.
“Don’t bother, Sam.”
“Where are you going?” Sam cries in alarm as Dean throws open the motel door and steps out into the approaching storm. “Dean, are you crazy?”
“Stay there, Sam.” He strides out into the middle of the parking lot and spreads his arms, head tilted to the roiling sky. “You want my scent? Here it is! Come get me,” he yells into the wind.
Evening is closing in, faster than usual with the heavy clouds spread across the sky. As Dean waits, the motel’s outside lights blink on. A last few flashes of lightning spark on the horizon and the thunder fades to distant growls. Finally even the wind dies, leaving an eerie silence that not even the birds or spring peepers dare to break.
“C’mon already,” Dean mutters, squinting into the shadows. “Come after me so I can take him back from you.”
“Dean.” Sam’s hanging out the door, looking more worried by the second. “I know you want to lure a demon in, but you’re being reckless.”
Dean levels a finger at him. “Stay there, Sam.”
“At least come back behind the salt.”
“No, I…”
It streaks out of the dark like someone fired off a rocket, and the next thing Dean knows, he’s flat on his back trying to draw breath into lungs compressed by 150 pounds of solid muscle. The ifrin’s huge round eyes glitter in the dying light and it trods up his chest to clamp heavy jaws around the joint of his shoulder.
Dean twists his free arm, fingertips brushing the knife at his side. He arches up against the tracker’s weight, getting just enough clearance to slip the blade free as a second ifrin slams into his side. He tries to call to Sam, but what little breath he has left leaves him in a choked wheeze. Somehow he manages to toss the knife in a wobbling arc toward the motel, just before the second set of jaws closes on his other shoulder.
Then Sam’s swooping across the parking lot, bending to scoop up the knife one-handed as he races past. He circles to come up on the trackers from behind, hand gripping the hilt tightly as he raises it high.
Three more trackers melt out of the darkness before he can strike. Their eyes gleam for a second, darkly iridescent globes fixed firmly on Dean. And then all three heads shift as one, and Sam finds himself on the receiving end of the ifrins’ intense gazes.
“Umm, Dean…”
The two holding Dean suddenly unlock their jaws. He can feel their needle-thin teeth withdraw as their heads too swivel around to focus on Sam. The one on his chest steps down, claws making a tearing-Velcro sound as they pull free of his shirt. He gulps in a quick breath. “Back up, Sam. Slowly.”
Dean inches backwards on his elbows, but it’s like he doesn’t even exist for the trackers anymore. They ignore his retreat and step toward his brother, one splitting off to flank Sam, and Dean abandons stealth and pushes to his feet. “Don’t move now, Sam. Get ready to throw me the knife.”
“It’s my only defense!” he protests a little shrilly, barely moving his lips.
“Just go with me!” Dean spins and takes off running. “Now, Sam!” he yells back.
Sam hurls Ruby’s knife across the parking lot. Dean’s a pale smudge in the twilight as he leaps to intercept it. For another three beats, the trackers’ eyes are still trained on Sam, teeth slightly bared in silent menace. And then their heads swivel in unison and they’re looking at Dean, backpedaling across the motel lot and waving the knife above his head.
“It’s the knife!” Sam gasps. “They’re tracking Ruby’s knife!” he yells to Dean.
“Get behind the salt lines, Sherlock,” Dean yells back. He loops around toward the motel, keeping a wary eye on the ifrin pacing him. Sam scrambles up onto the stoop and as soon as he’s through the door, Dean hurls the knife. It drills deep into the endmost support pillar.
The pack stares him down, fanning out with deliberate intent to keep him cornered. Dean’s getting a horrible feeling that he’s miscalculated and is about to have all five of them trampling him into the dirt, when the one at the front clicks its gaze to the side. The others’ eyes shift in synch. As they slink toward the walkway, Dean dodges behind them and heads for the door.
Sam meets him as he sprints up, tossing Dean a crowbar and raising his own. “Want to take out a few while we have the chance?”
The ifrin have surrounded the porch pillar, round eyes trained upward at the knife stuck above their heads. One rears up on its back four legs, and then ratchets higher onto the rear pair, jaws snapping at the hilt.
Dean swings, spitting the nearest ifrin’s skull and tossing it off the stoop with a hard flick of the crowbar. Sam slides in to take his place and impales a second, prying the slack body off his crowbar with his foot and kicking it away.
They’re extremely narrowly focused, but not so single-minded that they won’t defend themselves. The rearing one keeps straining for Ruby’s knife, but the other two spin around, teeth bared. Dean slams down his crowbar and dispatches one of them and bumps Sam backward as it goes limp. “Leave the rest. Get inside!”
He dodges around the pillar and wrenches the knife free. There’s that slight pause while the remaining ifrin re-orient on their target and then their muscles tense. Dean tosses the knife underhand before they can spring. Sam snatches it, steps back through the door, and stretches to stab it into the door lintel.
Dean scrambles for the relative safety behind the wards. Just as he reaches the door, the neon motel sign buzzes and flickers. Half the letters spelling The Outpost are burned out anyway, and Dean wouldn’t count it as significant except that the lanterns outside each door start to flicker as well.
He whirls around. For a second, desperate hope flares. The porch lantern by his head blinks a demented Morse code, and when a figure strides out of the darkness, Dean steps down to meet it.
It’s a girl.
The desperate, stupid hope shrivels. Dean eyes the diminutive figure with resignation. She’s ridiculously pretty, smooth caramel skin and a riot of flame-colored curls tumbling in artful disarray down her back, all curvy in snug leather pants and lace-trimmed camisole. She stops just inside the circle of porch light, four more ifrin milling around her spike-heeled boots. With a mischievous smile, she flicks a long thorn-studded branch, and the two trackers prowling beside Dean break away and join her pack.
“Dean Winchester.” She looks adorably delighted to see him, and then she shifts wide brown eyes past his shoulder and giggles, a musical little burble of sound. “And Sam Winchester!”
“What’re you, the Master of the Hounds? Where’s your red jacket?” Very carefully, Dean eases one foot back and shifts his weight onto it.
She brushes him with the barest glance and goes right back to gazing through the doorway at Sam, tongue-tip peeking out to sweep her full pink lips. “I prefer Hunt Master, actually.” She skims a second brief glance over Dean as he edges back another step and then beams a radiant, nose-crinkling smile at Sam. “You can call me Gina.”
“Yeah, it’s a pleasure and all that shit.” The heel of Dean’s boot bumps the stoop, and he steps back up and onto it. “Where’s Castiel?”
Gina rises on tiptoes and makes a show of peering into the motel room, craning side to side in a pretense of scanning every corner. She turns a satisfied little smirk on Dean, and good god, she even has a dimple. “I see your little dove has flown the coop.”
Dean’s fist closes convulsively on the crowbar. “What’ve you done with him?”
She looks over her shoulder and makes a noise, an ugly little rattle that doesn’t sound remotely human; the ifrin settle on their haunches, eyes fixed unblinkingly on the motel door. Gina turns back, disinterested gaze glancing off Dean before returning unerringly to Sam. “Oh, not me, sunshine. What would I want with a filthy angel? Might give me bird flu or something.”
Dean moves sideways to block the door. “You’re lying.”
She rolls her eyes. “Believe what you want. I’m here for something else.”
“Oh yeah? And what’s that?”
She tosses aside the branch and raises one slender brown hand, palm out. Solid black shutters down across the sparkling brown of her eyes. Dean flies backwards through the door, the crowbar windmilling away after it clips the doorframe. His boot heels pop over the sill and drag through the saltline and then he knocks Sam aside as he passes. Dean slams into the far wall, hard enough that the flimsy paneling buckles.
Gina taps across the stoop, hips swaying. She leans past the threshold and clicks her tongue. “Very sloppy, guys. I’d expect better of you, considering your reputations. Even I’ve heard talk of you, and I’ve been tucked up in the kennels for the last century or so.” She extends one foot and taps her toes on the scarred wooden floor.
The devil’s trap drawn there doesn’t snare her. Where the pointed toe of her boot is tapping is a splintery knot. It’s left the merest break in the markered lines, but it’s enough to let Gina walk across them freely. She plunks her hands on her hips and shimmies over the scattered salt and into the motel room, kicking the door shut behind her.
Sam scrambles up and lunges for the knife embedded above the door. He gets within a hand’s breadth of it before Gina tosses up her hand and slams him to a stop. He stiffens, trying to wrench away, but the only thing that happens is his arms snap tight to his sides and Gina smiles lovingly.
“Sam. Sam Winchester. Can I call you Sammy?” She circles him slowly, trailing her fingers teasingly across his chest and then his twitching shoulders and back as she moves around him. “I know you let Ruby call you that. In fact, she screamed it for you, didn’t she?” Her eyes roll back to deep brown, and her lips part moistly. She stretches on tiptoe to reach his ear and stage-whisper into it, “You’re legendary in some circles, Sammy Winchester-you are the only one since the demon you knew as Tammi to make Ruby scream like that.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Dean’s still pinned flat to the wall, straining futilely to peel forward off the creaking paneling. “What, you’re in heat or something? Get your hands off him, you horny little bitch.”
She giggles, another musical little cascade, but when she whips around, serpent-fast, her eyes are pitch black again. Her hand snaps out and a wave of current slams into Dean, punching his breath out and smacking the back of his head hard on the wall. “Watch your language, sunshine. We don’t need you-our orders are to kill you on sight. I’m doing you a favor by letting you have one last vicarious thrill before I rip your heart out and deliver it to Lucifer.” She flicks her fingers and another surge rams Dean into the wall. “So shut up and enjoy the show and when I’m done I’ll make it quick.”
“Watching a demon bitch screw my little brother is nowhere near the top of my list of things to do before I die,” he wheezes.
Gina gives her hijacked body a little shimmy, running her fingers through the riot of red curls and blinking her eyes brown again. “Aren’t you going to tell us to get a room? Oh, that’s right, we have one-it just happens to come with a voyeur.” She strolls over, pushing close enough to Dean that her hair tickles his nose. “Ruby liked it when you called her ‘bitch’. I don’t. Say it again and I’ll rip your tongue out by the roots. And any other words - whore, slut, you get the idea - count for double body parts.” She reaches up, and he tries to jerk back, but his head is immobilized. Softly she strokes a fingertip across each of his eyelids in turn. She draws back, smiling, and when Dean tries to blink, his eyes are frozen open. “Like I said-enjoy the show.”
A second later, Gina is at Sam’s side again, circling him with heat glowing behind her deep brown eyes. She traces her fingers across the back of his hand, pausing to draw little circles over his wristbone, and then walks them playfully up his arm. When she reaches his shoulder, she pauses again, fluttering her fingernails in the tears in his shirt. “My pets didn’t hurt you, did they?” She clicks her tongue. “Poor baby-I compelled them not to be too rough, but I better check, hmm?”
From behind them comes a strangled groan. Gina smiles and drags at Sam’s sleeve until it slides down his arm. She leaves his button-down hanging down his other shoulder and goes to work rolling up the sleeve of his t-shirt, one hand curling to fit the curve of his shoulder. A second later, she’s practically climbing him, ankle hooking around one long leg and hitching herself up onto him. Sam’s helpless to do anything but roll his eyes ceiling-ward as a blush rushes up his neck and cheeks.
Dean’s making noises like he’s choking. Having an audience just seems to egg Gina on and it’s entirely possible she’s using some kind of demon mojo to sprout a couple extra pairs of hands. Sam jumps inside his skin as those hands keep turning up in unexpected places, squeezing and kneading and-holy crap! With his brother watching!
She nuzzles her way up his chest to press an open-mouth kiss to the base of his throat. “Bleah!” Gina rears back in disgust. “You taste like holy water.” She swipes the back of her hand across her mouth. “How did you know to do that?”
“Castiel told us.”
“Oh, right, the angel.” Gina settles back on her heels and peers up - and up - at Sam through her lashes. “Yeah, he was one of the ones who went storming through Hell, I heard. If he was responsible for decimating my kennels I hope I do get a crack at him.”
“Where was he taken?” Sam asks quickly.
“No idea. I told you, I have other... reasons... for being here.” She takes hold of his belt buckle and wrenches it open. “I meant it, Sammy-you have quite the reputation, apart from the hunter thing. Sooo… I’ve got a little bargain for you.” She winks and pops the button on his waistband.
“I’m not making any deals with you,” Sam says to the accompaniment of Dean’s frantic shout of “Sam, don’t!”
“But you’ll like this one.” Slowly she pulls his fly apart so the zipper rolls down with a faint clicking. “I release you enough so you can perform for me… Shut up, you!” she breaks off to snarl, as Dean lets loose with a string of insults and threats. “…And I will give you what you’re craving.”
She bends her knee and snakes one hand back to her boot, producing a small elaborately carved dagger. She holds it up so Sam can see its razor-sharp edge, and when she waves it back and forth, his eyes follow it helplessly.
“Don’t even think it, Sam!”
“I know you’re thirsty,” Gina croons. “You be good to me, I’ll be good to you.”
Sam’s throat bobs as he swallows. “I don’t need it anymore.”
“You sure about that?” She smoothes back his hair, hand trailing down to caress his cheek. “You haven’t eaten in days because the blood is the only thing that’ll satisfy you.” Her fingers move lower, brushing his lips, and then she turns her wrist so it’s only inches from his face. Sam’s eyes flutter as he draws in a long breath through his nose.
“Sam, if you do this, so help me…”
“Shut up, Dean!”
Sam’s eyes are wild as he screams at his brother, and when he moistens his lips with a dart of his tongue, Gina smiles.
“Take the bargain, Sammy. We both know you want to.”
A shudder rocks his frozen body. “You swear I can drink if I do you?”
Behind them, Dean groans, unable to sag in defeat or even look away from his brother’s downfall.
Gina’s eyes flip black in triumph. “I swear,” she hisses, and snaps her wrist so the dagger flies across the room and ‘thunks’ into the headboard of the nearer bed. She throws her hand palm outward and Sam gasps as his muscles unlock.
Gina seizes the back of his waistband and slings him around. He reaches for her, but she twists free with a sharp laugh and places both hands on his chest, shoving hard. Sam falls backward, bouncing a little on the mattress, and she laughs again as he half-rises and makes a desperate grab for her. She palms him back down, and when the pressure flattens him to the bed, she jumps him.
Sam arches his hips to meet her, prompting an obscene little purr from Gina as she settles astride his legs.
“Your brother’s watching.”
“Good.”
“Kinky.” She stretches out sinuously along the length of him, one hand sneaking down to tug at his shorts. “But that’s a given, considering who you choose to…”
Gina’s voice trails away, and the sultry look wipes clean off her face. It’s Sam’s turn to smile, a feral grin that bares his teeth as he flips her so she takes his place on her back in the middle of the bed.
The paneling makes a popping sound as it bows back out and Dean drops free. Sam rolls to his feet, hauling at his drooping jeans while Gina twists, her struggles becoming more frantic as the seconds pass.
Dean strolls over and tugs the dagger out of the headboard, the swagger somewhat spoiled by the way he’s pawing at his red, scratchy eyes. When he’s blinked a little moisture back into them, he leans over the trapped demon with a smirk. “Gotcha.”
Gina explodes in a frenzy of kicking and punching, a howl of pure rage scouring her throat raw. Dean waits it out, arms folded, watching her claw at the air.
Finally she subsides, chest heaving, red blotches marring her flawless complexion. Her hair’s a huge snarled tangle around her head, and spittle flecks lips stretched in a grotesque grimace.
“You done?” Dean asks mildly, and she hisses, eyes flipping to deadly black. “I hope you’re done, ‘cuz I have a few questions I need answered, and I’m feeling a little impatient.”
“You think you’re so clever,” she rasps.
“Oh, I’m kinda clever.” Dean flings back the spread on the second bed and tilts the mattress so Gina can see the devil’s trap drawn on it. “Now if I were real clever, I’d’ve figured out a way to get you on that bed without having to watch you grope my brother.” He drops the mattress back in place. “I’m gonna have to bleach my eyeballs.”
“I can arrange that.”
“Sorry, sister, another time, maybe.” Dean raises a hand to catch the bundle of dingy white cloth Sam tosses at him, and with an economy of motion untangles torn-up strips of bedsheets and secures Gina’s wrists and ankles and waist to the bedframe.
“You’d have been shit out of luck if a demon who wasn’t into guys found you first.”
Sam comes over with Ruby’s knife and one of the water glasses. “What makes you think the beds were the only things booby-trapped?” he asks. He dunks the knife and swirls it through the holy water while Gina’s eyes widen involuntarily.
Dean’s watching her reaction. He crouches so he’s eye-level with her and his voice is deceptively soft. “You remember who my teacher was, don’t you?” When she doesn’t respond, he leans closer, scaring a flinch from her. “Don’t you?”
This time she jerks a little nod.
Sam finishes swirling the knife and hands it, dripping, to Dean. “I’m not screwing around here, Gina, or whatever your real name is. I’m giving you one chance to answer me, truthfully, and then I start hurting you.”
His voice drawls from out of the dark place behind his ribs. Tiny beads of sweat pop out along Gina’s hairline. “She’s still in here,” she blurts. “The girl, Gina-she’s still alive. You carve me, you kill her.”
Dean straightens and raises Ruby’s knife, turning it so the blade flashes dully in the ambient glow from the bathroom light fixture. A drop of water slides down the groove in the blade, and he holds it out so it’s poised above Gina’s low neckline. The droplet sizzles when it spills off the tip and lands on her breastbone. “I spent a lot of years slicing up pretty young things. What’s one more?”
“She’s a detective,” the demon says quickly. “One of the good guys.”
“Cops have been making my life miserable for years. Try again.”
Her tongue peeks out to moisten her lips, and there’s nothing sexual about the gesture now. Dean’s turning the knife in his fingers, his expression frighteningly remote, and Gina can’t tear her gaze from him.
“Is this about the angel? Because I told you-I didn’t take him.”
“Who did?”
“Not one of us. You’re supposed to be Heaven’s ace for killing Lucifer, right? Our orders were to find you and kill you first. Sam was the prize for completing the mission. That’s all-nothing about angels.”
Dean leans forward and places the tip of the knifeblade at the base of her throat; it sizzles, like water to heated metal, and she squirms as a wisp of smoke curls up. “See, I think you’re lying. You followed a blood trail to us, didn’t you?”
She’s trying not to move, but when the point digs a millimeter deeper, a whimper sneaks out between her lips and she nods quickly.
“You followed Ruby’s blood, not ours. On this knife,” and Dean snicks it down a notch, blood welling in the resulting scratch, “that I used to kill her. So how did you know to show up so fast at St. Mary’s to pick up the trail?”
There’s real fear in her eyes now, but she presses her lips together. Dean slices the blade down another notch, catches her gaze, and bends close. “I killed her with a single thrust,” he whispers. “And I’m a little sorry I didn’t make it last, and last… and last. Got a second chance to get it right with you.”
She twists her lips in a pitiful attempt at a sneer. “I’ll scream this place down, and when the cops see your kidnapping, detective-mutilating handiwork, they’ll come down on you like, well, Armageddon. They’ll do my work for me, shoot you to hell for ‘resisting arrest’.”
“There’s no one else here but the manager, and I made sure he had a bottle of Cuervo as a tip for the turn-down service,” Sam says. “Scream away, because he’s dead to the world by now.”
Gina looks at him, leaning one shoulder on the bathroom doorframe with a bored expression, a can of salt in one hand and a big plastic tumbler full of holy water in the other. And then she cuts her eyes to his brother, the one known to be Alastair’s star pupil, even whispered to be his successor if that holy little shit hadn’t yanked him out of school too soon.
Gut-churning terror snaps Gina’s defiance like a rotten rubber band.
“The demons don’t have your fucking angel, one of his brothers does.” She watches alarm wipe away the remoteness of Dean’s expression, and her lips split in a vicious grin despite her fear. “Not all the angels want Lucifer dead, you know-some of them just want their Fallen brother back. So one of them approached us; he wants you out of the picture, but lost sight of you for some reason. My job was to track you down and package you up for him-he says you’re hard to kill and he wants to do it himself.”
She swallows, and a bead of dark crimson squeezes out with the motion and rolls down her neck. “The angel killed two of my pack-I made sure the deal broker knew where, and he sent someone to collect him. Got him out of my way so I could get to you.”
Gina sags back, panting, gloating a little at Dean’s obvious distress. He withdraws the knife and shifts to block Sam’s view while he swipes away the blood with his thumb.
“What about Sam?”
“He’s done his part as far as they’re concerned. He really did say we could have Sam as a bonus for you and the traitor.”
“Who’s ‘he’? Which Pro-Lucifer groupie are we talking about here?”
She closes her eyes, drained and defeated. “Smarmy bastard named Zachariah.”
Her eyes pop right back open again when Dean explodes with incredulous laughter. “Oh, sweetheart, you’ve been had! ‘Demons lie’-hell, they’ve got nothing on angels!” He grins mockingly down at Gina. “Zachariah doesn’t want Lucifer free and me dead-well, not yet, anyway. He’s the one pulling all the strings to get me to ice ol’ Luci!”
Gina’s eyes go black and she shrieks. “That double-crossing feathered shit...!” Her back arches up as she strains against the restraints and the trap, tendons snapping into stark lines down her neck and arms. “I should have killed you when I walked in the door!” she snarls.
“Too late now.” Dean shrugs. He motions for Sam to hand him the glass of holy water. “I’m ready to call it a night, so let’s wrap this up.” He dips the knife, gives it a little swirl for effect. “Where’d Zachariah take Castiel?”
“I don’t know.” Gina’s eyes bulge and she squirms frantically as Dean tilts the knife so droplets rain down and spatter, sizzling, against her skin. “I don’t! He didn’t say! He just said to grab you and signal!” Her voice rises on a terrified scream.
“You are sheltered; I haven’t even gotten started yet.” Dean bends close and she cowers. “Let’s try this-where were you supposed to take me?”
For a long moment Gina just stares, one last attempt at bravado that dies as the stony coldness Dean’s radiating doesn’t waver.
“Just to the Ohio border,” she croaks finally. “He said to kick up another storm and he’d see me, that that was as close as I should get. Said he had some kind of ‘ultimate protection’-I thought he meant Lucifer.”
Dean jerks back, eyes widening. He spins, and Sam raises his eyebrows. “I know where he is,” Dean says urgently. “How fast can you exorcise this bitch back to Hell?”
Sam pushes off the wall. “I’m a little out of practice with the old-fashioned method, but I bet I can do it in under fifteen minutes.”
“Make it ten-we’ll have to get the girl someplace safe.”
“Don’t!” Gina’s wrenching at the knotted bedsheets, her fingers scrabbling uselessly on the sleazy bedspread. “I helped you out, I wasn’t going to hurt Sam at all, that has to count for something! Can’t you just let me go? I’ll help you track down this Zachariah, I will, I swear it…”
“Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus…” Sam begins, and Gina’s voice escalates into a despairing scream.
-----
Chuck Shurley nudged the curtains apart and peeked out at the street. The cops were still there; he could see the front end of the unmarked car poking out from behind the forsythia at the end of the block. They probably had some kind of spy scope trained on his window right this second.
He shivered and scanned slowly up the street. Mrs. Hamilton was still at her post in her bay window, staring fixedly at the front of his house, just daring something else strange to occur.
He let the curtains fall back into place and squared his shoulders. Might as well give them all something to stare at. He bent, seized the neck of the bulging trash bag by his feet, and flung open his door.
He could feel the surveillance camera clicking away as he thumped the bag down the porch steps. “’4:09 p.m. : subject transfers bag to curb, contents unknown’,” Chuck muttered. He heaved it into the growing pile at the end of his front walk and glared down at the heap. “I left the top open so you can dig through my trash!” he yelled toward the partially-hidden car, a sudden flash of daring overtaking common sense.
His nerve deserted him just that quickly. What was he thinking, taunting the cops who were watching his every move? Chuck hunched over and scurried back up his walk. He’d best keep his head down and go back to plowing through the rubble of his kitchen.
Once inside he turned dejectedly in a circle. Four of his fingers and a thumb had bandaids - okay, they were strips of toilet paper covered in tape - wrapped around them, but except for a gritty residue under his feet, all the broken glass was cleared away. Chilly air blew through the empty window panes, but the glass guy had wanted cash up front to replace them.
Chuck didn’t have the cash to replace a single shattered liquor bottle, let alone twenty-three windows, the front door pane, and a storm door.
The fridge was dead, too.
Chuck halted his shuffling circle and stared morosely at it, trying to decide if he was brave enough to open it and start mucking it out. It had been kind of a compost bin even before it spent 24 hours powered down while the cops took turns with him in that interrogation chamber.
Interview room. Whatever.
He stared harder at the door, trying to remember if there’d been a beer or two left before an archangel got dropped on his house, and if so, could it have survived, and if it had, was it worth the tsunami of fetid air that would swamp what was left of his kitchen if he opened the fridge to find out.
No. Not worth it, not yet. He’d try and salvage another box full of belongings and then go out to Wal-Mart for duct tape and plastic. If he showed up right before closing, they might not notice his credit card was maybe over its limit. He could stop at the liquor store on his way home.
Newly focused on a plan of action, Chuck picked up a carton and swung toward the living room. “YAAA!” he screamed, and threw the box at the ceiling.
Zachariah appeared in the center of the room without so much as a flap of warning. He glanced around with mild curiosity as he settled his jacket neatly on his shoulders and tweaked his cuffs. “Hello, Chuck.”
Chuck cringed against the wall, gasping. “Could you not do that?” he snapped, and then blanched and added hastily, “Uh, please. And, uh, sir.”
Zachariah’s bland smile didn’t falter, but it wasn’t reaching his eyes, either. He stepped, a little fussily, over a jumble of broken-spined books and motioned for Chuck to straighten up. “Your house is needed for angelic business. It would be best if you gathered some food and water and took yourself off to your bedroom upstairs.”
His hands were shaking, so Chuck jammed them in his pockets. “I think I’d rather let you do your angel business in private, okay?” He pasted a sickly smile on his face and edged sideways. “I’ve got to pick up plastic to cover my windows, and, uh, a new coffee pot… and mugs!” He was almost to the back door. “Yeah, pretty much everything needs replacing, so I’ll, uh, just go and do that and it’ll take awhile so you can do your business and I’ll stay out of it.”
Chuck sneaked one hand behind his back, fumbling for the doorknob. The metal was slick in his sweaty fingers, and his pulse kicked into high gear as he fought to turn it. Finally he got enough traction to twist the knob.
The latch didn’t release.
Abandoning nonchalance, Chuck spun and seized the doorknob in both hands and wrenched it back and forth in sudden panic.
Nothing. He slammed his shoulder into the door (and that hurt, kinda) and yanked on it again and nothing happened. Hell, it didn’t even shake in its frame.
“Chuck.”
Reluctantly he turned, pressing his back to the sealed door. Zachariah was smiling at him from across the kitchen, all placid benevolence on the surface, but radiating an undercurrent of menace that Chuck decided freaked him the fuck out.
“Your house is needed with you in it,” Zachariah explained. Lips pursing slightly, he waved overhead. “You know-the all-powerful embrace of the archangel spread protectively around your presence.”
“It’s still up there?” Chuck squeaked.
“Certainly is! And a good thing, too. You never know who might drop in to interrupt the holy works of angels. Now why don’t you run yourself a glass of water and grab a box of cereal and trot upstairs, hmm?”
Chuck didn’t bother pointing out that as a result of the archangel’s last visit, all his dishware had ended up in trash bags at the curb. He pushed slowly off the door. “Umm, yeah… glass of water, sure.” With forced casualness, he moved to the sink and opened the tap. As cold water gushed into the basin, he took a deep breath and heaved himself abruptly - and not all that gracefully - up onto the counter. With a sweep of his arm, he ripped the blinds from their brackets and lunged for the glassless window.
Chuck’s head rebounded silently from the seemingly-open space, hard enough that his eyes crossed. Arms flailing, he toppled off the counter and landed with a crash on the floor.
When his eyeballs stopped bouncing around his skull, Chuck tipped his head back to see the angel looming above him.
“Get up.”
The false cheer had vanished from Zachariah’s face. Chuck rolled over, and when he was on his feet, the angel pointed. Chuck trailed into the living room. With a gesture, Zachariah sent the blanket-draped couch sliding across the room to slam into the near wall, loosing a rain of plaster dust from the cracked ceiling.
“Sit down,” Zachariah ordered.
Chuck sat.
Huddled in the corner of his paper-strewn couch, he watched the angel prowl the circumference of the room, studying the walls. Zachariah drew his arm sideways with a controlled flourish, and a table and lamp and overflowing bookshelf all went crashing into the corner, leaving a broad swath of the back wall bare.
The air shifted in advance of beating wings. Chuck yelped and ducked into the cushions as an elderly man appeared, one arm extended behind him. His head turned sharply, like a bird of prey, as he looked back along his arm. He tugged, and a second figure fell out of the air and down into the room, stumbling as he was brought up short by the angel’s hand clenched tight around one arm.
Zachariah’s flat pale eyes lit up with triumph. “Castiel.” His lip curled in an insufferable smirk. “Welcome back, kiddo.”
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On to Chapter 3