Fic: Smoke on the Water for claudiapriscus (2/3)

[summergen_mod]

Part III

Sam wasn't nearly as amused the next day when he came and pounded on my door. I'd been on the phone all morning, trying to lure Willie back out of hiding, much to Fiona's disgust. She was never entirely on board with my determination to figure out who burned me and to get my old job back. After the fourth phone call she'd finally thrown up her hands and declared that she was going back to the case and that she'd call me if she found any promising leads. She also promised that she wouldn't go anywhere near the mysterious Sam and Dean if they showed up unlikely as that might be.

“Mike, we've got a problem,” he said, shutting the door behind him.

“What?” I flipped my cell phone shut. “They found your bug, by the way. Turns out the guy is really obsessed with his car.”

The conversation leading up to the bug's discovery had been entertaining but not especially informative, and they'd been confused about the bug's presence, which in turn hadn't made much sense to me. What sort of people had their training but didn't expect listening devices in their car?

“Yeah, that's not the problem. This is the problem,” Sam dropped a couple of illegally-copied files into my lap. “I think these might be our guys after all. Working as a team.”

“Sam and Dean Winchester,” I flipped open the first file, revealing a mug short of Dean, aka Agent Plant, looking altogether far too cheeky for a mug shot. “I guess I was right about them being related.”

“Having another Sam in the picture is really annoying,” Sam muttered. “It's confusing for everyone.”

I whistled as I looked through the file. The guy had never been convicted in a court of law, but he was wanted in half a dozen states on a list of charges as long as my arm. Fraud, impersonating an officer of the law, theft, arson, grave desecration of all random things, and, not least, murder. He was also listed as deceased, as was his younger brother Sam, purportedly killed in an explosion in early February. Sam had heretofore only been listed as a person of interest, the prevailing theory being that the older brother was the real delinquent and that the younger brother was the 'good kid,' a former Stanford student who'd let himself be dragged into a life of crime out of some sort of familial devotion. Obviously, whoever wrote the file had never seen Sam Winchester at work.

“The father was a piece of work,” Sam said, looking over my shoulder. “Crazy para-military type. Ex-marine who lost his grip on reality when his wife died in a fire. Dragged the two kids across the country and back, seeing evil everywhere. Raised them like soldiers, from the reports, steeped in his delusions.”

I felt my jaw tighten. My own father was a piece of work in his own way, but even if he'd smacked me around, it had never gone to such an extreme, and I had my mother to thank for that. I looked at the file in my lap again, conscious in a way I'd never been before how close I might have been to being dragged off the deep end.

“Doesn't excuse what they're doing now,” I said finally.

“No,” Sam sighed and shook his head. “But with a childhood like that? Ripped away from everything normal before the age of five? I'm not surprised they turned out to be sociopaths. Brother team. Wouldn't be the first time.”

“I guess our friends at Miami Dade are going to be getting a tip as to the whereabouts of two of their most wanted fugitives,” I flipped the files closed, unable to shake the feeling that I wasn't seeing the whole picture. “I want to find Greg, too. Preferably alive. But they haven't said a word about him or the other victims the whole time.”

“They'll probably clam up as soon as they're in custody,” Sam pointed out, and I couldn't help but agree. “Did they find the tracker I planted?”

I smiled. “Nope.”

“So, theoretically we could track them down and ask them a few questions ourselves. Before tipping off our friends, I mean.”

“Theoretically.”

Sam rubbed his hands together. He has about as much love for murdering psychopaths as I do. “All right then, let's see where they are today.”

I switched on the computer, brought up the tracking software, and froze. Sam's hand tightened on my shoulder. Within about a minute I had holstered my pistol and was sliding behind the steering wheel of Sam's car, Sam close on my heels, thumbing the speed-dial on my cell phone. A few heart-stopping rings later, the line picked up.

“Michael? What's wrong? Why are you calling?”

“Mom!” I tried to keep the relief out of my voice. “Are you all right?”

“I'm perfectly fine, Michael,” she sounded annoyed.

“Is there anyone there with you right now?”

“As a matter of fact, there is,” her voice turned warm. “Two very nice young men are here concerning an investigation. I was just showing them your father's car. It turns out one of them is quite the car lover!”

“They're not in the room with you?”

“Not right now Michael, what is this about?”

I kept my free hand on the steering wheel, and blew through four yellow lights as I talked. “Look, Mom, if you can, get them to leave. I'm going to be there in a few minutes. If they won't leave, get out of the house, do you hear me?”

“Michael, I want you to tell me what this is about!”

“I'll explain when I get there, I promise,” I said, narrowly avoiding a green Pinto that had come out of nowhere and was now blaring angrily at me.

She huffed. “Fine. Do that,” she bit out, and hung up.

*

For the second time in a week, Sam and I entered my mother's kitchen with guns drawn, only this time it wasn't to be greeted with a dismembered lamp. The Winchester brothers were seated at her kitchen table, looking as respectable as they could be in the same cheap suits in which I'd first seen them, laughing over their cups of coffee as if they'd just stopped in for a chat. They were both out of their chairs in a hurry, though, when they found themselves staring down the barrel of my nine millimetre.

“Woah, easy there,” Dean said, backing the two of them up by my mother's sink, already looking for escape routes.

“Mom, I need you to walk past me slowly, and into the living room. Don't come back in here until I tell you it's safe, okay?” I kept my voice calm, my gun trained on them, and my gaze locked with Dean's. If he was the ringleader, then he was the one I wanted to negotiate with. I'd let Sam deal with Sam. Unfortunately, my mother had different ideas.

“Michael, what is the meaning of this? You know how I feel about you brandishing guns in my house!”

Dean nodded, and for a second there was a spark of amusement in his eyes. “I think your mother makes a valid point there, uh, Michael. Why don't you and your buddy ease up there, put the guns away, and, uh, we can sort this out without anyone getting hurt?”

“Yeah, that's not going to happen,” I echoed his brother's words from the night before. “You can't threaten my mother and expect me not to take it personally. So you, your brother and I are going to have a little chat about what you did with the others. Mom, I'm serious. Go in the living room. Right now.”

Deans face registered nothing but confusion. “What others? Threaten?” It was a pretty good act, I had to give him that. “What the hell, dude?”

“I am not going anywhere,” Mom said stubbornly. God help me, she'd probably taken a shine to them. They were young, well-spoken, charming, but then, a lot of sociopaths are. “Don't be melodramatic, Michael. They didn't threaten me. They've been very polite.”

“Look,” the younger brother spoke for the first time, keeping his hands up, his tone reasonable. In the light of day he looked impossibly young, barely more than a kid. Still, at his age I'd been around the world three times already, and I'd already killed a man. “We're not here to hurt anyone, or whatever you think. We just wanted to ask a few questions. I know it looks bad, but I swear, we're not out to hurt people.”

“That's not what your police file says,” I said coldly.

He flinched visibly, and seemed to shrink into himself. Quite a feat for someone his height. “It's not what it seems.”

“That's what they all say.”

Dean bristled at that, moving a fraction of an inch to stand just that much more between the guns and his brother. Interesting, I thought, and I filed it away for future reference. “Hey, come on now. You don't want us here, I get that. I do, and in your shoes I'd react the same way. But we're not threatening anyone. So we'll just be on our way, no harm, no foul.”

“Not until you've told us what you did with those kids. Mom, for the last time, get in the living room. Please. Sam?”

The younger brother's head jerked toward me in surprise just as Sam said “Yeah, Mike?”

“You want to check them over for weapons?”

“We're not carrying,” Sam-the-younger said.

“And look what a great idea that turned out to be,” Dean complained. “No, you said, we're interviewing civilians! We can't go in armed,” he mimicked in falsetto, although I noted once again the use of the word 'civilians.' It fit better now that I knew about their background.

“Dean, this is so not the time,” his brother kicked his ankle.

“Ow!”

My Sam stepped forward, and began checking them methodically, starting with Sam. The kid threw him a curious look. “So your name is Sam too?” he shrugged when Sam didn't answer. “That's gonna get confusing.”

“Keep your mouth shut for now, and we'll keep the confusion to a minimum,” Sam snapped, but the kid didn't appear to be in a listening frame of mind.

“Look, I don't know what you think we did, but I promise you, it's not what you think. We're just trying to help.”

“Sam,” his brother warned. “This isn't the moment for the truth-is-out-there speech.”

Sam rolled his eyes, but I could tell Dean had made his point, whatever it was. For a moment it seemed like things were going to go our way. Sam - my Sam, and this really was getting confusing - checked Dean over for a concealed weapon, found none, and was pulling back when I recognized the look on Dean's face. Apparently, so did his brother, because he opened his mouth to shout a warning.

“Dean, no!”

Dean was already moving, faster than a striking snake, and he had a hand on Sam's gun and was driving the other at his jugular before I so much as had time to blink, knocking him back with a fierceness even I hadn't been expecting. The trick when you're caught off-guard is to make sure your recovery time is lightning-fast. I hadn't banked on the brothers' reflexes being that good, but mine are pretty sharp, and it only took me a fraction of a second to readjust my aim and pull the trigger. The next thing I knew, the other Sam had shoved his brother out of the way in time to catch my otherwise well-placed shot in his right shoulder. He let out a muted yelp of pain and folded in on himself, knees buckling, blood already oozing between the fingers of the hand he'd clapped over the wound.

“Sammy!”

*

There was chaos for a few seconds, but not enough for me to regain control of the situation. Dean had kept hold of Sam's gun and was keeping it trained on me, while I kept mine trained on him.

Mom had her back against the far wall of the kitchen, one hand pressed to her mouth in shock. “Michael, what have you done?”

“Sam, you okay?” I asked, ignoring her.

“Yeah, Mike,” Sam coughed, his voice hoarse, which is only to be expected after you've been hit in the throat. It must have been a glancing blow, for which I guessed we were all grateful. Well, all except Dean, maybe.

Dean was glaring at me, but he slipped gracefully to one knee and put out his free hand to check on his brother, who was slumped against the cabinets beneath the sink, leaving a smear of pink behind. “Sammy? You with me?”

His brother let out a soft groan, made an effort to sit up and failed. “D'n?” he blinked, eyes not focussing on anything in particular. “Shot me,” he said, sounding faintly indignant.

“Okay, Sammy. You hang on for me, okay? I'm going to get us out of here.”

Sam coughed and winced, but seemed to marshal himself. “Tol' you this was a bad plan. 's a water spirit. Water spirits don' carry guns,” he said, in the tones of someone pointing out the blatantly obvious to a slightly dim-witted child. Dean's expression flickered between worry and exasperation.

“Yeah, okay, I get it. Save the I-told-you-so's for when you're not bleeding and we don't have a gun pointed at us, deal?”

“Dean,” Sam's eyes fluttered for a moment. “Y'should give Sam back his gun. Gesture of good faith.”

“Sam makes a very valid point,” Sam nodded, still rubbing his throat. “Give it back, son.”

Dean's eyes flashed. “I'm not your son,” he snapped. “And right now, it's pretty much the only leverage I've got, seeing as how you're intent on killing us or worse.”

“Your brother needs a hospital,” I said, trying to be the voice of reason. “You're not exactly in a position to negotiate here, Dean.”

His eyes flicked from me to his brother, and I could almost see the gears turning in his mind. A hospital was out of the question, even if he and his brother were the type to have insurance, which they weren't. Hospitals were required by law to report gun shot wounds, and that was a boatload of attention they couldn't risk.

“Why don't you let me worry about my brother?”

The thing with shoulder wounds, is that they're a lot nastier than the average television show would have you believe. On TV, the hero gets tagged in the shoulder and shrugs it off with a manly grunt and maybe a shot of whisky to take off the edge, because everyone knows there's nothing vital there. Except everyone is wrong. Best case scenario, the bullet is a clean in-and-out through the first intercostal area, and you come out of it with muscle damage and often enough a broken rib or clavicle. Worst case scenario, you end up with a pneumothorax and die. From the looks of it, the Winchesters were more than familiar with the potential ramifications of Sam's injury. Dean was chewing on his lip.

“Look, I just want to get my brother out of here.”

“Like I said: not going to happen. For what it's worth, no one else is going to get hurt, so long as we get our questions answered.”

His brother tugged weakly on his jacket. “Dean,” he made an effort to speak clearly, though he was starting to have trouble catching his breath. “They think we're killers. Now... might be a good time... for a gesture of good faith. Prove we're not.”

For a second I thought Dean was going to put up a fight, but a moment later he let his head drop in a clear gesture of defeat. He turned a sceptical look toward me. “Okay,” he breathed. “You're obviously not letting us go anywhere, so here's the deal. I'm going to give your buddy back his gun, and you're going to let me at least stop the bleeding and get my brother patched up as best I can. Then I'll answer whatever questions you've got. Sound fair?”

Fair had nothing to do with it, but I nodded. “Sounds fair. I'll even help, so long as you don't try anything else. Deal?”

He nodded, eyes back on his brother. “Deal.” He spread his fingers, balancing the pistol on his thumb, and lowered it to the floor, sliding it toward Sam with a push. “Sammy, you still with me?”

He proceeded to ignore me, already pulling off his jacket and easing his brother down so that he was lying flat on the floor. The kid was pale, sweating, eyes half-closed. Shock, probably. I handed my pistol to Sam with a nod, knelt beside the kid and felt for a pulse. It was there, thready and erratic, but definitely there.

“Mom, you still got that first aid kit I left in the garage?”

“Of course,” she said, her voice shaky. “Is he all right?”

“I'm working on it, Mom. Could you get the kit for me, please?” I didn't bother looking to see if she went. “Sam?” The kid jerked at the sound of his name, but I wasn't talking to him.

“Yeah, Mike?”

“We're going to need help with this.”

I felt rather than saw him nod. “Okay, I'll make some calls.”

*

In the field, temporary truces and alliances are all but inevitable. Sooner or later you're going to find yourself on the same side of a very bad situation right alongside a guy who, a minute before, was trying to kill you. Under those circumstances, you have little choice but to put aside your differences for as long as it takes to get the both of you out of there. After that, you're both free to cheerfully go back to trying to kill each other.

With Dean's help I started easing Sam's jacket off his shoulders, trying to ignore the faint moan I got in protest. The kid was tough, I had to give him that. Most men would have either screamed or passed out by then, but he was just gritting his teeth and clinging to consciousness.

“We'll have to cut the shirt off,” was Dean's curt assessment when we saw the dark stain spreading on the back of Sam's shirt. “It's a through-and-through. You're gonna have a hole in your wall,” he added, almost irrelevantly.

That was good news and bad news. Good news, in that there wasn't a bullet lodged somewhere in Sam's body. Bad news, because it was impossible to tell just how bad the damage was without more invasive procedures. Mom placed the first aid kit next to me, and the next few minutes passed in silence, punctuated only by the sound of laboured breathing, the occasional order from me, and the even more occasional request for clarification by Dean. Being a spy means that, sometimes, you're going to find yourself in a situation out in the field when there is no immediate access to medical assistance. As a result, you have to become your own field medic. It shouldn't have come as a surprise to me that Dean Winchester had training of his own, but it did, and the surprise must have registered on my face. He just shrugged.

“Sam's better at this sort of thing than I am,” he said, as though that explained everything.

I cut away the ruined shirt, and concluded that our patient was lucky. Reasonably lucky, anyway. The bullet had caught him high on his right shoulder, had gone in at the first intercostal space, right beneath the collarbone. At that angle he'd probably broken a rib, which would hurt like hell but was unlikely to be fatal unless he did something really stupid. No spurting blood meant I hadn't nicked an artery, which was definitely good if I didn't want him bleeding out on my mother's kitchen floor, and it looked like I'd missed most of the major blood vessels. Without an X-ray it was impossible to tell if the bullet had chipped any other bones, but overall, if we could get the bleeding stopped, I was pretty sure we could keep the kid from dying.

Dean proved just as efficient at packing a wound as he was at disarming opponents and if he'd managed to disarm Sam, that said something for him. Sam might not be at the top of his game anymore, but he was still a damned good operative.

“You should put him in the guest room,” my mother said, lighting another cigarette. “He'll be more comfortable on a bed.”

“Mom, you can't be serious. These men are dangerous,” I started before she interrupted me with a quelling look.

“They were perfectly civilized before you came barging in, guns blazing. And you can't tell me that unconscious boy is a threat now. You're going to be fixing that cabinet, by the way. I won't have bullet holes in my kitchen.”

“Hey, how come you never let me stay in the guest room?” Sam sounded aggrieved as he returned. “I made some calls, and a buddy of mine says he'll help us out. I knew him when he was starting out as a field medic.”

“I never let you stay in the guest room because you've got a place of your own,” Mom countered. “With that lady friend of yours. What's her name?”

“Veronica.”

I wasn't about to stick around and listen to Sam argue with my mother, and Dean seemed to be entirely in agreement with me on that point. He leaned over his brother, rubbing a hand on his good arm.

“Hey, Sammy, we're going to put you somewhere more comfortable than this floor. Can you stand if I help you?”

Sam's eyelids fluttered a bit before he forced them open, then he gritted his teeth and nodded. “I'm okay,” he managed, voice strangled.

“You've got a crap definition of 'okay,' dude. What the hell are they teaching at Stanford these days, anyway?” Dean rolled his eyes as he propped him upright. “You ready? On three. One, two!”

He hauled his brother to his feet on two, in a move that looked altogether too practised. For a moment Sam's knees buckled and he sagged against Dean, who staggered under the unexpected weight, but they sorted themselves out and I led the way to what used to be my bedroom and now served as a guest room. I was half-expecting Dean to make a break for it at any second, but apparently I was underestimating his attachment to his little brother, because he showed no signs of going anywhere once the kid was settled on the cheap double bed, his face grey with pain, lips bloodless.

Sam's old army buddy showed up about twenty minutes later, a steel-haired guy with a ramrod-straight bearing who spared the both of us a disapproving look before kicking us out so he could 'work in peace,' as he put it. Dean looked like he was clamping down on the urge to deck the guy, but he reluctantly preceded me back into the kitchen and dropped into a chair, looking older and more tired than I'd seen up until now.

“So,” he said, lips pulling into a smirk that looked forced, even to me. “What would you like to know?”

*

There's an art to interrogating a subject, and it's one you learn fairly early on. If your subject doesn't know you're questioning him, then your approach is going to be different than if you've got him tied to a chair. The same also applies for in-between situations, like if you've got a hostile subject sitting in your mother's kitchen, who's apparently willing to answer questions but might be just as likely to lie to your face in order to save himself. It also doesn't help if your mother is sitting with you, smoking a cigarette and butting in every two minutes.

“So you're not really conducting an investigation?” she asked, sounding as though she'd been personally hurt by the betrayal.

“No, we are,” Dean assured her. “Just... not exactly the investigation we said we were conducting.”

“Why were you coming after my son, then?”

“Mom, could you let me handle this, please?”

“Michael, these boys lied to my face! I expect an explanation, at the very least. And an apology,” she added, stubbing out her cigarette and lighting another one.

“We're not coming after anyone,” Dean said, his expression annoyed. “We ran across him twice in the course of our investigation, and anyone with a lick of sense knows that even coincidences need to be explored.”

It was a fair enough explanation, but not exactly satisfactory. “So what were you doing at the hotel?”

“You wouldn't believe me if I told you.”

“Try me.”

Dean sighed and rubbed his eyes with the thumb and forefinger of his right hand. “We were checking for spirit activity.”

“Spirit activity,” I repeated flatly. I don't enjoy being messed with even on a good day, and this was definitely not a good day.

“Told you you wouldn't believe me.”

I was silent for a minute, remembering the snippet of conversation between them I'd overhead at the hotel. Hadn't his brother said something about it not being a spirit?

“Okay. Let's pretend for a minute you aren't lying to my face. What sort of spirit activity?”

He looked up in surprise, apparently not expecting me to humour him. “A vengeful spirit,” he leaned forward, his expression earnest. “We heard about all these kids going missing, right? In their early twenties, and all fitting the same sort of personality. It's a pattern, see?” he warmed to his subject with the kind of enthusiasm only true passion can muster. “So we figured it might be a spirit connected to the water somehow, because all the bodies were found drowned, supposedly. We had that in a case a couple of years back, a kid drowned in a lake who was drowning all the people related to the guys responsible for his death.”

There aren't too many things that can catch me completely off-guard, or leave me with nothing to do except stare incredulously, but it seems as though the talk of vengeful water spirits deserves a spot on that list. I stared at him, and he shrugged.

“Whatever, man. You asked.”

“You do realize that's insane, right?”

Another shrug. “If I had a nickel for all the times I've had to give the 'truth-is-out-there' speech to civilians... anyway, I get it. No one believes until they've seen it for themselves. And before you waste your saliva, I know what the police reports say: Sam and I are delusional. We were brainwashed by our crackpot Dad into believing insane things, and he turned us into killers.”

“The reports also say you're dead.”

“See? Can't believe anything you read,” the smirk was back, but there was a tinge of sadness in the tone, too. “That was Henricksen's doing. He figured it out, right before he died. Did us a favour.”

“The agent assigned to your case?” I asked, and he nodded.

“He was a good guy. Would have made a great hunter, if he'd lived.”

“What happened to him?”

“Killed by a demon,” came the curt reply, and I got the feeling that was all I was going to get on the subject. At least, that was it unless I decided to resort to more extreme methods of interrogation, and that wasn't the right call here. Dean Winchester might be dangerously psychotic, but right now he was cooperating, and it was impossible to tell what might set him off. Threatening his brother seemed like a good way to do that, so I avoided it.

He shifted in his seat. The movement was almost unnoticeable, as was the way his eyes tracked back toward the door, to where his brother was still being tended. Family is always tricky: even if your brother is a pain in the ass or your mother is neurotic and high-maintenance, you can't ever really bring yourself to leave them to their fate. Dean was itching to check on his Sammy, and I used his unease to my advantage.

“So tell me about these kids.”

His gaze slid back to me. “I already told you, we were looking into the pattern.”

“No one else saw a pattern there,” I pointed out.

“No one else was looking.”

“Is that what happened to Gladys' nephew?”

“Mom!” I snapped. There's nothing worse than having someone who's not trained in interrogation present during an interview. They'll often give away more than you want. Dean shot me a curious look.

“Is that why you were at the hotel?”

“No.”

“You're not the police,” it was a statement of fact.

“No,” I confirmed. Didn't seem much point in hiding it.

“And not the FBI. No other agency that I know of looks into that sort of thing. So that means you're doing this on your own time. But you're not a hunter.”

“Never cared much for hunting.”

“Huh,” he leaned back in his chair, tipping it back onto two legs, looking more like a delinquent school kid than anything else. He tilted his head, expression shrewd. “So you weren't at the hotel because of the case. But it was why your girlfriend was at the club last night.”

“She's not my girlfriend.”

“Whatever, man,” he waved dismissively. “Sounds to me like we're both looking for the same thing.”

Part IV

Maybe it was a way to distract himself from the knowledge that some stranger was stitching up his brother in the next room, or maybe Dean Winchester really did care that much about his work no matter how messed-up his view of the world might be. Either way, it seemed that once he'd made up his mind to talk, he talked. It was hard to reconcile the eager attitude and the blunt, no-nonsense manner he'd adopted from the start with the reports I'd read, which described him as a cold, manipulative murderer who'd tortured and killed two women in St. Louis, Missouri and would have killed a third had the cops not showed up.

“So you think we're looking for the same guy?”

Dean made a noncommittal gesture with one hand. “I don't think it's a guy, but yeah. The pattern's there.”

“You don't think it's a person,” I said flatly, unable to keep the disbelief from my voice.

He quirked an eyebrow. “And you do? Really? Explain to me, then, if it's a serial killer, how they managed to be in, like, three places at once.”

“How do you know that?”

Dean rubbed the back of his neck. “Sam can explain that better. I've got the files out in the car. You mind if I get them? I promise to come right back,” he lifted his right hand in a parody of a boy scout salute.

“Yeah. Why don't I let Sam go with you?” I motioned to Sam, who'd been watching the proceedings from a corner of the kitchen, arms folded across his chest. He nodded, straightening, and Dean just shrugged, as though he'd been expecting something of the sort. They were gone less than five minutes, but when they returned, Dean stubbornly held onto the stack of papers and the laptop he'd apparently retrieved from the trunk of their car. Sam threw me a look that told me we had even more to discuss, but there wasn't exactly time right now.

“I want to check on Sam first. You mind?” Dean jerked his head toward the other room.

I made a 'go-ahead' motion, and followed him back to the guest bedroom, where Sam's buddy was finishing up, scrubbing his hands clean with a handful of antiseptic wipes. The other Sam was still looking like death warmed over, his eyes closed and his face grey. His breathing was better, though, and it looked like he'd been given a pretty hefty dose of painkillers, judging by the expression on his face. His chest and shoulder had been carefully bandaged, and his hand strapped to the opposite shoulder to keep it stable. He was more muscled than I'd thought, even half-hidden under the bandages. His clothes obviously served to disguise more than his identity.

“He's lucky,” the medic said by way of greeting. “With proper care, he probably won't lose any mobility. Probably doesn't even need surgery. Damned lucky shot.”

“Thanks, Jim,” Sam clapped him on the shoulder. “I owe you one. You need anything, you let me know.”

Dean dropped into a squat by the bed and took his brother's uninjured hand. “Hey, Sammy. They got you on the good stuff, or what?”

Jim snorted. “No good stuff here. Gave him some Percocet, that should keep him for now. Keep him well-hydrated, he's lost more blood than I'd like for someone who's not going to get a transfusion. I left a bottle of electrolyte solution there,” he jerked his head toward the night table. “Tepid, but beggars can't be choosers. I left you the recipe to make more. Make sure he drinks a lot of it. He'd be better off in a hospital.”

“If the hospital were an option, we'd have taken him.”

“It's what I figured. I've written down a list of things to watch for. Any of those happen, you need to take him to a hospital, or find a coroner,” Jim said drily, handing the list to Sam. “He spikes a fever of over 102, give me a call.” He brushed past me. “I can see myself out.”

Sam was struggling to sit up on the bed, and only managed it when his brother helped him and propped him up with the pillows that had been tossed aside so the medic could work.

“Take it easy,” Dean cautioned. “You lost a lot of blood.”

“Y'okay? They wouldn't tell me...”

“I'm fine, Sam,” the tone of mixed fondness and exasperation was back. “You're the one who took the bullet. Which, by the way, I thought we discussed. You're not allowed to take bullets for me anymore.”

The kid shook his head. “Seventy-four days.”

Dean blinked, his expression about as confused as I felt. I looked over at my Sam, who just shrugged. “What?”

“I've only got you for seventy-four more days. Not letting them have you... a minute sooner,” the kid said, staring so intently at Dean that I was mildly surprised he didn't bore a hole right through his skull. If I was hoping for an explanation, I was destined to be disappointed. Dean just bit his lip and smoothed the hair away from his brother's forehead.

“How many times do I have to tell you not to worry about that?”

Sam grinned faintly. “At least once more.”

“God, you're such a girl. Are you quoting a Disney movie?”

“Only if you're admitting to watching it.”

“Yeah, I hate to interrupt your little moment,” my Sam broke in, “but we're sort of on a schedule here.”

The other Sam blinked, surprised. “We've still got a couple of days before it strikes again.”

“What?” It was Sam's turn to blink.

“The pattern,” the kid reached for the folders that Dean had set aside, then winced as the movement jolted his shoulder. Dean pulled them over and dropped them in his lap. He flipped open the first few, and looked up at us, his eyes bright, if a little fogged over from the painkillers. “See? The bodies aren't going to turn up for at least two more days.”

*

Sometimes when you're right in the middle of a situation, you lose your perspective. It happens even to the best operative, especially when you're in the presence of a person - or people - who are passionately convinced that their delusions are true. Sam looked like he was half-convinced already by the Winchesters' little story, and I'll admit it was tempting to believe it. The other Sam was trying clumsily to sort through the papers on his lap, hampered by the drugs in his system and the fact that he was forced to use his off-hand, and also by his brother's insistence that he drink the entire contents of the bottle of electrolyte solution he was holding for him.

“They come in clusters, you see?” he pulled out a sheet of notepad paper on which someone had scribbled the dates and times at which the bodies had been discovered in one column, and the dates on which the kids had gone missing. There were more names and dates in the second column, implying that there were a lot more victims than we'd previously thought. “The last body was found last week, which means at least two more days before... well, I don't know if they're kept alive that long, but we're hoping that's the case.”

“A serial killer might get off on keeping them around,” I agreed tentatively, but the kid shook his head.

“Not a serial killer. I mean, I suppose it could be, but the bodies were all discovered around the same time, and have roughly the same time of death, which rules out one person doing it. I mean, maybe it's a team, but they'd have to be really organized. Besides, there's no evidence of, umm...” he hesitated. “Serial killers usually get off on torture, or power games, or whatever. And there's no evidence of that,” he finished quietly, and the look of undisguised loathing on his face went a longer way to convincing me that I wasn't dealing with stone-cold killers than the entire time I'd spent with them up until now. Psychopaths don't register that sort of emotion, it just isn't in their psychological make-up.

Dean squeezed his knee, watching him anxiously. “Keep drinking. You need a break?”

Sam shook his head. “I'm fine. It's just... something about this doesn't feel right.”

“Something?” Sam snorted from where he was leaning in the doorway. “If I wasn't sober as a judge I'd swear I was too drunk for this conversation. So my new theory is that I'm too sober for this conversation.”

“Okay,” I shot Sam a glare, then looked back to the other Sam. “Why don't you tell me what doesn't feel right to you?”

The kid tried to shrug, flinched with pain. “I'm not sure. I was thinking about it, before,” he rubbed at his eyes with his good hand, and I noticed his words starting to slur again. “The autopsy reports, I think. I can't put my finger on it, but there's something about the way they died... doesn't sound like a water spirit. Not exactly.”

“How did you get your hands on autopsy reports?” Sam wanted to know. He sounded a little offended that someone apart from him was apparently able to get their hands on restricted documents.

The other Sam blushed a little. It was actually kind of endearing, and I couldn't believe I was thinking of him in those terms. “Uh, I sort of have a couple of workarounds. You know, for research.”

“You mean you hacked into the police database,” I supplied.

“Mostly,” he leaned back against his pillows, shifting uncomfortably as the movement put added pressure on his shoulder.

To my surprise, Dean flashed a grin at me that stretched from ear to ear. “Candy the desk clerk is very partial to appletini's and a story that tugs at the heart-strings. Sammy, that stuff isn't gonna drink itself. Come on.”

I was a little taken aback, but it made sense. Sam is a pretty old hand with the ladies, a tried and true method of gathering intel, and Dean looked like he could be a hell of a charmer if he put his mind to it. He certainly had my mother eating out of the palm of his hand. I kind of wished Fiona was there to help me keep some measure of perspective on the situation. At least I was aware enough to realize I'd long since lost my objectivity, but that didn't actually make me feel better about it all.

I looked back in time to see Sam's eyes flutter closed. Frankly, I was surprised the kid had lasted that long without succumbing to exhaustion and blood loss and shock. When he was sure he was out, Dean smoothed the hair from his forehead again, let his hand linger on the kid's face for maybe a fraction of a second longer than he might have otherwise.

“Idiot,” he muttered under his breath, but his expression belied the word.

My mother bustled in a moment later. “I made some iced tea. You boys need to clear out so Sam there can get some rest,” she announced, sounding authoritative in a way only my mother can manage.

“I'm good here,” Dean said, a stubborn set to his jaw, but he'd never tried to out-stubborn my mother. She fixed him with a glare.

“Don't be ridiculous, Dean. How can the boy get any decent sleep with you hovering? You boys go have some iced tea in the kitchen. I'll be nearby if he needs anything,” she forestalled his protest, and the next thing we knew the three of us were being hustled out the door.

“I need to check in with Fiona, make sure she's still doing okay,” I pulled out my phone. “I'll join you guys in a minute.”

*

Fiona was fine, and let me know in no uncertain terms that I was both annoying her and potentially messing with her cover by calling, and so my call was cut shorter than I would have liked. When I made my way back into the kitchen, Sam was quizzing Dean with the enthusiasm of a five-year-old in a candy factory. Dean was leaning back, his chair tilted onto its back legs, nursing a bottle of beer that was already beginning to sweat in the heat.

“What about vampires and werewolves?” Sam was asking.

“Yup. They're not exactly like what you see on television, but close enough. Mind you, vampires are pretty rare: up until a couple of years ago, we thought they were extinct. They're sort of making a comeback.”

“Mummies?”

Dean pursed his lips and tilted his head. “Not exactly, but there are ways to raise the dead. All black magic, and it's a really crappy idea. The dead always come back psychotically violent. What's dead should stay dead,” he said, with such force that I figured there had to be more behind it than a simple bad encounter. He glanced up as he caught sight of me coming in, and the cocky grin came back. “If it's any consolation, there's no such thing as unicorns or Bigfoot. Total myths.”

“Consider me comforted,” I said drily.

“So you're looking for a missing kid, right?” he asked, leaning forward so that his chair landed with a thunk back on its front legs. “Your mom mentioned something about a friend's nephew. Gladys?”

“That's right,” I confirmed. There wasn't much point in denying it.

“How long's he been missing?”

“About three days.”

“Then we've got a pretty good chance of getting him back,” Dean was fiddling with the label on his beer bottle. “Alive and maybe even in one piece.”

“I'm still not convinced you don't have him locked away somewhere.”

“Dude,” the reply was an irritated huff. “I get that you think I'm a serial killer or whatever, but you need to back off on that. The thing in St. Louis? Not me. The rest of it is all true, but I'm not a killer, and neither is Sam.”

Sam took a drink from his bottle. “You're copping to arson and grave desecration?”

He got a shrug. “You want to put a vengeful spirit to rest? You gotta salt and burn the remains. That means digging up corpses and setting them on fire. Illegal in all fifty states, and we don't exactly have the luxury of explaining to the local cops that, no, really, we're just trying to help.”

“And the fraud?”

He looked up, kept his eyes on Sam. “Hunting ain't exactly a pro ball career, dude. Strictly pro bono. No one pays us for this gig, and the benefits suck. So, yeah. Credit card fraud is one way of keeping ourselves afloat. Some hunters have legitimate ways of earning their keep, but that's maybe one hunter out of twenty or thirty. The rest of us get by any way we can.”

I felt my eyes widen, but I let Sam keep on with the questioning. He'd established a rapport with the guy, and had the added advantage of not being the one to shoot his kid brother in the shoulder. “There are more of you?”

“Of course,” there was ill-disguised scorn in his voice. “The reason most of you sleep soundly at night is because there are people like me taking care of the things that stalk the darkness,” he kept his voice deceptively quiet, and in spite of myself I felt a shiver run up my spine. “So, you're not like any private detective I've ever met,” he said, looking at me and changing the topic so suddenly I almost got whiplash. “You know how to handle yourself, and I nearly got my ass handed to me by your girlfriend. Sorry, not your girlfriend,” he amended sarcastically. “But yeah. You're obviously ex-Navy,” he said to Sam, who looked startled. “SEALs, right?”

“Observant,” Sam said mildly.

“But you? You I can't figure. Sam - my brother - he's convinced you're either former CIA or maybe a private contractor. But that doesn't explain why you're looking for some random kid in L.A. Whose aunt knows your mother.” I shrugged, and his grin turned wolfish. “Okay, I can take a hint.”

“All right. So let's say I at least believe that you believe what you're saying. What were you and your brother planning to do about it?”

“The original plan was to figure out the thing's killing pattern or it might be a feeding pattern, since it might not be a spirit and then stake out the next likely spot, throw out some bait, see if we got a bite.”

“You were the bait, I take it?”

He batted his eyelashes exaggeratedly. “Sammy doesn't blend into party crowds well.” I was pretty sure it had more to do with the fact that Dean wanted his little brother nowhere near a potential source of danger, but decided against saying anything. “Besides, wasn't that your plan with your girl, there?”

“Fiona.”

“Fiona,” he agreed easily. “Problem was, she spotted me as being out of place the same way I spotted her, so we cancelled each other out. So here's my suggestion. We're working the same case, with the same overall technique, except thanks to you my partner's out of the game. The best plan now is to send us both - me and your Fiona - in to work the case together.”

*

To say I wasn't thrilled at the idea of any of us working closely with Dean Winchester would have been an understatement. For one thing, it was a little hard to swallow his story about the killer in St. Louis being a shape-shifter who'd taken on his identity before torturing and murdering his victims. For another, I don't like working with amateurs, and I especially don't like working with people whose backgrounds and expertise I haven't yet vetted. Dean was derisive when I mentioned the word 'amateur,' though.

“Look, Michael. You're a professional... whatever-it-is. I get it. But this? This is my job. I can't in good conscience let you all go in there without knowing what you're getting into. Spirits are nasty and vicious, and they don't play by human rules. I let you go in there, one or more of you is probably going to get killed.”

“You seem pretty confident of that, son,” Sam said. “Mike, Fiona and I have been in the game for a long time. In my case, probably longer than you've been out of school.”

“For the last time, I'm not your son,” Dean said coolly. “I hear you, you're badass. I don't doubt it. Like I said, you pretty much nearly handed my ass to me. You're not listening to what I'm saying: what we're up against - Regular bullets won't work.”

“Okay,” I interrupted before the conversation escalated into an argument. “Before we start talking bullets, we still need to do some recon. So, Dean, if you're willing, I'll send you in with Fiona, let her know you're going to be working the case too, so she doesn't get the wrong idea. My goal is simple: find Greg, get him out safely, then take out whoever's been killing kids for kicks.”

If Dean wanted to take me up on my choice of pronouns, he let it slide. “Right. The sooner we go, the better. There's been more men taken than women, which is why I was pretty sure we're looking for a female whatever-it-is. So maybe your friend Fiona will get a bite, but I think it's more likely I'll run into the thing. You think you can watch my back on this?”

The question was deadly serious. Under different circumstances, I would have been insulted at the implication that our skills weren't up to par, but the guy was so matter-of-fact about it that I didn't bother taking offence. I nodded.

“Sam and I can back you up. But I need you to shoot straight with me on this. We're already going out on a limb, trusting you when we should be turning you straight over to Miami Dade, especially with the story you're feeding us.”

“I got no reason to lie to you. Yeah, okay, I got reason to lie to the cops, but you're not cops, and you've got my little brother in the other room. As far as I can tell, you're not complete douchebags, so I'm going out on a limb here too. I'm wanted in, like, six states. You can appreciate that I don't want to give you a reason to turn on me, right?”

“Right.”

“Okay, good. So I'm going to check on Sammy, and then we can get this show on the road.”

'Sammy' was still looking pretty terrible when we looked in, but he came awake when his brother perched carefully on the edge of the bed to fill him in on what we'd talked about, and took the opportunity to make him drink more of the electrolyte stuff. The kid was visibly unhappy with the decision.

“Dean, come on. You're going to let these people use you as bait? We don't even know them. They're gonna get you killed!”

Dean looked as though he was about to say something smart, then thought better of it. “They're good, Sam. You remember what happened last night? I'll be careful, and it's better than going in without backup, right?”

His brother was already having trouble staying awake. “I should be going with you,” he mumbled, and Dean gave him a reassuring pat on his good shoulder.

“It's okay, I swear. I'll have backup. Besides, I need you to use that giant geek brain of yours to research what it is we're dealing with. You think it's not a vengeful spirit, so you need to figure out what it is so we can kill it. Got it?”

“Mm,” it sounded like agreement. “They got wireless here?”

“The neighbour has an unsecured network,” Sam supplied helpfully, then gave me an elaborately innocent look when I glared. “What? It's not like Maddie even has a computer! How am I supposed to connect to the internet when I'm here?”

“You can always get your own,” Mom said, appearing in the doorway and making Sam jump. She was brandishing a bucket and a mop, and directed a stern look in my direction. “And Michael, these are for you.”

“What?”

“Michael, if you are going to be shooting young men in my kitchen, you're going to clean up your own mess. Now get to it!” she thrust the mop and bucket into my hands and turned on her heel, leaving me open-mouthed in her wake. Sam choked back a snort.

“Okay, Mike. Dean and I are going to join up with Fi. It's late enough that the partying's bound to either have already started or be well on its way. You can go in,” he said, looking at Dean, “and I'll set up the surveillance.”

I sighed and ignored the smirk Dean was directing at me. “Fine. I'll catch you later.”

*

As a spy, you quickly learn that it's best not to make elaborate plans, because something will always come along that inevitably scuttles them faster than the French fleet at Toulon. I managed to get Mom's floor cleaner than it had been probably in years and without getting any blood on myself, which I thought was pretty impressive, even for a spy with all my training. Blood is one of the slipperiest substances known to man - just ask any crime scene investigator - and cleaning it up is a lot harder than it sounds. I was putting the finishing touches on the floor when my cell phone went off. Not just any cell phone, of course: it was the cell phone that had been given to me by Carla's people, the one I wasn't allowed to leave behind on pain of death.

“What?”

Carla clicked her tongue at me. “Now now, Michael. Didn't your mother raise you to answer the telephone politely?”

I managed not to sigh or roll my eyes or otherwise betray my impatience. Her timing always ended up being really inconvenient. “What can I do for you today, Carla?”

“You know, you really should keep up with current events. We were expecting you hours ago.”

“I've been a little busy,” I said, careful to keep my tone neutral. Carla et al. Were unusually fond of sending me on errands by using crossword puzzles and dead drops and the usual assortment of cloak-and-dagger means. Never mind that they had given me a really inconvenient cell phone for just that purpose too.

“So we've noticed. I guess this time I'll just spoon-feed it to you. I need you to go to this address,” she rattled off a street address faster than I'd ever be able to write it, even if I'd had a pen. Luckily, I have a phenomenal memory for that sort of thing - important in the spy trade.

“What is it?”

“You'll see when you get there. And don't bother trying to argue, we both know it's useless. Just be there.”

“When do you want me there?”

“Two hours ago.”

“I'll be there in twenty minutes.”

I advised Sam that I was delayed in the time it took me to climb into the car and switch on the ignition. He wasn't happy, but there was very little we could do about it. If Carla said 'jump,' it was all I could do not to say 'how high?' I had made her life difficult where I could, but mostly she had me by the short hairs: she knew who had burned me, and she and I had the kind of working relationship that functioned mostly on death threats. If I didn't do as I was told like a good little spy, she'd have me killed. Or she'd have a member of my family killed. Or something equally undesirable.

The address turned out to be one of those storage units you rent by the month. Avoiding the obviously-placed security cameras, I found a note directing me to a specific unit. I let myself in with a key I found concealed near the door, pulling out my 9-millimetre - mostly as a precaution. In this game, it's better to be safe than sorry, because the first time you go into an unknown situation unarmed could be your last. As it happened, I needn't have worried: what Carla had in mind wasn't part of the overall scheme she'd been carrying out. From the start she'd been sending me on errands, each more mysterious than the last, stealing software here, copying a high-level security pass there, without so much as dropping a single clue as to her end game. Today, though, it seemed as though she wasn't in an errand-sending mood.

I made my way over to the crumpled form on the ground, and nudged it with one foot. The body rolled from its side onto its back, and was greeted by the sight of Willie's glassy eyes fixed on a spot somewhere in the air between us. He hadn't been dead long, certainly not long enough for rigor mortis to set in, although there were the beginnings of livor mortis on his face and arms. I crouched by the body and wrapped a handkerchief around my hand to see whether the discolourations would blanch, and figured he'd been dead maybe a couple of hours. Possibly three or four. He'd been shot through the head, the gun clutched in the fingers of his right hand. I had no doubt that the suicide had been properly staged these people are professionals, after all.

My cell phone rang again. Carla sounded smug. “Did you get our delivery?”

“Coming on a little strong, don't you think?”

“I don't know. Sometimes you're a little thick-headed. It takes a strong hand to keep you in line. The police are on their way, so I suggest you move quickly. We'll talk later.”

The line went dead, and I was once again a free man until the next time I was called. The message had been received loud and clear, though: back off, or there would be consequences.

Part Three