The Sky Is No Man's Land: Part I
I propose that we add Winchesters to our armament.
I have a kind of belief in a Winchester when there is any trouble of that sort around.
-Bram Stoker, Dracula
NORTH PLATTE, NE
2006-08-29 02:21 AM
It’s his favorite flask that’s getting crushed, here.
He can feel the metal pop and dent under his grip, and god knows what his bones are doing where they’ve had the bad luck to get caught between his flask (his favorite flask) and this big-ass demon’s sausage fingers. Holy water splashes up out of the distorted bottle and spills over their grappling hands. It sizzles and burns where it lands on the demon’s skin. Not so much, for Dean. So the demon ends up being the first to let go, and Dean gets to be the one to clock the bastard across the jaw with the abused metal. The demon reels back as more water goes splashing into its face. While it’s clawing at its eyes and screeching, Dean takes the opportunity to turn the flask over in his numb hand. It’s now nicely imprinted with his own fingers.
The demon recovers enough to ground out a polite, “You little fuck--” before Dean puts a cold iron round between its borrowed eyes. With the host beyond salvaging, it smokes out quick, another black smudge against a dark sky.
The body’s still slumping when Dean’s rolling into cover behind the nearest decent-sized oak, shoulder digging into scaled bark as he frees the Glock’s clip and counts rounds by the moonlight sifting through the trees. Six rounds, and it’s his last clip. Perfect.
He gets the clip back into place, gives the flask one more disgusted look, and tucks it into his pocket. His hand lights up with pain when he shakes it out. Something feels a little loose in there, and not in a good way. But it’s not his thumb and it’s not his forefinger, so he gives the hand one testing stretch and adjusts his grip on the Glock to compensate.
Bearing his shoulder into the tree, he twists around the trunk to get a good look towards the center of the park. Up there, that’s where the real fun is. The smoked demon at his back just had the misfortune of being late to the show. By the shouts and scuffles and occasional flash-fires of bright light, the demons up ahead have got their hands full. He’d tailed six into the park. He glances at the dead host; still motionless amongst the overgrown grass and dead leaves. Make that five. Six rounds, five demons. Shit odds, but they’ll have to do.
Moonlight’s not enough to get him a good look at the melee going on a hundred yards ahead, but he can make out an oak with some low branches off to his right. A quick sprint and he could have some high ground and a clear shot. He gives the field another quick scan, ahead, behind, and takes the leap.
He’s all of five steps into a low sprint when he hears heavy steps to his left, fast approaching. He turns to meet the demon bearing down on him and gets one shot off into its chest before the distance closes. The demon barrels in undeterred, and they’re both hitting turf. It scrabbles at his face, fingernails digging furrows down his forehead, heading for the eyes. Dean pulls a boot under its torso and kicks out hard, catching the thing in the soft of the belly. The demon gets forced back onto its heels, and Dean pulls the Glock up to get a bead on his forehead.
That’s around the time the world bleaches white.
The blast rushes through him, a cold white light that leaves every nerve fiber singing. Then it’s gone, leaving nothing but bleached vision and ringing ears behind.
He’s still blind and deaf when the heavy warmth of the demon slumps against him, and he almost shoots the fucking thing again before he realizes it’s limp. He scrambles back, legs tangling in its arms before he plants a heel on its shoulder and shoves free. It half-twists onto its back, and Dean can see blackened craters where its eyes should have been. They’ve left a long streak of charred meat down the leg of his jeans.
“Jesus,” Dean mutters. He gets the gun back into grip and half-crawls, half-stumbles into the safety of the nearest tree and then mutters a shaky, “Shit” for good measure.
Flashbang?
Except the demon laid out with a dead vessel’s empty eye sockets trained on the moon means it wasn’t a flashbang.
It means-
He adjusts his grip on the Glock and sinks to a crouch, twisting around the bole of the tree. A low, dull light hangs low on the ground where the main shitstorm had been - demons converging on whatever the hell they’d been hunting. Or whatever had been hunting them.
As he watches, the light pulses and goes dark. He waits a good two minutes, gathering his breath in low, steady draughts as he waits for his hearing to recover. Nothing’s moving; nothing he can see. And that, that doesn’t really surprise him at all.
They’ve seen it in a dozen places, heard of it in a dozen more. Akron, Ithaca, Birmingham, Salina - demons burned out, dozens in one fight. Always the same thing: cratered eyes and no survivors. Nobody had a clue on how it was done. Some new weapon, the mother of all exorcisms? No one had ever seen the source, and no hunter had owned up to it. Hell, no one had actually seen it for themselves - ‘til now.
Dean grins to himself as he drags the flashlight out of his pocket. Sam’s gonna be so pissed.
He approaches the position slow, keeping his weight spread steady between his feet in case anybody else is of the mind to take a running tackle. Not much reason for the worry; nobody’s getting up anytime soon, judging by the shadowed sockets looking up at him.
The park’s fountain had taken center stage in the scuffle, and one of the retaining walls is collapsed in, some poor bastard face-down and unmoving in the broken pile of concrete’s center. Water’s still spilling over and around the pile of bodies in runnels as it races to the dirt beyond the sidewalk.
There aren’t six of them. Dean lets out a low whistle of appreciation as he does a quick head count. Twenty. Jesus. And they’re all arranged like a bad piece of modern art, every dead heel pointing in the same direction: something that looks less like the crater Dean was expecting, and more like a scrawny little guy in a business suit.
Dean hesitates a moment, splashing a small semicircle around the guy. He nudges a cautious boot against the man’s leg and, when that doesn’t elicit much, attempts the same with a boot toe to the ear. Nothing.
He gives the dead surrounding them one more glance, catches the flashlight in his teeth, and drops into a crouch. He keeps the gun in his hand as he reaches to take a pulse. A lick of static arcs at his fingers, and he jerks back in surprise, shaking numbed fingers. A second, slower approach doesn’t get the same jolt.
The guy’s skin is clammy with the fountain water, but there’s a pulse, slow and steady. Rolling back the eyelids, there’s a pair of healthy, unscorched eyes and a decent pupil response, but the guy’s out cold. He moves south, sweeping for weapons.
There’s a blade - small for a sword, and unexpectedly light - loosely grasped in the guy’s right hand. He gives it a quick once-over and tucks it into his belt. As he moves on to the sodden trenchcoat, the flashlight catches on red. He peels the suit jacket back further. There it is: a circle of fresh blood, leeching slowly through the white of his well-to-do shirt.
Dean turns the flashlight away and curses.
He rips the rest of the shirt open, trying to get a look. Stab wound. Not huge, but doing some good bleeding. He pries his fingers under a messy tie and works it loose. Wadding it into a compress, he jams it against the wound. He works the belt out of the trenchcoat, tying the whole mess down into place.
Then he falls back onto his heels and stares.
Almost two dozen smoked demons and a guy in a suit.
Well-shit.
♤ ♤ ♤
STATE ROUTE 61, ARTHUR, NE
2006-08-29 05:32 AM
Dean makes one abortive attempt at dialing with his thumb, then mashes the buttons with his index finger while he digs around in the trunk for the med kit.
The ring drones through twice before Sam picks up with an uninspired, “What?”
“Merry Christmas.”
There’s a suspicious pause. “…what?”
Dean’s about to slam the trunk shut when his eyes catch on the silver shortsword. He picks it up and turns it in the weak predawn light. He’s never seen its likeness, with the gripless, smooth handle and the unnatural, silver-like sheen. Sam might be able to say something about it; all Dean can determine is that it’s well-kept. It’s clean, and the edge isn’t thinned or brittle. Sharp enough to cut on a diagonal without nicking at casual handling.
He moves to set it back down, and then thinks better of it and hides it beneath two canisters of salt and a case of ammo. Better safe than sorry.
“Merry Christmas! Like, four months early. Whatever. I’m still the best brother in the world. Guess what I got you?”
He shoulders his duffel and the med kit and climbs the steps to the trailer. Even at dawn the air hangs heavy with the smells of soured sweat and mold.
“In North Platte, Nebraska,” Sam deadpans. “Let me guess. Is it corn?”
“Nope. Guess again!”
Sam sighs. “An exorcism? If it's an exorcism, I've got another three hours before I'm gonna be over there."
“Better.” Dean brandishes an arm at the unconscious body spread out on the cot, even though Sam can’t see the gesture. “I got you your very own John Constantine, complete with super-powered demon bomb! Or-y’know, so long as he doesn’t bleed out. Who’s the best brother ever?”
There’s a few seconds of silence while that sinks in. “You saw one of the blasts?”
“Yeah.” Dean almost can’t believe it himself. “Almost took my eyes out with it. It’s kinda like a flashbang, except… cold? It’s very Raiders of the Lost Ark.”
Sam’s voice ratchets up to bitching frequency. “You saw one? Christ, Dean, don’t tell me that. Are your eyes alright? Hearing? That guy in Akron was deaf for--”
“We’re talking on the phone, Sam. If I was deaf, do you think we’d be having this conversation right now? I’m fine. Vision’s fine. My ears were ringing for a bit, there, but now they’re fine too.” He doesn’t mention the bleeding ears, because that’d only make Sam bitch more.
There’s a moment of disapproving silence before Sam rolls on: “So you found the source?”
He pours himself a finger of whiskey from the bottle already laid out on the table and drags a chair over toward the cot.
“You won’t believe it. Scrawny guy in a nine-to-five suit and Columbo trenchcoat. Not doing too well at the moment, though. Gonna put in a few stitches and see if his color improves.”
“It’s just a guy? Who is he?”
He picks at the wallet sitting on top of the folded up trenchcoat. “James Novak. License, credit cards, insurance. Hell, he’s even got freakin’ Costco membership. If it’s not real, it’s the most thorough cover ident I’ve ever seen a hunter carry. He’s even got a punch card at some local café. One more and he’s got a free drink.”
“It’s not a possession?”
“Didn’t react to holy water, cold iron, silver, or salt.” Dean tucks the phone into the crook of his shoulder, held in place by his ear, and pulls out the stitching kit and some gauze. “I found him at the center of twenty demon corpses that look like they’d been blown out by a god damned explosion. They all had burnt-out eyes, and he was passed out in a busted fountain with a stab wound in his side and nothing on him but a pig-sticker.”
“Damn. Stay on his good side. You move him?”
“Yeah. The abandoned trailer off of SR 61.”
“I’m a couple miles outside the state line. I can make it in-an hour, hour and a half?”
“I’ll be here. Getting my Florence Nightingale on.”
Dean peels aside the makeshift necktie-compress and presses a length of whiskey-soaked gauze against Novak’s wound. The burn of alcohol doesn’t get any reaction.
“You gonna restrain him?” Sam asks.
“I’ve got salt down.”
“You think that’s gonna be enough?”
“Sam. I threw the book at him.”
Dean’s wiped enough blood off that he can get a proper look at the wound. It’s deeper than he’d like; and the pocket of smooth gray in amongst the darker red of torn muscle means it’s too close to intestine for his liking. He’ll probably have to spend the whole morning watching to see that Novak doesn’t go septic.
As he’s gauging the depth of the wound, there’s a split second where the light catches in a strange way; blue shine on the edge of the bright red of fresh welling blood. It’s just as soon gone. Dean turns his head aside, waits; but it’s gone, like that.
Thirty-two hours without sleep, things start getting weird.
“Yeah, well, the book doesn’t say anything about torching demons,” Sam’s saying.
“Which is exactly why I don’t want to piss him off from the get go. This could be huge for us.” They could finally start killing those sons ‘a bitches, instead of sending them downstairs for a timeout. Hunters start putting demons down left and right and they’d learn real quick not to show their ugly mugs. “I’m not gonna give this guy a reason to go to ground again. If we can get him to share his playbook, we could maybe start winning this thing.”
Sam huffs his agreement, then huffs his disagreement, then settles for an exasperated, “Well - just - be polite, or something, until I get there.”
“You know me. I’ll be my usual charming self.” He flashes his shit-eating grin as he peels out a clean suture and needle.
“Yeah, that’s what I’m afraid of,” Sam mutters.
“Spare me, bitch.” Dean rolls his shoulders and shifts the phone to his other ear. “Look, I’ve got an hour of stitching in front of me.”
“Yeah, alright. Be there in an hour and a half. Give me a heads up if anything happens.”
“Yeah-huh.” He snaps the phone shut. He considers the screen a few seconds, and then opens a text message to Sam: strving. get pizza.
The phone’s buzzing with a reply before he closes it, but when he opens the text it isn’t Sam.
FROM: ⏏⏏⏏⏏⏏⏏
MSG: ⏏⏏⏏⏏⏏ ⏏⏏⏏ ⏏⏏⏏
Dean considers the text a second. It’s all just stand-ins for corrupted symbols. Junky Nebraska signal, probably. The phone goes off again.
FROM: Princess
MSG: it’s 6 in the morning jackass, no one’s selling pizza
“Bitch,” Dean mutters, and answers: xtra sausage no fungi
He sets the thread and needle to soak in a capful of whiskey while he gives the wallet a second peruse. He flips past the pictures of a woman (wife?) and a smiling blonde girl - 10, maybe 11 - to pry $23 in random bills out of the fold, and out falls a wedding ring. Dean raises an eyebrow, mulling it over in his hand. 16K, scuffed from a few years’ wear and tear.
“Well, Jimmy, I figure twenty-three bucks makes me the cheapest stitch-job this side of New Orleans. But I’ll take it.” Dean pockets the cash and returns the wedding ring to its place before throwing the wallet down next to Novak’s old brick of a cell phone. Giving his hands a quick rinse, he continues, “No complaining, though, if you wake up and don’t like the work. Beggars can’t be choosers.”
He’s about ready to get started on this mess when he realizes he forgot the most important part. Dean digs his phone back out and thumbs through the music selection, considering the body sprawled out on the cot. “If I had to guess, I’d say you’re not the Metallica type. Let’s try some Led Zeppelin. My brother has shit taste in music, and even he can’t argue that Zeppelin is classic.” A beat. “Well, I’m sure he could. He just knows I’d beat his ass if he tried.”
Over the Hills and Far Away starts playing through the tinny speakers on the phone. He nods approvingly and douses a length of gauze in whiskey.
Far Away, Rain Song, and half of Traveling Riverside Blues later, he’s winding the needle through one last locking loop before bringing the suture taut and cutting it free. After a quick survey of his work, he presses a piece of clean gauze down and brings an ace bandage around to keep it in place.
He’s on the second wrap-around when the guy’s chest hitches. Dean stops where he is, fingers loose on the roll of bandage, and looks up to catch an overbright stare.
They’re both pretty startled, for the first couple milliseconds.
Then Novak’s snapping something unintelligible and giving a full-body wriggle, smacking into Dean’s elbow with a bony knee. He doesn’t bother to investigate the dimensions of the couch, and a second, more dedicated thrash has him tumbling to the trailer floor in an awkward heap, the roll of ace bandage looping after him in a broad arc. It’d be kind of funny, if the handcuff chain that’d been keeping his hand attached to the radiator wasn’t dangling loosely from his wrist. The link of chain that’d been connecting the two clatters to the floor in a mutilated semi-circle.
Dean steps back a pace and draws the Glock from his waistband, thumbing the safety off. The guy’s attention snaps to the gun at the click. Dean keeps the gun low, and his voice easy: “Morning, sunshine.”
His eyes twitch up to Dean. A couple expressions chase across his face before he settles on a narrow-eyed suspicion. “Who are you?”
“Name’s Dean,” he answers calmly. “Yours?”
Novak ignores him. He’s found the handcuff still clamped on his wrist, and he pries at it in something approaching panic. Whatever Hulk strength he’d had seems to be either particular to chain, or fading fast. Or, Dean notes curiously, doesn’t apply to blessed iron with a few binding sigils carved in.
The handcuff doesn’t budge, and he heaves himself backward as he returns his attention to Dean. “What are you? What are you? Why did you bring me here?” He bangs his shoulder on a counter in a clumsy bid to get to his feet; he collapses back down, hand flying up to grip at his collarbone.
Could just be a good actor. And Dean’d feel a lot better with just letting the guy have his little panic attack until Sam gets in here, but-shit. The guy’s already popped a couple stitches; he can see a fresh line of blood running from here.
He flips the safety back on the gun - makes it clear the guy can see him do so - and tucks it carefully back into his belt. Novak watches him, breathing in small hitches.
“Look.” He holds up both palms. “Just a regular grade human, okay?”
“Who are you?”
“Dean. Like I said. While you were undoing all my hard work.” He gestures towards the roll of bandage trailing after him.
Novak’s attention traces briefly over the bandage, and he tugs at the gauze to reveal the stitchwork underneath. Dean winces as he catches a nail on a suture, tugging at bloodied skin; but the guy doesn’t even twitch. He glares back up at Dean. “Why did you bring me here?” He glances around the trailer, actually taking in the decor. His frown deepens. “What is this place?”
“I know. Classy, right? M’just borrowing it.” Pressing his palms against his knees, Dean gets to his feet. The guy jerks a little, but stays where he is on the cracked linoleum. “As for why, hey - you looked like you could need a hand, is all.”
He plucks the phone off the counter by the couch, flicking off Robert Plant halfway through some Immigrant Song warbling. “So, you gonna tell me what you are?”
Novak grips a cabinet knob and sways to his feet. He doesn’t look imposing; slouching, skinny little white guy that he is. But a little kick-slide and he has the chain around his ankles groaning and shearing apart, so Dean’s still itching towards his gun. His guest stares him down from his tenuous grip on the wall. “Take me back to where I was.”
Dean smiles politely. “Look, man. No offense? But I really can’t do that. You just went Hiroshima on those demons.” He jerks his thumb over his shoulder. “I need to know who-or, frankly, what-you are, and how you did it.”
Novak hangs there a moment, still and tight-mouthed. “You can’t hold me here,” he says quietly. Then he sways in an attempt to rise to his full height of 5 foot nothing, and the air sways with him, pressing hard against Dean’s skin. The aluminum shell of the trailer whines, and scratched glass rattles in the rotting window frames. “Take me back.”
Dean brings the gun back out and rests it gently against his thigh as he backsteps carefully towards the door. He’s running through a quick mental checklist. The rattling windows trick pins him pretty solidly at ‘demonic’-either of the biblical variety or the more exotic variants. It doesn’t discount anything of an earth- or air-elemental persuasion, but those are less likely to come in human form. If it were a ghost riding in that body, the cold iron would have penned it in for sure. But then, demons aren’t supposed to be able to brush off cold iron like it’s made of paper, either.
He makes a note to run it past Encyclopedia Samanthica.
“First off, you were stabbed. I closed you up, and did a decent job at it, too, before you went all PCP. So, y’know, no need to thank me or anything. Second, I can’t exactly let you go until I know you’re not evil. So…” Dean gestures to the room.
The pressure redoubles, and Novak makes an aggressive step forward. “You can’t hold me here.”
Dean lifts the gun-not leveling it squarely, but making the threat clear. “But I can test out what putting a few more holes in you does. Start from there and work my way up.” Novak’s starting to sway a bit more, sweat beading bright on his forehead. Dean gestures with the gun back to the couch. “Or you can sit back down, and we can talk it out. You’re going after demons; I don’t want to have beef with you, but I will, if you make me.”
With a final glare and one more little shudder of the air, Novak folds back into himself with a drunken lurch. The doublewide groans as the atmosphere collapses back into its natural order. Dean grimaces and presses a knuckle against his ear, waiting for the pop to work its way out. “Nice trick.”
He slides a hand along the wall, finds the foot of the couch and promptly collapses there. He’s looking gray around the edges. “There’s nothing I can tell you,” he mutters to the ceiling. “We don’t discuss our matters with humans.”
Dean’s quiet a moment, considering. Then he pulls the chair out of arms’ reach and sits down, facing Novak. “You’re the one that killed those demons, aren’t you?”
He stills, watching Dean carefully. “You saw?”
“I didn’t really see anything. Just a bunch of light. But it was…” He trails off, not sure how to describe it. “Anyway, you gotta be careful how you use that thing. I thought it was going to burn my eyes out with the rest of ‘em.”
Novak stares at him with a clinical curiosity. “It should have.”
Thanks, asshole, Dean thinks. But says instead: “How do you do it?”
His curiosity fades into suspicion. “Why do you want to know?”
“So we can use it. So we can share it.” Isn’t that obvious? “There aren’t enough hunters, and more die every day while the demons just get put on ice for a while. This could really turn things around.”
“You’re a hunter,” he surmises. “We’ve heard of you. But you misunderstand; it isn’t a physical weapon, or one of your incantations. It’s--” He struggles with a word, and ends up shrugging. “It’s of no use to you. I’m sorry.”
“It’s a hell of a lot of use to us!”
He shakes his head. “It’s not something that can be taught.”
“You haven’t met my brother. Kid’s never found a crossword he couldn’t solve.”
“It can’t be taught, and it can’t be learned,” Novak says, impatient. “We purge demons with what we are.”
“And what are you?”
“Soldiers of the Heavenly Host. You call us ‘angels’.”
Dean tries not to laugh. It sounds like a really bad name for a biker gang. “So what, ‘must be this holy to enter?’ I know a guy-a pastor, up in Minnesota. You could teach him?”
Now Novak’s staring at him like he’s challenged. “It can’t be taught.”
“Why?“
“Because you’re humans.”
There’s an audible pause. Dean rewinds the conversation. “Wait. What?”
“You seem to have suffered hearing damage,” Novak mutters, fiddling with the handcuff again.
Dean knocks the chair backward as he stands. “But you’re not a demon. I checked. Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus. Um. Omnis… Omnis… Shit.” He’s got a copy of the exorcism in his duffel. He scrambles for it.
Novak just watches him, eyes clear. “No, I’m not a demon. I’ve answered your questions-“ He pulls at the broken handcuff chain. “Will you release me, now?”
Warily, Dean turns to face him. “If you’re not human, what are you?”
“I told you. I’m an angel.”
“And when you say ‘angel’ you mean…”
“Servants of Heaven, warriors of God. You exorcise demons, surely you’re not unfamiliar with the concept.”
“Yeah, but angels aren’t real.”
“We are,” he says. “Whether you believe that matters very little to me.”
Dean thinks he might be able to hear the gears turning in his own head, he’s thinking so hard. Processing. Trying to figure out the end-game, because why-of all the lies he could have made-would he choose that one?
Or it’s just a joke? A really bad joke? ‘Ha ha, Winchester, we got you good, Caleb says he’s still gonna kick your ass the next time he sees you’? It’s in poor taste, that’s for sure. But the trick with the demons, that had been real.
He narrows his eyes, “Who are you?”
He watches Dean in careful silence. "Castiel," he answers eventually.
“Cas-ti-el?” Dean has to sound it out by syllables, and he can’t quite get his mouth around the sounds the way that Novak did. “D’you get beat up as a kid, with a name like that?”
Castiel tilts his head a moment, then scowls. “I fail to see the correlation.”
“It’s-not.” Dean just can’t seem to find his feet with this conversation. “Look-Cas-teel. Or Cas-ti-el. Whatever. I don’t buy this whole ‘angel’ thing, but you’re killing demons, and I want to be killing demons, so can we agree that we’re on the same side?”
He nods.
“My brother is on his way here. Will you stay and talk to him? He’s better at all of this stuff than I am.”
“No,” he answers, quick and simple. “I answered your questions.” He sways to his feet, inclines his head; an attempt at looking dignified that falls flat with his half-open, bloodied shirt and the slight sway to his stance. “I am thankful for your assistance. But I don’t have the luxury of time. So if you’d return me my things, I’ll take my leave.”
Dean draws the Glock from where it’d been tucked in his pants, and mentally runs through the checklist again. Silver, salt, cold iron, holy water. That leaves fire, beheading, staking-or grievous bodily harm, all else failing. Of course the gun is the only thing actually on Dean at the moment-rookie move, Winchester-but he thinks he could stand a decent chance if it came down to it.
He hopes it doesn’t come down to it.
“Your stuff’s on the table.” Dean motions to it with the barrel. Wallet, keys, a waterlogged phone with a cracked screen.
Castiel gives the gun one cursory glance and moves toward his things, clumsily buttoning up his shirt as he goes. He unfolds the trenchcoat and shrugs into it, slow and awkward. The wallet and keys and wadded-up tie go into an inside pocket without a glance. The cell phone, he picks up and frowns at.
“It’s fried,” Dean supplies.
He considers the phone carefully, then brings his fingers down into a fist. The plastic casing deforms and shatters with a series of dull snaps. He deposits the remains of the ruined phone on the table.
Dean stands warily behind the table, just watching, keeping hold of his gun but not aiming it. “You’re one of the good guys, right?” Because letting him walk away-letting something that isn’t human walk away-goes against all his training.
But they can’t really afford to lose the one ally that might help them win. Even if that means letting it walk out the door right now.
He stands and considers, hands dangling by his sides under long trenchcoat sleeves. “I’m one of the good guys,” he agrees. “I’m sorry I couldn’t offer you anything in return.”
“Just-“ Dean scrubs his face with his hands. He looks around the trailer for a scrap of paper and comes up with a napkin. Dean scribbles out his name and phone number. “If you ever feel like sharing trade secrets, or-I don’t know. Anything. You can reach me there.”
He accepts the napkin with a quiet nod, reading it over once before adding it to his growing pocket collection. Then he steps towards the door, fumbling with the knob briefly before getting it to engage and turn. He lingers a moment, one foot on one side of the salt line, one foot on the other, and says: “Thank you.” Then he’s stepping out onto Nebraska dirt and the door’s slapping shut behind him.
Dean looks around the room and lets out a breath he’d been holding. “That was probably the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.” When the room doesn’t answer him, he rounds out the sentiment with, “Fuck.”
He takes a long drink directly from the whiskey bottle and then calls Sam.
He answers on the second ring, but Dean can hear the murmur of background chatter and a muffled ‘Thank you’ out of Sam before the background noise dies down to the hiss of wind. Sam puts the phone up to his ear. “Still alive?”
“Uh, yeah. Yeah, he is that.”
Sam takes a pause, probably to frown at his car keys. “What happened?”
“He woke up. We talked. I was polite-just like you said-so don’t you dare blame this on me.” Dean jabs his finger at the air; Sam will know he’s doing it, even if he can’t see it.
“Uh-huh,” Sam says slowly. “So you talked, and…?”
“And then he left.”
Dean hates it when he can actually hear Sam’s oversized brain working on the other end of the phone.
“He left,” Sam repeats.
“Yes.”
There’s a long pause. “Dean, if this is some kind of prank, it’s not that funny.”
Dean takes another drink, and pulls aside the tiny curtain in the trailer window. In the gray-dawn light he can still see Trenchoat’s silhouette picking its way along the gravel road leading toward the highway.
“It’s a little funny.”
“Guy’s half-dead, and you let him walk?”
“He bounced back fast.”
“Did he tell you anything?”
“I don’t know. Yeah, I guess.” He shrugs. “He said he’s not human, and he can’t teach us how to do the demon-killing thing.”
“Great.” Sam huffs into the phone. “Not human? I thought you tested him. You sure he didn’t whammy you?”
“He didn’t whammy me. I was fully aware of what I was doing. Hell, I think he was more surprised than me that I let him go.” Aw, shit. As the words are leaving his mouth, Dean realizes he hadn’t meant to say that.
“You let him go. Are you out of your friggin’ mind?”
“Don’t- It’s not like that. Hey, you were the one that told me to be nice!”
“Yeah! Give him some soup or something, not let him go!”
“He didn’t want soup; he wanted to be let go! It’s not- It’s like-“ Dean’s not sure even he understands why he did it, so he doesn’t know how he can explain this to Sam. “He’s on our side, right? I wouldn’t hog-tie Bobby and keep him in the backseat.”
“If Bobby was our first and only lead on killing demons I’d give it some serious consideration,” Sam snaps back.
“No you wouldn’t.” Dean’s certain of that, at least. Dad would’ve, yeah. Hell, two hours ago Dean would’ve said he’d do it, himself. But not Sam. Sam’s always been too clean, too far removed from the trenches, for this moral soot to reach him.
“Screw you.” Which is Sam’s way of acceding the point.
“Look, I just-“ Dean didn’t intend to get into this argument. He didn’t intend to argue at all. “I let him go. I probably couldn’t have kept him here if I’d tried. He ripped apart my ‘cuffs like they were paper.”
And maybe, just maybe, this ‘Castiel’ guy will take the gesture of goodwill and decide that hunters aren’t so bad after all.
“Yeah.” Sam’s already winding down. “You have any theories on what he was?”
“No. But I get the feeling that he doesn’t spend a lot of time around people. Might be something old.”
“Some kind of god, maybe? Might not react to any of the usuals.”
“Maybe.”
“Alright. Still think you’re out of your mind, but-“ He sighs. “I’m leaving town now, I’ll be there in ten.”
“With pizza?”
“With pizza.”
“Did you order extra sausage? I hope you ordered extra sausage. I’m starving.”
Dean can hear the eyeroll before the line clicks.
♤ ♤ ♤
Dean stares at the Hot Pocket like it’s a pile of organs. “What is this.”
Sam brushes past him to drop the coffee on the kitchen counter before he holds up a warning hand. “Dude, don’t even.”
“It’s not even hot.” When he turns back, Dean’s poking a finger at the cellophane. “It’s, like, lukewarm at best. And soggy.”
“You ask for pizza at 6 in the morning, that’s what you get. Reasonable people get lukewarm breakfast sandwiches.” He waves his own unappetizing breakfast as Exhibit A.
“What. You had an entire state to drive. You couldn’t find a single all-night pizza place?”
"The entire state of Nebraska. You're lucky the 7-11 was 24 hours."
“And then you only buy me one hot pocket. One. It’s like you’re trying to starve me.”
“Consider it your punishment,” Sam deadpans, and pries his coffee loose of the holster.
“You said to be nice!”
“Since when do you listen to me, anyway?” He squints at Dean, and says for the fourth time: “Christo.”
“Bite me.” Dean clicks his teeth together, menacingly. “There’s no winning. I do what you say, I get bitched at. I don’t do what you say, I get bitched at. Even when everything goes right, I still get bitched at. You’re a little bitch-factory. Mass production of bitchiness. Made in America. Let’s outsource this job, please.”
Sam gives him the ‘You’re absurd’ look and wanders towards the couch. There’s a broken handcuff dangling from the radiator; he picks at the chain, then lets it drop with a rattle. “Did he give you a name, at least?”
Dean answers through a mouthful of Hot Pocket, sounding uncertain: “Cas-ti-el? Castiel? Cas-something.”
“Cas-ti-el. Not James Novak. He was possessing someone?” He takes a half-turn to poke at a dented cell phone lying on the table. The plastic casing is shattered, the screen fried.
Dean shakes his head. “No ectoplasm, didn’t react to an exorcism.” He gestures towards the phone. “That was his. It was bricked, water damage. He did the crushing.”
“Huh.” Might still be able to salvage something. The memory card, maybe. Sam fiddles with the cracked casing a minute, then tucks the phone into his pocket. He nudges a half-unrolled packet of gauze down the couch and flops down. “The ID and everything matched that Novak guy, right? We should look him up, see if he’s been listed as a missing person.”
Dean nods along around the last of his hot pocket.
Sam drops his head back, continues his ramble towards the ceiling. “Did you try any of the herbs? Devil’s lace, vervain? Maybe something New World, white sage, sweetgrass…”
He gets cut off by two brisk knocks on the door.
Dean frowns, and picks up the gun where it had been resting on the table. He flips the safety off. “You hear a car?”
“No.” Sam’s on his feet, throwing a towel over the scattered first aid supplies and checking the safety on his own gun. He steps towards the closest window, and shrugs. “Two guys; plainclothes. Don’t recognize them.” He pauses a minute. “Yeah, car’s up the road. White coupe.” He frowns. “I just saw it in town.”
Dean tucks the gun into the back of his pants, but keeps one hand on it as he opens the door.
There’s two white guys waiting patiently, done up in plain shirts and jeans. The jackets seem a little out of place, with the temperature already climbing towards the high eighties. Sam tracks the short, burly guy staring at the Impala, off by the side of the driveway; the one at the door is looking Dean over and flashing an empty grin. “Mornin’, sir. Hope we didn’t wake you.”
Dean keeps his hand on the gun and props his boot toe against the inside of the door, but flashes a disarming smile. “Can I help you?”
“I think so.” He jerks a thumb towards his partner, who stares at Dean flatly. “We’re working a case out of North Platte. Helluva mess late last night, don’t know if you’ve heard - anyway, our one lead went and wandered off on us. But we don’t expect he crawled too far.” Sam drops away from the window to grab the salt canister by Dean’s duffel.
The visitor is rolling on: “So, don’t s’pose you picked up any hitchhikers last night? Male Caucasian, would’ve been about yeigh high--” By the distorted shadow on the floor, he waves a hand just below shoulder height. “Early 30’s, white collar kind of look to him.”
A breeze chases past the door and into the room, bringing the acrid burn of sulfur with it. Dean’s hand tightens casually on his gun. Within two muted steps Sam has his shoulder against the back of the door, the muzzle of the gun resting lightly against the dusty aluminum.
“Look,” Dean continues casually, “I’m gonna need to see a badge before I tell you anything. You know how it is; you can’t be too careful. Just yesterday I saw a news report about how thieves pretend to be cops so that you’ll let them in, and then BAM! Right when you’re not looking.”
“’course.” He smiles, and shuffles around. A badge flashes in the morning sun.
Dean ticks his shoulders up in a shrug. “Well, officer, I can tell you I did not pick up any hitchhikers last night. That shit’s not safe. I mean, you’d never know if you picked up an axe murderer or something. So no way, no hitchhikers for me.”
The demon’s shadow nods placidly along. “That so? Not in that shiny car of yours? ‘cause I tell you-“ He takes a step closer, and Sam tenses up behind the door. “That thing just reeks of that holier-than-thou bullshit. He must’ve been bleeding like a stuck pig.”
That’s all the warning they get before the trailer gives a sickening lurch and Dean’s airborne, slamming hard into the far side of the doublewide.
Dean lands with a crash of splintering wood as Sam drops a shoulder into the door and shoves, hard. “Call the boss,” the demon’s saying to his buddy, holding back Sam’s efforts with one casual hand. Sam gauges the demon’s position by the shadow on the floor, presses the muzzle against the door and fires twice. The first skims torso. With the second, the demon’s hand is briefly obscured in a mist of blood. It jerks in surprise. Sam slams at the door hard in the interim, but there’s a hand two fingers shy of five gripping the door’s edge. The demon slams the door back into Sam and shoves through into the trailer proper.
Two shots from Dean, off to Sam’s right. The first takes a chunk out of the jaw; the
second hits skull.
The demon gives a few full-bodied jerks before he smokes out and slumps across the linoleum. Sam drags the demon’s feet in far enough to get the door shut, then shoves the body against the door with one boot. He takes a quick over-the-shoulder glance towards Dean, his gun still on the door. "Y'alright?"
He’s crouched in the remains of what had once been a chair. “Yeah,” he answers, slightly breathless. “The other one?”
There’s two thin streams of morning light filtering in through the bloodied bullet holes in the door. They both watch as the first, then the second gets blocked off by shadow. Sam raises his gun, and moves to put a boot against the door - just as something scuffles in the gravel and whoever was blocking the doorway, by the sound of the meaty thud, collides with it headfirst instead.
The jug of holy water is sitting behind the door near Sam. Dean grabs it, and on a silent count Sam swings the door open and Dean splashes water against the body outside.
It catches the last demon in the face. He shrieks, twisting and writhing as far as he can under the hands fisted in his hair and the back of his jacket. Sam watches with astonishment as some skinny white collar businessman digs his fingers in and hauls a demon - a demon - bodily aside. There’s a loud thunk as he slams the demon into the trailer’s siding before throwing him to the ground. He pins the hissing demon with a knee to the small of the back and a hand against his neck. There’s a broken cuff on the taxman’s wrist, flashing bright in the sunlight. Castiel.
Dean’s dropping down to the gravel. “Sam! Exorcism!”
Sam trains the gun on the demon’s ear, the Latin syllables already rolling. Trenchcoat was muttering something under his breath; at Sam’s arrival, he gives Sam’s gun a sidelong glance, shuts his mouth and digs his fingers deeper into the flesh of the demon’s neck.
There’s the usual spitting and writhing and eye-rolling, but the guy that’d been a comatose case all of half an hour ago takes it with stride. He holds the host tight from the first exorcizamus te straight to the demonic ichor sinking into gravel. A demon can’t even get himself an inch off the ground under 130 pounds of skinny tax accountant.
The host goes limp. In the sudden silence, Sam ticks the gun up a few inches to focus on the side of Castiel’s head. “What are you.”
Dean dusts himself off and gestures between them. “Sam, this is my new friend, Castiel. Castiel, this is my brother, Sam.”
Sam snaps, “Yeah, I figured that part out.”
Dean mouths ‘Be nice!’ at Sam, accompanied by a smirk.
Castiel says, “Hello, Sam,” and rises slowly to his feet. Sam tracks him through the entire motion with the barrel of the gun, but Castiel isn’t bothered by it. He sets to straightening his shirt. “I apologize for the demons.”
“This isn’t our first rodeo. He still alive?” Dean climbs down the steps to kneel in the dirt beside the host body.
“Yes,” Castiel says, stepping over the host’s tangled legs to give Dean more room. The guy’s pulse agrees.
Sam’s still tracking Castiel’s movements uneasily, but the gun’s drifted down towards his thigh. “Sounded like they’re looking for you.”
“They want to kill me,” Castiel answers calmly, meandering past the Impala.
“Huh.” Sam tilts his head back. “Seems like they’re a little outmatched.”
“Not all of them.” Castiel frowns through the film of road dust on the Impala’s windows. “There was a weapon, in North Platte. A sword. Did you see it?”
Dean just ticks a passive eyebrow up. “Why?”
Castiel frowns at him a moment. “I need it.” He disengages, pacing towards the trailer door. “I had it, I drew it on--”
He comes to an abrupt stop, twisting to stare down the gravel ruts of the driveway. “The sword,” he says slowly. “I need the sword. Now.”
“Uh, okay.” Dean holds his hands up. “Let’s just--”
Sam’s scowling between them both. “What the hell is--”
“Grigori,” Castiel interjects. He splays out his fingers, and curls them into a fist.
“A what now?” Dean’s asking, but he’s watching the horizon. They all are.
There's a single moment of stillness: a weak wind teasing through the dry weeds, and the crunch of gravel as Castiel presses his weight into the balls of his feet. Smoke breaks away from the dusty line of Nebraska hills, a snaking column of roiling black against the blue of a late summer sky. It looks to be miles off; then yards; then feet, within a disorienting stretch of seconds.
When it connects with the ground the plume explodes outward like a dust cloud. Sam brings a hand up to shield his face, but it flows around him like a thick, oily fog, reeking of sulfur.
A voice from inside the cloud calls out. “There you are.”
As the fog dissipates, Sam gets his first view of a woman: crisp business suit and high heels, lipstick in a ‘don’t fuck with me’ shade of red, and one manicured eyebrow raised in delighted surprise. She turns her gaze to Castiel.
“Well, what do we have here? Slumming it with the cattle? How undignified.”
The trenchcoat unfolds with the rise of Castiel’s shoulders, and there’s a faint smell of ozone building under the cloying reek of sulfur. He speaks in a low, rolling growl: “Back away from me, Sytry.”
She barks a laugh. “Ha! Why? What are you going to do with that? Shock me?”
She waves a hand, and Sam hears Dean get pitched-bodily-into the gravel a couple yards away. Sam gets off one shot himself before he’s slamming into the side of the trailer and going down in a sprawl of limbs. He’s a quick shot, but not that quick. It’s a miss.
As Sam’s head is colliding with aluminum siding, Castiel’s moving, scuffed business shoes sliding in gravel as he lunges forward in one smooth motion. He shoves a forearm into her chest, throwing her back a half-step, and follows it with a right hook to the jaw.
It looks-and sounds-like it hits hard. The woman reels and stumbles back a few steps, wiping at her mouth. “Oh, you do know how to treat a lady, don’t you?” She spits something wet onto the ground. Columbo lunges at her again.
The demon moves in the way Sam would expect for a girl that size: quick steps and lots of fast, well-placed punches. A little more grace than the usual demonic bar-room brawl style, but the strategy is expected. It’s Castiel that disorients him. He moves like a heavyweight champ; takes the little rabbit punches, plants his feet slow and swings hard. It’s surreal, a guy that scrawny moving with the sure-footedness of somebody ten times his size. He’s got the oomph to back it up, because every hit he lands gives her a good rattle. Still, she’s landing a hell of a lot more, and the gravel’s doing its little jig with each blow.
Sam gets himself half upright; Dean’s watching him, and gives a small nod towards the trunk, mimes a stabbing motion. Must be where he stashed the sword.
Sam nods, and moves to scrape the Beretta out from where it skidded under the plastic skirting of the trailer.
“You know, you remind me of someone.” Lady is monologuing, weaving out of Castiel’s reach. She doesn’t look phased by the exertion. “You’ve got that same smell: sandalwood, loyalty, with a dash of that ‘earnest righteousness’ je ne sais quoi. What was her name? Always hanging around the gardens in Babylon. With the eyes?”
It must be a familiar one, because Castiel's dropping the footwork and lunging for her throat. "You know her name."
She buries an elbow in his neck, and plunges a grasping hand into the space behind his shoulder. Whatever she’s looking for, she finds it. Her fingers curl into a fist that she wrenches aside, hard.
They hit the gravel, and then a sound like the high-pitched whine of tinnitus amplified a thousand times over bursts over them, reverberating through the steel of the Beretta between Sam’s fingers. Sam’s hands are flying up on instinct to cover his ears, but it doesn’t dull the sound. Dean catches the dissonant frequency between clenched teeth and fumbles with the trunk cover.
Castiel sags onto the dirt with a wounded kind of whine. The woman buries a knee between his shoulders, pulling an invisible line taut between clawed fingers in a bizarre mime. “Well, don’t worry, dear. You’ll see each other ag-”
Another gunshot. A neat hole punches through the demon’s powersuit, just below the ribs.
Sam waits patiently for her to turn, then follows through with two more: a shot through the collarbone, ruining the neat line of her lapel. The second hits two inches lower, a little to the right. Heart and lung territory.
“Alright,” she says, pulling her bloodied jacket straight. Blood spills, bright and fresh, through the holes in the fabric. She doesn’t seem to mind. “If the children insist that they get some attention, I can certainly provide-“
But Dean’s moving on Sam’s periphery, and Sam raises his aim to make three quick pulls on the trigger. Two shots impact on her skull with a wet smack and a flash of white bone. The last wings her ear, but hey, it was a good streak.
She looms large over Sam, painted in the rich red of blood and the reek of sulfur - and then she’s twisting aside, teeth bared in a shriek. Dean carries the shortsword smoothly through the rest of its arc, and what would’ve cut spinal cord ends up carving a crooked path from shoulder to breastbone, flaying open cloth to flesh to bone. The blade comes to a rest at Dean’s hip, blade shining black with blood.
She sparks, so that Sam can-for a moment-see the skeleton underneath the skin. Then she gives a guttural gasp and dusts off into a black cloud.
Dean braces his hands against his knees and breathes. “What the hell was that.”
“Grigori,” Sam repeats, not sure if he believes it or not. Big friggin’ demon, though. That he does believe. He checks the clip on the gun - 4 left - and the sky for any more plumes of demon-smoke before he pulls himself to his feet.
“Its name is Gregory?”
“He said ‘grigori’. Y’know, the fallen angels. The ones that jumped ship from Heaven with Satan. ’course that requires there being angels. And, y’know, Satan-“ He drifts off the Bible lesson and waves a hand towards Castiel, still sprawled in the dirt. “Is, uh-is he alive?”
By the puffs of dust blooming where he’s gasping, yeah. His fingers are spread wide and loose in the gravel. With a slow imprecision he brings them into a fist, grinding together the captured rocks with pops and squeaks.
“Yo! Cas-dude.” Dean kneels down beside him, looking for a visible injury. “Where are you hurt? Is it the stitches?”
Castiel mutters, “’srafiel” in a cloud of dust. Then the sword must dip into his half-lidded vision, because Castiel lashes out with an abrupt but clumsy hand, wrapping gritty and shaking fingers around Dean’s wrist to keep the weapon back and away.
“Um.” Dean gives Sam a helpless shrug, and sets the sword down. “I’m not gonna hurt you. I just need to see how bad you’re hurt.”
He gives Dean a hazed once-over before dropping his arm. He speaks in huffed syllables: “Don’t. I'm not.”
Sam’s a giant looming over Dean’s shoulder, attention split between the horizon and their new guest. “What’d she do?”
Castiel shakes his head. There’s fresh blood blooming under the skin of his jaw, a good bruise in the making. “She’ll come back,” he mutters to somewhere around Dean’s shoe.
“Okay, well then”-Dean reaches under Castiel’s arm and hauls him upright-“let’s get out of here.”
Sam ducks into the trailer to get the gear. Castiel jerks away from him as soon as he’s vertical, but he’s just as soon propping himself up on the Impala’s trunk, smearing out a streak of road dust with his palm. He clamps a hand against his chest, digging nails into the meat of his shoulder with a grimace.
Dean collects the sword he’d set aside, scrubs some of the blood off with dirt. It comes out gleaming. With a couple seconds consideration, he flips the blade and offers the handle towards Columbo. He accepts it wordlessly, tucks it away into some hidden inner pocket of the trenchcoat.
There’s still a dead body in the trailer. As Sam steps out with their gear, he hefts a canister of salt and a jug of accelerant. “You think it’s overkill?”
Sam shakes his head. “More the better. That badge looked pretty real.”
Awesome.
By the time Dean’s got the corpse salted and a good blaze going, Sam’s got the Impala packed up and ready to go. But he’s not heading for it. He’s staring at the cop car by the end of the road. “I recognize that car from town. Willing to bet they followed me here.”
“They’re looking for me,” Castiel mutters from where he’s leaning, pale, against the fender. “Here.” He sways forward abruptly, laying his hands out flat against both their chests.
“Hey, whoa--“ Sam starts; Dean goes to pull back, but there’s already what feels like fire searing along the lines of his ribs. He presses a hand into the bones, trying to smother the burn.
“Ow. What the hell was that?”
“Sigils,” Castiel says, and sways back against the trunk. “She saw your faces. She’ll know your names. Now you’re hidden.”
Sam’s glancing down his own shirt, but the skin is unblemished. “Hidden, like-“
“They won’t be able to locate you by any arcane means. Angels or demons.”
“Yeah, well, don’t - no. No more of -- that.” Dean rubs at his ribs and gives one more miserable, “Ow.”
Castiel ignores him.
Sam squints against the morning sun. “I’ve had this car since Breckenridge. Probably shouldn’t leave it here. I can drop off the cop at the next hospital I find, ditch the car someplace there isn’t another dead cop. Come pick me up in, what, five, six hours? On Route 34, two miles west of that town with nothing but shitty tacos. Y’know the one.”
“Yeah, I know the one.” Dean turns his head. “Alright. Five hours.”
Sam heads for his borrowed piece of shit Toyota, which leaves shotgun open. Dean props open the door and waves a hand. Castiel climbs in without comment. By the time Dean’s falling into the driver’s seat he’s slouched against the door, hands folded neatly in his lap.
Sam heads east. Dean heads west.
They leave behind twin columns of thick black smoke, rising slowly towards blue Nebraska sky.
Master Post | Part I | Part II