The lost plateau - The lost daughter Part 2
Less than two weeks into his stay into the miners' village, Dean was visited by a new and weird character. Short and round, the man looked like a notary who had just escaped his office in his black and very formal attire. Nothing out of the ordinary on the streets of London, but not exactly the kind of vision you were expecting on the plateau.
"Winchester," the man offered his hand. "The name's Fergus MacLeod, owner of this mine and the adjoining land. Osir tells me he concluded a deal with you."
"Mr. MacLeod," Dean answered, shaking the hand of the newcomer. "Indeed, we've got a deal going. I'm currently working on a conveyor belt while my friends work in the mine, in exchange for some ore and a few baubles. I promise you won't be disappointed."
"We'll see about that. A deal is a deal, even up here, I hope you get that."
"I do, sir. No need for a formal contract or a judge to enforce it. My word should be enough. Just like I hope yours is."
There was some amusement on the man's face as he replied.
"My word is law, Mr. Winchester. Should we kiss, following some of the plateau tribes' fashion, to make it more official ?"
Dean stared at MacLeod, dumbfounded. He had had some offers in his time, but never any quite as direct as this one.
"I think your word will be enough," he finally answered.
"Very well. Now I hope you'll give me the pleasure of your company tonight for dinner."
Something in MacLeod's tone indicated no wasn't an option. Dean nodded and followed the man's retreat with his eyes, still wary.
Dinner was affable and worldly, composed of some delicious dishes Jenn or his grandfather would have probably appreciated far more than Dean and seemed quite out of place outside of the best tables of upscale London. It was par with the conversation. MacLeod had visited as many countries as Dean, if not more, and he proved incredibly knowledgeable of the world's customs, reminding Dean of details he had long forgotten or downright ignored as not essential to the hunt.
"May I ask how you came to visit the plateau ?" MacLeod wondered as they were served the next dish.
"Familial hazard," Dean answered in a laugh, not ready to give away the real story. "My grandfather happens to be a serial globetrotter - you know how it is after a certain age, you feel like you've seen it all, and only the most atypical voyage will alleviate your boredom. It depends on me to make sure nothing bad happens to him on a trip. And here we are."
MacLeod's smile at Dean's words didn't quite reach his eyes.
"Yet I'm told you brought your lover with you."
Dean decided to be even less forthcoming, for fear MacLeod entertained the old world's prejudice. Maybe Osir hadn't been too thorough with the details describing the expedition.
"Absolutely," he acquiesced, "as well as a friend of my grandfather's, and one of mine. Not to mention some we made here."
"That's quite the party, Mr. Winchester. I'd love to meet them all once they're back topside. Including your shaman friend and your very tall lover."
So much for Dean's hopes, but at least MacLeod didn't seem fazed by Sam's gender.
"What about you, Mr. MacLeod ?" Dean redirected the conversation. "You seem more at home in a law firm than here on top of South America's roof. What urged you to travel up here ?"
"The oldest motivation known to mankind, really : greed. Pure and simple greed. I thought such a place, surely, would be bursting with treasures easy to get my hands on. No competition to speak of, no petty decree taxing my hard work to fill the loose government's pockets. The only flaw in this theory of mine was about a way out."
"I'm sorry to hear that. I was hoping you could lend us some advice on this particular topic."
"Sorry, Mr. Winchester. It seems we're condemned to remain neighbors for the time being."
MacLeod raised his glass and Dean copied the movement, toasting their new acquaintance.
He couldn't quite put a name on what about MacLeod was bothering him, other than his obvious cagy attitude under the appearance of naked truth. He only knew that all his internal alarms were firing at once in his presence and Dean had long learned to listen to them. He was quite happy to remember that the neighborhood they had alluded to was in fact quite tenuous, separated as they'd be by miles of jungle and wild fauna as soon as he and his friends were able to get back home to the Tree house.
The rest of the dinner went quite the same way, each trying to outsmart the other and gain a bit of information, but to no avail. Dean's questions about the provenance of the men working the mines were gently swept under the rug, as well as MacLeod's interrogations about the future use of the ore Dean's friends were currently digging. They said their goodbyes quite amicably but Dean was relieved to learn the next day that MacLeod was gone, away to inspect another one of his plants, and never to reappear during their stay. He hated that kind of man, a slaver and opportunist who didn't mind working other men to the bones to make a profit and desecrated other people's land in the name of expansion.
The few discussions he had been able to have with the local workers in the absence of Castiel's help had taught him that the volcano and his surroundings were considered sacred by the natives and that digging the ore was forbidden, thus the need for outside workers that Dean couldn't help but wonder about. So many men from below the plateau, most of them poor and uneducated, which meant there was no way they had come searching for anything else than money to take care of their family. Which also meant there was indeed another way to come up here, and probably to go back down. But even after talking about it with Sam and asking him to question the other miners, none of them were able to give a satisfying answer. Their only memories were of waking up in the tunnels next to other workers who would show them how to dig the ore and stay alive. Dean was pretty sure they had all been drugged and kidnapped, an easy and free labor supply who had to work or die.
It was the only way to explain why MacLeod would dig the ore : he had to know of a way back down the unending cliffs leading to the plateau. A way he was able to use to get his products back down and sell them around the world. A way he clearly didn't want to share with Dean and his friends, for fear of competition and dwindling profit.
After one month spent on top of the mine, safe and well-rested, Dean thought he was going to turn crazy. He had done everything Osir had asked of him, built an ox-actioned conveyor belt to get the ore, once on the surface, to the area where it was reduced and extracted, and then to take it to the open-air yard where it was stored. He had also built two lifts modeled on the one at the Tree to get in and out of the mine, the first one big and sturdy enough, and actioned by two dinosaurs of the small head/big muscles kind, to get the ore out of the mine, and a second, smaller one, actioned by the men using it this time, to make sure they would get out of the shaft in a safer way. He could breathe again now every time Sam visited him and didn't have to use that cable at the end of which a knot permitted insertion of a foot. Dean had had nightmares because of that cable, seeing Sam and their friends plunging to their death after they slipped or the knot unraveled and they fell down the shaft.
It was actually Sam who had helped him make his decision to go down the mine in his turn. Seeing his brother's utter exhaustion was already difficult to bear - and Dean had pleaded with Osir more than once to get him to go easy on his friends, to let them take a day off at least once a week, always to no avail - but Dean couldn't take it anymore when he learned that Bobby had been incapacitated by a nasty wound, thanks to the pick of another hard worker, and he was still obliged to work, even though he was clearly declining fast.
Dean let Sam rest and went to Osir as soon as his brother was asleep. It was easy enough to exchange one wounded and slow worker for a fresh, younger and healthy one, so Osir accepted his deal this time, especially after Dean promised with total bogus confidence that Bobby would be able to continue his work to extend the conveyor belt. As soon as the night was over, the foreman sent someone to look for the professor and Bobby was brought back up the shaft by Dean, and Sam who didn't know yet what Dean had agreed to in order to get their friend to safety.
It was indeed a nasty wound Bobby sported on his left thigh and Dean made sure to clean and bandage it once he had installed the older man on his cot in the little room he had been assigned in the village to work on his projects. He explained all he could to the professor and told him he was now in charge of inspecting the smithy's work with the bullets.
"I also told Osir you would keep on building the conveyor belt. All the plans are here, you shouldn't have trouble figuring it all out."
"Don't worry, boy. I'm good with my hands too, and I learned early on to read schematics. I'll do my best to keep up with your good work."
Bobby had been able to take in a lot of Dean's work as the Winchester brothers transported him out of the mine to the barracks, and he was pretty sure he could handle the rest. As soon as his wound had healed enough, he would resume Dean's task and make him proud. Anything to repay the sacrifice Dean was making by taking his place down there.
"I met the mine's owner, Fergus MacLeod. I kept information about what we're doing here to a bare minimum, so don't let him fool you if he visits again. Don't let him kiss you either."
With a last smirk at Bobby's bewilderment, Dean turned to Sam who had been looking at him for a while with a mix of anger and pride.
"You were safe up here !" Sam argued. "Why would you want to go down there ?"
"Because it's the place I need to be. Sam, don't you get it ? After all these years apart, I need to be there."
He didn't need to add with you for Sam to hear it. He felt exactly the same, but knowing Dean was safe out of the mine had been his only silver lining during his time underground.
Dean kissed him and made him forget everything else for a little while, right before Sam and he were taken back to the shaft and pulled down to the mine.
Sam was not happy with him, of course, but Dean could live with that. He was now there to do his part and take care of his friends, make sure nothing bad could happen again to Sam or anyone else.
"I imagine hell doesn't look much different !" Dean mused as he arrived in a dark tunnel full of shadows and burning oil lamps.
"You would know," Campbell muttered, silently slipping behind them.
Dean ignored him as he took in the unending and maze-like hallways dug into the rock. It was so dark down there that he had troubles reading his friends' faces and deciphering their level of exhaustion. High, very high, and they were no more happy to see him here than Sam had been, which only reinforced his need to be there with them.
He worked twice as hard as anyone else, decided to make up for the good time he'd had up there and to make their release quicker, taking on his friends' work to ease their load. He forged bonds with as many other miners as he could and brought Sam along, using their very different skills and assets to net them a web of allies they could rely on in case something went so wrong they needed to escape swiftly.
Following his example, Sam went out of his way, like he used to do as a reporter, to lose the image he had generated in the previous weeks of a prissy boy who thought he didn't belong here, and increase the number of friends they were making in the mine. Even some of the guards tentatively began to joke around him and not about them. Sam was very aware of the quality of Dean's smile to appease and conquer the biggest brutes, the vibe he was giving off as "one of the boys" that few people were able to resist when he did his best to win you over - just like he was able to rattle chains and piss you off with the best of them, as proved by his constant strained relationship with his grandfather.
In his turn, Castiel tried his best to imitate Dean's friendly attitude, gaining the ear of Gadreel, the mine's shaman, and a few hours of reprieve here and there to exchange with him about practices and rituals. Castiel found him to be not overly worried about the workers' fate.
"Can't you do something about the way the miners are treated ?" Castiel asked him when he felt they had become close enough.
"Those men have earned in the course of their previous lives the unpleasantness visiting them today," Gadreel argued passionately. "Castiel, you know as well as me that paying the price of one's actions is paramount to wipe the slate clean and advance to a higher level of understanding. As the circle of life and death goes, they are actually lucky to be put to task in the present. Dying here, under the flog or a cave-in, and after much suffering, is the guarantee of their advancement."
Castiel soon reported that there would be no help coming from the shaman, should they need it.
The worst part of this belief was that Gadreel has succeeded in convincing not only the guards, but also most of the miners that their fate was an enviable one. That their next reincarnation would be so much sweeter for all the pains and troubles they were going through right now. Many refused to be treated when sick or wounded, in the hope that it would lead to a swifter ending on the path to the liberation from all grief. The mortality rate was high, and the need for new workers constant.
Gordon Walker was one of the miners who had been brought such a long time ago he seemed undefeatable and his endurance made him kind of a surrogate boss thanks to some unspoken rule among the miners, self-appointed overseer who the guards tolerated as long as he got results and enforced the rule in their absence. He and Dean got on like a house on fire at first - and wasn't that a kick in the teeth for Sam who had been mocked, taunted and slapped around by this particular miner from the very first day for refusing to follow his orders - but Gordon's intense dislike of Sam brought their kinship to a dramatic halt. Dean kept getting between him and his brother to protect Sam from Gordon's wrath, challenging his authority every day.
It certainly didn't help that Dean, as well-liked as he was down in the mines for taking care of anyone in need, quickly eclipsed Walker's fame. It became worse when Dean began to fight with all his might the pervasive resignation and realized Gordon had been capitalizing on it to strengthen his leadership.
Dean tasted his work ethics on the fifth day down in the mine, still full of taunt, but he got an instantaneous adjustment in his attitude when the overseer, mad but certainly not stupid, aimed his whip at Sammy's body as Dean kept on provoking him despite the harsh bite of the whip on his own back. No surer way to make Dean obey than threatening his little brother.
The worst part of the time down in the mine, right after the brutal work and the mistreatments, was the sheer boredom due to uneventful days passed doing the exact same things. Nothing ever happened, save for working, eating, and sleeping. Nothing changed, until the day the Earth shook.
The cave walls seemed to tremble like paper in the wind and the members of the expedition looked around in dismay, not just a little scared. The accompanying noise was just as frightening, but they soon realized that no one had moved and tried to escape. Everyone had stopped working, unable to stay upright without at least a hand on the wall to stabilize them, waiting for the end of the volcano's anger.
"Shouldn't we leave ?" Sam finally asked when no else suggested it. "Fast."
"No need," Walker answered, "we just have to let it pass. Unless you're too much of a pussy, hiding in your lover's shadow, to tolerate a little mountain shake."
Sam closed his fists and squeezed them tight. He would not be goaded into responding to the man's taunts, as vile as they might be. Plus Walker was right, the tremors had ended and nothing was left to show there had been the beginning of an earthquake, save for a few workers thrown down and now getting back up.
"Morrison," the overseer bellowed, "stop taking your sweet time and get to it. You're hardly meeting your quotas these days, do you need to be encouraged ?"
The older man sputtered and tried to defend himself without looking threatening, but only ended with a hit in his stomach for his trouble. He was then expected to go back to work immediately. Sam and Dean didn't even think before they went to his aid. Sam took his pick and worked on his vein for a little while, leaving to Dean the time to soothe him back to a standing position and the assurance that whatever Sam mined would be for Morrison, not for them.
"Morrison ?" Samuel suddenly asked. "Are you Professor Morrison ? Did you write a journal mentioning the location of the plateau ?"
"I did," the miner responded, wary anew. "It got lost some time ago."
"Well, we found it. You're the reason we're here, Professor."
The explorers looked at this broken man, dumbfounded, and tried to imagine him in good clothes, masterly teaching a class. They came up empty.
"I'm sorry about that," Morrison replied with derision, "but I've got no idea how it left the plateau in the first place, and it's not like I forced you to come up. How did you do it, anyway ?"
"Hot air balloon, " Sam answered, "and a lot of bad and good luck entwined. What about you ?"
"I don't have the slightest idea. One night I was asleep in my bed ; the next day found me here in these mines. Waking up to join the crew and realizing I was on the very plateau I had spent my life searching for. I never even got to see any dinosaur, and they were all I wanted."
Sam's heart did a somersault, and it was clear on everyone else's face that they had thought the same thing and this confirmed Dean's theory after talking with the mine's owner : if Morrison had arrived here so quickly, then it meant another way definitely existed, one much shorter and easier, and they just had to pinpoint what it was and where it stood.
"Had you found the plateau's location before you were… brought up ?" Dean enquired, stopping his work to wait for the answer.
"Yes. Someone else's journal came into my possession and it helped in narrowing down the possible locations. After that, it was just a question of logic."
Dean and Sam exchanged a look that clearly said how fishy this all smelled, how convenient that all those journals moving down the plateau were to be found by professors whose hobby - euphemism for obsession - was to discover its coordinates.
Morrison's antagonism died that day and the former professor became a kind of honorary member of their expedition, now placed under their protection. Which meant more bad blood between Gordon and them, as Morrison had always been his whipping boy. They made it their mission to keep him from harm as much as, if not more than, the other workers.
Dean was still clinging to this need one month later when the overseer came to tell them with a snarl that their time was done.
"We can't leave and let these people work to their death !"
"We're not numerous enough to fight, Dean," Meg was once again the voice of reason. "We can try and find MacLeod again later, talk to him and see what we can do for the miners, but we can't fight directly. Not now. And you know it."
Dean indeed knew it, but it broke his heart to abandon those people to their fate.
His month in the pit was one of those times he would never forget. He had experienced pretty awful stuff in his life, but brutal, constant and hopeless work was not a life he wished on anyone, not even his worst enemy. Especially in a place where the hope of escaping was null, ordered around by a mad overseer like Gordon Walker who distributed whiplashes like candies to make sure he wouldn't be downgraded back to miner if his laborer didn't work hard enough.
And now Dean had to accept to leave all the other workers behind, including Professor Morrison, the explorer whose journal had been found through mysterious ways by Samuel Campbell, bringing them all here to abandon him anyway to a more or less quick death by exhaustion.
But if it was a choice between Morrison and Sam, Dean already knew the answer.
-------------
They felt gross and smelt worse. Their first act out of the mine was to take a long bath in the nearby river, led by a now back-to-health Bobby Singer.
There was no need to fetch their mounts ; even after all that time spent separated, something had tipped them off. The wide animals had felt the tug of their riders' need for them and came to meet them.
They arrived, leaping with joy, as the humans were playing delightfully in the water. Impala immediately went to Dean, right into the river, and fussed over him for a long time. Buck did the same with Sam, imitated by all the other dinosaurs visibly happy to see their humans again. Only Campbell's mount, Mare, played it aloof, just like the professor himself, and waited on the shore.
Clean and dry, they went back to the village to collect their things. Dean didn't forget to gather all the schematics he had made to create his conveyor system and the lifts, as well as all the paper and graphite pens he had accumulated, knowing it would be difficult to find more elsewhere and Sam and the professors were always in need of them to take notes while they worked on Meg's books.
They loaded their dinosaurs' backs with the ore they had traded for, as well as the casings created by the blacksmith, then quickly left the mine behind them, ready to forget this interlude in their existences and never to visit it again.
-------------
They had hardly traveled half a mile when they felt and heard a deep rumble coming from the volcano. Sure, it wasn't the first time the mountain seemed to wake up during their stay, but today the tremors kept going for long enough that Castiel's face finally took on a worried expression.
"We have to hide, quick," he urged them all.
"Where ?" Sam asked. "Do you think this hill will be high enough ?"
"Probably, but it won't protect us against the burning cloud. Our only chance is to hide in the mazes."
Dean didn't know what a burning cloud could do but it didn't seem fun. Judging by the professors' faces, it was anything but.
They urged their dinos with thighs and heels to go fast, following in Castiel's path, retracing their steps to the mountain. The plateau's anger seemed to build up with each minute and fumes began to escape the volcano's top, making them doubt they would get to their hiding place in time.
Indeed, a first explosion happened as they neared the foothills of the volcano and spotted ruins of an ancient village, maybe one mile from the current one. They couldn't help but shudder as they took in the growing quantity of ash and fire pervading the atmosphere and plummeting down the mountain, still far enough from them to give them a chance to reach their goal.
The dinosaurs didn't need any prodding to run fast, as fast as they could, as if their human charges and the ore loads weighed nothing. They had picked up on the danger probably even before Castiel but where their instincts would have pushed them to go as far as possible from the volcano, they trusted their humans enough to follow their lead.
Menacing cracks were heard much closer by the time they reached the entrance of the tunnels they were looking for, abandoned areas whose veins had been drained by the ore mining, fortunately high and large enough that the dinos were able to get in. They only stopped long enough to light some lamps then ran again, galloping at great speed to hide deep inside, out of the way of whatever the volcano would throw at them. They burrowed into the maze, hoping the many twists and turns of the tunnels would prevent the lava from following, before they dismounted on the highest spot they could find and lighted the rest of their lamps.
"There's nothing we can do but wait, now," Castiel stated
"How did you know about these tunnels ?" Jenn wondered.
"I asked," he answered, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. "Gadreel told me about them. He said the miners are used to hiding in the old tunnels whenever the volcano becomes too angry."
"Well, I've never been as glad as now that you came with us !" Jenn rejoiced with a quick hug that left Castiel speechless.
"But how come the magma or the gas don't fill the tunnels entirely ? Did he explain this to you ?" Bobby enquired.
"I don't think Gadreel is that knowledgeable. If he is, he didn't share with me. I can surmise that the miners probably realized they had been protected after they were first stuck in the mines but didn't die. This is the way the ancients adapted to their environment, learning through lucky happenstance."
"We should remove the loads so that the dinos can be at ease," Dean suggested, taking pity on the beasts. "How long do you feel we'll be stuck here ?"
"The dinosaurs will tell us, they will know instinctively when the danger is over. Nature seems very displeased, so I would say at least one day, maybe two."
"Okay, we better get cozy."
They all installed their bedrolls, Sam next to Dean's, their dinosaurs immediately flanking them as they used to do on the surface every night, and then listened to the elements growling and clashing above their heads.
"Bobby," Sam interrupted when he was fed up with the noise, "what's happening up there exactly ?"
The professor seemed relieved to find an occupation and get his mind off of nature's battering.
"What Castiel calls burning cloud is known in the scientific world as a nuée ardente, a pyroclastic surge. It means that very hot gas erupts from the volcano along with rocks. It all flows downhill, gaining very high speed on the way, but it can also rise over hills, and it travels far. It's lethal. No human, animal or tree can resist or outrun this kind of surge, for they would immediately combust at such temperature. In recent past, this is what killed about 30,000 people in Martinique when Mount Pelée erupted in 1902 and incinerated the town of St Pierre."
"You make it sound like you're surprised we're still alive."
"I am. These mazes have been dug to reach the sulfur ores and surely they communicated at some point with the volcano. Now I'm no specialist, but I'm more than glad the gas didn't pass through the tunnels. Same thing about the lava."
"I agree," Campbell intervened, "and I understand now why the land in the direct vicinity of the volcano is quite arid. Frequent eruptions, even mild ones, probably keep the vegetation at its minimum. I'm more surprised that the flow seems to stop astonishingly close to the crater, no more than a mile or so. And as Castiel said, I guess the villagers and workers hide in other parts of the maze, just like we did."
"I'm not sure MacLeod really minds losing his workers as long as he can find replacements," Dean lamented, still incapable of letting go of the idea he had let these people down. "He seems to be quite adept at finding new laborers."
Sam tried to soothe him with a light caress on his face that he prolonged down his arm until he could reach his hand and lace their fingers together.
"I know how you feel, I do too, but we couldn't do anything about it. As it is, we were barely able to walk right."
"I know," Dean repeated, but it would take time before he sounded convinced and felt it.
Sam was most happy about getting his journal back in his hands to be able to write down some of his experience. He found it rippled in some places and it was obvious someone has read his thoughts without bothering to hide it very much. He doubted Bobby would do that kind of thing, which meant it could only be his brother.
"Did you read my journal ?!" Sam asked him, bewildered by such a disrespect of his privacy.
"Don't be mad, Sammy. I needed it to feel close to you, to not go crazy at night when I tried to sleep and couldn't stop thinking about what might happen to you in the mine."
He was mad, but Sam couldn't resist Dean's sad expression, understanding despite himself what his brother had been going through. Then something very much like love tore at his heart when he saw that Dean had kept up with his calendar, noting each day to make sure they knew exactly how much time had passed since their arrival. He had even asked the professor to continue in his place on a loose sheet of paper.
He was further distracted when he realized Dean had already forgotten their discussion, instantly watching their grandfather who was also taken with his own journal, writing down whatever he thought important to keep memory of.
"If we could…" Dean began, thinking hard. "There might be something in his journal that would help us find out what he's after."
"Dean, as much as I disapprove of the professor's attitude and beliefs, I still think the man has a right to his privacy as much as I do."
"I'm not so sure. You're a good man, and every line you wrote proved it to me once again. I don't think the professor will earn this comment if I get my hands on his journal."
Sam knew a lost cause when he saw one. Dean would find a way to get it, and Sam would cave and look too. In the meanwhile, he could try and make sure Dean wouldn't put his nose in his stuff again.
"Just stay out of my own journal !" he concluded.
November 2nd
I am now convinced that the worst punishment a man can suffer is penal servitude and a life spent bent in two to collect and carry whichever stuff he is told to. Nothing is worth breaking a man's back and his hopes for a better life. Nothing.
I wish I could have prevented Dean from going down in the mine in his turn. One of us was one too many, and I kept fearing for his life - and mine - knowing he wouldn't be able to keep quiet for long in front of Gordon Walker.
Time to put all this behind us. Our life on the plateau isn't easy, but it's a damn nice one compared to the slow death down in the mine. I wonder how long it will take me to forget, in my dreams at night, about the screams of those men dying, forgotten and hopeless.
-------------
Crowley took care to stay invisible as he appeared at one end of the tunnel the explorers had hidden in, glad to see them all alive if a bit… drowsy. Working in the mines would do that to any simple man.
He had been well inspired to allow the proselyte Gadreel to talk genuinely with the other shaman, or he might have had to intervene himself to save them all from the eruption, leading to many questions he preferred to avoid right now. He wasn't sure yet how important the youngest Winchester boy might prove to be in the future, but he definitely had a vested interest in keeping him safe as long as destiny remained cloaked and uncertain.
He took the time to check the new entries in the journals three of the men were keeping, a window into their souls or projects. All of them had Sam Winchester's best interests at heart, save maybe for the older professor Crowley already knew. The one who had made it possible to attract Winchester on the plateau with his foolish obsession. It seemed that, in exchange for a small gold nugget, Campbell had managed to get information through some hushed conversations with one of the guards in the mines- Crowley would have to send that one back to hell after a good month of torture - who had offered him new leads in his research for the perfect ingredients to cast efficient spells.
Sam's journal entry, as well as Professor Singer's, were badly verbose sentimental nonsense and brought no information at all. Done with his readings, Crowley was certain he didn't need to stick around, nor to make sure his protégés wouldn't go out too soon. The dinosaurs would see to it that the men and women didn't try to leave before danger was over, just like they sensed his presence. All the animals' eyes were now turned towards his location, ready to move and protect their humans.
These beasts were useful for many things. He had one of his own, although a tad different than the species hiding in the mine, waiting outside the cavern, flying the turbulent and lethal storm with a delight Crowley still could feel that far inside the mine. This typical lack of fear made Hellraiser a particularly good hunter when he knew the scent of his marks.
Crowley raised his hand and summoned to himself the fragrant molecules of each person and animal present in the room to take back to his mount and get his plan in gear. He'd have Hellraiser follow the expedition home and check on them now and again. He wouldn't let anyone or anything come between him and the chosen child.
-------------
They ended up spending the better part of three days in the tunnels and used the time to rest as much as needed, feeling safe under their dinosaurs' vigilant watch. They had food and water for a little while, and no need to be anywhere in a hurry. It fitted Dean's amorous mood ; he and Sam might not be able to make love in this cramped space shared with too many people, but it was easy to snuggle and let your hands roam over hot, beloved skin once the oil lamps were all turned off to allow for sleep. Dean always fell asleep better with both of his firmly splayed over Sam's ass.
Thanks to the dinosaurs' presence, the whole of them were able to sleep at once, no watch needed, and they abused that privilege shamelessly for most of the time, weeks of hard labor and little rest catching up with them. Exhaustion was the only reason why they could stand to spend so much time in the mines again so soon after their release.
Sam passed the rest of his time writing in his journal while Dean was pestering someone else to counter his feeling of cabin fever, often fussing over Impala to groom her or preparing the simple and mostly cold meals they shared. Leaning against Buck, Sam wrote down all the details of their mining days that he could remember, learning to detach himself from the fear induced by the man lusting after him or Gordon Walker's craziness.
"Is this your mother ?"
Startled, Sam looked up to find Bobby kneeling next to him, a photograph in his hand. It was indeed his mother the professor was admiring, the picture fallen from his journal's cover, and Sam nodded with a smile.
"My adoptive mom, Ellie. Eleanor Visyak. She let me kept my name when she adopted me."
"Your name ?"
"Wesson. I know now that it was not my real name, just the one Mary Winchester chose for us when she ran away from home and hid us both. Anyway, Ellie didn't mind about that kind of detail. She just wanted to protect me and offer me a good life."
"You were lucky to have her."
"I was indeed."
Ellie had told him how she had found him, alerted by a child's unending cries to Sam's presence in the closed apartment his mother had left him in before she left and probably died soon after. Mrs. Visyak was supposed to visit a distant sick relative and bring her some soup. She looked terribly out of place in her pricy dress and feathered hat, but her appearance had impressed the men of the social services she had called for Sam, enough that they agreed quite easily to let her care for the lonely boy a few days later. After a year had passed, Sam's mother still missing and thus presumed dead, Ellie had been allowed to adopt him. Knowing how the foster care system worked, the adult Sam was pretty sure Ellie had bribed the right people to get things moving the way she wanted.
Sam had often wondered what his life would have looked like without this incredible woman to raise him and offer him all the opportunities to become someone.
"She's beautiful," Bobby said as he gave him the photograph back.
Sam looked at her for a little while, seized by a tremendous need to see her again that he could only master by going to look for his brother and silently asking for a hug that Dean was all too happy to give him.
When Impala and her friends showed signs of impatience, Dean went outside with her to check the area and ascertain they could leave their hideout. Soon followed by Sam and Jenn, and then the rest of their group, they decided to take the road back home.
-------------
They made it back in a bit more than two weeks, refusing to hurry the dinosaurs loaded with their purchases. As they left Castiel to his tribe, Guy invited them to celebrate with the village their safe return but they took a rain check, too tired to make small talk and play the perfect guests.
Two days after their return, as they needed fresh meat, Dean volunteered to accompany his grandfather to everyone else's surprise. They straddled their dinosaurs - the whole band had stuck around but Dean was now pretty sure there was some sort of bond between a dino and their human, psychic or other, that allowed the animals to know when they were needed - and departed for an area they knew to be well stocked with game.
Dean wasn't really sure what had pushed him to go, only that the professor hadn't found what he was searching for during their trip and showed an increasing level of agitation and verbal aggression that would surely lead sooner or later to some bad decision they would all suffer from. It seemed wise to keep a tight watch on him.
He got more than he hoped for. As Campbell shot his prey, the backpack he had abandoned on the ground was kicked by the dinosaur roaring in distress and slid down a steep slope. All objects inside spilled around, including the precious notebook that got stuck between two rocks. Dean saw it from his position but kept the information for him, remembering in an instant the value he had already put on such an item in his quest to learn about his grandfather's intentions.
The trip home was spent under a constant barrage of criticism mostly aimed at him, at least every time Samuel stopped raging against this forsaken land and its pitfalls. Dean answered none of his barbs, singing all the way to drown the sound of his voice as much as in the hope to annoy his grandfather all the more. Two hours after they had returned, he discreetly escaped everyone's surveillance and ran back to the hunting ground. His heart beating too fast, he almost missed it : the journal had slipped further down the slope, forcing him to climb down the ravine and ignore his nausea in front of the terrible height before he could finally put his hand on the notebook and snatch it.
Dean patted himself on the back - not so metaphorically - until the moment he sat in his bedroom and tried to read the damn thing.
It was coded ! From first to last written page, each and every one covered in gibberish, well-known alphabet forming indecipherable words.
Dean wanted to march to his grandfather and demand excuses for being so aggravating once again.
Luckily for him, he had a secret weapon securely tucked up his sleeve : a brother so intelligent and learned that Dean was pretty sure no code would ever resist his sagacity.
Sam felt bad for all of two seconds when Dean told him about his theft - technically more of an opportunity seized, in Dean's opinion - but his curiosity got the better of him, the challenge combined with his need to decipher the code and to help Dean.
They recruited Bobby to assist them when some of the hidden words proved too alien for Sam's knowledge, needing a professor's expertise. He too sent them a look that seemed to mean they should be ashamed of themselves, right before he started working on it.
With his support, they narrowed their search over a few specific questions that had left Sam floundering, supernatural topics neither he nor Dean had ever heard about : the Willis, the Wiht (probably an old English version of Wight, Bobby surmised), or some other thing called Sarramauca… Dean passed on to them both his certainty that they had to learn quickly about Samuel's intentions, this feeling of urgent need to be prepared for whatever the professor was about to throw at them.
It turned out Dean was right.
-------------
She opened her eyes to a darkened world. Her dulled awareness felt completely in sync with the absence of colors.
She didn't recognize her surroundings. Trees and leaves outside of the wall walk she stood up on, bare feet on a floor covered in what seemed to be osier. Nothing like the parquet floors of her parents' house or the stony ground of the university.
She needed Sam to make everything right. He was the only one who could made sense of everything, this place, the bottomless anger she felt at being alone when she needed him. He would make everything right. He would.
He would take her in his arms and make her feel safe again. He would love her and take her back to where she belonged. Together, against the rest of the world, in the nothingness that was now her common, truly blessed life.
-------------
He cried in pain, a pain of the likes he had never known, but no one heard him, not even himself, over the beast's roars of pleasure and the encouragements of the women watching with delight the sacrifice promising them their gods' good will and love. Each time the beast pushed some more inside his body, Sam felt himself split in two, his flesh and muscles giving way under the assault, his mind losing any coherency to fall into a world of madness in which he could try to rejoin his dead comrades - he could see Dean get back up, zombie-like, to support him, followed by Professor Singer, but not before he had helped Jenn and Meg up. All of them, except for Professor Campbell, approaching to offer their love in this terrible moment when he was molded forcefully into something new, changed into a new shape. He looked ridiculous. A man resembling a monster, bloody and feral.
"Sam ! Sammy, it's just a bad dream, you're safe with me. Come on, wake up now !"
He opened his eyes and saw Dean watching him, remembering none of this had ever happened, nothing so bad anyway, because Dean had talked the Amazons into allowing them to make love instead of being raped by a dinosaur, saving his body and future at the same time.
But still, something felt wrong. Laying his head on Dean's chest, he tried to go back to sleep, soothed by his brother's heartbeat and his beguiling scent.
It was suddenly so cold in their room, his breath an opaque shadow in the still mostly dark night. He hadn't felt this cold since long before their arrival on the plateau.
Dean had picked up on it too. His heartbeat quickened, his muscles tensed. When a low, mesmerizing song began to fill the silence, he sat up and rummaged for something on their nightstand, soon lighting up the wick of their oil lamp.
The hissing sound abruptly replacing the song had them both turning their head towards a corner of the room to take in the tall, slender young woman standing there. Her white nightgown over skin so pale, the long blonde hair floating freely on her back, her whole appearance screamed ghost at Sam even more than the fact that this particular woman's presence in his bedroom should have been impossible. He squinted to make sure he was not mistaken, hardly recognizing her smile, so hungry and harsh, so different than Jess's happy and carefree attitude.
Dean put a hand on his shoulder and the hissing got stronger, in time with the storm unexpectedly brewing outside and the lightning shedding light on all things. Jess was pissed. She was very pissed.
She was on him in a second, kissing him hungrily, cold and inhumanly strong, forcing his mouth open like she never did when she was alive.
And then she disappeared. Sam blinked, only seeing Dean holding the special long iron knife he had explained one day was useful to disseminate ghosts. He had also said it wasn't a permanent solution. They needed to burn the piece of Jess he still retained that had allowed her to come back.
"The lock of hair in my fountain pen," he realized, "we have to burn it."
"Go, run," Dean insisted, "I'll take care of it."
Dean had seen it and he knew what to look for. He had never said he thought it was a rather terrible gift ; he didn't want to damage Sam's memories of the girl nor ask for a story Sam was obviously not prepared to talk about, but he wouldn't miss the shady thing.
Sam didn't run far before Jess caught up with him. He wished he had taken the time to put on at least some trousers, feeling very vulnerable when she pushed him against one of the wooden pillars sustaining the wall walk surrounding the house and kissed him again, her grip so tight on him that he couldn't escape or move in the slightest.
He felt her hard and cold body against his, nothing to do with the lovely, athletic girl he could remember, locking him effectively in place as one of her hands started to roam all over his chest and then lower, taken by a sexual frenzy he couldn't match that made him physically ill.
"Hey, you wench, stop with the tonsillectomy !" Dean yelled before he brought his lighter to the strand of hair he had taken out of a small casing in the pen's reservoir.
The hair consumed immediately and the ghost kind of hiccupped but Dean's smile disappeared just as quickly when she went back to molesting Sam as if her life depended on it. Which was kind of stupid when talking about a ghost. Unless… unless it was the plan, using Sam's life essence to build her own back up.
Her mouth descended on his neck, lips open to create a fierce suction and Sam felt worse as his life force was drained away.
Even in the very dim light of their lamp and that offered by the lightning, Dean was able to witness Sam getting paler by the second and he was desperately out of ideas to get rid of the persistent and unusual ghost.
"Dean !" Bobby appeared behind him from nowhere, attracted by the commotion and closely followed by Jenn and Meg, "I think this might be one of those Willis Campbell mentions in his journal."
"Does he say how to kill them ?"
"No, but I can try to come up with a counter spell."
"Do it !"
Dean only recognized a few of the words Bobby began to utter.
"…ex corporis… vade retro… incursio magna… audi nos…"
"Dean," Sam rasped, "can't breathe…"
Dean ran back into the bedroom to fetch his iron knife while Bobby continued to intone a spell in Latin which seemed to have little to no effect. Dean ran again and temporarily pulverized the ghost who reappeared in front of Bobby and sent him sprawling.
Jenn immediately replaced him with the spell - she had always been so much better than Dean with languages - and found herself attacked too, pushed over the balcony to certain death if Meg hadn't reacted so swiftly to break her fall and pull her up.
Dean was torn between joining them and going to help Sam as the ghost had materialized again next to him, hands roaming over his naked body and sucking life from him like a vampire would drain blood. Sam tried once again to resist, his hands closing on her hair to push her back. She didn't like the feeling, that much was obvious in the roar she emitted before she plunged once again as if to eat him whole in one big mouthful, squeezing his body tight against hers with both hands applied on his butt.
Dean had a moment of inspiration and certainty ; he knew that was it, that Sam had found the solution. Like the Samson of the bible, Jess' current hair had to be destroyed, and not some souvenir of the once-living girl, to touch the source of the apparition's power. He searched for his lighter that had disappeared somewhere during the battle, too conscious of Sam's wheezing sounds to be really efficient, but something must have clicked with Bobby too, slowly regaining full consciousness, who found the object next to his still-sprawled body and picked it up for him.
Lighter ablaze, Dean approached from behind the ghost that had already begun to gain firmer consistency and lit the tip of her hair aflame. Immediately, the woman let go of Sam and screamed, head of hair going up in flame before her body turned to ashes and disappeared forever.
Sam fell into Dean's open arms, weak and wrecked by the events.
"I got you, Sammy, you're safe. She won't come back."
As soon as Sam felt strong enough to stand on his own, Dean loosened his grip and walked him back to their bed where he sat down next to him, one arm around his shoulders to show his support. And possibly to assure himself that Sam was safe with him. He pulled on the light covers and tied them around their waists in the manner of a loincloth to hide their nakedness.
"Her name is Jess," Sam volunteered while the other explorers sat around. "Was Jess, Jessica Moore. She was my fiancée."
Dean sent him a questioning look.
"Back during college, I met this beautiful girl - I simply bumped into her. We had these fantastic conversations about everything - she was the dean's daughter and had access to as many courses and books as she wanted. Her very liberal upbringing had her coming to me in the first place when I proved too shy to talk to a woman I hadn't been introduced to. Every student flirted with her with more or less intent, some even courted her, but she seemed to be interested only in me, maybe because I didn't try to force her hand or didn't play any part to look good. We dated for a while, and then she was the one who said we should get married, knowing I would take forever to make that decision, despite all the logical reasons to do it : we were a lot alike, we loved to learn and we wanted to travel. We would have made a great team, I think. I realize now that my feelings for her weren't as deep as I imagined, but I still loved her."
Dean deposited a kiss on his brother's head, reminded of other moments of their childhood when he had consoled a very young Sam after a big booboo. This time, though, was not only about the support, a lot of the gesture designed to reestablish that Sam now belonged to him, and not some girl turned ghost who had once claimed Sam's heart for herself.
"So what happened ?" Dean asked in a rusty voice, half-jealous and half-sad for Sam at the gloomy ending he could see was coming for his brother's first love.
"She died and we never understood why or even how. She was found burned in her room, while everything else around her was still intact. She must have suffered so much, and she was all alone."
"And now she's come back to get you," Dean concluded.
Sam looked stricken.
"I don't understand why, Dean. She was not that kind of person. She would have been happy for me that I found you."
"I hear what you're saying, but ghosts are different creatures, Sammy. They're kind of trapped between two worlds, and sometimes it makes them so pissed off that they strike at everything getting in their way, including the people they used to love. Plus this one clearly needed your life essence to make a comeback into this world."
Dean couldn't help but shiver in retrospective fear.
"Do you think it's my fault ?" Sam worried. "That I had something to do with her being killed and… trapped ?"
"What ?! No, of course no. Why would you think that ?"
Sam remembered a time when he wouldn't even have understood or admitted tonight's apparition was a ghost, that someone could be brought back from the dead. He would have theorized that the woman found burned was someone else and that Jessica had somehow lost her mind, attacking him in a fit of jealousy. Searched for another, scientific way to explain the swiftness with which her ghostly body had burned away. But here he was now, questioning his own involvement in her fate.
"I was her fiancé, I pledged my faith to her, and tonight she came after me."
"Were you unfaithful to her when you were together ?"
"No! Of course no."
"Did you attack her, burn her, or do anything harmful to her that caused her death ?"
"You know I didn't."
"Then there you go. She might be pissed that you stopped living like a monk, but you're not the reason she died, nor why she came back tonight."
"So what is ? Is that what you meant when you said that you were here to make sure Professor Campbell didn't summon something bad ?"
"Absolu… Son of a bitch ! He did it ! And he targeted you !"
Dean's fury was so palpable that even Sam felt a bit of fright. His brother stood up and flew out of the room, yelling "Where is he ? Where's that sack of shit ?!" as if possessed himself. Sam tried to follow but his legs were like jelly and he had to accept Jenn's help for the first few steps.
By the time they found his brother, Dean had gone through every room of the Tree house and discovered Campbell was missing. Dean was still furious, and a lot pissed at himself for not thinking of Campbell's involvement earlier, even though Sam's ordeal and his subsequent confession about his former fiancée easily explained his temporary slowness.
They didn't see him before the next morning, when Dean threw himself at the older man and nearly choked him, prevented from doing so only by Sam and Bobby's gripping his arms to force him to let go.
"What the hell ?!" Campbell demanded.
"I knew we couldn't trust you ! You always had your own agenda, and you almost got Sam killed, you giant dick !"
"Watch your language, boy, and get off me. I didn't do anything to Sam."
"Really ? So you didn't invoke those Willis ? No vengeful spirits like Sam's late fiancée who tried to strangle him last night and feed off him ?"
"What ?!"
Campbell turned to Sam and stared at him.
"So even in your heart… I had so many great hopes for you, Sam, and you threw it all away."
It wasn't a clear acknowledgement of what he had done but everyone took it that way.
"I know that's how you feel," Sam answered softly. "But you never asked what I wanted, Professor. You warned me many times against Dean, but you never wondered about my own intentions and dreams, never imagined I could want him too."
"Then I'm glad Jessica came for you and I wish she had punished you the way you deserve."
Sam felt the words like a punch to the stomach.
"You can't mean that !"
"I do, just like I wish both you and Dean had died instead of Mary."
Campbell turned tail and went back to his own room.
-------------
Meg didn't wait to be asked before she went to Castiel's village to bring him back to the Tree. Halfway there, she found the shaman already on the road, riding his dinosaur who had sensed before anyone else that his human would be needed and showed up in front of his cabin. Castiel had followed, just like he had done every other time Dashel had showed up to take him somewhere.
Right after Dean had related the attack on Sam, Bobby told him he suspected the apparition to be a Willis.
"I think this is what we call Thy Nah," Castiel recognized, eyes closed to communicate with nature, "but some kind I've never seen. I feel strong black magic at work here. Someone forced this spirit out of her rest, though I don't understand why."
"Black magic ?" Sam repeated. "So does it mean she wasn't willing to harm me ?"
"Probably not. I don't know if she was obliged to attack, if the spell was responsible for maddening her, but I doubt she really felt so betrayed by your relationship with Dean that it pushed her to act that way."
"She was not the kind of woman to make a scene or to become violent. She had too much class for this. This attitude doesn't resemble her at all."
"So who did that to her ?" Dean asked, voicing everyone's question. "And why ? As sure as I feel that Samuel did the spell, I can't see what profit it will yield for him."
"Maybe it hasn't come to pass yet. Or maybe he simply failed in his spell, and Jessica was not who he intended to bring back."
"That's what I imagined !" Dean approved. "You're right, he's always wanted to bring back my mother. But why this spell ? Dad wasn't unfaithful."
"Unless he knows something you don't," Jenn softly said in a voice that was already an excuse for suggesting such a possibility.
"No," Dean persisted. "My father's flaws were numerous, but cheating wasn't one of them. And he loved Mom, whatever Samuel always tried to imply. It broke his heart when she left. Not to mention she wasn't a virgin, Sam and I are the best proof."
"Evidently," Bobby seconded him with a light blush to his face, "but that might explain why the spell went wrong. These Willis we read about in Campbell's journal ? They're known around the world under different names, Wilis, Wiles, Samodivas… and ignoring the slight differences from one tale to another, all versions pretty much amount to spirits of fiancées who died before the wedding, female vampires with long blond hair as their source of power, who kill young men often by dancing with them until they drop. Basically, angry virgins who come back to exercise their vengeance over their unfaithful lover. Campbell's goal might have been to bring back a younger Mary, one who hadn't married John Winchester yet. He probably modified the spell in order to try and avoid the vampire-sucking-the-life-out-of-young-men part, but then it backfired. That's how you get a pissed off virgin trying to entice her lost beloved to the great beyond with her."
"So you're all sure it wasn't Jess' will that brought her here ?"
"Absolutely, Samuel," Castiel confirmed. "Otherwise, every remarried widower around the world would be visited by their dead first wives. You don't have to worry about it happening ever again. She's back to the souls' resting place now."
December 13th
My two great loves met and everything went wrong. It could have been the climactic scene of a raunchy vaudeville, the moment when one's wife and lover face each other and the audience can't stop laughing at his misfortune, but it turned into something quite different. Take a dead fiancée in lieu of the wife, and a found-again brother to play the lover, and you get some tragic and quite fantastic story in the manner of a Poe tale.
And I was, of course, cast in the part of the damsel in distress who needs to be saved by all her friends. Which is getting old and rancid, quickly.
But then at least I was indeed saved.
Dean is certain that our grandfather is to blame for Jessica's ghostly reappearance and it seems he's right, even though the professor didn't really confess to any wrongdoing. I'm left reeling, trapped between confusing feelings awakened by Samuel's actions and hateful words, and even more by the memory of Jess trying to kill me. I guess it will take time to reconcile the gentle love we used to share and the furious image of a vengeful Willis.
-------------
Continue to The lost daughter part 3