The Witch and the Wolfen, Sam/Dean, 9/10
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Master Post | Prologue + Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5
Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 + Epilogue || ART
Chapter 9 - The Rescue
Sam jerked awake, clutching at his jackrabbiting heart. He swallowed, scrubbing at the tears running down his face, and tried to remember where he was. The same dream, over and over like a beating drum. World after world, the dream remained the same. He’d hoped this Dean could exorcise the pain, but maybe he could only help with the loneliness. He could live with that. Some ghosts deserve honoring.
He felt around for his canteen. It was still dark. He’d only slept a few hours. The siphoning spell was still working, and in spite of the dream, he felt better than he had in days. The Impala was toasty warm even with a round of new flurries blowing outside.
Sam grabbed a couple of power bars and climbed over the bench into the driver’s seat. He touched his ring; last night’s eagle was still following. The convoy was on a winding secondary road going through the mountains now. It was slow going, even with their heavy-duty plow.
Sam cast around for another host, this time a raven. They must be getting close if they were on back roads. He checked the map, Lucifer and company hadn’t made great time, or maybe they stopped last night while he slept, a win for Sam. It meant he wasn’t as behind as he thought. In fact, he calculated he was only five hours behind now. The nearest town was Red Lake, Minnesota. With a large state forest nearby, Sam would bet his boots that that was their destination.
The Impala growled to life, and he pulled out onto the road. Although it had snowed all night, it had been a light snow, and the plowed road was still mostly clear. Nothing the Impala’s snow blade couldn’t take care of.
He popped in another of Dean’s cassettes and for the first time, instead of the music making Sam sad, it gave him hope. He glanced fleetingly at the empty passenger seat and tightened his grip on the wheel.
Two hours later the convoy stopped. Sam’s raven circled a building that looked like a pre-Fall commercial hunting lodge and convention center. It overlooked the lake and had dozens of small cabins scattered around the main lodge itself. It was heavily patrolled, but there were no fences. Lucifer must have thought he was far enough away from any danger. Sam watched as demons rolled a tarped box, Dean’s cage, out of a van and pushed it through a service entrance to the building while Lucifer strutted in the main entrance.
Sam released the raven with thanks and contemplated his next move.
With such light security, getting into the building shouldn’t be an issue. The question was where they would have Dean. He tried to link with Dean again, but they were still out of range. Hopefully by the time Sam arrived, he would be close enough to get a good look for Dean.
¤ ¤ ¤
Dean had dozed off and on. The van was too cold to really sleep, even covered as he was. He cursed the magical bindings. He was sure they had something to do with it. He thought about Sam as he lay there. He’d never had a relationship like this before where, once they clicked, it felt like they’d been together forever. Dean couldn’t remember anyone in his life other than his dad and mom that he trusted so implicitly. He just hoped Sam would forget about him. He didn’t need Sam to come after him and get himself killed in the process. It had been good while it lasted.
There were no windows in the back of the van, but he could feel the vehicle slowing down. He gathered his blankets around him and sat cross-legged in the middle of the cage in preparation for his arrival.
Four beefy demons flung open the van doors and wrestled his cage out of the van onto a cart. He tried to get a sense of the place through the flapping tarp as they hauled him across the parking lot. Looked like a massive hunting-themed conference center. The main entrance of the structure was built with hewn logs, plus lots of rustic touches like a post and beam portico with elk antlers over the entrance.
He watched Lucifer strut through the main doors, while his cage was wrestled in by way of the service bay. The garage was cold, and Dean was relieved when they rolled him into the heated hotel. The tarp got stuck in one of the cart wheels, so one of the demons impatiently pulled it off. Dean now had a clear view of a wide corridor of what must have once been a conference section of the hotel.
He was pushed past several doors and caught sight of large spaces with many chairs set up, but no occupants. A few demons patrolled the halls, but it was mostly deserted. The demons pulled his cage into one of the last big meeting spaces and unloaded it in the middle of the floor without comment.
The room was mostly empty, chairs stacked in one corner, but a lab had been set up at one end with a comfortable reading chair and light, a desk covered in papers, several metal tables, and rows and rows of bookshelves stacked to overflowing, as well racks full of jars with scary-looking ingredients. An ominous examination chair in one corner completed the arrangement. This must be Meg’s home base lab.
“Say, where’s a guy go to the can around here? I gotta say after what, ten hours in this thing, I gotta piss like a racehorse.”
Dean knelt up and draped one of his blankets toga style around him.
One of the demons snorted, but otherwise said nothing. Each set up guard a few feet away from each corner of his cage. Oh great, watched all the time. He figured he’d be stuck with them for a while so he named the leader Ringo, and the other three he named Moe, Curly, and Larry. He knew he was mixing Beetles and Stooges, but he couldn’t sully Paul and John’s name. And Ringo was just a funny name.
Meg walked into the room and stood in front of Dean’s cage, watching him.
“Yeah, still gotta piss here.” Dean tilted his head, surveying the demon.
“You’ll be taken to the bathroom shortly,” Ringo replied tersely.
“Yeah, I’d hate to smell up the joint.”
“How are you able to resist Lucifer’s call?” Meg paced around his cage.
“You mean, how come I ain’t Lucifer’s meatsuit already? Beats me. Must be my scintillating charm with the ladies. Intimidates him.” Dean winked.
“You were working with a witch. Did they put some kind of protection spell on you?”
“Listen, lady, I’m a simple wolfen. I don’t know anything about spells.”
“But you know enough to have gotten a cloaking spell tattooed on your skin.”
“That was my daddy. He was the smart one.”
“This is a waste of time. Once I get you on the table, I’ll uncover your secrets.”
“Not on the first date. That’s just wrong.”
“Take him. I have some research to do anyway. I want him cleaned, inside and out. I don’t want him messing up my lab.”
The demons opened the cage door and pulled Dean out. As he was dragged from the room, he shouted, “I am housetrained, you know!”
The burly demon Ringo, who had snickered earlier, side-eyed him, leering, “Oh yeah, this is going to be fun.”
An hour later Dean was thrown back into his cage, naked and dripping.
The demons had had their fun. In a spacious shower they worked him over, slamming him up against the tile repeatedly before taking his boots and cutting away his new jeans. They’d given him an enema, kicking him in the side whenever he moved. The whole process was something he could gladly live the rest of his life without repeating. Ringo, in particular, seemed to take particular glee in shoving the hose up his ass. “Pretty loose back here. Looks like you’re used to taking it. Maybe we should have some fun before we take you back.”
“I guess you’d know better. Me, I’m more of a top myself. But the witch cast a great anti-demon spell on me. You put your dick in me, who knows what might happen? But, go ahead. Try it. I’d love to see it in action.”
Ringo paled slightly and glanced at his watch. “Too bad we still gotta get you showered. No time for fun right now.”
After Dean cramped and writhed for several minutes, bloated with warm water, they hauled him to his feet over the drain and finally removed the hose. His bowels instantly voided. Then they turned the shower on and squirted body wash on him. Dean leaned against the shower wall, holding onto the valves to keep himself standing. His battered ribs protested each breath, and he thought one leg might be fractured.
When it became obvious that he couldn’t move on his own, Moe finally scrubbed him down with a large sponge, and he was able to turn under the steady stream of warm water and sluice the soap and blood and waste away. Once they decided he’d stood there long enough, Ringo pronounced him clean, and he was hauled from the shower. His feet were still in the lasso hobbles so it was slow going. Curly draped a towel over his shoulders, and with bound hands he tried to dry himself before they dragged him back to his cage.
Meg seemed occupied at a table covered in books over at the lab side of the room, so Dean decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth and curled up in his nest of blankets, trying to dry off. He didn’t realize he had dozed off until he heard someone calling him.
[Dean, Dean, are you there, can you hear me?]
Dean startled awake. He didn’t move, though; his dad had trained him well never to give anything away to the enemy. He blinked a few times, to try to clear his head.
[Sam! Man, what the hell? Good to hear your voice.]
[Are you okay?]
[Little banged up, but still me. How about you? How are you reaching me?]
[I followed you. Listen, I don’t have much time. Thanks to our bond and some extra magic, I can see through your eyes. Can you look around where you’re being held, show me any details?]
[Invasion of privacy much, Sam?]
[I am trying to save your life. Jerk.] Dean could hear the dryness in Sam’s voice.
[Point. Bitch.] Dean slowly looked around the room, noting the two exits, four demon guards, Meg off to the side. [That’s Meg, the demon witch you came up against. She’s about to turn me into her own little lab experiment.] From the number of coffee cups on the table, Dean must have been asleep a while.
[Hmm] Dean could almost hear the gears turning in Sam’s head.
[Where are you now?]
[I’m on a ridge overlooking the hotel. Security’s light. Where do you think you are?]
[Last big convention room in a row of them off to the west end of the building. I only saw a few demons on patrol in the halls when they brought me in, and all the other conference rooms seemed empty.]
[Perfect. Maybe I can bypass the whole hotel and just come in on the west side somewhere.]
[Wait! You can’t be anywhere near me Sam. What if you get hurt? Lucifer still wants me as a meatsuit. I’m dangerous to be around.]
[You seriously think you can stop me? Would you stop if our roles were reversed?]
Dean thought about it for a second then shook his head. [Good point.]
[Damn straight.]
[I still don’t understand how I’m still me.]
[I think I have an idea. Okay, stay calm. I’ll be there as soon as I can.]
Just as Sam signed off, Meg turned and called the guards. “I’m ready for him. Strap him down in the chair.”
“Just great,” Dean whispered under his breath as Ringo reached in and grabbed his ankle.
¤ ¤ ¤
Sam found a good spot to hide the Impala and got ready. He fitted himself out with as many guns and knives as he could carry and filled a small knapsack with essentials, ammo, holy water, medical kit. Prepared as he could be, he struck out into the woods. He made a giant loop around the back of the hotel. It took longer than expected because of random guard tours near the tree line. When he was finally in position, he took a good look at the west wing of the building. Because it was all conference facilities at this end of the building, there were only emergency doors and a few narrow windows which, Sam was sure, looked directly onto the hallway. He decided one of the emergency doors at the end was his best bet. He didn’t think the hotel’s security system would still be operational so many years after the Fall, but he was sure the locks still worked. He’d need time to pick them. Fortunately, there were only two guards at this end of the building, patrolling in tandem. Sam just had to time it right.
He checked his spare gun clips and pulled out his demon blade. The longer he could keep his presence a secret the better. He had cast a cloaking spell on himself when he’d first set out for the resort. If he wasn’t moving, he wasn’t visible to most creatures.
He inched forward, some of the landscaping helping to hide him. He waited for the guards to pass. They were on ten-minute cycles, and he jogged the last twenty feet to the emergency door. He tried the door first - locked, as expected. He centered himself and began to cast an unlocking spell he’d found among Rowena’s books. If that didn’t work, he had his lockpick with him.
He heard the faint click of the lock and eased the door open, blade at the ready. As luck would have it, he opened the door at the back of a demon guard. He wasn’t sure which of them was more startled.
He dragged the body out of the main hallway and behind some plastic potted plants into an empty utility closet.
He inched his way down the hallway, freezing in place each time a patrol passed. Luckily, he didn’t have to go far. The first door led to a green room. Inside there was a second door that, if Sam had his directions right, should lead to the conference hall where Dean was being held.
Sam eased the door open. The cage sat in the middle of the room and, just as Dean had described, off to the left was the lab area Dean had shown him. And there was a strange reclining chair with metal cuffs on which Dean was strapped, face down.
Meg was currently cutting at Dean’s silver tattoo and swearing as each time she cut away a piece of flesh, the skin began to regrow, the silver re-appearing.
He could hear Dean’s muffled grunts of pain each time the knife cut in.
[Hang on, I’m in position.]
[‘bout time. This bitch is carving into me like a steak.]
The four guards hovered around the table, watching. Sam considered his options.
[How are you held down?]
[Metal cuffs, the fuckers. I think Ringo, the biggest one closest to Meg, has the keys.]
[Do you think you can walk?]
[They kicked the shit out of my ribs, and my left leg, so it’ll be a slow walk, but I’ll do what I have to.]
[Okay, then here’s what I want to try...]
Sam closed the door to the convention hall and went back to the body of the dead demon. He was about Sam’s height. Sam cast a simple mimic spell so he would appear to look like the demon. Next, he had to bring the van around to the emergency door he’d broken in through in the cargo bay.
Sam pulled the demon’s black turtleneck on over his own plaid shirt and pulled on the man’s pants. Sometimes using the items of the mimicked helped support the spell. He took a breath and stepped into the hall, and headed purposefully toward the service bay.
Fortunately, the old hotel signs were still in place and Sam was able to navigate with relative ease. No one challenged him. He nodded to a few demons as he passed by. Everyone was talking about the boss going to ‘the nest’ and how pissed he was. Sam wondered what that was all about, but kept his pace brisk to discourage conversation.
Once he was safely through the cargo bay, he searched for the white van outside. It was parked next to a ramp they’d probably used to roll Dean’s cage into the building. He hopped in the front to hotwire the vehicle when a Dean-style approach came to him. He pulled down the window visor; sure enough, a set of keys fell into his hand.
The van chugged reluctantly to life. He glanced at the gas gauge, only a quarter tank left. It would have to do. He backed up.
“Hey, hey, you there, where you going with that?” A demon came around the end of the van and up to the window.
Sam had rehearsed some variations of this in his head. “Boss lady wants it to move the prisoner. She says the boss wants him moved to the nest.”
“Oh fuck. Don’t waste any time then. I saw her turn a demon inside out last week when he took too long bringing her a message. Good luck, man.”
“Thanks!” Sam gave the demon a two-finger salute and continued to back out. He drove around the side of the building to the open emergency door.
Originally, Sam had planned to go in, guns blazing, but then thought a less bold approach might be better. It was riskier, but if it worked there was less chance of Dean being hurt during the escape. He left the van idling.
No one else challenged him when he went back inside.
When he walked into the meeting hall, he worried briefly that Meg might pick up on his true nature, but she was so distracted by Dean’s tattoo, she wasn’t paying attention to much else.
“Ma’am.” Sam cleared his throat softly. Meg looked over at him in disapproval. “I have an urgent request from the Boss.”
“Yes?” Meg snapped impatiently.
“He wants the prisoner brought to the nest.”
“The nest! I thought cracking this wolfen’s tattoo was the first priority? Now he wants to play with him?”
Sam shrugged. “Above my paygrade, ma’am. He said he wanted him there immediately, that he had an idea. I have a van ready. He seemed very impatient.”
“Am I supposed to accompany him?”
“I don’t think so. He said, JUST the prisoner. He seemed very adamant about it.”
Meg’s eyebrows rose. “I can imagine. Very well. Load him up. We’ll get back to this after. If there is anything left to get back to, once the Morningstar is done with him.”
Sam turned to Ringo. “I have the van at the emergency door, it’s the quickest way out.”
Ringo nodded and snapped, “Okay, get him loaded up.” The other three demons began to undo Dean’s shackles.
“Sir, I would suggest we forgo the cage for the usual bonds, and the four of you travel with the prisoner. It would speed things up, and time seems of the essence to the Boss.”
Ringo looked at Sam thoughtfully. Sam stood his ground placidly.
“Good idea. Okay, you heard the man. Put the suppressing ropes on him and let’s get him loaded up.”
They pulled a hood over Dean’s head and tied him tightly with the same lassos that Sam had seen during his shadow walk. A second demon grabbed one of the blankets out of the cage and rolled Dean in it bodily like a burrito. Then the four demons carried him like a rug from the room, Dean squirming and grunting in protest. Sam moved ahead of them to open doors. Once they had Dean in the back of the van, the three demons piled in the back with Dean and the lead demon said, “I’ll ride up front with you.”
Sam nodded and felt in his pocket for his bottle of holy water he popped in his pocket earlier.
Sam drove out of the main parking lot, and took a guess as to which way the nest was. He must have guessed right because Ringo didn’t say a word. Once they were out of sight of the hotel, Sam made his move.
He smashed the bottle of holy water in the demon’s face.
“What the fuck?” Ringo snarled, already rounding to attack. Sam grabbed the demon blade he’d stashed in the side pocket of the van’s door and at the same time smashed on the brakes, sending the demon flying against the dash. By the time he leveraged himself up, Sam was already plunging the blade into the demon’s neck. The look of shock on his face was priceless.
[One down, three to go.]
Sam jumped out of the vehicle and banged on the van door. “Hey, I need some help up here, we just hit a deer.”
Two of the demons leapt out of the back, leaving one with Dean.
The two demons pushed by him to see, and Sam was able to stab the second one in the neck as he shoved by. As the demon gurgled out his last breath, Sam leapt to the side, avoiding the first demon’s rush, and stabbed him as well.
[Three down.]
Sam could feel Dean’s grin through the link.
[Last one’s getting suspicious.] Dean warned.
“Oh, my God. Help!” Sam yelled, then stood perfectly still behind the open back door of the van. On cue, the demon jumped out and rushed toward the front of the vehicle. Sam lashed out with a punishing blow that nearly decapitated the demon. Blood spurted everywhere.
[And that’s four.]
He ran to the back of the van, pulled the blanket and hood away from Dean, and began to work on the knots in the lasso. Instantly, he could feel the magical rope sapping his own strength and wondered at how the demons had coped. Then he remembered that all four of them had been wearing gloves. He rushed outside and grabbed a pair off one of the less bloody demons and came back to free Dean.
Once the knots around his wrists were free, Dean slowly pushed himself to a sitting position, his ribs obviously hurting. He yanked the gag from his mouth and pulled Sam in for a hug. “Holy hell, Sam! I thought I was as good as done. That was a pretty ballsy maneuver, just walking in there. And you took out all four of them!”
Sam sagged down beside him on the van’s tailgate, exhaustion hitting him now that the immediate danger was past.
“Well, they weren’t hell’s brightest bulbs.”
“Still! You saved my ass.”
“I was so scared I lost you.” Sam grabbed Dean’s shoulder and held it tight. He could feel tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. “I can’t lose you, Dean.” He shook his head.
“It’s alright, it’s alright, I’m here. You haven’t lost me. Hell, you can’t get rid of me.” Dean’s expression softened, and he reeled Sam into his arms, his chin on Sam’s shoulder as he hugged his mate tight.
“Mine. Mine always,” Dean whispered.
Sam gave him a tight smile. His eyes were wet with unshed tears. “Yours, always.”
When the fine trembling in Sam’s limbs had eased, he pulled away from Dean and got to work on his ankle’s bindings. “We have to get going.”
“Sure. Where?”
“I have the Impala stashed in the woods, but it’s on the other side of the hotel.”
“Do you think we can risk driving by again?”
“Let’s see.”
“Hey Sam.”
Sam paused.
“Any of those demons around my size? I think I’ll be needing something to wear.”
Sam suddenly noticed his mate was buck naked. He waggled his eyebrows.
“I don’t know, naked looks kinda good on you.”
“Don’t objectify me, Sam!” Dean crossed his arms over his chest defensively. Sam stared at him in shock.
“Kidding, I kid. You look like I shot your donkey. What?” Dean shook Sam’s arm in concern.
Sam tried to shake off the déjà vu moment between his Dean and this Dean. Flustered, he jumped to his feet. “S’okay. Uh, hang on, I’ll find you something.”
“Easy on the blood, alright?” Dean shouted from the van.
Sam snorted, but kept an eye out for the least bloody attire. Between the four demons he managed to find clothes and shoes in close enough sizes to keep Dean from freezing to death.
While Dean dressed, Sam pulled the bodies to the side of the road and rolled them into the ditch. Anyone driving by at speed might not notice them. When he was done, he helped Dean limp to the passenger door. He’d already hauled Ringo’s body out earlier. As Dean slid into the passenger seat, he spotted his knapsack the demons had confiscated, on the floor. He rooted through it and found his gun, still safely stashed at the bottom. He checked it and stuck it behind his waistband, grinning like a kid.
Rather than speed by, Sam eased off the gas and drove casually past the hotel.
“If we speed, we’ll draw even more attention to ourselves.”
An unseen siren began to wail, and demons streamed out of the hotel like ants boiling out of a nest, all of them scrambling to their cars.
Dean smirked, “Yeah, so much for that theory. Hit the gas, genius.”
They sped down the road a few more miles until Sam saw his marker, the fallen tree by a non-descript logging road that looked unused and unplowed. He had barely come to a full stop before he was out the door and running down a side road, Dean limping along behind him. Dean startled in surprise when the deep snow drifts he was about to wade through turned out to be Sam’s illusions. They found the Impala just a few feet away, untouched, where Sam had stashed her, behind a bend in the service road. The two men jumped in. A turn of the key and the Impala grumbled to life. They swerved out onto the main road, Sam’s foot heavy on the gas.
“Hold the wheel for me.” Sam ordered as he reached back to grab the duffel he’d packed. “I got your stuff.” Sam said tersely, his gaze on the rearview mirror.
“Holy hell, Sam” was all Dean seemed capable of saying. He grabbed the duffel and rooted through it slowly, shedding his borrowed clothing, pulling on clean underwear and socks and jeans with care and the odd grunt of pain. As he gingerly shouldered into a fresh Henley he whistled. “You even brought my boots. Did I tell you how much I love you lately?” Dean leaned over and gave Sam a big sloppy kiss on the cheek. Sam jerked away, rolling his eyes, “Bitch!”
Dean just laughed. “Oh my god. It’s so good to have clothes on.” He ran his hands over his chest, feeling the soft flannel. He stuffed the demon’s clothing between the door and the seat to dispose of later. “I feel like a new man.”
Sam didn’t feel like celebrating yet, not until they found somewhere to hide.
He drove to the nearest town. The demons must have done regular business there, because there were several routes plowed clear. Sam was able to lose a few demons that caught up with them in town. Then he picked a road at random and followed it out of town. They passed several more logging roads, all unplowed and untouched. He waited until they were miles from town before choosing one. He fishtailed off the main road and began to chant his camouflage spell. To the casual observer, it would appear as if no one had come up the snowy trail.
They drove for a few miles till they were clear of the main road. Sam announced, “We need to find some place to hole up for the night if we can.”
¤ ¤ ¤
It was Dean’s wolfen eyes that spotted the stone chimney barely visible through the trees, the rest of the house completely hidden by underbrush. “There, there!”
Sam backed up and pulled in. It was a pre-Fall home, but a fairly luxe one in its day. Probably belonged to a retired couple who had wanted a nice home in the country. “Perfect.” Sam pulled the Impala to the back of the building and killed the engine.
Dean just sat there, a grimace on his face. “I guess I’m not in quite as good a shape as I thought.”
Sam helped Dean limp into the house. He eased him down onto a dusty sofa in the living room. “I’ll be right back with our stuff. Stay put. I’m pretty sure you’ve got cracked ribs.”
Sam’s long legs ate up the distance between the car and the house. Two trips later, he’d brought everything they needed for now into the living room. He locked the Impala, and set his undisturbed snow spell again, just to be sure, and he set wards on the house to hide them from both Lucifer and demons.
Dean sat quietly, his wheezing breath coming in cold puffs of white in the freezing room. Sam broke routine and started a fire in the old chimney first. “It’s getting dark, and we’re miles from the main road. I don’t think anyone is going to see the smoke, but I’ll still mask it,” he explained as he whispered out the spell.
“All this spell work, Sam. Isn’t that going to tire you out?” Dean was sheet pale and leaning back on the sofa, clearly exhausted.
“I used the same siphoning spell I created to charge your wards, it steals energy from animals and people around me to help me stay recharged. I excluded you from the spell. You’re tired enough already.” Sam tried to joke.
Dean smiled tiredly. “True.”
Sam wrapped Dean in one of the bedrolls until the room warmed up, then returned to finish his wards and salt lines. By the time he was done, Dean was slumped on the sofa, fast asleep.
Sam knelt beside his brother and stroked his hand along his jaw. He could see the bruised shadows under Dean’s eyes, feel the pain leaking through their link even as he slept. He raised his hands over Dean’s chest and concentrated. Soon he was seeing through his mind’s eye into Dean’s body, through the muscle and blood vessels, seeing the small fractures in Dean’s ribs, the bruises all along his chest, the slowly healing cut through his tattoo on his back and the fractured bone in his leg. He understood everything there was to know about Dean’s body. How it should work and what he needed to do to make it better. All he had to do was concentrate on what he wanted and let the magic flow. Let it heal his mate. Of all the magic that he’d learned, this was by far the most thrilling and rewarding.
He collapsed against the sofa when he was done. Dean’s breathing was already better, his sleep more natural. He gently shifted him around so he was lying on his back and re-adjusted his covers. He’d sleep for a few hours yet, Sam thought. And without the lassos dampening his natural healing abilities, he’d be better in no time.
Sam wasn’t sure how long Lucifer would search for them, but he was betting a while. He rooted through the house for things of use, dragged a mattress from the bedroom into the living room in front of the fireplace. If they were going to be stuck there, they could damn well be comfortable. He emptied a couple of large plastic storage bins and filled them with clean snow outside. They’d still need to boil it to be sure, but at least it’d be on hand. He wasn’t really hungry, but he knew he needed to keep up his strength so he chewed on a powerbar. Between each job, he checked on Dean and reached out and checked his wards. Nothing had been tampered with or triggered, and his mate was sleeping peacefully. He finally allowed himself to stretch out on the old mattress and just lie there. Wherever the demons were searching, it wasn’t near them right now. He let his guard down for the first time since Dean left the Bunker.
He woke to find Dean plastered against his back, curled around him like the big spoon. He closed his eyes and breathed in Dean’s scent. His mate even smelled like his Dean. Tears pricked in his eyes; he hadn’t thought he’d ever have a chance to feel this way again, to feel so loved.
Sam woke again at some point in the middle of the night.
“Hoped you’d sleep through till morning.” Dean’s voice was soft.
Sam could barely make him out in the dying light of the fire. He was sitting on the sofa, a blanket wrapped around him with a shotgun across his lap, just watching Sam sleep.
Sam’s heart clenched. So like his brother, to stand guard as Sam slept.
“Nothing going on?” Sam sat up and ran his hand through his hair.
“Nope. I stuck my head out a couple of times to see if I could smell any wolfen, but I got nothin’. But now with Meg’s spell to hide their scent, that doesn’t really mean anything. On the plus side, I didn’t hear or see anything either. I did find some dark blankets to hang over the front window to hide the light of the fire.”
“Good idea. Spells are tricky, sometimes the simplest thing slips through.”
“So how pooched do you think we are?”
“Pretty much. I don’t think the Morningstar is just going to take your leaving easy.”
“He said he’d go back to Lawrence and slaughter everyone if I tried to escape.”
“I think people are smart enough to make themselves scarce after a threat like that.”
Sam instantly thought of Roxy and prayed she was three towns over by now.
“What do you think we should do now? We can’t really go back to the Bunker. Lucifer will have the woods full of his men.”
“Hmm. Good thought.” Sam rose to his feet, pacing back and forth across the room. “If Lucifer spreads his men all over, covering the town, covering Lawrence, the woods outside Lawrence, that leaves fewer of them left behind at his nest for protection.
“You want to go at him head on?”
“Not really, but I don’t want to run for the rest of my life, either.”
“But it’s Lucifer, Sam! You can’t just kill him.”
“Oh, you’d be surprised.” Sam turned and looked at Dean, “Do you think Meg found anything that can hurt us?”
“Well, she cut off some pretty big chunks of my skin. Not sure what good that will get her.”
“She might be able to reverse engineer your cloaking spell, but it should take her a while to do it.”
“I told her nothing. Mostly because I don’t know anything or how this all works.” Dean gestured between them. “Speaking of, you said you had an idea why Lucifer couldn’t just walk away wearing me.”
“Two things. First, we’re mated, which according to lore is a bond all its own ruled by the Mistress of the Moon. Next, you’re my wolfen, my familiar. That magical bond must, in combination with the mating bond, trump Lucifer’s ability to claim you. Do you think Meg realized you were mated?”
“I don’t think so. She wasn’t into the examining, more into the cutting. Maybe if she’d had more time with me.” Dean shuddered.
“Okay, that’s in our favor.”
Sam walked over to their stacked supplies and put on the gloves he’d stolen earlier. He picked up one of the two lassos he’d taken from the back of the van when they’d swapped vehicles.
“I wonder about these?”
Sam looked at the lassos closely and at the craftsmanship. He noted there was actually a handle on them, not a whip handle but more a thickening of the rope to form a grip. He brought the lasso over to the fire and peered at it closely. “These seem older than Meg, not really her style. I wonder if they’re from somewhere else.” Sam ran his hands over the metal rope. “And there’s an engraving here. It sort of looks like a capital letter A with a lightning bolt going through it. I’m sure I’ve seen this somewhere.”
Sam set the lasso down and gave Dean the gloves. Dean picked it up like he thought it was going to bite him.
“It’s okay. It can’t do anything to you without physical touch.”
Dean peered at the end of the lasso. “Yeah, the symbol is definitely there. I don’t recognize it, though.”
Sam chewed his bottom lip. “I know this. I know I know this.” He snapped his fingers, “That’s the symbol of Gabriel!” At Dean’s blank expression Sam continued, “The Trickster. Maybe this isn’t Meg at all. Maybe they found them somewhere or maybe took them from Gabriel during the Fall.”
“Is that significant?”
“Well, it means Meg isn’t as powerful as I was worrying she might be. Doesn’t mean she isn’t still dangerous. And Gabriel was an archangel as well. The equal to Lucifer. Could be the lassos could work on Lucifer.”
“That’s a big maybe.”
“It might also mean that Lucifer has Gabriel held captive, and that’s how he got the lassos.”
“I’ve never heard of this Gabriel guy. Only Lucifer. But it takes a while for news to travel here.”
“Maybe Lucifer’s had Gabriel since the Fall. If Gabriel were still an archangel of heaven, they would have been on opposite sides.”
“Realistically Gabriel could be dead, or anywhere on the planet. But if he was somewhere on Lucifer’s compound…. Holy shit, are you thinking what I think you’re thinking? We use him to help rub out Lucifer?” Dean stared at Sam. “But how do we know that Gabriel is any better?”
“We don’t, but we also have the archangel blade. That could take out both of them.”
Dean yawned suddenly.
“You’re still healing. You should be in bed.”
“I figured someone should be on guard.”
“I have wards and precautions set up all over. If they haven’t come down our road by now, they probably won’t until tomorrow or later. You should get some sleep. Besides, I’ll be up, I’m going to scry for Gabriel.”
“I’m not going to sleep unless you do, too.” Dean stated firmly. He set his gun down within arm’s reach.
Sam fought back a sudden yawn. He looked at Dean, suddenly suspicious. “Are you seriously taking energy from me right now?”
“Might be.” Dean grinned, lay down on the mattress, and patted the empty spot in front of him.
Sam thought of all the times he hadn’t grabbed moments like this with his Dean when he could have. He wasn’t going to let that happen again. He sat down and rolled on his side and snuggled into Dean’s embrace. “Okay, but I’m poking you if you start to snore.”
¤ ¤ ¤
Sam woke to the glorious smell of coffee. He groaned and rolled over.
“I got to hand it to you, Sammy, you bring the essentials.” A mug of coffee was shoved under Sam’s nose.
As he sat up, he saw Dean take a seat on the sofa. “Good sleep?”
“Yeah.” Sam ran his fingers through his hair. He hadn’t slept so well in years, since he found Dean. He needed to keep it that way. “Any signs of movement?”
“I stuck my head out a while back but couldn’t smell anything, demons or wolfen. No vehicles, either. I mean, we went a long way yesterday. It would take a while to cover all this ground.”
Sam tested his protections. “Everything is intact, nothing’s pinged.”
Sam eased to his feet, and walked to the front window and looked between the blanket curtains outside. Snow was falling. A good thing for them. More snow to obscure their tracks.
“Let’s get busy, then.”
It took a while to set everything up, but eventually Sam had a working altar on the kitchen table. He dropped one of the lassos into his scrying bowl half full of water and murmured a finding spell.
Dean leaned against the kitchen counter, arms crossed, watching.
Sam held his pendant over a map of the area, and the map suddenly lit up with red dots.
Dean whistled, “That’s a lot of demons, Sam.”
Grimly, Sam continued, “invenias mihi dominus hujus objecti” over and over. One by one the red dots faded away until there were none. He was about to give up when a faint gold dot appeared on the map some distance from the hunting resort Dean had been kept captive at.
Sam blinked, and Dean stepped closer. “Do you think that’s?...” Dean trailed off.
“I asked it to find the owner of this object… Unless that means Lucifer, now that he’s taken it?”
“But it’s gold, not red, like the rest of them.”
“Lucifer is a fallen angel, so he might appear gold, too. We can’t get our hopes up. But whatever is going on, I think we just found the nest.”
They decided to wait a couple of days before going in. “We won’t be able to drive. We’ll have to go cross county. How long do you think it would take you to get us there in wolfen form?”
Dean looked over the map, calculating in his head. “About a four-hour run. Not at breakneck speed, just a good steady pace.”
“Perfect, because we don’t want you arriving all tired.”
“What do we do when we arrive?”
“I try to shadow walk anything that’s in the nest - a mouse, a housecat, whatever - to get an idea of what’s in there. If we find Lucifer, especially alone, we go in with archangel blade and lassos.”
“Should I stay in wolfen form or go as a human?”
“Wolfen, maybe; your strength might come in real handy. ‘Cause if he’s there, I can’t see Lucifer being totally unguarded. But I do have something I want you to try. I know while you’ve been human you’ve managed to partially shift your teeth. Have you ever been able to partially shift while in wolfen form?”
Dean shook his head, “Honestly, I’ve never tried. I thought it was impossible before it happened.”
A small smile teased at the sides of Sam’s lips, “There’s something I’d like you to try …”
¤ ¤ ¤
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