SPN/DA Fic: With a Bang part 12 of 15
Further evidence that I can be talked into anything. lomer asked and so I did it. ♥ In the spirit of fast & fun (and no time for craiji epics) this fic will be: in small installments, flying without a beta, and basically flash-fic of the most flashy kind. (even more flashy for me)
Title: With a Bang - part 1 - part 2 - part 3 - part 4 - part 5 - part 6 - part 7 - part 8 - part 9 - part 10 - part 11 - part 12 - part 13 - part 14 - part 15 & Epilogue *Completed*
For all other stories in the bang!verse go: here
Author: Mink
Rating: SPN/DA Crossover - PG - Gen - AU in the year 2020 clap your hands and believe!
Spoilers: General (for all aired episodes)
Disclaimers: SPN & DA & characters are owned by their various creators.
Summary: Two worlds collide and all three explode.
It turned out the old boat had proved useful for more than just saving their lives.
Alec was aware that everything on the planet had resale value but he was surprised how much a rotting tugboat went for these days. It turned out the scrap could be sold for a couple bucks and the precious barrels of gas they'd poured into its leaky tanks were worth a few dollars more. Dean had taken a walk down the pier to carry on negotiations with the elderly captain of an even more ancient fishing troller. The buyer was willing to make a deal but he didn't like an audience.
“Dean can speak Chinese?” Alec asked dubiously.
“Not even a take out menu,” Sam answered. “But he's fluent in decimal points.”
Pacing alongside a pile of lobster traps, his father watched the distant exchange as if he could hear every word. Alec decided to use his time by trying not to think about food. Or water. But mostly not about any food, like a gigantic meatball sandwich or a big bowl of noodles with salty beef broth and--
Logan snapped his cell phone shut. “I got some bad news and some good news. I got a few minutes of access to my computer and saw the city security grid.”
“Here we go,” Alec muttered. “What now?”
“The bad news is that someone has put all the sector check points on code red.”
Alec and Sam let out identical sighs.
Logan hadn't named a name but it went without saying that the someone was Ames White. Alec's numb fingers fidgeted with the damp sleeves of his permanently rain soaked coat. However, the lock down on all the sector points could mean only one thing- the demons in the nice suits had no idea where they were.
Alec let himself briefly enjoy the good news portion of Logan's report. “You did it,” he half smiled up at Sam. “You threw 'em off our tracks.”
It had been his father who had made the final decision to bring the tug south and practically into downtown. North would have been the smartest place to dump the boat and it would have brought them the closest to the least guarded border of the city limits. But Agent White knew that too. Alec had listened to the whisper of the agent's thoughts with his own two... well, not his ears exactly.
But the good news faded fast.
“Code red won't even get us in the check point line,” Alec said. “So much for the sector passes.”
“White has everyone on the look out,” Logan held his bandaged shoulder. “He's going to be watching for anything unusual.”
“W-We just have to be more careful now,” Sam tried to sound confident but his voice was soft with distraction. “We can still make it.”
“Sure we can,” Alec hesitantly stepped closer to his side. “Why wouldn't we? What's a matter?”
“I'm not sure,” Sam shook it off. “Ames White feels... he just feels different from the others.”
“Different how?” Alec wondered how different demons could be. “Like a worse demon? It's possible 'cause the guy might be the biggest prick I've ever met--”
“Not like that,” Sam said. “I don't know what it is but we'll have to worry about it later.”
Alec fought the question that had been nagging at him ever since they docked the boat and no machine guns had been waiting on shore to pulverize them into a fine bloody spray. He wanted to ask why Ames wasn't listening in on the same frequency they were on. But Alec knew the answer just like he'd known his grandfather's name and the license plate number on a black Chevy he'd never actually seen.
Demons all over the city were trying to hone in on their whereabouts but Sam wasn't letting them.
Alec had no idea how long his father could keep that trick up but he hoped it would be for long enough to get them to the Space Needle. The thought that his father had been quietly struggling to keep them safe for all this time made Alec clench his fists. He wanted Sam to know that he was capable of lending a hand too, he just didn't know exactly how yet.
Dean cleared his throat to announce his triumphant return.
“Don't all clap at once,” he warned. “But I scored on the high side because the dude was a little wasted.”
“That explains that one,” Alec squinted at the decrepit tug boat. “You shoulda told him never to drink-n-buy.”
“Can't hand out common sense, kid,” Dean shook out a wad of crumpled bills. “It's a tragedy in which we prosper--”
“We have a little problem,” Sam cut in. “Well, kind of a big one actually.”
“You heard something new?” Dean asked. “More... stuff in your head?”
Sam's tired gaze narrowed slightly at the suspicious tone. The Winchesters stared hard at each other until Logan broke the silence with an answer for Dean's question.
“N-Not exactly magic this time, fellas,” Logan held up his cell phone. “It was just a computer.”
“So what's the problem?” Dean shrugged. “Lay it on me.”
“We're stuck,” Sam started towards the shelter of warehouses that lined the wharf. “The sector passes and a fat bribe aren't gonna get us past the check points any more.”
Alec squeezed his eyes closed and allowed the seep of hiss and static to build in his mind. Without Sam's help it was just a bunch of random noise. He didn't know how to help out with anything except by not complaining about his annoying headache. Alec rubbed at his temples, the wire tap in his brain allowing him to sense the scratch of growing uncertainty in his father's agitated mind.
He suddenly perked.
"I can get us there."
"What?"
He didn't know much about battling the forces of evil, but he did know how to do one thing.
“I know a way past both the cops and the points,” Alec picked up his pace alongside Sam. “It takes a little longer but I can do it.”
“I don't know," Sam said. “With a code red there's going be extra drones in the sky. They'll spot us even faster if we start jumping fences in broad daylight.”
But his father was considering Alec with more interest than apprehension.
“No one will see us,” Alec promised. “Trust me.”
Sam smiled and the fresh hope Alec saw there made him smile right on back.
Traveling the older sections of the sewer line was much like Alec fondly remembered: dank, cramped and abundant with roaches. The stench was so powerful that his hyperactive olfactory receptors simply shut down. Oddly numb to all the smells around them, the transgenic was privately grateful for all of Manticore's careful contingencies in his engineering.
“A vacation just doesn't feel like a vacation unless you get to see all the sights, huh?” Dean choked. “When do we get to hunt uptown for a change?”
Alec pondered the thought of his uncle getting a look at Logan's penthouse and luxurious base of operations. “It's not much farther,” he lied. “Just eh, don't trip and fall in this stuff okay?”
An overloaded drainage system for a damaged city of millions wasn't the most pleasant place to take a hike but it was camera free. Flashlights supplemented their light source when they got too far between the weak filaments of the maintenance bulbs. Tapping into his speed, Alec occasionally ranged ahead in the ankle high muck to keep leading them in the right direction. They all grew quiet again as they concentrated on moving quickly through the oppressive dark. Alec winced when his boot came down hard on a wriggling body of a rat.
“I haven't heard much about you Winchesters on the network this year,” Logan began tentatively. “You guys have been laying low for a while.”
Alec didn't expect Logan to be the one to start talking first. He had no idea what a group of hunters sat around and talked about but these three hadn't done any secret handshakes or group hugs so far. Since the blur of the boat there hadn't been time for any normal conversation anyway.
“We've been trying to stay off the radar,” Dean said. “And its good to know even your world-wide ass can't track us all the time.”
Logan didn't smile back. “The last I saw were rumors about you both being detained by Mexican authorities down in Guadeloupe on some trespass charges.”
“You make it sound so civil,” Dean climbed up into the next tunnel. “More like left in a sweat box to rot for a few weeks.”
“I also heard a report that a few hunters were moving east towards--”
“Were you looking for a gate down there?” Alec interrupted Logan before he could tell himself to shut up. He had been thinking a lot about the years Sam and Dean had spent hunting. "Were you looking for ghosts? Goblins? Demons?”
“No,” Sam said. “We were looking for other children like you. Some of them... don't do so well on their own. We usually only find them if they get bad enough to start hitting the news. Serial murderers. Unusual mass kidnappings. Things like that.”
Alec tried not to think about the twin he'd never met.
“Do you kill them?” Logan asked softly.
“Depends,” Dean's casual tone sounded forced. “Once they go darkside there isn't much we can do about it.”
“Did you come here to kill Alec?”
Alec's flesh prickled under the heavy weight of their unease. It occurred to him that he didn't actually know what his family's intentions would have been if they had determined him unsuitable. There was also the small fact that Logan still didn't know he was walking alongside the transgenic's blood relatives.
“No one's here to kill anybody,” Dean said. “And no one's here to kill your girlfriend either, so just relax.”
Logan's relief was tangible but Alec could still tell the man had something else on his mind besides Max's safety from hunters.
“I-I understand you came here looking for X5s,” Logan said. “But are you sure we're... are you absolutely sure we're dealing with an actual gate?”
So that was what Eyes Only was really getting at. Because if that thing was real, the current threat to Max's health was much larger than a couple guys armed with holy water.
“'Fraid so,” Dean paused to swing his flashlight down the next dripping passage. “It's gonna make Hiroshima look like a nice sunny day.”
“But there's been no major demon activity reported here for over a decade,” Logan quickly insisted. “I've never found anything remotely linked to a gate verification on the entire north western seaboard. It's supposed to be safe here for X5s to--”
Logan abruptly stopped as his troubled gaze met with the transgenic's. Alec was puzzled to find guilt in the man's eyes.
“You did the right thing, Logan,” Sam said. “You couldn't tell them everything you knew. It would have just put them at further risk.”
Alec laughed a little to himself and silently agreed. If Max had known about all this crazy shit she probably would have gone for a little demon hunt herself.
“When I started out... when I first met Max... I thought I was going crazy,” Logan's guarded voice sounded like a confessional down here in the pitch black. "I found some protective wards. Some real old ones from the Book of Solomon. I thought they would help keep her safe. I carved them everywhere,” he breathed a laugh. “The streets she walked the most. Her apartment. I covered Alec's place too after he showed up in town. I even painted a few wards on the roof on the building where they work. God, do you know how hard it is to hide things like this from a couple of paranoid transgenics?”
Trailing behind the three men, Alec suddenly felt as far away from Logan as he did from his new family. Logan turned and caught the look on the X5's face.
“It took me years to figure out the connection between Manticore and the supernatural, Alec. It took me even longer to come to terms to what I was seeing was even real,” he shook his head as he explained. “I started by helping hunters out in the field with technical pieces of information that some uh...” he looked over at Sam and Dean apprehensively. “...the average individual wouldn't have access too.”
“I think he just called us hicks with a lame laptop,” Dean elbowed his brother. “Don't feel bad, Sam. You'll always be a fancy Stanford drop-out to me.”
“But a hell's gate covering the entire city?” Logan repeated in disbelief. “How could I have missed something like that?”
“We all missed it, dude,” Dean said. “If you haven't noticed these bastards are pretty good at hiding things right under everyone's noses--”
“What are they gonna do to Max?”
Alec's sudden question made them all fall into an uncomfortable silence again.
“We'll find her,” Dean didn't turn around. “Just concentrate on not gettin' us lost down here.”
“You might as well tell me,” Alec muttered. “I can hear everything from the kid's table anyway.”
“Okay, Alec," Sam exchanged a look with his brother in the dim glow of the flashlights. “I guess what you should understand right now is that... that every lock requires a key.”
“Sounds logical,” Alec gaze shifted uncertainly between them. “So what's the key look like? If they already have it than why do they need one of us for--”
“Manticore figured out how to create its own hybrids that could get inside the traps placed on the locks,” Sam said. “And Manticore also designed the hybrids to act as the mechanism to open them up.”
“People?” Alec felt sick. “The keys are ...people?”
“Disposal people,” Dean said. “Your friend ain't gonna live to see all the pretty hell fire. The lock is gonna rip her to shreds.”
Logan's flashlight clattered loudly onto the shallow dirty water.
“Uh... theoretically,” Dean quickly amended. “So to speak.”
The moldy metal ladder was right where Alec's memory said it should be.
He climbed the narrow cement passage upwards until his hands felt the sealed grate overhead. Heaving with all his might, the rusted bolts finally snapped and the hatch flung open to stars glittering overhead through the clouds. The night had come and the storm looked like it was finally breaking up. Alec pushed himself up to a crouch and crawled forward towards the sidewalk. A traffic light hanging over the intersection cycled to red and back to green with not a single car, taxi or truck in sight.
The usually crowded streets of sector 3 were completely and utterly deserted.
A cold chill ran down Alec's spine as he heard a single noise echo through the abandoned city blocks. Bleak and lonely, the sound rang off the buildings and masked its source. Alec cocked his head when he heard it again joined with a chorus of others. It was the harsh cries of some kind of animal he couldn't identify.
Shrinking back against the brick wall he felt a little better when Dean settled almost soundlessly behind him. His father came next, his step heavier and less sure. Logan came last and the noisiest. Now that Alec's senses had revived with fresh air, he could smell the blood coming from the wound on his shoulder.
“Let's move fast,” Dean whispered. “And stay quiet.”
Alec took the gun his uncle eased into his palm and wordlessly nodded in agreement. But one look at Sam told him that sneaking around wasn't all that important any more. His father walked right past them and out into the middle of the street. Looking upwards at the looming shadow of the Space Needle, Sam slowly pointed to its very top.
“The lock,” he said. “It's up there.”
All the static murmuring in Alec's head stuttered to a roar along with the distant howls rising up through the darkness. The time for hiding was over because whatever was out there was waiting for them.
And they were right on time.
tbc
go to part 13
Title: With a Bang - part 1 - part 2 - part 3 - part 4 - part 5 - part 6 - part 7 - part 8 - part 9 - part 10 - part 11 - part 12 - part 13 - part 14 - part 15 & Epilogue *Completed*
For all other stories in the bang!verse go: here
Author: Mink
Rating: SPN/DA Crossover - PG - Gen - AU in the year 2020 clap your hands and believe!
Spoilers: General (for all aired episodes)
Disclaimers: SPN & DA & characters are owned by their various creators.
Summary: Two worlds collide and all three explode.
It turned out the old boat had proved useful for more than just saving their lives.
Alec was aware that everything on the planet had resale value but he was surprised how much a rotting tugboat went for these days. It turned out the scrap could be sold for a couple bucks and the precious barrels of gas they'd poured into its leaky tanks were worth a few dollars more. Dean had taken a walk down the pier to carry on negotiations with the elderly captain of an even more ancient fishing troller. The buyer was willing to make a deal but he didn't like an audience.
“Dean can speak Chinese?” Alec asked dubiously.
“Not even a take out menu,” Sam answered. “But he's fluent in decimal points.”
Pacing alongside a pile of lobster traps, his father watched the distant exchange as if he could hear every word. Alec decided to use his time by trying not to think about food. Or water. But mostly not about any food, like a gigantic meatball sandwich or a big bowl of noodles with salty beef broth and--
Logan snapped his cell phone shut. “I got some bad news and some good news. I got a few minutes of access to my computer and saw the city security grid.”
“Here we go,” Alec muttered. “What now?”
“The bad news is that someone has put all the sector check points on code red.”
Alec and Sam let out identical sighs.
Logan hadn't named a name but it went without saying that the someone was Ames White. Alec's numb fingers fidgeted with the damp sleeves of his permanently rain soaked coat. However, the lock down on all the sector points could mean only one thing- the demons in the nice suits had no idea where they were.
Alec let himself briefly enjoy the good news portion of Logan's report. “You did it,” he half smiled up at Sam. “You threw 'em off our tracks.”
It had been his father who had made the final decision to bring the tug south and practically into downtown. North would have been the smartest place to dump the boat and it would have brought them the closest to the least guarded border of the city limits. But Agent White knew that too. Alec had listened to the whisper of the agent's thoughts with his own two... well, not his ears exactly.
But the good news faded fast.
“Code red won't even get us in the check point line,” Alec said. “So much for the sector passes.”
“White has everyone on the look out,” Logan held his bandaged shoulder. “He's going to be watching for anything unusual.”
“W-We just have to be more careful now,” Sam tried to sound confident but his voice was soft with distraction. “We can still make it.”
“Sure we can,” Alec hesitantly stepped closer to his side. “Why wouldn't we? What's a matter?”
“I'm not sure,” Sam shook it off. “Ames White feels... he just feels different from the others.”
“Different how?” Alec wondered how different demons could be. “Like a worse demon? It's possible 'cause the guy might be the biggest prick I've ever met--”
“Not like that,” Sam said. “I don't know what it is but we'll have to worry about it later.”
Alec fought the question that had been nagging at him ever since they docked the boat and no machine guns had been waiting on shore to pulverize them into a fine bloody spray. He wanted to ask why Ames wasn't listening in on the same frequency they were on. But Alec knew the answer just like he'd known his grandfather's name and the license plate number on a black Chevy he'd never actually seen.
Demons all over the city were trying to hone in on their whereabouts but Sam wasn't letting them.
Alec had no idea how long his father could keep that trick up but he hoped it would be for long enough to get them to the Space Needle. The thought that his father had been quietly struggling to keep them safe for all this time made Alec clench his fists. He wanted Sam to know that he was capable of lending a hand too, he just didn't know exactly how yet.
Dean cleared his throat to announce his triumphant return.
“Don't all clap at once,” he warned. “But I scored on the high side because the dude was a little wasted.”
“That explains that one,” Alec squinted at the decrepit tug boat. “You shoulda told him never to drink-n-buy.”
“Can't hand out common sense, kid,” Dean shook out a wad of crumpled bills. “It's a tragedy in which we prosper--”
“We have a little problem,” Sam cut in. “Well, kind of a big one actually.”
“You heard something new?” Dean asked. “More... stuff in your head?”
Sam's tired gaze narrowed slightly at the suspicious tone. The Winchesters stared hard at each other until Logan broke the silence with an answer for Dean's question.
“N-Not exactly magic this time, fellas,” Logan held up his cell phone. “It was just a computer.”
“So what's the problem?” Dean shrugged. “Lay it on me.”
“We're stuck,” Sam started towards the shelter of warehouses that lined the wharf. “The sector passes and a fat bribe aren't gonna get us past the check points any more.”
Alec squeezed his eyes closed and allowed the seep of hiss and static to build in his mind. Without Sam's help it was just a bunch of random noise. He didn't know how to help out with anything except by not complaining about his annoying headache. Alec rubbed at his temples, the wire tap in his brain allowing him to sense the scratch of growing uncertainty in his father's agitated mind.
He suddenly perked.
"I can get us there."
"What?"
He didn't know much about battling the forces of evil, but he did know how to do one thing.
“I know a way past both the cops and the points,” Alec picked up his pace alongside Sam. “It takes a little longer but I can do it.”
“I don't know," Sam said. “With a code red there's going be extra drones in the sky. They'll spot us even faster if we start jumping fences in broad daylight.”
But his father was considering Alec with more interest than apprehension.
“No one will see us,” Alec promised. “Trust me.”
Sam smiled and the fresh hope Alec saw there made him smile right on back.
Traveling the older sections of the sewer line was much like Alec fondly remembered: dank, cramped and abundant with roaches. The stench was so powerful that his hyperactive olfactory receptors simply shut down. Oddly numb to all the smells around them, the transgenic was privately grateful for all of Manticore's careful contingencies in his engineering.
“A vacation just doesn't feel like a vacation unless you get to see all the sights, huh?” Dean choked. “When do we get to hunt uptown for a change?”
Alec pondered the thought of his uncle getting a look at Logan's penthouse and luxurious base of operations. “It's not much farther,” he lied. “Just eh, don't trip and fall in this stuff okay?”
An overloaded drainage system for a damaged city of millions wasn't the most pleasant place to take a hike but it was camera free. Flashlights supplemented their light source when they got too far between the weak filaments of the maintenance bulbs. Tapping into his speed, Alec occasionally ranged ahead in the ankle high muck to keep leading them in the right direction. They all grew quiet again as they concentrated on moving quickly through the oppressive dark. Alec winced when his boot came down hard on a wriggling body of a rat.
“I haven't heard much about you Winchesters on the network this year,” Logan began tentatively. “You guys have been laying low for a while.”
Alec didn't expect Logan to be the one to start talking first. He had no idea what a group of hunters sat around and talked about but these three hadn't done any secret handshakes or group hugs so far. Since the blur of the boat there hadn't been time for any normal conversation anyway.
“We've been trying to stay off the radar,” Dean said. “And its good to know even your world-wide ass can't track us all the time.”
Logan didn't smile back. “The last I saw were rumors about you both being detained by Mexican authorities down in Guadeloupe on some trespass charges.”
“You make it sound so civil,” Dean climbed up into the next tunnel. “More like left in a sweat box to rot for a few weeks.”
“I also heard a report that a few hunters were moving east towards--”
“Were you looking for a gate down there?” Alec interrupted Logan before he could tell himself to shut up. He had been thinking a lot about the years Sam and Dean had spent hunting. "Were you looking for ghosts? Goblins? Demons?”
“No,” Sam said. “We were looking for other children like you. Some of them... don't do so well on their own. We usually only find them if they get bad enough to start hitting the news. Serial murderers. Unusual mass kidnappings. Things like that.”
Alec tried not to think about the twin he'd never met.
“Do you kill them?” Logan asked softly.
“Depends,” Dean's casual tone sounded forced. “Once they go darkside there isn't much we can do about it.”
“Did you come here to kill Alec?”
Alec's flesh prickled under the heavy weight of their unease. It occurred to him that he didn't actually know what his family's intentions would have been if they had determined him unsuitable. There was also the small fact that Logan still didn't know he was walking alongside the transgenic's blood relatives.
“No one's here to kill anybody,” Dean said. “And no one's here to kill your girlfriend either, so just relax.”
Logan's relief was tangible but Alec could still tell the man had something else on his mind besides Max's safety from hunters.
“I-I understand you came here looking for X5s,” Logan said. “But are you sure we're... are you absolutely sure we're dealing with an actual gate?”
So that was what Eyes Only was really getting at. Because if that thing was real, the current threat to Max's health was much larger than a couple guys armed with holy water.
“'Fraid so,” Dean paused to swing his flashlight down the next dripping passage. “It's gonna make Hiroshima look like a nice sunny day.”
“But there's been no major demon activity reported here for over a decade,” Logan quickly insisted. “I've never found anything remotely linked to a gate verification on the entire north western seaboard. It's supposed to be safe here for X5s to--”
Logan abruptly stopped as his troubled gaze met with the transgenic's. Alec was puzzled to find guilt in the man's eyes.
“You did the right thing, Logan,” Sam said. “You couldn't tell them everything you knew. It would have just put them at further risk.”
Alec laughed a little to himself and silently agreed. If Max had known about all this crazy shit she probably would have gone for a little demon hunt herself.
“When I started out... when I first met Max... I thought I was going crazy,” Logan's guarded voice sounded like a confessional down here in the pitch black. "I found some protective wards. Some real old ones from the Book of Solomon. I thought they would help keep her safe. I carved them everywhere,” he breathed a laugh. “The streets she walked the most. Her apartment. I covered Alec's place too after he showed up in town. I even painted a few wards on the roof on the building where they work. God, do you know how hard it is to hide things like this from a couple of paranoid transgenics?”
Trailing behind the three men, Alec suddenly felt as far away from Logan as he did from his new family. Logan turned and caught the look on the X5's face.
“It took me years to figure out the connection between Manticore and the supernatural, Alec. It took me even longer to come to terms to what I was seeing was even real,” he shook his head as he explained. “I started by helping hunters out in the field with technical pieces of information that some uh...” he looked over at Sam and Dean apprehensively. “...the average individual wouldn't have access too.”
“I think he just called us hicks with a lame laptop,” Dean elbowed his brother. “Don't feel bad, Sam. You'll always be a fancy Stanford drop-out to me.”
“But a hell's gate covering the entire city?” Logan repeated in disbelief. “How could I have missed something like that?”
“We all missed it, dude,” Dean said. “If you haven't noticed these bastards are pretty good at hiding things right under everyone's noses--”
“What are they gonna do to Max?”
Alec's sudden question made them all fall into an uncomfortable silence again.
“We'll find her,” Dean didn't turn around. “Just concentrate on not gettin' us lost down here.”
“You might as well tell me,” Alec muttered. “I can hear everything from the kid's table anyway.”
“Okay, Alec," Sam exchanged a look with his brother in the dim glow of the flashlights. “I guess what you should understand right now is that... that every lock requires a key.”
“Sounds logical,” Alec gaze shifted uncertainly between them. “So what's the key look like? If they already have it than why do they need one of us for--”
“Manticore figured out how to create its own hybrids that could get inside the traps placed on the locks,” Sam said. “And Manticore also designed the hybrids to act as the mechanism to open them up.”
“People?” Alec felt sick. “The keys are ...people?”
“Disposal people,” Dean said. “Your friend ain't gonna live to see all the pretty hell fire. The lock is gonna rip her to shreds.”
Logan's flashlight clattered loudly onto the shallow dirty water.
“Uh... theoretically,” Dean quickly amended. “So to speak.”
The moldy metal ladder was right where Alec's memory said it should be.
He climbed the narrow cement passage upwards until his hands felt the sealed grate overhead. Heaving with all his might, the rusted bolts finally snapped and the hatch flung open to stars glittering overhead through the clouds. The night had come and the storm looked like it was finally breaking up. Alec pushed himself up to a crouch and crawled forward towards the sidewalk. A traffic light hanging over the intersection cycled to red and back to green with not a single car, taxi or truck in sight.
The usually crowded streets of sector 3 were completely and utterly deserted.
A cold chill ran down Alec's spine as he heard a single noise echo through the abandoned city blocks. Bleak and lonely, the sound rang off the buildings and masked its source. Alec cocked his head when he heard it again joined with a chorus of others. It was the harsh cries of some kind of animal he couldn't identify.
Shrinking back against the brick wall he felt a little better when Dean settled almost soundlessly behind him. His father came next, his step heavier and less sure. Logan came last and the noisiest. Now that Alec's senses had revived with fresh air, he could smell the blood coming from the wound on his shoulder.
“Let's move fast,” Dean whispered. “And stay quiet.”
Alec took the gun his uncle eased into his palm and wordlessly nodded in agreement. But one look at Sam told him that sneaking around wasn't all that important any more. His father walked right past them and out into the middle of the street. Looking upwards at the looming shadow of the Space Needle, Sam slowly pointed to its very top.
“The lock,” he said. “It's up there.”
All the static murmuring in Alec's head stuttered to a roar along with the distant howls rising up through the darkness. The time for hiding was over because whatever was out there was waiting for them.
And they were right on time.
tbc
go to part 13