![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Fic: Take Me To The Bridge 1/4 (Supernatural)
Title: Take Me To The Bridge
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
anactoria
Characters: Dean, Sam, Cas, OCs
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Animal cruelty.
Word count: 23,000
Summary: It’s supposed to be a routine hunt. A few farm animals mutilated, a few towns over. It sounds like the work of some two-bit demon—just another day at the office for two experienced hunters and an angel.
But this case is closer to home than it seems. Before long, Dean is in the clutches of a dangerous spirit, and Sam and Cas must try to end an ancient family feud before the whole town—and Dean—gets caught in the crossfire.
“Check it out.” Dean opens the door to the storeroom with his foot, laptop in hand. Sam doesn’t move from where he’s sitting on the floor, but his shoulders stiffen.
“Dude, give me a minute,” he says, not turning to look at Dean, and sets some dusty artefact back on its shelf with exaggerated care. “Some of this stuff is fragile. Remember?”
It’s a skill, being able to bitchface with the back of his head. Or maybe it’s just that Dean’s had many, many years of experience when it comes to being disapproved at. He nudges Sam’s ass with his boot.
“C’mon.” Dean keeps his voice light. “Don’t tell me you ain’t bored yet. You’ve been sorting through this crap since lunchtime.”
Sam finally turns his head, so Dean gets the full effect of his eyeroll. “Yeah, well, this would be a whole lot quicker if I had some help,” he says, but he gets to his feet. He brushes the dust from his hands on the legs of his jeans and leans in to look at the screen.
Dean shrugs. “Hey, it was you who decided doing an inventory of all the crap the Men of Letters left hanging around sounded like a good time. Me, I’m gonna trust the one they did before Abaddon offed them. We’re better off leaving this crap alone, you ask me. Any more storybook witches in bottles down here, I don’t wanna know.”
“Yeah, well. For a guy who isn’t doing any of the work, you’re still one for one on the breaking stuff.”
“You dropped it!”
“You snuck up on—wait.” Sam breaks off, squinting at the laptop screen. “Livestock mutilations? You thinking demons?”
Dean shrugs. “Could be. I mean, Crowley’s gone quiet, and that’s never a good sign. Could be he’s up to something, got the minions out doing his dirty work.”
“Yeah.” A little crease appears between Sam’s eyebrows as he scrolls down the webpage. “We haven’t heard from him since—”
He goes quiet, but Dean hears what he isn’t saying, loud and clear.
Since you tried to kill him, and me and Cas would’ve been next on your list if we hadn’t found that spell. Since Cain’s prophecy nearly came true.
Nobody died, in the end. Only Crowley got hurt, and not bad enough to keep him from calling Dean a dozen incomprehensible things that might’ve been British for ‘asshole’ before he zapped back to Hell. Sam and Cas both got away with cuts and bruises. The spell worked, and now there’s no Mark on Dean’s arm, just a patch of silvery scar tissue that aches when it’s cold. No harm, no foul.
Only now, maybe Crowley’s out for revenge—because of Dean, and the thought leaves a bad taste in Dean’s mouth that he can’t get rid of. He tries not to examine the feeling too closely. Crowley’s a demon; always was.
It’s just that he was getting a little more human for a while back there. If Dean set him straight on the path to Douchebag City—well, that’s just one more in the very long line of black marks against Dean’s name, isn’t it?
Dean clears his throat; forces a smile. “Hey,” he says. “We’ve been promising to kill him for years. He’d be offended if we didn’t try once in a while, right?”
He tries not to see the pained quirk of Sam’s mouth, the shadow that crosses his eyes. Sam doesn’t reply right away, keeps his eyes on the laptop screen, and for a moment Dean thinks he’s actually gonna be allowed to ignore the elephant in the room.
But when Sam finally looks up, he’s frowning. “You sure you’re up for this?” he asks.
Dean scowls. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
Sam’s been pushing the whole ‘taking a break’ thing again since Dean lost the Mark. Why he’s still so hung up on the idea now that Dean’s actually gotten rid of the thing that made him a ticking time-bomb out in the field, Dean couldn’t say.
Well, maybe he could, but he sure as hell isn’t gonna be the one to bring it up. He doesn’t need Sam looking at him like he isn’t sure whether he expects Dean to break or to bite his head off, tiptoeing around the fact that killing’s a part of their job description like Dean’s just gotten his 30-day sobriety chip and one wrong word might trigger a relapse.
Sam watches his face for a minute, then sighs and says, “Never mind.”
“It ain’t far,” Dean presses. “We head out now, we’ll be there before midnight.”
“What about Cas?”
Cas has spent the last couple weeks with them at the bunker, allegedly trying to figure out what his mission is now he’s stuck down here, but mostly watching Dean with a cautious intensity that makes him want to crawl out of his skin.
Dean gets it. He does. Cas is trying to trust him. Sam, too. Dean knows how it is, always being on the lookout, always measuring how much of the guy standing in front of you is the guy you know. He knows how tired it makes you. Doesn’t mean he’s comfortable being on the receiving end.
He shrugs. “He can come with. They don’t look like letting him back upstairs anytime soon—he could probably use a day out, and we could use an extra pair of hands.”
And if it means Dean has both not-dead members of his family right where he can see them—yeah, he isn’t gonna complain about that.
“One little demon, Sammy,” he wheedles. “Nothing the three of us can’t handle. Hell, maybe this time around we’ll even manage to save the poor sonofabitch it’s possessing.”
He can’t place the expression that passes over Sam’s face, but Sam stares at the screen for a moment longer, then says, “Fine. Gimme a half an hour to get cleared up here. I’ll meet you in the car.”
----
Sam still doesn’t look happy when they knock on the door of the ranch-house whose owner woke up to a nasty surprise. When Dean reaches for the knocker, he opens his mouth like he’s about to say something, then stops.
Dean lets go of the door-knocker and turns back to face him. “What?” he says, and manages not to roll his eyes.
Sam jerks his head in the direction of the nearest field. A cow raises its head and regards them calmly, chewing on a mouthful of grass. “So, those cattle.”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t look very mutilated.”
Dean shrugs. “You read the news report, Sammy. It was weird. Just the horses.” I’m not lying to you, he doesn’t say. Will you ever believe I’m not lying to you?
Sam’s still giving him that troubled look, but before Dean can tell him to knock it off, the door of the ranch house swings open and it’s time to turn on the professionalism.
The woman standing in the doorway is a mess, her eyes red-rimmed in her ashen face. Her long black hair is falling out of its braid, and her clothes are rumpled. She looks like somebody who just lost a relative, not a farm animal.
She looks from Dean to Sam, then back again. Blinks. “Can I help you?” She frowns. “Are you the police?”
“Mrs. Sefton? I’m sorry if this is a bad time,” Sam tells her, switching from mistrustful to softly compassionate in the blink of an eye. “We’re with Animal Control. We’d like to ask you a few questions about the incident on Tuesday.”
Mrs. Sefton stares at him for a long moment. “The incident,” she says, and a tremor runs through her body like she’s suppressing a sob. “Come in.” She straightens and steps back to let them pass.
Some people really are that crazy about their animals. Dean knows that, though he’s never really gotten it. He glances at Sam behind her back, raises an eyebrow, but Sam still has that understanding look on his face.
Dean shoves down the memory of Sam’s Heaven, the way he’d greeted that dog like a long-lost friend, and elbows Sam in the ribs.
You’re handling this one, he mouths, and then grins when Sam glares at him.
Normal. It’s almost like they’re back to normal.
----
“I’m sorry,” Mrs. Sefton says as they sit down. “Most people don’t really get it. The horses are my life.” She pauses, closes her eyes and breathes out shakily. “Were my life. We built this farm up from nothing. It was—”
She breaks off to compose herself. Sam takes the chair opposite her. “I know this must be difficult,” he says. “Take your time.”
Mrs. Sefton sniffs. “Thank you.”
Dean leaves them to it and risks a glance out the window. He can’t see Cas, but then he could be anywhere around the ranch. Cas has his grace back now. His wings. He can zap around in the blink of an eye like he used to—though his time living in the slow lane seems to have given him some appreciation for the importance of not materializing behind people while they’re taking a piss, which is something Dean’s grateful for.
Cas might never be a hundred percent on the finer points of human interaction, though, which is why he’s outside searching the place while Dean and Sam handle the people and play Let’s Pretend Everything’s Awesome.
There’s no sign of him right now, and if he has found anything, it isn’t urgent enough for him to show up or call, so Dean turns his attention back to Sam and Mrs. Sefton.
“I just don’t understand why Animal Control is here,” she’s saying. “I mean, I didn’t—I didn’t look closely.” She covers her mouth with her hand for a second. “But it looked like a person did this.”
Sam glances at Dean out of the corner of his eye, then turns back to her. “What makes you think that?”
She frowns. “I grew up on a ranch. I know what animal attacks look like. This wasn’t that. There were no teeth marks, but their tails and their ears were missing. And their eyelids. I mean, who in the—” She swallows. “That was all.”
Rules out a werewolf, or anything else with claws and canines, and it’s a point in favor of demon activity. Ritualistic, not random.
“Do you have any idea who would want to do something like this?” asks Sam.
Mrs. Sefton shrugs and slumps forward in her chair. “I have no idea,” she says. “I compete sometimes, but it’s just local events. Nothing serious. I mean, people have rivalries, stupid stuff, but—nothing like this. Nobody I know would do this.”
“You didn’t notice anybody acting strangely in the days before the attack? Out of character behavior?”
She shakes her head.
“Or—anything else odd? Weird smells? Did anybody you know seem to have—problems with their eyes?”
“No.” She rubs her eyes. She’s starting to look at them strangely now. Another minute, she’ll be saying What’s this all about? and asking them to leave. “Nothing like that.”
Sam tilts his head. “But something?”
“It’s—there’s no way it was him. He loved those horses, Amber was like his baby. But—” She stops. Sighs. “Joe Spalls. He works for me, just a couple days a week, helping out with the horses. I assumed he heard about what happened and couldn’t face showing up. It’s already gotten all over town. But he didn’t come to work the last couple days, and he hasn’t gotten in touch. It isn’t like him.”
Sam nods, his expression grave. “Do you have his address?”
----
Cas is outside when they leave, leaning against the hood of the Impala. When Dean’s gaze lands on him, he straightens up and fusses with his coat, a sheepish expression on his face.
“What have you got?” Sam asks him, before Dean has time to come up with a suitable threat.
“Nothing.” Cas frowns. “No sulfur. I couldn’t sense any kind of presence. If there was a demon here, it’s gone.”
Dean raises an eyebrow, looks at Sam. “You think Joe Spalls skipped town?”
Sam’s frowning, his eyes distant.
“Sammy,” Dean says, nudging him with an elbow.
Sam blinks and finally looks at Dean. “Why don’t you and Cas go check it out?” he suggests. “See if he’s home? I’m gonna head back to the motel. Take a look at something.”
“‘Something?’” Dean says. “Care to share with the class.”
“Probably nothing.” Sam sighs. “I just wanna read over the news report again.” He turns to Cas. “Could you—?”
“Of course.” Cas takes his arm, and in the blink of an eye, they’re gone. Another blink and Cas is back, brushing dust off of his sleeves.
There’s a donkey standing in a field a little way to the side of them. It blinks once, slowly, when Cas reappears, and then bends its head to carry on cropping grass.
Dean sighs and opens the car door. “Looks like you’re riding shotgun.”
It’s weird how Cas has taken to car rides. Even now he’s gotten his wings back, he’ll sit hunched up in the back the Impala for hours rather than just zap and meet Dean and Sam wherever they’re going, and the beige monstrosity he’s been driving around for the past year is still parked up in the bunker’s garage. Dean tried asking him what was up with that once, but all he got in return was a vague dreamy-eyed look and a cryptic comment about taking the slow path.
Maybe Cas is just trying to make himself feel better about being kicked out of Heaven. Focus on the good times down here. Which, yeah, not like any of them are spoiled for choice on that score. Car rides with Dean and Sam up front bickering about the music; movie marathons in the bunker; the occasional beer at Donny’s. It’s pretty pathetic when you think about it, so Dean doesn’t think about it much.
Cas seems happy with the whole thing, though—or at least as close to happy as any of them get these days.
Only not right now, because when Dean starts the engine and turns to check the mirror, he finds Cas looking at him and doing Squinty-Eyes #3 (‘trying to figure out how to start a conversation’).
Dean groans. He’d bet his right nut Sammy and Cas have been talking about him behind his back again. Maybe they’ve taken a vote and concluded that they’d be better off sitting on their asses in the bunker instead of out here doing their damn jobs. Decided that Dean can’t handle it and he needs to be locked down or put out to pasture. Kept out of the fight.
He can’t exactly blame them. The Mark was part of it, and that’s gone—but the rest of it? The things that made it so damn easy to give in? Looking for a fight around every corner because at least he knows how to do that; treating everybody like an enemy, because at least that way you don’t expect them to be on your side? That was all Dean, and it’s all still in there somewhere. It’s maybe even what makes him good at his job, because it sure as hell doesn’t make him good for anything else.
Dean catches himself watching his own eyes in the rear view mirror. Looks away and finds Cas still peering at him.
“Dude,” Dean says. “What?”
Cas just shakes his head. An expression that Dean can’t read flits over his face and then vanishes. “Let’s go,” he says.
Well, amen to that. Dean starts the engine.
----
“Joe?” Dean bangs on the door of Spalls’ house. “Joe Spalls? You home?”
There’s no answer.
Fucking A. He already has Sam and Cas giving him wary looks, acting like they’re worried he’s gonna go off, or fall apart, or God-knows-what, now that he’s back out on the job. If one of Crowley’s minions is up to no good topside, then that’s probably on Dean. Is it really too much to ask for them to catch a break?
Well, it’s Dean’s life. Of course it’s too much to fucking ask.
He sighs and pounds on the door again, harder this time.
“There’s somebody in the house,” Cas informs him.
“Huh.” Dean glances up and down the street, and he’s on the verge of getting out the lock pick when he hears footsteps in the hallway.
The door cracks open, just an inch or so. An eye appears in the crack. Dean plasters on a smile.
“Hello?” says a voice. Middle-aged and female, so it probably doesn’t belong to Joe Spalls. “Who are you? Has something happened to Joe?”
Dean drops the fake smile and pulls out his fake ID. “I don’t know, ma’am. I take it your…son?” he waits for the nod “isn’t home?”
There’s a rattle—Spalls’ mom unfastening the chain—and then the door opens wide enough for Dean to see her face.
She’s got the familiar hollow-eyed look of the habitual insomniac, her graying hair escaping in tendrils from its messy bun. There’s a coffee stain down the front of her sweater.
“He hasn’t been home since Tuesday,” she says. “It isn’t like him at all. Are you with the police?”
Second time Dean’s heard that today. This case is ticking all the demon possession boxes.
Dean tucks the fake Animal Control ID back in his jacket pocket—thankfully, Mommy Spalls looks too distracted to have noticed it—and nods agreement. “Detective Neil Young,” he says. “And this—” He glances over his shoulder and breaks off, because Cas is gone. “Huh. My partner must’ve had to take a call. Sure he’ll be back with us any minute.” He turns back to Spalls’ mom. “Mind if I come in?”
The hallway smells of leather and something warm and farmyard-y. Pairs of muddy boots sit on an old newspaper beside the door. Spalls’ mom waves Dean on through and says something about coffee. Funny how automatically the hospitality response kicks in, even in people who are worried to distraction, the brain clinging on to normal functioning for dear life.
From the moment he steps inside, though, it’s obvious she isn’t going to be much help. There’s something bloodless and exhaustion-drained about her. She alternates between fussing around in the vicinity of the coffee maker without putting it on and picking up her cellphone and setting it back down again. She hovers, the way people do when they’re too anxious to do nothing but don’t have a clue what they should be doing.
“Have you spoken to Joe since Tuesday?” Dean asks, breaking the awkward silence. “He called? Emailed? Tweeted a photo of his dinner? Anything like that?”
“No. Nothing at all.” Spalls’ mom shakes her head. A puzzled frown appears on her face. “But—I didn’t call the police. Not yet. I guess I was still hoping he’d come home. Does this mean—” She falters. “Have you found something?”
“Actually, ma’am, I’m here about the incident at the Sefton ranch last week. Last Tuesday, actually.”
“You don’t think Joe had something to do with it?”
“We’re just checking out every possibility.”
“No.” She shakes her head. “No, he loves those horses. He wouldn’t.” Then her eyes widen, whatever color was left in her face draining away. “You don’t think that whoever did it—that they might have done something to him?”
Damn, but he wishes Sam was here. Dean hates doing the reassuring-worried-relatives part. Sometimes he feels like he spends his whole life saying ‘it’s gonna be okay’ and knowing damn well that it isn’t. The older he gets, the less energy he has for pretending. Sammy’s better at faking hope. Hell, even Cas might be, these days, after his human sabbatical and the years he’s spent on the ground, convinced he can atone for his wrongs if he just tries hard enough.
Dean forces a smile, though even he can feel how convincing it isn’t. “Too early to say,” he says. “We can’t rule anything out right now—but we don’t have any reason to think Joe’s been harmed,” he adds, at the panic-stricken look that crosses her face.
Spalls’ mom relaxes fractionally, but she doesn’t return his smile and she doesn’t say anything else.
Sighing, Dean pulls out a card with his cellphone number and hands it over. “If you hear anything,” he says, “anything at all, call us. We’ll find your son.”
Maybe not alive, maybe not in one piece, but they’ll find him.
Spalls’ mom doesn’t look convinced, but she nods and sees him out. Dean sinks into the driver’s seat of the Impala with a sigh and takes a swig from the cold cup of coffee still sitting on the dashboard. Then he nearly drops it in his lap as Cas materializes in the shotgun seat.
Shit, he is gonna have to get used to that all over again.
He opens his mouth to protest, but shuts it again at the apologetic look Cas shoots him. “I didn’t expect you to be done yet,” Cas says. “The mother—she didn’t know anything?”
“Nah. Just the usual—it wasn’t like him, he’s never done anything like this before. You know how it goes.”
Cas nods, but he’s frowning a little. “I didn’t find anything here, either,” he tells Dean. “No sign of demon activity.”
Dean shrugs. “So maybe the demon made this guy his bitch while he was out of the house and didn’t bother coming home to Mommy. Everything else points to possession. I’d say we still got a case—now we just need to find the artist formerly known as Joe.”
“We should look for abandoned buildings,” says Cas. “Barns, warehouses—anywhere a demon might decide to make its base.”
“I’m with you,” Dean says, and then his stomach growls and reminds him just how long it’s been since breakfast. “But first, I’m gonna look for lunch.”
He half-expects Cas to announce that he’s zapping off to look for demon-haunts—or to just zap, for that matter—but he doesn’t, just settles back in his seat and then gives Dean an expectant look when he doesn’t start the engine.
And when Dean finds a diner a couple blocks from the hotel and they’re settled into a booth with shiny red faux-leather seats, Cas squints at the menu and orders fries and some syrupy abomination masquerading as coffee.
Dean raises an eyebrow, and Cas hunches forward defensively and says, “I enjoyed food. When I was human.”
He doesn’t elaborate further, and when lunch arrives, he drinks the coffee but sits staring at his fries while Dean shoves mouthfuls of cheeseburger into his face. By the time Dean’s done eating, Cas still hasn’t touched his own food.
Dean makes a face and asks “You gonna eat those?” instead of asking Cas what’s eating him. He has a feeling he already knows.
Cas shrugs and pushes the basket of fries across the tabletop.
“Why’d you even order them if you weren’t gonna eat them?” Dean asks.
Cas is quiet for a moment. Then he sighs and looks down at his hands. “I miss it,” he admits.
Dean pauses with a fry halfway to his mouth. “Diner food?”
“Being human.” Cas pauses. “Parts of it. It was frequently frustrating.” He adjusts his position on the hard plastic chair. “Uncomfortable. Slow.”
“You got it.”
“But there were other things, too. Small things. They were easy to take pleasure in. To feel.” Cas sighs, and Dean feels an old guilt creeping his way up his throat. “If things had been different—”
Dean puts down the French fry. “If I hadn’t tossed you out the bunker on your ass, you mean.”
Cas fixes him with a look. “That was not your fault.” He looks back down, then. “What I mean is—being human made me appreciate things. I’d never really understood what living was, before. What drove humans to seek experience, to push themselves out of their comfort zones. But when I knew my time was finite…” He trails off.
Dean shoves Cas’s fries away from him, appetite gone. This is about his little confession, back before he lost the Mark. The whole wanting a life thing, which actually made sense back when Dean thought he was gonna die before he ever got a chance at it.
After he spilled his guts to that priest in Worcester, the whole idea crystallized in his head and he couldn’t shake it. Another day, another lead turned out to be nothing, and he’d been tired and drunk enough to let some of it slip, sitting up in the library with Cas after Sam had started snoring in his chair and finally hauled his ass to bad.
Cas hadn’t been able to help him then; just said, We’ll fix this with renewed determination, and let the rest of it slide.
Now that Dean’s back in the same old life he’s always lived—supernatural nasties around every corner and a new epic shitstorm always brewing on the horizon—having a real life seems about as likely as learning to fly or winning the Lotto. Always was that way, and now Dean’s gotten his perspective back.
It’s just that Sammy hasn’t caught up yet; and apparently Cas is bringing up the rear along with him.
“Dude,” Dean says. “Don’t. We got no time for this crap.”
Cas looks at him, a little sadly. “Will you keep saying that until you truly do run out of time?” he asks. There’s nothing accusing about it. He just looks tired.
Dean scowls at the table. “I never meant all that crap,” he says, quietly. “I just—I was freaking out, you know. Back—before. Didn’t mean anything.”
Cas doesn’t push him, just keeps that same unblinking look trained on his face.
Dean forges on. “I mean, I thought I was gonna have to kill myself, you know? Or get you to do it for me, whatever. Screwed with my head. My priorities, whatever.” He snorts, grabs his mug of coffee and raises it in a toast. “But hey, I’m back. ‘S all good. Okay?”
“Okay,” Cas says, but he looks dubious about it.
“So.” Dean sits back in his chair, raises his voice to a normal level to indicate that the subject is closed. “Joe Spalls. What do you think? One of Crowley’s guys? Independent operator? I mean, nobody’s won a million bucks or married Scarlett Johansson around here, so no crossroad deals. So why did whoever we’re dealing with here grab Spalls?”
“Spalls?” A voice says, over his shoulder. “You mean Joe?”
Dean turns to check out the voice’s owner. Mid-twenties, maybe, with wispy red hair and pale blue eyes, cute in a buttoned-up nice-girl kind of a way. She’s frowning.
“You know him?” Dean asks her.
“We were at school together.” Her frown deepens. “He’s nice. Never really made anything of himself—” her voice changes, like she’s imitating someone “—but he’s nice. Lives with his mom. He works up at the Sefton place. Let me ride one of the horses once, even though he isn’t supposed to.” She smiles faintly. “I think he was glad to have the company.”
“Let me guess,” says Dean. “Doesn’t have a whole lot of friends?”
The redhead shrugs. “It isn’t his fault,” she says. “He’s a good guy, just—quiet. I think the horses are his best friends, really.” She catches herself. “Were his best friends, I mean. I heard what happened. Some people are just—” She shakes her head.
“Inhuman?” Dean suggests, and she blinks at him, startled. “Never mind,” he says. “You seen Joe lately?”
She nods. “Last night,” she says. “At Ricky’s bar. He was wasted, just—talking nonsense. I guess he’s real cut up about the horses. Who knows if he’s still gonna have a job, after what happened? I heard Mrs. Sefton say she was thinking about selling the place. She’s real shook up.”
Dean raises an eyebrow. “Talking nonsense?” he asks. “You remember anything he said?”
“I don’t know. It was weird.” The redhead purses her lips. “He didn’t sound like himself. He was kind of—I wanna say happy, only that makes no sense. More like—manic.”
“Huh.”
“Yeah. And he kept talking about his family. Saying he was gonna call all his brothers and sisters. That was the real weird part.” She shakes her head. “Joe’s an only child. His dad ran off when he was a baby, and his mom never remarried. Never even dated anybody else, I don’t think.”
Across the booth, Cas sets down his coffee with an alarmed clunk. Dean throws him a quick glance, nods.
“Thanks,” he tells the redhead. “Listen—do me a favor, okay?” He fumbles in his pocket for a card. “You see Joe around again—you call me.” He looks her in the eyes. “Don’t approach him. Just let us know.”
Her eyes widen. “Joe’s harmless,” she insists. “You can’t think he’d hurt anybody?”
Dean offers her what he hopes is a reassuring smile. “We just need to be sure,” he says. “Trust me.”
The redhead nods, and backs away from their booth.
“Dean.” Cas is frowning, eyes intent. Well, at least he’s focused on the case now, instead of playing Angelic Dr. Phil. “Spalls talked about his brothers and sisters. This could be a rogue angel. Perhaps Hannah and I missed one.”
“Could be,” Dean says.
Cas looks troubled. “But the rogues—most of them were in hiding. They didn’t want to be brought back to Heaven. Why this one would be talking about contacting other angels, I don’t know.”
Great. More Heavenly drama spilling downstairs? That’s the last thing they need.
Dean throws a twenty on the table and shrugs on his jacket. “I don’t care what this asshat wants. We’re gonna put a stop to whatever fucked-up shit he’s trying to pull down here.”
Cas hesitates, just for a moment, then nods, his expression going hard.
----
“Sammy?” Dean pushes open the door to their motel room, tossing his keys onto the coffee table. “Listen, you can cut out the research. We got some more intel. It’s—”
“Dean.” Sam’s face is pale in the light from his laptop screen.
Dean blinks at him. “What?”
Sam’s face remains grim. “You want the bad news?” he asks. “Or the really bad news?”
Dean hesitates, wrong-footed by the certainty in Sam’s voice. Then he sighs. “Hey, just lay it all on me, man.”
“It’s not a demon,” Sam tells him. “And it’s not an angel either. I don’t know what it is. But whatever we’re dealing with here—I’m pretty sure we let it out.”
Chapter 2
Author:
anactoriaCharacters: Dean, Sam, Cas, OCs
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Animal cruelty.
Word count: 23,000
Summary: It’s supposed to be a routine hunt. A few farm animals mutilated, a few towns over. It sounds like the work of some two-bit demon—just another day at the office for two experienced hunters and an angel.
But this case is closer to home than it seems. Before long, Dean is in the clutches of a dangerous spirit, and Sam and Cas must try to end an ancient family feud before the whole town—and Dean—gets caught in the crossfire.
“Check it out.” Dean opens the door to the storeroom with his foot, laptop in hand. Sam doesn’t move from where he’s sitting on the floor, but his shoulders stiffen.
“Dude, give me a minute,” he says, not turning to look at Dean, and sets some dusty artefact back on its shelf with exaggerated care. “Some of this stuff is fragile. Remember?”
It’s a skill, being able to bitchface with the back of his head. Or maybe it’s just that Dean’s had many, many years of experience when it comes to being disapproved at. He nudges Sam’s ass with his boot.
“C’mon.” Dean keeps his voice light. “Don’t tell me you ain’t bored yet. You’ve been sorting through this crap since lunchtime.”
Sam finally turns his head, so Dean gets the full effect of his eyeroll. “Yeah, well, this would be a whole lot quicker if I had some help,” he says, but he gets to his feet. He brushes the dust from his hands on the legs of his jeans and leans in to look at the screen.
Dean shrugs. “Hey, it was you who decided doing an inventory of all the crap the Men of Letters left hanging around sounded like a good time. Me, I’m gonna trust the one they did before Abaddon offed them. We’re better off leaving this crap alone, you ask me. Any more storybook witches in bottles down here, I don’t wanna know.”
“Yeah, well. For a guy who isn’t doing any of the work, you’re still one for one on the breaking stuff.”
“You dropped it!”
“You snuck up on—wait.” Sam breaks off, squinting at the laptop screen. “Livestock mutilations? You thinking demons?”
Dean shrugs. “Could be. I mean, Crowley’s gone quiet, and that’s never a good sign. Could be he’s up to something, got the minions out doing his dirty work.”
“Yeah.” A little crease appears between Sam’s eyebrows as he scrolls down the webpage. “We haven’t heard from him since—”
He goes quiet, but Dean hears what he isn’t saying, loud and clear.
Since you tried to kill him, and me and Cas would’ve been next on your list if we hadn’t found that spell. Since Cain’s prophecy nearly came true.
Nobody died, in the end. Only Crowley got hurt, and not bad enough to keep him from calling Dean a dozen incomprehensible things that might’ve been British for ‘asshole’ before he zapped back to Hell. Sam and Cas both got away with cuts and bruises. The spell worked, and now there’s no Mark on Dean’s arm, just a patch of silvery scar tissue that aches when it’s cold. No harm, no foul.
Only now, maybe Crowley’s out for revenge—because of Dean, and the thought leaves a bad taste in Dean’s mouth that he can’t get rid of. He tries not to examine the feeling too closely. Crowley’s a demon; always was.
It’s just that he was getting a little more human for a while back there. If Dean set him straight on the path to Douchebag City—well, that’s just one more in the very long line of black marks against Dean’s name, isn’t it?
Dean clears his throat; forces a smile. “Hey,” he says. “We’ve been promising to kill him for years. He’d be offended if we didn’t try once in a while, right?”
He tries not to see the pained quirk of Sam’s mouth, the shadow that crosses his eyes. Sam doesn’t reply right away, keeps his eyes on the laptop screen, and for a moment Dean thinks he’s actually gonna be allowed to ignore the elephant in the room.
But when Sam finally looks up, he’s frowning. “You sure you’re up for this?” he asks.
Dean scowls. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
Sam’s been pushing the whole ‘taking a break’ thing again since Dean lost the Mark. Why he’s still so hung up on the idea now that Dean’s actually gotten rid of the thing that made him a ticking time-bomb out in the field, Dean couldn’t say.
Well, maybe he could, but he sure as hell isn’t gonna be the one to bring it up. He doesn’t need Sam looking at him like he isn’t sure whether he expects Dean to break or to bite his head off, tiptoeing around the fact that killing’s a part of their job description like Dean’s just gotten his 30-day sobriety chip and one wrong word might trigger a relapse.
Sam watches his face for a minute, then sighs and says, “Never mind.”
“It ain’t far,” Dean presses. “We head out now, we’ll be there before midnight.”
“What about Cas?”
Cas has spent the last couple weeks with them at the bunker, allegedly trying to figure out what his mission is now he’s stuck down here, but mostly watching Dean with a cautious intensity that makes him want to crawl out of his skin.
Dean gets it. He does. Cas is trying to trust him. Sam, too. Dean knows how it is, always being on the lookout, always measuring how much of the guy standing in front of you is the guy you know. He knows how tired it makes you. Doesn’t mean he’s comfortable being on the receiving end.
He shrugs. “He can come with. They don’t look like letting him back upstairs anytime soon—he could probably use a day out, and we could use an extra pair of hands.”
And if it means Dean has both not-dead members of his family right where he can see them—yeah, he isn’t gonna complain about that.
“One little demon, Sammy,” he wheedles. “Nothing the three of us can’t handle. Hell, maybe this time around we’ll even manage to save the poor sonofabitch it’s possessing.”
He can’t place the expression that passes over Sam’s face, but Sam stares at the screen for a moment longer, then says, “Fine. Gimme a half an hour to get cleared up here. I’ll meet you in the car.”
Sam still doesn’t look happy when they knock on the door of the ranch-house whose owner woke up to a nasty surprise. When Dean reaches for the knocker, he opens his mouth like he’s about to say something, then stops.
Dean lets go of the door-knocker and turns back to face him. “What?” he says, and manages not to roll his eyes.
Sam jerks his head in the direction of the nearest field. A cow raises its head and regards them calmly, chewing on a mouthful of grass. “So, those cattle.”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t look very mutilated.”
Dean shrugs. “You read the news report, Sammy. It was weird. Just the horses.” I’m not lying to you, he doesn’t say. Will you ever believe I’m not lying to you?
Sam’s still giving him that troubled look, but before Dean can tell him to knock it off, the door of the ranch house swings open and it’s time to turn on the professionalism.
The woman standing in the doorway is a mess, her eyes red-rimmed in her ashen face. Her long black hair is falling out of its braid, and her clothes are rumpled. She looks like somebody who just lost a relative, not a farm animal.
She looks from Dean to Sam, then back again. Blinks. “Can I help you?” She frowns. “Are you the police?”
“Mrs. Sefton? I’m sorry if this is a bad time,” Sam tells her, switching from mistrustful to softly compassionate in the blink of an eye. “We’re with Animal Control. We’d like to ask you a few questions about the incident on Tuesday.”
Mrs. Sefton stares at him for a long moment. “The incident,” she says, and a tremor runs through her body like she’s suppressing a sob. “Come in.” She straightens and steps back to let them pass.
Some people really are that crazy about their animals. Dean knows that, though he’s never really gotten it. He glances at Sam behind her back, raises an eyebrow, but Sam still has that understanding look on his face.
Dean shoves down the memory of Sam’s Heaven, the way he’d greeted that dog like a long-lost friend, and elbows Sam in the ribs.
You’re handling this one, he mouths, and then grins when Sam glares at him.
Normal. It’s almost like they’re back to normal.
“I’m sorry,” Mrs. Sefton says as they sit down. “Most people don’t really get it. The horses are my life.” She pauses, closes her eyes and breathes out shakily. “Were my life. We built this farm up from nothing. It was—”
She breaks off to compose herself. Sam takes the chair opposite her. “I know this must be difficult,” he says. “Take your time.”
Mrs. Sefton sniffs. “Thank you.”
Dean leaves them to it and risks a glance out the window. He can’t see Cas, but then he could be anywhere around the ranch. Cas has his grace back now. His wings. He can zap around in the blink of an eye like he used to—though his time living in the slow lane seems to have given him some appreciation for the importance of not materializing behind people while they’re taking a piss, which is something Dean’s grateful for.
Cas might never be a hundred percent on the finer points of human interaction, though, which is why he’s outside searching the place while Dean and Sam handle the people and play Let’s Pretend Everything’s Awesome.
There’s no sign of him right now, and if he has found anything, it isn’t urgent enough for him to show up or call, so Dean turns his attention back to Sam and Mrs. Sefton.
“I just don’t understand why Animal Control is here,” she’s saying. “I mean, I didn’t—I didn’t look closely.” She covers her mouth with her hand for a second. “But it looked like a person did this.”
Sam glances at Dean out of the corner of his eye, then turns back to her. “What makes you think that?”
She frowns. “I grew up on a ranch. I know what animal attacks look like. This wasn’t that. There were no teeth marks, but their tails and their ears were missing. And their eyelids. I mean, who in the—” She swallows. “That was all.”
Rules out a werewolf, or anything else with claws and canines, and it’s a point in favor of demon activity. Ritualistic, not random.
“Do you have any idea who would want to do something like this?” asks Sam.
Mrs. Sefton shrugs and slumps forward in her chair. “I have no idea,” she says. “I compete sometimes, but it’s just local events. Nothing serious. I mean, people have rivalries, stupid stuff, but—nothing like this. Nobody I know would do this.”
“You didn’t notice anybody acting strangely in the days before the attack? Out of character behavior?”
She shakes her head.
“Or—anything else odd? Weird smells? Did anybody you know seem to have—problems with their eyes?”
“No.” She rubs her eyes. She’s starting to look at them strangely now. Another minute, she’ll be saying What’s this all about? and asking them to leave. “Nothing like that.”
Sam tilts his head. “But something?”
“It’s—there’s no way it was him. He loved those horses, Amber was like his baby. But—” She stops. Sighs. “Joe Spalls. He works for me, just a couple days a week, helping out with the horses. I assumed he heard about what happened and couldn’t face showing up. It’s already gotten all over town. But he didn’t come to work the last couple days, and he hasn’t gotten in touch. It isn’t like him.”
Sam nods, his expression grave. “Do you have his address?”
Cas is outside when they leave, leaning against the hood of the Impala. When Dean’s gaze lands on him, he straightens up and fusses with his coat, a sheepish expression on his face.
“What have you got?” Sam asks him, before Dean has time to come up with a suitable threat.
“Nothing.” Cas frowns. “No sulfur. I couldn’t sense any kind of presence. If there was a demon here, it’s gone.”
Dean raises an eyebrow, looks at Sam. “You think Joe Spalls skipped town?”
Sam’s frowning, his eyes distant.
“Sammy,” Dean says, nudging him with an elbow.
Sam blinks and finally looks at Dean. “Why don’t you and Cas go check it out?” he suggests. “See if he’s home? I’m gonna head back to the motel. Take a look at something.”
“‘Something?’” Dean says. “Care to share with the class.”
“Probably nothing.” Sam sighs. “I just wanna read over the news report again.” He turns to Cas. “Could you—?”
“Of course.” Cas takes his arm, and in the blink of an eye, they’re gone. Another blink and Cas is back, brushing dust off of his sleeves.
There’s a donkey standing in a field a little way to the side of them. It blinks once, slowly, when Cas reappears, and then bends its head to carry on cropping grass.
Dean sighs and opens the car door. “Looks like you’re riding shotgun.”
It’s weird how Cas has taken to car rides. Even now he’s gotten his wings back, he’ll sit hunched up in the back the Impala for hours rather than just zap and meet Dean and Sam wherever they’re going, and the beige monstrosity he’s been driving around for the past year is still parked up in the bunker’s garage. Dean tried asking him what was up with that once, but all he got in return was a vague dreamy-eyed look and a cryptic comment about taking the slow path.
Maybe Cas is just trying to make himself feel better about being kicked out of Heaven. Focus on the good times down here. Which, yeah, not like any of them are spoiled for choice on that score. Car rides with Dean and Sam up front bickering about the music; movie marathons in the bunker; the occasional beer at Donny’s. It’s pretty pathetic when you think about it, so Dean doesn’t think about it much.
Cas seems happy with the whole thing, though—or at least as close to happy as any of them get these days.
Only not right now, because when Dean starts the engine and turns to check the mirror, he finds Cas looking at him and doing Squinty-Eyes #3 (‘trying to figure out how to start a conversation’).
Dean groans. He’d bet his right nut Sammy and Cas have been talking about him behind his back again. Maybe they’ve taken a vote and concluded that they’d be better off sitting on their asses in the bunker instead of out here doing their damn jobs. Decided that Dean can’t handle it and he needs to be locked down or put out to pasture. Kept out of the fight.
He can’t exactly blame them. The Mark was part of it, and that’s gone—but the rest of it? The things that made it so damn easy to give in? Looking for a fight around every corner because at least he knows how to do that; treating everybody like an enemy, because at least that way you don’t expect them to be on your side? That was all Dean, and it’s all still in there somewhere. It’s maybe even what makes him good at his job, because it sure as hell doesn’t make him good for anything else.
Dean catches himself watching his own eyes in the rear view mirror. Looks away and finds Cas still peering at him.
“Dude,” Dean says. “What?”
Cas just shakes his head. An expression that Dean can’t read flits over his face and then vanishes. “Let’s go,” he says.
Well, amen to that. Dean starts the engine.
“Joe?” Dean bangs on the door of Spalls’ house. “Joe Spalls? You home?”
There’s no answer.
Fucking A. He already has Sam and Cas giving him wary looks, acting like they’re worried he’s gonna go off, or fall apart, or God-knows-what, now that he’s back out on the job. If one of Crowley’s minions is up to no good topside, then that’s probably on Dean. Is it really too much to ask for them to catch a break?
Well, it’s Dean’s life. Of course it’s too much to fucking ask.
He sighs and pounds on the door again, harder this time.
“There’s somebody in the house,” Cas informs him.
“Huh.” Dean glances up and down the street, and he’s on the verge of getting out the lock pick when he hears footsteps in the hallway.
The door cracks open, just an inch or so. An eye appears in the crack. Dean plasters on a smile.
“Hello?” says a voice. Middle-aged and female, so it probably doesn’t belong to Joe Spalls. “Who are you? Has something happened to Joe?”
Dean drops the fake smile and pulls out his fake ID. “I don’t know, ma’am. I take it your…son?” he waits for the nod “isn’t home?”
There’s a rattle—Spalls’ mom unfastening the chain—and then the door opens wide enough for Dean to see her face.
She’s got the familiar hollow-eyed look of the habitual insomniac, her graying hair escaping in tendrils from its messy bun. There’s a coffee stain down the front of her sweater.
“He hasn’t been home since Tuesday,” she says. “It isn’t like him at all. Are you with the police?”
Second time Dean’s heard that today. This case is ticking all the demon possession boxes.
Dean tucks the fake Animal Control ID back in his jacket pocket—thankfully, Mommy Spalls looks too distracted to have noticed it—and nods agreement. “Detective Neil Young,” he says. “And this—” He glances over his shoulder and breaks off, because Cas is gone. “Huh. My partner must’ve had to take a call. Sure he’ll be back with us any minute.” He turns back to Spalls’ mom. “Mind if I come in?”
The hallway smells of leather and something warm and farmyard-y. Pairs of muddy boots sit on an old newspaper beside the door. Spalls’ mom waves Dean on through and says something about coffee. Funny how automatically the hospitality response kicks in, even in people who are worried to distraction, the brain clinging on to normal functioning for dear life.
From the moment he steps inside, though, it’s obvious she isn’t going to be much help. There’s something bloodless and exhaustion-drained about her. She alternates between fussing around in the vicinity of the coffee maker without putting it on and picking up her cellphone and setting it back down again. She hovers, the way people do when they’re too anxious to do nothing but don’t have a clue what they should be doing.
“Have you spoken to Joe since Tuesday?” Dean asks, breaking the awkward silence. “He called? Emailed? Tweeted a photo of his dinner? Anything like that?”
“No. Nothing at all.” Spalls’ mom shakes her head. A puzzled frown appears on her face. “But—I didn’t call the police. Not yet. I guess I was still hoping he’d come home. Does this mean—” She falters. “Have you found something?”
“Actually, ma’am, I’m here about the incident at the Sefton ranch last week. Last Tuesday, actually.”
“You don’t think Joe had something to do with it?”
“We’re just checking out every possibility.”
“No.” She shakes her head. “No, he loves those horses. He wouldn’t.” Then her eyes widen, whatever color was left in her face draining away. “You don’t think that whoever did it—that they might have done something to him?”
Damn, but he wishes Sam was here. Dean hates doing the reassuring-worried-relatives part. Sometimes he feels like he spends his whole life saying ‘it’s gonna be okay’ and knowing damn well that it isn’t. The older he gets, the less energy he has for pretending. Sammy’s better at faking hope. Hell, even Cas might be, these days, after his human sabbatical and the years he’s spent on the ground, convinced he can atone for his wrongs if he just tries hard enough.
Dean forces a smile, though even he can feel how convincing it isn’t. “Too early to say,” he says. “We can’t rule anything out right now—but we don’t have any reason to think Joe’s been harmed,” he adds, at the panic-stricken look that crosses her face.
Spalls’ mom relaxes fractionally, but she doesn’t return his smile and she doesn’t say anything else.
Sighing, Dean pulls out a card with his cellphone number and hands it over. “If you hear anything,” he says, “anything at all, call us. We’ll find your son.”
Maybe not alive, maybe not in one piece, but they’ll find him.
Spalls’ mom doesn’t look convinced, but she nods and sees him out. Dean sinks into the driver’s seat of the Impala with a sigh and takes a swig from the cold cup of coffee still sitting on the dashboard. Then he nearly drops it in his lap as Cas materializes in the shotgun seat.
Shit, he is gonna have to get used to that all over again.
He opens his mouth to protest, but shuts it again at the apologetic look Cas shoots him. “I didn’t expect you to be done yet,” Cas says. “The mother—she didn’t know anything?”
“Nah. Just the usual—it wasn’t like him, he’s never done anything like this before. You know how it goes.”
Cas nods, but he’s frowning a little. “I didn’t find anything here, either,” he tells Dean. “No sign of demon activity.”
Dean shrugs. “So maybe the demon made this guy his bitch while he was out of the house and didn’t bother coming home to Mommy. Everything else points to possession. I’d say we still got a case—now we just need to find the artist formerly known as Joe.”
“We should look for abandoned buildings,” says Cas. “Barns, warehouses—anywhere a demon might decide to make its base.”
“I’m with you,” Dean says, and then his stomach growls and reminds him just how long it’s been since breakfast. “But first, I’m gonna look for lunch.”
He half-expects Cas to announce that he’s zapping off to look for demon-haunts—or to just zap, for that matter—but he doesn’t, just settles back in his seat and then gives Dean an expectant look when he doesn’t start the engine.
And when Dean finds a diner a couple blocks from the hotel and they’re settled into a booth with shiny red faux-leather seats, Cas squints at the menu and orders fries and some syrupy abomination masquerading as coffee.
Dean raises an eyebrow, and Cas hunches forward defensively and says, “I enjoyed food. When I was human.”
He doesn’t elaborate further, and when lunch arrives, he drinks the coffee but sits staring at his fries while Dean shoves mouthfuls of cheeseburger into his face. By the time Dean’s done eating, Cas still hasn’t touched his own food.
Dean makes a face and asks “You gonna eat those?” instead of asking Cas what’s eating him. He has a feeling he already knows.
Cas shrugs and pushes the basket of fries across the tabletop.
“Why’d you even order them if you weren’t gonna eat them?” Dean asks.
Cas is quiet for a moment. Then he sighs and looks down at his hands. “I miss it,” he admits.
Dean pauses with a fry halfway to his mouth. “Diner food?”
“Being human.” Cas pauses. “Parts of it. It was frequently frustrating.” He adjusts his position on the hard plastic chair. “Uncomfortable. Slow.”
“You got it.”
“But there were other things, too. Small things. They were easy to take pleasure in. To feel.” Cas sighs, and Dean feels an old guilt creeping his way up his throat. “If things had been different—”
Dean puts down the French fry. “If I hadn’t tossed you out the bunker on your ass, you mean.”
Cas fixes him with a look. “That was not your fault.” He looks back down, then. “What I mean is—being human made me appreciate things. I’d never really understood what living was, before. What drove humans to seek experience, to push themselves out of their comfort zones. But when I knew my time was finite…” He trails off.
Dean shoves Cas’s fries away from him, appetite gone. This is about his little confession, back before he lost the Mark. The whole wanting a life thing, which actually made sense back when Dean thought he was gonna die before he ever got a chance at it.
After he spilled his guts to that priest in Worcester, the whole idea crystallized in his head and he couldn’t shake it. Another day, another lead turned out to be nothing, and he’d been tired and drunk enough to let some of it slip, sitting up in the library with Cas after Sam had started snoring in his chair and finally hauled his ass to bad.
Cas hadn’t been able to help him then; just said, We’ll fix this with renewed determination, and let the rest of it slide.
Now that Dean’s back in the same old life he’s always lived—supernatural nasties around every corner and a new epic shitstorm always brewing on the horizon—having a real life seems about as likely as learning to fly or winning the Lotto. Always was that way, and now Dean’s gotten his perspective back.
It’s just that Sammy hasn’t caught up yet; and apparently Cas is bringing up the rear along with him.
“Dude,” Dean says. “Don’t. We got no time for this crap.”
Cas looks at him, a little sadly. “Will you keep saying that until you truly do run out of time?” he asks. There’s nothing accusing about it. He just looks tired.
Dean scowls at the table. “I never meant all that crap,” he says, quietly. “I just—I was freaking out, you know. Back—before. Didn’t mean anything.”
Cas doesn’t push him, just keeps that same unblinking look trained on his face.
Dean forges on. “I mean, I thought I was gonna have to kill myself, you know? Or get you to do it for me, whatever. Screwed with my head. My priorities, whatever.” He snorts, grabs his mug of coffee and raises it in a toast. “But hey, I’m back. ‘S all good. Okay?”
“Okay,” Cas says, but he looks dubious about it.
“So.” Dean sits back in his chair, raises his voice to a normal level to indicate that the subject is closed. “Joe Spalls. What do you think? One of Crowley’s guys? Independent operator? I mean, nobody’s won a million bucks or married Scarlett Johansson around here, so no crossroad deals. So why did whoever we’re dealing with here grab Spalls?”
“Spalls?” A voice says, over his shoulder. “You mean Joe?”
Dean turns to check out the voice’s owner. Mid-twenties, maybe, with wispy red hair and pale blue eyes, cute in a buttoned-up nice-girl kind of a way. She’s frowning.
“You know him?” Dean asks her.
“We were at school together.” Her frown deepens. “He’s nice. Never really made anything of himself—” her voice changes, like she’s imitating someone “—but he’s nice. Lives with his mom. He works up at the Sefton place. Let me ride one of the horses once, even though he isn’t supposed to.” She smiles faintly. “I think he was glad to have the company.”
“Let me guess,” says Dean. “Doesn’t have a whole lot of friends?”
The redhead shrugs. “It isn’t his fault,” she says. “He’s a good guy, just—quiet. I think the horses are his best friends, really.” She catches herself. “Were his best friends, I mean. I heard what happened. Some people are just—” She shakes her head.
“Inhuman?” Dean suggests, and she blinks at him, startled. “Never mind,” he says. “You seen Joe lately?”
She nods. “Last night,” she says. “At Ricky’s bar. He was wasted, just—talking nonsense. I guess he’s real cut up about the horses. Who knows if he’s still gonna have a job, after what happened? I heard Mrs. Sefton say she was thinking about selling the place. She’s real shook up.”
Dean raises an eyebrow. “Talking nonsense?” he asks. “You remember anything he said?”
“I don’t know. It was weird.” The redhead purses her lips. “He didn’t sound like himself. He was kind of—I wanna say happy, only that makes no sense. More like—manic.”
“Huh.”
“Yeah. And he kept talking about his family. Saying he was gonna call all his brothers and sisters. That was the real weird part.” She shakes her head. “Joe’s an only child. His dad ran off when he was a baby, and his mom never remarried. Never even dated anybody else, I don’t think.”
Across the booth, Cas sets down his coffee with an alarmed clunk. Dean throws him a quick glance, nods.
“Thanks,” he tells the redhead. “Listen—do me a favor, okay?” He fumbles in his pocket for a card. “You see Joe around again—you call me.” He looks her in the eyes. “Don’t approach him. Just let us know.”
Her eyes widen. “Joe’s harmless,” she insists. “You can’t think he’d hurt anybody?”
Dean offers her what he hopes is a reassuring smile. “We just need to be sure,” he says. “Trust me.”
The redhead nods, and backs away from their booth.
“Dean.” Cas is frowning, eyes intent. Well, at least he’s focused on the case now, instead of playing Angelic Dr. Phil. “Spalls talked about his brothers and sisters. This could be a rogue angel. Perhaps Hannah and I missed one.”
“Could be,” Dean says.
Cas looks troubled. “But the rogues—most of them were in hiding. They didn’t want to be brought back to Heaven. Why this one would be talking about contacting other angels, I don’t know.”
Great. More Heavenly drama spilling downstairs? That’s the last thing they need.
Dean throws a twenty on the table and shrugs on his jacket. “I don’t care what this asshat wants. We’re gonna put a stop to whatever fucked-up shit he’s trying to pull down here.”
Cas hesitates, just for a moment, then nods, his expression going hard.
“Sammy?” Dean pushes open the door to their motel room, tossing his keys onto the coffee table. “Listen, you can cut out the research. We got some more intel. It’s—”
“Dean.” Sam’s face is pale in the light from his laptop screen.
Dean blinks at him. “What?”
Sam’s face remains grim. “You want the bad news?” he asks. “Or the really bad news?”
Dean hesitates, wrong-footed by the certainty in Sam’s voice. Then he sighs. “Hey, just lay it all on me, man.”
“It’s not a demon,” Sam tells him. “And it’s not an angel either. I don’t know what it is. But whatever we’re dealing with here—I’m pretty sure we let it out.”