Season Three

Episode Twenty-Two: The Art of Dying

By Kittsbud & Tree

Part Two

Kalispell, Montana

Dean guided the Impala over the loose dirt track with just the palm of his hand on the wheel, letting the huge behemoth of a car come to rest alongside a bland log cabin that wouldn’t have been out of place in some ancient tourist brochure from the seventies.

In fact, as he looked the place over, Dean was sure he’d seen it in an episode of Grizzly Adams when he was a kid.

The structure was old, the gnarled wooden beams leaning slightly where the hillside had actually moved beneath it over the years.

It was exactly the kind of place Dean would expect to find Morrow – just because the man was an ass, didn’t mean he was a total idiot. There was enough of a hunter still in him to pick a good hideout when he needed one.

The cabin was obscure, and far enough up the valley to allow a clear view all around, right out across the treetops and over the distant mountains beyond.

Even the nearby woodland couldn’t give an assailant a clear run at the building without being seen.

“This place remind you of anywhere?” Dean flicked up just one brow, remembering a similar cabin where he and John had once been held captive.

Sam slammed the Chevy’s heavyweight door and trudged around to his brother’s side, sliding a little on the rough gravel beneath his shoes.

“Yeah, someplace I’d rather forget,” he responded, eyeing the rotting porch as if it might not take the load he was about to put on it. “Are you sure our feet won’t go straight through that thing? I mean, dude…all that pie you’re so fond of…” He grinned a little.

Dean shrugged and took point, testing out the old wooden timbers beneath his CAT boots before letting his full weight rest on the balcony. He smiled when the wood held, patting his stomach with affection. “Guess all that pie didn’t do me any harm after all, Sasquatch. Now quit bitching about my eating habits and get your gangly butt over here.”

Sam chuckled, still taking care where he put his feet as he stepped onto the porch. There was a hunting knife jammed carefully into the jamb as an impromptu lock, probably by the person that had found Morrow, but he pulled it free, pushing on the door until it swung open.

The cops obviously hadn’t visited this particular crime scene yet, even if other hunters had.

As Sam edged inside, Dean pulled his .45 from his waistband and clicked off the safety. Just because others had been here, didn’t mean there still weren’t hidden or demonic dangers – especially for hunters.

The interior of the lodge was in just as bad a state as the exterior, and the floor was littered with discarded and crushed beer cans making it was hard to see even the threadbare rug that covered the center area.

Dean kicked at a few of the cans and dregs of brown liquid dribbled out. He screwed his face up in disgust. The Winchesters weren’t exactly the tidiest people – living out of a suitcase kind of made you a little less than house proud – but Morrow had been something else.

“Sammy, was this creep even house-broken? I sure as hell hope I don’t need to take a leak in this place…”

Sam winced at the thought, and focused instead on the huge bloodstain in the left hand corner of the room. The browning patch had spread outwards across several floorboards, and looked far too wide to have come from any normal wound or injury.

Sam kneeled, examining the stain more closely. “When Bobby said Morrow was slaughtered, he wasn’t kidding. No way are we looking at an ordinary cause of death here.”

Dean’s lips puckered. “Define ‘ordinary’ for a guy that fugly? Dude, he probably looked in the mirror, didn’t like the reflection and ganked himself.” There was more than a tinge of animosity in the hunter’s voice as he remembered how viciously Morrow and his buddies had once treated him. And Dad too…

He wanted to say that Morrow had gotten his just desserts, and that maybe the world was a better place without him. But looking at the evidence, even Morrow probably hadn’t deserved this kind of death.

“So, we’re not looking at a break in, and there’s no sign of a struggle. I’m thinking maybe Morrow knew who did this. Or whatever it was, it was so damn fast he didn’t even see it coming.”

Sam agreed. Stretching up from his squatting position, he glanced around the scruffy room for any traces of the killer. “Fast and neat, no clues, no evidence anyone was ever here.”

“Yeah, well tell that to Morrow. I think he might argue your last point.”

Sam’s shifting gaze picked up on something wedged under an oil lamp by the window. He squinted in the less than perfect light, zeroing in on a wad of crumpled photographs.

Dean followed the curious expression on his brother’s face, and with perfect symmetry, the brothers moved over to examine their find.

“Well lookie here, Morrow was a regular little paparazzo, and we were his celebrities of the month.” Dean clicked his tongue. “Jeez, if I’d known I’d have had my legs waxed or something…”

Sam looked up from sifting through the pictures, a look of perfect sincerity on his dimpled features. “Man, I’d have gone for the full-on facelift if I were you…”

“So not worried in that department, dude. And hey, this guy has more pictures of you than anyone. Somethin’ you wanna tell me here, Sammy?” Dean wiggled his brow suggestively, but didn’t stray from the photos for too long.

The pictures were all of the Winchesters. Some were old and faded, while others were fresher, from more recent hunts.

“I’m guessing Morrow’s still been keeping an eye on us all these months,” Sam suggested a little more seriously as he tossed several pictures down in favor of a ragged folder stuffed on a shelf.

Inside the browning wallet were even more images, along with paperwork from various motels, receipts, and a parking ticket issued to John’s pickup.

“Relentless sonofabitch, wasn’t he?” Dean noted with disgust.

“And thorough,” Sam agreed, picking out a zoom shot of Dean, John, and himself that appeared to have been taken as they’d swiftly exited St. John’s Hospital in Illinois.

“So, Morrow could have taken our asses out, except something got to him first and tore him a new one, big time. Whoever or whatever it was, they were quick, messy and had a set of jewels the size of King Kong.” Dean ran a hand through his spiky hair and paced away from the window, rubbing his free hand over his lips in deep thought. “I’m thinking maybe Lucifer is having a little fun killing hunters. I mean, maybe we pissed him off a few times too many lately.”

“But why not start with us?” Sam countered as he began to search the cabin more carefully. “We’re the biggest thorn in his side. We’re the logical first targets…”

“Who said demons are friggin’ logical? They’re from Hell, dude, not Vulcan.” Dean huffed and smirked. “Oh yeah, and they have pointy tails, not pointy ears…”

Sam couldn’t help but smirk at the reference. “So what if Lucifer or his goons were after us, and they wanted intel from Morrow to find us?”

Dean wandered back over to the bloodstain and crouched down. His eyes danced over the mark on the floorboards and then beyond its edges, as if he was imagining the exact position of the body. “Maybe,” he admitted. “But would the likes of Lucifer need a dick like Morrow to find our asses?”

He continued to stare at the floor until his gaze locked onto something that had apparently fallen under a large and very moldy wall cabinet. Hunkering down further onto his knees, he slid a hand under the decrepit piece of furniture and pulled out another photo.

Dean’s face scrunched up when he saw the blurred image’s contents. “It’s Dad,” he explained, finally looking up at Sam with an expression of concern. “And I think it’s recent. Very recent…”

Sam reached over and plucked the picture from his brother’s fingertips. It appeared to show John Winchester outside a motel called “The Comstock Inn,” and the usual stoic expression on his face said he was probably on a gig.

“Do you think whoever killed Morrow saw this?” Sam fidgeted, his boyish face changing from uncertainty to out and out worry in a split second.

“Maybe, maybe not, but I don’t think we can afford to take any chances, dude.” Dean slid his weapon away and replaced it with his cell. He didn’t really expect an answer, that just wasn’t John’s style, but he had to try.

Hitting speed dial he waited impatiently for a tone, but instead the phone beeped the familiar “no signal” sound and asked him to try again. “Friggin’ great. The curse of the hillbillies strikes again!”

Stomping outside in the hopes of better service, he sighed when he received the same helpful operator message. “I swear that chick gets a kick outta telling people that crap…”

“You going to throw the cell at the cabin wall anytime soon?” Sam asked, stuffing his hands in his coat pockets. “I mean, c’mon, this is Dad, he wouldn’t pick up even if he thought the world was coming to an end.”

Dean huffed, shooting his brother a look that said he should be more careful with his words. “One of these days it just might be,” he snarked. “But until then, I’d like to keep what’s left of this family breathing.”

He opened the Impala door and angrily lobbed the cell onto the front bench seat. It would be easy to just write Morrow’s death off because they didn’t like him. But what about the other hunters that had been taken out of the game?

No, they had to take this more seriously, or it just might be their undoing; because, Dean realized, there was a part of the equation Sam simply hadn’t factored in.

What if this wasn’t Lucifer at all?

What if this was Mia?

Dean turned to face the skyline, watching as a low vaporous cloud drifted across the distant mountaintops. For ordinary people, it would be a beautiful, perfect day, but he could never look upon the world that way anymore.

There was always something more, something evil, lurking, waiting in the shadows to be part of Armageddon.

Mia tore that poor schmuck of a cop in Fort Worth into little pieces…

Finally, he spun back around, noting that Sam hadn’t said a word to him while he’d been thinking. “Sammy, what if this wasn’t about Lucifer or his meat suit militia?” He paused, hesitating before mentioning Mia.

It was as if the girl’s name was a malevolent portent that should never be spoken aloud – and yet now he had to, and it burned in the pit of his stomach to have to suggest it.

“Dude, what I’m trying to say is…maybe Mia’s back and pissy. Or maybe she’s just ganking hunters in for the fun of it…”

Sam seemed to twitch nervously at the girl’s name. She had tricked him and Dean, right from their first meeting, and it had almost cost them dearly – his expression now said everything to Dean that words could not.

Feeling the same terrifying fears for their father’s safety, Dean ducked back into the Impala and tried his cell one last time. He paced as he waited for the incessant “no signal” message again, but it didn’t come. This time, the line crackled, rogue static hissing until John’s voicemail kicked in.

“Dad, this is Dean…your old army buddy John Reese is looking for you. Give him a call.”

Dean clicked the “end” button and pinched the bridge of his nose as a dull throb began to take hold behind his eyes. Still, a headache was probably the least of his worries if John didn’t find the message sooner rather than later.

To the uninformed, it sounded normal enough, but in truth, the message was a prearranged warning that something bad might be going down.

John Reese was a character played by Steve McQueen in one of Dean and John’s favorite war movies, Hell Is for Heroes.

And only John would know that.

Please pick up the damn message, Dad…

“He’ll hear it,” Sam tried to sound optimistic. “But in the meantime, maybe the mountain should come to Mohammed.”

“Huh?”

Sam popped the Impala’s trunk and pulled out his backpack. Pulling the laptop out one-handed, he rested it on the Chevy’s roof and booted it up.

“Hey, will you watch the paintwork?” Dean winced as the computer slid along the raven black bodywork he’d recently waxed. “Dad will kick my ass if there’s a scratch on her…”

“We have to find him first,” Sam retorted, tapping frantically at the keyboard until he’d Googled The Comstock Inn. Biting his bottom lip, he whirled the laptop to face Dean. “Look familiar?”

The image on the directory site was small and pixilated, but was easily recognizable as the one in the photograph of their father.

“Stockton, California,” the elder hunter read out the address with a glower. “Well, what are you waiting for slow poke, shag ass!” He grabbed the driver’s door handle and then paused, giving the laptop the “Winchester evil eye.”

“And will you get that off my roof? It’s not the kinda thing I like on top, dude…” He winked, his bawdy smile threatening to outdo a Cheshire cat’s.

Outside Pueblo,
Colorado

The recently constructed house had belonged to an ordinary working family. Dad, Mom and two little girls whose photos adorned a pine dresser on the far side of the room he was now sitting in. Looking at them, John supposed the kids were twins – or had been.

What remained of their bodies was now scattered around the kitchen in small, bloody heaps. Here and there if you really looked you might be able to distinguish a limb or piece of unflayed flesh still adhering to bone, but mostly, mostly these good people who had once lived, breathed, laughed and loved resembled raw burger meat.

John squirmed, tugging at the bonds that secured him to a chair until his wrists had begun to bleed. He didn’t feel the pain, only an intensifying anger that spurred him on in his attempt to break free.

This family shouldn’t have been harmed, they shouldn’t have been forced to see Mia in her true colors, and the parents damn well shouldn’t have been made to watch as their kids had been slaughtered.

And yet they had – and all because Mia had wanted a place to stay for the night where no questions would be asked. Hotels and motels might have been tricky, but breaking into a house with no alarm system had been all too easy for her.

As had the killings.

John felt his blood pressure begin to rise and his face flushed with color, his temper taking control of his emotions.

Mia had once been half-human, at least physically speaking, but he was convinced, despite her DNA, there was not one iota of human soul left within the creature he’d mistakenly allowed to live at birth.

He had made mistakes, but never one as big as letting this girl live.

“Still enjoying the view, John?” Mia sauntered into the lounge and licked a sliver of blood from her finger. She’d placed John at an angle near the doorway so he’d had no choice but to be an unwilling audience as she’d slain the Eckharts and their children.

Now, she was tasting their blood and savoring it as she rejoined him.

John snapped his head sideways, not wanting to look at her, not wanting to give her the satisfaction of seeing the disgust and pain running through him.

In his head, he kept seeing the little girls cruelly tortured with a kitchen knife over and over, until eventually their images blurred and morphed into Dean and Sam when they’d been their age.

Was Mia making him see this? Was she capable of such sophisticated mind games as well as physical torment?

Mia laughed, tossing her head back as she dropped down onto an overstuffed armchair. “Why John, what am I being blamed for now in that paranoid little mind of yours?”

She suddenly leaned forward, grabbing a handful of the short-cropped hair at the back of his head. Tugging his skull backwards, she watched as his throat bobbed convulsively. “You know, I’ve been getting a little rusty of late, and there are lots of none-fatal things I can do to you to make our trip a little more…entertaining…”

“What, you’ve never heard of the Sports Channel?”

Amusement filled her eyes, but she didn’t retaliate with any kind of physical punishment. Instead, Mia let go of John’s hair and walked across the room.

A small, fully-stocked drinks cabinet adorned the opposite wall to the dresser, and she stepped over to it, pulling out two square-cut whiskey tumblers.

Selecting a bottle of Glenmorangie from the front row of spirits, she poured out two triple shots and then walked back to stand in front of John. Taking a sip of the whisky, she ran her tongue along her top lip suggestively.

“Tastes good, John, but does it taste as good as you?” She tipped her body forward until she was level with the hunter’s eyes. “Maybe I should find out…” Her smile broadened and she put the second glass of whisky to his mouth, forcing him drink until he was half-choking. “Then again,” she snorted. “I’m not so sure I’d like a man who can’t take his liquor.”

Mia stepped back, chugging down the remainder of her own drink in just one gulp as if it was water. She looked at her glass as if considering another shot, but tossed it down onto her chair instead.

John’s deep brown eyes looked at her pitifully. There was no hope for her, only death some day at the hands of a hunter – maybe even him. Life tended to be poetic that way.

He didn’t speak, but simply stared at her until she shifted uncomfortably.

There was no point in trying to reason with her, and any attempt at conversation simply fed her ego. John wasn’t falling for that trap.

Mia picked up a poker from beside the open fireplace and began to examine the end as if it held some hidden meaning or use. She talked as she tested the sharpness of the tip with her forefinger. “I suppose you’re wondering why I haven’t killed you outright, Winchester? Does your hunter’s sixth sense tell you where we’re going? You’ll love it there this time of year, trust me…”

“Malibu?” John grumbled sarcastically. “No wait, maybe the scotch was a clue…Brigadoon?”

Mia clicked her tongue scoldingly and lunging forwards with the poker until its barbed end was digging into John’s throat just above his Adam’s apple.

“You’re going home.” She twisted the metal rod until it started to gouge into his flesh and he gagged from the pressure. “Don’t think I don’t know the significance of the place. And at this time of year, it’s all I need to send you on a little package tour to meet my real mom. I’m sure she’s been itching to meet you after you exorcized most of her back in Fort Worth.”

John could hear the irritation in the girl’s voice reaching a crescendo point until her normally imperceptible Texan twang was almost a full-on drawl.

She was pissed at him, and worse still, she might have some kind of plausible plan. “Lawrence,” he acknowledged, his bass tone deepening further as the bittersweet truth crept into his mind.

“Ah…so you do know the real significance of the place.” Mia let up the pressure on the poker slightly, watching as blood seeped from the small wound she’d inflicted. The red ebbing liquid seemed to excite her more, like a vampire waiting to feed.

John refused to be baited. Maybe Mia knew everything, maybe only pieces, and he’d be damned if he was going to give her more intel to work with.

“My my…you’re a boring one, John. I enjoyed Dean’s comebacks much more than your pathetic macho silences. He liked to be ‘poked’ a little more than you do too,” she snickered. “But then, I suppose there are two differed kinds of poking…”

“Your kind are pathetic,” John’s self-restraint snapped, just for a second, and he strained his muscles, tearing at his bonds even though he knew it was useless.

Mia rubbed her hand over the cut to his neck, letting her fingers come away tacky. She examined the blood, tasting it in front of him. “Pathetic? You’re forgetting I’m one of a kind.”

Without warning, she lunged forwards with the poker, ramming it down into his thigh until he was forced to either scream or bite his own tongue from the pain.

Mia nodded, pleased with her work. But she wasn’t finished yet.

“Does that make you feel alive, John? It better, because when I’ve done with you, you’ll know what it feels like at the other end of the spectrum…just like Dean did when I…entertained him for a while…”

John could feel his teeth grinding on one another as he screwed his features together. I will not give her the satisfaction. Will not…

But Mia was already wallowing in the expression on the hunter’s face, not because of the physical pain he was in, but because of the look that had overcome him at the mention of Dean and torture.

“You bitch,” he finally blurted, spittle flying from his mouth as he attempted to lunge at her, chair or no chair.

Mia dodged the clumsy move. “Ooh, kinda hard to attack anyone when you have a few inches of steel embedded in you, huh?” She grabbed the end of the poker back, twisting it with her unholy strength until all the fight drained from the hunter and he yelped uncontrollably in pain.

“Don’t you know it’s rude to try and leave a party so soon after arriving? Especially when I have so much more fun planned.” She stepped back, watching as John glowered at her, his chest heaving from all the anger, pain and exertion.

Inside his jacket pocket, John’s cell began to suddenly burble.

Mia’s eyes narrowed. “Rude to leave your cell on at a party too, John Boy…so gonna have to take it away from you now…” She reached over, grabbing his chin and pinning his head back.

With her free hand, she searched out the phone, checking the caller I.D. as she pulled it free.

“Well if it isn’t the Winchester brats looking for their daddy. Should we say hi?” She moved to answer the call, her finger hovering over the button for intense seconds before she switched off the cell and tossed it on the chair along with the whisky glass.

“You know, chatting with Dean is always fun, but not as fun as cutting up his old man.” She pulled out a straight razor and sliced into her own finger to show her prisoner how sharp it was.

John watched as the blood quickly coagulated around the incision. She was going to be hard to kill, even for the Winchesters.

“Now then,” Mia interrupted his thoughts. “Where shall we begin…?”

Stockton, California
The Comstock Inn

Sam looked around their father’s motel room and found it freakily comforting. Since Sam and Dean had been kids, John had been turning normal motel rooms into hunters’ paradises in less than an hour – or an average person’s junkyard, depending on the perspective.

This place was no exception.

The bed hadn’t been slept in, but the small desk and every other section of free space had been put to good use. The magnolia walls were covered in photographs, newspaper clippings and even pages from ancient transcripts.

The desk had a brand new journal, already half-full of shorthand notes and scribblings only a Winchester would understand.

Sam frowned as he turned the book towards him. Well, maybe a Winchester could understand…

“It looks like dad has been following Ferinacci and his New Jersey goons.” Dean tapped an array of black and white prints that had been tacked to the wall to the left of the window. “I’m thinking the ‘Big L’ has been calling in favors with some major league demon ass.”

Sam bobbed his head, never taking his eyes from the scrawl in the journal. “Dad thinks Lucifer wants us, Dean,” he finally acknowledged, the low key edge to his voice giving away his insecurity.

Dean shrugged as if that was a given. “Hell, dude, everybody wants my ass. C’mon, it’s a classy piece of white meat…”

“I’m serious.” The low growl seemed more Doberman than the usual puppy dog.

Dean looked up, surprised at the attitude shift. “You find something important?” He took three long strides to join his brother, instantly glaring at the scruffy diary and its crumpled pages.

Ferinacci meeting with several upper level demons in Freemont. He knows what I know…

Dean huffed. “Well, that’s typical Dad, cryptic as hell, but I don’t see anything to get all girlie over. Could be the price of a six pack of Bud for all we know.”

Sam huffed back and turned the page. “Yeah? Well what about the next part?”

The two kids in New Mexico are growing stronger and stronger. If Ferinacci discovers their abilities….

Met with contact today about the amulet. Not sure I can trust him…but maybe I know now what Ferinacci meant that day…

“Dean, Dad hasn’t been researching Lucifer as much as he’s been researching us.” Sam pulled away from the journal and stood peering from the window out onto the rain-pelted street below. The downpour seemed almost unnatural – but then, maybe it was. “Psychic kids growing stronger and stronger, contacts who know about the amulet…man, talk about doing the whole withholding crap again…”

He took a breath, angry that his father, their father had been investigating them like they were the next hunt. Yes, his powers were scary, and yes, Dean’s whole Guardian deal wasn’t exactly “normal” even by hunters’ standards, but John going behind their backs like this?

Is he actually scared of what his own sons have become?

“Dude, don’t you think for one minute that Dad would do this if he didn’t have a reason.” Dean’s raised voice suggested he was angry, but Sam had expected nothing less. “If he’s checking on us, then it’s to protect us, not because…because…”

“Because we’re becoming a family of freaks?” Sam finished for him.

There was a beat and Sam waited for more anger, more of his brother’s favorite defense mechanism, but instead, Dean suddenly grinned. “Damn handsome freaks too,” he chuckled. “And don’t you ever forget it!”

Sam exhaled, letting all the fight, all the doubts about John fade to a bearable level. Maybe Dean was right. Maybe John really had been spending hours on researching special kids and Guardians so he could better equip his sons for the inevitable fight between man and Hell.

Somehow, though, it still hurt to think about it.

Dean slapped his brother on the back and took a long breath. “I know, man,” he admitted. “I’m still pissed he didn’t tell us what he was up to here, but we gotta deal with the chips we got or lose the game already.”

“So,” Sam’s eyes narrowed and he focused on his father’s almost illegible writing again. “We know Ferinacci is upping his game, and that Dad looking at other special kids and Guardian stuff could mean we’re part of that game.”

“Could?” Dean scoffed, noting a bag of Doritos on the table and checking it out for leftovers. “C’mon, we’ve been pains in his ass for months. Dude, we’re definitely invited to the party…”

Sam looked up as Dean lifted the foil package, letting a myriad of crumbs fill his mouth. He smiled wanly as his brother munched. “Okay, so what does ‘I know what Ferinacci meant that day’ mean?”

Dean shrugged, unable to answer due to the contents of his mouth – and more importantly, because he probably had no clue.

Sam wasn’t surprised. They’d come here looking for answers and a way to find their father, but all they’d discovered as usual were more questions.

Frightening questions.

The two kids in New Mexico are growing stronger and stronger.

Would all the special kids grow stronger and stronger exponentially if left unchecked?

Would he?

Maybe Dad isn’t scared of me, but more scared of what I could become if Lucifer could control me and the others?

I know now what Ferinacci meant that day…

Sam thought about the last line his father had written. Perhaps he did know something about it after all. There was something niggling in the back of his head, but this time it wasn’t just about his own gifts, it was about the brothers together.

He’d only been half conscious at the time, a bleeding wreck on the dusty Wyoming ground.

But Ferinacci had said something to their father.

Something strange that Sam hadn’t been able to comprehend because of his injured mind and body.

He tried to recall the words anyway, pushing at his memories, letting old wounds reopen to try and retrieve Lucifer’s taunt.

“Sammy, I think I found something.”

While Sam had been reminiscing, Dean had screwed up the empty Doritos bag, tossed it in an overflowing waste bin, and begun to search anew.

Now, he was holding some kind of receipt in his right hand, and he was grinning.

“Don’t tell me, it’s the free lifelong gold package you lost to Busty Asian Beauties?”

“Nope, it’s a clue to where we might find Dad.” Dean twisted the receipt between his thumb and forefinger until Sam could see the print.

“A storage shed?” Sam winced. “Dude, that could have been in here months. The place doesn’t strike me as having the best cleaning regime, you know?”

Dean’s grin didn’t falter, but he shook his head as if he were a teacher scolding an inattentive pupil. “The name on this thing is Bill Kilgore….c’mon, Sammy, Apocalypse Now?”

Sam’s blank expression didn’t change, but the Doberman had definitely reverted back into a puppy dog. He shrugged apologetically.

“Sheesh,” Dean chided. “Where were you when all the classic movies were made? A different dimension? Wait…no, don’t tell me, you were probably in some frickin’ library…”

Sam opened his mouth but realized he really didn’t know how he’d missed so many movies that had meant so much to his father and elder brother. Had they really spent that much time apart before “The Woman in White” had brought them back together?

“What if we go check out this place and Ferinacci already has Dad? We could be wasting time.” Sam looked around the room at their father’s possessions. Was there really a right choice to make in this situation?

Lucifer could already have taken, or worse, killed their father.

Hell, Mia could have been here.

Or…or John could simply have gone to the storage unit.

“Hey, it’s the only lead we got, Sasquatch. I figure doing something is better than sitting on our asses hoping Dad comes back on his own.” Dean leaned forward, closing the journal and stuffing it into his jacket.

Sam nodded, but was distracted from further conversation when the door to the room abruptly burst open, the top hinges tearing from their wooden homes in a shower of splinters.

In the time it took to blink, he saw Dean reach for his .45, only to have it knocked from his hands by Rennie and two other would-be hunters he didn’t recognize.

If anyone could have bad timing, it was Rennie.

“Well look what the cat dragged in…” Dean snarked as the ginger-haired little sidekick on Rennie’s left began to frisk him while the other goon kept a twelve gauge aimed at both Winchesters. “Tell me, is it just my body you’re after, or are you in need of a little conversation with something above a primate?” He looked to Rennie with a wink. “C’mon, must be pretty demoralizing hanging around with monkeys after a while…”

Rennie took a step forward and slapped him hard across the right cheek, but he snapped his head back and grinned right on back at her.

“Oh sweetheart, I never pegged you as the type who liked to play those kinda games…”

She scoffed at the very idea, as if touching him again in any way, shape or form would make her flesh crawl. “I don’t sleep with anything less than one hundred percent human, Winchester. I guess that puts you pair of murdering freaks out of the picture…”

“We haven’t murdered anyone!” Sam took a step forward and felt the barrel of goon number two’s Remington poke him in his chest for the trouble.

“Oh?” Rennie’s left brow arched. “Then what do you call what you did to Sid and the others? Are you so ‘in’ with the other side you don’t even think killing a human counts anymore?”

She pulled a Beretta from beneath her long black leather jacket and pressed it into the center of Sam’s forehead.

“We didn’t kill anyone,” he pushed, ignoring the sensation of cold steel digging into his flesh. “We heard about the killings, but by the time we got to Morrow’s cabin there wasn’t even a body. Look, we think maybe our dad might be next…”

Rennie let the gun drop to her side, but her eyes never left Sam’s. “Oh, trust me, he will be next, just as soon as we finish up with you boys…” She glanced to the man who’d frisked Dean. “Chuck, bring the van around to the back. We don’t want anyone seeing us load up our ‘cargo.’”

“We’re of no use to you dead.” Sam tried to reason. “We can help you find who really did this before it’s too late for everyone…” He felt a brief kick to his shins from Dean, followed by a look that definitely conveyed the message “will you stop pleading like a candy-assed wuss?”

Rennie saw the exchange and obviously found it amusing. Her lips curved into a smile and her gait took on an even cockier swagger.

Sauntering over to Dean, she pulled out a set of cuffs and roughly yanked his hands behind his back to snap them on.

Leaning in until her mouth was next to his ear, she whispered. “We’ve heard where you and your demon friends come from it’s a little…hot, so we’ve arranged a nice big funeral pyre just outside of town to send you right on back home…”

* * * *

From the amount of driving time, Dean guessed they hadn’t gone too far out of Stockton when the rusting van came to a halt, brakes squeaking from lack of attention.

The old GMC had a sliding side door, and Chuck hastily yanked it open to reveal a small clearing with a backdrop of trees. He couldn’t be sure, but Dean remembered seeing a place known as the “Miwok Trail” on his maps of the area. Maybe this was the spot.

“Jeez, just the place for a picnic.” He smiled breezily at Rennie as she shoved him out of the van still cuffed. “I hope you brought pie. I love pie. Now Sammy, he’s more of a fresh chicken salad kinda guy but…”

Chuck rammed the butt of his shotgun into the hunter’s back, sending him sprawling out onto the grass, hands still behind his back.

When Dean looked up, he realized he was peering at a large bonfire that had undoubtedly been made with two central attractions in mind – namely him and Sam.

He sniffed, rolling onto his back to look up at his captors. “Do we get fireworks too? I love me some fireworks…just like the 4th of July!”

“You’ve got guts, I’ll give you that,” Rennie admitted. “But if you think all that bravado is going to win you any hearts or sympathy, forget it. We’ve spent months tracking you, and now you’re going to pay for the hunters you’ve killed.” She nodded and Chuck bent down, dragging Dean to his feet as Sam watched helplessly.

As goon number two kept guard, Chuck hauled Dean over to the pyre and fastened his cuffs to one of two vertical posts at its center.

“You know, I really don’t taste good barbecued…”

Rennie took Sam’s arm, impatient for the burning. Not waiting for Chuck to finish, she tugged the younger Winchester over to his brother at gunpoint. “At least you have the sense to stay quiet,” she observed as she secured him to the second post.

Sam shot her a bemused glance. “Are you kidding? I just can’t get a word in…”

“Well then, here, let me help you.” Rennie grabbed a gas-soaked rag that she had meant to use to light the pyre and stuffed it into Dean’s mouth until he was gagging. “Anything you’d like to say now, Sammy, before I use your brother as the match?”

Sam blinked. “Yeah, two things, actually,” he said, choosing his words and tone carefully. “One, don’t ever call me Sammy.” His eyes darted behind the rogue hunters and then locked with Rennie’s. “And two, I think you just got caught with your pantyhose down…”

Dean retched some more until he finally managed to spit the crumpled cloth out of his mouth. “And then some, bitch!” he agreed, spotting the same thing Sam had.

Rennie flinched, resisting the urge to look behind her, but Chuck and his friend were less restrained, not having years of hunter training like their boss.

Chuck caved first, whirling around to see four men in Armani suits peering at him like he was something on their shoes. It wasn’t the expensive attire or belittling gazes that made him start to shake, however.

It was the pure black miasma that covered their eyeballs.

“Uh, Rennie, you might want to be thinking of beating a hasty retreat back to the van…”

Rennie spun, her high-heeled boots spiraling into the earth like corkscrews with the speed of her move. “Leave, you idiot? Before we send these bastards back to their ungodly maker?”

Chuck blinked uncontrollably, as if looking at the demons made his eyes water. “I don’t think we need to send them anywhere. Their pals have come to collect them!” He faltered and then made a run for the cab of the van.

Two strides later, the lead demon had the ginger-haired hunter by the throat, pinned to the nearest tree. He shook more, this time involuntary muscle spasms causing the twitching as his body was leeched of life.

He gurgled, spittle seeping from the corners of his mouth as he became brain dead from lack of oxygen.

Finally, Rennie realized what was going down and drew her weapon, firing rapidly at random, spent casing after spent casing hitting the ground with tiny dull thuds.

To her left, her second companion was attempting a similar defense with his Remington, but the tiny lead pellets seemed to do nothing but enrage his opponent further.

On the pyre, both Winchesters began to frantically squirm, realizing that if Rennie didn’t kill them, the demons would.

“Man, now would be really good time to do the whole thumb thing with the cuffs, Sammy…” Dean tugged at the metal bonds on his wrists while watching the fight unfold around him. “I so don’t want to end up extra crispy tonight, if you know what I mean.”

“The thumb thing with the cuffs I couldn’t do back in Jackson,“ Sam groaned. “I’m guessing this means you don’t have a paperclip,” He sighed, dodging to his right just in time as a bullet from Rennie’s .45 whizzed by.

“Dude.” Dean’s face screwed up in annoyance. “Do I friggin’ look like a poster boy for Staples or something?”

“Try more like Freddy Krueger if we don’t get off this thing.” Sam flinched as Rennie seemed to read his mind.

Apparently losing the fight with Ferinacci’s best, she’d turned her attention to the Zippo in her left pocket. If she had to die, then it appeared she intended having the Winchesters burn with her.

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The Winchester Chronicles