Fic: The Road To Heaven Bestrewed With Amaranth (13/21)
Title: The Road To Heaven Bestrewed With Amaranth (13/21);
Rating: overall R for language, violence, blood and sexual themes;
Genre: romance, adventure, time travel;
Pairing/Characters: Dean/Castiel, Sam, Bobby, OFC;
Spoilers: The fic starts from the middle of season 6 and alternates the end of it, but also has spoilers for 7x1;
Beta: eridanie;
Word Count: WIP;
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Masterpost
Chapter 13
I See Dead Puppies. Part II
The heavy clouds above Redmond which were hanging there for the past couple of days weren’t hurrying to go away. The sky seemed even darker and heavier than it was the evening they’d arrived, but not a single drop had fallen to the ground since then.
Dean parked his car in front of the giant house that looked more like mansion. It was standing apart from all other houses in the area, and surrounded by a tall brick wall with a single fenced gate. Dean had passed said gate only a moment ago, talking to a tired sounding male voice from the house intercom.
“Wow, some people know how to live!” Whistled Garth, as he opened the passenger door stepping out of the car.
Dean gave his companion a look of agreement. At least Dean thought that the look was of agreement, he really didn’t want to talk to the other hunter after he’d accidentally forgotten to mention that all of the victims had been working in the same place. To tell the truth Dean would have preferred to have a dry stump as a partner instead of Garth. He was pretty sure that the stump would have been more useful. At least you could hit someone with it if was small enough to lift, or use it as shield if it was bigger.
Dean moved towards the porch of the house and raised his hand to ring the bell, but the door opened before his finger had touched the small white button.
“Ah, hello agents.” Greeted a middle aged man dressed in a plain gray sweater and dark blue jeans. “I’m Andrew, Andrew Moor, how can I help you?
Dean tried to hide his surprise while shaking Andrew’s hand. For some reason he had thought that a man ruling a major company and living in a mansion wouldn’t wear something as simple as a sweater and jeans.
Andrew invited them into the house to a large living room. The first thing Dean noticed in there was a giant fish tank occupying nearly the entire south wall of the room. The second thing he noticed was the extremely comfy couches as he settled into them.
A maid ran toward the company bringing tea, coffee, and some extra salty crackers that Dean found especially tasty. All of the drinks offered to the two hunters were poured into delicate and expensive looking china cups with small silver spoons placed next to them. Dean looked at the cups with distrust because he wasn’t used to handling something so fragile, and the size of the coffee serving was too small for his habits. Determined not to offend his host he sipped his coffee, but nearly choked on the black liquid because of how strong it was.
“Oh, you’re probably not used to it.” Andrew sighed. “It’s how the rest of the world drink it, in small portions, but strong. Try to add sugar and cream, I promise you won’t regret it. It isn’t every day you have the chance to drink Arabic coffee prepared on heated sand.”
Dean hummed curiously adding sugar to his drink with a tiny silver spoon, then pouring milk into it from a small white pitcher. This time the coffee didn’t seem as bad. Slightly weird, but pretty good.
Out of the corner of his eye Dean noticed that Andrew was watching him closely as his lips touched the hot liquid, but seeing the hunter drinking it seemed to satisfy the host.
“So, Mr. Moor,” Garth started as he finished the cup of his green tea in several gulps, “it turned out that all of the victims the police found had been working for you.”
“What do you mean, ‘turned out’?” Andrew said. “I myself sent the report to the police about their disappearance.”
The maid moved to Andrew offering him a cup of coffee, but he only shook his head and started rubbing one of his temples.
“Is everything all right?” Dean inquired. “You look very tired.”
And really, Andrew looked like he hadn’t slept for the past couple of nights. The dark circles were blooming under his eyes, and his hands were shaking a little.
“What do you think, agent,” Mr. Moor sighed again, “we just finished launching the beta test of our new network. We have a presentation in a week, which is going to be a big deal, with reporters, leaders of every technology related company you can think of, and I’m missing all of my best people. It’s not even like my company will fail without them, because if needed I can present this damn network alone, it’s just they were my friends. We started the Alpheon Soft together, you know? They were an important part.”
“Can you think of anyone who would want to harm them?” Dean asked, trying to kick one of Garth’s feet without Andrew noticing, as the said foot was now buried under a carpet Andrew had on the floor.
Andrew started to laugh. “Are you kidding me? Who wouldn’t? We started the company from nothing and for the past decade we were able to start standing independently. Then we finally grew to the point where our most important project is going to see the light. Of course our competition wouldn’t like it. Of course they would love to see us crashing. But the way the bodies looked… No human could do that.”
“No human?” Garth said, “what could then?” He then dropped his spoon and started to sink under the table in an attempt to retrieve it back.
Andrew watched Garth with surprise, but didn’t comment, then he turned his attention to Dean. It looked like he wanted to say something but a noise outside the room suddenly startled him making him look around the room nearly in panic. But within a moment he managed to get a hold of himself.
“Don! Aithne! How many times I have told you not to listen under the door when adults are talking?” Andrew yelled.
Dean heard a rustle behind the door and a sound of two pairs of footsteps running away from it.
“Are they your kids?” Dean smiled warmly.
“Yeah, they are very sweet, they just keeping sticking their noses into everyone’s business.”
“Why won’t you invite them to the conversation then?” Inquired Garth, appearing from under the table. “Sometimes kids have a lot of things to tell.”
“But they are just ten and fourteen. Do you want me to discuss people torn apart by some sort of crazy monster with them?”
“Aha! Crazy monsters, let’s talk about them. What do you know about monsters?” Garth said, making Dean nearly groan in frustration. What was the other hunter thinking asking such a question? It was so unprofessional that Dean was trying to suppress the urge to drag Garth out of the house and return here alone to finish the interrogation.
Andrew in his turn looked at Garth with a mix of fear and surprise. “Monsters? I just used it as an expression. You know, people who do something as terrible as this.” He quickly explained.
The way Andrew reacted to the question seemed unnatural to Dean. It seemed like the Alpheon Soft director did actually know something more than he was willing to share. Dean just had to figure out how to pull this information out of him.
“Would you mind me looking under your carpet?” Garth asked interrupting Dean’s thoughts and sliding off the couch to his knees yet again as he started to tug one of the ends of the carpets to look under it.
Dean tried to stop his companion, because such behavior was totally inappropriate for the situation. He only had time to reach Garth, grabbing him by the hand when he saw it as clear as a day - a devil’s trap painted in white paint was decorating the expensive parquet under the carpet.
“Holy crap!” Dean managed in surprise looking from Garth to the trap and to the owner of the house. Dean had no idea how Garth managed it, he considered him absolutely useless, but it turned out he had talked Andrew into revealing his secret just a few minutes.
“So, why do you have a devil’s trap under the carpet?” Garth asked.
Andrew sighed looking at the two pretend to be agents, then, he suddenly reached to his pocket withdrawing a hand pistol pointing it at the smaller hunter. Dean reacted fast, reaching for his own gun and pointing it at the house owner.
“Ok, let’s not act on the impulse” yelped Garth holding his hand up as in a sign of defeat. “We are not monsters!”
“I know, you had holy water added to your drinks.” Andrew nodded still pointing his gun on Garth” “Hunters then?”
“Well, yeah…” Dean nodded, carefully lowering his own gun. “Mind telling us everything?”
***
The main building of Alpheon Software didn’t look half as impressive as the building of their main competitor who had their headquarters in the same city, but it was growing and becoming more and more successful with every day. The blue glass was covering its all five stories and it looked nearly transparent. A large sign with the name of the company was erected before the main entrance next to a small fountain.
Sam parked the silver Toyota they had rented for the day in the parking lot before the office building. “Hope we will be luckier this time.” He sighed opening the door.
“Why shouldn’t we?” Said Mary, who stepped out of the car next to her uncle fixing her fake glasses, “The people who work here should know the most about what’s going on.”
Mary got out of the car, stretching and looking around. Suddenly she spotted a black Rottweiler looking at her from the corner of the other car. Mary could have sworn that it was the same exact dog she saw previously this day.
“Everything ok?” Sam inquired, catching her gaze fixed on something.
“Yeah, it’s just I think I saw this dog earlier today.” She pointed at the car the Rottweiler was sitting behind.
“What dog?” Asked Sam looking in the direction where Mary pointed. “Did it run away?”
Mary looked at her uncle. He was definitely looking in the right direction and the dog was still there, but he couldn’t see it. “Yeah, it ran away…” she nodded.
“All right then, let’s go.” Sam replied smiling, and turning towards the building.
“Sam!” Marry suddenly called. She wasn’t even sure why, but the burden of her secret was more and more difficult to carry. The last time she had managed to figure out something to explain, but now… this dog could have been an important link, but how could she say that only she could see it without being suspicious?
“Yes?” Sam turned his attention back to his niece.
“Don’t you think it’s weird that a same dog was sniffing around our motel room and the Alpheon headquarters?” She asked quietly, nearly in a whisper.
“Are you sure it was the same exact dog?” Sam inquired.
Mary looked around the parking lot once again, noticing that now it was empty. “Yes, I’m sure…” she nodded.
“All right…” Sam exhaled. “We just going to concentrate on the plan, but also ask people if they know something about the dog.”
Mary simply nodded in response.
***
The main hall of the office building was brightly lit. It was a large room from which you could see all five floors at once, since they were built around it. Transparent elevator booths were moving back and forth on the other side of the hall, and giant globe with scrolling blue letters around it was hanging from the high ceiling.
The hunter and his niece moved to the security post flashing their journalist IDs to the guard who kindly pointed them to the direction of the office they had an appointment at.
“Tell me again, what magazine are you representing?” Inquired a respectable looking woman who was sitting on the other side of the table from Sam and Mary.
The room itself looked very plain and simple compared to the main hall. It was small, painted in white, with a large window on one of the walls and another wall made of mirror glass that allowed them to see everything that was on the other side. The rest of the walls were absolutely empty, without even a single picture hanging on them. The table itself was made of light wood, but it looked as simple as the rest of the room. On the surface of the table there were only two objects. The first one was a small laptop with a blue letter ‘A’ crossed by lighter blue pulse beats as an emblem which looked somewhat familiar to Sam and very familiar to Mary. The second object was a small black sign with golden letters which was saying “Vice President Christine Moor”.
“Technological Week” Sam lied.
“You mean, Weekly Technology?” Christine raised her eyebrow.
“No-no, it’s an entirely different magazine.” Explained Sam, extracting a business card from his pocket and moving it towards the Vice President.
“Never heard of it.” Christine narrowed her brows looking suspiciously at the card.
“You see, we are a very young publication.” Mary offered. “Not many people are familiar with it yet.”
“All right then.” The woman nodded smiling, “My name is Christine, what would you like to know?”
With those words she moved her laptop closer to her and quickly typed something, before returning her full attention back to the two guests.
“We would like to know more about the new network launch.” Sam smiled warmly taking a notepad and a pen to his hands.
“Ah, right! Of course you would, it’s the biggest technological news at the moment.” Christine nodded. “We have already launched a test network which is going to be active during the whole week before the presentation.”
“As I understand it,” Sam continued, “Only special devices, such as your laptop here, can receive the network signal.” The vice president nodded again. “But your hardware products aren’t commonly sold on the market. Who is going to participate in the testing?”
“Well, as you mentioned, it’s still impossible to simply go to a store and buy computers and phones which could work with the network, but the beta test has a large number of participants. Our goal is to improve the future of the country and the whole world, that it why we decided that a new generation would make the best testers of the network. Thousands of the computers equipped with necessary transmitters were distributed among dozens of schools.”
“Huh, it sounds like the project had some serious expenses from your side.” Mary pointed out.
“Well, yes, to tell the truth it’s because of this exact reason that our company hadn’t been planning on launching the network for another five years. But suddenly we found a wealthy sponsor willing to help us. It’s what you call a miracle!” She laughed contentedly.
“And who is the sponsor?” Sam asked.
“Oh, I wish I could tell you, but our sponsor didn’t want his name on it. Not even sure why they actually helped us, they don’t have much connection to the technology world…” For a moment she started to look thoughtful, then she turned her eyes back to the computer screen, before focusing back on the two reporters.
“I have another question, Ms. Moor.” Sam continued. “We weren’t supposed to talk to the vice president, were we? Why did you suddenly decide to be interviewed instead of the person we spoke to on the phone?”
“The person you talked to called in sick.” Christine replied quickly, but at the same time Sam noticed that the moment he asked this question, she broke the eye contact with him, turning her gaze away.
“Oh that is too bad. I know her name is Martha, but I didn’t catch the last name.” Sam sighed.
Christine looked suspiciously on the hunter. “Why would you want to know her last name?” She inquired.
“Just, she seemed like a nice person, would be polite from our publishing to send her a fruit basket or something, you know?”
Christine turned to the computer again quickly pressing several buttons, then sighed gathering her fingers in a lock under her chin moving her gaze from Sam to Mary and back.
“One last thing,” Said Mary. “It has nothing to do with the interview, we just we noticed a black Rottweiler walking around the parking lot alone. Is there anyone in the company who could have lost him?”
“You right, it does look like it has nothing to do with the interview.” The vice president agreed. “It also seems nothing we talked about has to do with interviews or magazines.”
“What do you mean?” Sam said.
“What do I mean? Like you don’t know.” She shook her head. “I asked my secretary to check the Technological Week. That magazine doesn’t exist.”
“It must be a mistake!” Sam protested. “You can call our director to confirm.”
Christine stood from her chair moving towards the door, then she opened it and turned to Sam and Mary. “Get out before I called security” She warned them.
Sam and Mary exchanged looks. Sam was the first to stand from his chair. “I apologize if you don’t believe us. We will leave if it makes you feel better” He nodded.
The hunter and his niece started to move towards the exit, but they didn’t even have the time to reach the door before a loud scream from somewhere on the other side of the corridor reached their ears. The three of them, without even thinking rushed towards the source of it.
***
The first thing Mary noticed as they exited the office was a half transparent guy flying from the direction of the scream and disappearing somewhere behind the giant globe in the center of the building, making the light of the running letters around it blink. The second thing Mary noticed was that she was the only one who had seen it. Sam stopped for a second looking around. He’d probably felt the cold deadly air touching his skin as the ghost passed several feet away from them, while Christine didn’t even flinch, of course she probably had no idea what a cold spot could mean.
They passed several more office doors before reaching the office the screaming had come from. The door to this room was open wide and inside it stood a pale woman holding her hand against her mouth. Her eyes were filled with fear, and she looked as though she was only a second away from passing out.
On the floor, in a pool of blood, lay a man. His eyes were still open and his face was frozen in dread horror, like the moment before death he’d seen something really terrible.
Besides the two of them there was a third person in the room, but this one could have not been seen by anyone but Mary. He was a man in his late forties dressed in a black suit. He looked around the room seemingly irritated, then looked at his watch before sighing and walking out. When the man noticed Sam he sighed again shaking his head before moving on.
Mary did her best not to look at him because she didn’t want the reaper to know she could see him. It seemed that he, like any other supernatural creature could not perceive her true identity.
Then, when the man walked some distance away from the office, she suddenly turned on her heel, “I’d better wait outside,” she whispered to Sam, before following the reaper.
“Excuse me, mister!” She called.
Mary knew that she was playing with fire. This move could blow her cover, making a good chunk of the supernatural world know of her existence, but it was probably the only chance she had of finding out what was going on.
The reaper turned his head looking at the girl indifferently, like he wasn’t even surprised by the fact she could see him.
“What is it, nephil?” He asked with a sigh.
Mary’s eyes went wide in surprise. It should have been impossible for anyone to see the angel grace in her. Could it mean that the cloaking spell wasn’t working as well as she expected?
“No need for shock.” The reaper said shaking his head, “Don’t forget that my superior stands above time, above even God himself. And don’t worry, he has no interest in you or spreading information about you.”
“Ok,” Mary nodded, still surprised. “What happened in there?” She asked.
The reaper looked at his watch again “Something which shouldn’t have been happened” He said quickly. “I should not even talk to you, but I don’t see the harm, maybe you and your family could deal with it. My level of annoyance grows with every dead person in this place. I don’t have time to reap their souls before they fly away somewhere. Then they return to kill others whose time haven’t yet come and I keep failing to collect their souls as well. It’s getting ridiculous!” He admitted.
“Do you have any idea of where they go?” Mary asked.
“I’m not a detective. Finding out where do they go isn’t a part of my job.” The Reaper replied. “But, I have suspicions that it’s connected with this thing.” He pointed down to the center of the hall.
Mary followed the direction he was pointing with her eyes and saw the black Rottweiler sitting in the very middle of the room. People were passing it by, not even paying any attention to the dog, like no-one could see him.
Sam suddenly appeared behind her, grabbing Mary by the hand. “We should hurry, Christine called security.” He said quickly.
Mary looked around the corridor and saw that the reaper had already left. She followed her uncle towards the elevators hurrying to leave the building.
***
“Sam, I need to talk to you.” Mary announced as the two of them returned back to the car.
“About what?” Sam inquired.
The hunter wanted to call Dean, but he decided to exit the ASC territory first. And probably even drive some distance away from it as well, just in case Christine had called the police. Mary was sitting on the passenger seat looking through some papers she’d extracted from her backpack before starting to speak.
“About what happened in the ASC building” Mary said quietly.
ldquo;Sure,” Sam exhaled, “So, what about it?”
ldquo;You know why I left the room back there? “Mary asked.
“Cause of a dead guy in the middle of the office?” Sam guessed.
“No, I saw a reaper.” Mary explained.
Sam nearly lost the control over the car. With the last bit of concentration he managed to turn on a less busy street parking harshly next to a sidewalk.
“You saw what?!” He asked as he though there wasn’t a single chance he heard it right.
“A reaper,” Mary repeated. “You know, the guys who take souls after a person dies.”
“I know, I mean, how… why did you see it?” Sam’s heart was beating fast in his chest as he suddenly started to imagine how Dean would reacted if he heard his. He would probably freak out.
“Sam, I need you to trust me. Just this once, please. I talked to the reaper…”
“… You did what?” Sam couldn’t resist. His brain had already started to calculate every possibility why Mary was able to see and talk to it. His vivid imagination kept returning to only one explanation, which seemed the most likely and most impossible at the same time - Castiel and Dean having a baby together.
“Sam, please…” Mary insisted.
“Ok, alright, what did the reaper say?” Sam tried his best to calm down.
“The ghosts of the people who are killed run away somewhere, the reaper had no idea where. I think that the one killing them, is binding their spirits somehow and sending them back to kill more people.”
The explanation seemed more or less reasonable, but there was still was something not quite right about the situation. “Ok, let’s imagine it’s really like you say. The one killing them must have gotten a first ghost from somewhere. Plus some of the bodies don’t look like they were killed by a ghost.”
“Yeah, they look like they were killed by a big dog” Mary confirmed. “The Rottweiler I saw around the building could do it.”
With this she showed Sam a piece of paper. The hunter took the paper from Mary’s hands examining it. It was a small commercial add which described ‘the best veterinary clinic in the city’.
“You remember I told that I saw a ghost in the hospital?” Mary reminded. “He pointed on the stand with different ads. This one was among them.”
“All right, let’s check it out.” Sam agreed.
***
Dean, Garth and Andrew moved to the office room. Andrew withdrew a bottle of liquor from a bar and offered it to the two hunters. Dean accepted it with pleasure while Garth only shook his head refusing the alcohol and explaining that it affected his brilliant thinking.
“So, what brought you to our humble business?” Dean inquired as they settled down in the office.
“No, you didn’t understand me right,” Andrew shook his head. “I’m not a hunter, I’m just a person who knows too much.” He sighed.
“Too much?” Dean inquired.
“Yeah, I wish I didn’t know about all of this things lurking in the dark.” The host explained. “I think I could sleep better.” He said sipping slowly from his glass.
Dean followed his example, humming at the taste of the brandy. He usually didn’t like this particular drink, preferring whiskey, but he had to admit that this one was very good, with a soft after taste and a gentle warming sensation in his stomach as he drank it. It was probably expensive as shit too.
“But anyway, how did you find out about everything?” Dean asked.
“You see, my granddad used to hunt. He thought to pass the tradition on to my dad.” Andrew clarified. “But my dad decided to leave the profession when I was born.”
“That’s understandable” Dean agreed.
“Anyway, you guys!” Andrew smiled warmly. “I still have no idea how did you manage to find out so fast.”
“The crackers!” Garth explained pointing his fingers at the host, “The extra-salty crackers betrayed you!”
Dean looked at his temporary partner. Of course he did manage to find out pretty fast, but it didn’t change the fact that Garth was an idiot. Nice guy, but an idiot.
“Nice trick, by the way, offering your guests crackers sprinkled with rock salt and tea with holy water.” Dean laughed.
“And the silver spoons? How good is that?” Andrew laughed back.
With every second passed Dean was starting to like Andrew more and more. Even with the all the differences between them, the hunter felt they could become friends.
The phone in Dean’s pocket started to ring. The hunter excused himself and accepted the call. It was Sam.
“Hey Sammy, figure anything out?” Dean asked.
“Yeah, long story short, Mary and I went to the ASC headquarters, there was another ghost. And a huge dog.”
“Huge dog? You mean like a…” Dean didn’t finish the sentence. It was still difficult for him to name the creature that had once killed him.
“No, not a hellhound. It was a Rottweiler. We found out that this exact dog was hanging around every crime scene.”
“So, we need to find out whose dog it is?”
“Already did. Went to a vet clinic to see if they could recognize the dog. They said that there were three dogs like that adopted from their center during the last several months. Are you still at Moor’s place?”
“Yeah” Dean nodded even if Sam couldn’t see him.
“Ask him if the name Peter Rodney sounds familiar.”
Dean looked up and Andrew, “You know anything about Peter Rodney?” He asked.
At first Andrew shook his head, but suddenly his eyes went wide in recognition. “I… used to work with him…” He said. “More than ten years ago, he was one of my colleagues. We worked together on the Alpheon network before our superiors decided that the project could reach nothing but a dead end and laid our whole team off.”
Dean repeated everything to his brother.
“Ask him what happened with other members of the team?”
“I’m not an intercom!” Dean protested. “Wait, I’m gonna turn on the speakers.”
“Wait, how am I suppose to talk about… you know what!”
“That is the awesome part Sammy!” Dean smiled wide turning the speakers on. “Turned out Andrew is one of us! Isn’t that cool?”
“Yeah, well, so what happened with the people who worked on the project all those years ago?”
“Not sure.” Andrew admitted. “Some of them joined my company. Some found other jobs. Plus not all of the dead and missing people were among those who worked on the project from the beginning. I think I would see a pattern in this case.”
“Anyway, I dropped Mary at the motel and now I’m driving to this guy’s house. I’m going to text you the address, meet me there.” Sam concluded before hanging up.
Dean picked his phone from the table and looked at Garth. “Let’s go, work is waiting”
“I’m going too.” Andrew suddenly announced.
Dean looked at his new friend with surprise. “Are you sure?” He asked. “You have two kids, you know…”
“I know. And it’s the best thing I can do to protect them right now.” He sighed.
***
Christine exited the office building hurrying to her car. It had already started to get dark when she finished calming down her workers and talking to the police. She had no idea what was going on with her and her husband’s company, but she was afraid it could damage their reputation so bad that they won’t be able to recover from this one.
Christine signed opening the car door. She was about to get in, as she heard a growl next to her. Her heart leaped in her chest, making her feel uneasy. She got inside the vehicle locking the door and clenched her hands into the steering wheel.
“It’s ok, Christie,” she whispered to herself, “just a terrible day at work and vivid imagination, nothing more.”
She started the engine trying to calm her breath down and started to exit the parking lot.
“You see, its fine. Now I’m perfectly safe in the car on my way back to home.” She said as she turned to the highway.”
The air in the car suddenly became cold making Christine exhale a puff of steam. She reached to the air conditioner to switch it off, then reached to fix the rear view mirror inside the car. A light from a spotlight she had passed glanced from the surface of the mirror silhouetting a shape sitting in the back seat.
Christine screamed. The shriek of the brakes was the last thing she remembered before everything suddenly turned black.
***
When Dean, Andrew and Garth reached the house of Peter Rodney it was already dark. The house itself seemed shabby and abandoned like no-one had lived there for years. The front yard was overgrown with weeds of different sizes and shapes which together were high enough to hide even Sam if he would decide to sit in the middle.
“Are you sure this is the right place?” Dean asked his brother who waited for him a quarter of a block away watching the place from a distance.
“Yeah, I saw the guy leaving half an hour ago.” Sam replied. “It should be empty now.”
Dean returned to the Impala to grab his duffel filled with his already prepared arsenal for tonight. “You sure you want to do it?” He asked Andrew who now stood next to him looking at the house.
“Yeah.” Andrew nodded.
“Ok then, you’ll need this.” Dean explained passing a salt loaded shotgun. “Can you use it?”
“I’ll figure it out.” Andrew said.
The house from inside looked even shabbier. It smelled like mold and dirty clothes and the whole floor was covered with trash, most of which consisted of broken glass which was making their every step echo and crunch through the house ten times louder than it would have been otherwise.
Other than the unsanitary conditions and the thick layer of dust covering everything, the house didn’t look suspicious. There weren’t any weird symbols on the walls, or any ghosts flying around, but when Dean extracted the EMF meter from his pocket it showed him different. The little device was practically screaming about ghost activities.
“I think, it’s our client,” noted Garth, “we only need to find out how this guy is bonding all of the ghosts.”
“I don’t think it’s gonna be difficult” Sam huffed. “If you were going to do magicky things, where would you do it?”
“In the basement!” Replied Dean without even thinking.
“Yeah, and you would probably lock it down the best you could.” Agreed Sam flashing on the small basement door with a large barn lock.
Dean moved closer to the door to take a better look, but stepped on something sharp and pointy. The thing pierced through his shoe getting to the skin. “Son of a bitch!” Dean swore under his breath as he started to jump on one leg, but tripped on something and started to fall. Fortunately for the hunter Andrew was standing right behind him. He caught Dean in the middle of the fall helping him back up.
“This place makes me want to clean up around Bobby’s” Dean groaned. “I’m fine!” he then said to Sam who was on his way to check on his older brother. “Don’t move!”
Dean turned his flashlight to the floor illuminating two rows of actual metal caltrops spread around the basement door. “It’s like he knew someone would come.” Sam commented looking at the caltrops.
“Let’s just hope that he is simply paranoid?” The older Winchester proposed.
Dean stepped around the spiky metal bits moving closer to the basement door. There he pried the lock up with a crowbar, tearing it from the door.
The basement itself was absolutely different from the rest of the house. The place was spotless clean, and looked like Peter lived in the basement and kept the house itself dirty on purpose, so no-one would suspect something valuable was kept in here.
In one corner of the basement there was a bed and a small wardrobe. On another side was a small metal sink and something mildly resembling a shower stall. But what attracted Dean’s attention the most was the altar in the very middle of the basement. It was a small table with five black candles placed in a circle. Two red lines were drawn underneath each of the candles crossing each other and creating a drawing of a pentacle with one of the edges pointed directly towards the person who would look at it.
“Not much for protection.” Garth pointed out.
On the table there was also a book and photos of all of the dead and missing people from Andrew’s company. The pictures were set in a pattern, starting from the first victim to the latest one and were covered in red substance Dean recognized as blood.
“Those are separate” Sam said pointing his flash light on a pile of other pictures.
“They are probably people who he hasn’t killed yet.” Dean assumed. “Hey Andrew, look, are those people who work in the ASC?”
Andrew moved closer to the altar looking at the picture. Suddenly the flash light he was holding fell to the floor.
“Is everything all right?” Dean asked.
“Chistie… no…” He whispered reaching to one of the images in the center of the altar.
“Shit!” Dean heard his brother swearing.
The hunter looked at the image and saw it portraying a woman whom he’s never seen in person, but recognized as he seen the same exact photo in the Andrew’s file when he was studying it before interrogating him. It was Christine Moor, Andrew’s wife.
“Hey, it’s not a fact that she is dead, he might not have had time to do anything to her.” Dean reassured, even though he doubted his own words. The image had been covered in fresh red drops of blood, in the same way the pictures of all the other dead people were.
Andrew groaned in despair. He reached for the altar, grabbing one of the table sides it was built on, but before he had a chance to knock it down, a wave of invisible force pushed Andrew to the other side of the room.
“Damn it!” Dean groaned, but the next moment the same invisible force pushed him backwards.
“I’ve been expecting you!” A new voice echoed through the basement.
“Yeah, really?” Dean smirked standing up. “And what is that with you evil assholes and sending people flying via the invisible force express, by the way? I need to admit I’m pretty tired of that trick!”
“I have no idea who you are, but I can satisfy your wish of having new life experiences.” Peter smiled emerging from a shadow. He was a small skinny guy with graying hair and glasses. In his left hand he held a crystal ball, rubbing its smooth surface with the right one.
“Sorry, if I were to have new life experiences, it would definitely not be with your sorry ass.” Dean stood up from the floor and made an attempt to move towards Peter. Suddenly his lungs started to feel like they were on fire. Dean coughed feeling the taste of his own blood in his mouth. “Not a new trick either” He smiled trying not to pay attention to how much it hurt to talk.
Sam rushed Peter from the other side, but he just waved his hand and a ghost woman appeared out of nowhere attacking Sam and sending him to the ground. Garth tried to move from the floor but the second ghost came at him.
“Andrew!” Peter exclaimed. “Long time no see! How is your wife? Oh right, I killed her!”
Andrew stood from the floor picking up a crowbar. Dean dropped down and rushed towards Peter. A third ghost appearing in his way made Andrew stop still mid-swing. It was Christine.
“Christie…” Andrew whispered dropping the crowbar.
The situation looked deadly. Sam and Garth were trying to hold back two ghosts who were attacking them, while Dean was slowly bleeding out, not even able to move. He had already started to think about calling Castiel, even though he hated to ask the angel for help on every single hunt like he was twelve years old and couldn’t protect himself, but the ghost of Christine suddenly turned on her own master. The shackles around her wrists and ankles started to burn making her scream in pain.
“You cannot…” Peter whispered. “You’re bound to me!” He yelled squeezing his crystal ball and making Christine’s ghost burn as if someone had set her remains on fire.
The pain in Dean’s chest faded for a moment. It was all disruption the hunter needed, so he gathered all his strength and jumped on the altar, flipping the table over.
The ball in Peter’s hands cracked and the shackles around the ghost attacking Sam and Garth disappeared. Both of the ghosts rose leaving their targets alone and turned on Peter.
Suddenly the room was filled with the ghosts. They seemed to be emerging from every wall in the basement flying to their offender who had no longer had any control over them.
Peter tried to yell, to run, but it was useless. Soon the whole room lit up like a fire, making Dean shut his eyes, trying to shield himself behind the table.
When the hunter finally managed to open his eyes he saw nothing but a pile of dust in the place where Peter had stood.
***
“Looks like it’s finally over.” Garth sighed, leaning on the hood of his old Ford.
The five of them were standing in the motel parking lot before the room the Winchesters occupied. It was almost ten in the evening and the place was nearly empty. From time to time a lonely car would pass the road next to the motel, but other than that it was quiet.
“Yeah, Thanks man, have no idea what would have done without you” Sam smiled awkwardly.
“Not a problem” Garth nodded. “As they say, always judge a book by its cover!”
Sam raised an eyebrow because according to that statement they still should have considered him absolutely useless. “Actually it’s ‘don’t judge a book by its cover,’ Garth.” He smiled awkwardly.
“Is it?” Garth blinked. “Oh well, doesn’t matter.”
Garth gave the Winchester brother the last hug, then moved to Mary kissing her knuckles yet again. “I hope I will see you again one day, beautiful.” He grinned.
“Yeah, I don’t doubt it.” Mary nodded with a soft chuckle.
Garth climbed into his car, waving goodbye to everyone, exited the parking lot, disappearing behind the turn of the road.
“I hope we will never work with him again” exhaled Dean still smiling just in case the guy forgot something in the room and was going to return any second.
“Agree.” Confirmed Sam.
“And what about you, are you going to be ok?” Dean turned his attention to Andrew who was standing next to them, looking a little startled.
“Yeah, I will!” Andrew replied looking somewhere behind Dean.
“You sure? You don’t look that good.”
“Cause I don’t feel that great. You know. A lot of things happened today, and honestly, I don’t know what to do now.”
“You still have kids, you know… they going to need you.” Dean sighed.
“Yeah, you’re right.” Andrew agreed. “And I think I should go home now, think about how to live the rest of my life.”
Andrew turned to open his own car, but froze in one place, his breath caught in his chest.
“Andrew?” Dean called out.
“I’m fine. Sorry.” He mumbled in reply, then hurried to get in his car and drove away.
“Looks like we should move too.” Sam proposed. “Will drive for several hours and get a room in some other motel on the road.”
Dean only nodded in response, limping to the Impala as his feet still hurt after stepping on a caltrop.
***
Dean was fast asleep on the back seat of the Impala snuggled with a spare blanket they stole in one of the numerous motels they have ever been standing in. As usually hunter tried to play it cool, but in the end it turned out he was beaten up more than anyone else. Sam was driving the car with one hand on a searing wheel and a plastic cup of coffee in the other, while Mary was sitting on the passenger seat looking through the picture of victims. After several attempts, she finally managed to suppress her gag reflexes looking at the bodies.
“What are you doing?” Sam inquired.
“Something isn’t right” Mary explained.
“Huh?”
“You see, we did figure out that the torn bodies were the work of the Rottweiler, right? But there is something we didn’t think about. The first person to disappear and found dead was in fact torn up by a dog. The next one after him was killed by a ghost. So if Peter had already had a chance to send a human ghost, why would he return back to sending a dog?”
“Don’t know, just wanted to do things faster.” Sam proposed.
“Not really.” Mary disagreed, “the disappearances have been happening in a pattern. One person a day. But each time a torn person appeared, it was breaking the pattern bringing it to two people a day. Plus, did you see this dog in his house? Or it actually attacking anyone?” She signed. “Wait a moment… this guy. He wasn’t even working for ASC. It says in the file, that he was a respectable layer who won his first case in April of 2001.” She paused, “Sam… is it 2011 right now?”
Sam blinked several times as he was trying to comprehend what Mary was saying. “Oh shit!” He sworn and started to turn the car.
Dean jumped from his sleeping spot, holding a knife in his hands “What the hell, Sammy?” He asked.
“We made a mistake of letting Andrew go!” Sam explained.
“Why?” Asked Dean still trying to fully wake up.
“Remember how startled he looked the whole day? Like something was after him.”
“Damn!” exclaimed Mary. “Andrew… he built his company in 2001. It was… ten years ago!”