"Comes to Dust" - an Apocabigbang fic in three parts.

[tabaqui]

Whooooooooot, my apocabigbang posting day!! I am so excited.
*bounce*

I shall not ramble on. I shall only say - thank you, as always and forever - to my wonderful beta darkhavens, who makes everything i write just that much better. And thank you, sweptawaybayou for encouraging me, cheering me on, and basically being a true friend.
You guys are the best.

And now - to the story! Authors notes (!) are at the end. The title is from a song sung during Shakespeare's Cymbaline. I also quote a couple of lines from Tanith Lee's The Book of the Beast. And the song that plays in the story is The Ink Spot's I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire.

ETA: Now with art!! Images by kezley, you can find them all right here. Wheeeeeee!

Enjoy!





Here the land ended, falling away and away in stepped slopes of rock, colored crimson and slate, violet and saffron by the late-afternoon sun. South-west, the river flowed out and over the Rim, falling into shadow and movement. The sea was there, below - one thousand feet or more, pulsing like a faint heartbeat, all but lost in the dry rush of the waterfall.

Dean stood up in the stirrups of his saddle, stretching his legs and twisting a little to ease the stiffness in his back. Seven shifted under him, rumbly sound of discontent in his chest.

"Chill out," Dean said, settling again. He put his hands behind him, fingers laced, and pushed his arms out straight, rolling his shoulders. Seven shifted again, stretching his neck out and lashing his tail. "Bitch," Dean muttered, and Seven twisted his head around to look back at Dean with an expression that clearly said 'Jerk'.

"Sam, are you trying to secretly corrupt my horse?" Dean called, and Sam looked up from his crouch on the Rim, quick grin that dimmed a little as he pushed himself to his feet.

"All his bad habits are your fault," Sam said, rubbing his hands together. A thin puff of dust drifted away from them, nearly invisible in the thickening light. He limped over to where his own horse was disinterestedly lipping a half dead shock of sage, gathered up the reins and heaved himself into the saddle, mouth tight. "Storm's coming."

"Yeah, I can see that. Think we can make it to Hole-in-the-Wall before it hits?"

Sam stared west, squinting a little against the long, honeyed rays of the setting sun. The far horizon was hazy - dark; charcoal and grey-green smudges scraped over a yellowing canvas; a slow-building storm, days off, yet, but one that was going to pack a hell of a punch. The sea, so far down, was an endless, rumpled sheet of slate-blue, broken by countless shoals of weathered rock. All that was left from when the land had sheared away from itself, collapsing into the crater they called Whale Deep, the sea rushing to fill it in.

"Yeah, we will. Best go now, though."

"Let's go, Seven." Dean lifted the reins, tugging ever so slightly and Seven turned, head first and body following. A pressure of knees and heels and Seven moved into a quick, skimming lope, only showing his irritation in one hopping kick. Behind him, Dean could hear Sam laughing and he lifted his hand and gave his brother the finger before settling in for the days-long ride.

Hole-in-the-Wall had been around since before the Cataclysm, and probably would be around long after the sun had burned out. Jonah the Walker had found Hole-in-the-Wall on one of his walks and decided to make it his nest; like a magpie, had carried back all his looted treasure. Amongst the broken anthodites, he'd stacked questionable canned goods and salvaged electronics, rotting clothes and mildewed books and worthless strings of diamonds. There were boxes full of pencils and baskets full of shoes, jars of rusted screws and nails and washers.

Dean, of course, loved the place. Sam sent a tired smile after him as Dean stepped off the last riser of the staircase and strode happily away into the gloom, lantern bobbing. Like a kid in a candy store, Sam thought. Hell, there probably was candy in there, somewhere. Sam just groped for one of the old folding chairs Walker kept by the stairs and sat down, easing his aching leg out straight, setting his own lantern on the third step up. The cave system was mostly level, but Walker had blocked up the old, easily-accessible entrance and made a new one, less obvious, and with a set of narrow stairs he could defend himself, if need be. They'd played holy hell with Sam's leg.

"Storm coming," someone said, and Sam jumped a little, looking around. A disheveled blonde head popped up from behind a listing stack of crates and Sam relaxed. It was Tick-tock, one of Walker's kids. And if Tick-tock was near, pretty soon -

"Storm coming." Clock popped up beside Tick-tock, identical mussed blonde hair, identical Cupid's bow mouths. Identical twisted spines and humped shoulders and clubbed, clumsy legs. The Cataclysm hadn't been kind to them.

"You're right, storm's coming. You ready?" Sam asked, and the girls shuffled out from behind the crates. Their skinny bodies were muffled in moth-eaten sweaters and worn corduroys against the chill of the caverns.

"We're ready, we gots it all locked down tight," Tick-tock said.

"Katy bar the door," Clock added, and then they both grinned, gap-toothed and unnerving in the lantern-light.

"Better run tell your dad we're here," Sam said, and they shuffled away, little clasped, clawed hands swinging between them. Sam sank back into the chair, letting his eyes go shut for a moment, using both hands to knead the aching muscle and bone of his left thigh. He could hear Dean muttering to himself somewhere in the depths of the cavern, little clanks or thuds as he moved things around - dug down into a box. A moment later, Dean wandered out of the gloom and put his own lantern down next to Sam's.

"They gone?"

"They're just little girls." Sam sat up, letting his leg go - not missing the look Dean gave him, exasperation tinged with concern.

"Creepy little girls, Sam." Dean was rubbing his thumb over a spindle of wire, brass or maybe copper.

"You're such a baby," Sam muttered, and Dean tossed the spindle at him, flash of a grin. Sam caught it and mimicked Dean, running his finger over the ridges of the wrapped wire. It felt good. Whole. No corrosion. Sam tucked it away in a pocket of his coat.

"So, Tick-tock Clock tells me the Winchesters are here!" Jonah the Walker's voice boomed out of the dark, and a moment later he hove into view, all whipcord and sun-lashed skin, somewhere between forty and one hundred. He had a lantern in one hand, a child in the other. The child was tiny - new-born sized - and Sam abruptly didn't want to see it. Each child of Walker's fifteen children had been born with more and more devastating defects. The last had only lived a few weeks, silent and sickly and nearly motionless, trapped in a poisoned body. Fuck only knew what would be wrong with this one.

"Storm," Dean said, his voice clipped and hard, and Sam knew he was thinking the same thing.

"Eh-ya, I saw that. Come along in, then. You got your horses stabled?"

"Snug as two bugs." Dean lifted his lantern up, fiddling with the wick a little as Walker stepped up closer and shifted the baby.

"Meet my newest. Haven't named him yet. Thinking on Clove, or maybe Quince." He tipped the baby up and out, the blanket falling away, and Sam forced himself to look. Then looked again, because the baby seemed perfectly all right. Walker grinned at him. "Got me a new missus. T'other one decided she didn't want no more kids, so she went back to her people. This new missus, she throws perfect ones."

"So I see." Sam stood up, wincing, and grabbed his lantern - watched as Dean chucked the baby under the chin and followed Walker into the shadows. Sam sighed and did the same.

Here, along the Kármán line, sixty-something miles above the world, everything changes. Trackless blue becomes indigo, then plum, then ink. The stars begin to glow; pinpricks of heat in the gathering dark, and the white-noise roar of six billion lives become the faint, far hissing of the sea, the rushing wind. Here, gravity seems to relent, and finally - He can soar.

And He does, up and over, wings as vast as the vault of the sky unfurling in a scatter of impossible light. The Infinite calls, and for a moment He is tempted, so tempted. The voice of the universe is like whale-song, echoing and mournful; Leviathan adrift and lonely in a stellar sea.

But...the Other calls, too. Like to like, light to light, and He cannot say no. Will not. And so He folds himself in and in, a javelin of pure, heatless brilliance, and He falls.

Again.

Dean came awake with a jerk, the rush and heat and pressure of the dream snapping off like a switch, leaving him in a smothering silence. He pushed himself slowly over and then up onto one elbow, forcing himself to breathe, slow and deep. Around him, everything was still; the broken stone walls of their shelter a charcoal sketch against the darker night. The fire was a low, sullen shimmer of coals cupped close in the earth and Dean reached out and pushed at this stick and that, waking it.

He watched as new wood caught, tongues of flame mouthing along the broken ends. Opposite him in the mellow light, Sam was a long line of amber and rust and dusty tan. Strands of hair lay across his closed eyes and red-gold glinted in the short hairs growing along his jaw and chin.

Dean found his canteen half-buried under saddle and blanket, screwed the lid off and took a long drink. The water was ice-cold, the canteen radiating it, and Dean's breath puffed white as he exhaled. Something shifted in the darkness, faint susurrus of skin on sand, and Sam's eyes opened.

"Dean?"

"Dreaming," Dean said. He took another drink and closed his canteen. Seven and Toto, Sam's horse, shifted a little in their corner, low wuff of breath and the click of hoof on stone. They'd made camp in the ruins of a little church, three wind-abraded walls and the stumps of a fourth, a rough approximation of doors and windows. It was enough. Intention counted more than the actual, and the lines of salt and sigils that curled around the four of them were ten times stronger than any building would be.

"Clowns or midgets?" Sam asked.

Dean grinned, shook his head and yawned, working his toes in their thick socks down deeper into his bedroll. Warm enough, and comfortable enough, and tired enough to just slip back down. "Flying," Dean said, and Sam nodded. He knew what it meant - had his own dreams to contend with. "Well, couple more hours to dawn," Dean added, and shoved his canteen away.

Sam mirrored him, coming up on one elbow and digging out his own water, wiping wet lips on the back of his hand. The sleeve of his flannel shirt was fraying, soft and fuzzy around the buttonhole and along the hem. There was a distinct little noise out in the darkness, like the mewl of a kitten, and Sam's jaw went tight, teeth gritted. The horses huffed displeasure, jostling each other.

Dean frowned, irritated - not yet angry. "There's your shadow," he muttered.

A figure hovered in the crumbled doorway of the church, crouched on lean haunches, clawed hands scuffing in the sand and stones. Daring itself to almost-not-quite touch the wards, which rippled and roused themselves, gleaming faintly in the dark. "Ssaaam...." it crooned, a lisping sing-song.

Sam drank again, capped his canteen and lay back, arms tucked under his head, gaze fixed on the scudding remains of the storm-wrack that still cluttered the sky. Five-day blow and now, nearly a week later, the air was still wet with it - the wind still fresh and fierce out on the open plateau. "Go away, Slink."

"Bad storm, Ssam. Bad. Stirred things up, tore things down, broke things loose."

"We're all right. You should go." The thing shifted, lifting whiteless eyes to the sky for a moment. The low lights of the fire gleamed there, sparking red. The thing was black, with skin like soft, buffed leather; slatey-blue-grey on the palms and soles and lips, on the very obvious male genitalia that hung between naked thighs. The ragged mane of hair was cobweb, white and tangled around cat-pointed ears. Black, curved nails clicked against the door-jamb and he yawned, showing the inside of his mouth. Pure snow white, tongue like a narrow white petal and teeth like shards of black ice. He wasn't as warped as the Walker's children - wasn't hideous in any real way - but he made Dean's whole body shiver in intense, bone-deep dislike.

"You could come out. Saaam, come out."

Dean scowled at the wheedling tone - the way Slink's voice lingered over Sam's name. Caressing it.

"No, Slink." Sam sat up, looking at the creature with a little frown, and the sand inside the wards stirred, tiny eddies.

Slink flinched back, hands coming up, and then sank back down. His thin tail whipped up - curled around one bare thigh. "Not safe out here, to do that," Slink said. "You'll draw attention."

"And you don't?"

"Oh, no, no, no. No, Sam. I'm so very careful, I am, so careful, I would never...." He ducked his head and looked up at Sam through white lashes and tangled, moonlight hair. Doe-eyed and pretty, if you looked objectively. Inhumanly so. But the body was all lean muscle and bone, a boy's body, just tilting over into manhood, hairless and unlined. Centuries in his gaze. "I wouldn't hurt you, Sam, never hurt you, never hurt Ssam...."

"Get out of here, Slink," Dean growled, warning clear in his voice, and the wards rippled again, glimmering a little brighter. Slink hissed, pretty face gone ugly for a moment, tail lashing. Sam gathered up a handful of dust and said something over it, low mumble of fractured Latin. He lifted his palm and blew, and the dust plumed up and out, light as smoke and dully shimmering. Slink recoiled, casting Sam a look of betrayal and then was gone, scatter of sand and pebbles, that little cat-call sound echoing.

"Think he'll be back?" Dean asked, and Sam turned over, squirming down into his bedroll, shoulders hunched.

"Not tonight. Storms always stir him up, though." Sam yawned and closed his eyes, and Dean lay down again, settling himself. "Home tomorrow."

"Yeah." Dean shoved a stick a little further into the fire and then tucked himself down, closing his eyes and willing himself back to sleep. In a little while, it worked.

Home was an old hunting lodge that backed up to canyon walls of quartzite and sandstone; tiger-stripes of buff and tan, slate-blue and grey, crystal and rust and verdigris-green. A river wended past, close enough for fishing, not so close that they needed to worry about flooding. There had been a dam once, miles to the south, and a reservoir, but it had broken years ago. Now the gorge was deeper, and the river a little wilder.

They'd first stayed there when Dean's third horse had galloped into a rabbit-hole and snapped a foreleg. Dean had ended up under it, deadly grey-blue and bleeding, and Sam grimly not panicking. After two days in a tent, with winter heavy above them in down-grey clouds, Sam had gone out in a desperate search for better cover. Four turns of the river had revealed the lodge, weathered pine logs and fractured windows, the debris of years in the corners but a good, river-stone chimney that still drew and only a few holes in the roof.

They'd stayed through the winter, making do and patching holes, finding a cave in the cliffs that led back and around and down, a handful of tunnels and rooms, dry and empty and perfect for long-term storage. By spring, the lodge was home, their name-signs and wards carved into the massive Ponderosa pine that stood sentinel by the south-west corner of the porch, their own blood and spell-work rubbed into the threshold and window sills.

They'd made the long journey back to the Dakotas that spring, back to their sometimes-home at the Mustang Ranch, trading off riding and walking. Dean had needed another horse, and they'd had possessions to gather, scattered in half a dozen caches and temporary camps. It felt good, finally, to settle into a place of their own.

Sam heaved a little sigh of relief as the first glimpses of home came into view: a length of tall cliff with a notch near the top, the dark green spike of the pine. His leg was aching, steady and sharp, and all he wanted to do was sit down and not get up again for a week. The river was chest-high on the horses, the ford treacherous with stirred up debris. On the other side, the climb up to the lodge was long, the trail curving and meandering through a cluttered landscape of sandstone and argillite that had been under water for decades. The sun, two hours into the sky, was a heatless silver coin in the tawny blue.

Nearly there, the trail went between two crooked fingers of stone, carved with wards, inset with cold iron and silver and lead. Beyond them was another stone, flat and broad, head-high when they were mounted. And someone was there, waiting. Sam heard Dean's exasperated huff of breath and grinned to himself. Storms brought out more than Slink. They rode through the upright stones and Dean touched his heels to Seven's sides, as if to hurry him. Seven ignored him.

"You've been gone a long time."

"Just the usual, Malak." Dean squinted up at the figure, frowning, and Malak frowned back. It looked more petulant on Malak's face; the pretty features of a child sulking rather than anything remotely threatening.

"But it was a bad storm. It did damage."

"They all do. Damnit, Malak," Dean snapped as the being extended the flights of one wing nearly into Seven's face, making the horse throw his head up and twitch sideways, ears flattening.

"Dean, you have to be careful. You should be here during storms, where it's safe." Malak dropped off the stone and stood there, the wings half-open, threat and agitation. Sam reined Toto back and just watched, amused. Malak, like Slink, was a narrow-boned, long-muscled being, all sinew and tendon, hardly any bulk. The wings were soot and dove-grey and white, ragged and half-insubstantial, three times as big as the body that carried them.

"Mal, stop freaking out my horse, okay? You know we ride the Rim this time of year. And you know we're safe. Now are you gonna get out of the way so we can get home? Sam's leg hurts."

"Oh, don't you bring me into this," Sam said, and Malak shifted on bare, narrow feet, looking uncertainly at Sam, the wings drooping. His pale skin was dappled, weirdly, by fading bruises, little green smudges all down his ribs and right hip.

"I'm sorry, I just...I worry. There are things...." Malak hugged naked arms around naked torso, his ink-dark hair tangled across his face. It was long, past his shoulders and shot through with iron-grey. "Someone's here," he added, tipping a wing toward the lodge, and Sam and Dean both looked up, scanning what they could see of the building.

"Who?"

Malak shrugged - stepped carefully around Seven's head and came up close to Dean, reaching out hesitantly to rest his fingertips on Dean's stirrup leather. "I don't know. Just someone. No one bad."

Seven shifted and Malak's fingers lost contact, and Dean sighed. "Okay, thanks for the warning. Just - get on outta here now, okay? You freak people out."

"I'm glad you're home," Malak said, low. He shot a quick, intent look at Sam and then stepped back. The wings lifted and beat and a moment later he was gone, not really flying, but disappearing all the same.

"That crush just never gets old," Sam said, grinning. He urged Toto up close to Seven and Dean struck out blindly, whapping Sam across the knee.

"Just shut up. Should have said your leg was hurting so much."

"I just wanted to get home."

"Yeah, me too." Dean urged Seven forward and Toto fell into step and they climbed the last fifty or so yards of the trail together, wondering what was waiting for them at home.

The camps and ranches and settlements that made up the post-Cataclysm world had started a sort of Pony Express. It was a web rather than a straight shot, and there were no prizes for speed. But it got information out, slow and steady, and it kept everyone more or less up to date. Like Sam and Dean, the Express followed the long, ragged curve of the Rim south-west and west, and went north nearly to Canada. East was the great, turbulent roil of muddy water that was now the Mississippi; no one crossed its mysterious, fog-laced depths. South-east was the vast Delta that went out to the sea, and South-south-west was Dust Bowl, lifeless and bleak. Currently, 37 riders could complete the circuit in a little under four months, and one of the newest of them was sitting on the Winchester's porch steps as they rode up to the house.

His horse was drop-tied at the foot of the steps, saddled and ready to go, and when Sam and Dean crested the small rise before the house, the boy stood up, worn felt hat in hand.

"Oliver," Dean called, lifting a hand, and Oliver sketched a wave back. He was thin and gawky and hatchet-faced, just starting to show a beard. The Cataclysm had given him pointed ears and too many long fingers, with too many joints. His nails always needed cleaning.

"Sir. Sirs." Oliver shuffled his feet and came down the steps, fending off Seven's inquisitive muzzle. "I slept in the stable. Hope you don't mind."

"It's fine. You have something for us?" Dean swung down off Seven with a tiny groan, stiffer than he liked from the cold and the weeks-long trek along the Rim.

"Yeah. From Mama Lena." Oliver reached into his coat pocket as Sam eased himself down by inches, his face set in that non-expression that he got when he was in pain. Dean dropped Seven's reins and watched Sam lean into Toto and breathe, and Toto peer around in obvious curiosity, nosing a little at Sam's ribs. Oliver coughed, and Dean looked back at him. He was holding out a thick square of folded paper.

"She said wait for an answer, sir."

"Hey Oliver, do me a favor, would ya? Take the boys over and get their gear off and get 'em a drink, okay?"

"Yeah, sure. I mean - yessir." Oliver crammed his hat onto his head and reached for the reins while Dean dragged first his saddlebags and then Sam's off the horses.

He gave Seven a little push. "Go on, now, and behave." Seven shook his head violently, huffing, but he walked off sedately enough, tail switching.

"Spoiled rotten," Sam muttered. He was half way up the porch steps, leaning on the rail and nursing his leg along, and Dean went up two at a time, digging down into an inner coat pocket for the key and getting the door open before Sam was off the last riser. Looking down, he checked that the salt trough was full and untouched - ran his fingers briefly over the wards cut into the jamb. Then he was pushing the door wide and stepping aside so Sam could come in, shivering a little at the chill of the place.

"Here, you read this - I'm gonna get the fire going." He handed the letter off to Sam, who limped over to his chair and settled with a groan. "Idiot."

"Bite me," Sam said, cracking the wax seal and unfolding the stiff, thick paper. Rag paper, handmade by Mama Lena herself, creamy-tan and flecked with bits of color. Dean dropped the saddlebags in a heap by Sam's chair and crouched down to assembled pine cones and dried grass and bark into a tipi shape in the fireplace. He dug a match out of the copper box screwed to the river-stone surround. The tinder lit easily and he piled on narrow sticks and than thicker ones until he had a good blaze going, heat spreading out in comforting waves. Three good, seasoned pine logs were the last to go on, to burn for hours and make a coal-bed for the night. From his chair by the hearth, Sam shifted and rattled the paper and Dean stood up and leaned against the mantel, basking.

"You're blocking my heat."

"Poor baby." Dean moved over and Sam propped his leg on the ottoman made of hide and bone and wood - opened his coat to the warmth and smoothed the letter across his thigh. "What's it say?"

"Says demon-sign. She's seeing demon-sign, and a couple of her kids had visions."

"Fuck." Dean gnawed on his lip, contemplating that. Demons were gone. Had been for years. To have them come back.... "She sure?"

"She knows as well as we do. What...what do you think it is?" Sam looked up, worry tracing lines across his forehead. He had silver in his dark hair, strands at the temple - all through the length. Just a few - just enough. Dean had his share, as well.

"I think...." Dean rubbed his hand over his face, tip of his nose cold, stubble rasping on his chin. "Fuck, I think we need a drink. And bed. Think about it tomorrow."

"Dean -" Sam stopped himself. Deliberately folded the letter and lifted it up and Dean took it and tucked it under the charm-box on the mantle.

"I'm gonna go take care of the boys. You write and tell her we're coming. Soon as we can."

"Yeah. Yeah, okay." Sam sighed and ran his hands back through his hair, wincing at tangles. "Why now? Is it all...starting again?"

"Why ever? Whatever it is, we'll figure it out, Sam. You know we will."

"Sure. Yeah, we will." He eased his leg on the ottoman a little and looked up at Dean, all wide-eyed and fake-pathetic, and Dean rolled his eyes.

"Yes, Sam, I'll get the writing box for you. Don't pull the sad eyes on me."

"You're so whipped," Sam said, smirking, and Dean whapped him on top of the head as he went past. But he didn't deny it, either.

That night, Dean lay on his back, his gaze lazily tracing the devil's trap on the ceiling. It had taken them days of careful, patient work, hammering iron nails into the painted lines. Five nails wide, heads overlapping. Now it gleamed faintly, firelight and its own, intrinsic power. It was safety - known and tested and enduring - and Dean wondered when he'd gotten so.... "Soft," he muttered, lip curling in disgust.

Beside him, Sam shifted with a little hiss, moving under the warm weight of quilts and old Army wool and bearskin. "You're not soft. Idiot." Sam murmured. His socked foot bumped Dean's under the layers of covers and Dean bumped back. "Just 'cause you wanna stay home...knit me more socks...."

"Shut up." Dean's gaze traced the trap again, automatic. "We just got home," he said finally, knowing how that sounded - hating how that sounded. But Sam's foot bumped his again, a little harder.

"Yeah, I know. You think I wanna go tearing off to Mama Lena's any more than you do?" They lay in silence for a bit, the only noise the soft hum and hiss of the fire. "Maybe those Lakeland boys...."

"You know they're too green for this. Hell, everybody's too green for this. Fucking...demons." Dean twisted in the bed, scooting down a little - a little closer to Sam. "You know we gotta."

Sam sighed - pushed at his pillow and did his own scooting, feet and one knee and the back of his hand touching Dean. "I know." There was a soft, sliding thump on the roof, and a little noise like a bird, startled, and Sam huffed out a small laugh. "I guess you put that ward on the chimney?"

"Didn't want Malak making a fucking nest up there," Dean muttered, grinning into his pillow. He deliberately closed his eyes, making his breath come slow and even. After a little while, imperceptibly, he drifted to sleep.

Mama Lena's was a good eight days ride south-east, to what used to be Steamboat Springs. She'd founded her orphanage in a log-built bed and breakfast that had weathered the Cataclysm almost as well as Sam and Dean's house, and in the years since she'd started taking in kids, she'd added to the structure, building on more rooms and then a school and a hospice. She sent her 'foundlings' out to scour the countryside for books. Mama Lena had the biggest - and the only - library in a thousand miles or more.

The home office of the Pony Express was there, too, with a rambling stables and sorting room, and a hot springs kept exclusively for the tired horses to soak their road-weary legs. There were two smaller springs for orphans and guests, and it was the thought of sitting up to his neck in steaming-hot water for as long as he wanted that got Sam up and in the saddle on the sixth day. Snow had dusted down in the night, crisp and powdery, and the air was like iron, solid cold that pounded straight through his hurt leg. He stood warming the saddle blanket and himself over the fire while Dean tied the bed rolls up and drank the last of the chicory they'd brewed in the pot.

"You good?" Dean asked, and Sam took in a long lungful of blade-sharp air.

"Yeah, I'm good. Go fill the woodbox; I'll get the horses geared up."

"Sure," Dean said, but he stood for a long moment just watching Sam, until Sam sighed and pointedly turned his back, whistling two long, low-high notes to call the horses in from their morning antics. Mostly they were good, not minding sharing the way-station shelter overnight, but by morning they were definitely too twitchy to put under saddle until they'd been allowed a little time to work out the kinks.

Toto came into camp first, head up and picking up his feet, acting more skittish than he was. His gunmetal grey hide had a dusting of snow over the pale dapples on his rump and Sam held out the brush in invitation, knowing the gelding wanted a brushing more than he didn't want to be under the saddle.

Toto leaned with a groan of pleasure into the brush Sam wielded, his head dropping a little as Sam ran it over his withers and back. As Sam brushed dried mud off Toto's dark legs, he could hear Seven crashing around in the brush, making Dean swear and shout at him. He got Toto's blanket on, and then saddle, saddlebags and bedroll, tying the leather laces tightly. Then he lifted up the headstall and Toto snorted and shifted and blew down his nose, eyeing Sam and the braided leather with equal disdain.

"C'mon, buddy. You know you wanna. We're gonna see Mama Lena. All the molasses candy you can eat," Sam coaxed. Toto's ears were tracking the noise Dean and Seven were making - a hell of a lot of noise, really - and Sam dipped into his coat pocket for the little lump of dried apple he'd stuck there at breakfast. "C'mon, pretty boy," Sam wheedled, and Toto finally crowded up close, lipping the fruit up from Sam's palm and dipping his head down for Sam to slip the headstall over his ears. Sam buckled the throatlatch and fended off Toto's over-enthusiastic head-butt. No bit - Skye and Jenniver at the Mustang Ranch didn't use them. Probably a good thing, as some of the horses were starting to prefer meat over grass, as the changes the Cataclysm had worked became more evident and their flat, grazer's teeth were morphing into the more pointed ones of the predator.

We're none of us like we used to be, Sam thought. Toto stayed where he was, ground-tied by the reins that touched the dead grass, and Sam whistled again, laughing as Seven came prancing around the corner of the shelter, head up, tail flagged, a long tree branch in his teeth.

"Seven! Drop it!" Dean appeared around the same corner, wood heaped in his arms and his face red - leaves caught in his hair. "Like a damn dog."

"He's just helping," Sam said, grinning. Knowing for a fact that Dean had taught his horse that particular trick. Okay, so, imagine you're hurt, it's cold, you need a fire. Your horse gets wood for you! How cool would that be?

Seven dropped the stick when Sam held out the second lump of dried apple and stood chewing it while Sam brushed bits of bark off his muzzle and got his gear on him. Dean did a last check of the salt lines in the shelter and dropped the iron bar across the door, effectively sealing it to any beastie that lurked thereabouts.

"We good to go?" Dean asked.

"We're good." Sam reached up and plucked the leaves from Dean's hair, straightened the knot of silk-wool scarf under his chin.

"Stop that," Dean said, batting at Sam's hands. But he'd waited until Sam was done, little smile curling in the corner of his mouth.

"Can't let you meet anybody looking like you just got dragged through a leaf pile." Sam turned to mount up, wincing as his bad leg throbbed, and Dean's gloved hand landed on his shoulder, lightly.

"You need a leg up?"

"I'm all right," Sam said, but Dean hovered all the same and Sam wasn't surprised when he felt a strong hand on his ass, giving him a boost. "Perv."

"Gotta get my kicks where I can," Dean grinned. He swung up onto Seven with easy grace, gathering the reins and settling the skirts of his coat and for a moment Sam was frozen, remembering. Remembering Dean behind the wheel of the Impala, his face flushed by the wind, grinning - singing along to one of his damn cassette tapes, the Devil's own glee in the looks he'd shoot at Sam. All the surging power of two tons of Detroit steel spun and held by Dean's hands. The same hands that would stroke over the seamless gloss of her black skin, murmuring praise and endearments. It hurt, to think he would never see that again - Dean so free and easy, all the roads of America at his feet and under her wheels. Dean had never once had a black horse.

Actually, the closest he'd ever come was Seven, a liver chestnut with a funny, nearly-black blanket over his dark chocolate rump and back. Dean tugged a piece of bramble out of Seven's flaxen mane and smoothed the coarse hairs down - pressed his heels into Seven's sides and the horse started moving, walk to trot to lope in a few strides, Dean fluid as water on his back.

Dean never talked about his car anymore.

Dean looked back over his shoulder as Toto moved up behind, always catching up to Seven's jumpy energy. "C'mon, Sammy - we'll hit Hayden by sunset. Get us a big fish dinner."

Hayden was one of the stops along the Yampa River, water route that some few took, trading and fishing. Hayden, seen from the top of a rain-runneled hill, was a collection of buildings made of scavenged lumber and stone, all centered around a market square and dock. It was also on fire. Or had been, just lately. Smoke still eddied up from it, grey and thin, and the wind carried the sour stink of ashes to the brothers, making the horses snort and side-step, unhappy. Dean gritted his teeth and swallowed as a mass of feathers - five or six buzzards - flapped and hopped over the dull red-black remains of bodies.

"How many?" Sam asked, and Dean closed his eyes for one long moment.

"There were the Haydens - 'bout twelve of 'em, last time we came through here. And the Docks, eight or so of them...couple of Smiths and...." Dean's gaze ran over the listing, burnt-out husks that were floating around the long, L-shaped dock. "Looks like maybe three poleboats, crew of five or so each so...."

"More than thirty. Maybe forty. Fuck." Sam's voice was flat - weary - and Dean sighed and unhooked his canteen and took a long drink. Then he hung it away again and dug a bandana out of his coat and tied it around his neck, ready to be pulled up over his nose and mouth.

"C'mon, Sam. We gotta be sure...."

"Yeah."

Dean's rifle slid easily from its scabbard to his hands, and he felt in his pocket to be sure of extra rounds while Sam got his own bandana out, and toed Toto into a slow walk down the rock-littered slope.

It was as bad up close as it had looked from the hill. Worse, actually, because Hayden lay in a small hollow and the motionless air in the settlement was thick with the sweet-sick stench of carrion. The morning's dusting of snow hadn't survived the sun or the lingering warmth of the ashes. They didn't bother with graves - they simply kicked open the half-burnt store room on the side of the smithy and dragged out a couple of barrels of salt and a tin of kerosene. Then it was a matter of finding each corpse and dousing it, and setting it alight. Some were very small. Most showed wolf-sign, splintered bones and blurred footprints. The buzzards and a band of opportunistic crows fled hissing from the small bonfires, flapping dustily away into the long slant of the late afternoon sun.

Dean stood over the last corpse, wearily shoving the box of matches back into his pocket, fingers gritty with soot and dust. The sun was nearly down, now; sitting on the horizon like a coin of bloody bronze, veiled behind a thin scrim of cloud and ash. Sam was poking desultorily through the remains of a house, lifting bits of this and that - letting them fall. Dean sighed and headed toward him, scrubbing his fingers against each other.

"Find anything?"

"Maybe. Look here." Sam crouched, pointing, and Dean came closer, wishing somewhere down in the back of his mind for a flashlight. Big old Maglight, solid and brilliant in his hand. Sam pointed to what Dean realized was the remains of the ceiling of the house. He could see paint, blistered and flaking away, and nails. A devil's trap. Something had scored across it, breaking the ward - destroying its power. Something huge and strong, to gouge so deeply into the solid oak. "Look familiar?" Sam asked, glancing over at him, and Dean frowned.

"Looks like the wood was split. Like...cracking a branch across your knee."

"Yeah. Like something just took the whole house and gave it a good, hard wrench." Sam stood up, grimacing, and brushed his hands together, looking out across the smoldering town. The bandana made his eyes secretive somehow - unfamiliar. "I think whatever demon-sign Lena saw...it came through here."

"I think you're right," Dean said. He reached out and touched the shattered wood - pushed a finger through the clutter of charred debris under it, remembering Uncle Bobby's house...remembering Meg splitting the ceiling and Bobby's trap with a roar, freeing herself.

A whitish clump of some half-burnt stuff came free of the debris and fell open at his boot, flaking ash, and Dean gingerly picked it up. A book - or what was left of one. A rusty-red stain had bled over it, and most of it was curled and black, a husk. A few lines, though, were still clear, and Dean read them, pure habit.

"Easy is the descent to Hell. Black Dis gates stand open night and day." Further down, the last bit before the page crumbled into black flakes: "Lavinia's threnody unraveled along the walls.". Dean shuddered and dropped the book, standing with a little hiss for his stiff knees. "Let's get out of here before the sun's gone - camp upstream."

"Those cottonwoods," Sam said, and Dean pulled his bandana down and whistled for the horses.

"Yeah. Buried some iron there a while back. It'll do for tonight." Sam picked his way out of the wreckage of the house and Dean followed him, biting his lip every time Sam wobbled a little on his sore leg. "Jesus, Sam, you ever gonna be one hundred percent again?" he snapped finally, and Sam just stopped and turned around, fox's eyes staring at him over the fold of muddy-brown bandana.

"Your guess is as good as mine, Dean. Want I should just go back home and rest up?"

"Oh, fuck you." Dean pushed past him and stomped his feet on the hard-pack of what used to be the yard of the house, shoving his hands into his pockets and hunching his shoulders. Pissed off that he'd said anything, pissed off at Sam for...no good reason. He could hear the horses coming closer, a steady drumming on the dry earth, jingle and creak. Sam's hand touched his shoulder, squeezing through the canvas and leather of Dean's coat.

"Nothing we could have done. They were dead two days ago, maybe more."

"I know, Sam. Jesus, I just...." Dean tipped his head back and breathed in, cold air and smoke rasping in his lungs. The nauseating tang of burned bone. "Just tired, is all. Long day."

"Yeah." Sam's hand squeezed one more time, warm, and then it dropped away as the horses trotted around a corner and Sam went to meet them.

The cottonwoods were starkly black in the smoke-blue twilight, thick, twisted trunks that feathered out to a myriad of thin, leafless branches. They formed a rough circle, seven in all, with the Yampa twenty yards or so south. They stopped first to water the horses and fill their canteens, then wearily rode into the trees. There was a subtle line of mounded earth among the roots, and a cache of firewood in a crotch of the biggest tree - enough to cook up something, and keep them warm through the night. Two miles from Hayden and mercifully free of the stench.

Sam swung down off Toto and just leaned there for a moment, blinking. Lifting his head with a tiny jerk when Dean shouldered roughly into him.

"I'll get the horses, you get the fire going. Cook me up some biscuits, hear?"

"I'm not your bitch," Sam said, automatic, but he moved away from Toto and toward the wood cache. While Sam was leaning over the fire pit, blowing on the tinder, Dean dropped the saddlebags beside him with a jingle and stomped off. By the time the medium to large sticks were burning and Sam was mixing biscuit dough in the bowl, Dean was doling out grain and a bit of dried apple, murmuring to the horses and making sure Seven didn't try to snitch any grain from Toto.

Sam oiled the cast-iron skillet and arranged the balls of biscuit dough in it, and then wiped his fingers on a rag. He poured water from his canteen into the pot and settled two bigger logs just so, so the skillet and pot could sit and heat. He dusted his fingers off and unearthed the persimmon and fox-grape preserve for the biscuit, and the greasy fold of brown paper that held the bacon.

"Cut me a couple switches, Dean," he called.

"Yeah, hang on." Dean was sifting fine, white salt through his fingers, marking the cardinal points of the cottonwood circle. Small sigils all drawn deosil, or sun-wise. When he finished the one in the north, he went to cut the switches and Sam carefully wedged the skillet into position, feeding a few more branches into the fire.

"Here." Dean dropped two slender, peeled branches down beside Sam, their points already sharpened, and Sam threaded chunks of bacon onto them while Dean put a handful of ground chicory into the pot and settled with a thump to the dry earth. "Ready to go."

"I saw." Sam handed the switches to Dean and pushed himself to his feet. He took a long breath and then walked to the eastern sigil. There was a small knife in his inner pocket and he drew it and pricked the heel of his hand - shook one drop of blood onto the sigil. It smoked ever so slightly, and the sigil took on a pale, smoky glow. The glow eddied and tumbled, following Sam as he walked the circle, a drop of blood at each point. At the northern sigil, something hissed out in the darkness and Sam jerked, making the shallow slice in his hand deeper - longer. "Fuck!"

"You okay?" Dean asked, propping the kebobs of bacon just so, intent and serious.

"I'm good." Sam squinted out into the darkness, searching, and frowned when he saw two points of red staring back at him. "Damnit, Slink."

"Didn't mean it, Sam. To hurt you." Slink crept closer, clawed hands curling around the trunk of a cottonwood, mouth a little open. Scenting the air - tasting it - and Sam shuddered.

"What happened at Hayden?"

Slink shrugged, inching closer, tip of his white tongue coming out to touch his lips. "You saw. Fire and darkness. Storm, Ssam."

"Slink." Sam hesitated, on the verge of stepping across the sigil and taking Slink by the arm. The creature shifted a little, clawed fingers digging shallow gouges in the tree trunk, looking up at Sam with a hungry, greedy look on his narrow face. "What...was it?"

"Something old," Slink said, and sprang. And slammed into nothing, flare of smoke-white as Sam snapped his hand downward and blood hit the sigil. "Aaah! Not fair, not fair!" Slink rolled, curled in on himself, keening, and Sam jerked again, hard, when Dean's hand closed on his shoulder.

"What the fuck, Sam?"

"Thought he might know something. About Hayden."

"He could tell you from the other side of the damn wards! Fucking hell." Dean's hand gripped hard, giving Sam a little shake, and then he stomped back to the fire. Sam lifted his hand and put his mouth on the cut, licking the blood away. Slink hissed, crouched and shuddering at the margin of light from the fire, baring his black-ice teeth, tail lashing like an angry cat's.

"Drank their fear, drank their blood, drank their screams. Like old times, Sam. Like old times."

"Christo", Sam said, and Slink jerked back, vanishing. Sam wiped the knife on the side of his boot and slid it away - turned around and joined Dean at the fire.

They were met by three of Mama Lena's kids about five miles out, late in the afternoon of the next day. The kids emerged from a cluster of pine, riding pintos and wearing patchwork leather gear, everything trimmed in fur. They looked like some weird mutation of Vikings and Plains Indian, with feathers in their hair and two kids with long, metal-tipped spears. Dean recognized the oldest one, a girl who called herself Tink. She had strange little crumpled wings growing out of her shoulder blades and always cut her clothes so they could hang freely, twitching in response to her moods. She was the de facto leader of the more militant kids, calling them Rangers and devising training and patrols for them - hanging on Dean's every word when she could persuade him to talk tactics and fighting.

"Ho-ooh," Tink called, spear lifted, and Dean and Sam both lifted their own weapons, rifle and shotgun, in reply. The three circled, restless, while Toto and Seven picked their way down-slope, avoiding the heaved-up remnants of the highway that used to run there, and what was probably the remains of four or five SUVs, now rusted down to boulder-like lumps of corrosion and cracked plastic, starred with lichen.

"Tink," Dean said, when they were close enough, and she raised her spear again in a solemn salute, her black and white mare blowing down her nose and giving Seven and Toto a look with a little too much white around the eyes.

"Sir. There been something up on the ridge since we been here," she said, lifting her chin northward, and Dean let his gaze run along the ridge crest, black tips of pines and dark rock.

"When did you see it last?"

"Half hour? I sent the twins back, to tell."

"All right. Let's get a move on, then. We want to be behind walls by sunset." Dean looked over at Sam, who was making a slow survey of the land around them, his gaze a little abstracted - focused elsewhere. "Anything?"

Sam sighed and reached up to rub at his temple. "Not much more than the usual. There's something, but...it's slippery."

"Perfect. Double-time, everybody."

The horses swung into a lope, Seven doing his damndest to lead the herd, jerking his head and kicking when Dean wouldn't let him. The cluster of horses fanned out a little, Tink in the lead, the two boys behind and out, riding in a triangle formation. Dean got Seven to move in closer to Toto and watched Sam sway easily in the saddle, more focused on what was going on around them than on what he was doing, his body effortlessly moving to the rhythm of the horse.

Three miles on and the sun was just touching the tops of the pines, casting long, inky shadows across the russet grass, picking out every detail of pocked boulders and dried seedpods. The sky was tawny-red, long streaks of ocher cloud with the sun glowing a thick brick red behind them. The very air seemed to be steeped in amber and rust, and a sudden, frigid breeze sprang up out the west, rattling the dead weeds.

"Dean -" Sam said, his voice low and thick and urgent, and then Dean felt it too, a sort of thrumming in the air. A shaking, as if something huge and heavy were pounding the earth, sending invisible shockwaves out and out.

"Fuck, we need -"

"Sir!" Tink said, hissing-low, and Dean's gaze snapped up, following the line of her spear. Tracing the ridge that was north of them, leftward, all dark bits of rock and the bristly tops of pines and...something that was decidedly neither. It was moving sinuous and slick as a snake and Dean felt his mouth go dry.

"We need to go," Sam said, and his voice was so weirdly calm that Dean gaped over at him for a moment. There was nothing calm about the look on Sam's face.

"Yeah. Kids - go. Now. Don't look back. Go!" The kids clapped heels to sides and the pintos all but leapt into motion, running flat out, clatter and crunch on the gravely track. Seven lifted his forelegs up off the ground, halfway to rearing, eyes wild, and Dean curbed him around in a circle, still staring at the thing that was sliding leisurely down the ridge.

Smoke - black and thick and alive.

"Dean -"

"Yeah. Fuckin' ay, let's go."

The air seemed to thicken around them, cold and heavy. The dead grass whispered and snapped under the pounding hooves, and Dean crouched down low over Seven's neck and just let him go. He could feel Sam right there - could feel the thing behind them, a noise in their bones that was too low or too high to hear otherwise, throbbing and sick-making.

Seven squealed, a pissed-off sound, and Sam was chanting something, Latin and Angelic cant, a ward that sent prickles down Dean's spine. He added his own voice, pushing the words out against the wind that battered his face, tasting Seven's mane on his lips.

The sense of something comingcomingcoming eased abruptly and Dean looked back, blinking wind-tears out of his eyes, squinting in the blood-colored air. "I think it's gone," he shouted, and Sam closed his eyes for a moment, fists tight in Toto's mane, the reins knotted in his fingers.

"Maybe. Just - keep going."

"Not stopping!" Dean squeezed Seven between his calves, ha, ha, ha coming out in breathless bursts. Seven swiveled one ear back to listen and seemed to leap forward, going even faster. Curling around trees and leaping small wash-outs, steady and sure. The remains of Steamboat Springs came slowly into view and eventually Dean sat up, easing his death-grip on Seven, ha changing to a drawn out ho, ho, hooo, now, telling the horse it was time to slow down.

Mama and her kids kept the roadway clear, but it also dog-legged and twisted, deliberately set up to be easily blockaded, no straight shot to her door. The skeletons of buildings arched over them, blackened by fire and time, softened by years of rain and wind. Sam was rubbing absently at his thigh, his gaze going from here to there to there and around again, as restless as Dean's. Dean felt when they were inside the wards, a palpable brush of something invisible all over him, there and gone. Under him, Seven snorted and dropped to a walk, nostrils distended and sides heaving. Dean patted Seven's sweaty neck and rolled his shoulders, shedding the nerve-jangling tension the demon had instilled in them all.

"Forgot how fucked up those things make me feel," he said, and Sam made a little sound of agreement.

"I don't think it followed us in here. I don't think it could."

"Didn't think anything could get into Hayden, either."

"I think...." Sam eased himself a little sideways in the saddle, taking some of the pressure off his leg, and Toto shook his head hard, blowing down his nose in disapproval. "I think that was just a...scout. They hit Hayden with everything they had."

"Scout. Bet we know what it was looking for."

"Bet we do," Sam replied, his mouth set in a grim line as they came around the last dog-leg of heaped rubble. A tall gate, covered over with sigils, runes, wards and bits of shaped iron blocked the way, two hurricane lanterns hanging from the arch at the top. Tink and her crew were waiting on the other side.

Mama Lena had started life some forty-odd years earlier as Jacob, third son of a third son, and she'd walked all the way from the Dust Bowl to Steamboat Springs, a big old hound dog pulling a cart at her side, and the beginnings of her library on her back. Now, she stood in the middle of the orphanage kitchen, wearing canvas pants and furry boots and a big, blue sweater with little chunky flowers knitted into the design. She had a bandana around her head and a dour expression on her round, dark-skinned face.

"I never thought I'd see the day," she said, herding Sam and Dean through the kitchen, past two huge wood-burning stoves, toward her office. Five or six kids were bustling around, serving up bowls of soup and laying out trays of bread and goat cheese - bowls of dried-apple sauce and mugs of spring water. "I learned the signs, same as everybody - same as I taught these children." Lena stopped to inspect a skinny boy's hands, turning them over - pushing back his long hair to look behind his ears. "But I never thought I'd see the day. I almost thought I was just dreamin' things. Mmh, mmh." She sent the boy table-ward with a little pat, shaking her head.

"It's a good thing you sent word," Dean said. He reached out and plucked a roll from a passing bread basket, breaking it in half and inhaling the fragrant steam. Ignoring Sam's little huff of exasperation, as usual. "You saw true."

"I expect I'd still be thinking it was a dream if Cinder and Snow hadn't had their spells," Lena said. All the orphanage kids were crowding into benches down the sides of the three long tables set up in the kitchen, watching Sam and Dean with big eyes, uncharacteristically quiet, and Sam didn't blame them. They'd all come in looking like the Devil was on their tails, and it had taken a half hour or more to cool the horses down - walk them calm and dry.

"Now - quiet!" Lena called. She bowed her head, gnarled fingers clasped together, and the children did likewise. Sam did, as well, to be polite. Dean just shoved a chunk of roll into his mouth, making a little hum of pleasure. Lena shot him a look from under her eyelashes and Dean stopped chewing.

"We give thanks for this food, for this home, for our friends. We give thanks for clean water and for purifying salt; we give thanks for the holy words that keep us safe. And mostly we give thanks for the boys that fought the Devil and lived to tell the tale. Ay-men."

"Ay-men," the kids chorused, and Dean snorted softly.

"Eat up, now," Lena said, and immediately a dozen conversations broke out as bread, butter, and rose-hip preserves were passed, soup was slurped and cheese sliced. Lena flapped her hands at them and they finished their walk to the little room at the back of the kitchen. It was possible it had once been a pantry or a storage room - it was windowless and cramped, but big enough for the three of them.

Lena let herself down into her patched, overstuffed chair with a little groan and Sam followed suit, easing himself carefully down onto a thing of hide and carved wood. Dean just leaned a hip against Lena's cluttered desk, unbuttoning his coat and shoving the last of the roll into his mouth.

"What did you see out there, then?" Lena asked, eyes on Sam.

"A demon."

"Just the one?"

"Just the one. It followed us but...."

Sam hesitated, and Lena leaned forward, frowning. "But what?"

"But that's all it did. It didn't...attack or anything. And it wasn't in a host." Sam glanced up at Dean and shook his head, rubbing distractedly at his leg. "It was...weird."

"It is unholy and a blight upon the land," Lena said, and made a motion of fingers and hand, ward against evil. "How do we kill it?"

Dean barked out a laugh, grinning. "My kinda gal, Lena. Right to the point."

"I don't see no need of dancing 'round this thing. It's a demon, and die it must."

"Yeah, it must." Dean rubbed his hands together, shedding a few crumbs. "We need to trap it - get it into a devil's trap. Then Sam and I do the rest."

"So you can kill it? I never heard of one dying 'less it was inside a body. This gonna work? Because I got...there's this thing...." Lena stopped, and Dean shot Sam a look, lifting one shoulder in a shrug.

"What do you mean, Lena?" Sam said softly.

Lena just stared at him for a long moment, then she reached up and swept the bandana off her head. Her salt-and-pepper hair was done up in little inch-long twists all over her head, and she slowly rubbed her hand back and forth over them for a moment. "Would it be better if it were in a body?" she said finally. Slowly. Not looking at them at all. "If it were in possession?"

Sam felt a little shiver go over him. Lena shoved the bandana into her pocket and looked up at him. Her dark eyes were curiously blank.

"We got a man in the oubliette. Caught him stealin' goats. We could use him, like bait, if must needs. He ain't any of our own."

Sam swallowed hard, sick feeling in his gut, and Dean shifted off the desk with a jerk, walking two fast paces to the opposite wall and staring blindly at the shelf of ratty paperbacks that lined it. "No, we...we don't need to do that."

Lena nodded once, sharply, and stood up. "Come give a listen to what Snow and Cinder have to say. Maybe there's somethin' you need to hear. Then you can sit down to some supper."

"Yeah - sure," Sam said, pushing himself up out of the chair, following Dean and Lena out of the office and into the warren of the orphanage proper. He'd never felt less like eating in his life.

"And then there was these black smokes going 'round and 'round, like tornadoes. And this awful noise."

"And then there was this light so bright it hurt to see and a noise...like metal grinding, somethin' awful."

Cinder and Snow stood twisting nervously, not quite daring to look Dean and Sam in the eyes. It was impossible to tell the sex of them, they were both rail thin, with hair cropped up short and spiky over narrow, pointed faces. Cinder's hair was a dull crow-black, skin a sort of pale blue-grey, while Snow was as white as, well...snow. Twins, whose only matching features were their wide mouths and pale, epicanthic eyes. Mama Lena had a lot of twins. Most people thought they were unlucky.

"So there was smoke and a light. Anything else?" Dean asked, and Snow shoved an elbow into Cinder's ribs.

"You was there. Both you sirs. You was bloody."

"Bloody?"

"An' there was this...this thing."

Snow finally looked directly into Dean's gaze, and Dean felt it, little sizzle over every nerve, less than a second. "It weren't none of our'n. It weren't...livin' or...livin' right, I reckon." Snow blinked, licked at dry lips. "I was a'skeered of it."

"Well, hell," Dean muttered. He looked over at Sam, who sighed. "Guess this isn't gonna be easy."

"Guess not." Sam made a note in the little hide-bound book he'd dragged out of an inner pocket and looked back up at the twins. "Okay, let me just make sure -"

He was interrupted by a pounding of feet down the corridor and then the door was shoved open so hard it hit the wall, rebounding and nearly hitting Tink in the face. She was wild-eyed and panting and she opened her mouth to speak but a sudden, wild hooting interrupted her, muffled by the walls but still loud - unnerving. Cinder and Snow both jerked and then turned and ran, and Mama Lena jumped to her feet, pushing past Dean.

"Lena, what -?"

"Fire, damn it all, that's fire, boys! We got to move."

Continued in Part two.