When the bulldozer backed up and turned away, they settled into the loose earth, once again hidden from view. Once again ignored and forgotten…
FIVE
Pharmaceutical sales rep Elijah Green often referred to his silver Audi S3 as his mobile office. Considering the long hours spent and the many miles logged in the sedan, traveling between pharmacies, doctors’ offices, hospitals and outpatient clinics, his nickname had a certain inescapable logic. Unless he was taking a client out for a business lunch, the passenger seat of the Audi functioned as a mini desk, holding his samples trunk, laptop computer and an old-fashioned clipboard and legal pad. But he had a dashboard mount for his smartphone, which allowed him to see notifications of incoming calls and texts without fumbling in his pockets while navigating the highways and side streets of Evansville, Indiana.
If he received an important call, he’d pull over and answer rather than dividing his attention between the caller and the road. Some days he drove well over a hundred miles before heading home to Braden Heights. He’d seen more than his share of distracted drivers and refused to become one. They came in all shapes, sizes: chatting or texting on phones, eating fast food lunches out of paper wrappers cradled in their lap, applying makeup with the aid of a sun visor mirror, yelling at kids in the backseat to behave, even a few who’d spent too many hours on the road and dozed off at the wheel.
After a brief, hopeful flirtation with a Bluetooth earpiece—a gift from Brianna—in an effort to communicate hands free, Elijah finally concluded that phone conversations, no matter how they were conducted, remained too much of a distraction for him. During his one-week trial with the earpiece, he’d caught himself drifting into the next lane twice; on a third occasion, he’d been scolded by a passing motorist who laid on his horn for three indignant seconds. Elijah might as well have been dozing. Another time, he hadn’t noticed traffic slowing ahead in a construction zone and a tailgating situation quickly escalated to a near-miss fender bender. To avoid the collision, he’d stomped on the brake pedal and watched helplessly as his trunk, laptop and clipboard slammed into the dashboard. After that incident, he took the hint and tossed the earpiece into the dinged glove compartment.
Sometimes days on the road seemed like a war of attrition, or at least an erosion of concentration. And while he might joke about the car being his mobile office, anyone who carried a smartphone knew that possessing one of the miraculous devices, with constant access to email, text chat and voice calls, meant that the owner never left the office. Being on-call 24/7 was not always a blessing, but Elijah was particularly grateful for the freedom it allowed him these past few days. He’d made Brianna promise to text him whenever she had news. Sure his schedule in the field remained busy and hectic, but almost anything on that schedule could be rearranged. All it took was a few calls. Problem solved.
Naturally, her first text came during rush hour, while traffic maddeningly alternated between too slow through the bottlenecks and much too fast when the lanes opened. While slogging through the former, he’d turned on the radio to take his mind off of how slow so many cars could move in unison. The Stones’ “Mother’s Little Helper” was playing when his dashboard-mounted phone’s screen lit up to display the text notification. Considering his situation, he vacillated between recognizing the appropriateness of the song and believing it was far too cynical for a pharma rep to ever include on a playlist.
His gaze darted between the uncomfortably close rear bumper of the PT Cruiser in front of his Audi and the short text message on his phone’s screen.
“Gotta go!”
At the moment, he was stuck between lanes of slow-moving traffic, no opportunity to pull over and too risky to attempt a fumbled reply. He’d narrowly avoided one fender bender. Best not to push his luck. Instead he wondered why she’d waited so long to text him. He’d asked her more than once to text him right away. And she had promised, playfully offering to pinky-swear if he doubted her.
The phone chimed again. “Can’t wait!”
Frowning, Elijah jabbed his finger at the radio to switch stations.
Another text chime: “Sorry!”
Strangely, the new station was also playing “Mother’s Little Helper.” Hell of a coincidence. He was used to hopping between stations and hearing the same irritating commercial, those things were impossible to avoid, but what were the odds of both stations playing this old song?
He was mentally rambling, a familiar habit when his anxiety climbed, which happened when he felt himself losing control of a situation. Nothing he peddled in his samples case would treat that condition.
Chime: “Malik’s here.”
Fortunately, Elijah was nearing the end of the bottleneck. Ahead, he saw cars accelerating, the mass of metal expanding and flowing away from him at unsafe speeds, many drivers determined to make up for lost time. Today of all days, he could sympathize. As the PT Cruiser sped away from him, he pressed down on the gas.
Supposedly, Brianna’s brother was the backup plan, in case she couldn’t reach Elijah. She hadn’t wasted any time, though. She must have called Malik first, before bothering to text her husband. Maybe she thought Elijah would find his way home in time, but planned all along to have Malik take her. To keep her own anxiety under control. To be fair, her needs came first and his being there for the main event was more important than being the chauffeur.
Feeling control coming back into his grasp, he punched in a third radio station.
“Seriously…?”
Once again “Mother’s Little Helper” played on his car speakers. An earlier part of the song, enough of a change to assure him the programmed radio buttons still worked. But the same song on three stations at once? He shook his head.
Chime: “Meet us at LMC! If you can!?!”
Elijah decided to let the damn song play and risked a very quick text reply, a mere three letters, “OMW,” which automatically expanded to “On my way!”
After allowing himself this small infraction of his self-imposed rules, he leaned back in the driver’s seat and took a deep breath. Not that he’d been too worried about risking an accident for three letters’ worth of distraction, but simply to calm his own nerves. He still had quite a drive left, plenty of time to consider their life going forward. Normally, he’d pull over, review his schedule and make the few calls necessary to juggle the last few appointments of the day, but that could wait. And Brianna couldn’t.
His nostrils flared at the strong scent of cinnamon. Like some kind of weird, reverse memory association. He’d want to remember this moment, and now he would associate it with one of his favorite scents. Was his brain playing some weird trick on him? The symptom of a stroke?
Sudden movement reflected in the rearview mirror. His gaze darted there, expecting to see the approaching bumper of a car or truck whose driver had overestimated Elijah’s speed. Instead, he saw something dark and wretched rise into view, eyes black as coal under a foul mat of straggly hair. For a brief moment, he believed a homeless person had stowed away in the backseat of his car and had somehow gone undetected while he made his rounds.
Unspoken outrage on the tip of his tongue, he whipped his head around to face the intruder and before the grotesque face could come into focus, clawed hands flashed in front of his face, first blocking his vision then destroying it. Searing pain ripped through the flesh around his eyes—then utter darkness.
Instinctively, his hands flew from the steering wheel to his savaged face, and he felt the Audi swerve out of control, heard the protracted warning blare of a tractor-trailer’s horn and felt, for the briefest moment, a jarring, thunderous impact immediately followed by explosive white-hot pain throughout his body—
SIX
Hunched over a table covered with leather-bound tomes and a few vellum scrolls in the library of the Men of Letters bunker—which he had at one time affectionately referred to as the Batcave—Dean searched for any mention of the Mark of Cain. Any information he discovered about the Mark
could lead him a step closer to learning how to remove the damn thing. The scar—brand—whatever the hell it was, came with an unknown remove-by date. At some point in the not-too-distant future, the Mark would turn its current bearer into a mindless, murdering rage machine. A mystical ticking time bomb, but without the ticking. Unless you counted the occasional trembling in Dean’s hands. And without a convenient set of red LED numbers counting down the seconds to the final explosion. It could happen in a week or two, maybe in a few months, but Dean doubted he had a year or even six months of control left.
Cain himself had reached an accommodation of sorts with the Mark, but only after centuries of killing. Not really an option as far as Dean was concerned. He wanted it gone as soon as possible. Hell, he’d have it surgically removed from his flesh if he thought the mystical mumbo-jumbo that attached the Mark to him would part ways that easily. Consenting to a partial flaying of his right forearm would no doubt lead to the Mark reappearing on his body as quickly as it had transferred from Cain to him. Even if he paid the ultimate price and killed himself with the First Blade—because nothing else could kill him while he bore the Mark—he’d be resurrected as a demon and a Knight of Hell. That wasn’t a guess on Dean’s part, Cain had done exactly that—and continued to bear the Mark.
Dean tapped his fingers impatiently on one of the few areas of the tabletop not covered with musty old books. His gaze flitted from one text to another, flipping pages, skimming entries. Now and then, a profound sense of déjà vu filled him and for fleeting moments he believed he had the answer in sight, but squeezed his eyes shut in disgust when he realized he’d simply read the same passage before, sometimes more than once. Was there such a thing as reading in circles?
The one book that might have the information they needed was the Book of the Damned, which, unfortunately, was not part of the Men of Letters collection, at least not in the Lebanon, Kansas bunker where the Winchesters had taken up residence. Now that she had returned from Oz, Charlie Bradbury had volunteered to track down the Book of the Damned but so far they hadn’t heard a peep from her. Dean wondered if they’d sent her on a fool’s errand. Maybe the damn Book of the Damned was a myth or, if it had existed at one time, had been destroyed years ago.
Tugging back the plaid sleeve of his shirt, Dean stared at the symbol representing the First Blade, which Crowley had agreed—not without a bit of self-preservation—to hide from Dean to slow the transformative effects of the Mark. Clenching his fist in frustration, he swept his arm across the table, sending half a dozen books and his empty coffee mug flying across the room.
Exhaling forcefully, Dean held out both arms, palms down, fingers spread. A quick test. No trembling. “Okay,” he said softly. Still in control.
He pushed back his chair and walked away from the table, twisting his head and rolling his shoulders to relieve his tension, determined not to let the fruitless search get under his skin.
He recalled Sam’s words about the Mark. “We’ll figure it out. We always do.”
One part of Dean believed that sentiment. They’d been to hell and back and parts in between. They’d overcome considerable odds on multiple occasions. But that track record led them to take greater risks, and they’d lost plenty of people they cared about along the way. And, really, how long could you keep beating the odds before the house won a round? With the Mark bound to his flesh, a continuous visual reminder of a murderous fate, Dean couldn’t help but wonder if this, finally, was the losing hand.
Sensing movement, he looked up, saw Sam standing at the entrance to the library, watching him.
“How long?”
Sam inadvertently glanced at the books and the shattered mug scattered across the floor. “Long enough.”
Dean tried to shake off his concern. “What? You never get frustrated with this stuff?”
“That’s all it is?”
“Absolutely.”
“And the Chimera?”
“We’ve been over that,” Dean said. “That was me. Not the Mark. I was in total control.”
Looking doubtful, Sam said, “Really?”
“Yes, that was me. In a zone. Firing on all cylinders. Eye of the tiger. Pick one.” He took a deep breath. “Look, Sam, you saw that thing. Anything less than one hundred percent focus, and I would have ended up in that spare parts flesh pit—or worse.”
Sam nodded. “You’re right.”
“Of course I’m right,” Dean said jovially, displaying more confidence than he felt. “I’m in total control.”
“For now,” Sam said solemnly.
Dean wanted to argue the point, insist that he could fight the effects of the Mark indefinitely, but they’d both know he was lying.
They turned at the sound of footfalls on the stairs leading down from the abandoned power plant that loomed over the bunker. Warded against any evil that ever existed, the bunker had become their headquarters and their home base, if not truly a home, though it featured bedrooms and a kitchen in addition to the vast library, war room, laboratory, shooting range, observatory, and even a dungeon of sorts, hidden behind a storage area. The bunker had become the one place they could relax, even if the time spent there was sometimes infuriating.
“Cass,” Sam informed Dean, a moment before the angel walked through the doorway into the library, wearing the somewhat rumpled trench coat over two-piece suit and loosened necktie that had become his uniform.
While surviving on a diminished and fading Grace, Castiel lacked the full powers of an angel of the Lord. No longer able to teleport, he traveled by conventional means. More often than not, that meant his old Lincoln or shoe leather. Restoring Castiel’s Grace was a problem for another day. Something else they would, they hoped, figure out. In the meantime, the world-weary angel seemed resigned to a fate that meant gradually fading away.
“Sam. Dean.” Castiel glanced at each of them in turn, then took in the mess on the floor. “I assume Charlie has not returned with the Book of the Damned.”
Sam gave a slight shake of his head, downplaying the lack of results on their end.
“No word,” Dean said. “I, on the other hand, found a whole lot of nothing.”
“I see,” Castiel said, glancing at Sam, an unspoken question passing between them. Sam shook his head.
“Guys,” Dean said, arms spread. “I’m right here. You got a question, ask. But stop passing notes.”
Castiel cleared his throat. “So… you’re well? In control?”
“I’m good,” Dean said, smiling. “Complete control. Living a life of reluctant moderation. No coloring outside the lines.”
“Good,” Castiel said, either missing the sarcasm or taking Dean’s statement at face value. Sometimes it was hard to tell with Cass.
“Any word on Cain?” Sam asked the angel.
Castiel frowned. “Nothing yet, unfortunately,” he said. “But maybe something else. A possible lead on someone who may have information about a cure.”
Dean took a step forward but caught himself. “That sounds like a whole lot of maybes.”
“There’s an answer out there somewhere,” Sam said. “In the Book of the Damned. Or here, in some book or scroll we haven’t checked—”
“I’ve checked everything here, Sam,” Dean said. “Five or six times. Hell, I’ve got some of these books damn near memorized.”
“—or it’s out there,” Sam said, pointing up and away. “All I know is, we keep looking for the answer. That’s what we do.”
“The lead’s worth checking,” Castiel said. “Until I find Cain, it’s the… best option.”
Dean guessed that he’d been about to say “only option” but that would’ve sounded too fatalistic. Last lead. End of the line. “Fine,” Dean said. “Nothing to lose, right?”
Castiel nodded, unable to hide his concern. “Either way, this won’t take long.”
“You know where to find us,” Dean said, pacing along the length of the table. At some point he’d pick up the scattered books and co
ffee mug shrapnel, but right then he had some pent-up anxiety to expend and pacing was definitely the better option. Some justifiable frustration, he assured himself, no oncoming rage-a-thon, no trembling hands. “I’ll be reading these same books again, working on my teetotaling ways.”
“Or not,” Sam said, navigating around the books on the floor to the neighboring library table, where he’d left his laptop to fix something to eat in the kitchen.
“What?”
“Let’s do something else,” Sam said, looking to Castiel for support. “Don’t get me wrong, the bunker’s great. But we’re underground here, no windows, staring at books or screens all day. Recipe for cabin fever, right?”
“Cabin fever,” Castiel said, supportive but waiting to see where Sam was going with his line of reasoning.
“So we stop looking for a cure,” Dean said. “And we go… out?”
“On a hunt,” Sam said, waking his laptop from sleep mode. “But, no, we don’t stop looking. Ever. We… take time to recharge.”
“On a hunt?”
“Yes,” Sam said. Then, acknowledging Dean’s skepticism, he continued, “Look, Dean, we can bang our heads against a locked door until we knock ourselves out. Or we take a step back, and notice a window open around the corner.” Sam paused, working the keyboard until he brought up the information he sought. “Let’s take time for a hunt. Then maybe we find a way to come at this from a new direction.”
“A valid suggestion,” Castiel chimed in.
“Sure,” Dean said. “Why not? We’ve done it before.”
Sam was right in one aspect. A hunt kept Dean’s mind off the impending doom the Mark represented. Work on a smaller, fixable problem, while the big problem simmered on a back burner. The time between hunts was what got to him. Sitting around with nothing to occupy his time or thoughts brought the big problem to the fore. The bunker may have been their safe zone, but it couldn’t protect them from themselves. With no outside threats to worry about, the only thing Dean thought about was the internal threat waiting to overwhelm him. Better to leave the sanctuary and face something that could be defeated than to sit underground in a quiet corner and wonder how much time he had left before Mr. Hyde kicked Jekyll to the curb and signed the long-term lease on his body and soul.
Supernatural--Cold Fire Page 5