Midnight Of the Century - Section Four

[glasslogic]

Chapter Fourteen

It is prophesied that when the end comes, it will
come in darkness: a catastrophe all foresaw but few
believed. Most of us will battle too late against the
chaos, but not the few, the radical few, who obey
no discipline. Unencumbered by conscience, they
prepare ruthlessly pursuing their own preservation.
If they survive, the rest of us perish.
                                    ~Frank Black, Millennium

The house was a neat brown wood-planked single-story, set back off the main road. Tangles of bushes obscured it from the street, but once you passed them, the house itself was well maintained. No lawn, but the tree canopy overhead inhibited any real overgrowth from groundcover.

Sam and Jess parked out on the main road and walked up the long driveway to the front door.

The door was painted a deep green. There was no doorbell or knocker. Sam had relayed to Jess Bobby's half of the conversation the previous night; she had been concerned, but willing to follow his lead. She gave him an encouraging nod now, as he hesitated, then knocked firmly on the door.

They waited a few minutes, but as Sam lifted his hand to knock again, there was the scraping sound of a deadbolt turning, and the door opened, revealing the man they had seen in the photo in Jordan's room. He looked older, and more tired, and the creases in his face were even deeper with the passage of years. But his eyes were sharp and focused, giving Sam a feeling almost like the host of angels in his daughter's room.

If this was Jordan's father, Sam understood Michelle's insistence on the word "intense."

"Mr. Black?"

"I'm Frank Black. Who are you?"

Originally Sam and Jess had agreed to use false last names, mindful of Bobby's warnings; but now, under the weight of the man's stare, Sam changed his mind. He didn't think deception was going to get them very far with Frank Black. Better to just exclude them and hope the man didn't ask.

"I'm Sam, this is Jessica. We're looking into the disappearance of your daughter, Jordan, and were hoping you would have a few minutes of time for us to ask a few questions."

Frank suddenly looked older.

"No, I'm sorry."

"We just want to get a little more information about Jordan from you; we spoke with her roommate Michelle, and she gave us your address," Jessica pressed.

He shook his head and stepped back from the entry way as if preparing to close them out.

"She shouldn't have done that. The police and FBI have already done their investigations, and I'm not interested in answering questions from private parties."

Sam stepped up and slid his boot forward so the door couldn't close.

"Please Mr. Black. My brother is missing, I have reason to believe there is a connection between his disappearance and that of your daughter.

"I doubt that very much. Now, please excuse me." Sam stepped back helplessly.

Before the door could shut completely, Sam gave Jess a look both desperate and determined, and then threw in hastily, "I had a vision."

The door paused, then opened slightly so Frank could see them again. "Pardon?"

"A vision. I have visions. I had one about my brother; your daughter was involved." Sam took a deep breath. "He's going to die, Mr. Black. Please. Just a few questions."

The man in the doorway sighed, then opened the door wide and stepped aside, one hand extended towards the interior ushering them in.

~~~~~~~

The inside of the house was clean, but dark; the furniture, simple and tasteful. A few framed pictures or painting on the walls broke up the neutral paint, and one room they passed seemed to be an extensive library. Frank led them to the kitchen.

"Please, sit."

Frank himself sat on the other side of the table. He let them get settled, then spread his hands, looking impatient.

"You want to tell me what's going on now?"

Sam and Jess exchanged looks again, before Sam asked, "What do you want to know?"

"You said you had visions, of your brother and my daughter. Why don't you start there."

"I'm not really used to just talking about it," Sam hesitated, Bobby's warnings ringing in his head.

"You've made the effort to come see me, Sam. Whatever you say, it's not going to go any further than this kitchen. Please."

"Promise?" Jess demanded.

Sam put one of his hands over hers and made a calming motion. "It's okay, Jess."

He looked back at Frank. "Last December I saw my brother in a graveyard. It was a ...fetch. Not a real ghost, but a death omen. I don't know how much you know about things like this but--"

"It was Christmas Eve. You were at church."

"...Yes. It was, I was."

"Continue."

"Right. Um, so I went to see him and he ...blew me off. I went back home, and then I had a vision, this time it was of my brother dying. I tried to contact him again, but I ...couldn't reach him."

If Frank heard how much was being left out in the pauses he said nothing about it.

"Your seeing the fetch in the churchyard was an episode that has some mythological significance to it. The location, the timing. Where was the vision?"

"The shower," Jess cut in with disgust, still upset almost a year later. "I thought he was dead when I found him."

Sam gave Frank a rueful look. "When I have visions, sometimes they can be a little disorienting."

"You have visions often?"

Sam shook his head. "No."

Jess rolled her eyes. "Yes."

Frank looked between them and raised a brow. "Which is it?"

"I've had them on and off my entire life. Sometime I go years without one. Sometimes I have one every few weeks. It's not that often."

Jess gave him a look. "Speaking as someone who's never had one, I find the two you've had in my company to be plenty often."

"You should try them from my perspective," Sam retorted.

"Thanks, but it's disturbing enough from the outside."

Frank took control of the conversation again, looking at Jess. "So you have no trouble with this, believing in his ...gift."

"No --apparently you don't either."

"I have to assume that you know something about me that made him think telling me he had visions would get my attention." Frank returned to the previous subject. "What did you see in your vision about your brother?"

"Not much. It was mostly dark; maybe some orange flickering light. But not like fire, more like the source kept getting interrupted. I could hear yelling, and great booming sounds. I saw Dean. He was somewhere below me, wet. It smelled like dirt, and minerals, and I was cold. I was absolutely certain he was about to die."

"Dean is your brother?"

"Yes."

"So not just a visual image then: you said you could smell things, that you felt them. You had impressions that were more than what you could see."

Sam nodded. "It was like being there."

"Are all of your visions that detailed?"

"Usually."

"What sort of things do you usually see?"

"Bad things." Sam's voice clearly said he didn't want to discuss it.

Frank smiled without humor, like Sam's answer was part of a private joke. His next question took Sam and Jess by surprise. "Do you ever see angels?"

Sam blinked, flashing back to Jordan's room for a moment. "No. Um, how would that be a bad thing?" Then remembering how those angels had felt looking down on him, he thought maybe he didn't want to know.

"You would be surprised." Frank's tone closed the subject. He stood up from the table. "My apologies, I'm being a terrible host. Can I get you something to eat or drink? I don't keep much on hand, but I'm sure I can find something."

"Oh, you don't have to do that." Jess assured him.

"I'm getting something for myself, it's no trouble."

"Water please then. Sam?"

"Water would be good."

He came back with ice waters for everyone and took his seat again.

"She said you had two visions, I'm assuming it's the second one that involved my daughter."

Sam nodded. "Yes. I saw her, and Dean. Not together, but like fractured images. There was danger, and snow. They were looking for something. Or, maybe Dean was looking for her. I'm not sure. It felt ...urgent."

"How did you know who she was? Did you hear her name?"

"No," Sam shook his head.

Jess spoke up. "He had this vision back in June. We didn't know who she was until we saw her missing persons flyer in a post office a few days ago."

"Mr. Black," Sam leaned forward earnestly, "my brother is the only family I have left. We might not get along very well, but I don't want him to die. If you know anything about where Jordan is, please, tell us."

"Jordan is a very special girl. She follows an inner path. A path that only has room for one."

"Then you don't believe she was abducted?" Sam asked.

"I don't know why she left school, or where she has gone. But wherever she is, it's where she wants to be. That much I'm sure of. What I don't understand is how your brother would have gotten involved."

"Dean is ...like a private investigator. But instead of being hired, he looks into cases on his own that look like they could use his specialty. There were some unusual circumstances around Jordan's disappearance. We think he might have come here at some point, following clues."

Frank frowned. "What does he look like?"

"Ah, he's a little shorter than me, with green eyes and short--"

"He was here about a month ago. He claimed he was one of Jordan's school friends."

"What did you tell him?"

"Much what I tried to tell you when you knocked on my door. Besides, I knew he was lying."

"Dean's usually pretty good at passing as what he wants."

"Dean didn't spend an entire career scrutinizing psychopaths for the FBI. Serial killers were my specialty, and they are some of the best actors on the planet."

Sam conceded the point. "So you have no idea where he might have been headed?"

"No, I'm sorry."

Jess had been watching Frank very closely during the conversation. "She has visions too, doesn't she."

"Pardon?"

"Your daughter. You asked about angels, and we saw her room. That's what she sees."

Frank looked down as if considering his words. "She has a powerful gift."

"Like her grandmother."

"...Yes. Like my mother."

"Like you?"

"No. I don't see angels."

"But you see something."

He didn't answer her, Jess nodded anyways like something was confirmed.

"Why does that make you unhappy? What's wrong with seeing angels?" she asked.

Frank steepled his fingers together and studied them while he answered her. "I don't understand what it is my daughter and others like her experience, but I have known three people now who seemed gifted in a like fashion. Of the three, two of them are dead, and at least one of them --maybe both of them-- destroyed themselves." He expression was pained, but he went on, "I tried to be supportive of her. These gifts, these curses --they aren't things that can be ignored." Frank looked up at Sam, who nodded. "But it wasn't enough, I couldn't get over watching her be drawn further and further into her gift, knowing what the result would have to be. In the end, it drove her away."

Silence hung in the room for a few minutes.

"I'm sorry," Jess said finally.

"Don't be sorry for me; you have your own tests to pass," he looked meaningfully to where her and Sam's hands overlapped on the table.

"My wife and I, we loved each other very much. But in the end, our family couldn't withstand the shadow of my abilities. She tried to understand, but things happened and she had to make choices. Even with my knowledge... Jordan was the entirety of my world, but the strength of that bond broke beneath the weight of our gifts. I don't envy you this trial, having already suffered it --and failed it-- myself."

"Is there anything else you can tell us, Mr. Black?"

"I don't think so."

"Do you have any more questions, Jess?"

"No, I think that's everything I had."

Sam nodded. "Okay then, thank you for your time."

They all stood up and started heading back towards the door.

"Tell me if you find Jordan, please."

Jess slipped outside.

Before Sam could follow her, Frank added, "Someone told me something once, and it seems like the sort of advice you might want to consider. They said that all you can do is love your family as best that you can, and be prepared for the possibility that it might not be enough."

Sam glanced out at Jessica, waiting patiently on the stone steps, and thought of Dean; the air of desperation underlying his actions in the motel room that day. Desperation Sam had downplayed at the time, but that seemed more and more telling the longer he had to think about it. Something had been seriously wrong with his brother, and Sam was determined to find out what. He set his jaw and looked at Frank Black.

Frank saw the resolve in his face. "Good luck, Sam."





Chapter Fifteen

"And now there is merely silence, silence, silence,
saying all we did not know."
                                    -William Rose Benet

"Sam, it's the end of November. We've been driving back and forth around Tennessee and neighboring states for two months now, trying to pick up his trail. Maybe we should spread out some more?"

"No, everything has happened here. Right in this state. The girl, Dean --there was snow, Jess! It's going to be here, they are going to be here. I know Dean is still alive, and if we can find him, I can keep him that way."

"It's a big state, Sam."

"It's not snowing yet. There's still time."

~~~~~~~

"So, what if Dean was telling you the truth?"

"The truth about what?"

Sam and Jess were both exhausted. They were making a last-minute run for Bobby, some rare herbs to a hunter in northern Alabama for the proper disposal of gnomes, not the ambiguous ones from fairytales, but the kind that liked to drag children into burrows and eat them alive. The herbs had to be handled very precisely and couldn't be mailed with the potency preserved.

Sam had groused about driving to South Dakota, but he was tired of Tennessee too. The time constraints for the delivery would put them back in the state just as quickly as the car could bring them, so he had caved in just for the change of scenery. He hadn't wanted to leave the area where he felt strongly his brother would be found, but after eight or so weeks of nothing, he had agreed that maybe a brief trip elsewhere would provide some fresh inspiration. No such luck.

They had been in the car for almost thirty hours of non-stop driving, taking shifts, and it had come down to the point where they were both awake just to make sure the driver was.

Jess had been taking the opportunity to try to hash out some lingering questions she had about Sam's encounter with his brother the previous December.

"So -- about why your family cut you off…"

"Dean never told me why, Jess. He just treated me like a five year old and kicked me out."

"I thought you stormed out."

"Because he wouldn't talk to me. I wasn't getting anywhere, and you have no idea how stubborn Dean can be. He didn't want to tell me, and I wasn't going to spend a month following him around begging."

"He told you he loved you, that that was why they cut you off, why he didn't call when your dad died?"

Sam snorted in amusement.

"Maybe he was serious, Sam." She smacked him in the arm. "Don't laugh at me."

"He loved me? He was my big brother, of course he loved me. I loved him too. I loved my dad, and even though we fought non-stop from the time I was about thirteen until the day I walked out, I knew he loved me too. I don't know why they turned their backs on me."

"Loved? Past tense?" she asked, pointedly.

Sam was quiet.

"You said he kissed you."

"He was trying to drive me off."

"He said that your dad had been trying to separate you guys, then he said it was because he loved you, and then he kissed you. On the mouth, Sam."

"It was a desperate attempt to make me leave, Jess."

"Bobby knows."

"Knows what?"

"What the big secret is. He as much as told me so, he also told me it wasn't any of my business and he wasn't going to get involved."

"...Bobby admitted there was a secret?"

"He was really uncomfortable with whatever it was, said he wasn't going to discuss it with you and if you wanted to know you were going to have to pin Dean down and ask."

"I did that," Sam growled.

"He suggested smaller words and a weapon of some sort. If you were sure you wanted to know."

"Why wouldn't I want to know?!" Sam asked, baffled.

Jess gave him a level look. "You might not want to, if Dean was telling the truth."

"The truth about..."

Jess waited for him to put it together.

"That's sick!"

She rolled her eyes. "And exactly the sort of problem that might make strong men squirm in their seats, refuse to discuss it, and be grateful when one boy takes off for a University on the far side of the country while the other stays safely under foot. The sort of problem that might make a man forbid one son from so much as speaking to the other, and do everything in his power to make sure that even after he died, they wouldn't have any contact. That might make an older brother whose entire purpose in life was to see to the needs of the younger, completely turn his back and walk away. That sort of sick, Sam?"

"There has to be another reason."

Jess leaned her seat partially back and laced her fingers over her stomach. "Share your wisdom with the class," she invited.

"Do you have any idea how many girls my brother picks up in a year? There is no way that Dean's interest went from 'anything with breasts,' to his overgrown, skinny, male, sibling. I would have noticed!"

"Noticed what? The sudden groping in the shower? His singing sweet sad songs under your balcony? No?" She eyed him with mock surprise when he scowled. "Maybe the bashful batting of his lashes and the heart-shaped doilies he left in your duffle bag, then?"

"There would have been something, Jess. I mean, that's not a little thing!"

"From what you have told me about that last year with your family, you were busy being sneaky and plotting the great escape while fighting tooth and nail with your father, and Dean was busy keeping you and your father from killing each other while simultaneously stopping child services from taking too great an interest in your home-life and stalking the supernatural with your dad." She was ticking things off on her fingers. "Meanwhile, you were on the road switching school districts every other month and learning the hunting trade yourself! Did you really have a lot of time for deep soul searching conversations? Even have enough of a routine to notice if something was wrong?"

"You don't understand how Dean and I worked." Sam said, but he sounded uncertain.

Jess let the uncomfortable silence sit for awhile, before asking, "What did you do when he told you?"

"Told me?"

"That he loved you. When he kissed you in the hotel room," she added impatiently.

"I already told you about that, I shoved him off, accused him of using juvenile tactics, and told him if whatever he was hiding was that great a secret, I didn't want to know anymore anyways."

"Wow. So he tells you the truth, gets to kiss you, and you still storm off and out of his reach. It's like having your cake and eating it too."

"We haven't established that that's the truth yet. I mean, we don't know anything."

A few more minutes of silence, and then he asked somewhat hesitantly, "Don't you think it's wrong?"

Jess shrugged, even though he couldn't see it. "It isn't anything I've ever considered for myself, and it's not healthy for a population over time, but as a basic morality issue -- between consenting adult siblings? There have been a lot of cultures throughout history that have incorporated it as an important practice at the pinnacles of their societies. I'm not saying it's right, of course, but I'm not saying I necessarily condemn it out of hand, either."

"Do you think it's wrong?" she asked gently. "Did you ever think about it, Sam?"

Sam rubbed at the patchy place on the steering wheel while he answered. "I had a rough adolescence. It was just me and Dean most of the time. It's hard enough to be a normal teenager, but the way we did it..." He sighed. "I was awkward, all bones and graceless, and always unpopular. If I could get a girl to give me the homework assignment I thought I was doing good. Dean was ...always the hero of the story. Girls loved him, he was better than me at all the hunting stuff, Dad and his buddies treated him like one of them most of the time. Dean didn't worry about the crap that bothered me, he didn't have the weird problems I did that had to be kept secret. But I was still the person he always looked out for first. That felt -- powerful. I might have entertained the occasional un-brotherly thought during some of the more difficult periods. But nothing serious. Just ...growing pains. It certainly isn't something we ever discussed." Sam deliberately shoved out of his mind the nagging memories of old dreams and longings.

Jess nodded. Sam looked over to gauge her expression. "You know, you don't seem particularly upset by any of this."
"Should I be? I've seen pictures of your brother, he's quite the hottie. I kinda feel like I missed out by not being in the motel room when you ran him down the first time."

"Jess! He's my brother."

"Oh, please." She rolled her eyes. "You're adorable, he's gorgeous, what's not like about watching a little make-out session?"

"We didn't make out! It was a kiss, one kiss, and why would you want to watch a couple of guys anyways?!"

"You're using that squeaky voice again," she pointed out helpfully. "And why wouldn't I want to watch a couple of hot guys get some action? You like to watch lesbians."

"I do not!"

She rolled her eyes again. "It's like you think I've never seen your browsing history at all."

Sam shifted uncomfortably.

She noticed and raised an eyebrow. "You feel bad about watching porn? You never seem to mind when we watch it together."

"It's different when you're with me," he mumbled.

"I can feel you blushing all the way over here." She grinned in the dark car. "You don't have to be embarrassed about watching porn, lesbians or not. You're engaged, not dead, Sam. You think I don't ogle hot guys and enjoy observing a nice strip-off on the beach?" She wriggled her feet up onto the dash. "I mean, I enjoy it more when it's you, and I certainly wouldn't do anything about it, but I can still look. You shouldn't feel bad about that."

"Oh, I think I might have crossed straight out of 'bad' and into 'threatened,'" he said dryly.

She moved one of her hands to slide her fingers teasingly up the inside of his thigh. He jumped, causing the car to swerve.

"Jess!"

She laughed. "Let's get this package delivered, and find a motel. I think I have just enough energy left to drive any thought of 'threatened' right out of your head."

They agreed with mutual silence to leave the question of Dean's motivation in the long shadows of the evening. At least until there was some chance of an answer.




Chapter Sixteen

Faith is the substance of things hoped
for, the evidence of things not seen.
                                        -St. Paul, Hebrews 11:1

"Get up!"

Jessica stirred sleepily and blinked, trying to focus in the yellow light of the cheap motel.

"Sam? What time is it?" she asked blearily, trying to see the alarm clock.

"Ah ...a few hours since we crashed."

"A few hours?" she spoke more clearly, grabbing the clock so she could see the face. "What the hell?!"

It was the second week of December. They had settled just outside Pigeon Forge for a few days because someone had told Bobby a friend of a friend might have mentioned running into a hunter named Dean, and since this person lived in some unmarked cabin in the mountains above the city, Jess and Sam had spent some time winter hiking the extensive trails in the area. Finally finding the guy and learning that it wasn't Dean but a Dan, and that Dan was about fifty and had a wife, three kids, and a suburban -- well, it had been a disappointing and exhausting period of time. When they finally made it back to their motel after their latest failure to locate Sam's missing brother, Jessica had been asleep within moments of hitting the pillow -- a mere three hours ago.

"We have to go, Bobby called. He might have gotten a lead on Dean."

~~~~~~~

Sam drummed his nails restlessly on the passenger side door. Jess grit her teeth and counted slowly down from one hundred. Again.

He was keyed up and stressed out, and neither one of them had gotten enough sleep to be human, but snapping at him was just going to touch off a fight.

She had already asked him to stop several times, and he did, but each time it started back up within five minutes. She knew he wasn't doing it on purpose, she knew he wasn't trying to irritate her, she knew--

"If you put one more finger down, I swear to God, Sam, I will put this car in a ditch and beat you to death with my shoe!"

He looked startled by her outburst, but tucked his hands into his armpits without comment, convinced of her seriousness either by the tone of her voice, or her white-knuckled grip on the wheel.

Jess practiced some meditative breathing for a few minutes, and felt the tension in her muscles start to ease up.

"Thanks."

"Sorry. It wasn't on purpose."

"I know. I just think this trip will go better if you leave your hands where they are."

"You sure you don't want me to drive?"

"I've got it."

He nodded and went back to staring out the window.

"Tell me exactly what Bobby said again?"

"Just that some hunter who had met Dean when he was running around with Dad saw him in a bar outside Mount Juliet a few nights ago, and they chatted for a bit. The guy swears that Dean was alone, and that he said he was heading to Townsend."

"Did he say what for?"

"Hunters aren't exactly known for truth and honesty, even with each other. You tend to stop asking when you know you're only going to get lied to anyways. The guy did say he thought Dean was planning on doing some camping, but Bobby didn't have any details on that."

"Great. How are we going to find Dean in Townsend?"

"It's not that big of a place -- probably just drive around until we find the Impala."

"You're the boss," Jess shrugged.

~~~~~~~

"It's not that big of a place." Sam snarled in frustration, slamming his hands on the steering wheel where they were parked downtown at a diner.

"Evidently it is," Jess growled back, just as annoyed and exhausted after more than seven hours of cruising Townsend and every motel or campsite in a huge radius around it, more than once.

"Is there another Townsend on the map?" Sam flipped it open and started skimming names and locations.

"Maybe he isn't here yet, maybe he's already gone." She blew a lock of hair out of her face and slumped down. "Maybe he lied to the guy like you said, or he misheard him, or Dean changed his mind, or a thousand other maybes! Whatever the case, the Impala isn't here. Are you sure he's still driving it?"

Sam snorted his opinion of that, still focused on the map. "Dean will be buried in that car."

"Well, let's think about this logically."

"Logically?"

"As logically as anything else on this road trip has been. It's the middle of winter, there are at least three inches of snow on the ground, and from what you have said the Impala's trunk is generally pretty full with, how shall we say, specialty items."

Sam nodded.

"So, if Dean is planning on some seasonal camping, he's probably going to need some gear, right?"

"He's got camping gear; all he really needs is some space blankets to line his sleeping bag with, and he should be fine."

"You aren't working with me here, Sam."

"Fine, Jess. So … what, then?"

She smirked and climbed out of the car, slid her jacket off and dropped it on the seat, then tugged the zipper on her thermal shirt down so that the top of her sports bra was clearly visible. "Let me have that picture of Dean, the one we were showing around."

Sam wordlessly tugged the cropped image out of his wallet and handed it to her.

"What are you going to do?"

"I explained the miracle of hips to you once, this is the magic of breasts," she said dryly. "Wait here."

Jess closed the door and sauntered into a hiking store across the street.

Sam waited impatiently, and was about to go in himself when she came back out about ten minutes later. He noticed the zipper on her shirt was distinctively lower, but she was grinning as she reached the car.

She opened the door and dragged her coat back on, shirt safely re-zipped to her chin. "It's freezing out here!"

"What clued you in, the snow on the ground or the icy wind on your cleavage?" he asked dryly.

"Be nice to me, or I'll let you drive around in circles for a few more hours before I tell you where to find him."

"They knew?"

"He stopped by to pick up some socks or something, and asked them about local motels and some of the local hiking spots. They--" she squirmed around to tug a folded glossy brochure from her back pocket, "--marked some places for me."

Sam grabbed her by the jacket and dragged her in close enough to kiss.



Chapter Seventeen

Without mysteries, life would be very dull indeed.
What would be left to strive for if everything were known?
                                         -Charles de Lint

"Really?" Jessica asked, dubiously.

Sam had to admit she had a point: the Welcome Inn was a sad sight. Even for cheap digs, the place was a wreck. The sagging veranda had been propped up with logs interspaced with the original pillars, and several of the doors showed signs of having been kicked in at one point or another. Sam doubted any attention had been paid to washing the sheets in the rooms, much less to upkeep on the heaters.

The Impala was parked at the rear of the u-shaped two-story building, between the back wall and the forest that stretched out behind it. Made it easier for vandals to take their time with it, but less likely they would see it in the first place, since it was completely hidden from the road.

Sam peered through the car's frosty windows while Jessica circled around it appraisingly.

"This is a beautiful car. I can't imagine how much work must go into keeping her in this condition."

"No," Sam said, pained -- remembering hours and hours spent in junkyards and driveways. "You really can't."

"Bad memories?"

"From the perspective of boredom."

"Ah."

Sam stood back up. "I don't see anything unusual inside, normal clutter. Nothing useful. I would have to break-in to really take a look, and we should probably see if he's here, or find his room, before I consider doing that."

"Is it hard to break into the car?"

"Let's just say I was hard on it last time I met up with Dean, and he's unlikely to be forgiving of the littlest scratch during this visit."

She raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

They left the Impala and went to walk by the rooms. "Dean would only stay on the ground floor," Sam told Jess when she offered to check the upper floor.

She was grateful; she had only offered because the idea of her overgrown fiancé walking on that second-story walkway had filled her head with images of him crashing through it to the concrete below. She hadn't been really excited about trying it herself, but at least she weighed less.

Sam was walking very slowly and seemed intent on the cement walkway in front of each door, scuffing his foot on the narrow band of dry clear concrete between the doors and the snow, where the direction of the wind and the shielding of the building had prevented the snow from blowing right up against the building.

"What are you looking for?"

"I don't really want to draw attention to us, or to Dean, in this place, so we need to figure out which room is his in a different way than bothering the desk people."

"And that is?"

He smiled, still focused intently on the ground. "Salt. You put a line in front of the door on the carpet and go in and out once or twice, and you're going to be leaving a scattering of it outside on the walkway."

"You want me to go start at the other end?"

"No need," he announced, stopping in front of a door with a 'do not disturb' sign hanging on the handle. He scuffed his foot a little harder and Jess could hear the tiny grains grinding under it.

He knocked, waited a few moments, then knocked again. No answer.

"Watch my back," he muttered to Jess. She turned towards the parking lot and kept an eye out for anyone interested, while Sam knelt by the lock and teased it open. It was completely deserted in the parking lot, and a moment later Sam opened the door and ushered her inside.

The still atmosphere, while cold, was a relief from the relentless swirl of freezing air outside.

Jess looked around with interest.

The dingy room was, if anything, even more decrepit than the outside of the motel suggested. Water stains and peeling wallpaper; one leg of the TV stand was actually duck-taped in place, and the TV itself was missing. The bed was propped up on a cinderblock and the fuzzy blanket rumpled at the foot of the bed was obviously stained. To its credit, the room at least was clean, and the air carried the faint odor of industrial cleaning product.

One wall had several maps pinned to the ugly wallpaper, and a couple of articles that seemed to be about Jordan Black's disappearance, along with others on miracles and religious shrines. The maps were mostly regional, but one was of the entire country and another was just the Eastern half; the latter had several pins in various other states, but most were in Tennessee.

Sam had had taken a duffle bag from the dresser and dumped it out on the bed so he could sort through its contents.

"Find anything?" she asked.

"Nothing out of the ordinary," Sam muttered, trying not to catalog how many of the worn-out clothes were bloodstained and neatly patched where they had been ripped. He had taken his share of damage during the years he was hunting with his family, and done his fair turn at patching up the others when they took theirs, but he was sure no one's wardrobe had ever been in this kind of state. His desire to get his hands on Dean immediately was spiking.

Jess was going through drawers. "What's this?" She lifted a worn leather journal out from the bedside table, and as she did something fluttered from the pages to the bed.

"That's my father's hunting journal," Sam frowned, reaching for the loose paper. "If nothing else, it means Dean definitely planned to return here."

Sam spread the paper open and froze. It was an angel, like the ones that covered every inch of the walls in Jordan Black's bedroom. This one was drawn in marker on a piece of printer paper.

"So he found her, then." Jess commented, looking over his shoulder.

Sam nodded. "Or at least followed her closely enough to pick up behind her. But nothing here explains why he would be staying here, where he is now -- and where is Jordan Black?"

"I think maybe that answer is on the wall."

Sam laid the paper and the journal down on the blanket and walked over to scrutinize the maps and articles.

"It's all about a shrine," he finally commented.

Jess nodded in agreement. "That's what I thought. All of the pins circle this area, and the local maps ...it should be straight back in the forest from this motel, maybe a day or so's hike from here."

"Is that one of the places the guys in the hiking store mentioned to you?"

"Yeah, but they only had a general idea of where. They said it was a big holy site even back when this was Native American land. Then some settlers thought they had religious experiences there, and it became a pilgrimage point. But never formally, just rumors. They didn't know anyone who had actually been there -- just friends of friends who claimed to have seen it."

"These articles are also pretty vague."

"You think Dean went out to find it?"

"It's looking that way. None of the clothes you would take on a back-country camping trip are here."

"Is this the closest access point?"

"Yes. Keeping in mind all we have is a general area, there is a state park parking lot that looks like it is two or three miles closer to where the cave should be, but it's closed in winter."

"Cave?" Sam asked sharply. "None of these articles say anything about a cave. Just that it's a shrine."

Jess looked up, surprised. "They guys in the store kept calling it a cave."

Sam walked to the door. "Let's get our stuff inside and sorted out."

"What?" she blinked, still holding one of the articles from the wall.

"A cave, that's what the vision was. Dean was in a cave, and --I don't know-- but I think maybe the roof was falling in. All the noise, that would make sense. We have to go now, Jess! He's already out there."

"Sam, this place is probably more than a day's walk from here! It's only a few hours to sunset now; we'll never get out there before it's dark. Why don't we wait and head out in the morning?"

Sam was shaking his head even while she was talking. "Now. We have to go now."

Jess opened her mouth again to protest, but closed it when she saw the fear on Sam's face. "Okay. Okay, we'll go now. Let's bring the stuff in and get packed up properly." She glanced out towards where the murky light filtered in through the cheap curtains, beyond which she knew snow was being blown across the frozen parking lot. "We don't want to get caught out in this unprepared."



Chapter Eighteen

If you are seeking creative ideas, go out walking.
Angels whisper to a man when he goes for a walk.
                                    ~Raymond Inmon

The snow wasn't deep, but it was pervasive. Blowing into every gap or fold of fabric to melt against skin. The dampening white made the forest a still and silent place; footing was treacherous and there was no path to follow. They were sighting on a particular rise in the distance, but with the up-and-down of the hills, they checked their compasses often to maintain a rough bearing.

Staying warm wasn't really an issue. Between the weight of the packs they carried, and the sheer effort of hiking up and down the rough terrain, they were toasty warm in their winter clothes. But the sun was sinking fast, and the snow was still drifting down. They hiked in silence broken only by labored breathing.

Jessica, with considerably shorter legs, was having to fight to keep up with the pace Sam set in his determination.

When the sun, seen only intermittently in the overcast sky, was burning on the horizon, Jess called a halt long enough to dig out her headlamp. She wanted to suggest setting camp, but the set of Sam's jaw told her it would be futile.

She squared her shoulders and nodded she was good to go.

~~~~~~~

The moon was supposed to rise later, but it was a dark, quiet night when she had finally had enough. They had been struggling for hours through a forest lit only by their headlamps, steered by frequent compass checks. The snow had lightened up, and the clouds thinned significantly from the conditions when they originally set out; but the temperature had plummeted, and she was exhausted.

It was hard to say if it was the exhaustion, the conditions, or both that caused the fall. But one moment she was gamely struggling along in Sam's wake, and the next she was lying stunned in a heap twenty feet down a rough incline.

"Jess!"

She lay blinking in the snow, trying to figure out what had happened.

Rough hands grabbed her and pulled her into a sitting position, she cried out and pulled free.

"Shit. Shit! I shouldn't have moved you. Jess, I'm sorry --where are you hurt?!" The hands were pawing at her again.

She shrugged him off and sat up on her own. There was something warm on her lips, and when she licked them she tasted copper. "I'm bleeding," she said blankly.

"Where are you hurt?" Sam repeated slower, acting like he wanted to grab her again, but backing off at her glare.

She unbuckled and shrugged out of the backpack, then touched her mouth, it was numb from cold, but nothing seemed to hurt.

"It's your forehead, and your jaw. Your headlamp is smashed, but it probably saved you a cracked skull." He sounded suddenly uncertain, "I hope it saved you a cracked skull. How many fingers am I holding up?"

"Enough." She batted him away and stretched carefully, but nothing seemed painful in a noteworthy sense. Sam scrambled to his feet beside her and held his hand out to help her up. She pulled the broken headlamp off and stuffed it in her backpack, then took his hand and stood carefully.

"This is stupid, Sam. We have to camp."

He looked like he was about to argue with her, but she stared him down, her face bloody and her arms crossed. His shoulder slumped and he nodded. "We have to get out of this gully first."

"Lead the way, I can't see anything anymore."

~~~~~~~

Sam started hunting for a level patch of ground as soon as they made it back up to where they had been hiking. Jessica had half thought he would try to get a little more distance out of her before he agreed to pitch a tent, but maybe his guilt for trying to press a forced march in a winter forest at night was weighing on him; or maybe it was the death-grip her fingers had digging into his elbow where she had grabbed hold, relying on his headlamp to light the way for them both.

Pitching the tent was a relief after the grueling hours of hiking -- for Jessica at least, who wasn't being egged on by the bone-deep push to hurry. She knelt in the open vestibule and ripped into both of their packs, while Sam crouched outside with the camp stove and heated powdered soup mix and snow.

Jess zipped their sleeping bags together, parked herself on top, and kicked her boots off; she banged them together to get as much snow and dirt off as she could, then stuck them in a plastic grocery bag, and finally set them inside the tent. She changed her socks, crawled inside the sleeping bag, and laid her heavy jacket and the rest of her outer clothes over it for insulation.

Sam stuck his head in a few minutes later, and handed her two cups of hot soup to hold while he made his own preparations and crawled in.

They huddled together in the cold tent sipping warm soup and shivering. When they were done, Sam opened the first-aid kit he had brought into the tent from the packs in the vestibule and cleaned out the scrapes on Jess's face while she winced and tried to hold still.

" Just scrapes. How's your head?"

"Fine, cold, I'm not dizzy or anything."

"Look up."

"Your headlamp hurts my eyes."

"That's kind of the point, I want to see your pupils."

She made grumbly noises, but complied.

"Happy?"

"That you don't seem to be bleeding in your brain? Thrilled."

They looked at each other for a minute.

"Well," Sam mused, "we're alone, in a frozen forest, sharing a sleeping bag for warmth."

"Are you suggesting this is the point where we should have crazed survival sex?"

Sam tried to look innocent, but it came off as more of a leer.

Jess snorted and wriggled down until she was covered to the chin. "If you think I am taking off one more stitch of clothing you have more head trauma than I do."

"It actually is supposed to keep you warmer," he offered, flicking off the headlamp and sliding down beside her.

"Uh huh. I thought you were busy being all worried about Dean?

"I could use a distraction."

The silence was broken only by the slithering of snow over the thin shelter of the tent.

"Warmer, huh?"

"Absolutely."


Chapter Nineteen

"Mystery is another name for our ignorance;
if we were omniscient, all would be perfectly plain"
                                    -Tryon Edwards

Sam sat up suddenly in the night. Jess stirred beside him. The air in the tent was still cold, but beneath the weight of their winter outerwear and the heat of their entwined bodies, the sleeping bag was a comfortable haven.

"What is it?"

"I thought I heard something."

Jess struggled up beside him. "Outside?" she asked, still trying to wake up.

He nodded in the darkness, and struggled out of the sleeping bag, fumbling around for his headlamp and reaching for the zipper of the tent.

Jess cursed and grabbed for her heavy clothes, dragging them into the bag to wriggle into them before following him out.

Sam was standing in the snow right outside the tent in his unlaced boots.

She stuffed his jacket into his hands and looked up to see what had his attention, then froze.

"Do you see her?" Sam asked with a controlled calmness. The snow had picked up sometime between the time they had bedded down and the time Sam had started awake, its silent drift made visible by the moon now high in the sky, burning clearly despite the wispy clouds snowing down on them.

Standing maybe thirty feet away was Jordan Black.

"Yes."

"Good. I was afraid this was another vision."

"You aren't writhing on the ground."

"You never know," he retorted tightly. Since he seemed reluctant to take his eyes off the woman, Jess bent to tie his laces as well as her own. When she stood up, the woman was closer, not even ten feet away now.

"You have to come."

Jess and Sam eyed each other uncertainly.

"Um, are you Jordan Black?" Sam asked hesitantly.

"Yes. But we have to go now." Snow dusted her windblown mop of curls, she looked like she was wearing jeans --insane in the weather-- but she had a winter coat on, and the tops of her boots were visible over the snow that buried her feet. She carried no light or gear that they could see. Jordan gave them a half smile. "Angels don't wait for slowpokes."

"Angels," Sam stepped towards her, "what about angels? Where's Dean?!"

Her smile dimmed somewhat. "We have to hurry."

"Hurry, where?!"

"The Shrine. Hurry." She turned and started walking back into the trees. In a matter of moments she would be completely invisible, even the sound of her footsteps muffled in the winter night.

Jess ducked and grabbed their belt-packs from the vestibule and thrust one into Sam's hand. She buckled hers on while hurrying after Jordan.

She had learned early on camping trips with her uncle that you didn't put all your survival gear in one bag, especially not in bad weather. You never knew when your pack was going to fall right off its frame and go crashing into a ravine, but he said you could always bet it would be right about the time your broke a leg and it started raining in about twenty degrees. It hadn't taken much to talk Sam around to that way of thinking, even though his own training had focused more on what guns you should bring to the party and how to construct effective camouflage. So even though their gear was spread out and unpacked for camp, they should be able to survive for a little while on what was in the belt-packs.

It would be miserable, but survivable.

Sam caught her in a second, and they both hurried to keep Jordan in sight.

Jordan, for her part, walked unhesitatingly into the treacherous darkness, still without any light but the moon to see by.

"Do you want to borrow my headlamp?" Sam offered to her.

Jordan shook her head and if anything, picked up the pace. Any further questioning just got back variations of a need to hurry. Sam let it drop; he was feeling the unrelenting press of urgency again, and Jess was too out of breath from struggling to keep up with them to bother.

~~~~~~~

For hours the blackness of the mountains had been looming closer, even set against the darkness of the night sky. Jess couldn't feel her feet ...or her cheeks, or her fingers. She figured lack of feeling in her feet was probably a blessing considering how bone-tired and exhausted the rest of her was, and she trusted the warm clothing and heat generated by exertion to be suitably protecting the rest of her extremities from actual damage. She trudged along behind Sam, distracting herself from misery by thinking about how if they didn't stop soon, she was going to have to sit down, for just a few minutes...

...and slammed into Sam's back.

He grabbed her arm to brace her. "I think we're there."

"Where?"

He pointed to where Jordan stood against the stone. In the hours of walking, they had made it to the cliff face marked on the map, without Jessica really seeing how close they had come. Faintly behind Jordan, Jessica realized she was seeing a very dim orange glow.

"This is it!" Jordan announced, sounding far too energized for the grueling trek they had just completed. That --Jessica realized with horror-- Jordan must have completed twice.

"I don't think she's human, Sam," Jessica panted. "Did you bring the salt?"

He gave her an exhausted smile, and squeezed her arm before letting go to follow Jordan where she had disappeared into the cavern entrance.

~~~~~~~

The roof and the walls were uneven inside the cave. Ahead of Jess, Sam had to duck as he followed Jordan into the narrow passageway. At least out of the blowing wind it felt warmer. There was clearly some source of light up ahead, but it wasn't enough to keep them from stumbling over the rough footing.

Rough, but not as rough as it should have been.

Jessica wondered uneasily how many thousands of people over how many hundreds of years had made this trek. It should have been comforting, but in the isolation and silence of the winter night it was just eerie.

A few hundred feet in, and the narrow shaft opened into a small chamber with branching tunnels. Jordan was waiting beside one that seemed to be the source of the light.

Her face was solemn, with reddened cheeks and nose from the harrowing hike in the freezing darkness.

"Your father is worried about you," Sam told her, taking the opportunity to stretch his back out after having to stumble through the corridor hunched over.

"My father understands," she replied calmly.

Jess looked up from where she had been retying a boot-lace. "I think you're right about him understanding. That's why he's worried."

San took a step towards her. "Where have you been? What happened to you?"

Jordan gave a quick shrug and an almost impish, if fleeting, smile. "I've had things to do."

Sam and Jess traded a look. After the silence and the rush to get here, Jordan seemed in no great hurry now, and almost chatty.

"Don't we have someplace to be?" Sam finally asked.

She nodded seriously. "Yes. But I have to give you something first."

She held her hands out, eyes locked on Sam's. They were icy blue in the glare of his headlamp, but had such depth ...he stepped out to take her hands without thought.

Jordan curled her fingers and crossed her hands over her chest with an artless smile. "No gloves."

"What?"

"There's almost no time left."

"Where's Dean!" he yelled. His voice echoed off the cavern walls and tunnels until it was just a sigh in the darkness.

"No gloves," Jordan repeated.

"Sam, I don't think she's going to budge on this," Jess muttered, looking off into one of the tunnels nervously. She felt like there were eyes on them, whispering just below where she could hear.

He growled and ripped them off, stuffing them in a pocket and holding his bare hands out.

Jordan stepped forward, wrapped her pale slender fingers around his, and Sam's world dissolved into a swirl of incomprehensible chaos.

~~~~~~~

When he was able to focus again, the first thing he was aware of was the chill of the cold uneven stone floor seeping into his legs. The next was Jessica wrapped around his torso supporting him, his face buried in her damp hair, her voice raised in anger at something --someone. Jordan. Sam struggled free of Jess's arms and tried to stand.

Jessica's yelling cut off abruptly, and she surged up to grab hold of him again before he face planted.

He leaned on her for a minute while his equilibrium reasserted itself, and when his vision cleared enough to look around, they were alone in the chamber.

"She went that way," Jessica said disgustedly, jerking her chin towards the tunnel with the dim light. "What happened?!"

"I'm not sure. When she touched me ...I saw something. A lot of somethings, really. I'm not sure what."

"That was a vision?!"

"Yeah. Yeah, I think so," he still felt a little fuzzy, but it was clearing fast.

"But you're standing, and making sense. And not even bleeding this time."

"It was different. Like ...from outside, instead of in."

"She did this to you?"

"I'm not sure; it happened when she touched me."

"But you don't know what you saw?"

"No." Sam looked down the tunnel and straightened up. "But we have to go after her. We're out of time." He hadn't known he was going to say that last, but as soon as the words left his mouth he knew their truth with absolute certainly.

He plunged into the dimly lit tunnel, Jess following wordlessly at his heels.



Section Five



Masterpost