PLACERVILLE . INFO

Summary: Some kind of monster is killing children in small-town California. But when Dean investigates, he begins to suspect that the mysterious, yet irresistible, woman he's just met is connected to the crimes. 

Blood sped through Dean's veins, his heart pounded against his rib cage, sweat dripped down his spine and pooled in the small of his back. A powerful feeling of peace and well-being swept through his torso and spread out through his limbs, chasing away the tension that had been building in every muscle. He dropped his forehead to rest on the dirty tile of the bathroom wall and drew in a deep, ragged breath.

The girl beside him -- beneath him -- wrapped around him -- arched her back and stretched like a cat with a low, satisfied moan. One of Dean's hands was still on her breast, and the movement pushed them together all over again. "Oh, hell yeah," she said. "I needed that."

"Happy to help," Dean said, grinning into her dark hair, still floating on the endorphin high. She smelled like sex and beer and secondhand smoke, and it was a beautiful thing. "Anytime."

With reluctance, he moved his hand to the wall behind her and pushed himself away, grasping the end of the condom with his fingers as he pulled out and then slid it off his softening cock. He turned and tossed it in the john, wiped his fingers on a piece of toilet paper, and flushed. When he turned back, she'd pulled her tank top into place and was snapping up her pants. Everything about this girl was hot, but it was the pants that had really sealed the deal for Dean -- smooth black leather just molded to the curve of her ass like she'd been born in them, moving with the sway and swagger of her hips as she walked.

"I got a hotel room not far from here," he said. Even though it was obvious she was on her way out, Dean couldn't resist trying for round two.

"Maybe next time," she said, finishing her pants and fluffing out her dark hair. "I got a few things to take care of tonight." She reached into her pocket and pulled out a tube of red lipstick, then swiped it on her mouth without seeming to consider or worry about where it went. Dean watched, enjoying the sight, forgetting that his own pants were still undone, his shirt tossed over the stall door.

She slipped the lipstick back into her pocket and smiled up at Dean, every moment of their sweaty coupling contained in the tilt of her lips.

"Thanks, Handsome," she said, and slapped his ass hard enough that he staggered forward a step. She moved around him toward the door leading back to the bar. "I'll see you around."

Dean put his clothes on again and wiped the lipstick off his chin and neck, but by the time he got back into the bar she was gone. He'd never even gotten her name, he realized. He drank another beer, the cold liquid soothing to his overheated nerves. She didn't come back, so he just leaned against the wall, drinking and watching the crowd through the thick, smoky air. It was the kind of little road stop place that probably had a lot of fights on payday, and there was an ebb and flow to it, low conversation and music on the jukebox, denim and flannel. Dean sat outside, apart from the locals and the truckers and the barflies, just drinking and watching and letting his mind play on the girl in the leather pants.

She'd stood out in the crowd of this place; he'd seen her the moment he walked in. And yeah, she was hot, but it wasn't just that. She was kind of short, with a curvy body and dark brown hair that flipped this way and that as she moved. She shouldn’t have been anyone unusual, but there was something about her that stood out like a beacon, and it was obvious she wasn’t a local -- she fit in with them like a wolf among sheep. It was in the way she moved through that grimy bar like a predator on the prowl, standing tall and confident, eyes alert, separate and apart from everyone else in the place.

Dean was in Truckee for business, not pleasure, but after he had this case wrapped up, he planned to come back here and celebrate with Miss Leather Pants. The more he thought about round two -- and three, and four -- the more brilliant it sounded.

But the hunt had to come first.

Something in this little town had eaten three children and left the crumbs scattered all over a school playground. Three families torn apart, six grieving parents without answers. And somewhere out there a thing with teeth and an unnatural hunger that would strike again. For two weeks, Dean had hunted that thing in every way he knew. He'd learned the route from the dead kids' homes to school backward and forward. He'd interviewed their families, neighbors, teachers, the school principal, and everyone else he could think of. He'd spent hours and hours hunched over a little table in the library and the hall of records. His guns were clean three times over and the Impala was shining with fresh wax. And he hadn't managed to find anything.

Two weeks. Two wasted, frustrating weeks, and he was sitting alone in a diner eating a hamburger and soggy fries. There hadn’t been any more deaths, which was good. But something had eaten those kids, and he hadn’t killed it yet, which meant that it was still out there. Dean couldn't shake the feeling that it would be back.

Out of frustration, he'd gone back to that truck stop bar, hoping for a cold drink and maybe another shot at the brown-haired girl. But no one had seen hide or hair of her since she'd told Dean she had a few things to take care of, apparently. She was gone, left town. And the killings had stopped, too. At the same time. A pretty strange coincidence there, and Dean didn’t believe in coincidences. A flicker of an idea crossed his mind, but he shrugged it off. He refused to believe he'd had the killer in his hands, fucked her in a damn bathroom stall, and let her go. Time to get the hell out of Truckee and find a job he could do something about.

In the back corner of the diner parking lot, Dean flipped open his phone and leaned back against the Impala as he hit 'send.' Pine trees crowded in at the edges of the pavement, pushing up roots under the asphalt and casting their shadows over the roof, even though it was barely three o'clock. In the distance, the Sierra Nevadas rose high above the trees, their peaks and valleys distinct in the thin mountain air.

He wondered sometimes, would his father notice if he didn’t call in with reports? What would he do? It was a question that would probably never be answered, because Dean kept right on calling. Sometimes John answered the phone, sometimes not. Dean would just leave a message and move on with the next hunt until he heard back -- it was getting longer and longer between calls now.

This time, John answered his phone on the first ring. "Dean."

"Dad," Dean answered, fighting the urge to stand up straight and look sharp. His dad couldn't see him; he was a thousand miles away in Oklahoma. "Nothing here," he said simply, bracing himself for disapproval or anger.

"What do you mean, nothing there?" Everything about this had been easier when they were in the same place. They could cover more ground this way, but what was the point of covering the ground if he couldn’t get the job done?

"Whatever ate those kids, it's not here anymore." Dean tried to explain, even though he wasn't sure he understood it himself. "There were a few tracks, a few leads, but they were just dead ends. No one saw anything since right after the last killing, and even then, nothing useful." He could hear his own voice rising and stopped himself, gritting his teeth to keep the words from coming, then swallowed and waited for his father's response. This thing wasn't going to take care of itself, and there was no one here to get rid of it besides Dean. He felt like he'd failed, he'd missed something and let this monster slip through his grasp.

"You're sure about this one, Dean? You covered all your bases?"

"Asked everyone," Dean said. "Checked everywhere." His voice was even and calm but his left fist was clenched against the solid steel of the Impala. "Parents, teachers, neighbors, scoutmasters. School, home, church, playground. There was something here, but I'm telling you it's gone. No one saw anything unusual."

"It happens," John said. "Sometimes they just get away. We'll keep an eye out for this thing, and as soon as it shows up again we'll get it." That was less than comforting, since it could be years until it made itself known by eating a few more kids.

Dean let out a breath, looking over the Impala into the encroaching forest. A hunter had to follow instinct and all of his were telling him this creature was gone -- or dead. But he didn't know why, and something about that rubbed him the wrong way. If he hadn't taken it out, and there was no one else to do the job, then where did it go? The truth was, he had seen some strange things in Truckee -- a footprint here, a hesitation there. And a girl in leather pants, acting like she owned this little granola-and-flannel town, gone when the killings stopped.

Dean didn't mention any of that to his father, though. All he said was "Yes, sir. Any leads nearby, then?" He read the newspapers himself, of course, read between the lines of everything from the National Enquirer to the San Francisco Chronicle, but this was what John Winchester did best, and Dean was the only one left to follow his orders right now. If Sammy wanted to run off to college and leave them behind, that was his business, but Dean would stay and do what needed to be done.

"There's a haunted house in Tahoe could use some looking into," said John. "And then a couple disappearances in Placerville that could be our kind of deal."

"Yes, sir," Dean replied. "I'll let you know what I find." He flipped his phone shut and slid into the driver's seat. With any luck, he could leave Truckee and this creeping feeling behind within an hour.

The haunted house turned out to be nothing but a local legend -- there had been a gory murder-suicide there a hundred years ago, but the house was clean of EMF and no one would admit to actually seeing anything strange recently. Dean was on the road again within a day, heading for Placerville.

He drove down long, flat stretches of highway, past endless acres of fields. Over the low green crops a fine mist rose up and formed a layer of man-made fog, formed by the water shooting out of sprinklers into rounded arches. As the fields flew by, he saw very few homes except for the occasional shack, abandoned to the elements and near collapse. There were lots of farm workers, though, their backs bent low over the rows of growing things, brown skin and faded cotton shirts all that was visible from the road. Their run-down cars were parked along the edge of the highway at intervals, pulled halfway into the irrigation ditches, noses tilted down like animals drinking water from a trough. Once Dean saw a '73 Impala parked on the roadside, patches of old blue paint and dull gray primer vying for dominance. Part of him wanted to stop and take a look, but he kept on driving.

The radio dial as he approached Placerville was full of mariachi music and the farm report, so Dean dipped into his stash of tapes and slipped one in the deck without looking. The low, rough opening notes of “Wherever I May Roam” sounded out of the speakers and Dean let his shoulders relax a little. The engine rumbled along as Hetfield’s voice filled the car, singing about duty and freedom and the road.

“What do you think, Baby?” Dean asked the Impala as he drove, still thinking back to Truckee. “What happened there? Did I miss something?” He thought of that girl in the leather pants, the way she moved against him like a snake, all coiled muscle and energy. The look in her eyes when she said she had things to take care of: could she be the one who had killed those kids? What kind of spirit or monster was he dealing with here? But the car had no answer for him, no theories or legends to offer. Dean was on his own.

Placerville was farms and bars and schools and fields all around, low buildings faded in the sun and trees bent into the wind. Dean swung into town late, just as the dusty sunset was turning from purple into night, and checked into a motel. The place was just a long, low building, a bunch of rooms stuck in a row. It was his favorite kind of place, where he could park right outside and nobody asked a lot of questions.

It was too late to get anything done, so he took a quick shower and headed out again. He found a bar without too much trouble, a dimly-lit honky-tonk in the center of town. The tables were coated with grime and the music spilling out of the jukebox was tinny and twangy, but they had cold beer and neon light and that was enough for Dean. Bottle in hand, he turned around, watching the place fill up as he drank.

People entered in pairs, in groups of three and four, laughing and smiling with each other. Coworkers, couples, family, friends. Every once in a while, a person would enter alone, either joining up with the groups or heading straight for the bar, grim-faced and determined. Dean just stood back, sipped his beer and tried not to compare himself to them.

Over the sound of conversation and steel guitar, Dean could hear the distinctive click-clack of pool balls from the corner. It was a soothing, familiar sound, and he grinned to himself, thinking of the feel of a cue in his hand and piles of soft bills to be made. He walked through the crowded room, winding deliberately past the talking, laughing people, around tables and behind chairs.

In the corner there were three tables covered in worn green felt, lit by low-hanging lamps that advertised brands of beer so old Dean had never tasted them. The middle table was empty, one forlorn cue lying across the felt. Gathered around the two end tables were a few scattered groups of people. Locals, by the look of them: mostly rich kids with freshly-polished boots and big oval belt buckles.

In the middle of the group, leaning one hip against the table, he saw someone familiar: the brunette he’d been with in Truckee, the girl he’d been thinking of as Miss Leather Pants.

When he spotted her, Dean sucked in a breath in surprise and took stepped back until his shoulders pressed against the wall. She was in jeans this time, but it didn’t help her blend into the crowd. She stood out just as clearly now, darkly powerful as she moved and alert when still, in stark contrast to the clueless kids around her, just laughing and singing along to the jukebox, unaware of the predator in their midst.

She was every bit as hot as she'd been before -- maybe hotter, because now Dean knew what a mind-blowing experience it'd be to fuck her -- and just like before, he was captivated, enchanted. This time, though, he reminded himself of those kids back in Truckee who'd been torn to shreds, and he kept his distance.

When the waitress came around, in tight jeans and a t-shirt that said “Got Beer?” the kids ordered more drinks, but the brunette shook her head no. Dean could’ve used another beer to take the edge off, but it was a luxury he couldn’t afford. With no one to depend on but himself, he needed that hunter’s edge. But when the waitress's rounds brought her to Dean, he smiled a slow, lazy smile at her anyway. Her cheeks turned a little pink, and Dean grinned inwardly. Her skin was like the leather of an old baseball glove, and she was probably old enough to be his mother, but working in a place like this she probably knew a lot about the town.

It paid off, because she slowed her steps and leaned against the wall next to him. “You new in town?” she asked.

“Looking for work,” he said, which was no lie. And unless he missed his guess, he'd found it.

“Knew I hadn’t seen you before,” she said, with a look that plainly finished the thought, because I sure would’ve remembered you.

“Heard you had some strange things goin’ on around here, though.”

“Yeah,” she said, with a little shudder that was at least half overplayed. “Kids disappearing in broad daylight and all. Hard to believe it. This ain’t the city, you know.” Dean wondered if ‘the city’ meant Davis or Sacramento or San Francisco, but he didn’t ask.

“You know where it happened?” Dean asked. While they were talking, he kept one eye watching the brown-haired girl in the corner.

"Grabbed 'em right in the middle of town," she said with a sigh, shaking her head. "Like they was never there."

“World’s gone crazy,” Dean agreed noncommittally. His beer was warm in his hand, but he took a sip anyway, glancing at her over the rim of the bottle. "You hear about anything strange in town?" he asked, pushing his luck.

She looked at him a little strangely and shifted her tray so that it was between them, but she answered his question. “Place out on Tank Farm,” she said. “The old man's owned that place forever, but now there's strange noises out there, people comin' and goin' all the time, so my sister-in-law says. I'd stay away from that place if I were new in town.”

"Thanks," Dean said. "I'll make sure to do that."

“Can I get you another one of those?” she asked, looking out at the bar full of drinking customers, then regretfully back at him.

“No thanks, I’m good,” Dean said. She didn't have anything else to tell him.

He turned away from the waitress’ retreating form and back towards the pool table. Just a few feet away, Miss Leather Pants was standing, a pool cue balanced lightly in one hand. She glanced up and met his stare with one of her own, measuring and qualifying him. Her deep brown eyes were nearly black in the dim light. He'd seen that face in the midst of passion and filled with sexy satisfaction, but all that was gone now, replaced with a cold hardness that was all too familiar.

The look lasted only a moment, and then it was gone as some drunk kid walked between them. She made no move toward Dean, did not try to say anything. He looked away first, sickened by the twin mental images of hot, sweaty bodies and torn, mangled flesh. He wondered, had she heard anything? What did she know? And more importantly, who the hell was she?

He'd seen her in Truckee, where kids disappeared and turned up in pieces, and now in Placerville, where kids disappeared and never turned up. There were only two things that connected both places, and those kids weren't running away on her own. It had to be her. The odds of anything else ran too narrow to believe.

A chill ran down Dean's spine, and he began to seriously consider, for the first time, what kind of mojo could turn a girl like this into a cold-blooded monster.

The next day, he woke late to an empty room. It looked like every other cheap motel room in the country, dirty beige walls and watercolor flowers, the only thing different about it the flat, sunbleached town outside the window. He turned on the TV and flipped channels until he found some local news show, wanting to fill up the silence of the room. The anchors made small talk and joked about the weather, and their voices echoed off the blank walls. Dean showered quickly, threw on some jeans and an old t-shirt, and left.

The Impala was waiting for him in the parking lot, and he could feel something relax inside him at the sight. “Hey Girl,” he said as he slid behind the wheel, touching the dashboard with the fingertips of one hand. “Let’s check this chick out, huh?” The car didn’t answer, but the engine rumbled to life under him and that was good enough.

The night before, Dean had waited for Miss Leather Pants in the parking lot for two hours, but she'd never appeared. She must've left another way -- by a back emergency exit, maybe. She probably walked home from the bar if she didn’t pass through the parking lot, so she would be staying nearby somewhere. Dean knew that wasn't necessarily great logic, but it was worth a shot, at least.

If this girl was the killer -- still a big if as far as Dean was concerned -- then he'd had her literally in his hands and let her go. He had to stop her this time.

The honky-tonk was located in the middle of a tiny downtown strip, which was populated with a couple other bars and restaurants, a liquor store, a nail salon and a few empty businesses. Only a few motels were located close by. Across the street from the bar and a couple doors down sat a little diner, which would make a good vantage point. Besides, he was hungry.

Dean slid into a booth next to the front window and looked out through the dusty window. Past the Impala, parked at the curb, he could see the entire street. Everything looked pretty much the same in the midday light as it had the night before, except the bar was closed. Still, if that girl showed her face anywhere on the street, Dean would see her.

The menu said "breakfast served 24 hours," and Dean smiled, knowing he'd hit on just the right kind of place. He ordered a Coke and a double cheeseburger from the waitress, and sat back to observe.

He heard her before he saw her, and by then he'd been sitting there for a while. The burger was gone along with three soda refills. A copy of the local paper sat discarded on the table. A lunch crowd had come and gone, the place never filling up enough so that Dean felt guilty for taking up a table. He just sat looking out the window and trying not to look too suspicious, which he figured was a failing proposition.

It didn't matter, though; he couldn't have missed her, riding down the street on a motorcycle so loud its engine shook the diner's plate-glass window as she passed. She was all black leather and shining chrome, denim and cleavage, like something out of an auto-parts calendar. Not subtle, but then Dean had never been the type to blend in either and there was a lot to appreciate about a chick that hot, straddling a machine that fine.

Dean spent a moment appreciating her and saving the thought for later, and then scribbled down her license plate number on a corner of the newspaper. She was definitely hot, but this was no longer a pleasurable break from the action -- she was part of the job now, and Dean had to take care of business. Leaving a hefty tip for the waitress, he walked out of the diner and over to his car.

His original plan had been to go back to the motel, call Bobby, and have him look up the bike's registration to get this chick's name and info, then run a background check on her. But as he was unlocking the Impala, he saw that she had parked her bike and was walking into the diner.

Dean swore under his breath. No way he could go back in there now without being noticed, but if he'd just waited to leave for a few more minutes... Well, there was no use worrying about it now.

He got into the car and drove slowly around the block, then returned to the diner. The motorcycle was still parked outside, so Dean stopped the car a few stores down and settled in to wait, again.

This time, he didn't have to wait too long.

Leather Pants Girl came out of the diner after a few minutes. She was wearing jeans again. Dean was really gonna have to figure out a better name for her. She climbed on her bike and pulled away from the curb, and he followed behind at a distance.

The Impala wasn't the most discreet car in the world, and it wasn't that great for tailing people because of it, but Dean had no problems this time. Girl rode up to another shady-looking motel, very like the one where Dean was staying, and parked right in front of one of the ground-floor rooms that faced out to the cracked asphalt of the parking lot.

On the other side of the motel's grimy swimming pool, Dean stopped the car and sat and waited again. There was a simple chain-link fence between him and the motel, but it didn't provide much cover; he could watch the chick's room easily enough, but if she happened to look out she'd see him clear as day.

He was getting tired of waiting all the time, for this chick to go and do something really evil so he could take her out, for more kids to disappear, for his dad to call with instructions. He rested one arm on the top of the empty passenger seat and drummed out the rhythm to "Nothing Else Matters" on the vinyl. Sometimes it felt like he spent all of his time in this car. Well, if it came to that there were worse places to be, and worse things to be doing than waiting all the time. Dean could handle it. That didn’t keep him from getting bored sometimes.

In about fifteen minutes, the girl reappeared in a pair of sweatpants and an old Ramones shirt, her dark brown hair in a ponytail. She locked the door of the motel room and tucked the key in her sock, then set off at a jog down the street. A plastic ‘do not disturb’ sign hung from the knob, and Dean smiled to himself. In his extensive experience of motel-based evil, a person who was up to something generally didn’t want the maid coming in to clean up.

Dean waited about a minute after she was gone, then grabbed his picks and went over to the room she'd left. He stepped inside, knowing he had only a few minutes to look the place over.

At first glance, the room looked neat and clean -- a duffel bag on the floor had some jeans and a familiar-looking bra in it, and there were a couple pairs of shoes lined up next to the bed, but that was it. The bathroom held a box of tampons and some makeup, little bottles of shampoo and a hairbrush. Actually, there was a lot less stuff there than most girls would have, nothing compared to Cassie’s endless lineup of goop and powder and ointment, which had been a total mystery to Dean. There was nothing else unusual in the room. No black altars, no sacrificed chickens or photos of victims. The nightstand and dresser drawers held only a standard-issue Bible, a Tom Clancy book and a couple of old newspapers. Nothing special.

Dean was starting to get frustrated when he walked over to the room's small closet and slid the door open. Inside, there were some fragile-looking hangers, a stained ironing board and --jackpot-- an enormous sword and a couple of hunting knives in scabbards. The sword's blade was bare and polished to a high shine, and Dean could see a tiny reflection of his own face in it. Balled up on the floor was a small pile of clothes marked with the unmistakable color of dried blood.

Yeah, there was definitely something going on with this chick. Something bad.

He picked up the sword by the hilt -- wrapped in leather for a good grip -- and examined the blade. The cross-guard that extended from the base of the handle was notched and scarred with use, but the blade itself was sharp and well-cared for. He leaned the sword back in place and slid the closet door shut again, leaving it open a couple of inches the way it had been when he came in. Quickly, he returned to the nightstand and flipped through the newspapers there.

At first when he'd seen the papers, he'd assumed they were just nighttime reading material, but the bloody clothes and huge sword suggested that this girl was mixed up in something bad, and Dean had to check every angle to find out if it was just regular old badness or connected in some way to the missing kids he was investigating.

Working fast so he could be gone before she came back, Dean flipped through the pages of the newspapers. They were local papers, all copies of the Placerville Mountain Democrat, one from a week before and one that was nearly a month old. And sure enough, inside each section there was a story on a missing kid, circled in red. It was a pretty good indication that this girl was involved in the disappearances, and Dean felt weirdly disappointed, despite the fact that he'd already suspected that exact scenario. Making a note of the dates on the papers, he folded them up and put them back where they'd been, then left the room.

He slid behind the wheel of the Impala feeling grim. For the first time in weeks, he finally had a solid lead in these disappearances, and he knew for sure that this girl was involved in some way. There was no denying, no questioning it. There'd been a flicker of doubt in his thoughts ever since the killings stopped in Truckee and she disappeared, but now it was gone and his mind was clear and certain.

The bloodied clothes and the sharp, naked blade of the sword weighed on his mind, though. Before, he'd had some hope for the missing kids. Now it seemed like their chances were slim. They'd probably end up in tiny pieces all over a school playground or parking lot.

He rummaged around in his box of tapes and slid Judas Priest in the player, flooding his mind with drums and guitar to keep from thinking up new scenarios. He'd find out what happened when he caught this girl, but until then there was no need to imagine it.

He drove to the town’s library in the yellow light of late afternoon, and went in to look up the newspaper articles he’d seen in her room. It only took him a few minutes with the wrinkled pages of the old papers to realize that those articles didn’t have much new information in them -- just the basics on who and when and where, though they were probably missing a lot of the what and most of the why. He payed his ten cents a page and left with copies and a couple of maps, feeling edgy and aimless. Standing next to the car, he called Bobby, but there was no answer and all Dean could do was to listen to a recorded voice and leave a message with the girl’s license plate number. Hopefully, Bobby would pass through home sometime soon and be able to help, but there were no guarantees. In hunting, there never were.

Flipping his phone shut, Dean tried to think of someone else to call, something to do. If Dad was here, he'd tell Dean to wash his car or clean his guns or something safe and sensible. Not that John Winchester ever did anything safe. But if he was here, Dean would have backup and he wouldn't need to play it safe.

He was standing under a tree next to a municipal building in Placerville, California, with an itch in his spine and no way to scratch it. He'd slept until noon, the day was nearly over, and all he’d done all day was a little breaking and entering. Sure, he had a solid lead for the first time in nearly a month, but he hadn't actually gotten a chance to do anything, to hit someone or shoot something or light a fire under anything. It was just enough to leave him feeling antsy and unsatisfied, like he had to go out and do something right away or lose his mind.

There was one thing he could check out. On the maps in his hand, there was a thick black line identified as “Tank Farm Road." Hell if he knew what that meant, but it was the only other lead he had. He had no plan, no backup, and no clear idea of what he was hunting besides a little girl with a big sword. But fuck it. He was a hunter; he'd hunt.

The sun was sinking down over the horizon, and soon it would be dark enough to check out the site of the disappearances without attracting too much attention. Dean pointed the Impala toward the outskirts of town, past the shops and houses and schools, into the farms and light industrial areas, and into the rolling empty country beyond.

It wasn’t just the town that looked like it’d been baked in the sun; the outlying areas were covered with low hills, the grass an even golden-brown. The once-white barns and farmhouses along the road had probably been built before he was born, and here and there were even older buildings that looked like they were one strong breeze away from returning to the earth.

He turned left onto Tank Farm, and right away saw the reason for the name. Instead of bored-looking cows or neat rows of crops, the land out here was dotted with large metallic cylinders, some of them about the same size as those old houses he’d passed. The low, dusky light gleamed dully off their surfaces, and around them the faded grasses waved slightly in the breeze. The tanks just sat there as though they’d grown out of the ground like some kind of futuristic mushrooms. They reminded him of the grain silos that dotted the Midwest, only these were shorter and wider, with a sleeker metal finish. Dean slowed the car and rested one arm outside the window, watching as they passed by.

About three-quarters of a mile down the road, there was a break in the fence for a narrow metal gate. Even from the car, Dean could see that it was secured only by a chain and padlock. He grabbed his picks from the glove compartment, and left the motor running as he got out. Within a minute, he was pulling the car through and locking the gate behind him to cover his tracks.

The only buildings on the lot were more of the round metal tanks, with no odd corners to provide cover. He pulled around back of the closest one and parked behind it, trying to shield his car from view of the road at least.

Dean slipped his picks back in the glove compartment and tucked his Glock in the waistband of his jeans before he climbed out of the car. The weight of the gun was solid and comfortable against his back, the metal cool on his skin at first although he knew it would warm quickly. He stood in place and turned, looking at the rolling hills all around, dotted with oak trees in the distance, the road stretching off toward the horizon like a river, and the big silver cylinders all around him, identical except for their size. Everything he could see was still except for him and the blades of yellow grass that danced in the evening wind.

Nothing for it but to start where he was, then. He palmed his homemade EMF detector and set off, walking a circle around the closest tank, looking for anything unusual and finding nothing. The needle on the detector wobbled only a little as Dean crisscrossed the lot, rising sluggishly near power lines and then dropping again as he got some distance. It was all just as normal as apple pie, but Dean's skin crawled with a feeling he couldn't ignore. There was something going on at this place, but he just couldn't identify it yet.

There were at least two dozen of the things on the lot, scattered near and far, up to a half-mile away in either direction. The last of the sunlight was nearly lost and the air was cooling quickly, the sky darkening fast now that the sun was gone. Dean moved methodically from one tank to the next, checking each one carefully and keeping an eye on the road. After the sixth one with nothing out of the ordinary, he stopped, rearranging his shirt to make sure it covered the gun. He'd walked nearly a half-mile from the Impala, and his chances of being able to make a quick getaway were dwindling the farther he walked.

When he’d first started hunting with his father, he’d hated this part. Research and recon was too boring, too time-consuming for him. He wanted to go out there and shoot something, burn something or hit it where it hurt. But he learned pretty fast that when you were shooting at something, it was usually because that thing was bearing down fast and about to put its icy fingers around your neck. And with each hunt, he’d learned to appreciate the slow and steady approach more and more, the skulking around, the watching and talking and grave-digging part of what they did. He still hated spending all day in a library, but he usually had no choice. When Sam had been around that was his job, but he was gone now and it fell to Dean, with a lot of other things.

The last tank on the lot was a little smaller than the others, about the size of a double-wide trailer, and set farther away. Dean was sick and tired of looking at the things, but he went over there anyway. As he walked, he noticed something, just barely visible in the low light: the tall yellow grass that grew all over the lot was worn down near this tank. It was just a narrow path, a few trampled and bent stalks that were visible from only certain angles, but it was enough to tell Dean that someone had been here recently; here, to this tank, but not the others. In his hand, the needle of the EMF detector began to rise, and Dean felt his pulse quicken with it. There was definitely something here, something more than just old wires without insulation.

He followed the path before him, walking right up to the edge of the tank. The path didn't turn back or detour around the rounded surface, but seemed to pass right through the metal edge, so Dean looked for a door. Sure enough, at the place where one shiny silver panel met the next one, there was a tiny gap, just a half-inch or so, and some smudges on the metal that looked like fingerprints.

Dean wedged his fingertips into the gap and with difficulty, pried the heavy panel open about two feet. Inside, the space was pitch-black. The fading twilit sky did little to illuminate the area, and if anyone was inside, they would be able to see him perfectly, framed against the sunset like John Wayne. Which was cool, but getting through this hunt without getting shot or stabbed with a sword would be better. He drew his gun and stepped inside, looking around to try to get his bearings.

From the corner of his eye he sensed movement, and brought one arm up to block instinctively. In the dim light he could see a short, stocky man, his face darkened with a couple days of stubble. Dean's fist connected with a solid, fleshy arm swinging for his head, and the impact spread a shock of pain up into his shoulder. Dean struck back at his assailant, his mind calculating the probable location of head, chest, and vulnerable underbelly based on known factors like location of fists and sound of breathing. The other man countered, and they struggled blindly for a few minutes. In the dark space, Dean could see little of the man he was fighting, but he'd been in this position before and managed to hold his own, landing kicks and punches as he could. The other man was smaller and stockier than Dean, and he fought silently and with concentration, but Dean soon began to get the best of him. One hand was still occupied with his gun, and he managed to use that to his advantage, swinging out and hitting the man across the cheekbone with the side of the barrel. The impact was loud in the silent space, and the other man staggered backward for a moment.

In that moment, he heard running feet and a rumble of what might have been thunder. Great, reinforcements. His eyes were growing used to the low light inside the tank now, and he saw the man he'd been fighting push himself to his feet and rush forward to attack again. Dean quickly shoved his gun into his back pocket, and when the man lunged Dean stepped out of his path like a matador with an angry bull. As the man rushed past him, Dean grabbed both his shoulders and shoved him, so that he tripped and went sprawling face-down in the dirt of the tank's hard-packed floor.

He'd heard running footsteps, though, and so he knew this wasn't over. It was a break in the action, that's all. Dean stepped farther back into shadow, and looked around the inside of the metal tank to see if there was anything he could use to his advantage. He'd expected the place to be like the grain silos that it resembled; Dean hadn't been much of a farm kid, but he'd seen silos before and this wasn't like anything he'd seen growing up in Kansas. The floor was bare and flat, and under his boots it felt like hard-packed dirt. On one side of the round room was a low platform, somewhat like a stage, and in the center of it was a chair where a small figure sat slumped over.

Dean didn't have time to give much thought to the layout of the place, though, other than to glance around and try to remember as much as he could. The running footsteps he'd heard earlier had almost reached his position. He pressed his back to the wall beside the partly-open door and let them come.

Three men approached the tank at a run, all dressed in laborer's clothes of jeans and flannel shirts with ancient, worn-in cowboy boots. Like the man who had attacked Dean inside the tank, they were all somewhat shorter than Dean but muscular and powerfully built. As the three drew nearer, the man on the ground struggled to his feet and stood, blood running down the left side of his face from welts that still bore the marks of Dean's pistol-whipping. He bared his teeth in a grimace and began moving forward with the others. They were almost on him when Dean heard the rumbling sound he'd mistaken for thunder earlier.

Through the open door of the tank he could see a low, dark shape curving around through the gate and past the tanks in the distance, followed by a cloud of dust that rose from the dirt in its wake. The rumble grew louder as the men drew closer to Dean, and he knew he could not waste time staring at something other than the four guys about to jump him, but he could not pull his eyes away. As the dust cloud grew closer, he could make out the shape at its front more clearly -- chrome and steel, rubber and leather. A motorcycle, and in the driver's seat was the brown-haired girl.

Oh yeah, he was in trouble now.

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Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction. Faith and Dean were not created by me and are owned by Mutant Enemy Productions, Joss Whedon, Eric Kripke, and Warner Brothers Television. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.