Shadow. // Dean //

"Who the hell was that crazy chick?" Dean reappeared at Sam's elbow with a beer in one hand, still obviously disgruntled from Meg's luggage comment. Sam tore his eyes away from the door Meg had departed through and shrugged dismissively. "Some girl I met a few months back." "And you told her I treat you like luggage?!" "No!" Sam was quick to deny this. Dean took a swig of beer and then refused to leave the subject alone. "You were bitching about me to some random chick??" The boys had left the bar by this point and were walking back towards the Impala. Sam shook his head vigorously. "It was during that time when we had the huge fight about Dad and went our separate ways for a few days. I met her along the side of the road and then again at a bus stop in Indiana. I was venting."

Dean finished off his beer and tossed it with a clank into the trash can they had walked past. "Well is there any truth to it? Am I holding you against your will Sam?" His tone was edgy. Irritable. Sam's head shaking got faster. "No Dean, of course not! It was stupid, ok?" Dean sighed and reluctantly let the matter rest there. Sam still had an unsettled look to his eyes. "What's with you?" Sam bit his lip. "I don't know. I just can't help thinking that there is something really strange going on here. Something about Meg..." Dean gave a teasingly suggestive grin. "I think you're just bummed you let her leave without getting a little something something...maybe you're doing too MUCH thinking with your upstairs brain, huh?" Sam made a face. "No, it's not like that. There's just something off about this girl that I can't quite figure out...I mean, I literally met her on the side of the road months ago and now she's here? At the same bar where one of the vics worked? At the same bar where I was??" Dean shrugged with an expression of very little interest. "Chicago's a pretty big place Sam. Fairly well known. It's not like this is some backwoods hick town." Sam apparently wasn't listening. "You go see if you can find out anything about that symbol" he directed. Dean raised an eyebrow curiously. "Where are you going?" "I'm going to follow Meg. See what's up." Dean's eyebrow descended, his lips twisting into a teasing smile. He clapped Sam's shoulder good-naturedly.

"Sure you are."

The motel was closer to the bar than Meg's apartment which is why Dean had -- reluctantly -- allowed Sam to take it, leaving him to his own feet for transportation. Once shut up back inside the motel room, he cracked open every book on symbols that they owned in their mini-portable-library. He leafed through them and spent an hour or so browsing Sam's laptop which had fortunately been left at the motel. So by the time his phone rang, with Sam on the other end of the line, he had quite a bit of information to dish out. But he couldn't resist starting with, "you know, it's far more romantic to just go up to her door and knock on it and ask her out, rather than lurking outside her window. Just a tip."

Sam did not sound amused. "What'd you find out?" Dean smiled widely, but he let the subject rest, moving on to the actual reason Sam had called. "The sign is Zoroastrian" he informed his brother. "Thousands and thousands of years old. Basically it's the symbol of a daeva." "What the heck's a daeva?" Dean rifled through some of the pages in front of him. "It loosely translates to demon of darkness. They're real savage things. Tear you apart in a second if given the chance. They're like demonic pitbulls." "Huh..." Sam sounded impressed for a minute, then toned it down with some skeptical curiosity thrown in. "How'd you figure all this out?" Dean leaned back in his chair, a hint of injured pride to his tone when he answered. "Dude, give me a little credit here. You don't have the corner on paper chasing." "Oh yeah?" Sam chuckled. "What's the last book you read?" Dean opened his mouth. "That wasn't porn" Sam finished. Dean closed his mouth, gave a shrug of admittance and then let out a chuckle of his own. "Ok, fine, I called Caleb and he told me." Sam's tone remained amused. "What else did he tell you?" Dean scanned the notes he had taken while on the phone with Caleb. "They have to be summoned. But whoever summons them has to have a real strong knowledge of the spell that binds them because these things tend to bite the hand that feeds them." He paused and then added dryly, "and the arm, and the torso, and the"-

"What do they look like" Sam interrupted when it appeared Dean was just going to list off body parts for awhile. "No one knows. They haven't been seen in millenniums" Dean admitted. "But whoever is summoning them seems like a real player here and they're obviously summoning the daevas for a reason...something more deadly than just a few innocent deaths that could be administered in much simpler ways, so we need to find them." He set his jaw grimly.

"And stop them."

"She what??"

Dean took a swig of beer as Sam repeated all he had seen when following Meg. "And she spoke into a bowl of blood" Sam finished grimly. "She was talking to someone. Told them that we were in town and maybe they should wait on the ritual until we'd left. She seemed concerned we'd screw it up." Dean took another swig of beer with half a smirk. "Pretty smart for a psycho bitch." Sam waved this aside. "Yeah, well, whatever she was talking to didn't seem to like the idea because she mentioned getting everything ready for tomorrow night. The same place, same time as tonight." Dean considered this. "Well who do you think she was talking to? The daeva?" Sam shook his head, dismissing the theory. "No, you said those things were savages. Taking orders. And whoever she was talking to was GIVING orders. She was calling it 'sir' a lot and seemed scared of it almost." Dean set down his beer bottle with a firm clunk on the table in front of him. His face had suddenly lost most of its color. "Holy crap."

Sam slid into the seat across from his brother. "What?" Dean let out a slow breath and then held up two official looking documents. "Well, while you were trailing Miss. Bloodlust over there, I pulled a favor with my friend Amy at the police department and went over the two vics' information with a fine-tooth comb. We missed something the first time." "What" Sam repeated at a lower volume, almost scared of what the answer would be. Dean passed over the first of the files. "The first vic may have spent the last thirty some-odd years here in Chicago but look where he was born. Same with vic number two." Sam peered at the bottom line of both files where the birth towns were listed. "Lawrence Kansas" he read out loud, his heart suddenly starting to beat much faster with realization. "Holy Crap." Dean snapped closed the file he had been holding open and gave a grim nod.

"Yeah."

Not expecting much else, Dean couldn't say he was surprised when his father's phone went straight to voicemail after three rings, but there was a twinge of something else. He couldn't quite place the feeling and he didn't care to try so instead, he rattled off the case information that they knew so far, finishing with, "so we think it's a strong lead...might even be the thing itself...anyway, the warehouse we'll be at is 1435 west erie." He was aware of Sam reentering the room but kept talking, keeping his tone carefully measured. "If you get this message, Dad, get to Chicago as fast as you can. Please." He hung up and swallowed hard.

"Voicemail" Sam asked from behind him. He nodded and tossed his phone onto the closer bed. For something other than their father to talk about, Dean's eyes fell upon the two stuffed duffel bags Sam had brought in. "What did you get?" Sam unzipped the first bag, revealing an assortment of weapons. "Dude, I ransacked that trunk. I grabbed everything I could think of." He unzipped the second to reveal jugs of holy water, crosses, leather-bound books and other miscellaneous objects. "I figured we don't really know what we're up against so better be prepared for everything and anything. Right?" Dean pulled a shotgun from the first bag and inspected it. "Right."

For the next ten minutes or so, the boys focused on making sure all the guns were loaded. Ready to go. They worked in comfortable silence side by side. Dean was just loading two rounds of rocksalt into the final shotgun when Sam spoke up again. "Can you imagine if we actually got this thing tonight? If it was just...over?" Dean glanced sideways at him, a warning bell going off in his head though he couldn't pin down exactly why this sentence worried him. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves" he warned. Sam grinned, shaking his head. "I know...it's just...wow, if we finally killed the demon...man, I'd sleep for a month." He placed the loaded pistol in one hand down on top of the duffel bag between them. "I'd go back to school...just be a normal person again. Maybe even"- "You'd go back to school" Dean interrupted, the warning bell getting louder.

"Sure." Sam shrugged as though this were the most obvious thing in the world. He eyed Dean curiously. "Why? What are you going to do when it's over?" "It will never be over" Dean returned flatly.

"There's always going to be something to hunt."

Dean had nothing to say after Sam's little 'going his own way' comment and was worn out from this whole emotional conversation so he let the moment pass. With nothing to do for the rest of the night and most of the next day before it would be time to leave, the brothers tried to get some rest. Dean wasn't sure how successful an attempt it was for Sam, but he had basically just lay on the bed for six hours without managing to even get his eyes closed, let alone sleep. There was too much going on in his head.
~~~

Neither brother mentioned anything that had been said on their walk to the warehouse. Sam showed Dean the elevator shaft he had climbed and they did the same. It was a little harder this time since there were two of them and they were each carrying a duffel bag over one shoulder, but they made it relatively easily to the top where they found Meg already in place by the altar. Dean silently gestured to Sam, indicating they should slip out of the shaft and into the room. There were two large beams towards the back of the room that would be easy enough to hide behind. Sam was out first, followed by Dean. They moved as stealthily as possible towards the beams, each with one of the loaded guns aimed steadily at Meg's back while they moved.

They had barely been stationed in their hiding places for two minutes when Meg's voice rang out clearly. "Guys...hiding is rather childish don't you think?" Dean looked over at Sam in surprise and then back to Meg. "Well that didn't work out like I planned" he muttered as he and Sam slowly straightened up from their crouches and moved into the center of the room, still pointing their guns at Meg, who had turned to face them. She smiled at Sam. "Sam...I have to say...this puts a real crimp in our relationship." "Tell me about it" Sam shot right back, eying the altar behind her. "Who are you waiting for Meg" Sam went on, placing his finger on the trigger of his shotgun. Meg's smile widened as though she was about to tell some big joke. "You."
~~~

Everything had happened so fast. No sooner had the word "you" left her lips then the daevas were attacking. Dean had felt himself being thrown backwards by an incredibly strong force, though he naturally couldn't see anything but its shadow on the wall. His head had hit something solid and everything had gone black. And now, he was waking slowly, a throbbing pain in his head, a gash above his right eye, leaking blood down his face. And his wrists bound behind his back to one of the two beams. Sam was bound to the other, three long bloody claw marks etched into his left cheek. Dean gave a slightly audible groan as he shifted around, trying to work his wrists free of the ropes. Meg was watching them with a delighted smile.

"Hey Sammy...don't take this the wrong way, but you're girlfriend's a bitch."