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The stained glass had frozen, and refracted the moonlight in unnatural fractals across the tiles. The sun had set about an hour ago; just in time for the choir boys’ evening practise. Above the crypt, you could hear their chatter, their feet pitter-pattering like midwinter rain. If you strained your ears, in tune with the night’s harmonies, you could even hear the hoots of a barn owl scrutinizing the forest for a prey.
But Father Leary was not attuned to the night. He had his mind on more luminous a goal.
His steps echoed down the narrow staircase to the crypt, scaring off the rats and beetles. He had no need for a flashlight – the basement glowed with goldish light, filtered brown through the door to the relic chamber. It sent shadows through the crypt, and Father Leary’s was longest of them all. Still, it advanced, inexorably, toward the door. The light seemed brighter and whiter, almost vibrating with the desire to escape. A high-pitched sound escaped it, almost like a primitive, holy attempt at singing. Had it been free, the wooden hinges that hindered it would have been reduced to ash in seconds. Now, it only pulsated like a halo around the man-made oak, biding its time.
Father Leary breathed, a small puff escaping his lips and drifting towards the door; like most things around the light, it seemed absorbed, a speck around a sun. All sound seemed muffled – even the choir was miles above, hidden on the bare surface of the world.
He took a step, then another. The door rattled against its bounds, reaching for – him, perhaps? His trembling hand reached back –
But then –
“Father?”
His heart skipped a beat. Caught like a child stroking the flame, Father Leary whirled around, his breath catching in his throat.
It was only Lewis, the priest assistant. The man seemed half-asleep – he always was, at this time of winter. One of the many habits (including, but not limited to, his disgusting tendency to sniffle at every given opportunity) that made Leary despise the man. And now he had discovered the crypt.
Leary put on a wide smile. “Lewis. I told you not to come in here.”
But Lewis wasn’t listening, instead choosing to frown at the door behind Father Leary. He was holding a phone in his hands. “What are you – what is this?” He whispered in his husky little voice.
“Nothing you need to be concerned with.” Subtly, he moved between Lewis and the door. He was not going to share the light with a simple assistant. It was too glorious for anyone else.
“I thought you were hiding something down here. I knew those weren’t miracles.”
Leary’s fist closed, hard. His smile faded. “Nothing about the miracles is fake, I assure you,” he said in a low voice. “Now, if you would have the kindness to –”
The music upstairs shifted, and through the stone you could hear the clear-cut harmonies of Hark the Herald Angels . Well, he thought, stopping to listen. How fitting.
“I don’t know what you’re up to, Father, but you’re hurting this town. Scaring them. Whatever dark intentions you have, it has to stop.”
At this Leary paused. He looked to Lewis, his frail form, his white hair and crooked teeth. And he laughed.
“Dark?”
A breath – Light and life to all he brings, sang the choir upstairs . Risen with healing in his wings.
And then Leary broke into peals of laughter, ones that mixed with the songs like drops of acid rain.
“Lewis, this is the furthest thing from dark we’ve ever been.”
He stepped to the side, presenting the haloed door in all its glory. The assistant’s eyes went wide as saucers, reflecting the gold in his pupils. His jaw went slack.
“This…”
Leary took advantage of the distraction. With a swipe he knocked the phone away from Lewis’ hand and sent his closed fist careening towards his face. It landed straight in the centre. With a cry the man stumbled backwards, clutching at his nose. Moving fast, Leary pulled his arm behind him, twisting it at an unnatural angle, and pivoted so his back was pressed onto Leary’s own chest.
Born to raise us from the earth, born to give us second birth!
“What are you doing?!” cried Lewis, jerking his restrained arm in panic. Leary didn’t answer, but pushed him deeper inside the crypt. Closer, and closer, to the glowing singing door.
Evidently Lewis had understood what would happen. “No – don’t!” He shouted, but Leary quickly pressed his hand to his mouth.
When he was five inches from the pulsating door – the tendrils of power digging into his brain, the mind-warping change of reality, the sheer, untapped holiness trapped inside a human relic chamber – he reached out his hand, just like he’d had before the assistant’s interruption.
“May the Lord bless you, Lewis Thornby.”
“Stop - !”
Closing his eyes, Father Leary swiftly threw open the door – the light burned red behind his eyelids, searing pain racing through his head despite his precautions. The high-pitched ringing became a deafening storm of screeching and hissing blades, drowning out any human sound that could have possibly survived. Ignoring Lewis’ pleas, Leary tossed Lewis through the doors and into the light, which seemed to grow brighter with every millisecond. He could feel gusts of wind prickle through his hair, and was certain it would turn into a ruthless storm soon.
Screams – thousands of them, echoing around the room, weeping and singing and cursing and murderous. The pain behind Leary’s eyes became unbearable.
Then, a slam – his arms had jerked the door shut, and the screeches melted back down into the dangerous whistles of earlier.
The screams had stopped.
He remained.
He would need to get rid of the body.
A job for tomorrow. After the boys had finished practising, perhaps.
For now, Leary stood still next to the glowing door, breathing heavily, knuckles bloody and conscience black.
Hark the herald angels sing , finished the choir with all its might , glory to the newborn King!
The scraper made another lap across the windscreen of the Impala – Dean watched the flakes of frost with a kind of passive fascination as they spiralled into the air before dropping loosely, burrowing into the snow.
Today’s wakeup had been hard. The sound of chattering teeth had pierced through his already patchy sleep – he figured the bags under his eyes must rival a zombie’s. Last night’s whiskey, shared with a grunting John while they silently watched the snowflakes, still simmered unsteadily in his stomach. Sounds were muted and dull, the air hanging low with the upcoming storm. On his right, trees sprouted from the white-washed ground, forming a miniature forest in between two plains. He shivered, and buried himself deeper in his jacket. Stupid goddamn Minnesota.
A thump from behind him.
“Ready,” said John as he closed the hood. His hands were stained with oil, and the white specks of snow that landed on it almost made them look like the night sky.
Dean nodded, and finished dusting off the rest of the frost. He blew into his gloves, rubbing them together to chase off the bite.
A silence, as John moved to fetch a water bottle. Dean had thought of asking him about Sam last night. But the brewing clouds in his father’s eyes had dissuaded him once more.
He wondered what his brother’s Christmas Eve looked like now. When they’d been kids, Dean had managed to steal a fern from a nearby florist, and when he’d come home he had brandished it to Sam like it was the Lion King. We’re gonna decorate it , he’d chimed, and Sam had grinned wildly – he’d lost his incisor two days before, and the new gap was proudly on display. They’d spent the evening decorating the “tree” with anything remotely shiny they could find; a spoon, spare coins they’d tied strings on, bright red wrapping paper Sam had found in the trash. The angel on the top had been an empty roll of toilet paper with string wire in the shape of wings. Retrospectively, Dean knew the poor fern had looked pathetic – overloaded with bric-a-brac, it had looked nothing like what he had seen in the movies. But back then, to two kids alone in a motel room, it had been everything.
Still, whatever Christmas tree proudly stood in the corner of Sam’s college dorm was bound to be a step up from shitty ferns and tin angels.
“Where’re we heading?” Dean asked, because it had been eight hours on the road, and that was roughly the time John usually started talking about the hunt.
A lump of snow had the time to fall off a dead branch beside Dean before John spoke.
“Virginia, Minnesota,” he said, and the dainty puffs of vapour that came out looked almost out of place beside John’s own hard, creased features. His eyes still held the tired, whiskey-induced haze that had been haunting them since Sam. “Couple of signs, omens came cropping up about a week ago. Nothing too big – spontaneous non-human combustions, glasses moving on their own, that sort of thing. Until last week. A man found dead in a ditch with his eyes gouged out.”
“Poltergeist?” Dean ventured.
John’s lips thinned, and he hummed. “Maybe.”
Dean bit his cheeks, like he somehow failed a test. He’d felt that way a lot, recently, weighing down like old snow.
The air stung his lungs as he took a breath. “Should be simple enough,” he added, because leaving the conversation on a maybe felt too much like Sam’s absence.
John hummed again, and opened the door to the driver’s seat.
And that was his cue. Before following in, though, Dean took one last delving glance into the woods. For the second that laid in between blinks, he imagined the forest going on, and on, and on, his gaze getting lost in the wilderness, lost between the trees. For a second, the clouds darkened, and he swore the crows were watching him back.
The sound of static from the car jolted him back to cold, Minnesotan reality. He turned around, showed his back to the woods.
“Goddamn radio’s broken,” John grumbled, and gave the speaker a final tap. It crackled, fizzed, and reverted back to the same sounds as before, like nails interminably scratching a wooden door. With a jab at the button and a growl that had Dean wincing, he turned the radio off and revved the engine up. Replacing the eerie, inhuman buzz of distorted soundwaves with the reassuring rumbles of burning gas.
“Maybe the snow’s creating interference,” Dean supplied.
John just raised his eyebrows slightly. “Come on,” he said after a pause. “I want to be there before sundown.”
“Yes, sir,” Dean replied, tossed the scraper back in the glovebox, and took a seat next to his father.
A gust of wind blew Dean’s hood clean off, for the eleventh time this minute.
“Goddamnit!” He swore, momentarily unclasping his hands to settle it back over his head. Didn’t stop the cold wind from rushing in, though, and in a second Dean’s ears were freezing again.
The blizzard hadn’t exactly taken them by surprise, but the absence of any inns definitely had. By the time John had given up and parked the car in the parking lot of a closed-down grocery shop, the cute snowflakes had turned into vicious spikes of frozen death traps, each competing for the chance to make their way under Dean’s layers of clothing. Unfortunately, they had run out of the last of their food, and John had decided facing the Winter Wonderland was better than starving to death in the middle of Minnesota.
He squinted. Despite knowing Virginia wasn’t far ahead, he couldn’t see much past the raging snow. Christ, it was like he was in the Himalayas. Maybe the thing they were hunting for was the goddamn yeti.
“You sure about this, Dad?” He screamed against the wind.
John trudged on in front of him – either he hadn’t heard or he didn’t want to waste his breath by answering, which was probably the smartest move. He didn’t seem to be bothered by the snow – or if he was, no more than he was bothered by everything these days. His flashlight bravely projected a fragile beam through the storm. Strewn across his back hung the supplies they’d fished from the Impala. Salt, shovels, rifles.
He couldn’t feel his fingers, and his own supplies were banging against his thigh. Stupid snow. Stupid cold. Stupid poltergeist. Stupid Christmas. Stupid Sam for staying in a cozy little dorm room. Asshole was probably drinking some girly little hot cocoa with a steaming little cherry on top –
He bumped headfirst into John’s shoulder. He had stopped short, snow already collecting on top of his shoulders.
“Are we there… wow.”
HAPPY HOLIDAYS! Cheered the temporary sign a few yards ahead of the flashlight. A cartoon snowman grinned down at them, illuminated by red-and-green bulbs that, paired with the skeletal shadows of the trees, gave the button-eyes a strange, glinting quality. It seemed to creak in the wind, though maybe that was the sound of Dean’s chattering teeth. Welcome to Virginia, Minnesota , went the sign underneath spooky Frosty’s season greetings.
Seemed like they’d reached their destination.
“Okay,” Dean said finally. “This is creepy.”
Their shoes on the asphalt were the only sounds that disturbed the death silence that greeted them in Virginia. The snow had calmed down – actually, the snow had stalled to a halt almost the moment they stepped foot into the village. When Dean looked behind them, he was greeted with an almost-calm landscape, pearly white hills and birds hesitantly whistling the beginning of a tune.
The marketplace was deserted. You could hear a penny drop in the freshly-fallen snow and it would’ve sounded like a pair of cymbals. The faint sound of pre-recorded carols echoed from somewhere in the middle of the plaza – Dean could make out the minor chords of a children’s choir. A few LED-rattled candy canes hung from gutters and lampposts, and some kid had slapped Santa hat stickers on street signs. Ribbons had been torn from their place on the mini-Christmas tree that stood at the centre, fluttering aimlessly in the after-storm breeze. Frozen fruit and jars of honey peeked from beneath the stalls, some even half-eaten on the floor, like they’d been dropped in a hurry. Tattered covers had been hastily thrown over the most vulnerable merchandise, but mostly the market seemed in more of a chaos than it usually was. A loose plastic bag rolled past his feet.
Dean had never visited a Christmas market before. But this was far from the jolly atmosphere of Hallmark movies. Not even an eggnog stand for him to steal from.
“The strength of the storm must’ve been a surprise,” John muttered. “Everyone must’ve taken shelter.”
“Knock on some doors?” offered Dean.
John was already ahead, off towards the first house. Dean pursed his lips, and followed him, his feet crunching softly on the fresh coat of snow.
Church bells chimed in the background. The sun, barely out from its hideout, began its descent behind the hills, tinting the snow the colour of rust and blood.
No one was home. A freaking ghost town. Any door they knocked on yielded the same result: a big, silent ball of zilch. Locked and shut, no light through any window. Despite the end of the storm, no one had come back to the market to claim their goods – honestly, those oranges were begging to be stolen. They had tried the houses down the road, too, further away from the market, with no more success. One time Dean was certain he’d seen a curtain close in the corner of his vision, but when he'd gone to take a closer look the house had looked completely vacant.
If you ruled out the dead option, that left only one place to look for.
The church bells rang once more, their low, vibrating notes making Dean’s head spin. The building seemed like the oldest one in town, with crude, unchiselled stone and long ivy roots sprouting from the walls, covering the eastern wall entirely. They followed a paved, overgrown alleyway through the graveyard, between tombstones that emerged like mushrooms out of the snowy grass.
Not a poltergeist’s usual haunt, but weirder things have happened. Maybe a vengeful ghost?
With one final crunching step, they found themselves in front of the massive oak door at the same time as the last bell clanged. There were definitely people there – Dean could see flickering lights, filtered green-and-blue through the stained-glass windows. The monotonous omens of a catholic mass: droning Latin, muttered amens, and the clinging smell of old candle-smoke. From the graveyard, a raven crowed.
John opened the door, a sliver of candlelight landing on the sparkling, unsacred soil. The sounds of scuffling – church members turning their heads to assess the source of the disturbance. There was something almost owl-like in their movements, Dean thought. Eyes half-lidded, sitting still and straight in their reverence. A thousand eyes moving in unison, landing on him like tight-grip talons.
The ceremony stilled into a hush, even the candlesmoke seeming to still in its relentless swirls. His father moved on, unperturbed by the scrutiny, weaving his way through the pews until he found a sitting space wide enough for two. With a flop that sent the old pew creaking, he dropped into the seat, arms and legs spread wide as he sent a raised brow to the priest. Is there a problem here? his eyes asked with one sharp, military glint. Dean straightened instinctively, still at the entrance of the church.
The staring contest ended, and the priest averted his eyes, slipping back into his shakier-than-usual liturgy. The assembly swayed back to attention, interest in this heathen almost-challenge trickling out in favour of their God. John twisted in his seat and waved Dean over with two fingers.
Right . Dean shuffled over, overly conscious of the squeak of his shoes against the tiles. The owl-eyes seemed to peer at him as he made his way to the middle of the pews and took a seat next to his father.
“How’s it going?” He asked the girl to his left, who promptly ignored him. Ouch.
Why had everyone decided to take refuge here? Surely not everyone in the town was a fervent worshipper. Even in Minnesota.
“Eyes sharp,” John told him as soon as he was down. “Look for anything unusual.”
Dean nodded, placing his hands in the pockets of his jacket. He felt uncomfortably out of place in this mass – like a foreign element in a living body. Outside of the mystery. Fine by him, really. He couldn’t see himself ever bowing his head in prayer to an absent god.
“ For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways ,” read the priest, unaware of Dean’s ruminations. The domed ceiling refracted his voice, sending each word flying over the community. “ They will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone .”
Nods in the audience. His mom’s words whispered in Dean’s ear, and he shook his head, trying to throw them out. John was unaffected – he stared at the assembly, meeting every stray owl eye with stoic defiance, scanning them for ripples in their pious surface. Anyone could hide something, he’d drilled into Dean’s skull long ago. The trick was to tell them you knew their secret already, and they’d crawl out of the woodworks on their own, monsters or not.
Those same words had echoed after Sam when he’d left. Despite all his threats, Dean – and John, it seemed – had never expected him to abandon them like this. Sometimes you just didn’t know a person as well as you thought.
“The word of the Lord,” chimed the priest again.
“Thanks be to God,” answered the Church. Like a ghost, mindlessly repeating its final words. John stayed silent, and so did Dean. His fingers went to fiddle with the zip lining his jacket. Up, and down. Up, and down. The cold seemed to seep through the previously-toasty sanctuary – the old flannel he’d thrown on in the morning, already roughened up by the blizzard, struggled to keep the shivers from racking his body. Subtly, he brought his hands together and starting rubbing, his breath sending puffs of warmth around the fingers.
John jabbed his knee.
“The priest,” he muttered. His eyes, intense and locked in, bore into the front like rifle bullets.
Frowning, Dean focused on the clergyman. He hadn’t noticed anything suspicious at first glance, apart from the Latin-chanting and a frankly horrifying receding hairline. He was a thin, white man with frown lines that went down all the way to his chin. Nothing too charismatic – at least not enough to have pulled Dean away from oranges and eggnog, anyway. The traditional dress ( it’s a chasuble, Dean ), like in the masses Sam had sometimes watched on TV and refused to let Dean change the channel from. It rippled in white-and-gold shimmers, draping gracefully down to the cold tiles below.
His hands were trembling. In between breaths, or when the assembly were busy reading the psalms off the registry, he would often cast his eyes to the side, glancing at the left-wing door. Every so often, he’d flick a nervous look towards John. A common reaction, really. Still, not something his father would generally let slide.
“Think there’s something important behind the door?” whispered Dean amid the Kyrie Eleison s.
“Might be.” John’s jaw was set, which usually meant most definitely . Dean bit his cheek. You spent enough time hunting with John Winchester, you soon learned to trust his gut instincts. If he told you to shoot, you went for it, no questions asked.
(Sam had always, always asked questions.)
“Tomorrow is a special day,” the priest said, unaware of their conversation. “As we celebrate the birth of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, let us remember that His power resides within you at this very moment. As we remember the ones we lost –” Dean and John shared a look there, “– the cold and the tears and suffering, may we also recognize…”
The priest’s voice became agitated – wavering, as if his trembling only revealed the surface of his panic, as if the storm inside him threatened to escape through his throat. It wasn’t an intensity Dean was used to in clergymen – even Pastor Jim hadn’t had the same febrility when he’d tried to get Sam and Dean to listen to his Bible stories. There was a sort of halt in the audience – Dean felt the girl next to him – the one who’d ignored him all service – straighten her back.
“Lux in tenebris,” finished the priest, and raised his arms. “The light in the darkness.”
A horrifying peal of thunder bellowed outside – hadn’t the sun shined a minute ago? The windows shattered in exact synchrony, spraying their shards of glass into the snow. The audience gasped – a gust of wind strong enough to blow Dean’s scarf off rushed past the aisle, blowing out every candle in its wake. The doors creaked, but stayed shut.
There was a beat of deathly silence and a heaviness in the air. A breath of awe. Amid his own sceptical-but-impressed pause, Dean could hear nothing but his father’s long, eyeroll-supported sigh; John had never been one for theatrics, however spectacular.
“Be hopeful, my friends, for the dark days are almost over. The Lord has sent his angels to guide us. And soon, they will spread His will over the wicked.”
A chorus of amens, again. A few sniffles. Like this light show was just like any old usual Sunday.
Then the priest’s face fell, and he closed his eyes. His voice went quiet – so much that Dean had to strain his ears to hear him.
“Tomorrow, a miracle happens. You have seen the signs – the Earth preparing to meet its saviour. For tomorrow, God will walk among us.”
The church – unlike Pastor Jim’s, and certainly unlike any Catholic Church Dean had ever been in – suddenly erupted in cheers. The woman next to him seemed to wake up from her coma, and jumped from her chair like her neighbours. Awkwardly, Dean shifted, wondering if he should stand up as well, when he caught his father’s stormy eyes.
He stayed still.
When the clapping ended, the organ played again for one last hymn – the crowd had quickly returned back to its droning Latin, but the excitement still buzzed inside the imposing room. Then, the closing prayers were said, and people started shuffling out into the cold. The remaining faithful stayed in groups, little clumps of blood in the body of Christ.
Dean’s mind had wandered, despite his father’s instructions. One Christmas, he had caught Sam sneaking out of the motel, his ratty, trash-lifted earmuffs bright green against the darkness. Where are you going? Dean had whisper-shouted, as John slept on the couch next room over. Sam hadn’t answered then, just sagged his shoulders and trudged back towards the door, pushing past Dean in the process.
It hadn’t meant much at the time – just another one of Sam’s half-attempts to make John worry. Dean had ignored it, just handed him a clumsily-wrapped notebook-and-crayon set as a gift, looking anywhere but in his brother’s eyes. Silently, without waking John up. A two-person celebration that looked more like a wake. One that, despite everything, had warmed his heart in the cold night.
He wondered where Sam would have gone, had he let him go. Maybe to one of those churches, with a droning priest and mumbling faithfuls who somehow had life all freaking figured out.
“Let’s go,” John said finally, when the space around the preacher cleared enough that a path could be traced. The pew made a creak as he lifted himself up.
Right. Time to go intel-fishing.
They made their way up to the front, where a choir boy nearly ran Dean over in his eagerness to ditch the robes. Fair enough, Dean thought. Couldn’t pay him to parade around all morning in a red outfit and sing like a damn canary.
When the priest’s eye landed on John, the change was instantaneous. The nervous twitch of his eye increased so much Dean thought he would go into shock. He smiled tightly to the couple he was talking to, but by the time he had turned around John was standing right in front, blocking his way to the right-wing door. Dean stayed a few feet behind, ready to back him up.
“Can we have a few words, sir?” John asked.
Dean blinked at his father’s aggressive tone . Okay. Direct route. Sure.
The priest’s face slackened, before seeming to collect itself, his wrinkles bouncing sideways into a warm-ish smile.
“Of course, my child. What might be on your mind?”
Dean saw John tighten at this, his shoulders squaring. His brows furrowed. Shit.
“Awesome!” Dean stepped in, placing himself to his father’s right. “My dad and I are new in town. We’re just looking for, uh…”
He looked sideways to John, but the latter just glared. Right.
“I see,” the priest answered, his eye still nervously jumping towards the gruff man giving him the evil eye. “Searching for a Christian community? It’s hard to come by these days.”
Lotta people for a church that’s supposed to be dying, Dean thought.
He grinned widely instead. “Yeah! We’re big fans of. Uh. Saints. And stuff. Holy Mary, gotta love her,” he added with a wink.
“Dean,” his father’s voice sounded, and he coughed, straightening a little.
“It’s alright,” rumbled the priest, raising a placating hand. “I always welcome curious people in my church. I hope the service was to your liking.”
"Quite a light show you did there."
He smiled, indulging John. His eyes shone. "The Lord is nothing if not awe-inspiring."
There was something about the way he spoke that set Dean’s teeth on edge. The complex way he phrased his sentences, like he was reading from a book. Like he still quite hadn’t come out of the trance he had set his followers into. Dean had never been too keen on church guys, and this one didn’t break the pattern.
Clearly John thought the same, although he was less keen on keeping that a secret. Although he was about an inch shorter than the priest, he seemed to tower over him with his stature, his commanding attitude that made you want to stand at attention.
“Did you know Lewis Thornby?”
There seemed to be a sudden hush around them – conversations dying off, a few owl gazes briefly settling on them.
An icy wind travelled through the broken windows. When Dean’s eyes reverted back to the priest, there was a coldness there he hadn’t seen before, far from his sermon’s nervous twitches.
“My late assistant,” he replied. “He was very dear to me, like a son – a tragedy, what happened to him, but rest assured, he is safe in the kingdom of Heaven now.”
Geez. Talk about weird wording.
“Hm,” said John, folding his arms and squaring his shoulders in an I’m not going anywhere posture. “And what exactly happened to him?”
The priest frowned. “I’m sorry, I’m not one for gossip. You’ll have to read the obituary.”
“You think we haven’t?” growled John, the storm in his eyes almost equal to the one that had gotten them stuck here in the first place.
The priest’s eyes flashed, and for a tense second Dean thought they were in for another light show. But then –
“Is everything alright there, Father Leary?”
Oh great , Dean thought. Here comes the cop . Always on schedule.
The man who approached them wasn’t in uniform, but Dean had long ago figured out how to tell a cop from a civvie. His broad shoulders were squared back, and his blond brows were furrowed in a way that was used to power. His hand was in the pocket of his slacks, seemingly relaxed yet ready to strike. Suspicious of strangers, like pretty much every small-town cop. It always made Dean roll his eyes.
“Nothing to worry about, Andrew,” said a smiling Father Leary, holding up a hand. “I was just welcoming them into the community.”
Andrew watched them warily, like a badger sniffing out a threat. “That so? Pleased to meet you,” he said, looking everything but. Still, he sent out a hand to John. With a raised eyebrow, John returned the handshake. “I’m Andrew.”
“Michael. This is Hank,” he said with a nod to Dean, who gave a lazy wave. “We’re just passing through.”
“On Christmas Eve?” Leary asked. “Surely you can stay for the night – ”
John turned to him. “We don’t want to impose.”
“Nonsense! You won’t be able to drive in all that snow anyway.”
Dean frowned, and checked the now-broken windows. Through the stained image of Saint Raphael, snowflakes were yet again scurrying around, carried by the wind. No sign of a storm. Had the weather changed again ?
“You could stay for midnight mass,” continued the priest. “I can assure you we are all strongly looking forward to it.”
“I bet,” Dean piped up. “Your little speech brought quite a few sheep in, didn’t it?” Judging from the abandoned landscape at the market, it had seemed like the whole village had rushed into the church the second its bells rang. Just what power did this priest have over the community? Had his little trick happened before?
The priest smiled a little sardonically. “The weather had a hand, I’m sure. The cold often seems to bring people to the Lord.”
The cop was still eyeing them distrustfully, and John was staring right back.
“We’ll come for the mass,” he gritted out after a beat. “Come on, Hank .”
And then he was off, stomping up the aisle. The soles of his boots echoed like thunder, and it seemed to Dean like a challenge to the storm.
There might not have been any Internet, or libraries, or even a computer room, but there had been touristic pamphlets in the motel’s welcome lounge. The woman at the desk had the exhausted look of someone working in the holidays, and answered Dean’s questions with a detached expression that rejected all attempts at flirting. Good news: no questions asked about the strange obsession with a small village church. Bad news: having to deal with John’s unimpressed glances, flicking away from the pamphlets every five seconds to check on his progress.
They got out of that unusual bout of research with three things.
1 – An impressive but probably useless collection of touristic material about local cryptids they were definitely going to have to speed-read on the way to the morgue;
2 – A bruise on Dean’s ego when the piece of paper he had slid over with a wink had returned to his pockets without so much as a first name;
3 – Perhaps most importantly, a detailed and complete history of St Paul’s church, courtesy of the girl’s bored wave over to some evangelical information papers strewn on a corner table.
The church had been built in the eighteenth century, the pamphlet said, at the peak of the mining escalation. Made of oven-cooked bricks and carved limestone, featuring a, quote ‘ beautiful, neo-gothic wooden framing.’ Three thousand square feet, forty-five feet high. Originally constructed by a farming community in the late eighteenth-century, no history of strange happenings (aside from the usual, Catholic-inspired ‘God blessed this place by making a tree grow that one time’ bullshit). Had served as a makeshift hospital during the Spanish flu, simply because it was the largest room in the village.
“Ghost of a former patient?” Dean had offered.
But John had shaken his head. Too much power. Too wide a range. And the signs are too erratic.
Aside from that, nothing much – just a bunch of join us ’s and God loves yous, and a smiling Father Leary, blessing you from the back page.
Dean would’ve preferred getting the girl’s number.
When she’d been asked if she’d noticed anything strange lately, she’d just laughed.
Still, John was convinced that the church was the deciding factor of the case. Dean wasn’t about to question that – John’s instincts were renowned across the hunting world.
He tapped his fingers against the table, watching the snowflakes flutter with the wind, waiting for the sun to set. John had gone outside – to scout, he had said, but Dean knew he’d spotted the beer packs in the corner store. He hoped he would save some for him.
When he’d been allowed to help on cases, Sam had taken to circling interesting info with a red marker. He would sit at a table for hours, poring over library books, building spiderwebs (“ they’re called mind maps , Dean ”) on an old newspaper. He had been so diligent at it – you’re like a detective , Dean had said once. Maybe a nerdy, annoying Columbo , he’d added afterwards, just to make sure his brother’s ego stayed in check.
He was pretty sure the marker was still there somewhere, lodged between seats in the Impala.
The morgue was – well, the morgue was like a morgue. Sterile, white and full of fun little smells like chemicals and slightly old meat. In the silence of the night, with no sound to distract you save from the incessant buzzing of the refrigerators, the smells seemed to redouble in strength, and Dean found himself wrinkling his nose.
No Christmas decorations here. Too bad; this place could have done with some holiday cheer. A bloody snowman on the operating table, maybe. Glowing tinsel around the bodies.
“Look for a Thornby,” John reminded, a few feet in front. He swept the flashlight around, tucking his lockpick in a back pocket. The morgue hadn’t been difficult to break into – Dean hadn’t even needed to distract the personnel. The village was probably too busy preparing for Mass to care about guarding the dead.
The beam of light travelled around the room, revealing a dozen drawers.
“Bingo,” Dean whispered when his eyes landed on the only ‘T’ in the room. With two careful steps, they each picked a side and rattled the drawer open. They were greeted by the usual white sheet; Dean remembered squirming away when Dad had first brought him to a morgue, when he was about fourteen. Weirdly enough, he had calmed down after the veil had been removed, exposing the gory, ripped-open entrails of the victim. Something about the cleanliness of the white cover had creeped him to no ends – too peaceful, perhaps, too anonymous, for such a painful death.
Even now, he felt cold as he stared down at the hidden face of Mr Thornby, at the bump that signified a nose, at the mound that suggested feet. It was a weird feeling, not knowing what awaited beneath – slashes on the throat, or a missing stomach, or even an amputated arm. Or nothing.
With a swift grip, John removed the cover.
Eyes. Son of a bitch, the eyes.
Two empty gaping holes stared back at Dean, dried blood crusting around and inside that the coroner hadn’t deemed urgent to remove. A twisted face, one that Dean wasn’t sure came from its death or had been there before. Mouth unnaturally stretched: smiling, sobbing or screaming, there was no way to tell. More blood had left a trailing stain down the side of the ears and into his neck – some even seemed to have dribbled out his mouth. The muscles were still tense, half from rigor mortis, half from whatever shock the poor guy must’ve been in.
It was eerie, how the absence of eyes could change faces, transform them into unreadable slates. How inhuman a corpse could be.
“What do you think?” asked Dean.
“No injuries aside from,” John nodded towards the face, “the obvious.” He frowned. “No other parts of the face’ve been damaged, either. It’s almost like they popped from the inside.”
Dean licked his lips. “Any clue what did this?” No who, of course, not at this stage.
John was quiet, his shoulders tense. He came closer to the corpse, bringing his face to the level of the gouged-out eyes – looking for what exactly, Dean wasn’t sure. For a strange second, he looked at Dean, a glint in his eyes that made him want to take a step back. He recognised it, of course: it was the look he got every time he thought of the thing that had killed Mom.
“Could be anything,” he said, but the line of his lips told him ‘ this could be serious’ . As in, might leave you with the Impala for a couple of days serious.
Which was weird. Nothing about this case screamed dangerous to Dean – the flying objects and spontaneous combustions were strange but mild, as well as the unstable weather and the strangely religious town. They could all be attributed to some sort of mass fever, or a particularly fervent ghost, perhaps. The priest’s little light show was impressive, sure – but again, nothing John hadn’t dealt with. It wasn’t the first time they encountered a priest who turned out cuckoo-bananas. Something about the profession seemed to attract nutjobs, in Dean’s humble opinion.
The gouged-out eyes were worrying, he supposed. But again, pretty close to their usual line of work, and definitely applicable to the ghost theory.
He hadn’t seen a library anywhere, let alone an Internet café. Research had been a bitch, but his father wasn’t the type to frown at a little paperwork. Especially if he suspected a lead in the case that had followed him for the past twenty years.
Maybe Dean was just paranoid. Maybe Sam’s absence was making him antsy. These snowy little towns always made him uncomfortable, like he was a flannel-covered stain on the postcard landscape. Despite the gruff looks and leather jackets, John himself often seemed to merge right into his surroundings, travelling around with firm shoulders and a soldier’s gait. Like a commander observing his armies – interested, invested, but ultimately focused on a matter far away, a life-or-death one that superseded the privates’ petty squabbles.
“Whatever it is, my money’s the priest got his hands all over it.”
A beat. Dean nodded, looked down, blinked. The corpse didn’t bat an eyelash. It was young, he noticed. Mid twenties or so, maybe.
“What do we do now?”
John pursed his lips. Go to your brother , he would have said. Find a motel, here’s some money. I’ll take care of this.
But Sammy wasn’t here, and John was stuck with Dean .
Outside, a chime, deep and meaningless. Another, higher, ringing through the village, down the slopes of snowy Minnesota, deep into the ditch where Lewis Thornby had been tossed with pits instead of eyes. And a third, low again, embedding itself in the basements, the crypts, the morgue where a father and a son stared at each other and a space that should have had a son. It rattled the bones around them.
As the church bells continued, counting up to twelve, Dean looked up at the sizzling light above, at the too-white ceiling and its absence of stars.
Merry Christmas, Sammy , Dean thought, and wondered if Sam had said it back.
John was quiet.
The bells fell silent.
At church, midnight mass had begun.
A strong wind had picked up, similar to the gust that had snuffed out the candles earlier. The graveyard was not lit – only the flickers of candlelight refracted through the remaining church windows projected their meagre glow through the stones. Overhead, the stars.
John’s frustration tainted the air with its waves. He hated going in blind, Dean knew. But with no Internet, no library, no computer, there was no way of researching anything. And with the snowfall, they couldn’t drive back to the nearest town to regroup either.
Besides, the toll of the bells had seemed ominous enough for both their instincts to yell you should be there pronto.
Only this time they wouldn’t walk through the front door.
The back door was locked, of course, but nothing that a couple of jabs with the lockpicks wouldn’t solve. In about the time it took for the choir boys to whine through a carol, the wilted wooden panel was creaking open, revealing a damp corridor made from the same darkness the graveyard had been: John’s weak light was quickly swallowed down. Something seemed ancient, there – older than the church, a feeling like being wrapped in ivy. And a buzzing, faint but constant, vibrating under the stone, like the snowstorm had been absorbed. Like standing over power lines.
Like being so very, very angry.
Dean fished his own flashlight from his side, flicking it on and aiming it at the entrance.
The interior walls were lined with some sort of coded symbols, carved with rough loops into the stone. No language Dean could identify, but it looked old as well. In his artificial light beam, they seemed to glow an almost-blue silver.
“Well, you’re right,” he said. “Doesn’t look like a ghost haunting to me.” He squinted at the markings. “Are you sure it’s Leary? We haven’t exactly –”
“Dean.”
An arm bumped against his chest, and he realised he’d unknowingly taken a step forwards. He looked back to his father, who was watching the darkening corridor with a strange intensity; a variation from the one he had at the morgue.
“Stay here.”
When he had processed the words, Dean bit his cheek. “Dad, I dunno –”
John held his gaze, his cool voice ringing around the night. “I’m doing this alone. You stay here and stand guard. Keep an eye on the outside.”
Keep an eye on Sam.
“This is – ” Dean watched John draw out his gun with a sort of resigned desperation. Up by the candlelit altar, he could hear a murmur: Ave Maria , droned the unseen, vacillating crowd. “Don’t you need backup? I – I mean, we barely know…”
“Dean.”
A hard line appeared on his father’s jaw, like his body was expecting obedience, but preparing for a fight. There was a beat, crows rasping over the graves, carried over by the glacial wind.
But Dean couldn’t be Sam. And so he let the silence go with a firm nod and a straightened spine. “Okay.”
John processed the answer – and its absence – like he did most things. With barely a twitch of the lips to betray his mood. Still, the nod he ultimately returned showed he was satisfied, at least.
Just as the church uttered its last hallelujah, John crossed the threshold. A sigh seemed to welcome him in, the strange sigils engulfing him in their ancient aura. For a moment, he seemed older than he was – taller, too.
And then he was swallowed, leaving Dean alone in the graveyard.
Thirty seconds passed. Dean had stopped counting the footsteps – couldn’t hear them now, not over the wind and the mumbling prayers. The black of the starless sky reminded him of Thornby’s eyes.
Rumbles of thunder from the hills again. At best, Father Leary would put on the fireworks again. At worst, he was planning something much more murderous than two gouged out crevices in an assistant’s face.
One minute. No sign of John, or of anyone. Dean’s breaths made clouds – they billowed against his cheeks, pushed back by the wind.
He shivered. Hell of a Christmas night.
An owl almost made him jump; it watched him with fixed stupor as he recovered. Perched on a bare, bare branch, alone and invisible, until it made some noise. Something rustled in the underbrush.
Two minutes.
CLANG!
The sound of metal against metal rang deep through the crypt, rushing to Dean’s ears, followed by a painful hissing-and-screeching sound that made his heart stop.
A beat.
The whole church seemed to hold its breath.
“Dad?”
And the whole sky began to shake.
Peals of thunder rattled, one after the other, laying claim on the land, the village, the forest, the snow and the wind. It crowded around Dean’s ears, laying siege, until he had to put his hands over his ears. Underneath it all, the low, loud buzz of electricity, fizzing and fatal, all around and inside him until he didn’t know if the scream came from him or the earth itself. It was a while until he realised the slaps against his back were raindrops, crashing into him with the strength of a Ferrari, rippling through him like goddamn bullets. Hail?
What the hell was under this church?
“Dad!” he yelled towards what he thought was the church – now only a vague, looming shadow behind the curtain of speeding water. He could barely hear his voice as it lost itself in the thunder. He kept his hands over his ears, unable to think.
He took a shaking step forward, spitting out the rain that had invaded his lips, his eyes, his nose. It dripped down his back, already soaking through his shirts. The snow was no longer crackling under his feet, reduced to a swirling sludge that seemed to absorb the feeble glow of his still-lit torch.
“Son of a bitch!” he screamed as another peal of thunder screeched down at him. He was running now, the rain painful against his shoulders. He slipped a few times, stumbling against a root, a step, he didn’t know and didn’t care, as long as he got out of the storm and into –
He spilled out into the crypt, symbols greeting him with a mocking glow.
The sound was almost worse here, bouncing in ricochets against the walls, and still that ringing, that almost-screech that felt like it was tearing through the stone. Dean heaved a breath, trying to catch himself against a surface, feeling the damp underneath his fingers, trying to collect his bearing. Outside, the rain seemed even stronger. A sheet of dark that made sure he couldn’t get out.
The sound of his panting breaths.
The drip-drip-drips of water pouring down from his hair, his shirt, down the arms that were still shielding his ears. He shivered in the midnight air, the tips of his fingers already numb.
The air smelled like smoke.
And always, that awful screeching, like a siren.
Something was very, very wrong.
He rushed forwards again, running through the corridor as best he could. He’d let go of the torch in his desperation to get out of the rain, and the light of the sigils did little to clear anything other than the dark entrance. His hand followed the ridges in the wall. His temples were starting to throb, the sounds too encompassing in the secluded space.
And then, another type of shout, one that brought him all the way back down to Earth. His heart plummeted, and the cold finally managed to swallow him to the stomach.
“Dad,” he whispered – eaten whole by the ringing.
He picked up the pace; these corridors were weirdly sinuous, like the goddamn Labyrinth was hiding in a stupid Minnesotan church.
The sound was louder and louder. Right – left, then a right again. Down a short range of stairs. Through a small reliquary room, and then –
Light.
Fire, and sigils, so much more than at the entrance. Something blinding, an energy hovering like a sun, cramped inside a tiny antechamber, demanding to leave. Dean couldn’t look at anything properly – already, his eyes were burning, floating shadows invading his vision where cells died under the burn. The screeching turned into something that rattled under his skin. It felt alive, pulsating, and Dean had never seen anything so powerful. It drowned out all other features of the room – the ceiling, the candles – the burned corpse on the ground – another Lewis Thornby? – seemed so menial in its path, swallowed up and surreal.
There – on the left of the light. Two figures, one in a golden chasuble, pinning his father to the wall.
Dean coughed against the smoke, squinting. John was bleeding heavily, a steady stream of blood pouring from his scalp, dripping on his eyelashes. He looked dazed – concussed, most likely – yet his eyes darted from the light to Leary in quick succession, with something that almost looked like…
“You look afraid, Michael,” came Leary’s voice through the noise, and it sounded very far from sane. “Or whatever your name is.”
John struggled against the priest’s grip on his chest, glaring. “Go to hell,” he rasped out.
“You shouldn’t be,” Leary said, tightening his fist. Dean held his breath, and through the daze, his hand went straight for the gun on his hip. “Soon, the world will see the light. The angel will tear through all.”
“You’re insane,” came John’s retort.
Dean clicked the safety off.
“Hey, asshole!” he shouted –
The screeching seemed to startle around him, like it hadn’t expected him. Or maybe his brain was finally starting to tune it out. Either way, a welcome relief.
A beat.
Then Leary’s hand slackened, and his head turned towards Dean –
His eyes were bleeding. The white was almost entirely gone, the crimson veins inside on stark display.
“Ah, Hank,” he said, and Dean could see trickles of blood in the corners of his lips, too. “How nice of you to join us.”
Dean kept the gun steady. “Let my dad go, you son of a bitch.”
John’s eyes were trained on him. There was reprimand in his glare, Dean knew. I told you to wait outside . But he couldn’t bring himself to feel right now – he’d deal with the fallout later.
The ground shook again – the candles shook, threatening to spill over. To his credit, his feet kept upright.
Leary smiled.
“You can’t stop it, now, son. In fact,” he said, frowning slightly, “I’m surprised you both are still alive. Poor Lewis didn’t survive a minute in the presence of the light.”
“You killed him,” Dean said, not a single bit surprised. The man couldn’t have screamed I’m the bastard! any louder when he’d talked to them during the day.
“Ah, but I didn’t,” Leary answered. Under his grip, John’s shoulders tensed imperceptibly, coiling for a blow. “God did.”
Another bout of thunder. Dean’s ears rang, and rang, and rang – the light swirled, and Leary’s eyes bled and bled and shone with madness –
“I suppose He wants you two alive, too, for whatever reason. No matter – you can stay here, with me, as the world burns.”
The scream of the light suddenly grew stronger, gripping the whole church, the whole world, in its intensity. It pulsated, growing and growing. Something burst in Dean’s ears – he cried out in pain, dropping his gun as he brought both hands to his head. From the corner of his eyes, he could see John send a right hook to the priest’s jaw, causing him to stumble back –
Two things happened.
One.
With one final, apocalyptic shudder, the ground disappeared under Dean’s feet, and with a cry he was sent to his back. His shoulder knocked hard into the foot of a table, on which were perched several lit candles. As if in slow motion, Dean saw them rock once, twice, then fall on the table, where flames started to lick at the wood.
Shit. Not good.
Two.
As Leary stumbled back, his right foot slipped. The heel of his black, too-shiny shoe rubbed on the flooring, and Dean noticed it erase a line from the sigils that surrounded the screaming ball of light.
Father Leary’s eyes widened, and his mouth barely had time to form around a No! when he teetered like the candles.
As another thunderbolt hit the church, Father Leary lost his balance, and fell into the light.
The smell of burning meat hit Dean’s nose first. It curled around him, pooling against his skin, his clothes. He coughed as it mingled with the smoke. His hands pressed to his ears, he could faintly hear Leary scream in horror and agony as he was consumed. It made him want to hurl.
There was a growl, like the hiss of an engine, like a horse’s stomps before it takes off. Like a bald eagle flapping its wings, preparing for takeoff. The light became larger and larger, no longer confined to lines drawn on the stone and wood. Like a supernova, it engulfed the sigils, the candles, the table and the walls.
Eyes half shut from where he’d hit his head, Dean watched as it engulfed John, and as it lapped at his feet he barely had time to think This is it –
“Dean!” –
-Dean Winchester-
-leave him-
-important-
- FREE FREE FREE FREE
- before he, too, got swallowed by the light, and all he could see was sound.
He woke up to the smell of ash and day-old smoke.
A cool breeze brushed through his hair, sending spikes and shivers down his back. His mouth tasted rough and pasty, and there was a slight ring in his ear, like an echo to the light.
Sammy , was his first thought. His eyes shot open – cold blue skies – and he started stretching his arms out in panic, reaching for a hand smaller than his, before he remembered Sam was gone, and probably having a sweller time than him right now. He closed his eyes, letting out a deflated sigh, taking stock of his injuries.
Mother of all headaches – concussion. Bruises on his legs and elbows, and a dull throb at his back where he had hit the table. Cold, around and out of him, and wet, seeping through layers of cloth and flannel.
Snow.
He opened his eyes again, and this time he squinted against the sunlight sparkling through. Bare branches reached down to him, as if to pick him up from his sleep. Someone had slipped a woollen hat back on his ears – the world came to him muffled, like footsteps on carpet. A bird chirped.
Groaning, he braced himself, then pushed himself onto his elbows and wriggled in an upright position. He ignored his spinning vision, settling instead on a shape sitting a few feet away, looking into the distance.
“Dad.”
His father did not budge, hands still loosely clasped around a knee. He was missing a scarf and his coat and leather jacket, which Dean could feel weighing over his own shoulders. The wind ruffled his hair and beard. His gaze was fixed ahead, towards the village down below, where a thinning trail of smoke rose up to the cloudless sky.
Dean’s eyes followed, and he sucked in a breath.
Virginia, Minnesota had burned.
Ashes fell where the Christmas market had stood, slow and swirling like snowflakes. A few houses still survived, islets of protection in between oceans of scorch. Hell – it looked like the freaking Germans had bombed the place. Dean remembered the falling candles, the table catching fire – but surely a few flames wouldn’t burn a whole village, especially in the rain that had forced him into the church in the first place.
A lonesome road wound out of the wreck, slithering between scorched trees, past the grinning snowman, and finally climbing its way up the hill they were on.
The Impala sat next to them, glistening with dew.
It was silent.
Christmas day had come.
A lump rose its way up Dean’s throat. “How long was I…”
“Four hours,” John replied, his voice betraying nothing. Looking down, Dean noticed his father’s journal lay on the snow next to him, open at a blank page.
The screaming light came back to him then, Leary’s crazed laugh, the storm and the sigils. The crowd’s subjugated, entranced state when Leary spoke, as if an outside force had sucked them in the church like a whirlpool.
“What was – what was that, Dad?” Dean asked. “I’ve never seen anything like…”
There was a pause. The wind blew again, carrying frost over the hills. How many people had died in that fire?
Then –
“You disobeyed,” John said.
Dean was silent.
“I told you not to go down there.”
Sam would have argued. Would have talked about the storm, about how John was about to get his throat crushed when he’d found him. Would have shouted at him till his lips went blue, and told John this was the last straw, that he’d be gone by the hour.
“I’m sorry, sir,” Dean said as he swallowed past the lump. “It won’t, ah, it won’t happen again.”
Dean wondered if John had the answer to what happened in that church. If he did, he clearly didn’t judge it important for Dean to know.
He didn’t press. Instead he looked up at the blue, with its fluttering sparrows and dull Minnesota sunshine. He wondered what Leary had released, whether the light would continue its trail of destruction, or if it had dissipated in the morning, returning to its sun. A star trapped inside a crypt.
“Good.”
And still, that slight disappointment in his voice, like approval was itself a failure.
Dean looked down, at his crossed legs and the wet dust below. Next to him, he could almost picture Sam, the little puffs his breath would make. His hunched shoulders as he would try to hide his shivers, the scrunch of his nose to keep the tingles of frost away. It warmed him, for a moment, almost burned him with its presence.
But then a gust of wind blew past, like the rustling of feathers.
And his brother was gone, a star into the morning.