Master Post - Prologue - Part 2

“I don't get cruises,” Dean said as he and Sam made their way across the gangway over to the Notos. “Sounds like prison to me – tell you when to eat, when to sleep, when you're allowed out of your room, and there's no way to break out. Hey you think if you gave people the option to pay to be in jail, some sucker out there would go for it?”

“People pay to stay in caves and that hotel made out of ice in Sweden.”

Dean cast a sidelong glance back at his brother before stepping onto the ship, trying not to outwardly wince at the bloodstains that had seeped and dried into the wooden deck. “That wasn't an answer.”

“With enough money you can be a tourist in space, Dean, so sure, I bet someone would.” They stopped in the middle of the main deck, looking around, getting a feel for the rooms they could see, Dean able to identify some of the places where bodies had been found. “You've never wanted to go on a cruise?”

“The ocean gives me the willies. You can't see what's down there.” Dean eased the duffle bag off his shoulder, pulling out the EMF meter and his sawed off shotgun loaded with salt rounds, just in case. He tossed the meter at Sam, who caught it reflexively. “Demons on planes, ghosts in school buses, whatever we have on this boat... There's clearly only one safe way to travel.”

“The Impala was possessed by the Woman in White. Then we had that haunted truck, remember? And then the possessed truck driver who rammed us off the road and-” Dean heard Sam choke a little, quickly cutting himself off, but Dean remembered alright. How could he not? “We, uh, haven't had any evil bicycles.”

“That is true.” Dean watched from the middle of the deck as Sam walked around, scanning with the meter, making his thinking face that Dean thought just made his brother look constipated. “Are you getting anything?”

Sam frowned. “I think so. It goes up in some spots – nothing significant, but something. I think... I think it goes up where people were killed. Like if I follow a trail, it's not a lot, but then I hit where the blood had pooled, where someone died, it jumps up.” Sam started off down a corridor that had the dining hall, bar, and different recreational rooms branched off of it. There were also stairs that led either down to the quarters and further down to the bowels of the ship or up to the bridge. “Do you think Kyle Brenner really killed himself?”

That question had been hanging in the air between them since it happened the previous day, but it seemed like only now that they were seeing the ship firsthand that it had found a voice and made its way out of Sam. When Dean had been asking this himself, there was only one answer he had been able to come up with. “It doesn't really matter. If he did, it's because of what he did or what he saw. If he didn't, whatever did do this was trying to finish the job. Either way, the kid's still dead with nothing we could do to change it or stop it.”

“Yeah.” Sam sounded noncommittal with his agreement, but Dean chose to ignore it. Dealing with angels had made the whole death thing an iffy subject for them – they weren't happy when people died, but they could at least know that those who deserved it were in a better place. Those who didn't deserve it, well, Dean doubted anyone could deserve that, but he hadn't exactly had the normal Hell experience. He never read Dante, but he doubted he went through Hell Lite with the whole deal with Lilith and all those demons who wanted a piece of him. Both times.

They started in the passenger cabins, walking through each one but only getting a reading where someone had died, which, with so many victims, was more common than they'd liked. They thought they found a source in the women's locker room next to the ship's aerobics room, but after consulting the photos that Sam had managed to get digital copies of for his phone, it wasn't a likely source but a spot where five people had died, huddled together and holding each other. The coroners were slowly trying to put together a timeline as to the order in which people died, which was understandably taking a lot of effort, but it had seemed apparent from the first couple that some victims were killed quickly while others were left to suffer and slowly die of their injuries. Some had possibly seen no way that they were going to get out of it alive and did themselves in instead of allowing themselves to fall victim for whatever had been preying on the passengers.

Prey... It almost made Dean think of vampires, but they wouldn't be picking up EMF if that were the case. They had cases before, though, where there was an overlap – more than one evil son of a bitch hanging around but not all parties were involved. He then thought of Lawrence, back when he and Sam were looking for Dad; their old house with the poltergeist and Mom.

Maybe someone had died when the ship was being constructed, and they were there, but not exactly vengeful, and some vampires had somehow gotten onto the ship in Bermuda and then jumped overboard after everything was done? Or they'd taken one of the life rafts? “We should check to see if anything was missing from the boat. You read anything about bites on the bodies?”

“Vampires wouldn't give off EMF.” Sam continued into the kitchen with Dean following behind. They couldn't tell if any of the knives were missing because everything that wasn't nailed down had been removed as evidence. “They would've found...a tooth or something, even if the bodies were disfigured enough to disguise a bite. Werewolf would match this level of carnage, but again, something would've been found on the bodies. Werewolves and vampires don't bludgeon people to death.”

“Evil clown?” Dean suggested, grinning at the noticeable shiver that ran down his brother's spine. If that ever got old, Dean didn't know what he would do.

The kitchen led into the main dining room, which in itself took up the entirety of that particular deck of the ship that wasn't being occupied by the kitchen. It had enough space to seat every single passenger on the ship plus each crewmember, and there was also a stage for a band with a dance floor in front of it. There was a full-service bar opposite the stage, which, disappointingly, was empty. A staircase from the main deck led directly into the dining hall, at the bottom of which there was a large wooden statue of some form of bird or another that looked like it would be five feet tall if it weren't broken. Despite being so large, the room had a claustrophobic feel to it, which Dean figured had to do with the tiny porthole windows running along the walls. The room, like a plane, just reminded Dean of a really big coffin.

He knew, Dean thought dryly, exactly what a coffin felt like.

“What do you think that was supposed to be?” Dean asked, changing his train of thought and motioning at the statue.

“Albatross,” Sam replied without even thinking.

“Huh.” Dean studied it, wondering what had happened to the thing's head. “How do you figure? I remember your bug phase, not a bird one.”

“The company's called Albatross Adventures, Dean. All of their ships have the same statue. It was seen as a good omen for a ship to have an albatross following it, and if someone were to kill it, bad luck would come to the entire crew.”

“I think 'bad luck' would be the understatement of the century for what happened here.” Dean heard a shrill sound coming from the EMF meter, and he turned to see that Sam was right at the statue. “That can't be a coincidence.”

Dean joined his brother next to the statue, reaching out a hand to touch it before Sam grabbed him, pulling him away. “That might not be a good idea. Remember the rabbit's foot? Maybe there was some truth to the albatross lore.”

“Or maybe someone was pissed off and put a curse on the statue and liked the irony of it. We should check out the company – see if there were any previous employees who got the short end of the stick.”

“Yeah...” Sam agreed absent-mindedly, turning off the meter and pocketing it. His gaze was focused on a bump in the stairs, and Dean watched as he went over, lifting up the edge of the runner that ran down the middle. Before Dean could ask what he was doing, Sam pulled out a cell phone, and even from several feet away Dean could make out the bloody fingerprints on the keys and the red smears across the screen. “Looks like CSU missed something. The battery's dead, but if I hook it up to the computer, I might be able to see if any pictures or video were taken.”

Dean's brow furrowed as he thought over the reports they had been given access to. “I don't remember seeing any cell phones logged in as evidence. Curses don't destroy evidence.”

“People do,” Sam supplied, stating the obvious. “Maybe Kyle Brenner was guilty after all. Or at least not entirely innocent.”

“Hopefully that thing will be able to tell us one way or the other.” It didn't add up that the kid had been able to kill all those people on his own, but Sam was right. If he'd cast a curse, then his innocence would be in shades of gray. Dark gray, at that, if he hadn't fully understood the power of what he was doing.

Sam slipped the cell phone into his pocket along with the EMF meter. They left the boat, telling the cops there that unfortunately they hadn't been able to find anything, and they headed toward the Impala, intent on returning to their motel room to check out the phone.

+

Dean took the car to get some dinner, leaving Sam behind in their alligator-themed motel room (complete with an actual, preserved alligator head seated atop the television set) to try and find anything useful on the cell phone. He carefully cleaned it off first, using the damp edge of a hand towel and the hair dryer that motels always seem to have stuck to the wall outside the bathroom to make sure none of the circuitry got wet and fried the device. Sam also made sure the battery pack was dry and intact before using a mini USB cable to plug it into his laptop – if someone had stepped on the phone as they tried to flee up or down the stairs and broken the battery, the leaking acid could cause irreparable damage to the phone's memory.

Once he was satisfied, Sam plugged the phone into his computer and turned it on, grateful that nothing exploded as the laptop automatically recognized that there was a phone plugged into it and asked if Sam wanted to backup the contents to his hard drive. He clicked 'yes' and waited. It was about thirty percent complete when Dean returned, bearing bottles of soda and a two large paper bags, one with grease staining the bottom.

“Dude,” Dean exclaimed triumphantly. “I found a place with fish tacos! And I don't mean it in the dirty sense.” He snorted at his own joke, which made Sam smile to himself, but he quickly hid it since he didn't want to encourage Dean to keep going with that particular train of thought. “Any luck here?”

Sam stared at the numbers increasing steadily on the screen but not fast enough for his liking. “There's something on here – just don't know what yet.” He took the styrofoam box that Dean had removed from the bag and held out to him, frowning. “What the hell was leaking through the bag?”

“Tortilla chips,” Dean responded, like it was the most obvious answer in the world. “There's salsa, sour cream, and guacamole in the box, too.” He passed Sam one of the soda bottles, and a chime sounded from the computer, signifying that the upload had completed. Dean sat on the edge of the bed, balancing his styrofoam box in his lap while looking over Sam's shoulder at the computer. “So what do we got?”

Browsing the folder, Sam ignored the contacts list and the emails, looking at the pictures first. He found the newest ones, taken at the pier before they headed out, then at sea, and a bunch of pictures on Bermuda itself. Sam didn't recognize the people in them, but he hadn't expected to – there were just too many victims. The most recent picture was a look back on the island as the boat left, heading back to Florida, but nothing had gone amiss yet, it seemed.

He then switched to where the videos had been uploaded, recalling the date the Notos left Bermuda, and only wanting those that had been taken afterwards. There was one, and it was an hour and a half long. “Alright,” Sam said, mentally bracing himself. “Here it goes.”

The image started out dark, like it had been turned on before the lens was pointed away from someone's hand. There was a loud, pulsing sound coming through the speakers, distorted, and it took Sam a few seconds to figure out that the sound was panicked breathing. Someone was afraid for his or her life. Whoever was holding the phone turned it, and the image wasn't dark anymore, or at least not as dark as it had been. The image showed the inside of a room, facing the door, and it's silent except for the breathing for half an hour. The phone was facing the door, and every time a shadow flickers by the bottom, someone passing, the breathing was held. Sam looked at the time stamp, realizing that it was still daylight when this was taken, that the room wasn't lit because of the lights being on but from the sunlight in the windows.

After about thirty-five minutes there are voices, a man and a woman, who they had probably seen in the pictures before but didn't know. They are arguing in hushed tones about whether they should leave the room or not, to see if the boat's crew had managed to contain the lunatic. After another twenty minutes they agreed to go, but only together, and they weren't going to split up.

Sam couldn't tell if either of them is armed, but he guessed that it was the woman who was holding the phone because every now and then the man would be seen at the periphery. They meandered the ship cautiously, calling out for other people, but no one else was around. It was ten minutes of wandering before they came across the first body, even in the grainy cell phone video Sam can see that the man's head is bashed in. Someone let out a muffled scream, but if it was someone else on the ship or one of these two trying to hold it in with their hand clamped over their mouth, Sam can't tell. He glanced back at Dean, his brother completely riveted to the screen, taco in hand but not paying it any attention.

There was a sound like a roar, and the woman spun around. This time she was definitely the one screaming when she saw someone, who Sam instantly recognized as Kyle Brenner, covered in blood and wielding a nine iron. He raised his arms to swing, but his targets were already running, and this chase throughout the ship lasts for the rest of the video – passing more and more bodies the whole time, but no one was alive, making Sam wonder if these were the last two left – until the man tripped down the stairs and the woman seemed to have dropped the phone to help him. Kyle Brenner walked over the phone, and they heard begging, pleading, crying, before there was more screaming, sickening wet thuds over and over until all was silent, and then there was nothing. A shadow briefly flickered across the ceiling, and then the phone went dead.

“Holy shit,” Dean swore, dropping the taco completely and placing the box behind him on the bed. “Go back to right before the phone died.”

Sam does, watching the shadow flicker. It was too far away to be seen clearly, but he can tell what his brother is thinking. They've only seen something like that in two cases: anything with demons and that ghost that had been attached to the bus at Truman High. Sam played that segment again and again and then once more, picturing the layout of that dining hall, and something clicked. “We need to find out who died last and who these people were.” Sam paused, gathering his thoughts. “I think Kyle Brenner was possessed by something, and this couple was the last to be killed. Once they were dead, Kyle got unpossessed. Watch.” Sam played the shadow flickering across the ceiling once more. “What was it heading toward?”

Dean's brow furrowed. “Son of a bitch – the damn albatross statue. You know, with the whole haunted objects thing, I preferred Bloody Mary. She was at least selective. This thing? I don't think we've ever seen a ghost this pissed off.”

He was right. They only thing that went after dead on such a large scale were demons, but there was no way it could be demons. Once they had stopped the apocalypse, all the gates between Earth and Hell had been sealed – there was no way for any of them to get out. None of them could get back in either, so all the demons that were stuck on Earth had died. Even those that had been fighting on their side...

Sam forced the thought away. He didn't want to think of Ruby. Thinking of her only meant he'd end up thinking of everyone else they'd lost along the way, and he knew all of his attention needed to be focused on this case. He and Dean needed to make sure it didn't happen again.

Another thought occurred to Sam. “Bloody Mary was forced out when we broke the mirror she was in.”

“Yeah, I remember.”

“So this spirit was forced out because it's statue was broken, but then where was it going? It can't get back in the statue if it's busted. Unless...” Sam recalled the statue, how the entire line was called Albatross Adventures, and each one had the same statue. “Unless it jumped to one of the other statues in the fleet.”

Dean's eyes widened. “We need to check out the other boats. What if one of them is heading off tomorrow? And someone bumps into the statue and scratches it or something?”

Sam opened the web browser, checking the itinerary for the line. “Nothing's scheduled for tomorrow. We'll have to wait until then – I doubt the cops will let us look at another boat after dark without giving them a reason. We're going to have to talk to Agent Perez about this.”

“Yeah, but, how much are we going to tell her?”

“Depending on what we find on the other ships tomorrow,” Sam said solemnly, “we might not have to tell her anything.”

+

Agent Perez did not look impressed when they asked if they could check out the other ships, and Dean was extremely grateful for his brother's tendency to research things to death as he actually had a story that maybe sounded feasible at least to her. Dean doubted any actual CDC agents would buy it, but luckily, the FBI were not experts on toxic spores.

He listened to Sam prattle on about the statue being made of some type of rare wood, which had a symbiotic fungus. Inhaling the spores in high numbers could lead to psychosis and eventually death, and since Kyle Brenner would've undergone a quarantine shower, all traces would've been washed off. The only way to notice would've been to biopsy the lungs, but even then, there was no antidote. If any of this were true, Dean had no idea, but it sounded good.

“So how come this hasn't happened on any previous cruises?” Perez asked, crossing her arms against her chest, looking simultaneously annoyed and interested.

Dean arched an eyebrow expectantly, but Sam had an answer for this, as well. “The fungus needs a dark, humid environment and the statues are hollow. The statue was broken, it gets out, and if this happened during dinnertime, everyone would've been in the dining hall, which didn't have adequate air circulation. No one would've been affected since because the air's had time to cycle, but the other two ships... We just need to see if it's the same type of wood.”

“Fine, but I'm going with you. We have clearance for the one boat, and if anyone questions our presence, they'll want to talk to me.”

They went to the first boat, called the Euros according to the large, blocky lettering on its stern, which was empty except for the maintenance crew. Perez stood at the top of the stairs to take a phone call from the station, giving Sam and Dean the time to scan the albatross statue with the EMF meter before she could ask any questions or wonder about the beeping coming out from the inside of Sam's jacket. Or at least there would've been beeping if there'd been anything, but there wasn't.

The next boat – the Boreas – wasn't as empty. The captain immediately noticed their presence and had a heated discussion on the main deck with Agent Perez. Dean snaked the EMF meter, leaving Sam with Perez and the captain as he snuck away to scan the statue. This time it went off, even higher than it had on the Notos.

He snuck back out, grabbing Sam's arm to pull him aside. The captain didn't even seem to notice that he'd been missing or maybe hadn't known Dean was there at all to begin with. “There's definitely something here – it's even higher than it was on the other boat. Like Notos was residual and this one actually has something.”

“Was it the same wood?” Sam asked.

“Wait – I thought that was a cover.”

“Yeah, but... Remember Truman High? Dirk got yanked back to the bus because of the hair. What if this thing can jump between the statues because they're made from the same tree?”

“Who the hell would put a curse on a tree?”

“Indians curse the land,” came a slow drawl behind them, causing Sam and Dean to spin. They hadn't even registered the elderly crewmember pushing the mop along the deck.

“What?” Dean laughed, hoping it didn't sound as fake to the man as it did to him. He glanced over at Perez, who was still busy with the boat captain. “Curses aren't real, that's crazy.”

“Don't lie to me, boy, I heard you talking before. Oldest city in the country this is, there's plenty of ancient magic in the air.” The man – Gerald, Dean read embroidered on the uniform – had stopped mopping and was leaning into the handle. “Those statues were a commissioned set made of Ocala sand pine. They ripped up the four trees and found an Indian graveyard from the 1700s.”

“Excuse me,” Sam interjected. “You said four trees?”

“That's right, for the four statues.”

Dean narrowed his eyes, glancing at Sam. “Where's the other statue?”

“Storage, maybe? Albatross Adventures was supposed to open with four boats. The last one, the Zephyros, was put behind schedule when they figured out they only had enough money to complete the three. They've earned enough to finish her since, though, and so Zephyros' maiden voyage will be in three months, just in time for the damn Spring Break kids to mess her up.”

It got quiet for a moment, and Dean realized that Agent Perez and the captain weren't talking anymore. The captain was looking in their direction, and Dean noticed Gerald sneaking off out of the corner of his eye, going back to work. The captain left, presumably for the command deck, and Perez walked over to Sam and Dean, looking vaguely hopeful. “So? Did you find anything?”

“It's the same wood,” Sam replied, and Dean started to wonder how many times he'd be able to hear the word and maintain a straight face. Yeah, he was immature, whatever. He liked to think it kept him young and balanced out all the growing-up-too-quick that had happened in his life. “We need to quarantine all four statues.”

“I thought the Notos one wasn't an issue anymore.”

“Just in case.”

“The line director won't be pleased, but if that's what you think this is.” She sighed heavily, pulling out her cell phone again. “I'll try to track him down, get warrants if I need to. I doubt anything will be able to happen until tomorrow, so feel free to take off for the day.”

“Don't need to tell us twice,” Dean joked, face sobering when Sam sent him a look telling him to shut up. Agent Perez didn't seem to have a sense of humor. Although, Dean supposed, investigating a case with nearly one thousand people dead and no leads at all probably killed any sense of humor a person might have. “We'll, uh, be out of your hair, then.”

“I don't like waiting around,” Sam said after they'd left the boat and were crossing the street towards where the Impala had been parked. “What if she can't get the warrant?”

“We need to go buy the shit that we destroyed the rabbit's foot with, just in case the usual salting and burning doesn't work. If we can't get access tomorrow, well, we know which statue its in at the moment and can destroy it. If it jumps to another statue, then we'll destroy that one and the last one until it's no more.” Dean didn't like the idea of sitting around, either, whether they were supposed to be retired or not. For the first time since arriving in St. Augustine he thought of home, the perks of being a normal civilian with his own furniture, bills with his name on them, and a paycheck every week. Could they really give up this excitement for that? He had no idea. “Hey maybe we could go check out that Alligator Farm place we keep seeing billboards for. Or the Fountain of Youth. Something tells me its a scam – there sure are a hell of a lot of old people around here.”

Sam actually smiled. “Maybe the catch isn't that you're young for forever but you still age and just can never die.”

“That just doesn't sound as appealing.”

“Yeah and the Alligator Farm does. Have you seen our motel room, Dean? I wake up and the first thing I see is that head staring at me, which wakes me up faster than any coffee would.” Sam must have noticed the sly grin creeping across his brother's face when they reached the car. “I will kick your ass if you put that thing next to my bed. Or on my pillow. Or do anything to it at all.”

“Sammy, you're breaking my heart.” Dean unlocked the car and climbed in, reaching across the bench to unlock the passenger door. “I can't believe you actually think you could kick my ass.”

“If we go to the Alligator Farm, will you not torture me?”

“I won't torture you with the alligator head, but I can't promise not to torture you at all. What would I do with myself?” He could practically hear Sam's teeth grinding together as he started the car. “Alright. I won't make it peek around the curtain when you're in the shower or any of the other billion ideas you gave me by saying you were afraid of the thing.”

Running his fingers through his hair, Sam let out an overly dramatic sigh. “Well I suppose we could go to the Alligator Farm. But only because it's not what I bet you think it is and your disappointment will be highly entertaining.”

They went to the Alligator Farm, which, as Sam had suspected, was nothing like Dean thought it would be. It was really more like a zoo, and Dean felt like he'd been misled into actually having to learn something, but even he had to admit he enjoyed himself, especially when they got to watch feeding time. Sam seemed to enjoy himself too, as he read every sign or pamphlet they came across. Dean surprised himself by forgetting about the job they were in St. Augustine to do to begin with and realized that, after they were done there, going back to being normal wasn't going to be as difficult as he'd thought it would.

But first they had some statues to destroy, and then they'd be done for good to live out the rest of their lives in blissful boredom.

+

Sam came out of the bathroom, clean and dressed, to the sight of Dean, rumpled and bleary-eyed, still in bed but half-propped up on an elbow with the phone pressed to his ear. He looked annoyed, but that could've been because he had been woken up just as easily as whatever news he was getting. Dean hung up with an, “Alright, thanks,” before burying his face back in the pillow.

“What was that about?” Sam asked, leaning against an armchair that faced the center of the room.

“Didn't get the search warrant.” Dean's voice was slightly muffled by the pillow. He rolled over to lie on his side. “Something about us being scarce as she pulls a few more strings to get it approved. We'll be screwed if someone calls the CDC.”

Screwed, Sam thought, was putting it nicely. Part of coming back from the dead was new social security numbers, but it wouldn't take a lot of digging on the FBI's part to see that their old ones had a criminal record. “So we're just gonna hid in here all day?”

Dean made an exaggerated gesture of looking at his watch then over at Sam. “No, we're going to hide in here until lunch time and then check out the boat with the wonky EMF readings when no one's around. Only one boats a crime scene, so the others don't have guards.”

They watched the morning shows, then The Price is Right (both agreeing that it just wasn't the same without Bob Barker). Dean disappeared into the bathroom during the noon news, and Sam was about to gouge his eyes out during The Young and The Restless when his brother came back out, got dressed, and grabbed the car keys from next to the alligator head on top of the television.

The Boreas was painfully easy to sneak onto. Granted they were dressed casually, instead of in suits, so it could've looked like they belonged there to anyone watching from a distance. Sam really hoped none of the cops came over to see what they were doing or to inspect the duffle bag they carried. Their guns had salt rounds in it, but if a startled officer came up and saw them with the weapons drawn, they'd have no way to know that. Sam had been shot enough in his life, he thought.

Dean held the sawed off shotgun as Sam got to work on the albatross statue, salting it in case of ghost and then the mixture of bone ash and cayenne pepper in case of curse. Sam looked over at his brother. “Dude – matchbook.” He caught it one-handed, striking the match and about to fling it at the statue when movement out of the corner of their eyes caused them to turn, Dean aiming the shotgun up the staircase as Sam pulled out the pistol that had been tucked in his waistband at the small of his back.

On the landing stood the man who'd been telling them about Indian cursed land the day before – Gerald, Sam recalled. He didn't look surprised to see them there or with what they were about to do. “That ain't gonna work,” he drawled, moving slowly down the stairs.

“You were the one talking about curses yesterday,” Dean said as he lowered his weapon, growing impatient based on his tone.

“He was,” Gerald replied, and when the eyes glazed over, jet black, Sam felt cold all over. “But I clearly know better.”

“Son of a bitch.” Dean fired off a shot reflexively, trying to stall of time as Sam quickly rummaged through the duffle, trying to find the flask of holy water he knew was in there. He just wished they still had Ruby's knife. Or the Colt. Or at least had anticipated that somehow they'd been lied to and had been able to consider the option of it being a demon to begin with. “Sammy!”

Sam looked up to see Gerald halfway down the stairs now, moving with such a deliberate slowness as he raised a hand, throwing Dean across the room like he was swatting at a fly. Sam found the flask, unscrewing the cap. He threw some at the demon's direction, and it let out a hiss as Gerald's skin steamed. Sam felt like he hit a brick wall as the demon magic hit him, throwing him towards the door, away from Dean, but before he even landed Gerald's head tilted back and the demon came pouring out, rushing into the albatross statue as the man it had been possessing crumpled to the floor, falling down the last few steps to stop besides the statue.

Lifting his head to make sure Dean was okay, Sam saw his brother stand, lifting one of the chairs, and walking towards the statue with it. Sam recalled the broken statue on the Notos; how Kyle Brenner had been the only survivor only to kill himself days later; and the albatross, a symbol of good luck unless it was killed, then it brought a curse to the entire ship, the one who had killed it being its last victim. “No, Dean, stop!” he yelled, launching himself off the ground, running to intercept Dean before he reached the statue and having to body check him, pushing him to the ground, ignoring the ache in his shoulder from hitting the chair his brother had been holding and then dropped.

“What the hell is your problem!?” Dean yelled, seeming possessed himself. “That thing is in there. We destroy it, it has to come back out, and we take care of it!”

“I think I get what's going on. I'll explain, but please, we need to get out of here. We don't have all we need to take on a demon.”

Seeing the reason behind this, Dean relaxed, and Sam sat up, standing slowly, but keeping a cautious eye on his brother. Dean went and collected the shotgun from where he'd dropped it, putting it inside the bag before zipping it up. Sam waited until Dean left the dining hall before checking that Gerald was okay, picking up his own pistol, and following his brother out onto the main deck.

They walked back to the car in silence, Sam watching when Dean packed everything away into the trunk, slamming it down and leaning against the car instead of moving for the door. “We stopped the apocalypse,” Dean said unprompted, causing Sam to lean up against the Impala beside him.

“I remember.” It had been six months ago but it could've been yesterday as fresh and raw as it felt. Hell wanted Dean's soul and some of the demons wanted Sam to lead them, so the Winchester brothers walked into Hell with no resistance. As much as they'd wanted to follow Sam, the demons wouldn't fight alongside the angels, decided Sam wasn't worth their time, and they were tortured together. It took the demons too long to figure out that letting Dean and Sam walk into Hell meant they'd left the door open for the entire army of angels, and by the time they did, it was too late.

Sam could remember Hell and waking up after, but he couldn't remember getting out, and neither could Dean. He remembered waking up in a hotel room, feeling better than he could ever remember feeling in his life. Dean had been unconscious on the other bed, and when Sam had sat up to check that his brother was still alive, he'd spotted Castiel perched awkwardly on a chair, watching them both.

“I wasn't supposed to save either of you,” he'd said, speaking to Sam but looking at Dean. Only then did Sam notice that his shoulder hurt, and when he lifted up the sleeve to his shirt he saw a print just like the one Dean bore. “Dean's served his purpose, and they thought you were too far gone to bring back.”

Too much of a demon, Sam knew he meant. “What happens now?”

“Hell is closed until they figure out how to open it again. Any demons that remained on Earth when it closed perished.” Sam had known without Castiel saying that it meant Ruby was gone. She hadn't gone into Hell with them – demons saw her as a traitor, even the ones willing to stand by Sam, because she helped the angels. “Don't draw the attention of Heaven unto yourselves. It's over for you now – live out your lives in peace.”

“There aren't supposed to be demons anymore.” Dean's voice snapped Sam's attention back to the present. “Cas had said that, right?”

“Remember Pennsylvania, with the plane crashes?”

Dean scowled. Sam presumed it was because he had mentioned anything near flying, but it was relevant and partly revenge for Dean teasing him yesterday. “Well that was a disaster-causing demon, like of Japanese myth. Those demons don't come from Hell – they might even be older. This demon's...this demon's an albatross.”

“I think you sniffed some of that cayenne pepper, Sam, because you aren't making a lot of sense. A Japanese albatross demon?”

“We need to get to the motel room so I can do some reading, but I really think I know what's going on here, which is good and bad.”

Dean arched an eyebrow. “How is it bad?”

“If that statue gets damaged...” Sam thought about Dean's rage before Sam had tackled him. Could the demon have induced it? Maybe it's good luck, but it tries to incite anger, to get someone to break the statue – kill the albatross – but it needs the right kind of person, which the demon had found in Kyle Brenner. “If that statue gets damaged, a lot more people are going to be killed.”

Part 4 - Epilogue