xxx

Dean whirled around to face Li, who had followed him out onto the main street. “What the hell just happened?”

“Shit,” Linus said with feeling. “That’s just what I needed.”

“What happened?” Dean repeated, more forcefully.

“He’s got her. The bastard…”

“Look, if you don’t share your information, I’ll shoot you, alright?”

Linus glared at him. “Did you even bother to look into Jamestown?”

“There wasn’t anything in the last hundred years. I couldn’t even find a decent account of the people who went missing.”

“So you just ploughed forward? God, that is just like a hunter!”

That last sentence could’ve come out of Amelia Lucian’s mouth, and Dean couldn’t help but wonder which one of Sara’s parents that sort of sentiment had come from first. But it didn’t really matter, not right now.

“Either give me a straight answer or tell me where to find Sara, I don’t care which, okay?”

“I don’t know where she is, but right now, that’s the least of our worries.”

“Maybe you were better off lost, you know that?”

“Shut up, Winchester. You need to get out of here. Right now.”

“No way.”

Linus shook his head. “She’s your partner, fine. I get it that you feel responsible for her-”

“You really don’t. I’ve been watching out for her since she was seventeen and I’ve done a damn better job of it than you or Amelia could ever have managed!” Dean snapped, and started walking back towards the Impala. He could handle this without Li just fine.

He yanked out his phone, scrolling down to Will’s number.

“Winchester, I’m good, but I’m not that good,” Will said when he picked up.

Dean rolled his eyes. “Well, get better, right now.”

“Why? Where’s Sara?” Even a crappy connection couldn’t hide the suspicion in Will’s voice.

“Whatever’s here, it took her. I only took my eyes off her for a second, man, and she was gone.”

“It snatched her right off the street?”

“Yep. There wasn’t even anyone standing near her, let alone a car or a monster or whatever.”

“Shit. Uh, I have got something, not a lot, but…”

“Dude, I’ll take whatever you have. And where’s Adrian?” Because backup was never a bad thing.

“Canada, went to talk to Maxwell. What about Singer?”

“Bobby’s in Mexico. Something about a cursed set of cutlery or something.” Sara had been giggling for hours over that one. “Guess I’m on my own,” Dean finished, glancing back at Li.

Neither of them said it, but less than a year ago, Will would’ve been able to head out himself to lend a hand. A hunt which had gone seriously wrong had put at end to anything even resembling fieldwork for the youngest Atwood, and now Will spent all of his time doing the research for his brother and, more often than not, for Dean and Sara as well.

“Sorry, man. Grab something to write with, okay? I don’t wanna have to go over all of this twice.”

Dean opened the back door of the Impala, rummaging around to try and find something, anything which might lead to actual notes being taken. What he actually found was… He frowned, hooking one finger around the slim back cord, and pulled out Sara’s necklace. The same silver spiral pendent that she’d been wearing since she was seventeen and, more bizarrely, the one she’d been wearing when she vanished less than ten minutes ago.

“Dean? Dean, you there?”

He put the necklace on the Impala’s roof and found his notebook, flipping it open to a blank page. “Yeah, I’m here. Go.”

It took a lot longer than he would’ve liked, but Sara had fricking disappeared because they’d gone blundering in and Dean was damned if he’d make the same mistake twice. And at least by the end of it, Dean had a slightly better idea of what was going on, and he was a lot more pissed off.

Yeah, he’d be having serious words with his dad the next time they met.

Turned out, Will had said, in the slow and careful way he’d perfected through months and years of giving Hunters bad news, that those two names Dean had had hadn’t been the only people to go missing. There had been more. A lot more. Every twenty-two fucking years, going back over a century.

With a muttered thanks that sounded about as thankful as Dean felt, he hung up. Li was still standing there, and Dean turned to face him, picking up Sara’s necklace in one hand.

“Our mothers? That’s the link?” Dean said. “Sara was snatched ‘cause her mom is dead?” That was the best working theory Will had for the disappearances and it did fit.

“More or less.”

“What’s the less?”

“It’s not just everyone who lost their mother. The lady has to have died violent, and in close proximity to a demon or something seriously unnatural.”

“How far back do the disappearances go?”

“First death was in 1851. That was a human psycho, but I’m prepared to bet he didn’t stay dead. No idea what his name was, but I’m almost certain he was the local priest.”

“And an irresponsible musician knows all this because…”

“Because I wasn’t always just a musician.”

“Whatever.” Dean tucked Sara’s necklace into his pocket. He’d give it back to her when he found her. “Right. We need to figure out where their church used to be.”

xxx

Sara woke up with one hell of a headache, and the situation just went downhill from there.

The last thing she could remember was walking towards Dean with a bag of snacks in her arms. The bag was next to her, looking somewhat grubby, but this definitely wasn’t the main street of Jamestown. It was pitch black, for one thing.

“Hate this part of the job,” Sara muttered and found torch.

Basic stone walls, floor, ceiling. Normally, there’d be some difference in the stone at least, but it all looked almost identical under all the filth. The air was just as bad, more dust than oxygen, and Sara knew she’d be coughing like hell before long. There was one door, which was either rotted or just plain filthy. And there was no Dean.

“Dean!” she yelled. “Dean!”

It was a long shot, and she wasn’t exactly surprised when there wasn’t a reply, because that would be just too simple. The same went for her phone, still safely in her pocket. It would switch on, but there was no signal. She’d never liked technology.

Automatically, she reached for her pendent. When her fingers only brushed the fabric of her T-shirt, Sara looked down, surprised. Why would whatever had snatched her take her necklace, but not her weapons or kit? Admittedly, the simple necklace was more than just an accessory. The spiral acted as her focus for rituals and exorcisms, and without it, any attempts at such things would be much less likely to succeed. Sara rubbed her neck, more disconcerted than she would like to admit, and tried to think.

It was kinda odd, Sara would admit, that in six years of hunting she’d never been snatched by a monster before this. She’d been cursed, battered, attacked, threatened by and pissed off with various demons, but never been snatched herself. And she didn’t like that it had happened now.

But she had food, some cans of drink, even her exorcist kit in its black rucksack. She had her two knives, her revolver. She had a pissed off, talented, incredibly determined best friend out there somewhere.

It could be a lot worse.

Squaring her shoulders, Sara picked up her rucksack and headed for the door, pausing for a second to strap her holster to her thigh and put her revolver safely in it. The role of damsel in distress had never been part of her repertoire.

xxx

William Atwood was the son of a Hunter, the younger brother of another Hunter, and was on very good terms with most of the major Hunters in America. He knew all about demons, knew the importance of thorough research – even more so since he’d nearly died due to a lack of info about a hunt – and, most importantly, was truly excellent under pressure.

Which was the main reason that he wasn’t panicking. Or, to be more precise, wasn’t panicking yet. There were still plenty of options to be explored, plenty of routes that might not lead to dead ends. There was still time.

Hunters didn’t normally expect a happy solution to a missing person, but Will knew Dean wouldn’t give up. The Atwood brothers, who had been watching over Sara long before any of the Winchesters were in the picture, had decided years ago to trust Dean. It helped that the guy was very good at his job, admittedly.

Will rubbed his eyes and gingerly stretched his bad leg. Sitting down for long periods of time always made it ache, but if research was the only way he could contribute to the good fight, then that was what he was going to do.

Even if he was trying to investigate a town that, for all intents and purposes, didn’t exist. Jamestown, Wyoming, was so small it didn’t show up on any map, didn’t have a local paper, wasn’t mentioned in any of the other local papers. A couple of phone calls had shown that no one else knew anything about it, and John fucking Winchester wasn’t answering his phone.

Bobby Singer didn’t know anything, Will had already checked. Adrian, a professional idiot brother when he wasn’t hunting demons, was in Canada with Maxwell, a pretty powerful seer and with any luck, the old Canadian would have some insight to share.

But if he didn’t…

Will crushed that thought before it went any further and turned back to the computers. The Hub was busy as always, various programs on multiple computers watching weather patterns, scanning new reports for key words, but this kind of search took a more personal approach.

But just as Will turned firmly back to work, a computer tucked right under the stairs started to beep.

Groaning, he heaved himself out of his comfortable chair and grabbed his walking stick, limping over to the relevant terminal. The damn alarm wouldn’t shut up unless he told it to, after all.

“What the-” he muttered, skimming the text on the screen. Sitting down, he hit a few buttons, read some more information, and started another search.

That couldn’t be right. That just couldn’t be.

xxx

“The welcome sign said this place was founded in 1833,” Dean said. “Eighteen years before the first victim. If you’re right, and that was because of a priest, what the hell happened to the church?”

“Could be outside the town limits,” Linus offered. “They used to do that in England.”

“Yeah, but not in the nineteenth century. What? Sara goes on about that sort of stuff,” Dean added when Linus stared at him. “Maybe it was destroyed.”

“Probably. So why didn’t they rebuild it?”

“Dude, you’re the one who seems to have all the answers here.” Dean looked back towards the diner. The lady there had been awfully chatty. “Well, until Sara’s pet geek comes up with something useful, might as well talk to the locals.”

“Local folklore?”

“Hey, there’s a reason those old wives get listened to so much.”

“Alright. I’ll try the shop.”

Dean nodded and the two went in opposite directions.

The lady in the diner, despite being just as chatty as Dean remembered, couldn’t tell him why there wasn’t a church. She could give him good directions to the one she went to, which sounded like a great place if you liked that sort of thing, but it was in the next town over and that wasn’t exactly what Dean was after. And it took fifteen minutes for her to pause long enough for him to be able to back out of the whole conversation.

As he was leaving the diner, Dean’s phone rang. He stopped just outside the door and answered, quickly looking around and spotting Linus waiting back by the Impala.

“Yeah?”

“Dean, there’s- This is- Um.”

Dean was surprised. He’d never heard Will that muddled before.

“Dude, calm down. What is it?”

“Remember when Sara’s father appeared and disappeared? She got me to set up a search program, try and find out anything about him.”

“Figures.”

“Yeah, well, it looks like she was right to be suspicious. I just got a hit on Linus. From Jamestown, Wyoming.”

“You’re fucking me.”

“Swear to God, man. And it gets weirder. He was there in 1851.”

“That’s not… Oh, who am I kidding? It’s completely possible. Are you sure it’s the same guy?”

“Found a picture of him. Matches the one Sara gave me, that one with her mom, remember? Same name, same face, same location.”

“Too many coincidences,” Dean agreed. “Shit. No wonder he knows so much.”

“What?” Will nearly yelped. “He’s there?”

“Yep. Keep researching Jamestown, man. I need to know the location of the church, just in case Linus isn’t the bad guy here.”

“And if he is?”

“Then we’ll get the information in a slightly more direct way, alright?”

“Dean… what do we tell Sara?”

“Let’s just get her back first. Everything else, we can deal with.”

Dean had no idea who he was trying to convince with that last brash statement, but judging from the way Will hung up on him without another word, he didn’t succeed on either count.

Looking over at Li, Dean took a deep breath. Sara came first. Whatever happened next, if he could get her back safe, it was worth it.

Even if he was talking about her father.

Even if.

xxx

Sara gave the wooden door a critical once-over. Sturdy wood, old iron fittings, a little iron grill at about eye-level. All fine and dandy, except for the fact that the only way she’d ever be able to break a door like this down would be by getting herself possessed.

Which wasn’t exactly an option, so Sara was relieved to find the door unlocked.

The corridor beyond the door didn’t seem to have any windows whatsoever and Sara couldn’t even judge how long the damn thing was. But it was the only option, so she retrieved her pathetic penlight and headed forward.

More stone, more darkness, even more dust. And more doors, all identical to the one she’d already walked through, except for one tiny detail. Sara had passed three doors before she spotted it, and then she just had to double back to check, but once you knew it was there, it was easy to spot. Just below the tiny windows cut into each door, there was a rough engraving, a short string of letters. No, not letters. Numerals. Roman numerals.

“Eighteen… fifty-six,” Sara muttered, working it out. “No, fifty-one.”

The next door read 1873, then 1895, and so on until she reached 1983. Seven doors, all in a row. And then an eighth, still slightly ajar, with MMV scratched deep into the surface. 2005.

Sara swallowed. Well, that couldn’t be good. She backed away from the eighth door, heading back to the seventh. Might as well know what she was dealing with, after all.

The doors didn’t seem to have locks, just bolts on the outside, and those weren’t even rusted. Sara tried to peer through the little grill thingy and couldn’t make out a single thing, so she just grabbed the bolt and slowly worked it free. The door opened with the stench of death and decay and Sara sighed, seeing the hunched corpse in the corner of the tiny room.

The room, cell, glorified cupboard, had no windows, no light. It was barely large enough to stretch out your legs, even wedged in a corner like the sorry body in front of her. No chains, no blood stains, and the body looked whole, no obvious wounds or anything. Reluctantly, Sara turned the thin beam from her penlight to the inside of the door.

She had to fight back the urge to hurl. The inside of the door was scratched and smeared with old blood. This poor sod had been locked in and left to die.

And there was another door, an empty cell just waiting to be filled.

Sara backed away, pushed the door shut again on that awful sight. She was not going to end up like that. She wasn’t.

Past the eighth door, there was a ninth, right at the end of the corridor. There were no roman numerals on it, which was just about the only good thing Sara could spot.

She didn’t want to go through that door. But then, she didn’t want to be here, either, or to be so goddamn scared, and since when did want mean anything in her world? Besides, there might be some way out through that door.

But she pulled her revolver out before approaching the door. It made her feel a little better.

xxx

Dean knew he was overly protective of the Impala. He knew it, but he wasn’t particularly bothered by it, and he had no intention of doing anything about it. The car was, for lack of a better term, home, a reassuring constant in a really inconsistent life.

And he didn’t like having strangers riding shotgun. As a kid and then a teenager, it had been strictly his place, with Sammy in the back. Then his dad had brought his gigantic black truck, which Sara had always called- did always call ‘Truckzilla’, and Dean had moved onto the driver’s seat, with Sammy – and later Sara – in the passenger seat.

Having Linus there was making Dean very, very testy. But hauling off and punching him in the middle of Jamestown wasn’t really an option, so Dean had to go subtly. Which, contrary to popular rumour, he could do. He just preferred not to.

“So this Will guy got a lead on the church?”

“Yep,” Dean lied easily. Lying always made him feel better about a lack of violence. “Kinda sketchy, but it’s the best idea we’ve got, so…”

Linus nodded in agreement. “Does this sort of thing happen to Sara a lot?”

That question shocked Dean into honesty. “This is the first time. I got snatched once, just after we started working together, and she got cursed one time, but that’s about it.”

“You broke the curse?”

Dean nodded. “And she took down a doppelganger. That was kinda cool.”

“I thought she was an exorcist.”

“She ain’t like her mom. Bit more active.”

“Good. Good.” And Linus sounded like he meant it, which was just odd. All of Sara’s actual family had been dead set against Hunters in general and Sara hunting in particular. There was a long pause before Linus spoke again. “I don’t want her ending like her mother did.”

Amelia Lucian had ended lonely and depressed and despairing and, most likely, at her own design. It wasn’t something Dean or anyone else had ever spoken about, not to Sara, not even among themselves. It was something that Dean had thought about and worried about strictly in the privacy of his own head, and he’d come to a firm conclusion long ago.

“She won’t. I won’t let her.”

Linus nodded again, like that had been what he expected.

Dean spotted a decent looking spot and pulled the Impala over. They were far enough away from town. This would do. He got out of the car, waited until Linus did the same, and walked casually into the woods a little way.

“It is kinda amazing, you know, what Will can find with those computers of his,” Dean said conversationally. “Beats Google all to hell.”

“Uh-huh,” Linus said absently. “So what are we looking for here?”

“Answers, same as always.” Dean pulled his pistol out from the small of his back and pointed it at Linus. “Starting with what the fuck you are, man, and what the hell you’ve been doing here.”

xxx
Next chapter will be up in five days or so. Please review, guys.