Bright White Ligh

Title: Bright White Light
Author: lilacsigil
Written: January 2010
Rated: PG-13
Disclaimer:
Category: Gen
Fandom: Supernatural/The X-Files

Summary: In 1993, the Winchesters go looking for a creature that has already killed at least five people in and around a small town in Wisconsin. Over the last year, ten-year-old Sam has started to learn about hunting and is now an active participant in at least the early stages of a hunt. While he greatly enjoys learning the trade and being useful, he is beginning to understand the fear and danger that also go along with hunting - that which comes from outside the family, and that which comes from within.

As the hunt progresses, the Winchester boys meet up with Max Fenig, a UFO nut who may be seeking the same creature. Max seems to think that it's some kind of benevolent alien, despite Dean and Sam's protests. When John is taken out of the picture, Dean and Sam must protect both themselves and the monster's potential victims. Unfortunately, the creature has attracted the attention of everyone from UFO hunters to the Air Force to Special Agent Mulder of the FBI - but only Dean and Sam know what they're really facing. They can't save everyone, and they know to trust no-one.

"Anyway, I hate Wisconsin!" Sam threw himself back on his seat with a mighty huff, and stared gloomily out the window at the river that ran beside the rural highway. No-one ever listened to him.

"You liked Michigan just fine, and Wisconsin's right next door, " Dad replied mildly, as he had every time Sam had launched the same futile diatribe over the last week.

Dean twisted around in the front seat to look . "Remember, Sammy? We lived across from that place with those three big dogs and they paid us a buck-fifty a day to walk them? They were cool dogs."

"There won't be cool dogs in Wisconsin. Anyway, you kept the buck and only gave me fifty cents." Sam was determined to let nothing placate him.

"A 'fair division of labor' is me driving and you watching the map, Dean-o. How long until the turnoff for Townsend?" Dad was in a good mood, as he usually was at the start of a hunt. The anniversary of their mother's death was just a few days behind them, but Sam had been watching him closely, and it looked like this time, he'd left his grief behind in Tulsa and taken to the open road with a cleared mind and heart.

Dean straightened out the slightly crumpled map and ran his hand over the various markings that they had added. "About three miles, then only another mile to the town. What's up first? These houses have two deaths each, but the most recent death is just one guy."

"We're checking that out. Look at the dates – someone dies, then someone else in their household dies two weeks later, to the day." Dad glanced in the mirror at Sam, who held up the journal to read from the most recent page.

"And look, Dad!" Sam couldn't resist a puzzle, even when he had intended to sulk the whole time they were in Wisconsin. "Each death is two weeks apart. This guy, Mr Kovacs, dies first, then his wife, then his cousin, then her dad, then this other guy. But they're all pretty old, like forty-nine and fifty-seven and sixty. Maybe they just died of being old?"

Dad grinned and shook his head slightly. "Does that explain the two week difference, Sammy? Tell me how long we've got until the next victim dies."

"Um, Mr Walker died on October 27th, today is November 6th, so we've got until the 10th, next Wednesday. That's not long, Dad."

"That's why we're going to Mr Walker's home first – anyone else living there is at risk."

Dean folded the map into uneven rectangles until just the town was showing. "Left at the intersection, Dad."

The Impala swept around the curve and the landscape abruptly changed from woodland to the scrubby outskirts of Townsend. It had a large number of motels for such a small town, but the signs advertising bait sales and water ski rental helped explain that. November was well past tourist season, though, and most of the motel parking lots looked empty, though the town itself was busy with locals in their big, muddy SUVs. A few people gave the Impala curious glances, but, unlike some rural towns they had visited, no-one seemed overtly hostile.

Dean leaned over the front seat and put his hand over the journal page that Sam was reading. "Sammy! Quick quiz! Who are we and what are we doing here?" Since Sam had discovered his father's true occupation, all three Winchesters had participated in creating their false identities.

Sam rolled his eyes and sighed dramatically, but reeled off their cover story easily. As much as all the moving around annoyed him, he didn't want to be left out. "We're the Wells family, Dad's an EPA inspector, normally our grandma looks after us when he's sent out of town to work, but she had to have an operation on her knee so we had to come with him this time."

"Good boy." Dad slowed the car, looking for the turn onto Nicolet Road, towards the lake. "In a town this size, gossip is going to spread faster than light. Keep your eyes and ears open, and you might pick up something relevant to the job."

Dean flopped back into his seat and eyed his dad suspiciously. "Does that mean we have to go to school?"

Dad spotted the turn and swung them onto Nicolet Road, leading back towards the lake. "Yes, Dean. I'll enroll you on Monday."

Dean's groan was almost drowned out by Sam's cheer as Dad pulled the car to a halt outside a small but fairly new brick house in a row of mostly wooden cabins. Most of the cabins looked empty, but a few, including this one, had an SUV or two in the drive and smoke streaming from the chimney. Dad stretched, then got out of the car, going around to the trunk to retrieve the car battery-sized EMF meter.

The second Dad had moved away from the Impala, Dean turned in his seat and scowled at Sam. "Don't be such a suck-up about school. Next thing you know, he'll dump us at Pastor Jim's or something. Forever."

"He will not! Anyway, it's not even school I care about, it's the school library. The only book I've got left from that Salvation Army place is a girl book."

"Don't read so fast, then, dorkface. Besides, I thought you'd like a girl book."

Sam flung himself lengthwise onto the back seat so he could kick the back of Dean's seat as hard as possible, although he'd never dare do it while his dad was present. "Shut up, jerk. It was a whole box of books for a dollar! I didn't know that stupid book was in the box!"

Dean punched Sam in the shin then ducked out of the way of Sam's flailing foot, cunningly winding down the window so that their dad would overhear any outraged wails. Sam subsided, grumbling, then slid over the top of the front seat to sit next to Dean and watch their dad through the windshield.

At the other end of the short driveway, Dad rang the doorbell and waited. The curtains twitched, though there was some hesitation before the person inside approached the door. Dean and Sam followed their dad's gaze as he checked out the outside of the home – as far as the boys could tell, there were no markings of any kind, protective or harmful, no signs of violence or attempted intrusions. Everything appeared well-kept but somewhat weathered. The only peculiarity in such a tidy yard was a long black streak of soot down the outside of the red brick chimney. The wind off the lake was strong, though, and so it wasn't so strange that people might be reluctant to go up a ladder and clean it at this time of year. That same sharp wind also carried Dad's conversation straight to the car, and the boys listened carefully.

The door was flung open by a solid, bearded man, about Dad's height but heavier, with a round, wary face and cold blue eyes.

"Who the hell are you?" the man rasped, his voice tired and his posture somewhere between aggression and defeat.

"John Wells, I'm with the EPA. I believe this is the residence of a Mr Rick Walker?"

"If you're looking for Rick, you're a week late. He's dead." The man started to close the door.

"Doctor. Doctor Steven Young. I'm Rick's partner, as you probably didn't see in the obituary."

Dad's surprise must have shown on his face, because Dr Young's expression became slightly less hostile, though he remained tense.

"You didn't know Rick was gay? I thought you must be here because of those ridiculous AIDS rumors."

Dad recovered quickly. "Doctor Young, I can assure you that if Mr Walker had died of AIDS, there would be no need for the EPA to be investigating his death, or the recent deaths of a number of other people in Townsend."

"Yes, sir, and you may be at risk yourself. I would appreciate a look around your home, and if you would answer a few questions. Was this Mr Walker's primary residence?"

Dr Young stepped away from the door and gestured Dad inside, and spotted the two boys in the Impala as he did so. "You bring kids on these investigations?"

"My wife died some years ago, and their grandmother…" Dad's voice was cut off as the door closed behind them.

Sam bounced on the front seat. "That was so cool! That doctor let Dad right into the house!"

"Dude, he's a gay dude. He probably thinks Dad is hot." Dean affected a cool pose, but he couldn't suppress his wriggle of horror at the idea of some guy finding his dad attractive.

"Ew!" Sam made satisfyingly elaborate barfing gestures. "Not Dad! But hey, Dean, do you think that's the guy that's gonna die next week?"

"Yeah, maybe. But Dad will work it out before whatever kind of monster it is gets him, don't worry. And we'll help, even if Dad does stick us in school all freakin' day. Here, Sammy, check out this list of motels, see which one is cheapest and still inside town, 'cos we'll probably be walking to school."

By the time Dad got back to the car, the boys had retrieved coats and a blanket from the trunk, and were sitting under the blanket, sharing Dean's Walkman. Although it was barely past one, the sun was already dipping behind the tallest pine trees and the air was chill, even with the Impala protecting them from the wind. Dad opened the driver's door.

"Sure, Dad. Where to now?" Dean shoved Sam and the blanket up over the back of the seat and wound up the cord of his headphones.

"Don't push me!" Sam complained, slightly sleepy, but finished the climb into the backseat and wrapped himself up in the blanket again, his cheeks rosy.

"Don't push him, Dean. If you've got a motel picked, we'll check in, then I'll go talk to some more people and check out the school."

"That motel with the balconies we drove past on the way in looks the best." Dean passed his Walkman back to Sam. "So you think we're going to be here a little while? Do you know what it is yet?"

Dad swung the Impala into a U-turn and drove back towards town. "I've got a few ideas, but we're going to need more information. The EMF meter was going crazy in there, especially around the fireplace. I could track a path straight from there to Rick Walker's bed."

"Listening in, were you, Dean? It could be – it sure sounded like the life was drained from him over a week or so – but I don't know yet. And there's male and female victims, remember. Doctor Young doesn't show any signs of being touched by it, though."

"Isn't that good?" Sam piped up, his brow creased in concentration. It was hard to pick up all this information when he'd nearly been asleep just a minute earlier.

Dean rolled his eyes. "No, Sammy! Well, it's good for Doctor Young, I guess. It just means that there's another victim somewhere, and it could be anyone, and we have to find them before Wednesday."

"Doctor Young works in the ER at the county hospital. He told me that the first of the deaths, Darrell Kovacs, was from lung cancer. He took six months to die, and it was all monitored by doctors. Nothing weird about it. All the other deaths are linked to him, though. Mostly family, but Walker was his business partner and fishing buddy." Dad turned the Impala back onto the main road, driving past the array of small stores – a bait shop, a tiny supermarket, a drugstore, two diners.

"Did Doctor Young see anything weird? Even if it didn't affect him?" Dean frowned.

"I don't think so. It seemed that each of the victims, starting with Mrs Kovacs, got tired, then frail and bedridden, then died after about two weeks. The doctors ran a lot of tests, but nothing showed up." Dad frowned too, intrigued by the puzzle, then bumped the car up the driveway and into the parking lot of the motel that Dean and Sam had chosen.

The motel looked like it had been built in the 1960s or early 1970s – the Winchesters were motel connoisseurs – but it had been recently painted and looked clean and well-kept. It was a two-story building in an L-shape, with a balcony running the length of the upper story, and criss-crossed latticework screens shielding the downstairs rooms from the parking lot. The lot had only two cars in it – both with Wisconsin plates – and the rumble of the Impala was enough to bring a short, stocky woman scurrying out of reception with a wave and cheerful smile.

"Thank you, " Dad replied, stepping out of the car while Dean and Sam got their belongings together. "My boys and I will be staying for at least a week, I think, so we appreciate the welcome."

"Oh, come through to reception, I'll get you checked in. I'm Shawna, I run this place with my husband, so if you need anything, just call. We don't get too many tourists at this time of year."

"No, ma'am, I'm actually working, but family circumstances meant that I had to bring my sons along." Dad nodded at the boys, and they scrambled out of the car to follow Shawna to reception. "I'm with the EPA, in fact. John Wells, and these are my sons, Dean and Sam."

Shawna led them into reception, where Sam's eyes immediately fixed on a big jar of candy on her desk.

"Sure, you take a couple, young man. If it's all right with your father, that is." Dad gestured for him to go ahead, and each boy took a small handful of wrapped candies. "Now, you'll be wanting a room with a kitchenette? I'm sorry to say we don't operate the restaurant at this time of year, but we can always whip up a breakfast or some sandwiches if needed."

"A kitchenette would be very helpful, ma'am." Dad signed the register on the desk, and got out his credit card while Sam and Dean tried not to chew too loudly.

"You don't need to charge this to the government? I've got the form here somewhere. And call me Shawna, you're making me feel old."

"My apologies, Shawna." Sam looked sideways at Dean and made a tiny gagging noise, strictly for Dean's ears, but still got a hard over-the-shoulder glare from his dad. "I'm not a federal employee – I contract to the EPA and I'll claim my expenses when the job is finished. No need for you to send anything off." Dad happily used fake paperwork on overnight jobs, but never on jobs where they might be staying longer.

Shawna ran the card through the terminal and all three Winchesters held their breath for a moment, waiting to see if it would go through. Many of the motels out in the sticks still used the old-fashioned manual imprinter to collect credit card details at check-in, but obviously Shawna had upgraded her service. The terminal beeped and rattled out a docket without problems, though, and Dad signed it.

"Thank you, Mr Wells. Here's your key – I've put you in room 21, right down at the end, where it's nice and quiet. Do you need any help with your bags?"

"No, thank you, Shawna. I've got some boys here who are spoiling for a bit of work."

The boys in question sighed, but both of them were excited to be moving in. Sam clambered back into the Impala and started collecting his books and toys, his pillow, Dean's box of cassette tapes and a bag of trash to throw out, while Dean and Dad carried their bags into the ground floor room. It took a few trips, two of them involving weapons stashed under extra blankets, before they were settled, their breath puffing white in the chilly afternoon. This motel room was more like a little apartment than the single rooms they usually rented at motels – there was a small main room with a tiny kitchen, a small round table and a sofa in front of the TV, and a separate bedroom off each side. Sam sprinted for the room on the left, only to find that it held a double bed, and Dean had already broken right, into the room with two single beds, claiming the one nearest the door.

Dean stretched out on his bed with an exaggerated sigh of comfort. "No way, Sammy-boy, I got here first. And you only want it because I called it."

"Hey, at least we're not sharing the fold-out sofa this time." Dean leaned over to Sam, and whispered, "Did you see that the TV stand's got wheels? When Dad's working, I'll roll the TV in here and you can watch TV in bed."

"Really? Cool!" Sam was rather impressed with this proposition, as it held all the benefits of being sick without the inconvenience of actually being sick. "Will you make me Jell-O?"

"Sure, okay, if there's some in the supplies. Now go get your bag and unpack. And don't put your dirty laundry in with my clean stuff this time!"

Sam hurried off to get his duffel bag, and grabbed Dean's, too. Their dad was already penciling protective symbols above the door frame, so focused on his task that Sam had to drag the bags in a wide circle around him to get them back to the bedroom. Dean had got up from his bed-testing and was checking the built-in closet.

"Are you looking for curses? It was only one time that there really was that skeleton in the closet, and that wasn't in a motel." Sam started unpacking, shoving clothes into the two-drawer nightstand.

"Nah, Sam, phone numbers. Motels like this, they all get local girls as cleaners in summer. Hot local girls." Dean's bold claim was immediately undermined as he continued to follow their dad's routine checklist, looking under the beds next, then going to get the bag of rock salt for the small, high-up window.

Dad had finished with the wards. "Dean, get the salt lines down. I'm going to see who I need to talk to about enrolling you in school, then see about interviewing these other families. I'll be back by dinner time."

"Okay, Dad, just remember Sam's dinner time is six o'clock, not midnight again. I don't want him getting cranky." Dean ducked an affectionate thump to the shoulder and, as soon as his dad was out the door, checked the clearance under the door and put down a line that wouldn't be broken by the door being opened. The Impala rumbled away, and Dean carefully walked around the room, pouring a line of salt at every doorway and windowsill.

Sam abandoned his unpacking within minutes to hurl himself on the sofa and turn on the TV, much missed after three days in the car. There weren't many channels, though, and most of them were showing boring daytime programming, all chat shows and soaps.

Dean threw a bundle of blankets at his brother. "Go put these on the beds, it's gonna get cold tonight. And Tulsa sucked, even with the cable."

Sam wriggled out from under the pile and glared. "It did not! I liked my school there. I had two friends."

"Blankets, Sammy. Then we can check if there's any free food with the free coffee." Dean lined up the guns and knives on the round Formica table then took their toothbrushes into the bathroom and set them in the cracked coffee mug with the city seal of Snohomish on the side, a mug they'd somehow kept for years.

After the unpacking tasks were done, Dean checked out the kitchenette – hotplate, microwave, bar fridge – and found a small packet of complimentary cookies in a little wicker basket with coffee and sugar sachets.

"Here you go, Sammy! Chocolate chip and everything!" Dean took one of the small, dry cookies and gave the other one to Sam, who cheerfully stuffed it in his mouth and chewed loudly. As Sam ate, Dean burrowed into his duffel and pulled out a video cassette. "Look what accidentally fell into my bag in Tulsa! Terminator 2!"

"Wow, cool! Put it on!" Both boys had already watched the video several times in various motels, but that was no barrier to seeing it again, especially as now they had their own copy. Sam settled down on the sofa, licking cookie crumbs from the corners of his mouth, and Dean sat himself at the table with the guns, and began the checking and cleaning ritual that was the backing track to so many movies that they had seen.

Dad made it back by six-thirty, which was pretty good by his standards, with a folder full of information and a pensive look on his face. He scanned the room, but Dean's salt lines were reliable as ever – he'd even put circles around the heating vents.

"Dad, how'd it go?" Dean was on his feet as Dad came through the door, grinning at the sight of him. Sam was snoozing on the sofa, but woke up blearily at the conversation.

"Good, Dean. There were more signs of something unnatural being involved with the deaths – the EMF meter picked up traces both at the other houses, too. And I may have found the next victim."

"Yeah, Sammy, don't worry. I caught up with the principal at her home, and you'll be at school on Monday. Dean, you'll have to be in eighth grade again. Now, get your coats on and we can go get dinner."

The boys scrambled to get their coats and shoes on, and Dad put his folder of notes on the table, next to the neat line of cleaned guns and sharpened knives.

"Why's Dean in eighth grade? He finished it already, " Sam asked as they got back into the Impala. It was entirely dark and bitter cold outside, but the Impala was parked right outside the door and it was just a quick scurry from the motel room to the car.

"Don't worry, Sammy, I don't mind. Eighth grade will be way better second time around, now that I know it all."

"The local school only goes to eighth grade, and I don't want Dean coming home from the high school on the bus in the dark. Whatever this creature is – and I have a few ideas – it only attacks at night. I'd rather have the two of you walking home together."

"Good plan!" Dean was suspiciously enthusiastic about the prospect of repeating a year, and both Dad and Sam looked at him with interest. "Yeah, well, girls like older guys, don't they?"

"So am I!" Dean's bravado faded quickly. "It's okay, Dad, little towns like this never welcome a new kid anyway, not for a few weeks, and we might be gone by then."

"You know I expect you to be a gentleman, Dean." Dad's voice was stern, and both boys could see their chances of a nice meal at a diner followed by ice cream disappearing fast.

Sam volunteered a distraction. "Who's the next victim, Dad? You said you might have found out who it is? Are they old?" Sam held his breath for a second, then his dad decided to take the bait.

"Not at all. Her name is Heather Kovacs, and she's a college student. Her father was Darrell Kovacs, the one who died of lung cancer, and her mother was the first person to fade away and die. Heather's in town settling their estate."

"How do you know it's her?" Dean was sitting up straight in the front seat, on his best behavior and obviously hoping to hear information about the hunt rather than yet another lecture on manners. "Both her parents died, she can't really look her best right now. And is it this Kovacs guy haunting them?"

Dad parked the car in the main street, outside the aptly named Main Street Diner. "She does look ill, but it's not just that. She looks 40, not 20 or so. Her skin is pale and papery, and she couldn't concentrate long enough to finish sentences when she was talking to me. She had the lights on all over the house, but she was still bumping into things, like she couldn't see clearly, and her eyes looked milky."

"I didn't get much of a reading from her, but the EMF meter climbed into the red all over their house. It was strongest near the fireplace and her bedroom, so I salted both. She's not going to notice."

"Wow." Dean grinned. "At least we won't have to find a backhoe just to do a salt-and-burn this time! The ground gets too damn hard up here."

The Winchesters hurried from the car into the small and half-empty diner, populated only by an elderly couple eating soup and a pair of sheriff's deputies getting coffee.

"Hey, you the EPA guy?" The older deputy, a black man about Dad's age, gave them a friendly wave. The younger deputy, a tall white guy, looked less willing to talk, and stayed at the counter while his partner came over to the table where the Winchesters were shedding their coats.

"Yeah, that's me. John Wells." The two men shook hands, and the deputy leaned on their table.

"Jason Wright. You think there's some kind of major problem here? Darrell Kovacs built our house, you see, and my son's about the same age as your younger boy, there."

"Seems to be limited to a few houses at the moment, but I'll give you a better answer as soon as I can. Have you seen anything unusual, Deputy? Normally healthy people getting sick, confused behavior, anything like that?"

The deputy took a sip of his coffee. "Like the Kovacs and the Nelsons, you mean, and Rick Walker? Nice folks, but after Darrell died, Maggie went downhill fast. I was surprised about Janet Nelson – she was Darrell's cousin, worked the real estate business for him. Her father was getting on, though, the dementia was getting worse. She looked after him pretty good, but without her, he didn't last long."

"I guess so. Old Jerry Nelson used to be a timber man, and he lent Darrell the money that got him started in real estate and construction. Darrell lived a charmed life, really, bought up a lot of the lakeside property just before the tourism boom started, then people paid him to build their houses on it! You think there's something in his house? He built a good third of the town – my house, the supermarket, even that motel you're staying at."

"If there's something in his house, I doubt it's anything to do with the construction, or it would be a widespread problem by now." Dad used his most placating voice to head off the chatty deputy creating an entire disaster scenario, but Dean and Sam stared, confused. Excess co-operation from law enforcement was not a problem they were accustomed to encountering. "Though, if I could look at some records, see which houses he built…"

"Head over to Oconto Falls for that – they've got everything in the county records there. It's all closed on weekends, though."

The younger deputy had been talking on his radio. "Come on, Jason, let's get going."

Jason shook Dad's hand again. "Well, nice to meet you. I'll let you know if I hear anything."

"Evening, boys." The deputy smiled at Sam and Dean, and followed his partner out the door.

"Quiet down, or no-one's gonna get anything at all. Sammy, you can have grilled cheese all you want, but you'll have some vegetables with it. Same for you, Dean."

Both boys grumbled but quickly settled down into an old argument about the merits of Coke versus Mountain Dew with one's meal, and Dad wrote in his journal, noting down every last detail of the day, as he always did. Their dinners arrived swiftly, and they all settled down to their meals.

"All right, " Sam muttered through a mouthful of grilled cheese sandwich. "I'm gonna give Wisconsin points for this sandwich, if nothing else."

Dean punched him gently in the arm. "Told you it wasn't all bad. Now eat your carrots."

Sunday morning dawned bright and clear, and Sam was awoken by the pale light shining through the small window. The TV was still in their bedroom, though it was switched off, and Dean was snoring and hugging his pillow in the other bed. Sam valiantly resisted the temptation to throw something at him and got out of bed instead, shivering slightly and pulling on his sweater, though the room probably wasn't all that cold compared to outside. Dad must have come back some time and switched off the TV, because Sam could remember it being on when he briefly woke up and saw Dean awake, hunched in his bed and staring at the TV as if his eyes had dried out. Dad's muddy boots were sitting on a plastic bag just inside the door – Sam grimaced, because he was probably going to have to clean those later – and the other bedroom door was firmly closed. Dad must have got in pretty late, then, if he wasn't going to get up for breakfast.

The bathroom really was cold, and Sam peed and got out of there as fast as he could, giving his hands about a second under the tap, and only because his dad always knew when he hadn't washed his hands. As he dashed out of the bathroom, he spotted some plastic shopping bags sitting on the kitchen bench by the microwave, and took a sharp right turn to see what Dad had bought. Dad had some funny ideas about buying food, and usually it was better when Dean did it. They never ran out of peanut butter or bread or milk when Dean was in charge of food. The upside to Dad's shopping was that he was much more likely than Dean to get confused in the supermarket and start buying random things until he thought he had a few meals' worth. Quite often, the random things were the bright and shiny stuff that had been right in front of his face, the expensive stuff that Dean would never buy. Sam rifled through the bags as quietly as he could to see if there was anything good, and indeed there was: a medium-sized box of Count Chocula cereal. Sam grabbed the box and looked through the cupboards to find a bowl, but just as he opened the box, he heard Dean shuffling from their bedroom to the bathroom.

Dean gave him a bleary-eyed death glare. "Shh, Sammy! Dad only got in like an hour ago. There's milk in the fridge. Pour me a bowl of that stuff and I'll tell you what he found out. It's pretty cool."

Sam got out another bowl for Dean, and filled both with the sweet, marshmallow-riddled cereal and plenty of milk, then took his over to the sofa. Dean wandered out of the bathroom wiping his damp hands on his jeans, and grabbed the other bowl, slurping milk off the top before he even sat down.

"Dad saw it, last night! He was totally right, it went straight to the Kovacs house." Dean's voice was quiet but intense.

Sam's eyes widened. For all he was proud of his dad killing monsters and saving people, he didn't always like hearing the gory details. "Did he get it?"

"Nah, it manifested as a bright white light then it hovered above the house for maybe a minute, then shot straight down the chimney!" Dean still kept his voice down, but demonstrated the creature's movements with grand waves of his spoon. "He said he jumped out of the car and ran straight for the door, but before he could get there the light came zooming back out, then it vanished in the sky. Maybe the salt Dad put down drove it off!"

"So that lady was okay?" Sam's voice was muffled by too many marshmallows and he had to spit some back into the bowl.

"Dad said the lights in the house went on right after, and he saw her moving around, so I guess so. And you dropped a marshmallow on your sweater."

Sam scooped up the rubbery candy and ate it, thoughtfully. "Did the light go anywhere else?"

"Dunno. He stayed at the Kovacs place until just before dawn, then he went to the supermarket, then he came back." Dean tipped his bowl up and drank the last of the now-chocolate milk, with a remarkably gross gargling noise, even by Dean's standards.

"Ew, Dean, don't wake Dad! So did you sleep? Are you going back to bed? Can we go out? Is there a library?"

"Nah, I got some sleep." Dean shrugged. He always tried to stay up until his dad got back, and looked a little shamefaced at not managing it. "Dad said we could go out in the parking lot, but that's it. I got the basketball from the car, if you wanna play?"

"Okay!" Sam shoved his bowl into Dean's hand, and ran off to get properly dressed. When he came out, Dean had washed the bowls and spoons in the tiny steel sink and was writing a note for Dad on the complimentary hotel notepad.

Sam leaned on the door and twisted the handle back and forth. "Come on, Dean, he'll be able to hear us outside!"

"Yeah, right, like going out without telling him won't get us grounded for life." Dean propped up the note where Dad would see it, then pulled on his shoes and grabbed the keys before following Sam outside into the bright, cold morning.

It had snowed overnight, and the wind had blown it into drifts taller than Sam, piled up against the lattice barriers rather than the doors. The parking lot was fairly clear, though, or it would have been, if someone hadn't parked a big silver Airstream trailer in it, attached to an old wood-paneled car with rust all along the side. Sam knew that Dean was frowning without even looking at him – Dean hated to see a car neglected, but he was particularly sensitive about a certain vintage of American-made cars, as if this unloved Country Squire was a long-lost sister to the Impala.

"That's a pretty nice trailer. Look, there's a satellite dish on the roof!" Sam pointed, tugging at Dean's arm, in an effort to distract him from yet another tirade about taking care of your car.

Dean looked away from the telltale streaks of rust. "Huh. Fancy. You think I could rig up one of those for when we're staying in places with no cable? I bet Caleb's got some codes to unscramble it."

"Yeah, maybe if I was hanging out the window directing the dish." Dean unlocked the trunk of the Impala and retrieved their basketball, tied in a net so that it didn't roll around and make weird noises when they were driving. Dean shucked off the net and threw the ball straight at Sam. "Catch!"

Sam caught the ball, stumbling backwards with the impact, then bounced it back at Dean, who controlled the bounce one-handed as he slammed the trunk. "Come on, Sammy, you can do better than that!"

The game quickly evolved some vague rules – Dean was trying to get the ball towards the driveway, Sam towards reception – but they passed the ball back and forth just as often as they tried to take it away. Sam pushed and shoved, Dean used his height and kept the ball in the air, and their breath hung white in the icy air. Their battles got wilder and more risky – throwing the ball backwards over their heads, scrambling low – until Sam head butted the ball out of Dean's hands and it bounced straight into the side of the big silver trailer, hitting with a great metallic clang.

Sam just stared, but Dean moved fast, diving for the ball and catching it before it bounced towards the road. He had the ball in hand and the trunk of the Impala open before the trailer door opened, and quickly dropped the ball out of sight before turning with a cheesy grin. Fortunately, the man who had emerged from the trailer didn't look particularly threatening. He was tall and very thin, with wild orange hair sticking out in all directions from his ponytail and his beard. His clothes were baggy and his jeans holed at one knee.

"Did someone hit my trailer?" The man's voice was thin and worried, and Sam relaxed. This guy wasn't going to complain to their dad.

"Sorry, sir, " Dean had his most polite voice in place, the one he used to talk to Sam's teachers and to the parents of hot girls. "I was playing basketball with my little brother, here, and he missed the ball. We're both really sorry."

Sam thought Dean was laying it on a bit thick – it wasn't like Sam was so little, anymore – but he crept up to Dean's side and added his most sincere apology. "I'm really sorry."

The man seemed to take their apology at face value. "Don't worry, guys. It's just that I didn't get in until early this morning. Driving all night. Trying to get some sleep now." He blinked owlishly and fished a pair of round spectacles out of the front pocket of his ratty plaid shirt, then peered at the large digital watch on his skinny wrist. "Have you got the time? My watch stopped again, and the clock in the car doesn't keep good time anymore."

Dean opened his mouth but Sam stamped on his toes before any unwise comments about car maintenance emerged, so Dean looked at his watch instead. It had been a gift from Dad for his fourteenth birthday, and he was still ridiculously attached to it. "It's 8:56, sir."

"Thanks, thank you. I'm Max Fenig, by the way." He fiddled with his watch, not seeming to notice that the Winchesters did not offer their names in return. Dean took the opportunity to draw Sam back behind the lattice screen in front of their door, shoving the room key into Sam's hand.

"Good morning, then!" Dean said, cheerfully but hastily, and followed Sam back into the room before the encounter developed into anything that would involve their dad.

"Dad!" Sam shouted, and ran over, waving his arms and jostling the cup of coffee on the table. "Dean said you saw it! And it was a bright light! Do you know what it is yet?"

"Careful, Sammy, " Dad put a hand over his precious coffee to steady it, and Dean hauled Sam back by his coat.

"Watch it, Sammy. You get coffee on the guns, you can clean them." He unzipped Sam's coat and helped him out of it, though Sam was practically bouncing with excitement.

"I'm going to need your help today, boys. I told Heather Kovacs that I wanted to check the house more thoroughly, and she said today would be a good day for it. She'll be out with a friend, so she won't be getting in my way. But there's no way I can search the whole house by myself."

"What are we looking for?" Sam hadn't quite stopped bouncing, but the chance to actually help on a hunt was thrilling.

"Just a suspicion at this point, but it might be something like this." Dad showed them a page of his journal, and Sam scrutinized it closely, Dean peering over his shoulder. "It's a sigil for summoning good luck."

Dean glanced at the date on the page. "Nah, I know why. This is like those people near San Jose who summoned that genie thing and it gave them a million dollars then it ate their kid. If you get good luck, you pay for it in bad luck. And it sounds like this Kovacs guy had a lot of good luck before he dropped dead."

"Exactly right, Dean. And if other people benefitted from his luck, there's no reason why they wouldn't catch the bad luck, too. His wife, his business partner, his cousin, her uncle, and now his daughter."

"Don't know. Maybe because she wasn't at home when the luck turned? It's got its claws in her now, though. Get Sam organized, Dean, and bring something for lunch. We might be there a while." Dad slammed the journal shut and picked out a few weapons to carry with him, putting the rest back in a long duffel bag to return to the car.

Dean turned to Sam, just as clear in his mission. "Sammy, get something to read, and get my Walkman, too. You can listen to it if you get bored."

"Yeah, but this isn't an exciting part. Looking through someone's house can be pretty boring, and you might lose concentration."

Dad stood up. "Another part of the hunt is obeying orders, Sam. Do what your brother tells you or you can sit in the car the whole day."

"Fine!" Sam shouted, but went to their room anyway. If Dad was going to lock him in the car, he may as well have some entertainment. He grabbed the Walkman then hurried back to the kitchen to make sure that Dean was making his sandwiches the way he liked them. Dean was not only putting together sandwiches with peanut butter and Kraft cheese, but he'd made a little Saran Wrap parcel of Count Chocula for Sam to snack on.

"I don't want you whining and distracting Dad, " Dean muttered, but grinned as he said it. He was always cheerful when he got to go on a hunt, any part of a hunt, and even more so when Sam was allowed to come, too.

All three Winchesters piled into the Impala, Dean and Sam crouching on the floor, half under the back seat, so that Heather Kovacs wouldn't ask why an EPA inspector would bring his kids into her house. Dean had suggested that their dad tell her that he was leaving them in the car, but Dad vetoed the idea.

"She's never going to believe that I'd leave you in the car all day, not in this weather. Stay on the floor until I come and get you."

The drive to the Kovacs house was short, and the Impala pulled up a long, tree-lined driveway. Sam peered up at the chimney from his hiding spot, following his dad's glance – the long scorch marks on the outside were clearly visible, just like at Rick Farmer and Dr Young's house. Heather Kovacs, a small, dark-haired young woman who would have been pretty if she didn't look half-dead, was waiting by the window, and came out to wave them into the enormous garage. There was space for at least four cars, though there were only two there, plus a spacious workbench and a wall of tools.

Dad got out of the car, with a warning glance at the boys in their hiding place, and Heather leaned against the bench, already exhausted. "My dad spent a lot of time in here, Mr Wells. I know it's pretty open and well-ventilated, but you'll probably want to check here, too."

"Thank you, Miss Kovacs. Have you thought further about my suggestion that you move out, just for the moment? There could be toxins here that are threatening your health."

"My health? No, no, I feel fine." Heather stared vaguely in Dad's direction and let go of the bench that was supporting her. "I mean, apart from losing Mom and Dad."

Dad frowned, but didn't push. "Of course. I'll be inspecting the entire house today, so I'll call you when the inspection is done, just in case I disturb some mould or find an immediately threatening hazard."

"Did I give you Sally's number? I went to high school with her. She's married now, my dad built her house…" Heather's voice trailed off, then she shook her head and went to her car, a little SUV that wasn't muddy like most of the local cars were, with a University of Wisconsin sticker on the back bumper.

"Sally's house isn't far. I'm fine, really. " Heather climbed in and started the engine, backing out of the driveway. She did seem to be driving fairly capably, despite her confusion and shortened vision, but then, she'd spent most of her life here, and would have the roads written into her memory like her own name.

As soon as she was gone, the garage door closing behind her, Dad opened the back door of the Impala to see the boys playing a silent but serious game of Rock Paper Scissors, which Sam had just won, as usual.

"That was best of three! He has to check in that girl's room!" Sam giggled, having thoroughly defeated his brother.

"I'm sure I don't have to hold you back, Dean, " Dad added dryly and Dean ducked his head, embarrassed, before climbing out the door and brushing himself off. Sam slithered after, and Dad got his bag of supplies from the trunk. "I'm going to check out the fireplace – it's been a hot spot in both houses. Dean, you do the bedrooms like you promised Sam. Sam, there's a den on the ground floor, and I want you to look through that. Don't forget to check under the desk and inside drawers. And if you see a sigil, don't touch it!"

The big, modern house was spacious and expensively furnished, but dust was already starting to gather on all the knick-knacks and business trophies. Photos of the Kovacs family, of family vacations and fishing trips, plus the occasional studio portrait, adorned the walls, Heather growing taller in each picture, her parents to either side. Small wooden boxes adorned with her parents' names sat beside each other on the mantelpiece. Sam hung back as Dean flicked one open and held up a plastic container inside to show their dad that the crematory label was still attached.

"Leave that here, Dean. I'll mix in a little salt just to make extra sure that Mr and Mrs Kovacs are at rest." Dad held the EMF meter near the ashes. It didn't react, but sweeping meter over the fireplace sent the needle straight into the red. Dad passed it over to Dean, who tucked it firmly under his arm.

"See where it leads you, if you can pick up anything apart from the path from here to Heather's bedroom. There's got to be a focus to this." Dad picked up a brass poker and started scraping soot from the hearthstone to see if a mark had been placed there when the fireplace was built.

"What's there, Dad?" Sam lingered, not quite sure that he wanted to go off by himself yet.

"The fireplace is a pretty common place for a protection mark, and Kovacs built the place himself. I wouldn't be surprised if he added in something special as he went. Off you go, Sammy, I'll keep an ear out for you."

Sam headed towards the study, watching as Dean checked out the path of red-hot EMF running straight from the fireplace to the stairs, but he didn't go up to Heather's bedroom. Unlike the last EMF meter, which had been great until his dad fell on it, this one was a bit buggy – it was great for high level readings, but it wasn't very sensitive, and that really didn't help when they were looking for traces rather than a great big ball of light that was here just last night. Dean had said he could fix it, but Dad seemed to have the idea that he might break it, and had told him no. Dean was pulling bitchy faces at the meter, so Sam left him to it and scurried off down the hall.

Sam was supposed to be checking for sigils, but he'd become distracted almost immediately when it turned out that the den was the room where the Kovacs family kept their few books. The very first one he touched was immediately fascinating, and when Dean walked in a few minutes later, Sam was sitting cross-legged in an enormous brown suede recliner, reading a large, lavishly illustrated book about the fish of the Great Lakes.

"Shut up, Dean! Mr Kovacs liked to go fishing, you know. Maybe I might find something!" Sam didn't really believe that, but it was so nice to have a new book, and one that looked like no-one had ever read it, the edge of the pages so crisp that they were sharp.

Dean looked up at the stuffed fish that decorated the walls, staring glassily down from their wooden plaques. "Seriously. Demonic." He waved the EMF meter at them, and both he and Sam jumped at the immediate reading. It wasn't all the way into the red like the fireplace, but it was a definite wiggle, and it repeated when Dean pointed the meter at the chest-high bookcase that sat beneath a stuffed rainbow trout. Dean dropped the meter on the desk, pulled Sam's book out of his hands, grabbed him by the arm and yanked him clear out of the chair.

"There's EMF readings right there, dumb-ass. The curse might start working on you! Do you want to get all weird and dead?"

"Nooooo, " Sam whined, annoyed that Dean was right, and rubbed his arm. "Is there a sigil there?"

"I dunno. Here, you hold the EMF meter, and I'll look through the bookcase. See if you can get a better reading on that stupid thing."

Sam grabbed the meter off the desk and ran it over the book that he'd been reading, then over the staring fish. "My book is fine. The fish makes it flicker, but I think it's strongest in the bookcase. Do you think it really is in a book?"

Dean shrugged, pulled his sleeves over his hands, and started pulling out books without letting them contact his skin. "Could be. I hope you didn't touch it."

"I just got the fish book, and that's clean. It was sitting on top of the bookcase."

"Cool." Dean took each book out and slid it across the floor towards the desk, while Sam held the meter steady on the bookcase. Dean had cleared the top shelf and started on the second before Sam called out.

Dean performed a death-defying roll across the floor and leapt to his feet, pointing at the last book he had pulled off the shelf. "This one! Scan it!"

Sam ran the meter over it, and the needle jumped in a satisfying way. "Yeah, that's it! I'm gonna get Dad!"

Sam shoved the EMF meter into Dean's hands and ran up the hallway, shrieking, "Dad! Dad! Dad!" He reached the living room where he'd last seen his dad, but Dad wasn't standing by the fireplace – instead he was thundering down the stairs towards Sam.

"Sammy! You hurt? Where's Dean?" Dad scooped up Sam in his arms. "What the hell's going on?"

"Hi Dad! We found something! And Dean's watching it to make sure it doesn't escape!" Sam slung one arm around his dad's neck and pointed towards the study.

"Dean's okay?" Dad's breathing was starting to return to normal as he carried Sam down the hall towards the study.

Dean sitting on the floor, still keeping a close eye on the book, but he looked up when his dad and Sam came in. "That one, Dad. I've got a silver letter opener from the desk so we can open it up and not touch it."

"No, he didn't. I touched the outside with my sleeves, but I didn't open it. Seriously, it looks like a totally normal book."

All three Winchesters peered at the book in question. It was a hardcover binding of a collection of soil studies from the University of Wisconsin, a little battered at the corners, and it certainly didn't look like the mysterious parchment books that Bobby kept. Dad took the letter opener from Dean and prised the cover open, to find something that looked rather more like what they expected. A small, yellowed pamphlet was nestled inside the cover, printed with heavy black letters in a foreign language.

"What does it say, Dad?" Sam leaned in close, and Dean put a hand on his chest to make sure he didn't actually fall on their discovery.

"I don't know." Dad peered at the booklet. It was printed in the Roman alphabet, but with a lot of accent marks on and over the letters. The closest language he could think of was Vietnamese, except that Vietnamese had a lot more vowels than this language. "Let's get it out of here and I'll give Pastor Jim a call. Maybe Bobby. Dean, go to the car and get the lockbox."

"I was reading a book about fish. Not all kinds of fish, just lake fish. They're not the same as ocean fish, " Sam said, but Dad was concentrating on the booklet.

"When Dean gets back, I'm going to search the rest of these books. I want you two to scan upstairs, see if there's more unexpected EMF spikes." Dad turned the booklet over with the letter opener, and the back had more heavy printed letters, in what looked like the same language.

Sam had his hands firmly clasped together, restraining himself from wanting to touch the weird little book, even though he desperately wanted to open it and see if there were pictures, or anything that he could read. He didn't think that was the evil nature of the spellbook, though – he felt that way about most books.

"I don't think it's a spellbook, Sam. They're usually hand-written, for one thing, and this one is printed."

"Maybe some witches had a printing press! They could share spells with all the other witches and spread evil!"

Dad smiled at that. "Witches don't tend to be the caring, sharing type, Sammy. Nice people don't get into witchcraft in the first place."

Dean ran back in, the heavy metal lockbox swinging from one hand and almost hitting the door frame. The lockbox had started its life as a toolbox, but after it had contained a fairy's magical stone long enough for Dad to effectively threaten the fairy in question, its cold steel had been enhanced with wards plus a pair of charms made by Bobby Singer and welded on by Dean. Dad was fairly sure that one day he'd put something in there that would jump right back out again, unimpeded, but it should be well and truly up to holding a strange booklet.

"Dump it in, Dad!" Dean held the lockbox open and Dad used the tip of the letter opener to scoop the booklet from its hiding place into the box. Dean slammed the lid with a satisfying clang and Dad closed the pentagram-embossed latches.

"Right, now we know the problem is here in the house. Keep searching. Dean, make sure Sam stays with you – I don't want him reading something he shouldn't."

"Come on, dude, let's finish scanning this room, then we can do the bedrooms. That good, Dad?"

"Yeah, I'm going to stick with the chimney – see if I can ward it better, at least keep Heather Kovacs safe until I work this out." Dad got to his feet and picked up the lockbox. "I'll put this back in the trunk for now. And don't touch anything!"

"No, Dad, " the boys chorused, and Sam started scanning the bookshelves again, his face scrunched up in concentration. He kept his hands to himself, though – getting cursed just because he liked to read was the last thing he needed. Sam diligently waved the sensor over each of the shelves, but nothing else gave any indication of needing further investigation.

"Now the desk drawers, Sammy." Dean slid the top drawer open, pleased to find it wasn't locked.

"Told you you'd get bored." Dean reached for his secret weapon – the stash of Count Chocula in his pocket. He offered Sam the crushed, plastic-wrapped parcel. "Here you go, Sammy. Enjoy."

Sam's complaints evaporated immediately. "Thanks, Dean!" He plopped himself onto the floor and unwrapped the cereal, starting by picking out the marshmallows and rolling them into little spongy balls. "You want some?"

Sam was unperturbed by Dean's blatant lie. "Okay!" He gnawed on the marshmallow balls as loudly and wetly as he could while Dean finished scanning the desk, which gave nothing. Dean moved over to the three tall filing cabinets, stepping over Sam, who was now lying on his back and making even grosser chewing noises, but the EMF meter wasn't registering anything above background levels. Dean sighed, and took the marshmallow that Sam offered him in response.

Their dad finally called them to lunch a while later, and neither the EMF meter nor Dean's careful searches had unearthed any further weirdness. The path from the fireplace to Heather's bedroom was indeed crackling with energy, and her deceased parents' room had enough residual energy to make the needle twitch, but there were no sigils, no more mysterious booklets and definitely nothing to stop Dean wishing – out loud and at some length – for something he could heroically fight, saving Heather Kovacs, who was very pretty in her photos and would presumably be very grateful. Sam had long since finished his cereal and had got so bored of the lack of results and Dean's heroic tales that he was sitting on the stairs reading his pastel pink book from the car. Their dad had refused to let him read anything that came from the Kovacs house, so his last, shameful book it had to be.

Despite their dad's loud holler, Sam remained on the stairs, focused on his reading. Dean crept down the stairs to stand behind him, then shoved Sam's head down into the pages.

"Dean! Shut up!" Sam hurled the shameful book away and punched Dean right under the kneecap with his hard knuckles.

"Apologize to Sam, then both of you get down here before I eat your lunch." Dad turned his back and walked into the kitchen, just slowly enough to make sure he caught Dean's muttered "Sorry, Sammy, " and just quickly enough to make the boys scurry after him, afraid for their lunch.

All three Winchesters sat at the kitchen table, eating their sandwiches. Both Sam and Dean had cast more than a few wistful looks at the laden pantry shelves, but neither of them bothered to ask if they could raid the Kovacs' food – it wasn't just rude, it could well be dangerous if it was the house itself that was cursed. Instead, they ate their sandwiches with ruthless efficiency and washed them down with the cans of Coke that had Dad miraculously produced from his duffle bag of hunting gear.

"What's up next, Dad?" Sam tried not to kick the leg of the chair, but didn't entirely succeed. His foot had an impatient life of its own, and he could hear Dean doing the same.

Dad took a long swig of his Coke. "I'm thinking that Darrell Kovacs started this whole thing, but I don't think he's the one killing people. He's cremated, for one thing, and it's not behaving much like a ghost. No, I'm thinking that either his debts have come due and he's not here to pay them himself, or something he kept under control is running wild. Either way, I need to take a look at his cousin's place – see if she and her father had some of those pages that you boys found."

Dean grinned at the implied praise, but Sam just gnawed on the last of his sandwich crusts, which he liked to pull off and eat separately. Even Dean the eating machine wasn't too interested in torn, slightly gnawed crusts, so Sam could take his time with them.

"I wish I could get to the town records, but they're not open until Monday. I guess I can keep it away from Heather Kovacs one more night."

"You could break in, Dad!" Dean's enthusiasm knew no bounds. "There's probably hardly any security. I could go in a bathroom window, maybe?"

Dad put down his empty can. Dean was wriggling like he had ants in his pants, and Sam was slumped in his chair taking an excessively long time to finish the remnants of his lunch. "How about you head back to the motel? You both look like you need a run, and I don't want you going out after dark. Everything in order for dinner, Dean?"

"You're no use distracted, Dean, and you need to stay in shape if you want to help me with the rest of the hunt. Call it two birds, one stone." He dug their motel key out of his pocket. "I should be back well before dark – I'll check the house out and see if Shawna can help me fax these pages to Bobby Singer. If I'm not back, go inside and stay there."

Sam spoke up. "But there's no way we'd be targets, is there? It's all about Mr Kovacs and people he knew."

Sam's frown was turning mutinous, so Dad spoke over the top of his son. "Sam, we don't know that for sure, and we've seen those pages now. You know there's more than one kind of evil in the world."

Dean nodded, and Dad's explanation cheered Sam up a great deal – it was always the randomness of his Dad's orders that annoyed him, and rarely not the orders themselves. He stuffed the last of his sandwich crusts in his mouth. "Yeah! There's a lake, and all that forest, and there could be ghosts or anything! Or witches!"

"Get your coats from the car before you go, boys. I'll see you back at the motel."

"Dean! Don't go so fast! Dean! Wait!" Sam ran as fast as he could, his hands still stuck in his coat sleeves, but there was no way he could catch up with Dean. There was hardly anyone around, even though the sun was bright and last night's snow nearly gone, and Sam had no compunction about bellowing at the top of his lungs. "Dean!"

Dean halted at the end of the road, though, and waited for Sam, jogging on the spot. "Hurry up, then, short-ass!"

Sam panted to a stop beside him. "What's the hurry anyway? We're just going back to the motel."

"No hurry, just wanted to see you run." Dean grinned. "I've got maybe a dollar fifty, you want some candy or something? For school?"

"Yeah, I guess." Schools this size either had really awesome lunches or really terrible ones. A few of the really small schools didn't provide lunch at all, but somehow they never seemed to find this out until it was actually lunchtime, no matter how often they reminded their dad to check. "You don't want to get thrown out of class for making noises again."

"Dude!" Dean laughed, and they walked on together at a swift pace, but nothing Sam couldn't handle. "That wasn't even me, it was my guts! I was so hungry I was ready to bite a chunk out of that teacher's butt!"

Walking down the side of the highway back towards the few shops, they did catch sight of a few more people. Most of the locals seemed to travel in big, well-worn trucks, but a few had SUVs in varying states of decay. The other kind of traffic was made up of SUVs towing small fishing boats, and they mostly seemed to be heading out of town, back to wherever they'd come from after a weekend's fishing. They were the ones at the shops, getting gas or food or replacing fishing gear, though there were a few locals, too. A group of teenage girls perched on the wooden bench outside the diner, but despite Dean's welcoming grin, they haughtily ignored him.

Dean elbowed Sam as they went into the tiny mini-mart attached to the gas station. "See, Sammy? Girls like older guys. Those girls had to be sixteen or seventeen, even someone like me's going to have no luck there."

Sam rolled his eyes so hard they hurt. "Yeah, I bet you're gonna have ten girlfriends or something tomorrow, and they'll all be in second grade."

Dean whapped Sam on the back of the head, but not hard, then nudged Sam to look down the candy aisle. The sheriff's deputy who had talked to their dad yesterday, Jason Wright, was down there, selecting a few chocolate bars. The Winchesters quickly moved towards the next aisle – there were only four – but the deputy had already spotted them.

"Hey there, you're the Wells boys!" It wasn't a question, and they stopped, resigned.

"He was checking over the Kovacs house, " Sam added, and Dean stepped on his toe as hard as he could in his soft sneakers.

Deputy Wright didn't follow up on Sam's answer. He just smiled at them and gestured with his handful of chocolate bars. "Stocking up for the night shift. Remind your dad to call the sheriff's office when he knows something, okay?"

"Sure thing." Dean nodded obediently and took his foot off Sam's toe before Sam complained out loud.

Deputy Wright walked off to the checkout, where a middle-aged woman cheerfully greeted him, and Dean pulled Sam down the candy aisle.

"What did you step on me for? I was going to ask him if the school did lunches."

"You're such a butt kisser! Cops are not your friend, Sammy! Dad might not want them to know exactly where he is and what he's doing!" Dean kept his voice low, but glared right at Sam to make his point clear.

"I could have asked him about school lunch, Dean. That's not exactly top secret."

"Pick something for tomorrow, Sammy. And you can ask the checkout lady, I bet she knows." He dropped his voice again. "And won't get Dad arrested!"

Sam's sulky frown crossed his face again, but he peered at the selection of candy carefully, weighing up his best choice. Dean selected a packet of peanut M&Ms in less than a second, then sighed impatiently until Sam had picked out a collection of smaller items, from licorice to a snack-size Milky Way, carefully totaling the price as he went.

"Okay, awesome, let's go. Geek." Dean shoved Sam up to the counter, where Sam's addition proved to be correct, as usual.

The temperature had dropped even while they were in the shop, but Sam's offer of half his giant Gummi Bear was too much for Dean to resist, so they walked back to the motel each with one hand warm in a pocket, and the other as cold, stuffing in candy. The checkout lady had in fact turned out to be a lunch lady at the school and had promised them meatloaf and potatoes on Monday, so that was permission to start chowing down on some of their stash right away. By the time they turned the corner into the motel parking lot, the icy wind meant that both had their hands firmly shoved in their pockets, sticky fingers or not.

The silver trailer was still in the parking lot, and both boys stared at it as they walked by. The big black satellite dish was turning, seeking a signal that it couldn't find. As they slowed down to watch, the door popped open and Max Fenig stuck his head out, even more disheveled than this morning, his ratty red beard full of crumbs.

Sam stopped at once, and Dean quickly moved around to stand between his brother and Max. Max looked kind of like a guy who'd lived across the hall from them in Tampa, who'd been quiet and friendly, lending them videos, until one day he went and committed suicide by cop, running into the police station waving a gun. Sam could remember seeing that guy's face on the news – he didn't want to find out that Max had a weapon stuffed down his worn jeans or hidden in his voluminous sweater.

"Hey, Mr Fenig." Dean stood in front of Sam, making sure they both kept their distance.

"Uh, call me Max, please. No-one calls me Mr Fenig. I was wondering if I could ask you a favor? If you don't mind?" Max shoved his glasses up his nose, and now that both his hands were in sight, both Dean and Sam relaxed a little. "It's just, I'm trying to pick up this satellite signal, and the window will close soon, but I need to pick up my medication."

"Oh, cool!" Sam joined in, now that Dean wasn't holding his arm so tightly. "Can you get cable in there?" As he said it, he realized that he was talking too much, just as Dean had complained at the supermarket. Max could be a perv, for all he knew, and he'd just given Max an invitation to invite him into his trailer.

"No, it's not really for that. Not for TV, I mean. I have a lot of things to keep track of."

"What kind of medication?" Dean said hastily, and Sam shuffled his foot on the concrete. He hadn't been about to ask what Max was tracking, but Dean obviously thought he had been.

"For my epilepsy. I don't usually have a problem, as long as I kept taking my tablets. But if I stop, I could have a seizure. I had them called in to the drugstore, they're ready to go. Here." He fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a much-folded twenty dollar bill. "This will cover the meds, and there might be a couple of dollars left over? You can have the change?" Max sounded so tentative that Sam suddenly felt sorry for him, this guy who had to ask two kids he'd hardly met to get his drugs, when they might just run off with his money and laugh.

Dean obviously felt the same, because he took the money and stuffed it in his jeans where it wouldn't fall out. "Sure, dude, we'll be back soon." Dean handed Sam the motel room key and his M&Ms. "Go stash the candy in your school bag and hurry back, okay?"

"Okay!" Sam grabbed the candy and hurried away, not wanting Dad to catch them with the contraband – he'd do what he always did, which was to confiscate it and dole it out a little at a time when they behaved themselves, which totally missed the point of candy. As he ran, the wind carried Dean's voice straight to him, for all that Dean was trying to speak quietly.

"So..." Dean turned back to Max. "If you're a child molester, keep your hands off my brother, or I'll mess you up, okay? And so will my dad. Just so you know."

Max blinked at him through his thick glasses, then backed up his trailer steps, holding up his hands. "A... oh no, I would never hurt anyone."

Sam stopped in his tracks. Max was actually scared of his brother, like Dean was the adult and Max was some bullied kid. Embarrassed, Sam ran into the motel room and hid their candy. He'd run in so fast that he hadn't checked the salt lines, but he made sure to look at them on the way out, just so he could tell Dean that he had.

Dean was still talking to Max, outside. "It's okay, I get it. But you've got to admit, you're driving around and living in a trailer, and a guy might get suspicious."

"It's not because I have to! I mean, yeah, I do have to, but not because I'm on the run." His face looked alive again as he came back down the steps. "I'm hunting aliens."

Sam was impressed. They'd met a few UFO chasers before – they followed strange happenings just like hunters, so meetings were inevitable – but they were usually just locals with binoculars and Star Trek t-shirts. They didn't usually have a sophisticated set-up like Max did.

"Alien activity of all kinds, actually. Spaceships are pretty hard to catch, because they move so fast, but sometimes I can pick up the Air Force talking about what they tracked, or signals from spaceships to the ground."

"Wow!" Sam had ran up to his brother and stared at Max. "Have you ever seen one? A ship, or an alien?"

Max smiled slightly, as both brothers waited to hear his answer. "Sort of, well, it's complicated. I'm gathering evidence, mostly. There's a lot of people who get sick of being called crazy for just talking about what they've seen."

"I hear you." Dean's reply was heartfelt. "Look, can you tell us more later? We'd better get to the drugstore now. It'll be dark soon."

"Sure!" Max's smile was broad and eager now, and he looked less like a potential child molester and more like some slightly crazed hunter or researcher; he seemed like someone Pastor Jim would have stashed in a back room with a pile of books and some hot soup.

As soon as they were out of earshot, Sam grabbed Dean's arm. "Do you really think he's found aliens? And spaceships?"

"No way, Sammy. No such thing, or at least they're not hanging around here. I think he's run into something that he thinks is aliens, and he's trying to make sense out of it. He's turned up in town right at the same time as a hunt, hasn't he? I bet that trailer could track massive EMF surges at a distance, not like our gear. We've gotta get a look at what he's doing – he could have great intel!"

Sam rolled his eyes in the face of Dean's enthusiasm. "Yeah, or it could be aliens and he's sick of being called crazy. You don't know for sure that it's not. You hate it when people call Dad crazy."

Dean shoved Sam slightly, just enough to make him stumble. "We've seen monsters and we know they can do stuff that someone might think was aliens. We've never seen an alien."

"But you don't know for sure!" Sam's persistence was outweighed only by his ferocious frown.

"It's probably not aliens, though, " Sam said thoughtfully, his frown immediately gone.

"No, I don't think aliens are likely, Dean, I just think it's possible, " Sam explained carefully. Just because there might be aliens, it didn't mean he was going to start claiming that aliens were behind everything.

"Yeah, whatever. You can go kiss up to Max, then, and I'll look for actual clues. You know, for the hunt that we're actually on."

They hurried into the tiny drugstore, wary of their dad's warning to be home by dark, but the short blonde girl at the counter called out to them the second they walked in the door.

"We sure are, " Dean replied, in his deepest, toughest voice. Sam elbowed him in the side, but Dean took no notice. The girl at the counter had to be at least sixteen, though, and took absolutely no notice of Dean's attempt at flirtation.

"Thanks, babe." Dean handed over Max's money, and the girl took it carefully, making absolutely sure not to touch his hand. She put the change down flat on the counter and a sealed package next to it, then took a step back.

"There you go. Oh, and save those smooth moves until you make it to high school, kid. I'm sure you'll grow up real cute."

Dean went bright red under his freckles, and it was left to Sam to take the money and Max's medications with a chirpy, "Thank you, ma'am!"

Outside the drugstore, Dean grabbed Sam's arm tightly and hurried them back towards the motel.

"I think she liked you, Dean!" Sam giggled, not the least bit deterred by Dean's fingers digging into his upper arm.

"Shut up, Sammy." Dean stopped and hissed in Sam's ear. "And if I hear one word about this at school, I'm making sure that your classmates see that Babysitters' Club book."

Sam wriggled uncomfortably. He always forgot that if he had something on Dean, Dean would have something far worse on him. "Yeah, well, you better not."

The few streetlights suddenly blinked on, and both boys glanced around at the long shadows and looming dusk. Without another word, they walked swiftly, just short of running, back to the motel. Dad had said to be in the motel by nightfall – an unbreakable command – and around here nightfall in November was pretty early.

Fortunately, the Impala was not yet in the parking lot, and they hurried over to Max's trailer to give him his package. Max had left the door ajar, and Dean climbed up the steps and stuck his head around the door, Sam right behind him.

"Max? We got your medication." They took the opportunity to glance around the interior of the trailer. There was a stack of sophisticated equipment beeping away, the professional look rather sullied by the trailing cables and hand-written notes pasted all over the place. There were Christmas lights twisted around light fittings and glowing star stickers pasted on the ceiling, arranged into actual constellations, though there were rather too many moons. The other end of the trailer had a little kitchen, a bed, and a vast number of books, letters and photographs. Some were in neat piles, others were strewn over every available surface, including the bed. It looked eerily like their hotel room did at times, when their dad was in the grip of a particularly complex case, although Max didn't stick the photographs on the walls and there was no sign of the thick black marker that Dad preferred.

Max himself was sitting in a battered office chair, with large headphones on, and jumped in fright when he caught sight of the boys, tangling the headphone cord around his arm. "Ah! Oh, thank you. Thanks." He gestured vaguely. "Gotta get back to..."

"Cool, " Dean replied, tossing the medication onto the tiny kitchen bench, and backed down the stairs, nudging Sam down, too. "Okay, Sammy, let's get inside."

"What were you staring at in there?" Sam's voice rang out clearly in the parking lot, so Dean gave him a glare and hustled them both inside before he answered. The room was pleasantly warm already, and they quickly shucked their coats and damp shoes.

"Yeah, radar, EMF scanners, and some stuff I didn't recognize. It looked like he'd made his own airplane cockpit in there. He had photos and notes and everywhere. And a police scanner."

"Me too." Dad had exchanged it for silver to make bullets over a year ago. "But I don't think Max is going to pick up a whole lot of alien activity from the police!"

"So what's he got it for? Shouldn't he be listening to the Air Force or something?"

Dean rolled his eyes scornfully. "Now you're starting to think like him! He just thinks he's looking for aliens – he's going to get his best information at ground level, just like us."

Sam flopped down on the sofa and turned on the TV. It was all sports, but he didn't mind. At least he'd have something to talk about at school tomorrow. "He might pick up something useful, then."

"Yeah." Dean sprawled beside Sam. "We should tell Dad about him when we get a chance."

It wasn't until after six that Dad knocked loudly on the door. It was the right knock, so Sam double-checked through the peephole and let him in, backing up quickly until his dad had stepped safely over the salt line.

Dean stuck his head out of the kitchenette, where he was stirring spaghetti sauce in a pan. "Is everything okay, Dad?"

"Heather Kovacs had a car accident, and now she's in hospital for observation. They've got her down in Oconto Falls, about twenty-five miles south of here."

"So now I'm going to have to watch her rather than the house. At least Dr Young works there – he'll back up my credentials. Dean, how's that dinner coming along?"

"Good boy. I'll have dinner, then catch a bit of sleep, head out again a bit later. If the problem's attached to the house, it'll just have to stay there tonight and with any luck, it won't move onto someone else."

Dad sat down, pulling off his boots and his coat, which Sam took and put by the door.

"Sam, come and get these bowls, " Dean called out, and Sam hurried over to take each bowl, brimming with slippery fat spaghetti and meaty red sauce, over to the table. It smelled great, and for a few minutes there was no sound but the occasional slurping and the scrape of their forks against the bowls.

"Yeah. If I stay there for the morning and check out the Kovacs family, you guys can get yourselves to school?"

"Yes, Sir, " they chorused, Dean's voice muffled by an extraordinarily large mouthful of pasta.

"Good. You know the rules. I got that fax off to Bobby, so if he calls, take down what he says and leave it for me in the morning. Call him if there's an emergency – Pastor Jim is closer, but he's got a couple of injured hunters holed up with him right now."

"Oh yeah, Dad!" Dean wiped his mouth with his hand. "The guy who lives in the trailer in the parking lot is an alien hunter. He's got a police scanner, EMF, looks like radar...it's a sweet setup."

"No, he's pretty harmless. But I thought he might have some useful intel about the area. It looks like he does a lot of research, but I couldn't really see what of. Blurry photos of lights, mostly."

"Well spotted." Dad stood up and put a hand on Dean's shoulder. "Keep an eye on him, then. Stay casual, but see if you can get anything out of him. Can I trust you with that?"

"Yes, sir." Dean was trying to suppress his grin, but it was a losing battle. "We'll check him out tomorrow after school."

"Sounds like a plan. Wake me at 2030, and keep it down in here." Dad went into his room without bothering to turn on the light and closed the door. The mattress creaked once, then all was silent. Dad rarely slept for long, but he had conditioned himself to grab a nap when he could, and the boys knew to keep it down when their dad was getting an intense burst of sleep.

Dean finished his spaghetti with a minimum of slurping and finished off Sam's too – the second Sam had actually finished eating, he pushed his bowl over to Dean. He was trying to encourage Dean to only eat Sam's food when he was actually done with it, but he hadn't been too successful so far.

Sam gestured at the TV, but Dean glanced over at their dad's closed door. "Come and help me with the dishes, Sammy, then we can take the TV into our room and watch it there. Hurry up!"

They washed and dried the dishes with the quiet efficiency of long practice, then Dean sniffed Sam's shirt. Sam wriggled free.

"Do I have to have a shower, Dean? I didn't get dirty at all, and it's freezing in there."

Dean balled up Sam's shirt and sniffed again. "Nah, you're good. Just go wash your face. I need a shower, though, for my manly stink." Dean struck a bodybuilder pose.

Sam giggled and hurried off to the bathroom. After he was done, Dean would be in there for ages, most likely, and he should be able to get the TV set up to his liking and the remote control safely tucked away where Dean couldn't easily wrest it from him. He washed his face in the icy-cold bathroom and scurried back to change into his pajamas – actually one of Dean's sweaters and a pair of track pants, but at least they were warm – and get the TV rolled into place. Tucked up happily in bed, Sam flicked through the channels. It was too early for anything good to be on, so he settled on a home videos show, which was pretty stupid but worth it for the novelty of getting to choose whatever he wanted to watch. As Sam had predicted, Dean showered for about twenty years, but still made it out in time, reeking of deodorant, to complain about Sam's next choice of show, SeaQuest DSV.

"Yeah, sorry this show doesn't have any naked chicks, Dean. Just, you know, science. And explosions."

Dean finished drying between his toes and, starting to shiver, got dressed for bed, throwing an extra pair of socks at Sam. Sam's toes were feeling a bit chilly, despite the extra blankets, so he didn't complain, though he did neatly fend off Dean's sneaky lunge for the remote control.

"Suckup, " Dean grumbled, but subsided and stretched out in his own bed. There was no way he was going to draw down the wrath of a sleep-deprived Dad on his head, and Sam knew it. Despite SeaQuest DSV keeping their attention, Dean kept a close eye on the watch he had propped on the nightstand, and jumped up promptly at eight-thirty to wake Dad, as ordered.

Sam turned the volume down, even though he was quite caught up in the plot, so that he could hear his dad and Dean talking. He didn't want to miss out. Even though he knew about the hunting, now, Dean was still in the habit of not telling him important information. Sam didn't know if Dean was trying not to scare him – not that he was a baby, but Sam had nightmares a week the first time his dad had been late back from a hunt and Sam knew what might have happened – or if Dean was just being bossy, but he wanted to know.

"You sure you don't want us to go with you, Dad?" Dean sounded anxious, his voice tight. "Or watch at the Kovacs house?"

Their dad sounded like he was sitting down, probably putting on his boots again. "No, Dean. I want the two of you well out of the way until Bobby's worked out what's going on with that book you found. Besides, I'm an EPA inspector – I've got the perfect excuse to go observe Heather Kovacs. Keep an eye on your brother, and get yourselves off to school on time. You checked the salt lines?"

The door closed, and Dean dragged the chain lock into place, then hurried back to the warmth of the bedroom. "That show got any better yet?" His voice was flippant, but the way he stared at the TV, rather than looking at Sam, was an obvious sign that he was angry with Dad, and maybe with Sam. Sam reached down to his school backpack, propped against his bed ready for the morning, and put his Milky Way in Dean's hand. Dean looked at him in surprise, but didn't hand it back.

"Thanks, Sammy." Dean broke the chocolate bar in half and gave one piece back to Sam, who ate it in two bites, turning the volume back up on the TV. The wind was loud outside, but Sam's toes were finally warm, and he was starting to think that Wisconsin wasn't the worst place they'd ever been stuck waiting for Dad.

"What? Dean?" It was still dark, and the only light in the room was from Dean's flashlight.

Sam scrambled into his clothes, pulling them on in layers, leaving two pairs of socks on his feet. "Did you hear from Dad?"

"Keep it down, Sammy. No." Dean was mostly dressed already, and had a shotgun propped against the nightstand. "There was a big flash of light and the windows shook."

Sam shoved a pair of knit gloves in his coat pocket and frowned. "How do you know it wasn't lightning?"

Dean shone the flashlight around the room again, checking the window and door. "I heard a fire truck went out right after it, and then a sheriff's truck."

"South. Towards Oconto Falls, where Dad is." Both boys fell silent as sirens approached. Dean jumped onto the bed and peered out the high window, and the lights of police cars reflected on his face, a sickly blue-red-white. "That's two more sheriff's department trucks, and another fire engine, all heading south." Dean sat down again, the mattress groaning.

"Dean? It can't get in here, can it? Dad said the salt kept it out of the house last night."

"Let's go check all the lines are good, okay? Then we should get everything packed up and ready to go."

Sam nodded, even though he really didn't want to leave this one safe room. It made sense to pack up – the end of a job often signaled a speedy departure, and John Winchester's idea of "speedy" often meant that things he considered unimportant were left behind.

Dean gave the flashlight to Sam and picked up the shotgun. "Okay, close formation."

Sam held the flashlight in his left hand and slowly opened the door with his right. His heart was thudding but Dean was right behind him with the shotgun, so nothing would hurt him. Dean would get it first.

The living room looked entirely as they had left it, and Sam huffed a breath of relief, then moved slowly over to the lights by the door, Dean so close behind him that he was treading on Sam's sneaker heels every third step. The light showed that their first assessment had been correct – the salt lines were intact, and nothing had been disturbed. They quickly checked the other lines, and replenished the damp one on the bathroom window, but all was quiet. Sam flopped down on the sofa in relief, only to leap up again at the sound of a distant phone ringing.

Dean pushed the front window curtains aside slightly and peered out, scanning the parking lot. "The light's on in the motel office, Sammy."

Dean didn't seem to take it as a sign of Sam's babyishness. "No sign, sorry." He frowned and moved the curtain a little further aside so he could crane his neck and see past the white lattice-work in front of their room. "Max's trailer door is open, and his lights are on."

"Really?" Sam hurried over, and Dean let him peer through the window, too. "Oh no, do you think it came for him?"

"I don't see why, " Dean kept staring at the trailer's open door. "He's got nothing to do with the Kovacs family. I'm thinking he might have had a fit, you know, with his epilepsy."

"We can't go out there." Sam was adamant, but Dean kept looking through the window. "Dean, we can't!"

"Okay. Let's give him five minutes – if the door just popped open, he'll notice the cold by then. If not, something's wrong. Go get our stuff packed. I'll get Dad's things and the kitchen."

Sam quickly obeyed, happy to have a plan in place, and started shoving their clothes and school things back in their duffel bags, hoping all the while that Max would simply realize the door was open. He didn't want to think about what was going on in the direction of Oconto Falls, with the white light and the sick girl and his dad; the fire trucks and the sheriff's department, let alone what was happening right outside their room. He finished off the bedroom and bathroom, quickly made the beds, then peered out the window again while Dean packed up the food they'd brought with them, and lined up all the duffel bags beside the sofa, ready to go.

"Dad said to stay here." Sam pulled the curtain back into place so that Dean could no longer see the trailer. "Maybe we could call Shawna in the office? You said the light was on, she must be awake."

"And what if it's not epilepsy? What if it's something else? Shawna won't know what to do, and Max will probably be all 'We come in peace' and it'll eat him." Dean forced his fingers to make Mr Spock's famous gesture. "It's our job to save people, Sam."

Sam sighed. Dean was right. "Okay. But if Max did have a fit, we go and tell Shawna and she can call 911. And if something's still sniffing around, we run right back in here."

"Good plan, Sammy! Now, you grab the salt canister and the flashlight, I'll take the shotgun. Shawna shouldn't see us from the office."

They edged carefully out the door, Sam sweeping the area with the flashlight even though the lights on the second story balcony meant that the parking lot was reasonably well-lit. There were no signs of any great destruction, and the brisk wind carried the sound of Shawna's voice from the office, though they couldn't make out individual words. Sam made his way to Max's trailer door at a cautious trot, Dean right behind him, and sprinkled a line of salt across the top step, just in case. Dean patted him firmly on the arm, meaning well done, and Sam got his courage up to walk up the steps, staying strictly to the outside of the salt line. If anything was in there, it wasn't coming out this door and into Sam and Dean.

"Max?" Sam called out, not too loudly, peering into the trailer. It was an absolute mess – papers and photographs were strewn all over the floor, a cup of coffee tipped all over them. Max's sheets and blankets were at the far end of the trailer from the bed, and the microwave door was swinging gently back and forth. Sam called out again, but there was no response, and no sign of Max.

"Sprinkle some salt in there, " Dean whispered, and Sam cast a generous handful all over the debris on the trailer's floor, but nothing happened, and with a nudge from Dean, Sam carefully stepped over the salt line and into the trailer.

"Dean, he's not even here." Sam kept his voice low, even though it was hardly likely that Shawna would hear them.

"I'm going to check the bathroom in case he's fallen over in there." Dean made his way to the far end of the trailer and slowly opened the door to Max's toilet, shotgun at the ready, but he wasn't there, either. "All this stuff was stacked up neatly, before. I mean, it was messy, but not like this." He bent down and righted the mug on the floor, though most of the coffee had already soaked into the papers beneath it.

Sam peered at Max's satellite equipment, most of which was displaying confusing dots and lines on different screens, and rested his hand on the shelf that held the police scanner. "Ow! Dean, the shelf's hot!" Sam scrambled backwards, right into Dean who was hurrying towards him.

"You did first!" Sam sucked his scorched finger and sulked. Both of them looked cautiously at the shelves – indeed, all the metal brackets were somewhere between warm and hot, and the Formica shelves were slightly scorched. There were small, matching scorch marks on the ceiling and floor, and Max's big headphones dangled from their cord. "Are the headphones hot, Dean?"

Dean touched them cautiously. "Yeah. But they're just plugged into the police scanner, nothing special." He propped the shotgun against the bench and, pulling his sleeve over his hand, picked them up and flipped an earpiece around so he could listen. "Oh, man, Sam, something's going on."

Dean held out a hand and Sam shut up, though he kept hopping from one foot to the other waiting for the news. "Something blew up in the state forest...they called in the army and the Air Force? I think? And some people got killed, and some got bad burns. They're going to the hospital in Oconto Falls."

Sam nodded, pleased that the incident hadn't taken place in Oconto Falls itself. Their dad would be keeping an eye on the people brought in.

"Shh, Sammy! The sheriff's guys have been told get out of the area, and the military is coming down from some base to take over." Dean took the headphone away from his ear. "Let's get back to our room – we can't help Max now. Put the flashlight in your pocket and take the gun. I'll take this."

"Yep." Dean pulled out his knife and neatly unscrewed the scanner from its brackets. "I don't know how to read the rest of these machines, but I do know how to listen to a scanner. It's the only information we're going to get right now."

"We can return it if Max comes back." Sam was warming to the idea rapidly – after all, Max wasn't using it right now.

"Okay, grab the gun, let's go. And close the door behind us – if whatever got Max comes sniffing around, I don't want other people getting hurt."

The boys hurried back across the parking lot and into their motel room, carefully stepping over the undisturbed salt lines as they entered the room. Sam put the gun on the table, then hurried over to put the chain back on the door. He collected his blanket to keep him warm on the sofa while Dean listened to the police chatter, but he hadn't even started to get sleepy when Dean frowned and started twisting the dial left and right, with excruciating care.

"Dean?" Sam got up, but kept the blanket wrapped around his shoulders. Dean shook his head and Sam waited patiently. After more fiddling with the scanner, Dean pulled off the headphones and threw them on the table with a loud clatter that made both of them jump.

"Why? If there's a train crash, there's got to be fire trucks and police everywhere, and ambulances. Even if it's not a train crash, but they think it is!"

"Maybe? There's a clock radio in Dad's room, I'll see if regular stations are on the air."

"I'll try the TV." Sam rolled the TV back into the living room and turned it on. The reception was snowy, so he flicked through the channels until he found one that was clear. "Uh oh. Dean, look at this."

The emergency broadcast system had taken over all the local channels. A monotonous voice was warning residents of Oconto County between Townsend, Lakewood and Mountain to prepare for mandatory evacuation due to a transport accident and chemical spill. Both boys hurried into the bedroom to listen to the radio – it had the same message. Dean flicked off the radio and stared at Sam, but before he could speak, the tornado sirens started up, wailing into the chilly night.

"We can't, Sammy! They'll just ask where Dad was, and we'll end up in foster care. We know there's no chemical spill, and the army and cops or whoever aren't going to find anything. We have to stay here where we know it's safe." Dean grabbed Sam's arm and shook him a little. "Got it? We know what the real danger is!"

"I'm not arguing!" Sam snapped, insulted that Dean felt the need to persuade him. "I don't want to go to foster care!"

Dean ran a hand through his short hair. "Okay. Whoever they send to evacuate the motels, they're not going to do proper checks, they're just going to go door to door as fast as they can. Stash all our stuff under the bed, turn off the lights, and they'll think we're with Dad in the car."

Sam didn't argue. They quickly hid the bags and the police scanner and turned off the heaters, Dean packing their candy and some extra shells – both salt and pellets – into Sam's school backpack. With the lights out, it was easier to see out the bedroom window to the road, which was full of military jeeps and soldiers, and a slow convoy of civilian cars turning off the main road – which would have led south through the affected zone – and turning west at the motel, directed by two soldiers in reflective vests.

"Really?" Sam stretched up on his tiptoes to look. "You don't need the Air Force for a chemical spill. They must have seen something in the sky."

"Yeah, well, I hope Max didn't go running off after it, or calling it into his trailer or something. Hey – listen."

They fell silent, straining their ears over the still-wailing sirens, to hear someone knocking loudly on a door near theirs. Without a word needed, they quickly straightened the covers, and rolled under the bed.

Their door was next, with a loud knock. A second knock followed, then keys in the door, as Shawna called out, "Mr Wells? Boys? Are you here?"

The light in the main room clicked on, but neither boy moved. Two people entered the room, one in heavy boots.

"Their car's gone, " Shawna added, "And they were paid in advance, so I'm sure they'll be back when this is over."

"I'll mark them off as evacuated, then, ma'am, " replied a male voice, and the light switched off, then the door closed.

Dean and Sam sighed in relief, but quietly, and stayed right where they were until five minutes had passed by Dean's watch, then resumed their watch at the salt-lined window. Shouting was coming from the parking lot – it sounded more like barking orders than terror – and Dean nudged Sam to go and peek out the front window. Sam moved carefully and slowly, looking through the gap left by the curtain, not daring to actually move the curtain out of the way.

"It's the Air Force, and they're going through Max's trailer, Dean. An officer just showed up in a jeep and they're standing out there showing him Max's pictures."

Dean grimaced. "Well, I hope they can help the poor guy. I mean, normally I'd say only a hunter could help, but we don't usually get the Air Force showing up."

"Maybe Dad can point them in the right direction? They'll still think he's in the EPA, won't they?"

"I guess. Anyway, we just need to sit tight until Dad gets back into town. It'll all be fine."

The tornado sirens switched off abruptly, and Sam woke up. He was still fully dressed, lying on top of the bedcovers, but with familiar wool army blankets piled over him. Pale sunlight was coming in the window and illuminating Dean. He was wrapped in another of their blankets, sitting cross-legged on the other bed with the shotgun resting across his knees, breath cloudy white in the icy room. Despite his alert posture, Dean was fast asleep and drooling from the corner of his mouth. Sam smirked, but then he remembered how upset Dean would be if Dad knew he had fallen asleep on watch, even a watch that Dad hadn't set. Sam desperately needed to pee, but instead he turned over with as much struggling and grunting as he could plausibly manage, and heard Dean wake up with a gasp.

Sam yawned. "Dean? Is Dad back yet?" His ears were still ringing with the sudden absence of the blaring sirens.

"Uh, no, Sammy, not yet. It's all gone quiet out there, no jeeps, no Dad, no nothing."

Sam glared at him. All that trouble he'd taken to let Dean keep his nap secret, and now Dean was just being stupid, as usual. "I promise I'll wake you up the second anything happens. It might be a whole day before Dad gets back and he'll want us to be ready to move, you know." A whiny tone had crept into Sam's voice, which annoyed him – he was trying to sound grown-up and capable, not like a baby who needed protecting. Dean must have been pretty tired, though, because he nodded and propped the shotgun against the bed.

"Okay, but only for a few hours. And that promise is serious – anything happens and you have to wake me up right away. Don't think you can handle it yourself."

Taken aback by Dean's unusual acquiescence, Sam scurried to the icy bathroom without reply, glad that he had kept the extra socks on. He peed, but skipped flushing and washing his hands to hurry back to swap places with Dean before his hoarded body warmth entirely dissipated.

Keeping watch wasn't very interesting, but Sam knew that from previous vigils. He alternated sitting on the bed with looking out the side and front windows, peering out into the pale morning light. The men on the jeeps that occasionally passed by were heavily armed, and there was no sign of civilian traffic whatsoever. Sam let Dean sleep, though, until it was mid-morning and Sam's stomach would let him wait no more.

Dean was awake in a second, but the bored expression on Sam's face told him all he needed to know. He reached under the bed, dug around in a duffel bag, and retrieved the rest of the bread and peanut butter, and handed it to Sam. Sam folded a piece of bread in half and used it to dig some peanut butter out of the jar.

"Eat up, Sammy. The phones in the room don't call long distance, so we'd better get into the office to call Bobby before people start showing up again." Dean followed Sam's example before stretching, wriggling out of bed and lacing his sneakers. Once they were finished, Dean put the peanut butter and empty bread bag away, and they both re-made their beds, rolling the duffel bags and Sam's backpack right back under the bed. A quick check of Max's police scanner showed that reception was still poor – the frequencies that the scanner could pick up were either deliberately jammed or had such great interference that the result was the same.

Leaving the shotgun behind – it was broad daylight outside, now – Sam and Dean crept quietly along the latticed walkway of the motel, staying low and moving fast so that any passing jeeps would be unlikely to spot them. It was entirely quiet, apart from the slow creaking of Max's satellite dish in the stiff breeze, but Sam's heart was in his mouth. With Dad still not back, getting caught could mean the Air Force handing them over to protective custody, and then to foster homes. Sam was fairly sure they could get Father Jim to come and pick them up, but it was a level of official notice and investigation that made him quake – regular people shouldn't have that kind of power over his family.

The office door was locked, but Dean easily picked the basic window lock and boosted Sam through to open the door from the other side. Shawna had obviously left in a hurry – a coffee mug still sat on the desk, and a small TV was on in the corner, its volume set low. The emergency broadcast had finished, and now a news broadcast was on, though all the footage seemed to be of distant pine trees, rather than of anything useful.

"See if you can learn anything. And keep watch, okay?" Dean pointed Sam towards the television, and picked up the phone behind the desk, dialing Bobby's number from memory.

The reporter was repeating the same story that had been on the emergency broadcast: there had been a freight train derailment, and subsequently a small forest fire and a dangerous chemical spill. Locals had been evacuated and the Air Force was taking over operations after the deaths of a sheriff's deputy and three firefighters called to the scene. The scene switched to a small city, and the outside of a busy hospital. A reporter was on screen, a dark-haired woman in a trench coat.

"We've just had confirmation that the sheriff's deputy who was killed in the train accident was Deputy Jason Wright, of Townsend. Deputy Wright was a five-year law enforcement veteran and leaves behind a wife and son. Hospital sources indicate that Deputy Wright died of severe burns, and that there are several other burn casualties. There are no reports on the status of the driver of the train at this point in time."

"Dean? Did you hear that?" Sam sat on the floor, feeling weirdly heavy in his legs.

"Yeah, I heard it. Poor guy." Dean didn't sound particularly troubled. "But if people are actually dying from burns, that's something totally different to what's killing the Kovacs family and their friends. Unless this is Super Monster Team-Up Town, that's pretty weird. Let me talk to Bobby."

"Okay." Sam felt stupid, getting upset over a guy they'd only met twice. Dean was right: the case was the important thing, and this was new information. It seemed so strange, though, that the man who'd been buying candy bars just yesterday had been killed just a few hours later. Sam wondered if the candy bars had melted in his pocket when he died, just leaving the foil, but he didn't want to ask Dean and be dismissed as a baby.

Bobby must have picked up the phone, because Dean was quickly explaining to Bobby about the evacuation and the news report, then fell silent, writing things down on a motel notepad as Bobby told them to him. Sam kept watch out the front window, not really wanting to watch the TV any longer, new information or not, annoyed with himself for needing to turn away.

"Okay, thanks, Bobby. Gotta go now." Dean hung up the phone and carefully tore off his piece of notepaper. "Let's go, Sammy, Bobby's got us some good intel. Better get back to the room first, though."

They hurried back, making sure to relock both the window and the door. Just after they'd shut the door of their room, they heard the approach of several vehicles, both civilian cars and military jeeps, traveling in convoy. Just one car turned into the parking lot, though, a big white pick-up truck. Dean peered out the gap in the curtain.

"It's Shawna. Good timing on the break-in, Sammy! Hey, if they're letting people come back now, Dad should be here soon!"

"What did Bobby tell you? Does he know what it is?" Despite himself, Sam was greatly cheered by the thought of getting their dad back.

"Yeah, he's pretty sure. And I don't think we're fighting a team-up after all. Bobby said that the pages Dad faxed him are in Hungarian, and they're about how to make a thing called a ludverc. It's like a little imp creature, and it does stuff for you – makes your life easy and makes you lots of money. Then it tries to drive you crazy by wanting things to do all the time, so you can either set it free or you go mad."

"That's the sucky bit – if you make a ludverc, even if you let it go, guess what happens?" Dean waited for Sam to guess, but when Sam didn't, he kept on anyway, just as pleased. "Well, when you die, you turn into this other kind of ludverc, and you go around appearing to everyone you know as something they desire. So they're all hypnotized and they do whatever you want, and you suck out all the years of their life until they die, sometimes fast, sometimes slow. And!" Dean held up a pontificating finger. "You travel around as a star and shoot down their chimneys!"

"So Darrell Kovacs made his own ludverc and got rich, but now that he's dead all his family and friends have to pay the price? And he's killing them? And they can't run away because he's showing up as something they want to see?"

"Looks like it. Anyway, Bobby's not sure how to kill it but he says, um, purification will protect you from it, which is why the salt is so good. Also birch twigs."

"I think I saw birch trees on the road near the lake, the way we went when we first got here. When Dad talked to that doctor?"

Dean grinned and punched Sam lightly on the shoulder. "Awesome! Dude, you rock. As soon as Dad gets back, you tell him."

It was late Monday afternoon, and Dad still wasn't back. The town was busy again, with reporters in the street – several of them staying at the motel – and locals trying to put their day back together. Dean was getting more irritable by the moment, and Sam just sat on the couch, watching TV with the volume low, his arms folded across his chest. Apart from releasing the names of the three dead firefighters, very little information was actually being reported – the story about the train crash was reiterated, and an Air Force Colonel came on screen to assure everyone that there was no risk of the chemical spreading, but that securing the area was necessary until the clean-up was complete. People had returned to Townsend itself, but surrounding areas and two smaller towns were still under mandatory evacuation orders. These few clips were repeated over and over, interspersed with footage of Townsend, pine trees, the hospital at Oconto Falls, and the Oconto Falls school gymnasium where the remaining evacuees were staying. The reporters obviously hadn't got into the gymnasium yet, because their video only showed the outside, with Air Force personnel going in and out.

Sam and Dean had eaten their way through a considerable amount of their food, out of both hunger and boredom, and Sam was not looking forward to the evening – Dean had decided to ration the remaining food.

"We've got emergency cash in the duffel bag, Dean!" Sam had complained. "Now that everyone's back in town, no-one's going to notice if we go and buy some food!"

"No way! We don't know where Dad is, and remember what he said about small towns? Gossip spreads like wildfire. They'll report us straight to the Sheriff's Department."

There had at least been a few cartoons late in the afternoon, replacing the monotonous local news broadcasts, but now it was coming up to news hour, and every channel was reporting the same scanty facts. Shawna hadn't come to clean out their room – maybe it was because they were paid up in advance, but they had heard her apologizing to a guy in a long black coat as she showed him to a nearby room, and it sounded like most of her staff had been evacuated to Oconto Falls. Either way, the room was safe for now, as long as Dean's paranoia didn't starve them to death.

Dean had taken to pacing near the window, peering out at intervals known only to him, which was driving Sam insane, even from the sofa.

Dean gave Sam a hard look, modeled on their dad's. "The news said there were other casualties."

"Only when they say what you want?" Sam mustered up his greatest look of scorn. He couldn't understand why Dean got so worried – Dad had said what he was doing, and there was no way he'd come back with a job left half-done, whether it was watching over Heather Kovacs or investigating the bright flash in the forest.

"Shawna's got to sleep sometime. When the office light goes out, we'll go call Bobby again and check with him. Dad might have called him from the hospital for info – it's weird that he hasn't checked in for that."

"Well, that's a good plan." Sam had meant to argue, but it seemed pretty sound to him. Besides, the idea that Bobby Singer would tell them what to do had a certain solidity to it, like Bobby himself.

"Then when we go to the office, we should get something to eat from the kitchen. Shawna said they make breakfasts and stuff." Sam was not looking forward to his dinner of four crackers, a strip of beef jerky and all the water he could drink.

"Okay, sounds good." Dean agreeing was a complete shock to Sam, but he wasn't going to debate it. "Let's get something to eat first, then check in with Bobby. Give Dad more time to get back."

That made more sense to Sam, and explained a lot about Dean's sudden interest in rationing their food, too. It was a way to fill in each hour that Dad wasn't here, something that Dean could actually do to help. Sam didn't feel the same kind of helplessness, but he wasn't sure why. Maybe because he wasn't used to knowing why Dad was gone; maybe because he still had Dean to boss him around, but either way, he was pretty sure Dad would be back soon, with an explanation for the bright lights and the dead deputy and the burned firefighters.

From their vantage point at the end of the row of rooms, nearest the road, it was easy to spot Shawna locking up the office and walking past them, back to her house behind the motel. Sam had identified it on the fire map behind the door, plus an easy way into the kitchen. Though it wasn't quite dark yet, Sam tugged at Dean's sleeve.

"Yeah, okay." Dean placed the shotgun carefully on the table, gave Sam his salt canister, and got another for himself from the duffel bags under the bed, along with the flashlight.

On the fire map, the kitchen was on the other arm of the L-shaped motel, by the closed restaurant, and could be entered from the back of the motel. This meant that, instead of hurrying down the corridor in front of the motel rooms, Sam and Dean could sneak along the back of the rooms, where the only windows were the high, narrow bathroom windows. About half a dozen rooms on the two floors had lights on, and it was easy to see which rooms were occupied, even though it wasn't really dark yet. Sam had been annoyed at Dean's insistence that the lights stayed off, but now he could see how easy it would have been to spot a room that was supposed to be empty.

"This way!" Sam whispered to Dean, and they rounded the corner of the motel to see two dumpsters – some of the cleanest dumpsters they'd ever seen – and the kitchen door. It was just a simple door handle lock like the motel rooms, and Dean made short work of it, Sam holding the flashlight while Dean fiddled with the lock.

The door opened directly on the kitchen, which still had its fluorescent lights on, and Sam turned off the flashlight.

"Okay, Sammy, I've got a pillowcase here. Only get food we don't need to cook, remember."

"That's the pantry, there!" Sam pulled open the marked door, and Dean pulled a second pillowcase from his jacket pocket and went for the double doors of the fridge. Sam grabbed bread, cookies, some juice boxes, an industrial sized bag of chips, and a big handful of individual packs of strawberry jam, peanut butter and cheese spread. Even if they didn't eat them now, they'd be good later. Dean had got some cheese slices and milk from the fridge, and was woefully eying an entire pie that was sitting on a serving plate.

"I know, I know, they'll notice it's gone, " he added a package of pre-sliced lunchmeat to his pillowcase of food.

"Wow, that's some attack of the munchies." It was a man's voice, coming from the door, and both boys froze, unsure which way to run.

It was the tall man with the long black coat, who was in the room near to theirs. "Oh, don't worry about me." He waved a casual hand. "I was just looking for the office to see if I can get the adult channels switched on."

"Gross, " Sam commented, but Dean elbowed him to shut up, and Sam suddenly remembered that they were standing in the kitchen with pillowcases full of stolen food. Even worse, to judge from the man's stance, he had a holstered weapon under that coat, and not something lightweight.

"Hey, there's a whole adult entertainment industry based on your 'gross, '" the man replied easily. Sam watched his hands, but he didn't seem to be reaching for his gun. "So, how about you? Looking for the cooking channel?"

"Mess-up with the evacuation, " Dean replied, his voice sounding just as casual as their interrogator's, although Sam could feel how tense he was, ready to run.

"At home. He's sick." Dean had pulled this lie a few times before, and by now it had something close to the ring of truth.

"So you're looking after your brother?" The man's eyes were dark and sharp, but he seemed more interested than threatening. "That's good of you."

"So, you wouldn't know anything about the bright lights out in the forest? Since you're not from Townsend, or from Wisconsin at all, I'm guessing?"

The man grinned at them, and it wasn't very comforting. "There's no-one looking after you right now, is there? That's okay, I was bounced around to various parts of the family for a few years myself. But I've got to ask, why are you here? Why right now?"

"Because it looks like there's a few new people in town right now, and that's kind of weird, considering what's going on out in the woods."

"Good question, and one I'm hoping to resolve tonight. I'm going to guess that you've been here a day or two longer than me, if you're running out of food this evening, so -"

"-do you know if anyone's seen any bright lights in the sky? Experienced missing time? Woke up where they shouldn't?"

Dean and Sam both sagged in relief at those familiar questions, but it was Sam who spoke. "Oh, I know what you are! You're a UFO chaser! There's another guy here after UFOs, you should go talk to him, not us."

Dean pointed a finger at him. "That's not the point, is it? We're not meant to be here, but neither are you. You don't tell anyone, and we won't either. Deal?"

"Sure, okay." He was far too casual about it for Sam's liking, but if he was a UFO chaser, that explained his weird manner and entirely relaxed attitude towards break-ins. The people who searched for aliens had an even worse relationship with the law than hunters did – at least hunters didn't go breaking into military bases and restricted areas. Well, not often. "So, who's the other guy into UFOs?"

"It's his trailer in the parking lot, " Sam said helpfully. "But I don't think he's there right now."

"Thanks, I'll see if I can catch him later." The man turned, his black coat flaring out around him, and walked back out the door.

"Yeah, I don't think he really wanted to go to the office, Sammy. He was snooping."

They scurried back to their room as quickly and quietly as possible, sacks of food clutched close, but the man in the long coat didn't bother them again. Less than half an hour after they'd got back to their room, the man headed out across the parking lot, dressed warmly, with a small duffel slung over his shoulder.

"Well, I hope he finds Max, or Max finds him. Good luck to them." Dean had been tetchy since they got back, though Sam was fairly sure that it was due to their near-capture while on their kitchen raid – only the fact that the man was both an outsider and apparently slightly nuts had saved them from being reported.

Once they had feasted on their stolen goods, making ridiculous sandwiches with lunchmeat, cheese spread, cookies and crushed chips, Sam watched TV for a few hours. He'd wheeled it in the bedroom so that the light wouldn't be seen from the front window, much to Dean's approval. He covered up with blankets as the night got colder, and Dean joined him after a while, sitting in the same bed with their woolly hats on, their bellies warm and filled with food. Some stupid war movie was on, and they watched half-heartedly with the sound turned way down until well after midnight. Sam was already dozing when they heard jeeps outside, slowing down and coming closer. Sam hurried with Dean to the front windows, peering through the small gap without dislodging the curtains. The parking lot was well-lit, though, and it was pretty unlikely that anyone would spot them in their dark room.

Two jeeps pulled into the parking lot, each with a pair of armed Air Force personnel in the back. Sitting in the lead jeep was Max, his long hair full of dirt and twigs, his clothes ripped. He didn't look injured, though, nor did he have the gray cast to his face that Heather Kovacs had. Sam nudged Dean, delighted to see Max alive, and although Dean shook him off, he was grinning, too. Max was unceremoniously pushed from the vehicle, and the officer in the rear jeep spoke to him briefly, then the jeeps drove away, south down the highway. Max stumbled to his trailer and tried the door, looking very pleased when it proved to be unlocked, and went inside.

"Let's wait a bit, see if the troops are keeping an eye on him first. I mean, why did they bring him back here? And where was he?"

Max was, in fact, coming over to their door, though he took a roundabout route and made sure he was behind the lattice screen before he knocked. Neither Sam nor Dean moved, and Max leaned closer to the door.

"Uh, I don't know if you're in there, but I met up with your dad. He says to tell you that Bobby's dog's name is Mondale. Uh, does that mean anything to you?"

Sam stood further back, salt canister at the ready, and watched closely as Max stepped right in the salt lining the threshold, with no ill consequences, and stumbled into the room, blinking as he tried to adjust to the dim light. Dean shut the door quietly behind him, and stood back, shotgun held in what looked like a casual stance, though Sam could see Dean was entirely ready to shoot.

"Oh, in a cell. There's been some kind of alien event – a spaceship, but I don't know if it's crashed or just landed there – and it killed a deputy and at least three firefighters. I, I had to go, and I woke up in the forest. The military had me in minutes, of course, and they threw me in jail. There were a few guys there, actually, who'd tried to work out what was happening. You didn't tell me your dad was a UFO hunter too!" Max pulled a small twig out of his untidy hair.

Dean chimed in. "But they sent you right back here? They didn't charge you with anything?"

"They questioned me for a while, but they've decided I'm harmless." Max didn't seem disheartened by the dismissal. "They've let a lot of people back into Townsend, but no-one who lives to the south-east, near the forest. It's a genuine alien crash site, so they've got a lot of roadblocks. It's the Air Force, too, like they're not even hiding it. They really should have thought of a better cover story than a crashed train if the Air Force wanted control!"

"What did our dad say?" Sam could see Max was ready to tell them all about the conspiracy, but that wasn't going to help them. "And were they going to let him go?"

"I think so, yeah. It must be handy to be an EPA inspector, I mean, to get to places for his real line of work. He said for you to stay where it's safe, and try to give, uh, Bobby a call if you can. He should have something ready for you by now?" Max looked back at the door and the scuffed pile of salt. "And why all the salt? Your dad gave me a some salt, too." Max extracted a crumpled sachet of cafeteria table salt from his pocket.

Dean put the shotgun down, though well away from Max. "It's protective. Things that are, well, alien, don't like it. You should try it."

Max laughed, gently. "You don't need to worry so much! I mean, sure, some of the people who were actually abducted by aliens say they're scary, but I'm just searching for the truth. I'm trying to find the aliens, not drive them away."

Dean and Sam looked at each other and shrugged. "Okay, " Sam said, "But I don't want to get abducted in a spaceship. My dad would get really mad."

"Oh yes, there's a whole network of abductees, enthusiasts, people who've had close encounters, all kinds of people. We're called NICAP and we keep in touch through electronic mailing lists and bulletin boards. I was telling your dad about it – he said he doesn't know much about the World Wide Web."

"Oh, yeah, I met him. The Air Force had him, too." Max looked rather proud. "I recognized him straight away, of course. He was trying to get footage in the forest – that's where all the action is."

Sam frowned at him. "Actually, there were burn marks in your trailer, and your shelves were hot."

Max looked startled. "Really?" He blinked several times behind his glasses, but didn't ask any more questions about it, even though both Sam and Dean waited patiently.

Sam hurried to the bedroom and retrieved the scanner, but Max didn't seem at all bothered, and tucked it firmly under his arm with a nod of thanks.

"Just tell me if you need to listen in. But the Air Force is running things now, and they've got their own channels. They're probably blocking everyone else. I'll go check it out...and take my pills. I should take them around now."

"Your dad said that you'd say that. Don't worry, " Max grinned, suddenly. "No-one ever believes me anyway."

He scurried back to his trailer, and Dean put the chain back on the door, pulling the curtain across to try to cover the little gap that it left.

"Yeah, except for being in some kind of cell. Still, they let Max go, and he probably told them all kinds of crazy stuff. Dad can keep his mouth shut."

"And now we've got something to tell Bobby! The light's out in the office, let's go now."

Dean raised a cautionary hand. "We'll wait a little while. People might still be awake, hearing the jeeps drive in. We really don't need to get caught again."

A few hours later, after Sam had caught some sleep, they hurried through the latticework corridor in front of the rooms toward the office. Dean let Sam pick the window lock this time – which he did quickly and neatly – and they had no trouble opening the door and getting in. There was paperwork piled up in two mesh baskets, and notes and phone numbers scribbled on the desk's notepad, but otherwise the office looked just the same as yesterday.

"You call, Sam, " Dean whispered, and Sam gratefully hurried over to pick up the phone to dial Bobby. Dean rifled through the papers on the desk.

"Hey, Bobby, it's me, Sam!" Bobby had picked the phone up much faster than last night.

"Yeah, um, the Air Force have him in a cell, but they let another guy go, a UFO hunter, so we think he should be back soon."

"Good, Sam. You boys stay put, and if he's not back tomorrow, call me again and I'll see what I can find out. Don't have anything more about how to kill a ludverc, though, just that it can shed flame while it flies."

"I think it did that in the forest – some firefighters died, they think. It's okay, though, Dad probably knows something by now. So we should just stay here?"

Sam hung up, and looked up at Dean, who was looking at one of the motel sign-in sheets with some concern.

"Wouldn't he be staying with them, then? Maybe the government knows something about the ludverc, at least that something's wrong here. I mean, they must know it's not a train crash."

Sam peered at the form in Dean's hands. "But no-one's looking for us. Even if a federal agent is staying here, we should just do what Bobby said, and stay quiet."

"Yeah, I'm just worried about Dad, if it's the FBI locking him up. What if they went through the car and found what's in the bottom of the trunk? Or they know he's not with the EPA and came to arrest him?"

"Special Agent F. Mulder, " Sam read from the form. "Bobby said that if Dad's not back tomorrow, he'll check it out. Dean, we can't go and rescue Dad!"

"I didn't say we should!" Dean snapped back. "Come on, let's get back to our room."

He carefully put the papers back where they belonged, and they made their way out, re-locking the door and window to leave no evidence of their break-in, except for the handful of candy and individually-wrapped cookies that Sam took from Shawna's big jar. Just as they safely closed the door to their room, another pair of jeeps pulled into the parking lot, and Sam's heart nearly burst from his chest in sudden fear. Had Shawna put an alarm on in the office this time? Dean put a hand on Sam's arm, keeping him still, and the men who leapt from the jeep marched right past their room, to open another door a little closer to the office – the room of the man in the long black coat – and they all went inside, apart from two heavily armed men who stayed with the vehicles.

"Same as they did in Max's trailer, I guess. Checking everything out while they've got him in a cell."

Sam nodded. That was a much less scary thought than the Air Force going through the entire motel, and indeed, less than ten minutes later, they all emerged again, carrying nothing more than a few sheets of paper. They piled back into their jeep with swift efficiency and drove away, leaving the parking lot quiet again.

Both Winchesters slept deeply that night, in turns, despite the cold and the fear of the Air Force or the FBI suddenly kicking the door in and taking them away to a foster home. It was Sam who was watching as the night turned to dawn, and Max exited his trailer again. He walked off into town, but returned fifteen minutes later, heading straight for their room before remembering to be sneaky and edging sideways around the white latticework instead, approaching from the direction of the office instead.

"Max is coming over, " Sam called to the sleeping Dean, from his perch by the front window. Sam had perked up at the thought of speaking to someone other than his extra-bitchy brother, and hurried into the dark of the main room. Max knocked quietly, and Sam let him in, watching closely as Max stepped over the salt, Dean observing from the bedroom door, close to the shotgun.

"Hey, guys." Max was carrying a brown paper bag with him, and Sam could smell hamburgers. "I didn't know if your dad had left you any cash, so I got some hamburgers to go from the diner."

"Thanks!" Sam all but cheered, and Dean gave him a dirty look. Sam rather hoped that Dean wasn't going to refuse the burgers, but surely Dean's stomach wouldn't let him say no.

Instead of politely refusing the offer, Max looked pleased. "Oh, uh, that would be great. I think they've put the prices up now all these journalists have moved in. My disability check isn't due for a week yet." He pulled grease-paper wrapped hamburgers from the bag and handed one to each boy, keeping the third for himself. "Can you even see in here? It's so dark."

Dean, already gnawing his way through his thick, sloppy burger, shrugged. "Yeah, sure, there's plenty of light from outside."

Sam took one more bite of his burger, then put it on the table, and grabbed his flashlight from the table, and waved it at Max. "Can I shine this on you?" Max nodded, and Sam shone the light on his face – his eyes had the same dull, silvery sheen as Heather Kovacs' had. "Look, Dean."

Dean was suddenly focused entirely on Max, his hamburger abandoned. "Max, I don't think your aliens are good for you. We saw someone else whose eyes looked like yours, and she's sick. And her parents died."

Max didn't seem alarmed, and didn't stop eating, though he turned his face away from the flashlight's clear beam. "There's nothing wrong with me, seriously. Don't worry."

"I came here to ask you something, actually. There were three of us being held by the Air Force – me, your dad and the other guy staying at this motel. He knows more than he's telling, I'm sure, because I've seen him in UFO magazines. He's written articles."

"So, what do you want from us?" Sam's skepticism was echoed in Dean's folded arms, and neither of them picked up their burgers again.

"I saw you break into the office, before." Max didn't look angry or threatening in the slightest, like this was a completely normal conversation for him to hold, and something about that reminded Sam of Pastor Jim, who could talk about God, hunting and doing the dishes all in one breath. "I need to get into his room. Will you help me?"

"Why did they send you and him back to Townsend, but not our dad? Besides, the Air Force already tossed the room."

Max sounded apologetic. "I think I'm the only one they released, actually. I don't know why, I really don't. I hope there's some answers in that hotel room – I don't think the Air Force would know what to look for."

Sam looked over at Dean, who shrugged. Max was certainly not the smoothest bargainer in the world – it would have made more sense to promise them something in return, or at least withhold the hamburgers until they agreed, but at the same time, Max's openness was far more enticing than any glorious promise.

Max grinned and took a big bite of his hamburger, but kept talking. "He told me he'd seen wreckage. Of an alien craft. And he had photos of the Air Force hosing it down, and putting a laser cordon around the whole area."

"Well, the Air Force confiscated his film when they captured him, of course. But he says there's a huge search going on out there, not just a clean-up operation. Maybe an alien escaped the crash?"

Dean and Sam looked at each other, both thinking the same thing – if a ludverc was flying around out there, burning people, the Air Force was never going to catch it, whether or not they thought it was a human being.

Dean carefully peered out the window for more jeeps, or journalists, but there was no sign of anyone up and about, at least no closer than the main road, and they were well shielded from that. The office, however, was open again, so they would need to be careful that Shawna and her employees didn't catch sight of them. Still, the locks were both simple and old, and it should only take a few moments to open. Dean handed the lock pick roll to Sam, who slipped quickly out the door and up to the room, making short work of the lock. Dean and Max joined him, and Max reached over Sam's head to push the door open. The room inside, slightly smaller than the Winchesters', was an absolute mess – books, paper and clothing lay scattered all over the floor, and all the furniture had been systematically and ruthlessly searched, even down to slitting the mattress cover.

"Wow." Max surveyed the damage. "The FBI's going to be pissed when they get this bill."

"But we talked to him!" Sam stared at Max with wide eyes, then tugged Dean's sleeve. "Let's go! Now!"

"No kidding, " Dean muttered, then suddenly shoved Sam further into the room. Sam turned as he stumbled, and saw the source of Dean's panic just as the door shut. A shiny new rental car had pulled into the parking lot, and in it was the FBI agent himself – the very man who had pretended to be a UFO chaser last night – along with a red-haired woman in the passenger seat. They were just a dozen feet away, and as soon as they got out of the car, they'd have a perfect view of the motel room's only door.

"Max, we've got to get out of here!" Sam was horrified to see that Max looked far more panicked than Sam or Dean, but rather than immediately fleeing, he was trying to gather up papers from the floor and bed.

"Come on!" Dean grabbed Sam's shoulder and pulled him into the bathroom. "If this room's like ours, the bathroom window opens."

Dean called back to Max, "The bathroom window opens!" Dean didn't hesitate, though, and neither did Sam. Dean cupped his hands and boosted Sam up to the small window. Sam opened it and wriggled through head-first, grabbing the windowsill as he went through to give himself time to fall without hurting himself. He scrambled backwards on the damp concrete behind the row of motel rooms to give Dean room to fall.

It took Dean slightly longer to get through the window – he was skinny, but the window was very narrow – but he made it out with a minimum of noise. He grabbed Sam's arm and they quietly made their way to the end of the row of rooms, listening carefully for the FBI agents. The agents had left their car, and were walking towards the room that the Winchesters had just escaped.

The door to the FBI agent's motel room opened, then quickly closed, and Dean risked a look around the corner.

They took the brief opportunity to dash back into their own room as quietly as possible. Dean put the chain on the door, and Sam fidgeted, tying his fingers in anxious knots. "Dean, is Max going to get arrested? Is he going to tell Mulder about us? Should we get out of here?"

"I don't know! And if the FBI's involved with the fake train crash, and the aliens, then they probably know all about Dad. Maybe they know about the monsters, I don't know!"

Sam sat down cross-legged on the floor, putting his hands under his butt so that he stopped twisting them about. "I don't think that's right. Max says they arrested Mulder and they took away his camera."

"You're taking things at face value again, Sammy! How do you know that they didn't fake the arrest to get information out of Dad, or Max?" Dean took a breath, and his face took on a thoughtful cast. "But then, that would mean they don't really know what's going on, and they want to find out. And they're just saying it's a chemical spill until they can work out what's really happening."

"Dad's never talked to anyone in the FBI, has he? I mean, Bobby's faked being the FBI sometimes..."

"If there really were hunters in the FBI, then Bobby wouldn't need to do that, would he? No, they're trying to work out what the hell's happening, or they wouldn't need to try to trick Max." Dean looked far more confident now, but then he glanced out the window and gestured to Sam.

Indeed, Max and the two FBI agents were walking out of the motel room together. Max and Mulder were chatting like old friends, though the female agent, Scully, didn't seem so involved in the conversation.

Dean turned back to Sam. "Okay, that's it. Max is working with them now. He said he knew that agent, and I guess he wasn't lying. We've got to get moving."

Sam nodded, though he didn't really want to go. "Yeah, we can't stay here. Agent Mulder knows we're by ourselves, and Max knows exactly where we are. What should we take?"

"Clear out one of the bags, get the winter gear and the shotgun. The spare cash. And put on some more clothes. It's going to get cold out there."

Sam headed to the bedroom to get his things. "Are we going to camp out? What if it snows?"

"No, dumb-ass." Dean grinned as he said it, taking the sting out of the insult. "We're going to Heather Kovacs' house."

Dean counted on his fingers. "One, we know it's in the forest. Two, we know how to protect ourselves from it. Three, unlike certain people at this motel, it's not likely to break in and arrest us!"

Sam grinned back. It felt good to be on the move. "Can we call Bobby when we get there?"

With everything they needed packed up, Dean with a duffel bag and Sam with his school backpack, they crouched by the front window and waited for the FBI agents to emerge from Max's trailer. When they did – without Max – they went straight to their car and drove away, though it looked like they were still arguing.

Unwilling to risk Max seeing them, the two boys climbed through their own bathroom window and out the back of the motel, Dean handing their bags down to Sam before dropping down himself. They moved quickly away from the motel, towards the lakeshore, so that they could avoid the main street. They'd heard enough cars going up and down it to guess at how busy the town was, with all the journalists and Air Force personnel, and more people meant more danger.

"What?" Dean snapped, though he also looked more relaxed now that they were on the move.

"Yeah, I believe you." Dean shrugged, but Sam could see he was happy to be outside in the weak sunlight. "Hey, let's go past the doctor's house and grab some of those birch branches you spotted."

"No way, the hospital will be busy with all those burned people. Plus anyone who got hurt in the evacuation, and old people having heart attacks because of the sirens...there's no way he'll be at home."

They walked by the lake, past the small cabins that were largely closed up for winter, ducking out of the way a few times when a car passed them, but there were no jeeps and guns out this side of town, and no-one cared to stop them. Several of the houses had birch trees, not just the doctor's, and they quickly scavenged a good collection of branches and twigs from the muddy ground, though Sam's fingers felt frozen even through his woolen gloves, damp with soil and leaf mold. Dean reached over and took a few of the largest of Sam's branches to add to his own load, leaving Sam with one hand free, to put in his pocket for warmth.

"Come on, Sam, we're nearly there. And then we can put the heater on as high as you like."

Dean's encouragement was all that Sam needed to trudge the last half-mile to the Kovacs' house, clutching his birch sticks, while Dean carried an armful of bigger branches. They soon reached the Kovacs' street of larger, newer houses, plentiful trees providing excellent cover for scouting the area. A few minutes of reconnaissance showed that not only was no-one at the Kovacs' home – other cars were in the garage, but Heather's little SUV was absent – but the garage was still unlocked from their visit on Sunday, and they knew that a door from the garage led straight into the house.

Sam and Dean hurried inside, birch branches clutched tightly, and dumped their burdens on the kitchen floor. The central heating in the house had been left on, and they quickly shed their excess layers of clothing to warm their chilly hands on the heated floor tiles in the kitchen.

"Hey, Dean, this place is pretty good for a house that was probably built by a ludverc."

Dean's nose and ears were going bright red with the change in temperature. "You hear me complaining? Once we've warmed up properly we should have something to eat. Heather's not going to notice anything missing, even if Dad does save her. And we know the food's not cursed, now." His face became more serious. "Then we're going to salt this place within an inch of its life, and get those birch twigs across every doorway. And call Bobby."

Sam smiled, lying on his back on the toasty floor, his fingers stinging as they warmed up. "Yeah, yeah. But now we just have to worry about the ludverc, not the FBI. And we're the monster experts!"

By nightfall, Bobby had found an answer to the ludverc problem. He called with their planned two rings, hang up, call again pattern, and Sam picked up.

"Bobby? Have you heard from Dad?" Sam was now wearing just his jeans, t-shirt and clean, dry socks – the Kovacs house had awesome central heating.

"Sorry, Sam. But I do have something for you – to destroy the kind of ludverc you've got now, you need to get it inside a hollow tree, preferably a birch tree."

"I called a hunter who'd dealt with one before, over in Ohio, and she said that if you outline a path out of birch sticks, it'll run right down it and into the tree. Then you use the birch or salt to stop it getting out again and it dies. This is for John, Sam, not for you. It might be able to summon people already in thrall to fight you off. "

"Don't worry, Bobby! We're safe and we're not going anywhere – it's great here! They have cable, and food, and heating and everything! Dean made me have a bath!"

"Good boy. You tell Dean the same things, all right? Stay in the house until your dad or I show up."

"Sure thing, Bobby!" Sam hung up cheerfully. Staying here was much better than hanging around a motel.

"Yeah. To kill the ludverc, we can make a path out of the birch twigs, then it runs down it into a hollow tree, then we close it up again with salt and the birch twigs. That's it! Oh, and watch out for people in thrall, it might call them if it feels threatened."

Sam punched the air then scurried off to make the rounds again, checking that every possible entrance to the house had both salt and a birch branch or stick across it. The fireplace was particularly well fortified, being the ludverc's previous point of entry – Dean had stuffed a branch up the chimney, as well as making sure that the hearth was entirely covered with salt and sticks. Sam had even salted around the drains and the toilet, though he was fairly sure that a fiery creature like the ludverc wouldn't be very interested in them.

Safely ensconced, Dean and Sam could settle down to a dinner of hot dogs in slightly freezer-burnt buns, vast amounts of ketchup, some reheated corn on the cob as a token gesture towards their dad's insistence on vegetables, and chocolate ice cream. They ate in front of the TV in the living room – Dean had insisted on checking the news in case of further developments – but with no further news on the military's movements or the evacuees, they soon put in a video instead. The Kovacs had a pretty good collection, all nicely shelved by the TV in their big living room, and they even had a few movies that Dean hadn't managed to see, like Point Break.

Once Patrick Swayze and Keanu Reeves had finished surfing, shooting and blowing things up to everyone's satisfaction, the Winchesters washed up everything they'd used, and cleaned up their garbage. An unexpected getaway still might be on the cards, and although they were no longer dressed for the outdoors, they still needed to keep everything ready to move as quickly as possible.

"We're staying in the living room, " Dean told Sam, as they finished putting the clean dishes back in the cupboards.

"There's beds upstairs, " Sam grumbled, but he could see why – there was only one staircase, and if someone or something was coming up that, they'd have to drop out a much higher window than the motel bathroom. "Well, does the sofa fold out, or should we get a mattress from upstairs? Or just sleep on the carpet, it's pretty soft."

"Seriously, and it's heated! Dad should get us to stay with people like this all the time!" Dean's expression darkened, a little, but he held onto his smile. "Go check if the sofa's a fold-out, then."

It was, and Sam wasted no time getting their spare plaid blanket out of the duffel bag – in this house, they weren't going to need a pile of them to stay warm. He lined up their shoes, sweaters, coats and now-dry gloves on either side of the mattress, just as their dad would tell them to do, to make sure they were ready to dress and leave in a hurry. Every time Sam glanced up, the two boxes on the mantelpiece that held the ashes of Mr and Mrs Kovacs seemed to be watching him. He knew that was ridiculous, but – with a quick glance to make sure Dean was still in the kitchen – he took them down and carried them carefully to the study instead. It wasn't as if they were going to mind, not now.

Dean wiped his damp hands on his pants as he walked out of the kitchen. "Okay, I'm taking first watch. You catch some sleep."

"What are you watching for now? We're pretty safe here, aren't we?" Sam yawned, and snuggled into the warm, soft sofa-bed, tucking the blanket around himself.

"Okay." Sam closed his eyes and Dean turned off the light, though the various appliances around the living room and the street light outside still cast a faint glow. To the sound of Dean's steady breathing, Sam fell asleep.

Sam was on watch in the pre-dawn hours. He was a little cranky that Dean had let him sleep so long, but keeping watch was boring and he'd slept really well, so he hadn't protested too hard. He sat on an armchair, shotgun near to hand, watching the TV's pale flicker. Dean had turned it on sometime in the night, the sound muted, and he'd left it on for Sam, which just told Sam that Dean had been bored, too. It all seemed to be shopping shows and religion at this hour, but Sam didn't mind – it was kind of nice to see that the world was still just the same out there. It meant that his dad would be back soon, that they wouldn't be hiding, that they just needed to catch up with the rest of the world. Everything would be fine.

For a long moment, Sam didn't understand the bright white flash that washed over the room, but then the TV went dead, along with Sam's flashlight, the clock and everything else electronic in the room, and he scrambled down to Dean's side.

"Get dressed and stay low." Dean scrambled into his own clothes and hurried over to the big windows, still lined with salt and birch, keeping his head below the level of the sill. He peeped over the edge, his hands busy tying his shoelaces, and carefully assessed the scene. Sam struggled into his clothes, then crawled over to Dean's side.

"Sort of – there's a glow down towards the center of town, a white glow, not like a fire." Dean pointed, but it was easy to spot in the entirely dark town – the white light was the only light of any kind. "Power's out everywhere."

Dean pulled Sam down to the carpet as the glow loomed huge through the window, blotting out everything, outlining the room in violent brightness. Suddenly it seemed to be coming from all directions, shining right through their eyelids. Dean put a hand over Sam's eyes, holding him tightly, but even so, the light gleamed through, stabbing into their vision no matter which way they looked.

Then it was gone. Sam gasped, his vision full of spot and lines, and Dean let Sam go. They both sat up, but stayed right where they were, blinking and staring. The darkness around them was cool and comforting, but a perfect canvas for the visual tricks their dazzled eyes played.

"Me too." Dean clambered to his feet, but stumbled against the edge of the sofa. He got a hand on the shotgun, though, then sat back down with Sam.

Sam stared out the window, trying to make out the shapes before his eyes. His eyes must have been recovering faster than Dean's, because some of the bright shapes resolved quite quickly.

Dean squinted out the window, and saw what Sam meant – all the trees around the house, the tall pine trees that had provided them with such good cover, were catching fire, great flames shooting up the branches. "We kept it out of the house, but it's burning the yard. We've got to get out of here, Sammy."

"Will the fire burn the house?" Sam scrubbed at his eyes and saw that the fire was spreading into the ivy on the porch at the back of the house.

"Looks like a regular fire to me! Check the back of the house, see if the back yard's on fire too." Dean quickly shoved their belongings back in the duffel bag and zipped it closed, and started collecting some of the birch sticks that they had laid around the room.

Sam ran for the back of the house and peered out the window. "Yes it is! The whole yard's on fire, Dean, all around us!" He couldn't understand why Dean was remaining so calm. Even if the fire didn't kill them, the Air Force and the FBI would surely be here in a minute. The sudden shrill of smoke alarms filled the air and Sam ran back to Dean, who was pulling the biggest of the birch branches from the fireplace. "Dean! What are you doing? We've got to get out of here!"

Dean yelled over the smoke alarms. "It's no good running without a plan – if the ludverc's still around, it'll get us the second we step outside the protections we set up. Here, take the salt and get your backpack on!"

"Come on!" Dean ran through the kitchen, bent forward to keep his head low, down the hall and out into the garage. Less insulated than the house, it was already filling with smoke and heat. "Get in the car, Sammy!"

Sam climbed up into the nearest car, a big green SUV, and Dean, coughing, shoved the birch branches and the shotgun in after him. Dean ran over to the garage doors and swung one upwards, pulling his hands away from the hot door and sprinting back for the car in the red light of the flames outside. The concrete driveway itself was clear, but the trees lining both sides were entirely alight, flames shooting up into the air, crackling and roaring. Sam flung himself across the front seats and threw the driver's door open. Dean jumped in, pulling keys from his pocket and starting the car.

"Key rack in the hall!" Dean bellowed back, slamming the car into reverse and shooting out of the driveway as fast as he could. Both boys yelled as a huge, charred branch hurtled through the air towards the windshield, but they were moving backwards fast enough that it landed in front of the car rather than on it. They reached the street – trees near the Kovacs house were catching on fire too, now, and people were running from their houses – and sped off in the SUV, tires screeching on the hot asphalt. The sound of sirens followed them as they streaked away, and Sam looked over his shoulder to see that the house was no longer visible behind the great sheets of flame. No other houses were on fire, but it looked like they soon would be. The fire leapt forty feet into the air, burning hot and bright even in the November damp.

The entire town was dark, but for the red glow of the flames behind them, and Sam had no trouble spotting the bright light again. It was moving across the dark, low sky, in an arc that looked quite slow at a distance, though almost certainly wasn't. It was heading towards the beginnings of a pale dawn.

Dean slowed down so that he could turn his head and see for himself. "Yeah, I see it." He turned right at the next intersection, and pointed the car east. "Keep that shotgun handy, Sammy."

Sam rearranged the pile of birch branches that lay across his legs to secure his grip on the gun. "Are we really going after it?" He felt exhilarated and terrified at the same time – thrilled that their protections really had held, that they could defend themselves against something so dangerous, but his stomach churned at the thought of seeking it out.

"Look, Sammy, Dad's not back. We don't know where he's gone, but wherever it is, it's not here. And the ludverc is here. No-one else knows what it is or how to fight it."

"We could wait for Bobby?" Sam felt he should put up at least a token protest, even though he thought Dean was right. When he glanced across at Dean's taut mouth and narrowed eyes, he was glad that he'd said something. Dean was just saying what he thought they should do, rather than what he really wanted to do. Dean looked more than a little scared to Sam, though someone else might not have seen that. Not even Dad – Dean was especially well-practiced at hiding any supposed weakness from him.

"How about this for a plan, Dean? We track it down and protect the area with the birch twigs and salt, so it can't fly around hurting anyone. It must be going to ground somewhere – maybe it was trying to hide out at the house, but we stopped it? Then we can wait for Bobby, no problems."

Dean grinned. "Awesome, dude! I like the plan! And it'll save us from Dad kicking our asses when he gets back."

"Yeah, well, that's one good part of it." Sam grinned back, pleased with himself. If Dean was trying to throw himself into danger, trying to be Dad in Dad's absence, well, Sam didn't have to let him do that.

They drove on into the creeping dawn light, staying as close to due east as they could, which wasn't too hard on the largely straight county roads. They were well north of the military quarantine zone, and the sparse traffic was beat-up farm cars and milk trucks, rather than Air Force jeeps. Sam wanted to duck every time a car or truck approached, but no-one looked twice at a teenager and a kid in a dusty SUV with blistered paint on the hood. Sam thought that the trajectory of the light would take the ludverc down near the lakeshore, not in Lake Michigan itself, but that was something of a guess, based on the arc and the ludverc being a creature of light and fire – surely it would try to avoid the water.

By the time they reached the lakeshore, dawn had arrived and the ludverc was nowhere in sight. The small town to which it had led them seemed to have very little apart from rusting warehouses made of corrugated tin, a few decrepit boats moored to its jetties, and a small collection of ramshackle houses going up the hill away from the harbor. The town looked out on Green Bay – road signs let them know that they were about 30 miles north of the city of the same name – and the wind that blew off the lake was icy. Most of the warehouses looked to be empty and abandoned, though a few were still in action. Few people were around, and security was so minimal that the gates of the cyclone-wire fence were rusted open – they could drive right in from the main road.

Dean parked the car near the waterfront and leaned on the steering wheel. "You think it's in there?"

Sam squinted, the weak sun in his eyes. "It could be. If it needs to be undisturbed when it's not feeding, I guess that's a good spot. But I don't know why it went so far away from Townsend. We're maybe 20 miles away?"

"Yeah, but a lot of stuff has happened around Townsend in the last few days. Maybe it doesn't have anywhere left to go there? Hey, Sam! Maybe one of these warehouses belongs to Darryl Kovacs, or one of the boats? He liked fishing! And he'd know it was a safe place, now that he's turned into a ludverc." Dean grinned at his own brilliance.

"Okay, yeah! Then we can to get to it in the daytime and trap it. The guy who was Mr Kovacs' fishing buddy, Mr Farmer – we could use his name?" Sam pointed at the only open store in town, a combination bait shop and gas station which didn't look like it had been re-painted in decades. "Let's ask them."

Stuffing a few birch twigs in their pockets and taking the salt, though not the shotgun, Dean and Sam climbed out of the car and headed for the gas station. Dean had transferred some of the cash from the duffel bag to his pocket, so when they were inside – it wasn't the worst-smelling store they'd ever been in, but it was close – he grabbed a few chocolate bars and took them to the cracked laminate counter. A sour-faced woman rang them up without a word.

"Our uncle, Rick Farmer from Townsend, passed away a few weeks ago, and our dad sent us to pick up his fishing gear. Would you know where he kept that, ma'am? Or his friend, Mr Kovacs? It might be with his things."

The woman glared at him for a moment, but it seemed to be routine hostility rather than anything personal, because she thought for a moment and answered, "Yeah, sure. I heard they died. Try over near the boat ramp. It says 'Kovacs' on the door."

"Thank you, ma'am." Dean kept smiling, but she'd stopped looking at him, so he took Sam by the elbow and hurried out the door.

"Cool!" Sam cheered, once they were safely away, and grabbed a chocolate bar from Dean.

"Yeah, eat your breakfast, then we'll drive over there. Better to have all the birch sticks with us, I think."

"Okay!" Sam ate the rest of his Snickers, and Dean followed suit, both wiping their hands on their pants before climbing back into their borrowed SUV. Sam still had half an ear out for sirens – police, fire, maybe even the Air Force – but there was nothing but the wind and water, and the occasional rumble of a truck passing through on the road to Green Bay. Dean flicked on the radio in the car for the news.

"It's eight o'clock, Sam, they should have some news about all the stuff that happened last night!"

Townsend was the very first news item – six Air Force personnel had been hospitalized with severe burns, and there were unconfirmed reports of deaths. A local house fire was thought to be unrelated, but had also resulted in minor injuries to two firefighters. The house was thought to be unoccupied but investigations were continuing. The quarantine still had not been lifted, and Air Force personnel had made official comment that it was likely to last at least another 48 hours.

"At least they're not looking for a pair of arsonists in a getaway vehicle." Dean shrugged, but his voice was relieved rather than sarcastic.

Sam shifted nervously. "When we find this warehouse, we're not going in, are we? I mean, you said you'd wait for Bobby, but I can't see any payphones to call him."

"No way we're going in, don't worry. We can lock the ludverc in with the birch branches and the salt. Dad wouldn't want us running on in there without being sure of how to kill it."

Sam nodded, glad that Dean was sticking to the plan rather than getting overwhelmed with some grandiose idea about taking it out by himself. "Okay. Bobby wouldn't, either."

Dean put the car in gear and drove into the maze of warehouses, scanning for a boat ramp. It wasn't hard to spot, near the southern end of the complex, as it was one of the few things in good repair. They could park the car right near it – unlike most of the concrete paths around the waterfront, the road to the boat ramp was clean of scrap metal and assorted junk. Sam looked out over the water to see if he could spot any fishermen out in boats, but the morning fog was still hanging low over the water, and all he could see was the blurry green of an island in the distance.

"No-one's out there, Sam." Dean handed Sam the shotgun and started collecting birch branches from the back seat. "No other cars. We're clear to work."

Darryl Kovacs' fishing shed was easy to find – it was a small corrugated-tin annex on the side of a larger, dilapidated warehouse, with his name painted on the door. A long, sooty streak, just like the one that was on the chimneys at the homes of the Kovacs family and his friend Rick Farmer, marked the side of the taller warehouse down to where it connected to the roof of the shed. Dean and Sam quickly surrounded the shed with birch sticks, and it was easy enough for Dean to pull up an already-bent corner of sheet of tin siding to let Sam into the warehouse. Sam quickly poured salt in front of not just the door from the shed into the main warehouse, but across the whole wall, just to make sure. The door was already barred and locked with a rusty padlock, but that was apparently no bar to a ludverc. Sam ducked back out through the gap Dean had made for him, to find Dean looking up at the roof with a speculative look on his face.

Sam frowned. Both of them were good climbers, but the tin was rusty and holed, and it didn't look very safe up there. He sighed. Dean was right. "Yeah, I think so. It's got holes in it so maybe it's like a chimney for the ludverc?"

Dean nodded. "It's all rusted out, though – I don't want to go up there and fall right onto the ludverc."

"Or get your legs sliced off and bleed to death, " Sam added, gruesomely. "Or your head."

Dean laughed. "Good point, Sammy. Let's grab some crates and stack them, instead. At least we can test if they're rotten before we put any weight on them."

There were wooden crates of all shapes and sizes lying around, not all of them rotted, and they soon had a slightly wobbly stack of crates ready to climb.

"No, I'm smaller, I'll go up." Sam was feeling quite light of heart – their plan was working, and Dean wasn't trying to run in there and fight the ludverc, birch branches or not.

"Sure, okay. Don't fall through." Dean put out his hand, and boosted Sam up the pile of boxes. It shifted a little, but held firm, and Sam scampered easily to the top, his thick woolly gloves protecting him from splinters. The roof did indeed have several noticeable holes, rusted and sharp at the edges. Sam tried to look in the nearest one, but he couldn't spot anything in the darkness of the shed below. At least the ludverc, if it was here, wasn't active. He pulled the salt canister from his pocket and shook it in long, loopy arcs, getting good coverage of the roof, and Dean, his body still wedged against the boxes for stability, passed him up the largest of the branches to strew over the roof. The rusted portions of the tin creaked and split as the birch sticks hit, and Sam was extremely glad they didn't have to walk on that roof. From his vantage point, he looked out over the water, then back towards the main road.

Sam flung it to the far corner. "Yeah, done." He slid backwards down the pile, his feet feeling their way until Dean got his hands in place to give Sam a steady foothold. Sam slithered the rest of the way, Dean guiding him, and landed neatly on his feet. "Should we get back in the car?"

"No way, they might be looking for it. Grab your stuff out of it and we'll head back through the warehouses, where they haven't cleared the roads. Even if they leave the jeeps, we'll hear them long before they hear us. We can always come back for the car if it's not us they're after."

They grabbed their backpack and duffel bag from the car, Dean taking off his gloves for a better grip on the shotgun and a faster trigger finger. They hurried away from the cleared road, picking their way through abandoned crates and rusted metal strewn across the ground. The Air Force jeeps had come right to the warehouses, but they seemed to be heading slowly for the waterfront, along the same path that Dean and Sam had driven. The other roads, while too cluttered for cars, were not a problem for two boys on foot, and they quickly moved back through the warehouses towards the small township.

A man's voice muttered something, not far from their position, and Sam and Dean quickly took cover behind a large pile of rotting wooden boxes. The man must not have been speaking to them, however, because in return came a crisp, military voice.

"Sir, we've apprehended the target. It's just a civilian." A jeep came to a halt, and men jumped out of it, their boots thudding on the concrete.

A radio crackled, its words unclear, but in response, men readied their weapons. There was a faint, bizarre roaring noise, almost like the sound inside a seashell, and suddenly Sam found himself face-down on the ground, his chin striking the concrete, with Dean on top of him shoving him flat. Before Sam could protest, the white light flashed, filling their ears with a strange absence of noise, like it had pulled all the sound from the air. Momentarily blinded, the sound came rushing back with several brief, cut-off screams, then nothing, not even the idling engine of the jeep. Sam pushed up at Dean, angry and frightened, but Dean rolled off him and across the concrete. Sam didn't understand for a moment, then he realized that Dean's jacket was on fire.

"Sam!" Dean struggled free of his burning jacket and Sam raced over to stamp the flames out. Dean's hair was all burned off at the back of his head, his scalp bright red and angry, blisters forming on the exposed skin at the nape of his neck and the backs of his hands. "Sam!"

Sam couldn't work out for a second why Dean was so worried about him when it was Dean who was hurt, but then his chin started to sting and he touched it, his hand coming away bright with blood. Shameful tears sprung to his eyes, but he blinked them away firmly.

"No, Dean, I'm okay, really." Sam's mouth felt swollen and deformed; when he touched his lower lip it was split and swelling. "You're burned, we have to go to a doctor."

Sam turned, and Max was there, stumbling slowly towards them, his clothes askew and his face twisted in pain.

"Max? Are you okay?" Sam could hardly understand his own words, but Max looked at him blearily. Max was clutching at his right ear, gasping for air, and blood was leaking between his fingers.

"Don't stop me, don't do this, " he panted, and both Sam and Dean pressed back against the walls of the warehouse, out of his path.

"We won't stop you, " Dean replied, looking slightly glazed himself, and Max shuffled past, paying them no further attention. His face had the same faint gray tinge as Heather Kovacs, his eyes unfocused and pained.

Dean picked up the shotgun, small blisters starting to form on the backs of his hands where he had covered his and Sam's heads. They followed Max, first at a distance, then closer as Max paid no attention.

Sam made sure of the salt canister and remaining birch twigs in his pockets and stuck close to Dean, though Sam was still bleeding down his chin and all over his sweater, and looking at the blisters on the back of Dean's head where the hair was gone made him feel faintly sick. He felt a lot worse when they rounded the corner and Sam glanced back. He saw what had happened to the Air Force men in the jeep, the men who hadn't had time to take cover like the Winchesters. They were lying in smoking piles of dead, burnt flesh, their uniforms in shreds, their bodies contorted in what looked like rage. Sam looked away quickly, his mind imposing faces on the blackened bodies: Deputy Wright, his dad, even Dean.

"It can shed fire when it flies." Sam repeated Bobby's words like a mantra, but it didn't help, and the terrible smell of burned flesh was mingling with the thick taste of the blood in his mouth.

"Come on, Sammy." Dean shook him slightly and tugged him away from the corpses around the scorched jeep. "We've got to try to help Max."

Sam thought that if he replied he was going to throw up, so he followed Dean without a word, wiping bloody saliva from the corners of his mouth, trying to pretend he hadn't seen the burned flesh and bone, that no-one was there but them and Max.

Max's path traced the one the Winchesters had just taken – he was going straight for the warehouse where Dean and Sam had just laid down protections. Dean and Sam tailed him quietly, though Max didn't seem to be paying any attention to anything that wasn't directly in his way.

"No, don't get in his way. I don't know if it's in him or just letting him use its powers, but we can't stop him."

"Why did it get him, Dean? He doesn't know Darrell Kovacs." Blood flecks flew from Sam's mouth as he spoke, and he wiped his mouth on his sleeve.

Sadness pulled at Dean's mouth, much to Sam's surprise. "Because he wants it so much. Because he's searching so hard that he doesn't care what answers he finds. We could give him all the protection in the world, and he'd throw it away."

Sam kept his hand on Dean's arm, careful not to restrict his ability to aim. "The salt isn't stopping it talking to him, is it?"

"I guess not. But he's going there physically, so it must have a need for him. Maybe if we can't stop him going to the ludverc, we can stop it coming out to him. Keep that salt ready, Sammy." Dean's face was more intensely focused than sad, now, but Sam wasn't sure how much of that focus was on keeping walking, ignoring his burns, and how much of it was actually on Max. Sam bit his lip, and immediately regretted it. But Dean was right – no-one else could help Max now, and Sam couldn't bear the thought of silly, innocent Max seeking his own death just because he wanted to unravel the mysteries of the world, just because he'd seen something he shouldn't.

Max walked right into the warehouse that backed onto Darryl Kovacs' fishing shed, and the door slammed shut behind him, with no direct contact from Max. Sam pulled at it, hanging his whole body weight from the handle, but it didn't budge. Before they could move around to the side of the warehouse, they heard another car pull up – Sam peered around the corner and spotted the two FBI agents in their rented sedan.

Dean gestured to a rusty metal ladder attached to the side of the warehouse. "They're going to go in if they can. Let's go up. We should be able to see from there, and blast the ludverc when it shows." Dean was compulsively touching the back of his head and neck, flinching every time.

Sam knew the feeling – he kept pressing his hand to his bloody chin, even though the wool of his gloves stuck to the wound painfully. At least his lip seemed to have stopped bleeding into his mouth. "No, Dean, let's stay down here. The FBI can shoot it!"

"Not with salt." Dean set his chin, and Sam knew he was right – the FBI agents had no chance if Max was under the ludverc's control and let it flash-fry them in the blinding light. The FBI obviously didn't know what was going on – not if Agent Mulder was a plant to get information from Max and maybe their dad – and it was just going to get them killed. Sam frowned. He had been ready to save Max, but the FBI's appearance just meant more people in the line of fire, more people they had to save. He was starting to see that the dangers in hunting weren't limited to the creatures of his nightmares, but lurked in every passer-by, cop, foolish civilian and rotting wooden foothold. The world was huge and chaotic and dangerous and Sam's eyes were dry and sore from holding back tears.

Dean held the shotgun one-handed, and swung up onto the ladder, his climbing steady and fast. With no idea how to stop the inevitable, Sam followed him, and they ascended to the edge of the roof. More Air Force jeeps were streaming into the area, and men were running everywhere, setting up a perimeter and training their guns on the warehouse where Max had gone. Sam quickly looked around, but, as Dean had spotted before they climbed up, they had good cover behind the ridge of the next rooftop – unless the Air Force took up position on the water, they were well hidden from view.

The main warehouse roof was in just as bad condition as the annex, rusted holes all over the corrugated tin roof, and Dean used the butt of the gun to make a hole big enough for them to peer through. Jammed together on the ladder, they peered through the gap, and saw Agent Mulder, holding Max, sitting on the floor. Sam stood on his tiptoes to see if Mulder was hurting Max, but in fact Max seemed to be clinging to the FBI agent.

"Don't let them take me, " Max sobbed, his face transformed from blankness to terror.

"I won't let them take you. Come on, Max, come with me." The agent's voice was encouraging, but Max cringed back in terror, trying to somehow climb over Mulder to safety.

Before the Winchesters had time to act, Max screamed in terror and something struck him and Agent Mulder. Mulder was thrown into a pile of damp cardboard boxes; Max went skidding across the floor to an empty space near the doorway to the annex where the ludverc was supposed to be contained. Sam couldn't see clearly – only in the patches of sunlight let through by the holes in the roof – but it looked like Max had been shoved straight into the line of protective birch twigs and salt lines that Sam had laid down earlier.

"Max! Run!" Dean shouted down through the roof, but it was too late. Max's body started to rise into the air, twitching and spinning, as if he was being hung by the shoulders from an invisible coat-hanger, his feet dangling helplessly. His hair was floating, crackling with electricity, and his body spasmed in an epileptic fit.

"He doesn't want to be taken by the ludverc, Dean, not anymore! Stop it hurting him!" Sam yelled, and Dean pointed the shotgun directly at Max, taking careful aim.

Just as Dean started to squeeze the trigger, light thundered down on Max from above, dazzlingly bright. Dean and Sam cringed back, covering their heads as best they could without falling off the ladder, but the deadly flash that killed the airmen did not follow.

"Is that the ludverc? I thought it only came out at night?" Sam gasped in Dean's ear. It was intensely quiet on the roof, almost like being underwater.

"It had to be! Maybe it's got the life energy of all those men it burned? And Max? Bobby said that was what it wanted." Dean's whisper was hoarse and he held the shotgun close.

Sam hung onto Dean and pulled himself upright to peer through the hole, futilely shading his eyes from the column of light. Max was still there, his body turning and twitching, but the light was so bright that Sam couldn't see anything else, not even where Agent Mulder had gone, though Sam could hear distantly hear his shouts though the heavy silence, as if he was miles away.

"Okay. Okay." Dean stood up on the ladder, his legs wobbly, and pointed the shotgun through the hole at Max's floating body, then wavered and pulled the gun back, watching the pillar of light extending down from the low clouds. Dean looked from one to the other, his face looking like it was turning inside out in the bright light but he didn't pick a target. Sam looked at Dean's burn-reddened hands shaking on the grip of the shotgun and leaned into his brother to hold him in place on the ladder.

"Just shoot!" Sam yelled, and Dean fired the salt round directly at the bright column, both Winchesters ducking back below roof level as fast as possible. When they looked back up, the light was gone; when they looked down, so was Max.

Sam chomped on his French fries. "And then we had to hide under a loading dock for three hours before the Air Force went away. And Dean threw up, twice. At least they didn't take the car we borrowed. That would have totally sucked."

"Language, Sammy." Dad, looking slightly worse for wear after three days in Air Force custody, ate his own hamburger one-handed as he drove south.

"They called the guards away to help with the search." Dad shrugged. "The cells were just makeshift. It was no trouble getting out of one as soon as no-one was watching me."

"Still, that was pretty cool." The backs of Dean's hands were still lobster red like sunburn. He was wearing a ratty baseball cap backwards to hide the blobby yellow cream and taped-on dressings on the back of his head and neck, even though Sam and Dad knew perfectly well what was there.

Dean shrugged. "Maybe – Bobby didn't even know what happened to Max, or where it took him. Or even why he showed up there."

"Some people just aren't cut out to be hunters, and that's the way it is." Dad was gruff. "We all warned him about carrying salt, and we all warned him that it wasn't some friendly alien coming to visit him."

"And he was working with the FBI anyway." Sam wriggled grumpily in his seat, but it could have been the salt of the French fries stinging the cut on his lip. "We couldn't help him after he started hanging around them."

"Oh come on, Sammy, we could – " Dean started, but caught a look from Dad and subsided. "Yeah. It's not like those FBI agents would have listened to us if we started talking about a ludverc."

Dad handed his empty hamburger wrapper to Dean. "No, you were caught on the hop, but you got yourselves safe and kept the ludverc away from anyone who didn't go looking for it. The Kovacs family curse is lifted and Heather is doing well. That's good work right there, boys."

Sam was fairly sure that Dean was blushing at the praise, though since his ears were bright pink from the burns anyway, it was hard to tell from behind. Sam sat back in his seat, trying to feel content that – after all the doubt he had heard in Dean's voice while their dad was missing – everything was back to normal again. The big white Band-Aid over the scab on Sam's chin said otherwise, but he was trying not to care. Of course they had done a good job, just as their dad said, but something inside Sam still roiled angrily – Dad saved no-one, he shouldn't have left them, the Kovacs house burned down, all those men had died, Max was just gone. Why couldn't his dad just stay right here with him and Dean, safe in the steel heart of the Impala, until the end of time?

The flat green of the plains flew past outside, and Sam stared out the window, the much-folded maps forgotten on the bench seat beside him.

End Notes

Thank you to nnwest for beta and Ameri-picking; and to st_aurafina for assisting with the whole epic process of writing this fic. A special thank you to ashlan for my very first Big Bang art!

Please drop by the archive and comment to let the Author: know if you enjoyed their work!

The End