1 - All Is Violent, All Is Bright

Dean was getting ready to head out for a night on the town, when his phone hummed in his pocket. He pulled it out to see an unknown number on the display. Could be bad news - but then again, was it ever good news? Not when you were a monster hunter, it wasn't. "Yeah?"

"Is this Dean Winchester?" the voice was male, and kind of young. Familiar a bit too? Hard to say.

"Yeah, who's this?"

"Ramon Ramirez." After a pause, where Dean was still wracking his brain, Ramon added, "Dingo."

"Oh!" Okay, yeah, the street kid they ran into last time they were helping out Jody, with a weird "headless monster" case. Of course, the headless monsters turned out to be but a small part of the whole thing, but at the end, Jody knew of a person who ran a sort of halfway house for kids who were below legal age, but couldn't return home because their parents were abusive assholes. That's where they sent Dingo a/k/a Ramon. It was in Tacoma, wasn't it? "Yeah, hey. What's up?"

"Could those vampires have followed me out here?"

"Absolutely not." As part of the general monster problem, they also came across some vampires who were killing the homeless population and street kids, and cleaned out most of the nest. Except for two, the most annoying, pseudo-Gothic Lolita type poseurs who named themselves Bellatrix and Draco. Even Sam rolled his eyes at that. When they were done with the headless monster case, he and Sam pondered what would be the stupidest move possible if they were those vampires. They settled on moving only one state over, and that's how they found Bellatrix and Draco back to their old feeding off the indigent routine in North Dakota, where they stood out like Hawaiian shirts at a funeral. In a strange way, Dean was kind of offended by them, because he had known some decent vampires in his life. Maybe not many, but some who tried to fight their urges, and didn't kill people like their supply was infinite, and also weren't as dumb as a bag of hammers. Those fucking clowns were an affront to all monsters, honestly. Both cruel and vapid. "We killed them."

Ramon sighed, but he didn't seem all that relieved. "I think ... I think there's some vampires here doing the same thing."

Dean wouldn't have been shocked. Too many evil shitheads liked "easy" targets. "Have you seen some?"

"No, it's just that ..." He sniffed, and Dean realized why he sounded so congested - he was crying. "Okay, so, a lot of people have been disappearing, and I tried to tell the cops but they don't care. They say they're a transient population, and they don't -"

He was talking so fast, Dean could barely keep up. "Ramon? I need you to stop and take a breath, okay?"

"Okay." Ramon did, and his breath was shuddery, but it was a start.

"Now, what the hell happened? Specifically."

"Tonight, I got a call from my friend, Zack, tonight. The reception was terrible, but he told me something was after him. and the call cut off. I tried to call him back, but he's not picking up, and I've been all over where he usually is, and I can't find him, and I'm afraid the vampires or whatever the fuck have gotten him too."

"He said thing, not person. You sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure. And I wasn't gonna call you until I had proof, but now it's personal and I'm afraid I've waited too long. And if he's dead, it's all my fault."

"No, it isn't. Now do you have somewhere safe you go?" Well, so much for checking out that new bar tonight. It probably would have only disappointed him anyway. Lately, they all pretty much had. Of course, you could make an argument that he wasn't quite feeling like himself lately, but Dean wasn't convinced that it was a bad thing.

"Yeah."

"Okay, go there now and text me your address. We'll get there as soon as we can." Well, so much for a quiet night. He should have known better.

Actually, save for the apocalypse on the near horizon, it had actually been quiet the last couple of days. It had been a rare time where he almost got a minute to be bored, and then a reminder of the world collapsing awoke a restless energy in him once more. The worst part was never being sure what to do to stop it, but hadn't they been through this a hundred times before? They'd find a way, or they wouldn't. Dean felt maybe he could take some satisfaction that most people wouldn't know the world ending was their fault, but that seemed like cold comfort at best.

He almost headed to Sam's room, but it was barely after eleven. He found Sam where he figured he would, at the main command table, with three books stacked up around him. They were really old ones, possibly from the back corner of the library, where you needed a gas mask to handle the level of dust back there. That wasn't exaggerating either - when he and Sam first saw it, they thought it was weird that they had all the grey books stacked in one section, until they got close enough to see cobwebs had become so rife with dust, it was almost a cloth now. When he first disturbed it, Dean sneezed for the better of an hour, and ended up a wheezing snot monster for most of the day. He no longer ventured into that part of the library. "You'll never guess who called me," Dean said.

Sam looked up from his book, and barely even thought about it. "Eisenhower?"

Dean frowned at him. "Ramon. You know, from the akepholoi case?"

At least now he had the decency to look interested. "What's happened? Is he okay?"

He reported what little he had gotten out of him in his hyperactive, near breakdown state. Sam moved the books aside, and pulled out his laptop. "He says people are missing? Where is he, still in Tacoma?"

Dean checked his messages, and saw the text from Ramon. "Yep, still in Washington State."

After some fast typing, Sam said, "I've got nothing here on missing people."

"Yeah, he said the cops weren't interested. If they aren't, why would the media be?"

Sam scowled at the screen, then shut the computer. "I guess so. He's not back on the street, is he?"

Dean shrugged, but the thought had crossed his mind. "Hope not." They never did learn a lot about Ramon, but they learned just enough to be furious. He'd run away from an abusive step-father, and had taken to sex work to live. Never mind that he was only sixteen, he had enough clients to make something of a living. Dean wanted names, so he could beat the ever-loving fuck out of each one, but he knew better than to ask. Still, he was a kid, and sometimes it was hard to imagine saving a world where shit like that happened. But they got him off the street, got him somewhere safe, and he managed not to go completely insane after seeing the akepheloi, which, in all honesty, Dean didn't think many people could do. Honestly, he killed them, and he still found it hard to believe that things that absurd looking existed. His brain still kept trying to nope out when he tried to recall them. They were an even split between completely ridiculous and absurdly terrifying. He hoped they never ran into them ever again.

It was a long drive to Tacoma, but they'd done it before, and had a system. Whoever was the most awake drove first shift, and the other caught some z's before they switched over about halfway through. In this case, it was Dean taking first shift, as he was keyed up from thinking about those goddamn akepholois again. His mind was just not having them. Mouths on their stomach. Ridiculous. He still didn't understand where their digestive system was. They never had figured that out, had they? Dean had chopped one into pieces - well, the Mark had - and he still didn't recall seeing anything that resembled an intestine. Should he be glad about that? He still wasn't sure.

By the time he swapped driving duties with Sam, Dean was too tired to think about it. But he did end up having a minor nightmare where he went into a bar and found everyone had heads where their torsos should be. It was on the goofy meter, so you could only find it so scary, but it was too weird to really laugh at.

They hit Tacoma by afternoon, although it was so overcast that you could have mistaken it for early morning. It wasn't rainy, just gloomy, which was kind of typical for this part of the Pacific Northwest. It didn't have as much rain as it used to, thanks to global warming, but whether you thought that was good or bad pretty much depended on whether you were from here or not.

And Dean had forgotten Tacoma's most notable feature: hills. The streets in the downtown area were ridiculously steep. Kind of like San Francisco, but not quite as sinuous or scenic. No matter how they tried to tart it up like their more gaudy northern sister, Seattle, Tacoma wore its industrial town roots like it had been bolted to the frame. There were only so many ways you could paint a panel you couldn't get rid of, no matter how much primer you slapped on it.

The address Ramon had texted Dean led to a tiny suburban enclave within the city itself, where a somewhat Victorian style two-story house sat on a postage stamp sized property, with wildflowers where lawn was usually supposed to be. It was quaint, almost like something out of a fairy tale, until you started up the walk. Then you could see where the paint was starting to peel, and where the termites had been at the foundation. Sort of like a real fairy tale - it got worse the closer you looked at it.

The stairs creaked ominously as they went up, and they had barely knocked when the door was flung open so violently Dean took a step back. Standing there was a woman who was five feet tall at a push, with black hair and deep-set brown eyes, who seemed to visually scan them and dismiss them in the very same second. She gave off the energy of a great aunt who would have no compunction about swatting you on the back of the head if you did something wrong. "You must be them," she said.

Sam pulled off a magic trick, by remembering the name of Jody's friend before he did. "You must be Tia. I'm Sam and this is -"

"Dean, yes. Jody told me about you." She followed that with a look so frosty, Dean feared he had hypothermia. What the hell had Jody said about them? He tried to imagine if he was her, and his mind instantly settled on "they fuck up a lot but generally mean well". Which ... okay, fair. Still, a bit harsh.

Tia turned back inside the house, and shouted, "Ramon!" When she turned back to them, she lowered her voice to a serious whisper. "I don't need the other kids getting upset about this. So you and Ramon keep this conversation outside and to yourselves. Got me?"

"Yes ma'am," Sam said, with a deferential nod. Dean really didn't want to know what would happen if they said no.

"How's he doing?" Dean asked.

"Well. And if anything happens to him, I'm holding you responsible. So nothing happens to him, right?"

"Absolutely," Dean agreed. If this was her good side, he never wanted to see her bad side.

The door opened wider as Ramon appeared, and stepped out onto the tiny porch. He looked good. When Dean first met him, he was scrawny in a way that suggested he rarely ate, did too much heroin, or both. He'd filled out a bit, seemed solider, his face less hollow. His shaggy black hair was a bit longer now, and his dark eyes seemed a little brighter, all an improvement. He looked like any other teenager - except he was wearing a Sisters of Mercy t-shirt, which Dean knew were an '80's Goth band. Was that coming back into fashion again? He would definitely be the last to know.

As soon as he closed the door behind him, Dean realized Ramon had a folder tucked under his arm. "Maybe we should talk in your car?" Ramon suggested, his voice pitched at a whisper. So Tia must have warned him before they arrived.

They decamped to the Impala, them in the front and Ramon in the back, and that's when he showed them the contents of the folder. "So I've been working with a group trying to help street kids, and during that time, I've met a lot of the homeless. Which is why I noticed when they started to go missing." He handed him and Sam pages from his file, and they were amazing. They were detailed notes on when and where he encountered said people, some with photos. It was like his work diary, and Dean was impressed.

Sam sighed. "But the homeless are a naturally -"

"- transient population?" Ramon interrupted, with a lot more confidence than he had back in Sioux Falls. This made Dean actually pleased. He learned that the world was full of monsters - more than just your average human variety - and he turned it into action. Good for him. "Yeah, the cops told me the same thing. Have you ever been homeless?"

"No," Sam admitted.

Dean almost interjected technically no, but there were times Dean felt like they were maybe two or three inches from that. There were so many times when Dad was gone longer than he thought, and food and cash ran out, and Dean had almost no ideas how he was keeping them fed for however long Dad was gone. It was extreme poverty, not homelessness, but they lived in adjacent neighborhoods. Still, he was glad Sam still didn't know how tough some of those days were. "I was, and let me tell you, we homeless are really possessive of our things. Because we never have many, and it feels like we're still connected to society. A lot of the time, what little we have are meds, or reminders of our old life. In other words, the homeless can wander, they can be run out of an area, but unless the cops trash all their stuff, they're taking their things with them. Joe left without his things. So did Mercer, and Maggie left her whole goddamn tent, which, let me tell you, isn't ever going to happen. Do you know how hard those are to get?"

While he said this, Ramon handed them printed out photos of the areas in question. Maggie's tent seemed particularly heartbreaking, as he'd taken a photo of the inside and the exterior. For some reason, Mercer's spot, which looked like the corner of an alley, caught Dean's eye. What did he see? He studied the photo, shifting angles.

Sam sighed. "This is heartbreaking, and I believe you, but do you have proof of something supernatural going on here?"

"I think I found something," Dean said, finally figuring it out. He showed Sam the Mercer photo again, with his finger next to it.

Because this was in an alley by a Dumpster, there was quite a bit of detritus around. But next to Mercer's nest of blankets, there was a small object. Could have been garbage, but there was no way in hell it was.

Sam took the paper, and brought it closer to his face. "What am I miss- oh."

Ramon leaned over the seat. "What? Did I get something?"

Dean pointed it out. "This small velvet bag. I don't suppose Mercer was known for that, was he?"

"No. I mean, I assumed it was something he picked up somewhere, but I didn't really think about it. Except it smelled bad, like burned hair and rust. What is it?"

Ramon describing the smell confirmed it. It was funny how much rust could smell like blood, and vice versa. Nothing smelled like burning hair except burning hair, which Dean knew down to his marrow. If he thought about it too long, he could feel his gorge rising up his throat, so he tried not to. "It's a hex bag."

Ramon looked between them, not skeptical, but somewhat confused. "A what?"

"It's a thing witches use sometimes, to do shitty things to people," Dean said. He felt that was a good general synopsis.

"Witches?" Ramon repeated. He looked between them with narrowed eyes, like he didn't trust them. "You're shitting me, right? Witches aren't a thing."

"Sorry kiddo," Dean said, holding the papers out to him. "They're real, and they're fucking disgusting."

"Why would a witch target homeless people?" Sam asked him. "How does that make sense?"

Dean shrugged. "Could it have been personal? Maybe she - or he - knew this guy once, and held a grudge?"

"Hold it," Ramon insisted. All suspicious was gone. He now looked wide-eyed and a little pale, kind of like he looked when he first saw the akephaloi. To be honest, Dean had probably looked a bit like that too back then. Goddamn abominations. "Does this mean magic is real?"

Sam sighed, his shoulders slumping. Yes, this was one of those things they were tired of telling civilians. "Yes, but it's not exactly Harry Potter. It's ... complicated."

"It's built by rituals and intent," Dean continued. "You need to have the right ingredients and spells to pull off what you want to do. And some really big magic has a big cost. It's a lifestyle, not a hobby."

"So everybody who says they're Wiccan is actually a real witch?"

Sam shook his head. "No, that's a belief system, and that's different." He suddenly frowned, and looked at Dean. "Have we ever met a witch who claimed to be a Wiccan?"

Dean opened his mouth to respond, and paused, as he suddenly realized what a deep question that was. They'd encountered so many witches in their lives. He glanced out the windshield as he considered that, rifling through his mental hunter's journal. "No, I don't think so. Wow. Why had that never occurred to me?"

Sam shrugged, as clearly it hadn't occurred to him either. It was amazing what you could miss when you were starting or stopping apocalypses all the time. Sometimes, on a really bad day, both at once.

"So, can they magic someone out of existence?" Ramon asked. His brow was furrowed in concern, and somehow that made him look slightly younger.

"Technically no," Sam said, and he rushed to the next sentence, probably because he didn't want to explain that technically part. "But it seems unlikely a witch would expend so much energy regardless."

"You mean especially on a homeless person, 'cause society ignores them?" As soon as Ramon said it, he seemed to regret it. "I'm sorry, that's not aimed at you. I think I'm disgusted with society."

"I get it man," Dean said. "It sucks. But you're doing your best to change it, and that means a lot." It did, even though it was fighting against a flood with a teaspoon. But still, wasn't that their fight against evil? Same thing. It would probably wipe them out in the end, but the fight had to be worth something. Dean honestly had to believe that, or he would have nothing.

He noticed Sam giving him a funny look, and Dean decided to ignore him. He caught Ramon's eye in the rearview mirror, and said, "Should we go to the last place you heard from Zack?"

Ramon nodded. "Might as well."

It wasn't far away, just a few blocks over. It was a main street, but in an area that had seen better days. There was a closed down gas station and mini-mart at the head of the block, which was one of the rarest things ever. You hardly ever saw those places shut down and abandoned, but it was a good sign something terrible had happened. Whether it was personal bankruptcy or an economic downtown, it seemed like the urban equivalent of bad mojo.

About halfway down the block, there was a cut through alley, wide enough for a car, and open on one side due to a chain-link fence in the vacant lot beside it. While it looked safe and clear in the daytime, Dean wondered how it was at night. He looked around for streetlamps and saw they were only at the head and the base of the block. Shit. That was a good murdering alley right there. A sinkhole for light and people to escape into. Dean headed straight for it.

The alley was fairly clean, which was also a suspicious note. There were a couple of small trash cans, no Dumpsters, and they looked weirdly prim in this setting. It was hard to look at everything while he walked the alley, but he did so, concentrating on what he was seeing, and barely aware of the conversation Sam and Ramon were having. Ramon was saying he didn't think Zack would come this way, as he thought this place was kind of creepy. That was A plus awareness from Zack, so what got him?

At first, Dean thought it was flecks of mica in the asphalt, but no, this place was too cheap looking to have had that kind of mixture. He hunkered down to touch the faint glitter dust, and realized almost immediately it was pulverized metal.

It was close to one of the metal posts for the chain-link fence, and a couple of extremely stubborn dandelions were sprouting through the asphalt regardless. It was in that tiny nest of grass that Dean found shards of plastic. It was black on one side, and the other held some kind of prismatic sticker.

"Found something?" Sam asked.

Dean held the pieces out towards Ramon when he joined them. "This his phone?"

Ramon took the pieces, and his eyes widened in horror when he saw the sticker. He didn't need to verbally confirm it, but he did. "Yes, this ... what the fuck happened to his phone?"

Dean suppressed the urge to say he think it exploded, because the fact that all that was left of it was metal dust and plastic shrapnel made it pretty clear whatever occurred was extremely violent. At least it was probably fast, right? Even if true, still cold comfort. "Nothing good."

"Dean," Sam whispered, trying to catch his attention without alerting Ramon. He jerked his head over to the fence, and Dean didn't have to look very long before he saw what he noticed. There were specks of reddish-brown on the fencepost, and probably overall, but chain link left that difficult to say. But there was no mistaking that was dried blood. And the more he was down here, the more he smelled something like rust.

Ramon looked distressed, and who could blame him? He glanced at the plastic in his hand, and scanned the alley, like Zack might reappear at any moment. But he wouldn't, unless he was a ghost, and Dean really hoped that didn't happen. Ramon was still new to the supernatural world, and at a certain point, explaining everything got tedious. "Why would witches do this?" Ramon wondered. He looked between them for help, for answers, and Dean knew they couldn't offer him much of either right now. "What's the point?"

Dean was wondering the same thing himself. But that was what they were here to find out, right?

N.B.: Because I'm making my own continuity, the akephaloi case is in my story titled Monsters.