Water, for the Summergen Community (1/2)

[summergen-mod.livejournal.com]

Title: Water

Recipient: spn_summergen - the original recipient withdrew from the challenge, so this work is being posted as a gift to the comm. Please show it tons of love!!
Rating: PG
Word Count: 12,600
Author's Notes: This fic is set sometime after s11. For the purposes of this fic assume that Mary is off being Mary at something on her own.
Summary: When a sudden influx of poisonous snakes starts killing people in a small upstate New York town, a young girl turns to someone her mother knew many years before for help. It turns out that Dean Winchester isn’t the only one with old ties to the case.
Warnings: Reference to past relationships, emotional constipation, bickering brothers and casual blasphemy in multiple religions. Also snakes.

CHAPTER ONE

Tired and Waiting For the Sunlight

Not many people in the United States could find Hector, New York, on a map. The little town of less than five thousand people rested near the southern tip of Seneca Lake, smack dab in the middle of the Finger Lakes' wine country. It was the lake that had given the town its life. It was the lake that brought Allison's family to the area, growing grapes for the wineries. And now it was the lake, deep and cold and dark, that brought death to the people of the town.

Allison didn't have a problem chopping the head off of the snake that had killed her family. She'd been practicing with the hatchet since she'd been about eight years old, strong enough to pick up the little axe and use it without cutting her own foot off. Her mama had tried to warn her off, to tell her to go to the neighbor and call for help or some silly crap like that. Allison ignored her, trying to save Mama and Grandma and Grandpa. She didn't regret it, though. The cops couldn't help.

The cops hadn't been able to help any of the other people killed by snakes around Seneca Lake over the past few weeks. They weren't going to be able to help Mama or Grandma or Grandpa now. All that Allison could hope for was to take them out, and to die with them. Strike that; it was or to die with them. Definitely or, right? So she'd picked up that little hatchet, the one that she used to split kindling, and beheaded three snakes that had no business slithering their way out of any of the Finger Lakes on a cool June morning.

It was too late. It was always too late. The snakes had plagued the Seneca Lake community for weeks, and nothing could be done about them. All she could do was sit back and watch her mother die a slow and painful death.

She couldn't be sure if it was a blessing or a curse that only Mama's body had been affected by the venom. Her mind didn't seem to be bothered in the slightest, and she lay paralyzed and gasping for air as her body shut down. She still managed to speak to Allison as her life left her body. "You have to call them, Allie," she rasped.

Allison didn't need to ask who "they" were. She didn't need to ask why Mama wanted her to call them, ether. New York State didn't have but three types of poisonous snakes, and none of those had the kinds of symptoms that the snakes from Seneca Lake were exhibiting. "I will, Mama," she promised, through her tears. "I'll do that."

"You'd better. We're counting on you." And with that, Mama died.

Allison wanted to sob, to scream and yell. She wanted to call someone else to come and help her to take care of the bodies, but there was no one. Besides, she had a job to do. She was a Winchester. She might not know exactly what that meant, but she knew it meant that she had a job to do.

She went back into the house and dug through her mother's things until she found her mother's address book. JoAnne had kept a physical address book, hadn't kept things in her phone like a normal person. Allison didn't get that, and now she never would. She steeled herself and flipped through the pages until she got to the one name she'd never thought she'd be allowed to call, and then she dialed it.

Someone answered on the third ring. "Hello?"

The voice wasn't what Allison had expected. Mama had described him as energetic, enthusiastic, even happy in his work. The man who answered the phone sounded exhausted on a level that Allison's thirteen year old mind couldn't comprehend. "Hello?"

"Um, hi." She had to swallow her disappointment. She had work to do. "I'm looking for Dean Winchester?"

The man on the other end paused. "How old are you?"

"Thirteen. Look, I know what he is. What he does, I mean. I'm calling because something's happening here. Poisonous snakes, coming out of Seneca Lake, for weeks. " She fought back tears.

The man on the other end hesitated. "There aren't any poisonous snakes in Seneca Lake."

"And that's why I need a hunter," she all but screamed at him. Later, she might wonder why the mysterious voice on the other end knew anything at all about the herpetology of Western New York. Right now, she was fighting off panic. "They killed my mom! They killed my grandparents! I'm all alone here with the bodies and I need Dean Winchester's help! Or John Winchester, if Dean isn't around. It's just Mom —"

The man cleared his throat. "Your mom knew Dean."

"Uh, yeah." Allison stopped in mid-rant.

"What was her name?" The man's tone had changed, had gone soft. If a voice could sound like a warm, fluffy blanket, his would be it.

"JoAnne. JoAnne Beckett. John and Dean were through here in 2002. Um, my mom said that it was some kind of water spirit then." She bit down on her nails. It was a filthy habit. Mama had tried to break her of it, but Mama wasn't here now.

"Hang on for a second." The voice became muffled, but he turned to someone else to speak. "Hey, Dean, I think we've got a case. Do you remember a JoAnne Beckett in, uh, Hector, New York? That's what the caller ID says, anyway. Yeah, I've got her daughter on the line." Another voice rumbled in the distance. "Thirteen. Anyhow, she says they've got a bunch of poisonous snakes coming out of Seneca Lake. Says they killed her mom JESUS CHRIST DEAN YOU CAN'T JUST CUT ACROSS TRAFFIC LIKE THAT!"

Well, at least Dean cared.

The voice got back onto the phone. "Sorry about that. We just finished up a job in Williamsburg, Iowa. We'll be there in about thirteen hours, okay? Listen, what's your name?"

Allison sniffed. Relief flowed from her pores at the voice's words. "Allison."

"Okay, Allison. Sit tight, and try to avoid any rooms that have any drains in them if you can. Can you do that for me?"

That was going to be a challenge, hanging around for thirteen hours without going to the bathroom or to the kitchen. "I've got bottled water in my bedroom. I'll stop up the crack under the door."

"You're a pretty smart kid, Allison. We'll get there as soon as we can. If anything happens, anything at all, you call me back on this number, okay? I'll have it out and on the dash, just in case."

"I will." She smiled at the quiet, reassuring voice. "Are you John?"

The voice gave a humorless chuckle. "No. No, I'm Dean's brother. My name's Sam. I'm going to meet you when we get there."

"Okay, Sam." She hung up the phone and ran back to her room. Laundry made an awesome doorstop, and no one could see her cry if she curled up into a little ball and sobbed in the privacy of her room.

She expected the hours to pass slowly. Instead, she cried herself to sleep right there on the bed. The phone rang about seven hours later, and when Allison answered she heard Sam's gentle voice on the other end. "Hey, Allison. It's Sam. I'm just calling to check in and see how you're doing."

"Okay, I guess." She sniffed. She didn't quite know how things were supposed to go. "My mom's still dead, but no snakes've gotten into my room."

"Good. That's good. I know it's not easy, being the one that's stuck alone in a room like that."

She huffed out a little laugh. What did this guy know, anyway? "Really?"

"Yeah. That was, like, most of my childhood, right there." He paused. "Not exactly the same, of course. Anyway. We're about six hours out. We stopped for gas. Listen, we're not going to ask you to stay in the same place. We'll bring you to a motel while we work on the case, okay? We're not going to ask you to stick around in the same house."

Allison's lip quivered. Maybe this Sam guy did understand something, after all. "Thank you."

"Sam!" The voice was distant and muffled, but unmistakable. "Get a move on, we're burning daylight!"

"Got to go, Allison. But we're on our way to you, and we'll be there soon, okay?"

Allison nodded. "Thank you, Sam."

"Stay safe, Allison."

She hung up the phone, limbs shaking. How could this one man, a man who had never met her, know just what to say to make her feel protected and safe?

If he was Dean's brother, though, he probably saw lots of people like her. He probably saw them every day. He'd be pretty used to how to deal with victims.

Her eyes narrowed. Not victims. Survivors. She mourned her family and she always would, but she'd also just gotten through the kind of attack that populated most people's nightmares. She'd taken that hatchet and killed those snakes dead. It had been terrifying, but she'd done it. She was a survivor. It might not count for much. She might still be huddled and terrified up in her bedroom while her family rotted downstairs, but she was a survivor, not some helpless damsel in a tower somewhere.

She shivered in her bed for a while longer, and then she packed up her things. She tried to limit herself to one suitcase and her backpack. She didn't need a lot of things; didn't have a lot of things, and she didn't know what she'd need in a little motel room. Wasn't that what Mama had told her about them? They lived out of motel rooms and fought monsters?

Why was it that Sam was the only one who called her, and not Dean? Was Dean too broken up about Mama's death? Did he just not care? And where was John? Mama had told her that he was the one in charge.

The six hours passed. By the time that Allison heard the rumble of the hunters' car coming up the driveway, Allison had worked herself up into an emotional state for which there weren't words. She pulled the covers up over her head. What if these weren't the men she'd been waiting for? What if they were robbers, come to capitalize on what looked like an empty house? What if they were monsters of a different sort?

"Allison?" Sam's voice echoed up the stairs, just before the stairs creaked.

Her door opened. When Allison peeked out from under the covers, she saw a giant. The man filled the doorway, both with his height and his broad shoulders. At the same time, he had a gaunt look to him, like he'd skipped more meals than was civilized, and his cheeks were covered with stubble.

Allison threw away all pretenses of toughness or pride. She'd heard his voice on the phone and on the stairs. This was Sam, who had called to check in on her. As far as she knew, Sam was the only person she had. "Sam!" she cried, launching herself into his chest.

He wrapped his long arms around her and held her close. "Let it out, Allison. It's okay."

Sam smelled like guns and old books, with notes of whiskey and cheap detergent. Allison buried her face in his chest and let him enclose her, make her feel protected. She didn't care if it made her weak right now. She'd been strong for so long; she'd earned her breakdown, damn it. "I'm sorry," she said, sniffing. "I don't mean to make your shirt all wet."

"It's okay." He petted her hair. "It's not a big deal. For now, let's just get you out to the hotel, okay? Dean and I will take care of things here."

Allison let herself be guided by Sam down the stairs and out to the yard. Sam shielded her from any view of her family members' corpses, letting her bury her face in his chest again. When she looked around again, she was outside a classic muscle car just like the one Mama had described to her a thousand times. "Is this the Impala?" she asked, breath catching in her throat. Her grief hadn't abated, not at all, but she'd heard so many stories about that car that she couldn't help but stop and stare in awe.

"This is her." Sam grinned, just a little bit. Allison got the impression that he didn't smile often, but right now his giant hand caressed the car with affection. "She's home. Listen, um. Allison, when someone passes away through violent, supernatural means, you have to..." He trailed off and winced, clearly uncomfortable with the subject matter.

"You have to salt and burn the remains." Allison swallowed hard past the lump in her throat. "I know. Dean and John explained that to Mama the last time they were here."

"Oh." Sam blinked and leaned against the car. "That's good, then. Do you want..."

"No." Allison shook her head. "No. I don't need to be part of that."

"Okay. Fair enough."

Another male figure emerged from the house. This one made Allison's mouth go dry. He was handsome, she supposed, but she couldn't think of him like that. She'd heard enough about those green eyes and those freckles, those lips and those hands, from Mama that she'd known he'd be handsome. The thing was, those lips were her lips. Those eyes were hers. Those same freckles danced across her face. She wasn't ready. "I'm all ready to start, Sammy," her father said, and he looked her over.

Dean opened his mouth. He closed it again. His hand reached out toward her, but he pulled it back. "She okay?" he asked in a rough voice.

"As well as she's going to be." Sam put a hand on her shoulder. "Dean, this is Allison. Allison, this is Dean. Dean, Allison doesn't need to be part of the pyre."

Dean swallowed. "Okay. I'll, uh. I'll go." He blinked a few times and went around to the back of the house.

After a moment, the smell of wood smoke and burning hair rose on the air.

Allison stared out over the water, now a dark mass reflecting the half moon. "It's funny," she said after a moment, watching the water ripple. She heard the tears in her own voice and fought them back. "I never quite knew what to expect from meeting him. I don't think that was it?"

Sam sighed. "It's complicated. He's lost the other kids in his life." Sam looked down and away. "Our lives, Allison, they're pretty messy, and not very safe."

She snorted, still not looking at him. "Safer than getting your whole family eaten by snakes?"

"That one's new." He hesitated. "Our half-brother got eaten alive by ghouls though."

"Really?" Now she did turn to look at him, not sure if he was kidding or not. "That's awful!"

"Yeah. He was kind of pissed about that." Sam looked out over the lake too. "So you've lived your whole life here?" Allison nodded. "Must have been pretty."

Allison shrugged. "I guess. Hector's a small town. Not a lot going on here. Besides, you know, snakes. And that water spirit that one time."

They fell into silence for a while. Eventually the terrible smells caused by the burning fell away and Dean returned. His eyes looked wet, but he just clenched his jaw and didn't say a word before getting into the car. Sam put Allison's suitcase into the trunk, and the trio drove off to a motel.

The motel on which they settled was a dump. Allison had passed it on her way to school every day for eight years and she'd always thought it was abandoned. Apparently it wasn't, though, because Dean went into the office and got them a room. He came back with two keys and a pissy look on his face. "All right, kids. It ain't the Ritz."

Allison followed him in, while Sam brought in a pile of bags that only looked huge when he put it down. "There's only two beds."

"Dean and I can share." Sam shrugged. "It's not the first time."

"Sam and sleep have a challenging relationship." Dean smirked. "I doubt he'll get more than an hour or two anyway." He shook his head. "Not unless I drug him, anyway."

"You probably want a shower, Allison." Sam glanced toward the bathroom door after glaring at Dean for a moment.

"I'm the one who's been burning bodies!" Dean complained.

Sam just glared at him, and Dean wilted. Allison rummaged through her suitcase until she found pajamas and raced into the bathroom before she lost the chance. She tried to take a fast shower, blanking out her mind as she scrubbed bits of snake blood from her flesh.

She emerged in a cloud of steam to find Dean hanging his head. "I'm sorry for what I said," he told her. "It was rude. I guess some things you just get used to, and you forget that not everyone else is."

She managed a little smile. "It's okay. Thanks, uh, Dean." She made her way over to the rickety table. "Where's Sam?"

"Getting food. Probably something healthy, because he's a little bitch that way." Dean made a face. "So. This is kind of awkward."

"A little bit." Allison nodded. "She never said anything bad about you, you know."

"JoAnne?" Dean swallowed. "That's... good to know. I mean I'm a little down about the whole decision not to tell me I was a father thing, but there's nothing I can really do about it now." He closed his eyes.

"Well, from what she told me, she knew your job was dangerous. And since you knew poisonous snakes were a thing, I'm guessing she's right." Allison put her hand on her father's arm, and tried not to get caught up in how weird that was to think. "She didn't want to pull you away from that."

"I guess." He sighed. "It would have been nice to have the choice, you know? But I guess that would have just put you and your folks in danger." He took off his jacket. "I'm sorry about what happened to them, for what it's worth."

"Did you know it was coming?"

"No."

Sam returned not long after with pizza. Allison wasn't surprised, there wasn't much else around here that was open this late. "I hope it's okay with you," he said with a grimace.

"It's fine." Allison forced a smile. "Look, do you have any idea why we have the snakes coming from the lake? It's not normal."

"No. It's not." Sam swallowed. "I did a bit of research in the car, and I want to do a little more work on the ground here but I do have some ideas of what we're looking at." He opened his laptop. "I think we're dealing with Typhon."

"Typhon. Like from mythology." Dean ran his hand over his face. "I can't tell if I'm supposed to be skeptical or resigned at this point. After Amara, it's a little hard to get worked up."

Sam acknowledged this with a tilt of his head. Allison scoffed. "You don't get worked up about poisonous snakes popping up out of a lake and killing people?"

"No, no, we do," Sam assured her. "The last case was just a little more, um, on a larger scale. This one might be interesting to you, though, if you're into Greek mythology. Typhon was a child of Hera alone, created to hunt down Dionysus."

Dean passed out the pizza and grabbed two beers from a green cooler. Sam accepted a beer. He declined the pizza. "Okay, but that's in Greece. Last I checked, the Finger Lakes aren't Greece."

"True." Sam smirked a little. "Different sources have different things to say about how Typhon was disposed of. Some say he got dropped into a volcano, although sources differ on which one. Others suggest lakes, or parts of the sea." He shrugged.

"And you think he just swam into Seneca Lake." Allison raised her eyebrow. "I'm a little skeptical here."

Sam grinned at her, really grinned. His grin was like a beam of sunshine. "Good for you. You should be. But in fact, it was Zeus who did most of the leg work on getting rid of Typhon no matter which way you slice it, and Zeus is dead."

Allison almost choked on her pizza. "Zeus is dead?"

"Oh yeah." Sam blushed. "A few years ago."

"He was a dick." Dean glowered at Sam. "Don't you feel bad about that."

"I don't feel bad about Zeus. He was kind of awful. I feel bad about Artemis —"

"She was kind of handsy with you, Sammy," Dean grinned.

"—And I feel terrible about Prometheus. Anyway. If Prometheus got loose, who's to say Typhon didn't? Or that Hera didn't let him loose once Zeus bit it?" Sam rubbed his temples. "The snakes are really his thing. Snakes in a vineyard? Right up his alley."

"Because he just likes grapes so much?" Allison took a bite from her pizza. She tried not to let the casual discussion of characters out of myth affect her, but it was certainly distracting her from her grief.

"Because his whole purpose in life was hunting down the god of wine." Sam sipped from his beer.

"Okay. Sure." Dean ran a hand through his hair. "Seems legit. I mean why not, right? How are you going to prove it? And more to the point, how do we kill him?"

"Here's the problem." Sam grimaced. "None of the sources say how to kill hm. I'm guessing Artemis' bow would do the trick, but something tells me she's not going to be taking my calls these days. In a pinch, I think a stake made from oak and maybe topped with fulgurite would work? Dipped in something, maybe snake blood?" Sam spread his hands out. "That's just a guess."

Allison felt a headache coming on. She pinched the bridge of her nose. "Do you often go around thinking about how to kill gods?"

"If you need a god killed, Sammy here's your guy." Dean patted his brother on the shoulder. "Hey, you think that's why God kept his distance? Thought you might be hiding a shiv in your sleeve or something?"

Sam closed his eyes for a moment. "I'm pretty sure that had nothing to do with it, Dean." He opened them again, but Allison kind of wished he hadn't. "Anyway. We can try that, I'll get started on trying to source the stuff in the morning. I've got some fulgurite in the car."

Allison blinked. "Did you just say you met God? Like, the God?"

Dean's mouth twisted. "Yeah. Yeah, we did. He was —"

"He'd have liked you, Allison." Sam gave her a sad smile. "He would. He would have liked you because you're good, and smart, and brave, and he'd have liked you because you're Dean's daughter. That would have been enough for him, okay?" Sam stood up. "I'm going to go get a little air."

Dean let him go. Allison had about a million more questions she wanted to ask him, but she didn't get a chance. "He's like that, and can't say as I blame him," Dean told her after the door closed behind Sam. He sat quietly with his head hanging low for a moment. "It's been rough on him lately."

"How can it be rough on a guy who's allowed to meet God?" Allison looked into her father's eyes. All kinds of questions bubbled up in her heart, questions she'd have wanted to ask God for herself. "I mean who would still be sad after that?"

"God isn't exactly Sammy's biggest fan." Dean sighed. "Kid had faith his entire life. He prayed every day, you know? Even through some times that — well, you don't want to know that. But he had faith, and God just had nothing to say to him." He shrugged. "Just proved what I always said. Family's the only thing you can count on."

Allison didn't think she'd be able to get to sleep, but she fell asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow. She didn't wake up until Sam came back to the room with breakfast. His eyes were sunk in dark shadows, and his stubble looked heavier than before, but he moved about the same way he had before. "All right, everyone," he said. "Let's go hunt us Typhon."

CHAPTER TWO

When It Comes, It's Still Dark Where I'm Going

Dean, as it turned out, wasn't too keen on having Allison involved with hunting a Typhon, or the Typhon, or some guy named Typhon, or whatever it was. "Nuh-uh. No way in Hell, Sammy. Allison is getting in the car and going to Jody's. I'm not throwing my thirteen-year-old kid into a fight against a goddamn god."

Sam glanced at Allison and tilted his head, just a little, and Allison realized what he was doing. He was giving her an option. He was letting her decide what she wanted to do. Sam was a weird kind of adult, she decided, but hell if she was going to someone named Jody's. She scowled and glared at Dean, and Sam gave her a little nod. "Dean," Sam said, holding up his hands. "I get that you don't want to throw an untrained civilian into the middle of a hunt. That's just foolhardy. I totally get that. I do. But let's be real here. By the time we drive her out to South Dakota, drop her off, stay to catch up with Jody and then come back, Typhon will have killed who knows how many people. We don't have time to bring her to Jody's, and it would be the wrong thing to do anyway."

"The hell do you mean it would be the wrong thing to do?" Dean threw his arms up into the air. "Keeping Allison safe is the right thing to do. She's a child, Sam. A thirteen year old girl. I get that's a difficult thing for you to understand, all things considered."

Sam closed his eyes and breathed out very slowly, like he was trying not to lose his temper. Allison knew that brothers must have a lot of history between them that a newcomer to the family wouldn't understand, but this seemed pretty big. She couldn't say anything, though. She didn't dare. "She was going to kill you, Dean. We've been over this. Anyway. It's the wrong thing to do because Jody is the sheriff of a very real city, an actual law enforcement professional and a hunter in her own right. She's not a dumping ground for girls otherwise orphaned by the supernatural. We can't just show up on her doorstep with another teenaged girl and say, 'You deal with her.' She's got two teenagers living there already. That's probably enough for her."

"I don't want to go stay with some cop," Allison spoke up. "I want to stay with my family!"

"You're thirteen," Dean snapped. "You don't get a choice." He glared at her.

Sam rolled his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest. "You know who you sound like, right?"

"He was right, Sam. Maybe it wasn't fun for you to hear, but he was right." Dean turned on his heel and faced his brother.

"And if his drill sergeant tactics didn't work with me, what makes you think they're going to work with her?" Sam raised his eyebrows. "Look, Allison's a Winchester. Stuff's going to come for her one way or another. She should at least know the basics."

Allison frowned. She didn't think she liked the sound of that. From the looks of it, neither did Dean. "Not if we get Cass to —"

Sam held up a hand. "No. Don't even. First of all, no one's seen Cass, or any other angel, since God and Amara took off. The only angel who's likely to show his face isn't one I want around my niece. Second, even if you did have her memory wiped, which I know from experience is a shitty thing to do, it doesn't mean nothing comes for them. It just means they don't know why."

"Yeah, let's not." Allison jumped up. "No one's wiping my brain, okay? Just... I'll go find somewhere to live if you don't want me, but I'm not having my brain wiped, what the hell is wrong with you?"

Dean's eyes bulged and he stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him. Sam deflated after he left, but he gave Allison a watery little smile. "He'll be back. He's just got to go blow off a little steam. He's just got to go figure out that we're right about this." He sighed.

"So he doesn't want me?" She sat down on the edge of her bed, hunching in on herself.

"That's not it at all, Allison. Believe me. Dean — well, family means everything to Dean. It's just that the way we live has meant that he can't keep a family of his own. He gets worked up about it sometimes. Things do come after us. The ghouls that ate Adam and his mom did it because they were trying to get revenge on our father, who was dead by that point. Demons kidnapped and tortured Dean's ex and her son. Some guy tortured me, because his father was a monster and Dean had to put him down. A demon killed my girlfriend, just because he didn't think I should be settling down." Sam sighed and looked away. "I'm sorry. You probably didn't want to know all that."

Allison swallowed. It didn't exactly sound fun. The whole family sounded cursed. At the same time, she didn't see what she could do about it. "So you think that all of that stuff could maybe happen to me?"

Sam waved his hand from side to side. "Some of it happened because of who we were, specifically. Angels and demons needed two specific brothers to be born to end the world."

"The world's still here." Allison scratched her head.

"Not for lack of trying." Sam managed a wry grin. "Your first lesson, by the way, is angels. They aren't fluffy little cherubs like you see on Christmas cards. They possess people, but they need you to say 'yes.' They're not really scrupulous about it. You could think you're saying yes to something else entirely, but if they hear that word it's enough for them. Don't say it, under any circumstances, around an angel."

"Aren't they the good guys?" Allison pulled her shirt closer around her neck, like it could somehow protect her from evil angels.

"Not so much, no. The main difference between them and demons is that they need to get some semblance of consent before they steal your body." He took a deep breath. "Trust me when I tell you that's something you don't want. They'll tell you they're doing God's work, but I've met Him. He's not involved. It's just them, jockeying for power like any other hierarchical group. At least most demons are honest about what they are."

"How do you stop them?" Allison shuddered. She didn't know if she wanted to live in a world where angels were just as evil as demons.

"Know what? Next time we pass a store, I'll pick you up a notebook. There are ways to banish angels. As a Winchester, you're more attractive to them than you want to be. I'll show you some wards and traps for demons, all easy stuff that you can do to any room you have. For example, me and Dean put up wards in this place against demons, angels, the Fae, and supernaturally generated snakes."

"For real?"

"For real." Sam grinned. "It's kind of a thing."

Allison sat down with Sam to research the Typhon case, since Dean had taken off but left his laptop behind. Dean's laptop was password protected, which gave Allison pause, but Sam just scoffed and broke the password in half a second. "Seriously, Dean?" He shook his head. "Did you really think that was going to keep me out? Hang on."

"What are you doing?" Allison watched as Sam took the laptop and opened the "Security" setting in the control panel.

"Fixing his password."

"Won't he be mad?"

"Not half as mad as I was the time he froze my computer on bad porn sites." Sam folded his mouth into a line of grim determination and pressed on.

Allison wondered what life might have been like if she'd grown up with brothers, or siblings at all. She somehow didn't think that it would have been worth the hassle.

Sam showed her how to search for what he needed. It wasn't hard. He was trying to put together a picture of just how long Typhon had been active in Seneca Lake, so he needed to know how many deaths or injuries there had been due to snake venom in the area. Allison thought it was a little dull at first, but as she started to find articles she got more and more into it. It was like painting a picture, but with information.

"That's exactly it," Sam told her when she explained it. "That's exactly right. It's just like that. We use little bits of information that no one else thought was important, for whatever reason, and we pull it together to see what's really happening. Because we're not limited by a statute of limitations or by jurisdiction, we can get a better sense of what's happening than cops or even the feds."

Allison flushed under the praise. "Well according to this, it looks like what's been happening is that this Typhon guy's been sending snakes out since April." She frowned. "April's still kind of chilly for snakes. I mean we were still getting snow in some areas on the north side of the lake this year."

Sam shrugged. "That's just more proof that the cause is supernatural, you know? But that's a lot of snakes for no one to have picked up on it." He grimaced. "I know we were busy with something else, but you'd think someone else would have done something."

"You're here now." It was too late for Mama and Grandpa and Grandma, but at least they'd stop anything else from happening. "I'm curious, though. Why Seneca Lake? If Typhon was created to kill Dionysus, why wouldn't he go someplace Dionysus is likely to be?"

Sam raised his eyebrow. "Do you know where Dionysus is likely to be?"

She blushed. "Well no. I don't know the guy. It doesn't sound like meeting him is out of the question seeing as how you and Dean keep meeting gods like it's no big thing, but whatever. Everything that we've learned about him in class makes it sound like he'd like someplace a little more, um, Mediterranean."

Sam smirked and closed his laptop. "Yeah him hanging around here doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me either. The Finger Lakes are beautiful, but I think that the snow would get monotonous for him after a while. To be honest, I'm not sure why Typhon would be in western New York. It could be that he slipped his leash once Zeus died and decided to just go and do his own thing. It could be that he just wanted to. I don't know. But what I do know is that he's here and he's killing people, so we need to stop him. While you were doing that, I've been looking for ways to kill him. It hasn't been easy."

"No weapons of the gods in the back of your trunk?" Allison had only caught a glimpse of the arsenal, but she knew there were a lot of things in there.

"One, but I'm not sure that I want to get close enough to use it. We've got a few angel swords, too, but it's the same thing. I'll use them if I have to." Sam stood up and stretched. "So. Have you ever fired a gun?"

Allison froze. "Seriously?"

"You'd be surprised at how often that's come up. I'm not saying that I want you to become a hunter, Allison. Far from it. I just want you to be able to keep yourself safe from as many of the things that are out there as you can." Sam looked out the window. "That's what both Dean and I want, believe it or not. He and I didn't have a choice about this. You do. You can have a life, a safe life, if you learn to defend yourself and maybe change your last name." He gave a self-deprecating little smirk at the last bit and held out a hand. "Come on. Let's make sure you're at least safe with a gun."

He took her deep into the woods and put her through her paces both with a shotgun and a handgun. The handgun was loaded wth regular rounds, he told her, but they had consecrated iron, silver, and devil's trap bullets for all of their handguns. They had regular and salt rounds for the shotguns. Each type of round was effective against a different type of creature, although everything but the salt would certainly do the trick against a human. "We try very hard to avoid hurting humans when we can," Sam explained. "It doesn't always work out that way, but we do try." He explained what the different types of ammunition were useful for, which sounded like a bad role-playing game like the guys in the library played. She knew it was all real, though, so she listened and she learned.

By the time they got back from their shooting lesson, Dean had gotten back from his sulk with lunch. "I even got you a salad, there, Francis. You'll never believe what I almost ran over - is she carrying my favorite shotgun?"

Sam shrugged, meeting Dean's eye. "You weren't using it."

"Sam—" Dean stepped toward his brother, and Allison froze.

"Dean. You know she needs to know this stuff." He kept his tone even. "I'm not saying she should jump out there and try to take on a wendigo or anything like that. I just think she should be able to defend herself, okay? Now. What did you almost run over with the car? A moose?"

"Do they get moose up here?" Dean scratched his head.

"Sometimes, farther north. Not too often down here though." Allison accepted her burger.

"Well, it wasn't a moose. It was a centaur. A goddamn centaur, Sammy. Bold as you please, cutting across the street like it didn't have a care in the world. And it had this spear, and this quiver and this bow on its back —" Dean shook his head. "I've seen a lot of things in my day, Sam, but I've never seen anything like that."

Sam sat up, intent and intense. "Dean! This could be good news. Tell me, did the centaur have horns?"

Dean glared at him for a second and then he stopped. "Actually now that you mention it, yeah. The guy did have horns. He had huge, giant horns like a bull, man. It was nasty. I wouldn't want to get caught on one of those things, you know?"

"Oh, I know." Sam smiled, a huge smile that lit up his whole face and made him look a good thousand years younger. When he smiled, Allison could see that her uncle was as beautiful as her father. "This is fantastic news, Dean."

Dean pursed his lips for a moment, putting down his burger. "Uh-huh. A half-horse dude is running around western New York with horns on his head scaring the livestock, and all things considered probably scaring a few of the ladies too, and you think this is good news."

Allison blushed, but she had to agree with her father.

"Yeah. Yeah, I do. A centaur with ox-like horns on his head is a Lamian Centaur. They're Dionysus' personal bodyguards. They were originally intended to guard the infant Dionysus from Hera's wrath and then they accompanied him on his campaign into India." Sam jumped up away from the table, forgetting his lunch. Allison couldn't tell if he'd ever noticed it in the first place. "If they're here, he might be here too. And they might know how to take down Typhon."

"Sam!" Dean barked.

Sam stopped in mid-stride as he paced around the motel room. "What?"

"Eat, Sam. There aren't any Centaurs in the motel room. You can afford to take a few minutes to sit down and eat your lunch." Dean rolled his eyes and shook his head, taking up his burger again. "Honestly, it's like pulling teeth with you. And anyway, like Dionysus would come anywhere near you with your track record."

Sam cringed. "I guess you've got a point." He sat back down and poked at his lunch. "Anyway, if Dionysus is here he can probably help take down Typhon."

Dean deflated. "Come on. Let's get you fed, and we'll head out and try to summon him."

"We shouldn't need to do that. We can just call him." Sam shrugged. "Summoning's kind of rude. We should try the polite way first, since we want him to be cooperative, don't you think?"

"That makes sense." Allison took another bite of her burger. They hadn't needed her to say it, but she wasn't about to let them forget that she was here. "If we don't have to do things the hard way, we probably shouldn't."

Dean gave an aggravated sigh. "I knew it was a mistake to leave the two of you together. We're not calling him to cuddle, we're calling him to fight, and don't you forget it."

Sam rolled his eyes. "Yes, sir."

Allison almost thought that Dean missed Sam's sarcastic jibe, but she barely caught his flinch out of the corner of her eye. Now there was a story she wanted to hear. Maybe someday they'd even tell her. For now, though, she had to get through her burger quickly so they could get to calling Dionysus.

Her life had certainly taken a turn for the bizarre.

(Part Two)