Chapter 1 Sea of Waking Dreams

WARNING! This story breaks canon at every point where the canon in the show is either unrealistic, implausible or psychological impossible. If John Winchester had, as written, dragged his two young sons up searching for something he found NO EVIDENCE of in 22 years, he would be an asshole and an idiot. Since I like John, that piece of "canon" has been broken. No one, no matter what the circumstances, would search without a single lead or shred of proof for 22 years while trying to raise two very young sons. Sorry, Kripke but that was a major fail.

Likewise, his sons being kept in the dark on old hunting buddies was another fail for there was no reason whatsoever that John would introduce them to some but not to others. Within the course of the following story I hope that these logic holes are filled, but be aware that I have ignored - nay, jumped up and down on - some of the canon because it was obviously unthought out and presented inconsistencies within the seasons for that very reason.

"Well, she may wander into my dreams. Wouldn't it be nice, if I could call her by name, and pretend we've met before? I've waited a long time for such a lady."

~ Etienne Navarre, Ladyhawke

1984. Blackwater, North Dakota

John rubbed his eyes. They felt grainy and too big for the sockets, and he knew he was going to have to call it a night soon. The table in front of him was covered with notes, newspapers and a slim manila folder filled with copies of police reports and coroner's reports. None of it made much sense.

He leaned back in the chair, letting his head tip back, closing his eyes. Against the darkness of his closed lids, the images from the police files unrolled. The victims had nothing in common, nothing he could discern, at any rate. Ages ranged from a fifteen year old boy to a seventy year old woman. Locations were all over the place too. Nothing linked them. They'd even been found randomly, some the next day, one of them hadn't been found for several weeks, making identification a real bitch. The coroner's assistant had turned slightly green as the memory of that body had returned.

They were all killed by the same thing, that he was sure of. And it was preying on the people in this town. But the bodies were intact, there were no injuries, no trauma – the report stated that they'd all died of heart failure. John shook his head at the axiomatic nature of the call. Everyone died of heart failure, he thought sourly. The heart stopped and then you were dead. There had been no speculation in the report as to what had caused the heart to fail, though. Tox screens were clean, even the later ones when the cops had become more desperate to find out what was going on and had started ordering detailed analyses of the blood and tissue work.

Something, there had to be something he'd missed. His eyes ran over the mess on the table. His journal was useless. Nothing he'd heard or read about covered the situation, the deaths. He pushed the notes aside and opened the folder again, flicking through the papers, letting his eyes wander over each page, looking for a thread, a common thread that would show a pattern.

Blackwater Funeral Home. The name appeared on each report. He frowned. It wasn't unusual, probably not even noteworthy. Small towns couldn't run to a separate coroner's office, the local funeral home was usually the place where the autopsies and tests were conducted. The director of the place was a thin, rather cadaveric-looking man – he fished around in his memory for the name … Elias … Kadrick? The coroner came out from Grand Forks, he knew, guy had complained about how many trips he and his assistant had had to make this year, the travel expenses were screwing up his budget.

Something about the funeral home was nagging at him. He couldn't pin it down but it wouldn't let go. He sighed and closed the folder, gathering up the rest of the papers and tucking them inside it. He'd go and see them again tomorrow. He glanced behind him, through the open bathroom door where his single suit was hanging from the shower rail, hopefully shedding its wrinkles. FBI Special Agent Tom Sabisch would be seeing them tomorrow.

Other than that, it would be night-hunting, trying to catch the creature in the act, and that prospect made his heart accelerate, beating low and loud against his ribs.

In the other room, his boys slept. Sammy was not yet two, Dean almost six. Not knowing what he was facing, what he was hunting, he was loathe to take them out with him, but he feared leaving them alone here even more. Even with the protective circles of salt and iron, he couldn't be sure that they would be safe, would stay safe.

He put the journal on top of the rest of the papers, and turned off the lights, pulling off his clothes as he sat on the edge of the bed. This life was not what he wanted for them. He wanted them to be safe, to be able to have their childhoods, a home. But the crawling itch inside of him, the itch that demanded he find answers, retribution, revenge for Mary's death, would not rest, would not give him rest.

Stretching out on the bed and closing his eyes, he flinched slightly as his imagination played her death out again. Not enough whiskey tonight, he thought wearily, and tried to shut out the images, push them away. The cold voice inside his head that occasionally provided insight, or derided him, or just took strips off him on occasion, gave a sudden hollow laugh. Not enough whiskey in all the world to blunt the edges of that memory, it told him.

Dean pushed the watery porridge around his bowl unhappily. He watched his father getting dressed from beneath long dark lashes, knowing that the suit meant he and Sammy would be alone for most of the day, left behind to watch TV and take care of themselves. At almost six, he already had a strong sense of independence, and responsibility, and he knew that Dad had to go and do something important, something that the boys couldn't help with, but the day was so long when it was just him and his brother, the hours ticked by so slowly and there was nothing good to watch on TV anyway.

Beside him, Sammy was amusing himself by flipping spoonfuls of porridge from the bowl to the table. Dean caught the motion in the corner of his eye and scowled at his baby brother.

"Stop that!" he whispered fiercely. "Eat your breakfast."

He would have to clean up the mess that Sam had made, and the thought made him madder.

John finished adjusting his tie and looked over to them, noticing the expression on the face of his oldest son. He turned around and walked over to the table.

"I won't be gone long. Just one visit and I'll be back, Dean," he said quietly. "Can you take care of Sammy while I'm gone?"

Dean nodded, bottom lip pushed out a little. "Yes, sir."

"That's my boy." John patted him lightly on the shoulder. "I'll be back in time for lunch. We'll have something good, okay?"

The bottom lip was sucked in. "Pizza?"

John smiled. "If that's what you want, sure." He tousled Sam's hair as he passed. "Lock the door; don't answer it if anyone knocks. Don't answer the phone. If it's me, I'll ring once and hang up, then ring back, okay? Keep the TV on low, alright?"

Dean looked up and nodded. He knew what he had to do.

"All right. I'll be back soon, and we'll have pizza for lunch." John walked to the door of the room, patting his pockets as he went; keys, wallet, gun. All there.

Dean looked at Sammy as the door closed behind him, and sighed. There were morning cartoon shows on the TV, they could watch those for a while. Then play with the toys until lunchtime. He thought about the pizza – he would get one with lots of sausage this time. Not just the baby cheese one. He wasn't a baby anymore.

John pulled the badge from the inner pocket of his jacket, holding it out for the man to see. It was a beautiful piece of forgery, expensive but worth it.

Elias Kadrick looked at it carefully and nodded, stepping back and gesturing to the quiet office behind him.

"What can I do for the FBI, Agent Sabisch?" The man's voice was strange, high and with a faint buzz to it, as if his throat or vocal cords had been injured at some time.

"I'd like to see the home's records on each of the victims, Mr Kadrick. You buried them all?"

Kadrick inclined his head slightly. "We organised the funerals, yes. No other funeral facility in town."

The office was spacious and sombrely decorated in dark wood panelling, the carpet thick and soft underfoot. A massive desk took up the space in front of the elegant Georgian windows, and two comfortable chairs stood in front of it. Kadrick gestured to the chairs as he walked behind the desk. John sat in the one closest, his eyes narrowing as the light from the windows shone from behind Kadrick, hiding the expression of the man seated opposite him. He could just make out the man's eyes, seeing a strange glint in them, as if a light had flashed behind him. He glanced over his shoulder but there was nothing there.

"What are you looking for?" Kadrick said, fingers steepled in front of him as he leaned forward on the desk.

"I'm not sure. Some connection, hopefully." John looked around the office. Shelving, built-ins of the same dark wood as the panelling, held a sizeable collection of books along one wall. On the other side of the room, a neat row of old fashioned timber filing cabinets presumably held the business records for the home.

A fly buzzed in the silence, batting against the glass panes of the window.

"Well, I'm certainly happy to help with the investigation," Kadrick said briskly, rising from his chair and walking over to the filing cabinets. "The police don't seem to have any new leads, and while I can't deny it's been good for business, such events are unsettling in a small town. A lot of people are scared."

John nodded, watching him extract a dozen files from the various drawers. "I'd like to take these with me, if you don't mind. I'll sign for them, of course."

Kadrick shook his head. "I'm sorry, but I cannot allow that. These records must stay on the premises. I'd never be able to forgive myself if a family needed some piece of information and their file was missing."

He passed the folders to John. "Please, take your time, you may have the use of this office for as long as you need."

John glanced at his watch and sighed. "Thank you Mr Kadrick, I'll be out as quickly as possible."

Dean would be disappointed, he thought, setting the folders on the desk and opening the first one. But he'd make it up to him; they could have pizza for dinner, go and sit down in a restaurant. He made a mental note to ring the motel room in an hour, to let him know.

It was three hours later that he closed the last file and leaned back in the chair, the pad beside him covered in scrawled notes. He looked at his watch and swore. Two o'clock. He tucked the pad back into his jacket and left the pile of folders on the desk.

Several flies were now buzzing against the window. He looked at them curiously. It was August, and he was in a funeral home, but he would have thought the building would be better protected against the influx of insects than that. As he watched, several more flies crawled from a small hole in the architrave of the window to join those against the glass.

The hall was empty when he left the office. He hesitated for a moment, listening, but he couldn't hear any sounds that might have indicated where Kadrick was. A faint scent came to him as he opened the front door and the air moved out of the building, past him. Overlaid by the smells by the chemicals used in embalming, he nevertheless recognised the odour of decay, of decomposition. It was a funeral home, he thought impatiently. He shrugged and looked at the tight seals around the timber door, and the metal mesh screen door that lay beyond it. Well, they weren't getting in that way, he thought absently, closing both behind him and walking down to the black car that was parked against the kerb.

Dean looked up as he heard the key in the lock. He'd been swinging between fear and anger since both hands of the clock had touched the twelve. That was lunch time. And Dad hadn't returned. When the small hand finally reached the number one, he'd become alarmed, snapping at Sammy for knocking over his block tower, unsure of what he should do. He'd made his brother a sandwich, cutting off the crusts as his mom had done for him. Sammy had decimated the soft bread and it had taken a long time to clean up all the crumbs.

"Hey kiddo, sorry I'm late." John walked into the room, pulling the tie from around his neck, and shucking his jacket onto the bed.

Dean kept his eyes on his soldiers. John looked down and crouched down beside him.

"We'll have pizza for dinner, Dean," he said, reaching out to touch his son's hair. Dean pulled away slightly.

John looked at the boy's profile. The bottom lip was out again. "Sometimes things don't go to plan, Dean. I'm sorry I didn't get back when I said I would, but I had to do something important."

The little boy sat as still as a statue. John sighed. "Come on, stop sulking." He straightened up, and walked to the kitchenette. "Did you make Sammy some lunch?"

"Yes, sir." The words were little more than a whisper.

"Good. Where is he?" John glanced around the bare living room.

"Having a nap."

"Can you play quietly in the room, Dean? I have some work I need to get done here."

Dean nodded again, and got to his feet, gathering his soldiers into his hands. He walked into the other room, his head down, and closed the door quietly behind him.

Goddammit.

John watched him go, his emotions churning. He needed to find a better way to do this, or he was going to do irreparable damage to his sons. He rubbed the heel of his hand over his face, feeling the conflicting pull between getting on with the work he needed to do, and the knowledge that Dean was sitting unhappily in that room, playing silently and alone.

I'll make it up to him, he thought at last, pulling the notes from the jacket pocket and spreading them out on the table. I'll spend all evening with them both, and read to them and play with them.

He sat down at the table and started to read through what he'd written. There was one thing that had been common to all the victims, but he couldn't fathom its importance. Or how it fit with the deaths.

All the victims had lost someone close to them recently, between one and six weeks before they died. How the hell that tied them together, he didn't know.

John watched the boy working his way through the pizza. He'd been a bit doubtful about the topping, worrying that Dean would find the sausage too spicy to manage, but he'd underestimated his son's determination to finish what he started. He watched the little boy's expression as the taste hit his tongue, hiding a smile at the startled look that was quickly followed by a look of faint alarm. But Dean had kept eating, taking frequent sips of his soda to cool his mouth.

In the high chair beside Dean, Sammy ate the slice of lasagne happily, spreading tomato sauce and the creamy béchamel sauce across his face, over his hands and chest and around the area of the table he could reach. John handed him a napkin and shook his head as that only succeeded in spreading the pale pink mess further.

An older couple sat at the table a few feet away, and he caught the eye of the woman, watching the boys, a smile curving her full mouth. He lifted an eyebrow resignedly and her smile widened, softening the lines of her face. She lifted a shoulder sympathetically then turned back to her companion as he leaned close and spoke to her.

"How's the pizza?" he asked Dean. The boy looked up, chewing frantically, then pushing the mouthful into one cheek.

"Good!" It came out a little more vehemently than necessary.

John nodded seriously. "Do you like the sausage? It's not too hot?"

Dean shook his head and swallowed. "No, I like it." He picked up his drink and sucked another mouthful, then looked up at his father. "It's a little bit hot, but it's good."

They finished their desserts around seven, and John downed the last mouthful of his coffee, standing up slowly. Dean slid down from his chair, walking around the table to help his brother out of the high chair. The toddler put his sticky hand into his father's, and they followed Dean out of the restaurant. The couple had gone, John saw as they passed the table.

Beside the car, he gave Dean a handful of tissues and asked him to clean up his brother before he touched the upholstery. The little boy took them without comment as he helped Sammy climb into the back seat. John watched absently as Dean did his best to remove the layers of sauce from Sammy's face and hands, seeing without really noticing the way the boy handled his little brother tactfully, Sammy's protests and evasions mild and not really determined. Sliding into the driver's seat when Dean had finished, John started the engine and pulled out of the lot, his thoughts already circling the discrepancies of the bodies, of the deaths, the case that at the back of his mind, he feared he wouldn't be able to finish.

He drove slowly, his mind worrying the information he'd found that day the way a dog worries a particularly juicy bone. The flub-flub-flub noise and the pull on the steering wheel brought him out of those thoughts in a hurry.

"Dad, we got a flat," Dean said unnecessarily from the back seat. John nodded.

"Yeah, we do." He pulled over to the side of the road, and looked around. There was no moon tonight, and he'd taken the road through the common, the darkness surrounding them thick and black.

"Okay, you two sit tight and I'll have it changed in a minute," he said, reaching to the passenger side to get the flashlight and opening the door.

Walking back to the trunk, the flashlight beam playing over the flat tyre, the ground, the side of the car, he saw the glint of the nail on the way and swore softly under his breath. He opened the trunk and pulled out the spare, setting it next to the wheel, then took out the jack and lug wrench. Along this part of the common road, the trees had been planted close. The night had been still, but he felt a light breeze brush past him as he knelt on the asphalt, and pushed the jack under the chassis.

"John …"

The word was no more than a breath, an almost soundless whisper. His hands paused in manoeuvring the jack, and he lifted his head, looking around. There was nothing there, just the dark and the slight rustle of the leaves of the trees. A shiver trembled along his spine but he bent his head, pushing it aside as his hands positioned the jack and he started to lift the car.

"John … John … I need you."

This time the whisper was louder, and icy sweat crawled down his back in spite of the warmth of the night. He knew that voice. He'd told himself a million times he'd never hear that voice again.

"John, come to me, I'm hurt, I need you."

She was calling, her voice insistent. He looked down at his hands, at the way his fingers were trembling around the jack handle, the strength gone from them as he tried to force them to close on the cool metal. It was impossible, impossible, he'd watched her die, it couldn't be her.

But it was her voice.

He tried again to close his hands around the jack handle, feeling his pulse accelerating, his breath explode in harsh puffs from between his lips. The car lifted another couple of inches before the soft call came out of the dark again.

"John, please … I'm hurt, you have to help me, I'm here, come to me."

Tears filled his eyes as he stared fixedly down at the road's rough surface. Not possible, not possible, not possible. The thought chanted in his head. The small cold voice responded. Yeah, just keep telling yourself that, but it is her voice. Maybe … maybe she did survive, somehow …

Stop it!

He reined in the thought viciously. It wasn't possible. He'd scattered her ashes, her dental records had confirmed it was her. She was dead. She was gone.

"Dad?" Dean's high voice piped from above him. He looked up, seeing his son blurrily through the tears that spilled over and coursed down his cheeks.

"I thought I heard you call …" Dean looked down at his father, the tear tracks reflecting in the flashlight's beam scaring him more than the voice had done. "Dad?"

"I'm alright, Dean. Stay in the car. Stay with Sammy, you understand me? Don't move." John found his voice, a wavering shadow of its usual deep-timbred tone.

"Okay," Dean agreed reluctantly.

"John, come to me … I'm here, I'm alive and I need you …"

He stood slowly, glancing briefly into the back seat, seeing the boys sitting close together, Dean's arms around his brother. He turned and walked around the car, his face briefly illuminated and shadowed by the headlights as he stepped off the road. The light from the car disappeared under the shadows of the trees.

"It's all right, Sammy, it's all right." Dean's teeth were chattering slightly but he held his brother tightly.

"Mary?" he called, his voice hoarse and quiet. He'd left the flashlight by the car and had to inch his way from tree trunk to trunk, shuffling his feet along the ground, moving by feel, his eyes straining to adjust to the darkness, to reach through it and see her.

"John … I'm here."

He felt his breath catch in his throat, his chest lifting against the weight of pain and fear. "Mary, where are -?"

A sudden glare of light splashed the trees and shrubs in front of him, forcing him to stop, eyes narrowed tightly against the unexpected brightness. Behind him, he could hear fragments of voices, low, urgent voices and the crackling of vegetation as someone ran through the undergrowth toward him. John turned, an arm flung up over his face against the twin beams of light shining at him. He couldn't see the person coming, could hear the crack of breaking branches and the thud of heavy footsteps.

"Hey! Come away, come away now!" The voice was a man's, deep, rough, the thick accent rounding and blurring the words. John staggered back against a trunk as a large powerful hand closed over his arm.

"You're in danger here. Come. Now." The hand pulled at him.

"No, wait, Mary –" he whispered, shaking his head, no longer sure he'd really heard her, no longer sure of what was happening to him.

"Not Mary," the man said and John slitted his eyes, trying to make out the man who held him. "It's a trick. Come."

Following the man back through the trees, stumbling a little, John kept his eyes on the brightly lit ground, fighting against the tiredness that seemed to have reached into every muscle. He looked up as the trees thinned out, seeing a second car right across the narrow road, twin headlights on high beam pointing toward them.

He felt the hard smooth asphalt beneath his feet, as they crossed to one side of the headlight beams and looked up at the man whose hand was still tightly clamped around his forearm, a dark haired man, not tall but very broad.

"Who are you?" Glancing at the Impala, John saw the back door open, another adult leaning inside, inside where his boys were. "Hey! Get away from them!"

The man shook his head, hand reaching out to grip his shoulder. "That is Valentina. My wife. Your children are not harmed."

The woman straightened from the door, and he saw her face, the familiarity of it tugging at his memory. The woman from the restaurant. The one who'd smiled at Sammy's mess.

He turned back to the man beside him. "Who the hell are you? What are you doing here?"

"My name is Yvgeny Tasarov," the man told him, stepping closer to the black car with a one-sided shrug as he offered his hand. "We saw the car, saw your children, couldn't see you, so we stopped to see if we could help."

John frowned, shaking Tasarov's hand as he tried to make what he remembered fit, make sense. "John Winchester. I heard … I thought I heard … something … in the wood."

Yvgeny nodded slowly. "Many people here have heard something in the woods and gone in, but didn't come out again. Is better to change the tyre and keep going, yes?"

John pinpointed the accent. "You're Russian?"

Yvgeny laughed self-consciously. "American citizens, for many years now. But yes, we are from Russia originally. Come, we change the tyre, you will be on your way."

"Did you hear anything? In the woods?" John followed him around the car.

Yvgeny and Valentina exchanged a look, too fast for him to decipher. "No, we heard nothing."

John knelt beside the jack, lifting the car the final few inches. He picked up the lug wrench and began to loosen the nuts. He glanced up as he worked, seeing the two had separated, Valentina stood near the rear of the car, watching the woods. Yvgeny had moved to the front of the car, his eyes also scanning the darkness under the trees. Something in the way they stood rang alarm bells in him. They stood alertly, almost like soldiers, waiting for an attack.

He'd joined the Marines when he'd turned eighteen, along with his friends. Two tours in a jungle-filled country on the other side of the world had given him that alarm system, the sense of things that weren't right, that weren't what they seemed. Whatever the Tasarovs were, he thought worriedly, they weren't ordinary civilians.

He worked in silence, removing the nuts, and the wheel, lifting the spare onto the stud bolts and replacing the nuts quickly. As he tightened the last one and let the jack down, he glanced up again, feeling the faint breeze brush against his cheek once more.

Yvgeny stood beside him, and lifted the flat tyre, rolling it around to the trunk as John stood up. He followed the other man to the trunk, but not quickly enough to prevent him from lifting the false floor and seeing what lay under it.

Holding the lid up, Yvgeny looked silently into the deep well. Guns, handguns, shotguns and rifles, ammunition, bags of salt, boxes of iron filings, a couple of small recurve bows, several bundles of arrows, a cross-bow and another bundle of quarrels and a couple of flare guns lay neatly compartmentalised within the space. John looked down at it as well, knowing full well there was absolutely nothing he could say about the contents.

"Perhaps we'd better talk." Yvgeny said slowly, lowering the lid and settling the flat on top of it. "We are at the Moonglow Motel, off the main street."

John looked at the other man's neutral expression and nodded. "All right. We're there too."

He watched as Tasarov looked around, the Russian's voice dropping slightly. "We should go now. We will follow you. Go straight there."

"Wait – do you know what's happening here?" John asked. He'd seen that wariness before. It was a wariness that had been inculcated into him by a hunter from the East End of London.

Yvgeny looked toward his wife, lifting a shoulder in a slight shrug. "We will talk there. This place … is not a good place to stand and talk."

They waited until John had gotten back into the car and the V8 engine rumbled to life, then they returned to their car, reversing it back off the road, out of the way. The square headlights sat behind him all the way back to the motel, matching his speed.

John got the boys into their pyjamas, and helped Sammy to brush his teeth. He settled them into their beds, closing the door and walked restlessly around the main room. What the hell was going on? Was he losing it, to let a couple of strangers into his life – here – now? He had no sense of danger from them, he considered as he reached the kitchenette and turned around, pacing his tension out across the room. Didn't make them safe.

The knock on the door, a single brisk knock, dragged his attention back to the room, and he walked quickly to the door, opening it and standing back as Yvgeny and Valentina entered.

"You're a hunter?" Valentina turned to look at him steadily when the door had closed. John's eyes widened slightly at her familiarity with the term and he nodded cautiously.

"As are we." She walked to the table and sat down. Yvgeny followed her more slowly, looking around the room, his eyes, dark brown, deepset under thick black brows, missing nothing.

"The creature in this place …" he said, turning back to the table, and taking the third chair as John sat down. "… is known by many names, many cultures around the world. In our country, they are called whisperers. In the east, in India and Pakistan and Afghanistan, they are known as crocottas. The Native American Indians had their own names for them," he said with a glance at his wife. "There is no difference in what you call them, they are all the same thing."

"Which is?" John looked from one to the other, leaning on the table.

"Vampires. Of the soul," Valentina said softly. "They can pick at the information in a person's mind, sift it for sadness, and mimic the voices of loved ones perfectly. The victim goes willingly to them, and is drained of their soul, their … life-force … until the heart gives out and they die."

"All the victims had lost someone close to them recently," John said slowly, remembering the anomaly. "They were drawn out to the … crocotta? whisperer? … with the voices of the people they'd lost?"

"As you were. Da." Yvgeny shrugged. "For people in the midst of grief, of grieving, it can be easy to believe that somehow the person isn't dead, to convince yourself it was all a terrible mistake."

John looked away abruptly, feeling his throat close and his chest tighten. Valentina laid her hand over his, where it rested on the table.

"It is well-known, yes? The first stage of grief is denial, John," she said gently, her eyes sympathetic. "And that is how the whisperer convinces their victims."

He took a breath, sucking it hard down into the depths of his lungs. If nothing else, he thought, ignoring the savage kick of anger he could feel, he knew what it was now. "How do we kill it?"

Again, husband and wife exchanged a fast, undefinable look. "With silver or iron, penetrating the base of the neck, where it joins the spine," Yvgeny said casually. "They are … neulovimyy, yes? Ah …"

"Elusive," Valentina supplied the English word. "Difficult to find unless they're hunting."

"What about its lair? Where it hides?" John screwed his focus tightly onto the hunt, onto finding out about the creature, pushing his thoughts and his memories of Mary deeper. He still couldn't believe how perfectly it had sounded like her … so perfectly his body had reacted, not just his mind.

"It might not have a lair, in that sense," Valentina answered, looking at her husband. "They can look like people, walk among us without us being the wiser."

"They attract insects, though," Yvgeny added, a frown drawing his thick, black brows together. "They live in a bed of filth and rot, and there are always insects – flies, ants, maggots, scavengers – around them."

John looked up at him slowly. The flies had come through the window casement, not from the outside of the building, but from between the walls. The smell, familiar to him now, underlying the building's more pungent chemicals returned as his mind's eye saw the insects crawling out.

"Then I know where it is."

The couple looked at him, then each other. He told them about the funeral home office, the flies crawling out of the architraves, the faint smell of decomposition that he'd put down to the business of preparing the dead.

Valentina's lips curved into a slight smile, her eyes, a warm, dark grey, lighting up. "That was good observation."

Yvgeny nodded briskly. "We'll go after it tomorrow. It will be unready for us at its … day job."

Valentina knocked at the room's door before eight the next morning. John hurried to the door, straightening his tie and tugging the hem of the suit jacket down. It was Sunday, but the suit and his identification would get him out of almost anything, if the monster was there, or one of the employees. At the small table, Dean and Sammy sat silently, spoons poised over their bowls as they watched him open the door, the Russian woman walking in.

"You will go with Geny," she said briskly and without preamble. "I will stay here, make sure that they are safe."

John nodded, relieved that she would be here. Hunting the monster would be a lot easier if he didn't have to worry about the boys, if someone was here, looking after them, someone … capable. He was a little surprised by how readily he trusted the Tasarovs. After Deke's death and Ben's, he'd been reluctant to trust his instincts, reluctant to trust in anything. He had to sometime, he knew. His gut told him that these people were exactly what they said they were.

Valentina walked to the table, smiling at Dean and Sam. John looked at the boys, meeting Dean's questioning gaze.

"Dean, this is Mrs Tasarov, she's going to stay with you for awhile while I go and do my job."

Valentina shook her head. "Valentina, please. Mrs Tasarov makes me sound too old."

Dean looked up at her, his expression serious. John could see his son's considered response to that forming behind the too-wide green eyes and nodded, trying to catch the boy's attention.

"Valentina then. Dean … Dean!" he said, raising his voice as Dean continued to stare at Valentina with interest. He looked at his father. "Uh, you and Sammy are on your best behaviour with our guest, okay?" He patted his pockets, feeling wallet, badge, gun and phone in them, and added, "And finish your breakfasts."

Dean turned his head, and nodded, dipping the spoon into the lukewarm porridge and slurping it off obediently. Sam watched his brother and did the same, right down to the same noisy slurp. John looked at them in mild annoyance, but Valentina's smile was indulgent, and she shook her head slightly.

"Go, they'll be fine."

After a second's hesitation, John walked to the door and let himself out, closing the door behind him. Geny was waiting in his car, and he got in, slouching down in the bucket seat slightly.

Geny glanced at him and started the engine, backing out of the slot and rolling down the driveway.

"The whisperer is very strong, John," the Russian said as they drove along the quiet street, "It feeds on souls but can defend itself if attacked. It can put you into a … what is the word? … waking? … dream. A dream you have even if you're awake. You understand?"

John nodded, thinking of Kadrick, the odd glint he'd seen at the back of his eyes. In the woods, he'd been disoriented, Mary's voice bringing more back than memory, bringing sense recall, some of it so powerful he'd felt as if he'd gone back in time, back to a place where none of it had happened.

"What's the plan?"

The funeral home was closed and locked as expected. The opening hours were by appointment on a Sunday, from mid-afternoon. John looked up at the apartment over the premises. The blinds were drawn, giving the windows a secretive air.

"We'll go around the back," Geny said softly, turning to walk back down the front stairs to the car. John followed him, trying to look as if he had no further interest in the place.

They cruised slowly around the block, the engine of the car a low and indistinct rumble until the Russian saw the narrow alley that each of the houses backed onto. Manoeuvring the car through the constricted space, avoiding the lines of trash cans and larger dumpsters that turned the alley into an obstacle course, Geny muttered and swore in his native tongue as he eased up to the funeral home's rear entrance. The logo had been painted on the back fence, and he drove past it a little, pulling over a couple of buildings down.

None of the buildings overlooked the alley, and Geny crouched, picking the deadlock on the tall, metal-sheeted rear gate in privacy. John looked around as they crossed the cramped concrete yard, with its small loading dock and an immaculate black hearse parked to one side. It looked tidy, he thought. Another disguise.

It was, he had to admit, a near perfect setup for a monster like this one. Knowing who would be vulnerable to its calls, knowing when they would be around, when they wouldn't. He shook his head. If one existed here, how many others were there? Scattered around the small towns of the country, taking visitors and the bereaved; or in the big cities, where people disappeared every day as a matter of course? He'd carefully written down all the details Geny and Valentina had spoken of the previous evening in his journal; the characteristics of the creature, the circumstances of this case, the methods for finding and killing it. It was more than a record, he knew. For himself it was a way of keeping score, a means of seeing his own progress. One day, it would be the foundation for his sons, to keep them safe.

At the solid back door of the building, Geny again picked the lock, the faint scratchings of the wrench and pick almost lost under the birdsong that filled the gardens of the houses to either side. The door swung inward, revealing a utility room full of shadows and they entered silently, closing the door behind them, waiting until their eyes had adjusted to the gloom. It was a big building to search. Geny pointed downwards and John nodded in agreement. The basement seemed like the logical place to start.

Walking down the hallway into the house, they turned into what had been a kitchen. It was now the embalming room, and Geny gestured with a stiff-fingered hand at the door to one side. John skirted the two stainless steel tables bolted to the floor, each with drains and taps at their ends, as the Russian moved along the wall, passing a long length of built in cupboards, sinks set into the stainless countertops. In spite of being ready for a confrontation, when it came, it took John by surprise. He'd looked along the walls, thought he'd seen into the darker shadows between the cupboards, but he must have missed one.

Kadrick leapt out of the darkness and had his long-fingered hands wrapped around John's throat before he could draw breath even to shout. John fought to get his fingers under the monster's, staring into a face that didn't resemble the pale funeral director's so much anymore. The lower jaw was dropping, exposing rows of long, pointed teeth that jutted out from the gums at different angles and he rolled sharply to one side, hoping to shift the weight from his chest, to dislodge the frightening strength of the grip cutting off his air.

On the other side of the room, Geny's head snapped around as he saw John fall, and he was moving fast around the tables as John looked up and watched in blank horror as the bones of Kadrick's continued to change. His vision was clouding, greying at the sides and his strength was trickling away.

The creature looked down and met his eyes and John flinched in pain at the contact, his mind suddenly blanketed by images, thick and smothering, blocking out his senses, his will, even the knowledge that he was dying, without blood or oxygen to his brain.

The images were all of Mary, every memory and moment they'd shared.

He stopped struggling as they filled the darkness behind his closed lids; her face, her eyes, her mouth, wide, full lipped, curved in tenderness, widely grinning, those soft lips against his, her arms wrapping around his waist as she pressed her face against his chest, the smell of her, fresh from a shower and combing out her long, blonde hair, the taste of her mouth when they'd made love for the first time, nervous and excited and clumsy and desperate for each other, the feel of her skin, silken under his fingertips, and the sound of her singing in the shower, pregnant with Dean, her laughter and embarrassment when he'd stripped down and joined her under the steaming spray of water … he was lost in the memories, drowning in them and he barely felt the tug at the centre of his mind and heart, the strange pulling sensation …

Geny slid under the second table, the long, sharpened metal spike gripped firmly in one hand as he pushed against the floor and rolled onto his knees. The whisperer turned its head toward him, hissing furiously at the interruption and swung a long arm, its fingers now tipped by claws. Geny ducked, moving around as the creature released John and the younger man fell to the floor, his eyes wide open, but unseeing, lost in a sea of memory, of the dreams he'd once had.

Turning toward him, Kadrick leapt, moving almost faster than the eye could see; Geny felt the slam of its weight against him, and his feet slithered out on the slick vinyl tiles, his weight too far back as it leaned over him, forcing him down.

He grunted as felt the suck of the creature's mouth, the pull on the intangible part of him that had no physical location. He could feel its hypnotic enchantment starting to invade his mind, a whirlwind of memories from his past, then it was gone, the memories vanishing, his senses restored.

Opening his eyes, he realised he'd been unaware they'd closed. He looked up. The whisperer's face was still, eyes open but empty, mouth hanging wide like some foul trap. Behind the head, he saw John, his face pale with shock and beaded in perspiration, the green eyes wide with a mixture of horror and regret. Geny dropped his gaze slightly and saw the protruding point of the steel spike, dripping blood where it had emerged from high up the chest.

John twisted the spike and rolled the whisperer to one side, off the Russian. He pulled out the spike and threw it aside, face twisted in a grimace of distaste as he reached a hand to the older man and pulled him to his feet.

"Thank you," Geny said with a rueful half-smile as he stared down at the shrunken frame of the monster. "Once they're over you, it's hard to get clear."

"Yeah." John nodded, remembering how swiftly he'd fallen under the spell. "I noticed."

He looked around the room. "What do we do with the body?"

Geny shook his head. "Nothing. The afternoon sun will hit it there," he told John, looking at the windows in the upper part of the walls. "Sunlight will turn the body to dust. There will be nothing to indicate the identity, or the cause of the death, or even that it once lived."

John turned the key in the motel room's lock and opened the door. He saw his eldest son, kneeling on the chair and bent over a puzzle on the table, tongue protruding slightly with the effort of concentration. Valentina sat on the other side of the table, looking up and smiling as he walked in. Sam was nowhere in sight, but a slight tilt of Valentina's head indicated that he was having a nap in the other room. Dean turned and looked up, his face lighting up as he saw his father.

"Dad! Valentina bought me this puzzle – it's a car, just like ours, and I did it all by myself!"

John walked to stand behind Dean's chair, looking down at the puzzle in front of the boy. The completed picture was a 1967 Chevrolet Impala, red. Dean had almost finished it, one corner remained to do.

He grinned at him, noticing that his son's eyes were the same shape as Mary's had been. The memory no longer hurt as much as it had. He felt a moment's sadness at that knowledge. "Almost finished it. Are you going to keep going?"

Dean was looking at him, the expressive face uncertain. He saw too much, John realised, forcing himself to shed that sadness. Reassured, his son nodded and turned back to the table. John hoped that he would forget about the things he saw in his father's eyes. It was likely to be a futile hope, he acknowledged. By whatever alchemy had been present in the genes of his parents, his oldest son was far more observant and felt things far more deeply than he could recall doing as a child.

"Geny is with you?" Valentina asked, her smile widening as she noticed her husband walk in the door behind John. "Then it went well."

"So-so." Geny shrugged. "As well as can be hoped for." He walked to the table and bent slightly to kiss her cheek.

She rose from the table and went to the coffee pot, pouring fresh cups for them. The two men followed her, leaning against the counters as they drank the coffee slowly. Geny looked at John for a long moment.

"It is not good to hunt alone," he said in a neutral voice. Valentina nodded.

"Nor to leave your children unprotected."

John looked down into his cup. Neither opinion was news. There was nothing he could do about it. "I don't have much choice."

He turned to look over his shoulder at his son. Dean was completely occupied with the puzzle, and slowly, falteringly, John told the couple what had happened to his life, to his family … to his wife … his voice low. He didn't go into the details but neither showed any surprise, both listening carefully and, he thought, getting more than the sum of the words. He told them about Ben and Jan and Jim Murphy, not missing the flicker of recognition on Geny's face when he mentioned the priest. He told them of Deke and what had happened when he'd returned to Blue Earth. By the time he'd finished, his throat was stiff and tight.

He glanced at Dean, swallowing against the tightness.

"I know this isn't a good way of living. Not for them, not for me." He looked at Valentina. "But I must find this thing – this demon. I have to."

She looked at Geny, one eyebrow raised slightly. Her husband met her eyes briefly and sighed.

"Then we will hunt together. Whenever it's possible. And if you need to hunt the demon, then you will bring the boys to us. So that they will be safe, and protected. Yes?"

John bit at the corner of his lip. "I thought Ben and Jan were safe," he said softly.

"They were not hunters." Valentina reached out and took his hand. "This life, it is not going to be easy. Not for you. Not for them. You must be vigilant, every moment, yes?" She turned to look at his son. "But no, you cannot take them into the danger with you. And you cannot protect them if you die."

He looked into her face – a strong face with high, wide Slavic cheekbones, smooth skin with a slightly olive undercast, large, intelligent, dark-grey eyes – then looked away.

"I don't want to responsible for anyone else's death," he said, turning back to look at her.

"No more than we do," she told him, with a hint of finality. "But this offer, we are making for ourselves, John. I could not sleep thinking of your children, either alone and unprotected, or with you, distracting you, endangering all of your lives."

Geny looked from his wife to John. "Hunting alone is a fool's idea, John. Look at what happened to us both today."

Valentina gave him a sharp look, and the corners of his mouth tucked in as he hid a wry smile. She would have the details out of him later.

John sighed. They were right. No matter which way he looked at it, he couldn't continue the way he was going now, not while the boys were so young. He needed help. And help was being offered. It would be churlish, but more importantly, it would be stupid not to take it.

He nodded slowly. "I'm glad we met."

Rough wind, that moanest loud

Grief too sad for song;

Wild wind, when sullen cloud

Knells all the night long;

Sad storm whose tears are vain,

Bare woods, whose branches strain,

Deep caves and dreary main,-

Wail, for the world's wrong!

~Percy Shelley