41. West Nevada

There needs to be some variety in these cases. Too many hospital visits. Too many sick people. We were stuck in West Nevada, picking up the trail of the third horseman, a nasty son-of-a-bitch named Pestilence.

How we ended up on the horseman's trail was rather strange (but I'd been with the Winchesters for months now, so nothing should really sound that strange) and a bit gruesome at the same time. Before this road trip, we'd made a stop in Muncie, Indiana, at a rather nice four star motel. We found some strange happenings going on, from strange sightings to finding eyeball soup and a herd of people in a cool room. We got caught trying to free the people only to turn around and be escorted into—and I couldn't believe it myself at first, like with any new case—a conference room that held various gods ranging from many religions. It was just unfortunate luck on our part to have stumbled across the gods' conference.

The reason they'd gathered was simple: the apocalypse. To them, us finding the motel was a stroke of luck, because they were well aware of Sam and Dean and their importance to the whole apocalypse deal. We were held hostage, used as bargaining chips. Now, at this point, you'd think, well, why weren't you killed? You're not a vessel. You're not of any importance to them. Why would they want to keep you around? I, myself, thought that at one point in time too.

Let's just say an angel by the name of Gabriel saved my ass.

Actually, he saved all of our asses on more than one occasion in that place. Long story short, we couldn't escape so easily thanks to the goddess Kali; we had been bound to her thanks to a blood spell. None of us were happy about that. Gabriel tried to worm us out of that, which only resulted in tacking him on the spell as well.

The gods ended up finding out that Gabriel was an archangel (to this day, I still hadn't been given a lesson on what they exactly were), and Kali tried to stake him with an angel blade. Of course, he wasn't actually killed—the blade Kali had used was fake. In the end, Sam, Dean, and I reluctantly agreed to help the gods call Lucifer only under the condition that the hostages they had go free.

Lucifer ended up crashing the party, which was inevitable, looking back on it. And boy, did he look terrible. His vessel looked even worse the last time we had seen him, and that had been back in Missouri. He slaughtered most of the gods until Gabriel had stepped in when Lucifer had tried to kill Kali. At that point, Gabriel told the rest of us to get the hell out of the motel and run to safety and to take Kali with us.

We didn't know what happened to Gabriel until the next day. His way of telling us he was dead: at some point, he'd given Dean a Casa Erotica DVD, which was disturbing enough in itself. The fact that he starred in the film and used it to give us information made my skin crawl.

So, thanks to a dead archangel Gabriel, we learned that, in order to put Lucifer back in his cage, the four rings from the Four Horsemen were the keys to open the cage. Sounded pretty easy, right? We'd already gotten War and Famine. Two down, two to go.

That was how we ended up driving to yet another hospital, posing as CDC officials. We got in pretty easily once we arrived and got ahold of the nearest doctor we could who could catch us up on the illness break out. For all of our safety, we had to put on a surgical masks and be adorned with gloves.

"Check it out," Dean said. "I look like the king of pop."

I rolled my eyes while Sam let out a sigh.

Dean chuckled. "Too soon?"

"Too soon," I mumbled.

"Don't get me wrong," the doctor said, "I'm glad the CDC is here, but what we really need is vaccine." We stopped in the middle of a semi-packed waiting room.

"You got that right," Dean mumbled, looking around.

"Well, tell me, have you noticed anything unusual about the strain?" Sam asked. "Any signs of behavioral change, like aggression, maybe?"

"Excuse me?"

"Have the flu victims shown any signs of, uh, homicidal tendencies?" I asked firmly.

The doctor actually chuckled. "Uh...Symptomatically speaking, we're looking at a relatively mild case of swine flu here. Probably add up to a miserable week off of work, and that's about it."

"So nothing unusual," I deadpanned.

"Hmm. Day and a half ago, we didn't have a single case. Now we're looking at over seventy—the infectious equivalent of a briefcase bomb." Another masked doctor came by to hand over our doctor a clipboard with papers to skim through. "So, yeah, I might call that a little unusual."

"Day and a half?" I shifted my weight.

"That's the same time those statues started crying," Dean murmured.

"Yeah," Sam and I agreed.

"I'm sorry. What was that?" the doctor inquired.

"What was what?" I asked stupidly.

"Did he just say a bunch of statues started crying?"

"What?" I snorted a nervous laugh. "N-no, no. W-who would—"

"Who would say that, huh?" Dean caught on. "Crazy people."

"Exactly."

"Yeah, which we are not."

"No."

The doctor looked at the three of us strangely. "Just...Get us some vaccine." With wary brown eyes, the doctor left us. I rubbed my forehead. Close call.

After we finished up in in the hospital, we ditched the masks and the gloves, all filing into the Impala. We shed our outfits too. I yawned, realizing just how dark it really was out. I could easily take a nap if I really wanted to.

Meanwhile, the boys were trying to get a hold of Bobby.

"Let me guess," came Bobby's voice from the speaker on the phone, "another steamin'-hot pile of swine flu."

"Yep," Dean confirmed.

"Doesn't make any sense, Bobby," Sam added. "Pestilence touched down here. I'm sure of it."

"But why is he dealing them soft serve like swine flu when he's got the Croatoan virus up his sleeve? I-I-I don't get it."

"Doesn't matter what the sick son of a bitch is doing. What matters is this is the fourth town he's hit—that we know of—and we're still eating his dust. Did you get anything? We got even a snowball at probable next target?"

"No pattern we can see," I reported.

Bobby sighed. "Okay. Hold on." There was a momentary pause. "Well, as far as I can tell, he's still heading East. So...head East, I guess."

"East?" we all asked in unison.

"Bobby, we're in West Nevada," Dean explained. "East is practically all there is."

"Yeah, well, you better get to drivin'."

"Say...I've got an idea."

The voice didn't belong to any of us.

I screamed and almost did the stupid thing of tucking and rolling out of the Impala. The tires screamed as Dean swerved, slamming his foot on the brakes. I cried out as I saw the demon, Crowley, sitting next to me.

"Hello again, dearie. Still alive, are you?"

"What the—" I pressed myself against the locked Impala door as Sam swung behind him and tried to attack Crowley with a knife. I hissed as all he got was the Impala.

"Did you get him?" Dean growled.

"He's gone," I snapped. "Son of a bitch, Sam, give a girl warning next time! Or give me it next time, I had a better shot!"

I didn't realize my hand was gripping the door so tightly until I felt my pulse in it. Calm down, Dakota. He's not back in the car.

A loud rapping on Sam's door made us all jump.

"Fancy a fag and a chat?" came Crowley's voice. I cursed under my breath as he loomed near Sam's door. "You're upset. We should discuss it. Not here, but—"

We all scrambled out of the Impala, following the demon. Boy, was I steaming.

"You want to talk?" Sam thundered. "After what you did to us?"

"After what I did—what I did to you?!" Crowley looked pretty surprised by Sam's accusation. "I gave you the Colt!"

"Yeah, and you knew it wouldn't against the Devil!"

"I never!"

"You set us up," I let my voice be heard. "We lost people in that suicide run—good people!" I looked at Sam. "Hand me the knife, now."

"Who you take on the ride is your business!" Crowley snapped. "Look, everything is still the same. W-we're all still in this together."

"Sure we are." I watched as Sam failed yet again to stab Crowley.

"Call your dog off—please," came Crowley's annoyed tone just behind Sam. Sam looked about ready to, but Dean and I restrained him. My hand felt blindly for Sam's knife.

"Ah-ah, one's enough." Crowley eyed me.

"Don't think about it, Dak," Dean scolded me.

"But—"

"Give me one good reason," Dean demanded of Crowley.

"I can give you Pestilence."

"What do you know about Pestilence?"

"I know how to get him. That's got your interest, doesn't it?"

"Are you actually listening to this?" Sam cried to Dean.

"Sam—"

"No, no, I agree with him," I sided with my boyfriend. "Are you insane? He's a freaking demon! It's common sense that they're no good!"

"Shut up for a second, both of you!" Dean groaned.

"Shut up, all of you!" Crowley bellowed, exasperated. We all shut our mouths. "Look...I swear...I thought the Colt would work. It's an honest mistake." I scoffed at that. "It's all part of the learning process. But nothing's changed. I still want the Devil dead. Well...one thing's changed. Now the Devil knows that I want him dead. Which, by the way, makes me the most buggered son in all of creation."

"Holy crap," I said pointedly. "We don't care."

"They burnt down my house! They ate my tailor! Two months under a rock, like a bloody salamander! Every demon on Hell and Earth's got his eyes out for me! And yet...here I am...last place I should be—in the road, talking to Sam and Dean Winchester, and their little pet, under a friggin' spotlight!"

The spotlight closest to us exploded just with Crowley's finger gesturing to it. I cringed at the flying sparks. The smoke looked spooky in the night.

"So, come with me." My brows rose. A demon sounding halfway begging? "Please. Do you want the horseman rings or not?" We all looked at each other. "Yes, I know all about that. Shall we?"

I made an irritated noise through my teeth. There's no way in Hell. Even considering the idea of teaming up with a demon, let alone Crowley? There's just no way.

But apparently, after some silent arguing with looks alone, there was a way in Hell. 

*Yay, so, Crowley's  back! Fun, fun, fun, am I right? Perhaps one of my favorite episodes to place Kota in. You'll find out as the episode rolls onwards :)**