My Home Is Always With You {10}

Chapter 18: "Book of the Damned"

Liz is on her laptop in the library, when her phone rings and it's Castiel and she says, "Cass." Castiel says, "Can I just kill him now?" Liz says, "No, we need him alive. For now. Look, after he gives you your grace back, you can do whatever you want with him." Castiel says, "Well, I'd like to kill him slowly. Anything on the Mark of Cain?" Liz says, "No. I mean, I've dig through everything and anything, but... I don't know, Cass. Maybe I should give up and accept my fate." Castiel says, "No. There is an answer out there. We will find a cure for Dean. Just keep digging." Liz then sees Dean and Sam walk in and she says, "I'll talk to you later." Castiel says, "Okay." Liz hangs up and Dean says, "Who you talking to?" Liz lies, "Just Winter." Dean nods and says, "You know, she should come back here." Liz nods and says, "Yeah, I know. She's almost done with school." Dean softly smiles and says, "I'm proud of our girl." Liz softly smiles and says, "Me too. So, I've been checking through everything again, double-checking, and triple-checking, and..." Dean says, "The Mark is a curse." Liz says, "Yeah, tell me about it." Dean says, "No, Liz, it's a... it's an actual curse." Liz looks at Dean curiously and says, "What are you talking about?" Dean says, "Crowley told me. Or rather Rowena told him after she tried and failed to kill me." Liz widens her eyes and says, "What the hell happened?" Dean sits down and says, "The Mark protected me. So... then he came and told me what she said. The Mark is an actual curse. So, anyway, I'm sorry. I probably should've told you two that." Liz nods and Liz's phone rings and Dean grabs it, answers it, and says, "Singer Accounting? How may I help you?" Charlie says, "Dean." Dean says, "Charlie? What's going on? Where are you?" Charlie says, "Uh, uh, I'm exhausted and- and I'm bleeding. And I'm in a phone booth. A phone booth. I didn't know these things existed outside of "Bill and Ted's--" Dean places the phone on the speaker and he says, "Okay, hey, hey. Take a deep breath, kiddo. Uh, the three of us are sitting here. Tell us what happened. Why are you bleeding?" Charlie says, "I, uh-- I got shot. Did you know dental floss works great on stiches? I only passed out twice, and I'm pretty sure my wound is now minty fresh." Sam says, "Charlie, you probably need to go to a hospital." Charlie says, "No, no, I-I'm fine. I just got to get someplace safe. These guys are still after me." Liz says, "What guys? Who?" Charlie says, "Some southern-fried D-bags. They've been after me since I-I dug up 'The Book of the Damned.'" Liz says, "You found it? Where?" Charlie says, "After some near misses and some broken-into museums, I found historical documents that led to a monastery in Spain. It burned down years ago, left for dead, but, uh, I had this hunch about it. Turned out I was right." Dean says, "Okay, Charlie, what does it say about the Mark?" Charlie says, "I have no fracking idea. The language it's written in, I've never seen anything like it. I, uh-- I found some research notes in the monastery crypt, though, by the friar that buried it. "The Book of the Damned" is a spell book for creating or undoing any kind of damnation there is. We translate this thing, I think we can get the Mark of Cain off you, Dean." Dean says, "Charlie, you're a genius." Charlie chuckles and says, "A genius fugitive. I-- these dudes following me, they are well-trained. One of them keeps talking about his family." Sam says, "Family? Did you get a name?" Charlie says, "No clue. I-I-I spotted a tattoo on one of them. Might be a family crest. It seemed occultly. Soon as the book was out of the ground, they were all over me. I, uh... I don't know how much more running I got left in me. T-they're tracking the book somehow." Sam says, "All right, then we need to get you off the grid, Charlie. Where are you right now?" Charlie says, "Uh, just south of Des Moines." Liz says, "Uh, okay, you know what? My dad has whole bunch of cabins scattered all around, places for hunters to crash. There's some gear and lore books, stuff to keep you busy till we get there." Charlie says, "Okay, bring snacks. And every Men of Letters decoder ring there is. This book is old and scary, and I've never seen anything like it." After they hang up with Charlie, Liz and Sam are packing some Men of Letters files and Dean walks over to them and he says, "Hey, check it out. I found this in the storage room." Liz and Sam look at a warded box in Dean's hands and Dean continues to say, "It's lead-lined and warded. If those guys are tracking this book, pretty sure this bad boy will take it off the radar. You guys ready?" Later, they're on the road and Dean jamming out to the music on the radio and Liz chuckles and Dean says, "What?" Liz says, "Nothing." Liz turns off the radio and she continues to say, "Nothing. I just haven't seen you like this in a while, that's all." Dean says, "It's a good song." Liz says, "Yeah, it's a good song." Dean says, "Look, babe, it's has been one crap sandwich after another for the past few weeks, okay? You heard Charlie. We got a shot at fixing this thing, so if that don't put gas in your gas in your tank, well..." Liz says, "If by "Shot," you mean a spell in a book that we can't read that's currently being tracked--" Dean cuts Liz off and says, "We're due for a win, okay? Overdue. I'll tell you another thing, if this actually does work, we're gonna take some time off." Sam says, "What, like a vacation?" Dean says, "Mm-hmm. And I'm not talking just like a weekend in Vegas or sitting in some crap motel watching pay-per-porn. No, I'm talking about a beach. Drinking cervezas, go for a swim. When was the last time either one of us was on a beach?" Sam says, "Never." Dean says, "Never. Sand between our toes, guys. Sand between our toes." Dean turns the radio back on and continues to jam. Later, they arrive at the cabin where Charlie is, and they walk in and Liz softly says, "Hey." Charlie hugs Liz and she says, "Were you followed?" Liz says, "No, no." Liz then heals Charlie and Charlie sighs in relief and says, "Thanks, Liz." Liz nods and says, "No problem." Charlie hugs the boys and Dean says, "Where's the book?" Charlie says, "Okay, here's what I've learned so far. About 700 years ago, a nun locked herself away after having "Visions of Darkness." After a few decades squirrelled away by herself, she emerged with this. Each page is made out of slices of her own skin written in her blood." The three of them make a disgusted face and Liz grabs the book and goes through it while Charlie continues to say, "I told you, it's eekish. According to the notes I found, it's been owned and used by cults, covens, and the Vatican had it for a while. There's a spell inside that thing for everything. Talking some black mass, dark magic, end-of-times nastiness." Liz notices Dean in a trans-like state while looking at the book and she says, "Dean? Dean!" Dean looks up and says, "What?" Dean closes the book and says, "I don't think it's a good idea that I touch this." Dean hands it to Charlie and Dean says, "I'll go get the rest of our crap." Dean walks out the door and Charlie looks between Liz and Sam, and she says, "What the hell was that?" Liz softly says, "He's not getting better. He's trying to cover, but... we need to find that cure, fast." A few moments later, Liz is on a chair looking through the book of damned, while Sam and Dean are going through the Men of Letters boxes they brought. Charlie says, "Okay, I got a pretty good look at his tattoo. It's something like this." Charlie hands Dean the drawling of the symbol from the family that was following her. Dean says, "The douche clan. Got it. Well, this is everything Men of Letters has on occult families, so there should be something in here." Charlie looks at Liz and says, "Liz, got anything?" Liz says, "Maybe. Uh, yeah, it's all in an obscure Sumerian dialect. Actually, found a rough match for it in this book." Charlie says, "Great." Liz says, "I thought so, too. But I've been translating, but none of the translated words make any sense. It's all just gibberish. I mean, maybe it's in a different dialect?" Charlie says, "No, no, no. I-I think... I think this in code." Liz says, "An entire book of unreadable text that's also in code. Great." Dean looks over at the girls and he says, "And you call yourselves nerds. Come on. You got this." Charlie says, "He's right. Let's get our Alan Turing on, decrypt this bitch." Liz sees Dean staring at the book and she says, "You know what, Charlie? Why, uh... uh, why don't we stick with my notes for a little bit? This book is literally making my eyes hurt." Liz puts the book into the warded box. A few moments later, Charlie's on the couch and she says, "Okay, even the Bletchley circle couldn't crack this thing. I've tried every cryptographic algorithm there this. Goose egg." Dean says, "Well, maybe that's not such a bad thing. Those people following you... All kinds of wrong. Talking multi-generational, centuries-old wrong. The Styne Family. Men of Letters' files have them dated back to the early 1800s. They used spells to create disease, to destabilize markets. Hell, they even helped the Nazis before they came into power, and they profited from all of it." Liz joins Charlie on the couch and Charlie says, "So, they're like the supernatural Du ponts?" Dean says, "Basically. All the spells they used came from a book of "Unspeakable evil," which they lost nearly 100 years ago." Sam says, "Okay, so they're bad. So what? We faced worse." Dean says, "Sam, read the file. The way the book works is when you use it, there is a negative reaction. I'm talking biblical negative. Dark magic always comes with a price. We know that. We've been down that road before." Liz says, "Well, let's at least translate it, see what it says." Dean says, "You guys don't understand. The book's been calling out to me. Ever since I laid eyes on it, okay? Calling out to the Mark. I can hear it like it's alive. It wants me to use it, but not for good. Look, I wanted it to be the answer, too, okay? I really did. But we have got to get rid of that. Burn it, bury it, I don't give a damn. We'll just have to find another way to fix the Mark." Liz scoffs and says, "Like what?" Dean says, "I don't know." Charlie says, "So, you're giving up?" Dean says, "No, I'm not giving up. Charlie, I don't have a death wish. Okay, even if I did, I can't die, not with this thing on my arm. What I can do is I can fight it as long as I can until..." Liz stands up and says, "Until what? Tell me. Until what, Dean? Until Sam and Henry watch you become a demon again? Until then? I can't do that. I won't do that." Dean nods and says, "Well, then you'll just have to lock me up. Bind me to the bunker." Charlie also stands up and says, "That doesn't solve anything." Liz says, "Look, just let us translate the book, okay? If there's a cure, we'll do it and deal with the consequences later. We can't lose you." Dean nods and says, "This is my cross to bear. Mine. And that book is not the answer. Now, we got destroy it before it falls into the wrong hands, and that includes me. I'm gonna go for a drive. Uh, Charlie, we forgot to pick up your snacks." Sam says, "Dean, look--" Dean cuts Sam off and says, "We'll figure out another way. And, guys, I'll get my vacation. But not today. Not like this." Dean walks out the door. Charlie looks at Liz and says, "Liz. Maybe he's right." Liz says, "No. No, there's a way to fix it. There has to be." Later, Dean walks into the room and Charlie says, "What's going on?" Dean says, "The Stynes, they found me. Those douches are all jacked up, too." Sam says, "What are you talking about?" Dean says, "I emptied a full clip into one of them before the son of a bitch went down." Liz sees Dean holding holy oil and she says, "Dean, what are you doing with the holy oil?" Dean says, "There is a cure for the Mark in the book. But it comes at a price. We got to destroy it." Dean grabs the warded box with the book in it and Liz says, "Are you sure about this?" Dean says, "It's calling to me, Liz, okay? I can hear it. It's calling to the Mark. It wants me to take the book and run away with it." They hear a car pull up and Dean looks at Liz and says, "Burn it, now." Dean, Charlie, and Sam head to the door to fight and Dean watches Liz hesitate, and he says, "Liz, burn it now." Then three people crash into the room and tackle the three of them. Liz then swaps out the book of the damned with a different book and she burns it with her powers and a man looks at her and says, "You silly girl. My family will never stop looking for that book." As Dean shoots the man, nothing happens, the man grabs Liz by the neck and Liz takes his heart out of his chest and the man falls down to the ground. Later, Liz is in the bunker with Castiel, and he tells her what happened with Metatron, and he says, "I was foolish, selfish. Should've just killed him. Who knows what he'll do with that tablet?" Liz says, "You know what, Cass? You got your grace back. You're back. You did the right thing." Castiel says, "You did the right thing. That book needed to be destroyed. We will find another way, Liz." Then the door opens, and Charlie walks in with bags and says, "We're back, bitches." Charlie walks down the stairs with Sam, and she looks at Castiel and she says, "Whoa. Is that who I think it is?" Liz smiles and says, "Charlie, Cass. Cass, Charlie." Charlie hugs Castiel and she continues to say, "I thought you'd be shorter." Sam says, "Liz, help me get these to the kitchen." Liz nods and helps with the bags. Liz and Sam walk into the kitchen. A few moments later, Liz and Sam walk back into the war room and hear Dean say, "So you're back? 100%? How did that happen?" Castiel looks towards Liz and then comes up with a lie and says, "Um, it was Hannah. She managed to get the location of the remainder of my grace out of Metatron." Dean says, "Awesome." Dean then looks at Liz and Sam and he continues to say, "I told you we were due for a win. Good to have you back, pal." Then everyone's in the kitchen drinking beer and eating pizza and all Liz can think about is that Dean will be furious once he finds out that she didn't burn the book. Later, after everyone goes to bed, Liz goes to meet up with someone who can actually read the book and she says, "I don't trust you. But I need help. And this is right in your wheelhouse." Liz opens the warded box, and she continues to say, "I need the Mark of Cain off of my boyfriend. And something tells me... you can crack this book and find that cure. The only question is... will you help me?" Rowena smiles and says, "Shall we discuss terms?"