The Code

Chapter 7

Lebanon, Kansas, Present Day

"Damn it, Mom, answer!" Dean muttered after calling Mary's cell for the fifth time in a row. In the past twenty-four hours since he'd received her voice mail, he'd sent dozens of texts and emails, and had probably called her phone a hundred times. He poked his finger at the "end call" icon so hard he was lucky he didn't crack the glass.

There were times when he actually missed landlines that he could slam down into the receiver to vent his frustrations. Instead he shoved over a chair, which went skidding across the tile floor.

The fact that Sam didn't make a sarcastic comment about abusing the furniture showed just how serious a situation it really was. Between the bug in the bunker, Eileen's assertion that the Brits were after her, and now the panicky message, things did not look good. His brow furrowed, he sat in a nearby chair with his elbows resting on his knees. He looked down at the floor as he spoke. "What are we going to do?" he asked.

Dean knew his little brother was depending on him to have a brilliant idea. He went over to the speakers he had hooked up to Sam's iPod and turned on some insipid indie pop crap. He couldn't stand it, but knowing that Ketch and the Brits would have to listen to it made it oh-so worth it. He turned the volume up as far as it would go, then motioned for Sam to follow him out of the room.

"We can't afford to wait on this anymore. Not now. We already lost her once, we're not losing her again."

Staring at the floor, Sam waited for Dean to continue.

"After we got you away from those bastards back when all of this first started, you told me the one thing that Lady Pain-in-the-Ass kept saying to you was that American hunters were disorganized, and just went in guns blazing without a plan, right?"

"Yeah," Sam mumbled. He didn't seem like himself, but Dean didn't have time to wonder what was up with him.

"So we're going to organize. We're going to get every hunter we've ever worked with, or heard of, and we're going to get them all together - fast." He grinned. "And then we're still going to go in, guns blazing, and show them how it's done."

* * *

Kendricks Academy, 1990

Mick stared at the man Arthur Ketch had just introduced him to, his face contorted between scowling and crying. "What the fuck are you on about?" he asked, his voice shaking.

Peter smiled kindly at him. "Sit down, Michael. You've had a hard night."

Mick's head whipped around to face Arthur. "How does he know about Tori? Did you stop here to talk to him, instead of coming directly to me?" His hands balled into fists, and he tensed to take a swing.

Peter put a hand out to stop him. It was gentle, but a firm indication that he wasn't about to permit violence. "Arthur didn't tell me anything that I didn't already know, Michael. Just sit down, please?"

It wasn't so much that Mick sat down, but that his legs simply gave out underneath him, and he fell into the waiting chair. "What's going on here?" he asked feebly. He felt as if his entire life force had drained from his body.

Peter sat down in the chair opposite him; Arthur stood off to the side, watching.

"My father's name was Edward Durbin II. He was part of the American branch of the Men of Letters, until he was sent overseas as part of a small delegation in 1939 to assist the British branch during World War II. The rest left and went back to America after the war, but my father had met my mother by that time, and she wanted to stay in Britain. So when I turned eleven, I was sent to Kendricks as befits a legacy."