The Miracle Within

Part 2

It took the four less than two hours to get the city and, once reached their destination, they decided to split up. They would have covered more ground more quickly that way and, besides, it would have been more credible for FBI agents to investigate in pairs and not in a small group. Since Jack still wanted to learn as much as possible about hunting and to improve his "fake police" act, they agreed that that the nephilim had better stick with one of the Winchesters. While Castiel already had some solid hunting knowledge and had even managed a few cases on his own, he hardly had the amount of experience that the two brothers had and he still had to learn a few things about human interactions, despite all the years he had spent on Earth. They would have caught less attention if each celestial being had been paired up with one of the hunters.

Surprisingly enough, Jack was the one to make the choice for everyone. While, on one side, he would have rather go with Sam because he and the younger Winchester got along much better than he and the elder did, that wasn't the main reason behind his choice. He could tell that Dean felt much better now that Castiel was back, but he also understood that the men still had some unsolved issues, and not just because the angel had more or less implied it during their talk. There was a lingering, weird tension between them, despite the friendly way in which they acted around each other, and it was so evident that anyone who knew the two a little bit would have spotted it. So, in the boy's mind, they would have probably benefited from some alone time .

Sam of course instantly agreed with the nephilim's proposal. He had been aware of the many things unsaid and lingering in the air since the trip back to the Bunker and he honestly couldn't wait for his brother to figure them out. An edgy Dean was never good news and so the sooner the other hunter would have dealt with whatever was still bothering him, the better would have been for everyone.

On his part, the older Winchester, while reluctant, didn't really oppose the idea, mostly because he couldn't come up with a good objection that wouldn't have made him sound like an asshole or like he was avoiding Castiel on purpose. He had no choice but accepting to be paired up with the angel, since the latter, as expected, offered no resistance to the idea either. On the contrary, the older hunter had the feeling that Castiel had been hoping for such a result and the fact made him slightly uneasy, as irrational as it might sound.

After another brief discussion, they agreed that, while Sam and Jack would have checked on the latest crime scene, Dean and Castiel would have gone and talked to the local police and to the coroner, making sure to have a look at the corpses. If that case had something to do with the supernatural, either the bodies of the victims or the places where they had been killed would have brought something unusual to their attention.

Unfortunately, things didn't turn out to be as easy as Dean had hoped. The corpses didn't reveal anything too out of the norm, unless one counted the replaced organs, which were different for every time. Once it was the liver, another the heart, then the pancreas, the intestines and so on. In one case, it was the brain, which showed that whoever had committed the murders had to have a certain knowledge and experience when it came to human bodies and anatomy. That fact was also testified by the fact that the parts had been removed with a certain precision, even if it was also clear that it couldn't be the work of a surgeon. For the rest, though, the autoptic reports didn't offer much intel. There was no sign that the organs had been eaten and, besides, for all they knew there was no creature that ate all the body parts separately . It could have still been the work of some very human psycho, so not exactly their field.

After far too long talks with the sheriff and his agents and some researching through the case files, Dean texted Sam what they had found, or rather what theyhadn't , and the four opted to go and check all the other crime scenes, looking for any possible connection among the deaths or anything out of the norm.