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~~~~~~~~~
The bar was dark and smelt of sour beer and eons of uncleaned kitchen grease. It was a relic of older times, a remnant of a forgotten past. Then again, the entire town was like that.
Sam Winchester sat across the rickety table watching his brother devour a truly mammoth cheeseburger. Furrowing his brow, he lent back and finally asked, "What the Hell are we doin' here, Dean?"
"Eatin'. Least ‘s what I'm doing." Dean eyed his brother's untouched plate with it's strange, too green ‘lettuce'. "Not sure about you. Well, I'm not sure what you're supposed to be doin' with that."
Sam frowned at his dinner salad, then at his brother. "Cas didn't give you any idea, any clue as to why he wants us here?"
"Nope. Notta," Dean answered around a mouthful of burger. "Just to meet him here."
"Great, now he's not only cryptic, but vague," Sam's voice dripped with annoyance.
Dean shook his head, he was never going to understand Sam's distrust of the angel- angels in general, sure, but Cas was different. If his baby brother could believe that his demon was so different, why was it so hard to think the same about Dean's angel.
Gesturing at the green mass on Sam's plate, "order somethin' else and let's get out of here."
Sam pushed his plate away, "I'm for just getting outta here."
Half an hour later, they were checked into Gilman House, more of a New England Band B than a proper motel, but according to the wide-eyed gas station attendant it was the only place to get a room for fifty miles.
As Dean flipped through the channels on the small television, Sam sprawled on the bed going through a copy of the Innsmouth Gazette he'd picked up downstairs.
Sam had long ago learnt the value of keeping up on local news, he figured it came with being a hunter. Hell, even if his brother wouldn't admit it, Sam knew Dean did the same when he went off solo, but Sam was here, so it fell to him.
A soft rustle came from the doorway, Sam's head snapped up and whirled toward the door.
Dean chuckled, offering a nonchalant, "hey Cas," to his angel.
"Dean. Sam." Castiel's fire blue eyes lingered intensely on the elder Winchester.
Shaking his head, Sam sighed- he wasn't sure how much longer he could take the UST between the angel and his brother. And he couldn't help but think that the whole world saving would go much smoother if they'd just get it on already. Breaking the tension Sam asked, "You got something for us, Cas?"
"Yes," Castiel snapped back to attention, his eyes turning to focus on the younger Winchester. "Someone in this town is trying to raise one of the Old Ones."
Dean clicked off the television, "Old Ones?"
"Powerful, grotesque beings from Before. The chaos of Lucifer would be pleasant by comparison."
"I'm guessing it's too much to hope that you could give us a who or a where," Dean said sarcastically.
Castiel ducked his head apologetically, "I'm afraid not. Concealment has always been a speciality of the Old Ones."
"If they're so good at hiding, how do you even know they're here?" Sam asked.
Castiel cocked his head and narrowed his piercing eyes, "beyond the reefs, where the pull of the depths is at it's peak lie the broken and mangled remains of one of Their original temples. It is the ideal location." The angel gestured to the open newspaper on Sam's bed, "And the disappearances fit the prophesied sacrifices. They are here," Castiel's steely voice assured.
"Okay, so they're here. What do we do when we find them?"
"When you locate where they have been performing the rituals, there will be an alter. Destroy the contents of that altar and we will do the rest."
"Just ‘destroy the contents,' nothin' special, no mumbo-jumbo. Just smash it, burn it, whatever," the scepticism in the elder Winchester's voice was palpable.
"Dean I understand your reluctance to believe, but these beings are primordial, therefore their tools are of the most basic materials."
Sam tilted his head in acknowledgement, "He has a point, Dean."
"Okay," Dean sighed, "guess we've got ourselves a hunt."
---
"Dude, this place just gets creepier and creepier," Dean whispered to his brother as he sat across from him at the library table.
Sam looked up from his computer, "At the risk of sounding like an idiot, why?"
The elder brother sat forward conspiratorially, "You mean a part from the fact that every fifty years or so half this town's population vanishes, that everything is either maintained, owned, or dedicated to the "Order of Dagon', that I don't recognize the script half these buildings are engraved with, or the complete lack of a single fast food joint?"
"And here I thought it was because Innsmouth's golden boy, Obed Marsh, seems to have been a high priest of sorts in some bastardize Polynesian religion. He was also the founder of your Esoteric Order of Dagon back in 1840."
Dean leant back in the uncomfortable wooden chair, "Looks like ol' Obed Marsh is where we should start."
The rest of their day was spent pouring over genealogy and property records for the township of Innsmouth, specifically those related to Obed Marsh.
When they finally got back to Gilman House, Dean threw himself onto the bed, grumbling, "Other than proving that everyone in this town is related to everyone else- and do I need to mention how many levels of creepy that is considering the abundance of frog-faces in those family photos- did we actually find anything useful?"
"Actually, we did. Seems along with founding the Order, he also purchased their meeting hall."
Dean sat up, intrigued, "We know where it was?"
"The property's changed hands from one civic leader to another for the last 160 years, but considering how little things seem to change around here, I'm willing to bet it's still being used for their rituals today."
"Sounds like we're taking a midnight tour."
---
The whole thing was rather anti-climactic. The meeting hall across from Paine Square was indeed the home of the Esoteric Order of Dagon. And as garish, out-dated cults were wont to do, they had no sense of stealth and even less concept of building security, which made the altar and it's destruction childishly simple.
As soon as the altar had been destroyed, Castiel appeared. "You must leave, quickly."
"I thought you said you could take care of them once the altar was destroyed," Dean barked.
"We can. But now that the Old Ones are no longer hidden, they will try to rise, it is not safe for you here."
"Cas?"
"You're part in this battle is over," Castiel's tone was forceful and fierce.
As Sam and Dean turned to leave, the elder grumbling about self-righteous, feathered bastards, Castiel called, "I will see you shortly."
With a placated smile Dean pulled Sam to the Impala and they headed out of town.
They crossed the county line just as a great rumble broke the night air. And had they dared to stop or even look behind them, they would have seen a hideous mass clambering towards the shoreline, a wake of death trailing behind it devouring all that was in it's path. They would have seen tentacles and sludge, putrification in animate form. ‘Primordial' Cas had said and it was; the primordial beginnings of evil, the basest elements of horror, the cold truth of nightmares.