Down the Rabbit Hole

The Price Part 1

They decided to get as far away from Chicago and Dick Roman before they opened up whatever was encased in stone, that Dick had dug up. A few days after the dropped Charlie off they found a abandoned house and set up there. Sam put the case on a table before opening up his laptop. Lacey looked around, taking the place in. It looked like someone had decided to build a house then stop just before finishing it and left it to rot. She gingerly grabbed a chair, dusting it off, before sitting down next to the table. Dean opened up the case and Sam lifted the slab out, unwrapping the cloth around it before laying it out on the table. Dean grabbed a tool box they had brought from the car and set it down on the table too.
"That's a lot of fuss over a caveman Lego." Dean observed.
"Yeah. Well, whatever Dick wants is bricked up inside that." Sam shrugged as Dean pulled a mallet out of the tool box. He put a pair of safety glasses on while Sam did the same. Dean raised an eyebrow at Lacey but she shook her head.
"I'm good."
"All right." As Dean took his first swing at the slab thunder began to rumble outside. As he took a second swing at it Lacey could see lightening spiking in the distance. Dean stopped and glanced out the window.
"That wasn't me." Lacey clarified.
"That sound like somebody saying, 'No, wait- stop.' To you?"
"Uh... yeah. Yeah." Sam said, sounding a little disconcerted.
"Yeah. Oh, well." Dean shrugged and swung the mallet down again and kept going until they could see a small stone tablet peeking out of the clay. Dean put down the mallet and picked the tablet, turning it over in his hands. The tablet is covered in weird squiggles and shapes. The three of them look at each other blankly.

When Lacey woke up the next morning she was freezing cold. The sleeping bag she was wrapped in barely made a difference with the cold, hard floor below her. Dean was in the process of getting up, which was what had woken her, the loss of that small amount of warmth. Shivering, she got to her feet and followed Dean over to where he and Sam were watching the news on Sam's laptop.
"Here with Dr Marlon Price of the U.S. Meteorological Survey at a press conference earlier today."
"Baffled? No, I'm not baffled. Frankly, I'm offended. This is not the way weather behaves." Dean wrapped his arm around her, trying to stop her from shivering.
"Power outages and related damages to electronic equipment have been reported from as far east as Cape Cod..." They were distracted from the news by one of the metal cups on the desk moving of it's own accord.
"Bobby?" Bobby that you?" Dean called out, but got no reply. Sam held up an EMF meter, the lights flashing away.
"Think so. But that whole adventure at Roman's seems to have drained his batteries."
"So, what? We start the storm heard around the world?" Sam nodded at the stone.
"When we broke this thing open last night, every maternity ward within a hundred mile rdius got slammed. Looks like any woman in the last month of her pregnancy went into labour." Lacey raised an eyebrow, looking unimpressed.
"Hmm. This one goes out to all the ladies. So, heavyweight signs, omens- what do we got?"
"I assume it's writing. But I've never seen anything like it, ever. And it doesn't match anything in any book or online."
"All right, so big daddy chomper lands here, he grabs himself some Dick..." Lacey snorted at his wording. "And then he starts secretly underwriting university departments, pouring money into digs, all for this. Why?"
"No clue. We do know that he will be tearing new ones until he gets it back, though. Look, we got to take a minute, hole up somewhere safe, find out what we've got."
"Rufus' cabin then?" Dean suggested.
"Yeah." Sam nodded in agreement.
"Yes, please! A real bed!" Lacey sighed.
"And this time, I'm doing the shopping." Dean told him defiantly. Sam shook his head at the two of them. His phone began to ring.
"It's Meg." He told them before picking up.
"What?" Sam paused a moment. "What? Cas is awake." That got their attention. Sam put the phone down and pressed the speaker phone button.
"When?" Dean asked.
"Last night about eight."
"And you waited till now to call us?" Dean growled.
"I've been busy with Cas. He's just a tad different than when he dozed off, 'kay?" Meg threw back.
"What do you mean different?"