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ratherastory) wrote2010-07-09 12:23 am
ratherastory) wrote2010-07-09 12:23 am
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Nihil Inherit, Chapter 3: The Skeleton at the Feast
Chapter 2
Master Post
Chapter 3: The Skeleton At The Feast
*
“You are sure you want to do this?”
“Yes.”
He's never been more certain of anything in his life.
“You know what is likely to happen.”
“Just... just do it.”
*
Things go by in a blur. Night blends into day, day into night. Exit light, enter night, he thinks, tries to swim to the surface of his thoughts. He's lying on something soft and dry. He opens his eyes, blink against the sickly light coming in from a window, dust motes dancing before his eyes. Dean is slumped, half-sitting, on a bed across from where he's lying, head lolling to the side, obviously asleep, his Glock cradled in his lap. Motel room, Sam decides, the same one as before. The bed springs creak as he sits up gingerly and tries to take stock. He's stiff, aching all over, but none of it seems life-threatening or even so bad as to be more than a minor inconvenience. Even his head doesn't hurt anymore, which is such a relief he almost bursts into tears. Almost.
Dean starts awake, grip tightening automatically on his gun, then relaxes as he catches sight of Sam sitting up. “You back with me?”
Sam scrubs at his eyes with his fingers, ridding himself of the remnants of sleep. “Yeah, I think so. How long was I out?”
“Two days, give or take. More give than take ―I had to drag your sorry, heavy, rain-soaked ass all the way back here and then put up with your stupid snoring when you finally decided to sleep instead of be unconscious.”
“I didn't mean to worry you.”
“Yeah, well, don't do it again, bitch.”
Sam looks around. “Where are Bobby and Ellen?”
Dean shakes his head. “No idea. They poofed, right around the same time as that guy did. If I ever find either one of them again, I'm getting them both a goddamned cell phone. I've been trying Bobby at home, but there's no answer.”
Which means Dean has been all alone and probably scared out of his mind the whole time. Sam swallows his guilt. “Let me buy you breakfast? Then we can drive back, see if he's there.”
“Next time. We'll eat here, and now that we have a goddamned minute to ourselves, you're going to explain what the hell is going on. Then maybe I'll consider letting you travel, coma-boy.”
“Okay,” Sam nods tiredly. He owes Dean that much, at the very least. “I'll try. I don't know if I can, though.”
“Whatever.” Dean shoves the Glock back in the holster hanging over the back of a chair. “I'm getting us breakfast. Then you talk.” He pulls open the door, then pauses to look over his shoulder. “And take your damned meds, Sam. Don't make me remind you every single damned time.”
Sam does as he's told, swallows his pills dry, and stays very quiet until Dean is gone. There are smears of dried blood on his face from where his nose bled last night ―no, two nights ago, he corrects himself― and he squeezes his eyes shut when he catches sight of them in the bathroom mirror, lingering around his mouth and on his chin. He's never had to see himself like this before. Is this the sight that made Dean unable to look at him in the eyes for over a year? He can't tell. It looks vile, unnatural, but this time the blood is his own, at least. He swallows a sudden rush of saliva in his mouth, determined not to vomit ―he's done enough of that in the past few days.
He eases himself into a shower for the first time since he woke up, carefully scrubs away every trace of dirt that still clings to him, scraping the remnants from under his fingernails. Washes his face three times, just in case, and takes his time shaving, partly because his hands are still shaking, and partly because he's just not sure if he can take the sight of more blood right now. That's what his life has been like, for as long as he can remember now, filled with blood, from beginning to end. Blood and fire.
By the time he's done he's tired again, and with a resigned sigh and a roll of his eyes for no one's benefit but his own he sits back down on his bed, leans back and closes his eyes. There's nowhere to go for now, no one to save (not yet), nothing to do, and even though he's tired of being tired, apparently there's nothing he can do about it. He hears the sound of Dean's key scraping in the lock what feels like a couple of seconds later, and sits up again in time to see his brother trying to balance a bunch of styrofoam containers in one hand while negotiating the door with the other. He shoves himself reluctantly to his feet, liberates the containers so Dean can close the door.
“I got you a breakfast sandwich,” Dean says, not quite meeting his gaze (and doesn't that feel familiar?). “And don't give me any of that I'm-not-hungry crap. I don't care if you have to choke it down, you're eating. You haven't had anything but water and a protein drink in three days.”
“Right,” Sam agrees readily. He's not hungry, but he's even less anxious to argue about something that trivial when he pretty much knows there's going to be bigger things to argue about in a moment. He pulls two chairs up to the cheap motel table, sits in one, and starts emptying the containers.
“How you feeling, anyway?” Dean hasn't made a move toward his own food.
“Better than you look. Did you get any sleep at all?”
“Some. And don't change the subject.”
“I'm not. You look like hell.” Sam frowns at his brother, who's now sporting two extra days' worth of beard growth and has circles under his eyes so dark it looks like he's been punched. “How's your head, anyway? You cracked it pretty solidly last night. Or two nights ago, or whenever.”
Dean shrugs, automatically brings up a hand to brush his fingers lightly against the gash near his hairline. “I guess it's okay. Still hurts, but it didn't need stitches and since I didn't lapse into a coma I guess I wasn't badly concussed.”
Sam flinches, guilty in spite of the knowledge that it's not exactly his fault he was unconscious and unable to take care of his brother. Dean glances at him, and reads his mind in that creepy way he has.
“Not your fault, Sam.”
“I know that.”
“Then quit pulling that bitch face.”
“I'm not!”
“Uh-huh.” Dean pointedly takes a bite of his breakfast sandwich, though he looks as though he's enjoying it about as much as a mouthful of sawdust. “So. Now's as good a time as any for you to tell me just what the hell is going on.”
“I don't know what to tell you,” Sam feels the same helpless frustration well up that's been plaguing him for the past two days. Four days. Whatever, he's lost track. “I don't even know where to start.”
“How about you start with the guy doing a bad impression of Columbo? He said he raised you. That true?”
Sam raises both hands in a gesture of surrender. “Start with the easy stuff, why don't you? I think I know him, but I don't know how or where I know him from. He's been popping in and out. I don't know how he does it.”
“Demon?”
“I don't think so. I suppose I ought to have tested him.”
“You think?”
“I didn't think of it, all right?” Sam snaps, half-ashamed and half-angry that he forgot the most basic rule of their lives now. “In case you didn't notice, things have been a little complicated lately.”
“He comes back, we'll test,” Dean says simply. “Eat your damned food, Sam.”
He picks at the breakfast sandwich listlessly. “Right.”
“So what the hell was he talking about back at the cemetery? Seals?”
Sam brings a hand up to his mouth as his stomach performs a flip-flop. “I'm not sure,” he manages, but Dean is leaning forward, his expression worried again.
“You gonna hurl or something? Just give a guy some warning, here.”
He shakes his head. “I'm okay. I... it's weird. It's like there's this other set of thoughts, or memories, or something... I can't tell. They keep filtering through, and every time it's like, I dunno, they clash with what I already know, and it ―well, it does this.”
“Okay, 'cause that's normal.”
“Not helping, Dean.”
“Sam, you basically just told me you have an alternate personality with different memories. How is this supposed to reassure me?”
“I'm sorry, I didn't realize that when you said 'tell me what you know,' you really mean, 'Sam I want you to tell me something that'll make me feel better,'” he snaps, feeling his temper fraying at the edges.
In a flash, Dean is out of his chair and pacing, running a hand through his hair. “That's not what I said!”
“Sure sounded like it to me.”
“Dammit, Sam, how about cutting me some slack, here?”
Sam doesn't answer, just purses his lips and stares at the table.
“Sam, come on. Just tell me what you remember.”
“I told you already. I was in Cold Oak, with Jake. I turned my back for a minute, and the next thing I know I'm waking up in a pine box. I dug my way out, and I found the nearest road, and I just walked. I was trying to find you. Mostly, I was confused, and everything hurt, and the only thing I could remember was that you had been there, like, a minute before, and I couldn't figure out why you weren't anymore.” Sam shrugs. “Like I said, I was pretty confused.”
“And you don't remember anything else?” Dean leans over the table when he hesitates. “Sam, talk to me.”
“I don't―” thoughts collide in his head, and Sam has to fight them down again before the few bites of breakfast he's managed make an unwelcome reappearance. “It's like... déjà vu is the closest I can come to describing it. I kind of... know how things are supposed to happen. Or how they might have happened.”
“Like a premonition?”
He shakes his head, tastes bile on his tongue. “No. Like I've lived through it before. Or some version of it.”
*
“Bobby? Thank God.” Dean's got one hand on the steering wheel, the other holding his cell phone to his ear, elbow resting on the car door. He's still not letting Sam near the wheel of the car, despite looking as though he's gone a few rounds with a cement block and lost. “I've been trying to reach you for two days. What the hell happened to you?”
Sam slumps in the passenger seat, leaning his head against the car door, staring at the sign posts whizzing by along the side of the road. The tightness in his chest eases when Dean glances over and nods at him, reassuring him wordlessly that Bobby and Ellen are both fine. There's a brief, terse conversation, and Dean nods again, this time to himself.
“Got it. We'll head over, see what's what. You going to join us? Right, okay. Got it. We'll keep you posted, and you do the same, okay?” He flips the phone closed, drops it back in his coat pocket.
“What's up? They okay?”
“Yeah. Apparently they both ended up back at Bobby's, no explanation, no nothing. Except now Bobby's been calling around, trying to see if he can track down any leads on what went down, and... well, we have a problem.”
Sam sits up. “You mean apart from the fact that we just unleashed maybe two hundred or so extra demons into the world?”
Dean grimaces, and his fingers tighten around the steering wheel. “You know, I actually managed to forget about that for a few seconds. Thanks a lot.”
“Any time. So what's the new problem? We can work on our multitasking skills.”
“Bobby's been calling some of his contacts, other hunters, trying to get a feel for the way the wind's blowing. There've been demon omens sighted all over the place, and to hear it, everyone's battening down the hatches.”
Sam feels a chill run down his spine. “How many do you think there are?”
Dean shrugs. “Enough that Bobby thinks it means we definitely have trouble. It's not just Wyoming, which is the problem. It started there, but it's spreading fast.”
“How fast?”
“Last Bobby heard, there were sightings all the way to Ohio. No telling how far west they go yet.”
“Fuck.”
“My sentiments precisely.”
“So where are we heading?”
“Illinois.”
“What's in Illinois?”
“Bunch of things. One, the last hunter Bobby got in touch with. Two, rumours of a giant black cloud descending over cities all over the place, including Peoria. Three, there's a psychic there that Bobby thinks might be able to help us out. I'm just hoping one and two don't get us killed in the process, so I figure we'll go to the psychic first. At least that way, if we kick the bucket, we'll go out informed,” Dean says, his voice heavy with irony.
“Illinois' a busy place.”
“You're telling me.”
“A psychic, huh?”
“Pamela Barnes.” Sam rubs at one of his temples with his thumb, his head throbbing with renewed energy, and Dean throws him a worried look. “You okay, Sammy?”
“Yeah.”
“You sure? Your head hurt or anything?”
“No, it's okay. I'm just getting that weird feeling again.”
“The déjà vu that's not déjà vu?”
“We need a better name for it, but yeah.”
“You're not gonna toss your cookies all over the upholstery, are you?”
“No!” Sam squawks, throwing up his hands. “God.”
“Okay, good. 'Cause if you do, you're cleaning it up.”
“Your compassion knows no bounds. Can we please talk about the psychic woman, maybe? Or the case? Please?”
“Fine, jeez, touchy.” Dean rolls his eyes, and Sam has to swallow a groan of frustration. Instead he squeezes his eyes shut, pinches the bridge of his nose and waits for Dean to elaborate. “Anyway, this Pamela chick is really good. At least, Bobby says she is, and if Bobby says it, you know that's pretty much like the Grade-A stamp of approval. Bobby already gave her a call, and she's going to start looking into our mystery trench coat guy, and try to figure out what the hell he was going on about back there.”
“You mean the Seals?”
“That's exactly what I mean.”
Sam shifts uncomfortably in his seat as an image of a black-haired woman flits across his mind's eye: she's screaming, writhing on the floor, light pouring from her eyes and mouth.
“I don't know if it's a good idea to push this.”
“What? Why?”
Sam shrugs. “I think we should maybe stick to tracking down the demons that got loose. At least for now.”
“Sam, you heard the same thing I did, and let me tell you, you were talking some pretty crazy shit yourself. You knew exactly what he was talking about.”
Sam looks up sharply. “What?”
“You heard me. You started babbling something about Dad breaking or something and that it was supposed to change things and God only knows what else. It was ten kinds of crazy, but you knew, Sam. You knew what he was talking about.”
He shakes his head slowly. “No. No no no. I can't. I couldn't. How could I? I don't know now. How could I know then? No. It's not possible.”
“Then what the hell? I'd really like you to explain it to me.”
“I can't. I don't understand it myself.”
“So, then, all the better to go see this Pamela chick and see if she can shed light on the matter.”
“We should stick to the other cases first. Maybe stop by Bobby's first, since it's on the way, make sure we know what we're getting into.” The scene is still seared into his retinas, looping over and over like an animated image on his laptop. Sam clenches both his hands, presses his fists against his thighs, feeling as though he might fall to pieces and just float away if this keeps up.
“Look, normally I'd be with you on this, but I think it's pretty safe to say this is all connected, and we don't have time to stop by Bobby's, much as I want to. We're going to see Pamela first, and that's not negotiable.”
“Dean...”
“No, Sam. I'm not discussing this.”
Sam swallows a mouthful of bile. “Stop the car.”
“Come on, Sam. Don't make an issue of this now.”
“I said, stop the car.”
“What? You're going to pitch a hissy fit and walk to Bobby's? Remember how well it worked out last time? Outside of Burkittsville? Or do you need another chance encounter with a demon to remind you?”
Sam shakes his head, forces himself to take a deep breath. “Pull over. Please.”
“Sam...” Dean snaps, then turns to take a good look at him. “Oh. Oh, I didn't... okay. You got it.”
A moment later Sam is bent double, leaning heavily on the open door of the Impala, retching miserably onto the side of the road. He hears the driver's side door open and close again, the scuffing of boots against gravel, and Dean squats on his heels beside him, hands him a bottle of water when he's caught his breath.
“Better?”
He nods. “Yeah. Sorry.”
“Uh-huh. Hey, I appreciate your sparing the upholstery,” Dean offers him a half-hearted grin, and he smiles in spite of himself. “You ready to get going again?”
“Still going to Pamela's?”
“Yep.”
Sam sighs, swallows a mouthful of tepid water, and waits for his stomach to settle. “I'm gonna need a minute.”
*
They don't reach the home of Pamela Barnes. The roads are all but impassable and they end up in Peoria, staring up at a cloud of hundreds of thousands of cicadas. The insects swarm everywhere, clinging to trees and houses and fences, their carapaces shining bright and metallic in the spring sun. It's far too early in the year for cicadas.
The town is filled with the sound of their humming, and Sam wishes with every fibre of his being that Bobby was with them instead of hundreds of miles away in South Dakota. He can't shake the feeling that everything's wrong, now, that so many things have been subtly altered. It makes him dizzy and nauseous, and Dean's constant hovering isn't making things any easier. Then again, Sam can barely stand to be more than a few feet away from his brother, keeps reaching out to touch him ―to reassure himself that he's real― before catching himself and pulling his hand back before Dean realizes what he's doing. He thinks Dean might know anyway and is just letting him get away with it, which is at once humiliating and deeply comforting.
“At least it's not frogs, right?” Dean slams the car door shut. They're parked outside a white clapboard house, where flower-printed sheets flap lazily on a laundry line attached to one side of the house and leading to a wooden post a dozen yards away. “Frogs are creepy.”
“Because millions of insects aren't?” Sam tries not to lean too heavily on the car door.
“Point. You feeling okay?”
He makes a so-so motion with his free hand. “Mostly. Haven't felt completely right since...” he shrugs, doesn't bother finishing his sentence.
“Yeah. Soon as we finish up with this, we're going to go back to figuring out how to fix that.”
Sam snorts. “Sure.”
Dean just turns his back, trots up the stairs to the front porch, and his shoulders are set in that we-aren't-talking-about-this-now way that Sam has become accustomed to over the years. He follows up the stairs as Dean knocks on the front door, tries the bell a few times, and when that and shouting get him nowhere, steps aside and motions to Sam to do his thing. Dean can pick a lock, the same way their Dad could, but Sam's always been the one to whom that sort of thing comes naturally. Something to do with hand-eye coordination, he supposes, and there's not a single part of him that doesn't appreciate the irony that he wanted to become a lawyer. He pulls out his lock picks, makes short work of the standard mechanism, feeling the tumblers slide apart easily, pushes the door open.
“You're an artist, Sammy. Always said it.”
“Those locks? Child's play. And it's Sam.”
He almost loses his lunch when they find the family's corpses in the living room. They're desiccated, in the early stages of decomposition, seated on the sofa and in the La-Z-Boy in a grim parody of a family gathering around the television, which is still playing. The man in the La-Z-Boy is still clutching the remote control, flies crawling in and out of his mouth.
“What the fuck, man?” Dean's got a hand over his mouth, trying to suppress his gag reflex. “It's like they just sat down and never got up again.”
“No demon sign,” Sam agrees. “No sulphur, nothing.” He glances out of the open window in time to see a small car drive by, and he hears the engine cut out a moment later. “We've got company. No,” he waves Dean down when his brother reaches for his gun. “Pretty sure they're hunters.”
“Dude, how do you know?”
Sam shrugs. “I just do. Trust me, don't try anything unless you really want a concussion.”
“What?”
But Sam's already moving toward the front door. “Back me up if you want, but let me try talking first, okay?”
He ignores Dean's muttered protests, goes to stand outside on the porch, and sees the surprise register on the faces of the man and woman coming toward the house. They're black, well-dressed for hunters, their attire speaking of a life of middle-class ease left behind years before. The woman is the taller of the two, and significantly better-looking, and she easily takes the lead when they're confronted with the unexpected. The man, her husband by the looks of it, takes up a position behind her, his body language telegraphing that he's armed and ready to use deadly force if there's any threat to his wife. Sam bites back a smile at the thought that Dean is probably mirroring the man's posture, standing a pace behind Sam.
“Who are you?” the woman calls out, her voice rich and lower than he was expecting. She has a British accent, another surprise.
Sam keeps his hands visible. “I'm Sam Winchester, and that's my brother, Dean. You're hunters?”
“How'd you know that?”
“We're friends of Bobby Singer's.”
They both relax at the name, but don't drop their guard entirely. “No offense, Sam, but we're going to need a bit more than that.”
Sam rolls his eyes. “Christo,” he calls back, not missing a beat, and she nods, slings her rifle back over her shoulder. Not that it was much use to begin with, they all know that, but it's a gesture of good faith.
“All right, then. I suppose we have a great deal to discuss.”
*
The hunters' names are Isaac and Tamara, and while Sam and Tamara click pretty quickly, Isaac and Dean are at each other's throats within minutes of their heading back to the couple's house to hole up and talk properly that evening. Sam decides that that might be the reason he and Tamara get along: they're both accustomed to dealing with hotheads who shoot first and ask questions later. In Dean's defense, Isaac is being ten different kinds of douchebag, basically accusing them of being reckless idiots who opened the gate to hell out of sheer stupidity.
“That's quite enough testosterone for now,” Tamara jabs Isaac viciously in the ribs. “As if you've never made a mistake in your life.”
“Sure, I've made mistakes,” Isaac answers, his tone dripping with irony. “Locked my keys in the car. Turned my laundry pink. Never unleashed the apocalypse, though.”
Sam almost has to sit on Dean to prevent him from leaping for Isaac's throat. “Easy, Dean,” he turns to stare coolly at Isaac. “If we hadn't been there, it would have been worse. That demon was going to open the Gate no matter what. At least we got it closed again.”
“Says you.”
“You can call Bobby, have him confirm it. And Ellen Harvelle, she was there too.”
“You know how these things work, Isaac,” Tamara is holding both his wrists. “If Ellen and Bobby can vouch for them, then it's fine. We don't have to work with them, but we should at least pool information.”
“We need to work together on this,” Sam raps on the table for emphasis. “We're outnumbered and outgunned here, no matter what this is.”
“No offense, kid, but this isn't Scooby Doo,” Isaac sneers, unable to keep the contempt from his tone, and Sam rolls his eyes, feeling his temper starting to fray at the edges in the face of this unrelenting hostility.
“We know that. Trust me, we know that better than anybody. Look, let's just see what we know, and then you two can figure out if you want to fuck off on your own, okay? Dean, did you get any information about how those people died?”
Dean pulls out the paper on which he's scribbled down some notes. “Exactly what it looked like. I talked to Jenny at the coroner's office, and she says it was dehydration, but if it wasn't that, the starvation would have done them in soon after.”
“But the fridge was fully-stocked,” Tamara interjects.
“You got me,” Dean folds up the paper again and puts it away. “But the town is full of random and unexplained deaths. People just laying down and dying, randomly lashing out at each other. One woman caved in another woman's head against her car windshield for a pair of shoes this morning, right around the same time we found those people. Hey, Sam, you know what an 'appletini' is?”
“Nothing you'd enjoy, I can promise you that.”
“That's what I thought.”
“Were they possessed?” Isaac leans forward, elbows on the table, fingers laced together, his earlier animosity seemingly forgotten as they get down to business.
“We didn't find any traces of sulphur or any other indication of demonic possession, but I suppose we ought to check one of the victims, just to be sure. Maybe the girl who decided she really liked those shoes,” Dean pulls out Dad's journal, to which he's been adding pages for the past year, starts printing carefully on a blank page.
“We should check the traffic cameras, if there are any,” Sam starts making a mental list, rubbing at his temples as his head begins to throb again. Great. He can't seem to go more than a day or so without his head feeling as though there are crabs in his brain trying to dig their way out. “See if we can catch a glimpse of either the woman or anyone she might have come into contact with.”
“The shop camera, too. That's where it started ―in a shoe store,” Dean says, still writing. “Find the girl, we might get a clue about what's going on. Sam?”
“What?” Sam snaps, too focussed on trying to keep his brain inside his head to keep his tone civil. The dim light in the room is starting to make him feel as though he's staring into the sun.
“You okay?”
“Fine. Headache.”
“You get headaches like that a lot?” Isaac's voice sounds distorted, as though he's underwater.
“Too damned often.”
Dean ignores Isaac. “No funny smells?”
He's about to deny it, when the scent of burning rubber hits. “Shit.” He clutches harder at his head. “Timing's... terrible.”
“Okay, let's get you away from the table, at least,” Dean is up and moving, and Sam can hear Isaac and Tamara peppering them with questions neither of them can answer.
Before he can register what's happening he feels himself being lowered to the floor, the wood hard against his tailbone, and he waits for the white flash he knows is coming. For a minute or so nothing happens, and he allows himself to hope that, maybe this time he'd dodged that particular bullet. Then the pain spikes, and he loses himself in the brilliant light.
*
Isaac and Tamara settle into the bar as though they've been regular patrons for years, instead of this being their first time, order drinks and share a kiss, as a pretty woman feeds the jukebox. Country music swells, fills the room, and she sways off to go talk to a tall, good-looking man in an expensive suit, draping herself over him and tracing a well-manicured finger over his bicep.
“Thank you,” Isaac barely glances at the waitress who brings them their beers, doesn't note the way she rolls her eyes at them.
“Love you,” Tamara says softly, her eyes warm.
“Love you more,” Isaac catches movement out of the corner of his eye, jerk his chin toward a red-headed man making his way toward the men's room. “Think that's our pigeon.”
“Looks like Mark Rosen,” she agrees quietly, and her gaze drifts to the flask of holy water at his hip.
“Pull the car up at the back. We'll be right out,” he assures her, and she believes him. It's not like they haven't done this a dozen times before.
He unscrews the cap, pulls the flask out, but keeps it under the table, hides it under the lapel of his coat. Then with a quick nod and a wink, he's out of his chair and heading toward the men's room himself. By the time Tamara looks around and realizes that everyone is staring at her, it's too late, and she can't shout a warning before the bartender is up in Isaac's face.
“What do you think you're doing?”
Isaac pulls back, feigns innocence. “I'm just hittin' the head, man.”
“No,” the bartender grabs his wrist, pulls his hand up to reveal the flask of holy water, and the sound of snapping bones fills the air. Everything has gone terribly quiet, except for Isaac's gasp of pain. “I mean, what are you doing here?” he snarls, eyes flickering black, and Tamara feels herself recoiling in sudden fear. “I don't like hunters in my bar!”
They're surrounded. Tamara is on her feet, but all of the bar's patrons are advancing on them, black eyes glittering with intent. Mark Rosen comes up from behind Isaac, grinning manically.
“Man, you really walked into the wrong place.”
The girl who was feeding the jukebox earlier slinks over to Tamara. “Mmm,” she purrs. “I like this one. I can think of a thousand things I'd like to do to her. Can I have her?”
“Maybe when we're done,” says the demon possessing Rosen.
A fat man in a grey t-shirt and plaid flannel overshirt sidles up to Isaac, lays a hand on his arm. “Hey, buddy, why don't you have a drink? It's on me.” He hands him a quart-bottle of drain cleaner.
“On the house!” Rosen yells, and all the demons burst into a cacophony of jeers and laughter as Isaac, his eyes wide and rolling in terror, tips the contents into his mouth.
Tamara screams, then, and doesn't stop screaming.
*
To Sam's surprise, he's not lying on the floor when he comes to. He blinks, trying to sort out where he is, registers something soft under him, puts his hands down to feel a thin mattress beneath his hands. Slowly he pushes himself upright, hears springs creak beneath his weight: army cot, his mind registers when it's finally caught up. He's in a small, wood-panelled room, illuminated only by the moonlight streaming in through the window. There's a small lamp on a table nearby, but he doesn't switch it on, just swings his feet to the floor, testing to make sure the room stays still. So far, so good. At least he doesn't appear either to have thrown up or pissed himself, and there's no sign of a bloody nose, either. Small mercies. The last time he lived through this, the visions stopped with the death of the yellow-eyed demon, but apparently he's not getting spared that in this new, nauseating version of his future. Beggars can't be choosers, he tells himself sternly. This is a small price to pay, all things considered.
There are voices coming from the next room, rising and falling, and he recognizes Dean's voice right away, his anger tight and controlled. Okay. He sighs, pushes himself to his feet. Time for an intervention before Dean does something they'll all regret. He has to lean on the wall, his legs rubbery, but he's pretty sure that, however long he's been out, it's been long enough for Dean to get into a heated argument with Isaac.
“I don't know, okay?” Dean is pacing, exasperated, his back turned to the small room where Sam is standing. None of them have noticed him yet. “Anyway, it's up to him to tell you if he wants. We don't owe you a damned thing!”
“Are you kidding?” Isaac is standing his ground, right in Dean's path, and Sam can tell it's taking all of Dean's self-control not to hit him. “You weren't planning on telling us that your brother has epilepsy or some shit that could get us all killed? What if that happened while we were in the middle of a fight, huh?”
“Well, it didn't!”
“Isaac, calm down,” Tamara says evenly. “Yelling isn't going to accomplish anything.”
“I will not calm down! These asshole kids are going to get us killed, Tamara. Unless this joker starts giving me an explanation I like, we're done here.”
“Maybe I'd better do the explaining, in that case,” Sam says, and is oddly gratified when the three of them jump, startled by his sudden appearance. Dean stops pacing and practically teleports to his side, grabbing his elbow just as Sam's legs threaten to give way.
“Woah, easy there. What the hell are you doing up?”
“Keeping you from getting into a brawl, apparently,” he jokes weakly as Dean shoves him none too gently into a chair, smooths a hand against his forehead, checking him over. “What'd I miss?”
Dean rolls his eyes. “You decided to do your impression of a stranded fish again. And I gotta tell, you, dude, don't quit your day job.”
“I could totally take my act on the road.”
Isaac interrupts. “You going to fill us in on what the fuck just happened, or what?”
“Hey!” Dean barks over his shoulder, and Sam puts a hand on his arm to keep him in place.
“Take it easy, Dean. They've got a right to be anxious about this,” he says quietly. “Come on. I just had a seizure in the middle of their living room. Tell me you wouldn't react exactly the same way in their shoes.”
“Whatever,” Dean growls, and Sam only refrains from rolling his eyes because it would only make his headache worse.
“Is it epilepsy?” Tamara tries to steer the subject back toward facts, and Sam wants to hug her. He shakes his head carefully.
“Not exactly. It's complicated.”
“Try explaining anyway,” Isaac says drily.
“I'm getting there,” Sam tries not to snap, and fails miserably. Dean hands him a glass of water, and he nods his thanks ―his throat feels like he's been wandering the desert for days. “We don't know what's causing it, exactly. It's, umm... I get visions.”
“Jesus, Sam! Don't sugar-coat it for them or anything.”
“What? They need to know, Dean.”
“How? How do you figure they need to know that?” Dean is furious.
“Visions?” Tamara prompts, and he nods, ignoring his brother's rising fury. “Visions of what?”
“The future. Sometimes the present. Mostly things that might happen. It's been happening for about two years now, on and off, but more frequently lately. We thought it had to do with the demon that, uh, killed our mother.”
“Prophetic visions?”
“More like psychic visions,” he clarifies, and Isaac groans.
“I'm definitely breaking out the Southern Comfort.”
“I'll take one too, please,” Dean manages to find his manners again. “I think we're gonna need it.”
“Do you always... react like that?” Tamara waves one hand in a vague circular motion, and Sam winces a bit.
“No. That's new. Started about a week ago. The whole thing started out as nightmares, moved onto visions when I was awake, complete with blinding headaches. And now, apparently, seizures.” When I came back from the dead. It's a side-effect, apparently. “Whatever it is, it's getting worse.”
“Damn. That sucks,” Isaac sounds sympathetic for the first time that day. He pours out the whiskey for him and Dean, another for Tamara, but Sam waves him off before he can offer him a glass.
“You're telling me.”
“Do things always happen the way you see them?” Tamara's all business, mentally taking note of anything she thinks might be important.
“No, not always. Sometimes I see them too late to do anything, but sometimes I can change things. I'm not clairvoyant or anything. I can't turn it on and off, I can't control it at all.”
“So... what did you see?”
He breathes deeply, turns to look at Isaac. “I saw you die.”
“Oh, this is bullshit!”
Isaac slams his fist on the table, and the room erupts into chaos as he, Dean and Tamara each try to shout over each other. Sam just slumps a bit lower in his seat, waits for the uproar to die down, rubs at his temples with his fingers, trying to get the ache in his head to subside even a little bit. Eventually Dean manages to shout down both Isaac and Tamara, who each take their seats again and direct matching glares at Sam.
“Care to explain?” Tamara asks archly.
It's a lot easier to recount what he saw than to try and explain why he saw it. Isaac nods thoughtfully, drumming his fingers against the table as he tries to put things together. Sam tries to ignore the worried looks he's getting from Dean, and the suspicion that's radiating from the other two hunters.
“So was Gordon Walker right about you?”
“No!” Dean's eyes are blazing. “Gordon Walker's a murdering psychopath.”
“Funny, he says the same thing about your brother.”
Sam rubs at his eyes. “Look, I know what Gordon thinks, but he's wrong.” He has to take another deep breath to fight off a rising wave of nausea, swallows hard. “I'm not... I'm not what he thinks. There's always a choice.”
“All right. One thing at a time,” Tamara interrupts smoothly. “We have a town full of demons to deal with first, and now we have an idea where to start. How many did you say you saw, Sam?”
“Hard to say. At least five, probably six or seven.”
“Right. So we'll head to the store tomorrow, see if we can pull his image off the cameras, and start asking around. I don't suppose you have any idea when your, erm, vision was supposed to take place?”
“No, sorry. They're not usually specific about that sort of thing.”
“They never are,” Isaac rolls his eyes. “Psychic shit like that is never reliable.”
Sam just shrugs. “It is what it is. I figure we can use whatever edge we've got.”
“So tomorrow, we scope the joint, interview the witnesses, same plan as before,” Dean says, “only this time we've got a little bit more to go on. Then we figure out a way either to trap all the demons in one place, or take 'em out individually, one at a time. I'll give Bobby a call in the morning, see if he can tell us anything more about them, see what we're up against. In the meantime, you,” he gives Sam a look that dares him to argue, “are going to take your meds, lie the fuck back down, and sleep until I tell you you can get up.”
“Way to inspire confidence in our allies, Dean,” Sam mutters, but he's too damned tired to really care what the others think at this point. He looks up at Tamara. “Okay if I use that spare bed again?”
“Of course.”
He nods his thanks, eases himself back onto the cot in the spare room, and for the first time since he can remember sinks into an entirely dreamless sleep.
*
Light is creeping in through the window when Sam awakens the next morning. A glance at his watch tells him he hasn't overslept, but he feels better-rested than he has in days. He finds Tamara in her kitchen over a steaming pot of coffee, and without thinking takes the cup she offers him. He remembers a little too late that he's not supposed to be drinking the stuff, then decides to hell with it, and takes a sip anyway. Alcohol is one thing, but if he's expected to keep hunting, he'll be damned if he's going to do it without coffee. Besides, he's pretty sure that caffeine will have little to no effect on the fun new neurological malfunctions he's experiencing. He does, however, remember to take his pills, before Dean has a fit.
“One of my cousins used to have seizures like that,” Tamara remarks. “She said she could taste licorice just before it happened. Only she didn't have them nearly as often as you seem to. You get a warning signal too?”
“Looks like it. Doesn't give me much warning, though. A couple of minutes at most.”
Isaac pokes his head around the door to the kitchen. “Honey? Where's the Palo Santo?”
She takes a sip of her coffee. “Where did you leave it?”
“I don't know, dear, that's why I'm asking,” Isaac says, in the tone of a man whose patience is being tried, and Tamara heaves a long-suffering sigh.
“Have you checked the grey bag?” she asks, heading past him into the large mud room which they've essentially converted into a hunting room. She hauls a grey duffel bag onto the counter, unzips it, and triumphantly produces a large, sharp-looking stake.
“Palo Santo?” Sam has followed her, and the name piques his curiosity.
“It's holy wood, from Peru. It's toxic to demons like holy water. Keeps the bastards nailed down while you're exorcising them,” she explains, making a stabbing motion with the stake for emphasis. The movement is smooth and practised, and Sam shudders at the thought of being on the receiving end of that stake.
Isaac claims his prize with a kiss. “Thank you, dear.”
She laughs, kisses him back. “You'd lose your head if it wasn't for me.”
Sam shuts his eyes against the sudden, vivid image of Isaac choking down drain cleaner, blood frothing at the corners of his mouth, staining his teeth. You have no idea.
“So how long have you been married?” Safer to change the subject.
“Almost exactly eight years,” Tamara leans into Isaac's embrace, and he grins at Sam, at once proud and possessive.
“The family that slays together...”
“I'm with you there,” Sam says, involuntarily glancing back toward the rest of the house. “So, how'd you get started in all this, anyway?”
There's an awkward silence, and Tamara visibly withdraws from them both, eyes clouded over with sudden anger. Isaac clears his throat, and Sam scrambles to cover his faux pas.
“Uh, you know... none of my business. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked. You'd think I'd know better by now. Sorry.”
“It's all right,” Tamara says dully, and he can tell she doesn't mean a word. It's never all right, and Sam knows that better than most.
“Hey, am I interrupting something?” Dean bounces into the room, seemingly oblivious to the tension in the air. He waggles his cell phone meaningfully. “So I've been talking to Bobby, and he thinks we're probably royally screwed. I mean, we're talking six-ways-till-Sunday screwed.”
“How so?”
“Is there coffee? Coffee would be awesome,” Dean is like a five-year-old on a sugar rush, which means that he's excited about the supposedly really bad news Bobby just gave him. Sam gives Isaac and Tamara a vaguely apologetic look, shrugs, and follows him back into the kitchen.
“Share with the class, Dean?”
“Those seven demons you saw? Big, badass demons. Bobby thinks they're the incarnation of the Seven Deadly Sins. Straight out of the Bible.”
“The Seven Deadly Sins,” Sam echoes, unable to keep the disbelief from his voice, and Dean nods, practically bouncing on his toes, he's so excited.
“Yeah, you know―”
“―Dean, I swear to God, if you quote Brad Pitt...”
“Fine. Spoilsport. So that's what they are. Big, badass demons. Which is why they've pretty much got this town acting like a great big black hole of death and decay. Like the Hotel California: you can check out any time you like, et cetera, et cetera.”
“So taking them all on at once is pretty much tantamount to suicide.”
“Pretty much.”
*
It turns out to be both a whole lot simpler and a whole lot harder to find the demons and hatch a half-decent plan to take them down. The four of them split up in order to cover more ground, Dean heading off to interview the (entirely coincidentally, he assures them) pretty girl who killed over a pair of really ugly green shoes, while Sam goes over the video surveillance footage of the shoe store, hoping to catch a glimpse of the elusive Mark Rosen. Isaac and Tamara go in search of the bar from Sam's vision, but not before solemnly promising not to step foot inside without proper back-up. Even if they're both sceptical of the accuracy of Sam's abilities, they're experienced enough hunters to know that this isn't something to be trifled with.
Sam manages to find a decent picture of Mark Rosen, and tries not to feel too smothered when Dean calls him on his cell phone to remind him to eat lunch.
“You remember what the doctor said about blood sugar levels, Sammy.”
“Thank you, Dad.”
“Bite me. Better yet, go bite a sandwich.”
He's taking notes on what little he was able to discover about Rosen when someone slides into the seat opposite his in the small booth he's occupying. He looks up, half-expecting to see the strange man in the trench coat, is surprised to find a girl with dirty blonde hair there instead, clad in jeans, a denim jacket, and a nondescript green t-shirt. The whole outfit practically screams 'hunter.' She's got a striking face, although she's not pretty in any conventional sense, all sharp edges and luminous eyes. She snakes one of his French fries, ignoring his protest.
“You're pretty difficult to get alone, you know,” she says accusingly, as though he's been thwarting her on purpose.
“Uh huh. The whole morning I spent by myself must have made that really hard.”
“Don't be a smart ass. I'm here to help you. Name's Ruby.”
He ignores the introduction. “Who says I need help?”
She rolls her eyes. “Oh, please. You need all the help you can get, Sam. Wow, these are really good.” She snaps her fingers at the waitress and orders herself a plate of fries. “They're like deep-fried crack!”
Whatever appetite he had for his sandwich is gone. His mouth is dry, stomach twisting with something that feels treacherously like lust. “I know you.”
The girl looks at him sharply. “Oh, I don't think so. I'd remember if we'd met, Sam.”
He thinks he might throw up then and there, his head swimming with the effort to reconcile what he's seeing now with the urgent sense that he's been here before, or somewhere like it, and that this is important, this is maybe where it all started to go wrong.
“How do you know my name if we've never met?” he leans in toward her, imagines he can hear her pulse throbbing just beneath the skin of her throat. He wants her, he realizes with a shock, with a desire that feels sick and powerful at the same time, wants to shove her to the floor, pin her wrists, tear into her like a wild dog, lick at bloody scratches all over her body. He pushes his plate to the side, pulls both hands back to clasp them between his knees.
“I hear things. I know all about you, Sam Winchester. You're the boy who would be king. Demon-tainted. The chosen leader of the demon armies. Still getting visions, or did those stop when you killed the yellow-eyed demon?”
He blinks at her. “How do you know that?”
“I'm a good hunter. Like I said, I hear things. Keep my ear to the ground. Here's some free advice, Sam,” she emphasizes his name ever so slightly, as though it leaves a bad taste in her mouth. “You're going to want to take a good look at your family tree. Do some digging, see if anyone out there remembers anything about how your mother died, aside from Daddy and Dean, of course.”
He almost laughs, except that he thinks he might throw up, as half-remembered thoughts flood through him. “Um, what?”
She waggles a French fry at him. “Can't reveal all my cards just yet. Where's the fun in that?” This time he does laugh, and her eyebrows shoot up to her hairline. Clearly, this isn't the reaction she was expecting. “What's so funny?”
“You,” he says, holding onto the edge of his seat as though it might suddenly disappear out from under him. “I know you. I don't know exactly... but we've had this conversation before, and I know how it ends.”
“You're crazy,” she says flatly, and he shakes his head.
“I wish I was. God, I feel sick,” he mutters, mostly to himself. “I already know about my mother. If that was the only card up your sleeve, I suggest you fold while you're ahead. You can't win this hand.”
Ruby narrows her eyes at him, her gaze evaluating. “You're not exactly what I expected after all. That's interesting.”
“Yeah. Coming back from the dead tends to fuck you up. Are you done?”
“Actually, yes, I think I am. I'll be around if you change your mind, Sam. You take care now.” She gets up with an exaggerated swing of her hips, saunters back out the front door of the diner, leaving him with the bill for her fries and the congealed leftovers of his own untouched meal.
*
Dean is pissed, predictably enough, when Sam tells him briefly about the mysterious Ruby, but dismisses the incident as annoying-but-minor in the grand scheme of things. “What is it with you and attracting all the crazy stalker-type chicks, anyway?”
“Shut up, jerk.”
“With your luck, she'll end up being another demon or something... hey, you okay?” Dean nudges his elbow as Sam squeezes his eyes shut against the bile rising in his throat.
“Fine. Felt sick for a second. I'm okay now.”
“Right. Well, if this latest crazy bitch shows up again, you let me know, and we'll talk to her together.”
“Yeah, okay.”
By the time early evening rolls around, they've managed to confirm that all seven demons have taken to hanging out in the bar Sam saw in his vision. It helps that one of the seven demons, Greed, is possessing the bartender. Tamara is all for going in armed to the teeth and just taking the demons head-on, her eyes snapping with poorly-contained fury, but even Isaac agrees when Sam vetoes the idea off the bat.
“He's right, honey. You've seen what these things can do with a single touch. They don't have to possess us or even use much of their power to force us to do anything they want. They're a lot more powerful than any of the other demons we've ever encountered ―just look how they've trapped everyone in town.”
Dean snaps his fingers. “That's it!”
“That's what?”
“That's how we get 'em. Use their own tactics against them,” he grins, eyes sparkling. “Demon Roach Motel.”
It's brilliant. Reckless and terrifying, but brilliant. “You want to trap them from the outside.”
“I keep telling you, Sammy, you don't need a college degree to be a freaking genius.”
“The timing would have to be damned near perfect.”
“So we'll do it right.”
Isaac interrupts. “Just what the hell are you talking about?”
“Trap the demons in the bar,” Sam explains. “Instead of luring them somewhere, we wait until they're all in, and lock them inside. Salt along the doors and windows, and when that's done, we spray paint devil's traps just beyond the exits, as a safeguard.”
“And exorcise them from outside the bar,” Tamara nods, her eyes shining. “That's brilliant.”
“And damned dangerous,” Isaac mutters darkly, but he doesn't argue.
There's no use waiting for dark. They head out just before dusk, and Dean slides up to one of the bar windows, mingling easily with the shadows, and peers inside. He gives them a thumbs-up a few moments later, and the three hunters sprint forward. It's a frantic scramble to get the salt lines laid properly before the demons can figure out what's happening, and just as Sam finishes pouring out the last of his bag of rock salt he hears a shriek of rage from inside, and the front door of the bar crashes open, torn off its hinges by the fury of the demon who just opened it. He spares a glance for the demon, a tall man in what looks like an expensive suit, black eyes glittering in the fading evening light, drops the now-empty bag onto the ground and busies himself spray-painting the complex symbol of a devil's trap on the ground. It's only a matter of minutes, perhaps even seconds, before the demon comes after him. When you can summon gale-force winds, tiny things like salt lines are a minor inconvenience at best.
“Sam Winchester,” it comes out as a snarl, although Sam suspects the demon was trying for a more casual tone. “That's right,” it says when he looks up, startled. “I know who you are. The prodigy. The boy-king. Looking at you now, I can't say I believe the hype. Let me guess: you think you're going to somehow stop us from breaking the Seals? Hah!” It scoffs at him. “We are legion, boy! You may be able to stop some of us, but there is no turning back destiny!”
With a snarl the demon sweeps away enough of the salt with a gust of wind and lunges at him, and Sam scrambles back, the can of spray paint tumbling from his fingers just as he manages to complete the symbol. The demon jerks to a halt as though it's run smack into an invisible wall, and Sam stops where he is, heart hammering painfully in his chest. He can hear shrieks and screams from inside the bar, the voices of Isaac and Tamara raised in anger, and tunes them out, focussing on what's immediately in front of him. He clambers to his feet, finds himself staring almost directly into its black, lustreless eyes, and suddenly has to fight the urge to take out his knife and make the creature bleed, to suck it dry ―and where the hell did that come from?
“See something you like?” the demon taunts, but it shrinks back from the smile that begins to play on his lips.
“I can smell your blood, demon,” he says quietly, relishing the fear that's suddenly emanating from it in waves. He takes a deep breath to steady himself, shoves the sick desire to the back of his mind, and begins to recite.
“Exorcisamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica...” The exorcism rolls easily off his tongue now, he's used it so often ―countless demons, between now and the end of the world, except he hasn't used it more than a couple of times yet― and the demon rails and shrieks and promises him an eternity of torment, writhes and convulses, and finally tilts its head back and spews a huge cloud of black smoke back into the air.
Sam kneels, feels for a pulse, and is relieved to find one, weak and thready, under his fingers. The man is alive, although he's probably going to be in therapy for the rest of his life. He pushes himself to his feet just as Dean's voice reaches him.
“Tamara, no!”
He doesn't hesitate, throws himself toward the sound of fighting. Tamara's voice rises in a wordless howl of fury above the fray, and Sam rounds the corner in time to see that she's thrown herself across the threshold of the back door into the bar, and is grappling bodily with a demon, teeth bared, tears pouring down her face as she tries to dash its brains out against the floor.
“Liar!” she's shrieking. “It's not true! Liar!”
Dean's got his hands full keeping Isaac from hurling himself after his wife, both arms wrapped around the older hunter's waist in a move reminiscent of a football tackle. Sam can see two more bodies sprawled bonelessly on the floor of the bar: the waitress and Rosen. He steps up to the door, prays fervently that none of the other demons get to him over the broken salt line, starts reciting the exorcism again, but he knows it'll be too late by the time he's done.
There's more screaming from one of the back rooms, and he almost stops reciting in shock as he catches sight of the mysterious blonde girl from earlier ―Ruby― whip around and drive the blade of a wicked-looking knife into the throat of the bartender. The demon's eyes and mouth explode in rays of red light. Hellfire, Sam thinks, bordering on hysteria, and his vision swims, but he doggedly finishes the exorcism, closing his eyes in a futile attempt to ward off the dizziness. By the time he opens them again, the demon is dead, its body collapsed on top of Tamara, who's sprawled lifeless on the floor like a broken doll, her eyes empty and staring.
Everything goes deadly quiet in the wake of the battle, and in spite of Dean's yelling at him not to be stupid, Sam ventures over the threshold, advances cautiously into the bar, but there's no need. Three of the demons are lying dead in pools of their own blood, and there's no sign of the blonde girl except for a visibly broken salt line on one of the windowsills. Behind him he can hear Isaac sobbing quietly, Dean murmuring something that sounds vaguely soothing, something about them making it through, that it's going to be all right.
You're wrong. It's never going to be all right, he thinks.
They salt and burn the bodies of the ones who didn't survive ―three in all, which is better than Sam expected― and they leave Isaac standing in front of his wife's pyre, his eyes as empty as hers.
*
Chapter 4
Master Post
Chapter 3: The Skeleton At The Feast
*
“You are sure you want to do this?”
“Yes.”
He's never been more certain of anything in his life.
“You know what is likely to happen.”
“Just... just do it.”
*
Things go by in a blur. Night blends into day, day into night. Exit light, enter night, he thinks, tries to swim to the surface of his thoughts. He's lying on something soft and dry. He opens his eyes, blink against the sickly light coming in from a window, dust motes dancing before his eyes. Dean is slumped, half-sitting, on a bed across from where he's lying, head lolling to the side, obviously asleep, his Glock cradled in his lap. Motel room, Sam decides, the same one as before. The bed springs creak as he sits up gingerly and tries to take stock. He's stiff, aching all over, but none of it seems life-threatening or even so bad as to be more than a minor inconvenience. Even his head doesn't hurt anymore, which is such a relief he almost bursts into tears. Almost.
Dean starts awake, grip tightening automatically on his gun, then relaxes as he catches sight of Sam sitting up. “You back with me?”
Sam scrubs at his eyes with his fingers, ridding himself of the remnants of sleep. “Yeah, I think so. How long was I out?”
“Two days, give or take. More give than take ―I had to drag your sorry, heavy, rain-soaked ass all the way back here and then put up with your stupid snoring when you finally decided to sleep instead of be unconscious.”
“I didn't mean to worry you.”
“Yeah, well, don't do it again, bitch.”
Sam looks around. “Where are Bobby and Ellen?”
Dean shakes his head. “No idea. They poofed, right around the same time as that guy did. If I ever find either one of them again, I'm getting them both a goddamned cell phone. I've been trying Bobby at home, but there's no answer.”
Which means Dean has been all alone and probably scared out of his mind the whole time. Sam swallows his guilt. “Let me buy you breakfast? Then we can drive back, see if he's there.”
“Next time. We'll eat here, and now that we have a goddamned minute to ourselves, you're going to explain what the hell is going on. Then maybe I'll consider letting you travel, coma-boy.”
“Okay,” Sam nods tiredly. He owes Dean that much, at the very least. “I'll try. I don't know if I can, though.”
“Whatever.” Dean shoves the Glock back in the holster hanging over the back of a chair. “I'm getting us breakfast. Then you talk.” He pulls open the door, then pauses to look over his shoulder. “And take your damned meds, Sam. Don't make me remind you every single damned time.”
Sam does as he's told, swallows his pills dry, and stays very quiet until Dean is gone. There are smears of dried blood on his face from where his nose bled last night ―no, two nights ago, he corrects himself― and he squeezes his eyes shut when he catches sight of them in the bathroom mirror, lingering around his mouth and on his chin. He's never had to see himself like this before. Is this the sight that made Dean unable to look at him in the eyes for over a year? He can't tell. It looks vile, unnatural, but this time the blood is his own, at least. He swallows a sudden rush of saliva in his mouth, determined not to vomit ―he's done enough of that in the past few days.
He eases himself into a shower for the first time since he woke up, carefully scrubs away every trace of dirt that still clings to him, scraping the remnants from under his fingernails. Washes his face three times, just in case, and takes his time shaving, partly because his hands are still shaking, and partly because he's just not sure if he can take the sight of more blood right now. That's what his life has been like, for as long as he can remember now, filled with blood, from beginning to end. Blood and fire.
By the time he's done he's tired again, and with a resigned sigh and a roll of his eyes for no one's benefit but his own he sits back down on his bed, leans back and closes his eyes. There's nowhere to go for now, no one to save (not yet), nothing to do, and even though he's tired of being tired, apparently there's nothing he can do about it. He hears the sound of Dean's key scraping in the lock what feels like a couple of seconds later, and sits up again in time to see his brother trying to balance a bunch of styrofoam containers in one hand while negotiating the door with the other. He shoves himself reluctantly to his feet, liberates the containers so Dean can close the door.
“I got you a breakfast sandwich,” Dean says, not quite meeting his gaze (and doesn't that feel familiar?). “And don't give me any of that I'm-not-hungry crap. I don't care if you have to choke it down, you're eating. You haven't had anything but water and a protein drink in three days.”
“Right,” Sam agrees readily. He's not hungry, but he's even less anxious to argue about something that trivial when he pretty much knows there's going to be bigger things to argue about in a moment. He pulls two chairs up to the cheap motel table, sits in one, and starts emptying the containers.
“How you feeling, anyway?” Dean hasn't made a move toward his own food.
“Better than you look. Did you get any sleep at all?”
“Some. And don't change the subject.”
“I'm not. You look like hell.” Sam frowns at his brother, who's now sporting two extra days' worth of beard growth and has circles under his eyes so dark it looks like he's been punched. “How's your head, anyway? You cracked it pretty solidly last night. Or two nights ago, or whenever.”
Dean shrugs, automatically brings up a hand to brush his fingers lightly against the gash near his hairline. “I guess it's okay. Still hurts, but it didn't need stitches and since I didn't lapse into a coma I guess I wasn't badly concussed.”
Sam flinches, guilty in spite of the knowledge that it's not exactly his fault he was unconscious and unable to take care of his brother. Dean glances at him, and reads his mind in that creepy way he has.
“Not your fault, Sam.”
“I know that.”
“Then quit pulling that bitch face.”
“I'm not!”
“Uh-huh.” Dean pointedly takes a bite of his breakfast sandwich, though he looks as though he's enjoying it about as much as a mouthful of sawdust. “So. Now's as good a time as any for you to tell me just what the hell is going on.”
“I don't know what to tell you,” Sam feels the same helpless frustration well up that's been plaguing him for the past two days. Four days. Whatever, he's lost track. “I don't even know where to start.”
“How about you start with the guy doing a bad impression of Columbo? He said he raised you. That true?”
Sam raises both hands in a gesture of surrender. “Start with the easy stuff, why don't you? I think I know him, but I don't know how or where I know him from. He's been popping in and out. I don't know how he does it.”
“Demon?”
“I don't think so. I suppose I ought to have tested him.”
“You think?”
“I didn't think of it, all right?” Sam snaps, half-ashamed and half-angry that he forgot the most basic rule of their lives now. “In case you didn't notice, things have been a little complicated lately.”
“He comes back, we'll test,” Dean says simply. “Eat your damned food, Sam.”
He picks at the breakfast sandwich listlessly. “Right.”
“So what the hell was he talking about back at the cemetery? Seals?”
Sam brings a hand up to his mouth as his stomach performs a flip-flop. “I'm not sure,” he manages, but Dean is leaning forward, his expression worried again.
“You gonna hurl or something? Just give a guy some warning, here.”
He shakes his head. “I'm okay. I... it's weird. It's like there's this other set of thoughts, or memories, or something... I can't tell. They keep filtering through, and every time it's like, I dunno, they clash with what I already know, and it ―well, it does this.”
“Okay, 'cause that's normal.”
“Not helping, Dean.”
“Sam, you basically just told me you have an alternate personality with different memories. How is this supposed to reassure me?”
“I'm sorry, I didn't realize that when you said 'tell me what you know,' you really mean, 'Sam I want you to tell me something that'll make me feel better,'” he snaps, feeling his temper fraying at the edges.
In a flash, Dean is out of his chair and pacing, running a hand through his hair. “That's not what I said!”
“Sure sounded like it to me.”
“Dammit, Sam, how about cutting me some slack, here?”
Sam doesn't answer, just purses his lips and stares at the table.
“Sam, come on. Just tell me what you remember.”
“I told you already. I was in Cold Oak, with Jake. I turned my back for a minute, and the next thing I know I'm waking up in a pine box. I dug my way out, and I found the nearest road, and I just walked. I was trying to find you. Mostly, I was confused, and everything hurt, and the only thing I could remember was that you had been there, like, a minute before, and I couldn't figure out why you weren't anymore.” Sam shrugs. “Like I said, I was pretty confused.”
“And you don't remember anything else?” Dean leans over the table when he hesitates. “Sam, talk to me.”
“I don't―” thoughts collide in his head, and Sam has to fight them down again before the few bites of breakfast he's managed make an unwelcome reappearance. “It's like... déjà vu is the closest I can come to describing it. I kind of... know how things are supposed to happen. Or how they might have happened.”
“Like a premonition?”
He shakes his head, tastes bile on his tongue. “No. Like I've lived through it before. Or some version of it.”
*
“Bobby? Thank God.” Dean's got one hand on the steering wheel, the other holding his cell phone to his ear, elbow resting on the car door. He's still not letting Sam near the wheel of the car, despite looking as though he's gone a few rounds with a cement block and lost. “I've been trying to reach you for two days. What the hell happened to you?”
Sam slumps in the passenger seat, leaning his head against the car door, staring at the sign posts whizzing by along the side of the road. The tightness in his chest eases when Dean glances over and nods at him, reassuring him wordlessly that Bobby and Ellen are both fine. There's a brief, terse conversation, and Dean nods again, this time to himself.
“Got it. We'll head over, see what's what. You going to join us? Right, okay. Got it. We'll keep you posted, and you do the same, okay?” He flips the phone closed, drops it back in his coat pocket.
“What's up? They okay?”
“Yeah. Apparently they both ended up back at Bobby's, no explanation, no nothing. Except now Bobby's been calling around, trying to see if he can track down any leads on what went down, and... well, we have a problem.”
Sam sits up. “You mean apart from the fact that we just unleashed maybe two hundred or so extra demons into the world?”
Dean grimaces, and his fingers tighten around the steering wheel. “You know, I actually managed to forget about that for a few seconds. Thanks a lot.”
“Any time. So what's the new problem? We can work on our multitasking skills.”
“Bobby's been calling some of his contacts, other hunters, trying to get a feel for the way the wind's blowing. There've been demon omens sighted all over the place, and to hear it, everyone's battening down the hatches.”
Sam feels a chill run down his spine. “How many do you think there are?”
Dean shrugs. “Enough that Bobby thinks it means we definitely have trouble. It's not just Wyoming, which is the problem. It started there, but it's spreading fast.”
“How fast?”
“Last Bobby heard, there were sightings all the way to Ohio. No telling how far west they go yet.”
“Fuck.”
“My sentiments precisely.”
“So where are we heading?”
“Illinois.”
“What's in Illinois?”
“Bunch of things. One, the last hunter Bobby got in touch with. Two, rumours of a giant black cloud descending over cities all over the place, including Peoria. Three, there's a psychic there that Bobby thinks might be able to help us out. I'm just hoping one and two don't get us killed in the process, so I figure we'll go to the psychic first. At least that way, if we kick the bucket, we'll go out informed,” Dean says, his voice heavy with irony.
“Illinois' a busy place.”
“You're telling me.”
“A psychic, huh?”
“Pamela Barnes.” Sam rubs at one of his temples with his thumb, his head throbbing with renewed energy, and Dean throws him a worried look. “You okay, Sammy?”
“Yeah.”
“You sure? Your head hurt or anything?”
“No, it's okay. I'm just getting that weird feeling again.”
“The déjà vu that's not déjà vu?”
“We need a better name for it, but yeah.”
“You're not gonna toss your cookies all over the upholstery, are you?”
“No!” Sam squawks, throwing up his hands. “God.”
“Okay, good. 'Cause if you do, you're cleaning it up.”
“Your compassion knows no bounds. Can we please talk about the psychic woman, maybe? Or the case? Please?”
“Fine, jeez, touchy.” Dean rolls his eyes, and Sam has to swallow a groan of frustration. Instead he squeezes his eyes shut, pinches the bridge of his nose and waits for Dean to elaborate. “Anyway, this Pamela chick is really good. At least, Bobby says she is, and if Bobby says it, you know that's pretty much like the Grade-A stamp of approval. Bobby already gave her a call, and she's going to start looking into our mystery trench coat guy, and try to figure out what the hell he was going on about back there.”
“You mean the Seals?”
“That's exactly what I mean.”
Sam shifts uncomfortably in his seat as an image of a black-haired woman flits across his mind's eye: she's screaming, writhing on the floor, light pouring from her eyes and mouth.
“I don't know if it's a good idea to push this.”
“What? Why?”
Sam shrugs. “I think we should maybe stick to tracking down the demons that got loose. At least for now.”
“Sam, you heard the same thing I did, and let me tell you, you were talking some pretty crazy shit yourself. You knew exactly what he was talking about.”
Sam looks up sharply. “What?”
“You heard me. You started babbling something about Dad breaking or something and that it was supposed to change things and God only knows what else. It was ten kinds of crazy, but you knew, Sam. You knew what he was talking about.”
He shakes his head slowly. “No. No no no. I can't. I couldn't. How could I? I don't know now. How could I know then? No. It's not possible.”
“Then what the hell? I'd really like you to explain it to me.”
“I can't. I don't understand it myself.”
“So, then, all the better to go see this Pamela chick and see if she can shed light on the matter.”
“We should stick to the other cases first. Maybe stop by Bobby's first, since it's on the way, make sure we know what we're getting into.” The scene is still seared into his retinas, looping over and over like an animated image on his laptop. Sam clenches both his hands, presses his fists against his thighs, feeling as though he might fall to pieces and just float away if this keeps up.
“Look, normally I'd be with you on this, but I think it's pretty safe to say this is all connected, and we don't have time to stop by Bobby's, much as I want to. We're going to see Pamela first, and that's not negotiable.”
“Dean...”
“No, Sam. I'm not discussing this.”
Sam swallows a mouthful of bile. “Stop the car.”
“Come on, Sam. Don't make an issue of this now.”
“I said, stop the car.”
“What? You're going to pitch a hissy fit and walk to Bobby's? Remember how well it worked out last time? Outside of Burkittsville? Or do you need another chance encounter with a demon to remind you?”
Sam shakes his head, forces himself to take a deep breath. “Pull over. Please.”
“Sam...” Dean snaps, then turns to take a good look at him. “Oh. Oh, I didn't... okay. You got it.”
A moment later Sam is bent double, leaning heavily on the open door of the Impala, retching miserably onto the side of the road. He hears the driver's side door open and close again, the scuffing of boots against gravel, and Dean squats on his heels beside him, hands him a bottle of water when he's caught his breath.
“Better?”
He nods. “Yeah. Sorry.”
“Uh-huh. Hey, I appreciate your sparing the upholstery,” Dean offers him a half-hearted grin, and he smiles in spite of himself. “You ready to get going again?”
“Still going to Pamela's?”
“Yep.”
Sam sighs, swallows a mouthful of tepid water, and waits for his stomach to settle. “I'm gonna need a minute.”
*
They don't reach the home of Pamela Barnes. The roads are all but impassable and they end up in Peoria, staring up at a cloud of hundreds of thousands of cicadas. The insects swarm everywhere, clinging to trees and houses and fences, their carapaces shining bright and metallic in the spring sun. It's far too early in the year for cicadas.
The town is filled with the sound of their humming, and Sam wishes with every fibre of his being that Bobby was with them instead of hundreds of miles away in South Dakota. He can't shake the feeling that everything's wrong, now, that so many things have been subtly altered. It makes him dizzy and nauseous, and Dean's constant hovering isn't making things any easier. Then again, Sam can barely stand to be more than a few feet away from his brother, keeps reaching out to touch him ―to reassure himself that he's real― before catching himself and pulling his hand back before Dean realizes what he's doing. He thinks Dean might know anyway and is just letting him get away with it, which is at once humiliating and deeply comforting.
“At least it's not frogs, right?” Dean slams the car door shut. They're parked outside a white clapboard house, where flower-printed sheets flap lazily on a laundry line attached to one side of the house and leading to a wooden post a dozen yards away. “Frogs are creepy.”
“Because millions of insects aren't?” Sam tries not to lean too heavily on the car door.
“Point. You feeling okay?”
He makes a so-so motion with his free hand. “Mostly. Haven't felt completely right since...” he shrugs, doesn't bother finishing his sentence.
“Yeah. Soon as we finish up with this, we're going to go back to figuring out how to fix that.”
Sam snorts. “Sure.”
Dean just turns his back, trots up the stairs to the front porch, and his shoulders are set in that we-aren't-talking-about-this-now way that Sam has become accustomed to over the years. He follows up the stairs as Dean knocks on the front door, tries the bell a few times, and when that and shouting get him nowhere, steps aside and motions to Sam to do his thing. Dean can pick a lock, the same way their Dad could, but Sam's always been the one to whom that sort of thing comes naturally. Something to do with hand-eye coordination, he supposes, and there's not a single part of him that doesn't appreciate the irony that he wanted to become a lawyer. He pulls out his lock picks, makes short work of the standard mechanism, feeling the tumblers slide apart easily, pushes the door open.
“You're an artist, Sammy. Always said it.”
“Those locks? Child's play. And it's Sam.”
He almost loses his lunch when they find the family's corpses in the living room. They're desiccated, in the early stages of decomposition, seated on the sofa and in the La-Z-Boy in a grim parody of a family gathering around the television, which is still playing. The man in the La-Z-Boy is still clutching the remote control, flies crawling in and out of his mouth.
“What the fuck, man?” Dean's got a hand over his mouth, trying to suppress his gag reflex. “It's like they just sat down and never got up again.”
“No demon sign,” Sam agrees. “No sulphur, nothing.” He glances out of the open window in time to see a small car drive by, and he hears the engine cut out a moment later. “We've got company. No,” he waves Dean down when his brother reaches for his gun. “Pretty sure they're hunters.”
“Dude, how do you know?”
Sam shrugs. “I just do. Trust me, don't try anything unless you really want a concussion.”
“What?”
But Sam's already moving toward the front door. “Back me up if you want, but let me try talking first, okay?”
He ignores Dean's muttered protests, goes to stand outside on the porch, and sees the surprise register on the faces of the man and woman coming toward the house. They're black, well-dressed for hunters, their attire speaking of a life of middle-class ease left behind years before. The woman is the taller of the two, and significantly better-looking, and she easily takes the lead when they're confronted with the unexpected. The man, her husband by the looks of it, takes up a position behind her, his body language telegraphing that he's armed and ready to use deadly force if there's any threat to his wife. Sam bites back a smile at the thought that Dean is probably mirroring the man's posture, standing a pace behind Sam.
“Who are you?” the woman calls out, her voice rich and lower than he was expecting. She has a British accent, another surprise.
Sam keeps his hands visible. “I'm Sam Winchester, and that's my brother, Dean. You're hunters?”
“How'd you know that?”
“We're friends of Bobby Singer's.”
They both relax at the name, but don't drop their guard entirely. “No offense, Sam, but we're going to need a bit more than that.”
Sam rolls his eyes. “Christo,” he calls back, not missing a beat, and she nods, slings her rifle back over her shoulder. Not that it was much use to begin with, they all know that, but it's a gesture of good faith.
“All right, then. I suppose we have a great deal to discuss.”
*
The hunters' names are Isaac and Tamara, and while Sam and Tamara click pretty quickly, Isaac and Dean are at each other's throats within minutes of their heading back to the couple's house to hole up and talk properly that evening. Sam decides that that might be the reason he and Tamara get along: they're both accustomed to dealing with hotheads who shoot first and ask questions later. In Dean's defense, Isaac is being ten different kinds of douchebag, basically accusing them of being reckless idiots who opened the gate to hell out of sheer stupidity.
“That's quite enough testosterone for now,” Tamara jabs Isaac viciously in the ribs. “As if you've never made a mistake in your life.”
“Sure, I've made mistakes,” Isaac answers, his tone dripping with irony. “Locked my keys in the car. Turned my laundry pink. Never unleashed the apocalypse, though.”
Sam almost has to sit on Dean to prevent him from leaping for Isaac's throat. “Easy, Dean,” he turns to stare coolly at Isaac. “If we hadn't been there, it would have been worse. That demon was going to open the Gate no matter what. At least we got it closed again.”
“Says you.”
“You can call Bobby, have him confirm it. And Ellen Harvelle, she was there too.”
“You know how these things work, Isaac,” Tamara is holding both his wrists. “If Ellen and Bobby can vouch for them, then it's fine. We don't have to work with them, but we should at least pool information.”
“We need to work together on this,” Sam raps on the table for emphasis. “We're outnumbered and outgunned here, no matter what this is.”
“No offense, kid, but this isn't Scooby Doo,” Isaac sneers, unable to keep the contempt from his tone, and Sam rolls his eyes, feeling his temper starting to fray at the edges in the face of this unrelenting hostility.
“We know that. Trust me, we know that better than anybody. Look, let's just see what we know, and then you two can figure out if you want to fuck off on your own, okay? Dean, did you get any information about how those people died?”
Dean pulls out the paper on which he's scribbled down some notes. “Exactly what it looked like. I talked to Jenny at the coroner's office, and she says it was dehydration, but if it wasn't that, the starvation would have done them in soon after.”
“But the fridge was fully-stocked,” Tamara interjects.
“You got me,” Dean folds up the paper again and puts it away. “But the town is full of random and unexplained deaths. People just laying down and dying, randomly lashing out at each other. One woman caved in another woman's head against her car windshield for a pair of shoes this morning, right around the same time we found those people. Hey, Sam, you know what an 'appletini' is?”
“Nothing you'd enjoy, I can promise you that.”
“That's what I thought.”
“Were they possessed?” Isaac leans forward, elbows on the table, fingers laced together, his earlier animosity seemingly forgotten as they get down to business.
“We didn't find any traces of sulphur or any other indication of demonic possession, but I suppose we ought to check one of the victims, just to be sure. Maybe the girl who decided she really liked those shoes,” Dean pulls out Dad's journal, to which he's been adding pages for the past year, starts printing carefully on a blank page.
“We should check the traffic cameras, if there are any,” Sam starts making a mental list, rubbing at his temples as his head begins to throb again. Great. He can't seem to go more than a day or so without his head feeling as though there are crabs in his brain trying to dig their way out. “See if we can catch a glimpse of either the woman or anyone she might have come into contact with.”
“The shop camera, too. That's where it started ―in a shoe store,” Dean says, still writing. “Find the girl, we might get a clue about what's going on. Sam?”
“What?” Sam snaps, too focussed on trying to keep his brain inside his head to keep his tone civil. The dim light in the room is starting to make him feel as though he's staring into the sun.
“You okay?”
“Fine. Headache.”
“You get headaches like that a lot?” Isaac's voice sounds distorted, as though he's underwater.
“Too damned often.”
Dean ignores Isaac. “No funny smells?”
He's about to deny it, when the scent of burning rubber hits. “Shit.” He clutches harder at his head. “Timing's... terrible.”
“Okay, let's get you away from the table, at least,” Dean is up and moving, and Sam can hear Isaac and Tamara peppering them with questions neither of them can answer.
Before he can register what's happening he feels himself being lowered to the floor, the wood hard against his tailbone, and he waits for the white flash he knows is coming. For a minute or so nothing happens, and he allows himself to hope that, maybe this time he'd dodged that particular bullet. Then the pain spikes, and he loses himself in the brilliant light.
*
Isaac and Tamara settle into the bar as though they've been regular patrons for years, instead of this being their first time, order drinks and share a kiss, as a pretty woman feeds the jukebox. Country music swells, fills the room, and she sways off to go talk to a tall, good-looking man in an expensive suit, draping herself over him and tracing a well-manicured finger over his bicep.
“Thank you,” Isaac barely glances at the waitress who brings them their beers, doesn't note the way she rolls her eyes at them.
“Love you,” Tamara says softly, her eyes warm.
“Love you more,” Isaac catches movement out of the corner of his eye, jerk his chin toward a red-headed man making his way toward the men's room. “Think that's our pigeon.”
“Looks like Mark Rosen,” she agrees quietly, and her gaze drifts to the flask of holy water at his hip.
“Pull the car up at the back. We'll be right out,” he assures her, and she believes him. It's not like they haven't done this a dozen times before.
He unscrews the cap, pulls the flask out, but keeps it under the table, hides it under the lapel of his coat. Then with a quick nod and a wink, he's out of his chair and heading toward the men's room himself. By the time Tamara looks around and realizes that everyone is staring at her, it's too late, and she can't shout a warning before the bartender is up in Isaac's face.
“What do you think you're doing?”
Isaac pulls back, feigns innocence. “I'm just hittin' the head, man.”
“No,” the bartender grabs his wrist, pulls his hand up to reveal the flask of holy water, and the sound of snapping bones fills the air. Everything has gone terribly quiet, except for Isaac's gasp of pain. “I mean, what are you doing here?” he snarls, eyes flickering black, and Tamara feels herself recoiling in sudden fear. “I don't like hunters in my bar!”
They're surrounded. Tamara is on her feet, but all of the bar's patrons are advancing on them, black eyes glittering with intent. Mark Rosen comes up from behind Isaac, grinning manically.
“Man, you really walked into the wrong place.”
The girl who was feeding the jukebox earlier slinks over to Tamara. “Mmm,” she purrs. “I like this one. I can think of a thousand things I'd like to do to her. Can I have her?”
“Maybe when we're done,” says the demon possessing Rosen.
A fat man in a grey t-shirt and plaid flannel overshirt sidles up to Isaac, lays a hand on his arm. “Hey, buddy, why don't you have a drink? It's on me.” He hands him a quart-bottle of drain cleaner.
“On the house!” Rosen yells, and all the demons burst into a cacophony of jeers and laughter as Isaac, his eyes wide and rolling in terror, tips the contents into his mouth.
Tamara screams, then, and doesn't stop screaming.
*
To Sam's surprise, he's not lying on the floor when he comes to. He blinks, trying to sort out where he is, registers something soft under him, puts his hands down to feel a thin mattress beneath his hands. Slowly he pushes himself upright, hears springs creak beneath his weight: army cot, his mind registers when it's finally caught up. He's in a small, wood-panelled room, illuminated only by the moonlight streaming in through the window. There's a small lamp on a table nearby, but he doesn't switch it on, just swings his feet to the floor, testing to make sure the room stays still. So far, so good. At least he doesn't appear either to have thrown up or pissed himself, and there's no sign of a bloody nose, either. Small mercies. The last time he lived through this, the visions stopped with the death of the yellow-eyed demon, but apparently he's not getting spared that in this new, nauseating version of his future. Beggars can't be choosers, he tells himself sternly. This is a small price to pay, all things considered.
There are voices coming from the next room, rising and falling, and he recognizes Dean's voice right away, his anger tight and controlled. Okay. He sighs, pushes himself to his feet. Time for an intervention before Dean does something they'll all regret. He has to lean on the wall, his legs rubbery, but he's pretty sure that, however long he's been out, it's been long enough for Dean to get into a heated argument with Isaac.
“I don't know, okay?” Dean is pacing, exasperated, his back turned to the small room where Sam is standing. None of them have noticed him yet. “Anyway, it's up to him to tell you if he wants. We don't owe you a damned thing!”
“Are you kidding?” Isaac is standing his ground, right in Dean's path, and Sam can tell it's taking all of Dean's self-control not to hit him. “You weren't planning on telling us that your brother has epilepsy or some shit that could get us all killed? What if that happened while we were in the middle of a fight, huh?”
“Well, it didn't!”
“Isaac, calm down,” Tamara says evenly. “Yelling isn't going to accomplish anything.”
“I will not calm down! These asshole kids are going to get us killed, Tamara. Unless this joker starts giving me an explanation I like, we're done here.”
“Maybe I'd better do the explaining, in that case,” Sam says, and is oddly gratified when the three of them jump, startled by his sudden appearance. Dean stops pacing and practically teleports to his side, grabbing his elbow just as Sam's legs threaten to give way.
“Woah, easy there. What the hell are you doing up?”
“Keeping you from getting into a brawl, apparently,” he jokes weakly as Dean shoves him none too gently into a chair, smooths a hand against his forehead, checking him over. “What'd I miss?”
Dean rolls his eyes. “You decided to do your impression of a stranded fish again. And I gotta tell, you, dude, don't quit your day job.”
“I could totally take my act on the road.”
Isaac interrupts. “You going to fill us in on what the fuck just happened, or what?”
“Hey!” Dean barks over his shoulder, and Sam puts a hand on his arm to keep him in place.
“Take it easy, Dean. They've got a right to be anxious about this,” he says quietly. “Come on. I just had a seizure in the middle of their living room. Tell me you wouldn't react exactly the same way in their shoes.”
“Whatever,” Dean growls, and Sam only refrains from rolling his eyes because it would only make his headache worse.
“Is it epilepsy?” Tamara tries to steer the subject back toward facts, and Sam wants to hug her. He shakes his head carefully.
“Not exactly. It's complicated.”
“Try explaining anyway,” Isaac says drily.
“I'm getting there,” Sam tries not to snap, and fails miserably. Dean hands him a glass of water, and he nods his thanks ―his throat feels like he's been wandering the desert for days. “We don't know what's causing it, exactly. It's, umm... I get visions.”
“Jesus, Sam! Don't sugar-coat it for them or anything.”
“What? They need to know, Dean.”
“How? How do you figure they need to know that?” Dean is furious.
“Visions?” Tamara prompts, and he nods, ignoring his brother's rising fury. “Visions of what?”
“The future. Sometimes the present. Mostly things that might happen. It's been happening for about two years now, on and off, but more frequently lately. We thought it had to do with the demon that, uh, killed our mother.”
“Prophetic visions?”
“More like psychic visions,” he clarifies, and Isaac groans.
“I'm definitely breaking out the Southern Comfort.”
“I'll take one too, please,” Dean manages to find his manners again. “I think we're gonna need it.”
“Do you always... react like that?” Tamara waves one hand in a vague circular motion, and Sam winces a bit.
“No. That's new. Started about a week ago. The whole thing started out as nightmares, moved onto visions when I was awake, complete with blinding headaches. And now, apparently, seizures.” When I came back from the dead. It's a side-effect, apparently. “Whatever it is, it's getting worse.”
“Damn. That sucks,” Isaac sounds sympathetic for the first time that day. He pours out the whiskey for him and Dean, another for Tamara, but Sam waves him off before he can offer him a glass.
“You're telling me.”
“Do things always happen the way you see them?” Tamara's all business, mentally taking note of anything she thinks might be important.
“No, not always. Sometimes I see them too late to do anything, but sometimes I can change things. I'm not clairvoyant or anything. I can't turn it on and off, I can't control it at all.”
“So... what did you see?”
He breathes deeply, turns to look at Isaac. “I saw you die.”
“Oh, this is bullshit!”
Isaac slams his fist on the table, and the room erupts into chaos as he, Dean and Tamara each try to shout over each other. Sam just slumps a bit lower in his seat, waits for the uproar to die down, rubs at his temples with his fingers, trying to get the ache in his head to subside even a little bit. Eventually Dean manages to shout down both Isaac and Tamara, who each take their seats again and direct matching glares at Sam.
“Care to explain?” Tamara asks archly.
It's a lot easier to recount what he saw than to try and explain why he saw it. Isaac nods thoughtfully, drumming his fingers against the table as he tries to put things together. Sam tries to ignore the worried looks he's getting from Dean, and the suspicion that's radiating from the other two hunters.
“So was Gordon Walker right about you?”
“No!” Dean's eyes are blazing. “Gordon Walker's a murdering psychopath.”
“Funny, he says the same thing about your brother.”
Sam rubs at his eyes. “Look, I know what Gordon thinks, but he's wrong.” He has to take another deep breath to fight off a rising wave of nausea, swallows hard. “I'm not... I'm not what he thinks. There's always a choice.”
“All right. One thing at a time,” Tamara interrupts smoothly. “We have a town full of demons to deal with first, and now we have an idea where to start. How many did you say you saw, Sam?”
“Hard to say. At least five, probably six or seven.”
“Right. So we'll head to the store tomorrow, see if we can pull his image off the cameras, and start asking around. I don't suppose you have any idea when your, erm, vision was supposed to take place?”
“No, sorry. They're not usually specific about that sort of thing.”
“They never are,” Isaac rolls his eyes. “Psychic shit like that is never reliable.”
Sam just shrugs. “It is what it is. I figure we can use whatever edge we've got.”
“So tomorrow, we scope the joint, interview the witnesses, same plan as before,” Dean says, “only this time we've got a little bit more to go on. Then we figure out a way either to trap all the demons in one place, or take 'em out individually, one at a time. I'll give Bobby a call in the morning, see if he can tell us anything more about them, see what we're up against. In the meantime, you,” he gives Sam a look that dares him to argue, “are going to take your meds, lie the fuck back down, and sleep until I tell you you can get up.”
“Way to inspire confidence in our allies, Dean,” Sam mutters, but he's too damned tired to really care what the others think at this point. He looks up at Tamara. “Okay if I use that spare bed again?”
“Of course.”
He nods his thanks, eases himself back onto the cot in the spare room, and for the first time since he can remember sinks into an entirely dreamless sleep.
*
Light is creeping in through the window when Sam awakens the next morning. A glance at his watch tells him he hasn't overslept, but he feels better-rested than he has in days. He finds Tamara in her kitchen over a steaming pot of coffee, and without thinking takes the cup she offers him. He remembers a little too late that he's not supposed to be drinking the stuff, then decides to hell with it, and takes a sip anyway. Alcohol is one thing, but if he's expected to keep hunting, he'll be damned if he's going to do it without coffee. Besides, he's pretty sure that caffeine will have little to no effect on the fun new neurological malfunctions he's experiencing. He does, however, remember to take his pills, before Dean has a fit.
“One of my cousins used to have seizures like that,” Tamara remarks. “She said she could taste licorice just before it happened. Only she didn't have them nearly as often as you seem to. You get a warning signal too?”
“Looks like it. Doesn't give me much warning, though. A couple of minutes at most.”
Isaac pokes his head around the door to the kitchen. “Honey? Where's the Palo Santo?”
She takes a sip of her coffee. “Where did you leave it?”
“I don't know, dear, that's why I'm asking,” Isaac says, in the tone of a man whose patience is being tried, and Tamara heaves a long-suffering sigh.
“Have you checked the grey bag?” she asks, heading past him into the large mud room which they've essentially converted into a hunting room. She hauls a grey duffel bag onto the counter, unzips it, and triumphantly produces a large, sharp-looking stake.
“Palo Santo?” Sam has followed her, and the name piques his curiosity.
“It's holy wood, from Peru. It's toxic to demons like holy water. Keeps the bastards nailed down while you're exorcising them,” she explains, making a stabbing motion with the stake for emphasis. The movement is smooth and practised, and Sam shudders at the thought of being on the receiving end of that stake.
Isaac claims his prize with a kiss. “Thank you, dear.”
She laughs, kisses him back. “You'd lose your head if it wasn't for me.”
Sam shuts his eyes against the sudden, vivid image of Isaac choking down drain cleaner, blood frothing at the corners of his mouth, staining his teeth. You have no idea.
“So how long have you been married?” Safer to change the subject.
“Almost exactly eight years,” Tamara leans into Isaac's embrace, and he grins at Sam, at once proud and possessive.
“The family that slays together...”
“I'm with you there,” Sam says, involuntarily glancing back toward the rest of the house. “So, how'd you get started in all this, anyway?”
There's an awkward silence, and Tamara visibly withdraws from them both, eyes clouded over with sudden anger. Isaac clears his throat, and Sam scrambles to cover his faux pas.
“Uh, you know... none of my business. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked. You'd think I'd know better by now. Sorry.”
“It's all right,” Tamara says dully, and he can tell she doesn't mean a word. It's never all right, and Sam knows that better than most.
“Hey, am I interrupting something?” Dean bounces into the room, seemingly oblivious to the tension in the air. He waggles his cell phone meaningfully. “So I've been talking to Bobby, and he thinks we're probably royally screwed. I mean, we're talking six-ways-till-Sunday screwed.”
“How so?”
“Is there coffee? Coffee would be awesome,” Dean is like a five-year-old on a sugar rush, which means that he's excited about the supposedly really bad news Bobby just gave him. Sam gives Isaac and Tamara a vaguely apologetic look, shrugs, and follows him back into the kitchen.
“Share with the class, Dean?”
“Those seven demons you saw? Big, badass demons. Bobby thinks they're the incarnation of the Seven Deadly Sins. Straight out of the Bible.”
“The Seven Deadly Sins,” Sam echoes, unable to keep the disbelief from his voice, and Dean nods, practically bouncing on his toes, he's so excited.
“Yeah, you know―”
“―Dean, I swear to God, if you quote Brad Pitt...”
“Fine. Spoilsport. So that's what they are. Big, badass demons. Which is why they've pretty much got this town acting like a great big black hole of death and decay. Like the Hotel California: you can check out any time you like, et cetera, et cetera.”
“So taking them all on at once is pretty much tantamount to suicide.”
“Pretty much.”
*
It turns out to be both a whole lot simpler and a whole lot harder to find the demons and hatch a half-decent plan to take them down. The four of them split up in order to cover more ground, Dean heading off to interview the (entirely coincidentally, he assures them) pretty girl who killed over a pair of really ugly green shoes, while Sam goes over the video surveillance footage of the shoe store, hoping to catch a glimpse of the elusive Mark Rosen. Isaac and Tamara go in search of the bar from Sam's vision, but not before solemnly promising not to step foot inside without proper back-up. Even if they're both sceptical of the accuracy of Sam's abilities, they're experienced enough hunters to know that this isn't something to be trifled with.
Sam manages to find a decent picture of Mark Rosen, and tries not to feel too smothered when Dean calls him on his cell phone to remind him to eat lunch.
“You remember what the doctor said about blood sugar levels, Sammy.”
“Thank you, Dad.”
“Bite me. Better yet, go bite a sandwich.”
He's taking notes on what little he was able to discover about Rosen when someone slides into the seat opposite his in the small booth he's occupying. He looks up, half-expecting to see the strange man in the trench coat, is surprised to find a girl with dirty blonde hair there instead, clad in jeans, a denim jacket, and a nondescript green t-shirt. The whole outfit practically screams 'hunter.' She's got a striking face, although she's not pretty in any conventional sense, all sharp edges and luminous eyes. She snakes one of his French fries, ignoring his protest.
“You're pretty difficult to get alone, you know,” she says accusingly, as though he's been thwarting her on purpose.
“Uh huh. The whole morning I spent by myself must have made that really hard.”
“Don't be a smart ass. I'm here to help you. Name's Ruby.”
He ignores the introduction. “Who says I need help?”
She rolls her eyes. “Oh, please. You need all the help you can get, Sam. Wow, these are really good.” She snaps her fingers at the waitress and orders herself a plate of fries. “They're like deep-fried crack!”
Whatever appetite he had for his sandwich is gone. His mouth is dry, stomach twisting with something that feels treacherously like lust. “I know you.”
The girl looks at him sharply. “Oh, I don't think so. I'd remember if we'd met, Sam.”
He thinks he might throw up then and there, his head swimming with the effort to reconcile what he's seeing now with the urgent sense that he's been here before, or somewhere like it, and that this is important, this is maybe where it all started to go wrong.
“How do you know my name if we've never met?” he leans in toward her, imagines he can hear her pulse throbbing just beneath the skin of her throat. He wants her, he realizes with a shock, with a desire that feels sick and powerful at the same time, wants to shove her to the floor, pin her wrists, tear into her like a wild dog, lick at bloody scratches all over her body. He pushes his plate to the side, pulls both hands back to clasp them between his knees.
“I hear things. I know all about you, Sam Winchester. You're the boy who would be king. Demon-tainted. The chosen leader of the demon armies. Still getting visions, or did those stop when you killed the yellow-eyed demon?”
He blinks at her. “How do you know that?”
“I'm a good hunter. Like I said, I hear things. Keep my ear to the ground. Here's some free advice, Sam,” she emphasizes his name ever so slightly, as though it leaves a bad taste in her mouth. “You're going to want to take a good look at your family tree. Do some digging, see if anyone out there remembers anything about how your mother died, aside from Daddy and Dean, of course.”
He almost laughs, except that he thinks he might throw up, as half-remembered thoughts flood through him. “Um, what?”
She waggles a French fry at him. “Can't reveal all my cards just yet. Where's the fun in that?” This time he does laugh, and her eyebrows shoot up to her hairline. Clearly, this isn't the reaction she was expecting. “What's so funny?”
“You,” he says, holding onto the edge of his seat as though it might suddenly disappear out from under him. “I know you. I don't know exactly... but we've had this conversation before, and I know how it ends.”
“You're crazy,” she says flatly, and he shakes his head.
“I wish I was. God, I feel sick,” he mutters, mostly to himself. “I already know about my mother. If that was the only card up your sleeve, I suggest you fold while you're ahead. You can't win this hand.”
Ruby narrows her eyes at him, her gaze evaluating. “You're not exactly what I expected after all. That's interesting.”
“Yeah. Coming back from the dead tends to fuck you up. Are you done?”
“Actually, yes, I think I am. I'll be around if you change your mind, Sam. You take care now.” She gets up with an exaggerated swing of her hips, saunters back out the front door of the diner, leaving him with the bill for her fries and the congealed leftovers of his own untouched meal.
*
Dean is pissed, predictably enough, when Sam tells him briefly about the mysterious Ruby, but dismisses the incident as annoying-but-minor in the grand scheme of things. “What is it with you and attracting all the crazy stalker-type chicks, anyway?”
“Shut up, jerk.”
“With your luck, she'll end up being another demon or something... hey, you okay?” Dean nudges his elbow as Sam squeezes his eyes shut against the bile rising in his throat.
“Fine. Felt sick for a second. I'm okay now.”
“Right. Well, if this latest crazy bitch shows up again, you let me know, and we'll talk to her together.”
“Yeah, okay.”
By the time early evening rolls around, they've managed to confirm that all seven demons have taken to hanging out in the bar Sam saw in his vision. It helps that one of the seven demons, Greed, is possessing the bartender. Tamara is all for going in armed to the teeth and just taking the demons head-on, her eyes snapping with poorly-contained fury, but even Isaac agrees when Sam vetoes the idea off the bat.
“He's right, honey. You've seen what these things can do with a single touch. They don't have to possess us or even use much of their power to force us to do anything they want. They're a lot more powerful than any of the other demons we've ever encountered ―just look how they've trapped everyone in town.”
Dean snaps his fingers. “That's it!”
“That's what?”
“That's how we get 'em. Use their own tactics against them,” he grins, eyes sparkling. “Demon Roach Motel.”
It's brilliant. Reckless and terrifying, but brilliant. “You want to trap them from the outside.”
“I keep telling you, Sammy, you don't need a college degree to be a freaking genius.”
“The timing would have to be damned near perfect.”
“So we'll do it right.”
Isaac interrupts. “Just what the hell are you talking about?”
“Trap the demons in the bar,” Sam explains. “Instead of luring them somewhere, we wait until they're all in, and lock them inside. Salt along the doors and windows, and when that's done, we spray paint devil's traps just beyond the exits, as a safeguard.”
“And exorcise them from outside the bar,” Tamara nods, her eyes shining. “That's brilliant.”
“And damned dangerous,” Isaac mutters darkly, but he doesn't argue.
There's no use waiting for dark. They head out just before dusk, and Dean slides up to one of the bar windows, mingling easily with the shadows, and peers inside. He gives them a thumbs-up a few moments later, and the three hunters sprint forward. It's a frantic scramble to get the salt lines laid properly before the demons can figure out what's happening, and just as Sam finishes pouring out the last of his bag of rock salt he hears a shriek of rage from inside, and the front door of the bar crashes open, torn off its hinges by the fury of the demon who just opened it. He spares a glance for the demon, a tall man in what looks like an expensive suit, black eyes glittering in the fading evening light, drops the now-empty bag onto the ground and busies himself spray-painting the complex symbol of a devil's trap on the ground. It's only a matter of minutes, perhaps even seconds, before the demon comes after him. When you can summon gale-force winds, tiny things like salt lines are a minor inconvenience at best.
“Sam Winchester,” it comes out as a snarl, although Sam suspects the demon was trying for a more casual tone. “That's right,” it says when he looks up, startled. “I know who you are. The prodigy. The boy-king. Looking at you now, I can't say I believe the hype. Let me guess: you think you're going to somehow stop us from breaking the Seals? Hah!” It scoffs at him. “We are legion, boy! You may be able to stop some of us, but there is no turning back destiny!”
With a snarl the demon sweeps away enough of the salt with a gust of wind and lunges at him, and Sam scrambles back, the can of spray paint tumbling from his fingers just as he manages to complete the symbol. The demon jerks to a halt as though it's run smack into an invisible wall, and Sam stops where he is, heart hammering painfully in his chest. He can hear shrieks and screams from inside the bar, the voices of Isaac and Tamara raised in anger, and tunes them out, focussing on what's immediately in front of him. He clambers to his feet, finds himself staring almost directly into its black, lustreless eyes, and suddenly has to fight the urge to take out his knife and make the creature bleed, to suck it dry ―and where the hell did that come from?
“See something you like?” the demon taunts, but it shrinks back from the smile that begins to play on his lips.
“I can smell your blood, demon,” he says quietly, relishing the fear that's suddenly emanating from it in waves. He takes a deep breath to steady himself, shoves the sick desire to the back of his mind, and begins to recite.
“Exorcisamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica...” The exorcism rolls easily off his tongue now, he's used it so often ―countless demons, between now and the end of the world, except he hasn't used it more than a couple of times yet― and the demon rails and shrieks and promises him an eternity of torment, writhes and convulses, and finally tilts its head back and spews a huge cloud of black smoke back into the air.
Sam kneels, feels for a pulse, and is relieved to find one, weak and thready, under his fingers. The man is alive, although he's probably going to be in therapy for the rest of his life. He pushes himself to his feet just as Dean's voice reaches him.
“Tamara, no!”
He doesn't hesitate, throws himself toward the sound of fighting. Tamara's voice rises in a wordless howl of fury above the fray, and Sam rounds the corner in time to see that she's thrown herself across the threshold of the back door into the bar, and is grappling bodily with a demon, teeth bared, tears pouring down her face as she tries to dash its brains out against the floor.
“Liar!” she's shrieking. “It's not true! Liar!”
Dean's got his hands full keeping Isaac from hurling himself after his wife, both arms wrapped around the older hunter's waist in a move reminiscent of a football tackle. Sam can see two more bodies sprawled bonelessly on the floor of the bar: the waitress and Rosen. He steps up to the door, prays fervently that none of the other demons get to him over the broken salt line, starts reciting the exorcism again, but he knows it'll be too late by the time he's done.
There's more screaming from one of the back rooms, and he almost stops reciting in shock as he catches sight of the mysterious blonde girl from earlier ―Ruby― whip around and drive the blade of a wicked-looking knife into the throat of the bartender. The demon's eyes and mouth explode in rays of red light. Hellfire, Sam thinks, bordering on hysteria, and his vision swims, but he doggedly finishes the exorcism, closing his eyes in a futile attempt to ward off the dizziness. By the time he opens them again, the demon is dead, its body collapsed on top of Tamara, who's sprawled lifeless on the floor like a broken doll, her eyes empty and staring.
Everything goes deadly quiet in the wake of the battle, and in spite of Dean's yelling at him not to be stupid, Sam ventures over the threshold, advances cautiously into the bar, but there's no need. Three of the demons are lying dead in pools of their own blood, and there's no sign of the blonde girl except for a visibly broken salt line on one of the windowsills. Behind him he can hear Isaac sobbing quietly, Dean murmuring something that sounds vaguely soothing, something about them making it through, that it's going to be all right.
You're wrong. It's never going to be all right, he thinks.
They salt and burn the bodies of the ones who didn't survive ―three in all, which is better than Sam expected― and they leave Isaac standing in front of his wife's pyre, his eyes as empty as hers.
*
Chapter 4