"I can't believe we actually got him."
Harry sank down heavily to the floor and let his head fall between his knees, suddenly light headed.
Inhaling deeply, trying hard not to let the shudder show, he glanced up at Hawk. "Is Audrey alright?"
Hawk nodded once, his mouth set, eyes far away. "Shook up. But unharmed. Andy's with her."
Harry smiled a little.
Andy had come a long way since becoming a father. Sure, sometimes he was still a little hapless, but he no longer lost it at the sight of blood or a dead body.
The smile slid from his face.
Too many dead bodies in Twin Peaks over the last year or so.
Even Andy had hardened himself to it.
Getting to his feet, Harry ran his hands through his hair and looked at Hawk.
"Make the call."
"Twin Peaks?"
Dean babied the impala around the sweeping mountain roads, his nose wrinkled into a slight grimace.
"Ass end of nowhere…. There'd better at least be a decent diner at the end of this road."
Sam ignored him and went back to reading through the file Bobby had sent him.
"Looks like this town's pretty hot when it comes to the supernatural."
"Yeah? So how come we've never even heard of it?"
"Well, Bobby said it's not really hunter supernatural. Vamps, shifters, werewolves, they avoid this place like the plague. They don't even get demon activity here." He frowned at the papers, flipping them and rereading passages.
"So I don't get it….. How is this place our thing when our things aren't here….?"
"Um…. It says here it's the central point to an ancient magic, before ….Well… Everything."
"Everything?"
"Yeah. Like, before God…."
They glanced at each other before turning back to their tasks.
Nether had to say a word.
All they could do was drive onwards and prepare themselves to meet something so old that it made Alphas afraid.
Audrey could hear him screaming.
No.
Not him.
It.
She could hear It screaming.
It was hard to remember that the thing chained up wasn't Dale.
It wore Dales face and it spoke with his voice, but it wasn't him.
When she closed her eyes she could still see the twist in his mouth as he wrapped his hands around her throat, his grip strong enough to push her up the wall so that her feet had kicked uselessly in the air and all she could do was dig her fingers into his hands and try to breath.
She shivered and wrapped her arms tightly around her herself.
When they'd asked her to help she hadn't thought twice.
He'd killed so many.
First Annie, then Donna, Shelly, Major Briggs, Nadine….. They knew he'd come for her and she'd said yes. Even if they hadn't got there in time, even if she'd been his next victim, she'd still wanted to. Because to live in a world where the man you'd once looked up to was being used to kill, to do the one thing that went against everything he stood for…. It was no life at all.
She didn't want to be afraid anymore, to have to hide and know deep in her heart that it would only be a matter of time before he found her anyway.
Like a cornered prey animal she had stopped and turned.
When flight was no longer an option even the mildest creature will bare their teeth.
"Miss Horne? Are you ok?"
Audrey glanced up to see Andy stood over her, his brow knit with worry, twisting his usually mild expression.
"I'm ok Andy. Just a little….."
Another scream rang out, followed by laughter. High pitched maniacal hoots that seemed to bounce off the Book house walls.
It made her less afraid to see that Andy flinched as well, but the dark cloud that drifted across his face after worried her.
Andy was just as much of a cornered animal as she was.
Harry sat in the double R diner waiting. His fingers nervously tapping out rhythms on the oil cloth, a gone cold cup of coffee in front of him.
He hated this.
The depression that had settled over the town.
Even in here, voices were as hushed as those in a library.
Or a funeral home.
He remembered how Lauras death had shocked the town, how they'd seemed to pull together, comfort each other. This time though, the murders had only pushed them apart, made people suspicious, fearful of their friends and neighbours. The heart had left this community and in some ways, that made Harry angrier than the actual deaths.
"Sherriff Truman?"
He looked up to see two young men standing next to the table.
"The Winchester?"
Sam nodded. "I'm Sam, this is Dean….." He hesitated, waiting for the older man to say something, but he only shook his head and laughed dejectedly.
"You're just boys."
Dean began to puff himself up but Sam placed a warning hand on his chest before sitting down opposite Harry.
"I can assure you we've been in this business for a long time Sheriff. Not many things we haven't come across in our line of work."
"Hawks contact said he was sending the best."
"And he did." Dean sat next to Sam , looking across the room to catch the waitresses eye.
"Bobby said you'd need to fill us in more when we got here, but thought it sounded like a demon possession?"
Harry frowned at Sam and shook his head. "This is all kind of new to me boys. I don't know what it is, but it's scary and it's evil and I'm done with it terrorising my town and turning my friend into a monster."
He clenched his fists and turned away slightly as the waitress came over with her notebook.
"Coffee….. Three…. And uh.. You got any pie?"
"Cherry, Apple, Pecan or key Lime?"
Dean looked for a moment like he might not be able to answer, then seemed to mentally shake himself before deciding on cherry.
"Look… I just need to know. Can you help us? Because this is way out of my comfort zone."
"We can try." Sam said quietly. "Fill us in."
And so he did.
Harry started at the beginning, with the murder of Laura Palmer, the trail he and Cooper had followed to its bitter, black hearted end, and how the end had only been the start of a more vicious and violent chapter in Twin Peaks history.
"Coop was changed. I mean we all saw that, but I thought it was the black lodge, you know, like PTSD. But then the killings started again, and for a long time I didn't want to admit what I knew was happening. That he was killing them."
"It's common for demons to use their hosts to kill." Dean said through a mouthful of pie.
"Do they kill in patterns?"
Sam and dean glanced at each other. "Patterns?" Prompted Sam.
"Like a serial killer…"
"There was one…."
Dean clicked his fingers. "The freak in Coeur d'Alene, the one who wanted his demon back and blackmailed the Wiccan."
Sam shook his head. "Yeah but he already had the makings of a serial killer, the demon just, gave him a nudge."
Dean looked across at Harry. "That sound like your friend?"
"Coop? No way! He's the straightest good guy you ever met. There's not a bad bone in him! Shit, I never heard a bad word from him, wouldn't hurt a fly."
"Wouldn't hurt a fly, huh?"
Dean drove slowly behind the cruiser, bumping their way up the track into the forest.
"That's the line the neighbours always use when the police find ten corpses hidden in some dicks cellar."
"Yeah. Well it sounds like these guys worked pretty closely. Most serial killers are incredible private, but it sounds like this Cooper threw himself into small town life before…"
"Before he turned into Ted Bundy?"
Sam grimaced at him. "Dude. Lets try and remember that this guy is well liked here, enough so that they called for help rather than just put him down. Small town like this? Middle of nowhere? Law gets taken into their own hands"
Dean shrugged dismissively.
"I don't give a rats ass. Lets just get this over so we can get back to civilisation."
Dean noticed Sam's gaze taking in the library as they walked into the book house, and elbowed him.
"Poindexter…. Work first, nerdiness second."
"Can you feel that?" Sam whispered.
"Cold."
"…something else too…."
A small knot of people stood before them, watching them expectantly.
"Sam, Dean… This is Andy, Hawk, Albert and Audrey."
Albert turned to face Harry, scowling. "I hope to God you know what you're doing Truman. I'm still of the opinion that the best place for Agent Cooper is in Maximum Security psychiatric unit. I don't like the idea any more than you do but the fact remains, the man is insane and dangerous."
Harry lay a hand on Albert's shoulder and smiled sadly.
It was heartbreaking to see the denial in the mans eyes. The blustering way he demanded the convention of justice and medication. But it was a bluff, an act to protect himself.
"It's ok Albert. These guys are here to help."
"What the fuck is this." He snorted. "They're children. Just a couple of charlatans out for a quick buck."
"Hey! We don't charge." Dean cut in, offended.
"Even worse. Just in it for the sick thrills hey?"
They watched him pull his overcoat on and stalk out of the room.
"I'm sorry about Albert." Harry took his hat off and ran his hands through his hair. "He's not taking this well at all."
Sam smiled kindly. "It's ok. Um…. Shall we go take a look?"
Special Agent Dale Cooper.
That's who he was, or at least used to be.
As he watched them enter the room there's a strained confliction in his chest.
Dale wants out but he can't.
No, no, no.
We can't let that happen.
Can't stop the party now.
Not when things are just getting interesting.
Dale gets to stay right where we want him.
In that tiny corner of his mind, locked behind steel doors, while we hitch a ride.
And what a ride.
We've bathed in blood and lust and grown stronger by the day.
Dale.
Only striving to be the good man, but so much fear and darkness in his heart.
So easy to take hold of it and claim it for us.
Ahhhhh.
The creature chained to the chair, and it is a creature, it's eyes are flat, it's mouth twisted into a leer, regards them as they file in.
The brothers share a look.
This wasn't the usual kind of demon deal.
"Those chains…" Sam started.
"They were given to my people, long ago. No one remembers where they came from, but it was said that no being could escape them. Lucky for us, it seems the legend was right." Hawk folded his arms defensively, as though daring them to question him.
"I've never seen symbols like this before." Sam murmured.
"Word of God crap?"
Sam shook his head. "I don't know. I don't think so."
They all jump as it starts to hoot, powerful pulses that echo even though the books on the shelves around them should insulate the noise.
The rhythmic bellows fade into laughter, a low chuckle that builds up to a frenzied crescendo.
Audrey clapped her hands over her ears and bit down on her lip to hold back the sob welling in her throat.
Andy looked like his legs might buckle, his hand clutching at his holster, knuckles bone white, mouth trembling.
Harry and Hawk just set their faces to neutral, and Dean was pleased to see that at least two of them were professional enough to do what needed to be done.
He saw Sam look over at him.
He didn't need to say a word, his face was ashen, his head inclined.
Can we do this?
Dean shrugged.
Give it a go.
Holding his hand up like a priest, Sam closed his eyes and started the exorcism.
Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus
omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio
infernalis adversarii, omnis legio,
omnis congregatio et secta diabolica.
Cooper bucked against his chains howling with rage, his eyes milky, like a week old corpse, the veins in his neck standing out, pulsating.
Ergo draco maledicte
et omnis legio diabolica
adjuramus te.
Cessa decipere humanas creaturas,
eisque aeternae Perditionis venenum propinare.
The thing in the chair stilled then turned its terrible gaze upon Sam, a low chuckle bubbling up from it's chest.
"Boy." It drooled, it's head lolling as it cast it's eyes on them all. "Pretty words….. Pretty, pretty, pretty.
Pretty words mean nothing to me. I like pretty throats to clutch, pretty screams to hear. Pretty words are useless to one who wants to bathe in blood.
But you know that… Boy… you know the song of blood….. Ahhhhh….. It calls to you too…."
It cackled raspily and Dean automatically took a step in front of Sam.
"Let me bathe in the blood of the world. I came from blood. I'll return to blood. Your words can't do a thing. Do you know what you've done? You stopped me feeding….. Pretty girl…" He stared at Audrey and ran his swollen tongue over his lips. "….. So pretty. When I'm free I'll drink your blood and take you to the Black Lodge. Alllllll your friends are waiting there for you…"
Dean looked across to the girl who stood, mesmerised, like a rabbit in the headlights. Too terrified to look away.
Sam jerked his head towards the door and they stepped out of the room.
"What the hell?" Dean raked his hands through his hair.
"I know. I've never seen a demon like it. It's like, primeval…. Like basic hate…"
"What?"
"Look. You know how a demon is essentially just a twisted human soul right?"
"Yeah."
"Well. I don't think that thing was ever human."
"But the signs? Possession? Killing? Being held by those chains…. "
"We don't know what the chains are Dean…. Those aren't demon sigils, or angelic… Honestly, I've never seen anything like them."
Sam shot a worried glance over Deans shoulder towards the room as laughter swelled and boomed in there again.
"We can't do this alone."
"You mean Cas?"
He nodded.
"He might know something, point us in the right direction anyway….."
Harry appeared besides them and Dean noticed how pale and drawn he looked. Like he hadn't slept for days.
"So. Can you help?" The plea in his voice was undisguised. He may just as well have broken down and begged them to give him his friend back.
Sam patted him on the shoulder. "We're gonna try Sherriff. We need back up though."
A commotion from the other end of the book house made them all look up as Albert strode in, pointing over his shoulder.
"This asshole with you guys?"
A grateful smile spread across Deans face.
"Cas."
"Hello Dean."
