"Dean, God damn it, you have igot/i to run, man. Get up. GET UP."
Dean is on the ground among the fallen leaves and branches and moss, throwing up for the twentieth time and even though it's a squalid, moonless night, Sam is sure there's blood in the mess of cherry pits and bile by now. Cherry pits. The old fuck actually read iThe Witches of Eastwick/i? Really? Not even the slightest bit funny at the moment.
Sam takes a breath, almost accustomed to the stink, and wheels back to grab Dean around the waist, slinging him along as if his brother is a lame calf. He can still feel Dean's stomach contracting, trying to empty itself of the ceaseless barrage of cherry stones.
Remote hex trap. That's what it had to have been. They'd parked the Impala at the end of the long, over-grown drive and were creeping up to Old Man Maginn's shack, business as usual, when Sam felt his skin prickle and Dean, who had naturally taken the lead, bent over and retched. A searing, outdoor light tripped on and a man started yelling, right before the baying of hounds filled the air.
What was supposed to have been a routine witch take-down had turned to shit in mere seconds.
Dean is almost useless under Sam's arm as they stumble through the underbrush.
"C-can't, Sam," Dean gasps, spewing again, his legs buckling. It's vicious and cruel, and Sam is so frantic he can't be gentle. He tries to use his hip to hoist Dean along but as strong as Sam is, he can't support Dean's full weight for long and they both wind up pitching down a leaf-slick slope. Dean gets hung up on a tree; Sam crashes until he's stopped by a collapsed wire fence. Barbed wire.
He sucks in breath and for a second, he can't move. The rusty barbs snag his clothes, his skin, and he has another jag of stupid panic because he's not sure he's been vaccinated against tetanus since he was ten.
He can actually hear the dogs stampeding through the forest detritus now, and Dean is still coughing, too pale and his eyes are dark holes. The beam of a flashlight cuts through the trees and a swarm of dark shapes pour over the ridge. Sam struggles for the gun at his back, tearing skin in the process, and light zeros in on his eyes. He's blinded, and someone bellows over the din.
"You call yourselves hunters. Fuck, you ain't no hunters."
The dogs snarl and snap at each other, at their quarry. Sam shoots one right in the eye, mostly by accident, and the man on the ridge swears. He comes slip-skidding down the hill until he crashes into Dean, from the sounds of it.
Sam's fear is confirmed when he hears Dean grunt loudly and the man yells, "You stop shootin' my grandpap's dogs or I'll gut yer friend here like a wild boar, you get me?"
"Okay, okay, call off your hounds!" Sam shouts back.
"Throw your gun away first, shit head."
Sam does as he's told, the Taurus glinting briefly before losing itself in the fallen leaves. "Dean?"
"I'm – I'm okay, Sammy." He doesn't sound okay. He sounds anything but okay, choking and spitting.
A stringy man, ikid/i really, with an inordinately big Bowie knife, wades through the pack of dogs into Sam's clearing vision. He gives a shrill whistle and the animals back away, yipping.
"Yer not the brightest crayon in the box, are ya." He spits a dark glob of chew. "Git yerself out of them wires, mister. You stumbled into the wrong neck of the woods."
XXXXXXXXXX
The kid takes all their remaining weapons and phones, not that Dean is in any shape to fight, and Sam's trailing blood from a gash on his thigh. He practically has to carry Dean, and he hates the way his brother's heart is battering against his ribs, like a junebug in a jar.
"Hey, hey stay with me. You with me?"
Dean retches emptily and when he lifts his head, the whites of his eyes are caught in a bit of moonlight that's escaped from the clouds, and his skin is waxy.
Sam raises his voice, trying not to snarl or let panic seep in. "Jesus Christ, whatever you're doing to him, istop/i."
The little shit says nothing, somehow controlling the dogs without word or gesture. Every time Sam looks back at the kid, he grins around big crooked teeth and the dogs snap at Sam's heels.
When they finally break through a gap in the kudzu, Sam's leg muscles are burning from supporting Dean, whose head has been sagging bonelessly between his shoulders for the last thirty feet. Sam isn't even sure he's conscious anymore.
Old Man Maginn's wilting house comes into view, a decaying structure with more rot than wood, festering like a bone-white boil among the dark green woods. It almost looks abandoned but there's faint light and movement from inside. The glow flickers as though it's candlelit, but Sam knows this dump has power; it's got a security floodlight down the road, for God's sake.
A silhouette passes by a window and the back door opens. The figure is backlit, twisted and stooped, but human from what Sam can tell. Then again, lots of things look human that are miles from it.
The hounds teem over the grounds, bumping into Sam as he struggles to keep hold of Dean. He fears if he lets go, the pack will be on his brother like piranha.
"Whatcha find, boy?" An old man's voice. Maginn. He steps out onto the porch and the boards complain.
"Just like you said, Paps. More hunters. Thought knives 'n guns would make 'em big men." And then the kid spits to the side. "Like the others. But I got these 'uns alive."
As Maginn steps down from the porch, leaning heavily on a railing that looks barely capable of supporting his weight, Sam sees that the old man's face is painted with something dark, smeared across his hairless forehead and around his eye sockets. Sam suspects it's blood, but the night sucks all the color out of red and makes it look black. Might explain the candlelight, though; Maginn is in the process of spellworking. Fucking figures.
The dogs part as Maginn shambles through them, licking the blood that's still on the old man's fingers. He's fixing his jaundiced glare on Sam, rubbery lips twisting in a mean smile. "You pieces of shit just don't give up, do ya's?"
"If you let us go, I'll call off the hunt," Sam says and Dean moans some objection that Sam ignores. "I'll tell the network we killed you. You'd have to move, but you'd be alive. And we won't come after you again. I swear."
The kid laughs and cusses under his breath, but Maginn seems to consider this, staring down at his shuffling feet until he's so close, Sam can smell him. Sour unwashed skin and Ben Gay. He bobs his head, hums, tugs a fleshy ear.
He looks up at Sam and narrows his eyes into pruney slits. "Nope," he says and jabs a bloody finger into Sam's chest before he can think to move. The old witch isn't as infirm as he plays at. Maginn rattles off a string of Latin, only half-intelligible, and Sam lets loose of Dean because he has no choice. His arms have gone limp and he sways, only just managing to stay upright. He wants to lash out, plant a fist solidly into Maginn's face, but suddenly he has no say over his own body. If he wasn't already worried, he's in full-blown panic now.
"You. Come 'ere." Maginn turns around and heads back to the house, and Sam's body shambles behind. "Travis, you git the other."
"Aw, can't we feed 'im to the – "
"Do as I say, boy."
"A'right, Paps."
Sam can only pray that Travis follows orders.