Wounds – chpt 2

by: sifi

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"Why is always the woods man? Wendigo's, Ga'lo's… Big Foots… or is it feet?" Dean groused hopping over a fallen stump while his arms flailed at the wasp sized mosquitos buzzing around him.

Sam shrugged and raised his face to the sun, "…the report said the hunter found her about two miles in, due West…You should've used the bug spray…" he grinned, "Or a little less aftershave…"

"Oooh someone had their Bitch-e-o's this morning eh Francis?" Dean smacked his shoulder lightly and got a grin and a bird in return.

Both of them knew Dean would be fairly eaten alive by the time they got back to the motel, it never mattered if he used the bug spray or not, mosquitos loved him.

"Didn't the report also say she was soaking wet but I didn't see any rivers or lakes marked on the map… did you?" he asked.

Sam shook his head, "Nah but places like this are always crisscrossed with streams and stuff…"

"Tell me why we're here rather than in town, talking to the woman or the hunter who found her or… anyone other than being out here…"

"Well seeing as how most of our… more interesting cases tend to get uppity at night…" Sam started.

"Yeah alright genius, you got a point… hey if this turns out to be some ghost of a psycho freak…" Dean started and wondered how long it was going to take before he stopped thinking of their narrow escape from Eddy Jay every time he and Sam were cruising through a wooded area.

Sam patted his messenger bag. The laptop had been left at the motel room and the bag loaded with salt, lighter fluid, matches, holy water and a few other odds and ends that were most likely to be of help, and they were each packing sawed off's with rock salt shells as well as pistols loaded with consecrated rounds. "We're set don't worry… even Geek Boy can learn a thing or two… besides I just got the cast off two weeks ago… I could go with never having another one."

Dean nodded smiling. He'd been alternately grateful and occasionally embarrassed by his younger brothers' gentle nature, particularly in the first few days after they'd finally destroyed the demon they created. Dean hadn't realized just how heavy the weight was that he'd been carrying and though Sam, true to his word never asked for details, never bothered him to 'share' his feelings, he'd done the best thing he could have and called the one friend Dean had that he knew he could tell anything to and it would be completely safe with her. Then Sam had disappeared on him and opened up a whole new kettle of fish. One that almost got his confidante killed even as she saved his life or his sanity, he still wasn't sure which.

"Yeah, let's avoid that if we can… though your handwriting with your left hand is still better than mine with my right…" Dean complimented, sort of, and shook his head, "So, how many times have incidents like this been recorded here?" he asked, "Four in the last two hundred years? What do you think we're dealing with… some kind of… succubus, Wood Sprite? or Woods Spirit that feeds on people like a vampire… heh… vampires… still cracks me up…" he chuckled scratching his head. He still had trouble sometimes believing, despite everything they knew to be true about the supernatural realms, about the evils that walked the earth, that there were such things as vampires. It just didn't feel right.

"Succubus…" Sam snorted shaking his head, "…dude get your mind out of the gutter for once?"

"What?" Dean grinned and cocked his head to the side.

"Probably some kind of a Sprite or Dryad or something…they tend to stay very close to their trees…"

"Yeah but how could it leech the years out of a person… that much I don't get y'know?" Dean shook his head.

"I don't know… if it is some kind of nature spirit it's possible this Stevens woman caused some harm to its territory… somehow… and it retaliated by stealing her life force… I mean she's what? twenty three… maybe it's some kind of hormonal thing…"

"What like supernatural PMS or something? Dude… that's not cool," Dean muttered as his brows furrowed while contemplating the concept.

Sam just shrugged. There were times when Dean could truly astound him, his insights into either situations or people were more often than not, dead on target. He was rarely judgmental and relied on his own compass to guide him whether it was in the geographic sense or in the moral sense. He never seemed to have the doubts that so frequently plagued Sam, those shades of gray that made life choices so painful sometimes. He was also far more introspective than most people gave him credit for, and Sam wondered how he managed to keep his mask so well balanced that so few ever realized he was wearing one at all.

My brother the enigma… he thought about that time up in Washington when they'd been… over shadowed by those sisters who couldn't rest until they got laid, and he shook his head feeing his cheeks flush with embarrassment. To himself, he nodded, yeah the situation had embarrassed him. It didn't matter that they let them pick up girls, that wasn't the point. And Dean… the one person on Earth I would've thought would be mortified, horrified even by the very idea… was intrigued… he as much as admitted he kind of enjoyed it…freak… maybe because it gives him more insight into what a girl likes so when he gets back on the prowl… hey… huh he stopped in his tracks and furrowed his brow, When was the last time he picked up a girl? Laura notwithstanding… wow… he smirked to himself.

Lost in his musings Sam almost lost his footing when Dean grabbed the back of his jacket and yanked him off to the right, toward the sound of running water, "We're about two miles in yeah?" he asked.

"About that," Sam nodded as Dean walked to the edge of a small, clear running stream that was about two feet across and clear as glass.

"Hey… fish!" Dean pointed at the dozen or so visible silvery bodies shimmying through the water. He grinned openly until he saw Sam's look of puzzlement then forced himself to un-smile.

"I worry about you sometimes…" Sam ribbed gently as they headed upstream, the sun in their faces with living green-gold raining into them.

I didn't think I'd ever feel this again… Dean marveled. He remembered waking in the hospital room in Oklahoma after burning Eddy Jay's corpse and wondering if he'd ever feel this color of light inside himself again. Man that was dark time…it hurt so much… I don't know if I could stand that kind of pain again… that son of a bitch hurting Sam… he's Mine, My brother, My responsibility, My friend, Mine!…end of statement, he felt his face twist into a sneer that could easily have become a growl until a fortuitous puff of warm golden air drifted through him and soothed the memory of his helplessness against his brothers' pain.

"Hey…" Sam elbowed him and nodded his chin farther up stream where one positively enormous willow stood out among all the other trees, bushes and flora, "If it's a Dryad or a Sprite what you wanna bet that's it's tree?" he challenged grinning, part of him feeling about to burst out of his own skin.

Dean nodded and wiggled his eyebrows, "Race ya…"

And they were off, legs pushing, arms pumping, trying not to laugh their energy away as Sam's neck-high legs carried him into the lead for a few yards before Dean dug down into his reserves and caught up, keeping even with Sam for the first time in a long time as they reached the tree grinning like children and clutched at its trunk while they fought for breath.

--

Adrienne Stevens clutched her head in her hands, daring to peek out from behind her fingers every so often to try and prove to herself that she wasn't really seeing what she thought she was. Over night her voluminous, recently turned gray hair had thinned to cottony wisps that seemed to break by the handfuls if she dared run a brush through it. The crows feet and smile lines she'd examined the previous evening had deepened by millimeters and when she looked closely into the mirror she could swear her eyes were starting to cloud. Oh God what's happening to me? Why is this happening? she pleaded silently, the knowledge of her Marine Husband stationed near Baghdad was a bright spot in her deteriorating memory and she wondered if she had any children.

She watched her hand reach out, quaking as it jerked toward the phone at the edge of the dresser. Just a little further…she thought knowing she used to be able to reach the thing while sitting on the bed. Come on Adrienne… you can…and she felt herself slide off the edge of the mattress. Her feeble hands flailing, her nails splintering like rotting wood as she grasped for the dresser. She couldn't stop herself from falling. Her knee impacted with the floor, her forehead with the dresser and then there was something warm running into her clouded eyes as her back twisted and she felt something shatter in her hip while her body finally finished its traitorous dance and left her heaving on the floor, in too much pain to even cry out.

Breathing hard, as if she'd run for miles something fluttered near the floor and dashed out of her line of sight. She saw a foot, Oh Thank Heavens… thank you lord… she praised in her head as the second foot joined the first and its owner walked into the room.

She turned her head, trying to right herself enough to see who'd come. Do I have any children? she wondered again noting the small feet, the childlike calves and knees. Her eyes moved upward, Is that a plastic dress? What won't the children wear these days… she thought and found it really wasn't distasteful in any respect, just odd. The skirt appeared to be made of large leaves, lashed somehow together, and the bodice, wasn't really a bodice it appeared to be two more leaves though she couldn't for the life of her figure out how they were being held on. Then she saw the face and the mop of hair fettered and festooned with greens and flowers. The face was plain, perhaps a little dirty, but as clear and unlined as any smooth river stone and the eyes shone like opals.

Adrienne reached her hand up, her blood clouded eyes pleading with the youth before her. The she-being stepped closer to her and crouched before her, it took her hand in its own, its non-expression never changing though the hope that came through the mortal woman's eyes did cause her to cock her head to the side.

Minutes turned to memories and Adrienne remembered. In the fire of those opal eyes she felt her heartbeat quicken as she saw foresters tagging trees, she felt the pain of the trees as their bodies were torn asunder, violated by huge whirring machines with teeth that killed and wasted and ruined and even as she felt her body begin to stiffen, her limbs become immobile she managed to shake her head and gasp, "I don't own the company… it's not mine…"

"I do not own the trees, the waters, but who will speak for them if not me?" the she-being's voice rolled with the sound of Pan pipes through her as her face froze, her body twisted into driftwood.

--

Laura felt the phone vibrate in her pocket but it barely registered. She was a little busy at the moment. The urge that drove her from the hospital, that drove her to leave her car behind and walk through the darkest hours on the South Side of Chicago had led her to a neighborhood on the West side and a dilapidated house that despite having boards on the windows, apparently had inhabitants as well. She'd heard a scream from this derelict abode and knew she was where she was supposed to be. The job was set, she was supposed to stop whatever was happening in there.

She'd crept through the shadows, her body protesting and her mind still swimming with the last dregs of the sedatives they'd pumped into her. Her belly itched and twitched with every movement and she knew the staples were pulling, but she'd made a deal. Servitude for a soul and she wasn't about to renege on her end of it. Besides, she remembered thinking, I need to make sure I can still hack it… I need to know if I'm still worth…if I'm… but she hadn't been able to finish the sentence, not even in her own head.

She'd entered the house following the sounds of flesh impacting with flesh, of skin breaking under impact and of human despair.

Once inside she'd risen to her full height, there was no sensation besides rage, there was no pain as bits of skin began to tear and she charged forward, her wrist flicking her baton into extension as she brought it down on the back of the mans' head then quickly stepped over him and took the woman's wrist in her hand.

"Let's go…" she nodded softly as the dumbfounded woman looked at her with a mixture of fear and wonder. Uncertain if she were a devil or an angel.

"Neither… now come on," Laura urged helping her to her feet.

Laura's eyes fell on the woman's abdomen and she felt her world rock, she had to be six months pregnant. She was battered and bruised and just a little bloody around the mouth but she'd kept her arms wrapped protectively around the life she nurtured.

Laura gasped and felt the hairs all over her body stand at attention while warm heat flushed through her, and she laid her hand on the abdomen without asking permission.

Her mind's eye was greeted with the sight of oily yellow eyes peering down into a crib that held a beautiful chocolate brown baby with mocha eyes that sparkled happily. Yellow flames flashed in the periphery of her vision and she gasped stumbling over the man on the floor as the woman dashed to her side and tried to help her. Laura clenched her teeth and felt wet on her belly as the man beneath her started to rouse, whether from her impact atop him or because she hadn't hit him hard enough she did not know.

"Go… get out… run… keep that baby safe! Please… for the love of God keep that baby safe… pay attention to its six month birthday… just go…" she gasped with one hand on her bleeding abdomen and the other trying to fight off the flailing grasp of the man beneath her.

The woman ran, frightened beyond reason by this strange… emissary who was probably going to wind up dead at the hands of her ex-husband.

She ran out into the night, down the street to her best friend's house and began to bang on the door.

Inside the house Laura drove her elbow into the back of the mans' head trying to knock him out, smash his face against the floor, anything to enable herself to get off of him and get the hell out of there. He grunted and she felt his body go lax after the third blow. She pushed off knowing she was risking everything if he was playing possum but she didn't have much choice.

Apparently he was stunned enough as she lurched from his back and shambled clutching her abdomen in one hand, toward the back door and out into the pink-gray sky. I guess it's daytime… wow…she thought absently and nearly tripped down the plank and cinder block set up that comprised the three steps to the back door. Just get out into the alley, just get out into the alley… I should've killed him…he's human…is he? Well… sorta I guess… I should've just killed him…oh crap! she saw a shadow move in the interior of the house and lurched toward the garage and the alley beyond it. That was when her cell phone began to vibrate and she felt a furious and startlingly strong hand entwine into her hair and jerk her off her feet.

"…bitch! Who the hell you are coming into MY house…tryin'a bust up MY head… and letting MY bitch get away!" he snarled whipping her from side to side by the hair as if he were some mad puppy and she no more than a sock. "You gonna Pay now… You gonna be my bitch now… least till I says you ain't no more!" he sneered and stepped into the downward jackhammer punch that made the world go away for a while.

--

Please.

sifi