Chapter 3: King and Queen of the Nerds
Dean hovered over his brother, re-checking the stitches and the puncture wounds. One look at those had him reaching for the holy water, dribbling it over the area which now looked darkened and bruised. It bubbled and steamed again, and Sam groaned even in his state. "I'm so sorry brother," Dean once again muttered.
"Dean," Jody interrupted him, a firm tone in her voice. "What do you have to be sorry about? You got him here as fast as you could. Stop beating yourself up. Sam's strong and he's smart. He's going to get through this."
"You don't understand."
"Explain it to us. Maybe we can help."
Dean glanced up from Sam's face, his hands still busy tucking the blanket protectively around his overgrown baby brother. He looked at Jody, and then Claire, and the guilt and embarrassment were plain to see in his green eyes.
"Yeah," Claire cut in. "We can help. We can go with you. Kill this thing. You said you know where it hunts. Let's hunt it. We can do this."
Dean's eyes found hers and locked on, anger quickly replacing guilt in their depths. "Do you think I want you anywhere near that thing?" He erupted. "I won't let you get hurt too. I owe it to Sammy to not let you or anyone else get hurt."
Now it was Claire's turn to feel her anger building, "You won't LET ME get hurt? You won't LET ME near that thing? Who the Hell do you think you are? I'm a hunter, Dean. In addition to my lady parts, I've got a pile of kills under my belt…"
"WHOA, whoa, whoa, whoa," cut in Jody before this got too far. "He wasn't saying you can't go after it because you're a woman." She turned, crossed her arms in front of her, and looked directly into Dean's eyes, "were you." That last was a statement, not a question.
Dean looked away first, clearing his throat. "Erhm. No. Not what I was saying. I'm just saying, I already saw Sammy get hurt going after this thing. I'm not letting anyone else go off after it." He hedged again, looking for a way to gain time. "No one. With man parts or lady parts." The two women continued to stare at him, impatiently. This wasn't working. "OK. Think of it this way. To hunt this thing, we need to go together, and we need to STAY together, but we can't guarantee we'll be together if this freaking man-cat can zap me into Sam's mind anytime it wants to." His voice lowered as he looked back at Sam. "We can't do this alone. Any of us."
Realization dawned on Jody. She spoke quietly, "Dean? Sam wasn't alone, was he? You were with him when the manticore did this to him."
Claire's eyes opened wide as she caught Jody's meaning, and she stared at Dean in horror. Dean wouldn't have let his brother go hunting alone, would he?
"I didn't believe him." Dean's voice was almost a whisper now. He allowed himself to slip down, until he was perched, half sitting-half leaning, on the edge of the couch next to Sam. He swallowed, and his voice was a bit stronger as he continued, "I didn't believe him. He was saying, 'it's a manticore', and I was saying 'there are no manticores in America. It has to be Amara.' I mean, people disappearing without a single trace that they were ever there? The geographic area this spread over? It couldn't all be the work of same being, unless it was Amara. That kind of power had to be the Darkness. So I wasn't looking for some huge, mythical imported zoo animal from Hell by way of Persia." He looked up at his stunned audience, these women who had become his extended family. "I wasn't looking in the right places."
"Where were you looking?" Jody prompted.
"I wasn't. I was just following along, telling Sam this was stupid. He turned around, told me we'd just check this out, and then there it was." He looked from Claire to Jody again, desperate now to be understood and believed. "I didn't leave him. I'd never leave Sammy alone on a hunt – even a hunt I think is idiotic. But I freaking hate hiking, and I just…I was there, but I wasn't all there. I'd drifted off. My mind was on Amara and I missed the signals I should have been seeing. And then I distracted Sammy, and he..." Dean's voice faded.
"…And now you think this is your fault?" This time it was Claire who made him continue. "You were there. Maybe you were a bit sidetracked, but you were there. We all have bad days. If you're going to take this kind of responsibility, there must have been more to it. What went wrong?"
Dean grunted his patented cynical half-laugh. "I forgot the matches."
"What?"
"To kill it, you have to burn a manticore with holy fire. We both had oil in our packs, but I forgot my matches 'cause my mind was somewhere else. Sammy had some, but his hands were kinda full trying to keep the damned thing from eating his face." Dean could still see the spray of blood in his mind's eye. The manticore had spun Sam's enormous body around with the first swing of its paws, ripping that long gash across his brother's torso as if the hunter had been made of damp paper. Sam had tried to keep its jaws at bay, but the blood... Dean thought of his own mad scramble. Of spraying the monster with holy oil. Of the sudden realization that he had no way to light it...
Dean suddenly felt Sam tense next to him, and he found focus once more on his brother's face. Sam's brow was again wrinkled in response to some internal stress. The elder brother tried to smooth the lines, but Sam was deep in whatever worry the manticore had given him. Dean settled for resting his hand on the back of Sam's neck, hoping Sam could at least sense his presence. He looked at Claire again. "I tossed a whole bottle of holy oil on it, but while I was realizing I didn't have a damned light, the manticore took off." His eyes searched hers, hoping Claire would understand what he was telling her. "No matches. It was a rookie mistake. I'm no rookie."
"And I am." Claire supplied.
"Yeah," Dean agreed. "And now that fugly bastard knows I'm coming; and that I know how to kill it. And me being 'a little sidetracked' don't have nothing on if I'm actually zapped into the manticore's game at will. We'll be sitting ducks. If you go with me, YOU'LL be sitting ducks, and I can't let that happen."
"We're going. But we're going to be ducks who bring matches." Claire's tone was final. Rookie or not, she was going with Dean. "Stop beating yourself up you moron. We're going to end this."
Jody nodded. "…so. A plan." And then she and Claire went limp.
********************************SPN*********************************
The instant Sam materialized within the cage his heart rate skyrocketed. Not again. Not this. Not here. But…it wasn't. It wasn't the cage of his memories; not completely. This cage was different. The heat was as intense as ever, and the monster who'd brought him here stretched and basked in its perverted radiance. The smell of sulfur and the sound of screams remained, but his one-time companions were not in evidence. No Adam, no Lucifer, no Michael filled the grotesque confines of the cage. As it was on the beach, once again Sam was alone with the manticore.
The beast looked around, considering. "As I said, you have some interesting and unpleasant things in that mind of yours. This place is loud and noxious, but appropriate for our next challenge. And it is warm." Purr, purr. "You humans don't appreciate proper weather. Any time the temperature gets above half reasonable you complain. Look at you." It gestured with its front paw, its scaled tail swishing in annoyance. "Sweating already. So disgusting. To be wet all the time." It tracked toward Sam as it spoke, backing the man into a corner and sitting back on its haunches before him.
"You have ten friends. Around you, you will see 100 locked boxes, each numbered 1-100. Each of your friends will have a key, for a total of ten. Inside each of the boxes will be a card, with a single word written on it."
Sam struggled to hear and remember the details, but his head filled with the memories this setting forced to the fore. He heard the manticore over a cacophony of screams, between flashbacks of terror unimaginable to any who hadn't experienced it. And now his loved ones were arriving in this place he would not wish any save Lucifer to see. Jody and Claire arrived first, with Garth, Ash, Rufus and Kevin right behind. The manticore considered, pausing, before materializing Sarah, Lisa, and Ben, who had grown taller than Sam remembered as he reached his teen years. Last, twisting the knife, the manticore brought Charlie from her rest in heaven. Sam staggered to see her in this place.
Oblivious—or more likely indifferent—to Sam's inability to concentrate, the monstrous feline continued explaining its riddle. "Each of the lockers will open and close to my commands. The first will open all lockers. The second will close every second locker. The third will change the status of every third locker. If it is open, it will close; if closed it will open. The fourth will change every fourth locker." Purr purr purr. "It will continue in such a way for 100 steps."
Sam couldn't listen. His stomach rebelled and he dry-heaved. Sweat streamed from him, mixing with tears he hadn't realized he was shedding. He watched his loved ones as they reacted to this place; this almost-personal Hell. They couldn't be here. Please let them not be here.
Lisa and Ben, who looked so much like Dean, held one another in fear. Castiel had wiped their memory of the supernatural. They did not understand anything they saw here. Little more did Sarah, who had reached heaven at Crowley's hand and likely had been happy moments ago.
The hunters weren't as lucky. Realization of where they had to be dawned on each face in turn.
Ash paled to a color to match his name. The first to understand the 'game', he soon stood focused and listening to the manticore's dialogue.
As Charlie recognized where she must be from Carver Edlund's descriptions, she moved to stand at Sam's side. The arm she put across his shoulders and her sympathetic look helped to keep him upright as she, too, carefully listened to their captor.
Rufus, Garth, Claire, and Kevin immediately sought out the door to the cage. A combination lock held it tightly. That was new – Sam should have noticed that – the original cage had no door.
Unrelentingly, the monster had continued his explanation of the rules for this game. Sam was hopelessly lost. "The boxes which remain open at the end of this sequence will contain the words which will help you open that door. There are three possible outcomes from this riddle. If you wait through all 100 iterations, you will know which are the correct boxes, but the papers will disappear and the cage will remain locked. I will leave, and your compatriots will learn much more about this place of your memories."
Sam shuddered, and Charlie tightened her arm around him. Claire ceased her inspection of the cage, and she and Jody moved almost as one to stand between Sam and the manticore; a protective wall within the cage, made of family.
Sam realized that none of the imprisoned visitors had yet uttered a word, and given the monster's threats during its last challenge, Sam didn't dare unless given permission. Instead, he looked his question at the manticore.
"There is no need that they speak, hence they cannot speak. If they could, you'd have their sympathies." It sounded anything but sympathetic, throwing this as an offhand comment over its shoulder. "I have no interest in their human babble. If I may continue, now that you're done with your tiny displays of emotion?"
Charlie's and Rufus's glares joined Sam's. They didn't faze the monster either.
"A second possible outcome," the manticore continued. "If any of your friends attempt to open the wrong box with their key, the box will remain locked and I eat that man or woman." Here it stretched languidly, and turned to regard its captives like the mice it had found in a trap. "If you open the correct boxes – and only the correct boxes – before I finish my sequence, clues will be revealed. These clues will lead to a combination which will open the cage door."
Tears of frustration began to leak from Sam's eyes. The instructions were complex, and his mind clouded. He'd missed them. His friends – his family – would remain here, in a place beyond nightmares, because Sam. Couldn't. Concentrate.
Ash stepped forward as the 100 boxes appeared, a stack filling one wall of the cage, floor to ceiling and side to side. He smirked, then raised his right hand to playfully smack Sam's cheek, perhaps harder than was strictly necessary. 'I've got this one,' was clear in his eyes. After a moment, Sam nodded reluctantly. There was nothing else he could do.
The manticore raised an expectant eyebrow. "Shall we begin?"
"Wait." Sam pushed out the word. "Ash? You know where we're going with this?"
Ash looked at him again, shrugging his arms in an all-too-confident and familiar gesture, clearly meaning 'Who do you think you're talking to?' He looked his hand, where a key had suddenly appeared. Then he looked to the people around him.
Charlie held a key numbered "1". Ash pointed at her, and then at one of the boxes. A considering look appeared on her face. None of the boxes had yet opened. After a moment comprehension seemed to set in, and Charlie smiled. She put out a fist to Ash. He cocked his head and bumped it. She nodded confidently to Sam, and opened box number 1, pulling an envelope out. Nothing else happened. The manticore purred louder, that laughing tone returning. Sam's shoulders sagged in relief.
In turn, Ash directed each of the prisoners to a box. Four, 9, 16, 25, 36, 49, 64, 81, and finally 100, opened by a shaking Ben who never let go of his mother's hand. Each prisoner passed his or her envelope to Charlie, who opened them to reveal the words "The – code – is – the – first – five – boxes - to – have – been – changed – only – twice."
Charlie stepped to the lock, and began entering a combination. Ash started in alarm. He followed her, looking over her shoulder, and then began to nod as she turned the dial confidently to 2,3,5,7, and finally 11. At the moment the door swung open, the prisoners regained their voices.
Ash, typically, was the first to use his. To Charlie he said, "Any chance you're dead?"
"Um…yes?"
"You dating anyone?"
Sam missed Charlie's reply – probably something along the lines of 'You're not my type' – as everyone and everything faded out around him. He found himself back in the white world, the manticore purring and pacing beside him. His family was gone, presumably back to the heavens and earth they belonged in. Sam sagged in relief and allowed himself to cry in earnest.
**************************SPN**********************
Jody and Claire woke to find Dean pacing the living room floor. He jumped when one of them moved, and then hurried to Claire's side to help her rise.
"You OK?"
Claire shook her head to clear it. "Yeah. Where was that place?"
Jody responded, "Hell. It was a cage in Hell. It's in the books." Her shock showed plainly on her face. Sam had been there for months.
Dean's face drained of all color as realization of where they must have been hit him, and he pulled Claire closer, holding her tightly. "Son of a bitch. We have to get him out of there."
Claire nodded, pushing slightly to back Dean away and ending the unexpected show of emotion. "Someone there knew the answer to the riddle. I didn't get it. Did you, Jody?"
She shook her head. "No, but I'm glad those two were there." She opened her laptop. "We've got to figure out how to kill that damned thing."
(Answer below for those playing along at home – sorry I couldn't work it into the story less awkwardly; it would have been out of character for these three to have figured it out. They're smart, but they're not Ash or Charlie.)
The answer relies on knowing how many times any given box would open or close. Each, commanded to change 100 times based upon the stated progression – 1 changes all, 2 changes every second, 3 changes every third… will mean each box is changed in its position once for each factor which makes up the number of that box. Vague memory of middle school math will tell you that most numbers have an even number of factors (the factors of 24 are 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12, and 24); but perfect squares have an odd number of factors (the factors of 25 are 1, 5, and 25) because you multiply one number by itself. In the first part of the riddle, the only boxes left open at the end of the progression will be the ones changed an odd number of times; numbers which are perfect squares (1,4, 9, 16, 25, 36, 49, 64, 81, and 100).
The second part of the riddle says the combination was the first five numbers changed only twice. The only numbers with two factors are prime numbers. So the combination was 2, 3, 5, 7, 11 (1 is arguably a prime, but it would only have changed once).
In case you're wondering, Yes. I am aware that I'm a Royal Nerd.