ASHES TO ASHES
Chapter 4
Nothing - and no-one - is ever as it seems when you're a Winchester.
A/N - I went back and did a couple of little tweaks to chapter 3 - I noticed a little teeny-weeny continuity error. Oopsy!
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The Winchesters stood and stared open-mouthed at the figure in the doorway. Illuminated by their flashlight beams. A casual smirk had twisted his previously open, friendly face into a coldly malicious mask.
Dean felt the empty urn drop from his limp fingers.
"I really thought," the man said, taking a step from the doorway toward them; "that thing was failsafe. You guys are the real deal; well done."
"You," Sam stammered; "you're a w-witch?"
"Please," he waved his arm airily; "do I look like I should be riding a broomstick?"
He folded his arms, seemingly unmoved as Dean's lip curled into a sneer; "no, but you'd look great with one shoved up your ass," Dean muttered under his breath.
"Who the hell are you?" Sam asked.
"Not that you're really in a position to be asking questions," the man began; "but I'll tell you who I am anyway."
"I am the sixth generation grandson of the great Theodore Beauchamp," he announced proudly, "and as you will be well aware, I still carry the family name."
There was an awkward silence across the room as the Winchesters glanced vacantly at each other and shrugged; "that s'posed to impress us?" asked Dean bluntly; "'cause we've never heard of this dude."
Beauchamp rolled his eyes as if to suggest he was talking to halfwits and continued regardless. "Many said he was the greatest cricketer of his time – of all time. He was adored and admired by all who knew the game. 'Poetry in motion,' that's what they called his god-given talent."
"Thanks to his skill," Beauchamp continued; "my family were rich and powerful, we had the ear of her Majesty Queen Victoria and our future status and prosperity was assured."
Dean shot a sideways glance at Sam; "what's with the freakin' history lesson?"
"Then one day in a match there was a terrible incident," Beachamp continued, seemingly unconcerned as to whether the brothers were listening or not. "What is was, no-one now knows; the details are lost in time, but the result was that Theodore Beachamp was accused of cheating by a fellow player."
He bowed his head as if what he had told the Winchesters was a human tragedy of biblical proportions. It was clear he didn't appreciate the sudden snigger that Dean struggled to stifle.
"Nothing was ever proven," he barked, as if to defend his maligned ancestor; "but it didn't need to be. He was a ruined man."
Dean snorted another derisory laugh; "seriously? You've got a freakin' ass-ache 'cause he cheated in some stupid game?" He shook his head in disbelief; "overdramatic much? I've spent most of my friggin' life cheating, an' it never done me any harm."
Beauchamp's lips pulled into a tightly petulant scowl; "I wouldn't expect you to understand, you ignorant low-life."
The insult washed harmlessly over Dean like a summer breeze.
"You see, mud sticks," Beachamp continued, determined to justify himself; "and believe me when I say the English aristocracy is a bear pit; if you don't fit in, you'll get torn to pieces," he ground out angrily; "suddenly Theodore found himself ostracised, rejected by the team and barred from the game. His 'friends' abandoned him - after all no-one wanted their name to be linked with a cheat – they weren't going to let a little thing like lack of proof sully their precious reputations."
"The final heartbreak came when his wife left him," Beachamp's voice dropped to a despondent whisper. "Tobias took to drinking and after five long, lonely years he died destitute and broken in a debtors prison, and with him died my family's honour."
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The silence that followed Beauchamp'ss self-pitying diatribe was deafening. If he was expecting a wave of support and sympathy from the bewildered men standing before him, he was sorely disappointed.
Eventually, and taking the silence as a hint that perhaps he wasn't winning over his audience, he spoke up again; "Do you know who the man was that destroyed him?"
Dean folded his arms across his chest with an impatient eye-roll. "No, but I get the feeling you're gonna tell us."
"It was the great, great, great grandfather of our illustrious England team captain."
Another silence filled the small pavilion; eventually it was Sam who spoke up.
"And?" He shrugged; "it's not like the guy can be blamed for whatever his ancestors did. How is that his fault?"
His words met a brick wall composed of centuries-worth of wounded indignation; "it has taken my family this long to escape the shame of what happened, to begin to regain some of the respectability that we once enjoyed."
Dean glanced across at Sam, then back at the figure still silhouetted against the doorway.
"Holy hell, I've come up against some creepyass douchebags in my time," he snorted; "but congratulations dude - you are the most whiny, up-your-ass sonofabitch I've ever had the bad luck to meet."
Beauchamp's face darkened in outrage.
"So some guy pisses off uncle Theodore a million friggin' years ago, and now you're stamping your foot? Well boo hoo," Dean snapped; "crap happens - deal with it."
"Dealing with it is exactly what I am doing," the response came to Dean's outburst; "my family has waited; oh heavens, how we have waited for our sweet revenge. I am the first of my line to finally acquire the means to engineer it; and so here I am."
"I secured the services of a local witch," he explained; "who made up this delightfully deadly little package and then three years ago, I emigrated to America to join my target."
"So why those other poor bastards over the last three years?" Dean asked, tiring of this charade, and discreetly reaching round his back for the handle of his glock; "your argument's with the Captain, why not him?"
Beauchamp canted his head, as if he were trying to make sense of the stupidest question ever asked; "because that would be too quick; too neat," he replied with a saccharine pleasantness; "I want him to stand by and watch his world fall apart around him over years and years; just like my ancestors had to."
Dean scowled as his hand tightened around the glock's square handle.
"But, you can congratulate yourself gentlemen, because tonight my friends, you have saved a life." He smirked as his gaze switched between the brothers; "my target this year was going to be that Australian fool, Lawson, but thanks to your inane interference, Digga lives to – um, dig another day."
He grinned nastily, "you, on the other hand," he stooped and picked up the tiny urn which had earlier dropped out of Dean's hand, rolling across the floor toward him; "I'm afraid your innings has come to an end."
In a split second, Dean snatched his gun out of his waistband, but as he did, an unseen force bodily lifted him and hurled him across the room, smashing heavily into a glass trophy cabinet.
Rushing blindly across the room, Sam clambered over the wreckage of the cabinet and scattered trophies, his feet crunching through the carpet of shattered glass as he stooped towards Dean's prone body.
Dean groaned and rolled over, dislodging a cascade of broken glass that tumbled over his moving body like an april shower. "That's one more bruise to add to the five hundred I've already got," he croaked, as Sam stooped to help him up.
"Never underestimate the reflexes that this game hones," Beachamp smirked, striding toward the brothers, the tiny urn nestled in his fist.
Sam stood, hauling Dean up beside him. Any shred of sympathy he had tried to engender for this man and the mighty chip that he had cultivated on his shoulder his entire life, had disintegrated along with the pulverised wreckage of the cabinet. As he looked at Dean's pain crumpled face, a narrow ribbon of blood working its way down his cheek, all he felt was blind fury.
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"People who don't know what they're doing really shouldn't mess with this stuff," Sam stated in the most patronising tone he could manage; "because when they do, they're likely to get hurt."
For his trouble, he received a sneer that suggested he was talking utter crap.
"You see," he muttered breathlessly, reaching across and tracing a finger down Dean's bleeding face; "I happen to know that that spell your witch friend etched around the bottom of your stupid little pot," he continued, choosing his words carefully to cause maximum offence; "and it's very, very nasty ."
Beauchamp's brow furrowed as his expression shed its air of superiority, replacing it with a suspicious frown.
"And anyone in the know, can make it turn on the one who controls it like a badly trained dog."
In a matter of seconds, Sam had reached forward and traced a sigil on the wall in Dean's blood, perfectly matching those engraved around the base of the urn.
"Like this," he added triumphantly.
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At his word, the little urn burst into flames; flames which flashed up the arm of the shocked man holding them, engulfing him and room in seconds.
Without looking back, Sam hooked Dean's arm over his shoulder and half-led half-carried his dazed brother out of the wrecked pavilion, running fast enough to put a good distance between them and the burning building before the flames exploded into the night sky, throwing both Winchesters off their feet.
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tbc