The Roman Inquisition
Chapter 4
Sam probably would have found the situation funny if it was happening on TV, or if he was hearing about it later over beers, or if he was not the one being stumbled over and stepped on as the Leviathan chased Sherlock around the living room. The creature was desperate to retrieve its phone, and Sherlock was just as determined to talk his drugged friend John through his escape attempt. Shortly after they both vaulted the coffee table for the third time, the creature decided Sherlock was more trouble than he was worth.
The small Leviathan opened its mouth, revealing jagged teeth and two slithering tongues. Sherlock turned, shedding his coat in a dramatic twirl that would have done a matador proud. The fabric flew off and smacked the wall and, somehow, he had a sword in his hand. Sam recognized the weapon, a scimitar stolen from his hotel room.
The Leviathan charged. Sherlock sidestepped and lashed down with his blade. The Leviathan startled sideways at the last moment, and the steel sliced its arm instead of its neck. Black blood spattered the wall.
It snatched up a floor lamp and tried to knock the sword from Sherlock's hands. The wound on its arm healed in the time it took to cross the room. Sherlock parried the blow but stumbled over the rug. Sam heard the cell phone clatter to the floor.
Sam rolled himself off the sofa and scooted around the coffee table, hoping the knife Sherlock had used before was in the abandoned coat's pocket, and not his pants. His fingers had just closed on the thick wool when a hand clamped down on his ankle and pulled. Sam's body left the ground for an instant and then he was tumbling across the living room floor, crashing through an end table and coming to a stop by the kitchen door.
Sam tried to sit up, searching for the creature that had thrown him. Suddenly Sherlock's legs blocked his view and the pocket knife, already folded open, dropped to the floor by his face. As Sherlock charged the Leviathan again, Sam rolled to grab the small blade with his bound hands. He cut the ties around his ankles first, and freed his hands as he fled. The spinning room reminded him that he was still drugged and in no shape to take on a Leviathan unarmed.
Sam stumbled through the kitchen, yanking open drawers. He found a half dozen empty detergent bottles under the sink. The Leviathan had been smart enough to dump out everything with Borax in it when it took over the house. Sam hurried to the next room. It was a children's play room with short furniture and art supplies in low cabinets along the wall. Sam fumbled through the shelves, spilling paint and glitter across the floor.
His eyes settled on a short stack of star-shaped plastic tubs of SuperSlime. He hoped they hadn't changed the formula since he learned how they made the stuff in a fourth grade science class. He snatched them up, rushing back to the fight.
Sherlock lay sprawled under the living room window, which now bore a large blood smeared crack. His limbs twitched weakly, but he was obviously too stunned to get away. The Leviathan grabbed his left wrist, and when it had Sherlock's attention broke the bones. Sherlock screamed, and continued to wail even after the creature let go. The sound of Sam's shuffling feet went completely unnoticed.
The SuperSlime wouldn't splatter like liquid detergent would, so Sam smeared it over his hands in flat sheets. He grabbed the sides of the Leviathan's head, hoping to avoid the teeth, and hauled it backwards across the room. The reaction seared Sam's palms even as it ate into the monster's flesh and he had to let go, turning and flinging it away. Sam's half numb limbs didn't impart much force, but the creature tripped and fell over the lamp it had dropped.
The Leviathan hissed and clawed at its face, trying to stand at the same time. Sam poured another tub of Slime over his hand and slapped the Leviathan across the face. It back peddled, and Sam followed. He saw scimitar and grabbed it up. The creatures' stolen human face was just reforming as he swung the blade.
The head hit the floor with a dull thump, and the body tipped backward over the arm of the couch, coming to rest on the cushions and oozing black goo all over the floral slipcover. Sam kicked the head across the room, to make sure it couldn't easily reattach to the body.
His attention turned to the man who had kidnapped him, who had poisoned Dean and left him somewhere to be gnawed on by rats. Sherlock held his broken arm against his chest and fumbled against the wall with the other, trying to get up.
"Where is my brother?" Sam asked, sword raised.
"He is somewhere secure," Sherlock said. "And he will remain there until I have confirmation that John Watson is safe from the shape shifters."
"Leviathans," Sam corrected. "And if you want keep breathing you are going to show me where Dean is."
"We will retrieve John first. His life in immediate danger, your brother's is not," Sherlock said. "And if a flesh eating monster failed to intimidate me, do you really think you have a chance?"
"I'm a psychotic serial killer who is going to torture you and your friend John to death if you don't take me to my brother," Sam said. "So yeah, I think I've got a chance."
"You are no more a serial killer than I am," Sherlock said.
Sam just stared at him. Sherlock rolled his eyes and staggered to his feet.
"Richard Roman provided me with all of your records to expedite your capture," Sherlock said. "I know you are a trained killer, but you are not a serial, nor a spree killer. Though Roman never explicitly told me his organization framed you and your brother for the most notorious crimes you stand accused of, it was not hard to deduce once I understood the scope of the shape shifter's abilities."
"Leviathans," Sam corrected again. "Shape shifters are something else, and much easier to kill by the way. If you want to rescue your friend, we need to get Dean first. We'll need his help."
Sherlock looked unimpressed. "Once you have your brother, you will have no reason to rescue John."
"I already have a reason to rescue John," Sam said. "If he's a human being, it's my job to save him. You're the only one around here that has to worry. What the hell are you anyway?"
"I am human as well," Sherlock said.
"Then why couldn't the Leviathan read your thoughts?" Sam asked. "Why couldn't it find Dean?"
"I deleted the information from my own mind. There was nothing there for it to find," Sherlock said.
"Humans can't do things like that!" Sam said. "Do you have a soul?"
If the guy was an empty shell, like Sam had been while his own soul was trapped in Hell, it would explain his cut-throat behavior, though it would not explain Sherlock's determination to rescue his friend.
"Do you have time to waste with philosophical questions?" Sherlock asked. "I am willing to compromise. We will set out, now, for Richard Roman's headquarters. That will give us the best chance of intercepting John before he is recaptured by the…Leviathans. I will arrange for someone to free your brother, once I figure out where I left him."
"If you have friends to call up, why don't you get them to help rescue John?" Sam asked.
"I won't be calling a friend," Sherlock said. "I'll be calling my arch-enemy."
-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0 -0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-
Dean looked into the display case of knives, and wished the guys running this camping store were a little less competent. They did not sell guns, and all the sharp objects were locked up tight. It was reinforced glass, so a smash and grab wouldn't work, especially since he needed to run to the dollar store next door to stock up on borax and salt, and hope no one stole his hotwired car in the meantime.
He'd have to knock out and tie up the two clerks, who were already eyeing him suspiciously. He couldn't blame them too much. He'd taken off his puke soaked jacket but he could still smell it, even over the whisky effervescing off his jeans. The sleeves of his shirt weren't quite long enough to cover up his raw and bloody wrists.
He would have preferred to go back to the last hotel he and Sam had stayed at, to restock on weapons and collect their notes and other gear, but when he'd finally reached civilization, Dean found he was several hundred miles away from the room he'd passed out in the previous night. He did not have time to waste back tracking, and the British Bastard might have tampered with or destroyed their supplies anyway.
He waited until all the other customers were gone. He was about to make his move when a woman in a pinstriped skirt and jacket walked in the door. Her head was bent down and her long brown hair fell over her shoulders. Gray polished fingernails tapped away at the little smart phone in her hands. He expected her to ask the clerks for directions back to Yuppie-ville, instead she came right up to his elbow.
"Pick something already," she said. "We haven't all day."
She hadn't looked up from her phone as she spoke, and Dean wondered if she had failed to notice that her poor bastard husband hadn't followed her in from the car. It took a moment longer for her accent to sink into his still reeling brain. She finally looked up and pointed at the nearer clerk, and then at the display case.
"We require service over here," she said, and the clerk shuffled over.
Dean was still trying to process the situation when she snapped her fingers in front of his face and pointed into the glass case. "Hunting knife? Ax? Machete? You're not thinking about the fish-scaler are you?"
Dean cleared his throat and the clerk gave him a pitying look. A werewolf tearing off his junk would have been less emasculating. "Uh…the Machete," he muttered. He looked at the woman. "Are you…getting one too?"
She snorted and went back to typing, pausing just long enough to hand the clerk her credit card. The man rang them up and tried to hand her the machete in a cardboard tube, along with a receipt. She gave the man a contemptuous look, and walked right out of the store. The clerk turned to hand it to Dean. Dean followed her, walking deliberately and slowly, so no one could accuse him of scurrying.
She was waiting just outside the door, still playing with her damned phone. Dean started walking across the lot to dollar store and she followed. He slowed a little to match her pace, sliding the machete out of the tube in case he needed to chop her head off. He was not sure how to proceed, so he decided to be obvious.
"Who are you?" Dean asked.
"My current I.D. says my name is Elspeth Jones, and I'll answer to that."
"You work for Crowley?" Dean asked.
"No," she said, still typing away.
"Cristo," Dean said.
She looked up then, with normal human eyes. "Not him either."
"Who, then?" Dean demanded as he struggled with jammed together shopping carts. "Cause the last chick who showed up just to be helpful was working for Satan."
The clerk in the dollar store gave them a wary look, which could have been due to the machete or the shouting about Satan.
"I assist a minor official in the British government, whose duties lately have revolved around cleaning up the various international incidents and scandals caused by Sherlock Holmes," she said.
"Who the hell is Sherlock Holmes?" Dean asked.
"Have you seen a tall dark haired man kidnapping your brother lately?" she said. "That'd be him."
"Shit," Dean muttered. "Is he some kind of evil James Bond wanna' be?"
She glanced up from her phone long enough to shoot him another look of contempt.
"Sherlock Holmes is an internationally famous consulting detective. Richard Roman hired him through legitimate channels to hunt down two spree killers who were threatening his company. We kept Sherlock and his… assistant Dr. John Watson under surveillance as a precaution. We became a bit concerned when Sherlock slipped our watchers, and John Watson started eating people."
"It's not him, the Watson guy I mean. A Leviathan took a bite out of him and is wearing his face. He didn't do anything," Dean said. Even though the other man was a stranger, and probably dead already, it felt wrong not to stand up for someone in the same situation as his brother and him.
"We know," she said.
"And how do you know when everyone else is freaking clueless?" Dean asked, tossing gallon bottles of E-Z Klean into the cart with more force than necessary. The cap popped off of one and splashed the woman's leg. Her skin did not start melting, but her glare could have peeled paint.
"Sherlock contacted us, via text," she said.
"He texted you?" Dean asked. "He happen to mention what he did with my brother?"
She turned her phone towards him and he read the tiny screen.
{Go to 39.903416,-87.978516, free the prisoner. He will be upset. I am moving to intercept John, S. Winchester is assisting. Agents of RRE are also in pursuit. Shape shifting entities called 'Leviathan' involved. Decapitation recommended in conjunction with Na2[B4O5(OH)4] .8H2O } –SH
"So you believe him?" Dean asked. "This dude just says 'shape shifting monsters' and the British government is like 'we'll get right on that'?"
"We certainly aren't going to wait around for these creatures to come knocking on our door," she said. "We are tracking the phone Sherlock is using and will catch up with him and your brother shortly, though not entirely on schedule, since we had to waste time looking for you."
"I'm not gonna apologize for not lying around tied up in a puddle of puke," Dean growled. The dollar store clerk gawked openly at them as Dean loaded the conveyor, tossing a pack of gum on the pile. The clerk totaled them up and the woman paid again.
Dean paused outside, wondering if he could risk this. He had no reason to believe anything this woman said. It was probably a trap, but why would they let him arm himself if that was true?
"We're taking my car," she said, tilting her head toward a black Mercedes that was pulling into the loading zone outside the store. A man in a black suit sat behind the wheel.
Dean considered objecting, but the only thing he'd left in the stolen vehicle was a vomit soaked jacket, and he did not have any pressing desire to get that back. His fingers went to the flask, now resting in his back pocket. If he was going to go his own way, this was the time, but he would be starting from scratch if he did. The woman acted like she knew it all, but he doubted she would have stopped to pick him up if she was capable of mixing it up with a Leviathan on her own.
Dean tossed the bottles of Borax in the truck and climbed into the car next to her. He kept the machete in his hands, the point stuck down into the expensive floor mat between his boots. He chewed his gum, loudly.
The driver seemed oblivious to them and Dean was convinced might-be-Elspeth was giving him instructions via text instead of talking to the man, though he was less than three feet away. They were only on the highway for ten minutes. At the first security gate, Dean tried to convince himself they were just going to trade cars. When they drove all the way out on to the tarmac, Dean felt his empty stomach trying to climb up into his throat.
"Oh, Hell no," Dean growled.