We're getting down there, folks. Only one chapter and the epilogue after this.
No page breaks yet. The perfectionist in me is irked.
Chapter 6 - Grip
The first time, they'd been scouting the area.
Reports of violent, animalistic killings had drawn them to the town. They'd interviewed the sole survivor of a grisly bear attack, who'd tried to deflect their insistent questions with the standard, 'you'll think I'm crazy.'
It had been a bear attack, but they hadn't seen or heard it coming. There'd been a crow perched in a nearby tree, watching them; even creeping them out a little. The bear had attacked, and that one lucky member of the group had been able to hide – only to watch as it became some sort of 'demon dog,' and ate his friends.
All in all, not the most productive day in the woods – but enough for this merry band of hunters.
So yes; the first time they'd been scouting the area for some sign of the creature, and where it might have gone to or come from. They'd been gathering information, armed with silver bullets.
Now, they were hunting – and their current arsenal made their previous one look like a joke.
Handguns and a load of silver bullets, knives, a crossbow and silver-tipped bolts for Jessica, a baseball bat for Sam, flasks of holy water. The two of them were going to war, and Peter Jaffords was going to go from a sick son of a bitch to a dead one.
It had been Dean who had sealed his fate, however, with a single finger trailing over dusty, weather-beaten wood.
Sam had been reluctant to leave him as they had, feverish and delirious and alone, but he'd recognized that they had no choice; that Dean's time was running out and they couldn't do anything to help him but go out and kill the source of his sickness. Having been raised by the almighty, irrepressible John Winchester, Sam wasn't afraid of much – but now he was terrified, terrified that his brother would die while he wandered the woods on a wild goose chase.
That Dean would die, and Sam would not have been at his side.
"You know what's funny?" Jessica said, stepping carefully beside him through the underbrush. "In the four years I knew you at Stanford, I never knew what to make of that look on your face."
Sam looked down at her as he swept a branch out of his way, meeting her eyes only briefly as she glanced at him again. As she continued, giving a derisive half-chuckle, he was only afforded a view of her hair, pulled back into a loose, messy ponytail. "Something as simple as worrying and brooding about your family, and I didn't know what it was."
"Jessica, this isn't really the best time to be –"
"So I should keep my head in the game, huh?" She gave him a pointed look. "Good advice."
Sam ignored the voice in his head that told him they'd both be better off right now if they shut up and paid attention – he knew he'd let Jessica get away with a whole hell of a lot considering what he'd put her through, but this one he couldn't let go. "You don't think I can pay attention when I know damn well that Dean could die if I don't? You have that little faith in me?"
"Why the hell should I?" she snapped back, and this was neither the time or the place, but the conversation had been a long time in coming. "I've put my faith in you, Sam, and just look where that got me!"
He opened his mouth to tell her that what had happened to her wasn't his fault, but closed it again. He sure as hell wasn't blameless, was he? Less so than she knew, because he'd known what was coming, had dreamt of her bleeding and burning, and what had he done to stop it? Why should she have any faith in him?
He was saved from his guilty silence by a bloodcurdling shriek, coming from his not-so-distant right. It brought him back to the present in a way that as of right now, Jessica couldn't possibly. He wielded the bat, the argument shoved and locked in a dark room in the back of his mind.
"Faith fails only those who fail faith." The voice that came to them was quiet and soft, but far too loud resounding inside Sam's head.
"Say that three times fast," Jessica murmured to his astonishment, appearing to be caught wholly off-guard by the invasion.
Really, it was a nifty trick to have picked up, seeing as how the fox that padded out of the darkness toward them likely did not possess the necessary skills recite sonnets. Its muzzle was wet with what was more than likely blood, and its black eyes glinted harshly in the moonlight.
While that glint spoke otherwise for the kill, Sam didn't think the repetition would actually be that difficult.
The silence of the face off – and since when did they fight silence more often than darkness? – was broken quite unexpectedly by a snap and a whistle of something moving quickly through the still air. Sam jumped slightly, and as he watched Jessica's crossbow bolt careen to the right at the last possible instant, cutting through fur but not into flesh, he realized that it could almost have been over then. And that they had a fighting chance.
Silver could kill this surprised and pissed off beast; it just had to catch him off guard to do it.
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When he became aware again, the air in the room felt hot and muggy from his own fever. It hung over him like storm clouds, oppressing and too damn still.
He couldn't hear anything but the silence and his own thoughts.
"Sam?" he tried to call out, but his voice cut out halfway through the name, his throat dry, scratchy and raw. There was no answer, and when Dean tried to roll onto his side, the world tilted and swayed around him. He forced himself to complete the motion and reach shakily for the glass of lukewarm water on the night stand next to the bed.
He clutched the glass tightly and awkwardly and managed to bring it to his dry lips. Once he had drank and let the water settle, Dean sat up, and stayed up even though he felt like he might collapse. Because even sick, Dean Winchester refused to be weak and helpless.
But he couldn't help the sudden pang of loss when his little brother wasn't there to tell him to get the hell back in bed. Of course he was alone.
And yeah, Dean could take care of himself – but something was wrong, oh so very wrong, and he didn't know what it was, but he had to –
Commanding his leaden legs to support him, Dean pushed himself off of the bed, but the action was doomed to fail. As soon as he rose there came this awkward sensation of tilting. The puppet strings which had struggled to lift him snapped, and he spilled to the floor.
How long he lay there, he couldn't have said. Time seemed to stop until he heard the slam of a door opening, and relief washed over him where he lay paralyzed with sickness as Sam stumbled into the room. His brother collapsed near him in a mirror of his own predicament, Dean's name escaping his lips in a rasping plea, and Dean could barely comprehend the blood that splashed from his sprawling form.
His little brother lay helpless on the floor, beyond Dean's reach. But the one thing he wished for the most, instead of the ability to follow orders and save Sam, was to tune out his own father's voice – washing over him, telling him to protect his brother.
Before, after, and during everything.
He couldn't do it this time.
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Briefly, Sam wondered whether or not Jessica had meant to fire her arrow, but then Jaffords perceived the threat and switched to damage mode, in more ways than one.
It – for Sam was no longer set in his ability to refer to this creature as a 'he' – meant to tear the two of them apart just like its other victims, and the form of the mountain lion gave it the means to do so. It snarled viciously and leaped at Jessica, muscles rippling with power beneath its assumed hide.
Sam was almost as quick to react as Jaffords, however, and swung his baseball bat at it in an arc that would make any father proud – especially his own. Jaffords one-upped him, transforming mid-jump into his human form to catch the bat as his feet hit the ground.
This man stood naked in front of the two hunters for the briefest of moments, displaying flesh that was discoloured and rough from either mistreatment or disuse. His muscles were fine enough, Sam discovered as Jaffords's fist plowed into his face. An instant before the blow sent Sam sprawling to the ground, he saw a flash of something gleaming white in the moonlight, some unknown talisman hanging from a rawhide strap around Jaffords's neck.
The thing, man no longer, followed Sam down, diving to avoid the blade that Jessica thrust in its direction. The small, feline paws of a rough and tumble housecat padded off of Sam's chest and took Jaffords into the lower branches of a nearby tree.
If Sam could have spoken through the pain at that moment, he'd be cursing – and with a little more time for breath he'd be wishing Dean was there to back them up.
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Dammit Jessica, you were the one who started this! Jess chided herself, as the scene flicked by in front of her; her own arrow, Sam falling, and the demon taking not one but three different forms from its first. It happened in such a quick succession that she found herself seeming sluggish, struggling to keep up.
And then it was gone again.
She turned to where it had leapt into the tree and seemingly vanished from her sight, knowing without thinking that its position was a more pressing concern than Sam's well-being. He'd survived far worse than being knocked off his feet by a fist.
All the same, she couldn't help glancing down at him when he cursed in pain or annoyance, and that was plenty of chance for Jaffords to get the drop on her. In one instant she couldn't see him, and in the next she could see nothing else as his weight slammed into her.
She hit the ground with a dazing thud, its claws cutting viciously into her shoulders. It's yellow coyote's eyes gleamed down on her and its foul breath washed over her face in waves.
"You fall easily, fair maiden."
Two hundred pounds of overgrown, ugly-ass animal was not easy.
Neither was breathing, when an invisible weight was pressing mercilessly down on your throat. She reached up to claw the grip away from herself, but there was nothing around her neck to fight.
She tried to call for Sam to help her, lips moving but no sound coming out other than a horrible choking noise. She saw something move beyond Jaffords and knew he'd do something – but she had hoped it would be something beyond yelping as he was tossed aside like a leaf in a gale.
The demon was still speaking as she thrashed beneath it, helpless and trapped, and the sky was darkening in time with everything else. "A worthless kill – you're already living overtime, aren't you?"
She should be long dead, in other words, but dammit, she would not accept that.
Jess dimly registered demonic-animal drool dripping down her cheek with sick warmth, before she stopped acknowledging anything that wasn't rage. Her fingers hooked into claws, she reached up and put all holy hell into gouging the coyote's eyes out.
To be continued . . .
Btw, pardon my pun way up in the second paragraph. . . . I couldn't resist. The attack was grisly. The bear may or may not have been Grizzly. I just MAY be a dork. :D
