God, this part was hard to write. I hate action scenes, but that's the price you pay for writing casefic, I suppose. Um, a lot more Dean Whumpage than I intended, so those of you who're reading this for the h/c aspect? You may need a cigarette when you're done. This is dedicated to Wave Obscura and to my wonderful beta and partner in crime, Selecasharp.
Part Seven:
"Get down," Dean hissed.
Jen dropped to the floor with no hesitation. God only knew what that shit was that was everywhere. She made a disgusted face – which he didn't blame her for, she was flattened against the matted carpet and that puke-inducing crap – and slithered back to where he was seated. "I don't think Kathie saw me," she whispered, and got to her feet. The crap on the floor had rubbed off on her shirt, and she brushed at it, almost idly, until she realized what she was doing.
Dean shook his head. It didn't matter what the stuff was. There was a bit of a trail left on the floor, a slightly cleaner track where Jen had been. But the edimmu wearing Kathie didn't seem concerned with her housekeeping skills, so he hoped that it wouldn't be noticed for a while.
"Help me to the floor," he said.
"I don't think that's a good idea. Getting you back up is going to be hard enough, but—"
"Help me to the floor," he repeated, cutting her off. He knew what his mobility was like, but he also knew that just sitting on a chair in the middle of a monster's living room, no matter how comfortable, was an extremely stupid thing to try. And from the floor, hidden behind some furniture, Dean would have the added plus of stealth and, he hoped, the element of surprise.
"Okay," she said, "but any discomfort you feel is your own problem." She grabbed him under the arms and pulled him to his feet. Pain lanced through him, more than before, but he tried not to let it show. Which wasn't easy and didn't get any easier when she walked him to the sofa. There was a gap between it and the wall, and he gestured to it. There was no way he was going to trust his voice, not when he hurt that much.
"You should go," he whispered, once he was in place. The floor was a lot less comfortable than the chair had been, but Kathie was only a moment from returning, and from there things were going to get tricky. "Leave through the back, try to find Sam. Hurry!"
Jen gave him a look people normally reserved for rabid dogs and the certifiably insane. "No way. This thing feeds on our last breath, right? We just need to not die."
Which sounded simple, but was actually a lot more complicated than that. "While it's a spirit," Dean corrected her. "Once it possesses someone, it can drain your living fluids until you're dead." Which he would have said earlier, but she had decided to play 'guess which beasties are real' instead.
"And you didn't mention this before, why?"
They really didn't have time for that argument, so Dean tried to derail her. "That mean you'll run for help?"
"Fuck, no!"
Dean wanted to argue further, really he did, but that was when Kathie came in the front door, humming a cheerful tune to herself. Dean pulled Jen down next to him, and she scooted as far behind him as she could manage, shielded from view by the sofa. There wasn't room for the two of them, and as soon as Kathie looked over, the game was going to be up, and Dean would have to move on to his next job – kicking ass.
He needed a plan, and he needed one fast.
All Dean had on hand was himself, Jen, and an ugly sofa giving him cover. He'd been in worse situations, but he usually had Sam at his back. Jen could manage a decent bitch face, but she wasn't Sammy. She wasn't armed, and he was willing to bet she wouldn't know what to do with something if she was.
Jen tapped him on the leg with something, and when he looked to see what it was, he could have kissed her. She had the chisel in her hand. It was solid and heavy and, judging by the rust, made of iron. One thing about that chick, she was resourceful.
Kathie's humming came closer, and Dean knew then that he only had one shot. Once he attacked, that was it. He guessed that she had noticed something – the trail on the carpet, curtains moving, his strained breathing, whatever – and was closing in for the kill. He waited long seconds listening to the humming, which had gone tuneless and was getting louder. It was when he could see the cuff of her pants that he knew she was close enough.
Dean rammed the chisel into Kathie's shin. She should have gone down, her leg broken, bleeding out all over the place. But she didn't. Instead, she sighed and shook her head, like she was about to scold a puppy.
"Really," she said, and reached down to pick him up by the neck. Dean clutched at her hands, desperate to keep his airway open. "I was going to make this painless for you, I really was." He heard some sort of scrabbling from behind him, and Kathie's voice went cold. "Move and I'll snap his neck like a twig."
Black spots appeared in his vision, and a vague gray haze settled over everything. Desperate, Dean did the only thing he could think of. He punched her in the face. It was a weak shot, really, but to his great surprise she dropped him and stumbled back. The next thing he knew, he was on the floor, Jen's arms wrapped around him.
"You idiot!" she said. "Just what were you thinking?"
Kathie was on the floor, too, and she looked about as good as he did. It didn't make any sense, he thought until he looked at his hand and remembered. "My ring," he said. Jen looked confused, so he added, "It's silver, that's why it worked. Iron dispels spirits, but this bitch isn't a spirit anymore. And silver can kill impure things."
And for good measure, he punched Kathie a few more times, making sure to connect with the ring. She wasn't moving, hell, she wasn't even breathing, but that just confirmed something else that Dean had assumed. The edimmu had been wearing Kathie for too long. Maybe it had gotten comfortable in there or something, and that was why it was keeping Kathie's body alive. But Kathie herself, he guessed, was long dead. Had probably been dead for as long as the house had been a mess.
"So, is it over?" Jen asked.
Probably not, but that wasn't what she needed to hear. "Sam can come and finish it up," he said. He reached for her hand, and she grabbed onto him to pull him to his feet again. Which hurt more than being electrocuted. "C'mon, let's get the hell out of here."
And that was when Sam broke down the front door, shotgun aimed directly at them.
***
"Dean, get down!" Sam yelled, and instinct kicked in. Dean ducked, pulling Jen down with him. The floor came up to meet him, and pain blazed through him like fire. The shotgun went off, over his head, but it sounded far away, and he thought he heard a body hit the floor behind him.
"Oh my god," Jen panted.
Dean looked over at Sam, who lowered the shotgun. His face was tight and lined, all the good from that little bit of sleep they'd gotten worn away. Of course, Dean wasn't looking so hot himself. One look at Sammy told him how bad it was, but there were more important things to worry about.
"Silver-tipped shells?" Dean asked.
Sam nodded, and Dean tried to turn to look behind him. Kathie was splayed out across that gross carpet, eyes open and blank. Half of her cheek was missing, bone and blood spattered out across the furniture and wall. There was a part of him that wanted to feel bad about it, because she had been a person. She just got a raw deal. The other part of him knew that the person he had known and had helped him through his therapy had never really existed. It was all the edimmu, playing with him.
"Bitch," he pronounced.
Together, Sam and Jen got him to his feet, which was a good thing because his legs were no longer listening to him. Once he had his feet under him, he tried to make for the door, but stopped when Sam did. Sam turned, grabbed the sides of his face with those giant fucking hands, and pressed his forehead against Dean's.
"Friggin' girl," Dean said to him.
Sam made a noise in his throat, the kind of choking sound that was either a laugh or a sob, but didn't let go. "I'm sorry, Dean," he whispered. "I was supposed to have your back. I'm sorry."
"Next time," Dean said back, "I'll read the Latin, and you can do the stupid macho stuff." Sam laughed for real, then, low and weak and relieved. Dean shoved his brother away, but gently. He was like one of those face-hugger aliens or something. Sam just smiled at him.
"Let's go," Jen said, shifting the bulk of Dean's weight back and forth. "Nice reunion, very touching, but I have a girlfriend out there who's patrolling the streets for my corpse. I should get back to her before someone calls the cops. Again."
Sam ducked low, under Dean's arm, and hauled him up again. There was some tension in his shoulders, but it was a different kind of tension than before. "Yeah, look. About your girlfriend..." Jen leaned forward, tilting Dean to one side to peer around him at Sam.
"What did you do?" Dean asked.
Sam shrugged, which made Dean wince. Being bounced around between a monster and the floor, twice, after pushing himself further than he'd managed since the car hit him in the first place? Yeah, that sucked. Fortunately, Sam seemed to notice and held him pretty steady after that. "She hired me to help find the two of you. That's how I managed to find this place. I cross-referenced between the death dates of the patients and the staff scheduled for those days, managed to narrow it down to three."
"So, how did you figure out it was Kathie?" Jen asked.
Sam exhaled a short puff of breath. "I was going through them alphabetically. Kathie Abelson was first and I, uh, I saw the U-Haul in the driveway. She was listed as being single with no dependants, so I broke the door down."
Dean was about to point out how reckless it was to go around kicking in doors without more research than that, but at that point, they made it to the broken door in question. Freedom was just a few steps away, and through the open doorway Dean could even see the sleek shine of his baby.
But before they could cross the threshold and exit the damned place, the door picked itself up off the floor and slammed back into the frame.
Sam jerked them around, pivoting to face where Kathie's corpse had fallen. "Fuck," Dean gritted out. The blood spatters were still fresh and wet, but her corpse was black, shriveled. Mummified, like Grace had been. Dean was willing to bet that the edimmu had jumped ship, draining any remains of vital fluids with it as it left.
"I'm guessing that's not good," Jen noted, right before something invisible knocked her aside.
Dean leaned back against the splintered door, hoping to keep himself upright. Sam released him, carefully, and handed over the shotgun and two silver-tipped shells. Dean had it loaded in a heartbeat. The problem was, there was nothing that he could see to aim for. Sweat dripped into his eyes, and he wiped it away with one shaky hand.
"Jen," he hissed. "You okay?"
There was no response at first, and then she let out a low groan. Dean hazarded a look over to the side, to see how she was doing. She was crumpled on the floor, bleeding steadily from a cut above one eye.
"Define okay," she answered.
"You're breathing, right? That's good enough for now," Dean assured her.
Sam stepped in front of him, just far enough forward that Dean could still see to aim. He had his knife in his hand, the nasty curved one, and his shoulders hunched slightly with the tension in the air. Dean would have like to be the one in front, protecting Sam from the monster, but then he remembered what Kathie had said. Sam was "too much" for her, which meant that he was likely safer than Dean himself or Jen.
Something cold and solid connected with his side, and then everything went black. He heard Sammy's voice in the distance, calling his name, and managed to open his eyes to look around. He was slumped against the door and Sam was hovering over him, his big eyes wide with panic. More importantly, though, Dean saw it.
Sam watched his face, read it correctly, grabbed the shotgun and turned to smash the butt into the edimmu's face in one motion. That knocked it back for a bit, long enough for Dean to collect himself and register exactly what he was seeing.
The edimmu was corporeal, not a spirit, and it didn't look like it was possessing anyone. It stood maybe five feet tall, but was hunched over, bent nearly in half at the waist. It was naked and very thin, emaciated with a sunken chest and abnormally skeletal arms and hands. A gross matted mess of hair fell over its face, a face that looked like it could have been human at some point. Its eyes were the only part of it that truly looked alive, and even then they were bloodshot and raw.
"I'm very hungry now," it rasped, and the voice it used sounded something like wind blowing through branches, or dead leaves rustling over gravel. The edimmu reached out toward Dean, but Sam smashed the shotgun into its face again. The thing rocked back again, then straightened up with a creaking sound, and grabbed onto Sam.
Naturally, it grabbed him by the throat. Everything went for his throat first. Sam dropped the shotgun and clutched at its hands, already wheezing.
"Sammy!" Dean yelled – shit, even that hurt now – and reached for the shotgun. He didn't have a clean shot, not by a mile, not with Sam being his giant self and the edimmu looking like a mummy and his own hands white and shaking. But the thing was choking Sam. He didn't know where to aim, but a low enough shot wouldn't kill his brother. So Dean fired anyway.
The first shot missed them both, which really sucked, but the second one winged Sam on the thigh and hit the edimmu in the belly. It dropped Sam, who fell to the floor and started coughing.
Dean leaned back against the door for support, dizzy and panting. The edge of his vision was gray again, and that was another bad sign, but Dean didn't have time to deal with that. The edimmu was still moving, clutching at its belly with one boney hand. It stepped over Sam, who reached out after it, like that was going to stop the son of a bitch.
"I had plans for you," it said to Dean, leaning close enough that he was bathed in the foul sickly-sweet smell of its breath. "I was going to make you healthy again. She was supposed to help me with your therapy. You and that bitch," Dean assumed it meant Jen, "were going to be so delicious." It shrugged with its free arm, a gesture that looked disturbingly human. "I even thought of keeping you alive, you know. Breed the two of you. Have my own farm of human tidbits."
It grabbed his shoulder, hauled him up from the floor, fingers digging in through the thin scrub shirt. That close, Dean could hear its joints creaking like rope pulled to its utter limit. That close, Dean could see the empty cavern that was its open mouth, and he kind of wondered if the edimmu would do him the favor of eating him face first, so he wouldn't have to look at it any more.
That close, Dean could feel the impact.
"Problem with your breeding program," Jen's voice hissed from somewhere behind the edimmu. "I'm gay."
It dropped him and Dean hit the floor for the fourth time that day. Everything went dark for an instant, and when Dean's vision started to clear, it took a lot longer than it should have to figure out what was going on.
The edimmu had a fork sticking out of its shoulder. Dean blinked a few times, trying to process what he was seeing. It wasn't exactly easy. The fork in particular looked like a salad fork, the kind used for serving, and the black tarnish on the tines and handle said silver. The edimmu was writhing on the floor, rolling back and forth, obviously hurt. Jen stood over it, blood covering almost one entire side of her face.
"Dean?" Sam wheezed. He was crouched next to Dean, blood on his hands that Dean didn't remember. He wondered how Sam had managed to injure himself when the edimmu didn't look like it was capable of doing much – thank you, Jen – but then he realized that it was coming from himself, his shoulder, and remembered that the edimmu had grabbed him there.
"Son of a bitch," Dean swore. He couldn't see the injury, but he knew it was there, and once he knew that it was there, it hurt. He looked up at Sam, whose eyes were very dark and dangerous. "I'll be fine, Sammy."
Sam nodded and stood up. "Jen, go to the kitchen. See if you can find something flammable. Like cooking oil or something."
Jen didn't answer, just turned away and vanished down the hall.
Sam grabbed the fork lodged in the edimmu's shoulder and yanked it out. It made a sort of screaming noise, a weak one. "Should have killed you when I had the chance," it panted at him.
"Yeah, well, you should have kept your fucking hands off my brother," Sam returned, his voice soft and deadly, and then he brought the fork down on the base of the evil bitch's neck. The edimmu collapsed to the floor and stopped moving. There were a few minutes of silence, Sam and Dean staring at the shriveled thing. Dad's journal had never mentioned edimmu becoming corporeal, but the journal was also pretty freaking cryptic.
"You think we should leave him a message?" Dean asked.
Sam didn't ask who he was talking about. He just shook his head, and then Jen was back with a very dusty bottle of cooking brandy, and the time for talking was over. They doused the body, then Jen shoved the front door out of the doorframe again and helped Dean down the front steps to a safe distance. Sam remained in the doorway, fumbling with a lighter. Dean turned to look at him, and found Sam's eyes fixed on him. Then Sam started and looked away, his expression almost guilty, and lit the bitch up.
They three of them stood there and watched for a while. The glow of the fire was satisfying, and knowing that the son of a bitch was good and dead made Dean feel a lot better. He guessed that it made Sam and Jen feel better, too.
"So," Jen said, sounding exactly like he felt, "it's over?"
Dean looked over at Jen. "Yeah," he said quietly. "It's over."
