A/N: We've been on hiatus. Looks shifty-eyed, yeah, that's it. I apologize to everyone for the delay in updating this story, in particular to Phoebe, Merisha and Master Li. I have no excuse. Sorry about the shifting verb tense. I struggled with it, and my muse won.
Disclaimer: I don't own the boys. They belong to Eric Kripke. This is for entertainment purposes only, not for profit.
Chapter 7
He's not right in the head, and he knows it. The space inside that hard knock skull of his roars and echoes as the past collides with the present. Dean stands frozen, every muscle in his body locked up tight and solid as the black horse walks up to him.
He sees the way the sunlight strikes that black coat of hers, spears of sunlight highlighting those powerful muscles one moment. Her coat flares black as the crack of doom the next, swallowing up all light around her.
He's hunted things like her all his life.
"You all right, Dean?" Dad rumbled softly.
Dean nodded. "Yeah. I'm okay."
"Damn right you are." John's broad hand comes down on Dean's shoulder. "Good job, son."
Dean can almost feel the weight, but John's hand fades away to nothing, passes through Dean as if he were the ghost. John and everything else around him fades away into bright sunlight.
He's dreamed about her in that other life.
She was shifting black sand shaped by the wind, and when she was finally born the black foal struggled upright on four dark, spindly legs as her mother, glistening pale under the moonlight, stood guard over her.
Dean snaps back to himself, standing on that dusty back road. Sunlight's strong this time of day, but he can't even blink. Dean doesn't know why he's like this, why his muscles won't work.
"I'm not gonna live this life forever. Dean, when this is all over, you're gonna have to let me go my own way."
It's time…
You left me, the black horse told him before. You left us. I didn't mean to hurt you.
Second time he ditched her. Not likely that she's gonna let him go this time. This time she's going to hurt him and mean it, every bruise, every broken bone.
Her motion is sure, almost dainty, not a step out of place, and where ever she steps she leaves a hoof print burned into the asphalt. The air around her is charged with specks of gold and silver energy, even in the bright sunlight.
I had one job, Dean thinks wearily as she stops in front of him. Just one. Take care of my family. That's all. And I couldn't even do that right.
He's got no excuse, no excuse at all. Bobby tried talking to him about forgiving himself. So did Ellen, but there's no damn excuse. He's been fooling himself ever since he left Bobby's place. He refused to put a name to the faces in that other life, and the past still caught up to him. He can't remember all that, he won't, because if he does, he'll lose John and Sam forever.
Lloyd's Bar and the crossroads is a half a mile ahead, and it might as well be on the far side of the moon. Bitch demon probably wouldn't even have shown up, much less made the deal to bring John and Sam back, even if Dean had been able to make it there. She was pretty damn pissed at him last time for forcing her to break Evan Hudson's deal.
He's confused. He remembers how heavy and somehow awkward his knife felt in his right hand.
His missing right hand. He can still feel it, even though it's gone, blown to bone dust and shredded flesh over a month ago. He can wriggle his fingers.
He aches to touch her. Wants to feel that sleek black coat underneath his fingertips. If he could move, he knows exactly what he'd do. Swing onto her back, grasp that long thick mane in his fingers. He'd nudge her sides with his heels, turn her around, away from Lloyd's Bar and the crossroads up ahead.
Everyone else leaves. Why can't he?
He'd jump the fence and ride off, whooping joyously, away from that hunter's life, away from everything else.
She cocks her head to one side, ears pricked, and that fierce glow in those reddish gold eyes softens, just a little. It's like she's listening to all the noise and commotion inside his head. She softly, gently, nuzzles the side of Dean's face. Those fine thin scars around his right eye are not quite hidden by those dark sunglasses. She lowers her head, stares at the stump of his right hand. He had a strong yet gentle touch.
Gone now.
The black pities him, and that's sure in the hell not what Dean wants.
Kill me. Come on, you bitch, kill me!
The black snorts and shakes her head. No.
John's voice echoes inside Dean's head, and the black horse pins her ears back.
"I want to stop losing people we love. I want you to go to school, Sam. I want…I want Dean to have a home. I want Mary alive. I just…I just want this to be over."
Not sorry he's dead, the black horse rumbles angrily. Clouds on the horizon darken immediately. Don't listen to that.
You were mine long before you were their Dean. We both got many names, but you remember our First. I know you do. Lightning splits the sky in a jagged stroke of silver, and the distant toll of thunder shakes the ground. We belong together. Always.
She pushes her nose gently against the side of Dean's face, and her sleek black fur is a soft velvet touch on his cool, clammy skin.
Dean doesn't even blink.
You dreamed about me, and I saw you every time I closed my eyes. It's all right, she says softly. I'm here.
He hears it then. Kids' voices, high and joyful in the warm air…
TIME…
Friggin' nursery rhyme…
He's heard this before, some place else, maybe from one of the apartment buildings, kids playing in the yards next to one of those rented houses he and Dad and Sam stayed in…
Kids singing, playing…
Dean blinks. He doesn't remember this…
TIME…
Kids with happy, dirty faces, wearing loose drab clothes, dingy white and brown. Grey stone buildings, low to the ground, places he's never seen before, only on the History Channel, in school books, or on the 'net. Someplace else. Somewhen else.
TIME TO RISE…
Dean struggles with the past, and loses.
Dean raises his right arm up. He knows he's only got a stump, knows his fingers are gone, but he can feel sleek black fur, feel her muscles shiver and tremble underneath his missing fingertips.
I…I knew the demon from before…they're all dead because of me…everyone I ever loved…
He tried to have us killed, remember? the black horse rumbles softly inside Dean's head. I lived because of you. Then you left me.
TIME TO FALL….
She was dying.
Her ebony coat was splattered with large white blotches. She lay on her side, wheezing, kicking out weakly as the poison from the blade burned through her veins and dulled her eyes. There was blood everywhere, and not all of it was his.
"You're not gonna leave me." His own skin glowed with fever, but he only had eyes for her. "You hear me? You're not dying on me. You're not…."
She rolled one eye towards him, red-gold flaring up weakly, one last time, as she whispered his name.
"Gaelen…"
Dean's left hand shakes as he reaches up and takes his sunglasses off. He turns his face into the side of her neck. All Dean sees is black. It's like coming home as he speaks the black horse's name for the first time in this life.
A single tear rolls out of Dean's right eye.
"Samirah," Dean whispers softly.
TIME TO REMEMBER IT ALL.
He was Gaelen back in that old life. Gaelen. It comes back to him now, all free and easy. No pain, no pressure. Dean sways there on the road as his muscles unlock. Samirah moves in closer, stands close to him, holds him up. She's patient. Waiting for him to catch up with her.
The others have been at this longer than he has. Galen remembers that much. He doesn't know what happened to the last Horseman before him, just that she left one day. Death mounted up, rode away on her sleek palomino stallion and never looked back.
Maybe she was tired of the same old thing. Maybe she had other business elsewhere that was more to her liking. None of that mattered.
It was his time then.
Gaelen's known that for a couple of weeks now. He's dreamed it.
He doesn't mind the dreams. Never has. He's had them since he was a kid, remembers more detail about his dreams than about his own family. He can't even remember the color of his mother's hair. Or the shape of his father's face. That doesn't bother him. Never did.
He does remember the horses in his dreams. The colors, the way they moved. Dappled grey, red roan, palomino. Chestnut mares, white stallions and tri-colored foals with laughing eyes. Muscular, lean black bodies splattered with pink and white color. He'd watch them buck and run, and he always woke up smiling from the dreams in which some of them actually let him ride them bare back.
All except Samirah.
They were born at the same exact time, bonded to each other, and he didn't know why. Didn't ask why. He saw her in his dreams, then and only then, watched her grow from a skittish little foal with long spider legs to a terrifying force of nature. The ground shook when she ran full out, her neck stretched out, ears prickled. When she extended herself lightning struck the earth.
You're my rider, Gaelen. Only you. But not now. And not here.
He left home as soon as he was big enough. His family wasn't that sorry to see him go. The grandparents, especially, were afraid of him. They called him unnatural, a dybbuk, a daemon, for the way he got along with animals. Especially horses.
There was too much whispering going on in that house.
"Look at him. Look at his eyes, so bright and green."
His grandparents and parents would stop talking as soon as he entered the room.
"His eye color changes sometime. That's not right. Not natural…"
The day he walked in on his mother as she prepared a protective sachet filled with angelica root, Gaelen knew it was time to go.
He could hear his father sharpening his ax in the barn.
Gaelen walked away, on foot, even though some of his family's horses tried to follow him. He told them to go back home, and they finally did.
Gaelen wandered from place to place. Never stayed anywhere for too long. There was always another village or town just past the horizon. He knew who he was looking for, and after a while it occurred to him that the best way would be just to stay put for awhile and let her find him.
That wasn't quite the way it worked.
Famine was the first to show up.
Rika, Gaelen thinks to himself when he sees her. Her name is Rika.
No one else appeared to notice how her appearance shifted back and forth. From a young girl of about eight, to a tall slender young woman, and back again. She has long wavy red hair and freckles. It's her eyes, deep and ageless, that gives it away, but no one else cares to look that close. She sits her big white mare up on the hill as Gaelen walks to the stable. Her huge white mare is named Actaeon. She stands there, calm and placid. She's maybe a little too even tempered to be in this line of work, but she belongs to Rika. Actaeon doesn't mind.
Rika smiles warmly when she sees Gaelen. Something in his own eyes sparks copper as he smiles back at her.
It'll be fine, Gaelen. It will, she whispers inside his head. Gaelen nods a little, and when he blinks again she's gone already.
Pestilence brings his horse in a day later.
He's Chale. The name comes easily to Gaelen even though the man doesn't say two words. His horse is big, dappled grey, solidly built, just like his rider.
Gaelen carefully picks a few pebbles out of the animal's shoes. Ismael stands there patiently, nibbling at the shirt on Gaelen's back.
Chale smiles a little, flips Gaelen a coin as payment when he's done. Later, brother.
War passes Gaelen on the road into town. He sits his red stallion proudly, wears those simple clothes of his like royalty. His name is Tiesen. His mount is Ajani.
Unlike the others, Tiesen just nods and then rides off without saying a word.
On the last day of that old life Gaelen just laid there in bed, blinking slowly in the strong sunlight. He'd slept a little longer than he usually did. On a normal day he would have been up at the crack of dawn, tending to the horses. If a mare was expecting he'd bed down in the stall with her. Not now. Everything in his old life steps aside to make way for the new.
He had a way with horses, could tame even the wildest beast with a look and a gentle touch. Friesan, Trakehner, Arabians, Spanish Barbs, the breed didn't matter. One look into those green eyes of his, and they settled down, even the ones who'd been beaten and tormented by humans. He'd made some enemies, gotten into some fights with idiots who mistreated their animals and then dropped off them off at the stable, expecting him to repair the damage they'd inflicted.
He was useful, so the town elders left him alone for the most part, let him tame and gentle all manner of horses. Warmbloods, draft horses, partbreds, hot-blooded thoroughbreds, it was all the same to Gaelen. It was good for business, until the day the townspeople decided they had no more use for him.
Today's the day.
He can hear the men in the hallway outside his room. They're nervous, excited. Here's a chance to take out all their frustration on someone else. Gaelen doesn't even react as they smash the door down, and they're on him in the next second. He keeps his face carefully blank as they splash him with holy water and tie his hands behind his back. Then he's dragged through the streets to the field just outside of town, the Judgement of the Stones, the field where criminals and witches are stoned to death.
They throw him down on his knees in front of the robed magistrate. The man reads the charges. "You have been accused of conspiring to kill Goodman Pritchett's wife. Goodman Pritchett has confessed that you bewitched her riding horse. It trampled her to death. How do you plead?"
Gaelen doesn't say a word. He just looks at the man, and the magistrate flinches back a little. Six months ago Gaelen gentled a pony for the man's youngest daughter.
They stand him up on his feet and step back. It would be unseemly to execute a man while he's on his knees. Gaelen stands there in the center of a large circle of his neighbors and so called friends. He turns his face towards the sky and closes his eyes.
Thunder in the distance. I'm coming, Gaelen. Samirah rumbles. It's time.
The first stone makes him stagger, but he stays on his feet.
For a little while, at least.
Time.
He's on the edge, slipping away. He lies crumpled on the ground, an insignificant smear of spilled blood and broken bones.
You can't cross over…the black horse whispers.
One more breath, one more heartbeat.
You won't…
A warm wind comes out of the south flows gently over his broken, bruised skin. Dean's heartbeat starts up again, slow at first. He doesn't flinch when Samirah's shadow falls over him, black as night.
You'll wait for me, because you know that we belong together.
She bows her head, folds her forelegs neatly, carefully, as she kneels on the ground next to him.
Gaelen was silent while they stoned him. The ropes binding his arms behind his back turns to dust. He bites back the scream that rises up, red and raw in his throat. His bones scrape and splinter against each other, his damaged nerve endings shriek out in pain, but he ignores it. He ignores it all. All he can think about is pulling himself upright. He struggles up, grabbing at her thick mane with bloodied, torn fingers.
Samirah waits until he settles awkwardly on her back. The bones in his shattered body shift and grind against themselves, but he barely feels it.
As Samirah rises to her feet the air around the two of them darkens. Gaelen's eyes spark copper. The torn and bloodied garments he wore fade away into a jet black cassock, black pants, black boots and a long black leather hooded coat. Samirah proudly wears smooth black tack that materializes on her out of thin air.
They're bonded forever now, unnaturally perfect. He has his mount, and she has him.
They walk slowly down the main street of the town. Nothing touches them. Not the lightning, not the winds, or torrential rains.
The town burns all around them and Gaelen never looks back.
Not all deaths are big, spectacular. Not all of them call for the four of them to ride together. There are two man jobs and Gaelen has to smile at that, especially when he thinks of Rika.
It's another job, another town. Chale rides through first. He brings smallpox. Cholera.
He sits his big grey horse quietly on the hill overlooking the dying town. Pestilence looks thoughtful as Gaelen rides up.
By the time Gaelen rides in on the black, it's a mercy.
"I envy you, Gaelen. We do good work. Work that has to be done, but there's suffering too. Not gonna sugarcoat it." Chale shrugs those massive shoulders of his. "By the time you and your girl two show up, it's over, and most of them know it. It's an end. It's peace. Most of them cross over."
The black horse snorts and rolls her eyes. She's impatient, ready to move on to the next assignment. Gaelen's too new to this. Everything is a wonder to him, although he tries not to show it.
He loses himself in his work. They go where ever they're needed, where ever it's time. There are demons in the world now. They show their faces more often.
Gaelen and Samirah meet Azazel first in Africa. They meet him four more times after that.
The thing in front of them runs, hopping and skittering. It kicks up desert sand as it switches from two legs to all fours as it gallops along underneath the full moon. It's a patchwork beast, held together by black thread and dark magic, one of Azazel's hobbies run amok. One head faces front, and the other one faces the rear. It laughs, stretches its undead mouth in a wide toothy grin at the black horse and rider behind it.
Gaelen and Samirah have seen enough of this puppet's bloody handiwork.
Samirah runs flat out. Galen leans forward in the saddle, holding the reins loosely. He doesn't have to urge her, either with his heels or his hands.
Azazel's priest was the last human to die that night, in the temple they left behind, just as he let the creature out of its cage. He holds his hand up as though that would stop anything.
Samirah snorts and paws at the ground, her eyes flashing reddish gold. Gaelen sits her proudly, the hood of his long leather coast casting his face in deep shadow. His green eyes flash bright bright copper.
The trinket in the old man's hand is supposed to ward off Death. Well, there's death, and then there's Death. ""Horseman, pass by," the old man intones grandly. "This is none of your concern."
"It is because we say it is," Gaelen says softly. The priest crumbles in on himself. His flesh withers into curled flaps of dried skin, dust and ashes.
Gaelen wheels Samirah around in the opposite direction as the rest of Azazel's cult flees. There's no sign of the yellow eyed bastard. Only his beast and his flunkies.
The thing runs two legged now, runs in the dark. There's a town up ahead, just over the rise, full of warm, unsuspecting flesh. Plenty of food for this unnatural thing to feast on. If it reaches the town it'll get bigger, stronger, grow more heads, more arms and legs as it eats.
It happens in a blink of an eye. The head facing the rear laughs at the horseman pursuing them and suddenly the big black horse is right there, right beside them. The rider looks down at the beast with a wink, the corners of that full mouth twitch upwards in a smirk.
The rear head frowns. The creature hunches over as it switches to four legs, running on its hands and feet.
The black horse and rider are right next to them now, and no matter how much the creature lunges forward, it can't get away. It has enough sense not to touch them, but even that doesn't matter.
The right hand falls off first, turned to dust, hardly noticeable in the desert sand. It nearly falls, then loses its balance on the left as the left leg breaks apart, shreds itself into shattered bone and dust.
The beast continues to crawl, even when it's just a torso writhing in the dust. Gaelen and Samirah circle it until there's nothing left. It goes the way of all flesh, turns to dust in a matter of minutes, howling and gobbling underneath the full moon, in view of the lights of the town ahead.
Gaelen strokes Samirah's neck with pride and gratitude. As they ride away, he imagines he hears Azazel's bellow of rage.
That makes Gaelen smile a little.
Dean takes one breath. He shudders with it, his head bobbing back and forth. Samirah whickers softly and leans into him a little, just enough to keep him on his feet.
Dean blinks dazedly in the bright sunlight.
Come with me, the black whispers. It's over. It's done. People die, Gaelen. They do. Sometimes you can save them, and sometimes you can't.
Dean shakes his head. "My brother. My Dad...I can't leave them like that. I can't…"
"Let the man decide for himself, why don't you?" this voice says from behind. Samirah reacts immediately. She backs up, circles around Dean, her head lowered, her eyes suddenly gone dark with murder and rage. Dean stumbles, grabs hold of her mane as he prevents himself from face planting into the asphalt.
He jerks around, his arm draped over Samirah's neck.
The woman standing behind them smiles cruelly. She's brunette, about Dean's age, dressed in a sleek black dress that leaves nothing to the imagination, with impossibly high stiletto heels.
"Hi, Dean. Hmmm." She looks him over, takes it all in, and licks her lips with the tip of her tongue, slowly. "You're just the way I like my men. Broken and beautiful. There's a little less of you than there was before, but that doesn't matter. I'm easy that way. Just a sucker for damaged strays."
"Whoa! Hey!" Dean yells out as the black horse lunges at the woman. Samirah snorts and stays in place, only because Dean's still weak. He'd fall down if she moved away from him and she knows it.
"Who the hell are you?" Dean grates out.
He thinks he knows. He thinks wrong.
Her hazel eyes go completely white. "You really think I'd leave this up to that dumb bitch who works for me? After the way you tricked her the last time? I don't think so. You're the one soul I'd come up top to make the deal personally. Pleased to meet you, Dean Winchester. I'm Lillith."
To be continued next week.
