Somewhere along the way, I've mentioned to some of you that I'm really proud of Sam in this story. I don't mean the way I've written him (she types humbly), but of Sam himself—not surprised, but proud nevertheless. What he does in this chapter is why.
Hey, I really appreciate all the feedback, alerting and fav'ing. My, you're awesome!
Rush
Chapter Ten
"Tell me, Katie," Dean said, meeting the spirit-child's wide brown eyes squarely. "Tell me the name of the person who killed you."
At first he thought it was his imagination, because her mouth didn't move, and because the sound seemed to come from everywhere. Strains of familiar music, something he'd heard before on that first afternoon at The Baron Hotel—a child's lilting voice singing a tune long dead.
Come be my forever love
My lovely little turtle dove
"Do you hear that?" he asked gruffly, never taking his eyes off the spirit before him. "Grace, tell me you can hear that."
Beside him, Grace shifted slightly, and he caught the movement in his peripheral vision.
"'Lovely Turtle Dove,'" she breathed.
"I get it, Katie," Dean confirmed for the little girl, his voice still soft. "It was Agnes Markham, wasn't it? Her husband called her 'turtle dove,' but she was really a vulture. Agnes hurt you—killed you—and nobody but her and you and Quon-Jin ever knew. Is that right?"
The spirit nodded solemnly, and Dean winced at the sorrow in her expression.
"Honey, why? Can you tell me why she would do such a terrible thing to you?"
Katie leaned in even closer to whisper into Dean's ear, her icy breath painful on his bare flesh.
"Not—my—mommy…" she told him, withdrawing slightly and holding up three pale white fingers.
In an instant, she was back across the room, shrinking against Quon-Jin's side as Dean recoiled slightly, startled.
The move put him off-balance, his knee giving way without warning, and Dean toppled back and to the side, landing painfully, high on his hip.
"Sonofa--!"
"Dean!" Grace cried, kneeling quickly beside him.
The air was suddenly thick with tension as Quon-Jin billowed forward again, darkening, shoving Katie out of the way. Dean grabbed up the salt-gun with a snarl, once more bringing it to bear on the hanged man.
"Hold it!"
He matched steely gazes with the Chinese spirit, then remembered suddenly the feel of small hands on the stairs, pushing against his back as he raised the shotgun to fire, forcing him off-kilter; remembered Quon-Jin leaping forward with a shout. Dean drew his brows together, taking his bottom lip in his teeth. Maybe they protect each other.
As if on cue, Katie gave her hand an angry flip, the gun flying from Dean's hands as he lay on the clay floor and a stack of cardboard boxes tumbling forward, almost in slow motion. Grace screamed as the cartons fell, breaking open to bury them both in a sudden flood of books and papers, old clothes and tools, cast-offs from an earlier age.
The hunter struggled to rise, cursing, digging his way out from under and bringing Grace with him so that together they burst up from the flotsam like breaching dolphins from ocean waves. Dean pawed for his handgun, but it was gone, lost somewhere in the basement along with the salt-gun, and iron rounds wouldn't have done much good, anyway. About the best he could do was stay on his feet and breathe heavily, protecting Grace by standing in front of her and attempting to pin the Chinaman and the little girl with a baleful glare.
"Dean, how do you think angry spirits are born?"
The soft voice was vague and fleeting in Dean's memory as everyone stood frozen for a long, tense moment.
"They can't let go, and they can't move on."
He didn't know where the words came from—didn't really care—but he recognized the empathy in them, felt them touch a responding chord somewhere inside him.
These two, a little girl who should have had her whole life ahead of her and the man falsely accused of her murder—they deserved something better than the cards they'd been dealt.
But they needed to go, and go now, before they really got somebody hurt. Or dead.
So, finally, Dean ducked his head.
"All right," he said curtly, forcing his shoulders to relax, knowing all eyes were on him. "It's all right. We've just got to work this out."
Slowly, the tension eased, Quon-Jin repositioning himself protectively near Katie, Grace getting a solid grip of Dean's arm to help steady him.
He knew without looking that his kneecap hadn't dislocated again, but the pain was sharp, almost sharper than it had been in Elko, and Dean flashed suddenly on Sam, on how mad Sammy'd be if his big brother had gone and screwed things up beyond redemption.
A caustic laugh tried to crawl out of his mouth, and Dean bit it back impatiently.
Another Winchester, beyond redemption.
Couldn't say it would surprise him, if it happened, he thought. Make that when it happened. Like father, like son—
Except that Dean had a job to do first, and damned if he wasn't going to do it.
I'm takin' care of business, Dad, and I'm tryin' to take care of Sammy, too. Some days are just easier than others. This one? Hell, who ever figured I'd be jawin' with ghosts?
Keeping a wary eye on Quon-Jin, he shifted to a more comfortable position, most of his weight on his left leg, against Grace.
"I don't understand," the curator said, her voice undeniably even although her body was trembling. "Agnes killed Katie because she wasn't her daughter?"
"Maybe," Dean rasped, his knee screaming like a banshee. "Maybe she was jealous of Katie's mom. Or maybe she just killed her out of grief at having lost her own kid so recently."
That put a frown-line between Grace's brows, and she turned to him almost sharply. "The Markhams didn't have a child."
"Yeah, they did, actually, and I can show you the proof upstairs in your own little museum. And at the cemetery—I think the Historical Society's going to have to make that fence around the Markhams' grave a little larger. Anyway, after Agnes murdered Katie, she blamed Quon-Jin."
"And they just believed her? What proof could they have had that he was guilty?" Grace's voice cracked with emotion, and Dean brushed a hand against her arm, thinking of the little footprints he'd seen on the pollen-dusted basement steps.
"They didn't need any, Grace. I think Quon-Jin and Katie hung out together back in the day, kinda like they do now. Don't know how they got to be buddies, but they were, and she probably came and went down here as she pleased, although maybe not while he had customers. So he'd have had plenty of opportunity to kill her, if he'd wanted to, and Agnes…well, Agnes already had some kind of an ax to grind against foreign imports. Plus, those days? She knew that nobody'd ever take the word of a Chinaman over hers."
Across the spill of cardboard boxes, Quon-Jin's spirit brightened again, and if he squinted, Dean might swear the hanged man had begun to smile.
Effin' ghosts, throwin' him off, actin' almost human…
"Is that right, you two?" Dean asked, and although both Katie and her protector nodded, the little girl tucked her ring finger under her thumb beside the little one, leaving two fingers still upraised.
"Not—my—mommy!" she repeated firmly.
"Not her mommy?" Dean growled to Grace in frustration. "What's that mean? Who the hell was her mommy?"
Of course Grace had the answer. "Delilah Reardon," she said. "I'm sorry, Dean—I thought you knew."
-:- -:- -:-
Bull Clancy was a monster of a man, his height almost equal to Sam's, but his mass broader, every inch of it spectral muscle. Sam wondered how he'd managed to miss all that the first times he'd seen the ghost, because it sure as hell was hard to miss now. And for a dead guy, Bull wielded a pickax with amazing accuracy.
Sam dodged back quickly as the ax swung past him, chest-high. He had raised his gun to fire when it had gone flying, torn from his hand by spirit-force, skittering across the stone floor into the utter darkness of the drift as Clancy hoisted the ax for another swing. Now, he was weaponless, and the iron rounds hadn't had much impact on the ghost to begin with.
Clancy came at him again, dead eyes glittering with malicious humor, feinting left, then right as the hunter countered warily. Somewhere nearby was the hole Steve had dropped through, and for a moment Sam thought the ghost might be maneuvering him toward it.
But Clancy laughed, vanishing abruptly and plunging the Forty-Eight into utter darkness, only to reappear moments later at Sam's back.
Sam whirled, huffing with angry surprise, and Clancy vanished again, this time blinking into existence just behind Sam's left shoulder. When the ghost tapped him lightly, leaning in and grinning as though to tell the young man some delicious secret, the touch was like ice, freezing Sam's arm and the expanse of his back.
With a shout, Sam leaped away again, although he knew he was only buying time as Clancy's roaring laughter echoed around the vast and empty drift.
-:- -:- -:-
Dean blinked, brows gathering as he looked skeptically at the woman beside him.
"The local madam was the gold-camp darling's mother," he said in disbelief, and Grace nodded.
"Delilah Reardon was Katie's mother," Dean said again, just to make sure, "and they both lived upstairs at The Baron."
"Yes, and yes," Grace confirmed quickly. "Katie's body was found in the alley right behind the hotel."
Well, what do you know? Maybe that wasn't just little Wren Markham he'd heard…
Then Dean's frustration spiked. "Where the hell did 'Kaheny' come from!?" he snapped to the room at large.
"Uh—there was probably some gossip, but nobody ever really knew for sure who Katie's father was. Delilah never told."
"Grace."
His gentling growl did its job and the curator ducked her head, almost blushing as she admitted, "There are Kahenys in the Markham family tree, but everyone seemed to believe that was coincidence, and that 'Kaheny' was just Katie's theatrical name."
Dean nodded, smile thin and grim as more puzzle pieces fell into place. "Sure they did. Delilah and Katie showed up in Rattlesnake from San Francisco, which is where the Markhams were from. And they settled down in The Baron Hotel, and got friendly enough that JT and Delilah had a picture taken together, one that looks almost exactly like one he took with his wife Agnes. What do you want to bet that he and Delilah knew each other pretty well from the good ol' days back in the City, and that JT Markham was little Katie's father?"
"No bet," Grace responded immediately, and Dean gazed across the basement at Katie and Quon-Jin, eying the child's ghost speculatively, letting the wheels in his head turn.
"But whether or not the gossip was true, everybody thought Delilah went crazy after Katie's murder, and that's why she stabbed JT. Then he ran downstairs and died in his wife's arms," he recalled aloud.
"Yes," Grace said again, and Katie's expression grew sorrowful.
Frowning, Dean struggled to make the right connections. If he closed his eyes, he could bring to life the specter of the distraught woman who had appeared in the Markhams' suite and stabbed himin the heart, vivid and livid in her red dress, bloodless cheeks somehow flushed with anger to match as she shrieked incoherently into his startled face.
But there had been words, punctuated with obscenities…
"Give me—daughter!" she had shrilled, her harridan's voice piercing. "Own child, Ja—Mark—killed her!"
Dean felt his eyes widen as he got the picture. "Oh, sweetheart," he murmured to himself, studying the little girl standing in the protective shadow of a Chinese drug-lord. "You're gonna sing me that same song, aren't you?"
"What?" Grace asked, leaning in to hear him, and Dean drew in a sustaining breath.
"Agnes killed them both," he announced, his voice rough with the realization, and Katie began to brighten. "Agnes killed Katie and JT—crime of passion, I guess you'd call it—and then she made patsies out of Quon-Jin and Delilah. People believed her, or didn't mind believing her, anyway, so that's who they blamed. Isn't that right, Katie?"
Once more, the child's image flickered, and when she reappeared in front of him, Dean bent over, slow and without threat, until he could look directly into her eyes.
"I thought that was your mommy I saw with the knife, Katie," he told her seriously. "Everyone said that Delilah had killed JT Markham, and I had no reason to doubt it. Sure looked like her, once I saw her picture and could put a name with the face. What I couldn't figure out was how Delilah could have crossed the salt-line. Spirits shouldn't be able to do that."
The little girl shook her head with a pout, and Dean quirked a smile.
"Yeah, I know you know. That's why you knocked, huh? To see if I'd come out and play. You've been leavin' your footprints everywhere, haven't you, including right outside my door."
He couldn't take bending any more, and Dean straightened with a muffled groan, throwing a quick glance at Quon-Jin, checking to make sure the ghost was behaving himself.
He kinda felt like Matlock, proving his client innocent, making his final, impassioned pitch in a TV episode's big climax: key witness on the stand and everybody in the courtroom leaning forward in fascination, hanging on his every word as he laid things out for them, wrapping up all the loose ends, leaving the jury no choice but to send the real killer to the chair.
Not bad for a guy with blood still tricklin' down his face….
"Thing is, the woman who took a stab at me looked an awful lot like Agnes, too," Dean said, sweeping his left arm out dramatically and nearly overbalancing because of it. He cleared his throat, hoping no one had noticed as the color rose in his cheeks. "And salt couldn't stop her, because the woman with the knife was Agnes, and she didn't need to cross the salt-line; she was already right there in the room. She died in that room, and then some part of her just never left. Her daughter Wren is still there, too—I heard her running; felt her bump against the bed. Salt wasn't gonna work against either of them, because they both died in that room, were both already inside."
Dean dropped his volume, speaking gently now and only for Katie's benefit. "And ol' Agnes, she repeats your daddy's murder time and again, because of how hateful and sad she is. Isn't that right, Katie? Did I get that right?"
This time, Katie nodded, and Dean pressed his lips together, knowing what he was about to say would sound like a favor, and wondering at how far he'd come down his long, strange road to be doing favors for effing ghosts. Jesus, what would Dad say about that?
It didn't matter, though—not now. Dad was dead; black-and-white was for zebras and old movies; and right was right, whatever the circumstances.
"I can make sure that Agnes Markham and her little girl find some peace, Katie; so you can all find some peace," Dean said, voice soft and sincere. "Would you like me to do that?"
Again the child's spirit nodded, and the light around her grew so that Dean had to narrow his eyes against it.
"Then I'll take care of it," he promised. "'Not my mommy' was right both times, sweetheart. You did real good, helpin' me and Grace understand what happened to you and to your friend Quon-Jin and to your daddy. Now? Now, you're free to go."
But suddenly Katie was twisting before him, a coy kitten, one finger still raised.
"Not my mommy," she whispered, her smile shy as she searched Dean's face with big brown eyes, twirling the finger in front of his nose.
Oh.
To his astonishment, Dean felt his cheeks flush again, but she certainly wasn't the first girl who'd had a crush on him. First dead one, maybe….
He returned Katie's smile warmly.
"I get it," he said to her, leaning down once more, still keeping his voice low so only the two of them could hear. "That was your little tea party, up in your mama's room. I thought maybe Delilah was fallin' back into old habits, and it never crossed my mind that you were the one doin' the asking. Well, Katie-cat, that was real nice of you to invite me, and I'm sorry I had to decline."
Dean lifted a hand and raised his own index finger. For just a moment, the living and the dead touched, Katie beaming with bashful delight.
Quon-Jin stepped forward quietly then, arm outstretched, and Katie glanced back at him over her shoulder. With a final look at Dean, she skipped to the Chinese man, folding her hand into his. They were both smiling broadly as the light streaming from them became blinding, and Dean was forced to turn away, shielding his eyes against the inside of his elbow, Grace burying her face in her hands. When at last they could see again, the spirits were gone, faded into nothing.
"Where did they go?" Grace wondered softly beside him, and Dean could only shrug.
"I don't know. I hope they went to someplace better."
"I hope so, too."
The curator's voice was almost breathless, and he could tell that she was crying in silence once more. Still, she grasped his elbow gently, allowing him to balance against her while he straightened, making sure his knee wasn't going to buckle when he put his weight on it.
Then he turned to her, wanting to apologize, somehow, although he wasn't sure why. To his surprise, Dean found she was smiling, although her face shone with tears in the steady glow from the light overhead.
"Grace?"
She laughed, wiping her eyes as she explained. "Now Quon-Jin's family can venerate him, Junjei. Now I can honor my ancestor, and that's a wonderful blessing. Thank you."
Their kiss was slow and sweet and filled with promises Dean knew he could never keep, no matter what he might want. But there was comfort in it, and acceptance, and Dean felt locks being opened inside him, releasing things he'd kept imprisoned for a very long time. Then, at last, he drew back, his thumb brushing away the tears from her cheek.
"I think you have a story to tell me," she said, gazing up at him as Dean smiled curiously. "Something about salt, and a woman in your room with a knife?"
He chuckled but said nothing, bending with a pained groan to toss boxes aside until he found his handgun, moving stiffly to the far corner of the basement to retrieve the shotgun. Then he and Grace climbed the stairs together, one step at a time and hand in hand, pausing at the top to turn off the light.
"Why didn't Delilah speak up?" Grace asked, bemused. "She could have told them she didn't kill JT, but she never said a word. She spent the rest of her life in prison."
Dean shrugged, holding open the door into the joss house and ushering her through. His knee-brace lay beside the altar, and he grabbed it up, began strapping it back around his throbbing leg.
"I don't get it all, Grace," he said. "Maybe she just didn't care, after Katie died. And think about it. Delilah was nothing more than a glorified hooker, but Agnes owned the richest mine for miles around. It's like with Quon-Jin—which one of them was more apt to be believed? For my money, in both cases, it was Agnes."
"I guess there's discrimination of all kinds," Grace admitted sadly, and Dean nodded.
"You got that ri—" He broke off abruptly, startled by a call on his cell, somehow certain that whatever his brother had to say couldn't be good. "Excuse me; I gotta take this, and the charge is goin'. Sammy? What's happ--"
"Help!" A woman's voice cried. "Oh, please, help! He said it's Clancy!"
Dean's eyes widened, his brow furrowing with disbelief. "Who is this? Erica? Where's Sam?"
"In the mine!" the wailing voice cried loudly, and Grace looked at him in alarm. "Sam's in the mine, and there's a…a man! Clancy! Sam said to tell you it was Clancy!"
Grace put her hand on his arm, and Dean turned away slightly from the distraction of her touch, thinking fast. If Bull Clancy had shown up again at the mine, it meant that they'd missed something back at the cemetery…
"Erica! Calm down!" he ordered, lips thinning. "Are you at the North Cedar?"
He thought he heard a 'yes' amidst her sobs, but it didn't really matter. That's where Sam was, so that's where Dean was headed.
"Erica, stay where you are," he said roughly into the cell. "I'm on my way."
He snapped the phone shut, then took Grace firmly by the shoulders.
"Grace, I know Bull Clancy's song-book is in the museum. Is there anything else of his—something personal? Think hard!"
She shook her head quickly, startled. "Dean, the hymnal belonged to Leland Hartson. Does it matter?"
"The card said—" Understanding flared suddenly in Dean's green eyes. "You told me the cards were mixed up. What's in that display case that belonged to Clancy?"
"Um…" She was flustered, his vehemence making her first forgetful, then verbose, words rushing out of her in a stream. "His—his teeth! The wooden false teeth he wore when he first found color at North Cedar and Inishmurray. Before that, he couldn't afford real dentures. Hartson sometimes made jokes about them—said it was fitting for a horse's ass to be wearing horse's teeth!"
Jesus Christ, Dean thought. How much more personal could you get than somebody's spit, and just how much of Bull Clancy's saliva had soaked into those teeth during the time he'd worn them, tying his spirit down exactly the same as bone and blood and hair would do?
He bit down hard on another oath, his eyes boring into hers.
"Wasn't anybody in this town buried in one piece?" he growled. "Sweetheart, you gotta open that case for me right now!"
-:- -:- -:-
Desperately, Sam reached into his jacket, withdrawing the little flask of holy water he had stashed there and holding on tight. It wasn't salt, and it wasn't iron, and never in his life had he heard that it had any effect on ghosts, but it was all he had.
Then, with no time to uncap the flask, he dodged again, stumbling over the uneven granite floor, keeping vague track of the gaping winze that might drop him straight through to whatever waited below the Forty-Eight.
He moved backward, eyes wide in the dark as Clancy leered at him, hefting the ax and lunging playfully at Sam as though it were a game.
"Aw, laddy, my laddy," the spirit chided, his tone mocking. "Yer a stinkin' high-grader, just like Hartson, and yeh know what happens to thieves in the mines."
Sam shook his head, gauging the distance as he replied, honestly, "Not really, no."
He flung the contents of the flask into Clancy's face, and the sniggering spirit vanished with a surprised howl that clearly indicated playtime was over, the pickax clattering to the ground at Sam's feet. Not wasting a moment, Sam grabbed it up, amazed when the rotted wooden handle crumbled in his grasp, the heavy head of the pick missing his toes by inches when it fell.
"Haaaaaaaarrrrrrrtsonnnnn."
Clancy's voice moaned deeply around him, and Sam heard Steve's answering shriek echoing up from the darkness to his right.
"Steve!" he shouted, knowing he couldn't leave the mine-owner unprotected. "Get back from the winze!"
He had no clear idea how much iron it took to ward off a ghost, nor how much holy water might be needed to adequately infuse an underground lake. But Sam had no other options. Still holding the flask, he knelt and grabbed up the pickax head with both hands, the malleable silver of the flask bending against the ax's unyielding iron heft. Then, moving quickly but carefully, Sam hauled his treasures to the gaping hole.
Beneath him, he could hear Steve's quiet sobs over the plashing of water as the mine-owner struggled to remain afloat.
"Steve, you've got to move away a little," Sam called to him. "I'm going to drop something down that'll keep you safe until I can get you out of there."
Steve whimpered wordlessly, but Sam could tell he was doing as asked.
"Okay!" the hunter said. "You're going to hear a big splash, but don't be afraid. It's iron—ghosts don't like it. You ready? Here it comes."
He pitched the pickax into the winze; heard the splash and Steve's startled cry.
"Steve? You okay?" Sam called down, and after a moment the mine-owner hesitantly responded.
So did Clancy.
"Miiiinnne."
The icy whisper reverberated through the vast darkness of the drift as a cold wind whipped around Sam. He quickly tossed the open silver flask down into the hole, hoping that whatever was left of the holy water inside would sanctify the lake below, keeping Steve safe.
Then, barehanded, Sam turned to face the angry spirit of Bull Clancy once again.
It was really no contest. With one sweep of his arm, Clancy sent Sam flying across the drift to slam into the stone wall on the far side. The safety helmet shattered, dropping to the ground in pieces, and Sam let out a gasp of shocked pain as the breath was knocked from him. Then Clancy flickered into sight before him and raised beefy spectral hands, gripping Sam's throat, squeezing tight. Sam struggled fruitlessly, pinned against the ice-cold granite as the spirit leaned in with a gap-toothed grin.
"Yeh won't be stealin' what's rightfully mine," Clancy sneered.
-:- -:- -:-
Dean couldn't wait for Grace after all, bursting into the museum in a frenzy that scattered the trio of Southern tourist-ladies like squawking hens and heading straight for the display case.
He raised the stock of the shotgun and smashed it into the side of the case, shattering the glass, shards like diamonds cascading to the floor as the women screamed.
"It's all right! It's all right!" he dimly heard Grace telling them as he reached for Bull Clancy's wooden dentures, gray and misshapen and obviously enough to tie the Irishman's spirit to Rattlesnake.
With his other hand, Dean scrabbled in his pocket for a salt-round, using his own teeth to twist the brass head off the plastic hull while his eyes roved, looking for—
There!
Of course there was a gold-pan in the museum—it was a mining town, after all—and Dean grabbed it out of the same exhibit where he'd found the shovel earlier. He threw the teeth into the pan and spat the shell-head and primer to the floor, limping hurriedly three steps to the nearest flat surface.
It was the display case of opium-smoking paraphernalia, and Dean set the gold-pan on it, upending the hull so that the gunpowder poured out in a tiny black pile onto the glass. Then he pulled out his pocket-knife and cut quickly across the top of the hull to remove the crimp, salt spilling out as he worked.
"Enjoy Nevada City!" he heard Grace say cheerfully as she shooed the clucking tourists out the front door, and Dean positioned the gold-pan the best he could, just beneath the top of the display case, sweeping the salt into it with the side of his hand.
He didn't think it was enough.
Damn it! Dean dug another shell out of his pocket and repeated the process.
"Paper!" he demanded, and Grace flurried to the front counter, snatching up half a dozen flyers for the Scotchbroom Café and handing them to him quickly. She stood by breathlessly as Dean ripped the flyers into shreds and dropped them into the gold-pan until they covered the wooden teeth like confetti on the street at Mardi Gras. Then he added a pinch of gunpowder for good measure.
Hand flying again to his pocket, Dean withdrew his lighter, setting the paper quickly ablaze, nostrils flaring, his eyes wide and troubled.
God, he hoped he wasn't too late!
-:- -:- -:-
Bull Clancy pressed forward, leering into Sam's face, putting the strength of his body behind the strength of his hands, and Sam felt his consciousness fade, lungs collapsing, all his air expended.
Then, just as his eyelids fluttered shut, he saw Bull's broad smile twist into a grimace. The spirit's hold weakened, and with a desperate effort Sam tore himself free, falling to his hands and knees on the stone floor.
He rolled away quickly, landing painfully on his back, fighting to fill his lungs as the enraged ghost wheeled toward him, Clancy's scowl contorting even more before he screamed horribly, shriek echoing through the dark, vast drift. Then the Irishman vanished abruptly in a vivid flare of sparks and smoke.
Sam's hands shot to his chest and neck as he struggled to breathe, tiny gasps at first until his battered body relaxed enough that he could suck in huge drafts of oxygen. His head swam from the battering it had taken against the granite wall, the vertigo nearly overwhelming even though he lay prone on the hard stone floor.
It took several minutes before he could get his breathing to even out, the darkness around him to stop spinning. Then, after a few more moments, he staggered to his feet, still alert for the angry spirit's return until Sam realized at last that his message must have gotten through to Dean, and Dean had somehow managed to find something left to salt and burn.
Bull Clancy was finally gone.
With a bark of laughter, Sam lurched through the Forty-Eight toward the open winze, dropping to his knees when he thought he was close, fumbling in the pocket of his jeans for the little case of waterproof matches he kept there.
"Steve?" he called hoarsely, but there was no reply. Sam cursed, then struck a match, wincing at the sudden bright glare. The vertical shaft was maybe two yards in front of him, and he scrambled quickly to its lip before flame burnt his fingers. He dropped the match into the water below.
"Steve!" he called again, and thought he might have heard a whispered reply; Steve's strength and time were running out.
Swiftly, Sam struck another match, once again gauging the width and depth of the winze before he let the match fall. The shaft was roughly circular, wider than a man-hole cover and definitely deeper than his 6'4" frame, but by how much he could only guess. Ten, twelve feet?
"You better hurry up, brother," he said grimly into the darkness.
He stowed the match-case back in his pocket and sat on the lip of the winze, feet dangling momentarily until they found purchase on either side of the shaft-wall. Sam shoved off carefully, his feet braced, his broad shoulders both a help and a hindrance as he lowered himself slowly into the hole. At certain angles, if he spread his arms, his elbows hit the sides, but at last he was dangling by his fingertips. Finally, there was nothing else to do but take the plunge, and Sam let go.
He fell with a splash into water that was cold and oily and deep. His feet never touched bottom before he was using arms and legs to propel himself back to the surface, careful not to move to either side as he swam up, so as not to lose the winze above him. Careful, too, not to come up so fast he knocked himself silly against the ceiling of the drift or tunnel or whatever it was he had jumped into.
He surfaced with a sputter into pitch dark, one hand immediately finding stone directly overhead at half an arm's-length, the other flailing into emptiness before his grasping fingers found the bottom lip of the open winze.
"Oh, thank God," Sam sighed heavily. He took a moment to catch his breath again, blinking water from his lashes and tossing dripping hair from his face, recoiling suddenly when something foreign brushed against his cheek.
It was the long-sleeved shirt he had dropped earlier, somehow still lying on the water's surface. Sam grabbed it before it could sink away into the depths, tying it loosely around his neck.
"Steve?" he called cautiously, dreading what he might find in the wet, surrounding dark. "Steve, it's Sam—can you hear me?"
For what seemed a very long time, there was no response, but then Sam heard a little splash from somewhere to his left, and then a hesitant cry.
"Help!" Steve's voice was faint and fading, and for a terrifying moment, Sam thought the mine-owner would slip away from him.
"Steve!" he called again, louder this time, his voice echoing through the darkness. "Where are you?"
There was the sound of more soft splashing maybe twenty feet away, then a gasp.
"Here, Sam," the mine-owner rasped. "I'm here."
"I can't come get you," Sam said urgently. "I'm right under the winze, and I don't want to lose it. Can you swim to me?"
By stretching straight up out of the water, Sam could reach into the narrow opening up to his forearms, his fingers scraping the sides, seeking any kind of crevice or rough place where he might get a grip.
"Where are you?" Steve asked, and it was clear from his voice that his fear and panic had worn him out.
"I'm right here," Sam replied soothingly. "Just follow my voice. Is this a drift? How far down are we?"
The water lapped against him as Steve approached, finally reaching Sam's side and grabbing at his tee-shirt, fingers accidentally scratching against Sam's cheek and ear.
"Easy!" Sam said, ducking away instinctively and nearly losing contact with the mouth of the winze. "Just tread water. You're tired, so float on your back. You know how to do that, right? Okay. So, so long as one of us stays under the hole so we know where it is, we'll be fine. Steve, this is a drift, right? It's right under the Forty-Eight—do you have any idea where we are?"
He hoped the sound of his voice would help focus Steve, keep him calm and alert, get them out of wherever the hell they were. But the mine-owner sighed, and Sam could tell that his kicks underwater were weakening.
The young hunter brought one arm down out of the opening to grip Steve's shoulder firmly. "You're wearing yourself out, man. Calm down, okay? Just float on your back for a minute to catch your breath."
Sam gave Steve a gentle push, and after some initial resistance, Steve eased onto his back.
"Don't let me go!" the mine-owner said, and Sam tightened his grip on Steve's shirt.
"I'm right here. You're fine."
"Okay," Steve murmured, apparently to himself as he took in deep, calming breaths. "Okaaaay, okaaaay. I'm fine. I think…this must be…the Fifty-Two."
"So it's a drift. Can we walk up the tunnel? Get back to the Forty-Eight that way?" Sam asked. The water against bare skin was slimy, somehow, and he didn't like at all how it felt, leaching up out of the ground from who knew how far below them.
"I don't know where it is," Steve said into the darkness. "I've never been down here, because it was flooded by the time I was born. We'll never find the passage without a light."
"All right, then. 'Up' is our only option."
Sam thought swiftly, his hand still tight in Steve's shirt.
"Hey. Hey, Steve, give me this."
"What?"
"I'm gonna let you go for a second, but you need to take off your shirt, okay? Look, we need a way to stay connected, so I'm gonna tie the sleeves together with mine—"
"Don't let me go!" Steve cried, scrabbling wildly, grabbing a fistful of Sam's hair in one hand and his tee-shirt in the other.
"Ow! Steve! Cut it out! I'm right here!"
The mine-owner's brief panic subsided, and finally he loosened his grip.
"Yeah. Sorry," he murmured. "Sorry. I'm just losing it, is all."
"'S'okay. C'mon, now. Give me your shirt."
Sam slowly released his hold on Steve's shoulder—Steve seemed calmer, and okay with it—then untied the shirt from around his own neck. "It'll be like belaying, man. Like for rock-climbers."
"Belaying?" Steve repeated stupidly, and Sam nodded, although he knew Steve couldn't see him.
"Sure. I need you on one end and me on the other, so you can make sure I don't fall when I climb up."
It was nonsense, of course, but Sam was mostly talking to give the frightened man something to focus on other than the apparent hopelessness of their situation. Whatever, it seemed to be working. He could tell from the sound, the bump of water against him, that Steve was obeying orders, and in a moment a wet bundle of fabric was pushed into his face.
"That's great, Steve. Thanks."
It was difficult dealing with the wet material, but Sam soon had the shirts tied together.
"All right. Here, take this end," he said, finding Steve's hand and placing a knotted cuff into it before drawing his own knee up in the water and tying the other end of the makeshift rope around his ankle. To climb back up to the Forty-Eight, he'd need both hands free. "Now give me a little room."
As the mine-owner pulled away, Sam reached up again to find the inner walls of the winze, pressing his palms flat against the sides, taking several deep breaths as he prepared for what came next.
"Oh, Jesus, Sam!" Steve moaned. "We're gonna die down here!"
Kicking mightily to give himself as much reach as possible, Sam rose out of the water, straight up into the vertical shaft as far as he could go.
"We are not—"
He fell back with a splash. If he could just get enough height, he could wedge himself into the hole, work his way up it.
He tried again instantly.
"Gonna—"
And fell back again. With one more tremendous effort, he surged from the water, jamming elbows immediately bloody against either side of the winze, pressing his forearms against the stone, forcing his body up into the granite cavity.
"Die!" he shouted. "Steve! Push!"
He felt the mine-owner's hands on his knees, then on his lower legs, hoisting him higher into the air as Steve momentarily sank below the water's surface. Sam's feet found Steve's shoulder, then his head, forcing Steve under even further, but giving Sam the impetus he needed to wedge himself elbows-to-wrists against the walls of the shaft, his upper arms perpendicular to his body.
He kicked hard, straining to haul himself up; felt Steve's hands again on his feet; got a mighty shove that gained him another three inches, with the weight of his shoulders just barely above his elbows now.
His feet were still dragging in the water, his shoulders and arms quaking with the effort of holding himself in mid-air, and Sam raised his knees as high as he could. Then, with a furious cry, he jammed his arms even harder into the walls, straining against gravity, kicking frantically to rise. His muscles were screaming now, the cords in his neck knotted with the agonizing effort of lifting himself up. If only—
Yes!
His left knee caught the wall just inside the bottom of the winze, giving him a third point of contact. He pushed harder, up through his knee, gaining height and torquing his body so that now his back pressed against one wall.
Gasping with effort, Sam dragged his right leg up until his heel was planted against the wall beneath his ass, water streaming from his sodden clothes and shoes, toes still hanging out of the hole in mid-air. With another groan, he pushed against his right foot, raising himself higher still.
It was enough so that he could free his left knee, scrabbling, catching the far wall with the toes of his left foot. He shifted quickly, both hands now also pressed against the far wall, pushing up with his arms and legs until he was almost in a standing position, back and one foot against one wall, hands and the other foot against the opposite wall.
"I'm up!" he yelled excitedly, feeling the burn in every muscle, the intense sting of shredded skin on his elbows, his knees. "Steve! You hear me?"
Steve's answer was quiet, barely more than a whisper. "Sam? I don't know how long I can do this…."
Sam looked down instantly, although there was nothing to see in the darkness. He knew from the drag of the shirts against his ankle that the mine-owner no longer had hold of his end, but that shouldn't matter, if only--
"Don't you quit on me, Steve!" Sam ordered fiercely. "You keep treading water! We're going to get out of this!"
Instantly, Sam switched feet, placing his right foot on the opposite wall at knee height, planting his left foot on the back wall under his backside. He moved his hands up, and pushed again, mostly through his thighs and calves this time. Again, he gained height.
He knew the winze was only twelve, maybe fifteen feet deep; assuming it didn't widen significantly somewhere in the middle, he had every confidence he could work his way up out of it and into the Forty-Eight. Sam was suddenly, consciously grateful for his long legs.
"Steve, you stay with me, do you hear?" he ordered again.
"---aaaaaam!"
It was his brother's voice, floating miraculously from overhead, almost making him gasp with surprise although he'd known Dean would come.
"Saaaaammmy!"
"Dean!" he cried with relief. "Dean, we're down here! Can you hear me?"
Dean was definitely getting nearer.
"Keep talkin', Sam!"
"Be careful, Dean—there's a hole! Steve, it's Dean! It's gonna be all right! Just float if you're tired, all right, man? You're gonna be fine!"
Then there was a lessening of the blackness at the top of the winze, and in another moment, Sam was blinded briefly by the beam of Dean's flashlight before Dean angled it away against the shaft-wall. The reflected light caught the older Winchester's pallid face about half a dozen feet above, and Sam watched the haggard anxiety bleed out of it when Dean saw that his little brother was all right.
"Hello, Alice!" Dean said, his Cheshire cat grin growing, white in the near-darkness.
"Dude," Sam scolded amiably in reply, his own smile broadening immensely, eyes on his brother's while Dean rummaged one-handed in a bag he was carrying. "Where's your safety helmet?"
"Ah, now, don't be pissy, Sammy," came the response, "not when I brought you a present."
Sam thought he had never seen a prettier rope.
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One more chapter to go. Thanks for reading! Comments are welcomed.