House wished everyone would just shut up and let him think. He wished he'd thought to bring his ball with him. Taking a black marker from his jacket pocket, he wrote on the wall: Convulsions. Seizures. Fever. Head pain. Loss of Motor Control. Delusions. Hallucinations. Tachycardia. Arrhythmia. Unconsciousness. Sudden recovery. And then he crossed out Delusions and Hallucinations, and wrote premonitions and demons are real. House sat with his back to the wall, unbuttoned his top button so the anti-possession emblem Sam had drawn by his collar-bone was visible, twirled his cane, and thought. He stared at the last two items on his list. They couldn't be real. Maybe this was just some crazy-ass throwback to his years of Vicodin abuse. Or maybe he was really drunk.
Even if it was just a hallucination, House never let a puzzle beat him. He frowned at the writing on the wall.
And then suddenly, a thought occurred to him. Where was Cuddy? He took off to Cuddy's office as fast as his leg and the demon uprising would allow.
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"Oh thank God, Foreman, help me out here!" The anxiousness Thirteen had been holding back alleviated as she saw Foreman and Taub enter the room. She was applying pressure to the wound in the side of a young man, and needed help to bandage him and get him morphine and blood before he died of blood loss. Foreman cut through the mass of panicking humans and murderous demons, coming directly to her.
"Remy," he said, "Remy, Remy, Remy. Why bother? He's going to die. They're all going to die young. Just like you've always known you would. But you don't have to, Remy. You're coming to hell in a few years anyway. Why don't you join us now?" He smiled wickedly, and his eyes flashed. Thirteen abandoned the dying man, and ran.
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Sam had found some salt. Not much, but some was better than none. It was in a basket by the counter. 400 tiny paper packets holding a teaspoonful each. He ripped one open and flung the contents at a demon attacking an elderly lady. He tore another open.
"Really, Sammy? You think miniature salt packets are going to have an effect on us? Look around you, Sam. There is no escape. You have no silver. You have no salt. Dear old Daddy's diary is nowhere to be seen. And your heroic elder brother is noticeably absent. I bet at this very moment he is a having his intestines removed by one of our pets." The elegantly suited demon indicated to something across the room. Sam blanched. It was enormous, and pure black, but for the scarlet staining its razor-sharp beak and talons. Its feathers were ragged, eyes glittering with malice. It cast a shadow over the scene of destruction beneath it. As Sam watched, it cracked a head in its beak, sending brain matter flying.
A rush of pain assaulted Sam's head, and he clutched it, seeing red dots before his eyes and feeling his legs give out beneath him. Come on, Dean, he thought, now would be a really good time to save the day. If you come in now, I swear I will never complain about your music ever again.
When the pain left him, and he could see once more, the room was engulfed in flames, the smell of burning flesh in the smoky air. Through the haze, he could see Chase gamefully shouting in Latin at a demon bird, waving his rosary and splashing it with holy water. A group of frightened people were clustered behind him, repeating the Latin in shaking voices.
Sam looked down at himself. The feeling that had been distracted from by the pain in his head had returned. He was tied to a pillar, and could feel the spikes of barbed wire digging into his wrists behind him. Several feet away, in a circle around him, fire crept inwards.
"This can stop, Sammy. You know that the pesky holy-water guy is not going to last. Your saw that birdie rip his lungs out. You can save all those people. Everyone in the hospital who isn't already dead. Yourself. Your brother Dean. All you have to do is come with us, Sammy."
Sam looked at the survivors, Chase finished his chant, and black smoke burst from a white-coated doctor, turning to fire and sinking through the floor. The bird exploded. "No," said Sam.
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"What's going on?" asked Foreman dazedly. "How did you do that? I could feel it inside me and couldn't get it out..."
"Apparently spending a year learning Latin exorcism rituals has a practical use," Thirteen told him, handing him a bottle of holy water, freshly blessed using the rosary of a hysterical middle-aged woman who spoke only Italian. "Splash it in the faces of people with black eyes." She pulled out a marker and drew a symbol on his chest.
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Dean and his group were lost. Amazing. Ten of them, and no-one could figure out how to get to the cafeteria. Not even someone who worked there. When this was over, he was definitely putting 'better signposting' in the suggestion box.
They were on the ground floor, and there, finally, was the exit, and outside, the impala. "Change of plans," he said, handing the toddler to a motherly looking nurse. "We're going outside."
He led them out through the smashed glass doors, and over to the Impala. "Oh, my baby, it's so good to see you," he told her, opening the trunk. He pulled out a sack of rock salt and poured a thick line in a circle around the car and his people.
"Do not cross this line. I'm off to save the world." He threw his duffel bag of weapons over his shoulder and walked purposefully back into the fray.
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