The Devil You Know
Chapter Eleven
Sam's legs swallowed up the ground at an alarming pace. His eyes were everywhere. Dean had come to this cemetery; he must be here somewhere. He was walking too fast to read the names on the graves; he was too preoccupied with looking for Dean to be concerned with Marianne Holden's spirit, though he could still feel it lurking inside him.
A dark, organic lump caught his eye, caught it sharply so that he couldn't see anything else, and in seconds he was beside it. Before he could kneel, though, before he could touch it, there was a woman blocking him: in her late thirties, sad-faced, wild-eyed and flickering. Through her, he could see the name on the gravestone: Marianne Holden, 1899-1935.
He stumbled to a graceless halt, slow to co-ordinate his limbs, and stared at her. He gulped. He could see a slice of Dean's face - fluorescent white speckled with vivid red, eyes closed and pressed into the damp earth. He dragged his eyes up and stared down the spirit. A nagging ache arose in his head, but he ignored it, raised the gun still clutched in his hand and fired, without hesitation. Clearly Dean was rubbing off on him, or maybe he was too desperate to ask questions first. The spirit dissipated, and the bullet spat splinters off the headstone. She wouldn't be gone long.
Skidding to his knees, he laid a tentative hand on his brother's cheek and turned it gently towards him. There were flecks of blood on Dean's lips. His eyelids fluttered, then squeezed tightly closed as consciousness and pain attacked him simultaneously. He opened them again with a strangled gasp, and his irises settled on Sam, vague irritation shining through the mist which clung to them.
'Who… let you out?' he muttered, narrowing his eyes and trying weakly to move his limbs.
Sam pushed down his indignation. 'You can't do everything, you idiot. I don't believe you locked me in a cupboard,' he reprimanded his brother. 'I'd love to kick your ass right now, but I don't think you'd notice a few more bruises in your current state.'
'Is she… gone?'
'Aaah…' SAm stared around them doubtfully. 'For the moment.'
'Sam – ,' Dean's voice was choked with urgency. Sam looked round.
'Yeah, alright. Salt 'n' burn, then we'll get you to the hospital…'
Dean grunted, nodded. Breath was too precious to waste in arguing. He struggled onto his elbows and wriggled backwards, off the grave; Sam took him by the shoulders and pulled him back.
Sam stood, sighed, and started digging.
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Sam was hoping maybe she wouldn't turn up again in time; that he'd be able to salt and burn Marianne's corpse before she knew what he was up to. He was just about close enough for that hope to set in, then he'd hit wood with his spade tip, the hollow thud ringing out like music. He exchanged a look with Dean, who was propped against a gravestone, spectating. And then, there she was, standing over him.
Dean's face tensed immediately and he hunched up, trying to roll into a ball and shut the pain out, hedgehog-like. He looked young, wide-eyed and fragile, arching against the new agony in the dewy grass. Flecks of water and blood shone with the early rays, filtering through the trees.
Marianne's semi-transparent foot collided heavily with Dean's broken midsection and he let out a choked cry, rolling abruptly onto his back, both hands clutching his stomach so tight it looked like his scarlet fingers were the only thing holding his guts in him.
Sam watched, frozen. He turned his eyes on the spirit and she glared back unashamedly. He swallowed hard. Staring her down, he slammed the shovel downwards, splintering the aged wood of her coffin. She howled with rage and kicked out at Dean again: he collided violently with a headstone: cracks rang out in the bright silence. For some seconds, Dean was still, eyelids settled stiff against his cold face. Too soon, he choked awake, tried to move; collapsed, a tiny yelp in his throat. A fist squeezed Sam's heart. A voice awoke in his head.
Marianne's figure stood staring at him. She wasn't making a sound, but she didn't need to. She was still there, in his head.
It's your fault, Sam…all this pain. You let him walk around bleeding for hours. There's not much blood left in him, because it's all on your hands…
At first he could ignore it, but the voice gained power and weight. He heard the spade clatter against the coffin lid when it fell from his hands, but he didn't remember dropping it. There was cold metal against his chin, and he didn't know why, but it seemed… right, somehow. He deserved it. From his position in the grave, Dean's face was at eye-level, and Sam's guilt was all there on his brother's face. The voice was telling him – and it was right, of course – that pain could be removed, if he removed the cause…
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Lucy stumbled across Michael's outstretched legs, wide-eyed. 'Mrs Holden…' she gasped. Her face was hot; she wanted desperately to hide it, to pull her abundant hair across her face. Sam's footsteps were already thundering away down the stairs, but she barely noticed. She was gripped with nausea: this was unbearable. Paul's grandmother, kind, and gentle, Paul's grandmother who loved him like no other grandmother ever loved her grandson, who had always been kind to Lucy, who had made her feel welcome, baked cakes, every time she'd gone to visit with him. Standing there, staring kind eyes at her only grandson's murderer.
'Mrs Holden, I'm so… I'm so-'
The word 'sorry' caught in her throat. It meant nothing, it solved nothing. It was poor, pale, weak amends for the crime she'd committed. It was nothing. Shameful tears sprung, hot, to her eyes. There was nowhere to hide her face.
She didn't know how it happened, but now there were arms around her, and she was sobbing, sobbing deep, painful gasps from the bottom of her soul, sobbing guilt and loss and love out onto a thin shoulder. The voice in her ear was comforting, shushing, quiet. There was no bottom to the lakes of tears she held behind her eyes. She could drown in them.
She pulled away after a little while, spent with the effort. She felt empty. Somehow, she looked up, and there was no malice in those old, pale eyes. This, she thought, this was sublime – was this woman mortal, imperfect? This woman who had forgiven the murderer of her last family member. This woman who had watched her daughter and her grandson meet their graves. Nobody should have to bury their child – much less their grandchild. But there, there was forgiveness, staring her in the face. Lucy shook her head, uncomprehending. A sob shook her; a tear slipped out, a drop in the deluge which painted her cheeks.
'Thank you,' she choked, high-pitched. It was all she could think of to say.
'Are you alright?' Grace asked.
She nodded, tearfully, like a small child who has grazed her knee. She felt about that small. She wanted to crawl back into those arms and cry with an intensity which had left her when she was five years old.
The world came back to her slowly, and she shook herself. It wasn't over yet. Mr Zaretta came into focus, standing awkwardly against his own wall, trying not to stare.
'I have to follow Sam,' she managed, shakily. 'In case he does something stupid.'
Grace studied her face, and nodded, accepting. 'Can you manage?'
Lucy nodded. 'I'll be alright, now.' And she believed it, she realised, as she said it. She felt that she had purged the taint from her heart with her tears. Maybe Marianne Holden had never known forgiveness, from herself or anyone else; maybe that was why she'd been unable to live on with murder on her conscience. Maybe Lucy was the first murderer ever to be unconditionally forgiven.
But Sam – even though he'd proved an ineffective murderer, he wouldn't be forgiving himself for trying to shoot a hole in his brother anytime soon.
Lucy scrubbed a hand across her eyes, sharing a last look with Grace as she started down the stairs. There were complicated emotions in that look, too raw to be confined by words. She nodded, simply. She couldn't articulate it, but she understood.
Grace's heart skipped a beat in concern as she watched Lucy start down the stairs. It felt like the end of something. She wanted to say some last word, before Lucy was too far away. Goodbye seemed too final.
'Good luck!' Grace called.
Lucy heard the words over the thundering of her own hasty footsteps, and they warmed her.
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Dean rolled onto his stomach, one hand crushed against his wound, the other palm down on the grass, fingers digging into the damp earth as his muscles tensed compulsively. Expletives directed at Marianne Holden were following each other round his head, but he had no breath to voice them. He forced his face up off the ground to check on Sam, the scent of grass strong in his nostrils. Grass and blood.
Sam stood poker-straight in the grave, immersed to shoulder height, head tilted back, eyes closed. Cold dark gun barrel resting on his chin. Dean pushed himself up, with reserves of strength he'd thought long spent. Sam's finger was tight on the trigger.
His brother's name left Dean's lips in a strangled yelp. No response. Sam was locked inside his own head, caught in a private nightmare.
Sharpened by urgency, Dean's mind weighed his options in seconds. He'd rather have a brother with scorched feet than a hole in the head. There was a lighter in his pocket. There was salt on the ground, not far out of reach. He lurched up, somehow. Scattered salt unevenly into the grave.
Sam's finger twitched, and Dean swatted at the hand holding the gun. Sam pushed him roughly away, and he rolled back; the jolt as he hit the ground made black stars burst in front of his eyes.
He choked, wrapping both arms round his burning ribs, trying, failing, to soothe his parched lungs. He tried to roll over, to get up again, but his body wouldn't heed him – two inches elevation and he fell back, and couldn't move again. Darkness swam at the edges of his vision, and it took all his concentration to quell it.
A shout rang out in the distance, but he couldn't wake up enough to hear what it said. Then a yelp, a muffled thud, a gunshot.
A gunshot.
He couldn't move – he could only stare at the sky, feeling hope drain from him like sand through splayed fingers.
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I'm cruel. Sorry. I couldn't help it…
