AN: Aaargh! I know it's been forever since I updated this story, but fear not! I haven't forgotten about it. The plot bunnies chased me down and cornered me with two other stories in the meantime, so that's what I've been busy on. But now, I'm back to this one, and I SHALL finish it! So enjoy Chapter 12, and please R&R! They make me smile!
Edit: I fixed a few small issues with the end of the chapter. Hopefully it's better now. LOL
Chapter 12
The first thing Sam felt when he woke up was pain. His head throbbed so badly it felt like it was about to explode, and his chest was incredibly tight, as if a ton of lead had been settled on top of him. Slowly, he opened his eyes, and regretted it instantly as he recognized the person before him.
"Welcome back, Sammy," Lucifer said, grinning widely at him. He was seated on Shannon's bed, turning one of her shoes over in his hands. He still held Sam against the wall with his powers, and though Sam's body ached all over, he didn't show it.
"You did this?" Sam asked skeptically. He knew how Lucifer operated, and killing helpless housekeepers didn't really fit his MO.
The man shook his head. "Nope. More like one of my former associates. He sometimes gets a little..." he searched for a word to fit, "zealous, in his attempts to please me."
"I could see that. So," Sam decided to change the subject, "what are you doing here?"
"Well, besides the obvious," Lucifer replied, gesturing toward Sam, "I came to deal with the one who murdered the poor woman in the bathroom."
Sam scoffed. "So, what, you're trying to show your kinder, gentler side?"
Lucifer tilted his head to the side, a disappointed frown on his blistered face. "I never claimed to be otherwise. It's all your damned religious literature that makes me out to be a bloodthirsty killer."
He got up from the bed and took a step toward Sam. "Besides," he added, "unlike you and your brother, I only kill people who deserve it."
Sam clenched his jaw, biting back another sarcastic comment. He refused to argue morality with the Devil anymore.
Lucifer crossed his arms over his chest and stared at Sam for a moment. Then, he asked, "I don't suppose any of this has changed your mind?"
Glaring hard back into the man's eyes, Sam growled, "No."
"I thought not." He blinked once, and Sam felt the pressure on him instantly release, and he slid down to the floor. Lucifer turned away, to glance toward the bathroom, and said, "In that case, I'd get out of here if I were you. Too many questions will need to be answered when they find her, and things could get messy."
Sam stood up, glad that the pounding in his head was beginning to lessen, and nodded.
"Are you ever going to stop asking me to be your vessel?" He asked then. Lucifer shook his head.
"Not until you say 'yes'. And, by the way, you will eventually say it."
Sam chuckled darkly. "When Hell freezes over."
Lucifer almost looked hurt by that. "You know, Sam," he said, leaning forward as if to impart a secret, "God isn't the only one who knows the future."
Unsure of how to reply, Sam wisely decided to say nothing. It was apparently the correct thing to do, as Lucifer grinned in satisfaction. He walked away from Sam, toward the window that faced the parking lot, and then remembered something else.
"Oh," he said, turning back to stare at Sam, "and tell that female hunter friend of yours that next time, she might not be so lucky."
With that, Lucifer disappeared, leaving nothing but a strong gust of wind behind him.
When Sam stepped back into his and Dean's motel room, Dean immediately stood up from his chair and practically yelled, "Where've you been? I was just about to come find you!"
"I, uh," Sam stuttered, "There was something I had to deal with."
Dean eyed him curiously. "Like what?" He asked.
With a sigh, he walked over to his bed and flopped down, noticing then that Shannon had fallen asleep on Dean's bed, still wrapped in the blanket Dean had given her.
He uttered a single word in reply. "Lucifer."
Dean's eyes widened. "What? What's he doing here?"
"Still trying to convince me to be his vessel, apparently."
"So, what, he ganked the housekeeper?"
Sam shook his head. "Not exactly, though I think he knew more about it than he let on."
Dean perched carefully on the edge of his bed, so as not to disturb Shannon. "But it was definitely a demon, right?"
"Yeah," Sam replied, stifling a yawn. "There were claw marks on her, and her jugular was nearly severed clean in half. There was something odd that I noticed, though."
"Oh yeah?" Dean asked, his head tilted to the side. Though he showed no outward signs, Sam knew him well enough that he could tell that Dean was suddenly very interested.
"You know the symbols on Shannon's mirror?"
Dean nodded.
"The housekeeper drew them herself. I saw blood on her fingers and under her nails. Her own blood."
"That's messed up."
"I know," Sam said. "What I can't figure out is, did the demon possess her body in order to draw them, or did she do them completely on her own?"
Dean stuck out his bottom lip as he thought about that. "There's really no way to tell, either way." Then, he asked, "You clean up the body?"
"Yeah. The bathroom, too."
Dean nodded his approval. "One thing's been bugging me for a while," he said after a moment.
"What's that?"
"Why was Shannon was so freaked out by all this. I mean, she is a hunter."
Sam shrugged. "Maybe it's like you said earlier; none of us were expecting anything to happen tonight, so it was a shock to her."
"Maybe," Dean agreed. "You ever figure out what those symbols were?"
"I was just about to get on the 'net and work on that."
"Good. Don't stay up too late, though."
"I won't," Sam replied.
"Uh-huh," Dean said, knowing the look in Sam's eye too well. His little brother would stay up as late as it took, even if that was after dawn. No matter how much he yelled at him to go to bed, he would never listen, so Dean simply shook his head and made as comfortable a spot as he could in a chair. He fell asleep to the sound of Sam typing on his laptop.
When Dean woke again, his first thought was that he was still dreaming. Shannon was walking past him wrapped in a towel, her shoulder-length hair still dripping from her shower. Though he was curious to see if she was going to get dressed out in the main room, he decided to be a gentleman, and cleared his throat softly.
Shannon spun around and saw him staring at her, a question in his eyes. Her cheeks burning with embarrassment, she explained, "I couldn't bring myself to shower in my bathroom, after what happened. I figured since you both were asleep, I'd just hop in yours. You don't mind, do you?"
"Oh, not at all."
"Good. Thank you," she said, and reached for her clothes, which she'd laid in a pile on Dean's bed.
"How'd you sleep?" He asked her.
"Okay. I woke up once around 3 am, though." When Dean raised an eyebrow, she smiled and explained, "Sam must've been having a nightmare. He was yelling something I couldn't make out. I'm surprised you didn't wake up; he was pretty loud."
Dean shrugged as she walked past him again, this time on her way back to the bathroom to change. "I guess I was exhausted, or I've gotten used to Sam's nightmares. Happens every once in a while, especially when he hasn't slept much during the week."
Though the bathroom door was open just enough that if he'd wanted, he could've peeked inside and watched her, Dean kept his eyes on Sam, who was sprawled out on his stomach over his bed, his long arms and legs dangling over the sides. His shaggy hair covered his face, but Dean could see that every once in a while, Sam's lips moved as if he was having a conversation with someone.
"So," Shannon's voice caught his attention once again, "I heard that Sheppard and his team are going back to their ship today."
"Yeah," Dean replied, surprised that he actually felt sad that they were leaving. "We're supposed to meet them in a while to say goodbye."
"You okay?" She asked. "You sound upset about it."
He chuckled softly at her perceptiveness. "I'm okay. It's weird; it's almost like I've known them all my life, but other times it seems like we just met them yesterday."
"I know what you mean. They're good people. It sucks to know that they won't be on Earth again for a while. Or maybe never again."
You don't even know the half of it, he thought to himself. If everything went as it was fated to, no human would ever walk the earth again. It wasn't a thought he liked to entertain.
An urgent-sounding knock at the door suddenly broke him out of his thoughts, and he jumped up from his chair to answer it. Sheppard stood on the other side, with Teyla and Rodney behind him. They all seemed extremely worried, and it instantly made Dean nervous as well.
"Is Ronon in here?" Sheppard asked him, and he shook his head.
"No. Why?"
Sheppard stepped into the room without waiting for an invitation, but Dean didn't comment on it. "We can't find him. We've checked everywhere."
Hearing the commotion, Sam woke up, and asked, "What's goin' on?"
"Ronon's missing," Dean replied.
Shannon came out of the bathroom, her hairbrush in her hand. She walked over to the window, and pulled the blinds up, causing the bright morning sun to blast into the room. Sam shielded his eyes with his hand, still unused to the light.
"You drove a red Camaro, right?" She asked Sheppard, who nodded. "It's not in the lot."
"What?" Sheppard strode over to the window, needing to see it for himself. Sure enough, the spot where he'd parked the car was empty, a small oil slick the only evidence of his car ever being there.
"Why would Ronon take your car?" Rodney asked then. "He doesn't know his way around this city, much less the planet!"
"I don't know, Rodney," Sheppard replied patiently. He turned to Dean. "We have to find him, before something really bad happens."
"Okay." Dean ran his hands through his hair. He hadn't even been awake twenty minutes, and already this day was turning to crap. Not only had a huge alien taken Sheppard's car and gone who-knows-where for whatever reason, but Dean really had to pee.
Dean turned to Teyla. "You shared a room with him, right?"
She nodded slowly. "That is correct."
"Did you notice anything...strange? Anything missing, or something new that wasn't there before?"
Teyla thought for a moment, her eyes cast up toward the ceiling. Again, she nodded. "His clothes from earlier...they were on the floor. He must be wearing his usual clothing, the ones he wears on Atlantis."
"What about his gun?" Sheppard asked then, his stern gaze urging her to remember anything she could. "Was it in the room?"
She shook her head. "No. He must have it with him."
"Oh, that's just great!" Rodney blurted, his face taut with worry. "So now, there's a six-foot alien running around Earth with a loaded weapon!"
"Rodney, calm down," Sheppard warned, shooting him a look. "We'll find him."
"It gets worse," Sam said then, and everyone turned to stare at him.
"How?" Sheppard asked.
"I think he's been possessed."
Dean cocked his head in a silent question, as Sheppard echoed, "Possessed?"
Sam nodded.
"By what?"
"A demon," he replied. When all he got was more confused looks, he sighed, running a hand through his shaggy brown hair. "Look, you guys met an angel, right?"
They all nodded, and he went on. "Okay. Well, where there's good, there's evil. Angels are good…"
"Depends," Dean breathed, but only Sam heard him.
"And demons are evil," Teyla finished, and he nodded.
"So, let me get this right," Rodney said then, his skepticism obvious. "You're saying that there's a six-foot alien running around Earth, with a loaded weapon, and what was it now? Oh, right, a demon has taken over his body!"
"Rodney!" Sheppard shouted at him, effectively shutting him up.
They all stood there, contemplating the situation at hand. Rodney was right; Ronon was already dangerous enough unarmed, but with Sheppard's car and his own energy weapon, there was no telling what kind of havoc he could create, not to mention that there was an evil entity now controlling him.
Rodney snapped his fingers rapidly, an idea suddenly forming in his brilliant mind. "The Daedalus."
"What about it?" Sheppard asked him.
"We can use it to find Ronon."
"How, exactly?"
Exasperated at the colonel's lack of scientific knowledge and/or critical thinking skills, Rodney snorted derisively. "Simple. We get on board the Daedalus, and I use the signal from his subcutaneous transmitter to find him. Then, we beam down to his location."
Sheppard considered the scientist's proposal. It seemed promising, sure, but if anyone had bothered to stop and think about it as he had, they'd realize quite a few...issues.
"Okay," he finally said, "but what if he's in the car, on the Strip? We can't very well beam into the middle of Vegas. Too many witnesses."
Dean nodded his agreement. "Yeah. I can't see that one going over too well with the cops."
Rodney deflated, but he wouldn't give up the idea. "Well, of course not. That's why we wait until he's somewhere isolated, where not too many people would see us, and then go in."
"But –" Sheppard began, but Rodney held up a hand to cut him off.
"Look," he interjected, "there is no perfect solution to this. I'm just giving you our best options. Unless," he scowled at his superior, "you'd rather the local authorities find him?"
Sheppard had to admit, he liked that scenario even less. Sighing heavily, he pinched the bridge of his nose with two fingers, warding off the headache he felt coming on.
"Okay, we'll go along with your plan, Rodney."
McKay beamed proudly, and began to head out of the room to find his radio. "I'll go inform Daedalus of our situation."
TBC...I SWEAR!
