A/n hey guys thank you so much for your kind feedback. There will be one more chapter to come. Thank you all for your support and thanks to my wonderful beta REIDFANATIC.
Disclaimer: I don't know nor have I ever owned anything to do with CM or Washington Irving's story. I own only my own characters.
Vanquishing the demon.
JJ was sitting in the front of the SUV next to Hotch. All of them had donned bullet proof vests, and now they had to wait for back up to arrive in the form of New York State troopers and SWAT. Emily and Gideon sat in the back of the SUV while Morgan was with Detective Stone making sure that he didn't warn Van Tassel.
JJ looked out over the hills above the Van Tassel estate. They had entered the estate at the back gate. The guard had been subdued by Morgan, who had tied the hapless man up and left him at his post. She noticed that the sky was entirely black, except for the moon, which was a very ominous red. She'd never seen the moon look that way and it chilled her blood.
She knew she shouldn't buy into the witch's tale, but there was so much evidence to suggest that is was true. Reid had lost so many members of his family to these people. She shivered when a bolt of lightning suddenly lit up the sky. A few seconds later, there was a crack of thunder so loud she screamed a little and jumped in her seat.
"You okay JJ," Hotch asked from beside her. He too was watching and waiting as impassive as ever, but there was something she saw for a brief minute in his face that told her he was as jumpy as she felt.
"Yeah… just a little anxious for the troopers to get here," She said with a tentative smile in his direction.
She looked out the window again and watched the lights in the Van Tassel house blaze. It was almost ten pm. They only had until midnight to search the large estate and find Spence. Despite what Gideon had said, they would search the large house below them, just in case Reid was there.
There was another flash of lightning followed later by another grumble of thunder, this time the crash sounded closer. The wind was picking up and JJ could see through the darkness the fall leaves racing along the ground on the gusts of wind.
Where are you Spence?
She shivered when a sudden chill broke along her spine moving fast from head to foot. He was frightened and she could feel it in her bones as clearly as anything she'd ever felt in her life. She began to take deep breaths trying to calm the feeling of dread and terror in her heart. Then the sensation of him in her blood and heart was gone.
"JJ what's wrong?" Hotch asked her.
She opened her mouth to reply, and then there were vehicles coming up the road toward them, their headlights illuminating the clearing in the forest where they had parked off the road. They'd left their sirens off as JJ had asked and she saw the lead car stop and her friend from the State troopers exit the car.
Sergeant Matthew Sinclair was taller than any man she'd ever seen in law enforcement. He stood six foot eight inches tall and was more powerfully built than Morgan. He had dark brown hair and green eyes. His partner came around the car to talk to him and JJ, who'd emerged from the SUV. The wind was dying down a bit and the lightning and thunder were still moving closer, but the rain hadn't begun to fall, yet.
"Thanks for coming Matt." He took her hand in his where it was swallowed whole before he let it go again.
"This is my team." She introduced the rest of the team and he did the same for his team. The air was very cold and JJ wondered if it would snow instead of rain.
It was decided that Detective Stone would take the troopers to the estate and search it before they went in to the tunnels. Detective Stone left with a vague threat at Gideon for not keeping his promise to leave the party guests out of it.
They retreated to their vehicles and it was a very long time later that Morgan and the search team came back empty handed.
"Mr. Van Tassel wasn't there. His wife claims she doesn't know what we're talking about and all of the guests were very unhelpful when we questioned them." He said with a scowl.
"Alright detective, how do we get into the tunnels?" Gideon asked Stone, who was now in handcuffs. Morgan stood over the man, who was taller than the agent, but looked smaller in the darkness of the night. He seemed to have trained the man without touching him because the detective told them how to find the entrance to the tunnels.
"We're going to have to walk from here. Let's get going before it rains." Hotch ordered. They plunged into the darkness, their flashlights bobbing ahead of them and JJ was reminded of searching the graveyard in Georgia for Reid. She kept straining to her his voice through the swaying trees and the lightning flashes. Thunder crashed nearly over their heads and a rain drop splattered on her head as they approached the entrance to the tunnels.
They walked faster as the hillside approached and the trees got thicker and thicker around them. The rain wasn't penetrating the heavy branches of the fir and oak trees that were huge and hundreds of years old. Her flashlight, combined with the light of the others around her, lit up the ground and revealed the brown and golden leaves strewn over the floor of the forest. There were pine needles carpeting the ground and she couldn't see the black dirt under her feet.
Even though she was surrounded by her team and the other law enforcement officers, she felt alone in the trees.
Imagine how Spence must feel.
That was the problem; she could imagine how he must feel. Put it aside! She told herself. She had to do her job and later she would deal with the revelations made to her by the witch and by Spence's diary.
The rain was starting to penetrate the thick trees when they reached the opening in the hillside. The tunnels were only wide enough to allow them to move in two abreast. She moved up to enter just behind the pairs of SWAT agents. They moved silently through the tunnels. The sound of the storm and the thunder and lightning were left behind as they moved down the torch lit tunnel. The flames of the torches fluttered around them as they passed, casting shadows over them.
They moved down and meandered around until the sound of chanting began to fill the passageway. The SWAT team halted and the leader of the team spoke quietly with Hotch on their radios. They began to move forward again, slower than they had before, although the BAU team all looked anxious to plunge ahead despite the danger of the situation.
The chanting got louder and louder and JJ couldn't understand the words. Reid would know what they were she though, and her heart thudded painfully in her chest. It should be someone else they were looking for, not Reid; in no scenario should it be him they searched for, not again. How much more could he take before he broke?
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Reid had watched in curiosity rather than real terror when the men in the black habits entered the round room he was in. It wasn't possible to his brain that thirteen men in the circle around him wanted to kill him. It had to be some kind of joke. He had tried to reason with his captors, but no one listened to him.
One of the masked men moved from the circle and removed his mask. The man was old, at least seventy and balding. He frowned down on Reid and held the silver knife that Reid had seen in his dream, in his hand. It was real then. They were going to kill him. He started to struggle against the chains again. His wrists were beginning to chafe and bleed from the manacles cutting into the skin.
"You don't have to do this." He cried out, but the man did not flinch or even acknowledge that he heard Reid.
"There are no such things as demons. You've been fooled by a story." He desperately tried another tactic, but reasoning with any of these men was futile.
Another unmasked face appeared over him. It was the innkeeper. "You," he shouted up at the man. "Help me, these men are crazy! I know you don't want to hurt me. You were so kind this afternoon."
Van Cleef ignored him and replaced the mask over his face. Reid pulled at the manacles on his hands and burning pain shot up his arms as they continued to cut into his wrists. The blood caused his hands to twist in the manacles and more pain raced up his arms, but he ignored it.
The men were beginning to chant again. Their voices rose and fell and he recognized the chant from his dream. There was a scream that wanted to bubble up from his chest, but he clamped down on it. If this was his time to die, he wasn't going to die in fear. He had already done that once!
The chanting continued as the man he'd first seen over his line of sight moved back into view. He stared back at the man and something came into his eyes. He flinched back from Reid. The chanting faltered for the briefest moment as Reid yanked on the chains, the pain white hot in his brain.
The man approached him once more and the chanting began again. Reid looked at the rock ceiling above his head and let his mind go where it had wanted to go since he had awoken on this rock surface. The members of his team shuffled through his mind's eye along with a rush of affection for each of them.
The chanting began to fade around him and all he could hear was Gideon's quiet wisdom and Hotch's stern but caring voice. He heard Emily arguing good naturedly with him over the meaning of Proust's works. Morgan was there too, teasing him about girls or his taste in clothing, or a hundred other things. And Garcia, precious Penelope, calling him 'Sweet cheeks' or some equally silly pet name that he so longed to hear at this moment. He thought of his mother and he wondered if she would miss him when he was gone, or would she block out that he was gone under her delusions.
JJ was the last person he thought of when the man raised the knife over his head. Her smiling face was in front of his eyes, her golden hair that he longed to touch and never would. The knife flashed in the torch light and began to descend. It was okay. A brief flash of pain and it would be okay. He might never touch her again, but at least he could watch over her. The dagger descended as if in slow motion, and then there were familiar voices and a gunshot.
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JJ lowered her gun and the man fell to the ground with a gaping wound in his shoulder. The other men were rounded up fairly quickly after that, and Morgan was at the altar in the middle of the room trying to get Reid's manacles off his bleeding wrists.
"It's okay now Reid. We'll get you out of here and -"
There was a loud noise that seemed to come from the walls itself and reverberate through the tunnels and the chamber.
"You see… he comes… the horseman must have the sacrifice." One man began to struggle with the SWAT agent cuffing him.
The sounds drew closer. It was the sound of horse's hooves in the tunnel. "You must let us complete the sacrifice or we are all dead." Other voices screamed and were silenced.
JJ ran to where Morgan had removed one manacle using a key Hotch had just taken off the High Lord of the Guardians. She crouched next to Reid as the hoof beats became louder still. There was a scream and the high pitched neighing of a horse. A black figure erupted into the room and stopped in front of the altar. The man dressed in black wasn't headless. His head was on his shoulders and covered by a black cloak. His eyes were the only visible part of his face and they were blood red and flaming in their sockets.
"Reid… you have to destroy him. You're the last of your line. You have to do it." She shook him out of his stupor and Morgan shouted at her but she ignored him.
"Spence, do you trust me?"
She asked this looking deep into his eyes and speaking over the roar of the demon and the screams of the cult. There were several gunshots but they all ricocheted around the room and miraculously no one was hit. She looked up at the figure on horseback and its eyes were fixed on Reid.
Spencer nodded and she bent down and spoke quickly to him. His eyes widened at her suggestion, but she nodded encouragingly.
He looked up at the specter in front of him and it began to come closer, pulling a sword from its hip scabbard. He looked back at JJ and she nodded again. He pulled away from Morgan, who'd just released his other wrist and was trying to bandage one of them with a strip of his own shirt.
He pulled off the strip of cloth ignoring Morgan. JJ grabbed his partner and tried to pull him back as Reid held both of his hands face down over the altar and let his blood drop onto the stone in front of him. He spoke directly to the demon in front of him.
"I am Spencer Reid, last first born son of the Van Houten line. I end the curse over my family and this village by giving my blood of my own free will. Demon... I command you to leave this place!" He spoke with an authority that rang through the room and reverbarated as if they were in a grand cathedral.
There was a horrible scream from the demon, and a raging fire appeared around the horseman, consuming him. He disappeared into thin air, and in the intervening silence, Reid fell forward onto the altar and didn't wake up until hours later at the hospital.