Twilight – chpt 13
by: sifi
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"No!" Laura hollered as a bevy of cries tore the air and those empty sockets turned to her, boring deep into every corner and crevasse of her being. Pinned to the wall, with her focus completely on the one person who might yet be able to stop what she feared was about to happen, the curious looks and garbled pleas from the men in the room went unnoticed.
Victor Hendrickson... Please! Don't do this... she shot the plea into his mind as a bubble of blood burst out of her nose.
"I can't..." his head wagged tightly as he forced the words painfully out.
"He is MINE..." the abomination's layered voice told them all.
Laura closed her eyes, a whimper in her throat as the thing inside the child approached, those luminous orange-y sockets almost crackling with hot, electrical ferocity.
Oh God... Sam I hope to hell you know one of those rites by heart by now... For the love of ANYTHING HOLY... start chanting... she thought randomly before her attention returned to the crackling vessel of energy.
"You have cost me dearly..." it glared standing before her. With a motion from the child's head S.A. Hendrickson crawled to her side on all fours fighting each step with everything he had, and still unable to resist.
"Sounds like I'm doing my job then..." she half smiled.
Hendrickson you HAVE to fight this! Please! You don't know what it can do! she thought toward the man feeling a fresh droplet tumble down her mouth to her chin. Her ability to influence had never been meant to be used from a distance, without a direct physical line to the person, but ever since the Cult-incident when she'd been forced to push the limits she'd discovered it was possible, if blazingly painful.
"I'm trying!... help me! Please!" she felt him plead.
A streak of white hot shot diagonally from her shoulder to the opposite hip as her skin exploded open in a nearly surgically precise line. The cut moved through burns bringing out a stuttering scream of surprise and pain as more blood ran in heavy paint-like drips over the lip of the rend. A glance down brought a crazy thought as Laura watched the material of her bra turn red, Well hell... at least I'm not flashing room... but despite the glimpse of sarcasm, the screams that remained inside drowned out the protestations from all four men, as well as the furious 'push' of will that came from the FBI agent.
In the moment of Hendrickson's glaring anger, Laura caught a flicker of something powerful and shiny within him though partially obscured by a wall of slithering amorphous darkness. She met eyes with the federal agent and smiled, If you let that bitch kill you Victor, we both die... she warned watching curiosity twist his face.
"What to do... what to do with you...?" it pondered, twisting the child's lips in an obscenely dark visage.
Laura took a deep breath and closed her eyes, letting her chin fall to her chest, the blood from her nose, now a small rivulet that fed into delta that had been opened over her body, as she fed out a line of her own will to the man on the floor, coupling whatever strength either of them might be able to muster.
With another backwards glance at its hound the marauder sneered, "Peel the skin from the emissary's body," then turned back as Hendrickson's head bobbed up and down, his eyes on the floor while drops of blood from his own nose splattered onto the carpet.
"Your flesh will be my victory banner..." it hissed leaning forward, sliding the fingers of the child into the space between the slice edges, those slim digits working back and forth, breaking through the connective tissue while the emissary screamed and cried, her contact with consciousness uncertain.
Victor rose jerkily to his feet, as if he were little more than a marionette with tangled strings and stood beside the abomination, the lower half of his face covered in blood, his liquid coffee colored eyes peering with unnecessary apologies into Laura's.
"Do as I say..." the abomination ordered, grasping his wrist.
Smoke rose into the air with the contact and the sound of flesh sizzling moved between the triangle of bodies while the other four cried out and continued to fight their captivity.
Despite his struggles the marauder angled Victor's hand and slid the tips of his fingers between the emissary's skin and muscle where it had just opened up a pocket.
"Skin it," the creature ordered already turning its attention toward the Chosen and the Champion both of whom abruptly ceased their noises and tried not to drown in the memory of another situation not all that much different, that neither man had forgotten over the last 3 years.
Victor grimaced as his fingers made contact with the woman and felt a sharp crackle that seemed to electrify him. His eyes looked into hers as the marauder moved across the room toward the Winchester men.
Laura smiled weakly, Now... don't let that thing touch those boys... she nodded cocking the side of her mouth up as the sight of the newly freed FBI agent swam in her vision.
He looked over his shoulder, took a deep breath and moved cautiously.
--
Oh man... not again... Dean sighed inside as his back hit the wall and he looked around lamenting what was about to happen to so many of the few 'family' members they had left. His eyes fell to Victor Hendrickson on the floor, trying to fight against the sinister hold the marauder had on him, Good luck with that dude... seriously... he thought trying to wrench and pry himself from the wall as the walking obscenity approached Laura first.
It appeared that the marauder was speaking but Dean couldn't hear what was going on, though he had to admit it might have been for the sound of his own body rushing in his ears, a quick questioning glance at Sam told him that the youngest Winchester didn't hear anything either.
A second later Sam cocked his head to the side as the color washed from his face and his lips pursed in thought. I know a couple of 'em by heart now...
A spray of blood slanted through the air as Laura's skin split open and the abomination stepped closer to her while the sounds of all four men protesting filled the air.
Dean watched his little brother struggle then grow still, watched him control his breathing, and could almost feel him putting something together in his head, Sammy whatever you're gonna do... don't you open that doorway if you're not sure what it's gonna do to you in the end... don't you dare do it little brother... he thought frantically wondering how they were going to get out of this one, and if he was right and Sam was about to dip into those powers that slept inside himself how it would affect him in the long run. He didn't want to lose anyone, not Laura who if her intel was right, knew full well that she too would be on this thing's hit-list; and certainly not Tom and Shep who'd been dragged into this for no good reason at all, but everyone present knew one thing for certain, that in the end, the only person he couldn't live without was Sam.
A second later his bowed down mouth relaxed as Sam's eyes closed and his head began to move ever so slightly, as it always had when he found an internal rhythm or was practicing something he'd memorized. Preamble or state Capitols dude? Dean wondered with almost a smirk, Let's just hope it's the most powerful one we've got...Thank GOD for that memory of yours Sam... he remembered when they'd been stuck in their cells in Eddy Jay's pit, Sam calling up a mental image of that page in John's journal that held the rite they'd used on the Phantom Traveler, dude just not that one okay? Please... he thought remembering what a disaster that had turned into. The malevolence that had been Edward Simons had used them to make himself corporeal, and with a little help from his deal with the dark-side, the brothers Winchester had given him exactly what he'd needed to achieve demon-hood.
To his left his little brother's eyes opened, his head came up and he began to whisper just as the thing inside the child thrust that spear-like hand under the edge of one of the slices of skin leaving Laura screaming and crying while her head and feet slammed the wall behind her, maybe trying to pry herself free.
To his credit, despite the 'I'm gonna hurl,' look on his little brothers' face Sam quickly stopped his protesting and returned to his nearly silent chanting while Dean watched the marauder grasp Hendrickson's wrist and thrust his hand into Laura's flesh where it's own had been only seconds ago.
"Skin it," the marauder ordered turning those glowing sockets on Dean and Sam now.
Behind the child Dean saw Hendrickson rise up straighter, his hand leaving the wound to light on her shoulder while his and Laura's eyes met, Whatever's going on... please finish it fast... the eldest Winchester prayed silently.
The abomination stood between the brothers, its focus unmistakably on the youngest.
Oh don't you dare... so help me... Dean promised furiously as he watched his little brother stutter to a stop. He swallowed hard but quickly started to chant breathlessly again. Dean's eyes flicked to the far side of the room, to Tom and Shep against the wall, his eyes barely glancing over Laura, unable to bear the sight.
"What is it with you demonic sons of bitches huh?" he sneered, "Y'always go after the kids huh? Can't handle the adults right?"
His throat ran dry as its focus flicked over him, washing him in penetrative searing heat, the kind he only remembered feeling once before while in the hands of a genuine ogre. Then the heat was gone and beside him Sam began to sweat.
"No! Don't!" he started and bit the protest back as the corners of the child's mouth tilted upward and his little brothers' words grew peppered with grunts.
"You will not hurt me," it smiled almost sweetly at the youngest Winchester as it raised the child's hand before him.
Sam's bell-like alto howl filled the air as the marauder drew its hand back toward itself and with it, also appeared to draw something from the young man.
Transparent color, almost like an apparition seemed to smear forward through him. As his howl rose in pitch his audible agony unleashed a flurry of renewed effort among his friends.
Sam shook his head back and forth, his lament taking the form of denial as he gritted his teeth and spat a stream of frantic Latin through them.
Dean watched the smile falter from the child's face as whatever it was trying to draw from Sam seemed to snap out of its grip and his baby brother seemed to breathe that much easier.
As they often do, several things happened at the same time. The air in the room turned hot enough to sear earthly lungs, Sam finished and re-started the ritual, Laura fell off the wall to her knees on the floor and Hendrickson pulled the trigger on his gun just a second too late.
Before their eyes, the body of the child seemed to fly apart in a tightly contained cloud of particles before joining back together after the bullet sailed through the temporarily in-cohesive creature to shatter the window and spend itself harmlessly in the night.
Despite the now open window, no relief from the heat was to be had, instead as the marauder turned with its empty gaze somehow moving back and forth between Laura's crumpled form and Hendrickson's frozen one.
Sweat poured down their faces as all but the rapidly heating air itself fell still. All eyes turned to Victor Hendrickson who appeared to be locked in a life or death struggle with his own gun and the hand that held it. His will and desire to live pitted solely against the destructive mania of an entity whose origin he could not begin to fathom.
His body trembled, quaking in place while his arm, also shaking with resistance swung violently until the muzzle of his Federal Issue piece was pressed firmly against his temple.
"Oh God..." he gasped unable to stop his finger from applying slow steady pressure to the trigger.
Across the room the eyes he found to hold on to, the eyes he gave permission to share the 'everything' that moved through his mind at this moment belonged oddly enough though not really surprisingly, to the very man it was his mission to hunt and bring to justice. Again, not surprisingly, he knew that the man behind those eyes understood it all.
Laura flicked her gaze to Sam and barked "Now!" just as the shot rang out and Victor fell backwards, a three inch long; centimeter wide trough in his temple.
She rose to all fours as the marauder loosed a cry before the child's molecules flew apart fleeing through the window as the very air where it had just stood roared into a ball of flame that quickly began to feed on the air in the room as four bodies thumped to the floor.
Tom grabbed Laura, Shep grabbed the supplies and Sam slung the unconscious agent over his shoulder while Dean salvaged the computer.
With concentrated haste they fled the room into the parking lot and stood staring in shock.
Tears slid unnoticed down Dean's face as memories of another night, an entire little-brother-ago, when fire stole the world from the Winchester men steamrollered over him without the slightest hesitation, as if in fact it didn't even know he was there.
Tommy and Shep, the most clear headed of the group regained composure quickly, dispersing the supplies into the cars.
Shep helped Sam lower Hendrickson gently to the ground as people started emerging from their rooms, "I'll stay with him and get the story in place then meet you boys the usual way," he told Sam softly.
"He's a fed... he's not gonna..." Sam started to protest but was cut off.
"He's a fed that just almost got his own slug in his head after doin' time as some inter-dimensional bitch's lap dog... you think he's gonna jeopardize his livelihood and his future just to pull a Mulder? He'll stick with the story little man, don't you worry about that..." Shep insisted.
Several feet away at the trunk of Laura's car Tom wrapped the woman's red covered torso tightly in a towel, then secured her in the back seat as Sam, with far too much ease maneuvered Dean toward the Impala with the sound of sirens blowing toward them from the east.
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tbc.
Please R&R
Thanks.
sifi.