Darkfalling – chpt 14.
by: sifi
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"GuuuuhNO!" Sam squeezed out between clenched teeth as the pain receded, the sweat stopped pouring and his heart rate returned to normal, "Oh man..." he met Dean's eyes.
"What?" he asked.
"No gun for you..." Sam shook off the last of the pain and filled his brother in on what he'd seen.
--
Laura felt the cuffs ratchet closed over her wrists as Officer Trevor Watkins squeezed them painfully against the sensitive bony prominences. He made sure to guard her head as he put her into the back seat of his squad car, there were people around and he had to keep up appearances after all.
--
"It's in motion..." Jeremy nodded looking into the eyes of his new master.
"Can you see where it will happen?"
"Yes."
"Go there now... make sure MY plans are carried out, NOT hers."
"Yes."
--
"So Trevor... how's it feel to live a lie?" she asked smiling.
"At least I haven't whored myself out to a false God..." he muttered wondering just how far her abilities went. Herb said he could smell it a mile away... I gotta be careful.
"Look, since you're gonna kill me anyway..." she started and saw his mouth open to protest, "Or... deliver me into enemy hands... there's something I just have to ask... Before you met Alana... had you ever had any kind of psychic experiences? I mean you're what? 45, 46 something like that right?"
"Forty six," he answered watching her as carefully as he could in the rear view mirror.
"It must've been latent, but it had to be there for her to 'influence' it out, to make it accessible to you right? Or is that where the drugs come in?" she asked, "I mean usually if there are abilities present, they're present in kids, but sometimes you know... life kinda teaches them to suppress 'em... was there ever a time you recall having had any psychic abilities?"
"Drugs? he asked.
"Yeah... Jimson Weed... Blackthorn... they're both hallucinogens and blackthorn has an amphetamine-like effect on the nervous system. I used to be a nurse..." she explained, And they both cause... aw screw it... she thought yawning tiredly after reading his questioning look.
"What difference would it make if I had any kind of ... thing as a kid?" he asked suspiciously.
"None really... I'm just curious... it's probably pretty rare for four people with such measurable and controllable abilities to show up in the same small town...and I saw Herb's deal with Alana when I dipped into him."
"Is that what you call it?... Dipping?" he asked.
"Yeah... I was born with mine," she divulged, leaving out of course the details of the last three or four lives she remembered living and that her abilities were the result of cognizant evolution. "So were you?" she asked again.
"No, the Mastress said she saw potential in me... who doesn't like to hear that? She said she'd help me develop it..." he told her haltingly though she could see a smile on his face, a memory of a hope that he was more than the sum of his parts. Very true Trevor... who doesn't want to be more?
"And she has... both for you and Herb...and Jeremy... being her son of course has abilities too... what happened to his father?" she asked.
"The Mastress moved to town already pregnant," he explained.
"Hmm," Laura sat back and closed her eyes, trying to make sure she didn't put too much pressure on the cuffs, she didn't need more pain. She shrugged internally realizing what she was about to do was pushing limits she'd never really tested before, but Dean had told her about Webber and how he could push without speaking and she wondered if she could dip without touching. Well... here goes everything...
"Herb said you can 'push' too..." he looked in the mirror and watched her head loll to the side, for all intents and purposes asleep. "Now if that don't beat all..." he chuckled, scratched his head and looked again, this time into her clear brown eyes.
"Show me!" she pushed, I hope this works I hope this works I hope this works... the car swerved, "You believe I'm sleeping!" she ordered and looked down as blood dripped from her nose onto her shirt. Trevor's eyes returned to the road, his breathing leveled out and he kept the car steady while her mind filled with far more information from him, than she'd gleaned from sad, untrusted little Herbie.
--
From the edge of the tiny grove that rimmed Alana Stebbins' property a man peered into the yard, his eyes scanning the remnants of the house, the bonfire, and two wooden tables still draped in black canvas cloths. He'd watched the emergency crews work to put out the fire, and he'd seen an ambulance pull away from the curb though he had little idea who was inside.
Taking a hesitant step away from the trees he breathed air heavy with the scent of man made things that clung to the inside of his nose and made him want to cough. I wonder why they left the altars alone? he thought stepping forward, his bare feet squishing with water, dirt and grass. Soot and particulate matter swooped through the air clinging to his pants and brushing at his naked chest, making him itch as he made a bee line to the remnants of the bonfire picking up a short stick along the way.
His brow furrowed and he brought the end of the stick to his nose taking a whiff, What on Earth did they do here? What did they do to them? he wondered feeling tears film his eyes as he crouched and poked at the sodden ashes.
Many long minutes later, with gray ash bits clinging to every part of him his stick hit something hard and he held his hand over the spot making sure he wasn't about to plunge it into a pile of smoldering embers.
Please no... he thought feeling his heart pound as the tears returned. His fingers slid into the silky pile of ash and felt something hard. He grasped it, pulled it out, the weight of the item telling him everything he needed to know.
He sighed wiping the strip of melted gold on his pants. He stuck it in his pocket and moved to the altars where beneath all the other odors, he smelled freshly broken wood and spilled blood. Moving between the tables he drew the cloths off them and the vision of who had been captive where filled his mind's eye. Another scent, clear and somehow salty came to him and he moved back between the head of the table Laura had been tied to and the bonfire where it was thickest. He dropped to his hands and knees, his face grazing the grass as he breathed it in and once more saw pictures forming in his head.
"No..." he breathed sitting on his heels.
"Yes..." came a voice that brought him leaping to his feet in a flash.
"You were banished..." he half questioned, half accused.
"...and now I'm free..." the voice replied.
--
"...but why pick these guys over all the other kinds of bad things they could've chosen to summon?" Dean asked.
"My guess would be because Jeremy could see them...somehow Alana found out what they are, but y'know how Alex only saw the gray ones?... which by the way I saw a few of them starting to feed on Jeremy... I don't know if it was the first time or not but they were... very hungry..."
"Make someone chew a hole in their hand kind of hungry?" Dean asked and shuddered as Sam looked at the quarter sized patch of scab on the heel of his hand.
"More like chew a hole through someone's body kind of hungry... the...gatekeeper..."
"Zuul?" Dean snarked with a wide grin.
Sam grinned and shook his head, "Would you get off the Gozer thing... I'm tellin' ya it wasn't Gozer..."
"Alright, alright sorry..." he chuckled.
"How many times have you seen that movie anyway?" Sam asked.
Dean thought for a second, then shook his head and shrugged, "A few...so..."
"So... this gatekeeper..." he held up a pre-emptive finger even as Dean was about to interrupt him yet again, "... it's prison... it's gatehouse..."
"Where it put you?" Dean asked.
"Yeah where it put me... gave it kind of access to our world so it could feed like the rest of those gray ones... but the ones that shot out once that door opened... I could feel their hunger... we have GOT to find a way to stop these things, round 'em up, ship 'em back..."
"Or kill 'em," Dean added.
"Yeah only I haven't seen anything about whether or not that can be done..."
"Everything can be killed or exorcised, we just have to find out if anyone's ever managed to do it before or figure out how to do it for ourselves. Sam can you see these things?" Dean asked suddenly.
Sam shook his head, "I don't think so... I mean I saw them while I was trapped but I haven't seen any since then..."
"So do you think these Igigi were what they were trying to summon or was there something else too?" Dean asked then added, "Aaahhnd... if there WAS something else... did they succeed? I mean you still don't know how you got out of there do you?"
Sam frowned and shook his head, that he couldn't remember how he'd gotten free and returned to his own world was driving him crazy, it made his stomach do flips and the thought of what he might have done, what he might have bargained with, and how he might have bargained for his freedom had him scared nearly silly.
"No I don't...Just that voice I told you about..." he took a breath and held it for a moment.
"And you have no clue who or what it was?"
"None..." Sam shook his head looking at his brother his face open with fear.
What?" Dean asked.
"What if... what if I made some kind of deal to get out? Something dark?" he asked.
Dean chewed his lip for a second and shot his brother a look, "Let's figure out how you got out before jumping to conclusions okay? Maybe once the door opened and it was all said and done... maybe that was it..."
"Best case scenario," he smirked then recognized the County Sheriff's car that shot across the road ahead of them with a familiar profile in the back seat, "Dean!"
"I saw..." the elder hunter nodded and took the right hand turn, hanging back far enough to keep from being spotted.
--
Gotta get there, gotta get there, gotta get there... gotta stop this... gotta make sure this goes down the right way... God my body hurts...she's gonna kill them... can't let her kill them... gotta do this right... Jeremy thought racing through the woods towards Logger's Mile Road on foot, feeling the energy of events starting to culminate.
--
"Well this is certainly gonna be interesting..." Laura sighed wiping as much of the blood off her face and onto the shoulder of her jacket as she could. Herbie was standing at the back of his ambulance, next to an upright gurney with a heavily bandaged person belted securely in it.
"They've parked back by the road, they're going to approach on foot... there are others coming too..." the slice of Trevor's consciousness shook its head and winced, "Too many... too much... it's going to get jumbled..."
What others? she asked wondering if there were other cult members nearby that might have been called on.
"I don't know... I just sense people..."
People people or 'beings' kind of people? she asked.
"I'm not sure... people people I think...yeah... people people..." the slice nodded clearly troubled by this intrusion.
The physical Trevor opened the back door and dragged her out of the vehicle, pushing her toward Herb and the person on the gurney, Is that Alana? or Jeremy?... Gotta be Alana... treated with that much reverence... gotta be... did Jeremy survive?
"His body hasn't been found yet," the slice responded walking calmly beside her.
How many others besides Sam and Dean? she asked.
"Two...three... three others..."
Where are they approaching from?
"I can't..." the slice frowned shaking its non-existent head.
FOCUS! she commanded and winced as another floe of thick clotty blood splattered down her face. Please just let me have enough to see this through, her feet tangled up and she fell to her knees.
"Do it..." the words that came gravelly and hard from the bandaged countenance before her were unmistakable. Laura's eyes flicked over Herb, over the athame and chalice he held in his hands, What? gonna drink more of my blood he-bitch? think it's gonna help you? nothing's gonna help you after last night... she thought angrily.
"What's the matter Alana? You afraid to die?" Laura snickered, tasting her own blood between her lips. The slice of Trevor had disappeared when she fell, dark fuzz encroached on the periphery of her vision as Herbie approached her with a chalice in one hand and an athame in the other. Don't let me down Trevor... don't let me down... I need them here...gotta give him back his light...
--
Oh God, Oh God... I made it... Jeremy looked out into the clearing while his newly enhanced inner eye sought the Champion and the Catalyst, though he knew now they were both so much more than either of those words encompassed. There... just South... not even a hundred yards, and everyone's still alive... she hasn't killed them yet...
--
Sam and Dean looked at each other, Sam pleaded with his eyes once more, Please Dean, let me handle this... I can't have you get hurt... please! but Dean shook his head. He'd left everything behind in the trunk of the Impala, his knives, his gun, he didn't even have a taser on him. Naked without his weapons, his greatest defense was his faith in Sam, shining through his eyes as he twitched his head at the scene, waiting with his little brother for just the right moment. Neither man had an iota of awareness of what was being brought to bear for this moment nor why.
They watched Laura pulled from the car, watched her walk staggeringly toward the two who'd been awaiting their arrival. They saw her tense as if shouting though no sound was heard and they twitched when she stumbled and remained on her knees.
--
The ghostly image of Trevor Watkins flickered at the periphery of her fading vision. She indulged herself for a moment and sat full resting on her heels, "Before you kill me tell me something if you would..." she asked, her voice despite her exhaustion strong enough, she hoped to be heard by the boys, How close are they?
"They heard you..." Trevor's consciousness told her, his eyes fixed on the brothers who crouched in shadow only a few yards away.
"You told your boys here Sam was a catalyst, but even you knew that wasn't true... You were told the truth about him!" she chuckled, "Well... ONE being's version of the truth. What he wants him to be destined for... You even knew there was a demon involved! A REAL demon you stupid bitch! I'm betting it was the same one that set your house on fire last night and tried to gut you! Very likely the same one that TOOK your son!" Laura could feel her blood starting to heat as she finally let go of everything she'd been trying to sort through.
--
tbc.
Please R&R.
Thanks,
sifi.