Thirteen
Dean shook his head, trying to clear it. Reggie's screams still echoed in his ears, his head pounding from the blows he had taken. His vision was blurry from the blood running into his eyes from a cut just below his hairline. The cut was courtesy of the bitch called Cassandra. She had slowly carved into Dean's flesh as he screamed in pain, as Reggie screamed for her to stop, a gleeful smile stretched across her bluish-gray face.
The ghouls were no longer wearing the veils for them, too intent on their torture of Reggie and Dean to carry them anymore. There was a groan and Dean raised his head to look at Reggie. She hung only a few feet away from him, her eyes closed and her breathing slow. It was then that Dean realized they were alone for the first time in hours. He moved his head, trying to take in the entire room as he hung suspended from the ceiling.
"Dean?" Reggie groaned, her voice hoarse.
Dean turned back to her, meeting her pained gaze. His eyes roamed over her body, taking in the deep cuts across her bare stomach and arms. Dean winced when he saw a large gash still oozing blood just under her jaw.
"Hey, how're you doing?" Dean asked, trying to keep her awake. Reggie eyes fluttered for a moment and she shook her head, trying to clear it. She gave him a weak smile.
"I'm okay. How are you?" Reggie tried to shift, the weight from her body pulling painfully on her shoulders, but winced when the movement created more pain.
"Don't worry about me. I've been in worse situations than this."
"Where'd they go?" Her voice broke and she cleared her throat, grimacing as the effort made her raw throat burn more.
"I don't know." Dean tried looking around again and felt the muscles in his shoulders twinge as a cramp seized them. He hissed and cursed.
"What?" Reggie asked, her eyes full of concern.
"It's nothing, just my muscles."
Reggie nodded at him. "Do you think they have Sam?" Dean's stomach clenched as Reggie voiced the one thought he had been pushing to the back of his mind.
"I think that if the ghouls had Sam, they would have gloated about it," Dean stated, trying to sound more sure of his answer than her felt. "No, I think Sam's okay, still out there." He took a deep breath. "Sammy's out there looking for us right now. He probably even called Bobby for help. They'll find us soon."
"I'm sorry," Reggie said, her voice barely above a whisper.
"For what?"
"For this," Reggie snapped, jerking her head to the side to indicate the room. "If you hadn't come here, if you hadn't stayed, you wouldn't be strung from the ceiling. You wouldn't be here, getting tortured by a bunch of ghouls."
"This isn't your fault." Dean watched Reggie roll her eyes and it made him angry. "No, it's not your fault, Reggie, you hear me. Sam and I came here…"
"Because of me!" Reggie cried, cutting Dean off. "You came because Bobby called you when I didn't check in. You said so yourself the other night."
"Okay," Dean relented. "We came because we were worried about you, yes, but we also came because it was a job. Whether you'd been here or not, Sam and I would have come to Bridgewater to check things out. None of this is your fault, you hear me?" Reggie nodded at him and a smile pulled at her lips. "What?" Dean asked.
"That speech kinda sounds familiar," Reggie said and Dean realized what she was referring to. It was the same speech Reggie had given Dean a few times, whenever he had tried to shoulder the blame for her Uncle Frank's death.
Dean snorted and shook his head. "Maybe a little. But you gotta realize I'm right. None of this is your fault."
"Only if you agree that the reasoning works for both of us?"
"Fair enough."
Dean chuckled and Reggie raised an eyebrow at him. "What?"
"We're facing possible death at the claws of some supernatural freaks and yet you still want to argue with me. You're just as messed up as I am," Dean laughed.
Reggie joined him, the sound echoing off the stone walls. It was then that Dean realized something, making him grasp just how deep a hole they truly were in. His laughter choked off and he cursed.
"Stone walls?" he muttered.
"What's wrong?" Reggie asked. She turned her head, trying to look around the room. "Dean, what's the matter?"
"Stone walls, Reggie. We're surrounded by stone walls. There were no stone walls in the house we searched. They were all plaster and wood. Which means we're…"
"Not in the house," Reggie groaned, finishing Dean's thought. "And if we're not in the house, then Sam's going to start looking for us in the wrong place." She met his worried expression with one of her own.
Bobby walked into the last room on the second floor and found Sam staring at a small pile of clothes on the floor. They had been soaked in blood before it dried, making the fabric hard and brittle. "They're not here, Bobby," Sam stated as the man approached him. "Dean and Reggie aren't here."
"I know, Sam." Bobby put a comforting hand on Sam's shoulder. "Are you sure there isn't anywhere else these things coulda taken 'em?"
Sam rounded on Bobby, anger flooding his face and contorting his features. "There isn't anywhere else! I've told you that this is the only place that fits!" he yelled.
"Easy, kid. I'm on your side, remember? I'm just tryin' to figure out where these sons of bitches could've taken Reggie and Dean." Bobby tried to lay his hand on Sam's shoulder again, but he jerked away from him. "I want to find 'em just as much as you do, Sam," Bobby snapped, throwing his hands into the air.
Sam sighed and nodded at him. "I know, Bobby. I'm sorry I'm blowing up at you. It's not fair to take it out on you and I know that." He waited for the man to accept his apology, for Bobby to tell him he understood. When Bobby didn't speak, Sam turned to face the man and found him staring out one of the dirty windows. "Bobby?"
"What's that?" Bobby asked, pointing out the window. Sam crossed the room to see what Bobby was looking at. Hidden just inside a cluster of trees was a large dilapidated stone building.
"I don't know."
"Didn't ya three check it out?"
"We didn't even know it was there, Bobby. Reggie never mentioned there being another building on the property and there was nothing about it in the research I did on my own."
Bobby smacked the windowsill with his hand. "Maybe that's 'cause it wasn't meant to be found," Bobby hissed, turning to Sam. "Or maybe it was cloaked like everythin' else and you coulda walked right by it without even knowin'."
Sam turned to stare out at the building, the roof barely visible under the stretching tree branches, the stone walls covered with moss and blocked by overgrowth. "That has to be where the ghouls have Dean and Reggie," Sam gasped. He spun and raced from the room.
"Sam, wait!" Bobby yelled after him, hurrying to catch him. He bumped into Sam at the top of the wide staircase, frozen in mid step on the first stair.
Bobby followed Sam's hard gaze down onto the landing below and saw the two partly-hidden figures staring up at them. Bobby pulled out the knife he had tucked into the back of his vest slowly, trying to hide the movement. One of the figures stepped into the beam of light from Sam's flashlight and both of them gasped as they took in the bluish-gray form dressed in a light pink dress.
It was obviously a woman from the contours of the shape below the dress, but any feminine features the creature once had were obliterated by the fierce attributes of a ghoul's. She had long, thin fingers that ended in sharp talon-like fingernails and she smiled up at them through thin pink lips stretched over sharp, pointed teeth.
"You must be Sammy Winchester," she purred up at Sam and raised a hand, rolling the fingers at him in an exaggerated wave. The ghoul turned her crimson gaze on Bobby and frowned. "And who are you?"
"Where are Reggie and my brother, you freaky bitch?" Sam snapped. Her gaze jerked back to Sam and she hissed at him.
"I see you have more than good looks in common with Dean," the ghoul growled and stepped onto the first stair.
"I have a lot more in common than you know," Sam said, pulling out a long thin blade from inside his jacket and gripping it tightly. She smiled at him and shook her head.
"That's a pretty blade you have there, boy. I'm going to enjoy using it on you when I begin carving the flesh from your bones."
The ghoul took another calculated step and Bobby realized she was bating Sam, trying to get him to come to her. Bobby grabbed Sam's arm, revealing his own weapon in the process. Sam looked over at him and saw the warning on Bobby's face. He looked back down at the ghoul and chuckled.
"Nice try, bitch, but you're going to have to come get it first." Sam darted down the hallway as Bobby took off running in the opposite direction.
Sam sped into the first bedroom and spun around, waiting for the ghoul to give chase. He crouched, preparing for her, the blade held tightly in his left hand, his flashlight still gripped in his right. Sam didn't have to wait long as a blur of gray raced into the room and slammed into him, knocking him backward. The flashlight sailed from his hand as he flew into the hard metal table in the center of the room and rolled off it, landing on his knees.
Instincts and training kicked in and Sam rolled again, feeling the rush of air past his face as the ghoul tried to hit him, and missed. He swung his arm up, the knife turned out, and grinned as he heard the creature scream in pain. The wound turned the pink dress black, the ghoul's dark blood pouring from a large cut across her abdomen.
Sam spun again and brought the knife up, aiming for the ghoul's chest. He missed and was hit in the sternum, air rushing from his chest in a whoosh, as he sailed through the air. He hit the wall between two windows, his left elbow breaking a pane in a loud crash.
Sam could feel blood running down his fingers, making them slick, so he switched the blade to his right, preferring his dominant hand anyway. The ghoul had stopped, her breath hitching in her deformed chest. She placed a clawed hand over her wound and pulled it away covered in her own blood.
"That was lucky," she hissed as she met Sam's angry stare. Her body twitched and Sam smirked at her.
"Not lucky. Planned."
The ghoul looked at him again, suspicious and raised the hand covered in blood to her nose. Her eyes expanded as she recognized the familiar scent mingled with the blood.
"Blessed Kyphi oil's toxic to you assholes, isn't it?" Sam hissed. The ghoul screamed and launched herself at him. He was ready, planting his feet firmly on the hardwood floor as he prepared for the ghoul's attack.
In one swift movement, Sam swung his arm up and watched as the ghoul's head soared into the air, the knife cleanly severing it from its body. It landed on the steel table Sam had tumbled over with a wet thump, the body hitting the floor a second later with a louder thunk. Sam straightened up and pulled out the flask of oil Bobby had given him earlier.
After dragging the body onto the steel table, he poured the oil over the mangled form and pulled out a lighter, setting the whole thing ablaze. Bright blue flames erupted, the heat radiating over Sam's stoic form as he watched the ghoul burn. In only a few moments, the flames began to die down, turning a lighter shade of blue as the creature's skin and bone turned to ash. Sam slipped the lighter back into his jeans pocket and left the room to find Bobby.
"You're too old to kill me, hunter," the creature before Bobby hissed and took a menacing step forward. Bobby decided to play to the ghoul's obvious misconception and stumbled backward, pretending to trip on his own feet. She laughed and lunged at him.
In one swift move, Bobby sidestepped the creature's attack and brought his blade up, severing the left arm of the ghoul as she swiped at him. She screamed in pain and anger and spun on him again. Her speed was more than Bobby had expected, even after losing an arm, and he went flying through the air, hitting the wall hard.
Dust and plaster dropped onto him as he hit the floor. Bobby shook his head, trying to clear the stars from his eyes. The ghoul was on him a second later, lifting him from the floor with her remaining arm and slamming him into the wall again.
Bobby lifted the hand still holding his knife and, without any way to stop him, the ghoul cried out before Bobby silenced her as he cut off her head. He dropped to the floor as the creature's arm released him and kicked the headless body.
"Looks can be deceivin', sweetheart," he panted.
Bobby looked up at the sound of approaching feet, preparing for another fight. Sam ran into the room and stopped in the doorway, taking in the sight before him.
"You okay?" Sam panted.
Bobby nodded and pushed himself up. "Help me with her, will ya?"
Sam helped Bobby carry the body into the room he'd burned the last ghoul and place it on the metal table on top of the ashes that still smoldered on it. After dousing the creature and setting fire to it, Bobby and Sam stood watching the ghoul burn.
"I guess that answers that," Bobby said a few minutes later as they were descending the stairs into the parlor.
"Answers what?" Sam asked as he picked up the duffle bag he'd hidden behind the rotten sofa in the living room.
"They gotta be in that buildin' out back."
Sam nodded at Bobby. "And they know we're here," he added as they walked through the house, heading for the back door.