Don't forget to leave a vote and or comment on this chapter!
Thank you to all my readers and fellow SPN Fandom supporters. You guys rock! :)
"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration."
~ Frank Herbert, Dune
Jane looked up at the sky, the growing clouds as dark as soot. There was an electricity in the air, signaling a coming storm, but Jane knew it was no ordinary change in the weather. She sighed, It never is.
Jane and Team Free Will had driven out to the field again, stopping on the side opposite the pillars, about 20 miles away. Sam looked across the field at the dark masses, his arms crossed to brace against the strong gusts of wind. Dean opened the trunk of the Impala and took out an EMF.
"What are you planning on doing with that?" Sam asked.
"Just checking something." His brother replied, turning it on and walking farther into the field, holding the detector above his head.
"What is he doing?" Jane asked, watching Dean go.
"Beats me, but I'm guessing we'll find out soon."
"Dean, you shouldn't be going out there!" Cas called, without gaining a response. The angel huffed, muttering, "Why am I not surprised."
Dean walked about 20 paces more, then stopped, his eyes fixed on the gauge. Every time the needle practically slammed to one side of the indicator, it would immediately flip back to zero. Again and again the EMF pulsed above him, and he could feel it. It was like standing in front of a speaker as a musician beat hard on a bass drum. It was like when he stood next to those pillars. The sky was alive.
Thunder crashed in the distance. Jane was starting to get restless.
"Unless he wants to get struck by lightning, he better get his äsś back here."
"He will." Sam said, although he could hear his own doubt in his words. Another crash of thunder and Jane turned to Castiel, who was studying the sky.
"Cas, he needs to get out of there."
Cas sighed and looked across the field at Dean, "Jane, nothing can deter that man from something once he sets his sights on it."
"Even when it's a suicide mission?" Jane argued, annoyed. Cas simply gave her a questioning look and went back to studying the sky.
Jane grumbled and turned away. She would have to take matters into her own hands. As she started out into the field, Sam called out to her, imploring her to stay with him, but she ignored him and kept going.
As she reached Dean, she grabbed his raised arm and lowered it to his side.
"Jane, what are you doing out here?"
Jane scoffed, "I could ask you the same thing."
"It's not safe."
"No šhït. What were you doing?"
Jane looked down at the EMF now pointing toward the ground, spiking more frequently and frantically. The air felt electrified around them.
"I think those pillars are causing this."
"The pillars. Then let's get rid of them. Let's blow them up or something. I saw that grenade launcher in the trunk of the car. Where the heck did you get that thi..."
"It's not that simple. If they can absorb anything they touch, who knows what else they can do. They could absorb the blasts. Might as well slap a 'Made in Hell' sticker on the front."
"Yeah, no kidding." Jane said, staring up at the sky. The EMF suddenly buzzed at Dean's side. Jane's eyes widened as they both looked down. This time the spike stayed at 'dangerously high'.
"Sonofa..." Dean said. A rumble sounded above them, louder and more powerful than before.
The sound caught Sam and Cas by surprise. They looked at each other in panic.
"Dean! Jane! RUN!" Sam yelled. He didn't have to tell them twice.
Lighting struck the dirt close by, then the ground began to shake, and as the two ran and stumbled, the shaking seemed to pursue them. It was right on their heels when they felt a hand on both their shoulders. Suddenly they were in their cars. Cas had grabbed them. He sat in the Cadillac with Jane.
"Thanks...Cas" Jane said through heavy breaths.
"Of course."
She heard the Impala's engine roar to life as she thrust the key of the Cadillac into ignition. They both drove off in a cloud of dust, hearing the rumble over the hum of the cars.
Sam looked back, seeing Jane and Cas right on their tail.
"I hope they know how much I hate tailgaters." Dean said as he hit the accelerator.
"Ha ha." Sam replied sarcastically. He watched the field get pulled up by some invisible force, dirt and green flying everywhere.
Then something strange happened. Just as the tail end of the Cadillac left the perimeter of the field, it ceased completely.
"Dean, wait!" Sam said, staring out at the field in disbelief.
"What?!"
"The field...Stop the car!"
"I hate tailgaters." Dean said as he swerved the Impala around so Jane could pass him.
"Woah! Hold on, Cas!" She shouted to the angel as she swerved too. Cas held onto the side door, looking a little pale.
Jane angrily got out of the car and slammed the door behind her, trudging up the dirt road.
"What the hell was that for?!" Jane yelled as she marched up to Dean getting out of the front seat.
"Well why the hell were you so up in my tailpipe?!"
"I was not...we were just trying to get away from the..."Jane gestured with her arm at the field that was trying to kill them, only to see it had stopped.
"...danger...what the hell?"
"That's why I told Dean to stop." Sam said as he got between the two. The three of them looked down the road before they decided to investigate. Cas got out of the Cadillac just as they started walking.
"Wait," he said, "do you hear that?"
A sound like metal grinding on metal, something high-pitched and other-worldly, crashed in Jane's ears like a ton of bricks. It made her cringe and cover them, but the sound kept getting louder, forcing her down to one knee.
"What is that?" She cried, looking back at Cas who was in the same position.
Dean looked down at her apprehensively, crouching down to see how he can help her. Sam ran over to Cas.
"Make it stop!"
"Jane! I don't hear anything!" Dean told her, putting a hand on her shoulder.
"What?!" She made an effort to stand up with his hands under her arms, her eyes fixed on the way they came.
"Jane, you can't go back there."
"I have to see!"
The two trudged back up to the field. Dean couldn't believe his eyes.
Like a crater had crashed to Earth, the field's upturned dirt to the core of the soil flowed out like after a drop of water falls into a pond.
The air was filled with dust and dirt. Jane coughed as she shielded her face and Dean did the same. At the heart of the destruction, Jane saw movement through the haze. She stared at the spot in horror, confused and frightened by how her body refused to move. She felt the pressure build up in her lungs. She wasn't breathing. Dean was the same. The energy of the pillars had amplified. It was like the weight of gravity had grown and was now working against him, trying to push him down and crush him.
Jane took another step forward, and Dean grabbed onto her arm.
"Jane," the pressure on his skull was making him feel dizzy, "we have to go."
"I..." She looked up at Dean regretfully. She knew that if they stayed any longer, who knew what would happen. They needed to be at their best if they were going to investigate this further, but...
"I saw something. Something out in the field."
Dean scanned the area with squinted eyes, the dust irritating his vision.
"I don't see anything, Jane. In fact, I can't see anything. We need to go." Dean said, leaving her side.
Jane took one more hopeful glance out across the desolation before turning to follow him. The ringing in her ears was all she could hear. As she walked back to the Cadillac, the pressure of those pillars lessening with each step, she played back the instant in her mind over and over. There was something. She could've sworn she'd seen...
A loud, booming scream shook the sky, pounding the hunters' ear drums. Jane fell to the ground, cutting her hand on a rock. She struggled to stand, looking out in front of her through the thickening dust and debris in the air. Sam, Dean, and Cas were on the ground too.
Jane started crawling forward. Another scream sounded, this one more powerful than the last, and the ringing was gone, replaced by a rhythmic thrumming that seemed to vibrate the sky.
Without warning, tears began to fall from her eyes, unsure if they were the result of the dust or fear.
A third scream sounded, and Jane dropped, covering her ears. The constant thrumming made it harder to alleviate any pressure on her brain. She looked back at the field, through the trees that lined the road, as a humongous, lumbering shadow outlined in the distance seemed to sink into the ground.
Jane froze again as its eyes, piercing and black, cut through the musty gloom and seemed to land on her, feeling them stab into her like daggers. She couldn't look away, and the tears continued to stream down her face. The last time she had felt this way was that night when her mother was...
She knew now what these tears meant, and there was no escaping it.
As the top of the shadow's head disappeared from view, everything seemed to grow deathly quiet. The thrums in the air stopped, the dust and dirt settled, and the ground slumbered once more. Sam stood wearily, his hands gripping his head to stop it from throbbing. He looked down the path and saw a body.
"Jane!" He called. Dean looked down the road as he helped Cas up. Her back was curved, her head buried in her arms. She looked like a ball with her body all slumped like that.
"Dean, she's not moving." Sam said.
He stumbled quickly down the road, his eyes fixed on her. When he reached her, he looked down in a bit of a daze. She was visibly shaking, her eyes wide with terror. Her hands covered her ears, one of them bleeding down her cheek, gripping the sides of her head and scrunching up her short, auburn hair. Her face was covered in dirt, just as, he figured, the rest of them were, and he could see the tracks of wet tears streaming down her face.
She hadn't yet acknowledged him standing there. Sam knelt down beside her, gently removing her hands from her ears. A small line of red dripped out of one of them, a result of the screams, he figured. She winced when he touched her.
He lifted her up into his strong arms and carried her back to the cars. His heart lurched when he glanced down at her. It was like whatever had happened had aged her ten years, but also somehow reduced her to a small child. She looked stunned. Had she seen something? He placed her in the back of the Impala, taking the keys to the Cadillac from her jacket pocket. He looked at Dean, who was now just staring at her helplessly and angry at his helplessness. Although he never truly admitted it, Sam knew how much Dean had come to care for Jane.
"You take her. I'll take the Cadillac and drive with Cas. I think we all just need to get away from here."
"Don't need to tell me twice." Dean mumbled as he walked past his brother and got into the car.
With the roar of the engine, the Impala drove away in a cloud of dust. Castiel and Sam sat in the Cadillac in silence for a moment, watching the tail lights disappear around the bend.
"I've never seen her like that."
"We don't know her well enough to have had the chance to." Castiel said, contemplating what he did know about her.
Sam looked at Cas with a discouraged face. He wanted to help. He felt the need to help. To understand. But how can you even begin to try and understand the past of a person who uses all their strength to run from it.
Slowly and carefully, Dean carried Jane's limp body down the metal staircase into the bunker library.
He laid her down on the couch and went to the kitchen to grab a beer and the First Aid Kit. He wet a wash cloth and placed it on her forehead. First and foremost, he had to bandage her hand.
Taking a sip of beer, he inspected his work. A masked blot of red showed through the white bandage, but it wasn't a deep cut.
He reached down and lightly brushed a strand of dark hair from her face. She had passed out in the Impala earlier, and her sleeping face looked soft now under the fluorescent light of the bunker.
Dean sighed. What had she seen? Why hadn't he seen it? She was shaking like a leaf when Sam put her in the car.
He sat at the end of the couch by her feet and took another swig of beer, replaying the last hour over and over in his mind, memories covered in dust and dirt and filled with the screams of something truly unholy. If that was what had triggered something inside of Jane, he feared to think of what might have happened in her past.
Her chest heaved gently as she started to wake up, one of her legs stretching out across Dean's lap.
Dean set down his bottle and slowly sat forward. He touched her shoulder, "Jane?"
She jerked awake under his touch, her eyes fluttering open.
"Jane. It's okay. We're at the Bunker."
Her wide, hazel eyes landed on him, clouded from sleep.
"Dean?" She said as she sat up.
Dean's hand remained on her shoulder, "Are you okay?"
She nodded. Her eyes looked past him and landed on the bottle.
A small smile tugged at the sides of his lips as Dean grabbed the bottle and handed it to her, watching her tilt her head back and take a long sip. She shook her head and pursed her lips together.
"I needed that." She said, sitting up.
He wanted to say, "I know," but instead just polished off the bottle.
"How ya feelin'?"
Jane smoothed her hair, her hands coming to rest on the back of her neck, "Fine."
She looked down at her feet and breathed a sigh. Dean studied her for a moment then said, "Well, you and I both know that's not true."
Jane examined her bandaged hand, gently caressing the material with her finger briefly.
After a small silence, Jane finally met his eyes. He felt an uneasy rise in his chest as he looked into those hazel eyes, big and sorrowful, a beautiful veil to hide whatever they'd seen so long ago. Instinctively, he pulled her into his arms, feeling her hands press to his chest. She smelled like dirt, making him realize he probably did too. She still buried her head into his shoulder.
He could feel her shivering, like she was out in the cold. He pulled her away slightly, just enough so he could look into her eyes again. Tears threatened to fall down her face.
"Jane," He whispered, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear, "what did you see out there?"
She gulped, sniffling, "I've never been so...so afraid. I could feel its energy, Dean. That thing, that monster is out now. I don't know...no, I can't even fathom what we'll have to risk to take it down. I've never felt so powerless, so scared..."
"We'll figure it out. You, me, Sam, and Cas. We'll stop this thing. I mean, we've dealt with demons, the devil, angels, even the seven deadly sins. We'll gank this sonofabitch before you can say..."
"No, Dean, you don't understand. It saw me. It looked right at me. I...I couldn't move. I've never been so afraid in my life. It took my fear and it manipulated me. I felt like a black hole had been punched into the middle of my chest, and I was being sucked deeper and deeper into just, blinding fear. I couldn't breathe! I can still feel it, that feeling like you're helpless, small. It felt like...it felt like I was reliving that night all over again!" Jane said, covering her face with her hands as the tears started to fall.
Dean pulled her back to his chest, mulling over what she'd said. This thing could manipulate fear, not just cause it. That was a new one. A walking nightmare. It was a huge, monstrous nightmare. Dean's brow furrowed when he remembered another thing she'd said.
"Wait, what do you mean by that night..." Dean heard the door at the top of the stairs open, the heavy lock closing with a bang and a meek scrape of metal. Jane pulled away and wiped her eyes at the sound of Sam's voice. She cleared her throat and looked at Dean, mouthing a 'thank you.' He nodded and forced a smile of reassurance, which disappeared once she turned around to greet the others. Whatever "that night" was, he intended to find out.
"I see you're feeling better. That's a relief." Sam said as he looked down at Jane and smiled. He noticed a fresh redness around her eyes, but decided not to say anything. Castiel simply stared at her. She looked at him in confusion and saw the seriousness in his eyes.
"What is it Castiel?"
"You felt it too."
Jane nodded, "Have you ever felt something that powerful before?"
"Once," Cas said, "When I was in Heaven. Angels don't normally meet the Lord, but a long time ago, his presence was so strong that you could feel his light in the darkest of times, and when he was there, or when he passed through the many (many) levels of Heaven and you happened to be there at that exact moment, his essence would hit you like a train colliding with another, filling you with so much warmth and..."
Dean walked over and stood next to Jane, "Well Cas, it sounds like what you're describing there is a perfect example of an or...gahh." Dean buckled over as Jane elbowed him hard in the stomach.
"You were saying." Jane said.
Cas paused for a moment, but then continued, "Of course, that's an entirely different sort of power. This thing, this Behemoth, is pure evil, and it's power ranks on a Biblical proportion. That means we need to strike it down with just as powerful a hit."
"But we don't have that." Jane said.
"We know," Sam chimed in, "which is why Castiel and I were thinking, what if we don't need to kill it. What if we just need to defeat it enough to send it back."
"Send it back? To Purgatory?" Dean said quietly, still feeling winded.
"Yes," said Castiel, "if we can wound the Behemoth and distract it long enough to open one of the portals in Purgatory, then maybe we can lead it through and trap it."
"Well, what's to say it won't just escape again?"
"I'm sure there's some sort of spell or hex or something we can use to keep it there forever, maybe put it to sleep." Sam said.
"But you don't know for sure." Jane said, crossing her arms.
"We just need to do some research." Sam said.
"And we need manpower." Jane added.
"I still have contact with some of my brothers and sisters in Heaven. Maybe the fact that this monster has arrived will sway them to help us." added Cas.
"Alright." Jane said, looking at her new comrades. She'd be lying if she said she didn't have any faith in them.
She looked down at her bandage and smiled. She looked up, "Well...who's hungry?"
Stay tuned! A plan, a man, and a scary monster are all coming up in the next chapter!
- Stay Classy ;)