CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

"Kieryn's gone."

"Shit!" Sam cursed aloud, banging a fist into the wall alongside him. "Dean! I thought I told you to keep an eye on her!"

"I know!" his brother's voice hissed through the receiver, just as Sam thumped his forehead onto the pale wall of the corridor, his eyes screwed up tight in frustration as he thought through their potential plan of action from there on.

"It's going to be happening soon, Dean. I saw it. Another man, lying on the floor, unconscious."

"Did you actually see her do it?" Dean asked, an almost desperate plead.

Sam was silent for a moments consideration before he answered. "No. But Kieryn was there. Holding a knife. Standing above the man. The vision broke off before I saw her do anything else." He paused his frantic explanation, attempting to conjure up a single item from his memory of the vision that could possibly help them to locate Kieryn's whereabouts. "I saw a view out the window. Of the lake. But trees were blocking my view of anything else."

Dean had an immediate assumption of where she could be. He'd picked Kieryn up from the lakefront a few nights earlier and now, in a hurried fraught, this was the first place that came to mind with his brother's description. "Sam, meet me by the lake's edge on Wall Street. Em will know where to go." With this Dean slammed his cell phone to a close, tossing it upon Kieryn's unmade bed before hurrying to gather his clothes from the floor of the bedroom and shoving them all on. When he threw his t-shirt on inside-out by mistake, he didn't stop to fix it. He merely shoved his jacket on overtop, racing down the staircase and into the kitchen. Dean snatched his car keys from the bench and didn't pause for a second before rushing out the front door and toward his Impala.

"What's going on?" Emerson inquired frantically, her words a harsh whisper. She'd followed Sam out into the hospital corridor, listening to the end of his words on the phone before he'd slammed it closed and turned around to face her.

Sam shook his head, knowing he couldn't evade the question any longer. "Kieryn's missing," he said bluntly, strolling back into Emerson's room to snatch his brown jacket from the armchair. "Em, you've got to stay here. Dean and I will take care of this, okay?"

"Like hell I'm staying here!" Emerson argued, trailing the length of the room until there was barely a five centre metre gap separating the pair. She stared up at his towering figure with a staunch, unyielding expression, one that Sam had seen many times upon the girl's face and knew that there was no way he'd be able to deny her of her will.

"Fine," he murmured begrudgingly, trekking toward the room's exit and hearing her soft footsteps tread lightly behind him. "Here," he said as he turned around to face her, handing her his brown jacket. She instantly caught the drift, relieving him of the jacket and slipping it over her slender shoulders, overtop of the hospital gown hugging her frame, not stopping to observe the way the sleeves fell far past her hands for Sam was already charging down the hospital corridor.

Rain bucketed down upon the pairs' heads as they dashed through the hospital's parking lot. The weather had packed in, the pounding racket of raindrops hitting the rooves of cars the only sound to be heard in their rush toward Emerson's vehicle. It seemed almost ironic that on such a stormy, gloomy night, they were rushing to save her sister from harm. Kieryn had always claimed that 'bad shit happens in this kind of weather,' and at that moment, Emerson would have given anything to see her sister speak those words and then laugh it off as though it were merely a dramatic statement, and not total reality.

"Can you drive?" Emerson asked, as they reached her car finally. In their hurry, she'd been burdened with a jabbing pain from the bullet wound on her inner shoulder, an agonising reminder of the events of the night previous. "It's just, my shoulder, it-"

"Oh, yeah. Of course," Sam nodded, relieving her of the car keys and trailing around to the driver's side.

"Wall Street," Sam said as he twisted the keys in the ignition, the car stirring to life soon after. "Dean said you'd know where to go."

Dean jumped out of the car just in time to spy the girls' old Mustang pulling into the curb adjacent his Impala. Em and Sam leaped out into the fresh night breeze in unison, immediately spotting Dean ten metres away and rushing toward him.

"Where is she?" Sam called to his brother, a frantic voicing that frustrated Dean even further. The fact that Dean didn't have a legitimate answer would be a fair reason as to why the panicked inquiry had bothered him so greatly.

Dean exhaled a loud breath, glancing down the entire length of the darkened road. "Does it look like I know?" he yelled in reply, casting a long glance over the lake.

The moon's rays shimmered across the lake surface, the sparkles casting an eerie yellowish glow across the tree leaves that rustled with the growing breeze. The rain was a soft patter now, showering lightly upon their heads as the three raced across the asphalt pathway lining the rows of houses along the lakefront, searching for any light through the darkness that could lead them to Kieryn's whereabouts.

"There!" Emerson yelled suddenly, a high pitched shriek that echoed through the night air, piercing the overwhelming silence bought along with their panicked actions. Sam turned immediately in the direction she was pointing, his eyes landing upon a white, double story home, an unmistakeable yellowy glow resonating from a window on the top floor.

"Dean, stop!" Sam called, as Dean had already begun making his way through the trimmed row of hedging toward the front door of the house.

Dean turned to cast a frantic glance toward his brother. "What?" he growled, the gruff word hitting the crisp air followed by an echo. Sam was standing still at the curb, watching Dean with an expression of ultimate dread that only sparked his own fear to surface.

"We don't even know what we're about to go up against!"

"I don't care, Sam!" Dean yelled through clenched teeth. "Kieryn needs us!" He didn't like the fact that he was losing his cool altogether, for the idea of it was a dreaded one. The thought of Kieryn committing another murder was drilling through his skull at 90 miles per hour only to leave him with an overwhelming feeling of guilt and regret in its trail. It was his fault she'd got away. With his own stupidity, he'd let the girl slip right through his fingers. And now she was in danger.

Now she needed him more than ever.

"Dean!"

It was too late. Dean was already racing straight to the front door of the old house, finding the door to be fully ajar as though beckoning him into the darkened hall beyond it. He turned hesitantly, watching as Sam jogged up the short pathway to meet him at the doorway, Emerson a mere stroll behind him. Sam shot Dean a curt head nod upon arrival at the front porch, a signal that Dean chose to regard as an offering of understanding. Though Sam couldn't possibly understand the feelings powering through his mind, it was a nice gesture at least.

Dean was the first to enter through the open door, a cautious stroll that matched that of Sam and Em's as they followed one step behind him.

Dean was fearing what could be coming next. He didn't want to believe that Kieryn, the girl he'd so suddenly gained an attraction for, was beyond that hallway. He didn't want to believe that they were there because of her, that she was what they were there to fight, what they were going to save an innocent victim from.

A loud thud sounding from above him caused his gaze to flicker upward, eyeing the pale wooden beams that towered over their heads. The noise only awakened his senses to the task at hand, sending him speeding down the length of the hallway until he finally reached the staircase of the large home.

The house's interior was merely a blur as the three raced through without hesitance, Dean in the lead, Sam following closely behind with Emerson glued to his side.

Up the staircase. 14 steps turned into seven as Dean skipped a stair each time until he arrived at the top, treading carefully so as not to disturb the deafening silence. He couldn't hear a single thing aside from the thrumming of his heart against his chest and the heavy, jagged breathing of he, Sam and Em. Down another hallway. Through a gap of an open door to the left shone a stream of light that hit the darkness of the hallway around them, acting as the ultimate guide.

Not a word was spoken-not a word was needed. Dean was already parked outside the partially open doorway, his silver gun pointed upright within his grasp. Sam mimicked quickly, holding his gun in the air before him and beckoning for Emerson to back away. She obliged, though begrudgingly. Though now was not a time to argue about their doubting her capability. Emerson knew this and therefore etched a step backward, away from Sam as he and Dean sent a silent nod each others way. A mere second later, Sam shoved the wooden door ajar routinely, Dean bursting through followed closely by Sam, guns pointed in ready at the figure standing aright in the centre of the room.

"Kieryn!" Emerson screamed from the doorway, though her cry went unacknowledged, as Sam and Dean's gazes were locked solely upon the figure at the room's centre, facing away from them. At the figure's feet lay the battered, unconscious body of a man, a man whom Sam instantly recognised to be the church priest that he'd met with a few days earlier.

As the figure began to turn around, Dean's grip on his gun handle tightened. When greeted with the familiar face of Kieryn O'Riley, he was shocked to see how normal she seemed. He'd expected to meet the black, depthless eyes of a demon before them. But all that they were met with was a cold smirk that crept up one side of her face. And with this gesture, he knew immediately that it was not Kieryn before them, but someone, something else entirely.

The butchers knife held within her grasp fell to the floor, producing a clink as the stainless steel blade hit the wood beneath her.

"Who are you?" Dean roared, his words bouncing off of each of the four walls of the room. He could feel himself losing his sanity with each prolonged second he stood there, gun pointed toward the girl whom only hours previous, he'd fallen asleep to. Though the being standing before him was not that girl. It had Kieryn's face, Kieryn's body, Kieryn's cunning smile, yet he knew more than anything that it was not the Kieryn he'd come to respect.

She merely grinned in response, the cold, heartless threads of her controller seeping through into visibility with the gesture. She tapped her nose secretively, earning an infuriated grunt from Dean.

Dean fixed his index finger upon the trigger, glaring at her relentlessly.

"Oh, Dean," Kieryn's controller spoke, cackling profoundly. "You wouldn't shoot an innocent young girl." With these words, Dean could have sworn he spied a dribble of deep black gunk slide from out of her left nostril, before she managed to swipe it away with a hand, sniffling. But the attempt was too late, for Sam and Dean had already seen all they needed to draw a final conclusion.

"Ectoplasm," Sam murmured, and Dean nodded in agreement, gaze still fixated upon Kieryn's figure before him.

"Get out of that poor girl's body, you evil son of a bitch!" Dean's words flowed from his mouth in a desperate spiel, shouted at full intensity. His gaze quivered the slightest to the floor, where the man was beginning to stir. At least he wasn't dead.

"Fine," Kieryn's controller said. "It's not like you'll be able to catch me." In the instant after the words had left her mouth, her limp figure collapsed to the floor.

"Kieryn!" Emerson called, scrambling to her sister's frail body spread out across the wooden surface. She began shaking Kieryn's shoulders frantically, unable to prevent the tears that began flowing freely from her eyes.

Sam cast Dean a glance of confusion. What had just gone down here had given them the conclusion that it was indeed a spirit that was controlling Kieryn. But things still didn't make sense. Why would a spirit be committing its crimes of evil through an innocent 23 year old woman?

Sam shook his thoughts away in time to hear a stifled cry of relief resonating from the blonde girl crouched at her sisters figure upon the floor. Kieryn was stirring, eyebrows screwing up tight before etching open slowly.

"Kier!" Emerson murmured, shaking Kieryn's shoulders again in attempt to jolt her sister into full awareness.

The darkness retreated slowly from Kieryn's vision. First it was replaced with an overwhelming bright light, to which she screwed her eyelids closed once more. When she etched her lids open again, she was greeted with a blurred face hovering above her. Then came another sense of awareness. She could feel strands of hair,-or something-tickling her face. She was being shaken, too. As though an earthquake was rippling through her body.

"Em, calm down," Kieryn managed to murmur, smile gracing her lips as she spoke the hoarse words.

Dean was standing as far away from her as the bare room would allow by the time Kieryn sat up from the floor, glancing at her surroundings. Sam was there too, standing behind Emerson who was still crouching beside her tentatively. Then, when she twisted around to look behind her, another figure graced her vision. The unmoving body of a man was sprawled across the floor.

She hurriedly flipped her head back to cast a fearful glance at Sam, followed by one to Dean.

"Don't worry," Sam said, as though reading her mind. "He'll live." He'd had time to inspect the priest's state while Emerson had been struggling to wake Kieryn, discovering that the man indeed had a pulse and hadn't seemed to have lost any blood. A head injury looked to have been sustained, perhaps when he'd fallen to the floor. If luck was on their side, the blow might've been enough to trigger amnesia, just enough so that the man wouldn't remember the details of his assailant. But luck would have to be pretty fond of them to grant them with such a favour.

"When he wakes up, he-" Emerson paused for a moment. She was watching the unconscious priest on the floor, as were the other three. "What if he remembers? What if he tells the police that it was Kieryn who attacked him?"

"We'll just have to make up an alibi for the time being," Dean suggested. "It's not like it'd be a first for lying to the police. Besides, who are they gonna believe? Four totally sane adults or a babbling old priest with a head injury?"

"Dean and I will take care of the cops," Sam said, glancing over at Emerson. "Em, you get Kieryn home."

Emerson nodded in agreement, scrambling to her feet. She held out an arm toward her sister, beckoning to help her sister up. "Come on, Kier," she whispered, faint smile lacing her lips as she spoke. "Let's go home."