C26
-o-o-o-
Sam came to a halt and stared. For a moment, he was uncertain how to react to the bizarre sight of Dean's head and shoulders poking out from under the very back end of the super spider. He realised it must have been his brother crying out that he'd heard when the creature had tried to reach him. Dean blinked up at Sam.
"S'it dead? ... Or s'it tryin' to hatch me?"
His weakened voice broke through Sam's initial hesitation.
"What?...Oh. It's dead."
An expression of relief flitted across Dean's face briefly, before being replaced by a worried frown.
"Ge'me out then? ... 'Fore it death poops on me?"
-o-
Dean was on his back, stretched out on the grass and teaching himself how to breathe again. Sam sat next to his brother, clearly wanting to check Dean over. Dean shoved Sam's hand away as soon as Sam reached towards him.
"Leave it. I'm fine."
"But..."
"I said, leave it. Ok? Damn thing knocked the breath out of me is all. What happened to Phillips. Did he take off?"
Sam shook his head.
"No. It, the spider, it killed him."
Dean turned his head to Sam.
"That doesn't make sense. The guy was a Betrayer, pally with the Pooka and all that."
Sam nodded.
"Supposedly...Maybe the spider thought he looked like he'd be more usefully employed as a snack?"
Dean sat up slowly, holding his breath and wincing as he moved, an action not lost on Sam.
"Well. At least that means no more concern or doubts about the rights and wrongs of killing off a human! Although, I gotta admit, I'd kinda hoped to use him to call old Pukey out. Seems like we're back to good old bait and wait."
Out of view, hidden from the brothers' line of sight by the arachnid's corpse, came the sound of a hoof being stamped on grass, followed by a very horse like snort. Dean gave a resigned sigh.
"Or not."
-o-
Saying nothing, Sam handed Dean the pistol crossbow. Nodding his head back towards the broken protective circle he mimed the action of fitting a bolt before reaching up to his own shoulder and seeming to grab the air just above it. Dean grinned as Sam's, apparently empty, hands began to move as if he were conducting an imaginary orchestra. Dean raised his own hand clenched into a fist. Looking at one another, Dean uncurled one finger, then another. On the third finger count, Dean began to move, followed less than a fraction of a second later by Sam.
-o-
Like an on-coming, fast rolling, black boulder, the Pooka in it's horse form avalanched through the middle of Dean and Sam, driving them apart, hurling both Hunter's in different directions and down to the ground with the impact of it's broad chest. Dean rolled and tumbled over a few times, hearing a sharp crack before coming to a stunned halt. Sam landed on his back, his head thudding against the ground, sending his vision briefly out of sync and knocking the wind out of his lungs. The huge black stallion didn't pause, turning on the head of a pin, it charged again. With nostrils flared wide, long blue black mane and tail streaming behind it, it's pure white glowering eyes, here was the image of a living night mare, and it was aiming straight for Sam.
-o-
Raising his head from the ground, Dean saw the Pooka complete an impossibly sharp turn and head towards his brother. Dean cried out a warning and saw Sam roll onto his hands and knees. Dean lost sight of his brother when the Pooka briefly blocked him from view. The thing half reared, then galloped on, past where Sam had been trying to stand, and where he was now laying motionless, face down on the grass. Dean swore and began to raise himself up, stopping abruptly when a searing pain tore across his chest on the right hand side. A swift glance down revealed the cause. The pistol crossbow lay broken on the ground beneath him, the limb separated from the stock and snapped in two. A tear in Dean's tee showed the bleeding scratch across his chest made by one of the broken ends of the limb as Dean had rolled over it. Although a good four inches long, the gash wasn't deep enough to cause Dean any worry. The loss of the pistol crossbow however was a definite inconvenience. The sound of on-coming galloping hooves helped shift Dean's gaze away from the broken bow.
-o-
Sam groaned and blinked his eyes open. The pounding in his head came as no great surprise, neither did the sticky sensation of blood running down one side of his face from the point where the Pooka's hoof had made contact and knocked him silly for a brief while. Sam knew that he didn't have the luxury of taking time to rest and recover fully, aware that the Pooka would be going after Dean next. Sam pushed himself up onto his knees, swallowing the feeling of nausea that washed over him. It was only then that he realised the Queen's rope was no longer in his hands. Shit! A swift pat down of the area came up with nothing. Kneeling up and trying to quell his sudden panic, Sam remembered the Hag Stones back at the circle. Used to reveal a witch by showing their true form and supposedly able to render their magical powers useless, Sam figured it had to be worth a shot to see if it could show the fey rope. The alternative was continuing to crawl around on hands and knees whilst hoping Dean could hold out against the Pooka, or even finish the damn thing altogether using the crossbow. Assuming he reached the bolts...Shit! Dean!
-o-
Dean quickly got to his feet and faced the advancing Pooka, relaxing his stance ready to move to one side or the other, like a brave matador facing the pre-wounded and crazed bull; except of course that the Pooka had no pre-inflicted wounds and neither was it crazy with terror. Even worse than that, as the Pooka closed the distance between itself and the Hunter, Dean was caught off guard when the Pooka's form changed faster than a blink and he found himself enclosed within the tight embrace of a huge dark furred bear, it's salivating jaws heading down towards his left shoulder.
-o-
Sam heard the awful sound of Dean's stomach churning cry of pain. Turning, it took a couple of seconds for Sam to fully register what his eyes were seeing, but the sight of Dean in the jaws of a massive bear burnt it's way into his brain, gaily adding itself to the growing stockpile of images ready to haunt Sam's nightmares. Sam no longer had a choice. As fast as he was, he knew that it would take him far more time than he'd got to reach the salt and sugar circle, grab a Hag stone and return to his current spot; especially given that he had no way of knowing whether the stone would work or not. Decisively, Sam threw himself back down on all fours and began to quickly crawl over the ground, feeling around with both his hands and his feet; motivated in his desperate search by the sounds of his brother fighting for his life.
-o-o-o-
:D