Chapter 29

Wednesday, May 1st, 2002

Dean hugged the wall, sliding along the mirrored surface while he tried to keep his breathing under control, to listen for the witch's footfalls, while he tried to find a way out. It was the first rules of hunting: don't put yourself into a corner, and don't let the target make you panic. Yet there he was, trapped like a rat in the house of mirrors, that could at any second become the house of knives, which itself violated the second rule. He needed to get out.

In his crouch he tiptoed down the hall, trying to find a direction in the dark building that didn't look like all the others, that might lead him back outside and away from the witch. Outside the storm was a god pounding its fists against the building till the roof sounded as if it might fall on top of him. If the witch didn't kill him in this building he had no doubt that the storm would finish the job. Dean rounded another corner, trying his best not to think too deeply about it.

It had been the closest place of shelter, this house of mirrors, and sounded like a fine idea at the time, when Dean hoped to trick the witch, turn him around and slink out the back, but it had been his crux, too. In what was the nature of the mirrors he'd taken paths and walked down halls that were only meant to confuse him. His only solace, he reasoned, was that the witch had gotten confused too, and if Dean could just keep silent long enough, it would be okay. After all, the witch was glowing. It wouldn't be difficult to see him coming. Anything could happen is all he was saying. Like getting trapped in a fun house of mirrors while a murderous witch chased him through an abandoned carnival.

Dean peered around another corner. It looked like each one so far. Holding his breath, he pointed his gun to the ground carefully. The dim glow falling through the cracks and corners of this makeshift building was the only light inside the dead building, which faded away the deeper the hallway went till there was nothing left to see by, but he could see it was clear. That was what mattered. He slinked down the hall, his footsteps silent, his ears open.

For as many times as it had happened, the glances of his own twisted reflection would shock Dean's nerves more often than he would admit later on, sure that he'd gotten caught having heard no sign of the witch's approach. But it was never anything more than an extra tall version of himself, or one that was, sometimes, turned upside down. Always himself, in the end. And even as he thought about it, he realized he hadn't heard any noise he could attribute to the witch for…how long had he spent in the mirror house? Neither things he could be sure of. He still jumped at every creek and moan the building made in the storm, just for good measure.

Dean stilled where he was, his ears perking up defensively in between more crazed reflections of himself. He'd heard something, the shuffle of a foot, maybe. He couldn't see any trace of a glow, witchy or natural. Yet - there it was again, the sound of a footstep. Dean crossed the hall and sidled into the opening of another labyrinthine turn, holding his gun to his chest, ready to fire.

He peered around the bend, listening. These footsteps didn't sound like the gate of a person on the attack, but of one going slow, searching. No glow, no voices. So, the witch had flipped his off switch and was doing it the old fashioned way, eh? That was fine. It was even, now.

Dean waited till the dark shape of the witch's reflection appeared on the mirrors, counted to three under his breath, then burst from around the corner, pointing the gun's barrel like a finger. He wouldn't miss the head this time.

But it wasn't the witch.

Dean's heart skipped a beat and for a second he believed he'd finally found Sam, but where Sam and this figure shared a tallness, this one was nearly as wide as the hallway. This man filled the entirety of the mirrors around him, coming to a fast stop at the sight of Dean's gun. His hands came up placatingly.

"Are you alright?" The man had a strong voice that carried over the sounds of the storm and bounced around the reflective walls. "Not hurt?"

The sudden rise and fall of his hopes left Dean trying to catch his breath. If truth be told there was a pain in his head that pulsed in time with his heartbeat. His lungs burned, and his spirit felt trampled, as if he'd ran it over somewhere on the highway, but he said, "No, I'm fine, but - I'm looking for someone. A boy, I think he's here somewhere." His heart was tired but it still raced.

The man took a tepid step forward, changing his gesture of surrender to a beckoning one as he put his hand out towards Dean. "I've seen no boy, but don't worry, we will find him. But it isn't safe here. Where is your friend?"

Dean let out, "My…" The witch. "No," Dean said, shaking his head. "He's not my friend. He followed me in here, he's trying - "

A furious scream cut of Dean's words just before the sound of the great crash of glass came down the hall accompanied by a quick flash of light. He ducked reflexively, hiding behind braced arms. It lasted no longer than a few seconds, but the sound was a heinous attack on his ears, and his nerves. The hulking man had stood straight and looked towards the sound. His shoulders were tense under the thin, rain-soaked wife-beater.

"He's breaking the mirrors," the man said in a confused tone. The more he spoke the more Dean picked up words slightly colored with an accent.

"I need to get out of here. He's chased me all over town."

"He's breaking - " A second scream, scarred as though from a raw throat, and another shattering mirror. This one was closer, the light a brighter white. It settled after a moment.

"Please, I just need to get to my brother, we need to leave."

Dean saw the man hesitate, saw the flex in his jaw. He finally nodded, staring hard towards the way of the noise. "We will get out. There is a maintenance door we can use. This way."

The man walked past Dean, who followed behind in the draft of his speed. He held his gun to his chest at the ready, one finger on the trigger though his fingers shook, while the man led him quickly down the darkened hall. For each hard step the towering man took Dean had to take two silent ones.

"Hey man, what's your name?" Dean said, his voice low.

"Ivan," the man said over his shoulder as he walked. In the darkness Ivan's black hair and mustache blended into the dim, while his pale skin and white shirt almost created their own light, like the star guiding Dean in the night. It was a name Dean thought fitting, at least where appearances were concerned.

"Ivan, I'm Dean. Do you work here or something? Where is everyone?"

"My mother is the boss, you could say, but I do the lifting of anything heavier than her cane. And the reconnaissance work, too, I am guessing." He gave Dean a wink over his shoulder. "When they forecasted the storm would come over the festival the city canceled it, and when it grew even worse, my mother sent the carnival workers away, too. She didn't think her spell would be strong enough to protect them for much longer." His voice took a distant quality. "And she was right, in the end."

Dean thought he felt an electricity on his skin, climbing higher in the air like a breeze on the hairs of his arms. "Wait, what do you mean spell?"

But Ivan didn't answer, stopping, and Dean heard it too, then. Another scream, along a sound of broken glass was growing in volume around them, crawling towards them from behind one after another. They saw that stray beams of dim light were being thrown in thin fractals around the hall, and growing in number until Dean thought it looked like spiderwebs made of light, and the crackling noise - it was coming from the mirrors, as cracks ran through one, then its neighbor. A new light was coming towards them around the corners and short hallways they'd taken, this one a swallowing darkness like Dean had seen around the witch at the festival gate.

Ivan's words were fast, his tone low. "This man, what is he?"

"A witch," Dean responded right away. "Who won't stay dead."

Ivan planted a large hand on Dean's shoulder and pulled, taking a handful of his shirt with him. He pushed Dean down the hall, shouting, "Run, now!"

He took off down the hall of their labyrinth, and when Ivan gave a direction, Dean took it without question. The popping electricity in the air hadn't abandoned them or allowed them to outrun it; the fast line of breakage running through the mirrors was running a steadfast path through the glass, matching them step for step.

After a few moments of their sprinting, Ivan finally called, "Stop!"

Dean did. They had reached the end of the hall in a dead end of more mirrors. Dean put a hand to one, breathing hard, searching for their way out, why he'd been led here. The speeding cracks in the mirrors ran under his hand like a bullet. He jumped back as the glass around him was slowly eaten away.

"Ivan, where's the door?" The panic was eating away at his resolve.

"Right here." He came around Dean with a hand on his shoulder and touched the glass just to the left of the mirror Dean inspected. With prying fingers Ivan slid his grip through a gap Dean hadn't seen before. He jerked the frame, and Dean heard a latch release. The mirror slid on a track, revealing a black metal door with a sign that read, 'Maintenance Exit Only.' As the sound of crackling glass grew around them, Dean felt the pressure press upon him, as though it was taking on a weight. Something was going to happen.

Ivan twisted the handle and pushed - but the door stayed firm. Ivan considered the door up and down, tried once more, but even under his weight, the door didn't budge.

"Ivan," Dean warned.

"I came through this door," Ivan said, taking a step back to look around once more, "not ten minutes ago. Something must be blocking us."

A pulse in the power like a wave over them. The already destroyed mirrors seemed to be hit all at once, turning into pebbled sized pieces of glass in their frames, sending out a handful of stray glass. Dean heard a dense thud, turned. Ivan was throwing his weight against the door.

Dean joined. One and then the next they tried their weight against the metal door, but it was as if the door was working contrary to them, stiff in it's frame and strong. As the electricity in the room lifted the hairs of his head and they each rammed themselves against the door, Dean could see the fleeting cracks of outside light though the jamb, and he wanted nothing more than to slip into it, was so close that he thought he could taste it. I can't reach you, Sam, he thought, closing his eyes.

The force reached its capacity, Dean felt. Like magma bursting through the crust, it was as if the room itself had popped. The mirrors could take no more stress, buckling under the pressure, exploding away from the wall in a rain of daggers. At the second of the horrific noise, Dean let himself open his eyes, to at least see his killer. He would not die with his eyes closed, he decided.

The room was white with the flying glass, a rainstorm of glass inside and out. He believed he saw Ivan reaching out, but not to grasp. A faint glow surrounded his hand through the glass, unlike the witch's in a way that told Dean this was a different power. It was only for a splint second, however; an unequalled force barreled through Dean, launching him backwards like nothing more than a bag in the wind. He flew, and flew, and landed. It didn't dawn on him that the pinpricks against his skin was the rain of the outside and not the pain of shredding glass until he rolled to his back and gasped in the freezing air of the storm.

Dean could see the black metal door he'd just flown through, and the flecks of glass flying out of it like hail. The noise and debris was settling. Even in the rush of the storm around him, the silence was strong. Dean looked around. He was alone.

He got to his feet. "Ivan!"

A hand came through the blackness of the building and gripped the frame of the threshold. It was Ivan, pulling himself from the room with one arm with the other cradled against his side. Dean crossed the distance and ran up the short steps, catching Ivan before his hand could slip off the door, slick as it was with blood. He put the arm over his shoulder and the pair hurried down the steps.

He spared a thought to wonder how Ivan hadn't been shredded like cheese. The man should be dead. He led a grunting Ivan down the steps and away from the house, glad that he wasn't, but that witch - if he was the heart of the attack, there was no way he was walking away from this. Dean and Ivan made it no farther than a few yards before a pained gasp caught Ivan's breath, and he sagged against Dean's support.

"S'my leg," Ivan said through his teeth. "Leg, something's bad."

Dean pulled on the last few steps to the corner of the closest abandoned booth where stuffed animals hung from the ceiling, tossed around in the wind and soaked from the rain. Ivan kept one arm close while he used the other for support, leaning back against the counter with a sick hiss of pain. He had a strong rivulet of blood falling down his cradled arm, dripping off the tip of his elbow, coming from somewhere among the countless other scraps and knicks along his smooth skin. For a moment Dean was glad for the cascading rain - it washed away some of the blood and made it seem like less of a problem, regardless that he knew it was.

But his leg… the dense fabric of Ivan's cargo pants were heavy with the rain and pillowed where they tucked into his boots, but Dean could still see the black stain of blood, menacing, where it had consumed the fabric from the knee down, and the fist sized shard of glass that had pierced through and into Ivan's thigh. Ivan put a prodding finger to the sharp edge of the exposed glass and hissed, recoiling.

"Don't touch it," Dean hurried to say. "Don't pull it out."

Ivan's scowl turned into a grimace as he pulled a hard breath through his nose. He let his head fall back and let it out in a sigh. "I know, I know," he said.

Dean hovered his hands over the shard of glass, the pants saturated with the dark blood, thinking of what to do, how to move forward in a way that wouldn't hurt Ivan, even though that ship had sailed. He stood instead. "Where - " Dean looked around, panicked. "Where do we go? Where do I take you?"

"Our tent, to my mother. It's near the carousel." Ivan grunted again. He pushed himself up with his good arm and onto his good leg, swaying slightly, then his face blanched while Dean tried to get under Ivan's arm again. Dean thought it was due to his pain, which was no doubt great, but his gaze was locked in the direction they had come from instead of forward.

"Dean."

He looked. The house of mirrors sat, an empty building in the storm, the same on the outside as it had when Dean first ran inside of it, as though nothing disastrous ever happened inside. That wasn't the case for carnivals, where something always happened inside, Dean believed, and no truer was that than now as he looked on at the black building and the swaying figure approaching them from its direction. Through the falling sheets of rain Dean saw their stumbling gate, the way their arms seemed to sway like two dead things at their side, and the two bright points of light where their eyes would be. Burning violently, like cherry red embers left behind after the fire is dead. Thunder preceded a flash of lightening and in the flash Dean saw - the witch. The wind came in a wild gust, slicing the rain like razors against Dean's face, yet still he didn't move. The witch took another tepid step in their direction. The air was oozing with a deep feeling of enmity that fell on Dean's flesh like the rain and leached into his spirit. His body shivered.

Ivan grunted in pain as Dean pulled him in the opposite direction, but didn't protest. The wind blew so loudly around them it had begun to sound like the howl of a pack of animals, as if the world was screaming along with it.