Thank you Shadowhuntingdauntlessdemigod for beta'ing and VegasGranny and Ncsupnatfan for pre-reading.
Chapter Eighteen
Dean skidded the Impala to a halt beside Clark's truck in the parking lot of Sioux Falls General and threw open the door.
Mary was doing the same on the other side, and they met at the entrance.
Dean rushed through the automatic doors and into the large ER waiting room. He went straight to the information desk, but someone caught his shoulder and steered him away. He looked up and saw Clark. He led them to a corner and narrowed his eyes, staring at Dean and then Mary.
"It's really you this time," he remarked. "You've lost all the muddy pink in your aura, Mary. That's what happens when you get stuff off your chest."
Dean cut across him. "Where's Sam and Bobby?"
Clark sighed. "Singer's getting a cast put on his broken arm and Sam's being checked out still. They sent me out when they took him for a CT scan a while ago."
Mary gasped. "He needed a CT scan!"
"What the hell happened?" Dean growled, his heart racing.
Clark walked away to a quiet area of seating and dropped down into a seat and then watched them expectantly.
Mary went to sit with him, her hands clenched in her lap and her eyes tight with tension. Dean stayed where he was, unable to sit down and relax while he was so tense.
"We don't want an audience, Dean," Clark called to him.
Hating Clark, wanting to punch him for not delivering the information they needed now when they were frantic, Dean threw himself down in the seat opposite Clark and said, "Talk!"
Clark looked around, giving a man with an icepack pressed to his shoulder a pointed glare until he looked away and turned his attention to the posters on the wall, and then said, "We had visitors. The same kind of visitor that Jessica was."
"Shapeshifters!" Mary said, his voice pitched high.
Clark rolled his eyes. "Bit louder, Mary? I thought you had some kind of image in this town." He dropped his voice. "Yes, shapeshifters. They came for the Colt. Sam saw them killing Singer and he came to the rescue, but he got things a bit mixed up."
"Wait! Sam said there was something wrong with Bobby."
"Mixed up," Clark said. "He saw Bobby trying to kill the shifters, and when he arrived, he was tricked by the shifters. I got there a second too late to stop them breaking Singer's arm. They'd already knocked Sam out."
"Who were they?" Mary asked.
Dean already knew. "It was us, wasn't it?"
Clark nodded. "Yep. They took your shape just before the fire apparently, something about cops and a wendigo hunt. They'd been following the Winchester Show through the psychic connection. Everything you did was reported back to Azazel. Or most of it. One of them said they tried to resist, to hide, but I'm not sure I believe them. Either way, the connection was there."
"Oh god," Mary breathed.
Dean felt sick, violated. Every thought he'd had since the fire was shared with someone else, passed along to The Demon. His fear when Sam was in the hospital, his worry when he came out and seemed to feel nothing, his anger at his mother for the lies, it had all been downloaded to a monster's mind.
"Tell me they're dead," he growled.
Clark nodded, a strange look in his eyes. "They're dead. Silver to the heart."
"Who did it?" Mary asked.
"You want to know who had the stomach to kill you?" Clark asked with a raised eyebrow. "It's probably better you don't know."
There was only one person that would shock them, and Dean thought that had to be who Clark was trying to protect. Mary was clearly thinking along the same lines as she said, "Sam did it!"
Clark narrowed his eyes. "Yes, Sam killed two monsters. They might have looked like you, but they'd already proven how different they really were from your saintly selves. Get your shock and awe out now before Sam sees you. He doesn't need it."
"We know how to take care of Sam," Dean said brutally. "We don't need telling by you."
Clark shrugged. "Whatever. I'm just looking out for the kid. He's had a hell of a day."
Mary shot him an assessing look and then stood and walked to the desk. Dean quickly followed and stood at her side as she asked where they could find Sam Winchester.
The woman behind the desk checked her computer and said, "He appears to have been discharged." She frowned. "I'm sure he'll be out in a moment."
Dean strode back to Clark. "They said Sam's been discharged. Where is he?"
Clark shrugged. "Restroom?"
"Can you look?" Mary asked.
Clark sighed and relaxed in his seat then snorted and said, "We can all look. He's coming."
Dean spun and saw Sam and Bobby coming out of a swinging door and making their way over to them. Sam looked a little pale and tired, and Bobby's left arm was in a cast, but they seemed otherwise okay.
Dean started towards Sam and Sam rushed at him. He dragged Dean into a hug that knocked the air out of Deans' lungs, and his tight grip made it hard to draw a new one. He felt a hand settle on his shoulder and then Sam's grip released long enough for Dean to gasp in a breath and then Mary was pressed against his side as Sam embraced them both together.
"It's okay, Sammy," he said.
Sam clung to him a moment longer and then released them both and said, "Are you okay?"
Dean snorted. "We weren't the ones that had a CT."
Sam shook his head impatiently. "I'm fine. Mild concussion. They discharged me to Bobby's care. I can't drive for a few days, so I'll stay home awhile."
Mary cupped his cheeks in her hands and stared into his eyes. "Are you really okay?"
"Yes," Sam said. "Visions hurt worse than what they did to me."
Mary nodded and turned to Bobby. "How are you?"
"Fractured radius. I've got to wear this damn fool thing for six weeks, but it was a clean break so should be no trouble healing. I got off lucky. They would have killed me if Clark hadn't come. They wanted that gun, Mary. We've got to be damn careful with it."
Mary nodded. "We will. We're not taking it out until we need to."
"Great," Clark said. "Can we get out of here now? Hospitals make me itch."
Bobby nodded eagerly, giving his cast a glare that Dean thought was going to be familiar for the following weeks while Bobby was weakened.
They walked together to the exit and Clark steered Sam over to his truck. "You're with me, Sammy. We need to talk."
Sam nodded and climbed into the shotgun seat.
Dean watched as the door closed behind him and Clark and then said, "What's that about?"
"Brady probably," Bobby said.
"Brady?"
"Ah, I'm guessing Clark didn't fill you in on that piece of trivia. Sam's college friend Brady is a demon."
Mary gasped. "Brady's a demon? That nice kid that saved Sam from the fire?"
"Yep. We should have figured in before. All of Jim's generation had a guard, too, and his was a college buddy. Sam was talking when we were burying the ashes and… you know. He's pretty set on getting his friend back. He's going to need a couple days before he can drive, but when he can, I'm betting his next stop is California for an exorcism."
Dean squeezed his eyes shut as yet another piece of The Demon's plan fell into place. He had done so much more than kill John and Jessica. He had infiltrated every part of Sam's life, his friends, his family.
Dean could kill him dead with the Colt, but it would never be enough to pay him back for what he had done to Sam, to them all.
There was no revenge big enough for that.
Sam was in the guest room of Jim's house, standing by the window and pressing the phone tight to his ear as if that would make help him to make out what Ash was saying over the background noise of The Roadhouse on Ash's side of the call.
"What was that?"
"I said I've got nothing!" Ash shouted. "Not a thing. His credit cards haven't been used and he's not showing up for classes. And his GPS isn't registering. I'm sorry, Sam, but I don't think your friend wants to be found."
Sam cursed. He should have known it wouldn't be easy to find Brady now that he actually wanted to. The fact the shapeshifters hadn't come back with the Colt would have tipped him off that something had gone wrong, so he'd gone to ground.
And Sam was getting desperate. He wanted that demon out of his friend.
As soon as he'd gotten home from the hospital, he'd called Brady's cell, but it had gone to voicemail and none of the messages Sam had left since had been answered.
Something caught his eyes out of the window. It was Jim's shadowy form crossing the lawn and going to the farmhouse. Confused, Sam watched, expecting him to go to the front door, but instead, Jim went to the side and bent to unlock a padlock that kept the sunken doors into the root cellar closed. He glanced over his shoulder and Sam stepped back into the shadows so he would not be visible through the window but could still see out.
Jim opened one of the doors and climbed down into it.
"You still there?" Ash asked.
"What? Uh, no. I've got to go," Sam said. "Call me if you find anything. And keep an eye on the program. I want demon signs in the Palo Alto area."
"But you still want big ones anywhere, right?"
"Definitely. Just keep looking, Ash. This is really important."
"Everything you Winchesters want lately is important," Ash said.
"I know," Sam said. "Talk soon."
He ended the call and turned back to the window. The door to the cellar was still open and light was pouring from it.
Sam was confused and concerned. What could Jim have in the cellar that he was hiding from Sam? He couldn't imagine what would be worth hiding. He'd shown his real nature and told his story; he was training Sam to exorcise demons with one that they were holding prisoner, meatsuit and all; what else was there he wouldn't want Sam to know?
For a moment, he puzzled over it and then it occurred to him that he had an easy way to find out. He could look.
He moved back to the bed and sat down, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. With a slight tugging sensation, he lifted out of his body and became weightless. He looked at his almost perfectly still body on the bed and then fixed Jim's face in his mind and allowed himself to be pulled towards him, into the basement.
The light came from a gas lantern that sat on a table, Sam could clearly see Jim facing away from him, opposite the strangest woman Sam had ever seen. At first, Sam didn't see the trap she was standing in as he was consumed with how she looked. Her hair was matted, and her clothes ragged and torn. The jacket she wore would once have been black leather but now it was grey with dirt and dust, cracked and torn. Resting on her chest was a silver necklace that was tarnished and dull. Her skin was ghostly white in the light of the lamp. Sam had never seen anything so pathetic in his life. He felt immediate pity for her that didn't entirely fade when he saw the trap she stood in.
She was a demon.
"Dinner time already?" she asked as Jim approached her. "It's early."
"It's taking more now," Jim said mildly, as if commenting on the weather. He withdrew a knife from his pocket and held it in front of him. "Wrist."
With a tired look and the smallest flinch, she pulled back the right sleeve of her jacket and held out her bare arm. Her skin was marred with so many scars Sam couldn't quite take it in.
He thought he knew what he was seeing, but his mind rebelled. Jim couldn't be doing this. He wasn't a monster.
Sam watched with horror as Jim cut across her wrist and blood began to flow. Sam would have been sick if he had been within his body, but all his astral self could do with recoil in horror as Jim brought her wrist to his mouth and licked the trickle of blood and then sealed his lips over the wound and began to drink.
The demon looked indifferent, numb as he gulped down her blood, and Sam flinched away from the sight, He couldn't believe what he was seeing. He didn't want to. It was awful.
His horror stole his focus and he found himself being yanked back into his body. His eyes flew open and he gasped. His heart pounded and he placed a hand over his chest, feeling its thrum.
He got to his feet and walked back to the window, waiting. He didn't know what he was going to do next, there was only one thing he could think of, but it was a huge risk. He had no idea how long that demon had been kept there, but it had to have been months if not years, and he couldn't let that continue. The meatsuit at least deserved freedom. He would put Jim at a huge risk if he exorcised her, but did Jim deserve his protection now?
He didn't know what to do.
He went back to the window and waited for Jim to reappear. It didn't take long. Soon Jim climbed out of the cellar and closed the door, the light now extinguished within. He had left the demon in the dark.
Jim crossed the yard and Sam moved to the door to listen. He heard the sound of the front door opening and closing and then footsteps on the stairs. He rushed back to his bed and laid down, feigning sleep in case Jim chose to check on him. He didn't want Jim knowing he had seen.
His door didn't open though. He heard running water in the adjoining bathroom and then footsteps and the click of a door closing. Sam laid with his eyes closed, mulling over what had happened. He needed to speak to that demon, to make sense of what was happening, and then he would decide what to do.
Knowing he needed to wait until Jim was sleeping before he could slip out and that it might take time after Jim's dose of 'medicine', he settled in for the wait, his mind sifting through what he had seen and what he knew he had to do now.
Sam bent to the padlock and inserted the prongs of the lock pick he'd brought out with him. Bobby had taught him how to do it years ago, but the only lock he'd picked outside of practice was his own apartment door after he'd forgotten his keys one time.
He still had the skill though, and after a minute's careful concentration, the hasp lifted and he pulled it out and dropped it onto the ground and eased open the door.
It was pitch black inside, but he'd brought his cell phone to use as a flashlight, and he lit the screen and used it to light his way down the stairs. The light met the feet of the demon and she said, "You can't seriously want more already!"
"I'm not him," Sam said quietly.
He made his way to the table with the cell phone lighting his way and then took a book of matches and lit the lamp. The glow spread over the room and the demon was revealed in her trap. The room smelled musty and unpleasant, and he guessed a portion of that smell was coming from her.
She looked him up and down and said, "Who are you?"
"It doesn't matter who I am," Sam said.
"Are you here to feed?"
Sam winced. "No. I'm here to…"
He wasn't sure what he was here to do. He didn't think he could bear to leave the demon, knowing what was happening to her and the woman she was possessing, but he was scared to do the alternative.
He moved closer to the trap, wanting to seem self-assured and calm, though he was in turmoil. He had to keep reminding himself that he was facing a demon, not just a woman, but it was hard to remember when he saw how pathetic she looked. The façade faded as he got close enough to see clearly into her eyes and she flinched and her own turned pitch black.
"You are here to feed," she said. "You're just like him. I can sense it."
"No," Sam said. "I'm not."
"Then why are you here?" she asked. "I've been here forever and the only person I've ever seen is him. What do you want?"
"I want to…"
He wasn't sure what he wanted to do. He wanted to free the woman she was possessing, but that would put Jim in danger. If the demon went back to Hell talking about the man that had kept her and drunk her blood, The Demon would surely hear, and it wouldn't take long for him to work out that Jim was the one that had done it.
When he had been exorcised, Jim and Stephen had been barely alive. If this demon knew where she'd been held, she would send The Demon here and Jim would surely be killed. Sam didn't want him to die. He was horrified by what he had done to this woman and the fact he was still drinking blood, but that didn't deserve a death sentence.
"How long have you been here?" he asked in lieu of answering her question.
"Months, probably years. He didn't give me a calendar and I can't tracks days down here in the dark. I was grabbed in Chicago, March 1985. What's the date?"
Sam took an involuntary step back and felt the color drain from his face.
She had been here for twenty years. Jim had held her prisoner all that time, drunk her blood, kept her in the dark. Did even a demon deserve that?
Her eyes widened. "How long has it been?"
"It doesn't matter," Sam said.
"Doesn't matter! I've been kept prisoner here like some kind of animal by that… vampire… and you're not even going to tell me how long it's been?" She sneered at him. "Fine. Don't tell me. Do your thing and exorcise me."
Sam frowned. "You want to go back to Hell?"
She laughed harshly. "Hell is nothing compared to this. I want to go back or die. Since nothing can kill me, the best I can have is the Pit. Send me back. You know how. You're a hunter, aren't you?"
"Yes."
He didn't hesitate over the question as he knew that was what he was now. When he had walked into the farmhouse and started to train his powers on the demon, that was him shedding the last vestiges of his civilian life. He was part of a war, a soldier, and he was on the winning side. He was a true hunter now.
"Then do what you do and get me out of here."
Sam bit his lip. He wanted to do it, to free the woman she was possessing. A part of him even wanted to save the demon from this horrific fate, though he hated himself for wanting it. But Jim…
"Fine," she snapped. "Don't do it for me! Do it for Ruby."
Sam's eyes widened. "Ruby?"
The demon didn't answer. Something strange was happening to her. She grimaced and then the eyes faded from black to green and her face crumpled with pain. She staggered back from him, coming to a stop as she hit the far edge of the trap. She held up her hands and said, "Please, don't hurt me."
As her eyes filled with tears, Sam realized this wasn't the demon anymore. It was the woman she was possessing.
"I'm not going to hurt you," he said softly. "I'm here to help." He swallowed hard. "Is your name Ruby?"
"Yes," she whimpered. "Ruby Galway."
"And do you know…" Sam took a deep breath before asking the question that would confirm or refute his horrifying suspicion. "Do you know Clark?"
She rushed forward, colliding with the edge of the trap and staggering back. "Clark! Do you know Clark? Is he alive? He was bleeding so much, and I was trying to help, but the smoke came and…" She began to sob, her eyes imploring him for an answer.
Sam stared at her, nausea rolling in his stomach.
Clark had never found Ruby because she'd been here. He'd spent over twenty years looking for the demon that stole his fiancé, and he'd never had a chance at finding it, or Ruby herself, as she'd been a prisoner here. His friend had spent two decades trying to avenge a woman that wasn't dead.
"Clark is alive," he said softly.
Her hands flew to her face. "He is! Oh, thank god."
"He's alive and he's fine," Sam said. "He's… He's been looking for you."
She pressed a hand to her heart. "He must be so worried. I think I've been here months. I keep missing time. Sometimes I am here. Sometimes I am just lost."
Sam felt tears prickle at his eyes. "I'm going to get you out of here, Ruby," he said. "You just need to be brave a little longer. Can you do that?"
"Can't you get me out now?" she asked. "Please. I just want to go. I want to find Clark."
A tear slipped down Sam's cheek. "Clark is coming, I promise. Just rest a while. I'll bring him to you."
She nodded, her eyes spilling tears down her filthy cheeks, and said, "Thank you. Thank you so much. Clark will…"
"Christo!" Sam said harshly.
Her eyes turned black and Sam saw the awareness of the demon in her face again.
"You know Clark," she said gleefully. "I don't believe it. I didn't think he'd live after what I did to him. How did you meet?"
Sam glared at her. "I will do one thing you want; I will exorcise you, but you will do something for me first. You will leave Ruby alone. If you have any control over it, you will let her be lost until Clark gets here."
She frowned. "Why do you need Clark?"
"Because he has spent every moment since you took Ruby looking for you, and he gets to be the one that sends you back to Hell. But before he does that, if he wants me to, I am going to hurt you."
She snorted. "You really think you can?"
Sam smiled cruelly. "I know I can."
He turned and walked up the stairs and out into the cool night air. His heart was racing and his mind spinning over what he had seen and what had happened. He knew what he needed to do next, and he was ready now.
It might cost Jim's life to exorcise the demon that had Ruby, but Sam could live with that if it meant Ruby would be free, if Clark could have the woman he loved again.
He closed the doors to the cellar and hit the speed dial for Clark. It was answered after only a moment and Clark sounded wide awake and cheerful. "Sammy, to what do I owe the late call? Nightmare?"
"No," Sam said, pleased that his voice remained steady. "I've found Ruby…"
So… This is another thing that was planned all along. To give context, I started writing Echoes on January 1st, 2019. I introduced Clark to the story in February. I left this world and wrote The Price You Pay and then came back and reached this chapter in July. All that time I was building towards this revelation. And people say I have no patience… :-)
Until next time…
Clowns or Midgets xxx