Chapter 1: In a World that Keeps on Pushin' Me Around
"Ugh, I hate witches!" I grumbled as I sat up and glared at the corpse lying a few feet away.
Dean snorted as he wiped his knife on the witch's blouse, stood, and detoured around her body to get to me. "Ain't that usually my line?"
"And now I'm agreeing with you," I replied sourly before swiping at the fragrant, reddish powder clinging to my face.
He crouched next to me and examined me anxiously. "How're you feeling, Sammy?"
"Other than my head aching from where she slammed me into the wall, I think I'm okay," I said after a swift self-assessment. "Fortunately she didn't seem to be all that powerful, so maybe her spell fizzled."
"How often are we that fucking lucky? So I don't wanna assume anything yet. Let's find her stash and figure out what she was trying to do to you. Then we'll have a better idea if it mighta worked or not," he responded before grasping my forearms—being careful not to touch any of the substance on my hands—and helping me to my feet.
"You're right—things usually aren't that easy, at least not for us. Let's see . . . I think her bedroom is that way." I pointed towards a doorway off to one side of the great room.
Dean shook his head. "Nah, too obvious. If I was a psychotic bitch trying to hide my nasty-ass hobby from my yuppie neighbors, I'd keep my spooky shit someplace where none of 'em could just stumble over it."
He glanced around the room, then moved towards the kitchen. I stopped to scrape as much of the remaining residue from my skin as I could with a wet paper towel and watched while he cautiously opened each door he found. The first few led to nothing more than a powder room and a couple of closets, but the fourth revealed a staircase leading down. He tossed a grin over his shoulder at me, flicked on the light switch just inside the doorway, and descended. I dropped the soiled towel on the counter and quickly followed.
The basement seemed fairly typical at first glance, with a washer, dryer, and chest freezer in one corner and storage shelves and stacked plastic tubs filling most of the central space. A doorway just past the stairs led to the mechanical room, where the whirring of the heating unit could be heard. My brother headed for the far side of the room, where the edge of another door could be seen behind a pile of tacky Christmas decorations.
He shoved them aside and waved me over to the padlock sealing the door. It was a moment's work with my lock picks to bypass it, and then we both yanked the door open. The small chamber within was dark, so we pulled out our flashlights and flicked them on.
"Yahtzee!" Dean exclaimed as the beams played over the occult symbols painted on the walls, the shelves holding jars and boxes of spell supplies, and the low altar covered by a black cloth and set with red candles, a couple animal skulls, a bloody chalice and dagger, a mortar and pestle, and a heavy tome with a reversed pentagram on the cover. Fixed to the wall above the altar were pictures of the three deceased victims and several other people, each with a sigil drawn in dried blood over their face.
I managed to grab the book, which presumably was the witch's grimoire, and mortar before he flipped the altar over and doused it in holy water. After checking the shelves and removing anything dangerous, we headed back upstairs. Since we didn't want to linger in case someone decided to investigate the sounds of the earlier fight, we hurriedly packed our gear, cleaned up any evidence of our presence, bundled up the corpse, and stealthily returned to the Impala.
Dean of course insisted on spreading an old towel on the passenger seat before I was allowed to sit. Once we'd pulled away and gotten a few blocks between us and the house, he looked me over in concern. "You still doing okay, Sam? Nothing feeling weird yet?"
I shook my head. "Other than the back of my head still hurting, I feel fine. So either it's slow-acting, or her casting was a dud."
"Or it's something more subtle," he pointed out. "So let's not count our chickens just yet."
We first stopped at a forested area a distance outside of town to salt and burn the witch's body and bury the remains. Back at our motel room, Dean hurriedly loaded the rest of our stuff into the car, and we drove for a couple of hours before checking into a different motel. My head was throbbing and my skin itching desperately under the dust crusted on it, but putting distance between us and any investigation into her disappearance took precedence.
Once inside the new room, I immediately headed for the bathroom, stripped off my contaminated clothes, and hopped into the shower to wash away any lingering spell particulates. Despite the plaid and thistle motif plastered everywhere, the Highland Motel was nicer than the usual places we stayed at, which at the moment meant good water pressure, an extended supply of hot water, and thick, soft towels. After scrubbing myself thoroughly clean, I dried off and realized that I'd forgotten to bring something to change into. In addition, my head was even sorer after the shower, though it didn't feel different than any other time it had taken a hard blow.
I sighed, wrapped the towel around my waist, and emerged from the bathroom. There was no sign of my brother, so I swiftly dressed in a fresh t-shirt and pair of sweatpants. I then rummaged through our medical kit and was dismayed to see that we were out of aspirin or ibuprofen.
Just as I began to contemplate if the pain was worth taking something stronger, Dean walked in the door with a plastic bag and the ice bucket. He tossed me the bag, which contained a bottle of Advil in addition to the usual snacks. He then went into the bathroom and returned with a glass of water and a hand towel wrapped around some ice.
He sat down on the bed next to me, handed me the glass, and carefully pressed the homemade compress to the back of my head. "I figured your noggin would still be bothering you after that knock, so I walked over to the convenience store to get you some Vitamin I and filled up the ice bucket on my way back. Aren't you lucky you got such an awesome brother?"
"Yeah, I am, Dean. I know I don't say it much, but I really do appreciate how well you take care of me. You've been doing this all my life, and I should—" I trailed off in confusion, as that was not what I meant to say.
He shrugged nonchalantly, though his freckled cheeks held a pleased flush. "Hey, that's why I'm here—to look after my kid brother. Pop some pills and ice your head for a while. We'll check out the bitch's shit after dinner to make sure you're okay. Speaking of which, do you want pizza, burgers, or Chinese?"
"We haven't had Chinese in a while, so let's go with that." I then took four of the Advil and laid back while he searched for a menu and then called in our order.
After filling up on spring rolls, crab Rangoon, General Tso's chicken, and house special fried rice and feeling significantly better, I cleared off the small dinette table to study the grimoire and the contents of the mortar from the altar. It took some time to identify the components, but I eventually determined the powder to be a mixture of basil, honeysuckle, juniper, primrose, and violet bound in dragon's blood resin. From there, it was relatively simple to narrow down the spell the witch had used based on those ingredients and what I remembered of the incantation she'd shouted.
I stared in horror at the page after reading it over twice. "Fuck! Shit! No, no, no!"
Dean looked up in surprise from his bed, where he was cleaning some of our weapons. "What's wrong, dude? What does that shit do? Is it gonna turn you into a goat or make your dick fall off?"
"God, I wish it was something that simple! It's a fucking truth spell, man. For as long as it lasts, I'm compelled to respond to any question with complete honesty," I replied numbly.
His face filled with wicked older-brother glee. "This is priceless! So you gotta answer anything that I ask right now, huh? Like where do you really get that fancy-ass shampoo of yours, which I've never seen at any Walmart or CVS?"
"I order it from a website that makes customized hair care products and have it shipped to a PO box near Sioux—dammit, Dean!" I broke off and glared at him. "Do you think this is funny? Do you truly think that with everything that's been happening to me, all this crap that we don't understand and can't control, that being forced to—to do this, to do anything, is a source of fucking amusement?"
His expression sobered immediately. "Sorry, Sammy—I . . . I didn't think of it like that. Well, it still ain't that bad. As long as I watch what I say to you and don't phrase it as a question, then this curse can't do its thing. Main downside is that you'll hafta hide out in our room until it wears off. We can't risk you spilling the beans if some random person asks 'bout what you do for a living or something."
I laughed mirthlessly. "If only that was the worst of it! Unfortunately, that's only the first part of what she cast on me."
"That don't sound good!" He stood and took a step toward me. "What does . . . shit! Uh . . . I'm guessing that the second part is bad news then."
I managed a brief smile, grateful for the effort he was making. "You've got that right! The rest of the hex states that if I don't reveal my deepest, most shameful secret to the person it would affect the most before the next sundown, I'll die in exactly the same horrible fashion as the other victims. And there's nothing in the grimoire about how to counter this."
"Sonofabitch! The other person would hafta be me, I assume, since pretty much everyone else we knew well is dead except Bobby, and I doubt you've been holding anything serious out on him." He waited until I nodded, then plastered a grin on his face. "Then you got nothing to worry 'bout, since I already know everything about you. Like how serial killers give you a major hard-on, and that clowns make you piss yourself, and—"
"Dean!" I shot to my feet and glowered at him.
"Sorry kiddo, just trying to lighten the mood." He moved closer and put a hand on my shoulder. "Seriously though, we'll figure something out. Just 'cause this book doesn't list a way to end the spell don't mean there ain't one out there. We can call Bobby to see what he can dig up, and we can research this ourselves."
I slumped and looked down. "And what if we can't find anything, at least not before sunset tomorrow?"
He squeezed my shoulder reassuringly. "It still ain't the end of the world. I meant what I said, Sam—I already know you better than anybody. I know 'bout the freaky shit that's going on—your visions, moving that cabinet at the Millers', being immune to Andy's mind-whammy, not succumbing to the Croatoan virus—and how it's all tied in somehow to the demon that killed Mom. And notice that I'm still here and got your back.
"What could be . . . fuck! What I mean is . . . I can't imagine that your secret could be worse than the fucked-up crap that's already happened to us. So if it comes to that, whatever you gotta tell me to meet the conditions of this goddamn enchantment, we'll deal with it together. Okay?" He gave me an encouraging smile.
My response was to bolt out the door in panic.