12

Kya shoved with all her strength and her hands melded with a furry mass. The mass went flying off her and she scrambled to her feet, amazed that her hand was still lit up. In the flickering flame she made out a dark shape on four legs, sleek black fur, body like a Doberman, lips peeled back in a snarl to reveal wickedly sharp teeth. The eyes of the dog glowed red as though blood had been poured into the sockets in place of eyeballs. When it breathed in sharp pants gouts of smoke plumed from its mouth, as if its lungs were coated in fire and all it could do was cough up the residual ash. Kya took an involuntarily step backward, suddenly uncertain of whether or not she would walk out of this fight alive or not. She knew what she was dealing with. From the same line of hellish fiends that bred Nightmares, pit black horses that breathed fire and wouldn't tolerate riders of any good breed, came the infamous Hellhound. The trackers of the underworld, the guards of gates that were to remain untouched, the scouts of powerful demons searching the world through eyes that couldn't rise above the surface, these dogs were the source that hell relied upon.

Kya spread her feet and raised her arms in a fighting stance, one hand still lit with the flame from the Zippo. From what she knew about these dogs, the flames she commanded wouldn't do much good. Behind the snarling, bristling Hellhound was Dean, cradling Sam's body and trying to talk his brother back into the land of the living.

"Kya!" he yelled, aware of her plight.

"I got it, Dean," she said tersely. "Take care of Sam."

The dog lunged and she whirled, executing a full turn that placed her beside it as it soared through the air toward her. She shot her leg out to the side in a snap-kick as the dog passed, her booted foot connecting firmly with its ribcage. The force of the blow knocked the Hellhound from its leap and into the wall behind it. It got back up, shaking its head and growling fiercely. She spread her legs again in another stance before jerking the arm with the flame outward and sending the flame in an arcing fireball that sprayed the Hellhound. The blow tumbled the dog over again but the flames were harmless. The dog's skin absorbed them as though it was water and shook its body as if to fling off the harmless drops.

With the light from her hand extinguished the hallway grew dark again, save for the beam of light shining from Dean's dropped flashlight. She was completely wrapped in shadow and the dog, with its dark coat, vanished from her line of sight. She stopped and was only able to hear the pounding of her own heartbeat and Dean's plaintive whispering to his brother. She made out the dark shape as it hurtled toward her and felt the pain as jaws clamped down on her arm, head shaking viciously to inflict more damage. She cried out in pain and brought her knee up into the Hellhound's underside until it released its grip. It jumped again, raking claws on her shoulders as it tried to bring her down to the ground again. She stumbled back and jerked the Zippo out again, thumbing down on the striker frantically. The flame sprouted and she focused her eyes on it as it shed a tiny amount of light into the area. She could make out the shape of the dog, huddling some ten feet away. With the lighter in one hand she raised her other hand, repeatedly flinging it outward as fireball after fireball flew down the hallway to collide with or around the dog. The stunning blows were just that, a mere distraction. She edged backward as she kept the balls of flame going.

"Dean!" she cried. "Your gun!"

She dropped the lighter as the sawed off shotgun soared through the air toward her outstretched hand. She caught it deftly, spinning on her heel to face the dog again as it charged at her, and bringing the gun to bear in nearly one neat motion. The butt of it rested on her shoulder and she focused before pulling the trigger. The gun went off, a deafening sound in the cramped space of the hallway, and the force of it knocking the butt back into her shoulder. The bullet caught the hellhound in the chest mid-flight and propelled it ten feet down the hallway to land on the floor.

As she watched the dog dissipated into smoke and disappeared without ever showing a trace that it had been there in the first place. For a moment Kya was so stunned that she remained planted firmly with gun still in her hands, as if she expected it to return or for its cousin to launch itself out of thin air. When no such attack came she lowered the gun slowly before turning around and rushing back to Dean's side.

Dean stared at her from across Sam's body. Sam's breathing had become so labored and shallow that Kya knew immediately they were losing him fast. The only responsiveness he showed was to keep weakly shaking his head in a statement of denial to his dying breath. She met Dean's eyes with intensity.

"Move him, Dean," she commanded.

"What?" he asked.

"Just do it!"

Dean stood and lifted his brother with him, getting the bulk of Sam's body over his shoulder in a fireman carry while he moved down the hallway back the way they had come. Kya stood in front of them, blocking their retreat from anything seeking to follow, and it wasn't long before she felt the slightest of cold chills shuddering through her body. She reached down and snatched up her fallen lighter, struck it, and focused. The flame grew, expanding to a diameter of at least five feet high by four feet wide before she mentally pushed it. The flame roared downward, meeting the carpet and filled the expanse of the hallway. It rushed backward, eating up the space, until a figure was outlined in the midst of it. A woman, stalking closer, suddenly engulfed in the burning flames. She smiled as the flames consumed her, licking at her body, and burning the dress she wore to nothing but ash.

Behind Kya Dean had stopped running and turned around, laying his brother on the ground. He watched as the fire consumed the hallway behind him, climbing up the walls and spreading down from the ceiling until there was nothing left of that expanse of hallway but inferno. In the middle of it stood Jess with a sadistic smile on her face. She disappeared into smoke within the flame and Kya turned to face him.

Behind her the flames went out as suddenly as they had started, whether by Kya or the mansion's will he couldn't tell. She replaced her lighter and walked up to him, kneeling down to gaze at Sam in concern.

His breathing had returned to normal and he began to stir as the two looked on. When he opened his eyes they were both confused and hurt. He looked around, saw Dean and Kya above him, felt his brother's arm holding his upper body off the carpet. Kya's hand rested on his shoulder.

"Jess?" he asked weakly.

"She wasn't real Sam," Dean said firmly. "She was a hallucination of some kind."

"The things she said . . .," Sam started.

"Aren't true," his brother finished.

Sam decided to ignore that and focused instead on Kya. "You're hurt."

"Take a tip from me and don't get into a wrestling match with a dog," she said jokingly. The pain burning in her wounds was sharp, but she didn't want Sam to worry about that right now.

She nodded down the hallway they had come from. "Let's get out of here."

13

Back in the foyer Sam was focusing his energy on drawing out a map of the mansion that they had traveled so far. They had stumbled into the archway beside the two hallways to find a sitting room, furnished in red upholstered leather chairs and a couch. The room had been empty of anything of interest save for a silver necklace lying on the floor, nearly hidden under the mahogany scrolled leg of a chair.

Kya held the necklace in her hand as Dean tended to the wound on her other arm with a strip of his shirt that he had torn off from the bottom. His face was set in a grim line as he worked and Kya could tell he had a lot on his mind. The necklace dangling from her fingers was a small chain with a tiny guardian angel on the end. As she held it tears sprang to her eyes and a lump formed in her throat. It was the necklace that she had given Elizabeth at her sweet sixteen. The two girls had gone for a walk in the park after the party and Kya remembered the day clearly. The sun had been setting over the river and they had sat on a pair of swings, idly pushing back and forth. She had given the girl the necklace and proclaimed that now she was becoming a woman and the fun was just starting. Elizabeth had sworn to never take it off and she had upheld that promise, until now.

"There," Dean said, breaking into her reverie. "That should do it."

"Thanks," she said sincerely. She clutched the necklace in her fist. "I'm almost afraid to go down that second hallway."

"No doubt," Dean said darkly.

She looked at him as a shadow crossed his face, a dark cloud of anger that she had never seen before. His eyes glittered in the light of the candles still warmly glowing in the foyer with an intensity that almost scared her. The clownish, womanizing, playful side of Dean had all but vanished with the last incident involving his brother and in his place stood a man ready to defend against the darkness with his dying breath. Kya felt sorry for whatever tried to come between Dean and his brother a second time.

"Finished," Sam called from his own place of concentration. "Now hopefully we can keep track of this place."

He handed Dean the map as he rose to his feet, steady again. The color in his face had returned and to the casual observer it seemed as if the close call with death had never occurred. But Kya could see the pain still buried in the younger boy's eyes and she wished she could take it away. The burden was Sam's to bear, however, and he would have to find the strength to overcome it on his own.

Dean scanned the map and nodded. "I'm really starting to hate this freak show. But I have to ask, which way now?"

"I think we should finish the foyer so we don't have to keep coming back here. We still have the hallway and those two arches over there. We should save upstairs for later, when we're done here," Kya said reasonably.

"Don't forget those two doors behind the stairs," Sam added.

"This is going to take forever," Dean groaned.

"I say the two arches," Sam said.

Without waiting for agreement he lifted the backpack onto his back and started toward the archway on the right side of the room with purpose. Kya and Dean hurried to match his pace and their flashlights landed in a room filled with the heads of hunting trophies. On one wall rested at least ten buck heads of varying sizes, on another were more exotic catches including the double tusks of an elephant, the pelt of a tiger, and the head of a grizzly bear, among other things. The far wall housed guns of all shapes and sizes hanging in racks against the pale tan of the walls. The floor was wood and a carpet of a huge grizzly bear pelt softened their footfalls as they maneuvered past more leather chairs seated in a circle around an oak end-table. Another stone fireplace rested in front of the chairs on the wall that displayed the exotic trophies and there was wood ready to burn inside the mesh covering.

Dean swung his flashlight around the room and jumped back, colliding with Kya. She reached her hands out to steady him and looked to where he pointed the beam of the Mag-Lite.

Standing in a corner, staring at one of the trophies, was a young man. Even from the back it was easy to tell that he was not of the living; his body was transparent and the threesome could see that his head hung against his shoulder at a sharp angle. His neck had been completely snapped. The man seemed to realize that he was not alone in the room and he turned around slowly. His eyes were light brown and his hair sandy blonde. He wore jeans and a white shirt complete with worn brown leather cowboy boots. Kya was distracted by the way his right temple rested against the top of his shoulder as if he had been born that way. But that was not the case. He had died that way.

"I can't find my way out," the ghost said plaintively.

"I'm sorry," Sam offered.

"If you got in, there must be a way out," he said.

Kya sighed. He didn't realize he was dead.

"What's the last thing you remember?" Dean asked carefully.

"I remember coming into this room," he said, face screwing up into thought. "But after that, nothing. Just that I can't find the way out."

"What's your name?" Kya asked gently.

"Jesse," the kid said, as an afterthought he added, "I just turned eighteen. Goin' to college."

Kya's heart wrenched. Here was yet another life stolen away by evil. It got to her each time.

"Jesse," Sam said, stepping to the front of the group. "I hate to tell you this, buddy, but you're dead."

"Sam!" Kya gasped. "Couldn't you use a little more tact?"

"How can you use tact?" Dean demanded. "It's the truth."

"I'm what?" Jesse asked, voice breaking. "That can't be right. You're lying."

"No Jesse," Kya said quietly. "I wish we were. You must not have made it very far into the mansion."

"I just wanted to go home!" he cried. "This place . . .this place plays foolery on you! I can't be dead. I was goin' to college!"

Kya hung her head and found Dean's hand for reassurance. He squeezed it gently.

"We're telling you the truth," Sam said firmly. "You don't belong here, Jesse. You need to move on and let go of this place."

The ghost was quiet for several minutes, seeming to think about what they had said. Finally he looked up, a mixture of pain and clarity washing over his translucent features. "I suppose you're right. I've got this god-awful headache that won't go away. I've been a wonderin' why I keep going in circles. My Ma, and my Grammy, they're waiting for me up in Heaven," he said in a broken tone.

Sam nodded encouragingly. "You should go to them. They want to see you again."

The ghost nodded and waved at them in a goodbye motion. As he seemed to focus, to let go of the plane he was trapped on, his body disappeared for one fraction of a second before reappearing.

"What is it?" Dean asked.

"I'm still here?" the ghost asked in confusion.

Kya cast a sidelong glance at Sam. The brown haired young man was shaking his head and staring at the floor with lips pursed in contemplation. Dean looked to his younger brother for a theory.

"I think we have a problem," Sam said finally. "I think this place is throwing out the bodies and keeping the souls trapped here. I've heard some legends say that the souls of people can act as batteries in a sense. It could be that Colton uses them to keep this place going and to establish his link with the book back in the real world. He's not going to let them cross over."

"So if we kill Colton," Dean stopped suddenly, then added, "Again. If we kill him again then we set all these souls free that he's collected?"

Kya nodded, her eyes falling on the forlorn ghost with more than a passing wave of sympathy. "That sounds plausible."

"I'm sorry, Jesse," Sam said sincerely. "We'll get you out of here but you have to wait here."

The ghost nodded and went back to staring at the trophy on the wall without a word. Dean's eyes met both of his companions with a determined glare of anger that startled both Kya and Sam.

"Let's go get this bastard."