28
Dean's heart crashed against his ribcage and his weakened body protested against the sudden sprint, but he ignored it. With Kya hot on his heels he had began running for all he was worth when the first gunshot had reached his ears. His only thought was he was going to lose Sam and everything he fought to keep in this world would be gone. He pushed his body harder, fighting against the need to fall to his knees from exhaustion. A second gunshot rang out, clearer now, and Dean stopped short when he reached the gaping hole in the wall that had obviously been carved out by his brother and Heather. Dean didn't give what lay ahead a second thought. He grabbed Kya's hand to make sure the stairs didn't try and swallow her whole and pounded up the steps. The door above the crazily unproportional staircase was slightly ajar and all Dean heard from within was silence that made his heart nearly meet his toes head on.
He didn't think. Didn't plan or prepare. He just charged in, shoving one hand against the door to force it open so he could go plowing headlong into a room that held possibly the ugliest creature he had ever seen in his life, both living or in his nightmares. He swallowed hard, stopping Kya short behind him so that she was pulled close to his back by the hand he had behind his back still entwined with her own.
"Oh my God," was all she could think to say.
"I don't think God would make something that ugly," Dean managed to comment, before shoving both him and Kya out of the way of a fire of missile-like quills.
The Manticore had turned its attention away from his baby brother, sprawled out on the floor with his eyes open but unable to move a single inch of his paralyzed limbs. A shotgun lay on the floor next to him which Dean figured had produced the two shots he had heard before Sam had been hit by the Manticore's much more effective form of bullets.
Fear pushed them to new running speeds and they dove behind a couch, going airborne for a minute in their panicked dive as another set of quills was shot their way. Kya was surprised to see Heather huddling behind the couch, fear apparent in her dark eyes as she made herself as small as possible. Dean sat up from his manic dive and looked around quickly for any weapon that would be of use. He found nothing.
"You're alive," Heather commented, although all the joy had been torn from her voice.
"And I plan to stay that way," Dean replied.
Heather nodded dully. He could tell that she thought all was lost and they were simply next up on the buffet line. He gritted his teeth, all smartass comments going out the window as he thought about their predicament. He wasn't going to lose anybody today but how he was going to accomplish that was beyond him. All he knew was he had to get Sam away from that thing. That was much easier thought than done. He knew what they were up against, and for once, Dean was resigned to thinking the situation was hopeless. He wanted nothing more in the world than to keep his brother and the girls safe, to carry them out of this alive, but he knew that reality was a lot less happy. Fairytale endings came few and far between in his line of work and the creature they were up against was the destroyer of those dreams. It had no obvious weaknesses. The thing was a killing machine, a perfect choice to guard the energy of the house from hell, and possibly the only thing that Dean could think of that could steal the thunder right out from under him. Dean tried not to let his face show the hopelessness he was feeling inside. If they didn't do something, anything, the Manticore was going to use one of Sammy's bones for a toothpick.
"There's three of us, one of . . .it," Kya said. "We can confuse it maybe, enough for one of us to grab Sam and get him out of the way."
Dean nodded. The plan was crazy, kamikaze-type suicidal but it was all they had to go on for the moment. And he was beginning to feel more like a kamikaze with every second that he spent in this house. He was pretty sure Death was getting sick of him ringing on the doorbell and running away. Next time he might just be hiding in the bush next to the porch to catch Dean in the act. The three remaining companions steeled the little nerve they had left and nodded to each other before each rose and dove in a different direction. Dean went straight for his brother while Kya came out of her roll to land behind the Manticore, and Heather to its right.
"Hey!" Kya screamed.
She picked up a forlorn looking board lying on the ground from the splintered table and rushed forward, adrenaline and insanity replacing fear. She swung the board with all of her strength against the monster's flank, turning it around to rush at her in annoyance. Instinct took over as she saw the Manticore charging her way, spiked tail reared back to swing when it got in range. She didn't give it the chance. Kya sprang from the ground with finely toned legs, launching herself into the air in a forward flip that took her over the swinging tail where she stuck the landing on the other side of the creature like the master gymnast that she was. Her landing put her right next to Heather and she turned to see Dean dragging Sam behind the only cover left in the room, the couch.
He needed more time.
Heather sprinted out from behind Kya in a moment of complete bravery that stunned the older girl. The tiny Hispanic girl screamed at the Manticore, desperate to get its attention away from the people that had saved her life as it prepared its tail for another barrage of needles aimed at Dean. To her relief, and her terror, the Manticore swung around at the sound of her outraged voice.
Heather had nowhere else to run since she had reached the side of the room where the table had been laid to waste and the Manticore was already on its way toward her, taking up any chance she might have had at getting back across the room to the couch.
Heather closed her eyes and resigned herself to her fate.
29
She watched the horrible beast stalk closer until its tail was within striking range. Heather sank to the floor, curling up into the smallest ball possible as she waited for it to strike her down. The beast pulled its tail back and Heather knew it was seconds before it hit her full force. If the blow didn't kill her, the Manticore's teeth certainly would. Her only consoling thought was that maybe the others would escape.
Heather dared to open one eye only to see the deadly spiked tail soaring her way, right for her head, when a dark shape hurtled over its head. Heather had trouble registering what she saw at first.
Kya had grabbed up a thick board from the ground mid-sprint and launched herself into the air once again, this time performing an aerial layout that the judges in competition would have gone nuts over. Her height put her well over the Manticore's body and tail and she sailed over it, twisting her body in midair to come down facing forward in a crouch in front of Heather with the board already raised above her head.
The tail slammed into the board, the spikes causing it to get lodged in place for a moment as the Manticore backed up, wrenching the board from Kya's hands and roaring in frustration as it tried to shake the board loose.
Kya grabbed Heather's hand and pushed past the angered beast, rushing for the couch with all the speed of terror behind her strides. Both girls dove behind it again, finding Dean on the ground with his brother attempting to pull out the paralyzing spikes that stuck in his shoulder and thigh. It was obvious Sam was conscious, but completely immobile. He couldn't even move his mouth to speak and the only thing that moved were his eyes.
"We need a better plan," Kya gasped.
"Hey, the crazy plan was yours," Dean defended, wrenching the quill from Sam's leg.
"The crazy plan worked," Kya shot back. "But it won't get us out of here alive."
Dean watched Heather fiddle with a flare gun absently, lost in her own thoughts of how it was going to feel to get eaten alive. An even crazier idea than Kya's sprang to his head and he grabbed the blonde girl, pulling her close and whispering in her ear, just in case the Manticore really did have the intelligence of Einstein. So far it didn't appear that way, more like the intelligence of George of the Jungle, but Dean wasn't taking any chances and it didn't seem like the beast was going to run itself into a tree anytime soon.
"I need to borrow that," Dean said, snatching the flare gun from Heather's hand without explanation.
"What the hell—," she started but Kya cut her off.
"Stay with Sam, no matter what happens," she said fiercely, seizing possession of a 9mm semiautomatic handgun, the first gun she saw in the open bag on the floor.
Heather nodded and grabbed Sam's limp hand in her own, not understanding what crazy scheme this seemingly reckless duo had come up with now.
Dean gave Kya's hand one last squeeze before both of them bolted out from behind the couch to intercept the Manticore's approach. Kya stepped out from behind Dean, bringing the gun to bear in front of her in a perfect shooting stance.
"Eat bullet," she commented.
She fired with abandon, each bullet hitting its armor hide and bouncing harmlessly off, but it got angry enough to open its maw in an angry roar that hurt her ears. Dean waited, flare gun ready to fire, arms extended and legs spread to take the shot. The one shot they had, the only one that mattered. As the jaws extended to their full range Dean tensed his own jaw muscles and fired the flare gun.
Kya held her breath as the flare soared through the air and shot straight into the Manticore's mouth. She gripped Dean's shoulder and outstretched her other hand toward the burning flare as the creature tried to spit it out. Before it could accomplish that feat Kya focused on the end that crackled with fire, causing it to grow like a firestorm inside the Manticore's mouth. With just that one spark and the force of her mental will pushing it along the flare exploded and Kya pushed the explosion farther, forcing the flames down the creature's throat and into its body.
The outside may have been invincible but the inside most definitely was not.
The Manticore screamed through its blocked mouth as the fire and the explosion from the flare gun devoured it from the inside out until it finally exploded. Chunks of its body flew through the air, raining down around them along with a shower of bone and blood, while the spiked tail was thrown clear across the room to hit the stained glass window with unerring accuracy.
None of them had noticed that the window was covered in arcane ruins, much like those on the door. None of them had noticed the small depictions of people running around its edges, people that the house had claimed and added to its power source for more fuel. Dean pulled Kya to the ground in a crouch, covering her body with as much of his own as he could while both of them tried to cover their heads with their arms as the enormous window shattered from the impact.
Glass flew outward, some of it managing to find its way back into the room to fall down around them. As the window shattered a stream of black smoke took its place, swirling into the air until a maelstrom of wind encased the room with enough force to pick up the glass shards, wooden splinters and chunks of destroyed Manticore and send them spiraling around the room in a tornado of death. Kya was numb from the dozens of cuts that assaulted her body from the flying debris, but she was even more thrown by the beam of light that suddenly cut through the sky outside the window to attack the black cloud.
It was as if the sun itself had gotten sick and tired of all of it and reached an arm down to beat the holy crap out of darkness. The dark cloud was smothered in the beam of light and the tunnel of light receded to leave behind a gaping hole of shimmering yellow light where the stained glass window used to be. All around them the light spread, crackling across the floor and walls, furniture and ceiling like so many fingers of electricity. The house began to shake as though caught in the middle of a California earthquake that would have made it the next Atlantis. The walls, floors, ceiling and everything in between shook violently, jolting them around and sending them sprawling across the floor as the house began to shake itself apart from the foundation up. The light spread past the attic, rushing forward to devour the entire house in its relentless grip while their own little corner of the world fell down around them quite literally. Dean ducked a falling beam from the ceiling and rushed behind the couch to force Heather to her feet and grab hold of his brother, who was just now coming out of his paralyzed status. Sam grabbed Dean's hand in a weak grip and Dean pulled him up, throwing Sam over his shoulder in a fireman's carry, not caring how much it hurt Sam's pride to be carried out.
Heather fell to her knees when the house continued its relentless shaking; ripping itself apart with such violence that she thought the end of the world was at hand. She was shocked when Kya shoved her out of the way, rolling the girl across the floor as glass embedded itself in their bodies along the way. That was better than the alternative as another beam of wood crashed down from the ceiling in the spot where Heather had been kneeling. She would have been crushed.
There was no time for a thank you as Kya wrapped an arm around the younger girl and together they half limped, half carried each other toward where Dean was struggling to stand his ground.
"I never thought I'd say this," he yelled, "But go into the light!"
"What the hell is this?" Kya demanded, pulling Heather toward the rectangular window of light. "Poltergeist?"
"Smartass comments later, going now," Dean commanded, shoving Kya forward.
"Oh shit," both girls mumbled.
Kya kept her arm around Heather as they dove through the box of blinding light just as the attic completely fell in on itself.
