Careful What You Wish For: Season 1.5
The Road Less Traveled
Chapter Three
Gone to the Dogs
Present Day
"Dean." Jessie's voice was tense, as she watched the oncoming lights. "Dean." The second repetition of her voice got more urgent. He didn't know what she was afraid off. It looked like the car was pulling over for them. Wait. No. It wasn't slowing down, but the lights were full on blinding in his face. "Dean!"
Jessie tackled him into the snowbank, burying them both deep into the dense snow. It knocked the wind out of Dean, but he kept his wits about him enough to twist, trying to shield Jessie's body with his own, just in case the car rammed the snowbank. The impact never happened. Just the sound of a revving engine, followed by squealing tires. That wasn't the sound of someone driving off, that was the sound of someone getting a better angle.
Floundering, Dean started to pull Jessie through the embankment and back towards the forest. Towards the sounds of the baying demon-dogs. Dean kept weighing his options, and every time he was coming up short. The road was death; there was no way they'd survive getting hit by a car. The forest was death; with a pack of possessed pooches out for their throats. They were supposed to just survive long enough for Sammy to exorcise the family, to take out the trio of demons that were orchestrating the whole thing.
Even he needed a breather this time. Just out of sight of the road, he felt safe enough to pause for a moment, leaning against a tree, gasping for air. That has been a damned good tackle for a girl. Jessie leaned against the same tree beside him, her shoulder pressed against his. Dean caught his breath first.
"We can't keep running like this." He hated what he was about to propose. He didn't need to glance over to tell she agreed with him. "You gotta do something. I know.. I know you're tired, Jessie."
She sniffled. Her face was so cold she couldn't feel the tip of her nose any more, or her cheeks. She wasn't just tired; she was physically and emotionally exhausted. But he had such hope in those damned hazel eyes. She fumbled as she tried to uncurl cold fingers from the protective cave of her jacket sleeves. The tree was an old oak, dormant in the deep winter. Gripping the bark, winnowing her fingers into the groove, Jessie laid her forehead against the tree, and closed her eyes.
The barking and howling grew louder. Dean shifted until he stood between Jessie and the oncoming demon-dogs. They began to appear out of the forest around them, regular family pets: a golden retriever, a German shepherd. There was a Corgi in the mix, black eyes and bared teeth the only things easily visible above the snow. There was about twenty dogs all total that he could see, fanning out to flank them. Dean found a fallen branch, half buried in the snow, and yanked it free. A makeshift weapon.
"Jessie, any time now..." He didn't want to sound desperate, but getting eaten by Fido and Fluffy wasn't on his agenda today.
He could hear her behind him, whispering things to the tree, mostly in languages he didn't grasp, but he recognized a smattering of French and a Latin word here and there.
Suddenly, the ground rumbled beneath his feet. For a moment, he hoped that Hell was opening up to take all those demon-souls possessing the dogs back. But the ground rumbled again as he heard a pained gasp from behind him. He checked the instinct to look away from the threat, and immediately wished he hadn't. In a semi-circle around him, the snow erupted as wrist-thick vines shot out from the frozen ground, scattering dirt, and sod and chunks of frozen ground all around.
With startled and pained yips and whines, those tendrils proceeded to lash out and impale every one of the threatening demon-dogs. Dean watched twenty plumes of black smoke rise from canine mouths and twist off into the darkening sky. The dogs weren't so lucky. Twitching and whimpering in pain, scarlet blood dying the dirtied snow beneath them, each dog died in pain and fear.
Jessie sagged, dropping to her knees in the snow, and the ground ceased rumbling beneath them. Before she could pick her head up, Dean blocked her view of the grisly scene, smoothing his hand over her hair.
"You're doing good, Jessie. Real good." He murmured, impulsively pressing a kiss to the crown of her head. "Let's keep going, okay? Just a little bit longer. Sammy's gotta be about done."
Present Day, across town
"You can hear it calling to you, can't you?" Black eyes following Sam's path as he paced the perimeter of the Devil's Trap. The demon's wearing Jessie's father seemed to be the ringleader, delighting as he baited Sam verbally. "Mammon recognizes those that are consumed with unfulfilled desires. You want something with all your soul, Sam Winchester, don't you? Something you can't have."
Sam kept going over the steps in his head. The exorcism should have worked. Why hadn't it worked? What was different about these demons? On the surface, they seemed to be just the average, run-of the mill types. Black-eyes and a big attitude. But nothing was working.
"That's the rub, isn't it?" The demon wearing Jessie's sister affected a yawn. "He knows the pain that Hell can give him, but he's never encountered the bliss that it provides." He had the two of them trapped in the main foyer. They'd crossed the rug that covered the Devil's Trap like a pair of newly smoked-demons. The third one, the one possessing Jessie's mother had run, and tripped over the smaller one he had impulsively carved in the dining room floor last night.
Sam gave his head a slight shake. Of course every demon knew about his tenure in Hell, in the Cage with Lucifer. Crowley had loved to hint at the Winchester celebrity. "Don't you want to know, boy?" She circled the edge of the trap beneath the carpet, instinctively knowing where it's edge was and not attempting to trespass it. "Mammon can give you everything you've ever wanted. A normal life. A white picket fence." She paused, waiting for Sam to look in her direction. Her black eyes were voids, bottomless and soulless. "Kayla."
Sam barely checked the impulse; his hand had dropped to the demon-killing blade without a thought. But the sadistic look of glee that crossed the meatsuit's face gave him a moment's pause.
"What are you?" Sam finally decided to ask.
"We're followers of Mammon." The other one answered. "Knocked from our throne of glory in the times before time, and relegated to scrounging for scraps among the hidden. He called us. Witchy girl upwrapped his voice, and well.." He spread his hands wide, as if to indicate his current situation.
Sam whipped around as he heard a crash from the kitchen. The sister began to laugh softly, before sing-songing: "Momma gon' knock you out..."
It was a warning, because a second later, the demon came slamming through the kitchen door, a carving knife in her hand, lunging for Sam. This time, there was no stopping the instinct. Self-preservation kicked in, as he dropped his notebook, and blocked the knife by catching her forearm against his. Demonic superstrength meant that he had seconds before she overpowered him. And the Kurdish blade was again, so easily right there in his hand. The knife entered cleanly between the woman's ribs, and for a split second, her skeleton was illuminated within the meatsuit. Magic burned, flash-frying the demon hiding within her with a series of bursts.
Her black eyes flicked back to normal, and the carving knife dropped from her hand. Suddenly Sam was holding a very terrified and very confused woman. And then, he was holding a corpse. They had to be demons if the knife worked on them.
Knife, the carving knife. Crap. It had fallen across the boundary of the Devil's Trap. And the sister was sliding it further into her grasp. By the time Sam had pushed the corpse away, the father was poised and prepped for an attack as soon as the daughter stabbed the knife through the throw rug and marred the carving of the sigil beneath. Sam had to strike first. Dean would understand. Jessie, he wasn't so sure about.
Stepping across the boundary of the trap, Sam kicked the blade out of Becky's hand, sending it skittering across the floor until it came to rest against the front door. Her father lunged for an attack, but instead of going for Sam himself, he went for the Kurdish blade. Sam ended up in a momentary wrestling match over the blade, and he was on the losing end for a few tense moments. But his height gave him leverage, and the demon didn't expect to be headbutted.
Sam barely had time to watch the demon flash fry out of the father's body before he had to spin and confront the sister. The face contorted with rage, black eyes boring into him, Sam prepared himself for a fight. She'd retrieved the carving knife, and held it in a reverse grip, the spine of the blade against her forearm. There was a visual struggle in the expression of her face, a few moments where Sam thought that Becky might be fighting for control.
Black eyes flicked to the two corpses splayed out on the floor near Sam, scarlet soaking into the carpet. Suddenly, Becky's body stiffened, her arms and legs going rigid as she threw her head back and vomiting black smoke into the room. The smoke swirled, and shoved itself out through the crack beneath the door. Sam caught Becky before she hit the floor, but there was no way he would be able to explain this.
Two days ago
The shouting began before they ever opened a door of the Impala.
"I don't know who you are, but you'd better have a damned good reason for setting foot on my property!"
Sam and Dean were both freshly changed into their fed-suits, having availed themselves of the tiny bathroom in the tiny apartment before they'd left. Jessie sat, practically vibrating in the backseat of the Impala, glaring daggers out the window. Sam had to ask her twice to let them handle it, before she gave even the slightest of answers. It was going to be agony sitting on the sideline.
Dean took the lead. "We do have a... damned good reason for being here. In fact, we're here to recover a bit of stolen property."
He felt particularly proud of himself for that dramatic double-meaning he dropped in there. The man confronting them fit the physical description of Jessie's father. His scruffy beard was the same sandy-blond color as his daughter, but shot through with silvered grays. The knit beanie cap hid just about everything else.
He seemed to study the badges that were flashed in his direction. "Feds? For stolen property. Hah. Sure. Right." Rolling his eyes, the man went back to shoveling the walkway.
"Actually, yes. When the stolen property is at a value in excess of a six-digits, we are generally the ones called into to make the recovery attempt." Sam shrugged, almost apologetic in his tone.
The number of digits caught his attention, and he leaned momentarily on the shovel. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
Even as he tried to play dumb, the front door to the house swung open. She wore little more than a short-sleeve blouse, and pencil-skirt, but the most eye-catching detail about the woman's ensemble was the fist-sized rock nestled between her breasts.
"I think that we should turn it into a neck-" She paused realizing that the driveway wasn't empty. Covering the stone with her hand, the older woman made a cursory attempt to hide the gem. Clearing her throat, the smile she put on was completely fake. "I wasn't aware we had guests."
Jessie had enough of waiting at that point. The sight of the blood diamond set her temper to boiling, but that could have also been the nagging whisper that goaded her to into action. Throwing the door of the Impala open, she stalked down the driveway.
"Give that back! It's not yours!" Jessie jabbed a finger at the woman she was convinced wasn't her mother.
Way too many things happened all at once. A small shape bolted out from the door, bounding through the snow, yapping and snarling. The male demon swung the snow-shovel at Sam's head. Sam's reflexes saved him, as the plastic shovel hit his forearms when he covered to protect himself. Dean caught Jessie with an outstretched arm, spinning her around and forcing her to shelter behind him. The dog, a little ten-pound thing, grabbed Dean's jeans at the ankle and began to yank and pull. Dean had just long enough to register it's flat, black eyes, before one tug threatened to pull him off his feet. Sam wrestled with the shovel-wielding demon, momentarily having the upper hand, until the demon slammed the wooden shaft into the bridge of Sam's nose, sending the hunter reeling backwards.
Reaching down, Dean grabbed the little dog by the scruff of the neck, tore it's teeth away from his jeans, and unceremoniously drop-kicked the animal. It hit the pavement with a sharp crack about six feet away, and a thin, reedy tendril of black smoke rose from it's mouth.
"Portia!" Jessie's voice broke when she realized what just happened. Dean had killed her grandmother's dog. Her grandmother's dog had been possessed just like her parent's were. Her mother had already disappeared into the house. Her father was fleeing in the same direction, with Dean chasing after him. Instead of following, instead of running after either of them, Jessie numbly dropped to her knees beside the corpse of the little dog.
It was over in seconds, it seemed. Sam shook the stars from his eyes, glanced once at Jessie, and decided that his brother would be more in need of backup. The two canvassed the house, but found it empty. It had also been tossed, much like the state of Jessie's apartment. Dean found the back door wide open, and two sets of tracks leading out into the forest behind the house. Together, they both headed back out to find Jessie still sitting next to the dog's corpse in the driveway.
Sam started for her, but Dean stopped him with a hand to his chest. The slight frown told Sam all he needed to know. Dean had done the deed; Dean would be the one to apologize. Instead, Sam circled around to the back of the Impala, and started fetching the gear he thought they may need.
"Jessie, look, I'm sorry, I didn't mean..." Dean crouched across the dog's corpse from her. He trailed off, because she wasn't sobbing like he'd been expecting her to. There were unshed tears in her eyes, but there was something flinty in her expression.
"They possessed my gram's fucking dog." She stated flatly, lifting her eyes up to him. "You can unpossess them without killing them. Right?"
Dean hesitated. There was no good way to answer that. "Sometimes." It wasn't the whole truth, but it was part of it. "We'll try. Let's get you inside, out of the cold. We need a plan, okay?"
She stared at him for a full thirty seconds before blinking. Her agreement was to slowly get to her feet, but she paused and carefully picked up the small dog's body. Instead of leaving it out in the open, she carried it into the garage wrapped it carefully in a blanket, before following the Winchesters inside.
