With The Coming of the Dawn

Summary

The hunters become the hunted when a creature stalks a remote community, and one of the brothers has a choice to make. Will both brothers survive the hunt and the decision of the other?

Disclaimer- Yup, you guessed. I mean how did you know that it still doesn't belong to me? Wow, you guys are psychic aren't you? Go on, you can admit it…..

Author's Note – Thanks again to anyone who has read and reviewed. Hoping you are still enjoying this, but if you don't tell me I'll never know lol!

This chapter is a little shorter than usual but it seemed a good place to stop and I more than make up for it in the next Chapter – I promise!

Chapter 13

The Other was in a rather self-congratulatory mood. It had single-handedly managed to bring down a family that had been a major thorn it the side of the Demonic world. It was so busy gloating that it didn't realise a difference in its own mind. John, who had been giving the Other a serious headache and had been battling constantly to win back control, had been silent for some time now. The demon shrugged, he knew that eventually, the soul within that was John Winchester, would eventually disappear after a long period of repression – they always did. The soul could only last so long without a life force connection, and as long as the Other had control over this body and mind, that life force was denied to the spirit, and with nothing to tether it to this form, it would either fade or become a detached spirit similar to a ghost or poltergeist. It really depended on the strength of will of the person involved.

Missouri had also quietened and that concerned the Other, she had been constantly trying to pull her awareness away, determinedly seeking a weakness, a moment when the Other had been distracted. But the demon within John had had hundreds of years practice at trapping psychics and was well practiced at sectioning off its consciousness so that no one area of it's mind was weakened when it concentration was focused elsewhere.

But the Other had seriously miscalculated. It was concentrating on Sam and Missouri as the two main psychic threats but it had not taken into consideration 3 things. Firstly it had underestimated the strength of the bond between the two brothers that had caused it to expend a lot more time and effort than it had anticipated – and who were both still battling fiercely to protect the other. It has misjudged the strength and strong mindedness of Missouri Mosley – the Other was regretting not finishing her off earlier but it was too exposed an area and did not wish to risk this body being caught just yet. And lastly it had dramatically miscalculated the sheer will and bloody minded stubbornness that was John Winchester. He had briefly escaped its control once already in time to warn Missouri to turn the car.

John had been silently watching the Other, gathering his strength and waiting. John was doing what he did best – he was hunting.

The demon within experienced an unfamiliar sensation. It was being watched, assessed, and weighed. Within the confines of his mind, John was silently stalking his opponent, knowing he had an ally nearby in the form of Missouri. The Other had made a mistake in assuming that John had simply faded. If it had learned anything at all about John Winchester, it should have realised that when it came to his family, nothing stood in John's way, least of all a demon. John focused all of the hate he felt towards The Demon, the pain of Mary's death and the loss of his family, his anger at being used to hurt his son and forged it into a sharp spear of fury and struck at the Other.

The Other flinched as a terrific pain jolted through John's skull and momentarily lost its grasp on Missouri and that was all she needed. Missouri too struck out, again not with psychic power as with her lesser power she would only feed this entity further, but instead struck with an emotional anger that almost matched John's and wrenched her awareness free.

"I'll come back for you John Winchester" she swore to herself.

Her spirit flew back towards her body, her mind silently praying that it was still alive for her to return to. She could feel a gossamer thin link and breathed a sigh of relief. She felt the welcome rise of sweet air, well make that sterile, hospital air being drawn into her lungs by a ventilator, painful but one of the best feelings in the world. She could hear a faint beeping on the very edge of her consciousness. It would take a short while for her to awake fully; she had used so much effort and strength to get free of the demon.

The nurse in Missouri's room started when she noticed the faint movement in Missouri's eyelids and she looked expectantly at the EEG which reflected her increased brain activity and smiled "Welcome back". She paged for the Consultant and checked Missouri's fluid levels. They had thought they might lose the older woman. She had been comatose for almost two days, her pupils only faintly responsive enough to let them know she was still in there if only barely. But with no signs of growing responsiveness and with her pressure dropping earlier that day, they had held little hope of her coming out of the coma. They were still baffled as to how she had fallen into such a deep one, especially considering how lightly she had escaped injury in her accident. The police had informed them that it had been exceptionally fortunate that the vehicle had hit her had glanced her on the rear side of the car. Given the damage they believed it had been a large vehicle travelling at some speed – had it hit her head on, she wouldn't have stood a chance.

Still it would probably be a day or so before she was fully awake and the police could question her further then.

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Sam had gathered some ingredients together in Elsie's kitchen, and had read through the binding ritual and incantation several times to make sure his pronunciation and understanding was exact. He took his blade and walked to his brother's room Dean was still tossing and turning, mumbling under his breath and every now and then gasping when a sudden pain overwhelmed him. Sam knew that his brother would not approve of his plan but he knew he was doing the right thing - it would save his brother's life and that was all that mattered to him now.

He tightened a tourniquet around his left arm and with a quick movement slashed his knife deep into his left arm, careful to avoid any arteries or tendons. It would do Dean no good if he bled out before he could absorb all of the toxins in Dean's body and he needed to be alive and mobile for the second part of his plan to work. He tipped his arm so that his blood fell down his fingers and dripped in Elsie's silver gravy boat containing the herbal preparation he had made earlier. The container had to be of pure silver and he was sure Elsie would understand. He sliced a small cut into Dean's left palm and added a few drops of Dean's blood to the bowl. Sam then began to read the first half of the incantation that keyed his blood to Dean's and then gently lifted the leech stone from Dean's chest, careful not to remove it completely and placed it into the gravy boat so that it was fully submerged. He completed the rest of the incantation and the stone glowed with a faint crimson light within the bowl of blood.

Ritual complete, Sam lifted the leech stone from the bowl and carefully wiped the excess blood off with the face cloth and laid it back on Dean's chest. The crystalline blue veins that had previously run through stone were now blood red. It looked as though the ritual had worked and now the poison and psychic attack should now through the blood magic flow into Sam via the leech stone. By adding some of Dean's blood to the mix, life force from Sam should be pulled through the stone and into Dean. Sam had known that simply drawing out the poison might not have been enough as his brother had suffered the effects for so long, Dean definitely wouldn't be happy about that but by the time he awoke; Sam planned to be long gone.

He had other preparations to complete before the effects of the binding hit and quickly left his brother and went to the kitchen.

For the rest of the day he gathered the necessary herbs from the garden. In a copper pan he boiled vervain in holy water to which he added salt to make an electrolyte he could use for electroplating. Into this he placed an amount of pure silver he had smelted together and the stainless steel blade of his curved knife. He then attached the positive and negative connections of the car battery he had stolen from a pick up along the street to these and ran an electric current through, effectively plating the consecrated steel blade with a layer of silver.

Using the skills his father had drilled into both brothers, Sam was also able to fashion 6 silver bullets for his gun.

He then went back to Dean's room and fortified it with every protective herb, charm and symbol he could think of. He had drawn a chalk pentagram above Dean's bed as well as below, reinforced the circle of salt around the bed and drew protective symbols on all four walls, and around the door and window. He had fashioned some incense sticks of elder and Ginseng which he had burning alongside the birch candles, added ash leaves to the rowan he had placed over all thresholds and had put an additional circle of protection using the rowan, elder and ash around Dean's bed .

If he was going to leave Dean alone, he wasn't going to leave him unprotected.

Finally all preparations complete, the young hunter wearily sat down next to Dean's bed. Now he only had to wait and see. If his brother's condition deteriorated, then he knew that his modified incantation had not worked. If he showed signs of recovering, and Sam started to feel the effects of the poison, then all he was waiting for was the return of the creature to put the second part of his plan into action,

He knew that this was probably the last time he would be with his brother; he drew out a piece of paper and started to write

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