Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural or any of its characters. I merely enjoy their company and play with them. (sometimes includes pain and torture)

Mullet Rock

Chapter Eight:

Dean parked the car at the hotel and turned off the engine. He had spent the drive back to the motel trying to come up with a plan but he needed to do a lot more research before he was going to be able to fix this. Research he would have to do alone without the creature that had stolen his brothers' body looking over his shoulder. That meant the thing had to be distracted or better yet contained in some way and he knew just how he was going to accomplish that.

"Are you hungry?" Dean asked the creature.

"Yes, I believe this body could use nourishment," Kindoki replied.

They got out of the car and entered the room. Dean turned on the light as they entered and Kindoki followed him inside. Dean closed the door and turned on the television. "Watch this and learn all you want about this century," he told it.

"Amazing," Kindoki said as he watched. "What is this?"

"It's a television," Dean told it. "Now be quiet and watch while I order us something to eat." He called and ordered the pizza before pulling a few drinks out of the room's small refrigerator. Kindoki was engrossed in the television enabling Dean to crush a double dose of sleeping pills and put them into its drink.

The pizza arrived and Dean put the drink and a few slices of pizza next to Kindoki and watched as he consumed the doctored meal.

Within an hour Sam's prone form lay quietly on the bed while Dean checked to ensure his pulse was strong. He wasn't sure what would happen if the thing died while his brother was trapped in the mask, but he wasn't taking any chances.

Dean out Sam's new laptop turned it on and began surfing the net. He shot off e-mails to Bobby and Ash explaining the situation and asking for any information they might have that could help. With any luck at all between the three of them they'd find something that could help.

First he pulled up his brother's file on this hunt and read everything his brother had discovered. His brother was right there was just too much information on sacred masks for him to have narrowed down the search… until now. Now that he had more information he found one paragraph that caught his attention.

As these ceremonial masks are held to be of great spiritual power, it is considered a taboo for anyone other than specially trained persons to wear or possess certain masks. These masks each are thought to have a soul, or life force, and wearing these masks is thought to transform the wearer into the entity the mask represents. Chief among the concerns of many Shaman is the evil art of soul stealing. Many Shaman knowing the dangers of keeping the souls too long in the masks, wear amulets to protect them against having their souls stolen during cermonies. However, since very few Shaman know the art of making the amulets they are extremely rare and hard to find.

Dean knew this was what had happened with his brother. He also knew it could have been prevented if he had been the one to handle the mask. He pulled his amulet off his neck and looked at it. "Damn Sammy," he said to himself guiltily. "I could have handled the mask without anything happening if we'd just known about it." He looked at his brothers sleeping form on the bed furthest from the door.

Replacing the amulet he stood and walked over to his brother. "Don't worry Sammy," he said. "I'm going to make this right." He took off his brother's shoes and covered him with the blanket before moving to the duffle bag and pulling out the mask.

"Ugly is an understatement," he said out loud to himself. "Sammy… I don't know if you can hear me in there, but don't worry, I'm going to find a way to get you out of there." He set the mask down on the table and went back to his research this time looking for information on soul switching and soul retrieval. There was really very little information on the subject anywhere.

He found a few indications that from a shamanic point of view that the soul may split off from the body or become dissociated when someone experiences trauma or abuse. The soul that splits off slips into the spirit realm and becomes lost or stuck. When this happens it leaves an opening with the body that any lost soul can fill. The shaman can journey to the spirit realm on behalf of the client to retrieve the lost soul and fill the opening within the body which will restore the person. The problem with his brother though is that another soul has already taken up residence in his brother's body and he needed to find a way to switch them.

He pulled out his father's journal and began leafing though it hoping to find something that might help. He was about half way through when the laptop beeped at him indicating a new e-mail message had been posted. Setting down his father's journal Dean opened the e-mail.

It was from Ash. Dean's face paled as he read the note.

Dean,

You guys really get into some sticky situations but I think maybe I have a solution. It's not going to be fun and it borders on evil, but I know what you'd be willing to do for your brother. I ran a world wide search for a shaman capable of performing a ritual soul switch but I couldn't find even the slightest sign of there being one. There is one other thing that may be able to do what needs to be done.

You aren't going to like it, but a reaper takes souls all the time and there are a few rituals out there in the dark arts that are capable of forcing a reaper to switch the souls that it takes.

I'll keep looking for other options.

Good luck

Ash

Dean pulled out his father's journal and opened it to the page that held the information on reapers. Ash was right, there was a very good chance that a reaper would be able to do it but after his last brush with a reaper Dean wasn't sure he wanted to even think about it. He didn't remember any part of his hunt for the reaper when he was in the coma after the accident but Sam had assured him he had been hunting one. Then when his dad had died and he had been healed but he'd felt so wrong… it was the same feeling he'd had when he'd been healed by the faith healer up in Nebraska.

He spent the next six hours searching for any other way of switching his brother and Kindoki back to where they belonged but without success. Bobby replied with pretty much the same thing that Ash had said but still Dean looked for another way.

Kindoki had begun to stir less then an hour ago and Dean had again crushed the pills and mixed them in a drink. Thankfully the creature was too groggy to realize what was happening as Dean held the cup up and helped it drink.

After two more hours of searching, Dean gave up on finding another way to save his brother. He looked at the mask that held his brother's soul. He had to try it no matter what it cost him he had to save his brother. He got up and walked over to his brothers' duffle bag and dug around inside. "Come on Sammy, I know you saved the damn thing where'd you put it?"

After a few more minutes of searching he found the little black book he'd been searching for. He opened it up and realized it still held the clippings of the people Roy's wife had deemed wicked and killed using the reaper she had bound to her.

Sighing heavily Dean opened the dark book and started reading.

A/N - I can not belive how long it took me to get this chapter completed! But it's finally done after my two year old niece not only deleted my file but some how remapped my laptop's keyboard. (That took me a while to figure out how to fix!) But here you go! Hope you enjoy it, review and let me know and thanks for taking the time to read.