Disclaimer: Don't own "Supernatural," and the painting has been quiet lately….
A/N: "Chapter 2" went live before I even knew what was happening (sorry), so I didn't have a chance to write my thanks for the reviews, and to ask if you thought there were too many flashbacks in the second part--not enough action? I hope you enjoyed it anyway, and that you'll enjoy this part, too. Probably only two more to go after this one. I also hope to get this "posting" business figured out soon!
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Sam tossed his father's journal into the duffel bag on the back seat of the car and checked his watch again. It was way past their rendezvous time, and there was still no sign of Dean, no signal on the cell so he'd know if Dean had tried to call.
Sam had spent the last half hour scouring the journal for any kind of anything that might tell them what was killing the sheep, but the closest item he'd found was a little scribble about the monster Grendel from Beowulf. Creatures from early Anglo-Saxon epic poetry were unlikely to be roaming the Colorado backcountry, Sam was pretty sure.
Might be some sort of chupacabra, of course, and John Winchester had collected plenty of information about goat-suckers. Problem with this thing being a chupacabra was right there in its name—a chupacabra sucked goat's blood. Sheep. Goats. Close, but nothing in the recent news stories had indicated that any blood-sucking was going on.
Sam sighed. Elmendorf beast? That might be something to look into.
He checked his watch and cell phone for the zillionth time, then slapped cold hands against cold thighs and looked up and down the roadway, wanting badly to see his brother walking there, coming back to him. Trees threw long, swaying shadows across the asphalt as the sun fell and the wind picked up, sending winter-deadened pine straw to the ground like tiny lances. There was nothing else—no traffic, no sheep, no Grendel, no Dean.
"Come on, man," Sam murmured, growing colder inside, now, too. Worry did that to him, turned his insides to ice, and there were few things—okay, nothing—that worried him like Dean did. He debated climbing back up the mountain, following after his brother; or taking the car and heading for civilization and, he hoped, cell phone reception. Even if he got a signal, though, that was no guarantee Dean had one.
It was a single gunshot that made his decision for him—from down the mountain, from a .30-.30 center-fire. Sam threw himself behind the wheel of the Impala, started her up, heard two more shots and hit the accelerator. A mile and a half down the road, he passed a broad pasture where thirty, maybe forty sheep huddled in a nervous bunch; a few hundred yards further and there was the herder again, trudging back up the roadside toward his flock, rifle in his hand now and a storm on his face. There was another herder with him, older, also armed, also grim.
Sam pulled the Impala to a halt on the gravel shoulder, jumping out as fast as he could untangle feet and long legs from the pedals and steering column.
"What was it?" he asked. "That was you I heard firing, right?"
The older herder scowled. "Don't know what it was. Too big to be a coyote or a wolf—bear, maybe. We didn't get a good look, and we didn't get a good shot. Made this kind of chuffing noise, and the sheep went crazy. I think maybe it got one of them."
They quickly discovered that it was true—they found the torn carcass of a pregnant ewe strewn in three pieces across the pasture where grass touched tree-line. Four pieces.
"My God," Sam breathed, gaping at the maimed animal, keeping his eyes off the almost full-term lamb ripped from her and lying in a bloody heap nearby. "What could do something like that?" He looked at the two men with him, and saw they had no answers. The ice in his stomach churned, and he looked across the road, up the mountain into the encroaching darkness.
"Dean," he whispered.
In the back seat of the Impala, in the duffel bag beside John Winchester's journal, the EMF meter stirred to life.
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"Not far" to the cabin turned out to be a little over a mile, and every step was excruciating. It took Dean and the woman—Ginny, she told him sometime, and he'd told her his real name in return, pain howling banshee-like, too loud in every part of him for him to make anything up, really—it took them nearly three hours to make the arduous trek.
She had prattled at him for the first hour or so, and he thought during those moments he could think that she was trying to keep them both occupied, their minds off the difficulty of their journey. Built the cabin a few years ago, Dean thought she said. Used it when she needed to get away, to get back to simpler things. Hiked in from the road; had a friend who checked in on her while she was there, same guy who helped her build the cabin. He'd probably be by that night, or the next morning, and he would help them. He was a good man. It was a good cabin. It was a good life….
Dean tried hard to concentrate (just put one foot in front of the other, now the other, now the other) but there was simply too much to focus on. Don't scream. Don't put any weight on the right leg. Worry about Sam. Don't lean on Ginny too hard. Don't stumble. Don't pass out. Worry about Sam. Watch out for that evil thing, whatever the hell it is. Worry about Sam. Worry about Sa--ultimately, all that registered in his brain was pain.
By the time they reached Ginny's little one-room cabin, both were pale and exhausted, sweaty and chilled, neither having any clear idea of exactly how they'd gotten there. There was already a fire laid on the hearth and another one in the stove, and Ginny maneuvered Dean into a seated position on her bed before lighting them. There was no electricity, but the propane lantern she also lit proved ample in the small space.
"Take your clothes off," she ordered, pulling a nearly full whiskey bottle and glass from a little cupboard by the stove. Dean's fingers were too numb and his brain too fogged to comply. She quickly poured the whiskey and held the glass to his chattering teeth, helping him drink it down. Then she went to work on his clothes, stripping off his jacket, shirts and T-shirt first, wrapping him in the coverlet from her bed. The left boot and sock came off easily, but she worked more carefully with the right ones, not wanting to jar the bad knee.
Ginny pushed him gently back onto the pillows, easing both legs up onto the bed together. Dean was shivering less violently with the whiskey in him, but now she'd seen the terrible wounds on his arms and chest—deep gouges in puckered bluish skin, scrapes, tears, was that a bite mark?—and she knew his knee required more medical attention than she could provide. He hadn't been coherent in some time.
Gingerly she removed his still-sodden jeans and boxers, eyes averted as best she could, less worried about his dignity than about the state of his knee and the need to get the wet things off him, get him into something warm. Hypothermia, shock, blood loss—any one of them could kill him, that much she knew.
Piling covers around and atop him, Ginny fiercely rubbed his arms and left leg, stimulating circulation there. There was an extra ski cap on a peg by the door—cartoon-like blue reindeer cavorting on a red and yellow field, a present from the man who'd helped her build the cabin. She snatched it and pulled it down over Dean's damp hair, well over his ears, and the result would have elicited a grin under other circumstances. She heaped more blankets from the cedar chest on top of him, then grabbed up a large pot and headed to the pump outside.
The shadows were long, not much light remaining in the day. From somewhere far to the south she heard what sounded like rifle-fire. Blam! Blam blam! Hunters, she thought fleetingly. She filled the pot and hurried back inside, setting it on the stove to heat while she located her woefully inadequate first-aid kit. The cabin was warming nicely, at least.
Dean regained consciousness, groaning loudly when she applied the hot compresses to the worst of the lacerations on his chest. Then he soldiered up—it cost him dearly to keep silent as she went to work with the antiseptic and bandages, but he didn't flinch once, gritting his teeth and concentrating fiercely on a point in the air above their heads. When she dabbed cautiously at the torn flesh of his shoulder, where the beast's teeth had sunk deeply (rabies? worse? he pushed that one clear thought quickly from his head), Dean took the wash-cloth from her and soaked it with whiskey, then swiped at the bite himself,taking another healthy swig directly from the bottle and handing the cloth back to her wordlessly. Everything hurt like a sonofabitch, but he was warmer, now, and the whiskey was working to dull the pain. There was something soothing, too, about her gentle ministrations, her composed expression. The fire in the hearth against the far wall created a glow around her as she sat beside him, tending his wounds, and Dean sank back against the pillows, watching her face while she worked.
It wasn't until Ginny pulled the covers up over his bandaged chest and shoulder, shifting to examine his right knee, that Dean realized he was naked beneath the mound of blankets.
"Um," he stopped her with a weak hand on her elbow, suddenly shy in a way he couldn't remember ever being. He cocked his head and grinned uncomfortably. "Awkward."
"I'm just going to take a look at your leg," she said, smiling benignly. "Believe me, Dean, you don't have anything I haven't seen before."
"Won't your husband--?" He was really too tired to finish the sentence, and she cut him off, anyway.
"No husband. Now keep still and let me look."
"I'm sorry. I thought that, you know, with the baby…."
"No husband. End of story." Ginny's tone was firm, but she used gentle fingers to probe his inflamed knee. "Do you think anything's broken in there? You need a doctor, but if Joe doesn't come by tonight, it'll be tomorrow morning before we can get one."
Dean grimaced. "I think it's twisted, is all. I torqued it when that—" He fell silent, and she looked back at him curiously.
"What exactly happened to you, Dean? That looks like a bite mark on your shoulder, and these—are these claws? There aren't any bears around here, and no cougars for ten years, at least. I think you've got torn ligaments in your knee, and something apparently tried to drown you. What in God's name happened?"
There was really no point in making up a cover story—in the face of Ginny's gravity, somehow truth seemed to be the most appropriate reply.
"I think it was the thing killing the sheep around here." He would have shrugged, but everything hurt too much. "It, uh, it jumped me."
"Holy God. What was it?"
"I never really got a good look," he replied, and that was also the truth. "My brother and I—"
Dean sat bolt upright, pain reawakening with a shriek along every nerve. "Sam! What time is it? I've got to—" He started to swing out of bed, but Ginny held him down, her hands on his shoulders.
"Whoa, now—slow down! You can't walk on that leg. Besides, your clothes are still sopping."
He wanted to fight her, struggled to find the energy. Sam was out there, with that thing, somewhere. Somewhere Dean wasn't. Needed to find Sam, make sure he….
Dean collapsed back onto the bed, spent, breathing hard. Even thinking hurt, but he did it anyway, had to figure out a way he could warn Sam….
"A phone—is there a phone?" he heard himself say.
"There's never any cell reception up here, and I didn't have a land-line run."
"A rifle, then, any firearm? He might hear the gunshot."
She shook her head. "I'm sorry, no. I don't believe in owning guns."
"You don't—" Dean opened his eyes long enough to look at her in disbelief, his gaze traveling to her distended belly. "And if you need help?" he asked.
Ginny smiled down at him. "I do believe in angels," she said simply, shrugging. Dean sank down into the pillows, bloodied and beaten.
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"My brother's up on that mountain," Sam said, voice tight with concern. "Maybe lost, maybe hurt. I've gotta find him."
The young herder gripped his arm, holding him back. "It's going to be full dark in half an hour. Go up after him now and you could be lost, maybe hurt. Wait until daylight."
"Joe's right," the older man said. "Even with a flashlight, you could step into a windfall, stumble over rock, bust your leg or your head in a second and we wouldn't find you until daylight."
Sam bounced impatiently on the balls of his feet, thinking furiously. "Is there someone in Stoner's Well that could help? Sheriff? Forest ranger, maybe?"
Joe shook his head. "We're pretty isolated, and even the mountain rescue boys know better than to look for lost people in the dark. They'd wait until the sun was up, so they'd have a better chance of spotting your brother."
"It's getting so cold," Sam said, "and that damn thing that killed the sheep—" He trailed off, eyes still roving the mountainside, although dusk had fallen so quickly there was little he could see. "Look, Dean can sure tell which way is downhill, and sooner or later, downhill is going to come to road, right? He's going to find a road, right? This road?"
The herders exchanged a look before the older one turned away, moving toward the campfire they had built before the sun set, after they'd buried the carcass parts. The feds would want proof, if it was wolf-kill.
"I know you're worried," Joe said sympathetically. "There's really nothing more you can do until morning. Come on, Mel's got some dinner going—come on."
He plucked at Sam's sleeve, distracting him, turning him away from the mountainside. "What's your name?"
"Sam." The response was soft. "My brother's Dean."
"Well, Sam, I'm Joe. It's nice to meet you." The herder guided Sam toward the campfire. "Listen, does Dean know anything about wilderness camping? He a smart guy?"
Sam snorted a laugh, the sound an odd mix of pride and panic. "My brother knows a little bit about a lot of things, and yeah, he's pretty damn smart."
Joe nodded. "That's good. Means he's going to find a way to stay as warm as possible, and as safe as possible. Snow's held off this year, so the ground is dry. You said he was hunting, so he's got, what, a deer rifle with him? You gotta have faith, man—Dean's going to be all right. With any luck, he'll come across some hunter's shack or deer blind, stay there for the night. If he's real lucky, he'll find Virginia."
Sam's mind raced as he imagined a hundred possibilities that would bring Dean back safe, and a thousand that ended with him dead. With an effort, he pulled himself back into the moment, looking up at Joe with curiosity. "Virginia?"
"She's got a cabin sort of in the direction you said your brother headed. I was going to drop by tonight, check in on her, until this thing with the sheep. Guess I'll head up in the morning."
Mel sniggered from across the fire, where he was ladling a steaming something onto tin plates.
"You got something to say?" Joe asked sharply, swinging toward him.
"Not me," Mel replied, head down, avoiding the younger man's glare. "It's plain as day how you feel about her."
"I'm marrying her."
"And I've got no problem with that," Mel said noncommittally. "Just can't understand why you don't have a problem with it, seeing as how she's carrying another man's child."
Sam watched Joe's hands clench. "Hey, hey," he said softly, paying back the empathy the herder had shown him. "That's great—you're engaged."
Joe hesitated, then sat down on a camp-stool, indicating Sam should do the same. "Not exactly. She hasn't said yes, yet. In fact, I—I was going to ask her tonight."
Sam nodded, eyes on the campfire. "I get it. Christmas Eve—great time to pop the question."
Mel approached with heaping plates of stew and biscuits, handing them over to Joe and Sam before returning to the kettle on the fire and eating his own meal directly from it, there being no more plates. The food smelled great, and for just a moment Sam allowed himself to savor the aroma, to forget about where Dean might be or what might have happened to him. Then everything just smelled like carrion, and he thought he might vomit. Again, he jerked himself back to the present.
"I mean, hey, Christmas is good, too. Maybe even better."
"You married, Sam?"
Sam frowned, dropping his head, shaggy hair hiding the sorrow in his eyes. It had been so long since Jessica—would it ever be long enough to forget?
His first Christmas with her had also been his last, and it grieved Sam terribly to think he might never know that warm sense of belonging ever again. Jessica had taken him home for the holiday with her, back to the house she grew up in, to be with her parents, brothers, sisters, and their growing families. As soon as he walked into the big, two-story Victorian, Sam had felt like he belonged. The fire blazed brightly on the hearth, a giant spruce stood proud under the weight of uncountable ornaments, and garlands hung in every window. Jess's mom had welcomed him like a long-lost son, hugging him tight and brushing the hair out of his eyes, wrapping him in one of her husband's old sweaters with the too-short sleeves, threatening to stuff him like a Christmas turkey if he didn't put some meat on his bones during their visit. Jess's dad had put him to work chopping wood for the fire, feeding the dogs, hanging one last ornament in that empty spot near the top of the tree. Each time the kitchen door opened, some new, mouth-watering smell had emerged, along with one of Jess's siblings or their spouses bearing an extra glass of mulled cider or a frosted sugar cookie, just for Sam. Children ran everywhere like wild things, miraculously accident-free, and at one point Sam found himself learning to change a diaper while listening to Jess's fifth youngest niece read aloud from "A Christmas Carol," accompanied by her cousin on the harmonica and bongo drums. It was pandemonium, and it was perfect. Sam couldn't stop grinning.
And Jess—well, Jess had just been flawless. She'd caught him watching her after she'd prepared the potato soufflé, set the table, read the twins a Christmas story, lit candles in the living room, sung "The Holly and the Ivy" with her two oldest sisters in harmony, and expertly added bows to every present beneath the tree that needed one. "Too Martha Stewart?" she inquired, twinkling up at him, and he'd pulled her into his arms to kiss her, not even anywhere near the mistletoe. "Just right," he told her, for the first time considering the possibility of spending the rest of his life with her. Beautiful, flawless Jessica.
"No," Sam said quietly, dropping the biscuit into the stew uneaten. "No, I'm not married."
Far away, something cried into the night.
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