Disclaimer: I don't own anything "Supernatural."
A/N: Thanks again for reading this far, and thanks again so much to those of you who have taken the time to review—I've really appreciated your support, more than I ever even imagined! What a lifeline you are to the creative process! I'm very, very grateful.
I had thought this would be the last, long part (and it is kind of long!), but as it turns out, Sam and Dean each wanted his turn to be a hero. (As if they weren't heroes already!) Consequently, there will be six parts to this tale, the final one to be posted very soon.
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Pell-mell they raced under the dark trees, Sam of necessity trailing Joe, although he was the faster runner. At least Joe had a vague notion of where they were going. Sam did his best to aim the flashlight ahead of them, so they wouldn't run straight into anything, but unseen bushes caught at the hems of their jackets as they passed, and deadfall tripped them, once sending Joe headlong to the ground.
"Joe! We've got to slow down!" Sam ordered. "You're not going to do Virginia any good if you smack into a tree in the dark!"
Joe pulled himself off the ground, gasping for air. "You're right. Crazy—she's safe in the cabin. It's just, that howl...terrified me. I never heard anything like it, ever."
Sam took advantage of the respite to exchange the shotgun for his rifle, and to settle the duffel bag more comfortably on his shoulder. "Where are we headed?" he asked.
"That way." Joe waved his hand vaguely to the east. "To the river and down a mile, then another mile or so. Come on."
He set a saner pace this time, but their cross-country progress was still hampered by darkness. At last they could hear the river, and Joe angled them toward it. "We follow it to the footbridge," he said. "Cross it, and there's a path to the cabin. Be careful here—bank's steep, and these pine needles are slippery. Look out—ground gave way here for some reason."
And then the EMF meter went off again.
Sam jerked the rifle up, but found no target in the surrounding blackness. "Joe," he said, voice low and steady, "take this thing out of my jacket pocket and see if we can't follow the signal."
It led them down the slope and to the river, a dark ribbon against the pale gray of its graveled banks. There, the noise died away. Sam reclaimed the EMF meter, passed it over the rough ground around them. When it was clear there was no more signal, he returned it to his pocket.
"What the—" Joe stooped over to examine something near the shallows, then picked it up and held it out to Sam. "This your brother's?" he asked quietly.
Sam held the flashlight beam on Dean's shotgun for a long moment.
"Dean!" He roared, then spun wildly, calling out in all directions. "Dean! Dean!"
Something big and hard formed in his throat, so that he couldn't draw breath, and the ice settled back in his stomach.
They searched—searched hard—but there was no other sign of Dean, no sign of the sheep-killer, so at last they continued along the river, Sam plodding now, Joe still driven by his desire to see Virginia safe in her cabin. Sam tried not to stare at each dark rock along the river's banks, each pile of branches and leaves pushed into a mass by the current, willing it not to be Dean's drowned body, terrified that it would be.
Get it together, Sammy! Dean said in his head, and Sam frowned. Do what you do best—think!
There was really nothing to think about. He didn't want to think, anyway. What point was there in thinking? Thinking only led you to imagining, and imagining only led you to—no, he definitely wasn't going to think about what he might imagine.
Not what he might imagine about Dean, anyway.
Sam stumbled as a rock shifted beneath his foot, almost stepped into the river's dark water. Nope, not going to imagine what might be in there—Sam was firm on that idea.
He might imagine things about the sheep-killer, however, like the what and the why and the how of it. That kind of imagining could prove useful in any number of ways. It would keep him from thinking, for one thing.
A dog with a new bone, Sam gnawed at the puzzle, following Joe blindly, flashlight aimed now at the ground under his feet. They still moved swiftly, across the narrow footbridge over the river, onto the hardpan dirt of the path leading to the cabin.
"Just another mile now," Joe called over his shoulder.
Sam almost passed it by before it registered—a dark splotch on the earth, where something viscous had puddled. He trained the flashlight beam on the splotch, bent over to touch it. It came away damp in his hands, and he knew what it was without having to look. Had seen it on the road, had seen it in the pasture.
"Joe!"
The herder stopped, came back to him at once. "What is it?"
Once again an obstruction in his throat temporarily disallowed speech as Sam searched the ground for more of the blood, finding it in dark drops and thin trails and one more puddle. He and Joe leaned close to see, and Joe pointed a finger at the claw-marks scoring through it.
"That looks like something was scratching at it, don't you think?" he asked, and Sam nodded thoughtfully, imagining.
"You ever see a dog trying to get at something it wants, Joe? Something on the ground, or in it? What does he do?"
"Digs it up."
"That's right. He finds it by its scent, and then he digs to get it. Sniff and scratch, scratch and sniff."
Joe was puzzled. "I get why this sheep-killing thing would sniff the blood, Sam, but why would it dig at it? That doesn't make sense to me."
Dean would've gotten it—would've made sense of the puzzle, Sam was sure. Suddenly angry, Sam whipped out the cell phone again, still had a bar, still got nothing but Dean's voicemail. "Dean!" he shouted into the phone. "Where the hell are you? Call me!"
Joe eyed him carefully, noting the tremble in the younger man's hand. "May I?"
The herder took the phone and carefully punched something in, obviously not all that familiar with the process of connecting. "Virginia has a cell, but she almost never uses it, since reception's so hard to get up here. I don't know if she'll answer, or if she's even got her phone turned on. What do I—?"
"Hit that, on the left," Sam instructed automatically. "There."
Joe nodded, punched the button, and waited.
"It's ringing," he said finally.
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Ginny clutched the blankets tighter around her swollen belly, then turned toward the door and screamed, "Get the hell away from my cabin, you son of a bitch! I'm trying to have a baby in here!"
Despite everything, Dean snorted back a surprised laugh. "You tell 'em, Tiger!"
"You shut up, and get us out of this mess!" she snapped, then waved the words away quickly. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I think it's hormones."
There was sudden silence on the other side of the door, just long enough to make Dean wonder, but then they heard the scratching sound of claws on wood as the sheep-killer made its way around the side of the cabin, then along the back wall.
"What is it doing?" Ginny whimpered.
"There any other way to get in, except for the windows and door?" Dean asked, eyes darting everywhere, landing momentarily on his woeful stock of weapons. He hastily examined the fireplace, satisfying himself that the sheep-killer couldn't use it to come inside.
"Why doesn't it try the windows?" Ginny asked, and Dean shook his head.
"Don't know. They might be sealed better than the door, but—" He really didn't have an answer.
The creature continued its unnerving circumnavigation of the cabin, scoring the wood as it went. As it came to the end of its circuit, back at the door, it paused to inhale deeply as Ginny endured another long contraction.
Caught fast between the creature outside and the woman on the bed, Dean thought he had never felt quite so helpless. He stood transfixed, weight on his good leg, until the beast threw itself against the door again, once, and both he and Ginny jumped. The door still held, however, and the thing moved on, resumed its measured journey around the cabin.
"Dean? I hate to ask…." Her voice was tiny, and he turned to see her dash tears from her cheeks.
"Anything I can do," Dean offered.
"Can you massage my shoulders? Would you mind? It's supposed to help."
He tried it standing up, and when that didn't work, Dean sat beside her, facing her, but that wasn't very satisfactory, either. He wouldn't let her get up, so they maneuvered around each other until they were both on the bed, his front to her back, Ginny seated in the vee of his legs. Dean stretched his right leg out, cocking the knee slightly to keep the pressure off it, and planted his left foot on the floor. Ginny melted against him as he worked the knotted muscles in her shoulders and back.
"Do you have any children, Dean?" she asked. "Do you want them?"
Focused on the progress the sheep-killer was making as it moved around the cabin, Dean barely heard the questions. Twice the thing paused along the back wall, and he held his breath, listening for it, and then Ginny's voice caught him, brought him back to her.
"Your hands are so gentle," she whispered, and Dean couldn't remember the last time—no, couldn't remember ever being called gentle, or feeling gentle, or being gentle.
He moved in closer, his left arm around her chest, allowing her to sag forward slightly, making tiny circles at the base of her skull with the fingers of his right hand.
In a moment, Ginny reached up and took his hand in hers, arranged his arms to that they encircled her. "Hold me tight, Dean," she said, then turned her head and lifted her mouth to him.
Dean ignored the torment in his body as he shifted and bent to her, drawing her firmly to him as their lips met and the next contraction shuddered through her. Fingers splayed in his hair, Ginny cried out against him but never pulled away, never broke the kiss, only pressed harder into him, trembling, the sound of her hurt turning to want and to need and to having and to letting go. Then for Dean there was no pain, until the contraction ended and for a time her agony was eased while his came flooding back.
Ginny leaned away from him, turned so that the fall of her dark hair hid her face from him.
"What was that?" he breathed, and she turned back to him, eyes filled with remorse and with gratitude.
"Hormones, Dean," Ginny said tenderly. "It has to be. Please understand."
There was nothing to do, then, but take his cue. Dean levered himself awkwardly out of the bed, groaning openly now, his knee tight, the lacerations on his upper body burning fiercely. There were fresh red stains across the shirt he wore, where his wounds had reopened.
This time, when the creature outside thrust its snout against the door and sniffed hungrily, Dean suddenly understood.
He looked across the cabin at his own clothes, draped beside the fire to dry, still damp with water and blood. He looked down again at the borrowed shirt, streaked with red. Looked at his left hand, bandaged now, but raw and bloodied when the sheep-killer had attacked him.
Dean thrust the chair away from the door and ripped the bandage from his hand, bringing his palm down hard on the chair-back, blood flowing freely again, held the hand to the space between door and floor, pressed his good shoulder against the door to keep it shut (oh God keep it shut) as the evil thing sniffed once more and went ballistic against it, Ginny screaming every bit as loud as the beast was snarling, Dean just thinking, I'll be damned. Can it be as simple as that?
Somewhere in the cabin, a cell phone began to ring.
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Less than a mile away from the cabin, Sam and Joe could hear the din the sheep-killer made as it flung itself repeatedly against the wooden door. The night air was filled with its eager, sanguinary cries.
Then, filtered through the cell, Sam heard a woman scream, "Help! Help us!"—and somehow ohmyGod Dean shouting, "Ginny! Get back from the door!"
Sam grabbed the phone from Joe's hand as he sprinted down the path, away from the river, the herder in his wake. "Dean!" he bellowed into it, but it was impossible to hear whether he got a response, and Sam jammed the phone into a pocket as he ran.
Instinct guided him more now than the beam of the flashlight, and long legs worked to Sam's advantage, so that he quickly outpaced Joe. The EMF meter sirened to life somewhere in his jacket, and then—just ahead in a tiny clearing—narrow glowing streaks resolved into lamplight leaking from shuttered cabin windows and Sam saw something giant and gray crouching at the wooden door, then standing up against it, battering at it with its body, heaving back and trying again.
Still running, chest heaving, Sam raised his rifle, considered the shot, and discarded the idea until he got closer.
Then the clearing was full of light as the cabin door burst open and Dean appeared with a roar, swinging a large circular object at the creature's head, connecting audibly, a cloud of something—powder? confetti? neither made sense and Sam couldn't tell—something spraying around them. With a startled snort, the sheep-killer reared back, away from the cabin, dropping to all fours, shaking its head wildly. Dean lurched away from the door and into the clearing, something else in his hands now, stabbing downward into the beast's neck.
"Dean!" Sam screamed, at last close enough, and Dean staggered back a step as Sam brought the rifle up, aimed and fired in one swift, smooth motion, saw the impact as the cartridge hit the evil thing high in one shoulder. Sam fired again, but the sheep-killer was already in motion, vanishing into the darkness on the far side of the clearing.
Dean began a boneless slide to the ground as Sam pulled to a panting stop in front of him and grabbed him fiercely, holding him up, supporting him until Dean could slip an arm around Sam's shoulder and find his own feet.
"What took you so long, Sammy?" he asked dazedly, then flinched violently, almost out of Sam's grasp, as Joe burst into the clearing.
"Virginia!" the herder cried, rushing past them and disappearing into the cabin.
Sam struggled to catch his breath, taking stock of the fresh bloodstains on Dean's shirt—what the hell, turquoise?—and the frying pan and fireplace poker in his hands. His brother was battered terribly, and Sam thought he had never looked better.
"It is so good to see you, man!" he gasped, grinning with relief.
"Back at you," was the whispered response, and for an instant Sam thought the arm around his shoulder tightened.
"Let me get that," Sam said, pulling his head back just in time to keep the frying pan from smacking him in the face as it wobbled in Dean's grasp, taking it quickly from him. "What, you were going to sauté it to death?"
Dean's laugh was sharp and maybe a little crazed. "Son of a bitch has a hungry nose on him, Sammy, and I needed him off-balance—" He grimaced, and Sam shifted his grip, realizing the hand he held around Dean's waist was now slick with blood. "I loaded the pan up with pepper and onion flakes and curry powder. Thought I'd give him something to snort before I took him out with this." Dean tried to lift the poker, but it tumbled from nerveless, bloodied fingers, and Sam guided him back toward the cabin, shaking his head in disbelief.
"That is truly the stupidest idea you have ever had, Dean."
"Yeah, well." Dean's breath caught as Sam readjusted his hold a second time. "That Joe?" he asked between clenched teeth, and Sam nodded.
"I take it you've met Virginia," the younger brother said.
"Ginny," Dean corrected him. "Yeah, we've met."
Sam nodded again. "Joe's going to propose to her tonight," he said randomly, and Dean cleared his throat.
"Interesting timing."
They were two steps away from the cabin door when Joe suddenly reappeared there. Even with the bright light behind him, Sam could tell that his face was pale and shocked.
"She told me to get out," the herder said, his voice curiously flat. "Said she wants Dean to deliver the baby."
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"It's coming, Dean—this baby is coming right now!" Ginny told him, propped up on her elbows, knees high and wide, eyes squeezed tight, blowing like she was putting out her birthday candles one at a time.
Dean somehow found the strength to move to her, sat at the foot of the bed, reached back and across for a worn but clean dish towel hanging near the stove.
"Why can't Joe be here, Ginny?"
She opened her eyes to glare at him, angry face softening the instant she saw him, saw the condition he was in. "Oh, Dean."
"Answer me."
"Joe's going to be a good father and a good husband," she said. "He's already a good friend. But he's not part of this, not yet. You are."
Ginny bore down suddenly, groaning, pushing for a long moment. When it passed, she beamed tiredly up at him.
"I know why you're here, Dean," she said. "You're here for that thing—to destroy that evil, murderous thing."
"Sheep-killer's still out there, Ginny. I haven't done anything."
"You will," she said. "I have faith in you."
She pushed hard again, teeth clenched, concentrating fiercely, Dean watching her with something akin to awe. "Come ON, baby!" she cried. "I haven't got all night!"
"Suck it up, cowgirl," Dean told her, reaching down as the baby's head began to crown. "We can do this."
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"Why didn't she want me, Sam?" Joe asked, flinching when Virginia cried out, lost in his own pain.
Sam struggled to find something helpful to say. "Joe, this isn't like lambing. This is a woman, a human being, and women in labor—well, they're so focused on giving birth, they don't always know what they're saying. Or they don't always mean it, anyway. Their hormones are crazy, they're having contractions, they're—" Sam gave up. "Man, I'm sorry."
Then a tiny voice wailed, there was a moment's pause, and Dean called, "Joe, get in here!"
Joe's eyes widened in terror, and he fled into the cabin, Sam following close behind.
Radiant, Ginny sat against the pillows, holding a small bundle against her breast, beaming at Joe, at Dean, at Sam—each of them in turn. Then she held out a hand to Joe, who moved toward her as though entranced, tears coursing down his cheeks as he dropped to his knees beside the bed. Ginny shifted, turning the baby so he could see its pink, wizened face amidst the blanket Dean had used to wrap it. "Her name's Stella," Ginny said softly. "Isn't she beautiful, Joe?"
"Oh, yes," he breathed, "She's so beautiful. Virginia, you're so beautiful." Joe's voice was thick with emotion, and he grasped Ginny's fingers, bringing them to his lips and kissing them gently.
Feeling like an intruder, Sam dropped his gaze to the floor, then glanced from under long hair at his brother. Dean stood at the foot of the bed, absently holding a soiled dish towel, chin high, a smile tugging at one side of his mouth, his eyes never leaving Virginia's face. Sam noted the exhaustion he expected, the gratification, but there was something more in Dean's expression, something Sam found unreadable. Loss, maybe, or regret.
Joe wiped the tears from his face and sniffed loudly, leaning in and murmuring so low that only Virginia could hear him, but Sam could see her face clearly. As she listened, she held the baby closer and looked up to meet Dean's gaze. There was an exchange somehow, Sam thought, a promise made, an alternative offered, futures planned and forgotten. Then Dean dropped his eyes, nodding almost imperceptibly, and Virginia nodded, too, and whatever had been between them was broken. She turned to Joe with a lovely and loving smile.
"Yes, Joe, I will," she said, for all to hear.
Joe yelped with delight, then pulled mother and child into his warm embrace.
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Sam helped Dean into the chair beside the door, parking himself on the half-empty firewood box nearby.
"Time to get serious, man," he said quietly. "That thing's still out there, and you know it could come back any time."
Dean dropped his head back against the chair, exhaustion etching deep lines in his face. "We gotta kill it, Sam, tonight."
"How are we going to kill it, Dean? We don't even know what it is."
Wincing, Dean stretched his right leg out, rubbing distractedly at his knee. "No, but we've got some ideas. It looks like a werewolf, and it might react to silver like a werewolf."
"Yeah, but it sets off the EMF meter, so maybe it's affected by rock salt, too."
"Exactly. Also, it's corporeal, and it can be hurt. You've already shot it once, and I stabbed it with the poker." Dean drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair, considering. "You can kill a chupacabra with just about anything."
"So…?"
"So, we use silver and salt and every weapon we can lay our hands on to kill it dead."
"Dean, man, you're in no shape to go anywhere, and I have to be honest with you—I'm not looking forward to hunting this thing on my own."
"You won't be alone, Sam—no way I want you out there without me. So we gotta be smart, set a trap, bring it to us."
"You have any ideas?"
"What does it want, Sammy?" It wasn't really a question, and Sam didn't like where this was headed.
"We think it wants blood," he said. "We think it craves the smell of blood, and when it can't find it naturally, it makes blood happen. Dean, I saw one of the sheep it killed, a female almost ready to give birth. I'm betting that was the case with most of the sheep that died—they were pregnant. Where there's birth, there's blood." Sam cast a glance across the room to the place where Joe and Virginia cuddled with the baby. "And if the dead sheep weren't pregnant, I'll bet they were injured somehow."
Dean was watching him lazily through half-closed eyes. "Can't prove that," he said, voice languid, and Sam thought he looked played out.
"No. But why else would this thing tear those sheep apart and then just leave them? Why did the EMF meter go off as we passed that dead possum?"
"Why did the bastard attack me after I hurt my hand? Why did it trail me here, when there are other things easier to kill? I believe you, Sam. Now tell me how it found these pregnant or injured sheep, and how it found me."
"Well," Sam hunched forward, intent on his theory. "I think it's kind of like a supernatural shark, Dean. If the current is right, a shark's olfactory tissues can sense extremely small amounts of dissolved chemicals over a mile away from their source. I think all the wind on this mountain tells that sheep-killer exactly where it needs to go."
For a moment, Dean just watched his brother's face. Then he sighed. "Sometimes you frighten me, Sam."
"This thing frightens me, Dean. That baby over there has been covered in blood tonight. As has her mother. This werewolf-chupacabra shark-spirit, whatever the hell it is, it's going to be drawn to them."
"No." Dean opened his eyes and straightened in the chair, coming back to life suddenly. "No, Sam, it's going to be drawn to me, and that's going to be its last mistake. Here's what we do."
Five minutes later they had laid their plans, although Sam didn't like most of them. "Dean, we need to do more research. We can't even be sure salt and silver are going to affect it," he said. "You're counting on a miracle."
"We don't have time for research," his brother responded dismissively, turning his head to listen as the couple behind them laughed softly together. Dean looked back at Sam with a cunning smile. "Besides, it's a good night for miracles."
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