The Devil You Know
Chapter Six
Dean clutched surreptitiously at his ribs, trying to look as though he were just crossing his arms. Jesus, that hurt. He could feel warm, sticky liquid seeping into the top of his jeans – shit, dark coloured clothes only take you so far… His strength was falling out of him with the blood, fast, too fast, and in his pain-addled mind a thought surfaced, bright and urgent. He had to get away from Sam, immediately, and sort himself out. This ridiculous charade he had somehow backed himself into could not be escaped without pushing Sam to breaking point, and he couldn't – wouldn't? - couldn't do that. Everything was spiralling out of control, and he couldn't keep track of it with this constant, grating agony between his ribs. Sam was watching him critically.
'Dean?'
'Yeah, sorry,' he replied, blinking, fighting to come out of a reverie.
'We've got to catch Michael, Dean, before he hurts someone else!' Sam insisted, his voice loud and sharp, as though he was losing his patience, trying to make himself understood to a small child or a madman. 'Earth to Dean!' he snapped.
'I, uh…' he fumbled for an excuse, frantic, too slow.
'You what?'
Lucy! He'd completely forgotten her, sitting waiting for him in the Impala. He didn't have a clue what he was going to do with her, but for now she seemed to provide a good escape route. 'Sam, I have to take Lucy back to the mental hospital… I forgot about her.'
'You took Lucy Henshall out of the mental hospital?'
'I'll explain later, ok?' Dean appealed to his brother, his voice tinged with desperation as he battled with another fierce pang from his ribs. 'We can't go after Michael half-cocked, we've underestimated him enough times already. I need you to research the symbol on the necklace, research Paul Hartshorne's family… look for a pattern. I'll be back.'
He'd slammed the door behind him almost before the last word left his lips. Sam stood gaping at the space Dean had occupied, surprised at Dean's sudden desire to adhere to the Boy Scouts' Golden Rule. He'd never shown any sign of wanting to be prepared for anything, as far as Sam could remember. The urgency of his departure was slightly unsettling, too, but Sam dismissed his concern, conceding that leaving a madwoman to her own devices was generally not a good idea, and also knowing that Dean thought he worried too much, especially recently. He was already slightly ashamed of his outburst: it wasn't Dean's fault that he kept ending up in harm's way. More importantly, if Dean thought Sam would have a mental breakdown at the sight of his blood, he was likely to start hiding injuries, and there was no happy end to that story, Sam knew.
He resolved to apologise when Dean returned, and slumped resignedly in front of his laptop. He could almost feel time ticking away in the back of his head: he needed to suss out this necklace before Michael did something truly destructive. After all, Michael Andover was unstable enough already; no need of the supernatural to make him a danger to society.
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Dean staggered over to the Impala and dropped into the car, jolting the wound as he fell heavily into the seat. He cried out softly, hunching in on himself instinctively, pressing his eyes closed.
'My God! - Oh, it's you… Jesus… you scared the hell out of me. A guy ran past just now with a knife! What the hell is going on?' Semi-hysterical, it took her a moment to take in his hunched posture, uneven breathing and anguished face. When she looked, her eyes went impossibly wide, and she gaped helplessly for a second. 'What... happened?' she asked, in a small voice, interrogative manner falling away as terror set in, filtering into her innocent eyes and permeating the small-town, girl-next-door beauty of her delicate features. This sort of thing didn't – shouldn't – happen to Lucy Henshall.
'I need your help,' he gasped out.
Panic clawed at her; her stomach churned uncomfortably. 'What… what can I do?'
Dean reached into his jacket. He had never, never considered doing this before, but he had rarely felt less in control than he did right now: a madman on the loose, rendered doubly mad by a deadly artefact, Sam alone and vulnerable, trying to hide a wound from his brother with only a potentially unstable former murderess for an ally, even as he clung to reality with his fingernails, and felt it all slipping away. Trembling with unexplained chills, he fished out the car keys and handed them to Lucy.
'Just drive somewhere safe…' he muttered.
'And then what? Did I mention the guy with the knife…?' she glanced at the dark stain spreading across his shirt and down his jeans, and swallowed, hard. She decided not to mention that she sometimes fainted at the sight of blood. 'What if he gets somebody else?' she demanded.
'I…' Dean shook his head, floundering. 'I don't know. I just need time, to stop the bleeding, and… and think…'
'Did you find the necklace?' she asked, her voice tense with desperation.
He shook his head. 'Failed on all counts,' he mumbled. God, but it hurt to move. He shifted painfully over into the passenger seat, while Lucy sprinted round the car. Every move she made was suffused in panic.
Her hand shook so violently that she struggled to push the key into the ignition. Then, she stalled the engine.
'Couldn't we stitch you up here?' she asked hopefully. 'I mean… that guy's gone, at least for now.
Dean shook his head, wearily, but firmly. A thought occurred to him suddenly, through a mist of pain. 'Just tell me you know how to drive.'
'I don't have my licence yet. I… I'm learning. I never drove an old car before…'
Dean's stomach lurched, and for a fraction of a second, his vision went pure white. 'Jesus…' he choked. 'Just… try…'
'Jesus,' she echoed, swallowing again.
Eventually, she managed to pull out of the parking lot. 'Where are we going?'
'Away from people.' Dean breathed, shivering violently, balled up against the door. 'Away from here.' He wanted to put off the moment when he would have to inspect the wound, but like so many things, it would only get worse the longer he left it. He nearly blacked out, leaning down to find the first-aid box under the seat, and again as he straightened. His head swam nauseously, and he clutched the handle above the door as though the solidity of it would anchor him to this world, maybe make it stop swaying.
Lucy glanced across at him, and looked back quickly. She couldn't faint, not now.
Breathing uncertainly through his teeth, Dean leaned back and slowly, carefully, painfully peeled back his shirt. He was a mess, layers of flaky, congealing, and dried blood stuck his clothes to him, even as fresh dribbles crept through and dripped onto his hands. He tried to look at it indifferently, as though it were someone else's flesh, but he felt every touch, every fraction's movement, so vividly, it was impossible.
He didn't know where to start. His head was spinning too fast, there was too much blood, there was too much else going on, he couldn't concentrate. His grip on reality was slipping. He imagined hanging off the edge of the quarry by his fingernails, feeling them strain against their sockets, about to be yanked out, feeling the loose earth shift beneath them. Maybe he was falling already; either way, he didn't know where he was going to land…
He mopped at his stomach, to little effect. Pressing on the wound hurt too much; he couldn't clear the blood unless he cleaned it properly, and he couldn't do that without passing out.
A playground car park loomed on the left, deserted in the gathering dusk. 'Pull over,' Dean choked out.
Lucy swung the wheel erratically between her hands, and he lurched sideways to steady it. They narrowly avoided the gatepost at the entrance. Not trusting Lucy's breaking, Dean yanked the handbrake up, and the Impala spun and skidded to a halt.
Lucy sat stunned, panting. Dean slumped into her lap.
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It occurred to Sam rapidly that it was impossible to type a symbol like the one on the necklace into an Internet search engine. Instead, he looked up Paul Hartshorne's family history, and well-practised hacking revealed the death of his widowed mother – and her home in the mental hospital. He chewed his lip, looking for pictures. He pulled up a head-and-shoulders shot of a grim faced woman with grey shadows under her strangely-lit eyes, and noticed part of a chain, visible on her neck. The pendant was hidden under her uniform blue tunic, but Sam was convinced.
He almost reached for his cell-phone, but it occurred to him that the necklace was not necessarily haunted by the mad spirit of Hartshorne's crazy mother; she could have been another victim of its influence. He swore under his breath. How far back did the chain go?
So, the next question: where had Mrs Hartshorne got the necklace? Everyone who should know was dead. Unless… it was a long shot, but if anyone would know – Lucy Henshall might. He snatched the phone, and dialled Dean.
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Lucy yelped, and shook Dean hard by the shoulders; she really, really couldn't deal with this on her own. She was beginning to think the cliff would have been an easier option.
'Dean! Please, come on… help me out here…'
She rolled him over awkwardly, and her head spun when her eyes fell on his wound. She grabbed her head with both hands to steady it, and forced down the bile rising in her throat. Taking up the stained gauze held loosely in Dean's hand, she steeled herself and set to scrubbing at the wound. It was hard: the blood was stuck was stuck fast to his skin, and she was afraid of pulling at the wound. Her hand was shaking. She found a bottle of water under the seat, and used it to wash the area around the tear.
When the cut was more or less clean, she sat back, chewing her bottom lip. She studied Dean's impassive face; his eyelashes stuck to his cheeks, blissfully unaware of her predicament. She knew what had to be done next, but she couldn't bring herself to do it; she eyed the needle and thread wound up carefully in the open first aid box. Her hands were shaking violently. Swallowing hard, she reached out for the needle but snatched her hand back before she had it.
She exhaled shakily between her teeth, shaking her head nervously. 'No… no, I can't. I'll only make it worse…' She shook out the pockets of his jacket, muttering to herself, trying ever harder not to faint. 'Where's your friggin' phone…?' She found it. Even the three digit number was hard to get right with her trembling fingers.
Dean stirred, saw her with his phone and batted it frantically out of her hands. It clattered down onto the floor.
'What…?' he gasped. He couldn't finish the sentence: the words caught in his throat and he choked.
'I'm calling an ambulance.' He tried to object. 'Look at yourself! I don't care if you hate hospitals… I just… I can't take responsibility, I can't do it…'
'Please…' he managed. 'I have to stop that necklace and…' He coughed painfully. 'And… I can't do that… if I'm in… hospital…'
She opened her mouth to object and closed it again, her hands fluttering uncertainly. She snatched up the needle clumsily, and manoeuvred herself around the steering column until she knelt on the floor of the car, with him stretched out across the seats in front of her. She made a strange sound; half gasp, half whimper, and looked around wildly, anywhere but at his stomach.
Dean met her eyes with great effort. 'You'll be ok…' he promised. She gave him an uncertain look.
His cell phone rang, insistently, from it's position in the footwell. She picked it up.
'Who…?'
'Sam.'
'Give it to me,' he said, reaching out a hand.
She nodded, and gave it to him, turning back to the task at hand. How hard could it be? She knew how to sew…
'Yeah?' Dean managed, in a relatively normal voice. He watched Lucy struggling with the tangled thread out of the corner of his eye.
'Dean, Paul Hartshorne's mother was crazy, and she's dead.'
'I know,' Dean replied.
'You do?'
'Lucy…' he explained. He tried to keep words to a minimum.
'Well, I found a picture, and she definitely had the necklace. Either she's haunting it, or she went crazy because of it. Basically, we need to find out where she got it from.'
It took Lucy six attempts to thread the needle, and she had to use her free hand to steady the one holding it as she began to sew.
'I thought Lucy Henshall might know… I mean, that family's all dead, so she's our best shot. Can you bring her back here? We've got to work this out, Dean, Michael could be doing anything by now…'
'Yeah… ok – ,' he grunted as the needle penetrated his inflamed skin.
'Dean?'
'We're coming,' he grated out, and hung up, before Sam could hear anything else.
He exchanged looks with Lucy.
'Sorry,' she said, wincing in sympathy.
'S'ok… you're doing… great…'
'What are we going to do next?' she asked hesitantly. Her voice was high pitched and quiet, her eyes fixed on her work.
'Gotta work out what the necklace does…disable it, or destroy it…' Dean had no idea how that might be achieved. He just hoped Sam had found something more useful than Paul Hartshorne's family history. And he hoped – he really hoped – that Lucy's stitching would hold, at least for long enough to sort this mess out.
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Michael prowled the streets, barely seeing those who passed him, they were just shadows in his peripheral vision. The necklace gave his mind a beautiful clarity and purpose. The Winchesters would die; it was the only thought in his head, without distraction, without alternative. He just had to formulate the perfect, flawless plan – and that would be easy, his whole being was dedicated to it.
He felt the wet knife drip Dean's blood onto his trousers and smiled. With luck, his task was already half-done.
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Sorry for the slow update. You have heather03nmg to thank for the fact that I finally got my act together!