The Devil You Know

Chapter Twelve

A gentle, insistent hand shook his shoulder, and Dean forced open his heavy eyelids, hoping but not believing that it would be Sam. Lucy's face, twisted in concern, swam into view. 'Dean?'

He let his eyes slip closed again. Sam had just shot himself. He tried, failed to convince himself otherwise; that gunshot had rung with terrible certainty.

'Dean, help me. Wake up! What do I do?'

Lucy's voice was distant, like sounds heard from underwater. He was losing his tenuous connection with this world. The hand shook him again, harder, and a jolt of pain sparked across his ribs with startling clarity. He gasped, opening his eyes. Lucy's face was inches from his own.

'What do I do?' she repeated urgently.

Sam had never managed to set light to those bones. He'd salted them, but they remained unburnt…

'Burn… bones…' he whispered. The words left his lips as air; there was no substance to them. Lucy seemed to understand, though: she nodded and disappeared from his view.

Something occurred to him suddenly, and he fished the troublesome medallion slowly, arduously out of his inner pocket, pushing himself up onto an elbow and falling back. Some wordless cry left his lips.

He felt Lucy nearby, helping him sit up, taking the necklace from his hand. She propped him against a tombstone, grunting with exertion as his weight put strain on her small frame, then walked away from him. He noticed absently, that she was only wearing one heavy-heeled boot, and that her sock was getting soaked with dew. He blinked, and shifted his eyes upward. He could see, now: Sam, lying inert beside the grave. Something tensed inside him, beyond endurance. He wished he had the strength to turn his head away – looking at this hurt: physically, powerfully.

Lucy flicked the lighter on, producing a flame on her third or fourth try. She wasn't a smoker, and her inexpert fingers struggled with the unfamiliar catch. It worked, though, eventually.

She took one last glance at the necklace which had caused such incalculable grief. She wasn't certain what Dean wanted her to do with it, but as one of its victims, it seemed poetic justice for her to destroy the thing. She dropped it unceremoniously into the grave, and its burnished bronze glinted up at her, reflecting the dawn rays and the tiny flame from its position back at its original wearer's much-aged throat.

She dropped the flame. The dry dust, doused in lighter fuel, caught quickly, lighting her face strangely from below. She smiled, in relief, or satisfaction, or just in deranged exhaustion. The early yellow sun caught highlights in her hair. She'd never been so glad to see a new day.

Groaning, Sam stirred, raising one tentative hand to the purple bump forming on his temple. Lucy cast a half-guilty glance at him.

'Is it over?' he grunted, sitting up stiffly.

She let out a shaky breath. 'Yes,' she replied. She grinned, and repeated herself, louder. 'Yes, it's over.'

Sam nodded, fingering his bruise. He noticed an ugly bullet-dent in Marianne Holden's headstone. 'What did you hit me with?'

Lucy grinned sheepishly, retrieving her boot off the ground. 'My shoe,' she answered.

'Oh…' Sam muttered absently, crawling over to Dean. He studied his brother's too-pale face. At his touch, Dean's grey eyelids flickered.

Dean looked at him strangely, his expression torn between confusion, suspicion and manic happiness. Too tired to question the fact that Sam was apparently alive, he accepted it readily, relaxing for the first time since he'd seen his brother out of the closet. (Literally, not figuratively, because that would have been scary.) Relaxing, though, at this stage of exhaustion, meant slumping semi-conscious into his brother's arms.

Sam's jaw tensed painfully in denial. This wasn't fair, not now that the spirit was gone. Dean had held it together – somehow – for hours after he'd been injured, but he was going to lose it now?

He heard the sirens but it took a few seconds for them to register; he was too preoccupied. Lucy's fingers were plucking at his jacket. Sam looked up, wide-eyed.

'Cops? Why-?'

'Gunshots. And I'm still a fugitive,' she explained shortly, tugging at his arm.

'Help me with him…' Sam muttered, pulling one of Dean's limp arms across his shoulders. Lucy took the other and they lurched upright in awkward unison, Sam half-hunched because of the significant height difference. Their silhouette might have resembled a giant insect, six-legged and lopsided.

Dean gasped, his eyelids flickering. 'Cold…' he muttered, jerking his head sideways. 'Aren't you cold?' he asked, absently. Sam and Lucy exchanged anxious glances, the nearly-risen sun beating humid heat onto their backs. Dean's eyelids dipped. His feet dragged on the grass, slowing progress.

A squeal of brakes made Lucy's heart hammer a heavy rhythm against her ribcage. 'We're not fast enough, Sam…' she whispered, panicky.

Sam swallowed. She was right.

'In here - ,'

'What?'

An empty, fresh-dug grave gaped at her feet. 'No way… that's been dug for somebody's funeral, probably today…'

'Well… they haven't moved in yet…'

'You want to squat in a grave?' she demanded incredulously.

'Better idea?' Sam shot back, glaring at her past Dean's slumped head. She glared back, but ducked out from under Dean's limp arm and lowered herself down. Sam struggled to let Dean down gently, and he slid the last few feet, landing inert in Lucy's lap. Without a sound. Sam sucked in a tense breath. He wouldn't usually admit it, but he hated it when his brother was quiet.

He slipped into the grave, small granules of damp mud cascading around him. Before he could crouch out of view, the pristine white headstone caught his eye. Rhiannon West, 1976-2007. Somehow, it did seem wrong now, sitting in her grave. Like many of the things they did, though, it was a necessary evil. Facing the headstone, Sam stood speechless for a few seconds, seized by some nameless emotion. He crossed himself, bowing his head to the name on the stone. He didn't know any more what significance he'd assign to such a gesture, but still it – made him feel better, in some small way. Perhaps, on a basic level, that was all faith was.

Lucy's frantic murmuring and distant shouts reached his ears, and he ducked down, turning to face the others. Six foot by two and a half; there wasn't much space. Sam sat with his knees hunched in front of him, Lucy cross-legged at the foot of the grave. Dean sprawled across the space between. Lucy stroked his hair absently, making quiet shushing noises as though speaking to a small child or animal. She seemed incredibly collected, considering the situation.

'Lucy,' Sam whispered, a thought suddenly occurring to him. 'Who was that little old lady who let us out the cupboard?'

She blinked sadly. 'Paul's grandmother. Grace Holden.'

'Holden-?'

'Marianne's daughter.'

Sam frowned, then nodded. It made some sort of sense.

Muffled thuds, boots on grass, approached them slowly. The footsteps were uneven, purposeless, as though the walker was looking for something he didn't really expect to find. Sam and Lucy held their breath. Sam found himself wishing he could hush Dean's tortured gasps, then realised what he was thinking and mentally kicked himself, hard.

The rectangle of sky above their heads was broken at one edge by a looming blue-clad shoulder. It was the back of a shoulder. Sam willed the man not to turn round, pulse thumping loudly in his throat.

A distant voice above them said 'They must have gone…' A grunt agreed with it. More footsteps, getting quieter. The shoulder disappeared.

The footsteps stopped. 'Wait a moment,' said the voice. 'What?' said the other, impatiently. Sam licked his lips, trying to make himself small, or even invisible. Invisible would be good. Why couldn't he have a decent super power? There was a long, overstretched pause. Sam didn't breathe, waiting. Lucy's face was turning red, as she, too, held her breath. 'Nah, never mind,' said the first voice. Sam's sigh of relief was drowned out by the exasperated exhalation of the second police officer. The footsteps receded.

Sam slumped back against the earthy wall. That had been close. His breath was raw in his throat. Jesus, that had been close.

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Andrew Zaretta still felt like he was floating in a bizarre dream. Something he didn't understand had just passed between Lucy Henshall and her murdered boyfriend's grandmother. He was beyond trying to take control of the situation. His wife, beautiful in her tolerance, could be heard making their daughter's breakfast in the kitchen. She'd want an explanation later, though.

Lucy's heavy, clumsy footsteps receded, and he turned his attention to the last remaining inhabitant of his broom closet. A teenager, sixteen or seventeen years old, thin and dark haired, sat impassively on the floor with his arms tied behind his back. Andrew wondered whether he should untie him or call the police. Nobody had given him any instructions as to this one's fate.

He looked helplessly at Grace Holden, who stood solemnly at his side. She returned his look, shrugged, patted him reassuringly on the shoulder, and set off down the stairs. Andrew stared helplessly after her.

'Um… hello?' he tried, tentatively. Either this captive was a dangerous madman, or the victim of one of the madmen Andrew had met earlier. As he'd already had one murderer, at least, in his cupboard, he was wary of the teenager sitting on the floor.

Michael turned cold eyes towards the coffee seller, nodding vacantly to acknowledge the vague greeting.

Behind those cold eyes, some painful reasoning was in progress. He'd come here to kill the Winchesters, and to flee his probable re-arrest in his home town for previous murders. If he stayed here, they'd work out soon enough that the knife he carried had been used, and Zaretta would know that he'd stabbed Dean. Even if Dean died, there would be no body here for the cops to identify: the Winchesters would be long gone. Which meant, Michael would go down for assault; several years in jail. It wasn't an attractive concept. He was small, skinny and weak. He'd be an easy target in prison.

Alternatively, he could leave town. Probably stay on the run, and out of trouble. But for what? For a purposeless existence, alone in this massive, bleak country? It frightened him: it was a future beset with uncertainty. He'd never been a strong person, not really, despite his difficult childhood. He couldn't face such a tenuous future.

Or… he could tell all. Go down for murder. End it, here and now, in this backward barbaric state where murderers' crimes were turned back upon them. Michael was a coward. He didn't feel guilty: it wasn't the gnawing of conscience which would drive him to suicide. Society had never done anything right by him. He was just – lost; with nowhere else to go; owing his paltry life to his most hated enemy.

The coffee seller's dramatic Italian eyes were flickering over him uncertainly. 'Should I… untie you?' he asked, hesitantly. Andrew kicked himself mentally. Stupid question.

'I wouldn't if I were you,' Michael replied placidly. 'Call the police. I stabbed Dean Winchester. And I killed two people, Louise Brandon and Philip Basing, back in my home town. If you don't believe me, you can call the police from there, two. And I killed… I don't know his name. But that girl's boyfriend. Lucy. Her boyfriend. I killed him, too.'

Andrew blinked, stunned. 'Excuse me?'

'Call them. I'm ready to confess to it. All of it.'

'Lucy Henshall – she's innocent?'

'Guess so. I killed him,' Michael repeated impatiently, in the same flat, blunt voice.

'You… uh… you sure?' Andrew asked, his head spinning. He really couldn't deal with this, not so early in the morning.

Michael's dark eyes bored into him. 'I'm sure,' he repeated, insistently.

Andrew blinked again, then, shaking his head in confusion, pulled out a cell phone and complied. Michael steeled himself. So, this was it, then. He'd never seen any reason to believe in God: there'd been no guiding force in his life. But if there was something other than oblivion to look forward to, if there really was some fairytale final judgement… If all that was true, then maybe, just maybe, he'd just achieved some kind of absolution.

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Dean grunted softly as Sam's uncharacteristically reckless driving hit a bump in the road. Lucy winced in sympathy, feeling the muscles in his neck tense against her leg. The needle shook in her hand, and the disinfectant in her other hand splashed unevenly onto her clothing, the Impala's seats and Dean's scarlet stomach.

'Sam, slow down, I really can't work like this…'

'You want to be arrested?' he asked pointedly, casting another look into his mirror, his face tensing further at the scene on the back seat.

'Not really… I'd rather that than have him die, though,' she replied, absently, concentrating on holding her hand steady.

'Really?' Sam asked, thoughtfully.

'What?'

Sam frowned. 'Well… you only met him, well, yesterday.'

'Is there a point to this, Sam?' she demanded, half-angrily, embarrassed. So, maybe she'd gotten quite attached to the Winchesters in the short time she'd known them.

Sam shook his head, silently grateful. He glanced again into the mirror.

The wound was barely bleeding any more, but Lucy felt that replacing the torn stitches would help it heal. If it could heal. She'd washed it thoroughly, and was confident that, with such a surplus of disinfectant soaking into it, infection was unlikely. The problem was, even high school biology had taught her that blood was like gas: the body couldn't function without it. Healing was like hill starts: it needed a lot of fuel.

'Sam?' she called, uncertainly. 'Do you and your brother have the same blood type?'

Sam glanced over his shoulder, forgetting the road momentarily. Lucy met his eyes. He nodded.

'We ought to by now, even if we didn't at birth. Half the blood he's left around your town is mine, and if I give him blood now, I'd mostly be giving him his own back.'

Lucy nodded, wondering silently, not for the first time, about this dangerous lifestyle which the Winchesters seemed to lead. 'I think that's the only way. Find somewhere we can stop… out of sight.'

Sam nodded, turning back to the road. He cast one more glance in his rear view mirror, once again glad to leave a town and its associated memories behind. On the other hand, he thought, ironically, looking at the tangle of tree braches which formed a shadowy archway over the road: they weren't out of the woods yet.

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Sorry about the end of last chapter – it was a little harsh, even for me. I hope this one was more satisfactory!