Gimme Shelter – chpt 8.
By: sifi.
OOooOO
"Mmm where're you goin'?" Dean asked quietly as Laura tried to roll from his embrace.
Wincing as she turned toward him she leaned forward with a curious smile trying to ignore the daggers that tore through her belly, "Bathroom, my room, shower, dress, meet back here for breakfast." She punctuated each part of the plan with a soft warm kiss that made him smile just a little more. It didn't matter though she could still see pain in his eyes, "What's wrong?"
Silent he shook his head then drew hers back down, "Just tell me you love me." He asked with his lips at her ear.
"Forever," she promised and groaned as the sensation of something tearing loose inside stopped her breath in her throat.
Dean frowned, getting up quickly and righting himself so he sat beside her and she could straighten up, "What's the matter?"
She shook her head, "Just hurts," she leaned sideways against him, "It'll pass."
"What exactly did she do to you?" he asked.
She chuckled a bit and touched his cheek, "Think, 'demonic equivalent to a coat-hangar abortion.'"
Air hissed through his teeth as his arm reflexively tightened and his lips came to her cheek, "I'm sorry."
She nodded, "Me too," caressing his cheek with her own before forcing herself to her feet, "I'll be back in about an hour or so."
Trying to imagine the kind of pain she must be feeling Dean let her go, and as soon as he had the coffee brewed sat on the edge of Sam's bed waking the young man who looked at him as if he'd sprouted wings.
"What're you doing?" he groaned sitting up on his elbows and looking around, "Where's Laura?"
"We need to talk," Dean handed the cup to the younger man then nodded at the door, "she went to her room to shower up."
"Talk about what?"
Dean huffed lightly, "Angels, Demons, Lucifer and Lilith."
Dread crossed the young man's face as he sat the rest of the way up, "Mmm light conversation..." he muttered shambling to the bathroom.
"Yeah," he nodded then smiled at the rumble of a classic gas guzzler roaring to life in the parking lot. Sounds like a Chevy he thought glancing out into the lot and watching the badly painted black Nova pulling out onto the street.
Looks like a beautiful day out there. Some folks might even call it 'God given,' he smiled tightly while waiting patiently for Sam to return.
OOooOO
DAMNIT! Why won't it heal?! She gasped leaning against the wall, the pain was nearly blinding and more than punishment enough for only bringing two pills with her to the boys' room.
Who knew 20 feet could look like 20 miles she thought willing herself to find the strength to just get to the room. Once there she could collapse if she needed to.
"Y'alright?" A faintly nasal voice asked coming up from behind.
Laura forced herself to straighten up at least a little. She tried to breathe deep as she turned toward the voice, and as the newcomer's knee drove deep into her abdomen exploding death-wish agony through her body, she didn't even feel the blackjack come down against the back of her head.
"Well that was a helluva lot easier than I expected," Mary breathed taking a hasty look around to ensure she wasn't spotted as she draped the emissary's arm over her shoulders and hoisted the unconscious woman to her feet. Another look around and she dragged the woman out to her old '77 Nova, rolled her into the trunk and quickly wire-tied her hands behind her back and her feet together.
She dashed hastily to room number 3 and slid an envelope out of her back pocket and under the mat then grinning giddily dashed back to the car.
"Piece of cake!" The heavens were smiling on her. After all, if she wasn't doing good work then how could she have just barely noticed the emissary's car parked behind some old Bronco and how could she have been so lucky to have the bitch leave her stuff in her own room while spending the night seducing HER men!
Oh yeah... now you're gonna get it! You don't get to touch MY husbands you filthy heathen whore! I get you somewhere nice and quiet and I'm gonna driiiiiive those demons out of you and set you free! It's God's work and my Dean will thank me, this test will prove I'm ready to go after Lilith... bitch hurt my sweet angel... Sammy... I'll avenge you sweetheart. She vowed and began to hum.
OOooOO
Just over on the far side of the BIG river, in a place called Hannibal it picked up the scent again, tendrils of the fragrance of home criss crossed this land, usually attached to the packets of energy it craved. There was one not too far from here and so it detoured, turning back north just a little bit until it reached a lovely little two story in a quiet little neighborhood. The name on the mailbox said Schumacher, the silly craft fair plaques at the front door; one a fisherman and the other a woman's ruffly panties while she bent over a garden, each said Mark and Barbara respectively. These particular words meant nothing to the creature as it swooped past the RV parked in the driveway, slid through the screen and then through a keyhole in the front door.
It raced with singular intention into the living room where Mark sat in his recliner dozing with the television on one of those fishing programs, and as his mouth opened with a stony snore it slid down his throat and began to feed.
It emptied him out quickly leaving a dried husk behind and squirmed its way back out into the open as Barbara moved from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron, "Mark honey you're snoring... I swear I'm gonna go get the tape recorder!" She joked before looking up into the mummified remains of her husband.
As she screamed, it took the opportunity to finish feeding before returning to its journey.
OOooOO
"There's something going on at the office," Imdugud's host nodded as Dean opened the door, "And this was under the mat for Mar...Sam." he corrected himself, still unaccustomed to using their mortal names.
"Thanks. What's going on? Do you know?" Dean asked taking both the envelope for Sam and the larger manila one that held Laura's hospital records from India, as the demi-god entered the room.
He closed his eyes and tilted his head then breathed deep and frowned, "There are plagues. A pestilence was born here and has touched someone... to death. And the curse of madness lingered but it is gone..." he opened his eyes and looked deep into Dean's greens, "Where is the... Laura?"
"She's in her room getting dressed."
"Hmm..." he frowned.
"My strength of purpose grows day by day. I will avenge you." Sam read aloud then grimaced as he looked at a photo, "Jeez..." he hissed.
Imdugud and Dean moved to his side and looked at the photo of a pentacle carved into a belly, the shape of the hips and waist confirming that it was a woman plaguing them.
"Madness," Imdugud frowned, "This is your stalker?"
"Yep."
"Uh huh." They said together.
"People are crazy." The demi-god shook his head.
"That's what I keep saying!" Dean shrugged, "Hey can you get any kind of a scent sample from that thing? You know... using your natural form?"
Imdugud looked from one to the other, "I told you, madness. This stalker of yours is afflicted with it, I can smell it. But the scent is fading so for the time being it's not at this location."
"Great."
"Avenge what?" Sam asked frowning and shaking his head.
Imdugud's eyes lit up and he started moving around the room sniffing the air.
"You said you also sensed..." Dean started but found himself curiously watching the ancient being. He couldn't recall ever having seen him do this before and was kinda fascinated by it.
"Pestilence," he nodded, "It was here, it was all over this place..." he moved to Dean's duffel bag and started rooting through it, sniffing his clothes, "it shouldn't have been able to bypass the wards unless..." his thought trailed off as he continued to follow his nose in spite of the curious and fairly apprehensive look on both boys faces. It's one thing to sniff your own clothes, something entirely different to have someone else do it. Suddenly the eldest Winchester found he was a little self conscious.
"It didn't get through the wards, it was all over you..." he looked at Dean and pulled out the jeans he'd been wearing the night before last drawing a deep breath at the crotch. "And the woman..." he sighed as Dean yanked the garment from him while Sam chuckled and the bringer of pestilence continued non-plussed.
Surprisingly enough both Winchesters knew he wasn't talking about Laura, but instead the realtor Dean had spent the night with, the same one who'd turned up dead yesterday morning, murdered in the bathroom of the office in which she worked.
"Okay, suddenly I really am not liking this..." he turned to his little brother, "Sam, go to the office and find out what you can about whatever's going on there."
"Imdugud, we think the stalker was squatting in one of the vacant rooms, she startled one of the staff here yesterday, do you think you can..." Dean started.
"Consider it done my king... mm," he grunted frustrated then corrected himself, "Dean." Shaking his head as he left the room he muttered, "I do NOT enjoy such familiarity... it is disrespectful..."
"Y'know," Dean smiled turning back to Sam, "plague and pestilence aside, I like that guy."
Sam smirked and shook his head, "Even plague and pestilence have their place in God's plan... which... by the way we have a conversation to finish." He reminded the older man sternly but stepped out into the bright beautiful day.
"I know, I know and we will." Dean nodded. It'd been hard enough to tell Sam that back in Pennsylvania when he thought he'd killed Dean, that he really had. Or more honestly that his abilities had been used to kill him. But to tell him about meeting Castiel and the seals, and that Lilith was breaking them but that they had no way of knowing which ones she was going to break was bad enough. He'd been working his way around to the hardest fact yet, the thing he most deeply did NOT want to burden Sam with that the child Lilith had raped his baby brother for was in all likelihood not intended to wage battle against Lucifer for his throne, but because of Sam's very blood and the line of his soul, combined with Lilith's own powers and demonic heritage would provide Lucifer with the most powerful living vessel possible. He wouldn't have to fight his way out of hell like so many other demons did. The child would be a doorway conceived especially for him and he would walk the earth among the mortals set to destroy humanity from the inside.
How do I tell him that? He shook his head sitting down with the medical records and wondered what else this day would bring them.
OOooOO
Imdugud made his way up the sidewalk, his senses focused on the scent of madness that had been there. Beneath the cloying stench he could smell the king's woman and knew she'd recently been this way.
The layers of scent were thick and the timing of them close, Laura he knew, and the stalker had covered the same spot as if they were on top of each other. They might have even literally crossed paths.
Laura's scent told him a great deal, she'd begun to hemorrhage again as she was returning to her room.
He stopped, momentarily confused as he lost her trail. Behind him Sam headed to the office where a County Officer's car sat.
With a quick glance around Imdugud tried the knob on the last room and finding it locked, broke it. He stepped into the room frowning against the stench of contained insanity and burned blood and paper.
Following his nose to the bathroom he leaned over the tub and picked up several of the six burnt bits of paper, his vision easily picking out the pattern beneath the charring.
Gingerly he slipped the bits into the trash can and continued searching the room finding remnants of herb and in one area a bit of burnt hair. These too he put into the can and slipped back outside.
On the sidewalk once more, having returned to the area in which the queen and the stalker seemed to have crossed paths he paused. His eyes searched the parking lot and he frowned. He recognized the Impala, with all the accoutrements it contained in its trunk it fairly glowed even against the bright afternoon light. And he recognized the emissary's car, but something nagged at him.
With the trash bin under one arm he felt his brows furrow and stepped onto the lot right into a combination of scents that should not have been.
"Not good." He breathed turning back toward the room just as Sam stepped from the office and jogged easily toward him.
"The emissary is gone." He called across the parking lot heedless of whoever might hear.
"What?" Sam asked pointing to her car, "No, she's in her room, she's in 5."
"No my king. She is gone. Taken." He specified.
"What?" Sam stopped at his side.
Together they walked to room 5, "Her scent is in the parking lot, layered with that of your stalker, and yet her car remains. And she has not touched this door in many hours."
"She didn't make it back to the room?"
"No."
"Are you sure?" Sam asked as the ancient one broke this lock too.
He raced with the demi-god back to his room.
"Dean!" he burst inside, fear easily read on his features as his big brother looked up from the documents, "She took Laura."
OOooOO
Laura opened her eyes the darkness around her seeming to slither in the faint glow of oil lamplight. Slowly she came to realize she was gagged, tied in a chair and that she'd been stripped to her underwear.
A rough hand with long nails wedged between her legs and came away glistening with blood, "God has already begun your punishment by removing your evil offspring from this world!" the woman before her hissed and wiped her hand clean on Laura's face and down her chest.
In a moment when she could see clearly again she studied the woman, trying to place her. She'd seen her before but the auburn hair wasn't right, it should be brown, she knew, where do I know her from? She wondered not bothering to pay attention to the mad woman's ravings.
"You have sinned against all of God's creation with your prideful pagan consorting! I have been sent to erase your influence on God's chosen Earthly Kings. With your heathen ways gone my men can return to doing the good Lord's work..."
Aw hell didn't Criminal Minds already do this? Sure Season 2, episode 15... Revelations... too bad I'm nowhere near as smart as that BAU kid is... they'll come, they'll find me and they'll come. She recited the mantra of her belief as her captor whipped around and stormed across the room returning quickly with a metal basin.
The captor tilted the chair back setting the front legs of it, including Laura's bound and bared feet into it, and began to fill it up to her ankles in water. When she was through with that, she began to add salt.
"In my other life I once dated a priest... well we didn't really date, it was more like private bible study if you take my meaning." She cocked a smile and met Laura's eyes.
Doing everything she could to keep calm as icy water numbed her feet, holy crap! Fruit loop's done herself up to look like me! She realized and felt her heartbeat pick up, They'll find me, somehow they'll find me. She chanted inside but cocked her eyebrows at the other woman to show she did understand what she was saying.
"Well he told me once that all holy water is... is heavy water that's been blessed! Aint' that just the shit!? So I looked it up on the internet... how to make heavy water y'know? ... It's just Epsom salts! Can you believe it!?" She grinned like a teen sharing a secret crush at a slumber party.
Every hunter knows that you freakin' MORON! Laura thought but nodded and tried to keep her expression apologetic. Apparently that wasn't the right response.
"Yeah well maybe you knew it but not all of us had someone to teach 'em to hunt and kill demons! Some of us had t'learn how all by ourselves!" she hollered striding out of the room toward an area that seemed to be a kitchen, "And it was HARD!" she called from the other room.
Great I'm stuck here with Single White Fruitloop, sitting in a vat of homemade holy water, still hemorrhaging...y'know... they shoulda left me dead. She sighed trying to pull against the restraints but each pull seemed to result in another plink of blood into the basin. She looked down watching the droplets fall into the water and thought about the conversation she'd had with Dr. Bajrami, a physician whose family had served more deities than she even knew existed.
"You're not stable enough to walk to the bathroom let alone drive, or go back to America even if it IS through the veil. Your uterus was shredded. I should have removed it and just left the ovaries." He argued.
"No!" She bolted upright and instantly regretted it, "It'll heal, the sidhe are helping. I need to give him children... I need to be able to do that for him if it's what he wants!"
"Getting pregnant again could kill you... do you believe your Enki would rather lose his mate?" he argued angrily.
"The sidhe will help, it'll heal please." She pleaded.
"The sutures don't hold. It's as if everywhere Lamashtu's claws touched, the flesh will not knit." He sat beside her and took her hand, "Have the hysterectomy, adopt some children, there are plenty to choose from."
She frowned, if I'd just let him do it, I'd be healed and woulda never got into this mess. The three of us woulda had this nutjob tucked away in a heartbeat! She huffed, Stupid pride... times have changed, it's not like he'd stop loving me if I couldn't give him an heir. Except I think he might... exhaustion cottoned the edges of her awareness as her captor returned with a car battery in her arms.
OOooOO
Tbc.
Please R&R.
Thanks. Sifi.