Author's Note: Hey guys, just correcting myself on something. Last chapter, I said that Thomas' eyes were blue. Dunno what came over me, since they're gray, but I just wanted to apologize for that and promise that his eye color will be correct in future chapters. :)
Again, thank you all so much for the reviews, and thanks to JadeAnime, the ever faithful beta.
There was a moment of stunned silence.
Dean narrowed his eyes and leaned his head forward as though he hadn't heard correctly. "Water balloons…like…fill with cold water and shove down your sister's shirt water balloons?"
"Kinda," Dresden said with a shrug, "if your sister was a vampire and the balloons were full of holy water."
Sam looked at the approaching fog nervously, "Um…we've fought vampires before. Holy water was pretty much useless."
Dresden shot him a look that appeared almost surprised. Sam supposed he'd been expected to have a different response. There was an agonizing pause while Dresden continued to eye him and Sam could feel the fog approaching. Finally he said, "They probably weren't Black Court vampires then. These guys are straight up Buffy 101. Stakes, holy water, garlic and the sort. Which my car is full of, so we should head that way." His eyes flicked between the brothers quickly, "I propose a truce for the duration of this fight and for two hours after."
Dean and Sam looked at each other before nodding slowly.
Dresden's eyes locked on Sam's before he said, "Swear it."
Sam was about to agree outright, but something in the way Dresden held himself said that he shouldn't give his word lightly. He held the man's gaze for a moment, wondering what the hell he'd gotten himself into, and more importantly, why it seemed so imperative that he be the one to make the agreement. A gentle tugging began to make itself noted in the back of his head and he looked away instinctively, "I swear it."
"As do I," Dresden said, then turned to the other man. "Thomas? If you please…"
The man in the doorway tucked his gun in the waistband of his jeans and headed for the desk Sam had overturned. The evening's excitement had landed it in the completely opposite corner from where it had started. It was now partially propped on a bed, singed, and buried beneath…a shower curtain? Sam had a sudden twinge of pity for the motel owner. Thomas grabbed hold of one of the desk legs, then cleanly snapped it off with the amount of care Sam would've shown to a dead twig. His eyes widened slightly at that, but he suppressed the urge to ask any questions.
As Thomas continued breaking the desk legs off into obvious stakes, Dresden moved toward Bella with an exaggerated slide. He shoved his staff under one arm before daintily taking the lapels of her trench in each of his hands. "I'm going to pretend like I'm not enjoying this, kay?" he said, before unceremoniously jerking her coat open and reaching in to pull out a simple, bleached human skull. Bella made a small sound of protest, but wisely kept from reaching for the skull as Dresden gave it a cursory inspection and stuffed it inside his own duster.
In the darkness, Sam wasn't able to get a good look at it, but he could have sworn that he saw a flicker of orange light come from the skull's eye sockets as it disappeared into Dresden's coat. He was, however, mostly sure that he'd imagined a muffled voice coming from where it had disappeared saying, "…breasts…."
Sam shook his head before he started staring and moved to cover the window, placing his back against the wall near it, gun at the ready. "You'd think that with all the gunshots someone would have called the police by now," he said.
Dean had apparently been following the same train of thought, as he already had the room's phone up to his ear. "Lines have been cut," he said grimly, then disappeared behind one of the beds and began swiftly sorting through his bag.
Sam sighed and pulled out his cell phone. Usually a police presence went a long way toward scaring off the supernatural. Unfortunately… "Damn," he growled. "I can't get a signal."
"You're probably not going to either," said Dresden, "there's been too much magic flying around. It tends to screw with cute, delicate little things like cell phones. It's for the best though, cop plus preternatural baddie usually equals dead cop. Or worse." Sam sighed and shoved the phone back in his pocket.
"Ah-ha!" Dean cried from out of view. He rose from his crouch with a bag slung over one shoulder and two boxes of ammo clutched in one hand. "Dad's consecrated shots," he said by way of explanation, "gotta be better than nothing." He tossed Sam a box along with his duffel. Luckily they hadn't been in their room long and hadn't been given a lot of time to unpack. After a moment's hesitation, Dean passed a handful of bullets to Thomas, who nodded gratefully before trading it for one of his makeshift stakes. Thomas also tossed a stake to Dresden and Sam respectively, and thus armed they were as ready as they were going to be.
Dresden's gaze swept over the room, making sure everyone was prepared. "Ok, boys and girl, this is how things need to go: I'll take point, Thomas has rear guard. Sam and Dean, I need you two to guard the flanks and Bella," he handed her his stake, "you sit tight in the middle and make like Van Helsing if something gets through. Fortunately my car is thataway and not where our boys are coming from." He paused for a second, making sure the brothers were listening, "These vampires are from the Black Court, which makes them arguably the strongest of the courts. Lucky for us they also pretty much walk straight out of a Bram Stoker novel. Be smart and you might get out of this alive."
Dean looked up from where he was reloading his gun, "Hey, thanks for the lesson, professor, but those things are almost here, think we could maybe get moving at some point?"
Dresden's brow furrowed, "No one likes a smart ass."
There was a sigh from the back of the room and Thomas said, "So which one of you is the pot, and which is the kettle?"
Sam took a breath, prepared to remind everyone of the impending death that was creeping ever closer, but Dresden ducked wordlessly out the door and everyone else followed suit, easily slipping into position. Once outside, he realized with a start that the fog had stopped about five rooms down from theirs, forming a neat semi circle that effectively blocked off that entire half of the parking lot. Other than that, everything was calm; the night held an unnatural stillness usually reserved for deep winter and morgues. The rain had finally stopped, leaving behind enough mud and standing puddles to cause everyone to think twice about their footing.
Dresden took a hard right and everyone immediately followed, moving with the precision of a heavily armed school of fish. Sam did his best to stay focused, eyes scanning windows and shadows for any movement. His gun was steady, showing no nervous twitches lest he accidentally shoot a person on accident. Nothing moved, however, which was odd. At least someone should have heard the fight or noticed the odd fog and tried to leave.
"I don't like this," came Thomas' harsh whisper. "We're being herded."
"I know," said Dresden, long legs never breaking stride despite his limp, "but we don't have much of a choice."
Everyone lapsed back into silence. Their trek hadn't been a long one, but it was straining nonetheless thanks to the glaring lack of activity. They were almost to the edge of the parking lot before Dresden finally began to slow down. It was Dean's voice that pierced the night.
"That is NOT a car!"
Sam's eyes shifted involuntarily to check the source of his brother's outcry. His first thought was, that couldn't be his car…but there weren't any others nearby. Hunkered forlornly in the dark was what was left of an old Volkswagen Beetle. It was rusted, dirty, and so many of the panels had been replaced that none of the colors matched. On the hood, some enterprising soul had spray painted the number 53, and one of the windows was dark and looked suspiciously like it was being held together with duct tape. It was sad, hideous, and almost bad enough for Sam to miss the vampire sitting on its roof.
Somewhere around a year prior, Sam, Dean, and their father had taken out a nest of vampires. They'd looked human, stood in the daylight with barely a flinch, and had withstood all of the stereotypical vampire banes. The thing that sat on Dresden's car was nothing like them. It looked like, quite simply, a rotting corpse. It sat with its legs crossed, hands resting comfortably on its knees. Sam couldn't make out many details in the dark, but he could see that its skin had begun to gain a greenish cast a whither away, rendering the skeleton underneath all the more noticeable.
When Dresden neared, it tilted its head to the side. "Ah, wizard," it said, its voice as dry and crackling as its skin, but through it Sam could tell that it was male. "My master wishes a parlay with you."
Dresden shifted his feet slightly, spreading his weight evenly between them as he brought his staff up in a guard, "Tell him I'm not in the mood. I'm still healing up from the 'parlay' we had earlier this week."
The vampire's head jerked to the other side, quick and jerking like a bird, "He would leave you alone if you would but give him what he desires."
"You and I both know that isn't gonna happen, so hows about you get off my car, hmm? You're scratching the paint."
There was a pause as the vampire blinked, then it threw its head back and laughed, the sound of it bringing to Sam's mind the image of sandpaper on concrete.
It continued to laugh right up until Thomas took aim and blew off its jaw.
The shriek it let out was piercing, echoing off the motel and almost drowning out Dresden as he shifted his staff and bellowed, "Forzare!" A brief light rippled through the runes of his staff and the vampire went flying backward into the dark. Dresden didn't seem to wait to see where it landed; he was heading for the front of the Beetle.
More gunshots sounded to Sam's left and he whirled to see Dean opening fire on a second vampire that must have been hiding behind a group of cars fifty yards away. Dean's shots rang out steadily, systematically, and Sam watched in morbid fascination as its eyes disappeared into a gaping crater that opened in its skull, the wound smoking slightly from the consecrated bullets. One knee exploded in a burst of gore and a chunk of its hip was ripped away, but it simply dropped to its knees and crawled toward them on three limbs, arms and legs skittering with the uneven grace of a spider. Despite its injuries it moved fast, impossibly fast, and was a mere five yards away when Dean's gun clicked empty.
No sooner had Sam heard the first click, when Thomas picked up Dean's fire, taking out a hand on one side and an elbow on the other.
It had all happened in the matter of a few seconds, and Sam shifted his aim back to cover Dresden. The wizard had opened the Beetle's trunk and was shoving garlic and a few water balloons, already filled, into the apparently endless pockets of his duster. He saw Sam watching him and tossed him one underhanded. Sam raised a hand to catch it, and it was then that the first vampire came vaulting over Dresden's car.
It cleared the tiny car effortlessly, its leap carrying it straight toward Sam. He only had time to fire off a single shot that caught it mid chest, and then the vampire landed squarely on top of him.
Sam had had a gentler impact from a moving car. He went down under the vampire's weight, the back of his head slapping sharply against the sidewalk, causing his vision to burst into tiny motes of light. The balloon Dresden had given him rolled uselessly from his boneless fingers and Sam was dimly aware of the vampire's face looming inches above his, its shriveled tongue dancing freely from the lack of jaw. Sam blinked furiously, trying to get his vision to clear or his brain to work. Either would have been nice, but as the vampire began to lower its head, he knew his efforts were useless.
Teeth had just begun to graze Sam's neck when it suddenly let out a slathering hiss. The vampire jerked convulsively, hands instinctively clawing at the back of its neck as burns began to spread along the base of its head. It fell over to one side, still pawing, to reveal Dresden towering behind it, glowing staff in one hand, pink water balloon held menacingly in the other.
Dean had never seen anything like the vampire before him. The wounds he'd inflicted upon it had barely slowed it down, and even though the damage Thomas had dealt on top of that would have given even a zombie pause, it rapidly closed what little distance was left and reached for Dean. He was barely halfway through reloading his gun.
There was a blur of motion and Thomas was driving his knee into its back, crashing the vampire into the ground. A stake was already in his hand and he slammed it into the undead's back, bracing it with one hand and putting his entire weight behind it with the other. The blow struck true, landing directly over its heart with crushing force. Dean was a little disappointed, honestly. He'd hoped that the vampire would've burst into dust or flames Buffy style, but instead it simply went limp and did nothing more.
Thomas looked up at Dean, a stray lock of hair falling artfully across one eye, and nodded. The man wasn't even winded.
That's when Dean heard a gunshot behind him and spun just in time to see Sam go down under the first vampire. Sam's head hit the pavement with an audible crack and he went limp. "Sam!" Dean yelled, raising his now loaded gun, but Dresden had already covered the distance with impossibly wide steps and unceremoniously slammed a water balloon onto the back of the vampire's neck. The undead collapsed to the side, pitifully pawing at its burning flesh in a futile effort and Dresden tossed another balloon into its face. Dean wasn't far behind with his stake in hand, and soon the last vampire's cries were silenced.
The quiet night pressed in once again and everyone glanced around making sure the others were alright. Dean knelt beside Sam, fingers slipping behind his head to gently probe for any fractures. "I'm fine," Sam mumbled, sitting up on his own. He blinked exaggeratedly and shook his head once, then began to climb unsteadily to his feet.
"Take it easy, Sasquatch," Dean said, grabbing an arm to help him, "last thing we need is you yacking all over the parking lot and giving the cops a trail to follow."
Dean looked up to see Bella white-faced and silent, gripping her stake in violently shaking hands. She looked like she could fall over at any second, and she probably could have helped at least a little during the fight, but hey, at least she hadn't run off. Yet.
"Fog's still here," Thomas said quietly, eyeing their surroundings.
"Yeah," Dresden said, "and they slashed my tires."
Dean looked over to see the Abomination Dresden called a car sitting forlornly on its airless tires and slowly bending rims. "It's justice…" Dean muttered under his breath.
"Hey!" Dresden snapped, "It's mine," he said, as if that explained everything.
"Yeah, well it isn't getting us away from here anytime soon. We can use my car," Dean flinched inwardly at the thought of the collateral damage his car would take if anymore of those things showed up.
"Sounds like a plan," the wizard agreed. "Lead the way."
Dean didn't waste any time. Sam was standing fine on his own now, so the eldest Winchester took point and began heading back in the direction they'd come. Thomas fell to the back again, gun cocked and ready, and Dresden lengthened his stride a bit to catch up with Dean. Again, they walked in silence, and again, their path was uneventful as his car came into view. The '67 Impala sat faithful and ready as ever, its black finish soaking in the darkness around it. Off to his right, he could hear Dresden grumbling something about overcompensation and Dean couldn't help but grin a little.
The fog was still idling comfortably where it had been earlier, resting at about ten parking spaces down from the Impala. Dean had his keys in hand, his pace quickening involuntarily, when he heard something behind him. Dread filled his stomach as he turned to see two more vampires melting out of the shadows behind him. These were female, and much more preserved than the two they'd fought earlier.
"Oh give me a god damn break," Dean growled.
"Get everyone into the car," Dresden said quietly. "I don't have a lot left in me, but I should be able to hold them off for a second."
He almost protested, but he honestly couldn't see many more options available to them. Finally, he nodded.
Dean broke into a sprint, closing the last few yards to his car and began unlocking it as he heard Dresden yell for everyone to follow. Sam was right behind him, pulling a full on Dukes of Hazard as he slid over the hood and dove for the passenger door. Bella wasn't far behind, being prodded along by Thomas who slipped into the back seat behind her. As the car rumbled to life, Dean looked to see Dresden still standing where they'd left him. His staff was raised and glowing again, the vampires continued to close in slowly, taking their time.
"Circle around behind him," Thomas said, "we're going to need to be able to grab him quickly."
"Way ahead of ya," Dean replied, car already in reverse.
As he slapped the gear into drive, Dean looked up to see the runes of Dresden's staff suddenly flash white. Flame erupted at the feet of the vampires, yellow at first, but the fire flared a second time and it took on a bluish white hue. The two undead barely had time to scream as the blaze wholly engulfed them, reducing them to ash in a matter of seconds. Once their bodies had disappeared, the flame followed, vanishing without so much as a scorch mark on the pavement.
It had all been over in the space of a breath.
"Holy shit…" Dean heard Thomas whisper.
Dresden's legs had started to give out as Dean pulled up beside him. Thomas threw open the back door and the wizard collapsed inside, requiring the aid of both Bella and Thomas to crawl in the rest of the way. Dean didn't even wait for them to close the door again before he peeled out, guiding the Impala onto the highway and (hopefully) away from trouble. In the rearview, he could see that the fog had already started to dissipate.
Eventually, the door was shut and Dresden managed to pull himself out of Bella and Thomas' respective laps and prop up against the window. His head lolled and from the look of him, he was barely conscious. No one said anything for several minutes, intent as they were on looking for yet more signs of trouble. Time stretched on, and slowly everyone began to relax. As the lights of a city came into view, a collective sigh was released.
"Did you get a look at what those vampires back there were wearing?" Thomas asked quietly.
Dresden snickered drunkenly, "Really, man, you take your job with the fashion police way too seriously."
Thomas' eyes narrowed, "You know what I mean. Vans, spiked belts…hell one of them had an emover. Those things were babies. I'd put them at maybe a month dead if they'd sat out in the heat."
"Yeah," the wizard said, sobering up, "they were lightweights, we got lucky."
"Wait, whoa," Sam spoke up, turning around in his seat, "you mean that those things we fought back there were just peons?"
Thomas sighed, "Yeah pretty much. If we'd gone against four typical members of the Black Court, there's no way we'd still be standing."
No one spoke for another couple of minutes. "The ones that attacked us at my apartment earlier this week were young too," Dresden almost whispered. He and Thomas exchanged a meaningful look.
Dean wanted to ask what the hell they were talking about, but he had a feeling that he wouldn't be getting any answers out of them for awhile yet. Instead, he cast a glance at his watch, "I've got a full tank of gas and we have about two hours left until sunrise. I think we should stay on the move until then. What do you guys want to do after that?"
Dresden sighed and let his head fall against the back of the seat, his eyes already closed, "After that? I need a beer."