A/N: Huge thanks to my reviewers! You guys seriously keep me going! I wrote this through a killer ear ache... I'm really starting to get irratated with these things. -tear- but you guys made me keep writing -tear- Anywho my new word is awkward. It will continue to show up as frequently as possible whether I will it into place or not. Okay so I'm boring you read on my dears and don't forget to check out my co-writing in Girls Guide to Hunting and Fishing written primarily by the ever talented and my dearest reviewer Posinchik88. Peace!
Chapter Four
Hell's Bar, London, South Dakota, January 9th, 2007
Athena took a breath to steady herself, his beat up old El Comino was in the parking lot. It's rust red paint job was chipped, and the tail lights had recently been shot out and replaced with red duct tape. The other members of her group were going over the case file in the Impala, she'd stepped out into the cold night air. Her chest tighten when she'd recognized Will's car, and breathing had been difficult. Sam was the first out of the car Autumn and Dean hesitated still talking in the front seat.
"You okay?" Sam asked meeting her under the neon Bud Light sign.
"I will be." she smiled. What the spirit had said in Kelsey, Virginia, kept going through her head. Was she really still in love with Will Raining?
"Autumn said she'll handle him alone if you aren't comfortable." Sam reminded her.
"I know, but I might as well deal with him now." There was so much more she wanted to add to this but the way he was nodding, understanding her problem she didn't want to push it.
"Dean and I'll be at the bar if you two need us, okay?" Sam smiled reassuringly as Autumn and Dean walked up. Athena tried to remember the pair ever walking so close before but gave up the attempt when her sister draped an arm over her shoulder.
"Let's go give this ass a piece or our mind." Autumn tugged Athena closer to her in an one armed hug. Dean handed Athena the file Will had sent Autumn before he and Sam went into the bar. Autumn insisted on waiting a few minutes before they went in. "Remember to show him what he's missed out on." she released her sister's shoulder and inched up Athena's skirt. "You've got legs use them."
"Autumn!" Athena whined. Autumn laughed and led the way inside.
Will was sitting in the corner three drinks sat on the table in front of him. Autumn pretended to scan the bar, letting Athena take him in. He was just under six foot tall, long black silk hair that was nearly always pulled back in a braid, dark eyes that seemed to know so much more than possible for them to know. Athena grabbed for Autumn's arm and her sister gave her hand a gentle squeeze before shaking her off and starting toward Will's table.
"There's my demons." he smiled standing up. Autumn allowed him to hug her but when he touched Athena she went stiff. "I'm sorry," he whispered in her ear.
"I know." Athena sat down and Autumn followed suit. Will's eyes lingered over Athena's long legs when she crossed them. "These for us or are there others here?" her voice was cold, void of all emotion. Athena saw the concern in her sister but brushed it off, she had to keep all her attention on not throwing this glass in his face.
"No, they're yours. Two Shirley Temples, right?" his smile belonged in a corny commercial where they add a twinkle.
"Yes, thank you." Autumn nodded. She had had a policy about drinking and working.
"I'm glad you decided to hunt with me, again." Will never looked away from Athena who wanted to shrink within herself but was forcing herself to there and not show how much he'd hurt her.
"We've not come to hunt. Autumn and I were looking for you, this was just convenient." she smirked at his shock. "We need a look at your books."
"Why? What are you after?" he leaned back in his chair.
"That's not your business, now is it?" Athena re-crossed her legs and teased the straw of her drink.
"My books, my business." Will managed.
"It's a demon. The one that burned Autumn." Athena challenged him leaning forward toward him shedding her coat, counting on him being distracted by the low cut of her top.
"You were at the Resort there's a million different ways to kill a demon in that library." Athena felt like such meat as he goggled her.
"We don't just want this son of a bitch dead. We want him obliterated." she ducked down to catch his eyes with her face. "That's in your book."
"John knows ways, why didn't you just talk to him? He's been after a demon his entire hunting career." Will reminded them.
"I don't know if you've noticed but John isn't exactly returning people's phone calls." Athena matched his tone.
"Autumn has that man wrapped so tight around his finger I'm surprised he can breath. He'll answer your calls." Will sounded so high and mighty, Athena wanted to bring him crashing to the ground.
"People said the same thing about you and me. But we both know what happened there."
"Athena, I explained that in my letter," he looked to Autumn. "Didn't you show it to her?"
"Oh, I know what you said. But, Willy, I'm a big girl. It's not your place to protect me. I can do it on my own just fine. Now, are you going to let us see the books or was this trip a waste of our time?"
"You're not going to help me?" he asked dumbfounded.
"No." Athena answered simply. Wring your neck maybe, but not help you she thought.
"Then I'm sorry, I guess this was a waste of your time." Athena stood up and grabbed her coat.
"I think I see someone I know." she stalked off.
"Not going to follow her?" he asked turning his attention to Autumn.
"In a second," she took a swallow of her drink and popped the cherry, that was floating in it, in her mouth. "You hurt her."
"I know, and there isn't a day that I don't regret it. But Autumn, I thought, if anyone, you'd understand my reasons. She's special. I," he looked after Athena who was making a show of snuggling up to Sam. "I hate myself for it."
"The demon," Autumn too watched Sam wrapping an arm around Athena's waist as she giggled at something Dean said. "He killed my best friend, and her son. He took away three little girls' mother, their only protector from an abusive father. Can you imagine the pain he's invoked on those girls?" she was going to drag him along. "Can you hear their screams when he stumbles in drunk and sets in on him? I can't fathom the things he's doing to them." Will stopped watching Athena his attention was all on Autumn's words now. "Or maybe I can, he used to do those things to me. I can remember every blow, every broken bone, every time I hit my head and woke up hours after the fact in a pool of my own blood. Those poor girls. I at least was old enough to know what was going on. They're just children."
"Won't the state step in?" he asked.
"I get custody of them, once I get rid of this demon that is." she paused a moment, he had a lot to chew on. "Every day I have to be out here hunting is another day those poor little girls have to spend in terror. Kendra, she's a little artist, one day she'll rock the art world. Kelly is bound to drive the boys wild when she gets to high school Then, there's shy quiet little Kayla. You know what they say about the quiet ones." Autumn shook her head.
"What do you want me to do about it?" Will asked causing Autumn to laugh bitterly.
"I want to see your books, I want you to help me find away to kill this thing." he looked over at Athena now sitting in Sam's lap then back to Autumn.
"I'll help you if you help me."
"Okay, let me go talk to her."
At Sam and Dean's table
"We help him he helps us." Autumn reported her voice quivered.
"You okay, Sis?" Athena asked her eyes darting to Will who was watching their group intently.
"Yea, I had to go to a bad place for a moment." she smiled and steadied her voice. "So, we up for a lethifold?"
"If it's going to get us a way to eliminate our demon." Sam said agreeing to the deal. Dean was watching Autumn, she wasn't okay and he was sure of it.
"Then you two might as well meet our new business partner." Athena said removing herself from Sam and starting for Will. Sam hesitated a moment to move forward with the rest of the group.
"Go on, I want to have a word with Autumn." Dean dismissed his brother. As soon as Sam was on his way he pulled her to him. "You okay?"
"Dean, I'm fine." she smiled again trying to look normal.
"What'd you say to him?" Dean pressed.
"I just told him about Martha and Nick dying, and the girls being left with Billy-Jack." she shrugged. "I guess I dug up some stuff I thought I had buried too deep to ever find." Dean tucked her head under his chin and kissed her hair.
"You can just forget all of that, because he's never going to touch you again." Autumn smiled and pulled away.
"I just wanted to get the books and forget the hunt." Dean playfully shoved her in the direction of Will's table.
"We never forget a hunt, Autty."
Will cocked a brow questioningly at Autumn when she walked up, Dean right behind her. Sam and Athena sat side by side, Sam trying to point out all the flaws in Will's case. After a long while and several beers they exchanged numbers and agreed to meet to further develop their plans. Thus far they'd decided to use Will as bait to draw the creature out, though, he admittedly didn't know how to kill the shadow shroud. It could be any number of ways and none of them were going to be easy with the living cloak trying to strangle anyone it came in contact with.
"I know how to do it." Autumn smirked sliding into a chair next to Dean.
"And that would be?" Will prodded.
The five of them were in Will's motel room, the single table in the room had been pulled into the center an anything resembling a chair had been brought around it. Sam, Will, and Dean had been sitting at the table pouring over their family journals for any mention on a way to kill the creature. Athena paced the room aimlessly, and Autumn, John at her heels, balanced one of Will's journals over her arm as she moved from foot to foot.
"That would be easier said than done. We have to trap the shadow shroud with in a ring of salt with it's prey," she read from the text. "The prey then, must shred the shadow shroud, and burn it. Mix the ashes with salt and scatter the remains."
"You're right Autty, way easier said than done." Will agreed.
"How easily does it move?" Sam asked already working through the details of the fight in his head.
"Did you ever see Peter Pan? The Disney cartoon version?" Will asked him.
"Once." Dean said.
"At the beginning when Peter comes for his shadow, and has to chase it around Wendy's room, that's how well this thing moves. It knows few boundaries." Will explained.
"That sounds like fun." Athena remarked coming to lean over the table between Sam and Will. "The salt has the same effect on the sassy blanket as it does on a spirit?"
"I guess I don't know." Autumn scanned the page. "I can't make out all of the words here, but it looks like a shadow shroud is created when a person dies a violent death in a garment. At some point the garment is torn down and remade into a cloak or cape. That's when the violence in stowed in it becomes problematic."
"Why would someone reuse the clothes of a murder vic?" Athena asked no one impractical.
"In historical times it was done because nothing could be wasted." Sam answered her.
"Alright, college boy, what about now?" Dean questioned not comfortable with the idea of wearing a dead guy's clothes.
"Clothes could have ended up at a Good Will or something." Sam tried to back out of the conversation.
"The clothes end up a the Good Will a mother buys them makes her kid a Harry Potter costume for Halloween and saves a lot of money." Autumn nodded agreeing with the thought.
"I hate Halloween." Will moaned drooping over his books.
"Finally something we all agree on." Athena muttered into the silence that consumed the room. John nudged Autumn's hand and looked toward the door.
"So when do we want to give this a shot?" Autumn asked the men she sat with, trying to ignore the dog's urge.
"Take John out we'll get the time and date figured out, Fire." Autumn glared at will point a finger in his face. He laughed at her. "Get that out of my face! I don't know where it's been." John darted across the room and grabbed hold of his master's coat. When Autumn and John were out the door Will suddenly realized how few friends he had in this room. A girl he'd hurt and two men had no known good feelings toward him.
"It hunts at night?" Athena asked claiming her sister's seat.
"Yea from what I've seen, it hunts right at dusk." Will informed her.
"Then that's when we go." she stated the obvious.
"Has it gotten anyone yet?"
"No, it won't nab anyone until I'm on my way out." Will told Dean.
"The sooner the better, do you know where it is now?" Sam looked away from the book, he'd continued to read.
"No, but it won't be hard to find. The shadow shroud hunts me, so it'll be around me." Will answered Sam. Athena wiped a hand over her face and yawned.
"Tomorrow night, then?" she asked. Dusk had fallen long ago, they'd met up shortly after lunch to start their research.
"Yea, I guess." Will agreed. Sam and Dean shifted in their seats but made no attempt to disagree with the plan.
"Sam why don't we go warm up the car?" Dean asked shutting his father's journal. Sam looked perplexed, and Dean rolled his eyes before dragging his brother out the door.
"They're subtle." Will smiled at Athena as she glared at the door.
"Yea, usually." she was quiet a moment. "Why'd you really leave?" Will turned her chair around to face him and he reached for her hands but she pulled away. A smile slipped onto his face when he saw the charm bracelet on her wrist. He'd never forget that purchase.
"Because I'd bought a ring. I didn't want to spend every day as just your boyfriend. I was sick of the three of us playing games and just making it by, going from hunt to hunt. But then I'm laying there at Sage's staring at the ceiling waiting to either die or hear your voice and I see it. I see the damn thing in the corner creeping toward me, completely skipped over Sage and was coming straight at me." Athena had definitely changed in the two years they'd been apart, used to she'd be staring at her lap right now but instead she held eye contact. "Athena," he wanted to drudge up some old nick name but couldn't manage it. "I realized then that this sorry bastard wasn't going to stop until I was dead. It had latched on to me and would hunt me until one of us was dead."
"You bought a ring?" she whispered.
"Yea, you were everything to me. You are everything to me."
"So you just leave everything?" her gaze didn't waiver she was loving this.
"The way it hooked on me," he shook his head. "It wasn't right. It got my father because he was connected to my uncle, he was there right after my uncle died. Then I was there when my dad went down. Ath you showed up when it was killing me. If I stuck around and it got me it would get you next."
"You shouldn't have left Sage's though." she argued.
"I stay at Sage's and it gets me, Sage thinks I ran off then it hangs out until it's hungry again gets her. By that point you're back and it gets you too." he explained. "Athena I couldn't spend my dying breaths know I killed you."
"But you wanted me to spend the last two years wishing I'd been killed?"
"Hurting is better than being dead."
"So now you just want me to hunt at your side and play like none of this ever happened?" she asked pushing back and standing up. He saw her eyes dart toward the door.
"No, I know we have stuff to work out. But I want you to help me kill this thing and stick long enough to work it out." Will stayed seated denying everything that told him to stand up and take her in his arms. She wasn't ready for that, she was lost.
"I can't do that." Athena said finger tips brushing Sam's carhart jacket, that he'd left behind when Dean drug him out.
"Sam?" Will asked afraid of the answer.
"Hey, Midget we ready to roll?" Autumn called popping her head in the door. She stood awkwardly just inside for a moment while Athena pulled on her coat and slung Sam's over her arm.
"Yea." Athena smiled at her sister, thanking her. "Later, Willy." She was still confused but at least now she forgave him, otherwise she'd never have reverted to the old name.