Chapter 5: Spirit.

Sam's hand stopped moving and it took several moments before his mind acknowledged why. He blinked, staring at the edge of the fireplace, at the unmoving appendage. That was it, the last stone, and none of them were lose, which meant it wasn't there, which meant. . . No! Once again his mind screamed the necessary denial. Fingers of despair wrapped themselves around the guarding wall that he had built against them and began to pull it away, to allow the negative emotion to seep around it, to pull him down to a state of impotent inaction. No! He slammed the wall back in place. He would not give up, not while there was even the slightest hope.

His eyes frantically scanned the fireplace for anything that he could have missed, anything, there must be. . . . Of course, how could he have been so stupid? The brickwork carried on inside the fireplace and up the chimney. He threw himself forward and down, letting his fingers once again take over as he continued the search.

SUPERNATURALSUPERNATURAL

"Beg me to kill you," the syrupy voice repeated and Dean felt something almost gentle brush down his cheek.

Dean gave a weak cough. There was a huge aching need inside him, a need to end the fear and the pain, the waiting, the torture. It was simple enough, all he had to do was utter a few words, beg him, and it would all be over.

It would end.

The pain was too much, fiery welts already covered his arms and torso, muscles ached, cracked bones screamed and his body shook, from fear? from cold? from a rapidly developing fever? It would be so easy to end this, to drift off into oblivion. All he had to do was beg him. That's all he had to do.

He licked dry lips. "No," he said softly.

SUPERNATURALSUPERNATURAL

Sam jumped up, dislodging more soot that coated his body, clinging to the tatters of his shirt and clogging in the fresh blood, dripping from wounds that his recent exertions had opened up, to form a black congealing mass that caked his skin. He didn't notice, wouldn't have cared if he had. The only acknowledgement he gave to the billowing black clouds was to cough them out of his lungs as he continued his ever more frantic search. His thoughts were focused only on that, only on his rapidly dwindling hope. He was standing inside the chimney now, barely enough room for his broad shoulders as he reached up higher into the blackness, until he could reach no further, and he had to jump to feel the next brick, the next bastard solid, unyielding brick, and he knew now that it was futile, that he was a lot taller than the recorded height of William Stenson at 5 foot 9, that he couldn't physically have hidden it this high, and yet he couldn't stop, couldn't give up, couldn't accept the possibility that it wasn't there.

He dislodged another billowing cloud of soot and his lungs once again protested with violent convulsions, and he finally dropped down defeated. He sank to a semi crouch and blinked the dust from his eyes as he looked out into the darkening room. There had to be something else, there just had to be.

There had to be.

SUPERNATURALSUPERNATURAL

"No!" Dean repeated the word with more strength, more confidence. "Never," he stated simply, finally. If he was going to die, then it would be with his dignity intact. His father had taught him to be stronger than this, much stronger. His strength of character had been forged by another demon from childhood, from his earliest memories, through hundreds of hunts. He would not beg one of these bastards, no matter what it did to him. He couldn't beg.

Adrenaline surged through his system as he resolved to fight once more, colours brightened, thoughts gained focus. It wanted him to beg for death, but what if it was more than that, what if it needed him to beg? What if it couldn't kill him without that? It would explain the varying state of mutilation of the bodies, the difference in time it took the victims to die, depending on when they broke, depending on when they. . . The claws slammed back into his side, just below the last puncture wounds, white hot shards of pain erupted up his flank and for a moment he couldn't think, couldn't breathe.

"You will beg me." The tone had shifted, much harsher, no longer trying to persuade, just intimidate. "You will."

The claws were dragged out, the pain burned and Dean clamped down on the scream, cutting it off abruptly. He knew now that he wouldn't. If it needed him to beg before it could kill him then it was going to have a long wait, a damn long wait. He turned his attention to the door. He was going to get out of here, if he had to crawl, if it dragged him back. He no longer cared. He was going to try anyway because he wasn't just going to lie here and die. Shakily he pushed himself off the ground, leaning heavily into the wall, he made it to his feet, blinking sweat and blood from his eyes, he focused as well as he could on the still too blurry entrance to the room and took a step.

SUPERNATURALSUPERNATURAL

Sam's breathing was harsh, his nostrils flared as he blew out a deep breath, attempting to calm himself, to think, to consider what he'd missed. He scanned the fireplace again, but he knew even as he did so that he was wasting his time. He'd covered it, and the crystal wasn't there.

He searched back through his memory, back through the clues that they'd followed to this point, for any mistakes they'd made. He shook his head, no. Everything they'd found led here, to these two adjacent cabins to one of these two fireplaces.

He turned and was running before his mind had properly acknowledged the thought.

If it wasn't in this one then it had to be in the other one. They'd reached them at the same time. He'd been grabbed before he touched a brick. Dean had heard it, had come to the door to see what was happening, had pulled himself away from the sight of his younger sibling being dragged away by a demon that tortured its victims to death, to complete his search. Not the best circumstances to conduct a thorough search in, especially since he'd only had minutes before the trail would've gone cold, had no way of knowing where the demon would drag Sam to. Faced with staying longer to search more thoroughly in the hope that he would find the crystal, or potentially losing his brother forever, Sam knew what choice Dean would've taken. He would have tried the search, but only for as long as he could risk. Dean wouldn't have lost track of him, which meant he could have missed something, and even though Sam knew that that decision had possibly cost them both dearly, he couldn't fault his older brother for making it, because he knew it's the choice he would have taken himself.

The cabin was a mirror image of the one he'd just been in, and there was a moments disorientation as he adjusted to the reverse layout, and then he was in front of the fireplace, dropping to his knees, he didn't bother with the outside, Dean would have covered those bricks in the little time he'd had. He scrambled forwards and began running his fingers around the interior bricks.

SUPERNATURALSUPERNATURAL

It let him get to the doorway, let him stumble over the threshold before slamming him into the frame. Dean just had time to acknowledge the grinding bones as his ribcage took the impact, and then the pain hit and nothing else registered until he came to on his knees, panting harshly as he blinked blurry images into some form of focus. His side was on fire, with every breath the pain fizzed and burned across the surface of his ribs, dancing like water running over a shallow riverbed, each drop, each bubble a stab of pain. Slowly he shifted himself to the wall, using his good arm he gripped the door frame and pushed himself once more to a shaky stand. He took a step.

The push almost knocked him over and he stumbled backwards, it wasn't as hard as the others had been, on a relative scale it hardly hurt. He steadied himself and stepped forward again, one step, two, three, he had almost regained the ground he'd lost when it pushed again, a little harder this time and he was sure he heard a laugh as he struggled to remain on his feet. He straightened himself as much as he could, but his body would not unfurl completely from its protective crouch around his injured arm, his injured ribs.

He was no longer scared, no longer confused. He knew he was going to die here, alone. Knew that even if he never begged it, his injuries would eventually kill him, but that didn't matter because Sam was at least safe, and he now had a purpose, a focus. He needed to make it through that door. He took four rapid steps forward, almost made it before the impact lifted him off the floor and threw him down again. He landed hard and once more the world whited out.

SUPERNATURALSUPERNATURAL.

Sam couldn't quite believe it when the brick moved, he shifted forwards to get a better angle and dug his already bleeding fingertips into the loose material that packed it in place. If the passing minutes it had taken to find it seemed to stretch forever, the few seconds that it took to prize the brick out from the position it had lain in for over a hundred years, seemed to stretch for an eternity, frustratingly it was lengthened as it stuck when it was almost three quarters out, but then it pulled free, and his hand scrambled into the hole and pulled out a pink, shimmering, pointed, multifaceted stone, no bigger than an egg- the crystal.

Sam stared at it even as he scrambled backwards out of the fireplace and to his feet, unable to contain the feeling of elation that really had no place until he had destroyed it, until he was back with Dean and he knew he was alive but. . .he had found it. The object of the frantic, literally life or death search. He had found it.

The relief that flooded through his system threatened to overwhelm his already overtaxed emotional state, and once again deny him the focus he needed to complete his task, and he swayed dizzily for a moment before he managed to regain his control. He had to destroy it now. He turned and ran back to the doorway, to the stone and sledgehammer they had placed in the middle between the two cabins ready for whoever found it. Carefully he positioned the stone, and raised the hammer, that he knew he no longer had the strength to even lift, high into the air, smashing it down with an accuracy that he'd never managed when chopping logs, right in the center of the crystal pulverizing it to dust with a single blow.

He dropped to his knees it was over.

SUPERNATURALSUPERNATURAL.

Dean could no longer make it to standing, it was too much effort, caused too much pain, and so he crawled. One arm tucked, useless into his tattered shirt, he crawled forward, inch by painful inch. He made it to the doorway and waited for the painful pull backwards, the smashing blow, the claws that would rake his leg as they dragged him back, but it never came.

He inched forward a little more, forward slowly forward until he was out of the room, out of his tomb, wholly in the corridor. He couldn't quite believe it, was sure the blow would strike again at any time, the anticipation almost worse than the act, but it didn't come, for long seconds it didn't come and then he caught the movement ahead of him, the flittering twist and he knew that this time it would be over, the playing was over, begging or not it was going to strike the death blow, and instinctively he twisted away from it.