Chap 4

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"Bill, get over here!" Derrick bellowed as he came down the curved stone stair, the opulence of the home above giving way to much rougher underground levels.

"Whaddya want!? You'll scare a man half to death hollering like that this time of night."

"I'm not too worried about that at the moment. We've got a problem with Abigail. How long have you worked for her?"

"A while before you, why?" Bill shrugged a shoulder, the look in his eyes a card short of a full deck.

"Remember last week when we were planning this whole fiasco? You told me Abigail had some crazy idea that she was a witch?" Derrick stared at Bill, almost daring him to deny it.

"I remember. Also remember you saying you didn't care if she was Tinkerbelle."

"I'd be okay with her being Tinkerbelle, actually. What if.." Derrick rushed his next words out as if the degree of insanity could be tapered by brevity. "Whatifsheisawitchforreal?"

"Uhh... What?"

"I said, what if she is a witch for real?"

"How much did you drink tonight?" Bill raised his eyebrows with a degree of alarm.

"Oh right, cause there are so many bars in the child welfare office. Did you forget I spent my evening with county social services? I am not drunk. Seriously, have you seen her kill anyone?"

"She's killed several people I can think of. So? Not like you haven't."

"I don't care that she's a murderer, I asked if you saw it. She nearly killed me tonight, from across the room. By smiling at me."

"Yep, you so found a drink somewhere along the line. By smilling at you, heh? Tell you what, I'll remember not to tell her any good jokes and the world will be a safer place. Makes me all warm and fuzzy just thinking about it."

"Smart ass. I know what happened to me. You can believe it or not."

"That'd be not. Is that what you woke me up for?"

"No. Abigail wants that social worker dead, said she was annoying. I told her you'd handle it."

"See, that's the Abigail I know and love. As long as she's not going to hocus-pocus her dead, that is." Bill picked a glock up off the wooden table, whistling under his breath as he started up the stair. "Back soon, have fun with the small fry."

Bill met Abigail at the top of the staircase, every trace of his usual stupified expression gone.

"You put the fear of God into Derrick, love." He laughed as she wrapped herself around him, fierce kiss bring a drop of blood to his lips.

"Not God, William, although he probably doesn't have the sense to fear Him either." She shuddered at his touch, closing her eyes at moment before stepping back and dropping her hands to her side. "It's been too long, my love. Oohh, not now. Go take care of Karen, I have to revise my plan a bit now that we have a spare guest. Derrick will find out sooner or later, but let's aim for later." Her sigh spoke volumes in unfulfilled suggestion that certainly didn't involve anyone outside the two of them.

"Anything you want, Abby, as always."

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John locked the guns he'd selected in the trunk, relunctantly entering the police station with Pastor Jim on his heels.

"Mr. Winchester, you have to understand that this is a highly unusual situation. Until we are certain what happened, we have to treat all three of them as missing persons rather than assuming that Mr. Weaver has done anything to your boys."

John stared at the officer in front of him, compiling a mental list. Top ten reasons not to start a fist fight in an actual police station. Unfortunately, the more the man talked, the more trouble he was having with the list. At the moment he couldn't get past three.

"So I'm supposed to go home and wait on you to call me when you dredge their bodies out of some lake six months from now?!? How could you hand them over to someone who doesn't even live in his own house? There are no upstanding good parent reasons for that. I expect everyone who's ass is holding a seat down around here to find my boys. Now!"

"Sir, please. I understand you're distraught, but this is not going to help. Let us do our job. As soon as I have information, you'll have it."

Pretty much stuck at two on that list now. John handed over the number for his newly replaced phone. "At least we agree this is not helping. I'll be out looking for my sons."

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Karen Winter's house was all the confirmation the hunters needed that this wasn't all some record keeping nightmare on the part of the county. The bullet hole in her forehead would have clarified the matter all on its own, even without the opened chest and blood smeared throughout the room.

"Heart there, Jim?" John's question was hushed as he tried and failed to see a pattern in the blood smears.

"Yeah, it's here. Part of the liver's gone though."

"Liver? What on earth good is a liver? Spell work?"

"Maybe so. The police will probably want to talk to Karen again, too. Let's get out of here before they show up."

"Yeah, nothing she's gonna tell us at this point."

By mid-morning John was alone in the impala, retracing everywhere Sam and Dean might have been the day before, scouring for any clue as to what happened. It wasn't enough to stop the merry-go-round of thoughts in his head. Someone has our boys, Mary. I'm so sorry. You wouldn't have wanted this life for them, I know that. Don't quite know when this life became inevitable, just know it is. All the good in the world, I thought it left that night with you, but you left part of it here, with me, didn't you? You left me the boys. I'll get 'em back, Mary, I swear. I'll bring our boys home. Hang on for me Sammy, Dean. Dad's coming. Promise.

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Dean was certain he'd been awake once in the backseat of the car after the fight at the rest stop. Unless of course this whole thing was one intensely bad dream. Yeah, that must be it. Admittedly, nightmare production was the one area where Sam could out do him, but he'd been known to have the occasional doozy. Ok, now would be a good time to wake up.

Waking up was requiring a strange amount of effort. Almost as if, well, as if a big man had kicked him in the side of the head. Crap. Not a dream then. Dean tried to remember his dad's advice on this situation. There's some protection in everyone thinking you're out, so don't open your eyes or say anything until you're fairly certain you can move and can tell if anyone's there. Somehow he didn't think that came up in most father-son lectures, but that didn't make it bad advice. So, time to take inventory. Dean was laying on his back, hands underneath him. His wrists were stuck, but to each other, not anything else. They wouldn't even twist against each other. Lovely, it was duct tape holding them then. No motion around him, so he wasn't still in the car. He cautiously flexed his fingers. Felt like canvas fabric. Couch? No, too flat. A bed then, or more likely a cot as the padding felt thin. A little cold, but no air was moving, so indoors not out. There was something burning, candles, maybe? The scent didn't overpower a stale stench that permeated the place. Someone else was breathing, deep and regular. Asleep. Dean cracked his eyes a hair.

Whatever he was laying on, it was on the floor. A thin cot mattress still seemed most likely. That, however, was no longer of much interest. The three rough stone walls of the room and iron bars across the front end barely registered. Outside of those doors there was a blue arm chair. The overly padded back curled around its slumbering occupants. Derrick Weaver sat dozing, his arms wrapped around a sleeping Sam nestled in his lap.

"Let him go." Dean decided he may as well see how this was going to go.

"Oh ho, you're awake again. Good, it's morning anyway. Let him go? The way it looks to me, he's on the outside of the bars and you're the one trapped, boy." Derrick brushed Sam's hair back from his eyes, idly resting his chin on the top of Sam's head as he twisted a loose strand around his fingers. Sam continued to sleep.

"What'd you do to him!?" Dean had rolled up to his feet and was now standing against the cell bars, pushing for every inch to close the gap between himself and his brother.

"Hmm... I didn't yell at him to run off through the woods. This isn't my fault Dean, it's yours. Still, if you want him with you, I don't see the harm for now." Derrick shifted Sam off his lap and into the chair behind him as he stood. "Turn around and I'll get your hands."

Dean turned, suspicious on general principle, but well aware that Derrick had already had ample opportunity to hurt them both. He felt a pocket knife nick the tape between his hands.

"It shouldn't take you more than ten or fifteen minutes to break it loose from there. Enough time for me to open and close this door again." Derrick rummaged in a small bag at the foot of the chair, hand emerging with a syringe. He pushed Sam's head to the side, finger stroking a vein in his neck.

"NO! Get away from him!"

"What? You think he's too old for naps? I have to admit, drugging him's worth it just to watch your face right now." The needle found its way into Sam's neck, disgorging its contents as a horrified Dean watched. Derrick scooped Sam into his arms, balancing him against a shoulder as he unlocked the bolt with the arm beneath the child's knees. As soon as it was open, he dropped Sam onto the filthy floor and slammed the bars closed again. With that he turned and left, taking the candle sconce and it's feeble light with him.

Dean thumped to his knees beside Sam, trying to quiet his own quickening breathing as he leaned over Sam's face. Relief flooded through him as he felt a puff of breath against his neck in the darkness.

"Keep breathing for me little brother, gonna take care of you. I need my hands for that, give me just one minute, ok?" Dean fingered the cut notch in the tape, lining it up with the edge of one of the iron bars. Fortunately, they were a flat grille work pattern, not round, so this worked fairly well. Derrick's estimate of ten minutes hadn't accounted for being scared your seven year old sibling might die two feet away from you in a pitch black cell. Dean was loose in two.

"Sammy? You just sleepin' Sam? Cause I could use some company here. Please?"

Sam's breathing was slow and even, but no amount of poking, prodding, or pinching got the least response. Dean checked the pulse in his neck for the thousandth time, concluded yet again that it was fine. He pulled Sam over onto the mattress, settling his own back against the wall and Sam's against his chest.

He wasn't sure how much time had passed when a flicker of light became visible, coming closer with the clicking of a lady's shoe and the heavier footfalls of a man.

"Derrick left you in the dark, I see. Or rather I don't, but I can fix that."

Dean squinted at the candle shadows, then squeezed his eyes shut as she lit three large torches set into sconces on the wall. Only her clothes convinced him they hadn't fallen into the past. The build me a dungeon and boil people in oil past. Course, the three inch heels and the pager on her belt argued against that.

"Dean, I'm Abigail Williams. I'm an, ah, acquaintance of your father. Welcome to my home. Forgive the accomodations, but as I said, I know your father. A bit primitive down here in the basement, but what can I say, it reminds me of my girlhood days. Sam still asleep? Gives us a chance to talk amongst ourselves, then. Good. Derrick brought you both here and I hadn't planned for that. I don't care for unexpected guests and I only need one of you, so I'm afraid I'll have to have Derrick rectify that little mistake." She idly examined her manicure as the implications of that permeated the room.

Dean's mind raced for the best way to reply. On the one hand, whatever she wanted Sam for couldn't be good, but if she was planning on letting Derrick kill him as unnecessary, maybe being the one she wanted was better. Maybe it would buy Dad time to find Sammy. Please Dad.... Dean always viewed Sam as special, always assumed he was the one with value. It wasn't a great time for other people to realize it, though. Unless people wasn't an accurate term....

"I don't know what you want with Sammy, but you can't have him. Dad will find us."

She laughed, raising the hair on Dean's neck. He couldn't have put a finger on how, but he knew then. Not human. Witch.

"Oh Dean, that's sweet. Protecting little Sammy. Sadly for you, he was never what I wanted. First born son of a hunter, Dean. All I need is you."

A/N - Hello all. Thanks for reading and reviews would make my day - just a thought, lol. Dean's gotten himself in quite the fix and I don't think Abigail will make it easy to get out.... Oh, and I was reading reviews for another story with Dean at a similar age and someone was put off by the cell phones, as they certainly were uncommon at that time and the ones that did exist would have been hard pressed to fit in a pocket. No one has mentioned it here, but obviously I've indulged in the same history bending, chalk it up to artisitc license.