Dawn – chpt 2
by: sifi
--
Forgive me, she shook her head after a backward glance at the two inert paramedics, and the stunned frozen Fran and Deputy Berkins who watched her shuffle off, dressed now in the female paramedic's jacket, into the trees, guided by something they could never fathom. I hope I didn't do 'em any long term damage, she sighed turning in a slow circle, feeling for either nothingness or the crackling heat of the abominations' hatred.
Slowly she moved forward, I will NOT engage it, I only need to see how it's operating here compared to in the Sidhe world, will we be able to kill it here? How do we kill a God? Shhhh don't think just observe. Man I'm beat, she reached almost unconsciously to the side placing her hand on the trunk of a tree, drawing a bit of its life energy into herself, Sorry... she patted the ancient creature, but thank you, then moved forward again.
Time lost meaning and continuity as she followed the marauder's lack-of-trail, faint tendrils of gray stretched over the horizon behind her announcing the birth of a new day even as she wondered just how many more dawns this world would see before she failed here too. At least this is a ship I can go down with... I'm sorry guys... she breathed deep and turned her face to the East, hoping to feel a shaft of sunshine touch her, to help banish these dark thoughts, It's not over yet, where there's life, there's hope, '...every day's, a gift, whistle while, you work, so hard, all day,' thanks Buffy. Alright now, let's go see how this world is affecting it. I swear something was different...
--
Tom snapped awake as Shep closed the computer and dropped a hand onto his back, "C'mon youngun, you're not gonna do either of those boys any good by runnin' yourself down."
The younger hunter nodded and stood before his uncle, his eyes were deeply bloodshot and his expression said it all.
Shep nodded turning Tom toward the bed, "I know boy, I know. If any of it's true, it's just too big for the likes of us," he sat his nephew down.
"Begs the question of destiny though Shep," his usually bright blue eyes darkened with exhaustion as he looked into green-gold, seeking comfort in the elder man's eyes, "There wouldn't be patrons, there wouldn't have been... it wouldn't BE Sammy or Dean if there wasn't hope... if it was immutable right? If it was futile, it would've been someone else, anyone else, or even No one? Right? Anyone but them if it couldn't be stopped, right?" he asked stretching out onto his side, slowly rolling onto his stomach, clutching the pillow under his head even as Shep slid the glass off and pulled the comforter over him.
"I hope you're right Tom," he sighed shambling across the room to check the deadbolt, "And I hope to hell Bobby can find something, something more than myth that's gonna... Why though? After all this time, what's it want?" he wondered wrapping himself into the blankets of his own bed and spiraling into sleep.
--
"Mmm?" Sam tossed his head to the side, his mouth bowed faintly down as memory and something more moved inside the sleeping shadows of his mind.
"They are not ready, it's too soon."
"You cannot stop what's coming, to stand in their way is to do them a disservice."
"Their humanity... what makes them everything they are..." a voice whose timbre he knew seemed to sigh.
"Will only be lost for certain if they are not properly prepared, IF they fail. Anything else is no more than a transition, a natural growth process my old friend. You of ALL Gods know this," a rich voice he remembered hearing once before seemed to smile.
--
'...You swear to who?' he heard it ask as golden light erupted from a breech between worlds and for a moment he thought he could almost make out features, 'Go now, before the window is lost.'
Sam felt his blood run cold as he stumbled backward through the barrier that no longer seemed to exist. His eyes fell through the open back door, a giant of light to his right, pinning Jeremy to the corner against the cabinets. On the giant's left the he-bitch cult leader was pinned to the wall by her throat. Their skin began to bubble and smoke but all Sam could see was something leaning over one of two makeshift altars out in the yard, then Dean sat up on the one on the left.
Sam felt his brother see him, he felt the recognition and warmth of his heart as he moved from the table and leaped onto the imposter with flailing fists.
"Dean! Stop!" he said softly.
His hands were warm as they closed on his big brothers', his eyes finding the man he loved so well behind the hurt, as he crouched beside him, "Dean..." he said.
"Why?! Do you have any idea?... what... Sam..." he questioned looking from the imposter to his little brother.
"I know... but you have to stop Dean, you can't do this..." Sam shook his head his eyes pleading.
"Why the hell NOT!" he demanded furiously.
Sam swallowed and his lips twitched faintly, "Because once will be enough if it comes down to it..." Sam took control of the semi-conscious invader and nodded toward the other altar, "Get Laura..."
Dean nodded and rose, leaving the creature to whatever justice lay in his brother's hands.
"It's too late... it's done and you can't stop it! You can't undo it!" the thing that had stolen his countenance hissed as Sam grasped it tightly.
Just as it had on that long ago night when the Igigi were unleashed on the world Sam felt his heart skip in his chest while some nearly sleeping voice inside muttered, 'It started with them, so start with them, parallel lines WILL intersect.'
"What?" he started to ask as his body moved with a squeeze and twist, and the unmistakable sound of bones breaking rang out against the sudden stillness that filled the back yard.
"Nuhguh..." he bolted upright in his bed breathing hard and grasped the reference book and Shep's notebook, sliding the load onto his lap then turned on the light.
"It's brother gave his followers," he muttered flipping the tome open to the index, "Ninurta, c'mon be in here..."
"Sam?" Dean groaned angling his head toward his little brother, his eyes skimming the puffy fingers that seemed to wiggle and wave at him of their own accord, perhaps happy to still be part of the whole. "Wha'is it?" he pushed himself up then found the control on the side rail and raised the back of the bed.
"Ninurta," Sam said softly and smiled poking a line on the page before tossing Shep's notebook across the three feet that separated them, into Dean's lap, "Look it up, it should be easy enough to find."
Dean sniffed, shook his head and rubbed his eyes with his good hand while the fingers of his left walked over the pages, "Spelled like it sounds?" he asked yawning, "Nevermind found it... what are we looking for?"
"What'd he write?" Sam asked turning to the first of several pages listed in the index.
"Mmm Ninurta son of Nisaba and Enlil, equals Ner..."
"DON'T... say the name," Sam barked softly, "Shep says it'll hear it."
"Mmkay, equals the marauder's brother, then above that by Enlil... do we have to worry about any of these other funky ass names?" he asked.
"I don't think so, not unless they're on this plane," Sam shook his head
"Great, so above Enlil there's an arrow pointing from him, to Enki okay 'cause she said they're brothers..." he frowned trying to trace the layers of lineage Shep had tried to draw, "But I'm not sure where to pick this line up, whether it's here?" he tapped a page then flipped to another and tapped a lower spot, then flipped forward a couple more pages and finally back again, "or here, the names could go either way, they're still similar enough to the main ..." his heart skipped a beat, the monitor blipped, "Son of a bitch..."
"What?" Sam asked.
Curling his lower lip between his teeth he flipped forward once again by several pages, then back more slowly, "Now how the hell does this come in?" he wondered aloud as his brows furrowed and his gaze turned to meet Sam's.
"What Dean?" he asked.
Dean folded the notebook and held it up in his good hand, his finger pointing right at the heavily lined name, "Your friend and mine, Azazel."
--
Dirt filled the crevasses of its hosts' fingernails as it swept aside wet leathery fallen leaves and woody debris until only bare moist earth lay open. Heat of fury began to cool as it lay back on the ground, a child's body in death-like repose for a brief moment before cohesion was forsaken. The particles of flesh colored motes soaked into the ground like rainwater as it reminded itself of its mission and purpose. There was something about this realm that carried distraction with every breath, as if it was a living thing with a will of its own.
First to find the Chosen and the Champion, they cannot hide from me indefinitely. It is THEY who will give me what I need. I can taste it on them, the power, the history, the flavor of the first ones. To have touched that power and denied it... it shuddered with the weight of the implication, uncertain whether to blame ignorance or to tremble in awe of the inner power it sensed they each must possess.
Its awareness reached forward through the body of the world, creeping slowly outward molecule by molecule, wholly aware and absorbing all the information it could. It knew the emissary was nearby feeding on the life around them both, but unlike in the Sidhe realm where its existence was an-harmonic and easily spotted; here it was almost inseparable from all the other energies of this realm. Only the movement and purposeful direction of the energy gave even the subtlest hint of where it might be.
Make no mistake emissary, I AM going to kill you. I will devour you body and soul and when naught remains and you are no more than dust in the heat of my passing, it is whatever you possessed that will help to tear apart this world that my forbearers made.
But first, the betrayer and his followers, I taste him within the Chosen one. Is that where you are? If I must claw through every human body on this world to find him, I will do so. For his betrayal, Azazel WILL pay, and as the champion and the emissary rise to his defense, they too shall die. Now, to find them.
--
The raven flitted ahead by another dozen or so yards and chirped gently in the grayish light. Laura glanced up meeting the bird's coffee colored eyes and shook her head sinking to her knees breathlessly, her hand reaching out, wanting to draw from the life around her but she stayed the impulse. I'm not a killer, a faint smile tilted her lips and a huff of irony puffed gently in the air, Well okay, I'm a killer, but I'm not a thief, I've taken too much this night already. Just really need to rest a bit. She tucked her hands under her arms and slid down onto her rear, leaning against the tree, using it for support and nothing else.
The raven squawked and wings fluttered.
"Nuh uh," she shook her head, closing her eyes and breathed deep.
Talons gripped her shoulder through the paramedic's jacket she wore and a hard insistent beak pecked at her head.
"Shhh, quit it..." she flapped her arm at the bird.
She shook her head when it squawked once more, loudly right into her ear. She cracked her eye open and looked squarely at the creature.
"I'm tired, I need rest..." she sighed while the creature chirped again, "I can't move, I got nuthin' left."
A sharp, hot, powerful pinch gripped her ear as the avian beat its wings around her head.
"OWWW Son of a bitch!" she howled lunging for the bird who let go and hopped on the ground, its caw's stuttering in the early morning light, "You're laughing at me! You bitch!" she half snarled and half chuckled rising to her feet to continue following the insistent creature.
"Y'know I'm gonna have Cernunnos talk to Cerridwen about you guys... you're getting pretty ballsy y'know... course Sam told me about how y'all were trying to protect Dean, so I guess a little lee-way's alright..." she stumbled through the undergrowth toward the sound of early morning traffic and emerged on the side of the road looking at a run down four room motel. Her eyes fell on her very own four door sedan parked before room number 2, and she shook her head with a wry smile as the raven perched on the roof of the car.
"Sure... make me look like a dork..." she grinned taking advantage of a momentary lapse in traffic to hobble across the road. At the car she stopped and drew the back of her hand down the raven's chest, "Thanks," she sighed before the bird took wing to start its day.
--
A dull knock on the door brought Shep shambling to the peep hole, and a moment later had him guiding the woman to the bed that still held his warmth.
"How are they?" she managed to mumble.
"Good. Youngun's still got his arm last we knew... we blessed and salted the room b'fore we left 'em t'get some sleep. What'd you find out?" he asked.
"It wants Sam, it wants BOTH of them... their power, but it couldn't find them, and it needs to gather its own strength again... I felt it start to sleep..." she sighed leaning to the side, succumbing to the comfort and warmth Shep had left behind.
"They're JUST BOYS... what the hell kind of power are they s'posed t'have!? and can you take us where it's sleepin'?" the elder hunter asked.
Her head swung loosely until she was looking into his eyes, he wasn't sure whether it was with disbelief, or something else. "It's in the earth, even if we found it..." she shook her head against the pillow, "rest. We don't have what it takes to kill it yet," she yawned and slid into darkness.
"Well hell..." Shep sighed then drew the covers over the woman, re-bolted the door, and with a quick glance at the clock that told him they'd only been asleep for about an hour, climbed into bed behind his nephew knowing there would be better answers when they were all a little more fresh.
--
"...stop... please..." Dean's half plea stuck in his throat, the sound of it bringing mist to Sam's eyes. For the last half hour his big brother had been at the mercy of his memories and though Sam had tried to 'will' him more dreamless restful sleep, he either didn't have the strength or the knowledge to penetrate the horror of the older man's experience.
His head rolled from side to side as his mouth bowed down and his brows came together, water squeezed from the corner of his eyes as a hauntingly child-like whimper crept out along with a simple tortured, "...please..."
"S'okay, you're okay," Sam sniffed and rested his hand on his big brothers shoulder.
Dean's eyes popped open latching onto Sam's while he gulped a hungry lungful of air then scanned the room. A twitch of his breathing betrayed him.
"Guh..." he gasped then righted the mask Sam had somehow convinced himself he'd discarded.
"Y'alright?" he asked actually managing to sound nonchalant while quickly smoothing his brow so Dean couldn't see the evidence of his guilt and sorrow.
Visibly relieved, and more than a little confused the elder hunter cleared his throat and sat up as Sam returned to the chair where he'd been trying to figure out what it was that was driving the marauder.
"Yeah, just uh... you know...lollipops and candy canes..."
"You wanna talk about it?" Sam asked barely moving his eyes from the pages of the book.
Dean shook his head and looked under the blankets then around at the base of the bed. "S'probably just gonna take a while before I can shake it out of my system," he muttered lowering the rail and swinging his feet to the floor. To his surprise a wave of dizziness couldn't decide if it was going to make him pass out or throw up.
"Understandable," Sam nodded, It's gonna take you twice as long big brother if you just keep trying to swallow it down! Please, I know it's probably too fresh for you to talk about, he thought about Dean's rapid fire explanation to Dr. Blumenthal, of what he'd been put through, then the panic stricken expression that had come over his face when the jonnie came down exposing the probably close to a hundred or more snags and tears in his body, he shook his head, but you're going to have to eventually. I hope by now you know you can talk to ME. "Just so you know..." he offered.
"I know," Dean nodded with a faint smile and pushed himself to his feet, leaning on the IV pole as he moved steadily into the bathroom.
When he was done, with the door shielding him from his little brother's far too observant gaze, he sat on the toilet, his good right arm folded against the cool edge of the porcelain sink, his forehead pressed to his warmth while his breath moved shakily in and out. His body flinched with the memory of every blow that fell, every touch of those taloned hands on him and how that thing violated his sovereignty leaving him feeling helpless, cold and desolate in his fear.
--
tbc.
Please R&R
Thanks