A/N -- For most writers, what happens to your characters is very personal. It's not just because you care about them but because you're inflicting whatever pain they go through with your fingers on the keyboard. This was a tough, tough chapter to write. Hope you'll feel it with all of us.
Firefly – Chapter 26
By Suz Mc
"Sam! This way!" Dean heard Sam fire twice, but his way was still clear and he moved forward toward the basement stairs. He banded his arm more tightly around Emily's body, keeping her still. When Sam didn't respond, he turned to find his brother facing an onslaught of pissed off lunatics.
Two bodies were lying at his feet and he was slashing at another with that messed up Klaww of Death blade he's taken to carrying after years of keeping it put away. It had the benefit of slashing large holes in people. Sam had opened up the man's stomach and was focused on extricating himself when another came around the corner with a shotgun.
"SAM! DROP!"
The battle turned quickly, with no time to curse or take evasive action. Sam obeyed and went to the floor, slinging the eviscerated body into the knees of their new adversary. As the man fell, he fired, sending the blast into the narrow hallway. Dean twisted as he crunched to the floor, putting his back between the bullets and Emily. He was able to avoid the main blast, only to be hit by stray fragments that bit into his shoulder. He'd had worse pain but the comparison didn't stop the burn in his flesh. He looked up from the floor into a face and he unloaded a couple of rounds into it. The body collapsed beside him.
Sam was on his knees, blood splattered on his face and running down his arm. Dean couldn't be sure whose blood at this point. His brother was moving, trying to get down to their end of the hall.
"Come on, Sammy!"
Dean tried to get to his feet, balancing Emily with his good arm, when he caught sight of a fresh new hell coming around the corner and slathering down over Sam's shoulders. A billowing column of demon smoke flooded into the space, roaring over them with a power he hadn't experienced before from a disembodied demon.
The thick black muck that was Amora raged through the house, slapping against everything. Dean's lungs contracted against the putrid smell of sulfur. Blinded by the volumes of smoke, all he could do was clutch Emily closer, trying to keep her with him. At least the bastards who were coming at them were knocked on their asses just like he and Sam. He knew he was back on the floor. He knew Sam's back was pressed against his. He could feel the blood and brain oozing from the corpse beside him and soaking his leg. The gun was still in his hand but it was useless. All of his senses were bleeding together and sounds of the demon roared around them, drowning out everything else.
Suddenly, the blackness began to thin and he was sucking in air. Dean tried to move, tried to climb to his feet, only to be slammed against the wall. He'd felt that pressure before, sucking his body hard against the wood. The warmth against his chest fell away and he mentally grabbed for Emily, but was unable to move to hang onto her. Her fingers were tangled in his shirt and he could feel it tear as Emily clutched her fingers into the fabric. She hung on until someone pried her hands open and dragged her away. The pressure closed his throat and he couldn't even call out to her.
There were other footsteps stomping through the room and as the stinging in his eyes lessened, Dean could make out several new humans wandering through the hall. They were different from the relatively normal looking demon suck ups of Amora's advance team. This was the muscle. All men, most of them taller than Sam, all doing Ninja impressions with black clothing and covered eyes and faces.
"Emily!" Dean called out her name as his throat cleared enough to allow sounds. She couldn't answer. He knew that. But at least she'd know he was still here with her.
"We are so screwed." Sam's voice was a coughing, rough version of his normal sound. "Are you hit?"
Before Dean could answer, he was moving. His back was torn by hundreds of splinters as the demon dragged him against the wooden walls, pulling them both toward the front room of the house. The shotgun pellets burned inside his shoulder, friction from the wood tearing the wounds wider. As they got closer, he could make out the sounds of someone whimpering and sobbing. At first he thought Emily had found her voice and it broke his heart to think that the first sound he'd heard come out of her was crying.
But it wasn't a child's voice. As his head slammed into the doorway between the hall and the main room, Dean made out the sounds of a woman. The blow blurred his vision again and it took a second to focus. She was young, probably college age, with dark hair and olive skin. Tied to a stiff wooden chair, she was begging them to let her go, promising not to tell anyone, trying to stay alive.
Sam was beside him, tacked to the wall and straining in a futile gesture against the demonic vacuum immobilizing both of them. The ridiculous Men in Black filed past them, filling up the room like statues. Amora's vapor form threaded through the men, winding its way into the room until it compacted in front of the terrified woman in the chair. In a brutal show of force, she bunched herself into a hard, thick ball of smoke and forced her way down into the woman's face, penetrating her eyes, nose, and mouth. The gagging choking sounds came out past the smoke until they faded away to nothing.
Dean searched the room for Emily, catching movement out of the corner of his eye. A hard bitch with slicked back hair had his daughter slung over her hip like a sack. Emily's body was slack as the woman carried her to a chair and flung her down hard. There was no fight, no reaction. The little girl landed still, a blank expression on her face. Eyes unfocused, Emily didn't look for Dean, didn't seem to register anything at all. It was a dangerous numbness that signaled her withdrawal from a reality that was too terrifying to fight against.
"Can you move at all?" Dean spoke low to his brother, hoping Sam had some trick up his sleeve to fight this particular monster.
"No. You?"
"No." Dean couldn't take his eyes off Emily's body, slumped in the huge chair. "Look at me, Emily! I'm here!"
"Oh, yes, you are, Dean." The voice purred from Amora's host as she burst bloodied wrists from the ropes binding her to the wooden chair. "What a good Daddy to share this milestone with our baby girl." Amora stretched her arms then stroked her new body, a contented smile on her face. "You know, our children are our future."
"You don't have a future, bitch." Dean pulled against the force pinning him uselessly against the wall as Amora moved to stand in front of him, only inches separating them. He had weapons all over his body. His jacket was stuffed with them. His pocket held a simple silver charm powerful enough to turn this monster to dust. None of which mattered since his body was frozen while the demon bitch moved around free and easy.
"Now, is that the way a hero should talk in front of our little girl's virgin ears?" She looked over her shoulder and blew a kiss toward Emily.
The woman handling Emily was wrapping a wide black ribbon around the child's neck and tying it neatly underneath her hair. Dean felt the bile and anger rising in his chest. It was a vile accessory designed to hold Emily's head attached to her neck after they sliced her open. Deep in shock, the little girl sat still, not flinching or resisting.
"She's mine, you stupid skank! Mine and Calley's, not yours."
"Oh, that's where you're wrong, Dean. She's fully and completely mine," she said, strolling over to kneel in front of Emily, who displayed no reaction at all to the monster in front of her. Emily had now stopped seeing as well as speaking in response to the overload of fear.
The demon ran a gentle hand over Emily's hair, smoothing it back from her face. "She's mine because I filled her up with glorious gifts, didn't I, little one?" Amora searched the child's face carefully. "I might have even been too generous with this one."
"Get your fucking hands off my kid, you BITCH!" Dean was trying desperately to draw the demon's attention back to him and away from Emily.
Her hand tightened, yanking the little face up toward the ceiling, then she planted a kiss on her forehead. For a brief second, there was a spark and whiff of smoke that flashed from the point of contact and Amora withdrew, a startled expression flashing over the stolen face she wore. She recovered quickly and released Emily to stare blankly at the floor.
The demon backed away slowly, circling the table that had been fashioned into an altar. She stroked the thick black candles and traced the deep groove gouged into the wood designed to hold the blood that she planned to drain from Emily's body. She paused, jerking her finger from the surface, wincing at a large splinter that had torn into the pad of her index finger. With a decidedly aroused shiver, she pulled it from her hand and sucked the blood into her mouth. "I'd forgotten how delicious that first pain feels," she whispered, almost talking to herself.
"You let me down from this wall and I'll give you all the pain you can handle." Taunting her was his only weapon at the moment, the only way to distract her. "Get rid of these dickless ninja rejects and we'll go at it." All he wanted was to get down from that wall and cram Calley's piece of silver down the bitch's throat.
The demon smiled again, strolling over to stand in front of him once again. She stopped and turned her head sideways as if listening to some faraway sound. "Oh, Dean, you're scaring this meat to death. What's that? Help me? Please don't hurt me? Is that what you're saying, sweetie?"
"Shut the fuck up."
"Sound familiar, Dean? A terrified woman begging you not to hurt her?" She was close enough now that he could feel her breath on his neck. "That's what fragile, delicate Calley said to you while you were fucking her brains out."
"You're gonna die."
Her voice faded to a whisper beside his ear. "You made her bleed. You made her cry. And you made that little bitch over there, hero."
"Fuck you."
She raised her hand to his neck, fashioning her host's fingernails into a vicious claw at his throat. Boiling anger took the place of her amusement. "I think I'll let you bleed with her," she said, only to freeze before delivering the blow. She stepped back, analyzing the new sensation. "It seems you have something in your pocket and it's not that you're happy to see me, sugar. Calley's little pain in the ass trinket, no doubt."
"Bloody silver, a girl's best friend," he said, wishing it was in his hand and his hand was cramming down her throat.
"What a freakin' killjoy!" Amora leaned back on the altar, clearly disappointed. "Oh, well, I can't touch you, but you can just hang there all limp while I touch everyone else."
"Stop! Just let me explain!"
A new voice broke the air around them and everyone's attention turned toward the door. Two of Amora's devoted thugs were dragging a worn, bloody woman through the front door. They dumped her onto the floor in front of the demon and backed away.
"Oh happy day! It's my good and faithful servant, Lindsey!" Amora gleefully turned her attention to the woman piled on the floor at her feet. "Dean, you don't mind if I deal with this business first, do you?"
"Be my guest."
Lindsey Deaton. This bitch was on the top of Dean's kill list. His blood was bubbling with rage and he tried in vain to pull himself away from the wall once again. When he thought about Emily trapped for days in a car with Lindsey, emotionally and physically abused by this demon worshipping skank, he wasn't sure who he wanted dead more – Lindsey or her demon girlfriend.
"Thanks so much, Dean." The demon reached down to gently cup Lindsey's face and she brushed away tears with her thumbs. "I'm so glad to see you, Lindsey. You've been working hard, haven't you?" With a rough jerk, she pulled Lindsey to her feet by her face.
"Please don't let her kill me!" The words shivered from Lindsey's mouth and her eyes darted between Sam and Dean, begging for help from the helpless. "Do something, please!" She focused on Sam's familiar face. "You said you could help me! Please!" Lindsey's bloody, bruised face settled on Dean, hoping for sympathy.
"Sweetheart, I'm not going to kill any of these bastards until they're done with you," Dean said, smirking at the doomed woman who was about to get what she deserved.
"You are quite the gentleman, Dean." Amora turned her attention back to the trembling face gripped in her fingers. "Lindsey, we need to have a meeting of the minds."
"I saved her for you, Amora! I got her out of that apartment and kept her safe so you could be free. I did!" Lindsey was pleading her case as she tried to pull away from the demon's unbreakable grip on her face.
"And for that I will be eternally grateful, pet." She stroked Lindsey's face and planted a quick kiss on the terrified woman's forehead. "But there's that business of you doing away with my first tender babe. Remember? The sacrifice you were supposed to breed for me in your lovely womb?"
"I'm sorry."
"These morons opened up Hell for me to make an early escape and what do I find? No bundle to bleed for my freedom. Just you and your excuses. Do you know what your selfishness cost me, Lindsey? Five hundred more years in the pit."
"Please let me serve you. I'll make it up to you."
"Make it up to me? Do you know how I spent my time down below, pet? There's no giving or receiving of pain. I'm not even allowed to hear the screams. I'm untouched. Disembodied. Sealed away in smooth white walls with no pain, no pleasure, not even sight or sound. The all consuming madness was my only companion, leaving me hour after hour to long for release."
"I'm sorry. Please—"
"A different suffering waits for you." With a quick twist, Lindsey's head was turned around to flop loosely on a snapped neck and the demon tossed her into a heap on the floor. Clapping her hands together loudly, she shouted, "Let's get this party started! Get that brat on the table and I'm going to give you all a demonstration of exactly how to slit a throat."
She was maniacal in her happiness, gleefully moving in front of Sam's body and cackling with another woman's voice. "We've got time for some instruction and I'd like you to help out, Sam. Wouldn't want a sloppy cut to prolong our girl's suffering, would we?"
Amora's attention remained fixed on Sam and with one hand hovering in front of his chest, she slid his body down the wall until they were face to face. She pressed her body against his and groaned out loud. "Oh my, Sam Winchester. A man your size, with those obscenely large biceps, with those fabulous hands, you could deliver exactly the brutality I need to treat my bodies the way they deserve."
"Get off me." Sam was able to force his head away from the wall just an inch before the demon slammed it back making a harsh, cracking sound.
Dean was listening to the conversation but his eyes were cemented to the sight of Emily being stretched across what was to be her deathbed. She was limp and yielding, letting them lay her in the center of the table and prop her head on a wooden block. The one connection she made was to fix her dark brown eyes on her father. They were weak and lifeless but he knew she saw him. He tried to smile at her, to give her some kind of affection and comfort.
"I love you, Emily. Don't forget that."
"Oh, Lucifer! I may vomit," Amora said, rolling her eyes and running her hands over Sam's body. "I hear tell that you have a very special blade of interest to my kind, Sam." She shoved her hand between the wall and Sam's back, drawing out the bone handled demon killing knife on his belt.
"Choke on it."
"I'd like for this body to choke on you, baby," she said, grazing the pointed tip of the knife down his belly, tearing a thin, bloody stripe in Sam's shirt, then traveling the blade over his zipper and between his legs.
"Leave him alone!"
"Why, Dean, I think you're jealous." Amora ripped open Sam's shirt and began to draw long red lines to trace the muscles of his abdomen. Sam was biting his lip bloody to hold in the sounds but his face was twisted and sweating with the effort.
"That's right, Sam. Don't give the bitch anything."
"Now, class, it's time for the throat." She laid the blade against his neck, taunting him with gentle traces down the exposed vein that bulged from his pain. Sam's face was solid and defiant, steeling himself for the metal jab that was coming.
Abruptly, Amora stopped, gasping in a sharp bite of air and dropping the knife to the floor. Her face contorted in pain and confusion and one hand clutched to her abdomen. Whirling toward the altar, she fixed her angry glare on Emily.
"Oh no you don't, you little bitch! Not this time!" Before she could move again, a brilliant glow erupted below her chest, flashing with tiny sparks.
Emily was still stretched over the altar, but one hand was cupped at her side as if she held an invisible ball. She moved her hand, shaping pale fingers around air until a stream of light stretched from the demon's body to that tiny hand and back. It formed a nearly transparent sphere of light and fire that floated gently above her palm.
"Her hand! Hold it still! Don't let her throw—"
The handler assigned to Emily made a grab for her hand, only to scream out in pain as the flames lapped up to burn her. Emily flicked her wrist, tossing the ball of fire toward the demon.
Amora was moving, attempting to run toward the door but the swirling ball of flame tracked her movements and connected with her chest. "NO!" A violent scream vibrated through the room and Amora's demon form fled from the burning flesh and blasted furiously throughout the room.
The chain reaction of Amora's flight happened quickly. Dean fell from the wall, with Sam landing beside him, while the fat, vile smoke cycloned around them.
"Emily! Run!" Dean yelled out the command as he jammed one hand into his pocket to grab for the silver charm that could destroy the demon. The smoke was rising, making a hasty, defeated retreat and he threw the metal at the largest part of the cloud. There was a flash of red hot light and the smoke fractured against the ceiling, sending burning fragments of plaster and wood showering over them.
Emily had obeyed. A mix of pride and relief washed through him. She trusted him to enough to break through her fear and obey without hesitating. From the corner of his eye, Dean searched for her among the evil sons of bitches who wanted her dead then lost her as he threw a punch toward the defender in his way. A flash of white crawled from under the table and ran between the legs of another man before he could get his hands on her. Sam's knife suddenly appeared in the man's back and he fell. Dean couldn't get by the warriors in his path but Emily had a chance. She'd sprung to life and fought back and she had a chance.
Two men were on him now. There was no space to draw a weapon. His hands were busy trying to fend off blow after blow. He threw one man onto the altar, flattening him over a candle and treating him to a flaming death.
"Dean! The door!" Sam was thrown into the wall as he yelled, directing Dean's attention to Emily's escape. She was running out the door with that same bitch hot on her tail. He threw another punch into his opponent's jaw as another man followed Emily's escape. He was slower, weighed down by the noxious book he was attempting to save from the bloody battle scene.
The bank of large windows gave Dean a panoramic view of Emily's flight while he fought. The man chasing her had fallen out of his field of vision, leaving only the stark raving mad woman following the little girl across the yard. Emily ran like a terrified rabbit, flying toward the trees.
Get to the trees, baby. He tried to send that message to her as he cracked a chair against his opponent's face only to have his legs kicked out from underneath him. If Emily could get to the cover of the trees, she could hide. If she could hide, she could stay alive. If she could stay alive, he could find her. Get to trees, baby. I'm coming.
Sam was on his feet, blasting a bloody hole into the last man standing between him and the backdoor. Dean was still tangled in battle.
"Go, Sam! Get to her!" He threw another punch as he got to his knees and wrapped his free hand around the demon blade protruding from a corpse's chest. Sam would obey, just like Emily did. He'd promised and he would.
Sam was gone from the room and Dean turned one eye out the window, hoping to see his brother come around the corner and bust a cap into the bitch coming after his daughter. But he didn't show. There must have been one more bastard in his way.
The last warrior launched himself toward Dean and he shoved the blade upward into the man's guts. From the edge of his peripheral vision, he caught sight of Emily stumbling and falling in a heap on the ground.
Get up, kid!
She tried to rise but she was too late. The infuriated woman was on her, scooping Emily up into her arms and making a break for it across the dirt. Dean strained to push the hulking dead body off of him so he could get to the door. He hit the porch, vaulting over the railing and into the yard. Sam was just rounding the corner when his boots hit the dirt. Off to the side, he registered the broken body of the second thug who had trailed after Emily. He lay in a twisted pile thrown beside the side of the house, his neck snapped and eyes frozen open in death.
The woman was half a football field away by the time Dean saw her and started running. She stood on the opposite side of her car, slamming the back driver's side door closed in a panic.
"Stop, you bitch, or you're dead!" He yelled across the yard but she didn't stop. She jumped behind the wheel and fired the silver rental car to life. He couldn't match horsepower with the car on foot and she'd be out of the drive and on the highway in seconds.
Squaring up his stance, Dean leveled his weapon, setting up a shot toward the moving car.
"Tires, Sam!" He heard Sam skid to a stop just behind his shoulder. The barrel of Sam's gun flashed in the moonlight as he settled and took aim.
In the second Dean tensed to squeeze the trigger, an odd pop broke the brittle silence around then. It wasn't Sam's weapon or his. The vehicle paused, screeching to a halt in reverse, engine sounds ceasing.
The sound of an explosion shattered the night, followed by a savage fireball bursting from beneath the engine. The hood flipped into the air like some enormous coin toss. Flames invaded the car's interior, leaving no space untouched and bursting glass from every window.
The nauseating smell of burning flesh penetrated every molecule of air around Dean as he raced toward the burning vehicle, scanning the landscape, hoping to see Emily's body thrown free from the explosion. The horror of it turned his perception to slow motion. He wasn't moving fast enough. There could be a pocket of safety inside that inferno. He could get there and pull her out. One part of his mind was making this possibility real, demanding that the laws of fire and air change to save Emily's life. She wasn't on the ground, wasn't anywhere but inside that burning red nightmare.
Dean could hear himself yelling, calling Emily's name so she would know he was coming for her. The sounds scraped against his throat, burning as the boiling hot air flooded into his lungs. He was almost there, close enough to feel the flames singe his skin.
Then he was on the ground. Someone had tackled him, rolling him over the ground, stopping him from getting to his daughter. He fought, kicking and struggling to get away from long arms holding him back. Sam's voice was breaking through in muffled waves, telling him to stop, telling him she was gone, saying it was suicide. Stop, damnit. Stop.
Fire. It was gobbling up Emily. The fire that had stolen his mother. Hungry. Unforgiving. Unmerciful fire.
TBC