Chapter Thirteen

Sorry for the delay! I so did not mean to take this long. I had a family reunion, and then I am house-sitting for a friend while she's at her son's graduation in Texas. I have actually had this written for days now, but I forgot her Wifi code at her house. I finally found time to type it up at work! Enjoy!

"Missing?" asked Priestly, flipping into detective mode. "As in, taken?"

"I don't know—" gasped Piper. "I just—" Another gasp. "I don't know—" Another gasp.

Priestly squeezed her shoulders a little tighter. "Piper, calm down. You need to breathe." He inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly a couple times, trying to get her to mimic him.

After a few moments, Piper started to imitate him, her breaths growing slower and deeper.

"Good," said Priestly. He pointed back at the green room doorway. "I need you to head in there and wait. Don't tell anyone about Jen yet. Can you do that?"

Piper nodded, and Priestly escorted her to the door before turning and heading down the hall towards Jen's dressing room. He opened the door, foolishly expecting a scene of struggle in the room he could investigate. Instead, he found a room perfectly in order, not a thing out of place.

Priestly frowned as his eyes roved over the vanity. Except that…

He moved over to the vanity, looking down at the small crack in the mirror. He reached forward, brushing his fingers lightly over the crack. As his arm moved, he caught a glimpse of something shiny in the mirror. He turned to the loveseat he had seen it under in the reflection, kneeling down and reaching under it. His fingers brushed over something metallic, and he picked it up, staring at it.

Jen's earring…

He had recognized it immediately; it was the same pair she'd been wearing at the grill before a date with Jeff and had then lost one. The team had spent a good fifteen minutes searching before Priestly had found it under the oven. He would recognize it anywhere.

Priestly looked from the earring, which looked a little bent on one side of the diamond casing, to the crack in the mirror.

Now, what are the odds that Jen threw this when she's happy for her wedding day?

Looking closer at the earring, he spotted red. Turning the earring around, he found blood along the small post.

The bottom dropped out of Priestly's stomach, and his heart just about stopped. His vision began to dim, spiraling down to that one blood-stained earring. The implications of that earring were too much to take. As he began to hyperventilate, he got a hold of himself.

Freaking out isn't helping Jen. Focus!

He breathed in and out as he brought his panic back down to a manageable level. After a few moments, the world came back into focus, and he found himself standing at the door of the room, gripping the doorjamb in one hand and Jen's earring in the other. He had gotten to his feet somewhere in the midst of his panic attack, wanting to escape the room.

As he stared down at the floor, he spotted something else out of place. Priestly released the door frame and squatted down, reaching towards the pale yellow stuff at the bottom of the wall next to the door. The powdery substance stuck to his fingers, and he brought his hand up to his face, sniffing at it and getting a big whiff of rotten eggs.

"Sulfur…" Priestly muttered, staring in horror from the yellow powder to the bloody earring. "Oh, crap…"

Priestly sprang to his feet, rushing out of the room and down the hall. He emerged into the foyer, desperate to get to his dad and brother so he could pull them out of the wedding chapel and—

Wait.

Priestly pulled himself up short before he reached the chapel doors. He couldn't just burst in there. They were all already worried about the delay. If he ran in there all flustered, they would fear the worst and cause a panic.

Ignoring the couple people in the foyer calling his name, Priestly steeled himself and stepped into the doorway, walking slowly yet urgently down the aisle towards the fifth row where Sam and John sat discussing something in hushed voices. Heads turned as he headed down the aisle, and Jeff seemed to sigh in relief. That relief turned once again to confusion and then worry when Priestly stopped at the pew, turning to face the foyer doors.

"Excuse me, gentlemen," Priestly told Sam and John, who looked up at him in confusion. "You have an urgent phone call in the lobby."

From the looks on their faces, he could tell some of the concern was showing through his calm façade.

"Right," said John, clearing his throat. "Of course."

He stood as Sam did also, and they stepped into the aisle, heading for the doors. Priestly followed them, giving people an awkward, short smile as he went. Sam and John headed into the foyer and to the left, away from the wedding party, before they turned to Priestly, all business.

"What is it?" asked John.

"Jen's missing," Priestly replied.

"Missing?" asked Sam, eyes wide.

Priestly nodded. "Taken."

"How do you know?" asked John.

Priestly held up the bloody earring in his left hand. "I found this."

John took hold of the earring, looking at it.

"I also found this," Priestly told them, holding up his right hand for them to see the sulfur on his fingertips.

"Sulfur," John confirmed.

"A demon took her?" asked Sam. "Why?"

"I don't know," said Priestly desperately. "But we can find him, right?"

John nodded. "There are signs we can check: lightning storms, temperature fluctuations. Did you find anything else?"

"Other than these two, her dressing room was clean," Priestly told them.

"Okay, we're gonna have a second look to make sure," said John, gesturing to Sam. "Someone needs to tell everyone a cover story."

"What cover story?" asked Priestly. "She eloped without the groom?"

"An appendicitis," Sam supplied. "Those can crop up fast. You got this covered?"

"Yeah," Priestly nodded.

John and Sam turned and started to head down the hall.

"Guys," Priestly called.

They stopped and looked back at him.

"We gotta find her," Priestly told them.

John nodded. "We will." He turned and led Sam towards the dressing room.

"Priestly."

Priestly turned to see Tish standing in the foyer, brows drawn together in anguish.

"What's going on?" she asked. "Do you know what happened to Jen?"

Priestly looked in the direction his family had gone and then back at Tish, sighing and stepping over to her. He placed his hands around hers. "Tish…Jen's been kidnapped."

Tish's face paled. "By what?"

"A demon," Priestly said quietly.

Tish's eyes went wide and began tearing up. "A demon? B-But Jen isn't—She doesn't have anything to do with—"

Priestly's hands moved to her shoulders. "Hey, nothing is going to happen to her. We will find her and kill that evil son of a bitch. I promise."

Tish nodded, taking deep breaths.

"Now, I need you to do something," said Priestly.

Tish nodded once again.

"I need you to go in there and tell everyone that Jen had an emergency appendicitis and was rushed to the hospital," said Priestly. "They'll be contacted when the wedding is rescheduled."

"Why me?" asked Tish.

"The only people that would've known are those that were with her," Priestly explained. "Everyone knows Zo has been out there, Piper's a wreck, which leaves you. Can you do this?"

Tish nodded a couple times. "Yeah…Yeah, I can do it."

"Then grab the others and meet at the shop," said Priestly. "Remember, to Jeff, Noah and the others, my dad and brother are F.B.I., not hunters."

Tish nodded one last time before turning towards the chapel and heading inside.

Priestly turned on his heel and strode toward the dressing room, finding Sam and John focusing intently on separate spots in the room. "Anything?"

They both looked up at him.

"Looks like you were right," said John. "It's pretty spotless. Nice job on the search, by the way."

Priestly nodded off the compliment. "We will find her, right?"

John gave him as close to a warm smile as he could under the circumstances. "We will."

"We are pretty good at what we do, remember?" Sam reminded him.

Priestly nodded. "Right. Of course." He cleared his throat. "I've got Tish rounding up the gang to meet us at the grill."

"Okay," said John. "We've done all we can here. Let's do recon. See if we can find any other incidents in town."

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Tish made her way down the aisle, feeling everyone's eyes on her. She kept her gaze riveted to the floor, trying to compose herself for what she was going to say. As she stepped up onto the low stage, she avoided Jeff's eyes, which probably only made him more upset.

Tish turned towards the guests, taking a deep breath. "I'm sorry, ladies and gentlemen, but the wedding is going to be postponed. Jen started feeling very sick, so we called an ambulance. The doctor just called and said it was appendicitis. Not to worry, though. Jen is doing okay and will be back on her feet in no time. Um…you'll be called about when the wedding will be rescheduled."

The guests all stood, muttering amongst themselves, and wishing the groom and family members get well wishes as they left. When at last the only people left in the auditorium were Jeff, Tish, Trucker and Noah, Jeff stepped over to Tish.

"Come on, I wanna get to the hospital as soon as I can," said Jeff, heading for the exit.

"Well, that's the thing," Tish called out, halting Jeff's progress towards the doors. "She won't be there."

Jeff frowned. "At the hospital? Why not? I thought you said you called an ambulance."

Tish sighed, looking around at everyone as Piper, Zo and Julia walked in with the rest of the wedding party. "There's something you guys should know."

************************************************** SPN/TIH******************************************* *********************************

Priestly shifted his shoulders, extremely uncomfortable wearing his suit for this long. Perhaps it was the way he had been dressing the last two years or maybe he just never liked suits, but he did not want to be in this thing anymore.

"And you're sure there haven't been any disappearances lately?" Sam asked the police officer they were interviewing at the station.

"Not since Sherry Winters last spring," the officer replied.

"Any strange deaths?" asked Sam.

"Nothing out of the ordinary," said the officer.

"What about weird occurrences?" asked John. "Anything abnormal or unexplained?"

The officer frowned in thought. "Not really. It's all pretty quiet in this town."

"Well, thank you for your time," said Sam.

The three hunters turned and left the station, heading towards the Impala.

"That didn't sound promising," muttered Priestly, loosening his tie.

"It happens," said John. "We run into hunts where it is literally the only weird thing going on."

"But we still have other options, right?" said Priestly as he stopped at the back passenger door and watched John circle around to the driver's side. "Other leads?"

John exchanged a quick look with Sam at the front passenger door before looking down as he opened the driver's door, completely avoiding Priestly's stare. "We always do."

As Sam climbed into the passenger seat and John into the driver's, Priestly stared across the roof of the car, not really comforted by John's false platitudes.