Chapter Thirty Seven

Scruffy's tail wags languidly, dragged back and forth over the flattened brush, almost seeming like a promise, a promise that, no matter how terrible his injuries, he won't be giving in anytime soon, despite his darkening vision and the slowing beat of his big wolf heart.

Hugo's hand trembles violently as he in vain attempts to hold the phone steady against his ear, barely hearing its shrill ring over the labored breathing of the mutt cradled in his lap. The stench of spoiling meat stagnates the air, clogging Hugo's nostrils with its foul perfume. Scruffy laps in exhaustion at Hugo's leg, but another shot of pain seems to go through him, stiffening his every muscle. His tongue dangles lifelessly for a few seconds as he twitches.

"Dammit, dog!" Hugo leans down, pressing his forehead against one of the bloody wounds at Scruffy's throat. "Dammit! Damn you! I can't do this without you, Scruffy. I can't. Pull yourself together!"

The wolf responds with nothing more than a low groan, not even fluttering his eyes in comprehension.

"Hello?" Bryon's voice on the other line sends a hysterical shiver through Hugo.

"Bryon!" he cries into the phone, voice shaking nearly as badly as his hands. "You need to come back! Right now! We need you, man! Scruffy's been hurt!"

"Calm down." The man's voice is steeled, but also gentle. "Deep breaths. Calm down and start again."

Bryon soothes his nerves the way a mother's heartbeat soothes an infant. The warmth in Bryon's voice is laced with urgency, a sort of guarantee that, no matter what may ail Hugo, he'll made it better, just like he always has. Hugo's pulse eases slightly, influenced by Bryon's impenetrable calm. His rapid breathing grows slower, his trembling limbs lessen, and his voice quakes less.

"There were some people," Hugo pants, struggling to crush the shallow pattern of his breathing with every flaky word. "I think they murdered a family – there's a dead family. It's like they were ripping them open… They were past the one-fifty marker, so Scruffy couldn't chase them off."

"That's why I don't advise that method," Bryon acknowledges, voice gentle, perhaps not pressing the matter because of Hugo's raging anxiety. "What happened?"

"I don't know, man, I don't know!" Hugo rubs at his eyes with his wrist, not allowing any liquid panic to escape his tear ducts. "It was Penryn that went out there! She needed some time alone, and I guess she crossed the border, and… I heard so many gunshots, Bryon. So many. One after the other. Apparently they all went into Scruffy."

"Is Penryn there with you?" Bryon questions sharply, his tone refined by his focus. "Can she help stem the bleeding?"

"I –" Hugo gnaws at his lip. "I think they kidnapped her, Bryon. Tires squealed as I was running this way, and she's nowhere to be found. No body, nothing. I – I couldn't catch it, I couldn't…"

"Don't worry." Bryon's assuaging voice returns, this time with a more wearied cadence shaping his words. "You did the best you could. I'll handle her. But Scruffy – how is he doing?"

"He's stopped twitching at his name!" Hugo cries in a panic, eyes wide as he feels for the wolf's pulse. The lethargic heartbeat pounding sluggishly beneath his fur is only marginally comforting.

"Put me on speakerphone, and do exactly as I say," Bryon instructs, his wisdom only adding to the power backing each word. "You need to clean the wounds and dig out the bullets, then stem the bleeding. This will only be temporary, but don't worry, I'm on my way."

My focus wanes in and out with an acute and painful throbbing in my head. The only sharp sensations I can really feel are the rope bindings around my wrists, around my thumbs, and around my ankles. Fuzz covers my gaze, so even if I manage to pry my eyes open, I don't have much to look at. Instead of training my meager will on my vision, therefore, I hone my hearing as much as I can and listen into the daunting conversation echoing through the car.

"Keep breathing, Jim!" the one with the nasally voice hollers. "Keep breathing! Dammit, I can't handle Pa by myself, Jimmy. Keep your shit together!"

"I'm alright." It's a frail grunt, a mere fraction of the powerful, throaty-voiced man that had gone head-to-head with Emilio's knife. "Bitch got me good, though. Dammit."

"Why are we even bringing her along, Jim?" the other snarls. "We should repay the favor and dump her off the road somewhere."

"That ain't right, Howard, you know it ain't," sighs Jim. "We ain't the monsters here. We can't start acting like 'em. Got enough blood on our hands hauling Pa around, we don't need to add more."

"What's one more girl?" Howard grunts, his nasally voice almost making me shiver in my bindings. "Bodies already pave the streets. Who's to say we shouldn't put one more? Cuz if we didn't stop her when we did, it'd be Pa's body stacking on top of the others."

"Stop that," Jim growls, his command followed by a weak slam of flesh on flesh. "We're just going to get where we need to go, switch cars, and leave her behind to fend for herself. Nothing more."

"Then she'll blab to her friends, the friends that can engineer a giant mutant wolf, and we'll have a bunch of angry mutts on our tail!" Howard protests, growing angry. "We can't stand up against scientist nutters and keep Pa safe! We can't handle that right now! No, what we need to do is make sure no one ever listens to her! Ever again!"

"We are not killing that girl!" Jim shouts, the engine roaring.

"Fine!" Howard snaps, his voice gradually growing maniacally quiet and cool. "Fine. We don't need to kill her. But no one listens to a fucking bitch if they're labeled as a 'fucking bitch'."

Jim is silent for a moment, and I can picture him staring at Howard without comprehension. "What are you sayin'?"

"I'm sayin' that there's a slave trade going on down in Los Angeles." The car jolts, as if someone had slammed a foot onto the breaks, but it quickly starts again. "Maids, handymen, sex slaves – the likes. Didn't you hear that whackjob back at the shop, Jim? Humans and angels coexisting, united by that need for enslavement. I say we get her over there and give her away to one of those feathered things – give her, not sell her – and then we don't worry about it no more."

"What are you saying?" Breathily, Jim laughs nervously, as if he's staring Death between the eyes but trying to play it off. "Pa hasn't been the same since Ma died, but neither have you, have ya? But when you made a deal with the demon, you gave away your heart instead of your humanity!"

"Be real," Howard scolds. "It's this kid's virginity – if the whore even has that – or dad's life."

Jim's voice is frigid with horror. "I am not selling – or 'giving', whatever – a little girl into the sex trade."

"But –"

"No." He launches into a fit of violent coughing.

"She stabbed you!"

"So she did," Jim hacks. "But we… we… attacked her dog first."

"The dog attacked us!"

"It did not," he scolds, his wheezing resembling cold laughter. "It leapt from the bushes and growled all scary-like."

"It's her or Pa, Jimmy! Time for you to decide who you care about more!"

Jim is silent for a moment beside his puffing coughs. In this moment, I find myself praying that Bryon's God does look down upon me, and I pray that it is benevolent, despite what he may think. I hope with my heart beating painfully in my chest that Jimmy will hold out on his goodness, and not succumb to Howard's cold, biting logic. I bite my lip and squeeze my eyes, shut, releasing a shuddering breath from the backseat of their truck.

"She's awake," Jim says quietly, voice neutral.

Howard whirls around, his eyes gleaming angrily, and, with the swift motion of his fist, I'm awake no longer.

I stumble to my feet, glaring murderously at the intruder lounging in my dream world, not even twenty feet away and utterly at ease with my furious presence.

"What are you doing here?" I growl, curling my hands into fists.

"I could as you the same question." Lucius flips a page in his yellow-paged book, glancing over his sunglasses over at me. "After all, it's my dream you're trespassing in, and I'm not acting at all rude about it."

My mouth falls open at the austere tenor of his voice. It's as if I'm talking with any other normal person, here in this dream – his chilling tones don't inspire the trill of fear down my spine, and I find no fear with his menacing presence. Perhaps it's because his mental voice is different from his actual voice, or perhaps it's because of our rather childish surroundings are manipulating the cadence of his speech.

Lucius lounges on a lawnchair made from huge blades of grass braided together beside a red speckled toadstool for a table, where a dainty glass teacup rests, filled with something that could either be wine or blood. The hooks and blades on his black wings gleam in the plethora of bright golden sunlight leaking in through the canopy above. Curled up beside him is a fearsome looking creature swamped in bushy fur, looking almost like a fluffy dog.

Undone in the front and almost slipping off his shoulders, the white suit seems at leisure, as if I'm seeing him after hours, and the long pale tie is unbound and dangling around his neck. His bare feet nearly sink into the plushy moss, and his long, scrawny legs are crossed at the ankles.

"You seem comfortable," I note, swallowing down the bitter lump of hatred damming my throat and allowing my eyes to drift far enough up Lucius's bored-looking face, pale skin smooth as marble, to see dark purple blemishes ringing his eyes like a raccoon.

"It is my dream." He flips a yellow page in his fraying novel; I try to read the title printed onto the maroon leather with grandiose golden ink, but it's in some chicken scratch language. "I'm not accustomed to having intruders. I would ask for an explanation, but you're too thick to have one. Word of advice: don't listen to any animals outside of the meadow, especially not the snake."

Encompassing the small, unnaturally green clearing is a massive emerald forest with no end I can see, unlike the sky, which fades into a golden-white fog. Before it fades into fog, little silver specks of light lazily drift around, and brilliant blue butterflies flit over jewel-bright blossoms at the edges of the meadow.

"Where are we?" I wonder, gawking at the mangy creature panting by Lucius's side.

"Fairyland." Calmly, Lucius flips another page, fascinated with an illustration inked into the paper. "Don't laugh, it's quite impolite; yes, I'm the Prince of Hell, and yes, I dream of Fairyland. I created this place as a boy – after hearing a storybook from your uncle. It's home."

"Bryon?" I attempt to mask my surprise by breathing in sharply, consequently tasting the earthy aura on my tongue. "When did you… he read you a storybook?"

"As a child, he and I spoke often." Flicking a bloody cow knuckle at the animal, he pats the dog's head, glancing down at it almost too stoically. "I believe he took pity on me, golden-hearted oaf. You witnessed our first reunion in centuries. I think it went quite well."

"What is that thing?" I whisper, watching as the dog gnaws at the bone, slavering at his lips and glaring with blazing red eyes at me, as if to warn me that it's his and only his.

"My dog."

"How is your dog in this dream?"

"Oh, he's not actually my dog." Lucius pats its head again, an alien kindness softening his sharp features. "Not anymore. She used to be. Best friend, Fluffy was. But the moment he saw my mangy dog, Father Beloved snapped her neck with a flick of the hand. I resurrected this place – and her – to escape my darling dad."

"Oh." I blink. "How do I get out of your vacation realm?"

"With a flick of my hand or a snap of my fingers, you'll be long gone, returning to whatever the hell made your subconscious decide it was better to come here than stay. But first…" Lucius snaps his book shut, standing so abruptly the dog woofs in surprise; behind his sunglasses, I get the feeling that a keen gaze is focused. He stalks across the moss with the dog at his heels, looking me up and down. "Do you know what's happening? Has your little mystery-solving gang latched on to any clues to this puzzle?"

"What puzzle?" I cock my head, brow furrowed. "What are you talking about? And back up, you are entirely too close."

He doesn't back up – rather, he takes a step closer, so close I can see the twitch of his eyes moving behind his sunglasses. "Does he not know, or do you not know? Because with either answer, you're no use to me anymore."

"Great. Let me go."

"I shall." Cocking one pale eyebrow, Lucius grins sleazily. "And the escape plan is my thanks for this brilliant conversation. Now, get out."

He snaps his fingers with a teasing smirk.

I awaken with a jolt, my mind utterly clear unlike it'd been last time I'd drifted back into waking thoughts. Frantically, I right myself despite the constricting ropes, pushing up on the leather padding to find that the front seats are vacant. Neither of the country boys are to be found. Gazing out the back window into the back of the truck, I see that they aren't nestled out there, either.

Frantically, I seize Emilio's knife from the front seat, inching around like a retarded caterpillar. Though I can't operate the razor sharp blade well without the use of my thumbs, which are bound with their own personal set of shackles, it's comforting to have a weapon in my hands. Tucking it awkwardly in my belt, I begin to study the situation with my rope cuffs.

I get out of the ankle-ropes in no time, simply by kicking my feet apart to loosen the nooses around my legs and then slipping my shoes off, allowing the restraints to slip off with ease. Although my self-defense training had included how to get out of wrist bindings, it requires the use of my thumbs, and I have never been trained anything about these annoying shackles.

I can't pull at the bindings because my fingers can't reach my thumbs. I can't wriggle out of them because I can't move anything but my fingers. I can't maneuver Emilio's knife to cut through the godforsaken thing because without my thumbs, I'd end up slicing up my hands in the process of cutting myself loose, and even then I probably wouldn't be able to do it.

Though it should be the last thing on my mind as I wrestle with the thumbcuffs, I wonder what Raffe would do in this situation. Probably just tear free with his angelic power, which doesn't help me much.

Caught on the subject of Raffe, I think about him as I start to bite the knots on my thumbs and pull with my front teeth. Would Hugo have called by now? Would the archangel come back from his quest? Knowing how fast he flies, he might even be at the female aerie by now, wherever it is. Would he turn back from that, only to come after me? He'd said he'd clean up my messes, hadn't he?

My thoughts are interrupted as the annoying thumb shackles at last slide off. I sigh with relief, stuffing the information of the thumbcuffs into the back of my mind. It'd only work with a gag, but with a gag, they'd be handy for sure.

Slipping free of the wrist ropes, I grab Emilio's knife and prepare myself to exit the truck. Before I can launch myself out of the car, though, I notice something by the side of the road.

An oblong pile of grey stones rests in the swaying grass by the highway, with a large pine tree jutting out of one end like a headstone. At one area of the tree, the bark is chipped away as if someone had laboriously used a knife to pry off each slice until they reached the tender wood underneath. In that area of wet-wood, someone had sloppily carved "JIM" into the tree.

Exactly like a headstone.

My stomach rolls with confusion. So, I'd killed the bastard, just like I'd planned. But now, I'm not completely sure if I should've. If I could go back, I'm not completely sure I would've.

I glance up at the sky, and a jolt of surprise tingles through me – the sky is dark now, rosy with either dawn or dusk. Thinking back to the perilous conversation I'd overheard, I remember that the sky had been white then, and the car filled with the grey daylight of morning, so this must be dusk. An entire day of driving could've carried me far, far from Hugo and Scruffy – at the thought of the poor wolf and my last dismal memory of him, my heart squeezes, as if a ghostly hand strangles its every pulse.

But, as I study the grave before me, the more realistic thoughts dwelling in this labyrinth of a brain overcome my fears. For Howard to create that big a final resting place, to carve Jim's name into the wood and collect all those stones must've taken more than a few hours. And before that, as they'd first set off, they must've stopped somewhere along the way to bandage up Jim's stab wounds and get the dad under control. So, I'm looking at more of an eight hour drive, which is only slightly better.

I stick my head out from the car window, craning it around hesitantly. Howard is still around here somewhere, and he's undoubtedly out for my blood. Instead of spotting the bastard, though, I spot his Pa and the meal he'd created for himself.

Howard looks fairly fresh, to be truthful. I suppose his father enjoys eating healthy.

Face splattered in blood, the father looks up from his meal strewn haplessly across the highway, the guts he'd been shoveling into his mouth quivering halfway across. The hungry glare in his eyes is so feral, so distinctively animal that I find myself terrified. For a petrifying moment, I believe he's going to bolt to his feet, to chase me down and kill me the same way he did an entire family and his own son.

But the man doesn't. He gnashes his teeth and hisses at me like a cat, but he doesn't come after me, as if he's a dog that'd been given a command not to.

First, Jim's words come back to me: "But when you made a deal with the demon, you gave away your heart instead of your humanity!"

Lucius's words don't really come back to me, like a memory resurfaced – I find more likelihood in him whispering them to me again. "And the escape plan is my thanks for a brilliant conversation."

"You bastard," I mutter, clenching my teeth angrily. Though I am angry and though I am disgusted, the intrigued wanderings of my curious mind can't truly be helped – how many pies does Lucius have his fingers in? How many people's madness can really be accredited to some sick demon with more daddy issues than the Winchesters?

Stumbling out across the road, Emilio's knife gripped in both hands, I scan the area better than I'd been able to cooped up in the truck, but there's nothing to see, aside from the cannibal, the cannibal's son, and the first vulture of many to come stalking across the pavement towards the carcass.

Searching the back of the truck, I find three backpacks, a whole lot of chips and water bottles, a few dehydrated meals, granola bars, a long line of rope, a cell phone, a wilderness survival guide and kit, and a few changes of clothes. Grabbing the biggest backpack, I chuck in all the food I can grab and stuff the wilderness kit into an extra pocket. After much debate, I decide to add the book, too, despite the extra weight, and then hook the loop of rope onto one of the outer carabiners.

On top of my T-shirt, I throw on huge plaid flannel, one most likely belonging to Jim, the biggest of them all, over my shirt to keep me warm tonight as the shadowed air reaches frigid temperatures. Fishing out a pair of slightly littler jeans, most likely belonging to Howard, the smallest of them all, I duck into the car and pull them on. I cut them off at the right length and tie it onto my waist with a makeshift belt made of the rope they'd used for my knots.

I weigh out my options – I could either look up and down the road some ways to search for an indication of where I am and risk meeting up with other psychos as day to night does turn, or I could take to the sparse woods around me and risk the nighttime wildlife.

After a silent hesitation in which disgusting noises from the cannibal are the only thing audible for miles around, I dart into the woods, relishing in the cover darkness provides. Though I try to keep briskly walking, the terror of being alone quickly makes me break into a run. Because of Howard's jeans, the thorns barely bother my legs at all.

Angrily, Raffe stuffs the phone into his pocket, growling deep in his throat. He shuts his eyes tightly, his hands curling into fists so tight, his jagged nails send ribbons of crimson trickling over his palms. "Dammit."

And here we are again.

POLL: Jim, Howard, and their deranged father, on a mad flight from civilization… thoughts?

Ciao,

~wolfluvermh