Chapter XI: Leave My Loneliness Unbroken

Dean contemplated the drop into the cellar. Normally Sam could have done it easily. Normally he would just have told Sam to handle the salt-and-burn while he waited topside, because Sam was right – Dean wasn't going to be able to get back up without something to stand on.

But Dean wasn't a fan of Sam trying to get down, and, worse, haul himself back up, with broken ribs.

There wasn't much of a choice, though.

"Here's what we're going to do," he said at last. "I'm going first. Lou, you follow. Then Sam."

He exchanged a glance with Sam, telling him without words that one of them had to have an eye on Lou at all times. Sam nodded, though he looked like he thought it was an unnecessary precaution.

Tough. Sam didn't have a little brother to look out for.

Dean leapt, landing lightly on the balls of his feet. He backed away. A moment later, Lou followed him down with a grunt. As soon as he'd scrambled aside, Dean yelled, "Sam?"

"Coming."

Sam thumped down far more clumsily than he normally would have done, falling to his knees as soon as his feet hit the ground. Dean was there right away to help him to his feet.

"Do you have any idea where it is?"

Sam pointed at a hole in the flooring where a board had been broken off. "That's where I found the letters. I didn't see anything there, but I wasn't really looking."

"OK. You go sit on those." Dean pointed at a stack of barrels that looked sturdy enough to bear Sam's weight. "Man the shotgun. If the douchebag even looks at you wrong, shoot him."

"So it's only Sam I'm not allowed to look at wrong?"

Dean turned to Lou incredulously, but he didn't bother saying anything. He didn't need to; he could feel Sam drawing himself up to his full height. Even injured, Sam managed to convey an impression of silent menace. If anything, the bruising on his face and the stubble from not having shaved that morning just made him look even more dangerous.

"You look at me however the hell you want," Sam said coldly. "But if I think you've got it in for Dean, I promise it won't be rock salt I'll be firing at you."

"See?" Dean said, grinning brightly at Lou and patting Sam's arm. "I don't have to watch my back. I've got the second-best hunter in the world doing it for me." Still grinning, he added, "And he's got the best hunter in the world watching his. So Sam's going to sit there and take it easy, and we're going to find Robert Unwin's body. Got that?"

Lou nodded grudgingly, and Sam, who really did look tired, seated himself on top of one of the barrels with the weapons duffel and a shotgun ready to fire.

"Look around," Dean told Lou. "See if there are any loose floorboards, anything out of place… Anything that suggests that there could be something underneath."

A sudden clap of thunder sounded outside. Sam looked up sharply. "I think that means we have to hurry."

"What, a storm?" Dean asked.

"The house. Remember what the letter said about it being sentient?"

"So you're saying my property has a mind of its own?" Lou asked sceptically.

Dean glared at him. It was one thing for him to question Sam. He had big-brother privileges. He wasn't going to stand by while the idiot who'd almost gotten his baby brother killed questioned Sam.

"I'm not," Sam said. "What I'm saying is that there's clearly something here. Maybe it was built over something sacred to the natives, or maybe someone cursed it. I don't know. But Poe said insanity ran in the Unwin family."

"Could've been a curse on the house," Dean finished.

"Exactly. Or it could've been the other way around. With the kinds of treatments they gave mentally ill people in the seventeen hundreds, it wouldn't surprise me if a lot of them turned into vengeful spirits. Marguerite and Robert could just be the only ones we've seen. Either way, that kind of paranormal activity could make the place a magnet for electrical storms."

"And explain why the cell phone connections have been so bad." Dean nodded as lightning flashed and thunder rolled. "Sam's right. This weather isn't normal."

"And there was the same kind of weather on the night Robert Unwin committed suicide. Apparently the storm was bad enough to bring down the house. None of this is normal, and we need to be quick." Sam glanced at Dean. "We don't have time to be delicate about it. Just tear up the floorboards. Do every alternate one, then we'll still be able to walk if we need to get out in a hurry."

Dean nodded. "Let's get to work."

"Not yet."

Dean groaned at the sound of the familiar voice, though he should've been expecting it.

"You again?" he asked Underhill – or, as he ought to start thinking of him now, Robert Unwin. "Dude, do you never give up?"

Unwin gave him just a passing glance before he turned his attention to Lou. "We had a bargain. And now I discover that not only did you break it, you were about to betray me for these two young men."

"No!" Lou scrambled away. "I wasn't, I swear."

"He's telling the truth?" Sam asked. "You made a bargain with a ghost?"

"I have to prove myself to Marguerite," Unwin said, leering unpleasantly at Sam. "She has not forgiven me for what I did, and I cannot rest until she does."

"So how does Lou fit into that?" Dean demanded. "He was going to hire you a lawyer?"

Unwin scoffed. "Please. No, your associate Mr. West wanted to build over my family home. In exchange for my leave to do so unmolested, he promised to bring you to me."

"What did you want with us?"

"I needed brothers. Or at least siblings." Unwin glided closer to Sam. "Your brother must die as Marguerite did. Your grief will persuade her that you would have done everything in your power to save him. She will be moved to pity, and she will forgive me for your sake. And Mr. West hoped that Sam's death would generate… What does one call it? Publicity? He tells me people will pay more to see his ghost house if the ghost is known to have killed somebody."

"Dude," Dean breathed. "You're insane."

"Of course he's insane, Dean," Sam said. "He was probably crazier than Marguerite, but for some reason nobody caught on. Or maybe Marguerite was fine, and you just used her 'trances' as an excuse to distract people from the fact that something was wrong with you," he added, speaking directly to Unwin. "I don't blame her for hating you."

Dean could tell what Sam was doing – drawing Unwin's attention away so that Dean could find his bones and drop a lighted match on them. Of course tearing up all the floorboards was out of the question now, but there had to be some way…

"Self-righteous little fool," Unwin snarled, inching closer to Sam. "West told me why he chose you. Demon-spawn."

Dean stopped short. He could hear the sudden hitch in Sam's breath. Lou was looking around for a place to hide, but the cellar was too small. The entire freaking world was going to be too small to hide him when Dean went after him.

As soon as the ghost was dealt with.

"What," Dean got out between clenched teeth, "did you say to my brother?"

Unwin didn't bother to look at him. "West told me everything. You, Sam, are far more cursed than anyone in my family ever was. You are a devil in human form, an abomination. If somebody must die for Marguerite to forgive me, nobody deserves it more than you do."

Before Dean could say anything, Sam caught his eye and gave an imperceptible shake of his head.

Dean hesitated, and then nodded tersely. Sam was right, but he didn't have to like it.

He forced himself to tune out Unwin's voice. There had to be something, some sign of where his body was buried.

In desperation, he knelt by the hole Sam had made earlier and tore up a couple of boards on either side. The rotting wood came apart easily, but there was nothing underneath.

Crap.

This was stupid. He couldn't randomly keep pulling up floorboards, not now. He had to do this like a college boy.

His eyes went automatically to Sam, sitting on a barrel with the shotgun aimed in Unwin's direction. He hadn't fired yet; he was just listening, keeping Unwin's eyes on him while Dean looked around.

And then Dean knew, in his gut, where the body was.

Under the barrels. That had to be it. And that was why Unwin didn't seem to give a crap about Dean pulling up floorboards.

Dean could smell the sharp tang of wine in the air. Maybe that had been intended to mask the smell of a decomposing body. It wouldn't have been enough, but it would have been the best desperate men could do.

Before he could shout out a warning to Sam, Unwin extended a hand and sent him flying back against the opposite wall. Sam's head hit it with a sharp crack that made Dean wince.

"She suffocated." The shelving on the opposite wall came loose with a horrible screech. "You must suffocate." Dean ducked just as the shelves flew over his head to slam into Sam's chest.

Crap.

No. No time for panic. Focus. He had to save Sam.

Dean eyed the wine barrels. He could dissipate the ghost with rock salt, but that would only buy them a minute or so. Not long enough to roll the bottles away and pull up the floorboards on his own, Sam was definitely too badly hurt to help now – he firmly shut his ears to the sound of his brother's gurgling breaths – and as for Lou…

Focus. The time to kill Lou was later.

Dean looked at the barrels again.

"Sam!" he yelled. "Is there wine?"

"Yes," Sam choked out. "Not much."

Not much, but maybe not much would be enough. It would have to be enough, because Dean didn't really have a backup plan.

He fired a round of rock salt at Unwin, yelling, "Get out of here!" to Lou as he did.

"How?" Lou yelled back. "I can't jump up to that!"

"Then go sit in the damn corner and cover your head. Sam, can you get out?" Sam, on his hands and knees, didn't answer. Dean cursed. "Hang on, kiddo." He pulled Sam to his feet and shoved him in the direction of the far wall. "Go. Hunker down. I'm coming."

"But –"

"Go!" Sam stumbled away. "Please work," Dean muttered. "Please work." He lit a match and set fire to the rim of the top barrel. "And don't kill us."

He shoved the shelving aside – no sense having that debris flying at them too – and ran to where Sam and Lou were both sitting against the far wall. Dean dropped to the ground between them and tugged Sam into his arms.

"Got you," he murmured, trying not to show his alarm at the blood on Sam's head. "Come on, kiddo. You're always looking for excuses to hug."

Sam curled into him. Dean held him close, feeling hair tickling his cheek and Sam's nose pressed into his neck as –

BOOM!

The fire reached the wine and the barrels exploded. Dean had hoped it wouldn't be enough to bring down the roof, and he'd have sworn that the explosion hadn't been strong enough for that, but a large section collapsed – not, fortunately, on top of them. He cupped the back of Sam's head with both hands, trying to protect it from further injury as pieces of flaming wine-soaked wood rained down on them.

"It's OK, Sammy. I've got you."

When he was sure there wasn't going to be more falling debris, Dean gently disentangled himself from his brother. "Hang on, Sammy. I have to make sure it did the job. I'll be back for you. Try not to move too much. You'll hurt yourself worse." He turned to Lou. "And you. You move a single muscle and I will kill you so fast you won't see it coming."

Dean went to the still-flaming wine barrels and kicked them aside. The exploding wine had blown a hole in the floor directly underneath. Sure enough, there was a body there. Or what was left of the body, at least, a few burning pieces of bone, hair and cloth.

Dean smiled grimly. "Goodbye, Robert."

He grabbed the weapons duffel, which was a little worse for wear but had survived, shook out some salt and dropped another lighted match into the grave for good measure.

"Come on, kiddo," he said, going back to Sam. "We can't wait for an ambulance to get out here. I'm taking you to the hospital."

"Can't walk."

"I'll help you. We're not going to have a problem getting back up… We can get up there where the ceiling's blown in, it's practically a ramp. We need to get you some help first. I'll come back and kill Lou later. Probably tried to cut corners and didn't cement the cracks or something, or the ceiling wouldn't have fallen. Of course, it's good for us that it did." Dean's chatter had kept Sam distracted while he was pulled to his feet. Dean noticed with concern that Sam was pale, his skin clammy and eyes unfocused. His breathing wasn't great either. "Head and ribs?" he asked sympathetically. "They always go for those, don't they? Sons of bitches." He started moving them towards the collapsed ceiling. "Come on. Let's get you out of here."

Dean left Sam sitting on the porch with his Taurus while he went to bring the Impala round. It was easier than making Sam walk all the way, and he didn't think Lou would try anything.

Once Sam was settled in the back with the spare blanket they kept in the trunk and Dean's jacket as a pillow, Dean pulled out his cell phone. He scrolled through the contacts list as he pulled the Impala onto the road.

"Hello?"

"Listen, you son of a bitch," Dean said without preamble, "next time you send us to someone who wants to sacrifice my brother to a ghost, you're going to be –"

"Garthed?" Garth asked, and Dean couldn't tell if he was joking or not. It didn't matter anyway.

"No. You're going to be Dean Winchestered. And that is a hell of a lot worse." Dean paused. "A hell of a lot worse."

"Dean, I –"

"Shut up."

Dean hung up and turned to look at his brother in the back seat. "Hang on, Sammy. I've got you."

He floored the accelerator as he made another call. It was answered on the first ring.

"Lady of Mercy Hospital. How may I help you?"

"I'm bringing my brother in. He's had a bad accident. Head injury."

"We'll be waiting for him. How soon do you expect to be here?"

Dean glanced at the speedometer. "In about three and a half minutes."