summary: Sam figures out where he is (kinda) just in time for a visit from you-know-who. In the flashback, Dean's got clingy vampire problems...that are just getting worse.
Author's note:
SO CLOSE to the end. So very very close. Thanks for hanging in there. Hopefully all of your expectations will be rewarded in these last few chapters.
As always, thanks to Agelade who tells me when I haven't described a stained glass window well enough. YOUR SKILLS ARE INVALUABLE!
Caladrius
Chapter 18: "The House that Winchester Built"
May 2, 2007
Sam - 24
Dean - 28
Sam.
Sam... don't say yes.
Tingling on his cheek. Moans. A million moans-no screams. It's just one great agony of humanity and it's all stopped fighting. Writhing, muddy, bloody, cut and exposed, like a raw nerve, hot and cold at once and unending despair...
Sam. Please. Please don't say yes.
It's a soft voice... so soft, riding the waves of human suffering like a puff of dandelion down...
Sam opens his eyes and he sees her. The ghost of her, even more of a ghost than a ghost-a shade of a girl with dark hair and sunken eyes and frailty.
"Emily?"
He can see too much through her, and every once in awhile her image flickers like a guttering flame. But she nods her head.
"H...hey," he begins carefully, trying not to scare her off or, God forbid, attract one of the other restless spirits in this place. "We've been looking for you. Are you okay?"
She presses her lips together and her eyes start to leak tears.
"Don't say yes."
Her voice is barely a voice.
Sam sits up with effort, holding his side.
"Emily..." Sympathy floods where the pain is. "I'm so sorry."
"Don't say yes," she says a little more insistently, and it's clear that whatever she is trying to communicate is coming at a heavy cost.
"Okay, okay. It's okay. What do you mean?"
"Sam!"
Amber and Patrick literally just appear through a set of double doors. Amber hugs Emily and the other girl moans into her shoulder as Amber tries to pet her hair and comfort her.
Patrick looks down at Sam.
"What the hell happened?"
"Uh... not sure. It was rolling and dark, and then I was spit out here."
Sam sits up first, taking stock. The rib is just bruised, thank God, but it doesn't make it easier to breathe which is definitely not good news.
"I mean, how did you get Charlie to let you go?"
Sam shrugs. "I gave him a birthday present. Long story." Slowly he gets to his feet and examines this new room. A grand ballroom by the looks of it, but what arrests his attention from Patrick's questions and Amber's reunion with Emily are the two large stained glass windows that spill a permanent twilight across the dusty wooden floor.
His eyebrows come together and then his jaw drops open. He tucks his right arm close to his side as he takes a few tentative steps forward, staring at the words painted carefully on one of the elaborate stained glass windows.
"Huh. I know this place. I know it now."
"What?" Patrick says.
Sam's mumbling to himself. "I'm such an idiot... but the original furniture was all replaced after she died. This place probably has all of the originals, which is why I didn't recognize it until now."
"What? What place?" Patrick and the two girls are listening to him now as he turns around.
"Man, I always wanted to come here growing up, but my Dad said that hunters had been through it and there was nothing supernatural about it despite the claims." He looks to the ceiling, turns around, seeing his environment as if for the first time. "This is the Winchester Mystery house. Sarah Winchester was rich and she spent her life building a house non stop with weird stairways and useless rooms and secret passages. These stained glass windows were the final clue. They're unique because of these inscriptions. She had them made especially for her ballroom, and the ones here are identical to the ones still in the house I visited. See this one?" He points to the first window. "It says, 'Wide unclasp the tables of their thoughts.' and this other one, 'These same thoughts people this little world.' Both are lines from Shakespearean plays."
Patrick shakes his head. "Wait, so... this place... this place exists out there? In the world for real?"
Sam nods his head, "That's exactly what I mean. But how'd it get here?"
"I think the better question is what kind of drugs was that lady on?" Patrick mutters.
Sam licks his lips. "Not drugs. Sarah Winchester married the son of the man who invented the Winchester rifle. She had some tragedies in her life, like her husband and infant daughter dying, but she didn't start building the house until someone told her to."
"But who would tell someone to build a crazy house like this? And why would she even want to?"
Sam is thinking back. All those years ago, the charm of a mystery house with his own last name. He could never understand why their father wasn't even a tiny bit interested in at least stopping by once. So Sam had done what he always did-he read about it. As much as he could. And there were enough compelling legends surrounding it to keep his imagination fueled for years until, finally, his first year of college at Stanford he and a couple friends traveled to nearby San Jose to see it.
And yeah, so sue him, he had to sneak in an EMF meter because come on, but it wasn't like he was on a job or anything. And it had been clean. Crazy and kind of fun, but clear of anything the meter should have picked up had supernatural entities really been in the place. So, how the hell...
"Sam? Hello? Earth to Sam." Patrick waves a hand at him and Sam blinks through the memories.
"Sorry, what?"
"I said, who told her to build the crazy house?"
"Oh. Uh," he thinks back. "It was some psychic from... Boston maybe? I think. Told her she should build it to hide from the spirits of the people killed by her father-in-law's guns. Something like that."
"A psychic?" Amber breathes.
"Yeah. They said she even used to hold seances in the house, but like I said, nothing ever pinged a hunter's radar. No link to the supernatural."
"Sam, you said a psychic told her to build the crazy house," Patrick reiterates.
Okay, clearly the kids are riding a wavelength he isn't on. Sam shifts his weight and tilts his head.
"I'm missing something?"
"We're all psychic, stupid!"
Patrick looks aghast at Sam's complete obliviousness. Amber puts a hand over her mouth and giggles. Emily's blank stare matches Sam's for a second before...
Oh.
Oh shit.
"Okay wait. What are you thinking? Are you thinking... that the psychic was actually channeling... the boogeyman? That the boogeyman told her to build the house?"
"Could he do it? Probably," Patrick tosses off. "All he does is mess with peoples' heads. Makes them believe their worst fears and stuff. Was this Winchester lady afraid enough of dead people to build a wackadoo house? Yeah. Looks like it."
Sam shakes his head, considers this. "All this time, hunters were all just focused on the house itself."
He felt like he had just failed Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader, but it brought out a smile. "Okay, so, wow. Good catch on that. Of course... not sure of the laws of physics that somehow mirrored the building of the house on that plane to this one, but connection? Yeah, I'd say a definite yes. Still... all the rooms. What's the purpose? What's the point?"
"Why oh why oh why a Winchester house. Why oh why oh why oh why a home sweet home for Sam Sammy. Loves a mystery, other people's fears."
Amber screams. Emily presses her hands to her ears and suddenly is just gone. Patrick steps through the wall clearly on impulse, on instinct, because that voice...
They all know that voice.
The temperature in the room drops to below freezing. It's not really possible that the ceiling, the walls, are being slicked down, coated from the top, in a sheet of ice. It's like something out of a movie or a dream, but Sam knows he's not dreaming and he can feel that cold. Or maybe he can't. It's almost impossible to tell reality anymore in this place. He steps away from the windows, towards the center of the room, eyes casting all around for the ambush and it sucks that there is no safe corner he can put his back against in this place.
The ice makes a tinkling crackling sound as it plasters over any possible egress out of the room, reaching tendrils to the floor. Sam's trying to keep calm, but nothing about this is good. If he loses his footing he's going to go down, hard, and he's been doing way too much of that lately.
Great, so, back to plan A-taunt everything that wants to kick his ass and bring it out while he still has the strength to fight it.
"Now you're just showing off. And I've seen way worse than this. If you want to scare me, you'll have to do better."
Why a Winchester house for my Winchester? Is that what Sammy wants to know? Wanted a house because you'll be here for a long time, Sam Sammy. Forever. A long long time whispering things.
"Don't count on that," Sam responds. The voice comes from everywhere and nowhere.
Only safe place. Only safe place for Sam... don't you remember? Do you want to remember? Emily knows...
Emily's ghostly frame and the only words she's spoken so far...
Don't say yes.
But what could that mean?
Sam wants to know, wants to see for himself.
The boogeyman's hissing taunts should just be irritating by now, but Sam can't shake them off. They are lifting something, getting under his skin, confusing him, walking through a door in his head that he could never really close and the proof is that he's here because of it.
Knew you were coming... waited a long time for Sam...
And then the ballroom and the ice begin to melt around the outline of an actual door. The water sizzles, condensation rises, the lights darken until there is no ice and no room, just a door outlined by licks of fire.
Now the panic is rising because this can't actually be happening but it is. And all of Sam's intellectual processes, that maybe the boogeyman has both physical and mental control of him now, are shutting down and giving way to instinct and a terribly seductive deja vu of something just out of reach in his memory.
It's your door, Sammy Sam. Go see. Leave everything here if you want. Go see the door, Sammy's way out. Yes, the only way out...
This door is familiar, and he shouldn't go towards it, but he's doing it. His feet are walking by themselves. He wants to know because knowing this was important at some point but he shut it all down, put it away. He terrifies himself with his willingness to put his hand on the handle. To turn the knob. To push the door open against the flames...
A blast of heated air from a furnace blows his hair, stings his face, singes his eyebrows and he tries to stagger back, but now the pull of it, the memory is inexorable. In agony and fear he raises his arm to try to protect his blistering face, but somehow he can still see it:
Yellow eyes.
Go through the door, Sammy Sam Sam. They talk about you all day long. All day all night. Go through the door and leave here. That's what you want. See what's there... for you, for Dean. See what's there for you... in hell.
His shirts have burned off, his arm shielding his face is taking the brunt of the heat but he can't pull back and he can't get away and all he can do is burn and my God there are no words to describe this pain and his mouth won't work to even try to give them form.
His hair has seared off completely. He knows it somehow. He can't scream because his lips have blistered and bubbled away, his teeth and jawbone are exposed and charring, and he tries to not fall forward but the pain is so bad so bad that he almost wants it to be over with. Wants to just let the fire roar through him and burn him up and leave him quiet forever.
Sam!
He wants to let go.
Sam! Fight back!
It's not the boogeyman anymore.
Sam, please! You're going to save us, you promised!
Amber.
Sam gasps.
He's in a cold room and a monster is on top of him. An inky darkness with two reflective eyes inches from his own, rows and rows of piranha teeth, sadistic grin, and an almost hysterical red and white striped top hat that somehow makes it worse.
And he can't breathe because of the huge hands around his throat, suffocating him. He scrabbles uselessly against the bony gloves, closes his eyes against the vision because it's horrible and it's in his head, and in a moment, he feels it, he's going to lose to it again and if he does that he will die.
It's hard to move and everything hurts and the pressure on his throat is stopping the blood to his head and his eyes feels like they are going to explode out of his skull and he has maybe five seconds left.
One
He bucks up as hard as he can.
Two
He bends his right leg.
Three
His hand reaches down to his boot.
Four
His fingers touch the hilt of his knife.
Five
With every last inch of his soul, with all the strength in the universe left to him, he stabs the boogeyman in the side with cold iron.
A shriek like the scratching of a hundred nails down a chalkboard raises every hair on Sam's body...
And then the pressure around his neck and the weight on his body is gone, and the ballroom is just a ballroom and Sam is somehow alive.
Alive and gasping. And crying. Because the tears are coming and he can't stop them and he needs to erase the last five minutes of memory from his life because he's not sure he can go on with the heat and the horror in his head.
"Sam!"
Amber's back and she's touching his face. Little sparkles of her get through, but Sam is not ready to face her or this fucked up place yet. He manages to turn onto his side and coughs, drags in painful breaths. He can start to feel sensation coming back slowly into his feet and he tries not to moan into the water leaking from his eyes, some vague and almost giddy fear that Patrick will see him as less than a man for it, but it's not possible to be entirely silent about it.
Amber's voice is soothing him, telling him he's okay now, and Sam feels endless guilt that he's comforted by it.
It's several more minutes before Sam can sit up, get his shit together, push things to the back, and remember what he's supposed to be doing.
Amber is sitting on the back of her legs, her little pink nightgown neatly tucked around her.
"Sam... are you okay now?"
He takes a deep breath. He can't truthfully answer yes to that, but relative to what he's been through?
"Y...yeah. Maybe."
She nods her head and purses her lips like she knows. And of course she knows.
"Not gonna lie though. The boogeyman... is the scariest thing I've ever fought." He tries to push a smile through for her sake, to let her know he is going to be fine, even if he doesn't think he will be for a long time. If ever.
"Yeah. He's scary." She agrees. "But I'm glad you woke up. We can't stop him and he was gonna..."
Sam nods. He gets it. "The boogeyman has a physical body, but he can get inside your head just by making eye contact once." He glances around the ballroom, remembers the ice, the fire. Shivers. "Hard to tell how much of it is real and how much is in your head."
"I'm glad your knife is real," Amber says, eyes falling on the blade covered in what could only be black blood. "I think you actually hurt him."
Sam picks up the knife. He's got nothing to clean it with, now, except a shirttail and he doesn't want boogeyman blood within a mile of his own.
"Yeah. He has a physical body. He can be hurt, but the trick is making sure you hit the right place. This knife is made out of cold iron, and that works against some spirits and monsters, but it's hard to tell whether the boogeyman is actually weak against it or if stabbing it was enough to run it off."
"Jesus." Patrick appears in the room. "Is Sam still alive?"
Amber gives him a wilted look.
"Okay okay. Damn. Hey," he sits down next to Amber and stares at Sam. "Okay, I'll give you badass points. No one survives a direct attack. Nobody. Ever."
And Sam can't help but wonder if that's why the boogeyman's targets are all almost defenseless children... which leads to the disturbing thought why am I worth the risk?
"You mean... he did this thing... to you guys?"
Patrick shakes his head. "Nope. I mean, not to me or Amber. We just ended up pretty much starving. The Unlucky ones though... I guess he gets... impatient for whatever it is they have that he likes better."
"Like Emily?"
And speaking of Emily.
"Oh crap," Sam starts, looks around. "Where's Emily?"
Amber's chin tilts up, she scrolls her head to the right and left. "I don't actually think she went far. I think I can kinda feel her." And then to the air, "Emily, Sam's okay and he's gone. Come back, please!"
Sam feels a creeping along his spine and sits straight up as Emily's form flickers hesitantly. She, too, is sitting on the ground, almost hovering over him. Sam feels bad that his first move is to draw away from her, but a lifetime of hunting spirits has ingrained some basic instincts.
"Emily."
"Don't say yes, Sam."
Sam's eyebrows draw together. She's tied up in all of this, the girl who can hear hell, who only repeats this cryptic plea over and over. But say yes to whom? The boogeyman? Something else?
Images of the fiery door spring back into his mind's eye and he has to let his curiosity go for now because he can't lose his focus. He has to get out, and Emily is right now the best chance of putting an end to the boogeyman's nightmares once and for all.
"Okay, okay," he soothes, "I won't say yes. But right now we need your help because you've been with the boogeyman and we need to know how to fight him. How to stop him. Can you... can you tell me something? Do you know anything?"
Emily's form flickers and for a second, Sam holds his breath.
She shakes her head.
The air leaves him feeling as deflated as he sounds.
Amber persists. "Emily, I'm really sorry, but can you... can you try to remember something? Even if it's scary and bad. Sam is the only one who can help us..."
"Freighter."
Sam blinks at the whispered word from the pale girl.
Freighter?
"What?"
"Oh Jesus, of course," Patrick groans. "She's lost it. Or we're screwed because there's just no way."
Sam stares at Patrick stupidly.
Amber touches Emily's arm. "Really, Emily? Are you... are you sure? Because he's..." She bites her lips. But Emily nods and repeats the cryptic word.
"Okay, I'm out of the loop here. What does freight have to do with this?"
"Not freight," Amber corrects him. "Freighter. Like. I don't know. That's what he calls himself if you see him. Freighter. He's an old old man, and we think he's the oldest one here, but he's really creepy and speaks in crazy gibberish and yells a lot."
Sam blinks. "Wait, you mean... you mean frater?"
"Is there a stupid echo in here?" Patrick snarks. "Yeah, frater. That's the guy. Two things you learn as soon as you get here: hide from the boogeyman and don't go to the chapel. Ever. Frater is creepy as hell."
"Oh my God," Sam says with amazement. "Oh my God."
"What, Sam? What?" Amber starts.
"He's losing his shit," Patrick moans. "I knew it."
"No, no!" Sam says excitedly and leans forward, whispering, "There was a man once, hundreds of years ago, named Brother Luciano. He knew more about the boogeyman than anyone at the time or since. I mean, this guy chronicled his attempts to actually stop the boogeyman."
"Wait, and you think frater is this guy?" Patrick scoots forward having apparently decided Sam wasn't entirely off his rocker yet.
"I know he is." A surge of hope makes his fingertips tingle, and even though he has to keep whispering because he doesn't have enough oxygen for a lengthy explanation, his tone encourages their luminous faces to lean closer, hang on his every word. "When he was in his 60's he just... disappeared. Frater means 'brother' in Latin. As in Brother Luciano. Guys, he hasn't been talking crazy talk, he's been speaking another language. Probably old Italian or Latin. That's why you can't understand him."
"Holy shit," Patrick whispers back. "You mean, this whole time we were all here with a boogeyman hunter and we just couldn't get it because he doesn't speak English?"
"Yeah. I mean, it all fits. It fits..."
"But Sam, how is that going to help us now?" Amber pipes up. "I mean, even if we find him and he's not..." She shivers, "too scary, how can he help us if we can't understand him?"
Sam smiles broadly. Laughs a little. Wants to laugh more because, holy crap, this might be the answer. "I don't know much old Italian, but I know my fair share of Latin. I don't have any of my books on me, but if Frater is still intact somehow after all of these years then that means he's found some way to fend off the boogeyman and he might be able to tell us what his weaknesses are."
"I can't believe I am about to willingly lead someone to the chapel," Patrick groans.
"If you're too scared, I'll do it." Amber says, jumping up like a pink bullet.
"Pfff. Yeah right!" Patrick stands up, looks down at her, but Amber is sticking out her tongue.
Sam chuckles. He turns to Emily and smiles. "Thanks. And hang in there, okay? Just hang on a little longer."
She looks like she's going to cry. She touches his shoulder and her mouth opens to say something, but nothing comes out.
"Hey, it'll be okay."
Her face doesn't look any happier, but Sam stands up, finds his bearings.
"All right, let's get to the chapel. I'm running out of time."
On the way to the chapel, Sam scrolls through what he knows about the physics of this plane. So far, fire emitted warmth, gravity was constant, if a bit staggering, and the air was breathable if thin. Dust and the smell of mold suggested that some microbial creatures were alive here, and that meant that the atmosphere was likely similar to the one he knew.
The house was a puzzle. How had it gotten here? And what lay outside? Every window looked out onto a landscape of nothing. A watery gray light was all that could be seen, as if the house was permanently encapsulated by a thick fog. When asked, the kids admitted they didn't know what was outside. All of the doors and windows were locked even against their spirits. Barred. At least in their experiences. And while Sam was naturally curious he was also cautious. There was no way to tell if the atmosphere outside the house was poisonous or worse even if he could find a way out, and despite his logic and rationality, he couldn't help but remember the house from the movie Beetlejuice where killer sand worms roamed beyond the house's borders in the netherworld...
All the way to the chapel, Emily flickered. Frequently she turned her head to give him a sad, soulful gaze which Sam interpreted as pity. And, frankly, that was a bit off-putting considering how much more pitiable she was. Amber held her hand, and the two of them and Patrick walked in front of him.
"So, hey, can I ask a question?" Sam breaks into one of Patrick's Frater ghost stories. Apparently ghost stories among ghosts could still instill fear in a youthful imagination.
"Yeah," Amber said readily.
"Where are all the other kids? I mean, I've only seen you three and Charlie, kind of. So."
Amber shrugs. "Hiding probably. Watching maybe. They don't have to be seen, and actually, Sam, um... since you seem to be bringing the boogeyman around a lot even on Vacation Day, they're probably kind of scared to be around you. But that's not your fault."
Sam's shoulders drop a little at that. Common sense, really. He should have figured that out himself. He is a target and the boogeyman is scary enough to him let alone the souls of kids he's been tormenting for years.
"Yeah. I guess you guys are the brave ones then," he tries to smile, but he knows it doesn't reach his eyes.
"Or the stupid ones maybe," Patrick snorts.
Amber reaches over and pushes Patrick. She turns to Sam and her grin is soft. "I'm glad you're here, Sam. I knew you'd come. And I believe you."
He feels the moisture spring to his eyes without warning. Her faith, after being told for so long he could never do this and succeed by his own brother, is an injection of confidence into his conviction.
It turns out that the double doors to the chapel, besides being solid oak except for a cross-shaped stained glass window inset at the top, are, apparently, locked.
"Oh yeah," Patrick makes a face. "You can't just, like... go through them."
Sam chuckles and hunkers down to examine the keyhole, blowing into it briefly before peering into it. "Actually," he reaches into his pocket and pulls out his tools. "I can go through them pretty efficiently. Compared to the locks I've picked in my life, this is really nothing."
He can't help the grin on his face as Patrick processes this information.
"Hey, Amber, your boyfriend is totally a criminal."
But his expression is one of respect, not contempt.
"He's not my boyfriend," Amber says hastily. "And besides, you already know he's a good person, so quit it."
The ancient keyhole gives way and Sam stands up to point to his handiwork with a self-deprecating grin.
"Yeah, practically a saint. But I bet I'm losing 'good' points breaking into a church."
"No," Amber cuts in. "It's not like that. Tell him, Patrick," she encourages.
Sam turns to Patrick, looks at him for an explanation.
"Well, I know when people are lying." Patrick supplies. "I mean, that's my... psychic thing. I can't explain it, it's just a feeling. I can't read minds or anything or see the future or whatever but if a person is a cheater or a liar, I know right away."
Sam's eyebrows raise. "Wow. Really? That could be... really handy."
"Yeah. But it's not as great as it sounds. I constantly got in trouble for calling people on their bullshit. Do it a couple of times and you find out how much people really enjoy their lies. Like, sometimes so much it's messed up."
Sam thought of Dad. Of Dean... of himself sometimes.
"Yeah. I maybe see what you mean."
"Anyway, Sam, you're okay. At least, you're trying to believe all the stuff you say so maybe it's worth hoping a little. And the door is open." Patrick gestures, "So have fun with Frater if you find him."
And for the second time in ten minutes, Sam feels his resolve reaffirmed.
"Seriously, you don't mind if we just... watch from here?" Patrick adds quickly.
"I don't mind. Whatever you guys need to do to feel safe. Believe me, I don't blame you for anything." Sam drops his hand onto Patrick's shoulder. The familiar tingle is somehow warm even if it's not solid. And then Sam steps over the threshold.
1993
Sam - 10
Dean - 14
Dean stepped over the threshold from the wardrobe's hidden wall passage into another dark room, heart pounding. He could hold his breath, make no noise, but he couldn't keep that damn chest muscle from banging against his ribs and he couldn't make himself perfectly calm.
If he spared a second at the time to think of how lucky it was that they had holed up here and not some motel somewhere, it might have done some good. A motel would have been a death trap. This old farmhouse, used as a kind of way station for hunters, had at least been stocked with resources. But Dean's time had been limited, and there was still the little brother in the basement trapped in his head with a boogeyman. If, at any point, this vamp got tired of chasing Dean, Sam was as good as dead.
Only problem was, taunting a vampire on a solo mission was, by itself, practically suicidal. But Dean couldn't die. Not now. Not like this. Because unless he could somehow coordinate dying and taking the vamp out at the same time, dying would just give Sam over that much sooner.
Fuck.
Laughter coming from the bottom of the stairs.
"You know, kid? I gotta say, you've got guts. More guts than your old man attacking a guy's home in the middle of the day."
The voice at least gave Dean an idea of where the damn thing was.
"Seriously. This is some little job you've done. Not dumb. I kinda like that. Futile, of course, but I'll give credit where it's due."
Dean was in the back bedroom. Machete in one hand, mini flashlight in the other, he gave the room a quick once-over. Yeah, untouched. Fangs hadn't been back here yet. After figuring out his blood-on-pillow ruse in the other room, it probably thought it was a distraction to keep it upstairs which is why it came back down instead of exploring further, and it hadn't been wrong. Totally. Dean turned the flashlight to the floor to find the end of the cord where he left it an hour ago. He ducked and grabbed it just before he turned off the flashlight and tucked himself next to a dusty bookshelf to wait.
"Maybe I'm going about this all wrong. I mean, your dad's left you here. Alone. Guess he does that a lot. I know all about the absent dad deal-mine jetted when I was eight. Mom became a crack whore. You know, the whole sob story. But then I found my real family. It's not as bad as you think, kid. I mean, if it were, you think I'd have been following your sorry asses for weeks to avenge them?"
Dean pursed his lips. The vamp had been walking slow, stalking the stairs, the landing. It turned towards the first room, stopped at the door there, and then kept walking.
So, yeah, it probably was close enough to hear his heartbeat, and that meant it had at least a 25 foot reach on that. Probably more. Good to know if he could ever manage to get enough in front of it.
Dean stuck to the side of the bookshelf like flypaper, sweaty hands on the machete handle and the cord.
A deeper darkness blotted out the rectangle of semi darkness in the doorway-a few seconds of total silence in which Dean could feel it searching for him with its eyes, not just its ears.
"Kid, don't bother with the sneak attack. I know you're in here."
Dean squeezed his eyes shut. Opened them.
Seriously, man. Sack up.
New plan. If he could keep the monster's attention on him, maybe it wouldn't notice the other stuff in the room.
He stepped away from the bookshelf.
"You're a chatty bastard," he said in his toughest voice, holding the machete at chest level, making it a point of focus.
The vamp half laughed. "What can I say, I've never been shot once before, let alone twice. Kinda bracing. Hurt like hell though, so, I mean, I'm gonna owe you for that, but maybe it doesn't have to end all the way for you."
"What the hell are you talkin' about?"
Just step right in here, asshole. Come on, you've been walking and talking just fine til now.
"I'm talking about changing your lifestyle. Like, a trade off. You get an unlifestyle, but you'll be living in ways you can't imagine."
Dean shifted his weight slightly as he began to actually pay attention to what the monster was saying.
"Wait. Is this some kind of invitation to the vampire prom?"
"Hey, you got some skills and an attitude. You'd be pretty fantastic on this side of life. And, bonus, it would probably piss daddy off bad."
Dean laughed. Really laughed. Because, seriously?
"Oh shit, man. You're gonna need a much better pitch than that to get me to play on your team. You haven't met my Dad but you've seen what he can do. Solo. He's not exactly the kind of guy that just waits in the living room after curfew to ground a kid. Trust me, neither of us wants to piss off my Dad. At this point, your best bet at keeping your own unlifestyle is to basically get the fuck out and get gone. Fast."
It couldn't be this easy, just convince the vamp to leave, but every second Dean bought was a second for backup to arrive, to think of strategy, to stay alive.
"Yeah, I somehow don't think daddy's gonna get back before we resolve this one way or the other. How old are you?"
"Old enough to blow you away with a shotgun. Twice."
The vamp smirked.
"Yeah, touché. Take my offer, kid. It's the best you're gonna get."
"Why don't you come in here and make me?"
"Oh, you mean, like, rush in all gung ho and hobble myself on all the rusty nails you've got laying down on the floor?"
Well, shit.
"Yeah, I don't think that's gonna happen."
Dean's palm was slippery on the machete handle, his grip so tight he was losing sensation in his fingers. He wanted to wipe it down, but that would mean letting go of the cord.
And then the vamp did start to move into the room. Carefully. Toeing Dean's makeshift caltrops to clear a path.
"I think maybe you're cornered in here. Unless you somehow jump out the window. But then if you break a leg, it's game over and you know that. You're not an idiot."
You're right about one thing at least.
Dean took a deep breath. His heart picked up the tempo, and that could send the message that he was scared out of his mind, which he was. A mixed blessing. He tried to watch the vamp's feet and face at the same time, focus on them both so it didn't catch him focusing on one crucial place on the floor.
"You're still alive because you got stones. I figure, even if I kill you all off, I'd still be alone. You're kinda young to turn, but you could be like a kid brother. And, believe me, when you get the blood and you see how it could be, you'll toss this old life behind you in a second."
Just one more step.
"I already got a brother, and he's all I want."
"Well, then, that's too bad because-"
But it didn't get to finish its sentence.
Dean stood back and pulled the cord until the muscles in his arm felt like they'd snap.
It was a makeshift tripwire constructed of three lengths of Venetian blind strings, tripled up and knotted for durability, laying hidden under the nails.
The cord came up, went taut against the lamp hook he had nailed into the wall earlier, hit the skinny vamp's legs and threw it right down, face first, into the upturned nails.
It screamed and writhed which had the bonus of increasing his crappy trap's effectiveness.
"Like you said, I'm no idiot you sonofabitch."
Dean leapt right to the edge of the nails. It was a stretch to keep himself from falling into his own trap, but he had to try to get the machete to the damn thing's neck, now.
"You fucking little-!"
Dean raised his arms, fast. He wasn't sure if it was going to be a clean shot in the darkness, but he had to take it. And then he drove himself down.
At the last second, Dean's forward momentum was stopped by a hand on his wrist. Nails elongated into claws, it jerked him off balance.
"Fu-!"
Before the swear word could get all the way out his lungs, his arm was pulled down and what felt like a hundred razor edges dug into his flesh. It was like being on fire, and his heart clenched up as if the damn thing had physically grabbed it. And Dean knew, knew, it was already sucking his blood.
"Unnh!"
The vamp's other hand grabbed his shirt. In milliseconds it was going have its fangs in his neck. In milliseconds every choice he could ever make in life would be taken from him.
Dean was running on pure adrenaline, pure killer instinct. He somehow managed to grab the machete from his pinioned arm and slashed. It wasn't his dominant hand, but his swing managed to hit meat and he struck out again and again and then he was falling backwards and he was somehow fucking free for the moment. For the second.
And Dean didn't wait. He pulled his wrist to his chest, tried not to think about how it felt to have his blood sucked-strangely compelling, almost seductive-by a guy no less, and heaved himself to his feet.
"You little cocksucker. When I'm done with you..."
It was gurgling, but not dead. Goddammit not dead. But it was bleeding and so pissed off and Dean didn't have time to cover his escape with a clever ruse, so he slammed the side of his uninjured hand against the panel and got into the wall as the vampire swore at him and started to find its way out of his nail trap. Dean knew that even if he managed to hurt it, hobble it, it was going to heal. And heal much much faster than he could.
And Dean was bleeding. Bleeding good. He needed five seconds to deal with that or he was going to pass out.
The machete arm struck out to help him navigate in the darkness. He went left, further around the back of the room, stumbling gracelessly in the process, needing to put some space between himself and the clingy and deranged monster inside.
Breathing hard, Dean bit the machete handle in his mouth to free up his good hand and ripped the bottom of his shirt artlessly. He wrapped fast. It was all he could do. It was quiet out there and probably that wasn't a good sign but...
The wall exploded a foot behind him. An arm reached through and Dean almost tripped over his feet trying to get away from it. He stumbled against the outer wall and tried to back away.
Sonofabitch!
"Where do you think you're going, kid?"
Oh shit. That laugh sounded really crazy.
"I tasted you. You're fucking bleeding a river. There's no way you're hiding. You got me? I can find you here, there, in fucking Egypt now. You thought you were boned before? Just wait. Just you fucking wait."
Dean grabbed the machete from his mouth and raised it to hack at the arm he could see, and then it disappeared only to peel two feet of the wall away.
Oh, fuck!
Dean turned and did his best impression of running for his life in the opposite direction in the pitch darkness and bare one foot of crawl space he had.
This was bad. This was really bad.
"Rats in the walls. Well, you know what you gotta do with a pest like that..."
Dad! Sam! God! Anyone!
(to be continued...next chapter it's the dual showdown you've been patiently waiting for!)