We followed Krissy and Jacob back inside, they'd barely made it down the stairs before Jacob had stopped moving. He was looking around and seemed to be focusing on all the books.

"Jacob?" Krissy asked.

If I hadn't been less than five feet from him I wouldn't have heard it, "Library," he whispered.

Krissy's eyes widened but she didn't show any other reaction, probably didn't want to startle him, "Yes, it does look like a library doesn't it?"

He didn't say anything else but judging from her reaction that was a lot more than she'd expected him to do. "Let's sit down and get some food, been a long time since breakfast," she said as she led him towards the tables. She sat him down and jerked her head towards the kitchen.

I was running through all the books within easy reach trying to remember if there was anything that would be remotely interesting to a ten year old kid that didn't have a ton of pictures of monsters, demons or hell in it.

I could tell Sam was too, he suddenly smiled, "I've got something we can look at while they're getting food. The stuff in here is kind of boring. Hang on." He took off down the hall and came back with a hardcover book that I'd never seen before. "My friend left this for me, he's trying to get me caught up on Batman. I get all confused with all these different story lines. You want to look through it?" He sat next to Jacob, set the book down and opened it up. Apparently comic books come in hardcover now, who knew? Jacob lowered his eyes to look at the pages but didn't do much beyond that. Coyote, Krissy and I took the cue and went into the kitchen.

"Take it he usually doesn't notice his surroundings?" Coyote asked.

"Once when we went to a park he perked up. I never thought of taking him to a library, I never know when he's going to snap into a panic so I didn't want to risk going where there wasn't an easy out. When we went to the park we stayed by the car so if we had to leave we could bail fast."

She looked worn out, I hadn't noticed it at first because I'd been more interested in Jacob, "How many other kids are you helping right now?"

She ran her hand through her hair, "Two, I have some friends helping out while I'm here. They're in a lot better shape than he is so have been trying to help me out with him. One is a hunter's kid who's parents gotten taken out by a witch. He's twelve, the other one is younger, a kid who was being raised by a single mom that got killed by a vamp. Her mom's family wants nothing to do with her so I'm fostering her for now."

"Damn." I never really thought about other hunter's kids much, Krissy had come into our lives by sheer luck really. I'd had my hands full just trying to keep Sam and I alive over the years.

"Sit, rest," Coyote said, "I'll make Jacob a sandwich. What do you want to eat?"

"Sandwich is fine. So do you think you can help him?"

"I'm a bit more optimistic now," Coyote answered, "The fact that he reacted to his surroundings is a good sign. I'm not sure how much about Native practices you know or understand but from what I can sense it wasn't just the killing that has made him like this. I think the power of the blade was far too much for him and destroyed his spirit. It's like trying to run too much current through an outlet, it shorts out the entire system. I may be able to help him but I can't make any promises. I've never really worked with a situation like this before. My teacher did but he's no longer with us. I have his teachings with me and will do what I can."

"I'll take all the help I can get. I brought his stuff. When Clive told me how bad he was I told him to grab pictures of his family and a few things from his room, sometimes that helps. The only time he's seemed to recognize them though is when he's panicking or crying. When he's like this I don't even know if he knows who I am. The pictures just make him feel worse though so I've stopped showing them to him."

Coyote had finished up the sandwiches and set one in front of Krissy and took the other one out to Jacob, Sam was still with him. I had a pretty good view of the two, Sam was pointing to something or other in the book but Jacob wasn't doing much. It killed me to see a kid that dead, that out of it. We'd dealt with some mildly traumatized kids before but they usually perked back up after we killed or got rid of whatever screwing with them. For him to still be this bad a month afterward was something I'd never seen before. Not that I'd spent a lot of time with families after a hunt. "Ever had any other kid that was this messed up?"

"One or two, but even then they usually pulled back out of it. You know how resilient kids can be. He may have had problems before this, who knows. I tried to find some information out but I haven't kept up with my hacking skills and I've been way too busy to really dig. Clive posed as a cop with missing persons and went to the school who said he'd was an average kid, no mental issues that they knew of but that doesn't mean there wasn't. He wasn't a stand out student or anything. Supposedly the parents were doing fine, good home life but how many times is all that a lie?'

"Yeah."

"So what do you think? Anything of what you've been through giving you an idea how to help him?"

"I don't know. I've dealt with one of the strongest curses out there but I had years of dealing with all this shit to help me out. I also took it on voluntarily, long story, so I was kind of ready for it. Just having something like that run through you with no warning, no prior knowledge and not even being an adult, I can't really imagine that. The guy who was playing delivery boy, the guys get anything out of him before they killed him?"

"Not a word and it wasn't from lack of trying from what I understand. They said it was like he didn't even feel what they were doing to him."

"He may have been under the blade's power too. It's locked away, we have some serious wards up where it is so it won't be influencing anyone."

She took another bite of her sandwich, "Still think that's a stupid idea Dean."

"I know, but if he is linked with it somehow, destroying it may be the only way to fix him." Not that I'm a big fan of destroying cursed objects. I always have this nagging feeling that we're just releasing all of that bad crap out into the world to find a new home. I don't have any evidence to back that up but still.

Jacob had been slowly eating his food, I guess he'd take commands from anyone because I'd heard Coyote tell him he needed to eat. The sandwich was halfway to his mouth when he dropped it and just about fell out of his chair as he dropped to the floor while scrambling away from Sam.

"No! Stop! Make it stop! I don't want to! Mom!" The sheer amount of terror in his voice hit that part of me that had been on vacation for over a year now. Next thing I knew I was halfway to him, I wasn't quite sure how I'd gotten that far that fast. I slowed up because it dawned on me that some stranger coming out of nowhere running full speed towards him wasn't probably the best way to help him.

Krissy shot past me and kneeled down next to him. "Jacob, shhh, it's me, Krissy. You're safe. You're not there."

His eyes were huge and jerking all around the room, he was breathing hard and shaking like a leaf. He looked at his hands, "Not me! Not me! No!" Then he slammed his hands into his forehead, Krissy grabbed his hands with one of hers and pulled him tight against her with her other arm. "I didn't want to, didn't want to..." He kept repeating that over and over as Krissy hummed and rocked him back and forth.

I felt cold, my palms were sweating and my heart was racing a lot more than it should be for running maybe twenty feet. Sam had held that four year old version of me a lot like that when we were inside my head and I'd told myself over and over I didn't want to kill him for most of the year I'd had the Mark.

"It wasn't you, it's not your fault," Krissy said.

This was hitting way too close to home,. Sam's gaze shifted from Jacob to me, he moved his head towards the kitchen and nodded. He knew, but I couldn't walk away. It was my choice to come here, I'd known what Jacob had been through and I wasn't going to bail just because it was uncomfortable. I shook my head, his eyes narrowed but he didn't push it, at least for now.

Coyote slowly walked over to them, "May I try something?"

Krissy nodded, Jacob's voice had grown softer but his shaking hadn't, he kept twitching and trying to get his hands free, Coyote started singing. It wasn't the song she'd used on me all those years ago, the words were different and so was the melody. It was slower for one thing and it sounded less Native, which made no sense because she was singing in Lakota. The notes she was hitting seemed more like a Western lullaby then a Native one. Krissy let Coyote take over singing and started matching the speed she was rocking Jacob with what Coyote was singing. Eventually he calmed down, closed his eyes and slumped back against Krissy. His breathing evened out and all the tension left his body.

No matter how many times I see Coyote use her Shaman side it still blows my mind. It's something that is so natural for her, such a part of her that I can't really understand how she ever turned it off. Demons, angels, monsters all that they have power, sure, but they also aren't human. Witches have to tap into something outside of themselves, use spells to do what they do, and in a lot of cases the spells don't require you to have any innate skill to work. Sam and I have pulled off tons of spells and exorcisms over the years and we're not anything special. It's blend herbs, recite words and go. The rare psychic that is the real deal, they can be pretty impressive too but what she can pull off is even beyond that. I don't think I'll ever get tired of watching her do things like this. Although it's completely stupid since I have nothing to do with her skill level, it makes me proud of her, proud and honored to know her.

Even though Krissy was still rocking him she was staring at Coyote, "You got him to sleep," she whispered.

"For now, we set up a room for him," she said, "Let's get him into a bed. Hopefully he'll sleep for an hour or two."

Krissy was in a pretty awkward position and couldn't easily lift him so she slowly shifted him to Coyote's arms then stood up. Sam and I followed them down the hall. Krissy pulled the sheets back and Coyote set him on the bed in the room we'd tried to make kid friendly and took his glasses off. They were thicker, light brown, plastic frames that covered the area around his eyes pretty well. Once she took them off we all saw the dark rings under his eyes, he hadn't had a decent night's sleep in weeks. Poor kid. They finished tucking him in and we filed back out.

"I put a few things in there that should help him keep calm," Coyote said, "Dean, I need to talk to you."

Sam and Krissy took the hint and headed back to the main room.

"I'm okay," I told her before she asked.

"For now. Rising Dove talked about a thing called Soul Retrieval. I never saw him do it but he left stories about it for me in his writings. When a person has a traumatic experience like this it shatters their soul or spirit like I said but the pieces can sometimes be brought back and put back together in some way or other. I don't really understand the concept and I'm not sure if my talents extend to that, also I'm not sure if Jacob is even capable of doing what he would need to, the ceremony usually requires a bit of help from the person who's soul is being retrieved. At least I think it does."

"Well Krissy's pretty stunned you got him to sleep so that's a start anyway. What can Sam and I do to help?"

She took her eyes off me and looked at Jacob, she was getting as stubborn about helping him as I was. She's never been one to back down from anything and I knew any chance she had to expand her skills she'd take. When Rising Dove passed away she'd told me that she'd never be as skilled as he'd been, would never be able to lead her people like he had. I told her she was wrong that he'd gone out of his way to get her to step into the role of Shaman so must have seen something in her. She hadn't believed me then but three years later she'd managed to get her people to move in directions they never had before. Their lives were improving and from what Rabbit and some others had told me she was much stronger than Rising Dove had ever been. She didn't see it but then I don't think you ever believe you're better than your mentors. Hell, I still think Sam and I are crap hunters compared to Bobby, always will.

"Right now, nothing. I need to research."

"Take it your guides aren't offering any advice?"

"Not anything useful like, do this and this will happen."

I had to chuckle, "Do they ever do that?"

She sighed, "No, but I keep hoping if I bitch enough about it they'll listen."

"I doubt you're the first or last Shaman that's bitched to them about that."

"I know, I know." A brief smile chased away the serious look she'd had since Jacob had freaked out, but it didn't stay on her face that long. "Depending on how this goes he may end up having to relive that whole event while I do it."

She didn't say what was on her mind but I figured I may as well say it, "I'll deal with that when it happens. Maybe just what you have set up in here will help him enough that we can get him through it."

"Maybe," There wasn't a whole lot of conviction in her voice.

"Look, I'll stay here, keep an eye on him, you talk to Krissy. Find out everything you can, never know what might help out. If he starts going off again I'll call you."

"You sure?"

"Yeah."

"All right."

She left, I went back into the room and sat next to him on the bed. "We'll get you through this Jacob, promise. It'll be hard as hell and suck a lot, but we're not going to let you relive that nightmare for the rest of life. You're too young for that. Way too young."

I kicked off my shoes, stretched out and leaned against the wall. Whatever magic Coyote had put in here was working on me too, I yawned and had to smile. "Damn it woman, you're too good at this." Jacob sighed, mumbled something and curled up into little ball. He was out cold. Good.