Lewisville, Texas
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
John finished drawing the last curving black line on a large sheet of paper, one made up of four pages photocopied from a Mapsco and Scotch-taped together. “This is the area we’ll be searching,” he said. “Everything inside the black line.”
“How do you know?” asked Sam.
“Because Henry Moser had a credit card issued from Terrence Farms that required him to enter the exact odometer reading every time he stopped for gas, and with the odometer readings and places on the map where he used either that credit card or his personal card, we can restrict his final location to a pretty small area. Almost a circle, about a mile in diameter.”
“That’s three-quarters of a square mile!”
“We’ll split up and search it. The EMF meters will help, and it shouldn’t take more than a few hours to search the entire area. It's like the warmer-colder game you used to play when you were six. The harder part is first, and that will be encircling the area with the banishing mixture. It’s a line about three miles long. And Laura’s spirit won’t be able to cross over the line, even if it’s a sparse line, to bother us.”
Sam looked up from the five-gallon bucket on the floor in front of him. He and Dean were mixing salt, pulverized angelica root, and crushed elecampane leaves, a simple concoction that seemed to be a bit too simple to work. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure. The problem is that spirits are all it will keep out. Not things they throw, wounds they’ve inflicted outside the safe area, or other things they can do from outside.”
“Sounded too good to be true,” said Dean. “How much time do you think we’ll have before she pitches a tent on the other side of the line?”
“That depends on your friends. Joshua is probably an easy mark, and I don't really know what she’ll do “ stalk him at midnight? Wait awhile? But if I was on a schedule that was tight, I’d spring into action right away, and I think she'll move close to midnight. The best thing we can do would be to call those singers and tell them how to hold her off.”
“I don’t have their number. It’s not exactly public information. Hey... wait a second.” Sam stopped stirring the powder and looked up at John. “We’re using them as a buffer zone? We’re supposed to be trying to save them!”
“Sam, don’t start with me right now. This has gone beyond rescuing a few people. Laura will have most of the powers of a demon if she isn’t stopped, and this is the only way!”
“We don’t know that. We don’t even know how she managed to get to the second tier with only thirty-five murders. Either we overlooked one when we went through the obituaries, or there’s another piece missing.”
John went quiet and filled the blender with more angelica root.
“What? There’s something you’re not telling us.”
John set his mouth hard and looked at each of them. “You’re right. I wasn’t going to say anything, because it wouldn’t make a difference, but if you’re going to be difficult, then I should tell you.” He glared at Sam and continued, “Laura doesn’t need you. I believe that you’re the one she’s after to take to the underworld. The greater demons are using her, and through her, they can all claim and use you.”
“I don’t understand,” said Sam. “She needs five lives. She only has five available.”
“Six,” John corrected. “She killed Beverly Mullins in 1946. Beverly was carrying a child, and in sacrificing Beverly, she claimed both mother and child. After the point that the baby is fully formed and would live apart from its mother, but hasn’t yet been separated “ they are two lives, but both accepted as sacrifices. Once born, the infant can die, but it will do the Sister no good.”
“Dad?” Dean prompted. “What are you saying?”
“Laura doesn’t want to waste Sam. She wants to ascend to the Third Tier with him alive. That’s why she killed Lisa, Dean. Your son’s birth would force Laura to kill Sam, like any other victim, instead of taking him to Hell whole, body and spirit.”
None of them spoke for several minutes. Sam shivered as he filled bucket after bucket with their protective powders and carried them, one by one, to the truck John had rented.
Finally, after dark, they’d packed in as much as they could into the truck bed and also loaded up the back seat of the Impala. John locked up the hotel room and pocketed the key cards. “Boys, it’s going to be all right,” he said. “We know what to do, and we know how to do it. And the faster we start, the easier it will be. After she’s gone, we’ll go to Sherman. There’s a surgeon up there who owes me a favor.”
Denton, Texas
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
He felt dizzy, and closing his eyes offered no respite. He could feel the bed under his back, the plastic-fabric cuffs around his wrists and ankles; as far as he could see, though, he was suspended, floating, and the disparity between tactile sensations and sight made him feel woozy.
He had lost track of the days. It was all the same to him; he couldn’t remember how long it had been since he’d been allowed to go outside, and feel the warmth of the sun. Months. He was eighteen years old “ probably nineteen, now “ and couldn’t even remember what was real in his memory and what he was just imagining. Chained to a hospital bed for days; thrashing out for freedom whenever he could, earning another hour, another day, another week in solitary confinement.
Tears pooled in his eyes and slid down his temples into his hair. They couldn’t blur the images above him; thick bars, crossing each other in cell patterns; skeletons prancing about on floors unseen, sometimes hovering inches above an iron I-beam, sometimes floating directly above him. He screamed. No one was there to hear him. No one could make it stop.
Shh, shh.
He turned his head, the only part of his body that he could move, in the direction of the sound. A nurse was standing next to him, dressed in white, watching him with sad blue eyes. He could see her, as she was, not as she would have looked to a machine.
He sobbed again, and her hand brushed against his cheek. “Help me,” he rasped, and nuzzled her palm.
“Shh.” She pushed her fingers against his eyelids. He let them close, and the jerking skeletons disappeared, blocked by her hand. “I release you from this.”
He felt her other hand move underneath his neck, and then there was a cracking sound, a brief blaze of pain at the base of his skull. Then he felt nothing, saw nothing, heard nothing, and it was sleep, rest at last.
Dallas, Texas
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
“You’ve been in there for twenty minutes. Hurry up! We’re going to be late!”
“I’m not going.”
“Then open up the door and start explaining why you’re taking up the bathroom, hmm?”
Melissa creaked the bathroom door open just enough to stick her head out. “It’s one in the morning.”
“Right. And we’re supposed to be meeting Mia and Desiree in room 404 at one-thirty “ phew, what’s that smell?”
“Powdered frankincense and benzoin resin.”
Amanda blinked. “Why?”
“Because it keeps evil spirits away, that’s why. Have you forgotten what day it is?”
“No, I haven’t. It’s Halloween. And that means that today is the day where the veil between the dead and the living is the thinnest, and ghosts come out and play. You know the best stuff to get rid of them fast? Hershey bars and Reese’s cups. With a few bags of M and M’s.”
“Fuck you, Amanda. It’s coming!”
Amanda retreated to the nearest bed in the hotel room and sat down on top of the jacquard quilt. “I can’t believe this shit. This is about what those two little stalker creeps in Denver said, isn’t it? It’s a good thing I still have their phone number somewhere with all the other loser numbers. Because I really ought to call the police and report them, and that cell number might be enough to track them down.”
“You just don't get it, do you? Our record contract! Brandon! It’s all because of that well, the one that was all your idea. And whatever is in it granting wishes is taking them back now. We’re only famous for as long as we live. And we are going to die if we don’t find some way to keep it out!”
“Calm down, okay? Just calm down.” Amanda got up and forced her way into the bathroom, then put her arms around her shaking friend. “Don’t let them get to you. We can stay here if it makes you feel better, but you’re really overreacting.”
“We don’t have enough.” Melissa shook harder and started to sob. “We don’t have enough incense to last twenty-three hours. It’ll be burned in one even if we only use a little bit.”
“I’ll go get more. Where did you get it in the first place?”
“A little shop about five miles north of here. I don’t think they’re open now, but you could break the windows and steal the jars they keep behind the counter. If you go fast. Maybe you could do it before it gets to us… or carry a little with you and burn it on your way.”
“Okay, no. I’m not going to burglarize a magic shop.”
“Come on! You could hire a lawyer if you get caught. You might get probation or community service or something... it’s that or we both die!”
Amanda sat on the seat of the ivory porcelain toilet and pulled Melissa onto her lap, firmly, to try to keep her from an all-out panic. “No, no, we’re not going to die. Did you take anything earlier today? I mean, I know we were smoking pot with Mia, but that’s not going to make you freak like this. Was there anything else?”
“No. Please just go, Amanda. You can leave money for repairs if you have to!”
Amanda sighed and tipped her head back, knocking it lightly on the carved mahogany cabinet above the toilet. “Fine. I’ll go. But you owe me, big time. Stay right here and don’t freak the fuck out.”
She grabbed her keys and purse and strode out the hotel room door. She had no intention of actually breaking into a closed shop; she could just go to the nearest Wal-Mart or grocery store, buy some herbs, stick them in a cloth bag, and say that she found something ‘better’.
This is fucking insane. She’s on something. I know she is. And this is one hell of a bad trip. Amanda made it four paces down the hallway before she ran into a woman that she was sure wasn’t there a few seconds ago. “Playing statue is so third-grade,” she said, and looked up to glare at her.
Someone screamed. Amanda didn’t realize for a few seconds that it was her own voice. The woman staring back at her was the one that she had dreamed of on four separate occasions... the life-giver, the inspiration for...
Amanda ran back to her room and struggled with the deadbolt. Her hands were shaking and she was already starting to hyperventilate. She eventually got the deadbolt into place and pushed a the small mahogany dresser in front of it.
“Amanda! I thought you were going to the magic shop!” Melissa cried.
Amanda sprinted to the bathroom and locked that door, too. “Too late. She’s here.”
“What?”
“The woman. The one that starts fires in our dreams. She’s in the hallway.”
“Oh, Amanda! What are we going to do?”
“We’ll think of something. Um, um, we could call someone else. Maybe Mia would go and get what we need.”
“No, she wouldn’t, either! She’s probably too wasted to know whether we’re even there or not.” There was a knock at the door, and Melissa burst into tears.
Amanda turned her purse upside down and emptied it onto the high-pile rug, spilling makeup compacts, coins, keys, and a few receipts and matchbooks. She pulled currency and more receipts out of her wallet and started frantically sorting through the receipts. “Waldorf… no good. Royal Gardens... no... Grand Hyatt... oh, if I threw it out I’m going to fucking kill myself... Ritz-Carlton... 7-11.” She turned the receipt over and grabbed her cell phone, then dialed the number written on the back, with trembling fingers. “Pick up the phone... please pick it up... please...”
One mile north of Denton, Texas
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
“Do you need me to slow down?” Sam asked.
“No.” Dean and Sam had laid a mile of herbs and salt, with three-quarters left to go before they met back up with John and started scanning the ground inside the lopsided circle.
“I know you’re tired. I’m kind of tired. We can lay the salt slower, as long as we don’t stop moving.”
“I’m fine. Really, Sam. This is hardly the most strenuous thing I’ve done in my life.”
“Yeah, but, uh, at least let me have a turn at pushing the wheelbarrow, and you drop the next half-mile of herbs.”
Dean put down the wheelbarrow handles and wiped his forehead, where sweat was beginning to bead despite the fact that it was only about sixty degrees. “If you want to, go ahead.”
Sam was trying to convince himself that this was just another job, that their father had everything under control and they were just there to make it go more smoothly. It was all too easy to remember, though, that he was a target. And Dean and their son were targets, too, of the Sister of the Night God. They weren't going to get out of it as simply as they though they might.
Maybe if I agree to go with her, she’ll leave them alone.
Sam didn’t have to remind himself that the taste of pain that he had in his dreams, the drop in the ocean of agony that was waiting for him, was more than he could withstand. He only had to remind himself that she would do no such thing as leave Dean and.... Ryan?... alive.
“Sam?”
“What?”
“Your phone’s ringing.”
Sam opened the phone’s cover and pressed the Talk button. The number was a New York area code, but could have come from anywhere if it was another cell. “Dad? What's with the weird area code?”
“Sam? Is that you?” A hysterical woman was on the line. “Please tell me that’s you, Sam, please.”
“Yeah, this is Sam. Who's calling?”
“Amanda. Amanda Kline. We met about... five or six months ago. In Denver.”
Sam stumbled back against the wheelbarrow. “Oh, my god. What's going on?”
“She’s here. The crazy woman with the eyes. They’re blue and then they turn yellow. The life-giver. The firestarter. Sam, how do I stop her?”
“Stay calm, okay? What’s she doing?”
“I don’t know. We blocked the door and we’re burning frankincense to keep her out but we’re about to run out of it.”
“Who’s we? Is Melissa with you?”
“Yeah. Yeah. She’s here.”
“Okay. Amanda, that’s Laura, and she’s nothing to fuck around with, and right now she’s after Melissa, not you.” He held the phone between his ear and shoulder and awkwardly pushed the wheelbarrow, while his heart pounded in his chest. Joshua was gone. “You’re going to need some dragon’s blood ink. Do you have any?”
“No! It's not like I have my own personal magic supply cabinet in my suitcase!”
“Then you’ll have to use real blood, but just a little bit. And salt, enough to make a circle on the floor.”
“We have that. There’s a whole jar of coarse margarita salt at the mini-bar, and I have a few packets of salt and pepper somewhere.”
“Here's what you do, and when you do it, work fast. Make a ring around yourselves with the salt, right on the floor. Make sure it’s big enough that you can sit in the middle of it and she can’t reach you even if she leans over. Then you take the blood and draw a ‘Y’ shape in the middle of the ring. Extend the middle stem of the ‘Y’ so that there are three lines that you could connect with a horizontal line, but don’t connect them. It’s a protective rune.”
“And we do that and stay in the middle and she can’t get us?”
“Well, not directly. You’ll have to make sure the door is bolted so nobody else can get in, because she can manipulate other people who can cross the line. In fact, if you can get some weapons and hold them with you, that’s better, and shoot at anything that comes too close. If not, sit and pray. You can try saying ‘Christo’ at her, but I don’t know if that’s going to help. She’s not possessed and she’s not exactly a demon. Worth a try if you run out of other tricks.”
“Run out?!”
“Just make the circle and focus on that. Call me back if you run into more trouble. A few more hours and Laura will be gone. Try to stick it out for that long.”
Sam ended the phone call and started pushing the wheelbarrow faster. “Uh, Dean, what I said about slowing down? Never mind. Joshua... Laura got him. She’s hunting Melissa, and I’m not sure how long she and Amanda can hold out. We need to get this circle closed.”
Dean, stiff-lipped and pale, only nodded.
“Dean? What’s wrong?”
Dean steadied himself against the wheelbarrow and then drew a deep breath. “Nothing. I’m... uh, a little concerned about the situation, that's all.”
“Just concerned? You’re doing better than me, then. Let’s go.”
Dallas, Texas
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
The dresser slid across the floor and crashed into the closet when the door opened. Amanda had just finished pouring yellow margarita salt in a ten-foot circle, the largest that she could manage in the suite. Melissa smeared blood from her left wrist in the shape that Sam had told them.
The last wisp of smoke from the incense curled towards the ceiling.
“She can’t cross the line. She can’t cross the line.” Amanda covered her face and curled up as small as she could. “There aren’t any gaps in it. I checked. I checked twice.”
The woman’s voice came over them, speaking in some tongue that reminded her of Latin, but wasn’t exactly the same; these words had an inflection that sent needles of fear all the way to her bones. Amanda clapped her hands over her ears and started to rock and hum, to blocking out the sounds. Old fears welled up with every syllable that broke through her staccato rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner. Terror at the Thing in the Closet which she hadn’t really thought about in twenty years. C-3P0’s glowing eyes. That the principal would send her home, and her mother, who never flinched at anything she had done, would be disappointed in her for breaking three of Kristen’s ribs in the school parking lot. That she might be a freak, hopelessly sick and twisted, psychotic and waiting for the trigger that would send her over the edge. One of the damned. That she deserved everything that she got.
No! You’re a fucking liar! We do not!
She glanced up at Melissa, who was staring at Laura, silent tears streaming down her face. “I’m sorry,” Melissa whispered.
“Melissa, no! Snap out of it!” Amanda cried.
Melissa slowly climbed to her feet. “I killed him,” she went on in a monotone, as though speaking in a trance. “I’m the one who wanted to be famous, Amanda. I’m the one who killed Brandon. Left his wife and daughter alone.”
“No! It wasn’t your fault, don’t you see? It was hers! She killed him!”
Melissa jerked her arm away from Amanda’s sweaty, slippery hand. “I deserve this,” she said, and took her first step away from the center of the circle.
“No! Don’t go! If not for you, then for me! Laura is going to come after me if she gets you!”
Melissa crossed the line.
Amanda screamed. The cut to Melissa’s throat was a flash, so fast she only saw it in the chandelier’s light glinting off the knife, and the blood spray across the floor. Melissa slumped silently to the floor and Amanda couldn’t hear the devil-tongue anymore, not over her own voice.
She fumbled for her phone. She couldn’t find the receipt now, couldn’t see through tears to locate it, but her fingers tapped the buttons for “Recent Calls” and “Dial Number.”
Something crashed behind her, and she jumped. Crystal shattered and sprayed over her back; light blazed. Amanda risked a glance over her shoulder and saw the fallen chandelier, dripping blazing oil on one of the beds and on the floor around it, at the edge of her circle. The carpet was on fire.
“Christo!” Amanda shrieked.
Laura didn’t even flinch.
When the flames started lapping at the edge of the bright red rune, Amanda sprang to her feet. She didn’t know what to do, couldn’t think of a plan, couldn’t think; her instinct was to take off running, and she flung a handful of salt at Laura and ran past her.
Down the hall, to the stairs. Elevator, confined space, bad. She raced down the steps two at a time, panting, trying not to slip. She could run for hours. She’d never done it before, never more than thirty minutes and not at a full sprint, but it didn’t matter. It was do or die, literally, just fucking run, past the desk, around the guards, to the street.
Amanda darted between honking and swerving cars. She heard the sounds of crunching metal and glass somewhere behind her, but none of it really mattered. Just move. This way, that way, far away.
Blinking lights. Flashing lights. Red and blue and amber. “Hey, slow down!” somebody called out to her, and she didn’t have the breath to shout back that she couldn’t. That the hell-beast was somewhere behind her and she had to run. Keep ahead.
“That’s an order! Stop!”
Can’t stop can’t stop she’s coming can’t stop can’t...
Something jerked her and she felt her body being thrown to the ground. No no have to keep going have to keep have to...
Her head slammed into a hard surface, and her thought trailed off into soft black as unconsciousness pulled her under its surface.
Officer Smith knelt down next to the fallen woman. "Call 911, Ackley!" he shouted. "And don't move her - she has a head injury!"
Officer Ackley threw the taser through the open window of the squad car and grabbed their phone.
1 mile north of Denton, Texas
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
John took the north half of the circled area and Sam and Dean were trudging through the weedy overgrowth in the south half. “I know you’re going to think I’m being an ass for saying this to you,” said Sam, “but we really have to speed it up. A hundred meters a minute is not going to cut it.”
“I’m going as fast as I can,” Dean puffed.
“This might actually be faster if you went back to the Impala and waited for me. Amanda just called back but dropped the phone and the line went dead. I didn’t hear what happened, but it can’t be anything good if she's on the run already.”
“You think you and Dad can dig her up without me?”
“Yeah. You’re looking really worn-out, Dean. Hand me the jazzed-up Walkman and get back to the car.”
Sam was expecting an argument, and when he didn’t get one, that fact only added to his growing anxiety. He walked faster, pretending that he wasn’t looking over his shoulder every ten seconds. The EMF meter picked up nothing. Look. Nothing. Look. Nothing. He’s falling.
“Dean!” Sam shouted. He sprinted to his brother’s side, and found Dean kneeling on the ground, eyes squeezed shut, arms wrapped around his bulging belly. “What’s the matter?”
“Where’s Dad?” Dean gasped.
“About a quarter mile north of us.”
“Get him... tell him to finish... by himself. Need you... need you to drive. To Sherman.”
The icy feeling in the pit of Sam’s stomach crystallized and shattered.
[Reviews - 5] [Kudos - 251]
Download story PDF format or ePUB format or MOBI format
Table of Contents
Download story PDF format or ePUB format or MOBI format
Table of Contents