Fic: The Banshee's Wail
Title: The Banshee's Wail
Author: alesh101
Word Count: 987
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I own nothing, Tiger Aspect, BBC, Kripke, and Warner own
Summary: Kate gets thrown into a world not her own, and mistaken for something else entirely
A/N: crossover fic with Supernatural, written for crossover challenge for hoodland.
Kate was starving. She knew she shouldn't have skipped breakfast today. Not on trap day. Trap day was always long and boring. Much tried to keep her interested with chatter, but that wore thin after about oh, five minutes.
Her stomach growled again, and she wished they could stop for a moment. But she couldn't ask Much to stop, he'd ranged too far ahead. She sighed heavily. She was starting to feel a little dizzy from hunger. Maybe she would stop herself and eat. Much would come back for her eventually, he always did.
She'd nearly made up her mind to stop when a wave of lightheadedness overtook her. She groped for the tree next to her until it passed. But as soon as the dizziness passed, a hard cramp of nausea tightened her belly. Kate doubled over and dropped to her knees, gasping . The second she caught her breath and the cramp eased, a slicing pain knifed through her head. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut against it.
Am I dying? She thought in a panic. What's happening to me? For a second, the pain in her head and the sickness in her belly were overwhelming. She opened her mouth to retch, and then she fell. Her hands and knees came down on something hard and gravelly. And the pain and cramping were gone.
She drew in a deep breath of relief, but didn't release it. Because even with her eyes still shut, Kate knew something was very, very wrong.
Noise and stench assaulted her from all sides. She heard the screams of women and children; the frightened shouts of men. A horrible growling sound passed her on the left, accompanied by the blare of some sort of hunting horn. It was so loud! She was sure it had been blown right next to her ear. Kate slammed her hands over her ears to block it all out, but she still heard those horrible noises, over and over. She jumped to her feet.
Her eyes opened and madness descended. All around her were visions from Hell. Giant demons made of metal rolled by her on either side, bellowing their anger in that same horn blast, and belching brimstone from their back ends.
The people around her must have been the damned. They were all screaming, their faces long and tortured with fear. She'd seen faces like that before, on the woodcuts that hung on the walls of Locksley church. The pictures that showed the punishments for sin.
Briefly a coherent thought surfaced: she had died and gone to Hell. For deserting her family and killing so many castle guards while fighting with Robin. This was her punishment for not honoring her mother, and becoming a murderer. She was in Hell, with all these demons, all this noise, and all these tortured souls.
Then Kate's mind deserted her. She opened her mouth and began to scream.
"Banshee, Sammy." Dean Winchester popped another fry into his mouth. He and Sam had just gotten to this town in backwoods Ohio this morning. Bobby had sent them here to find a banshee that was terrorizing a prominent Scottish family in the area. The demon was causing sleepless nights and general mayhem for the family, but was also responsible for at least one death.
Sam shrugged. "I dunno, Dean. Banshee seems a stretch." Sam wasn't convinced. It was probably some minor demon that generally wreaked havoc, but little more. He was annoyed at being sent here at all. They had more important things to do than chase down small fry.
He was about to say so when he heard car horns blaring from down the street. Something was going on toward the middle of town. Dean was already out of his chair and tossing cash down to pay for their meal.
The brothers set off at a run for the town center. Dean skidded to a stop when he saw the woman standing in the middle of the road. She was slight, with unkempt blonde hair, wearing a dress that looked as if it was made from moss and twigs. She carried an ancient sword on her hip. He shot his brother a quick lopsided grin.
"What do you think now?"
Sam shook his head. "She's not wailing, Dean. Maybe she's just…not right." The woman was merely staring around her, her eyes wide and glassy.
Then the woman did start to shriek, and Sam fell to the ground, his hands covering his ears, tears starting in his eyes. In all his time trapped in Hell, he'd never heard a sound like that. It had even driven Dean to his knees. All around them people were writhing on the ground, hands over ears to block out that noise.
Despite the horrible sound of that wail spiking through his head, Dean managed to pull his gun and take careful aim. He exhaled and gently squeezed the trigger. The shot took the woman directly between her eyes and the shriek was cut off as if with a knife.
The Winchester brothers rose and went to take a look.
"Guess you were right," Sam said, looking down at the body."But I thought they were supposed to poof into smoke, or something. She's just lying there with a hole in her head." He glanced up at Dean. "How'd you do that with a bullet anyway? Far as I know, bullets aren't holy water or anything like that."
Dean shrugged. "Angel works as good as priest, I figure. Castiel blessed them." He glanced around. The townspeople were beginning to recover. He tapped Sam on the shoulder. "C'mon. We gotta get the body outta here."
Slinging Kate over his shoulder, Dean headed for the Impala. They'd stash her in the trunk for now, bury her tonight in consecrated ground*, make sure she couldn't come back.
"Shame about lunch, though," he said to Sam. "Those were good fries."
*The Winchesters usually salt and burn bones to make sure things don't come back, but this isn't a ghost or vengeful spirit, so that doesn't necessarily apply here.