Down in the Underground Chapter 6
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"No you're not. Sit." Liz gently pushed him down. "God, you're burning up." She sat beside him and put a hand to his forehead, tipping his head back to her shoulder. Sam knew he should get her to leave, stand up, do anything but her cool hand felt so good against his fevered skin.
"This should never have happened, you know." Liz murmured in his ear. "If you'd only spent that first night with me, I'd have cleared the ghost poison from your system and you'd have liked it too. I promise." Sam jerked under her hand but she knew he was helpless now. Her hand on his forehead holding him in place with magic. "It's so much more difficult at this stage." She put her lips against his ear and breathed in the scent of him. "I really do like you, you know and after three centuries I don't say that very often anymore." Sam jerked again. "I think we need to go somewhere more…intimate." She said as Sam's cell phone began ringing on the nightstand.
CHAPTER 6
Dean skidded the Impala to a stop outside their cabin and cursed. The door was wide open. He slammed out of the car and ran to the door. "Sam!" He shouted and stopped. The salt line in front of the door was broken. "Dammit. Sam?" Dean ran inside, checked the bathroom even though he knew it was too late. He found Sam's cellphone on the nightstand and Hank Gaffney's research toppled to the floor.
"Son of a bitch! Where dammit, where would the bitch take you, Sammy?" Dean spotted Hank's journal on the floor. He bent to pick it up and it saved him from the lamp as it sailed over where he'd been standing and into the wall. "What the…" He spun to find three indistinct shapes floating in the sitting room. "Oh you've got to be kidding me!"
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Sam knew he was walking. He'd felt grass beneath his bare feet and now dirt. He could smell the musty scent of the underground and feel Liz's hand tight around his own. That connection seemed to rob him of his free will. She had not bothered to put a shirt on him and he shivered, bare-chested in the chill air. He was terrified and just damn pissed. Somehow she had completely overpowered him. He felt keen embarrassment at that and knew Dean would never let him live it down. Dean…if he ever saw him again. Dean didn't know where he was, had no idea that Liz was a Witch. Oh god, he thought, what if she left a Hex in the cabin for him? He tried to stop, only succeeding in stumbling.
"Sam." Liz's voice in his ear. "You can't fight me. That day in the office? The kiss and…mmmm…" She hummed and he felt her rub against him. "Should never let a strange woman wrap her fingers in your hair." She laughed. "A strand of hair was all I needed to work the spell."
Sam felt her hands roaming the muscled planes of his chest and shivered again as they rested low on his hips above the waistband of his sweats. "Soon you won't fight me anymore, Sam and oh the fun we're going to have. You're mine now."
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Dean dove for his bed as one of the spirits reached for him. He slid onto the floor and pulled out the weapons bag. Cold hands took his ankles and pulled him out. Dean let them and rolled, bringing his favorite sawed-off shotgun up and fired into the mist, dissipating it.
"Suck it ass face!" Dean lurched to his knees and blasted the second ghost as it reached for him. The third seemed impossibly large, a dark mass rising toward the ceiling and the furniture; couch, table and chair flew at him. He dove over the couch and took a knock from the table in his knees. Dean brought the shotgun up again. He fired and banished the ghost in a screaming explosion of darkness that momentarily filled the room.
"Holy crap!" Dean kicked the table away and saw the salt canister under the television stand. He scrambled over the floor, pulling it out and ran to the front door. Quickly, he poured a fresh line of salt protecting it and then checked all the windows as well. He dropped the salt on the back of the upturned couch and retraced his steps, looking for Hank's journal.
"Gotcha." Dean scooped it up and leafed through to the last few pages. They were a jumble of notes, Hank's thoughts, a crude drawing of some Native American looking idol with feathered headdress and a hand drawn map of a section of tunnel. "Now we're getting somewhere." His need to find Sam was making his hands shake as he dug through the pile on the floor for the Underground map Sam had found at Gaffney's. He spread it open across the bed and quickly found a match to the area Hank had drawn. "Son of a bitch." He breathed, recognizing the area where their cabin lay and a mark that signaled an entrance to the tunnels barely thirty yards away.
"I'm coming, Sammy." Dean grabbed his gun and the weapons bag and ran for the door.
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"Sam." Liz caressed his jaw, enjoying the rough feel of the stubble there. "Wake up, Sam." His skin was fevered, hot to the touch in the cold tunnel. She pressed herself against his bare chest with a hum of pleasure. "Sammy." She cooed it sweetly to him.
Sam groaned. He felt cool hands on his face, a body pressed against his bare chest and struggled to raise his head against the enervating weakness that had taken hold of him. "Wha?" He managed and got his eyes open to find Liz staring up at him.
"There you are." She curved her hands around his back. "You know, I decided I had to have you the moment I saw you. Don't worry, Sam." She feathered her lips over his as he jerked his head weakly away. "I'm not going to kill you." She grinned at him. "Well not entirely."
"What do you mean?" Sam tried to pull away but couldn't. His wrists were bound above his head, stretching him up from where his ankles were tied. Though he was burning with fever his body was wracked with chills from the cold, damp air of the tunnel.
"I'm going to let the ghost sickness kill your mind." She grazed her fingers over his abdomen and he strained away from her touch. "Then you won't fight me anymore. You'll just be mine."
"You're crazy." Sam groaned. The words 'ghost sickness' sent a stab of fear through him. He was burning up, he could feel that and he vaguely remembered her saying something about poison back in the cabin.
Liz scowled at him. "It's not a fast process, Sam. The sickness will take time for its poison to work through you. Days, maybe weeks if you're strong enough. I could make this easier on you." She leaned into him again and placed a gentle hand on his chest. "Or hard." She scraped her sharp nails down his sternum, drawing blood and making him cry out.
"Bitch!" Sam gasped. He pulled at his wrists again, straining against the rope and felt them give slightly. If could distract her long enough, then maybe…
Liz slapped him. "Don't be mean, Sam." She stepped away from him and he could see where they were finally. It was some small cavern in the Underground. Four tunnels opened out from it and it looked like an old mine working. A few feet away was Liz's witch's altar with candles burning about a large stone bowl and a silver Athame laying in front of it. Beyond the altar, in a hand carved niche in the dirt wall was some sort of statue; an Indian figure in a feathered headdress carrying a spear. It glistened in the light from the torches Liz had placed about the chamber. Sam had a sinking feeling it was blood. He'd found their cursed object.
Liz took up the Athame from the table and came back to him. "The idol needs more blood to do its job properly." She smiled. "I really should have taken more from that poor woman in the hotel."
Sam startled. "Millie Greeling? You killed her."
Liz ran the blade down the underside of his arm, letting it tug lightly at the skin. "She was going to demand they search the tunnels for her husbands' killer. I couldn't let that happen." She kissed along his collar bone and he thrashed, trying to push her away but she only chuckled. "You'd be surprised how much blood you can safely give without dying, Sam."
"What do you care?" Sam asked, trying to stall as he pulled against his bonds. Blood was beginning to make his wrists slick. "What's it matter to you if this place gets more business anyway?"
"Oh Sam." Liz pressed herself to him again, wrapping her arms around him and bit lightly at his neck, enjoying his angry growl. "All these weak, small minded fools who come down here, each one of them adds to my power. Every moment of fear that squeezes their bellies." She licked a line of heat up his chest, holding tight as he tried to buck her off. "Every stab of pain when my ghosts take one of them."
Sam shouted in surprise and pain as he felt the bite of the Athame slide across his back. Liz pulled it across his side and to the front in one long, shallow slice. She closed her eyes and shivered against him. "That is my power, Sam." She breathed, enraptured.
"You…are one sick twist, Lady." Sam gasped, fighting back nausea from the burning pain. Liz placed the knife against the hollow of his throat and looked up at him with pleasure clouded eyes. She pressed until a dark line of blood welled forth as Sam arched his head back to get away from the blade.
"You're awful bold for someone dying slowly with my blade at his throat." Liz warned with a smile.
Sam smiled slowly, panting for breath. "I know something you don't."
"Really? And what's that, Sam?" Liz asked sweetly, pressing harder until he flinched.
"My brother." Sam grinned, breathless. "He's gonna gank your witch ass, Liz."
She chuckled. "He'll have to find us first, sweetheart." Liz screamed, arching away from Sam as the point of a silver blade appeared in the center of her chest.
"Surprise, sweetheart." Dean growled in her ear. He gave his knife a twist and let her fall off of it to the floor in a heap. She lay; eyes open wide in shock and quickly glazing in death.
"Hey, Dean." Sam said, grinning with relief. "Took you so long?"
Dean wiped off his knife and slid it behind his back. "You didn't leave me a note." He gave Sam a lopsided grin and bent, untying his feet then reached up to free his hands. When he'd heard Sam cry out, he'd followed the sound. It had taken every ounce of self-control he possessed not to run blindly in, especially when he saw her with the knife to this throat. Rage had stolen his breath as fear had made his heart pound out of his chest. He looked now at the new wounds on his brother's chest, the blood leaking from his side and wanted to kill her again.
"Sorry." Sam smiled and then stumbled forward as Dean released him.
"Whoa, gigantor. Hang on." Dean lowered him to the ground. "Crap, you're burning up still."
"Ghost sickness. Poison." Sam said wearily. "From the…the bullet wound. She told me. Dean." He pointed to the far wall. "That's the cursed object."
"Whoa, ghost poison?" Dean settled Sam against the wall, watching him shiver. He took off his jacket and draped it over his little brother's bare shoulders before turning to look. He strode to the alcove and carefully picked up the little figurine. It was tacky with drying blood. "Ewww."
"Clean it off." Sam used the wall to push himself up and braced an arm against it, shrugging on Dean's jacket. "It's the blood…the blood giving it power."
"Yeah okay, hey! Sit back down." Dean went to his side and eased him back to the floor. "Don't bleed in my coat."
Sam snorted. "Too late." He let his head fall back, eyes closed and just listened as Dean rinsed the idol with holy water from their bag, methodically destroyed Liz's altar then grabbed up a fallen shovel. He dug a speedy grave for Liz in the cave floor, always keeping a careful eye on his too pale brother. Dean rolled her in and covered her before Sam could look and have a pang of guilt over her well-deserved death. The idol he wrapped in some old sack cloth and then knelt by Sam.
"Hey, Sammy. You up for a little walk?" Dean grasped an arm and pulled as Sam nodded. "Don't worry. It's not far. Bitch had a door practically on top of us."
Sam slid an arm over Dean's shoulders and held the coat closed with the other. "Dean, she said ghost sickness." He paused, head spinning and wobbled. "She said it kills." He felt Dean jerk under his arm. "Takes time though, for the poison…to work. Days, maybe weeks. Crap." Sam dropped his head as a new wave of dizziness threatened to take him down.
"Ok. I'm pourin' you into the car and callin' Bobby from the road." Dean said firmly and started them on an unsteady walk back up the tunnel, smiling. "You're gonna be fine. Bobby'll know what to do. He always does." He has too, he added silently. "Come on, up you get."
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Getting Sam out of the underground and into the car had gone almost smoothly until they reached the cabin and Sam had refused to go anywhere without first being dressed and second taping up the various cuts she-bitch had given him. Dean attended to all of it, half dressing his fever addled brother, packing the room and the car while calling Bobby and being shouted at for not calling him sooner.
Finally they were on the road; Sam huddled in the passenger seat and Dean going as fast as he dared. Bobby had been clear; this form of ghost sickness was terminal and the time it took to kill depended on the will of the person fighting it. They had a day's drive to Bobby's. Dean was determined to shave every hour off of that he could. His only consolation was the sheer epic level of Sam's Winchester stubborn streak. He wouldn't be giving in without a fight.
Sam moaned beside him, shifting in his sleep against the door and then jerked awake on a gasp.
"Sam?" Dean reached across and grabbed his shoulder.
"Pull over." Sam said, nausea cramping his gut. He clutched at the door handle and Dean swore loudly as the tires squealed.
"Dammit, Sam, wait til I stop!" Dean kept a death grip on his arm, preventing him from climbing out of the still moving car. They skidded to a stop and Dean let go. Sam threw himself from the door and started heaving on his hands and knees.
Dean ran around the hood of the Impala and knelt by him, putting a hand on the back of his neck to let Sam know he was there. Finally, after several painful minutes, the heaving tapered off to hiccups and then went away altogether leaving Sam panting and weak. Dean got him up and back in his seat and belted him in for a change. Damned if he wanted to go through that moment again; puke-delirious Sammy trying to crawl out of the car at ninety miles an hour.
"Holy crap." Dean shut the passenger door and got back behind the wheel. "How you doin', Sammy?"
Sam rolled his unnervingly pale face where Dean could see him. "Be better if the voices would stop."
"Voices?" Dean asked, his worry level pitching up another notch. "You goin' Shirley McClain for real over there?"
"I dunno." Sam closed his eyes. "They're talking. Most of em, I think…think they're Chinese." Sam scrunched up his face, trying to hear them more clearly. "'cept that one." Sam said, hearing the one distinct voice again. "That one's…he sounds…I dunno, Indian?"
"What's he saying?" Dean asked, not really sure he wanted the answer just then.
"I think he's the one who shot me." Sam mumbled. He shivered in his jacket in spite of the fever that was burning through him. He couldn't even muster the energy to swat Dean's hand away when he felt it on his forehead. "M'fine."
"Sure you are." Dean put his hand back on the wheel and tried not to think about how long Sam didn't have. They were still at least seven hours from Bobby's. Dean pressed harder on the gas, urging the Impala faster.
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