09x08 - Salty Dog - Part Three: Transmigration of Souls
Episode Number: 09x08 of Season 9 Fan Fiction (S9FF)
Title: Salty Dog
Subtitle: Transmigration of Souls
Author: dracox-serdriel
Word Count: 2,367
Rating: R
Warnings: violence, language
Status: Complete.
"Okay, okay, I've got it," Sam marked the map. "Hilton Oaks Cemetery."
"Assuming your... technomapping crap is right, how much time do we have?"
"If the pattern holds, just past dusk tonight."
"Awesome."
"We need a curse box."
"For what?"
"The bodies."
"Why?"
Sam wondered if Dean was being intentionally dense to force conversation, but he answered anyway. "Because we need to figure out what these things are, Dean, that's why. So we kill them, box them up, then haul them someplace."
"All right, I'll rent us a truck and a trailer, we can haul Fido and Co. off with us," Dean agreed quickly. "You think a devil's trap will work?"
"Add everything you can think of," Sam replied. "I'll work on getting ammunition ready."
Just as he got up, Castiel reappeared wearing Dean's hellhound-spotting glasses.
"Hello," he said.
"Cas - "
"I'm sorry, I don't have much time. Someone is following me."
"What's going on?" Dean asked.
"Hellhounds are back on earth, I just killed ten of them."
Cas placed the glasses, a jar of paste, and his angel blade on the bed.
"Cas, you won't be able to defend - " Dean protested.
"Don't worry about me," the angel interrupted. "Be careful."
Without another word, he teleported.
"Cas!" Dean shouted. "Damn it, Cas!"
Still hidden, Naomi watched. She made to follow Castiel, but something prevented her from moving. Wherever he went, she was blocked from that place. She hated how he eluded her. She observed the Winchesters a little longer, waiting for the right time to teleport home.
"You heard him, don't worry," Sam said. "He'll be fine."
"You don't know that."
"He didn't drop by to flirt, Dean. He came back to give us an edge," Sam went over to the bed and picked up the angel blade. "This works on hellhounds, and now we can both see them."
"This is the crap Cas used to heal me?" Dean asked, holding the jar.
"Uh, yeah, in case we're torn limb from limb I guess."
"Not funny."
"Don't be pissy with me because you haven't made up with your boyfriend yet."
Naomi flinched. She had confirmation. She knew Castiel and Dean were close, but she didn't know, not with certainty, that their relationship had physical, human intimacy.
"First of all, you said you'd agree to 'partner'," Dean shot back at Sam. "And, secondly...screw you."
"Go get the damn truck," Sam said. In spite of himself, he was happy. He'd been pissed at Dean for lying to him, but right now, letting it go didn't seem so hard.
As Dean slammed the door behind him, Naomi took advantage of the noise to cover her transport back to heaven.
Sam dug through the odds and ends of the Impala's trunk, moving over silver bullets and flare guns. He stopped when he found a heavy leather bag that Charlie passed off to him. He'd forgotten all about it weeks ago.
He opened it and rolled his eyes: LARP costumes. He had half a mind to throw it away.
"For Mondo monster madness," Charlie had said. Sam ran his hands over the costumes. She wouldn't go to the trouble of LARP costumes and not label them. No, she made these, or had someone make them, for hunting.
"What the hell?" Sam said as he yanked the bag out and added it to the rented pickup.
"Really Sam?" Dean asked as he pulled at the heavy jacket. "This thing is slowing me down."
"And will probably save your ass."
They stomped towards a mausoleum on the grounds of the cemetery. It was a huge, marble structure that made the rest of the graveyard look small. Carved into its face was the name 'Bannister.'
"We've got about an hour before dusk, so let's make it count," Sam whispered.
"Right."
Dean pulled out kerosene and plotted circles around the mausoleum like a moat.
"Crap," Sam said. "Got company."
In the eastern part of the cemetery, a small group of people gathered around a grave. They didn't take any notice of Sam or Dean.
"You think they're legit?" Dean asked.
"What?"
"Well, if I was a witch with my hand caught in the cookie jar - "
" - you'd kill whoever caught you," Sam completed. "What's wrong with you?"
"Okay, well, we need to get these people out of here."
"You want to send a bunch of grieving family away from the grave of their love one?"
"Which is about to be covered with evil dogs of doom," Dean retorted.
"Fine, I'll handle it. But that means you gotta look for hex bags."
Dean ducked into the building as Sam made for the group. One of the six people around the headstone broke away to head Sam off.
"Who are you?" she asked.
"I'm Agent Freemount with the FBI," Sam said, holding up a fake badge.
The woman noticed Sam's graceless movements under the heavy costume, barely covered by his long overcoat.
"FBI?" she repeated. "In a cemetery?"
"You are?"
"Olivia," she replied. "I'm here with friends visiting someone we buried less than a week ago, so if you don't mind, we - "
"Olivia," Sam cut her off. "My partner and I are here investigating a possible grave robber who we believe is responsible for killing three people."
"You can't expect me to believe you're FBI, wearing that," she indicated his coat and jeans. "You look like the Michelin man."
"The person we tracked here is highly dangerous and doesn't hesitate to shoot. Not law enforcement, not people in mourning." Sam softened his voice, "I am very sorry for your loss, I am. I just don't want you to lose anymore. Please, can you get your friends out of here?"
Olivia slouched. He couldn't tell if she believed him, or if she was just playing it safe, but she said, "Fine. But I'm not telling them about the grave robber."
"Thank you, Olivia - ?" Sam indicated he wanted to know her last name.
"Bannister," she replied. She walked to her friends and herded them off to their cars.
"We're clear," Sam said to Dean.
"I didn't see any sigils, but this marble dungeon over here has dozens of places for hex bags," Dean babbled. "I didn't find any in the normal places. We might need to crack open a few to be sure."
Sam poked his head in and saw what Dean meant. The interior was ornately carved with three dimensional statues and figures from floor to ceiling. Hundreds of nooks and crannies, and a witch need only hide one hex bag or coin to make the magic happen.
"Damn it, we should've gotten here sooner," Sam said.
"So do we look for Easter eggs now, or what?"
"That'll take hours we don't have. It's gonna be dusk in thirty minutes."
"Okay, then, let's get ready for Fido and Rover."
Dusk fell.
"Sam, I just, I wanted to say, I'm sorry," Dean mumbled. "About Benny and the nightmare thing."
"Dean, this isn't just about that. We're about to take on God-knows-what because you sat on information."
"What's that suppose to mean?"
"I mean, Benny sent you warnings," Sam replied. "And I get not taking them seriously when they were nightmares, but once you knew they were from Benny, you shoulda said something."
"I didn't know - "
"Don't even try," Sam cut him off. "You thought it was possible. Possible enough that you tried to contact him and risked your life to resurrect him so you could ask."
Sam kept his voice calm, but Dean could hear the anger bubbling up.
"So you're saying this is my fault?"
"I'm saying I'm tired of your 'I-didn't-want-to-bother-you-with-this' crap. If you told me, we could've worked together on contacting Benny, and maybe this mess could've been prevented. But instead, you lie to me and cover it up and act like you can't trust me."
"That's not - "
"It's not?" Sam asked. "Because you told Cas about it."
A howl stopped their conversation.
"To be continued," Dean said. Sam nodded.
Both the brothers crouched and peeked out towards the building. Sam's predictions were right; the mausoleum was the center of the activity. Dean spotted the shadowy cloud of a hellhound lurch forward.
"Damnit," Dean muttered. "Stand back, Sam."
With a rigged flare gun, Dean ignited the kerosene lines that wrapped around the building like a moat.
"Subtle," Sam remarked. "Let's hope the town doesn't want to check out the fire."
"It should slow them down," Dean replied.
For the most part, he was correct. The hellhounds paced behind the fire, as if unsure if they should cross the line. Bang! Sam shot the first one with salt-and-iron rounds. Bang! Dean added a silver bullet to the mix. Bang! Bang! They kept firing.
"Seriously?" Dean said. "These are legit hellhounds."
Before either of them could deal with this revelation, the sound of padded feet made them turn in time to see the enormous hybrid monstrosities leaping for their throats.
Bang! Pop! Both of them got one shot off before being thrown to the ground. Sam felt the weight of the beast on his body, saw its hungry, drooling expression. Its talons clamped down -
The dogs let out smarting howls as they pushed away from the two brothers. Their paws bled and crackled.
"Silver chainmail, bitches!" Dean said with unreasonable satisfaction before angling a shot to the heart.
Sam took down his hybrid pup with similar ease. "Thank you, Charlie," he whispered.
"Maybe don't thank her yet," Dean said.
As if on cue, the hellhounds stepped over the fire without a hitch.
Angel blade in hand, Sam tried to keep his eyes on one of the hounds. He didn't like the fact that they seemed to know he could see them. That made them smarter, more dangerous -
They charged from either side, pelting towards the Winchesters, not slowed down by the gapping wounds all over their bodies.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Each hound took hits to the head, legs, and chest before finally reaching Sam and Dean. Sam skewered the first on the angel blade; the other took the demon-knife to its left eye.
Panting and covered in sweat, the brothers pushed the dead dogs over just as another howl rang out.
They turned. Another hybrid paced behind the line of fire; unlike the hellhounds, the monster couldn't cross.
"Looks like you're stuck, chuckles," Dean snarked.
The hybrid turned and snarled. Two hellhounds, no three, tore at the monstrosity, reducing the thing to strips of blood and flesh behind the fire-moat.
"Hellhounds don't play well with others I guess," Sam said to Dean, preparing himself for the next onslaught.
"Neither do we," Dean pulled up his shotgun.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Before they even crossed the now-low fire line, each dog took a heavy beating from the bullets. The first two went straight for the brothers, slamming into them with claws at the ready, not even flinching at the silver chainmail.
A slash to his outer thigh dropped Sam; he hacked wildly at the chest of the shadowy creature. It snarled in pain as its left front leg ripped away. Had they not embedded the glasses behind their ears, both brothers would've lost them in the Malay.
Dean managed to sidestep his devil-dog's pounce, stabbing at the dog's back and knocking it to the ground. As he moved in for the kill, he saw the third mutt angling for him, ready to move when Dean let his guard down. He played along, lowering his head and slicing through the hellhound's throat.
From the ground, Sam tried to take out his own Rover, but even with three legs the damn thing was quick. He rolled up on his good side to get leverage. Once, twice he slashed with the blade and missed. The hellhound lashed out, grabbing for Sam's already-injured leg.
The third dog flew towards Dean's exposed back. But Dean was too quick; he whipped around and rolled towards it, putting himself underneath its belly, and thrust the knife up. As the hellhound crashed down, the blade sliced through it; the wound started behind its forelegs and ran to its hindquarters. Dean didn't miss a beat. He slid from under the thing and stabbed its throat for good measure.
Just as Dean took out the third arrival, Sam jabbed Cas's blade through the top of his hellhound's mouth. Its dead teeth scrapped along his arm, pulling at the flesh as he dislodged his appendage from its slack maw. Cradling his right arm, he squirmed closer so he could pull the blade out of his fallen enemy.
Dean pulled Rover off of his brother and knelt over him. "Damn, Sam," he said. "We - "
The fourth hellhound, that's the one they didn't see. With a crash it threw Dean into the air. Sensing Sam's defenselessness, the shadowy beast turned on him and ripped down his front howling in victory.
Dean didn't stop to think. As soon as he regained his footing from Fido's head-butt, he pounded the ground back to his brother and knifed the sucker in the back.
Wheeling around, Fido slashed at Dean, clipping his arm and leaving long, deep gashes. With all the adrenaline and strength he had left, Dean seized the hellhound's neck and pulled himself into its face. He felt the hilt of the blade crack against its skull. He'd stabbed it through the ear.
He scrambled over to Sam, who bled freely from his stomach, chest, and legs. "Sammy - "
"The jar, the salve," Sam said. Blood bubbled out of his mouth.
"Right, right," Dean said.
He fumbled through his brother's coat pockets to find the jar. It had been cracked, but the paste was so thick that it didn't matter.
Dean wiped the ash-and-water paste down Sam's front, then his legs and arms. As Sam's flesh knit together, Dean put a little on himself.
"Did we get them all?" Sam asked, his breath finally coming easily again.
"Honestly? I don't know."
The fire had burned out. Apparently it was more subtle than Sam thought, since no one came calling about it. Dean kept watch as Sam packed the dead mutts into the back of the trailer.
<<< Previous Part:
Part Two: Omens
Next Part: >>>
Part Four: Slipstream
Primary Post: 09x08 Salty Dog
Primary Post: Season 9 Fan Fiction (S9FF)
Title: Salty Dog
Subtitle: Transmigration of Souls
Author: dracox-serdriel
Word Count: 2,367
Rating: R
Warnings: violence, language
Status: Complete.
"Okay, okay, I've got it," Sam marked the map. "Hilton Oaks Cemetery."
"Assuming your... technomapping crap is right, how much time do we have?"
"If the pattern holds, just past dusk tonight."
"Awesome."
"We need a curse box."
"For what?"
"The bodies."
"Why?"
Sam wondered if Dean was being intentionally dense to force conversation, but he answered anyway. "Because we need to figure out what these things are, Dean, that's why. So we kill them, box them up, then haul them someplace."
"All right, I'll rent us a truck and a trailer, we can haul Fido and Co. off with us," Dean agreed quickly. "You think a devil's trap will work?"
"Add everything you can think of," Sam replied. "I'll work on getting ammunition ready."
Just as he got up, Castiel reappeared wearing Dean's hellhound-spotting glasses.
"Hello," he said.
"Cas - "
"I'm sorry, I don't have much time. Someone is following me."
"What's going on?" Dean asked.
"Hellhounds are back on earth, I just killed ten of them."
Cas placed the glasses, a jar of paste, and his angel blade on the bed.
"Cas, you won't be able to defend - " Dean protested.
"Don't worry about me," the angel interrupted. "Be careful."
Without another word, he teleported.
"Cas!" Dean shouted. "Damn it, Cas!"
Still hidden, Naomi watched. She made to follow Castiel, but something prevented her from moving. Wherever he went, she was blocked from that place. She hated how he eluded her. She observed the Winchesters a little longer, waiting for the right time to teleport home.
"You heard him, don't worry," Sam said. "He'll be fine."
"You don't know that."
"He didn't drop by to flirt, Dean. He came back to give us an edge," Sam went over to the bed and picked up the angel blade. "This works on hellhounds, and now we can both see them."
"This is the crap Cas used to heal me?" Dean asked, holding the jar.
"Uh, yeah, in case we're torn limb from limb I guess."
"Not funny."
"Don't be pissy with me because you haven't made up with your boyfriend yet."
Naomi flinched. She had confirmation. She knew Castiel and Dean were close, but she didn't know, not with certainty, that their relationship had physical, human intimacy.
"First of all, you said you'd agree to 'partner'," Dean shot back at Sam. "And, secondly...screw you."
"Go get the damn truck," Sam said. In spite of himself, he was happy. He'd been pissed at Dean for lying to him, but right now, letting it go didn't seem so hard.
As Dean slammed the door behind him, Naomi took advantage of the noise to cover her transport back to heaven.
Sam dug through the odds and ends of the Impala's trunk, moving over silver bullets and flare guns. He stopped when he found a heavy leather bag that Charlie passed off to him. He'd forgotten all about it weeks ago.
He opened it and rolled his eyes: LARP costumes. He had half a mind to throw it away.
"For Mondo monster madness," Charlie had said. Sam ran his hands over the costumes. She wouldn't go to the trouble of LARP costumes and not label them. No, she made these, or had someone make them, for hunting.
"What the hell?" Sam said as he yanked the bag out and added it to the rented pickup.
"Really Sam?" Dean asked as he pulled at the heavy jacket. "This thing is slowing me down."
"And will probably save your ass."
They stomped towards a mausoleum on the grounds of the cemetery. It was a huge, marble structure that made the rest of the graveyard look small. Carved into its face was the name 'Bannister.'
"We've got about an hour before dusk, so let's make it count," Sam whispered.
"Right."
Dean pulled out kerosene and plotted circles around the mausoleum like a moat.
"Crap," Sam said. "Got company."
In the eastern part of the cemetery, a small group of people gathered around a grave. They didn't take any notice of Sam or Dean.
"You think they're legit?" Dean asked.
"What?"
"Well, if I was a witch with my hand caught in the cookie jar - "
" - you'd kill whoever caught you," Sam completed. "What's wrong with you?"
"Okay, well, we need to get these people out of here."
"You want to send a bunch of grieving family away from the grave of their love one?"
"Which is about to be covered with evil dogs of doom," Dean retorted.
"Fine, I'll handle it. But that means you gotta look for hex bags."
Dean ducked into the building as Sam made for the group. One of the six people around the headstone broke away to head Sam off.
"Who are you?" she asked.
"I'm Agent Freemount with the FBI," Sam said, holding up a fake badge.
The woman noticed Sam's graceless movements under the heavy costume, barely covered by his long overcoat.
"FBI?" she repeated. "In a cemetery?"
"You are?"
"Olivia," she replied. "I'm here with friends visiting someone we buried less than a week ago, so if you don't mind, we - "
"Olivia," Sam cut her off. "My partner and I are here investigating a possible grave robber who we believe is responsible for killing three people."
"You can't expect me to believe you're FBI, wearing that," she indicated his coat and jeans. "You look like the Michelin man."
"The person we tracked here is highly dangerous and doesn't hesitate to shoot. Not law enforcement, not people in mourning." Sam softened his voice, "I am very sorry for your loss, I am. I just don't want you to lose anymore. Please, can you get your friends out of here?"
Olivia slouched. He couldn't tell if she believed him, or if she was just playing it safe, but she said, "Fine. But I'm not telling them about the grave robber."
"Thank you, Olivia - ?" Sam indicated he wanted to know her last name.
"Bannister," she replied. She walked to her friends and herded them off to their cars.
"We're clear," Sam said to Dean.
"I didn't see any sigils, but this marble dungeon over here has dozens of places for hex bags," Dean babbled. "I didn't find any in the normal places. We might need to crack open a few to be sure."
Sam poked his head in and saw what Dean meant. The interior was ornately carved with three dimensional statues and figures from floor to ceiling. Hundreds of nooks and crannies, and a witch need only hide one hex bag or coin to make the magic happen.
"Damn it, we should've gotten here sooner," Sam said.
"So do we look for Easter eggs now, or what?"
"That'll take hours we don't have. It's gonna be dusk in thirty minutes."
"Okay, then, let's get ready for Fido and Rover."
Dusk fell.
"Sam, I just, I wanted to say, I'm sorry," Dean mumbled. "About Benny and the nightmare thing."
"Dean, this isn't just about that. We're about to take on God-knows-what because you sat on information."
"What's that suppose to mean?"
"I mean, Benny sent you warnings," Sam replied. "And I get not taking them seriously when they were nightmares, but once you knew they were from Benny, you shoulda said something."
"I didn't know - "
"Don't even try," Sam cut him off. "You thought it was possible. Possible enough that you tried to contact him and risked your life to resurrect him so you could ask."
Sam kept his voice calm, but Dean could hear the anger bubbling up.
"So you're saying this is my fault?"
"I'm saying I'm tired of your 'I-didn't-want-to-bother-you-with-this' crap. If you told me, we could've worked together on contacting Benny, and maybe this mess could've been prevented. But instead, you lie to me and cover it up and act like you can't trust me."
"That's not - "
"It's not?" Sam asked. "Because you told Cas about it."
A howl stopped their conversation.
"To be continued," Dean said. Sam nodded.
Both the brothers crouched and peeked out towards the building. Sam's predictions were right; the mausoleum was the center of the activity. Dean spotted the shadowy cloud of a hellhound lurch forward.
"Damnit," Dean muttered. "Stand back, Sam."
With a rigged flare gun, Dean ignited the kerosene lines that wrapped around the building like a moat.
"Subtle," Sam remarked. "Let's hope the town doesn't want to check out the fire."
"It should slow them down," Dean replied.
For the most part, he was correct. The hellhounds paced behind the fire, as if unsure if they should cross the line. Bang! Sam shot the first one with salt-and-iron rounds. Bang! Dean added a silver bullet to the mix. Bang! Bang! They kept firing.
"Seriously?" Dean said. "These are legit hellhounds."
Before either of them could deal with this revelation, the sound of padded feet made them turn in time to see the enormous hybrid monstrosities leaping for their throats.
Bang! Pop! Both of them got one shot off before being thrown to the ground. Sam felt the weight of the beast on his body, saw its hungry, drooling expression. Its talons clamped down -
The dogs let out smarting howls as they pushed away from the two brothers. Their paws bled and crackled.
"Silver chainmail, bitches!" Dean said with unreasonable satisfaction before angling a shot to the heart.
Sam took down his hybrid pup with similar ease. "Thank you, Charlie," he whispered.
"Maybe don't thank her yet," Dean said.
As if on cue, the hellhounds stepped over the fire without a hitch.
Angel blade in hand, Sam tried to keep his eyes on one of the hounds. He didn't like the fact that they seemed to know he could see them. That made them smarter, more dangerous -
They charged from either side, pelting towards the Winchesters, not slowed down by the gapping wounds all over their bodies.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Each hound took hits to the head, legs, and chest before finally reaching Sam and Dean. Sam skewered the first on the angel blade; the other took the demon-knife to its left eye.
Panting and covered in sweat, the brothers pushed the dead dogs over just as another howl rang out.
They turned. Another hybrid paced behind the line of fire; unlike the hellhounds, the monster couldn't cross.
"Looks like you're stuck, chuckles," Dean snarked.
The hybrid turned and snarled. Two hellhounds, no three, tore at the monstrosity, reducing the thing to strips of blood and flesh behind the fire-moat.
"Hellhounds don't play well with others I guess," Sam said to Dean, preparing himself for the next onslaught.
"Neither do we," Dean pulled up his shotgun.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Before they even crossed the now-low fire line, each dog took a heavy beating from the bullets. The first two went straight for the brothers, slamming into them with claws at the ready, not even flinching at the silver chainmail.
A slash to his outer thigh dropped Sam; he hacked wildly at the chest of the shadowy creature. It snarled in pain as its left front leg ripped away. Had they not embedded the glasses behind their ears, both brothers would've lost them in the Malay.
Dean managed to sidestep his devil-dog's pounce, stabbing at the dog's back and knocking it to the ground. As he moved in for the kill, he saw the third mutt angling for him, ready to move when Dean let his guard down. He played along, lowering his head and slicing through the hellhound's throat.
From the ground, Sam tried to take out his own Rover, but even with three legs the damn thing was quick. He rolled up on his good side to get leverage. Once, twice he slashed with the blade and missed. The hellhound lashed out, grabbing for Sam's already-injured leg.
The third dog flew towards Dean's exposed back. But Dean was too quick; he whipped around and rolled towards it, putting himself underneath its belly, and thrust the knife up. As the hellhound crashed down, the blade sliced through it; the wound started behind its forelegs and ran to its hindquarters. Dean didn't miss a beat. He slid from under the thing and stabbed its throat for good measure.
Just as Dean took out the third arrival, Sam jabbed Cas's blade through the top of his hellhound's mouth. Its dead teeth scrapped along his arm, pulling at the flesh as he dislodged his appendage from its slack maw. Cradling his right arm, he squirmed closer so he could pull the blade out of his fallen enemy.
Dean pulled Rover off of his brother and knelt over him. "Damn, Sam," he said. "We - "
The fourth hellhound, that's the one they didn't see. With a crash it threw Dean into the air. Sensing Sam's defenselessness, the shadowy beast turned on him and ripped down his front howling in victory.
Dean didn't stop to think. As soon as he regained his footing from Fido's head-butt, he pounded the ground back to his brother and knifed the sucker in the back.
Wheeling around, Fido slashed at Dean, clipping his arm and leaving long, deep gashes. With all the adrenaline and strength he had left, Dean seized the hellhound's neck and pulled himself into its face. He felt the hilt of the blade crack against its skull. He'd stabbed it through the ear.
He scrambled over to Sam, who bled freely from his stomach, chest, and legs. "Sammy - "
"The jar, the salve," Sam said. Blood bubbled out of his mouth.
"Right, right," Dean said.
He fumbled through his brother's coat pockets to find the jar. It had been cracked, but the paste was so thick that it didn't matter.
Dean wiped the ash-and-water paste down Sam's front, then his legs and arms. As Sam's flesh knit together, Dean put a little on himself.
"Did we get them all?" Sam asked, his breath finally coming easily again.
"Honestly? I don't know."
The fire had burned out. Apparently it was more subtle than Sam thought, since no one came calling about it. Dean kept watch as Sam packed the dead mutts into the back of the trailer.
<<< Previous Part:
Part Two: Omens
Next Part: >>>
Part Four: Slipstream
Primary Post: 09x08 Salty Dog
Primary Post: Season 9 Fan Fiction (S9FF)