A Supernatural Musing 5/10
Title: A Supernatural Musing
Topic: Supernatural
Genre: Het, Friendship, Adventure, Horror, Romance
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester, Castiel, OFC
Pairings: That would be spoilers ;-)
Beta: jooles34
Summary: The Winchester brothers investigate a few supernatural deaths, and quickly discover that there is more to them than meets the eye. Even their guardian Angel, Castiel, is unable to help them, only point them in the right direction. The boys follow that path, and soon find out that there are things more ancient than Heaven, more evil than the Devil, and that the old saying "Women are complicated" barely scratches the surface.
Spoilers: It's set sometime during Season 6, between episodes "Unforgiven" and "Mannequin 3: The Reckoning." Everything before that is fair game for spoilers.
Previous Chapter
The field looked a lot friendlier during the day. The trees were stock still, no wind to gently sway them. The animals and critters of the forest sang their harmonious song, a soothing backdrop to a beautiful sight. The opening was clear of any strange symbols or circles burned into the grass. It didn’t seem like a murder had occurred a few days ago.
They left the Impala on the gravel road that led up to the clearing and walked to the center, worried that tire tracks in the grass would cause an imbalance, and suddenly the spot wouldn’t be quite so serene. Shyloh had almost climbed over Sam in her rush to get out of the car, the man having to jump out of the seat to prevent it from being folded on him. She removed her shoes as soon as she touched ground and sprinted through the grass, laughing, her arms held straight from either side. Dean and Sam exchanged a look, then trudged out to meet her, their heavy boots leaving imprints in the ground.
“Not all is lost.” Shyloh whispered, a peaceful smile on her face as her eyes took in the nature around her. This was a place that was undamaged by humans. The edge of a national forest, protected by the federal government. She sat down, her legs buckling underneath her as she sank to the ground. Her hands and fingers brushed over the dirt, the tattoos under her nails dragging along. She closed her eyes and allowed the sun and natural surrounding soak into her.
“Police report says the body was found in this clearing.” Sam said, pulling a file out of his jacket. He figured that they could at least talk through a few things while Shyloh indulged herself. He was still a bit upset after the coroner failed to follow through with his deal. The nice thing about Google was that if you knew the right buttons to press, anyone’s phone number and address could be found.
“And all the other bodies came from places on this conservation as well, right?” Dean asked, kneeling down and running his fingers through the blades of grass. It had been a while since he had been in a place like this without worrying about a demon or ghost on his tail. He glanced at Shyloh. Was this what life was like for her, before the Angels locked her away in an impenetrable prison? He thought about the Impala, and a small cloud of despair fixed itself over his head. He freaked out if she gets a scratch on her, or a bug flies into her window shield without first asking his permission. He couldn’t imagine never being able to see her again. He stood up, and saw Sam staring at him strangely.
“What?” he asked.
Sam just shrugged, and glanced back at the file. “What I want to know is what makes this place so important. Why are they all being killed here? This feels like a vengeful spirit kinda thing, if you look past the strange markings and the purity.”
“Which just about summarizes the strange things about this case.” Dean pointed out, and Sam huffed.
“What if this purifying and marking of the bodies was done afterwards?. Like how the Egyptians mummified the bodies a few days after death.”
Dean thought about it for a moment before nodding. “Makes sense.”
“Not really.”
They both jumped and turned, having gotten so caught up in bouncing ideas that they forgot about their third wheel. Shyloh was still on the ground, her bare legs and hands intertwined with the grass.
“He came here, to this place, because it was peaceful. It was whole. He was a broken body that needed to be pure again. He prayed, every night, to his God, asking for his family to be safe, because he didn’t think he deserved to be whole.” Shyloh whispered, a small smile growing on her face. “His God never answered. But another God did. He grasped him by the soul and tore him out of this world, and took him to a place where he could be pure again.” She blinked, her smile growing into a full-fledged one as she stood up from the grass.
“What the hell does that mean?” Dean asked, as Sam walked over to the place where Shyloh had been sitting only moments before. He crouched down and sifted through the grass. His fingers felt something rough among the soft, and he grabbed it, picking it out of nature and into the world of man. It was a cigarette, smoked to the nub.
“He was here.” Sam breathed, the puzzle pieces clicking into place. Why Shyloh spouted out random and strange sentences, and how touchy-feely she was. How she was able to adapt quite quickly to this new and large world of theirs.
“What do you mean, he was here? Of course he was…” Dean drifted off as he stared at the cigarette in his brothers hand. “You mean, like, she just read his spirit or something?” He pointed at Shyloh.
Sam nodded. “When people die, there’s legends that they leave an imprint of their soul behind, like a carbon copy. It stays in the same place they died for a few days, sometimes only moments, before evaporating. There have been people recorded who have the ability to tap into these imprints and read them.”
“And Shyloh just happens to be one of them?” Dean asked, glancing at the girl. He would have thought that with the ability to read the final thoughts and feelings of people, she would turn out to be a bit less optimistic and undamaged. But then again, she had been in their presence for less than two days, and already he was realizing there were depths to this girl that their own experiences barely scratched.
“I can feel them.” Shyloh cut into their conversation. “Souls. They’re powerful things. I touch them and I can feel their power, their emotions. My God, he gave that knowledge to me. Because I prayed to him when no one else did.” She dropped her smile and stared directly at Sam, an ominous tone leaking into her voice. “They all said they tried, but he never talked back. They said he didn’t care. But he did.”
“What happened to them?” Sam asked.
Shyloh paused, a haunted look flashing through her eyes. “By the time they realized that he was listening, it was too late.”
Then a butterfly flew through her line of vision and she was lost, chasing after it through the field of grass.
---
The pick jiggled in the lock, desperately trying to manipulate the tumblers so the triumphant click could be heard. Sam pressed his ear harder against the wooden grain, straining to listen for that beautiful sound. It came softly, and he pulled away, slowly turning the knob until the front door opened. He slipped inside, not willing to risk another second of standing in the open, where anyone in the surrounding houses could glance outside and see the large stranger on the porch of the house.
Sam had decided, after their visit to the woods was over, that he would stop by the coroner’s house and pay him a visit. He had called the morgue that afternoon and it turned out that the man never shown up for work. Sam’s anger had turned into paranoia. For normal people, when someone doesn’t show up for work, it means they are sick or just playing hooky. For Sam, when someone doesn’t show up to work, and they had been talking to him, it meant that someone was dead, possessed, or worse.
Dean had wanted to come, but neither of them wanted Shyloh there; both for her own safety and because she would slow them down. Thanks to Castiel, that meant Sam, once again, had to be the go-for. This time, he really didn’t mind, though.
Sam closed the door behind him with a click and pulled the gun out of the waistband of his jeans. The bullets were silver, and the knife that appeared in his hand was iron. There was a bottle of holy water in his inside jacket pocket, and a baggie of rock salt in his other. Sam was nothing if not prepared.
He crept around the house, his large boots not making a noise on the hardwood. It was a small place, with two floors. Sam looked over the first floor pretty quickly, and dread was growing in his stomach the more he saw. There was a half-eaten lunch sitting out at a table set for one, the fork still spearing a bite that never made it into a mouth. Sam hesitantly touched the top of the food, and was met with cold meat; it had been sitting out for a while. Sam gripped the butt of his gun tighter, his large hands making the weapon look like a child’s toy.
He ghosted through the rest of the bottom floor, the military-like training his dad had drilled into him as a child sliding into place. He walked professionally and checked all the nooks and crannies without even thinking about it, his body rigid and coiled to strike, his breathing calm and regulated. He glanced at the steps leading up to a dark hallway and sighed. Bad things always tended to happen on staircases. Why couldn’t demons just do their dirty work on the first floor?
He ascended the stairs with caution, wincing each time his foot came down on a particularly loud piece of wood. He made it up the stairs without incident, though, and moved to resume his search in the study room on his right when a sound got caught in his ears. Sam froze, his finger wrapping around the trigger, ready to shoot at a moment’s notice. The noise paused for a moment, then came again, louder this time. It sounded like…retching.
Frowning, Sam advanced towards the sound, which was coming from behind a small door in the middle of the hallway. He positioned himself next to the door and eased it open with the muzzle of his gun. Nothing jumped out and attacked, so he took a deep breath and slammed the door the rest of the way open, stepping into the doorway and pointing his gun at the figure on the floor.
It was the coroner. His head was in the toilet bowl and he was emptying his stomach into it, his throat making a horrid scratching noise every time he heaved. Sam was at a loss. The kind person inside of him wanted to re-holster his gun and help the guy through his hangover, while the part of him holding the gun wanted to grab the holy water just in case.
“Uh…Mr. Roberts?” Sam said hesitantly. The man stopped mid-gag and turned his head, his eyes growing wide as if he suddenly realized there was a stranger in his doorway. His face was red, with snot dripping out of his nose and saliva from between his lips. His eyes were swollen and red, and his skin was tinged green.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he coughed. The words were too much, and he turned back to the toilet, his stomach doing flips and tricks inside him.
“I, um…” Sam trailed off, thinking quickly. “You didn’t show up for work, and our arrangement wasn’t taken care of. With these murders, my partner and I were worried that something had happened to you.” That was clean enough. He was still an FBI agent in this guy’s mind, and that sounded, at least to Sam, as a viable reason to be in the man’s bathroom. Hopefully he wasn’t thinking straight enough to remember that FBI agents couldn’t break into your house.
“Food poisoning.” Roberts grunted out. His fingers gripped the side of the toilet so hard his knuckles turned as white as the porcelain bowl. Sam pocketed his gun, his fingers brushing the pocket that contained the holy water as he steped forward.
“Glad you’re ok.” He stood looming in the bathroom, unsure of what to do. It was just too plain awkward to try and kneel down to sooth the guy, but he couldn’t just stand there. “Let me get you some water.”
He left the room and treked down the stairs, his boots now freely making noise. Sam grabbed a cup out of the kitchen and poured the holy water into it, adding ice and waiting a few moments so that the water would cool down a little. If Roberts wasn’t possessed, Sam didn’t want the man thinking he was some kind of loony.
“Here you go.” Sam stated, returning to the corner to the bathroom after again climbing the stairs. He turned towards the entrance to the bathroom, and instead of being on the floor, Roberts was standing tall, snot and bile wiped down the length of his arm. His eyes were black and he snarled, throwing what looked to be the back of the toilet in Sam’s direction.
The brother let his instinct kick in, ducking as the porcalain flew past him and fell down the stairs, the sound of it breaking meeting his ears with every step it fell down. Sam stood back up, thrusting the glass of water in the demon’s direction. The glass broke on the man’s chest and the demon screamed as the holy water burned its skin. Roberts stumbled backwards, stopping right before the bathtub, regaining his balance. Sam didn’t give it any time, lunging forward, right into the demon’s thick gut. It squealed and fell backwards, both of them landing in the bathtub. Robert’s head hit the back of the shower wall with a sickening crack, and Sam didn’t think about holding back any longer. That nlow would have killed any man; it was just him and the demon now.
Sam pulled back his arm and let loose a punch, breaking Robert’s nose. Blood started to flow, and Sam winced from the impact. He hit it again, his other hand reaching for the container of holy water again. He wondered why he hadn’t brought the knife, but that thought was erased from his mind when he was suddenly thrown head over heels from the tub. The demon had somehow gotten Robert’s chubby legs under Sam’s torso and kicked him off. Sam hit the bathroom floor with a thud, and all the air shot out of his lungs. He rolled, ignoring the holy water and going for the gun in his jeans. The demon leapt out of the bathtub with far too much agility for a man that size, and advanced upon Sam. Roberts’ foot pulled back the exact moment that Sam wrapped his hands around the gun. He aimed and pulled the trigger; the noise from the chamber deafening in such a small space. The demon howled, glancing down and realizing that Sam had just shot a hole directly through the foot it was going to kick him with.
The demon distracted by the pain, Sam used those few precious seconds to climb back onto his feet and run out of the room. He had nothing on him to efficiently kill the demon, but since Roberts was dead, he would just have to make the body uninhabitable.
Sam raced down the stairs, taking four at a time. He was two from the bottom and went to jump when a solid form barreled into his back and forced him forward. Sam’s forehead hit the hardwood floor with a loud crack, and he groaned as stars filled his vision. He felt something warm fall down his face and drip onto the floor as his eyes were captivated by the red, blurred and growing throughout his range of sight. He rolled and tried to crawl to his feet, but couldn’t keep his balance, collapsing back to the floor.
Roberts stood up and cracked his neck back into place, an inhuman laugh escaping his lips. The demon reached down and grabbed the collar of Sam’s shirt, hauling him up. Roberts’ body was so short that he was only able to bring Sam to his knees, the larger man’s feet and shins scraping the floor. “I like this body. Better than the piece of shit I’m in.”
The demon opened his mouth, but nothing happened. Frowning, he let go of Sam’s body, which hit the floor with a thud, eliciting another grown. His vision was fading now, and more blood was spilling from his head. He had a concussion, he knew. He fought against the black edging into his sight, his hands groping blindly for his cell phone. He found it, and keeping it in his pocket, dialed the number he knew by heart.
The demon ripped open the front of Sam’s shirt, snarling when he saw the tattoo etched into his skin. “Motherfucker, think you can keep me out?” it snarled, and using Roberts’ poorly-clipped nails, dug a circle around Sam’s skin. The brother cried out in pain as the skin containing his pentagram tattoo was ripped from his body.
“Now…let’s see, shall we? That bitch of a girl and your pansy-ass brother won’t see what’s coming for them. She’s ours, you understand.” the demon hissed, but Sam barely registered the words. He was already past the point of no return, and he could feel his strength draining from his body. All he wanted to do was fall asleep and wake up in a few hours. But in a few hours, Shyloh and Dean could be dead. He hoped his cell phone was working.
The demon tried again, pouring out of the coroner and into Sam’s mouth. It got halfway into Sam when it stopped, then did a full three-sixty, pulling out of his body faster than it poured in, screaming all the way. The large black cloud floated in the sky for a few seconds, its scream turning into laughter as it worked its way back into Roberts’ dead body. The meat suit sat up, cackling.
Sam’s hands clawed at the floor, trying to find purchase so he could stand up and fight. Or run; run towards the motel and Shyloh and Dean. He had to save her.
The demon found Sam’s antics hysterical, and kicked him in the gut. Sam stopped trying to escape. “Night night, my pretty.” it said, and the last thing Sam saw was a foot with a hole in it coming down on his head.
Topic: Supernatural
Genre: Het, Friendship, Adventure, Horror, Romance
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester, Castiel, OFC
Pairings: That would be spoilers ;-)
Beta: jooles34
Summary: The Winchester brothers investigate a few supernatural deaths, and quickly discover that there is more to them than meets the eye. Even their guardian Angel, Castiel, is unable to help them, only point them in the right direction. The boys follow that path, and soon find out that there are things more ancient than Heaven, more evil than the Devil, and that the old saying "Women are complicated" barely scratches the surface.
Spoilers: It's set sometime during Season 6, between episodes "Unforgiven" and "Mannequin 3: The Reckoning." Everything before that is fair game for spoilers.
Previous Chapter
The field looked a lot friendlier during the day. The trees were stock still, no wind to gently sway them. The animals and critters of the forest sang their harmonious song, a soothing backdrop to a beautiful sight. The opening was clear of any strange symbols or circles burned into the grass. It didn’t seem like a murder had occurred a few days ago.
They left the Impala on the gravel road that led up to the clearing and walked to the center, worried that tire tracks in the grass would cause an imbalance, and suddenly the spot wouldn’t be quite so serene. Shyloh had almost climbed over Sam in her rush to get out of the car, the man having to jump out of the seat to prevent it from being folded on him. She removed her shoes as soon as she touched ground and sprinted through the grass, laughing, her arms held straight from either side. Dean and Sam exchanged a look, then trudged out to meet her, their heavy boots leaving imprints in the ground.
“Not all is lost.” Shyloh whispered, a peaceful smile on her face as her eyes took in the nature around her. This was a place that was undamaged by humans. The edge of a national forest, protected by the federal government. She sat down, her legs buckling underneath her as she sank to the ground. Her hands and fingers brushed over the dirt, the tattoos under her nails dragging along. She closed her eyes and allowed the sun and natural surrounding soak into her.
“Police report says the body was found in this clearing.” Sam said, pulling a file out of his jacket. He figured that they could at least talk through a few things while Shyloh indulged herself. He was still a bit upset after the coroner failed to follow through with his deal. The nice thing about Google was that if you knew the right buttons to press, anyone’s phone number and address could be found.
“And all the other bodies came from places on this conservation as well, right?” Dean asked, kneeling down and running his fingers through the blades of grass. It had been a while since he had been in a place like this without worrying about a demon or ghost on his tail. He glanced at Shyloh. Was this what life was like for her, before the Angels locked her away in an impenetrable prison? He thought about the Impala, and a small cloud of despair fixed itself over his head. He freaked out if she gets a scratch on her, or a bug flies into her window shield without first asking his permission. He couldn’t imagine never being able to see her again. He stood up, and saw Sam staring at him strangely.
“What?” he asked.
Sam just shrugged, and glanced back at the file. “What I want to know is what makes this place so important. Why are they all being killed here? This feels like a vengeful spirit kinda thing, if you look past the strange markings and the purity.”
“Which just about summarizes the strange things about this case.” Dean pointed out, and Sam huffed.
“What if this purifying and marking of the bodies was done afterwards?. Like how the Egyptians mummified the bodies a few days after death.”
Dean thought about it for a moment before nodding. “Makes sense.”
“Not really.”
They both jumped and turned, having gotten so caught up in bouncing ideas that they forgot about their third wheel. Shyloh was still on the ground, her bare legs and hands intertwined with the grass.
“He came here, to this place, because it was peaceful. It was whole. He was a broken body that needed to be pure again. He prayed, every night, to his God, asking for his family to be safe, because he didn’t think he deserved to be whole.” Shyloh whispered, a small smile growing on her face. “His God never answered. But another God did. He grasped him by the soul and tore him out of this world, and took him to a place where he could be pure again.” She blinked, her smile growing into a full-fledged one as she stood up from the grass.
“What the hell does that mean?” Dean asked, as Sam walked over to the place where Shyloh had been sitting only moments before. He crouched down and sifted through the grass. His fingers felt something rough among the soft, and he grabbed it, picking it out of nature and into the world of man. It was a cigarette, smoked to the nub.
“He was here.” Sam breathed, the puzzle pieces clicking into place. Why Shyloh spouted out random and strange sentences, and how touchy-feely she was. How she was able to adapt quite quickly to this new and large world of theirs.
“What do you mean, he was here? Of course he was…” Dean drifted off as he stared at the cigarette in his brothers hand. “You mean, like, she just read his spirit or something?” He pointed at Shyloh.
Sam nodded. “When people die, there’s legends that they leave an imprint of their soul behind, like a carbon copy. It stays in the same place they died for a few days, sometimes only moments, before evaporating. There have been people recorded who have the ability to tap into these imprints and read them.”
“And Shyloh just happens to be one of them?” Dean asked, glancing at the girl. He would have thought that with the ability to read the final thoughts and feelings of people, she would turn out to be a bit less optimistic and undamaged. But then again, she had been in their presence for less than two days, and already he was realizing there were depths to this girl that their own experiences barely scratched.
“I can feel them.” Shyloh cut into their conversation. “Souls. They’re powerful things. I touch them and I can feel their power, their emotions. My God, he gave that knowledge to me. Because I prayed to him when no one else did.” She dropped her smile and stared directly at Sam, an ominous tone leaking into her voice. “They all said they tried, but he never talked back. They said he didn’t care. But he did.”
“What happened to them?” Sam asked.
Shyloh paused, a haunted look flashing through her eyes. “By the time they realized that he was listening, it was too late.”
Then a butterfly flew through her line of vision and she was lost, chasing after it through the field of grass.
---
The pick jiggled in the lock, desperately trying to manipulate the tumblers so the triumphant click could be heard. Sam pressed his ear harder against the wooden grain, straining to listen for that beautiful sound. It came softly, and he pulled away, slowly turning the knob until the front door opened. He slipped inside, not willing to risk another second of standing in the open, where anyone in the surrounding houses could glance outside and see the large stranger on the porch of the house.
Sam had decided, after their visit to the woods was over, that he would stop by the coroner’s house and pay him a visit. He had called the morgue that afternoon and it turned out that the man never shown up for work. Sam’s anger had turned into paranoia. For normal people, when someone doesn’t show up for work, it means they are sick or just playing hooky. For Sam, when someone doesn’t show up to work, and they had been talking to him, it meant that someone was dead, possessed, or worse.
Dean had wanted to come, but neither of them wanted Shyloh there; both for her own safety and because she would slow them down. Thanks to Castiel, that meant Sam, once again, had to be the go-for. This time, he really didn’t mind, though.
Sam closed the door behind him with a click and pulled the gun out of the waistband of his jeans. The bullets were silver, and the knife that appeared in his hand was iron. There was a bottle of holy water in his inside jacket pocket, and a baggie of rock salt in his other. Sam was nothing if not prepared.
He crept around the house, his large boots not making a noise on the hardwood. It was a small place, with two floors. Sam looked over the first floor pretty quickly, and dread was growing in his stomach the more he saw. There was a half-eaten lunch sitting out at a table set for one, the fork still spearing a bite that never made it into a mouth. Sam hesitantly touched the top of the food, and was met with cold meat; it had been sitting out for a while. Sam gripped the butt of his gun tighter, his large hands making the weapon look like a child’s toy.
He ghosted through the rest of the bottom floor, the military-like training his dad had drilled into him as a child sliding into place. He walked professionally and checked all the nooks and crannies without even thinking about it, his body rigid and coiled to strike, his breathing calm and regulated. He glanced at the steps leading up to a dark hallway and sighed. Bad things always tended to happen on staircases. Why couldn’t demons just do their dirty work on the first floor?
He ascended the stairs with caution, wincing each time his foot came down on a particularly loud piece of wood. He made it up the stairs without incident, though, and moved to resume his search in the study room on his right when a sound got caught in his ears. Sam froze, his finger wrapping around the trigger, ready to shoot at a moment’s notice. The noise paused for a moment, then came again, louder this time. It sounded like…retching.
Frowning, Sam advanced towards the sound, which was coming from behind a small door in the middle of the hallway. He positioned himself next to the door and eased it open with the muzzle of his gun. Nothing jumped out and attacked, so he took a deep breath and slammed the door the rest of the way open, stepping into the doorway and pointing his gun at the figure on the floor.
It was the coroner. His head was in the toilet bowl and he was emptying his stomach into it, his throat making a horrid scratching noise every time he heaved. Sam was at a loss. The kind person inside of him wanted to re-holster his gun and help the guy through his hangover, while the part of him holding the gun wanted to grab the holy water just in case.
“Uh…Mr. Roberts?” Sam said hesitantly. The man stopped mid-gag and turned his head, his eyes growing wide as if he suddenly realized there was a stranger in his doorway. His face was red, with snot dripping out of his nose and saliva from between his lips. His eyes were swollen and red, and his skin was tinged green.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he coughed. The words were too much, and he turned back to the toilet, his stomach doing flips and tricks inside him.
“I, um…” Sam trailed off, thinking quickly. “You didn’t show up for work, and our arrangement wasn’t taken care of. With these murders, my partner and I were worried that something had happened to you.” That was clean enough. He was still an FBI agent in this guy’s mind, and that sounded, at least to Sam, as a viable reason to be in the man’s bathroom. Hopefully he wasn’t thinking straight enough to remember that FBI agents couldn’t break into your house.
“Food poisoning.” Roberts grunted out. His fingers gripped the side of the toilet so hard his knuckles turned as white as the porcelain bowl. Sam pocketed his gun, his fingers brushing the pocket that contained the holy water as he steped forward.
“Glad you’re ok.” He stood looming in the bathroom, unsure of what to do. It was just too plain awkward to try and kneel down to sooth the guy, but he couldn’t just stand there. “Let me get you some water.”
He left the room and treked down the stairs, his boots now freely making noise. Sam grabbed a cup out of the kitchen and poured the holy water into it, adding ice and waiting a few moments so that the water would cool down a little. If Roberts wasn’t possessed, Sam didn’t want the man thinking he was some kind of loony.
“Here you go.” Sam stated, returning to the corner to the bathroom after again climbing the stairs. He turned towards the entrance to the bathroom, and instead of being on the floor, Roberts was standing tall, snot and bile wiped down the length of his arm. His eyes were black and he snarled, throwing what looked to be the back of the toilet in Sam’s direction.
The brother let his instinct kick in, ducking as the porcalain flew past him and fell down the stairs, the sound of it breaking meeting his ears with every step it fell down. Sam stood back up, thrusting the glass of water in the demon’s direction. The glass broke on the man’s chest and the demon screamed as the holy water burned its skin. Roberts stumbled backwards, stopping right before the bathtub, regaining his balance. Sam didn’t give it any time, lunging forward, right into the demon’s thick gut. It squealed and fell backwards, both of them landing in the bathtub. Robert’s head hit the back of the shower wall with a sickening crack, and Sam didn’t think about holding back any longer. That nlow would have killed any man; it was just him and the demon now.
Sam pulled back his arm and let loose a punch, breaking Robert’s nose. Blood started to flow, and Sam winced from the impact. He hit it again, his other hand reaching for the container of holy water again. He wondered why he hadn’t brought the knife, but that thought was erased from his mind when he was suddenly thrown head over heels from the tub. The demon had somehow gotten Robert’s chubby legs under Sam’s torso and kicked him off. Sam hit the bathroom floor with a thud, and all the air shot out of his lungs. He rolled, ignoring the holy water and going for the gun in his jeans. The demon leapt out of the bathtub with far too much agility for a man that size, and advanced upon Sam. Roberts’ foot pulled back the exact moment that Sam wrapped his hands around the gun. He aimed and pulled the trigger; the noise from the chamber deafening in such a small space. The demon howled, glancing down and realizing that Sam had just shot a hole directly through the foot it was going to kick him with.
The demon distracted by the pain, Sam used those few precious seconds to climb back onto his feet and run out of the room. He had nothing on him to efficiently kill the demon, but since Roberts was dead, he would just have to make the body uninhabitable.
Sam raced down the stairs, taking four at a time. He was two from the bottom and went to jump when a solid form barreled into his back and forced him forward. Sam’s forehead hit the hardwood floor with a loud crack, and he groaned as stars filled his vision. He felt something warm fall down his face and drip onto the floor as his eyes were captivated by the red, blurred and growing throughout his range of sight. He rolled and tried to crawl to his feet, but couldn’t keep his balance, collapsing back to the floor.
Roberts stood up and cracked his neck back into place, an inhuman laugh escaping his lips. The demon reached down and grabbed the collar of Sam’s shirt, hauling him up. Roberts’ body was so short that he was only able to bring Sam to his knees, the larger man’s feet and shins scraping the floor. “I like this body. Better than the piece of shit I’m in.”
The demon opened his mouth, but nothing happened. Frowning, he let go of Sam’s body, which hit the floor with a thud, eliciting another grown. His vision was fading now, and more blood was spilling from his head. He had a concussion, he knew. He fought against the black edging into his sight, his hands groping blindly for his cell phone. He found it, and keeping it in his pocket, dialed the number he knew by heart.
The demon ripped open the front of Sam’s shirt, snarling when he saw the tattoo etched into his skin. “Motherfucker, think you can keep me out?” it snarled, and using Roberts’ poorly-clipped nails, dug a circle around Sam’s skin. The brother cried out in pain as the skin containing his pentagram tattoo was ripped from his body.
“Now…let’s see, shall we? That bitch of a girl and your pansy-ass brother won’t see what’s coming for them. She’s ours, you understand.” the demon hissed, but Sam barely registered the words. He was already past the point of no return, and he could feel his strength draining from his body. All he wanted to do was fall asleep and wake up in a few hours. But in a few hours, Shyloh and Dean could be dead. He hoped his cell phone was working.
The demon tried again, pouring out of the coroner and into Sam’s mouth. It got halfway into Sam when it stopped, then did a full three-sixty, pulling out of his body faster than it poured in, screaming all the way. The large black cloud floated in the sky for a few seconds, its scream turning into laughter as it worked its way back into Roberts’ dead body. The meat suit sat up, cackling.
Sam’s hands clawed at the floor, trying to find purchase so he could stand up and fight. Or run; run towards the motel and Shyloh and Dean. He had to save her.
The demon found Sam’s antics hysterical, and kicked him in the gut. Sam stopped trying to escape. “Night night, my pretty.” it said, and the last thing Sam saw was a foot with a hole in it coming down on his head.