"Rush" - Chapter Eleven, Part One
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Chapter One here.
Chapter Ten here.
Rush
Chapter Eleven
Sam dropped back down into the water to get Steve, taking one end of the rope with him while Dean held onto the other. Between the brothers, they got the semi-conscious mine-owner hauled out of the flooded drift and on dry ground. Then it was Sam’s turn, and he was soon standing in the near darkness of the Forty-Eight, lit only by Dean’s flashlight, bloodied fingers trembling as he loosened the knot on the noose and let the sodden rope fall to his feet in a growing puddle.
He was soaked and exhausted, head pounding, flesh abraded in more places than he had sense left to count, and he staggered against the uneven granite floor. Dean grabbed at him quickly as Sam’s balance faltered, and for a few seconds Sam was leaning into his big brother’s embrace, his own arms flung around Dean’s sturdy shoulders, his eyes closing tight with relief.
“Gotcha, Sammy,” Dean murmured, holding his little brother securely for just a moment before releasing him, shifting his grip to the nape of Sam’s neck, pulling him gently forward a couple of steps. “C’mon, get away from the edge of that thing. You okay?”
Sam breathed a short laugh. “Yeah, I think so. What about you?”
“I’m good. Hey-so, Clancy?”
“”Yeah. What’d we miss?”
“Teeth in the museum.”
“Gross.”
“Tell me about it. Steve, c’mon, man-we’re getting out of here.”
Dean stuffed the wet rope back into the duffel he was carrying, and then the Winchesters hoisted the mine-owner to his feet and propped him between them, his arms over the brothers’ shoulders.
It was an arduous trek back up the tunnel, Steve stumbling frequently and Dean not much better off. Sam either, for that matter, so mostly they concentrated on moving forward without falling. Finally, though, they could see the glow of the carbon lamps in the Thirty-Six, hear the generator’s growl, and Steve whimpered with exhausted elation.
“I don’t know, Sam,” Dean was saying as they entered the upper drift. “Holy water against a ghost?”
“I’ve never read or heard anything about it, either, but it might be worth looking into,” Sam countered. “Hey, wait, Dean-wait. We’ve got to re-set the wards here; something happened with them, and they didn’t work. What’s in the bag?”
Dean shrugged tiredly. “Kitchen sink.”
They dumped Steve down in a heap beside the tunnel entrance before Sam took the duffel from his brother’s shoulder and unzipped it, quickly pawing past the rope and the camp-shovel, the guns and the-
“Dean. Dynamite?”
Sam held the single red stick aloft, his eyebrows climbing.
“I didn’t know what I’d need,” the older man replied, his tone defensively innocent.
“Oh, here.” Sam tossed over a piece of thick white chalk. “I think the lines just weren’t thick enough. Re-mark the sigils, wouldja? One here, and one over there. I’ll get the other two. Hey, Dean?”
“Yeah?”
“Erica was okay?”
“Grace was with her. So, just draw over what you’ve already got here, right? This isn’t from Dad’s journal-where’d you get this, Sammy? Bobby show you? Looks kinda like a Kabbalah pentagram, except for whatever this little dog-thing is down here on the left…”
Sam never even noticed that his question had gone unanswered.
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Steve was almost incoherent from cold and exhaustion when they hauled him out of the mine collar between them, Dean limping very badly by this time, Grace and Erica waiting for them there in the gravel yard. Grace hurriedly grabbed a tatty quilt from the back of her little SUV to drape warmly around Steve, while Dean propped Sam against the hood of the Impala and found an old blanket from the trunk. Sam was still pretty wet, but he pulled away from Dean’s ministrations clumsily to approach Erica, who stood aloof, watching with dark, sullen eyes.
“Erica,” Sam said, voice tight with concern, “are you okay?”
She shied instantly, making it abundantly clear that she wanted nothing more to do with any of it; wanted nothing more than to get out of Rattlesnake and never think about it or the North Cedar Mine or ghosts or Sam Winchester ever again. She was trembling again so hard she could barely open the door of her truck, wrenching away when Sam tried to help her.
“Erica, please-you shouldn’t be alone,” he pleaded with her. “Stay here tonight, in the hotel. I promise you, you’ll be safe, and things will look better in the morning.”
“You knew about it!” she spat acidly, turning on him, glowering venomously. “You knew about that-that thing, somehow. You let me go down there, and you never said a word!”
“Erica, I’m sorry! I-“ Sam gaped helplessly at her, floored by the hatefulness in her voice. “I swear I didn’t know that anythi-“
She was crying, now, her voice guttural with anger and fear, her face contorting with growing rage. “I’ve never been through anything like that in my entire life! How’m I going to be able to…my God, my job! How can I-I don’t-everything I’ve prepared for! Is it over? I was scared, Sam-so fucking scared! My hands were shaking so bad-look, they still are!-I couldn’t…I couldn’t…. Oh, my God, the mine! What if I can’t ever go back into a-fuck! It’s all I’ve ever wanted, and now? Now you’ve ruined it all!”
She hurled his cell phone at his chest, Sam trapping it almost unconsciously with one quick hand as it bounced off him, reaching out to her with the other.
“Erica, no-no, don’t say that! Please, I can explain, and things’ll look different in the morning. I promise.”
He knew as he spoke them that the words were hollow, meaningless, but he had nothing better to offer. It was clear that she knew, too.
Mouth ugly with emotion, Erica glared at him for a long and horrible moment, eyes wet and raw, her voice dropping with bitter contempt. “Get away from me, Sam. Don’t you ever come near me again.”
Then she shrank from him until Grace finally stepped in and put a protective arm around her shoulders.
How had it all gone so wrong so fast?
Sam turned in silent entreaty to his brother, stunned. Dean’s lips thinned as he met Sam’s eyes, shook his head slightly, sorrowfully. They weren’t going to win this one.
“Do you want me to drive you home, Erica?” Grace asked gently. “Will you be all right there?”
“All right?” Erica hissed. “Tell me how I can be all right.”
Grace prized the key out of her hand and steered her around to the other side of the Yukon, helping her settle into the passenger seat. As soon as the curator was clear of the door, Erica reached out and slammed it shut, locking it immediately.
“Why’s she blaming you?” Steve Hartson asked testily, teeth chattering although it was not cold. He was having his own difficulty dealing with the afternoon’s events-feeling a little odd, almost drunk-but the state inspector’s vehement reaction was shocking. “It’s not like you made Clancy try to kill us. Hell, Sam, you saved my life!”
Sam blinked, slow to shake off his astonishment. But he got it. Really, he did.
“She’s afraid and angry, Steve. She doesn’t understand what happened, and if she can rationalize it somehow by thinking I’m responsible, if that helps her cope, then…I guess I’m okay with that.”
If they’d just gotten Clancy the first time….
“Junjei, can someone please follow us to Erica’s place and give me a ride back home?” Grace asked Dean, her voice soft. “I don’t think it should be Sam.”
Sam looked down at his sodden, torn clothing and made a face. “No, I’ll do it. I need to see that she’s all-“
Grace cut him off. “Sam. Erica’s afraid of what has happened here, and it all revolves around you. It will upset her more if she knows that you’re following, and that you know where she lives.”
He ducked his head, feeling his cheeks burn as blood rushed to them, and Grace understood instantly.
“Oh,” she murmured so that only he could hear. “Sam, I’m sorry. You’re not to blame.”
Sam felt Dean’s eyes on him still, and looked up to see his brother offering tacit sympathy and regrets. Again. Sam grimaced, turning away briefly.
Chalk another one up for Sam Winchester, major loser.
But that wasn’t right, and he knew it. He caught Dean’s eyes again, needing the backup, grateful that Dean, as always, came through in spades, offering Sam the solid moral support the younger man had known he would find in his brother’s quiet gaze. Support, and a silent appeal that Sam forgive himself, because nothing he could have done would have made things any different.
“No,” Sam said finally, accepting that things were what they were. “No one’s to blame.”
Still, it felt like a lie.
For a moment, then, it looked like Steve would be the one who followed the women to Erica’s house, but no sooner had the decision been reached than the mine-owner’s eyes rolled into the back of his head and he slumped to the ground in a dead faint. The delayed reaction only lasted a few moments before Steve was back on his feet, shaky and embarrassed, but it was clear that someone had to stay in Rattlesnake to keep an eye on him.
“Fuck!” Dean growled in aggravation. “Look, let me just-“ He bent down to unlock the hinge on his brace, but Sam stopped him immediately.
“Dean, take Steve back to the hotel and get off that leg!” he ordered, brooking no disagreement, even when Erica leaned across the front seat of the GMC and honked the horn impatiently.
“Shall we go, then, Sam?” Grace asked, and Sam nodded, moving to the Impala as Grace got into the Yukon’s driver’s seat beside Erica.
“Be careful on the road, both of you!” Dean commanded over the sound of the engines turning over. Grace gave him a little wave, but Sam was staring straight ahead, grip fierce on the steering wheel.
Little brother, all wound up tighter than ever.
Dean watched them go, expressionless for a moment as the cars pulled away, then turned to Steve, who was still looking a bit wobbly. The hunter made a rapid assessment, then donned his best game-face.
“So, Steve-o,” he said jovially. “Who’s going to drive us back to town, Fainting Boy or the Gimp? My money’s on the Gimp.”
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Sam parked the Impala out on the street, then walked quickly into the empty courtyard through the front gate just in time to see the two women enter Erica’s second-floor apartment. Grace spotted him and gave him a wan smile, but if Erica had seen him, she gave no sign.
He thought he was probably lucky no one else saw him, either, because he was a mess. The knees of his jeans were torn out, skin there and at his elbows and forearms raw and bloodied, long hair slack and in his face from its dousing in the slimy groundwater of the North Cedar. He definitely didn't look like the type of guy you'd want to see hanging around your house or your building. Fortunately, nobody seemed to be coming or going in the apartment complex.
He spent the next two hours mostly standing, sometimes pacing or sitting in one of the deck chairs by the pool, eyes pinned on the curtained windows of Erica’s living room, where shadows occasionally passed.
His cell buzzed a few times-Dean, checking up on him-but he let the calls go unanswered.
Finally, the lights inside the apartment went out and Grace emerged, closing the door quietly behind her before heading along the walkway and down the stairs, Sam standing anxiously as she joined him.
“Will she talk to me?” he asked at once, although he already knew the answer, unsurprised when Grace shook her head. “I could apologize-“
“She’s not ready, Sam. I think she knows you’re not to blame, but she’s having a hard time coming to terms with what she experienced today. It might take her a very long time to get over it.”
Sam nodded eagerly. “Right, and I think I could help her! I could explain-“
Grace put a hand on his arm.
“Sam.”
For a long moment, Sam could think of nothing more to say. He looked up again at the dark apartment, then to the dark sky overhead, huffing a mirthless laugh.
“What about the inspection report?” he asked finally, his voice flat and hopeless. “What’s going to happen to the North Cedar?”
Grace sighed, shrugging her shoulders eloquently. “I think the best Steve can hope for is that Erica’s paperwork gets lost. He can schedule another inspection later. I told her I would call her in the morning-we can talk about it then.”
It was almost more than he could take to see the sympathy in her eyes, and Sam clenched his jaw before another laugh forced itself from him.
“She wasn’t even supposed to be down in the Forty-Eight. And Clancy? He was supposed to be gone.”
“I know, Sam, and I’m so, so sorry.”
The trip back to Rattlesnake was silent except for the deep rumble of the Impala’s mighty engine.
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Basically, the plan was to get Steve drunk. At least enough to get him past the shakes and the terror, let him sleep, get a fresh take on things in the morning.
Dean had figured it would take maybe a bottle, maybe a little less, to take care of business, but four shots of Scotch had Steve listing seriously to starboard on the lobby couch, while Dean found some extra blankets for him and got the gas fireplace going.
Steve had been nervous, at first, to be left anywhere on his own, but his clothes were still damp and no way in hell Dean was gonna babysit him in the shower so he could warm up. Wouldn’t fit into either of the Winchesters’ clothes, anyway, so blankets and a fire it was, not to mention the whiskey.
Right now, the mine-owner had a shot in one hand and his head in the other, elbow propped sloppily on the arm of the couch.
“Y’ever heard of anything like this before?” he asked.
“Like what?”
“I mean, somebody wanting revenge so bad he’d come back from the dead and go after innocent people, years later.”
Dean cleared his throat, sitting back in an easy chair and stretching his aching leg out straight in front of him, his boot up on the reproduction coffee table.
“Well, yeah. That’s kind of what they do, some ghosts. They start mad, and then the mad just doesn’t go away, you know? It lingers”-the word sounded strange in his mouth, and Dean paused, reaching for the whiskey bottle-“and sometimes it gets worse. Doesn’t matter who they hurt, mostly; they just wanna hurt somebody, innocent or not.”
“I dunno, Dean.” Steve’s words were beginning to slur, and he had one eye half-closed as he waved his shot-glass at the room at large. “This guy was holdin’ a grudge against me, jus’ ‘cause I’m a Hartson. Like he was a…a fam’ly curse, or somethin’.”
Damned if Steve didn’t giggle, then, although he was scowling mightily, drawing himself up straight on the couch with a sharp belch.
“’A plague on both your houses!’” he called out in a stentorian voice, and Dean leaned forward sharply, patting the air between them with one hand, glancing quickly around the lobby and parlor.
“Heyheyhey! Steve! Don’t do that!”
“’S a curse,” Steve replied blandly as he relaxed, finally landing his empty glass on the table and pulling his blankets closer around him.
“Yeah, I know it’s a curse, and I also know the trouble you managed to raise down in your mine without hardly tryin’. God knows what you might raise around here. Remember what I said about bein’ careful who you drink with?”
“I am drinking,” Steve said very precisely, nailing every syllable, “with you. Anyway, you an’ your brother…you know a lot about things like what happened in the mine, with that ghost an’ me.”
It was not a question, and Dean couldn't deny it.
“Yeah, sure-there are a few kinds of spirits that latch on to a family, and sometimes it’s ghosts. Thing is, you don’t have to worry about this one, anymore, all right? Clancy’s gone, for good.”
“Thanks to you and Sam. Hey. Hey, Dean. Seriously, you guys really saved my bacon, an’ I owe you. You guys sure as hell know your business. Guess you’ve had some practice, huh?”
Dean took a long, slow pull on the bottle, feeling the whiskey burn its way down his throat and into his belly, thinking about curses, about families. About the Hartsons, and the Markhams. The Chins.
The Winchesters.
(he said that I might have to kill you, Sammy)
“Everybody’s family is a little cursed, Steve,” Dean said finally, staring into the fire. “Me and Sam, we just know how to deal with it.”
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After Steve finally passed out, cozy in front of the fire, Dean tried Sam on his cell again, but this time the call didn’t even go through.
“Huh.”
Dead battery.
He knew Sam was hurting, not just because of his encounter with Bull Clancy, or climbing up and down that damn hole at the bottom of the North Cedar Mine. No, truth was, the biggest damage to Sammy today was to his ridiculously enormous heart, because of that girl, Erica. Sam would blame himself for everything--for not ending Clancy at the cemetery, for Steve taking the mine inspector down past where she really needed to go, for...aw, hell, for everything. The big mook would take all her oaths and glares and tears to heart, and somehow convince himself that he'd been the cause of them all.
As far as Dean was concerned, in the greater scheme of things? His little brother had been a big damn hero today. Par for the course for a Winchester, sure, but a hero nonetheless. And that chick just needed to get a grip.
'Cept none of that would help Sammy, so the next plan was to get him out of town and focused on somethin' else just as soon as possible....
Dean struggled up out of the chair and limped tiredly down the hall, letting himself into the suite and yawning widely as he rounded the foot of his bed, headed for the phone-charger on the nightstand.
The prescription bottle of oxycodone sat there also, but Dean ignored it, although his knee was aching like a sonofabitch. He wanted to stay sharp until Sam was back home and everything was all right. Even then, they had some more work to do.
He plugged his cell into the power unit, then rummaged under the other bed and found Sam’s duffel, unzipping it and easily finding the worn, familiar leather of their dad’s journal stashed at the bottom. It felt warm in his hands, and he opened it with a snap, dumping Sam’s duffel to the floor and sinking down onto his own bed, swiveling his legs up onto the quilted coverlet and fidgeting until his back rested against the pillows and the headboard.
The brace came off quickly and Dean thought for a moment about icing his knee, but he was just too tired to get up again. Instead, he settled back and began leafing through the copious arcane notes of supernatural lore that John Winchester had passed on to his sons as his legacy. If there wasn’t an entry about ghosts being allergic to holy water, then Dean would make his own notes, back in the section where Sam had started to add to their father’s handwritten estate.
He must have dozed off, because his entire body jerked suddenly and he gasped aloud, the journal falling from his lap to the floor. Dean blinked dazedly around the empty room, then rubbed a hand into his eyes to clear the sleep from them. A quick look at his watch showed him it was almost one-thirty in the morning.
Still no Sam.
He turned to the nightstand, swinging his left leg over the edge of the bed, leaving his bum knee stretched out straight on the coverlet as he pulled his phone from the charger. It rang in his hand, and he opened it quickly.
“Hey.”
Five minutes later, there wasn’t anything more to say, and Dean ended the call, closing his cell slowly, a line of sad thought etched between his brows. Then his frown deepened, eyes on the phone’s front display. The charge indicator was changing as he watched, showing power draining away like beer from an overturned bottle. In seconds, the battery was dead.
Then the room went cold, lights flickering, and Dean stood hastily as Agnes Markham appeared once again on the other side of his bed, near the door, in the same place she had shown herself to him just two nights earlier.
She looked exactly as she had before, wearing the red dressing gown that displayed her cleavage, hair framing her face in shiny, dark tendrils as she stood quivering with outrage and grief, eyes flashing as she cursed bitterly. This time, every acid-laced word was audible.
“You miserable, whoring, pathetic excuse for a man!”
Thing was, whoever she was looking at, whoever was the target for the stream of vile epithets she spat, it sure as hell didn’t seem to be Dean…
Even when he moved around the foot of his bed, her eyes didn’t track him, and Dean knew for certain then that she was residual energy-well, he was pretty sure, anyway, even if it meant that Sam had been right, and that Dean had fainted the first time she’d shown up.
Big wussy.
But if this was residual energy he was seeing and hearing, then why the temperature drop? Why the flickering lights?
“I hope you rot in hell, you lying, weak-willed, cheating son of a whore!” Agnes raged, delivering her tirade to a spot just to Dean’s left.
Night before last, he’d been certain she had stabbed him. ‘Course, he’d been certain she was Delilah Reardon, too, instead of JT Markham’s lovely little mass-murdering turtle dove of a wife.
So, no.
No.
Dean had been wrong or slow about too many things on this job already, and damned if he wasn’t going to figure this thing out once and for all by giving ol’ Agnes the ultimate acid test.
With that, he stepped in front of her, positioning himself exactly so that the venom she spewed was aimed directly at him, her eyes glaring savagely straight into his. Oh, if he was wrong about this, Sammy was going to be really pissed…
This time he knew the knife was in her hand, hidden by the folds of her skirt, and this time he heard every syllable of the words she hurled.
“Give me back my daughter!” Agnes shrieked, overcome with the insanity of grief and betrayal as she confronted the man who stood in her philandering husband's place. “I want my daughter! Katie Kaheny was your own child, James Markham-your daughter with that slut-and I killed her! Now it’s your turn to die!”
“Go ahead, darlin’,” Dean murmured, standing tall and taking a deep, sharp breath. “You’re no different from all the rest.”
He thought he was prepared, but Dean’s eyes still widened as she raised the knife and drove it straight into his heart once again.
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Chapter Eleven, Part Two here.