"Rush" - Chapter Nine, Part Two
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Chapter Nine, Part One here.
Truth be told, Dean wasn’t sure which was more likely to send him to the ground, the throbbing pain in his head or the one in his knee. The room was spinning, for all that Grace had hold of him, and he felt so off-balance that he thought he might keel right over at the first wrong step. ‘Course, the wrong step was a given, because he was really pretty sure his knee was gonna give just as soon as he put any real weight on it.
Damn it!
“C’mon out, Quon-Jin, and let’s finish this!” he shouted, far too loudly for his own tastes, given the knot on his brow. “Quit lurkin’ around like the child molester you are and act like a man! Oh, but I forgot. You’re not a man, you’re a coward. Well, I can help you get over that, if you’ll just come on out and-“
Behind him, Grace inhaled sharply, pulling reflexively at the back of Dean’s shirt as the lightbulb spat and the spirit of Quon-Jin Chin stepped through a stack of boxes piled in the middle of the freezing room.
Dean raised the salt-gun instantly, but then Grace gasped again.
“Dean!”
A pale mist appeared, coalescing quickly before them, between where they stood at the base of the staircase and Quon-Jin’s glowering form. In seconds they could clearly see a young girl in a dark green dress and ruffled white petticoats that came well below her knees, her light brown hair tied back at the temples and falling in loose curls down her back. Expressionless, she held up her hands to them as though warning them to stay away.
Grace’s shocked cry hardly rose above a whisper. “Katie! That’s Katie Kaheny!”
“Katie?” Dean winced, raising an arm swiftly to wipe away the blood trickling through his eyebrow, distracting him. “The one he killed?”
Quon-Jin used the opportunity to move forward abruptly, and Dean brought the salt-gun to bear, Grace shrinking back and the spirit of the little girl standing as though frozen, brown eyes big and soulful in her pretty face, right in the line of fire.
“Katie, get down!” Dean commanded as Quon-Jin reached for her. The child startled suddenly as the infuriated Chinese ghost took her by the shoulders, pulling her back against him and placing an arm across her chest.
Dean lined up for a head-shot.
“Let her go, you sonofabitch,” he snarled, hearing Grace’s squeak of fright somewhere behind him.
But then something curious happened.
Katie twisted quickly in Quon-Jin’s grip, pivoting so that she stood beside him, arms clasped tightly around his waist as she pressed close against the blue silk of his tunic.
When she turned her face to the hunter, Dean could clearly see the fright in the little girl’s eyes before Quon-Jin shifted slightly until his body partially blocked hers.
With a clear shot now at the Chinese man before him, Dean raised his cheek from the stock, brows drawing together.
“What the--?”
Quon-Jin Chin stood tall and determined, his face still distorted with anger and Katie peering out fearfully from behind him as Dean brandished the salt-gun.
“I’m scaring her,” Dean realized aloud, hardly believing his own words. “She’s not afraid of him-she’s afraid of me!”
“What?”
He could scarcely hear Grace’s voice, although the curator stood only slightly behind him, and Dean risked a quick glance. Her eyes were wide with shock, and she seemed unable to tear them away from the two spirits who had appeared in the middle of the joss house’s frigid basement, scarcely five feet away.
Dean began solving the puzzle on the fly, answers coming to him with a rush now that he’d seen the Chinaman and the little girl together. “Look at them, Grace," he said. "He’s a scary-ass drug lord and she’s just a kid. Whether or not he killed her, she should be terrified of him. Running from him, or hiding. Instead, she’s…Katie?”
Grace squeaked again as Dean lowered the shotgun barrel and took a cautious step toward the spirits. Quon-Jin billowed forward ominously, the little girl shrinking away, and Dean halted immediately, his hands outspread.
Aw, Jesus, now he was scaring himself. Holy crap-what was he thinking? Ghosts? Bad, Dean! They’re bad! Look at that guy!
He knew his eyes were big with doubt and fear and surprise, and Dean took in a harsh breath that got caught somewhere north of his lungs. He blew it out and tried again, wetting his lips and patting the air on both sides of him, like some giant, gun-toting bird trying for a little lift.
C’mon, Dean, dammit! There’s no such thing as a real Casper the effin’ Friendly Ghost-they’re bad, every last one of ‘em! Molly McNamara…well, hell, God knew what had been up with that chick, but surely she was the exception to a gigantic fucking rule. There’s a reason they’re called the Evil Undead, right?
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Dean said soothingly, amazed at how calm he sounded, considering he'd just gone fuckin’ nuts. “Look, I think I’m getting the picture, here, so everybody just relax.”
He couldn’t let go of the gun, because no way in hell was he going to trust the Chinaman not to go all Jet Li on his ass, although maybe old-timey opium dealers weren’t much into the martial arts. Ghosts had other freaky powers, though, and for a split second Dean wondered why the gun was still in his hand in the first place. He’d had plenty of experience with having weapons ripped from his grasp, with being thrown bodily across rooms and streets and fields with a simple wag of some pissed-off spirit's see-through finger. But that wasn’t happening here….
Don’t like ’em, don’t like ’em, don’t like ’em!
Dean cleared his throat. “Katie, sweetheart, I need you to tell me something." Unfuckingbelievable, what he was doing. "Did this man ever hurt you?”
The child’s image faltered behind Quon-Jin’s, stuttering in and out of existence as she watched the hunter dubiously, and Dean took another hobbling step forward.
“No, Katie, please! You gotta stay and tell the truth, now! There’s a whole lot of people who think that this man right here hurt you. See this pretty lady? That’s her great-granddaddy, and even she thinks he did something bad to you. But he didn’t, did he? Quon-Jin was your friend, isn’t that right? He was your friend, right up to the very end, and even after.”
Katie solidified once more, nodding hesitantly although she still eyed Dean with distrust.
The spirit of Quon-Jin Chin stepped back slightly, his head tipped, obviously deeply suspicious but no longer quite so menacing. His gaze flickered between the two people before him, then lingered on Grace, his expression altering from wariness to sorrow.
When Katie clutched his leg and peered up at him beseechingly, Quon-Jin placed a sheltering hand on her shoulder.
“He didn’t kill her,” Grace said, sudden understanding giving strength to her words. “He's been protecting her. Each time the ghost has done something threatening, it’s been because he’s protecting her!”
Dean nodded, growing even more accustomed to the idea. “Or her memory, her reputation. Maybe kids in general, even. That teacher today? Maybe sayin’ some things about Katie this ol’ guy didn’t like, or maybe just givin’ those kids a little too hard a time.”
“But in the museum…?” the curator asked almost timidly. “Why would he have appeared in the museum?”
Dean shook his head, grimacing at the resultant spike of pain. “Don’t know-somebody did something he didn’t like, I guess.”
“You swore,” Grace replied instantly. “You swore, when some of the children were still in the room.”
The hunter blinked.
“What the hell’s so bad about-“
The angry glower was back on Quon-Jin’s face, the ghost bristling visibly, planting himself even more firmly in front of Katie until Dean patted the air again to make peace.
“Okay, okay! Calm down!" he barked. "Sorry. I’ll, uh…I’ll watch my language in front of the kid.”
Jesus Christ, this was fucking unbelievable!
There was a pause before Quon-Jin finally nodded, then raised his other hand, stretching it out toward Grace in silent entreaty, his face transforming with longing and regret.
“Look at them, Grace,” Dean said quietly with a thrust of his chin, certain now that he knew the truth, as unnatural as it might seem. “He’s not her killer; he’s her guardian. I think he stayed behind to take care of her, until they could both move on.”
Although he could not see them on her face, Dean heard the tears in Grace’s voice. “I was wrong,” she said, her hand plucking lightly at Dean’s elbow as though for support she wasn’t certain she deserved. “Everyone was wrong. Great-grandfather, I’m so sorry! You have been done a great injustice, and I am guiltiest of all.”
It seemed, then, that the spirit of Quon-Jin Chin began to brighten, but the little girl pulled at him, mouthing a cry and clinging even tighter.
“Katie,” Dean called to her softly. “Katie, Quon-Jin’s granddaughter didn’t respect him because of what people thought he did to you. Can you imagine how much it must hurt, that his own family thought he was a bad man? Sweetheart, if he’s been a friend to you, then it’s time to be a friend to him.”
The child’s image stuttered again, and suddenly she was standing right in front of him, her head tipped far back so that she could see Dean’s face. Grace gasped with renewed alarm, and Dean slowly put a hand out to take hers, squeezing her fingers briefly.
“It’s all right, Grace,” he said calmly, keeping his eyes on the child before him. “Sometimes, spirits just can’t seem to move on until they think there’s justice. I think Quon-Jin might be ready, now that you know he’s not her killer. But Katie can’t go until she tells us who was.”
Unclasping Grace’s hand, Dean set the stock of the salt-gun against the clay floor for balance and knelt gingerly until he was level with Katie, green eyes meeting eyes long dead.
“It’s gonna be okay, honey,” he murmured. “Tell me what you have to tell me, and then you and Quon-Jin can go into the light together, where you belong.”
Slowly Katie raised her hands, taking Dean’s face in them. Her touch was freezing, adding a whole new layer to how much his head hurt, and he almost flinched. Instead, Dean held her gaze squarely, amazed to see so much intelligence, so much life looking back. Somehow, it seemed she might be thinking the same thing about him.
“It’s all right, sweetheart,” he whispered, lips curled into an encouraging smile. “You just tell me who it was that killed you, and everything’s going to be all right.”
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Sam stood quickly, but with a flick of a finger, Bull Clancy sent him flying. He rolled when he hit, skinning knees and elbows and scrambling his brain as he let momentum carry him.
It did no good, because Clancy was still right there when Sam finally came to a stop, eyes focusing slowly on the spirit’s scuffed boots, traveling up and up until he could see the Irishman leering down at him.
“Shouldna teamed up with Hartson, laddy-buck,” the ghost informed him blithely in his thick brogue. “That thievin’, good-fer-nothin’ high-grader’ll get what’s comin’ to him, but it looks like it's yer turn first!”
Sam read the signs just a second before Clancy drew back a booted foot to launch a vicious kick at his intended victim. The young man’s eyes widened, and he shifted hurriedly, catching the boot on the right cheek of his backside instead of in his stomach or his ribcage.
Clancy swore as Sam got his hands and abraded knees under him, pushing off the granite floor and putting some distance between himself and the ghost.
“Look, buddy,” the hunter panted, stalling for time while he tried to figure out if the gun was still stashed in the back of his jeans. “If you’ve got a beef, it’s with Leland Hartson, and he’s been dead for a hundred years at least. His grandchildren don’t mean you any harm, and neither do I.”
“Don’t take me for a dundarlan, boyo. The man’s a cheat, makin’ millions out of this place after he’d paid me next to nothin’ fer it.”
Sam shifted his weight to one side and -there! He could feel the hard butt of the gun against his spine. He’d started with a full magazine; had used half a dozen rounds, which meant-
“Mining’s a gamble, Clancy,” he said boldly, turning away slightly with his right hand behind his back. “You lost, and now you’re trespassing.”
Clancy’s leer turned into a snarl. “Yeh streak o' piss, y’know perfectly well that Leland said the same thing to me, bringin’ me down to the Forty-Eight to show me the lode, rubbin’ it in how grand it was, then throwin’ me out!”
“So go,” Sam replied succinctly, drawing out the Taurus and pumping four rounds into the spirit, point-blank.
The Irishman’s image blinked out immediately, leaving Sam alone in the vastness of the drift, wincing at the sting of his abrasions, ears ringing. He heaved in a huge gulp of air, but before he could even release it, Clancy was back. This time, there was a pickax in his hands.
“I’ll give yeh this, lad, yer a feckin’ chancer,” the ghost said with a jerk of his chin. The gun was torn out of Sam’s grip, vanishing into the darkness. “And now?”
He’s missing half his teeth, Sam thought distractedly as Clancy grinned wide, hefting the ax with menace.
“Now, yer a loser, too.”
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TBC. Thanks for reading! Comments are welcomed.
Chapter Ten here.