SPN fic: Revelations 6/6 + Epilogue (Gen, PG-13)
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
"Uh-uh," Winchester said, "no way, no how, absolutely not."
Victor considered beating him to death with the in-flight magazine, but decided it would be too much trouble trying to stow the corpse in the overhead bin. "You said it yourself, Winchester: the fires are connected to the babies. And in your family's case--"
"There's nothing wrong with Sammy."
"I didn't say there was." Victor's voice rose in irritation, and he fought to keep it down. This was a shitty conversation to have on a crowded plane. "But you said your brother's been dreaming about you in Sacramento, and now here we are. Going to Sacramento."
"Coincidence," Winchester declared in a tone that allowed no possibility of disagreement.
"I don't think so." Victor wondered why he was so dead-set on arguing the point. He wasn't even sure he believed it himself yet, wasn't sure if letting Winchester stay on the case had been such a hot idea. The notion of an entire generation of psychic babies -- two generations, maybe -- seemed almost too laughable to contemplate, until he remembered his own gun flying out of his hand and into Max Miller's. "We know Max was psychic--"
"That's got nothing to do with Sammy." Winchester tightened his grip on the armrests until the skin over his knuckles went translucent. He'd been high-strung and jumpy ever since they'd boarded the plane, and it had only gotten worse after takeoff. One of the reasons Victor had started this conversation in the first pace was to distract the kid from his airplane anxiety. Unfortunately, he'd managed to hit on the one topic that apparently freaked Winchester even more than flying did.
Maybe it was better to just let the whole thing drop. Victor reclined his seat as far back as it would go (which appeared to be about three inches) and did his best to become interested in the in-flight magazine.
He was halfway through a photo essay on Albania's best wineries when Winchester spoke up again.
"Look, I can see where you're coming from, all right? But you don't know Sammy and I do. He's just an ordinary freak, not a psychic one."
"If you say so." Victor turned a page without looking up.
"I do say so. Sam's a dork. His big scary power is to yammer on about the Meisner technique until your brains bleed out your ears. Other than that he's totally normal. Well... as normal as anyone at Berkeley ever is, anyhow."
"I'll take your word for it," Victor said.
But as he went back to his magazine, he couldn't help but remember that according to totally normal Sammy's totally coincidental dreams, Dean Winchester was going to die in Sacramento.
According to the notes Grant had faxed over, the Sacramento victim's name was Sylvia Duchamp, and she had been a single mother and a freelance software consultant who'd worked from home. According to the neighbors, she and her baby son had been alone in their condo when the fire had started.
Which meant that no one -- not the neighbors, not the fire department, not the local cops -- had a clue as to how little Bobby Duchamp had escaped the blaze.
He'd been found on the front lawn, wrapped in a blanket and wailing his six-month-old lungs out. There wasn't so much as a singe mark on him, and the hospital where he'd been taken found no signs of smoke inhalation or any other fire-related injury.
"Maybe the kid teleported or something," Victor suggested, as he and Winchester stowed their bags in the trunk of their rented Camry.
"Maybe," Winchester said dubiously. "Or maybe the demon carried him out. It would have to, wouldn't it, if it didn't want the kid dead?" He slammed the trunk lid shut and glared at it with a disgusted impression. "Powder blue Toyota, man. I can't believe the government put us in a powder blue Toyota. Maybe I should file for hardship pay."
"Maybe you should stop projecting your masculinity issues on your car."
"I don't have masculinity issues; I have taste. Just because you can't tell the difference--"
"Shut up and drive."
Hours in a cramped airplane seat left Victor's knee feeling as if it had been pounded with a hammer. Fortunately, the maligned powder blue Toyota had a passenger seat that reclined until it was practically a bed. Victor popped one of the Demerols he'd been carefully hoarding since he left the hospital in Saginaw, lay back and closed his eyes.
"Wake me when we get there."
He dozed through most of the drive, and didn't even notice that the car had stopped moving until a burst of screaming guitar chords jolted him awake.
"Rise and shine." Winchester turned down the stereo and popped the door locks. "We're going to do some shopping."
Victor leaned his forehead against the window to peer at the colorful storefront in front of which Winchester had parked. The hand-painted sign above the door identified the shop as Hecate's Hollow. The window display held a rack of hand-dipped candles, some gauzy scarves, multi-colored crystals and dream catchers dangling on leather cords.
"Let me guess -- you're all out of patchouli incense and it's messing up your aura?"
"Watch it, dude." Winchester smacked his arm lightly. "If the owner hears you dissing her place, she'll turn you into a frog." He was out of the car and heading for the entrance before Victor had time to figure out if he'd been joking or not.
He hauled himself out of the car and limped inside in time to see Winchester disengage from an enthusiastic embrace with a plump, frizzy-haired middle-aged woman whose head barely came up to his collarbone.
"Good to see you too, Ruth." Winchester stepped back with a grin. "The gimp over here is my partner, Victor Henriksen."
Ruth gave Victor a warm smile and a firm handshake. She wore a lot of silver jewelry -- great big hoop earrings with turquoise beads, dozens of skinny bangle bracelets on each wrist, an anklet strung with more beads. Her dress looked as if it had been sewn together from dozens of silk scarves, all in peacock shades of blue and green. She didn't seem like the sort of woman who turned people into frogs, but then again Victor didn't really know what that sort of woman would look like.
"We need a couple of your protection charms," Winchester said. "Like the ones you made for Bobby and Bill Harvelle last year. Can you do that?"
Ruth's face immediately clouded with concern. "You planning on going up against a demon, Dean? Does your daddy know?"
"We're not sure what we're going up against yet," Winchester said. "But whatever it is, it's been leaving sulfur traces all over the place. We just want to be safe, that's all."
"No such thing as safe when you're dealing with demons," Ruth said sternly. "But I'll do what I can. Wait here." She gave Winchester's arm a quick, motherly pat and disappeared through a beaded curtain into another room at the back of the shop.
"Protection charms?" Victor said under his breath.
Winchester nodded. "Against demon possession."
Victor wondered if he would ever get used to hearing the word "demon" just casually dropped into a conversation, treated no differently than "coffee" or "weather." It felt even more bizarre now that Ruth had brought it up. Before, it was just Winchester being possibly insane. Now it was, at the very least, a shared insanity. Victor was still trying to decided if he was ready to share in it too.
"Wait a minute," he said, "yesterday you were saying Max wasn't possessed."
"He wasn't. But that doesn't mean somebody else isn't, or we couldn't be. It's always a danger when a demon's involved. Gotta take precautions."
"Precautions. Right." Victor glanced toward the curtain. "And this friend of yours can do that?"
Winchester nodded. "Ruth knows what she's doing. After my Dad, she's pretty much the best there is at this sort of thing."
"Can she really turn people into frogs?"
Winchester smirked at him. "I dare you to ask her."
Victor decided he could live with not knowing.
Sylvia Duchamp's condo was a third-floor walk-up. Victor cursed and sweated his way up the stairs only to find himself standing around with nothing to do but ask questions while Winchester and the CSI team crawled all over every inch of the place with their tweezers and brushes and little pill boxes. He couldn't even sit down, because every piece of furniture that wasn't burnt or soaked was either covered in fingerprint powder or waiting to be dusted.
"Dude," Winchester said after an hour, "stop torturing yourself. Go back to the hotel."
"I'm fine," Victor gritted out.
Winchester rolled his eyes. "Yeah, you're fantastic. That's why you're holding up the wall and making grinding noises with your teeth. Look, we'll probably going to spend all day tomorrow interviewing the neighbors. You'll want your leg functional for that. Go take a load off. I promise I'll tell you if we find anything interesting here."
"Right, 'cause you've been so forthcoming with information so far," Victor grumbled. Still, the vision of the big, comfortable bed waiting back in their hotel room was hard to resist. Victor shifted his weight, winced at the resulting stab of pain, and made up his mind. "All right, but I want a copy of the full forensics report. All of it. I'll decide if it's interesting or not."
Winchester gave him a thumbs-up sign. "You got it."
The hotel had a Jacuzzi, and Victor soaked himself and his bum knee in it for about half an hour before going up to the room. By then, the sleep deficit he'd been running since Saginaw was catching up to him with a vengeance. It was barely four o'clock, but he put on a pair of sweats and climbed into bed, fully intending to stay there until morning.
So he wasn't at all pleased when loud and insistent knocking startled him from a sound sleep less than three hours later. He shuffled to the door in a drowsy haze, flung it open, and stared blearily at the man in hallway.
"Reidy? What the hell are you doing here?"
"Nice to see you too." Reidy grinned. He was dressed in his usual work suit and tie, but the jacket hung loosely on him, and his face looked thinner and pastier than Victor ever remembered him looking before the heart attack. "Are you going to let me in, or are you going to make a man with a bad heart stand around in the hallway?"
"Shouldn't you still be in the hospital?" Victor stepped aside to let Reidy into the room. "Or at least at home watching soap operas or something? You look like shit."
"Look who's talking." Reidy gazed at Victor's threadbare sweatpants and FBI logo t-shirt with an amused expression. "The guy who's clearly been in bed all afternoon. And what's with the bling? You going to get your ears pierced next?"
Victor had almost forgotten about the protection charm Ruth had given him that morning. It was just a quarter-sized silver disk on a black silk cord, not flashy at all, but still more jewelry than he normally wore. He hadn't even liked to wear a ring during what Reidy liked to call his "occasional bouts of marriage."
"Just a souvenir." Victor tucked the pendant inside his t-shirt. "And stop trying to change the subject on me. What are you doing here?"
Reidy sprawled in one of the two hideous paisley armchairs that took up most of the space between Victor's bed and the window. "The doctors gave me a clean bill of health, so Grant said I could go back to work if I wanted to. And I figured you could use an actual working brain in this investigation, so I hopped a flight and... here I am."
Victor frowned. "Grant didn't say anything to me when I talked to him."
Reidy shrugged. "Maybe he forgot."
Grant didn't forget things. Something was off here. Victor hesitated, than glanced over to the nightstand, where his gun and cell phone were lying next to the hotel's clock radio.
"I'm going to call him."
He sat down on the bed and reached for the phone, but was interrupted by the sound of the key clicking in the electronic lock.
"Hi, honey, I'm home!" Winchester called out as he let himself in. "Hey, you want some Chinese, 'cause I'm star-- hello. Didn't know we had company."
Victor waved one hand in Reidy's general direction. "Winchester, this is my partner, Bill Reidy. Reidy, this is--"
"Hello, Dean," Reidy drawled in a smug tone Victor had never heard before. "I've been waiting for you."
He grinned, and his eyes flashed yellow.
"What the--" Winchester's voice cut off with a strained grunt as he slammed backwards into the wall opposite the beds. The impact made the furniture rattle. A framed photograph of a bowl of fruit slipped off its hook and glanced off Winchester's shoulder before crashing to the floor.
Victor froze. Only for a second or two, but it was enough. By the time his reflexes kicked in to send him scrambling for his gun, Reidy had turned those glowing yellow eyes on him.
It was different from when Max Miller had attacked him. Max's power had struck like punch, propelling him forward with the force of the blow. This was more like a giant, invisible hand picking him up and flinging him the way a child might fling an unwanted toy. Victor smacked against the wall in the corner next to the window. His head rang from the impact, and his legs buckled. He started to slide down, but the invisible hand hauled him upright, dragged him upwards along the wall until his feet dangled off the floor.
"Ah." Reidy clapped his hands together once, looking pleased. "Much better."
"Regna terrae, cantate Deo, " Winchester chanted rapidly from his side of the room. "psalite Domino qui fertis su--" His voice cracked mid-word, turned into a strangled cough.
"Oh, come on, Dean." Reidy sauntered over to where Winchester was squirming against the wall like a pinned bug. "I just got here, and you're trying to make me leave already? I'm hurt."
Winchester was still struggling to talk, though only strained choking sounds were coming out. Blood welled up at the corners of his mouth and dripped down his chin. Reidy just stood there, head tilted slightly to one side, and watched him writhe. Victor couldn't see his face from this angle, but is posture seemed perfectly relaxed.
"You're not Reidy," Victor wheezed. It was hard to draw breath to talk. The force that held him suspended squeezed his chest like a vise. Even breathing was an effort. "Let him go, asshole."
"Hm?" Reidy spun around in a half-circle to face Victor again. "Oh, that's right. Victor, isn't it? I almost forgot you were still here.
Victor drew another labored breath. "Bill..."
"Oh, I'm sorry. Didn't the preacher's boy over there tell you how things work? Bill isn't here. Or, well, I suppose you could say he's here." Reidy -- no, not Reidy, the demon, the thing wearing Reidy's face -- tapped one finger against Reidy's temple. "He's just not driving at the moment. Making a hell of a racket, though." It shook its head and arranged Reidy's face into an expression of mild disapproval. "Honestly. Such language from a government employee. What would the taxpayers think?"
"What do you want from us, you bastard?" Apparently, Winchester could talk when the demon's attention wasn't focused directly on him, even if he did sound as if he was chewing razor blades with every word.
"Why, nothing at all, Dean." The demon looked amused by the question. "You're not actually laboring under the delusion that you and Victor here are important, are you? You're just the bit players in this little drama." It turned toward the door and made a big show of checking its watch. "The lead is going to burst onto the scene just... about... now."
As if on cue, someone began pounding on the door.
"Dean?" A voice called out, anxious and young. "Dean, are you in there?"
Winchester's face went from enraged to horrified in a heartbeat. His whole body strained, limbs trembling and muscles cording in his neck as he fought and failed to tear himself free from the wall.
"Run, Sam! Get out of here!"
"Ah-ah." The demon pointed a finger toward the door, and it swung open. The young man on the other side must've flung himself at it a split second before, because he came tumbling in ass-over-heels, and landed in a disheveled heap at the demon's feet.
"Hello there, Sam." The demon leaned forward a little and prodded the young man in the ribs with one foot. "Nice entrance."
Sam. Sammy. Winchester's little brother, presumably, the hippie kid at Berkeley, the one with the drama-queen tendencies and the scary dreams about Sacramento. He was the reason for this whole shitstorm? It would've been hilarious, except for the part where they were all apparently going to be murdered by a demon in a hotel room.
Somebody had to do something fast. No, scratch that, Victor had to do something fast, because it was his fucking partner standing there with a demon inside him. Victor closed his eyes to shut the sight of not-Reidy's eyes looking out of Reidy's face, and forced himself to think calmly. Trying to free himself all at once wasn't going to work, he'd figured that much out just by watching Winchester's efforts. But maybe if he tried for something smaller...
He could move his fingers a little. Enough to wiggle them or make a fist. That was a start, right? Victor took a deep breath, and focused on prying his right hand away from the wall. It hurt. Every muscle in his arm and shoulder cramped from the effort, and when he strained again, something popped in his wrist. Victor bit down hard on his lower lip and kept trying.
A dull thump and a yell made him open his eyes to see that the demon had added another Winchester to its decorating scheme: Sam was now spread-eagled almost straight across from Victor, plastered against the wall that separated the sleeping area from the bathroom.
This was the first time Victor had had a good look at the younger Winchester, and it was hard not to be startled at how huge the kid was. He took up nearly the whole wall, with those long arms and legs stretched out. Sam's hair was darker and a whole lot longer than his brother's, tied back in a shaggy ponytail. He was wearing cargo pants and flip-flops and a threadbare yellow t-shirt with a Habitat for Humanity logo on the chest. He looked utterly harmless and utterly terrified. From the way his gaze kept darting sideways toward his brother, Victor suspected that most of the fear wasn't for Sam himself.
"Don't hurt him." Sam's voice was shaky and desperate. He was staring at the demon as if he could make it comply through sheer willpower. "Please. You said I'm the one you want -- well, I'm here. Just... stop."
"Sam, don't," Winchester gasped. He was a mess. There were bloodstains on his shirt that hadn't been there the last time Victor had looked, and his face had the grey, bloodless look Victor had seen all too often in shock victims. "That son of a bitch killed Mom, don't you dare give it any--" His head snapped back against the wall with a painful-sounding crack. He arched his back and drummed his heels like an epileptic in the grip of a seizure, still more blood bubbling on his lips.
"Come on, boys." The demon heaved a loud, theatrical sigh and left Winchester twitching on the wall as it wandered over to face off with Sam again. "This isn't even entertaining anymore."
"What do you want?" Sam demanded, and flinched when the demon reached up and patted him on the cheek.
"I want you to get your shit together, Sammy. You've been a great disappointment. More potential than all the others put together, and what have you accomplished with it? Nothing."
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Sam spit out. He still sounded scared, but an undertone of anger was beginning to creep in.
"I know you don't," the demon said impatiently, "that's the whole problem. I'm tired of waiting for you to catch up to the rest of the class, Sammy. You want to save your brother? Here's your last chance."
Victor's arm was moving now, slow and painful but under his control. He had a feeling that his own efforts had little to do with this small victory; the demon was so focused on the Winchesters, it appeared to once again have forgotten that Victor was there. It was kind of insulting, really, and it pissed him off just enough to keep him moving. He wasn't even sure what it was he was moving toward, until his fingers brushed against the silk cord around his neck.
Ruth's protection charm. Victor wasn't at all sure what it could do, or even if it could do anything at all. But his gun was out of reach on the nightstand, and the stupid little bit of metal on a string was the only thing that he had resembling a weapon. Victor wrapped his fingers around the cord, ducked his head -- another small victory -- and pulled the charm off.
When he lifted his head again, Winchester was looking straight at him. His earlier thrashing had faded to occasional small twitches, as if his body was too exhausted to react to whatever he was feeling anymore. He looked so wrecked, Victor couldn't even get any satisfaction from mouthing "distract him" over Reidy's shoulder. Winchester's eyes were cloudy, but he gave a small, almost imperceptible nod to show that he understood.
"Christo," Winchester snarled. The word seemed to affect the demon like a sudden electric shock. It jerked violently and spun toward Winchester with a growl. Winchester bared his teeth at it and spit out "Christo" again, followed by a rapid string of Latin. He faltered when the demon's eyes flashed yellow at him, but Sam took up the chant from his side of the room, picking up in mid-sentence without a pause.
Whatever they were doing, it must've been having some effect, because Victor could feel the pressure lifting from him with every word. He lunged forward once, twice, and suddenly found himself staggering across the room, flailing and off-balance but free. His knee threatened to collapse under him, but he caught himself at the last moment and lurched another step until he was within arm's reach of Reidy.
He had no idea what was supposed to happen when you put an anti-possession charm on an already possessed person. Hell, he didn't even know if simply holding the thing against somebody counted as putting it on. But Ruth hadn't said anything about them having to wear the charms against the skin, only that they had to be near the heart. So he flung his arms around Reidy's torso, slapped the little silver disk against Reidy's chest, held it there and hoped for the best.
He wasn't sure who it was that screamed, Reidy or the demon. But it sure as hell was Reidy's body, all 180 pounds of it, that thrashed and kicked in Victor's arms. Victor cursed and hung on, taking a sharp elbow jab to the ribs and a head butt to the chin before Reidy's heel connected hard with his left knee.
Victor's whole leg went numb for a moment, then sensation came flooding back like liquid fire. He yelled and toppled over, taking Reidy down with him. Over the sound of the demon's howls and his own pained swearing, he could hear both Winchesters still chanting the exorcism, voices in perfect synch.
The demon let out a high-pitched howl, and Reidy's body seized and bent over double. A stream of oily-looking black smoke poured from Reidy's mouth. It rose to the ceiling in a dense cloud, and circled the room twice before vanishing into the ventilation shaft near the door.
Reidy spasmed one last time, then collapsed into a still -- and crushingly heavy -- heap. Victor heaved him off and sat up. He felt like one giant bruise, but at least he wasn't dead. Over in the corner by the TV, Winchester was curled up on his side, hawking blood onto the carpet while Sam kneeled next to him, offering comforting noises and pats on the back. Maybe this was all about to turn out all right after all.
"Fuck, that was a close call. You all right, man?" Victor clapped one hand on Reidy's shoulder. "Hey. Reidy? Bill?"
Reidy's eyes were blank and lifeless when Victor rolled him over. His skin had a grey tinge and his jaw was slack. Victor had seen enough corpses in his life to recognize one now, even before he desperately checked Reidy's throat for a pulse that wasn't there, even as he hauled himself to his knees and began the first CPR compressions.
He wasn't sure how long he kept trying before Sam finally pulled him back. Longer than was sane, probably. Long enough to work himself into sweaty exhaustion. Long enough for the stitches in is hand and wrist to tear open, and for the cuts to bleed through the bandage. None of it did any good.
Bill Reidy was dead, and the thing that had killed him was long gone.
Epilogue
In the end, it was Sam Winchester who handled the aftermath. He was the one who moved a dresser over to hide the bloodstains on the carpet, and he was the one who stood in the door and smiled with blinding innocence at the hotel detective who'd showed up to investigate the noise in their room, until the man apologized and went away. He called Ruth to come and take Winchester to the ER, and once they were gone, he called 911 to report Reidy's heart attack. He talked to the paramedics and the cops, striking just the right balance between "sympathetically distraught" and "admirably holding it together." It was easy to believe that the kid had a bright future in theater ahead of him.
Reidy was declared DOA at the emergency room. Victor listened to the doctor's words in silence, nodded at all the right moments, then sat down in the nearest chair and stared at the floor until the striped blue-and-white linoleum tiles started to blur before his eyes. Eventually, someone showed up and gave him forms to fill out, then someone else ushered him into a room, re-stitched his hand, gave him pills in a little paper cup. Victor swallowed the pills without knowing what they were, and went back to the waiting area to sit in the same chair he'd had before.
After a while, Sam came and sat down next to him. "I've been checking on Dean," he said. "The doctors are having a field day trying to figure out why he suddenly got all that internal bleeding out of the blue. He's gonna be all right, though. No permanent damage done."
"That's good," Victor said in a flat voice. He supposed he should feel relieved, but all he could think of was how he needed to call Reidy's parents before too long. It wouldn't be right, to let them get the news from a stranger.
"I'm really sorry." Sam shifted sideways in his seat so that he was facing Victor. The chair was much too small for him, and he looked awkward and uncomfortable in it, as if he didn't quite trust it not to break. There was a small gauze pad taped to the inside of his left elbow where he'd given blood to his brother. "About your partner, I mean."
Victor looked down at his folded hands. "Eight years," he said quietly. "That's how long we've been partners. I've been married three times, and none of them lasted that long."
"I know it won't really help," Sam told him, "but given what you said about his heart, he was probably dead long before he got to Sacramento. Even healthy people don't usually survive possession for very long. So it wasn't... it wasn't anything you did. Or could've done."
"You're right," Victor said. "It doesn't help."
They sat in silence after that, until a nurse showed up to inform them that Winchester had been judged well enough to see visitors. Sam leaped out of his seat as if someone had set a spring under his ass. Victor got up more slowly, and collected the cane one of the nurses had issued to him earlier before following.
He knew he was probably intruding. But there were things he needed to hear, and to say. Besides, if he had to sit there and stare at the linoleum for much longer, he just might start banging his head against those tiles.
He arrived at Winchester's room a couple of minutes after Sam did. Winchester was sitting up in bed, hooked up to an IV drip and a row of steadily beeping monitors. He looked like... well, like someone who'd bled out a couple of pints on the inside while performing an exorcism. Not a look Victor thought he'd ever learn to recognize.
Sam was sitting next to the bed in yet another much-too-small chair. "--called Dad about an hour ago. He's driving up to Minneapolis to catch the next flight out. He'll be here in a few hours."
"Dude." Winchester rolled his eyes. His voice sounded weak but steady. "I'm not dying. You didn't have to make him fly half-way across the country."
"Make him? Dean, we're talking about the guy who came out to Berkeley when I had mono. You think he's not gonna show when you got your lungs turned inside-out by a demon?"
"Don't be such a drama queen. I didn't get my-- Hey, Henriksen. Come on in." Winchester smacked Sam's shoulder with the back of his hand. "Let the man sit down, Sammy."
"No, stay there, I'm fine." Victor stopped at the foot of the bed and aimed a sharp glare at Sam, who stopped abruptly in mid-rise from his chair and planted his ass back down. "Just... wanted to see how you were doing."
"Still breathing." Winchester started to grin, then abruptly grew serious. "Listen, man, I'm sorry about your--"
"I know," Victor said curtly. His throat felt tight, and his hand shook a little as it gripped the cane. "You're sorry, I'm sorry, everyone's fucking sorry. What I want to know is, what are we going to do about it?"
"Well..." Winchester gave an awkward shrug. He made a move to scratch at his left arm where the IV tube was inserted, then caught himself and put his hand back down. "I can't speak for you. But personally, I'm going after the yellow-eyed bastard."
"We," Sam corrected him in a tight, exasperated voice, looking as if he'd made the same correction numerous times before and was get sick and tired of it. "We are going after the yellow-eyed bastard."
Winchester frowned at him. "Sammy--"
"Don't start with me again, Dean! You said it yourself -- that son of a bitch killed Mom, and all those other women. He nearly killed you, and for all we know, he'll be going after Dad next. And he wants something from me, he said so. You think I'm going to sit around twiddling my thumbs while you go after him by yourself?"
"You have school--"
"Which is almost over. I don't need the honors thesis to graduate. I can cancel the play, arrange to take my exams early. Give me two weeks, and I'll be ready."
"So will I," Victor said. Both Winchesters turned and stared at him as if they'd forgotten he was there. Victor was getting pretty sick and tired of people doing that all the time. "The fucker killed my partner, and then walked around wearing him like a cheap suit. You seriously think you're keeping me out of this?"
Winchester gave him a long, measuring look, and Victor met it with a flat, determined stare of his own, fighting to keep his hackles down. It galled to think it, but he was about to step into a situation where he was the rookie, the one who didn't know the rules or the lay of the land. He had to rely on the the Winchesters for guidance, and f they decided to shut him out, he'd have to work alone, trying to figure out from scratch how to track and kill a demon. God only knew how much time he'd end up wasting.
"What about your job?" Winchester finally asked.
Victor shrugged. "What about yours?"
"Medical disability leave. Sudden, unexplained internal bleeding?" Winchester's cool grin held no amusement at all. "Don't think I'll have any trouble getting the doctors to sign off on that one."
"I'll think of something," Victor said. "Personal leave, vacation time. Hell, I'll resign if I have to. That bastard's going down, and I plan to be there when it happens."
"Damn right." Winchester smacked one fist against the railings of his bed hard enough to make the monitors rattle.
Sam gave them both an exasperated look. "You do realize that we have no idea where to even start looking, right? I mean, how do we track a demon? And what do we do with it when we find it? Can they even be killed?"
"Dad'll know," Winchester said without hesitation. "Or Bobby, or Caleb, or somebody at the Roadhouse. Now that we know what we're looking for, there'll be a way. Right? Tell him, Victor."
Victor considered telling him it was "Agent Henriksen," then changed his mind. After all, they were about to put their careers on hold -- probably ruin them forever, if he wanted to be honest -- in order to hunt down a possibly immortal, pyromaniac demon serial killer. Maybe they could afford to skip the formalities.
"Yeah," he said. "There'll be a way."
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
"Uh-uh," Winchester said, "no way, no how, absolutely not."
Victor considered beating him to death with the in-flight magazine, but decided it would be too much trouble trying to stow the corpse in the overhead bin. "You said it yourself, Winchester: the fires are connected to the babies. And in your family's case--"
"There's nothing wrong with Sammy."
"I didn't say there was." Victor's voice rose in irritation, and he fought to keep it down. This was a shitty conversation to have on a crowded plane. "But you said your brother's been dreaming about you in Sacramento, and now here we are. Going to Sacramento."
"Coincidence," Winchester declared in a tone that allowed no possibility of disagreement.
"I don't think so." Victor wondered why he was so dead-set on arguing the point. He wasn't even sure he believed it himself yet, wasn't sure if letting Winchester stay on the case had been such a hot idea. The notion of an entire generation of psychic babies -- two generations, maybe -- seemed almost too laughable to contemplate, until he remembered his own gun flying out of his hand and into Max Miller's. "We know Max was psychic--"
"That's got nothing to do with Sammy." Winchester tightened his grip on the armrests until the skin over his knuckles went translucent. He'd been high-strung and jumpy ever since they'd boarded the plane, and it had only gotten worse after takeoff. One of the reasons Victor had started this conversation in the first pace was to distract the kid from his airplane anxiety. Unfortunately, he'd managed to hit on the one topic that apparently freaked Winchester even more than flying did.
Maybe it was better to just let the whole thing drop. Victor reclined his seat as far back as it would go (which appeared to be about three inches) and did his best to become interested in the in-flight magazine.
He was halfway through a photo essay on Albania's best wineries when Winchester spoke up again.
"Look, I can see where you're coming from, all right? But you don't know Sammy and I do. He's just an ordinary freak, not a psychic one."
"If you say so." Victor turned a page without looking up.
"I do say so. Sam's a dork. His big scary power is to yammer on about the Meisner technique until your brains bleed out your ears. Other than that he's totally normal. Well... as normal as anyone at Berkeley ever is, anyhow."
"I'll take your word for it," Victor said.
But as he went back to his magazine, he couldn't help but remember that according to totally normal Sammy's totally coincidental dreams, Dean Winchester was going to die in Sacramento.
According to the notes Grant had faxed over, the Sacramento victim's name was Sylvia Duchamp, and she had been a single mother and a freelance software consultant who'd worked from home. According to the neighbors, she and her baby son had been alone in their condo when the fire had started.
Which meant that no one -- not the neighbors, not the fire department, not the local cops -- had a clue as to how little Bobby Duchamp had escaped the blaze.
He'd been found on the front lawn, wrapped in a blanket and wailing his six-month-old lungs out. There wasn't so much as a singe mark on him, and the hospital where he'd been taken found no signs of smoke inhalation or any other fire-related injury.
"Maybe the kid teleported or something," Victor suggested, as he and Winchester stowed their bags in the trunk of their rented Camry.
"Maybe," Winchester said dubiously. "Or maybe the demon carried him out. It would have to, wouldn't it, if it didn't want the kid dead?" He slammed the trunk lid shut and glared at it with a disgusted impression. "Powder blue Toyota, man. I can't believe the government put us in a powder blue Toyota. Maybe I should file for hardship pay."
"Maybe you should stop projecting your masculinity issues on your car."
"I don't have masculinity issues; I have taste. Just because you can't tell the difference--"
"Shut up and drive."
Hours in a cramped airplane seat left Victor's knee feeling as if it had been pounded with a hammer. Fortunately, the maligned powder blue Toyota had a passenger seat that reclined until it was practically a bed. Victor popped one of the Demerols he'd been carefully hoarding since he left the hospital in Saginaw, lay back and closed his eyes.
"Wake me when we get there."
He dozed through most of the drive, and didn't even notice that the car had stopped moving until a burst of screaming guitar chords jolted him awake.
"Rise and shine." Winchester turned down the stereo and popped the door locks. "We're going to do some shopping."
Victor leaned his forehead against the window to peer at the colorful storefront in front of which Winchester had parked. The hand-painted sign above the door identified the shop as Hecate's Hollow. The window display held a rack of hand-dipped candles, some gauzy scarves, multi-colored crystals and dream catchers dangling on leather cords.
"Let me guess -- you're all out of patchouli incense and it's messing up your aura?"
"Watch it, dude." Winchester smacked his arm lightly. "If the owner hears you dissing her place, she'll turn you into a frog." He was out of the car and heading for the entrance before Victor had time to figure out if he'd been joking or not.
He hauled himself out of the car and limped inside in time to see Winchester disengage from an enthusiastic embrace with a plump, frizzy-haired middle-aged woman whose head barely came up to his collarbone.
"Good to see you too, Ruth." Winchester stepped back with a grin. "The gimp over here is my partner, Victor Henriksen."
Ruth gave Victor a warm smile and a firm handshake. She wore a lot of silver jewelry -- great big hoop earrings with turquoise beads, dozens of skinny bangle bracelets on each wrist, an anklet strung with more beads. Her dress looked as if it had been sewn together from dozens of silk scarves, all in peacock shades of blue and green. She didn't seem like the sort of woman who turned people into frogs, but then again Victor didn't really know what that sort of woman would look like.
"We need a couple of your protection charms," Winchester said. "Like the ones you made for Bobby and Bill Harvelle last year. Can you do that?"
Ruth's face immediately clouded with concern. "You planning on going up against a demon, Dean? Does your daddy know?"
"We're not sure what we're going up against yet," Winchester said. "But whatever it is, it's been leaving sulfur traces all over the place. We just want to be safe, that's all."
"No such thing as safe when you're dealing with demons," Ruth said sternly. "But I'll do what I can. Wait here." She gave Winchester's arm a quick, motherly pat and disappeared through a beaded curtain into another room at the back of the shop.
"Protection charms?" Victor said under his breath.
Winchester nodded. "Against demon possession."
Victor wondered if he would ever get used to hearing the word "demon" just casually dropped into a conversation, treated no differently than "coffee" or "weather." It felt even more bizarre now that Ruth had brought it up. Before, it was just Winchester being possibly insane. Now it was, at the very least, a shared insanity. Victor was still trying to decided if he was ready to share in it too.
"Wait a minute," he said, "yesterday you were saying Max wasn't possessed."
"He wasn't. But that doesn't mean somebody else isn't, or we couldn't be. It's always a danger when a demon's involved. Gotta take precautions."
"Precautions. Right." Victor glanced toward the curtain. "And this friend of yours can do that?"
Winchester nodded. "Ruth knows what she's doing. After my Dad, she's pretty much the best there is at this sort of thing."
"Can she really turn people into frogs?"
Winchester smirked at him. "I dare you to ask her."
Victor decided he could live with not knowing.
Sylvia Duchamp's condo was a third-floor walk-up. Victor cursed and sweated his way up the stairs only to find himself standing around with nothing to do but ask questions while Winchester and the CSI team crawled all over every inch of the place with their tweezers and brushes and little pill boxes. He couldn't even sit down, because every piece of furniture that wasn't burnt or soaked was either covered in fingerprint powder or waiting to be dusted.
"Dude," Winchester said after an hour, "stop torturing yourself. Go back to the hotel."
"I'm fine," Victor gritted out.
Winchester rolled his eyes. "Yeah, you're fantastic. That's why you're holding up the wall and making grinding noises with your teeth. Look, we'll probably going to spend all day tomorrow interviewing the neighbors. You'll want your leg functional for that. Go take a load off. I promise I'll tell you if we find anything interesting here."
"Right, 'cause you've been so forthcoming with information so far," Victor grumbled. Still, the vision of the big, comfortable bed waiting back in their hotel room was hard to resist. Victor shifted his weight, winced at the resulting stab of pain, and made up his mind. "All right, but I want a copy of the full forensics report. All of it. I'll decide if it's interesting or not."
Winchester gave him a thumbs-up sign. "You got it."
The hotel had a Jacuzzi, and Victor soaked himself and his bum knee in it for about half an hour before going up to the room. By then, the sleep deficit he'd been running since Saginaw was catching up to him with a vengeance. It was barely four o'clock, but he put on a pair of sweats and climbed into bed, fully intending to stay there until morning.
So he wasn't at all pleased when loud and insistent knocking startled him from a sound sleep less than three hours later. He shuffled to the door in a drowsy haze, flung it open, and stared blearily at the man in hallway.
"Reidy? What the hell are you doing here?"
"Nice to see you too." Reidy grinned. He was dressed in his usual work suit and tie, but the jacket hung loosely on him, and his face looked thinner and pastier than Victor ever remembered him looking before the heart attack. "Are you going to let me in, or are you going to make a man with a bad heart stand around in the hallway?"
"Shouldn't you still be in the hospital?" Victor stepped aside to let Reidy into the room. "Or at least at home watching soap operas or something? You look like shit."
"Look who's talking." Reidy gazed at Victor's threadbare sweatpants and FBI logo t-shirt with an amused expression. "The guy who's clearly been in bed all afternoon. And what's with the bling? You going to get your ears pierced next?"
Victor had almost forgotten about the protection charm Ruth had given him that morning. It was just a quarter-sized silver disk on a black silk cord, not flashy at all, but still more jewelry than he normally wore. He hadn't even liked to wear a ring during what Reidy liked to call his "occasional bouts of marriage."
"Just a souvenir." Victor tucked the pendant inside his t-shirt. "And stop trying to change the subject on me. What are you doing here?"
Reidy sprawled in one of the two hideous paisley armchairs that took up most of the space between Victor's bed and the window. "The doctors gave me a clean bill of health, so Grant said I could go back to work if I wanted to. And I figured you could use an actual working brain in this investigation, so I hopped a flight and... here I am."
Victor frowned. "Grant didn't say anything to me when I talked to him."
Reidy shrugged. "Maybe he forgot."
Grant didn't forget things. Something was off here. Victor hesitated, than glanced over to the nightstand, where his gun and cell phone were lying next to the hotel's clock radio.
"I'm going to call him."
He sat down on the bed and reached for the phone, but was interrupted by the sound of the key clicking in the electronic lock.
"Hi, honey, I'm home!" Winchester called out as he let himself in. "Hey, you want some Chinese, 'cause I'm star-- hello. Didn't know we had company."
Victor waved one hand in Reidy's general direction. "Winchester, this is my partner, Bill Reidy. Reidy, this is--"
"Hello, Dean," Reidy drawled in a smug tone Victor had never heard before. "I've been waiting for you."
He grinned, and his eyes flashed yellow.
"What the--" Winchester's voice cut off with a strained grunt as he slammed backwards into the wall opposite the beds. The impact made the furniture rattle. A framed photograph of a bowl of fruit slipped off its hook and glanced off Winchester's shoulder before crashing to the floor.
Victor froze. Only for a second or two, but it was enough. By the time his reflexes kicked in to send him scrambling for his gun, Reidy had turned those glowing yellow eyes on him.
It was different from when Max Miller had attacked him. Max's power had struck like punch, propelling him forward with the force of the blow. This was more like a giant, invisible hand picking him up and flinging him the way a child might fling an unwanted toy. Victor smacked against the wall in the corner next to the window. His head rang from the impact, and his legs buckled. He started to slide down, but the invisible hand hauled him upright, dragged him upwards along the wall until his feet dangled off the floor.
"Ah." Reidy clapped his hands together once, looking pleased. "Much better."
"Regna terrae, cantate Deo, " Winchester chanted rapidly from his side of the room. "psalite Domino qui fertis su--" His voice cracked mid-word, turned into a strangled cough.
"Oh, come on, Dean." Reidy sauntered over to where Winchester was squirming against the wall like a pinned bug. "I just got here, and you're trying to make me leave already? I'm hurt."
Winchester was still struggling to talk, though only strained choking sounds were coming out. Blood welled up at the corners of his mouth and dripped down his chin. Reidy just stood there, head tilted slightly to one side, and watched him writhe. Victor couldn't see his face from this angle, but is posture seemed perfectly relaxed.
"You're not Reidy," Victor wheezed. It was hard to draw breath to talk. The force that held him suspended squeezed his chest like a vise. Even breathing was an effort. "Let him go, asshole."
"Hm?" Reidy spun around in a half-circle to face Victor again. "Oh, that's right. Victor, isn't it? I almost forgot you were still here.
Victor drew another labored breath. "Bill..."
"Oh, I'm sorry. Didn't the preacher's boy over there tell you how things work? Bill isn't here. Or, well, I suppose you could say he's here." Reidy -- no, not Reidy, the demon, the thing wearing Reidy's face -- tapped one finger against Reidy's temple. "He's just not driving at the moment. Making a hell of a racket, though." It shook its head and arranged Reidy's face into an expression of mild disapproval. "Honestly. Such language from a government employee. What would the taxpayers think?"
"What do you want from us, you bastard?" Apparently, Winchester could talk when the demon's attention wasn't focused directly on him, even if he did sound as if he was chewing razor blades with every word.
"Why, nothing at all, Dean." The demon looked amused by the question. "You're not actually laboring under the delusion that you and Victor here are important, are you? You're just the bit players in this little drama." It turned toward the door and made a big show of checking its watch. "The lead is going to burst onto the scene just... about... now."
As if on cue, someone began pounding on the door.
"Dean?" A voice called out, anxious and young. "Dean, are you in there?"
Winchester's face went from enraged to horrified in a heartbeat. His whole body strained, limbs trembling and muscles cording in his neck as he fought and failed to tear himself free from the wall.
"Run, Sam! Get out of here!"
"Ah-ah." The demon pointed a finger toward the door, and it swung open. The young man on the other side must've flung himself at it a split second before, because he came tumbling in ass-over-heels, and landed in a disheveled heap at the demon's feet.
"Hello there, Sam." The demon leaned forward a little and prodded the young man in the ribs with one foot. "Nice entrance."
Sam. Sammy. Winchester's little brother, presumably, the hippie kid at Berkeley, the one with the drama-queen tendencies and the scary dreams about Sacramento. He was the reason for this whole shitstorm? It would've been hilarious, except for the part where they were all apparently going to be murdered by a demon in a hotel room.
Somebody had to do something fast. No, scratch that, Victor had to do something fast, because it was his fucking partner standing there with a demon inside him. Victor closed his eyes to shut the sight of not-Reidy's eyes looking out of Reidy's face, and forced himself to think calmly. Trying to free himself all at once wasn't going to work, he'd figured that much out just by watching Winchester's efforts. But maybe if he tried for something smaller...
He could move his fingers a little. Enough to wiggle them or make a fist. That was a start, right? Victor took a deep breath, and focused on prying his right hand away from the wall. It hurt. Every muscle in his arm and shoulder cramped from the effort, and when he strained again, something popped in his wrist. Victor bit down hard on his lower lip and kept trying.
A dull thump and a yell made him open his eyes to see that the demon had added another Winchester to its decorating scheme: Sam was now spread-eagled almost straight across from Victor, plastered against the wall that separated the sleeping area from the bathroom.
This was the first time Victor had had a good look at the younger Winchester, and it was hard not to be startled at how huge the kid was. He took up nearly the whole wall, with those long arms and legs stretched out. Sam's hair was darker and a whole lot longer than his brother's, tied back in a shaggy ponytail. He was wearing cargo pants and flip-flops and a threadbare yellow t-shirt with a Habitat for Humanity logo on the chest. He looked utterly harmless and utterly terrified. From the way his gaze kept darting sideways toward his brother, Victor suspected that most of the fear wasn't for Sam himself.
"Don't hurt him." Sam's voice was shaky and desperate. He was staring at the demon as if he could make it comply through sheer willpower. "Please. You said I'm the one you want -- well, I'm here. Just... stop."
"Sam, don't," Winchester gasped. He was a mess. There were bloodstains on his shirt that hadn't been there the last time Victor had looked, and his face had the grey, bloodless look Victor had seen all too often in shock victims. "That son of a bitch killed Mom, don't you dare give it any--" His head snapped back against the wall with a painful-sounding crack. He arched his back and drummed his heels like an epileptic in the grip of a seizure, still more blood bubbling on his lips.
"Come on, boys." The demon heaved a loud, theatrical sigh and left Winchester twitching on the wall as it wandered over to face off with Sam again. "This isn't even entertaining anymore."
"What do you want?" Sam demanded, and flinched when the demon reached up and patted him on the cheek.
"I want you to get your shit together, Sammy. You've been a great disappointment. More potential than all the others put together, and what have you accomplished with it? Nothing."
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Sam spit out. He still sounded scared, but an undertone of anger was beginning to creep in.
"I know you don't," the demon said impatiently, "that's the whole problem. I'm tired of waiting for you to catch up to the rest of the class, Sammy. You want to save your brother? Here's your last chance."
Victor's arm was moving now, slow and painful but under his control. He had a feeling that his own efforts had little to do with this small victory; the demon was so focused on the Winchesters, it appeared to once again have forgotten that Victor was there. It was kind of insulting, really, and it pissed him off just enough to keep him moving. He wasn't even sure what it was he was moving toward, until his fingers brushed against the silk cord around his neck.
Ruth's protection charm. Victor wasn't at all sure what it could do, or even if it could do anything at all. But his gun was out of reach on the nightstand, and the stupid little bit of metal on a string was the only thing that he had resembling a weapon. Victor wrapped his fingers around the cord, ducked his head -- another small victory -- and pulled the charm off.
When he lifted his head again, Winchester was looking straight at him. His earlier thrashing had faded to occasional small twitches, as if his body was too exhausted to react to whatever he was feeling anymore. He looked so wrecked, Victor couldn't even get any satisfaction from mouthing "distract him" over Reidy's shoulder. Winchester's eyes were cloudy, but he gave a small, almost imperceptible nod to show that he understood.
"Christo," Winchester snarled. The word seemed to affect the demon like a sudden electric shock. It jerked violently and spun toward Winchester with a growl. Winchester bared his teeth at it and spit out "Christo" again, followed by a rapid string of Latin. He faltered when the demon's eyes flashed yellow at him, but Sam took up the chant from his side of the room, picking up in mid-sentence without a pause.
Whatever they were doing, it must've been having some effect, because Victor could feel the pressure lifting from him with every word. He lunged forward once, twice, and suddenly found himself staggering across the room, flailing and off-balance but free. His knee threatened to collapse under him, but he caught himself at the last moment and lurched another step until he was within arm's reach of Reidy.
He had no idea what was supposed to happen when you put an anti-possession charm on an already possessed person. Hell, he didn't even know if simply holding the thing against somebody counted as putting it on. But Ruth hadn't said anything about them having to wear the charms against the skin, only that they had to be near the heart. So he flung his arms around Reidy's torso, slapped the little silver disk against Reidy's chest, held it there and hoped for the best.
He wasn't sure who it was that screamed, Reidy or the demon. But it sure as hell was Reidy's body, all 180 pounds of it, that thrashed and kicked in Victor's arms. Victor cursed and hung on, taking a sharp elbow jab to the ribs and a head butt to the chin before Reidy's heel connected hard with his left knee.
Victor's whole leg went numb for a moment, then sensation came flooding back like liquid fire. He yelled and toppled over, taking Reidy down with him. Over the sound of the demon's howls and his own pained swearing, he could hear both Winchesters still chanting the exorcism, voices in perfect synch.
The demon let out a high-pitched howl, and Reidy's body seized and bent over double. A stream of oily-looking black smoke poured from Reidy's mouth. It rose to the ceiling in a dense cloud, and circled the room twice before vanishing into the ventilation shaft near the door.
Reidy spasmed one last time, then collapsed into a still -- and crushingly heavy -- heap. Victor heaved him off and sat up. He felt like one giant bruise, but at least he wasn't dead. Over in the corner by the TV, Winchester was curled up on his side, hawking blood onto the carpet while Sam kneeled next to him, offering comforting noises and pats on the back. Maybe this was all about to turn out all right after all.
"Fuck, that was a close call. You all right, man?" Victor clapped one hand on Reidy's shoulder. "Hey. Reidy? Bill?"
Reidy's eyes were blank and lifeless when Victor rolled him over. His skin had a grey tinge and his jaw was slack. Victor had seen enough corpses in his life to recognize one now, even before he desperately checked Reidy's throat for a pulse that wasn't there, even as he hauled himself to his knees and began the first CPR compressions.
He wasn't sure how long he kept trying before Sam finally pulled him back. Longer than was sane, probably. Long enough to work himself into sweaty exhaustion. Long enough for the stitches in is hand and wrist to tear open, and for the cuts to bleed through the bandage. None of it did any good.
Bill Reidy was dead, and the thing that had killed him was long gone.
Epilogue
In the end, it was Sam Winchester who handled the aftermath. He was the one who moved a dresser over to hide the bloodstains on the carpet, and he was the one who stood in the door and smiled with blinding innocence at the hotel detective who'd showed up to investigate the noise in their room, until the man apologized and went away. He called Ruth to come and take Winchester to the ER, and once they were gone, he called 911 to report Reidy's heart attack. He talked to the paramedics and the cops, striking just the right balance between "sympathetically distraught" and "admirably holding it together." It was easy to believe that the kid had a bright future in theater ahead of him.
Reidy was declared DOA at the emergency room. Victor listened to the doctor's words in silence, nodded at all the right moments, then sat down in the nearest chair and stared at the floor until the striped blue-and-white linoleum tiles started to blur before his eyes. Eventually, someone showed up and gave him forms to fill out, then someone else ushered him into a room, re-stitched his hand, gave him pills in a little paper cup. Victor swallowed the pills without knowing what they were, and went back to the waiting area to sit in the same chair he'd had before.
After a while, Sam came and sat down next to him. "I've been checking on Dean," he said. "The doctors are having a field day trying to figure out why he suddenly got all that internal bleeding out of the blue. He's gonna be all right, though. No permanent damage done."
"That's good," Victor said in a flat voice. He supposed he should feel relieved, but all he could think of was how he needed to call Reidy's parents before too long. It wouldn't be right, to let them get the news from a stranger.
"I'm really sorry." Sam shifted sideways in his seat so that he was facing Victor. The chair was much too small for him, and he looked awkward and uncomfortable in it, as if he didn't quite trust it not to break. There was a small gauze pad taped to the inside of his left elbow where he'd given blood to his brother. "About your partner, I mean."
Victor looked down at his folded hands. "Eight years," he said quietly. "That's how long we've been partners. I've been married three times, and none of them lasted that long."
"I know it won't really help," Sam told him, "but given what you said about his heart, he was probably dead long before he got to Sacramento. Even healthy people don't usually survive possession for very long. So it wasn't... it wasn't anything you did. Or could've done."
"You're right," Victor said. "It doesn't help."
They sat in silence after that, until a nurse showed up to inform them that Winchester had been judged well enough to see visitors. Sam leaped out of his seat as if someone had set a spring under his ass. Victor got up more slowly, and collected the cane one of the nurses had issued to him earlier before following.
He knew he was probably intruding. But there were things he needed to hear, and to say. Besides, if he had to sit there and stare at the linoleum for much longer, he just might start banging his head against those tiles.
He arrived at Winchester's room a couple of minutes after Sam did. Winchester was sitting up in bed, hooked up to an IV drip and a row of steadily beeping monitors. He looked like... well, like someone who'd bled out a couple of pints on the inside while performing an exorcism. Not a look Victor thought he'd ever learn to recognize.
Sam was sitting next to the bed in yet another much-too-small chair. "--called Dad about an hour ago. He's driving up to Minneapolis to catch the next flight out. He'll be here in a few hours."
"Dude." Winchester rolled his eyes. His voice sounded weak but steady. "I'm not dying. You didn't have to make him fly half-way across the country."
"Make him? Dean, we're talking about the guy who came out to Berkeley when I had mono. You think he's not gonna show when you got your lungs turned inside-out by a demon?"
"Don't be such a drama queen. I didn't get my-- Hey, Henriksen. Come on in." Winchester smacked Sam's shoulder with the back of his hand. "Let the man sit down, Sammy."
"No, stay there, I'm fine." Victor stopped at the foot of the bed and aimed a sharp glare at Sam, who stopped abruptly in mid-rise from his chair and planted his ass back down. "Just... wanted to see how you were doing."
"Still breathing." Winchester started to grin, then abruptly grew serious. "Listen, man, I'm sorry about your--"
"I know," Victor said curtly. His throat felt tight, and his hand shook a little as it gripped the cane. "You're sorry, I'm sorry, everyone's fucking sorry. What I want to know is, what are we going to do about it?"
"Well..." Winchester gave an awkward shrug. He made a move to scratch at his left arm where the IV tube was inserted, then caught himself and put his hand back down. "I can't speak for you. But personally, I'm going after the yellow-eyed bastard."
"We," Sam corrected him in a tight, exasperated voice, looking as if he'd made the same correction numerous times before and was get sick and tired of it. "We are going after the yellow-eyed bastard."
Winchester frowned at him. "Sammy--"
"Don't start with me again, Dean! You said it yourself -- that son of a bitch killed Mom, and all those other women. He nearly killed you, and for all we know, he'll be going after Dad next. And he wants something from me, he said so. You think I'm going to sit around twiddling my thumbs while you go after him by yourself?"
"You have school--"
"Which is almost over. I don't need the honors thesis to graduate. I can cancel the play, arrange to take my exams early. Give me two weeks, and I'll be ready."
"So will I," Victor said. Both Winchesters turned and stared at him as if they'd forgotten he was there. Victor was getting pretty sick and tired of people doing that all the time. "The fucker killed my partner, and then walked around wearing him like a cheap suit. You seriously think you're keeping me out of this?"
Winchester gave him a long, measuring look, and Victor met it with a flat, determined stare of his own, fighting to keep his hackles down. It galled to think it, but he was about to step into a situation where he was the rookie, the one who didn't know the rules or the lay of the land. He had to rely on the the Winchesters for guidance, and f they decided to shut him out, he'd have to work alone, trying to figure out from scratch how to track and kill a demon. God only knew how much time he'd end up wasting.
"What about your job?" Winchester finally asked.
Victor shrugged. "What about yours?"
"Medical disability leave. Sudden, unexplained internal bleeding?" Winchester's cool grin held no amusement at all. "Don't think I'll have any trouble getting the doctors to sign off on that one."
"I'll think of something," Victor said. "Personal leave, vacation time. Hell, I'll resign if I have to. That bastard's going down, and I plan to be there when it happens."
"Damn right." Winchester smacked one fist against the railings of his bed hard enough to make the monitors rattle.
Sam gave them both an exasperated look. "You do realize that we have no idea where to even start looking, right? I mean, how do we track a demon? And what do we do with it when we find it? Can they even be killed?"
"Dad'll know," Winchester said without hesitation. "Or Bobby, or Caleb, or somebody at the Roadhouse. Now that we know what we're looking for, there'll be a way. Right? Tell him, Victor."
Victor considered telling him it was "Agent Henriksen," then changed his mind. After all, they were about to put their careers on hold -- probably ruin them forever, if he wanted to be honest -- in order to hunt down a possibly immortal, pyromaniac demon serial killer. Maybe they could afford to skip the formalities.
"Yeah," he said. "There'll be a way."