The Witches of Salem | Part 2
Title: The Witches of Salem
By: revenant_scribe
Part Two:
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: PG-14 | Word Count: 7,901
The bright streetlights illuminated the costumed people walking and laughing along the sidewalks of Salem when Sam finally released the death-grip he had on the steering wheel and let out a breath.
“So, there are three seventeenth century witches stumbling around Salem. How bad can that be, exactly?” he muttered to himself.
“Bad,” the cat said from where it sat, perched on the backrest of the front seat.
Sam cast a slanted look at the cat and realized that there were a number of things about the Sanderson legends that he had discounted a bit too hastily. “You’re Dean Thackeray, aren’t you.”
“It’s lovely to meet you,” the cat snarked in a smoothly sarcastic tone. “Idiot Virgin Who Lit the Candle.”
Sam blinked, as startled by the name, as he was irked at the reference to his inexperience.
“That’s what you’re calling me?” he choked out.
“Oh, I’ve come up with some other names for you.”
Sam huffed in amusement. He didn’t know what it said about his sanity that he was driving down the street talking to a cat, an insolent one at that, and actually enjoying the company.
“My name is Sam.” All was quiet for a moment and then he said, “Aren’t you a little crass for someone who was born in the seventeenth century?”
There was a slight grumbling and the cat muttered, “Want to know how long I’ve been a cat?” Sam figured that it must have been somewhere in the vicinity of three hundred years. In that span of time, Dean Thackeray was bound to pick-up a thing or two; one of those things, apparently, was a pretty bad attitude.
Sam pulled into his spot at the Bluebird Motel and turned off the engine, shoving the spell book into his bag, which he proceeded to sling over his shoulder.
“I’m sorry I lit the candle, okay? I was just trying to help.”
Apparently that statement was so ridiculous the cat didn’t even have an appropriate comeback. He followed Sam through the door of his motel room, his tail standing up in the air, the end of it curling left and then right in regal agitation. He hopped up onto Sam’s bed without so much as a ‘by your leave’.
Then the fluffy black tyrant took a good look around, its nose tipping back, no doubt smelling the lines of salt. Sam tossed down his bag and began unloading the weapons from it.
“Dude, seriously,” the cat said. “What the hell?”
“I’m a hunter,” Sam explained. The cat gazed at him blankly. Sam frowned. “You’ve been kicking around here for over three hundred years and you’ve never heard of a hunter?”
“Yeah, I know those: deer, moose, taxidermy, heads-on-the-wall . . .”
“No, man,” Sam said. “A hunter. Like, ghosts, poltergeists, things-that-go-bump-in-the-night type hunter.” Once again, an unnervingly blank green stare. “I hunt things that are not … natural.” Sam scratched his head, wondering how much of the modern world the cat had absorbed over the years. “Things that are supernatural, okay?”
“Like the witches.”
“Yeah!” Sam said. “Yeah, exactly like that.”
“So, what stage of the hunt is this? I mean, they were dead, and you brought them back to life… is that a good stage?”
Sam flexed his grip on the wheel. “You’re still pissed at me.”
“Damned right, I’m pissed at you.” The cat was back on its feet, its tail twitching. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve been living in this crap town, trying to stop idiots from bringing those bitches back?”
“A long time?”
“A long time!” the cat said. It was pacing. “Do you know how many idiot teenagers want to go into that place to hang out at Halloween? People who want to smoke up and then decide to play with fire? People who dare each other?” The cat paused to glower at him. “That’s a lot of idiots that I stopped from doing something truly moronic.”
“I was trying to help!” Sam reiterated, and then a thought occurred to him. “Wait a minute. It was you, wasn’t it? You were the one who tried to burn down the museum. There never was a ghost!”
“What ghost?” the cat asked. “Of course it was me. I pulled the candle out and you better believe that thing is unwieldy, and I started the fire. It would have all been over and done with, once I got the damned thing buried.”
“Right, because the candle can’t burn,” Sam said, mostly to himself.
“Right,” apparently the cat wasn’t finished snarking. “Because if you add a fire to a magical candle, you get a lit magical candle.”
“How was I supposed to know it was magical? Most things melt when they’re tossed in the fire. Or burn. Either one would have been completely fine by me.”
“How many legends does it take for people to leave well enough alone? Only the black flame from the candle itself can actually melt the candle.” Exhausted and out of arguments, they both retreated to their respective corners. The cat sauntered to the middle of the bed, tail still twitching side to side, and then it curled around suddenly and began to groom the damned thing. Sam collapsed onto the chair at the desk, flipping the pages of the spell book idly until the cat hissed, “Don’t touch the book.”
Sam held up his hands, then closed the book and sat for a moment.
“What do we do?” he turned to face the cat realizing for the first time that, for all its insults, Dean Thackeray had been trying to help him. “I mean,” Sam continued. “What do they want? How do we stop them?”
The cat sat, its back tall, its tail finally resting still on the blanket.
“It’s the children,” Dean explained. “The last time, they were stealing kids from their beds, calling them out to the woods and using some sort of spell.” Dean trailed off, lost in thought.
“The spell, what did it do?” Sam prompted.
“It made her . . . them glow . . . the kids,” Dean said, his voice hushed. Sam recalled suddenly that Dean had been alive when it had happened before. It had been his sister the Sanderson sisters had taken. It was likely his own sister Dean was thinking of as he recounted the effects of the spell.
“The witches breathed in the light and then she was gone,” the cat continued, still speaking in a low tone. “She didn’t move…the kids didn’t move. But the witches were different, younger.”
Sam mulled that over. “Maybe it was a spell that would reveal life-force, enabling it to be consumed,” he thought aloud. “It would have to be children, because they’d have more to give. Why didn’t they work the spell on you?” The cat rolled its shoulders in a way that Sam assumed meant the thing was trying to shrug. “You pissed them off, didn’t you?” Dean’s tail twitched and Sam huffed to himself.
“I still can’t get over that the Sanderson sisters are actual evil witches, and I brought them back,” he found himself saying.
“You think the villagers would have hanged someone completely innocent?”
“Well,” Sam said. “Yeah. It wouldn’t be the first time something like that happened.” He could see the cat was mustering up a retort and quickly continued, “Besides, every single witch I’ve encountered has never worked magic like what you’re telling me. They’ve been fundamentally good people using their powers to help those in need. Not… this... How do they even do this?”
Once again, Dean looked woefully unimpressed with Sam’s intellect. “Witches make a pact with the devil,” he said, like Sam was slow.
“Are you seriously spouting The Malleus Maleficarum at me? Because that book is the most …” but trailed off as mentioning a book made him think about the book he had stuffed in his bag, which in turn recalled to him Susannah’s thorough description of it. He grabbed the spell book and waved it at Dean. “Why did you make me take this?”
The cat blinked at him. Sam realized the cat’s eyes were a deep green. “It’s Winifred Sanderson’s spell book,” Dean said.
“And?”
“And if the Devil wants Winifred Sanderson to have it, I’m pretty sure we want to make sure she never gets it,” Dean explained. “Also, it contains the spell she worked on the kids.”
“You’re sure she won’t have that memorized?”
“How am I supposed to know what they memorized?” the cat asked, glaring. “Seriously. Do you think I was hanging round the old mill with a bunch of freakin’ witches? Who do you think I am? ”
“Look,” Sam said. “I get that you’re pissed, and that’s fine. You have every right to be. But right now there are three seventeenth century witches fresh out of their graves and no doubt looking for us. This whole defensive, cranky kitty routine is not helping, so you need to calm. Down.”
“I’ll show you a cranky kitty,” Dean muttered, but he curled up into a tiny black ball of fur on the corner of Sam’s bed and then said, “It was complicated, there were a lot of ingredients. I doubt they’d have memorized it.”
“Okay,” Sam said. “Good. Well, that’s something.” He adopted his most authoritative voice and said, “We have to trust each other, okay? This is what I do. I’ve been raised to deal with this stuff since I’ve been a kid, alright? We’ll figure this out.”
“Alright, hotshot,” Dean said. “So what do we do first?”
“The first thing we need to do is figure out the first thing they’re likely to do.”
The first thing the Sanderson sisters were likely to do, apparently, was put a little protective bubble around the whole of the city. Sam watched the spell ripple through the air like a fine mist. In the parking lot, a man, who had been fumbling with his motel room keys, suddenly yawned and stretched, and then curled up to sleep in the middle of the walkway. “How can they work magic like that?” Sam muttered, in awe.
“It’s only affecting adults,” Dean pointed out. “Look.” Across the street, a group of teenagers were still staggeringly drunk, laughing and singing off-key.
“Okay.” Sam paced away from the window, running his hands through his hair as he tried to think. “That’s really powerful magic.” The cat hopped from the window ledge back to the bed and looked at him, apparently resolved to no longer comment on the completely obvious things that Sam stated. “That’s…pretty serious magic.”
“How about coming back from the dead?” Dean added. “Is that pretty serious magic too?” When Sam glared at him the cat blinked guileless eyes and said, “What? I’m trying to be helpful.”
“We’ve got the spell book,” Sam continued. “Which means they can’t hurt the kids until they find us, right?”
“No,” Dean said. “They’ve got powers aplenty without it. They just can’t suck their lives out.”
“Oh.” He collapsed back into his chair, his mind racing. Witches, he knew, were human. They might have powers they claimed from various sources, but they were human. Short of blasting them full of bullets, Sam couldn’t see a way to bring a true and final end to the Sanderson sisters.
“We got nothing,” Dean hopped off the bed.
“Where are you going?”
“As nice as it would be to wrap this whole thing up right here in this motel room, it’s not gonna happen. Right now they’re out there trying to find that book, to start sucking the lives out of little kids. Do you have some idea what to do about that?”
Sam gave it some thought. He didn’t really know what he was up against. It wasn’t as if the history books went into a lot of detail about the abilities of the Sanderson witches in particular, though all signs pointed to some pretty powerful witches who had gone well and truly darkside. Maybe there was some truth to what Dean said about pacts with the devil. Even if it wasn’t Satan, it could have just as easily have been a demon, and that wouldn’t make them any less threatening. He wasn’t sure that, if it came down to it, he could murder someone, which is what shooting the witches would mean.
“It was a spell, right?” Sam wondered. At the cat’s cocked head he elaborated, “They said that they’d rise again, but it was a spell. They needed the candle to be lit to complete the magic.”
“Yeah,” Dean said slowly.
“Well,” Sam said, feeling hopeful for the first time that night. “We just need to figure out how to reverse it!”
It was almost midnight. Sam estimated that if the spell was contained in Winifred’s book, he could find a way to break it before twelve-thirty. He turned to the spell book, lying on the table where he had left it, and ignored Dean’s hissed warning not to open it. A moment later the cover of the book was slamming closed as Dean pounced on it.
“You said their spells were in here,” Sam explained. “If I can see what the spell was that they used to revive themselves, then maybe I can work something to counter it.”
Dean’s snarling hiss was loud and made Sam pause. The cat’s back arched dramatically in a perfect reproduction of a cardboard Halloween decoration he had seen on the restaurant where he’d had dinner. Dean’s fur was fluffed up, bristling in such a way that distorted the cat’s proportions.
“You’re a witch too?” he snarled.
“No,” Sam huffed. “I’m a hunter.”
“Right,” Dean said, his tone wry. “I see the difference.” He swatted Sam with his front paw. “No reading from this book.”
“I don’t think you understand the plan.”
“I don’t think you understand this book,” Dean said. “It’s Winifred’s book, okay? It wants to go back to her, it’s bound in magic so thick you’d go cross-eyed trying to understand it, and it’s wholly and completely evil. Okay? Bad book,” he said, once again in a tone that implied Sam was especially dimwitted. “Don’t wake it up, don’t open it, don’t read it.”
“Wake it up?” Sam frowned in confusion until Dean’s exasperation made him connect the dots. “Oh, ew! That’s a real eye?” He pulled off the flannel button-down he’d been wearing and wrapped it around the book, then took another shirt from his duffel to put on in its place, still sneaking leery glances at the square bulk wrapped in flannel. “Okay, so the book is out. But I still think the spell-reversal theory is sound. Before, I thought whatever was going on in the house was the result of angry spirits who were tied to an object. If you destroy the object, then the spirits die as well, maybe the spell works in the same way.”
The cat twitched its tail. Sam glared, “Don’t give me that look, I’ve done this before.” Dean grumbled again, but otherwise kept quiet. “Listen, all we need to do,” Sam continued, “is find a way to destroy the focus of the spell. It’s got to be the Black Flame Candle. Without it, they disappear.”
The cat was staring at him, its dark green eyes utterly focused and intense. Sam squirmed under the stare, mentally reviewing what he had said in an effort to see if he had uttered anything that might warrant the incredibly derisive glare he was receiving. “What?”
The cat flicked its tail once. “As a hunter,” Dean said. “Do you do a lot of research? Try to learn as much as you can about what you’re getting into before you go at the thing?”
“Well,” Sam said, feeling his face heat. Maybe he had been a bit incautious in this instance. He’d been so certain that the incidents at the Mill were the result of malevolent spirits that he hadn’t entertained any other possibility. Still, he said, somewhat hesitantly, “Yeah…”
“Yeah,” Dean said, sounding very much as if he were building up to something. “And you’re a professional right, been doing this since you were practically a fetus…”
Sam narrowed his eyes. “What are you getting at?”
“I’m just curious how you missed the fact that the candle is indestructible?”
Sam blinked, that would make things a bit more complicated, if it were true. Also, had he known that, he certainly would have developed a different tactic, back when he’d thought he was hunting ghosts. “Well,” he said. “Have you ever tried to destroy it?”
Dean sniffed. “No.”
“Did the townspeople? Or a priest, or I don’t know, anyone that you know of?”
“No knife could cut it.”
“But that was all anyone tried?” The stretched silence was enough of an answer, Sam’s confidence continued to rebuild. “Okay, then I need to get to that candle.” He grabbed up his own journal, which contained some things that he thought might work on the candle, as well as his gun and knives. He left the iron blade, considering that wouldn’t do much good, but he took a flask filled with salt.
Prepared, Sam set off toward the door only to be stopped by Dean, equally authoritative saying: “You’re not leaving this book alone.” It was a valid point, so Sam hefted it and locked the motel door.
He pulled out an old messenger bag from the trunk of the car that he stuffed the spell book into, and, almost as an afterthought, raided the wooden lock-box inside which he kept some protective herbs for emergency, and was en route to the driver’s door when Dean once again disrupted him.
“What are you doing?” the cat asked, with narrowed eyes.
“Nothing,” Sam said quickly, not wanting to once again be accused of witchcraft. He paused by the driver’s door, prepared to unlock it.
“You’re going to drive that thing out there? Really?”
“You have a problem with my car?”
“No, not at all,” Dean said. “Did you want to wave a giant flag and blast the Mexican Hat Dance, too, or do you think this thing will attract enough attention?” he sighed. “Just take us to the graveyard. I’ll get us past that.”
______________________________
Dean’s solution was to travel through the old Salem crypt, which extended underground from the graveyard until it intersected the newer sewer system. Dean claimed that from there, they would be able to travel almost directly to the museum. Something that was proven accurate when, after a long trek through damp, foul smelling drains, Dean finally directed Sam to climb a ladder of metal rails. They popped up just in front of the Sanderson Mill parking lot.
The house was glowing dimly in the night, candles still flickering inside as Sam ducked over the low stone wall and jogged further into the woods. “Come on,” he said to Dean. “I left the Black Flame Candle at the back of the house.”
He didn’t wait to see if Dean followed and, after checking the doused fire he had made, returned empty handed. “Where is it? It wasn’t there.”
“Where else?” Dean said, his front paws perched on the window ledge, peering inside. “Well, the good news is that they don’t seem to be inside.”
“What?” Sam peered in through the window. “Where could they have gone?”
“They’re looking for the book,” Dean said, as if it were obvious. For all that he sounded blasé, Sam could tell by the way the cat’s ears were constantly twitching, pivoting in different directions as he scanned the various night sounds, that Dean was in fact just as leery about the return of the sisters as Sam. “It’s probably better if we keep moving, I don’t know if they have a way to track it.”
“I’m already ahead of you,” Sam said, he opened the satchel to reveal the book. It was still wrapped in his shirt, but was now packed with a few dried out crusty plants. “These should weaken any tracking spells, it should buy us some time.” Sam narrowed his eyes at the cat. “Stop looking at me like that. I’m not a witch.”
“Alright, Samantha,” Dean said. “Let’s go.”
Sam blinked as the cat squeezed through the window. “Was that?” he frowned, not quite able to completely believe. “Was that a Bewitched reference, or are you just being a dick?”
Sam pulled open the window and squeezed through, following Dean. He dropped near-silently into a crouch and glanced around. The smell of mildew, age, and dust that had lingered in the old mill had been chased away by the new smell of burning cedar logs from the roaring fire, mixed with the acridly sweet odor of a smoking bundle of herbs in a little brass dish.
Sam sniffed the air by the dish tentatively, trying to decipher the herbs in the hopes that he might gain some insight into the spell the witches had been working, but the crisp scent of the cedar wood overpowered the smell of the small bundle.
The Black Flame Candle had been returned to the wooden stand and it burned with a steady black flame. The wax had melted a considerable amount given the time that had past, reduced to almost half its previous height. Dean, who sat perched on the empty glass casement that once held the spell book, turned expectantly to Sam. “So?”
“Right.” Setting the satchel aside, Sam pulled out a bottle of holy water and poured it over the candle. There was a fierce hissing sizzle and a wafting of smoke that reeked of sulfur, old milk, and burning asphalt. The candle smoked wherever the holy water touched, but the flame was not doused. “That doesn’t prove anything,” Sam said to Dean’s look that clearly smacked of ‘I told you so’.
Twenty minutes later and Sam had run through every exorcism he knew. He had cast spells, submerged it in water, covered it in salt, cut at it with a machete, shot it with a gun, and stabbed at it with a knife.
“Okay,” Sam was finally forced to conclude. “I think the Black Flame Candle might be indestructible.”
There was an awkward stretch of silence as Sam worked on regaining his breath after his exertions. Dean just sat there, glaring in a markedly bland fashion, which looked incredibly feline.
“Alright,” Dean said finally. “My turn.” He hopped off the glass case and trotted across the floor to the window.
“Your turn?” Sam queried.
“We tried your way, and the candle was indestructible,” Dean said, pausing on the window ledge. He flicked his tail as he said, “So now we go to the source of the magic.”
Sam wasn’t quite following. “How are we supposed to know which demon they struck a deal with?”
“It was the Devil,” Dean said.
Sam huffed. “It wasn’t the Devil. That’s something The Malleus Malefecarum and all those other books almost always get wrong. Demons make these sorts of deals, not Lucifer. The question is which demon made this deal. I mean, there are at least seven that I can think of just off the top of my head that specialize in magic, and you can’t exactly summon them for a brief chat.”
Dean had once again fixed him with a flat, unblinking stare. When Sam met his gaze, his right ear twitched. Finally, Dean asked, “Dude, who are you?”
“What?”
“Demons? Summoning? Are you kidding me?”
“I’m a hunter,” Sam said, rolling his eyes. For all that Dean had apparently been keeping-up with the times, he was incredibly backward in some respects. “It goes with the territory, okay?”
“Yeah, whatever,” Dean dismissed, not sounding quite convinced. “But I’m not talking about that demon stuff. I’m talking about the witches.”
“What about them?”
“Trial by fire: we torch the bitches.”
Dean’s solution seemed extreme to Sam. The witches had not really done anything yet; well, they spelled all the adults of Salem into sleep, which, granted, seemed to suggest that their intentions were not entirely honorable.
Still, he wasn’t convinced it warranted murdering them. Then again, he recalled the disappearances that he had found listed in the records of the town from when the Sanderson sisters had last walked the earth. At the time, Sam had sympathized with the historical town of Salem, and had even gone so far as to understand the desperation that must have spurred the townsfolk into believing that evil was living among them. He had not, however, believed that the three sisters who lived at the old mill had actually been guilty of the crime for which they were sentenced to death. He had been conditioned, he supposed, to always view the victims of the Witch Hunts as innocent scapegoats who had been targets of hysteria and fear.
Having encountered the Sanderson sisters, however, Sam had adjusted his initial opinion, and was willing to believe Dean Thackeray when he said that they were evil witches, and it only followed that they were responsible for the disappearances of each of those children.
They left the Black Flame candle on its pedestal; resigned to the fact that it was indestructible. Sam didn’t fancy running around with a lit candle, and it Dean assured him that in every other way, it was just a candle, so Sam let it be.
They trekked back along the side of the road. The dark woods gave way to the sculpted hedges and clipped gardens of private residences, some with lights on above their front doors, a few with the sprawled bodies of adults lying carelessly across the front steps or hanging half-in half-out of their vehicles. Salem seemed sinister in the moonlight, the sleeping figures looking dead as they lay, unmoving. It was late enough that Sam assumed most of the teenagers were still ensconced in house parties or nightclubs, though the closer they got to town, where the bodies lay sprawled across the sidewalk and sometimes in the road, there were an increasing number of teenagers panicking, some phoning for help on cellphones that never connected: no one was awake to answer their calls.
The consequences of the spell began to sink in. It had all seemed relatively benign to him before: they were all just sleeping, which meant they could all simply wake-up. People were likely already dying, though. Doctors undoubtedly slept in the halls of the ICU, in the surgery rooms, in the trauma centers. It was suddenly less difficult for Sam to understand Dean’s hurried rush to dispatch the witches: they were, after all, only getting started.
“Where are we going?” Sam asked as he kept pace with the cat.
Dean was bounding down the sidewalk, looking very much as if he knew what he was doing, but at the question he came to a sudden stop and looked around. “The witches were burned after they were hanged,” he said. “So these can’t be their bodies, right? I mean, they were burned, there was nothing left.”
“Where were their ashes placed?”
Dean looked away.
“I don’t know. I was … I wasn’t keeping close track at the start.” It occurred to Sam that Dean had likely gone to his family after he was turned, or tried to, at least. Sam could only imagine how the townsfolk had reacted to a black cat being in the area, especially on the heels of the discovery of the witches. Lord knows what would have happened if Dean had tried to actually talk to anyone. Sympathy, sharp and deep, hit him then, and Sam didn’t press the issue any further.
“There were no records I could find,” Sam said. “Would they have buried the ashes, do you think? Or would they have scattered them?” Dean could not reply with confidence. “It doesn’t matter,” Sam said. “Whatever happened to their bodies, it doesn’t change the fact that somehow they’re back.”
“You said before, that you would have salted and burned the bones except there were no bones,” Dean said thoughtfully and Sam nodded. “So if we salt and burn them now, that could count, right?”
It was difficult for Sam to consider; they were not talking about bones, but bodies, living bodies, no less. “I don’t know,” Sam said. “Witches are people. If you kill a person, generally that’s it.” He paused. “Well, unless they come back as a ghost.”
“Ever dealt with a bunch of people who’ve come back from the dead?”
“Oh yeah,” Sam said, wrinkling his nose. “Zombies aren’t much fun, either.”
“Zombies,” Dean said, and sounded a little dazed. “Right. So how did you deal with the … with the zombies?”
“Nailed him back into his grave with a silver stake.” Dean’s gaze held steady, his body entirely still except for his tail, flicking left and right rhythmically like a snake. “What?” Sam asked. “When are you going to get over this? I’m a hunter, this is what hunters do.”
“Well, these zombies don’t have graves.”
“I also don’t really think they’re zombies,” Sam admitted. “I mean, you said yourself their bodies were completely destroyed. Whatever spell they used to come back, it didn’t make them living dead. They are completely real and alive, and whole.”
“So, no silver stakes.”
Across the way, a group of teenagers came staggering drunkenly out of a bar, undoubtedly having just taken advantage of the bartender and everyone else being incapacitated by the spell, and thus, unable to enforce any rules with regards to serving alcohol to minors. Sam glanced over and wondered what it looked like, him standing and having a conversation with a cat at the side of the road.
Dean startled him from his thoughts as he said, “We’re back to burning them.”
Sam tipped his head to the side. “They’re not going to stand still while we build a pyre.”
“They don’t need to,” Dean said, hopping to his feet in a flash. “Come on!”
Without any idea where Dean was going, Sam found himself running blindly after the swiftly bounding dark shadow, somewhat dismayed to realize how difficult it was to keep-up with the bounding cat who now and again disappeared from view, only to reappear even further ahead.
“Dean!” Sam shouted, relieved when the dark shadow came to a halt and glanced back. Sam caught up to him. “Where are we going?”
“To the-“ but Dean trailed off, his tufted ears swiveling and then, suddenly, he turned his head, gazing down the street.
“What do you hear?” Sam whispered, crouching down as if that would help them.
Dean didn’t answer, but a second later, Sam heard it for himself: a soft trilling voice, calling with an aching sort of sadness that made the single syllable sound like a song, “Book!”
“What is that?”
“It’s them,” Dean said, glancing around quickly for some place for them to hide. Sam was distracted, however, when his satchel began twitching at his hip. “Keep hold of that,” Dean said. Sam glanced down at the bag and winced. Right, the book that was bound in human skin and had a human eye was trying to answer its mistress, vibrating in the bag with its impulse to somehow break free. “This way.” Sam followed, keeping low and hoping that the unnatural mist would shelter him from sight.
Luck, however, was not on their side.
“Hello!” a voice chirruped, and Sam started violently because it had come from above him. He glanced up to see Sarah Sanderson perched side-saddle on her broom, her blond hair falling over one shoulder as she leaned down, one arm reaching for him. “Such a handsome boy.” Just as before, Sam felt himself drawn to her, some irresistible pull, like a siren’s song, bringing him into her thrall. “Come with me, my lovely one. I will take care of you.”
A low hiss broke the spell as Sam jerked his head to the source of the sound to see Dean leaping off a trash canister and into the air, his claws outstretched. Sarah screamed as he swatted at her, pushing the furry body away even as Dean’s claws anchored into her cloak and her robes.
“Dean Thackeray!” a voice called, rife with laughter as Sarah succeeded in swatting Dean off her body. He toppled to the ground and Sam lunged forward, catching the furry bundle in his arms before he could hit the cement. “My my. And look! You’ve made a little friend!”
“Winifred,” Dean snarled as he hopped from Sam’s arms onto the ground.
“You wouldn’t by any chance, happen to know the whereabouts of my book?” Winifred Sanderson asked, peering down her sharply upturned nose at him. She was smirking in an imperious fashion; the awkwardly round spectacles making her brown eyes seem somehow smaller.
“I burned it,” Dean said.
Winifred laughed, joined by her two sisters; each of them floating above them on their broomsticks, their long dresses and cloaks hanging down, buffeted by the autumn wind. “I very much doubt that, my dear.” She leaned forward, drifting lower until the ends of her green dressed ghosted across Sam’s cheek. Her voice was low, an intimate whisper, as she said, “My book cannot be touched by fire.”
“Well, it burned just fine,” Dean insisted. Sam held himself completely still, hoping that he’d be forgotten and none of the sisters would notice the arm he kept pressed against the satchel that was shivering with the nearness of its mistress.
“Winnie,” a new voice said, so very young sounding, so very innocent. “I smell frankincense.” Sam kept very still and hid the wince he felt as the herbs he had used to mask the book were discovered one by one. “Dragon’s blood,” Mary added. “Sage, fennel,” she listed, drifted closer. “Arabic gum, aloe…”
Winifred sat up, drifting on her broom past her younger sister, caressing her cheek and patting her head as she went by. Her sharp eyes fell on Sam and then continued down to focus on his satchel.
“What a strange mixture of things, Mary,” she said, and then turned to Dean. “Your little friend is a witch?”
“I’m not a witch,” Sam declared, exasperated, and then cringed-so much for being forgotten and ignored.
“No?” Winifred asked. Then her look became dark and terrifying as she leaned forward, her face inches from Sam’s own. “You are trying to hide my book from me!” She reared back on her broom and once again sang-out her strange call, “Book!” Sam stepped back, holding fast to the satchel, and pressed it hard against his side as the book shivered.
“Run!” Dean shouted, and Sam spun on his heel just as Winifred lunged forward.
“Run as fast as you can, Dean Thackeray!” Winifred Sanderson shouted. “You cannot run forever! I will have my book, and then all the children of Salem will die!” Sarah and Mary were already after him as Sam darted left down a narrow alley, and pulled down a metal fire escape ladder, effectively blocked the space behind him so the witches could not sweep quickly in pursuit.
“Here!” Dean said, darting out ahead and turning a corner hastily. “Down, down,” he said, as he crawled behind a stack of wooden crates, completely hidden. Sam ducked down into the shadows, hiding as best he could.
“But Mary…” he began, falling silent when he could hear the sisters approaching. He held his breath as Sarah swooped around the corner.
“Beautiful boy!” she called. “My lovely boy, come and play with me.” Sam squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his back into the rough brickwork behind him.
“Mary!” Winifred said, bringing her broom to a stop beside the blonde and turning an expectant gaze to Mary.
“Mackerel,” Mary said with sad little frown. “Prawn. I smell… wasabi?”
“Useless!” Winifred cursed, jerking her broom into motion.
Sarah rolled her eyes and made a face. “Useless?” Mary asked, her hurt little-girl voice almost making Sam forget himself and feel sympathy for her.
“Never useless, darling,” Sarah said, her tone consoling. “You know how she gets.”
“Sarah! Mary!” Winifred’s shrill voice echoed back, and Sarah rolled her eyes again.
“She has a point, you know,” Mary said, her voice hushed. “It’s very important.”
“I know,” Sarah huffed, her broom ghosting forward alongside Mary’s. After a moment, both sisters disappeared.
“What’s important?” Sam wondered, when he had finished crawling out from his hiding place.
“They need the spell from the book,” Dean said, exasperation heavy in his tone.
“But why?” Sam said. “They look pretty young to me.”
“Don’t go nursing along that little crush of yours, Sammy,” Dean said, completely ignoring the dark glare Sam shot in his direction. “Sarah may look pretty but she’ll skin you alive and use what’s left of you for potion ingredients when she’s had her fill of you.”
Sam grimaced. “I take it that’s not just a saying?”
“No,” Dean said grimly, moving off in the opposite direction from the sisters. “It’s not.”
Sam found himself wondering about the certainty in Dean’s statement. Had it been a friend who fell victim to Sarah Sanderson? A neighbor? Had Dean stumbled upon the flayed remains himself, or was he only repeating town gossip? “Where are we going?” Sam asked.
“Our plans haven’t changed,” Dean replied. “We have to burn them. We’re going to the high school.”
The locks of the high school were laughable. Sam picked them in record time though Dean seemed entirely unimpressed. After several turns down long hallways, the reason for their break-in soon became clear to Sam as they passed row upon row of bright orange lockers, arriving at a room marked ‘Art Studio’.
“Here,” Dean said, pausing by the blue metal door. Sam twisted the handle and followed Dean inside, comprehension dawning like a sun spilling over the horizon.
In the far corner of the room was a gently rounded stack of bricks, arching up to the ceiling. A plaque with the words, “WARNING’, printed in urgent black capitals. “A kiln,” Sam said. “A kiln?” He shook his head in disbelief. Dean’s plan was quickly falling into place, and Sam was grudgingly impressed. “Seriously?”
“You have a better idea? I’m all ears.” Sam did not, in point of fact, have a better idea. “Well, alright then,” Dean continued. “Bring the book.”
Sam pulled open the heavy door to the kiln and peered inside cautiously. “This thing is massive.” He had never seen a kiln that size and was surprised the students of Salem had such an impressive art department in their high school, where ceramics were obviously heavily encouraged.
Dean strode past him, through the door. “Donation from some big-shot pottery dude,” he said dismissively. “I’m sure the kids just love it.”
Sam rolled his eyes at the blatant sarcasm, following Dean inside the kiln, surprised that he only had to duck a little bit to fit inside. In his opinion, it seemed like overkill.
“Put the book over here,” Dean said from his perch on one of the kiln shelves.
Reluctantly, Sam opened the satchel and pulled the spell book from its nest of protective herbs that had been rather successful, Sam thought, at masking the book’s presence from Winifred Sanderson. Placing it on the shelf Dean had indicated, Sam unwrapped the shirt in which the book was still bundled and stared down at the closed eyelid on the cover.
“Wake up,” Dean ordered.
“Uh,” Sam said, and then hissed, “What are you doing?”
“Shush,” Dean said.
“Dean,” Sam said, shifting forward and reaching for the cat, who had swatted at the book and looked to be preparing for another swipe.
Before he could grab Dean, the eyelid on the book’s cover pulled back, revealing a bright blue eyeball that rolled to look first at Dean, and then over to Sam who stood, frozen in place, his arms still extended. It focused back on Dean.
“Do you remember me?” the cat asked. The book kept staring. “I’m going to destroy you, but first you’re going to help me.” Sam felt his body jerking involuntary in surprise. “You’re going to show me the spell that will turn me back into a human.” The book blinked. Dean swatted it again and hissed. “My friend’s a witch, he’s going to work the magic and turn me back. And then he’s going to send you back to hell. Go on Sam.” Sam met Dean’s look with a bewildered gaze of his own. He was still trying to catch up with Dean’s plan.
“Open it and find the spell.” Dean spoke slowly again, in that horribly patronizing voice.
“Open it?” Sam repeated. Was Dean crazy? Wasn’t he the one who had ordered Sam to never open that book? Wasn’t he the one who had made a whole speech about how the book was entirely evil and would fuck with them like the One Ring fucked with everyone who wasn’t Sauron?
“Open it,” Dean repeated, slow and clipped like he was waiting for Sam to get with the program. Sam hesitated. The book wanted to go back to Winifred Sanderson. Winifred was out there, on a broom, calling for the thing. What was Dean playing at? Oh. Right. Sam shook his head and stepped forward.
“Don’t worry Dean, I’m going to turn you into a human again.” He said it with a lot of bravado, which probably sounded a bit forced, and he tried to keep from wincing as he touched the book’s cover and opened it, momentarily surprised that there was no resistance. For all that it was bound in human skin with a big working eyeball on the cover, Sam had imagined that it could exert its own force now that it was awake, try to keep its pages closed to intruders or something. It seemed the sort of thing that might be helpful, considering what the book apparently contained.
Of course, the book might also help them. They were, after all, giving it exactly what it wanted: an opportunity to call to its owner. Sure enough, as soon as Sam had flipped it open to a random page, a burst of light shot up from its pages.
“What the…” he said, raising an arm to protect his eyes from the light. The entire book glowed in a golden sparkling rush of light, like a beam of hot summer sunlight.
“Shit!” Dean said. “They’ll find us for sure!” The book glowed brighter. Sam made as if to close the book but Dean was already leaping off a shelf in the kiln and bounding toward the door. “No time! Come on!”
Following Dean’s lead, Sam left the book and slipped into a space in an art supply cupboard, as Dean hopped onto a shelf and hunkered down.
“Could you have sounded more fake?” Dean quietly snarked.
Sam snorted. “Oh please. ‘There’s no time! They’ll find us for sure!’” Sam mimicked, his voice pitched high. They fell silent as the quick clicking of heels began to approach.
“I don’t sound like that,” Dean muttered. Suddenly, the door to the art class flew open, and in staggered all three Sanderson sisters.
“Where is it?” Winifred said. “Book!”
“Winnie,” Mary said, frowning and turning slowly in the room. Sam winced and held his breath, but Mary was interrupted as her older sister gasped and said, “There you are!”
“It’s there?” Mary asked, sounding oddly hopeful. “You’ve found it?”
“Oh, what have they done to you?” Winifred crooned as she stepped over the threshold and into the kiln, Mary a single step behind her.
“Is it there?” Sarah demanded. “You’ve found it? You’re sure?”
“Of course I’m sure, you idiot,” Winifred said, her voice hard and edged and completely unlike the fond crooning of a moment before. “How many other spell books like this do you think are out there?”
Sarah huffed and kicked an art bench. “You mean, how many ugly old books? Is that a trick question?” she snarked.
“You!” Winifred said, stomping out of the kiln and grabbing her younger sister by the ear. “You will apologize this instant, you ungrateful little nincompoop! You owe your life to my precious little book!”
“Ow!” Sarah whinged as she was pulled into the kiln by her sister, until she was standing over the book. “I apologize!” she said. She scratched at her hip through her dress and frowned. “It’s hot in here.”
“Winnie…” Mary said.
“What?” Winifred snarled, her concentration still entirely on her book. She was answered when the door to the kiln slammed shut. “Well,” she said, turning on her youngest sister. “Open it.”
“I can’t,” Mary pointed out. “There is no handle.”
“Winnie, it’s very hot in here,” Sarah.
“Shut up!” Winnie said, pacing toward the door with a frown. “Well, push it, then.”
Mary pressed her weight against the door, but it did not budge. “Sarah, help me.”
Sarah joined her and they pushed again. Irritated, Sarah kicked at it. “It will not budge. I feel like I’m melting it’s so hot. Can neither of you not feel it?”
“I can,” Mary whispered.
“Never mind,” Winifred said. “We have the book. We will use magic.” She reached for her book and then cursed as the metal lock burned her fingers. She hissed, and then turned panicked eyes to look around her. “It is hot,” she said, ignoring her sisters as they shared a pointed look. “Too hot... What is this place?”
“A strange room,” Sarah pointed out. “There’s nothing in it. What purpose does it serve?”
“Mary.” Winifred staggered back and grabbed her sister. “What do you smell?”
“Earth,” Mary said. “And ash. And fire.” A moment later, it was too hot for them to do much else but burn.
“Do you think it’s really over?” Sam wondered as they walked back to the Impala. He had waited at the high school, long enough to be confident the plan had worked. He had also retrieved the spell book from the kiln; there had been nothing else in the room, which had been a relief. The book had been asleep once again, and Sam had taken that as a good sign, but had wrapped it up in his jacket just the same.
“I don’t know,” Dean admitted. “I think so.”
They were silent for a stretch. “What are you going to do now? I mean, now that you don’t need to worry about a virgin lighting the candle? By morning, all the wax will probably have melted away. There won’t anything more to light.”
Dean cocked his head to the side. “I have no clue.”
“Come with me,” Sam offered. “I’m serious. We worked well together tonight, and to be honest, I wouldn’t mind the company.” Dean didn’t give an answer, but there was a glint in the greenness of his eyes that Sam though might mean the cat was at least considering it. “I promise,” he said, teasingly. “We won’t always hunt witches.”
Dean was quiet, but when they reached the Impala, he hopped inside.
“I dunno,” he said. “I can’t really picture myself messing with herbs and spells.” He snorted as Sam started the engine and then added, more quietly, “I can’t stand research, and I don’t know how handy I’ll be in a fight.”
“You’ve managed pretty well so far,” Sam said. “Think about it.”
___________________________________________________
|<< END PART TWO >>|
MASTERPOST
By: revenant_scribe
Part Two:
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: PG-14 | Word Count: 7,901
The bright streetlights illuminated the costumed people walking and laughing along the sidewalks of Salem when Sam finally released the death-grip he had on the steering wheel and let out a breath.
“So, there are three seventeenth century witches stumbling around Salem. How bad can that be, exactly?” he muttered to himself.
“Bad,” the cat said from where it sat, perched on the backrest of the front seat.
Sam cast a slanted look at the cat and realized that there were a number of things about the Sanderson legends that he had discounted a bit too hastily. “You’re Dean Thackeray, aren’t you.”
“It’s lovely to meet you,” the cat snarked in a smoothly sarcastic tone. “Idiot Virgin Who Lit the Candle.”
Sam blinked, as startled by the name, as he was irked at the reference to his inexperience.
“That’s what you’re calling me?” he choked out.
“Oh, I’ve come up with some other names for you.”
Sam huffed in amusement. He didn’t know what it said about his sanity that he was driving down the street talking to a cat, an insolent one at that, and actually enjoying the company.
“My name is Sam.” All was quiet for a moment and then he said, “Aren’t you a little crass for someone who was born in the seventeenth century?”
There was a slight grumbling and the cat muttered, “Want to know how long I’ve been a cat?” Sam figured that it must have been somewhere in the vicinity of three hundred years. In that span of time, Dean Thackeray was bound to pick-up a thing or two; one of those things, apparently, was a pretty bad attitude.
Sam pulled into his spot at the Bluebird Motel and turned off the engine, shoving the spell book into his bag, which he proceeded to sling over his shoulder.
“I’m sorry I lit the candle, okay? I was just trying to help.”
Apparently that statement was so ridiculous the cat didn’t even have an appropriate comeback. He followed Sam through the door of his motel room, his tail standing up in the air, the end of it curling left and then right in regal agitation. He hopped up onto Sam’s bed without so much as a ‘by your leave’.
Then the fluffy black tyrant took a good look around, its nose tipping back, no doubt smelling the lines of salt. Sam tossed down his bag and began unloading the weapons from it.
“Dude, seriously,” the cat said. “What the hell?”
“I’m a hunter,” Sam explained. The cat gazed at him blankly. Sam frowned. “You’ve been kicking around here for over three hundred years and you’ve never heard of a hunter?”
“Yeah, I know those: deer, moose, taxidermy, heads-on-the-wall . . .”
“No, man,” Sam said. “A hunter. Like, ghosts, poltergeists, things-that-go-bump-in-the-night type hunter.” Once again, an unnervingly blank green stare. “I hunt things that are not … natural.” Sam scratched his head, wondering how much of the modern world the cat had absorbed over the years. “Things that are supernatural, okay?”
“Like the witches.”
“Yeah!” Sam said. “Yeah, exactly like that.”
“So, what stage of the hunt is this? I mean, they were dead, and you brought them back to life… is that a good stage?”
Sam flexed his grip on the wheel. “You’re still pissed at me.”
“Damned right, I’m pissed at you.” The cat was back on its feet, its tail twitching. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve been living in this crap town, trying to stop idiots from bringing those bitches back?”
“A long time?”
“A long time!” the cat said. It was pacing. “Do you know how many idiot teenagers want to go into that place to hang out at Halloween? People who want to smoke up and then decide to play with fire? People who dare each other?” The cat paused to glower at him. “That’s a lot of idiots that I stopped from doing something truly moronic.”
“I was trying to help!” Sam reiterated, and then a thought occurred to him. “Wait a minute. It was you, wasn’t it? You were the one who tried to burn down the museum. There never was a ghost!”
“What ghost?” the cat asked. “Of course it was me. I pulled the candle out and you better believe that thing is unwieldy, and I started the fire. It would have all been over and done with, once I got the damned thing buried.”
“Right, because the candle can’t burn,” Sam said, mostly to himself.
“Right,” apparently the cat wasn’t finished snarking. “Because if you add a fire to a magical candle, you get a lit magical candle.”
“How was I supposed to know it was magical? Most things melt when they’re tossed in the fire. Or burn. Either one would have been completely fine by me.”
“How many legends does it take for people to leave well enough alone? Only the black flame from the candle itself can actually melt the candle.” Exhausted and out of arguments, they both retreated to their respective corners. The cat sauntered to the middle of the bed, tail still twitching side to side, and then it curled around suddenly and began to groom the damned thing. Sam collapsed onto the chair at the desk, flipping the pages of the spell book idly until the cat hissed, “Don’t touch the book.”
Sam held up his hands, then closed the book and sat for a moment.
“What do we do?” he turned to face the cat realizing for the first time that, for all its insults, Dean Thackeray had been trying to help him. “I mean,” Sam continued. “What do they want? How do we stop them?”
The cat sat, its back tall, its tail finally resting still on the blanket.
“It’s the children,” Dean explained. “The last time, they were stealing kids from their beds, calling them out to the woods and using some sort of spell.” Dean trailed off, lost in thought.
“The spell, what did it do?” Sam prompted.
“It made her . . . them glow . . . the kids,” Dean said, his voice hushed. Sam recalled suddenly that Dean had been alive when it had happened before. It had been his sister the Sanderson sisters had taken. It was likely his own sister Dean was thinking of as he recounted the effects of the spell.
“The witches breathed in the light and then she was gone,” the cat continued, still speaking in a low tone. “She didn’t move…the kids didn’t move. But the witches were different, younger.”
Sam mulled that over. “Maybe it was a spell that would reveal life-force, enabling it to be consumed,” he thought aloud. “It would have to be children, because they’d have more to give. Why didn’t they work the spell on you?” The cat rolled its shoulders in a way that Sam assumed meant the thing was trying to shrug. “You pissed them off, didn’t you?” Dean’s tail twitched and Sam huffed to himself.
“I still can’t get over that the Sanderson sisters are actual evil witches, and I brought them back,” he found himself saying.
“You think the villagers would have hanged someone completely innocent?”
“Well,” Sam said. “Yeah. It wouldn’t be the first time something like that happened.” He could see the cat was mustering up a retort and quickly continued, “Besides, every single witch I’ve encountered has never worked magic like what you’re telling me. They’ve been fundamentally good people using their powers to help those in need. Not… this... How do they even do this?”
Once again, Dean looked woefully unimpressed with Sam’s intellect. “Witches make a pact with the devil,” he said, like Sam was slow.
“Are you seriously spouting The Malleus Maleficarum at me? Because that book is the most …” but trailed off as mentioning a book made him think about the book he had stuffed in his bag, which in turn recalled to him Susannah’s thorough description of it. He grabbed the spell book and waved it at Dean. “Why did you make me take this?”
The cat blinked at him. Sam realized the cat’s eyes were a deep green. “It’s Winifred Sanderson’s spell book,” Dean said.
“And?”
“And if the Devil wants Winifred Sanderson to have it, I’m pretty sure we want to make sure she never gets it,” Dean explained. “Also, it contains the spell she worked on the kids.”
“You’re sure she won’t have that memorized?”
“How am I supposed to know what they memorized?” the cat asked, glaring. “Seriously. Do you think I was hanging round the old mill with a bunch of freakin’ witches? Who do you think I am? ”
“Look,” Sam said. “I get that you’re pissed, and that’s fine. You have every right to be. But right now there are three seventeenth century witches fresh out of their graves and no doubt looking for us. This whole defensive, cranky kitty routine is not helping, so you need to calm. Down.”
“I’ll show you a cranky kitty,” Dean muttered, but he curled up into a tiny black ball of fur on the corner of Sam’s bed and then said, “It was complicated, there were a lot of ingredients. I doubt they’d have memorized it.”
“Okay,” Sam said. “Good. Well, that’s something.” He adopted his most authoritative voice and said, “We have to trust each other, okay? This is what I do. I’ve been raised to deal with this stuff since I’ve been a kid, alright? We’ll figure this out.”
“Alright, hotshot,” Dean said. “So what do we do first?”
“The first thing we need to do is figure out the first thing they’re likely to do.”
The first thing the Sanderson sisters were likely to do, apparently, was put a little protective bubble around the whole of the city. Sam watched the spell ripple through the air like a fine mist. In the parking lot, a man, who had been fumbling with his motel room keys, suddenly yawned and stretched, and then curled up to sleep in the middle of the walkway. “How can they work magic like that?” Sam muttered, in awe.
“It’s only affecting adults,” Dean pointed out. “Look.” Across the street, a group of teenagers were still staggeringly drunk, laughing and singing off-key.
“Okay.” Sam paced away from the window, running his hands through his hair as he tried to think. “That’s really powerful magic.” The cat hopped from the window ledge back to the bed and looked at him, apparently resolved to no longer comment on the completely obvious things that Sam stated. “That’s…pretty serious magic.”
“How about coming back from the dead?” Dean added. “Is that pretty serious magic too?” When Sam glared at him the cat blinked guileless eyes and said, “What? I’m trying to be helpful.”
“We’ve got the spell book,” Sam continued. “Which means they can’t hurt the kids until they find us, right?”
“No,” Dean said. “They’ve got powers aplenty without it. They just can’t suck their lives out.”
“Oh.” He collapsed back into his chair, his mind racing. Witches, he knew, were human. They might have powers they claimed from various sources, but they were human. Short of blasting them full of bullets, Sam couldn’t see a way to bring a true and final end to the Sanderson sisters.
“We got nothing,” Dean hopped off the bed.
“Where are you going?”
“As nice as it would be to wrap this whole thing up right here in this motel room, it’s not gonna happen. Right now they’re out there trying to find that book, to start sucking the lives out of little kids. Do you have some idea what to do about that?”
Sam gave it some thought. He didn’t really know what he was up against. It wasn’t as if the history books went into a lot of detail about the abilities of the Sanderson witches in particular, though all signs pointed to some pretty powerful witches who had gone well and truly darkside. Maybe there was some truth to what Dean said about pacts with the devil. Even if it wasn’t Satan, it could have just as easily have been a demon, and that wouldn’t make them any less threatening. He wasn’t sure that, if it came down to it, he could murder someone, which is what shooting the witches would mean.
“It was a spell, right?” Sam wondered. At the cat’s cocked head he elaborated, “They said that they’d rise again, but it was a spell. They needed the candle to be lit to complete the magic.”
“Yeah,” Dean said slowly.
“Well,” Sam said, feeling hopeful for the first time that night. “We just need to figure out how to reverse it!”
It was almost midnight. Sam estimated that if the spell was contained in Winifred’s book, he could find a way to break it before twelve-thirty. He turned to the spell book, lying on the table where he had left it, and ignored Dean’s hissed warning not to open it. A moment later the cover of the book was slamming closed as Dean pounced on it.
“You said their spells were in here,” Sam explained. “If I can see what the spell was that they used to revive themselves, then maybe I can work something to counter it.”
Dean’s snarling hiss was loud and made Sam pause. The cat’s back arched dramatically in a perfect reproduction of a cardboard Halloween decoration he had seen on the restaurant where he’d had dinner. Dean’s fur was fluffed up, bristling in such a way that distorted the cat’s proportions.
“You’re a witch too?” he snarled.
“No,” Sam huffed. “I’m a hunter.”
“Right,” Dean said, his tone wry. “I see the difference.” He swatted Sam with his front paw. “No reading from this book.”
“I don’t think you understand the plan.”
“I don’t think you understand this book,” Dean said. “It’s Winifred’s book, okay? It wants to go back to her, it’s bound in magic so thick you’d go cross-eyed trying to understand it, and it’s wholly and completely evil. Okay? Bad book,” he said, once again in a tone that implied Sam was especially dimwitted. “Don’t wake it up, don’t open it, don’t read it.”
“Wake it up?” Sam frowned in confusion until Dean’s exasperation made him connect the dots. “Oh, ew! That’s a real eye?” He pulled off the flannel button-down he’d been wearing and wrapped it around the book, then took another shirt from his duffel to put on in its place, still sneaking leery glances at the square bulk wrapped in flannel. “Okay, so the book is out. But I still think the spell-reversal theory is sound. Before, I thought whatever was going on in the house was the result of angry spirits who were tied to an object. If you destroy the object, then the spirits die as well, maybe the spell works in the same way.”
The cat twitched its tail. Sam glared, “Don’t give me that look, I’ve done this before.” Dean grumbled again, but otherwise kept quiet. “Listen, all we need to do,” Sam continued, “is find a way to destroy the focus of the spell. It’s got to be the Black Flame Candle. Without it, they disappear.”
The cat was staring at him, its dark green eyes utterly focused and intense. Sam squirmed under the stare, mentally reviewing what he had said in an effort to see if he had uttered anything that might warrant the incredibly derisive glare he was receiving. “What?”
The cat flicked its tail once. “As a hunter,” Dean said. “Do you do a lot of research? Try to learn as much as you can about what you’re getting into before you go at the thing?”
“Well,” Sam said, feeling his face heat. Maybe he had been a bit incautious in this instance. He’d been so certain that the incidents at the Mill were the result of malevolent spirits that he hadn’t entertained any other possibility. Still, he said, somewhat hesitantly, “Yeah…”
“Yeah,” Dean said, sounding very much as if he were building up to something. “And you’re a professional right, been doing this since you were practically a fetus…”
Sam narrowed his eyes. “What are you getting at?”
“I’m just curious how you missed the fact that the candle is indestructible?”
Sam blinked, that would make things a bit more complicated, if it were true. Also, had he known that, he certainly would have developed a different tactic, back when he’d thought he was hunting ghosts. “Well,” he said. “Have you ever tried to destroy it?”
Dean sniffed. “No.”
“Did the townspeople? Or a priest, or I don’t know, anyone that you know of?”
“No knife could cut it.”
“But that was all anyone tried?” The stretched silence was enough of an answer, Sam’s confidence continued to rebuild. “Okay, then I need to get to that candle.” He grabbed up his own journal, which contained some things that he thought might work on the candle, as well as his gun and knives. He left the iron blade, considering that wouldn’t do much good, but he took a flask filled with salt.
Prepared, Sam set off toward the door only to be stopped by Dean, equally authoritative saying: “You’re not leaving this book alone.” It was a valid point, so Sam hefted it and locked the motel door.
He pulled out an old messenger bag from the trunk of the car that he stuffed the spell book into, and, almost as an afterthought, raided the wooden lock-box inside which he kept some protective herbs for emergency, and was en route to the driver’s door when Dean once again disrupted him.
“What are you doing?” the cat asked, with narrowed eyes.
“Nothing,” Sam said quickly, not wanting to once again be accused of witchcraft. He paused by the driver’s door, prepared to unlock it.
“You’re going to drive that thing out there? Really?”
“You have a problem with my car?”
“No, not at all,” Dean said. “Did you want to wave a giant flag and blast the Mexican Hat Dance, too, or do you think this thing will attract enough attention?” he sighed. “Just take us to the graveyard. I’ll get us past that.”
______________________________
Dean’s solution was to travel through the old Salem crypt, which extended underground from the graveyard until it intersected the newer sewer system. Dean claimed that from there, they would be able to travel almost directly to the museum. Something that was proven accurate when, after a long trek through damp, foul smelling drains, Dean finally directed Sam to climb a ladder of metal rails. They popped up just in front of the Sanderson Mill parking lot.
The house was glowing dimly in the night, candles still flickering inside as Sam ducked over the low stone wall and jogged further into the woods. “Come on,” he said to Dean. “I left the Black Flame Candle at the back of the house.”
He didn’t wait to see if Dean followed and, after checking the doused fire he had made, returned empty handed. “Where is it? It wasn’t there.”
“Where else?” Dean said, his front paws perched on the window ledge, peering inside. “Well, the good news is that they don’t seem to be inside.”
“What?” Sam peered in through the window. “Where could they have gone?”
“They’re looking for the book,” Dean said, as if it were obvious. For all that he sounded blasé, Sam could tell by the way the cat’s ears were constantly twitching, pivoting in different directions as he scanned the various night sounds, that Dean was in fact just as leery about the return of the sisters as Sam. “It’s probably better if we keep moving, I don’t know if they have a way to track it.”
“I’m already ahead of you,” Sam said, he opened the satchel to reveal the book. It was still wrapped in his shirt, but was now packed with a few dried out crusty plants. “These should weaken any tracking spells, it should buy us some time.” Sam narrowed his eyes at the cat. “Stop looking at me like that. I’m not a witch.”
“Alright, Samantha,” Dean said. “Let’s go.”
Sam blinked as the cat squeezed through the window. “Was that?” he frowned, not quite able to completely believe. “Was that a Bewitched reference, or are you just being a dick?”
Sam pulled open the window and squeezed through, following Dean. He dropped near-silently into a crouch and glanced around. The smell of mildew, age, and dust that had lingered in the old mill had been chased away by the new smell of burning cedar logs from the roaring fire, mixed with the acridly sweet odor of a smoking bundle of herbs in a little brass dish.
Sam sniffed the air by the dish tentatively, trying to decipher the herbs in the hopes that he might gain some insight into the spell the witches had been working, but the crisp scent of the cedar wood overpowered the smell of the small bundle.
The Black Flame Candle had been returned to the wooden stand and it burned with a steady black flame. The wax had melted a considerable amount given the time that had past, reduced to almost half its previous height. Dean, who sat perched on the empty glass casement that once held the spell book, turned expectantly to Sam. “So?”
“Right.” Setting the satchel aside, Sam pulled out a bottle of holy water and poured it over the candle. There was a fierce hissing sizzle and a wafting of smoke that reeked of sulfur, old milk, and burning asphalt. The candle smoked wherever the holy water touched, but the flame was not doused. “That doesn’t prove anything,” Sam said to Dean’s look that clearly smacked of ‘I told you so’.
Twenty minutes later and Sam had run through every exorcism he knew. He had cast spells, submerged it in water, covered it in salt, cut at it with a machete, shot it with a gun, and stabbed at it with a knife.
“Okay,” Sam was finally forced to conclude. “I think the Black Flame Candle might be indestructible.”
There was an awkward stretch of silence as Sam worked on regaining his breath after his exertions. Dean just sat there, glaring in a markedly bland fashion, which looked incredibly feline.
“Alright,” Dean said finally. “My turn.” He hopped off the glass case and trotted across the floor to the window.
“Your turn?” Sam queried.
“We tried your way, and the candle was indestructible,” Dean said, pausing on the window ledge. He flicked his tail as he said, “So now we go to the source of the magic.”
Sam wasn’t quite following. “How are we supposed to know which demon they struck a deal with?”
“It was the Devil,” Dean said.
Sam huffed. “It wasn’t the Devil. That’s something The Malleus Malefecarum and all those other books almost always get wrong. Demons make these sorts of deals, not Lucifer. The question is which demon made this deal. I mean, there are at least seven that I can think of just off the top of my head that specialize in magic, and you can’t exactly summon them for a brief chat.”
Dean had once again fixed him with a flat, unblinking stare. When Sam met his gaze, his right ear twitched. Finally, Dean asked, “Dude, who are you?”
“What?”
“Demons? Summoning? Are you kidding me?”
“I’m a hunter,” Sam said, rolling his eyes. For all that Dean had apparently been keeping-up with the times, he was incredibly backward in some respects. “It goes with the territory, okay?”
“Yeah, whatever,” Dean dismissed, not sounding quite convinced. “But I’m not talking about that demon stuff. I’m talking about the witches.”
“What about them?”
“Trial by fire: we torch the bitches.”
Dean’s solution seemed extreme to Sam. The witches had not really done anything yet; well, they spelled all the adults of Salem into sleep, which, granted, seemed to suggest that their intentions were not entirely honorable.
Still, he wasn’t convinced it warranted murdering them. Then again, he recalled the disappearances that he had found listed in the records of the town from when the Sanderson sisters had last walked the earth. At the time, Sam had sympathized with the historical town of Salem, and had even gone so far as to understand the desperation that must have spurred the townsfolk into believing that evil was living among them. He had not, however, believed that the three sisters who lived at the old mill had actually been guilty of the crime for which they were sentenced to death. He had been conditioned, he supposed, to always view the victims of the Witch Hunts as innocent scapegoats who had been targets of hysteria and fear.
Having encountered the Sanderson sisters, however, Sam had adjusted his initial opinion, and was willing to believe Dean Thackeray when he said that they were evil witches, and it only followed that they were responsible for the disappearances of each of those children.
They left the Black Flame candle on its pedestal; resigned to the fact that it was indestructible. Sam didn’t fancy running around with a lit candle, and it Dean assured him that in every other way, it was just a candle, so Sam let it be.
They trekked back along the side of the road. The dark woods gave way to the sculpted hedges and clipped gardens of private residences, some with lights on above their front doors, a few with the sprawled bodies of adults lying carelessly across the front steps or hanging half-in half-out of their vehicles. Salem seemed sinister in the moonlight, the sleeping figures looking dead as they lay, unmoving. It was late enough that Sam assumed most of the teenagers were still ensconced in house parties or nightclubs, though the closer they got to town, where the bodies lay sprawled across the sidewalk and sometimes in the road, there were an increasing number of teenagers panicking, some phoning for help on cellphones that never connected: no one was awake to answer their calls.
The consequences of the spell began to sink in. It had all seemed relatively benign to him before: they were all just sleeping, which meant they could all simply wake-up. People were likely already dying, though. Doctors undoubtedly slept in the halls of the ICU, in the surgery rooms, in the trauma centers. It was suddenly less difficult for Sam to understand Dean’s hurried rush to dispatch the witches: they were, after all, only getting started.
“Where are we going?” Sam asked as he kept pace with the cat.
Dean was bounding down the sidewalk, looking very much as if he knew what he was doing, but at the question he came to a sudden stop and looked around. “The witches were burned after they were hanged,” he said. “So these can’t be their bodies, right? I mean, they were burned, there was nothing left.”
“Where were their ashes placed?”
Dean looked away.
“I don’t know. I was … I wasn’t keeping close track at the start.” It occurred to Sam that Dean had likely gone to his family after he was turned, or tried to, at least. Sam could only imagine how the townsfolk had reacted to a black cat being in the area, especially on the heels of the discovery of the witches. Lord knows what would have happened if Dean had tried to actually talk to anyone. Sympathy, sharp and deep, hit him then, and Sam didn’t press the issue any further.
“There were no records I could find,” Sam said. “Would they have buried the ashes, do you think? Or would they have scattered them?” Dean could not reply with confidence. “It doesn’t matter,” Sam said. “Whatever happened to their bodies, it doesn’t change the fact that somehow they’re back.”
“You said before, that you would have salted and burned the bones except there were no bones,” Dean said thoughtfully and Sam nodded. “So if we salt and burn them now, that could count, right?”
It was difficult for Sam to consider; they were not talking about bones, but bodies, living bodies, no less. “I don’t know,” Sam said. “Witches are people. If you kill a person, generally that’s it.” He paused. “Well, unless they come back as a ghost.”
“Ever dealt with a bunch of people who’ve come back from the dead?”
“Oh yeah,” Sam said, wrinkling his nose. “Zombies aren’t much fun, either.”
“Zombies,” Dean said, and sounded a little dazed. “Right. So how did you deal with the … with the zombies?”
“Nailed him back into his grave with a silver stake.” Dean’s gaze held steady, his body entirely still except for his tail, flicking left and right rhythmically like a snake. “What?” Sam asked. “When are you going to get over this? I’m a hunter, this is what hunters do.”
“Well, these zombies don’t have graves.”
“I also don’t really think they’re zombies,” Sam admitted. “I mean, you said yourself their bodies were completely destroyed. Whatever spell they used to come back, it didn’t make them living dead. They are completely real and alive, and whole.”
“So, no silver stakes.”
Across the way, a group of teenagers came staggering drunkenly out of a bar, undoubtedly having just taken advantage of the bartender and everyone else being incapacitated by the spell, and thus, unable to enforce any rules with regards to serving alcohol to minors. Sam glanced over and wondered what it looked like, him standing and having a conversation with a cat at the side of the road.
Dean startled him from his thoughts as he said, “We’re back to burning them.”
Sam tipped his head to the side. “They’re not going to stand still while we build a pyre.”
“They don’t need to,” Dean said, hopping to his feet in a flash. “Come on!”
Without any idea where Dean was going, Sam found himself running blindly after the swiftly bounding dark shadow, somewhat dismayed to realize how difficult it was to keep-up with the bounding cat who now and again disappeared from view, only to reappear even further ahead.
“Dean!” Sam shouted, relieved when the dark shadow came to a halt and glanced back. Sam caught up to him. “Where are we going?”
“To the-“ but Dean trailed off, his tufted ears swiveling and then, suddenly, he turned his head, gazing down the street.
“What do you hear?” Sam whispered, crouching down as if that would help them.
Dean didn’t answer, but a second later, Sam heard it for himself: a soft trilling voice, calling with an aching sort of sadness that made the single syllable sound like a song, “Book!”
“What is that?”
“It’s them,” Dean said, glancing around quickly for some place for them to hide. Sam was distracted, however, when his satchel began twitching at his hip. “Keep hold of that,” Dean said. Sam glanced down at the bag and winced. Right, the book that was bound in human skin and had a human eye was trying to answer its mistress, vibrating in the bag with its impulse to somehow break free. “This way.” Sam followed, keeping low and hoping that the unnatural mist would shelter him from sight.
Luck, however, was not on their side.
“Hello!” a voice chirruped, and Sam started violently because it had come from above him. He glanced up to see Sarah Sanderson perched side-saddle on her broom, her blond hair falling over one shoulder as she leaned down, one arm reaching for him. “Such a handsome boy.” Just as before, Sam felt himself drawn to her, some irresistible pull, like a siren’s song, bringing him into her thrall. “Come with me, my lovely one. I will take care of you.”
A low hiss broke the spell as Sam jerked his head to the source of the sound to see Dean leaping off a trash canister and into the air, his claws outstretched. Sarah screamed as he swatted at her, pushing the furry body away even as Dean’s claws anchored into her cloak and her robes.
“Dean Thackeray!” a voice called, rife with laughter as Sarah succeeded in swatting Dean off her body. He toppled to the ground and Sam lunged forward, catching the furry bundle in his arms before he could hit the cement. “My my. And look! You’ve made a little friend!”
“Winifred,” Dean snarled as he hopped from Sam’s arms onto the ground.
“You wouldn’t by any chance, happen to know the whereabouts of my book?” Winifred Sanderson asked, peering down her sharply upturned nose at him. She was smirking in an imperious fashion; the awkwardly round spectacles making her brown eyes seem somehow smaller.
“I burned it,” Dean said.
Winifred laughed, joined by her two sisters; each of them floating above them on their broomsticks, their long dresses and cloaks hanging down, buffeted by the autumn wind. “I very much doubt that, my dear.” She leaned forward, drifting lower until the ends of her green dressed ghosted across Sam’s cheek. Her voice was low, an intimate whisper, as she said, “My book cannot be touched by fire.”
“Well, it burned just fine,” Dean insisted. Sam held himself completely still, hoping that he’d be forgotten and none of the sisters would notice the arm he kept pressed against the satchel that was shivering with the nearness of its mistress.
“Winnie,” a new voice said, so very young sounding, so very innocent. “I smell frankincense.” Sam kept very still and hid the wince he felt as the herbs he had used to mask the book were discovered one by one. “Dragon’s blood,” Mary added. “Sage, fennel,” she listed, drifted closer. “Arabic gum, aloe…”
Winifred sat up, drifting on her broom past her younger sister, caressing her cheek and patting her head as she went by. Her sharp eyes fell on Sam and then continued down to focus on his satchel.
“What a strange mixture of things, Mary,” she said, and then turned to Dean. “Your little friend is a witch?”
“I’m not a witch,” Sam declared, exasperated, and then cringed-so much for being forgotten and ignored.
“No?” Winifred asked. Then her look became dark and terrifying as she leaned forward, her face inches from Sam’s own. “You are trying to hide my book from me!” She reared back on her broom and once again sang-out her strange call, “Book!” Sam stepped back, holding fast to the satchel, and pressed it hard against his side as the book shivered.
“Run!” Dean shouted, and Sam spun on his heel just as Winifred lunged forward.
“Run as fast as you can, Dean Thackeray!” Winifred Sanderson shouted. “You cannot run forever! I will have my book, and then all the children of Salem will die!” Sarah and Mary were already after him as Sam darted left down a narrow alley, and pulled down a metal fire escape ladder, effectively blocked the space behind him so the witches could not sweep quickly in pursuit.
“Here!” Dean said, darting out ahead and turning a corner hastily. “Down, down,” he said, as he crawled behind a stack of wooden crates, completely hidden. Sam ducked down into the shadows, hiding as best he could.
“But Mary…” he began, falling silent when he could hear the sisters approaching. He held his breath as Sarah swooped around the corner.
“Beautiful boy!” she called. “My lovely boy, come and play with me.” Sam squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his back into the rough brickwork behind him.
“Mary!” Winifred said, bringing her broom to a stop beside the blonde and turning an expectant gaze to Mary.
“Mackerel,” Mary said with sad little frown. “Prawn. I smell… wasabi?”
“Useless!” Winifred cursed, jerking her broom into motion.
Sarah rolled her eyes and made a face. “Useless?” Mary asked, her hurt little-girl voice almost making Sam forget himself and feel sympathy for her.
“Never useless, darling,” Sarah said, her tone consoling. “You know how she gets.”
“Sarah! Mary!” Winifred’s shrill voice echoed back, and Sarah rolled her eyes again.
“She has a point, you know,” Mary said, her voice hushed. “It’s very important.”
“I know,” Sarah huffed, her broom ghosting forward alongside Mary’s. After a moment, both sisters disappeared.
“What’s important?” Sam wondered, when he had finished crawling out from his hiding place.
“They need the spell from the book,” Dean said, exasperation heavy in his tone.
“But why?” Sam said. “They look pretty young to me.”
“Don’t go nursing along that little crush of yours, Sammy,” Dean said, completely ignoring the dark glare Sam shot in his direction. “Sarah may look pretty but she’ll skin you alive and use what’s left of you for potion ingredients when she’s had her fill of you.”
Sam grimaced. “I take it that’s not just a saying?”
“No,” Dean said grimly, moving off in the opposite direction from the sisters. “It’s not.”
Sam found himself wondering about the certainty in Dean’s statement. Had it been a friend who fell victim to Sarah Sanderson? A neighbor? Had Dean stumbled upon the flayed remains himself, or was he only repeating town gossip? “Where are we going?” Sam asked.
“Our plans haven’t changed,” Dean replied. “We have to burn them. We’re going to the high school.”
The locks of the high school were laughable. Sam picked them in record time though Dean seemed entirely unimpressed. After several turns down long hallways, the reason for their break-in soon became clear to Sam as they passed row upon row of bright orange lockers, arriving at a room marked ‘Art Studio’.
“Here,” Dean said, pausing by the blue metal door. Sam twisted the handle and followed Dean inside, comprehension dawning like a sun spilling over the horizon.
In the far corner of the room was a gently rounded stack of bricks, arching up to the ceiling. A plaque with the words, “WARNING’, printed in urgent black capitals. “A kiln,” Sam said. “A kiln?” He shook his head in disbelief. Dean’s plan was quickly falling into place, and Sam was grudgingly impressed. “Seriously?”
“You have a better idea? I’m all ears.” Sam did not, in point of fact, have a better idea. “Well, alright then,” Dean continued. “Bring the book.”
Sam pulled open the heavy door to the kiln and peered inside cautiously. “This thing is massive.” He had never seen a kiln that size and was surprised the students of Salem had such an impressive art department in their high school, where ceramics were obviously heavily encouraged.
Dean strode past him, through the door. “Donation from some big-shot pottery dude,” he said dismissively. “I’m sure the kids just love it.”
Sam rolled his eyes at the blatant sarcasm, following Dean inside the kiln, surprised that he only had to duck a little bit to fit inside. In his opinion, it seemed like overkill.
“Put the book over here,” Dean said from his perch on one of the kiln shelves.
Reluctantly, Sam opened the satchel and pulled the spell book from its nest of protective herbs that had been rather successful, Sam thought, at masking the book’s presence from Winifred Sanderson. Placing it on the shelf Dean had indicated, Sam unwrapped the shirt in which the book was still bundled and stared down at the closed eyelid on the cover.
“Wake up,” Dean ordered.
“Uh,” Sam said, and then hissed, “What are you doing?”
“Shush,” Dean said.
“Dean,” Sam said, shifting forward and reaching for the cat, who had swatted at the book and looked to be preparing for another swipe.
Before he could grab Dean, the eyelid on the book’s cover pulled back, revealing a bright blue eyeball that rolled to look first at Dean, and then over to Sam who stood, frozen in place, his arms still extended. It focused back on Dean.
“Do you remember me?” the cat asked. The book kept staring. “I’m going to destroy you, but first you’re going to help me.” Sam felt his body jerking involuntary in surprise. “You’re going to show me the spell that will turn me back into a human.” The book blinked. Dean swatted it again and hissed. “My friend’s a witch, he’s going to work the magic and turn me back. And then he’s going to send you back to hell. Go on Sam.” Sam met Dean’s look with a bewildered gaze of his own. He was still trying to catch up with Dean’s plan.
“Open it and find the spell.” Dean spoke slowly again, in that horribly patronizing voice.
“Open it?” Sam repeated. Was Dean crazy? Wasn’t he the one who had ordered Sam to never open that book? Wasn’t he the one who had made a whole speech about how the book was entirely evil and would fuck with them like the One Ring fucked with everyone who wasn’t Sauron?
“Open it,” Dean repeated, slow and clipped like he was waiting for Sam to get with the program. Sam hesitated. The book wanted to go back to Winifred Sanderson. Winifred was out there, on a broom, calling for the thing. What was Dean playing at? Oh. Right. Sam shook his head and stepped forward.
“Don’t worry Dean, I’m going to turn you into a human again.” He said it with a lot of bravado, which probably sounded a bit forced, and he tried to keep from wincing as he touched the book’s cover and opened it, momentarily surprised that there was no resistance. For all that it was bound in human skin with a big working eyeball on the cover, Sam had imagined that it could exert its own force now that it was awake, try to keep its pages closed to intruders or something. It seemed the sort of thing that might be helpful, considering what the book apparently contained.
Of course, the book might also help them. They were, after all, giving it exactly what it wanted: an opportunity to call to its owner. Sure enough, as soon as Sam had flipped it open to a random page, a burst of light shot up from its pages.
“What the…” he said, raising an arm to protect his eyes from the light. The entire book glowed in a golden sparkling rush of light, like a beam of hot summer sunlight.
“Shit!” Dean said. “They’ll find us for sure!” The book glowed brighter. Sam made as if to close the book but Dean was already leaping off a shelf in the kiln and bounding toward the door. “No time! Come on!”
Following Dean’s lead, Sam left the book and slipped into a space in an art supply cupboard, as Dean hopped onto a shelf and hunkered down.
“Could you have sounded more fake?” Dean quietly snarked.
Sam snorted. “Oh please. ‘There’s no time! They’ll find us for sure!’” Sam mimicked, his voice pitched high. They fell silent as the quick clicking of heels began to approach.
“I don’t sound like that,” Dean muttered. Suddenly, the door to the art class flew open, and in staggered all three Sanderson sisters.
“Where is it?” Winifred said. “Book!”
“Winnie,” Mary said, frowning and turning slowly in the room. Sam winced and held his breath, but Mary was interrupted as her older sister gasped and said, “There you are!”
“It’s there?” Mary asked, sounding oddly hopeful. “You’ve found it?”
“Oh, what have they done to you?” Winifred crooned as she stepped over the threshold and into the kiln, Mary a single step behind her.
“Is it there?” Sarah demanded. “You’ve found it? You’re sure?”
“Of course I’m sure, you idiot,” Winifred said, her voice hard and edged and completely unlike the fond crooning of a moment before. “How many other spell books like this do you think are out there?”
Sarah huffed and kicked an art bench. “You mean, how many ugly old books? Is that a trick question?” she snarked.
“You!” Winifred said, stomping out of the kiln and grabbing her younger sister by the ear. “You will apologize this instant, you ungrateful little nincompoop! You owe your life to my precious little book!”
“Ow!” Sarah whinged as she was pulled into the kiln by her sister, until she was standing over the book. “I apologize!” she said. She scratched at her hip through her dress and frowned. “It’s hot in here.”
“Winnie…” Mary said.
“What?” Winifred snarled, her concentration still entirely on her book. She was answered when the door to the kiln slammed shut. “Well,” she said, turning on her youngest sister. “Open it.”
“I can’t,” Mary pointed out. “There is no handle.”
“Winnie, it’s very hot in here,” Sarah.
“Shut up!” Winnie said, pacing toward the door with a frown. “Well, push it, then.”
Mary pressed her weight against the door, but it did not budge. “Sarah, help me.”
Sarah joined her and they pushed again. Irritated, Sarah kicked at it. “It will not budge. I feel like I’m melting it’s so hot. Can neither of you not feel it?”
“I can,” Mary whispered.
“Never mind,” Winifred said. “We have the book. We will use magic.” She reached for her book and then cursed as the metal lock burned her fingers. She hissed, and then turned panicked eyes to look around her. “It is hot,” she said, ignoring her sisters as they shared a pointed look. “Too hot... What is this place?”
“A strange room,” Sarah pointed out. “There’s nothing in it. What purpose does it serve?”
“Mary.” Winifred staggered back and grabbed her sister. “What do you smell?”
“Earth,” Mary said. “And ash. And fire.” A moment later, it was too hot for them to do much else but burn.
“Do you think it’s really over?” Sam wondered as they walked back to the Impala. He had waited at the high school, long enough to be confident the plan had worked. He had also retrieved the spell book from the kiln; there had been nothing else in the room, which had been a relief. The book had been asleep once again, and Sam had taken that as a good sign, but had wrapped it up in his jacket just the same.
“I don’t know,” Dean admitted. “I think so.”
They were silent for a stretch. “What are you going to do now? I mean, now that you don’t need to worry about a virgin lighting the candle? By morning, all the wax will probably have melted away. There won’t anything more to light.”
Dean cocked his head to the side. “I have no clue.”
“Come with me,” Sam offered. “I’m serious. We worked well together tonight, and to be honest, I wouldn’t mind the company.” Dean didn’t give an answer, but there was a glint in the greenness of his eyes that Sam though might mean the cat was at least considering it. “I promise,” he said, teasingly. “We won’t always hunt witches.”
Dean was quiet, but when they reached the Impala, he hopped inside.
“I dunno,” he said. “I can’t really picture myself messing with herbs and spells.” He snorted as Sam started the engine and then added, more quietly, “I can’t stand research, and I don’t know how handy I’ll be in a fight.”
“You’ve managed pretty well so far,” Sam said. “Think about it.”
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|<< END PART TWO >>|
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