Death in Appalachia, Chapter 14: Comacine Invasion
Authors: atana_blackfox & paintercrow
Summary: Dean and Vera search for Sam. The Comacines Find two new members.
Rating/Warning: Mature (NC-17), Warnings for story overall. Swearing (most chapters). Rape and torture chapters have separate warnings. Character deaths (Ballad novels/OCs). Sex--both hetero and homosexual.
Disclaimer: We do not own the Supernatural or Ballad novel story elements.
Death in Appalachia Chapter 14: Comacine Invasion
Summary: Dean and Vera search for Sam. The Comacines Find two new members.
Warning: A description of torture in this chapter.
Zipactonal Valdez shifted in the backseat; his ears kept popping as they steadily drove higher into the mountains. He gazed at the scenery drinking it all in. Zip had originally been scheduled to fly to Japan for a six-month total language immersion program. But then this mission had come up. This was his first mission and he was only 19, usually Order members weren’t allowed in the field until they were 21 years old. Zip had been dreading going on another isolating language program; his stomach burned just thinking about it. He would much rather spend time getting to know other Order members. After five years he still didn't know many people.
Five years ago he had been "Found" by the Comacines, and as far as Zip was concerned, he wasn’t found he was rescued. His parents, Nahuatl Indians from Mexico, were illegal immigrants but Zip was born in Houston. His parents had gone to the border to meet a relative who was entering the country illegally. There had been gunfire between two rival drug gangs, and his parents were caught in the crossfire. He was six years old and had been left with an elderly family “friend.” The old woman had turned him and his six-month old sister over to Family and Children’s Services as soon as she found out his parents were dead. Zip’s sister had been adopted and her records sealed, so he didn’t know where she was, or even what her name was anymore. He was sure her adoptive family had changed her traditional Nahuatl name, Eloxochitl, to something Anglo.
The whole team was on edge after the vision, or visitation, that Pascal had received. When Zip and Pascal were together they usually spoke in French and unless Cheryl was around no one else understood them; a fact that pleased Pascal. Initially Zip was thrilled when Pascal started speaking in a new dialect but as soon as he translated what was said it chilled him. People were dead and dying. What kind of situation were they going into?
The Comacines had rented three Dodge Grand Caravans to drive to the little town of Hamelin in Wake County which was a two-hour ride away. Zip and Pascal had ended up in one vehicle with Cheryl and LaShonda. Pascal was quiet then fell asleep for most of the ride. Zip wondered if it was because he was still shaken from the vision he had or whether he was bummed because he wasn't in the same car as Lin Yao. Zip could see the worry in Cheryl and LaShonda's eyes. LaShonda would reach back and touch Pascal's hand every so often while he was sleeping to monitor his vitals.
Zip was just as excited about actually getting to meet Comacines as he was about going on his first mission. Zip was meeting LaShonda and Cheryl for the first time on this mission. He decided to try to get to know them. During a lull in the conversation between the two older women he leaned up between the seats.
“LaShonda, so where are you from?”
LaShonda glanced over her shoulder, looking amused. “East Nashville.”
“So this is like your backyard? How long have you lived here?”
LaShonda snorted. “Uh, no this isn’t my back yard.”
Zip looked puzzled. “But you know the area right?”
LaShonda rolled her eyes and glanced at Cheryl in the driver’s seat. “Nashville is about a five hour drive from here!”
Zip smiled. “Oh, well it's my first time to Tennessee, so were you Found in Nashville?”
“Yes, I was found in Nashville.”
Zip continued smiling, glad to have somebody to talk to. “I was born in Houston, lived in Chicago and I just finished a year of college in Atlanta, so I've never seen the countryside before.”
LaShonda laughed “I’m not used to it either. Weird out here, isn’t it? It’s like we went back in time a hundred years.”
Zip bounced slightly in his seat. “How about you Cheryl? I heard you speaking French, you're Canadian?”
Cheryl’s lips twitched. “Yes, I'm from Halifax.”
Zip was glad that he had someone else to practice French with. “You speak other languages LaShonda?”
Although Zip wasn’t out in the field yet, his obsession with languages was already well known. The poor kid was one of the rare Comacines who had no psychic abilities, so he seemed to throw himself into his studies, probably trying to compensate. LaShonda smiled again, remembering how excited he was to hear Pascal speaking that rare French-Canadian dialect. “Yeah, Black Vernacular English, but I'm trying to learn Spanish.”
If it were possible, Zip sounded even more excited. “Great, we could talk in Spanish if you want to practice.”
LaShonda laughed. “Homeboy, I'm still trying to conjugate verbs!”
Zip looked puzzled. “Homeboy, that's a vernacular expression meaning what exactly?”
LaShonda smothered a giggle. “It means you’re one of my crew.” She was trying to make him feel like a member of the team. He was kind of an extra, being neither fish nor fowl. He was in intelligence, and wasn’t part of either the medical or security teams.
Zip was confused, “Yes, I am part of this team.”
“No, no...” LaShonda was trying not to laugh, “you don't know what a homeboy is? Where have you been most of your life?”
“Uh, Houston and Chicago. My parents were illegal immigrants from Mexico, but they weren't Latino, they were Nahuatl Indians.”
LaShonda turned in the seat to look at him. “That explains a lot.”
The poor kid looked so perplexed. “Really? Meaning what?”
LaShonda tried to put it gently. Zip seemed pretty clueless at times. “Why you don't understand...some things.”
Zip thought it over, he often felt like he was out of step with everyone else. “I moved around a lot, I was in a lot of foster homes.”
LaShonda glanced at Cheryl, her concern for him evident on her face. The foster care system could be brutal, especially to a small kid like him. “How many homes were you in?”
Zip shrugged his face unreadable and the enthusiasm went out of his voice. “I lost count, I ran away when I was 14 and was Found when I was hiding in a church.”
She was quiet for a moment. “I was 15.”
Zip perked up a bit, glad he wasn’t the only one who had run away from a foster home. “Did you run away too?”
LaShonda’s voice was expressionless, but there was a strange undercurrent to it. Cheryl suddenly felt excluded from the conversation. They were sharing something she could never understand. Cheryl became very quiet, realizing that Zip needed this.
“I guess you could say I did,” LaShonda said quietly. “I was in a few foster homes myself. I ran away when I was 12.”
Zip nodded. “I'm so happy I was Found, well more like rescued,” he said, just a softly as LaShonda.
She smiled at that life changing memory. “I know what you mean. How long had you been on the streets?”
“Not too long, I was hiding in the church for maybe a month before Atin Found me. I had gone out to steal some food from the store when he caught me and then next thing I knew I was on a plane to Hawaii.”
Despite the seriousness of the conversation, both Cheryl and LaShonda couldn't help but laugh. “I want a blow by blow of that someday,” Cheryl said.
Zip giggled at the memory. “Yeah, he wasn't too happy when I bit him.”
LaShonda was laughing so hard she almost couldn’t talk. “So that's where he got that scar on his left shoulder!”
Zip turned red. “Well he was trying to kidnap me!” Cheryl was laughing so hard she had to pull over. Zip had to smile too. “I guess it was kinda funny.”
“Well, that is not as bad as how I was Found.” LaShonda calmed down and looked a bit more serious, trying not to trivialize what had happened to Zip.
“Who found you?” Zip asked.
“Ralph Benson.”
Zip racked his memory. “Hmm, I haven't met him yet, but I think I heard of him; a security guy?”
LaShonda’s face went blank. “Yeah, I asked him if he wanted a date.”
“Oh, maybe it's not the same guy; I thought he was retired or something.” The man Zip was thinking about was in his sixties and retired. He was about thirty years older than LaShonda and he couldn’t imagine her being attracted to him.
LaShonda cleared her throat. “No, not that type of date.” Cheryl pulled the van back on to the road and started driving again.
Zip was confused again. “What do you...?” Zip paused and got red again. “Oh, I understand. That must have been awkward when Ralph explained things to you.”
She laughed. “I didn’t believe a word of it.”
“What convinced you? I was so hungry Atin bribed me with food, I figured I could escape later, not that I had much choice after he locked me in the trunk.”
Cheryl choked and made a sputtering sound. “He put you in the trunk of his car!”
Zip sounded sheepish. “Yeah, after I bit him.”
Cheryl started laughing again. “I'm going to have to get his side of the story!”
He sounded indignant. “Don't believe everything he says, he exaggerates!”
LaShonda smiled. “I bet. Don't feel too bad, I almost shot Ralph.”
Zip was shocked. “Oh no! Wow, what happened?”
LaShonda shrugged, her voice subdued. “I was strung out at the time, wanted money for a fix. I offered a date, he turned me down, and I tried to rob him.”
Zip was quiet for a moment and silence filled the car, save for Pascal’s quiet snoring. “Yeah, it's a pretty unbelievable story hearing that all the Comacines are reincarnated and only other Comacines can recognize each other. I told Atin if that was true I'd have recognized him.”
Both Cheryl and LaShonda laughed again. “I wish I could have seen his face!” Cheryl giggled.
“Me too,” Zip said sorrowfully, “but I was still in the trunk.”
LaShonda looked over her shoulder at Zip in disbelief. “You told him this through the trunk?”
“Yeah, after he kidnapped me from the parking lot, I fought him and bit him. He threw me in his trunk and then drove off. He was trying to convince me to calm down by offering me food, and I figured he'd drugged it, and wouldn't eat. I threatened to bite him again if he touched me. I was in the trunk a long time while he waited for backup to help with me. He parked the car in the lowest level of an underground parking garage to be sure I didn’t get too hot and threw a bottle of water in to me. It took three people to get me calmed down enough to send me to Hawaii.”
Cheryl had to pull off the road again, laughing, but LaShonda was quiet. She understood why Zip would be so upset at someone trying to touch him. They’d talk again without Cheryl or anyone else around.
~*~
Sam crashed through the underbrush toward the screams. He couldn't fix a location, just as he thought he was about to find the source it seemed to move. A part of his mind knew he should go back to the KOA office and call Dean, but the anguish of the screams drove him on.
The screams eventually led Sam to a small cave. He was sweating heavily and exhausted from running through the mid-August heat. The rain was just beginning to fall.
A horrific sight greeted him in the cave. Two gigantic, greenish figures were raping a young, blonde woman. Sam froze in fear, recognizing the two creatures from his dream. With a sick feeling in his stomach and his throat gagging, he realized that he was in way over his head.
One of the demons stopped anally raping the girl long enough to look at Sam, baring its short, sharp teeth in an eerie smile. “We have wanted to see you for a long time, Hunter.” It extended a hand towards him and Sam felt he had just walked into a trap. “A deal; you take down your shields, and we let the girl go.” It smirked. “More than a fair trade. We will have you anyway, but it would take days to break into your mind.”
The girl screamed again, and Sam couldn’t bear to hear her cries echoing off the walls. He would do anything to stop it. He took a step forward, opening his mind.
Sam suddenly felt both his body and mind swept up into a crushing grip before feeling the earth whip away under his feet. He caught a glimpse of the young woman huddling naked on the floor of the cave sobbing as he was whisked away. A few moments later Sam felt his body slam into the floor of another, larger cave.
Then Sam was in Hell.
~*~
Starlight meekly submitted to Shade’s grooming. Shade had bullied her onto the window seat in the library, and the two of them were laying in the fading sunlight as storm clouds rolled in. Ever since she became Sam’s familiar, Shade had kept her close. Starlight was only about three months old and no longer had her mother and littermates, so she secretly enjoyed all of Shade’s attention. Before Sam came, Star had been very lonely. Moving inside and having humans touching her all the time was stressful. Emma had caught her and kept her in a kitten crate for two weeks while she fed her and gave her medicines. After she was well again she didn’t go back to the barns. Star, naturally a small kitten already, was stunted in her growth from almost starving to death. She was too petite to go back to the life of a feral cat.
Now things were good. Star had a human she adored and the other familiars had accepted her, even Jose, the dog. Shade treated her like her own kitten and Griffin was a good replacement for littermates. It was wonderful that Griffin had bonded with Sam’s brother. Starlight never dreamed she could be so happy. Her human had things to learn, but he was smart, and she had every confidence in him.
Shade nudged her over on to her back to clean her chest and belly. Starlight rolled over submissively and exposed her throat lazily, eyes half closed. Her small body thrummed with her purrs as she began drifting off into an afternoon nap.
Starlight suddenly squalled in pain, her tiny paws beating the air. Shade jumped and stood over her, growling. “Child! What is it?”
Star mewled. “Sam! Something is hurting my human. Not just hurt pain, but mind pain, too.” Her body shook with spasms under a new onslaught of pain.
Shade quickly called the other familiars. All of them, Jose the dog included, curled around Starlight to comfort and shield her, and to share her pain when they could bear it. Shade was both furious and petrified with fear. She was afraid Sam would hurt Starlight, and he had.
~*~
Mike Jensen was glad the town of Hamelin was so small. It made it easy to do all of their footwork, even if the locals were not too forthcoming. The townspeople seem to have adopted the Winchester brothers, something that Mike wondered about. Sam and Dean had spent most of their lives wandering, but they had been in this area for about a month and a half and it seemed like they had no plans to move on soon. It appeared they were making a place for themselves in the community.
Pascal, Zip and Lin Yao gleaned more information from the teens at Dent's Diner than the rest of the team had from the adults in the bar at the Mockingbird Inn. Hradani was right about the younger team members being able to help on this mission. The deaths of Deputy Martha Ayers and an old man earlier in the day had obviously upset the county; causing the locals to ‘circle the wagons’ and withdraw. The most the older team members had been able to get is that the Winchester brothers were “good boys.” Apparently they had endeared themselves to the town by helping out a family that owned the nearby KOA.
The younger team members were able to get more helpful information. After Lin Yao had sat through about a half an hour listening to teenaged girls giggle about how the brothers were “totally hot”; she learned two very important things. First, the brothers had spent a lot of time in the local library and second, rumor was that they had moved in with the librarian to help with her farm. She also learned that the librarian, Dr. Kesterson, had a nephew about Sam’s age who was ‘cute’.
Mike was glad that the Winchester brothers were so attractive; otherwise they may not have gotten any information at all.
The older members left Lin Yao, Pascal and Zip at the diner to continue chatting up the local kids. They seemed to be having a good time and maybe they’d uncover some other helpful information. LaShonda elected to go to the diner as well to keep an eye on Pascal. They were all still worried about the Visitation he’d had that morning. Greg and Cheryl were going to the sheriff’s station to see what information they could get there. Billy Ray McLean, a nurse practitioner that had joined the medical team a little late, had stayed behind at the Inn to see what he might be able to find out. He was the closest thing to a local, being from Birmingham. Miriam, Ben, Atin and Mike headed over to the library to see Dr. Kesterson.
The library was a bit of a surprise. It was very professional but relaxed. The ages ranged from children listening to story time to teens working on summer homework projects to older people reading and using the computers. It was obvious that this library had a central place in the local community.
There was a motherly looking woman behind the circulation desk. She was plump with dark curls and smiled as they approached her. She didn’t seem to be put off by the fact that they were not locals; if anything, she seemed to puff herself up a bit.
“How can I help you?” she asked with a smile.
Ben returned her smile. “Dr. Kesterson?”
“Oh no,” the woman said with a laugh, fluttering her hands, “Dr. Kesterson is out today. I’m Beulah Greer. Dr. Kesterson depends on me to take care of things when she’s not here. Are you here about our special collection?” She was obviously proud of her position of trust with Dr. Kesterson.
Ben glanced at Mike. They both knew if you let people talk about what interested them most of the time you could steer the conversation to topics you wanted information about.
“Actually, we’re here to see Dr. Kesterson on a personal matter, but we were going to ask her about the collection.” Ben paused again and smiled, inviting Beulah to tell them about the collection. He was gently using his empathic ability to flatter her and flirt with her a bit.
“Oh, she’s off today running errands and trying to get things done on that farm of hers. All her friends are away taking care of their kin right now. Seems like they are going through an awful spell of bad luck. Why, her nephew was arrested a while ago giving Indians their kin’s bones back! Lordy, what is the world coming to when they arrest a young man for helping folks bury their kin decently! Scientists have no business keeping them.” Beulah shook her head in disbelief. This was obviously another one of her pet subjects. “Well, let me tell you, Dr. Kesterson was fit to be tied. She called all kinds of people to get him out of jail. She was so mad I thought she was going to spit nails. Jay is staying with her up at the farm now, helping out. Him and those two friends of his.”
Ben smiled, now they were getting somewhere. “Sam and Dean?” he asked.
Beulah laughed and fluttered her hands again. “Those two boys have been an absolute Godsend. First they help out Betsy and Jude Rice with their campground so they can stay open.” Her voice dropped dramatically. “Poor Jude had colon cancer. He couldn't do the upkeep on the place. They would have had to close it down if it wasn’t for those two boys. Let me tell you, the vultures were circling, thinking when Betsy had to sell they’d get that campground for almost nothing. We don’t need any more outsiders coming in here; buying up land and putting in anymore of those fancy houses and looking down on us.” The last was said with more venom than any of them could imagine the old lady could possess.
Some of the surprise must have shown on Ben’s face. “Oh, Dr. Kesterson is nothing like them.” Beulah assured him quickly. “Her and her friends bought the old Jones place, and they are fixing it up right nice. Keeping it as a proper working farm, with horses and gardens. Emma does heirloom garden vegetables.” She puffed herself up a bit again. “Says we have some of the best strains of heirloom garden vegetables in the country! Real vegetables, not those hybrid things the scientists have come up with. She might write a story about it, and get it published in some fancy journal! Says our farmers can sell these vegetables and seeds for a lot more money than they’re getting now!”
Ben and Atin glanced at each other. They had no idea what heirloom vegetables were. Emma must be one of Vera’s roommates at the farm; best to play along as if they knew her. Atin was about to ask a question about Sam and Dean when the old woman started up again.
“And Dr. Kesterson came in here to take over the library. After she had been here a month I heard her a ‘yelling down in the basement. Why I ran down there, thinking she’d hurt herself. Let me tell you she was fine, but awfully excited. She found a lot of old papers that she said were very important. She started making phone calls about getting those papers preserved. Why, we have some of the most important papers about American history in the country! Right here, in Wake County! She even got a government grant for the library. We were able to get new computers and actually hire some folks. I’m an assistant librarian now.” Beulah was very proud this. Ben realized that this was probably her first job. “Some big time professors wanted to move those papers and Dr. Kesterson told them no. Said they belonged here and if they wanted to see them they had to come to Hamelin. Folks from all over the world call here about those papers. Why, Friday I talked to a fellow from Germany!”
Ben acted suitably impressed. “I heard Sam and Dean have been spending a lot of time down here. Have they been helping with the collection?”
Beulah shook her head. “No, they’ve been putting all the old newspapers on microfilm and scanning them into the computer. Got a lot of good work done, too. They’re good boys.” Ben just smiled. That seemed to be the consensus in Wake County. “Now that Dean is a sheriff’s deputy, I don’t think he’s going to have much time to volunteer at the library.” Ben felt Atin stiffen behind him.
“Sheriff’s deputy?” Ben asked mildly. “It doesn’t seem like he’s been here long enough to get a job like that.”
The old woman’s face crumpled. “Since Deputy Ayers and Old Rattler were killed this morning….” She broke off, upset. She cleared her throat and looked away briefly. “And all those other murders. I guess Sheriff’s Arrowood figured since he was from a big city he’d know how to help. Deputy LeDonne is from a big city, too, and he’s a good officer. Dean is a young man, and strong. And kind, he was always polite to all those young girls who flirted with him, but never took advantage of any of them. He has a way of making a woman feel special, and treated all those girls the same, no matter if they were pretty or not.”
“What about Sam?” Atin probed.
“He’s the quiet one of the two,” Beulah said thoughtfully. “Tall drink of water. Skinny thing. Betsy said she had a time getting him to eat much. He was sick back last week, but he has his brother to take care of him. Not too long after they moved to Dr. Kesterson’s farm to help her out, but Sam is still helping at the KOA.”
Ben gave her his most winning smile. “Thank you, Mrs. Greer. My sister is an old college friend of Dr. Kesterson and I just happen to be in town. I don’t want to bother her if she’s running errands today. Do you think she’ll be in tomorrow?”
“I think she should be.” Beulah replied, still preening under his attention. “Would you like to leave a message?”
“No, but thank you for offering. We’re going to look around a bit before we go. It was nice talking to you.” Ben gave her a little wink. It had been very nice talking to her. She’d just given them exactly the type of information they needed.
“Good,” Ben murmured as they moved away, nodding his blond head in satisfaction. “It sounds like Sam is withdrawing rather than lashing out. This’ll make him easier to deal with.”
“What about Dean becoming a deputy?” Atin sounded troubled. “If this community needs him, and it sounds like they do, we can’t very well just pull him out of here.”
“Let’s try to find out more about Dr. Kesterson,” Mike said thoughtfully. “That might give us some of the missing pieces, like her nephew. They’re saying the Winchesters and Jay are friends, but how can they know each other that well?”
“Damn,” Ben swore softly. “I should have tried getting Beulah to talk about the nephew more.”
“I’ll call Pascal,” Miriam offered. “He’s still at Dent’s. Maybe he can get some of the local kids to talk about him. It sounds like the Kestersons haven’t been here long. Maybe they can find out how long they’ve lived in the area.”
Atin paused, stopping the others. “Look, Kesterson’s office is over in the far corner.” He glanced at Miriam, who grinned.
“Shall we?” She asked, her dark eyes sparkling with amusement.
Ben groaned. “I always feel like a sneak thief when I’m with you.”
Mike shrugged. “We’re probably not going to steal anything.”
“Yeah,” Miriam continued the justification, “if the Winchesters are living with her, we need to get information on her as well. Besides, I need to stay in practice.” She allowed herself a smile as she ran her hand through her short black hair.
Mike laughed and nudged Ben’s shoulder. “You always were too ethical for your own good. Snooping through other people’s stuff is always fun. Being in medical, we don’t get to do the cloak and dagger routine often. She’s just a rural librarian, she probably won’t even notice.” Ben grumbled under his breath but the four of them drifted over to the office door.
Ben cleverly misdirected the attention of anyone in the area while Miriam opened the door with a quick flick of her mind. Unlike other times when they had to do things like this, they weren’t in serious danger, so the four found themselves smothering laughs and giggles. They felt like kids on a lark.
That feeling quickly dropped away once they were inside Dr. Vera Kesterson’s office.
“Fuck,” Atin swore softly. The rest of the team was stunned. The office looked spartan, but there were wards and glyphs all over the walls. The room had been psychically sealed off and was heavily protected. There wasn’t much in here physically except for a desk, two chairs, some prints on the wall and a mini fridge in the corner. Psychically and magically, the room was crammed full.
Mike looked in amazement at the wards. Miriam swallowed. “Golden Dawn, Wiccan, Oriental, Tibetan, Hindu, bindrunes…” she said softly before her voice trailed off.
“Why would a librarian feel the need to protect her office so heavily?” Ben asked softly.
“Because she’s not just a librarian,” Atin said grimly. “She’s a major magical practitioner, and it looks like she’s a psychic, too. This totally changes the situation.”
Mike nodded. “Let’s look around.” Mike noticed diplomas on the walls. Undergraduate degree in anthropology from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, graduated about twenty years ago. The Masters and Ph.D. in library science had just been awarded two years earlier. Now they knew she had to have been the librarian here for less time than that.
Atin and Ben yelped at the same time. Mike whirled around. “Don’t use your abilities,” Ben gasped out. “She has the place trapped!”
Mike looked at Miriam. Her face was pale. “Mir?” Mike asked desperately.
“I’ve been bound,” she whispered, horrified. Atin and Ben had similar expressions.
Mike swallowed. “Back to the hotel. We need to call the others. There is a lot more going on here than we thought.”
Was this woman responsible for what happened to Pascal this morning? If so, Vera Kesterson had succeeded in crippling almost half the team, and they still hadn’t even laid eyes on her yet. Their seer, a telekinetic, an empathy/reader and an empathy/psychic healer had all been neutralized except as physical back up. Mike was furious. Sam was powerful but open right now. Was she manipulating him for her own purposes? Had Jay, her nephew, lured them up here? Did she have psychic hooks in him to drain him dry? Was that why Sam had been sick a few days ago, wasn’t eating and was so withdrawn?
Mike’s eyes narrowed as they quickly crossed the town square returning to the Mockingbird Inn through the rain. Who ever Vera Kesterson was she’d obviously never had to deal with the Comacine Order. She was going to release the bindings on his team and release any hooks she had in Sam as soon as they found her. If Vera Kesterson refused, she would die. If they suspected she was also responsible for the local deaths, then she’d die anyways. The Comacines played for keeps.
~*~
There was almost total silence in the truck. The silence seemed to be a weapon, bludgeoning both Dean and Vera. Dean had felt something bad happen to Sam, and just a few moments later Jay had called letting them know that Star was reacting to whatever was going on with him. Dean cursed. Why hadn’t he ordered Sam to stay at the farm?
Vera seemed to have a seizure and almost ran her truck off the road. She stopped the truck just in time before finding a place she could park.
“What is it?” Dean demanded rather than asked. Vera had gone pale.
“The wards on my office, someone has broken in there.” She turned to Dean. “Whoever they are, they’re all psychic. I don’t know how many, but they sprung the binding traps.”
“Shit!” Dean punched the dash. “What do we do?”
Vera swallowed and blinked. Dean suddenly realized how tired she was, how little reserves she had, despite her energy that morning.
“About my office, nothing. We need to find Sam.” Vera reached over and grabbed Dean’s wrist, gripping it with a deadly pressure, as if trying to convey how important the words were she was saying.
“If something happens,” she began slowly, “I’m the expendable one.” Dean stared at her for a moment before trying to reassure her. As he opened his mouth she snarled and shook him.
“This is going to get bad, Dean,” Vera bit out. “Damn it, listen to me. I am the expendable one. You, Sam and Jay are the ones who aren’t. Don’t worry about Sam’s training. The coven, Nora Bonesteel and Jay can cover that. It might take them longer, but they’ll do okay. You and Sammy are Hunters, and Jay will be the Guardian here after me, all of you have to continue your families. If you don’t the bastards win.”
Vera paused for a second. “I’ve built the base for all of you. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I have. Any good Priestess tries to organize things, make plans where if she has to leave, everything can continue on without her. A good Priestess tries to make herself redundant, teaches people and encourages them so they don’t need her. Trains her replacements years, decades before anyone thinks they’ll need to take charge. It might be hard, but all of you can go on without me. Any of the three of you dies, it all falls apart.”
Dean looked at her and felt his stomach go cold. Vera’s eyes were dialated and looked slightly unfocused. Was she having a vision? Was this why she was trying to warn him? Who were these people in her office? Part of him wanted to scream at her, to say ‘you’re wrong, we still need you’. He had known her, really known her, for less than a week, but he knew she was important to him and Sammy. Vera had already given them something invaluable in just a few days time. She had given them a home, and hope. She had given him Sammy back.
Logically, in the cold place in Dean’s mind that he always fell back on when choices were hard, he knew Vera was right. If it were a choice between Sam, Jay or her, she was the one he would chose to die.
Dean didn’t trivialize her by mouthing platitudes that they’d be all right. Vera would see through it, and it would just make her feel worse. It would make her feel alone, isolated. If there was a good chance she would die today, he’d suck it up and acknowledge it rather than be in denial. If she were brave enough to face the possibility of her death, then he could be brave enough to face it with her. He wouldn’t let Vera feel like she was alone, even if he had to let her die.
Dean’s mind went once again to a passage out of "The Art of War."
Thus generals have five dangerous weaknesses
One committed to the dying can be slain.
One committed to the living can be captured.
One easily angered and hasty can be insulted.
One obsessed with being righteous can be tainted and shamed.
One who loves can be troubled.
He couldn’t let himself fall into any of these traps. He must stay centered, that was the only way he could get as many people out of this alive as possible. There may be collateral damage; he may have to make sacrifices. Dean simply looked at Vera and nodded. “I’m going to do my best to be sure we all get out of this alive, but I know…” Dean trailed off, at a loss for words for once. “Get out and swap places with me, I’m driving the rest of the way.”
~*~
Ravenmocker stood in the middle of the town square, furious. The Comacines thought to kill his Guardian? He couldn’t affect events directly, that was one of the rules. He could only guide, comfort, inspire, and on rare occasions, give visions. He had spent years, decades, carefully nurturing the Kesterson family to bring them into Guardianship. Then the Winchesters wandered into his domain. It was too perfect, a new Guardian line and a potentially powerful new Hunter line. One had what the other lacked; they meshed too well together and would complement and strengthen one another. That is why he appeared to Dean. Dean reminded him of himself when he was still human, and he saw the path of horror and sorrow the Winchesters had before them.
Now these Comacines, these outsiders, had dared to think about killing one of his Protected? His new Guardian who was struggling so hard to shoulder her responsibilities? The one he was so proud of, the Guardian that was one of the greatest Teachers the Light currently possessed, all because of the obsessions of one powerful man?
Ravenmocker laughed, he wasn’t called a Trickster for nothing. The Thrones may rebuke him when this was done, but his Guardian would have a much better chance of survival. He would not kill any of the Comacines, they were Warriors of the Light as well, no matter how misguided they were or arrogant they had become in their power. He had no qualms about teaching them some humility, and Mike Jensen would regret the moment he had even thought about killing Vera Kesterson.
With a wicked grin, Ravenmocker set events in motion to disturb the Comacines very sense of how their world worked. Then he was going to have a very long and brutal talk with young Sammy.
~*~
Cheryl shivered as she passed the doorway of the sheriff’s station with Greg. She wasn’t much of an empath, but even she could feel the grief and desolation in this room. A young blonde woman sat behind the front desk, blue eyes bloodshot as she took a phone message. If anything, her expression was becoming grimmer. The nameplate on the desk said ‘Kelly Stargill.’ She glanced at them. “I’ll be with you in a moment.” Cheryl could tell by her expression she resented them requesting her attention.
“Your friend is wrong.” Cheryl and Greg both whipped around to see a little girl sitting in a chair behind them. She was obviously related to Kelly Stargill. Her wide blue-gray eyes were somber. “You should ask my Mamaw Nora.”
Cheryl and Greg looked at each other, both stunned to meet such an obviously strong child psychic that had no trouble talking to them telepathically. Most psychic kids her age were beginning to withdraw and suppress their abilities. That she was still so open and in control could only mean one thing; someone was training her.
Greg shook his head. “Not one of ours, we leave her alone.”
The two of them turned their attention back to Kelly, who Cheryl just noticed was heavily pregnant. She was apparently the dispatcher as well as the station secretary, she was on the radio.
“Beta one, we have a 10-69, Kathy Wyler, white female…”
A female voice abruptly interrupted her. “I know what Kathy Wyler looks like; she volunteers at the library for story time a few days a week.”
Kelly looked annoyed. “Vera, what are you doing on the radio? You weren’t deputized.”
“Dean can’t drive, talk on the radio and look at this sheet of ten codes all at once. Give me a minute to figure out what a 10-69 is.”
Kelly was obviously gritting her teeth. Vera left the frequency on and they could hear her muttering “10-69, 10-69, reckless driver? No…”
They could hear a male voice come over the radio. “Give me that! Kelly wouldn’t be calling us over a reckless driver! Haven’t you memorized the list yet?” Greg and Cheryl glanced at each other. In most jurisdictions a 10-69 was a missing person.
“Forget the codes; just tell us what is going on. We don’t have time to look at the damned list!” The male voice sounded angry.
“Deputy Winchester,” Kelly began, obviously trying to hold on to some professional dignity, “we have a 10-84 here at the station.” The male voice began to curse creatively. “Dean!” Kelly shouted “the frequency is still open!” She glanced at Greg and Cheryl, actually turning red. Greg tried to keep a grin off of his face.
Dean came back on the radio, “Vera finally figured out that the girl is missing and that you have visitors at the station. What do you want us to do?”
Kelly closed her eyes wearily. Dean Winchester was going to drive her to an early maternity leave at this rate. She was sure she could feel her blood pressure rising. “Just keep an eye out for her while you look for Sam and come back to the station when you find him.”
“Uh, 10-4,” Dean replied.
Kelly turned back to Greg and Cheryl. “How can I help you?” she asked without inflection, clearly projecting that they better not expect much.
Cheryl tried to hide their excitement. They were very close. “I’m Cheryl Sutherland and actually, I’m trying to contact Dean Winchester.”
Kelly’s eyes narrowed. “He’s on patrol right now.”
“I’m a friend of his father, John Winchester and I really need to get in contact with either him or his brother Sam.” Cheryl continued misdirecting Kelly’s attention. Greg was casually walking to the other side of Kelly’s desk. Kelly just continued looking at Cheryl.
Cheryl gave her a winning smile. “Could I leave a message for him?”
“I’ll relay it for you.” Kelly offered ungraciously, obviously just wanting them out of the station.
“Beta one, I have a 10-14. A Cheryl Sutherland says she needs to contact you or your brother and she is a friend of your father.” There was a long silence. “Repeat, you have a 10-14. Cheryl Sutherland attempting to contact you. 10-16?”
“10-4,” Dean’s voice sounded strained. “Just get her phone number and tell her I will contact her later. If LeDonne or Spencer are nearby, could you have them check Vera’s office? It’s been broken into.”
Kelly blinked. “How do you know?" she trailed off with a glance at her daughter. “10-22 that last. 10-15 I’ll call the library.”
Kelly quickly jotted down the cell number that Cheryl gave her and was obviously glad to see them leave.
Leaving the station Greg grinned and flashed Cheryl the inside of his arm. Cheryl wasn’t surprised to see three phone numbers and an address written there. They were so distracted the two of them almost ran down a woman going into the station.
Millie Fortner was in a hurry. Kathy Wyler was missing and she was on her way to talk with Kelly about how they were going to handle the search, considering something killed Martha and Rattler that morning. They couldn’t call for volunteers the way they normally would. She had noticed that a large group of tourists had shown up earlier in the day and she hoped that they had enough sense to stay out of the woods. She glanced up at the sky; rain was beginning to fall and a bad storm was coming in. She guessed that it was a blessing in disguise, it should keep people inside.
Just as Millie got to the door of the station she was almost knocked down by a man and woman on their way out. She had to step aside to keep the tall brunette from walking into her. When the woman turned to apologize, Millie felt the world stop.
An electric current seemed to run up her spine and burst out her forehead. Millie rocked back on her heels; she knew this woman, and this man, too. She felt like someone had taken a board and hit her in the back of the head.
Cheryl couldn’t help but smile. She had been Found herself just three years ago, but because of her experience in the Mounties she was able to go active within six months. She knew how much this middle-aged woman’s life was about to change.
“Welcome to the Comacines.”
Chapter 15: Grace
Summary: Dean and Vera search for Sam. The Comacines Find two new members.
Rating/Warning: Mature (NC-17), Warnings for story overall. Swearing (most chapters). Rape and torture chapters have separate warnings. Character deaths (Ballad novels/OCs). Sex--both hetero and homosexual.
Disclaimer: We do not own the Supernatural or Ballad novel story elements.
Death in Appalachia Chapter 14: Comacine Invasion
Summary: Dean and Vera search for Sam. The Comacines Find two new members.
Warning: A description of torture in this chapter.
Zipactonal Valdez shifted in the backseat; his ears kept popping as they steadily drove higher into the mountains. He gazed at the scenery drinking it all in. Zip had originally been scheduled to fly to Japan for a six-month total language immersion program. But then this mission had come up. This was his first mission and he was only 19, usually Order members weren’t allowed in the field until they were 21 years old. Zip had been dreading going on another isolating language program; his stomach burned just thinking about it. He would much rather spend time getting to know other Order members. After five years he still didn't know many people.
Five years ago he had been "Found" by the Comacines, and as far as Zip was concerned, he wasn’t found he was rescued. His parents, Nahuatl Indians from Mexico, were illegal immigrants but Zip was born in Houston. His parents had gone to the border to meet a relative who was entering the country illegally. There had been gunfire between two rival drug gangs, and his parents were caught in the crossfire. He was six years old and had been left with an elderly family “friend.” The old woman had turned him and his six-month old sister over to Family and Children’s Services as soon as she found out his parents were dead. Zip’s sister had been adopted and her records sealed, so he didn’t know where she was, or even what her name was anymore. He was sure her adoptive family had changed her traditional Nahuatl name, Eloxochitl, to something Anglo.
The whole team was on edge after the vision, or visitation, that Pascal had received. When Zip and Pascal were together they usually spoke in French and unless Cheryl was around no one else understood them; a fact that pleased Pascal. Initially Zip was thrilled when Pascal started speaking in a new dialect but as soon as he translated what was said it chilled him. People were dead and dying. What kind of situation were they going into?
The Comacines had rented three Dodge Grand Caravans to drive to the little town of Hamelin in Wake County which was a two-hour ride away. Zip and Pascal had ended up in one vehicle with Cheryl and LaShonda. Pascal was quiet then fell asleep for most of the ride. Zip wondered if it was because he was still shaken from the vision he had or whether he was bummed because he wasn't in the same car as Lin Yao. Zip could see the worry in Cheryl and LaShonda's eyes. LaShonda would reach back and touch Pascal's hand every so often while he was sleeping to monitor his vitals.
Zip was just as excited about actually getting to meet Comacines as he was about going on his first mission. Zip was meeting LaShonda and Cheryl for the first time on this mission. He decided to try to get to know them. During a lull in the conversation between the two older women he leaned up between the seats.
“LaShonda, so where are you from?”
LaShonda glanced over her shoulder, looking amused. “East Nashville.”
“So this is like your backyard? How long have you lived here?”
LaShonda snorted. “Uh, no this isn’t my back yard.”
Zip looked puzzled. “But you know the area right?”
LaShonda rolled her eyes and glanced at Cheryl in the driver’s seat. “Nashville is about a five hour drive from here!”
Zip smiled. “Oh, well it's my first time to Tennessee, so were you Found in Nashville?”
“Yes, I was found in Nashville.”
Zip continued smiling, glad to have somebody to talk to. “I was born in Houston, lived in Chicago and I just finished a year of college in Atlanta, so I've never seen the countryside before.”
LaShonda laughed “I’m not used to it either. Weird out here, isn’t it? It’s like we went back in time a hundred years.”
Zip bounced slightly in his seat. “How about you Cheryl? I heard you speaking French, you're Canadian?”
Cheryl’s lips twitched. “Yes, I'm from Halifax.”
Zip was glad that he had someone else to practice French with. “You speak other languages LaShonda?”
Although Zip wasn’t out in the field yet, his obsession with languages was already well known. The poor kid was one of the rare Comacines who had no psychic abilities, so he seemed to throw himself into his studies, probably trying to compensate. LaShonda smiled again, remembering how excited he was to hear Pascal speaking that rare French-Canadian dialect. “Yeah, Black Vernacular English, but I'm trying to learn Spanish.”
If it were possible, Zip sounded even more excited. “Great, we could talk in Spanish if you want to practice.”
LaShonda laughed. “Homeboy, I'm still trying to conjugate verbs!”
Zip looked puzzled. “Homeboy, that's a vernacular expression meaning what exactly?”
LaShonda smothered a giggle. “It means you’re one of my crew.” She was trying to make him feel like a member of the team. He was kind of an extra, being neither fish nor fowl. He was in intelligence, and wasn’t part of either the medical or security teams.
Zip was confused, “Yes, I am part of this team.”
“No, no...” LaShonda was trying not to laugh, “you don't know what a homeboy is? Where have you been most of your life?”
“Uh, Houston and Chicago. My parents were illegal immigrants from Mexico, but they weren't Latino, they were Nahuatl Indians.”
LaShonda turned in the seat to look at him. “That explains a lot.”
The poor kid looked so perplexed. “Really? Meaning what?”
LaShonda tried to put it gently. Zip seemed pretty clueless at times. “Why you don't understand...some things.”
Zip thought it over, he often felt like he was out of step with everyone else. “I moved around a lot, I was in a lot of foster homes.”
LaShonda glanced at Cheryl, her concern for him evident on her face. The foster care system could be brutal, especially to a small kid like him. “How many homes were you in?”
Zip shrugged his face unreadable and the enthusiasm went out of his voice. “I lost count, I ran away when I was 14 and was Found when I was hiding in a church.”
She was quiet for a moment. “I was 15.”
Zip perked up a bit, glad he wasn’t the only one who had run away from a foster home. “Did you run away too?”
LaShonda’s voice was expressionless, but there was a strange undercurrent to it. Cheryl suddenly felt excluded from the conversation. They were sharing something she could never understand. Cheryl became very quiet, realizing that Zip needed this.
“I guess you could say I did,” LaShonda said quietly. “I was in a few foster homes myself. I ran away when I was 12.”
Zip nodded. “I'm so happy I was Found, well more like rescued,” he said, just a softly as LaShonda.
She smiled at that life changing memory. “I know what you mean. How long had you been on the streets?”
“Not too long, I was hiding in the church for maybe a month before Atin Found me. I had gone out to steal some food from the store when he caught me and then next thing I knew I was on a plane to Hawaii.”
Despite the seriousness of the conversation, both Cheryl and LaShonda couldn't help but laugh. “I want a blow by blow of that someday,” Cheryl said.
Zip giggled at the memory. “Yeah, he wasn't too happy when I bit him.”
LaShonda was laughing so hard she almost couldn’t talk. “So that's where he got that scar on his left shoulder!”
Zip turned red. “Well he was trying to kidnap me!” Cheryl was laughing so hard she had to pull over. Zip had to smile too. “I guess it was kinda funny.”
“Well, that is not as bad as how I was Found.” LaShonda calmed down and looked a bit more serious, trying not to trivialize what had happened to Zip.
“Who found you?” Zip asked.
“Ralph Benson.”
Zip racked his memory. “Hmm, I haven't met him yet, but I think I heard of him; a security guy?”
LaShonda’s face went blank. “Yeah, I asked him if he wanted a date.”
“Oh, maybe it's not the same guy; I thought he was retired or something.” The man Zip was thinking about was in his sixties and retired. He was about thirty years older than LaShonda and he couldn’t imagine her being attracted to him.
LaShonda cleared her throat. “No, not that type of date.” Cheryl pulled the van back on to the road and started driving again.
Zip was confused again. “What do you...?” Zip paused and got red again. “Oh, I understand. That must have been awkward when Ralph explained things to you.”
She laughed. “I didn’t believe a word of it.”
“What convinced you? I was so hungry Atin bribed me with food, I figured I could escape later, not that I had much choice after he locked me in the trunk.”
Cheryl choked and made a sputtering sound. “He put you in the trunk of his car!”
Zip sounded sheepish. “Yeah, after I bit him.”
Cheryl started laughing again. “I'm going to have to get his side of the story!”
He sounded indignant. “Don't believe everything he says, he exaggerates!”
LaShonda smiled. “I bet. Don't feel too bad, I almost shot Ralph.”
Zip was shocked. “Oh no! Wow, what happened?”
LaShonda shrugged, her voice subdued. “I was strung out at the time, wanted money for a fix. I offered a date, he turned me down, and I tried to rob him.”
Zip was quiet for a moment and silence filled the car, save for Pascal’s quiet snoring. “Yeah, it's a pretty unbelievable story hearing that all the Comacines are reincarnated and only other Comacines can recognize each other. I told Atin if that was true I'd have recognized him.”
Both Cheryl and LaShonda laughed again. “I wish I could have seen his face!” Cheryl giggled.
“Me too,” Zip said sorrowfully, “but I was still in the trunk.”
LaShonda looked over her shoulder at Zip in disbelief. “You told him this through the trunk?”
“Yeah, after he kidnapped me from the parking lot, I fought him and bit him. He threw me in his trunk and then drove off. He was trying to convince me to calm down by offering me food, and I figured he'd drugged it, and wouldn't eat. I threatened to bite him again if he touched me. I was in the trunk a long time while he waited for backup to help with me. He parked the car in the lowest level of an underground parking garage to be sure I didn’t get too hot and threw a bottle of water in to me. It took three people to get me calmed down enough to send me to Hawaii.”
Cheryl had to pull off the road again, laughing, but LaShonda was quiet. She understood why Zip would be so upset at someone trying to touch him. They’d talk again without Cheryl or anyone else around.
~*~
Sam crashed through the underbrush toward the screams. He couldn't fix a location, just as he thought he was about to find the source it seemed to move. A part of his mind knew he should go back to the KOA office and call Dean, but the anguish of the screams drove him on.
The screams eventually led Sam to a small cave. He was sweating heavily and exhausted from running through the mid-August heat. The rain was just beginning to fall.
A horrific sight greeted him in the cave. Two gigantic, greenish figures were raping a young, blonde woman. Sam froze in fear, recognizing the two creatures from his dream. With a sick feeling in his stomach and his throat gagging, he realized that he was in way over his head.
One of the demons stopped anally raping the girl long enough to look at Sam, baring its short, sharp teeth in an eerie smile. “We have wanted to see you for a long time, Hunter.” It extended a hand towards him and Sam felt he had just walked into a trap. “A deal; you take down your shields, and we let the girl go.” It smirked. “More than a fair trade. We will have you anyway, but it would take days to break into your mind.”
The girl screamed again, and Sam couldn’t bear to hear her cries echoing off the walls. He would do anything to stop it. He took a step forward, opening his mind.
Sam suddenly felt both his body and mind swept up into a crushing grip before feeling the earth whip away under his feet. He caught a glimpse of the young woman huddling naked on the floor of the cave sobbing as he was whisked away. A few moments later Sam felt his body slam into the floor of another, larger cave.
Then Sam was in Hell.
~*~
Starlight meekly submitted to Shade’s grooming. Shade had bullied her onto the window seat in the library, and the two of them were laying in the fading sunlight as storm clouds rolled in. Ever since she became Sam’s familiar, Shade had kept her close. Starlight was only about three months old and no longer had her mother and littermates, so she secretly enjoyed all of Shade’s attention. Before Sam came, Star had been very lonely. Moving inside and having humans touching her all the time was stressful. Emma had caught her and kept her in a kitten crate for two weeks while she fed her and gave her medicines. After she was well again she didn’t go back to the barns. Star, naturally a small kitten already, was stunted in her growth from almost starving to death. She was too petite to go back to the life of a feral cat.
Now things were good. Star had a human she adored and the other familiars had accepted her, even Jose, the dog. Shade treated her like her own kitten and Griffin was a good replacement for littermates. It was wonderful that Griffin had bonded with Sam’s brother. Starlight never dreamed she could be so happy. Her human had things to learn, but he was smart, and she had every confidence in him.
Shade nudged her over on to her back to clean her chest and belly. Starlight rolled over submissively and exposed her throat lazily, eyes half closed. Her small body thrummed with her purrs as she began drifting off into an afternoon nap.
Starlight suddenly squalled in pain, her tiny paws beating the air. Shade jumped and stood over her, growling. “Child! What is it?”
Star mewled. “Sam! Something is hurting my human. Not just hurt pain, but mind pain, too.” Her body shook with spasms under a new onslaught of pain.
Shade quickly called the other familiars. All of them, Jose the dog included, curled around Starlight to comfort and shield her, and to share her pain when they could bear it. Shade was both furious and petrified with fear. She was afraid Sam would hurt Starlight, and he had.
~*~
Mike Jensen was glad the town of Hamelin was so small. It made it easy to do all of their footwork, even if the locals were not too forthcoming. The townspeople seem to have adopted the Winchester brothers, something that Mike wondered about. Sam and Dean had spent most of their lives wandering, but they had been in this area for about a month and a half and it seemed like they had no plans to move on soon. It appeared they were making a place for themselves in the community.
Pascal, Zip and Lin Yao gleaned more information from the teens at Dent's Diner than the rest of the team had from the adults in the bar at the Mockingbird Inn. Hradani was right about the younger team members being able to help on this mission. The deaths of Deputy Martha Ayers and an old man earlier in the day had obviously upset the county; causing the locals to ‘circle the wagons’ and withdraw. The most the older team members had been able to get is that the Winchester brothers were “good boys.” Apparently they had endeared themselves to the town by helping out a family that owned the nearby KOA.
The younger team members were able to get more helpful information. After Lin Yao had sat through about a half an hour listening to teenaged girls giggle about how the brothers were “totally hot”; she learned two very important things. First, the brothers had spent a lot of time in the local library and second, rumor was that they had moved in with the librarian to help with her farm. She also learned that the librarian, Dr. Kesterson, had a nephew about Sam’s age who was ‘cute’.
Mike was glad that the Winchester brothers were so attractive; otherwise they may not have gotten any information at all.
The older members left Lin Yao, Pascal and Zip at the diner to continue chatting up the local kids. They seemed to be having a good time and maybe they’d uncover some other helpful information. LaShonda elected to go to the diner as well to keep an eye on Pascal. They were all still worried about the Visitation he’d had that morning. Greg and Cheryl were going to the sheriff’s station to see what information they could get there. Billy Ray McLean, a nurse practitioner that had joined the medical team a little late, had stayed behind at the Inn to see what he might be able to find out. He was the closest thing to a local, being from Birmingham. Miriam, Ben, Atin and Mike headed over to the library to see Dr. Kesterson.
The library was a bit of a surprise. It was very professional but relaxed. The ages ranged from children listening to story time to teens working on summer homework projects to older people reading and using the computers. It was obvious that this library had a central place in the local community.
There was a motherly looking woman behind the circulation desk. She was plump with dark curls and smiled as they approached her. She didn’t seem to be put off by the fact that they were not locals; if anything, she seemed to puff herself up a bit.
“How can I help you?” she asked with a smile.
Ben returned her smile. “Dr. Kesterson?”
“Oh no,” the woman said with a laugh, fluttering her hands, “Dr. Kesterson is out today. I’m Beulah Greer. Dr. Kesterson depends on me to take care of things when she’s not here. Are you here about our special collection?” She was obviously proud of her position of trust with Dr. Kesterson.
Ben glanced at Mike. They both knew if you let people talk about what interested them most of the time you could steer the conversation to topics you wanted information about.
“Actually, we’re here to see Dr. Kesterson on a personal matter, but we were going to ask her about the collection.” Ben paused again and smiled, inviting Beulah to tell them about the collection. He was gently using his empathic ability to flatter her and flirt with her a bit.
“Oh, she’s off today running errands and trying to get things done on that farm of hers. All her friends are away taking care of their kin right now. Seems like they are going through an awful spell of bad luck. Why, her nephew was arrested a while ago giving Indians their kin’s bones back! Lordy, what is the world coming to when they arrest a young man for helping folks bury their kin decently! Scientists have no business keeping them.” Beulah shook her head in disbelief. This was obviously another one of her pet subjects. “Well, let me tell you, Dr. Kesterson was fit to be tied. She called all kinds of people to get him out of jail. She was so mad I thought she was going to spit nails. Jay is staying with her up at the farm now, helping out. Him and those two friends of his.”
Ben smiled, now they were getting somewhere. “Sam and Dean?” he asked.
Beulah laughed and fluttered her hands again. “Those two boys have been an absolute Godsend. First they help out Betsy and Jude Rice with their campground so they can stay open.” Her voice dropped dramatically. “Poor Jude had colon cancer. He couldn't do the upkeep on the place. They would have had to close it down if it wasn’t for those two boys. Let me tell you, the vultures were circling, thinking when Betsy had to sell they’d get that campground for almost nothing. We don’t need any more outsiders coming in here; buying up land and putting in anymore of those fancy houses and looking down on us.” The last was said with more venom than any of them could imagine the old lady could possess.
Some of the surprise must have shown on Ben’s face. “Oh, Dr. Kesterson is nothing like them.” Beulah assured him quickly. “Her and her friends bought the old Jones place, and they are fixing it up right nice. Keeping it as a proper working farm, with horses and gardens. Emma does heirloom garden vegetables.” She puffed herself up a bit again. “Says we have some of the best strains of heirloom garden vegetables in the country! Real vegetables, not those hybrid things the scientists have come up with. She might write a story about it, and get it published in some fancy journal! Says our farmers can sell these vegetables and seeds for a lot more money than they’re getting now!”
Ben and Atin glanced at each other. They had no idea what heirloom vegetables were. Emma must be one of Vera’s roommates at the farm; best to play along as if they knew her. Atin was about to ask a question about Sam and Dean when the old woman started up again.
“And Dr. Kesterson came in here to take over the library. After she had been here a month I heard her a ‘yelling down in the basement. Why I ran down there, thinking she’d hurt herself. Let me tell you she was fine, but awfully excited. She found a lot of old papers that she said were very important. She started making phone calls about getting those papers preserved. Why, we have some of the most important papers about American history in the country! Right here, in Wake County! She even got a government grant for the library. We were able to get new computers and actually hire some folks. I’m an assistant librarian now.” Beulah was very proud this. Ben realized that this was probably her first job. “Some big time professors wanted to move those papers and Dr. Kesterson told them no. Said they belonged here and if they wanted to see them they had to come to Hamelin. Folks from all over the world call here about those papers. Why, Friday I talked to a fellow from Germany!”
Ben acted suitably impressed. “I heard Sam and Dean have been spending a lot of time down here. Have they been helping with the collection?”
Beulah shook her head. “No, they’ve been putting all the old newspapers on microfilm and scanning them into the computer. Got a lot of good work done, too. They’re good boys.” Ben just smiled. That seemed to be the consensus in Wake County. “Now that Dean is a sheriff’s deputy, I don’t think he’s going to have much time to volunteer at the library.” Ben felt Atin stiffen behind him.
“Sheriff’s deputy?” Ben asked mildly. “It doesn’t seem like he’s been here long enough to get a job like that.”
The old woman’s face crumpled. “Since Deputy Ayers and Old Rattler were killed this morning….” She broke off, upset. She cleared her throat and looked away briefly. “And all those other murders. I guess Sheriff’s Arrowood figured since he was from a big city he’d know how to help. Deputy LeDonne is from a big city, too, and he’s a good officer. Dean is a young man, and strong. And kind, he was always polite to all those young girls who flirted with him, but never took advantage of any of them. He has a way of making a woman feel special, and treated all those girls the same, no matter if they were pretty or not.”
“What about Sam?” Atin probed.
“He’s the quiet one of the two,” Beulah said thoughtfully. “Tall drink of water. Skinny thing. Betsy said she had a time getting him to eat much. He was sick back last week, but he has his brother to take care of him. Not too long after they moved to Dr. Kesterson’s farm to help her out, but Sam is still helping at the KOA.”
Ben gave her his most winning smile. “Thank you, Mrs. Greer. My sister is an old college friend of Dr. Kesterson and I just happen to be in town. I don’t want to bother her if she’s running errands today. Do you think she’ll be in tomorrow?”
“I think she should be.” Beulah replied, still preening under his attention. “Would you like to leave a message?”
“No, but thank you for offering. We’re going to look around a bit before we go. It was nice talking to you.” Ben gave her a little wink. It had been very nice talking to her. She’d just given them exactly the type of information they needed.
“Good,” Ben murmured as they moved away, nodding his blond head in satisfaction. “It sounds like Sam is withdrawing rather than lashing out. This’ll make him easier to deal with.”
“What about Dean becoming a deputy?” Atin sounded troubled. “If this community needs him, and it sounds like they do, we can’t very well just pull him out of here.”
“Let’s try to find out more about Dr. Kesterson,” Mike said thoughtfully. “That might give us some of the missing pieces, like her nephew. They’re saying the Winchesters and Jay are friends, but how can they know each other that well?”
“Damn,” Ben swore softly. “I should have tried getting Beulah to talk about the nephew more.”
“I’ll call Pascal,” Miriam offered. “He’s still at Dent’s. Maybe he can get some of the local kids to talk about him. It sounds like the Kestersons haven’t been here long. Maybe they can find out how long they’ve lived in the area.”
Atin paused, stopping the others. “Look, Kesterson’s office is over in the far corner.” He glanced at Miriam, who grinned.
“Shall we?” She asked, her dark eyes sparkling with amusement.
Ben groaned. “I always feel like a sneak thief when I’m with you.”
Mike shrugged. “We’re probably not going to steal anything.”
“Yeah,” Miriam continued the justification, “if the Winchesters are living with her, we need to get information on her as well. Besides, I need to stay in practice.” She allowed herself a smile as she ran her hand through her short black hair.
Mike laughed and nudged Ben’s shoulder. “You always were too ethical for your own good. Snooping through other people’s stuff is always fun. Being in medical, we don’t get to do the cloak and dagger routine often. She’s just a rural librarian, she probably won’t even notice.” Ben grumbled under his breath but the four of them drifted over to the office door.
Ben cleverly misdirected the attention of anyone in the area while Miriam opened the door with a quick flick of her mind. Unlike other times when they had to do things like this, they weren’t in serious danger, so the four found themselves smothering laughs and giggles. They felt like kids on a lark.
That feeling quickly dropped away once they were inside Dr. Vera Kesterson’s office.
“Fuck,” Atin swore softly. The rest of the team was stunned. The office looked spartan, but there were wards and glyphs all over the walls. The room had been psychically sealed off and was heavily protected. There wasn’t much in here physically except for a desk, two chairs, some prints on the wall and a mini fridge in the corner. Psychically and magically, the room was crammed full.
Mike looked in amazement at the wards. Miriam swallowed. “Golden Dawn, Wiccan, Oriental, Tibetan, Hindu, bindrunes…” she said softly before her voice trailed off.
“Why would a librarian feel the need to protect her office so heavily?” Ben asked softly.
“Because she’s not just a librarian,” Atin said grimly. “She’s a major magical practitioner, and it looks like she’s a psychic, too. This totally changes the situation.”
Mike nodded. “Let’s look around.” Mike noticed diplomas on the walls. Undergraduate degree in anthropology from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, graduated about twenty years ago. The Masters and Ph.D. in library science had just been awarded two years earlier. Now they knew she had to have been the librarian here for less time than that.
Atin and Ben yelped at the same time. Mike whirled around. “Don’t use your abilities,” Ben gasped out. “She has the place trapped!”
Mike looked at Miriam. Her face was pale. “Mir?” Mike asked desperately.
“I’ve been bound,” she whispered, horrified. Atin and Ben had similar expressions.
Mike swallowed. “Back to the hotel. We need to call the others. There is a lot more going on here than we thought.”
Was this woman responsible for what happened to Pascal this morning? If so, Vera Kesterson had succeeded in crippling almost half the team, and they still hadn’t even laid eyes on her yet. Their seer, a telekinetic, an empathy/reader and an empathy/psychic healer had all been neutralized except as physical back up. Mike was furious. Sam was powerful but open right now. Was she manipulating him for her own purposes? Had Jay, her nephew, lured them up here? Did she have psychic hooks in him to drain him dry? Was that why Sam had been sick a few days ago, wasn’t eating and was so withdrawn?
Mike’s eyes narrowed as they quickly crossed the town square returning to the Mockingbird Inn through the rain. Who ever Vera Kesterson was she’d obviously never had to deal with the Comacine Order. She was going to release the bindings on his team and release any hooks she had in Sam as soon as they found her. If Vera Kesterson refused, she would die. If they suspected she was also responsible for the local deaths, then she’d die anyways. The Comacines played for keeps.
~*~
There was almost total silence in the truck. The silence seemed to be a weapon, bludgeoning both Dean and Vera. Dean had felt something bad happen to Sam, and just a few moments later Jay had called letting them know that Star was reacting to whatever was going on with him. Dean cursed. Why hadn’t he ordered Sam to stay at the farm?
Vera seemed to have a seizure and almost ran her truck off the road. She stopped the truck just in time before finding a place she could park.
“What is it?” Dean demanded rather than asked. Vera had gone pale.
“The wards on my office, someone has broken in there.” She turned to Dean. “Whoever they are, they’re all psychic. I don’t know how many, but they sprung the binding traps.”
“Shit!” Dean punched the dash. “What do we do?”
Vera swallowed and blinked. Dean suddenly realized how tired she was, how little reserves she had, despite her energy that morning.
“About my office, nothing. We need to find Sam.” Vera reached over and grabbed Dean’s wrist, gripping it with a deadly pressure, as if trying to convey how important the words were she was saying.
“If something happens,” she began slowly, “I’m the expendable one.” Dean stared at her for a moment before trying to reassure her. As he opened his mouth she snarled and shook him.
“This is going to get bad, Dean,” Vera bit out. “Damn it, listen to me. I am the expendable one. You, Sam and Jay are the ones who aren’t. Don’t worry about Sam’s training. The coven, Nora Bonesteel and Jay can cover that. It might take them longer, but they’ll do okay. You and Sammy are Hunters, and Jay will be the Guardian here after me, all of you have to continue your families. If you don’t the bastards win.”
Vera paused for a second. “I’ve built the base for all of you. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I have. Any good Priestess tries to organize things, make plans where if she has to leave, everything can continue on without her. A good Priestess tries to make herself redundant, teaches people and encourages them so they don’t need her. Trains her replacements years, decades before anyone thinks they’ll need to take charge. It might be hard, but all of you can go on without me. Any of the three of you dies, it all falls apart.”
Dean looked at her and felt his stomach go cold. Vera’s eyes were dialated and looked slightly unfocused. Was she having a vision? Was this why she was trying to warn him? Who were these people in her office? Part of him wanted to scream at her, to say ‘you’re wrong, we still need you’. He had known her, really known her, for less than a week, but he knew she was important to him and Sammy. Vera had already given them something invaluable in just a few days time. She had given them a home, and hope. She had given him Sammy back.
Logically, in the cold place in Dean’s mind that he always fell back on when choices were hard, he knew Vera was right. If it were a choice between Sam, Jay or her, she was the one he would chose to die.
Dean didn’t trivialize her by mouthing platitudes that they’d be all right. Vera would see through it, and it would just make her feel worse. It would make her feel alone, isolated. If there was a good chance she would die today, he’d suck it up and acknowledge it rather than be in denial. If she were brave enough to face the possibility of her death, then he could be brave enough to face it with her. He wouldn’t let Vera feel like she was alone, even if he had to let her die.
Dean’s mind went once again to a passage out of "The Art of War."
Thus generals have five dangerous weaknesses
One committed to the dying can be slain.
One committed to the living can be captured.
One easily angered and hasty can be insulted.
One obsessed with being righteous can be tainted and shamed.
One who loves can be troubled.
He couldn’t let himself fall into any of these traps. He must stay centered, that was the only way he could get as many people out of this alive as possible. There may be collateral damage; he may have to make sacrifices. Dean simply looked at Vera and nodded. “I’m going to do my best to be sure we all get out of this alive, but I know…” Dean trailed off, at a loss for words for once. “Get out and swap places with me, I’m driving the rest of the way.”
~*~
Ravenmocker stood in the middle of the town square, furious. The Comacines thought to kill his Guardian? He couldn’t affect events directly, that was one of the rules. He could only guide, comfort, inspire, and on rare occasions, give visions. He had spent years, decades, carefully nurturing the Kesterson family to bring them into Guardianship. Then the Winchesters wandered into his domain. It was too perfect, a new Guardian line and a potentially powerful new Hunter line. One had what the other lacked; they meshed too well together and would complement and strengthen one another. That is why he appeared to Dean. Dean reminded him of himself when he was still human, and he saw the path of horror and sorrow the Winchesters had before them.
Now these Comacines, these outsiders, had dared to think about killing one of his Protected? His new Guardian who was struggling so hard to shoulder her responsibilities? The one he was so proud of, the Guardian that was one of the greatest Teachers the Light currently possessed, all because of the obsessions of one powerful man?
Ravenmocker laughed, he wasn’t called a Trickster for nothing. The Thrones may rebuke him when this was done, but his Guardian would have a much better chance of survival. He would not kill any of the Comacines, they were Warriors of the Light as well, no matter how misguided they were or arrogant they had become in their power. He had no qualms about teaching them some humility, and Mike Jensen would regret the moment he had even thought about killing Vera Kesterson.
With a wicked grin, Ravenmocker set events in motion to disturb the Comacines very sense of how their world worked. Then he was going to have a very long and brutal talk with young Sammy.
~*~
Cheryl shivered as she passed the doorway of the sheriff’s station with Greg. She wasn’t much of an empath, but even she could feel the grief and desolation in this room. A young blonde woman sat behind the front desk, blue eyes bloodshot as she took a phone message. If anything, her expression was becoming grimmer. The nameplate on the desk said ‘Kelly Stargill.’ She glanced at them. “I’ll be with you in a moment.” Cheryl could tell by her expression she resented them requesting her attention.
“Your friend is wrong.” Cheryl and Greg both whipped around to see a little girl sitting in a chair behind them. She was obviously related to Kelly Stargill. Her wide blue-gray eyes were somber. “You should ask my Mamaw Nora.”
Cheryl and Greg looked at each other, both stunned to meet such an obviously strong child psychic that had no trouble talking to them telepathically. Most psychic kids her age were beginning to withdraw and suppress their abilities. That she was still so open and in control could only mean one thing; someone was training her.
Greg shook his head. “Not one of ours, we leave her alone.”
The two of them turned their attention back to Kelly, who Cheryl just noticed was heavily pregnant. She was apparently the dispatcher as well as the station secretary, she was on the radio.
“Beta one, we have a 10-69, Kathy Wyler, white female…”
A female voice abruptly interrupted her. “I know what Kathy Wyler looks like; she volunteers at the library for story time a few days a week.”
Kelly looked annoyed. “Vera, what are you doing on the radio? You weren’t deputized.”
“Dean can’t drive, talk on the radio and look at this sheet of ten codes all at once. Give me a minute to figure out what a 10-69 is.”
Kelly was obviously gritting her teeth. Vera left the frequency on and they could hear her muttering “10-69, 10-69, reckless driver? No…”
They could hear a male voice come over the radio. “Give me that! Kelly wouldn’t be calling us over a reckless driver! Haven’t you memorized the list yet?” Greg and Cheryl glanced at each other. In most jurisdictions a 10-69 was a missing person.
“Forget the codes; just tell us what is going on. We don’t have time to look at the damned list!” The male voice sounded angry.
“Deputy Winchester,” Kelly began, obviously trying to hold on to some professional dignity, “we have a 10-84 here at the station.” The male voice began to curse creatively. “Dean!” Kelly shouted “the frequency is still open!” She glanced at Greg and Cheryl, actually turning red. Greg tried to keep a grin off of his face.
Dean came back on the radio, “Vera finally figured out that the girl is missing and that you have visitors at the station. What do you want us to do?”
Kelly closed her eyes wearily. Dean Winchester was going to drive her to an early maternity leave at this rate. She was sure she could feel her blood pressure rising. “Just keep an eye out for her while you look for Sam and come back to the station when you find him.”
“Uh, 10-4,” Dean replied.
Kelly turned back to Greg and Cheryl. “How can I help you?” she asked without inflection, clearly projecting that they better not expect much.
Cheryl tried to hide their excitement. They were very close. “I’m Cheryl Sutherland and actually, I’m trying to contact Dean Winchester.”
Kelly’s eyes narrowed. “He’s on patrol right now.”
“I’m a friend of his father, John Winchester and I really need to get in contact with either him or his brother Sam.” Cheryl continued misdirecting Kelly’s attention. Greg was casually walking to the other side of Kelly’s desk. Kelly just continued looking at Cheryl.
Cheryl gave her a winning smile. “Could I leave a message for him?”
“I’ll relay it for you.” Kelly offered ungraciously, obviously just wanting them out of the station.
“Beta one, I have a 10-14. A Cheryl Sutherland says she needs to contact you or your brother and she is a friend of your father.” There was a long silence. “Repeat, you have a 10-14. Cheryl Sutherland attempting to contact you. 10-16?”
“10-4,” Dean’s voice sounded strained. “Just get her phone number and tell her I will contact her later. If LeDonne or Spencer are nearby, could you have them check Vera’s office? It’s been broken into.”
Kelly blinked. “How do you know?" she trailed off with a glance at her daughter. “10-22 that last. 10-15 I’ll call the library.”
Kelly quickly jotted down the cell number that Cheryl gave her and was obviously glad to see them leave.
Leaving the station Greg grinned and flashed Cheryl the inside of his arm. Cheryl wasn’t surprised to see three phone numbers and an address written there. They were so distracted the two of them almost ran down a woman going into the station.
Millie Fortner was in a hurry. Kathy Wyler was missing and she was on her way to talk with Kelly about how they were going to handle the search, considering something killed Martha and Rattler that morning. They couldn’t call for volunteers the way they normally would. She had noticed that a large group of tourists had shown up earlier in the day and she hoped that they had enough sense to stay out of the woods. She glanced up at the sky; rain was beginning to fall and a bad storm was coming in. She guessed that it was a blessing in disguise, it should keep people inside.
Just as Millie got to the door of the station she was almost knocked down by a man and woman on their way out. She had to step aside to keep the tall brunette from walking into her. When the woman turned to apologize, Millie felt the world stop.
An electric current seemed to run up her spine and burst out her forehead. Millie rocked back on her heels; she knew this woman, and this man, too. She felt like someone had taken a board and hit her in the back of the head.
Cheryl couldn’t help but smile. She had been Found herself just three years ago, but because of her experience in the Mounties she was able to go active within six months. She knew how much this middle-aged woman’s life was about to change.
“Welcome to the Comacines.”
Chapter 15: Grace