Chapter 7
BACKSTABBING STAGE
There are a few things that have surprised the crap out of Bobby Singer during his life. And given what he does for a living, a few tends to be a bit more unusual than your everyday surprises.
Still, those he can remember best are the ones that were… well, memorable.
Even though he has always been a curious bookworm about the occult, ancient cultures and folklore, it had been one hell of a wake up call to find out that the reason his sweet Karen murdered those two kids she gave piano lessons to was because a demon was possessing her at the time.
Opening his front door and seeing Dean, shy smile and dirty face, looking coyly at him, months after Bobby had seen Sam bury the kid’s mangled body in the middle of nowhere, would’ve made any other man crap his pants. Even Bobby will admit that he was caught off guard with that one.
Then there'd been the time he'd gotten jumped by a demon, possessed and end up nearly killing Dean Winchester. Even with all his knowledge of every spell, charm and protection there was to avoid being possessed, Bobby had still come dangerously close to killing the younger man whom he'd come to think of like a son. That had certainly been a nice slice of humble pie.
Waking up in a hospital with no idea how he’d gotten there and not being able to tell if he still had legs attached to him or not, on account of not being able to feel a damn thing below his navel… that had been the last surprise that Bobby thought he could bear.
Those, however, had been such out of ballpark experiences, that Bobby had figured that he was savvy enough to not be surprised and caught with his pants down on the average stuff. The human stuff. The things everyone else deals with on a regular basis.
Knowing that you can never truly know everything about a person, no matter how well you think you know them, was a given fact. Bobby had no need for his knowledge of the supernatural to figure that one out. But being accustomed to having access to information that most people don’t have, to know that to every rule there is more than one exception, made the sight of Emam, holding a gun to Bobby’s face, pretty friggin’ surprising.
“What t’hell--- Emam, you lost your frigging mind?”
The weapon trembles in the Egyptian man’s hand, but his aim doesn’t waver. The Colt, resting peacefully on Bobby’s lap, is the first thing he demands.
“I am sorry, Robert,” Emam says as he takes the old revolver from Bobby’s stiff fingers and stores it in his pocket, “I assure you this is not personal--“
“Not personal my ass! That’s my face you’re aiming a gun at-“ Bobby explodes. He’s been keeping an eye out for the guards since the three of them left, watchful for any signs of the alarms being raised and their presence discovered. Beyond Emam and his nine-millimeter, the night is as uneventful as it was before, only now... the absence of the boys is painfully evident. “Where’re Sam and Dean?”
Emam gives him no answer, tossing a pair of cuffs into his lap instead. “This is just insurance… please, don’t make me hurt you.”
Bobby’s alarm bells are ringing. Good God, they’re playing a whole frigging tune. “Insurance for what?”
“So that everything happens as it should,” Emam tells him before pulling a black bag over Bobby’s head and pushing his chair out, towards the car they had arrived in.
The only good thing about being forced into the back of a car, belly up on the back seat like a stuffed fish and hearing what sounded like his wheel chair disappearing into the dark waters of the lake, was the realization that he was about to become either bait or leverage for those boys. And blackmail is not something you can use on dead men.
If Bobby had thought that being carried to and from his wheelchair by a closet-size aide, back at the hospital, had been humiliating, the experience of being kept up by two thugs and the friend who betrayed him, tastes a lot worse.
The place they drove to wasn’t all that far from Abu Simbel. It wasn’t Emam’s hometown, though. Bobby had been there a couple of times, he knew that the only road access to Daraw was through a small wooden bridge over an irrigation system pipe, an old, crinkling thing that always made one hell of a racket whether you walked or drove over it.
Wherever they are now, it’s no small village in the middle of nowhere.
This place sounds bigger, crowded with busy streets and vendors calling out their products and prices in the middle of the street. For a short span of road, Bobby can hear water slapping against a shore and the noise of boat engines.
And then they pass through some metal doors and the sound of asphalt is replaced by gravel before the van finally stops.
When the bag is finally removed and Bobby has managed to blink his eyes into some measure of a working state, he can see that they are inside some sort of inner courtyard of a two-story house. The place looks degraded, unfinished, concrete and metal structures peeking out from under the walls and glassless windows.
The man in front of him, the one everyone else seems to keep a respectful distance from and defer to, is dressed in a silky blue tunic and has a white Kufi hat in his head. The only distinct feature about him is the black beard that is cut right in the middle by a stripe of white hairs. It makes him look like he has a raccoon’s tail on his face.
“Bobby Singer… it is pleasure to finally meet you,” he says, heavy accent accompanying his extended hand. “I am Obuham Jhiram Crowley, leader of the Ordo Templis Orientis.”
Bobby gives him a look that clarifies beyond any doubt just how much of an idiot he thinks the other man is and raises his bound hands to scratch his own beard. “Pleasure’s all yours.”
The man follows Bobby’s hands and flashes him a yellow version of a smile, discretely lowering his ignored hand. “Yes, you are right… these not the best circumstances, but I assure you that, had our initial plan worked, there would be no need for these… unpleasantries.”
“What you talking about, you dimwit?” Bobby barks back. He has a very, very bad feeling as to where this is all going and the heavily guilty looks that Emam keeps throwing his way are not helping. The reason why he’s there at all becomes suddenly very clear to Bobby, making him grin with pride. “Boys gave you the slip, didn’t they?”
“Tell me, you familiar with the word to’m? Is very common, very trusty method of catching prey, specially elusive prey,” Obuham continues, ignoring Bobby’s satisfied smile at the notion of Sam and Dean having escaped their greasy clutches.
"Bait," Bobby spits back in both anger and disgust.
It's Obuham's turn to smile. “Right now, Mr. Singer, you are nothing more than to’m - bait, as you put it - and your life worth’s no more than what those ‘boys’ value it. So, in your place, I start praying to whatever god you believe in. Pray they do exactly as I tell them, so that you may live a little longer.”
Bobby can feel his teeth grinding, the urge to jump forward and wipe the smirk off that man’s face cramped only by the lack of a pair of working legs. He has no other choice but to focus his venom in his voice and hope the man just drops dead from hearing it. “Or else?”
“You see soon enough, not to worry.”
The man’s knowing smile is almost as disturbing as the idea of being used to lure Sam or Dean into this man’s plans.
Dean’s voice is easy enough to recognize, coming clear across the room from the cell phone that Obuham is holding to his ear, hand pushing it further away every time the young man gets more vocal.
Bobby can tell from the tone and volume alone that the kid is pissed as hell. The undercurrent of fear and uncertainty is also there, but is more subtle, discreet. Something that Bobby hopes he’s the only one able to notice because he’s dealt with Dean long enough to see right through his bravado.
When the Order’s leader turns back to look straight at him with something akin to fury and frustration in his face, Bobby can guess what’s about to happen even before Obuham barks the command to eksar edo.
Bobby cringes at the words, knowing fully well that there is no where he can run. He also knows that the intent of this isn’t about hurting him, it’s about Dean hearing him being hurt.
Sitting on the hard chair where they’ve dumped him, Bobby tries to keep quiet as one of the Order members grabs him and starts twisting his left arm the wrong way, adding more and more pressure until he can feel bones grinding against each other and finally snapping.
There is no stopping the scream that escapes Bobby’s mouth then. Too late, he bites his tongue, preventing anymore more distressed sounds from escaping, but the damage is done. He barely tastes the blood coating his mouth over the disappointment of having failed. But damn! He hadn’t had a broken bone since the winter of ’97 when he’d slipped on a patch of ice. He’d forgotten how these mothers hurt like hell!
Through the cell phone, Bobby can hear Dean yelling his name in despair.
“Ibn el kalb!” Bobby calls Obuham and his men, starting with all the names in the book and moving on to some he makes up right there and then. He does it in Arabic too, to make sure that they all can understand every curse word that leaves his mouth.
There’s something to be said about the painkiller effects of cursing. It helps. It truly helps.
But it’s too late. Bobby knows that now, after the damage is done, anything that this bastard demands of Dean, both he and Sam will comply without any more questions. Because those boy are just dumb like that.
The red haze that starts descending over Bobby, fueled by concern and pain, lifts if only for a moment when he hears Obuham talk about an ark. Of all the things that he could expect...
Does he mean the ark, Ark? As in Moses’ Ark?
Brain working furiously to remember all he’s ever read about that particular artifact, all that Bobby can think of is the supposed connection between Ark and God and the fact that, any army carrying it around is, according to the lore, invincible.
Bobby can’t think of a single good reason for these people wanting to know the whereabouts an object that no one is even sure exists.
“Why? Why them?” Bobby spits out as soon as Obuham closes the phone on Dean’s shouting voice. “Why all this?”
“Why, why, why,” Obuham mimics Bobby’s voice, eyes sparkling with mirth. “Is that not Mankind’s greatest question? Always whining about whys, like pesky little children with nothing more to do than ask questions. Does it not bother you that the world is coming to an end and we still have no answers? Only questions?”
Bobby stares, trying to figure where this is going, but fearing that the sane cannot follow this man logic for long.
“Since the dawn of Men, we have lived in the dark. Clueless apes, searching for deeper meaning everywhere, higher purposes, connection to some all-powerful being. And now... now Lucifer walks free. The bringer of light walks among us. And he will bring the apocalypse on us!”
Obuham’s eyes are wide and blown, fevered words working as inspiration for himself and others. The few men around them look like they’re eating all that Obuham’s feeding them like it’s the tastiest nectar.
Emam is amongst them, eating this shit up just like the rest. Bobby can’t believe that this can be the same man that he’s traded with and been a friend to for over twenty years.
Stuck to the plastic chair, Bobby can only shake his head.
“So, you know the devil is on the loose,” he checks, because the idea is so ridiculous that surely he’s missing the point here. “And you’re actually gonna help Lucifer with this? You’re actually looking forward to the end world?” Bobby spits out, doing his best to keep his broken arm close to his chest and immobile. If he doesn’t breath too hard, it doesn’t hurt as much. “Are you insane?”
Obuham walks closer, hand reaching out to pat Bobby’s shoulder condescendingly. If he were standing, instead of stuck to a chair, Bobby’s sure that the other man would be significantly shorter than him. As it is, Obuham gets to loom over Bobby.
“Apocalypse, unlike petty and ignorant minds believe, does not mean ‘end of the world’,” Obuham preaches. “It is a Greek word, meaning revelation. Enlightenment. Light to shine all over us.”
Bobby snorts. “The only light that’s gonna shine over your sorry ass is hell fire, you idjit! If Lucifer gets his way, he’s gonna torch us all in the same breath!”
“Not all of us,” Obuham says with all the conviction in the world. “The Order, his true followers, those who help him, we will be rewarded.”
“And this is you, helping? You’re nothing but little kids, playing with matches.”
“Is that what you believe?” Obuham asks darkly, eyes flashing alongside the snarl in his lips. “Asmodeus, a little demonstration.”
Bobby searches around, looking for anyone that would fit the name. He recognizes it. All the reading and research he’s been doing to help the boys made sure that Bobby became well familiar with all the players in the apocalypse lore. Asmodeus is one of the big ones, Lucifer’s prime general. It makes no sense for him to be here, obeying orders from a petty little man nonetheless.
No one steps forward, and for a second Bobby almost smiles, thinking that Obuham’s scam has just been blown. It’s only when the guy standing to Bobby’s right falls to his knees, hands grasping desperately to his neck and face slowly turning red, that the hunter realizes he is looking at the demonstration Obuham called for.
“You sick bastard,” Bobby lets out, not able to do much more as he watches the young man who minutes ago was his guard, flop dead to the ground. “You think this will get you anything? Assure you any reward?”
Obuham looks at his prisoner smugly. “This is me, guaranteeing our place by Lucifer’s side, proving we are worthy allies. The Ark, the Winchesters... it is nothing but the first step.”
“And the last one?” Bobby presses on, eager to know where this is all headed.
“With luck, you will still be alive to find out,” the Order’s leader says with a flick of his hand. “Take him to the sacred well.”
A man raised in the quieter fields of civilization, Bobby likes to fall asleep under a veil of stars and the sounds of crickets a whole lot more than he enjoys the sight of skyline-eating buildings and the sound of heavy traffic.
A deep sky, sprinkled with thousands of shiny white dots and not one cloud in sight, like the one Bobby currently has over his head, would be one that he would very much enjoy any other time in his life. Hell! One cool beer in his hand a comfortable chair to sink into and you might even call him a content man.
Currently, he’s none of those. Not comfortable, not enjoying himself and certainly not content.
The ‘sacred well’, as it had been called by the ones who stuck him there, comes with a set of stairs, fortunately.
They settle Bobby in the bottom of a round hole, five, maybe six-foot high, drag a heavy stone to close the set of stone stairs and just walk away.
The fact that, were he able to stand, all Bobby would need to do was grab the edge and walk away, pisses off the older hunter to no end.
As it is, he can’t do much more than get his back against the cold wall as comfortable as he can, clutch his broken arm closely to his chest and bide his time.
Forty-eight hours.
Bobby knows the boys will come for him. Lord... he wished they were smarter than that, but he knows Sam and Dean too well to even consider otherwise. They’ll come, with some half-assed plan that will endanger them for certain and have, at most, a slim chance of working.
That’s the part of this whole mess that Bobby knows he can’t do a damn thing about.
He eyes the stone covering the access to the stairs, trying to figure his odds of moving the thing and crawling out of there. Taking a deep breath, Bobby buttons up his shirt and cradles his broken arm snugly in the space between two buttons.
Bobby’s upper body strength has built up since he lost the use of his legs. It wasn’t planned and he certainly didn’t devote any effort to it. It just happened, bit by bit everyday, as he was forced to adjust his everyday actions to the fact that he could no longer walk.
Still, pulling close to two hundred pounds with one arm alone, as Bobby crawls over to the stairs, has him trembling and sweating a months’ worth of spit in less than a couple of feet.
“Dammit!” Bobby swears, twisting his body around as his right arm gives up, aiming to fall on his back rather than on his broken arm. “Goddamit all to hell!”
There’s no two ways about it. He can’t get out of that frigging hole and he can’t do anything to stop the boys from coming for him.
Wiping the sweat out of his eyes, Bobby looks up at the stars. According to Castiel and the rest of the angels they’ve met so far, there should be someone up there, watching over them.
Bobby was never a religious man. He went to church with Karen, but mostly it was about the boat ride that they took on the lake afterward, than anything the minister said up in his pulpit. After she died... well, by then Bobby had already started to figure that the men with the white collars, for the most part, knew about as much about anything as five year olds.
Now... now Bobby wishes there’s someone up there listening when he asks to keep his boys safe.
He knows that is too much to expect, but when the noise comes, for just one second, Bobby wonders if his prayers are being answered after all. The contraption that rolls over the mouth of the hole looks too evil to be an answer to anyone’s prays.
And that’s when the sand starts falling down.
A rope ladder is tossed on the side of the well and Emam comes down when the sun is already up in the sky. Bobby can’t tell what time it is, but enough time has passed for the damn sand, falling down from the bags above his head, to have reached high enough to cover half his legs.
At first, Bobby had even bothered moving around, trying to get himself to a higher spot, struggling to stop his useless legs from being buried under the falling sand. He gave up after a couple of hours. The damn floor was flat and, unless someone put a cork in those bags, there was no way to stop the sand from rising up.
“I brought you water,” Emam announces, not quite meeting Bobby’s eyes as the older man drinks avidly from the bottle. “They will not allow food, but I insisted on the water.”
“Well, good fer’ya” Bobby lets out, furious. He has too many problems to worry about Emam’s guilty conscience. His supposed friend should feel guilty. He should feel downright miserable.
“Robert... if only you’ll allow me to explain-“
“I think I got a pretty good idea of what’s going on, don’t you worry,” Bobby replies acidly. “Shame on me, I suppose, for thinking that you were smarter than this, Emam.”
The Egyptian man looks at him fervently, guilt overshadowed by deep belief. “This is much more important than you and me, Robert. Bigger than those two boys you are trying to protect,” he starts. “The things I have witnessed, the power that Obuham can control,... he is a special man, Robert. A man who can control demons, that can bend evil to do good. He will guides us well through these dark times.”
“That’s bull crap, and you of all people should know that, Emam,” Bobby hisses out. His arm has grown numb, but pain flares up every time he raises his voice. “You were possessed. You know what those sons-of-bitches are like,” he goes on, voice lower and deep, trying to reach the man Bobby used to call friend. “This is the big boss we’re talking about, Lucifer himself... if having one of his pets almost killed you, what do you think will happen when the devil himself comes out to claim possession?”
“It would have not killed me,” Emam whispers.
“Come again?”
“The demon I was carrying when we first met,” the Egyptian man repeats, voice fainter than before, “it was under orders not to harm me... when Obuham said he needed someone for a mission in America, I... I was just a boy, Robert, but I believed already. I-“
“You set me up,” Bobby concludes with a gasp. “The whole thing, bumping into me so shortly after I’d found out what had killed Karen, being possessed... Obuham’s put a demon in you... and you let him?!”
Emam looks down, grabbing the edge of the rope ladder. “We all must fight for what we believe is right. I regret only that you have been hurt in the process... that, I never meant to happen. I will try and bring more water later.”
It was more than a day later when Bobby saw anyone else again.
Master Post
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