Fic: Thicker than Water 9/?
Title: Thicker Than Water
Chapter: 9
Author: dragon_fall
Fandoms: Supernatural/True Blood
Rating: R
Warnings: none yet
Summary: Dean and Sam roll into Bon Temps in search of answers and find more problems than they ever would have imagined.
Author's Note: Takes place after Lucifer Rising and at the beginning of True Blood Season 2. Since I started writing this months ago it is AU in the True Blood universe, but pieces from this season will be working themselves in.
"What the hell happened?"
"She was attacked," Bill answered, still half-turned towards the main room of the bar.
It was quiet in the other room. Too quiet. Dean paced, rubbing at his mouth. Sookie was in there, poisoned; back sliced open like the other victims. "Attacked?" Dean repeated. "She was with you, wasn't she? You're supposed to protect her!"
"We became separated!"
"Children… please…" Eric interrupted before either one could argue further. "Did you see what attacked her?" he asked.
Bill shook his head. "No. She said it was some sort of bull-man."
"Bull man?" Dean looked to his brother, but Sam shook his head. "You mean like a minotaur?" he pressed.
The vampire sighed. "Whatever it was, it did the damage you saw in seconds. It was gone by the time I arrived."
"And you gave her your blood?" Eric asked.
"It didn't work."
Dean froze at the mention of the vampire feeding Sookie his blood. Both hunters knew that V was the new cocaine. "You've been making her a junky?" He hissed.
"Using vampire blood to heal mitigates the addictive properties," Bill said sharply. "I had no choice." He turned to the other vampire. "Have you ever heard of anything like this?"
"No." Eric's answer was flat. "After a thousand years I assumed I'd seen everything." His gaze flitted briefly to the two brothers. "Apparently I was wrong."
Dean rolled his eyes. "Glad to know the world can still surprise you. In the meantime, we gotta find that thing before it tries to rip anyone else to shreds."
"I agree." Eric called out, and the blonde vampire from earlier appeared, along with another male vampire. Dean blinked. He would never have pegged the leather wearing woman to go for a pink twinset on her off hours. "I want you to search the woods around highway 71."
The hunter ignored the vampires tiff about who would do what. They’d given the little doctor their own medical kit when she arrived, not knowing what she’d have. From first-hand experience Dean knew you could never have enough sterile gauze, and with the way she was bleeding when Bill carried her inside… He needed to see Sookie, needed to know that she was all right. They hadn't heard anything for too long.
"A minotaur doesn't make any sense" Sam said, coming to stand beside him. "They were hunted out centuries ago."
"Maybe this one was hiding." But why attack only women? "They weren't clawed, were they?"
Sam shrugged. "Got me."
The scream that came from the bar was wrenching, and Dean was running before it tapered off into small whimpers. Sookie was writhing, trying to get away from whatever the doctor was pouring on her.
"I need you to hold her down," the doctor yelled over Sookie’s cries, digging a finger deep into the center wound and scrapping out viscous fluid. Sookie screamed again, the sound tapering into a series of gulping groans.
Dean didn’t need to be told twice. “Sammy, get her arms,” he said, taking hold of her ankles.
Bill was there before Sam, pressing her against the table.
When Sookie kept screaming Dean winced, focused on his shoes as the flesh of her back sizzled with whatever liquid the doctor applied. It sounded familiar… to familiar. He could feel her tendons flexing under his hands. Remembered other times; wash with blood and pain and fire. When he’d reveled in causing screams just like hers, souls racked and tortured under his meticulous hands...
“Dean! Stop it! Please!”
Dean looked up. Sookie wasn’t trying to get away from the doctor anymore. She was kicking at him, trying to free herself. He let her go like he’d been burned. Sookie panted, sobbing into the towel beneath her as the doctor raked a finger through her wounds.
“Sookie?” Bill asked softly, looking between the two humans.
The blonde shook her head, and then screamed anew when the doctor moved to another laceration, knees curling under her.
“Get her feet, Sammy,” Dean ordered hoarsely before striding out of the bar.
Sam watched Dean storm out of the bar before he turned his attention back to Sookie. Her screams hadn’t been just from the pain, of that he was certain. There was something else under it, something that made his stomach turn. There were handprints on the thin skin of her ankles; bright, angry red, even though he knew Dean hadn’t held her that tightly. Without thinking he stripped off his shirt and wrapped her legs in it before doing as he’d been ordered.
It took another thirty minutes of screaming and scrapping before the little doctor was satisfied that the wounds were clean. “You can give her blood now,” she said briskly as she swabbed the wounds. “Her body should accept it.”
Sam watched Sookie drink Bill’s blood, and felt the longing build up. He could taste the copper in the back of his throat, the hot slide of it. He was clean; Bobby and Dean had sweated the demon blood out of him in the panic room (this time equipped with anti-angel wards) in the two weeks after he set Lucifer free, but he still wanted it.
“Hey, sasquatch.”
Sam looked down. Dr. Lovett had their first aid kit in her hands.
She handed the small duffel back to him. “You got a good setup in there, kid. Get hurt much?”
“Thanks,” he said absently. Sookie was sucking on Bill’s wrist. He could see the flush of blood as she missed some of the precious liquid and it trickled to the towels beneath her.
“Huh… don’t know many civilians need morphine and a jump bag.”
Sam shrugged, taking the bag. “Never can be too careful.”
The doctor followed his gaze. “She’ll be fine,” the woman reassured him. “My advice, steer clear of all of ‘em. You’ll end up dead before your time.”
“Yeah.”
The smaller woman ambled towards the door. “I’ll expect my payment by the end of the week,” she said to Eric without stopping.
The blonde vampire smirked. “It’s always a pleasure to do business with you, Dr.-“
“Fuck off!” the woman yelled back as she pushed through the door.
“I understand that the effects can be quite… stimulating.”
Sam jerked. Eric was standing next to him, shoulder to shoulder. “What?” he asked, feigning ignorance.
The blonde vampire smiled. “The older the vampire, the more potent his blood,” he explained casually. “Bill is less than two hundred years old. I, on the other hand…”
Sam stepped away from the vampire. “Not interested,” he muttered, opening the bag and examining the contents. They’d need to stock up on sterile gauze, but it looked like their store of injections was untouched.
“I can hear your heart beating from here,” Eric continued, following him closely. Sam could feel the vampire staring at him. “You are interested, and I’m assuming it’s not for Bill or his lover, however tempting she may be.” Eric gave him a once over. “You’re even sweating, just a little.”
Sam cleared his throat, willing himself to calm down. He was past this.
After a moment the vampire leaned forward. Sam felt something graze his shoulder and reached for the saline push. Salt would sting the vampire long enough for him to pull his gun.
“You smell… different,” Eric mused softly.
“Eric!”
Sam could have kissed Bill for the interruption. He closed the jump bag and headed outside, passing up Pam and the other vampire he didn’t know, both mud spattered.
“The area has been scanned,” Pam informed them.
“The tracks were human, but the smell was distinctly animal,” the male vampire added.
“What kind?”
Pam looked over her shoulder at Sam and rolled her eyes.
“What kind?” Eric repeated the hunter’s question.
She huffed. “A filthy one.”
Sam took that moment to step outside. It was quiet, the sky still dark in the hour or two before dawn. Dean hadn’t been back in the entire time they’d worked on Sookie. He was just stepping free of the door when Eric’s voice caught him.
“I expect to be kept informed of anything you and your brother find in Bon Temps,” the vampire called after him. “Also, my offer stands if you change your mind.”
Eric watched the human leave with a small smile. The Winchester’s were certainly worthy of the reports he’d received. They weren’t ordinary humans that much he could tell. He hadn’t been able to smell the older one through the oil they’d used, but the hint from the younger was… tantalizing.
“You look like you’re thinking of getting a pet,” Pam said in Old Norse.
Eric raised an eyebrow. “Jealous?”
She shrugged. “I like the older one. He’s got spirit.” She tossed her head. “Even if he is puking his guts out by his car.”
The eyebrow went higher. He wouldn’t have taken Dean Winchester for the squeamish type. Eric looked to Sookie, and frowned. He knew of the damage to her back, but now there was something else. Her ankles were red-striped. He ran a hand over one of the marks. They were hot, as if she’d been branded. Curious, he fit his hand over the marks. They were a perfect hand print, the thumb overlapping the red bands of fingers. The younger brother had thrown his shirt over her before restraining her legs, so it couldn’t have been caused by him.
“What in God’s name is that?” Bill asked, examining the damage.
“It seems the world is full of surprises tonight,” Eric answered. The Winchester’s required more investigation. Much more. “They should heal before dawn.”
Eric waited until Bill and Sookie were settled in for the day before calling Pam to his office.
“Good Dean…good…just a little further now…”
The blade cut smoothly through the skin on the woman’s back, separating the uppermost layer of skin from the muscle beneath. He knew that it wasn’t really skin. They’d all lost their bodies long ago. Alistair had tried to explain to him about the soul being an extension of the body, but he’d stopped listening. It wasn’t skin he cut, it was her essence. It didn’t matter so long as she bled.
“Please…” the woman screamed as he ran the blade between her vertebrae, skating through the thin layer of fat until he hit bone.
“Shhhh…” Dean soothed, digging in further. He reached for a set of long needles and expertly inserted them into the flesh, waiting for the change in pressure to let him know he had reached the spinal cord. But it wasn’t the spine. Each section glowed as he pierced it, an internal light show that would only grow more intense.
“Dean…please…”
“What was that, Bella?” he asked as the thrummed the needles.
“Dean?”
Dean jerked against the car, reaching for his colt before he recognized the voice. Sam stared at him, bag in hand. “You all right, man?” His brother’s eyes were wide.
“Yeah… fine…” he looked towards the building. “How’s Sookie?”
Sam tossed the duffle into the backseat. “She’ll be fine. The wounds were starting to close when I stepped out.” He wrinkled his nose, smelling something putrid on the air. “Did something die over here?”
Dean rolled his shoulders. “It’s a vampire bar, dude. There’s dead stuff all over.” Not to mention the steaming collection of bile he’d left on the side of the building. He slid into the driver’s seat, eager to put as many miles between Fangtasia and them as possible. “What did Heckle and Jeckle have to say?”
Sam told his brother about what the vampires found as they drove back to Bon Temps. When his brother finished Dean shook his head. “So… it smells like an animal, has human tracks, venom, goes after defenseless women and takes out their hearts. This is fucked up, man.”
“I know.” Sam scrubbed a hand over his face. “You think we should call Rufus?”
“Rufus?” Dean raised his eyebrows. “When would you explain? Before or after he told you to fuck off?”
Sam settled into the passenger seat and Dean focused on the road. Dean! Stop it! Please! The memory made his stomach churn all over again. She hadn’t been begging for him to let her go. He’d hurt Sookie, he knew it, just by touching her. By trying to help. He’d had to get away before he embarrassed himself.
“Dean?”
“Sammy?”
When his brother didn’t answer Dean glanced over. Sam had his arms folded, staring into the dashboard and damn it, he knew that look. “Spit it out before I die of old age, man,” he teased, hoping Sam would take the hint and keep whatever he was thinking to himself.
Sam gave him a long look then shook his head. “Nothing, man.”
When the Chevelle pulled into Delmar, Bobby was working his way past completely pissed off. How do you blow three tires in a single day? He knew good and damn well that his tires were good before he left. It was only through sheer luck that he'd managed to make it to the little village. His car, the weather, even the damn radio seemed determined to keep him from getting there. As it was he’d tacked on three hours to what was supposed to be a four hour drive
Delmar wasn't much of anything. Less a town than a village lost in the flat Nebraska plains. The one billboard announced weekly mass at a church that he'd passed an hour back on the interstate. The main street was crowded with buildings, huddled together against the open space surrounding them. Someone worked hard at planting and caring for the oak trees that kept the place from looking like a ghost town, but with no one walking the streets, it looked like Delmar hadn't been inhabited in years.
Bobby walked into the diner, the one place not a residence that had its lights on. If anything strange had happened in the community in the past few days, he'd find out about it there.
An ancient bell wrung as he came through the door, but that was the only sound. The place was empty, and it made the space between the hunter’s shoulders itch.
“Hey, hon,” an elderly woman said as she came out the back, pitcher and clean glass in hand. “Anything I can get for ya?”
Bobby sauntered over to the long lunch counter. “That water sure looks tempting.” He put on his best smile.
The woman was older than him by at least ten years, voice gravely with smoke and age, but she smiled in return and set the glass down. “You hungry? We’ve got time before closing to rustle you up something to eat.”
Bobby’s stomach chose that moment to growl. “Whatever’s quick and easy,” he answered.
“Andy!” She hollered with more gusto than he would have thought possible. “Blue Special! And pile the extra’s on!” An equally wizened man nodded through the order window. “That’s a cheeseburger with onion rings inside and an order of fries, and a cherry coke” she informed him.
“Sounds like heaven.” Bobby settled onto the stool. “Don’t suppose you’ve had any strange things happenin’ in town recently?” he asked.
The woman smiled brightly as she busied herself behind the counter. “We sure did. Just about the biggest shooting star you ever did see came down a few days ago just east of here. Even had a man from the astronomy club up in Magnet stop by.”
Shooting stars counted as omens in his book. “Did it fall somewhere, or did it break up?”
“Must have broken up, because he didn’t find anything.” She grinned. “Two days after that we got our first drifter in months. We don’t get many visitors ‘round here, unless their lost. But earlier today one just walked right out of the scrub.”
“Visitor?” Bobby pressed.
“We tried to tell him Earl would tow his car for free, but he said he didn’t have one.” She set a tall glass in front of him filled with dark, fizzing liquid, a single cherry floating on top, and Bobby smiled.
“Ain’t had a real cherry coke in years,” he said as he took a drink. “Ain’t never had one this good, neither.”
The waitress, Amie, nodded in agreement. “Those newfangled cans never get it quite right.”
Bobby set the glass down. “So you’re sayin’ someone just walked into town? It’s gotta be fifty miles to anywhere.”
Amie sighed. “But that he did. Wasn’t even dressed for the heat, like some of those backpackers. Was wearing a suit and a trench coat, if you can believe it.”
Bobby stilled. “This fella, he wouldn’t have black hair and blue eyes, would he?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, he does.” She frowned. “He a friend of yours?”
“I’m thinking he is.”
“Order up!” The cook said, handing off a plate piled high with food.
Bobby felt his mouth water as the smell of the burger hit him. He might have to make the trip to Delmar again, if it tasted half as good as it smelled. “Is he still in town?”
“Oh yeah,” Amie supplied as he bit into his burger. “He’s been staying at the Red Baron. It’s right off Main, can’t miss it.”
_____________________________________________________________
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Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed ^_^
Chapter: 9
Author: dragon_fall
Fandoms: Supernatural/True Blood
Rating: R
Warnings: none yet
Summary: Dean and Sam roll into Bon Temps in search of answers and find more problems than they ever would have imagined.
Author's Note: Takes place after Lucifer Rising and at the beginning of True Blood Season 2. Since I started writing this months ago it is AU in the True Blood universe, but pieces from this season will be working themselves in.
"What the hell happened?"
"She was attacked," Bill answered, still half-turned towards the main room of the bar.
It was quiet in the other room. Too quiet. Dean paced, rubbing at his mouth. Sookie was in there, poisoned; back sliced open like the other victims. "Attacked?" Dean repeated. "She was with you, wasn't she? You're supposed to protect her!"
"We became separated!"
"Children… please…" Eric interrupted before either one could argue further. "Did you see what attacked her?" he asked.
Bill shook his head. "No. She said it was some sort of bull-man."
"Bull man?" Dean looked to his brother, but Sam shook his head. "You mean like a minotaur?" he pressed.
The vampire sighed. "Whatever it was, it did the damage you saw in seconds. It was gone by the time I arrived."
"And you gave her your blood?" Eric asked.
"It didn't work."
Dean froze at the mention of the vampire feeding Sookie his blood. Both hunters knew that V was the new cocaine. "You've been making her a junky?" He hissed.
"Using vampire blood to heal mitigates the addictive properties," Bill said sharply. "I had no choice." He turned to the other vampire. "Have you ever heard of anything like this?"
"No." Eric's answer was flat. "After a thousand years I assumed I'd seen everything." His gaze flitted briefly to the two brothers. "Apparently I was wrong."
Dean rolled his eyes. "Glad to know the world can still surprise you. In the meantime, we gotta find that thing before it tries to rip anyone else to shreds."
"I agree." Eric called out, and the blonde vampire from earlier appeared, along with another male vampire. Dean blinked. He would never have pegged the leather wearing woman to go for a pink twinset on her off hours. "I want you to search the woods around highway 71."
The hunter ignored the vampires tiff about who would do what. They’d given the little doctor their own medical kit when she arrived, not knowing what she’d have. From first-hand experience Dean knew you could never have enough sterile gauze, and with the way she was bleeding when Bill carried her inside… He needed to see Sookie, needed to know that she was all right. They hadn't heard anything for too long.
"A minotaur doesn't make any sense" Sam said, coming to stand beside him. "They were hunted out centuries ago."
"Maybe this one was hiding." But why attack only women? "They weren't clawed, were they?"
Sam shrugged. "Got me."
The scream that came from the bar was wrenching, and Dean was running before it tapered off into small whimpers. Sookie was writhing, trying to get away from whatever the doctor was pouring on her.
"I need you to hold her down," the doctor yelled over Sookie’s cries, digging a finger deep into the center wound and scrapping out viscous fluid. Sookie screamed again, the sound tapering into a series of gulping groans.
Dean didn’t need to be told twice. “Sammy, get her arms,” he said, taking hold of her ankles.
Bill was there before Sam, pressing her against the table.
When Sookie kept screaming Dean winced, focused on his shoes as the flesh of her back sizzled with whatever liquid the doctor applied. It sounded familiar… to familiar. He could feel her tendons flexing under his hands. Remembered other times; wash with blood and pain and fire. When he’d reveled in causing screams just like hers, souls racked and tortured under his meticulous hands...
“Dean! Stop it! Please!”
Dean looked up. Sookie wasn’t trying to get away from the doctor anymore. She was kicking at him, trying to free herself. He let her go like he’d been burned. Sookie panted, sobbing into the towel beneath her as the doctor raked a finger through her wounds.
“Sookie?” Bill asked softly, looking between the two humans.
The blonde shook her head, and then screamed anew when the doctor moved to another laceration, knees curling under her.
“Get her feet, Sammy,” Dean ordered hoarsely before striding out of the bar.
Sam watched Dean storm out of the bar before he turned his attention back to Sookie. Her screams hadn’t been just from the pain, of that he was certain. There was something else under it, something that made his stomach turn. There were handprints on the thin skin of her ankles; bright, angry red, even though he knew Dean hadn’t held her that tightly. Without thinking he stripped off his shirt and wrapped her legs in it before doing as he’d been ordered.
It took another thirty minutes of screaming and scrapping before the little doctor was satisfied that the wounds were clean. “You can give her blood now,” she said briskly as she swabbed the wounds. “Her body should accept it.”
Sam watched Sookie drink Bill’s blood, and felt the longing build up. He could taste the copper in the back of his throat, the hot slide of it. He was clean; Bobby and Dean had sweated the demon blood out of him in the panic room (this time equipped with anti-angel wards) in the two weeks after he set Lucifer free, but he still wanted it.
“Hey, sasquatch.”
Sam looked down. Dr. Lovett had their first aid kit in her hands.
She handed the small duffel back to him. “You got a good setup in there, kid. Get hurt much?”
“Thanks,” he said absently. Sookie was sucking on Bill’s wrist. He could see the flush of blood as she missed some of the precious liquid and it trickled to the towels beneath her.
“Huh… don’t know many civilians need morphine and a jump bag.”
Sam shrugged, taking the bag. “Never can be too careful.”
The doctor followed his gaze. “She’ll be fine,” the woman reassured him. “My advice, steer clear of all of ‘em. You’ll end up dead before your time.”
“Yeah.”
The smaller woman ambled towards the door. “I’ll expect my payment by the end of the week,” she said to Eric without stopping.
The blonde vampire smirked. “It’s always a pleasure to do business with you, Dr.-“
“Fuck off!” the woman yelled back as she pushed through the door.
“I understand that the effects can be quite… stimulating.”
Sam jerked. Eric was standing next to him, shoulder to shoulder. “What?” he asked, feigning ignorance.
The blonde vampire smiled. “The older the vampire, the more potent his blood,” he explained casually. “Bill is less than two hundred years old. I, on the other hand…”
Sam stepped away from the vampire. “Not interested,” he muttered, opening the bag and examining the contents. They’d need to stock up on sterile gauze, but it looked like their store of injections was untouched.
“I can hear your heart beating from here,” Eric continued, following him closely. Sam could feel the vampire staring at him. “You are interested, and I’m assuming it’s not for Bill or his lover, however tempting she may be.” Eric gave him a once over. “You’re even sweating, just a little.”
Sam cleared his throat, willing himself to calm down. He was past this.
After a moment the vampire leaned forward. Sam felt something graze his shoulder and reached for the saline push. Salt would sting the vampire long enough for him to pull his gun.
“You smell… different,” Eric mused softly.
“Eric!”
Sam could have kissed Bill for the interruption. He closed the jump bag and headed outside, passing up Pam and the other vampire he didn’t know, both mud spattered.
“The area has been scanned,” Pam informed them.
“The tracks were human, but the smell was distinctly animal,” the male vampire added.
“What kind?”
Pam looked over her shoulder at Sam and rolled her eyes.
“What kind?” Eric repeated the hunter’s question.
She huffed. “A filthy one.”
Sam took that moment to step outside. It was quiet, the sky still dark in the hour or two before dawn. Dean hadn’t been back in the entire time they’d worked on Sookie. He was just stepping free of the door when Eric’s voice caught him.
“I expect to be kept informed of anything you and your brother find in Bon Temps,” the vampire called after him. “Also, my offer stands if you change your mind.”
Eric watched the human leave with a small smile. The Winchester’s were certainly worthy of the reports he’d received. They weren’t ordinary humans that much he could tell. He hadn’t been able to smell the older one through the oil they’d used, but the hint from the younger was… tantalizing.
“You look like you’re thinking of getting a pet,” Pam said in Old Norse.
Eric raised an eyebrow. “Jealous?”
She shrugged. “I like the older one. He’s got spirit.” She tossed her head. “Even if he is puking his guts out by his car.”
The eyebrow went higher. He wouldn’t have taken Dean Winchester for the squeamish type. Eric looked to Sookie, and frowned. He knew of the damage to her back, but now there was something else. Her ankles were red-striped. He ran a hand over one of the marks. They were hot, as if she’d been branded. Curious, he fit his hand over the marks. They were a perfect hand print, the thumb overlapping the red bands of fingers. The younger brother had thrown his shirt over her before restraining her legs, so it couldn’t have been caused by him.
“What in God’s name is that?” Bill asked, examining the damage.
“It seems the world is full of surprises tonight,” Eric answered. The Winchester’s required more investigation. Much more. “They should heal before dawn.”
Eric waited until Bill and Sookie were settled in for the day before calling Pam to his office.
“Good Dean…good…just a little further now…”
The blade cut smoothly through the skin on the woman’s back, separating the uppermost layer of skin from the muscle beneath. He knew that it wasn’t really skin. They’d all lost their bodies long ago. Alistair had tried to explain to him about the soul being an extension of the body, but he’d stopped listening. It wasn’t skin he cut, it was her essence. It didn’t matter so long as she bled.
“Please…” the woman screamed as he ran the blade between her vertebrae, skating through the thin layer of fat until he hit bone.
“Shhhh…” Dean soothed, digging in further. He reached for a set of long needles and expertly inserted them into the flesh, waiting for the change in pressure to let him know he had reached the spinal cord. But it wasn’t the spine. Each section glowed as he pierced it, an internal light show that would only grow more intense.
“Dean…please…”
“What was that, Bella?” he asked as the thrummed the needles.
“Dean?”
Dean jerked against the car, reaching for his colt before he recognized the voice. Sam stared at him, bag in hand. “You all right, man?” His brother’s eyes were wide.
“Yeah… fine…” he looked towards the building. “How’s Sookie?”
Sam tossed the duffle into the backseat. “She’ll be fine. The wounds were starting to close when I stepped out.” He wrinkled his nose, smelling something putrid on the air. “Did something die over here?”
Dean rolled his shoulders. “It’s a vampire bar, dude. There’s dead stuff all over.” Not to mention the steaming collection of bile he’d left on the side of the building. He slid into the driver’s seat, eager to put as many miles between Fangtasia and them as possible. “What did Heckle and Jeckle have to say?”
Sam told his brother about what the vampires found as they drove back to Bon Temps. When his brother finished Dean shook his head. “So… it smells like an animal, has human tracks, venom, goes after defenseless women and takes out their hearts. This is fucked up, man.”
“I know.” Sam scrubbed a hand over his face. “You think we should call Rufus?”
“Rufus?” Dean raised his eyebrows. “When would you explain? Before or after he told you to fuck off?”
Sam settled into the passenger seat and Dean focused on the road. Dean! Stop it! Please! The memory made his stomach churn all over again. She hadn’t been begging for him to let her go. He’d hurt Sookie, he knew it, just by touching her. By trying to help. He’d had to get away before he embarrassed himself.
“Dean?”
“Sammy?”
When his brother didn’t answer Dean glanced over. Sam had his arms folded, staring into the dashboard and damn it, he knew that look. “Spit it out before I die of old age, man,” he teased, hoping Sam would take the hint and keep whatever he was thinking to himself.
Sam gave him a long look then shook his head. “Nothing, man.”
When the Chevelle pulled into Delmar, Bobby was working his way past completely pissed off. How do you blow three tires in a single day? He knew good and damn well that his tires were good before he left. It was only through sheer luck that he'd managed to make it to the little village. His car, the weather, even the damn radio seemed determined to keep him from getting there. As it was he’d tacked on three hours to what was supposed to be a four hour drive
Delmar wasn't much of anything. Less a town than a village lost in the flat Nebraska plains. The one billboard announced weekly mass at a church that he'd passed an hour back on the interstate. The main street was crowded with buildings, huddled together against the open space surrounding them. Someone worked hard at planting and caring for the oak trees that kept the place from looking like a ghost town, but with no one walking the streets, it looked like Delmar hadn't been inhabited in years.
Bobby walked into the diner, the one place not a residence that had its lights on. If anything strange had happened in the community in the past few days, he'd find out about it there.
An ancient bell wrung as he came through the door, but that was the only sound. The place was empty, and it made the space between the hunter’s shoulders itch.
“Hey, hon,” an elderly woman said as she came out the back, pitcher and clean glass in hand. “Anything I can get for ya?”
Bobby sauntered over to the long lunch counter. “That water sure looks tempting.” He put on his best smile.
The woman was older than him by at least ten years, voice gravely with smoke and age, but she smiled in return and set the glass down. “You hungry? We’ve got time before closing to rustle you up something to eat.”
Bobby’s stomach chose that moment to growl. “Whatever’s quick and easy,” he answered.
“Andy!” She hollered with more gusto than he would have thought possible. “Blue Special! And pile the extra’s on!” An equally wizened man nodded through the order window. “That’s a cheeseburger with onion rings inside and an order of fries, and a cherry coke” she informed him.
“Sounds like heaven.” Bobby settled onto the stool. “Don’t suppose you’ve had any strange things happenin’ in town recently?” he asked.
The woman smiled brightly as she busied herself behind the counter. “We sure did. Just about the biggest shooting star you ever did see came down a few days ago just east of here. Even had a man from the astronomy club up in Magnet stop by.”
Shooting stars counted as omens in his book. “Did it fall somewhere, or did it break up?”
“Must have broken up, because he didn’t find anything.” She grinned. “Two days after that we got our first drifter in months. We don’t get many visitors ‘round here, unless their lost. But earlier today one just walked right out of the scrub.”
“Visitor?” Bobby pressed.
“We tried to tell him Earl would tow his car for free, but he said he didn’t have one.” She set a tall glass in front of him filled with dark, fizzing liquid, a single cherry floating on top, and Bobby smiled.
“Ain’t had a real cherry coke in years,” he said as he took a drink. “Ain’t never had one this good, neither.”
The waitress, Amie, nodded in agreement. “Those newfangled cans never get it quite right.”
Bobby set the glass down. “So you’re sayin’ someone just walked into town? It’s gotta be fifty miles to anywhere.”
Amie sighed. “But that he did. Wasn’t even dressed for the heat, like some of those backpackers. Was wearing a suit and a trench coat, if you can believe it.”
Bobby stilled. “This fella, he wouldn’t have black hair and blue eyes, would he?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, he does.” She frowned. “He a friend of yours?”
“I’m thinking he is.”
“Order up!” The cook said, handing off a plate piled high with food.
Bobby felt his mouth water as the smell of the burger hit him. He might have to make the trip to Delmar again, if it tasted half as good as it smelled. “Is he still in town?”
“Oh yeah,” Amie supplied as he bit into his burger. “He’s been staying at the Red Baron. It’s right off Main, can’t miss it.”
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