Not the Demons You're Looking For (21/24)
Part 20
Part 21
Dean had to hand it to the kid, even while he was protesting he was helping, and pretty efficiently at that. Not that he would admit it except under torture, but he knew there was no way he could manage this on his own right now. Hell, he could barely stand. Every time he so much as moved his head the whole room swayed drunkenly on its axis, and he shook with hot and cold flashes, trying to pull himself together enough to move, to get going, while in his head Sammy-Sammy-Sammy played on loop in time with his heartbeat.
Andy pulled him to his feet, steadied him on his arm. “Okay, if you insist on going through with this really really stupid plan, then you're at least going to let me help you so you don't end up getting you both killed. Come on, lean on me.”
Without fuss he helped him out of the pajama bottoms, handed him clean clothes, propped him up once when it looked as though he might fall over. “Did I mention this is a really stupid plan?”
“Yeah, you did.” Dean leaned on his knees, coughing. “Got doh choice. Sab's id trouble.”
Andy handed him a glass of water. “Drink. You can't help Sam if you can't stand up or walk straight. Sam took your car, so I'm guessing most of your gear is with him?”
“Yeah.” He drained the glass, felt slightly better. “That's dot a probleb. The odly thig we deed is this,” he pulled open his duffel bag, took out the case which held the Colt, the one bullet they had left still chambered. He held it tightly, willing his hands to stop shaking. At least the hot flashes were subsiding. Andy left him sitting on the bed, refilled the glass in the bathroom, came back with it.
“Come on, at least two more.”
“We're wastig tibe.”
“No, we're not. We'd be wasting time if you passed out halfway down the stairs, and you're wasting time by arguing with me. Come on. You know I'm right. I've been right all day, I'm totally on a roll,” Andy squatted on his haunches next to him and grinned ruefully. Dean rolled his eyes, drank the water. Andy gave him a handful of Tylenol with the last glass. “All right. Grab my arm, let's try that again.” He hauled Dean to his feet, and this time the floor stayed mercifully still. “You good?”
“Yeah. Let's go.” He pulled away at the last minute, buried his nose in his elbow. “Huh... huh-ISHOO! Oh, cobe od! How is that eved fair?” he asked, eyes directed at the ceiling.
“My van's in the street. How you doing?”
“Peachy.”
By the time they got down the stairs the dizziness had faded, and gently he shook off Andy's supporting arm, hurried out into the pouring rain. It was pitch black outside, what little light that had been filtering through the clouds during the day long gone. The moon was well concealed behind the clouds, and the rain was falling so thickly that it was nearly impossible to see more than a few steps ahead of them. He climbed into the passenger seat, clipped his seatbelt in place, and dissolved into a sneezing fit as Andy twisted the key in the ignition.
“Hih... HHEISH! ISHOO! Huh... HEPTSCHUH! HAISHOO! HEKSHUH!”
“Bless,” Andy pulled out in a screech of rubber, windshield wipers flopping wildly in a futile attempt at improving his visibility. “If anything jumps out at us, we're dead, you realize this?”
“HHKPHH! Yeah, jusdt drive, would you?” Dean was not appreciating the cruel fates who thought it would be amusing to inflict sneezing fits on him in the middle of a crisis. At the very least, he felt that the adrenaline rush should have taken care of the sneezing, if nothing else. This was just insulting.
“Workin' on it. Uh... you got a plan for when we get there?”
“Working od it.” The congestion was clearing a little bit, at least. Maybe that explained the sneezing. “HPKTSCH!”
Dean wasn't exactly the planning type. The man with a plan, that was usually Sammy. Sam of the freakish intelligence, whose brain went off in sixteen directions at once and was able to make sense of things before anyone else even realized there was something that needed making sense of. Dean was more the shoot first, salt and burn the corpse, maybe ask questions later type. In their line of work, that was generally the safest way to go. The van sped through the streets at a speed that impressed even him: for a laid-back guy, Andy certainly knew how to handle his wheels. The moment the van had come to a stop and before Andy had had time to throw it into park, Dean had cleared the front seat and was sprinting -well, trying to sprint- across the lawn toward where Sam had parked the Impala in the driveway. He pulled the spare keys from his pocket, opened up the trunk, grabbed a shotgun and a canteen full of holy water, just to be on the safe side.
He heard Andy coming up behind him, but didn't stop to wait for him, stumbled up the front stairs to the house, grabbing hold of the railing to help pull himself up. The front door was ajar, salt scattered in all directions, and as he went in he heard shrieks coming from the second floor. Andy's footsteps sounded on the outside steps just behind him, and he could hear him breathing in hard, almost-panicked gasps.
“Stay here!” He started up the main staircase. “Sam!” he cursed mentally as his voice cracked, didn't carry further than a foot or two. “Sam!”
There was another shriek, and suddenly the upstairs hallway was filled with a terrible, flickering glow, which in Dean's experience could only mean one thing: fire. He took the stairs two at a time just as smoke and flames began billowing through the open door of the baby's nursery. He threw his arm up in front of his face as the heat threatened to blister his skin, the familiar scent of sulphur filling his nostrils.
“Sam!”
He pulled the lapel of his jacket up, ducked low as the flames roiled over his head, barrelled into the room, scanning wildly for signs of Sam, of Lesley, the demon, anything. The smoke cleared for a moment and he spotted Sam sprawled on the floor, blood pooling beneath the windowsill from a gash at the back of his skull. There was no sign of the demon, but Lesley was cowering against the wall, both hands over her head. He reached out with one hand, pressed two fingers to Sam's throat, checked for a pulse, felt his own heart rate decrease when he found one.
“Dylan, where is he?” he barked. “Lesley!” She didn't answer, pointed wordlessly toward the crib.
“Dean?” Steven was in the doorway, his face pale, shaking with naked fear, but his eyes were clear, small fists clenched at his side.
Dean leaped back to his feet, threw himself toward the crib, snatched up the now-wailing Dylan and thrust him into Steven's arms. “Take your brother outside as fast as you can and don't look back. Now, Steven, go!” He heard his father's words come tumbling out of his mouth, again, as though it was the most natural thing in the world. Wide-eyed, Steven clutched the baby to his chest, turned and ran, almost colliding with Andy, who gathered them both up and took off at a sprint back down the stairs.
“Sam, come on!” he grabbed his brother by the shoulders, shook him until he coughed and moaned, his eyes fluttering open. “Come on, wake up! I can't get both of you out by myself. Sam!” he bent over, coughing as the smoke coiled around them, tried to prop him up against the wall.
A moment later Sam reached out, thumped him reassuringly on the arm. “'M good.” He struggled to his feet. “The demon, it was here...”
“Yeah, I know. We'll deal with that later. C'mon, we gotta get Lesley out first. Can you walk?”
Sam nodded, and with one last pat on the shoulder Dean left him to get out under his own power, ducked through the flames to snatch at Lesley, who had curled into a ball in the corner of the room, surrounded by flames on all sides. He yanked off his jacket, threw it over her head, hauled her to her feet.
“I need you to move, Lesley! Now!”
She whimpered, fought against him, her eyes wide and panicky, and he pinned her arms to her side, began dragging her toward the door. Halfway into the hallway she finally seemed to understand that he was taking her to safety, started making an effort to help, though she was disoriented and still slightly panicked, her legs not holding her up properly. By the time he got her to the door they were both coughing and choking on the thick smoke, and he shoved her unceremoniously out onto the wet grass, fell to his knees, coughing so hard he thought he might puke.
“Dean, you okay?”
He nodded, flapped a hand vaguely in Andy's direction, while Lesley threw herself, sobbing, at her waiting children, all but crushing them to her and covering them with kisses.
“Where's Sam?” he kept coughing, spitting soot-filled phlegm onto the grass. Nasty.
“I don't know. Last I saw, he was right behind you.”
“Shit!” Dean scrambled to his feet, his heart in his throat. “He's still in there!”
“Dean, wait!”
He ignored Andy's cry of protest, took off back into the house. Smoke and flames were spewing from the upstairs windows, the glass shattered in all of them. The heat had intensified, and he felt the hair on his arms singe as he forced his way through the wall of hot air. It coiled in his nose and lungs, burning with a dry heat that made his mouth taste of ash. Sam had passed out in the hallway, was collapsed halfway across the threshold of the nursery, and without bothering to try and get him up Dean just grabbed him under the arms and dragged him backward down the stairs. At the bottom his own legs gave out, trembling from the exertion, and he half-crawled, half-dragged them both, coughing and gasping, spots swimming in front of his vision.
Andy was waiting just outside the front door, and between them they managed to hoist Sam up, pull him out of the house and onto the soaking wet grass next to Lesley and her children. Once he was sure Sam was breathing and out of immediate danger (and, seriously, how many times was he supposed to drag Sam out of a burning building in one lifetime?), Dean allowed himself to stretch out on the ground a few feet away, beyond caring that he was drenched through with rain, both arms wrapped around his ribcage as he coughed, feeling as though all of his insides had been replaced with smoke and ash. He rolled onto his side, the rain beating cold against his face, tried to will himself to his feet, but his legs refused to cooperate, scrabbling uselessly on the wet grass.
The next thing he knew, he was staring into the eyes of a strange man in a grey suit. As he watched, the man's eyes flickered yellow, and he leaned over, grinning wolfishly, to whisper in Dean's ear.
“You're too late. You always are.”
Somehow Dean managed to twist around, to pull the Colt from the waistband of his jeans, even cocked it without having his hands shake, but as he levelled the barrel at the spot where the demon had been standing, he found it was already gone.
Part 22
Part 21
Dean had to hand it to the kid, even while he was protesting he was helping, and pretty efficiently at that. Not that he would admit it except under torture, but he knew there was no way he could manage this on his own right now. Hell, he could barely stand. Every time he so much as moved his head the whole room swayed drunkenly on its axis, and he shook with hot and cold flashes, trying to pull himself together enough to move, to get going, while in his head Sammy-Sammy-Sammy played on loop in time with his heartbeat.
Andy pulled him to his feet, steadied him on his arm. “Okay, if you insist on going through with this really really stupid plan, then you're at least going to let me help you so you don't end up getting you both killed. Come on, lean on me.”
Without fuss he helped him out of the pajama bottoms, handed him clean clothes, propped him up once when it looked as though he might fall over. “Did I mention this is a really stupid plan?”
“Yeah, you did.” Dean leaned on his knees, coughing. “Got doh choice. Sab's id trouble.”
Andy handed him a glass of water. “Drink. You can't help Sam if you can't stand up or walk straight. Sam took your car, so I'm guessing most of your gear is with him?”
“Yeah.” He drained the glass, felt slightly better. “That's dot a probleb. The odly thig we deed is this,” he pulled open his duffel bag, took out the case which held the Colt, the one bullet they had left still chambered. He held it tightly, willing his hands to stop shaking. At least the hot flashes were subsiding. Andy left him sitting on the bed, refilled the glass in the bathroom, came back with it.
“Come on, at least two more.”
“We're wastig tibe.”
“No, we're not. We'd be wasting time if you passed out halfway down the stairs, and you're wasting time by arguing with me. Come on. You know I'm right. I've been right all day, I'm totally on a roll,” Andy squatted on his haunches next to him and grinned ruefully. Dean rolled his eyes, drank the water. Andy gave him a handful of Tylenol with the last glass. “All right. Grab my arm, let's try that again.” He hauled Dean to his feet, and this time the floor stayed mercifully still. “You good?”
“Yeah. Let's go.” He pulled away at the last minute, buried his nose in his elbow. “Huh... huh-ISHOO! Oh, cobe od! How is that eved fair?” he asked, eyes directed at the ceiling.
“My van's in the street. How you doing?”
“Peachy.”
By the time they got down the stairs the dizziness had faded, and gently he shook off Andy's supporting arm, hurried out into the pouring rain. It was pitch black outside, what little light that had been filtering through the clouds during the day long gone. The moon was well concealed behind the clouds, and the rain was falling so thickly that it was nearly impossible to see more than a few steps ahead of them. He climbed into the passenger seat, clipped his seatbelt in place, and dissolved into a sneezing fit as Andy twisted the key in the ignition.
“Hih... HHEISH! ISHOO! Huh... HEPTSCHUH! HAISHOO! HEKSHUH!”
“Bless,” Andy pulled out in a screech of rubber, windshield wipers flopping wildly in a futile attempt at improving his visibility. “If anything jumps out at us, we're dead, you realize this?”
“HHKPHH! Yeah, jusdt drive, would you?” Dean was not appreciating the cruel fates who thought it would be amusing to inflict sneezing fits on him in the middle of a crisis. At the very least, he felt that the adrenaline rush should have taken care of the sneezing, if nothing else. This was just insulting.
“Workin' on it. Uh... you got a plan for when we get there?”
“Working od it.” The congestion was clearing a little bit, at least. Maybe that explained the sneezing. “HPKTSCH!”
Dean wasn't exactly the planning type. The man with a plan, that was usually Sammy. Sam of the freakish intelligence, whose brain went off in sixteen directions at once and was able to make sense of things before anyone else even realized there was something that needed making sense of. Dean was more the shoot first, salt and burn the corpse, maybe ask questions later type. In their line of work, that was generally the safest way to go. The van sped through the streets at a speed that impressed even him: for a laid-back guy, Andy certainly knew how to handle his wheels. The moment the van had come to a stop and before Andy had had time to throw it into park, Dean had cleared the front seat and was sprinting -well, trying to sprint- across the lawn toward where Sam had parked the Impala in the driveway. He pulled the spare keys from his pocket, opened up the trunk, grabbed a shotgun and a canteen full of holy water, just to be on the safe side.
He heard Andy coming up behind him, but didn't stop to wait for him, stumbled up the front stairs to the house, grabbing hold of the railing to help pull himself up. The front door was ajar, salt scattered in all directions, and as he went in he heard shrieks coming from the second floor. Andy's footsteps sounded on the outside steps just behind him, and he could hear him breathing in hard, almost-panicked gasps.
“Stay here!” He started up the main staircase. “Sam!” he cursed mentally as his voice cracked, didn't carry further than a foot or two. “Sam!”
There was another shriek, and suddenly the upstairs hallway was filled with a terrible, flickering glow, which in Dean's experience could only mean one thing: fire. He took the stairs two at a time just as smoke and flames began billowing through the open door of the baby's nursery. He threw his arm up in front of his face as the heat threatened to blister his skin, the familiar scent of sulphur filling his nostrils.
“Sam!”
He pulled the lapel of his jacket up, ducked low as the flames roiled over his head, barrelled into the room, scanning wildly for signs of Sam, of Lesley, the demon, anything. The smoke cleared for a moment and he spotted Sam sprawled on the floor, blood pooling beneath the windowsill from a gash at the back of his skull. There was no sign of the demon, but Lesley was cowering against the wall, both hands over her head. He reached out with one hand, pressed two fingers to Sam's throat, checked for a pulse, felt his own heart rate decrease when he found one.
“Dylan, where is he?” he barked. “Lesley!” She didn't answer, pointed wordlessly toward the crib.
“Dean?” Steven was in the doorway, his face pale, shaking with naked fear, but his eyes were clear, small fists clenched at his side.
Dean leaped back to his feet, threw himself toward the crib, snatched up the now-wailing Dylan and thrust him into Steven's arms. “Take your brother outside as fast as you can and don't look back. Now, Steven, go!” He heard his father's words come tumbling out of his mouth, again, as though it was the most natural thing in the world. Wide-eyed, Steven clutched the baby to his chest, turned and ran, almost colliding with Andy, who gathered them both up and took off at a sprint back down the stairs.
“Sam, come on!” he grabbed his brother by the shoulders, shook him until he coughed and moaned, his eyes fluttering open. “Come on, wake up! I can't get both of you out by myself. Sam!” he bent over, coughing as the smoke coiled around them, tried to prop him up against the wall.
A moment later Sam reached out, thumped him reassuringly on the arm. “'M good.” He struggled to his feet. “The demon, it was here...”
“Yeah, I know. We'll deal with that later. C'mon, we gotta get Lesley out first. Can you walk?”
Sam nodded, and with one last pat on the shoulder Dean left him to get out under his own power, ducked through the flames to snatch at Lesley, who had curled into a ball in the corner of the room, surrounded by flames on all sides. He yanked off his jacket, threw it over her head, hauled her to her feet.
“I need you to move, Lesley! Now!”
She whimpered, fought against him, her eyes wide and panicky, and he pinned her arms to her side, began dragging her toward the door. Halfway into the hallway she finally seemed to understand that he was taking her to safety, started making an effort to help, though she was disoriented and still slightly panicked, her legs not holding her up properly. By the time he got her to the door they were both coughing and choking on the thick smoke, and he shoved her unceremoniously out onto the wet grass, fell to his knees, coughing so hard he thought he might puke.
“Dean, you okay?”
He nodded, flapped a hand vaguely in Andy's direction, while Lesley threw herself, sobbing, at her waiting children, all but crushing them to her and covering them with kisses.
“Where's Sam?” he kept coughing, spitting soot-filled phlegm onto the grass. Nasty.
“I don't know. Last I saw, he was right behind you.”
“Shit!” Dean scrambled to his feet, his heart in his throat. “He's still in there!”
“Dean, wait!”
He ignored Andy's cry of protest, took off back into the house. Smoke and flames were spewing from the upstairs windows, the glass shattered in all of them. The heat had intensified, and he felt the hair on his arms singe as he forced his way through the wall of hot air. It coiled in his nose and lungs, burning with a dry heat that made his mouth taste of ash. Sam had passed out in the hallway, was collapsed halfway across the threshold of the nursery, and without bothering to try and get him up Dean just grabbed him under the arms and dragged him backward down the stairs. At the bottom his own legs gave out, trembling from the exertion, and he half-crawled, half-dragged them both, coughing and gasping, spots swimming in front of his vision.
Andy was waiting just outside the front door, and between them they managed to hoist Sam up, pull him out of the house and onto the soaking wet grass next to Lesley and her children. Once he was sure Sam was breathing and out of immediate danger (and, seriously, how many times was he supposed to drag Sam out of a burning building in one lifetime?), Dean allowed himself to stretch out on the ground a few feet away, beyond caring that he was drenched through with rain, both arms wrapped around his ribcage as he coughed, feeling as though all of his insides had been replaced with smoke and ash. He rolled onto his side, the rain beating cold against his face, tried to will himself to his feet, but his legs refused to cooperate, scrabbling uselessly on the wet grass.
The next thing he knew, he was staring into the eyes of a strange man in a grey suit. As he watched, the man's eyes flickered yellow, and he leaned over, grinning wolfishly, to whisper in Dean's ear.
“You're too late. You always are.”
Somehow Dean managed to twist around, to pull the Colt from the waistband of his jeans, even cocked it without having his hands shake, but as he levelled the barrel at the spot where the demon had been standing, he found it was already gone.
Part 22