thecatevari (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
thecatevari) wrote2007-11-09 12:15 am
thecatevari) wrote2007-11-09 12:15 am
Entry tags:
And We Are Ashes: Chapter 5, Part 3
Success! Chapter Five is finished, as I thought/hoped. As usual, it's going to need some revision and padding, but the point is, DONE. And that means I can move onto "Faith" tomorrow. I've also come to the conclusion that, although the outline doesn't call for Mary to share certain information until "Nightmare", there's no way Sam's going to hold his cork for that long and Mary's going to be feeling a lot of guilt for getting Sam into this. So some of that information is going to have to come out in "Faith", though not all of it. I've also had some interesting thoughts about the denouement. I don't know if I can make them work in print, but it's certainly a lot more than I knew before.
19,204 / 50,000 words. 38% done!
Today's Word Count: 2,872
Current Total Word Count: 19,204
Estimated Total Word Count: ~100,000
What's bad: The last scene with Dean and YED. It's not working for me and I'm not sure why. I think it needs to be longer, for one thing, but I'm not sure how to stretch out torture without making it gratuitious. At the same time, I think it's too short right now to give proper impact. I also think I screwed up some with the inclusion of Emily at the end. I'm going to have to go back and revise the scene from yesterday in the storm cellar to move Zacharias around. I'm also not sure about the last part in the orchard. It seemed like this part would be much more urgent in the outline and I'm just not getting the proper sense of urgency and I don't know how to fix that either.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
baileytc and anyone else who's reading, if you have thoughts, I'd REALLY like to hear them! Please.
What's good: On the other hand, I do like how much more active Emily is here. Because she's now an extraneous female (because of Mary), she's no longer a damsel in a dress, she's a rescuer. I really like how her character has changed and strengthened for me. And I think that I actually changed the action around pretty well. I think the scenes need some tweaking, but I don't think I'll have to totally rewrite any of them and there's a definite flow to them. I also like how strong Sam is here. There's not enough kickass!Sam in the world and I like that he has to take the lead and be the knowledgable one.
What pleases me: "Emily, I want you to stay in the car." Sam reaches over the seat to rummage through his bag for the few weapons he brought with him.
"No way!" Emily declares staunchly. "I'm coming with you."
Sam bonks his head on the roof of the car as he settles back on his haunches to look at her. "Emily."
"Sam," she answers levelly.
"First of all, this could be dangerous. I don’t know how dangerous. And I've gotta worry about my mom. Secondly…" He sighs. "Emily, they're people you know."
Emily's face is pale, her eyes haunted. "You don't think I know that? God, it's all I've been able to think about since…since I found out." She hoists the gas can up from between her legs. "But I don't think I could live with myself if I just…sat by and let it happen. I'll be careful. But I'm going with you."
Previous parts can be found here
Sam almost drives off the road when his phone starts vibrating against his ribs. Fortunately, 56 is about as light as it was in the middle of the night and there's no one close enough for Sam to worry about. The stupid car doesn't have power steering—and who doesn't get power steering in this day and age—and so he brings his knee up to help guide the wheel as he pats frantically for his buzzing phone.
A quick glance at the display: Mom. Sam thumbs the connection open. "Mom? Where are you? Are you okay?"
"Sam?" The voice that comes out of the speaker—even given the fact that the person is whispering—is by no stretch of the imagination his mother's, soft and frightened. "Is…is this Sam?"
"Yeah." Eyebrows hooking down, Sam tramps on the accelerator harder and his stolen car whines, groans and grudgingly gives up a little more speed, gaining an alarming shimmy in return. "Who is this? What are you doing with my mom's phone? Is she okay?"
"No. She…" The girl on the other end of the line huffs. "Look, this is going to sound crazy, but they… They're going to kill her. Sacrifice her."
Okay. Okay. "Okay," Sam says, keeping his voice at the level reasonable tone that always made Jess thwap him on the back of the head. "Let's take this a step back. Who is this?"
"My name's Emily. I don't have a lot of time to talk…"
Story of my fucking life, Sam thinks, torn between laughter and puking his guts up.
"…she just wanted me to call you. Warn you."
"Warn me? About what?"
"She doesn’t want you to come after her. The…the thing. With the sacrifice; it requires two people, a male and a female to work. To make the crops grow."
Score one for Dean. "So they can’t sacrifice her unless I show up too? Is that how it works?"
"I don’t know." Emily’s breath has turned ragged, she sounds close to tears. "It sounded like they were going to try anyway. I don’t… I don’t understand all of this…"
"Emily." He sees the turn off for Burkitsville almost too late and jerks the car into a turn so tight he thinks at least one of the wheels leaves the pavement. "I need you to be calm. Please."
"I can’t believe this is happening," Emily whispers, agonized.
Sam wonders how many times he’s heard those words over the years, the crashing wave of dark reality undermining the constructed illusion ninety-nine percent of the world lives in. They strike him with particular keenness, wondering if Jess had said them or thought them, in the moments before she died, before the demon (or Mom’s family??) murdered her.
With Jess’s ghost sitting on his shoulder, Sam takes a deep breath and forces calmness on himself, hoping it’ll communicate through his voice to the frightened girl on the other end. "Emily. I know that this is scary, but if you want to help my mom, I need you to calm down and talk to me."
"Yeah…" Emily inhales herself, the shakiness steadying a little bit. "Yeah, okay. I'm all right."
"Now tell me what happened."
"It's…there's this scarecrow, in the orchard to the north of town. It's really old. And…and my aunt and uncle say that…God, I can't believe I'm saying this, but they say that a god comes down into the scarecrow and takes a sacrifice every year and that's why the town's been prospering so much."
"But they don't have a male for the sacrifice, right?"
"I don't…I don't know. My uncle Harley…I heard him say something to my aunt about a contingency plan, but I don't know what he meant. But they took your mom out there about twenty minutes…"
"Emily?" Sam hears a second voice in the background, querulous and sharp. "What are you doing? Who are you talking to?"
"I'm not talking to anyone!" Emily shouted back, luckily away from the phone. "Leave me alone! You're murderers, all of you!"
The older woman sighs. "Someday you'll understand, Em. It's for the greater good. When you have children, you'll understand."
"I will never understand!" Emily insists. Sam doesn't hear anything from the woman, but a moment later, Emily returns to the phone. "I'm sorry about that," she apologizes, sounding far calmer than she did when she was screaming at whoever it was. "I was Emily in Our Town last year; who knew it would lead to this?" Her laugh is jagged, bordering on hysterical.
"Emily."
"No. No, I'm all right. I just…"
"I get it," Sam says gently. "I'm at the town limits. Tell me how to find this orchard."
"No!" The vehemence in Emily's voice startles Sam and he jerks the wheel, going over the center line before he corrects. A red Honda coming up the street honks at him in annoyance. "Mary said you shouldn't come after her. She said I had to make you understand."
Sam's jaw clenches. "Emily," he says, trying not to take it out on her, "we're talking about my mom. Do you really think I'm going to run away and do nothing?"
"No, of course not." Emily says faintly. "Look, stop by my place and pick me up."
"Emily—"
"It's on your way and I can help," Emily insists. "It'll be faster than trying to explain."
Sam grits his teeth a little more. "Fine. Give me your address."
***
Emily piles into the passenger's seat hard enough to rock the car on its shocks, takes one look at him and breathes, "Whoa. You're cute."
"I'm also running out of time," Sam reminds her, pulling away from the curb.
"Oh. Right. Right. Turn left at the corner." She points.
"What's the gas can for?"
Emily shrugs and then reaches up to drag the trailing ends of her hair out of her eyes. "Scarecrow. Orchard. Seemed like fire might be a good thing."
"Oh." Sam blinks. "Good thinking."
Emily smiles and puts her seatbelt on.
The road to the orchard is mostly dirt and rutted deeply. Sam feels like his teeth are going to rattle out long before he pulls into the trees where Emily indicates.
"Emily, I want you to stay in the car." Sam reaches over the seat to rummage through his bag for the few weapons he brought with him.
"No way!" Emily declares staunchly. "I'm coming with you."
Sam bonks his head on the roof of the car as he settles back on his haunches to look at her. "Emily."
"Sam," she answers levelly.
"First of all, this could be dangerous. I don’t know how dangerous. And I've gotta worry about my mom. Secondly…" He sighs. "Emily, they're people you know."
Emily's face is pale, her eyes haunted. "You don't think I know that? God, it's all I've been able to think about since…since I found out." She hoists the gas can up from between her legs. "But I don't think I could live with myself if I just…sat by and let it happen. I'll be careful. But I'm going with you."
Sam nods. He'd like to argue with her more about it—or more likely, tie her to the passenger side seat—but he doesn't have time. He's wasted enough as it is. "What time does the…the scarecrow attack?"
Emily shakes her head. "I don't know." She climbs out of the car and stands shivering in the low-lying spring fog. "I think… I think it has to be after dark." Her voice turns small. "God, all those other people…" Sam climbs out the other side and watches her worriedly as he tucks a gun in the small of his back. Emily squares her shoulders before he can say anything. "We'd always keep them here until sunset. The other ones."
"Do you know how to shoot a gun?"
Emily looks fascinated and revolted at the same time. "No clue."
Sam nods. "Okay. Then stay behind me as much as you can. And if I tell you to run, then run." He tosses her the car keys and she fields them one-handed, the other keeping its death grip on the can of gas. "Get out of here. Don't worry about me."
Emily nods. "Okay."
Sam rolls his shoulders and hopes it's not too late. The sun hasn't set yet, bloody rays still flirting through the fog and overcast sky. Emily shadows him silently through the trees, touching his hand or shoulder when they need to change direction. Before too long, Sam sees two shapes, too large to be just tree roots, looming out of the fog.
"Mom?"
Both shapes jerk and Sam and Emily run to them. Sam's gaze skims over the guy tied to the tree in favor of his mother. She's doubled over, head hanging as if the rope around her body is the only thing holding her up. There's blood darkening the blonde of her hair, matting it to her forehead.
Sam skids to his knees in the damp-crinkle of last year's leaves. He's got his balisong in his back pocket; it's half reflex to dig it out, flick the release and swing the handles away from the blade. He hears the sharp rattle of a switchblade shooting and looks up at Emily, startled.
She shrugs with a faint smile. "I was a Campfire Girl, too."
Sam saws at the ropes. The guy that Emily's cutting free keeps twisting around, trying to look in all directions. There's blood running down his face too, though it's too dark to see how much of it's in his hair, black in the dying light. "Did you see it? Is it still on the pole?"
"Mom?" Sam tips his mother's head back.
It lolls limply in his hand and he can't really see, but her pupils look unfixed, huge and swollen, swallowing the iris. "S…sssam…" she breathes, and whimpers.
"We've gotta get out of here," the guy stammers, still swiveling and craning to see around the tree. "That thing…the scarecrow, it'll be coming any second now."
"He's right," Emily says worriedly. She cuts through her side of the rope and they slack, three sets of hands picking them away hastily. Mary keels over sideways, falling into Sam's shoulder.
"I know." Once he's got the ropes off her, Sam slips his arm under his mom's knees and behind her back and lifts her. She weighs a lot less than he expects. The last time he'd done this, it'd taken him and Dean to carry her. He looks at the guy. "Can you walk?"
"I can help him," Emily volunteers, stooping to put her shoulder under his.
"Okay, let's go."
***
They're almost out of the orchard entirely when shapes loom up at them out of the mist. Too many of them to be just the scarecrow. Sam's stomach bunches up, but he knows there's no way they can run. Not with two walking wounded and just him and Emily to cover them. His mother's head rolls into his chest and she makes a soft, sickened noise.
"Please," Emily says. "Please, don't do this."
"It'll be over quickly, Emily, I promise," says a tall, bluff gray-haired man Sam guesses is her uncle.
"Please."
"Emily. You have to let him take you. You have to—"
All at once a new shape, ragged and rat-quick breaks through the mist. Sam only has one horrified second to see it's leathery inhuman face before its sickle bursts through Emily's uncle's stomach in a fever-heat-flash of gore.
Emily screams, as does the elderly woman standing next to Emily's uncle: "Harley!"
A second later, the scarecrow latches onto her, too, jerking them both into the night.
Sam would like to believe there's nothing he could do, that it happened too fast, too suddenly, that he was hampered by his mother's weight in his arms. But he knows already that in the dark of the night, he's going to have to confront the truth about this moment.
He didn't even try.
The rest of the villagers scatter with panicked shrieks. Sam catches Emily's eye and rush back to the car as fast as they can with their respective burdens. Sam puts Mary in the back seat and the guy—who says his name is Zach—limps his way to the other side. Emily climbs into the front and puts her hands together between her thighs, shivering.
"Will you wait with me?" she asks, when Sam gets in the driver's side. "Until dawn? There's…there's a tree. They call it the First Tree. I think… I think if we burn it, it'll die. The scarecrow, the town…all of it will die."
Sam glances at the clock in the dashboard and then at his mother in the back seat. Her eyes are half-lidded, the whites glittering through her lashes. Her head jerks in what looks like a nod.
"Yeah," Sam agrees, turning the key over in the ignition. It squalls to life, quiet, sedate. "Okay. But first I want to find our car."
***
"So what's your story?" Sam asks, leaning against the Impala's hood while Emily splashes gasoline over the trunk and roots of the rune marked tree. He'd offered to help, but she'd wanted to do it herself, thin-lipped and determined. Sam kept watch on the trees, a sickle of his own held loosely in his hand.
Zach shook his head. "Don't remember exactly. Last thing I remember, I was in Chicago and there was a thunderstorm coming in…next thing I know, I'm being dragged out of somebody's root cellar and my head's killing me." He touches his fingers to the bruising gash just above his hairline and winces with a rueful smile. "Lucky me."
There's the metallic schnick of a Zippo and then the silken whumph of the gas catching. Emily whoops triumphantly and Sam smiles.
"Yeah. Lucky you." He stretches his back, rolls his shoulders. "Do you know what it is that they did to my mom?"
Zach shakes his head. "Nah, man. Sorry."
Sam shrugs. It was worth a shot. Look, I've got to get my mom looked at; I don't have time to drive all the way back up to Chicago, but I can drop you off at the bus station in Louisville. You can catch the bus from there."
Zach nods. "Yeah. That'd be great. Thanks."
"No problem."
From the car, Mary whimpers, as if she's in pain.
***
Dean bites his teeth on a scream. It feels like the demon's hand is clenched around his heart, squeezing hard, pulping delicate flesh, bursting the veins and arteries. His fingers dig into the wood floor, forcing splinters under the nails and he feels one of his nails snap back to the quick. Any pain he might feel from it is lost in the greater blaze of agony. He's lost track of how long this has been going on.
"I did…I did it for you," he gasps, scraping his face against the wood as he writhes. "I did it for you!"
"You did it to warn him!" the demon roars. Its hand crooks and Dean does scream, tasting blood in his throat. "You did it to save your precious family!"
"I didn't! I didn't!" Dean curls up as tight as his flailing limbs will allow. It doesn't help. "They would've killed him! They would've killed Sam too!"
He pries his eyes open to look at Juliet, sitting immobile in the corner of the room. Her nails tap restlessly on the dark oak of the table next to her, but her expression is unreadable, set, remote. Finally, unwillingly, she says, "He's right."
The pain stops, all at once, and Dean half-screams again, just from the suddenness of it. He doesn't cry, but he feels tears burning behind his lids and he bites down on his tongue to keep from sobbing.
"The trap was for both of them," Juliet points out. "If Dean had not warned Sam, it's possible that both Mary and Sam would've been killed by the Burkitsville vanir."
The demon growls, unsatisfied. Dean wants to crawl away, if only far enough to die in peace. If he lives through this, he knows there'll be no marks tomorrow. No bruises, no cuts…nothing. Only the memory of pain like nothing he's ever felt in his young life. Dean turns his face into his outstretched arm and breathes, too tired and too sickened to even worry if this is it. The end.
"Where is he now?" The demon's voice sounds barely human, thick and rageful. Dean hates the way he flinches, like a dog that's been beaten too much and too long. That's what he's come to now, he guesses. A demon's dog.
"I don't know."
Another lash of the demon's power, this time in his bowels, tearing and fierce.
"I don't know!" Dean repeats, louder. It's the truth. Jesus Christ, it's the truth.
"Azazel." Juliet's voice is quiet, but the demon's name falls between them like a lash.
The demon makes another impatient, animal sound. "You will find him," it tells Dean, kicking him hard in the side. Dean's ribs flex sickeningly, leaving him breathless. "Do you hear me? You will find him."
"Yes," Dean promises. "Yes."
Today's Word Count: 2,872
Current Total Word Count: 19,204
Estimated Total Word Count: ~100,000
What's bad: The last scene with Dean and YED. It's not working for me and I'm not sure why. I think it needs to be longer, for one thing, but I'm not sure how to stretch out torture without making it gratuitious. At the same time, I think it's too short right now to give proper impact. I also think I screwed up some with the inclusion of Emily at the end. I'm going to have to go back and revise the scene from yesterday in the storm cellar to move Zacharias around. I'm also not sure about the last part in the orchard. It seemed like this part would be much more urgent in the outline and I'm just not getting the proper sense of urgency and I don't know how to fix that either.
baileytc and anyone else who's reading, if you have thoughts, I'd REALLY like to hear them! Please.What's good: On the other hand, I do like how much more active Emily is here. Because she's now an extraneous female (because of Mary), she's no longer a damsel in a dress, she's a rescuer. I really like how her character has changed and strengthened for me. And I think that I actually changed the action around pretty well. I think the scenes need some tweaking, but I don't think I'll have to totally rewrite any of them and there's a definite flow to them. I also like how strong Sam is here. There's not enough kickass!Sam in the world and I like that he has to take the lead and be the knowledgable one.
What pleases me: "Emily, I want you to stay in the car." Sam reaches over the seat to rummage through his bag for the few weapons he brought with him.
"No way!" Emily declares staunchly. "I'm coming with you."
Sam bonks his head on the roof of the car as he settles back on his haunches to look at her. "Emily."
"Sam," she answers levelly.
"First of all, this could be dangerous. I don’t know how dangerous. And I've gotta worry about my mom. Secondly…" He sighs. "Emily, they're people you know."
Emily's face is pale, her eyes haunted. "You don't think I know that? God, it's all I've been able to think about since…since I found out." She hoists the gas can up from between her legs. "But I don't think I could live with myself if I just…sat by and let it happen. I'll be careful. But I'm going with you."
Previous parts can be found here
Sam almost drives off the road when his phone starts vibrating against his ribs. Fortunately, 56 is about as light as it was in the middle of the night and there's no one close enough for Sam to worry about. The stupid car doesn't have power steering—and who doesn't get power steering in this day and age—and so he brings his knee up to help guide the wheel as he pats frantically for his buzzing phone.
A quick glance at the display: Mom. Sam thumbs the connection open. "Mom? Where are you? Are you okay?"
"Sam?" The voice that comes out of the speaker—even given the fact that the person is whispering—is by no stretch of the imagination his mother's, soft and frightened. "Is…is this Sam?"
"Yeah." Eyebrows hooking down, Sam tramps on the accelerator harder and his stolen car whines, groans and grudgingly gives up a little more speed, gaining an alarming shimmy in return. "Who is this? What are you doing with my mom's phone? Is she okay?"
"No. She…" The girl on the other end of the line huffs. "Look, this is going to sound crazy, but they… They're going to kill her. Sacrifice her."
Okay. Okay. "Okay," Sam says, keeping his voice at the level reasonable tone that always made Jess thwap him on the back of the head. "Let's take this a step back. Who is this?"
"My name's Emily. I don't have a lot of time to talk…"
Story of my fucking life, Sam thinks, torn between laughter and puking his guts up.
"…she just wanted me to call you. Warn you."
"Warn me? About what?"
"She doesn’t want you to come after her. The…the thing. With the sacrifice; it requires two people, a male and a female to work. To make the crops grow."
Score one for Dean. "So they can’t sacrifice her unless I show up too? Is that how it works?"
"I don’t know." Emily’s breath has turned ragged, she sounds close to tears. "It sounded like they were going to try anyway. I don’t… I don’t understand all of this…"
"Emily." He sees the turn off for Burkitsville almost too late and jerks the car into a turn so tight he thinks at least one of the wheels leaves the pavement. "I need you to be calm. Please."
"I can’t believe this is happening," Emily whispers, agonized.
Sam wonders how many times he’s heard those words over the years, the crashing wave of dark reality undermining the constructed illusion ninety-nine percent of the world lives in. They strike him with particular keenness, wondering if Jess had said them or thought them, in the moments before she died, before the demon (or Mom’s family??) murdered her.
With Jess’s ghost sitting on his shoulder, Sam takes a deep breath and forces calmness on himself, hoping it’ll communicate through his voice to the frightened girl on the other end. "Emily. I know that this is scary, but if you want to help my mom, I need you to calm down and talk to me."
"Yeah…" Emily inhales herself, the shakiness steadying a little bit. "Yeah, okay. I'm all right."
"Now tell me what happened."
"It's…there's this scarecrow, in the orchard to the north of town. It's really old. And…and my aunt and uncle say that…God, I can't believe I'm saying this, but they say that a god comes down into the scarecrow and takes a sacrifice every year and that's why the town's been prospering so much."
"But they don't have a male for the sacrifice, right?"
"I don't…I don't know. My uncle Harley…I heard him say something to my aunt about a contingency plan, but I don't know what he meant. But they took your mom out there about twenty minutes…"
"Emily?" Sam hears a second voice in the background, querulous and sharp. "What are you doing? Who are you talking to?"
"I'm not talking to anyone!" Emily shouted back, luckily away from the phone. "Leave me alone! You're murderers, all of you!"
The older woman sighs. "Someday you'll understand, Em. It's for the greater good. When you have children, you'll understand."
"I will never understand!" Emily insists. Sam doesn't hear anything from the woman, but a moment later, Emily returns to the phone. "I'm sorry about that," she apologizes, sounding far calmer than she did when she was screaming at whoever it was. "I was Emily in Our Town last year; who knew it would lead to this?" Her laugh is jagged, bordering on hysterical.
"Emily."
"No. No, I'm all right. I just…"
"I get it," Sam says gently. "I'm at the town limits. Tell me how to find this orchard."
"No!" The vehemence in Emily's voice startles Sam and he jerks the wheel, going over the center line before he corrects. A red Honda coming up the street honks at him in annoyance. "Mary said you shouldn't come after her. She said I had to make you understand."
Sam's jaw clenches. "Emily," he says, trying not to take it out on her, "we're talking about my mom. Do you really think I'm going to run away and do nothing?"
"No, of course not." Emily says faintly. "Look, stop by my place and pick me up."
"Emily—"
"It's on your way and I can help," Emily insists. "It'll be faster than trying to explain."
Sam grits his teeth a little more. "Fine. Give me your address."
Emily piles into the passenger's seat hard enough to rock the car on its shocks, takes one look at him and breathes, "Whoa. You're cute."
"I'm also running out of time," Sam reminds her, pulling away from the curb.
"Oh. Right. Right. Turn left at the corner." She points.
"What's the gas can for?"
Emily shrugs and then reaches up to drag the trailing ends of her hair out of her eyes. "Scarecrow. Orchard. Seemed like fire might be a good thing."
"Oh." Sam blinks. "Good thinking."
Emily smiles and puts her seatbelt on.
The road to the orchard is mostly dirt and rutted deeply. Sam feels like his teeth are going to rattle out long before he pulls into the trees where Emily indicates.
"Emily, I want you to stay in the car." Sam reaches over the seat to rummage through his bag for the few weapons he brought with him.
"No way!" Emily declares staunchly. "I'm coming with you."
Sam bonks his head on the roof of the car as he settles back on his haunches to look at her. "Emily."
"Sam," she answers levelly.
"First of all, this could be dangerous. I don’t know how dangerous. And I've gotta worry about my mom. Secondly…" He sighs. "Emily, they're people you know."
Emily's face is pale, her eyes haunted. "You don't think I know that? God, it's all I've been able to think about since…since I found out." She hoists the gas can up from between her legs. "But I don't think I could live with myself if I just…sat by and let it happen. I'll be careful. But I'm going with you."
Sam nods. He'd like to argue with her more about it—or more likely, tie her to the passenger side seat—but he doesn't have time. He's wasted enough as it is. "What time does the…the scarecrow attack?"
Emily shakes her head. "I don't know." She climbs out of the car and stands shivering in the low-lying spring fog. "I think… I think it has to be after dark." Her voice turns small. "God, all those other people…" Sam climbs out the other side and watches her worriedly as he tucks a gun in the small of his back. Emily squares her shoulders before he can say anything. "We'd always keep them here until sunset. The other ones."
"Do you know how to shoot a gun?"
Emily looks fascinated and revolted at the same time. "No clue."
Sam nods. "Okay. Then stay behind me as much as you can. And if I tell you to run, then run." He tosses her the car keys and she fields them one-handed, the other keeping its death grip on the can of gas. "Get out of here. Don't worry about me."
Emily nods. "Okay."
Sam rolls his shoulders and hopes it's not too late. The sun hasn't set yet, bloody rays still flirting through the fog and overcast sky. Emily shadows him silently through the trees, touching his hand or shoulder when they need to change direction. Before too long, Sam sees two shapes, too large to be just tree roots, looming out of the fog.
"Mom?"
Both shapes jerk and Sam and Emily run to them. Sam's gaze skims over the guy tied to the tree in favor of his mother. She's doubled over, head hanging as if the rope around her body is the only thing holding her up. There's blood darkening the blonde of her hair, matting it to her forehead.
Sam skids to his knees in the damp-crinkle of last year's leaves. He's got his balisong in his back pocket; it's half reflex to dig it out, flick the release and swing the handles away from the blade. He hears the sharp rattle of a switchblade shooting and looks up at Emily, startled.
She shrugs with a faint smile. "I was a Campfire Girl, too."
Sam saws at the ropes. The guy that Emily's cutting free keeps twisting around, trying to look in all directions. There's blood running down his face too, though it's too dark to see how much of it's in his hair, black in the dying light. "Did you see it? Is it still on the pole?"
"Mom?" Sam tips his mother's head back.
It lolls limply in his hand and he can't really see, but her pupils look unfixed, huge and swollen, swallowing the iris. "S…sssam…" she breathes, and whimpers.
"We've gotta get out of here," the guy stammers, still swiveling and craning to see around the tree. "That thing…the scarecrow, it'll be coming any second now."
"He's right," Emily says worriedly. She cuts through her side of the rope and they slack, three sets of hands picking them away hastily. Mary keels over sideways, falling into Sam's shoulder.
"I know." Once he's got the ropes off her, Sam slips his arm under his mom's knees and behind her back and lifts her. She weighs a lot less than he expects. The last time he'd done this, it'd taken him and Dean to carry her. He looks at the guy. "Can you walk?"
"I can help him," Emily volunteers, stooping to put her shoulder under his.
"Okay, let's go."
They're almost out of the orchard entirely when shapes loom up at them out of the mist. Too many of them to be just the scarecrow. Sam's stomach bunches up, but he knows there's no way they can run. Not with two walking wounded and just him and Emily to cover them. His mother's head rolls into his chest and she makes a soft, sickened noise.
"Please," Emily says. "Please, don't do this."
"It'll be over quickly, Emily, I promise," says a tall, bluff gray-haired man Sam guesses is her uncle.
"Please."
"Emily. You have to let him take you. You have to—"
All at once a new shape, ragged and rat-quick breaks through the mist. Sam only has one horrified second to see it's leathery inhuman face before its sickle bursts through Emily's uncle's stomach in a fever-heat-flash of gore.
Emily screams, as does the elderly woman standing next to Emily's uncle: "Harley!"
A second later, the scarecrow latches onto her, too, jerking them both into the night.
Sam would like to believe there's nothing he could do, that it happened too fast, too suddenly, that he was hampered by his mother's weight in his arms. But he knows already that in the dark of the night, he's going to have to confront the truth about this moment.
He didn't even try.
The rest of the villagers scatter with panicked shrieks. Sam catches Emily's eye and rush back to the car as fast as they can with their respective burdens. Sam puts Mary in the back seat and the guy—who says his name is Zach—limps his way to the other side. Emily climbs into the front and puts her hands together between her thighs, shivering.
"Will you wait with me?" she asks, when Sam gets in the driver's side. "Until dawn? There's…there's a tree. They call it the First Tree. I think… I think if we burn it, it'll die. The scarecrow, the town…all of it will die."
Sam glances at the clock in the dashboard and then at his mother in the back seat. Her eyes are half-lidded, the whites glittering through her lashes. Her head jerks in what looks like a nod.
"Yeah," Sam agrees, turning the key over in the ignition. It squalls to life, quiet, sedate. "Okay. But first I want to find our car."
"So what's your story?" Sam asks, leaning against the Impala's hood while Emily splashes gasoline over the trunk and roots of the rune marked tree. He'd offered to help, but she'd wanted to do it herself, thin-lipped and determined. Sam kept watch on the trees, a sickle of his own held loosely in his hand.
Zach shook his head. "Don't remember exactly. Last thing I remember, I was in Chicago and there was a thunderstorm coming in…next thing I know, I'm being dragged out of somebody's root cellar and my head's killing me." He touches his fingers to the bruising gash just above his hairline and winces with a rueful smile. "Lucky me."
There's the metallic schnick of a Zippo and then the silken whumph of the gas catching. Emily whoops triumphantly and Sam smiles.
"Yeah. Lucky you." He stretches his back, rolls his shoulders. "Do you know what it is that they did to my mom?"
Zach shakes his head. "Nah, man. Sorry."
Sam shrugs. It was worth a shot. Look, I've got to get my mom looked at; I don't have time to drive all the way back up to Chicago, but I can drop you off at the bus station in Louisville. You can catch the bus from there."
Zach nods. "Yeah. That'd be great. Thanks."
"No problem."
From the car, Mary whimpers, as if she's in pain.
Dean bites his teeth on a scream. It feels like the demon's hand is clenched around his heart, squeezing hard, pulping delicate flesh, bursting the veins and arteries. His fingers dig into the wood floor, forcing splinters under the nails and he feels one of his nails snap back to the quick. Any pain he might feel from it is lost in the greater blaze of agony. He's lost track of how long this has been going on.
"I did…I did it for you," he gasps, scraping his face against the wood as he writhes. "I did it for you!"
"You did it to warn him!" the demon roars. Its hand crooks and Dean does scream, tasting blood in his throat. "You did it to save your precious family!"
"I didn't! I didn't!" Dean curls up as tight as his flailing limbs will allow. It doesn't help. "They would've killed him! They would've killed Sam too!"
He pries his eyes open to look at Juliet, sitting immobile in the corner of the room. Her nails tap restlessly on the dark oak of the table next to her, but her expression is unreadable, set, remote. Finally, unwillingly, she says, "He's right."
The pain stops, all at once, and Dean half-screams again, just from the suddenness of it. He doesn't cry, but he feels tears burning behind his lids and he bites down on his tongue to keep from sobbing.
"The trap was for both of them," Juliet points out. "If Dean had not warned Sam, it's possible that both Mary and Sam would've been killed by the Burkitsville vanir."
The demon growls, unsatisfied. Dean wants to crawl away, if only far enough to die in peace. If he lives through this, he knows there'll be no marks tomorrow. No bruises, no cuts…nothing. Only the memory of pain like nothing he's ever felt in his young life. Dean turns his face into his outstretched arm and breathes, too tired and too sickened to even worry if this is it. The end.
"Where is he now?" The demon's voice sounds barely human, thick and rageful. Dean hates the way he flinches, like a dog that's been beaten too much and too long. That's what he's come to now, he guesses. A demon's dog.
"I don't know."
Another lash of the demon's power, this time in his bowels, tearing and fierce.
"I don't know!" Dean repeats, louder. It's the truth. Jesus Christ, it's the truth.
"Azazel." Juliet's voice is quiet, but the demon's name falls between them like a lash.
The demon makes another impatient, animal sound. "You will find him," it tells Dean, kicking him hard in the side. Dean's ribs flex sickeningly, leaving him breathless. "Do you hear me? You will find him."
"Yes," Dean promises. "Yes."