Season Three

Episode Eighteen: Caught in the Riddle

By irismay42

Part Three

St. John’s Hospital
Springfield, IL
Present day

If Dean paced around the room one more time, Sam was pretty sure he was going to deck him then tie him to a chair.

It was a wonder there weren’t little grooves worn into the tile floor where Dean had been pacing round and round, backwards and forwards, like some caged animal desperate to find a way out.

Any way out.

“Dean, will you sit down?” Sam grit out through clenched teeth. “You’re making me dizzy.”

And you’re makin’ me seasick,” Bobby added, grunting from the corner nearest the door. “Boy, wearing out your shoe leather ain’t gonna get you your daddy better.”

Dean halted abruptly right in front of him. “Then what will, Bobby?” he demanded. “’Cause sitting here doin’ abso-friggin’-lutely squat ain’t exactly gettin’ us anywhere either!”

“Dean –”

“What, Sam?” Dean rounded on his brother, barely restrained fury in his dark and stormy eyes. “What? We just wait here till he dies?”

“No,” Sam said calmly. “We wait here till he wakes up –”

“If he wakes up, Sam! You heard what the doctors said – they have no freakin’ clue what’s wrong with him!”

“And neither do we!”

“And you don’t have a problem with that?” Dean took a step back, shaking his head angrily. “We need to find out what did this to him, Sam!”

“And how do we do that, Dean?”

Dean squared up to his brother, shoulders set and chin raised. “By figuring out what Dad was hunting, that’s how!” His eyes cut immediately to Bobby, his tone lowering slightly. “If it’s like last time,” he said, a note of pleading in his voice, “If it’s like it was in Georgia. If it’s the thing he’s hunting that did this to him, then –”

“Son.” Bobby sighed heavily. “This ain’t like last time.”

Dean blinked at him. “How do you know that?” he asked, voice cracking slightly. “Bobby…” He broke off, his tone imploring, and Sam heard the words Dean couldn’t add: Please help me….

Bobby tugged off his ball cap and scraped a hand through his hair. “All I knows is your daddy was lookin’ into some local coven. Seems they got a rogue witch on their hands. Went a little haywire when her boyfriend ditched her for someone less – uh – wiccan. Started hangin’ out at the local Lovers’ Lane hexing any guy showed up with a girl in his car.”

“So it’s a hex?” Dean seized on Bobby’s words. “Dad got hexed? Then we need to look for a hex bag –”

“Dean,” Sam interrupted, rising to his feet and putting a hand on his brother’s arm to still his increasingly agitated movements. “Think for a second. Can you really see Dad – our dad – showing up at Make Out Point with some random girl in tow? Our dad?”

Dean rolled his eyes in what Sam was pretty sure he thought was a perfect imitation of his younger sibling. “No, dummy, I don’t mean maybe they hexed him for necking! I mean maybe they hexed him because he was onto them. Or onto their rogue sister anyway. Witches look out for the rest of the coven, right? What if they thought they were protecting her by hexing him?”

Sam inclined his head slightly. He had to admit, Dean had a point there. “Makes more sense than Mia being behind this,” he admitted at length. “Okay, so we need to find the coven.”

Dean sighed heavily. “Finally!” he burst out, making for the door without any further discussion.

“Wait! Dean – we can’t just walk straight into this without a little preparation first! We need to plan our attack – strategize a little! At least sit and think about it for longer than five seconds!”

Dean turned abruptly, the impatience evident in his scowl. “The hell we can’t!” he snapped. “These witchy bitches did this to Dad and we’re gonna put a stop to it. Right now.”

With that, Dean turned and stormed from the room, Sam calling after him before glancing back at Bobby who merely shrugged his shoulders.

“Better get after him, son,” the older hunter said. “You want him facin’ down a whole coven o’ witches the mood he’s in?”

“Not really,” Sam agreed. “I could do without him getting himself turned into a hamster right now…”

Vasilyeva house
Griffin, GA
January 1992

He wasn’t being a girl.

He wasn’t.

No matter what Dean said.

Just because he’d pulled his chair a little closer to his brother’s so that his shoulder was in constant contact with Dean’s bicep, that didn’t make him a girl. And just because he jumped almost a foot in the air every time he heard a sound from the direction of the kitchen, that didn’t make him a girl either. Neither did the fact that he’d not strayed further than five inches from his big brother’s side since last night. Not once. He’d even followed Dean to the bathroom and waited right outside the door with his fingers gripping the handle. Just in case. Just in case he caught another glimpse of….

He shuddered, trying not to think too much about it as a loud crash emanated from the kitchen. Every kid at the table started, even Dean; Sam noting his brother’s eyes skittering to the open doorway as a string of what sounded like Russian curse words turned the air a distinct shade of blue.

When the noise abated, the kids crowded around the table all turned their attention back to their place settings, each and every one of them doing their level best to avoid looking at Shannon’s empty chair.

Fliss seemed to sway a little, like a young tree suddenly bereft of support, her eyes red and puffy, and her hands beginning to shake when Mrs. Vasilyeva emerged from the kitchen with a huge pot of oatmeal.

“Eat up, children!” the woman sang brightly, all traces of the bad humor that had apparently afflicted her in the kitchen having lifted the second she entered the dining room. “Eat, eat!”

She smiled sunnily in Sam’s direction, causing him to flinch involuntarily as Dean’s whole body went rigid at his side.

But her teeth were perfectly normal, no trace of anything metallic there, not even braces, and Sam began to wonder whether he’d imagined the whole thing.

But Dean had seen it too, hadn’t he? Or else why would he have spent the rest of last night sitting on the floor with his back jammed against their bedroom door and his bowie knife clutched in his shaking hands? And Sam was pretty certain he’d been there all night too, because when he woke after the couple of hours’ sleep he’d finally managed to grab, Dean had still been in exactly the same position, knuckles white around the handle of the knife, as if he was keeping sentry.

Right now he was watching Mrs. Vasilyeva’s every movement like a hawk, one hand jammed in his jeans pocket where Sam was pretty sure he’d secreted his pocket knife before they’d left their room to come down to breakfast.

The woman gave Dean an extra big smile, one hand squeezing his shoulder as she ladled oatmeal into the bowl in front of him. “Eat,” she instructed him. “You’re too thin,” she added, before spinning on her heel and heading back to the kitchen.

Dean’s eyes followed her before tracking back to his oatmeal unenthusiastically.

Dean hated oatmeal.

No way he’ll eat that, Sam thought, before checking Mrs. Vasilyeva was out of earshot. “Dean?” he whispered urgently, ducking his head so only his brother could hear him. “What are we gonna do?”

“Sam –”

“She had metal teeth, Dean!”

“Well she doesn’t anymore,” Dean observed, eyes still fixed on his oatmeal. He sounded tired and there were dark circles under his eyes. “Eat something, Sammy,” he muttered, glancing sideways at his brother. “Need to keep your strength up.”

Sam turned his attention to his own breakfast, stirring the stuff lethargically before bringing a hesitant spoonful to his mouth and swallowing uncertainly. As oatmeal went, it wasn’t half bad.

Dean took a breath, voice lowered still further. “But you’re right,” he admitted carefully. “We have to get outta here. We can’t just wait for her to pick us off like Shannon – and probably that Donny kid.”

Sam considered that. “You think –” he began tentatively. “You think she’s the one put Dad in a coma?”

Dean returned his little brother’s worried gaze levelly. “I don’t know, Sammy,” he admitted. “But I know someone who will know. No way we’re coming back here once we’re out. I say we ditch school and go to Bobby’s. South Dakota’s not that far from here. We go there, we wait for him to get back from Alaska. He’ll know what to do to fix Dad.”

Sam nodded his agreement. “You think you can get us into his house?”

Dean shrugged. “The dogs love us. They won’t have a problem. And he keeps a spare house key in that rusted up old Buick out back – for emergencies.”

“I’d say this is an emergency.”

“Yeah,” Dean agreed. “Pretty much.”

Sam glanced around the table at the other kids, pretty sure Mikey at least had heard what they were talking about. “What about everyone else?” he asked at length.

Dean swallowed, and from the pinched expression on his face, Sam was pretty sure that was a question his brother had been wrestling with himself for a while. He lowered his eyes and made a pretence of stirring his breakfast. “We’ll send back help,” he said eventually. “When we can. We can’t take ’em all.”

Sam chewed on his lower lip, but nodded. He and Dean had hitched to Bobby’s once before, a couple of years earlier – when Dad had been missing for over a week – and it hadn’t been easy, even with only the two of them.

Movement in the corner of his eye made Sam look up suddenly, Mrs. Vasilyeva unaccountably standing right behind them.

He sucked in a breath as her hand again went to Dean’s shoulder, squeezing so hard this time he let out a sudden hiss of surprised pain.

Had she heard them?

Sam searched her face for any clue that she had, but her expression remained artfully neutral. She smiled again, teeth white and even, merely repeating the word, “Eat,” before adding, “You need to get some meat on your bones, boy.”

Dean scowled at her, and Sam didn’t even want to think about why a woman with iron teeth would be trying to fatten up his brother.

When Dean hesitated, reluctant spoon halfway between his bowl and his mouth, Mrs. Vasilyeva’s thin lips widened into a grin, but the smile didn’t seem to reach her eyes. “Come now,” she chided him. “It’s not so bad. Eat.”

Dean’s gaze slid up to hers, the first inklings of defiance beginning to sparkle in his eyes.

“Eat,” the woman commanded icily, all traces of patient indulgence gone. “Or you’re not leaving this house.” Her eyes hardened along with her voice before she added, “And neither is your brother.”

Dean paled visibly, but he managed somehow to keep his gameface on and his hand steady, scowling at Mrs. Vasilyeva as he brought the spoon up to his mouth. He grimaced as he swallowed, Mrs. Vasilyeva positively beaming at him before finally letting go of his shoulder and patting him on the head.

Dean’s scowl deepened and Sam had to admire his brother’s self control for resisting the obvious urge to shove her hand away.

“I want to see that bowl empty before you go to school,” the woman tossed over her shoulder as she headed back to the kitchen.

“And I want to win the Lottery,” Dean muttered under his breath. “Guess we’re both gonna be disappointed.”

He made a face as he took another spoonful of the oatmeal, causing Sam to roll his eyes.

“Don’t be such a baby,” the younger brother said. “It’s not that bad.”

“Ugh,” Dean commented. “It’s bitter as hell.”

Sam frowned, swallowing another mouthful. “Tastes okay to me.”

“That’s because you’re a freak who likes broccoli,” Dean returned, managing to down another mouthful.

He was almost done by the time the other kids had mostly finished eating, and Mrs. Vasilyeva breezed back into the room, handing out brown paper bags full of sandwiches to each of them in turn.

“Very good, Dean,” she cooed over Dean’s shoulder as she glanced down at his nearly-empty bowl. “Make you big and strong, huh?”

Dean’s glower never faltered. “Quit talking to me like I’m four, lady,” he muttered, although only loud enough for Sam to hear.

Mrs. Vasilyeva pinched at his upper arm suddenly, and he yanked it away from her, hand going straight for the knife in his pocket.

She tutted at him and shook her head. “All skin and bone,” she said. “Anyone would think your father never fed you.”

Dean looked as if he was about to launch into a suitable retort, but before he could get started his eyes seemed to slide out of focus and he began to sway a little in his seat.

“Dean?” Sam queried, alarm seeping into his gut. “You okay?”

“Come, come, children!” Mrs. Vasilyeva clapped her hands together, turning her attention away from Dean as if nothing was happening. “Let’s go. You’ll miss the school bus!”

The children began to rise from the table, chairs scraping back noisily, dirty dishes clattering as the table was cleared.

But Dean didn’t move, all color draining completely from his face as a cold sheen of sweat gathered on his forehead.

“Dean?” Sam repeated a little more urgently, his hand on his brother’s shoulder as tremors began to wrack the older boy’s body. “Dean, what’s wrong?”

“Don’t – feel – so – good,” Dean managed to rasp out, before his eyes rolled back in his head and he passed out altogether, despite Sam’s best efforts toppling off his chair and landing in a heap on the dining room floor.

“Dean!” Sam was instantly on his knees at his brother’s side, desperately trying to remember everything Dad had ever taught them about first aid – pulse, breathing, airway – all seemed okay, but Dean wasn’t waking up, his eyes screwed shut as he lay insensible on the floor.

Sam looked up, panicked, unsure what to do, finding himself looking up at Flora, whose face was pale and pinched, tears welling in her big blue eyes.

“Now now, let’s see, let’s see.” Mrs. Vasilyeva strode briskly through the little knot of nervous children who had all frozen in place, eyes locked on Dean’s unconscious form. She crouched down next to Sam and placed her hand on Dean’s forehead calmly, as if this was an everyday occurrence in her household. She “tsked” to herself a couple of times before smiling encouragingly at Sam. “His temperature’s a little high,” she told him. “But I don’t think it’s anything to worry about. He’s probably just coming down with something.” She patted Sam’s arm gently. “I told him he was too thin. No resistance to coughs and colds.”

Sam blinked wide, frightened eyes at her, desperate for some reassurance, if only from her. “He’s gonna be okay though, right?”

“Of course!” Mrs. Vasilyeva assured him confidently. “Don’t worry, little one. I’ll take good care of him – keep him home with me for the day. He’ll be fine here while you get yourself to school.”

If it was possible, Sam’s eyes widened still further. “What? No!” he protested. “I’m not leaving him!” I’m not leaving him with you…. “Please, can I stay home too?” Sam wasn’t above begging. “Please? That way I – I can take care of him and you won’t have to bother –”

“Oh, it’s no bother!” Mrs. Vasilyeva assured him, abruptly scooping Dean up off the floor as if he weighed next to nothing, one arm under his knees, the other supporting his back so that his head lolled against her shoulder. “We can’t have you missing school, now can we?” she added. “Wouldn’t want you getting yourself into trouble.”

Sam tried to think of a suitable protest as he followed her into the living room, where she deposited Dean on a big square couch with patches sewn all over the threadbare covering. She made a show of making him comfortable, stroking his hair before turning back to Sam, her expression completely unruffled.

“Look alive, little one!” she instructed him. “Don’t want to miss your bus.”

Sam just stood there looking at her, trembling a little bit, some from anger but mostly from fear. He didn’t want to leave Dean, but he wasn’t sure what else he could do, especially as Mrs. Vasilyeva seemed insistent he go to school. “Please,” he managed to beg eventually, tears threatening to well up and blind him. “Please let me stay with him. I’ll be good – you won’t even know I’m here –”

“Sam.”

There was iron in her voice, even if Sam could no longer see any in her mouth.

He nodded reluctantly, a thousand uncomfortable thoughts clamoring for attention in his freaked out brain, not least of which was the admonishment, “Dean would never leave you.”

He leaned down and laid a hand against Dean’s burning cheek. “Don’t go anywhere without me,” he whispered in his brother’s ear. “I’ll be back before you know it. I promise.”

He backed away from his brother, eyes locked on Mrs. Vasilyeva until he found his way back into the dining room, snagging his book bag and taking a deep shuddering breath before unwillingly following the other kids out into the cold January morning.

April nudged up against his arm as they navigated the overgrown garden, her eyes almost as wide as Sam’s and her voice laced with fear. “He’s gonna be okay, isn’t he?” she asked tremulously, biting her lower lip as a single tear tracked down her cheek.

Sam took a breath. “Sure he is,” he said, sounding a lot more certain than he felt; sounding a lot more like Dean than he felt. He remembered all the times he’d asked his brother the same question – when Dad came back injured from a hunt – even before Sam had known that’s how he’d been injured – and he remembered Dean’s constant reassurances that everything was going to be okay, even when Dad’s clothes were soaked through with blood and he could hardly stand. He inclined his head down toward April and gave her his best approximation of Dean’s encouraging smirk. “No stupid cold’s gonna keep Dean Winchester out of the fight for long.”

Cooper was suddenly at his other shoulder. “Did she do something to him?” he asked, voicing the question Sam had been pondering himself since Dean collapsed.

“He said his oatmeal tasted funny…” Sam trailed off. Maybe she had heard them. Maybe she’d heard Dean say they weren’t coming back… Maybe she’d put something in his oatmeal….

“It’s not her usual style, man,” Mikey observed, and Sam looked up at him sharply.

“What d’you mean?” he asked urgently. “Mikey? What is her usual style?”

Flora bumped past them before the older boy could answer, and when he looked over at her he realized she was wiping tears from her cheek.

“Flora…?”

But she was already running for the school bus, and didn’t look back.

Springfield, IL
Present day

“Hunters,” the young woman said it as if it were a curse word.

“Witches,” Dean returned, squaring up to her and doing his damnedest to stare her down – despite her being about a foot shorter than he was.

“So now we’ve got the introductions out of the way,” Sam interjected, nodding his head beyond the young woman’s shoulder and into the small trailer upon whose threshold they were standing. “Mind if we come in?”

The girl considered them cautiously, wary of Sam’s size and Dean’s scowl and not seeming entirely sure what to make of Bobby. She ran her fingers through her short spiky hair before finally throwing open the door with a huff. “Your funeral.”

The smell of vanilla and cinnamon and – was that pot? – drifted toward them as they entered the room, cloying and sickly, and Dean was pretty sure he was going to have a killer headache by the time he got out of the place.

There were four of them in all, the short one joining her sisters to sit in a tiny circle in the center of the trailer. Each of them was in her mid-twenties, and they all looked perfectly normal – not a wart or a black fingernail in sight; a couple of them were even vaguely hot, Dean observed – for freakin’ witches.

“So what the hell did you do to our dad?” he demanded without preamble, hands on his hips as the witch who had initially allowed them into the trailer screwed her face into a hostile frown.

“Give us a clue, buddy,” she growled. “Who’s your freakin’ dad? We’re not freakin’ mind readers!”

Dean blinked at her, slightly taken aback by the sound of something suspiciously similar to his own voice coming out of a woman’s mouth. “Just freakin’ witches,” he managed, matching the girl’s growl.

“John Winchester,” Sam interceded before there could be bloodshed. Or before the witch bitch turned Dean into a toad or something.

I’d be a friggin’ smokin’ hot toad, Dean found himself thinking, if only to keep from punching the tiny woman’s lights out.

“Who the hell is John Winchester?” she demanded, just as one of the other witches – one of the hot ones, Dean noted approvingly – suddenly began to nod her head in recognition.

“That other hunter,” she said, sharing a dark look with her sisters. “Tall, dark and scary as crap, right?”

“Looked like a bug crawled up his butt and died there,” the first witch nodded, remembering.

“That’s the fella,” Bobby agreed, garnering a “Dude!” look from Dean. Bobby shrugged. “Pretty accurate description if ya ask me.”

“Well no one asked you,” Dean pointed out shortly, turning back to the coven. “And you guys still haven’t told me what the hell you did to him.”

“Look, pretty boy –” the smaller witch got to her feet menacingly – well as menacingly as a five foot nothing girl in a Whitesnake t-shirt could possibly be – but the third witch silenced her with a hand on her arm.

“Deanna –” she warned, causing Sam to snort loudly and very unsubtly.

Dean’s jaw tightened. “Shut up, Samantha,” he snapped, not even looking at his brother.

“But Angie –” Deanna began to protest, but Angie had risen to her feet too and was making a shushing gesture with her hand.

“This is all about Lisa, right?” She addressed her question to the hunters before drawing her hand over her forehead in exasperation. “Bad enough she draws attention to us from the cops – them we can deal with – but then she has to bring hunters down on us too. It’s just not the kind of advertizing we need, okay?”

“We’ve got her back under control now,” the second witch assured them. “No more running off to hex horny young men, we promise.”

“Jeannie’s telling you the truth,” the fourth woman added. “We know how to keep each other in line. It would help if you reminded the rest of your hunter friends of that.” She pushed a lock of bright red hair out of her eyes. “So we don’t get any more of your kind nosing around.”

“And we should help you why?” Dean demanded.

Deanna lunged forward again. “So’s I don’t turn that pretty face of yours into one big ol’ bucket of puss, that’s why!”

“Dee!” The fourth woman rose to her feet.

“Izzy?” Deanna returned, grimacing, before turning back to Dean who was suddenly in her face, looming over her like he wanted to do her imminent and extensive damage.

“Bring it on, sister!” he taunted the diminutive witch, and this time Sam had to physically interpose himself between the two of them.

“Dean! Enough!”

Dean narrowed his eyes, but backed off, his female counterpart doing the same reluctantly.

“Look, believe us or don’t believe us,” Jeannie said. “Whatever’s wrong with your dad, it’s nothing to do with us. By the time he got here, we’d – uh – already shown Lisa the error of her ways.”

She inclined her head toward a silver cage in the corner of the trailer, where a green and yellow parrot suddenly cawed, “Sorry. Sorry. Error of my ways.”

Dean froze, Sam raising his eyebrows as Bobby began to chuckle softly.

“You ladies are gonna turn her back though, right?”

“Turn me back, turn me back,” Lisa the parrot agreed.

Izzy humphed. “Eventually,” she said. “When she’s learned her lesson.”

“Learned my lesson,” Lisa cawed.

“This is how we stay under the radar,” Angie said. “By keeping a low profile. By not drawing attention to ourselves. Bad enough Lisa brought hunters down on us in the first place, so why the hell would we want to antagonize you guys any further by hurting one of your own?”

Dean had to admit, albeit grudgingly, that that kind of made a sense.

Sam sighed heavily. “So if it wasn’t you guys, what the hell put our dad into a coma?”

“He’s in a coma?” Jeannie queried.

Sam nodded. “And now we have even less of an idea what put him there.”

Jeannie shrugged. “Hell, if he’s only in a coma, why don’t you ask him?”

Dean blinked at her. “What part of ‘coma’ don’t you understand, lady?”

“No, wait a second,” Bobby hushed him, nodding. “Now why the hell didn’t I think o’ that?”

“Bobby?” Sam frowned at him, which was a relief, because Dean was seriously beginning to wonder whether his I.Q. had dropped a couple of points during this conversation.

“We’d offer to help,” Izzy added, jerking her thumb toward the parrot. “But Lisa’s kinda our go-to girl for this sort of thing.”

“Go-to, go-to,” Lisa agreed.

“What sort of thing?” Dean demanded, losing what little patience he had left.

“Don’t worry,” Bobby winked at the witches, ignoring Dean completely. “I know someone else who can help us…”

Vasilyeva house
Griffin, GA
January 1992

Sam couldn’t ever remember moving as fast as he did when the school bus finally pulled to a stop and he jumped out, running for Mrs. Vasilyeva’s house as if the Devil himself was on his tail.

“Dean?” he yelled the second he was through the front door, pausing only briefly before darting into the living room, where he’d last seen his brother laid out on the couch. “Dean!”

The couch was empty, no sign that Dean had ever been there, and Sam spun on his heel, sneakers squeaking on the wooden floor as he raced for the stairs.

“Sam?” he heard Mrs. Vasilyeva’s voice from the kitchen, but ignored her, taking the stairs two at a time and skidding out onto the landing before making a headlong dash for his and Dean’s room.

“Dean!”

He shoved open the door, pretty much insensible to the fact that his big brother might be sleeping, just desperate to hear Dean’s voice, to know he was okay.

“Dean?”

The bed was empty, and panic began to gnaw at Sam’s insides as he swept his gaze wildly about the room. Dean’s duffle was gone. And his jacket. And the few school books and clothes he’d unpacked. All of it was gone, Sam’s duffle sitting by itself on the floor, only his clothes hanging in the closet.

“Dean?” His voice was smaller, his guts constricting. Dean had to be here. He had to be here….

Turning, he ran back down the hall to the stairs, again taking them two at a time and coming to a halt in the kitchen, where Mrs. Vasilyeva turned from her position over a big pot bubbling on the stove. She had a handful of weird-looking herbs which she threw into the pot before wiping her hands on her apron and approaching Sam.

“Where’s Dean?” Sam demanded. “What did you do with him?”

Mrs. Vasilyeva bent down toward him, reaching out a hand to brush his cheek, but he stepped backwards, out of her range, almost crashing into Flora who was hovering behind him.

Mrs. Vasilyeva seemed genuinely distressed, wringing her hands together and biting her lip. “Sam, I’m so sorry,” she began. “I tried to stop him –”

Sam remembered passing out once when he got bit by a stray dog on the way home from school and Dad had to take him to the hospital for a tetanus shot. He felt that same strange buzzing in his ears now, his vision tunneling until all he could see was Mrs. Vasilyeva, and his legs threatened to buckle right out from under him. “Tried to stop him what?” he asked in a small voice, dreading the woman’s answer.

“I was in the garden hanging out the laundry,” Mrs. Vasilyeva told him sorrowfully. “Your brother – I took my eye off him for ten minutes, maybe. Ten minutes! And – and – when I came back inside he was gone – took everything he owned with him and just – just ran away.” She put a gentle, steadying hand on Sam’s shoulder as he began to sway slightly, much as Fliss had at breakfast. “He must have been faking getting sick this morning,” she added. “It was just a distraction so I wouldn’t send him to school. So he could run away. So he could run away from us.”

She seemed to be including Sam in that pronoun, and his fear and panic quickly began to burn away into scandalized anger. “What do you mean, ‘us?’” he burst out. “He’d never run away from me! And – and if he was going to run away, he’d take me with him! He wouldn’t leave me! He wouldn’t!” Sam’s eyes began to brim over, hot tears running down his cheeks as he tried to figure out what had happened – where Dean had gone. Where Dean had gone without him.

Mrs. Vasilyeva ran a hand over his hair comfortingly. “Oh Sam,” she said softly. “You can’t expect a boy Dean’s age to take care of you forever. He’s not your dad, after all. He’s just a kid. Kids are selfish. They do what’s best for them and very rarely consider anybody else. Your brother’s obviously been planning this since you two got here.”

“No,” Sam shook his head vehemently. “Dean wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t leave without me. He fought to stay here with me when they tried to split us up! Why would he do that if he just wanted to leave?”

“Oh sweetie.” Mrs. Vasilyeva wrapped her arms around him and pulled him into a hug, and although at first he resisted, eventually he just collapsed bonelessly into her embrace.

How could Dean do this? How could he leave him? Did he do something wrong? Did he do something to upset his brother? He felt his tears drip onto Mrs. Vasilyeva’s shoulder and watched them soak into her dress and for some reason he couldn’t bring himself to pull away from her.

Dean had left him.

Dean had left him.

How could he do that? How could he be so selfish? Mrs. Vasilyeva was right – kids were selfish, and Dean had just proved it. He’d seen a way to get out of here and he’d taken it. Probably hadn’t even considered Sam.

Well screw him. If that’s the way he wanted it, screw him. Sam wasn’t going to cry anymore. Dean shouldn’t have left, and Dad would kick his ass from here to Jupiter when he found out. Then he’d be in trouble. When Dad woke up. If Dad woke up. If Dad could even find him.

What if Dad never woke up and Dean never came back? What would Sam do then? He’d never been alone before. Even when Dad had been gone for weeks at a time, Dean was always around. Dean was always there. What was Sam supposed to do without him?

Flora wiped at her eyes with the sleeve of her sweater.

Why was she crying? Just because Dean had taken off? Just because Dean had taken off and left them behind?

Sam shook his head, finally pulling away from Mrs. Vasilyeva and considering her suspiciously. Last night, she’d had iron teeth. Sam was sure of it. And so was Dean. No way Dean would leave his little brother here on his own with her. In danger.

No. Freakin’. Way.

Sam was so stupid! How could he have even considered that? That Dean would leave him here. Hell, that Dean would leave him anywhere. It just wasn’t in his big brother’s programming. “Look out for Sammy,” that was the one thing Dad always insisted upon, and Sam could never ever remember Dean not taking that responsibility seriously, sometimes ridiculously so.

No. Dean wouldn’t have left without him. Not even to go get help. If he was so eager to ditch him then he wouldn’t have held on so hard when the CPS guy had tried to split them up.

No. Something else was going on here. Something else had happened. Something had happened to Dean. He could be in danger. He could be… wherever the other kids were who’d gone missing from Mrs. Vasilyeva’s house. He could be….

No. Don’t think it don’t think it don’tthinkitdon’tthinkit…

Sam had to find his brother.

Before it was too late.

* * * *

“Sammy?”

Dean’s head hurt like a bitch.

Something cold and hard was pressing against his cheek and it was uncomfortable and almost painful but somehow he just couldn’t bring himself to move.

His head was too heavy.

“Sammy?” He said the name a little louder, not entirely sure where he was or when he was or how he got here or what the hell had happened to him.

But worse than all that, he had no idea where his brother was.

He blinked, and his eyelids felt too heavy for his eyes, and even when he was pretty sure he had his eyes open he couldn’t see a damned thing.

The something cold and hard pressing against his cheek was cold and hard against his hand too, and he pushed against it, somehow managing to lift his head so it was no longer pressed against the cold hard something. Floor, a distant part of his brain told him. You’re lying on the floor, numbnuts.

“Sammy?” He said the name again, this time not really expecting an answer but praying to anybody listening that he might hear his little brother’s voice calling out for him.

Silence.

And cold hard floor.

It was stone, he realized, managing to lift his heavy, heavy head a little higher, blinking in the dingy half-light and putting his hand out in front of his face to push against the blur of grayness which seemed to be blocking his vision.

Another cold hard something.

But this time it was metal.

And it was vertical.

And it was bar-shaped.

Bars?

There were metal bars two feet from his face.

He remembered going with Pastor Jim to collect his dad from the county jail once. All a big misunderstanding. Unregistered handgun under the driver’s seat when he got pulled over for speeding. No concealed carry permit.

Dean was pretty sure he was too young to have been tossed into the county lock-up.

He blinked a couple more times, the gray blurs streaking vertically across his field of vision slowly coming into focus, and it didn’t take him too long to realize he was surrounded by the things. Gray blurs that were metal bars. All around him.

Cage.

Sonofabitch. He was in a freakin’ cage.

A four feet square freakin’ cage.

From somewhere, he found the strength to lift his eyes and look up.

Same story. Bars maybe a foot above his head. Not even high enough to allow him to stand.

Crap.

Dad was gonna kill him.

Dad. Sam. Coma.

Iron teeth….

Oh. Crap.

“Sammy?”

His panic level spiked as his eyes began to adjust to the dingy light around him. There was cold brick underneath him, brick walls surrounding him, lime covering the parts he could manage to focus on.

And other cages.

He was in a basement.

In a cage.

And he wasn’t alone.

Suddenly, he was completely alert, body taut and rigid as he fingers grasped at the metal bars all around him. He could see at least seven or eight other cages in the gloomy basement, and was suddenly aware of soft breathing noises around him that weren’t his own.

And someone crying.

It wasn’t him crying.

He was pretty sure it wasn’t him crying.

It was Shannon who was crying.

She was sitting in the cage opposite him, her knees pulled up to her chin, back pressed against the cold brick wall behind her, a weak shaft of light illuminating her pale face from a skylight set into the wall above Dean’s head. She was rocking, head on her knees, sobbing softly. He thought he caught the name “Fliss” but nothing else.

“Shannon?” he whispered, glancing further into the room, at the dark shapes inhabiting the other cages.

He recognized that kid Donny from the cage next to Shannon’s; he looked okay, but his eyes were closed and he was leaning his head back against the wall behind him.

There was another little girl, maybe Sam’s age, in the cage next to Dean. She was curled up on the floor asleep, face buried in her arms. Beyond her, he could just make out a couple of other kids, both either sleeping or unconscious, and a third who wasn’t moving and was so pale Dean wasn’t even sure he was alive. None of the kids looked particularly healthy, and Dean figured they’d probably been here a while judging by the state of them.

He began to mentally count the kids off on his fingers, trying to factor in the two empty rooms and wondering how long this had been going on and how many children were down here. How many children had been down here but weren’t anymore.

Because he had no doubt where he was.

The basement. The one place Mrs. Vasilyeva had forbidden them to go.

He remembered the oatmeal. The funny taste. Passing out on the floor. Sam’s face. He’d looked so scared… But at least he wasn’t here. Sam wasn’t here. Which meant maybe he was still safe somewhere. Still up in the house with… her.

He swallowed.

“Shannon!”

The girl looked up suddenly, as if she’d not heard him call her the first time.

“Dean?” she whispered shakily. “That you?”

Dean nodded. “Live and in person,” he managed to croak, his throat feeling scratchy and sore. “I think the bitch poisoned me.”

“Is Fliss okay?”

Dean nodded. “Last time I saw her. I hope she’s with Sam someplace safe…” He trailed off, not wanting to go there. “What’s going on?” he asked at length. “How’d you end up down here?”

Shannon sniffed loudly, wiping her face on her sleeve. “She –” she stammered. “Her teeth –”

“I know,” Dean tried to comfort her. “It’s okay.”

“No it’s not,” Shannon disagreed vehemently. “She only brings you down here if she’s going to – going to –” She broke off again, hiding her face on her knees, shoulders shaking with renewed sobbing.

“She brought you down here last night?” Dean tried to regain the girl’s attention. “Shannon? Huh?”

She looked back up at him, nodding slightly. “I woke up and she was standing over my bed and her teeth.” She shuddered. “She put something over my face. It smelled funny. And when I woke up, I was here. That’s what she does. She brings them all down here.”

“What for?” Dean asked.

“Supper,” Donny’s voice drifted from the darkness, and Dean froze.

He was saved from querying Donny’s cryptic remark by the sudden sound of keys jangling and a door creaking open, and even the kids he’d thought to be sleeping or unconscious – or dead – scooted to the backs of their cages, cowering in the darkness, their arms thrown over their faces in terror.

“She’s coming,” the little girl in the cage next to Dean whispered.

Dean stiffened, fingers gripping the bars of his cage so tightly they began to turn numb.

Mrs. Vasilyeva entered through the open door, darkness seeming to follow her into the room like a cloak.

Maybe it was the odd lighting, Dean told himself, but her eyes looked different somehow, wrong; tiny, black and beady, too close together and too close to her long, beaked nose. Her skin seemed thin and pale like old paper, and her hair had come loose from its tidy bun and now hung around her shoulders like a dark halo of wire wool.

And her teeth….

They glinted in the light from the skylight.

Glinted metal and cold.

Iron.

Her feet made no sound as she walked into the basement, the door closing behind her seemingly of its own volition, and she peered first into Shannon’s cage and then into Dean’s.

Finally, Dean let go of the bars, scooting backwards as she inserted a key into the lock in the door of his cage, pulling it open and reaching in toward him.

“Fresh meat,” she hissed, her voice at least an octave deeper than the last time Dean had heard it. “Mmm, you’re going to taste just lovely, aren’t you my darling?”

Dean backed as far away from her as he could get, trying desperately to push her off of him as long bony fingers reached for his arms, her nails claw-like as one hand snagged the fabric of his shirt while the fingers of her other hand encircled his wrist and pulled.

With his free hand he managed to grab hold of the bars at the back of the cage, trying to hold on with every last bit of strength he had left in him.

But she was inhumanly strong, and even as Dean felt his fingers begin to lose their grip on the bars, he suddenly realized that “inhuman” was probably the right word.

Whatever Mrs. Vasilyeva was, human she most definitely was not.

“Get away from me you psycho bitch!” he yelled at the top of his voice, as Mrs. Vasilyeva gave a sudden sharp tug and his fingers slipped completely from the bars so that she was dragging him from the cage with both hands.

“You need to learn some manners, boy,” Mrs. Vasilyeva hissed into his ear as she yanked him to his feet in front of her. “Need to learn some respect for your elders.”

At first he thought she was grinning. Then he realized she was baring her teeth at him.

Her iron teeth.

Crap.

“Get your freaky hands off me right now you crazy-assed witch!” he screamed, clawing at her bony arms even as she yanked him closer to her. “Get off!”

Flesh came away in his hands, and he could only stare at it, Mrs. Vasilyeva’s almost skeletal arms reaching around him, pulling him toward her before wedging him back against the cage so he couldn’t move.

Oh crap oh crap oh crap….

He could feel her breath on his cheek as she lowered her face toward him.

This isn’t happening. You’re gonna wake up soon….

He screwed his eyes shut.

Then her teeth sank into his neck.

And everything went white.

It was like nothing he’d ever felt before in his life, all his strength ebbing from him in one mad rush, and he began to tremble, wobbling uncertainly on his feet even as she kept him upright, his back pressed against the cage, her claws digging into his upper arms as her teeth continued to gnaw at his neck.

“Not a vampire,” a tiny voice in the back of his head insisted. “Vampires don’t exist…”

He wasn’t entirely sure if he’d passed out again, but suddenly her eyes were inches from his own, the size of saucers and black as midnight, her teeth glinting coldly as his blood dripped from each sharp point.

“Not a vampire,” his head insisted. “Don’t exist. Something else.”

From somewhere he remembered the Shtriga, bent over Sammy, sucking out his lifeforce.

And then she was lifting him right off his feet and tossing him bonelessly back into his cage, slamming the door shut and grinding the key in the lock with an air of finality that made him tremble.

“Mmm, delicious,” she said, smacking her lips as she gazed at him through the bars of his new prison. “So much sweeter than I would have imagined…”

Dean couldn’t even get a snarky response out past his lips, his whole body feeling like it was in imminent danger of shutting down completely. All he could do was lie there in a heap on the floor, looking up at her as she slowly walked along the row of cages, peering in at each occupant in turn.

When she arrived at the cages furthest away from Dean, she made a tutting noise, as she had when she’d been admonishing Dean for being too thin at breakfast. Was that only this morning? It seemed days ago.

“Not much left in you two,” she commented, poking her long fingers in through the bars of first the cage containing the little boy Dean had previously suspected might have expired, and then the one occupied by the older girl next to him, who had also barely moved since Dean had arrived. “I doubt I’d even squeeze a snack out of either of you. Still, not so hungry for juice now. In the mood for meat. Good thing I turned the oven on…”

She turned away from the two sick kids, ambling over to a long dark counter opposite, where she picked up a couple of huge butchers knives which she proceeded to sharpen noisily against each other.

Her eyes trailed back to the barely-conscious youngsters as her mouth twisted into a grin, once again revealing her cruel metal teeth.

“Roast or casserole?” she muttered to herself. “Maybe a nice pot pie…”

Continue...

Comment/Review the episode here

E-Mail the Author!

The Winchester Chronicles