Red In Tooth and Claw - Part Three

[glasslogic]

 

Chapter Seven

“People don't do things for you or against you, they do things for themselves
- it's fortune, good or bad, to be in the way”
                                                             ~anonymous

Around noon the following day, Dean pulled into the cracked driveway of a split-level ranch-style house. It was only a few miles from the wooded mansion he had helped ransack for the mirror a few days before, but at least these streets had actual road names. Dean scanned the area by habit. The nearest neighbors’ house could barely be seen in the distance, and cattle and goats grazed in fields on both sides of the road. About a hundred feet from the driveway was a barn, and worn tracks in the grass showed where vehicles had been driven to it from the road. A child’s rusting swing set could be seen in the yard. The house itself could probably have used a new coat of paint and some repairs, but it generally appeared to be a pretty nice family home.

Dean had no idea why Phil wanted to meet him there. Most hunters in his experience who were lucky enough to have a family went out of their way to keep them separate from the job. But Phil himself had grown up under the feet of hunters, so maybe it was just the way they did things in these parts.

He rang the doorbell and waited. After a minute or two, he heard the scrape of the lock and then the door swung open. Phil Wallace was standing there. To Dean’s eye, he looked much as he had when they had parted, stressed and a little wild-eyed, but he didn’t know the man very well and it was possible he was usually like that.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, Dean -- good to see you again.”

“I’ve been gone barely a day, Phil. I’m not sure it’s been long enough to count as ‘again’ yet.”

Phil gave Dean a somewhat strained smile and stepped back, allowing Dean space to enter. Dean did, cautiously. Something was off, but he had no idea what.

“So... what’s the big problem you’re having that you can’t handle these spooks yourself?”

The door slammed shut behind Dean. As he spun, he saw the blur of an object swinging towards his head and then nothing.

~~~~~

When Dean woke up, he was handcuffed to a chair, a state that was becoming depressingly familiar to him. His head ached so bad he wouldn’t be surprised to find part of it missing. He forced his eyelids to open anyway. The room spun, and for a moment, Dean thought he would pass out again, but eventually it steadied. When it did, he found himself looking at a guy probably a few years older than himself with the flattest eyes Dean had ever seen. They were gray and filled with nothing but a calculation that made Dean want to instinctively snarl. The impulse reminded him of Sam and he felt a deep pang of regret for ignoring the wolf’s concerns. The tire iron the man held loosely in one fist didn’t help matters. Sam was going to kick his ass when they saw each other again, and he would be right to do it.

If they saw each other again.

“What do you want?” Dean growled, ignoring the sharp renewal of the ache in his head.

“We want the Mirror of Leanne.” A woman walked into view from a recessed staircase. She looked like she had stepped out of an office complex, from the twist of her hair to the perfect press of her pencil skirt.

“Well, I don’t have it. Is there anything else, or can I go now?”

The force of her blow caused Dean’s head to snap to one side. When the spots were gone from his vision and the ringing in his ears had faded enough that he could hear, he rolled his jaw to be sure it wasn’t broken.

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” she commented, noting the action. “We need you able to talk clearly. When we start breaking things, we’ll start with your ankles.”

“Thanks,” Dean glared.

She smiled. “No problem. Now -- the mirror.”

“Why don’t you go ask Phil?”

“We did that, obviously. Now, since you don’t seem like you intend to be reasonable about this, how about I ask you one last time nicely, and then we’ll get to the not-so-nice part? Where is the mirror?”

“Fuck you.”

The woman looked casually at the man, who smiled and lashed out with the tire iron. Dean had braced for pain in his legs, and was taken by surprise when his arm exploded in agony. He thought he heard himself scream, and there were definite tears in his lashes when he gathered himself enough to glare at his attackers again.

“She said my ankle, you bastard!” Not that he especially wanted his ankle broken; he would need to be able to run once he figured a way out of this mess.

The man shrugged. “We might need you to walk at some point.”

They left him then. Dean could hear their footsteps fading up a staircase while he focused very, very hard on not jarring his newly broken arm.

~~~~~

At least his attackers had kindly left the light on. It only took a minute or two to establish there was no way to make a serious escape attempt, not while staying conscious at the same time, so he studied his surroundings instead. The basement was cinderblock with a poured concrete floor. A brightly patterned rug covered most of the hard surface and an easel leaned against the wall. Floor-to-ceiling metal support poles for the upper levels stood in a neat line through the center of the room. A television was on a low table in one corner near a ragged couch and posters of various teen bands covered the walls.

It looked like a kid’s play area. The possibilities of what might be going on gave Dean a distinct sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach.

Another battered chair stood about ten feet away on the bare concrete, a pair of handcuffs lying on the seat with blood dripped and smeared on the ground beneath.

He was furious with Phil.

Being in trouble and needing help was one thing, but not finding a freaking way to tip off the people you called was another. It was harder when dealing with near strangers, but he could have fucking tried.

Some indeterminate amount of time passed before he heard the door at the top of the stairs open then shut again, and the creak of the steps. His back was to the staircase, and all he could do was wait and see if it was the maniac with the tire iron, or some new problem.

After a few moments, no one appeared, but he could hear the distinct sound of muffled crying. Dean sighed. Things just got better and better.

“Phil?” He waited but there was no response. “Phil, if that’s you, I could really use an answer.”

“It’s... me.”

“About freaking time. Help me get free. What the fuck is going on around here?!”

Phil walked heavily around until he was in front of Dean, and then slid down to sit against the wall. He looked like he had aged twenty years. “I don’t know. I... they just showed up a few hours after you guys left. They want the mirror. They had someone watching the house, saw us take it. I guess someone tried to tail you guys but lost you just over the state line. But they were watching the estate and they recognized me. Found out where I lived.”

Dean shifted subconsciously, then bit back a scream as pain tore through his arm. When he recovered, he glared at Phil. “You should have warned me.”

“I couldn’t. They made me call you. They were right there the entire time!”

“I would have died before I led another hunter into a trap like this! Sam would have died! What the hell is wrong with you?!”

Phil just looked miserably around the room without answering.

Dean was gathering himself to let him really have it when he put two and two together. Fuck. “How old are they?”

“What?”

“The kids,” Dean asked impatiently. “Your freaking kids they’re holding hostage.”

“Just one kid. My daughter, Abby. She’s thirteen.”

“They have your wife too?”

“No... she died awhile back. Cancer. It’s just me and Abby here.”

“They hurt her?”

Phil nodded, gaze fixed on the smears of blood under the empty chair. Dean swore internally but his voice was calmer when he spoke again.

“Why didn’t you just tell them then? You know where the mirror is. It was no big secret where we were taking it.”

“All I knew was it’s at Bobby’s. I’ve got no idea where he lives. I didn’t even know his last name. He’s just a hunter contact my dad knew before he passed. No one around here wants the mirror. I had the number from my dad’s papers. I’m not really a hunter; my dad was, and I help out where I can, but...” Phil swallowed. “When no one around here wanted to take the damn thing, I just called to see if there was any chance he could do something with it.” He sounded totally defeated. “They tried tracking your location through the phone number but only found out the county, or something. They weren’t exactly in a big hurry to share information with me.”

“Do you know who they are?”

Phil shook his head. Dean could see color returning to his cheeks. “I’m pretty sure they’re human. God knows why they want the mirror; it’s not like it’s useful for anything. One of the men called the woman Eva. I don’t know if she’s the one in charge, but she’s calling a lot of the shots. The other one making decisions is David. No last names, not that I’ve overheard, anyways.”

“I’ll keep that in mind if I need to send birthday cards. The mirror is useful as a death trap. Give it as a gift, pick it back up after the funeral,” Dean said grimly, fighting the urge to twist against the cuffs again.

“But you guys said it doesn’t kill everyone. I mean, your friend touched it and he seemed okay.” Phil seemed to suddenly notice Sam’s absence. “Uh... is he okay?” he asked tentatively.

“Sam’s fine. Though no one else involved in all of this will be once he finds out what’s happened here.”

Dean started to say something else, but snapped his jaw shut when the door opened behind him again. He could hear the sounds of several people walking down the stairs. Phil stiffened, but didn’t try to move or find a weapon.

“Dad!”

Four men and Eva walked into view. One of them had a young teenager gripped tightly. The girl’s face was tear-streaked and a thick, bloodstained bandage was on her left arm.

“I’m sure Phil here has had time to appraise you of the situation.” The speaker wasn’t Eva this time, but one of the new men. Dean thought he was probably his father’s age. The age he had been when he died anyways. Probably the other authority Phil had mentioned: David.

“Yeah, it’s an exciting party you guys are throwing here. Cutting up teenage girls, beating the crap out of people tied to chairs. Good times.”

“Our only interest is the mirror.”

“Good luck with that. We grabbed the wrong one; easy mistake to make. You should go take a look yourself. Check under all the beds, search in all the closets. Let me know what you find.”

David smiled. “Oh, we did. Abby here was kind enough to touch every single mirror in the place. Sadly, none of them were quite as promising. Rather ordinary, really.”

“Son of a bitch!”

Another backhand came out of nowhere and Dean’s skull rattled, his vision graying out again. He was absolutely certain he had the mother of all concussions. And if he didn’t, he sure as hell would if they kept smacking him around. Of course, he would probably be dead by then. The odd thing about this round of disorientation was the sudden, bone-deep sense of Sam that flashed through his mind. He thought for an instant that he could almost see Sam, standing naked and waist-deep in a clear river. He met startled hazel eyes and then he was back in a cement basement surrounded by people who probably weren’t concerned about his long-term best interest.

“Keep that up,” Dean slurred, “and I won’t be able to remember my name, much less where I stashed that fucking mirror.”

“Oh, I think I can jog your memory just fine.”

Abby screamed as her captor dragged her forward. Phil lurched up like he was going to do something, but he was unceremoniously shoved back to the floor with a gun trained on him.

“Leave her alone!” the shout came in stereo from both Dean and her father.

“You want the girl safe?” David demanded. “Then answer the question. Where is the mirror?”

“It’s at Bobby’s house,” Dean gritted.

“Clever. Where is that, exactly?”

Dean clenched his teeth and glared. If looks could kill, David and his associates would be ash. Instead, he looked bored and made a quick motion. Abby screamed again and blood stained the front of her green t-shirt as one of the men opened up a long cut just below her collarbone. Two of the others were wrestling a cursing, struggling Phil back to the ground.

“There’s still a lot of skin to peel off of this kid,” David pointed out calmly. “And if one isn’t enough for you, I’m sure we can go out and find a few more kids to loosen your tongue.”

“Go ahead,” Dean said as dispassionately as he could manage. “She isn’t mine.”

“You flinched more than she did,” Eva observed coolly. “You haven’t got the stomach to sit there and watch us carve up a child.”

“But you’ve got the stomach to do it?!”

She looked unimpressed by Dean’s outrage. “It wouldn’t be the first. Or even the tenth. Give us the location.”

Dean searched her face, and then the faces of the men standing with her. He saw nothing in any of them to indicate she was exaggerating even a little. Desperately apologizing to Bobby in the privacy of his own mind, Dean gave a half nod. “They go free.”

Eva and David exchanged a look before David spoke again.

“Excuse us for not being so trusting of your better nature, but I think they can come with us. We will all take a nice road trip out to pick up our property. When we have the mirror, you can all go free.” His smile was as deeply insincere as Dean’s own.

But at least this bought him a little time.

Chapter Eight

“People in their handling of affairs often fail when they are about to succeed.
If one remains as careful at the end as he was at the beginning, there will be no failure.”
                                                                                   ~Lao Tzu

Within thirty minutes, Dean, the Wallaces, and seven or eight of David and Eva’s crew were out on the road heading for South Dakota. Dean was in the back of the Impala. He had seen them escort Phil and Abby to the dark van that was now traveling behind them. The only concession to Dean’s broken arm was that now he was handcuffed in the front. Even the slightest tilt of his head had him fighting nausea, and the movement of anything else jarred the broken bone in his arm. Struggle was completely out of the question. His ankles were roped together anyway, so even if he somehow managed to escape, he wasn’t going to actually get away.

Dean drifted in and out of consciousness. He wanted to pass out and stay that way, but if he didn’t answer to his name, the goon sitting with him would shove his shoulder, and the screaming was starting to make his throat sore. They wouldn’t let him sleep because of the concussion. Dean wished they would let him drift at least a little deeper.

He kept having dreams of Sam. They weren’t good dreams. In them, Sam was frantic and scared. He was moving quickly and with purpose, but too much of what was happening was misty and faint. And then Dean would be jarred awake and the cycle would start again. At one point, Dean imagined Sam was interrogating him, demanding to know where he was, where he was going. Bobby’s, Dean tried to answer, but he didn’t know if the dream Sam understood. Dean hated to see him upset, but it was better than being awake in the car with the grinding pain of a broken arm and the murderously cold presence of his kidnappers.

Drivers were traded off occasionally, and at one point someone held a bottle of water for him to drink from. He needed assistance to hobble out of the car and take a piss, a humiliation he endured by clenching his teeth and imagining all of the things he was going to do to those people as soon he was able to act. He wasn’t injured in his daydreams, and a shotgun and his boot knife featured prominently.

“Wake up. We’re here.”

Dean opened his eyes and looked out the window. The Impala was parked in front of Bobby’s house on the patchy grass Bobby generously called a yard. On the porch, Dean could see a blanket tossed over what looked like a corpse and one of the front windows busted out. The door stood open and two unsmiling thugs stood there glaring at him.

“Trouble with the locks?” Dean asked politely.

Rough hands dragged him from the car, making his head swim with agony, and he bit his lips bloody trying to not cry out this time. When he refocused, he was on his knees on the weathered wood of Bobby’s front porch. A rough hand grabbed his chin and forced his head up. “That body there? Before we’re done here, you’re going to pay for that death.”

Dean jerked his head away. “You didn’t tell me you were going to send men ahead to break into the place. Why the fuck am I being blamed for shit you never asked me about?”

David gave him an angry look, and then strode into the house without another word. Phil and Abby were standing a few feet away. Abby had the glazed look of someone who wasn’t really seeing reality anymore, and Phil had fresh blood drying at the corner of his mouth. His hands were cuffed behind him and he wore the same sort of rope hobble on his ankles that Dean had.

One of the men moved like he was going to haul Dean up, but Dean beat him to it. He hastily scrambled to his feet before the douchebag could try picking him up using his bad arm.

Eva was standing in front of him. “The mirror, now.”

She didn’t have to clarify her threat again; behind her, one of the other men had taken hold of Abby. The girl seemed barely aware of her peril, or anything else going on, but Phil’s face was agonized and pleading.

“Yeah, fine,” Dean muttered. “It’s downstairs.”

Stairs were another fun adventure for Dean. The length in the rope binding his ankles together was just enough that he could take the steps one at a time, but the concussion had his balance off, and every movement sent lightning bolts of agony lancing through his arm. He ended up shuffling down at a miserably slow pace, biting off curses as he went. He was only four steps from the bottom when one of the men stumbled into him and Dean fell hard the last few feet. He didn’t land on the broken arm, but he didn’t see how the pain could have been any worse and the world whited out.

Sam was there again, in his mind. A fierce Hold on resonated in his skull and then Sam was gone and Dean was blinking again in the basement light.

The residual pain from his arm distracted him from the new pain in his ankle, until the goon tried to get him back up. He fell immediately, the wounded ankle refusing to hold his weight. Dean wasn’t even a little interested in inspecting the damage. He wasn’t likely to survive the next half hour anyway. He was sorry about Abby though, and Phil; he wasn’t really a hunter in the first place and he shouldn’t have been dragged into any of this from the get-go. Dean glanced over to where the man was holding as stoic of an expression as he could, but his gaze kept drifting to where his daughter stood like a rag doll in the grip of one of their attackers, eyes glazed and expression blank.

A short nod from Eva indicated Dean could stay where he was collapsed on the floor, to his vast relief.

“Where is it?” David demanded. “And let’s not play games. The girl can die fast, or she can take a few days. It’s your choice.”

“Not even pretending anymore?” Dean asked tiredly.

David shrugged. “You aren’t a stupid man.”

“There’s a china cabinet in that room over there. The mirror is behind it, wrapped in a quilt.”

Eva was looking around with an expression that suggested she was calculating a dollar value for what she was seeing.

“This is... remarkable,” she breathed.

“You people are bigger monsters than anything I’ve ever hunted,” Dean said flatly.

“One man’s monster is another man’s god,” David shrugged.

“Most of us don’t worship our pocketbooks.”

Eva snorted and walked over to him as the men returned from the room carrying the large quilt-wrapped mirror. “What planet have you been living on?”

David nodded at one of the men’s hesitant look, indicating they should remove the quilt. In just a matter of minutes, the Mirror of Leanne stood in all its reflective glory against the wall.

Eva walked over to the mirror to examine it. She slowly waved a hand in front of the surface and watched in awe as the reflection remained the same. The mirror showed the basement and all of its clutter, but the battered captives and their attackers were invisible. “This is an incredible enchantment.”

David turned to one of the men. “Go get the plastic sheeting from the car. Tell the rest of the men to hide the other vehicles somewhere out of sight in the scrap. We’re gone in ten minutes.”

The man nodded and left, taking the stairs two at a time.

Dean cocked his head as the sound of shuffling came from upstairs. Dean could tell that David had heard it too because the man’s brows drew together and he took a step forward, as if he was going to go investigate.

“David!” Eva called. “We should test it. Just to make sure, for the buyer’s sake.” She was smiling, but it was a dark pleasure in her eyes.

David nodded shortly and grabbed Abby from the man holding her. He dragged her unresisting form towards the glass.

“No!” Phil yelled. The second henchman in the basement pulled his gun and stepped toward Phil as the first guard advanced forward as well. Dean finally saw an opening. Without giving himself time to consider the consequences, he dropped onto his back and rolled toward the mirror, screaming as his body weight pressed against the broken bone. He fought the pain back long enough to kick out at David with both feet. The unexpected attack caused him to stagger into Eva and they both fell forward, throwing their arms out instinctively to break their fall as they slammed smack into the glass.

For a moment, the only sound in the basement was Dean’s harsh panting. In the distance, Dean thought he heard a short scream, but his attention was consumed by the tableau playing out before him. Both of the guards, whom Dean had started thinking of as Thug One and Thug Two, were frozen as well, staring at their bosses and looking highly uncertain. David had scrambled to his feet, but Eva was crouched in front of the glass. Both of them had their gazes locked onto the mirror.

From Dean’s angle on the floor, he couldn’t see Eva and David’s reflections. He wasn’t sorry about that, though; especially a few seconds later, when Eva began to scream.

Things moved quickly after that. David never made a sound at all, just ripped the gun out of Thug Two’s hand, pressed it neatly beneath his own chin and pulled the trigger. Blood and brain matter spattered all over Abby and she began to breathe in great ragged breaths. Dean was glad she was more aware of what was going on, but wished she had better timing. Eva shook her head and scrambled backwards until she hit the wall. Once her back hit the rough stone, she began slamming her head back again and again, mumbling under her breath. Dean wasn’t inclined to stop her, even if he was in any shape to do so.

Meanwhile, the thugs had managed to tear their gazes away from whatever the mirror had shown, and it must have been truly awful because Dean couldn’t imagine what could put those kinds of expressions on the faces of men who had no problem torturing children to death. They had realized that things were quickly going south for them in the basement and both ran for the stairs.

Dean relaxed against the cool stone of the floor. He knew they would return soon and he didn’t know how much fight he had left in him. There was still a buyer out there willing to pay who-knew-how much for the Mirror of Leanne. As soon as the remaining men gathered their nerve, they would still want the prize to sell and they weren’t going to want to leave any witnesses. But Dean didn’t know what in the hell he could do about it, concussed, crippled, unarmed and bound.

On the landing above them, it sounded like a violent scuffle had broken out, catching all of Dean’s attention. Screams and snarling filled the air and a crimson spray of blood arced down to spatter on the floor seconds before a body followed it, landing limply with a meaty thump. It was one of the men who had been guarding them. The right side of his throat was a gaping ruin that spilled a torrent of fresh blood out across the floor. He looked like he was trying to choke out words, but he had only moments to live, if that.

Seconds later, the other man scrambled down the stairs, looking desperate. He lunged for David’s corpse and tried to wrench the gun from his cooling fingers, but before he could manage, a taller shape leaped easily down the last few steps and crossed the room to him. The newcomer grabbed the man by his throat as if his clawing struggle was inconsequential. No one in the basement missed the distinctive crunch of his throat being crushed before he was tossed heavily aside to kick and fight for air until he finally lay still in a puddle of his employer’s blood. Off alone by the wall, Eva’s struggle had also ceased, the ruin of the back of her head hidden by her heavy, dark hair and the dimness of the corner.

“Sam. Sam, how...”

Sam stalked over to him and dropped a bloody jangle of keys onto the floor. “Stole it.”

He was staring down at Dean with a glazed expression in his eyes.

Phil had jerked from his frozen stance at the sound of Dean’s voice, staring at Sam with wide, horrified eyes. Dean supposed in a distant sort of way that Phil’s reaction wasn’t so odd. Blood was smeared on Sam’s clothes and drying in dark streaks on his hands and forearms. His lower face was a wet mask of gore and Dean had no doubts about what had happened to the first guard’s throat.

Even while he struggled to sit up, Sam absently ran his tongue over his lips, clearing some of the blood away. The glazed expression in his eyes faded somewhat as his eyes focused on Dean. Sam gave him an assessing look, then carefully eased him into a more comfortable position against the wall.

When that was done, Dean had barely drawn in a breath to start asking questions before Sam’s mouth descended hard on his own, cutting him off. Sam didn’t seem to be so much kissing him as trying to fuse the two of them together at the lips. Dean couldn’t do anything but kiss back, even the heavy metallic flavor of the dead man’s blood barely registering against the overwhelming presence of Sam. Dean’s pain became secondary to their reunion but it was short-lived. Phil’s voice sliced in, jarring Dean out of the moment and causing a deep, rumbling growl from Sam.

“What the fuck kind of monster are you?!”

Before Dean could start yelling about ingratitude, and Sam could maybe start something worse, the wolf tensed and Dean could hear the familiar vibrating rumble of Bobby’s truck pulling up to the house.

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