But already he could wriggle his fingers. The paralysis was wearing off. He flexed his toes inside his boots. He could move his tongue now, too, and his lips.
When he was sure Jason was not in the room, he whispered, “Grace?” but she didn’t answer. “Don?” he whispered. No response there, either. He wondered if Don were still alive, if Jason had fed on him while Dean was unconscious. He waited to hear Jimmy at the vent again, now that he could talk, but only silence hovered in the room.
He heard someone walking through the narrow hallway. Jason entered the room and walked straight to him. Dean pretended to be unconscious, but a swift kick in his ribs brought forth an uncontrollable oomph.
Jason knelt down over him.
“What did you do with them?” He prodded Dean’s back with his sharp fingers. Then he punched him in the face, grabbing a fistful of his hair and wrenching his head back. “Where did you put the eggs?”
Dean felt blood streaming down from his nose, but he kept his eyes shut.
“I know you’re awake, you piece of crap hunter. Where did you put them?”
Dean could hear more than anger in his voice. Desperation tinged it. Dean wondered if aswangs only had one shot at producing offspring in a lifetime.
He kept his body limp, hoping to buy time. He couldn’t fight Jason when he was tied up like this.
“Just tell me. You already helped me once, you and your brother and that sad alcoholic excuse for a hunter you call Bobby Singer.” He hit Dean in the back of the head.
Dean was really starting to hate the guy.
“That damn wendigo was finishing all my kills. I like to take my time. Stupid ape was finding my half-finished meals and stealing them.” He leaned closer to Dean, rank breath creeping into Dean’s nostrils. “But you made quick work of him for me.”
Dean felt rage fill him, but he remained silent. He was so going to kill this son of a bitch.
“Okay then,” Jason spat angrily.
He stood up and stomped across the room. At the small pile of people, he seized Grace. He slammed her down next to Dean, then turned her face so she stared straight at him. Her eyes were wide and teary, desperate and terrified.
“If you don’t tell me, I’m going to suck every organ out of her right in front of you.” He sneered in the gloom. “And I’ll make it last.”
Grace’s eyes widened.
He kicked Dean again. “I know you can talk!”
Dean flinched. If he told Jason, he’d kill them both anyway. But he couldn’t watch Grace die in front of him like that. If only he knew how far out Bobby and Sam were.
“I’ll ask you one more time. Where are the eggs?”
Dean remained silent.
Jason flipped Grace over on her stomach. He ripped open the back of her parka, exposing her bare skin. Then the feeding tube came down, finding just the right spot. Dean could see the glistening needle teeth inside the pulsing snout. It paused over her kidneys.
“No!” he shouted, struggling against the ropes.
“Something you want to tell me?” Jason asked.
Dean stared into his coppery eyes in the gloom. “Let her go! Your fight is with me!”
“Not a chance. I know you won’t talk. You’re a hunter. It’s the greater good with you lot. You’re not going to spill your guts unless some innocent person is in danger. Maybe not even then,” he added.
The proboscis returned to sliding down Grace’s back. “What do you think? The appendix? The gall bladder? What can she live without for now?”
The needle teeth pierced the skin of her back, and Dean heard her draw in a sharp breath.
“Stop, stop, stop!” Dean shouted, thrashing around.
Blood spilled from the wound and the feeding tube started thrumming.
A two-by-four came swinging out of the shadows, striking Jason on the back of the head. He sprawled forward, teeth tearing free. Jimmy swung for a second time.
Dean struggled to reach the Bowie knife in his jacket pocket, but couldn’t even get close.
Jimmy struck Jason again and again, driving him back toward the hallway. He shoved him through the door. When the aswang stumbled onto his back in the hallway, Jimmy tugged on the lockers against the wall, heaving them up and over on their side. Metal clanged loudly as they fell into place between the room and the corridor.
Stuck on the other side, Jason banged furiously on the metal. The lockers shuddered under the force of his blows.
“My knife! In my left jacket pocket!” Dean yelled to Jimmy.
The vampire darted back, kneeling in front of Dean. He pulled out the knife and sliced through the rope. Dean felt his arms and feet fall to the ground with exquisite relief. He rolled over onto his back, taking the knife from Jimmy, then cut through the rope at his wrists and ankles.
Panic seized Jimmy. “I don’t know what we’re going to do now! That’s going to hold him for about five seconds.”
Jason still pounded on the lockers.
“Where does that air vent go?” Dean asked him.
“Into another part of the building.”
“Has Jason been in there yet?”
Jimmy shook his head. “No, but you’ll never fit. You’re huge.”
“Get into the vent.”
With vampire speed and reflexes, Jimmy spun and leapt up into the vent. Dean stood up on shaking legs. Grabbing Grace fireman-style, he hefted her over his shoulder. Rushing to the air vent, he lifted her up and Jimmy grabbed her shoulders.
“Drag her through to the other side.”
As cacophonous blows echoed through the little room, Dean hurried to where Don lay. He was still alive, but Dean realized that, with his beer belly, his girth would make the air vent too tight a squeeze. He turned Don over and grabbed Steven instead. The snow ranger was breathing steadily. Dean hefted him over to Jimmy.
“Take him, too!”
Jimmy pulled Steven all the way through, then wriggled back. “Give me someone else!”
With the wrenching of metal, the lockers toppled over. Jason stood in the doorway, wings flexing, eyes glowing angrily.
Dean braced himself to fight.
SIXTY-TWO
Dean was momentarily confused when the banging sound continued after the lockers had settled onto the floor. Then plaster rained down on him and he realized someone was trying to get in from above.
Jason grabbed Dean, throwing him to the side. He crashed painfully into a wall and slumped down next to the empty body. The aswang reached inside the air vent and Dean heard Jimmy cry out in surprise. He jumped up to help, but another backhanded blow from Jason sent Dean crashing backward, landing on a ruined desk.
Jason dragged Jimmy out of the hole, the vampire kicking him and clawing at him. Dean struggled to his feet, still shaky from the paralysis.
The banging sound continued overhead, filling the room.
Jimmy snarled at Jason, all his teeth growing sharp and his eyes gleaming in the dim light. He bit into Jason’s throat, blood spraying out. Jason placed his hands on both sides of Jimmy’s head and, in an instant, ripped his head from his torso. He tossed the head against the far wall.
Another surge of rage swept over Dean. Jason turned to him, eyes full of hate. Dean’s hand closed around the extra gun clip in his jacket, but he couldn’t see his gun. He’d hoped maybe Jimmy had been wrong, that Jason had left it there, but he hadn’t.
A large chunk of debris crashed down from above. Brilliant light spilled into the room. Dean glanced up to see blue sky, with snow falling toward him. He breathed in a gulp of the fresh air. He felt a sharp pain in his side and looked down to find Jason’s feeding tube attached to his stomach. He grabbed it, wrenching it out.
Something shattered at his feet. Jason screamed.
Bobby and Sam stood framed against the blue above him. They threw another vial of the spice concoction on Jason and his skin erupted in boils.
“More! More!” Dean yelled.
Vial after vial exploded onto
Jason’s skin, causing the flesh to peel away in burning, sizzling strips. Screeching, his wings opened wide and he shot through the hole above, shoving Bobby and Sam aside.
Dean watched him wing away across the blue. Then he was out of sight.
“God damn it!” he cursed. “Is he gone?”
Sam’s head turned to look back down at his brother. “Yes.”
Dean blinked against the brightness. “It’s good to see you. Get me the hell out of here!”
Two hours later, rescuers had gotten all the survivors out of the air vent and the collapsed building. The storm had lifted, and now only a few clouds drifted across the azure sky. Though the temperature was still hovering in the thirties, the sun beating down on Dean felt warm and reassuring. He sat in the snow, Susan beside him, cooling her broken leg in the frozen white.
She stared at Grace and Steven, who were lying a few feet away on stretchers. “They don’t have any wounds,” she said. “There was really a paralysis-causing gas leak down there?”
Dean shrugged. “Something did that to us. It wears off, though. I’m proof of that.”
“Jesus, this was the scariest time of my life.”
Dean thought about how lucky she was to have been in another part of the building. She’d been the first person the rescuers had found when the storm broke.
Sam appeared from behind one of the wrecked walls of the resort. The avalanche had decimated almost the entire lodge, leaving only a couple of pillars and one of the stone walls intact. Amazingly, the chandelier still hung from the only crossbeam standing.
Sam walked over to his brother. While Dean recovered feeling in his body, he and Bobby had been helping dig people out. He looked tired as hell.
“Grace is talking,” he told Dean.
Dean got up, hurrying over to her. Sam joined him.
“Dean,” she said, smiling when she saw him. “What the hell was that thing?”
Dean looked around carefully, then brought a finger to his lips. “I’ll tell you in a minute when we have more privacy.”
Bobby walked over too. He eyed Grace suspiciously.
“We know you’re not a ranger,” Sam told her.
Weakly, she lifted a finger to her lips, imitating Dean. “I’m out here tracking bear poachers,” she whispered. “It’s easier to check people’s permits and find out if they’re legit when you pretend to be a ranger. Some assholes have been killing bears to take their organs to sell on the black market as aphrodisiacs. I was tracking them up by Silverado Ridge. I found a bear killed, with its gall bladder missing. Then the trail just went dead, as if those guys had vanished. I thought you guys were the poachers at first.” She gripped Dean’s hand. “Do you think that thing got them?”
He frowned, realizing how close she must have come to the aswang on numerous occasions. “Could be.”
“So you’re just an animal rights activist?” Bobby said, trying to suppress a smile.
“What’s funny about that?”
“Nothing. Nothing,” he said quickly.
“And what do you mean ‘just’ an animal rights activist?” She eyed him irritably.
Dean grinned, happy to see her fire back.
Sam scanned the horizon. “Bobby, it’s getting dark. We need to stay on this thing’s trail before it vanishes completely. Everyone’s been pulled out of the wreckage who made it. We need to go.”
Bobby met his gaze. “Agreed.”
Grace wriggled her boot. “I can come, too. I’m fine.”
Dean raised an eyebrow. “Oh, yeah? Move your legs.”
She couldn’t. She frowned. “You see those bear poachers, you tell me where I can find them.”
“Will do,” Bobby told her.
They suited up, got fresh water and a little more food. Dean still felt weak, but he knew they couldn’t lose the trail now. They had to find the aswang.
Donning their snowshoes, the three of them trekked off into the snowy forest to find Jason and end it.
SIXTY-THREE
Sam snowshoed along next to Bobby and Dean, grateful for the shafts of sunshine sneaking through the trees. Memories of the fight on the narrow ledge and Bobby cutting the rope surfaced and he pushed them away. The three of them were together, and in reasonably good shape, despite everything. Now they just had to find the aswang. They had started out in the direction it had flown, but had no further glimpse of it.
Bobby stopped next to a tree. “It makes sense that it needs a place where it can store its victims, eat them over a long period of time,” he said, obviously giving voice to a train of thought he’d been following.
Darkness flashed over Dean’s face. “With them paralyzed, it wouldn’t necessarily need to be a place where no one would hear screams. They wouldn’t be able to scream.”
“It wouldn’t have to worry about the smell, either, because it keeps them alive,” Sam added.
“Until it stuffs all the unused organs into a body and has it march out of the lair, at any rate.” Bobby winced. “So what does that leave us?”
“A mine, maybe,” Sam suggested. “But the lair doesn’t have to be underground.”
“A cabin, like the one I came across. But I didn’t see any evidence of it keeping victims there, just its eggs.”
“So it’s got a separate place where it caches its food. It’s secretive, so someplace reclusive where interested passersby won’t investigate.” Bobby lifted his woolen cap, rubbed his head, and replaced it.
“I still think a mine’s our best bet,” Sam insisted. “They’re mostly closed now and have ‘no trespassing’ signs posted all over the entrance.”
“I’m leaning your way, Sam.”
Bobby pulled out his map. They clustered around it, finding the wendigo’s mine, the spot where the hunter’s buddies had found the blood pool, the area where Sam and Dean had first been attacked by the aswang, then the approximate location of the cabin where Dean had found the eggs.
“Grace said she was tracking those bear poachers near Silverado Ridge before they vanished,” Dean added. He pointed to it on the map.
Sam scanned for a nearby mine symbol. Sure enough, one stood in the middle of the activity.
“That’s our spot,” Bobby said.
Sam found their current location. “So, about a mile and a half due east.”
He reached into his pocket, pulling out the stingray whip.
They walked steadily, not saying anything to each other.
Dean seemed quiet. Sam knew it must have eaten him up, being so helpless while the aswang fed. He’d always had a thing about feeling useless. But Dean was strong. Even though he and Bobby worried Dean’s head wasn’t in the game, Sam was sure that in the end Dean would always fight, and would fight with everything in him.
They trudged through the snow, covering the mile and a half in little more than half an hour. Stopping in a dense cluster of trees, they spotted the mine entrance some hundred feet away, set into a face of rock. Rusty bars covered the entrance in an attempt to keep out curious explorers. A sign read, “Danger. Unsafe Mine. Stay Out. Stay Alive.” But the gate had long ago been compromised, the bars wrenched away along the bottom, leaving plenty of room to come and go.
Sam held the whip coiled in one hand, while Dean and Bobby gripped knives soaked in spices. Taking off their snowshoes, they left them by the entrance. Then they stepped through the bars, ducking under the rusty metal. Darkness enveloped them as they entered the old mine. A rank gust of methane assaulted Sam’s senses.
“No bullets,” Bobby warned them unnecessarily.
Switching on headlamps, they studied the dirt on the mine floor. A mess of recent footprints disturbed the soil there, some bare, some booted. Bobby pointed out a set of bare feet with claws that lay on top of the others. Sam nodded and they followed them.
Aside from the beams of their headlamps, darkness closed in on them as they turned the first corner. Blood had seeped into the floor in places, red and fresh.
Dean sniffed th
e air. “I can smell the same sizzling meat smell I did in the lodge. He’s in here.”
They followed the footprints, turning several corners and then descending down a long shaft. The smell of methane grew stronger. An ancient electrical line ran along the ceiling, rusted hooks holding the cables in place by the supporting beams.
At the end of the long tunnel, three forks branched off. Bobby investigated each one, then chose the middle way. It dipped farther underground, taking them deeper and deeper into the mine. Fresh blood continued to dot the soil. Dirt stirred up as they walked, drifting in motes in the glow of their headlamps. The tunnel led them to a wide space where the mine walls had been worked in antiquity. An old mine car stood there, some pieces of ore still sitting in it.
Bobby held up a fist to signal for them to stop. He searched the floor, finding the set of bare feet again and motioning them forward.
Sam strained to hear any sound at all. Sometimes a gust of foul wind blew through the mine, but other than that ghostly rush of air, it was silent.
They walked through a narrow opening into another tunnel which angled off to the right, dipping still lower. The scent of methane was now so strong that Sam felt like he was walking in a sewer. He gripped the whip handle, trying to strain the smell through his teeth. It didn’t work.
At the next junction they continued right, following the tracks. A long, low wail echoed eerily down the mine tunnel. Instantly, the three froze, listening. It came again.
“That him?” Sam whispered to Dean.
Dean listened, then furrowed his brow. “Hard to say.”
“Well, it’s someone,” Bobby said. “Let’s go.”
They followed the sound, keeping track of the blood and footprints. They led in the same direction.
Sam could hear water trickling from one of the tunnels. The sound bounced erratically off the walls, throwing off which direction it lay in. The low moan echoed again, drifting down the tunnels, sounding like it was coming from several directions at once.
Supernatural Page 24
