Supernatural: One Year Gone (23 page)

Lisa stirred. She slowly opened her eyes and saw Dean on the opposite side of the hallway near the door. Her head ached

“Dean? Dean, where’s Ben?” she said.

Dean shushed her. She watched him squirm on the floor. He was trying to empty out his pockets with his hands bound behind his back by an invisible force. A couple of packets of herbs fell out of his jacket. He kicked off a boot and with his big toe drew a series of sigils on the dirt-covered floor. He chanted a couple of words in Latin, then awkwardly flung his lit Zippo into the center of the circle. The herbs caught fire. Dean pulled his hands apart.

“Nothing like a little white magic to counteract the black,” he murmured.

He got up and gently pulled Lisa to her feet.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

She nodded and rubbed her head where she had hit the wall.

“I think so.”

Dean handed her the gun with the bullets.

“You’re going to need this,” he said.

“I’m not sure if I can shoot her,” Lisa said nervously.

“You’re going to feel differently in a second,” Dean replied ominously.

He swiftly loaded the other gun with real shotgun shells, then kicked open the oak door.

Inside, Ben was strapped to an electroshock chair in a dark, tiled room that must have been used for electroshock therapy. He looked scared but otherwise unharmed.

Perry sat nearby on a Victorian-era stretcher.

“Mummy and Daddy come to take their little boy home? I don’t think so,” she said.

She jumped off the stretcher and with a flick of her wrist the gurney flew across the room. Dean pulled Lisa to the ground, the speeding bed narrowly missing their heads. It struck the door blocking their exit.

Dean and Lisa peeled themselves off the floor.

Dean cocked his gun at Perry.

“Let him go and maybe I’ll let you live to see your three-hundred and nineteenth birthday,” he growled.

“Oh Dean, you and I are going to have such fun together. Imagine wiling away the years, just you and me,” Perry said. “But not yet. Still have a lot of business to do here.”

Perry walked toward Ben and took out a sharp blade.

“This is what you don’t understand Dean: All my powerful friends passed away a long, long time ago, so now we are just trying to get the old gang back together. We have a big gig coming up. But to do that, we need nice innocent young things like Ben here. You’d be sacrificing him to a good cause.”

Dean pointed his gun at Perry.

“Get away from him, bitch.”

“Dean, that’s no way to speak to your betrothed,” Perry said. She put the knife to Ben’s throat and ran it up and down the muscles of his neck. “You’re not in control of this situation. I am. And it would behoove you to learn some old-fashioned manners!”

Perry sliced the knife across Ben’s cheek for emphasis.

Lisa screamed and pulled the trigger on the gun she was holding. The bullet zinged toward Perry. She stepped out of the way, and the bullet grazed her shoulder. The wound cauterized immediately, like she wasn’t made of human flesh at all. Perry looked down at where the bullet had touched her. There was a rip in her shirt.

“This is my favorite shirt. Now look what you did to it!” She clenched her hand and Ben started choking. “This will be cleaner anyway.”

Ben’s eyes rolled back into his head as his face turned blue. His hands clenched and unclenched, straining at the wrist straps.

Dean stepped forward and leveled his gun at Perry.

“You’re way too old for him.” He pulled the trigger.

The bullet blasted through her right wrist, detaching it so that the five-finger stump of her hand hung loosely from a couple of tendons attached to her arm.

Seizing the moment, Dean sped across the room and knocked the witch to the floor. Recovering quickly, Perry scissor-kicked Dean. He ducked and landed on top of Perry, grabbed her round the neck with both hands and squeezed. She struggled against him but Dean’s whole body weight was pinning her down. He held on until she looked as though she had passed out. He then released her throat and pulled her up so he could hold her arms tight behind her back.

“Let’s tie her up,” he said.

Lisa walked over to Perry and kicked her with a well-placed sandal heel under the ribs. She used the rope that Perry had used to secure Ben to tie Perry firmly to the base of the electric chair, while Dean kept hold of her, just in case.

Dean then picked Ben up off the chair and heaved him onto his shoulder.

Ben’s eyes slowly fluttered open.

“What happened? Where am I?’

“All I can say is no more dates for you, buddy,” Dean said gently.

Perry quickly came round and struggled against her bonds.

“You can’t take him!” she cried and shut her eyes, mustering her powers once again.

Lisa, and Dean with Ben over his shoulder, didn’t wait to see what would happen next. They exited the room, Dean indicating to Lisa that she should grab the discarded iron bar, then ran back down the hallway. As they crossed over the salt lines more asylum ghosts swarmed around them. Dean remembered he had taken the salt shells out of the sawed-off.

“Ben, grab those shells in my pocket and load them into this gun,” Dean said, holding the sawed-off over his shoulder.

Ben grabbed it, and refilled it while still being carried over Dean’s shoulder. Lisa swung at the ghosts with the iron bar as best she could, clearing a path for Dean and Ben. Ben handed the gun back to Dean and then took the other and filled it in turn with salt shells. Dean then set him down and started shooting, protecting their sides and rear as they leapt forward down the dark tunnel.

“Almost there,” Lisa called from ahead. They reached the spiral staircase and raced upward. Once in the bedroom, Dean pulled the heavy dresser in front of the doorway.

“That’s not going to hold her for long,” Dean said as they left the apartment and ran down the hallway.

Outside, they piled into the car. Dean started the engine and they squealed out around the long oval loop surrounding the planned community. The car jumped off the curb and peeled into traffic.

Two miles down the highway Dean spotted a used-car dealership. He pulled the CRV around back.

“What are we doing?” Lisa asked.

“We need a new car—Perry knows this one,” Dean said, hopping out of the vehicle and approaching a grubby salesman.

Minutes later Dean came back. “Okay, everyone out.”

“Dean, I love this car. I’m still making payments on it,” Lisa protested.

“You aren’t now. Now you’re making payments on this.” He gestured to an old Ford 100 truck which looked as if it had been through a war. “Actually, I’m kidding. No payments.” Dean handed Lisa a stack of one hundred dollar bills. “We can buy a newer model when we get back.”

“Yeah, exactly when is that going to be, Dean? I think I’ve had enough of this vacation,” Lisa said as they climbed into the truck with Ben between them.

“Soon, Lisa. Soon,” Dean replied.

He pulled the truck back into traffic and headed north. Dean knew he couldn’t go home now. There was too much at stake. This had come to be about much more than getting Sam back—these witches were up to something. Something big and horrible.

“Just a little bit longer,” Dean said.

He pulled the truck into a rundown motel and jumped out.

“Why are we stopping here?” Lisa asked.

“New digs. I’ll be back in a second.”

Dean left them in the car and headed into the New England colonial-themed lobby, complete with a Paul Revere statue.

This is more like it,
he thought.

Sam sat on the bar stool staring into space, but when the hot blonde, twenty-something in the tight jeans and the Old Clappy’s Clam Shacky T-shirt walked in—he noticed. Her right hand was bandaged up to the elbow but she still held herself with much more poise than was usual for someone her age. She looked around the bar and sat down a couple of stools away from Sam.

“Whiskey, water back please,” she called to the bartender.

The bartender, a grizzled old Red Sox fan, peered at her through the gloom.

“Gonna have to see some ID, young lady,” he said, lumbering toward her.

The girl dug her hand into her pocket but came out empty. She leaned over the bar, smiled and gently touched the man’s hand.

“I don’t have it. But I’m good, right?”

The man blinked a couple of times, as if he had forgotten the question he had asked two seconds earlier.

“Sure, sweetheart. No problem,” he said.

He returned with her drink a few moments later.

“It’s on him.” The bartender nodded toward Sam at the end of the bar.

Sam raised his drink in the girl’s direction.

“You’re persuasive. I like that in a woman,” Sam said.

The girl eyed him. Then she slipped off her stool and took the seat next to him.

“I’m glad. Not many men do. Usually they’re scared of me.”

“I don’t see why,” Sam said, “you seem perfectly sweet to me.”

“I do? Well, thanks. I’m Prudence, by the way.” The girl leaned over and stuck out her hand.

“Sam. Nice to meet you. Prudence? Interesting name.”

“Old family name,” she said. “I used to hate it, but over the years I’ve gotten used to it. Cheers,” she said, raising her glass to clink with Sam’s.

Sam looked at the girl. She was definitely do-able.

“Why don’t you come back to my room? I have a six-pack and another one in the fridge. We could get to know one another better.” Sam ran his hand down his stomach, indicating one of the six-packs.

“Does that work on all the girls?” Prudence asked.

“Pretty much, yeah,” Sam said.

“Guess it’s working now too,” she said, throwing back her whiskey. “Let’s go.”

They headed toward the door. Sam walked behind the girl to admire the view. She was cute, very cute.

Back at the motel, Sam popped open two beer bottles. He held one out to Prudence, then hesitated.

“You’re over twenty-one right? I wouldn’t want to be accused of corrupting a minor.”

“Way over. But thanks for your concern,” Prudence said, taking the bottle. She strolled around the colonial-themed hotel room. “Nice place. I remember when this was just a field, not a parking lot and a chintzy motel.”

“Really?” Sam stepped behind her and pushed his hand down her shirt. Prudence turned around and looked into Sam’s eyes.

“There’s something you should know about me,” she said.

“What’s that?”

“I’m more experienced than I look.” Prudence smiled and started undressing.

Sam did the same and dropped onto the bed. Prudence approached him, took off the rest of her clothes and started to ravenously kiss him. Sam pulled her small body onto his.

“What happened to your hand?” Sam asked.

“Misunderstanding. I got greedy. Took something before I should have. Patience is key. I forget that sometimes.”

“I’m having trouble being patient right now,” Sam said, angling himself under her.

Sam reached to shut off the light. He glanced at the little notepad neatly placed underneath the Paul Revere-like lantern lamp. On the heading it said: “YE OLDE COLONIAL INN est. 1919.”

“You remember this place when it was just a field?” he asked casually.

Prudence continued to nibble on his ear.

“Yeah, why?” she said as she straddled him. “You remind me of a horse I once had.”

“Giddy-up,” Sam said.

A little while later, Sam got up from the bed. He pulled on his jeans.

“Where are you going? I was just getting ready for more.” Prudence patted the bed beside her.

“Just looking for something I think you’ll like,” Sam said, digging into his duffle bag. “Here it is.”

Sam swung around and pointed his sawed-off shotgun at her.

Prudence looked up at him.

“Whatever,” she said, laying back down on the pillows. “Second time today, no big deal. When are you people going to get it into your heads that I can’t be killed... Not like that, anyway.”

Sam advanced on her.

“So what are you? A shapeshifter? Werewolf? What?”

Prudence ignored the gun and instead climbed off the bed and grabbed her T-shirt.

“I’m a witch, ya big ox. And an old one at that. But I still need to get out and let loose. It’s been a very stressful summer.”

A cord of rope hit her in the back as she pulled on her jeans. Sam stood closer now, still aiming the gun at her.

“Sit down and tie your feet.”

“You really think something like this is going to hold me?” Prudence asked over her shoulder.

“Take a closer look,” Sam said.

Prudence held the rope up and noticed a weave of different herbs braided into the cord and a smelly paste rubbed into the crevices.

“Think of it as my own lasso of truth,” he said.

Prudence sat mechanically in the straight-backed chair next to the bed and tied her feet to its legs.

“What are you going to do to me, Sam? You know, I would have let you tie me up if you’d asked.”

“Stop yapping. I’m going to ask you questions and you’re going to answer them. Get it?”

Setting aside the sawed-off, he pulled the ropes tightly around Prudence’s lithe wrists, conscious of securing them as tight as possible around her bandaged one. He then left her and went into the bathroom. Pipes creaked and there was the sound of water rushing into the bathtub. Back in the room, he grabbed another chair, swung it around, sat down and crossed his arms over the back, resting his chin on his wrists. He stared at Prudence.