Supernatural: The Unholy Cause (24 page)

“Hey, Sheriff, what—?” Dean started.

“Quiet,” the sheriff snapped, never taking her attention away from McClane. “I’m going to ask you one more time.
Where’s the noose
?”

McClane grinned harder, the remains of his teeth gnashing together. Tendons bulged in his jaw.

“I cut it up. Chopped it to pieces. Cast it to the four winds.”

“You’re lying.” Bending down, she peeled back McClane’s left eyelid so that the black sclera was completely exposed. “Hold him,” she said to Dean. “Pin him down.”

“What?” Dean said. “So now we’re BFFs?”

“If your definition of a friend is someone who’s saving your ass,” Daniels said, “then yes. I still don’t understand who the hell you are, but right now I’m your only hope.”

“And dozens of other golden hits,” Dean retorted. “Sorry, Sheriff. I’ll take my chances.”

“You don’t have to trust me. Just do as I say. I’ll explain later. All right?”

“Do as you
say
?
That’s
your pitch?” Dean stared at her in disbelief. “Screw you, lady.”

He crawled away, moving slowly, but definitely moving.

The ground was littered with broken glass, fallen branches and debris. He bumped into something and, before he knew what was happening, felt a hand taking him by the arm, lifting him gently but firmly back to his feet. He wobbled a little, but felt steadier when he saw who had helped him up.

“Cass,” Dean said. “Nice of you to get in the game.”

Castiel nodded.

“I found this for you,” he said, and Dean saw that he was holding the demon-killing knife.

Dean took the blade. Its familiar shape and heft felt good in his hand. He looked back to where the sheriff was still struggling to hold McClane down and felt the angel’s hand on his shoulder.

“She’s right, Dean.”

“What?”

“Sheriff Daniels. She and her family bear a sacred trust— they have been guardians of the noose for generations.”

“Look, Cass, I know you’re probably still a little creased about Sam capping your Witness and all, but...”

“That doesn’t matter now.” Castiel’s grip on Dean’s shoulder tightened considerably, almost painfully. “My priorities have changed.”

Then the angel disappeared abruptly.

Sighing, Dean tucked the blade into his belt and started back toward McClane and the sheriff. She glanced up at him in surprise.

“Changed your mind?”

“I don’t wanna talk about it.” Squatting down, he used his good arm to hold McClane’s upper torso and shoulders flat against the asphalt. In front of him, close enough that he could smell her shampoo, Sheriff Daniels leaned directly over McClane’s wide-open eye. Then she flexed her hand back and pressed the tattoo directly against his eyeball. Dean heard a faint hissing sound, like a red-hot brand burning into skin, and McClane shrieked and thrashed.

“
Where is it?
” Daniels asked, shouting above his screams. “Where’s the seventh coil?”

She held her wrist there for another moment, then drew it away. Underneath her, McClane gasped and fumed. When he looked up at them, Dean saw the faint imprint of her tattoo burned over the glassy black eightball of his left eye. It looked like a tiny, complicated blueprint. Reddish-black tears trickled from the corners.

“...lost it...” he managed. “...dropped it somewhere...” He manufactured another grin and somehow managed a weak, watery laugh. “Doesn’t matter... you’ve already lost... stupid bitch...” He sucked in his cheeks, and made a
horking
noise deep in his throat.

“Look out,” Dean said, “I think he’s gonna—”

The demon spat a thick gobbet of blood directly in the sheriff’s face. She didn’t even flinch, just reached up and wiped the spittle from her cheek. Throughout it all, her expression didn’t change. When she spoke again her voice was as cold as ice.

“That’s it,” she said. “I’m going to burn your eyes right out of your head.”

From nearby came a loud nickering scream, a clatter of hooves on metal, and Dean looked up to see two black-eyed Confederate demons on horseback riding hard across the roofs of parked police cars. One was carrying a flaming Confederate flag. Upon seeing Dean and the sheriff, the soldier drew back his arm and threw it, the pole whistling through the air like a javelin in the direction of Sheriff Daniels.

Dean sprang upward and grabbed Daniels, knocking her backward just as the pole slammed into the asphalt where she’d been less than a second earlier.

Daniels gazed up at him, startled and badly shaken. The demon’s blood was still streaked along the side of her nose.

“Idiot.”

“You’re welcome,” Dean said.

The sheriff pointed at the bloodstain where McClane had been lying.

“He’s gone.”

“You still owe me a big explanation.”

Daniels seethed.

“So do you. Get
off
me!”

Another clatter of hooves filled the air, and they both looked around to see the next wave of demons surging across the parking lot.

“There’s no time,” Dean said, hauling himself to his feet. He glanced at the cruiser nearest them. Its roof was partially smashed in, the lights and windshield demolished, but the loudspeakers on either side still looked operational.

He started toward the car, opened the door and got in the driver’s seat.

“Wait,” Daniels said. “What are you doing?”

“I’ve got an idea.”

“You can’t leave.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Dean said. “But my left arm is shot. You’re gonna have to help me steer.”

Six-fifteen a.m.

While the rest of the Eastern seaboard was just waking up, pouring its first cup of coffee, switching on the news and getting the first online updates of what would soon be called the strangest attack in recent history, other events were beginning to unfold.

Less than two hours had passed since Tommy McClane had cut the noose open, unleashing his armies of the night upon the town of Mission’s Ridge. But in this age of modern marvels, with the country’s threat level parked semipermanently on orange, two hours was plenty of time.

Word had gone out.

Alarms had sounded. Officials had been shaken from their beds and briefed. And certain federal agencies had responded with the appropriate degree of vigor and enthusiasm.

Since 9/11, the federal Department of Homeland Security had authorized the existence of several regional top-secret domestic taskforces—standing armies with state-of-the-art weapons and ground and air support. Unlike the National Guard, these soldiers trained for the single eventuality of a fullblown terrorist attack on U.S. soil. When the map turned red over Mission’s Ridge, Georgia, that morning at six a.m., they were on the ground and mobilized immediately.

Sam and Sarah were running across the battlefield as fast as they could, with a stretcher pole in each hand, when the first black helicopter buzzed overhead. Sam paid it no attention. At the moment he was far too busy to care.

The height discrepancy between him and Sarah made carrying the stretcher difficult enough; the weight made it nearly impossible. Balanced on the stretcher were two of the wounded re-enactors from the tent, one of whom didn’t look as though he’d survive the trip. Ashgrove and the other re-enactor, a young man named Bendis, were running behind them, carrying two more on their stretcher.

The rest, they were going to have to come back for—if they even got that chance.

“This way!” Sarah shouted. “Watch out for the rails!” Crab-walking, she and Sam scrambled over the railroad tracks, stepping over heavy wooden cross-ties, behind the steam engine, the coal car and flatcar of the old nineteenth-century train. Beyond it, the railway shed stood along the western edge of the thick second-growth forest that marked the outer perimeter of the battlefield.

The helicopter circled back over the woods, completing a circuit of the perimeter.

Backing up to the railway shed, Sam swung his foot and kicked the heavy wooden door wide open, then he and Sarah ducked inside. The shadows smelled like coal and oil and ancient iron.

“The roof’s re-enforced steel,” Sarah said. “The C.S.A. did it to protect their trains. I thought we might be safer in here.”

“Good.” Sam nodded, wincing as they put the stretcher down.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“My ankle... I’ll be okay.”

Ashgrove and Bendis were already coming through the doorway with their wounded, laying the stretcher down as gently as possible.

“What about the others?” Bendis asked.

“I can try to go back,” Sam said, and overhead he heard the low-flying helicopter making another pass, the roar of its rotors temporarily blotting out everything else.

“Did you guys see that thing?” Bendis asked. “Who was that?”

“Whoever it is,” Sarah said, “they’re not here to help us.”

“Maybe it’s FEMA,” Ashgrove said.

Bendis shot him a look.

“Bite your tongue.”

“Come on, man.” Ashgrove shook his head. “It could be medevac. If we can get up on the roof—”

A thunderous explosion shook the railway shed, rattling the walls like the inside of a steel drum, dropping a thin rain of dust and debris from the rafters. Sam dropped into a defensive crouch. When the aftershock passed, he made his way back over to the doorway and looked across the battlefield, still crouching low.

His heart sank.

“It’s too late.”

Sarah joined him and gazed across the battlefield. The tent that they’d left behind just minutes before was in flames. The last four re-enactors had never made it out, and now they never would. The demons that had set fire to it were riding horses around the blaze, firing into it at random.

Overhead, the chopper roared by again.

Standing up, Sam took a brief inventory of their new surroundings. The railroad shed was perhaps two hundred feet by thirty. Like the town’s Historical Society, it had been refurbished with small exhibits illustrating the battle that had taken place. Display cases containing railway tools, newspapers, and other relics adorned the walls.

On the floor in front of him, Bendis and Ashgrove hunched over the wounded, performing triage to gauge the severity of their casualties.

“Man,” Bendis said, “this is worse than Fallujah.”

Sarah glanced at him.

“You were there?”

“Two tours. That’s where I met this douchebag.” He glanced over at Ashgrove. “Eighteen months and not a scratch. Then last year he calls me up and asks if I want to have some fun over the weekend.” Bendis shook his head sourly. “Some fun.”

Ashgrove gave him a cold look.

“You saying you want to quit, Marine?”

Bendis stood up. His cheeks were flushed.

“Negative. Whatever’s out there, whatever the hell it is, is trying to take us out. Two of those guys that died out there are men that you and I served with.”

“Good,” Ashgrove said. “I was starting to worry about you for a second.”

Either these guys are really brave
, Sam thought to himself,
or really stupid
. Then he joined them in tending to the wounded.

Another explosion rocked the earth. The railway shed shivered around them. More rust-colored debris sifted down.

Sam bent down over one of the wounded men. The re-enactor’s leg had been almost completely severed just below the knee, and was hanging by the barest shreds of integument, and Sam’s hands were gloved in blood. He lifted the red-soaked rags from the leg, tossing them aside in a sloppy, dripping pile.

“Hey!” he suddenly shouted.

“What is it?” Sarah asked.

“Tourniquet.” Sam glanced at Ashgrove and Bendis. “Which one of you guys tied this on?”

“I did,” Bendis said. “What’s it matter?”

“Where did you find it?”

“Out there somewhere. It was a piece of rope and I grabbed it. His femoral artery was severed and I needed something to hold the bandage on, stop the bleeding. What’s the difference?”

Using strips of gauze to hold it, Sam studied the thick loop of rope pulled tight around the man’s leg.

It was the last coil of the noose.

Sarah leaned closer to look.

“What is that?”

The man sat up and grabbed her. His eyes were open and pitch black.

He grinned.

Sarah screamed.