The Escalade came back again and surged forward, passing Dean. He craned his neck to get a look into the car, but couldn’t see past the tinted windows.
The black car cut him off again. Dean slowed down and desperately reached beside him for his duffle which had slid onto the floor. Keeping his eyes on the road, and one hand on the wheel, Dean felt for the strap, grasped it, and pulled the bag into his lap. He fished out his sawed-off and leaned out of the side window, aiming the gun at the back window of the Escalade. The driver hit the brakes, sending the car skidding to a stop. Dean jammed on his brakes in turn, and the old mechanism squealed in response.
He couldn’t stop in time and the truck hit the large car with such force that Dean’s chin almost reached the windshield. The truck teetered on the front two wheels, then crashed back down. It gave one last sputter and the radiator exploded.
Satisfied, the Escalade sped off.
Dean grabbed his duffle bag and got out of the truck, ignoring the other drivers honking at his sudden halt. He was battered and bruised and now more desperate than ever to find Lisa and Ben.
He knew he needed to keep heading north. On his right side he could feel the cool wind of a storm pushing in from the sea. He assumed if he kept walking forward eventually he’d come to a town. Just then, a large sixteen-wheeler slowed and stopped in front of him. Dean climbed onto the runner. The driver rolled down his window. He was a wizened old guy in a trucker’s cap, and bore a strong resemblance to Bobby.
“You need a lift?” he asked.
“Yeah, if you wouldn’t mind. Going to Gloucester,” Dean said.
“It’s not too far. Get in,” the truck driver groused.
A mile down the road Dean realized that he had left his laptop in the truck. He desperately tried to look up the address of the last ping of Lisa’s cell phone on his phone. But the site just indicated that the cell had somehow passed through town.
“What’s past Gloucester? Anything?” Dean asked.
“Well, there’s Rockport. It’s a little hoity-toity for the likes of you though,” the trucker replied.
“Actually, I think that might do,” Dean said.
“Suit yourself,” the driver said. “Mind if I put on the radio?”
The driver hit the AM button. A traffic report blared through. Then a serious-sounding newscaster repeated a warning that an Amber alert had been issued for a teenage girl last seen getting into a black Escalade. Dean realized that the witches, in a desperate attempt to get hold of a couple more bodies, had not only take Ben and Lisa but also a poor girl just out for a walk by the beach.
They pulled through Gloucester and after a few miles on the seafront road came to Rockport.
“Gotta let you off here,” the driver said.
Dean thanked him and hopped out of the truck cab. Rockport was a quaint small town pressing up against the rocky shore on the Atlantic Ocean. Dean looked around. Even though it was summer, with a storm coming in, there wasn’t much of a crowd. Off in the distance, dark clouds hugged the horizon and lightning illuminated large patches of water miles out to sea.
Dean pulled up his collar, made sure that Nathaniel’s journal was snug inside his jacket, and started walking. Around a bend in the road, he saw in the distance several large houses clinging to the side of the shore. Further past them, an enormous house perched on top of a hill. One side of the property was ringed with long rocky boulders that stretched into the sea.
Dean pulled out his binoculars and trained them on the property. Panning around the area, he noticed a dust cloud which was being kicked up by a black Escalade as it wound its way up the road to the house. Taking a deep breath, he resisted the urge to kick the road in frustration. Even if the witches were hiding out in that grand house on the hill, he still had to find a way to stop them. He needed to get inside the house and fast.
As the thunder rumbled ever closer, the street was rapidly emptying of tourists. Dean glanced around and his gaze quickly settled on an ancient-looking hatchback, not the kind of car likely to have a sophisticated alarm system fitted. As casually as he could manage under the circumstances, Dean sauntered to the car and swiftly broke in—a minute later he was on the move, tires squealing as he sped away.
He parked further down the hill, then made his way up a sandy path toward the large wrap around front porch. As his foot stepped on the porch a shot rang out. Dean whirled around to find Perry standing behind him with a large shotgun trained right at his head.
“Let’s not disturb the occupants,” she said inclining her head toward the front door of the house. “I would hate to drag more innocent people into this. I mean soon enough, everyone is going to be dragged into it. But why single anyone out?”
“This isn’t your place?” Dean asked.
“No, silly, why would we have a place out here?” Perry replied.
“Lisa’s cell phone?”
“Just dropped it into a garbage truck that happened to be going north. I needed to get you out of Salem. Connie’s orders. I was pissed, I admit. I’ve been taking her shit for hundreds of years. But I’ll get to the festivities soon enough. As will you. I’m thinking you will be a special guest of honor. Why don’t you walk over here? And no funny stuff, the gun is just for show, but I have no problem roughing you up like I did before. Walk toward me, hands behind your head.”
Dean did as he was told. Perry quickly tied his hands together, and then his feet.
“Get into the truck,” she said opening the door and pushing Dean headfirst into the large trunk. A cage-like feature had been wound across the back of the car, creating a barrier between the back trunk space and the seats.
“You must have a big dog,” Dean said.
“Not yet, but you know opening up Hell might come with some problems.”
“Like hellhounds.”
“Wow, you know your Hell, Dean,” Perry said. “But of course you do.”
Dean looked her in the eye.
“I’m going telling you right now—by the end of today—you’ll be dead and I’ll have killed you,” he said.
For a split second a shadow crossed the witch’s girlish face.
“I’m the man to do it,” Dean continued grimly. “Maybe no one else for a hundred years has known what they were up against with you. But I do. You’re going to die today. Trust me.”
Perry slammed the back door, hoisted herself into the driver’s seat and peeled out of the driveway.
Dean desperately tried to free his hands but he couldn’t reach into his front pocket. He was stuck. The only good thing about this situation was that he was getting what he wanted. He was being taken directly to Lisa and Ben.
THIRTY-FIVE
Sam followed the young witch as she drove west out of town. When she pulled off the main road and onto a residential street, Sam slowed, not wanting to follow too closely behind. She knew what he was driving after all. He watched the car take a long curve around a series of tall, brick, residential buildings that made up a planned community, dark woods loomed on the other side of the road.
The girl drove the vehicle around the side of the main building and down into an underground parking garage.
As he approached the main building, Sam noticed that there were a lot of people hanging around: teenagers loitering, old people sitting on benches in the shade of trees or buildings. He couldn’t help but think it was a strange place to have a witches’ gathering. Sam parked in the shadow of some trees in the far corner of the car park, pushed his sawed-off into the back of his jeans, and walked down the ramp leading into the underground parking garage.
The garage was about half full but the young witch’s car was nowhere to be found. Sam walked up and down each and every aisle, methodically checking license plates to make sure he hadn’t missed it. Then he caught sight of a wide steel door in the shape of a low arch on the far side of the garage.
Crouching down, Sam noticed a little brake fluid right under the door. This had to be from the jalopy t
he young witch was driving. Sam pushed against the door, it creaked open just enough for him to see that it was padlocked from the inside.
Sam scanned the cars, and noticed a truck with a “Handyman For Hire” sign on it. He peered into the back of the truck, and was pleased to see it was loaded with tools. Sam pulled out his sawed-off and with the butt of the gun broke the back window, stuck his arm inside and wrenched open the door. He rummaged in the truck bed until he found a pair of bolt cutters.
Armed with the cutters, he pushed on the steel doors again and jammed the bolt cutters in through the opening. The heavy chain broke with a loud CLAP, and fell to the ground with a clatter.
Sam slowly pushed open the steel door to reveal a low cavernous hallway. The space could fit about five cars, but only one was parked inside. The young witch’s. Shutting the door behind him he checked the car, quickly establishing that Lisa and Ben were no longer inside it.
Across the hallway was another wide door. But before he could approach it, Sam heard a noise. The roar of car engines coming from the parking garage. Sam crouched behind the young witch’s car, listening intently.
Footsteps approached the steel doors.
Sam looked up and spotted an old pipe that stretched across the ceiling. Gritting his teeth, he hoisted himself up and hung on with his hands and legs crossed.
Moments later, the steel doors creaked opened and two cars pulled in, one after the other. From his position on the pipe Sam couldn’t see how many people emerged from the cars, but several doors banged shut and the volume of chatter suggested five or six people, and they all sounded female. Knowing what a vulnerable position he was in, Sam willed them not to look up.
The noise level dropped as the women went through the second door and disappeared toward whatever lay beyond. Judging that the coast was clear, Sam untangled his grip on the pipe and dropped to the floor with a THUD.
“Well, what are you waiting for? Let’s go,” a voice said.
Sam spun around and came face to face with his grandfather.
“What are you doing here?” Sam asked.
“What do you think I’m doing here? I’m making sure these bitches don’t actually succeed in raising the four Princes of Hell, particularly the guy who still wants to ride your hide. No need to thank me.”
“I don’t need your help. I can handle this alone,” Sam ground out.
“Yeah, I saw that. Nice bagging of the witch by the way. I mean I had my doubts about you, but I think that cinched the deal. I know things have changed since last time I was around, but I’m pretty sure coitus with a witch is frowned upon. If you needed to get laid that badly, son, I’m sure I could have arranged something”
Sam stood in silence, taking his grandfather’s verbal lashing without blinking an eye. Whatever. He just wanted to get to the fight. When Samuel paused for breath, Sam took his opportunity.
“Can we talk about this later?” he asked, indicating the door the witches had disappeared through. They were wasting valuable time. Time when he could be killing witches.
“Oh, we’re going to talk about it all right. I knew there was something wrong with you the moment I saw you. I don’t know what’s going on Sam, but once this is done with, we’re going to find out.”
“I’m fine,” Sam said.
“No, son. I may have been dead, but my brain ain’t. Believe me, there is something off with you.”
The witches had shut the steel doors behind them before heading down the corridor and now a scratching sound came from the other side. Their argument immediately set aside, Samuel and Sam moved silently against opposite walls. Samuel leveled his gun. Sam turned his gun around, stock first. The door inched open. The small barrel of a pistol pushed through the opening. Sam nodded to his grandfather, Samuel swung the door open and Sam brutally bashed the stock of his gun into the perpetrator’s face.
THIRTY-SIX
“Where the hell are you taking me?” Dean demanded as he peeked over the back seat. Perry’s small frame was almost completely obscured by the large bucket seats.
“You’ll see,” she said.
After about twenty minutes, she pulled into a mall parking lot, parked and then got into the back seat.
“Hold on, let me get ready,” Perry said.
She pulled at her shirt collar tearing it, then to Dean’s bemusement she punched herself in the jaw. A large welt immediately formed on the side of her face.
“I bruise easily, sort of the price you pay for being over three hundred years old,” she said conversationally, smiling at Dean. He was gradually getting the point.
“Oh, one more thing,” Perry said as she opened up a door in the grate separating them. “Now be nice.”
“What are you going to do?” Dean asked.
She just smiled wickedly then took out a small vial of liquid. She grabbed Dean’s head with one hand and with the other pried his mouth open. He struggled against her, twisting his head back and forth but Perry had a grip like iron and he was powerless to stop her. She poured the liquid down his throat; he gagged and then swallowed instinctively. She released his head and instantly he fell back, feeling the paralysis spread through his body, until he was completely inert.
After a moment, seemingly satisfied, Perry crawled back into the back seat and shut the cage.
He heard the beeps as she dialed three digits into her cell phone. After a brief pause, she started to speak, her voice small and hesitant with a panicky edge.
“Yes, hello. My boyfriend... my boyfriend beat me up. I don’t know. One moment we where kissing and then he just got real rough. Yeah, he just went into the mall. I don’t know when he’ll be back. Can you come quick? Oh, thank you.” She gave the details of their location and then rang off.
“It will wear off by the time the police get here,” Perry said to Dean, her voice confident and gleeful again.
Just then the squeal of sirens erupted in the distance. Perry flicked her wrist and the binds on Dean’s legs and wrists immediately came off. She hopped out of the vehicle and popped open the back door.
“Whatcha’ gonna to do, Dean? Run and hide or face the music? Either way you’re not going to see your little GF and son ever again,” she gloated.
Dean swung his heavy legs onto the ground, stood up and tried to walk; it was a little more difficult than he remembered it being. He leaned on the side of the car, the sirens were getting closer.
“I’m going to kill you,” he croaked.
Perry pursed her lips as if seriously weighing that possibility.
“Eh, probably not. But you can always try. Here they come. Watch and learn, Dean, baby,” she purred.
A Salem Police squad car bumped into the parking lot and screeched around in a wide circle clearly trying to locate the emergency caller.
Pushing Perry out of his way, Dean took off in a Frankenstein-like run. He could still feel the paralyzing liquid coursing through his veins, and he had to will his stiff legs to keep moving. He headed for the tree line that ran down one side of the parking lot. He tripped and stumbled down into a ravine and splashed into a polluted little stream at the bottom. He could hear Perry’s screams coming from behind him, she was surely pointing his escape route out to the police.
A large drainage pipe led underneath a road, and Dean headed toward it hoping for a little refuge. Gritting his teeth through the stiffness, he stumbled through the pipe, his boots splashing through the fetid water, and emerged on the other side into a small run-off pond. He struggled to climb up the grassy slopes surrounding it, up and into a fast-food joint’s parking lot.
Not far from where Dean paused to catch his breath, a pudgy guy quickly exited his car on a burger run. Dean slid into the driver’s seat. He fumbled with a couple of wires underneath the dash, struggling with stiff fingers, but after a few seconds he touched them together. The spark egged the engine into jump-starting. Dean pulled swiftly out of the parking space. Checking his rearview mirror, he saw a couple of cops appear at the
top of the grassy bank. He put his foot down and squealed out of the parking lot.
Dean bashed the steering wheel with his fists in frustration. He still didn’t know where Lisa and Ben were or what had happened to them—they could be dead by now. The witches’ latest sacrifices. He should never have brought them to Salem—what the hell had he been thinking? Family life and hunting just don’t mix. It was too dangerous. He had already lost Sam, what if he also lost Lisa and Ben?
He needed to figure out where the witches were. Trying to calm down and focus, Dean decided to head back to the library. He needed a map, an old one.
At the library the same old woman was at the desk. But minus his professorial clothes and clearly looking as rough as he felt, she looked at him much more skeptically.
“May I help you?” she asked.
“I’m looking for any old maps you might have of Salem?” Dean asked politely, trying to keep the edge of panic out of his voice.
“Everything we have can be found on the Internet if you go to—”
“Listen, I don’t have time for that,” he said urgently. “Where are the maps?”
She pointed to several large cabinets on the other side of the room. Dean nodded his thanks.
Aware of the woman’s eyes on him, he tried to be careful as he hurriedly pulled open each cabinet and riffled through the contents, painfully aware that he wasn’t sure exactly what he was looking for. Surely he’d know it when he saw it—he usually did. Then he noticed a modern map of the development plans for the Kirkbride Estates, where Perry had her apartment. It showed the series of buildings some of which had been demolished and some of which had been refurbished. His brain made a sudden connection and he went back to another map dating from 1786. It was the oldest the library had. Both the maps were to the same scale. He placed the older one, which clearly outlined old Salem Village, over the new one. Salem Village and the Kirkbride Estates lined up.
Supernatural 7 - One Year Gone Page 21