Supernatural: Dean's Witch Ch. 04

Then, guns in hand, they headed into the woods to circle up on the back of the house that the arrow had indicated. "You think they've had time to bring their coven back up to five members yet?" Dean asked.

"I don't know. It's been a month and a half," Sam acknowledged. "Worst case scenario, we're talking about five hostile witches, I guess."

When they reached the edge of the woods nearest the house, Sam stopped to visualize Calla again, and the arror confirmed she was in this house, pointing directly at it, just as it had from the other side when they'd been on the road. "She's still sleeping," he commented. "What do you want to do?"

Dean stared at the house, wondering that himself. She'd asked them not to go in guns-blazing, but with five witches to deal with, they needed an element of surprise on their side if they wanted to survive this. "If she weren't inside, we'd have more options," he said. "As it is... let's try to go in through a back window. If we can find Calla and hear the situation from her, great. If not, let's see if we can corner one of them alone first, and find out what we can."

Sam nodded, double-checking that he'd loaded his gun with witch-killing bullets. "You ready?"

Dean responded by heading forward, ducking low as he crossed the lawn at the back of the house with his brother right on his heels. His back came flat against the siding of the house just as he heard the front screen door clatter open, two women's voices barely audible as they exited and moved down the walk to get into one of the vehicles in the driveway.

"You catch any of what they said?" Dean whispered as they listened to the car drive along the gravel, back toward the road.

"Not a bit. Seems like luck's on our side, though, assuming they were part of the coven."

Fingering his gun, Dean nodded and slid sideways until he was at one of the windows, knowing his brother was doing the same in the other direction. The first window he came to offered nothing, blinds on the inside hiding whatever was inside. The next window was higher, and looked into an empty kitchen with dishes in the sink and left on the table. It was locked, and it would be hard to get into it quietly, given the height. He looked back to his brother and saw him motioning him down the length of the house.

Near the opposite corner from the kitchen, Sam had found an open window leading into a deserted bedroom. Sam slipped inside first and Dean followed. At the door, they didn't hear anything, and moved on into the house. The very next door was another bedroom, and they caught the woman inside as she was hanging up a jacket in her closet. In moments, Sam had her pinned against the wall, his hand over her mouth. Before he could begin a dialogue, though, she'd bitten into his hand and gotten two words into a spell that was cut off only by the sounding out of Dean's gun.

"Secret's out," he muttered, whirling from the room before the woman had even dropped to the floor. He met a second woman in the hall, this one older, and both brothers' guns rang out just as she was raising her hand to cast something against them.

After she fell to the ground, the brothers kept moving down the hall, checking rooms as they went. The house was a sprawling maze of small rooms, and they found Calla in one of the last spaces they came to, in what was cramped enough that it might have been meant to be an office or nursery at one time, right off of the main living area.

Almost as soon as Dean reached her, he could see in her face that the witches had already done whatever they'd planned. When she rolled over at the sound of the door opening, she met his eyes blankly. He didn't see any recognition there, let alone emotion. Freezing in the doorway, he felt Sam at his back and gestured him away.

"Calla?"

Her eyes were still on his. "Yes?"

He stared at her, looking for anything other than flat acknowledgement. His own body was pulsing with relief at finding her, wanting to pick her up and drag her to the car and back to the bunker... but she was just sitting there, looking back at him as if she'd never even seen him before. He swallowed, hard, and then asked, "Do you remember me?"

She shook her head, but stood up from the bed and took a step toward him. "I don't, as I don't really remember anything, which was intended, but if you tell me how I can help you, I'll be glad to do so."

Dean could hear his brother cursing softly behind him, and then there was the sound of a fist hitting a wall, but he couldn't bring himself either to turn around or go forward to the girl in front of him. She looked the same, and he knew she'd feel the same, but that was it. This wasn't the girl he'd woken up with in bed that morning.

They were too late.

To Be Continued...