Sam turned restlessly in his sleep – the bedcovers were bunched and draped over the edge of his bed in testament to his movements – and he was muttering incoherently. Suddenly his voice rose to a shout: ‘No!’ and he sat up straight with his eyes wide but unseeing. It took a few moments for him to focus on the room, but when he did and he could see he was in the same motel room he’d been in for the last few days, he hurriedly lifted his feet up and examined them. They were both covered in red dirt, and his hands were streaked with the same stuff, which was also ingrained under his fingernails. He could feel the sweat drying on his skin and he felt disgusting – not just physically but as if his mind was dirty too. His shoulders slumped and he sat there, dejectedly, trying hard to remember what his dream – his nightmare – had been about but all he retained was this feeling of nameless dread – that, and other feelings he shied away from – which he’d come to associate with waking up each morning…
He started as his phone rang. His hand scrabbled for it on the bedside table but he dropped it in his haste and had to pick it up off the floor.
‘Sam… Sam, are you there?’ he heard the voice call out on the other end as he held it up to his ear. He paused while he tried to focus on the question, to concentrate his thoughts so he could answer.
‘Sammy, you OK?’ said Dean, a note of concern in his voice now.
Sam took a deep breath and said, ‘Yeah, I’m fine’, Dean. ‘Just woke up and I’m still a bit out of it,’ he replied.
‘Goin’ soft there, kiddo,’ Dean laughed. ‘A few days off an’ you don’t get up in the mornin’ now!’ Sam looked at his watch – it was ten after twelve! ‘Yeah, late night, you know how it is….’ He thought it best to let Dean draw his own conclusions – easier – and anyway, he didn’t like lying to his brother.
‘Well, I hope a girl was involved somewhere, Sammy! You needed a break so make use of it. I’ll see you next week, like we said,’ and Dean ended the call.
Sam held the phone in his hand. Now that Dean had gone, he wished he’d told him about everything, but then, what could he tell him? That he’d woken up in a cold sweat the last four mornings, that he was sleep-walking, that he kept having awful nightmares – at least he thought he’d been having nightmares, but the images, which seemed so clear just as he woke up disappeared so quickly and he couldn’t even hold on to any fragments – but the worst thing was the way he felt when he woke up: he could feel evil inside him… and he liked it…
Dean looked thoughtful when he put his phone away. ‘Bobby, somethin’s not right with Sam, I can feel it.’
‘Uh-huh,’ Bobby grunted from under the hood of the Impala. Dean didn’t need any help but he didn’t have the heart to tell Bobby that. Besides, if he kept Bobby busy it would help take his mind off things… things like his dead wife turning into a zombie and Bobby having to put her down…
‘That’s it, uh-huh?’
Bobby got out from under the hood and said, ‘Look, the kid’s only been away for five days an’ already you’re frettin’ about him,’ Bobby said. ‘He’s your kid brother but he’s all grown up now. You have to give him some space, Dean.’
‘I don’t know, Bobby,’ Dean said. He was torn between his ill-formed suspicions about Sammy and his real concerns about Bobby, who definitely wasn’t handling things well after he’d had to kill Karen for the second time… ‘Maybe you’re right, I should stop worryin’ about the kid so much,’ he replied, but privately he thought he’d keep an eye on Sammy somehow…
Bobby smiled as he bent down again. It would do Dean good to have a break from Sam too, and he couldn’t deny having Dean around made the place seem a lot less lonely and gray…
Sam held his head in his hands. He needed to think but his mind felt all messed up and his thoughts were jumbled. There must be some clues if he could only think straight… He went back in his mind to when he’d left Dean five days ago now…
Sam had borrowed one of Bobby’s old cars and had set off to visit two of his old friends from Stanford who’d moved to Cheyenne. Bobby had been the one to insist that they should all have a few days’ break from hunting after the last few weeks when Sam had slipped and started drinking demon blood again, and then there was the zombie uprising, of course. Although Bobby told Dean that Sam needed time and some of his own space to recover, he’d actually confided to Sam that he thought it was Dean who needed a break more – and some time away from his brother. Seeing Sam fall off the wagon again, even if Famine – the Horseman – was the cause of it, and then having to watch Sam go cold turkey while he fought his addiction had affected Dean far more than he would ever admit. Bobby told Sam he’d even seen him pleading for help from God… If it hadn’t been for the zombies… well, Bobby would have made Dean have a break straightaway. So Sam played along, and Bobby’s emotions after losing his wife again were raw enough for Dean to agree to Sam’s request that he should stay with Bobby to make sure he was OK…
Sam headed west along I-90. He planned to visit the Badlands National Park on the way to Cheyenne; he wanted to do some hiking for a couple of days before catching up with Jay and Alice. It only took a couple of hours to get there from Bobby’s and he arrived at a motel just on the edge of the National Park late that afternoon. He checked in and thought he’d head off into the woods for a couple of hours before night fell, just to get the feel of the place …
The sun was close to setting when Sam realized he was lost. The map he’d bought at the shop next to the motel was hopelessly inaccurate and his compass wasn’t working. He guessed there must be iron in the hills around him because the needle was just spinning crazily as he walked. It was too late now to use the sun to get back: it would be down in a few minutes and an approximate bearing in the dusk wouldn’t help him as night would have fallen well before he could get back to civilization. He’d likely end up going around in circles and the forest wasn’t any place to be blundering around in the dark. ‘A rookie mistake,’ thought Sam, ruefully, ‘I should’ve waited until the morning to start.’ He decided to hole up for the night, preferably somewhere off the ground in case there were bears around, although he felt safe enough with his shotgun and handgun against anything living in these woods…
Sam found a convenient tree before daylight failed. It was large and its bark was almost black from age. He couldn’t guess its age. It stood alone in the middle of a big clearing in the woods, but more importantly from Sam’s point of view it had a natural platform about twelve feet off the ground and was both big enough to allow him lie down reasonably comfortably and high enough for an uninterrupted night. He lay down and waited for the stars to emerge overhead. He would have a good view because the branches were separated, as in a spiral, above his head. He thought about Dean and smiled. He appreciated what Bobby had said, that Dean would never admit it but he’d almost had enough what with him being back on demon blood again. His smile fell away as he thought of the Hell he’d been through, trying to kick the habit, a Hell which he saw mirrored in Dean’s eyes as he looked on, helplessly. He’d only been able to stop drinking because he knew Dean was there for him, always, and if he didn’t stop, his addiction would probably end up killing Dean too, so, no contest! Dean needed some time off without worrying about him so he was glad to do this small thing for his brother…
Sam came back to the present. Everything up to that point he recalled perfectly, but the next memories he had were unaccountably vague and disjointed. He seemed to recall falling asleep and then waking to see the full moon shining high, cold and brilliantly white above him. He thought he heard a faint noise close by, as if something was moving stealthily through the branches and he could hear a whispering sound almost beyond the range of his hearing. He imagined, or he dreamt he saw strange yellow eyes peering at him from behind leaves but then he remembered nothing more until he woke up in the morning at the bottom of the tree. He thought he must have had a bad dream in the night and lost his balance, but he only had some cuts and bruises and a sore ankle so he shrugged it off and set off through the forest. It was easy to find his way now, and strangely, his compass appeared to be working…
Later he’d had a long, hot shower back in his room and then examined his injuries. Like he thought, nothing too bad, but there was a strange, deep puncture wound just above his ankle. Back then he thought he’d just landed on a sharp thorn, but now he thought about it, it couldn’t have been a thorn – he’d landed in a grassy area under the tree – and if it had happened any other time, he’d have felt it… So was this a clue? It seemed like it was, but he needed to go forward, to see if there was anything else out of place, anything else that could point him towards finding out what was wrong with him…
He rolled forward in his mind to later on that day. He'd wanted to start out hiking before midday but he felt unaccountably tired after his efforts the previous day and he lay down to take a short nap, only to go dead asleep and wake up much later in the evening, when the sun was close to the horizon. He still felt tired but in some strange way also energized, with a nervous energy that wouldn’t let him stay still for more than a few moments and he paced around the room until the sky started to darken and he had to get out into the fresh air. He breathed in the evening air and all the scents of the forest came back to him, shaper and clearer than he’d ever smelled before. He felt drawn towards the forest, even though part of his mind was shouting at him that this was a bad idea, something was wrong with him…
Then he came up against the same brick wall that he’d tried to get past every day since. His memory was just a blank after that, until he woke up in bed late the next morning, with his hands and feet covered in the same red dirt as they were now and his ankle was reddened around the deep puncture wound, which was now weeping a clear liquid. Each day since then was the same: he’d wake up in bed, covered in a cold sweat and with filthy hands and feet, and the puncture in his ankle didn’t scab over, it just continued to weep that clear liquid. He’d feel completely exhausted all through the day but then as the evening drew in he’d start to feel excited again and full of anticipation – for what he didn’t know – until he had to leave the room, which was choking him… then nothing again until the next morning… He’d given up leaving the motel for now – he was just too tired and apathetic in the day to do anything, either that or he was asleep, and at night, well, he couldn’t remember what was happening to him… Today would be different though. He’d get plenty of coffee and stay awake, try and figure things out. He just needed a short nap first…
Dean tried to call Sam a few times the next morning when Bobby went to town for supplies. He knew Bobby would be a while as he’d probably call in for a few drinks at his favorite bar. The phone just went straight to answerphone each time and his worry about Sam spiked. Sam had given him his friends’ number but only for emergencies and he thought this qualified so he called them. Alice answered and she said they hadn’t seen Sam at all; they’d been expecting him for two or three days now and they hadn’t been able to contact him either. Dean thanked her and asked her to ring him if they heard from Sam, then he rang off. He’d have to leave Bobby for a few days and find out what had happened to Sammy – he didn’t want to wait until Bobby dragged his ass back home so he took off, after leaving Bobby a short note explaining what had happened…
Sam woke up late the next afternoon in the forest, not in his motel room this time. Again he didn’t remember anything after he’d lain down on his motel bed for a nap the day before, but his feet and hands were grimed with the same red dirt as usual. ‘What the hell’s happening to me?’ he thought. He felt too weak to get up but he managed to struggle into a sitting position against a tree trunk; that was all he could manage at present. He sat there, watching the sun descend, and as it dropped down towards to the horizon and thunderclouds coalesced overhead, so his energy started to return and his lips started to curve up at the edges – it wasn’t a smile though; most people would have thought it looked more like a grimace of hate and pain…
Dean was following Sam along I-90 W. It was the only real route to Cheyenne but as he drove along it he tried to put himself in Sam’s shoes, to try and see things as Sam would – he’d known that kid all his life so it wasn’t that difficult – and he just knew it was the route Sam had followed. He passed the exit to the Badlands National Park, and he had a sudden feeling that Sam would have stopped here. No logical reason, it just seemed the sort of place Sam would have wanted to see... and he’d always liked hiking when he was younger…He turned around and pulled off. There was a motel nearby so he decided to check it out…
Sam had been here! He’d been here for a few days according to the girl on the desk. Dean went to Sam’s room; he picked the lock of his door and he went inside. The room was… messy, very messy for someone like Sam, anyway. There was red dirt all over the floor, even over the bed covers and sheets… Sam would never have left the room in that state, no matter what… so what had he been thinking, and where was he now? Dean looked around the exits and saw the same red dirt on one of the window ledges facing towards the back of the motel, towards the woods, which came down very close here. He jumped out and followed the trail of bare feet up the hillside. ‘So Sammy had come out here with no shoes on? Weird and then some,’ he thought. The trail led deep into the woods, where the sunlight changed to a faded green that seemed to be sucked up by the leaves. These woods looked old, very old, and there was a still quality to the air and the undergrowth that made it feel as if the forest was holding its breath… Dean shook off that fanciful feeling but he could feel something wasn’t right… it felt like someone or something was watching him as the hairs on the back of his neck stood up.
‘Sammy, where are you?’ he called out as he walked on, but there was no answer. He followed the footprints into a clearing with a large tree at its centre. The tree was surrounded by a large ring of some strange-looking mushrooms about thirty feet across and there was only a narrow disc of grass around its trunk and main roots now – nothing else was growing inside the mushroom circle. Dean could see that all the grass and plants had been crazily uprooted and thrown carelessly away from the tree, revealing earth, which was the same red color as that on Sam’s bed… Dean could see Sam’s tracks go over the mushrooms and then follow the inside of the ring, around and around, as if Sammy was just circling endlessly inside the ring. He walked around the ring and saw where Sam had left, but it looked like he’d been dragged out because all he could see were scuff marks from his heels, and no other tracks…
It was late afternoon now but the sky was full of thunderheads and it looked much darker than it should be at this time of day and Dean realized he was running out of time, at least for today, if he wanted to find Sammy, so he started jogging through the forest to cover more ground – the tracks were clear enough at the moment. The forest started to thin ahead and he caught a glint of water, then suddenly he saw Sam, sitting up against a tree ahead of him! From here Dean thought his eyes were closed but there was something wrong with his expression. He ran over and saw Sam’s eyes were shut – in sleep or because he was unconscious Dean didn’t know – but his mouth was curved up into a strange, cruel-looking expression. He knelt down and shook Sam’s shoulder and his eyes flew open, but Dean saw they were tinged yellow and were full of hate! Dean took a step back, involuntarily: the eyes reminded him strongly of Yellow-Eyes but this couldn’t be him – Dean had killed him long ago – but it wasn’t Sammy either!
‘Who are you? What’ve you done with my brother?’ Dean demanded fiercely.
Sam looked at him with those devil-colored eyes and said, ‘He’s here, but he’s mine now until the morning, mine to do what I want with every night from now on!’
‘Who are you?’ Dean repeated,‘… What are you?’
Sam smiled wider but he just looked even crueler and insanity peeked out at Dean. ‘I’m what you might call an elemental – a free spirit,’ and he giggled.
Dean was shocked to hear his brother make such a sound. ‘You’re possessing him?’ he shouted. ‘Are you a ghost, a demon or what?’
‘I’m neither, human!’ Sam stopped giggling, and he stood up over Dean. ‘You bore me!’ He picked up a tree branch and in one smooth move he knocked Dean out with a single blow to the side of his head and strode off into the woods, soon disappearing from sight…
Dean woke up many hours later; at least it must have been a long time after he’d been hit because the full moon was shining down on him from high in the sky. He put a hand to his head and when he pulled it away it was covered with a sticky liquid, which was dark in the moonlight – his blood. He felt like his head was splitting and he was groggy, too groggy to sit up. It took him another twenty minutes before he could try and raise his head, which sent fresh pain searing through his brain, but he couldn’t wait any longer. He sat up while his head protested by making his vision swim. Another fifteen minutes and he tried to stand up, but I took him three attempts to stay on his feet, swaying. He knew he was in no shape to hunt for Sam and he certainly couldn’t deal with him at the moment – Hell, he couldn’t even make it back through the woods to the motel safely, so he sat down clumsily and leaned back against the same tree Sam had been sitting against. He took out his ’45 and waited for whatever might come in the night…
Sam had walked off with purpose and circled back to the great tree in the forest, the one with the faery ring around it – the ring of mushrooms that Dean had noticed earlier. He stepped cautiously over the mushrooms. Even though he was in this strong body the ‘free spirit’ still felt nervous trying to step over the ring in case it took his strength away suddenly and left him vulnerable... He remembered that first night when he’d taken control of Sam, who was resting in the tree. Even though he’d stepped out of the ring backwards, like he was supposed to do when leaving his prison, he’d almost been torn from Sam’s body. This human was the most compatible he’d ever possessed because of the traces of demon blood still in it – the blood had called to him when this creature first climbed the tree that still imprisoned him – yet even so he’d lost control and Sam had fallen backwards… He’d had to use all his powers to drag Sam away from the ring until he regained his strength. If it happened again, maybe he’d even be vulnerable to that human he’d hit earlier. They didn’t register with him usually, humans – he was unfamiliar with them and their ways and was only gaining information on them now from inhabiting this one’s body – but he’d felt a strength of purpose in that one – Dean? He thought now he should have dealt with him properly instead of just wounding him. He examined Sam’s mind and found some memories of Dean killing demons. So, he’d killed cousins, had he? Then he was dangerous and should be removed, but tomorrow would do – better that Sam should do it when he was away from this body, in case of accidents – and he needed to finish his work by tomorrow night before the full moon started waning…
Dean stayed awake while the moon was full and only started to drowse in the pre-dawn light – he’d felt safer once he knew daylight was on the way and was able to grab a couple of hours sleep. There’d been nothing strange all night except for a time when the moon was at its highest, when that strange feeling of the forest holding its breath had happened again, stronger this time, and there was a tension all around him. Now he could dismiss it but then it seemed real, like something was about to happen, something connected to Sam and that spirit and he wondered if his feelings earlier weren’t right. Somehow he didn’t think he had much time left… He staggered to his feet and managed to make it back to Sam’s motel room and he took a shower to try and wake himself up…
Dean felt better after showering and then eating. His head still hurt like a b*tch but he could see clearly now – the double vision had gone even when he moved his head pretty fast – but he still felt sick and tired. If that sonofab*tch had hit him much harder he wouldn’t have woken up again, he reckoned. Sam didn’t turn up. Dean reckoned he was still in the forest, but was he alone, or was that monster controlling him? That spirit or whatever it was said he had control of Sam every night, but did that mean Sam was himself the rest of the time? Somehow he wasn’t sure of that…
Sam’s laptop was in the room. Dean looked up ‘free spirits’ and ‘elementals’. He laughed at some of the websites which came up. ‘You gotta be freakin’ kiddin’ me!’ he thought. ’Fairies and elves, goblins, gnomes, it’s a joke!’ But the creature that was possessing Sammy and had brained him wasn’t a joke. He saw amongst all the rubbish and semi-mystical crap that they were associated with animism, a religion which existed long before organized religions, but there was nothing on how to kill them. He called Bobby for any help. He steeled himself for Bobby’s sarcasm when he asked him about them…
‘Fairies, huh? And what bottle did ya pull them out of?’ Bobby asked witheringly.
‘Bobby, please! I’ve got a head that feels twice the size it should be from Sam braining me while under the influence of that, that … spirit! They’re real, believe me! – Either that or Sammy’s a few fries short of a happy meal!’
‘Well, that’s not as strange as elementals,’ said Bobby, thoughtfully.
‘Bobby, I know that kid! He’s not insane but he is being possessed by somethin’. Can you look into it now? – We ain’t got much time, a couple a’ hours, tops – then I’ll have to go to the woods to stop it and I’d like more’n a small chance of me an’ Sammy comin’ out of this alive!’
‘OK, you got it! I’ll look into it and get back in an hour.’ Bobby rang off leaving Dean to search through the websites again for any clues. He could see there were four types of elemental – earth, air, fire and water – but that didn’t help much and there was still nothing on how to kill any of them…
Bobby called back, true to his word, in an hour.
‘Well, what you got, Bobby?’ he asked.
Bobby took a deep breath, ‘Nuthin’, kiddo; I got nuthin’. They’re not demons so demon traps an’ holy water don’t work on ‘em. They’re not monsters so silver’s no good… No-one knows what they are even, let alone how to get rid of ‘em…'
Well, thanks for tryin’, Bobby,’ Dean said and was about to ring off when Bobby said, ‘wait, Dean! You can’t go in there now, not knowin’ what to do!’
‘I got no choice, Bobby. It’s Sammy, an’ that thing needs stoppin’ somehow‘, Dean said, simply.
‘I do have a few scraps,’ said Bobby, hesitantly. ‘Some books say iron is a defense against fairies. They ain’t my usual books an’ I don’t know how reliable they are and these things aren’t fairies but it may work in the same way, I don’t know… Running water may affect them and those mushrooms you told me about, the ones in a ring around that tree – that may be a ‘fairy ring’.’ Dean could almost see Bobby shaking his head in disbelief and he half-smiled.
‘Those rings trap fairies and they can’t cross them normally – not on their own – and they take their strength, their power away.
‘Well it’s a start, Bobby’, he said. ‘I’ll call you later’, and this time he did ring off…
Bobby got ready to leave. He didn’t tell Dean but he wasn’t going to stay at home while Dean faced this on his own…
Sam woke up face down in the dirt. He was right on the edge of the clearing, about fifty yards away from the tree where he’d gone to sleep the first night he’d stayed in the woods. He sat up with difficulty. His head was aching as if someone had hit him hard, but he felt his head and there were no bumps or wounds. He looked at his hands. They were covered in cuts and abrasions and that same red dirt, which also covered his feet, like before. He looked up at the sky and could just make out the sun, which was glowing dimly behind the thick clouds which layered across the sky. He thought it must be early afternoon from its height. He looked back at the clearing and saw that all the grass around the tree, up to the edge of the mushroom ring, had been cleared and thrown away, outside the ring. The red soil had also been scraped away from the roots of the tree, leaving them exposed to the air. He looked again at his hands – he must have done this, but he didn’t remember a thing since the previous afternoon, when he woke up in the forest. A scrap of a dream came back to him: Dean was there and shouting, ‘you’re possessing him? Are you a ghost, a demon or what?’ Then he, Sam, replied, ‘I’m neither, human!’ and he hit his brother on his head with a branch! He wouldn’t do that, would he? He didn’t know what was real and what was a dream anymore. He did know he had to get out of this forest now, before anything else happened. He got up slowly and carefully to leave but as he turned around to leave the clearing he started shaking all over: his eyelids fluttered and his face curved up into that manic grin that Dean would have recognized…
The elemental was concentrating hard to regain control of Sam before the evening, in case the other human – Dean – came back. He’d be able to possess Sam easily enough by entering him through the puncture wound in his ankle once night was approaching but he needed to maintain control from a distance now… It wasn’t easy but he found Sam’s mind and was able to bend it to his will once more; this didn’t give him as much control as possession but it should be good enough for what he wanted…
Dean had been busy with his preparations. He knew he was relying on information which might be so much useless crap but it was all he had. He headed off into the forest with his sawn-off shotgun, his ’45 and a few other bits and pieces in his duffle…. Meanwhile Bobby was on his way in his truck...
Sam was on guard on the edge of the clearing, at least until nightfall. He looked normal until you saw his eyes, which were fixed and unblinking. He heard something in the trees behind him and turned to investigate. There was nothing but when he turned back, Dean was standing in front of him, with his shotgun raised. ‘Sorry, Sammy,’ he said as he struck his brother, hard. Sam slumped to the floor and Dean slipped something into his jacket pocket…
When Sammy woke up, he was handcuffed by his hands and feet around a tree. He was somewhere in an unknown part of the forest, he didn’t know where. Dean was hunkered down in front of him, looking at him keenly. ‘Sammy, is that you in there?’ he said.
Sam shook his head to clear it. ‘Yeah, it’s me,’ he said, smiling weakly at Dean, who returned the smile with a grin.
‘Do you remember what’s been happenin’ to you the last few days?’ Dean asked him.
‘Not really, I can’t remember much and what I do is all jumbled up.’
’Any idea what the thing is that’s been possessing you, any idea of its weak spots?’ Dean asked.
Sam thought for a bit, then said slowly, ‘No, not really. I think it’s a spirit but what sort I don’t know. I feel sick and dirty inside after it’s gone so that feels a bit like demon possession but I’m pretty sure it isn’t a demon. I think it’s much older than them, but that’s just a feeling I get… I don’t have much access to its mind when it’s inside me.’
’It told me it had control of you every night, but it was in charge of you just now, in daytime – d’ you know what that’s about?’ Dean asked.
‘No, sorry!'
Dean sat in thought for a few moments. Well, whatever it’s doin’ it’s in control of you somehow so I need to find a way of breaking that link. If I can kill it, that should be good enough! Sammy, I have to leave you here. I can’t take the chance that it won’t try and take control of you again, you understand, right?’ said Dean.
Sam nodded but his eyes expressed concern for Dean. ‘Be careful, it’s a tricky sonofabitch,’ he said to his brother.
Dean smiled. ‘I know’, he said. ‘I’ll be back for you later, but Sam, if the worst comes to the worst I’ve left Bobby a message saying where you are, and I’ll leave you my cell,’ and he strode off…
The elemental was furious! He’d just been ejected from Sam when the other human had knocked him out and he felt weakened. He needed time to recover before he could attempt taking control of Sam again, but night wasn’t too far away and he didn’t think Dean could know of any way to stop him. All he needed to do was to be patient…
Dean went towards the tree. Like Sam he could see the changes in the ground around the tree. He’d read up a little on animism and he reckoned the tree was maybe the key to killing this spirit. He took a deep breath and stepped over the ring of mushrooms. This was ground zero and the most dangerous place in the forest, he thought. He headed on towards the tree. Close up the tree looked sickly: its leaves were yellowing and curling up at the edges. There were strange symbols carved into the trunk. Dean had no idea what they meant but suspected they were to do with this spirit. He sat down next to the trunk to wait for night...
The elemental could sense a human inside the faery ring. He knew it wasn’t Sam, who he sensed was elsewhere in the forest, but he couldn’t focus properly on his position – it was as if he was somehow hidden from him…
The elemental was becoming more and more frustrated. He was trying to find Sam and make him come inside the circle now so he could possess him again but he couldn’t tell where he was. Something was interfering with the link between them… He needed to escape his prison tonight or he’d have to start all over again next month, next year, next century... He’d never had any creature that was as good to possess as Sam was but that didn’t matter; all that mattered was his escape, and he could still use this human to do that…
Dean felt unaccountably sleepy. It still wasn’t full night but some stars were just glimmering faintly through the trees now. Looking at the starlight made him feel worse, more and more tired, and his eyes closed. He fell over onto his side and lay still...
Bobby burst out from the trees at the edge of the clearing. He stopped when he saw Dean, unconscious near the tree. A drift of yellow smoke, which sparkled in the gloom, filtered down through the branches of the tree and formed into a sharply pointed stake, which stabbed Dean in the ankle. Bobby shouted, ‘Dean!’ but he didn’t wake, he just groaned. The stake dissolved into smoke again and filtered into his body through the wound. Bobby ran forward as Dean started to convulse but he was thrown back when he reached the mushroom ring, as if there was an invisible barrier there. He tried repeatedly to get in while Dean was shaking on the ground but he couldn’t. Dean’s shaking stopped abruptly and he sat up. His eyes flicked open wide, and they were tinged with yellow…
Bobby looked at Dean, but it wasn’t him. There was a cruel smile on his face and those eyes – it was just the way Dean had described the way the Yellow-Eyes had looked, but it couldn’t be him, surely? ‘Who are you – what have you done to Dean?’ Bobby shouted.
‘He’s here with me,’ said the elemental, and he giggled. Bobby was even more shocked than Dean had been when he heard Sam make that sound.
‘Get out of him, you b******! Bobby shouted.
‘I will, when I’m ready,’ said the spirit through Dean’s voice, and he stood up and turned away towards the tree.
'Hang on, Dean, I’ll get help!’ said Bobby and he ran to find Sam.
Bobby found Sam after about fifteen minutes of searching.
‘Hey, Bobby!’ Sam shouted, happy to be rescued but worried what this meant about Dean. His fears were realized when Bobby spoke.
‘Sam, thank God! Dean’s in trouble, we have to hurry!’ He had some cutters in his bag so he managed to free Sam from the handcuffs but he was fretting over the time this was taking – anything could have happened to Dean in the meantime…
The spirit was almost ready to kill the tree which had imprisoned him for over a thousand years now – as Dean reckoned time anyway. He was puzzled about this human though. He managed to invade his body almost as easily as he did Sam’s – but then Sam did have demon blood in him – but there was something not quite right and he couldn’t figure out what it was. Anyway, the body was still functioning under his control, so nothing to worry about. He needed to get water from the stream nearby to finish the spell. He stepped out backwards over the mushroom ring, carefully, and was pleased that there was no problem – he must be in full control of this human after all. He strode off to the stream, carrying with him some hollowed out branches to hold the water…
Sam and Bobby emerged into the clearing just as Dean disappeared into the forest. They set off after him, quietly – they didn’t want to disturb the spirit until they could figure out what it was up to. They peered out from bushes near the banks of the stream and saw him kneel down on the bank, holding out a piece of wood. Suddenly a scream of pure spite erupted from Dean’s throat and he toppled forward into the water. He continued screaming as he thrashed around in the stream. It shouldn’t have been a problem for Dean to stand – the stream was only a few feet deep but he couldn’t – his head went underwater and all they could see were bubbles floating to the surface. Sam waded in and pulled Dean up, but Dean punched him on the jaw, dazing him, sending Sam to his knees and Dean fell back underwater. Bobby tried to pull Dean out but he received the same treatment as Sam and he too fell down. Dean’s struggles under water weakened and then quieted, and as he became still, suddenly a cloud of yellow smoke erupted from underwater and then streamed away in the air, breaking apart into little wisps, which blew apart into nothing. Sam clumsily leaned forward and pulled Dean up. He wasn’t breathing. Sam could barely lift him, he felt so heavy, but he managed to carry him to the bank and turned him on his side, driving his fist into his back to try and expel the water. On the third try, Dean coughed and water flooded out. He retched, sucked in air and then lay down on his back, wearily…
Bobby waded ashore and they both helped him up into a sitting position.
‘What the Hell, Dean?’ said Bobby angrily. ‘Was that thing tryin’ to kill you or was it the other way round?’
Dean coughed. ‘Bobby, I found out that it could be killed by runnin’ water when it was inside me and I managed to take control back for a while… It was hard but I kept my body underwater until it couldn’t stay inside me anymore, and because it was outside the mushroom ring it couldn’t even get back to the tree, so it just melted away,’ and he started coughing again. 'Sorry for punchin' you and Sammy out but I couldn't let you pull me out too quick.'
‘But how come it didn’t come after me again and how could you take control back like that, Dean?’ asked Sam. 'And how did you find out about its weakness?’
Dean was silent for a little while. ‘Well, first off, I put an iron charm with a protective sigil in your pocket. I figured that should be enough protection outside the ring and Bobby said iron might be a weapon against it so I weighted myself down with these iron strips, and he pulled his shirt up to reveal a set of iron ‘belts’ around his middle. I thought they might interfere with its control over me and help weigh me down in the water if the legend was true, and I found these protective sigils in animism, which help guard against full possession. He pointed to symbols he’d drawn on his chest and over his arms and lower legs. I guess they worked, and I could read some of its mind while it thought it was controllin’ me!’
‘But that was really risky, Dean. What if it hadn’t have worked?’ asked Bobby.
‘Well, Bobby, there wasn’t any other choice, was there? It would have taken Sam again and escaped – couldn’t have that!’ and he smiled at them both.
Sam and Bobby pulled him up and they each gripped one of his shoulders in agreement and affection.