Fic: Bad Company (2/7)
Fic: Bad Company (2/7)
Series: Special Projects
Summary: Dean and Chloe get in serious trouble. Will Sam realize it in time to save them?
Author: pen37
Beta: Strangevisitor7
Fandoms: Smallville/Supernatural
Characters: Chloe, Sam, Dean, Sarah
Pairing:Chloe/Dean Sam/Sarah
Rating: pg-13
This is a part of the Special Projects series. You can find the rest of the series here.
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7
The little Roach Motel that Bobby had booked them into was the only place to stay in Guerra. Twelve identical rooms in a row faced the highway. The sun-blasted, flaking paint on the doors showed several faded layers of color.
Inside, the décor might have been described retro - but in all probability hadn't really changed since 1975. Sam had grown up in hotels like this, so he didn't give it much thought. Until he considered that Sarah was probably used to staying at someplace nicer, like a Holiday Inn.
He looked at her nervously, but she simply sat her bag next to the door, and followed Bobby to the kitchenette. Sam smiled at her. Sarah had this unique ability to seem at home wherever she was. And more importantly, she seemed to have this empathy for others that let her set them at ease with the slightest of actions.
It wasn't the first thing he'd noticed about her. That had been the way she looked as she'd come down the stairs in that little black dress, eyes narrowed in challenge. He'd taken one look at her, and felt the thrill of awareness as parts of him that he'd thought he'd buried with Jess suddenly woke up and announced their presence.
She'd been out to trip him up that day. To call him on his lies. He and Dean had shown up at her father's auction house looking for a haunted painting without first bothering to look like auctioneers. It had been a mistake on their part: they'd tried to do things Dad's way, by bluffing. They proved to be about as ham-fisted at it as a pair of trained gorillas.
And yet, Sarah had seen past all that. She'd seen him. And he'd surprised himself by responding to her verbal sparring in kind. Then, when he'd taken her out to dinner to try and cage out more information about the painting, she'd made him realize that even though he'd buried Jess, he hadn't crawled into the grave as well.
And now here she was, in a run-down hotel with him and Bobby. Hunting. On some level, he thought he should have felt bad about that. For dragging her into this world of his. But when she sat at the table, took the beer that Bobby offered and glanced back at him with the barest hint of a smile, Sam found that he didn't feel bad. Not at all really.
He sat across from her at the table and picked up his own beer. When Bobby spread out his research, Sam looked across at Sarah again, and smiled warmly.
“When you two are done.” The old hunter raised his eyebrows at Sam.
“You've got our attention Bobby,” Sam chuckled. “What have you got?”
“This is what I know,” He said. “If the Mackenzies had been here - folks would've noticed. There's one gas station, one restaurant and one motel.”
“Maybe they have a camper?” Sam suggested. “They could get by on groceries and camp on the prairie.”
“But they wouldn't haul their own gas,” Bobby said. “The Mackenzies were never here, Sam.”
“I thought your contacts said they were?” Sarah's brow wrinkled in confusion.
“My contacts said that this is where they were headed,” the old hunter sat down and leaned on his elbows.
“Can you trust them?” Sam asked.
“Him,” Bobby nodded. “Anthropologist at UT Austin. Hunters with business 'round here call him for background info on any given area. Mackenzie called him for the history of Guerra.”
Bobby paused, and sipped his longneck reflectively. “Only he never got here.”
Sam raked his hands through his hair in a frustrated motion. “So what's our next step?”
“We can't leave 'till whatever's wrong here gets put down,” Bobby said. “But once that's done, we start looking for Mackenzie.”
“Maybe we should split our efforts,” Sam suggested. “There are three of us.”
Bobby shook his head in denial. “Sam, everyone who knows him said that this guy was a good hunter. If he didn't make it down here, there may be a serious reason. We need to stay together.”
“Alright,” Sam nodded. He looked meaningfully at the research that was spread across the table. “So what are we looking at?”
In response, Bobby spread a map in front of him.
“Here's El Tecolote Road,” he said. He took a red pen, and marked a section of the road. “And here's where the accidents have occurred. Now,” He pulled a second map out, and lay it over the first. “Here is where the road used to be.”
Sam leaned over to stare at the map. “There was a cemetery in the spot where the accidents are occurring.” He looked up for confirmation.
The older hunter nodded at that. “The graves have been moved 100 yards to the north of where they were.”
“What do you bet they missed a couple?” Sam asked.
“Like in Poltergeist?” Sarah raised her eyebrows.
“More like Interstate 4 Dead Zone in Central Florida,” Sam said.
Off Sarah's blank look, he explained. “I-4 is supposed to be built over the graves of a family of four yellow fever victims. Statistically, there are more accidents over that stretch of highway than in any other section between Dayton and Orlando. With the accidents that Bobby's been talking about - this may be something similar.”
“So there may be remains - bones or something - buried under the asphalt.” Sarah summarized.
“Pretty much,” Sam nodded.
“How do we get to them?”
Sam looked at Bobby in askance. In response, the older man rolled his eyes. “I'll see to getting uniforms, a truck and a jackhammer.”
“And I'll --”
“Call Chloe,” Sarah cut in. “And see if she can hook us up with some kind of seismic scanner.”
Bobby looked at Sam with a questioning expression. The tall man replied with a shrug. “It's more reliable than dowsing. Particularly since we don't have Isaac handy.”
“If you say so,” Bobby said.
Sam nodded reached for his phone and dialed Chloe's number from memory. The phone rang several times before clicking over to voice mail. He frowned at that, and dialed Dean's number. It also went to voice mail.
“Problem?” Sarah asked.
“They aren't answering their phones,' Sam said.
“Maybe they're busy?” she suggested.
“Yeah, maybe.”
“You don't think so, do you?” Bobby said.
“I've . . . just got a bad feeling about this.” Sam's eyes narrowed.
“One of your psychic bad feelings?” Bobby asked.
“Maybe,” Sam said. His mouth twisted as he chewed on his lip. “I”m going to call Chloe's friend Oliver Queen and see if I can get a scanner from him. As far as I'm concerned, the sooner we get this hunt over with and find out where the Mackenzie family is, the better I'll feel.”
“You mean the sooner you hear from Dean and Chloe, the better we'll all feel,” Sarah said with a nod.
Sam smiled ruefully at her as he dug the card for Queen Industries out of his wallet and dialed the number.
“Sentinel. This is Arrow. What can I do for you?” Oliver Queen's voice was businesslike. Given his worries, Sam was glad that the billionaire cut right through the pleasantries. Even if he didn't know who the heck Sentinel was.
“Who?” Sam's eyes narrowed.
“You,” Oliver explained. “Didn't 'Tower tell you about your code names?”
“Must have slipped her mind,” Sam rolled his eyes. They had code names now. Great. Trust Chloe to name him after a newspaper.
“What can I do for you, Sentinel?”
Sam sighed at that. It seemed like the code name was going to stick. “Actually, I needed to get my hands on a seismic scanner.”
“Any particular reason?” Sam could hear, , Ollie's smirking over the phone.
“We have to locate a grave to put down a restless spirit. Problem is, it's buried under a foot of asphalt road, and nine feet of fill dirt.”
“Really?” The smugness evaporated from Ollie's voice. “How does one put down a restless spirit?”
“Same way we did back in that canyon in the Black Hills,” Sam said. “You find what the spirit is tied to - in this case the remains - dig them up, salt and burn them.”
“So you need the scanner to find them before you start tearing up chunks of road,” Oliver summarized.
“Basically,” Sam said. “It would save time.”
“Tell you what, Sentinel: I'll get one of the experimental, high precision ones from our Research and Development department, and escort it down to you personally.”
“You're . . . coming here?” Sam's eyebrows raised in surprise.
“I want to see this for myself.” Oliver said. “I'll make arrangements for the scanner and then be in touch --”
“Wait!” Sam protested. But it was too late. Ollie had already clicked off the phone.
“Just . . . great.” He threw the phone down, leaned back in his chair and stared up at the ceiling.
“Problem?” Bobby asked.
“Yeah,” Sam sat up straighter in his chair and looked across the table at the old hunter. “We're about to entertain a billionaire vigilante tourist on this hunt.”
“Good thing it's not too dangerous,” Bobby patted Sam's shoulder in a fatherly way.
“Well,” Sarah stood up. “If we've got some time to kill, I'm going to find whatever passes for the hall of records around here and start digging.”
“What for?” Bobby asked.
“I want to find the burial records for the original cemetery, and see if I can match them up with the newer one,” she said. “In case the spirit isn't tied to it's remains, we need to make sure that we can figure out who it is, and what it is tied to.”
As she left, Bobby turned to Sam with appreciative eyes. “Sam --”
“I know, I know,” Sam rolled his eyes. “I've been through this with Dean. Marry that girl.”
Series: Special Projects
Summary: Dean and Chloe get in serious trouble. Will Sam realize it in time to save them?
Author: pen37
Beta: Strangevisitor7
Fandoms: Smallville/Supernatural
Characters: Chloe, Sam, Dean, Sarah
Pairing:Chloe/Dean Sam/Sarah
Rating: pg-13
This is a part of the Special Projects series. You can find the rest of the series here.
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7
The little Roach Motel that Bobby had booked them into was the only place to stay in Guerra. Twelve identical rooms in a row faced the highway. The sun-blasted, flaking paint on the doors showed several faded layers of color.
Inside, the décor might have been described retro - but in all probability hadn't really changed since 1975. Sam had grown up in hotels like this, so he didn't give it much thought. Until he considered that Sarah was probably used to staying at someplace nicer, like a Holiday Inn.
He looked at her nervously, but she simply sat her bag next to the door, and followed Bobby to the kitchenette. Sam smiled at her. Sarah had this unique ability to seem at home wherever she was. And more importantly, she seemed to have this empathy for others that let her set them at ease with the slightest of actions.
It wasn't the first thing he'd noticed about her. That had been the way she looked as she'd come down the stairs in that little black dress, eyes narrowed in challenge. He'd taken one look at her, and felt the thrill of awareness as parts of him that he'd thought he'd buried with Jess suddenly woke up and announced their presence.
She'd been out to trip him up that day. To call him on his lies. He and Dean had shown up at her father's auction house looking for a haunted painting without first bothering to look like auctioneers. It had been a mistake on their part: they'd tried to do things Dad's way, by bluffing. They proved to be about as ham-fisted at it as a pair of trained gorillas.
And yet, Sarah had seen past all that. She'd seen him. And he'd surprised himself by responding to her verbal sparring in kind. Then, when he'd taken her out to dinner to try and cage out more information about the painting, she'd made him realize that even though he'd buried Jess, he hadn't crawled into the grave as well.
And now here she was, in a run-down hotel with him and Bobby. Hunting. On some level, he thought he should have felt bad about that. For dragging her into this world of his. But when she sat at the table, took the beer that Bobby offered and glanced back at him with the barest hint of a smile, Sam found that he didn't feel bad. Not at all really.
He sat across from her at the table and picked up his own beer. When Bobby spread out his research, Sam looked across at Sarah again, and smiled warmly.
“When you two are done.” The old hunter raised his eyebrows at Sam.
“You've got our attention Bobby,” Sam chuckled. “What have you got?”
“This is what I know,” He said. “If the Mackenzies had been here - folks would've noticed. There's one gas station, one restaurant and one motel.”
“Maybe they have a camper?” Sam suggested. “They could get by on groceries and camp on the prairie.”
“But they wouldn't haul their own gas,” Bobby said. “The Mackenzies were never here, Sam.”
“I thought your contacts said they were?” Sarah's brow wrinkled in confusion.
“My contacts said that this is where they were headed,” the old hunter sat down and leaned on his elbows.
“Can you trust them?” Sam asked.
“Him,” Bobby nodded. “Anthropologist at UT Austin. Hunters with business 'round here call him for background info on any given area. Mackenzie called him for the history of Guerra.”
Bobby paused, and sipped his longneck reflectively. “Only he never got here.”
Sam raked his hands through his hair in a frustrated motion. “So what's our next step?”
“We can't leave 'till whatever's wrong here gets put down,” Bobby said. “But once that's done, we start looking for Mackenzie.”
“Maybe we should split our efforts,” Sam suggested. “There are three of us.”
Bobby shook his head in denial. “Sam, everyone who knows him said that this guy was a good hunter. If he didn't make it down here, there may be a serious reason. We need to stay together.”
“Alright,” Sam nodded. He looked meaningfully at the research that was spread across the table. “So what are we looking at?”
In response, Bobby spread a map in front of him.
“Here's El Tecolote Road,” he said. He took a red pen, and marked a section of the road. “And here's where the accidents have occurred. Now,” He pulled a second map out, and lay it over the first. “Here is where the road used to be.”
Sam leaned over to stare at the map. “There was a cemetery in the spot where the accidents are occurring.” He looked up for confirmation.
The older hunter nodded at that. “The graves have been moved 100 yards to the north of where they were.”
“What do you bet they missed a couple?” Sam asked.
“Like in Poltergeist?” Sarah raised her eyebrows.
“More like Interstate 4 Dead Zone in Central Florida,” Sam said.
Off Sarah's blank look, he explained. “I-4 is supposed to be built over the graves of a family of four yellow fever victims. Statistically, there are more accidents over that stretch of highway than in any other section between Dayton and Orlando. With the accidents that Bobby's been talking about - this may be something similar.”
“So there may be remains - bones or something - buried under the asphalt.” Sarah summarized.
“Pretty much,” Sam nodded.
“How do we get to them?”
Sam looked at Bobby in askance. In response, the older man rolled his eyes. “I'll see to getting uniforms, a truck and a jackhammer.”
“And I'll --”
“Call Chloe,” Sarah cut in. “And see if she can hook us up with some kind of seismic scanner.”
Bobby looked at Sam with a questioning expression. The tall man replied with a shrug. “It's more reliable than dowsing. Particularly since we don't have Isaac handy.”
“If you say so,” Bobby said.
Sam nodded reached for his phone and dialed Chloe's number from memory. The phone rang several times before clicking over to voice mail. He frowned at that, and dialed Dean's number. It also went to voice mail.
“Problem?” Sarah asked.
“They aren't answering their phones,' Sam said.
“Maybe they're busy?” she suggested.
“Yeah, maybe.”
“You don't think so, do you?” Bobby said.
“I've . . . just got a bad feeling about this.” Sam's eyes narrowed.
“One of your psychic bad feelings?” Bobby asked.
“Maybe,” Sam said. His mouth twisted as he chewed on his lip. “I”m going to call Chloe's friend Oliver Queen and see if I can get a scanner from him. As far as I'm concerned, the sooner we get this hunt over with and find out where the Mackenzie family is, the better I'll feel.”
“You mean the sooner you hear from Dean and Chloe, the better we'll all feel,” Sarah said with a nod.
Sam smiled ruefully at her as he dug the card for Queen Industries out of his wallet and dialed the number.
“Sentinel. This is Arrow. What can I do for you?” Oliver Queen's voice was businesslike. Given his worries, Sam was glad that the billionaire cut right through the pleasantries. Even if he didn't know who the heck Sentinel was.
“Who?” Sam's eyes narrowed.
“You,” Oliver explained. “Didn't 'Tower tell you about your code names?”
“Must have slipped her mind,” Sam rolled his eyes. They had code names now. Great. Trust Chloe to name him after a newspaper.
“What can I do for you, Sentinel?”
Sam sighed at that. It seemed like the code name was going to stick. “Actually, I needed to get my hands on a seismic scanner.”
“Any particular reason?” Sam could hear, , Ollie's smirking over the phone.
“We have to locate a grave to put down a restless spirit. Problem is, it's buried under a foot of asphalt road, and nine feet of fill dirt.”
“Really?” The smugness evaporated from Ollie's voice. “How does one put down a restless spirit?”
“Same way we did back in that canyon in the Black Hills,” Sam said. “You find what the spirit is tied to - in this case the remains - dig them up, salt and burn them.”
“So you need the scanner to find them before you start tearing up chunks of road,” Oliver summarized.
“Basically,” Sam said. “It would save time.”
“Tell you what, Sentinel: I'll get one of the experimental, high precision ones from our Research and Development department, and escort it down to you personally.”
“You're . . . coming here?” Sam's eyebrows raised in surprise.
“I want to see this for myself.” Oliver said. “I'll make arrangements for the scanner and then be in touch --”
“Wait!” Sam protested. But it was too late. Ollie had already clicked off the phone.
“Just . . . great.” He threw the phone down, leaned back in his chair and stared up at the ceiling.
“Problem?” Bobby asked.
“Yeah,” Sam sat up straighter in his chair and looked across the table at the old hunter. “We're about to entertain a billionaire vigilante tourist on this hunt.”
“Good thing it's not too dangerous,” Bobby patted Sam's shoulder in a fatherly way.
“Well,” Sarah stood up. “If we've got some time to kill, I'm going to find whatever passes for the hall of records around here and start digging.”
“What for?” Bobby asked.
“I want to find the burial records for the original cemetery, and see if I can match them up with the newer one,” she said. “In case the spirit isn't tied to it's remains, we need to make sure that we can figure out who it is, and what it is tied to.”
As she left, Bobby turned to Sam with appreciative eyes. “Sam --”
“I know, I know,” Sam rolled his eyes. “I've been through this with Dean. Marry that girl.”