"She Just Wanted to be Heard Day 40-41," PG-13, The Ring/Supernatural
She Just Wanted to Be Heard
Day 40: The Alchemist
Part of Story Arc 1: Counterclockwise
A "The Ring/Ringu" Fanfic
by Laurel (Sailorhathor)
Chapters: 40 of 100
Rating: Overall Rating Sup13+ (adult theme; horror elements that might be too scary for children under 13; bad language)
Dates: Begun September 2006. Some material is based on previously written stories from 2003-2005. This chapter was written in July 2010.
Word Count: 4,187
Summary: Sam and Meredith serve witness to one of the most traumatic moments in the lives of the Metternich twins.
Warning: Contains spoilers for the entire Ringu and The Ring series. Spoilers for Supernatural episode 5.20 "The Devil You Know." Abuse and attempted murder of children, content concerning the Nazis and concentration camp-like killings, and drug use.
Beta Thanks: Thanks to Sammie for beta'ing this chapter!
Fanfic Challenges: Fits 50_darkfics Prompt #40 Dance and coclaim100 Prompt #40 Strangers.
Author's Notes: Thanks to Nicky for the German patty-cake rhymes!
I needed a movie that came out in early 2004 to slam, that's the only reason Brady slams Agent Cody Banks II. I heard it sucked anyway. ;D
X-over with the TV series Supernatural. Set pre-series, during Sam's years at Stanford. Brady/OFC, Sam/OFC.
On his way up to Meredith's floor, Sam could already smell the pot all the way into the stairwell. He briefly wondered where it was coming from and who could be smoking it as he came through the doors into the central room of the dormitory floor.
Meredith, crying with relief, ran to him and hugged Sam around his prominent chest. "God, Sam! I'm so glad you're here."
He put an arm around her. "It's okay, Meredith. Try to calm down." Honestly, he didn't know if it was okay at all, but it seemed like the thing to say.
"Hey, Sam! Do you know this girl?" Brady asked.
He looked ahead and to the right. "Brady? What are you doing here, man?" Sam's friend, Brady, sat on the right couch with a girl he'd never seen before.
"Tabby and me were on a date and we came back here to this chick freakin' out." Taking a drag off the joint, Brady patted Tabby's shoulder.
"I'm Meredith's roomie," she added.
Sam frowned at them both. "How can you smoke that in here? What if the R.A. smells it?"
"She sleeps like the dead," Tabby laughed. "Nothing wakes her up."
"Oh... so, you guys are just sitting here, watching Meredith freak out?" Sam asked in disbelief.
Brady shrugged, chuckling. "She sees a china cabinet where there is none."
Shaking his head, Sam looked around the room. First, he saw the china cabinet. "Hey wiseguy, I see it too. Maybe you two can't see it 'cause you're too baked."
Brady and Tabby just laughed again.
"You see it too... you see it too..." Meredith said, more to herself than anyone else. "Of course you can see it."
Sam patted her back in a soothing manner. Then he looked around the room some more, and second, spotted the young woman sitting on the couch to the left. She seemed quite out of place there, dressed in a red slinky evening gown that sparkled in the light, so low cut that it was open almost to her navel. Her legs were stretched out on the couch to her side like a cat in repose. The woman's long black hair cascaded down over her shoulders in waves; she ran the fingers of her left hand through the dark tresses and over her cleavage in what could only be a show of seduction. Sam couldn't have mistaken the half-lidded cast of her eyes for anything else.
The sides of her hair were taken up and rolled in an old-fashioned style, perhaps from the 1940's or 50's. He wondered for a moment if she actually belonged there.
"Who's this?" Sam questioned, and gestured to the girl.
Even Meredith looked at him funny. "Who's who?"
Tabby and Brady began to giggle. They weren't going to be any help.
"You don't see the girl lying there on the couch?"
The two partiers giggled harder.
Meredith shook her head. "You're seeing someone even I can't see."
Looking down at her, Sam said, "Who are you?"
The young woman smiled. Her fingers ran provocatively between her breasts again. "You look exactly as you did when you were mine, darling. Exactly." The woman's voice held a thick German accent.
Sam took a step back. "What...?"
Meredith let out a whimper. This stole his attention from the woman and toward the china cabinet; the scene there had changed significantly.
The cabinet was now full of fine dishes, with a rectangular table and chairs set in front of it. One of the little girls sat at the table. Sam thought this must be Sophie from the dark shadows under her eyes. The man he had seen in an earlier vision, the Nazi doctor, brought her a bowl of soup and set it in front of her.
"Eat up, my little Sophia," he said, although when he said it, it was in German. The translating voice that had so often spoken in these instances did its job once again.
The child began to eat. She slurped up several bites of chicken and noodles while her father watched her with the gaze of a predatory wolf, his hands folded over one another on the table. Why was he looking at her with such rapt attention?
Sophie made a face. "It tastes a little funny."
"Hm. What does it taste like?" he asked.
Slurp. Slurp. "A little like almonds."
Her twin, Suzette, came into the room. The girls were wearing identical dresses, white dresses with a pink ribbon tied around the waist and forming a large bow in the back. The child was dancing around the room, turning like a ballerina, and humming a song.
"Well, you like almonds," the man reminded his daughter. "Finish it up. You need it to bring back your strength." He stood, going over to his other child. "Ah, my pretty little princess. You are a ballerina today, are you?"
"Yes, Papa," Suzette replied with a giggle. Her father took her hands and danced her around the room, humming the same song. She went on giggling as her sister ate the soup, making the occasional face of distaste.
"Holy crap, Sam," Meredith suddenly exclaimed. He looked down at her. "There are poisons that taste like almonds when they're added to food. Her father, her own father, he..."
"He was poisoning her," the woman in the red dress said.
Sam heard the anger in her voice. "Are you their mother? Is that who you are?"
She only laughed. No. No, not their mother.
"What do you think's happening?" Tabby whispered to Brady.
The scene changed. When Sam and Meredith looked again, the china cabinet was now empty, stripped of its shelves, the doors laid open; Metternich was making some type of modifications to it. A dark-haired woman approached him. This was no longer the dining room - the floor had changed. Now, Sam and Meredith saw concrete under their shoes. The woman strolled about, a troubled look on her face.
"She is our mother," the woman on the couch informed him. Sam realized who she was then.
"You're Suzette," he said. She smiled at him, but not in an innocent manner; she was still trying to be seductive. "You lived your whole life and now that you're dead, you can appear as any age you want."
"Very good, my love," Suzette replied.
This took him aback for a moment; he couldn't speak. Finally, he asked, "Why do you keep talking to me like that? With the pet names?"
With a laugh, Suzette put her head back and gave a sinuous stretch, using the slinky dress to its fullest potential. Sam couldn't help but watch her curves move under the clingy fabric. "Ah, Sam. Your mind does not remember me. But..."
Mrs. Metternich interrupted her by speaking to the Nazi. "Rudolph, what is that you're doing to my china hutch?"
"I told you..." He used an electric drill to put in a screw, installing some sort of metal vent in the top of the cabinet. "...I am performing an experiment. I promise you, you will get a new and better hutch. Much larger, with a new punch bowl set as well."
The mother seemed to be pleased with this news. She clapped her hands and jumped in place a few times. "Ooh, that sounds wonderful. But why do you need to use the hutch in the first place?"
"I saw a better use for it than holding dishes." Rudolph stepped back, surveying the work he had done so far. "Think of it as my own little pet project."
"Oh, you and your projects. I don't even want to know what you're doing this time." Mrs. Metternich searched around in her purse for something, and brought out a set of keys. "Are you sure you want the girls to stay here with you for the weekend?"
"Yes. You go see to your mother. She's waiting for you."
"Alright. Goodbye, Rudolph." She kissed him on the cheek.
After Mrs. Metternich had walked off and faded from the scene, Rudolph grinned, smacking the cabinet on the side in satisfaction. "Goodby~ye," he sing-songed.
"I don't like this," Meredith said, hugging herself to Sam's body again. "Something really bad is about to happen."
"Try living it," Suzette shot back bitterly.
Sam looked down at her. "This is where he killed Sophie, isn't it?"
Leaning forward, adult Suzette froze him in place with a steely gaze. "This was only the beginning."
"You're seeing Suzette on the couch?" Meredith whispered, as if the ghost wouldn't hear her if she spoke quietly.
"Yeah. She's appearing to me as an adult, about my age," he responded.
"Does she know what's about to happen?" She whispered her question again, looking from Sam to the couch, her shoulders tense.
Leaning forward, Suzette spoke in a quiet voice. "You don't have to whisper," she said with a sarcastic grin.
Brady snickered.
Sam looked over at him. His eyes narrowed in suspicion. "She said you don't have to whisper," he told Meredith, and then leveled a pronounced stare at his friend. "Brady, you sure you can't see or hear her?" Sam asked, pointing at the other couch.
Brady straightened up a bit. "Huh? Why would you ask that?"
"You just... it was like you laughed at something she said."
Continuing to play dumb, Brady looked at Sam and shrugged. "Musta been something else."
Sam glared at him for several more moments before the sounds of the Metternich family again stole his attention. Rudolph Metternich practically sauntered into his daughters' room, a wolfish grin on his face. The twins were sitting on the floor cross-legged, facing each other, playing a child's patty-cake game. The sound of their little hands slapping together in rhythm echoed throughout the room.
As Sam listened to the rhyme they recited, he noticed how deep their concentration was on each other, eyes locked across their clapping hands. Almost as if they were in a trance.
"Bei Müllers hat's gebrannt -brannt, -brannt, da bin ich hingerannt, -rannt, -rannt. Da kam ein Polizist, -zist, zist, der schrieb mich auf die List, List, List."
The translating voice spoke a beat behind them; although the rhymes sounded musical in German, they were quite flat when translated. "There was a fire at the Miller's house, so I ran there. A policeman arrived, and put my name on his list." Even so, Sam began to feel a pronounced pressure in his brain the further the girls went with their clapping game.
"Da rannt ich schnell nach Haus, Haus, Haus, zu meinem Bruder Klaus, Klaus, Klaus."
"So I ran back home, to my brother Klaus."
Rudolph tried to speak over them. "Girls?"
"Der Klaus, der lag im Bett, Bett, Bett, bei seiner Frau Elisabeth."
"Klaus lay in his bed, next to his wife Elizabeth."
"Ow..." Meredith put a hand to her temple, rubbing it with her fingers. "Sam, do you feel that?"
"Yeah, I do."
Even Tabby began to react. "Shit, is this pot giving me a headache." She looked up at Meredith and Sam. "Wait... why are you guys getting one too?"
"Girls, stop that and listen to me," Rudolph was saying.
The twins continued. "Erster Stock, Zweiter Stock, Dritter Stock, Vierter Stock, Fünfter Stock..."
"First floor, second floor, third floor, fourth floor, fifth floor..."
Sam found that he absolutely could not look away from the girls' clapping hands. He saw Rudolph Metternich crouch down beside them; the look on his face told Sam and Meredith that he too was mesmerized, almost hypnotized, by the moving hands, the musical chanting voices, but he was trying his damnedest to tear himself away from the power they held. "Girls..."
"Sechster Stock, Siebter Stock, Achter Stock, Neunter Stock, Zehnter Stock - " They suddenly turned and said right to their father, "- eine Frau im Unterrock!" and broke out in giggles.
Sam breathed a sigh of relief when he heard them finish the rhyme; after completing their count to the tenth floor, they ended with, "- a woman in her underskirt!" The pressure in his head instantly stopped. Meredith let out a gasping cry as if she'd been holding her breath the whole time.
"Shit, what was that?" Tabby exclaimed.
Even Rudolph blinked rapidly, clearing his head, and put on a smile for his giggling daughters.
A thin rivulet of blood ran from Meredith's nose.
The only ones who didn't react were Brady and Suzette.
Eyeing his friend, Sam reached in his pocket to get a tissue for Meredith. "Your nose is bleeding," he said.
"Oh, that's happened before." She took the offered tissue and put it to her nose.
His arm draped casually over the back of the couch, Brady tried to cover for the fact that he was the only live person who hadn't gotten a sudden headache. "What did you guys see? And why didn't I see it?"
"I didn't see anything," Tabby replied. "Just felt this really intense pressure in my head. Did your ghosts do something?"
"Those little girls... they were playing a patty-cake game. It, it did something," Meredith tried to explain. "I don't know how to describe it. It was supernatural."
Suzette was looking at Brady now. "Are you saying you can't see our illusions?" she asked, addressing him directly.
Taken aback, Sam turned to his friend.
Brady did not react; it seemed like he couldn't hear her.
She let out an amused chuckle. "Fine, have it your way."
"What the hell is that about?" Sam questioned.
Suzette, looking up at him, smiled and shrugged. "I guess he can't hear me." But something about that smile told him that she thought Brady should be able to hear her.
Sam began, "Brady, have you seen any weird films or videotapes in the last week? Anything that just kind of sucked and didn't make any sense?"
Now he shrugged. "Just Agent Cody Banks 2."
Rudolph Metternich interrupted them by beginning to tell his daughters a story. "Your mother has gone off to attend to Grandmama for the weekend, so we'll be on our own, just me and my two girls. What would you like to do first, hm? Do you want to hear a story?"
"Tell us about the children and the candy house!" little Suzette said, getting on her knees and bouncing up and down.
"I want to hear a story about a princess!" Sophie added.
Rudolph pretended to think it over. "Hm. I think I'll tell you about the princess first."
Suzette stopped bouncing. "Aw."
"Don't be sad, my little Suzie. You will hear your story next." Standing up, he walked slowly around the girls with his hands clasped behind his back as he began to tell the tale. "Once upon a time, there were two sister princesses from the land of the dark green dragon. This happened so long ago that there weren't even the countries that we know now; the land was separated by where each of these terrible dragons lived and claimed as their land. Back then, there were dragons of every color imaginable, as this was long before men even dreamed of the weapons that would help them conquer the beasts. And you must know, we did conquer them eventually, or you'd see them on every street corner, wouldn't you?"
The girls giggled.
"Can you imagine your teacher trying to do her lessons with a dragon hanging around outside the classroom window?"
They laughed again.
Rudolph continued. "No, this was the time before warriors cut all the dragons down. These two princesses resided in the kingdom ruled by the dragon that had been alive the longest, a selfish, greedy dragon that couldn't be happy just to stalk around his cave and swim in the sea like the other dragons."
"Some dragons could swim?" Sophie asked.
"Yes. Some of them had fins and gills as well as lungs. They spent as much time in the water as they did on land. Most of them left people alone unless the people bothered them first, but not the dark green dragon. He demanded that people worship him and serve him tribute every seven days. If they didn't, he would use his powers against them."
"Powers?"
"Yes, powers. And his powers were frightful. He could attack people by putting horribly scary images in their heads, images so frightening that sometimes they scared people to death!" Rudolph said.
The girls looked at each other and fidgeted like this turn in the story made them uncomfortable. At the same time, Sam and Meredith also glanced at each other. They knew this story, or a version of it, anyway. He was putting his own spin on the story of Heptamera.
"This dragon also used his powers to entrance anyone he took a fancy to, and lure them into his lair. For years, the king of this land did his best to live in harmony with the dark green dragon, but the dragon's demands became more and more unreasonable. One day, a great magician, an Alchemist, came to the kingdom to set the king straight. He had a magic eyepiece that could see the truth about anyone." Rudolph mimed that he was placing a round eyepiece, like a tiny telescope, up to his eye. "The Alchemist's powers were, in many ways, greater than the dragon's. He could even turn plain ol' lead into gold.
"The things he saw with his eyepiece revealed to the king just how he had been betrayed. The betrayal went back many, many years." Rudolph crouched down before his daughters again. "The Alchemist turned the eyepiece on the queen and the two princesses, and what he saw enraged the king against the dragon. He had never been so angry in his life. But really, the knowledge he gained that day explained everything he had ever wondered about his family, things that didn't fit, things that never made sense.
"The magic eyepiece told the king that ten years before, the dragon had lusted for his wife, the queen. Do you know what that means?"
"Jesus Christ... how could he say that to them?" Meredith wondered aloud.
"What, what?" asked Tabby. Sam shushed her, which made her roll her eyes in frustration.
Brady played with her hair. "They'll tell you whenever the story's done," he said quietly.
The little girls looked at each other, uncomfortable, fidgeting uneasily; they seemed to be trying to decide how truthful they should be. They weren't exactly of that age yet, but, being ten, had some knowledge of what adult words meant. "The dragon wanted to have sex with the queen?" Suzette replied.
"Yes, that's exactly what it means."
"How can a dragon have sex with a person?" the girl added.
"There are ways," Rudolph said. "There are ways."
"So what did the king do?" Sophie asked.
"Well, the things that the Alchemist told him made the king very curious about what could have been going on at the castle when he wasn't there. Kings are important people; they can't spend all their time hanging around at home. So he asked the Alchemist to take a look at his wife and children with the magic eyepiece." His eyes intense, angry, Rudolph leaned in, closer to his daughters. "He found the children were not his."
Suzette and Sophie only stared back, beginning to grow tense at their father's story.
"As you can imagine, this was very shocking for the king. He didn't want to believe it. The royal doctor was called in to run some tests so the king could be sure it was true. No man wants to believe that his wife has betrayed him and that his children are not his own. In fact, it could be the most painful thing a man could ever deal with." As he continued the story, Rudolph's voice grew more angry and his mouth tight. "The doctor took some samples from each girl and he tested them. The kingdom had such techniques. It was quite curious what he found. Not only were the two girls not his daughters, but... there were impurities in their blood. Things that were strange, that could not be identified."
"Papa..." Sophie cut in, her voice meek and afraid, "this story you are telling... does it have anything to do with the blood tests you had us take?"
Rudolph just looked at her for a moment, then he sat back on his heels, thinking over what he wanted to say. "They have spoken to you, haven't they?"
"Who?"
He looked one way and then the other. "The beings of Thule."
"The... what?"
Grinding his teeth a moment, Rudolph suddenly lunged forward and grabbed Sophie by her upper arms, shaking her. She whimpered and squirmed. "Don't play dumb, girl! I know about the odd results of you and your sister's blood tests! I saw them for myself! The Ancients speak to you, don't they? I've seen their shadows in this house, moving along the wall. What are you? What are you?!" He turned his eye on Suzette. "You are the dominant one. Maybe you will tell me the truth."
Suzette sprang up and ran from the room, hoping to draw his attention away from her sister. Rudolph pursued her; he was dragging Sophie behind him by the arm. The little girl was crying. Suzette wasn't, though - as Rudolph had said, she was the dominant twin.
When he grabbed her arm too, Suzette whirled around and stomped on his foot, hard. He cried out and jumped in place. The girl tried to use the distraction to get her sister free of their father, or at least the man they had come to know as their father, but his grip was too strong. In the end, Rudolph caught her as well.
"If you want to know what we are and what we can do, you should ask your precious 'Alchemist'!" Suzette yelled, trying to yank her arm from his grasp. "He started this whole thing. We never would have known about Thule if not for him. He chose me, you know! He said I was special!"
"I know exactly what he told you, and I know he's interested in the both of you and what you can do. But you're impure, don't you see that? Your mother won't tell me what she did, oh no, she just hides her face and shakes her head every time I ask her. She won't acknowledge that she did anything at all. I have no idea, no idea, what you are!" Rudolph dragged both girls toward the dorm window, where the china cabinet had been before. "We do not have such sophisticated tests as they do in this made-up kingdom, so I can never prove it for sure, but I am positive that you are not my daughters! The oddities in your blood say you may not even be fully human!"
The cabinet faded back into view. It had been modified quite a bit. There was now a metal tube running out of the side, as well as a ventilation shaft in the top that ran to the outside, through the wall of the garage. Some sort of white material had been attached all around the edges of the doors, and the cabinet was lined with it, like Metternich was trying to make it airtight when the doors were closed. The windows were uncovered, though, with white lines of weather sealant at the edges of the glass. If someone were to be put inside that cabinet, the people on the outside would be able to see everything that happened to them.
When the girls saw it, they both began to scream and struggle harder than ever before. Somehow, they knew one or both of them was going in the cabinet.
Rudolph Metternich only confirmed this for them. "My 'Alchemist,' as you so astutely put it, has given me his blessing to run a test on you. He thinks you will survive it. I am not so sure."
No matter what the girls had done to her that week, Meredith didn't want to watch this. "Oh, God..."
it won't stop
She Just Wanted to Be Heard
Day 41: Beings of Thule
Part of Story Arc 1: Counterclockwise
A "The Ring/Ringu" Fanfic
by Laurel (Sailorhathor)
Chapters: 41 of 100
Rating: Overall Rating Sup13+ (adult theme; horror elements that might be too scary for children under 13; bad language)
Dates: Begun September 2006. Some material is based on previously written stories from 2003-2005. This chapter was written in July 2010.
Word Count: 3,633
Summary: Sam and Meredith serve witness to one of the most traumatic moments in the lives of the Metternich twins. Meredith is pulled into one of their visions, one she cannot escape without Sam's help.
Warning: Contains spoilers for the entire Ringu and The Ring series. Spoilers for Supernatural episode 5.20 "The Devil You Know." Abuse and attempted murder of children, content concerning the Nazis and concentration camp-like killings, and drug use.
Beta Thanks: Thanks to Sammie for beta'ing this chapter!
Fanfic Challenges: Fits 50_darkfics Prompt #41 Fixation and coclaim100 Prompt #41 Divine.
Author's Notes: X-over with the TV series Supernatural. Set pre-series, during Sam's years at Stanford. Brady/OFC, Sam/OFC.
While Sam and Meredith were watching the Metternichs and the cabinet, adult Suzette had her eyes firmly planted on Brady. Why was he pretending he couldn't see the illusion? She knew he could. And what was his interest in Sam anyway? The reincarnation of her love... maybe she had interests of her own.
Brady stole a look at Suzette's ghost... and grinned wolfishly. She nodded back. I see you.
The two girls beat pointlessly at their father's body. Their small fists made little impact, but it was all they could think to do.
"No, Papa!" Sophie cried. Her blows were hesitant, because she was still terrified of her father and what he meant to do to them.
Suzette kept stomping on his foot again; this time, Rudolph didn't seem to notice. The look in his eyes carried such intensity as to be obsession with his plans for them. Finally, he could end this once and for all. Either they were beings of Thule, which would please the Fuehrer, or they were not his children, and he would have his revenge on his wife for the betrayal.
As he tossed Suzette into a chair, he began to chuckle. The sound became almost mad when he picked up the squirming Sophie and set her into the cabinet, through the open left door.
"Papa, please, don't hurt me!" Sophie pleaded. When Rudolph started to shut the door, she added, "I love you!"
He only went on cackling, closing the door.
Suzette sprang up off the chair and ran up to the cabinet, trying to pull the door open. "No, Papa, no!" Rudolph shoved her down. Picking up an electric drill, he started to screw the door shut. Suzette tried again. Her father grabbed her by the shoulder and tossed her across the room. The little girl hit the floor, sliding several feet, then got back up, limping over as Rudolph put another screw into the door. Sophie, crying, beat against the glass with her open palms in fear.
"Papa, what are you doing? Stop it!" At this point, Suzette began to cry too.
Rudolph put down the drill and walked away. Seeing her chance, Suzette tried to pull open the right door, but it was drilled shut too. Something he must've done in preparation for this moment. The child yanked hard on the handles of each door until she collapsed in hysterical tears; her sister begged her to get her out of the cabinet.
"I can't! I can't open the doors!" Suzette sobbed.
Rudolph brought out a coil of rope.
Meredith, now shaking against him, asked Sam, "What's he going to do to her?"
Dread coming over him, Sam replied, "I'm not sure I even want to know."
Little Suzette ran at the cabinet with the drill in her hand, letting out an angry cry. She swung the heavy object; the drill came within inches of the door, but Rudolph grabbed Suzette before it could shatter the glass and began to tie her arms behind her back. She screamed and thrashed against him, the drill falling to the floor.
The chair had been placed several feet from the china hutch, turned toward it so Suzette would have a front row seat. Rudolph now tied the child to the chair with her arms bound behind her back. It was a big, heavy chair; she was unlikely to be able to drag it behind her if she attempted an escape. Suzette's eyes were large and frightened as she watched her father put on rubber gloves, and then a gas mask.
Sam looked at the adult Suzette. "No... he didn't. He... holy..."
Tears were just beginning to spill out of her eyes. "No matter how many times I watch this, it never... stops... hurting."
"Sam? What's he going to do?" The gas mask, the gloves... Meredith put two and two together. "Oh my God, you sick bastard! Sam, we can't stop this, can we? Oh God, he... I can't watch this!" She hid her face in Sam's chest.
Sam was shaking his head. "What we're seeing here has already happened. We can't stop it."
"If you could, would you?" Suzette asked. "Would you stop it?"
While little Suzette struggled and screamed, Rudolph retrieved a gold canister from his workbench.
Sam nodded as he said, "It doesn't matter what you are. I could never just stand by and watch a man murder a child like that. You were innocent. You weren't responsible for what you were."
Looking up at him, Suzette smiled. "Just like my Matthias."
Their attention was stolen back to the cabinet. Rudolph opened the pipe on the side, then took the lid off the canister and fished out a few tiny whitish rocks as quickly as he could. The rocks instantly began to smoke in his fingers. He shoved them into the pipe, closed it, and then put the lid back on the canister. The little smoking pebbles rolled into the cabinet and tumbled next to Sophie's foot. Frightened, she crowded herself against the opposite wall.
Suzette was crying and screaming at the top of her voice. This only continued as the cabinet filled with gas and her sister began to cough and gag, holding her throat.
"Quit it! You're hurting her! Stop it!" Suzette yelled. "Hold your breath, Sophie! The rocks will dissolve and then you'll be okay!"
"Can she hold her breath for twenty minutes?" Rudolph asked through the gas mask. His voice had been muffled, but Suzette understood him; Sam and Meredith understood him too.
"You're a sick motherfucker!" Meredith growled at him. She had a baby back at home; she didn't know how anyone could do such a thing to any child. "I don't even care what they've put me through the last week; you're a sick motherfucker to do something like that to a little kid. Can you hear me, you perverted limpdick piece of shit? You're the one who made them angry!"
"What's going on?" Tabby asked, not for the first time. She sounded very frustrated now.
Sophie banged on the glass, gasping for air; the sound was becoming more frantic and scary by the second.
"How can you just stand there and watch that?" Meredith asked Rudolph Metternich, who was indeed just standing near the cabinet and watching the 'experiment.' "If you were here right now, I'd kick the shit out of you for doing something so sick to a child. Do you hear me?!"
Tabby got up off the couch and went over to her, taking Meredith by the shoulders. "Hey, you gotta calm down, Mere. You'll wake everyone on the floor."
"How can I calm down? This sick motherfucker turned his china cabinet into a gas chamber. He's gassing his own kid right in front of me."
Signaling to Brady, Tabby made motions like she was snuffing out a cigarette. Brady nodded, then put out the joint. If Meredith couldn't calm down, they'd wake up the Resident Assistant. "Well, you gotta try. How do you think Sully's gonna react to this if you wake her?"
Watching her sister's struggles, Suzette thrashed in the chair, screaming like a wounded animal. "Noooooooo, stop! Stop it! Stop it!" she cried, over and over.
Meredith couldn't take anymore of this. "I don't care how much noise I make," she said, and ran to the china cabinet.
Sam watched her for a moment and was surprised to find that the cabinet made solid noises when Meredith banged on it; she yanked at the door handles and it made a sound too, like wood hitting wood. He didn't think they could really save Sophie; this was just another way in which the illusions seemed real. Tabby went over to Meredith to try to calm her down; all she saw was her roommate yanking at the open air, and Sam began to follow, but a sob from the couch distracted him.
Adult Suzette was sobbing hard now, seeing her twin die again as she had many times before, but only once in real life. He felt sorry for her... almost drawn to her. Sam put out a hand and stroked her hair. "I'm sorry. This never should have happened to you or your sister." It surprised him a little, that he could feel her dark hair under his fingers.
"It was very painful, watching Sophie suffer like that. Do you have any idea how excruciating it is to be poisoned with cyanide gas?" Suzette put her hand over his, stroked it, and brought it down to her mouth where she could kiss it. Sam shifted and looked around, embarrassed. The others were panicking, and here he was, comforting a ghost. "You are very kind," she said.
"Thank you. It's just... you were just a little girl. Children are innocent."
Suzette got to her knees on the couch, using his arm and then his chest for leverage. Sam did not stop her as she crawled up his body. Her arms slid around his neck. Why wasn't he stopping her? Why did he like it? "Yes... you are just like my Matthias."
"What... who?"
"Look deeper into the Bloodworth books. You will find his picture." With that, Suzette leaned into him and planted a long, passionate kiss on Sam's mouth. Inside, a voice yelled at him to stop her, but he didn't want to. For a moment, they were the only two people in the room, and he heard old-fashioned waltz music, and saw a ballroom with a huge crystal chandelier. Warm colors on the walls... the orchestra... her fingers playing through the hair on the back of his neck. Were his arms around her? The ghost?!
When she broke the kiss, Sam breathed, "Don't do that. I don't even know you."
She smiled like a satisfied cat. "But your body... your body, my love, it remembers me."
He had almost been completely entrapped in her snares when Meredith let out a sharp, panicked scream.
Sam's head snapped in her direction. His eyes widened in shock.
Meredith had been substituted for Sophie. As the girls often did when they tortured one of their cursed ones, they showed the victims exactly what it felt like to be them, a persecuted, tormented daughter of a creature of legend, half-divine, with the frailties and feelings of a human being. Now, Meredith was inside the cabinet, banging on the glass.
What Tabby saw was her friend on her knees on top of a side table, flailing her hands at nothing and choking for air. When she tried to grab Meredith, something invisible stopped her, like a force field. "What the fuck is going on?!" she yelled at Brady.
Sam pushed Suzette away from him. "How could you do that?" he said to her. She looked up at him and smirked. "Let her out of there!"
As he turned to go help Meredith, Suzette twirled her hair around her finger and just watched him, attempting to explain. "Everyone who is cursed must know how it feels to be us. That is the point of this, Sam."
He looked around for something with which he could break the glass. From inside the cabinet, Meredith tried to scream for him to help her, to hurry, to get her out of there, but it all only came out as choked howls and deep gasps for air.
"I know you don't understand, Sam," Suzette continued, "but this is our revenge on the world."
He whirled on her. "If you don't let her out of that cabinet, you are no better than your father!"
Feeling it was an effective comeback, Suzette replied, "You have forgotten... the Nazi was not really my father."
Fine. Alright, fine - he was dealing with an illusion, he had to play by its rules. Sam went to pick up the drill.
"Sam, what's the matter with her? What's going on?!" Tabby cried, grabbing his arm and shaking it.
He shook her hand off and picked up the drill. Going to the cabinet, Sam brought the heavy tool back, then smashed it into the glass of the left door. The glass only spiderwebbed on his first hit. Bringing the drill back again, he struck the glass a second time, and it shattered, spraying down on the floor at his feet.
This is only an illusion, Sam thought as Meredith spilled into his arms. He dragged her out, gathering her up and taking her over to the couch. She was breathing heavily, taking in long, shrill breaths. She wasn't really gassed, it's only an illusion.
"Why couldn't I hear her?" Tabby was asking, wide-eyed. "When she was up on the table, the sounds she made were muffled, like she was... inside something."
Brady put his arms around her from behind. She jumped, startled. "Sorry," he said, and added, "Whatever she was seeing, she thinks it really happened."
"But why was her voice muffled?" Tabby asked again.
"I don't know how to answer that right now," Sam replied. He lightly smacked Meredith's cheek. "Meredith? Come on, you're okay. It wasn't real."
Her breathing wasn't improving; Meredith still took long, shrill breaths. It didn't sound good.
To the right of him, Sam saw movement out of the corner of his eye. The ventilation system in the cabinet had been run, was still humming, and now Rudolph opened the door to remove Sophie's limp body. Only, she wasn't dead. Although blood had run from her ears and nose, the child still took a long, shrill breath, just like the breaths Meredith was taking, as Rudolph collected her in his arms.
Rudolph looked down at her, stunned. "How can you still be alive?"
The illusion was broken by a loud voice calling from the hall. "What the hell is going on in here?"
The R.A., Regina Sullivan, nickname "Sully," came stomping into the room. Her bleach-blonde hair was usually done up in various punk rock hairstyles using enough hairspray to burn up the entire ozone layer, but being that it was the middle of the night, it hung over her shoulders instead in pillow-induced clumps. Her usual spike-covered and plaid getups were absent as well, her pajamas covered by a ratty green robe and gray socks on her feet where there usually were black platform boots. Even in her nightclothes, she was still intimidating.
Tabby immediately spoke up. "Hey Sully. There's something wrong with Meredith."
"She's having a panic attack," Sam said, trying to fill in information before they all gave Sully a different story.
Sully looked down at Meredith and tried to assess her condition. "Do I smell pot in here?"
"It's got nothing to do with drugs."
"Should I call an ambulance?"
Sam didn't know how they would ever explain what happened to Meredith to the doctors at the hospital. "I don't know. Meredith?" He smacked her cheek again, rapidly, several times. Shaking her, Sam said, "Come on, Meredith, it's all over." He held one of her eyes open to see if they were turned up in her head.
She suddenly began to struggle violently against him, striking out blindly with her arms. Meredith took a deep breath so loud it made them all jump. Then she started to hyperventilate. "Sam! Sam!" she cried between breaths. "It - it - it hurts - to breathe!"
"Meredith, it's over! It wasn't real!"
"I'm calling an ambulance," Sully declared.
"No, no, she'll be okay. I can take care of her." Remembering something that happened years before, Sam gathered Meredith into his arms and carried her toward the hallway. "Where's the bathroom? One with showers?"
"Here," Sully replied, pointing him in that direction.
When they were teenagers, Dean had been sprayed in the face with pollen by some sort of supernatural plant life. He started freaking out, unable to breathe, unaware of where he was. Dad had taken him into the bathroom and shocked him back to reality by putting him in a cold shower. Sam hoped it would work for Meredith too.
The entire way down the hall, Meredith struggled and bucked in his arms. He tried to hold her still, but she socked him good in the nose a couple of times with her flailing hands. Sam just winced; he tried not to react to the pain. Everyone followed him into the bathroom.
There was a row of showers on the far wall, some with a bathtub too. Sam put Meredith into one of the bathtubs, got a hold of her wrists, and said, "Someone turn on the shower."
She was still fighting him, gasping for breath, when Sully rotated the knob to somewhere between cold and lukewarm water and turned it on. At the first burst of water on her face, Meredith bucked hard and twisted in Sam's grasp, but he kept a good hold on her wrists. She continued to struggle with him a while longer until the shower began to work, and she looked all around, squinting at the water in her eyes. Her breathing turned to panting; Sam would take it, as it was calmer and far closer to normal than what she'd been doing when he pulled her from the cabinet. He took her face in his hands.
"Meredith, you're okay. It wasn't real." Sam didn't dare go into anymore detail than that, with Sully standing right there.
Meredith seemed to finally see him and believe that she hadn't really been gassed; she put her head down on his forearm, just trying to breathe. Sam ran a hand through her damp hair.
Tabby was standing behind Sam, but Brady had held back, lingering in the doorway. The adult ghost of Suzette sauntered down the hall. Brady glanced at her, folding his arms, and directed his attention back to the others in the bathroom.
"I know you can see me," she said to him.
He tried to ignore her.
"No one is paying any attention to us. You can talk."
Still, Brady did not respond.
"What is your interest in Sam Winchester?"
After he checked to make sure no one was looking at him, Brady spoke to her very quietly. "My boss wants me to keep an eye on him."
"And who is your boss?"
Brady chuckled to himself. "Someone you don't want to mess with."
"Ah. I imagine it's some sort of demon, as that's what you are inside that human shell." Suzette had a giggle of her own. "We are not afraid of demons. Have you heard of Heptamera?"
Brady looked at her out of the corner of his eye; he seemed a little more interested now. "Isn't he some sort of dragon?" He remembered the story. "Oh, like the story the Nazi was telling."
"Something like that, except the Nazi left some things out. Heptamera did father the twins of which he was speaking, in real life. My sister Sophie and I. And Heptamera is not just a dragon, but a divine being, a daemon," Suzette explained. "Between a god and a lower being like you."
Now Brady looked at her full in the face with surprise. He didn't know how Azazel was going to react to that one, but he tried not to show any fear over it. A daemon may or may not be able to trounce a being like Azazel - it could definitely trounce a lower demon like him. "Oh." Brady put on a smile, attempting to be charming. "We mean no disrespect to you and your father."
"That's better." Suzette, her own arms crossed over her chest now, stepped closer to him. Looming in his personal space. "I will ask again. What is your interest in Sam Winchester?"
"My boss thinks he could be special. That he may be able to go far."
Suzette gave a small nod of comprehension. "Hm. Well, whatever you have planned for him, I want you to make sure that he doesn't get hurt." She got up in his face, challenging him. "And whatever it is that your boss is doing, it had better not encroach on my father's territory. Do you hear me?"
Brady wouldn't let her know if she'd ruffled his feathers with her threats; that would only show weakness. The smile he gave her in return was cocky. "Loud and clear."
With another brief nod, Suzette turned to go. Brady caught her by the arm, wanting to leave her with a parting comment that would let her know just what kind of being she was dealing with, so she would make no mistake in fucking with him again. "Do you see that girl in there? Tabby?"
Suzette looked, and nodded.
"I'm gonna take her back to my room and fuck the shit out of her. Rip that bitch up. Doesn't matter to me if she likes it or not." He looked her up and down. "You should try it sometime. Maybe you wouldn't be such a bitch if you got laid more often."
An amused smile came over Suzette's face. "Doesn't anyone make love anymore?" she asked with a snicker, and took her arm back, slinking off down the hall.
Brady looked down, spotting the little one next to him, the child who had been put in the cabinet. Sophie gazed up at him with her sunken eyes and took his hand, placing something in it. Then she followed her sister down the hall.
Brady opened his hand. There was an old, rusty key in it. He threw it up into the air and caught it, wondering what the dead bitch was planning for Sam Winchester herself.
The Ringu series is (c) 1998 The Ring/The Spiral Production Group. It is based on the novels by Koji Suzuki. My fanfic is more based on ideas presented in the films, which were created by director Hideo Nakata and screenwriter Hiroshi Takahashi.
The motion picture The Ring is (c) 2002 DreamWorks Pictures. The title "She Just Wanted to Be Heard" comes from a line of dialogue spoken by Rachel Keller in this movie. The motion picture The Ring Two is (c) 2005 DreamWorks Pictures. This fanfic is heavily inspired by ideas presented in the American movies, which were directed by Gore Verbinski and Hideo Nakata and written by Ehren Kruger.
I do not know if the prequel, The Ring 3, will have any bearing on this story or not until I see it.
Supernatural is (c) 2005 Kripke Enterprises, Wonderland, & Warner Brothers/The CW Television.
Everything else is (c) Demented Stuff.
it won't stop
Day 40: The Alchemist
Part of Story Arc 1: Counterclockwise
A "The Ring/Ringu" Fanfic
by Laurel (Sailorhathor)
Chapters: 40 of 100
Rating: Overall Rating Sup13+ (adult theme; horror elements that might be too scary for children under 13; bad language)
Dates: Begun September 2006. Some material is based on previously written stories from 2003-2005. This chapter was written in July 2010.
Word Count: 4,187
Summary: Sam and Meredith serve witness to one of the most traumatic moments in the lives of the Metternich twins.
Warning: Contains spoilers for the entire Ringu and The Ring series. Spoilers for Supernatural episode 5.20 "The Devil You Know." Abuse and attempted murder of children, content concerning the Nazis and concentration camp-like killings, and drug use.
Beta Thanks: Thanks to Sammie for beta'ing this chapter!
Fanfic Challenges: Fits 50_darkfics Prompt #40 Dance and coclaim100 Prompt #40 Strangers.
Author's Notes: Thanks to Nicky for the German patty-cake rhymes!
I needed a movie that came out in early 2004 to slam, that's the only reason Brady slams Agent Cody Banks II. I heard it sucked anyway. ;D
X-over with the TV series Supernatural. Set pre-series, during Sam's years at Stanford. Brady/OFC, Sam/OFC.
On his way up to Meredith's floor, Sam could already smell the pot all the way into the stairwell. He briefly wondered where it was coming from and who could be smoking it as he came through the doors into the central room of the dormitory floor.
Meredith, crying with relief, ran to him and hugged Sam around his prominent chest. "God, Sam! I'm so glad you're here."
He put an arm around her. "It's okay, Meredith. Try to calm down." Honestly, he didn't know if it was okay at all, but it seemed like the thing to say.
"Hey, Sam! Do you know this girl?" Brady asked.
He looked ahead and to the right. "Brady? What are you doing here, man?" Sam's friend, Brady, sat on the right couch with a girl he'd never seen before.
"Tabby and me were on a date and we came back here to this chick freakin' out." Taking a drag off the joint, Brady patted Tabby's shoulder.
"I'm Meredith's roomie," she added.
Sam frowned at them both. "How can you smoke that in here? What if the R.A. smells it?"
"She sleeps like the dead," Tabby laughed. "Nothing wakes her up."
"Oh... so, you guys are just sitting here, watching Meredith freak out?" Sam asked in disbelief.
Brady shrugged, chuckling. "She sees a china cabinet where there is none."
Shaking his head, Sam looked around the room. First, he saw the china cabinet. "Hey wiseguy, I see it too. Maybe you two can't see it 'cause you're too baked."
Brady and Tabby just laughed again.
"You see it too... you see it too..." Meredith said, more to herself than anyone else. "Of course you can see it."
Sam patted her back in a soothing manner. Then he looked around the room some more, and second, spotted the young woman sitting on the couch to the left. She seemed quite out of place there, dressed in a red slinky evening gown that sparkled in the light, so low cut that it was open almost to her navel. Her legs were stretched out on the couch to her side like a cat in repose. The woman's long black hair cascaded down over her shoulders in waves; she ran the fingers of her left hand through the dark tresses and over her cleavage in what could only be a show of seduction. Sam couldn't have mistaken the half-lidded cast of her eyes for anything else.
The sides of her hair were taken up and rolled in an old-fashioned style, perhaps from the 1940's or 50's. He wondered for a moment if she actually belonged there.
"Who's this?" Sam questioned, and gestured to the girl.
Even Meredith looked at him funny. "Who's who?"
Tabby and Brady began to giggle. They weren't going to be any help.
"You don't see the girl lying there on the couch?"
The two partiers giggled harder.
Meredith shook her head. "You're seeing someone even I can't see."
Looking down at her, Sam said, "Who are you?"
The young woman smiled. Her fingers ran provocatively between her breasts again. "You look exactly as you did when you were mine, darling. Exactly." The woman's voice held a thick German accent.
Sam took a step back. "What...?"
Meredith let out a whimper. This stole his attention from the woman and toward the china cabinet; the scene there had changed significantly.
The cabinet was now full of fine dishes, with a rectangular table and chairs set in front of it. One of the little girls sat at the table. Sam thought this must be Sophie from the dark shadows under her eyes. The man he had seen in an earlier vision, the Nazi doctor, brought her a bowl of soup and set it in front of her.
"Eat up, my little Sophia," he said, although when he said it, it was in German. The translating voice that had so often spoken in these instances did its job once again.
The child began to eat. She slurped up several bites of chicken and noodles while her father watched her with the gaze of a predatory wolf, his hands folded over one another on the table. Why was he looking at her with such rapt attention?
Sophie made a face. "It tastes a little funny."
"Hm. What does it taste like?" he asked.
Slurp. Slurp. "A little like almonds."
Her twin, Suzette, came into the room. The girls were wearing identical dresses, white dresses with a pink ribbon tied around the waist and forming a large bow in the back. The child was dancing around the room, turning like a ballerina, and humming a song.
"Well, you like almonds," the man reminded his daughter. "Finish it up. You need it to bring back your strength." He stood, going over to his other child. "Ah, my pretty little princess. You are a ballerina today, are you?"
"Yes, Papa," Suzette replied with a giggle. Her father took her hands and danced her around the room, humming the same song. She went on giggling as her sister ate the soup, making the occasional face of distaste.
"Holy crap, Sam," Meredith suddenly exclaimed. He looked down at her. "There are poisons that taste like almonds when they're added to food. Her father, her own father, he..."
"He was poisoning her," the woman in the red dress said.
Sam heard the anger in her voice. "Are you their mother? Is that who you are?"
She only laughed. No. No, not their mother.
"What do you think's happening?" Tabby whispered to Brady.
The scene changed. When Sam and Meredith looked again, the china cabinet was now empty, stripped of its shelves, the doors laid open; Metternich was making some type of modifications to it. A dark-haired woman approached him. This was no longer the dining room - the floor had changed. Now, Sam and Meredith saw concrete under their shoes. The woman strolled about, a troubled look on her face.
"She is our mother," the woman on the couch informed him. Sam realized who she was then.
"You're Suzette," he said. She smiled at him, but not in an innocent manner; she was still trying to be seductive. "You lived your whole life and now that you're dead, you can appear as any age you want."
"Very good, my love," Suzette replied.
This took him aback for a moment; he couldn't speak. Finally, he asked, "Why do you keep talking to me like that? With the pet names?"
With a laugh, Suzette put her head back and gave a sinuous stretch, using the slinky dress to its fullest potential. Sam couldn't help but watch her curves move under the clingy fabric. "Ah, Sam. Your mind does not remember me. But..."
Mrs. Metternich interrupted her by speaking to the Nazi. "Rudolph, what is that you're doing to my china hutch?"
"I told you..." He used an electric drill to put in a screw, installing some sort of metal vent in the top of the cabinet. "...I am performing an experiment. I promise you, you will get a new and better hutch. Much larger, with a new punch bowl set as well."
The mother seemed to be pleased with this news. She clapped her hands and jumped in place a few times. "Ooh, that sounds wonderful. But why do you need to use the hutch in the first place?"
"I saw a better use for it than holding dishes." Rudolph stepped back, surveying the work he had done so far. "Think of it as my own little pet project."
"Oh, you and your projects. I don't even want to know what you're doing this time." Mrs. Metternich searched around in her purse for something, and brought out a set of keys. "Are you sure you want the girls to stay here with you for the weekend?"
"Yes. You go see to your mother. She's waiting for you."
"Alright. Goodbye, Rudolph." She kissed him on the cheek.
After Mrs. Metternich had walked off and faded from the scene, Rudolph grinned, smacking the cabinet on the side in satisfaction. "Goodby~ye," he sing-songed.
"I don't like this," Meredith said, hugging herself to Sam's body again. "Something really bad is about to happen."
"Try living it," Suzette shot back bitterly.
Sam looked down at her. "This is where he killed Sophie, isn't it?"
Leaning forward, adult Suzette froze him in place with a steely gaze. "This was only the beginning."
"You're seeing Suzette on the couch?" Meredith whispered, as if the ghost wouldn't hear her if she spoke quietly.
"Yeah. She's appearing to me as an adult, about my age," he responded.
"Does she know what's about to happen?" She whispered her question again, looking from Sam to the couch, her shoulders tense.
Leaning forward, Suzette spoke in a quiet voice. "You don't have to whisper," she said with a sarcastic grin.
Brady snickered.
Sam looked over at him. His eyes narrowed in suspicion. "She said you don't have to whisper," he told Meredith, and then leveled a pronounced stare at his friend. "Brady, you sure you can't see or hear her?" Sam asked, pointing at the other couch.
Brady straightened up a bit. "Huh? Why would you ask that?"
"You just... it was like you laughed at something she said."
Continuing to play dumb, Brady looked at Sam and shrugged. "Musta been something else."
Sam glared at him for several more moments before the sounds of the Metternich family again stole his attention. Rudolph Metternich practically sauntered into his daughters' room, a wolfish grin on his face. The twins were sitting on the floor cross-legged, facing each other, playing a child's patty-cake game. The sound of their little hands slapping together in rhythm echoed throughout the room.
As Sam listened to the rhyme they recited, he noticed how deep their concentration was on each other, eyes locked across their clapping hands. Almost as if they were in a trance.
"Bei Müllers hat's gebrannt -brannt, -brannt, da bin ich hingerannt, -rannt, -rannt. Da kam ein Polizist, -zist, zist, der schrieb mich auf die List, List, List."
The translating voice spoke a beat behind them; although the rhymes sounded musical in German, they were quite flat when translated. "There was a fire at the Miller's house, so I ran there. A policeman arrived, and put my name on his list." Even so, Sam began to feel a pronounced pressure in his brain the further the girls went with their clapping game.
"Da rannt ich schnell nach Haus, Haus, Haus, zu meinem Bruder Klaus, Klaus, Klaus."
"So I ran back home, to my brother Klaus."
Rudolph tried to speak over them. "Girls?"
"Der Klaus, der lag im Bett, Bett, Bett, bei seiner Frau Elisabeth."
"Klaus lay in his bed, next to his wife Elizabeth."
"Ow..." Meredith put a hand to her temple, rubbing it with her fingers. "Sam, do you feel that?"
"Yeah, I do."
Even Tabby began to react. "Shit, is this pot giving me a headache." She looked up at Meredith and Sam. "Wait... why are you guys getting one too?"
"Girls, stop that and listen to me," Rudolph was saying.
The twins continued. "Erster Stock, Zweiter Stock, Dritter Stock, Vierter Stock, Fünfter Stock..."
"First floor, second floor, third floor, fourth floor, fifth floor..."
Sam found that he absolutely could not look away from the girls' clapping hands. He saw Rudolph Metternich crouch down beside them; the look on his face told Sam and Meredith that he too was mesmerized, almost hypnotized, by the moving hands, the musical chanting voices, but he was trying his damnedest to tear himself away from the power they held. "Girls..."
"Sechster Stock, Siebter Stock, Achter Stock, Neunter Stock, Zehnter Stock - " They suddenly turned and said right to their father, "- eine Frau im Unterrock!" and broke out in giggles.
Sam breathed a sigh of relief when he heard them finish the rhyme; after completing their count to the tenth floor, they ended with, "- a woman in her underskirt!" The pressure in his head instantly stopped. Meredith let out a gasping cry as if she'd been holding her breath the whole time.
"Shit, what was that?" Tabby exclaimed.
Even Rudolph blinked rapidly, clearing his head, and put on a smile for his giggling daughters.
A thin rivulet of blood ran from Meredith's nose.
The only ones who didn't react were Brady and Suzette.
Eyeing his friend, Sam reached in his pocket to get a tissue for Meredith. "Your nose is bleeding," he said.
"Oh, that's happened before." She took the offered tissue and put it to her nose.
His arm draped casually over the back of the couch, Brady tried to cover for the fact that he was the only live person who hadn't gotten a sudden headache. "What did you guys see? And why didn't I see it?"
"I didn't see anything," Tabby replied. "Just felt this really intense pressure in my head. Did your ghosts do something?"
"Those little girls... they were playing a patty-cake game. It, it did something," Meredith tried to explain. "I don't know how to describe it. It was supernatural."
Suzette was looking at Brady now. "Are you saying you can't see our illusions?" she asked, addressing him directly.
Taken aback, Sam turned to his friend.
Brady did not react; it seemed like he couldn't hear her.
She let out an amused chuckle. "Fine, have it your way."
"What the hell is that about?" Sam questioned.
Suzette, looking up at him, smiled and shrugged. "I guess he can't hear me." But something about that smile told him that she thought Brady should be able to hear her.
Sam began, "Brady, have you seen any weird films or videotapes in the last week? Anything that just kind of sucked and didn't make any sense?"
Now he shrugged. "Just Agent Cody Banks 2."
Rudolph Metternich interrupted them by beginning to tell his daughters a story. "Your mother has gone off to attend to Grandmama for the weekend, so we'll be on our own, just me and my two girls. What would you like to do first, hm? Do you want to hear a story?"
"Tell us about the children and the candy house!" little Suzette said, getting on her knees and bouncing up and down.
"I want to hear a story about a princess!" Sophie added.
Rudolph pretended to think it over. "Hm. I think I'll tell you about the princess first."
Suzette stopped bouncing. "Aw."
"Don't be sad, my little Suzie. You will hear your story next." Standing up, he walked slowly around the girls with his hands clasped behind his back as he began to tell the tale. "Once upon a time, there were two sister princesses from the land of the dark green dragon. This happened so long ago that there weren't even the countries that we know now; the land was separated by where each of these terrible dragons lived and claimed as their land. Back then, there were dragons of every color imaginable, as this was long before men even dreamed of the weapons that would help them conquer the beasts. And you must know, we did conquer them eventually, or you'd see them on every street corner, wouldn't you?"
The girls giggled.
"Can you imagine your teacher trying to do her lessons with a dragon hanging around outside the classroom window?"
They laughed again.
Rudolph continued. "No, this was the time before warriors cut all the dragons down. These two princesses resided in the kingdom ruled by the dragon that had been alive the longest, a selfish, greedy dragon that couldn't be happy just to stalk around his cave and swim in the sea like the other dragons."
"Some dragons could swim?" Sophie asked.
"Yes. Some of them had fins and gills as well as lungs. They spent as much time in the water as they did on land. Most of them left people alone unless the people bothered them first, but not the dark green dragon. He demanded that people worship him and serve him tribute every seven days. If they didn't, he would use his powers against them."
"Powers?"
"Yes, powers. And his powers were frightful. He could attack people by putting horribly scary images in their heads, images so frightening that sometimes they scared people to death!" Rudolph said.
The girls looked at each other and fidgeted like this turn in the story made them uncomfortable. At the same time, Sam and Meredith also glanced at each other. They knew this story, or a version of it, anyway. He was putting his own spin on the story of Heptamera.
"This dragon also used his powers to entrance anyone he took a fancy to, and lure them into his lair. For years, the king of this land did his best to live in harmony with the dark green dragon, but the dragon's demands became more and more unreasonable. One day, a great magician, an Alchemist, came to the kingdom to set the king straight. He had a magic eyepiece that could see the truth about anyone." Rudolph mimed that he was placing a round eyepiece, like a tiny telescope, up to his eye. "The Alchemist's powers were, in many ways, greater than the dragon's. He could even turn plain ol' lead into gold.
"The things he saw with his eyepiece revealed to the king just how he had been betrayed. The betrayal went back many, many years." Rudolph crouched down before his daughters again. "The Alchemist turned the eyepiece on the queen and the two princesses, and what he saw enraged the king against the dragon. He had never been so angry in his life. But really, the knowledge he gained that day explained everything he had ever wondered about his family, things that didn't fit, things that never made sense.
"The magic eyepiece told the king that ten years before, the dragon had lusted for his wife, the queen. Do you know what that means?"
"Jesus Christ... how could he say that to them?" Meredith wondered aloud.
"What, what?" asked Tabby. Sam shushed her, which made her roll her eyes in frustration.
Brady played with her hair. "They'll tell you whenever the story's done," he said quietly.
The little girls looked at each other, uncomfortable, fidgeting uneasily; they seemed to be trying to decide how truthful they should be. They weren't exactly of that age yet, but, being ten, had some knowledge of what adult words meant. "The dragon wanted to have sex with the queen?" Suzette replied.
"Yes, that's exactly what it means."
"How can a dragon have sex with a person?" the girl added.
"There are ways," Rudolph said. "There are ways."
"So what did the king do?" Sophie asked.
"Well, the things that the Alchemist told him made the king very curious about what could have been going on at the castle when he wasn't there. Kings are important people; they can't spend all their time hanging around at home. So he asked the Alchemist to take a look at his wife and children with the magic eyepiece." His eyes intense, angry, Rudolph leaned in, closer to his daughters. "He found the children were not his."
Suzette and Sophie only stared back, beginning to grow tense at their father's story.
"As you can imagine, this was very shocking for the king. He didn't want to believe it. The royal doctor was called in to run some tests so the king could be sure it was true. No man wants to believe that his wife has betrayed him and that his children are not his own. In fact, it could be the most painful thing a man could ever deal with." As he continued the story, Rudolph's voice grew more angry and his mouth tight. "The doctor took some samples from each girl and he tested them. The kingdom had such techniques. It was quite curious what he found. Not only were the two girls not his daughters, but... there were impurities in their blood. Things that were strange, that could not be identified."
"Papa..." Sophie cut in, her voice meek and afraid, "this story you are telling... does it have anything to do with the blood tests you had us take?"
Rudolph just looked at her for a moment, then he sat back on his heels, thinking over what he wanted to say. "They have spoken to you, haven't they?"
"Who?"
He looked one way and then the other. "The beings of Thule."
"The... what?"
Grinding his teeth a moment, Rudolph suddenly lunged forward and grabbed Sophie by her upper arms, shaking her. She whimpered and squirmed. "Don't play dumb, girl! I know about the odd results of you and your sister's blood tests! I saw them for myself! The Ancients speak to you, don't they? I've seen their shadows in this house, moving along the wall. What are you? What are you?!" He turned his eye on Suzette. "You are the dominant one. Maybe you will tell me the truth."
Suzette sprang up and ran from the room, hoping to draw his attention away from her sister. Rudolph pursued her; he was dragging Sophie behind him by the arm. The little girl was crying. Suzette wasn't, though - as Rudolph had said, she was the dominant twin.
When he grabbed her arm too, Suzette whirled around and stomped on his foot, hard. He cried out and jumped in place. The girl tried to use the distraction to get her sister free of their father, or at least the man they had come to know as their father, but his grip was too strong. In the end, Rudolph caught her as well.
"If you want to know what we are and what we can do, you should ask your precious 'Alchemist'!" Suzette yelled, trying to yank her arm from his grasp. "He started this whole thing. We never would have known about Thule if not for him. He chose me, you know! He said I was special!"
"I know exactly what he told you, and I know he's interested in the both of you and what you can do. But you're impure, don't you see that? Your mother won't tell me what she did, oh no, she just hides her face and shakes her head every time I ask her. She won't acknowledge that she did anything at all. I have no idea, no idea, what you are!" Rudolph dragged both girls toward the dorm window, where the china cabinet had been before. "We do not have such sophisticated tests as they do in this made-up kingdom, so I can never prove it for sure, but I am positive that you are not my daughters! The oddities in your blood say you may not even be fully human!"
The cabinet faded back into view. It had been modified quite a bit. There was now a metal tube running out of the side, as well as a ventilation shaft in the top that ran to the outside, through the wall of the garage. Some sort of white material had been attached all around the edges of the doors, and the cabinet was lined with it, like Metternich was trying to make it airtight when the doors were closed. The windows were uncovered, though, with white lines of weather sealant at the edges of the glass. If someone were to be put inside that cabinet, the people on the outside would be able to see everything that happened to them.
When the girls saw it, they both began to scream and struggle harder than ever before. Somehow, they knew one or both of them was going in the cabinet.
Rudolph Metternich only confirmed this for them. "My 'Alchemist,' as you so astutely put it, has given me his blessing to run a test on you. He thinks you will survive it. I am not so sure."
No matter what the girls had done to her that week, Meredith didn't want to watch this. "Oh, God..."
it won't stop
She Just Wanted to Be Heard
Day 41: Beings of Thule
Part of Story Arc 1: Counterclockwise
A "The Ring/Ringu" Fanfic
by Laurel (Sailorhathor)
Chapters: 41 of 100
Rating: Overall Rating Sup13+ (adult theme; horror elements that might be too scary for children under 13; bad language)
Dates: Begun September 2006. Some material is based on previously written stories from 2003-2005. This chapter was written in July 2010.
Word Count: 3,633
Summary: Sam and Meredith serve witness to one of the most traumatic moments in the lives of the Metternich twins. Meredith is pulled into one of their visions, one she cannot escape without Sam's help.
Warning: Contains spoilers for the entire Ringu and The Ring series. Spoilers for Supernatural episode 5.20 "The Devil You Know." Abuse and attempted murder of children, content concerning the Nazis and concentration camp-like killings, and drug use.
Beta Thanks: Thanks to Sammie for beta'ing this chapter!
Fanfic Challenges: Fits 50_darkfics Prompt #41 Fixation and coclaim100 Prompt #41 Divine.
Author's Notes: X-over with the TV series Supernatural. Set pre-series, during Sam's years at Stanford. Brady/OFC, Sam/OFC.
While Sam and Meredith were watching the Metternichs and the cabinet, adult Suzette had her eyes firmly planted on Brady. Why was he pretending he couldn't see the illusion? She knew he could. And what was his interest in Sam anyway? The reincarnation of her love... maybe she had interests of her own.
Brady stole a look at Suzette's ghost... and grinned wolfishly. She nodded back. I see you.
The two girls beat pointlessly at their father's body. Their small fists made little impact, but it was all they could think to do.
"No, Papa!" Sophie cried. Her blows were hesitant, because she was still terrified of her father and what he meant to do to them.
Suzette kept stomping on his foot again; this time, Rudolph didn't seem to notice. The look in his eyes carried such intensity as to be obsession with his plans for them. Finally, he could end this once and for all. Either they were beings of Thule, which would please the Fuehrer, or they were not his children, and he would have his revenge on his wife for the betrayal.
As he tossed Suzette into a chair, he began to chuckle. The sound became almost mad when he picked up the squirming Sophie and set her into the cabinet, through the open left door.
"Papa, please, don't hurt me!" Sophie pleaded. When Rudolph started to shut the door, she added, "I love you!"
He only went on cackling, closing the door.
Suzette sprang up off the chair and ran up to the cabinet, trying to pull the door open. "No, Papa, no!" Rudolph shoved her down. Picking up an electric drill, he started to screw the door shut. Suzette tried again. Her father grabbed her by the shoulder and tossed her across the room. The little girl hit the floor, sliding several feet, then got back up, limping over as Rudolph put another screw into the door. Sophie, crying, beat against the glass with her open palms in fear.
"Papa, what are you doing? Stop it!" At this point, Suzette began to cry too.
Rudolph put down the drill and walked away. Seeing her chance, Suzette tried to pull open the right door, but it was drilled shut too. Something he must've done in preparation for this moment. The child yanked hard on the handles of each door until she collapsed in hysterical tears; her sister begged her to get her out of the cabinet.
"I can't! I can't open the doors!" Suzette sobbed.
Rudolph brought out a coil of rope.
Meredith, now shaking against him, asked Sam, "What's he going to do to her?"
Dread coming over him, Sam replied, "I'm not sure I even want to know."
Little Suzette ran at the cabinet with the drill in her hand, letting out an angry cry. She swung the heavy object; the drill came within inches of the door, but Rudolph grabbed Suzette before it could shatter the glass and began to tie her arms behind her back. She screamed and thrashed against him, the drill falling to the floor.
The chair had been placed several feet from the china hutch, turned toward it so Suzette would have a front row seat. Rudolph now tied the child to the chair with her arms bound behind her back. It was a big, heavy chair; she was unlikely to be able to drag it behind her if she attempted an escape. Suzette's eyes were large and frightened as she watched her father put on rubber gloves, and then a gas mask.
Sam looked at the adult Suzette. "No... he didn't. He... holy..."
Tears were just beginning to spill out of her eyes. "No matter how many times I watch this, it never... stops... hurting."
"Sam? What's he going to do?" The gas mask, the gloves... Meredith put two and two together. "Oh my God, you sick bastard! Sam, we can't stop this, can we? Oh God, he... I can't watch this!" She hid her face in Sam's chest.
Sam was shaking his head. "What we're seeing here has already happened. We can't stop it."
"If you could, would you?" Suzette asked. "Would you stop it?"
While little Suzette struggled and screamed, Rudolph retrieved a gold canister from his workbench.
Sam nodded as he said, "It doesn't matter what you are. I could never just stand by and watch a man murder a child like that. You were innocent. You weren't responsible for what you were."
Looking up at him, Suzette smiled. "Just like my Matthias."
Their attention was stolen back to the cabinet. Rudolph opened the pipe on the side, then took the lid off the canister and fished out a few tiny whitish rocks as quickly as he could. The rocks instantly began to smoke in his fingers. He shoved them into the pipe, closed it, and then put the lid back on the canister. The little smoking pebbles rolled into the cabinet and tumbled next to Sophie's foot. Frightened, she crowded herself against the opposite wall.
Suzette was crying and screaming at the top of her voice. This only continued as the cabinet filled with gas and her sister began to cough and gag, holding her throat.
"Quit it! You're hurting her! Stop it!" Suzette yelled. "Hold your breath, Sophie! The rocks will dissolve and then you'll be okay!"
"Can she hold her breath for twenty minutes?" Rudolph asked through the gas mask. His voice had been muffled, but Suzette understood him; Sam and Meredith understood him too.
"You're a sick motherfucker!" Meredith growled at him. She had a baby back at home; she didn't know how anyone could do such a thing to any child. "I don't even care what they've put me through the last week; you're a sick motherfucker to do something like that to a little kid. Can you hear me, you perverted limpdick piece of shit? You're the one who made them angry!"
"What's going on?" Tabby asked, not for the first time. She sounded very frustrated now.
Sophie banged on the glass, gasping for air; the sound was becoming more frantic and scary by the second.
"How can you just stand there and watch that?" Meredith asked Rudolph Metternich, who was indeed just standing near the cabinet and watching the 'experiment.' "If you were here right now, I'd kick the shit out of you for doing something so sick to a child. Do you hear me?!"
Tabby got up off the couch and went over to her, taking Meredith by the shoulders. "Hey, you gotta calm down, Mere. You'll wake everyone on the floor."
"How can I calm down? This sick motherfucker turned his china cabinet into a gas chamber. He's gassing his own kid right in front of me."
Signaling to Brady, Tabby made motions like she was snuffing out a cigarette. Brady nodded, then put out the joint. If Meredith couldn't calm down, they'd wake up the Resident Assistant. "Well, you gotta try. How do you think Sully's gonna react to this if you wake her?"
Watching her sister's struggles, Suzette thrashed in the chair, screaming like a wounded animal. "Noooooooo, stop! Stop it! Stop it!" she cried, over and over.
Meredith couldn't take anymore of this. "I don't care how much noise I make," she said, and ran to the china cabinet.
Sam watched her for a moment and was surprised to find that the cabinet made solid noises when Meredith banged on it; she yanked at the door handles and it made a sound too, like wood hitting wood. He didn't think they could really save Sophie; this was just another way in which the illusions seemed real. Tabby went over to Meredith to try to calm her down; all she saw was her roommate yanking at the open air, and Sam began to follow, but a sob from the couch distracted him.
Adult Suzette was sobbing hard now, seeing her twin die again as she had many times before, but only once in real life. He felt sorry for her... almost drawn to her. Sam put out a hand and stroked her hair. "I'm sorry. This never should have happened to you or your sister." It surprised him a little, that he could feel her dark hair under his fingers.
"It was very painful, watching Sophie suffer like that. Do you have any idea how excruciating it is to be poisoned with cyanide gas?" Suzette put her hand over his, stroked it, and brought it down to her mouth where she could kiss it. Sam shifted and looked around, embarrassed. The others were panicking, and here he was, comforting a ghost. "You are very kind," she said.
"Thank you. It's just... you were just a little girl. Children are innocent."
Suzette got to her knees on the couch, using his arm and then his chest for leverage. Sam did not stop her as she crawled up his body. Her arms slid around his neck. Why wasn't he stopping her? Why did he like it? "Yes... you are just like my Matthias."
"What... who?"
"Look deeper into the Bloodworth books. You will find his picture." With that, Suzette leaned into him and planted a long, passionate kiss on Sam's mouth. Inside, a voice yelled at him to stop her, but he didn't want to. For a moment, they were the only two people in the room, and he heard old-fashioned waltz music, and saw a ballroom with a huge crystal chandelier. Warm colors on the walls... the orchestra... her fingers playing through the hair on the back of his neck. Were his arms around her? The ghost?!
When she broke the kiss, Sam breathed, "Don't do that. I don't even know you."
She smiled like a satisfied cat. "But your body... your body, my love, it remembers me."
He had almost been completely entrapped in her snares when Meredith let out a sharp, panicked scream.
Sam's head snapped in her direction. His eyes widened in shock.
Meredith had been substituted for Sophie. As the girls often did when they tortured one of their cursed ones, they showed the victims exactly what it felt like to be them, a persecuted, tormented daughter of a creature of legend, half-divine, with the frailties and feelings of a human being. Now, Meredith was inside the cabinet, banging on the glass.
What Tabby saw was her friend on her knees on top of a side table, flailing her hands at nothing and choking for air. When she tried to grab Meredith, something invisible stopped her, like a force field. "What the fuck is going on?!" she yelled at Brady.
Sam pushed Suzette away from him. "How could you do that?" he said to her. She looked up at him and smirked. "Let her out of there!"
As he turned to go help Meredith, Suzette twirled her hair around her finger and just watched him, attempting to explain. "Everyone who is cursed must know how it feels to be us. That is the point of this, Sam."
He looked around for something with which he could break the glass. From inside the cabinet, Meredith tried to scream for him to help her, to hurry, to get her out of there, but it all only came out as choked howls and deep gasps for air.
"I know you don't understand, Sam," Suzette continued, "but this is our revenge on the world."
He whirled on her. "If you don't let her out of that cabinet, you are no better than your father!"
Feeling it was an effective comeback, Suzette replied, "You have forgotten... the Nazi was not really my father."
Fine. Alright, fine - he was dealing with an illusion, he had to play by its rules. Sam went to pick up the drill.
"Sam, what's the matter with her? What's going on?!" Tabby cried, grabbing his arm and shaking it.
He shook her hand off and picked up the drill. Going to the cabinet, Sam brought the heavy tool back, then smashed it into the glass of the left door. The glass only spiderwebbed on his first hit. Bringing the drill back again, he struck the glass a second time, and it shattered, spraying down on the floor at his feet.
This is only an illusion, Sam thought as Meredith spilled into his arms. He dragged her out, gathering her up and taking her over to the couch. She was breathing heavily, taking in long, shrill breaths. She wasn't really gassed, it's only an illusion.
"Why couldn't I hear her?" Tabby was asking, wide-eyed. "When she was up on the table, the sounds she made were muffled, like she was... inside something."
Brady put his arms around her from behind. She jumped, startled. "Sorry," he said, and added, "Whatever she was seeing, she thinks it really happened."
"But why was her voice muffled?" Tabby asked again.
"I don't know how to answer that right now," Sam replied. He lightly smacked Meredith's cheek. "Meredith? Come on, you're okay. It wasn't real."
Her breathing wasn't improving; Meredith still took long, shrill breaths. It didn't sound good.
To the right of him, Sam saw movement out of the corner of his eye. The ventilation system in the cabinet had been run, was still humming, and now Rudolph opened the door to remove Sophie's limp body. Only, she wasn't dead. Although blood had run from her ears and nose, the child still took a long, shrill breath, just like the breaths Meredith was taking, as Rudolph collected her in his arms.
Rudolph looked down at her, stunned. "How can you still be alive?"
The illusion was broken by a loud voice calling from the hall. "What the hell is going on in here?"
The R.A., Regina Sullivan, nickname "Sully," came stomping into the room. Her bleach-blonde hair was usually done up in various punk rock hairstyles using enough hairspray to burn up the entire ozone layer, but being that it was the middle of the night, it hung over her shoulders instead in pillow-induced clumps. Her usual spike-covered and plaid getups were absent as well, her pajamas covered by a ratty green robe and gray socks on her feet where there usually were black platform boots. Even in her nightclothes, she was still intimidating.
Tabby immediately spoke up. "Hey Sully. There's something wrong with Meredith."
"She's having a panic attack," Sam said, trying to fill in information before they all gave Sully a different story.
Sully looked down at Meredith and tried to assess her condition. "Do I smell pot in here?"
"It's got nothing to do with drugs."
"Should I call an ambulance?"
Sam didn't know how they would ever explain what happened to Meredith to the doctors at the hospital. "I don't know. Meredith?" He smacked her cheek again, rapidly, several times. Shaking her, Sam said, "Come on, Meredith, it's all over." He held one of her eyes open to see if they were turned up in her head.
She suddenly began to struggle violently against him, striking out blindly with her arms. Meredith took a deep breath so loud it made them all jump. Then she started to hyperventilate. "Sam! Sam!" she cried between breaths. "It - it - it hurts - to breathe!"
"Meredith, it's over! It wasn't real!"
"I'm calling an ambulance," Sully declared.
"No, no, she'll be okay. I can take care of her." Remembering something that happened years before, Sam gathered Meredith into his arms and carried her toward the hallway. "Where's the bathroom? One with showers?"
"Here," Sully replied, pointing him in that direction.
When they were teenagers, Dean had been sprayed in the face with pollen by some sort of supernatural plant life. He started freaking out, unable to breathe, unaware of where he was. Dad had taken him into the bathroom and shocked him back to reality by putting him in a cold shower. Sam hoped it would work for Meredith too.
The entire way down the hall, Meredith struggled and bucked in his arms. He tried to hold her still, but she socked him good in the nose a couple of times with her flailing hands. Sam just winced; he tried not to react to the pain. Everyone followed him into the bathroom.
There was a row of showers on the far wall, some with a bathtub too. Sam put Meredith into one of the bathtubs, got a hold of her wrists, and said, "Someone turn on the shower."
She was still fighting him, gasping for breath, when Sully rotated the knob to somewhere between cold and lukewarm water and turned it on. At the first burst of water on her face, Meredith bucked hard and twisted in Sam's grasp, but he kept a good hold on her wrists. She continued to struggle with him a while longer until the shower began to work, and she looked all around, squinting at the water in her eyes. Her breathing turned to panting; Sam would take it, as it was calmer and far closer to normal than what she'd been doing when he pulled her from the cabinet. He took her face in his hands.
"Meredith, you're okay. It wasn't real." Sam didn't dare go into anymore detail than that, with Sully standing right there.
Meredith seemed to finally see him and believe that she hadn't really been gassed; she put her head down on his forearm, just trying to breathe. Sam ran a hand through her damp hair.
Tabby was standing behind Sam, but Brady had held back, lingering in the doorway. The adult ghost of Suzette sauntered down the hall. Brady glanced at her, folding his arms, and directed his attention back to the others in the bathroom.
"I know you can see me," she said to him.
He tried to ignore her.
"No one is paying any attention to us. You can talk."
Still, Brady did not respond.
"What is your interest in Sam Winchester?"
After he checked to make sure no one was looking at him, Brady spoke to her very quietly. "My boss wants me to keep an eye on him."
"And who is your boss?"
Brady chuckled to himself. "Someone you don't want to mess with."
"Ah. I imagine it's some sort of demon, as that's what you are inside that human shell." Suzette had a giggle of her own. "We are not afraid of demons. Have you heard of Heptamera?"
Brady looked at her out of the corner of his eye; he seemed a little more interested now. "Isn't he some sort of dragon?" He remembered the story. "Oh, like the story the Nazi was telling."
"Something like that, except the Nazi left some things out. Heptamera did father the twins of which he was speaking, in real life. My sister Sophie and I. And Heptamera is not just a dragon, but a divine being, a daemon," Suzette explained. "Between a god and a lower being like you."
Now Brady looked at her full in the face with surprise. He didn't know how Azazel was going to react to that one, but he tried not to show any fear over it. A daemon may or may not be able to trounce a being like Azazel - it could definitely trounce a lower demon like him. "Oh." Brady put on a smile, attempting to be charming. "We mean no disrespect to you and your father."
"That's better." Suzette, her own arms crossed over her chest now, stepped closer to him. Looming in his personal space. "I will ask again. What is your interest in Sam Winchester?"
"My boss thinks he could be special. That he may be able to go far."
Suzette gave a small nod of comprehension. "Hm. Well, whatever you have planned for him, I want you to make sure that he doesn't get hurt." She got up in his face, challenging him. "And whatever it is that your boss is doing, it had better not encroach on my father's territory. Do you hear me?"
Brady wouldn't let her know if she'd ruffled his feathers with her threats; that would only show weakness. The smile he gave her in return was cocky. "Loud and clear."
With another brief nod, Suzette turned to go. Brady caught her by the arm, wanting to leave her with a parting comment that would let her know just what kind of being she was dealing with, so she would make no mistake in fucking with him again. "Do you see that girl in there? Tabby?"
Suzette looked, and nodded.
"I'm gonna take her back to my room and fuck the shit out of her. Rip that bitch up. Doesn't matter to me if she likes it or not." He looked her up and down. "You should try it sometime. Maybe you wouldn't be such a bitch if you got laid more often."
An amused smile came over Suzette's face. "Doesn't anyone make love anymore?" she asked with a snicker, and took her arm back, slinking off down the hall.
Brady looked down, spotting the little one next to him, the child who had been put in the cabinet. Sophie gazed up at him with her sunken eyes and took his hand, placing something in it. Then she followed her sister down the hall.
Brady opened his hand. There was an old, rusty key in it. He threw it up into the air and caught it, wondering what the dead bitch was planning for Sam Winchester herself.
The Ringu series is (c) 1998 The Ring/The Spiral Production Group. It is based on the novels by Koji Suzuki. My fanfic is more based on ideas presented in the films, which were created by director Hideo Nakata and screenwriter Hiroshi Takahashi.
The motion picture The Ring is (c) 2002 DreamWorks Pictures. The title "She Just Wanted to Be Heard" comes from a line of dialogue spoken by Rachel Keller in this movie. The motion picture The Ring Two is (c) 2005 DreamWorks Pictures. This fanfic is heavily inspired by ideas presented in the American movies, which were directed by Gore Verbinski and Hideo Nakata and written by Ehren Kruger.
I do not know if the prequel, The Ring 3, will have any bearing on this story or not until I see it.
Supernatural is (c) 2005 Kripke Enterprises, Wonderland, & Warner Brothers/The CW Television.
Everything else is (c) Demented Stuff.
it won't stop