Judas Is the Demon I Cling To

I sat, stunned and in pain, on my seat next to Dean. My forehead was throbbing and my heart was pounding in my ears. My breath was ragged, pulling itself in and pushing itself out in quick bursts, causing my lungs to burn as if I’d run a marathon. I stared out the blood-spattered windshield and refused to look over my shoulder.

We may have just killed a woman. I risked looking at Dean out of the corner of my eye.
He sat in the driver’s seat in much the same position. His hands gripped the steering wheel so forcefully that his knuckles were turning white. His chest rose and in a quick, sporadic motion. His mouth hung open, his jaw slack in shock. His eyes were large and round, the lids pulled back as if they were taped there. His eyes darted to the side and met mine briefly.

I knew we were thinking the same thing.

“Sammy, what the hell just happened?” Dean’s voice was low, hoarse even.

I had to swallow a few times to clear the lump from my throat.

“I-I have no clue.” I tried not to cringe as I turned to look over my shoulder.

I nearly jumped through the Impala’s roof as I took in the scene displayed through the rear-window.

The woman was staring at us through the window. Her thin lips were a brilliant red and a thin line of blood ran down from the left corner of her mouth. Her brilliant blue eyes bored two holes straight through the glass and into the back of Dean’s head. Her brilliant, blue, clearly living eyes.

She can’t still be alive. I felt my eyes widen just a little bit more.

As I watched, the woman opened her mouth wide and took in a big gulp of air. Her chest moved up with the intake and down with the exhalation. As if that single breath contained some form of power, the woman raised her right arm, then her left, and placed both of her blood-smeared hands against the window. She opened her mouth once more to drag in another deep breath. Bracing her arms, she pushed herself back from the window and into a sitting position, pulling her weight back and sitting on her knees on top of the trunk.

“D-Dean!” I reached out and pushed my brother’s shoulder roughly to get his attention.

Dean swiveled in his seat to glance to follow my gaze.

“Mother of hell!” He roared in surprise.

In an instant, his hand was on the door handle. In his haste, he pushed against the door with his full weight a bit too quickly. The hinges squealed in protest as the door swung open. Dean reached underneath his seat with his right hand and swiftly pulled out his sawed-off shotgun, flipping it up and cocking it in one fluid motion. I reached forward and popped open the glove box, fumbling for a moment as my sweaty palms lost their grip on my pistol’s smooth metal. I heard the driver’s side door slam shut.

A moment later, I had my hand wrapped firmly around the pistol. I grasped the door handle and pushed in, wrenching the door open and swinging my legs through after it.

I stepped out onto the pavement slowly, straightening almost methodically. I turned to face the trunk, glancing across the car at Dean, who had his arms raised, his sawed-off aimed at the woman sitting on the trunk. I raised my arms and trained my pistol on her, studying her as I stood.

She sat very still and straight, as if she were posing for a picture. Her hands were folded neatly in her lap, which was stained with blood from a large gash I could see through the hole one of the windshield wipers must have put in her shirt. She held her head high. Her eyes shifted from my face to Dean’s and then back again. Her sharp features were made even sharper by the lack of hair to frame her face and soften it. Her dark hair was buzzed closely, as if she were in the military. An air of pride was evident in every way she presented herself.

How are you not dead?

I cut my eyes at Dean. He glanced back and nodded once before taking a step toward the woman.

“Who are you?” Dean barked in the woman’s direction. I watched him advance slowly but held my position, waiting for his signal.

The woman smiled a wry smile.

“No one of consequence.”

“Real cute, lady.” I could see Dean’s face break into a sarcasm-filled smile out of the corner of my eye. “But in case you haven’t noticed, you’re at a bit of a disadvantage here. I’ve got a gun, he’s got a gun, you’re bleeding your cold-ass little heart out, and we’re in the middle of nowhere. I think the odds are pretty much in our favor, now,” Dean was rounding the back of the car now, making his way to the left corner of the trunk, where the woman sat.

“We can just make sure you die, good and proper, the way you should have when you bit our windshield, or,” he placed the end of the sawed-off’s barrel to the back of the woman’s head. “You start answering my questions like a good little bitch.”

I watched the woman’s eyes flash in rage and her shoulders stiffen briefly at the word bitch. It didn’t last long. She quickly regained her composure. I doubted that Dean had noted the change in her body placement.

Something’s not right here. I began to feel a nagging somewhere in the recesses of my brain. My arms began to throb lightly from the strain of keeping my arms outstretched.
The woman’s eyes met mine and she smiled at me sweetly.

“You’re right. Something is obviously wrong with this picture.”
I felt my eyebrows raise instinctively. I looked over the woman’s head at Dean. His mouth hung open for just a moment. He snapped his jaw shut and glared over her head at me. He nodded once.

“Oh, so you’re a mind reader? Well, tell me, what am I thinking?” Dean’s voice dripped sarcasm from every word. The woman shifted slightly and attempted to look back at him, a rueful smile on her face.

I seized the opportunity and took a step backward, shifting the pistol’s grip to my left hand as I did. Keeping my eyes glued to the woman lest Dean should need back-up, I felt along the side of the car until I felt my fingertips brush against the door handle. I wedged my right hand into the gap between the handle and the door and gave it a tug, stepping in front of the door as it swung open.

Dean and the woman were conversing in low, sharp tones. I couldn’t make out what they said, but judging from the rough glint in Dean’s eyes and the determined set of his jaw, they were probably in the heat of trading insults. I used the distraction to my advantage, bending down and dropping my arm, letting the pistol come to rest at my left side. I stuck my head inside the Impala, my eyes scanning along the console until they found what they wanted.

A small vial of holy water lay wedged between the end of the gear shift and an AC/DC cassette. I reached across the passenger’s side with my right hand and grasped the vial between my thumb and index finger. As I pulled my upper body out of the car, I heard the woman give a sharp laugh.

“Holy water? A demon? Is that what you think I am? Oh,” she scoffed under her breath. “You two know nothing.”

Dean peered over the woman’s head, his eyes narrowed into slits, his cheeks pinched. I felt my eyes widen in amazement as I stared back at the woman. Her eyebrows raised slightly and she unfolded her legs from beneath her, letting them dangle over the side of the car.

“Are you going to come and ask me questions like normal, civilized people? Or are we going to continue this ridiculous stand-off?” She twisted her torso so she could look up at Dean’s face.

“Dean, maybe we should just talk to her.” I started to see the logic in her words. She turned back to face me, a broad, toothy smile spreading across her face.

It wasn’t as if there was anywhere she could go. She didn’t have any weapons. And, except for the incident of her not being dead, she really wasn’t any different than us. She knew about things. Things that lie in wait in the dark. I glanced back at Dean, my eyes pleading with him to see the advantages of getting answers the civilized way. His eyes widened in disbelief at my words, but his arms lowered the sawed-off slowly, methodically.

When the woman no longer felt the presence of the gun behind her head, she reached up and rubbed the rough stubble of hair where Dean had trained the gun’s barrel. She winked at me before hopping down off the Impala’s trunk and taking a few steps toward the side of the road. Dean reacted to her movement and raised his gun once more, training it on her back.

She stopped walking and shook her head before turning around. From her vantage point, she could clearly see both of us.

“Oh, please. I’m not going anywhere.” She shook her head again, folding her arms across her bloodied chest. Dean’s scowl deepened and he brought the sawed-off to chest level. “That’s better. You could take a few lessons from him. That one, he knows how to delegate.”

She jerked her thumb roughly in my direction. I took a step toward her, tucking my pistol into the back of my waistband as I went. Dean stared at me, his eyebrows raised in shock. Rule number one: Never approach an unknown without your weapons ready. I could hear my father’s voice ring through my head.

Sorry, dad. We’re doing this alone, so I’m going to do it my way. I pocketed the vial of holy water and took another step toward the woman, holding both my hands up in a gesture of impasse. She chuckled as she watched me advance.

“Well aren’t you just the sweetest thing? All chivalrous and reassuring. Makes a lady feel pretty damn special.”

“Just a show of good faith.” I moved closer, smiling a small smile.

“Sam,” Dean called out warily. My closeness to the woman was making him uneasy.

I stopped about a foot from where she stood and studied her face. Her strangely beautiful, pride-filled features betrayed nothing. She smiled up at me, her demeanor cool and collected.

What a strange woman. She raised an eyebrow at the sound of my thought. I cleared my throat once and opened my mouth to speak, before the topic of her oddness could go any further.

“Who are you?” I asked quietly, gauging her reaction carefully.

For the first time since she had sat up and started talking with us, the woman lost her smile. The corners of her mouth pulled taught and she swallowed with great difficulty, betraying the lump in her throat. As I stared into her eyes, I saw them mist over briefly, and the haughtiness gave way to deep despair and sorrow. I had the intense urge to reach out and put a hand on her shoulder to comfort her, but I held my position.

The deep emotion only lasted a moment, and then it was gone. She stared up at me with a small smile.

“What a silly question. I don’t know who I am. No one truly knows who they are.” She laughed once, but it was a bitter, hollow sound. She glanced away and cleared her throat before looking back and continuing.

“So I can’t tell you who I am. But I can tell you what my name is.

My name is Anna.

Anna Adams.”