Chapter 86

Samirah runs. But she doesn't go far.

She pricks her sensitive ears at the sounds on the ground and in the skies above. Small metal birds with death attached to their wings soar overhead. The larger ones that whir through the air contain heavily armed men. The ground underneath her hooves rattles and thrums with the rumble of heavy vehicles filled with men and weapons.

She senses the humans hiding in the ruins of the buildings. Humans think they are at the top of the food chain but they're more like horses than they think. They've rushed back inside the buildings, much like a horse will charge back into a barn, even if the barn is on fire.

Samirah sees the orange flare of their body heat, hears the rush of their breathing and the rapid thump of their hearts. They're afraid.

Afraid of the Horsemen.

Afraid of her.

They'd damn well better be.

The ache inside her is maddeningly familiar. She felt this way before, when Gaelen left her the first time. Samirah burns with rage. Her nostrils flex red, she breathes smoke and fire. Her hooves fuse the ground beneath her into molten slag.

Anger is much better than sorrow.

An overturned city bus lies sprawled across the broken road before her. She hears quick, intakes of breath tinged with panic and fear. Humans. They're quiet enough, cowering behind the metal vehicle like timid mice, but they can't hide from her. They never could.

Her rage ignites. Samirah screams out her fury. She charges at the vehicle and leaps up onto the overturned bus. Metal twists and bends underneath her weight. Glass shatters. People scream.

Good. She'll give them something to scream about.

Samirah crouches atop the bus. She watches the humans scurry away (Like rats, she thinks to herself, like field mice.) She gives them a head start, but it's not out of any sense of mercy. She wants them to realize how hopeless their situation is. The great black mare watches them run, and she crouches as she prepares to leap down.

Something is wrong.

Gaelen. She sees Gaelen standing not twenty feet away from her. He's a pale ghost image, an echo, so strong it makes her heart ache. The humans don't notice him, but on an unconscious level they do. They don't run into him. They run around him.

Samirah blinks, then shakes her finely chiseled head to clear her vision.

Gaelen stares sadly at her. He shakes his head slowly from side to side.

Please. Don't do this.

That silent appeal ignites a bright spark of hatred within her. She rears up and strikes at the sky above with her forelegs.

You left me! You left us! What did you expect?

He turns away from her and vanishes.

Samirah snorts angrily. She jumps down from the bus.

She shakes her head angrily, then calls out.

Gaelen?

She doesn't expect an answer. But she gets one anyway.

Here. 'm here.

Samirah runs in that direction.

Blue white light explodes behind Sam's eyes. It staggers him, shocks him more than anything else. This wasn't a killing blow. Sam looks around angrily in search of whoever dared strike him.

Nothing. No one.

What the hell is this?

Tiesen, Chale and Rika wear the same look of surprise and anger. So do Ishmael, Ajani, Nahele and Actaeon.

Chale gingerly rubs the back of his head with his palm. He can't rub the sting away. And this particular pain feels awfully familiar.

He scowls at Bastet. "Was that you? What'd you hit me for?"

Bastet leans into her spear. She licks herself and then lazily rubs the side of her hand over her face. "My dear," she purrs, "I haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about."

Hey, Sammy.

That voice inside his head...Sam freezes, wide-eyed.

"D-Dean?" Sam stammers out loud. He blinks, unwilling, unable to hope.

Yeah, it's me. Why don't you let Dad go, okay? Let them all go. You don't want to do this.

The terrible flame inside Sam goes out. He suddenly feels small. Awkward. Ashamed of himself. He hasn't felt this way since he was a kid, when he was anxious about everything and didn't want to seem like a uselss, clumsy dork in front of his big brother.

He drops his hold on everyone.

That's my boy.

A shimmer of blue white light forms five feet away. Mary, John, Sam and the others see Dean wearing his beloved brown leather jacket, worn jeans, t shirt and work boots. Tiesen, Rika, Chale and their horses see him dressed in his splendid black cassock and hooded greatcoat.

Tessa's eyes widen. She sees him too. Each one sees what he or she wants to see. What they need to see.

Everyone hears his voice, human, reaper, Horseman and apocahorse alike. Except Samirah, of course. She's run off to parts unknown. Dean calls each of them by name with obvious affection.

You're pissed off at me. I get that. I do. But these people aren't to blame for what I did.

We're not that much different from them. Even with our mojo. Even now. We started out human. You know we did. Our purpose...our power...that came later.

Now they're afraid. Of us. They're hiding. From us.

We're the only monsters left in this place. Poetic irony is a purebred bitch. You're mad at me, but you're taking it out on them. That's not right.

If you kill them...if you wipe them off the face of the earth...then tell me...why the hell did we even come here in the first place?

No one answers.

Black Hawk Super Six-One
75th Ranger Battalion
E. Tropicana Avenue Landing Site

Lieutenant Colonel Andrew McKnight feels the hair on the back of his neck stand up, rigid and painful. It's like nothing he's ever felt before, a primal fear. He raises his left arm into the air and gives the signal to halt to his men.

McKnight raises his assault rifle. It's one of the newer ones. A Special Operations Forces Combat Assault Rifle, SCAR for short. It's one of the baddest weapons out here and for some reason he knows it won't be enough.

Something bad is coming. She's angry.

McKnight doesn't understand this. How the hell does he know that whatever this is female?

A horse walks out of thin air thirty feet away. Arabian, from the look of her, but McKnight has never seen an Arabian that tall. She's 17 hands tall at least. Beautiful conformation. The blackest horse he's ever seen, black as the crack of doom.

"Damn," Corporal Weathers whispers to himself. They all know who she is. Case designate Nightshade. The animal that belongs to Dean Winchester, case designate Rawhide. Winchester's not around.

And his horse looks pissed.

Very very pissed.

She stops and glares at the men. The weapons they carry do not intimidate her in the slightest. Her bright eyes flare copper bright. She paws the ground and the cracked pavement liquefies from the heat of her hooves. The air around her crackles with copper energy.

"Uh, Lieutenant?" Weathers whispers. "What are we gonna do? Offer her some sugar cubes or something? We're fresh out."

"Funny," McKnight growls. "Intel says this critter is sentient. We're supposed to reason with her." He lowers his weapon as he walks towards the animal. That goes against what he's feeling. His every instinct screams at him to fall back and open fire.

The mare eyes the man, her ears pricked.

"Ummm...I'm Lt. Colonel McKnight. I represent the United States government."

"So?" The animal rumbles. Another surprise. Her voice sounds exactly like Kathleen Turner in that movie "Body Heat."

"We don't want to hurt you."

The horse snorts laughter. "But I want to hurt you."

McKnight's not sure what happens after that. Later on in the briefing he recounted how case designate Nightshade lunged at him. Even as he raised his rifle he somehow knew he would be too late. He heard his men yell out behind him.

The air in front of him shimmered with this odd blue white light. It was shaped like a man.

The horse stops. She rears back. He hears her cry out "Damn you, Gaelen!"

The animal changed direction. Instead of charging at the troops she veers off and heads for the Black Hawk helicopter on the parking lot nearby.

The two pilots see her coming. They open fire with their pistols and rifles. No effect. Bullets spark against that impossibly black hide of hers and disappear. The big back horse rams into the nose of the Black Hawk. The helicopter rises twelve feet up into the air from the impact and when it comes down the landing struts collapse with a groan of twisted metal.

The horse disappears.

Samirah reappears miles away. She's couldn't get lost even if she tried. The location (Sunset Station Casino) doesn't mean a thing to her. It's the same old same old: Humans scatter and run into the buildings when they see her. They hunker down in those horseless horseless carriages that are stuck on the road. Nothing she hasn't seen before.

The parking lot is filled with bodies. Thousands of human bodies. Both sexes, all ages, races and colors. They lie on their backs. They stare blankly up at the dark sky. They're not dead. But they're not fully alive, either. They're in the in between place.

Samirah doesn't care. But there's something new here that piques her curiosity. This new thing also enrages her.

There's a shadow standing in the middle of the bodies. Its back is to her. That has her full attention now. It's an ink black silhouette in the shape of a man. That's all her sensitive eyes can pick up. It's Other. Whether from Heaven or Hell or somewhen, somewhere else doesn't matter. That fills her with rage.

Dean is gone. And this...this thing is still here.

She doesn't know what it's doing. She doesn't care.

Samirah gathers herself and then she charges forward. She strikes the being dead center. It's a direct hit. The shadow thing is flung into the Sunset Station Casino.

The front of the structure collapses. Samirah watches as some of the humans run out of the buildings nearby. No human deaths in there. Not yet anyway. She's just getting started, after all.

The wreckage shifts. The shadow staggers out of the falling debris. Samirah nods with satisfaction.

I hurt it. Good.

She paws the ground with her right foreleg. She wants to fight. Maybe this one won't go down easily.

The shadow falls forward on its hands and knees. As it does the shadow melts away. The man lifts his head.

He shows her his face.

Wide green eyes. Spiky dark blonde hair. Freckled skin dusted with concrete dust, blood and bruises.

Samirah backs up, her eyes wide with horror at what she's done.

It's Gaelen. It's Dean.