Chapter 6:

Scully's chest was tight with anxiety, her senses on high alert for anything out of the ordinary as she walked down the hallway ten minutes later, restlessly awaiting the arrival of the cavalry. Anyone. It could be anyone…. She took in and let out a deep breath, trying to remain composed, as she watched the people around her doing their jobs. Scully walked hurriedly down the hallway as other nurses and doctors darted past her, getting to the front desk and leaning over to speak to the woman there. "Are they making any progress on the electrical failures?"

The woman grimaced and shook her head. "No idea what's causing it. And my computer's been down for the past fifteen minutes, Agent Scully. Every time it tries to restart, the electricity will hiccup again," she said, throwing her hands up in frustration. "They're down in the basement trying to figure it out, but I haven't heard anything."

"Okay," Scully sighed. She went down several winding hallways, took the stairs down two floors, following instructions to get to the basement's electrical system, where numerous people were working on laptops hooked up to several things in the room and others were looking over the circuits.

"Any idea what's going on?" Scully asked, looking around at them. "The nurses upstairs are getting worried."

"It's got to be something from the main grid," one of the young men spoke, looking up from his computer. "But they say everything's fine on their end. We're just fluctuating." Scully pursed her lips anxiously, shifting on her feet.

"The best thing you can do is head back upstairs and try to help keep the nurses calm," said Nathan, one of the electricians.

"All right. Thanks, Nathan." Scully headed back down the hallway and up the stairs, still trying to pick up on any clues that someone around her was possessed. It's up to me. It could be anyone. It turned out she didn't need to worry about finding the demon, however.

It found her.

Heading back into the lab and into the empty office that had been deemed hers to make a call to Sam and Dean and ask when exactly they were getting there, the door was stopped as Scully tried to close it. Her eyes only had enough time to narrowed in confusion and recognize that a hand had grabbed the door before it swung open. A punch was thrown into her stomach that propelled her backwards and into the wall, crumpling to the floor, and the door was closed and locked.

Scully gasped from the pain, trying to shove herself up to her feet, but the man who had entered, whom she recognized as one of the doctors — Dr. Anderson — tore his hood off, tossing it aside. He grabbed her by the throat and ripped her hood off as well, staring into her eyes as it shoved her against the wall. "No worries. You won't live to die from any of the diseases," it told her evenly, his eyes clouding over with blackness. Scully pulled desperately at the arm that held her, kicking at her attacker, but it barely reacted, simply immobilizing her with a firm arm across her chest, pushing her into the wall.

"Suppose you know what I am. You've been doing your damndest in this hospital to destroy all my hard work spreading these lovely viruses. So you're a hunter?" it growled.

Scully shook her head furiously. "No," she choked out. It eased up on the grip it had on her neck and she wheezed in and out. "No, I'm not, I swear."

"Just FBI?" it asked skeptically. "Then how'd you know to try holy water in the IVs?"

Scully flew the water bottle up at the demon's face, exploding into a sizzling mist, and the demon cried out, stumbling backwards. Scully attempted to dart around it, but as she got to the door it grabbed her by the arm and threw her across the room and into a file cabinet with a bang. The holy water dropped to the floor, spilling uselessly across it, as the demon let out a snarl, gathering itself before it went over to her and hoisted her up, shoving her even more harshly against the wall, its arm across her shoulders and other hand gripping her throat. "Bitch," it spat. "How did you know about the holy water?"

Scully grimaced at the heavy nothingness in its inky eyes mere inches from hers, choking for air, but then swallowed hard and set her jaw. Demon or not, there was no way she was going to cooperate with the thing standing in front of her. She knew that she needed to bide her time until the boys got there or it would take off and they'd never be able to stop the viruses.

Staring at her intensely, the serious expression on the demon's face shifted into a frightening smirk as it realized she was clamming up. "You've got help, don't you? Someone on the outside pulling the strings?" it muttered. Removing the arm across her chest, it slipped a scalpel out from its jacket, holding it close to her face, causing her to resume her struggling against its iron-strong force. "How about I take an eye?" it asked softly. "Think that'll help you remember? Or should I just start cutting?"

Scully cried out as the scalpel was jabbed into her arm and twisted before it was yanked out. "Who's helping you?" it growled.

Suddenly, its expression twitched in confusion as the P.A. system squealed once before a voice came across it. "Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus,

omnis satanica potestas—."

The demon jerked back from Scully, letting her collapse to the ground, narrowing its eyes and letting out a furious growl. Scully reached into one of her pockets and took out a syringe of holy water, yanking the cap off with her teeth as the demon turned to bolt out of the room, leaping at it and plunging the needle into its back. It cried out, stumbling forward, and clawed at its back as if it could grasp at the holy water and get it out of its bloodstream.

"Ergo, draco maledicte et omnis legio diabolica, adjuramus—."

The demon's face contorted in pain as its breath caught in its throat and tore out as a cry of pain, collapsing to the ground. Scully slid out another holy water syringe and kicked the demon in the stomach, causing it to curl into a fetal position, and Scully jabbed the syringe into its neck, depressing the plunger and sending more of the poison through its system.

"—invocato a nobis sancto et terribili nomine—."

Scully's breath came quickly as she frantically searched her jacket for another syringe and came up empty. She looked over to the bottle of water that had mostly spilled across the floor and quickly went over to it, sticking the syringe into it and pulling the water in, keeping one eye on the demon.

"Ut Ecclesiam tuam secura tibi—."

As Scully got hurriedly to her feet and darted over to the demon, it kicked out at her, sending her sprawling to the ground, but she realized it was starting to almost go into a seizure.

"—te rogamus, audi nos!"

Scully stumbled frantically back from the demon, sliding down the wall as if to get away from the black smoke that expelled from its mouth in a scream, pouring up toward the ceiling. She stared at it in shock, eyes wide, as it collected in a dark mass and disappeared into a puff of fire and ash. Her breathing still rough, Scully suddenly found the room heavy with silence and she swallowed tightly, wincing at the throbbing pain in her arm.

There suddenly was a loud knock at the door and the doorknob rattled. "Hey, what's going on in there?" called a voice.

Suddenly, the man sprawled on her floor coughed, causing her to jump in fear, and his eyes widened as he struggling backwards along the ground, looking around in a panic. "Wh-what—?" He swallowed as he looked himself over and glanced over to Scully shakily. "You…."

"Dr. Anderson?" she asked uneasily as the knocking became more urgent.

"Y-Your arm," he stammered.

Scully's cell phone suddenly rang in her pocket and she fumbled to get it out. "Yeah?" she breathed.

"Scully, it's Dean. Where are you?"

"First floor, room 232," she said.

"We'll be right there. We put that through the whole hospital. You hear anything after Sam did the exorcism?" he asked.

"He was…. It was here," Scully told him shakily, pushing herself to her feet. "It knew it was me and—."

"You okay?" Dean snapped.

"I'm fine," she breathed, walking over to the door and unlocking it. "Just…a little shaken up." The door swung open, revealing two doctors that swiftly came into the room. "I'll wait for you here," she told him.

Dean waited at Scully's side until the excitement had died down and the cover story spread of her having fallen into the corner of her desk, which had triggered Dr. Anderson getting dizzy and lightheaded from the stress of the long, intense shift he'd been on. Dean took a moment to explain briefly to Dr. Anderson exactly what had happened to him, assuring him that he would be okay, before handing him off to some other doctors. Once her wound had been bandaged and they were alone, sitting next to each other in folding chairs, Dean spoke up.

"I've got to know what happened," he told her softly. "I've got to make sure the exorcism worked on Pestilence cause we weren't sure it was going to. Did it leave Dr. Anderson before the exorcism was over?"

"Ah…no," she whispered. Scully took in and let out a deep breath. "No, I, um…. It was attacking me, trying to find out how I knew to use holy water, when the exorcism started. It tried to run but I used some of the holy water syringes to hurt it. I knew the water wouldn't hurt Dr. Anderson, so…."

Dean raised his eyebrows. "Nicely done."

Scully smiled briefly. "Thanks. Um…it was only at the end that it…that all the smoke came out and just…flew up and kind of…blasted away."

At that statement, Scully saw some of the tension in Dean's shoulders melt and he nodded. "That means it's gone," he told her. "The holy water with the treatments for the infected should keep working and it won't keep spreading now that the carrier's gone."

"That's…good news," she muttered.

"No kidding. Sam went to go meet Mulder outside and walk him over here. He's getting suited up and everything, but me and Sam didn't exactly have the time and we just kind of improvised our way in here so…" he said, letting his voice trail off.

"We'll run blood tests and make sure you guys didn't catch anything," she told him. "And me too."

"Okay." Suddenly Dean tensed again. "I'll need you to do the tests yourself."

Scully narrowed her eyes. "Why?"

"Um…there might be something in Sam's blood. Something different. I-I'm not sure what it would be, but…I wouldn't want anyone else seeing it," he told her tightly.

Scully stared at him for a moment, confused, before she simply nodded. "Okay. No problem."

"Thanks."

"Yeah. And thank you for…saving my life. All our lives. And, you know, not saying 'I told you so,'" she murmured.

Dean's expression shifted slightly into something Scully didn't quite recognize. If anything, she would have had to call it regret. "Not my place," he responded quietly.

Scully took a breath as if to say something, pausing before she spoke. "When you were on the phone with your friend…you mentioned…." Dean's face shifted once again, into an uneasy despair that he tried to cover up with a stiff coldness, and he averted his gaze. "And again now…Pestilence. A horseman. I mean, I thought it was just a code or a nickname or…. Dean," she whispered apprehensively. "I get the feeling that you've been exorcising demons for a long time. So you know what you're doing. This scared you too much to just be any demon."

Dean stared at a point on the other side of the room almost long enough for Scully to follow his gaze, thinking he was actually looking at something, before he spoke. "There's a war going on," he muttered. "Been in the makings for decades. And…this was just…one battle."

"A war," Scully whispered. "Against what?"

"Hell. Pretty much," Dean said softly, still looking away from Scully. "And everything that comes with it."

Scully suddenly noticed an almost subconscious iciness sliding through her. A horrible, disturbing dread that had crept up her back and into her chest. "Are we winning?" she forced herself to ask.

Dean finally raised his eyes to meet hers, his gaze filled with a heavy despondency and an incomprehensible hopelessness that Scully had rarely seen, especially in a man Dean's age. "No," he finally responded.

THE END