Twilight: Bay City Paranormal Investigations, Book 3

Sam thought was odd. Lifting the EMF detector, Sam checked the reading. It hadn’t changed at all from when he’d taken the first reading.
“I’m following,” Dean called, loping after the thing with the video camera still pointed at it. He thumbed his flashlight off. “Switching to infrared filter.”
Beside Sam, Bo leaned against the rock, rubbing his thigh. “Sam, go with him. My leg’s acting up again.”
Sam didn’t like leaving Bo, but the lack of any sign of aggression from the creature made him feel better about it. With a nod to acknowledge Bo’s order, Sam trailed after Dean, pointing the flashlight at the ground so he could see where he was going. He couldn’t see the creature anymore, and he still couldn’t feel even a trace of the intelligent menace which had nearly overwhelmed him at Oleander House and South Bay High. Its absence was a relief, but felt wrong nonetheless. Sam had braced himself to face the powerful malice of another portal and its inhabitants; feeling nothing but this strange, static emptiness seemed wrong.
Ahead of him, Dean slowed to a walk, swearing under his breath. “What’s wrong?” Sam asked, jogging to Dean’s side.
Dean shook his head. “I lost the damn thing. It kept going, and I couldn’t move fast enough to keep up.”
“Well, hell, you remember how fast those things move.” Sam laid a hand on Dean’s shoulder. “At least you got some video.”
“Yeah, let’s just hope it shows up.” Sighing, Dean switched off the camera. “Do you think we should keep following it? This worries me, leaving that thing running around out here.”
“I agree, but I’m not sure what else to do. We’re not exactly equipped for finding it, and we aren’t even sure if there’s an actual gateway here. Nothing’s happening the way it did the other times. The other creatures came after us. This one ran away.” Sam shuddered at the memories. “And the weirdest thing of all is, I couldn’t feel it, or the portal.”
Dean stared at him. “You couldn’t?”
“No. All I felt was the same energy I picked up before. It didn’t change at all when we saw that thing.” Taking one more look at the EMF detector—the reading remained the same—Sam turned it off. “This is really strange. I don’t know what to think of it.”
“Hmm. Guess we’d better talk to the boss-man and see what he thinks.” Dean looked around. “Where’s Bo?”
“He stayed by the rock. Said his leg was hurting again.” Sam shot a concerned glance at Bo, who was a dark blur against the pale stone. “It worries me how his leg keeps getting better then worse. You don’t think the surgical incision could be coming apart or anything, do you?”
“This far out from the surgery? Doubtful. He’d have had problems before this if the incision was going to dehisce. Come open, that is,” Dean explained. He turned his flashlight on and began trudging back to the boulder. “He seems fine otherwise. Try not to worry too much, Sam. The hike up here was pretty strenuous, and the muscle and tissues in that leg are never going to be quite as strong as they used to be. It’s most likely just muscle strain. Even if it’s not behaving like a strain ought to, exactly.”
“Yeah, I know.” Sam stared at a blanket of dead ferns beneath his feet. “I mostly worry that he’ll get worse and not tell either of us until it’s too late. If anything happened to him, I don’t think I could deal with it.”
Dean pinned him with a sharp look. “Yeah, you could. Andre did it. You could too, if it came down to it.”
Sam, shocked, didn’t know what to say. He pressed his lips together, heart thudding painfully. Thinking of Amy’s brutal death—and Andre’s struggle to learn to live with it—always hurt like a knife in the gut. The fierce pain of it never lessened, and he didn’t want it to. He’d learned to accept that Amy’s death wasn’t his fault, but she’d still died, and Sam never wanted to forget that.
Dean’s hand curled around Sam’s arm, fingers pressing into his skin through the thick material of his jacket. “I know you worry, Sam. And I know why you worry. You went through hell when Bo was in the hospital, not knowing if he’d live or die. But I don’t think it’ll come to that this time. Bo’s stubborn as the proverbial mule, that’s true, but he’s not stupid. He knows better than to keep it to himself if something serious is wrong.”
Lifting his head, Sam gave Dean a wan smile.