"That is... terrifying," James muttered, eyes wide, staring at the reinforced door. "What the hell kind of things are those?"
"The kind we need to get rid of," Henry said. He stepped to the table and picked up the Necronomicon, flipping it open to pages covered in disturbing, rusty-brown ink. He turned to Annie.
"I hope you can read this."
Annie blinked, still reeling from the recording. "What?"
"Your father was an ancient history specialist," Henry said, entirely pragmatic. "Did he teach you any of this? Because if you can't translate it, we're going to have to find someone who can, and we're currently out of time."
Annie hesitated, then stepped closer, staring down at the jagged, frantic script on the flayed-skin pages. She swallowed hard, recognizing the root symbols her father used to leave scattered across his desk.
"I... yes," she said, voice trembling but finding its footing. "I can read some of it. It's an archaic Sumerian dialect."
"Good." Henry slid the heavy book across the table. "Then find the passage that sends all of these things back to their world."
Dean stepped up beside them, eyeing the grotesque book with deep suspicion. "Hold on. Are we even sure there's a spell like that?"
"If the book acts as a doorway to pull them into our dimension," Henry said, "there has to be a mechanism to reverse the flow and banish them. Isn't that basic magical logic?"
Annie pulled a chair to the table and leaned over the grotesque pages, tracing the jagged Sumerian symbols with her finger, trying to block out the sounds of the woods outside.
Behind her, James was completely failing to hold it together, pacing awkwardly around the small cabin, casting panicked glances at the boarded-up windows and cracked front door, his boots thumping a restless, frantic rhythm.
Henry watched him for a few seconds, then stepped into his path. "Stop it. As long as you're in this cabin, I can be ninety-nine percent sure I can keep you safe."
"How can you be sure?" James practically yelled, grabbing his shoulder, eyes wide with terror. "These things are monsters! We're just trapped in this boarded-up cabin!"
Henry looked at the hand on his shoulder, then back up at James's face.
"Well," he said, calmly peeling the fingers off his jacket, "for starters, you have heavily armed professionals standing between you and the door. And second, pacing a hole in the floor isn't going to make the sun come up any faster."
"Relax, pal. Let the lady do her homework," Dean added.
James backed off, rubbing his face with trembling hands, and finally stopped pacing.
At the table, Annie flipped the skin-bound pages.
"You finding anything useful in there?" Dean asked.
Annie squinted at a dense block of text, brow furrowing. "I'm trying. But this dialect... it's incredibly old. It talks about a rift, a tear in the fabric of the living world. The passages to open it are clear, but..." She trailed off, flipping another page.
"But what?" Henry stepped closer.
"I'm looking for the reversal," she muttered, finger trailing down the page. "There are incantations for blood sacrifices, bindings, possessions... Wait." She stopped, eyes widening.
"I think I found it."
"This will send every entity the Necronomicon brought to the world back to the dimension they came from," she said, finger trembling on the dried, flayed skin of the page. "But..."
Dean groaned, rolling his eyes at the ceiling. "History tells me this bitch has a nasty condition behind it."
"Yes," Annie said, looking up, face pale.
"The spell can't banish creatures that exist partially outside our world. It has to force every fragment of them into one physical vessel first. Once they're completely anchored in this dimension, the spell can tear them back through the rift."
James stepped forward, voice tight with rising panic. "What does that mean?"
Henry answered, grim. "It means when she casts the spell to get rid of them, all these things outside are going to merge into one huge, dangerous thing that'll try to kill us."
The cabin fell silent, save for the low, unnatural wind howling through the trees outside.
Sam let out a long breath, rubbing his temples. "So let me get this straight. To banish it, we have to summon all of it into one giant, super-charged meat suit right here?"
"Pretty much."
Ash let out a low whistle, pumping his shotgun again. "Well, ain't that just a peach. Nothing like a giant, ugly boss fight to cap off the night."
"We can't do that!" James yelled, backing toward the fireplace. "If it all combines into one massive monster, it'll tear us apart! It'll break right through the walls!"
"It's already going to break through the walls, James," Dean snapped. "You want to wait until it picks us off one by one, or do you want to drag this son of a bitch into the light where we can actually kill it?"
He turned to Annie, expression hardening into pure business. "How long does the spell take to read?"
Annie looked down at the dense block of archaic Sumerian text. "A couple of minutes. The pronunciations are difficult, and I can't mess up a single syllable, or—"
"Or we're all dead. We know." Dean looked around the small.
"Alright. We move the table to the center of the room. Sam, Ash — you're on crowd control. Whatever comes through that door, you keep it away from Annie until she finishes the heavy reading."
Sam pulled his demon-killing knife from his belt, holding it alongside his gun. "And what are you and Henry doing?"
Dean pulled his own blade, cracking his neck. "We're going to keep the giant ugly thing distracted."
*****
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