Sam stared at what he held for a long moment. A slow, grim smile crossed his face.
Inside the bag was a red stone identical in shape and coloration to the one Katelynn had once worn. This one hung on a long chain of gold.
“Is that it?” the sheriff asked.
Sam nodded.
Damon ushered Sam down the hall and into a small room markedINTERROGATION . He took a moment to make certain the observation room next door was empty, then closed and locked the door behind him. It wouldn’t do to have anyone see them trying this when the rest of his deputies were out searching for the killer. He might know it was necessary, but there was no way he would be able to explain that to anyone else.
He and Sam took seats opposite each other, the stone resting on the table between them.
“How do we do this?” Damon asked, feeling slightly ridiculous but willing to go on despite it.
Sam shrugged. “Damned if I know. Katelynn said that she has never tried to achieve the link consciously. The first couple of times it happened while she was asleep. The next, while she was busy studying in the library. The last was in the car that night.”
He reached out and picked up the stone, letting it hang from his hand. It spun on its chain, casting streaks of crimson light the color of freshly spilled blood.
“Maybe if you just concentrate on it, sort of project your thoughts in its direction?” Damon suggested.
“Worth a try.” Sam cupped the stone between his hands and gathered his thoughts about him like a cloak. He cleared his mind, striving to reach a state of calmness. He breathed slowly; in through his nose and out through his mouth, a deep, slow rhythm. Once he felt ready, he began to form an image of the beast as he remembered it from that fateful night at Riverwatch. He projected as much detail into the image as he could, relying on his recollection of the statue to flesh out the parts he was missing. Then he began to assault the image with questions, variations of “Where are you?” hoping the Stone would form the link they needed to locate the beast.
Nothing happened.
Sam kept it up for several more minutes, while Damon sat quietly on the other side of the table, but nothing happened.
“Here, let me try.”
Sam passed the stone over to the sheriff, who attempted the same thing.
Again, no luck.
For the next half hour they tried everything they could think of to get the stone to unlock its secrets. They projected their thoughts at it. They set it in the center of the table and spoke to it. They held hands and chanted at it.
Nothing worked.
“Dammit!” Sam got up from the table and began pacing, venting his frustration through physical action.
Damon glanced at his watch. “We don’t have time for this, Sam.”
“I know, I know. Okay, maybe it takes a certain type of person to use the stone. Or maybe it needs to be attuned to a particular individual beforehand and we don’t know how to do that. Either way, we’re screwed. Unless this one will work for Katelynn.”
“I can always order her to use the stone,” Damon said.
Sam stopped pacing and looked at him incredulously. “Oh, right. And when she refuses, what are you going to do? Force her to do it at gunpoint?”
For just a moment Sam thought that Damon was going to say yes. There was anger in the man’s eyes, and a level of frustration that Sam could easily identify with. Common sense must have reasserted itself, however. Damon stared at him a moment, then turned away, shaking his head in answer to Sam’s question.
“We’re going to have to convince her that it’s the only way of locating this thing.”
Sam agreed. He didn’t know how they were going to manage it, but it was the only option they had left.
Katelynn had to help.
Surely she’d understand that.
She met them at the door with a wary look, but let them in nonetheless. They moved into the living room, with Damon and Sam choosing seats on one side of the coffee table and Katelynn and Loki seated on the couch on the other.
Damon let Sam do the talking, explaining how they had acquired the stone and what they wanted her to do with it.
She listened to their story, a false veneer of calm plastered across her face.
Then, just as calmly, she told them no.
“Can’t you see we don’t have any other option, Katelynn? You’re the only one who can do this!” Sam said in exasperation.
For the first time emotion flared in Katelynn. “Bullshit! You don’t know that! You don’t know anything; you’re just guessing.” She wrapped her arms around Loki’s neck, a sign of her unease. The dog whined in reply.
Damon nodded, to show his agreement with her statement. “You’re right, Katelynn. We are guessing. It won’t work for Sam or me. It might not even work for you.” He kept his tone calm, reasonable, to help defuse the frustration and anger that was rapidly filling the room. “But what would you suggest we do? We know the stone has worked for you in the past. We don’t have the original, but we are hoping this one will work the same way. We need you to try.”
Sam looked like he was about to speak, but Damon silenced him with a swift glance.
“I don’t want to do it,” she answered stubbornly.
Damon could see she that was starting to break. He let the silence stretch for a moment, then played his trump card.
“If you don’t, someone else will lose someone they love.”
It wasn’t fair to play on her emotions like that, but Damon was getting desperate. He agreed with Sam; they needed to find the Nightshade as swiftly as possible, and Katelynn was the quickest and easiest means.
Katelynn stared at him. He watched the emotions flash across her eyes: anger, fear, pain, worry. For just a moment he felt the power of that emotion jump the distance between them. Then Katelynn turned away, and the link was broken.
No one said anything.
The silence stretched.
Loki whined again and licked Katelynn’s face.
She turned and looked into the dog’s eyes. What she saw there Damon didn’t know, but when she turned back to face him, he knew before she had said a word that she would do it.
“Okay. Give me the stone.”
Sam suppressed a grin and dug the object out of his pocket. He tried to hand it across the table to her, but she refused to take it. He left it lying in the center of the table in front of her.
“It will be okay, Katelynn,” Damon said. “The other times you’ve done this you weren’t prepared for it. You had no one to help you out of the trance if you got into trouble. This time both Sam and I will be here. At the slightest sign that you’re in danger, we will pull you out of it.”
Katelynn ignored him, knowing that while his intentions were good, they would be of no use to her if she did get into trouble. She knew how powerful the Nightshade actually was. She had done her best to free herself of its loathsome grip in the car that night; in the end, she had failed.
Now she was being forced to put herself in danger again, and she wasn’t happy about it. Who knew what kind of power the beast could send back through that link with the stone? And yet, the sheriff was right. She didn’t have much of a choice. To let the thing roam free and continue its slaughter was unthinkable.
She would have to use the stone.
Pure evil seemed to emanate from it, and Katelynn had to force herself to pick it up.
She lay down on the sofa, the stone clasped between both hands. Loki sat on the floor next to her. Sam took a seat on the table itself, while Damon stood behind it.
“If I look like I’m struggling, or in pain, do everything you can to wake me up. Taking the stone out of my hands should do it. Shake me, slap me, do whatever it takes,” Katelynn told them insistently.