What has gone before: At the end of Bad Blood (Bindings II), Sam's renewed addiction to demon blood, fostered by Crowley to provide him with a source of stolen wild power, is finally gone. Sam and Rowena, together, kidnap Dani, Crowley's lover, to lure him into a trap. When he arrives, Sam kills him. Sam, Dean, Charlie and Cas return to their temporary headquarters, the cabin in the Adirondacks, to celebrate Christmas, rest, relax, and recuperate. In the weeks following, Dani, devastated by Crowley's death, searches frantically through occult databases, seeking a spell to reunite his meatsuit with his soul, currently awaiting rebirth and renewal in a woman somewhere in Fresno, California.
~~i don't like this.~~
Too bad.
~~you're obsessed. this isn't going to work. and where will this poor woman be then?~~
Dani shrugged. She honestly didn't care. She had a goal in mind. If she achieved the goal...well, then. She didn't care what happened to this unknown woman. If she didn't achieve it, she'd try a different method. Again, the effect on the woman didn't matter. All that mattered was the goal.
When she could feel Innie-Me stirring again, she thrust her down into the depths of unconsciousness. She had work to do, and couldn't be bothered by her jabbering.
They were driving through Fresno, quartering the city. Burt was driving. Dani was in the passenger seat, eyes focused on nothing, "listening". Liz and Sean were in the back seat. Everyone was silent. They all knew this was a huge gamble. If Dani couldn't locate the woman soon, the soul they were searching for would be changed, different, useless.
Dani had put together a binary search pattern. First, divide the city in half, circle the halves, determine which half had what they were looking for. Repeat the process for that half. Then the quarter. Then the eighth. It was an efficient method to search. So far, though, they had circled one half and found nothing, and were nearing the end of the circle around the second half. The silence had become heavy and dispirited.
Then...
There!
Very, very faint.
Her head snapped up and she pointed. "There."
The three others stirred. Burt rumbled, "Are you sure? It's not just...um...wishful thinking?"
She turned her head to look at him, eyes solid black, face expressionless, but said nothing. He flinched. "Uh. Yeah. Okay, sorry."
"We will search this quarter first, since I didn't feel anything in the first half of the circle." She turned her head back to gaze out the windshield. She had lost the trace. But she'd find it again. Soon.
When they finally pinpointed it, the trace led them to a side street in a neighborhood of modest look-alike bungalows. Gardens and window trimming were the only touches of individuality; some houses had tidy privet hedges growing under neatly painted windows, some had large shade trees, some just had barren, winter-dry lawns with scrubby weeds and peeling paint on the window trim. The one they were parked near showed signs of care but was otherwise unexceptional.
"That one. Get her. Unharmed!" She shouldn't have to add that last, but felt it was necessary. The three others piled out of the car. Mid-day, no people in sight. No problem.
Dani waited, focusing intently on the house.
They emerged from the house five minutes later, a mid-thirties woman with short blond hair struggling between them and screaming. They dragged her to the waiting car, thrust her in, and got in themselves, Burt and Sean on either side of her in the back, Liz taking Burt's place as driver.
As Liz placed the car in gear and eased away from the curb, the woman burst into tears and sobbed, "Who are you people?! What do you want with me? I swear, whatever you want, I'll do it, just don't hurt me! Don't hurt my baby! Please!"
Dani turned to look at her, eyes still solid, shiny black. "Baby. You know?"
The woman screamed again at the sight of the demon black, buried her head in her hands, rocking back and forth. "Oh god oh god oh god what are you what are you what - "
Dani reached with her power. The woman's mouth kept moving, but no words came out, which only made her more hysterical.
At least she was silently hysterical. Dani turned back.
~~dani...~~
Dani squashed Innie-Me again.
"Barn," was all she said.
While they had located the right person, the other two teams had searched for, and found, an old abandoned barn on the outskirts of town. For purposes of the spell, it needed to have a dirt floor. The other eight members of Crowley's inner circle then precisely chalked out the required spell circles: two inner, smaller circles that overlapped, and a larger circle enclosing both of them. The larger circle was doubled, with Enochian writing between the two lines. When Dani and the others arrived with the captive, all was ready.
Dani glanced over the circles, and smiled faintly. They looked like a large Venn diagram, which amused her.
The other teams had already placed Crowley's body, still held by the stasis spell, into the left-hand circle; Dani now gestured to her trio, who pushed the woman down into the right-hand circle. Liz and Sean held her struggling body down while Burt and three others pinioned her, spread-eagled, with iron wickets pounded into the hard, compacted dirt.
"Okay, that's done," Liz said, standing up and brushing her long hair back. Dani watched as all the others drifted into place around the outside circle.
"Supplies?" Dani asked, surveying the layout.
"Here," Sean called out, nudging a duffle bag with his foot.
"Who of you have the most power?" She looked around the circle at them all. There was a hesitation, as they all looked narrowly at one another. Admitting someone else had more power than you was nerve-wracking, potentially dangerous, for demons. Finally, with some hesitation, a consensus was reached and hands were pointed: Burt, a middle-aged Asian woman, a slender, studious-looking black man, and the grandmotherly woman. Dani nodded.
"I will need to use your power." The four exchanged nervous looks at the reminder, then slowly nodded agreement. "It will hurt," she added quietly. More nervous looks. She stepped forward to the Asian woman, who was closest to her, placed steady hands on either side of her head, pulled it forward, and kissed her brutally hard, reaching with her power and latching onto hers. Unlike when Crowley had tested it with her, she was not slow about it; every minute spent was another minute his soul was locked away, bathing in maternal love - and, now, maternal fear and anguish. She yanked, hard, and the woman's power came rushing in like a flood. The demon screamed, tried to pull away, but Dani's hands held her like steel. Then the flood ended, Dani released her, and her body slumped to the floor.
Dani rolled her shoulders, tilted her head around, stretched, trying to stuff the power in and integrate it. Then she shook her head out, lifted it, looked at the next of the four who had volunteered, the studious black man. Wide eyes looked back at her, with a bit of fear.
She smiled perfunctorily. "She's just unconscious. The power regenerates. But it hurts, like I told you." The man clenched his jaw, darted a glance at Crowley's body.
"Are you sure this is going to work?" he asked, eyes locked on hers.
She shrugged. "No, I'm not sure. Maybe. Maybe not." She puffed out a small laugh. "But it's like following a recipe. If we follow the recipe properly, and if it works like it's supposed to..." She let it trail off. He bit his lips, then nodded jerkily. She stepped forward and repeated the process with him.
When she was done with all four, she felt like she had just finished Thanksgiving dinner - stuffed and uncomfortable. And very, very powerful. She reminded herself that it was temporary, that she didn't need it except for the spell, that it was a habit she shouldn't get into. She crouched down to the duffle, pulled out the obsidian blade, looked at it, shrugged, and sliced a jagged line into her arm. Unlike other blood magic spells, she knew that this one was going to take a fair amount of her blood.
She paced along the circles, tracing them with blood, which slowly soaked into the bare dirt. The conscious demons followed her progress with their eyes. The captive woman, exhausted from struggling - still silently - against the wickets, watched, too, with wide, terrified eyes.
Done with the tracing, Dani stepped into the overlapping area between the two bodies, knelt down, and pulled out more from the duffle: a silver bowl, herbs, pillar candles, kitchen matches. She placed two candles at the vertices where the circles overlapped, then two more at the peak of each arc, and lit all four at once with a flick of her vastly increased power. She put the herbs in the bowl, let more of her blood trickle into the bowl, then used another twitch of power to heal her arm. She sat back on her heels, looked at the bowl, at the two bodies, at the demons gathered around the circle.
"Well. Here goes," she muttered to herself. She lit a match, tossed it into the bowl, then stretched out to lay one hand on the woman's stomach, one on Crowley's. She concentrated mentally on movement, transfer, bridging, and forced her own power and the borrowed power into that mold.
Slowly, ever so slowly, the hand on the woman's body began to glow red. She could feel it, just as a flush of warmth at first, then, as the glow crept up her right arm, becoming hotter. And hotter. She drew in a hissing breath, the body - Innie-Me's body - instinctively wanting to withdraw from the burning sensation, which now felt like her hand and arm were dipping into molten metal. She forced herself to focus solely on the job, the spell, forced her hand to lie steady.
It hurt. Oh Lucifer and Lilith, it hurt so badly.
She had no concept of time now. Everything was just searing pain. The burning was eating away at her power, bit by bit, just as slowly and tortuously as the red was burning at her arm, and now her torso. It felt like this was all that had ever been, all that ever would be, that she would be burning eternally with no end in sight.
Luckily, she had felt like this before, in Hell. It helped. A little.
Even so, she threw her head back and screamed, one long, continuous, agonized scream that echoed through the barn.
Through it all, she kept the hand on the woman's belly.
After an eternity, she realized that the tips of her right fingers were no longer burning. Her body shivered from the icy shock as the searing sensation retreated infinitesimally back up her arm, then seeped slowly out of her torso. Now all that was on fire was the left arm, hand on Crowley's heart, and all she wanted, desperately, was to have it end, to just pull that hand back, cuddle the burning arm against her body, make it all go away. But she kept her left hand flat, still forcing her focus on transfer, bridging.
Finally, she realized that the searing pain was gone, that the only thing still burning was her throat, which she had screamed raw during the process. Her body was wracked with shudders, response to the prolonged pain. Now, whether it had worked or not, she could pull her shaking hands away from the two bodies, pull them inward, clutch herself, rock back and forth on her knees, sobbing and trembling. Her body was drenched with sweat, her short hair plastered to her head.
All the borrowed power was gone, burnt away.
She vaguely registered that somebody was crouching beside her. She glanced that way. Burt. He was looking at her with wide eyes.
"Did it work?" When she didn't answer, he reached out, shook her. She tried to scream, but all that came out was a thin, scratchy keening. "Did it work?!" She flapped weak hands at him, then pushed with her power.
"Leave me alone," she croaked. "I don't know." She pulled in a long, shuddery breath, listed her head, stared at him. "I don't know," she repeated more firmly, running her hands through her hair. She could feel that some of it was standing straight up, but didn't give a damn. She looked at the woman, who was lying slumped on the floor, staring dully at the ceiling, then turned, slowly, awkwardly, to look at Crowley. Nothing seemed different. She looked back at Burt with dull eyes.
"I don't know. All of you, go away." He stood up slowly, looked down at her with narrowed eyes. Then he glanced around at the others, shrugged, waved them to the barn door. There were some murmurs of dissent, but they reluctantly filed out one after another, and the barn was empty and quiet.
She sagged, bent down to rest her head on her knees, and just knelt there for a long while. She ached, she hurt, she had a wild power hangover building up, fast, and all she wanted to do right now was rest for a thousand years. But. Best to deal with the hangover before it really hit. She sighed, sat back up, dragged the duffle weakly toward herself, rummaged in it for the thermos of hangover cure. Once she got it out, she stared at it stupidly for a few moments, trying to remember what to do with it.
"You're supposed to drink it, you bloody idiot." Rough male voice, faint English accent.
She blinked. A hand grabbed the thermos from her, uncapped it, thrust it at her mouth, and poured. She gagged, sputtered, coughed, swallowed, then grabbed the thermos back, tilting it up and slugging the vile drink down fast, before the taste really registered. She could feel it going to work right away, though she thought she might need another dose. Had she brought a second thermos? She couldn't remember. She blinked again, thoughts hazy and muddled, and turned, wincing at the stab of strained muscles, to look at who had helped her.
He was crouching beside her, hands dangling between his knees, dark eyes watching her narrowly. "Better?"
She nodded slowly. "Need more," she croaked. She vaguely thought she should be feeling something right now. Surprise? Joy? Satisfaction? It was beyond her. He disappeared, and she just sat there, drained, mind empty. A few minutes later, he reappeared, another thermos in his hands. Again, he uncapped it, handed it to her. She took it, looked at it.
"Bollocks. What have you been doing, you moronic little baby demon? I've never seen you like this." A warm arm settled around her shoulders, pulled her in to lean against his body, and the thermos was at her lips, tilting more slowly this time. She drank, leaned against his body, closed her eyes.
"Again."
She cracked her eyes open. The thermos was in front of her face. She drank some more, closed her eyes again. The warm arm around her shook her gently. "More."
"Don' wan' more. Wanna sleep," she muttered. The shaking became rougher. She just snarled weakly, pushing at the arm.
"Bollocks - again. I was just greeted by Davis, who turned white as a sheet and then got slobbery and sentimental at me. And you're like this. In a bloody drafty barn. What the hell has been GOING ON?!" the voice roared.
She pushed at his arm again. "Lemme 'lone. Tired. And hurt."
"Tch. Let's fix that, then, shall we?"
Warmth and energy began seeping into her, which, frankly, she didn't want. At first. But it kept bleeding in, against her will, and slowly, bit by bit, the haze began to lift and the pain to recede. At some point, it got through to her that, yes, she was resting against a warm male body, that she knew that body, that it hadn't been warm for weeks -
She stiffened, twisted around, stared at him.
"It worked!" she breathed. She seized his shoulders, shook him. "It worked!" Her unbelieving hands were on his face, touching him, stroking his beard, running through his hair, patting him in small dabs.
He grabbed her hands impatiently, held them off, frowned at her. "What worked, dammit?!"
She stared at him. "You don't remember?"
"Remember WHAT?!"
"You were dead - Sam Winchester killed you - Rowena somehow held your power down - he stabbed you with an angel blade - "
He narrowed his eyes at her, slowly let her hands drop. He tilted his head as if he were listening to something, eyebrows meeting in a thoughtful frown. "Dead. So...we are in - ugh!" He shuddered slightly. " - Fresno?" She nodded. He squinted out at the dimness of the barn, eyes half-lidded. "And you, my little head research honcho, found a spell to bring me back from the womb before I was...washed away? Erased?" She nodded again. "Well." He nibbled at his lips, seeming at a loss for words. He looked around, his eyes settling on the captive woman, still pinned to the floor. "And that would be...my...potential mother?" He looked at her with a mildly horrified expression. "For my potential 'normal', everyday new life?"
Dani looked at the woman, too, frowning. "Yes," she answered slowly. "And we need to send her back home, I guess. We're all done with her."
He scratched the back of his head. She watched, such a simple, habitual movement filling her with relief. He tilted an eyebrow at her. "We should kill her." At her questioning glance, he added, "You have, after all, killed her baby. I assume. Usually makes people a bit vengeful, pet." The bound woman's eyes closed in misery at the announcement about her baby.
Dani waved a dismissive hand. "She can't do anything. Let her live." To forestall any objections, she reached deep, focused, and flicked her back to her home. At the last moment, she remembered to remove the silencing geas, too.
Crowley was leaning back, arms and lips folded in exasperation. "Bad idea, Dani-girl. Best to tie up your loose ends." Dani glared at him. He shrugged. "Well, then. Home?"
She glanced around. "The others - they should be back soon - "
"Others?"
"Your inner circle. I needed help."
"They'll see me soon enough." He stood up, reached out for her hand, pulled her up. She leaned wearily against him.
"Not sure I can flit..." she mumbled. She could tell that her power was depleted, especially after transporting the woman. Even with the infusion of energy he had passed on, she was doing all she could to stay upright. His arm swept around her, pulled her close.
"No problem, pet," he murmured against her hair.
They vanished.
A/N: Are you a new reader brought in by my posting a new chapter? If so, does having the short "What has gone before" paragraph help you with this first chapter? I added it after realizing that this chapter could be confusing or off-putting for new readers, with no Sam or Dean, and Crowley being a background figure (dead!) through most of the chapter. Let me know what you think!
