The Holy Roman Catholic Church of Saint James the Greater of Cherry Creek, Iowa sits near the end of Main Street, just as it exits the hopefully named "Downtown" and proceeds into the town's older homes. Today, fluffy, powdery snow surrounds it on all sides and only through the early-morning efforts of its loyal janitor, Matthew Pepper, and the pianist, David Wilson, has the parking lot been cleared. Its priest, Father Jerome M. Oliver, is one of the few men of the cloth left in America who performs the midnight Christmas Mass in Latin. White-haired, bespectacled, and getting on in his years, he explains to anyone who asks that he finds a certain musicality in the chanting that his parishioners find so incomprehensible, and, he adds, he always reads the Biblical passages a second time in English.
Father Jerome M. Oliver is robing himself in his vestments for the midnight Christmas Mass when he gets a visit from a demon.
At first, he doesn't notice the drop in temperature, let alone see her standing there behind him; his concern lies more in seeing to it that he has his stole on properly. He arranges it on his shoulders with great care and attention, and thinks on his homily, with the planned "phone call from Santa Claus" game for all the children to enjoy. Looking up to check himself in the mirror, though, he the reflection of a leggy, slender blonde distracts him. Her angelic ringlets just skirt the edges of her (almost indecently exposed) pale cleavage. Her blue eyes glimmer like the edge of the knife she holds in her right hand. In response to his furrowed brow, and his request to know what she thinks she's doing here, she pouts full, glossy lips and tells him that she's here for religious reasons. She runs her free hand down, shunting off her jacket to reveal just how thin the straps of her Cabernet-colored dress are.
"Now, missy," Father Jerome warns her, a pink flush rising to his cheeks. "This is my private quarters, and you're welcome to wait in the church, but you can't be here, Miss... My dear, I don't believe that I've seen you here before. What's your name?"
As she smiles, and answers, "Lilith," her eyes turn white. The last thing he feels is the shiver that runs down his spine — and then, with one flick of her wrist, his head spins all the way around. His body crumples to the floor, and Lilith smirks as though she's just done in the Winchesters themselves. Her heel shoes click on the hardwood floor as she approaches the corpse; she toes at his still-warm cheek, nudges his head around with the calculation that can only come from having ages in Hell to plan. Like her target before her, she doesn't notice the flickering lights or the dropping temperature:
"I like your new meat-suit."
Even if the timbre isn't exactly right, that voice could only belong to one, and the grin that erupts on Lilith's face shows off all of her new girl's perfect, glimmering teeth. "Isn't she pretty, Ali?" she asks, turning so Alastair can appreciate the front. "Her name's Clarissa. I found her at a dentist's office in Indiana, and I just had to have her. The little redhead girl was getting boring anyway." Jutting out her lower lip, tilting her head in bemusement, she appraises Alastair, for his meat-suit is also new.. Tall and thin, gangly, pasty white — no one else in this polluted world, Lilith is certain, could look more similar to the appearance he has in Hell. Everywhere, Alastair's new meat seems spare, angular — not wanting, but more menacing than his last. "You're practically slumming since Ruby got your pediatrician killed," she announces, voice smooth, unruffled.
"You think so?" Alastair chuckles, straightening the collar of his slate-grey shirt. When she gives him a slow, coy nod, all he does in return is sigh and shrug. "Well, that's what I get for picking some high school biology teacher — but fair's fair." He pauses, just long enough for her to shift her shoulders and cock out one of this body's skinny hips. (These are one of the dental hygienist's only flaws.) A gnarled grin twists up Alastair's lips and shows off a collection of teeth that make Clarissa cringe and wail for her scraper. "He's an atheist, and since he's just so certain that there is no God… He assumed that Lucifer's just some made up story too."
"Humans," Lilith sighs, shaking her head in condescension. Humming thoughtfully, she looks over her shoulder at the priest's corpse, turns the knife through her fingers in slow, pensive revolutions. "Speaking of the little runt-lings, Ali… Do you think that you could possess Father So-and-so for a while? Breaking this Seal would be so much easier if they thought that you were him?" And then — inspiration. Lilith smirks, and turns the mischievous light in her eyes up to Alastair. "Or… who's to say some theatrics might not be nice? I mean, it is Christmas and all. Why don't we give these people a treat, huh?"
By way of agreeing, by way of saying that he'll follow her directives anywhere, even to the end of his own existence, Alistair smirks, and runs his fingers down her cheek. Beneath his frigid touch, Clarissa squirms; Lilith grins, feels the spark of inspiration in her chest become a wildfire.
Inside the chapel, the parishioners rise and start the chorus of "O Come All Ye Faithful," lifting up their many voices into one and hoping that, wherever God resides, He hears and bestows on them a smile. Happy faces beam up at the crucifix at the back of the altar, and the pianist plays with an energy that he saves for these special occasions, the times when everyone in his church comes together as a family. From his perch behind the baby grand, he looks at the middle aisle with everyone else — expectant, searching for some sign of the procession that they know should come… but it never comes. None of the altar boys walk toward the front of the church, nor do the attendants carrying the decorative Bible with the gold cover. When they get into the second verse (those few brave souls who still sing when faced with the inexplicable), the doors finally open.
No one can see the carnage that two demons wrought on these innocents just moments before; Lilith and Alastair took care to spill their blood away from the doorway. Hand-in-hand, eyes pointed ever forward, they walk up the path that Father Oliver should have taken, and ascend the small set of wooden steps up to the altar. Only there do they separate, with Alastair proceeding upstage of Lilith, so as to let her take the lead; she stands at downstage center, hands folded together on the hilt of her knife, hitting her at the middle of her thighs, a wide, earnest grin radiating off her, beaming out at them.
"Hello!" she says to them, "and Merry Christmas! I have good news for all of you — your priest has passed from this world to the next one, and I'm certain that he went Downstairs." A gasp of collective shock rushes through the crowd, like wind rustling through the reeds along a bank, and whispers crop up, people gossiping about who this woman is and why she knows what fate befell their Father, and why she wears her dress so short and carries a knife with her to church. "And, yes, for those of you having some issues figuring that out: I do mean that good Father So-and-so went to Hell. Bet you didn't know that he liked to get his hands on little boys, except for…" Furrowing her brow pensively, she looks across the crowd, trying to pick out who the guilty thoughts belong to — she settles on one woman and her son. Pointing at them, she announces, "You two. You know what I mean."
"I'm fairly certain that the rest of them had some idea," Alastair drawls, examining his own blade, testing out its sharpness on his thumb. He doesn't even wince as it cuts through his flesh, and when the thin line of blood bubbles up, he wraps his lips around the wound and sucks. Coming up, he continues, "After all, this is a community that cares for its own. What's that it said on the sign coming into town? 'Where Everybody Knows Your Name' — something trite and inane like that, you know."
"Oh, I know," she agrees. Surveying the throng of rapt, pallid faces, she sees the guilt crop up more and more — this one had an inkling but turned a blind eye because the Father helped him and his wife through a rough spot in their marriage; that one saw the priest touch a boy on the thigh, but said nothing because she wanted to believe it hadn't happened. "Not a one of you is innocent — you're all so greedy, bitter, faithless, self-loathing, wrathful, envious, lustful — how many of you men have honestly been loyal to your wives? How many of you come here because you believe it's true, and not out of some sense of obligation? …Your sins don't even need to be that great. How many of you have committed crimes against the planet? Littering, driving an SUV, opening your mouths and speaking… You know, I would bet that all of you are going straight to Hell to join your priest — except, perhaps, some of your darling children."
"But, then again," Alastair points out, coming to stand by her side. "Children are some of the worst sinners. They don't really stop to think about being good; it's just 'want, take, have' — and then there's how they torture one another." He gives an approving whistle, one of awe and admiration, and Lilith cannot help but smirk. Trust her Alastair to see the subtleties in human interactions that she would much rather ignore.
"Luckily for you, we've come to see to it that something good comes out of the time you've spent ruining this planet with your filth," she tells them. Finally, she separates her hands, and moves the knife into the right one. Her eyes glimmer like a little dash of poison, and her teeth shine. "You — all of you — are the latest Seal to be broken. And your deaths will bring us one step closer to raising Lucifer from Hell."
No one screams; they're far too shocked for that. All the eyes stare up at Lilith and Alastair — they consider moving, think about trying to run for their lives, for their children's. Here and there, the younglings tug on their parents' sleeves and whisper questions, requests for clarification of what's going on. Finally, she picks out a man in the first row and smirks at him; his heart skips two beats and, as the adrenaline hits him like a bullet to the head, he scrambles to his feet and makes for the exit. Lilith extends her left hand; the doors slam closed and the man's head spins around, just like Father So-and-so's did earlier. A woman in the pew nearest him screams like squealing tires.
"Everyone to the left is yours," Lilith whispers to Alastair, a smile curling up her lips. He nods and sets off to his marks, blade singing through the throats of the whole first pew.
She doesn't spend quite as much time on the knifework as he does, but, instead, incinerates some of them with the white light that works on everyone — except Sam Winchester. Their heads explode under her might, and the ones who don't just die meet her dagger, up close and very personal. One woman has it thrust into her chest and carved through her fallacious implants. One man gets it through the crown of his head, shattering the skull and sending bits of it, like shrapnel, into the squishing tissue of his brain. Men, women, children — who they are doesn't enter into her consideration; she zeroes in on only two criteria: that they are human, and that the world deserves better than their weaknesses.
The worst of the lot, she finds, is the pianist himself, hiding his sins and shortcomings behind that smooth voice and the clarity of his enunciating. Lilith saves him for last, then topples him with a well-placed kick to the shoulder. Crouching over him, straddling his thighs but not his hips, she whispers, "You're a monster. …You knew what Father So-and-so got up to with those boys — you saw it happen, and you did nothing to help them." Tilting her head, she peers down into his wide, blue eyes. The sins behind them practically scream at her for acknowledgement. "Why, David Wilson, you sick, sick little puppy," she says with a hyena's laugh, removing his trachea with a flick of her wrist. She doesn't want him interrupting this run-down of why he's enduring this punishment. "You took part in it! You helped him with it!"
Her touch is delicate as she snakes her hand down his chest, popping all the buttons off. One by one, they clatter onto the smooth, cool floor, and with them all removed, the shirt falls down, revealing this man's flabby, pale chest and all the hair thereon. Lilith pauses just a moment, pressing the flat edge of her knife into his stomach. He winces pre-emptively, gasps and turns his head away from her. Idly, she sighs and drags the edge up and down his front — and then she slices the belt in two. "…What did it feel like, David?" she asks him, keeping her tone even, measured, and detached. "Were those skinny thighs warm — were those boys so tight on your dick? …I mean, tighter than your wife, obviously, not that you would know…"
She sets her knife down on his hips and undoes his trousers with her fingers, unbuttoning them, running the zipper down as slowly as she can — all the while, refusing to let him look away from her eyes. Once they're clear, she yanks the trousers down, bringing his grey briefs with them, bunching them up by her own legs. "How long has it been since you touched her — and to answer your question, no. Slapping her on the face doesn't count." She spreads his legs apart, which requires no effort from her end. When he stares up at her now, she sees the thin, sweaty film of fear spring up on his forehead.
"…You know, one of the boys you raped, David?" she tells him, slicing into the side of his thigh, just to test the waters. David yelps, then groans — but this is nothing compared to what's coming for him. "Well. I suppose I should specify: you remember Tommy Walters, David? …He killed himself. I met him down in Hell, and he just seemed so nice and broken. …You broke him, David. And you thought to call yourself righteous."
The knife slides through his other thigh's flesh as though there's nothing there. Methodically, with precision that she's had ages to perfect, Lilith coats one side in blood, and then the other — then, without a warning for him, she jams the blade up into his rectum, past the prostate, all the way up to the hilt. She moves it deftly, in and out to the tune of his screaming — and then forces it up through all of the pesky internal organs, ripping him apart like he ripped apart his boys. Blood splatters everywhere, hitting her face, her collarbone, her dress — it barely shows on the dress, but stands in stark contrast to the pale pink of his skin, and David Wilson dies squirming around beneath her, just like the pathetic worm he is.
Her strides up to the altar are smooth and slow, radiating the confidence that burns inside her chest, the certainty that they're getting closer now — knife in hand, she turns to face their handiwork, and just in time to see Alastair slicing up some bitch in heels and a rosary, trying to look like a saint when she'd been the object of adultery for too many of the parish's men. She's the last of the breathing humans left in here and she crumples underneath his skill. Alastair glances up to Lilith, his eyes searching for some sign of her approval — wearing a smirk that says all she needs to, she sticks one of her body's hips out again and reaches to her back. The dress unzips easily, and falls to the floor.
Alastair joins her on the altar before she even considers telling him to do so, his erection visible through the thin black fabric of his trousers. She smirks, but when he reaches for her strapless bra, she smacks his hand away. "Nuh uh, Ali," she tells him, eyes glinting. "Only good boys get to go into the cookie jar." He quirks an eyebrow at her, but says nothing. Weaving her hand up onto his shoulder, she gives him a little kiss, softly at first and then dragging her teeth along his lower lip in a promise of what's in store for him if he behaves — without waiting a second once she's made the decision, she forces him to his knees and instructs, "Put your mouth to good use."
He nods and runs his hands down her hips, taking off her panties as though unveiling some great secret. Bunching them up around her ankle, he slides a hand up the inner contour of her thigh, and leans in to first kiss the skin above her pubic hair. Without any difficulty, he tilts his head just right, slips it to the perfect place between her legs, and slides his tongue inside of her; it slips in slowly, encounters no resistance and twining around her, warm and slick. He drags the process out, speeding up with little flicks here, or a long swipe here — gently, taking extreme care to get the motions right, he bites into the tender skin and moves his teeth up and down, exciting the nerves and flooding her with pain that only magnifies the pleasure — the tip of his tongue bobs against her clitoris, hardening it — he licks at it again, and again, and presses his teeth into it — the warmth erupts through her body in waves, and it is, she decides, the right time.
She descends on him without asking for his permission, and gets his trousers off the same way that she slammed the doors shut. Running the knife down from his clavicle to his hips, she cuts off the buttons of his shirt and gets the tip just far enough into his skin to leave a long line of red — his meat-suit's going to scar, but it's nothing that could kill him. Using the tip again, she nudges his shirt off, then slices off her own bra, leaving another trail of red right between her body's breasts. She runs her free hand through his hair and shoves his face between them; perfectly taking the cue, he tongues up her wound, filling it with the burn of his saliva — he moves his tongue up, then down, and then he pauses to work at it with his lips — "Harder," she urges him, and he obliges, biting hard enough to come up with red all across his teeth, hard enough to make her moan. The only delicacy underneath his next lick is the poisonous sort, the sort that's only gentle because he follows it by pushing his teeth into her skin so much that, tomorrow morning, there will be a bruise. They're getting closer, but they still aren't there — the feeling of release hasn't come.
In the back of her mind, Lilith hears Clarissa screaming out about how she doesn't want this — her lungs twist around and her heart races — and these protests only move the demoness further. She clenches her fingers around the hilt of the knife as she repositions herself over his cock, as she lowers herself into his lap and takes its full length into her — she clenches her muscles around him, working up and enticing him to thrust. The bucking of his hips chases her, every time she threatens to retreat; she holds back, building up the pleasure and refusing to let it take control of her until, his breathing heavy and each rise of his chest laboured, he falls back into the crucifix's base. "Lilith," he groans. "Please… I need it…"
Her eyes glimmer, and she knows what he needs: Alastair can't come without a bit of pain. Smirking, she presses the knife into his wound, coats one side in his blood and then the other — he shudders at the warmth of the blade and the lives it's taken today against his chest — but she withdraws it before he can enjoy this upset. Reaching down with it — she can reach so far, with Clarissa's arms — she toys at his opening with the tip… She lingers there a moment and leans down as if to kiss him — While she has him off-guard, she shoves the knife in him just far enough to hit at his prostate — she taps it once, twice, until it's hard — and then she twists the knife, jerks it out without regard for him…
At the gasp and at the deep contortions of his face, she comes, tightening her muscles around him enough to make a note of pain invade his pleasured moan. With a shiver and a groan, he comes, and lets his head hit the wood behind him. She raises herself off his dick and just sits in his lap — and there it is — the rush, the warm sensation of success like melted wax — she sighs, and cups his chin with her hand.
"Can you feel it, Ali?" she asks him, voice airy and light. "The Seal broke. We can save this world yet…" When she glances down at him, he grins, showing off the blood still on his teeth.