White-hot knives tearing ragged gashes into what is left of my skin, because most of my skin is charred black from the burning flames and the horrible red black eyes that keep watching me die over and over. There's acid in my blood now and it's reaching my heart and it keeps pounding and pounding and I can't breath or think or exist anymore there's just pain and agony and the overwhelming sense of breaking but I cannot die so I sink into the fire and scream and scream and scream.
I'm vaguely aware of my back being against something cold. I open my eyes, but my mind is slow but everything is fuzzy, like I had just gotten way too drunk.
"You okay?" The world suddenly comes into focus. A slightly worried-looking woman with short red hair stands over me, big headphones around her neck. I'm lying, curled up, in what looked like the entrance of an abandoned theatre. I look around me - where was I? California, reads one of the license plates around me, illuminated in the glow of street lamps.
"How did I get here?" I say, my voice sounding softer then I expected it too, for some reason.
"You're asking me? Unless I'm as drunk as you look, you weren't there a second ago." Her eyes rake across my body, and I become aware that I was completely naked for the first time. I cross my arms over my chest and shift my legs, looking up at her warily. I was in Hell, I realise. I was in fucking Hell for at least over a century. How was I back? My memories from before Hell are still blurry, slowly coming into focus. Jo. My name was Jo.
"What's the year?" I ask. She probably think's I'm batshit crazy now.
She seems less surprised then she should. "You serious? Did you screw up your time turner or something?"
I raise an eyebrow.
"Never mind," she mumbles, looking flustered. "It's 2012."
"Year of the apocalypse, huh? One of them, at least." I speak lightly, but my mind is whirling. 2012. I was gone for four years. I spent one hundred and twenty years in Hell, and my mind was this normal?
The woman looks at me quizzically. "So if it's 2012, how old are you?" How old am I? That seems like a question from someone who, well, knows.
"Either nineteen, twenty-three, or about one-hundred forty." I reply, gingerly getting to my feet. Whatever. She probably thinks I'm just some crazy drunk.
The woman's eyes go back to my body before looking back up at my face with a sort of guilt on her face. Whatever. I'm kind of past humility here.
"Oh, and what's your name?" the woman asks.
"I'm Jo." I say, "You?"
"I'm Charlie," Charlie says, with a somewhat odd smile on her face.
After a bit of awkwardness regarding me not having clothes on and not knowing where the hell I was, Charlie said she'd let me stay at her place. I guess the poor naked teenager wasn't very threatening around here. Ha. This poor naked teenager could still kill someone with a well-aimed punch to a few select pressure points.
I was a hunter. I worked with two guys called Sam and Dean sometimes, and their sort of adoptive-father Bobby. I used to work at a townhouse until it was burned down, along with my friend Ash. My name was Joanna Beth Harvelle. I finally can remember everything, but there's something or someone missing, someone big. Like something had been removed from my memory.
Well, step one was finding out where the hell I was. I turn towards Charlie to ask, but a shiny sign on the side of a building catches my eye, reading Golden Gate Christian Church. Golden Gate. I'm in San Francisco.
We walk the next few blocks in silence. I keep to the shadows; even though San Fran was not known for its nightlife, I wasn't completely comfortable walking about in my birthday suit.
"You want to borrow my jacket?" Charlie breaks the quiet, holding her sweater out to me. I wrap it around my chest gratefully. As I look up to thank her, I notice a strange symbol tattooed on the side of her neck; a sort of sinister triangular eye. I don't recognise it from any of the rune books someone forced me to read once I started fighting the supernatural, but then again, I was never very good at those books. As I stare, she shifts the headphones around her neck and covers it up, catching my eye.
"Thanks." I say, covering up my lapse in attention. "For the sweater." She shrugs and smiles. Suddenly, she stops and turns around.
"This is it," she says, walking towards the building we had almost missed. "It's not much, I mean, I'm not rich or anything." She gives a quick laugh. "I work at a tech company downtown." I throw her a tight smile. I don't trust her. She punches a few numbers into a keypad by the door and steps inside.
"I'm room 216," she says, if just to break the awkward silence that had formed around us. She gives the elevator button a quick tap and it comes almost immediately. As we enter the elevator, she stands almost too stiffly. I look at her warily, but she gives no sign of being a witch or a demon, none of the confidence or pride. Then again, I especially should know about demons being hard to identify.
The elevator pings, and she steps out and puts a key into the door directly to her left. "They offered me the one to the right first, but I made sure I got the left one instead." she says.
This girl was weird. "Why?" I ask. She looks up from her battle with the lock. "You know, turn left…" When I continue to look at her quizzically, she shakes her head. "Nevermind," she mumbles, pushing the door open. "You don't mind if I pop into the bathroom for a quick sec, do you? There are clothes in the closet." she asks.
"Nah, it's fine." Better then fine, actually. Gives me a chance to look around. After putting on a tank with a weird capital A thing and a pair of shorts, I start examining the room. The walls are plastered with signed posters of Scarlett Johansson in skintight leather and some brown haired girl wearing a cloak. Magic the Gathering cards have an entire shelf dedicated to them. As I scan across the room, something shiny catches my eye from beneath a stack of Katy Perry albums. A sword? I pull it out - the silver metal is inscribed with some language that I can't recognise.
There is something seriously wrong with this girl. And I need to find out what.
Charlie comes out of the bathroom. "Hey, do you-" I hold the sword out in front of me, hoping the language on it won't curse me or anything. I had always been better with a gun or a knife, but I had been trained a little in swordplay.
"What are you?" I demand.
Eyes wide, she slowly moves backwards, fear reflecting in her eyes. Suddenly, she darts to the side and presses a button in the side of the wall. I jump backwards as some sort of acid dumps from the sprinkler system, burning my skin. Reflexes kicking in, I rip a framed photo of Princess Leia off the wall and use it as an umbrella for the disgusting liquid.
"What the hell is this stuff?" I scream, not really expecting her to answer. I fell right for her 'innocent little weirdo' act, dammit. But Charlie doesn't look evil or triumphant, instead, she is looking at me with what seems to be surprise.
"You're… you're not a Leviathan…" she says, looking at me with confusion.
"What the hell is a Leviathan?" I ask.
Charlie pokes the small silver button again and the rain of acid stops. "Leviathan? What's a leviathan, did I say leviathan?" she mumbles unconvincingly.
I glare at her. "Don't try to pretend you're innocent, Charlie. I know you're wrapped up in the supernatural, and I'm here to stop you."
The girl sighs. "Leviathans are crazy-ass creatures that probably have a really bad grudge against me. I kind of helped explode their main building with Borax. That's the stuff I just soaked you in, sorry." She looks around the room. "Damn, it ruined my floors. Again." She takes a step forward, but I hold out the sword again.
"I still don't trust you." I snarl. She holds up her hands and backs away.
"What are you?" I ask again. She puts her hands on her hips. "I'm Charlie Bradburry, not a monster, not a freak, just a person. I didn't ASK to be a part of this shit, you know. I got dragged in."
I narrow my eyes. "How did you figure it out, then? How did you learn about the Leviathans or whatever?"
"Long story."
"I'm a good listener." Which was very much not true, but I needed to know who she was.
Charlie sighs and rolls her eyes but starts speaking, probably because she had a sword at her throat. "I was working at a tech company under Dick Roman. I'm a good hacker, and he found out and asked me to hack into some hard drive. He told me not to read it once I broke it open, like I was going to just leave it alone. It was full of really crazy stuff about monsters and demons and angels and stuff. I though that the guy was crazy, until I saw Dick eat one of my friends. So I went home, planning to run away from my creepy monster boss, but these two guys called Sam and Dean came and - "
"You met Sam and Dean? They're still alive?"
"They were a few months ago, at least. You know them?"
I nod. "We worked together." I say. "What next?"
"Well, they told me that they needed my help or the Leviathans would take over the world or something. So I hacked into Dick's main computer and sent them all the stuff on it, got knocked around by a ghost on accident, and blew up the Leviathan building with a Borax bomb."
"Why Borax?"
"Burns them or something. One of the only things that can stop them apparently. Anyways, I left the city and tried to forget the supernatural. But I guess you can never really escape. I went to LA first, but it was so big and busy I left after a few weeks and came here. I just got here in San Fran a few days ago, and already I think I found two hauntings or something. It's like meeting Sam and Dean opened my eyes and I can never close them again."
I nod, but I'm still suspicious. Meeting Sam and Dean? Almost too perfect of a story. "One last thing. Do you have any salt?" Charlie looks confused, but gestures to an Iron Man shaped salt shaker sitting on a table. Still holding out the sword, I unscrew the lid and throw it at her. She flinches but there's otherwise no reaction.
"Salt? You gonna curse me with crosses next or something?"
I raise my eyebrows. "If you had a cross, I would." I reply coldly.
"Over there." she jerks her thumb towards a wooden cross sitting on a shelf.
"You keep crosses in your house?" I ask, a note of incredulity in my voice.
"It's signed by Sarah Michelle Gellar!" she says defensively. Whoever that was, it'll work.
But the holy water had no effect on her. Neither did silver.
"You done yet?" a sopping wet and slightly bloody Charlie asks.
"No! You must be a witch or a ghoul or something else. There's something off about you, Charlie Bradbury." Her passing the tests just made me more suspicious. That triangular eye on her neck, the sword in her home with some ancient language on it, the strange way she talks…
"I'm human! It's not my fault I got sucked into all this!" She seems frightened now. Probably because of the sword that's now right under her chin.
"Then what's the symbol on your neck?" I snarl. Charlie looks up, disbelief etched on her face.
"This?" she asks, gesturing at the triangular eye. "It's the sign of the Deathly Hallows! It's from Harry Potter, you moron!"
Oh.
"And the sword?" I ask. Charlie rolls her eyes. "It's Sting, idiot. From Lord of the Rings. It's not supposed to be sharp, but I like to have it ready in case I need to behead someone."
"And I suppose that that sword is supposed to be covered in some ancient language?" I ask, but there's no longer venom in my voice.
She sounds exasperated now. "It's Elvish. Means 'Sting is my name, I am the spider's bane'. Not a real language."
I lower the sword. As a child, I'd seen Lord of the Rings, but I was mostly fed CSI and crime shows, when I wasn't working at the townhouse. Maybe having a real childhood would have been helpful as a hunter.
"My turn for answers." Charlie says. I guess I owe her - I had had a sword at her neck for the past twenty minutes.
"Who are you really?" she asks.
"My name is Joanna Beth Harvelle. I'm a hunter, like Sam and Dean. I became a hunter after my father died on a hunting trip, and I was trained in fighting ever since I was little." And there was something else, too, something at the back of my memory.
"But how did you end up here in San Francisco, completely naked under the Alexandria Theatre?"
I sigh. "I don't really know."
"But you must know something." This girl was curious.
"I was in Hell." I say slowly. Charlie's eyes went wide. "I died blowing up a building saving Sam and Dean from some hellhounds. And I was in Hell. For a hundred and twenty years I was tortured. And then I wasn't. One second I was having my skin ripped off, the next I was sitting in some abandoned theatre. And the thing is, I should be insane. I was tortured, Charlie, for over a century. I was burned and cut and ripped apart and I remember it. People who go to Hell aren't just okay. But I am." I give a small, tired laugh.
"But there's something else. Something big. I feel like something been removed from my memory. Not Hell, something from my life. And I should know what it is, but there's something stopping me from thinking about it. But it's nagging at me, and I need to find out what."
Charlie's frowning, and it's obvious that she's thinking. Finally, she looks up.
"We'll figure it out, I promise. But first, we need to get you some clothes. No offence or anything, but you look a little wrong in a Star Trek tank and shorts that are too big for you. You look more like an AE or Abercrombie and whatever kind of girl. Where do you like to shop?" She doesn't that excited at the prospect of shopping.
"Those sound fine." I smile at her.
She grins right back at me. "Good, because I know one of the girls working at AE. Elena Foster. She's got crazy dyed hair and lies about being old enough to work there, but she's super nice. Gives me discounts and stuff."
"Thanks."
After we finally worked out the whole bedding thing, I went to sleep in a pull-out mattress and a Emma Watson blanket, despite Charlie's insisting that I take the bed. It wasn't until I told her about the time I slept on bare lava rock for a week while hunting a Hawaiian demon that she let me take the mattress. It was actually kind of nice - better then a lot of motels I've slept in at least. As I relax, todays conversation keeps running through my head. Something about Charlie's friends name keeps nagging me. Elena Foster. Elena. Elena. Ellen. I bolt upright in bed.
"MOM!" I scream.