It's Charlie appreciation week on tumblr.
Un-beta'ed, so quibble away.
- o – o -
A Fiddle of Gold against Your Soul
Charlie waits until everyone in the compound has gone to sleep before sneaking into what amounts to cold storage. Her brother's body is on the gurney, a white sheet draped over it to hide him. It's sad. Charlie bites her lip as memories of Danny pulling the covers over his head to block her out at night threaten to overwhelm her. That's what makes her sure she's doing the right thing. Danny's still so young. He should have had more time to do stupid things like that.
She sets her jaw and glares at the gurney, glad that it's got wheels. It'll make this easier to do. She's going to steal her brother's body and…
Do something incredibly stupid. It's the Matheson blood in her. Anything for family. Even if this particular stupid thing is going to kill her.
It probably will. Charlie can't bring herself to care. She needs to do this. For Danny.
The excuse falls hollow even as she says it to herself. This isn't for her brother. It's for her. Because she's selfish and doesn't want the rescue she spent so much time on for nothing. But she's selfish, and that's what's making this so much easier to do. (After everything she's done to get Danny back, she's due a little selfishness. Maybe.)
There's a crossroads near the base, which makes it easier to take her brother's body there. (Charlie might have been strong, but even she couldn't carry the body of a boy who'd been six-foot tall and nearing on two hundred pounds, made worse by the fact that he was dead weight.) Charlie's read and reread the instructions for summoning up a crossroad demon. She knows how to get what she wants. She knows she's going to bet her soul against the wiles of a demon. But it's Danny she's thinking about. That's well worth the price this is going to take.
Charlie puts the portrait of her that Maggie had drawn one Christmas into the box she'd brought with her, alongside the graveyard dirt (not hard to acquire, given that the rebel base had created its own, including an open plot for her brother for the next day; it was rather poetic that she had dirt from what was meant to cover him for his resurrection) and the bone from a black cat (she'd killed it, skinned it, and cooked it to cover up just why she needed the bone; no one would have believed her if she'd told them the truth). She buries the box in dead center of the crossroads, and steps back to wait. The young woman crosses her arms over her chest, trying hard not to look at her baby brother's body, draped with a pristine white canvas sheet.
It doesn't take long for the demon to appear.
The demon doesn't look like Charlie expected. She's…pretty. She's tall, willowy, and brunette. Charlie immediately thinks that Uncle Miles might have dated this girl, had she been human. She's jealous. (Of the fact that her uncle's affection and attention would be sent elsewhere. She's not sleeping with her uncle, despite what people in the camp think.)
"Don't even ask," the demon says, taking in the scene in front of her. Charlie shuts her mouth with a click, smiling sheepishly. "Your soul for your brother's life. How quaint." The drawl makes Charlie blush in embarrassment.
"Just…" Charlie hesitates.
"Just what, dear?" the demon says, one perfect eyebrow raised. Charlie shrugs one shoulder.
"If…if Danny's in heaven," Charlie mutters. "And…and if he's happy. You have to let him stay there. If…if he's not anywhere yet, I want him back. But…"
The demon smiles. "You've got two more days, sweetie." She gestures at Danny, and Charlie feels the magic rushing past her, rather than actually seeing anything. "A kiss, I think, to seal this little bargain. For your soul." The demon smiles again and Charlie shudders, trying to shut her brain and body's response to that smile.
But hell. It could be worse.
Kissing demons is nothing like what the book said (which was nothing). Charlie feels incredibly safe, here, kissing the demon to seal their bargain. Danny's life for a kiss that would make anyone weak at the knees and her soul.
The demon vanishes with a laugh and a cloud of smoke that wafts away. Definitely not how the book said. But Danny's coughing behind her, gagging and choking like he's having an asthma attack. Charlie goes to help him, running on automatic to do her sisterly duty.
And even if she's sold her soul…
Well. She's a Matheson. She can get out of this.
- o – o -
So, what did you think? Good? Bad? Is Charlie going to figure a way out of giving up her soul? Drop a line and let me know!
Title is from "Devil Went Down to Georgia".