The Family Business
A/N: As usual I don't own any characters from Supernatural, the others are mine and so is the story.
Chapter 1:
The stone room was filled with the smell of burning incense, a smell I knew but could not place. I watched as 7 people entered through a solid steel door on the far side of the wall. Two of those people were being brought in by force and with a sinking feeling I saw that the young boy was my closest friend Lucas and the young girl was my younger and only sister Keira. Nobody in the room knew I was there, I allowed no one to see my astral form – not until I was ready.
I watched in horror as Keira was taken to the northern side of the room and chained to the wall. She struggled and for a second I wondered why she hadn't used her powers to free herself and Lucas, it was only when I saw two crystal balls filled with swirling light, one blue and one golden brown that I realised their powers had been taken from them. Lucas was taken to the other side of the room and was thrown into a small cage which was only big enough for him to stand up in. There was a witches pentagram drawn in blood on the floor, five large black candles were touching each point of the pentagram. The remaining five people stood before each candle and lowered the hoods of the cloaks they wore. I recognised each member; they were the elders of our coven.
"I call forth from the deepest darkest of places" Patricia began a summoning ritual, but from what I have been taught my entire life, she was going about it the wrong way. "I summon thee to our circle, Baal, to protect and guide our path. To defeat our enemies and claim victory and peace within our coven and our allies. I invoke thee Baal, appear before us and guide our true path." As she spoke the chant she walked slowly around the circle and lit each candle.
Nothing happened for at least a minuet but then red and black smoke filled the room, twisting into every available space until nothing could be seen except for the smoke. I heard my sister scream as though she were being tortured and within seconds I realised, too late, that the smoke had found it's intended target and was entering Keira's body through the mouth as she screamed. The smoke disappeared and Keira looked as if she had passed out. The candles had been extinguished and all five of the elders were lying face down on the floor but were starting to move again. Lucas was trying to break free to try to save Keira but I knew that it wasn't her any more.
Keira raised her head and looked around. Her light brown hair was all over the place, as if she had been in a fight that had gotten out of control. Her normally hazel eyes were now a deep, blood red colour and her whole demeanour had completely changed. She looked at her wrists and the chains around them unlocked, lowering her arms she stepped forwards. And when she finally spoke, it was a harsh tone and sounded nothing like my sister.
"I have heard your call and pathetic pleas for help." She looked around at the kneeling Wiccan witches at her feet. "I have decided to help you, though you mean less than nothing to me. However I have a small problem. I sense that there is one among you who does not share your views on the laws that have been enforced for this coven since before it had begun." Her eyes searched the room and found Lucas. "Why do you not follow the simple laws of your own God?"
"Because you are not a God, you are a pathetic excuse for a demon that has been forgotten from history for hundreds of years." Lucas spoke with more confidence than I would have expected. "You're just like the others I would gladly hunt down and kill."
"I see that, even as powerful as I am, I cannot save you from the lies that have you brainwashed." Keira/Baal walked over to him, ignoring everyone else in the room. For a heart stopping second I thought I saw him look directly at me but I think I imagined it. At least I hope I did. "There really is no other solution to this problem." She turned her back and suddenly both the cage and Lucas were on fire. I screamed and everything around me went dark.
I half expected to see Keira standing over me as I lay in the dark of Bobby's spare bedroom. My Athame, which was always under my pillow, was in my hand as I woke up to find Bobby standing beside the bed trying to wake me up. "Easy, it was only a dream." Bobby told me and forcing my hand (and dagger) away from him. I shook my head, trying hard to forget the scene I had just replayed in my dreams for what felt like the thousandth time.
"I wish it was just a dream Bobby." I took a deep breath and relaxed slightly. "It's the same thing every time I close my eyes. I couldn't stop it, I was useless."
"There was nothing you could have done and you know that Teyla."
"I'm gonna go have a shower." I had to get out of this conversation, clear my head – at least for a while anyway. "Sorry I woke you."
"You didn't." Bobby let me go without argument and I was grateful. I couldn't handle thinking about what had happened 8 months ago. I lost my best friend and my sister was taken over by a demon. Worse than that, the elders of my coven had betrayed us all by summoning that thing and allowing it to do whatever the hell it wanted to do. I had to stop it, but I just didn't know how. I didn't know if the demon could use my sister's powers or if they had been blocked like the histories told us. I knew what it was planning though – it wanted revenge on the coven that had first sent it to hell. That much was obvious to me in just the few seconds that I saw it.
S*S*S*S*S*S*S*S*S*S*S*S*S
"Now when you say ritual sacrifice..." I trailed off waiting for the sheriff to finish the sentence or give me an answer. It nearly always worked when you wanted answers to questions that just sounded insane, today was no exception to that rule.
"I mean black magic; the alter, the sacrifice, the spell book, the knives, the candles, everything about the murder is satanic. All you have to do is walk into the room to see that." She threw a file on the desk in front of us. "That's the best I can do about showing you the crime scene. You've arrived a few hours too late I'm afraid. The place has already been cleaned out." Sam picked up and read through the file before handing it to me. The file photos were gruesome enough for any one not used to seeing what we see on almost a daily basis.
The young girl in the photo couldn't have been more than 25 years old. Her dark hair hung loose, just brushing the top of her shoulders, her blue eyes looked straight through you – even in a picture it seemed she could see right through my act of being a CIA agent. I almost felt guilty about it... Almost. I closed the file and handed it back. "Did the girl have any known enemies?"
"None, she was quiet, mostly kept to herself when she wasn't spending time wither her four other friends. They usually come into town every year for a month or two. Never cause any kind of trouble though."
"Are they here now?" Sam asked, beating me to it.
"No, at least not that I know." She wrote down four names on a scarp piece of paper and handed to me. "These are the girls' names; it's all I can do. I don't know where they live or even what numbers to call, none of them are in the phone book – I already tried that." She added as I was about to open my mouth to ask an entirely different question. "Come in." She called as someone knocked on the door.
"I'm sorry to interrupt Sherriff, but there's a lady here from the FBI." The Deputy said as she walked into the small office. "She said it was important that she speaks with you."
"Okay, thanks Nikki" Nikki closed the door behind her as Lisa turned her attention back to us. "I'm sorry but we'll have to cut this short I'm afraid. Though I have to admit, if that FBI agent wants to talk about the same thing you wanted to, I'm starting to think that this is a lot bigger than just a single ritual murder in a small town." She got up and held the door open for us.
"Well we can't say much at this stage but we definitely want to get to the bottom of this case. It could open a few doors in another case were investigating as well." Sam shook her hand as he walked out.
"Thanks for the help. We'll be in touch." I followed Sam out the door and almost ran into the FBI agent. Long dark brown hair hung to just below her shoulders, hazel eyes that could look straight through you within a second and well, she was pretty – not super model drop dead gorgeous but good looking in a whole other way. But there was something about her that I couldn't put my finger on, and I just knew it would be bugging me until I figured it out.
"So what do you think?" I asked Sam as we walked through the small car park towards my pride and joy, the Impala. "Demon summoning, witch's black magic?"
"Could be either of those." Starting the engine and pulling out onto the main street I switched on the radio. "One thing's for sure, I've never seen anything like that before. That's not your standard witch's magic. This is worse than anything we've seen."