Author's Note:
Hey there, guys. Just wanted to thank everyone who read last time. It was super exciting refreshing my stats page (I may or may not have done it obsessively) and seeing a bunch of different countries reading my story.
This next chapter should contain a bit more action and more background for Kail's character (This will lead to you having more questions about her. Forgive me.) Things should really pick up in the chapter after this one, which I've written as a classic hunting episode. I'll talk to you guys more at the bottom to explain a few things, kay? Enjoy.
...
Sam woke up first, instantly sitting upright and gasping desperately for air, a hand clutching at his chest, where Dean had injected the adrenaline.
"Sammy? Sam, talk to me." Dean, already at his brother's side, was watching his brother closely for a sign that something had gone wrong. The protective hand that he had placed on his brother's shoulder was also a precautionary one.
"I'm... okay, I think," Sam panted, looking around at his surroundings wildly. "Did Kail make it?"
Dean's eyes reluctantly moved from his brother to Kail, who had just received an adrenaline shot from Bobby. She wasn't moving.
"You're sure you used the right shot?" Dean asked, noting the growing concern on his brother's face.
"Positive," Bobby answered, checking for a pulse. "She's still alive, at any rate."
"Give her another shot," Sam breathed decisively, "She lost a lot of energy helping me. Maybe one shot isn't enough."
Bobby, about to point out that there wasn't another shot, was cut short by Kail, whose mouth was suddenly gasping open in a battle for breath. Eyes still closed, she shot up in to a sitting position, her un-cuffed hand moving towards her mouth as if to usher air in to it.
"Kail? What's going on? What do we do?" Bobby asked as evenly as he could, panic threading its way in to his voice.
"Can't... breathe..." she wheezed through the curtain of hair obscuring her face. "Help?" Suddenly, a loud cracking noise was heard and, under Kail's shirt, Dean could see her spine pulling at her skin, as if it was trying to burst out. Kail, despite not being able to breathe, somehow managed to let out a scream.
Out of habit, Bobby knelt down to her level so that he could look her in the eyes when he asked her what they could do. His words died in his throat. "Dean." Bobby swallowed
Dean, fearing the worst, already had his gun out. Bobby gingerly moved Kail's hair aside to reveal her eyes. They were wide open in panic as she continued to struggle for air. They were also bleeding. More importantly, they were black. Kail slapped Bobby's hand away.
"Don't shoot her!" Sam bellowed, seeing the gun in Dean's hand.
"She made me promise," Dean levelled the gun at her head.
"Not... crazy..." she rasped, apparently having gotten some air in to her lungs, but not much. "Need shot. Top drawer... desk... purple."
After a few moments of panicked fumbling, Bobby pulled a syringe filled with a deep purple liquid out of one of the desk's top drawers.
"Arm," Kail instructed, offering her inner elbow to Bobby.
Bobby jabbed the needle in to the soft skin without hesitation, pushing down the plunger. A few tense seconds followed, in which all three men watched Kail in anticipatory silence. Abruptly, she inhaled deeply, sucking in one lungful of air after another, almost faster than she could exhale them. Her eyes became their normal grey colour once more, though they still appeared to be bleeding.
"I'm okay," she coughed weakly, still breathing heavily and shaking as if her body was recovering from major shock.
"What the hell was that?" Dean demanded, sensing that the immediate danger was past, but not lowering the gun that he had pointed at Kail's head.
"Gratitude. Nice," Kail muttered, wiping at the rivulets of blood down her face and neck and achieving little more than smearing them. "That right there, is what I call luck. I thought I was dead for sure. I had a pretty nasty reaction to Sam's mind, but it looks worse than it is, I think." She took a deep, shuddering breath.
"So the demon eyes, those were just a fun side-effect?"
"Dean," Sam interjected, "leave her alone. She just saved my life, and you're interrogating her?" He reached out and pushed down the gun that Dean held, so that Kail wasn't in the line of fire.
"You're telling me that the eye thing didn't freak you out a little?" Dean allowed Sam to move the gun, but he kept his eyes glued to Kail.
"Of course it did, and the bleeding thing is pretty freaking weird, too, but she's definitely not a demon."
"There's holy water next to the television, if you want to check," Kail gestured vaguely, then moved her hand back to her mouth to cover a cough. When her hand withdrew, there was a smattering of blood across the palm. "Uh-oh."
"We need to get you to a hospital," Bobby said decisively, moving to un-cuff Kail from the bed.
"No hospitals," Kail panted, "It looks creepy, but I should be fine. I just need to sleep." Gently, she stopped Bobby from un-cuffing her, a reassuring, but weak, smile on her face. "That shot should be taking effect any second now, anyway."
Before anyone could open their mouth to ask what the shot was supposed to be doing, Kail slumped forward ungracefully, eyes shut, asleep.
"Oh," Sam said somewhat redundantly.
As Bobby lowered her torso back on to the cot and covered her with a blanket, Dean started inspecting Sam, his gaze shifting warily back to Kail every now and then.
"You're sure you're feeling okay?" Dean checked, his eyes boring in to Sam's as if looking for some trace of hell.
"Uh, yeah. Actually, I'm feeling better than I've felt in a long time," Sam answered, running a hand through his hair. "Except that I'm starving."
Still trying to determine whether Sam was about to melt in to a puddle of insanity, Dean absently handed his brother a slice of pizza from a box on the floor near the couch. "What did she do to you?"
Sam tore in to the pizza, talking through mouthfuls. "I dunno, I was having these crazy dreams that were flashbacks from hell and, out of nowhere, Kail shows up and starts talking to me. I didn't want to talk to her at first, but she just stood there getting tortured right along with me and being nice about it." Sam shook his head, as if he still couldn't believe it, then reached for another slice of pizza. "When I finally started talking to her, I don't know, it was like hell was sort of fading in to the background. By the time I actually shut up again, we weren't even in hell anymore. We were in that field where you and I had set off fireworks when we were kids, remember?"
Dean nodded. "So wait, she just played Dr. Phil and now you're all better?"
Sam shrugged, still chewing. "Yeah, I guess. How long was she in my head?"
"24 hours." Dean passed Sam a bottle of beer.
"Really? Man, I feel like I talked for like a week." Sam accepted the beer gladly, washing down the half-chewed pizza still in his mouth.
"About what?"
"Everything. She just stood there and listened to me for hours. The whole time I talked... I don't know; I could feel myself getting better. Even while my dreams were in hell, when she was talking to me, I had this feeling... like things were going to be okay."
"And are they? I mean, do you remember the cage?"
Sam downed more beer before nodding. "Every last second. I'm just... really well-adjusted about it? I don't know."
"And she didn't try to do anything to you?"
"Like what?"
"I dunno, Sam, like hurt you, or take advantage of the fact that she was in your head?"
"Dude, no. She stood there and burned with me for hours. She didn't complain once, even though she was getting messed up pretty bad." Sam looked over at Kail, who looked horrific with all the blood on her face, which had dripped down in to her hair and over her chest. "I'm glad she made it."
"I'm just happy she fixed you up."
"Dean. A little gratitude, maybe?" Sam shot his brother a reproachful look. "She's just done more for us than most people, and she barely knows us."
Dean exhaled loudly and leaned forward, resting his head in his hands. "I know, Sam. I'm just... tired. This whole week has been freaking crazy, and now we're in this chick's house, talking about how she was your shrink, watching her sleep covered in blood that came out of her demonic eyes, and eating pizza."
Sam snorted humourlessly, still concerned for his brother, and stealing a glance at Bobby, who looked just as fried as Dean. "Get some sleep, you guys. I'll keep an eye on her."
"Nah, Sam, we can't just leave you right after you got your soul fixed. You must be pretty wiped, too," Bobby protested.
"I've been asleep for 24 hours. That's more than I'm used to getting in like a month," Sam pointed out, grabbing a fourth slice of pizza. "You guys look like crap, anyway. Go get some rest."
"You sure?"
Sam knew his brother was just waiting for an excuse not to sleep, being as over-protective as he was. Sam also knew that he wasn't going to stop Dean sleeping after everything that he'd just gone through. "Damn sure. Go to sleep."
"And you're sure you'll be fine?" Bobby asked as he and Dean stood up, stretching a little. They were already heading to a spare bedroom that Kail had pointed out to them earlier.
"For the first time in a long time."
...
It was the sunlight that eventually woke Kail up. She made quiet, waking-up noises, scrunching her eyes against the light. With some effort but a distinct lack of will, she opened her eyes, inwardly wincing at how difficult it was due to the crusted blood on her eyelashes. Gross. Her vision was blurry at first and, with her un-cuffed hand, she rubbed at her eyes and face, propping herself up on one elbow. Someone had cleaned the blood off of her face and neck.
When her vision cleared, she could see her living room, flooded with sunlight, and Dean standing by the window, having apparently just opened the curtains. "Hey," He said tonelessly, grabbing the keys to the cuffs off of Kail's desk.
"Hey," she answered, still blinking away sleep. She offered her cuffed wrist to Dean.
"How're you feeling?" He still wasn't looking her in the eyes as he knelt down to unlock the cuffs. They sprang open and Kail pulled her hand towards herself, rubbing the wrist gently.
"Thirsty," she replied shakily, shifting away from Dean. Wordlessly, Dean handed her a glass of water that was on the floor next to the cot. "Thanks." Kail downed the water faster than seemed humanly possible, then glanced down at the empty glass. "This holy water?"
"Yeah," Dean admitted, not looking too ashamed about it.
Kail cast around, spotting two cuts on her forearm. "I'm going to guess these would be from a silver knife and pure iron," she said, pointing. Dean didn't argue. "And, judging by the fact that I'm still alive, I must've passed all of your tests."
Dean seemed a bit more reluctant about agreeing to this one. "Yes," he answered finally, through gritted teeth.
"Well you must feel a little silly now," she smiled wryly. "It's okay, though. I would've done the same thing."
Dean didn't say anything.
"How's Sam doing?" she asked, changing the subject to show that she wasn't going to hold this over his head.
"He's sleeping now, but he's good. Really good, actually." Dean paused a moment before continuing, looking up at her from his kneeling position. "Thank you for helping him. I was a dick to you and you didn't deserve it. I'm sorry." The sincerity was evident in his expression, along with the pain that this apology caused his ego, making Kail smile tiredly.
She shook her head, attempting to push her fingers through her hair and grimacing as they were all caught in knots and matted blood. "Don't worry about it. I get it. He's your little brother and, after the whole Cas thing, I wouldn't be trusting anyone, especially someone with weird eyes."
"I still shouldn't have been like that," Dean insisted, moving to sit next to her. Kail flinched away, drawing confusion from Dean's eyes. "I won't bite," he said lightly.
"No, it's not that," Kail said quickly. "It's just that, I feel really gross and hungry and I generally don't like being near people when I'm like that." As she spoke she attempted to stand up, failing miserably.
Dean caught her before her knees hit the ground, his arm supporting her around her waist. A whimper tore itself from Kail's throat and she tried to pull away from him.
"Thanks for, uhm, catching me, but I'm good. I think I can make it to my room. Somehow." She sounded out of breath, and her movements were lurching ones.
"You can't even make it to the door. C'mon, I'll help you up the stairs, at least." Without waiting for an answer, Dean moved a little, so her arm was over his shoulders. Kail looked physically pained as he did, pursing her lips and squeezing her eyes shut. "You hurt?" He asked, catching her expression.
"No, I'm okay. I just... don't like being so physically close to people," she said through gritted teeth.
Dean started walking her forwards slowly, supporting the majority of her weight, since her legs clearly couldn't. "You don't like asking for help much, huh?"
"You could say that," Kail breathed as they reached the stairs. Dean practically had to lift her to get her up each step, but he could tell that she was really trying to help out. He was going to mention something about how easy she was to carry, because she was so light (girls like being told stuff like that, right?), but then decided against it. She didn't seem like the type to fall for flattery much. Not only that, but he somehow doubted that that would make her feel any better.
"So helping Sam really messed you up," Dean stated instead, guilt in his voice. He had asked Kail for help, ignoring all of her warnings about the consequences. Even worse, she'd agreed to do it and he had still tried to shoot her.
"It could have been worse," she panted. "The only reason I'm not doing so well now is because I've been sleeping for so long." She paused for breath. "How long was I out, by the way?"
"About twelve hours." Dean lifted her up the final step, allowing Kail to weakly steer him in the direction of a door at the end of the hallway.
"No wonder."
They reached what must have been the door to Kail's bedroom and stopped. "I think I can make it from here," she told Dean, removing her arm from around his shoulders and latching on to the doorframe. Despite the difficulty of this movement, Dean could see relief show itself in her slightly less tense shoulders.
"You sure?" Dean asked, still wondering if it was him who had made her uncomfortable, of if she was really just like that in general.
"Unless you plan on trying to help me in to the shower, I'd say I'm sure."
Dean considered for a millisecond. From what he'd seen of Kail, it wouldn't be a bad show. On the other hand, she looked like she'd probably injure him if he even tried watched her shower. "I'm good," Dean said "but, if you need anything..."
Kail snorted, gingerly moving in to her room before shutting the door behind her.
Glad to finally be alone, Kail sighed and sagged against her door. So close. With some effort, she launched herself from the door to her bedside table, grabbing a couple of different bottles of pills and tipping the majority of them down her throat.
"Now that I can shower without wanting to rip someone's throat out..." Kail muttered, grabbing a towel from her dresser, and stumbling to her shower.
...
About half an hour later, Sam, Bobby and Dean were seated around Kail's kitchen table, sleepily clutching beers and eating cold take-out.
"Still can't believe you're better, Sammy." Dean shook his head.
"Is it just me, or does it seem like that was too easy?" Bobby asked, reaching up under his cap and scratching his head.
"It's not just you," Dean confirmed, taking a swig of beer. "But remember, we still have to help her find whatever it is she's looking for, and I'm gonna go ahead and guess that it's not Mr. Right."
"And let's not forget all the nasties that she'll attract while y'all are on the road," Bobby added.
"She's hardly the damsel in distress type, though," Sam pointed out, grabbing a French fry from the centre of the kitchen table. "She'll know how to keep them away. Anyway, it's the least we could do, considering." He chewed thoughtfully a moment. "Actually, this is probably one of the better debts that we've been in."
"I wouldn't be so sure, yet," Bobby grunted.
Dean was about to say something when Kail walked in to the kitchen, her gait much smoother than it had been earlier, but still a little precarious. She looked miles better than she had half an hour ago, though. Her still-wet hair had been pulled back in to a messy ponytail, with damp strands curling around her face and neck. The ponytail revealed that she actually had a pretty, sharp face with high cheekbones and expressive, grey eyes. She had exchanged the blood-stained, over-sized t-shirt and jeans for a crimson, loose tank-top and a darker, tighter pair of jeans. For one testosterone-fuelled moment, Dean wondered how he had managed to be so rude to her before.
"I thought that you guys would be gone by now," Kail stated blankly, apparently oblivious to the looks she was getting. As she spoke, she made her way over to the fridge, making a pleased sound as she saw the fresh groceries inside it. Her movements were still slightly lurching, as though she was trying to accomplish things quickly before her actions became too shaky.
Sam was the first to speak. "We thought you wanted help finding... that thing that you're looking for." It was a miracle that Sam managed to choke out that sentence as Kail bent over to reach something on the bottom shelf of the fridge.
"Yeah, but I didn't know whether or not you guys would actually make good on your deal." There was a pause. "Also, it's rude to stare."
Sheepishly, all three returned their gaze down to their beers, Bobby being the first one to speak again. "You thought we'd up and leave after you almost died helping Sam?" He sounded incredulous.
"It wouldn't be the first time someone bailed on me," Kail said dryly, dumping a bunch of ingredients on the kitchen counter, her back still turned to them.
"Nice tattoo," Dean said, clearly less ashamed of his staring than Bobby or Sam, gesturing to the mark on Kail's shoulder blade."Looks familiar." At this, Sam looked up from the hole that his gaze had been burning in to the table. He smirked a little when he saw what Dean was looking at.
Kail turned around, looking confused and self-consciously reaching a hand back to touch her tattoo. "What do you mean?"
Wordlessly, Sam and Dean pulled down the collars of their shirts, revealing tattoos identical to the one on Kail's back. Kail grinned. It was a new expression on her, but a pleasant one. "Great minds think alike, I guess. When did you guys get yours?"
"A couple of years back. You?" Sam replied, readjusting his shirt.
Kail had turned her back to them again and was chopping up vegetables. She paused for a moment to think. "Must've been when I was about... thirteen?" She went back to cutting.
Sam felt his jaw drop and saw Dean and Bobby's doing the same. "You got that when you were thirteen?"
"You think that's impressive, you should see the ones I got when I was fifteen." She glanced back a moment to see that all three of them still looked shocked. "My parents knew that things would be dangerous for someone like me, so they took precautions. I asked them to," she explained, still chopping.
"So... where are these other tattoos?" Dean asked, ignoring the exasperated looks that he got from Sam and Bobby. What could he say? Just because he didn't trust Kail as far as he could throw her, it didn't mean that he couldn't appreciate her a little.
Kail laughed. "Nowhere exciting. Mostly my back. You wanna see?"
"Sure," Dean said, winking at Sam, who just shook his head at his brother. Dean noticed that, despite their chivalrous disapproval, neither Sam nor Bobby were making any objections.
Kail shrugged, putting down her chopping knife and, with a sigh, reached around to lift up her shirt, revealing her lower and middle back.
Lines of script ran across it, some horizontally, others vertically. They weren't all in the same language or alphabet, but they all stayed within the lines of a circle with a round Celtic shield knot at its centre. The tattoo gave the impression that all of the scripts were somehow joined by the knot in the middle, but not in a way that was immediately obvious. It was a dizzyingly complex tattoo, but beautiful to look at. "There's some Egyptian script there, your basic Japanese, some Latin, a bit of Sanskrit, N'ko and, my favourite, Cuneiform."
"What do they say?" Bobby asked, genuinely interested in the languages on the tattoo rather than its location.
Kail lowered her shirt. "Protection spells, charms to repel spirits and demons, things like that. We had to research the hell out of it, though. I mean, getting accurate translations alone was a complete nightmare."
"I'll bet," Bobby said appreciatively. "Isn't all of that kind of overkill, though?"
Kail started throwing her chopped ingredients in to a bowl. "Probably, but ghosts literally can't come within like a meter radius of me unless I let them and Demons can't even find me. It also looks pretty awesome, doesn't it?"
"Definitely," Sam and Dean chorused, drawing a snort from Kail and an impressive eye-roll from Bobby.
"Before these two start drooling on your table, can I ask what it is we're supposed to be helping you look for, exactly?" Bobby shot a pointed look at Sam and Dean, as if wondering why they hadn't posed the same question sooner, before they let their hormones take over their minds.
Kail turned around, a big bowl of salad in one hand, and some piled plates in the other. She carefully made her way over to the kitchen table and sat down, placing the salad bowl down in front of her. "I wasn't sure if you guys wanted any, so I just made a lot," She said, spooning some salad on to a plate for herself. She took a deep breath, looking at her salad before answering Bobby's question. "I'm looking for the Grace of God."
There was silence. Bobby, Dean and Sam exchanged looks, all of them trying to determine whether or not Kail was being serious.
"Isn't there a bible group for that, or something?" Dean asked finally. Mr Tact, that was Dean.
Kail raised an eyebrow. "I don't mean the ask-and-you-shall-receive Grace of God; I mean an actual piece of God's Grace. The story goes that a piece of it fell to earth when God created man and that it's still here somewhere."
Kail's guests sat a while, silently taking the information in. Sam helped himself to some salad and Kail was already halfway through her first plateful.
"Why do you want to find it?" Bobby's question seemed to jolt Kail out of deep thought and, as she looked up from her salad, she gave Bobby an almost startled look.
"It's really powerful. I mean, it's this tiny sliver, but it's still, you know, God's, so it can do a lot." She paused before continuing. "Legend has it that it can heal anything."
"You mean like perform a miracle?" Sam inquired.
Kail nodded. "Exactly. It's pure creation, so it can fix literally anything in creation."
"And what is it that you want fixed?" Dean was regarding Kail seriously now, all of the impishness lost from his expression.
"If you don't mind, I'd rather keep that one to myself," Kail replied, swallowing. "It's not like I can do any harm with it, anyway."
"Yeah, because a civilian with a source of immense power has never gone wrong," Dean pointed out sarcastically.
Kail's expression as she returned Dean's gaze was a mixture of exasperation and annoyance. "Look, I've done everything that you've asked me to do, almost dying in the process, I've let you in to my house, where you've been staying for the past few days, filling it with your gross man-stench and beer, and all I'm asking is that you help me search for something that has absolutely nothing to do with you." Her tone was measured, but there were clear flashes of anger in her eyes. Once she was done talking, she took a deep breath, closing her eyes and exhaling slowly. There was no point in getting upset. "I'm not asking you to trust me. I just need your help. Please."
Before Dean or anyone else could speak, there was a knock from Kail's front door. Instinctively, every person at the table reached for the nearest weapon. "You expecting company?" Dean asked quietly, his hand closing around the handle of his pistol.
Kail shook her head, leaning over and pulling a knife out of one of her boots. "Stay here," she ordered, standing up and keeping the knife in a reverse-grip. After trading a few brief, half-mouthed words with Dean, Sam ignored Kail's order and stood up with her, sawed-off shotgun in hand. Kail gave him a look that clearly stated that she didn't want help, but she didn't try to stop him from following her to the door. Another knock, this one more insistent, echoed around the house.
With all of the muscles in her back tensed, Kail peeked through the door's peephole, her eyes flashing blue. Exhaling slowly, despite her racing heart, she turned around and mouthed "Demon" to Sam, followed by a finger moving to her lips to signal that he should stay quiet.
"Little pig, little pig, let me come in..." a male voice taunted through the door, causing Kail to visibly flinch, but tighten her grip on the knife. She backed away from the door, signalling Sam to do the same. "Or I'll huff and I'll puff..." the voice had an edge of laughter in it that set Sam's teeth on edge. Dean and Bobby, noting Kail's reaction to the situation, had moved to flank Kail and Sam, both of them aiming their respective guns at the door. "And I'll BLOW your house in!" At the word blow, the door was kicked down with such force that it splintered the floor as it went down.
A tall, middle-aged man stood in the doorway, a genial smile on his pleasantly aged, dark features. His black hair was attractively peppered with white and, although he carried a bit of weight, he wore it well. He would have looked downright charming if it hadn't been for the impossibly crazy grin splitting his face.
"Kail! Imagine meeting you here!" he beamed, as though he had been strolling in the park before happening upon her. As he spoke, he pulled out a .45 of his own and shot upwards, marring the devil's trap that Kail had painted above the door without even looking up. He stepped across her threshold, looking quite amused at the guns being pointed at him. "What are you planning on doing with those, gentlemen?" He threw his own gun to the side in disgust. "I deplore fighting with these things, to be honest."
"Jabari." The demon's gaze centred on Kail as she spoke, a creepy smile returning to his features.
"So you remember me." He looked thrilled. "We met such a long time ago; I was worried that you wouldn't recognise me."
"You know him?" Sam muttered out of the corner of his mouth, eyes not leaving the demon in front of them, who wasn't advancing any closer.
"I sent him back to hell when I was sixteen," Kail answered expressionlessly, "in Somalia. How'd you find me?" Although her face was smooth, the tension in her back and shoulders was noticeable, and a barely-concealed anger threaded itself in to her voice whenever she addressed the demon.
"I did some soul-searching while I was in hell. A couple of the souls that you healed up enough to get reaped were more than happy to give me a location. They're like little pissed-off compasses, those souls. Thank goodness, too, or I would never have found you as long as you had that silly tattoo." Jabari had his hands folded behind his back as he took another step in to the house, examining his surroundings with the curiosity of a museum visitor. "It's so nice to see that you've done so well for yourself, considering that whole debacle in Rwanda with your brother."
"Shut up about him." Although Kail didn't shout, the fury was evident in her eyes. "What the hell do you want, Jabari? I'm not exactly your type anymore."
Jabari's gaze, which had been on a landscape painting on the wall, turned to Kail innocently. "You think I came all the way to this ridiculous country for that? No, no, my dear. I've moved on from that. I'm on to bigger and better things now." His smile started to widen to disturbing proportions. "Ask me what. Go on."
Kail regarded him for a few moments, her eyes reflecting anger, disgust and, to Dean's surprise, fear. "What?" she obliged finally, her fists clenching.
His grin almost split his face in half. It was obscene, but the smile just kept growing. "Bounty hunting." His impossibly stretched lips wrapped themselves around the words, savouring them as he pushed them out of his overgrown mouth. He paused a few moments to let the words sink in, and then attacked.
The action took place so quickly that nobody had time to react. One moment, Jabari was standing there, creeping everyone out and, the next, he was much closer to the group than before, reaching for Kail's throat. On sheer instinct, Kail ducked the demon's hand, swiping her knife in an upwards arc. She managed to lacerate the demon's arm, then brought her knife hand back to punch him in the face. He reeled backwards, his face contorted with laughter. "This little wasp still has some sting!" he chuckled, reaching up to feel his broken nose.
Not bothering to respond to his comment, Kail started speaking quietly to the three men behind her. "One of you run to the kitchen. Under the counter near the stove, there's a green switch. Flip it. Go." Before she could elaborate, Jabari came in for round two, his movements eerily fast. He went low, aiming for Kail's stomach. Bobby, who was next to her, reversed his grip on the rifle in his hands and rammed the butt of the gun in to the back of the demon's neck with as much force as he could muster. This barely slowed Jabari down, but it gave Kail enough time to position herself so that she could grab the demon's wrist and pull it, using his momentum against him, and sending him to the floor.
Dean, who had been closest to the kitchen, was sprinting as fast as he could around and over Kail's furniture to reach the stove. "Green switch, green switch, green..." he murmured to himself in panic as he kneeled down so that he could see under the counter. Where gas lines for the stove should have been was what appeared to be a circuit board with various coloured switches, each one labelled with things like "in case of skinwalkers." On the far left, there was a green switch labelled "Fire/Demons." Grinning, Dean flipped it.
Meanwhile, Jabari had been momentarily detained in a hold performed by Sam, who had pounced on him the moment he hit the ground. However, Jabari had somehow managed to overturn it, so that Sam was underneath him. An ugly scowl twisted his face as he glared down at the Winchester, his hand closing around Sam's throat. He opened his cavernous mouth to say something but, before he could, the sprinklers in Kail's house went on, spraying jets of holy water down throughout the house. The demon reared back, a hissing, keening shriek tearing itself from his throat. Taking advantage of this, Kail grabbed the nearest chair and smashed it over Jabari's head with a savage cry. His skin still smoking, the demon slumped forward on to Sam, apparently unconscious.
A silence ensued, the only sound being the pattering of water from the sprinklers overhead. Kail was panting, still holding remnants of the chair in both hands. Eventually Sam, who had managed to get his breath back, spoke. "Worst. Shower. Ever."
...
Once Jabari was safely tied up inside a devil's trap in Kail's living room, Kail collapsed on to her soggy couch, ignoring the squelching sounds it made. Her head hung in her hands as she kneaded her eyes, trying to make sense of what had just happened.
Dean was, apparently, trying to do the same thing. "Remind me. Who is this guy exactly?" he was pacing back and forth, eyes not leaving the demon's slumped form.
"His name is Jabari. My family hunted him back when we spent some time in Somalia. He's pretty low-level, easy to track because of his obvious MO. I sent him back to hell with a basic exorcism and that was that." Kail stated the facts tiredly, her head still in her hands.
"What was his MO? Demons aren't usually so obvious." Sam, who was leaning up against Kail's desk, at least tried to be compassionate by keeping his voice low.
Kail paused before she answered, moving her hands away from her eyes but still staring at the ground. "He had a thing for virgins," she said quietly, distaste evident in her voice. She didn't elaborate and Sam, Dean and Bobby all figured that they were probably better off not knowing much more than that anyway.
"And now he's bounty hunting you? Do you know who put the price on your head?"
"Yeah, because if I knew that, I'd still be sitting around like an idiot," Kail snapped, then sighed, realising that she needed to calm down a bit. She ran a hand through her wet hair and breathed in deeply. "Like I said, a lot of pretty awful things want to get a hold of my gift. I can't really keep track of them." She sounded calmer, but it was evident that it took a lot of effort for her to sound that way. "Can someone please bandage that arm?" She pointed to the blood dripping from Jabari's fingers, trickling from the wound that she had given him during the fight. "We don't want his meatsuit bleeding out," she explained in response to the questioning looks she got.
Sam shrugged and grabbed a roll of bandages off the desk, wrapping them around Jabari's arm tightly.
When Sam was done, Bobby uncapped a flask of holy water. "Let's find out who's after you, shall we?" With that, he poured some holy water over Jabari's head
The demon awoke with a hiss, eyes black against the pain. They watched in silence as Jabari recovered, skin still steaming, and realised what situation he was in, with the devil's trap painted around him and his limbs bound to a sturdy chair. Eventually his gaze found Kail, and stayed on her. She lifted the corner of her mouth in a cold smile.
"Isn't this familiar?" she asked, twirling her knife slowly in one hand.
"If I recall, last time you weren't quite so cocky," Jabari observed, tugging at his restraints to test their strength. They were pretty darn strong.
Kail shrugged. "Last time you weren't so easy to catch. You're getting slow, Jabari. Is your puppet-master curbing your powers?"
Jabari ignored her question. "Maybe you've just gotten stronger. You're about the right age now, aren't you?" He paused, enjoying the way Kail's expression darkened as he spoke.
"Shut up," she warned.
"Yes..." He stretched the word out, luxuriating in it, "your brother was about twenty-two when it happened, right?"
Without warning, Kail reached out and slapped the demon across the face hard, making his head snap dangerously far to one side of his neck. The sound of the slap echoed around the room, but Kail appeared as though it hadn't cost her much effort. If her hand was stinging, she didn't react to it. Her only current action was breathing more heavily, as if barely keeping the lid on the rage bubbling up inside her. "Mention him one more time," she dared the demon, a muscle in her neck twitching.
Sam, Dean and Bobby exchanged surprised glances. No one had expected Kail to act out like that, but it made it quite clear that she was losing her cool. Sam placed a hand on her shoulder. "Maybe we should take over for while?"
Kail started at the feeling of Sam's hand, looking like she was about to knock it away, but stopping herself. After a few brief seconds in which she appeared to be about to argue with Sam, she nodded tersely, standing up and moving to the other side of the room, arms crossed.
Head still twisted to the side, Jabari chuckled. Slowly, he turned his head to look at Sam, the vertebrae in his neck making popping sounds as he did. He didn't say anything, his eyes just bored in to Sam's as he continued laughing, his face stretching obscenely.
"Who sent you?" Dean demanded, cutting to the chase.
"None of your beeswax," Jabari responded, giggling. The sound was cut short as Bobby threw more holy water on the demon, causing him to cry out.
"Try again," Dean ordered, pacing back in forth in front of the Demon, his face expressionless. He still didn't like torture in any shape or form. It reminded him too much of hell, but he knew that, at times like this, it was unfortunately necessary. He just hated the memories that it brought.
"I don't know his name," Jabari gasped, somehow still grinning. Bobby didn't waste time in hurling more holy water at the demon. All of the room's occupants, after long years on the job, held objective poses in response to the demon's keening screams intermingled with mad laughter. Sympathy for demons had long since been washed out of their systems.
"Pull the other one," Sam said sarcastically. Before the demon could speak, more holy water was thrown on to him for good measure, as a warning of what would happen if he lied again.
"Stop! Stop it! No more!" Jabari panted, the smile gone from his face, his skin smoking.
"You'll talk?" Sam stepped forward with his own flask of holy water, brandishing it threateningly.
"Yes! Yes, alright. Just no more, okay? It's not like knowing who it is will do you much good, anyway." The demon flinched away as best as he could. "His name is Marius. He's been wanting a little reunion with Kail."
Everybody's gaze shifted to Kail, whose eyes had widened at the mention of Marius. "Old friend?" Dean asked.
Kail swallowed. "You could say that."
"I imagine that Kail's quite keen on seeing him, after how they parted ways last time," Jabari gloated, enjoying Kail's discomfort immensely.
Dean raised a questioning eyebrow at Kail, who was wearing the expression that she always assumed when forced to discuss her family. "He killed my aunt and uncle. I hunted him down and sent him back to hell."
"But there was more than that, wasn't there?" Jabari taunted, cackling to himself.
"Shut your mouth before I shut it for you."Kail's voice was strained with the effort of not shouting. "What the hell does he want with me, anyway? I somehow doubt he wants to look through old photo albums together."
"He wants to take on Crowley, and he needs whole souls to make himself big and strong."
"He wants Kail to heal souls before he uses them?" Sam clarified.
"Of course. She's the strongest out there. He's tried using Shamans and other people with her gift, but no one can handle a soul from hell quite like she can." Jabari twisted around to leer at her. "Such good control."
Kail returned his gaze steadily, apparently having regained her composure. "So he sent you?" she asked incredulously. "Most hunters don't even get out of bed for demons as pathetic as you, and he thought you could take me?"
Jabari grinned. "Oh, sweetheart, I'm not the snatcher. I'm just a scout. Just wait until you see the snatcher." He started laughing again, crazier than before.
"I think we've heard enough," Kail said, shooting quick looks at Sam, Dean and Bobby for confirmation. They nodded. "Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus," she began intoning, smirking a little at the panic on Jabari's face.
"No! No! Do you know what they'll do to me in hell?" he cried, squirming around in his restraints.
"I'm counting on it," Kail replied. "omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii,
omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica."
"He's going to come for you, Kail!" he screamed, "he's going to snatch you and play with you."
"Ergo, draco maledicte. Ecclesiam tuam securi tibi facias libertate servire," Kail continued, ignoring the demon's threats.
"MARIUS NEVER SAID TO BRING YOU BACK IN ONE PIECE," the demon shrieked, his body convulsing.
"te rogamus, audi nos," Kail finished, her expression satisfied as black smoke poured from Jabari's mouth, then was sucked down through the floor, leaving a charred mark.
Kail took a step forward, pressing her fingers against the neck of Jabari's limp meatsuit, feeling for a pulse. "Dammit," she murmured a few moments later. As when Jabari had been knocked unconscious, there was a momentary silence. The set of Kail's shoulders and the look on her face indicated clearly that she didn't want to talk about Marius anymore.
"So what do we do now?" Sam asked, finally breaking the silence and looking around at everyone.
"It depends," Kail responded first. "Are you going to help me find what I'm looking for or not?"
"What happens if we will?" As he spoke, Dean noted the weariness on Kail's features. He remembered that, about two hours ago, she hadn't even been able to walk, never mind fight and exorcise a demon while learning about a price on her head.
"Well, I obviously can't stay here," she glanced darkly at her surroundings. "If you're going to help me, I'll head off with you. If not, I guess I'll go it on my own."
"Can we have a moment?" Sam requested, seeing that Dean clearly had his dilemma face on.
Kail sighed. "Sure. I need to go pack my stuff, anyway. Come get me when you're done." She turned and made her way up the stairs, her movements a little sluggish. They watched her go and, the moment she was out of sight, Sam rounded on his brother.
"Dean, tell me you're not considering letting her go off on her own."
Dean sighed, "I dunno, Sam. I mean, looking at her now, she looks like a lost puppy in the rain, but you saw how she handled herself, man. She'd be fine."
"Dean! After everything she's done for us, after we promised her-"
"I know, Sam, I know. But she's clearly hiding something from us, and I don't like it."
"What, so she's not allowed to have secrets now?"
"Helping someone without full disclosure never works out well for us, Sam. I don't know if you've noticed."
"So what, we're just going to break our promise and leave her alone even though there's a demon that's put a hit out on her?"
"Dean, I see your point here but, even I've gotta say, it's a pretty crap move," Bobby pointed out, earning a tired glare from Dean.
"Yeah, I can see that. It's just, do we really trust her enough to take her on the road with us? I mean, her past looks even shadier than ours. We don't know if she'll try to pull something."
"Look at it this way," Bobby suggested. "She's trusting you enough to want to go on the road with you, despite what an ass you've been to her."
"The least we could do is give her a chance," Sam added.
Dean observed both of them for a minute, clearly considering all the options and finding none of them to his liking. "Fine. But if we wake up to our throats being slit, that's on you."
...
"So wait, you're not driving in the Impala with us?" Sam asked, raising an eyebrow as Kail threw her medium-sized duffle bag in to the trunk of the car, next to Sam and Dean's. Her ability to pack lightly didn't go unappreciated. Dean had already decided that, promise or not, he wasn't toting around an entire wardrobe, not in his car.
Kail looked up at both Sam and Dean as though she had thought they would assume as much. "You really think that I want to spend my days stuck in a car with you two?"
Dean shrugged slightly. While he knew that he definitely didn't want to have Kail with them in the Impala all day, he hadn't thought that the feeling would be mutual. "So then what are you gonna drive?"
A grin spread over Kail's face that Dean hadn't seen before. It was excitement intermingled with pleasure, and, on Kail, it looked almost impish. It was adorable. "The pants didn't give it away? And the fact that I'm using your trunk space?"
Neither Sam nor Dean passed up the opportunity to look down at Kail's pants, which were black, leathery, and looked as though she had been poured in to them. On closer inspection that didn't involve following the curve of Kail's legs, there was padding on the inside of her thighs and calves, as well as on her knees, just above where her boots ended. "You're driving a motorbike," Dean concluded triumphantly.
"Well done," Kail said without condescension. "Just let me get her and we can get going."
Earlier, they had decided to head west after dropping Bobby off at home, since Kail had just gotten a lead saying that the Grace was somewhere out that way. The way she had described it was that the Grace was constantly migrating and, wherever it went, it would leave signs. It had taken years for her family to zero in on the different types of signs, and even longer to track them properly, but Kail was reasonably sure that she had the pattern down, even though she still couldn't understand why it was in the States, of all places. At the moment, with the sudden price on Kail's head, the main priority was getting the hell away from her house.
Figuring that she couldn't burn the whole house down, she had burned most of the paper and books that she felt she didn't need, and let Bobby take some of them home with him. Anything that she thought might be able to let anyone work out her whereabouts had also been burned. Smoke was still rising from behind the house as Kail emerged from the shed alongside, wheeling out a bike next to her. It was cherry-red, with black trimmings and an impressively-sized storage box mounted on the end. It was by no means a girly bike, and it looked like it meant business.
Dean whistled. "Damn, which make is that?"
"Honda Veradero 125," Kail replied, looking down at the bike affectionately. "Nothing fancy, but she gets me to where I'm going." As she talked, she leaned the bike on its kickstand and shrugged in to a slightly oversized biking jacket, zipping it up high on her neck.
"I'll bet," Bobby said, eyeing the bike admiringly.
Sam, Dean and Bobby began climbing in to the Impala at the same time that Kail threw one leg over the bike to straddle it. "What're you listening to?" Sam asked as Kail put on her helmet and began messing with an ipod that was attached to it.
"The only thing you can listen to when you're wanted by a demon and you're about to speed down the highway on your sexy motorbike: AC/DC." Kail's response was muffled by the helmet, but she still sounded like she was enjoying herself. With this statement, she turned the ignition on her bike and it purred to life, growling louder as she sped off, not bothering to check if the impala was following her.
"Dean, I know you don't really trust her and all..." Sam started, as Dean reversed away from Kail's house.
Dean cut in before his brother could finish. "But she's pretty awesome. Yeah, yeah, I know."
...
Okay, so I just want to nip a couple of things in the bud.
Firstly, you might ask: "Simone, why did Kail inspect the guys with her creepy eyes when they could see her, as opposed to what she did with Jabari, where she just checked him out through the keyhole?"
To that, observant and logical reader, I would answer that Kail did, indeed, look at the boys through the keyhole before she opened the door, just to make sure that they weren't demons. The reason she did the eye-thing a second time was because she was being upfront with the gentlemen. Think about it: would Dean really have trusted her any more if she had let three strong men enter her house without showing some sort of suspicion?
Secondly, you'll notice that the details surrounding the Grace are rather vague and iffy at best. They're meant to be. Move along.
Please do review if you have the time. They make me happy inside, like chocolate, but with less calories. The next update should be in about a week, so keep an eye out.
