xxx
Father James – or the thing possessing him – spun round. Sara tried not to notice anything about the man himself. Focusing on the solid black, soulless eyes would help her far more in the long run.
"Sorry," she said, falsely bright. "Didn't mean to distract you from the whole killing my friend thing, but-"
The demon grinned. "Lucian."
"Ah." She hadn't expected that. Behind the demon, Dean had just moved slightly. Yep, back up would be a good thing right about now...
"I've heard a lot about you. Gotta say, thought you'd be taller."
"Well, it's not the size," Sara said, and snapped her knee up to hit the demon right between the legs. "It's how you use it."
The demon grabbed her shoulders as it almost doubled over. "And I bet I can find all sorts of fun uses for you."
"Oh, I don't think so," Dean snapped, tackling the demon.
Sara pulled another bottle of holy water out of her pocket and yanked the cap off, flinging the liquid over the brawling pair. Getting the demon into the damn circle didn't seem to be much of an option anymore. Oh, well, she'd done exorcisms on the move before. Sort of.
"Omnis spiritus in munde!" Sara yelled. "In nomine dei. Omnis spiritus in odorem suavitatis!"
Dean ducked a punch from the demon and kneed it in the stomach. It didn't even wind the demon, who twisted and flung Dean to one side again.
"Tu autem effugere, diabole," Sara continued. "Approprinquabit enim judicem dei."
"God?" the demon spat, coming closer. "What good has he ever done?"
Sara swiped the demon's legs out from under it and dived on top of it. "Omnis spiritus in munde!" she yelled again and smeared a handful of chrism oil across the black clerical shirt.
The demon howled in pain and swung out wildly with one arm, sending Sara skidding across the floor.
"In nomine-" Sara rolled to one side to avoid the entire pew that the demon threw at her. "-Dei, you bastard!"
Dean staggered up on the other side of the church, having managed at some point to retrieve his pistol-grip shotgun, and used the butt of the weapon to crack the demon across the back.
"Tu autem effugere, diabole, in nomine dei!"
She ducked another thrown object, not even registering what it was, and had barely straightened when Dean crashed into her at speed. They both fell backwards, Sara underneath Dean.
"Shit!" Dean snapped, rolling off Sara but staying between her and the demon which was really unhelpful-
Apart from the fact that the demon was now pointing Dean's shotgun at her. Sara couldn't remember whether he'd loaded it with normal buckshot or those new weird-ass rock-salt cartridges he'd been experimenting with, but either way she didn't want to find out.
"Your mom wouldn't have been beaten so easily," the demon said.
"Oh, you met her?" Sara said. "Which one were you? And say legion and it'll go badly for you."
"My name means nothing to you."
"No, you mean nothing to me, you demonic son of a bitch." Sara grinned. "And I think you'll find my way with people tops my mother's."
She'd barely finished speaking when the bucketful of holy water soaked the demon from head to toe. It roared in pain and Dean dived forward, wrenching the shotgun out of its hand and throwing the weapon to one side as he pinned the host. Father Gabriel dropped the empty bucket and grabbed the creature's free arm, almost kneeling on it. Well, whatever worked.
Sara dumped more chrism oil on her hand and quickly drew the sign of the cross on its forehead. Well, she tried to, it was really more a squiggle, but whatever. This was going to work. She gripped her silver pendant tightly, the pointed end digging into her palm, and started the final phase of the ritual.
"Abrenuntias satanae?" she yelled and the demon screamed. "Et omnibus operibus est?" Another scream, but less demonic this time. They were so close! "Omnibus pompis eus?"
Dean glanced up when she paused, eyes narrowing when he saw how pale she was. This was the most dangerous part of the exorcism, when the demon was just about to release its current host and was reaching out for a new one: her. Demons were always keen to possess exorcists or hunters, something to do with that twisted sense of irony that they all seemed to share.
Sara gritted her teeth, feeling her stomach turn as the demon reached out to her soul. But she had her willpower, she had her focus, she had Dean just a few feet away. Time to finish this. "Exorcie te in nomine dei! Adaperiae!"
The demon opened its mouth again, but instead of another scream, thick black smoke poured out.
"Get away from it!" Sara ordered, scrambling back as the two men hurried to do as she'd said. "In nomine dei, iubeo te abire. Eicio te ex hinc!"
The black smoke dissipated, most of it apparently falling through the stone floor on its way to Hell.
"It is over?" Dean asked.
"Yeah. He's human again, you can let go," Sara replied, pushing herself to her feet. "Father Gabriel, I thought I told you to stay where you were."
"My mother always said I was terrible at doing what I was told," the man replied, completely unrepentant.
"Have to admit, you have damn good timing," Dean said.
"Will he be okay?"
"Yeah, should be. Shouldn't remember anything that happened either." Sara stretched gingerly, feeling a few bruises already forming. "Get him checked out, never mention what happened here, have a nice life."
"That's it?" Dean asked.
"Demon's gone," Sara replied flatly. "My job's over. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go and collapse."
"Ma'am, thank-"
"Don't," Sara snapped. "Just don't, okay?"
She was out of the church before Dean caught up.
"You okay?" Which was a really strange question from a guy who's face was starting to swell up, but that was Dean for you.
"No." Sara struggled with herself for a moment before blurting out, "I hate this. I hate having to be like this."
"You do what you have to. That's not a bad thing, Sara."
"Isn't it? God, Dean, what I do is so unnatural that even my own body rebels against it!"
Dean frowned. "You what?"
"Didn't I explain the fallout? Basically, my own body is so disgusted at what I do that it rewards me with something akin to the flu. I'll be fine in a day or two."
"You go through that every time?"
"Yep. I mess with some pretty powerful forces, Dean. There's always a price for work like this. It sucks, but..." she shrugged. "Now, can we get out of here?"
xxx
Sara hadn't been kidding about the fallout, as Dean discovered when she locked herself in their small motel bathroom and started to throw up.
By the time she emerged, paler than ever and looking tired and miserable, Dean had had time to get them both food, although Sara ignored her portion and sat on the bed, idly undoing and redoing her long plait of red hair.
"Sorry."
Dean looked at her, honestly confused. "For what?"
"For the way I've been acting."
"It's cool." He gave her a moment, then took a slight risk. "Called the hospital. Our ex-host is fine. Bruised and concussed, but generally okay."
"Good. That's... good."
"Why didn't you let Gabriel thank you?"
Sara had curled up on her side, away from Dean. "Too much like tempting fate. An exorcism stops the demon, but most of time it doesn't save the host. Normally, if a host remembers what the demon used them to do, they can't handle it. One of the first guys I 'saved'," and the word was loaded with sarcasm, "He killed himself a week later. Can't say I blamed him. I screwed up the tracking procedure and the demon had killed his family by the time I got there."
"Why didn't you ever tell me?"
"Couldn't figure out how. But I didn't need to. Remember all those times I called you but didn't say anything, just listened to you rabbiting on? I never worked out if you'd figured the pattern."
He had, eventually. "After every exorcism?"
"Yeah." Sara chuckled softly, with only the faintest trace of humour. "Makes sense, I suppose. Needed you to get me into this life, need you now to- Sorry," she said again. "Fallout always makes me indulge my oestrogen levels."
Dean, feeling both relieved that Sara had stopped herself and slightly guilty for that relief, swiftly turned the conversation towards possible new gigs. Normally, they might give themselves a bit of breathing room after a hunt, but that would give Sara too much time to think. He did know that Sara had already been thinking about exorcisms and the suckiness of demons for years, but that was no reason to let her do it any longer.
Finally, he flipped on the television and sprawled across Sara's bed, completely ignoring her slight huff of irritation.
"You be careful. People in masks cannot be trusted," said one of the characters on screen.
"Hey, Princess Bride!" Dean said grinning. "This film is awesome!"
Sara rolled over to face the television screen, giving Dean a vaguely amused look as she did so. "It was a good book, I know that much."
"It was a book?"
And when Sara rolled her eyes in fond exasperation, Dean felt a bit more like everything might be okay.
xxx
Two days later, Father Gabriel Lewis pulled the church door shut behind him, leaving the workmen to get on with the repairs. Turned out that hosting a stand-off between a demon and an exorcist left you with a lot of clearing up to do.
And no matter how many times he thought about the word demon or exorcist, Gabriel could quite wrap his head around it. When the girl – and he never had learnt her real name, he realised – had explained to him, only the certainty in her eyes had stopped him from calling the police. Or possibly the psych ward.
But then he'd seen James throw half the pulpit at the young woman, seen him point a weapon at her and her friend, seen the black smoke pour out of him. Not to mention that whole thing with the holy water...
He'd taken to sprinkling his room with holy water before he went to bed as well, and Gabriel was sure that wasn't healthy. But now he knew, he couldn't stop thinking about it. And he didn't know what to do about it. Okay, so there were demons, but how did you avoid them? And what did you do when you couldn't avoid them? This wasn't something you could ask just anyone about, after all.
But maybe he could ask the read-head standing by his car.
"Afternoon, Father," she said. "Figured I should come by, apologise, all that stuff."
"Apologise for what?"
She shrugged. "Uh, whatever the hell is it that I've managed to do this time."
"What is your name?"
"Sara Lucian."
"Gabriel Lewis."
"...So, I hear Father James doesn't remember a single thing," Sara said finally.
"Lucky him."
"Yeah, that would be what I came to apologise for. So, sorry. Demons are real, you're probably freaking out, but so long as you don't seek them out, you'll never see one again."
She's an odd mix of contradictions, Gabriel realised. English accent mixed with a few Americanisms that she must have picked up from the man who was working with her that night. Short stature, but that night she'd seemed taller than even Father James. Flippant words, but he'd spent a lot of time listening to people and he could tell the difference between saying sorry and meaning it. And she was definitely in the latter category.
"Don't suppose you have any advice for me?" Gabriel asked finally.
"Uh, forget." Sara smiled. "If you can, that is. If you can't, well, salt works against most things that you'd be likely to find in a city."
"Things? It's not just demons?"
"Well, Dean's a Hunter, not an exorcist, and he does a lot more work than me. Come on, Father. You have faith in God, you gotta believe in the other guy."
"What do you have faith in?"
"My friends, my gun, my knowledge. My good looks. The fact that there will always be something else to fight and that someday, I'm gonna die."
Gabriel unlocked his car and brought the black backpack he'd found in the church out from the trunk. Holding it out to her, he said, "When did you stop trusting God?"
Sara grinned ruefully. "Well, I did come to answer your questions. I gave up on God when my mother died. She had faith, your kind, but it wasn't enough. So I found something else." She took the bag.
"I suppose someone in your line of work would have to see something to believe in it."
"Yeah, pretty much." Sara idly swung the backpack up onto her shoulder, but paused halfway when the small silvery medallion Gabriel had tied to the zip caught her eye.
"St Michael," Gabriel explained. "It seemed appropriate."
"You know, he was always one of my favourite saints. Seemed real, somehow."
"Someone who would stand between the one they loved and the devil himself?" Gabriel smiled. "That must be something you see every day."
Sara hesitated for a moment before offering him another crooked smiled. "Yeah. But it's not everyday that I get to see a man who doesn't even believe in what I do save my life," she replied. "I owe you one for that. Owe you a bigger one for saving Dean. There's a priest in Blue Earth, Minnesota. Pastor Jim Murphy; he can reach me."
"Thank you. Sara?" he added as she turned to leave. "Did it ever occur to you that God doesn't intervene because he knows people like you will do the right thing?"
"I think I'll stick with St Michael, if it's all the same to you. Oh, and, uh, sorry about the mess in the office."
With a final grin that didn't quite reach her eyes, Sara nodded once and walked away. Father Gabriel smiled slightly as he slid into his car. He actually rather liked the new floor-pattern.
And he might just look up that priest in Minnesota. It would be... comforting to know exactly what was going on in this world. Alhough, not quite as comforting as it was to know that there were people out there, hunting the monsters.
xxx
Thus concludesThere But For The Grace of God. The next story in this series, Sins of the Father, in which John attempts to discover more about the demon that killed his wife by desperate means, will hopefully be up in a few weeks. Reviews and advice are hugely appreciated.