Thump…..thump…..thump….thump.
The noise was insistent. Lucifer wanted it to go away; wanted it to leave him in this sweet black oblivion that he was currently in. He floated through the nothingness, his senses completely dulled. There was no him, no consciousness, just the blackness that encompassed him and pervaded him and left him with no pain, no regret and no anger. Just nothing. And it was sweet.
Thump…..thump…..thump….thump.
It became louder and more bothersome. Why couldn't it leave him alone? He had been alone for so long; in the Cage when there was nothing but his own thoughts to keep him company. Back then he didn't want to be alone and had craved the warm embrace of his brethren. But now when he finally wanted nothing but being left alone the noise wouldn't let him. It made him remember. Who he was, what he had done and what he planned to do. The noise tore through the nothingness and destroyed it like the illusion it was.
Thump…..thump…..thump….thump.
He had been in a house, was the last thing Lucifer remembered. But why had he been there? A face flashed in front of his mind: A green-eyed man with a cocky grin and short, dirty-blonde hair. Dean, his mind supplied and with the name the memories came back.
Thump…..thump…..thump….thump.
With a sharp intake of breath Lucifer opened his eyes. Blinding light invaded his mind and he had to close them again to stop the searing pain that shot through his head. After a while said pain ebbed away, leaving only a faint throbbing at the back of his head and he was able to open his eyes again. Now Lucifer was able to discern that the former blinding light was just a light bulb that hung at the ceiling. After a few more seconds of observation he was able to make out shapes in the dim light the bulb provided. The room he was in wasn´t really spacious, roughly three metres in length and two in width. It walls were naked concrete pervaded with countless cracks which gave the whole room a rougher atmosphere. A door, currently closed, was imbedded in the wall opposite of him. When Lucifer attempted to stand up he noticed that both his hands and his feet were tied to the chair he was sitting on.
Someone attacked me from behind, Lucifer remembered, and seeing that I am imprisoned rather than dead it leaves only the conclusion that the person or creature which did the deed is still in need of me.
Lucifer´s mind worked at its fastest pace, coming to conclusions, devising plans and trying to find weaknesses in his bindings. Meanwhile the noise had stopped.
If I were still an Angel this situation would never have come to pass, Lucifer thought and he could feel the familiar rage rise anew, burning through his veins like hot lava and turning his vision red. But his rage would not help him to escape his current predicament and so he forced it down and made it dormant again. When he would find the one who did this to him, then his rage would be unleashed, but not until then.
Lucifer wondered where Dean was. If he had escaped whoever lured in the house or if he was dead, bloodied and broken on the basement´s floor where the next generation of adventure seeking teenager would find his corpse. No matter which option, Dean was not available and so Lucifer had only himself to rely on.
Wouldn´t be the first time, he thought and a humourless, sarcastic laugh made its way out of his mouth. It disrupted the eerie silence of the room, echoing a few time before it faded away into nothingness.
Like I will when I don´t escape soon, Lucifer chastised himself and tried to free himself from his chains with renewed fervour. He did not possess much knowledge about human chains, but his captor probably hadn´t reckoned with Lucifer and Dean breaking in into the house and had therefore only used inferior rope to chain him with. Sooner or later it would rip and then he was free to go.
After all the creepy shit he had been through, ranging from shtrigas sucking out a child´s life force to hearing Sammy singing "Billie Jean" under the shower when he was fourteen, Dean would have never thought that a simple basement could make him that anxious. First of all, it was big and Dean had the nagging suspicion that it was actually bigger than the base area of the house above. That meant that the basement probably was older than the house and that any weird shit would be here, in the basement where Dean was, instead of the house Luke was searching through. And he couldn't even blame himself, because he was the one who had volunteered for it.
But back then Luke seemed to be a bit out of it and Dean couldn't bring himself to act like an ass towards him. He wasn´t even sure why. He barely knew the guy, but nevertheless he felt responsible for him. It probably had to do something with the way they met. Dean had nearly run over the guy when he aimlessly wandered around and had brought him to a hospital. Maybe that was why he felt responsible, because he had witnessed Luke at his weakest point and had stepped in. Some kind of mother instinct like Sammy had had when he picked up some injured animals when their dad was on a hunt and nursed them back to health. Yes that was it.
Secretly Dean hoped that Luke would prove himself capable and stay with him. Because if there was one thing that Dean truly feared, even if he never admitted it out loud, it was to be alone: To come back to an empty motel room and stare at the ceiling the whole night, because there was no breath from another person in the bed next to you which would sooth you into sleep; to read through endless material of research until the letters would blur in front of your eyes without anyone to crack a joke; to simply have the time to think, time in which your inner demons would crawl nearer and nearer without you having someone to chase them away. That was what Dean never wanted to experience. Not if he could prevent it.
Dean entered another room. It was littered with broken furniture, tattered books and broken lamps. He let the light cone of his flashlight wander around the room to look if there was anything noteworthy. Nothing moved but the dust Dean had dispersed with his entry. He shrugged. Maybe whatever killed those teenagers didn't live in the creepy, dusty basement, but in the light flooded easily to take attic? Dean snorted. Yeah, and demons are altruistic Samaritans!
When Dean finally reached the last room his anxiousness had reached its peak. He expected to be attacked at any given moment and it showed in his hasty and sloppy movements. Dean´s dad would berate him on that, but guess what? He wasn´t here; wasn't calling Dean out on his crude technique and Dean had better things to do than thinking about that. The eerie silence that had accompanied him through his whole search continued even in this room, but contrary to the other this one wasn´t filled with rubbish.
The walls were covered with strange symbols of the like Dean had never seen before. Some were curvy and elegant, graceful flowing into each other whereas others where edged and had a really rough character to them. When Dean illuminated them with his flashlight he saw the blood-red colour the symbols were drawn in. And after all his experience with the Supernatural he could say, that this was blood; human blood, and not some red wall colour from your local Walmart. When Dean moved his attention to the middle of the room he discovered an altar-like structure. A metal bowl had been placed upon a grey block of concrete and surrounded by a wide range of personal possessions. Dean could see a golden bracelet, some earrings and other jewellery as well as a diary bound in brown leather and some letters in neat script.
Careful Dean stepped near the bowl in order to be able to see its contents. When he was near enough to directly look into the container, he let out an undignified and very girly sounding shriek (which he would deny to ever have uttered), because what had met his gaze was a human skull, coated in a red liquid, probably blood as well.
Dean wasn´t very knowledgeable when it came to rituals and stuff like that, so after his breath had steadied again he looked around for any clues which could help him to understand for what this altar had been or still was used. He nearly gave up his search when he discovered a book on the floor which he nearly had overlooked due to its black binding. Dean bent down carefully and picked up the book.
"Shit," he whispered after he had flicked through the book. Not the ghost was killing the teenagers, but the person who kept it from crossing over and had bound it to this house.
AN: Again a cliffhanger, evil me! But I did not write it to torment you, but rather because it was such a good point to end the chapter. This enabled me to update sooner, whereas I cannot fathom when I would have updated if I had kept writing. You will have the solution to all this suspense as soon as possible; this I can promise you!
But who is keeping our poor misunderstood ghost from crossing over? Take a guess in the review box (tip: it´s someone you know!).
