Chapter 10

"What?" Elanor yelped. "What? Castiel what?" Castiel looked at Elanor and then away. "How am I the key?"

"I... don't know yet."

"That doesn't make any sense," Sam put in.

"My powers are off - and weakening. I can't afford to heal you, Sam."

"Castiel why am I the key?" Elanor shouted, stepping up to the angel in the trenchcoat.

"I told you I don't know yet. But your essence calls out to me and the other angels. Othniel has taken much of the beacon that you put out - I can't read it. And I doubt, even if I were to read your soul directly, that I would be able to discern the nature of your power."

"But I can save Dean?" Castiel looked to the left, thinking.

"I believe so." Castiel turned to leave, Sam and Elanor chased behind him.

"What do you know?" Elanor demanded. Sam caught Castiel by the arm. He turned, his eyes a frightening glow.

"Sam, if I knew more I would tell you." They let him leave, though Elanor was far from satisfied. She researched obsessively, but knew there were no clues to go on. She needed a direction. Days passed and Sam went on a hunt, but it didn't go over well. He called Elanor for assistance.

"Can you do me a favor?" he asked. He needed some specific supplies that he'd run out of - as he walked her through their location and their prep he finalized his request with a delivery. She agreed, stepping into her room to bring a bag. It was a quick thing, she figured - but brought a set of pajamas just in case. He was about four hours away and she made the drive, blasting Pat Benatar the whole way. She arrived at the hotel he'd specified and saw the nondescript hybrid she was sure he had driven parked in front of room seventeen. She knocked. He swung the door open. His face was rather bruised but she chose not to comment. Sam thanked her for the supplies, and offered her the bed to sleep on if she wanted to rest before going back. She took the opportunity readily, laying out on the bed.

The hunt resolved - but as Sam rested and Elanor stepped out to get food something strange happened. She saw a smoky red cloud barrelling towards her. She turned and attempted to run but the smoke caught up with her. It forced itself in, filling her mind and body with a numbing sensation. A disconnection. She walked but had no intention to, she opened the door to the motel room and stepped inside. She cursed Sam for not putting down demon traps. She was slowly understanding. She was possessed. And somehow in the pit of her mind she knew who it was that had her. It was Crowley. He woke Sam.

"Please!" she heard her voice cry. "Sam!" Crowley stepped away but Elanor was now fighting for everything she was worth. Somewhere deep in her mind she thought she was grappling with him, locked in some intangible box. But closer to the surface the struggle was less comprehensible. Get out, she was screaming. Get out! Get out! "Get out!" she screamed aloud. Sam looked at her - still sleepy, but animalistically awake.

"What's happening?" Sam asked, reaching for his blade. He leapt over the bed, toward the door, but turned back as Elanor didn't explain.

"Possessed," she ground out. She was clenching every muscle she had - fighting it. "Get out!" she shouted. "Get out! Audi nos!" She was in control for now. She spoke to Sam. "Crowley!"

"Crowley?" Sam asked. He turned to his duffel bag to find holy water. She was getting dizzy - she was losing. She could see some of Crowley's thoughts, somewhere between hearing them and sharing his consciousness.

"Get out of me!" she screamed with a final surge of desperate effort. She knew she couldn't maintain this fight. But then - though she could feel Crowley clawing at her insides, resisting her push, she fell to her knees and sputtered as Crowley was forced out of her body. She was gasping as the demon smoke filtered out of the hotel room. Sam crouched down next to her.

"Elanor?" he asked. "Are you okay?"

"I think I'm going to be sick," she gasped. She lurched to the bathroom. He followed just enough to be sure she made it to the toilet and then backed off. He heard her retch emptily. She emerged some fifteen minutes later, brushing her teeth and looking dizzy.

"What happened?" Sam asked.

"I was possessed. A first for everything." Elanor told him about the cloud - about Crowley being inside of her. About her struggle to get him out. She'd caught a glimpse of his intentions - one of which was drawing blood from Sam and injecting it into himself.

"So when you took over he just gave up and left?" Sam inquired.

"No. No, he fought me. He tried to stay. He struggled really hard against me."

"Wait you expelled him? You cast him out?"

"Well I mean I knew what he was so yeah?" She didn't understand the big deal. She was more interested in why he wanted Sam's blood.

"Elanor that's... amazing. And really really weird."

"What do you mean?" she asked, hugging one of the bed pillows.

"I mean I didn't know it was possible to expell a demon without an actual exorcism."

"I said audi nos," she replied.

"That... wouldn't have gotten rid of most demons - let alone Crowley. You basically just cast out the devil, Elanor." She frowned. He was saying her name - something he did when he was working particularly hard at making her understand the gravity of things. "This could be one of the reasons the demons are interested," Sam said, laying back on the bed.

"But that doesn't make sense. If I'm somehow demon-resistant, why would they want me."

"I don't know. Maybe you're an evolution in humanity that makes people more resistant to possession."

"I'm an X-man?" she asked with a grin. He shrugged, happy to see her smiling. "But, Sam... why did he come here, anyway?" Their conversation was cut short, with Crowley appearing at the foot of her bed. She leapt to her feet, scooping up the demon knife.

"I have an update on why you're a special order," Crowley said with a grin. Sam held an angel blade aloft.

"There are easier ways to deliver a message," Elanor replied.

"I couldn't possess you," he continued. "And, I imagine, that means you can't be forced or coerced to be an angel's vessel either."

"What does that mean?"

"It means an angel can't ride your meat-suit into the sunset."

"No - why does it matter."

"Oh, I don't know yet. But I'm accumulating clues. Your blood is special, on top of being virginal, so your flesh can't be possessed. Maybe you're the Virgin Mary or something. Anyway, I have business in Prague. I'll be around." He was gone as quickly as he had come - she looked at Sam, dumbfounded.

"What?" she asked lamely. She looked a bit green. "Did you tell him I was a virgin?" Sam shook his head.

"But if he knows the spell he might have put two and two together that way. And, well, some demons just know," added Sam, thinking of Ruby.

The mystery was beginning to exhaust Elanor but Sam was ready to dig for answers. They travelled back to the bunker in a short caravan. So several days Elanor dug through research. There wasn't much to it. People who were more vulnerable were typically easier to possess, but she didn't know how to rate herself on that one. She wasn't exactly a beacon of happy and healthy. But she spoke aloud, trying to think of reasons just based on what she had learned in the past few months. Which was quite a bit, though still nothing in comparison to the vast knowledge that Sam possessed.

"Some magic is stronger than the things found in Christian lore," Sam told her, looking for a book on the shelf. "Leviathans were the first beast and before we knew any of their weaknesses we witnessed a witch subdue one. Not kill it - but subdue it. I think one of a few things may be happening with you. Maybe you have something to do with fairies-" Elanor snorted but Sam continued. "Witchcraft... or maybe some other kind of magic. You might have some demon in you or you could have grace in you - but I think one of the angels would have said something. I mean, if you summon a guardian angel when there isn't one on you... whether it's intentional or not, I figure there's a reason God would want you protected. It might even mean that you had an angel assigned to you - who died in the fall. Angels don't really have instincts, so much as orders. So I figure somewhere in their coding they know what you are."

"So we just have to ask the angels?" Sam shook his head.

"It doesn't really work like that. But we might be able to ask an angel."

"But what do we ask?"

"Well, for starters, whether or not the urge to protect you that the angels seem to have comes from God or one of the archangels. They're the ones the angels have been following since God left." But Elanor was sleepy. She wanted to rest. Sam wasn't interested in giving Elanor time to relax. As far as he was concerned the path to saving Dean was on hiatus and while he hated it - he knew that he couldn't just feed Elanor to him and be done with it. He wanted something foolproof this time. And since both Castiel and Crowley were indicating something special about Elanor, he thought it was reasonable to find a way to harness whatever she had going on to save his brother. Sam made a call as Elanor repacked a bag - this time for several days.

"We're going to see the angels," Sam told her. She didn't want to be on the road but she didn't argue.

"When are we going to start drawing my blood again?" She asked. She wasn't particularly keen on the activity - but she knew it would have to happen.

"Soon," he replied simply. "You could sleep if you want."

"Do you ever?" she asked. He nodded. She laughed a little. She was watching his hands on the wheel as she curled up on her side of the front seat. He was a competent driver, which was something she had always admired. It was like watching someone play an instrument. Oh, she could drive of course. But some people made it into an art form. Any car was an extension of themselves. That's what she admired. She didn't really plan to fall asleep - hadn't decided to, but when she found herself running in dewy grass at twilight she realized she had slipped from the real world into her subconscious.

It wasn't a lucid dream. Well, she wasn't in control of it. She was following the script her mind had designed and walked down a land-bridge over still reflective waters. She watched her feet slip over the grass, but felt no breeze and saw no forms. Until the bridge stopped. And again she turned around, to walk back up the path. The tiny peninsula widened at the base, she saw now, and began to run back to the main land. And then she felt pain. It started at the base of her spine - a burn that she couldn't fight and spread outward. She collapsed, and as she turned to her back to look up at the darkening sky she felt fire burst around her - and watched as streaks formed in the sky. Plummeting downward. They collided with the flaming water without a sound, but the wave the impact created blew at her. She watched the skin fade from her finger-tips, watched her bones become evident.

She awoke with a gasp, and Sam looked over at her. She looked at the clock - she'd been asleep for maybe two hours.

"You okay?" he asked.

"Yeah," she said, straigthening.

"Anything worth hearing about?" he continued. She relayed her dream though it didn't seem important. "Do you usually have such vivid dreams?"

"Yeah," she replied with a nod and a yawn.

"Heavy on the symbology?"

"Usually," she said. "My friends and family used to think I was making them up. That's when I started trying to keep the diaries. But they never seemed important." She felt as though she was close to remembering something important, but though she gave it a second nothing came.

"Well, sounds like heaven and hell are colliding in your dreams. Weird about the skeleton thing, though." She laughed a little. "Do they scare you? I mean, in the dreams, are you scared?"

"Not really. Except for the one with you. I mean, I don't really have emotions in my dreams - unless the emotion is, like, part of the dream," she explained. "I've never thought about it. And even when I do have emotions... I mean, do you ever dream about being drunk?" He nodded. "Usually when you dream about being drunk... do you feel drunk or do you just know that you are?"

"I think I just know?" Sam stated, slowing to a stop at the red light.

"Usually that's how emotions are in my dreams," she said. "Like I know how I feel, more than I'm actually feeling it. I was terrified in that dream, though. Between the asteroid and you being all creepy."

"Understandable," replied Sam.

"Did you ever figure anything out about that? Was I dreaming of you being Lucifer?" Sam didn't answer. He didn't have an answer. He kept telling himself it was some kind of coincidence but if his life had taught him anything it's that they don't exist. Elanor felt ba suddenly for asking, so she tried to change the subject. "Do you want me to drive for a while?" Sam looked at her as if he were judging her capability.

"I'm rested enough." He started to speak but held back. On any other occasion she would have pressed him, but she didn't bother. He pulled to the shoulder a few minutes later.

"All right," he said, handing her the keys to her car before he got out. She slid over and continued on the map he had set on his phone for her. He seemed to always know where he was going but she knew he'd been doing this for his entire life. Driving the dark highways of the continental United States. She wondered as she drove if he'd ever worked in Canada or Mexico - or overseas. She drove in silence for a while, as Sam managed to fall asleep. Dawn was just beginning to lighten the sky when her favorite song came through the shuffle on her player. She smiled vaguely as she began to sing along. It wasn't a long song, but she loved it. Every lilt in the singer's voice, every climb and every fall she followed it without missing a beat. It was a song she'd been singing with Regina since she was tiny. Even before her parents had passed, she and her aunt had been quite close. It was the kind of admiration little girls had for beautiful women.

"You have a nice voice," she heard Sam mumble. She glanced at him. She hadn't meant to wake him.

"Sorry," she said, as the last strums of the guitar lead the song to a close.

"No. It's nice," he assured her, sitting up a bit straighter. "Dean has a nice voice too." He'd slept for nearly six hours as she drove. He yawned into his fist, and looked at the map she still had up. They were nearly there.

"I'll take the rest of the way, if you want," he offered. She agreed, easing to the shoulder. Her back was beginning to ache. They swapped seats, and she snuggled down in the chill of the wee hours - her thick sweater perfect for her needs. She didn't fight the urge to curl up on the seat and so pressed her back against the door and folded her legs under herself. She fell asleep clutching the back of the seat. And again she dreamed. This time she was in the car, driving splendidly down a sunny road with her aunt at the wheel of the nova. Sam drove in silence, he had even turned off the radio and when he drove into the city where the angels were still holding base camp he reached over to wake Elanor. He had meant to touch her shoulder - where Dean's shoulder would have been. The habit of the movement a strange reminder until he met with Elanor's soft curls. She woke as he pressed her bangs back from her face.

"Hey," she said softly.

"Hey," he agreed. "We're about to get to the angels." They arrived without ceremony, few of the angels even looking up when they came in. There were probably guards posted. It was Hannah who greeted them, the black hair of her vessel moving subtly as she nodded to them.

"Castiel is out," she said promptly.

"Where is he?" Sam asked. Elanor looked on, still a little drowsy.

"He had a task." She was being rather closed - apparently she didn't want the Winchesters involved at all. "It is nice to see you again, Elanor," she said, turning to the young woman. Elanor smiled at her. "You seem well."

"I am," Elanor assured her. "Is Othniel here?"

"No, he is also out."

"How's he doing?" They chatted back and forth for a moment, in the awkward exchange of an angel and a human, and then Sam cleared his throat.

"We need to speak to Metatron," said Sam. Hannah looked hesitant.

"Please," Elanor pressed. "I think he may know something about me." Still Hannah wasn't sure. But Elanor had a way of persuading the beings around her. She smiled sweetly, calmly referencing her confusion and her concerns, but carefully avoiding anything related to Dean's circumstance, or their interactions with the King of Hell. She referenced Othniel before Hannah agreed.

"I'll take you to him," Hannah said. "But you won't get anywhere." They were led down a hall, into an east-facing set of rooms. Metatron sat, tied to a chair, much like a dentist's chair. He was humming quietly, his eyes glazed over. Bars had been installed to immitate a jail cell, though it didn't look particularly sturdy, the angelic engravings were enough to keep the angel sealed with or without the extra seals burned into the leather straps that bound him.

"Metatron," Sam called, stepping to the cage. The angel didn't blink, didn't move. He showed no sign of noticing Sam at all. They spent a few minutes trying to get through to him but at no point did they appear to phase him - even after Hannah let Sam into the cell with him. After a while they gave up and stood apart from the other angels, speaking in low tones.

"What happened, anyway?" Sam asked.

"What do you mean?" Hannah prompted. She preferred this man to the other Winchester. She still had not forgiven the murder of Tessa the reaper. Because of it she distrusted both of the men Castiel seemed so inclined to trust and to protect.

"Why is he," Sam paused, searching for the right phrase. "Catatonic? How was heaven even closed? I thought he had a way?

"He does," Hannah commented. She didn't particularly want to discuss this, but didn't see the harm. "But when we took him into our custody he still had some followers. For some reason and they closed the gates again. We believe they may in fact be in heaven, possibly communicating directly with Metatron on a wavelength we have not been able to focus on."

"And his condition?" Elanor asked, gesturing.

"We're not sure. Some think it is his way of coping with loss, others say he is meditating. I'm sorry I couldn't be of more help to you."

They left shortly after, and as they ate they settled on staying in a motel for the night, rather than starting the drive back to Kansas.