Chapter Nine
Sam bore a look of deep apology as Crowley moved around the dungeon Abaddon had kept him in, casting wards and other protective spells so that they could work undisturbed. Crowley's face was pale, either from the torture he'd endured or the fact the woman he loved was offering herself up to become a demon. He worked silently, keeping his mind focused on the task. Whenever Sam tried to open a dialogue, Crowley patiently hushed him. He knew what the boy wanted to say; he just didn't want to hear it.
Murron perched on the gurney, washed clean of Crowley's blood and the blood of those tortured before him. Whenever Crowley passed her, he slid his hand over her knee, as if to reassure himself of her being there. He finished, coming up to stand beside her. He took up her hands and lifted them to his lips, pressing a kiss on her knuckles with great reverence. "Are you sure?" he asked again in a whisper. "Are you absolutely sure? Because your survival is assured; there's no need to do this to come back."
"I'm not doing it to come back," Murron replied, shifting her hands till she held his instead. She returned the affectionate gesture. "I'm doing it to help Sam, like you were."
"Crowley's right, Murron," Sam interjected. "You don't have to do this if Gabriel's already agreed to bring you back. And as a human. I can live with turning a random soul into a demon. Really."
"Maybe it's because I'm dead, but I can see into your heart, Sam, and I know that's not true," Murron said. "Both of you," she smiled, looking between them. "I swear I will be fine. I'm not afraid."
Sam exchanged a meaningful look with Crowley. "Are you sure you want to be here for this?"
"Yes. I won't leave her alone," Crowley replied. "I can't."
"I'll put Max outside, then, for extra precaution," Sam said, rapping his thigh briskly to call the hound to his side. Max dutifully bounded out to stand in the corridor and Sam shut the door after him. He glanced back up at Crowley, then looked towards the trolley. "You might have to tell me what to do," he told Crowley, deep shame in his voice. "I've...never had to do this before."
Crowley felt his heart catch in his throat. The idea of having to guide Sam through the torture of the woman he loved galled him. It sat in the pit of his stomach like a chunk of ice. Still, as he gazed back at Murron, who returned it with gentle encouragement, he hardened himself to the task and patiently began explaining the procedure.
The first step was to humilate the soul, especially if the soul was female. To do this, he had Murron strip and lay out on the gurney. Her cheeks were pink as she lay there exposed beneath Sam's gaze. Sam, out of some instinctive respect, averted his eyes, prompting Crowley to snap at him to pay attention. "You either do this proper or you don't do it at all," he hissed. "It's not enough that the soul be embarrassed. You have to frighten them, make them fear for their lives. They know they're dead and assume the dead cannot feel pain. It's your job to show them otherwise. Take up the knife there. The silver one." He jerked his chin towards the trolley behind Sam. Sam did as he was told, taking up the silver knife and stepping up to the gurney. "Silver is the best thing for black witches' souls. You'll want to start slow, build up the fear. Go on, then."
Sam hesitated, the blade above Murron's stomach. He cast an uneasy glance up at Crowley, eyes still full of unspoken apologies. The stare Crowley returned was hard, cold. Sam drew in a deep breath and pressed the knife to Murron's skin, breaking it and drawing blood. She inhaled sharply, biting her bottom lip against the pain. Her fingers gripped the edge of the gurney, knuckles whitening whenever Sam made another cut. Just how long she'd hold out depended on Sam. He couldn't rush, but he also couldn't afford to be gentle, either.
The process was slow. Sam had no taste for this sort of thing. He proceeded to gingerly cut and prod with the knife, his face a study in inner torment. Though she did not cry out, Murron still whimpered softly. The sound pierced through Crowley's heart and, snatching up the knife from Sam's grip, presented it to him. "If you're going to pussyfoot around this, Sam, I'm going to have do this for you. You don't just chip away at them. You have to hurt them. You have to mean it. You don't mean a bit of this."
"I'm torturing your girlfriend, you ass!" Sam returned heatedly. "With you standing right there! You're not making this easy!"
"It's not supposed to be easy!" Crowley bit back. "It's supposed to be messy. Hard. Satisfying. You either go at it with gusto or you don't go at all."
"What the hell would you know about how this feels? Do you think you could actually do this to her? And enjoy it? I don't believe that."
"You don't think I could do it? You don't think I, the King of Hell, could do it?" Crowley demanded, his grip on the knife tightening. His eyes were wild, he knew, wild with the pain at having to listen to Murron suffer, wild with impatience at having to sit through Sam's clumsy tactics. His conscience fought with his demonic urges: he wanted to save Murron from the pain to come, but he also wanted to inflict it. To show Sam how it was done.
Maybe he would have to show him, after all.
When Sam said nothing, Crowley flipped the knife in his fingers, blade down, and pierced Murron's upper arm. The wound hissed and she screamed. He twisted the blade through her muscle, teeth baring in sadistic delight even as his eyes grew wet with tears. "You have to mean it, Moose!" he cried cruelly. "You have to want to see her bleed, to hear her scream!" He withdrew the knife sharply, jerking loose a fibre of muscle in the process. "Mean it." He moved down the gurney to drive the blade into Murron's thigh. "Mean it!" He jerked it out again, his ears deaf to her screams, rounding the now bloodied table to stand in front of Sam. "Mean it like you've never meant it before! She's not someone you know - she's Meg, she's Ruby, she's Lilith! She's every whore who's ever crossed you, who's ever tried to kill you! She's Azazel, she's Lucifer! You do this right or I swear to God I'll cut your throat for hurting her!" He delivered those last words frantically, his heart and mind at odds, frozen with an agony he'd never felt before.
"All right! I get it! I'll do it!" Sam shouted in return, snatching the knife from Crowley's grasp and pushing him out of the way. He cast Murron one last apologetic glance, then dragged the blade down her torso, cutting deep. With a frantic energy, a desperation to complete the final trial, Sam tore into Murron. He exhausted the use of the silver knife, changing it out for a brutal-looking instrument that plucked and pinched and rent her flesh. Her screams echoed through the room, broken, hoarse.
Behind Sam, Crowley heard her torment with barely-supressed rage. He wanted to snap Sam's neck for what he was doing. He wanted to do it himself, so that it would be finished quickly. He wanted to do anything to shut out the sounds of her screams and sobbing cries for mercy. When he heard his name through one of these tortured cries, he hastened to stand beside her, his eyes turned from the mess Sam had made of her body. He gripped her limp hand, lifeless from the wound he'd made in her muscles, and held it against his ear as if to block out the sounds. She continued to writhe about, mouth open in a perpetual howl of pain, her voice coming in squeaks and gasps and throaty sobs. She jerked as each new cut and wound was made, her back rising from the gurney. She couldn't return Crowley's grip, nor did she seem aware of his presence anymore. The pain had blocked out all other sensation.
An hour passed like this before Sam thrust the trolley from him and stumbled to lean against the wall, panting. "I can't," he gasped. "I can't do this."
Crowley stared at him. "Yes, you can. You have to. You can't leave her like this. You have to finish it."
"Look at her!" Sam shouted, gesturing with an open hand towards Murron. "She's ribbons! How is this not enough?"
"Because she hasn't asked to do it yet!" Crowley reminded him harshly. "I told you this would take a long time; I wasn't kidding. You have to finish it."
"I can't. I'm sorry. I'd rather live with the effects of the trials. I'm better now, I don't have to finish them," Sam insisted. Crowley released Murron's hand and crossed over to where Sam stood. He gripped Sam's shirtfront in both hands, hoisting the taller hunter against the wall with all his demonic strength.
"You finish this," he hissed, twisting the fabric in his hands hard enough to make himself bleed. "I can't let Gabriel restore her soul when it's like this. You have to finish it. If you don't finish it, I will kill you myself."
Sam gaped at him. "How can you be so cruel?" he breathed. "Do you enjoy seeing her like this?"
Crowley dropped Sam with a violence that almost knocked him from his feet. "If you think I enjoy this, you're the cruel one," he replied, voice low. "But you have to finish it. Don't leave her like this."
Sam wilted beneath Crowley's words. "All right, all right. But I need a break. Please, just give me a break."
"You can have ten minutes. After that, I expect you to come back in with your game face on. You will not leave her like this."
Sam nodded reluctantly, then left to stand in the corridor. Alone, Crowley returned to Murron's side. Her eyes were glassy with pain, all awareness gone from them. She stared past him when he bent over her, taking up her hand again. He tried to swallow past the hard lump in his throat as he took in the damage done to her body. As Sam had described, she was indeed ribbons, her flesh hanging in jagged strips from the violently-rent wounds dealt her. The dull white of her hip bones showed through where Sam had cut a sizeable chunk of flesh from her. It was like every nightmare he never knew he could have. With a broken sob, Crowley bent his forehead to rest against hers, sputtering apologies for having hurt her.
Murron shifted her head against his, her voice coming in vague, far-away whispers. Clumsily, she lifted her good hand to him, resting it awkwardly against his face. Her whole body shook, muscles weak and weary from pain. This wouldn't last. Crowley would have to restore her whole again so Sam could repeat the process. That was the true core of the creation of demons: repetition. They had to revisit the pain and the feeling of dread from the pain every session or it wouldn't take. Murron would have to be torn apart and put back together multiple times.
He lifted his head. It would be best to restore her before Sam returned. Dully, Crowley gestured above her: her wounds healed, the evidence of the first round of torture vanishing in an eyeblink. When he looked back at her, her eyes were closed as though asleep. This would not do. He snapped his fingers above her face and her eyes flew open as though a gun had been fired next to her ear. She looked at him frantically, then ran her hands down her body.
"Is it over?" she asked in a breathless whisper. Crowley shook his head.
"You need to be hurt and healed many times before it takes," he informed her numbly. "I don't know how long, though, so don't ask me." He gazed down at her, his heart in his eyes. "Do you remember everything?"
"It's a blur. I just remember pain, lots of it. I remember..." Here she paused, her eyes narrowing pensively. Her brow furrowed, her gaze turning sad. "I remember you stabbing me. To provoke him."
Crowley looked away. "I had to. He can't be weak about this. It has to work."
"Is it too late to stop?"
"Yes."
"Then we keep going. I can stand it." Her words trembled, the confidence she struggled to put into them failing. Crowley squeezed his eyes shut against the fear in her voice. He wanted to stop, to let her up and bring her back to Gabriel. Anything to take the terror from her eyes. But he knew it was too late. Sam had to continue. Murron would become a demon, no matter how much he hated it.
The door opened and Sam came in, his head bowed. He returned to the trolley in silence and took up the silver knife again. When he raised it and his eyes to Murron, there was a hardness in them. It was with a stony face he laid the blade into her again, his expression impassive when she screamed.
It was done.
Sam trudged out of the dungeon, looking as beaten as a whipped dog. He ambled past Crowley, who remained at Murron's side. He knew this came at a high price to Sam's innate sense of goodness, but what more could they have done? The effects of the original trials were finally gone; he was healed. What they'd begun together was finally finished. If they parted ways now, it would be without any debts owned on either side. Sam could return to Dean and Crowley could take Murron away.
Gazing down at her now, her eyes fluttering between brown and black, Crowley felt his stomach drop. The woman he loved was no longer on that table. When she came to, it would be with a new view of things, a darker view. The generous nature that had defined her in life would no longer do so, replaced by something entirely other. Yet, in the very back of his mind, he wondered, had she been right? Would she be able to beat the odds and not lose herself entirely?
But before any of those questions could be answered, they had to get out of Hell. Crowley lifted Murron into his arms, cradling her close, and left the dungeon. Sam was in the corridor with Max at his side; he looked up when Crowley appeared.
"Is she all right?" he asked quietly. Crowley shrugged.
"Too soon to tell. Come on, we should get going."
Silently, the strange quartet drew together, Sam with one hand on Crowley's shoulder and the other resting on Max's back. The dirty corridor vanished from view as Crowley transported them all topside.
Once they reappeared, Murron's body smoked out of Crowley's arms, spiraling away from them. Sam looked up in alarm. "It's instinct," Crowley explained. "She's looking for a body. She'll be back." He looked up at the hunter with tired eyes. "You should go back to Dean. It's hard to say how long we were down there and he's a worrier."
"Don't worry about Dean. I told him I was going out to find angels and interrogate them," Sam said. "I said I'd be gone for a few days, if not more. He's so scattered now I doubt he even knows what month it is."
"It might not be my place to ask, but has Castiel been found yet?" Crowley asked after a moment's silence. Sam shook his head. "Well, he always turns up."
"Yeah," was Sam's absent answer. Then he nodded at a figure moving towards them. "I think she's back."
Crowley looked as well. Even in a foreign body, he recognised Murron's soul immediately. As she came closer, he saw she'd chosen a body similar to her own. The suit's dress sense was more revealing than Murron's had been, though if this bothered her, he couldn't say. Her gait was confident, assured.
She stopped in front of them and did an experimental turn, as if modeling a new dress. "What do you think?" she asked, a smile in her voice. The body was curvy, possessed of straight dark auburn hair, green eyes, and an angular face. She was shorter than Murron had been in life as well. When she'd finished her little spin, she turned those bright, foreign eyes on Crowley. "Do you like it? I found her walking around a mall nearby. She's still in here, screaming, but I can ignore her."
The absolute difference in speech and manner took Crowley aback. He'd anticipated a change in her, but never did he believe she would be so blase` about smothering another person's soul just so she could use their body. Sam, his only impression of her a few hours' old, seemed to share this confusion for he glanced down at Crowley, brows drawn together. "It's very nice, love," Crowley replied. He offered her his hand. "Shall we go, then?"
She accepted it, sidling in close beside him. "Where to?"
"Where do you want to go?"
"Anywhere there's a bed," Murron purred, leaning in to nuzzle Crowley's neck. Sam cleared his throat loudly beside them.
"Maybe I should go back to the bunker. You guys probably have a lot of catching up to do," he remarked uneasily. "Max will have to stay with you; he can't get inside the bunker."
"Of course," Crowley nodded, snapping his fingers to summon the hound to him. "Thank you, Sam, for everything," he added, genuinely grateful. "I don't know what I would have done without you."
"Yeah, same to you," Sam said, glancing at Murron, who'd moved to dropping kisses along Crowley's face and jaw. "I'll - yeah, see you." He gave them an awkward wave, turned, and started for town. Crowley watched him walk away, his attention turning back to Murron when she bit his ear sharply.
"Easy, love," he chided her lightly. "You seem a bit frisky."
"Well, we haven't seen each other in how long now? Hundreds of years?"
Crowley frowned thoughtfully. The change in her was almost vulgar, even to him. The sweetness of temper had fled from her, leaving this wanton creature behind. Maybe he would get used to this Murron, even come to like it. But right now, he really wanted the warmth from her gentle eyes looking back at him, the soft touch of her hand on his. It was her soul, but not her. He would have to get to know this Murron all over again. He sighed, unable to keep it inside any longer. His reluctance was not lost on her.
"What's the matter?"
"You're just different, is all," he replied quietly.
"You don't like it?" There was genuine hurt in her voice. "But I thought you would. Isn't this body pretty?"
"Oh, my darling," Crowley stroked her face affectionately. "That's not it. Don't worry. We'll go and have a bit of a chat, see what becoming a demon has done to you. I can already tell it's made you bolder."
"I thought you liked bold?" Murron remarked, letting one hand slide down his chest suggestively.
"I do," Crowley replied, starting when she brushed her hand over him, giggling. "Okay, I'm taking you somewhere now." He pulled her closer to him, bringing another impish chuckle from her, and snapped his fingers, transporting them back to the cabin.