*Warning: It gets gory*
Adeliza let her eyes scan over the address on the slip of paper Raum had handed her. It wasn't far from there were by any means, and by the photo reference he had of the house, it looked like Zella was alive and well.
"Okay..." she looked up at him. "We can leave now. But you're going to need to change into a crow." At the quizzical tilt of his head, Adeliza elaborated. "You're eight inches taller than me and you're a man. If that's not threatening to a hermit, I don't know what is."
"What about you?" Raum scoffed. His hand gestured to her entire person: she had a leather jacket, tight pants, blood-red lipstick, and a constant aura of dissatisfaction surrounding her. "Adeliza, you may be short, but you simply radiate darkness."
She sighed in exasperation and took a tissue out of her pocket, using it to wipe off her lipstick. "Better?" she snapped.
"No."
"Fine. Give me your damn coat."
After a displeased Raum shrugged off his newest deep blue jacket, Adeliza pulled it on, grimacing as it fell to her ankles. "You realize there's an angel who always wears trench coats too, right?"
"Then that angel must have a fantastic sense of style," he quipped. "While you're at it, wipe that scowl off your face along with your makeup."
"As I skin you alive? Gladly." Adeliza glowered at him.
Raum only gave her a cheeky grin, and he shrunk down into a bird, leaving a pile of clothes in his wake. Out of spite for his insult, she stepped on his clothes on the way to the road. He'd let out an indignant crow at that.
Raum flew ahead as Adeliza trailed behind him, hardly paying any attention to her surroundings. She sort of wished that "Meg" was still alive. She couldn't for the life of her call Meg by her original name anymore ever since that Winchester fiasco. Back when Adeliza raked in soul deal after soul deal, it was she and Meg who wreaked chaos at the command of Azazel while Lilith was incapacitated. She remembered hearing Raum's name pass through conversation a few times over the centuries, but for a man who claimed to steal from kings and turned into a bird, he was relatively unknown.
Reilly, on the other hand... Good God, that pest butted in on everything she could to gain power. It reminded Adeliza of a distant 'buddy' of hers, but he was far more subtle about it and was, more often than not, successful.
Suddenly, Raum let out a loud chirp to catch her attention, and Adeliza focused on the house in front of her. It was painted a deep brown and was made to blend in with the scenery surrounding it, so that had Raum not been there, Adeliza would've surely passed it. The lights were dimmed but noticeably turned on and decorating the walls of the house were sigils Adeliza recognized as shielding runes. To humans, which meant that this woman most likely didn't know much about monsters.
Adeliza made sure Raum was perched on a nearby fence post before knocking on the solid oak door. She could hear muffled clicks of one...Two...Three...Four...Five...Six? Seven locks.
"Talk about trust issues," Adeliza muttered to herself.
The door creaked open, revealing a woman far smaller than Adeliza was. Maybe five foot one, give or take an inch. She had long, silky black hair, a pale face, and beady blue eyes that seemed to hold centuries of wisdom. She stared at Adeliza with extreme caution, like any visitor she could possibly get would be out to kill her.
In the kindest and most welcoming voice she could muster, Adeliza introduced herself. "I'm Adeliza Hyem," she said, revealing her full name to both Raum and Zella. "Are you Zella Yanzova?"
Eyes wide, Zella nodded.
A bit wigged out by her silence, Adeliza cleared her throat and continued. "I'm a researcher on the four dimensions and while my partner's investigating Hell, I'm looking up the lesser known of the four, Limbo - "
Zella suddenly smiled widely and swung her door open on the way. She gestured for Adeliza to come in with the great enthusiasm she was previously lacking. Awkwardly, Adeliza obliged, and she found that this lady wasn't just an expert on Limbo - she was a follower of it.
A single billboard covered an entire wall, and on that board were pinned articles, diagrams, posters, notes, maps, theories, websites, and hasty sketches. Despite the chaos brewing on that particular wall, the rest of the house appeared well kept and homey.
Adeliza settled herself into the plush sofa and watched as Zella grabbed a notebook from a drawer. Instead of sitting across from Adeliza, she sat directly beside her. She scribbled something down on the paper and showed it to the demon.
Sorry, I have no voice, it read, I was born without one.
"Oh," Adeliza said aloud, perplexed.
Inconvenient, but it didn't make a difference.
"Okay... well, do you mind if I ask you a few questions about Limbo?"
Zella shook her head."Great," Adeliza gave her a smile that she hoped didn't appear too fake. "So, what, in your definition, is limbo?"
Zella's eyes sparkled at this and she hurridly began to scribble down her answer. Her hands moved like lightning and it was only ten seconds before she presented a lengthy paragraph.
It's precisely what is sounds like: limbo. The twilight zone. Nothing seems to be real and time moves slowly. Say someone's in limbo for a month in our time: it'll have been longer in their time. The thing about their time is that they're said to age as normal, according to many powerful astral projectors, but for me Limbo means empty. Lonely. Dark. Souls floating around lost in their own head.
This time Adeliza didn't have to fake her fondness over the woman. She was straight and to the point, unquestioning — Adeliza liked that in a person.
"Thanks, Zella. How do people know this if it's impossible to open a portal to Limbo?" Adeliza asked. She was hinting at a way to open limbo, and thankfully Zella was smart enough to pick up on it. She appeared grateful at the subtly as she picked up her pen.
Impossible? No. But there's several objects needed... some that I'm not even sure exist. One of which is a feather willingly given from an angel. The second is power – I think it's souls or at the very least astral training. The third is an actual astral projector to pinpoint the exact location, and that brings us to our fourth and final item... the blood of the antichrist or the blood of a nephilim.
Zella hesitated slightly, then quickly added one last sentence. You're looking to open Limbo, aren't you?
There was no point in lying to her. After all, who was she going to tell?
'Okay, that was rude and uncalled for,' Adeliza thought to herself. Zella was the epitome of a human she could learn to like.
"Yes, I am," Adeliza said.
Zella smiled, though she looked a bit skeptical. Well, I wish you the best of luck...
"What a wonderfully one-sided conversation!"
Adeliza froze at the high-pitched song of the torturer himself. She snatched the notes and shoved them in her pocket, standing up and facing him. Alistair was there and he was holding Raum's crow form by the neck.
"A little birdie tells me you're going against Hell?" Alistair giggled. He thrust the bird at her, and seconds later Raum transformed back into a human. While it was the least of their problems, Raum conjured up a pair of jeans and shrugged them on. She tried to ignore the awkward silence after he'd finished, but really?
Zella was standing behind Adeliza and cowering in fear, eyes wide as she looked between Alistair and Raum.
"Alistair," she greeted. "It's been awhile. I assume you're doing well?" She asked as though it was as casual as mentioning the weather.
"Me? Oh, just fantastic. But my hellhounds are missing their favorite chew toy..." he trailed off. At that moment Adeliza's phone started ringing. She shot him a cynical grin and opened it, hoping that the distraction would give Raum enough time to both dress himself and conjure up a plan.
"Speaking of chew toys..." Adeliza mumbled, holding the phone up to her ear. "Winchester." She noticed Alistair perk up at the name, a nasty grin spreading across his face like the Cheshire Cat.
"We're ready to cash in one of our favors, hellbreath. So why don't you slap on your monkey wings and come on over?"
"I'll take a raincheck. My schedule is a bit packed at the moment." Adeliza eyed the other demon warily.
There was a scoff. "With what?"
"Put him on speaker, Addie! Come on, give us a little heart-to-heart reunion."
"Shut the hell up before I skin you alive, Alistair!" Adeliza snarled at him. Her vision seemed to tint shades of scarlet rage. For some odd reason, the thought of Alistair being anywhere near the brothers made her sick to her stomach.
What the hell was happening lately? Why was she suddenly getting these random-ass emotions that she, a respectfully unemotional and psychotic young woman, had no business feeling?! She wasn't sure, but she wanted answers. She wanted to know what changed.
"Always resorting to violence," Alistair clucked his tongue disapprovingly.
"What did you just say?" Dean asked, his voice a mixture of fear and disbelief. "Why are you with Alistair?"
Without replying, Adeliza snapped her phone shut. How could a man who spent his time backtalking death and taunting evil be so affected by the mere sound of Alistair? The answer was simple. Someone was messing with her pet humans.
'Raum,' Adeliza said in her mind. 'on my count, you take Zella and run.'
You think you can take on Alistair alone?
'No. I know I can. One... two... now!'
Adeliza grabbed Zella and thrust her into Raum's arms faster than Alistair could even begin to process what'd happened. Once he did, all his humor and mocking ceased. He was filled with a deep, terrifying rage. But so was she, and hers was mixed in with her favorite weapon of choice: spite. Spite and rage fueled demons and unlike Alistair, her soul was overflowing with it.
"You want to dance, Addie?" Alistair said. He strode forwards and Adeliza didn't back off, not when they were eye to eye, not when he wrapped his hand around her throat, and not when his voice snarled poison words into her ear. "Mitto ad inferni profunda et Adiuro vos aeternum. Mitto ad inferni profunda et - "
Adeliza pressed her lips against his, and she was living proof that not even monsters could resist temptation. As his tongue roamed her mouth, she smiled and clamped her teeth down on it, then stood back as he yelled out in agony. She spat it out on the ground.
"I'm sorry, you were saying?" Adeliza batted her eyelashes. "You know what? Don't worry about it. I'll finish it for you. Mitto ad inferni profunda et Adiuro vos aeternum, Mitto ad inferni profunda et Adiuro vos aeternum, Mitto ad inferni profunda et Adiuro vos aeternum - "
His eyes turned a milky white unlike any other demon she'd ever seen, and she watched in satisfaction as black smoke poured from her mouth and traveled down to the depths of hell. She was just about to go find the Winchesters when she spotted the severed tongue on the ground, then the stirring man, and decided to bring them a homecoming present.
A/N: Sorry this took so long lmao. I accidentally turned it into one giant paragraph and had to go back on my phone and it went like "enter, space, enter, space - FUCK I PRESSED THE WRONG BUTTON RESET RESET - enter, space, enter space - SHIT I SJDSK" and yeah. Hope you liked it; sorry about the tongue thing