A/N: Word of warning: Sam's part in the development of the story is pretty much over. He's not in this chapter. Again, thank you for all your reviews! Also, I should let you know that the first scene is a flashback. Just in case it's not clear. And it's pretty dark. Word of warning. I'd say this is the darkest chapter I've ever written. And I really don't care much for it.
Tabula Rasa
Caden ran down the stairs as she checked her watch. It was 7:00. Crap! I am going to be so late to work! she thought.
Maverick ran ahead of her as she started the coffee pot. He danced and tried to lick her face as she dumped food into his bowl.
She ran back upstairs to change from her sleep clothes to a dress. As she was applying makeup, she heard Maverick growling and barking at the front door.
She ran back downstairs to see Maverick standing at the door, his fur standing straight up. "What is it, Mav?" she asked him.
He ignored her and continued growling and scratching at the door.
"Go out your own door."
He stopped growling, as if to think about that advice. Finally, he turned and ran to the back door and out his doggie door.
"Crazy dog," she muttered to herself as she poured herself a cup of coffee. She mentally evaluated what she had to do today as she heard Maverick growling in the back yard.
She put down her mug as she saw the time on the coffee maker flicker on and off. Just then, she heard Maverick's growling turn into a sharp whimper, then silence.
"Maverick!" She ran outside.
Maverick lay dead on the ground.
"No!" she cried out, kneeling beside her best friend. "Please, God, no!"
"Cadmiel," a female voice behind her hissed out. "It was just a mutt. Besides, it attacked us."
Caden turned around to see Rick and Justin Peterson standing on her porch, flanking a girl who she recognized as Justin's girlfriend, although she didn't know the girl's name. Justin had a shotgun trained on her. At the same time, all three intruders' eyes flipped to display their demonic influences. The men's eyes turned black; the girl's eyes turned white.
"Lilith?" she choked out. "Why did you kill my dog?"
She stepped forward, squatting down beside Caden, and slowly said, "It attacked us. You should have trained it better, Cadmiel."
"What do you want?"
She stood back up. "I simply I want to know how much Dean remembers. I know you've been helping him regain his memories, and I know that some or all of them have come back. If everything has come back, it's going to be bad for everyone."
"Especially you, right?" Caden stood up.
"I want you to tell me everything that you know Dean remembers. Oh, and I also want your grace."
"What? I'm not giving you my grace."
"I didn't think so. Now I'll settle for asking again how much Dean remembers. Someone's going to die today. It's going to be you or Dean."
Caden looked up at the men on her porch. She wished they would say something. "It could be you, Lilith. Since you're not asking Dean personally, I'm taking it to mean that you don't want to see him. You're scared of him!"
Lilith glared at her. "I'm not scared of any human."
"Yet you're scared of Dean. This is the reason you want my grace, why you're asking me about what he remembers. The only way you think you can defeat him is if you have an angel's powers! Now, smoke away because I have to bury my dog. And I'm already late for work." She walked away from Lilith and up her porch, but Rick and Justin blocked her way. "Move, boys, or I'll make you move."
"I don't think you will, Cadmiel," Justin said. "You can't. Right now, you're human." He leaned forward, and Caden leaned back, disgusted by his breath. "You know, I've always wanted you. Or actually, Justin has always wanted you. I might actually leave him for a few minutes and let him have some fun with you before I come back and have my own fun with you."
"We're going to have a lot of fun," Rick sneered, squeezing her arm and roughly pulling her to him. "We'll get you to beg for mercy, then you will give us everything we want, including that grace of yours."
"And I'm going to watch!" Lilith chimed up.
As Caden turned to her, Justin reached out and grabbed her grace crystal and pulled his hand back as it shocked him. After shaking the pain out of his hand, he responded by punching Caden in the face. She staggered back, keeping from dropping to her porch stairs by Rick tightening his grip on her arm, twisting it.
"You're an idiot!" Lilith said as she stepped onto the porch beside them. "You're not going to just take her grace from her. Only an angel can touch that crystal, unless she gives it to us. And she will give it to us. Take her upstairs. Avoid any Key of Solomon she has in the house."
Caden tried to pull herself away, but Rick kept his vice-like grip on her arm and pulled back. She felt her shoulder slowly start to separate. Unless she wanted all her joints to get dislocated now, she knew she had better stop struggling.
She had a feeling that more pain would be coming.
Dean pulled up to Caden's house and looked around. It was quiet. Too quiet.
"I have a bad feeling about this," he muttered, getting out of the car. He could feel his hair stand up on his neck, adrenaline pumping. Something was very wrong. He grabbed his rock salt shotgun and holy water and crept to the backyard.
His heart broke when he saw Maverick lying dead in the yard. Although Caden was obviously alive when he spoke to her about 10 minutes ago, anything could have happened to her between that time and now.
He slowly walked away from the dead dog, examining his surroundings.
Caden's pained scream from her bedroom interrupted his careful examination of his surroundings. He needed to get to her. Now.
He picked the lock on her back door. It easily opened. It could be a trick, he thought as he gently opened the door and scanned around the inside. He didn't see anything.
As he entered the kitchen, he heard Caden cry out in pain again. He needed to get to her.
But Rick sitting at the table with his back turned to Dean was blocking his way.
Now I know why he wasn't at work. Dean raised his gun, bracing himself for anything.
As if he sensed Dean behind him, Rick turned around. "Dean! I should have known. You couldn't stay away from her. Her knight in tarnished armor, right?"
"What are you doing, Rick?"
He grinned as his eyes turned black. "Waiting for another slice of angel food cake. Justin is having his fun with her now."
Caden screamed in pain again. This time it was longer and it made Dean's blood run cold.
"You son of a bitch," he hissed at Rick.
"Oh, Dean, consider yourself fired."
Dean had enough of this. Although Rick wasn't physically threatening him, Dean decided that salt pellets in this asshole's chest might do him some good.
He fired the gun, driving the demon possessed man back. Towards the living room. Towards the Devil's Trap.
Unfortunately, by the time Dean reached him to drag him to the living room, Rick was already up, and in a fighting mood.
"Oh, you are so fired," Rick said as he gave Dean a hard right hook to his jaw.
Dean responded with his own right hook, driving Rick further back to the Devil's Trap. "Actually, I wanted to tell you that I quit."
Rick sneered, and Dean slammed the butt of his gun into the man's stomach, making sure that he didn't hit anything bones or vital organs.
Five more feet. Dean unscrewed his flask of holy water, splashing it on the man, driving him back more. Rick finally stumbled into the Devil's Trap.
"Don't move," he heard Justin's voice sneering at his back, and Dean felt a shotgun barrel in the small of his back.
"You don't want to do that, Justin," Dean said.
"Sure I do. Drop your gun."
"OK." Dean uncocked his gun and dropped it on the ground in front of him. He felt the barrel of Justin's press in his back again. With that, he turned around, yanked the gun out of Justin's hands and unloaded the ammunition in one move.
Justin stared at Dean, his black eyes glaring sullenly at him.
Dean grabbed the flask of holy water and splashed it in Justin's face, causing the teenager to stagger back, smoke coming off of him. It forced Justin in the direction away from the Devil's Trap, but it allowed Dean to maneuver into position to move around him. He shoved Justin hard towards the Devil's Trap.
He ignored Rick yelling at him and used him momentum to punch Justin further towards the ancient symbol.
Finally, Justin tripped backwards into his demonic father's arms. As soon as both of them were trapped like the roaches they were, Dean grabbed his gun and turned to go up the stairs towards Caden's bedroom.
"Don't move," he told the two men. "Oh, wait. You can't."
"You are so fired!" Rick yelled at him.
"I quit, Dick," Dean muttered to himself as he quietly hurried up the stairs.
Dean paused at the top of the stairs, training his weapon around the hall. There was nothing.
He walked by Caden's open room and scanned the room before his eyes fell on Caden's body. She was lying on the floor, unconscious, bleeding, a knife through her right shoulder pinned her to the floor. Her right wrist was broken, and her right knee looked like it had been smashed. Dean's knee and shoulder hurt in sympathy. A symbol was crudely drawn in her blood next to her.
She looked dead.
Dean knelt beside her and checked her pulse. It was weak but present. Her shallow breathing had a disturbing rattle in it.
She opened the one eye that wasn't swollen shut slowly and blurrily looked up at him. "Dean?" she mumbled, almost inaudible.
"Yeah. You're gonna be OK."
"Christo?"
"I'm not possessed."
"Just checking." She closed her eye again.
Dean got up and grabbed the phone. "That's not gonna do you any good," Caden mumbled. "They pulled the phone jack out in all my phones after I talked to you." Dean pulled out his cell. "No reception either," she continued. "One of the weird side effects from my blood letting spell."
He came back to her side. "You're gonna be OK," he repeated.
She shook her head weakly. "Lilith left here before I heard your car pull up. She's talking with her protégé."
"Do you know who her protégé is?" Dean asked.
She shook her head.
"She's coming back. Grab a knife. Not like this one in my shoulder. One with markings. A simple exorcism won't do for Lilith. You are gonna have to kill her."
Dean noticed that the slur in her voice was getting more pronounced. He went to her knife display case and opened it, pulling out the biggest knife with markings in the group. He tucked it in the waistband of his jeans.
"I can slow her down for you. But you are going to have to kill her. No matter what form she may be in."
Dean turned back to Caden. She was no longer wearing her necklace.
"I need you do something for me, Dean." Her voice was stronger. He walked back to her. She held up her necklace. Her crystal had faded. "I need you to hang on to this until it's over."
"You said that you could die without this." Dean gently pushed her left hand holding the necklace down against her chest.
"I'm gonna die anyways. I know you'll protect my grace. When it's over, and Lilith's dead, break the crystal before it turns black and get out of the house as soon as you do."
He took the necklace from her. "I understand." As her eye closed, he put the necklace in the back pocked of his jeans.
"Dean, it takes a lot of concentration for her to use her powers. It takes a lot of concentration to immobilize you. I can slow her down, weaken her. Also, when her eyes go white, she can't see anything. If you see her hand start glowing, there should be a second or two that you should be able to move, especially if she's weakened."
"Thanks." He stood up from her. "Now, I've got your two attackers waiting to be exorcised. And, trust me, I'll take care of Lilith. Just hang on, OK? I know you don't believe this, you'll be fine, and you'll be wanting your necklace back very soon."
As he walked out of the room, he heard Caden call "Dean?"
He came back in. "Yeah?"
A tear ran down her opened eye. "They killed my dog."
"I know. I'm sorry."
Dean ran downstairs and spotted the two demonic men, still standing in the Devil's Trap.
"How did you like Cadmiel's condition?" Justin asked. "She was very feisty when we were having sex with her. In fact, we had to shatter her kneecap and pin her to the floor to keep her from getting too rough."
Dean closed his eyes. The Latin words came flooding back to him. He was amazed, although he couldn't let them see it. Before all this happened, he didn't have the exorcism memorized. After Lilith's little mind zap, he now remembered it.
He started reciting it, opening his eyes to see Rick and Justin's heads flopping around.
Hell is too good for these demons, Dean thought. However, as much as he wanted to, he knew these two assholes probably didn't deserve to die.
He finished the exorcism and both men reared their heads back and twin pillars of demonic smoke poured out of their mouths. The smoke exploded against the Devil's Trap and disappeared.
Just then, Dean heard rapid footsteps on the stairs. He looked behind him in time to see a crying teenaged girl running to the door.
She saw the three men in the living room and burst out, "You promised me a dangerous, twisted time, Justin! I didn't think it would be this twisted! I don't want you to ever speak to me again!"
"Lydia!" Justin ran out of the house after the girl.
"Dean?" Rick hesitantly began. "I couldn't help myself. You are more than welcome to come back to the garage."
"I still quit."
Rick nodded and walked out of the room and into the front hall. Dean watched him as he came to a stunned stop. He looked wide-eyed at Dean then back at the steps.
Dean walked into the front hallway to see Caden leaning hard against the stairs' railing. Her right side was covered with blood from the knife that she obviously pulled out of her shoulder.
She grinned maliciously. "Good help is so hard to find," she sneered.
Dean could feel Rick slink out the door behind him.
Caden's grin widened. She raised her hand, and Dean was thrown against the wall. He tried to move away, but he couldn't.
Caden hobbled her way down the stairs. "Hi, Dean," she said cheerfully, flipping her eyes to white.
TBC
A/N: Maybe I should have taken more time with it. I don't know.