"Hi! I'm here for a katana," Charlie said, slinging her small daypack down on the counter with a wide smile. Doli stood unobtrusively behind and to her side.
The burly man behind the counter glanced at her, smiled slightly, and said, "Just a moment, miss." He slid away sideways along the crowded space behind the counter, returned quickly with three swords and laid them on the counter for her to look over. "Here ya go, three of our best."
Charlie took one quick look and frowned.
Doli moved forward, picked one up, and her eyes widened. She swept it from side to side and it flexed. Like plastic. Which, Charlie thought, was to be expected, because it was plastic. Doli's eyebrows came down in a slight frown. She shook her head, placed it back on the counter, and said quietly, "Oh. This will not do. At all."
Charlie rapped her knuckles on the counter. "Not for costumes. I want a real katana, and I've heard you have them in stock."
The proprietor shrugged. "Sorry, lady. Lemme try again." He wiggled back out, and returned. This time, when he laid the two swords down on the counter, there was a solid clink. Charlie picked one up, slid it out of the wooden sheath, held it to up to the light, and sighed, annoyed. "Really?!" she snapped. "This is cast aluminum, and not that good, at that, you can see burr marks where it was broken out of the mold." She held it over so Doli could see.
"Hmmm. Perhaps you should try another shop? There are other shops, correct?" She took the sword from Charlie and examined it curiously, turning it over and over.
Charlie leaned on her knuckles on the counter, her face jutting forward. Though she was small, she emanated fierce energy. "Dude! If we had been guys coming in here asking for katanas, would you have tried to get away with those pieces of shit? Seriously?!"
The man blushed. "Look, lady, I'm sorry. The only women I get in here usually are girls going off to some sci-fi convention. And these are good imitations, really, great for cosplay - "
"Yeah, yeah, okay, I've done cosplay, it's okay," Charlie muttered darkly. "But it's pretty darned sexist, even if you're going by your own experience! Do you have real ones you can show me? I don't need top-of-the-line or antiques, just something solid, about, oh, yay big?" She held out her arms, indicating a rough length
He squinted at her, thought, and nodded. "Not the five thousand dollar dealios from Japan. Gotcha. Gimme a sec."
He squirmed out a third time. Doli watched him go thoughtfully, put the fake katana back on the counter, and turned back to Charlie. "Will it be this difficult elsewhere? Why would someone think that reproductive organs change what type of sword - "
She was interrupted by his return. This time, the two swords made a solid thunk when he laid them on the counter. Charlie picked one up, pulled it out, and was already nodding before she had it clear of the sheath, just by listening to the sound. She swept it up by her side in salute, then tried a few forms. Finally, biting her lip, she replaced it in the sheath, shaking her head. "Not this one. It just doesn't feel right for me." The man gave her a quick nod and pushed it aside. She reached for the second one.
She got all the way through the forms this time. The proprietor cupped his chin in his hand, watching her moves with a practiced eye. When she stopped, he just flicked up an inquiring eyebrow at her, and she nodded. "Well," he said mildly. "If I'd seen you do the forms first, I wouldn't have wasted your time. Sorry 'bout that."
"Just don't make assumptions like that the next time a woman walks through your doors," Charlie chided him.
"Yes, ma'am. I'll be more careful next time. It was a pleasure watching you this last time." He smiled, a genuine smile, and shook her hand.
Doli looked down at the clasped hands, puzzled.
"She was already gone."
Dean had heard the soft ruffle of Cas's wings before he spoke, so didn't jump at his sudden appearance.
"That's what I get, having a little 'sister' who's damned smart," he grumped. "Well, we can track her through her phone, I - "
Cas handed him Charlie's cell phone without a word. Dean looked down at it, pursing his lips, then snorted. "Like I said..."
"There was some type of trap, entity trap, laid out on the floor of her hotel room." Cas reached into the glove box, grabbed a pen and some paper and swiftly sketched it out, handed it to him. He squinted down at it, frowning, and tapped his fingers on the steering wheel.
"I've seen that before. Trying to remember where." He thought some more, rubbed the back of his head as if it might stir up some memory. "Son of a bitch! Can't remember!" He restarted the car, put it into gear, and pulled back out onto the road. "So. We know she's thinking of trying to go to Purgatory. What kinds of...entities...know how to get there?"
Cas sighed. "Eve. Dragons? Me. Crowley. None of which are summoned by this circle. We need a researcher."
Dean snorted again. "Which would normally be Sam. Yay, us. Batting a thousand, here."
"Actually, I was thinking we could contact Dani again," Cas said slowly.
Dean grinned. "Dude. Last time, I think we interrupted her and lover boy...calling her back again so soon might not be...well, appreciated, if you get what I mean." He waggled his eyebrows. Cas just stared at him, uncomprehending. "Or not," Dean added, amused.
"Ah. You are referring to Crowley?" Cas asked.
"Mmmph," Dean agreed. He handed his phone to Cas. "Here. Text it to her, see if she's seen it before. We can wait a bit for her response..."
Cas did so, and they drove on in silence until Dean flipped on the radio, and started singing along to the Scorpions.
As promised, the next time they met at the warehouse, Sam brought Windex and paper towels. Rowena made him go over the tabletop three times before she agreed that it was clean enough for use. She chalked out a magic circle on the table, with a square inscribed inside, and a six-pointed star inside that, humming. Sam unbagged the supplies, handing bowl, candles, and herbs to her.
She finished with the chalk, regarded her work with a critical eye, and nodded, dusting the chalk off her hands.
"Now, then, Samuel, if you would sit over there..." She waved her hand to a spot well away from the table. He obediently pulled one of the chairs there and sat down, leaning forward to watch her with interest. In the other-sight, her soul glowed a much deeper blue than most humans', a shimmering navy blue that was almost black.
She laid out four candles at the four cardinal points, consulting a compass, leaving them unlit. Then she placed the bowl in the center of the circle, the herbs into the bowl, lit them, and stood by the table facing north, eyes closed, head up, arms outstretched.
"I call upon thee, Uriel, guardian of Earth, pillar of the north." Sam blinked and frowned slightly at the name she called. "I ask thee for solid strength, for an unbending foundation, for the stability underlying this ward. So mote it be. Fiat lux!" The candle in the north flared to light.
Sam switched to other-sight. The candle glowed emerald green in that view.
Rowena moved to face eastward, her back to Sam. "I call upon thee, Raphael, guardian of Air, pillar of the east. I ask thee for the breath of life, for the caress of the wind, for the power underlying this ward. So mote it be. Fiat lux!" The candle to the east sputtered and lit. In the other-sight, this one was actinic white. The light from the northern candle bent toward it, and the smoke of the two candles seemed to lightly intertwine, mixing with the smoke from the silver bowl. Sam switched to normal sight, and saw only ordinary candles, the white smoke from both drifting lazily directly upward.
Sam coughed gently to capture her attention. She spun around to face him, irritated. "What?"
"So...why are you calling upon the archangels? Aren't they...um...dead?" He was genuinely curious.
She frowned. "Boy. I will explain later, if you please! Interrupting a spell is, at the very least, bad manners, and at the worst can cause it to go awry. You really do not want to be around if that happens. Now, hush!"
She whirled back, long skirt flaring dramatically, and moved to face south.
"I call upon thee, Michael, guardian of Fire, pillar of the south. I ask thee for the fire of the sun, for the heat of life, for the burning strength underlying this ward. So mote it be. Fiat lux!" The third candle burst into flame. It shone vermillion red in the other-sight, and red smoke spiraled outward from it, linking up with the white and the green.
Rowena moved a final time, to face west. Sam could see that she was panting slightly now, a light sheen of sweat on her forehead. The arms she spread outward again were trembling slightly.
"I call upon thee, Gabriel, guardian of Water, pillar of the west. I ask thee for the water of the world, the liquid that flows through our veins, for the flexibility underlying this ward. So mote it be. Fiat lux!" In the other-sight, this candle sizzled sapphire blue when it lit. The smoke from the four candles joined together in a vague web, arching over the table like a dome.
Rowena drew in a deep breath, lowered her arms, seemed to center herself. Then she threw her arms together above her head and called out, "I call upon Earth, Air, Fire, Water: join, thou elements, and guard this place against any power breaking out or breaking in. So mote it be!" She flung her arms outward, and the dome of smoke blasted out from the table, dazzling in colors, and plastered itself against the walls, ceiling, floor. The smoke seemed to writhe for a moment, then settled into a regular latticework of vivid blue in Sam's other-sight. When he looked using normal vision, there was nothing there.
Rowena slumped down. "Whew! Ach, that spell takes it out of me; I haven't used it to ward such a big space in a long, long time. Well, next time it will be easier to do, I am thinking. Practice. I just need some practice." She pulled out the other chair, not bothering to wait for Sam to pull it out, pulled a paper towel off the roll, and daintily dabbed at her forehead.
Sam approached the nearest wall, examining the warding web. He poked at it with a finger; it gave slightly, then became more firm as he pressed, until he couldn't move it any further. He tried to grasp the golden flow of the electric wiring in the wall behind the blue lattice, but couldn't; somehow, the warding made it impossible to reach.
"Hunh," he muttered thoughtfully. He dragged his chair back to the table and sat down.
Rowena frowned fiercely at him. "Samuel. Do not be interrupting my spellwork. Ever. I dinna care if the building is burning down around us! 'Tis dangerous. And stupid. All that power gathered up - if you distract the person holding the power together, under control - it either rebounds on the spellworker, do you see, or smashes outward, uncontrolled." She illustrated by thumping her chest with a fist, then smashing it into the air in front of her.
Sam drew a breath, started to speak. "But - "
She held up a commanding hand. "No. Never. Unless you're thinkin' you can do a better job...?" She arched her eyebrows at him. "Tch. Are you wantin' to learn control or are you wantin' to commit suicide? If it's the latter, my boy, you go right ahead. Somewhere else, not around me."
He glared at her, folding his lips. She glared right back, leaning back in her chair and folding her arms.
"About calling on the archangels...?" he finally asked.
She twitched up an eyebrow. "Tch. I was not calling on them, specifically. Not really. It's more a...metaphor, do you see." She waved her hands, trying to explain. "The four points are guarded by something. Whether it's archangels or not, I do not know. But the spell works, that I do know. And..." She looked at him significantly. "So do you. I saw you pokin' at the wall over there. When you look..." She nibbled at her lip. "Using your power...what do you see?"
He, too, leaned back, stretching out his legs. His forehead wrinkled in thought, and he stared at the blue lattice lacing the wall across from him. "In the other-sight..." he began slowly, "Normally, what I see is...energy. Like...there." He pointed at the electric wiring winding along the base of the wall, and traced it with his finger. "There's a thin flow of yellow light. It's the electric wiring. If I want..." He drew a deep breath, looked back at her. "I can take the electric flow, pull at it, make it into shapes."
Her eyes widened, her eyebrows flew up again, then she nodded.
He went on. "Your...warding?" He tilted an inquiring look at her, and she nodded again. "Your warding shows up like a sparkling blue lattice. On the walls. The floor." He tilted his head back, looked up at the ceiling above. "The ceiling."
"Ahhhh. Go on, do," she said, eyes sharp with interest.
"When I...touch it...it gives way a bit, then hardens so I can't push it any further. And I can't reach the electric wiring behind it."
She hissed out a long breath. "Soooo...now that, my boy, is very interestin'. I can't see that. I simply...sense that it is there. Seems that we have different ways of experiencing the power."
His eyebrows twitched together. "Does that mean you won't be able to teach me to control it?"
She laughed. "Psshhhh. Power is power, giant. We may see it, feel it, differently, but underneath 'tis the same thing. And, ahhh, what a glorious feeling it is, curlin' around in your blood, making your skin tingle, like you could do anything!" She sighed and smiled dreamily. He nodded slowly, intrigued that she felt something similar to what he felt. "Now. Tell me what you were doin' when you lost control."
He haltingly explained how he had herded the electricity behind the storm clouds, how it had generated the lightning bolt he was aiming for, how it had spun out of his control, leading to the lightning storm and the fire. He left out the vampire trucker and the explosion; those were irrelevant, he figured.
She listened with fascination. When he was done, she smiled slowly, somewhat smugly. Her attitude of superiority made him twitch. "Tch. Of course it went boom. Playin' in the big leagues, you were. You pushed too many electrons hither and yon, pilin' them up like that. Clouds, the earth - well, any large amount of one of the elements - very powerful stuff. Touchy. They require delicate handling, not great big sweeps of power. Just a wee nudge will do! So. Out with the scotch now, get yourself a glass, fill it up, and let's start. Fire, I think, will do. A candle flame, eh?" She swept her hands gently across the table in front of herself, nodded, and grabbed another candle, lighting it with a murmur.
He blinked, shrugged, pulled out one of the bottles, and poured himself a glass. He also pulled out a flask, laying it on the table beside the glass. She gave it a skeptical glance.
"What? Scotch isn't enough for you?" she asked lightly.
He smiled thinly at her. "We all have our good luck symbols. This is mine." She shrugged, not really interested. Then she pulled out a deck of cards.
"What's that for?" he asked.
"Well. You're not goin' to get drunk quickly, are you? I figured we'd play a game while we drank. Fill me a glass, too, would you?" She smiled sweetly at him.
She was a deadly gin rummy player. He fell further and further behind as they drank, she lightly, him gulping down scotch from the glass and sips from his flask. He made sure to turn slightly away when he took those sips, and swished the scotch around in his mouth right afterwards, so no tell-tale blood showed on his mouth.
The sipping made the high much slower to affect him, which made sense. Usually, he was desperate enough by the time he drank the blood that he slugged it down, and it hit him fast. This time, however, it was not a tidal wave, but more like a high tide coming in. He could feel it building up, hazing his brain, filling him slowly with the tingling ache, the feeling of exhilaration. By the time Rowena decided it was time to start playing with the fire, his eyes were gleaming and he was feeling reckless and wild. He speech had begun slurring, and he snickered at her tales of scheming against the Grand Coven, her final showdown with Olivette.
He tried very hard to keep in mind that what he was looking for, here, was to control this wave of giddy abandon he felt. He frowned deeply as he realized that even under these controlled circumstances, it might not work, because...well...frankly, the way he felt after drinking Crowley's blood, the rising exhilaration, the pulse of the power racing through his body - he didn't want control.
There came a point where she decided he was drunk enough.
"Now, then, Samuel," she said lightly, placing the candle in front of him. "You seem to work with energy. Fire is energy, too. So. Take the flame and...well, do something with it. We'll see what happens." She shrugged.
He tilted a laconic eyebrow at her, gave her a lazy smile, reached forward with a hand, and pulled the flame into it, letting it dance there for a moment. Then he started spilling it from hand to hand. He watched the flame, entranced, and then started pulling it between his fingers, stretching it out, dazed by its beauty, tracing each individual strand of whirling molecules, feeling its heat but no burn. He reached with his mind and curled it into a ball that he set hovering above his hands.
"So lovely," he breathed. He caressed the hovering ball of fire with one hand, and reached with his mind to gather just a bit more fuel from the air. He slid a glance at Rowena, smiled slyly, and began pulling it like taffy, adding more and more. She was watching sharply, glancing from the ball of flames to his face and back again.
There was a moment when he felt it start to slip loose, begin to take in more fuel than he wanted. He gasped at the feeling of it trying to run free, then struggled, focusing hard, and managed to pull the reaction back under his control. After a moment to catch his breath, he went back to molding the fire.
Finally, she laughed softly as she realized what he was doing. He was sculpting the flame, making a finely shaped head, with a slender nose, and curls of flame tumbling down like a waterfall of red hair.
"Like it?" he murmured. She clasped her hands together, like a child, and smiled broadly, with the faintest of blushes creeping up her cheeks beneath her powder.
"Oh! 'Tis lovely, Samuel! Now, see, you are being cautious, I can tell, and you have it totally controlled. See? It can be done!" she crowed. She stood up, came around the table to stand next to him. She placed one hand on his shoulder and reached out with the other to touch the flame sculpture with a delicate finger.
At her touch, it collapsed like a soap bubble. The flames fell to the table, igniting the paper towel she had used to wipe her sweat. Rowena's hand clenched hard on his shoulder, and she said sharply, "Tch! I'm sorry! But you need to stop it, now!" Sam hurriedly tried to recapture the flame, but he couldn't focus, distracted by something...he realized it was her hand touching him, her closeness, the power sliding through his veins and making his skin sensitive, his response.
He groaned, hurriedly grabbed the nearest bottle and poured it on the flames. The scotch immediately ignited, sending a wash of blue flame skittering across the table. He blushed with embarrassment and fury at his stupidity: he had been thinking "liquid" when he grabbed the bottle, not "alcohol". "Damn!" he hissed, and fumbled for his coat instead, slung it over the tabletop, pushed it down to smother the growing fire. He was beating it, she was by his side pounding it down as well, and finally, finally, the fire went out.
Sam collapsed in his chair, panting, and Rowena slumped against the chair arm, her hair awry and her breathing hard, as well.
"Well!" she said in relief, her hands trembling. "Now that, my boy, could have been a problem!" She laughed shakily. Without thought, he slid an arm around her waist, pulled her close, and smiled triumphantly up at her.
"But it wasn't. We handled it."
She looked down at him, pursing her lips into a tiny frown. "Aye. We handled it. The old-fashioned way, not with power. And that, giant, is something you need to work on. Spells go belly up, power slips out of control - "
"Distractions happen..." He smiled slowly, lazily up at her, and slid his hand slowly down to her hip. She looked down at him again, then her breath caught and her eyes widened.
"Samuel!" she said, surprised. He turned slightly, placed his other hand on her other hip, and pulled her, resisting only slightly, into his lap. "This is not what I was expectin'!" Her long red curls fell about his face.
"Hmmmm. Neither was I," he murmured. "But you'd be a fool not to have felt it all along." He twirled one long curl about a finger and laughed, his head spinning with the power, her scent, the ache in his body. He tangled his hands in her hair and pulled her head down, kissing her slowly, gently, and then, when her lips opened beneath his, kissing her fiercely, harder, growling softly, his heart pounding. He shifted her slight body easily, sliding her long skirt up with one hand on her slender, silky leg, then abruptly stood up, lifting her to sit on the table. Her legs slipped around his waist and she was clutching him to her, murmuring incomprehensibly in Gaelic, her hands pulling his shirt off while his were pushing her dress up over her torso, and then he was lost in a whirl of passion and power.
