A/N: A bit of a longer chapter coming up here, and with Ruby as promised. ;) I thought about whether I should bring her into the story or not, and I decided on yes. It needs a bit of flavor.
-------------------------------------
Chapter 11 - Vox
-------------------------------------
In the desert of my dreams I saw you there Oh why? Through your eyes the strains of battle like a brooding storm Oh why? I fall into the water and once more I turn to you Oh why?
And I'm walking towards the water steaming body cold and bare
But your words cut loose the fire and you left my soul to bleed
And the pain that's in your truth's deceiving me, has got me scared
You're up and down these pristine velvet walls like focus never forms
My walls are getting wider and my eyes are drawn astray
I see you now a vague deception of a dying day
And the crowds were standing staring faceless cutting off my view to you
They start to limply flail their bodies in a twisted mime
And I'm lost inside this tangled web in which I'm lain entwined
You're gone and I'm lost inside this tangled web in which I'm lain entwined
Sarah McLachlan - Vox
-------------------------------------
Indeed it was a beautiful morning, Rika noticed as she glanced out the curtains of the rundown motel room she was staying in with the Winchesters. The sun was shining, and the sky was blue with the exception of a couple of white, fluffy clouds.
"Ready?", she heard Dean whisper behind her.
She turned around and saw him standing a couple of feet behind her with a huge smirk on his face. She smiled back at him and whispered a response. "Definitely."
Dean handed her one of the glasses filled with water he was holding, and kept the other one for himself. It was 7AM and Sam was still sleeping comfortably in the bed he shared with Rika, happily unaware of the fact that the other two were plotting against him. Dean and Rika both looked over their shoulders to get a glance of Sam's form in the bed, with the covers pulled tightly against his chest. He was wearing an old t-shirt and a pair of sweats underneath the covers. He looked so peaceful that Rika felt bad for what she and Dean were about to do. She and Dean glanced at each other again, and Rika suddenly felt mischievous.
As they carefully made their way towards the bed, Rika whispered to Dean. "He's going to be so pissed."
"I know", Dean grinned. "That's the funny part. You'll see."
Rika walked over to the other side of the bed while Dean remained on the other with his back against the wall. He looked at Rika as they got ready while he formed the words "One, two, three" with his lips. Once he hit three, Dean first poured a couple of drops of water on Sam's nose. Sam just crinkled his nose a bit when the drops hit him without waking up, and then Rika and Dean simultaneously emptied both glasses off water on his face.
Then things happened fast. Sam shot up in bed waving his hands in his face trying to wipe away the water while shouting a "What the hell?!".
He immediately went for Dean with his hands, trying to give his brother a beating, but Dean just chuckled and ran out the door. "It was her idea!", he yelled before slamming the door shut. Rika now realized why Dean had picked that side of the bed, he had intended for Rika to take the fall all along.
Rika let out an exasperated and hurt gasp, something like the one a little child might let out when getting the blame for something he didn't do. "No, it was not!", she yelled towards the door and took a step towards that direction, getting ready to kick Dean's ass, but it was too late. She felt Sam's strong hands grab her and pull her onto the bed. She tried struggling out of his grip, but it was a struggle that was already lost. It wasn't long until she found herself pinned against the bed with her back down and Sam on top of her. He held her by her wrists, keeping them pinned against the mattress above her head, and Rika couldn't move, not even with her slayer strength.
"Payback's a bitch", he groaned and Rika felt a drop of water from his soaked hair hit her face.
"You're dripping on me", she commented and looked up into his eyes with an innocent smile.
He just gave her a mischievous smile back. "I know, and I don't care. Dean's paying for this later, but you... I don't plan on letting you leave this bed anytime soon."
Rika gave out a small scream as he reached his hands down and started tickling her all over. Rika giggled and squirmed while trying to get out of his grip, but it was useless. He was straddling her stomach and his hands seemed to be everywhere at once, torturing her with his tickles. "No, wait, stop!", she yelled exasperatedly between the giggles. "Show... some... mercy!"
"No way", he whispered as he stopped tickling her and grabbed her wrists again. Rika was panting heavily after the struggle and took the opportunity to catch some breath. Instantly it became more difficult, as Sam instead bit down on her neck, starting to kiss every inch of exposed skin. Rika moaned and tilted her head backwards seeing stars as Sam started undressing her.
"Hey, when did you get a tattoo?", he exclaimed as he noticed the colorful butterfly that was now tattooed on her hip.
-------------------------------------
"So, I'm gonna go with Dean and get dinner", Sam said and kissed the top of Rika's hair as she was surfing the web on her Macbook. It was already evening, just after nightfall, and the day had been spent doing research, both on ways to save Dean and on potential cases. Rika had made about a dozen phone calls to her contacts around the world, and Sam had to admit he was impressed. He had heard her speak fluent French, German and Spanish, and she had also made a call with a British accent pretending to be a representative for the British Museum. She could have had any career she had wanted, with those language skills.
She spun the chair around and looked up at him. "Yeah, sure, I'll wait here."
"You gonna be alright?"
"Yes!", she smiled reassuringly. "Stop fussing. Go. See you in a moment."
They were interrupted by Dean clearing his throat at the door. "Come on! I'm starving!"
Sam and Rika looked over at Dean, who was looking impatient as usual. "Yeah, I'm coming", Sam chuckled and grabbed his jacket.
"And no MacDonald's, thank you!", he heard Rika joke behind them before they shut the door.
Dean turned towards Sam as they walked towards the Impala with their hands in their pockets. "So, you and Rika are doing good, huh?"
Both of them stopped a couple of meters away from the car and Sam looked at Dean with this dreamy look on his face. "Yeah. Really good. I think."
"Well, that's good. That it's good." Dean looked slightly awkward before shrugging. "Okay, enough chick-flick moments for one day. Let's get some food!"
Just as he said that the boys looked up as the lights on the parking lot started flickering. They took a glance towards the motel, where the lights inside the room they had just left were also flickering. Then they looked back at each other with confused looks until Sam's eyes widened in panic, worry, fear and sudden realization.
"Rika!", he exclaimed and started running back towards the motel, closely followed by Dean.
Inside, had no time to react before everything went dark. She didn't even have time to notice that the lights were flickering around her. When Sam entered the room, it was already to late. He yelled her name and ran through all the rooms. He checked the bathroom twice, but there was no sign of Rika. The lights had already stopped flickering, and the papers that had been on the table next to Rika's Macbook were now scattered around the floor along with her pens and pencils, like a sudden whiff of air had blown them down onto the floor.
"No, no, NO!", Sam yelled and ran his hands through his head in frustration.
Dean checked the windowsill in the back of the motel room, and found a substance. He pinched some of it between his fingers and smelled it, even though it wasn't necessary. He already knew what it was, sulfur. Rika had been taken, by a demon or a couple of demons.
Dean watched as his brother knelt down on the floor, breathing heavily with shock, trying to blink back some tears.
"Sammy, calm down. We'll find her."
"Don't tell me to calm down, Dean! I don't wanna calm down. She's been taken by demons. Who knows what they'll do to her! And we have no idea where to even begin looking. She might be dead already!"
"Don't say that. If they had wanted her dead they would've just killed her hear and not taken her."
"You don't know that! It's Rika, Dean. If anything happens to her..."
"I know. I know", Dean tried comforting his brother as he gave him a hug.
-------------------------------------
Rika was starting to come to. Her head was thumping for whatever reason. The air in the place she was in smelled damp and earthy, like a basement or a cave or something similar. Carefully she flickered her eyes open. It took a while before her eyes adjusted to the dark room she was in, but soon she could make out that she in fact was inside an old basement. She groaned a bit and tried to move, but she quickly realized that her hands were chained. Her arms were lifted above her head and fastened in iron cuffs with chains hanging from the ceiling keeping her in place.
"Oh, good, you're awake! I thought you'd sleep through all fun quality time."
Rika looked up and saw a young, blond woman walk towards her. She immediately recognized the woman, it was the woman she had dreamed about in her prophetic nightmare, the female demon holding the knife. She looked exactly like in Rika's dream. Rika even noticed the knife she was carrying strapped to her thigh.
"You! Who are you?", Rika asked.
The woman smirked before her eyes turned black. "I'm Ruby, nice to meet ya."
"You're a demon!", Rika commented and the woman smirked again.
"Well, aren't you the queen of stating the obvious."
"What do you want from me? If want to kill me, you might as well do it now before I'm bored to death."
"Relax. If I wanted you dead, you wouldn't be standing here."
"What do you want then? A little girl talk? And what's with the chains if you don't want to hurt me?", Rika asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
"The chains are a precaution. I don't want you to start throwing punches at me, do I? And yeah, something like that. I'm interested in that boyfriend of yours."
"Why?"
"Because he's tall. And I love a tall man. And then there's the whole Antichrist thing."
"What?!"
"Generation of psychic kids, yellow-eyed demon rounds 'em up, celebrity death match ensues. He's the sole survivor."
"How the hell do you know about that?"
"I hear things. Yellow-eyes had some pretty big plans for him."
"Had being the key word there. Yellow-eyes is dead in case you haven't noticed."
"Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right. Ding-dong, the demon's dead. Good job with that. It doesn't change the fact that he's special... in that Anthony Michael Hall E.S.P. visions kind of way."
"He hadn't had any visions, not since yellow-eyes died. Hell, I'm more psychic at the moment than he is."
"Well, I'm thinking he's still a pretty big deal. I mean, after all that business with his mom."
"Yeah, I heard about that. So woohoo, you've done your little demonic research. Big deal. Now, let's cut down to the chase, shall we? Give me one good reason why I shouldn't send your ass back to hell right now, because you know, I could, faster than you can blink."
"I'm here to help you."
"Is this some kind of joke?"
"God's honest truth... or whatever."
"You're a bloody demon!"
"Don't be such a racist. I'm here because I want to help you. And I can if you trust me."
"Why should I trust you?"
"I don't know why the demon was trying to cover something up, or what happened with Sam's mother. I honestly don't know. That's what I'm trying to find out. All I know is that it's about him."
"What do you mean?" Rika was utterly confused. She didn't trust this demon, and the fact that she seemed to have taken special interest in Sam worried Rika.
"Don't you get it? And you're supposed to be smart! It's all about him. What happened to his mom, what happened to her friends. They're trying to cover up what yellow-eyes did to Sam. And I want to help you guys figure it out."
"But why on earth would you want to help us?"
"I have my reasons. Not all demons are the same, Rika. Not all of us want the same thing. Me? I want to help you from time to time. That's all. And if you let me, there's something in it for you, and little Sammy."
"What could you possibly--"
"I could help you save Dean."
Rika thought about it for a moment. "I still don't trust you. And why did you take me? Why not Sam, or Dean for that matter?"
The demon sighed. "I thought you'd be more... open-minded. The Winchester brothers aren't actually all sunshine and daisies in case you haven't noticed. They're a bit fanatic when it comes to demons. They would never have listened to me. That's why I need you to convince them. And on the trust issue, I'm going to let you go now. You're completely unharmed. Maybe that'll help you trust me."
Ruby walked up to Rika and locked up the cuffs. "You're not far from the motel. You should hurry before Sam paces enough to make a hole in the floor."
Rika took a suspicious glance towards Ruby in front of her. She still didn't trust the demon, but if there was a way she could help Dean from going to hell, Rika wasn't going to throw it away just like that before talking it over with the Winchesters. She was fully in slayer mode as she backed towards the staircase. Before walking up the stairs, she stopped.
"If I do this and trust you for the time being, you stay the hell away from Sam and Dean. I swear to God, if you as much as look at them funny, I will personally hunt you down and throw your ugly demon ass back into hell. Is that clear?"
"Clear as a crystal", Ruby retorted sarcastically. "Oh, and don't bother coming back here looking for me. I'll be long gone. I'll be in touch."
Rika ran as fast as she could back to the motel. She knew Sam would be worried sick right about now, and probably tearing down the walls in panic. Her wrists were slightly sore from the handcuffs, but other than that, she was completely unharmed, just as Ruby had said.
When Rika reached the motel room door and knocked on it her heart was beating so fast. It wasn't long until the door slightly creaked open and she saw Dean standing there with his gun.
"Rika! Thank God!", he exclaimed and opened the door fully. Rika was immediately jumped by Sam, who pulled her into his arms.
He cried a bit as he hugged her and then went on to check for wounds. "I'm fine Sam, I'm fine. It's okay."
"Thank God!", he said. "What happened?"
-------------------------------------
"Because demon, that's why, I mean the second you find out this Ruby chick is a demon you go for the Holy water, you don't chat!", Dean yelled at Rika. They were arguing about her meeting with Ruby, after Rika had already been tested with holy water in case she was possessed.
"Calm down Dean! Nobody was exactly chatting", Rika retorted.
"Cut her some slack Dean, hear what she's got to say", Sam said calmly and put his arm around Rika's shoulders as he was sitting next to her on the bedside while Dean was angrily pacing around the room.
"Oh yeah? Then why didn't you send her ass back to hell?", Dean asked furiously.
"Because- Because she said she might be able to help us out."
"How the hell could she possibly do that?", Dean questioned.
Rika paused, not knowing whether she should tell them or not, but Dean continued before she had the time to think. "No really, Rika, how? How could she possibly help us?"
"She told me she could help you, OK? Help you out of the crossroad deal", Rika confessed and Sam immediately turned towards her with his eyes widened.
"What is wrong with you, huh? She lying, you gotta know that, don't you? She knows what your weakness is, it's Sam, and his weakness is me. She's trying to get under our skin, so obviously she'll play that card!"
"Dean, if this demon could help you--", Sam begun but was quickly interrupted by Rika.
"Look, I don't trust her anymore than you do. But like Sam said, if there's a possibility-- Maybe we should just wait it out and see if she can help us as she said."
"So you two are gaining up on me now, is that it? What else did she say?"
Rika was silent. "Hey?", Dean tried again and stared at her.
"I'm not an idiot. Dean, I'm not talking about trusting her, I'm talking about using her. I mean we're at war, right? And we know jack's squat about the enemy; we don't know where they are, we don't know what they're doing. I mean, hell, we don't know what they want. Now this Ruby knows more than we will ever find out on our own. Now yes, it's a risk, I know that, but we need to take it", she said with her calmest voice.
Dean sat down, looking pissed while Sam studied Rika. "Dean, I have to agree with Rika. At the moment, it's the best idea we have."
"That's bull!", Dean yelled and got up from the chair. He grabbed his jacket and rushed out of the room. "I'm going for a drink", he muttered before he slammed the door shut.
Rika sighed but Sam just hugged her. "It's okay Rika, I'm just happy to have you back unharmed. And I do agree with you."
"The only thing that scares me is how much she knew about everything. Maybe she can help Dean, maybe she can't. But if she can't and she's lying, what the hell does she want? There must be a reason why she was in my prophetic dream... Either it's a bad omen or a good one."
"We'll figure it out", Sam replied and kissed her.
-------------------------------------
A/N: Hope you enjoyed, and reviews are very much appreciated. Sin City next! :D