Kaitlin here! Sorry I missed last week but I had to graduate so I had no time to update but here I am back of schedule with the Reaper updates! Also I have a second Reaper story up, a crossover which is just for fun. I did have a great time trying to celebrate my 20th chapter (the devil would like me to inform all of you that he does indeed like snacks and prefers things I cannot afford but settled for my chocolate chip cookies. He also said my McJagger impression sucked). Than ks for staying loyal readers for twenty long chapters hope chapter 21 is worth the wait!
Sam pulled up into the parking lot by the old movie theater. It seemed vaguely appropriate that he fight the soul here being that he first met Joan at the movies, and discovered her identity at a theater. Due to much convincing, Sam had managed to get Sock and Ben to stay behind with the demon twins. After all, the soul had caught Joan and the twins were going to be little more than dead weight. They had explained that they could only evade and would be of little help in an actual battle. Sam was pretty sure they had more power than they were letting on, however he was not going to but his demonic wards at risk. Also, it gave him a good excuse to keep his best friends out of danger.
Same gripped the camera in his hand and walked carefully to the door. He reached out his free hand, holding his breath as he pushed against the big black glass doors that looked as if they had not been touched in years. They swung open with only a brush of his fingers. Sam shuddered as a cold wind from inside struck him in the face. It was strange, the theater had been abandoned for years and the air conditioner should not have been on. By all logic, it should be sweltering inside but as Sam crossed the threshold of the door he found it to be freezing.
Sam wandered down the halls knowing that he was being watched but unable to find who was watching him. It was pitch black in the theater's icy interior. Sam had to explore the labyrinth like halls by running his hand along the walls feeling for a door. He heard a noise coming from one of the empty theaters. Carefully he pushed open the door to the theater, jerking around as soon as he was in, pointing the camera in all directions. Nothing. The screen was flickering, various images of movies Sam had never seen. Entranced by the images, Sam drew closer to the screen. It kept flickering; he could hear garbled laughter, see smiling faces…
A hand grabbed his shoulder.
"GYA!" Sam shouted whirling around, hand cranking the camera as fast as he can.
"Sam! No! It's just me!" Hissed a voice as a figure darted out of the path of the vessel and stood behind him. Sam stared for a moment startled at first and then highly irritated.
"Rachel!" Sam hissed angrily as her figure became distinct through the flickering darkness. "I came all this way to save you! Why are you perfectly fine?" Rachel gave him an innocent and apologetic look. Her strange eyes met his, it was the closest Sam had ever really gotten to her (but he was too irritated to take note of any peculiarities in her features). "When I come ready to risk my life to rescue you, I expect you to be properly in danger."
"I'll keep that in mind." Rachel promised as she listened patiently to Sam's lecture. "But if it helps, I am still in grave peril. And I just got out of being tied up like ten minutes ago so you were really close to saving me from overwhelming doom." She was trying to make him feel better and Sam appreciated this little effort on her part. (He just wanted to feel like he'd accomplished some good on this suicide mission. And anyway, it was much more convenient to have Rachel not incapacitated. He may now actually stand a chance against evil.)
"How'd you get out?" Sam asked in a low whisper as Rachel pulled him to a corner of the theater, out of the way of the flickering light. "And more importantly, how'd he catch you to begin with?" Rachel sighed shaking her head, not appreciative of this question.
"If you have to know, I wasn't captured. I gave myself up. The soul followed me and found out about Kyle. He threatened to kill him if I didn't come with him. I… I panicked." She fell silent for a moment and Sam felt sympathy and gratitude toward her. Maybe she could have taken the soul and protected his brother. But the fact that she didn't want to take the risk… that meant a lot to him. "As for getting out, that was easy. I used the sharp edge on one of the broken chairs to saw my way through the ropes while he was on the lookout for you. Which brings me to my question… how'd you get in here without hi tailing you?" Rachel asked as she examined Sam's camera, seeming to instantly know that it was a vessel, not even bothering to ask. Sam shrugged his shoulders.
"I just came through the front door." He explained feeling rather silly as he unfolded his not-so-complicated plan to Rachel. She stared at him a moment in disbelief.
"The front door? Really Sam? I can't tell if you were being exceedingly stupid or exceedingly brilliant with that move…" Rachel trailed off thoughtfully. Sam glared at her.
"What is that supposed to mean!?" he hissed indignantly as he snatched the camera out of her hands. It was his vessel not hers.
"It means the soul was expecting you through one of the back entrances. He didn't think you'd be stupid enough to walk right in the front door. The fact that you did that may have just saved both our lives." Sam smiled satisfied with her answer. Rachel wasn't like the Devil's family. She didn't insult him outright and had more confidence in his abilities as a reaper. More importantly, unlike the devil, she was appreciative of his endeavors.
"Well… now what? Do we charge ahead?" Sam asked looking at the younger but still more experienced Reaper for a plan. Rachel shook her head.
"No, we'll go around as quietly as possible. I think he's monitoring the entrances from the roof. He doesn't know you're here or that I escaped. Our best bet is to try to surprise him by sneaking up from behind." Rachel deduced quickly as she grabbed Sam's hand and darted in a crouched stance, toward the door into the theater.
"He just tied you up and left you without supervision?" Sam asked surprised. Rachel nodded a smile playing in the corner of her lips as she pushed the door open as softly as she could. She pulled Sam out into the hallway. As the door closed behind him it cut off all the remaining light.
"I know, I was shocked too, but his logic was that he was going to have you find me before the theater exploded." Rachel's voice came from somewhere in front of Sam in the darkness. Sam felt his heart tremor in his chest.
"You mean this place is rigged to explode!?" Sam hissed as Rachel pulled him through the darkness seeming to know where she was going.
"So he says, but I don't know for certain…" Rachel replies as she carefully pushes another door open. Sam could barely hear the swish of the heavy wood over the worn carpet. It was still freezing and as the door opened it let in a new arctic blast of wind.
"Why is it so cold?" Sam asked as he shivered, feeling the temperature drop the further into the darkness they ascended. "Steps." Rachel warned as Sam's foot hit something hard. Carefully he managed to clamber up the steep stairwell until Rachel pulled open a second door temporarily blinding him with a blast of white light. Sam recoiled, holding the vessel before him. When everything cleared up he found himself faced with the soul and his knife fingers… again held up against Rachel's neck. This was the second time Sam had walked in on this scene, on the roof both times. But that was strange… wasn't Rachel with him? He looked over and she was still standing beside him looking just as confused by the Rachel in the soul's grasp. Sam hesitated, not sure what to think.
"Good job bringing the other Reaper." The soul commended the baffled Rachel. "Now Sam, you have a choice, hand over the vessel, or I slit the other Reaper's throat."
"But I'm right here… Sam, he had the power to bring props to life as well. Used to make a lot of the bodies in his movies he was very good at making them realistic. That girl he's holding hostage is nothing more than a doll! Use the vessel!" Rachel commanded establishing some light for Sam's predicament. There were two Rachel's, one was real and one was not. This fact was easy to establish. But the problem was that neither Rachel seemed to be the obvious choice for the fake. Sam was starting to wish he had brought Kyle with him to help him chose but suddenly there was a loud shriek like a wild animal. A dark shadow blocked out the sun and Sam looked up.
"What…?" Sam mumbled as he turned his gaze skyward. A humanoid shape was silhouetted against the sun, large wings protruded from the figures back and long hair flowed around it. There was a brief moment were everything on the roof seemed to freeze.
"Not this…" he heard Rachel mutter and everything sprang back to normal time. The winged figure spring down on the soul as Rachel ran forward into the mob. All Sam could see was a flurry of black feathers but he could hear screeching both human and inhuman. Sam ran forward trying to break up the fight, trying to protect Rachel like he promised. He grabbed her and pulled her free of the mob only to find that he had pulled her arm clean off.
"OH GO-" Sam began but just then he noticed white stuffing leaking from the once moving arm. It was a doll and nothing less. "RACHEL!" He didn't want to use the vessel with her in the mass. He's risk sending his brother's girlfriend to Hell. That was not something he wanted to have to explain to Kyle or to Rachel's parents. The thing attacking the soul, it had large black wings and a human form but other than that it was almost impossible to determine and features. Sam's view was blocked by the massive fluttering wings that on several occasions almost knocked him off the roof. "RACHEL, GET OUT OF THERE!" Sam begged praying the real Rachel had not been destroyed like the doll. Suddenly the great winged demon took to the sky again leaving the soul battered on the ground looking as if it had been mauled by some sort of vicious monstrosity not known to Earth. There were burns and scrapes along the soul's temporary body and it seemed to be writhing in agony on the ground.
"Send it back Sam!" Rachel's voice shouted to him from somewhere Sam could not place. But in a moment of confusion and panic, Sam wound up the recorder and the soul began to dissipate in a stream of bright orange being sucked forcefully into the ancient looking vessel. With that over with, Sam took a step back and a deep breath readying himself to look for Rachel. Sam looked up seeing the other reaper being carried in the arms of the winged figure. The figure lowered itself allowing Sam to see that it had a man's shape and long raven black hair that matched the midnight black of his massive angel wings. The Demon had yellow eyes and almond shaped pupils. He dressed modernly, in a business suit and had a more human look than Sam had ever seen in a demon. He was pale with glowing eyes and sharp fangs but his skin was normal, the red horns protruding from the thick black hair were sharp but they were not the same as seeing the scaled form of Steve or Tony. But despite this less monstrous form, Sam knew a demon when he saw one and reeled back aiming his vessel at the Demon with Rachel in his arms. Sam wasn't letting the second reaper get captured twice in one day. That would be redundant.
"Let her go!" Sam ordered looking at the tall black haired Demon with the sharp yellow eyes and massive black angel wings.
"Sam! Don't!" Rachel cried as the demon landed on the roof of the theater and placed Rachel gently down on her feet. She turned to the demon, who retracted his wings and tied back his long flowing hair into a single ponytail.
"You all right, my angel?" The demon asked in a smooth and soft masculine voice as he put a pale hand against the other Reaper's forehead.
"I'm fine; you can head back to the office." She kissed the demon on his sunken cheek. "You didn't need to get involved, Sam had it under control." The demon grinned at Sam (who was starting to think that he had hit his head hard and was hallucinating). Rachel hugged the demon one last time before it took to the skies, wings expanding in mid jump. Sam walked over to Rachel as she waved goodbye to the strangely humanoid figure that had saved them. But before he could ask a question the answer arrived in two words he did not want to hear from his brother's girlfriend. "Bye Daddy!"