BrySt1: Yay! Thank you so much. :D And it's not too weird that the torture made you happy, it was a lot of fun for me to write, actually. :)
wandertogondor: It has been fun watching you catch up, glad you're up to speed. Thank you for all the wonderful comments I really appreciate it! :D
Another eternity passed, and then one time after forcing her to drink blood, the demon unhooked the ancient handcuffs from the chain, and the pressure holding her up was gone. Amelia simply folded to the ground, gasping in pain as her stiff arms and legs moved for the first time in days. The iron cuffs, still attached to her wrists, chafed as she moved her arms, but she could deal with that for the moment. She lay on the floor without a will to move, clutching her sore arms over her chest, curling up in a ball, thankful for any sort of release.
"Visitors, dear," the demon had been cordial that day, and she pulled Amelia up off the floor with her demon powers, setting her on her feet. "Why don't you try walking, hmm?"
Mutely, Amelia let the demon herd her slowly through the hallways. The floor tipped and spun underneath her, and her vision did strange things, sometimes telescoping down the hall so she could see a spider scurry across a wall thirty feet away, sometimes going completely blurry to where she couldn't see the ground beneath her shaking feet.
She reached the end of the hall, and waited for the demon to open the door before she shuffled mutely through.
"Amelia!"
Coming slowly out of her stupor, Amelia raised her tired eyes, and tried to find the owner of the voice.
Metal bars seemed to be everywhere around her. A prison, maybe. She could have been in an abandoned prison this whole time. Two of her other captors stood flanking the doorway, eyes shining blackly as they looked at her in disdain. She couldn't look at one thing for very long before the world danced around her and things went blurry.
"Amelia!"
The voice came again, not from any of the demons.
"My god, are you alright? What did they do to you?"
She finally found the owner. Dean stood in a cell a few yards away, gripping the bars that held him back, and staring at her. She couldn't focus on him. Her vision would zoom in on the bruises across his face, his dilated pupils, then rush out again to where she could barely make out his shape.
"Yes, Amelia, why don't you tell Dean what we've been doing?" the demon rested her hand on Amelia's shoulder, and she turned her head away in revulsion. She no longer had the energy or will to move further away.
"Get your hand off her, you bitch!" Dean roared, slamming his hand into the metal bars of the cell in futile rage.
"You're going to hurt my feelings," the demon pouted. "Don't you recognize me? I admit, this meat suit is a little... matronly."
"Crowley?" Dean sounded skeptical.
"Ha!" the demon laughed, and pulled out her knife to play with it. "You've gotten even more stupid, hard to believe."
"Meg," and his flat voice carried the weight of the world.
"Bingo, sweetheart," the demon laughed, and it reopened the cut on its hand, grabbed Amelia and shoved the bloody gash over her mouth.
Dean stood slack-jawed for a second, then exploded. "You poisoned her?" he growled. "Infected her with demon blood? You bastards! She was a good kid!"
"Well, the Winchesters know your little secret after all, dear," Meg told Amelia, sadly, as the girl retched and struggled for air under the tight grip of her hand. "And Dean," the demon raised her voice, "you of all people know you have to be introduced to demon blood young. We just jump started her abilities, which I have to say are quite impressive."
"Amelia," he said, low, fast, not even knowing if Amelia could hear him, "I'm so sorry, but they're going to use you, they have some plan, you can't let them use you. Find some way, any way to stop them-"
One of the demons appeared in Dean's cell, and started working him over. Amelia could hear his grunts as the demon laid into him.
"See, honey, any way to stop us," she consoled Amelia. "Including your death I think, hmm?"
The demon in the cell paused for a few moments, and Dean crouched on the ground holding a broken rib. He looked at Amelia, pain in his eyes, but didn't rush to defend his statement. She could see the pity in his green eyes. It made her sick.
"They're going to hunt you," she whispered in Amelia's ear as the blood trickled down her throat and set her insides on fire. "They're going to kill you, to prevent our big, bad conspiracy."
"Bobby," Amelia gasped through the blood, "Bobby... wouldn't..."
"Do you see Bobby here to defend you, hon?" Meg cradled Amelia's head in her hands. "There's just Dean. Hot-headed, shoot first Dean. Are you really going to put your life at his mercy?"
Something shifted in her mind then, something primal and instinctive.
"You want me to kill him," Amelia croaked, blood in a ring around her mouth, eyes unable to focus on anything but Dean getting punched to death in the cell.
"Oh you don't actually have to pull the trigger," Meg said. "But you must understand why we have to kill them."
"You said you were patient," Amelia said, staring at Dean. The newest dose of blood started to affect her, and she could see a thousand different ways the situation could end.
"I've waited a thousand years for this, a few more is nothing to me," Meg reassured her.
Amelia took a step back, heart pounding in her chest, studying Meg warily. Time slowed down as the blood heightened her senses to the breaking point. She looked back to Dean, and reached for the fire. Heat rushed to her, enhanced by the recent boost of blood, and fire sprang to life in the palm of her hand, every tiny flame composed of a million smaller fires. Her custom made fire-bomb, ready to go. She studied Dean for another second, then turning on her heel, Amelia slammed the flat of her palm against Meg's forehead.
"Guess you won't mind waiting a few more centuries then," she snarled as the Meg's head exploded and the body crumpled lifeless to the ground, leaving her splattered with gore. No headache, no bloody nose. Amelia smiled. Demon blood was the bee's knees.
The two other demons rushed her. Tossing her hands up, she pointed at their chests, and focused for a single second. Miming guns with her hands, she made a "pew" sound as she fake shot them. With a dull thud, their hearts exploded inside their chest, splintering their ribs outward, and turning their insides to soup. The demons fell to the floor in unison, vomiting blood and bone.
"Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus," Amelia intoned as they writhed on the floor, before the demons could smoke out, "omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii, omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica. Ergo, draco maledicte. Ecclesiam tuam securi tibi facias libertate servire, te rogamus, audi nos."
Twin clouds of black smoke poured from the demons' mouths, and sank through the floor. The bodies collapsed in pools of their own blood. She watched the demons descend to hell. The screams of the damned echoed up to her blood-boosted hearing, and the heat of hell played against her skin. She was fascinated. Amelia glanced up. Dean cradled his side, staring at her through the bars of the cell.
Without a word, she stepped over the bloody corpses, and glanced at the metal door.
"Meg," he gasped through his pain, "Meg had the key."
In response, she smiled again. Maybe not such a reassuring expression when she still wore Meg's brain and skull.
She pointed her fingers, and slammed them into the gap where the swinging door latched to the wall. Barely having to focus, she applied intense heat to the latch mechanism, and in a few seconds the metal turned red hot, and started to drip away. Amelia pulled her hand away, flicking molten metal from her fingertips, grabbed the door, and tossed it open with a loud clang that seemed to split her skull open.
"Are Sam and Bobby here, too?" she stepped into the cell, took Dean's hand and pulled him upright.
"Uh," Dean's eyes seemed a little glassy. "Sam's here, yea. Bobby's still in South Dakota."
"The demons have your weapons, grab them, then split up and look for Sam," she walked out of the cell.
"I think we should stick together," Dean pressed a hand to his ribs, grimacing, as he limped after her her.
"Right, you're hurt," Amelia nodded. "Sure."
He let her believe that, as he scavenged his weapons off the corpses, unable to look away from the carnage.
"How long have I been here?" She concentrated on the manacles around her wrists, and melted the locks. She flung them off with a shudder.
"Uh, about four days we think," Dean stood up, sticking his knife back in his belt, and cradling his saltgun in his good hand.
"Awesome." Rubbing her wrists, Amelia led the way, flame flickering at her fingertips. She should have done that days ago. It had been laughably easy to blow off the demon's head. She couldn't feel any side affects. Amelia couldn't even remember why she had hesitated to use the fire. Dean walked silently behind her, saltgun in one hand, the other pressed to his side.
They checked the common room of the prison, and saw Sam walking towards them.
"Sammy!" Dean called out, limping towards him.
Sam smiled.
"Not Sammy," Dean raised his salt gun. At the distance it wouldn't hurt his little brother too much, but it would be hell for the demon wearing him.
Demon Sam flicked his hand to the side, and Dean flew through the air. He crashed to the ground, crumpling into a heap that didn't move. The movement caused Sam's shirt to fall open, displaying the anti-possession tattoo on his chest, all but burned off.
"Didn't take much pushing to get you to open up, huh, sweetie?" Sam, not-Sam, turned to Amelia.
"Meg," Amelia snarled, lowering into a fighting stance, flame crackling around her hands. It didn't burn her, she was its master. Even the molten metal hadn't hurt her. But she couldn't burn Meg, not in Sam's body. She wouldn't hurt Sam.
Meg/Sam continued walking towards her, and Amelia glanced around, looking for anything to use against the demon.
"What are you going to do now?" Meg asked her, using Sam's voice, but the inflection was all wrong. "You wouldn't kill precious Sammy," she did what Dean termed Sam's puppy face, "but then how are you going to get rid of little old demon me?"
Amelia backed up, still thinking, hands twitching.
"You don't seem to mind his touch so much," Meg considered. "Want to start over? Maybe you would like to try his blood, or maybe something a little more."
She contorted his face into a leering expression Amelia was sure Sam had never worn.
"Get out of him," Amelia swore, "bitch!"
"Make me," Meg laughed, and Sam's eyes flashed black as she flung his arms wide in the universal, 'come at me' gesture.
" Exorcizamus te-" Amelia started, hopelessly, and the next second found herself flying backwards to crash against the wall.
"You just don't learn," Meg/Sam sighed.
"Imma get seer-yus brain damahg frum 'is," Amelia slurred as the world spun around her. The blood pounded through her veins.
Sam took a few more steps, and then Amelia concentrated, harder than she ever had before. She pushed off the wall, and swept her arms up into the air, fingers clenched into claws as she brought fire into existence through intense determination.
Meg/Sam froze as fire roared to life from the ground in a perfect demon trap around them.
Amelia smiled, and held onto the fire. It was more fire than she had ever attempted before, but the demon blood pumped through her system, and she held it steady.
"Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus," Amelia recited, and walked slowly towards Sam until her hands almost touched the tongues of fire. It was easier to keep the fire alive if she could be near it. "Omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii," she continued, but blood started to trickle down her lip from the effort of keeping so much fire burning in a steady unbroken circle. "Omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica."
Sam screamed, face contorted in pain, and he grabbed at his head.
"Ergo, draco maledicte," Amelia stubbornly kept going, but the trickle was a flood now and the screaming turned her brain to mush. It echoed again and again in her tired, drugged mind, chasing away thought and will. Even with the demon blood, it was too much fire, too much concentration for her battered body and mind.
"Ecclesiam tuam securi," she mumbled, and then her knees buckled and she fell to the ground. "Tibi... facias... libertate..."
Her bad shoulder gave out, and one hand fell shaking to her lap. The flames had died down, until they were a barely glowing blue ring on the floor.
"Servire... te..." she couldn't remember the words anymore. The inside of her head sounded like a redneck forth of July. "Ro... rogamus..."
Her other hand shook so much she nearly knocked herself in the face. But if the circle wasn't whole there was no point, and she couldn't remember the words of the exorcism.
The demon started laughing, through its own pain. "A for effort, Amelia," it snarled.
Amelia's hand fell to her lap, and she abandoned everything except the unbroken ring of fire that imprisoned the demon. Her vision started to close in, and her heart fluttered in her chest like a dying thing. She clung to the flames, pouring every last bit of pent up rage into them. She would die rather than let the fire die.
Sam put his hand up, testing the trap, ready to break out in a second's weakness. "We're going to be out soon," Meg said, sing-song, with Sam's voice. "Might have to wake you up with a kiss, hmm Aim?"
Just as Amelia started to pass out, still stubbornly keeping the flames burning, she heard a scuffle off from somewhere, and then a tired voice called out the two words she couldn't remember, and one she wanted to say with all her heart.
"Audi nos," Dean said. "Bitch."
Dean received Amelia's undying appreciation for tacking on that last word.
With a weary smile on her face, Amelia passed out to the sound of Sam's screams as he vomited out the demon.
Hope you enjoyed the chapter!
Partial explanation for the way some characters acted during this chapter: Don't get me wrong, I really like Meg and Dean's characters and I'm not trying to vilify them too much here. But if the Winchesters prevented Lucifer from being raised, I don't think Meg would have given up the fight. She would have used every opportunity to raise Lucifer from hell. She already possessed Sam once, she wouldn't hesitate to do it again.
And even though Dean would save anyone if given the chance, his first thought is always going to be protecting Sammy and he's willing to sacrifice anything to save his brother. The demons and their plan for Amy means that Sam is in danger from demons again. He's willing to help Sam with the demon blood because Sam is his brother, but he doesn't trust Amelia that much, or care about her in the same way.
I just thought that needed to be said so we're all on the same page. :)