Chapter 37: Blood

Sophie stared at the person in front of her, feeling like her heart had just fallen out of her chest. It was Jack, and it wasn't Jack, and she was desperately hoping she was just seeing things as some sort of twisted side effect of the drug Ryan had given her. Despite the fact that she wasn't confident that she could hold herself upright, she slid her body off of the bed and stumbled to her feet.

"Jack," she said weakly.

In response to his name, he gave her another empty smile. "I'm a lot of things, Sophia Winchester, and your surprisingly difficult to possess bookworm of a friend is not one of those things."

She couldn't decide if she was relieved that Jack was being possessed by a demon as opposed to actually being a demon, or if she was ten times more terrified. "You're..a demon," she said, fighting against the urge to crumble into a ball on the floor next to Ryan's body in exhaustion and horror. "But you…saved me."

The demon inside of Jack laughed. "Saved you? You think I saved you? Oh, Sophia, if I had let that boy keep doing what he was doing and decided to leave you alone, you'd consider yourself lucky." It clucked its tongue in disappointment. "Unfortunately, I'm on a bit of a tight schedule. I didn't even have enough time to pick out a proper meatsuit. Usually, I prefer someone of my own gender. But the opportunity to possess a friend of a Winchester presented itself, and I was short on time, so I couldn't resist."

"You're a girl?" Sophie asked lamely, trying to buy time, not sure of a way out. Any second she was going to collapse into a heap and pass out, helpless to whatever this demon wanted to do to her, and her fear of not being able to save herself was paralyzing in and of itself.

The demon rolled its eyes. "I am a demon who was once a woman. But that's not important. What's important is that you are a threat to my master's existence, and because of that, you must be eliminated."

Sophie shook her head, as if she could clear out the fuzziness. "W..what?"

For the second time, the demon rolled its eyes, and even though she knew it wasn't him, it hurt seeing Jack's face looking so condescending towards her. "You idiot humans with your GHB and Rohypnol and stupid drugs. How does one feel the beautiful rush of power when the victim is splayed unconscious at your feet?"

With two swift steps, the demon possessing Jack walked up to Sophie and placed both of its hands on either side of her head. She couldn't have resisted if she tried. But after a moment, Sophie felt some surge of strange, dark energy creep through her body, and then the demon let go.

Sophie looked up, and she felt…normal. All of the dizziness and lightheadedness was gone. The drug was out of her system. She lifted her arm and squeezed her hand open and shut, momentarily shocked that she had regained full control over her body. She glanced at the body of Ryan under her feet, his eyes open and lightless. For a second, all she could think about was how angry she was that she couldn't have been the one to kick his ass.

And then her eyes narrowed. "Dumb move, bitch."

She lashed out at the demon, striking it across the cheek, trying not to care that it was Jack's body. Its eyes flashed black and it waved its hand, and suddenly Sophie was flying backwards, hitting the bedside table, the corner cutting a deep gash into her back. She groaned, trying to ignore the pain as she moved back up into a standing position.

The demon grinned. "That's more like it! That's the famous Winchester drive I've heard so much about! This is where it gets interesting, isn't it?"

Sophie glared, calling to mind one of the exorcisms that Sam and Dean had hammered into her memory. "Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus—"

The demon inside of Jack yelled and sent her flying into a mirror hanging on the wall, and she screamed as she slammed into it face first, the glass shattering and piercing her everywhere. She slid to the ground, unable to move, a particularly large shard of glass sticking out of her upper right arm. With a small cry, she pulled it out of her arm, causing a thick stream of blood to start surging out from it. A quick look at the floor told her she was seriously hurt, judging by all of the blood splattered everywhere.

Weakly, she tried to continue the exorcism. "...omnis satanica protestas, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii—" Before she could say another word, her throat closed up, and she found herself unable to breathe, lying on the ground attempting to suck in just a sliver of oxygen.

Jack—no, the demon—glared at her, its hand held out in a closed fist motion. "Dumb move, bitch," it sneered.

Sophie shook as she tried to get back up, but before she could even rise to her knees the demon threw her back against one of the bedposts, and she could've sworn she felt something inside of her, maybe a rib, crack painfully. Her throat was released and she gasped out in agony, huddled on the ground, feeling blood pouring out of the many glass-filled wounds on her body.

"As I was saying," the demon said snobbishly, pacing back and forth by where Sophie remained immobile on the floor, "your existence directly threatens the existence of my master."

Sophie weakly lifted up her head, enough willpower in her body to glare. "Who's the poor bastard that gets you as his bitch?"

The demon snarled, and Sophie cried out as her body was lifted yet again by some demonic force and tossed into a dresser. Her head cracked against it and she saw stars as her head was covered in warm, sticky blood. She began to feel fuzzy again, not because of the drug Ryan had given her, but because of blood loss.

She saw Jack's shoes in front of her face, and then the demon leaned down to look at Sophie with a twisted smile. "The bastard I serve is the most powerful being in the universe—Lucifer." Sophie heard the words, but she couldn't process them. She was having difficulty breathing, and she wondered briefly if her broken rib had punctured a lung, or maybe something else that was vital to her survival.

She tried to move, to even lift her head, but she knew she had lost. She couldn't breathe, couldn't lift a finger without pain searing through her body. "That's right, stupid girl," the demon practically laughed. "I serve Lucifer, and his biggest adversary needs the Winchester brothers to help take him out. And you, lucky Sophia, are the only bargaining chip on the table. Once you're dead, the Winchesters will never fight this battle, and the game will be over."

A few soft tears fell out of Sophie's eyes, commingling with the blood on her face. "Cas," she said, her voice barely a hint of whisper. "Cas, please."

The smile the demon gave her seemed to hunger for her very painful death. "No one can hear you, Little Winchester. It's just you and me. And soon it'll just be me and my master, standing on top of a bleeding, dying human race."

It lifted its hand, clearly preparing to deliver the final blow, and then just as Sophie closed her eyes and waited to die she heard the loud splintering sound of a door being blown off of its hinges.

She cracked her eyes open and squinted through the blood and tears to see a tall shadowy figure sending the demon flying into the wall. Sophie tried to focus in on him, but she just couldn't. "Don't kill him," she tried to yell with everything she had, even though it only came out as a hoarse cry. "That's my friend. Please don't kill…."

And then she was unconscious.

Sam and Dean were set up in a motel just outside of Lincoln, Nebraska. They had tracked down an old occult scholar there who was supposed to know a thing or two about Beelzebub and the Hierarchy, and with Dean's number getting closer and closer to being up, neither of them wanted to waste any time in trying to find a way to get out of the deal.

Cas had wanted to come with them. Dean didn't know if it was because Cas didn't know much about Beelzebub that the Winchesters didn't already know or if it was something else, but he had asked and Sam and Dean hadn't seen a reason for him not to come. Having Cas with them was never a bad thing. It did leave Sophie alone for a little while, but Dean tried to reconcile it by telling himself that if he didn't find a way out of this deal with Beelzebub, Sophie would be alone for a lot longer than a little while.

Sam was pouring over books and trying desperately to know as much as he could about everything. Dean was talking with Cas at the table by the window of their room.

"Let's pretend this Dr. Thompson doesn't know anything we don't know," Dean tried after taking a drink of the bottle of beer in his hands. "What's our next plan of attack?"

Cas looked thoughtfully at the man he was closest to in the entire universe. "We continue researching. I say we try to figure out which ritual Beelzebub is going to try to use to open the Cage. If we can find a way to thwart the ritual, the Cage can't open, and we buy ourselves more time to figure out how to kill him."

"Remind me why he can't be killed with a demon or angel blade?" Dean asked, rubbing his temple with his hands, feeling a headache coming on.

"No demon in the First Hierarchy can be killed by regular means. As far as I'm aware, only an archangel has the capability to take one out. Also, higher members of the Hierarchy are able to kill lower members."

"So Lucifer is able to kill Beelzebub?" Dean asked in interest. "That might have been important to mention the first time around, Cas."

"Technically, yes, Lucifer can kill Beelzebub," Cas said, shrugging. "But he is in the Cage, making it so that no being that can kill Beelzebub now. So I didn't think it was even worth mentioning."

Dean studied his beer bottle intently. "Would there be a way to lock Beelzebub in the Cage with Lucifer? Let them duke it out in the deepest pit of Hell?"

Cas considered it. "I don't know. That's certainly something I can look int—"

Suddenly, Cas' head snapped up, and he stared off into space, looking straight past Dean. Dean's eyebrows knit together in confusion, and he waved his hand in front of Cas' face. "Hello? Cas, man, come back, we're sort of in the middle of something here."

"Sophie," Cas said darkly.

At that, Dean straightened up. He could hear the gravity in Cas' voice. Sam, who had lent one ear towards the conversation the whole time he'd been reading, stood up from the bed. "What about Sophie?" Dean asked, trying to sound calm.

"She's praying to me," Cas said, closing his eyes, looking pained. "She sounds…." He trailed off, focusing intently.

After a moment, Dean snapped his fingers in front of the angel's face, impatient and feeling a slow, boiling feeling of panic beginning to rise up inside of him. "Cas! How does she sound? What's going on?"

Cas opened his eyes. "Terrified. She sounds terrified."

Dean stood up, trying to ignore his pounding heart and walking around the table to be right by Cas. "Go to her then, Cas! What are you waiting for?"

Cas stood up, and Dean could see the worry in his eyes. And if Cas was worried, Dean knew something was terribly wrong. Without a word, he disappeared, leaving Sam and Dean standing there in the motel room, frozen in fear and unable to do anything but wait.

A minute later, Cas popped back into the room. Dean felt his heart drop when he saw that Sophie wasn't with him. "Cas, where is she!" he yelled.

"Dean," Sam tried, failing to keep the anxiety out of his voice, "let him talk."

Cas had a dark look on his face. "She's not at the bunker, I just checked. And I can hear her prayers but I can't find her, not with the cloak she still has."

Dean never thought he'd curse the cloak that kept Sophie off of the supernatural world's radar, but now he did. "Cas, c'mon," he pleaded in a broken voice. "You've got to have some clue."

Cas closed his eyes in concentration. "She's still praying to me. She is scared, and in pain, and I can't quite reach through the barrier, I can't…can't find her…. And her prayers are getting quieter…."

Dean was about to yell something else at Cas in a terror-induced rage when Sam stepped up. "Jack," he cut in. "She's always with her friend Jack. Try him, maybe he can help us find her."

Cas nodded, and again he vanished out of sight.

He was gone longer this time, leaving Sam and Dean stuck in the same spots, silent in their fear. A million thoughts were running through Dean's head, trying to make sense of what was happening, hoping beyond hope that maybe there had just been some miscommunication on Cas' angel radio that made him think that Sophie was in danger, and she was actually just having a nice time at the movies or the mall or even at Jack's house.

After five minutes of nothing, he felt something give in his hand, and he looked down to see that he'd been gripping his beer bottle so tightly that it had shattered in his grasp, the remaining alcohol inside of it soaking into the carpet. One of the shards had nicked Dean's thumb, but he didn't even feel the sting. Sam looked at his brother with heavy eyes. "Dean—"

He was interrupted by the telltale whoosh of wings signaling Cas' return. Dean had gotten so used to Cas' entrances that the novelty of the angel not being there at one moment and being there the next had worn off.

But nothing could have prepared Dean for the sight of a battered, bloodied Sophie in the angel's arms.

She was wearing clothes Dean had never seen her in, a tight skirt and a tank top that had slid down her body due to the straps that had fallen off her shoulders, showing the top of her bra. There was blood everywhere, running down her arms, legs, and collarbone from multiple lacerations all over her body. Underneath the blood her skin was pale, paler than Dean had ever seen it. Blood coated the left side of her pale face, pouring out from a wound on her head, which rested against Cas' chest and stained his white shirt and trench coat. Her eyes were closed, and he couldn't see the rise and fall of her chest to see if she was even breathing.

"No," he said in a detached voice, frozen as Cas quickly placed her on one of the beds.

The angel turned to look at Dean, determination in his eyes. "She's alive. I will heal her when I return, but I must catch the one who did this."

"Cas, no!" Sam yelled, but Cas had already disappeared yet again.

Once he was gone, Sam rushed to Sophie's side, gently placing a hand on her head and pushing back her hair, which had come out of its ponytail and was a mess of strawberry blonde curls and blood. Sam looked up at his brother, his eyes hard. "Dean! Don't just stand there! Go get towels from the bathroom. We need to slow this bleeding if we're going to keep her alive until Cas gets back!"

Dean was snapped out of his daze, his blood pumping fast as he ran into the bathroom, grabbing every last towel before running back to Sophie's bedside, tossing a hand towel to Sam before grabbing his own. Sam gently placed his towel to Sophie's head, and within seconds the towel was completely red.

Dean felt sick. "C'mon, Soph," he practically growled, grabbing his towel and bunching it up in his hands. "Stay with me, kiddo." He saw a particularly heavy stream of blood running down her side, and he saw underneath ripped fabric a large gash that ran from her waist to her back, disappearing under her body. He clenched his teeth as he put pressure on as much of the wound as he could. After another glance, he could see an awful bruise forming all along her ribcage, sending off warning bells in Dean's brain—there had to be some sort of internal damage. "Soph, please, wake up." She was just as unresponsive, just as cold and pale and unmoving. Dean felt his eyes stinging. "Sophie Winchester, dammit, wake up!"

"Dean," Sam said harshly.

"Don't 'Dean' me, Sam, look at her!" he yelled.

As if in response, Sophie's body trembled, and then her lips parted. Dean and Sam stared at her intently, wishfully, waiting for her eyes to open.

But then she coughed, and blood spilled out of her mouth.

Is this too evil a place to end the chapter? If so, no fear - there's more to come, and I don't think you'll be disappointed by the next chapter. ~ Lacey