Chapter 37

Liberty

The demons approached Faith and me slowly, circling around us like animals. I waited, holding the shield that I had seen Momma make a hundred times before. One of the taller demons reached out, his gross face shifting unnaturally as he came closer. He didn't look like the man he was wearing and I finally understood what Momma was talking about when she said that she could see demons for who they really were.

They were ugly.

I took a deep breath and tried to keep my concentration as he began to speak to me. "Liberty Winchester, look at you," he sang, obviously making fun of me. "All big and bad, holding up her own wall and everything. She told us you were powerful. I guess she left off the part where she told us how powerful you were."

I stared and listened, wondering if he was talking about the same woman I had seen many times in my dreams. The woman with red hair frightened me, but Momma told me that she would protect me from her, and I didn't see her anywhere near, so at least I had that part under control.

"You know," the taller demon continued. "If you just dropped your little barrier and let me in, I can take you and your sisters with us. We'll grab that brother of yours and have the complete set. Wouldn't hurt a hair on that beautiful little head of yours."

"Step back from the girls," came a familiar voice from the kitchen. I smiled at the demon without looking up to see his trench coat swinging from side to side behind the counter. Uncle Cas had heard me. I knew we would be fine.

The demons turned to stare at Uncle Cas and tilted their heads. "Oh, yeah," he sighed, running his hands through his scraggily hair. "The Winchester Angel." He nodded towards us and lifted his eyebrows. "Do you think you're going to stop me from following her orders?"

"I know I am," Uncle Cas said, taking a step closer to me and Faith. I tried to move towards him too, still clutching Faith in my arms, but my feet were still cemented to the ground. She watched with calm eyes, knowing that Uncle Cas would help us.

The tall demon turned back towards me and raised his eyebrows. "I'll give you one more chance, little Winchester. You come with us and I will personally make sure we get you trained up right. Make sure you end up even more powerful than your mommy and daddy combined."

At first, I didn't understand the emotion I was feeling, and then I realized that I was mad. I was mad at the men that thought they could come into my house and hurt my family. I was mad that they had thrown Auntie Luck against the wall and tossed Johnny aside like he was a stuffed animal.

I lowered my eyes and I could feel a glow from inside my body and I knew what I could do. Uncle Cas nodded once at me, knowing my plan already and I took a deep breath and smiled, remembering what the demon had said. I smiled gently and whispered, "I already am."

There was a flash of light that filled the entire living room and blasted apart our dining room table. The three demons were thrown back against the wall, struggling to stay standing and Uncle Cas closed the gap between us, reaching for me and Faith. As I held my baby sister out to him, I noticed a bright red mark flash across my arm and recognized it as the same thing that Daddy had on his arm.

I forgot about it as soon as I looked away, still holding up my hands to keep up my shield. Uncle Cas backed towards Auntie Luck and bent to touch her forehead. He pushed her guns towards her with his foot and held Faith with one arm as he raised his other, protecting Auntie Lucky as she woke up.

She glanced at me and smiled, seeing Uncle Cas in front of us. "Glad you dropped by, Cas," she said, getting to her feet and grabbing her guns and checking both clips with one motion. "Stay for dinner?"

I turned, not thinking about the demons anymore, and realized that my feet had been freed from the floor. I ran back towards Auntie Luck as fast as I could as she began to fire.

I watched from behind her legs as she shot at the demons relentlessly and each time she fired, the bullet burned them from the inside, lighting them up with a red, fiery blaze, but not killing them. It seemed like they had extra protection: more than what Auntie was used to. Uncle Cas moved with her as they backed me up towards the panic room steps and I slowly moved down the staircase, away from the ugly demons.

Auntie Luck swore loudly as her guns clicked and the slides stayed forward, telling me that she was out of bullets. The demons were wounded, but still standing and they were inching towards us as a phone began to ring from the dining room table.

I knew it was Momma before the first ring was over and I saw Auntie Luck look towards the table where her phone was laying. She licked her lips and refocused on the demons that approached them as she pulled one of her Weapons Stone blades from the waistband of her jeans.

"You ready to go hand to hand?" she muttered to Uncle Cas as she shifted her position closer to him.

Uncle Cas nodded, but he was still holding Faith, who was watching the demons approach with her eyebrows furrowed. A glimmer in the air told me that either Uncle Cas had created a bubble shield, or Faith had learned to do it already.

"Give us the baby, angel," the demon spat. "Or we'll collect both of them after we kill you."

"Back off," Auntie Luck answered, stepping closer. She dropped an angel blade out of the sleeve of her flannel into her free hand and the demon took a step backwards, almost tripping on the rug.

I knew it wasn't me when the air started to vibrate, and when Uncle Cas shot me a confused look, I knew it wasn't him, either. There was a hum to the room that I was pretty sure only me and Uncle Cas could hear and I tensed, suddenly understanding what was about to happen.

"Oh no," I breathed, looking down at my feet and squeezing my eyes shut. "Look away," I said, knowing exactly what was coming. When my brother used to have meltdowns, he didn't have control over what he was doing, but when Faith got mad (even though she never really had before) I knew it would be worse than what Everett could do.

"Look away?" Auntie said, glancing at me. "Look away from what?"

I shook my head as the light began to pour from Faith. "Close your eyes, Auntie!" I shouted, dropping to the floor and reaching up to her flannel, tugging her down to the floor with me. I bent over and tried to cover my head with my arms. "And get out of the way!"

The sound was almost unbearable. Windows exploded and glass flew everywhere. Books went flying off of shelves and Daddy's boots slammed against the wall. Papers took to the sky and flew around us as if a tornado was inside the living room and the entire time, Auntie Lucky was trying to get closer to me, crawling slowly across the floor, doing her best to cover me with her whole body from Faith's tantrum. The house shook and there was a terrible screaming sound, louder than I had ever heard before coming from my baby sister.

Finally, Auntie was close enough to stand, pick me up off the floor, and dove down the staircase of the panic room and I opened my eyes a tiny bit to see all three of the demons burn from the inside and collapse into a pile of ash that instantly was whipped into the air and out the broken windows. The tantrum lasted only a few more seconds after that and with a crash; Faith let everything that she had been holding to the floor. The light dimmed, the scream quieted, and I was able to open my eyes again.

Aunt Lucky held me out and pushed the hair out of my face. She inspected me for a minute and wiped the dirt from my eyes. "Are you okay, Meatloaf?" she asked, louder than she needed to. I tilted my head a bit to see blood leaking slowly out of Auntie Luck's ears. She probably was more hurt that she was letting on.

I nodded and smiled weakly, leaning into her neck. "Yeah," I sighed. "Are you?"

She hugged me in response and turned to look up the stairwell. "Cas?" When there was no immediate response, she began to climb the staircase to make sure he was all right. "Cas?" she repeated.

As he came into view, I saw that he was staring at my baby sister with a surprised look on his face. She gurgled happily from his arms, waving her hands around, trying to touch his face. Finally, he looked up at both of us with glass in his hair and his tie facing the wrong way because of the wind. "I'm fine," Uncle Cas said, taking a deep breath. "Serendipity, you're bleeding."

Auntie lifted her free hand and touched the side of her face, where blood was dripping from one of her ears. "What?" she asked, making a face. "Oh, yeah," she agreed, realizing what Uncle Cas had said. She continued loudly, "Pretty sure Mushroom Cloud over there burst my ear drums. Where the hell did that come from?"

I watched Uncle Cas as he stared back down at Faith. "A very powerful creature indeed," was all he said, sighing heavily.

From behind us, we could hear Uncle Sammy pounding on the door of the panic room, still trying to get out. Auntie set me down and took the steps two at a time and held her hand up to the panel, thinking it was still working. She inspected the scorching and shook her head. "Hold on, Sam! We're okay!" she shouted. "Fuckers blew up the panel!"

The pounding stopped and Auntie Luck turned to look at Uncle Cas from the base of the steps. "Can you get in?"

Cas turned to put Faith in the playpen behind him, satisfied that she was safe and headed towards the panel. He shook his head as he stared at it and sighed. "I'm not sure if this is something I will be able to repair," he muttered. "The angelic sigils on the inside of the door make it difficult to remain this close to it. I don't know what to do."

"There's another panel somewhere," Auntie Luck put her hands on her hips and turned towards me. "Daddy put the other panel in, right?" she asked, still staring at me. "Didn't he put some secret failsafe in incase this kind of thing ever happened?"

I made a face and shrugged, not really knowing, but before I had a chance to answer, Uncle Sammy yelled, "Come to the outside of the house! There's another panel on the outside!"

"When your Dad isn't being an idjit, he's actually pretty damn clever," Auntie said, climbing the steps slowly, still obviously in pain. "Let's go get everyone out." She picked up her phone from the table as she walked by and dialed Momma.

"Yeah, we're good," she began when Momma picked up her end of the phone call. "But let me tell you, sister…I don't envy the time you're gonna have with Faith's terrible twos."