Spirit Realm. March 19, 2007
Lady looked around weakly, realizing her wrists were free. She went to the wound on her side, but didn't feel it. Slowly she sat up, not feeling pain. She had woken up on a patch of soft dirt with sharp jagged rocks. There were a few gnarled trees without leaves, no wind, no sounds, no smells. "Where am I?" she asked aloud, and heard her soft voice echo back. She took unsteady steps forward, wincing as the sharp rocks dug into her feet. She looked closer…they weren't rocks.
They were broken bones.
"Oh, well, this is nice and cozy," she whispered to herself. She looked around warily, something in her gut telling her she needed to be quiet. She wasn't in a safe place. And while it looked like she was the only one there, she saw the remains of those that had been there before her.
"You are dead," a voice said. Making her spin around.
"Max?" Lady breathed. "I, uh…sort of had the feeling I wasn't in Kansas anymore, but this doesn't look like the place over the rainbow."
"You are right," Max said. "This place is unforgiving, harsh and dangerous."
"So, uh…I'm dead and…I went to hell?" Lady asked. "I sort of got a glimpse at hell once and it actually looked a little more cheery than this. I mean, I wasn't a saint but do I really deserve hell?"
"You haven't ventured very far yet," Max said. "This is not hell. Hell aims to torture its souls. Here, souls are more frequently eaten. It is a spirit realm."
"Why are you here?"
"You failed to kill Garrett," Max said.
"What? So you hop into the spirit world to rub my nose in it?" Lady snapped angrily.
"I never put faith in you, Lady. Walk with me," Max said, and Lady walked beside her. "The world has gotten dangerous the past twenty years. And will only become more so. The power of The Goddess has been in Garrett's hands for too long, and must be taken from him. You were meant to do that, and you have."
"No, I didn't. I died," Lady reminded her.
"Your spirit has left your body, but your body now is home to The Goddess."
"Excuse me?" Lady snapped, glaring at Max.
"You heard me," Max said lazily. "You freed The Goddess."
"That sounds like a bad thing. What do you mean I gave The Goddess a home?"
"It is a very bad thing," Max agreed. "And what I mean by a new home…well, that is more difficult to explain. When The Goddess answered Garrett's call to take his offering of blood, your blood, you were already dead. However your body was marked, an invitation for her to escape the ley lines. Instead of being trapped, she is free and now resides in your body."
Lady licked her lips, understanding that the sigils on her shoulder had been an invitation. They had still worked to disrupt the ritual, just not in a way that benefited anyone. She had died, Garrett had survived. "That sucks," she said softly.
"The Goddess will take back the power that was stolen from her centuries ago, and start a war if anyone dares to go against her. And there will be a war."
"Guess I got out of the fight just in time," Lady said roughly. "And sounds like this place will fill up quickly."
"So after all of this, you just roll over and die?" Max asked.
"I already did!" Lady snapped.
Max looked at her seriously, "Spirits are weak, but if one holds onto life hard enough they can return to the land of the living. For most it takes months or years of fighting. You have less than a day. This place was once home to The Goddess's most treasured warriors who died in battle, but they have been twisted into fiends. You must be fast before they get the scent of your soul."
Lady stiffened as she heard distant howls and hungry snarls. "Max, you said you have no faith in me."
"Your faith is the only faith that matters," Max said lightly. "You've fought to live for years, are you going to stop now that you are dead? Run fast, Lady."
Lady let out a hiss as Max vanished and turned anxiously around. She licked her lips and looked one direction, "Well, at least this way sounds quiet," she muttered, and began running barefoot on sharp pieces of bone. The terrain softened after what felt like a few miles. Though Lady knew she was dead and was pretty sure she was just a spirit, she felt tired as hell. Sweat was dripping down her face from running, her feet were cut and bleeding. She rested against a mossy tree. When she had first woken up she had been in something like a plowed garden with bones instead of seeds. As she ran the ground had hardened and blue-green grass was sprouting. The trees were tall and had long branches that hung down. So far the run had been on flat ground, but in the distance she saw rolling hills and on the horizon there were sharp peak of mountains.
Maybe Lady had never been an angel, but she thought she had been a good person. She never thought her use of the F-bomb or seeking out sex or murdering evil witches would have damned her soul to this place. She also didn't believe in heaven, but thought that wherever spirits went should have been a little bit more habitable. She looked at the sky. A blue-black, no stars or moon, not even clouds that she could see. "Why me? Huh?" She shook her head and wiped at the tears that were spilling out.
Lady stood up straight as she heard a soft noise. She was still until she heard it again, and as quietly as she could walked curiously toward the sound. Her heart nearly burst in joy when she saw a young woman huddled under a willow tree. "Hey, sh, it's okay. I won't hurt you," Lady whispered, crouching. It was such a relief to know she wasn't alone in this place, that there were other souls trapped there as well.
The woman raised her head from her hands, and Lady fell back as she saw the woman's face was eyeless with a gaping round mouth full of sharp teeth. Lady let out a shriek as the thing lunged at her.
Her scream sent the woods she was running through in a flurry of activity. Black ravens that she hadn't seen in the trees cawed and took flight, their big black wings stirring the air as they followed her. Things she couldn't see running between the trees, some on four legs others on two. Feral snarls, high cackles, shrieks of delight at a hunt. "Oh god!" Lady gasped as she ducked under a low hanging tree branch as she ran. "NO!" She screamed as something hit her back and knocked her onto her face.
She wrestled with something as big as Freddie, but it was slimy and slithering. It's disgusting coating allowed her to slip away, only to be pinned down by something that was just as large with glowing red eyes and claws for hands. It held her as ravens dropped from the sky onto her. Sharp beaks and claws scratching and nipping at her exposed arms and face as she screamed and fought. "HELP ME! GOD! SOMEONE HELP ME!" She screamed and begged as she was being torn apart.
There was a crack, something sounding like a gunshot, and the things scattered. Lady tried to hold herself together, feeling hot blood on her abdomen and she was afraid she was holding her insides where they were supposed to be. There was another blast, and she decided it was thunder, but it was distant and she saw no lightening in the sky. Lady crawled under some low branches for cover, trembling as her spirit continued to bleed. "Help me," she whispered and sobbed.
She felt movement around her, something like a cold breeze that made her fear the ravens had returned, until she saw shimmering orbs of blackened spirits. She stayed huddled under her cover until they passed, and then quietly crawled out and got back to her feet. One arm stayed protectively around her abdomen as she limped on, going the way the other spirits had. She wondered if that was all she looked like to them, a shimmering orb. But so far all the other residents of this place hadn't been very hospitable, she wasn't about to flag one down and ask. She couldn't move as fast as the other spirits, but they went in the direction where she heard the thunder and that had been her original direction.
When the trees cleared she was at the edge of a cliff, and the other side was twenty feet across. Lady dropped to her knees. She knew the things that were behind her. She knew the only reason she hadn't dropped dead from her injuries was because she was already dead, but that didn't stop it from hurting. It could be possible for her to have the flesh completely stripped from her bones and things eating her insides without dying as a spirit. That was a scary thought, because already she felt like dying was a better alternative than being trapped where she was.
"Giving up already?" Max asked, appearing at her side.
"Give me a hint?" Lady asked. "Am I supposed to use my own intestines for a bungee jump?" She motioned toward the dark and bottomless pit of a cliff in front of her.
"You don't want to go down," Max offered. "You want to go up." Max pointed toward the hills on the other side of the gaping hole. "And you do not want to stay here long. I am doing my best to keep them at bay, but my power is not very strong here."
Lady turned to look behind her, there were several pairs of reflective eyes hiding in the trees and staring at her hungrily. Maybe they were getting ready to pounce and take her by surprise. Or maybe they were afraid to venture outside the cover of the trees themselves. Lady had a feeling it was the latter, which didn't make her feel much better about her choice to go this way. "Where am I going?" she asked.
Max looked at her without sympathy, "I'm trying to save your spirit from this place. You do not belong here, Lady. You must keep moving. Those things will kill you, end you completely."
"You seem to be able to pop in and out as you like! Just take me with you!"
"I cannot," Max said gently. "If you had allowed me to bind your spirit, I could guide you easily. But you had to be stubborn and protect your freedom."
Lady's lips parted, and then twisted into a snarl. "Why didn't you just tell me?"
"Power is shifting, Lady. These things feel it, they are being drawn to the same place you are. Stop blubbering and move!"
"WHERE THE FUCK AM I SUPPOSED TO GO?" Lady screamed back. "There is no where but down!"
"Then go down!" Max shouted back, and shoved Lady over the cliff.
Lady let out a short scream and her hands grabbed at jagged rocks without luck. She braced herself for the inevitable impact, and screamed as she felt her left leg break with the fall.
"Well, well, look who we have here," a high voice said.
Lady took in painful breaths as she tried to sit up, assessing any other damage to her spirit. She looked around, but not much light reached the bottom of the pit. "Who's there?"
"Don't you recognize me?" the voice said, and there were soft footsteps until Angie, the witch she had killed nearly a year ago in Florida, became close enough to see. She smiled wickedly, "Now, this is interesting. The good little witch-hunter ends up here? In the pit no less. Tsk tsk, you must have been naughty."
"I got pushed," Lady said. "What is this place?"
"It has a few different names," Angie said. "I just call it hell. It's where you sent me. I thought only witches came here when they died. I guess you were one after all."
"I guess I was enough of one," Lady said painfully. "So, you hide in this hole and those things don't eat you?"
"Think I'll tell you my tricks of surviving this place?" Angie shook her head. "I was just on my way to answer the call of Garrett, going to be by his side. But this…I'd rather be stuck here and enjoy tearing you apart than escape this place."
Lady worked to protect her fragile insides and broken leg as Angie tackled her and worked on beating her into the ground. Fingernails clawing at her eyes, a knee into her chest to take away her breath, a kick to her broken leg to make her scream.
"Angie, stop," a man ordered.
"No! She killed me!"
"She killed me, too. Don't you think I deserve a chance?"
Lady let out soft painful whimpers as Ian, another witch she had killed in Florida nearly a year ago, stood over her. "Just finish it," she begged.
"I expected more fight from you," Ian muttered. "Angie, leave."
"No. I at least want to watch," Angie said in a feral voice.
Ian put a hand on her shoulder, and with a fluid movement slammed her head into the rocks. Lady looked up at him fearfully as Angie went still, her head leaking onto the rocks. "I never liked her," he said, kneeling down so he could be on the same level as Lady. "You killed me and sent my spirit into slavery for Garrett. Do you know what I want to do to you?"
"I know what I'd want to do to me," Lady breathed fearfully.
"Then you know how insanely painful it is for me to assist you," he said. Lady looked at him with wide eyes. "The Goddess is free and unchained. Garrett is calling upon all spirits he can command to assist him in binding her again. I must answer his call. I must obey, that is all I can do. You understand his power. Maybe you can't fight him as a spirit, but you can aid others to do so."
"How?"
"We just have to reach a crossroads," Ian answered. "I can lead you to one, but it will be up to you to claw yourself out of this place. I want to be free of Garrett, I want him to die."
Lady let Ian help her stand, and he let her use him as a crutch as they walked down the path. "So, uh…about the knife to the throat," Lady said awkwardly. "Well, I'm not sorry about that. You know that, right?"
"This is a long journey, do you have to talk?" Ian asked.
"I'm trying to stay conscious," Lady said. She managed to stay quiet for a long time before saying, "What is this place?"
"Official name? I don't have one. Garrett has called it Folkvangr before. If he's right that is where Vikings who died in battle went, sort of like their heaven. But this is far from heaven," Ian said. "I know what I am. I'm a black witch, I enjoy using black magic...but I never knew just how dark this place could be." Ian stopped, going silent and pressing them against a wall. "Quiet."
Lady watched a cloud of black smoke streak by over them, it tinged the air black for a long time and they didn't move until it had dispersed completely. She had seen black smoke like that before. "Was that a demon?"
"Yes," Ian said. "They travel through areas near crossroads. It means we are close to one."
Lady wanted to beg for a break as Ian helped her hop along, but she felt if she stopped to rest she wouldn't be able to get up again. She believed that Ian wanted Garrett dead, but she was expecting him to smash her head into the rocks like he had with Angie. Her best chance at being ready was to keep herself moving so she could avoid the crash she wanted to take.
"Is Ananda here?" Lady asked, wondering if the witch that had cursed her ten years ago was still floating around as a spirit.
"If she is I haven't seen her," Ian said. "Fortunate. She'd slay us both if she was. Most witches end up in this pit. It's safe, not many of the monsters come down here."
"How do you get out?" Lady asked.
"Garrett summons us," Ian said. "Not you, obviously. The ritual sites are on intersections of ley lines that are thin enough for us to pass through. I'll take you as far as I can, but like I said it is up to you to get out."
The tops of the cliffs didn't seem as high as they made their way, but the bottom of the pit became more narrow. Several black orbs were visible in the distance and Ian pressed her against the wall. "Those are the others. Weak-willed spirits, they move like schools of fish for protection. Garrett's cannon-fodder, but if they see you they will attack like wolves."
"What are they doing?" Lady asked.
"Something is blocking their way out, they aren't smart enough to find another way. I can resist Garrett for a short time, but time is running out." Ian looked around. "I'll round them up and guide them away. Once it is clear you are on your own."
Lady rested her head against the rock-wall. She couldn't walk on her own, she could barely stand up without assistance. She watched from the distance as Ian walked into the group of shapeless spirits, rounding them up like sheep and guiding them. She waited several minutes to make sure they wouldn't turn back before leaning against the wall and hopping her way to the spot they had gathered. Once she reached it she fell over, her hands searching the black dirty for a way out.
Lady understood crossroads. They were weak points between the spirit world and the real one. Even demons used crossroads as a way to move around. And ley lines had their own crossroads as points of power. "So, uh, this thing have a doorknob or something?" She muttered weakly. "Max? Hello?" she called. She was at a cross in the cliffs. A deep and narrow split between rocks. One going east and west, another going north and south, with her in the middle of them. It wasn't a traditional crossroad, but it was definitely an in-between place where the fabric between realities could be weak enough for her to cross over or at least speak to the other side.
But nothing happened.
She laid on the ground, resting and trying to find the will to keep moving through the pain. And then she heard flaps of wings and saw a dark cloud of ravens overhead. Lady crawled out of the open center and to the moderate cover of the rocky wall. Avoiding getting her eyes gouged out by ravens was enough motivation to keep moving. This place wasn't working, and Max had pointed her in the direction she was supposed to go before. Lady pulled herself back to her feet and leaned against the wall as she hopped along, going north, or the direction she was considering north. The direction where there were hills and mountains. She hadn't seen crossroads, but that was where Max had pointed her. But Max had also pushed her over a cliff. Causing Lady to fall down the cliff or not, taking Max's advice was the only thing she knew to do.
What felt like miles of hopping the terrain began to raise and the walls fell away. Lady was out of the dark pit. The area she was in now was mostly grassland, not many places to hide and nothing for her to lean against. She tried at first to walk, telling herself that her leg wasn't really broken. That she wasn't really a solid person at all, she was just a spirit. But her leg was definitely broken and there was no way in hell she was going to try and put weight on it again. So she crawled.
Monsters weren't the only thing infesting the realm. As she crawled insects came up from the ground in swarms. Beetles and ants crawled and nibbled on her, spiders as big as her fist charged at her until she swatted them back. It wasn't until she found a large stick that was thick enough to support her weight that she was able to get back to her feet and use that as a crutch. It helped her move faster and kept the worst of the insects from attacking.
When she thought the insects were the worst this region had to offer she heard howls that made her go cold, and the snapping barks to signal an attack that made her try to move faster. She was at the bottom of the first hill she'd need to get across, and she moved as quickly as she could in hope that at the other side of the hill would be salvation. She'd take a tree to climb, a cave to crawl into, or a river of lava to dive in. She wasn't picky, just something so she didn't have to be torn apart.
Lady found something. She found what Max had sent her to find at the top of the hill. Burned into the grass there was the design of a medicine wheel. Not a traditional crossroad, but it was a spot of power. She hoped this was what Max had told her to go to, at least, because she could hear snapping jaws and feel heavy paws vibrating the ground nearing her. "Max? Max!" Lady called as she fell into the center of the circle. She swung the stick she had been using as a crutch at the first black dog that reached the top of the hill, hitting it on the side of the head and sending it toppling back down. "Oh god, no!" Lady shrieked as three more dogs reached the top. One snapping at the other while the last one lunged into the circle.
Lady fell back and got her arm in the dog's neck. Hours of playful wrestling with Freddie meant she had practice handling large dogs. However Freddie had never tried to rip her throat out. The dog's teeth sank deep into her arm, crushing the bones and shaking, nearly tearing the limb off. Lady screamed in pain as another dog grabbed what had been her good leg, pulling and shaking. Lady tried to save herself from the kill, the teeth to the throat, she knew was coming from the remaining dog. Each of them were just as large as Freddie, and all of them full of feral rage that she couldn't protect herself from. Lady closed her eyes, too afraid to watch as the dog's jaws opened wide and its sharp teeth gouged into her neck, clamping tight to choke her.
There was another crack of thunder that sounded like it was right over her, and the black dogs paused in tearing her apart before running away with fearful whimpers. Lady didn't move. The pain was too much, she had nothing left to fight with and no hope.
Max appeared and knelt beside her, putting a hand on her chewed up throat. Lady looked at Max with contempt, even as the old medicine woman seemed to look down at her with sympathy and compassion that she had never showed when they were alive. "It is time, child," Max said gently, gathering the frail and broken spirit of Lady in her arms and guiding her through the ley lines.
A/N –Hey guys, thanks for the reviews. I hope these chapters aren't getting too crazy, but at the same time I needed them to be a bit crazy. This 'Goddess' arc has one more chapter to it after this, just so you know it doesn't go on forever. I don't want to spoil anything, but we're all Supernatural fans here and I think we know that characters have trouble staying dead. I don't plan on making it a habit, but there is a method to my madness and I promise if you hang around it'll make more sense.
Also I just like saying thank you for the reviews because they make me so happy :D. This story just hit 80 reviews, which is the most I've ever gotten. And it is about to reach 9,000 views (I sort of stalk my story traffic). And I know with a story of this length not many people can stand to sit through and read it all. If I didn't have bills to pay I'd probably write all the time. So again, thank you for following and reviewing. And I'll get around to getting that next chapter up eventually ;)
Songs for this chapter:
Alice, by Avril Lavigne
New Divide, by Linkin Park
