Voodoo Child
And if I don't meet you no more in this world
Then I'll, I'll meet you in the next one
And don't be late, don't be late
- Jimi Hendrix
Nate Fletcher gazed around the disordered library, his heart sinking at the carnage before him. Bodies were everywhere, some laid out on tables for examination, but most in rows on the floor. Crowley's people were still finding more as they searched the asylum, bringing them here to get a final count. It was still unclear what exactly had occurred.
Crowley appeared abruptly behind him, laying something on the table closest to the window. Fletcher turned and was aghast to see Devi's ravaged body. "Merciful god! What happened?"
Crowley straightened, looking at him with an oddly enigmatic expression. "Hellhound – caught up with her as she was attempting to flee the grounds," he explained, his tone flat and even.
Fletcher looked down at his friend's still form silently. After a moment's hesitation, he reached over to gently close her eyes, wishing he had the faith to offer a prayer for her.
"Mr. Fierro," Crowley called as he moved away from the table. "Do we have a verdict?"
The witch looked up from another table nearby, where he had been examining the body of one of Crowley's analysts. He had that harried look again. "I'm no forensic investigator, but the cause of death is fairly obvious: multiple stab wounds, inflicted with multiple instruments, both before and after death."
"Multiple instruments," Crowley repeated, "What makes you say that?"
"Size and shape of the wounds vary," Fierro went on. "Even without magnification, you can tell. Some of them look like they were done-"
"With some kind of spike." Crowley finished for him.
Fierro shrugged, "I was thinking it looked like the work of those angel blades. A lot of them were found lying around, both here and down in the courtyard." He nodded to a pile of said weapons by the hearth.
"Suggesting some of this mess was demon-on-demon," Crowley concluded. "That doesn't explain our smoking gun." He gestured to where one of the seer's knives lay on the table beside the body. It had been found on the ground next to the corpse of his analyst.
He put his hands in his pockets, casting his eyes over the rows of bodies. The seer couldn't have done all this on her own, but she was certainly involved somehow. Many of the dead he recognized as members of his immediate staff, but some were from outside the asylum, even outside his loyalist faction. He stiffened as his gaze landed on two demons among the dead that he knew for a fact had signed on with Abbadon's contingent. Studying the bodies again, he picked out others whose allegiance had been questionable.
"Mr. Fletcher," he said sharply, "I believe I put you in charge of defenses in this building. Would you care to explain why a number of Abbadon's lot made it this far into my base of operations without consequence?"
Fletcher looked up in a daze, "Wha- We... we did the defenses like you said. Everything was in place. The only people who knew about all the pitfalls were the staff you'd tasked to remain here."
"All of whom are also deceased," Crowley pointed out. Turning from the young witch, he clasped his hands behind his back, looking over the damage. "Quite a day of misfortune for my household," he went on, his tone becoming dangerously soft. "And how miraculous that you and Mr. Fierro are unharmed."
"It must have been a near thing," Fletcher admitted. "If we hadn't had to run into town to grab a last-minute ingredient, we'd have been right in the thick of it."
"Something you forgot to include on your shopping list?" Crowley asked levelly.
Fletcher shrugged, "Didn't know we'd need it until Jack said something. He was covering the grounds from the air, like you told him, but he dropped in, took one look at what we were doing, and said we needed more white willow."
"I see," Crowley answered softly. "Mr. Fletcher, if you would allow me a brief word with your familiar."
"Uh, ok, sure." He lowered his head, then raised it to reveal glossy black eyes. "You wanted to see me, si-gack!"
Jack struggled in Crowley's grip as the King of Hell seized him by the throat. Lifting the lesser demon off the ground, Crowley growled in his face. "How very convenient of you to discover cause for an emergency shopping trip just before the place is invaded. You wouldn't have happened to see something from your post a hundred feet up that might have prompted that little excursion, would you?"
"Alright!" Jack gasped, helplessly clawing at the hand around his neck. "Alright, I saw... There was this heap of lads heading down the lane to the asylum. T'ought it would be fine, wit' all the warding we'd done. Then on the way back, I sees Kelson goin' up the drive towards the gate."
"Kelson?" Crowley echoed, lowering the familiar slightly.
Jack nodded frantically, "He kept lookin' over his shoulder, like he didn't want to be seen. I put two and two together, didn't like the odds. Came back to grab my meatsuit and scarpered."
"You didn't tell the boy what was happening?" Crowley clarified.
Jack shook his head, "He'd have wanted to stay and do something, try to get people out, try to find her." He glanced significantly towards the slain seer.
"But you generously allowed Fierro along for the ride," Crowley pointed out.
Despite his predicament, the familiar sneered, "The boy's idea. No harm in it; since he was already in the room wit' us, there was no need to go lookin' for him." By this point, his feet were back on the floor, but Crowley hadn't released him yet. Jack shook his head again, "Look, the boys that were headed in, they were tough bastards, the lot. You know what Abbadon's people think o' the likes of me – they'd have exterminated me on sight. So, yeah, I pulled a legger: took what was mine and ran fer it."
Crowley let go of his throat, putting an almost fatherly arm around his shoulders and pulling the familiar close. "Jack, my dear boy, my poppet," he murmured soothingly. "If I thought for one minute that you had advanced warning that this was coming," he gestured to the ransacked library, "and didn't tell me, I'd have you over a slow fire until the little fat you have on your bones ran clear, make a gravy from the drippings, and feed it to you." He gave a smile like the north wind in January, "You know that, don't you?"
Jack swallowed, nodding fervently, "Yessir. I didn't know anythin' about it ahead o' time, swear on me life!"
"Good lad," Crowley said coldly, patting him heavily on the shoulder and pushing him away in one movement. He turned away, stroking his beard thoughtfully.
Kelson – that little prat had been at the bottom of the food chain since the seer had blinded him in a rage. Even if the demon hadn't acted out of bounds in regards to her, his loss of sight had proved permanent. Something to do with the seer's blood on the glass shard, no doubt, they had burned through two new meatsuits only to discover their eyes went cloudy in a matter of hours. Still, he had stuck to Crowley's side, seeming set on following the leader that had toppled Satan himself, as he had since the Apocalypse. It was a shame that so ardent an underling had so little innate talent, but Crowley believed in working with what you have.
Now, it seemed Crowley had overestimated his fidelity. If Jack's story was true, Kelson may have allowed Abbadon's strike force entry to the asylum, shepherding them past all the warding and traps prepared for them. Crowley narrowed his eyes, picking out the body of his chauffeur among the dead. Andrews and Priscilla had been inside the building, as had several other members of staff, their bodies found in scattered locations throughout the complex. Kelson, Lucas, and a handful of the home guard had been found in the courtyard, however, where they'd been ripped apart by the seer in her tiger form, along with most of the demons who were not from the asylum.
He looked back at her bloodied body on the table, mulling over his options. "Where's LeRoux?" he asked abruptly.
Fierro looked up from his work, "On a plane back to Natchitoches. She left this morning once everything was in place."
Crowley snapped his fingers, snagging a minion's attention, "Get me someone who can flit. I want that witch back here, now!" He turned to Fierro, gesturing at the seer, "Start stitching her up. I want her in as close to one piece as you can get her."
"Uh, ok, isn't she dead, sir?" Fierro put to him.
Crowley glared pointedly at the witch, snarling, "Really? Is she? I couldn't tell, I have so little experience with corpses!"
Fierro dropped what he was doing and hurried over to the table where the seer lay, muttering under his breath, "I'm an EMT, not a damn mortician."
Nate, once more in control of his body, approached Crowley cautiously. "Sir, can I ask what we're doing?"
Crowley smiled grimly, "Working wonders, my lad. Working wonders."
Fierro looked up from examining the body. "If you want me to do this for real, I need a clean room and sterile workspace. And real instruments... and preferably another set of hands," he added under his breath.
"What's wrong with here?" Crowley asked with a shrug. "She is dead, after all; she can hardly object."
Fierro gave him an annoyed look from under his thick eyebrows. "Yeah, but I assume you plan on doing something about that, and I figure you want her to not drop dead, again, of septicemia the minute you get her up. This room is filled with corpses, and is halfway outside now!" He gestured to the gaping hole in the outer wall where the window had been.
"Tch, very well," sighed Crowley, sounding ill-used. "There's a dissection room off the laboratory, I suppose that will do. Tools down there as well, though I would clean them thoroughly before you use them."
Fierro waited until Crowley turned his back before rolling his eyes at him. "Obviamente," he scoffed softly to himself. "¿Qué clase de idiota crees que soy?" He went off in search of a gurney.
Crowley gazed at the hole in the wall contemplatively, then snapped his fingers. The window was back in place in an instant, the rubble below vanishing. He looked down at the rows of bodies with distaste, then shouted at two demons who had just come through the doorway with another corpse. "Get that filthy thing out of here! Does it look like we need more? Take them down to the lower-level showers, we'll get a final count there. And keep those found outside of the building seperate. I want to know who was in the courtyard particularly."
The unfortunate minions stammered that they weren't sure, even now, who had been found where.
Crowley rounded on them, his eyes burning darkly, "You mean to say that in the course of a full investigation of this outrage against my home, you haven't been keeping track of a simple matter of where the bodies were?"
Both demons were shaking now, shooting panicked, sidelong glances at each other as each tried to think of how to make this whole mess the other's fault.
"I have that on record," a low, clear voice from behind them stated. A short, slim woman with dark eyes and an air of collected authority brushed by the two unfortunates, an e-tablet in one hand.
"Ah, Xue Daiyu," Crowley breathed, his foul mood evaporating, "At last, someone competent." He took the device from her, studying it. "This will do nicely," he nodded. "Now, some shower of savages came through and upset the order of my archive. There's no one I'd trust more to put things right."
Fang gave him a cool look that suggested she recognized the heavy workload hiding behind the flattery, but gave a crisp nod and moved towards the disheveled stacks.
Crowley smiled to himself, clasping his hands behind his back and bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet. Nothing like giving orders to help get back in the swing of things. Despite the tumult that had happened here, things were truly looking up.
There was an almost imperceptible stirring in the air, and a young man popped into being by the hearth, an older woman holding onto his arm as if he was escorting her. The woman, a tall, graceful, middle-aged lady with harvest gold skin and dark amber eyes, cast a disdainful gaze around the library before settling on Crowley. Her expression of displeasure deepened.
"I hope you got a good reason for dragging me back here, mishé," she said.
"Madam LeRoux," Crowley gave a genteel bow of his head. "Thank you so much for making yourself available. I assure you, I would never have intruded on your time further were it not important."
LeRoux gave a curt shake of her head, setting her dense, tight curls dancing, "It better be."
Crowley gave another little bow, and gestured Leroux towards the table where the seer's body lay. Fletcher took a respectful step back as the elder mage swept up, looking down at the seer with cool pity. She laid a hand gently on the girl's forehead, her own head lowering as her eyes dropped closed. She bent forward slowly, until her forehead nearly touched the seer's.
"Mmm, this girl been through it," she said at last, straightening.
"Yes, a tragedy, no doubt: so young, and to have barely begun to live," Crowley replied carelessly, his impatience wearing through his civility. "Can you fix it?"
LeRoux gave him a sharp, measuring look, "'Can I fix it?' What you mean 'fix'? I can restore the body for a time, but whether the soul moves to reinhabit it is out of my hands – and yours too, I'm guessing, seeing as how I'm here at all."
Crowley pursed his lips sourly. The easiest course of action, naturally, would have been a crossroads deal. However, the people most likely to make that kind of agreement for the seer, her family, still eluded him somehow, despite his best efforts to locate them the year previous. A deal like that couldn't be ordered or compelled in any way, or he might have had one of the witches do it.
"How long she been dead?" Leroux said, after enjoying his discomfort a moment.
"An hour, if that," Crowley replied. "I have it on good authority that Heaven's Gate is still closed for business, and I know for a fact her soul isn't downstairs, so it should still be about."
"Unless she already moved on," Leroux pointed out.
"You mean 'to the next life'? Please," Crowley gave a mirthless laugh. "Even if she were to reincarnate, that still requires a psychopomp. If the Gate opened today, the Reapers would be dealing with the Veil's backlog for at least a month, poor sods." He leaned over the table, speaking earnestly to the mage. "She's still here, I guarantee it. Restore her physical body, and she'll fall right back into place."
"Perhaps," LeRoux allowed, eyeing the King of Hell like she might have an overconfident student. "But that'll be up to her."
Fierro trudged behind the gurney, guiding the wheeled stretcher down the hall. They could have gotten to their destination five minutes ago if Fletcher hadn't been walking so slowly. Ostensibly steering the front of the gurney, he was paying more mind to Madam Leroux, asking her questions about what they were going to do and listening to her answers in rapt attention.
"Can we really heal her – her body, I mean, when her soul's not in it?" he said. "I didn't think that was possible."
"Curative magic usually works hand-in-hand with the natural healing factor in a person's body," Leroux agreed. "And as you can see, this body ain't got no healing factor right now," she nodded back to the corpse on the gurney. "That makes our job considerably harder. However, if we focus on the restorative side, putting things back the way they was, we can at least piece her back together."
"But how do we keep that restoration in place?" Fletcher pressed. "Won't we be fighting against the natural process of decay?"
"Sure 'nough, child," she nodded. "If her soul don't settle back in place right quick, nothing we do for her is gonna last. The magic will unravel with no life to anchor to."
"But if her soul does come back?" Fletcher posed.
"Once she gets the breath of life back in her, it'll give our spells something to work with. Still," she glanced back at the body, "she got a long way to go, even if things do go our way."
Fierro shook his head quietly and frowned thoughtfully down at the body on the stretcher. Restoration magic was a bit outside of his field. He did wards: drawing in the good, keeping out the bad, that was his business. The task he had ahead of him now was much more tangible, that of needle and thread, of flesh and bone.
The little party turned into the laboratory, and while Fletcher and Leroux began setting out their supplies at one of the workbenches close to a window, Fierro pushed the gurney straight on through, heading for the spartan stone room at the far end. He wrinkled his nose at the stainless steel table in the room's center; sure, it looked clean, but god knew what it had been used for last. He splashed alcohol across the surface and wiped it down with a clean cloth three times, just to be sure. He likewise sterilized all the instruments he would be using, taking care to pick the utensils that looked newest. Not quite trusting where Crowley might have gotten his suturing material, Fierro had opted to dip into his personal stash for a spool of vicryl.
Gently placing the seer's body on the table, he slipped in a pair of earbuds, set the volume low, and put on the soothing tones of Ill Niño as he got to work. Cutting away the torn and stained clothing, washing the body, irrigating the wounds with saline to remove any debris and keep the surrounding tissue moist and supple: each step was practiced routine for him. He actually caught himself wondering whether Crowley had morphine on hand before remembering that anesthesia wasn't a necessary part of this operation. Not having to worry about blood loss was kind of nice too, once he got over the weirdness of it, but the coldness of the skin was definitely off-putting.
While he was a skilled hand at suturing, he had never had to complete so much of a surgical marathon as this. When he finally leaned back from closing the wounds to the seer's front, it felt like he'd been working for an hour. A glance at the clock on the wall showed this estimate wasn't far off. Clenching and unclenching his hands to ease the tension in his fingers, he called into the next room, "Hey, Fletch! Gimme a hand here, I need to turn her over."
The Irishman walked into the room, took one look at the table, and went bright red before turning around hastily, "Can you, uh, put a sheet on her or something?"
Fierro frowned at the body. Granted, she was technically naked, but he had been so involved in dealing with her injuries that he hadn't really seen the body as a whole for awhile now, and certainly hadn't thought of it that way. He supposed it was part of the job, seeing only the parts of her that needed his fixing while everything faded into the background. He glanced back at Fletcher, and could see by his ears that the poor man was still very pink. He sighed, and even though it wasn't exactly sanitary, covered the body with a clean sheet, crossing her arms over her chest to keep it in place. He cleared his throat, giving Fletcher a disparaging eyebrow when the other witch turned back around. The Irishman shrugged sheepishly as he came over to help.
"Hold her head, gently now, so it turns with the rest of the body," Fierro instructed, carefully rolling the seer onto her side.
Fletcher cradled her head in his hands and tilted it to the side, noticing as he did so the mehndi on the back of her neck. "Whoa, look at this," he traced a finger along the edge of the intricate design.
Fierro glanced over, and nodded approvingly, "Nice ink." He was something of an expert, having both forearms covered in full-color sleeves, rife with roses, calaveras, and Aztec symbols.
As they turned the body over, the sheet shifted, baring more of the seer's back. "There's another one," Fletcher noted as he gently lay her head cheek-down on the table. "That one looks a little different. Think they mean something? Hey!"
Neither witch had noticed that Crowley was suddenly in the room. Whether he had heard them talking and come in through the lab, or just appeared there as he was wont to do was anyone's guess. Regardless, he was here now, and upon overhearing their conversation, he had swept in and pulled the sheet down from the seer's back. Fletcher just managed to reach across the body in time to keep it from sliding off entirely.
Crowley was staring at the mehndi patterns as if entranced. His gaze swept up the seer's spine to her neck, and he brushed her hair aside to study the mark there more closely. After a moment, he moved around to the end of the table, above where her head lay, face turned to the side. He smoothed back her hair, peering closely at her forehead. Fierro could just make out the edge of another, larger design that continued under the hairline.
Crowley straightened, comprehension fading into calculation in his eyes. "That's how it's done," he breathed, before turning on his heel and stalking from the room.
"What'd you reckon's got into him?" Fletcher asked, frowning after the retreating form.
Fierro only shrugged, turning back to the task at hand. The damage to the seer's back was even more severe than the front. He frowned thoughtfully, mentally tallying the injuries: multiple, deep lacerations to the back, shoulders, and ribs, and those could only be bite marks around her neck, collarbone, and down her arms; another couple big gashes on her legs, but almost nothing on her stomach, or anywhere down her front below the sternum. He knew the cause of death was a mauling by Hellhounds, but they usually went for the chest and throat, which was, well, not untouched, but better off by comparison to the rest of her. He couldn't figure out what position she must have been in to get torn up the way she was; maybe she was caught from behind and fell forward.
Regardless, there was plenty of work to do. Fierro slid on a clean pair of gloves, picked up a fresh needle with a sterile set of forceps, and methodically started suturing the largest gash. The minutes blurred together. At one point, he'd had to stop to give his eyes a break, and to go find more suturing material, as he'd used all of his.
When he came back through the main lab, absentmindedly rubbing at the sore joints of his fingers, Leroux glanced up at him, "Hard on the hands?"
Fierro blew out an exhausted breath, "It's a lot of stitching."
Leroux nodded, turning to fish something out of her bag. She tossed a small, metal tin to him. "Rub it into the joints – it'll help."
He opened the tin, inhaling the sharp, clean scent it exuded. "This isn't going to interfere with the other magic you're working on?" he asked cautiously.
"It's just peppermint ointment, sonny," Leroux snorted softly. "No magic to it, but it'll help with circulation."
"Oh," Fierro re-examined the tin, feeling a little foolish. He rubbed his thumb across the yellowish substance inside – beeswax, from the feel of it – and worked it into the skin above his knuckle, where the imprint from the curved handle of the forceps could still be seen. He flexed his hand experimentally. It felt a little better. He sighed, glancing back at the body on the table. He was better than three-quarters of the way finished. He just had to hold out a little longer. Resignedly, he pulled on a new set of gloves.
He had just tied off the last stitch when Leroux tapped him on the shoulder. "You ready for us?" she asked, and he nodded. Stepping back, he scrubbed his hands one last time in the sink before turning to watch the other witches.
They began by applying a thick green paste to the wounds, which they then plastered over with witch-hazel leaves. Leroux took a length of twine twisted from nettle fibers, laying it in a broad triple loop around the seer's still form and tying it off with an elaborate knot. She was chanting softly the whole time in a language Fierro didn't recognize, though parts of it seemed familiar, the words shifting subtly with each repetition of the tune.
"Already started, then? Excellent."
Fierro jumped at the words, turning to find Crowley suddenly beside him. The King of Hell stepped towards the table, eyeing the proceedings approvingly. Leroux gave him a look of mild irritation out of the corner of her eye, but continued her work and her chanting as Fletcher set thick candles of rolled beeswax at each corner of the table.
Crowley riffled in his coat pocket, pulling out four broad metal bands like bangles. They appeared to be made from several different metals twisted and forged together, lines of steel-blue, copper, and bronze twining around each other. A number of symbols were cut into the polished surface.
"What are those?" Fletcher asked curiously.
"Something to help hold the spellwork in place, since her soul's not here to do it," Crowley replied, forcing one open a little wider to slide it around the seer's left ankle, then pressing the band back together until the open ends nearly touched. He repeated the operation at her other ankle and at each wrist. Leroux cast a jaundiced glance at the rings, but didn't comment, her chanting unabated.
Crowley stepped back and lit the candles with a snap of his fingers, "Let's get on with it then, shall we?"
Leroux moved to stand at the head of the table, raising her hands palms-up in front of her and tilting her head back. Her eyes rolled up until only the whites showed as her chanting grew louder and faster.
Fierro glanced down at the body, and saw some of the smaller cuts on her face, too shallow for sutures, begin to close up. The electric lights above flickered, emitting a low, whining hum before going out entirely. The scene was now lit only from the candles around the body, and Fierro shivered in spite of himself. The whole thing looked eerie, and he almost thought he could hear the moaning of the wind outside. Something ruffled his hair, and he realized he wasn't imagining it: the air in the room was stirring, carrying with it a sibilant, slithering sound like sand blowing over stone.
Leroux's chanting reached its crescendo, and she slammed her hands down on the steel table to either side of the seer's head. At the same moment, all four candles went out. Fierro stood frozen in the darkness for what was probably the longest three seconds of his life before the lights in the ceiling hummed back to life, illuminating the room again.
Leroux stood hunched over the head of the table, her face almost ashen with exhaustion. Crowley hadn't moved from where he'd been watching at the foot at the table, hands in his pockets and wearing a speculative expression. Across the room, Fierro met eyes with Fletcher, who looked – well, if he wasn't a witch, Fierro would say he looked as if he'd just seen a ghost, but that was a fairly routine occurrence for this profession. Suffice to say, the other witch looked profoundly shaken. Still, he moved to the table, gently taking the seer's hand in his own.
"She's not... she's still..." he trailed off, confusion warring with disappointment on his face. "Did we do something wrong?"
Leroux straightened with a long, labored sigh, and shook her head. "It was a long shot, after all," she laid a hand on the Irishman's shoulder.
"So, it's no good?" he asked sadly.
The woman shrugged, "Body's more or less whole – we did that part right."
"Then she might still come back?" he pressed.
Leroux pursed her lips, slowly shaking her head again, "Possible, but it's ten-to-one against." She gave Fletcher a look of cool pity, "Sometimes the soul is just out of reach. Best to let things move the way they're meant to." She gave him another pat on the shoulder, and turned and walked back into the lab, beginning to gather up her things.
Fierro sighed, cracking his knuckles. A lot of work for nothing: at best, they'd insured she could have an open-casket funeral. With a last glance at the body on the table, he went out to help Leroux.
Fletcher stayed, gazing sadly down at the body of the seer.
"You're not going to leave it at that, are you?"
He looked up to see Crowley across the table, his palms resting on the cool steel and leaning towards Fletcher with an odd gleam in his eyes.
"Sir?" he asked uncertainly.
Crowley nodded down at the body between them. "You remember her. You know what she was like," he said softly. "You really think she'd just give up the ghost, slip out to the great beyond, at a time like this?"
Fletcher looked back at the seer. "No," he said slowly, "she always struck me as a fighter."
"Too right," Crowley agreed, his voice low and steady. "Give her half a chance at survival, and she'd be after it tooth and claw. No, if her soul didn't reinhabit her body, once it was restored, there can only be two explanations: she can't find it or something's stopping her."
Fletcher found himself leaning towards Crowley, "Isn't there something we can do, help her somehow?"
Crowley gave him a knowing smile, "There's a way to call back a departed soul, conjure it to a specific place. It's tricky work, far more advanced than anything you've done before, but if you think you're up for it..."
Fletcher looked down at the seer, then back at the King of Hell, "What do you need me to do?"
