A/N1: Hello Dearest Readers! I am so happy you're still here. Things to know:
1. I'm an idiot. LOL, seriously! I took the Impala scene previously posted with the last chapter and put it at the front of this one (because it should be here - the word "diablerie" has TWO definitions, after all, and Cass really kinda deserved his own chapter). If you read the scene already, go ahead and skip to the second scene.
2. I forgot about the magic necklace in the last chapter. It's been remembered in the Impala scene.
3. Ever hear of the K.I.S.S. principle? I keep forgetting it. The witches that I added way back have been removed again. It was too much, and besides, I had a better idea. XD
4. St4r Hunter has been the best Peer Pressure Buddy a girl can ask for. We both have deadlines looming (me for the Watty's, and him for a comic contest), and I wouldn't have been able to continue writing like a madwoman if not for him. Darwin deserves a hug, too, for being there for me on days that I swear I'm going crazy. And MiMiMargot, for . . . well, for being one of the kindest, most generous souls I have ever met and she deserves cupcakes and reviews from all of us. Luv you guys!
That's it! I do hope you're still enjoying this. Please let me know if it's getting boring or confusing or anything else, okay? ONWARD!
The Impala's rear wheels spun, sounding like a rope whizzing through a pulley. The back of the car jumped but the front end stayed put. The passenger door creaked.
"No good," Sam reported. He flopped into the passenger seat, his hair and shoulders clumped with white, his hands and face red. He wrestled a moment with the grave-digging shovel before wedging it behind his seat in the footwell. "We're stuck."
Dean released the gas pedal and let out the breath he'd been holding on a heartfelt, "Son of a bitch." He rested his forehead against the steering wheel. Hot air from the dash vents washed over his hands and ruffled his hair.
Think, think, think, he told himself. As if the flood hadn't been bad enough! They'd escaped that with the help of some speedy sandbagging and traffic direction by the fire department, but the snow had swooped down on them not far out of downtown. Rear-wheel drive was meant for flat stretches of blacktop, for opening up the engine and letting her roar, for leaving everyone else in the dust – not this wet, sticky, slippery nonsense. The last ten miles had been a battle, and his baby had lost. So, what now?
Get out and push? Dean watched as Sam whipped an extra t-shirt out of his bag to dry his hair, his shins propped on the dash to get closer to the heat. Even if they could dig the car out, they couldn't push it all the way up to the park. The snowfall, if anything, was getting heavier.
Tire chains? They'd never needed them. An oversight he vowed to fix yesterday.
Walk? He squinted out the windshield at the wintry scene. The hills, the trees, the scrub, and the road had gone as still as a black and white photo, laden with a coating of snow. Closer, horizontal wind drove snowflakes so sharp-edged they sounded like sand as they blew against the car.
Walking was out. Two miles in that, without proper winter gear, and they'd be a pair of huntersicles.
The divining charms? Dean felt in his pocket for the rough little necklace. Bad weather here at the foot of the Rockies had strangled cell signal within an inch of its life. Even Sam hadn't found an instruction manual anywhere online. Worse, they'd been unable to reach their dad's old friend Bobby Singer, who might have been able to unearth something in his library of lore. As far as the brothers were concerned, the charms were just a bunch of bones and pebbles on a string.
Dean left the necklace where it was, snugged up with Lemara's wristband, and massaged his forehead. Castiel was somewhere up there, trying to stop the breaking of the seal all by himself. It wasn't right. He and Sam should be there!
What, then? What could they do?
Think!
"Cherries," Sam said, his head pressed to the window so he could peer through the snow-and-ice flecked glass.
Dean craned around. A black Chevy Tahoe, emblazoned with the blue and gold Morrison County Police Department shield and splattered with snow and red mud, nosed in behind the Impala. Its lightbar flashed in the gloom. No siren, which was a good sign. The driver angled the Tahoe so that its push bumper lined up with the Impala's rear bumper, but he stopped short of making contact and flipped on his hazards. After a moment of half-glimpsed activity, the driver's door swung open.
She, Dean realized, as the cop hopped over the packed ice and snow, bundled in a puffy black jacket, holding a Maglite up by her shoulder. A lady cop. Maybe late twenties. She rapped on the window with a gloved knuckle.
Dean rolled the window down, a black, single-fold wallet ready in his hand. Out of the corner of his eye, he noted that Sam had his, too.
"You boys need assistance?" the cop asked, pointing her flashlight away as she leaned in the window. Whether to get a good look at them or to warm her face, Dean couldn't tell. She sniffled matter-of-factly, the tip of her nose bright pink in the cold. "You got yourselves in deep; we got over eight inches out here in the last half hour and it's still coming down. I'm impressed you made it this far in a vehicle like this. What were you thinking?"
She said it with a laugh, but as she straightened and swept her gaze along the Impala's length, the disdain in her eye annoyed Dean. Mountain cops and their stupid four-wheel-drive SUVs.
"Agent Abbot," he said brusquely, sticking his FBI badge in her face. The swirling snow nipped at the bare skin of his hand, melting on contact. "This is my partner, Agent Buchanan."
She took a step back, her boots crunching in the snow, to keep the badge off her nose; eyebrows raised, she calmly aimed her Maglite beam at the ID card, then flicked it over Sam's.
"Are we glad to see you, Officer," Sam said. "We could use a push."
Dean detected a hint of that "I apologize for my brother" tone in Sam's voice, but Sam subtly cleared his throat as he pulled back, reminding Dean to stay focused.
The cop nodded, looking first at Dean, then Sam, then back again. Appraising their expressions, their blue jeans and button-ups and thin jackets, the worn knees and the loose stitches and the frayed cuffs. The sweep of her gaze widened, taking in the obvious civilian air of the Impala, the lack of any kind of law enforcement equipment. She set her hand on the radio clipped to her belt. "A push? Or a ride? And it's Deputy, not Officer. Felicia Girard," she said.
"Felicia," Dean said, tipping his wallet closed. He grinned and left his elbow out the window. "That's a beautiful name, Deputy."
A beautiful name for a beautiful woman. Her face was dramatically two-toned, a swatch of pale pink spreading diagonally across her otherwise reddish-brown skin like the edge of a torn piece of paper. She leveled an unimpressed look at him, licked her chapped lips, sniffled again, and then said, "I'd ask you to step out of the vehicle, Agent, but you're obviously not going anywhere."
That snarky little comment snapped his mouth shut. He frowned at her, and she answered with a grin that made him blink. She had a wide mouth for a woman, unevenly colored pink and brown and completely devoid of makeup, but that bold smile was nothing short of dynamite.
"All right, boys," she said briskly, hitching up her trousers. "Let's get you out of here. I can give you a tow back to the station and you can tell me all about why you're out here –"
"No," Dean and Sam said at the same time, startling Girard.
"No?" she repeated. "Whaddaya want me to do, leave you here?" She looked left and right as if to say, This ain't exactly a nightclub, fellas.
The brothers exchanged a quick look: You? Or me?
You, Dean thought.
Sam knew right away what Dean was thinking. Burying the needle on Sam Winchester's Soothingly Persuasive Gauge, he said, "I'm sorry, Deputy, but we're in pursuit of a perp and heading into a hostage situation. We can't afford to be held up here."
"Whoa, wait, what?" Girard switched her flashlight for her radio. The antenna wobbled as she gestured with it. "What perp? What hostage? Where are you trying to go – without even any backup or gear! I haven't heard anything about this. I've gotta call it in."
"No, please, Deputy, we don't have time," Sam insisted. He reached across Dean and held out a white business card. "We're working with Sergeant James Mollerson of the DPD. Give him a call if you must, but what Agent Abbot and I need is to get out of this snow. Do you have any chains we can borrow?"
Girard took the card and said, "No," exactly like a sullen teenager. She peered at Mollerson's info. "Denver, huh? A bit out of his jurisdiction up here. I'll be right back. Don't you two go anywhere." She grinned again and then headed back to her vehicle, her Maglite beam bobbing and her radio crackling.
It took Dean, watching the cop's slim form fade into the blowing snow, several seconds to realize that the Impala's radio was crackling, too.
". . . -ea- . . . -m . . . n yo- . . . -me?"
Dean cranked the window up. It was a woman's voice, nearly drowned by static. The light behind the glass stuttered, and the red line of the dial meandered first one way, then cruised back the other. The radio chattered and snapped and squealed. "Pl- . . . -se . . . y- . . . -ve . . . -ear me!"
Sam stared at the dash. "Is it just me, or is that not normal?"
"It's just you," Dean said smoothly, smirking at the exasperated scowl Sam sent his way. He leaned over and turned the volume knob to the right.
"Dea- . . . -am! . . . C-n . . . you he- . . . me?"
Better, but not quite there. Dean fiddled with the tuner as well, listening hard.
"I- . . . me! Julia!"
Got it! Dean sat back, satisfied, but Sam didn't even notice.
"Julia?" he exclaimed. "Julia? Is that you?"
"Yes!" Her voice burst out of the speakers. The yellowish light flickered with every word. "Oh, thank God, can you hear me? I've been trying for so long . . ."
"You're loud and clear," Dean said. Ghost Radio now? he mouthed at his brother, who tried to stifle a laugh and ended up snorting.
"I can see you," came Julia's voice tartly through the speakers. "I'm sitting right between you."
Sam pressed his lips together, looking abashed, but Dean burst out laughing. "Sorry, but you gotta admit, this is super weird," he said.
A sigh. "You have no idea."
"What are you doing here?" he asked. He couldn't resist sliding his hand through the air between him and his brother, but he didn't feel anything and she didn't mention it.
"I've been stuck here," Julia's disembodied voice said. She sounded eight shades of frustrated. "I've been trying for hours to contact you. Sending Sam that text almost . . ." She hesitated. "Well, I was going to say 'killed me,' but that's . . . Listen, guys, there is something really freaky going on up at Red Rocks. I feel like I've downed an entire bottle of NoDoz." Her voice dropped to a crackly whisper. "It's so noisy here. I can't see anyone, but I can hear them. There are so many, all talking at once, and I can't understand any of them. It's freezing. I'm . . . I'm scared."
Sam sucked in a breath as if he'd just realized something. "A psychic fog, wasn't that what he said?" he mumbled. He subsided into a brow-pinched frown.
"Sammy?" Dean probed.
He seemed to come awake like a wilted plant reviving. He turned more toward Dean. "Cass said the reapers are being blocked. Which means a few hundred new spirits must be stranded in the Veil right now."
Julia sounded puzzled. "The Veil?"
"It's a separate plane of existence," he explained to the radio. "Another dimension. It's where ghosts go if they stay here on Earth instead of moving on. You must have seen it. Kind of a gray, foggy place?"
"You mean the hole?" Julia asked. "Every time I got blown apart, I went into this hole that was all full of mist. I hated it in there."
Dean knew exactly what she meant. Alastair had shot his astral body with rock salt once, literally blowing him apart. It had stung like a bitch, too.
Sam, however, was chugging along on a parallel track and said, "That's the Veil. What you're hearing is the voices of other souls in the Veil."
"Okay, Encyclopedia Brown, what does this have to do with anything?" Dean interjected.
"Time," Sam said, his eyes wide. "If Julia can make contact with some of those trapped souls, they can buy us time. One ghost can project her voice through a radio. More of them can make things . . . difficult . . . for our friends up there. We hitch a ride with the deputy and –"
"What, kill her?" Dean demanded, wondering what his brother could be thinking to try and drag, for lack of a better term, a civilian into this.
"Dude." Sam's glare could have fried an egg. "Ditch her. Shouldn't be too hard in weather like this. The point is, we're trying to save whoever is left and we need time to do it."
Dean raised an eyebrow. Vengeful spirits, that's what Sam was getting at. Vengeful spirits had enough energy to affect the world around them. They could slam and lock doors, flush toilets and run disposals, stomp on creaky floorboards, carve messages in solid objects, wield weapons, and throw a full-grown man up to twenty feet (he'd experienced that particular move too many times to count). Many of the souls packed into the Veil were new, not very powerful, but they would be confused, scared, and angry. Just like Julia, and look what she had done in the past few days. Twenty-five souls . . . fifty of them . . . a hundred. A grin crept across his face.
"Ghost posse!" he said enthusiastically. "Let's Return of the King this place."
Sam breathed a laugh through his nose.
"You want me to talk to them?" Julia squeaked. "I-I don't know . . ."
"They're just people," Sam reminded her gently. "And they deserve better than to be fed to a monster."
The dial wiggled anxiously. The radio went dark, then lit up again. "All right," Julia said. Her voice began to cut out. "I'll try. But –"
A muffled rapping on the window made the brothers jump.
Dean rolled down the window. "Deputy Felicia!" he said loudly, covering up the sound of the radio chattering. It had gotten caught between an extremely patchy NPR broadcast and a staticky AM hillbilly rock station. He switched it off. "Fancy meeting you here."
Girard rolled her coppery eyes and sniffled again. "All right, Agents, Mollerson filled me in. You're coming with me. I'll give you a ride, call for backup."
"That's not necessary –" Dean started to say, determined to leave her out of it, but she stabbed her unlit flashlight in his face. He went cross-eyed trying to keep it in focus.
"The way I see it, not only are those freckles adorable, but you're out of luck without me. Either we all go together, or I leave you here and go myself." She didn't hesitate to grin, which she must have known was a totally unfair weapon to use against him. "I've got all day, Agent."
"Fine," he grumbled, but he couldn't help a smirk. He hadn't missed what she'd said. He pulled his keys from the ignition.
"Thank you for your assistance," Sam added.
We need her. Don't screw this up, his look said.
Dean flashed him a grin, zipping his jacket up to his chin. When do I ever?
Sam sighed and turned to brave the snowstorm again.
..::~*~::..
The dull red heating elements of old-fashioned space heaters and the dim yellow of candlelight touched upon the half-seen cords of the unplugged work lights and the piles of broken furniture. Kittney stood in a swelter of anxiety, one arm locked across her middle, the other hand at her mouth. The blend of black, red, and yellow made her think of Hell. She chewed savagely on her thumbnail until she tasted iron. A sliver of thumbnail ripped away and stuck to her tongue. She spat it out, irritated with herself for being scared of one silly angel. She should be scared of her master. If she failed to break this seal after all her boasting . . .
Two of her subordinates – Tom, the tall, fair one in biker's leathers, and Carmelo, the wide, dark one in construction orange and dirty jeans – picked up the newest sacrifice by her ankles and strung her, upside-down, from a hook. As efficiently as a horse-rider roping a calf, one demon tied the sacrifice's arms to her sides and left her, swinging slightly, above an orange five-gallon bucket. Ah. This one. Kittney had a good feeling about this one. She grabbed the drugged girl by the hair and sliced through her throat with her pewter knife.
While the better part of the body's blood supply drained from the wound, Kittney took her place in the center of a painted pentagram marked with runes and sigils. She began the diablerie, a ritual of demonic origin, for the thirteenth time since midnight the night before. Though only one o'clock in the afternoon, darkness pressed against the windows of the mess hall. Cold wind whistled past unseen cracks in the walls. The occasional flash of lightning, dimmed by snow, did nothing to dispel the false night.
The angel-fire assaulting the warding sigils, however, lit up the west-facing windows like demented fireworks. What was that thing doing out there? She'd lost contact with everyone she'd sent out. She didn't dare send more.
Too many years past to count, a young woman, unsatisfied with her role as a sangoma – a wishy-washy, constrained village healer – had sold her soul to Lilith. In return, she had gained the powers of a tagati, what her people called an evil witch, which she'd enjoyed for nearly a century and a half before hunters had caught up to her. The same hunters, to her shame, who had not recognized the precious demigod Ditaolane as a stone, and had unknowingly thrown him across the river to safety. Even now, in this form, Kittney knew her business. Trees, buildings, the ground: Her special brands protected whatever surface on which they'd been painted alongside the angel-proofing. Besides, no matter what kind of tantrum the angel threw, Heavenly power wasn't going to get past wards that deflected Heavenly power. So, blast away, featherhead! You can't get me!
As though it could hear her, it must have decided to try smiting several wards at once. It sounded like heavy cannon fire out there. She faltered on one of the invocations. A costly mistake. She was going to have to start over.
Kittney dug the heels of her hands into her eyes. She took deep, calming breaths.
When exactly had she lost control of the situation? She'd had it all worked out, down to the last detail; she was the one who had suggested summoning the Eater here from its prison deep beneath the African continent. Lilith herself, Lucifer's first white-eyed child – his favorite child, his most powerful child – had approved the plan. It was a good plan! Lilith had left her, Kittney, in charge. Trusted her with this job. Her, and no one else!
But then, things had started going wrong. Small, unconnected things. Like the unsuitable sacrifices her idiot partner had taken, putting her two behind right at the start. Or, the finding of the bodies she'd dumped in the river, alerting the humans to her activities. Not to mention the angels hot on her trail, prompting the graffiti spree across the metropolitan area. Then the Winchesters arriving and snooping around, forcing her to start the ritual a full day early.
Today was Thursday, May twenty-first. If all went according to plan, the twenty-fourth sacrifice would break the seal at midnight on Friday, May twenty-second. Acceptable. If all went according to plan.
Where was that fool with the final two sacrifices? Kittney licked her teeth, then sucked on a cuspid meditatively. Come to think of it, this run of bad luck could be traced right back to him.
Well. If he did show his stupid face, she had just the reward for him.
Another blast of angel-fire went off like a mortar, its light strobing through the dirty windows to slap the painted walls. The white sigils, some of which were ghost-proofing to keep out busybodies, washed to invisibility, but the red numbers stood out all around.
4144171 4144171 4144171
Chanting anew, Kittney eyed the dried cow's blood with satisfaction. Some of the numbers, in between the bursts of light, seemed to change.
4144171 Kammapa 4144171
The building shuddered a second later. She glanced warily up at the ceiling, but nothing worse happened than some dislodged dust raining down. The ancient heaters hummed and buzzed and squealed, creating pockets of uncomfortable heat in the otherwise chilly hall.
Didn't matter. The last few drops of blood from the body disappeared soundlessly into the big orange bucket. Time for the next step. While the other demons wordlessly took down the corpse and bundled it away to dispose of it, she fetched her goblet. The knobs of the screaming human faces decorating its wide bowl provided good gription, so she dunked it in the bucket.
Number thirteen. Eleven more to go after this. Shoving her exhaustion down deep – it hadn't been the smartest decision in her long afterlife to choose a vessel this immature – Kittney returned to the pentagram, the goblet and her fingers dripping. This blood, sanctified by her diablerie, would help remove the shackles the Diviner had fashioned to prevent the Eater of the World from reentering this dimension. Shackles that used ley lines, the colossal electromagnetic currents of the planet itself, as fuel. Chanting, she tipped the goblet. A steady stream of blood poured upon the red lines of the pentagram as Kittney paced its circumference. The blood trembled there as though sitting in a narrow, high-walled container. She made several trips, until the goblet scraped the bottom of the bucket. The bloody pentagram glistened in the candlelight.
Another blinding flash strobed through the windows; the accompanying sonic boom rattled the glass. Kittney didn't care. One little angel wasn't going to stop her now. She was old enough to remember Kammapa, powerful enough to summon it. She held out her hands, palms down, and recited one last chant. Rippling as though eels swam in its depths, the pentagram absorbed the blood until not a trace remained.
Up on the hill, a massive, sleepy, grumbling growl rolled off the exposed rocks, echoed by the rumble of thunder in the clouds.
A/N2: I said it before, but I gotta say it again: I have NO idea where Felicia came from. It was supposed to be Sgt. Mollerson! But Felicia is right - this is out of his (yeah, he's a he now) jurisdiction. I'm not sure what her role is going to be, but we're gonna find out together!
Reviewer Thanks! IHeartSPN, Momochan77, MiMiMargot, and Darwin. My friends, please forgive me, obviously I got your reviews (THANK YOU!) but I haven't had a chance to reply. In less than two weeks, either I finish this story and make the deadline or I don't - I promise to give a from-the-heart reply to all of you then. Because you deserve recognition for your awesomeness!
Forever yours,
Anne