EVDOKIYA
Cold. It was cold.
Her tongue was cotton in her mouth when Evdokiya smacked her lips together as she woke up. There was a sliver of light from up above her but she could not see a lot.
Trying to let her eyes adjust to the dark, Evdokiya glanced around her. She was on cold ground, that much she knew for certain. Her wrists hurt - so did basically the rest of her as well now that she was conscious. Shifting herself up, Evdokiya felt her way to the wall. It was wet and stung with its sharpness. It felt like she was just surrounded in ice. Panic bloomed in her chest. She could not see anything, her head hurt. Lifting a hand to her head, her fingers came back wet.
"Hello?" she called out as she heaved herself up with the wall. Her legs barely supported her as she made her way over to the door. "Hello!"
Going up onto her toes, Evdokiya could barely see other cell doors, let alone if there was anyone in them or in the hallway. "Is anyone there?"
There was a dry scoffing noise from her right. "Oh please don't tell me that they've sunk so low to have brought a human in."
Evdokiya furrowed her brow. "I do not understand. Are you not?"
A brown head entered her vision as her legs burned, trying to see into the hallway. "No."
She could hear sniffing. "You smell like you're bleeding, what do you remember?"
Evdokiya fell back down onto her heels and paced a little. The pinch, she remembered the pinch and - she gasped. "My cat!"
The laugh she got in response was potentially amused, she had never been very good at telling the difference. "You wake up in a strange cell, bleeding and the first thing you worry about is your cat? Lady, you are one strange human."
"My name is Evdokiya." she bit out, turning back to the door. "And I was injected with something by a man."
"Brian." Brian gave her. She could hear fabric on the metal, "Can you remember the man?"
"White. Bald."
Brian hissed in sympathy. "The man that took you is called Samuel Campbell - his whole family are what are called Hunters. They track Creatures down and kill us. Or give us over to a man called Crowley - he's a demon."
She did not understand. "What are you talking about? Demons are not real."
"I would show you my fangs if you could see over the bars." he drawled. Brian sighed. "The monsters under the bed that you were told as a child that were just fairy tales, they're real."
"I know that." she waved it away, "But demons are not real."
"Wait, so Creatures like vampires and werewolves are logical to you but angels and demons aren't."
"I have been seeing a little girl that I have never met before and a priest where I live turned out to be a witch, Brian, and he tried to kill me."
"How did you get out?"
"Sam and Dean Winchester."
Brian did not say anything. "So if you say you're human, and you got saved by the fucking Winchester brothers, but you're seeing a little girl you've never met and got called a witch by a priest and got kidnapped by Samuel fucking Campbell, then what are you?"
"I am human. I do not have strange teeth or eyes or anything supernatural, Brian. I am a liar, I read a person's palm and give them what they wish to know."
"Have you seen anything strange?"
Evdokiya furrowed her brows. There were a few things; when she touched Dr Miakoda Hart's hand, when she was around that woman, when she saw Betty's death; when she got those feelings. But Evdokiya did not understand, she was not one of these Creatures, why would Samuel Campbell want her? What could she give him?
The Winchester brothers would get her out of here. She patted her pockets for her phone then cursed. She'd left it on the bathroom counter when she was in the shower. Evdokiya ran a hand through her hair and hissed again when her fingernails caught on the cut on her head. Evdokiya felt the panic return.
"What do they want from me?"
She heard a thud come from where Brian's voice was. "The demon they bring us for, Crowley, wants the location of Purgatory. I've been on this Earth for over 50 years; I've never heard of it."
"Where are you?"
There was a knock on the wall to Evdokiya's right. "I'm beside you. How's the head?"
"Hurts," Evdokiya admitted as she slid to the ground, "and I really liked these pyjamas."
"He took you when you were about to go to bed?" Brian admonished. "Bastard."
Evdokiya let her head rest against the wall and stared at her dark surroundings. "How long have you been here, Brian?"
The vampire sighed. "I don't know. They give me enough blood weekly so I'm as alive as a dead person can be but not enough that I can break through these doors."
A shiver wracked through her body. The thing fabrics she wore did nothing to protect her from the cold ground. Evdokiya pulled her knees in and set her cheek on her knees. "Does anyone get out of here alive?"
Brian was silent.
"No."
Evdokiya didn't know how long she'd been in this cell for. She fell into an uneasy doze but was shocked awake when a clang shuddered through to her bones. Lifting a hand to protect her eyes from the jarring lights from the hallway, she blinked. There was a figure in the doorway.
"I am human." Evdokiya gritted out. Her head hurt.
The shadowed figure scoffed. It was a man. "Every one of you lot say that."
"She's telling the truth. She hasnt stopped bleeding all night. If she was one of us, she'd have healed already." Brian urged.
A voice down the hall scoffed darkly. Evdokiya could hear their words echo down the hall. "Kidnapping humans now, are you, Campbell? That's low, even for you."
Evdokiya pushed away from where he stood in the door, trying to get as far away. Oh, she did not feel well at all. "Crowley wants to speak with her."
"You move her from there without medical attention and she's going to die, Campbell." Brian hissed.
"Not my problem." he stepped into the room and heaved her up.
The world spun as she was yanked down the hall. Where was she? Her feet were not moving as fast as they should have. Had she not just been asleep? Why was she so tired? The smell was terrible as well like someone had left meat rotting in the sun.
She was shoved in through a metal door with a grating over the glass. Was she in a prison? Gaining her footing again, Evdokiya looked around her. She was in a relatively large room, that looked more like an office than one of those congregation rooms that she remembered seeing on the television. There was a stout man in a black suit and a bloody butcher's apron. His dark hair was receding from his pale head and he was clean-shaven. Evdokiya's eyes fell to the bloody figure of a person on a metal table and stepped back.
"Ah," his voice was smokey and English. "Thank you, Christian. Off you pop."
"Where am I?" Evdokiya stammered.
Crowley looked around him, bloody knife in hand. "Let's call it my lab, shall we?"
"I am not a Creature."
His dark eyes looked over her figure, taking in the bloody pyjamas and pallor of the girl's skin. "That is a lie, darling girl."
"But I am just a liar, I have no powers or-or any idea of what you want with me." Evdokiya shook her head. She was overcome with a wave of dizziness. Crowley narrowed his eyes, considering the girl. He'd ordered the buffoons to get the girl that had gotten the attention of several Creatures, said to take her with relative respect. From the state of her, he doubted that. He'd look into that.
"Where is Purgatory?" Crowley asked, setting the knife down and wiping his hand on a handkerchief. Turning, he stripped off the apron and turned back to the girl. He'd looked into her. Evdokiya Vankov, 22, Bulgarian. Not so human as she believed. Her line was rife with Rilictus, a species of doppelgangers though, instead of appearance, they retained the memories of certain past lives, specifically if their deaths had been particularly gruesome. He briefly wondered if she'd remembered her memories of here.
Dark eyes looked glassy. "What?"
"Purgatory." he stepped forward, "Where is it, darling?"
"I do not understand. What is this Purgatory?"
"Come now, darling. No need to play coy with me."
"I a- I am not playing coy!" Evdokiya bolstered, a rage bubbling within her. She truly did not know where this place, Purgatory, was. "I do not know where this place you want is! Please, let me go home."
Crowley cocked his head minutely. She could be telling the truth but he'd met her kind before; they were adept liars. It came with the territory, he supposed. "Christian!"
The demon shoved open the door and Evdokiya's head snapped towards him. "Perhaps the girl will be more chatty if she's given more time to think."
"What!" she whimpered. Evdokiya lunged to try and break out of Christian's hold. "Please! I ha-have no, no idea where this place is."
"Hmm."
Christian yanked her towards the door and Crowley sighed heavily. "She is a guest, Christian. Did your mother not teach you how to respect ladies?"
"Sorry, boss." Evdokiya noticed that he did not sound too sorry as he nearly pulled her arm out of her socket.
She ended up in a heap in her cell. Her knees hit the concrete floor with a sharp thud and Evdokiya cried out in pain as it ricocheted up through her body. Over her shoulder, she could not decipher Christian's face but his voice crawled over her skin. "Have fun."
Evdokiya flinched as he slammed the door shut. Brian's eyes slid shut as he listened to her cry herself to sleep. Her body needed the fluids - she wasn't smelling too fresh, not from lack of cleanliness but the wound on her was infected and he heard her stumbling down the hall and her heart rate was heading towards becoming tachycardic.
Brigitta's voice came up from down the hallway. "How long has she got?"
"She'll be dead by the end of the week."
Her head was burning. She was so tired. Evdokiya did not know how long she had been in this cell but all she wanted was her cat, Caspian, and her bed. She felt too hot so she would just sleep with the top sheet. She wanted her clean pyjamas and did not want to smell like this any longer. Maybe she knew someone who knew about this Purgatory that that man wanted the location of. Sam and Dean Winchester could be a good choice but she did not have a way to contact them. Dr Miakoda Hart knew a lot about folklore, she had her Ph.D in it, and there was that vision she had of the wolf over her head. Maybe she was a Creature.
Brian cocked his head as he concentrated on Evdokiya's state. Her words had become slurred through the night but he had heard 'Koda Hart'. All of that Pack had been murdered though. It had shaken the entirety of the Creature Society within the continent. The Hart Pack was one of the prominent, if not the most important Packs within the United States. Caroline and Jason Hart were good, true Alphas of a Pack of 19. There had been a length that surrounded them since the start; that every Alpha previous followed into the new one, to provide guidance and help, along with the strength to the newest Alpha of the Pack. Their leadership abilities were well-known throughout the continent. When the entire Pack, made up of only 9 stong wolves to 10 humans, had burnt alive back in 1999; the foundations of their society had felt it.
The story was that Hunters had lined the house in Mountain Ash and thrown a mistletoe grenade in through several windows on the bottom floor before setting the place alight. The humans had stayed out of loyalty to their Alphas who had moved everyone to the lowest point of the house. There had been speculation much like how the humans wondered about the Lost Princess of Russia, that may be a few of them had made it out but the fire had had accelerant as a base element. The State Department had only been able to determine 3 bodies out of the 19 that had been in the house. Caroline and Jason and their youngest nephew, Leo, who had been barely 2.
"Miakoda's alive?" Brigitta whispered, awed.
"She was what? 16?." Brian shook his head, "We all knew she wasn't in the running for the Alpha mantle, she would've gone feral by the shock of the Bonds snapping and the influx of it. She can't be."
"But she could, Brian!" Brigitta said excitedly.
He sagged against the wall. "What could she do anyway? Storm in, fangs bared? Brigitta, she'd never make it out of here alive. If anything, she's giving Hunters the biggest 'Fuck You' by staying alive."
"She's aliveā¦"
Crowley stood in the doorway of Evdokiya's cell. It had been 12 hours since he had last seen her. She hadn't been lying. Apparently, Relictus - or Relicti rather -didn't have fast healing abilities; the only thing that made them truly special was their ability to remember their past lives which wasn't all that special. Her pale skin had a grey tinge to it, and in several places was severally discoloured. He snapped on a pair of gloves and stepped towards the feverish girl, crouching down beside her. Even before he touched her head where the blood had stained the whole left side of her face, he could feel the heat and the smell made him grimace. He pressed on the wound on her head, not terribly deep, but pus and discharge leaked out. His free hand went to her carotid artery. Her heart raced like a jackrabbit.
"...'art." Evdokiya murmured, delirious as her eyes barely focused on him.
He cocked his head. Leant down, "What, darling?"
"...ko..da. H...hart. Mi-mia...kod..a."
"Miakoda Hart." Brian and Brigitta shut their eyes in despair. "Find her."
Christian stalked off with a bloodthirsty grin. Samuel gave the girl a pitying look. Crowley stood up. "Do be more gentle with the girl, dear Samuel. Oh, and take that photographer. He's terribly annoying. And because dear Samuel, you screwed up with Miss Vankov, you get to deal with him."
He could hear Samuel's teeth grind from where he stood in Evdokiya's cell and turned back to the girl with a smirk. Gwen stood to the left of the doorway, arms across her body. "What are you going to do with the girl?"
"I haven't decided." Crowley cocked his head. Turning towards her, he raised an eyebrow, "Don't you have intel to find?"
Gwen paled and scurried off. Brian and Brigitta held their breath as Crowley turned back towards Evdokiya. He crouched down beside her. She would be dead by the end of the day. Did he let her wither away or give her a peaceful end? A quick snap of the neck and her pain would be gone. He was a demon, true, but he had morals. When innocents got taken in on Creature business, it was saddening. And the girl was innocent. Relicti only came into their power by the age of 25.
Knowing he had ears on either side of him, he slipped into Gaelic, the words mildly comforting after not using them for centuries. "I am truly sorry for what has happened to you. It'll be over soon."
He took her head in his hands and flicked his grip.
Snap.
