CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Dean parked the Impala in front of the church and, even after so many days, thought it odd he hadn't heard from Malcolm Rose about how much time he'd taken in getting there. Not that he cared what Mal said to him, but it was still a bit discomforting.
"We're here," he announced, hopping out of the car and jogging around the front. "Are you ready?"
"Ready as I'll ever be, I guess," Janelle mumbled, hooking an arm around Dean's shoulders as he lifted her out of the car and scooped her into his arms. Dean kicked the door shut, situated her in his arms, and headed for the door. Janelle sniffed the air. "Do you smell that?" she asked gruffly.
"Smell what?" Dean frowned.
"Smoke." She turned her head toward the door to the church. "Cigarette smoke."
The doors swung open then, and Dean halted immediately, his grip tightening on Janelle's legs and shoulders. A man exited dressed in a suit designed for funeral attendance with a cigarette snuggled between two fingers.
Dean stared up at this peculiar man until realization dawned on him. "John Constantine."
Constantine hardly acknowledged Dean while dropping his cigarette to the pavement and stomping on it with a black boot. Exhaling a plume of smoke, he approached Dean and Janelle.
"Give her to me," Constantine said hastily. "I'll need the book you found in the motel room." Although Dean was reluctant to hand over care on such short notice, he remembered his father having only positive things to say about John Constantine, and he allowed the man to steal Janelle from his grasp. "This way," Constantine instructed, heading back into the church.
Dean trailed behind Constantine – after obtaining the book – inside the church, having no control over himself as he gazed at the incredibly painted windows, statues, and altar. He'd been here several times in the past, but he couldn't recall it being so beautiful, or daunting. Something was off. Where was Malcolm?
Constantine hauled Janelle's inanimate body into a back room. He sat her up in a huge wooden chair complete with hard restraints and handcuffs, as well as a leather piece meant to wrap around her head to keep it in place. To Dean, it reminded him of the electric chair.
"Where's Malcolm?" he implored tentatively.
"He's dead," Constantine shortly reported.
Dean flinched and his eyes widened. "What? How?"
Constantine gave Dean a fleeting look as he strapped Janelle to the chair. "I killed him."
"Why?" Dean interrogated. "Why the hell did you do that for?"
"Because he was working for this demon," Constantine calmly replied.
Dean nodded, smiling disgustedly. Figures. No wonder Malcolm had been so adamant about getting Janelle to his church and why he never left his sanctuary. Fucking figures.
"Do you know why it went after Janelle?" he nagged, watching Constantine fasten Janelle's ankles to the chair's legs.
Constantine's eyes never left the floor. "No."
Dean shook his head disbelievingly. "Look, if you know something, tell me!" he shouted.
Constantine flew to his feet and stepped into Dean's space. "Look, kid, I don't know anything!" he retorted, throwing his arms wildly at his sides to exaggerate his point.
Dean's eyes narrowed into slits and his mouth formed a snarl. "You know somethin'," he growled.
Constantine huffed and turned back to Janelle. "Help me get these off." He started to pull at the gloves on her hands.
"Why? She'll bleed all over the place!"
"That's sort of the point."
Dean didn't understand, but he thought he probably didn't need to, and he assisted in the removal of his own black gloves from Janelle's dainty hands. The men dislodged the bandages next, and blood dashed from perfect holes in the palms of her hands that went straight through. Dean had seen a lot of blood in his time, but this time seemed to make him just a mite queasy.
"You ready?" Constantine asked, stepping back slowly from Janelle. He'd chosen not to strap her head to the chair, so it hung deadly against her chest.
"What can I do?" Dean asked.
Constantine glanced slowly at Dean as he took the black book with some variation of the Cross on the cover from Dean, and then fished out a silver flask from an inside pocket of his jacket. He unscrewed the cap and downed a huge gulp before holding it out to Dean without looking at him.
Dean curiously took the flask from John Constantine, shrugged, and knocked back a swallow. His brows furrowed. "It's water," he deadpanned.
"Holy water," Constantine corrected, stealing the flask back.
"Right," Dean said complacently.
Constantine opened the book to somewhere in the middle and began, obviously translating the Latin to English, "We drive you from us, whoever you may be, unclean spirits, all satanic powers, all infernal invaders, all wicked legions, assemblies and sects." His voice was firm, demanding. "In the Name and by the power of Our Lord Jesus Christ …" He drew a cross in the air before Janelle's head, which shot up suddenly, and she screamed at the top of her lungs.
"Dean!" she shrieked, her arms ripping and pulling at the restraints, but remaining unsuccessful. "What's happening? Help me!"
Dean made no move to assist her, as he knew it wasn't Janelle.
"May you be snatched away and driven from the Church of God and from the souls made to the image and likeness of God and redeemed by the Precious Blood of the Divine Lamb," Constantine completed, drawing another cross.
"Dean, please help me," Janelle beseeched, tears falling from her blind eyes.
"Most cunning serpent, you shall no more dare to deceive the human race, persecute the Church, torment God's elect and sift them as wheat," Constantine admonished, drawing a cross and glaring hard at Janelle. He was waiting patiently for the demon to make itself known. "The Most High God commands you, He with whom, in your great insolence, you still claim to be equal."
"Equal?" Janelle spoke, her voice now betraying her body with egotism. "I'm as equal as they come." She smiled seductively in Constantine's direction, cocking her head sharply to one side. "And you know it."
"Hello, Elathan," Constantine's deep voice greeted rather bitterly.
"Constantine. The plan is to exorcise me?"
"Something like that."
"It's too late for that now."
"Well, let's see." His eyes returned to the book. "The sacred Sign of the Cross commands you," he relayed. "The glorious Mother of God, the Virgin Mary, commands you …"
"Command, command, command," Janelle taunted. "They thought not of asking nicely." She pulled not strongly at the restraints, as her eyes bled and her body trembled.
"She who by her humility and from the first moment of her Immaculate Conception crushed your proud head," Constantine read vindictively. "The faith of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, and of the other Apostles commands you."
Janelle's lips formed a gnarled smile, her red eyes glued to Constantine's, her teeth clenched tightly. "Too late, Constantine. As always." She began to bang her head against the back of the chair ruthlessly, caring not for – or purposely – injuring her body.
"Tie her head back," Constantine said, but Dean was way ahead of him, having already moved behind her.
Dean grasped her head, yanked it back, and wrapped the leather strap around it.
Janelle tilted her head back toward Dean. "A sad thing it is when no one will tell you the truth because they're afraid of what you might do."
Dean's brow creased. "What are you talking about?"
"The blood of the Martyrs and the pious intercession of all the Saints command you," Constantine continued. Janelle's eyebrow arched and her eyes narrowed as she felt him drag his finger beneath her hand, bringing it up in front of her.
Her breath left her in a quick puff upon smelling copper. "Stigmata."
Constantine grinned and traced the cross onto her forehead in her own blood. Janelle wailed incredibly, her skin burning, smoke rising from her head. "Cursed dragon, and you, diabolical legions, we adjure you by the living God, by the true God, by the holy God, by the God who so loved the world that He gave up His only Son, that every soul believing in Him might not perish but have life everlasting."
Though the doors and windows were closed and locked, wind slowly picked up within the church; fluttering Dean's wifebeater and hair, waving Constantine's necktie and black jacket.
"You can't kill me, John," Janelle teased, trying harder now to rid herself of the barriers around her limbs. "You kill me … you kill her."
Dean wanted to argue this fact – that he wasn't going to allow Constantine to kill Janelle – but he couldn't. It was better for her to die than to live with a demonic spirit inside of her. He would, however, be a liar, as he'd told her she'd make it through.
"Stop deceiving human creatures and pouring out to them the poison of eternal damnation; stop harming the Church and hindering her liberty!" Constantine yelled over the howling wind.
"Ugh, what's that smell?" Dean gagged, grabbing his shirt and holding it over his nose and mouth. He immediately recognized the stench as that of burning human flesh.
Constantine cocked his head to the side. "That'd be you, wouldn't it?" he said to Janelle. "Starting to get a little uncomfortable in that body, I bet."
"I'll take you all with me," Janelle hissed, her voice roaring between dynamics.
"Begone, Satan, inventor and master of all deceit, enemy of man's salvation," Constantine read.
Janelle's hands were bleeding uncontrollably; red pools of blood circling her feet and nearing those of Constantine's.
"Salvation!" Janelle bellowed. "Salvation!"
Constantine smirked, leaning one hand on Janelle's wrist, his face closing in on hers. "Stoop beneath the all-powerful Hand of God; tremble and flee when we invoke the Holy and terrible Name of Jesus, this Name which causes hell to tremble," he whispered.
"Hell will never tremble at the name of your savior," Janelle grumbled. "Hell will tremble in joy when we have your soul, John Constantine." Her head snapped in Dean's direction. "And yours. And your brother's. And your father's. You're all damned."
"Lookin' forward to it, sweetheart," Dean said wryly.
Janelle smiled and turned back to her Exorcist.
"Name to which the Virtues, Powers and Dominations of heaven are humbly submissive." Janelle's body shook ferociously as sweat poured from her gray hairline. "This Name which the Cherubim and Seraphim praise unceasingly repeating: Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord, the God of Hosts!" He pressed the Cross on the cover of the book to her forehead. "Get out!" he screamed.
Janelle's mouth opened and the red bugs Dean had witnessed enter her so many days ago now exited her body. When the end came, the chair she was tied to flew backward – the legs squeaking on the floor – into the wall where it broke into several pieces. She fell to the floor, the arms and legs of the chair still cuffed to her.
"Janie!" Dean yelled, running toward her, nearly slipping in her blood. He fell to his knees next to her where he checked her pulse and breathing. "She's alive," he sighed gratefully.
Constantine huffed tiredly, loosening the tie around his neck slowly. He then bent over, swiping his fingers and the palm of his hand in Janelle's sacred blood, and headed over to Janelle and Dean. He dropped to one knee next to her and placed his bloodied hand on her stomach.
"In nomine Patris," he whispered, "et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti." He swallowed hard.
"What are you doing?" Dean demanded. "She's not dead."
Constantine glanced at him. "No, she's not."
Janelle's body suddenly moved as if it were being dragged backward by an invisible force. A trail of blood stained her clothes from her stomach and down her right leg as Constantine's hand glided over. Her head met the wall and then she was pulled up, her feet eventually leaving the floor. Dean and Constantine watched in amazement.
"What's happening?" Dean inquired.
"Got me," Constantine muttered, not really caring or interested in what was happening to the woman as long as everything else was taken care of.
"Janelle?" Dean breathed. She was now nearing the ceiling.
A door slammed behind them, and Dean and Constantine turned to see Sam Winchester running toward them at full speed, possibly faster than Dean had ever known him to run.
"Sammy?" Dean said uncomprehendingly.
"Get down!" Sam shouted, and Dean complied by bending over and covering his head, leaving his back vulnerable. Sam knew this was what Dean would do.
Closing in on Dean, Sam stepped on Dean's back with one foot, using it to launch himself into the air toward Janelle. He grabbed a crossbar connecting the wall to the ceiling with his left hand and snatched Janelle's foot with his right just as she was about to glide across the ceiling. He yanked on her foot, her body falling into his arms, and he released the crossbar. He fell to the hard floor on his back with Janelle held firmly to his front, shielding her from any harm. He checked her pulse and respiration just as Dean had and found that she still maintained life. He turned his head slowly toward his older brother.
"Hey, Dean," he respired.
"Hey, Sam," Dean replied, his head lifting from his prone position. "Got some new tricks up your sleeve, huh?"
Sam shrugged. "You might say that."