What Isn't And Came To Be
Chapter 6: Be useful. Be good, be careful, don't make him mad.
"I saved your bloody life!" Crowley spat the words in her face, as if she should be grateful.
Grateful he'd swindled her son, damned his soul to Hell; just to keep her on the rat wheel her life had become.
How could he not realise, what he'd done was far worse than dying in her eyes?
But she could see it on his face.
Crowley thought he'd done her a favour.
If she knew anything about men like him, men like her father, trying to explain how she felt would only make things worse.
Saying anything would probably make it worse.
Men like Crowley, they didn't tolerate dissension or argument, they wanted wordless submission.
Somehow, she had to diffuse this, mollify him.
Before he took his anger out on Johnny, like her father had with her as a child, far too often.
That meant doing what he wanted.
Treating him the way he believed he deserved.
Like royalty.
Like her king.
She sank to her knees, head bowed.
Crowley just stood there, above her for the longest time, and she was terrified she'd done the wrong thing.
When his hand came down on her head and buried itself in her hair, it was all she could do not to pull away; it suddenly it occurred to her that the position she'd put herself in might have been a stupid, stupid mistake.
A kings subject might go down on her knees.
But so did his whore.
'Anything? Darling.
You'll do anything now. Don't kid yourself you won't..' The words reverberated inside her skull as Crowley dragged his thick fingers bruisingly over her skin and forced her chin up to meet his eyes.
The carnivorous look on his face clogged her throat with terror. Pure predatory hunger, untempered by anything soft.
Like a child hiding under the covers and hoping the monster wouldn't eat her, she squeazed her eyes shut. Hot tears oozing down her cheeks.
"God as my witness, Crowley. As long as you hold my son's soul, I'll never raise a hand against you or willingly leave you.
You've won."
Just like that, he released her, dropping her to flounder on the floor.
When she dared to open her eyes again, he was across the room sipping his drink and watching her with a contemptuous smirk on his lips.
You thought… Seriously, how stupid are you? I can do better.
His eyes mocked silently as he sauntered closer.
"While usually, I'm all for scantily clad woman on their knees in front of me, Pet…
Right now, you and I have a little hell to raise."
"Jack." She whispered in willing agreement.
Be useful. Be good, be careful, don't make him mad.
The warm smile Crowley bestowed on her as he helped her to her feet and handed her a handkerchief was gallant and disconcerting.
As if all that rage and menace. All that vicious predatory hunger, he'd gazed down at her with, moments before, had never exsisted.
Like it had all been a figment of her overworked, exhausted mind.
She could almost fool herself into thinking nothing had happened; but for the fact her neck and jaw still throbbed dully from his grip.
How had C.S Lewis described Aslan? A lion. A King. Not safe. Not tame… that's what she was dealing with here. But unlike Lucy, she didn't have the reassurance Crowley was good.
She'd been lulled into a false sense of security, and where had that led her? More to the point, where had it led Johnny? She snatched a furtive glance in her son's direction and felt a flood of relief, to see him still asleep and oblivious.
Crowley was studying her again, tapping the little knife against his thigh.
"You haven't had a single vision since you died, have you?"
Biting her lip, she shook her head.
He eyed her speculatively, "Just throwing it out there, but between you and me, Pet. The man upstairs, his interest in you seems to have waned a tad, since you bled out on your lounge room floor.
The Bible you're so fond of, the supernatural books, ever notice how female characters tend to get … fridged.
And children, especially ones like MacGuffin there… Well, they don't feature long at all, do they?"
The corner of his mouth quirked up. "Tragic really."
Crowley transported them away from the mobile home with a sudden snap of his fingers; and it was all she could do to repress a cry of dissent clamouring up her throat like vomit.
Be useful. Be good, be careful, don't make him mad. She told herself again and again.
But oh please! Please, don't take me away from Johnny.
He's alone back there, somewhere in Nebraska, and I don't even know where. There's an invisible monster waiting outside the door.
What if he wakes up and finds me gone?
Johnny was just a child, a scared, broken little boy who needed her desperately; and she'd left him alone and defenseless.
First she'd done it by dying, left him alone with a demon, who tricked him into selling his soul. And now she was leaving him alone and unprotected with a Hellhound, that could kill him and drag his soul down to Hell.
It was supposed to be her job to protect him.
She'd thought she was protecting him.
But she just keeps failing, again and again.
Johnny didn't even remember or know what he'd agreed to! When she tried to question him on his deal, he'd just babbled over and over about 'Red Mummy' and curled up in a ball, crying. Flinching every time she touched him. Everything she'd put him through, it had made him regress back to that shattered little boy he'd been when he was first diagnosed as autistic.
This was her fault.
It was all she could do not to go down on her knees again and beg Crowley to take her back.
But he wouldn't.
No. He had a job for her. That's what that vicious little jab about her visions had been, a reminder that she better be useful.
Was Crowley right? Had God forsaken her? Was this where her choice and consequence had led?
Be useful. Be good, be careful, don't make him mad.
Blinking away tears of self pity, Michele swallowed and looked around.
Crowley was once more immaculately attired in a charcoal suit and tasteful paisley tie, making her all the more aware and selfconcious that she was out in the open. Still barefoot and naked except for Crowley's spare shirt.
The house before her was the one she'd seen in her visions.
Surrounded on three sides by trees and water, but missing the sizzling inter dimensional fracture that had been the rift.
It was a rustic little wooden cottage, with white, peeling paintwork and thick mats of verdant moss growing over its roofing tiles.
It ought to be quaint and idilic, but there was something wrong with the picture.
As Crowley half dragged, half led, her closer, bare feet stumbling over the pebble littered ground, she realised what it was.
All the windows of the cottage were smashed out, the gausey lace curtains caught and billowed between jagged glittering teeth of broken glass.
Nearly buried beneath the sounds of bird song and the gentle lapping of waves was the hoarse, pitiful sound of a baby crying.
A baby that had been left alone, crying and uncomforted for far too long.
"Jack!"
Crowley tipped his head. "Jack." He agreed easily.
Be useful. Be good, be careful, don't make him mad.
Crowley picked his way up the front steps. Ambling, hands in his pockets and she followed like his well trained dog. He stopped a few paces away from the front door.
Grimaced and shuffled his feet.
"Castiel's got the place warded to the teeth!" He gritted and held out the little paring knife, pressing it into the palm of her hand. "Time to earn your keep."
She stared at him in wide eyed panic, "you want me to…?" She looked down at the knife in horror, "I..."
Crowley let out a snort of distainful amusement. "For the warding you muppet. That's assuming you aren't completely useless."
Be useful. Be good, be careful, don't make him mad.
Leting out a relieved breath she approached the door, then hesitated and glanced back at him again, "do I, do I knock?"
The demon scowled. "Maybe you could offer to share the good news of your lord and saviour with Mother Winchester over cups of tea.
No, of course you don't bleeding well knock!" He hissed giving her a shove.
Twisting the handle Michele edged the door open and slid inside.
The interior of the house was much nicer than she expected, old style wallpaper varnished wood paneling and heavy furniture, any shadows dispelled by pools of golden light cast by side lamps.
The wardings weren't scrawled over the walls with spray paint like she expected, instead they were carved into the woodwork around the doors and windows.
Outside she caught sight of Crowley, bent over with a stick drawing in the dirt. Complex circles, something that looked like a crossed out trident, and a warped unfinished star.
Angel wardings.
Where was Mary and why wasn't she doing anything to console Jack?
The shattered windows and the lack of any other sounds set her senses jangling.
Be useful. Be good, be careful, don't make him mad.
Feeling furtive and guilty, repressing the urge to call out and announce herself. Michele moved from room to room on silent feet using her knife to deface every symbol she could find.
Jack's thready cries were coming from up the stairs and it took everything she had not to turn that way and go to him.
The sound of his distress dragged at her resolve every moment she spent destroying pictographs.
Be useful. Be good, be careful, don't make him mad.
Finished with everything on the ground floor, Michele pushed the front door open and caught Crowleys eye.
She didn't wait for him, instead finally, finally turning to the stairs she started up.
There were three rooms up there under the sloping roof, coming off the stunted hallway at the top of the stairs.
Two doors were open, one shut.
She could tell the Jack was in the closed one.
She turned towards it.
But suddenly Crowley was right there beside her, his hand clamped tight and forbidding on her arm.
He narrowed his eyes and shook his head.
Jerked his chin in the direction of the closer of the two open doors instead.
She gritted her teeth and shook her head, jabbed a finger at the door to the room where the baby was crying.
'Jack!' She demanded silently, tugging against his grip.
Eyebrow raised, he smirked at her and raised a finger, ticked it back and forth in front of her face; scolding like a parent and pointed to the closest open door.
Be useful. Be good, be careful, don't make him mad.
The door led into a small bathroom.
It was empty.
She turned to glare at Crowley, but he was already headed for the second open door.
That room turned out to be a bedroom, at first glance it appeared to be empty as well.
Crowley was stopped at the foot of the bed.
With a flicker of shock Michele realised the bed wasn't just rumpled and unmade like she first thought, the sheets were pulled up over a shape.
A dismissive hand wave from Crowley pulled the sheet back and sent it slithering to the floor.
Kelly!
It was Kelly.
Crowley just stood there hands in his pockets, unmoved staring down at Jack's mother.
Kelly stared back unblinking, lips parted slightly in surprise.
Michele pushed past him, reached out a hand, her mouth open to explain to Kelly that it was okay, they were just there to help. That Kelly didn't need to be afraid. To say how happy she was that Dagon and Crowley had been wrong, and that it was all going to be fine.
Except Kelly wasn't fine.
She didn't react, her chest was still, her skin cold as ice.
Michele's frantic fumbling fingers couldn't find a pulse.
"No."
Crowley's hand landed over her mouth from behind, pulling her away and muffling the word by stuffing it back into her mouth.
He frowned down at her, as though the horror and grief, narrowing her throat and blurring her vision with fresh tears, was a mildly puzzeling overreaction.
Kelly didn't look dead, but she was.
Incorrupt, it was a Catholic term.
Be useful. Be good, be careful, don't make him mad.
Pulling herself together, Michele shrugged out of his grip and turned away from the bed resolutely, back towards the last room, where Jack continued to cry.
Heart in her throat , hands shaking, Michele turned the knob and stepped inside.
The first thing she saw was Jack, her heart lurched.
He was lying in the wooden crib Kelly had built, under the window.
Crying pitifully and flailing his tiny arms and legs in distress.
A golden dagger was buried in his little chest, piecing him right through.
Pinning him to the white mattress; like a sadistic lepidopterist had mistaken him for a butterfly, and his crib was a display board.