Sam knocked on the door to Church's room a little over ten minutes later.
She opened it instantly and let Sam and Dean inside. "Come on in, guys."
Dean took a seat on the edge of the bed while Sam sat at the table.
"So, are you ready to tell your story yet?" Dean asked, looking at her curiously.
"Uh-huh… but before I start, can I ask that you wait until I'm finished before asking any questions, because it's only going to get harder to get through it if you keep interrupting me."
Sam and Dean looked at each, nodded in agreement.
Sam looked back at Church then. "Yeah, we can do that. Dean will be quiet this time. So you can start."
Church stood in front of the window, looked outside of it, and took a deep breath. "It all started many years ago, goes back twelve generations before mine, which makes me part of the thirteenth one if you can't do that math."
Sam smiled to himself knowing the math comment was probably for Dean's sake.
Dean nodded, uttered "hmmm" as he'd been spared trying to work it out in his head.
"It began with the parents of the twelfth generation. There were thirteen families, all part of a small community in some remote area. Each made a deal with a stranger who came to their town one day. All of their reasons were different. Some were hungry, most were poor, some wanted to prosper in their trades, but their reasons don't really matter in the end."
Church rested her head against the window, wrapped her arms around herself, pausing for a moment.
"This stranger didn't tell anyone his name, or even give a reason for why he was there. But for two nights he sat in the local, well I guess it would have been a watering hole, probably listening in on conversations and then inquiring further about the troubles of a few of them."
Sam and Dean remained silent, each listening intently to Church's story for the details.
"On the third night, he approached thirteen of the men whose tales of woe he'd listened to. He offered them the solution to their problems, claimed he could give them whatever they wanted if they would just give him a small offering in return. Now, most of the men didn't give it a second thought, greed or hunger was in their hearts at the time. A few were even foolish enough to not listen to the offer before agreeing to give him whatever it was he wanted."
Church turned around finally, and leaned against the wall beside the window. She couldn't sit as she told the story, she had to be near a window or a door in case she needed to run and breathe, to break free of the suffocating weight this story held on her. She'd known it for years, but it still was hard to bear when she talked about it because she didn't like to talk about it at all.
"Some of them thought it was a joke. No mere man could just grant their heart's desires, so they accepted. The rest agreed to it anyway, even after hearing what he wanted in return. They thought it didn't matter too much in the end. If what he wanted was what it took, then they were willing to give it up. Some of them didn't even think they'd be able to give him what he wanted, because they had no children. What was the soul of a child they didn't and probably would never have? And if they had no children, then those children would never have their own children and so on and so on. Chances were he'd never be able to get the total of thirteen souls he wanted from each of their families. It sounded like a fair trade to the ones who couldn't put up their end of the bargain."
Sam and Dean traded interested looks. Each already had questions, but they had agreed to stay quiet until she was done.
Her voice went hollow now. "As long as they promised these future thirteen souls, their hopes or dreams would be granted. Each man took it when they felt they had no other option. Some of them were already grasping at straws to better their situations, while others were obsessed with obtaining their desires. It didn't matter, because at the point they just signed over whatever the price was because they wanted what they wanted and they'd just been made that offer of a lifetime."
Sam was captivated. He could almost see the story playing out in his mind as she told it.
Dean was still as he listened, his hate for Ronove growing.
"Later some said that as soon as they'd agreed, the stranger's eyes went red for a moment, but at the time they were blinded by the promises to really notice. That maybe if they'd known the true cost they would have walked away, but it took awhile for any of them to figure out the mistake they'd all made." Church gritted her teeth, walked over to the mini fridge and helped herself to a bottle of water before she continued on with the story.
"Soon each of them had what they had wanted, whatever it was each of them sold thirteen future souls from their family's line for. The ones that already had children watched them grow older, while the ones that didn't were surprised to find themselves with children within a few years after the night they made their deals. Years started to pass, nothing really happened and all of them slowly began to forget about the night they struck a deal with a stranger. None of them gave it any thought until the day came when the first soul was collected a good thirteen years later."
Sam just watched her, seeing how she detached and yet still pained.
Dean cleared his throat, folded his arms, his face twitching just a little.
"It only took a month before the other men each lost a child of their own after that first one. Each of them finally started to realize just what it was they had signed over to this stranger – an actual life, not just a soul. That was when they all decided to get together, they'd all seen each other that night talking with the man, and were finally willing to discuss what all of them had done separately that night. They traded their stories, talked about their losses, and decided they would find a way to break their agreements with this man except none of them knew his name or where to find him. He never returned after that and nobody had ever learned his name. So they prayed for a way to find him, to break their deals, for any sort of help at all."
Church looked at Sam and Dean, noticed their expressions were both a little hard. She paced back to the window, stared outside again.
"Somewhere along the line one of them must have talked to a priest about what they'd done and found out they'd made their deals with a demon. They decided to hunt it if they could. A few even got their hands on summoning spells to try and call the demon back, but didn't quite know what they were doing. A few got themselves killed. The rest kept at it though, summoning demon after demon, trying to learn the name of the one that had visited them all those years ago. Then they started to die off one by one. One horrible death after another that no one could explain. It wasn't long before there were only two of them left. These two gave up their quest, finally told their families and the other men's families everything. They wrote down everything they knew in a book so that in the event of their deaths, natural or not, it would be there to fall back upon. A way to keep track of what had happened, what was going to happen, so maybe someone would be able to stop it down the line."
Church walked over to her bag, pulled out the book, holding it in her hands before she started to speak again.
"Now, none of the families wanted to believe it. But when the men's surviving children had children of their own, and when a child from each family died in some terrible way, they started to believe in it. They started their own quests to end this, some becoming hunters. And each generation started to record the events and then pass down the story and the book to the next."
She handed it to Sam, wanting him to look at it first.
"Is that it?" Dean got up and joined Sam at the table so they could start looking through it together.
"It's all there, everything that happened to each family and every generation before mine. You'll see that a lot of the people whose souls were collected said they had been haunted by a man in their dreams. He's described as looking like a normal man, but his eyes are red. They also claim they'd run into him numerous times before they died."
Sam was ready to open the book, but he was waiting for her to finish telling her story.
"Both of you take your time to read through it. Maybe you'll see a pattern I don't, think of something I can't. Maybe something will click in your heads. I've read it enough times to know it word for word and can't find anything useful in it, but maybe you will."
"Okay, we'll give it a shot," Sam replied, giving her a thoughtful look.
Dean nodded. "We might be able to figure something out. One of us has been to Hell..."
"I only have the book now because I'm the last one left. You'll see my name at the end of the list. Nobody else is left from my generation. I'll be the last sacrifice he'll get, the last soul to collect from the thirteenth generation out of thirteen families. And once he gets me, he has enough sacrificed souls to…" her voice started to break as she spoke those last words. "To unleash something people like us have never seen. I can't say why, it's in the book…someone figured it out. Someone figured out what Ronove was up to... why all of us, and what I have to die for."
A few tears started to roll down her cheeks now. "Please, just read it and then let me know." Church hurried to the door and flung it open, no longer able to hold back the emotions and devastation she felt was now coming undone, even though she had kept it together until the end in front of both brothers.
"Wait, Church," Sam called after her as he watched her run out the door and it shut behind her.
"Dude, I know you want to run after her right now. I can see it on your face, but just give her a few minutes." Dean knew she'd need a moment alone, even if Sam could comfort her with his sensitive side, it was clear she just needed a moment to collect herself.
"Um… yeah, you're right," Sam said, opening the book. "That was some story, Dean. What do you think?"
Dean looked at Sam, his face grim. "Sounds like Yellow Eyes wasn't the only one with a plan. And as I said, I'm not sure we can help her. Thirteen generations, and no one has figured it out?"
Sam shrugged. "We have to try. Let's read this first, see if there's anything in it we can use. Or maybe we know something they don't."
"How about you read it then give me the short version when you're done? I'll give Bobby a call in the meantime and see what his take is on it."
"Sure." Sam bit his tongue as Dean once again stuck him with the reading, even though he wanted to head outside, find Church and offer some comfort now. To tell her that somehow he'd do whatever it would take to keep her alive.
Dean walked out, heading back to their room, already calling Bobby.
Sam got comfortable in the chair and started to read about the past Church had described and began searching for a thread of something or anything that would help her out of ending up like the rest of the names in the book had.
[ - ]
Church watched Dean leave her room, the phone at his ear as he headed back to the room he and Sam had through her misty eyes. She was pretty sure he hadn't noticed her as he walked the short distance between their rooms. She had silenced her cries and tried to blend in against the wall. It seemed to have worked too because Dean's eyes had not even met hers.
She couldn't believe she'd just told them the whole story and let them have the book. The terrible book that promised her a fate she didn't want, a fate she didn't deserve, one she had never asked for even. Yet she was here, days away from it being fulfilled now.
Church knew her days were numbered. Nobody before her had escaped the same fate.
The emotions took hold of her again. With her eyes already red from before and now brimming with more tears once again, she sank to the ground and cried for the all of the lives lost before her, and most of all for her own, which was hanging by a dangerously thin thread.
Notes: Okay, background on Church's story... which to this day sounds like a bit of a weak stretch plot wise. It's what I came up with, though, and it is what it is regardless of how much I might not like it. Hopefully it makes sense or that it has just enough intrigue to maybe make it work later on... (still haven't figured out how this one really goes after a few more chapters, by the way.)
It probably could have used more input and interaction from Sam and Dean, but they needed to hear her story and find out what's going on. So they did.
Next replaced chapter update coming soon...