Familiar Faces
As Rowan laid eyes on those three demons, she seemed to be able to look directly into them, seeing their black smoky forms as she had with Crowley. These were old demons and as she stared at them, they began to seem familiar.
"Remember us." Said one of the two males; his vessel was an African American man about six feet tall, dressed in a form fitting dress shirt and business trousers.
As he spoke those words, Rowan could remember the temple of Hel, which is what it had been called in Helheim. There were many dead throughout Helheim and she had elected five of the eldest in her realm to serve as her guards and council.
They had been great warriors in their time on earth and had proven to serve her well. Those that were unruly had been detained by her servants she had named Draugar, the again-walkers who she had given the powers to walk as the undead, still within their corpses, for short periods of time out of Helheim.
As she stared into these three demons, she knew them well.
"Agmundr." Rowan said to the demon within the young African American vessel, the strongest of her Draugar. She looked at the next demon, the female who seemed to possess a high class socialite teenager. "Bjarni." She said, receiving a respective bow from the one female that had fought as fiercely as the men around her. She was the fastest of the Draugar. "Raganhar." She said, the male to the other side of Bjarni, who possessed the vessel of a young bald man with tattoo covered skin. He was the most deceptive of the Draugar, who reminded Rowan of her father.
The two other Draugar were Magni, the most intelligent, and Sigrid, the most beautiful, who had been a close friend. They must have been killed.
"You know these demons?" Fenrir asked and Rowan glanced at her brother with a slight frown.
"These are the Draugar, my loyal guards." She replied and glanced at them with pride, but also with sadness in her eyes. What they must have suffered in her absence.
"You abandoned us." Raganhar said as they all blinked away their black eyes. Although they were her loyal guards, time may have changed that and it seemed evident based by Raganhar's tone of voice.
"Pardon?" Fenrir asked, stepping forward with a growl. Rowan held her hand out in front of him, keeping her calm.
"I have. I'm sorry." Rowan replied, which ignited a wild fury in her brother's eyes.
"Our father took you out of Helheim to protect you from Lucifer. He also took away your memory to keep you safe. How is that abandoning them?" he said, snarling at the demons. They only looked at him, and then focused their attention on Rowan. "That wasn't your fault." He added, but the demons ignored him.
"I forgot what I was leaving behind." Rowan said and her eyes were remorseful, which she couldn't fight. "What had Lucifer done?" she asked and any rage the demons had subsided.
"He tortured us all and we became the first demons." Bjarni replied, looking resentful which was not directed towards Rowan. "Lucifer selected those in the lifeless depth of Helheim to serve him and they tore down your temple, Milady." She added and Rowan wanted to smile, but she couldn't. She remembered now how they addressed her as Milady and as happy as she was to hear it again, it saddened her to think of those years they wondered why she had left them.
"We have waited to see you again." Agmundr said, kneeling down as a sign of respect. The other two had followed him, bowing their heads to Rowan. She approached and looked down at them with pride. Although they had been alone all those centuries, they had remained loyal to her. How amazing.
"Please rise." She said and they obeyed. "What of Magni and Sigrid?" she asked them and Bjarni lowered her eyes to the ground.
"Turned to Lucifer." Raganhar replied with disgust. "Renamed themselves Azazel and Lilith. They were leading the Free Lucifer campaign a few years back." He added and in his eyes, he seemed to show misery and pain. Had their former fellow Draugar tried to persuade them into joining Lucifer's army? Rowan wasn't sure she could ask about that.
"They had died long ago at the hands of the Winchesters." Agmundr added with a bit or joy in his voice. "Azazel tried to make Sam his demonic child. Dean killed him. Lilith was the last seal that unleashed Lucifer, which Sam killed." He added and Rowan nodded, appreciating the information, as upsetting as it was to know two of her Draugar had become loyal to Lucifer.
"We felt your power, Milday." Bjarni said, blurting it out as if eager to speak of something better. "We had remained hopeful of your return." She added and Rowan smiled.
"Sorry it took so long." She replied and Fenrir grunted.
"You don't owe them an apology." He said and she glanced at him with a bit of disappointment in her eyes.
"I left them all unguarded to face a monster alone. I wasn't there to protect them and I never had the chance to warn them." Rowan replied and her Draugar seemed forgiving as they stared at her. Fenrir's eyes were fierce as he still believed his sister didn't deserve these accusations of abandonment. He didn't seem to understand how she felt, knowing that her realm was left for Lucifer to ruin. Part of her wanted to be angry with their father, but it was true that he did it to protect her.
"Now that you've returned Milady, you can take Hell back. It won't be easy, but we can persuade many demons to support you. Many hate Crowley and most are afraid of Abaddon. There are still some who will remember you from back in the day." Bjarni said, her eyes seeming to beg Rowan to consider this.
Rowan was silent, giving it some thought, but most importantly she was thinking of Crowley. If there were many demons that hated him, but were willing to favor her, how would they react if she didn't kill Crowley? There was no way she could kill him.
"If you expect Hel to kill Crowley, you might want to brace yourself for a shocker." Fenrir said, his eyes hard, as if reading his sister's mind. The Draugar looked from him to Rowan with suspicion in their eyes.
"You'd let him live? He's a scoundrel. You must kill him. He will not surrender his claim on Hell." Agmundr had said, looking somewhat disgusted, although he tried to show more respect to Rowan.
"Whatever he has done to you Milady, he did it for his own interest." Raganhar added and Bjarni nodded in agreement with them. They didn't like Crowley one bit and they weren't thrilled to hear that their Lady of Death did.
"Whatever he had done to me?" Rowan asked, letting a little spark of anger flare in her eyes, making them lower their gazes. They had counseled her on some occasions, but this was the one time she didn't require it. "You mean whatever he had done for me." she added, her anger revealing in her tone of voice which made her brother seem proud that she wasn't letting her Draugar put her down. "I remember who I am thanks to Crowley. If it wasn't for him, we wouldn't be having this conversation, so I'd like you to have a smidgen of gratitude." She said and her tone made it apparent that she would not tolerate their attitude.
"Our apologies, Milday." Bjarni said in a soft voice.
"Hel is well aware that Crowley had a secret agenda, that he wanted her to focus on Abaddon who's clearly a threat on her way back to Helheim." Fenrir said and the Draugar looked up at him, listening attentively. "However, Abaddon is a threat to him too. You know, the enemy of my enemy is my friend." He added and Hel looked at him with a slight smile. Now it felt like her brother was on her side.
"Only Abaddon doesn't know of our Lady." Raganhar said.
"She will now." Rowan said, crossing her arms over her chest. "If you felt my presence, so did every other demon, I'm sure." She added and her Draugar seemed to think of it, then nod in agreement. "So, start teaching me everything you know about demons." Rowan concluded which had put little grins on their faces.
Fenrir just sat back on a bolder, looking up at the sky, enjoying the energy of the wilderness as the Draugar began sharing Hell's secrets with their Lady of Death. In the dirt that Rowan had unsettled with excavating the bones of the bear and the Native American, they drew symbols they had called sigils with a twig as they sat on the ground in a circle. Fenrir let out a laugh which Rowan disregarded. She could have sworn he said something about they resembled occultist children at Bible camp.
"This is to trap a demon." Bjarni said, drawing exactly the same sigil Rowan had seen under Crowley in that little prison. "There are a couple of variations, but it all works the same." she added and Rowan seem to soak in the sigil, as if her memory was holding onto it. Maybe her mind was using these bits of information to fill in the holes in her Swiss cheese of a memory. Interesting.
"I had seen that one to bind Crowley." Rowan said and they nodded.
"On chains too?" Bjarni asked and Rowan nodded. "It can also be put on a bullet, thanks to the ingenuity of the Winchesters." She added and Rowan let out a small smile. Her brother was right; any monster knows those two.
They had drawn the variations of the Devil's Trap, which Rowan was happy that her memory was absorbing them all in like a sponge to water. They were difficult sigils to draw.
The next one they showed her in the dirt was the anti-possession symbol, a pentacle within a sun was the best way to describe it. As Rowan learnt, that would protect the vessel from demonic possession. The Winchesters had that tattooed on them. It was funny to see those two popping up in their conversation like that, as if there was no way to get away from them.
"There's also a sigil we can use to remain within the vessel." Agmundr said and lifted his sleeve to reveal it burnt into the skin of his vessel's arm. "No exorcism can force us out, unless the sigil is damaged or removed." He added and Rowan smiled, liking that symbol, looking like a circle with a line from the centre of the circle, going out.
"There's also a trident symbol used to keep a demon within the vessel, mostly by force." Raganhar added, meaning hunters like the Winchesters. Yeah the hunters popped back up into the conversation like whack-a-weasel.
They also mentioned the Heptagram which was a protective circle used to trap demons. They drew it as best as they could, as it had many components to it, like the scorpion in the center.
"We're so bad, hunters need all the protection they can get." Bjarni said, sharing in Rowan's grin at all the sigils used to trap demons. When Rowan seemed a little sad, evidently thinking of how they were tortured into becoming demons, Bjarni reached across and placed her hand on Rowan's knee. "It's not so bad. Plus, not to put false hope in your heart Milady, but there might be a way you can reverse it." she said, Agmundr and Raganhar glanced at her, frowning.
"Or we can go see the Winchesters. They nearly succeed with Crowley." Raganhar said and that got Rowan's attention.
"What did you say?" she asked and they turned to her, a little surprised she didn't know.
"Well Milady, the Winchesters were trying to close the gates of Hell and that required three tasks. The last was curing a demon which the Men of Letters had done once before. They tried it on Crowley, but if Sam had done all three tasks successfully, it would have killed him." Agmundr said and suddenly, Rowan felt overwhelmed. Was that why Sam had been so nice to her? No, he couldn't possibly have thought she could help him.
And she was capable of helping him. She was Death. Any living person with death lingering on them could be removed. Rowan couldn't remember if she had ever done that before, but she was confident she could.
"Crowley was almost cured, feeling human. When the Winchesters abandoned the task, they kept Crowley and we know where, because that's how you met him. Right, Milady?" Bjarni said and Rowan nodded, looking around hoping no other demon knew what was going on in the woods.
"We won't tell, Milday." Agmundr said and she smiled at him.
"No other demon is here. We would have sensed them." Raganhar said and Rowan patted his shoulder in appreciation of him reassuring her.
"Thank you. Now, let's get back to the lesson." Rowan said, thinking of Crowley, how he'd nearly been human again. Another little bit of information he kept from her. Suddenly, she couldn't help but feel forgiving, for some stupid reason.
Her Draugar also taught her the exorcism, telling her the first part expels the demon and the second part of it sends it back to Hell. Since they were bound to their vessels, they were alright to let Rowan repeat the words, memorizing them to her mind where it would fit into one of the many holes that were fortunately getting filled with demonic information. It was rather quite long, but as Rowan said the words in Latin, her mind automatically understood the translations, like when she spoke to her brother in their native tongue.
Rowan was shown a whole variety of warding sigils against demons or, specifically, Lucifer. That she found interesting.
They also drew the Aquarian Star, which the Winchesters' grandfather and his fellow members used as the symbol of the Men of Letters organization. Rowan had seen it, but hadn't thought much of it. Were her Draugar trying to keep the Winchesters in the conversation? Rowan couldn't stop smiling. If she was supposed to hate them, she couldn't. Although they kept their theory of her being Hel a secret, she couldn't find any reason why she'd want to hurt them. Especially not Sam. The next time she saw him, she was going to check on that.
"There's also something you might find familiar." Bjarni said, drawing a symbol that Rowan had indeed recognized. "It's been named the Zoroastrian symbol." She added. It was the symbol that depicted the human soul before birth and after death.
"Haven't seen that in a while." Rowan said, tracing her finger over the symbol drawn in the dirt. She couldn't remember its origin, probably meaning it existed before her or at her birth.
"We could also teach you Enochian." Agmundr said and Rowan smiled, shaking her head.
"It's quite alright for now." she said and stood up, brushing off the dirt from her jeans. "I now need to know how to fight against something like Abaddon." She added, which had her Draugar grinning.
"With pleasure." They said, joining her, eyes turning black with a blink.