Careful What You Wish For
Chapter Fourteen
Written in Sand
It took a moment for Kayla to get her bearings. It was one thing when she transported herself, but a completely different story when it was done for her. Her hands tightened on Castiel's sleeves, as she wavered on her feet for a moment. For his part, Cass didn't move, content to serve as her rock until the world anchored itself beneath her feet. When she finally stepped back away from him, and lifted her eyes to survey her surroundings.
"No. No..." Kayla took a step back from him slowly, recognizing the tableau before her. The walls, the stainless steel table, the stairway. She began shaking her head, and backing away from Castiel. "Please, don't make me go through this again."
She bumped into a desk, and started as though the wood would bite her. Cass took a few steps forward, following her retreat through the room.
"Kayla, please, you have to trust me. It's going to be alright. Just tell me about your visions. About what you saw, what was done. Tell me, and we can make sure everything turns out just fine."
"It's not going to be fine!" Kayla countered. "Sam comes down those stairs.. and you.. you... explode! You can't do this, Cass. Please. Everyone is going to get hurt. You, me, Sam, Dean, Bobby, everyone!" She couldn't back away any further. She'd gone around the desk, and now felt her back against the wall. The -Wall-. This was exactly where the sigil was painted, the mental image of the blood dripping down the wall flashed in her head, unbidden. When she recoiled from the cold tile, she bumped straight into Castiel's chest.
Automatically, he took her by the shoulders, keeping her fast. He couldn't understand why she was so terrified, of this place, worse yet, of him. It was bad enough that he'd lost Sam and Dean's trust. But she was a nephilim. The world feared her, not the other way around. He shook his head slightly, and gave her shoulders a spin, turning her around.
"You don't have to witness this, Kayla."
"No!" She twisted from his grip in a sudden flurry of movement, leaving Castiel to furrow his brow and watch her carefully. "I won't let you do this."
"I'm afraid you have no choice." Castiel's voice held such sadness that it even astounded him. "Stay here, Kayla. Stay safe. Stay out of sight."
"But-" He was already gone by the time she voiced her protest. For a moment, she narrowed her eyes, and thought of following him. But instead, she chose to take his advice, to stay here, and stay low. After all, so long as she was here, she had a chance to stop the horrible from happening.
Castiel returned to the warehouse after confronting Crowley, and dealing with Balthazar. He fully expected to be greeted by another tirade from the nephil, but instead, found her asleep, her head resting on her arms at the table. He had to admire that. She was staying true to her word, even at the sacrifice of her friendship with the Winchesters. Cass set the jar of blood off to one side, and approached the table. Reaching down, he laid his hand against the crown of her head, and gently began to stroke down the length of her hair. He wished there was another way. He wished he knew the secret to controlling her power, so he could just tear the bindings from her Grace and let her ibe/i.
She stirred beneath his hand. "I won't let you explode..." she murmured, when he withdrew his touch. Straightening up, she rubbed her eyes, and lifted them to study his haggard face. "I won't let anyone die today."
He was impressed with her conviction. "Then, it's time to get started."
She pushed herself up from the chair, rolling her shoulders, and putting on a brave face. "What do you need me to do?" Castiel didn't answer, except to press his angel blade into her hand, curling her fingers around the hilt, and giving them a squeeze. She nodded, getting the message loud and clear. With another deep breath, she shifted her grip on the blade, and looked around the room carefully.
Cass retrieved the ritual from his jacket pocket, unfolding the paper slowly and studying it once more. He drew breath to speak, when around them, from outside the room they occupied, screams erupted. Kayla nearly jumped out of her skin, spinning around in place with the angel blade brandished before her.
"Careful, now, Poppet, you'll hurt someone with that." Crowley's voice was smooth as silk. He reached out, and gently diverted the tip of the blade away from him. "So grand to see you're holding up your end of the deal. Too bad Feather-head there sought to renegotiate the terms of our deal."
Kayla glanced to where Cass had been standing moments before, only to find him gone. The warm sense of his body appeared immediately between herself and Crowley, causing her to take half a step backward. Castiel had his palm against Crowley's forehead, but nothing was happening.
"Sorry, mate, new partner... new digs and all that." Crowley smiled broadly. The air became oppressive, weighing down upon their shoulders, as the wildcard descended in a flutter of unseen wings.
Castiel named the angel within the Nubian vessel, speaking it as thought it where a curse: "Raphael."
Crowley chuckled softly, as Castiel took a step back, revealing Kayla standing behind him, clutching the angel blade. "Guess I get to own you after all..." One dark eye closed in a wink, and the nephil visibly shuddered. "Now, hand over the jar, and we won't have to kill you."
"No." Kayla stomped her foot. In any other circumstance, it probably would have been ridiculously cute. "No!" It was spiraling out of control. She would keep her end of the deal, she would make sure it was Castiel who opened the door. She refused to become a demon's plaything. In her desperation, she fought against herself. There was power somewhere in there. She could do something. She had to. She grabbed the back of Cass' jacket, and... suddenly the world shifted.
"Wha-" Cass felt the cloak of her power settle around them. She very nearly fell to her knees, but her grip on his trenchcoat kept her upright. She made a pained sound, even as Castiel leaned forward slightly to inspect the immobile forms of Crowley and Raphael standing before him. Kayla's fingers unclenched from his jacket, and she staggered to the table, using it to hold herself up. Her eyes blazed with Grace, her tenuous grasp of the power contained within her slipping every second.
"Hurry!" She gasped.
He didn't have to be asked twice, Cass untwisted the cap of the jar, and dipped his fingers into the mixture, starting to draw on the wall. Almost simultaneously, Dean and Bobby burst through the door on the upper level, making such a racket that Kayla's control slipped just enough. Raphael's arm moved, hand spreading to drop his own angel blade into his vessel's grip. Kayla clenched her fist, and tried to tighten the control, getting a strangled sound from Raphael in response.
Dean's voice carried down the stairs, and he and Bobby began to race down to the main floor. Castiel barely looked up from his work, but the stairwell twisted beneath their feet to send them both tumbling. Castiel spread his hands, and began to intone the spell. Kayla felt a surge of triumph. So long as he opened the door, she was free. She figured she could deal with the rest of it after. Her control slipped again, this time, Raphael managed to raise her arm high over her head, blade glinting maliciously in the shifting lights.
"Cass!" Kayla gave a strangled cry of desperation.
"Ianua magna aperta tandem!" Castiel's voice boomed out, shaking the windows. The floor began to vibrate, knocking Dean off his feet, and into the desk with a crash. Kayla staggered, her untried power giving out beneath the stress of the moment. She barely got her blade up in time to block Raphael's strike, before scrambling backwards out of the archangel's reach.
It was happening too fast! Castiel raised his arms, opening himself to the gateway, and the gathering light in the center of the maelstrom. Kayla shouted wordlessly, flinging away the angel blade, and lunging for Castiel. She hit him the same moment that the souls streaming from Purgatory did. There was a brief moment where they both were subsumed in the stream of souls screaming out of the Doorway, before she wrestled him to the ground outside of the stream. As soon as the souls no longer had a target, they splintered off into many rivers, twisting and twining through the room.
Crowley started leaping up, trying to grab the few that came close to him, while Raphael ducked and swore and watched in horror. Dean and Bobby lay prone on the ground, helpless as the world erupted into chaos around them. Oddly enough, only Sam, barely arrived on the scene, moments before, had enough presence of mind to actually disrupt the Doorway. He hurled a piece of rebar, cold iron, into the portal, which with screaming, clawing protest, seemed to implode upon itself.
Chaos calmed, but for a split second. As soon as the souls escaped, Crowley vanished in a puff of smoke. Raphael lunged forward, scrambling for her angel blade, and closing in upon the two forms huddled before the wall. Sam's voice shouted a warning, and Cass looked up, eyes blazing with fury. As soon as his gaze met the archangel, Raphael exploded into tiny, quivering, gobbity bits.
Sam skidded across the floor on his knees, coming to a stop right beside Castiel. The nephil lay in his arms, draped across his lap, her eyes closed gently in the most peaceful repose. Castiel ran blood-smeared hands through her hair. Dean struggled out of the desk's debris, and eventually helped Bobby up as well.
"Dean! DEAN!" Sam's voice hit panic-mode. "She's not breathing!" The younger Winchester practically had to wrestle the inert body from the angel.
"Do something, Cass!" Dean scolded, practically smacking the angel upside the head as he joined them.
"I... this... it wasn't supposed to happen this way."
Dean just stared at him, as Sam tipped Kayla's head back, and started looking for the right spot to do chest compressions.
"Damn idjit, Castiel! Heal her! You're a damned angel!" Bobby beat his hat in his hands, knocking it back into the proper shape before cramming it on his head.
Cass seemed to blink himself out of his stupor. "Yes.. yes, of course.." Reaching out, he laid his hand on Kayla's chest, and closed his eyes, letting his Grace seep through the contact. For a few long moments, nothing happened, and Cass furrowed his brow thoughtfully. He tapped on his chest, like someone would tap on a microphone to check for functionality.
Sam was about to resume CPR when Kayla took a deep, sudden breath in, her eyes snapping open. She started coughing, deep, body-wracking sounds. Sam helped roll her over onto her side, where she curled up into the fetal position, her arms covering her head and ears instinctively. Dean reached out to touch her shoulder.
She flew into motion, knocking his touch away, and trying to scramble back from the group of them. Again, her hands went to her head, as though she were trying to hold herself together. Castiel watched her for a few moments more, before his features softened with dawning understanding.
"oh.. no.." he managed to breath the words just before Kayla began to scream.
Her body emitted a blinding white light, angelic Grace supercharged by the power of a human soul. The three mortals raised their hands over their eyes, trying to block the surge of light and power. The sound she made was one of complete pain, and utter torment, and the light seemed to just increase with the sound that was torn from her throat, until all at once, it just seemed to pop out of existence.
Dean scrubbed his eyes, trying to blink away the afterimages. As his vision adjusted to the absence of the light, he noticed that she was gone. The floor smoked faintly where she had been kneeling, and when Dean turned to ply questions at Castiel, he was absent as well, with nearly a dozen little vapor trails raising from where he had knelt.