Chapter 4

Holding the shotgun with his right hand and leaning the barrel on his left arm which held the flashlight, Sam pointed his weapon at the empty entrance in front of him and stepped carefully through the archway. He only had a fraction of a second to think Wrong move!, then he was engulfed by a blindingly bright light that never ever could stem from a flashlight. A sharp twinge shot through his chest, followed by an agonizing pain that spread out through him from his heart and reached out to the farthest corners of his body. Sam could feel something grasping him from the inside, tearing at him, trying to drag him away. It hurt so much, so terribly much that he let out a panick-stricken cry, but for some reason it seemed to be drowned out by ... something, maybe the light around him, maybe something else, he didn't know and he wasn't in any condition to dwell on the subject. All he could think about, feel, hear, taste and see was anguish, coursing through his veins and threatening to tear him apart. Then another thought fought its way through the veil of pain and sent new waves of panic through Sam. Dean. I have to warn Dean. It's here. Can't fall asleep. Can't fall asleep!

Strangely enough, he didn't. He was sure that sleep would overman him or that he at least would pass out from the tormenting seizures, but nothing happened. The pain ceased as fast as it had come and the light around him dimmed down to a more humane degree that didn't blind him anymore. Still he was pretty sure that any kind of light that didn't originate from a flashlight shouldn't have been here, so he took a deep breath, readied his shotgun ... and gasped when he discovered that his weapon was gone. So was his flashlight. Reflexively, he reached inside his pockets and had to find that everything else he had brought with him to combat whatever was haunting the old church had disappeared too. I'm so screwed, he thought, trying to control the anxiety that once again was about to turn into panic. By now, the light was down to a normal level, and when Sam looked up from his empty hands he could see its source; several torches where fixed in iron brackets on the wall opposite to him, right above several rows of stone benches. Sam blinked, but the strange picture remained. I must have passed out, he pondered. Must've hit my head pretty hard on the way down. Sitting on the benches and facing the altar on the eastern side of the church, he could see more than fifty people. All of them sat silently, their eyes blank, and not one of them reacted as he took a step forward. On his left side, he passed a low shelf filled with small, worn-out books, on his right side he saw a heavy, dark veil covering some kind of entrance.

"What the ...", he mumbled to himself and turned around, not ready to believe whatever was going on here. Behind him, a large, double-winged wooden door filled the archway that he just had passed through seconds before, which didn't make any sense. But then again, nothing here did. Moving in a full circle, Sam tried to take the scenery in, gathering every detail in order to find any kind of answer to what had happened to him and the old Jocassee Church. He counted 57 people in all, men and women, most of them dressed in simple grey garments and tattered shoes, their grey hair long and disheveled. The torches seemed to distort the light in some strange kind of way as all Sam could see in the church, even the flames and the people's skin, were held in the same greyish tone. The faces of those he tried to get a better look at were blurred, strangely indistinct, as if they were only shadows of themselves. On the altar, that was made of wood with a thick altar stone on top, Sam could see several candles burning in the same misty grey colour. They were placed around some kind of basin filled with a dark liquid on the left side and a large open book on the right one. Directly behind it, a large crucifix, made from two solid wooden poles that were wedged into each other, arose. On its left side, a staircase led up to a small door. Sam raised his brow at this; he was pretty sure that the altar stone in the ruins had been placed further towards the staircase than this one which was much closer to the first row of benches. But then again, was he even still inside the ruins?

A rustling sound behind him almost made him jump. Turning around, he could see a hand drawing the heavy veil aside, then a man emerged from a small room filled with shelves. Before Sam could take a closer look at their content, the man had pulled the veil back and made a step towards him. He was smaller than Sam, by more than a head, maybe twenty-twentyfive years old and dressed in a long, black gown with a white clerical collar around his neck. His long, brown hair was tied into a ponytail, with a thick fringe bordering his soft, delicate features. A pair of emerald green eyes gazed at Sam, shining bright with interest. The grey colour that seemed to have taken a hold of everything else inside the old church obviously didn't affect him, Sam noted, still highly confused. Somehow, that man seemed familiar, he just couldn't put a finger on where he had seen him before.

"Welcome, my friend", the man said in a soothingly calm tone and smiled suavely. "Please, take a seat, we are about to begin."

"Uh", was the most intelligent answer Sam could muster. He wasn't quite sure what to make of all of this, but for now the man, most likely a reverend, didn't seem to be a threat to him, so he decided to play along. Nodding, he returned the preacher's smile and steered towards an empty bench to his right. Without warning, the man grasped his arm and yanked him back with such strength that Sam let out a surprised gasp and brought himself into a defensive position within a heartbeat. But still, the preacher just smiled, let go off Sam and handed him one of the small books from the shelf instead. "You wouldn't want to participate in a liturgy without your chant book, would you, son?", he asked. "Unless of course you know all of the psalms by heart."

Nutcase, Sam thought and toyed with the idea of turning around on his heel and leaving this place, but he still had to find out what had happened to him and why he was brought here, so he just took the book from the man's hand and forced another smile on his lips. "Thanks", he said and sat down on the outer edge of the bench closest to the portal. Just in case. The preacher bowed slightly and made his way up to the altar. No one of those present followed him with their eyes, no one even moved or made the faintest sound. Almost as if they weren't really there, Sam reasoned. Again the idea of shadows flashed past him. Shadows – or ghosts? Once again, he gazed at those gathered inside the church and wondered about their greyish colour and the clothing they were wearing. It was impossible for him to determine any kind of timeframe for their garments or for their hairstyle, but as far as he knew ghosts would always appear in the shape and clothing they had had at their time of death. Looking at the preacher again, he'd guess that both hair and gown could be found somewhere around 1800-1850, which would match the time of use of the old Jocassee Church, but ... Suddenly, it came back to him. The painting he had found inside one of the books on the history of the Gorges! The man up there looked exactly like the young man who had stepped in to take Dickens' place as reverend in Jocassee Creek. Reverend Charleston. Something else caught Sam's eye too and he stared in disbelief at a young girl and boy who were sitting close to the altar. What had distinguished them from the rest of the flock was their colour: the short, brown hair of the boy and the blonde locks of the girl stood out from the people around them like a beacon in the night, and so did their colourful t-shirts and light skin. Sam knew these kids, he'd seen them yesterday in one of the files: Kathy and Peter. Now that he knew what to look for, he could make out other people with just a hint of colour and distinct shapes, though none of them were as visible as the two teenagers.

"Spirit trap...", he mumbled to himself and recalled the sharp pain that had shot through him when he had entered the church. And then he understood. Those people who had been found inside the ruins hadn't been asleep, not in the formal sense of the word, anyways. They had simply lost their souls. As had Sam, the moment he stepped through the archway. He didn't know how this was possible or what kind of magic was able to pull a man's soul from his body, but here he was, sitting inside a church that had burnt to the ground almost 200 years ago, listening to the voice of a preacher who had been dead just as long. And from one second to another, that voice wasn't as calm and soothing anymore.

"Hell awaits you, all of you! You are eternally bound by sin, and for your sins you shall burn in the fires of hell", Sam heard the reverend say in a chillingly cold tone that sent shivers down his spine. If he commenced every service with a prelude like this one, it wasn't too hard to imagine why most of what he had found on Charleston had mainly been of a hostile nature. "Forget about a benevolent God, forget about a forgiving God!", Charleston went on, his voice soon a thundering crescendo: "The Lord is all-knowing, and he has seen your sins. You have condemned yourselves! As is said in Matthew 13:41-42, the Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; and shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth."

"Someone has lost his faith", Sam whispered to himself, shaking his head. Something had clearly driven the spirit of the young reverend mad, but still that didn't explain how all of this – the church, the flock, everything – had ended up being Charleston's playground. Had he actually turned into a vengeful spirit after burning to death? But if so, how come he still seemed to have kept his sanity? And how had he managed to hold the others inside the church? A tickling sensation crawled up through Sam's feet and legs and he reflexively bent forward to scratch his leg. His hand touched something unexpected, and when he looked down he saw five, six violet flowers placed on his jeans. They were attached to thin, hairy, green stems that had started to wind themselves around his shoes, but jerked back at his touch and disappeared underneath the bench he was sitting on. Devil's bit!, he thought, startled. The same flower they had found just outside the unholy circle! Examining the people around him carefully, he could see the stems of the Devil's bit, though grey and almost as indistinct as the features of the others, coiled around their legs and wrists, obviously holding them bound to their seats. That's one mystery solved, Sam mused. Who'd have listened to that crazy reverend by own free will? Question was whether it really was Charleston who was using the compulsive powers of the Devil's bit to keep the spirits of his flock under control. After all, Sam had never heard of a spirit that was able to hold other spirits captive by means of magic. On second thought, he had never heard of anything like this at all. However, the sight of that plain violet flower awakened something inside him, just a flash of a memory, something he had read somewhere. Or something, his Dad had told him.

The Key of Solomon.

It had to be. The only thing he had ever heard about that actually could bind a spirit for good. He had simply been too narrowminded when he had read the words spirit circle, not thinking about possible synonyms. Like a consecrated pentacle as it was described in the Key of Solomon, one of the earliest works on the conjuration and excorcising of spirits and demons. Combined with the root of the Devil's bit, buried at each of the five apexes of the pentagram, the pentacle would be a powerful prison for spirits. But then again, how could a conjuration using God as some kind of medium desecrate the church and everything around it? And, even more pressing, why would anyone do it? Why would anyone deliberately hinder the natural passing on of souls? It didn't make any sense.

One thing, Sam knew for sure, though. As long as he was a spirit, the Devil's bit was as dangerous to him as to the other poor souls inside Jocassee Church. He had to get out of here. Fast!

While Charleston still roared on about the fires of hell and the condemnation of the soul, Sam stood up, making sure that nothing of the Devil's bit had strapped itself unto him, and moved slowly back to the portal while avoiding Charleston's eye. At least he knew about the powers of the Devil's bit, which probably was more than any of the others present inside the church, and that gave him the hope that maybe he could just walk right back through the archway and transfer his soul back into his body.

Still, he knew it was a feeble hope. If he had been in Peter or Kathy's place (or in that of anyone of the others trapped here), he probably would have headed right back for the portal the very second he had seen the ghostly scenery, not even giving the Devil's bit the slightest chance to gain control. Something else had to be at work here, something he hadn't thought about until now. After four steps, he had made it to the large, double-winged door and reached out to touch the curved handle.

That was when his luck ended. He could almost feel the reverend's stare and he knew beyond all doubt that the next words were meant for him. And they did note bode well. "Luke 19:27", Charleston said, every single word crushing down upon Sam like a hammer. "But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me."

XXXXX

Devil's bit... Devil's bit... Devil's bit...

Dean was pretty sure that what he could hear right now was Sammy's voice, repeating the same two words over and over again. The flower!, he remembered and looked at the place where his brother had found the violet plant the day before. They hadn't talked much about it since their conversation at the motel as Sam had been unable to find anything else on its use, but somehow it seemed to be connected to the old church. Question was, how exactly? Raising the flashlight, Dean walked slowly over to the bushes and picked another Devil's bit, constantly keeping an eye out for possible threats. Controlling and compulsive power, he pondered. Was it the flower that held his brother captive, somehow? As part of a ritual? He returned to the stone with the markings, still holding the plant, and tried once more to figure out whether he had seen these signs before. They seemed familiar, no doubt about it, and yet he couldn't quite place them anywhere in his memory.

For the hundreth time, he wished that he had been more careful, more suspectible to Sammy's warnings, and for the hundreth time he brushed away these thoughts. No use blaming himself, that would only make him less vigilant towards any dangers that might be inside the ruins. Instead he got up again and made his way around the church, looking for other stones like the one he had found. That one had been exactly opposite to the archway leading into the church, so he tried his luck inside the stone portal, though he was careful not to walk straight through the archway, as he had discovered Sam right on its other side. "Yahtzee", he whispered as the light beam was reflected by a silvery sparkle. One of the headstones on the outer wall bore similar markings.

Luke 19:27, Sam's voice shot through his brain, sounding slightly nervous. Dean shook his head and tried to focus on the task at hand. He knew that Leyla had heard voices too and that their words hadn't made any sense (Luke 19:27?), and the last thing he needed right now was a chaos of noise inside his head that would drive him mad. He turned to the southern wall of the church and used the flashlight to examine every single stone thoroughly, until he found another one with markings on this side as well. If there was one stone more on the opposite side, they would form a cross through the church, with its top at the wall behind the altar, which was strange, because a binding ritual normally would take the shape of a circle. Like the unholy circle that encompassed the church.

A sudden noise made Dean look up. It had sounded like a faint groan, coming from the direction Sammy was lying in, and he was just about to sigh with relief, when a violent jolt went through his brother's body. In a matter of seconds, Dean was at Sammy's side, placed one arm behind his back and lifted him up to facilitate his breathing. His body started shaking so uncontrollably that the blanket fell off, but still he seemed to be asleep.

"Sammy", Dean whispered, overwhelmed by a new wave of concern for his brother. "Sammy, what's happening?"