Chapter 5
Sam turned around just in time to see the reverend lift both arms above his head in a commanding gesture, then the spell that had held all the other spirits in place seemed to dissolve. The Devil's bit released its grasp and allowed them to raise from the benches and face the portal. Or rather, face Sam. Their eyes were still as blank and lifeless as they had been before, and their bodies moved mechanically in unison towards him (at this point, Sam wondered whether the shape of a spirit could be called a 'body', then why on earth he would waste precious seconds on such a ridiculous question). Still, reverend Charleston stood behind the altar and shouted on the top of his lungs: "If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned", while his servants moved closer and closer.
Well, Sam thought with a hint of gallows humour, at least there wasn't any doubt left about who had imprisoned these spirits. Thanks to the Devil's bit and his knowledge about the Key of Solomon, he had a pretty good idea about the how. But the why was still missing completely.
Another valuable second passed before Sam managed to turn his gaze away from the wall of spirits approaching. The words of the reverend set his thoughts in motion once again, making him combine what he had seen with what Charleston said, but right now he didn't have the time to focus on his cogitations. Grabbing the handles on both wings firmly, he tried to push the door open with all the strength he could muster. At first, it seemed to him that the heavy portal wouldn't budge, but after two more thrusts, the latter one of which Sam performed by hurling his right shoulder against the wood, the door burst open and allowed him to stumble through. Within seconds, the white light engulfed him once more and with it came the sharp pain in his chest. He could almost feel how something called out for him, tried to haul him back into his body, and he was just about to believe that his plan had worked, when he could feel something (or someone?) grabbing him from behind. No!, he yelled without a voice that could manifest his scream, panic spreading through his mind. From somewhere, he could hear someone say his name, but the voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. Then more words. "Sammy, what's happening?". Dean.
Before he could answer to his brother's call, his whole body was filled by agonizing cramps. It felt as if it was being torn apart from all sides, and Sam knew instinctively that he had to give in to the much stronger power trying to pull him back inside the church if he wanted to keep his sanity. Maybe even his life. It was a question of seconds before he would break off his struggle, but he knew, too, that this might be his last chance to speak to Dean. Therefore, he fought against his assailant's grasp just a few seconds longer and started formulating key words which he hoped Dean would hear and understand. Words that he was made to pay for dearly.
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Sam's body shook violently in Dean's arms, he breathed in short, strained gasps, his eyelids fluttered. Then, after something that felt like several minutes but probably had been just a few seconds, they flew open and Sam's hazel eyes stared at Dean, filled with panic and fear. Dean tried to say something, expressing his relieve, his concern, anything, but before a single word could leave his mouth, Sammy let out an excruciated scream and started flinching. He seemed to fight something, something that was attacking him from the inside, then the scream faded away and his lips started to form words. They were a mere whisper, and Dean had to move his ear close to Sammy's face in order to understand what he was trying to say. "R-reverend", Sam muttered, obviously in too much pain to speak clearly. "Charleston. Hell. Not vengeful." At this, he winced and caught his breath, then he went on: "Altar. Remains." His gaze flickered. "Spirit Circle. Key of So-". The last word was cut off by a screech so racked with anguish and despair that Dean's heart seemed to skip a beat, just to continue pumping the blood through his veins twice as fast as before. The scream stopped as abruptly as it had begun, then Sam's body went limp, returning to its quiet state of sleep.
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Sam had never felt such physical pain before. Every bone inside his body seemed to be broken, his heart seemed to pump acid through his veins rather than blood and even his skin seemed to be consumed by flames. His own screams of fear and anguish echoed inside his head, intensifying the sharp jolts darting through his brain. He couldn't see, still blinded by the searingly white light, couldn't move, couldn't do anything to stop the raging fire inside him. The touch of Dean's hand on his back felt like a thousand needles drilling themselves into his flesh, but he had to hold on. Just another heartbeat. Just long enough to tell him what was going on here. He forced himself to open his eyes, calmed for a second by the darkness of the night and his brother's familiar features above him. "R-reverend", he managed to utter, every syllable followed by another wave of torment. "Charleston." Just so he knew who most certainly was behind this. Another word, one more. "Hell." A possible motive, maybe. He wasn't sure, how much longer he could bear the pain, but he had to continue. "Not vengeful", he moaned, flinching. The reverend had none of the hallmarks of a typical vengeful spirit. One more, just one more. "Altar." Something had moved the altar stone, though he didn't knew what or why. "Remains." Something was anchoring the reverend to this place, he was sure of it. Another blast of pain, more violent than the last one, but he had to go on. Only two key words left. "Spirit circle... is...", he hissed, trying to tell Dean about his own conclusion. "... Key of So-". His body exploded in such agony that he was unable to finish the last word. He screamed, screamed like never before in his life, and gave in to the power that tried to drag him back into the church. The pain didn't cease immediately, as it had before, but transformed into a throbbing ache in every part of his body. Now he was able to feel what had pulled him back; icy cold fingers had grabbed him with iron clutches at his shoulders, his legs, his hair, his neck, and though he had surrendered to their demand they didn't let go off him just yet. Instead, they now forced him down on the ground with such strength that every thought of struggle seemed pointless. Slowly, the bright light dimmed down to the flickering shadows of the torches again and allowed Sam to see his assailants: ten of the spirits had surrounded him, while four others were kneeling on his back, his arms and his legs, holding him pinned to the church floor. He could still feel the aftereffects of the binding spell he had fought against, pulsating through his body like liquid fire, and he noted almost thankfully that the pain decreased with each heartbeat.
From afar he could hear the steps of reverend Charleston echoing through the church as he approached Sam, then his voice said in a piercingly cold tone: "How you have fallen from heaven, O morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations. You said in your heart, 'I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of my God;...' Those who see you stare at you, they ponder your fate: 'Is this the man who shook the earth and made kingdoms tremble…?"
"Do I look like Lucifer to you?", Sam muttered, finding it hard to breathe with the weight of Charleston's minions upon him. The question had been rhetorical; obviously, Charleston's spirit was a religious nutjob who saw sin and evil inside everything. Still the reverend answered with another one of his quotes that would have driven Sam crazy if they had been uttered under different circumstances. Now they just filled him with fear of what Charleston could possibly plan to do to the devil himself. The devil, yeah right. If the situation hadn't been as dead serious as this, Sam would have derided the preacher's words. Unfortunately, he was in no position to argue.
"Even Satan can disguise himself to look like an angel of light", Charleston said slowly, contemplatively. Sam tried to look up towards him at these words, but was rewarded with a violent kick against his temple that brought him close to unconciousness. Could spirits actually black out?, he thought, once again wondering about how ... lifelike ... it felt to be a spirit.
"Bring him forth", he heard the reverend say, then he was pulled to his legs and shoved brutally past the rows of benches towards the altar. Charleston strode imperiously in front of the procession while conducting the same gestures as before when he had released his flock. Most of the spirits assumed their old places on the stone benches as they passed them by, except for two shades that were dragging Sam forward. As they got closer to the altar, Sam recognized Peter and Kathy on the second row, as well as some other spirits wearing colours. The Devil's bit was still tightly wound around their bodies and they hadn't moved an inch compared to last time Sam had seen them; apparently, Charleston didn't have as much control over the more recent members of his involuntary flock.
Sam was about to look back to the altar, when Kathy managed to catch his gaze. Her dark green eyes weren't as blank as those of the other spirits, on the contrary, they were still containing a spark of life (energy?) and seemed to commiserate with him. Her lips formed two silent words that pierced right through Sam's heart and more than anything made it apparent to him how deep in the water he really was.
Help us, she said.
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No time to panic, Dean tried to calm himself, staring in disbelief down at Sam's pale face. He's still alive. So calm down. What did he say? You need to remember!
Spirit circle. Reverend. A name. Hell.
After laying Sam gently down on the blanket again and spreading the other one out across him, Dean found a pen and a piece of paper in one of the bags and began writing down what he recalled. Reverend Charleston, the one who died in the fire. Something about revenge. No, not revenge, not vengeful. Something about remains. An altar. And a key... what key? "Come on, Dean!", he tried to spur on his memory. "What key? Key of So-... What's So-? Oh, come on, you know that one!"
He was sure that he had heard something like that before, though he was equally sure that he hadn't been on a case where that term had come up before. So it had to be something Dad or Sam had talked about at some point. Then it returned to him. "Solomon!", he exclaimed. "The Key of Solomon!" Now that he knew what to look for, he quickly found the right page in his father's journal and gave himself a quick update on the term. Then he looked at the key words he had written down and tried to connect them with what he had just read, but he wasn't quite able to make head or tail of the twelve words. The spirit circle could mean the consecrated pentacle mentioned in the first book, but apart from that... First of all, the Key of Solomon had nothing to do with hell, not as far as the journal said, as every incantation was based on the invocation of the Lord. Second, the words "not vengeful" and "remains" contradicted as there was no need to find any remains if there was no vengeful spirit. And last but not least, how were "Reverend Charleston" and "Hell" compatible? He opened the journal once more and stared pensively at the passage written with blue ink in his father's hand. Apart from a short introduction as well as a reference to a story about the use of the "Seal of Solomon" in imprisoning magical beings, it contained an excerpt from Book I: "The Great Pentacle. It should be written on sheepskin paper or virgin parchment, the which paper should be tinted green. The circle with the 72 divine letters should be red or the letters may be gold. The letters within the pentacle should be the same red, or sky blue everywhere, with the great name of God in gold. It serves to convene all spirits; when shown to them they will bow and obey you." Behind it, his father had written "Seal of Solomon? Spirit Circle?" Turning the page, Dean found a small black and white picture of the Great Pentacle which had been pasted to the paper. The pentacle itself was placed inside a full circle and drawn in double lines, between which Latin names and several symbols had been inserted. Symbols familiar to Dean.
"I'll be damned", he muttered and walked back to one of the stones he had found outside the church.
As he had expected, the pentacle on the stone matched the one in his father's journal concerning the composition as well as the position of the Latin terms and the symbols. However, both the words and the symbols themselves didn't correspond at all to the ones in the journal. While those on three of the stones were names of various demons and the devil that he had heard before, the ones on the headstone in the archway were completely unfamiliar to Dean, reading Animum vult decipi, ergo decipiatur inside the cirle and Vis, vis, vis inside the pentagram.
"So not the Key of Solomon", he thought aloud, which was in conformity with the strange formation of the spirit circle that he had noticed before. After all, the stones weren't positioned in the shape of a pentagram or a circle but rather in that of a cross, beginning at the archway and ending behind the altar stone.
Still... Something had to be responsible for the unholy circle around the ruins... Maybe, he pondered, they had just been looking in the wrong place.
Dean stared pensively at the piece of paper, then he turned it around and began drawing.