Thirty One
I turned back to the boys, their faces still frozen in shock. Sam looked over the room and broke the tense silence.
"What the hell happened here?" he asked.
"Hell about covers it,"I answered my eyes fixed on Dean, he was looking at me but I knew he wasn't looking at me as a whole, just my eyes. Sam once again broke the silence.
"Rayne, what happened to Dylan?" he questioned motioning to her.
"Dylan!" I screamed before racing to her. She was still crumpled in the middle of the holy oil ring, which coincidentally was still on fire when I ran through it.
"Rayne!" Sam called out in alarm, "your pants!" both boys had looks of terror plastered all over their faces. I looked down and sure enough my left leg was alight. A strange feeling came over me, it felt like a mixture of anger or annoyance mixed with a feeling of complete and utter control. I sighed slightly and waved my hand sideways as if shooing a fly. The fire on my leg went out immediately, as did the circle of fire on the floor. I looked at my pants again to see them completely intact without even a single singe. My eyes once again shot to Dean, he looked relieved that I was ok, but his eyes betrayed the horror he felt at my ability. I felt horrible for a moment but then remembered the motel room. I rolled my eyes at myself, then I giggled, it occurred to me that with my eyes completely red, that probably didn't have much of an affect. The giggle came out slightly menacing so I stopped, I really didn't need to sound any more demonic.
"Sam, all I know is she's hurt, bad, and we need to get her out of here. So come help me, did you bring the impala?" I asked looking at Sam. I saw him shrink back slightly, not in fear but in disgust, I tried not to take it personally, I knew the path he had been down and how I looked now must have reminded him of that. The disgust he felt may have been more of a reflection on himself than aimed directly at me.
"Bobby came in his truck and we came in the impala." he answered.
"Ok well help me get her to her dad." I replied lifting Dylan easily, she was a tiny little thing and weighed even lighter than she looked. I looked her over quickly for any signs of physical damage, her body seemed fine but her wings were different. Her normally bright colours seemed dull and faded, the lustre and shine they had was gone. They seemed droopy, slightly deflated even. As I watched a feather fell off, floated in the air for a few seconds and then disappeared in a bright flash of pink light.
"What the hell was that?" Dean gasped and Sam who had been coming over to help, stopped dead in his tracks.
"What did you do?" Sam asked warily. I was taken aback, I wasn't used to anyone being able to see what I did.
"You saw that? The light?" I breathed and Dean nodded slowly, "Dylan's feathers, they're falling off, the light is them disappearing." I explained and Sam resumed moving closer to me. I began to feel panic welling up from the pit of my stomach. I knew the situation was very, very bad, for the boys to be able to see something normally invisible to human eyes meant a huge amount of energy was being released when those feathers vanished. When an angel releases that much energy unconsciously, there were only two possible outcomes. Death or conversion. I remembered a conversation I had shared with Dylan years before in our secret cubby house.
"So why are angel and demon wings so different? I mean they are like night and day, bird and bat right?" I had asked while we shared a packet of Maltesers, we had been asking each other questions about what was normal for angels versus humans.
"They aren't really that different," she replied popping a chocolate into her mouth, I looked at her in confusion and she gave me her signature grin.
"They look pretty different to me angelcakes!" I insisted and she threw a Malteser at me.
"Well the big difference is the feathers. Obviously we have them, they don't. Under my feathers, under all angels feathers, we look alike. The feathers are a physical manifestation of our grace." she explained. I thought for a moment.
"So can you lose the feathers? Has that ever happened? What would happen if it did?" I asked. Dylan laughed at my rapid barrage of questions.
"It rarely happens. It would mean an angels grace is severely damaged or completely gone. Damaged grace means we either die or turn."
"Turn?"
"Into a demon. The original demons were fallen angels. If our grace goes in one one big hit we turn human because the shock makes us lose most of our powers. But if it goes slowly, like is taken out bit by bit or is really badly damaged beyond repair, we still have the powers but our goodness goes. Then bam you have another demon on your hands. Even worse, you get a hugely powerful demon, like Lucifer. Never a good thing, so usually if we start to lose our feathers we kill ourselves."
"How?"
"With our angel blade. Well that's what I was told anyway. It hasn't happened in thousands and thousands of years." she finished. I remembered sitting in silence as my young mind mulled over the enormity of what it had just been told. But the mood was quickly broken as Dylan called me a dork and threw a half melted chocolate into my hair.
Back in the present I shook myself and turned to Sam.
"Here," I handed her to him, "take her to the car and call Cas!" I suppressed a smirk as he braced and then looked amazed at how little she really weighed.
"Why Cas?" he asked, shifting her fully into his arms.
"Her grace, Crowley damaged it, that flash was not a good sign. I don't know how to fix it but Cas will know what to do." I explained and he nodded, he gave me a strained smile, which made me thing maybe he didn't hate me after all, before heading to the door.
"What about those two?" Dean asked gesturing to the two unconscious demons still sprawled on the floor.
"Well I think I have royally pissed them both off. We can't leave them here, they will be after us in a second. But we can't kill them either, Crowley is too powerful and killing Thomas would kill me too. Our safest bet is to incapacitate them." I mused, staring at the pair, avoiding looking at Dean, who kept shooting me sideways glances.
"How?" he asked.
"I have a few ideas but first, you know where we can get two coffins and a backhoe?" I grinned.
An hour or so later we had managed to acquire a backhoe, find an abandoned property in the middle of nowhere and Dean had dug two coffin sized holes. Sam and Bobby were on their way home to the junk yard. Sam called me on the way.
"Hey Sam, how's Dylan?" I asked when I saw his number.
"Um about that, when I called Cas, he popped into the car." he began.
"And?" I asked expectantly.
"Well when he saw Dylan and how hurt she was, he stuck his hand in her chest and felt her grace, which was super weird b the way, he and Bobby started arguing. Cas blamed Bobby, Bobby also blamed himself but felt like he didn't need Cas rubbing it in, some choice phrases were tossed around, Cas said something about him being a bad father and Bobby called Cas a daughter groping emotionless hobgoblin with wings. Cas eventually punched Bobby square in the jaw and then he zapped off with Dylan. He won't answer me now, not on his phone, not on angel radio, nothing. So we are hoping he took her back to Bobbys or somewhere to heal her." Sam finished, I could hear him cringing, having to relay this with Bobby right there must have been awkward. I laughed.
"Cas has a phone?" I asked, laughing in my head at the sticky situation Dylan would find herself in dealing with those two if she woke up. Then I shook myself. If? When, when she woke up!
"All of that and that's your takeaway?" Sam laughed but I could hear relief in his voice, having to tell me my sister was missing, Sam would have been worried I might react badly.
"She's in good hands, he loves her, I can tell, he won't do anything to risk hurting her. Don't stress Sam and tell Bobby to drive safe. I gotta go, Rufus just pulled up, tell Bobby thanks for hooking that up." I said.
"Will do, thanks Rayne." Sam hung up. I watched Rufus get out of the car and greet Dean with a friendly handshake. I had never met Rufus before, not surprising, I rarely met any hunters. He was an average height, older, African American man wearing the typical hunter garb. I saw his eyes flick to me and widen slightly. I panicked slightly but looking at my reflection in the impala window I could see my eyes were back to their normal grey. I wondered if I would get a holy water shower from him.
"Hi, Rufus? I'm Rayne. Thanks for helping us out with the coffins." I said extending my hand to him. He shook it gently.
"Rayne, wow, you look so much like a friend of mines sister, sorry for staring, the resemblance is uncanny." he said quietly looking me over again.
"We better get started." Dean said, breaking the tension. He was right, because even though Thomas had remained unconscious the entire time, Crowley had already woken up and needed re-sedating twice now. Rufus helped Dean unload the coffins and then left, as he pulled away I saw him talking on his cell.
When he was gone I began to carve various devils traps, enochian binding and concealment symbols and other runes on the inside of both lids. Dean stood back and watched, this was my area of expertise. I could feel his eyes on the back of my neck as he stood behind me. He hadn't brought up the hotel room and part of me wanted to confront him about what happened but for the most part I just wanted to do my job. When I was done we shoved a completely limp Thomas into one coffin, closed the lid and bound it shut with silver chains. I carved another devils trap on the padlock to be safe. We began to do the same with Crowley when he woke up. He couldn't move because he was chained up and had devils traps carved into his skin but he put up a heck of a fight.
"You bloody bitch, damn you to hell, you will regret this you cow, I have plans, big plans, I'm going to be top dog and when I am, your arse is mine. I'm going to get you!' he bellowed at me.
"Yeah, yeah and my little dog too." I mumbled and I heard Dean chuckle. Then all of a sudden I felt a searing pain in the side of my head before I was overtaken by a clear scene playing out in front of me.
A woman with her blonde hair matted and stuck to her head with sweat and blood, her face was red and she was screaming in pain. then there was the sound of a baby crying and the woman's face contorted in horror. She began to yelp, unintelligibly at first but then one phrase over and over, kill the demon, kill the demon.
I could see Dean again, he looked worried, I could hear Crowley laughing in the background.
"Rayne?" Dean yelled stepping towards me as another scene clouded my vision.
A young boy about five was playing with a little blonde girl who looked a lot like the woman. This must be her daughter I thought. I could see bruises all over their tiny bodies and the little boy had visible cigarette burn marks on his arm. A loud male voice bellowed and both the children looked terrified. A huge hulking man burst into the room and grabbed the little boy by the hair. The little girl screamed and the man swiftly gave her a backhand to her face. She went down like a sack of bricks but amazingly she got back up. She screamed the word no and stretched out her hands. All of a sudden the mans hair caught on fire.
I came to again with Dean moving towards me.
"Are you ok? What's happening? Rayne?" he yelled before once again everything in front of me disappeared.
I could see the same little girl, she was older now, maybe seven, I knew it was the same girl because of her blonde hair and those piercing green eyes. The difference this time was the smile on the girls face, she was in a park, surrounded by beautiful flowers, she walked closer to me, she looked happy, she was wearing a cute yellow sun dress and was missing her shoes. I felt my hand extend out and give her something, she took it, smiling all the while, she thanked me. I saw her holding a rose, it was stunningly beautiful and could not have been picked from the garden around this park.
"A pretty rose for a pretty girl." I found myself saying. But there was something wrong with my voice, it sounded deep, gruff and there was an accent that was not my own. A British accent. Suddenly I heard a woman call out the girls name and she smiled once more, her eyes boring into mine. Those eyes were haunting, they were not right on a child that young, those eyes hid pain, suffering, those eyes hid deep, very dark secrets. I tried to say something but the words came out fuzzy, garbled, like I was underwater. The little girl turned away and ran to the woman calling out. I felt a rush of affection for this child.
When I came back this time I was lying in the dirt with my hands over my ears, sobbing loudly. Dean was bent over me, concern all over his face. He was saying my name and stroking my face. I felt my face go red and I scrambled to my feet, turning away from Dean. Crowley was smirking at me. I felt my embarrassment turn to fury. I brushed myself off and looked the demon in the eye.
"Who's Melinda, Crowley?" I asked, relishing the fact he looked shocked, it even looked like he had gone pale.
"What? How the blazes? I was trying to show you bad things from your childhood. How the hell did you see her?" he babbled getting angrier with every question he fired at me. He began to thrash around again and I knew we needed to get the lid closed on the coffin and bury them both.
"Dean now!" I yelled and we both forced the lid down and chain the coffin up. Crowley continued to swear as Dean helped me push both coffins into the holes in the ground. Dean used the backhoe to cover them both as quickly as he could. When that was done, Dean jumped down and rushed over to me. He pulled me against him and kissed my hair.
"I'm so glad you are ok, I was so worried!" he said, squeezing me. I pushed him away as hard as I could, he looked hurt.
"Don't bullshit a bullshitter." I spat furiously.
"Rayne, what did I do? Why did you leave me?" he asked quietly. I was completely shocked.
"What? I...?" I sputtered, "you know exactly what you did! Or did you think you were so irresistible that even after everything I would just crawl back?"
"I know things were tense after Bobby kicked you girls out but I thought you and me were ok? But you just fall off the face of the earth without so much as a call or text and then I find you in Crowley's basement hopped up on demon blood going full red eye. And you are angry at me, just so so angry and I can't figure out why. I just don't understand." he finished lamely, his eyes looked watery.
"Dean, the hotel room." I answered but he looked at me blankly.
"What?" he asked.
"You call me to help you find Sam and I turn up and you are in bed with some floozy. I mean if you wanted to be with someone else, that's one thing, but to rub it in my face!?" I spat and his eyes went wide.
"No Rayne! I never!" he protested.
"I saw you!" I yelled, "I saw you..." I trailed off.
"Rayne I wanted, have wanted, still want, to be with you!" he insisted.
"Then what...?" I asked throwing my hands up in frustration.
"I can answer that." came a stoic voice right behind me. I whipped around and there was Castiel, inches from my face.
"Jesus!" I yelled in shock, jumping back.
"Castiel." he replied as if reminding me.
"No, I know, it's just normally I hear the wings!" I gasped, my heart beating like a jack hammer.
"Your heightened emotional state has impaired your abilities marginally, although the mass amounts of demon blood coursing through your veins should have counteracted that, in fact they should still have been..."
"Cas! Explain!" Dean snapped. I smiled slightly, at least I wasn't the only once shocked by the angels sudden appearance and frustrated by his tendency to dwell on small unimportant nuances.
"Well the Dean Rayne saw was a shapeshifter. Crowley has quite a few of them in his employ. The shapeshifter was there to help sever your ties to the Winchesters, thus making it simpler for Crowley to convince you that working for him was in your best interests."
"That son of a bitch!" I snarled and surprisingly Castiel grinned.
"Dean says that a lot, you two really are perfect for one another." he smiled.
"Cas how could you know that?" Dean asked.
"Well because you are very alike and Dean you are clearly madly in love..."
"No! About the shapeshifter!?" Dean snapped, his cheeks going a shade of pink.
"I saw him shed his Dean skin out the front of Crowley's when Rayne called me."
"I never called you!" I said and he put his hand on my shoulder.
"Consciously or unconsciously, when you first saw Dylan, you let out a wave of energy that told me where you were. I knew the others were on their way to find you, so I went and told them exactly where you were, before coming to help." he answered.
"Huh." I said flatly.
"Now you sound like Sam." Castiel said.
"What?" I asked but he was already gone, "well bye Castiel." I mumbled.
"He does that a lot. You get used to it." Dean laughed. I tried to smile but I still couldn't shake the feeling of betrayal. Logically I knew it wasn't the real Dean but it was hard when the thing I saw, looked and sounded exactly like him. Dean recognised the look on my face.
"Look, Rayne, I know how you feel, when someone betrays you but it turns out it wasn't really them, it is impossible to get complete trust back right away. But Rayne, I promise I will do everything I can to make you feel safe with me again." he said grabbing my hands, I snorted.
"Dean we are Hunters, safe isn't in our vocabulary." I sighed.
He cut me off with a gentle kiss on my lips.
"Let's get back." he said softly as he pulled away and I nodded. It was a long drive back home to the junk yard.