Disclaimer: Supernatural and Castiel are not my creations, Jane and Abdiel are.

Conjuration

Jane sat dozing on a futon in the study of the rectory. Her head was supported by her hand, elbow propped up on the arm rest, and every time she started to fall asleep her wrist snapped back, jerking her head down and jolting her awake. Her whole body ached. She was too tired to move into a more comfortable position, her brain too fuzzy from lack of sleep and stress to do more than sit here, trying futilely to get some rest.

Castiel sat hunched at the desk, pouring over some dusty tome, illuminated by a tiny desk light that cast the room in semi-darkness. Maybe angels could see in the dark, Jane considered in her sleep-addled state.

Her wrist snapped down again and Jane, thoroughly annoyed and exhausted, gave it up as a lost cause. She shifted in her seat, sighed heavily, and leaned back her head on the futon. She rubbed the last of the sleep from her eyes and stared at the ceiling.

"Something wrong?" Castiel said without looking up from the stacks of books and papers littering the desk. His trench coat and suit jacket lay draped over the back of his chair and his tie was messier than ever. Jane figured she probably looked just as bad.

"No," she said sourly. Dumb question. Everything was wrong. Jane stopped herself there. Don't think like that. You have a job to do.

She stood up and stretched, trying to get her mind off it, trying to find something to do. Doing was good. Doing meant she was being active, and her family wasn't laying dead somewhere without being avenged. They must have found their bodies by now. Maybe they thought she did it. They would have realized she'd disappeared and they would start to wonder. They must be looking for her. If she turned on the news now, maybe she would see a picture of her face and a cheery newscaster telling the audience that she was wanted for the brutal slaying of her family and police were asking anyone with information to—

"Jane." Castiel was looking at her hard.

Jane met his eye briefly and looked away, feeling her eyes sting. She wondering again if angels could read minds. She decided she didn't want to ask.

Get a grip on yourself. She walked over to the desk. Castiel had turned his attention back to his books, eyes scanning the pages faster than Jane ever could. She peered at some of the sheets of paper. They were covered in strange symbols and drawings, disturbing almost, some of them, and characters from languages she didn't even recognize, let alone understand. Castiel, however, seemed to be able to read it all.

"What are you looking for?" she asked.

"Information about the Seal. Some clue of it…. Much of the information has been lost, although it was written down centuries ago." He caught her eye as she leaned over the desk, and pointed to a drawing in the book. Under his finger was a symbol, a series of encircled triangles, strange squiggles, and letters she recognized as Hebrew. "This is the symbol of the Seal. It may be a sort of… altar, perhaps. The translation, regrettably, is corrupted."

"Fortunate that you have this library to look it up in," Jane said dryly, now shuffling through some of the papers, each one littered with similar scribbles.

"We didn't leave it up to fortune. Abdiel's vessel is a scholarly man. He's devoted his life to tracking down the Seals and cataloguing this information," Castiel said.

Jane raised her eyebrows at this but wisely chose not to comment. Castiel flipped through the book, delicate and deft, barely rustling the yellowed pages. He moved onto another one, reaching across the desk for a similarly aged volume. Jane caught sight of his right arm at that moment, surprised she hadn't noticed before.

"Hey, you took off the bandage."

"There didn't seem to be much point…." Castiel said, a tiny bit sheepishly.

Jane, clearly not satisfied, reached for his arm herself. The wrist button had come undone and she pushed the sleeve up.

"What—it's healed already," she said incredulously. The skin was smooth, quite healed over, as if it was an injury months old instead of days.

"Yes. It's in our natures to heal," Castiel said. Jane ran a finger over the scar, a pale pink jagged line that stood out against the faint tan. Crazy angel superpowers….

The study door opened behind her. Castiel stood up and Jane dropped his arm like it burned her fingers as Abdiel walked into the room. His eyes flickered between them, frowning slightly.

"I've just received intelligence. The demons plan to execute a ritual," he said, still eyeing them curiously.

Castiel moved into action at once. "Where did you obtain this intelligence?" he asked as he pulled on his coat and jacket.

"Higher powers," Abdiel said shortly.

Jane realized this was finally something that could bring her to her enemy. "What kind of ritual is this?" she interjected.

"Nothing we're bound to like," Abdiel said with slight condescension.

"When?" Castiel asked.

"Imminently."

"We'll leave now," Castiel said, turning to Jane. "Hold still."

Before she could worry about what he'd just said, Castiel had lifted his hand and lightly touched two fingers to her forehead—

And the study was gone, replaced instantaneously with a dirty hallway she'd never seen before. Jane took a step back and stumbled, disoriented and blinking in the new, harsh light. "Angel teleportation…not so good on humans," she muttered, rubbing her forehead and looking around her. Castiel gave her an apologetic look.

Abdiel stepped into sight from somewhere behind her, apparently transported in the same way, hands in pockets and nonchalant as usual. They stood on a run-down landing in what appeared to be an apartment building, doors lining the wall in front of them. Abdiel singled out one particular door, '387' written above it in peeling numbers. He seemed to communicate wordlessly with Castiel, nodding towards the door and moving towards it, and gave Jane a stern look that meant either "Be quiet" or "Be good". Jane swallowed hard.

Castiel reached the door first, and it opened silently beneath his touch. He stepped into it, Abdiel closely behind. It was dark inside and Jane, still on the landing, could not see anything except the vague outlines of the angels in the room. Then Castiel turned the light on.

They moved further into the room. It was a small apartment, a single room open to them, unfurnished except for a dingy couch crooked against the wall. The only thing remarkable about the room was the graffiti on the walls. They were covered with signs, twisted, evil shapes spreading over the walls and reaching into the ceiling, black paint dripping down onto the floor and giving everything a sick, melted appearance. Just looking at it made Jane feel unclean. She shivered and felt nauseous—it reminded her of the scene at her family's house, that same aura of…something evil. There was no one left there, no demons, just the signs of their ritual.

"Too late," Abdiel said shortly. There was nothing to add to that.

Castiel examined the walls, touching the surface with a fingertip. The walls were coated with a thin layer of orange-ish grease, bubbled and crackled on the paint. He rubbed it between his fingers distastefully.

The other significant feature of the room was the floor. Directly in the center of the floor was a large burned patch, as if someone had lit a bonfire in the middle of the room. The carpet was scorched black, melted around the edges of the circle. The ceiling above was similarly blackened by the soot of some abnormal fire, twining in strange patterns across the ceiling. The entire room smelled acrid, not just the smell of burned plastic, but something fouler and unnamable.

The three of them stared around the room, awed by the horror in it. Jane didn't need an angel to tell her that what had gone down here was bad. Pure, unadulterated evil. She felt it, and she dug her fingernails into her hands until they stung.

Jane stared at the black paint on the walls. "What is this, some kind of spell?"

"A satanic conjuration," Castiel said, hovering his hand above one of the figures in dripping paint. Jane recognized the symbol. It was the same one from the book Castiel showed her, the symbol for the Seal they were looking for, but drawn twisted and perverted so that it was disquieting.

"Only just too late…." Abdiel said, crouching down by the burn on the carpet. "They must have vacated minutes before."

"So we can get them," Jane said, glancing from Castiel to Abdiel, but neither looked hopeful.

"It doesn't matter now. What's important is the Seal. This conjuration was for locating it, and it appears they were successful." Castiel said, still staring at the figures on the walls. "Now they know where it is." He looked her straight in the eye, and she knew it was bad.

"Well, can't we figure it out too?" Jane said, wondering if there might be some clue left over, something they could interpret….

"Not unless we wish to repeat this scene, and that would require certain sacrifices we are not willing to make," Abdiel said, straightening up.

"So, what?" Jane said, frustrated by their impassivity. "We're just going to give up? They know where the Seal is and we don't. They're just going to go break it!"

"No," Castiel said. "They won't yet. They need something first." He exchanged a dark look with Abdiel.

Jane stepped closer to the pair, trying to keep her voice calm, although her patience was rapidly evaporating. "So? What are we doing?"

"They hold the cards now, so to speak. We wait for their next move," Castiel said. He was using his battle-plan voice now, flat and determined, but the calm detachment he was able to show only exasperated Jane further.

"That's your plan? Sit around and wait?" She struggled to control herself, but she couldn't keep from stepping closer to Castiel, even as she knew it was beyond stupid to try to intimidate an angel. "I'm tired of waiting, Castiel. That...demon is out there, walking free, after he killed my family. I thought you're supposed to...fight, or whatever! You keep talking about this like it's a battle, but then you won't get in on the action!"

Castiel clenched his lips together and seemed to make an effort to keep his voice composed. "We don't know their full plans. They have the information now. I understand it is...difficult for you, Jane, but have patience. The last time I rushed into this, you got involved." Jane took a step back, stung by his remark.

"You're still just letting them get away," she said quietly.

"Their time will come. For now, we worry about the Seal."

"How are we supposed to protect it if we don't even know where it is?"

Abdiel, watching from the sidelines, stepped in front of her now. "It's none of your concern. I appreciate your desire for justice, but the Seal is our business." His curt tone ended the conversation.

Jane exhaled angrily. She met Abdiel's fixed stare for a second, but his sharp brown eyes unnerved her. She didn't want to make an angel angry. Even Castiel, usually so unruffled, was a little scary at the moment, looking at her with a mixture of anger and concern.

Jane backed down, confused and frustrated and wanting to do something, anything. Why weren't the angels formulating a plan of action? She wanted to sink down on the couch, but it was covered in the same revolting orange slime as the walls. The whole room was giving her the creeps, and the angels weren't helping much.

"I'm just gonna…wait outside," she said finally, more upset than angry now and definitely wanting to be by herself for a moment. She didn't bother to get a reply before walking into the hallway.

Castiel and Abdiel remained in the room. There wasn't much left to observe; it was clear enough that the demons had effectively completed the ritual, and that meant they knew where the Seal was. Castiel couldn't deny that it was looking bad. If only they had gotten their information a few minutes earlier….

"It's pointless now to speculate on what we might have done," Abdiel said, guessing his thoughts. Castiel turned to him, seeing the same dejection that he was sure was on his own face.

"We need to prevent them from acquiring the… last component for breaking the Seal," Castiel said. "If we do that, they may still be thwarted." Despite his words, he did not look like he had much hope in the plan.

Abdiel said nothing.

"We must stop this Seal from being broken, Abdiel. Are you with me on this?"

"I want to preserve the Seal as much as you do," Abdiel replied.

Castiel paced the room, lost in thought. "Are there more of our kind near here?" he asked.

"None that I know of."

"Nor I. That will make our job easier, but on the other hand… it would be good to have reinforcements." He stopped in the middle of the room, at the very edge of the blistered circle. He looked down at it, seemingly unwilling to cross it. "We know what they will attempt. They cannot perform the ritual without it. There is time yet to stop them."

He turned to Abdiel, standing there awaiting orders, and looked at him gravely. "For our own sakes, and all the world's, I pray we will." The oppressiveness of the room seemed to weigh down on them, like shackles around their necks.

"We've been here long enough," Castiel said finally. Abdiel nodded and they left the room, restoring its vile contents to darkness.

Jane sat on the floor in the hallway, back against the wall and appearing to be dozing. Castiel was surprised that she could sleep in this place, at this time, but he was himself already getting accustomed to the strange dictates the human body laid out for getting rest. She stirred when they walked up.

"We getting out of here?" she said, smiling mirthlessly up at them. Still angry, apparently.

"Yes," Castiel said as she stood. Abdiel at his side, he reached out his hand. She was white-hot under his fingertips, and in an instant, the hallway was empty.