A/N: I apologize for the lateness of the chapter, but I spent the week getting acquainted with an annoying little nuisance who just wouldn't leave me alone: thank you, writer's block. This chapter is going to be a bit different, stylistically speaking, but as always, I hope you enjoy!
Disclaimer: Supernatural belongs to Eric Kripke, but these versions of Gabriel, Belial, and Ramiel belong to me
Three days ago
Smooth and well-worn with having fingers curled around its handle on one side and a long, thin length tapering off into nothingness on the other end, the ice pick was as an everyday household appliance, commonly used to pick and chip at the large blocks of ice used to keep food cool before the invention of refrigerators. So easy to handle that young children, housewives, and those who chose to get their hands dirty for the Mafia alike were able to wield the silent and simple but effective tool, it was no big surprise that the functions of the ice pick would be extrapolated in many ways. But then again, who knew that it would also fall into the hands of those who swore under oath to "do no harm" as an instrument of barbaric savagery and torture?
In relatively modern times, those who brought the techniques of psychosurgery to the forefront of the fields psychological and medical science weren't exactly introducing a novel ideal, merely expounding upon procedures carried out upon numberless unfortunate individuals from the times even before Hippocrates, those who traded the voices shrieking and endless pounding within the confines of their own skulls for the peace of mind promised. Or sometimes, it was the husband who sent in the wife who'd dared to grow tired of housework; a child who just simply would not adhere to the Church's handbook on how to be an obedient son or daughter well versed in the virtues of filial piety; the young man whose presence was suddenly as taboo as his sexual orientation.
Those poor, poor unfortunate souls.
In the first half of the twentieth century, a pair of neurosurgeons resurrected the idea of prefrontal lobotomies, claiming wonderful and effective results upon cutting the connections to and from prefrontal cortex of the brain. One of them even received a Nobel Prize for his achievements. Pretty soon, the United States had developed its own spin on the procedure, switching out surgical instruments for an ice pick and crude hammer, electroshock for anesthesia, and purported or actual mental illness for slack faces and unresponsive passivity.
Immediately after the process of inserting the ice pick into the skull by brute force, the patient's face was indeed quite a ghastly sight, but the great learned men of psychology and medicine maintained that the procedure left no visible permanent scar, a claim so groundless and idiotic that it almost bordered on the edge of being funny – but there was nothing amusing about the terrible theft of that which made Man different from just another beast of the field, nor was the deprivation of one's mind, spirit, and soul comical in the slightest bit. And the part where the destruction thinly veiled as a surgical procedure actually denied an individual the ability to think rationally, to feel, to hope, and to dream?
Hello, 911, what is your emergency?
Yes, I'd like to report a homicide. So and so has just had a lobotomy, and I believe I just murdered his soul.
That sure as hell wasn't laughable in any way, shape, or form.
Sometimes the results were instantaneous; upon other times, the patients required some rest and recuperation before being presented to the world as the surgeon's latest conquest of the wild and untamed jungles of the dangerous human mind, Kurtz displaying his latest horror to Marlow and the civilization he left behind: a despondent shell of what once used to be a human being, weeping blood from torn tear ducts that streamed down cheeks blossoming purple and blue and black.
But no one noticed the garish bruising on the face of pale, silent Mr. Leonard Dobson as he sat upon the bed in the padded solitary confinement room, shoulders slouched and limp head bent so low that his chin nearly touched his chest, the white shirt hanging on his emaciated frame like a scarecrow's turning a rusted dark copper as blood seeped in two sluggish trails downwards from his eyes. And unless one of the nurses or orderlies secretly moonlighted as a red and blue tights wearing, caped superhero with x-ray vision, no one saw the fact that nearly half of his prefrontal cortex wasn't so much damaged as it resembled a hunk of ground beef that had been tossed to the dogs and then regurgitated. No one caught glimpse of the silent, spastically jerking man (because that damn ice pick had made short work of the motor neurons too) lying on the ground like a limp rag, no nurse on his or her round remembered to stop for the sake of offering nourishment or water – in fact, it was as if no one even saw him at all.
But that was perfectly alright. Because he couldn't see them either.
If he'd thought the mind altering substances before were bad, it was nothing compared to the overwhelming emptiness now. It wasn't painful or frightening or even bothersome in the least bit; it was simply…nothing. No light, no duty, no hope or need for faith because there was no Heaven or Hell or Apocalypse, nothing to fill up the vacancy that were his days now, a desolation devoid of tragedy because there was no reason to care. And his existence might have been truly hollow and stripped bare for not a thing if not for them, those – those things that came, went and came back again, pressing insistently at the torn shreds of who he was.
Or maybe who he used to be? He wasn't quite sure who or what he was supposed to be or wanted to be these days. Not anymore, anyway.
But oh, they were so fantastical, so very different from the barren walls and caverns of his mind, bright and elusive flitting particles of something he couldn't put a name to. He tried; oh did he ever try, and occasionally, he would be able to weakly fumble around for the wispy tendrils of comprehensive thought billowing through his destroyed consciousness like tumbleweeds in a desert. Stretching forth arms that refused to move and reaching out with fingers that couldn't clutch for something he didn't know, he tried and reached and stretched with all his useless might – but to no avail and almost reluctantly (did he really know the meaning of such an emotion? After all, without any urge to act, there could be no unwillingness), he let it slip away again and faded into the darkness of oblivion, let go the voice that he would have once recognized as beautiful calling out a single word over and over again:
"Castiel."
He was comfortably ensconced in a bed of warmth, entirely enveloped in layers of all-consuming love and mercy, abundant grace that had scooped him out of eternity from amongst the stars and molded his soul out of nothing and gave him form, a purpose, a name. "CASTIEL," the many undulating voices of God declared, a thunderous tornado of chaotic announcement and yet at the same time a whisper of invitation and welcoming to one of the youngest of His children. Thus Castiel was not afraid, for the first moment of his existence was surrounded by Peace and defined by Love.
As the symphony faded then, the angel heard for the first time the choir of his kin, the glorious Song of worship and praise uttered by the voices of his brothers and sisters in unceasing service to their Father and his soul yearned to do the same, to forever cry "holy, holy, holy" for the honor of his Creator. Suddenly, the blazing inferno of the hands of the Lord disappeared and Castiel felt a different presence reaching out to his soul and instinctively grasped for the newcomer, settling easily into an embrace infinitely kind, full of affection, and safe.
The presence held him tightly and as it unfolded the complex intricacies of his being, Castiel slowly became more than an orb of raw, pulsing grace, more than a wave of power made aware of its own life. Although the Almighty created his soul, he was now being drawn open across the depths of this new arrival's own understanding, being given shape and a definable figure in a way so gentle and unspeakably joyous that his soul sang in exultation as the light of Heaven shone upon what now was the crown of his head and through his new, fragile wings.
As comprehension dawned and the words of a language that escaped the limitations of time or existence became knowledge, Castiel lifted his head amongst the cascading stars and trickling ribbons of Heaven's glory, opening his eyes to settle upon the face of his sister, radiant in her beauty and all the more luminous in her tenderness. "Hello, Castiel," she whispered, but her voice was like a song itself to the lesser angel, and he stared in wondrous amazement at the angel of joy who held him close. "I am Ramiel, the daughter of joy."
She had a name then, a name so lovely that of course it belonged to this exquisite soul, and Castiel tried himself: "Ramiel?"
Ramiel's soul blossomed in a shower of pleasure, a glow of joyous explosion and as she stroked gentle fingers over the mussed feathers of his wings, Castiel's mind cleared and he found another descriptor for this creature of elegance and warmhearted affection. "Sister?" But young and unknowledgeable as he was, Castiel knew not by manner of experience or mental discernment, but by the flutter of intimacy within his grace that never would even another of his kin with the same label ever compare to this sister, and so amended his previous identification. "My sister," the young angel bluntly claimed, holding to the draping, billowing folds of Ramiel's robe as he leaned his head against her grace and his sister pressed blazing lips upon his brow in a blessing of an accepting response and-
-and Dean was struck with the irrational urge to break down and sob like a freakin' girl because he hadn't felt this type of warmth and comfort or overcoming safety in twenty-six years since he sat on his own mother's lap as she read him "Green Eggs and Ham" and "Goodnight Moon" before tucking him in with a kiss and the promise that angels were watching over him.
The hunter had no idea why he was standing here and witnessing the most cherished and intimate moments of Castiel's life through the angel's friggin' eyes and experiencing all the emotions the dicks with wings supposedly were immune to with his own dulled mudmonkey senses and mechanisms of feeling and comprehension; he had no idea who Ramiel was or why she was apparently so important that Cas would store up this one memory like a gem in the back of his immortal ages because Dean had the vague notion that he'd seen all of this before. It was like the last shadow before the rays of illumination that never came, images bleeding into his own dreams from another time and another place.
The immaterial sense of déjà vu was snatched out from under his feet the next moment as the angel of joy's embrace fell away and he didn't know if he was Dean Winchester or Castiel, angel of the Lord as he spiraled through eons and eons of a life that wasn't his own and were being merely handed over to his mind for safekeeping since their rightful owner was at the moment a bit indisposed, to say the least. He wasn't so sure about having his mind used as a library or storage cabinet, but thankfully, it didn't hurt. God knows (ha, how much did an absent Father have knowledge of anyway?) he'd already had enough pain in life and death, in imagination and reality-
Dean's face was smooth and rested, as if relaxed in sleep.
Sam heaved an enormous sigh and his hulking shoulders moved from the exertion of effort. Well, at least one of us is getting some rest. He ran his fingers through his hair (it was getting far too long again) and leaned forwards, scrubbing at his face with the palms of his hands before sighing again; he sounded like a steam engine. However, instead of having coal or water for fuel, all the younger Winchester was running on right now was stress stripped down to the bare bones of worry and anxiety mixed together with confusion to create a haphazardly tossed salad of a mess so FUBAR that not even he could make heads or tails of it.
Goddamn it, Dean.
Or wait, that wasn't quite right. And it wasn't really fair, either. It wasn't Dean's fault he went to Hell to save the soul of his little brother who'd been infected with demon blood because of some pissing contest between the angels and demons; it wasn't the elder Winchester's fault he was no connected in a truthfully eerie way to the one good angel who'd pulled him out of the hotbox in the first place; this situation Sam found himself in right now – with a comatose brother who'd been unresponsive for nearly two days now and missing their only angelic ally – was definitely no one's fault.
Except Lucifer's, that murderous, manipulative, son of a bitch. Remember that cliché adage from ages past, "the Devil made me do it"? Yeah, well this time around, Satan himself truly was the one to blame, and the younger Winchester would be damned if anyone tried to say anything otherwise. But wait, he was, as the boy with the demon blood, already damned. So it didn't really make much of a difference in the end, did it?
Sam bit his tongue, hard, frustrated, and let his face fall back into his hands with a groan. What now? He'd already exhausted the list of possibilities, scant as it was, in attempting to wake his brother. After hollering out unspeakable pain in a language more ancient than time itself and convulsing as if he'd been the one being subjected to electroshock, Dean had gone limp. The younger Winchester then had found himself with an armful of all six foot two, one hundred and seventy pounds of dead weight that even now had yet to open hazel green eyes or let slide a glib comment about how stupid Sam was acting.
C'mon, Sammy. It's not like I haven't been dead before.
Yeah? Well Cas isn't around this time to "grip you tight and raise you from Perdition", so – Great. Now he was having a heated mental argument with the imaginary voice of his unconscious brother. He twisted his fingers in his hair until his scalp burned, but at least it was something else he could focus on besides the numbing worry that gnawed away at him.
No hospitals, had been their father's cardinal rule because John Winchester would've rather patch his sons up with ace bandages, gauze, and dental floss than risk getting caught for credit card fraud or stolen health insurance and so they grew up learning how to sew up gashes that peeled apart their own skin and making cold compresses for each other when a particularly nasty hunt led to the occasional concussion or two (or three). Sam sometimes thought that he wouldn't have done too badly in medical school if the whole law deal went south, what with already knowing enough about the human body and how to keep one alive long enough for everything to be okay. He knew how to keep his hands over the wound long enough so that it stopped gushing blood, how to dig bullets out with a penknife and dexterous fingers and plenty of whiskey, how to stay calm under pressure when someone's life was literally in his hands.
And yet here he'd tried every single trick in the book (and even the unwritten ones he'd memorized long ago) with no results, and it was driving him so far up the wall that he was pretty sure now would be an appropriate time for the men in white coats to come, if there ever was one. When nothing had worked, he had tried to ride it out, studying more of the angels's obscure Enochian language, mapping out the final plans of how they were going to break Cas out of a friggin' mental hospital, and meanwhile trying to remember what not being bogged down with worry felt like – but it was all kinda hard to do when his brother, sought after by Hell who wanted him dead and by Heaven, who wanted his skin, lay on the next bed like an empty potato sack.
At least Dean looked alright. Sam couldn't remember the last time he'd seen his brother's face without lines of anger or stress, without self-loathing and nightmares lurking beneath the badly cracked veneer of confidence and the harsh burn of alcohol that wouldn't let him forget. Sure, he'd seen the other unconscious plenty of times before, sleeping off a hangover or dropping from exhaustion after a hunt, but never could Sam recall a time when Dean's face had been completely free of anything and everything – and not in the creepy, weird robot impassiveness type way that Cas had donned upon first meeting, nor the blank expression of being stolen away by the claws of Hellhounds – but peaceful.
It should've scared him more than it did. Instead, the sight immediately made a lump lodge in his throat and murmurs of what sounded oddly like old, half-forgotten prayers drifting to the forefront of his mind. Sam swallowed hard, and carefully eased off the side of the bed, knees sinking into the threadbare carpet as he bowed his head, because there was nothing else to do.
Our Father who might be in Heaven…and if You're listening...
Two days ago
There are many different kinds of pain in the world – physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, and then some. Being a thirty-five year old man who'd become a very versatile actor over the years in taking upon the roles of both victim and victimizer many a time (neither part of which made him proud), David thought that he would've known a thing or two about the concept of suffering, distress, and discomfort.
Talk about missing the mark. In fact, his meager assumptions about the concept of – no, even the very notion of knowing pain were just so typical of a human's puny mental capacity that the instant an archangel of the freakin' Lord jumped into his skin, David had been floored by the deluge of feelings that assaulted his senses, unable to comprehend or even fully handle the side effects of being a vessel to a celestial being and demanding to tag along for the ride instead of slumbering away the rest of his existence.
It took the first battle for David to truly become consciously aware of the realization that he knew nothing at all.
People commonly thought of archangels as Heaven's fiercest and most powerful weapon; therefore it was nigh impossible for anyone or anything to put a scratch on one of God's foremost warriors, right? Well then people were dead wrong, because apparently it was a whole different story inside the skin of human being, and up until the freakin' huge battle axe that looked like something from Medieval Europe or straight out of Lord of the Rings buried itself in his chest, David hadn't fully known the ins and outs or the fine print of the contract he'd signed with a simple "yes".
It reminded him of being pinned down behind literally a four-foot wall of crumbling concrete and nothing else, tasting sand and sweat and blood in his mouth because with his and his entire platoon's lives on the line, of course he'd been aware of every single grain of sand sweeping through the air as he cursed not knowing that fighting for honor and country and what was right would mean getting his hands stained with the blood of innocent people. But if that was teetering dangerously on the cusp of being too freakin' much, then this was plunging off the edge of the cliff and into the abyss.
Of course, Gabriel had pulled the weapon out and tossed it aside as if it was merely a fly to be swatted, but that didn't mean that David didn't feel the edges of skin slicing apart or muscles splaying away from each other or tendons and ligaments snapping like tree branches. When he'd told Gabriel that he wanted to be conscious and aware, it had indeed been for penance and a small measure of atonement for the sins of the past, but he hadn't expected this – being tossed headlong into the side of Kilimanjaro, feeling like his insides were boiling to a fine crisp in those vats of oil that looked like a deep fryer from McDonalds, and then watching as his skin magically reattached to the bone after it'd been literally flayed away.
He didn't want to retreat though; he was taught never to retreat, soldier. And that's what he was before, what he was now (even if being little more than a willing marionette), and what he would continue to be until the last struggling breath of his life: a fighter. As a fighter, he had a stomach of steel and had personally conducted a stare down with Death upon many an occasion. Thus, it was safe to say that it wasn't going ow, ow, fucking owevery other second as he played stowaway in his own body that was (figuratively) killing him. Neither was it being an active player in the Apocalypse itself and facing down hell spawn with nothing but the might of an archangel and the favor of an absent God on his side (yes, he'd picked up on the little fact that the Creator of the Universe and Commander in Chief of Heaven's armies was conspicuously missing a little while ago) – all of that was a walk in the park compared to the ineffable anguish eating away at God's Herald archangel.
By the measure of the transitive property of equivalence, if a equaled b and b equaled c, then a equaled c, right? So if his own terms of agreement to being used as a vessel equaled feeling everything and being able to feel everything meant that Gabriel had his permission to ride around in his skin, then that meant that David had actually screwed himself over with the whole mathematical equation amounting to having great big neon signs (whose light bulbs never went out) flashing out an archangel's guilt and shame and regret in his freakin' skull. Twenty-four hours a day. Seven days a week. And he didn't really care if the math didn't make sense or add up the right way; David actually rather enjoyed the one question – one set answer rigidity of the statistical, the algebraic, and the numerical, but it was kind of hard to focus on anything at all with this pounding against the walls of his mind.
Like any story or secret untold that burned the back of one's throat and settled like a weight in the gut or swallowing the acrid taste of bitter tears, actively keeping assistance at bay was hellish for a creature who was three parts judgment and wrath and unwavering righteousness but made also to be a servant of pure goodness, grace, and compassion. Gabriel may have been the mighty Herald archangel of the Lord, but he was also an angel of mercy – and an older sibling who could not offer comfort to the one who needed it the most.
More than anything else, it was that deep-rooted ache that hurt.
Gabriel?
The archangel made a noncommittal noise in the back of his throat (of my throat? David wondered, but only briefly. He'd learned long ago to just let some things slide without trying to figure them out; some things like pronoun agreement and proper grammar, or the fact that he was addressing someone that wasn't himself from inside his own body. Kind of made a man rethink the whole 'little voice in the back of the mind' thing.) before turning his attention inwards from where he'd previously been busy in realigning his vessel's spine and sealing up the gaping wound in the small of his back where some demon had gotten lucky and charged with one of the building's wooden support beams, intent on pinning the archangel to the Earth. The idiotic evil minion had gotten himself wasted in less than a blink of an eye, and David had gotten a rather clear view of what doctors did to people with those friggin' scary needles when they conducted lumbar punctures.
David, the archangel answered by way of a greeting and a reply, and then waited for him to speak.
I… And if he still had full control over his motor functions, David would've been clearing his throat and awkwardly shuffling his feet, maybe scuffing the well-worn sole of one boot against the limestone and shale underfoot (They were currently standing in what seemed to be the belly of the Grand Canyon. He'd learned quite some time ago to stop being surprised at these things too). When having an archangel's attention focused solely on you, it suddenly became all that much harder to demand that he keep your own friggin' overwhelming emotions to yourself, even if one happened to be said archangel's vessel. Well, I kinda…
Gabriel was patient. And silent. And the more David fumbled over what he should or shouldn't say to avoid getting struck down by holy lightening or something, the more nervous he became. It wasn't like he could slap the guy on the shoulder and tell him to buck up, soldier because one – hello, archangel, remember? Doing so would be like poking a mother bear with a stick with one hand while stealing away her cub with the other. Two, it wasn't like it was his realm of expertise here, what with the whole literal deal with the Devil, missing Father, and beloved little brother. Nevertheless…
It was a bit complicated, yes. And stupid. But at the same time, David had never been more certain of anything in his entire life – this wasn't right.
As it turned out, there were several perks to being Gabriel's vessel, because David rather preferred not being reduced to a catatonic state or having his insides liquefied into soup. The archangel was careful to keep to his word in letting the man see everything – but what he didn't know was what else David could see. It wasn't that he wanted to be nosy or anything, but sometimes, archangels spent a lot of time doing…nothing at all, and so as Gabriel prayed or meditated or stared out into nothingness, David had gotten several flashes of memory, bare glimpses of who exactly Castiel was, and why he meant so much to one of the most highly regarded celestial beings of Heaven.
After all, besides gutting demons and hauling ass toward trying to defeat the Adversary, Gabriel thought of very little else.
So now? Now David felt like the kid's freakin' older brother too (vaguely, he wondered if that was somewhat blasphemous, calling an angel kid). Witnessing the lesser angel's first flight, first skirmish with a demon, first time he had been bullied and victimized by a demon made of darkness so cold that it sent David's flesh crawling, and watching Castiel streak off toward the gates of Hell like a shooting star, sapphire eyes set forward and flashing with the determination to save the Righteous Man. Thus, when standing there and hearing Dean Winchester rattle off a gruesome and descriptive epic of what was being done to "Cas"? Excuse him for getting a little pissed off himself when Gabriel had merely whooshed away to some obscure monastery somewhere atop a mountain in Nepal and effectively shutting him out at the same time.
David had seen torture before. Sometimes inflicted by the cruel fists of another upon the innocent, sometimes by his own two hands. And it was useless to go about trying to guilt trip him with all that waterboarding crap at Guantanamo; he'd seen the real thing up close and personal before, that which most others only saw sitting on the couch and hugging a bowl of popcorn to their chests. Electroshock torture, beatings that would make even the most clandestine and brutal activities of the Mafia (Italian, Russian, Japanese, who gave a shit? They were all pretty much the same, anyway) look like child's play, the extrication of teeth and fingernails one by one – all of this was nothing new.
But you want to know what was new? Hearing about an angel getting his fucking wings torn off.
What are you going to do about Castiel? There. He said it. Apparently eloquence, thy name is not David Alexander Owens, but whatever. He'd had many people accuse him of not having a subtle bone in his body, several of those people being ex-girlfriends. He could feel his own shoulders stiffening and what sounded like the drawing in of a deep, long-suffering breath. Gabriel? The archangel leaned back against the wall of layered sediment and rock, tilting head back and directing grey eyes toward the sun without having to squint. In the slanted daylight filtering through the dust in the air, they seemed almost silver; far too old and otherworldly for the man's rugged, attractive features, and were overshadowed with a deeper understanding – the type of knowledge that pained those who possessed it.
Rest, Son of Adam. Trouble thyself no longer.
A thrum of what felt like electricity but what David knew to be a stream of localized strength, and then he was met with a swirl of deeper darkness, enveloping his soul entirely. When he realized what was happening, he reared back like a madman, fighting and clawing with all his might. Son of a BITCH! Don't you DARE send me – GABRIEL!
Silence.
Gabriel sighed quietly and the sound was lost in the vastness of his surroundings, very much like humans caught up in this confrontation between Heaven and its adversaries. Tossed about like fragile boats on a wild sea raging with Lucifer's insolence and ferocious pride, their sails of free will and faith shredded to pieces by the works of his brothers and the acts of demons from below. Used as pawns by those who had the power to wield it as such, and then disposed once their functions had been exhausted – very much in the same manner both angels and demons used their weaker brethren as each went his own way, willfully ignorant of the Father's Plan or eager to press onwards with their own devices as a means to see it all through until the end.
The archangel wrapped the man's soul deeper with and into dreamless slumber as one would a sleeping child in blankets as he prepared to take wing. Although his vessel sought absolution, that was only something the Almighty could impart and Gabriel saw no need to destroy the man as he did his duty. David was a good man, no matter what he thought of himself; his soul was pure, albeit cracked in a few places, and worn smooth in others. More than that, his soul yearned for righteousness and justice, burning with an unquenchable courage and desire for reconciliation. And like his namesake, David was not sinless, but like the shepherd boy King, he was upstanding and noble and forgiven. There was no need for penance.
Thus, it was unnecessary for him to witness what the servant of Heaven inhabiting his form was going to do next.
One day ago
There were few places truly filthier than the inside of a motel room, and especially at this specific location.
It wasn't like there was a regularly scheduled maid who went around cleaning up after a client got his fill and left a happier man (for the next few hours anyway, or until the post-sex haze wore off), and rarely were the sheets changed, if ever. That was the irony in a place like this; the girls were scrubbed and perfumed until their skin smelled like flowers and felt as smooth as a baby's bottom for the purpose of carnal relations in a filthy squalor with men who exchanged grubby fistfuls of cash for a quickie or the package deal, depending on how much they could afford.
The girls here were smart and the drill was simple and uncomplicated for even some of the newer, shyer ones: loosening up the men and in effect, their wallets, with a drink or two and then leading them into one of the many back rooms where the pigs could play out their wildest fantasies until they ran out of dough. It was almost like waitressing, in a sense. Turning tables and cleaning up spills, sweeping up the messes of those specific customers that no one wanted to take – a quick process. Getting in and then getting out, ten bucks for a blowjob or up to fifty for the more adventurous, working extra hard for the occasional tip.
And for most of them, this how they earned money for a living; some people came to Las Vegas to get hitched or strike it rich or just take a turn around the Devil's playground. Some came to make their dreams come true and whenever that stage act failed, the voice lessons amounted to nothing, or no one wanted you, this was where you ended up. Where men (and the occasional woman) thrust money at you because hell yeah they wanted you, and this was how you were going to pay for dinner tonight and the rent for the month.
The rooms were always filled then, reverberating with the noises that were commonly associated with the most intimate and private of human relations and as soon as the door opened to release a glassy-eyed, idiotically grinning satisfied customer, another couple swept into. There were very few rules in a place like this, but there was one definite direction: no room equaled no promiscuous activity of any kind, and therefore, no money. The competition had been quite ruthless the past few days; the level of lust around the place seemed to have skyrocketed for some odd reason, and there were actually queues for almost all of the quarters.
No one thought of taking the second room on the left, though it was empty and had been that way for the past few days. Sort of. Not one girl chose to sashay her way into the room and then arrange herself on the bed with a seductive pout and a well-practiced "come hither" look on her face; it was almost as if the room didn't exist at all, like everyone's eyes slide from the door on its left to the one on its right and didn't even pause to giver consideration to the empty spaces in between, like someone had pulled a film over the eyes of all those who worked the place, to deliberately hide what lay within. And that was probably a good thing, given that the interior of the room could've made the beaches of Normandy on D-Day look like the New York Botanical Garden.
Black patent leather Mary Janes stood out starkly against the dried bloodstains on the dingy carpet, small shoes stepping delicately over the entrails uncoiled and spilled everywhere. Patches of torn skin lay here and there, some no bigger than the square area of a deck of cards and others could've made a blanket for a small infant; an arm ripped out from the socket swung in a slow circle from where it hung by the crook of the elbow on the gaudy chandelier and upon the bed there lay a half-completed endoskeleton of a human being, starting from one foot up along the leg, half of the pelvis, ribs, and arm. A lung lay against the pillow.
She stood above the blubbering form of the demon who lay trapped in what had once been a human vessel, unable to leave due to the devil's trap painted on the floor around him with his own blood. There was no menacing might to be displayed on the girl's features, no swift and terrible judgment, only an eerie calm that was definitely at odds with the entirety of her surroundings. Titivillus.
The demon jerked, head rolling with effort and directing empty, bloody sockets up three and a half feet toward the face he could not see. But he recognized the presence for it was distinguishable anywhere – angelic purity and white-hot flames of grace forever tainted by the fires of below, permanently branded and marked by Hell's destruction. He tried to croak, but it was more of an unintelligible guttural groan, for it was difficult to talk without a tongue and through lips that had been peeled apart, one layer of epidermis cells after another. There was no need to ask what had happened, because much like Ramiel herself, Belial's handiwork was recognizable anywhere, by the agents of Heaven and Hell alike.
What have you done? Ramiel's true voice, the most beautiful personification of Heaven's joy, was sharper than any two-edged blade, but localized so that none were harmed save for the fallen angel who writhed in agony at the feet of the human little girl in the denim jumper embroidered with butterflies and rainbows. Loosen your tongue and answer, servant of wickedness.
From the belly (or, rather, from behind the flap of skin that used to hold together one's intestines) of the beast came a low hissing sound, the chorus of a thousand snakes flicking out their tongues to utter words in a demonic tongue older than the human invention of language as the demon snarled through the pain. Gabriel's fledgling will be taken as Hell's Second Prince claims his prize.
The little girl's expression was one of terror, rarely seen on the face of one so young, but there echoes flashes of millennia and ages even beyond in her wide brown eyes. The angel's wings spread so quickly that a funnel of whirlwind through the room, sweeping displaced organs and scraps of rubbish everywhere, and Ramiel's fear is a thunderstorm sweeping through the entirety of the heavens, down to the molten core of the planet, and flashing swords of lightening across the Earth – over the sleek black top of a jet black Bentley racing across the country and illuminating the handsome features of the Lord of lust within, flashing across the electric fire of the Herald archangel's wings, striking down to a shabby motel room in the middle of Colorado to shock Michael's vessel into consciousness.
Dean's eyes opened.
A/N: You guys, YOU GUYS!!!! The 11th of February (which is in less than a week) marks the one-year anniversary of the (beginning) of the "Six Dawns" series. I want to say a heartfelt thank you to each and every one of my reviewers. I'd like to name specific people, but that would take too long. You know who you are though, and I just want to say that I'm privileged and so very honored to share my work with such intelligent, encouraging, wonderful people. I'm not sure how this series will end up, but I'm elated to share every step of this creative process.
This was a transitional chapter, so I'll let you off with the little teaser that the next chapter will be entitled "Rescue".
Until then, please review!