Chapter Eight: Let's Do The Time Warp Again!
Six years ago…
"So what are you going to do now?"
Eli looked at Bobby from her spot on the couch. She had been staying at his house for three days, looking through his old books and listening to his hunter stories. She called the hospital every day: her parents were fine, albeit confused and disoriented. They didn't remember anything about what had happened to them.
"What do you think I should do?" she asked softly, looking down at her threadbare jeans. Then he said what she had been dreading most of all.
"I think it's probably safe for you to head on home. No more demon attacks, no more demon signs. Looks like this demon's moved on. I can show you how to protect your house…"
"No," Eli said, trying not to let her voice shake. "I'm not going back there."
Bobby sighed, his bearded face sympathetic. "Eli, I know it was scary, but…"
"It's not that," Eli said. She stood and starting to pace the room, her socked feet picking up dust from the carpet. "Look, Bobby, you're a hunter, you've been doing this for a long time, you can't understand, but… I'm not going back."
"Eli, what's done is done."
"You're willfully misunderstanding me," she said. She raised herself to her full height and turned to stare at him with a steely glint in her eyes. "I want to be a hunter, Bobby."
"What?" he asked, flabbergasted. "Why on God's green earth would you want to be a hunter?"
Eli ran her hands through her short hair, causing it to stick up in frayed cowlicks. "Look, I don't know how to explain this to you in a way that won't sound completely crazy. I just…I was dying before, Bobby. That normal life? It was killing me. I've always felt like I had this hole inside of me, felt like…something was pushing me toward some unknown destiny. I hated having a normal life. I felt like I couldn't breathe, like I was wasting away or…or…locked inside my own head so tightly that life was like looking through windows."
She took a shaking breath, her hands clenching and unclenching compulsively. She felt like she was really feeling, for the first time in her life, like emotion had become needle-sharp and explosive; it sparked, and burned into a rush that was the closest she had ever gotten to fitting in her own skin. "Once, when I was in high school, a man attacked me with a gun in a parking lot. He was trying to force me into a car. I was terrified. I managed to knock the gun out of his hand and get away, but not before a bullet grazed me." She pulled down the collar of her shirt to show a thin scar lining the top of her arm. "And that, Bobby, that was one of the greatest moments of my life. It was like I had never been alive before. Facing down that man and walking away from it was… pure adrenaline. I could have died that night, but God…" She stopped and took a deep breath. "Almost dying is the only time I ever feel alive. I need this. This is my destiny, I know it."
Bobby stared at her like she had grown a second head. "You're absolutely crazy, you know that? Hunters die every day. We fight because we must, because we're broken and we have nothing left inside us but to fight. We don't choose this life. If you have even the slightest possibility of being normal, you should take it. You should run as far away from here as you possibly can and never look back. You don't want this, Eli. No one wants this."
"I want it," she said, stepping forward. Her voice cracked. "Please."
"You'll die," he said, without the slightest trace of doubt in his voice. She met his eyes.
"I know."
"Damn it, girl," he growled. "What do I have to say to get through to you?"
"Train me," she challenged. "Take me on hunts. Let me see what it's like. I promise you, I can do this."
"No," he said quietly but firmly. "No, I won't lead an innocent girl to her death."
"I'm not so innocent anymore," Eli said, taking another step toward him. She held out her hands; in her mind she could still feel the burning pain, and underneath it that strange tingle under her nails, the light that streamed radiant from her pores. "Bobby, that demon, he… did something to me. Woke something up inside of my brain that I never even knew was sleeping. I can do things now. I can see when demons are possessing someone. I can burn them with a touch. And, come on Bobby, I already told you what my dad's like. I've been shooting since I could hold a gun. He gave me rifles for Christmas, he fucking showed me how to use a grenade! I…" She wracked her brain, trying to think of arguments. "I've taken martial arts for three years! All of this, it's…it's got to count for something, right?"
Bobby was silent.
"Bobby?"
"I think you should leave now," he said gruffly, turning his back on her and starting to walk to the kitchen. "Go back to your family. Go back to school."
"I won't," she said, her voice very calm. It was all she had thought about for the past three days; she had debated endlessly with herself, but even in her own head it rang false. She knew what she wanted to do the moment she walked out of the warehouse doors. "I've already decided. And if you won't help me, Bobby, if you won't train me, then I'm just going to have to train myself." He stopped in his tracks like she had frozen him with her words. "I'll chase down ghosts and demons and monsters and I will get myself killed. I am deathly serious about that."
He turned to her, his face thunderous. "Are you threatening me?"
"Just telling you the truth," she said. "I'm sorry, Bobby, but if I die, it's on your head."
He glowered at her. "You're a right little bitch, you know that?"
"Just stubborn, that's all," she said in an even voice. "Will you at least think about it?"
He was silent for a long moment. Then he held up a finger. "One, you can tag along for just one hunt if you promise to stay out of the way and listen to my every order. This is only so you can see what we really deal with. That's it. Then you're home, and I wash my hands of you. Understand?"
She nodded, a smile threatening to break out over her face. "Thank you, Bobby."
"Bah," he said, resuming his walk to the kitchen for a beer. "Just get some sleep. I got just the right case to scare you straight: a werewolf in the next town over. We leave at nightfall."
Eli was standing in her parent's backyard in the springtime, the scent of apple blossoms washing over her. In the distance the sun was setting, spreading a syrupy golden glow over the landscape. From this angle she could see inside the house; her parents were cooking together in the kitchen, ingredients spread over the countertops, the family dog nipping at their heels. A feeling of utter peace and contentment spread over her whole body.
"You can have all of this again," a warm voice thrummed. It wasn't exactly a voice, more like words made out of light. She turned around, but could see no one.
"Hello?" she asked. "Who's there?"
A piece of the setting sun seemed to break away and hover in the sky, glinting like a star. "I am an angel of the Lord, Elijah. I have been watching over you."
"Didn't do a very good job of it then, did you?" she asked. The presence sighed.
"That was a mistake, and for it we apologize. But it is not a mistake you have to pay for with the rest of your life."
"What do you mean?" she asked, trying to look up at the light. It was too bright; she looked away, squinting.
"I can help you. I can wash away the memory of what happened that night, like I have done for your parents. I can close the doors in your mind that were opened. Never again will you have to fear. Never again will you be forced to see the faces of demons or feel their touch. You will be able to live out your life peacefully and happily, as it should have been."
"No!" Eli exclaimed loudly, the sound echoing over the empty yard. "No, I don't want that. Please, don't take away my memories."
There was the sound like the rustling of wings. "I can do nothing without your permission."
"Well you don't have my permission," she said, lifting her chin and crossing her arms like Bobby had already taught her. 'If you don't feel brave, fake it,' he had said her first day at his house. 'Only way to survive in this world is bullshit and a gun under your pillow.'
"You should never have been awakened. It is wrong. It goes against the Lord's plan."
"Then screw the Lord's plan," she snapped. "I want this."
"You wish to spend your life in fear and danger? You wish to wake up every day knowing it may be your last?" The voice-that-was-not-a-voice sounded confused.
"I want to fight," she stressed. Around her, the world was still structured and calm, but now it felt fake, flat, the air a little hard to breathe. "For good. I can be an asset, you can use me."
The rustling sounded again, louder now. "And for what would we use you?"
"Teach me to use these powers," Eli said. "You will never have my permission to wipe my mind, so it looks like I'm sticking around, Lord's plan or no. So help me."
There was a pause. "There are so many things that you don't understand. You should trust in the Lord. Let me wipe the slate clean." The presence was coming closer to her.
"No," she said, backing away, nearly stumbling in the fragrant grass. The pressure had returned to her chest, the dull, fearful ache of living a life of monotony. "No."
"Elijah…"
"NO!"
Eli sat straight up in bed, her sweaty hair hanging around her face. Her heart was pumping so fast it felt like a tiny drum stretch tight. The room was dark, hazy and hot, and it took her a second to remember where she was.
"You all right?" came Bobby's voice. She looked at him, a shadow in the doorway, and nodded.
"Yeah, just a weird dream." She held her hand to her chest, trying to calm her shaking nerves. If it was a dream.
"Well, it's time to wake up anyway. Moon's full. We've got a werewolf to hunt."
The next time it happened, she knew it was a dream.
Eli was standing in her grandparents' house, the one that burned down ten years before. It smelled as she remembered it: of mothballs and rose perfume. Underneath her bare feet the carpet was green and squishy, like moss.
"Hello?" she called out. "Uh…angel?"
"Hello, Elijah," a familiar voice said. Eli turned, seeing one of the people she least expected to find in this bizarre dream world.
"Luke?" she asked, taking a step toward the man in the turtleneck and ripped jeans. "What are you doing here?"
He gazed gently at her. "I am not Luke. My name is Castiel." His voice was deeper than it should have been, almost grating.
"The angel from before?" she guessed, and he nodded. "Why do you suddenly look like my best friend?"
He tipped his head, brown eyes very still, almost dead. "We are inside of your mind. I thought it would be easier if we could speak face to face, so I looked into your memories and appropriated a figure that I thought you would find the most comforting."
"Well it's creepy," she snapped. "So next time, just… just pick somebody else, okay? Someone I don't know."
He blinked. "If you wish."
"Hopefully," said another voice, "there won't be a next time."
"Grandpa?" Eli asked with wonder as her dead grandfather shuffled into the room, his head bald and gleaming, dressed in his usual pristine button-down shirt and dark slacks. Then she realized what was going on and her face hardened. "Oh, not cool," she spat. "Who are you?"
"My name is Zachariah," the angel with her grandfather's face said.
"Why are you here?" Eli asked coldly. Zachariah looked at her with eerie kindness.
"We know that Robert Singer has been training you. We would like it to stop."
"Why?"
He ignored her, resting on his cane, his hands wrinkled and gnarled and so very, very familiar. "Our offer still stands. Have you reconsidered it?"
"No, I haven't," she said in a clear voice. Contrary to Bobby's hope, her first hunt and its accompanying near-death experience had only solidified her desire to become a hunter. She remembered the feel of the gun in her hand and the spray of werewolf blood with an almost visceral pleasure. "I want to hunt. I want to use this power I have."
"You don't know what you're saying," Zachariah said, shaking his head.
"Yes, I do," Eli stressed.
"No," Castiel said sharply, "you don't."
"You can't," Zachariah said with steel in his voice. "How can you? You don't even know what you are. If you continue to fight, you will be reviled in heaven. All denizens of the Lord will see you as nothing more than a stain to His name, an abomination. There will be no entrance for you into the afterlife."
Eli was stunned. She sank onto her grandmother's purple couch, feeling the familiar satin-softness under her fingertips. "What? Why?"
"Why do you think you have such powers?" Zachariah asked, sitting next to her. He even smelled like her grandfather, his cologne and shaving cream. "Why do you think you can see demons and burn them with your touch, something only angels can do?"
She stared at him blankly. He sighed, looking upward as if asking for divine help.
"Since you will not accept our generous offer, I suppose there is no choice but to let you know the truth." He paused, gathering his thoughts. "About thirty years ago, one of our angels came to this plane of existence. He took a human vessel, he completed his job, and took leave to wander the earth. He skipped from vessel to vessel for five years, examining the world and its people for the first time in many millenia." Zachariah stopped and looked her in the eye. "Your family has the proper bloodline to be an angelic vessel. More specifically, your father."
Eli's throat closed up; she put a shaking hand to her lips. "What are you saying?"
"A long time ago, angels walked with man. Some of them reproduced," Zachariah said, a faint note of derision in his voice. "This was an unholy union, a blemish on God's great plan, a stain on both races. The abominations were purged. Angels were forbidden from liaisons with humans; in fact, they were, to put it crudely… sterilized."
He looked at her kindly. "You were a horrible mistake, Elijah. You should never have been born."
Eli dropped her hand from her mouth. "Are you saying that my father is an angel?"
"Well, not the one you grew up with. He is just an empty vessel. But for a brief period of time the man you know as your father was occupied by a force of Heaven and that force succumbed to … what he believed to be harmless curiosity about the human condition."
"Did my mother know that it wasn't her husband?" she asked in a choked, shaky voice. Zachariah looked surprised at the question.
"No, of course not."
"So he raped her," Eli said flatly.
Zachariah gave her a patronizing stare. "Well, she wasn't exactly unwilling."
She was almost trembling with rage. "You…you… I can't believe you. Angels are supposed to be… beautiful. Merciful. Holy. They are not supposed to possess a man's body and then rape his wife!"
"To be fair, your father did give permission over the use of his body beforehand," Zachariah pointed out.
"That doesn't make it okay!" she yelled, her eyes welling up with tears. She blinked them back, swallowing hard. 'If you don't feel brave, fake it,' Bobby said in her head. 'Don't let them see you cry.'
"I think you're missing the bigger picture here," Zachariah said, shifting on the couch and folding her grandfather's hands neatly together. "You are a Nephilim, the offspring of an angel and a human. The only one left in existence. We were able to block your powers, harness them so that they would never be released. You were supposed to live an ordinary, unknowing life. But Azazel heard rumors, and he found you, and was able to unlock those carefully constructed blockades."
"Azazel?" Eli asked wearily.
"The demon who attacked you," Castiel said, and her head jerked to the visage of her friend, standing still and shadowed in the corner. She had almost forgotten he was there.
"His attack released your… quasi-angelic powers," Zachariah continued in that gratingly calm voice. "But they are powers you were never meant to have, Elijah. The entirety of Heaven thinks you an awful mistake, a horrible freak. Nephilim are reviled. If you choose to continue this way of life, to not allow us to mercifully wipe your memories and reinstate the barrier Azazel broke, then you will have the wrath of Heaven itself upon your head. Do you really wish for that?"
Eli was silent for a long moment, staring at the moss green carpet under her toes. "No," she said softly.
"That's my girl," Zachariah said, smiling her grandfather's denture-white smile. "Now, if you'll just…"
"NO," she repeated, looking back up at him. "No, I won't let you bully me into this. This is my life, my destiny. And if I'm sitting here, right now, with you, that must mean that God needs me for something."
"And how did you come up with that conclusion?" Zachariah asked coldly.
"You said that heaven once purged all Nephilim," Eli said, tripping over the unfamiliar word. "But no one killed me. I was allowed to grow up. I also think that if my not awakening was so damn important, you would have had a stronger angel guard at my back to keep the nasty demon away. And in a world that I now realize is filled with angels and demons and all kinds of monsters, that seems to me to mean one thing."
"Which is?" Zachariah nearly spat.
"I'm being held in reserve," she said shrewdly. "A powerful ace in the hole. Maybe heaven hates me, but maybe I am meant to do this."
"And what exactly do you think you're going to do?" Zachariah had turned her grandfather's voice into something downright nasty.
"Fight," she said. "Use what I have. Be a hunter. Kill demons."
"Heaven will hate you for it," he warned.
"Yeah," she snapped. "You already said that."
"So you won't accept our offer?" Zachariah said with a strange, icy finality. She just stared at him, her eyes narrowed. He stared right back, unimpressed. "So be it."
Eli woke up screaming.