Part Two: Light

Chapter Eight: Sacrifice

From the ashes she rose anew,
Like a phoenix; wings spread wide.
All she knew was how to burn,
And so she burned alive.

May 6th, 2011

Adrienne was careful not to let go of the paintbrush as she slid it over her arm, making precise, bloody sigils on the skin. Her face was emotionless, her usually bright eyes scarily dull, occasionally checking how it looked in the mirror. Vetis felt the urge to squirm as he watched her, disturbed by how utterly uncaring she looked.

Adrienne finished with her left arm and switched hands. Knowing she would have difficulty using her left hand, he asked, "Do you want me to do it for you?"

Adrienne blinked dully at him. "All right." She passed him the brush and held out her arm. He held onto it with one hand, furrowing his brows in concentration. "Do you know what to do?"

"Same as the other arm, right?" Adrienne nodded, and he began painting, copying the sigils from her left arm. The demon blood dried almost instantly, looking more like tattoos then paint.

The sigils said, in Enochian, May the Morning Star shine bright in the sky again on this Day of Reckoning, and may the Sun cower in fear as the Darkness ascends to take its place.

Adrienne watched him silently, soon asking him, "Do we have the human sacrifices?"

Vetis nodded, never lifting his gaze. "Yes, Meg handled that."

"What about the demons?"

"We have all the volunteers. Everyone's just waiting for you."

Adrienne nodded her assent. She slowly started to lose her carefully practiced calm, gnawing on her lip as uncertainty ate at her. By the time Vetis had finished, she couldn't hold it in anymore. "Are we going to be okay?"

Vetis frowned up at her. "What do you mean?"

"When Lucifer comes, when he's here… it'll be alright, yeah? Everything will be okay?"

Vetis rose, letting his hands rest on her shoulders. "Adrienne… I don't know what's going to happen. All I know is that as long as I'm around, I am going to protect you. No matter what it takes." That at least was true.

Vetis pulled Adrienne into his arms, wrapping them around her as if he could protect her in this way, the irony being that she wouldn't need protection if not for him. He almost wanted to laugh when he thought about it.

Adrienne didn't seem to notice his inner hysteria, allowing herself to be comforted by him, her body pressed against his in a way that reminded her of last night. Right now the only thing she was wearing was a thin black robe that didn't do much to help the fact that she could feel each of his muscles and smooth skin. This might not have been such a burden if Vetis had deigned to wear a shirt, but the only thing he had on was a loose pair of black cotton pants.

But more than the need to act on the building heat in the pit of her stomach, Adrienne wanted to talk to him. She was scared that she had ruined the tenuous peace they'd built, that her need for comfort on a terrible day had ruined any hope of a friendship between the most important person in her life. But she looked at him, and seeing the easy peace and happiness in his eyes, knew that they didn't need to talk about this, that she did not make a mistake, and that they would be okay.

Vetis felt it when Adrienne gripped him tighter, and instinctively responded in kind, hiding his face in her hair so that she would not be able to tell what he was thinking. Looking at her, breathing in the scent of her shampoo and perfume, he could hardly imagine a time when she had not been the most important person to him. He was filled with an almost insane urge to protect her, and was tempted to knock her out now, get rid of the things they needed for the spell, and try to figure out a half-decent lie before she came to. And though that seemed much simpler, he knew this would not work. He needed to trust that the Winchesters cared more about saving Castiel than they did about the possibility of a trap.

Finally he pulled away. "I'm going to go double-check that everything's ready. You get dressed, and I'll meet you at the cemetery." With that he pressed a kiss to her forehead and left.

Vetis and Adrienne teleported to the cemetery together. It was an almost obscenely bright day, without a single cloud in the sky. The cemetery, which Adrienne had never before been to in person, was covered in lush green grass, the gray tombstones well cared for. Over fifty demons stood in a loose circle with Adrienne and Vetis at its head. About three dozen of the demons were busy holding humans still. The humans' mouths had been duct taped shut. When Adrienne looked closely at them, she could see that sum of their wrists and ankles were badly swollen and bruised, assumingly broken, though still tied together by rope. A few of the others were holding glazed black jars, which Adrienne realized were the ingredients for the spell. Adrienne felt a brief wave of nausea knowing that Adam's heart was in one of them, but forced herself to remain calm. This will all be over soon.

Adrienne was wearing an inky black dress with slit sleeves that fell to the ground, a silver belt with a ten-pointed star in the center and several smaller, six-pointed ones engraved into the metal on each side. The blood had sunk fully into her skin by now, turning black within minutes.

Vetis pulled Adrienne to him, brushing his lips against her ear as he spoke. "Move away from the circle as soon as possible once you're done, or else you won't be able to avoid Michael and Lucifer when they come through." He pushed her away gently and handed her the jar with Adam's heart. Adrienne remained carefully emotionless, gently lifting the heart from the glass vessel and carrying it to the middle of the circle. It was darker than she remembered it, more burgundy than the fresh pink and vibrant red that it had been when she killed Adam. It also felt heavier than it had before, and grew more so with every step she took until it felt more like a ten pound rock than a heart.

The part of the ground in that the demons surrounded was dirt, with not a single strand of grass. As Adrienne walked towards it, she became aware of a dull humming in the back of her head that grew steadily louder until it was like someone was banging a drum in her mind. She ignored this as well as she could, and pressed a hand to the dirt, sensing rather than seeing the hole where her father had fallen through, shaking away a shudder when she heard his and Michael's screams. Vetis passed her a dagger. Adrienne held it still in her hand, staring at it without taking in any details, before using it to carefully trace sigils into the dirt. Open. Hold. Stay. Lucifer. Rise. The sigils turned red and hard as metal, cold and unmoving.

Numbly, Adrienne stabbed the heart. The first time, it dulled the blood, like stabbing a stone, and it only made a shallow cut into the top layer of the flesh. Undeterred, Adrienne stabbed the organ nine more times, each strike seeming to hit deeper than the last, slowly spilling the burgundy blood, coating the dirt with it.

When Adrienne was done, Vetis tapped on her shoulder, handing her the jar with the soul. This was easier to handle than the heart had been, though she thought of Thompson when she took it. Adrienne removed the lid from the jar, and the soul flew out, jetting from place to place in the air like a bug, but Adrienne snatched it out of the air, clenching her fist around it until it stopped moving. She drew it to the ground, anchoring it in the dirt and blood. It stopped moving, and Adrienne felt a sad twinge in her chest. It was almost as though the thing had lost its spirit.

Finally Adrienne uncorked the vial of grace, pouring it onto the ground, making the blood and dirt glow white-blue. She felt a bit stupid now for letting Sachiel go, but it didn't matter anymore. Once Lucifer razed the earth, the angel would die, human or not.

While Adrienne thought about this, Vetis checked his watch, seeing that it was noon. He frowned. They should be here. Where were they?

He considered stalling - maybe try to convince Adrienne that something was wrong - but there was no time for that. Adrienne was already looking at him strangely, and he reluctantly backed out of the circle. Well at least Lucifer will kill me before I have to see Adrienne dead. It was not a particularly comforting thought, but it was all he had.

Once Vetis had left, Adrienne began the spell. Her mouth shaped the blunt language of Enochian.

The first part of the spell was more like a retelling. Adrienne began with how Lucifer fell.

God created the angels, he created Heaven, he created the Light-Bringer, and all was good. But God created the humans, and he ordered the angels to bow to them as they bowed to him. But Lucifer refused to bow.

As Adrienne spoke, her eyes began to glow white, and she seemed to lose herself in the words, and looked like she was in a trance.

"The Light-Bringer said to his father, 'Why should I bow? The humans are as animals - worse, for they kill their own out of pettiness and anger. I will not bow to them.'

"God raged at his son's so-called pride, and banished him and his followers to the boughs of Hell. And there they stayed for thousands of years as humanity grew more corrupted. No more. On this Day of Reckoning the Morning Star shall shine bright in the sky again, as the Darkness drowns the Sun."

Now Adrienne was looking up at the sky, as though to challenge God. With her glowing eyes and angry expression, it would be easy to believe that she was an avenging goddess, challenging the man that had destroyed her life.

"I am Lucifer's daughter! I am the Antichrist, and I demand that he be released from his prison!" As Adrienne shouted, the marks along her arms began to burn white, and blood flowed from them like rivers, and it poured from her eyes, dirtying her dress and belt until it fell to the ground, landing on Adam's heart.

Vetis forced his eyes from her when he heard muffled screams. He looked around, and realized it was the humans, yelling as their blood was pulled from their veins, and through their skin, forming a thin circle on the ground as the people collapsed. A beat passed, and the majority of the demons joined them on the ground, leaving less than ten standing.

The blood in the circle began to streak towards the middle, easily reaching where Adrienne was standing. Adrienne was still chanting, but Vetis could tell that she was becoming tired. Already she looked paler, and she wobbled a bit when she spoke, like she might fall over. But the ground was glowing now, practically pulsing, and Vetis trembled as he began to feel Lucifer's power, and now he was wishing that he had told Adrienne, then they could have stopped this, it was his fault, and everything was going to Hell because of him -

Shots rang out. Adrienne's voice broke off with a dignified yelp as she fell, barely catching herself on her hands before she landed face down in the bloody dirt. She turned to look at her attack at the same time Vetis did, although she looked far more angry than he was. With her eyes and the marks on her arms glowing combined with the snarl on her face, it wasn't hard to imagine her spontaneously combusting.

Vetis could tell that she wanted to kill them herself, but then she couldn't do that - not yet. "Keep doing the spell!" Adrienne glanced at him briefly. She looked like she might argue, but noticed the sigils on the ground were dimming, and nodded her head before resuming her chanting.

What demons were left converged on the humans. While they and Adrienne were distracted, Vetis quickly killed the closest of the demons with his angel blade, leaving only eight to fight the Winchesters. Moving quickly, he cut Dean off from the other two and started fighting him, though he went easy enough that the human could keep up. The others were too distracted to wonder why he didn't just kill him, and it was easy to keep up the charade.

"Where's Cas?" Dean asked, ducking to avoid a hit.

"Don't worry about that, Winchester. You'll see your angel soon. For now, just do what I say."

He told Dean to walk up close behind Adrienne, but not so close that she would realize he were there. Just close enough that he could plausibly knock her unconscious. After that, he would use the demon-killing knife to destroy the glowing red sigils in the dirt. Suspicious, but not willing to disobey the man who held Cas's life in the balance, Dean did as he said.

As he did that, Vetis made it so that the humans and demons couldn't see him and approached Adrienne from behind, careful not to let her see him. Once Dean was close enough, Vetis knocked her unconscious, catching her in his arms, and then they were gone.

Dean raged at the sky for five minutes, demanding Vetis come back with Cas, but to no avail. Defeated, they left the cemetery and drove into the night to reach Bobby's house. They dragged themselves into the house, bone-tired after such an awful day. Dean went upstairs to the guest room while Sam settled down on the couch, thinking nothing could possibly make the day any worse, only to jump up a minute later when he heard his brother yelling.

Sam ran upstairs and threw the door open, stopping dead in his tracks at what he saw. Castiel was sitting on the bed, staring at his lap and rubbing at where cuffs had chafed his wrists. On the nightstand was a small notecard that said, 'I keep my promises.' Dean was staring stunned at him from right inside the doorway. "Cas."

Castiel looked at his charge, finally letting out a breath of relief when he saw him. Before, he almost couldn't believe that Vetis had let him go, thinking that it might be some sort of trap, a cruel trick from an old enemy. He knew that was still a possibility, but but he couldn't believe it. Not when Dean looked at him like that, like the universe had finally stopped fucking them over and now they could all take a break. "Dean."

The two stared at each other, and the air between them seemed to change. Dean strode forward, grabbed Cas's face, and kissed him.

As Castiel responded in kind, Sam slowly backed out of the room, mentally preparing himself for a night of pretending he couldn't hear what was happening upstairs.

Adrienne woke up to the feeling of a warm wet washcloth against her cheek. She opened her eyes, and saw Vetis wringing the washcloth out, pink-tinged water falling out. He looked back to her. "You're awake."

Adrienne groaned. "Yeah, I noticed." She turned her head, wincing at the pounding pain she felt reverberate throughout her body with every movement. That didn't stop her from trying to sit up when she saw the black marks burnt into her arms, although the shock didn't exactly stop the pain.

Vetis sighed when he saw where her gaze was pointed. "I tried healing those, but it didn't work. I think they're going to have to stay."

Adrienne carefully touched one of the marks, and hissed in pain. Hopefully that would stop sooner rather than later.

But Adrienne didn't care about that right now. "What happened?"

Vetis's gaze darkened, his eyes turning red in anger. "Dean Winchester knocked you unconscious. I would have stopped him, but Castiel appeared, and by the time I got away from him, it was too late. Now the spell can't be done for another thousand years."

For a moment, Adrienne didn't know how she felt. Then the anger crashed over her, like a tsunami on a city. It was a hot feeling, like fire had filled her every cell. But worse was the grief. The grief felt like her blood had been replaced by ice water. Tears stung her eyes, the pain all the worse for the way they'd bled earlier. She wanted to bring down the whole building, but she was too tired to even summon a tissue. Instead she collapsed in on herself, forcing her head down, covering it with her arms, so that Vetis could not see how pathetic she looked. Like a child unable to control even the simplest of emotions.

Vetis moved to the bed, carefully pulling Adrienne into his arms. He rubbed his hand up and down her back in an effort to comfort her, but it didn't work.

All of it - every single death and drop of blood - was for nothing. Thompson, Adam, the humans and demons - all of it was a waste.

"What do we do?" Her voice was small and cracked twice.

Vetis didn't say anything.

End of Part Two