A/N: Once again, thank you for all the awesome and inspiring reviews! You all are the best! Also, please be aware - this chapter contains a few spoilers for events in Season Six of Supernatural, as well as the proceeding seasons, if that matters to anybody reading this.
CHAPTER 12 - "Demons ... "
There was a sudden, oppressive silence in the room following the woman's calculated pronouncement and I had a fierce moment of wanting to plant my fist in her smirking face. Trent had gone very still and tense at my side and the three hunters were staring at me.
Protests bubbled to my mind but didn't make it to my lips, dying in my throat and tasting like bile. What was I supposed to say? No I'm not? I was. That didn't mean I had anything in common with the demon in the chair, but I had a feeling the hunters wouldn't be able to make that distinction. They may have been willing to reluctantly work around the witch and "fairy" thing as long as we weren't hurting anyone, but I could see in their eyes that there was a definite line drawn at the word demon and I did not want to get trapped on the wrong side of that.
"She's not!" Trent lied for me with a conviction I certainly wouldn't have been able to muster. His voice was crisp and harsh with anger as he glared at the demon in the chair. He stepped forward a pace, putting himself as much between me and the hunters as our positions allowed.
Sam and Dean shifted, Dean's hand sliding warily into his jacket as if reaching for something. I didn't want to know what. I put my hand on Trent's shoulder, trying to pull him back, but he wouldn't comply and I didn't want to make any more sudden moves when everyone was already on edge.
"Maybe," Trent said in a cooler, more reasonable tone. "You should find out why the demon is lying and what she hopes to gain by it." He held his position in front of me, but lifted his hands out to the side in a gesture of placation. "Aside fromthe obvious benefit of pitting us against one another and creating turmoil she could use to try and escape, that is," he added.
From the flicker of uneasy indecision in the hunters' eyes, I could tell that however little they trusted us, they certainly trusted the demon in the chair less. Even knowing the truth, I had to admit that Trent's argument was persuasive. The elf was lawyer-good at creating reasonable doubt.
We'd never find out what the hunters would have decided to do next, because a moment later we were all forced to duck as the door to the basement stairs blew inward. Suddenly, there were three more people in the room. All of them smelled like smoke and sulfur and prickled with magic. Great, more demons.
"Come back for round two, huh?" Dean said with a tight grin, his hand flicking under his shirt and coming back out with a wicked looking, rune-scribed knife.
I had just enough time to think that these must be the other demons that the hunters had mentioned getting away earlier before everything exploded into chaos.
Dean lunged, knife swinging. Sam grabbed a bottle of something and splashed it in the faces of the nearest demons, causing them to yell and grab their eyes. One of the demons put out a hand and Bobby flew back into the far wall. The same demon scratched a groove through the line of the pentagram circle under the seated demon's chair with the heel of a spiked boot. Apparently, that broke the ward because the seated demon jumped quickly to her feet, shattering the chair and ropes with one yank of her arms.
I stumbled. Trent was retreating and pushing me backwards with him, practically crowding me into a corner in an attempt to get us out of the way. I could feel the tang of power on him and gripped his shoulder tightly, pulling away and shaking my head urgently at him. I didn't want him using magic again unless there was absolutely no recourse.
A soft thud drew my attention. One of the demons was down, but another had gotten hold of Dean's knife arm and was using him as a punching bag in an attempt to make him let go. I caught a brief glimpse of Sam leaping on the demon beating his brother before the blonde woman got between us and blocked my view. Her gaze locked on me with the same intensity of interest as earlier.
She cast Trent a nasty smile. "I wasn't lying, darling, just ... stretching the truth a little," she told him as we both watched her warily. "Your soul is black ... but you have only one face," she looked at me curiously. "You're not quite like us, are you? No. That pretty little meat-suit is actually yours ... which means," her grin became malicious and excited. "I can take it."
I could only guess her initial statement was referring to the black on my aura, but I had little time to ponder the other things she'd said because the woman abruptly threw her head back and what looked like a black torrent of smoke rushed out of her mouth like a scream. Her body crumpled as it exited.
"Rachel!" I heard Trent's alarmed cry at the same moment the sinister column of smoke flowed easily around him and smacked into me. I flew backwards, my back impacting the wall with a dull thud I barely felt. My senses were awash with the dark, choking sensation of the presence literally flowing into me. The scent of sulfur was so thick I nearly gagged and my whole body went cold, as if I'd been plunged into an icy lake.
Darkness filled me, blotting my visions and my thoughts, invading my mind and wrapping around me like a shroud. I felt something dark and evil covering me like a twisted, horror movie version of my aura. It was the demon, I realized. Her aura was trying to supplant and replace mine. Hers wasn't covered in black, it was black. I'd never seen a fully black aura before. It was ugly and chilling.
The demon was a shadowy presence in my mind, sliding through my thoughts, rifling through my memories. My body felt foreign and it was as hard to move as if I were trapped in a nightmare. I recognized the sensations. The damn thing was trying to possess me! Newt had done this to me once. That time, I'd burned her out by bubbling my mind and flooding my chi. Unfortunately, I couldn't do that without access to a ley line.
Battling terror, I pushed back violently against the intruder, attempting to keep her from claiming complete motor control of my body. She was learning far more about me than I was comfortable with, but I was also learning a lot about her. The demon called herself Aindrea. She considered herself female, although unlike the demons in my world there seemed to be no distinction in the level of power or abilities attributed to the different genders. Also unlike my demons, these beings had no corporeal body of their own. They were corrupted soul, aura and will alone. It made them frighteningly strong and difficult to fight ... but it also gave me an unexpected sliver of advantage.
Agony seared through me as Aindrea triggered all the pain centers in my brain, making me feel like I was on fire. I would have screamed if my vocal chords had been under my control. I heard someone calling my name. I think it was Trent, but his voice was muffled and distant, as if I were underwater. Hands were shaking my shoulders. I felt myself move through no will of my own. I felt flesh impact flesh. I felt energy surge, burning through me as the demon used my body to flex her power.
The voice fell quiet.
Terror and rage blazed through my mind, strengthening my resolve even as the demon mashed down harder on my nerves, making me convulse mentally. Aindrea was trying to get me to quit struggling by making it hurt too much. She helpfully showed me gruesome mental impressions of what she'd done to her last host, just for fun. I felt sick with rage. She'd burned the inside of the woman's brain until there was nothing left and her host was little better than a living corpse. "I'll do that to you too if you don't behave," the demon warned.
I wasn't about to be beaten down so easily. I had an idea, but I needed to try it now, before my unwanted guest read the intention in my thoughts and found a way to counter me.
Unlike Newt and my demons, Aindrea had no physical form to which her soul was bound. That meant that to possess me, she was not just reaching out with her mind - she had poured the whole of her being into my body. When I feigned surrender and abruptly stopped fighting her, her dark, oily presence rushed in to wrap around my soul.
Gotcha, sucker.
I didn't fight now, instead I pulled. I pulled her soul into me like a vacuum. Too late, the demon realized something was wrong and tried to pull back, but her own momentum had already damned her. With all of her committed to the possession and no physical anchor that she could use to jerk herself back out, she was mine. With an agonizing surge of effort I sucked her in completely, wrapping my soul around hers in much the same way I'd held Trent's when we were in the in-between place. Only there was nothing gentle about the way I crushed Aindrea's soul within my own. I grabbed her and squeezed, hard, turning the tables until it was I who was possessing her.
The black filth of her thoughts filled my mind with horrors that quaked me to my core, but I didn't let go. I was surprised to feel a crackling flood of energy singing through me, shooting straight to my chi. With a jolt, I realized that by possessing Aindrea I had taken control of her connection to whatever powered this world's demon magic. The connection felt dark and ugly, but the power itself was crisp and strong and hummed like I was tugging on a line. Squeezing Aindrea harder, I pulled the power from her and through her, spindling as much as I could hold.
The demon shrieked in my head, both angry and terrified. She thrashed and fought and it hurt like hell. "Yeah, you better be scared!" I seethed at her in my mind. I squeezed relentlessly, tightening down around her like a vice and threatening to completely crush her soul if she didn't stop. I felt the hollow thumping of our struggle like the reverberation of a bass line thudding in my chest. It seemed somehow like a lightening cloud, flashing and popping with dark light just beneath my skin.
The realization of what I was doing finally bubbled to the fore of my hurting, struggling thoughts and I suddenly felt a little sick. I wasn't just crushing her, I was absorbing her. Oh God, I was practically eating the other demon, eating her soul ... and it felt good. Since when had I become Ku'sox? The horror of that thought made me pull back. I'd made my point, Aindrea knew that possessing me was a mistake not to be repeated. That was enough.
"You get the hell out and stay out or I will crush your sorry ass into oblivion!" I snarled before finally releasing my hold. My mind felt shredded and I needed this thing out of me, now.
Justifiably terrified, Aindrea wasted no time in fleeing when presented with the opportunity. I felt her struggling to pull out and I let her go. Searing pain bubbled in my chest, clawing up my throat and I screamed soundlessly. Like I'd seen her do with her previous host, the demon fled me in a rush, her essence visibly escaping out through my mouth like a torrent of smoke that left my body convulsing in the wake of its passing. It was very possibly one of the most disturbing things that had ever happened to me, and that was saying a lot.
Awareness of my surroundings returned in a muted, disorientating rush. I was flat on the floor with no memory of how I'd gotten there. Voices were shouting, but the words all jumbled together in my brain.
I rolled onto my side, gasping for breath and blinking to clear my vision. The first thing I saw was Trent. He was on the floor too, a few yards away. He wasn't moving. His temple was bleeding and he lay crumpled at the base of the wall where he'd been thrown. Where I had thrown him, I realized, except of course it hadn't been me.
The hunters and demons were still fighting, although I could only see snatches of the struggle from where I lay. Sam's boots flashed through my vision, along with a set of sneakers that must belong to the demon he was grappling with. They both skidded, went down and rolled out of my sight with a volley of shouts and curses. Bobby's ball cap hit the floor near Trent and flopped over once before settling. I saw Dean get slammed backwards into the wall across from me. No one was touching him, but a second later he was flying forward as if yanked by a string. I didn't see the second impact, but I heard it. Then he was hitting the wall behind him yet again and I realized the demon was batting him back and forth from one wall to the other like a racquet ball.
These demons may have some weaknesses that the ones in my world didn't, but they also possessed different strengths and powers. This incredibly strong and apparently effortless throw you around with my mind telekinesis thing they had going on was very bad news.
A voice, or maybe more than one voice kept trying to start a Latin chant and kept getting interrupted by the fighting. It sounded like Bobby or maybe Sam, or possibly both at different times.
I rolled onto my hands and knees, but before I could rise the sharp toe of a dress shoe caught me in the ribs, knocking the breath from my lungs. I looked up to see that Aindrea had apparently re-taken the body she'd been using before. She was glaring down at me with an expression that was equal parts seething hatred and dark fascination.
"I knew you were interesting," she hissed. "I don't know what the hell you are, darling, but my, what a lot of fascinating, nasty things you have in your head. I've just got to try this one. Delore adficere!"
Before I could respond, a burning, blinding wave of pain slammed into me as the familiar curse raced across my skin, burning me from the outside in with a sickly green fire.
I cried out and struggled to quickly counter the curse. "Valeo," I gasped through grit teeth, using some of the energy I'd stolen from my assailant in order to run the counter-curse. Fortunately for me, it wasn't too hard. The curse wasn't as strong as I would have normally expected. It had been tinted green, which I knew was not the aura of the demon. Aindrea's aura was pure black and apparently not suited to filling the need of the spell. She must be using her host's aura, and that didn't seem to be working quite as well. It still hurt like hell though, and it would still have killed me just fine if left unchecked.
I countered quickly, but not quickly enough to stop her before she'd invoked another curse. I recognized it, and my blood went cold. I realized with a jolt that these were not spells she had already known. Like a kid with a new toy, she was trying out things she'd learned from me. She couldn't possibly have had time to absorb or process even a tenth of my memories during her little sojourn in my head, but she must have lingered over the ones she found most interesting. Unfortunately, those appeared to include the demon curses I knew, including the ones I'd seen in Al's mind when we were mentally connected during our fight with Ku'Sox the previous year.
Al's mental spell book was a dark library of horrors, it was no surprise that this creature went right for it. I'd only seen a small portion of his curses with enough clarity to make any replication attempts possible, but the ones I had were terrifying. Panic flashed through me as I scrambled to my knees. Shit! She didn't know what she was doing! I'd seen Al invoke this curse before and it would level this entire building with all of us in it.
The expected explosion did not occur, however; in fact, nothing occurred. I instantly realized my own - and the demon's - mistake. Of course, she couldn't invoke that curse. She couldn't invoke any of Al's worst curses. She may have seen a bunch of raw spells in my memories, but she was lacking the finer points of understanding behind them. Some spells you could work on the go, like the first one she'd tried, but most of Al's more complex curses he could only do on the spot because he'd already prepared them and stored them in the collective - which was safely back in our world. All she'd seen was the invocations to pull them out for quick use, which was useless without having the actual saved curse within reach.
The frustrated confusion on the woman's face was satisfying, but I didn't stop to enjoy it. Grabbing hold of the window of opportunity presented by her mistake, I tackled the woman, shoving my own curse into her. Unlike her, I had no problem knowing how to make it work. "Shouldn't play with things you don't understand!" I told her.
"... Ecce dabit voci Suae vocem virtutis, tribuite virtutem Deo..." Someone was reciting Latin again, fast and furious. I heard a dull thump and the voice huffed with the impact, but didn't stop. I was too busy to mentally translate, but if it was a spell, it seemed a terribly long one to invoke.
The woman arched on the floor, her body jerking as the force of my curse shocked through her. It was intended to render her unconscious, but she was clearly fighting it. Either she knew a counter-spell I didn't, or her body not being her own had certain advantages. Desperate to keep her down, I resorted to more primitive methods and punched her in the jaw. Her head bounced against the floor, but it didn't seem to give her much pause.
She whipped her arm up in a return blow. I countered with a forearm block and was thrown backwards by the force of her blow. My arm screamed in pain and for a moment I wondered if it was broken. The demon was strong.
"Well I understand this one just fine!" she hissed at me, growling another familiar invocation as a haze of magic blossomed on her fingers.
I scrambled backwards, but she didn't throw the curse because just then her head did this weird, freaky-fast side to side thing and her body gave a hard spasm. She groaned in pain and I realized that it sounded as if the other demons had all reacted in the same way. About then, my brain finally started spitting out a spotty translation of the ongoing Latin incantation and I realized it was indeed a spell of sorts and that it was so long because it was an exorcism rite. That must be what was causing the demon's distress.
My gaze jerked up to find Sam pinned against the wall where I'd seen Dean earlier. He was grimacing in pain, his arms spread to the side as if held by invisible hands, but he was doggedly keeping the Latin going, reciting the lengthy spell from memory.
"No!" Aindrea shrieked, infuriated. Before I could react, she'd twisted and heaved the ball of magic in her hand at Sam instead of me.
I saw Sam's body convulse against the wall, his neck muscles cording in agony as the curse crawled across him like hissing sparkles before burrowing into his skin. His voice stuttered with pain, but he didn't stop speaking.
"Deus Israhel ipse truderit virtutem et ..." he gasped desperately, clearly struggling for each word.
Aindrea screamed and lunged for him with super-human speed. I scrambled after her, but Dean got to her first. Putting himself between the demon and his brother, the elder Winchester slammed into her in a rush that was half tackle, half stumble. He plunged the knife in his hand into her chest and Aindrea jerked, her borrowed body seizing up. Faint, fiery lines raced outward from the injury. Starbursts of light and dark played under the woman's skin before her eyes rolled back and she went slack, slumping to the ground.
I realized that the demon was dead ... and so was the host; although judging by what Aindrea had shown me, the woman had already been long gone. I felt a deep shudder run through me. I really didn't like this world much. At all.
Dean had been quick and efficient in his attack, but it must have been the strength of desperation, because the collapse of Aindrea's host body nearly took him with her. He managed to stay upright, wheeling around towards one of the other two remaining demons. Dean's face was bloody and his movements slowed in a manner that suggested he probably had a concussion. Given the human ping-pong-ball routine I'd seen being played with him a minute ago, it was amazing he was on his feet at all.
"... fortitudinem plebi Suae," Sam's eyes were clenched shut, his body shaking. He dropped to the ground, slithering down the wall like a puppet with the strings cut as the demon holding him was forced to let go so he could meet Dean's attack. The demon was clearly in pain now, fighting the nearly completed exorcism. Unfortunately, he was still strong enough to throw Dean back across the room again, sending him crashing into the far wall. Dean hit hard and crumpled to the floor. I could tell it had been one hit too many, leaving him dazed and barely conscious. He struggled sluggishly to move, to crawl, but his body wasn't cooperating. I wasn't even sure if he was truly aware or if it was simply sheer, stubborn instinct that had him fighting to get back to his brother despite a complete inability to coordinate any of his motor functions.
I saw that Bobby wasn't far away. He was sprawled across one edge of the pentagram on the floor. I didn't see any wounds, but he wasn't moving so he must also have been knocked unconscious at some point in the past few ... minutes? It felt like this fight had been going on forever, but in reality it couldn't have been more than a few minutes at the most, if that long.
There were still two perfectly functional demons in the room and Sam and I were the only ones left standing ... no, scratch that, Sam was on slumped on the floor struggling to finish his spell and I was the only one left standing. Fan-freaking-tastic.
"B-benedictus Deus. Gloria ... Patri." Sam half gasped, half sobbed the last words of the spell. Of course, I only realized they were the last words when the two remaining demons completely freaked out.
They jerked spasmodically and their heads whipped back and forth in that incredibly disturbing manner again. Then they fell to their knees, screaming out the streams of black smoke that were no longer a surprising sight. The two hapless hosts collapsed to the floor, upping the number of unconscious people in the room. The bodiless demons fled, rushing up to slither along the ceiling and out of the house like the smoke they resembled.
I dropped to my knees beside Sam, not yet sure I had time to feel relieved. I needed to nullify what he'd been hit with, but I also needed quick answers. "Do we need to move? Are they coming back?" I asked urgently, trying to figure out how I was going to get this mess of unconscious and injured people somewhere safe - and where exactly safe was. Those demons had attacked us in broad daylight - a fact that was only sinking in just now. Were all the demons here day-walkers? Holy crap.
Sam shook his head, his teeth grit in agony. "Sent them back ... to hell," he gasped. "N-not the greatest solution but we should be okay for a little while." He groaned, his body starting to seize violently.
I knew what was wrong and I quickly took one of Sam's hands in my own, pressing my other to his forehead. "Extinguet," I murmured, reaching out with some of the power still stored inside me and attempting to run the counter-spell for the curse that Aindrea had used on him. "Extinguet!" I said again, a little more forcefully, dismayed when it did not immediately start working.
The curse had settled in too deep. It wasn't on the surface anymore where I could easily reach it; it was working its way inward to his mind. "Sam," I murmured, gripping his hand tightly and trying to get him to look at me. "Sam, listen to me. That demon cursed you. We need to stop the curse before it kills you. I know how to stop it, but it's gone too deep to reach from the outside. I need you to let me help you."
Sam looked at me with wary, pain-glazed eyes that looked a lot younger in that moment than they should have. "You want me to let you into my head?" he gasped out, his uncertainty and discomfort with that idea obvious.
"No," I said quickly. After what I'd just been through with Aindrea, I could understand why that would sound like a pretty disturbing idea. "I won't be in your mind, although we will be connected. It's more like we'll be ... sharing mental space. I'm going to channel some power into you and then kind of guide you on how to use it to run the counter-spell that will shut down the curse. It's gone too deep for anyone else to reach it. You have to do it for yourself, and we have to do this now, Sam."
Sam looked at me for a long moment more, then closed his eyes and nodded once. "Okay. Show me."
There were several jagged shards of a broken ceramic something on the floor beside us that must have been shattered in the struggle. I snatched one up and used it to cut a quick diagonal gash across my left palm. I winced, grimacing as I quickly milked the wound to get blood. Dipping a finger in the resulting bit of crimson that welled up, I used it to draw a symbol on Sam's forehead, then pressed my bleeding palm over it, whispering Latin under my breath. While it may be easy for me to connect with Trent, that wasn't true with most other people. A power-pull was one thing, touching minds was another. The spell I'd just worked should temporarily operate like a very crude person-to-person version of the way my scrying mirror allowed me to share mental space with others and communicate with them on that plane. If I'd done it right. I'd read about this in one of Al's books but I'd never tried it before.
I wasn't going to let Sam see my doubts, but inside, I was worried. He was human. I didn't know if I was going to be able to connect to him, much less if he would have the ability to work the necessary counter-curse. Humans could work certain types of magic if they learned how, but some types wouldn't work unless you had witch, demon or elf in your blood.
One of my worries was relieved when I felt the shape of an unfamiliar mind brush against mine. The connection was there, although not terribly strong or comfortable. Sam was in a lot of pain and that bled through into his mental state. Moreover, there was a discordant, almost warning hum that ran along my nerves, as if his very body had been warded against mental tampering. I wasn't trying to trespass on his will, however, so whatever protections were in place weren't shutting down the connection. Sam's mind was pretty guarded, however, and I wasn't getting much from him but the sense of his presence.
"Okay," I told him in our joined space as I carefully started feeding him a trickle of the remaining energy I had stored inside me. "Here's what you need to do." I showed him the spell, and the mental intent with which it needed to be applied.
I was hesitant to feed him too much energy for fear of hurting him, but to my surprise he latched onto it and pulled it from me with a strength I wasn't expecting. He knew how to channel power, I realized. At some time in the past, he must have done it before.
It turned out that I needn't have worried about his ability to do this. Sam did as I had showed him quickly and correctly. I was relieved when the curse's momentum finally slowed and then dissipated entirely. I felt something in him stir in response to the flow of demon magic running through him, something that went blood-deep. Something that was hungry.
Sam pulled back from the sensation abruptly, clearly afraid of whatever it represented to him. Rattled, he tried to shove the energy flow back to me and in those few moments his mind was less secure than it had been previously. Sudden flashes of images and memories raced through my mind before I could block them out. For a moment the sheer force of the rush flooding me was paralyzing. Quickly shaking myself free, I mentally pulled away in a belated attempt to respect his privacy. Lifting my hand from his forehead, I broke our connection and suddenly it was just me in my mind again.
I patted Sam's perspiration damp cheek gently as his cloudy eyes slowly blinked open again. His face was flushed and fever-warm. "Hey, good job, you stopped it. You should be okay now," I said reassuringly, not wanting him to dwell on any of the darkness I'd just glimpsed.
Not all of what I'd seen made sense and I'd tried not to look as soon as I realized what was happening. What I had seen did answer a few questions, though. It appeared that Sam had used demon magic in the past, to kill demons. Doubtless, that was where the smut on his aura had come from. He'd been able to crush their souls, much like I had almost done a few minutes ago, but the price he'd paid for the power was steep and the scars it had left were not slight. Five seconds of Sam's memories, and I didn't have to wonder why the Winchesters hated demons. I couldn't blame them, either.
"Really?" Sam rasped softly. "Then why don't I feel okay?" He was trying to sound light, but there was pain in his voice and a dark hint of fear in his agonized eyes.
I frowned, my worry instantly returning as I realized that Sam was still hurting way more than he should be. Blast it to the Turn, what now? We'd stopped the curse, he should be okay!
His flush had deepened and he was starting to look sunburned. Sudden dread took root in my stomach as I remembered what I'd seen in the kitchen earlier. No ... oh no, no, no...! I quickly brought up my second sight and fear hit me like a sucker punch.
The curse Aindrea used was meant to kill. The good news was that she hadn't cast it as strongly as someone more familiar with it could have. The bad news was how that particular curse worked. It killed by destroying a person's aura. You could survive losing a certain amount. We'd countered the curse fast enough that Sam should have been all right. He should have still had enough of his aura left to protect him until the rest could regenerate with time ... but Sam's aura had been too thin to start with. The curse had destroyed too much. He no longer had enough to cover him. It wasn't completely gone, like mine had been when I burned it off in the lines, but I could see ragged, gaping tears in the tattered gold surface. The gaps swirled and shifted chaotically about, his aura desperately trying to spread itself out enough to make the edges meet, but it was too damaged. The gaps just got bigger and bigger as they bled away at the edges.
Sam was dying. He didn't have enough aura left to survive, just enough to make his death long and excruciating. My stomach churned. I couldn't accept this, I couldn't.
He must have seen the panic in my eyes because his hand tightened on mine. "Rachel?" his voice was very composed given the circumstances.
My eyes welled unhelpfully and I blinked quickly, trying not to let him see. I could tell he did though. His trembling body relaxed slightly as if accepting the truth I refused to speak. Oddly enough, he didn't look afraid now. His gaze darted across the room, looking for his brother, I think. "Is there anything we can try?"
"Yes," I said firmly, although I had no real idea what. Even if Trent had been conscious, I couldn't ask him to risk his life singing Sam's soul into a bottle like he'd done with mine, nor did I think the hunter would have been able to trust him enough to allow it. I scooted closer to Sam, expanding my own aura to encompass us both. It wouldn't save him, but I knew from experience that it helped with the pain.
Desperately low on ideas, I pressed my hand to his forehead again, sliding back into the shared mental space because I didn't know what else to do. I heard a rustling scuffle of movement from elsewhere in the room, but my focus remained on Sam.
"Your aura is too thin, it's damaged and can't protect you," I told him in the space we shared, letting him see himself through my eyes so he'd understand what I meant. I felt his surprise and his wordless question. Obviously, he'd never heard of an aura before. "Auras are tied to your soul. They protect you and keep body and soul together, so to speak. Yours shouldn't be this thin, Sam. Do you know what happened to it?" If I understood that, maybe there was something I could do to fix it.
Something like resigned understanding flickered in Sam's mind and I pounced on it. He was instinctually evasive but I traced after him, deeper into his thoughts ... until I ran up against a solid wall where there should not have been one.
I frowned mentally, carefully tracing along the outline of the blockage. I'd never seen anything like it before. There was literally a wall inside Sam behind which a part of his mind and soul was trapped. That was why his aura was so thin, I realized - he wasn't whole.
I gave a light, experimental push against the barrier to test its strength ... and felt like my head exploded. My mental landscape was suddenly awash in flames. The raw sensations of pain accompanying the fire stole my breath, but I wasn't so sure they were my sensations.
Sam panicked. I felt his fear like a kick in the chest as he threw himself against me, trying to force me back out of his mind with surprising strength. "Don't!" I heard him gasping urgently, both aloud and through our mental connection. "Don't touch the wall!"
Our connection was broken with a suddenness that left me reeling when I was physically yanked away from him. I was hauled backwards a few paces on my butt, my feet scrabbling uselessly on the floor as I struggled with the disorientation of the abrupt shift. A strong hand gripped my shoulder and I crashed back against a body kneeling behind me. My head was jerked back and something cool and sharp pressed against my throat.
"What the hell are you doing?" Dean's voice rasped in my ear, his tone vicious with fear. Apparently, he'd recovered enough to be mobile again and was completely misreading this situation. Terrific.
Sam started convulsing again. I was too far away for my aura to shelter him and the full brunt of the pain must be back with a vengeance.
"What did you do to Sam?!" Dean's voice was equal parts rage and barely contained panic as he watched his brother seize. The blade against my throat pressed harder, breaking skin. I felt the bite of magic along with the bite of metal. It was not an ordinary knife and the hum of the curse built into the blade vibrated in my senses. I swallowed carefully, my mouth feeling very dry. Dean had probably just had significant head trauma and was now obviously in fear for his brother's life; I was more than a little worried about how rational that combination was going to make him.
"Nothing!" I protested, my breathing coming quick and loud in my own ears. "He's hurt, I'm trying to save him! Dean, you have to let me help, he's dying!"
I heard a soft, distinctive click and my gaze shot upward as much as my trapped head allowed. Apparently, Trent had woken up too. He was standing beside us, the muzzle of Sam's gun pressed against Dean's temple. The weapon must have been lost on the floor sometime earlier in the struggle and he'd retrieved it. "Kill her, and I kill you," the elf promised, his voice cool and dark.
Dean didn'tkill me, but he didn't let me go either. He barely reacted to Trent or his threat. The hunter's lack of concern spoke either to his confidence that he could disarm Trent before the elf could kill him ... or the fact that when faced with his brother's life on the line, Dean just didn't care.
"No, Trent, don't, it's okay, this is just a misunderstanding. Put the gun down," I urged, desperate to keep the situation from escalating. There was nowhere good this could go. I wanted Trent to stand down before things got any worse, but he made no move to comply.
"Come on, guys, seriously, let's just all take a breath here. Sam needs help. That demon woman cursed him. I helped him stop the curse, but it's damaged his aura," I babbled.
"His what?" Dean said in a tone that suggested he placed auras in the same realm as the Easter bunny. Frustration burned through me. We didn't have time for this.
"Dean ... I don't get it either, but it's true, I saw it," Sam panted with difficulty, trying and failing to sit up and get hold of himself.
"Right," I confirmed quickly. "He's burning because there's holes in his aura. It's too thin, there isn't enough left for him to survive. There's something inside him that's keeping him from being whole. If we can unseal the rest of his soul, maybe it will bring back enough of his aura to save him."
"We can't!" Dean ground out, his voice pained and painted with frustration. The knife was still at my throat, but it wasn't digging in so hard anymore.
"Rachel ..." Sam's voice was hoarse. "I know you want to help, but that wall's there for a reason. If we break it, I'll either go insane or die ... maybe both."
"Oh," I said, feeling both surprised and stupid, although there was no way I could have known that. "Okay then, no touching the wall." I realized then that this was what the brothers had been talking about that night in the hotel room. The problem was, I didn't know what else we could do.
Sam's pain was increasing rapidly and he rolled onto his back, gasping in ragged breaths and trying not to cry out. I knew just how badly it hurt and I ached in sympathy.
There was another sharp clicking sound and my gaze shot up to the right. Oh, great. Bobby was back on his feet and to make this situation just a little more delightful, he was covering Trent with his shotgun. Trent glared at him, but didn't back down. We had a total Mexican standoff going on now and it was so ludicrous it could have been funny, were it not for the very real danger involved.
"Enough! Everybody just chill the hell out, okay?" I snapped in utter frustration. "Us all killing each other isn't going to solve anything, or save Sam. Let me try to help him before it's too late, damn it!"
Sam's skin was starting to visibly blister. His head arched back against the floor and he screamed.
I felt Dean's body shudder behind me, helpless agony practically rolling off him in waves. "Dean, he's dying," I appealed urgently. "Let me help!"
Coming to a decision, Dean dropped his arm and the knife from my throat, releasing me. Looking over my shoulder I saw raw desperation on his face. "Okay, fix him!" he half ordered, half pleaded. His eyes said he wasn't sure he was doing the right thing and that he could only hope he wasn't going to regret this.
I crawled quickly back to Sam, touching his burning brow gently and enfolding him in my aura again. He relaxed a little, the screams turning into ragged gasps as his skin stopped actively burning. In the periphery of my vision, I saw Dean and Bobby relax a fraction as well. The fact that my presence was visibly helping the younger hunter brought a modicum more calm to the highly wrought tensions swirling about in the room.
Too bad I still had no idea what on earth I was going to do now.
"It's going to be okay." I took Sam's hand reassuringly, pretending a confidence I didn't have. Sam gave me a weak smile. I think he knew full well I was bullshitting him, but he seemed to also understand that my intentions were earnest. A reversal, perhaps, of our positions in the woods on that first day we met.
Motion drew my gaze back to the others. Now that I had been released, Trent was finally standing down. He had lowered his weapon and was carefully setting the gun on the floor. Bobby was still covering him and Trent kept his hands cautiously out to the side. Moving slowly and as non-threateningly as possible, the elf backed up towards Sam and I. Keeping his hands visible and his body language passive, he knelt beside me.
Bobby continued to keep us covered, but I saw the gun barrel shift down a little. He wasn't going to stand down, but he wasn't going to overreact either. I'd told them I needed Trent to work magic, apparently, they remembered.
I looked to Trent. He gave me a slight, rueful half-smile and I saw in his eyes that he was fully aware I'd talked these armed and edgy men into letting me help without knowing whether or not I actually could. Strangely enough, he didn't seem worried.
"Rachel," he said quietly, nodding towards Sam. "His aura is like ours."
I nodded slowly. "I know." A sudden inspiration came to me and I straightened a little. "Wait ... you mean ...?"
Trent nodded. "Yes. I think you can temporarily give him part of yours, just enough to help protect him until his own regenerates. I couldn't do it for you when you were burned in the lines because your aura was completely gone, and I didn't know quite as much about it as I do now. His isn't gone, it's just patchy. I think it can be done."
I felt hope returning. It was a good idea and I thought it could work. There was only one glitch. "I don't know how," I admitted. I didn't like coping to not knowing something, but we all had our areas of expertise and I was aware that this one was Trent's. Elf magic seemed to deal a lot more with the manipulation of auras and souls than demon magic.
"I know," Trent gave me another small smile. "But I do. I looked into it in depth after that incident with you. Unfortunately, I can't share mine at this time. The deal I made is ... consuming too much," he admitted reluctantly. "But I can show you how to do it, and I can bind it in place."
I nodded. "Okay, let's do it."
Trent reached for my hand, but I stopped him. "One thing Trent - does this have to use wild magic or could we use line energy?"
Trent frowned at me. "I ... don't believe it would matter?" he said uncertainly.
"Okay, then no magic from you unless we have to. I've ... got a partial charge to work with. Let's see if it's enough."
Trent nodded, obviously confused as to where I'd gotten the energy, but he didn't argue or ask.
With that understanding in place, I took Trent's hand and allowed our minds to connect so he could show me the spell and share the charge in my chi. Trent started and looked at me when he felt the taste of the energy I offered. I bit my lip guiltily. I didn't really want him to know how I'd gotten it, but hiding only made me feel more dirty about it. Reluctantly, I gave a wordless explanation through the connection we were sharing, allowing him to know what I'd done to the demon.
Trent was not disturbed or disgusted. Instead, I felt a little wave of approval and admiration from him. "Only you could have something try to possess you and come away with its power instead, Rachel."
I glanced up at him in surprise, my guilt and fear accidentally flashing visibly through me. Trent just smiled at me like I was being ridiculous. "You're nothing like Ku'Sox, trust me. Now, watch closely, this is a little tricky ..."
A little tricky turned out to be like saying that Mozart was a little hard to play, but I managed it in the end. The biggest problem was that Trent knew the spell in theory not in practice and it took a certain amount of trial and error for us to get it working right. It turned out we did need to tap into a little wild magic for it to work properly and I ended up needing to modify the transfer portion wherein I shed part of my aura and pushed it onto Sam. It wouldn't take the first two times, but then I tried doing it in layers, spectrum by spectrum, the way I'd learned to do when re-invoking Elven silver.
Trent hadn't watched me do that before and I could feel his intent interest and excited spark of understanding when he realized how it solved the rejection problem by integrating one layer at a time. I couldn't help smiling inwardly. I knew that Trent enjoyed trying to reconstruct and resurrect ancient elven magic whose secrets had been lost to time, but he was always so outwardly composed, it was kind of sweet to see his inner enthusiasm.
The layering worked and this time the aura I'd shared did not snap back to me. Quickly, I chanted the spell to complete the transfer. I would have expected to feel more stupid, sitting there singing over Sam, but the power of the spell carried me along and it didn't feel all that odd.
Then all that was left was for Trent to bind it in place. Now that I understood the spell, I realized it was definitely a two-person affair. Because my aura and Sam's were now resonating at the same frequency, you needed a third party to place the final seal that would keep the merged auras from unraveling when we were no longer in physical proximity.
"Na deen, ta shay, doto la, doto la ..." Trent sang softly beside me, his hand hovering over Sam as he placed the seal. Trent's singing could have a rather distracting effect on me at times. I tried to ignore the tingle in my blood as I watched Sam carefully. I was relieved to see that the borrowed aura seemed to be working okay. The holes were gone and although it was still thin, he had enough to keep him alive.
Smiling in relief, I ran exhausted fingers through Sam's long, damp hair. His breathing had evened out and he no longer appeared to be in pain, although he was likely still weak and would need time for both his body and aura to recover. "There," I murmured. "Now you should be okay."
He chuckled weakly and rolled onto his side, pushing up to sit. He seemed a little unsteady, but definitely doing better. "Thanks." His voice was quiet but sincere.
Dean came over and knelt beside his brother, tipping his head back to get a look at his face and generally checking him over for damage. "You okay? Really? Everything?"
Sam nodded. "Yeah man, honest. I'm good."
Dean hugged his brother, fists bunching in the back of Sam's shirt as fear bled out into relief. Sam did not seem to take this amiss and hugged him back.
I scooted back a bit to give them room and turned to Trent. "What about you?" I asked. We'd had to tap a little wild magic through him to get it all working. Even if it had only been a very small amount, I didn't like it.
Trent gave me a wry expression. "I'm fine. You did most of the work."
Bobby cleared his throat. "I'm glad Sam's better and all, but we still got ourselves a couple problems here."
The brothers stiffened a little. Dean got to his feet and helped Sam up, even though the older Winchester looked like he could have used a hand himself. He was unconsciously hugging his ribs and the right side of his face was starting to swell.
I rose as well, not comfortable with the feeling that Trent and I were part of those "problems".
"Bobby, they saved Sam," Dean said quietly, the support unexpected but appreciated. "If either of them were demons, they would have been exorcised with the rest."
"I know," Bobby agreed. "I'm just sayin' there's still a lot of questions here. Heaven knows that demon bitch was probably lying her head off, but the truth is she ain't like no witch we've ever seen before," he nodded to me. "That demon possessed her and something weird happened, then it bugged right out again. I've never seen it happen like that before. I'm not trying to be an ungrateful bastard ... but we've been down this road before. Dean, we need to be sure what we're dealing with."
Dean took a somewhat weary step toward me and I unconsciously backed up a pace. "It's okay," he tried to reassure. "Few easy tests we can run. If you're not a demon then there's nothing to worry about," he promised, his expression serious but honest.
That did nothing to calm my apprehension.
"Guys ... maybe they should just ... go," Sam said quietly. My gaze jerked to him and I saw guilt on his face. I realized that I'd fed demon energy into him, and he'd recognized the sensation. He wasn't so sure there wasn't something demonic about me, but I'd also saved his life and he seemed conflicted on how to deal with that. I knew from what I'd glimpsed in his memories that they'd been betrayed before by demons who had saved them and pretended to be on their side - hideously betrayed.
Dean shot his brother a look and frowned, something about Sam's attitude striking him wrong and making him a little more wary. He took a more purposeful step towards me.
Trent rose quickly to his feet. "You should be aware," he said calmly, "that until Sam's aura heals, his life is tied to Rachel's, and mine. If she dies, he will lose the aura she shared with him. If I die, the binding I put on it will come undone and the same thing will happen. In either case, he will die too."
The Winchesters stiffened and I felt a sudden, unhappy lurch in my stomach at the revelation. I hadn't known that ... but Trent obviously had. I realized with a sinking feeling that it was probably at least part of why he had suggested this cure to begin with - to gain leverage that ensured the hunters couldn't dispose of us. It made sense in a calculating kind of way, but it also made me mad. I felt like he had used me. I didn't like the idea of blackmailing people I had honestly just wanted to help. I wheeled on Trent. "What?! You didn't tell me that!"
Trent had his game face on and simply gave me a cool, level look in response to my displeasure.
The hunters didn't take any more kindly to the news than I did. No one liked to feel like they were being held over a barrel and it clearly did not engender any good will towards us. I could have freaking kicked Trent.
Water splashed in my face and I spluttered at the unexpectedness of it. "Hey!" I protested. I wiped the water out of my eyes and saw that Dean was holding a flask like the one Bobby had been using earlier. I immediately tensed, waiting for the acid to start stinging ... but it didn't. It was just ... water.
Bobby was covering Trent again and the hunters were all watching me closely. I spread my arms, fixing them with a sarcastic look. "Witches don't actually melt in water, guys. The Wizard of Oz lied to you."
The hunters seemed a little amused, despite themselves I think. "If only it was that easy, right?" Dean said with an equally sarcastic smile.
"Holy water didn't do anything to them in the car, either," Sam pointed out. "And they had no problem handling silver. You know, we did check when we first picked them up," he added.
I blinked in surprise, suddenly understanding the odd way they'd watched us in the car on the way into Cincy when we'd first met them. That flask Sam had given me had been made out of silver, and we'd apparently washed up with paper napkins and holy water. Well, holy water may act like acid for those other demons, but it didn't do a darn thing to me.
I only had about a second to feel relieved before Dean had taken my wrist, pushed my sleeve up my arm and was pressing something cool against my skin. "We've seen holy water fail before," he reminded his brother.
I started and would have instinctively jerked my arm away if the hunter's firm grip hadn't prevented it. It was only a surprised reaction however, the iron cross he was pressing against my skin didn't hurt. There were apparently significant differences in our worlds' demon species, and I was starting to think this might not be so bad when a sharp slice of pain made me jerk and yelp.
"Hey!" I said again, glaring daggers at Dean. "You cut me!" He'd sliced a quick, shallow cut across the inside of my forearm with a silver knife. "I do hope that bleeding doesn't mean I fail what the hell ever kind of test this is," I added grumpily. I wasn't happy with this whole situation, but thus far I seemed to be passing their tests all right and resisting would have only made things worse.
"Nope," Dean said, giving me a cloth to press over the shallow wound. "Burning would, but I guess you're not a shifter either. Good to know."
"Well yippee," I muttered, massaging the stinging cut. "Could have told you that."
After that they had me step into and out of one of those pentagram binding charms and a circle of salt. It felt kind of stupid, but I played along. "Okay, are you happy now, or do I need to rub my head and pat my stomach too?" I said finally when it seemed like they'd run out of things for me to do.
"No, we're done." Dean turned, gesturing for Trent to come. "Your turn."
I was worried Trent was going to cause more trouble, but he simply unbuttoned his cuff, rolling up his sleeve as he came over. Calmly, he held his bared forearm out to the hunter, meeting and holding Dean's gaze. "I am most certainly not a demon, but you are welcome to see for yourselves."
They ran Trent through the same tests and he also passed. I was kind of hoping that would have put the hunters more at ease than it seemed to be doing. They were definitely less edgy again, but for some reason, they still seemed troubled.
"They didn't react to anything," Dean said with a frown. He rubbed his ribs again and from the slight hunch of his shoulders I suspected he was in a lot of pain and simply doing a good job of hiding it.
"Most witches don't," Sam pointed out, but he was frowning too.
"Yeah ... but he don't react to silver or iron or need to count things and that ain't rightfor what we know about fairies," Bobby put in, nodding towards Trent.
Trent massaged the bridge of his nose, clearly annoyed. "Elf, not fairy," he corrected them again, although no one was listening to him.
"Yeah, but we really know squat about fairies. I mean, the crash course by Mrs. Tiny Teacups wasn't exactly comprehensive," Dean pointed out.
"That's true, there could be all different kinds we don't know about yet," Sam agreed, and it appeared the others seemed to concede the logic in that.
"Can you not talk about us like we're not here?" I asked, annoyed and not happy that they were now suspicious because we hadn't shown any results.
"Right, can't forget about you. Come on." Holding my arm, Dean pulled me to the door of the cell we'd been in before.
"Wait a minute, we passed your stupid tests!" I protested, refusing to let him push me inside.
Dean looked weary. His gaze was hard, but his eyes weren't mean. "Yeah, but we've got a basement full of bodies to take care of," he gestured around the room, indicating the two dead previous demon hosts that would doubtless need burying somewhere and the two unconscious ones who may or may not have survived their possession. "And we need to figure out how they got into the house. Demons can't get into the panic room. This is the safest place to keep you until we can sort all this out. Besides, we wouldn't want you to wander off anywhere. It's dangerous out there and apparently, we can't afford for anything to happen to either of you two for a while," he added sourly, dividing his scowl between me and Trent as Bobby and Sam guided Trent over to join me.
Trent did not look happy, but I was overall very not happy with him right now, so I didn't really care. Stupid elf. Why was I always surprised when he pulled crap like this? Hadn't I learned anything? Or had I just really thought he could change that much? I was an idiot.
"Maybe you two can take the time to put a little thought into why exactly the demons are so interested in you, and what you're still not telling us that you probably should," Dean added sarcastically. He took a step towards me, crowding my personal space to get me to move back into the room.
I didn't like being backed into a cage, I didn't like anything about this. Did I trust these people enough to go back into that room without a fight? I wasn't sure. I felt relatively sure they'd try to do what they thought was the right thing. The problem was, I also felt sure that if that should eventually end up including disposing of us, they could and would do so.
My heart thudded in my chest as I held my ground and Dean's gaze. He was a dangerous man, I thought, but not a bad one. The truth was, in many ways he reminded me of Jenks - with his jokes and smiles and the boyish charm that hid the ferocity underneath. They were both older on the inside than they looked on the outside and had eyes that said they had known too much loss and would fight with everything they had to defend that which was left. They would kill you in a heartbeat if that was what they felt they needed to do to protect that which was theirs to protect, but neither of them were cruel by nature. They were warriors; survivors.
At least, that was the impression I got from what I had seen since we met them and from what I had seen in Sam's memories. Maybe that was why, even though I was pretty sure this man could kill me without hesitation, I couldn't actually bring myself to hate him for that; no more than I could hate Jenks for having killed to defend his home.
I continued to scowl at Dean, but reluctantly stepped over the lip of the door and back into the panic room, as he'd called it. I still wasn't happy about this situation, but I wasn't quite scared enough about it to put up a fight when that was only likely to make things worse.
Trent was pushed in after me and the door slammed shut behind us. The bolt slid home, locking us in again and I clenched my fists at my side. This whole thing was such a mess and I was beyond frustrated.
There was long, uncomfortable silence for a few moments. I could hear the faint murmur of voices on the other side of the door, but the thick walls of the room apparently made a pretty decent sound barrier because I couldn't hear what was actually being said. After a few moments even the murmuring stopped and I supposed either they were being quiet or they'd left to dispose of the bodies. It was a little disturbing to think that they probably had a lot of practice on that front.
Trent was walking around the small room, studying the glyphs on the walls. "Rachel, do you recognize this one?" he asked me with a thoughtful frown, gesturing towards one of the symbols.
I turned to glare at him, not seeing what that mattered and incredibly irritated that he seemed completely oblivious to how ticked off with him I was right now. "No, and I can't believe you!" I rounded on him. "Every time. Every time I start to think we can actually work pretty good together, you pull some crap stunt like this!"
Trent looked at me, annoyed. "Like what? Why are you angry now?"
"Like what?!" I said incredulously."Like alienatingthem by making it seem like we only saved Sam to protect ourselves. How did you think they were going to react to being blackmailed like that? Great way to make them trust us, thanks a ton!"
Trent's lips pinched in a hard line and he folded his arms tightly across his chest. "We don't need them to trust us, Rachel, we needed them to not kill us."
"Yeah?" I seethed. "Well maybe we could have tried for both and we wouldn't be locked up again!"
Trent glowered at me. "Do we really have to do this right now? We should focus on getting out of here."
"Why? Because it's only going to take a day or two for Sam's aura to heal and then, thanks to the fact that they don't trust us, they may decide that killing us sounds like a pretty good idea after all? Gee, I guess maybe not stamping all over their trust may just have been important after all, huh?" I was so not ready to let this go.
"No," Trent said through his teeth. "Our time table is shorter than that. We'll need magic to break out of a room this secure. A lot of it." Trent pressed one hand to his chest, rubbing as if it ached. "I really can't breathe well in here, Rachel. Something in this room saps my strength. We need to act now, before it gets so bad I can't."
Adding a dose of worry to my overall frustration with this incredibly crappy situation was like tossing gasoline on a fire. "No!" I snapped. "No freaking way, are you kidding me? You want to kill yourself?! I feel so much as a twitch of magic and I will knock you senseless, Trent, I swear."
"Rachel!" he growled in frustration.
"I said no! Besides, if we run, they'll hunt us for sure."
"So we won't let them catch us," Trent said tightly, as if that was obvious. "This situation is too volatile. You really want to just sit here and trust them with our lives? After everything we've seen?"
I didn't know, and I didn't like that I didn't know. I felt deep down that the Winchesters were good people, but I couldn't be sure that meant we were at all safe with them. "I don't know, maybe," I admitted tensely.
"Maybe?" Trent snorted. "I'm not ready to hang everything on maybe, Rachel. We need to get out of here. We need to get home. We know now that magic works in this world and that it is possible to open gateways to other dimensions. We need to be working on that, not sitting around here doing nothing but possibly waiting to be killed. We are wasting time!"
There was an edge of desperation in Trent's driving need to get back that I understood, but rushing around blindly wasn't going to help us. "Yeah, only we don't know how to do that, do we? And we've pretty much alienated the only leads we might have had." I threw up my hands in exasperation.
"Not entirely." Trent reached behind his back and pulled out a small, flat object he'd apparently had tucked down the back of his pants, under the loose shirts he wore.
I stared at what he showed me, both shocked and a little alarmed. How in the name of little green apples had he gotten that? Trent was holding the demon book we'd been looking at in the library. He must have pinched it after I set it down. How he'd managed to do that under everyone's noses without anyone noticing was beyond me, but apparently Trent would have made a pretty good thief in another life.
"You stole that?!" I asked incredulously. "Oh my God, Trent, are you trying to get us killed?" I wondered how long until the hunters would notice it missing and how quickly they'd think to search us. Given their reactions to the interest we'd showed in it earlier I didn't think there was any way they wouldn't jump to the worst possible conclusions upon discovering we'd taken it.
Trent gave me an exasperated look. "You said yourself we might be able to adapt what's in here to suit our purposes. This is what we should be working on, preferably somewhere far away from here."
"That was before I found out that the spell required human sacrifice!" I shot back. "I don't care how much we want to get home, or how little you may care for other people's lives, that is a road we are not taking." My eyes narrowed. I tried to snatch the book, but Trent retreated quickly, keeping the cots in the center of the room between us. Shoving the book back where he'd gotten it from, he kept his back towards the wall and gave me a stubborn look.
"Of course not," he retorted tartly. "What do you think I am? But we only have the Winchesters' word for that, don't we? How much do you think they know about magic? As much as we do? I think not. You've pulled restless souls out of purgatory before without any black magic involved and we're not trying to get into purgatory anyway. It has to be easier to open a doorway to another realm of the living than it is that of the dead. Even if the spell really does call for sacrifice, that doesn't mean we couldn't find another way to adapt it."
There was some logic to that, but I wasn't ready to admit it just yet, not when I was this mad and not when Trent had gone about things in such a sneaky and amateur manner. Stealing the book was just further proof that Trent had been running his own plan all along and I'd fallen right into it. Again.
"What do I think you are? How about an idiot? I don't get it, Trent. How can you be so smart and yet so stupid? I am sick of this! Maybe I'm the idiot. Really, I am. Why do I always fall for your crap? I trust you, and you use me! Every, fucking, time!" It hurt. It hurt because I was an idiot. I wanted him to be something he wasn't and I set myself up for this pain over and over again.
Trent flinched, pulling back tighter into himself and I knew I'd hurt him. I was just too angry to care. "That is not true," he grit out through his teeth, his voice low and hard.
"No?" I raised my eyebrows. "You want me to make you a list?" I huffed bitterly. "You set me up. Don't tell me you didn't plan this. Don't try to tell me you didn't know exactly what kind of leverage it would give us if I saved Sam using that spell. Look me in the eyes and tell me you didn't." I folded my arms and glared at him.
Trent's stormy green eyes flashed with anger, but he dropped his gaze and wouldn't meet my gaze. "Of course I knew," he muttered.
"Yeah, that's what I thought," I said bitingly. "You never change."
Trent's head came back up, his eyes flashing with ire ... and pain. "And you never understand!" he shot back. "You don't even try. I don't get it, Rachel. You try to understand everyone - even people like Al and the Winchesters. You give everyone the benefit of the doubt; everyone but me. What is so wrong with me, Rachel?" He ran an agitated hand through his hair, turning away from me and pacing tensely back and forth in the small space.
"I wasn't trying to use you," he said, his voice low and tense. "I was trying to help! That was the only way I could think of to save Sam. Did I also recognize the fact that it could be valuable for us to have a reason for them to keep us alive if things went badly? Of course I did. It's the way I think, Rachel, I can't help that. I see actions and consequences, percentages and possibilities - I have to." He shook his head. "Like taking the book, it was simply a card to play if we needed it. I wouldn't have said anything, but I thought ... " He stopped pacing and bowed his head, biting his lip. Finally, he lifted his head again, gaze meeting mine. There was a hint of embarrassment among the other emotions roiling behind his green eyes. "I miscalculated, all right? How was I to know they wouldn't ... that it wouldn't show anything."
I stared at him, understanding seeping into me like a cold shower, cooling my rage. Trent hid his emotions too well. He always seemed so confident and in control that I hadn't seen the truth behind his actions. Trent had been afraid. He'd been afraid the hunters were about to test me and find out I was a demon. He'd been afraid they'd kill first and ask questions later unless there was some reason they couldn't. Hadn't I been afraid of that too? Maybe blackmailing them wasn't the best thing he could have done, but maybe it had been a more honest mistake than I'd been giving him credit for. I was still irritated with him for screwing things up, but when I stopped to look at it from this angle I could see where he'd been coming from. After all, if things had gone differently ...
I frowned, my gaze sliding away to stare at the far wall as guilt settled uneasily in the pit of my stomach. Trent may have messed up ... but he'd done so out of a desire to protect me. Crap. Maybe he was right. Admitting that rankled, but I couldn't ignore the facts. I hadn't tried to understand where he was coming from or why he'd done what he did. I'd just assumed I knew. Trent and I had a lot of history, not all of it good. When you saw someone a certain way for years it was a hard mindset to break. Plus, Trent wasn't exactly the easiest man on the planet to read.
"Okay, point taken," I said quietly, gaze still on the other wall. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't make assumptions without hearing you out first." My troubled gaze finally sought him out and found Trent resolutely not looking at me as he studied one of the wards on the wall, tracing it absently with his forefinger. I sighed.
"I want to understand you, Trent, but you don't exactly let people get close. You hold everything so tight to the vest and only show as much as you need to to get the results you want. I respect the duties you carry and I understand the demands they place on you, Trent, I do ... but sometimes it's hard to know which of the many faces you wear is really yours."
Trent's expression was both resigned and melancholy when he lifted his gaze back to mine. "I let you get close," he whispered. "But you're right, I'm a pie cut into too many pieces." He shrugged and gave me a tight, mirthless little smile that sent an unexpected sliver of pain through me. "Maybe it's just as well. It's better to keep your distance, Rachel. I doubt you'd like what you saw if you got too close. I'm not someone you should trust."
I didn't know why hearing him say that hurt so much, but it did. "I never said I didn't trust you," I said quietly. "I do. Trent, I do."
The pain and resolve in his eyes as he looked at me was staggering. "You shouldn't," he said sadly. "I will only continue to disappoint you." The elf grimaced. His fingers went to his mouth and when they came away bloody I guessed he must have bitten his cheek or his tongue.
The words were an apology as much as a warning and my brows furrowed in confusion. I didn't understand why he would say that or what exactly he was trying to tell me. "Trent?"
Using two fingers, Trent painted his blood onto the wall. Three quick flicks of his wrist and he'd changed the pattern of the ward he'd been studying a minute ago - taking control of it and altering its purpose at the same time.
I realized what he was doing about thirty seconds too late to stop him.
"Trent, no!" I lunged for him, but I was too far away and he was moving too fast.
"Dissilio!" Trent said firmly, slapping his palm on the center of the re-purposed charm and channeling a massive burst of energy into it. The lines of the charm lit up, flaming outward like they were scribed in fire. Tendrils of light shot outward, racing up the wall. They ran into one of the other wards and flowed around it, circling at the edges like an invading horde. "Vindicto," Trent whispered and the fire spread inward, lighting up the second ward like the first as he claimed it. Stronger and thicker now, the streams of light rushed the rest of the way to the ceiling. They flowed up to surround the pentagram shaped grate. "Vindicto, dissilio!" At Trent's command, the pentagram ward too, became his. The fire streamed into it, lighting the metal up like a red hot furnace. Reaching its apex, the spell fulfilled its purpose and blew upward and outward with a rumbling crack. The grate blew out of the ceiling, loosing a shower of concrete dust and causing afternoon sunlight to stream into the small room from above.
The whole thing had taken a matter of seconds. Part of me had to admire the ingenuity of the plan. By daisy-chaining the wards, Trent had managed to not only get around the room's defenses but also used them to amplify the spell. The rest of me was busy vacillating between outrage and panic.
"Are you crazy?!" I shouted at him. "What the hell are you ... ?"
"Getting out," Trent said grimly. His face was set with determination but edged with guilty apology as he wiped plaster dust from his eyes. "I told you we couldn't wait. I'm sorry. Come on, we have to hurry. They are sure to have heard that."
"Ya think?!" I growled, but he was right. We didn't have a choice now. All we could do was run.