WOW! I got a lot of views for that last chapter. Most views I've gotten on this fic yet! Not sure if it was the jump in reviews or the mid-season finale. Either way, I'm happy to have more readers on board!
Finals are done and I'm out of school for the time being, so I'm hoping that'll mean more updates. We'll find out, I'm sure.
Catherine was currently sitting on the edge of the bed in the motel room she had rented in the new town. One hand was balancing an ice pack on her shoulder while the other steadied a glass of whiskey that she very much needed.
That ghost wasn't normal. Nothing about anything on that hunt was normal. Balthazar said it practically screamed of Winchesters due to just the strangeness of the entire thing and it had occurred to her that they perhaps stumbled across a trap meant for them. Set by an angel, though? Eh, anything was possible, that was for sure.
She was looking at her computer set up on the bed, when the door to her room opened and Balthazar's foot closed it back again, with a load in his arms. "I got your bloody books," he announced gruffly. "Those people in those libraries are near insane with how they- Is that whiskey?"
He changed subjects so quickly that it took her a second to figure out that he was pointing to the glass in her hand. Right. On top of being obnoxious, he's also an alcoholic. She smacked her lips. "Yes, it is. I made a run while you were away."
"What happened to your driving excuse?" he asked, dumping all of the books on the bed beside her before swiping the bottle off of the end table. He didn't seem concerned with an answer as he began hunting down a glass for himself.
She rolled her shoulder with a huff, just continuing to scroll through the pages on her laptop (which was yielding nothing, by the way). "My back warranted it," she mumbled darkly to herself, "Including that insane ghost, ancient sigils even an angel hasn't seen before, and setting that man's house on fire... Besides, I'm not driving right now."
"At least you finally found some spirit," Balthazar happily said, leaning against the kitchenette counter and pouring a glass. "Find anything on that technology of yours?"
"Nothing that you haven't already told me," she sighed and then glanced up to him. "Except for one thing... just a little south of here."
He nearly choked on his first sip. "Another one!?"
"Another ghost," she confirmed with a nod. "Since it's so close, it has to be the same thing. Same angel."
With an exaggerated moan, Balthazar pushed himself off of the counter, walked around Catherine's growing pile of studies, and sat down on the bed beside her. "Those boys left a long time ago. If this was a trap for them, you would think that whoever was doing this knew they weren't here."
Catherine gave him the quick once over when he got so close to her. That was a new one for him. Balthazar seemed to enjoy keeping the dirty human at arm's length whenever possible, but she shrugged the small change off. "These could have been set a long time ago," she suggested, "or maybe they aren't traps for the Winchesters. Just... something about the area, maybe."
"Well, there has to be a pattern to it, assuming it is the same ridiculous creature," he mumbled to himself and sipped at his drink again. "Are there more of these things around here? Any more of your famous leads?"
"No," she huffed, taking the ice pack off and waving to the screen. "This one just popped up while I was searching for more information. It definitely wasn't there yesterday."
"Mmm." She looked back over to the angel, who was happily savoring his glass of liquor. "I forgot how good you people make these drinks," he nearly laughed while Cat rolled her eyes. "We should go out and get something fruity."
"Yeah," she sighed, hefting up some of the books he brought in onto her lap. "Maybe after we figure out what's going on."
Balthazar grumbled lowly and finished off his glass with a gulp. "You can be such a bore." After a moment of her flipping through some pages, he pointed to the computer again. "What is south, anyway?"
She slowly looked up at him. "Other than the ghost?"
He shrugged in return. "If it is an angel that's one step ahead of us, maybe we can just cut the poor bastard off before he hits another town."
After a minor thought, Catherine snatched up the laptop again to find a map. "Well, we're almost in Nebraska, so they're probably already across the line." Once the map loaded up, she frowned. "Next town is Sioux City, if they stay on the interstate."
"Tada." He smiled to himself and got up again. "I'm going to get another glass to celebrate. You want some more?"
"Celebrate?" Catherine watched him all but saunter back to the counter. "We only have another maybe to find him. We can't ditch this ghost on a maybe."
He took that as a "no" and groaned again. "Well, if it means that much to you, we can always go get the thing tonight." Balthazar craned his neck to find a clock in the room while he poured another glass. "What time is it?"
"It's 10 p.m." She was already exhausted from her day as it was. "It'll be at least a two hour drive to get to the ghost, I've been up for twenty hours already, and I don't even know what that unearthly bitch did to my back. Unless you want to go solo, I might just die on you."
Balthazar stared at her for a moment, placing the bottle of whiskey on the counter with a resounding thunk, before finally pointing to her. "... I can fix that."
"You'll tangle me into a pretzel," Catherine glared back in stubborn resignation.
He rolled his eyes as well – a common trend between them – and pushed himself away from the counter to sit beside her again. Balthazar began talking as he would to a fledgling. "For the billionth time. I won't. Hurt you."
She just continued to glare. "If you won't turn me into a pretzel, then you'll definitely probe my brain."
"I won't probe your brain!" he groaned with exasperation, and then, "... without permission, of course."
Catherine just blinked up at him very tiredly. "What is that supposed to mean?"
He just gave a deep sigh in return. "Look, I thought that this trip was going to last a few days, at the most... It obviously hasn't." Despite the fact that he knew Cat was already pinching the bridge of her nose, he still continued. "If we're going to be working together on this – and trust me, I wish we weren't as much as you do – there needs to be some sort of teamwork happening here."
"I can't believe you're the one telling me this," she mumbled to herself.
Balthazar persevered. "We need to catch whoever is summoning these ghost things and we need to do so quickly. What's the point of having an angel tag around if you're not going to at least enjoy it once in awhile?"
She almost laughed. "The first time I heard about you guys, it was a mass notice to kill on sight. Enjoying angels seems like a far jump."
He just glared at her. Of course, she glared back before he spoke again. "I just want to figure out what's going on and I'd rather not have the broken human slowing me down."
That did it, and he knew it as her eyes narrowed a margin more. "I hate you," she murmured lowly.
"I know, dear," he responded with a equally angry smirk.
Yet, he was still nearly shocked when she gave depreciating sigh. "Make it quick before I grow some sense," she grumbled, rubbing her forehead. "And no brain probing."
She was actually agreeing to this. Getting around her stubborn attitude felt like more of a victory than it should have been for him. Still, he couldn't act relieved, especially when she wasn't giving in completely. "Fine," he happily smiled, reaching his hand over to move the one on her forehead. "Second base is close enough."
Catherine glared again, jaw tightening a breath, before his hand met her skin. She expected something incredible. A big light show or an intense warmth to spread through her. Instead, it was just his warm hand – more gentle and familiar than expected – as all pain and fatigue vanished.
She blinked and, upon opening her eyes in that breath, felt renewed all over again. It seemed that Balthazar knew the effect that it had on her and was slow and gentle with removing his hand. At least, she thought he was, before he opened his mouth again.
"Let's not waste time. You only have so much of it," he announced as he got up, then added on as an afterthought, "I should have done something about your hair. It's too brown and plain. Maybe some highlights. Don't human women like pink?"
With a groan as nearly half of the fatigue seemed to come back to her, Catherine closed her laptop. "Let's just go."
"I think you would look great with purple," he continued on, sipping out of his almost forgotten glass on the counter.
They sat in her car on the side of the street in the middle of the night, grimacing through the passenger side glass at their destination. A hotel that had been abandoned during renovation.
"Cliché, isn't it?" Catherine sneered, looking at the very unimpressive location.
Balthazar was on the verge of being a very whiny brat as he turned to look at her. "I would ask if we could just come back during the day if I wasn't the one that dragged you out here in the first place." He looked back at the building, frowning. "Pride and all that."
"Just remember that this is all your fault," she sighed, pulling the car out of park and slinking into the hotel's parking lot. There were, thankfully, no police around for the time being. "We'll need to find a way in other than the front door."
"Of course we need to make things complicated," he grumbled before getting out of the car.
While he found a back entrance, hopefully one he didn't make, Catherine went to the trunk of the car and armed herself. As much of a pain as it was, fire worked well the last time, so she loaded the shotgun with salt shells and stuffed a few explosive ones in her pocket, along with a cigarette lighter and flashlights. After a moment's thought, she took the angel sword that she lifted off of the demons, too, and stuffed it away.
It took a moment or two to find him, but Balthazar was happy to get on with things once she did. With a touch of his hand that seemed just as gentle as she still too starkly remembered, the glass of a long window shattered to dust. She deftly handed him a flashlight as he climbed in first. It seemed like he was purposely trying to ruin that moment for her.
She climbed in right behind him to find everything swallowed in darkness before both of their light beams came on. Balthazar was back to frowning as he looked around. "See anything other than it just being creepy?"
Catherine huffed and eventually looked up. "Some ghosts haunt certain floors in buildings like this... Let's find the stairs."
"Oh, yes," he hissed while following her, "A stairwell is bound to be far less creepy."
After searching through the bottom floor and the second, coming up with nothing both times, the pair tentatively made their way up to the third story. Catherine's nerves were on high and she knew Balthazar was just as tense as she was, despite that he was very good at hiding it. The angel seldom grew quiet for so long.
He, going first, pressed his forearm against the door to slowly peer through. Cat immediately knew it was the right floor since the rest of the place was in pitch darkness. This floor, for whatever reason, still had its lights on.
She walked in after him, but stopped almost at the same time he did. Yes, it was cold and, yes, there was certainly a smell, but she was far more concerned with the bloody sigils covering every inch of the floors, walls, and ceiling in the hallway. This was not even close to the same as before.
Balthazar followed the patterns with his eyes until he was looking directly up. To Catherine, it was the one spot the blood hadn't touched. To him, it was the original work. "We aren't the first ones to find this," he quietly breathed, arming his sword quickly and dropping the light. "The angel made the initial markings. Something else did the rest."
"There's more?" she hissed, tucking away the flashlight to handle her already drawn gun with both hands. "I only know one thing to do sick crap like this."
"Demons," he agreed, hovering closer to his human companion for a moment, before slowly stepping further into the hall. He immediately came to a halt when the lights started flickering and the temperature dropped by several degrees.
Neither dared to speak for a long moment until many of the lights in the hallway suddenly began to blow and the floor started shaking. Balthazar drew back closer to Catherine again. "More sigils," he spoke, not bothering to keep quiet as it knew they were there. "The demons made it stronger."
The hallway seemed to breathe far away into the darkness. Walls seemed to stretch oblong and the air seemed to be sucked away from them, as if they were in the belly of the beast. Seemed to, because something on this scale couldn't be real without psychological manipulation, Catherine told herself. Even supercharged ghosts couldn't be capable of such a thing.
The shaking was reduced to a low rumble as the air stilled around them again and neither breathed. The time seemed to stretch while their hands tightened around their weapons. Surely they should run, one thought a moment before the other, but running would do no good. Things had to be settled.
Just as Balthazar was about to take the opportunity to just set the whole place ablaze, a frozen wind began to soar far off down the hallway, taking out what lights were left in its path in showers of sparks. It wasn't wind, Catherine knew and she cocked her gun. Before she could get any sort of aim, Bal had already moved in front of her, hand raised to the invisible force.
"Shut your eyes!"
She quickly did so and turned her head away, but the blinding light made it almost seem like her eyes weren't closed at all. The brightness didn't bother her as much as how quickly it faded away. Catherine looked up again just in time for the gust to knock them both against the wall so hard that the air was sapped from their lungs.
This chapter took longer to write up than I would have liked, but it IS longer in length, so I guess that makes up for it. Plus, a good, old fashioned cliff hanger. Everyone loves cliff hangers. And those small little moments were fun to write. Character/relationship development takes so long for me and it doesn't help that both of these characters are super stubborn and can hardly stand each other... But it'll work out! Maybe!
I mean, if they live through this. You never know.
Hoping that the next chapter will be soon, guys. Take care and I hope you enjoyed it.