Chapter 13: Screaming in the Night

From the Journal of Bobby Winchester

Regardless of my enthusiasm to hunt the souls the Hellions were eating, I had conceded to wait until at least I was not in so much pain. I was still healing, it seemed to be taking a long ti me. The attack had been three weeks ago, the scratches across my clavicle had healed along with the stabbed claw marks in my chest. But occasionally I would lurch and time would swirl and I would forget the division between past and present. It was as though my memories had been slowly developed sediment and it had all been mixed up by the wounds. Nor had the pain been entirely relieved. It would go through long periods where I felt no pain at all, then, without warning it would slice back up my skin. It was less crippling than it had been.

Neither one of us knew how to heal wounds to the soul. Or if they could be healed.

But we had planned to use our time safe in the bunker for good. There were maps in there, maps that meant a whole lot more to me now than they had when I had been homebound. We had poured hours into them, whole days. I would fall asleep sometimes, my face pressed against the map I had been studying. I'd wake up draped in a blanket. All the effort came to nothing. We couldn't come up with a single solid reason why the Hellions should be anywhere over somewhere else. And besides, if it were anywhere other than this continent we were going to a have a hell of a time reaching it. Crowley, who could once move around the world at a snap of his fingers, could barely make it across a room.

Alongside the frustration of the search, being home with Crowley was unusual. My tendency was to continue the routines I had had when I was growing up, locked alone here. I would talk out loud, occasionally as though I was talking to someone else. A ghost. Sometimes Crowley was out of the room and wouldn't notice, and sometimes he was behind me and would furrow his brow. But he made sounds and told stories to no one as I slept, so I felt a certain amount of justification.

In other ways it was comfortingly domestic. I had taken to sleeping in pajamas, since the threat of having to leap from unconsciousness into battle was almost nothing. Crowley had started wearing them to sit there while I slept. I thought he would have done something else, kept searching the maps, read something, done anything. But he followed me to bed every time I made it there and sat for the duration of the night. It was possible that he needed me more than I had anticipated. I wasn't about to complain. He was the only thing that separated me from the oppressively loneliness, I liked to keep him close.

XXXXX

From the Journal of Bobby Winchester

I was in the Library, looking over maps, I hit my fist against the table in frustration. Crowley looked up at me.

"They could be anywhere, Crowley, they have wings for God's sake! They could be in heaven or hell or anywhere!"

"Yes, darling, we established that." His tone was condescending, I interpreted that as his own frustration.

"So." I was unsure of my plan, it was idiotically dangerous, but I thought the only shot we had, "Let's capture one."

He raised an eyebrow at me, "You share your father's tendency toward suicidal schemes."

"Or, we can stay here forever looking at maps that don't mean anything. Come on, if we found a little sick one it wouldn't be hard to capture it and...make it tell us where it's home was...well I mean I might...I mean if you...I mean...do you know how to do that?"

He looked at me in genuine noncomprehension, "Do I know how to do what?"

"Make people tell you things?"

A smile crept across his face, he looked like he was trying not to laugh, "Are you asking me if I know how to torture people for information?"

I blinked and wriggled my nose in discomfort, "I mean...do you?"

He did laugh then, and not condescending laughter either, "Bobby, I'm the King of Hell. I'm a demon. I'm familiar with torture." I had forgotten, actually, that he was the King of Hell. I mean, for God's sake he hadn't changed out of his pajama pants and had a bit of pen ink streaked across his nose, how was I supposed to remember he was big and bad and important?

"Right. So that's the plan. We'll capture a Hellion, you'll figure out where it came from."

"There's a dungeon in the basement that should be suitable."

I frowned at him, "Yeah...I know that. How do you?" Then I smiled and laughed, "Did my dad imprison you?!"

He had fire in his eyes, and gritted teeth, "A long time ago."

I wanted to tease him but I thought that the overbearing anger that had replaced the amusement of a moment ago might have been embarrassment, so I let it go.

XXXXX

From the Journal of Bobby Winchester

The plan was straightforward and wildly dangerous. I would go outside, make a bunch of noise and movement and hopefully draw out a Hellion. When one arrived, I would attack it, wound it, and Crowley would swoop in with enough chains to keep it down. That was the plan. I recognized that I had the most dangerous and suicidal part in it, but to be fair, it had been my plan, and hand to hand combat wasn't really in his wheelhouse.

I armed myself with my dagger claw, which, now that I was home, I had fashioned into a real dagger, taking apart a dagger that had been in the armory and clamping its hilt onto the end of the claw, which I had whittled down into a spike. I left the business end alone, not knowing what aspect of the claw it was that worked against the Hellilittles. Crowley called the weaker and younger Hellions, Lower Hellions, and refused, point blank, to call them Hellilittles. Because he was no fun at all.

I waited until night, my idea for noise worked better at night. With Crowley waiting in the wings I dragged a heavy box outside onto the highway. I opened it and, after taking out the dozen or so fireworks contained inside, purchased originally for my father and my fourth of July when I was six, which he hadn't made it home for. I set them up meticulously, arranging them just so. I lit the fuse and waited.

With a colossal roar they exploded into the air, lighting the entry way to the bunker with a kaleidoscope of sparks and bangs. If that didn't alert the Hellions, we were without hope. I looked up at them and, despite the peril of my position, laughed with glee. They ignited the sky and, momentarily distracted I chased the sparks as they fell.

I didn't stay forgetful for long. My biggest fear was that Cas would come baring down on me, rather than a vanquishable Hellilittle. One of the reasons we had remained so close to the bunker. If Cas came, we were going to run.

I didn't have to wait long. In the star sprinkled sky I saw a dark shape flit passed. I drew my dagger. Its shriek cut through the night air and, in a tumult of wings and teeth it landed in front of me. Standing right before me I reconsidered calling it a Hellilittle. Helliterrifyinglyenourmous would have been more fitting. I had forgotten just how tall they were. Especially the younger ones, so little like the angel corpses they were inhabiting.

He stood at least three heads above me, long jagged claws flexing and snapping. The claws on his feet digging into the pavement. He pulled back his lips even more beyond the teeth that perpetually stuck out and hissed, fangs glistening in the moonlight. This one was not like the other I had fought. It was not sickly and starving, nor was I catching it unawares at it prepared to feast on someone else. Its full attention was on me, and its body was taut and muscled.

It stalked toward me, claws reaching out. I slashed at its hand with the dagger and, when the blade cut across it, it yelped and jumped away, snapping its teeth in threat. It stood very still for a moment, then unfurled its wings and rushed me. I tried to dance back but was not fast enough. I ducked beneath its outstretched claws and spun, putting me behind it. It turned faster than I had anticipated and clubbed me sideways with its wing. I fell to the asphalt and scrambled away. I looked up as it flung itself at me again, I couldn't get up in time.

Unable to dodge or flee I closed my eyes on instinct. I felt its hot breath on my face, but it didn't rip me apart. I opened my eyes slowly. It was thrashing, pulling at bond attached to its wrists and ankles, unable to pull away and less than a foot from me. I scrambled backwards, away from it.

XXXXX

From the Journal of Bobby Winchester

Having that thing inside my home was ruining me. I no longer felt safe inside, I didn't know if I would again here, even with it gone. I now only slept when Crowley was there to remain awake. Terrified that it wasn't really held down by those chains. I had stayed briefly to see what Crowley meant by torturing it. I had a vague idea of what it entailed but I wasn't sure about the particulars. I couldn't stay more than a few moments.

Human though it wasn't' the Hellion's screams tore beneath my skins and took root inside my heart. I had thought I was tough. I thought my years alone and drenched in danger, my earliest friends pulled from the dead, the unfading vision of my father being torn apart, his blood spurting in arcs, I thought all this had hardened me. And they were the reason for all of the hurt I had felt, every loss, every moment in suffocating solitude would never have been inflicted on me if it weren't for the Hellions.

I had thought I might have even relished watching him torture them, watching him cut on them for a change. The screams didn't sooth my old wounds like I thought they might, I wondered if Hellions had names. Were there other Hellions, calling out the name of the one we had captured? I wondered if Hellions could love one another. If I found the right Hellion, would it be as much torture to let it listen as to cut the other one apart? I couldn't stand to hear those screams.

It lasted for days. Being alone had felt like stumbling toward madness, listening to those screams was sprinting to it. I talked without stopping to my ghosts, scrabbling to keep a noise that rose above the sounds.

I was in the entryway, leaning against the door. It was the farthest away from the dungeon I could get. Footsteps approached.

"I know where they are, Kitten," Crowley announced proudly. He was still holding the knife, hands blood stained. He looked down at me then, after a moment, he cocked his head. "What are you doing up here?"

"Nothing." I said shortly, I had been my plan to torture the Hellion, I wasn't going to tell him what it was doing to me.

"Where are they?" I asked, my voice was softer than I would have liked.

"Not in Heaven, which means we might actually be able to reach it. They're in South Dakota. Sioux Falls, South Dakota."

I perked up, "Bobby Singer was from Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Oh, Bobby Singer was Dad's ...adoptive father sort of."

Crowley laughed briefly, "I know Bobby Singer, I owned his soul briefly."

I bared my teeth at him out of instinct.

"Calm down, darling, I said briefly. I gave it back."

I stood up, "So what are we going to do with the Hellion?"

"We'll kill it I suppose," he punctuated his comment with a twisted grin, "Eventually, I mean."

I choked down my shudder at his implication. I held out my hand, "Can I?"

He smiled at me, looking pleased, "Of course, darling." He handed me the claw knife he was still holding. "If you want, I could teach you a few tricks."

I gave him what I intended to be a charming smile, "I wish you would."

He gave e a lascivious smile and followed me to the dungeon. When I walked in my shoulders stiffened, seeing the mangled Hellions chained from the ceiling, blood dripping onto the floor.

I hefted the knife.

Crowley stepped to the side, allowing me to approach the Hellion, "Alright, kitten, what you want to do is, very delicately - "

In a single movement I shoved the knife through the Hellion's chest. It shook and went limp, hanging dead in the chains.

I turned back to Crowley, who looked startled and irritated. "Do you understand what it means to torture someone."

I looked at him morosely, the many days of not sleeping, of listening to that screaming and being haunted by the images of a Hellion mourning somewhere in South Dakota closed in on me.

"Do you?"

AN: Thank you everybody for reading. The reviews I got for last chapter were, as always, warm and lovely. To all my anonymous reviews I can't send thank you's to, THANKS! You guys light up my inbox!

Next update in a few days!