A/N: Sixth season Sam reminds me of Anya from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I appreciate him.
In other news, I scanned the entire new trailer for I Am Number Four and actually found Jake Abel for three seconds. Guess I'll have to go see it... sigh... but Quinn Fabray is in that movie too, so it's not a total loss!
Quick note: I decided a long time ago that Kristen was bilingual, the problem is that I'm not. The Spanish translations (as well as the Latin) are at the bottom of the page. Just know that I shoved the dialogue I wrote into one of those Internet translators and the person I know who can actually speak Spanish is being supremely unhelpful by watching DBZ Abridged for the ninetieth time, so it's probably a terrible translation. In my defense, I took 4 years of French under the craziest Parisian lady ever, and that is saying something.
My revised apocalypse is not going as smoothly I planned. Maybe that's the sign of a good apocalypse.
The chapter title is a reference to a Monty Python sketch. Everyone in this tiny audience also hopefully knows who all the Beatles are.
Chapter Thirteen: I Should've Expected The Spanish Inquisition
In her youth, Kristen had always been a morning person. Her favorite part of the day had been the moment between sunrise and dawn, when half the sky was still blue and the moon was still in view, while the other half of the sky was pink and orange and bright. Nowadays, Kristen was very rarely outside at all, shuffled between Mama Oya's cave-like apartments and the room she shared with Adam.
Finally, a week after the Lalaurie Mansion had burned, a matter that had been gnawing at her brain for some time prompted her to crawl out of bed at that early hour between sunrise and dawn. Adam had flopped down beside her after she'd gone to sleep; he'd been out late with Sam and Dean again. He was a heavy sleeper and didn't so much as flinch when Kristen pulled on a yellow dress and some flip-flops and stumbled out the door. The morning air was surprisingly cold and she quickly came back inside to grab the flannel shirt she'd stolen from Bobby.
Pascal's nets were still hung over his door and Kristen fought the urge to knock; something about his smile never failed to cheer her up.
The only people in the streets were graveyard shift bartenders out for a smoke and homeless bums snoring on stoops. Kristen could smell the strong stench of the street cleaners' truck wafting down Burgundy Street, so she turned onto Bienville for her journey. She worked her way south and squinted in the early morning to see the towers of St. Louis Cathedral, her destination.
During the Inquisition, the Spanish government had sent a priest named Antonio de Sedella to oversee the souls of fledgling New Orleans. Rather than follow his orders, the priest had stayed loyal to the city, even after the Louisiana Purchase made New Orleans technically Protestant territory. In life, he'd been unceasing in his care of the sick and became known as Pére Antoine. Most locals knew that he'd continued his saintly work in death. His ghost stayed in St. Louis Cathedral and his form had been glimpsed, alternately in the choir loft or in the Jackson Square garden or even walking in the nearby streets.
It was Pére Antoine that Kristen had come to see. Her stomach tied up in knots just thinking about it. Adam would hardly approve of her actively seeking out a ghost, for any reason. And she might not even find him…
She circled the cathedral three times. The doors were closed for five o'clock Mass, so she defected into Jackson Square. All the hedges and greenery had been recently trimmed in anticipation for the arrival of spring. The red brick paths were deserted. There was nothing to be heard except the far, dulcet tones of a chorus chanting the Kyrie Eleison.
Kristen's stomach did a somersault when she finally saw him. He was slowly rounding the Andrew Jackson statue, completely absorbed in the prayer book he held in his hands. He wore a somber set of Capuchin robes and sandals. On top of his head was a crown of silvery hair and he was skinny, gaunt and exhausted looking.
She set herself in his path, unable to summon words. Pére Antoine took no notice of her.
"Excuse me," Kristen said near a whisper, falling into step with him. The old ghost still ignored her. "Okay, you probably get this a lot, people thinking they've seen you and trying to engage you in conversation, except I can actually see you. I'm psychic or something…"
Pére Antoine turned a page in his prayer book.
"I'm not Catholic, but I hear you guys do this confession thing that I'd really like to try. I mean, it's not necessarily sins, and I just… I want to have a conversation with someone who might have answers, not vague half-truths, but definitive answers. And since you're dead and a priest, you're in a really good position to help me… I know you can hear me!"
"Regrese a mí cuando usted se muere de la fiebre amarilla o ha perdido su familia en una inundación," Pére Antoine finally replied, keeping his gaze in his book. "Vaya a un salón de la belleza si quiere quejarse a alguien."
"Es supuesto ser un santo," Kristen snapped.
The dead priest stopped in his tracks, sighed and pocketed his prayer book.
"Lo siento," he said, putting a hand over her shoulders. "Parece aún en muerte, los sirvientes de Dios deben luchar por encontrar paciencia infinita. ¿Qué problemas usted, mi niña?"
Everyone in the clinic was dead. More or less. There was a young girl, perhaps twelve, who'd managed to crawl into the stairwell, but Crowley side-stepped her heaving form without getting anything on his shoes.
The demons at the front desk were easy kills. For that, Crowley lamented the stupidity of his race. No imagination. No ambition. It was times like these that Crowley dearly missed Azazel. Then again, Azazel had been a zealot who harnessed Crowley's talent for all the wrong purposes and after he'd died, Lilith had forced Crowley to loiter by the crossroads for petty soul theft.
That wasn't going to last much longer.
As Crowley made his way to the top floor, the stench of human remains grew stronger. The irony tang of human blood was perhaps his favorite. He could do without the rotting flesh peppered with boils. The only smell truly distasteful to him was the humans who decomposed in pools of their own waste, coughing and hacking as bile rose in their throats.
Of all the horsemen, Crowley admired Pestilence the least. He was more sorcerer than horseman. War had that lovely red sports car and preyed on the stupidity of humans, something Crowley was no stranger to. Famine did the same, in his own way, using that senseless, instinctual streak that people had for food and sex against them. Pestilence… well he just didn't have any flair. He was the odd man out. He was like the Ringo Starr to War and Famine's Lennon and McCartney.
A smirk crept across his face when he spotted the eagle-eyed demon standing watch over Pestilence's door. The horseman himself was sitting on the bedside of a diseased old woman and the demon stood at the nurses' station, lips curling when she spotted Crowley.
"I like your meat suit," he said and he was suddenly standing right behind her. She whipped around and took hold of his neck in a vice-like grip.
"Thanks, it's vintage," she sneered, bringing Crowley down to waist level. "What's your business? My master is at work."
"My business is none of yours," Crowley said quietly. The demon lackey saw a flash of silver in his hand, scoffing, because she didn't know it was a very special knife he'd nicked from the Winchesters when they weren't looking. Crowley brought it streaking into the demon's side and for a moment she flashed gold, like a sputtering machine, before she sank to the ground.
Crowley glanced at Pestilence; the dumb bastard was still gripping the hand of his old lady, looking on with delight as she began to writhe weakly and spew blood. This was going to be all too easy. He almost wished Dean Winchester had come up with something better to prove his loyalty.
Of course, killing Pestilence fit very well into Crowley's end game, so who was he to complain?
"Crowley, Crowley, Crowley…"
Crowley froze mid-knife swing when he heard Pestilence speak his name. He felt himself lifted into the air and thrown through a pane of glass. He stood, brushing shards away, trying to seem merely annoyed. The old lady was dead. Pestilence had his hands clasped in front of him, looking at Crowley like a toddler looks at candy they've just found on the ground.
"This is a gorgeous piece of craftsmanship," Pestilence mused. Crowley looked down to see the knife was no longer in his hand. Pestilence was twirling it lovingly between his slender fingertips. "It's pagan made, isn't it?"
"Hephaestus forged it, as a personal favor to me," Crowley said conversationally. "Etchings are mine though."
"Imbued with power by way of ritual sacrifice, correct?"
"Hephaestus, again," Crowley said. Pestilence gave him a sadistic, wide-eyed grin. His teeth were yellowing and rotten.
"And all this ingenuity, to defy your lord and master," he scolded, extending his hand toward Crowley. As Crowley had been topside for quite a while, it took him a minute to realize he was in pain. The feverish sickness of his host's body was pressing against him like a trash compactor. "As you can see, I've had my fun—" Pestilence gestured to the blood drenched granny laying still in her bed "—so I'm going to smite you quickly."
Crowley felt the sickness in his host's veins twist like rope and found himself spread-eagle on the ground. He had to admit, Pestilence was effective.
"But tell me," and as Pestilence knelt next to him, Crowley wriggled his arm so subtly that a human wouldn't even have seen it. "What is so important to those bumbling brothers that I didn't even warrant face time? I'm insulted," Pestilence said, clutching his heart with the hand he wore his ring on.
"They send their love," Crowley said, locking his eyes on the ring. "But they wanted this job done professionally."
He summoned all his strength and swung the little silver penknife he'd managed to get out of his sleeve. It landed on Pestilence's finger, severing the ring from his body. Crowley leapt up, scooping the ring on this his own digit.
The white opal glinted on his finger, the iron band adjusting comfortably to Crowley's hand. He couldn't suppress a triumphant smirk. With a wave of his hand, he tossed granny aside and took a seat. Pestilence was howling in pain on the floor, clutching his bloody stump of a finger.
"I'm going to kill you soon," Crowley mimicked, kicking Pestilence in the gut for good measure, for without his ring he could feel every blow to his body. "But first, you're going to tell me everything you know about George Harrison."
"Who?" Pestilence sobbed. Crowley picked up the demon-killing knife and the horseman yelped in pain as Crowley sliced off his other hand at the wrist.
"Sorry," Crowley said, settling back into his seat. He pocketed the knife. "I was using Beatles metaphors earlier. Tell me everything you know about Death."
"… I am afraid I don't know," Antoine sighed sadly. "Death illuminates that which you don't understand, though it does not provide answers. Whether or not your child possessed a soul when it was taken from you, I cannot tell you."
They were sitting on a bench outside the park, watching the sleepy shop-owners of St. Ann Street open up for the day. Down Decatur Street, street musicians were setting up next to the Café du Monde to beg money from the deluge of customers.
Kristen leaned forward and put her forehead in her hands, her throat catching.
"Doesn't it bother you that God would plan any of this?" she asked after a minute. "Let plagues and demons and angels run amok, leaving humanity to bear the brunt?"
"Without suffering or hardship, how on earth could we appreciate the joy and love of the Lord?" Antoine said. "And so it is with faith. Without the choice not to believe in the Gospel, faith is meaningless."
"It's not a question of faith," Kristen rebutted. "I know there's a God and a devil. But I sat in church every Sunday for eighteen years and nothing I heard ever prepared me for what's happened to me or what will happen next. The faithful and the faithless alike are dying and God hasn't revealed himself. I don't think this is what Revelations had in mind."
"Men of my kind have dedicated their lives to finding the purpose of life, to reasoning God in logic, to discovering the truth of His plan," Antoine explained in his low, smooth voice, squeezing Kristen's shoulder. "Yet none of us can wholly understand His will. None of us will ever know all, as He does."
"I don't think I believe in omniscience," Kristen muttered. Antoine stroked her hair gently and Kristen let her head fall on his shoulder. She was surprised that despite his incorporeal state, she could feel his boney clavicle beneath his coarse brown robes.
"Then do not," Antoine encouraged. "You are capable of great love, so believe in that. God will reveal himself in time."
"I'm kind of an abomination," she said, smiling bitterly to herself. "A psychic taking lessons from a voodoo priestess. That's all kinds of blasphemous."
"Are you referring to the priestess on Burgundy Street?" Pere Antoine asked abruptly, sitting up straight and upsetting Kristen's position. She sat up and nodded.
"I'm staying with her," she confirmed, watching Antoine's shifting visage. His calm priest demeanor was slipping away; his eyes were wide and his thunderous voice had risen a few decibels. She tried to scoot away, but his arm was around her shoulders.
"Then you are her!" he exclaimed. His other hand slipped over the yellow fabric of her dress to rest on her abdomen. "Et signum magnum paruit in caelo mulier amicta sole et luna sub pedibus eius," and his eyes flew to her forehead, "et in capite eius corona stellarum duodecim."
"I don't know Latin," Kristen said in a small voice, tearing herself away.
"Et in utero habens et clamat parturiens et cruciatur ut pariat!" he continued, gripping the bench with his white knuckles, staring at Kristen as though star struck. "Et visum est aliud signum in caelo et ecce draco magnus rufus habens capita septem et cornua decem et in capitibus suis septem diademata!"
"I don't need an exorcism!" Kristen insisted shrilly, backing away. The dawn had dissipated and morning was upon them. Kristen was so panicked that she didn't notice the growing number of passerby who saw her arguing with an empty bench. "What are you saying?"
"Et cauda eius trahebat tertiam partem stellarum caeli!" Pére Antoine kept raving, his stern eyes appearing to water with tears. "Et misit eas in terram et draco stetit ante mulierem quae erat paritura ut cum peperisset filium eius devoraret!"
Kristen turned on her heel and fled.
"… mfhm… I didn't do it…"
"Guilty conscience?"
"Is it seriously morning?"
Adam groaned and shifted his head under his pillow in an effort to stave off the full sunlight. Kristen's sudden entrance into the apartment had roused him from a deep sleep. He could hear her rustling around the room, kicking aside clothes and paper.
"What were you doing all night?" Kristen asked. Her breath sounded oddly heavy, like she'd just been running.
"Tracking a rugaru. In a swamp." Adam said, voice muffled beneath his pillow.
"That explains the mud," Kristen muttered. There was the sound of running water and a splash. When Adam crawled out from his cocoon of sheets, he saw Kristen wiping off her face with a towel.
"Where've you been?" he said.
"Walking… to clear my head…" she shrugged. "I have to be at Oya's soon."
"What do you do in there all day?" Adam asked, rubbing his eyes.
"I visit a lot of dead ancestors," Kristen said, shrugging off Bobby's shirt. "I have this one Roman ancestor who was Empress for two weeks. I spent the whole time asking for tips on dimensional shift and she just force-fed me grapes." Her voice became the tiniest bit more shrill. "Really, no one's had anything useful about controlling astral projection, let alone taking someone with me." She pushed the straps of her yellow dress down her shoulders, letting it slide to the floor as she rifled through her closet. "I had this one French ancestor who actually touted herself as a sexual psychic, but her idea of heaven is this dumpy tavern and she didn't explain anything, she spent my entire visit being incredibly impressed by my ability to do long division—what are you smiling about?"
"Just enjoying your casual nudity," Adam explained, and indeed, he'd stopped listening at the words 'dimensional shift'. Kristen bit her lip and quickly covered her bare breasts with her arms.
"Oh. Well stop. I look like a biker chick with all my tattoos," she said, blushing.
Adam rolled his eyes and kissed her, then tossed her onto the bed. As she giggled and moaned, he ran his lips over each of her tattoos, the fleur-de-lis behind her ear, the tarot card on her back, the Celtic knot around her navel, the Enochian script around her waist, the octogram of creation on her right ankle and the Fourteenth Roman Legion symbol on her left. His last stop was the anti-possession ward that had been inked just beneath her hip bone.
"I'm going to be late," she said in a haze, but Adam still wasn't listening. They'd been here two weeks already and they still hadn't managed to have sex. He didn't plan on wasting his opportunity.
"It's not like she can start without you," he insisted, hoping it didn't come out as a complaint.
His fingertips grazed recently healed flesh. Adam's gaze swept down Kristen's thigh and saw two puncture marks poised right above her femoral artery.
"What are these?" he asked softly before he could stop himself. The holes couldn't have been more than a day old. Kristen sat up in a flash, almost kneeing him in the face. She was going to be completely mortified if he'd found something gross down there—it was a private nightmare of hers.
"Oh," she gasped when she got a proper look, "probably just mosquito bites."
"They look like teeth marks," Adam said, studying the edges of the marks and their distance apart, roughly the distance of a pair of canines.
"Are you serious?" Kristen asked with venom in her voice. It took Adam a second to realize she was offended. "Adam, I haven't had sex in three months, I'd know if someone was biting me there!"
"Kristen, I'm sorry, I just—" he said, desperately trying to backtrack. He now fully comprehended the driving impulse behind a man buying diamonds.
"I'm getting a little tired of this," Kristen retorted, scuttling off of the bed. "You never used to be such a manically jealous jerk."
"Manic?" Adam gave up. "Try reasonably doubtful!"
"Y'know, I trust you," she said, "even when you're out at all hours doing God knows what!"
"I'm learning, hunting," Adam explained through gritted teeth. "I'm doing this so I can protect you, because if you hadn't noticed, people keep trying to kill us!"
"I'm sorry I can't be her at the end of the day to pat you on the head for being a good little hero!"
"Nah, you're just shut up all day with your incense and your tea, trying to get tips on how to screw Lucifer!"
Adam regretted those last ten words the moment he spoke them and couldn't blame Kristen when she seized the bedside lamp and lobbed it at his head. He ducked in time to miss it and it crashed into the wall behind him.
"Get out!" Kristen screamed, hot tears in her eyes. "Get out, you prick, get out!"
He obliged immediately and felt Kristen's weak fists beating against his back before the door slammed behind him.
Sam and Dean were sitting at the table, eyes on their food. It was clear from their tense postures that they'd hung on every word of the fight. Wishing he'd had the forethought to grab a shirt, Adam took the empty seat next to Sam, who passed him some toast and a sympathetic look.
"Word of advice," Dean said, eyes intently on the laptop he was pretending to use for research. "If ever there is a time to agree with a chick, it's when she's topless."
Adam said nothing and dryly swallowed some toast, ignoring the angry lump in his throat.
This was Gabriel's chance. He'd been playing nice little cherub ever since that witch blasted him home. Michael, seemingly impressed that Gabriel had even decided to fight, ordered him to be his agent on the ground. Gabriel had gone along like a good little lapdog. Now he saw that the service was no longer required.
At the appointed meeting place in downtown Detroit, Michael appeared, wearing John Winchester's meat suit.
"Nice look, bro," he commented as Michael blew out all the street lights on the block to scare off unsuspecting mortals. "I know you wanted a younger model, but salt-and-pepper's all the rage."
Michael raised an eyebrow and Gabriel considered giving up his undercover shtick right then and there, because even after millennia, the sheer humorlessness of his brothers never ceased to astound him.
"Gabriel," Michael replied in his even, practiced voice. "You've been with humans a long time."
"Have you seen the Spearmint Rhino? Awesome!"
"The prophet has told us Lucifer will come here, to this city, to seek his vessel," Michael continued. "This is as good a place as any to challenge him."
"Mind if I take the south side?" Gabriel offered. "There's some, uh, nuns I wanna check out."
"I have a different task for you," Michael said and Gabriel bristled at this turn of events. His only chance of keeping Earth out of the frying pan was to find Lucifer before Michael did.
"What's the assignment?" Gabriel said airily.
"I need you to track the traitor Castiel," Michael said. "You and he have both spent prolonged time amongst humans. I think you will have an easier time finding him than Balthazar."
"Any particular reason you're giving me the stank job?" Gabriel asked, trying to lay the groundwork for staying on Earth. For all their guile, subterfuge, and omissions, angels were terrible at spotting outright lies. Usually. "I want a front row seat to you pulverizing Lucifer as much as the next guy."
"That's a lie," Michael said simply, and for a split second Gabriel thought the jig was up. "Lucifer treasured you, little brother. I wish to spare you the pain of watching his demise."
"You want to spare me temptation," Gabriel realized and he knew this was the time to cut and run. Without even a feeble attempt to defend his pride, Gabriel nodded his submission. "You got it, boss."
"If you should meet Raphael on your way, don't speak so glibly," Michael warned. "He still distrusts you."
"I thought he was tracking Seers," Gabriel said. If he'd had a heart, it would have been beating very fast right now.
"He only has one left to eliminate," Michael revealed. "She's been well-hidden, so he's been searching her line in Heaven. He'll find her soon enough."
Yup, Gabriel thought, feeling the euphoric release of his true form as he departed the earth, time to cut and run.
Regrese a mí cuando usted se muere de la fiebre amarilla o ha perdido su familia en una inundación. Vaya a un salón de la belleza si quiere quejarse a alguien.
Come back to me when you are dying of the yellow fever or have lost your family in a flood. Go to a beauty salon if you want to complain to someone.
Es supuesto ser un santo.
You're supposed to be a saint
Lo siento. Parece aún en muerte, los sirvientes de Dios deben luchar por encontrar paciencia infinita. ¿Qué problemas usted, mi niña?
I am sorry. It seems even in death, the servants of God must struggle to find infinite patience. What troubles you, my child?
Et signum magnum paruit in caelo mulier amicta sole et luna sub pedibus eius, et in capite eius corona stellarum duodecim. Et in utero habens et clamat parturiens et cruciatur ut pariat. Et visum est aliud signum in caelo et ecce draco magnus rufus habens capita septem et cornua decem et in capitibus suis septem diademata. Et cauda eius trahebat tertiam partem stellarum caeli. Et misit eas in terram et draco stetit ante mulierem quae erat paritura ut cum peperisset filium eius devoraret.
And a great sign appeared in heaven: A woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. And being with child, she cried travailing in birth: and was in pain to be delivered. And there was seen another sign in heaven. And behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns and on his heads seven diadems. And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to be delivered: that, when she should be delivered, he might devour her son.