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vail_kagamiFandom: Supernatural
Beta:
minviendha, who also deserves special thanks for her support!Characters (overall): Dean, Castiel, Sam, plus a number of angels and demons
Rating (overall): NC-17
Warnings (overall): violence, torture, drug use, insanity, rape
Spoilers: Going AU during episode 5.18: Point of No Return. No spoilers for season six.
Words (this chapter): 8868
Summary: A man wakes up in a ruined wasteland, without memories, without a name, without knowing the strange guy who claims he used to be an angel, or that he once had a little brother. All he knows is that the world is dying, everyone is lying to him and that somehow, somewhere, something went terribly wrong. Because someone said Yes when they should have said No, and someone else paid the price.
Note I: The story already has almost 60,000 words. It is, however, still a work in progress and far from being finished. I will post a new chapter every two weeks or so, so I have time to write on and the waits between the chapters won't become too long once I run out of material already finished.
Note II: The idea for this was born long before season six started, so even though I started writing this for NaNoWriMo in November 2010, there is one detail in here that no longer agrees with the canon of the show. It was too essential for the story to change, so I left it.
Note on the title: The title is taken from the novel House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. Among other reasons I chose it thinking of my very first SPN fanfic, I Wait Now for Only the Wind, because that title was also taken from this novel, and because I used some ideas from this long fic for that one, believing I would never write this one anyway - which is also the explanation for the similarities you will find should you happen to have read that first story.
The dust is the first thing he notices when he opens his eyes – the dust and the colour of the sky. Deep, dirty orange stretches over him, streaked with brown and red, like blood in various stages of drying, and it’s impossible to tell if it’s dusk or dawn. Before this sky, the drifting dust is almost invisible, but he can taste it on his tongue, nearly chokes on it when he takes a deep breath. He hears nothing.
There is no pain when he moves. A part of him is surprised that his joints don’t hurt as he slowly climbs to his feet, but that too is just a thought passing through the back of his mind, as distant as the sky. There is no pain but his body feels heavy and slow, as if he hasn’t moved in a long time. He registers it vaguely like the lack of pain as he looks around as he takes in his surroundings.
The dust is everywhere.
He looks around and thinks that he must be the only person in the world. He stands in a plain made only of dust and earth, moved by the wind and nothing else. There is still no sound; even the air as it brushes by is too weak to speak to him.
Eventually he realises that he is cold. Not freezing, but too cold to be comfortable. He is almost glad – the unpleasant sensation is the only thing in his world that reminds him of life.
In the distance he can see silhouettes, large outlines before the sky. In the dusk he can’t make out more, but he thinks they might be buildings, a city. He doesn’t think he’ll find life there, but for lack of another option, he begins to walk.
-
As he walks, he becomes aware of more things. Things like the consistency of the ground (oddly soft, like walking over rotten leaves, but hard in places where dust and earth must be hiding stones or ruins), or the clothes he is wearing (jeans, and a leather jacket over a blue shirt over a grey t-shirt, none of which are as dirty as they ought to be), or the fact that the light doesn’t change. He walks for hours without the sky getting any darker or lighter. Eventually he accepts that what he sees is neither dusk nor dawn, it just is.
The clouds of dust change formation. That is all.
After walking for a long time he becomes aware of the pain in his feet that has started to accompany every step, so he sits down to rest. He finds he is thirsty and doesn’t care. When he has rested enough, he walks on. The silhouette of the city in the distance doesn’t come closer.
When he gets tired, he lies on the ground and watches the dust drift across the sky.
-
The hunger wakes him hours later. He opens his eyes and it feels as if he were waking up from more than just sleep. The cold bites painfully into his bones. His throat is dry and his lips broken and crusted with dirt. He is hungry, and when he finds himself surrounded by the darkness of a starless night he feels both surprise and relief. The world, for some reason, is still turning.
For a moment, when he wandered though the empty, unchanging wasteland without getting anywhere, he wondered if this was hell. Now he knows it isn’t. More, he knows the very thought was ridiculous. He takes a deep breath and tastes the dust on his tongue, the echo of suffering in the emptiness inside him.
The night is short, but the sky never brightens beyond the dull orange of dawn and the temperature doesn’t climb much beyond the chill of night. Moving keeps him warm and if he stays he will die of starvation or thirst, so he walks on, towards the dead city, because it is as good a destination as any.
He doesn’t believe he will find anything when he gets there but shelter, and perhaps food. If he makes it, he might survive. He doesn’t know what for. Perhaps he will find out. Perhaps he is just looking for a better place to die.
By midday he finds a river that has run dry and follows it until he finds rocks where the dust never settled and some water remains. He rests there, quenches his thirst until he can drink no more. With no way of taking some water with him he keeps following the dead river that seems to lead to the dead city, offering water every now and then. The outlines of buildings grow slowly but never gain details.
-
It takes him two days to reach the first ruined buildings. As he thought, there is nothing there for him to find, just rubble and more dust. He spends a night in the ruins but keeps moving, looking for food, almost mindless with hunger. It seems he wants to survive, yet the thought of never finding another living being fills him with a desperation that is almost crippling.
Three days after waking up nowhere at all, he finds traces of others. Footprints, collections of half-broken tools that are unlikely to have fallen just like this when the world died. Eventually what looks like a fireplace, but it’s old and cold and whoever used it has long since moved on.
The buildings offer shelter, however. Worse than the cold and the wind is the dust that gets into everything and never gets out. There is less of it the deeper he moves into the city, though. He follows the traces of human life, not knowing if they really are what he hopes them to be but clinging to the hope. It leads him, finally, to food: a building, perhaps a store, that mostly survived, and cans of food with no expiration date, not good but edible. After three days of eating only dust and dirt they are the best thing he can imagine ever having eaten.
A little girl finds him between the cans later, and it occurs to him that it was no coincidence they were piled up here, that he’s sitting in someone’s storage. Figures. The girl stares at him and asks who he is.
“I have no idea,” he tells her. “Don’t even know my name. What’s yours?”
“Jena,” she tells him, comes closer. “Why don’t you remember?”
“I don’t know. Just woke up like this. You’re the first person I met so far. Are there others?”
She nods. “You know nothing at all?”
“I know I’m hungry.” For days, this was the feeling that defined him. “Sorry I ate your food.” He’s still eating her food; he can’t seem to stop.
Jena only shrugs. “There’s enough. There aren’t many to eat it.”
-
After she filled the bag she carried with cans, the little girl takes him and the food to where the others are. As he follows her through the destroyed streets in the fading, dirty light, he notices that she isn’t so little after all; just thin and dirty, and too trusting for a grown up in a world that looks like this. There is something almost disturbingly innocent about her as she takes the stranger she only met to the place where the rest of humanity is in hiding. She wanders though the ruins without shoes and calls him Mickey.
He grimaces at that. “That’s not my name.” But she only shrugs like she doesn’t care. “It is now. How can you even tell it wasn’t before?”
He doesn’t know; he just knows, the way he knows without looking for it that she avoids the larger streets and doesn’t take the straight route home.
She doesn’t carry a weapon, only the bag of cans.
-
When they reach her home, he finds out just how special Jena is. Special for trusting him. Special for not carrying a weapon. He really shouldn’t be surprised to find a dozen knives, spears, and even a pistol pointed at his face. Actually, he finds he isn’t surprised at all.
“That’s Mickey,” Jena introduces him. “I found him in the store. He was hungry.”
“My name’s not Mickey,” he tells them. They don’t seem to care, and Jena moves on without looking back to take her cans to a largely intact building without ever stopping. He doesn’t see her again for hours, while the others cut his arm with a blade that seems to be special and force him to eat salt and drink the water they hand him. He accepts it gratefully – he’s thirsty and the salt has made it worse. After he emptied the entire bottle, they seem to relax a little more, but while the weapons are lowered, they aren’t put away.
They take him to the house Jena disappeared into. From the outside he sees light fall through the gabs between the wooden planks nailed to the glassless windows and once inside he sees that the rooms are lit by torches. For some reason he expected electricity, but he can’t even remember how he knows what electricity is.
All the tests they put him through on the outside they repeat in front of some people who look like they’re important or have others convinced they are. He bears them patiently, and this time he has a chance to get a better look at the knife that cuts him yet again. It is silver – an object of unexpected value in this crumbled wasteland, and something inside him finds something else the moment Jena speaks from the doorway.
“Oh, come on, guys,” she says, sounding bored. “We walked over three devil’s traps on the way here. How much proof do you need?”
“There’s other evil things but demons out there, Jena,” one of the old men (who perhaps aren’t as old as his perception tries to make them) tells her with a kind of long suffering patience that reminds him of something.
“You’re not going to find out if I’m one of them by testing me only for demon,” he points out, which makes Jena giggle – a strange, explosive sound that doesn’t fit but startles no one.
“You shouldn’t have brought him here,” the old one tells her.
She shrugs, as she does when she doesn’t really care. “I did. What’re you gonna do about it?”
Not much, as it turns out. He is questioned about his identity and his intent and can only tell them he has neither. They don’t trust him, but don’t seem willing to kill him either. Humans, that much he understands, are rare. If they find one, they keep them. In his case they keep him locked up, just in case.
Jena gets bored through his interrogation and leaves again. He tries to do some interrogation of his own, but no one has any answers to his questions but incredulous stares. When a man with a knife and a woman with a longer knife escort him to his room, he tries again. What happened to the city, he wants to know. Are there other groups of survivors around? What is out in the ruins that they fear so much? Who are they anyway?
They just shake their heads at him as if they can’t believe he doesn’t know. Like anyone would react when facing someone who doesn’t get why the sky is blue. Except they sky isn’t blue and he doesn’t know why he thinks it should be.
“Is the sky ever blue during the day?” he asks when they turn to leave him alone, and the woman snorts in response.
“Stop being silly,” she tells him. “The sky hasn’t been blue in at least two hundred years.”
-
The room they locked him in is small, but not uncomfortable. The torches lightening it provide a warmth he hasn’t felt ever since he woke up, and there’s a rug on the floor to sleep on, and a bottle filled with clean water. The closet beside the locked door is empty and the mirror above the rug is cracked but still good enough. He stands before it for a long time, taking in his appearance. It hadn’t occurred to him before he saw it that he didn’t even know what he looked like.
The man staring back at him needs to shave, but he finds that he is obviously quite good looking. Green eyes with long lashes meet his gaze and under his dirty clothes he is well built and tall. After taking off his shirt, he finds a tattoo on his chest that fascinates him, even if he doesn’t know what it means.
“Is the sky blue. That was a good one.”
Jena’s voice comes through the door. He imagines her sitting on the other side, bare feet pulled close to hide under the rim of her dress.
“Good enough to pass it on, it seems,” he notes.
“Billy thought it was pretty funny. But then, he doesn’t really believe the sky ever was blue in the first place.”
“And you do?”
“Of course.”
“How would you know that?”
“How would you?”
“I have no idea. Just seemed right. You?”
“Saw the pictures, of course.” She giggles, but it doesn’t sound like a little girl. It just sounds slightly insane.
He has to admit, he hasn’t really considered the possibility of pictures existing to tell of a less broken world. “Then how come Billy doesn’t believe?”
“Could be fakes. It’s not so much that he doesn’t believe, more that he doesn’t care. ‘T was long ago, you know. Doesn’t really matter, does it?”
He supposes it doesn’t. “You don’t think I made this all up? That I can’t remember anything?”
He can almost see her shrug behind the door. “Who would make up something like that? I guess maybe you were just lucky. I mean, there’s not much here worth remembering.”
“I’d still like to know more. Would you at least tell me? What happened? Where are we? What’s going on?”
She sighs. “’S kinda a boring story. Sure you wanna hear it?”
“How can the end of the world be boring?”
“Oh, the world hasn’t ended. We’re still here.” Again that weird, disconcerting giggle. “It’s just become boring. And empty.”
“Then tell me how. I don’t have any other plans for the evening.” He half expects her to giggle again. Instead he hears the shuffling of her dress as she moves and when she speaks again, her voice sounds even closer to the thin wood of the door.
“Then listen closely, Mickey. I’m not a patient storyteller.”
He doesn’t correct her for the name, for once letting it go by uncommented, surprised and slightly taken aback by the sudden gravity of her voice. He sits on the floor as well, not a two feet from the door, and imagines her kneeling on the other side, her palms and forehead pressed to the wood as she speaks.
“It’s the apocalypse,” she says. “Plain and simple. Angels and demons got fed up with this world and humanity and decided to have a little spring cleaning. You see the result.” He wants to ask, wants to know why the back of his mind seems to be itching, but keeps quiet until she continues. “It started centuries ago, in the year 2010, or so they say. We don’t even know how long ago that was. We have numbers, but they don’t really count. I think we lost a few years since then.”
How do you lose a year, he wants to ask, incredulous, but he doesn’t. How do you lose the sun, the sky?
“The Archangels descended from heaven and the devil walked the world with an army of demons in his wake. Their battles levelled cities, disturbed and summoned spirits and monsters. What remained of the human civilisation didn’t have a lot left to live on.”
“I don’t understand.” It feels wrong to interrupt her; like blasphemy somehow, but he can’t stop himself. “I thought the angels were supposed to protect humanity.”
She laughs at that, sudden and quick. It’s not her usual giggle, inappropriate and slightly insane, but the harsh, bitter laugh of an adult, and for the first time it makes him shiver. “Humanity was collateral damage. It wasn’t even that most of them wanted it gone. This wasn’t ever about humanity. It’s just that no one gives a fuck about you.”
He’s silent after that, swallowing the information and digesting it on his own. He doesn’t know why this feels so wrong.
“No one’s looked at angels as something to be worshipped for ages,” Jena says as if she’s reading his mind. “Something to be feared, yes. And some people still hope for mercy to come to them when this is all over. Me, I very much doubt that.” She laughs again, with more humour this time. “Some even cling to Lucifer and serve his demons willingly, hoping to be spared when they win. A bit silly, really, but souls are the big thing these days. If you want to sell yours, you’ll find a demon to take it for sure, and then you’ll get a place among their ranks, eventually. You know how that works. And the prize you get in return is pretty much never worth it. But they never get it. This is so close to hell already, how can the pit be so much worse, they think. Idiots, right? I wish I could be there to see their faces when they find out what hell really has in store for them. No, you should rather sell your soul to an angel. At least like that you’re guaranteed to go to heaven.” She spits that word out like it’s disgusting, and adds, “Eventually.”
“You can sell your soul to an angel?” The idea seems ridiculous somehow, like this isn’t how it’s supposed to work.
“You can sell your soul to anything that’ll have it. Your body, too, if an angel wants it. And, oh, right.” She pauses, as if she just remembered. “Someone sold the world.”
“The world? Selling your body? What, angels work as heavenly pimps now?”
“Some. Angels need bodies to run around here. Need human suits to destroy humanity, imagine that. I knew some guys once who actually appreciated the irony. Anyway, they need permission to take a body. Which brings us to selling your body. And, obviously, the world.”
“So, some people allowed the angels to take over and wreck havoc on their own people?”
“Some people, yeah. One in particular, if the stories are to be believed.” He heard her yawn, sounding as if she was bored rather than tired. “There you are, sounding all surprised as if you didn’t already know that.”
He nods slowly. “I guess I might have. But it’s like I didn’t know I knew before I heard you say it.”
“Funny. Anything else coming back?”
He listens to the emptiness inside him. “No, nothing.”
“Too bad.” Jena doesn’t sound like she actually cares. He waits for her to say more, but there’s only silence, and when he says her name a minute later he finds that she has already left him.
-
He thinks he dreams that night, but can’t remember when he wakes up in the morning.
Someone brings him a bucket of water to wash himself with and clean clothes. He shaves with the blade they give him, watches the face in the mirror again. Early thirties, he assumes. No notable scars on his face. His hair is dark blond and cut short. None of the men and women he’d seen yesterday had hair that didn’t at least reach their shoulders.
He switches his dirty jeans for soft pants made of plain cloth and his shirts for a shirt of the same fabric, but keeps on his leather jacket when they lead him outside, even though inside the community it isn’t as cold as in the dusty wasteland.
The gloom that passes for daylight doesn’t allow him to see very far, but what he sees of the streets is free of rubble and the buildings seem to be stable and remotely well kept. This is a long standing settlement, he can tell, and it’s much larger than he originally thought. These people have probably lived here for generations.
There aren’t many people around, but those he sees – passing him curious, mistrusting glances as they pass – seem to be going through their usual activities, and only two or three are openly carrying weapons. Their clothes are simple, often old and more or less expertly mended, but they don’t look like the half-barbaric scavengers he expected when he first saw Jena hunting the ruins for food. Unlike her, they are all wearing shoes.
He is brought back to the building he’s been in the day before and they sit him down with the men that are maybe old and maybe not and give him breakfast. They still don’t trust him, but the dogs that sit between them do and that seems to relax them. He wonders if they are special dogs somehow, trained for finding humans-that-aren’t. Wonders if they could smell an angel.
He thanks the men for the breakfast – it seems the polite thing to do – but the one sitting closest to him waves his words away when he mentions how scarce their resources have to be.
“We have enough food and not enough people to eat it. The city had so much, it left plenty even after so many years. And we make our own. Don’t worry about it.”
He can’t help but wonder what kind of food they produce, because he sure as hell hasn’t seen any fields or gardens around here. Before he can wonder too much about what sort of meat exactly he’s eating, he asks about Jena, going deep into the ruins for some cans of compressed whatever.
“That’s just her,” the old man says. In his case he is certain he really is old – ancient in fact. “She plays her games out there. Has her own storages. I guess our food is too boring for her.”
“Isn’t anyone worried about her? I mean, no one’s given me any details, but it seems to me that there’s a lot of ugly stuff out there that could eat her.”
“It’s not like we encourage it. She just goes, and so far she’s always returned.”
“And now she’s brought you along.” The new voice belongs to a woman, possibly even older than ancient, who eyes him sharply. “Perhaps there is a reason for her being like that.”
He stares at her – not because she’s interesting to look at, but because she’s staring at him and that’s kind of irritating. “What, you think I’m some kind of messiah to save you from this mess and get back the sun?”
Her expression doesn’t change. “No. You are a poor, lost boy who doesn’t know anything and would have died out there without her.”
He can’t even argue against that.
-
He gets a tour of the place later. Bill and Minny accompany him again, but this time they speak more and answer a few questions. They have questions of their own: Where he comes from (the wasteland), why he came here (nowhere else to go), what he’s planning to do (no idea yet, but open to suggestions). They ask if he’s planning to stay. (No.) He doesn’t answer that question, looks at the streets and the people instead. They don’t look starving or wild, but most of them have the firm, muscled bodies that tell of a life of physical hardship and in their faces he can see a constant tension. They may not have been reduced to animals by the downfall of civilisation, but they are used to danger and resigned to loss.
He wonders where he’s seen that expression before. In the faces of the people he lived with, he assumes, because he must have lived in a community like this before. It doesn’t bring anything back, though.
“How do you keep this place safe?” he asks. There are too many streets going in and out. Guard are posted, but they can’t watch everything, not in a place this big.
“Protective sigils. Devil’s traps.” Minny shrugs like that’s obvious, like he’s supposed to know what that means, and he does. “Lots and lots of salt and iron.”
“Are all settlements like this? Are there even others?” He doesn’t want to believe that these people are all that remains of humanity.
“Some. Two more in this city that I know of. We do some trading, but usually we keep to ourselves.”
“You should go there,” Bill says. “Maybe someone knows you around there.” Or maybe he would get eaten on the way. He suspects Bill doesn’t really care, as long as he leaves.
Some people here seem almost glad he came, because they are few and more die than are born. This place is dying. Their whole race is dying. But for the same reason, most don’t trust him. He can’t say he blames them.
-
Eventually they let him move around on his own, but he notices the half-hidden stares wherever he goes. They try to pretend they’re not watching his every move and failing rather badly. When he explores a narrow alley he knows he’s being followed, and when the follower doesn’t enter after him he knows it’s a dead end.
Jena is sitting on a stone bench at the back wall, looking as if she’s been waiting for him. She’s chewing on something he can’t identify, swallows and tears the next bit off the long, brownish bar rather inelegantly. “They won’t let you go,” she says conversationally.
His eyes narrow at the blunt statement. “I kinda figured that, with me knowing how to find this place and all.”
“Yeah. Most things out there know anyway, otherwise we wouldn’t need the sigils, but you know. Paranoid and all.” She chews while she’s talking, and somehow he feels oddly relieved to see her eat at all. He might not know much about demons or angels, but as far as he can tell they don’t eat. “You know, Melissa thinks God send me out to find you. It’s cute.”
“Melissa?”
“Our mama. The old lady you met at breakfast. She likes you, because of this God thing. Thinks it’s our job to take you in. She’s like that.”
For the first time he is genuinely surprised. “I didn’t think anyone would be like that.”
“It’s funny, I know. Guess it has something to do with desperation. They need to believe that someone is still on their side, that their souls can be saved, yadda, yadda.” She waves any further speculation in that direction away with a gratuitous gesture of her hand. “Angels aren’t really associated with God anymore. Although some still believe in them, too. Throw themselves right at them and trust that whatever they do is for the best. Idiots. Better go to the demons. At least there you get some immediate results before they come to collect your soul. With God and angels it’s all about faith. Base your life on the hope that perhaps someone will save you, but never get proof.” She stuffed the rest of her bar in her mouth. “Sucks.”
“I take it you don’t believe in God then?”
“Depends on how you define ‘believe’. I have no faith, if that’s what you mean. God’s a dick. Doesn’t give a shit. Moved on and found another project to dedicate his time to. We’re yesterday’s toys.” Jena speaks lightly around the food in her mouth. “You don’t believe either. In anyone.”
He hesitates for a second, listens inside him for any echo of faith, but only finds crippling sadness he doesn’t want to explore. “Guess I don’t.”
“Of course not.” She stuffs her hand in the pocket of her dress and pulls a face when it comes up empty. “What would an angel – or a demon – have to offer you for your soul?”
“I’m keeping my soul, thank you very much.” His eyes narrow. “Why, are you offering?”
She giggles into her fist. “Have nothing to offer. I’m just me.” She doesn’t seem surprised by the question, though. “Wouldn’t want your soul anyway.”
“Well, not sure what it’s worth,” he admits. “You know, with the memory loss and all.”
Her large eyes bore into his. “You really remember nothing, do you?”
“Nothing at all.” Except that’s not quite true. He knows things. Elemental things, like words, places, the purpose of objects. But what he knows doesn’t always go along with what he sees. He knows the sky should be blue but it isn’t. He knows the world should be whole but it isn’t. He remembers cars that drive down the street, but for the reaction he provoked when he mentioned them his mind might as well have made them up.
He’s desperate for answers, but not as much as he feels he should be. The emptiness inside him doesn’t frighten and confuse him. He just accepts it, reluctant to explore beyond the rim.
Perhaps because he knows his memories are not lost. They are still there, inaccessible. Lurking.
Not knowing who he was, what had happened to him, why he is here where everything feels so wrong is slowly driving him crazy, but sneakily so, without him really noticing. For a second he wants to scream and punch the wall in frustration and sudden, nameless fear, then his thoughts slide away and he is glad to turn his back on the sensation. All that remains is the slight frustration of knowing that like this he is going nowhere.
Jena looks at him, her face empty. When she speaks, her voice is calmer and quieter than ever before. “Perhaps you already sold your soul to somebody or something. Perhaps you sold your body, or your memories. Who knows – perhaps one day this’ll all finally be over and when you get wherever you’re headed everything will make sense.”
“If so, I hope it was worth it.”
“It never is.”
“When this’ll finally be over?” he echoes somewhat belatedly. “You keep saying things like that as if it wasn’t already over.”
“Well, it isn’t.” She grins quickly, another person from one moment to the next. “Oh, come on, Mickey! You gotta know this! No? Really? Well, the demons and angels wouldn’t still be around if it wasn’t over, would they? Like I said, this isn’t about humanity. They fight for their own purposes, and before they haven’t gotten what they wanted, this isn’t going to end. When they do, it depends on who wins if the rest of us are going to be wiped out in one go or left to die slowly in our own pace. If any human makes it through the final battle, that is.”
“What are their purposes?”
A shrug. “Depends. The angels want to be rid of humanity because it’s a mess. The demons want to be rid of humanity and get as many as them into hell to strengthen their numbers and have Earth as their own personal playground.
“I thought you said it wasn’t about humanity.”
“It isn’t. When I say the angels and the demons, I mean some angels and demons. Most of them, true, but not the ones in charge. In the end, this is about two angels on an ego trip wanting to fight each other, and that’s what it comes down to, really. Everything else doesn’t matter. Just them and their private little war, and the Earth gets levelled as an afterthought.”
“Two angels? I thought this was between heaven and hell?”
Jena rolls her eyes. “Lucifer’s an angel too, Mickey.”
Ah. Of course. He knew that, he realises, and something clenches and tears inside him. For a moment he feels sick, like he’s going to throw up.
“How long have they been fighting?”
“They haven’t been fighting at all. Just threw their armies at each other to kill time until they can.”
“And why can’t they?”
“You remember me telling you that some people sell their bodies to angels because angels need human bodies to act on this plane?” He nods, somehow knowing his nausea isn’t going to go away anytime soon. “That’s why. Unlike demons, they can’t take just anyone, the body and the original soul have to be compatible with the angel taking over. The more powerful the angel, the fewer potential hosts. In the case of Michael and Lucy, the number of vessels is extremely limited. They can’t have their epic, apocalyptic showdown because one of them hasn’t gotten his vessel to let him in yet.”
“You said they needed permission,” he mumbles. Takes a deep breath and clenches his hands for no reason. “So all you need for all this to be over is some guy saying Yes?”
“Pretty much. The big bang, and everyone will be toast. That little word is all that stands between us and total annihilation.” She licks her fingers clear of the remains of her sticky bar. “About time, if you ask me.”
“Not a big fan of humanity either, I gather,” he notes drily. She grins at him.
“Love humanity. ‘T was nice while it lasted.” Before he can comment on that, she runs down the street and out of sight and he is left in the alley, alone. After taking a deep breath, he walks over to a pile of stones that fell of the back wall, crouches down and vomits between the cracks.
When he is done he sits down on the bench Jena has vacated and looks up to the sky. There is more dust in the air than in the days before, but it is high above him, drifting across the firmament like clouds.
He’s going to leave here, soon. Maybe tonight. Jena is right – they won’t let him go. He wouldn’t let himself go either if he was in their place. But if he was in their place, he would never have let him out of the locked room in the first place. Or shot him the moment he arrived. He is certain of that.
That just appears to be the person he is. He really has no reason to complain about them being careful.
That doesn’t mean he’s going to sit here and wait until he’s won their trust. He still doesn’t know what he’s hoping to find, but he isn’t going to find it here.
-
Getting out isn’t going to be too hard. He has guards, but they pretend not to guard him and will be easy to lose. There are guards on the exits to the small town-within-a-city, but there are too many other places through which he can leave. His main concern is that these people know the place – hell, probably the entire ruined city – and he doesn’t. But it’s vast. He’ll be able to hide and get away.
Of course, if they catch him, they’re going to kill him on principle. He’s pretty sure about that.
Bill comes up to him in the evening, when the dirty orange of the sky turns to brown and red. Offers to show him to his room and he goes willingly. Whatever lock they put on the door, it won’t be a challenge to him. Their protection seems to be mainly about the supernatural beings that wouldn’t be impressed by locks anyway.
“So, Jena told me a little about the war, and Michael and Lucifer and all that,” he says as they walk through the streets. “Sounds epic.”
Bill visibly flinches at his words. “We don’t mention that name. Ever.”
“What name? Lucifer?”
Bill flinches again, which is answer enough.
“Why not? You think he’s going to show up here if you call him three times?”
That gets him a glare of the darkest variety. He’s probably hit the nail on the head. Superstition is such a powerful force.
Although, who knows? Perhaps it is true. Speak of the devil…
Though he can’t imagine what the devil could possibly want here.
“Michael will beat the evil one in the final battle and bring paradise to this Earth. We’ll all be saved then. Even you, if you learn when not to speak.”
He frowns a little at that. “I thought the final battle would toast what’s left of this planet, given they all find a fitting vessel to fight with in the first place.”
Bill stares at him, blankly despite the frown on his face.
“Or not?” he asks, suddenly insecure. “Jena mentioned something like that.”
At that, Bill snorts. “Jena mentions a lot if you let her. It’s just one of her stories. If you want a history teacher, ask someone else. Angels are angels. It’s the demons that steal bodies and souls.”
He doesn’t say anything to that, feeling silly and frustrated. Of course Jena has made things up. Because she is obviously quite crazy. But it felt so right when she told him, like confirming something he already knew. He doesn’t get the same feeling from Bill’s words – they’re just information.
Though perhaps more reliable information. At least with Bill he feels like speaking to a person. Not an overly sympathetic person, but someone real. Someone who feels human and doesn’t seem to read his mind.
“You have sigils to protect you from demons and other things,” he says when they reach the house. “Are there ways to keep angels out as well?”
Bill just snorts like it’s the most ridiculous thought ever. “Why would we want to?”
“Uhm, Lucifer?” he suggests, and it’s worth the glare he receives just to see Bill flinch.
After a moment of silence, his guide admits, “We use sigils to keep out angels. All angels.” Bill sounds like this fact bothers him. A believer, then. In what, he can’t tell, due to everyone apparently telling him some kind of bullshit.
But they keep out angels as well and demons and all other kind of things that aren’t human, which means Jena is human but doesn’t mean she’s normal. A person can be completely human and still have freaky powers like visions of the future and bending spoons and killing demons with their mind…
They let him stay in the same room he’s had the night before. There even are fresh clothes for him, and his old ones are gone. He’s not really surprised about that – even in the state they’re in his jeans are ten times better than what these people are wearing – but he’s somewhat pissed none the less. At least he didn’t give them a chance to steal his jacket.
There’s food, too, and he packs it in a bag he makes out of the thin blanket on the bed, along with the spare clothes and the bottle of water. Sitting in front of the door he waits until everything goes quiet outside and then some more. When he tests the lock, he finds they never even bothered to lock him in.
In a way it makes sense. Why would he want to leave? It’s cold outside, and there’s nowhere to go – and there’s a guard out in the corridor. An armed guard, of course.
A guard who’s totally not going to be a problem.
The guard isn’t even facing him. He’s reading, clearly not expecting any trouble, and looks up startled when the door closes with a loud snap.
The prisoner who pretends not to know that he is a prisoner approaches him openly. “Hey,” he says in greeting. “Can you help me? I was wondering-” He ends his sentence with a fist to the face that would have taken the guard out neatly had the guard not ducked and dodged his blow. Despite his own surprise he finds himself aiming another blow to the man’s neck and this time it works. The guard goes down and the man he should have been guarding stands over him, his heart beating wild with adrenalin and something else.
This could have gone terribly wrong. He has been saved only by instincts he didn’t know he has, because he made the mistake of assuming his opponent was an incompetent idiot. He doesn’t know much about himself, but now learns that he hates it when that happens.
Unfortunately, he doesn’t learn anything from it. Security is so loose here that he is convinced this was the only guard posted for him. He is careful when he sneaks through the house towards the exit, but not careful enough. Later he doesn’t know what annoys him more: that he didn’t expect the other three guards waiting at the only door, or that he never gets the chance to prove that despite not expecting them he would totally have kicked their asses.
As things are, someone kicked their asses before him. That someone is grouching between the three fallen men and grins up at him. In the end he isn’t even surprised.
“Your timing is flawless,” Jena tells him. “I was just done here.”
“I could have done that,” he makes clear.
“No, you couldn’t. Let’s go.” She stands and he sees the blood on her hand as she carelessly wipes it on her dress. He looks at the fallen men again and sees the blood on the floor.
“You killed them.” He doesn’t even sound shocked; this is too absurd to wrap his mind around. Even he only tied up and gagged the guard he took out, and he didn’t know the man. Jena grew up with these people. But she only shrugs.
“Not all of them. We should really go now.” She hurries away, into the darkness of the empty streets, and he has no chance but to follow, knowing that when the bodies are found, there is no doubt who will be accused of the murders. He wonders if that was Jena’s motivation.
“Why did you do that?” he asks breathlessly, when she stops before a wall and he stops a few metres from her, out of reach.
She doesn’t answer, just flashes him a grin and climbs onto a windowsill, onto some metal pipes and then over the wall that blocked her way. He follows, his muscles remembering the necessary movements even if he doesn’t, and finds her standing in another alley. On the ground beneath her is a faintly glowing symbol he recognizes as a devil’s trap. The moment he hits the ground she turns and runs on, leaving the symbol behind.
“Hurry, Mickey,” she calls, giggles, and disappears between ruins. He hesitates, wondering if he should follow her or run as fast as he can in the opposite direction. He does follow her, figuring as close to the heart of the community and the dead bodies she left behind he’s going to be better off with her to throw at their pursuers should they get them, rather than alone in a labyrinth everyone knows but him. He picks up a pipe, however, one end broken and jagged, and holds it tight in his hands.
She’s waiting for him again, at the next junction, and for a while they run silently. Eventually she sits down on the ground as it she just decided that this is the perfect moment for a break. He remains standing in some distance, listens into the quiet of the night.
The sky never gets completely black. It remains a dark grey at any time of night, and he is glad for that, as it lets him make out just enough to move around without running into walls. Star- and moonless as it is, a black sky would mean complete darkness in this powerless corpse of a city, this eternal black-out.
“The walls of the buildings are littered with Enochian symbols,” she says suddenly, casually, as if just picking up a conversation they had before.
He doesn’t take his eyes off her. “I don’t see any symbols.”
“That’s because they’re invisible,” she explains knowingly. “To human eyes.”
“Then why do you know they’re here?”
“Because everyone knows it. I was here when they made new ones. Made a few on my own. That there, for example.” She points at an empty spot of wall and giggles.
“Enochian symbols are meant to keep out angels,” he guesses.
“Knew you’d remember, Mickey.”
“You really creep me out, you know?”
“Counting on it. I like your pipe. You might wanna hang on to it until you find something better.” She gets to her feet and stretches. “Ready to move on? Doesn’t seem like anyone’s headed our way yet, but you shouldn’t stick around here for too long.” She moves on before he can point out to her that she was the one who killed people and turned his harmless little escape into a life-threatening one. But instead of running like before, she walks slowly, humming softly under her breath as if she were completely insane.
“How do you know about all this stuff? How to ward of demons and angels and ghosts and all that? Doesn’t seem like a common thing to know.”
“It is, now. You know it or you’re dead. Most are dead. The rest of us, we have the stories, and the books. You want to survive, you should read the records of Saint Bobby. But I guess you don’t have to, do you?”
“Saint Bobby?” His voice raises a pitch in his disbelief. “Saint Bobby? Seriously?”
She eyes him expectantly, a small smile playing on her lips.
“What an idiotic name for a saint,” he states. Jena raises her eyebrows, grimaces and shrugs with one shoulder as she turns away to concentrate on the way rather than him.
“S’pose so. Well, we can’t choose our saints or angels. Have to take what we’re handed, even if they have silly names.”
“Billy told me about Michael,” he says, since they were back to angels already. Rubs his hands because it’s cold but doesn’t let go of the pipe. “He seems pretty sure that the guy is the best thing that can possibly happen to mankind, and that angels in general are awesome. Except for the obvious exception, of course.”
“Like I said, idiots.” She doesn’t seem to care about being accused of lying.
“Or you making shit up. Human vessels and all that. Knew there was something fishy about that.”
“No, you didn’t. You believed it, because you knew it’s true, and you still do.”
He gives up his safety-distance and grabs her arm, pulls her around to face him. “Who are you?” he asks angrily.
She rolls her eyes. “I’m Jena. Hello. You are Mickey.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Prove it, Mickey.” She laughs, uncomfortably, dangerously loud.
“I don’t know much about myself, but I’m pretty sure my name isn’t Mickey.”
“You’re sure? How can you be sure? How can you be sure of anything, you poor little lost boy?”
He drops his hand, steps back. “It doesn’t feel right,” he realises.
“So? Interesting. Any clue what would be better? Daniel, perhaps? Carl? Adam? Norbert?”
“No,” he hisses, suddenly wishing they would just move on and get away from here so that he can get away from her, even if he has to stab her and leave her corpse between the rubble.
“Larry?” she goes on. “James? Bob?”
“I really don’t think it’s going to work that way.”
“Eric? Albert? Sa-”
“Shut up!” he snaps. “What the hell are you doing here anyway? Why tell me all this if you refuse to be of any actual help? Why are you helping me here? If you want me to get killed, you could have found better ways.”
“Right. Might not want you killed then.” Her eyes are large and innocent in the first faint glimmer of the breaking dawn and he just wants to stab her. “I just want to help you get away from here.”
He grinds his teeth. “Why?”
“Because I want you to be elsewhere,” she says lightly. “Look, over there? That building with the two tops?”
It’s hard to overlook. The outline of a skyscraper in the far distance, climbing the sky in two steps. Still upright in the devastation around, it dominates the skyline.
“Don’t go there,” she tells him. “That’s where they’ll look. It’s kinda hard not to be drawn to it. Go in the opposite direction for about two days, keep your back always to it. You’ll find another place like this, just smaller and more dangerous. Don’t fuck with the people, but if they don’t kill you, you might find answers there. Good luck.”
He realises he’s being send away and suddenly feel unsure. All he has to go by is the word of an unstable girl who’s at best batshit crazy and at worst not human and possibly responsible for the mess he’s in. Right now, she smiles at him. “Go on,” she says. “They’ll get here eventually, and of course I’ll tell them it was you who killed Mark and Harry. Don’t let them catch you.”
He considers killing her, just for the sake of it. The only reason he doesn’t is that he’s sure it won’t work. She’ll probably kill him instead. Or just laugh.
Or laugh, and then cripple him and leave him to die here or be found and executed. She seems like the type.
“You’ll forgive me if I don’t really trust you,” he says, even as he turns his back to the skyscraper.
“Ask about Castiel, when you can,” she suggests. “Some stories about him might actually be useful to you.”
“Oh, freaking fantastic!” he bust out. “And why exactly, with all the bullshit you gave me, didn’t you think of telling me the stories that might really help me?”
“Because I don’t like him. He’s an annoying pain. See you, Mick.” She hops down the broken wall she’s been sitting on and is out of sight in a second. For a moment he considers following her, demanding answers. In the end he just walks, climbs through ruins. When he reaches a clear enough street, he runs until there is no breath left in his lungs.
-
He needs three days to get anywhere. Jena’s description of the way was vague, to say the least, and he spends far more time hiding in the shells of crumbling buildings than he probably has to, holding his breath until he sees a boar or some other animal scuffle by on the outside. Never humans. Never the ones intending to kill him for Jena’s murders.
They probably never even come close, and that’s damn lucky, because the nightmares start the first night after leaving and he’s pretty sure he wakes up screaming. When he comes awake, his heart is beating wildly, his face is wet with tears and sweat and he has no idea what he dreamed about. One time he wakes up and hates himself so much he throws up.
He doesn’t know how to approach this other community when he finds it. ‘Hi, I lost my memory, please tell me about a guy called Cas-something-or-other’ probably isn’t going to go down too well. He’s pretty sure he’s heading for a community of hunters, and hunters have a tendency of shooting before asking, especially in a world like this. They’ll kill him just because they don’t know him. Somehow, he’s sure that telling them Jena sent him isn’t going to be such a brilliant idea either.
He spends a few hours of his wandering wondering – but not too intently – how he knows what a hunter is when no one’s ever mentioned the word to him.
He finds water when his runs out. He might be able to hunt one of the animals living in the ruins if his food ran out as well, but he doesn’t eat much, finds himself in a body well able to handle hunger. He walks, and his feet hurt, and his clothes are too thin for the night except for the leather jacket which is freaking awesome.
On the morning of the third day, he finds another human being – or rather, another human being finds him. He’s in the process of filling up his water bottle in a small creek when instinct makes him turn around and come face to face with another man. The guy is standing so close to him he jumps back in reflex, cursing and soaking one leg of his trousers in the icy water of the creek. The man watches with an expression that is at the same time blank and horribly intense. He feels naked.
He also feels alive. Somehow, this guy sneaked up on him without any sound at all – and damn if that isn’t creepy as hell! – and then he didn’t kill him from behind. The stranger doesn’t even look surprised to see him, just stares at him with eyes that are stunningly blue in the first dirty light of the day, and the words that come out of his mouth aren’t a question.
It’s, “You’re Dean.”
And damn if that doesn’t feel right.
NEXT
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Date: 2011-03-25 11:57 am (UTC)