Fic: Soul Sacrifice (4/8)
Fic: Soul Sacrifice (4/8)
Series: Special Projects
Summary: Dean and Chloe just fought their way free of a mesoamerican cult in Texas. Now the Winchester Family and the Justice League are headed to Mexico City to finish the hunt.
Author: pen37
Beta: Strangevisitor7
Fandoms: Smallville/Supernatural
Characters: Chloe, Sam, Dean, Sarah
Pairing:Chloe/Dean Sam/Sarah
Rating: NC-17 overall. This part is PG-13
This is a part of the Special Projects series. You can find the rest of the series here.
Ch 1, Ch 2, Ch 3, Ch 4, Ch 5, Ch 6, Ch 7, Ch 8
When the combined group of JLA members and hunters arrived in Mexico City, they immediately headed for the Tempolo Major, which was located east of the ten-acre Zócalo, the square that was the heart of the city.
Once there, Sam, Sara and Oliver Queen peeled away from the group to inconspicuously scan for cultists amongst the people who wandered through the flat, open space of the square underneath the giant Mexican flag, shopping, taking photos, listening to music and taking in the colonial buildings that lined the area.
Dean and Bobby got in line to tour the temple itself. They paid a few pesos to get through the turnstiles, and then slipped off of the marked pathways that funneled the throngs of tourists through protected the ancient site When they were out of sight of the raised walkways, they began searching for probable locations that the cultists might use to reenact the festival of Toxcatl.
This left Chloe and Kara to go on a fact-finding mission through the museum.
As they passed a circular altar stone depicting the moon goddess in her dismembered state, Chloe squinted at the image, and then looked at Kara with an inquiring gaze. “I think one of the Clark's fortress stones came from here, just like in Egypt and China. Does any of the writing on these artifacts look familiar?”
Kara shrugged in response. “I guess,” she said. “A word or two here and there. It resembles Kryptonian writing about as much as Latin resembles English.”
“Huh,” Chloe shrugged. “That would explain why Kyla was trying to decipher the glyphs in the Kwachee caves.” Chloe said.
“Most of our people followed the prime directive,” Kara said.
Chloe raised her eyebrow at that. Occasionally, she forgot that most of Kara's earth education had come via pop culture. Clark had obviously steered her away from E.T. and toward more traveler-friendly fare like Star Trek.
Either that, or she was a big fan of Zachery Quinto.
Oblivious, Kara continued. “In cultures where they left a fingerprint, it was probably an exile like Zod.”
“Which explained how the blood sacrifices got started in the first place,” Chloe shivered. “Revere me like a god, and while we're at it, why not institutionalize mass murder?”
“On the other hand, for every Zod, there was a member of the house of El trying to make a difference,” Kara said.
“Succeeding,” Chloe corrected mildly.
“Even the adopted ones, little cousin,” Kara teased.
“Me? I'm just an evolved tree ape,” Chloe said.
“You're a bit more involved than the typical Earth simian,” Kara said.
The two women strolled over to a three dimensional model of the temple depicting the way it looked in the time of Cortez.. Two sets of staircases extended up the western face of the temple. At the summit stood twin structures dedicated to Huizilopochtli and Tlaloc. The model was cut away to show that several, older pyramids nested inside the great temple.
Chloe pointed to one of the older structures. “That's the one that's visible out there.”
“But that's at street level,” Kara said. “According to this, it towered over the city.”
“That's what you get when you build on a lake,” Chloe shrugged. “There isn't any bedrock for support. So over the years, your stone temple sinks into the dirt. The same thing is happening with the Catholic Church up the street from here. ”
“Why would anyone build a city on a lake?” Kara asked.
“Thanks to a sign from the gods,” Chloe shrugged. “It's actually a sound strategy. You can control who has access to the city if you can control the roads that lead into it.”
“Because that worked so well when the Europeans came.”
“Considering that we haven't managed to blow ourselves up yet, I'd say the intergalactic traveler needs to not cast aspersions on the evolved monkeys.”
“Whatever,” Kara rolled her eyes. Then she knelt in front of the model and squinted at it. “Why would the cult come back here?”
“There's a bit of historical significance to this place,” Chloe said. “The last ceremony that the Aztecs tried to conduct here was the festival of Toxcatl.”
“What happened?” Kara asked.
“Depends on who you ask,” Chloe said. “The Spaniards claimed they stopped the ceremony to put an end to human sacrifice. The Nathul say that the Spanish were tempted by all the gold that the celebrants were wearing. Both probably played a factor. Especially when you consider that they didn't just stop the ceremony - they massacred the priests and anyone who tried to stop them.”
“Was that the beginning of the end?” Kara asked.
“It was the start of hostilities,” Chloe nodded. “When the Spanish consolidated their power, they destroyed the temple. A lot of it went into the cathedral on the square. Part of it sank into the dirt. What was left got buried by urban development and forgotten. They found the temple again in in 1978 when they were trying to build a subway.”
“Where do you think they'll try to hold the sacrifice?” Kara asked.
“Dean and Bobby may have a better idea” Chloe said. “There are several layers of the pyramid exposed out there. Whenever they expanded the temple, they just built over the old one to make it bigger. But my guess would be that they'll try to place the ceremony nearest to the outermost layer.”
“I could do an areal reconnaissance.”
“That would totally ruin our element of surprise,” Chloe said. “Trust me, this is a hunt. It's better to follow the lead of the hunters.”
“That what you learned from your husband?” Kara asked.
“I picked up a thing or two after hunting with him and his brother for a while,” Chloe said with a frown. Given that she and Dean were squabbling, she didn't feel like talking about him to Kara.
“I don't get you and him,” the taller blonde shook her head. “Where's the attraction?”
“He looks hot in a suit and a pair of wire frames,” Chloe said.
Kara stopped, and looked at Chloe with wide eyes. “How hot are we talking here?” she asked.
“He could pass for a Nobel Prize winner.”
“Aaron Ashmore hot, not Russell Crowe hot?” Kara asked.
“Well, he definitely exudes geek mystique,” Chloe nodded. “Especially if you ask him about techie stuff. I once got him to talk to me for about an hour and a half about the intricacies of rebuilding a ham radio.”
“Rao,” Kara breathed. “He's quite a catch. Of course, he's no Jimmy Olsen.”
“Well, we can't all be as lucky as you are,” Chloe shrugged.
“Damn skippy,” Kara said. She broke off, and looked at Chloe with speculative eyes. “You know, Lois is planning a big party for the two of you, don't you?”
“Unfortunately, I do.” Chloe said. “It's kind of a peace offering for eloping and not telling her that we got married.” She started to roll her eyes, then through better of it. Kara's tact filter was as underdeveloped as Lois's was. So whatever she said to Clark's cousin would likely get back to Lois in the worst way possible. Instead, she gave the taller blonde a speculative look. “How big are we talking, here?”
Last time I went to visit Kal, she was on the phone with Aunt Martha talking about swans . . . or ice sculptures . . . or was it swan ice sculptures?”
Chloe blanched. “It was supposed to be a simple little get together,” she said quietly.
“Is that what they call them?” Kara shook her head.
# # #
The the Zócalo just outside of the Templo Mejor was packed with street vendors. Their rainbow awnings underneath the enormous Mexican flag decorated the square in rainbow hues. The air was filled with the commingled scents of the wares from dozens of food carts, and the sounds of arguing as tourists and vendors haggled over the price of this curio or that souvenir. Across the ten-acre square, a protest of some kind added to the general noise. As the top of the hour approached, bells from the Cathedral Metropolitana drowned out all other noise in a cacophony of sound.
The corner nearest the temple held a fenced scale model of the ancient Tenochtitlan, including the giant step pyramid and holy district. Sam leaned nonchalantly against the rail and studied the crowded square. His piercing gaze was hidden by his shaggy bangs. He picked up Dean's camera and pretended to take pictures of Sarah while covertly staring through the lens at the passing tourists.
Next to him, Oliver feigned the act of looking through a guide book and comparing the photos inside of it to the architectural features of the nearby cathedral while using the motion to study the queue of worshipers waiting patiently to go inside.
“Kind of ironic, don't you think?” Oliver said.
“What?” Sarah raised an eyebrow in question.
“It says in the guide book that many of the stones that went into building the cathedral were taken from the pyramid.” Ollie smirked. “They changed religions without even really changing houses of worship.”
“Unless you consider that a lot of the old gods became associated with the saints,” Sam shrugged. “Do you think the Virgin Mary would have been as popular here if the people hadn't already been devoted to Quetzalcoatl? The blood sacrifice ended, but the local religion just got repackaged in a Catholic wrapper.”
The billionaire's face turned pensive as he thought over Sam's words. Finally he turned to glance back a the line of churchgoers.
“You won't find a demon there,” Sam said. “Most of them can't bear to stand on consecrated ground.”
“How do you spot a demon?” Sarah asked.
Sam looked at her in surprise. But then Oliver leaned forward to hear better with an expression of curiosity on his face. Sam shook his head as he reminded himself that unlike his family, most of the members of their hunting party were not used to dealing with demons.
He thought back to the time that he and Dean had hunted the demon on the airplane. Back then, they'd never dealt with that kind of problem. Bobby and Pastor Jim Murphy were the only hunters they knew who had experience with demons.
Sam remembered calling Pastor Jim over the problem. He was embarrassed to admit, even to himself, that at the time he hadn't been sure that Bobby would help as they hadn't seen the wily old hunter since he'd threatened to fill Dad's hide with buckshot. Dad just kind of had that effect on people.
Somehow Dad had managed to keep from alienating Pastor Jim the way he did everyone else he worked with. Sam suspected that it was due to the priest's training. At any rate, Pastor Jim had given him a crash course in demons and the suggestion that he Google the words Rituale Romanum.
“The movie ‘The Exorcist’ was pretty close,” Sam said. “Except for the whole head-spinning, pea soup part. To start with, demons posses people. And they hate people. Call them meat suits. When a demon isn't walking around inside a person, they look like black smoke.”
“If it's that easy, then why do the creatures want clones?” Oliver asked.
“It's not that easy. Not really.” Sam said. “Think of a human like a fortress. A demon can't get inside unless there's a weakness to exploit. Some of the weaker demons can't even do that much. Clones don't have a mind. Possessing one would be comparatively easy. Even for a low-ranking demon.”
“What makes you susceptible to getting possessed?” Sarah shivered.
“Strong negative emotions can weaken your natural resistance,” Sam said. “Fear, anger, greed. Anything that brings you down can leave you open.
“Also, anything you do to invite a toe-hold.”
“Like using a spirit board the way the little girl did in the movie?” Sarah asked.
“Mostly because it's not always just spirits that you commune with when you use one of those things,” Sam said.
“So getting back to Sarah's question,” Oliver said. “If demons are walking around in human suits, how do you spot them?”
“It varies,” Sam shrugged, hung the camera around his neck and tucked his hands into his pants pockets. “Most react to holy water, the name of Christ, they can't cross a salt barrier. Some wards will keep them out of placeswhile something like a devils trap will keep them ensnared and ready for an exorcism.”
“Sounds like a lot of trial and error,” Oliver observed.
“At times,” Sam nodded. “A few years ago - a hunter like me could go his whole life without encountering a demon. Now,” He shrugged. “They brought the fight to our doorstep.”
Sarah had been scanning the crowd during Sam's explanation. Suddenly, she stiffened. “Sam. I think I saw one.”
Sam turned, and tried to scan the tourists in the direction she was looking without being obvious about it.
“How could you tell?” He asked.
“Remember that photo of Zachary MacKenzie that Chloe showed us?”
“Yeah?”
“Well it looked just like him.”
Oliver grinned at Sam. “And that would be the other way of telling.”
Sam broke off from scanning the crowd to look at Sarah. “I don't see him.” He said.
“He was exiting the pyramid ruins,” Sarah said.
Sam dipped his head in acknowledgment, and stepped away from the rail. The others followed him to the street at the corner of the square, where the flow of foot traffic ebbed around them.
Sam stood, head and shoulders above the crowd. He turned slowly as he scanned the area. Abruptly, his rigid stance relaxed. He shook his head. “I see him. But he's getting in a taxi.”
“You're sure it's him?” Oliver asked.
“Really pretty sure,” Sam nodded.
“And he's possessed?”
“Dude, he wouldn't be checking out the temple if he wasn't.” Sam set his jaw in a frustrated line. “Let's go find the others.”
Series: Special Projects
Summary: Dean and Chloe just fought their way free of a mesoamerican cult in Texas. Now the Winchester Family and the Justice League are headed to Mexico City to finish the hunt.
Author: pen37
Beta: Strangevisitor7
Fandoms: Smallville/Supernatural
Characters: Chloe, Sam, Dean, Sarah
Pairing:Chloe/Dean Sam/Sarah
Rating: NC-17 overall. This part is PG-13
This is a part of the Special Projects series. You can find the rest of the series here.
Ch 1, Ch 2, Ch 3, Ch 4, Ch 5, Ch 6, Ch 7, Ch 8
When the combined group of JLA members and hunters arrived in Mexico City, they immediately headed for the Tempolo Major, which was located east of the ten-acre Zócalo, the square that was the heart of the city.
Once there, Sam, Sara and Oliver Queen peeled away from the group to inconspicuously scan for cultists amongst the people who wandered through the flat, open space of the square underneath the giant Mexican flag, shopping, taking photos, listening to music and taking in the colonial buildings that lined the area.
Dean and Bobby got in line to tour the temple itself. They paid a few pesos to get through the turnstiles, and then slipped off of the marked pathways that funneled the throngs of tourists through protected the ancient site When they were out of sight of the raised walkways, they began searching for probable locations that the cultists might use to reenact the festival of Toxcatl.
This left Chloe and Kara to go on a fact-finding mission through the museum.
As they passed a circular altar stone depicting the moon goddess in her dismembered state, Chloe squinted at the image, and then looked at Kara with an inquiring gaze. “I think one of the Clark's fortress stones came from here, just like in Egypt and China. Does any of the writing on these artifacts look familiar?”
Kara shrugged in response. “I guess,” she said. “A word or two here and there. It resembles Kryptonian writing about as much as Latin resembles English.”
“Huh,” Chloe shrugged. “That would explain why Kyla was trying to decipher the glyphs in the Kwachee caves.” Chloe said.
“Most of our people followed the prime directive,” Kara said.
Chloe raised her eyebrow at that. Occasionally, she forgot that most of Kara's earth education had come via pop culture. Clark had obviously steered her away from E.T. and toward more traveler-friendly fare like Star Trek.
Either that, or she was a big fan of Zachery Quinto.
Oblivious, Kara continued. “In cultures where they left a fingerprint, it was probably an exile like Zod.”
“Which explained how the blood sacrifices got started in the first place,” Chloe shivered. “Revere me like a god, and while we're at it, why not institutionalize mass murder?”
“On the other hand, for every Zod, there was a member of the house of El trying to make a difference,” Kara said.
“Succeeding,” Chloe corrected mildly.
“Even the adopted ones, little cousin,” Kara teased.
“Me? I'm just an evolved tree ape,” Chloe said.
“You're a bit more involved than the typical Earth simian,” Kara said.
The two women strolled over to a three dimensional model of the temple depicting the way it looked in the time of Cortez.. Two sets of staircases extended up the western face of the temple. At the summit stood twin structures dedicated to Huizilopochtli and Tlaloc. The model was cut away to show that several, older pyramids nested inside the great temple.
Chloe pointed to one of the older structures. “That's the one that's visible out there.”
“But that's at street level,” Kara said. “According to this, it towered over the city.”
“That's what you get when you build on a lake,” Chloe shrugged. “There isn't any bedrock for support. So over the years, your stone temple sinks into the dirt. The same thing is happening with the Catholic Church up the street from here. ”
“Why would anyone build a city on a lake?” Kara asked.
“Thanks to a sign from the gods,” Chloe shrugged. “It's actually a sound strategy. You can control who has access to the city if you can control the roads that lead into it.”
“Because that worked so well when the Europeans came.”
“Considering that we haven't managed to blow ourselves up yet, I'd say the intergalactic traveler needs to not cast aspersions on the evolved monkeys.”
“Whatever,” Kara rolled her eyes. Then she knelt in front of the model and squinted at it. “Why would the cult come back here?”
“There's a bit of historical significance to this place,” Chloe said. “The last ceremony that the Aztecs tried to conduct here was the festival of Toxcatl.”
“What happened?” Kara asked.
“Depends on who you ask,” Chloe said. “The Spaniards claimed they stopped the ceremony to put an end to human sacrifice. The Nathul say that the Spanish were tempted by all the gold that the celebrants were wearing. Both probably played a factor. Especially when you consider that they didn't just stop the ceremony - they massacred the priests and anyone who tried to stop them.”
“Was that the beginning of the end?” Kara asked.
“It was the start of hostilities,” Chloe nodded. “When the Spanish consolidated their power, they destroyed the temple. A lot of it went into the cathedral on the square. Part of it sank into the dirt. What was left got buried by urban development and forgotten. They found the temple again in in 1978 when they were trying to build a subway.”
“Where do you think they'll try to hold the sacrifice?” Kara asked.
“Dean and Bobby may have a better idea” Chloe said. “There are several layers of the pyramid exposed out there. Whenever they expanded the temple, they just built over the old one to make it bigger. But my guess would be that they'll try to place the ceremony nearest to the outermost layer.”
“I could do an areal reconnaissance.”
“That would totally ruin our element of surprise,” Chloe said. “Trust me, this is a hunt. It's better to follow the lead of the hunters.”
“That what you learned from your husband?” Kara asked.
“I picked up a thing or two after hunting with him and his brother for a while,” Chloe said with a frown. Given that she and Dean were squabbling, she didn't feel like talking about him to Kara.
“I don't get you and him,” the taller blonde shook her head. “Where's the attraction?”
“He looks hot in a suit and a pair of wire frames,” Chloe said.
Kara stopped, and looked at Chloe with wide eyes. “How hot are we talking here?” she asked.
“He could pass for a Nobel Prize winner.”
“Aaron Ashmore hot, not Russell Crowe hot?” Kara asked.
“Well, he definitely exudes geek mystique,” Chloe nodded. “Especially if you ask him about techie stuff. I once got him to talk to me for about an hour and a half about the intricacies of rebuilding a ham radio.”
“Rao,” Kara breathed. “He's quite a catch. Of course, he's no Jimmy Olsen.”
“Well, we can't all be as lucky as you are,” Chloe shrugged.
“Damn skippy,” Kara said. She broke off, and looked at Chloe with speculative eyes. “You know, Lois is planning a big party for the two of you, don't you?”
“Unfortunately, I do.” Chloe said. “It's kind of a peace offering for eloping and not telling her that we got married.” She started to roll her eyes, then through better of it. Kara's tact filter was as underdeveloped as Lois's was. So whatever she said to Clark's cousin would likely get back to Lois in the worst way possible. Instead, she gave the taller blonde a speculative look. “How big are we talking, here?”
Last time I went to visit Kal, she was on the phone with Aunt Martha talking about swans . . . or ice sculptures . . . or was it swan ice sculptures?”
Chloe blanched. “It was supposed to be a simple little get together,” she said quietly.
“Is that what they call them?” Kara shook her head.
# # #
The the Zócalo just outside of the Templo Mejor was packed with street vendors. Their rainbow awnings underneath the enormous Mexican flag decorated the square in rainbow hues. The air was filled with the commingled scents of the wares from dozens of food carts, and the sounds of arguing as tourists and vendors haggled over the price of this curio or that souvenir. Across the ten-acre square, a protest of some kind added to the general noise. As the top of the hour approached, bells from the Cathedral Metropolitana drowned out all other noise in a cacophony of sound.
The corner nearest the temple held a fenced scale model of the ancient Tenochtitlan, including the giant step pyramid and holy district. Sam leaned nonchalantly against the rail and studied the crowded square. His piercing gaze was hidden by his shaggy bangs. He picked up Dean's camera and pretended to take pictures of Sarah while covertly staring through the lens at the passing tourists.
Next to him, Oliver feigned the act of looking through a guide book and comparing the photos inside of it to the architectural features of the nearby cathedral while using the motion to study the queue of worshipers waiting patiently to go inside.
“Kind of ironic, don't you think?” Oliver said.
“What?” Sarah raised an eyebrow in question.
“It says in the guide book that many of the stones that went into building the cathedral were taken from the pyramid.” Ollie smirked. “They changed religions without even really changing houses of worship.”
“Unless you consider that a lot of the old gods became associated with the saints,” Sam shrugged. “Do you think the Virgin Mary would have been as popular here if the people hadn't already been devoted to Quetzalcoatl? The blood sacrifice ended, but the local religion just got repackaged in a Catholic wrapper.”
The billionaire's face turned pensive as he thought over Sam's words. Finally he turned to glance back a the line of churchgoers.
“You won't find a demon there,” Sam said. “Most of them can't bear to stand on consecrated ground.”
“How do you spot a demon?” Sarah asked.
Sam looked at her in surprise. But then Oliver leaned forward to hear better with an expression of curiosity on his face. Sam shook his head as he reminded himself that unlike his family, most of the members of their hunting party were not used to dealing with demons.
He thought back to the time that he and Dean had hunted the demon on the airplane. Back then, they'd never dealt with that kind of problem. Bobby and Pastor Jim Murphy were the only hunters they knew who had experience with demons.
Sam remembered calling Pastor Jim over the problem. He was embarrassed to admit, even to himself, that at the time he hadn't been sure that Bobby would help as they hadn't seen the wily old hunter since he'd threatened to fill Dad's hide with buckshot. Dad just kind of had that effect on people.
Somehow Dad had managed to keep from alienating Pastor Jim the way he did everyone else he worked with. Sam suspected that it was due to the priest's training. At any rate, Pastor Jim had given him a crash course in demons and the suggestion that he Google the words Rituale Romanum.
“The movie ‘The Exorcist’ was pretty close,” Sam said. “Except for the whole head-spinning, pea soup part. To start with, demons posses people. And they hate people. Call them meat suits. When a demon isn't walking around inside a person, they look like black smoke.”
“If it's that easy, then why do the creatures want clones?” Oliver asked.
“It's not that easy. Not really.” Sam said. “Think of a human like a fortress. A demon can't get inside unless there's a weakness to exploit. Some of the weaker demons can't even do that much. Clones don't have a mind. Possessing one would be comparatively easy. Even for a low-ranking demon.”
“What makes you susceptible to getting possessed?” Sarah shivered.
“Strong negative emotions can weaken your natural resistance,” Sam said. “Fear, anger, greed. Anything that brings you down can leave you open.
“Also, anything you do to invite a toe-hold.”
“Like using a spirit board the way the little girl did in the movie?” Sarah asked.
“Mostly because it's not always just spirits that you commune with when you use one of those things,” Sam said.
“So getting back to Sarah's question,” Oliver said. “If demons are walking around in human suits, how do you spot them?”
“It varies,” Sam shrugged, hung the camera around his neck and tucked his hands into his pants pockets. “Most react to holy water, the name of Christ, they can't cross a salt barrier. Some wards will keep them out of placeswhile something like a devils trap will keep them ensnared and ready for an exorcism.”
“Sounds like a lot of trial and error,” Oliver observed.
“At times,” Sam nodded. “A few years ago - a hunter like me could go his whole life without encountering a demon. Now,” He shrugged. “They brought the fight to our doorstep.”
Sarah had been scanning the crowd during Sam's explanation. Suddenly, she stiffened. “Sam. I think I saw one.”
Sam turned, and tried to scan the tourists in the direction she was looking without being obvious about it.
“How could you tell?” He asked.
“Remember that photo of Zachary MacKenzie that Chloe showed us?”
“Yeah?”
“Well it looked just like him.”
Oliver grinned at Sam. “And that would be the other way of telling.”
Sam broke off from scanning the crowd to look at Sarah. “I don't see him.” He said.
“He was exiting the pyramid ruins,” Sarah said.
Sam dipped his head in acknowledgment, and stepped away from the rail. The others followed him to the street at the corner of the square, where the flow of foot traffic ebbed around them.
Sam stood, head and shoulders above the crowd. He turned slowly as he scanned the area. Abruptly, his rigid stance relaxed. He shook his head. “I see him. But he's getting in a taxi.”
“You're sure it's him?” Oliver asked.
“Really pretty sure,” Sam nodded.
“And he's possessed?”
“Dude, he wouldn't be checking out the temple if he wasn't.” Sam set his jaw in a frustrated line. “Let's go find the others.”