fic: Ashtaroth
Fic: Ashtaroth
Media: Supernatural
Rating: R
Following on from Parts I, II, III
Glad to finally make it.
“And he dreamed, and beheld a ladder set upon the earth.
And the top of it reached to heaven, and he beheld the angels of God ascending and descending on it."
Genesis 28:12
PART FOUR: BURN A MEMORY
Be sure your sin will find you out.
Numbers 32:23
He’s driving right on the speed limit, because if a cop pulls them over he won’t know if it’s a cop or something else. It’s dark in the cab of the truck. Lights from Tom and Minnie’s car behind - he angles the rearview mirror so the flare isn’t a distraction.
Nikki’s perched forward in the cab as much as she can, one hand bracing on the dash, with the other thumbing the security of the lumpy duffle.
“You need to sit back,” Sam says quietly.
“What?”
“You should sit back, in case I need to brake. If you sit there, you’ll take a header out the windshield.”
“Sorry, sure.”
She’s a little out of focus, he notes. They’ve been driving out of Atherton’s leafy streets, heading for the urban build-up around campus. Nikki’s staring out the windows of the cab like she can see demons popping out from behind every tree and house they pass. She tests the seatbelt buckle for firmness, tugging on the belt across her chest.
“Nikki.” He reaches out with his free hand and squeezes her on the arm to get her attention. When she looks over he smiles at her gently. “You need to relax.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“I’m totally not kidding you. This could take days, we don’t know.” He lets go, lets his elbow and forearm rest on the duffle, the gun lying on top in the circle of his arm. “You can’t be this tense, it’s not sustainable in a long fight. Just…think about something else. Think about your mom -“
“That just makes me fucking anxious,” she mutters.
“- well, think about something else then.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know, whatever makes you feel better. It’s different for everybody.”
“What do you think about?”
He wets his lips, watches the road markings flash, subliminal. “I think about…why I’m doing this. The people it helps. My students. People who don’t know about any of this, normal people -“
“Normal people?”
“Yeah,” he grins. “Sure.” She doesn’t take the bait though, so he continues. “Sometimes I think through the weapons, the preparations I’ve made, get it right in my head -“
“Are you gonna let me have the pistol?” When he glances over she’s looking at him hard, like she did when she first asked him to teach her how to shoot.
He blinks. “I don’t know. It depends.”
“On what?”
“On whether you can chill out a bit. If I give you the gun I have to feel confident that you’re not gonna accidentally shoot someone with it. Like me, for instance.”
That seems to shut her up for a second. When he checks her face again she’s got her eyes closed. She bites on her lip, releases, puffs some of the tension out her mouth, and he goddamn wishes that this wasn’t such a crash course…
He’s not emotionless as the things they hunt. He knows that. He’s human as anybody.
“Sometimes,” he begins, hesitating, “sometimes I think about…this dream I have. I have this dream sometimes, that the whole world is empty. No people at all, no noise. Everything is so quiet. I can walk right up the middle of the street, there’s no traffic. I can hear my feet on the asphalt, and the sound of wind blowing, rushing…”
“No people at all?”
He looks over and sees her expression - there’s a kind of subdued revulsion there
“Nobody,” he replies. He squeezes the steering wheel. “Empty world, empty streets, no people to save…”
“…that sounds kinda creepy.”
He stares out straight ahead.
“I always feel so relieved in that dream,” he says softly.
Before Nikki can answer, his cell chimes. He fishes it out of his jacket. “Yeah?”
Jeannie’s voice, tinny and small. “Sam, you okay?”
“We’re good. What’s happening? Are you -“
“I’m fine, it’s not that kinda call. Look,” she continues, “I’ve been doing some more reading and I found something.”
“Is that Jeannie?” Nikki asks, haunted lines around her eyes.
He glances at her once, then keeps his gaze on the road. “What is it?”
“You know that the Aramaic term for angel is Ben’Elohim, ‘Son of God’, yes?”
He presses the phone closer to his ear. “Yeah, but we knew -“
“Bear with me, okay? So I found a reference for the Watchers, which calls them irin, that’s I-R-I-N. That’s Aramaic too.”
“Sure, okay.”
There’s a pause on the line, then Jeannie’s voice sounds like it’s right there in his head.
“You don’t get it yet, do you? Sam, you said that Paul Selnick’s final words were ‘Blood and fire be nearing’. I think you misheard him. I think he said ‘Blood and fire, Ben’Irin.’ Ben’Irin - Son of the Watcher. Sam -“
The shake in his body comes on so quick he almost puts his foot on the brake. His hand clenches convulsively on the wheel - he sees his knuckles whiten. The exegesis…Oh Sam… Breath sucks out of him for a second, and in that second he’s driving blind.
“Sam -“ Jeannie says tremulously over the phone, “I think he might have been talking about you.”
- one of the seven archangels whose function is to take vengeance on the world of luminaries who have transgressed God’s laws -
- now in fire, we may consider three things -
- listed as one of the seven archangels (Grigori) in the pseudographical Book of Enoch -
- resonates with the fire, symbolically attached to both purification and love -
- the active force which is ‘heat’, not found in fire simply, but exists with a certain sharpness, as being of most penetrating action -
- brings a course of fire which persecutes all the fallen luminaries -
- in some occult traditions considered a seraphim -
- whose function is to take vengeance -
- in all its forms is used to connote a burning fiery state -
- and above Him stood the seraphim, each had six wings: with twain he covered his face, with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he flew -
- thirdly, we consider in fire the quality of clarity or brightness; which signifies that these angels have in themselves an inextinguishable light, and that they also perfectly enlighten others -
"That was Jeannie?"
"Yeah."
"She's not -"
"She's okay."
The motor idles roadside, folding over the early stirrings of birds.
"Are you okay?"
"Just…gimme a minute."
"…Sam -"
He removes his hand over his face to put the truck in gear. "I'm okay."
"Was it - is it important?"
"Yes. No." He pulls the truck away from the curb. "No. It's not important."
His face when he repeats his verses hath its ancient glory,
an Archangel a little damaged.
Lamb
*
Out of Atherton, left at Bear Gulch onto Alameda, through West Menlo to the intersection on Sand Hill Road, take a left at the intersection and drive the north-western edge of the campus, not yet deep into the area -
*
Darkness, which may be felt
Exodus 10:21
Dark, the two big windows on the second floor. Dark and quiet.
"What do you think?"
Sam hikes the duffel higher on his shoulder by the strap, looks at the window. He leans and spits into the gravel near his boot. Examines the windows again with distaste. "I think I can't tell anything from down here."
Tom turns, splays his hand on the glass of the driver's side window. Minnie scoots across, matches her fingers inside the car to the pads of his on the outside. Her worried face glows soundlessly in the gloom of the cab.
Nikki has the truck door open and she's standing on the riser. "We just gonna stand and look at it?"
"Give us a second here," Tom calls back.
Sam sighs. "I don't want anyone sitting on their lonesome down here in the cars. Better we all go."
"This gonna take long?"
"No. That's the nuisance of it."
"Well you can't go up on your own."
"Then better we all go. Come on."
Everyone out, and they move as a motley unit across the pavement, feet crunching and scuffing in the early silence, taking the concrete walk that leads to the front of Sam's apartment block. Hedges in leaf, cacti near the entrance, the seasonal red blooms blackened in the pre-dawn darkness. Twenty feet away an ornate modern lamp-post, the solar-powered bulb illuminating the continuation of the walkway, blueish - there's a red security phone beneath.
They move away from the light, towards the entrance alcove, Sam picking through his keys. Tom shifts his satchel back so he can hold Minnie's hand.
Nikki's glancing around nervously, casting back at Tom. "A lot of effort, for a book."
"It's an important book."
"It'd better be."
She hangs behind, Tom passing her, urging Minnie forward, following Sam as he takes the two low concrete steps in one stride. Sudden glare as an automatic light flicks on in the alcove, and Nikki blinks and turns her head away -
There.
Across the street behind them, standing still, barely inside the dull blue puddle of light, absent features made more absent by the shadow in the high backwash of illumination -
Nikki's breath catches, recognizing the silhouette of Michelle, waiting.
Michelle.
There's no breath left for calling Sam's name, so she moves on automatic, surprised to find no fear, not like she was expecting. She crosses the distance on firmly shaking legs, takes the two steps singly as Sam pushes his key into the door, shoves against Tom to keep him out of the way and grabs for the pistol tucked in the back of Sam's belt, under his jacket.
"What the -"
He's jerking and turning too late as Nikki takes the five strides down onto the path, five sure strides, raising the pistol and releasing the safety in one movement, and then the OH MY GOD SO LOUD THREE TIMES - echoing like thunder's ebb in the quiet suburban street.
"Jesus Christ Nikki are you fucking insane?"
Sam's roaring, expression and movement in maelstrom, his hand already on her arm, but she pulls back sharply, shakes him off like a mongrel dog.
"Michelle - Sam, it's Michelle -" Her backwards glance sees the figure across the street scurrying away from the lamplight. "Goddamnit, she's getting away!"
Sam looks like he wants to slap her. "Have you lost your fucking mind?" No point keeping his voice down now.
"You can't kill a demon with a -" Tom barks in the background, but Nikki is already moving, her face bundled up with frustration.
"Goddamnit!"
She yanks her sleeve out of Sam's grasp again and uses the momentum to keep running, sprinting across the street with legs yawing, holding the pistol high and clear, the open sides of her windbreaker a-flap, cracking with motion. Sam makes two fists and bellows at the ground.
"Goddamnit!" He's squinting, like he's going crazy, turning to Tom and Minnie still near the entrance alcove, tossing Tom the keys in his hand, feet already in action. "Take Minnie upstairs - take my stuff, check it's safe -"
"I'll catch you up," Tom calls, but Sam is shaking his head wildly, one arm thrust out to ward as he beats backwards.
"Just stay there - I'll get her and meet you, just don't move -"
"Sam -" Tom yells, but Sam's turned, going too fast, his long runner's body already loping away too far to hear, in the direction of his niece.
"Shit!" Tom curses loud, then spins and goes back to Minnie, who's plastered herself to the inside corner of the alcove. "Shit, shit, shit…honey, help me with this -"
Passing her his satchel, grabbing for the duffel, Minnie breathing fast, shaking but nodding her head. Tom makes two tries with the keys before he gets the right one, then they can bundle inside together. Their gasping noise, and he takes her elbow up the dim-lit stairs, trying to get them both into Sam's apartment before the neighbours poke their heads out.
"Here - now I just gotta find the door key…"
Minnie takes the bundle of keys he's half-dropping, pulls one out to stand alone from its brothers, passes it back to him. Tom sighs quickly with relief, fits the key and then they're both practically falling inside.
The apartment is grey with shadow. Tom hits the lights for the open-plan living room and kitchen - beige carpet and spare wooden furnishings spring suddenly to life. Minnie takes the few steps she needs to put the satchel on the table before turning.
"It's all right," she says, halting but sure, looking at Tom evenly. "The wards are still holding. I can feel it."
"Well I'm glad you can feel it, I can't feel any goddamn thing except -" Tom's dumping the duffel, creasing up his brow and his mouth, not looking at his wife, taking a moment and then moving to the satchel to undo the buckles. "That girl - shooting into the street, just pure craziness -"
Minnie frowns at him. "What're you doing?"
Tom's hands move efficiently, tucking the silver flask into his jacket pocket, filling the other pocket with cartridges for the sawn-off he's taken out of the satchel. "They're out there, on their own -"
"Tom-"
"Sweetheart, you know it's safe here. I can't let those two go gallivanting around campus with no backup and a demon on their tail."
His wife's face runs a ghastly white, but Tom keeps loading up.
Minnie grabs for his arm. "You can't. Tom, this is a bad idea -"
"Minnie, I know you're -"
"Please. Sam said to stay here, and I think we should just -"
"Minnie." Tom's hand lays itself firmly over hers, settled and certain. "Love, I can't. I can't stay here all safe and tidy, while those two are out there in the thick of it…it's not a thing I can do. You know me -"
"I know you," Minnie echoes colorlessly, a great sigh escaping, biting her lip. She squeezes her eyes shut for one second before looking at him.
"It'll be okay," Tom murmurs soothingly.
She is not soothed, agitation writ fierce on her features. Trying to control it. "This is a bad idea, Tom, a bad thing -"
"I know it," he frowns, "and I'm sorry, but I have to go."
He pulls loose, and her hands spasm in the empty space he occupied. Then she staggers over to the door of Sam's study.
"Wait - Tom -" She disappears into the tiny black room, not bothering with light, and before he's fixed the zip of his jacket she's back, a small book in her hands, thrusting it at him. "Sam needs this. You take - oh god…"
She puts the heel of her hand up to her lips, pressing there. Tom catches her around the shoulders, hugs her in tight.
"Love, love…"
"I can't change it," she groans, crying into his neck. "Oh god - don't leave me -"
"Minnie, I love you," Tom whispers fervently. "I'll be back soon. Hold up tight, sweetheart. And…pray for me."
When he lets her go, to take the door, her face is silver-tracked, shocked and grey.
"I'll pray," she says, but he's already gone.
Farewell! God knows when we shall meet again.
I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins
That almost freezes up the heat of life…
Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
*
* continuing within 24 hours