fic: Ashtaroth - final continuation
fic: Ashtaroth
media: Supernatural
rating: R
Thank you all for being so patient.
Part 4(I)
Part 4(II)
Part4(III)
or go back to where it all started
I have lived long enough - my way of life is fall'n into the sear, the yellow leaf
Shakespeare, Macbeth
Then Sam suddenly lets go.
Tom’s body is flopped on the stone like he’s exhausted, and all in one motion Sam stands up, grabs under Nikki’s arms and gets them both moving. His right arm keeps her tucked in, and she squeezes his shoulder when each step makes her gasp, but there’s only five or six strides before they’re both off the dais and back on the grass.
Something occurs to her then, as he leans to help her plonk down on the lawn, as her hair whips against her face, stings her eyes.
“The book,” she puffs, rearranging her bad leg. “You said the book was - “
“I didn’t need it,” Sam says, and then he unfolds something out of his jacket, a small brown-leather pressing of pale leaves, like tobacco, and he’s pressing it into her hands. “But you will.”
She still doesn’t understand, but a groan from the dais interrupts - when she looks over the body on the marble is pulling itself up, onto its knees. The bronze figures stand on each side like hounds guarding the sanctum, their melted metal features waterfalling up and down, scorching stone and earth beneath their feet.
And looking at Tom now, Nikki thinks the change is visible - she thinks of the conversation (it seems like years ago now) in Jeannie’s living room, about trapping the demon inside its host, and she knows that she’s witnessing a demon stuck in amber. Ashtaroth has nowhere to go now.
“It doesn’t matter…” Tom slurs, raising his voice with effort, enough for them to hear. “You can’t stop it, you’ve got nothing, no weapons this time…” and he makes a choking sound, a hoarse weak laugh, Nikki realizes.
Whatever Sam’s done, it’s not enough, she thinks despairingly.
The Gates of Hell stand open by nearly a foot now, and even with Ashtaroth chained in Tom’s body, there’s nothing on earth that can prevent Hell from spewing out, sizzling over everything, the Cantor Centre as the final epicenter of human destruction, spreading from the gardens to the whole campus, grey ash and red fire and agonizing death unfolding, like the Last Plague from Stanford, to California, to the rest of the world…
Nikki sags weakly, listening to the demon’s gurgling laugh, blinking back tears…until she feels a warm hand on her shoulder. Sam, on one knee again, just in front, smiling -
“Goddamnit, this isn’t funny!” she bursts out, slapping at his chest because doesn’t he get it? Doesn’t he know what’s about to happen?
“Hey, hey…” He holds her wrists gently, slips his hands into hers.
Now he was ruddy,
and withal of a beautiful countenance,
and goodly to look on - 1 Samuel 16:12
The wind strands his hair into his face even as he’s grinning at her, he looks more like himself now. Just Sam, with his face lit and open, like he understands everything, the young man that he was clear and bright and high in his features.
“Nikki, it’s all right. This is the way it’s supposed to work out, and I know you’re gonna be great…”
What is he talking about? She holds his hands, sniffing and feeling her hair lift around her neck, wondering if she missed something way back and now she’s not sure if she’s even on the same page as -
“You can tell them… Tell Jeannie she was right,” he says softly, “that this was the best way. And tell Bobby…oh, it doesn’t matter, he’ll understand…”
“Sam -“ she starts, but then she stops suddenly when he leans over and kisses her softly on the forehead, and then on the cheek, and then on the lips. The warm-rough Sam smell of him filling her face - and she’s suddenly terrified of what comes next, squeezing his hands so hard it must hurt him.
“No,” she says, and her heart is filling up her chest, expanding and expanding until she can’t breathe. “No, no, no - “
“This page,” Sam says, and he folds back the covers of the little notebook in her hand, splays them open, “From the part that begins ‘And I command…’ - and don’t worry about the Latin…here,” he says, and he kisses her again, a softness on his lips that fills her own, spreads like a golden buttery melting feeling into her mouth, down her throat, becomes a part of her being, the sense of all languages sliding and settling inside of her, and suddenly she must speak, must do.
“And I command…” she says, and she’s crying now, hearing the Latin vowels slipping out of her…Quod ego operor…
“Nicolette Amanda Winchester…” Sam says, and he’s smiling, brushing her cheek, standing up, “…you have made me very happy…”
And she wails, but what pushes past her lips is only more words. “…by the power of God Almighty, whose Name is Love…”
Sam gives her one long last lingering glance, then turns away.
“…by the power of His Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and His Spirit, from Whom all worlds are made…”
She doesn’t know how she understands what she’s saying, when the language coming out her mouth is something she’s never studied, something she cannot possibly know, but what she does know is that he’s walking, walking away from her, towards the plinth, his outline wavering in the wind and heat of the Gates…
“…and I command the instruments of the Will of God, that root out the enemy in all its forms, that put to flight the enemy and persecute the wicked by a course of fire…”
There’s a whomp of energy, which she’s familiar with now, and Sam’s body suddenly shimmers, blends, flares - a light so powerful, a heat so intense that she can’t look, must turn her face away, keep her eyes on the book, and she thinks maybe this is what’s making her cry, the fact that she can’t even see his final moment, as she keeps reciting, the words flowing out like liquid…
“…that take vengeance on the wicked, and route the enemy in battle…”
And for a second the Gates fling open, and she can hear the hideous cawing and moaning from within. The sight of it is not something she wants to see, she keeps her face turned and her eyes squeezed shut, although the pull of the Hell-dimension is muted, now it’s barely a tug on her skin, a thin ruffling of the book pages. So she misses the moment when Tom suddenly flies screaming away, in through those terrible Gates, and with him, a great scouring of the dais, the hexmark, the innards, the blood, all swept away.
“…that the world may be purified, and the Will of God made known…”
Then there’s an almighty explosion, a CRUMP of thunder that sounds like its right inside her head, and with it a searing eruption of light that burns her face, and ignites her eyeballs behind her closed lids, so she wonders if she’ll still be seeing after-glow in the coming days. But when she looks up her eyes are unaffected, and she sees the Gates of Hell slam shut with a megaton bang, a sound like a detonation. The bronze figures are smashed back into their rightful place like they’ve been vacuumed back onto the metal, and Hell has disappeared, and Sam…
Sam is gone.
“…and I command all this…” and she stumbles a little, it’s too much, the words can’t come out around her sobs, “…and I command this in thankfulness and love…”
Nikki’s tears are coursing down her face, she’s got the book in one hand and the knife in her pocket, and she’s sitting on the grass, her knee aching. Lights from the Cantor Centre pick out the emptiness around her, around the dais, around Rodin’s massive life-work.
“…and in the fullness of Grace, by the Lord Almighty.”
The sound of her voice is the only sound there is now. Dawn is breaking. Blood dries on her cheek, on her eyebrow, an itching tingling sensation. Her breaths are hitching a little, but her expression is calmed, wrung out, exhausted.
“Amen,” she whispers, and the birdcalls start in the distance.
*
And some there be, which have no memorial
Ecclesiasticus 9
*
Thus we live, forever taking our leave
Rainer Maria Rilke
“Have you filled your thermos?” Jeannie asks. She lifts the little daypack to judge the weight before passing it over.
“Yeah.” Nikki takes the daypack, settles it on the front passenger footwell. It’s heavy with more than the thermos: among other things, the knife with the silver inlay, the compass for true north, and her DSLR all make the pack sag into its anointed spot. She flicks the tail of her braid over one shoulder. “And I’ve got the sunblock. And the lip balm you gave me - thanks.”
Jeannie just shrugs. She reaches out and snags the dark green windbreaker hanging off the corner of the Impala’s open passenger door, hands it to Nikki.
“Put that on. You look cold.”
“I’m not,” Nikki says, but she puts it on anyway. She’s looking away from the car, all the preparations, out at the length of the leafy street, the breeze lifting the strands of bone-white that have escaped her braid. She wraps the front of the windbreaker around herself without zipping it up, like she feels a chill in spite of what she said.
Jeannie’s got that tight-lipped expression which is not disapproval but concern. “You’re too thin, girl.”
Nikki’s mouth kinks. “That’s what Mom says.”
The grin doesn’t reach her eyes, hasn’t for over three months. Spring is gone, and with it, all the birdsong.
It’s been Jeannie’s job to stop a low perpetual sinking, though, and that’s what she does now. She shucks Nikki under the chin, grasps her shoulder firmly. Her eyes are gentle. She can’t tell the girl to stop mourning when she’s barely starting to get to that place her own self.
“You gotta think about that stuff now,” she reminds.
Nikki just swallows and nods. “I know. Maybe Jo will feed me up.”
“From what I understand, Jo can’t cook a tinker’s damn. It’ll be Ceelie doing the cooking.”
Nikki tries another grin, drops her eyes to zip up her windbreaker. “Well then, maybe Ceelie will feed me up.”
“I’m sure she will,” Jeannie says.
The grin on Nikki’s face withers a little. “Next time you see me I’ll be fatter, regardless.”
Nikki busses her lips and looks down, to some inward place. Her hand strays to her belly automatically, presses there, rubbing. Only three people in the whole world know about it, and they’re all women, and none of them is her mother. She knows it’s time to move on, before she starts showing.
It’s not right, that the girl should have it this hard, and Jeannie feels something like a keening inside, and she reaches for Nikki with slender arms. Nikki folds into her embrace, tucks her face in, shakes a little but she’s getting past that now, she’s working on being strong. Jeannie is trying to be strong for her.
“You take care now, sweetheart…” Jeannie holds her tight. They are just two women, older and younger, both in shirts and practical jeans and boots, hugging in the street. Nothing extraordinary about them. Jeannie’s voice drops low all the same. “I’ll be with you in a few months, and it’ll be all right. It’s gonna be okay…”
“Keep saying that…just keep saying that,” Nikki whispers, like repeating it again, over and over, will make it true.
“I will,” Jeannie says. “All day, in my prayers…”
They cling to each other for a moment longer, but then have to release. Nikki is blinking hard. She seems to be saying goodbye all the time, lately.
“Thank you.” Her voice is thick with wanting something different, but this is the best she can do. “Thank you for everything. Tell my mom…actually, don’t tell her anything. It’s all in the note I left anyway.”
Jeannie scuffs her face with a hand, sniffs and draws it all back inside herself. She clears her throat and shuts the passenger door of the Impala with a shove and a bang.
“I put a box of Morton’s in the trunk. And I put some money in your wallet -“ Jeannie shakes her head at Nikki’s expression, “- and no, don’t tell me to take it back because I won’t.”
Nikki tilts her head, sighs and nods. The pictures from the road trip that she sold to National Geographic, through Jeannie’s contact, have set her up some. But she knows she’s not above charity now.
“Okay, then. But honestly, I’m okay for money.”
Jeannie shrugs and smiles. “I know. It’s just something I can do.”
They kiss each other’s cheeks, Nikki’s gummed up a little, swallowing it back. Then she pulls away, has to pull away, walks around to the driver’s side and opens the door.
Jeannie puts her hands in her jeans pockets to stop herself from reaching out. “You keep on with the photos. Send me some, when you have the chance.”
“I will.” Nikki slides into the seat, the familiar smell, tape-deck the only thing to keep her company for the next three thousand miles. She smiles as Jeannie comes around to her side to put a hand on the car roof. “Goodbye, Jeannie. God bless you.”
They clasp hands through the open window.
“And you, Nikki. Godspeed.” Jeannie watches the girl start up, make the engine purr and rev. Then her tongue gets thick in her mouth, and the words come out compulsively. “Il vous regarde, de ci-dessus.”
And Nikki engages the gears and replies in words she still doesn’t know why she understands, but it is the last remnant, the last gift but one, and she clings to it like hope.
“Sono grato per ogni giorno,” she says, and she guns the Impala, and Jeannie’s hand lifts from the car roof to a point above her head as she waves, as Nikki drives away, and the gesture almost looks victorious, for all that it’s farewell.
When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with false love or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crown of stars
W.B. Yeats
Jeannie’s words - “He is watching you, from above. (Fr.)”
Nikki’s reply - “I am grateful for that every day. (Ital.)”
The End
Author’s acknowledgements:
This final chapter has been a long time coming. I first started work on this story in 2008 and the whole Contretemps series in 2006. Everything but the last five pages was written about two years ago, so I'm sorry to have made you wait. It feels great to have finished it, because for a long time there I thought I never would. I want to thank, from the bottom of my heart, all the people who contributed to the writing, and who variously commented, cajoled, inspired, pleaded, harassed, begged, pestered, supported, and generally encouraged me to keep going. I wouldn’t have gotten to the end without you.
Special mentions to: angstslashhope, whereupon, sistabro, cofax7, tripoli8, niz4- for general support…and to onelittlesleepfor inspiration…and to furor_scribiendfor allowing me to borrow heavily from her essay “The Possibilities of Sam Winchester: Of Nephilim and the Role of Azazel” in Some of Us Really Do Watch for the Plot: A Collection of Supernatural Essays…and to anybody I’ve left out, thank you. And thanks to Laura Veirs, for the juice.
I have stolen shamelessly from plays, prose, songs, poetry, the Bible, reference texts, articles, memoirs, the internet, encyclopedias and countless other sources throughout the course of this series, and if I have left anything unattributed, then I sincerely apologize. This is a work of fiction, for which I receive no financial benefit, and any and all errors are my own.
This is my last piece in the Supernatural ‘verse, and possibly my last piece of fanfiction. For those who’ve been with me for so much of the journey - thank you. It’s been quite a ride.
sangga 2012