Leave You Hooked - for aaronlisa
Title: Leave You Hooked
Author: lilacsigil
Recipient: aaronlisa
Rating: R
Warnings: Occasional mentions of past child sexual abuse, child harm and eating disorders. Frequent mentions of self-harm.
Pairing: Bela/Ruby
Summary: In death, as in life, Bela makes deals.
Notes: Title from "Ghost" by Depeche Mode. Thanks to st_aurafina for betaing.
Bela
Bela could feel the hooks in her body pulling her back to Hell, dragging her screaming through the people and the street and the earth, faster and faster, her grasping fingers bloody, until she fell. It wasn't a dream, exactly, because she didn't sleep anymore, but in the waiting times her mind wandered and her memories did the rest. She didn't know if this is how it was for other crossroads demons, or if they even dwelt in the same in-between place. She knew very little about this new existence, so far - demons were hardly forthcoming with their secrets - and she was going to have to learn as fast as she could.
She had seen Dean Winchester in Hell more than once over the years, so she knew his deal had also come due. Thinking about how little time had really passed down there - days, not years - made her cringe with shame and confusion. She had died in late Spring, and, when she returned, it was barely Summer. The crossroads above her smelled of hot concrete and gasoline, and her memories smelled of molten iron. Fortunately, her dreaming time - a blood-soaked memory of broken fingers and terror and humiliation - was minimal, because her time between bodies was short. She'd made sure of that on her very first assignment.
***
Joann
"So, you can grant me my heart's desire? For real?" Shawn Michaels was a tall, gangly man, his speech slurred with alcohol. His fingers were scraped where he'd shoved his photo under the broken concrete slab in the middle of the crossroads. He kept pressing the injured fingers against his lower lip.
"Of course I can. For ten years, just as you heard." Bela had leapt into the first woman she had found - for this summoner, she had to be a woman. She had reached out at random, desperate for embodiment, but she felt good here, strong. The crossroads demons she'd encountered through her life seemed to appear from nowhere, and yet Bela had to walk down three flights of stairs. She could feel where she had to go, but not yet how to get there. The body's name was Joann, a heavily built, dark-skinned woman with dyed red hair. She had been asleep alone, dreaming of her girlfriend who was working late at some bar. Joann still fought Bela as hard as could, kicking and biting somewhere deep in her own mind, but Bela was astonished how easy the possession had been. No wonder demons laughed at all the humans' desperate attempts to turn them aside.
Shawn lurched out of the crossroads and onto the sidewalk, where Bela stood, barefoot in Joann's long t-shirt. "Okay, okay. I want Yolanda Gibbs to love me. I mean, be crazy for me."
Bela shifted her weight to the other hip and smirked at him. "Just this Yolanda woman? That's all? For ten years?" She could feel the bounds of the crossroads like physical walls around her, but the tie between her and the man who had called her seemed stronger yet, like a chain between the two of them. And yet he could not see the danger he was in, and she could not leave the crossroads. His freedom was greater than hers, her perception greater than his, even through Joann's human eyes.
The realisation trailed slowly across Shawn's stupid face, ending in a calculating grin. "Okay, okay, how about Yolanda and every other fine bitch in this neighbourhood?"
"That's more like it." Bela arranged her face into a smile, settling into the sinews and muscles because, for now, she owned them. "Let's seal the deal - and don't forget to share your fortune around. You're a generous guy." She thought for a moment about Yolanda and what Bela was sending her way, but she'd just have to look after herself. Everyone had to look after themselves first.
Shawn preened, and leaned in for a boozy kiss. Bela tried to swing him around to put him on the inside of the crossroads and her outside, free. The moment they kissed, though, she was dragged from the body and for a long, dreadful moment she thought one of those hooks was in her again. She scrabbled for purchase on the bright beacon of Joann's body, but it was too late - she fell, not into Hell, but back into the gasoline-scented miasma of the in-between, her liminal crossroads. Bela stopped the scream before it ever formed and relaxed. Neither living nor in Hell, Bela could not say she was unhappy.
***
Inez
Shawn Michaels may have been an idiot who was now in jail for most of the ten years of his contract - Yolanda Gibbs was only fourteen, and her mother a cop - but he was a helpfully loud-mouthed idiot. He'd spread the word about the crossroads and the cause of his sudden popularity far and wide. People - mostly men - came to the crossroads at midnight, shoving their little hoodoo bags under the cracked concrete of the intersection, and Bela sauntered from one of the nearby apartments in someone's body to greet them. Only a few homes here had protection - some of the Puerto Rican and Dominican households, an elderly Catholic woman - and there was no shortage of attractive women and men open for the taking. There were others that were all but invisible to her - Buddhists and Hindus, Jews and Muslims, all walking safely by as if on a parallel plane to Bela. It made her angry, sometimes, that she hadn't thought to run to another religion, but the first not-entirely-convinced atheist that she possessed turned her from that particular form of self-flagellation. She would never have been able to forget or disbelieve the deal she had made; she could not have freed herself. Besides, she'd spoken to the dead often enough to know that everyone, no matter their religion, had their own rules and deals and punishments.
Inez had fake boobs and dark hair down to her waist, and she tried to form half-remembered prayers as Bela streamed into her body. Bela was very much unsurprised that, so far, everyone who had summoned her was a man. She was even less surprised that every body that they found attractive - the demon in a body that the summoner desired seemed to be part of the enchantment - was that of a young woman. It had briefly made her angry that her choices of body were limited by the summoner's desires, but, then again, these women were also those who Bela herself found attractive. Bela took a few moments to dress and put on some sexy shoes, and focused on the tie between her and the man who called her. The call from the man who had summoned her was so strong that Bela could follow it even through Inez's dull human senses. She grabbed hold of the link between them and hauled herself down it, leaping straight from Inez's bedroom through the dreaming space to the crossroads. The sudden relocation wasn't even a shock - except to Inez, screaming in Bela's head - because Bela could feel nowhere else she could go, no space in this world for her except closer to her summoner. The man who waited at the crossroads, Nate Marshall, gasped when she appeared, rising from the ground.
"You called?" Bela took her time walking over to him, her heels clicking sharply on the concrete.
"I…it really worked?" Nate's shock would have played better with Bela if he hadn't addressed his comments directly to her cleavage. "Listen, you've got to help me - my daughter, she's in hospital. She got hit by a car a week ago, and they say they're going to take her off life support tomorrow." He fumbled in his pocket for his wallet and waved a photo in front of Bela. "Her name is Michaela - she's only four."
Bela smiled, Inez's face settling into that expression easily, and laid a hand on Nate's arm. "Let's talk." She knew that as soon as the deal was made or abandoned, she would be pulled straight out of the body she held so easily now, but this little bargaining space was one of great freedom, and she'd been extending it further every time.
Nate was happy to babble on about his precious child and let Inez's long hair brush his bare arm, so Bela walked them right out of the crossroads and into the gaudy, noisy atmosphere of a bar down the street. She shivered as she crossed the threshold - this was only the second time she had made it out - but Nate noticed nothing, wrapped up in his own drama. Bela's heart lifted at the sight of other people, which made her immediately angry. She didn't know why she was so needful of company and life - she had treasured her solitude when she lived, and spent that endless time in Hell trying to crawl away from her tormentors and fellow victims alike, desperate for silence. Now she clung to people, their brightness and life, as distractions from the dark. It made her angry to feel so dependent on something she knew to be so transient, but she couldn't let go.
"Is it true?" Nate paused as they entered the bar. "About my soul, I mean? And Hell? I mean, I never thought…not literally…"
Bela glared at him and he recoiled, but she didn't let go of his forearm. "You have a choice to make, don't you? Either it's real, just as you were taught, and you can save your daughter where all those prayers failed; or it's not real, and none of this matters."
Nate dragged a hand across his sweaty forehead. "Let me get a drink."
Bela released him, her lip curling both at his hesitation and at her own moment of expectation that it might be any different. Of course he wanted to save his daughter, be her hero, keep her close. She was his darling possession and prize; like all humans, his very existence was a string of little acts of defiance of nature, overwhelming pride and possessiveness. Bela didn't know what that made her, a bodiless creature of fear and obedience. A puppet, maybe, or a dog. She drove Inez's fingernail into the palm of her hand, an old habit from her human body, drawing a bead of blood. The pain settled her back into the body with a hard tug, another hook. Bela forced an exhalation and pressed her lips together. She had thought that pain might throw her out of a physical body, away from her anger and servitude, but maybe it reinforced her grip instead. She dug a sharp red nail into her other palm and followed the tiny flush of pain through Inez's body, down every last nerve, tying Inez's physical self ever more closely to Bela.
"Looks like you've already found some freedom in the rules. And better here than there." A woman whispered in her ear, breath tinged with the faint scent of cherry. Bela turned, long black hair whipping around her but the only people there were a group of laughing men. They were paying attention to each other and the TV, not her.
A young, dark-haired woman in a leather jacket was sitting in a corner booth, applying gloss to her full lips. She caught Bela's gaze and smirked back at her, then pushed her hair back from her face. Bela blinked and something about the woman flickered, an overlaid ghostly image like a double-exposed photograph. Bela couldn't make out the shape hanging over the woman, lying over her body and limbs as if she was draped in fog. She pushed through the crowd anyway, heading for the corner booth.
Nate stepped in front of her and grabbed both her arms. "I'll do it. I have to do it."
For all that she tried to push him away, her demonic strength tied her to him. Instead of escaping, she pulled him towards her, like something in a nightmare that only got closer the faster she ran. She managed one desperate glance past him but the woman was already gone. Bela tried to go limp, to vanish from her own body as she had done so many times as a child, but all she achieved was to make Inez stumble and go limp, and Nate scooped her into an embrace.
"Don't go! Don't go! You have to save my daughter!"
Bela suddenly realised that she wasn't breathing, and that cleared her head - this wasn't her body. She would be free of it soon enough. She sunk Inez's teeth into her bottom lip, finding her strength again, put her feet on the ground, making Inez's face smile, enticing. "Come on. Let's seal the deal, baby."
She led him out, noting how many people had given her a sideways glance, their opportunistic human brains clicking together pieces of gossip and folklore. Bela brought Nate back to the crossroads, Inez's salty blood fresh in her mouth.
"Now what?" Nate asked, suddenly scared again, but he didn't pull away when Bela slung Inez's arms around his neck.
"Kiss me."
Nate bent down and gave his soul away; Bela leapt into limbo again, the scent of gasoline her air and the roughness of crumbled concrete her familiar bed.
***
Emma
"My name's Nikita Hobbes. I need to be a model." The skinny teenage girl stared at Bella with shadowed eyes in a brightly made-up face, the expertly-applied colours failing to disguise her hollow eyes and cheeks. "Are you a model? You look hot."
Bela looked down at the skinny body she inhabited, which nonetheless had to be a good twenty pounds heavier than bony Nikita. Emma was an architecture student, not a model, but Bela smiled at Nikita with her pretty face anyway, everything that Nikita wanted. "No. I'm not a model. I'm here to help you."
Nikita held out her hand. "You're my last hope. Please. I'll do anything."
Bela didn't take her hand - Nikita withdrew it quickly - but looked at her closely. "You don't have to do anything, Nikita. You'll get ten years, and all it costs is your soul."
"That's okay." Her face twisted. "It's not like a soul does me any good in this useless body. You know, I read up on all the model diets, and I follow them better than the models even, but I can't get there, I can't get skinny enough. I'm almost tall enough. I don't need much help."
Bela composed Emma's face into a kind expression as if she was listening closely, while she scratched at the inside of her arm, leaving long streaks of blood and torn skin. She hated this, their human helplessness and attempts to chart their own fate, if only because it reminded her so much of herself. Nikita wasn't even arrogant like so many of them, just desperate for something that would never satisfy the holes in her soul. Bela knew those holes, left by the hooks of desire and powerlessness, but there were worse things. Worse hooks. Maybe Nikita should become a demon herself and just possess a damn model - her body was never going to satisfy her.
Nikita was explaining in very specific detail about the subtle facial changes she would require to be the perfect model when Bela caught a familiar double-image out of the corner of her eye. It was the woman in the leather jacket again, sauntering into Bela's crossroads with her head high. It was a hot night, but she looked entirely comfortable in her jeans, boots and jacket, the misty shape that lay over her flickering in and out of Bela's vision.
"Stay here, Nikita," Bela snapped, and ran over to the woman, kicking Emma's stupid flip flops aside and running with pristine feet across the rough concrete and broken glass of the road. The dark-haired woman smiled at her with those glossy lips, her white teeth flashing in something that looked like delight.
"I thought it was you!" the woman laughed. "Bela, isn't it? You got out so fast that I didn't think I'd see you again."
"I'm not going back! Who are you?" Bela felt Emma tear at her from inside, seizing Bela's moment of sickening fear as an opportunity. Bela squashed her back down and glared at the smiling woman.
"Call me Ruby. We have a common enemy. She sent us both there."
Bela struggled for control for a moment, horrified at her own uncontrolled terror, but Ruby grabbed her wrist and pulled her close. She kissed her hard, their teeth clashing, and pinched the skin between Emma's thumb and forefinger at the same time. Bela crashed back into Emma's body in the flood of sensation, and kissed Ruby back, tasting the slick of her cherry lip gloss.
Ruby broke the kiss and gasped for air, though Bela knew she didn't need to breathe. "Be in the world. Be in the body. Keep control."
Bela reached for her again, her lips and hand burning, when she heard a shout from behind her.
Nikita stood in the middle of the crossroads, screaming, her careful make-up ruined by her tears of rage. "You don't care! You don't even care!" A car blared its horn at her and she turned and fled on her skeletal legs. The deal was broken and Bela couldn't hold the body against the terrible pull in her chest. Too startled for a clean disappearance, this time she flew from Emma's body in a column of dirty smoke. At least she had a moment to see Ruby smile before she was dragged under again, and that was what she took to her uneasy dreams.
***
Joann
Bela knew it was evening, not midnight. At the times she was summoned, she was yanked up and into a body. She had the choice of which body, from a limited pool of options, but that was the limit of her control. . This time, though, she could feel a tiny pull at her periphery, like gently tugging at an earring. She let herself slide along it, riding lightly, and was surprised to find herself landing in the body of Joann, the first woman she had possessed. It was even easier this time, even though Joann was awake, as if Bela had left a gap in the woman's soul into which she could slot perfectly. This time, Joann was crossing the road, wearing a tank top, a long skirt and sneakers; even as Bela invisibly sank into her, she barely stumbled. Bela swung her long, fleshy arms as she stepped from the road to the sidewalk and felt the concrete hard and warm through the thin soles of her fake Converse. She concentrated on that physical reality, just as Ruby had told her, but she could feel Joann fighting her. It was a lot harder to push Joann down now than it had been when Bela had worn the same body during a deal. When Bela stepped around the corner, past the convenience store and away from the crossroads, she almost lost the body entirely - Joann pushed at her so hard that Bela felt herself float free for a moment. The body staggered at the sudden lack of control, though, and the feeling of Joann's hand scraping against the rough brick wall pulled Bela right back into the body.
"Don't let that one go!" Ruby called. She was sitting on a bright red bench by a bus stop, just a few feet away. "I like the look of her."
Bela froze for a moment, the fading pain from Joann's hand taking her sense of Joann's body with it, and Joann kicked at her again. Bela was ready for her, though, and bit the soft skin on the inside of her wrist. Joann recoiled from pain; Bela felt every nerve in the body flash brightly, easily read, and she dug in. She turned to Ruby, eyes bright with victory, and Ruby reached out and pulled Bela down to the bench.
"Should I say something about a nice girl like you in a crossroads like this?" Bela grinned, "Or start by asking how you know me?"
Ruby ran her short, sharp nails along Bela's soft forearm. "Baby, I saw you in Hell."
Bela felt vomit rise in her throat, and Joann hit at her again, but Ruby grabbed a fistful of Joann's tightly curled hair and pulled Bela closer to her, kissing her ferociously, nipping her tongue. Bela slid a hand up the back of Ruby's jacket; the body Ruby wore was cooler than Joann's, and the heartbeat slow. She pressed her fingers into the bumps of Ruby's spine.
Ruby pulled back a little, though she didn't let go of Bela's hair, and the sunlight made her eyes seem that much darker. "In…that place, they torture your soul. That's why we all like being embodied so much, because we can see and hear and sense everything through their bodies, not through our own burned eyes and bleeding ears. The more you feel through this woman's body, the less there'll be of your own pain."
Bela tilted her head so that Ruby could bite at her neck. It was true: the shivers going through the body were anchors, and Bela felt almost as strong as when she wore a body for a deal. "Do all the demons look like you do? Like a double exposure?"
"That's a neat trick for a brand new demon! The longer you last, the more you learn. I've seen your soul, so I could recognise you straight away. I probably just looked like a blur to you. And I don't need this kind of intensity to hold a body these days. Doesn't mean I don't like it."
Bela pulled Ruby up so that Ruby sat straddling Bela's leg; Ruby pressed her knee hard into Bela's crotch, and Bela pressed back, rubbing herself against Ruby's rough denim. Ruby leaned over Bela, and it felt very strange, almost like watching porn from the inside. There was no doubt that the intensity of the feeling in Joann's flesh gave Bela easy handholds, though, and she kissed Ruby with something close to violence.
A scruffy man walked past and spat on the ground near Bela's shoe. "Fuckin' dykes," he muttered, with a glare.
Bela stood up, Ruby sliding from her lap to stand beside her; instantly, Bela felt in control again. She looked straight into the man's face and rasped, "Go to Hell."
He stared at her for a moment with an appalled gaze very like a mouse that had just seen a cat, then turned on his heel and fled, gasping for air as he ran.
Ruby laughed, but kept her fingers tightly and painfully interlaced with Bela's. "I didn't come here to look for you, really. I'm here to hurt Lilith."
"Tell me." Bela's body still throbbed at Ruby's touch, but it was a focus, not a distraction.
"There's a guy who works for her."
Bela snorted. "So did you and I, and I'm sure there's hundreds more foot soldiers where we came from."
"No, this guy has a special role. He's a human gateway. She can pass through him from Earth to Hell whenever she likes. She gets herself more power and followers there, then she can come right back without having to make deals or fight her way out like the rest of us. If I can take out the gateway, Lilith will have to stay right here where we can get to her."
"We?" Bela let Ruby dig her nail into her wrist; she let the little flashes of pain flicker through her soul and Joann's body, tying them close together.
"Okay, so I've got a human with me."
"You're bothered by what a human thinks of you?"
Ruby smirked. "Don't judge me; I know you called to check on your cat the first time you got to a phone - you can't tell me not to keep pets!"
Bela laughed. "That's fair. So, why can't you and your human stop this gateway man?"
"Lilith warned him. He's warded against me, and the human gets power through me. We can't do anything. It's a fragile set-up, though - kill the body and the gateway will be gone."
"Hire a hit-man?"
Ruby shook her head. "The gateway's got abilities of his own, but those won't work on the likes of us. That's why he's so heavily warded against me and my human. He doesn't know about you."
"I can work with that." Bela sat down on the bench again, pulling Ruby against her side rather than on her lap. It didn't sound so hard to kill one man who had already given himself to evil, not after the way Lilith had lured and betrayed her.
Ruby leaned up and kissed Bela on the mouth, nipping at her lips. "I can get him into your crossroads - you do the rest."
Smiling against Ruby's full mouth, she asked, "And what's in it for me? Apart from taking down Lilith, of course?"
"It usually takes crossroads demons more than a hundred years to start moving up the ranks, getting away from the rules that bind you now. You're a fast learner - you've picked up the physical embodiment trick already. I'll show you how to possess anyone who enters your crossroads unprotected."
Bela kissed her again, tasting the dryness of her mouth behind the glossy lips, and sealed the deal as if Ruby was the crossroads demon, not her. "Show me right now, and then I'll do what you want."
Ruby smiled. "Done."
***
Carlos, Michelle, Sarah, Katy
Bela felt more awake than she had since she arrived here from the horrors of Hell. Now that she could see - truly see - all the people walking above her, their sins and fears clinging to them like dirty chewing gum, it was much easier to stop herself drifting into dreams of hooks and knives and helplessness. She still had no choice but to respond to summonings. She could deal with them more easily, now, knowing that she would have other opportunities to escape her gasoline-scented limbo. Even better, there was less risk of drifting into the nightmares of a darkened rooms and hooks pulling at her flesh, tearing her open and holding her still.
Bela was so used to choosing a body from among a group of women that being summoned into the body of a man had shocked her for a moment, so much so that she grabbed the nearest man rather than one she thought most suitable. Carlos Padilla was a broad-shouldered, hard-bodied gym rat and it took her a good few seconds to work out how to even make him walk - until she bent one of his fingernails back from the nail bed and extended herself through his body in that flash of pain. Ruby was right. Still, Bela didn't like her chances of holding onto a body so different to hers, if she hadn't impelled into it with the irresistible force of a summoning. Once Carlos's lips had sealed the deal with a moon-faced businessman who needed a lot of money, right now, Bela let him go with relief. Possessing the next woman who walked by - Michelle Lyons, in a very short skirt and tall vinyl boots - was much simpler, and Michelle was so used to being dragged around by other people's desires that she put up very little fight at all.
One thing that Ruby hadn't made clear to Bela - and Bela thought that she'd been a fool to be surprised for even a second that Ruby had omitted details - was that, without Ruby there, Bela could hold onto most bodies for no more than a few minutes before the inhabitant struggled free. Sarah Vega was possessed for less than ten seconds before she shoved Bela right back out again with a fervent prayer and ran screaming for the church down the block. Katy Maxwell initially froze in terror at the intrusion. Despite Bela's best efforts with Katy's sharp fingernails and soft inner elbow, Katy was free just a few minutes later, expelling Bela in a column of angry smoke that even the humans could see. Bela drifted downwards again into the layers of urban trash beneath her crossroads. It was intensely frustrating to have her progress measured in seconds. Patience had never been Bela's forte, even with an eternity ahead of her; it was hard even waiting for Ruby to return, let alone practising possession and control.
Most of the people she grabbed off the street had never returned to Bela's crossroads, even those who lived nearby - Bela had seen Joann once, but only at a distance. She supposed that they remembered more than she thought they might, or at least felt an animal terror of the place where their control was stolen. She knew that feeling herself. It still angered her that it was so much easier to possess humans a second time, but they could avoid her so easily. Michelle Lyons, though, regularly waited for johns on the corner near the bus stop, so accustomed to fear and danger that she didn't even notice it anymore. Bela could jump in and out of her tired body whenever her urge to feel solidity - or, more precisely, forget the scars that her soul carried - overcame her distaste at the woman's complete defeat.
***
Michelle, Lakisha
Bela had expected Ruby's plan to happen at night, but she really didn't know why - most of the demons she'd encountered herself had been just as active in the daytime. She needed to stop thinking like a human if she was to ever make it even to Ruby's level of power and freedom; she needed to hold on to who she was now. The day was hot, even though it wasn't noon yet, and that meant that most people were wearing as little clothing as they could manage. Bela's target stood out immediately to her demon eyes, strings of energy wrapped around him. He should have stood out to the humans, too - not only was he wearing a long grey trench coat that flapped around his short, scrawny frame, but he was wearing a Star Trek baseball cap and wool gloves. He kept his face low but Bela could see the lines of scabs and fresh wounds on his skin, and a chunk of flesh missing from his lower lip. It seemed that being Lilith's gateway was hard on the human body. He kept glancing behind him and stayed close to buildings, trying to be as unobtrusive as possible. People avoided him without even noticing, clearing a path for him to move freely. Despite his apparent ease, the stink of his terror was clear to Bela. Ruby must be on his tail - perhaps he didn't know that Ruby couldn't hurt him. He didn't seem to be aware, as he entered the crossroads, that he had walked into a trap.
Bela's most usual vessel, Michelle, was sitting on the sidewalk outside the convenience store, and Bela easily slid into her fractured soul. Michelle let out a quiet gasp, then slipped away to wherever it was she went when Bela was there. Bela stretched out her skinny limbs, cursing Michelle's inexplicable attachment to her oversized vinyl platform boots, and settled into Michelle's body. Bela reached into the top of one boot and pulled free the knife that Michelle kept there, duct-taped in place. She ripped a piece of the vinyl boot off in the process, which made her wonder how Michelle ever thought that she was going to get to the knife in a hurry. That didn't matter. Bela shook her head, trying to clear out the scattered thoughts that kept on deflecting her purpose. It wasn't hard to kill someone - she'd done it before, she'd done it at fourteen - and just because this wreck of a man hadn't hurt her personally didn't mean that she shouldn't strike at Lilith through him. She thought again of Lilith who laughed as she told Bela how, exactly, to escape her contract and how she would fail. Her anger surged, nearly throwing her out of Michelle's body. A quick bite to her lip settled her back in, and she ran across the crossroads towards the shabby man. People screamed and got out of her way; Bela kept her on target regardless of their shouts.
He was a small man, smaller than Michelle in her big boots, but despite his surprise, he didn't flinch. He raised a hand instead and stared straight at Bela. Other people near her veered away as fast as they could, compelled somehow, but Bela felt nothing. She kept running at him, and only then did terror cross the man's scarred face. He turned to flee, stumbling over his own coat in his hurry. He clutched an amulet that hung around his neck, but whatever he expected to happen didn't; he tripped on his oversized sneakers and Bela was on him. He reached out his hand again, but Bela shoved him face-first to the ground, her demon strength more than compensating for Michelle's frailty. She straddled his prone body and raised the knife.
A hand grabbed Bela's wrist, hard. "Police! Drop the knife!"
Bela looked over her shoulder to see a cop holding Michelle's skinny wrist with all her strength, trying to break her grip on the knife. Bela didn't know if the man had summoned the cop or if she was just trying to stop what she saw as a random knife attack, but it didn't matter. Not long ago, the shock of being grabbed would have pulled her right out of even Michelle's beaten-down body, but now Bela anchored herself firmly into Michelle's body and senses with the pain of the twisted wrist. When the cop tried to haul Michelle bodily away from the man, Bela stayed put and it was the cop who staggered backwards, falling on her ass. The man on the ground took the opportunity to lunge away from Bela, slipping free of his trench coat and scrambling awkwardly back to his feet.
Without the coat, Bela could see that his arms were wrapped in dirty bandages, glued to his skin with dried blood. It almost looked like there was a familiar pattern to the lines and circles of blood, something Bela had seen through burned eyelids in blood and fire, but the bandages were so dirty it was hard to tell. Bela lunged forward again, catching the man's grubby t-shirt, but the persistent cop tackled Bela from behind, taking advantage of Bela's momentum to bear her to the ground.
This time, Bela tried to let go of the body, but Michelle's pain locked Bela inside. She was getting too used to having her hooks inside people, staying close to their living bodies and dull, comforting senses. She felt Michelle's pain as her own even as she fought to reject it; Michelle's senses were her own and Bela was so horrified at being stuck that she couldn't even marshal her demon strength. Bela couldn't get out; she was trapped beneath the cop's heavy body and the woman's hot breath was on her neck. Michelle's neck, she forced herself to remember, not hers, and, with that, she was free. Bela leapt from Michelle to the cop inelegantly, with a twist of hot black smoke, but nonetheless her possession was fast and complete.
Officer Lakisha Young had scraped her chin on the concrete when she took Michelle down, and her throbbing graze and jarred teeth were a quick way for Bela to anchor herself right inside Lakisha. Lakisha tried to shield herself with the image of an elderly woman and the words of a hymn that Bela vaguely remembered, but it was no use. Bela had her. Michelle was unconscious on the ground, Bela's rough use of her leaving bruises blooming all over body, so Bela used Lakisha's sturdy boot to kick the knife from Michelle's hand. She could hear sirens, now.
"You okay?" she snapped at the man who had half-turned to see what was happening. He relaxed slightly to see Michelle on the ground - he must have missed the smoke streaming from Michelle to Lakisha - but Bela could see a violent wariness in him, the kind of panic born of unbearable pain borne endlessly. He'd been in Hell, she was sure of it.
"Yeah, yeah, thanks. She just leapt at me! I don't even know her!" He looked intently at Lakisha for a moment and Bela slowly started moving towards him. She couldn't fathom what he was trying to do.
"Oh, oh shit, you're still…" He made an involuntary leap backwards, and Bela pulled her gun. This drew renewed protest from Lakisha, but Bela shoved her down, little sharp hooks from the bleeding chin and Lakisha's bad knee binding her in place.
The man fell to his knees. "Don't, don't send me back, please."
Bela stared down at him through Lakisha's eyes. He wasn't pleading for his life; he knew more than that.
"My name's Andy, please, I'm sorry. I never wanted to serve anyone. Please don't send me back."
Bela's gun wavered. Lakisha tried to grab control, but Bela held on, battling Lakisha's long familiarity with her own body by clinging to the rivulets of her pain.
"Do it!" Ruby's voice carried across the crossroads where everyone else had got out of the way. "He's Lilith's gateway!"
Bela glanced over her shoulder and saw Ruby in her familiar leather jacket and jeans, beating in frustration at some kind of invisible barrier. Ruby couldn't get closer than twenty feet, held back by Andy's wards.
"Please," Andy begged again, torn hands stretched out to Bela. "She sent me back as her servant. I'm not strong - I had to take her offer. You know why. You know why."
Bela lowered the gun, and heard Ruby scream in frustration somewhere not too far away.
"I can't let you go."
Andy laughed bitterly. "Where would I go? She's in me whenever she wants." His head stayed bowed, as if it was too much effort to lift it again. Bela blinked. Like Ruby, Andy had a strange double-image, and for a moment she couldn't work out why she hadn't seen it before.
"Is that your own body?"
He shrugged. "Yeah. Lilith restored it, but I think I'm still dead."
Bela blinked again, and Lakisha's eyes focused on him. The double-image was gone.
"Bela!" Ruby yelled. "Stop her! Remember what she did to you!"
The pain from Lakisha's chin and teeth was still sharp, but Bela let that little hook of physicality go. She let it all go, pouring herself out of Lakisha's body and into the gasoline-scented nowhere. Ruby had wanted her in a human body. Ruby had wanted her senses dimmed. Ruby had been right that the pain of her scarred soul was numbed and distracted when she looked through someone's living senses; but Ruby hadn't mentioned that it also dulled Bela's own senses, only letting her catch sight of her own powers from the corners of her human's eyes. Ruby had lied - embodiment wasn't the opposite of Hell at all. Demons carried their own Hell with them, and numbing it for a moment was nothing but distraction.
Andy staggered to his feet as Lakisha collapsed in front of him, her gun spinning away across the crossroads. Bela looked at him, really looked, with the eyes of her own burned and blistered soul and saw what had been done to him. He was not free of Hell at all, but tied directly to it, his body pierced by a hundred dark hooks that tore at his flesh. His soul leaked out of the wounds in black, bloody ribbons, clinging to anyone who came near. As Bela watched him, she could see how easy it would be for her - let alone Lilith - to grab hold of those torn scraps of his soul and climb them. They were ropes out of Hell made of Andy's tormented soul.
Bela reached forward and wrapped a non-existent hand around the first of the glossy black hooks. It burned her, like freezing and tearing at the same moment, but she knew that pain well, and it couldn't scare her now. She lifted the hook free, as gently as she could, and Andy fell to the ground, gasping. She pulled at the next and the next, using her own pain to focus and hold her form and purpose, just as Ruby had taught her to do inside humans.
"Bela! What are you doing?" Ruby was less than ten feet away now, as Andy's life faded, and her eyes gleamed with anger, demon black flickering uncontrolled across her body's dark brown irises.
"You told me to be in the world." Bela flicked one of the hooks straight at Ruby, and Ruby recoiled. "Here I am. I'm not human, am I? Why use their tools?"
Ruby's human face twisted in anger. "You're barely even a demon. You can't do this."
Bela laughed and threw the final hook straight at Ruby, who hit the ground in her desperation to avoid it. "Obviously, I can. When there are only two options, I find a third. When there is no escape, I find one. That's what I've always done. I don't need you, and I'm not afraid of Lilith."
"You should be!"
"I still hate her, though." Bela looked down at Andy. With the hooks gone, his soul curled back into itself instead of bleeding through two planes of existence. The connection ebbed and the false life Lilith had given him drifted to a halt. In death, he looked relaxed, his face gentle despite the wounds. "Her gateway is gone, and she can't have him back. I don't know what happens to him now, but the poison is gone. He's got no connection to Hell anymore. He's free."
Ruby scowled at Bela, all the fury of Hell in her eyes, but Bela didn't look away. Ruby flicked her hair back and grinned suddenly, her glossy lips and white teeth bright. "So maybe I do like you. You don't do what I want, but you did what I needed."
Bela reached out to the demon-shape that overlay the body, touching her mouth, and the body's mouth beneath. "Come back some time. Maybe I'll have something to teach you by then." She let go of the daylight and the pain, and drifted gently down into her crossroads to the sound of sirens and shouting. For the first time that she could remember, Bela rested.
Author: lilacsigil
Recipient: aaronlisa
Rating: R
Warnings: Occasional mentions of past child sexual abuse, child harm and eating disorders. Frequent mentions of self-harm.
Pairing: Bela/Ruby
Summary: In death, as in life, Bela makes deals.
Notes: Title from "Ghost" by Depeche Mode. Thanks to st_aurafina for betaing.
Bela
Bela could feel the hooks in her body pulling her back to Hell, dragging her screaming through the people and the street and the earth, faster and faster, her grasping fingers bloody, until she fell. It wasn't a dream, exactly, because she didn't sleep anymore, but in the waiting times her mind wandered and her memories did the rest. She didn't know if this is how it was for other crossroads demons, or if they even dwelt in the same in-between place. She knew very little about this new existence, so far - demons were hardly forthcoming with their secrets - and she was going to have to learn as fast as she could.
She had seen Dean Winchester in Hell more than once over the years, so she knew his deal had also come due. Thinking about how little time had really passed down there - days, not years - made her cringe with shame and confusion. She had died in late Spring, and, when she returned, it was barely Summer. The crossroads above her smelled of hot concrete and gasoline, and her memories smelled of molten iron. Fortunately, her dreaming time - a blood-soaked memory of broken fingers and terror and humiliation - was minimal, because her time between bodies was short. She'd made sure of that on her very first assignment.
***
Joann
"So, you can grant me my heart's desire? For real?" Shawn Michaels was a tall, gangly man, his speech slurred with alcohol. His fingers were scraped where he'd shoved his photo under the broken concrete slab in the middle of the crossroads. He kept pressing the injured fingers against his lower lip.
"Of course I can. For ten years, just as you heard." Bela had leapt into the first woman she had found - for this summoner, she had to be a woman. She had reached out at random, desperate for embodiment, but she felt good here, strong. The crossroads demons she'd encountered through her life seemed to appear from nowhere, and yet Bela had to walk down three flights of stairs. She could feel where she had to go, but not yet how to get there. The body's name was Joann, a heavily built, dark-skinned woman with dyed red hair. She had been asleep alone, dreaming of her girlfriend who was working late at some bar. Joann still fought Bela as hard as could, kicking and biting somewhere deep in her own mind, but Bela was astonished how easy the possession had been. No wonder demons laughed at all the humans' desperate attempts to turn them aside.
Shawn lurched out of the crossroads and onto the sidewalk, where Bela stood, barefoot in Joann's long t-shirt. "Okay, okay. I want Yolanda Gibbs to love me. I mean, be crazy for me."
Bela shifted her weight to the other hip and smirked at him. "Just this Yolanda woman? That's all? For ten years?" She could feel the bounds of the crossroads like physical walls around her, but the tie between her and the man who had called her seemed stronger yet, like a chain between the two of them. And yet he could not see the danger he was in, and she could not leave the crossroads. His freedom was greater than hers, her perception greater than his, even through Joann's human eyes.
The realisation trailed slowly across Shawn's stupid face, ending in a calculating grin. "Okay, okay, how about Yolanda and every other fine bitch in this neighbourhood?"
"That's more like it." Bela arranged her face into a smile, settling into the sinews and muscles because, for now, she owned them. "Let's seal the deal - and don't forget to share your fortune around. You're a generous guy." She thought for a moment about Yolanda and what Bela was sending her way, but she'd just have to look after herself. Everyone had to look after themselves first.
Shawn preened, and leaned in for a boozy kiss. Bela tried to swing him around to put him on the inside of the crossroads and her outside, free. The moment they kissed, though, she was dragged from the body and for a long, dreadful moment she thought one of those hooks was in her again. She scrabbled for purchase on the bright beacon of Joann's body, but it was too late - she fell, not into Hell, but back into the gasoline-scented miasma of the in-between, her liminal crossroads. Bela stopped the scream before it ever formed and relaxed. Neither living nor in Hell, Bela could not say she was unhappy.
***
Inez
Shawn Michaels may have been an idiot who was now in jail for most of the ten years of his contract - Yolanda Gibbs was only fourteen, and her mother a cop - but he was a helpfully loud-mouthed idiot. He'd spread the word about the crossroads and the cause of his sudden popularity far and wide. People - mostly men - came to the crossroads at midnight, shoving their little hoodoo bags under the cracked concrete of the intersection, and Bela sauntered from one of the nearby apartments in someone's body to greet them. Only a few homes here had protection - some of the Puerto Rican and Dominican households, an elderly Catholic woman - and there was no shortage of attractive women and men open for the taking. There were others that were all but invisible to her - Buddhists and Hindus, Jews and Muslims, all walking safely by as if on a parallel plane to Bela. It made her angry, sometimes, that she hadn't thought to run to another religion, but the first not-entirely-convinced atheist that she possessed turned her from that particular form of self-flagellation. She would never have been able to forget or disbelieve the deal she had made; she could not have freed herself. Besides, she'd spoken to the dead often enough to know that everyone, no matter their religion, had their own rules and deals and punishments.
Inez had fake boobs and dark hair down to her waist, and she tried to form half-remembered prayers as Bela streamed into her body. Bela was very much unsurprised that, so far, everyone who had summoned her was a man. She was even less surprised that every body that they found attractive - the demon in a body that the summoner desired seemed to be part of the enchantment - was that of a young woman. It had briefly made her angry that her choices of body were limited by the summoner's desires, but, then again, these women were also those who Bela herself found attractive. Bela took a few moments to dress and put on some sexy shoes, and focused on the tie between her and the man who called her. The call from the man who had summoned her was so strong that Bela could follow it even through Inez's dull human senses. She grabbed hold of the link between them and hauled herself down it, leaping straight from Inez's bedroom through the dreaming space to the crossroads. The sudden relocation wasn't even a shock - except to Inez, screaming in Bela's head - because Bela could feel nowhere else she could go, no space in this world for her except closer to her summoner. The man who waited at the crossroads, Nate Marshall, gasped when she appeared, rising from the ground.
"You called?" Bela took her time walking over to him, her heels clicking sharply on the concrete.
"I…it really worked?" Nate's shock would have played better with Bela if he hadn't addressed his comments directly to her cleavage. "Listen, you've got to help me - my daughter, she's in hospital. She got hit by a car a week ago, and they say they're going to take her off life support tomorrow." He fumbled in his pocket for his wallet and waved a photo in front of Bela. "Her name is Michaela - she's only four."
Bela smiled, Inez's face settling into that expression easily, and laid a hand on Nate's arm. "Let's talk." She knew that as soon as the deal was made or abandoned, she would be pulled straight out of the body she held so easily now, but this little bargaining space was one of great freedom, and she'd been extending it further every time.
Nate was happy to babble on about his precious child and let Inez's long hair brush his bare arm, so Bela walked them right out of the crossroads and into the gaudy, noisy atmosphere of a bar down the street. She shivered as she crossed the threshold - this was only the second time she had made it out - but Nate noticed nothing, wrapped up in his own drama. Bela's heart lifted at the sight of other people, which made her immediately angry. She didn't know why she was so needful of company and life - she had treasured her solitude when she lived, and spent that endless time in Hell trying to crawl away from her tormentors and fellow victims alike, desperate for silence. Now she clung to people, their brightness and life, as distractions from the dark. It made her angry to feel so dependent on something she knew to be so transient, but she couldn't let go.
"Is it true?" Nate paused as they entered the bar. "About my soul, I mean? And Hell? I mean, I never thought…not literally…"
Bela glared at him and he recoiled, but she didn't let go of his forearm. "You have a choice to make, don't you? Either it's real, just as you were taught, and you can save your daughter where all those prayers failed; or it's not real, and none of this matters."
Nate dragged a hand across his sweaty forehead. "Let me get a drink."
Bela released him, her lip curling both at his hesitation and at her own moment of expectation that it might be any different. Of course he wanted to save his daughter, be her hero, keep her close. She was his darling possession and prize; like all humans, his very existence was a string of little acts of defiance of nature, overwhelming pride and possessiveness. Bela didn't know what that made her, a bodiless creature of fear and obedience. A puppet, maybe, or a dog. She drove Inez's fingernail into the palm of her hand, an old habit from her human body, drawing a bead of blood. The pain settled her back into the body with a hard tug, another hook. Bela forced an exhalation and pressed her lips together. She had thought that pain might throw her out of a physical body, away from her anger and servitude, but maybe it reinforced her grip instead. She dug a sharp red nail into her other palm and followed the tiny flush of pain through Inez's body, down every last nerve, tying Inez's physical self ever more closely to Bela.
"Looks like you've already found some freedom in the rules. And better here than there." A woman whispered in her ear, breath tinged with the faint scent of cherry. Bela turned, long black hair whipping around her but the only people there were a group of laughing men. They were paying attention to each other and the TV, not her.
A young, dark-haired woman in a leather jacket was sitting in a corner booth, applying gloss to her full lips. She caught Bela's gaze and smirked back at her, then pushed her hair back from her face. Bela blinked and something about the woman flickered, an overlaid ghostly image like a double-exposed photograph. Bela couldn't make out the shape hanging over the woman, lying over her body and limbs as if she was draped in fog. She pushed through the crowd anyway, heading for the corner booth.
Nate stepped in front of her and grabbed both her arms. "I'll do it. I have to do it."
For all that she tried to push him away, her demonic strength tied her to him. Instead of escaping, she pulled him towards her, like something in a nightmare that only got closer the faster she ran. She managed one desperate glance past him but the woman was already gone. Bela tried to go limp, to vanish from her own body as she had done so many times as a child, but all she achieved was to make Inez stumble and go limp, and Nate scooped her into an embrace.
"Don't go! Don't go! You have to save my daughter!"
Bela suddenly realised that she wasn't breathing, and that cleared her head - this wasn't her body. She would be free of it soon enough. She sunk Inez's teeth into her bottom lip, finding her strength again, put her feet on the ground, making Inez's face smile, enticing. "Come on. Let's seal the deal, baby."
She led him out, noting how many people had given her a sideways glance, their opportunistic human brains clicking together pieces of gossip and folklore. Bela brought Nate back to the crossroads, Inez's salty blood fresh in her mouth.
"Now what?" Nate asked, suddenly scared again, but he didn't pull away when Bela slung Inez's arms around his neck.
"Kiss me."
Nate bent down and gave his soul away; Bela leapt into limbo again, the scent of gasoline her air and the roughness of crumbled concrete her familiar bed.
***
Emma
"My name's Nikita Hobbes. I need to be a model." The skinny teenage girl stared at Bella with shadowed eyes in a brightly made-up face, the expertly-applied colours failing to disguise her hollow eyes and cheeks. "Are you a model? You look hot."
Bela looked down at the skinny body she inhabited, which nonetheless had to be a good twenty pounds heavier than bony Nikita. Emma was an architecture student, not a model, but Bela smiled at Nikita with her pretty face anyway, everything that Nikita wanted. "No. I'm not a model. I'm here to help you."
Nikita held out her hand. "You're my last hope. Please. I'll do anything."
Bela didn't take her hand - Nikita withdrew it quickly - but looked at her closely. "You don't have to do anything, Nikita. You'll get ten years, and all it costs is your soul."
"That's okay." Her face twisted. "It's not like a soul does me any good in this useless body. You know, I read up on all the model diets, and I follow them better than the models even, but I can't get there, I can't get skinny enough. I'm almost tall enough. I don't need much help."
Bela composed Emma's face into a kind expression as if she was listening closely, while she scratched at the inside of her arm, leaving long streaks of blood and torn skin. She hated this, their human helplessness and attempts to chart their own fate, if only because it reminded her so much of herself. Nikita wasn't even arrogant like so many of them, just desperate for something that would never satisfy the holes in her soul. Bela knew those holes, left by the hooks of desire and powerlessness, but there were worse things. Worse hooks. Maybe Nikita should become a demon herself and just possess a damn model - her body was never going to satisfy her.
Nikita was explaining in very specific detail about the subtle facial changes she would require to be the perfect model when Bela caught a familiar double-image out of the corner of her eye. It was the woman in the leather jacket again, sauntering into Bela's crossroads with her head high. It was a hot night, but she looked entirely comfortable in her jeans, boots and jacket, the misty shape that lay over her flickering in and out of Bela's vision.
"Stay here, Nikita," Bela snapped, and ran over to the woman, kicking Emma's stupid flip flops aside and running with pristine feet across the rough concrete and broken glass of the road. The dark-haired woman smiled at her with those glossy lips, her white teeth flashing in something that looked like delight.
"I thought it was you!" the woman laughed. "Bela, isn't it? You got out so fast that I didn't think I'd see you again."
"I'm not going back! Who are you?" Bela felt Emma tear at her from inside, seizing Bela's moment of sickening fear as an opportunity. Bela squashed her back down and glared at the smiling woman.
"Call me Ruby. We have a common enemy. She sent us both there."
Bela struggled for control for a moment, horrified at her own uncontrolled terror, but Ruby grabbed her wrist and pulled her close. She kissed her hard, their teeth clashing, and pinched the skin between Emma's thumb and forefinger at the same time. Bela crashed back into Emma's body in the flood of sensation, and kissed Ruby back, tasting the slick of her cherry lip gloss.
Ruby broke the kiss and gasped for air, though Bela knew she didn't need to breathe. "Be in the world. Be in the body. Keep control."
Bela reached for her again, her lips and hand burning, when she heard a shout from behind her.
Nikita stood in the middle of the crossroads, screaming, her careful make-up ruined by her tears of rage. "You don't care! You don't even care!" A car blared its horn at her and she turned and fled on her skeletal legs. The deal was broken and Bela couldn't hold the body against the terrible pull in her chest. Too startled for a clean disappearance, this time she flew from Emma's body in a column of dirty smoke. At least she had a moment to see Ruby smile before she was dragged under again, and that was what she took to her uneasy dreams.
***
Joann
Bela knew it was evening, not midnight. At the times she was summoned, she was yanked up and into a body. She had the choice of which body, from a limited pool of options, but that was the limit of her control. . This time, though, she could feel a tiny pull at her periphery, like gently tugging at an earring. She let herself slide along it, riding lightly, and was surprised to find herself landing in the body of Joann, the first woman she had possessed. It was even easier this time, even though Joann was awake, as if Bela had left a gap in the woman's soul into which she could slot perfectly. This time, Joann was crossing the road, wearing a tank top, a long skirt and sneakers; even as Bela invisibly sank into her, she barely stumbled. Bela swung her long, fleshy arms as she stepped from the road to the sidewalk and felt the concrete hard and warm through the thin soles of her fake Converse. She concentrated on that physical reality, just as Ruby had told her, but she could feel Joann fighting her. It was a lot harder to push Joann down now than it had been when Bela had worn the same body during a deal. When Bela stepped around the corner, past the convenience store and away from the crossroads, she almost lost the body entirely - Joann pushed at her so hard that Bela felt herself float free for a moment. The body staggered at the sudden lack of control, though, and the feeling of Joann's hand scraping against the rough brick wall pulled Bela right back into the body.
"Don't let that one go!" Ruby called. She was sitting on a bright red bench by a bus stop, just a few feet away. "I like the look of her."
Bela froze for a moment, the fading pain from Joann's hand taking her sense of Joann's body with it, and Joann kicked at her again. Bela was ready for her, though, and bit the soft skin on the inside of her wrist. Joann recoiled from pain; Bela felt every nerve in the body flash brightly, easily read, and she dug in. She turned to Ruby, eyes bright with victory, and Ruby reached out and pulled Bela down to the bench.
"Should I say something about a nice girl like you in a crossroads like this?" Bela grinned, "Or start by asking how you know me?"
Ruby ran her short, sharp nails along Bela's soft forearm. "Baby, I saw you in Hell."
Bela felt vomit rise in her throat, and Joann hit at her again, but Ruby grabbed a fistful of Joann's tightly curled hair and pulled Bela closer to her, kissing her ferociously, nipping her tongue. Bela slid a hand up the back of Ruby's jacket; the body Ruby wore was cooler than Joann's, and the heartbeat slow. She pressed her fingers into the bumps of Ruby's spine.
Ruby pulled back a little, though she didn't let go of Bela's hair, and the sunlight made her eyes seem that much darker. "In…that place, they torture your soul. That's why we all like being embodied so much, because we can see and hear and sense everything through their bodies, not through our own burned eyes and bleeding ears. The more you feel through this woman's body, the less there'll be of your own pain."
Bela tilted her head so that Ruby could bite at her neck. It was true: the shivers going through the body were anchors, and Bela felt almost as strong as when she wore a body for a deal. "Do all the demons look like you do? Like a double exposure?"
"That's a neat trick for a brand new demon! The longer you last, the more you learn. I've seen your soul, so I could recognise you straight away. I probably just looked like a blur to you. And I don't need this kind of intensity to hold a body these days. Doesn't mean I don't like it."
Bela pulled Ruby up so that Ruby sat straddling Bela's leg; Ruby pressed her knee hard into Bela's crotch, and Bela pressed back, rubbing herself against Ruby's rough denim. Ruby leaned over Bela, and it felt very strange, almost like watching porn from the inside. There was no doubt that the intensity of the feeling in Joann's flesh gave Bela easy handholds, though, and she kissed Ruby with something close to violence.
A scruffy man walked past and spat on the ground near Bela's shoe. "Fuckin' dykes," he muttered, with a glare.
Bela stood up, Ruby sliding from her lap to stand beside her; instantly, Bela felt in control again. She looked straight into the man's face and rasped, "Go to Hell."
He stared at her for a moment with an appalled gaze very like a mouse that had just seen a cat, then turned on his heel and fled, gasping for air as he ran.
Ruby laughed, but kept her fingers tightly and painfully interlaced with Bela's. "I didn't come here to look for you, really. I'm here to hurt Lilith."
"Tell me." Bela's body still throbbed at Ruby's touch, but it was a focus, not a distraction.
"There's a guy who works for her."
Bela snorted. "So did you and I, and I'm sure there's hundreds more foot soldiers where we came from."
"No, this guy has a special role. He's a human gateway. She can pass through him from Earth to Hell whenever she likes. She gets herself more power and followers there, then she can come right back without having to make deals or fight her way out like the rest of us. If I can take out the gateway, Lilith will have to stay right here where we can get to her."
"We?" Bela let Ruby dig her nail into her wrist; she let the little flashes of pain flicker through her soul and Joann's body, tying them close together.
"Okay, so I've got a human with me."
"You're bothered by what a human thinks of you?"
Ruby smirked. "Don't judge me; I know you called to check on your cat the first time you got to a phone - you can't tell me not to keep pets!"
Bela laughed. "That's fair. So, why can't you and your human stop this gateway man?"
"Lilith warned him. He's warded against me, and the human gets power through me. We can't do anything. It's a fragile set-up, though - kill the body and the gateway will be gone."
"Hire a hit-man?"
Ruby shook her head. "The gateway's got abilities of his own, but those won't work on the likes of us. That's why he's so heavily warded against me and my human. He doesn't know about you."
"I can work with that." Bela sat down on the bench again, pulling Ruby against her side rather than on her lap. It didn't sound so hard to kill one man who had already given himself to evil, not after the way Lilith had lured and betrayed her.
Ruby leaned up and kissed Bela on the mouth, nipping at her lips. "I can get him into your crossroads - you do the rest."
Smiling against Ruby's full mouth, she asked, "And what's in it for me? Apart from taking down Lilith, of course?"
"It usually takes crossroads demons more than a hundred years to start moving up the ranks, getting away from the rules that bind you now. You're a fast learner - you've picked up the physical embodiment trick already. I'll show you how to possess anyone who enters your crossroads unprotected."
Bela kissed her again, tasting the dryness of her mouth behind the glossy lips, and sealed the deal as if Ruby was the crossroads demon, not her. "Show me right now, and then I'll do what you want."
Ruby smiled. "Done."
***
Carlos, Michelle, Sarah, Katy
Bela felt more awake than she had since she arrived here from the horrors of Hell. Now that she could see - truly see - all the people walking above her, their sins and fears clinging to them like dirty chewing gum, it was much easier to stop herself drifting into dreams of hooks and knives and helplessness. She still had no choice but to respond to summonings. She could deal with them more easily, now, knowing that she would have other opportunities to escape her gasoline-scented limbo. Even better, there was less risk of drifting into the nightmares of a darkened rooms and hooks pulling at her flesh, tearing her open and holding her still.
Bela was so used to choosing a body from among a group of women that being summoned into the body of a man had shocked her for a moment, so much so that she grabbed the nearest man rather than one she thought most suitable. Carlos Padilla was a broad-shouldered, hard-bodied gym rat and it took her a good few seconds to work out how to even make him walk - until she bent one of his fingernails back from the nail bed and extended herself through his body in that flash of pain. Ruby was right. Still, Bela didn't like her chances of holding onto a body so different to hers, if she hadn't impelled into it with the irresistible force of a summoning. Once Carlos's lips had sealed the deal with a moon-faced businessman who needed a lot of money, right now, Bela let him go with relief. Possessing the next woman who walked by - Michelle Lyons, in a very short skirt and tall vinyl boots - was much simpler, and Michelle was so used to being dragged around by other people's desires that she put up very little fight at all.
One thing that Ruby hadn't made clear to Bela - and Bela thought that she'd been a fool to be surprised for even a second that Ruby had omitted details - was that, without Ruby there, Bela could hold onto most bodies for no more than a few minutes before the inhabitant struggled free. Sarah Vega was possessed for less than ten seconds before she shoved Bela right back out again with a fervent prayer and ran screaming for the church down the block. Katy Maxwell initially froze in terror at the intrusion. Despite Bela's best efforts with Katy's sharp fingernails and soft inner elbow, Katy was free just a few minutes later, expelling Bela in a column of angry smoke that even the humans could see. Bela drifted downwards again into the layers of urban trash beneath her crossroads. It was intensely frustrating to have her progress measured in seconds. Patience had never been Bela's forte, even with an eternity ahead of her; it was hard even waiting for Ruby to return, let alone practising possession and control.
Most of the people she grabbed off the street had never returned to Bela's crossroads, even those who lived nearby - Bela had seen Joann once, but only at a distance. She supposed that they remembered more than she thought they might, or at least felt an animal terror of the place where their control was stolen. She knew that feeling herself. It still angered her that it was so much easier to possess humans a second time, but they could avoid her so easily. Michelle Lyons, though, regularly waited for johns on the corner near the bus stop, so accustomed to fear and danger that she didn't even notice it anymore. Bela could jump in and out of her tired body whenever her urge to feel solidity - or, more precisely, forget the scars that her soul carried - overcame her distaste at the woman's complete defeat.
***
Michelle, Lakisha
Bela had expected Ruby's plan to happen at night, but she really didn't know why - most of the demons she'd encountered herself had been just as active in the daytime. She needed to stop thinking like a human if she was to ever make it even to Ruby's level of power and freedom; she needed to hold on to who she was now. The day was hot, even though it wasn't noon yet, and that meant that most people were wearing as little clothing as they could manage. Bela's target stood out immediately to her demon eyes, strings of energy wrapped around him. He should have stood out to the humans, too - not only was he wearing a long grey trench coat that flapped around his short, scrawny frame, but he was wearing a Star Trek baseball cap and wool gloves. He kept his face low but Bela could see the lines of scabs and fresh wounds on his skin, and a chunk of flesh missing from his lower lip. It seemed that being Lilith's gateway was hard on the human body. He kept glancing behind him and stayed close to buildings, trying to be as unobtrusive as possible. People avoided him without even noticing, clearing a path for him to move freely. Despite his apparent ease, the stink of his terror was clear to Bela. Ruby must be on his tail - perhaps he didn't know that Ruby couldn't hurt him. He didn't seem to be aware, as he entered the crossroads, that he had walked into a trap.
Bela's most usual vessel, Michelle, was sitting on the sidewalk outside the convenience store, and Bela easily slid into her fractured soul. Michelle let out a quiet gasp, then slipped away to wherever it was she went when Bela was there. Bela stretched out her skinny limbs, cursing Michelle's inexplicable attachment to her oversized vinyl platform boots, and settled into Michelle's body. Bela reached into the top of one boot and pulled free the knife that Michelle kept there, duct-taped in place. She ripped a piece of the vinyl boot off in the process, which made her wonder how Michelle ever thought that she was going to get to the knife in a hurry. That didn't matter. Bela shook her head, trying to clear out the scattered thoughts that kept on deflecting her purpose. It wasn't hard to kill someone - she'd done it before, she'd done it at fourteen - and just because this wreck of a man hadn't hurt her personally didn't mean that she shouldn't strike at Lilith through him. She thought again of Lilith who laughed as she told Bela how, exactly, to escape her contract and how she would fail. Her anger surged, nearly throwing her out of Michelle's body. A quick bite to her lip settled her back in, and she ran across the crossroads towards the shabby man. People screamed and got out of her way; Bela kept her on target regardless of their shouts.
He was a small man, smaller than Michelle in her big boots, but despite his surprise, he didn't flinch. He raised a hand instead and stared straight at Bela. Other people near her veered away as fast as they could, compelled somehow, but Bela felt nothing. She kept running at him, and only then did terror cross the man's scarred face. He turned to flee, stumbling over his own coat in his hurry. He clutched an amulet that hung around his neck, but whatever he expected to happen didn't; he tripped on his oversized sneakers and Bela was on him. He reached out his hand again, but Bela shoved him face-first to the ground, her demon strength more than compensating for Michelle's frailty. She straddled his prone body and raised the knife.
A hand grabbed Bela's wrist, hard. "Police! Drop the knife!"
Bela looked over her shoulder to see a cop holding Michelle's skinny wrist with all her strength, trying to break her grip on the knife. Bela didn't know if the man had summoned the cop or if she was just trying to stop what she saw as a random knife attack, but it didn't matter. Not long ago, the shock of being grabbed would have pulled her right out of even Michelle's beaten-down body, but now Bela anchored herself firmly into Michelle's body and senses with the pain of the twisted wrist. When the cop tried to haul Michelle bodily away from the man, Bela stayed put and it was the cop who staggered backwards, falling on her ass. The man on the ground took the opportunity to lunge away from Bela, slipping free of his trench coat and scrambling awkwardly back to his feet.
Without the coat, Bela could see that his arms were wrapped in dirty bandages, glued to his skin with dried blood. It almost looked like there was a familiar pattern to the lines and circles of blood, something Bela had seen through burned eyelids in blood and fire, but the bandages were so dirty it was hard to tell. Bela lunged forward again, catching the man's grubby t-shirt, but the persistent cop tackled Bela from behind, taking advantage of Bela's momentum to bear her to the ground.
This time, Bela tried to let go of the body, but Michelle's pain locked Bela inside. She was getting too used to having her hooks inside people, staying close to their living bodies and dull, comforting senses. She felt Michelle's pain as her own even as she fought to reject it; Michelle's senses were her own and Bela was so horrified at being stuck that she couldn't even marshal her demon strength. Bela couldn't get out; she was trapped beneath the cop's heavy body and the woman's hot breath was on her neck. Michelle's neck, she forced herself to remember, not hers, and, with that, she was free. Bela leapt from Michelle to the cop inelegantly, with a twist of hot black smoke, but nonetheless her possession was fast and complete.
Officer Lakisha Young had scraped her chin on the concrete when she took Michelle down, and her throbbing graze and jarred teeth were a quick way for Bela to anchor herself right inside Lakisha. Lakisha tried to shield herself with the image of an elderly woman and the words of a hymn that Bela vaguely remembered, but it was no use. Bela had her. Michelle was unconscious on the ground, Bela's rough use of her leaving bruises blooming all over body, so Bela used Lakisha's sturdy boot to kick the knife from Michelle's hand. She could hear sirens, now.
"You okay?" she snapped at the man who had half-turned to see what was happening. He relaxed slightly to see Michelle on the ground - he must have missed the smoke streaming from Michelle to Lakisha - but Bela could see a violent wariness in him, the kind of panic born of unbearable pain borne endlessly. He'd been in Hell, she was sure of it.
"Yeah, yeah, thanks. She just leapt at me! I don't even know her!" He looked intently at Lakisha for a moment and Bela slowly started moving towards him. She couldn't fathom what he was trying to do.
"Oh, oh shit, you're still…" He made an involuntary leap backwards, and Bela pulled her gun. This drew renewed protest from Lakisha, but Bela shoved her down, little sharp hooks from the bleeding chin and Lakisha's bad knee binding her in place.
The man fell to his knees. "Don't, don't send me back, please."
Bela stared down at him through Lakisha's eyes. He wasn't pleading for his life; he knew more than that.
"My name's Andy, please, I'm sorry. I never wanted to serve anyone. Please don't send me back."
Bela's gun wavered. Lakisha tried to grab control, but Bela held on, battling Lakisha's long familiarity with her own body by clinging to the rivulets of her pain.
"Do it!" Ruby's voice carried across the crossroads where everyone else had got out of the way. "He's Lilith's gateway!"
Bela glanced over her shoulder and saw Ruby in her familiar leather jacket and jeans, beating in frustration at some kind of invisible barrier. Ruby couldn't get closer than twenty feet, held back by Andy's wards.
"Please," Andy begged again, torn hands stretched out to Bela. "She sent me back as her servant. I'm not strong - I had to take her offer. You know why. You know why."
Bela lowered the gun, and heard Ruby scream in frustration somewhere not too far away.
"I can't let you go."
Andy laughed bitterly. "Where would I go? She's in me whenever she wants." His head stayed bowed, as if it was too much effort to lift it again. Bela blinked. Like Ruby, Andy had a strange double-image, and for a moment she couldn't work out why she hadn't seen it before.
"Is that your own body?"
He shrugged. "Yeah. Lilith restored it, but I think I'm still dead."
Bela blinked again, and Lakisha's eyes focused on him. The double-image was gone.
"Bela!" Ruby yelled. "Stop her! Remember what she did to you!"
The pain from Lakisha's chin and teeth was still sharp, but Bela let that little hook of physicality go. She let it all go, pouring herself out of Lakisha's body and into the gasoline-scented nowhere. Ruby had wanted her in a human body. Ruby had wanted her senses dimmed. Ruby had been right that the pain of her scarred soul was numbed and distracted when she looked through someone's living senses; but Ruby hadn't mentioned that it also dulled Bela's own senses, only letting her catch sight of her own powers from the corners of her human's eyes. Ruby had lied - embodiment wasn't the opposite of Hell at all. Demons carried their own Hell with them, and numbing it for a moment was nothing but distraction.
Andy staggered to his feet as Lakisha collapsed in front of him, her gun spinning away across the crossroads. Bela looked at him, really looked, with the eyes of her own burned and blistered soul and saw what had been done to him. He was not free of Hell at all, but tied directly to it, his body pierced by a hundred dark hooks that tore at his flesh. His soul leaked out of the wounds in black, bloody ribbons, clinging to anyone who came near. As Bela watched him, she could see how easy it would be for her - let alone Lilith - to grab hold of those torn scraps of his soul and climb them. They were ropes out of Hell made of Andy's tormented soul.
Bela reached forward and wrapped a non-existent hand around the first of the glossy black hooks. It burned her, like freezing and tearing at the same moment, but she knew that pain well, and it couldn't scare her now. She lifted the hook free, as gently as she could, and Andy fell to the ground, gasping. She pulled at the next and the next, using her own pain to focus and hold her form and purpose, just as Ruby had taught her to do inside humans.
"Bela! What are you doing?" Ruby was less than ten feet away now, as Andy's life faded, and her eyes gleamed with anger, demon black flickering uncontrolled across her body's dark brown irises.
"You told me to be in the world." Bela flicked one of the hooks straight at Ruby, and Ruby recoiled. "Here I am. I'm not human, am I? Why use their tools?"
Ruby's human face twisted in anger. "You're barely even a demon. You can't do this."
Bela laughed and threw the final hook straight at Ruby, who hit the ground in her desperation to avoid it. "Obviously, I can. When there are only two options, I find a third. When there is no escape, I find one. That's what I've always done. I don't need you, and I'm not afraid of Lilith."
"You should be!"
"I still hate her, though." Bela looked down at Andy. With the hooks gone, his soul curled back into itself instead of bleeding through two planes of existence. The connection ebbed and the false life Lilith had given him drifted to a halt. In death, he looked relaxed, his face gentle despite the wounds. "Her gateway is gone, and she can't have him back. I don't know what happens to him now, but the poison is gone. He's got no connection to Hell anymore. He's free."
Ruby scowled at Bela, all the fury of Hell in her eyes, but Bela didn't look away. Ruby flicked her hair back and grinned suddenly, her glossy lips and white teeth bright. "So maybe I do like you. You don't do what I want, but you did what I needed."
Bela reached out to the demon-shape that overlay the body, touching her mouth, and the body's mouth beneath. "Come back some time. Maybe I'll have something to teach you by then." She let go of the daylight and the pain, and drifted gently down into her crossroads to the sound of sirens and shouting. For the first time that she could remember, Bela rested.