Fury, for the Summergen Community
Title: Fury
Recipient: spn_summergen - the original recipient withdrew from the challenge, so this work is being posted as a gift to the comm. Please show it tons of love!!
Rating: T
Word Count: 2332
Warnings: references to violence, torture, abuse, child abuse, sexual assault, child sex abuse
Summary: Bela comes back as a demon, and she's out for blood--any blood belonging to men who hurt women. Unfortunately for her, not all women share her views on how to handle men like that.
She smokes out of hell feeling freer and more powerful than she has in . . . ever, really. It's hard to remember, but she thinks that before her deal she was scared and hurting, and after the deal she tried to empower herself with a live fast die young attitude, but under that was fear, too.
But now she has been through the worst, she had been to hell and spent years on the rack. Now there is nothing to fear any more, because the worst has happened and she is free.
First things first, freedom isn't much good without a body with which to experience it. She flies towards the nearest cluster of bright soul light.
She thinks she might have to take an adequate body and use it to find one that's more right, but instead she encounters just what she's looking for almost immediately.
Dark street. Frightened young woman. Men who thrive on that fear.
She streams into the woman and finds she fits like new clothes-in need of some breaking in but are going to be just perfect. Here's the slender young body, responsive to her commands. Here's knowledge of the world and how to survive in it. Here's important relationships--different than the ones she had when she was human, the demon thinks, but still recognizable. Here's the fear, the fear of men who have power to hurt you and use that power because they like it. The body doesn't even have time to be scared of her because it's so busy being scared of these men, and then it's her body. There's still a soul light in the middle, but all the information she needs is in the brain. She's going to stop the fear.
The men don’t have time to react to what they see before the demon finishes settling into her new skin.
She moves.
When she's done moving, there is blood on her hands and clothes. She licks the back of her hand; she liked cats when she was human. Maybe this body has a cat.
It takes her a moment to figure out where the screaming is coming from. She has to look inward, to the ball of soul light that used to operate her body.
You killed them, it--she--Courtney--wails.
Of course I did, she--the demon . . . Bela, that was her name so long ago--says reasonably. They were bad men who were going to hurt you. I stopped them, not just from hurting you, but from hurting any girl or woman ever again. I made it quick, which is more than they deserved. Although . . . hot, sulphur-infused memories flash across Bela's mind, and she smiles because that's what these men will get. Courtney screams again.
What's the matter with you? Bela demands. I'm helping you, I'm being strong when you couldn't. You should be enjoying this.
Enjoying! Courtney sobs, inner voice rising hysterically. What kind of monster enjoys killing?
Monster? Bela tries the word out, rolls it around in her mind. She looks again at the blood on her hands, takes another lick. She thinks perhaps this is not the first time she has been accused of monstrosity. Maybe now it's true. Maybe now she likes that it's true.
And that is intolerable for you? To ride along with a monster?
Of course it is! What--
Bela cuts her off by wrapping herself around the ball of light and squeezing. After all, it's her body now, and she doesn't have to put up with this pathetic mewling and squeamishness. It would have been nice if the girl had understood, but since she doesn't, it's not Bela's problem.
Courtney's scream fades to a whimper, then peters out as the soul light is . . . hmm. She's not sure, but Bela could swear that, just before the light goes out entirely, the soul disappears. She looks around but doesn't see it. So that's how it happens. She shrugs, takes a quick glance at Courtney's memories, and strides towards her apartment.
. . .
Jo peruses the news articles, a small smile of satisfaction on her face. Of course the police are baffled that the woman whose DNA was all over the murdered men turned up dead from no apparent cause. Of course they don’t understand how there could be more identical murders after that. Jo sees it, though, because that’s what she does. No matter what her mother says, she’s a hunter, and she knows what she’s doing.
She knows a demon on a rampage when she sees one.
It’s funny, though, because there’s something almost righteous about this case’s victimology. Not that it justifies brutal murder, but Jo’s pretty sure the five men the demon ripped apart before vacating Courtney Braithwaite’s body were all abusive, predatory dicks.
“Guess just ‘cause you leave your humanity behind, doesn’t mean you leave your damage,” Jo murmurs to herself. The question, of course, is how to find and track the new host so she can send the demon back to hell where it belongs. She thinks it's pretty likely that she’s looking for another young woman, but it doesn’t pay to make too many assumptions about what a demon is gonna do, not when they’re as blatant and fearless as this one.
Missing person’s reports it is, then.
. . .
Bela wishes she could have kept Courtney’s body-she liked it, and it was the kind of body that made men reveal their true, slimy nature, giving her all the reason she needed to take them apart then and there. But she wasn’t careful enough, and the police are looking for that body, so she found a new one.
She means to lay low, but one of Ashley’s clients tries to cop a feel, and then her boyfriend hit her, and Bela forgets to be careful so she’s sure it’s only a matter of time before they’re looking for Ashley, too. Not that she worries about police-police can’t hurt her. But hunters read news articles and police reports, and hunters can send her back to the Pit. She remembers this, though doing so took some effort.
She'll do better this time, with Jordan. She will.
. . .
The demon had ditched Ashley by the time Jo arrives in town, but not long ago. She's closing in, she can feel it.
. . .
No kills, Bela tells herself. Live in this body, live its life until the hunter moves on. Too bad the hunter's a girl, otherwise she'd snap the nuisance's neck before they knew what hit them.
Too bad it's not the Winchesters. She doesn't remember much, but she remembers Dean.
Down in the Pit.
Carving into her.
Dean is still down there, though, and she has no quarrel with Sam, at least not that she knows of. Oh, well. She'll shake the wiry amateur and go back to sending men down to the racks where they belong.
. . .
Jo realizes that the demon isn’t completely stupid-it’s trying to lay low, blend in. Maybe it thinks she’ll give up and leave-not a chance, not with a body count like this one leaves.
It’s luck that leads her to the new host-she overhears two women in the coffee shop where she’s camped out discussing how something about their friend Jordan seems off. Jo pretends to be one of those obnoxious people who feel free to barge into any conversation to contribute their two cents, and manages to get enough information to track down “Jordan."
The rest of it is skill, though. After all, she’s pretty sure the demon is aware of her, so she has to be sneaky. The devil’s trap under the rug in the break room at Jordan’s job is inspired, Jo thinks.
After that, it’s just a matter of a quick exorcism and staying with Jordan long enough for her to pull herself together.
A good hunt, Jo thinks, and goes to get herself celebratory beer and bar food.
. . .
The hunter catches her, and all Bela can think is that she was the amateur after all, and that stings even more than the prospect of having to claw her way back to the surface.
But she will. And this hunter is fair game now, if they cross paths again.
. . .
It takes time, the slow, painful, sulfurous time of hell, and other than being enraged that Dean escaped the Pit and savagely glad about Lilith’s death, Bela doesn’t care about the great events set in motion while her attention was elsewhere.
She certainly isn’t going to grovel at the feet of some man, even if he did used to be God’s most glorious angel.
No, that’s not what she wants out for, and it doesn’t matter that the other demons say the Morningstar will make them the lords of the Earth-you can’t trust the promises of men. Want a job done, do it yourself.
Bela wants to find men who hurt women and rip their guts out, so that’s what she’s going to do.
After all, it’s so much more satisfying than doing it in hell. Oh, not that she didn’t enjoy tearing into the molesters and abusers and rapists. That had been great fun, and she was even just a little bit grateful that Lilith let her be the first to work on her father. He’d thought she was there to save him, the horrid pervert, thought his beautiful little girl was going to take him away from it all. She’d caressed him with her hand the way he used to force her to, and then, once his eyes were closed so he wouldn’t see it coming,
she’d caressed him with a knife, and his screams were the sweetest music she’d ever heard.
But it still isn’t the same. It’s much more fulfilling spilling blood and entrails when the air doesn’t already reek of them, and the way the bastards think they’ve gotten away with it until she comes for them.
And in between she can drink good wine and eat fine food and perhaps find someone pretty to eat her out until she can’t see straight, and all of it without fear, because sometimes the only way to really live is to wait until after you’re dead.
But all that will only work if she can be careful this time.
She smokes out of hell trying to hold on to the need for caution she learned the hard way last time. But the air is sweet and she is made of power and death and she wants to rain it down on the men who do not deserve this good world.
She thinks she emerges in a different place than last time, though it will be difficult to know for sure until she has a body.
College campus. Perfect hunting ground. But careful this time-find a body no one will suspect, someone sweet and studious. Different places feel different, not in a way with proper analogues to human senses, but one that lets her navigate anyway. Not the frat houses, not the bars or parties. Library, perfect. Individual students hard at work, maybe. But here, a group. In a study room? A girl stands at the white board, the rest sit at the table. Bela hovers, watching, not wanting to create a suspicious pause. The session ends, and the group thanks the girl as they leave, and she smiles, smiles from the inside and Bela knows she has found her new body. She hopes the girl is weak, that she doesn’t have to kill her to ensure she won’t get in the way, but she will if she has to.
The girl begins to gather her things, and Bela flies down towards her and-
-slams against a barrier she cannot see, does not sense.
Disoriented, by the time Bela realizes the girl has removed something from her bag, is saying words in a language Bela does not know, it is too late to escape the pull of the spell, and she is somewhere small and dark and clean, and she cannot get out.
. . .
“Damn fool of a demon, trying to possess a Moseley,” Tabi says, shaking her head as she closes the little box. “Come Christmas I’ll take you home with me, and Aunt Missouri’ll teach me the rest of the spell that’ll put you right.” She pauses, cocking her head. “Ah, you’re all twisted up with hurt, not real evil. Auntie was right, a lot of you just need healing. Well, that’s what the spell’s for. Takes a long time-it’ll be the next generation, or maybe even the one after that, that sees you safe and onwards. But it’ll be worth it. That’s what Auntie says, anyway, and she’s usually right about pretty much everything."
Bela cannot hear this speech. All she knows is there is something lulling and peaceful about this trap, and as much as she wants to distrust it, she cannot resist it. Perhaps . . . perhaps it would not be so bad to rest, just for a little while.
. . .
It is many years later that another young woman, called Missouri after her grandmother’s favorite aunt, opens the box to release the clean, glowing soul inside. “Off you go, now. Time for your real rest.”
Light enters the comforting darkness that has been Bela’s home for so long. She looks up, to a great welcoming glow calling her from beyond the sky, and she flies.
As she climbs, she reflects on this change in her circumstances. She can feel that she is no longer a demon, though how this is possible she does not know. What she does know is that, though she can remember all the pain and hurt of her life and afterlife, it does not touch her, does not spur her to revenge and violence the way it once did.
She is ready for peace now, and the bright place beyond the sky is calling her home.