Blood Will Always Stain for mute90
Title: Blood Will Always Stain
Author: unavoidedcrisis
Recipient: mute90
Pairing: Sam/Kali
Rating: PG13
Warnings: heavy spoilers for 5x19
Summary: Strange dreams are not new territory for Sam, but this one is stranger than normal.
Notes: Beta'd by mortar. For the prompt 'if it doesn't end in bloodshed, it's probably not love,' and maybe a dash of the others. Sorry it's belated, but I hope you like it. I had an absolute blast writing it.
It's a strange dream, even for Sam. He's sitting at a table in a room that might be a café or might not be, and there are people all around at table, but they're frozen like statues and they don't seem to realize it.
He's staring at the walls, watching them squirm like they're uncomfortable under his gaze and maybe they are. He's trying to figure out what colour they are because it's not like any colour he's seen before and could put a name on. There's a person in the shadows on the other side of the table only Sam can't see them so maybe it's not a person at all, but then a match flares and a thin hand lights a cigarette and that puts another tick in the 'person' column (because people have hands).
Sam has been hunting long enough that he knows to have more than one column, and just 'a hand' is not a lot to go on, but he figures anything else that might have hands and sit at a table would not smoke cigarettes too because only people are dumb enough to know how bad cigarettes are but still smoke them anyways.
The walls are still moving, only now they're getting darker and closer and Sam thinks they're not in a café but they might be in a cave. "It's a nice cave, though, to have table cloths like this." He doesn't notice he's said it out loud at all, but then he hears someone laugh and he thinks this is the weirdest dream he's ever had.
"Maybe so, Samuel, but it was the only way to get you to me."
"'Sam' is fine," he says automatically. 'Samuel' always makes him feel antsy. It reminds him too much of his father. "Wait, 'get me to you'?" He doesn't even clue in that this smoking shape has just read his thoughts.
"I need your help."
Sam wants to know who he's talking to. He still can't see the person (maybe, the jury is still out) and when he tries to focus on the voice, his mind goes mostly-sideways and he can't hear it right.
"Help with what?" he asks, craning his neck and trying to see through the haze of smoke and his own confusion.
"You'll know." Sam realizes the voice is like an old song from childhood. It's distant but familiar, there's faint trace of a melody hidden in there and a slow beat like a dying heart. It's terrifying and comforting and exhilarating all at once and it's driving him crazy that he can't place it.
He smells the cigarette smoke, but it's not like any cigarette smoke he's smelled before. It smells of tobacco, for sure, but it also reminds him of wood smoke, the smell of some unknown meat cooking and the oozing smell of dark, damp earth. Sam takes a deep breath and it makes his stomach turn.
Sam wakes up then, confused and sweaty and with a bit of a cramp in one of his legs (he's pretty sure that's not related to the dream though). He rubs his eyes and hits the shower, still trying to puzzle together what he'd just dreamed.
As always, it takes a while to get Dean moving first thing in the morning, but they finally get to breakfast and Sam finds he's ravenous.
Dean stares for a long moment, arching one eyebrow comically. "Did you run a marathon while I was sleeping?" he asks.
Sam is about to make a sarcastic comment, but then he realizes that that is exactly what he feels like. "I don't think so," he says. "But maybe." He tells Dean his dream then, because he thinks it might be relevant.
"Since when did you start having visions again?" Dean asks.
"It wasn't a vision," Sam says, because it wasn't. Other than the hunger (and possibly the leg cramp), he felt normal. He doesn't feel like he's been run over by a truck, like he used to with the visions.
"Who do you think it was?"
Sam shrugs and dips his toast in the leftover syrup in his plate. He's not sure he wants to talk about it anymore. So they don't talk about it. Winchesters are masters at not talking about things. Sam can't stop thinking about it though, even when they finally track down the ghost they're after.
Which leads to trouble when the ghost catches Sam off guard and flings him through a wall.
"Man," Dean says, still chuckling, but helping Sam up from the pile of rubble he'd found himself under. "How do you always get yourself into these problems?"
"It's not funny." Sam rubs the back of his head roughly, trying to work down the bump growing there. "That freakin' hurt."
"At least we got the ghost," Dean shrugs. Sam glares, but there's very little heat to it.
"Get me some ice," he says.
--
"You're not even trying," says the shadowy figure smoking the smelly cigarette. It sounds less like a complaint and more like a direct accusation.
"Um," Sam says diplomatically. It's the best he can manage.
"You won't know how to help unless you're paying attention and if you're not paying attention you're of no use to me." The unspoken 'and if you're no use to me...' floats in the air between them like a vicious firefly, blinking on and off in Sam's mind.
"Sorry," Sam says. He means it, of course. It's easy to mean things in dreams and though this dream is strange, there's something about it that almost puts Sam at ease. He can hear the voice better than last time, and though the smells are stronger, they make his stomach turn less. He thinks he hears a bee buzzing, somewhere close by but far away and instead of being annoying, it's just mildly curious.
Sam decides he can't help someone who he doesn't know, so he makes a move across the table to brush the shadows from the face of his would-be companion.
The otherworldness of this being isn't something that is readily apparent to Sam because of the nature of dream-time and he won't or can't notice this person (or whatever) can read his thoughts almost before he has them. He's flat on his back on the floor of the cavern with something heavy on his chest in less time than it takes to butter a piece of toast, or maybe in less time than it takes to create the universe.
Sam thinks many thoughts all together on top of each other and most of them don't sense but one sticks further than the rest and so Sam latches on to it.
The heavy thing on my chest is a shoe with a foot in it. And the shoe is pointy.
"Don't do that," says the shadow, still shadowed. "And start paying more attention, Samuel."
He starts to bristle at the use of his full name again, but he wakes up under the scratchy motel blanket before he can get the words out. He goes into the bathroom and scrubs cold water over his face. When he stands up straight, he sees that there's a bruise shaped like the heel of a very pointy stiletto in the centre of his chest.
--
Three nights later, at an all-night truck stop diner in Storm Lake, Iowa, Sam sees a shadowy figure alone in a corner booth, with smoke drifting upwards. Dean's in the john, so Sam takes the opportunity to slip into the booth across from the shadow.
The man looks up, startled. "You lost, son?" It's not a face or a voice that Sam recognizes at all.
Sam shakes his head. "I thought you were someone else. Sorry." He stands up the leave and the man's eyes flash momentarily. Not black like a demon, or silver like a shape shifter, but just... flash. In the fraction of the moment, Sam sees everything reflected back at him in those eyes. Fire and death and laughter and happiness and winter and spring and everyone person who ever would live. It was like looking into all of time.
"The blood is stronger than anything else," the man says, his voice suddenly very different in a way Sam can't identify. "Don't forget that, Samuel."
Sam blinks or maybe he doesn't but he's sitting back at the table with Dean and a big plate of fries between them.
He spends the next few days deep in thought about the eyes he saw on the man in the diner. The eyes remind him of the voice of the creature in his dreams, which remind him of the feeling he feels when he is alone with his thoughts. And everything seem off, like Sam is looking at everything through a big fish tank. Sometimes he's concentrating on something, reading or typing or packing salt shells, and he feels a strange prickle on the back of his neck and then it's gone again.
--
"I know it's you," Sam says, eyeing the smoking goddess in the dream. He feels the smile, though he can't see it.
"Yes, it was always said that you were the smart one. Now can you tell me what you're supposed to be doing?"
Sam glances around for someone to save him, but of course all the other strange figures that had populated the cave-thing had disappeared and he was alone with her. His stomach rumbles and when it does, he can feel the little thread of consciousness trailing out of the dream and tying him back to his body. It's hard to concentrate on what's not really happening when he can still feel what's really happening.
"Paying... attention? And helping you with something?"
"Yes, obviously." When she snaps at him, the wind rushes around the cave so fast it takes his breath away. Sam coughs and tries to wave the wind away from his face.
"Look," he gasps out when he breath again. "I don't know what you want me to do. I'm sorry about your family or whatever, but I don't know what you want!"
Kali stubs her cigarette out on the table, ashes swirling in the little gusts of wind that are still floating around. Sam feels it smudge his skin. "Have you ever heard of the demon Tmerat?"
Sam admits he hasn't and the next thing he knows he's waking up.
He's got his computer in his lap before his eyes are even fully open, but of course Google turns up nothing. Even his more esoteric sites come up empty. He doesn't want to call Bobby, who's already chasing enough leads trying to help them find the last two Horsemen, and Castiel is still missing in action.
While Sam is trying to puzzle out his next step for information, there's a knock at the door. The very confused pizza delivery guy is standing there, pizza box in one hand, big musty book in the other.
"I didn't even think we were open at four in the morning..." he says, handing Sam the box and the book.
Dean peps up when he smells the pizza. "Strange, but not unwelcome," he says, sitting up and snatching the box from Sam's hand. "Someone sent you a book? That's... weird." He twists his neck to see what book it is at the same time he tries to jam a slice a pizza in his mouth and ends up dumping molten cheese into his lap. When Dean swears and runs to the bathroom to soothe his cheese-burns, Sam flips open the plain cover and reads the first page. 'Old Daemonology', it says, in slanting script that makes Sam's eyes feel itchy.
In some great stroke of luck (or maybe it's not luck because everything else so far has felt very much like someone's been helping it along), the book has an index in the back and he finds Tmerat on page one hundred and thirty six.
Tmerat will ascend to the light when he can siphon enough power from the gods to lend strength to his tenebrous wings. When the demon Tmerat ascends, the world will be plunged into darkness and the minions of the night will come to feast on the scraps of humanity.
There's an inky woodcut that's been smudged and blurred with time, and Sam's thankful for it because it doesn't seem like something he wants to see the details on.
When he thinks about it, it doesn't sound any worse than any of the plans Lucifer has. Something about the whole thing nags at Sam's mind. He thinks it's kind of annoying that the book doesn't tell him how exactly Tmerat plans to siphon anything from anywhere. That information would be very useful, Sam thinks.
"I think something bad is going to happen," he tells Dean, when Dean reappears relatively cheese-free.
"Another cheese attack? Or maybe, um, the apocalypse?"
Sam shows him the book and upon review they decide it's bad news. Sam doesn't tell Dean it's Kali though. He's not sure how Dean would take it.
It's another few days before anything else happens, and when it does happen it's little. Sam sees the word 'tenebrous' written on something else, another book in the window of an old pawn shop, which sticks out as strange to him because he's never heard the word before he saw it in the book. He looks it up and it means 'ominous', which strikes him as, well, ominous.
By the time he shoulders open the warped wooden door, he knows he's found the right place because everything smells like sulfur, rot and old blood and something in his skin tingles and puts him on alert. Sam tenses for a fight and has a hand on his gun even as he calls out.
A little man is at his side, barely coming up to his elbow. "Can I help you, son?"
Sam can tell he's a demon before he even reaches for Sam's throat. The demon throws Sam into a bookcase and he hits the floor hard. Heavy hard covers fall like rain. Sam shakes them off and is on his feet with weapon drawn, but the demon has him backed against the wall and a wicked blade pressed to his throat.
"Where is she, son?" he rasps.
Sam shrugs carefully. "Don't know. She's in hiding. Probably so you can't kill her."
"I don't want to kill her," the demon says, pressing the blade a little harder against Sam's neck. "We need her alive and kicking to raise my master."
"Oh trust me, Lucifer is up and around already."
The demon hisses and his knife nicks Sam's skin when he shudders. "Shut up!"
"What? I thought Lucifer was the one in charge. Sorry." He makes sure it's readily apparent that he is not sorry.
The demon cuts him on purpose this time, just a little. And maybe it was part of his plan, because there's a sweeping wind all around the store then, picking up loose papers and kicking up dust, pulling at Sam's hair and clothes, taking his breath away.
"Lady," breathes the demon, turning from Sam but keeping the knife pressed close.
Kali's eyes fix on Sam's. He can't move or risk another bite from the knife, but he quirks his eye in a way he hopes conveys the 'well, what did you expect?' feeling. She flicks her wrist and burns the demon into nothing before the demon can start in on a long winded speech about how her powers will raise Tmerat and the end of days will be upon them all (again).
The ash that used to be the demon swirls around and teases at Sam's nose. He sneezes.
Kali gives him a scathing look. "You were supposed to be saving me."
He shrugs for real this time. "Sorry. There might be more demons. I can charge off into probable danger for you, if you want."
"There's no one else," she says, scooping a book from the floor at Sam's feet. Sam catches a glimpse at the Harlequin romance cover before she slips it somewhere about her person. He doesn't ask where it goes, just in case she decides to show him. "But thank you for offering. Makes me feel at least a little like the damsel in distress instead of the knight." She touches his neck, where the demon cut him, and Sam feels every bit of his skin prickle like the temperature all around him just shot up.
Kali presses her finger to her lips, tasting his blood. It must be pleasant because she smiles like a gharial on the banks of the Ganges and Sam tries to back up but just hits the book case again instead.
"Thank you," she says, and Sam feels that she means it. "For trying, anyways."
He nods slowly.
She steps in close, or maybe she doesn't step exactly, but she's pressing right up against him either way. Then she is dragging him down, or maybe she's dragging herself up because she's kissing him and he can taste his own blood in her mouth and a deeper, darker taste that is just like her eyes or her voice -- deep and mysterious and like a dizzying spiral of things he knows he should never want. She's dangerous in every way and he should be running, but she smoothes her tongue over his bottom lip and Sam whimpers.
"I'm sure you'll see me again." Sam doesn't remember when they stopped kissing, but they're not now and then she's gone and the lights flicker. He touches his hand to his mouth and it all seems another dream, but he can still taste the danger and the blood.
He doesn't think it's something he'll ever forget.
Author: unavoidedcrisis
Recipient: mute90
Pairing: Sam/Kali
Rating: PG13
Warnings: heavy spoilers for 5x19
Summary: Strange dreams are not new territory for Sam, but this one is stranger than normal.
Notes: Beta'd by mortar. For the prompt 'if it doesn't end in bloodshed, it's probably not love,' and maybe a dash of the others. Sorry it's belated, but I hope you like it. I had an absolute blast writing it.
It's a strange dream, even for Sam. He's sitting at a table in a room that might be a café or might not be, and there are people all around at table, but they're frozen like statues and they don't seem to realize it.
He's staring at the walls, watching them squirm like they're uncomfortable under his gaze and maybe they are. He's trying to figure out what colour they are because it's not like any colour he's seen before and could put a name on. There's a person in the shadows on the other side of the table only Sam can't see them so maybe it's not a person at all, but then a match flares and a thin hand lights a cigarette and that puts another tick in the 'person' column (because people have hands).
Sam has been hunting long enough that he knows to have more than one column, and just 'a hand' is not a lot to go on, but he figures anything else that might have hands and sit at a table would not smoke cigarettes too because only people are dumb enough to know how bad cigarettes are but still smoke them anyways.
The walls are still moving, only now they're getting darker and closer and Sam thinks they're not in a café but they might be in a cave. "It's a nice cave, though, to have table cloths like this." He doesn't notice he's said it out loud at all, but then he hears someone laugh and he thinks this is the weirdest dream he's ever had.
"Maybe so, Samuel, but it was the only way to get you to me."
"'Sam' is fine," he says automatically. 'Samuel' always makes him feel antsy. It reminds him too much of his father. "Wait, 'get me to you'?" He doesn't even clue in that this smoking shape has just read his thoughts.
"I need your help."
Sam wants to know who he's talking to. He still can't see the person (maybe, the jury is still out) and when he tries to focus on the voice, his mind goes mostly-sideways and he can't hear it right.
"Help with what?" he asks, craning his neck and trying to see through the haze of smoke and his own confusion.
"You'll know." Sam realizes the voice is like an old song from childhood. It's distant but familiar, there's faint trace of a melody hidden in there and a slow beat like a dying heart. It's terrifying and comforting and exhilarating all at once and it's driving him crazy that he can't place it.
He smells the cigarette smoke, but it's not like any cigarette smoke he's smelled before. It smells of tobacco, for sure, but it also reminds him of wood smoke, the smell of some unknown meat cooking and the oozing smell of dark, damp earth. Sam takes a deep breath and it makes his stomach turn.
Sam wakes up then, confused and sweaty and with a bit of a cramp in one of his legs (he's pretty sure that's not related to the dream though). He rubs his eyes and hits the shower, still trying to puzzle together what he'd just dreamed.
As always, it takes a while to get Dean moving first thing in the morning, but they finally get to breakfast and Sam finds he's ravenous.
Dean stares for a long moment, arching one eyebrow comically. "Did you run a marathon while I was sleeping?" he asks.
Sam is about to make a sarcastic comment, but then he realizes that that is exactly what he feels like. "I don't think so," he says. "But maybe." He tells Dean his dream then, because he thinks it might be relevant.
"Since when did you start having visions again?" Dean asks.
"It wasn't a vision," Sam says, because it wasn't. Other than the hunger (and possibly the leg cramp), he felt normal. He doesn't feel like he's been run over by a truck, like he used to with the visions.
"Who do you think it was?"
Sam shrugs and dips his toast in the leftover syrup in his plate. He's not sure he wants to talk about it anymore. So they don't talk about it. Winchesters are masters at not talking about things. Sam can't stop thinking about it though, even when they finally track down the ghost they're after.
Which leads to trouble when the ghost catches Sam off guard and flings him through a wall.
"Man," Dean says, still chuckling, but helping Sam up from the pile of rubble he'd found himself under. "How do you always get yourself into these problems?"
"It's not funny." Sam rubs the back of his head roughly, trying to work down the bump growing there. "That freakin' hurt."
"At least we got the ghost," Dean shrugs. Sam glares, but there's very little heat to it.
"Get me some ice," he says.
--
"You're not even trying," says the shadowy figure smoking the smelly cigarette. It sounds less like a complaint and more like a direct accusation.
"Um," Sam says diplomatically. It's the best he can manage.
"You won't know how to help unless you're paying attention and if you're not paying attention you're of no use to me." The unspoken 'and if you're no use to me...' floats in the air between them like a vicious firefly, blinking on and off in Sam's mind.
"Sorry," Sam says. He means it, of course. It's easy to mean things in dreams and though this dream is strange, there's something about it that almost puts Sam at ease. He can hear the voice better than last time, and though the smells are stronger, they make his stomach turn less. He thinks he hears a bee buzzing, somewhere close by but far away and instead of being annoying, it's just mildly curious.
Sam decides he can't help someone who he doesn't know, so he makes a move across the table to brush the shadows from the face of his would-be companion.
The otherworldness of this being isn't something that is readily apparent to Sam because of the nature of dream-time and he won't or can't notice this person (or whatever) can read his thoughts almost before he has them. He's flat on his back on the floor of the cavern with something heavy on his chest in less time than it takes to butter a piece of toast, or maybe in less time than it takes to create the universe.
Sam thinks many thoughts all together on top of each other and most of them don't sense but one sticks further than the rest and so Sam latches on to it.
The heavy thing on my chest is a shoe with a foot in it. And the shoe is pointy.
"Don't do that," says the shadow, still shadowed. "And start paying more attention, Samuel."
He starts to bristle at the use of his full name again, but he wakes up under the scratchy motel blanket before he can get the words out. He goes into the bathroom and scrubs cold water over his face. When he stands up straight, he sees that there's a bruise shaped like the heel of a very pointy stiletto in the centre of his chest.
--
Three nights later, at an all-night truck stop diner in Storm Lake, Iowa, Sam sees a shadowy figure alone in a corner booth, with smoke drifting upwards. Dean's in the john, so Sam takes the opportunity to slip into the booth across from the shadow.
The man looks up, startled. "You lost, son?" It's not a face or a voice that Sam recognizes at all.
Sam shakes his head. "I thought you were someone else. Sorry." He stands up the leave and the man's eyes flash momentarily. Not black like a demon, or silver like a shape shifter, but just... flash. In the fraction of the moment, Sam sees everything reflected back at him in those eyes. Fire and death and laughter and happiness and winter and spring and everyone person who ever would live. It was like looking into all of time.
"The blood is stronger than anything else," the man says, his voice suddenly very different in a way Sam can't identify. "Don't forget that, Samuel."
Sam blinks or maybe he doesn't but he's sitting back at the table with Dean and a big plate of fries between them.
He spends the next few days deep in thought about the eyes he saw on the man in the diner. The eyes remind him of the voice of the creature in his dreams, which remind him of the feeling he feels when he is alone with his thoughts. And everything seem off, like Sam is looking at everything through a big fish tank. Sometimes he's concentrating on something, reading or typing or packing salt shells, and he feels a strange prickle on the back of his neck and then it's gone again.
--
"I know it's you," Sam says, eyeing the smoking goddess in the dream. He feels the smile, though he can't see it.
"Yes, it was always said that you were the smart one. Now can you tell me what you're supposed to be doing?"
Sam glances around for someone to save him, but of course all the other strange figures that had populated the cave-thing had disappeared and he was alone with her. His stomach rumbles and when it does, he can feel the little thread of consciousness trailing out of the dream and tying him back to his body. It's hard to concentrate on what's not really happening when he can still feel what's really happening.
"Paying... attention? And helping you with something?"
"Yes, obviously." When she snaps at him, the wind rushes around the cave so fast it takes his breath away. Sam coughs and tries to wave the wind away from his face.
"Look," he gasps out when he breath again. "I don't know what you want me to do. I'm sorry about your family or whatever, but I don't know what you want!"
Kali stubs her cigarette out on the table, ashes swirling in the little gusts of wind that are still floating around. Sam feels it smudge his skin. "Have you ever heard of the demon Tmerat?"
Sam admits he hasn't and the next thing he knows he's waking up.
He's got his computer in his lap before his eyes are even fully open, but of course Google turns up nothing. Even his more esoteric sites come up empty. He doesn't want to call Bobby, who's already chasing enough leads trying to help them find the last two Horsemen, and Castiel is still missing in action.
While Sam is trying to puzzle out his next step for information, there's a knock at the door. The very confused pizza delivery guy is standing there, pizza box in one hand, big musty book in the other.
"I didn't even think we were open at four in the morning..." he says, handing Sam the box and the book.
Dean peps up when he smells the pizza. "Strange, but not unwelcome," he says, sitting up and snatching the box from Sam's hand. "Someone sent you a book? That's... weird." He twists his neck to see what book it is at the same time he tries to jam a slice a pizza in his mouth and ends up dumping molten cheese into his lap. When Dean swears and runs to the bathroom to soothe his cheese-burns, Sam flips open the plain cover and reads the first page. 'Old Daemonology', it says, in slanting script that makes Sam's eyes feel itchy.
In some great stroke of luck (or maybe it's not luck because everything else so far has felt very much like someone's been helping it along), the book has an index in the back and he finds Tmerat on page one hundred and thirty six.
Tmerat will ascend to the light when he can siphon enough power from the gods to lend strength to his tenebrous wings. When the demon Tmerat ascends, the world will be plunged into darkness and the minions of the night will come to feast on the scraps of humanity.
There's an inky woodcut that's been smudged and blurred with time, and Sam's thankful for it because it doesn't seem like something he wants to see the details on.
When he thinks about it, it doesn't sound any worse than any of the plans Lucifer has. Something about the whole thing nags at Sam's mind. He thinks it's kind of annoying that the book doesn't tell him how exactly Tmerat plans to siphon anything from anywhere. That information would be very useful, Sam thinks.
"I think something bad is going to happen," he tells Dean, when Dean reappears relatively cheese-free.
"Another cheese attack? Or maybe, um, the apocalypse?"
Sam shows him the book and upon review they decide it's bad news. Sam doesn't tell Dean it's Kali though. He's not sure how Dean would take it.
It's another few days before anything else happens, and when it does happen it's little. Sam sees the word 'tenebrous' written on something else, another book in the window of an old pawn shop, which sticks out as strange to him because he's never heard the word before he saw it in the book. He looks it up and it means 'ominous', which strikes him as, well, ominous.
By the time he shoulders open the warped wooden door, he knows he's found the right place because everything smells like sulfur, rot and old blood and something in his skin tingles and puts him on alert. Sam tenses for a fight and has a hand on his gun even as he calls out.
A little man is at his side, barely coming up to his elbow. "Can I help you, son?"
Sam can tell he's a demon before he even reaches for Sam's throat. The demon throws Sam into a bookcase and he hits the floor hard. Heavy hard covers fall like rain. Sam shakes them off and is on his feet with weapon drawn, but the demon has him backed against the wall and a wicked blade pressed to his throat.
"Where is she, son?" he rasps.
Sam shrugs carefully. "Don't know. She's in hiding. Probably so you can't kill her."
"I don't want to kill her," the demon says, pressing the blade a little harder against Sam's neck. "We need her alive and kicking to raise my master."
"Oh trust me, Lucifer is up and around already."
The demon hisses and his knife nicks Sam's skin when he shudders. "Shut up!"
"What? I thought Lucifer was the one in charge. Sorry." He makes sure it's readily apparent that he is not sorry.
The demon cuts him on purpose this time, just a little. And maybe it was part of his plan, because there's a sweeping wind all around the store then, picking up loose papers and kicking up dust, pulling at Sam's hair and clothes, taking his breath away.
"Lady," breathes the demon, turning from Sam but keeping the knife pressed close.
Kali's eyes fix on Sam's. He can't move or risk another bite from the knife, but he quirks his eye in a way he hopes conveys the 'well, what did you expect?' feeling. She flicks her wrist and burns the demon into nothing before the demon can start in on a long winded speech about how her powers will raise Tmerat and the end of days will be upon them all (again).
The ash that used to be the demon swirls around and teases at Sam's nose. He sneezes.
Kali gives him a scathing look. "You were supposed to be saving me."
He shrugs for real this time. "Sorry. There might be more demons. I can charge off into probable danger for you, if you want."
"There's no one else," she says, scooping a book from the floor at Sam's feet. Sam catches a glimpse at the Harlequin romance cover before she slips it somewhere about her person. He doesn't ask where it goes, just in case she decides to show him. "But thank you for offering. Makes me feel at least a little like the damsel in distress instead of the knight." She touches his neck, where the demon cut him, and Sam feels every bit of his skin prickle like the temperature all around him just shot up.
Kali presses her finger to her lips, tasting his blood. It must be pleasant because she smiles like a gharial on the banks of the Ganges and Sam tries to back up but just hits the book case again instead.
"Thank you," she says, and Sam feels that she means it. "For trying, anyways."
He nods slowly.
She steps in close, or maybe she doesn't step exactly, but she's pressing right up against him either way. Then she is dragging him down, or maybe she's dragging herself up because she's kissing him and he can taste his own blood in her mouth and a deeper, darker taste that is just like her eyes or her voice -- deep and mysterious and like a dizzying spiral of things he knows he should never want. She's dangerous in every way and he should be running, but she smoothes her tongue over his bottom lip and Sam whimpers.
"I'm sure you'll see me again." Sam doesn't remember when they stopped kissing, but they're not now and then she's gone and the lights flicker. He touches his hand to his mouth and it all seems another dream, but he can still taste the danger and the blood.
He doesn't think it's something he'll ever forget.