It's The End, Chapter Six
Chapter Six: It's a Ballroom Blitz!
Present day…
"Well that sucked," Dean said morosely. He downed a shot, slamming the tiny glass down on the table.
Eli downed her own, wincing as the hash liquid burned her throat. "Ugh, gross. I need a chaser."
Dean slid a pitcher of beer over to her and she groaned. "That's even more disgusting," she muttered, but slammed a second shot anyway, following it with the room-temperature beer.
"We pissed off angels," Sam muttered, sipping his drink. "Let a seal be broken, watched some teenagers die bloody, and are one step closer to the whole world going kaboom. What a day."
They sat in silence. The bar was nearly empty, only a few late-night patrons slouched over tables. Blues piped from the speakers. The whole establishment smelled of beer and unwashed dishes and the thick, sticky haze of cigarette smoke that draped over everything like a cloud. Dean downed another shot. Eli pushed her beer away, looking nauseated.
"I need a soda or something. I'm too depressed to drink."
"Oh come on," Dean said, pushing the beer back to her. "If you can't get smashed when you're depressed, when can you? Hell, after everything that just happened, I'd say we've earned ourselves a nice bender."
"Yeah, that's exactly why I can't drink." She slid the beer away from her again and slowly began to chew a french fry. "I fucked up. I should've been with you guys. If I had gone with you to the school, to the house, I would have been able to see…" She trailed off. "Never mind."
"You can't beat yourself up about it," Sam said. He rested his elbows on the table, the sleeves of his checkered shirt rolled up, and took a long drink of beer.
"Yeah, Sam and I fail all the time!" Dean clapped Sam's back hard, causing his brother to choke. She huffed at them grumpily, pushing her hair out her face.
"Yeah, but you're not tethered to asshole angels whose idea of fun is to threaten you with smiting."
"Um, hello?" Dean asked, pointing to himself. "You're not the only one with angelic issues. They broke me out of hell, and now they think they own me."
"Sometimes I think they would like nothing better than to see my head on a stick," Sam chimed in.
"So let's get drunk!" Dean finished, lifting his shot like a salute.
"I'm your bodyguard," she stressed. "You two get drunk. I can't have my judgment impaired." She eyed Dean critically. "Especially not with you around, grabby hands."
"I would never," Dean replied, affronted. He paused for a moment as if thinking something through. "Okay, so you're basically saying you can never have fun because of these 'bodyguard' duties."
"Basically," Eli said, taking the final bite of her chicken burger.
"So just don't be our bodyguard anymore," he said, shrugging. "Look, to be honest, we really don't need one, but I understand you're heavenly appointed and will be sticking around for a while. So just… stick around. If we need your help, we'll ask for it. Until then, I dunno… sit there and be cute."
"Nice one, Dean," Sam muttered.
"Well, after that lovely little display of misogynism, this cute girl is going to the bathroom," Eli said, standing and pushing up the sleeves of her jacket. "If the waitress comes by, order me a coke."
"Where is that waitress anyway?" Dean asked, craning his head around and surveying the smoky room. "I want me some pie." Eli caught Sam’s eye, he smiled a little and shook his head, and she smiled back and rolled her eyes before walking away. It was tentative, the first tiny spark of an inside joke, but it made something swell pathetically in her chest, like the loser girl asked to sit at the popular table.
The bathroom was tiny and buzzing with flies, the handle on the door of the one stall broken, the floors slick with indefinable, reeking substances. She was washing her hands when it happened: the door opened and several people walked in. Eli didn't look up.
"Yo, guys, this is a one-staller only," she said, glancing into the grimy mirror. "So if you could wait your turOHFUCKINGSHIT!"
The men had the twisted, rotting faces of demons superimposed over their features. She spun around, reaching for her guns, but they were on her in a second, twisting her arm behind her back. She immediately stopped struggling, going limp as if unable to fight back. The demon grinned, pleased at having overpowered her so easily.
"Not a word," he breathed into her ear. The host was a burly man in his mid-30s with beer breath and yellowed teeth. She was marched out of the bathroom, the others following close behind them.
Sam and Dean were standing in the dining room, knives at their throats, flanked by five demons. "Found the waitress!" Dean called to her in a too-chipper voice, the kind he used to disguise his fear.
She glanced around: the other patrons were slumped over their drinks, dead. The demons must have waited outside until the three hunters split up; that's probably where they snagged the waitress, who was currently glaring at Dean with black eyes. But why didn't they just possess the patrons in the first place?
Because they know about me, Eli realized with a sinking feeling in her stomach. They know I can see demons. But what else do they know?
"Sam and Dean Winchester," the waitress drawled. "So nice of you to stop by."
"Bite me, bitch," snapped Dean. The demon holding him jerked his head back, digging the knife into the sensitive skin at his throat.
"Ooo, not a very smart thing to do, Dean," she said, smiling widely. In her hand was the Knife. She waved it in front of his face. "Especially now that we've got your little toy. So why don't you just stay quiet for a moment, like a good boy."
She turned and looked at Eli. "So the rumors are true. A heavenly bodyguard. One who can see demons for what they really are. Still." She eyed Eli, who was still barely struggling, up and down. "I'm not impressed."
"You can see demons?" Sam blurted out, unable to help himself. Eli glared at him.
"Well, this is an interesting development," the demon waitress said, looking back and forth between the three of them. "Having trust issues, are we?"
"Will you just shut up and do whatever it is you're going to do?" Dean hissed.
"Dean, don't antagonize the demon," Eli whispered fiercely.
"I think I'll do just that," the demon said. "You see, what with Dean here being pulled out of hell by angels and Sam being able to exorcise demons with his mind." She paused, sizing Sam up. "Don't even think about it, by the way," she said. "Or your big brother will have a knife in his throat before a single one of us gets pulled out. Some of us banded together to take you boys out before you do any serious damage. We are really sick of getting killed all the time."
"By…take us out, you mean what, exactly?" Dean asked. The demon behind him lifted his head back by his hair and cut his neck ever so slightly, so that a thin stream of blood ran down his skin. The demon-waitress smirked.
"What do you think, hotshot."
Dean moved his eyes over to Eli, who was still just standing there limply. "Uh, a little help here?"
"Oh now you want my help?" she asked, looking bored, but on the inside her body was humming, every nerve-ending flared to almost painful awareness. "I'm sorry, I thought I was just supposed to stand here and look cute."
"Now is not the time to be a bitch, Eli," Sam snapped. "Can you help us or not?"
The demon turned slowly to look at her, head tilted to the side. "What can you possibly do, little bodyguard?" she asked. "Demon-seeing powers are of no use to you now."
"Oh, you ugly bitch," she said, smiling hugely, feeling a familiar trembling spark run through her body, like the jolt of an electrical socket. It moved under the surface of her skin like snakes, like the buzz of adrenaline but sharper, sweeter. "I have been waiting so long for this. You have no idea."
Eli ground her heel into the demon's toes at the same time her elbow slammed into his solar plexus. He grunted, staggering back, but Eli was already on him, palm against his forehead. Something inside of her opened; she poured some of that clean electric energy into him, feeling it soak through his layers of grime and sickness. It felt good. He screamed horribly, a white light streaming from his eyes and mouth, and then he went limp.
While this was happening Sam and Dean wrenched out of the demons' grips. Dean dove for the Knife. He wrestled it away from the waitress but was hauled back a moment later by another demon.
"They just keep coming and coming," Sam gasped, standing back to back with Dean. There were now at least ten in the room. "Should I…?"
"No," Eli said decisively. She had to resist the urge to giggle; riding the high always did that to her, made the colors so sharp and bright, the air tingling, moving, like she could cut through it with a knife. The light under her skin grew, pressing at her pores, shaking and gleaming and just begging to be let out. "Grab your holy water and do what you did back in the day. I got this."
"Eli, you can't bitch-slap every one of them," Sam countered. She smirked, pulling out the guns from under her jacket.
"Dude, I've been training under an angel for six years," she said, her lips bared over white teeth in an almost feral smile. "You think I didn't pick up a few tricks? Why do you think I'm your bodyguard?"
Suddenly, as if a tiny bomb had been set off, the guns flared with white fire in her hands.
"Because I can do this," she hissed, raising the guns.
When they fired the bullets were pure white, flashing through the dark bar like tiny stars, and when they pierced a demon's head a sickly glow sputtered inside of them for a moment before they collapsed on the ground. She fired off round after round, blazing white-hot bullets into shoulders, heads, chests.
After a second of stunned silence Dean and Sam joined the fray, Dean slashing with the Knife, Sam scalding demons with holy water and muttering exorcism spells under his breath. After a few moments the remaining demons gave up, simultaneously throwing their heads back and streaming from the throats of their hosts as thick black smoke.
The three hunters stood in the center of the room, panting. The light shining from Eli's guns went out.
"Okay," Dean gasped, holding the cut at his neck and staring at Eli. "You have got to explain what the hell is going on here."
"Dean," she whispered, her back to them. He shook his head fiercely.
"Nuh uh, don't think you're gonna get out of this time, blondie. What the fuck did you just do?"
Slowly she turned to them. Blood was streaming from her nose. She stumbled.
"I went too far," she groaned, then fell to her knees and finally to the floor, her eyes rolling in the back of her head, completely unconscious.
"Shit, girl is heavier than she looks," Dean grunted as he laid her prone body on the motel bed. He gently tugged off her boots and jacket, covering her with a light blanket. "She looks like death warmed over."
"Here," Sam said, emerging from the bathroom clutching wet towels. He handed them to Dean. "For her face."
Dean sighed and began wiping the dried blood from under her nose. "What the hell is going on, Sam?" he asked quietly.
Sam sank down on the other bed and stared at Eli. Her skin was pale and washed out under the harsh light; she looked fragile, the tiny blue veins under her eyes startlingly visible. "I honestly have no idea," he said. "Maybe she lied. Maybe she is an angel."
"Runaway angel? Refused to play nice with the other angels?" Dean said, shrugging. "It would explain the white light."
"And the fact that the angels can't stand her," Sam agreed.
"She's not an angel," a gruff voice said, causing Sam and Dean to jump.
"Jesus Christ, Castiel, don't do that!" Dean exclaimed. Castiel frowned, walking over to the side of the bed.
"My apologies. How is she?"
"Comatose," Dean snapped. "So how about you lay your hands on her and fix her up?"
Castiel looked uncomfortable. "I'm not supposed to."
Dean stood and glared at Castiel, challenging him. "Look, Eli just took out a roomful of demons to protect us. You guys were the ones who sent her here in the first place. I don't care about your stupid orders, the least you can do is help her out."
Castiel stared down at the unconscious Eli for a long moment before sinking onto the bed. He brushed a lank strand of hair from her face, hesitated, then gently laid his long fingers against her forehead.
For a second nothing happened. Then Eli gasped and opened her eyes, staring blearily at the angel above her.
"Cas?" she whispered, her voice thick and groggy. He removed his hand from her forehead, trying to stem the deep wave of relief that washed over him at the sight of her green eyes and the gentle sound of his name coming from her mouth.
"Are you all right?" he asked her. She nodded, licking her chapped lips; Castiel averted his eyes.
"I think so."
"You pushed yourself too far," he reprimanded. She gave a dry, coughing laugh.
"What else was I supposed to do? Besides, it felt good."
"Okay, now we're all conscious would someone like to explain to me what is going on here?" Dean burst out. "What was that back there?"
"Dean, I can't…" she said, struggling to sit up. Castiel placed a hand on her shoulder.
"I think it's time that you tell them, Elijah," he said seriously. "They have a right to know."
"Damn straight we do," Dean groused.
Eli hung her head. Castiel was unused to comforting people, but his hand was still on her bare shoulder, so he squeezed it a little, rubbing his thumb in small circles against the skin. It frightened him, how good it felt, this small touch, and after an awkward moment he pulled away, cradling the hand that touched her against his body as if it had been burnt.
"Fine," she finally said. "Fine. Seems kind of dumb to keep it a secret now." She stopped, her lips moving soundlessly, like she wanted to speak but couldn’t. Her shaking hands gently throttled the blanket pooled at her waist. Dean fidgeted.
"Eli…" Sam started.
She held her hands up. “I’m okay. I got this." She took a deep breath. "So once upon I time, I went to college and had friends and lived a normal, boring life. Then a yellow-eyed demon possessed my father and he…changed me…"
On to Chapter 7
Present day…
"Well that sucked," Dean said morosely. He downed a shot, slamming the tiny glass down on the table.
Eli downed her own, wincing as the hash liquid burned her throat. "Ugh, gross. I need a chaser."
Dean slid a pitcher of beer over to her and she groaned. "That's even more disgusting," she muttered, but slammed a second shot anyway, following it with the room-temperature beer.
"We pissed off angels," Sam muttered, sipping his drink. "Let a seal be broken, watched some teenagers die bloody, and are one step closer to the whole world going kaboom. What a day."
They sat in silence. The bar was nearly empty, only a few late-night patrons slouched over tables. Blues piped from the speakers. The whole establishment smelled of beer and unwashed dishes and the thick, sticky haze of cigarette smoke that draped over everything like a cloud. Dean downed another shot. Eli pushed her beer away, looking nauseated.
"I need a soda or something. I'm too depressed to drink."
"Oh come on," Dean said, pushing the beer back to her. "If you can't get smashed when you're depressed, when can you? Hell, after everything that just happened, I'd say we've earned ourselves a nice bender."
"Yeah, that's exactly why I can't drink." She slid the beer away from her again and slowly began to chew a french fry. "I fucked up. I should've been with you guys. If I had gone with you to the school, to the house, I would have been able to see…" She trailed off. "Never mind."
"You can't beat yourself up about it," Sam said. He rested his elbows on the table, the sleeves of his checkered shirt rolled up, and took a long drink of beer.
"Yeah, Sam and I fail all the time!" Dean clapped Sam's back hard, causing his brother to choke. She huffed at them grumpily, pushing her hair out her face.
"Yeah, but you're not tethered to asshole angels whose idea of fun is to threaten you with smiting."
"Um, hello?" Dean asked, pointing to himself. "You're not the only one with angelic issues. They broke me out of hell, and now they think they own me."
"Sometimes I think they would like nothing better than to see my head on a stick," Sam chimed in.
"So let's get drunk!" Dean finished, lifting his shot like a salute.
"I'm your bodyguard," she stressed. "You two get drunk. I can't have my judgment impaired." She eyed Dean critically. "Especially not with you around, grabby hands."
"I would never," Dean replied, affronted. He paused for a moment as if thinking something through. "Okay, so you're basically saying you can never have fun because of these 'bodyguard' duties."
"Basically," Eli said, taking the final bite of her chicken burger.
"So just don't be our bodyguard anymore," he said, shrugging. "Look, to be honest, we really don't need one, but I understand you're heavenly appointed and will be sticking around for a while. So just… stick around. If we need your help, we'll ask for it. Until then, I dunno… sit there and be cute."
"Nice one, Dean," Sam muttered.
"Well, after that lovely little display of misogynism, this cute girl is going to the bathroom," Eli said, standing and pushing up the sleeves of her jacket. "If the waitress comes by, order me a coke."
"Where is that waitress anyway?" Dean asked, craning his head around and surveying the smoky room. "I want me some pie." Eli caught Sam’s eye, he smiled a little and shook his head, and she smiled back and rolled her eyes before walking away. It was tentative, the first tiny spark of an inside joke, but it made something swell pathetically in her chest, like the loser girl asked to sit at the popular table.
The bathroom was tiny and buzzing with flies, the handle on the door of the one stall broken, the floors slick with indefinable, reeking substances. She was washing her hands when it happened: the door opened and several people walked in. Eli didn't look up.
"Yo, guys, this is a one-staller only," she said, glancing into the grimy mirror. "So if you could wait your turOHFUCKINGSHIT!"
The men had the twisted, rotting faces of demons superimposed over their features. She spun around, reaching for her guns, but they were on her in a second, twisting her arm behind her back. She immediately stopped struggling, going limp as if unable to fight back. The demon grinned, pleased at having overpowered her so easily.
"Not a word," he breathed into her ear. The host was a burly man in his mid-30s with beer breath and yellowed teeth. She was marched out of the bathroom, the others following close behind them.
Sam and Dean were standing in the dining room, knives at their throats, flanked by five demons. "Found the waitress!" Dean called to her in a too-chipper voice, the kind he used to disguise his fear.
She glanced around: the other patrons were slumped over their drinks, dead. The demons must have waited outside until the three hunters split up; that's probably where they snagged the waitress, who was currently glaring at Dean with black eyes. But why didn't they just possess the patrons in the first place?
Because they know about me, Eli realized with a sinking feeling in her stomach. They know I can see demons. But what else do they know?
"Sam and Dean Winchester," the waitress drawled. "So nice of you to stop by."
"Bite me, bitch," snapped Dean. The demon holding him jerked his head back, digging the knife into the sensitive skin at his throat.
"Ooo, not a very smart thing to do, Dean," she said, smiling widely. In her hand was the Knife. She waved it in front of his face. "Especially now that we've got your little toy. So why don't you just stay quiet for a moment, like a good boy."
She turned and looked at Eli. "So the rumors are true. A heavenly bodyguard. One who can see demons for what they really are. Still." She eyed Eli, who was still barely struggling, up and down. "I'm not impressed."
"You can see demons?" Sam blurted out, unable to help himself. Eli glared at him.
"Well, this is an interesting development," the demon waitress said, looking back and forth between the three of them. "Having trust issues, are we?"
"Will you just shut up and do whatever it is you're going to do?" Dean hissed.
"Dean, don't antagonize the demon," Eli whispered fiercely.
"I think I'll do just that," the demon said. "You see, what with Dean here being pulled out of hell by angels and Sam being able to exorcise demons with his mind." She paused, sizing Sam up. "Don't even think about it, by the way," she said. "Or your big brother will have a knife in his throat before a single one of us gets pulled out. Some of us banded together to take you boys out before you do any serious damage. We are really sick of getting killed all the time."
"By…take us out, you mean what, exactly?" Dean asked. The demon behind him lifted his head back by his hair and cut his neck ever so slightly, so that a thin stream of blood ran down his skin. The demon-waitress smirked.
"What do you think, hotshot."
Dean moved his eyes over to Eli, who was still just standing there limply. "Uh, a little help here?"
"Oh now you want my help?" she asked, looking bored, but on the inside her body was humming, every nerve-ending flared to almost painful awareness. "I'm sorry, I thought I was just supposed to stand here and look cute."
"Now is not the time to be a bitch, Eli," Sam snapped. "Can you help us or not?"
The demon turned slowly to look at her, head tilted to the side. "What can you possibly do, little bodyguard?" she asked. "Demon-seeing powers are of no use to you now."
"Oh, you ugly bitch," she said, smiling hugely, feeling a familiar trembling spark run through her body, like the jolt of an electrical socket. It moved under the surface of her skin like snakes, like the buzz of adrenaline but sharper, sweeter. "I have been waiting so long for this. You have no idea."
Eli ground her heel into the demon's toes at the same time her elbow slammed into his solar plexus. He grunted, staggering back, but Eli was already on him, palm against his forehead. Something inside of her opened; she poured some of that clean electric energy into him, feeling it soak through his layers of grime and sickness. It felt good. He screamed horribly, a white light streaming from his eyes and mouth, and then he went limp.
While this was happening Sam and Dean wrenched out of the demons' grips. Dean dove for the Knife. He wrestled it away from the waitress but was hauled back a moment later by another demon.
"They just keep coming and coming," Sam gasped, standing back to back with Dean. There were now at least ten in the room. "Should I…?"
"No," Eli said decisively. She had to resist the urge to giggle; riding the high always did that to her, made the colors so sharp and bright, the air tingling, moving, like she could cut through it with a knife. The light under her skin grew, pressing at her pores, shaking and gleaming and just begging to be let out. "Grab your holy water and do what you did back in the day. I got this."
"Eli, you can't bitch-slap every one of them," Sam countered. She smirked, pulling out the guns from under her jacket.
"Dude, I've been training under an angel for six years," she said, her lips bared over white teeth in an almost feral smile. "You think I didn't pick up a few tricks? Why do you think I'm your bodyguard?"
Suddenly, as if a tiny bomb had been set off, the guns flared with white fire in her hands.
"Because I can do this," she hissed, raising the guns.
When they fired the bullets were pure white, flashing through the dark bar like tiny stars, and when they pierced a demon's head a sickly glow sputtered inside of them for a moment before they collapsed on the ground. She fired off round after round, blazing white-hot bullets into shoulders, heads, chests.
After a second of stunned silence Dean and Sam joined the fray, Dean slashing with the Knife, Sam scalding demons with holy water and muttering exorcism spells under his breath. After a few moments the remaining demons gave up, simultaneously throwing their heads back and streaming from the throats of their hosts as thick black smoke.
The three hunters stood in the center of the room, panting. The light shining from Eli's guns went out.
"Okay," Dean gasped, holding the cut at his neck and staring at Eli. "You have got to explain what the hell is going on here."
"Dean," she whispered, her back to them. He shook his head fiercely.
"Nuh uh, don't think you're gonna get out of this time, blondie. What the fuck did you just do?"
Slowly she turned to them. Blood was streaming from her nose. She stumbled.
"I went too far," she groaned, then fell to her knees and finally to the floor, her eyes rolling in the back of her head, completely unconscious.
"Shit, girl is heavier than she looks," Dean grunted as he laid her prone body on the motel bed. He gently tugged off her boots and jacket, covering her with a light blanket. "She looks like death warmed over."
"Here," Sam said, emerging from the bathroom clutching wet towels. He handed them to Dean. "For her face."
Dean sighed and began wiping the dried blood from under her nose. "What the hell is going on, Sam?" he asked quietly.
Sam sank down on the other bed and stared at Eli. Her skin was pale and washed out under the harsh light; she looked fragile, the tiny blue veins under her eyes startlingly visible. "I honestly have no idea," he said. "Maybe she lied. Maybe she is an angel."
"Runaway angel? Refused to play nice with the other angels?" Dean said, shrugging. "It would explain the white light."
"And the fact that the angels can't stand her," Sam agreed.
"She's not an angel," a gruff voice said, causing Sam and Dean to jump.
"Jesus Christ, Castiel, don't do that!" Dean exclaimed. Castiel frowned, walking over to the side of the bed.
"My apologies. How is she?"
"Comatose," Dean snapped. "So how about you lay your hands on her and fix her up?"
Castiel looked uncomfortable. "I'm not supposed to."
Dean stood and glared at Castiel, challenging him. "Look, Eli just took out a roomful of demons to protect us. You guys were the ones who sent her here in the first place. I don't care about your stupid orders, the least you can do is help her out."
Castiel stared down at the unconscious Eli for a long moment before sinking onto the bed. He brushed a lank strand of hair from her face, hesitated, then gently laid his long fingers against her forehead.
For a second nothing happened. Then Eli gasped and opened her eyes, staring blearily at the angel above her.
"Cas?" she whispered, her voice thick and groggy. He removed his hand from her forehead, trying to stem the deep wave of relief that washed over him at the sight of her green eyes and the gentle sound of his name coming from her mouth.
"Are you all right?" he asked her. She nodded, licking her chapped lips; Castiel averted his eyes.
"I think so."
"You pushed yourself too far," he reprimanded. She gave a dry, coughing laugh.
"What else was I supposed to do? Besides, it felt good."
"Okay, now we're all conscious would someone like to explain to me what is going on here?" Dean burst out. "What was that back there?"
"Dean, I can't…" she said, struggling to sit up. Castiel placed a hand on her shoulder.
"I think it's time that you tell them, Elijah," he said seriously. "They have a right to know."
"Damn straight we do," Dean groused.
Eli hung her head. Castiel was unused to comforting people, but his hand was still on her bare shoulder, so he squeezed it a little, rubbing his thumb in small circles against the skin. It frightened him, how good it felt, this small touch, and after an awkward moment he pulled away, cradling the hand that touched her against his body as if it had been burnt.
"Fine," she finally said. "Fine. Seems kind of dumb to keep it a secret now." She stopped, her lips moving soundlessly, like she wanted to speak but couldn’t. Her shaking hands gently throttled the blanket pooled at her waist. Dean fidgeted.
"Eli…" Sam started.
She held her hands up. “I’m okay. I got this." She took a deep breath. "So once upon I time, I went to college and had friends and lived a normal, boring life. Then a yellow-eyed demon possessed my father and he…changed me…"
On to Chapter 7