Western Rising 13/?
When Sam woke, it was to motion, and a sick feeling in his stomach. He was cuffed in the back of the car with his hands behind his back. the stench of fresh blood rose to nostrils, making him gag, and his head pounded in time with his heartbeat.
Mercifully, they had removed the bodies.
He focused all his energies on the image of Chuck, attempting to convey what had happened. Chuck had met Crowley once, briefly, on the night before leaving, and he had known Lydia. Sam worked to convey their images and a sense of their actions.
“Morning sunshine,” said Crowley, leaning over the front seat and aiming a gun at Sam. Lydia was driving.
Sam sneered at him: “You’re an idiot. Do you honestly think this will work? That the Council will give you a second chance?”
“Eh, maybe not all of them. But I happen to be on intimate terms with special young lady who wields a certain…influence.”
Sam frowned. A dream-memory returned to him.
“The blonde woman,” he said slowly. “I saw her.”
“Lucky you. She’s a vicious little slag, but easy on the eyes, eh?”
Sam didn’t take the bait.
“What does she want?”
“What we all want. Power. She’ll probably kill you eventually, but not before using you for leverage.”
Sam fell silent. He could hear Dean telling him to stay awake in case he had a concussion, so he focused on watching the scenery, trying his best to figure out the direction they were headed in. Intermittently, he made desperate attempts to contact Chuck. But the knowledge of the cuffs combined with the pain in his head made it all seem hopeless, like a fantasy.
* * *
Dean sat on the flat roof of the base and watched the horizon. Clanging in the background - Hamid and another Ghost named Tia, who barely spoke, were repairing some of the tiles and pipe on an adjacent wall. Castiel was haunting him as usual, and after last night, Dean didn’t feel like making up some busy work to keep him out of the way.
“Nice shooting yesterday,” Dean told him.
Cas bowed his head in acknowledgement.
“I was, uh, surprised,” Dean said. “I mean, not that I should be. It’s just you don’t come across as the take-no-prisoners type.”
Cas blinked at him. “They were Resistance,” he said, as though that explained everything.
“Yeah I got that.”
“They are the body of Satan on earth - the evil that infects the world. Their very presence is an abomination to God.”
Hm. Sometimes Dean forgot how easy it was to drink the Kool-Aid when the State was your life.
“Oh I don’t know,” he needled. “Can’t help where you’re born. What you learn. Seems to me a pretty dirty trick on God’s part, having someone born into the Resistance, then damning them for it.”
“God created man with free will, and of that will, some chose to rebel against the State,” Cas said firmly.
“Like you.”
“That’s different.”
“How? I mean, I agree that it’s different, I’m just wondering how you see the situation.”
Cas said sharply: “Is my torment not enough for you, that you must fling my fall in my face continually?”
“Woah,” Dean held up his hands. “That’s - sorry. That’s not what I meant.”
“Then what did you mean?”
“Just that - well, like you thought - that the Resistance is wrong, but the State might not always be right either. That’s why you rebelled, isn’t it?”
Cas pressed his lips together and folded his hands. It was hard to imagine he was the same man who had climbed into Dean’s bed naked. Dean banished the image from his mind.
“Whether I was right or wrong is immaterial. It is done,” said Cas grimly. “I can never go back.”
“Oh come on!” Dean exploded. “You can’t doubt yourself! Look what they did to you!” ‘To us’.
“But,” said Castiel. “Consider what we are without them, and what we were then.” He held Dean’s gaze.
“Fuck that!” Dean grabbed his arm, suddenly unable to restrain himself. Cas looked mildly down at the hand, and Dean loosened his grip, which was hard enough to bruise. “We’re better off without them. All of us. Me, you, Sam.”
“Sam is...your friend. The other one who is coming here.”
“Right,” Dean released Cas’s arm. “The State tortured him too. Right before we escaped. You two will be like peas in a pod. You can talk about serious shit together.”
“Two….peas?” Something that was almost a hint of a smile quirked the corner of Cas’s mouth.
“It’s an expression. Jeez, where did you grow up?” He bumped his leg teasingly against Cas’s.
“At a secure military facility.”
“Oh. Right.”
* * *
“This isn’t right,” said Regis nervously.
“What?” Lilith jerked her head to glare at him.
“Lilith, look at you. Your pulse and blood pressure are through the roof, you’re aggressive,
anxious and irrational-“
Lilith shot a look at a rack of test tubes on the counter. They exploded. She smirked.
“Well, yes,” the doctor admitted when he came out of his crouch and removed his hands from his eyes. “That is remarkable.” His eye gleamed, something of that old excitement. “But it’s far too unreliable to have any viability as a weapon - I mean, you can’t control it.”
“I’m. Working. On it,” Lilith bit out. She was slumped in one of the study chairs, hooked up to several monitors, whilst Regis made calculations on a computer screen.
“I’m sorry,” Regis shook his head. “Believe me, Lilith, I wanted this to work.”
“It is working-”
“It’s also killing you. At the current rate of progress you’ll be dead before you gain any real control over it. Probably of a stroke, though a massive heart attack is also a possibility. Besides, you’re becoming increasingly violent, your aggression is misdirected-”
Lilith was out of the chair and across the room in a split second. Using her powers would have been more effective, but she had nothing left after that little stunt. In the same movement she pulled the knife from her sheath and held it at Regis’ throat, pinning him against his desk. He swallowed hard, a bead of sweat tracing his Adam’s apple.
“If you want out,” she said calmly. “Then get out. But you will provide me with the materials to continue the dosage myself. If you don’t I will kill you right now.”
“You - it’s -…” the doctor swallowed again, flesh of his throat shifting against the edge of the knife, and she permitted the barest prick, one bead of red blood slipping down his neck to disappear under his collar. “It’s suicide.”
“It’s my purpose.”
“Al - alright,” Regis held up both hands, cringing backwards, but trapped against his desk.
“Just - put the knife down.”
Lilith lowered the knife. “Serum,” she commanded. “And data.”
Regis pressed a few buttons on his computer. “I’ve emailed you everything - everything you’ve been given. Increasing at one milligram per day for the past week - since you’ve been manifesting. You’ve seen the results as well as I have. The serum is in the cabinet. The combination is 026749.”
“You’re a coward,” Lilith sneered at him. “You talk a good game, but you don’t have the integrity of your convictions.”
“I have something,” Regis said quietly. “I knew I did, and I was right. But I’m not in this to
kill our own people.” He glanced at the knife, still in her hand.
“You just don’t want to die. You don’t care if I live or die, you’re just afraid the monster’s gonna turn on her creator.”
“Am I wrong?”
“Don’t tempt me.” She felt her smile like the slash of a knife. She stalked to the cabinet, input the sealed combination and selected the serum.
“Get out,” Regis said, trembling. “Get out of my laboratory. And I’m telling the council I wash my hands of you.”
Lilith's lip curled. God, she despised weak men. “See you around, doctor,” she said as she left, saluting.
* * *
“Oh no,” said Chuck. “Oh no no no.” Since meeting Sam and Dean, the visions had plagued him less, but now he was heading hard for one, the spiking pain in his head, and craaap why wasn’t he drunk, they had no spare alcohol, he fumbled in the storage room for painkillers instead.
“Chuck, what are you doing?” He heard Becky exclaim behind him, but he didn’t care, because the pain in his head was making everything blur together. He finally got the painkillers open - God damn childproof caps - and swallowed a few of them dry. Becky grabbed the bottle from him before he could overdose, and he slumped against the crates.
“Fuuuuck,” he moaned, face in his hands. Becky knelt down next to him and placed her hands on his knees.
“Is it - are you-?”
“N - nothing’s happening. Well - just the pain.” Chuck bit his lip. “This is normally where I would…okay, I just have a brain tumour. I’m only dying. That’s great.”
“You don’t have a brain tumour,” Becky rolled her eyes. “You probably have a migraine. Come on, let’s get you to bed.”
Chuck whimpered pathetically and let her help him to his feet, before staggering to his bunk and collapsing.
“Becky?” he asked pitifully from where he lay with an arm across his eyes.
“Yeah sweetie?”
“Why couldn’t the Resistance have picked someone better to bioengineer?”
* * *
The trill of her phone jerked Lilith from a restless doze. She was often too tightly wound to sleep properly now, adrenalin from Regis’s serum coursing through her blood. It crackled in her extremities. The personal cell phone had been a gift from Nick, a direct line between them when they were separated by duty, and so far she’d managed to avoid surrendering it to the Council.
“Go ahead,” she cleared her throat.
“Lily, darling….”
Her eyes widened at oily voice, one of the last on the planet she’d expected to hear. “Crowley?”
“Hm, it takes more than a handful of goons to dispense with me, Peaches.”
“Call me one more pet name,” she growled, “And I will peel the flesh from your skull and force you to swallow it.”
There was the briefest of pauses, then Crowley said, “Now now, there’s no need to be nasty. I’m bringing you a present. Call it a peace offering.”
“How did you get this number?”
“Lifted it when we were stationed together. Now about that gift….”
“You have nothing that I want,” she spat.
“Oh really? Not even, say, the boy who killed your fuck-buddy with the power of his mind?”
Lilith stopped. “You’re lying,” she said at last.
“Why would I? Believe me, I didn’t call just to hear your dulcet tones.”
“Send a photo,” she ordered.
“Done and done. Check your messages.”
Lilith put him hold. To her immense irritation, her fingers were shaking. She had a new photo-message: a blurred shot, taken in a vehicle, with his face half in shadow and turned away. But - yes. She would never mistake him. The camera had recorded that the photograph was taken seven minutes ago. Bile rose in her throat, and she swallowed several times before switching back to the voice function.
“How did you - what did you-” she closed her eyes briefly.
“You know, Sweet Cheeks, you don’t sound so good,” he mocked her. “When was the last time you got a good night’s sleep?”
“Crowley, you piece of shit, bring him to me,” she said through gritted teeth.
“Certainly.”
Pause.
“For a few…conditions.”
“What do you want?”
“Full amnesty.”
“You know I can’t do that,” she gritted her teeth. “I’m demoted. Disgraced.”
“And I also know,” said Crowley smoothly, “That if you want him badly enough, you’ll find a
way to make it happen. Call me when you’re ready to talk business, darling. Ciao.”
“Wait - Cr -“ the line was dead. Lilith forced her teeth to unclench and her fingers to release the phone. Well alright. If he wanted to play it like that, she could play his game.
She emailed the picture to herself, opened her terminal, and lightened it to make the face more visible. Then she picked up the landline, pressed 0 for an internal call, and dialled Eve.
* * *
Hours wore on, and despite himself, Sam fell into a restless doze. He was jerked awake abruptly as the car stopped, and fell sideways onto the metal floor. It was dark out. He could make out the outlines of buildings through the windows, low and solid, lit at intervals by floodlights. He pushed himself to sit up, and through the other window he could just see the intricate tracery of barbed wire.
“Catch,” Crowley said, tossing a bottle of water onto the back seat. Sam summoned a glare, and managed to hold the bottle between his wrists to undo the cap with his teeth. The water felt good on his throat, gurgling in his empty stomach, and he wondered how long they’d been driving. Lydia was curled in the passenger seat now, eyes wide and frightened.
“Where are we?” Sam croaked when he lowered the water bottle.
“A barracks, genius. The young lady of my acquaintance happens to be posted here. And here’s the welcome contingent.”
A door slid open, light shining brief and harsh from inside the building, and four figures lined up military-style in a pool from one of the floodlights. The first was a stern, serene woman with dark hair and blue eyes, her uniform more decorated than the others. Two blank-looking men, heavily armed. And the woman from his vision.
She was young - younger than he’d expected - but her narrow face was drawn and her eyes dark with strain. She was slender, but strong-looking, held herself like the consummate soldier, hair so blonde it was almost white pinned sternly behind her head.
“Lily. Darling,” said Crowley, getting out of the car with the dog at his heels and slamming the door behind him. He opened his arms as though he would touch her somehow and she raised her gun to his face.
“Children,” said the woman who was clearly their commander, low and sure in her authority. They backed off. “Well, let’s see what we have here.” She opened the back door and looked down on Sam, both men behind her aiming guns at him. She was quite beautiful, something ageless about her face, and a slow smile spread across her pink mouth. “Well,” she said. “I must say I had my doubts. You’re pardoned,” she glanced at Crowley. “And who’s that?” she glanced over at Lydia, who was positively cowering.
“Some Ghost. Needed a little assistance to get him here,” Crowley studied his nails.
“Any further use?”
“None.”
“Dispatch her,” said the commander to one of her men, and Lydia’s scream was abruptly cut off with a single bullet. Sam gagged.
“Now,” said the commander, turning her attention back to Sam. “Samuel. My name is Eve. I am a commander on the Resistance Council. I am no devotee of the Weapons scheme. I prefer more traditional methods. But Lilith here has certainly earned her chance to demonstrate your usefulness. On that note, I suppose it’s only appropriate: welcome home.”
Part Fourteen