Fix the Sky a Little, part two
When Ben came back home, Castiel had been gone for a few hours but Claire hadn’t stopped for one moment mulling over what he’d told them.
“What?” Ben said as soon as he came in and had a good look at Claire and Jesse; he toed off his shoes and dropped his bag to the floor. “What happened? Should I get my gun?”
“No, you can keep it holstered, Billy the Kid,” Jesse said.
He was idly doodling on the back of an envelope what he had explained once was a demon’s true face as he could see it-he drew it in graphic, horrifyingly realistic details. Claire wondered if it was a specific demon’s face-maybe the one that had killed his parents-or if they all looked identical to him. Jesse crumpled the envelope in his fist with a crunch and walked over to Ben for a welcome kiss.
“Castiel happened,” Claire said before she dutifully reported everything Castiel had said to them.
“Man,” Ben said. “And here I worried you might get bored in my absence. What does it say about the state of Heaven that so many angels would rather fall than stay there? No wonder Castiel is a runaway.”
Ben dropped on the couch next to Claire; he slipped a casual arm around her shoulders and she leaned into him. Jesse went to sit across the couch with his feet over Ben’s lap, and Ben tried to good-naturally push him away for half a minute before he gave up.
“So,” he went on, “how many of these kid angels did Castiel say were around?”
“As far as he’s aware, about a dozen-he’s taken upon himself to track them and check on them, just to… watch out for them, I guess. They’re between eight and a few months old.”
“And the eight-year old’s been kidnapped.”
“Yes.”
“By Leviathans.”
Jesse snorted. “We’re still working on that part of the theory.”
“You know,” Ben said. “It could be that all this hunting has made us take things too literally: maybe ‘Leviathan’ doesn’t mean actual sea monsters-maybe it’s the name of some kind of organization, or a place. Or, or, maybe it’s a code name.”
“Well,” Jesse said. “It’s a black metal band.”
“’Leviathan’ has been a lot of things in human culture,” Claire said, and then felt unsettled by the way she’d said “human culture”-like Castiel would. “The question is, would an eight-year-old know about them? I didn’t read Thomas Hobbes in elementary school and I doubt this has changed much.”
“This is me pretending I know what you’re referring to,” Jesse said, gesturing to his face. “But that kid’s only looking like an eight-year old, isn’t he? He’s actually, like, thousands of years old, so your point is moot.”
“From what I know,” remember from Castiel’s memories, “the kid would probably not recall anything from his life as an angel, so no, my point still stands.”
“So who would kidnap an ex angel? What do they want with him?” Ben asked in his thinking voice. “If they even know what he is, of course.”
He had curled a hand-the one from the arm that wasn’t draped over Claire-around Jesse’s ankle and was running his thumb absentmindedly over the bone that stuck out. Claire found herself oddly taken by the sight.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Because they think he knows something or have something they want?”
“You just said that he wouldn’t remember anything from when he was an angel.”
“Maybe the kidnapper doesn’t know that.”
That night, Claire dreamed of the boy again, and didn’t encounter the same barrier she had felt the other times. It was like talking to Castiel and learning about the fallen angels had set something loose and she was more receptive to the boy’s message. This time the script diverged from the repeated calls for help, and Claire had the feeling that the boy was more aware that he was actually talking to someone.
Cold, he said in a distant, echoing voice. Hungry.
“Do you know where you are?” Claire tried to ask him. “Did you have a good look at the people who took you?” If they were even people.
But the boy repeated his complaints in a loop, sometimes asking for his parents-who, Castiel had said, had been murdered in the kidnapping, so Claire wasn’t really keen on that line of conversation. She woke up to a sharp sense of sorrow and guilt, like she’d lost someone very dear but couldn’t remember that person’s name.
“Another dream?” Ben mumbled sleepily. Jesse was probably already up, because she couldn’t see his form shaping the covers on the other side of Ben.
“Yeah.”
“Anything new?”
Cold. Hungry That poor boy, all on his own, no hope of rescue because his connection to Claire was revealing itself to be perfectly useless.
“Nothing that helps,” she said.
---
The next morning, Claire was in her office at school-or at least what passed for an office: it was really more of an upgraded closet. No windows, two of its walls lined with tables to support the two computers-only one of them ever working at any given time-and boxes containing old textbooks, old CDs and DVDs, and piles of hand-outs that someone at printed at some point and never distributed. In the corner there was a huge piece of cardboard where a former TA had painted caricatures of various professors. It had been there for so long that, in her years at CSULB, Claire had never met the artist.
She was supposed to share the office with two other TAs, but the space was so narrow that they’d purposely decided on different office hours so that they would never be there together at the same time. She was working on her laptop, foregoing the school computers, had been working for some time, and it was only a sharp pang of hunger that signaled to her that she’d probably been at it too long.
She looked at her phone to see if she’d received any calls or texts, as she always put it on mute when she was working. She was feeling faintly dizzy, and tried to remember if maybe she’d forgotten to eat breakfast. The letters and numbers on her phone screen were blurring and she rubbed at her eyes, scrunching her nose in annoyance. She hoped she wasn’t coming down with something.
When it happened, she had just turned off her computer and was in the process of putting it away into her bag, thinking about whether she wanted to buy herself a snack or wait for lunchtime. The vision hit her hard: her office disappeared, and, for a moment, she could see nothing but a white-gray background, like she was lost in the fog. Then she was suddenly somewhere else, in an underground crawl space with concrete walls and surface soil, pipes running in the back, cobwebs hanging from the ceiling which was barely a few inches over her head. She was cold, damp, hungry, exhausted, frightened. She could hear footsteps from above and knew that he was coming for her.
“Claire?”
Someone pushed the door open-there was a white light-someone entered the room, a woman. Claire screamed as pain consumed her, her vision blinded with intense light.
“Oh my god, Claire! Are you okay? I’m calling 911!”
“No,” Claire ground out. She grabbed the person’s wrist and realized it was Tina, one of her fellow TAs who shared the office with her. “I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine,” Tina said, furrowing her dark brows, but she lowered her arm when Claire let her go. “Are you hurting anywhere?”
“No.” And it was the truth; she wasn’t feeling any more pain, although she was a bit shaky.
“Are you going to be sick?”
“No. Really, I’m fine.”
Claire tried to smile and to bite back her annoyance. It wasn’t that she didn’t like Tina-Tina was nice, and fairly tolerant of Claire’s oddness-but friendly interactions didn’t come easily to Claire even when she was at her best, and she wasn’t right now. She tried to stand and her knees gave out, and even if she quickly regained her balance it made Tina frown again and say, “Maybe I should call your boyfriend to pick you up.”
Claire shook her head. Tina had heard her say “my boyfriend” on occasion, but she wasn’t aware that this term covered two different people. None of Claire’s personal acquaintances were, and it was the way she preferred it.
“I’ll do it myself.”
It took a few more minutes of reassuring Tina that she was going to be fine, that she didn’t need a ride, that she didn’t need a doctor, and yes, she was fine to walk out of the building by herself. She needed fresh air and she needed to be alone. Not that she said that last part to Tina, not worded that way, but Tina probably got the message, because, when she let Claire go, she looked slightly hurt.
Claire took the stairs-she never used the elevator-and to her relief she didn’t cross anyone on her way down. Even though she was starting to feel more like herself, she knew she still had to look out of sorts, and she didn’t want to have to fend off anyone else’s concern.
What had happened there could only mean one thing: that the boy, the “kid angel” as Ben had called the reincarnated fallen angels, must have outlived his usefulness to whoever had kidnapped him and been killed. Castiel, she thought helplessly, but no, it wasn’t the moment for Castiel to materialize on campus in broad daylight, and besides, she didn’t need any help.
She pushed the front door and was welcomed by a rush of warmth that contrasted with the AC-controlled temperature inside. She wasn’t really surprised to find Castiel waiting for her by the entrance. Standing there with his absurd trench coat that didn’t fit the spring Californian weather, he looked like he’d been photoshopped onto the sunny background.
“Claire,” Castiel said. “I heard your call.”
“I hope no one saw you appear out of thin air.”
He looked unconcerned by the thought. Jesse was that way too, convinced that anyone who ever saw him teleport would find a way to rationalize it to themselves and that there was no need for stealth. It made her uneasy to realize how similar Castiel and Jesse could be in their alien way of thinking.
“I had some sort of a vision,” she said in a hushed voice, coming closer so he’d be able to hear her. “I saw-”
“I know,” Castiel said. “I felt it too.”
“So he’s… dead.” She’d known it, but it was a renewed shock to get confirmation. “How-wasn’t there anything you could do to stop it? Why couldn’t you find him the way you always find me?”
Castiel looked infinitely sad at those words, and Claire felt her stomach churn at seeing that expression on her father’s face.
“I can’t. If he’d still had his grace I could have found him anywhere, but he doesn’t, and whoever took him must have applied some kind of a seal so he couldn’t be found.”
“Who could do that?”
“Probably another angel,” Castiel said, looking somber. “And now he or she got what they wanted and we don’t even know what side they’re on.”
What a comforting thought. But Claire disagreed with Castiel that it mattered whose side the kidnapper was on in the angel conflict. Someone who kidnapped and murdered a child-it didn’t matter if that child had once been an immortal being-wasn’t someone she wanted to share a side with.
---
She couldn’t not tell Ben and Jesse about what had happened; even if she didn’t like it, she knew that they would be fussing over her, Ben especially. On the couch, wedged between the both of them, Claire tried to persuade the boys that it really wasn’t that big of a deal. After all, she hadn’t been the one to be killed.
“Do you want some tea?” Ben asked, fiddling with the hem of his t-shirt, his fingers twitching with nervous energy. “I’ll make you some tea.”
Ben had inherited from his mother the belief that tea and herbal infusions were the remedy to all ailments. Claire wasn’t so sure about it herself, but tea had the undisputable advantage of giving him something to do.
“Tea sounds perfect.” She didn’t force herself to smile, unsure of how it would come out.
Ben disappeared in the kitchen and Jesse leaned back on the arm of the couch to look at Claire. “He can be a pain when he’s worried, can he?”
Claire shot a swift glance in direction of the kitchen. “Bet you’re glad he’s laying off you.”
“Yeah. That was my first thought, actually,” Jesse said in a voice dripping with sarcasm, his faint Australian accent getting thicker. “Thank you so much for taking over the crown of insanity.”
“Well, you can have your crown back anytime.”
They shared a look, and Claire saw Jesse’s attempt at levity melt away from his face. He looked tired, his mouth tight and his eyes shadowed, but then he always looked this way lately and Claire had gotten so used to it that it had become unremarkable to her. Did it make her a worse partner than Ben, who never stopped wringing himself over it?
“How are you doing, by the way?” she asked.
He snorted, averting his eyes. “Don’t you try to turn the tables on me.”
“I’m just asking. I try not to pry, but I just…”
“Well, I’m doing fine. Or-taking it one day at a time, I guess. Feels like I’m a broken pot and I have to hold the pieces together without glue. I know Ben’s frustrated-”
“Don’t make this about Ben. Because he loves you Ben wants you to get better for you, and not for himself.”
Jesse’s eyes stopped wandering around the room to zero in on her, and the sudden dryness in her mouth pushed her to swallow, trying to bring in some moisture. She’d never told him she loved him; it was easy to talk about Ben’s love because Ben’s feelings were like the sun, a warm constant.
“We should call the Winchesters.”
Ben’s voice startled Claire, although she managed to hide it. He was leaning in the doorway with a teapot in his hand; apparently, he’d decided that everyone was in need of a good cup of tea. If he had heard what they were saying he gave no indication of it.
“Mate, this is your answer to everything,” Jesse said with an eye roll.
Ben snorted and walked to the couch, putting the teapot down on the coffee table.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t you have the feeling that Castiel's trying to keep you out of the loop?”
“A misguided attempt to protect me, I imagine.” It was funny that Castiel would try to protect her, when before they had been one. “That’s a promise he made to my father. Sometimes I wonder if maybe he thinks he has become my father.”
“If Castiel's involved in this, chances are that Sam and Dean know more than they let on. And trying to keep us out of it because they want to protect us sounds just like something that they’d do.”
Jesse smirked, and Claire felt the corner of her own mouth curl up at Ben’s disgruntled tone.
“We’ll have to force ourselves on this case,” Ben continued, pointedly ignoring their reactions.
He made another trip to the kitchen to bring them three green stoneware tea cups Blake and Katie had gotten him for his last birthday, and started to pour tea. Steam whirled up from the cups, and bits of loose tealeaves danced in the amber liquid. More than the taste, Claire enjoyed the way tea looked and smelled. It actually was a little relaxing.
“Force ourselves-kind of like you did last time,” Jesse said, but there was no reproach in his voice. “You meddling kid. I’m sure Dean will love it.”
Ben smiled and sat down on the floor, crossing his legs. “You know you like that about me,” he said to Jesse, with such fondness it felt almost indecent to witness.
He was looking at Jesse with a sort of wistful love that made Claire reconsider the idea that he hadn’t heard them talking. She wondered how he could stand leaving his feelings out in the open for everyone to see. Anyone could come and trampled all over them. It wasn’t the first time she’d had that thought; over the years she’d known him she’d come to be familiar with that look of naked adoration, but even now it still felt a little strange to have it not be directed at her, but to be able to observe it from the outside. She didn’t really mind it, though. What other people seemed to have troubles to grasp-and by other people she mainly meant Katie, the only person bold enough to ask her directly about it-was that as much as Ben and his feelings were precious to her, she also enjoyed being relieved of some of that focus.
They drank their tea-Jesse claimed it tasted like grass, questioning how could anyone drink it for pleasure-and called the Winchesters. When he answered, Sam sounded like he had been expecting their call.
“How’s Dean?” Ben asked before they got down to business. He put Sam on loudspeaker, so Claire and Jesse could follow the conversation.
“Dean’s grumpy,” Sam answered, as if it was somehow a new piece of information. “Castiel flew by.”
“He told you,” Claire said.
“Yes.” There was a silence, as if Sam was weighing whether or not he should ask his next question: “Are you okay? I know death visions are-”
“I wouldn't call it fun. But I’m fine. What do you know about the boy?” There was no need to specify which boy she was speaking about.
Sam cleared his throat. “His name was Adrian Wormwood. He lived with his parents in a small town of Wisconsin, near Salem. A couple of weeks ago a neighbor heard a crash in the middle of the night. Didn’t think much of it at first, but when she went to check on the family the next day, she found that the boy was missing and both parents’ brains had fried. There was no sign of forced entrance.”
“Which there wouldn’t be, if the murderer was an angel.”
“Yeah.”
“How long have you known about this?”
“Not as long as you probably think.” There was a pause and a back and forth of deep rumbles exchanged between Sam and his brother. “Last time you called, we asked Castiel if anything was going on. I guess that with Dean’s health problems-oh, shut up, Dean-he didn’t want to get us involved.”
Ben snorted at that, but he managed to contain the and how did that feel that probably burned his lips.
“Did you know about the fallen angels?” Jesse asked.
“Yes-I mean, Dean knew that it was Castiel’s pet project to look out for them, and he told me about it some time after I woke up. We didn’t really feel concerned by them until now, though.”
“Maybe it’s only a one time occurrence,” Ben hazarded.
New silence. They couldn’t hear any whispers between the brothers, which meant there was probably some form of soundless communication going on.
“Sam?” Ben called. “Sam, if you know something, just tell us. We can help-Claire looks like she has some connection with those kids, we can use that.”
“There was another incident. Bethany Pullman, single mother of triplets, was murdered last night, killed the same way Adrian’s parents were. Brains cooked like deep fried beignets.”
“And one of the triplets is a fallen angel, I imagine,” Claire said.
“All three of them, actually.”
“How are the kids?” Ben asked.
“Fine. Cas took them to a friend of ours in Sioux Falls. They were too shocked yesterday to say anything about their mom’s murder, but we might get something from them if we try again.”
“A friend in Sioux Falls?” Ben smiled. “Bobby Singer?”
Sam laughed. “No, not Bobby. I think Bobby’s had his fill of little kids running around his junkyard with Dean and me.” They heard Dean mumble something that sounded like, speak for yourself. “No, Cas handed the kids to Sioux Falls’ sheriff, Jody Mills. He warded the place against angels, so they’re as safe as they can be until we know more about who might be after them.”
“Okay,” Claire said, coming to a decision. “Text us a picture, and Jesse can take us there right now.”
Ben frowned. “Sam,” he said, “Will you excuse us a moment?” Then he signaled Claire and Jesse he wanted to talk away from the phone. Or, it seemed, he wanted to talk to Claire. “Claire, don’t you want to give it a night’s rest?”
She frowned. “What’s a night’s rest going to do? Apart from giving the murderer more time to accomplish whatever he wants?”
“Well, I think you need some of that rest.” He raised a hand to fend off Claire’s protest. “I have no doubt you’re tough as nails, Claire, but it’s still a shock. And it’s not just about you-those kids just lost their mother, they’re away from home with a stranger, and more strangers are going to come and poke at their terrible memories. I think they deserve to be given a night, too.”
Claire pressed her lips and clenched her fists, feeling like her whole body was one giant knot. It felt impossible just to stay and go to bed as normal, but Ben had a point.
“Okay.”
Ben grinned at her then, a blinding expression, like she’d just done him a huge favor. The way his eyes crinkled had Claire’s pulse flitter for a few seconds. He had ridiculously long eyelashes, ones that a lot of girls would kill for.
“Text me the pic, Sam,” he said to the phone. “We’ll go tomorrow.”
---
Sheriff Mills’ home in Sioux Falls was a prim two-story house with a slated roof topped by a row of three roof windows. Over the porch, an American flag danced lightly to the breeze. When Claire knocked on the door, she was answered almost immediately by a woman with short graying hair and a friendly face, who seemed to be in her late forties-early fifties.
“You must be Sam and Dean’s friends,” she said, smiling. “Come on in.”
She led them to her living room, speaking all the way: “I expected you a little later in the day, as Sam told me you’d come from California.”
They shared a look, and she must have caught it because she said, “I’ve learned when not to ask.”
The living room was dark; the curtains were drawn even though it was the middle of the day. Sheriff Mills pulled at them, explaining with an embarrassed chuckle: “I was taking advantage of the kids’ nap time to take a nap of my own. I’m not used to little kids anymore, and they’re running me to the ground.”
“Sorry,” Claire said, but Jody Mills dismissed the apology with a wave.
Ben was already snooping around, stopping at the mantel of the chimney to get a closer look at the pictures adorning it. He took one of them; from Claire’s vantage point it looked like a family picture, portraying a family of three, including one child.
“My husband and my son,” Sheriff Mills said, and Ben hurriedly put the photo back in place. The tightness around Jody Mills’ eyes was enough of a clue as to where her husband and son were now.
“Guess we don’t have to ask you how you know the Winchesters,” Claire said dryly, and it had the fortunate effect of making Sheriff Mills laugh.
“Yeah, those two have a way to make you both glad and not glad to have ever met them. Anyway.” She directed a small smile at Ben, who looked stricken to have brought up the topic. “It was a long time ago. I wouldn’t say it has ever stopped hurting, but it’s pain I’m well used to dealing with.”
“My parents were murdered six months ago,” Jesse offered. “A demon. So, yeah. I know what it feels like.”
Claire and Ben exchanged a look, surprised that Jesse was willing to tell this much to a complete stranger.
“Nasty fuckers,” Sheriff Mills said sympathetically. “Is this how you met the Winchesters?”
Jesse dropped his head, looking at the tip of his sneakers like the answer to all inquiries could be found there. “Nah,” and his mouth twisted into a wry smile. “We go way back.”
“Apologies-I didn’t mean to pry.” Sheriff Mills raised an apologetic hand. “I ask questions; it’s a professional quirk.”
Jesse shrugged and grinned, a cocksure smile that was mostly a mask and bore little resemblance to his real smile. Sheriff Mills looked about to say something else, but a little voice came down from the stairs that they could see from the open doorway at the back of the room, calling, “Mommy! Mommy!”
A shadow crossed Jody Mills’ face. “I think the triplets are awake.”
“One of them is, at least,” Ben said.
“If one of them is, then all of them are about to be,” Sheriff Mills said wryly. “Believe my short experience. Wait here for a bit-I’ll get them settled and calm enough for a conversation.”
“Take your time,” Claire murmured and Sheriff Mills jogged up the stairs, disappearing from Claire’s field of vision.
After a moment, the sound of feet thumping down the stairs signaled an imminent arrival, and Sheriff Mills reappeared trailing a line of three dark-skinned little kids linked by the hand like a daisy chain. Two of them were girls who both wore their hair in a myriad of little braids with beads at the end of them-one head adorned with red beads, and the other with blue ones.
“Here’s Danny,” Sheriff Mills said, resting a hand on the boy’s head. “Here’s Millie, and here’s Lily. Say hello, kids.”
“Hello,” said the triplets in a dutiful chorus.
Everyone found a seat in Sheriff Mills’ living room, where no piece of furniture matched anything else. Ben pressed a hand to his chest and said to the triplets, “I’m Ben, and these are my friends, Jesse and Claire. We wanted you to answer a few questions. Do you think you can do that?”
Danny and Lily both adopted an expression that said, ‘duh’-but Millie’s stony face didn’t let any emotion transpire. It was a bit unnerving to see a little girl with such an expression.
“Okay,” Ben said. “But they’re difficult questions. I want you to tell me about the night before Castiel came to take you here-the last night at your home.”
Now Danny and Lily’s little faces were starting to scrunch in distress. “Mommy,” Lily whined, and Sheriff Mills stroked her hair soothingly. “It’s okay, honey.”
Ben took a deep breath. “You were sleeping, right? You were in your beds. What made you get out?”
“Mommy screamed,” Danny said. “Millie said that maybe she was hurt and we had to help her.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes,” Millie said in a clear, precise voice, frosty like a winter breeze.
“Who did you see when you got downstairs?”
“A bad man,” Danny said, then squirmed on his seat, sending a look in direction of Millie, like asking for guidance. “He hurt Mommy.”
“He was all shiny!” Lily blurted out. “Like the sun!”
“Shiny,” Ben said. “You mean that he was glowing? Was he shooting light from his hand? Did he have wings too?”
Lily looked uncertain. “Like a bird?”
“Yes!” Danny exclaimed. “Big wings!” He opened his arms as widely as he could to illustrate. “I saw them when he left: they were white-hmm. They were like… made up of light.”
“Light?” Ben said in an undertone, turning to Claire and Jesse. “This isn’t how Dean described angel wings-he said he’d only ever seen them shadowed on a wall.”
“But that’s what they actually look like.” Jesse and Ben both gave Claire a look. “Well, I can see them, of course. That’s part of what being a vessel is.”
They tried to get more from the triplets, but Millie remained stubbornly silent, looking at them with unvarying eyes, and Lily and Danny were unable to tell them anything more about what the man looked like, beyond the fact that he was “big”-which, coming from a pair of five-year-old, didn’t really mean much.
“Danny, Lily,” Millie suddenly said, and her siblings sprung to attention.“Race you back to the room.”
Before any of them had the time to say anything, both kids jumped from their seats and dashed across the room. “No running in the stairs!” Sheriff Mills yelled. She cast a look Millie’s way-the little girl hadn’t moved from her place-then heaved a sigh and followed the kids upstairs.
“You’re not going after them?” Claire said. Millie leveled a serene look at her, a serious, way older-than-her-years expression on her face. It was familiar, too-it was exactly the way Castiel would look at her. “You remember who you are, don’t you?”
“I’m Muriel. Lily’s angel name is Lailah, and Danny’s is Daniel. We made the decision to fall together and got reincarnated as triplets. You’re the runaway’s vessel, aren’t you?”
“My father is,” Claire said stiffly. “I was only possessed once, briefly.”
Millie shook her little head, making the blue beads at the tips of her braids dance. “It doesn’t matter how long it was. Once a vessel-”
“Yeah, yeah,” Jesse said, irritated. “Cut the angel bullshit. How come you didn’t say anything earlier?”
Millie looked at him with vague disgust. “You’re the Anti-Christ.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
“They’re not aware-Lily and Danny. They don’t remember who they are. They may have been able to see angel wings, but they really have the minds of five-year-old children. They wouldn’t understand.”
“Why didn’t you say anything to Castiel?”
Millie’s look of distaste spoke for itself and Claire felt a twinge of annoyance. Immediately, she was irritated at how instinctive her defensiveness of Castiel was.
“Is it because he’s a runaway?” she couldn’t help but ask. “Isn’t it a bit hypocritical of you?”
“He abandoned us! We put our faith into him, thought he would lead us, and-” Millie took a deep breath and her mask fell back into place. “I wasn’t sure he could be trusted.”
“Okay,” Ben said. “So you remember who you are: how? Why do you remember, and not your siblings?”
“I don’t know.” For the first time, Millie looked hesitant. “I was closer than Lily and Danny were to the one who killed Mom-our mother. Maybe some of the energy he used knocked something loose. I started remembering soon after that.”
“What can you tell us about the angel who killed your mother?”
“I know him-knew him from before, I mean. Even with his vessel I could recognize him.” Millie’s childish mouth twisted in distaste. “He’s a traitor. One of the Adversary's worshippers. His name is Ramiel.”
The name got an instant reaction: Ben and Jesse looked at each other in surprise, and when they looked at Claire they both wore an expression of wry resignation. Claire had always known Ramiel under his angel identity, but Ben and Jesse were more familiar with another name-that of his vessel’s, Ben’s old neighbor.
“Good old Mr. Bennet,” Ben drawled, mouth quirking slightly. “What a twist.”
---
If you took the time to think about it, it seemed that this was inevitable, really. That was what Claire said when they called the Winchesters to tell them. They’d let Ramiel go then because they’d had more pressing matters-stopping the demons from opening Lucifer’s Cage, saving the world in the process, saving Jesse-but it wasn’t a big surprise that it was now coming back to haunt them. Bite them in the ass, as Ben said. They may have hoped that Ramiel would have been caught by either angels or demons and been killed for his treachery to both, but he couldn’t have survived all these years being a double agent without more than one trick in his bag.
“Do you think he still wants to open the Cage?” Ben asked Sam, glancing worriedly at Jesse. “The rings are gone. The door can’t be opened anymore, can it?” He didn’t need to voice his concern to Claire-or probably to the Winchesters, either-to know what he feared: that Ramiel would try once again to use Jesse for the task. He’d probably be just as nice about it as the demons had been.
“It’s hard to say-” Sam started.
Jesse interrupted him, saying impatiently, “Obviously I’m not the one who’s been kidnapped or murdered, and even if it’s his intention, I say let the bastard try it if he wants. I can take him.”
Claire studied him-his lanky figure, clad in worn-out jeans and a faded t-shirt, his messy hair falling into his eyes, in need of a good haircut. Outwardly he looked as dangerous as a stumbling fawn, but the eerie demonic taint seeping out of him told a different story, and Ramiel would be a fool not to remember it.
“Ramiel may not be after Lucifer’s Cage at all,” she said. “He may have a completely different goal.”
“Seems unlikely,” came Dean’s voice. He sounded like he’d woken up only a short time ago. “Fanatics don’t change their tune that easily.”
“But how does the Leviathan come into play? If what you say is true-” A glance of reproach from Ben at those words, which she chose to ignore. “Then Leviathans are locked in Purgatory. Two things, locked in two different locations. What would be the relation?”
“Maybe he’s trying to free the Leviathans in hope that they can help him break Lucifer out of his Cage,” Jesse suggested, but even as he said it he seemed to know how far-fetched that sounded.
“It doesn’t tell us what he wants with the kids,” Sam said.
“And maybe ‘Leviathan’ doesn’t mean giant sea monsters at all and we’re wracking our heads over nothing,” Dean said, unknowingly echoing what Ben had said before.
“If that kid, as scared and lost as he was, said this word, then it has to mean something,” Claire insisted.
“Not saying it doesn’t; just that it might not mean what we think and that-well, we have no way of asking him about it now, have we.”
That was a blunt reminder of what had happened, and Claire felt like she’d been doused in cold water. Ben watched her with a grimace, looking apologetic on Dean’s behalf. She opened her mouth to say something, not wanting the Winchesters at the other end of the line to realize that she was unsettled, but she heard footsteps come from the stairs and Jody Mills appeared in the doorway. She saw the phone in Ben’s hand, smiled, and in a voice a little louder than for a normal conversation she said, “Hi, Sam! Hi, Dean!”
The brothers produced echoing greetings and Jody Mills’ smile turned into a grimmer expression. “The kids are playing-Millie’s keeping her siblings calm for the moment, but I think that she won’t be able to do it for long. They’re not asking for their mother anymore, so they must have grasped somehow that she’s gone, but they want to see their grandparents. They’re scared, and they don’t understand what’s going on.”
“How did you manage to take them with you, anyway?” Jesse asked. “Aren’t the kids’ grandparents going to show up and demand that they come with them? Or the CPS or something?”
“Bobby did his magic and argued that they needed police protection, and the grandparents are a couple of states away-that’s how he and Castiel have been able to whisk the kids away. But I think it won’t be long before we have an army of lawyers at our doors, wanting more details. Not to mention the CPS.”
“I can help with that,” Jesse said. “Direct them to me and I’ll keep them at bay for you.” Sheriff Mills looked at him curiously and he shrugged. “It’s magic,” he added with a smirk and a wriggle of his fingers.
“Or something,” Dean said, which caused Ben to glare at the phone.
“Do you have to be an ass?” He then shook his head, ignoring the fact that Dean couldn’t see him. “Don’t answer that-what are we doing now? We can protect the kids and keep the family appeased for a while-thanks to Jesse-but what we really need is to find out what Ramiel wants with them.”
“Whatever it is,” Sam said, “he didn’t get it from the first boy. Or maybe he didn’t get enough, but he’s not finished or he wouldn’t have attacked the triplets.”
“I think what he wants is grace.”
Claire had felt him coming but Castiel’s voice startled everyone else in the room and at the Winchesters’. That is, almost everyone, because Jesse’s only reaction was an eye roll.
“Ever heard of knocking?” he said.
“You’re one to talk,” Ben said, before he looked suspiciously at Castiel. “How are you even here, anyway? I thought this place was warded against angels.”
“Bobby Singer made those wards under my guidance. I tweaked them a little so I could be the exception. A sort of… side door, if you will.” The word ‘tweak’ sounded odd in his mouth, like something he’d learned from someone else and was only just trying out.
“What were you saying about grace?” Claire asked, reflexively lifting a hand to press against her ribs.
She rarely paid attention to the bit of grace that Castiel had left behind after possessing her-it was part of her, as much as her organs-but now she thought she could almost feel it, pulsing like a smaller, secondary heart. Was it its reaction to Castiel’s presence that she felt, or was she merely imagining it? She had never noticed it that acutely before.
“I think that what the kidnapper-”
“Ramiel,” Ben supplied.
One of Castiel’s eyebrows twitched. “Oh. Well, I guess it was to be expected. So I think that Ramiel is after the fallen angels’ graces.”
“What for?”
Castiel looked slightly started by Dean’s voice coming from the phone, but he recovered quickly. “Hello, Dean. In answer to your question-grace is power. Whether Ramiel still wants to free Lucifer or has another nefarious purpose, he’ll want power, because he’s a weak angel. But in order to get grace from a fully-empowered angel he would have to fight him or her, whereas he only has to pick up the grace of a fallen angel from wherever it fell.”
“But even after having recovered her memories, Anna still didn’t know where her grace was,” Sam said.
Ben and Jesse looked to Claire with questioning faces-who's Anna? Claire made a little hand wave indicating that she’d explain later.
“Ramiel doesn’t necessarily know that. Or he probably hoped that the kid would be able to lead him to his grace instinctively, which he very may well have done-we don’t know if Ramiel killed him because he’d fulfilled his purpose, or because he’d proved useless to him.”
“Wouldn’t it be easier to research any unnatural occurrences, like I did to find Anna’s grace?” Sam said, sounding skeptical.
“You’re thinking like a human,” Castiel said. “It probably never even occurred to Ramiel to proceed that way. He’s very contemptuous of humans.”
Ben huffed. “I’d say.”
“Okay,” Sheriff Mills said suddenly. She’d kept silent since Castiel’s arrival, and Claire wondered just how much she knew of what was going on. “What are we doing now? Is this Ramiel guy going after the triplets? Or will he try to find some of the others?”
“He shouldn’t be able to find the triplets, thanks to the wards, so-”
“She’s right,” Ben said. “If what he wants is grace then it doesn’t matter if he can get to the triplets. He’ll try to take the others.”
“I already went and warded each of their houses,” Castiel said. “I did the same with their schools and daycares.”
“But kids don’t stay at home or at school all day. He can wait them out and follow them until he can catch them when they’re vulnerable.”
“How many of them are there?” Claire asked. “Can we protect them all?”
“There are four more,” Castiel said.
They proceeded to debate over the mathematical problem: four children, and how many to protect them? A heated argument erupted between Sam and Dean over whether Dean was up to being out in the field. Dean, of course, was adamant that he was, and, to press his point, he brought up Sam’s eight-year coma and how Sam had been hunting mere months after waking up. Claire watched out for Castiel’s reaction to this subject, but there was none.
It was decided that Castiel and Jesse could hope to handle Ramiel on their own, but that regular human beings would better work in pairs-so, in order to reach the count, Bobby Singer would have to be roped in. In the end, their plan was that Sam and Dean would watch the three-month-old-the less likely target, which made Dean sputter in indignation. Ben and Bobby would team up, and so would Jesse and Castiel. The latter two would put everyone into position, then each guard one of the remaining children. Claire insisted on staying with Sheriff Mills to keep an eye on the triplets.
“I don’t think Ramiel is going to give up on them that easily,” she argued. “They fell together-it stands to reason that their graces can be found at the same spot. Three for the price of one; I don’t think that Ramiel will be willing to pass that opportunity. So I’d like to stay here. If Sheriff Mills doesn’t mind, that is.”
“Call me Jody,” said Sheriff Mills-Jody. She gave Claire a pat on the shoulder. “I would love the company.”
Castiel disappeared, off to get Sam and Dean, but Ben and Jesse lingered behind a moment to say goodbye. Claire wasn’t much for public demonstrations of affection at the best of times, so now, acutely aware of Jody watching them, she only pressed foreheads with Ben for a mere second and clenched Jesse’s hand in hers. “Don’t get kidnapped,” she told him.
“Got it, princess. I’ll just push Ben in the way.”
“Hey!”
Jesse turned to Jody, weaving his fingers with Ben’s. “Don’t freak,” he warned. “I’m about to make us go poof.”
“You-” Jody shook her head, mouth curving into a smile. “Don’t worry about it. This isn’t exactly my first rodeo and I can put two and two together. I’ve gathered that you’re not completely human. So go right ahead.”
The boys stood shoulder to shoulder; they were about the same height, but being leaner Jesse looked taller when they were standing close to each other like this. A blink of an eye later, they were gone as if they’d never been there. Alone with Jody, Claire caught the woman glancing at her in a way that she couldn’t parse at first. But then she rewound the scene that had just taken place, and-well, none of them had kissed, but there was probably no mistaking that kind of intimacy. She opened her mouth reflexively, but she didn’t know what to say or why she would even feel the need to justify herself.
“We-”
“Hey,” Jody said, raising placating hands. “You don’t have to say anything. I’m not judging. I was only a little-never mind. Would you like a drink?”
“Yes.” In a moment of weakness, Claire pictured the same scene with her mother. “I think I would love a drink.”
---
She ended up taking a couple of more drinks than she’d expected, but it didn’t seem to affect her too badly, so she allowed herself the indulgence. Jody was pleasant company: she had a quirky sense of humor, sarcastic but without being too cutting, and a solid storytelling sense. She regaled Claire with a few stories from her work as a small town sheriff as well as from her years-long friendship with the Winchesters, and Claire caught herself chuckling a few times.
“Time travel?” she said incredulously at one particularly unbelievable story. “Now you’re pulling my leg-there’s no way Dean has worked with Elliot Ness..”
“Have you met Dean? Of course he’s worked with Eliot Ness! And, hey-angels. The kids upstairs are fallen angels. I swear, every time I think I’ve seen it all, the Winchesters prove me wrong.”
“I’m kind of used to angels,” Claire said vaguely, transfixed by the way the light caught the amber liquid in her glass. Her limbs felt loose and heavy, and all her problems seemed to belong to someone else. “But I guess time travel is my line. What surprises me, though, is that Dean kept hunting while Sam was in a coma. I assumed he’d stopped everything to take care of him.”
“Few things can keep Dean from the hunt for very long. But, yeah, those were dark times for him. Losing someone you love is hard, but having them linger for years… Letting go is difficult enough as it is.”
Jody’s eyes flicked to the side, in the direction of the pictures on the mantelpiece. Claire refrained from asking questions. Jody had alluded briefly to her husband and son during the course of their discussion, casual mentions, so it didn’t seem to be a topic Jody shied away from at all costs; still, they didn’t know each other well enough to have a conversation that heavy and personal.
“Anyway, all of this is all behind us now that Sam is better,” Jody said more lightly. “Those boys always bounce back. Dean told me that it was thanks to your-Jesse, is it?”
“Yes, Jesse.” Claire flashed her a quick smile. “And you can say it, I won’t be offended-my boyfriend. One of my boyfriends.”
Jody’s smile turned warm and a little bit teasing. She didn’t look like she found the idea shocking or disgusting, and Claire relaxed further, welcoming the warmth and fuzziness from the alcohol. “I have to admit that I’m a little curious about it, but you seem to be a private person and I didn’t want to push. So two guys, huh? Must be a handful.”
“Sometimes.”
“And are they-”
“Are they what?”
“I mean, they looked… cosy.”
“Oh, you mean, are they involved with each other?” It was the first time she’d talked about this to someone who wasn’t Ben’s friends, but it was strange how easy-how liberating too-it was to say the words. “Yes, that too.”
Jody took a sip out of her glass, eyeing her curiously from over the rim. “You never get jealous?”
“About them being together? No.” She thought she could see doubt in Jody’s expression. “People may find it hard to believe, but it’s the truth. It doesn’t bother me, never has. Quite the contrary, in fact-it gives me time to myself.”
“When you put it that way, well. I can see your point.”
Claire was about to change the subject-she didn’t feel any annoyance at Jody’s curiosity, but felt uncomfortable under the scrutiny-when she heard a crash coming from upstairs, startling her a bit. The buzz she’d been feeling cleared and everything jumped back into focus. Jody must have heard it too, because she put down her glass very carefully, pushed her chair back as she stood, eyes on the ceiling. She instructed Claire to stay put with a silent command and went to retrieve a gun from a drawer. In an instant, she’d changed from a friendly middle-aged woman to a professional on a mission.
When she headed to the stairs Claire trailed after her, but forced herself to stop at the bottom of the staircase, heart pounding, an ear out for any other noise. Maybe it was nothing; maybe one of the triplets had just broken something. She was sure at least that it was impossible for angels to enter the house.
One beat, two beats. She still couldn’t hear anything from upstairs: no fighting noises, no muffled voices, nothing. Her fingernails dug into her palms as her anxiety rose. Having to wait always made time seem to pass slower, but surely it had been at least a couple of minutes and she should have heard something by now-if only the sound of Jody’s voice asking the kids what was going on.
But then-there. A sound, at last, something like a stifled cry. Claire clenched her fists, coming to a quick decision. She needed a weapon. She didn’t know Jody’s house, didn’t know whether she had other guns concealed around the place, so she headed for the kitchen and rummaged through the drawers until she found a knife sharp enough for her taste. Then, after a second of reflection, she grabbed a can of table salt from one of the cupboards above the sink.
As she quietly went up the stairs she started to feel something uncomfortable, and it grew until she was able to identify it just as she reached the landing: a gross, oily sensation that clung to her skin like it could physically alter the quality of the air. Demons. Only when she came to that realization did she hear other sounds that definitely betrayed a struggle. Her heartbeat sped up and she took a deep, calming breath, preparing herself for the upcoming fight.
The landing opened on a shadowed hallway, two doors on each side and one other door at the end of it, left slightly ajar so that a thin sliver of light pierced the darkness. If demons were in there, then her knife wasn’t going to do a whole lot of good, so Claire tucked it into her belt and fumbled with the salt can to open it.
The journey from the staircase to the open door at the end of the hallway seemed like it took forever, even though it wasn’t more than half a dozen steps away. Claire’s heart was pounding so hard that she could feel each beat reverberate into her ribcage; her hands were sweaty, to the point where she was worried the salt would slip away from her grip. The sounds were getting clearer, and, even though she had trouble hearing through all the noise her heart was making, she could recognize children’s muffled cries of protest. She couldn’t hear Jody’s voice at all, and that single fact worried her most of all.
When she was close enough to the door, she peered inside the room through the crack, trying to get a handle of the situation inside. She could see the end of a bed, covers thrown to the floor, and part of a lean dark-haired woman with hair breaded close to her skull. The woman’s movements were wild and broken, like she was struggling, and when she spun around Claire could see that she was trying to wrestle a panicked five-year-old into submission. Claire didn’t need the flash of ink-like darkness in her eyes to know that the woman was.
“Damn angel brats,” said another voice, male and rough. “How are you doing with yours?”
“Mine’s gonna be a nice girl now,” the woman grounded out. “Aren’t you, honey?”
The kid-probably Lily, although Claire couldn’t see her well enough to tell her apart from Millie-let out a whine, the sound of it hushed by the hand over her mouth. The demon gave her a harsh shake and the little girl fell silent.
“Let’s go,” the female demon said. As Claire debated what to do, the male demon interjected, “What do we do with her?”
Claire shifted positions so as to see the wall, and the movement allowed her to finally discover what had happened to Jody: the woman was flattened to the wall, her feet barely reaching the floor, held there by some invisible pressure. Two thoughts flashed through Claire’s mind: first, that Jody wasn’t dead, or she would be crumpled in a heap somewhere on the floor; second, that one of the demons had to be holding her there, which meant that the hold could be broken. From what she could hear it didn’t sound like there were more than two demons in the room, and that made the odds a little bit better, especially since she had the element of surprise.
“Slit her throat,” the female demon said in a dismissive tone, and Claire knew it was now or never.
She threw herself against the door and dashed into the room, aiming for the female demon as the only target she could see. She saw the woman’s eyes widen slightly before she colluded with her, sending them both tumbling to the floor with Lily trapped between them.
“Who the fuck-”
She heard a crash somewhere behind her and knew that Jody had been released from her hold. Before the demon she was keeping trapped against the floor could think of trying to get free, Claire pushed Lily aside and shoved salt into the host’s mouth. The demon choked and coughed, red-faced and black-eyed. Claire thought about that time Jesse had accidentally drunk holy water and the horror of that memory made her stomach flip, but she steeled herself against that first hint of pity. Those things were nothing like Jesse.
Just when the demon’s struggles were starting to weaken, Claire felt strong large hands try to heave her off the floor. Her heart leaped in her chest with panic but she let herself be moved just enough that Lily could wriggle out, then shoved a sharp elbow backward and was met with solid flesh and a choking sound, half pain, half surprise.
Claire rolled on the side so she could face her assailant, a heavy-set man with a crooked nose and beady dark eyes. He went at her again, too close for her to have the range to throw salt at him. She instinctively raised her arms in front of her, trying to shove him away from on top of her, but he batted away her attempts at self-defence and grabbed her shoulders. As his hands inched closer to her neck and she fought to keep him away, Claire’s vision narrowed to the demon’s face, his now demon-black eyes and the broken blood vessels around his nose. Blood pounded in her temples; the demon’s weight crushing her chest made it hard to breathe.
Then the weight was suddenly lifted off her and she didn’t take the time to understand how it had happened, didn’t even take the time to breathe before she blindly threw salt in a wide sweep. Sitting up in a bolt she cast a look around and saw that Jody was the one who had saved her and was now trying to wrestle Claire’s aggressor. Lily was huddled in a corner, whimpering in fear, and Millie stood in front of her, arms spread in a protective stance. Where was Danny? Was he-Claire didn’t have the time to complete that thought because the female demon, recovered from the salt, took advantage of the opportunity to grab Millie.
For a moment that felt like it stretched indefinitely, Claire and Millie locked eyes. Claire was reminded of the little ghost girl they had dispelled a few days ago, her solemn gray eyes before she was burned to nothing. Jody cried out. Castiel, Claire thought desperately, realizing she wasn’t going to be able to help both Jody and Millie, Castiel, please help me. Millie shook her head minutely.
“Let’s bail!” the female demon yelled to her companion, one arm coiled around Millie’s neck.
Claire rose to her knees, but, before she could do anything, both demons disappeared, taking Millie along with them. Claire let out a gasp, reaching out for her, but it was already too late.
For a moment, everyone in the room was stunned into silence.
“Jody?” Claire called once she had regained enough air to speak out. She felt frozen, her heart a block of ice. “Are you okay?”
Jody picked herself up from the floor, wiping at blood above her left eye. “I’m fine,” she said in a rough voice. “I-”
A wailing broke the tension and Jody rushed to Lily, just as Danny crawled from under one of the beds. Jody scooped them both in her arms, murmuring soothing nonsense to them, rocking them like babies. Not even a second later, right in the spot where the female demon had stood with Millie, Castiel materialized, dishevelled and his clothes in disarray.
“What-” he started, but then his eyes fell on where Jody huddled with the little ones and his face darkened.
“Demons,” Claire said, still feeling a little dazed. “They took Millie. Why didn’t we expect demons? Ramiel has worked with them before. Why-”
“Demons also tried to take the child I was watching over. She’s fine, though, and those particular demons won’t be a problem anymore.”
Why didn’t I call Castiel sooner? Was it misplaced pride? No, because it hadn’t even occurred to her before it was too late. Being unable to admit to her own helplessness, that was her downfall. Maybe that feeling found its roots in the fact that she could remember a time when she had not been helpless at all, when she had been the opposite of it even, bursting with power to the brim, unstoppable.
Stop it. It was silly to think about something that wasn’t going to happen again, and even sillier to embellish the memory so much.
She heaved herself to her feet. Castiel made a move to help her out, but she was already up and she waved him off.
“Claire-”
“I’m fine,” she said. He backed off, going to Jody and the kids instead.
Claire let Jody relate to him what had happened in a hushed voice, turning her back on them for an illusion of privacy. She fished her phone from her pocket, wasted a few seconds wondering if she should call Ben or Jesse first, and settled on Jesse-he could come here in a second, pick Ben up on the way if needed-but her phone started ringing on its own accord.
“Yes?”
“You okay?” There was a relieved tinge to Jesse’s voice, and it could only mean one thing.
“Are you okay?” she asked him, her heartbeat picking up again even though all evidence pointed to Jesse being perfectly fine. “Something happened, didn’t it? Demons?”
“Yeah. You too?”
“They took Millie. Lily and Danny are fine, though. What about you?”
“The kid’s fine. I, ah, sent the demons back to Hell. Ben’s fine too,” he added before she could formulate the question. “Everyone’s okay, but it sounds like we were all victims of a coordinated demon attack.”
And only Claire had managed to lose one of her charges. She swallowed back the bitterness, not wanting to make this about her.
“We’ll need to add new wards against demons-” she said instead.
“On it already. That’s not going to be enough,” Jesse said in a lower, darker voice. “They’re going to try again.”
“But maybe having gotten their hands on Millie will tie them up for a while. It might give us time to be more proactive.”
She had sounded so matter-of-fact about it that she had a moment of profound disgust with herself. Jesse, however, didn’t sound shocked by her practicality. In a soft voice he said, “We’ll be here soon. Sit tight.”
She wanted to say hurry up, I need you here, but held herself back.
“Alright,” she said. “Jody and I will take care of warding the house against demons.”
Ben would have ended that conversation with a love you, but Jesse merely reiterated that they would be seeing each other soon. Claire was grateful for the lack of sentimentality, because it wasn’t what she needed now, when she was trying so hard to hold it together. A touch of gentleness, and she might have found herself crumbling into it, in a way that, right now, she couldn’t afford.