Fic: Soul Sacrifice (6/8)
A/N: I'll be offline most of the day. Going to a Renassance festival!
Fic: Soul Sacrifice (6/8)
Series: Special Projects
Summary: Dean and Chloe just fought their way free of a mesoamerican cult in Texas. Now the Winchester Family and the Justice League are headed to Mexico City to finish the hunt.
Author: pen37
Beta: Strangevisitor7
Fandoms: Smallville/Supernatural
Characters: Chloe, Sam, Dean, Sarah
Pairing:Chloe/Dean Sam/Sarah
Rating: NC-17 overall. This part is PG-13
This is a part of the Special Projects series. You can find the rest of the series here.
Ch 1, Ch 2, Ch 3, Ch 4, Ch 5, Ch 6, Ch 7, Ch 8
Oliver set up their temporary headquarters in a set of rooms at the Gran Hotel. If a person drew a straight line from the Templo Mejor though the Cathedral on the Zocolo and then continued it out, caddy-corner across the square, the line would next intersect the hotel.
“This used to be a department store,” Sarah explained as they walked through the front doors.
“It kind of looks like one,” Sam said as he stopped to look from the center-facing balconies to the birdcage-like elevator. Over everything, a stained glass canopy released rainbow-hued light into the court below.
Next to him, Chloe looked up at the canopy and smiled faintly.
“What?” he asked her.
“Tiffany glass,” Chloe pointed up at the canopy. “Like the lamps in the bullpen at the Daily Planet.”
“So?” Dean shrugged.
“When I was little, I used to dream of working under those lamps.”
The others filled the elevator, leaving the four of them to take the next ride. While they waited, Dean pondered Chloe. Her ambition was something that he admired.. She'd set her goals when she was still a little girl, and then chased them relentlessly. He glanced from his wife to his brother and Sarah. Somehow, he'd gotten something close to what he wanted, too. Only he'd lucked into this.
As they climbed into the cage-like elevator, Dean clasped her hand. She looked at their entwined fingers in surprise, then smiled up at him. Just like that, they were okay.
“What did you do when you got all your dreams?” Dean asked.
She leaned into his frame. “I found new ones.”
“How are they going?”
She responded by stretching up to place a kiss on his cheek. “The outlook is good right now,” she whispered.
Near the back of the mobile birdcage, Sam cleared his throat noisily. Chloe leaned away and Dean turned back to shoot his brother a dirty look.
“Dude, you really ought to get that cough looked at.”
Since Ollie had already had their bags transported, they bypassed the rooms and went directly to the rooftop restaurant. The billionaire had also bought out the entire restaurant to ensure their privacy while they planned their next move. A buffet was already laid out before them when they arrived.
While Chloe and Kara dug into fruits and iced soft drinks with the cast-iron confidence of people with superhuman immunity, the rest of them stuck with alcoholic beverages and fried foods that would be easier on their stomachs.
Dean skipped the food. His stomach was starting to feel a little queasy and he didn't want to tempt fate by adding something to it. Sam noted that he shoved his plate away and raised an eyebrow in concern. Dean waved him off, and sat next to Chloe at the table.
Once the others had satisfied their hunger, Oliver kicked off the meeting.
“We're positive that the demons are here,” he said. “Particularly after Sarah spotted Zachary MacKenzie near the temple ruins.” He nodded at Sarah.
In her seat next to Sam, Sarah lifted her head in acknowledgment. “Any luck finding him?” she asked.
“None,” Oliver said with a frown. “We had Oracle, Isaac and Cyborg tracking Taxi logs. That was a dead end. There are too many independently run cabs in this town. So, we had Impulse and Supergirl try a cab-to-cab search.”
“Which was a waste of time,” Kara put in.
“Bart’s in town?” Chloe asked.
“Not anymore” Ollie said. “Did he cause some problem that I'm not aware of?”
“Just - that explains the greasy enchilada fingerprints on the seat of my pants,” Chloe glanced sideways at Dean.
Dean's eyes narrowed. “I know this Bart guy?”
“Unlikely,” Oliver rolled his eyes.
“Good. Cause if I ever meet him, I'm gonna knock his teeth out.”
“You have to catch him first.” Kara added.
“Dude's gotta sleep sometime.”
“Noted.” Oliver said. “Finding them is going to be a futile effort. Mexico city is just too large to do an organized cab-to-cab search. You may as well have sandwiched Metropolis, Gotham, Bludhaven and Star City together and then sat them on a dry lake bed.”
“If the demons are here, are there portents?” Sam asked.
Bobby nodded. “I've checked with the local hunters,” he said. “Most of them here in the city are affiliated with the Catholic Church.”
“Makes sense,” Chloe nodded. “The Vatican has it's own cadre of hunters, and Mexico is deeply Catholic. Even agnostics believe in the Virgin of Guadalupe.”
“The hunters network is more closely linked here than it is back home,” Bobby nodded. “Most hunters who aren't churchmen stay in their own territories. They keep the local villages free of activity and let the neighboring hunters deal with their own problems. But they all talk to their local priests.
“Right now they're saying that it's like the earth itself is rejecting the defiling presence of the demons.”
“That's a pleasant thought,” Dean said. “So we're talking freak storms and plagues?”
“Locusts, frogs, rivers of blood.” Bobby said.
“The big question is what their next move is,” Oliver broke in.
“According to Mac, they're going to try and finish the festival of Toxcatl. And use the power to try and open a hellgate,” Chloe said.
“We're pretty sure that they'll try and use the old temple for that,” Dean said. “One of those altars has an image of quasiovercoat on it.”
“Coyolxauhqui,” Bobby corrected mildly.
“Whatever,” Dean shrugged.
“Is there a chance that these hunter priests would be willing to give us a helping hand?” Oliver asked.
“To stop a hellgate? I would bet on it.” Bobby nodded.
“Good,” Oliver clapped his hands together. “I'd like to set up a crow's nest on the roof of the cathedral. From there, we can spot the demons making their move. Then close in and send them back to hell where they came from.”
“That's going to call for a lot of exorcisms,” Sam said with a low whistle. “How are we going to trap that many demons?”
“Light!” Sarah said suddenly.
“Okay?” Dean raised an eyebrow. “They're demons, Sarah. Not vampires.”
“No, let me explain.” Sarah frowned in a way that implied the words you idiotwere left off he statement.. “When I was studying art in college, I made extra money by painting sets for off-Broadway musicals. I paid a lot of attention to the way things were lit. You could cover a light with a certain color to get a certain affect.”
“Cookies!” Sam looked up suddenly with wide eyes. “Lighting cookies.”
“Of course!” Sarah nodded. Off the rest of the group's blank looks, she elaborated. “Let's say we paint a devil's trap over a spotlight. Then we turn it on a demon.”
“Like the Bat Signal!” Chloe said. “Instant devil's trap.”
“Exactly!” Sarah nodded.
“Would that work?” Kara looked to Bobby for confirmation.
“I don't see why not,” The hunter shrugged.
“So you want to mount a spotlight on the cathedral?” Dean looked at Oliver.
“No,” He shook his head. “Kara is more than capable of carrying something like that, and she could direct it better.”
“Sounds like we've got work to do.” Dean said.
# # #
Chloe was in the middle of suiting up in her Watchtower uniform when the sound of retching from the bathroom drew her attention. She holstered her short-grip .45, and stuck her head though the bathroom doorway.
Dean knelt over the toilet, emptying the contents of his stomach into the bowl. So that had been why he wasn't eating earlier.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
The look he shot her spoke volumes about how he felt and how stupid her question sounded.
“What happened?”
“It was just a little chorizo,” he said weakly as he rolled over onto his back, and pressed his sweaty forehead to the side of the bowl. Then he looked at her again with lowered eyelids. “Why now? When you're wearing the leather get-up and everything.”
She smiled indulgently at him, crossed to the sink and wet down a wash cloth. Then she knelt next to him and bathed his forehead. “I wish I could heal you,” she said quietly.
“That's a start,” he whispered as he leaned into her touch. “Why are you being so nice to me?”
“I seem to recall something about a promise. How did it go? In sickness and in health?”
“Yeah,” Dean smiled faintly. “You're good to me.”
“Hope so,” Chloe smiled back at him. “Besides, you deserve some slack. I think at one time or another, everyone has bought a sausage inna' bun from Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler.”
“Who?” Dean's eyes suddenly went wide again, and he sat up and emptied the contents of his stomach into the bowl. “This sucks.”
“I'll call Oliver and tell him you're too sick to go.”
“No,” Dean wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “I don't care how I feel. If there's a job to do, then I'm going to do it.”
“You can't recite the exorcism rituals while yakking up your guts, Dean.”
“Watch me.”
Chloe sighed and looked down.
“You not going to try and stop me?” Dean asked.
“I couldn't if I wanted to.” She said. “Just. . . be careful.”
“I'm always careful.”
“Right.”