As I Lift Up My Hands 8/8

[keire_ke]

September 2008

Things get easier. Jacob cannot say Deborah’s time alone with William is one hundred percent comfortable, but he is no longer spending the time they are away staring at the wall with lewd pictures at the forefront of his mind. Not usually, anyway. Not every minute of every day.

“How did it go?” he asks when Deborah walks in through the door on Monday morning, tired and bone-weary, but grinning.

“Trust me when I say ghosts are bitches.”

“I believe you,” Jacob says dutifully pouring her a cup of coffee.

“Oh, thank you,” she says and inhales deeply. “Mm, that smells amazing.”

“New coffee,” Jacob says stifling a yawn. Seven a.m. on a Monday morning isn’t his favorite part of the week.

“I’m gonna grab a shower, I have a patient at nine sharp.” Deborah tops the coffee off with milk and finishes it in one gulp.

“Are you okay to go? You only just got here.”

“Didn’t you get the memo? I’m a superhero now. I need no sleep.” She smiles at him and salutes over the cup.

“You tell yourself that enough times and you might just believe it,” Jacob warns. “And then you’re going to fall asleep at fifty mile per hour on your way home and that just cannot end well.”

“No probably not,” Deborah leans in for a kiss. “I promise I’ll call a cab today and go straight to bed when I get home.”

Jacob laughs and shakes his head. “Do you want breakfast?”

“Just toast, thanks.” Deborah turns towards the stairs but returns to the kitchen a minute later. “I forgot. William will be around on Friday.”

“Not another hunt?”

“I don’t know. It could be. Said it is important.”

Jacob nods and drops bread into the toaster. Rachel waves her hands when the machine pings. “Toast?” she says, her mouth curled into a pout.

“Do you want anything on it?” Jacob asks.

“Jam!”

Jacob groans internally. Rachel managed to handle eating okay, but jam inspired her to create modern art using jam and her shirt as the medium.

“Are you sure?” he asks. “Can’t I just butter it?”

“Jam,” Rachel insists, hitting the table with her fists. Jacob looks at the clock and sighs. His best excuse, that is the lack of time, goes out the window. He gives in and spreads jam all over the toast. Then, in a flash of genius, he cuts it into tiny pieces.

“Okay,” he says, “You can have jam. But I really don’t want to wash you again, so I’m just going to feed you.”

It is sad how very whipped he is. The realization occurs three bites in, when Rachel’s nose scrunches and she refuses to eat any more. “I need to grow a backbone, don’t I?” he says, looking his daughter in the eye. Rachel giggles, which is her way of agreeing. Jacob finishes her toast and pours himself another cup of coffee. He doesn’t sleep well on the nights Deborah is off superheroing. It’s just not comfortable. He’s lucky someone invented coffee long before his time, it is the only thing that gets him through those days.

“Hey,” Deborah says as she walks into the kitchen, wet towel in her hair. “Can I have another coffee now?”

Jacob mostly remembers this Monday as a long string of one coffee cup after another. Some of them are decent, like the instant he fixes at home, splashed with milk. Some are just colored water with the faint aftertaste of soy milk, because Nancy started believing in healthy eating and conveniently forgot to buy normal milk. Jacob finds that while normally he doesn’t care much, on that Monday he is ready to join a crusade against this concoction pretending to be a substitute. As far as his coffee is concerned, milk, which didn’t pass through the udders of a cow, is no milk.

“Sorry, Mr Lake,” Nancy says. She is wearing a linen shirt and a hand-knit sweater. She looks like a redheaded shepherd girl, which is all kinds of cute, but all Jacob can focus on is the milk substitute.

“I didn’t mean to yell, Nancy. I just really don’t like soy milk,” Jacob says, because he doesn’t want to hurt her feelings. She means no harm, after all.

“It will never happen again,” Nancy says and bares her teeth in a wide grin. Jacob smiles back and helps himself to an oatmeal cookie.

“Now these I like,” he says and Nancy grins even wider.

“Thank you!”

Thankfully, the Mondays are usually the low point of his weeks. By the time Friday rolls around Jacob is strangely refreshed and full of energy. Deborah is already home by the time he gets back and he is surprised to see William is too.

“Good afternoon,” Jacob says. “Where’s Rachel?”

“I left her at Mrs Mone’s,” Deborah says. “William said he has something important to say.”

“Important enough that Rachel shouldn’t hear?” Jacob hangs his coat by the door and returns to the living room.

Deborah shrugs and looks out the window. “I think a storm might be coming,” she says.

“Yeah,” William says and approaches the window. “It might.”

Next thing Jacob knows Deborah screams, her voice high and loud. She’s in pain, he realizes. Along with the realization comes the disgust with himself that it took him this long. William is standing over her, with his flask in hand, and she writhes before him on the floor, smoke rising from her face and hair.

“What did you do?” Jacob screams, taking a step forward. It’s no use though. His legs won’t carry him.

“Stay where you are,” William says holding his hand up. “She’s possessed.”

“She’s…” Jacob feels acutely as his world tilts and spills on the floor of the universe, sending him sprawling into the abyss. “She can’t be possessed!”

“Jacob, shut up and help me. Get some paint, and rope. We need a devil’s trap.”

“But Deborah--”

“Do it now!” William screams, and Jacob turns and walks into the table. “Get my bag, everything is in there.”

Grunting in pain Jacob keeps moving to the kitchen, where William dropped his bag. There is a can of paint in it. Red paint, Jacob can’t help but notice. He digs deeper and comes up with a book with a pattern he recognizes on the cover. He returns to the living room and, with some effort pulls the carpet aside. It’s not easy, because his hands are shaking, and his legs and dragging and he has tears in his eyes and he just wants the world to stop spinning and start making sense again. Please.

“Hurry up, for fuck’s sake,” William screams again, and Jacob all but lands on the floor, face first. His hands shake so bad he needs to repaint the sigils and then add bits to the circle, to make sure it is whole. “Jesus Christ, seriously.” William hauls Deborah into the trap by the hair, dousing her with holy water and Jacob feels every scream echo within his chest and reverberate throughout his body. This is Debbie, he wants to scream, this is my Debbie, not some demon! But no word leaves his mouth.

He isn’t sure it can. William pulls Deborah up and into the chair, working fast, tying her hands to the armrests, her feet to the legs.

“Get more holy water,” he snaps at Jacob.

“There’s no more,” Jacob whispers. Nothing louder can make it out and he is certain he doesn’t make a sound. His throat is so tight. William seems to understand, however, whether by the comment or the mental catalogue of his equipment.

“Then make some.”

“I don’t know how.”

“It’s not rocket science, get a container of water, say a prayer, simple enough. Drop a rosary inside, a crucifix, whatever.”

Another time Jacob would protest, perhaps. This isn’t easy to comprehend, isn’t easy to do. Now he’s too numb. He wanders into the kitchen, without walking into furniture this time, and finds a two-gallon bottle. He stares at it for a few moments, helpless and confused. Then he pulls his rosary out of his pocket and holds it over the bottle’s neck. “In the Name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost,” he mouths, because he has no strength to let the words out, “Please Lord bless this water,” he says stupidly, not certain what is needed, how much holy is holy enough.

The rosary falls into the plastic container without a splash. Jacob keeps watching, expecting something to happen. Perhaps the water should boil; maybe it should shine with divine light to signify the process of sanctifying is complete. Nothing happens.

“Jacob!” William screams from the other room and he hurries back, the rosary clicking as the liquid in the bottle sloshes from side to side. “Good.” William turns to Deborah and doses her in holy water. She screams and Jacob takes a step back, clutching at his chest.

It isn’t Deborah. The face is hers and the eyes are hers, but it isn’t her. It cannot be, not that angry visage twisted with fury and hatred.

“Who are you?” William asks, his voice hard and unyielding.

Deborah’s lips curve in a seductive little smile. “Don’t you know?”

William throws holy water in her face and she howls in pain. “Who are you, bitch? What do you want?”

“On thing at a time, sweetheart,” the demon in Deborah’s body replies, grinning widely. “One thing at a time.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Are you kidding? Have you been to Hell? We’d do anything to get out.”

“But why come here?” Jacob says, his voice still barely audible. The demon smiles at him, the sweet smile Deborah used to wear when they would lay in bed on the rare mornings the kids would sleep in. Except the demon doesn’t get it quite right. There a tilt to it that belies everything that smile was, everything it meant to Jacob. Because now it mocks him, when it used to tell him Deborah loves him. “Why?”

“Because it always fun to watch,” the demon replies, moving Deborah’s lips. “It’s always, always fun, watching you go on, unaware, that it is not your wife anymore, that it’s just her meatsuit wandering the house, playing with the cute little antichrist. And in the end it takes a perfect stranger to recognize what’s been in front of you the whole time…” She grins and Jacob feels ill.

“How long were you here?” William asks, and until now Jacob has never realized that a bottle of tap water could be brandished like it was a threat.

“I don’t know. A day? A week?” The grin turns evil and Deborah’s eyes cloud over with blackness. “A year,” the thing behind her tanned skin and pink lips says. “Do you know how much fun it was, fucking you? No matter how old you get, doing good Catholic boys just never, ever gets old. And it is so sad to see you wasted on one girl. Sure, you’re pretty boring, but the things I could teach you…” She licks her lips and Jacob’s eyes widen painfully. It wasn’t possible.

“Don’t listen to her,” William hisses. He bends to the floor to retrieve the book fallen from Jacob’s grasp. “She’s a demon, demons lie.”

“Do I lie? Look at me, Jimmy,” Deborah says and she is so very perfectly Deborah again it hurts to breathe, but he doesn’t raise his eyes. “Look at me,” the demon says forcefully and he can’t help but look up, into the pale blue eyes of his wife. “You knew,” the demon says, sweet and loveable. “Every time you were in me, you knew I wasn’t your wife. But I was better than she was, so you said nothing. You let me pretend, because the truth is, you liked me better.”

“Shut the fuck up!” William roars, pouring half the contents of the bottle onto Deborah’s head. He drops the container on the ground while she screams and picks up the book. He starts reading, Jacob knows the words are Latin – he never studied it, but he used to sit with Deborah and quiz her on the conjugation and declination, some of which stuck. He is far from understanding what is said, exactly, but he knows enough to know an exorcism when he hears one. William reads and Deborah starts trashing and howling and Jacob feels a cry tear from his own chest because she is hurting, his beloved wife is hurting and there’s nothing he can do.

Then he realizes she is laughing, laughing hysterically, and that sound is enough to give William pause. “You think you can save her, pretty little boy,” the demon says. Her head is bowed and she is looking at him through narrowed eyes, and they are black again, not blue. “You think everything will be alright again.” The demon grins wider and snaps Deborah’s head to the side hard and fast and Jacobs hears the crunch echo throughout the room.

He throws himself forward before he can think about it, and if it weren’t for William grabbing him around the waist he’s have had his arms around Deborah now. He curses at the hunter and fights, but the man is heavier and stronger, and more experienced. He throws Jacobs into the corner of the room with ease and Jacob cannot find the strength within himself to get back up again.

“Here’s one you are not gonna save,” the demon sings, mindless of the broken neck of the mortal its inhabiting, and laughs again. “But then again, that happens to you a lot, doesn’t it? You’d think you’d be used to it by now. You couldn’t save your son, you sold your daughter… And now you watch your wife die. How sad… I think I actually might cry.”

William returns to the chant and Jacob watches as Deborah once more starts convulsing. He can’t tell how much of it is her and how much his shaking contributes; there are tears in his eyes, the room is blurry and for a moment he isn’t sure whether he’s looking at Deborah or William or the couch, because it’s all a blur and the Earth keeps spinning and he is falling down the rabbit hole and there is no one to catch him.

“Deb,” he whispers just as the demon lets out a final keening wail and leaves Deborah’s body in a cloud of black smoke. He staggers onto his feet and at the same time stays in the corner and he wonders what’s going on – he is watching himself walk to Deborah, untying the ropes binding her to the chair, he watches himself wrap his arms around her body and rock like a frightened child, and at the same time he is there, he feels Deborah in his arms and she is still warm, but she isn’t breathing, her eyes are open and empty and vacant and she isn’t breathing and the warmth is seeping out of her and he is rocking like a child and nothing makes sense anymore. “Debbie,” he says and the sensations melt into one. He realizes he is kneeling within the devil’s trap, holding Deborah in his arms. He realizes his face is wet with tears and he can barely hear anything, his heart is pumping so wild and his breath is wheezing like a freight train.

Slowly, with each breath, other sensations return, one by one. He is keenly aware of the pain in his legs, he is sitting on his haunches on a hardwood floor, and his muscles are protesting. He is aware of the coolness of the floor. He is aware of the draft, the faint stream of air, cold against his wet cheeks.

Deborah is limp in his arms and Jacob can’t feel anything else.

He doesn’t know, he realizes with pain that is sharp and all consuming like being hit by a truck and trapped in a totaled car. His soul feels like it’s crushed by the sudden thought. He will never know how long was she possessed. It might have been a year even, like the demon said. It might have been there for ages before William noticed, warping their life, warping everything they had.

“Jacob,” William is saying and Jacob realizes there is a hand on his shoulder, squeezing. He realizes it would be painful any other time. It will be painful in a few seconds, even. “Jacob.” But right now, it’s far less than the pressure of Deborah’s skin against his fingers.

“Go away,” Jacob says.

“Jesus, man. I’m so sorry,” William whispers and squeezes his shoulder tighter.

“Leave me alone.” If the words actually make it out of his mouth, Jacob doesn’t care.

William could bring in tangible proof of the Antichrist himself rising to power through a democratic vote of the denizens of the planet and Jacob still wouldn’t care.

He hears the slap before he feels it and the world, for a brief moment, is dual again. He knows he’s still on the floor with Deborah’s body in his arms, and yet he is watching William raise his hand and strike him with an open palm, hard. He hears the slap and sees the movement, but it takes a moment for the pain to register. When it does the whole thing snaps into place again and his head is turned and his face stings. William is kneeling before him, his hands once again on his shoulders.

“I know you’re in pain,” he says, shaking Jacob. “But you have to pull yourself together.”

“What for?” Jacob says and he feels like he’s drunk though he knows he cannot be. But his thoughts are simple and vivid and one at a time and the progression is slurred and unhurried and the simple act of breathing hurts so damn much…

“Rachel, for one. You’ve got Rachel to think of.”

“Rachel,” Jacob whispers. The name means something, he’s sure it does. Then it clicks and all the slowness of his thoughts is gone, because they are moving at light speed. “The demon – it said something. She said I sold my daughter, she said--”

“Don’t think about it,” William says firmly.

“But-”

“Not now.” He pries Jacob’s fingers from Deborah’s body and carries it to the couch. “We need to figure out what to do,” he says. “She has family and friends and a job, people will miss her when she’s gone.”

“I’m her family.”

“I know. I meant the civilians.”

“I am a civilian.”

“Not that kind of a civilian, Jacob, for fuck’s sake. I mean all the other people who had no idea what we were up to! If we report this one, or both, of us could go to jail.”

Jacob raises his head and looks at William. “What? But we didn’t do anything, we tried to save her!”

The hunter takes a deep breath and walks out of the room. When he returns he is carrying a bottle of scotch and a shot glass. He fills it to the brim and offers it to Jacob. “Drink it. I don’t give a fuck if you’re teetotal, you will drink it.” When Jacob doesn’t move to accept, he puts the glass on the ground and grabs him by the throat. “Sorry about this,” he says, digging his fingers into Jacob’s jaw and tilting his head back. With his other hand he sloshes the liquid into Jacob’s mouth, and covers it with his palm. For a second there Jacob is sure he will drown; the oxygen is scarce and the alcohol is burning his mouth and he can’t breathe because this insane freak is holding a palm over his mouth. He swallows the scotch and William withdraws, a little, allowing him to gasp and sort out the breathing business.

“Now, think about it rationally” William says, as if he didn’t almost drown Jacob in a shot glass of alcohol. “Deborah had her neck broken,” and for a second Jacob hears nothing but the horrible crunch. His hands shake and his jaw quivers, but the alcohol is doing its job and the warmth soothes the worst of it and he can focus on what William is saying. “She didn’t fall, she wasn’t hit with anything heavy enough to explain the break. The only way to explain how she could die like this, is if someone took her head in their hands and twisted.”

Jacob stands up unsteadily, holding up his palm to silence William. He walks to the bathroom and throws up everything, including his own sanity, into the clean porcelain bowl. When he straightens, rinses his mouth and returns to the living room William is still kneeling on the floor. “Scotch?” the hunter asks and this time Jacob takes the glass. He knocks it back in one gulp and drops to the floor.

“What do we do?” he asks and his eyes are feverish and bright.

“We need to leave,” William says and his words are terrible and final.

“Leave?”

“We are facing the first degree here, this kind of injury would never be attributed to an accident. First-degree murder of your own wife, at that. Even if you could be exonerated, which even with competent lawyers would be hard, I wouldn’t. I can’t have anything to do with the police,” William says and his voice is urgent.

“Then go,” Jacob says and the words are slow and everything else is perfectly clear. “Leave. I’ll be fine.”

“Like hell you will,” William says and Jacob sees his eyes rolling before he even raises his own. “You have a child to think of here.”

“Rachel,” Jacob mutters and stares William in the eye. “What did she mean when she said I sold Rachel?” Except William can’t quite meet his gaze and Jacob knows the demon wasn’t lying, not about this. He knows that William knows and at this point he needs to know. He needs to know every last detail.

“I was looking into your family history,” William admits, “As part of the research. Your father had a near miraculous recovery, ten years ago.”

“I know, I was at the hospital then. The doctors said the cancer had retreated, something about the treatment finally working.”

“Which happens once per million cases,” William interjects. “It wasn’t instantaneous, though, I wasn’t sure, I didn’t want to ask before I had something more concrete to base it on. But Jacob, it’d been ten years, not to the day, but close, before the fire in your house.”

“What are you saying?”

“I think you made a deal,” William says and Jacob gapes at him.

Everything he has heard about making deals with demons whirrs through his mind. “You think I sold my soul for my dad’s life? I think I would have remembered making that sort of a deal!”

“No, if it were your soul you would have been dead on the tenth anniversary. Contracts with demons come due exactly.”

“Then what?”

“I don’t know. Think about it – June 1996, did anyone talk to you? When your father was in the hospital? Offered you anything with a time limit?”

Jacob frowns and stares at the floor. First thing popping into his head is green. Sickly green, the color of walls of the hospital just outside Chicago where his father was admitted for the surgery. He recalls the hard plastic chairs, the smell of antiseptic and formaldehyde trailing after a nurse. The nauseating stench of sickness and pain and death clinging to every surface and, inexplicably, overlaying them all is a thin veneer of smoke.

“Dennis,” he says finally, and the face takes shape, dredged from the depths of his memory. “Dennis Garlain. He was a friend in high school but I’d barely seen him since. He was there when my father went into surgery.”

“What did you talk about?”

“He was high, I remember that. He said he’d been smoking weed. He asked if I wanted my father to be okay,” Jacob raises his head and stares, unseeing at the window. He barely notices how William’s face becomes grim.

“Fuck,” William says and rubs his face. “This doesn’t sound like any demon I heard of,” he admits. “Normally they’re quite happy to say you can have everything you want, for ten years and then they come for your soul.”

“It was just Dennis,” Jacob insists. “He’s always been weird.”

“Now’s not the time for denial. Did he say anything else?”

“He said something about needing something, in ten years.”

“Did anything happen around that time? Accidents, bizarre deaths?”

“It’s mostly been quiet. Except for the weather.”

“What about the weather?” William asks and he is more agitated than ever.

“Temperature couldn’t settle or something. I walked into the hospital in a t-shirt and nearly froze on my way out. It’d been stormy.” The more his says, the quieter his voice grown. “The same thing happened right before the fire,” he realizes and looks William straight in the eye. “There were storms and temperature went wild.”

The hunter nods grimly. “It could have been a demon.”

“But there’s been nothing of that sort recently here and,” his voice dies before he can say anything about Deborah. “Nothing. I would have noticed, I usually get the weather-related cases.”

“There’s more than one demon in Hell,” William says, “And some of them are bigger than the others.”

“You think it was a demon. You think I sold my daughter to a demon, like this thing said.”

“I don’t know. It’s not enough to say for sure, demons usually aren’t that covert. Usually the deal is clean cut. Date-wise too. When exactly did you talk to this Dennis?”

“26th of June, 1996. The night my dad went into surgery.”

“And the fire happened on the 29th. Shit. You don’t remember anyone else? Their eyes would be really weird, like completely red.”

Jacob shakes his head. “No.”

“What would it want?” William says to himself.

“What did it do?” Jacob asks, frantic despite himself. He could understand a demon making a deal for his soul, that was what demons did, wasn’t it? No one came for his soul. No one even came close. The only thing that happened was his son dying in a fire, and now Deborah and- oh God.

“Man, and I thought the Winchesters had it bad.” Jacob heard William say out loud.

“Winchesters?”

“Couple of hunters, brothers. Lost their mother, their dad trained them to be superheroes.” Jacob wondered if the awe in William’s voice was intentional. “They were really good.”

“Were?”

William hesitated. “The word is, the older sold his soul for his brother’s life and only got a year of time. He’s been dead a while now. Ripped apart by hellhounds.”

Jacob stands up and walks to the couch. Deborah is still and paler now, the warmth seeps out of her body rapidly. “What am I gonna do?” he asks no one in particular.

“Don’t even think about it,” William says.

“I can’t just leave her like this.”

“Let’s get your daughter,” William says out of the blue. “She’s with Mrs Mone, right? I’ll go with you.”

Jacob leans against the couch, his fingers tangled in Deborah’s hair. How could it come to this? He never wanted this. Not for one minute. Her body already colder than a human body should be. Jacob takes a shuddering breath and then there are hands on his shoulders again, pulling him away from the couch and in the direction of the front door.

“We’re going to get Rachel,” William says, forcing Jacob’s arms into the sleeves of his trench coat. “And you will pull yourself together, because right now we cannot afford you to lose it.”

Mrs Mone lives only a few blocks away. Jacob allows William to set the pace, even though he struggles to keep up. He is better off not thinking. He tries to impose normality on himself as if it were something that could be called on and off. They reach the front door of the Mone’s abode faster than he’d have liked, certainly in less time than he needed, which was approximately ten years. He’s not feeling well. William knocks and Jacob hides behind his broad shoulder, knowing the hunter can lie convincingly enough about anything he chooses. He should be able to explain his condition with ease. Sure enough, when Mrs Mone answers the door William is charming and polite and with an explanation for the world’s steady spin.

“Afternoon, ma’am,” he says. “Sorry, I had to drag Jacob over here, he isn’t feeling well, probably the same bug Deborah has, and I wasn’t sure how would Rachel feel about my coming alone.”

“Of course, honey,” Mrs Mone says, her mouth twitching upwards. “Step right in, Rachel is in the living room.”

William smiles and nods and yes ma’am, he’d love a cup of tea, but Jacob should really get to bed and follows her into the room, Jacob in tow. The house smells of old dust, and everything – if Jacob had a keen enough nose he would have been able to scent the faint wisps of meals made a long time ago, all the Thanksgivings, the Christmases and the Easters. He would have been able to smell the shades of people who visited and brought with them pieces of the outside world, the flowers, the pies and the fruit.

If Jacob were concentrating enough, he would have been able to smell the blood.

Rachel is sitting in the middle of the room, half hidden by the couch, playing with some building blocks. Jacob steps from behind William her name rising from his throat, but it dies on his lips when he is far enough into the room so that the couch is no longer in the way of his vision. The blocks are hovering in the air, and Rachel, her small face focused, is holding them there. Beyond her, on the floor, Mr Mone is prostrated on the floor, unmoving, in a pool of blood.

“I was almost ready to leave,” Mrs Mone says behind him. Jacob hears a choke and a dull thump and when he turns William is crumpled on the ground, a handle of a kitchen knife protruding from his back. Jacob stumbles onto the couch and falls, right next to Rachel.

“Daddy!” she says happily and the blocks tumble to the ground as the little girl clambers onto his lap to give him a hug. “Blocks, see?”

“Yes, Jacob, did you see?” Mrs Mone is looking at him a smile playing at her lips. Her eyes cloud with blackness and he lets out a gurgled sound of protest. “Little Rachel is a very good student, soon she’ll be strong enough to take on Lilith and the Winchester boy and win. That’s right, darling,” Mrs Mone croons.

“Build castles, daddy,” Rachel says, smiling. Jacob is watching, her unable to speak.

Jacob can’t help but stare as the blocks roll towards the middle of the room and onto one another. Rachel is squinting and holding her palm out in their direction and she’s still smiling. Then she turns to face him, looking so proud and happy with herself, eager for his approval. The look on his face must worry her, though, because her bottom lip starts to quiver.

“Daddy? No like?”

“You daddy doesn’t understand, darling,” Mrs Mone says gently. “You daddy doesn’t like people who can do special things.”

Rachel looks frightened now and she steps away from him and Jacob is entirely too shocked to even consider protesting. “You killed William,” he whispers. “You killed Mr Mone…”

“Oh, I killed Mrs Mone too,” Mrs Mone says. “The poor dear ingested so many sleeping pills, there’s no hope she’ll wake up ever again.”

“Why?”

“Ah, dear boy. Rachel is all worth it. The Winchester boy refused to be our savior, but your little girl will do just fine. She is young and she is talented and when I’m done training her, she will be ready to take on anyone.”

“You killed Deborah!”

“Ah, no. That wasn’t me. Silly goose was too enthusiastic, but you know how kids are. It’s all about the thrill of the chase with them. I suppose you exorcised her? I knew she was too hotheaded. Me, I know how to bid my time, even if it is a little earlier than I expected. It doesn’t hurt none, I’ve got to say. Sadly, Lilith too has me hurried, with her silly schemes.”

“Are you going to kill me?” Jacob asks.

“Why would I kill you?” Mrs Mone laughs, stepping forward to pick Rachel up.

“You killed William.”

“He is dangerous,” the elderly lady moves her lips and the demon speaks through her. “He is a hunter and he could be a serious wrench in my plans. You, on the other hand…” She leans over Jacob and presses her mouth against his. Jacob feels the tip of her tongue against his lips and he recoils violently, while she laughs. “You are so much more amusing alive than dead. You see all this?” she gestures with her hand to the room, to the bodies of Mr Mone and William and the building blocks. “Do you know why this all happened? Because twelve years ago you made a deal. You chose the life of your father over the lives of your family.”

“I didn’t…”

“You gave Azazel permission to enter your house and give his gift to this one,” Mrs Mone says and there is nothing pleasant or comforting about the look on her face. The wrinkles twist around her features, forming a sinister and angry mask. “All to spare yourself the pain of seeing your father die before you graduated. I bet he’ll be very proud.”

Jacob feels his heart hammering and he feels a whimper escape his mouth. “Kill me,” he says, but Mrs Mone pays him no mind.

“You know, I think I might visit your father. I might tell him what a great person you have grown up to be, killing your pretty wife, your friends… I might mention how the police officer said a triple homicide might send you straight to the electric chair… Wait, I lie.” She pauses an in a very theatrical gesture covers her mouth. “Does Illinois offer electric chairs? Still, you might get lucky, if you mumble loud enough about the big bad demons, who took your family from you. You wouldn’t be the first, you know.” Mrs Mone smiles at him, cradling Rachel on her hip. “But I blabbered on enough. Time to go,” she says.

“No,” Jacob calls. “Rachel…”

“Oh, honey, don’t you worry. Rachel will grow up tall and strong, and she will be beautiful like you can only imagine. You will see. Or perhaps, if you’re lucky enough, you won’t.” Mrs Mone smiles again and turns her back to him.

Jacob forces himself to stand and lunge after her, but she is expecting him because suddenly he is flying across the room and hitting the wall with his back. “Rachel,” he whispers, but the wind has been knocked out of him and his voice doesn’t rise high enough to even escape his mouth. “Rachel.”

“Goodbye, Jacob. I’ll make sure the police don’t take long to arrive,” are the last words he hears, before the doors close and he is sitting on the floor of the living room in the Mones’ house, with two corpses for company. William’s eyes are still open, staring at him from where he lies, in a puddle of blood that creeps towards the carpet. The metallic smell of it sticks to every surface it sticks to Jacob’s clothes. It’s so thick in the air that he wonders how on earth could he have missed it when he first walked in.

Jacob closes his eyes and gives up.

“In the Name of the Father and the Son and Holy Ghost,” he hears and it takes a few moments to realize it is his own voice, quiet and weak, but unwavering. “Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed by thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil,” he whispers earnestly. “Deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom, and the power and the glory, forever and ever.

“Please,” he says louder. “Our Father, who art in Heaven. Please,” he whispers again. “I’ll do anything.” He stares at the door, trying in vain to envision the cross, which hangs in his home in that spot. What is he supposed to do? Rachel is gone, taken by a demon, Deborah is gone and William is gone, and it is all his fault…

“I beg you,” he whispers. The demon possessing Deborah was bad enough; to see it twist his wife’s face was unbearable. But knowing another of those things, another thing that was pure evil had his little girl, he felt as though his heart was being ripped out and torn into pieces. He doesn’t even have strength in his arms to reach for his rosary, but he tries nonetheless, until he remembers that he’s dropped it into the bottle back when William asked him to bless the water. He has nothing. “Unto thee, oh Lord, do I lift up my soul,” he hears and finds that his mouth is shaping the words even without his head knowing. The psalm he didn’t realize he knew by heart is stark in his memory, clear as the day he remembers his father reading it to him for the first time. “Oh my God, I trust in thee: let me not be ashamed, let not mine enemies triumph over me.”

His hands are numb, he finds, and the numbness spreads throughout his body, even as his lips whisper the words of the psalm. He keeps looking because that is the only thing he is capable of doing at the moment. He sees William, his face twisted to the side as he lies on the floor, a kitchen knife in his back. In the corner of his field of vision Mr Mone lies, the man he everyone knows as solemn, yet kind, who’s been a permanent feature in the neighborhood for a long time, his throat cut with something sharp.

Jacob’s head won’t turn, even as more and more details he doesn’t want to see come rushing in. The blood pooling on the floor. The building blocks, fallen and left where Rachel dropped them. All if it, everything, is too much for him. He can’t look and yet he cannot force himself to close his eyes. This changes when he realizes there is light in the room, fiery white and blinding. Finally, struck by the brilliant white light, his eyes cooperate and he closes his them. He feels the burn against his skin and he hopes that the demon set the house on fire, because burning alive has to be better than living like this. The heat intensifies and right when he is sure he can no longer handle it, the physicality of the sensation just drops away and he can feel nothing more.

His eyes open and for a moment he sees nothing – he in encased in perfect darkness, except he can see himself. His hands are there, unchanged and unmarred by the fire, the coat, the suit, even the blue tie Anne has given him last Christmas. It’s all there, but everything else isn’t. It’s like he is the only thing in the entire universe.

“Is this death?” he asks.

“No, it isn’t,” Jacob hears and he turns. He isn’t afraid, for some reason, though if he were to be honest with himself that is because he is fairly certain there is nothing he has left to be afraid of. He turns and takes a step back. He is looking at himself, like he was looking into a mirror, except it cannot be a mirror, because the other him is not moving, just looking at him with a serene expression in his ancient eyes. “Hello, Jacob.”

Yes, it is the eyes, Jacob decides. The color is the same but the other him just keeping looking, passive and understanding, as if the world held no mysteries for him. This is so radically different from how Jacob feels, now more than ever he has no doubts whatsoever that whatever mysteries human psyche holds, this one must have come from beyond. “Who are you?” he asks then.

“I’m an angel of the Lord,” his reflection answers. “My name is Castiel.” Something shimmers in the darkness behind him and Jacob can almost make out a pair of wings, spreading behind him. He takes a step back, swallowing.

“And this is…”

“I was forced to possess you,” Castiel says. “I apologize, but there was no other way for us to talk at this time.”

“What do you want with me?” Jacob asks.

“The use of your body,” Castiel replies immediately and Jacob stares at him, astonished.

“That sounded so very wrong,” he manages when his voice returns to him, but the angel doesn’t seem to grasp the implication.

“It is imperative that I contact Dean Winchester.”

“Winchester? As in the Antichrist Winchester?”

“No. The other one.”

“The Christ Winchester?” Jacob whispers reverently after a short pause, but Castiel pays him little mind.

“He cannot perceive my true form and it is of utmost importance that I speak with him,” the angel continues. His stare feels strange, like he knows the concept of seeing, but not the socially accepted standards of the intensity. Which is probably the exact truth, Jacob realizes. If this is an angel, he wouldn’t know anything of human standards. He is intense and full of conviction and Jacob has to look away, because even though there seems to be no light looking at the angel hurts his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he says, “But right now I don’t really care.”

“In return I can give you what you want,” Castiel says, as if there was no interruption.

“What? You mean, you’d make a deal?”

“Yes.”

“Why are you even asking, if you’re already possessing me?”

“I cannot guarantee your survival,” Castiel looks apologetic. “I need a human vessel, but I cannot guarantee you will survive after my task is done and I am allowed to leave. I will not take you without your permission.”

“What I want…” Jacob looks up, sharply. “Can you save Rachel?”

“Yes.”

“Thank God,” Jacob whispers reverently, then something else occurs to him. “Will she survive?”

Castiel looks thoughtful, which seems difficult when he still has no expression on his face. Jacob’s face. “I can burn the demon blood out of her body, if that is your wish,” he says, “Which will hurt her, but shouldn’t be fatal.”

“And she’ll be fine?”

“She will be purged of the demonic influences, yes.”

Jacob closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. “Anne – Deborah’s sister – will look after her. She’ll make sure Rachel is okay.” There is something like a smile on his mouth, and when he opens his eyes again they no longer hurt when he looks at Castiel. “I give you my permission,” he says.

The other him nods and the darkness dispels, leaving behind the living room of the Mones. Jacob sees the room shift as his body rises. He feels it move and it’s the strangest sensation, moving while not being conscious of his body’s intent. He feels the other presence within his body along with his, he feels its thoughts and intent, but it is like he was listening to someone issue instructions in another language. The words are there and the intent is there, but he cannot make out the exact meaning. He feels like he is losing his spatial awareness along with the control – now that his limbs don’t move in the way he wants them to, it seems like he can no longer tell how far from anything he stands.

He feels though; he senses the tang of blood and the air on his skin, the feel of the clothes he wears, even the way the tie moves against his collarbone. He feels the heaviness of the coat on his shoulders and the way the sleeves rub against the bone of his thumb. Yet he feels all of that as if he were being told; as if he were watching a movie, like none of it was real. It is there, plainly, because he feels, he knows, he is certain. At the same time it is like he has the memory of what it should be like and what he should be feeling, because his body remembers, each sensation sharp and tangible, each worthy of consideration and attention.

Jacob watches as his hands rise to his face and the fingers flex. He senses the body taking a step and landing, face first, on the ground. There is a moment before his face connects with the carpet, just one, when the angel panics and recedes, and Jacob throws his hands up to protect his head. He lands on his elbows and yelps – there was no crunch but something shifted and a sharp jab of a nerve being nudged shoots up his arm.

“This what you mean by me not surviving?” he asks, as he slowly collects himself and gets to his knees. His right elbow hurts, but the sensation passes in an instant.

“I’m sorry,” the angel says, and the voice arrives as words in Jacob’s mind. They are tinged with contrition and shame, and Jacob can barely resist a smile. Angels are nothing like he expected. “I’ve never done this before.”

“Oh. Well, it’s not hard,” he offers. “Just don’t think about it.” before he allows Castiel control again, Jacob stands up and grabs the backseat of the couch. There is a burn in his chest and when he places his hand there he feels heat, greater that the usual

“I will learn,” Castiel promises and Jacob recedes into his own head, allowing the angel to try and manage moving a human body from the inside.

Whatever Jacob thought about his issues with spatial awareness, now that he is a passenger in his own body, goes double for Castiel. He has none whatsoever. The couch that Jacob deliberately put under his hands for support is more of a hindrance than help, because he cannot seem to grasp that the backrest is level with his upper thigh, but only when he is standing upright. Castiel takes a step, or rather thrusts his leg forward, kicking the leg of the couch, tripping and hitting his hip on the armrest. Jacob wonders what does the world look like to the angel, when he considers space relative to his position, not the other way around. He learns, true enough. When he considers it objectively, he is learning faster than it should be possible. After all, it takes a human child months, if not years, to master walking upright. Castiel manages in minutes, even if these are some of the more interesting minutes of Jacob’s life.

Castiel is a good student, despite the communication problems. When he finally grasps the notion of judging distance from objects and triangulating his own position based on the distance, which he does ten minutes after the initial fall, he masters walking in no time at all. Jacob resists the urge to cheer when he manages to get to the door without tripping over William’s body.

Of course, as they approach the door there is the issue of the doorknob. Castiel spends a minute listening to Jacob’s explanations then tries wrapping his hands around the contraption and pulling. The door remains closed.

“Twist right,” Jacob thinks at the angel.

“How do I know which side is right?” Castiel asks, contemplating the door.

Jacob would have blinked. “Uh, right side. The opposite to left?”

“Ah, spatial right,” Castiel says and twists the knob. The latch is released and the door opens. “Thank you. But now I must hurry,” he adds and Jacob feels his eyelids drop for a second and the air shifts. When the eyes are open again he is standing in a dark room he doesn’t recognize, but Mrs Mone is there, her face twisted in surprise and in fear, and Rachel is there also, asleep.

“How did you get here?” the demon in Mrs Mone screeches.

“Silence,” Castiel says, and the sensation of the body speaking without his knowledge is most peculiar, Jacob thinks. He sees the effect the voice has on the demon and he cannot help but wonder how it must sound from the outside. “Give me back the child.”

“Who are you?” the demon asks and it’s worried, terrified even. Jacob feels a slight twist of satisfaction. Castiel doesn’t reply. He raises his hand, laying his palm against the old woman’s forehead and…

Jacob would have gasped, had he a body to do it with.

…Obliterates the demon. There is light shining through her eyes and her mouth, and then Mrs Mone’s body just crumples to the ground, unharmed, and Jacob knows the demon, which was inside her, is dead and gone. He knows it will never hurt anyone else and he is relieved. He watches from the inside as Castiel kneels next to Rachel, woken up by the demon’s screech.

“Daddy?” she asks sleepily, rubbing at her eyes. She is still tired and confused and Jacob aches, remembering Castiel’s earlier words. Castiel doesn’t say anything to the girl though. He presses two of his fingers above Rachel’s heart. Jacob feels a strong suggestion to succumb to unconsciousness, but he resists. This is his child, one he failed in so many ways now, he wasn’t going to fail her now. “It will hurt her,” Castiel reminds him but Jacob doesn’t care. It’s his baby, and he wants to know everything that happens to her, if only so that he knows what he’s guilty of, come Judgment Day.

Castiel doesn’t move and for a moment Rachel just blinks at him sleepily, than she starts screaming. There is something akin to fire spreading through her veins, and Jacob doesn’t feel his heart enough to know whether it’s constricting, but he knows he feels the cry deep in his soul and that’s hurtful enough. Rachel is in pain and she still hurts when Castiel lifts his hand. There is a deep red burn where his fingers were, one that would hurt for a while yet. Rachel whimpers and loses consciousness for which Jacob is grateful. He feels Castiel withdraw, enough for him to take control of his body and pick up his little girl. He cradles her to his chest stroking her hair. “I love you, baby. I’m so sorry.” Her forehead is clammy and heated; whatever the angel just did obviously took its toll. He knows she’s unconscious, but he’s hoping she’ll remember when she wakes up that he told her he loved her, and that he was sorry.

“I love you,” he whispers one more time and then he lets himself go. It is Castiel who stands up, holding Rachel to his chest. He blinks and Jacob realizes they are in Anne’s bedroom standing over her sleeping form. She’s half-covered by the sheets, disheveled and emanating warmth. She looks so very much like Deborah when she’s asleep Jacob feels a twinge of pain. At the same time, the way the angel sees her provides ample distraction. There is knowledge, seeping into his brain, that the soft light he sees is Anne’s soul shining through her body, lighting her from the inside. The light is unwavering and orange, warm like a fireplace in a wooden cabin.

Anne shudders as if in response to an invisible draft and sits up. She looks around and notices him, a male figure standing by her bed. She panics, before she recognizes Jacob’s face in the darkness. “Jacob, what are you doing here?” she whispers. She is not yet fully awake. Her hair is mussed up, there are linen lines on her cheek and a spot of drool on her bottom lip. “Is this Rachel?”

“Look after the child.” Castiel lays the little body in Anne’s lap. Rachel whimpers a little and turns towards the source of warmth.

“Jacob,” Anne says, uncertain, but her arms are already wrapping around his daughter. The fiery glow embraces the child and Jacob knows Rachel would be safe and loved with her aunt. “You’re…”

She knows something is wrong, Jacob thinks. Not that it wouldn’t be obvious, when her brother-in-law appears out of nowhere in her bedroom unexpectedly and without announcing his arrival, but this different. She knows something fundamental is wrong, and Jacob cries for her. Soon she will be told her sister is dead, and that the police are searching for him as a possible suspect. He thinks of his parents, and that alone almost breaks his heart. He does nothing, however.

“Goodbye,” Castiel says. He blinks and again they are somewhere else entirely; the outside of a shed, so very different from Anne’s homey bedroom in her parent’s house.

The shed stirs a memory in Jacob’s mind, but not enough to recognize the specific location. He has little time to wonder about it. The night is still and dark, yet when Castiel takes a step towards the door the wind picks up, tearing at his clothes. A strong gust blows the doors open and the angel enters. Jacob feels the cackle of electricity, feels it against his skin. The angel reacts to the flow; something within him flexes and pushes back, and the lights explode in a flurry of sparks. Castiel watches them, unflinching despite the faint burning in his retinas. Jacob wishes he would look a little less intently.

On the other side of barn, surrounded by a variety of symbols some of which Jacob recognizes as devil traps, Christian fish, pentacles and others, there are two men, each armed with some kind of shotgun. They watch him, wary, surprised but controlled, like the hardcore cops on the movies Jacob used to watch. He wishes they were a little less hardcore when both of them fire repeatedly at Castiel and though Jacob knows it is his body that’s bearing the brunt of the attack, it doesn’t worry him.

Jacob looks at the younger of the two, looks not only because it’s impossible not to stare at him, but also because that’s where Castiel’s attention is riveted. He knows this is the man Castiel has come to Earth to talk to and right now the angel’s memories tell him this is the man Castiel descended into Hell for. The emotion he feels by proxy is bizarre, and strangely reminiscent of the day Jacob remembers seeing Deborah for the first time. He’s been unable to tear his gaze away, because there was something about her that commanded his attention at the time. This Dean Winchester – because Jacob knows, via Castiel, that this is Dean Winchester – has that quality in spades. He is a handsome man, but it was more than that. There is a light about him, similar in nature to that which held Jacob fascinated when he looked at Anne, except his is different. More intense.

“Who are you?” Dean asks when Castiel approaches.

He is nothing like Jacob expected. This Dean is perhaps the same age as Jacob, though the look in his eyes makes him seem so much older than Jacob feels. This is a man, he knows, who has walked through the shadow of death and emerged in the light on the other side.

“I’m the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition,” Castiel tells him and Jacob just knows he will never get used to the sensation of the angel talking. He can see the images of that man’s soul in Hell – which would have made him throw up, had he a body to worry about – and he can tell that his soul doesn’t belong there. Sharing a body with an angel gives him a new perspective, because what his eyes see is overlaid by what the angel perceives. And what the angel sees here, beyond the flesh and the anger and the grime of the shed is a soul so bright it is shining in the darkness. This is the man whose mission it is to help save them from Hell on Earth, Castiel’s thoughts tell him.

Jacob feels nothing but warmth of the angel’s being, even when the man picks up a knife and buries it in his heart.

THE END


Part Seven :: Master Post

Comments

[emocezi.livejournal.com]

His stare feels strange, like he knows the concept of seeing, but not the socially accepted standards of the intensity.

That is so Castiel I actually burst out laughing...even though the intensity of the story kinda told me not to....::Sheepish grin::

This was awesome, I love the way you told Jacob's story. I always wondered what would make a devout man pray for possession by an angel.

[keire-ke.livejournal.com]

^____^ The bit about Castiel learning to walk was a flash moment of inspiration. He's inhuman, I thought, and well, I tend to ruin big moments with down-to-Earth details. XD Hence the walking into furniture.

Thank you very much for reading! :) I had a nice long November figuring out what exactly had landed Jacob where he had, and this is the result. I'm happy you enjoyed.

[darksilvercat.livejournal.com]

.....

I've been waiting months for Show to give us a backstory for Castiel's vessel, and now I just want to make this one canon!

Absolutely breathtaking, I can't think of any of the right words to describe this. Just a fantastic, incredibly detailed and well-planned story, I love it.

You deserve a medal or cookies or pie or something, this was excellent.

[keire-ke.livejournal.com]

^_____^ I know how you feel, I first got the idea after the first three or four episodes, and then NaNo rolled by and I had little excuse not to write it. It was a joy, it's all I can say, and judging by how fast it came out, it really wanted to be written.

*munches on the cookies* Thank you very much!

[serabut.livejournal.com]

this is excellent! I'm glad I got to read this. :)

[keire-ke.livejournal.com]

:) Thank you.

[twelve-pastels.livejournal.com]

Oh My God.

I completely stumbled over this story by accident, but. Wow. This is one of the best character studies I've ever read in the SPN fandom.

[keire-ke.livejournal.com]

*blushes* Thank you very much! Holy tax accountant made me curious from the get-go, I couldn't resist when he knocked with a fully- formed plot bunny. :)

[bellajayd.livejournal.com]

This was absolutely wonderful! I really enjoyed how you developed the character!!

[keire-ke.livejournal.com]

:) Thank you.

[ladyyueh.livejournal.com]

I kinda love you right now. Lots. If tomorrow doesn't prove to be as awesome as this I will bitch mightily.

Thank you for your hard work, it's appreciated.

[keire-ke.livejournal.com]

*blushes* Thank you. I had lots of fun writing this story. ^______^