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Part One
The Budget Motor Inn was about as cheap and crummy as you could find in Washington, and Missouri shook her head in impatient pity. What these boys put up with.... She waved the taxi off with a flick of her wrist and walked down the cracked sidewalk to room seven. Dirty snow was piled unevenly along both sides, and the sidewalk itself was wet, slippery in patches and breaking into gravel. The air was sharp with cold, prickling in her nose and making her throat hurt. She skidded just a little in the furry boots that her niece Shenandoah had bought her and came to a stop at the door.
It was gratifying to hear the muted scramble that went on when she knocked once, sharply, and announced herself. A few moments later, Dean opened the door, shirt half on and his hair wet, his mouth set in an unhappy line.
"Missouri? What –"
"You boys don't seem to know how to answer your phones," she said, and shouldered past Dean, wrinkling her nose. The place smelled like take out chicken, damp wool, gun oil and boys, with an underlying tang of some industrial cleaner. Both beds were littered with clothes and gear, and the little round table Sam was hunched over was scattered with books, print outs, cans of cola and candy wrappers, and cups of vending machine coffee.
Sam lifted a half-zipped duffel of paraphernalia off of a second chair and made a 'have a seat' gesture, and Missouri nodded in thank you and plumped herself down. Dean finished yanking his shirt on, covering the dark, hand-shaped scar on his shoulder – angel-mark, burning with its own peculiar light – and Missouri hugged herself a little inside her puffy coat.
"We can do this without a babysitter, you know," Dean muttered, shrugging on a flannel shirt and folding up the cuff, glaring at her.
"I'm sure you can. But I need to know what you found today – what you saw. I need to know what's causing this."
"We were going to call you –" Sam said, soothing little cadence to his voice, and Missouri narrowed her eyes at him.
"Once you'd fixed it, maybe. On your way out of the city. That's not good enough."
Sam looked over at Dean, eyebrows raised, and Dean snatched a glass down from the lone cabinet in the corner, one hip against the square of counter top, sink and two-burner stove that formed a bare-bones kitchenette. He slopped three fingers of whiskey into the glass and bolted it, throat working smoothly. Too smoothly. He barely seemed to notice what he was taking in.
"Look, Missouri – no offense, but you're not a hunter. This is no place for you."
"Don't tell me what I can and can't do, Dean Winchester. I may not be a hunter, but I'm not helpless." Missouri turned away from Dean and reached out, shifting a few of the papers that littered the table top. "Now, Sam – tell me what all this is."
Sam gave Dean one more look and shrugged – turned his laptop around and shuffled a few windows until a view of the cathedral floor was topmost. "We found a glyph. It's hard to see at first, but if you look just right, it'll jump out at you." With the chewed cap of a pen, Sam traced lines just above the screen's surface and Missouri leaned in closer – leaned back when she saw it.
"Is it...that's not set into the floor, is it?"
"No. Well, some of it. Some of it's part of the overall design. Some of it's light, and shadow...I found some pictures from last summer – " Sam shuffled the windows again, and another view – slightly different, another angle – appeared. "And see – it's not complete. Whoever made this was using the season – the light. We think it's tied to a particular position of the moon. That's why it stopped, before – that's why it doesn't happen all the time."
Missouri unzipped her coat and pushed it open a little – watched out of the corner of her eye as Dean downed another shot and then sat with ill-disguised bad humor on the end of a bed. His elbows were propped on his knees, his hands dangling down between. His knuckles looked sore – a little red, a little cracked. "So – what is happening? What does the glyph mean?"
"From what I can tell, it's a summoning glyph. Whoever did this was trying to summon an elemental."
"Air," Missouri said, and Sam nodded.
"Whoever made this isn't around any more. And when everything lines up right, an air elemental comes through from...somewhere. But it's only here for a few days, and I guess it's...pissed off. Or something."
"Or something," Dean said.
"But why does it stop? Why doesn't it become part of the world here?"
"It can't. I think. Where it's from...isn't here. I think it's hard for it to maintain itself here, because of the glyph not being right. Maybe it, I dunno, hurts it to be here or something."
"Or maybe it's just a monster like every other monster, and all it wants to do is fuck shit up," Dean said, and Missouri gave him her best 'watch your language' glare. He glared back. "We're talking old stuff, Missouri. Powerful stuff. A few hoodoo bags and a – a séance aren't going to fix this."
"I've never done a séance in my life, Dean Winchester. Table-tapping and nonsense – that's strictly for amateurs."
"And telling people lies is for professionals?" Dean snapped, and Missouri felt her back go ram-rod straight, eyes narrowing.
"Seems to me you need to be looking to your own house before you throw any stones in mine, boy." Dean huffed, obviously furious but just as obviously not willing to say anything else, and Sam finally cleared his throat, fingers rustling nervously through the litter on the table.
"Uh, yeah, anyway....I think I've got an idea how to fix this. It's all about the glyph, right? So we just need to alter it. We need to make it so it won't work anymore. Now obviously –" he went on, as Dean rolled his eyes, "we can't chip part of the floor up or anything. But we can add a shadow. A couple of shadows. And it'll change the meaning. Here."
Sam unearthed a drawing from the table and flattened it out, and Missouri leaned in close. It was the glyph, lightly sketched, with three darker lines added. Two lines that joined two separate sections, with a third line extending the point of an intersection and bending it at right angles, making a blunt point into a hooking scorpion's tail. It made the glyph into something else, subtly, but definitely.
"So what does this sign mean?"
"This is...null. It means nothing. Pretty much what it's going to do is seal whatever crack or...opening the elemental is getting through. Permanently."
Missouri nodded slowly, studying the design – thinking about how the original glyph had been made. Then she looked over at Dean, who was glaring at the worn, nubby carpet as if it had mortally offended him, and at Sam, who was twitching at papers and chewing a fingernail. The tension between them was palpable.
"So, tell me...do you boys have a plan?"
Sam jerked and looked up her – over at Dean – and smiled a sickly little smile. "Oooh, yeah. A plan. We've got that."
Having Missouri in the passenger seat of the car was making Dean twitchy, and he kept shooting looks in the rear view, catching Sam's eyes and then looking back to the road. Sam seemed perfectly happy wedged in the back with a duffle and a sheaf of papers, squinting down, mouth frowning around the tube of a flashlight.
Missouri sat silent and stared straight ahead, only occasionally making a clutch for the dashboard, and Dean stomped on the gas and the brake a little more sharply than necessary. He knows he's being a dick. He doesn't really care.
He's just pissed, at the both of them. At Missouri for putting herself into the line of fire and being way too fucking stubborn for her own good, and at Sam for his incredibly stupid 'plan' that would probably get them all killed. More like 'certainly'. Dean had even tried to get Castiel to come help, but of course the angel wasn't listening. Not when it was important.
Though, secretly, despite everything...Dean's not surprised. That any entreaty – anything remotely resembling a prayer from his lips – would actually be heard is laughable. Heaven may think that Dean Winchester is The Chosen One, but he knows...they're wrong. Just so fucking wrong.
He take a corner a little too fast and the tires slip and catch and slip, and for a moment it's like flying. Dean grins a little, wolfish flash of his teeth as he steers 'into the skid, Dean, always into the skid', and gets her lined up true again.
The gasp from Missouri and startled, quickly muffled yelp from Sam is gratifying, if petty.
"Sorry, sorry," he said, but Missouri's glare could melt steel. He reached out and snapped on the radio, ignoring the looks he got from both of them.
The cathedral at night was – bright. Very bright. "Very, very, very fucking bright, Sam. How in the fuck –?"
"Watch your tongue, boy," Missouri snarled, and Dean resisted the urge to stick it out at her.
"I didn't realize it would be so...um...."
"Bright? It's like fuck – frickin' Time's Square!" Dean stared in astonished irritation at the building. Security lights blazed along the streets around it, and spots and floods traced all the arches and buttresses and carvings, leaving far too few pockets of deep shadow. There was even a big, decorated Christmas tree right in front, with people milling around, snapping pictures and posing for pictures and basically acting like annoying, tourist cannon fodder. The sky was thick with clouds, but there was a high wind up there, blowing them briskly along, and when the moon came out – as it would, as evidenced by the pale, glowing blur in the tarnished pewter of the clouds – the glyph would be alive.
"It's a church, it's supposed to be dark at night, everybody's supposed to just pray and go home!"
"It's a national monument, Dean. And it's, you know – almost Christmas. They have night time services and, you know...tree watching or...whatever. This is what people do."
"People are idiots," Dean mumbled. The slush of the parking lot was starting to soak into his left boot.
"I think we should go in," Missouri said suddenly. Her voice had taken on a sort of dreamy quality, and Dean shot her a searching look.
"What would be the point?"
"I...don't know for sure, but I can feel.... There's something there. Not the elemental. Something else. I think...it could help us."
"Help us how?" Dean asked, and Missouri tucked her scarf in a little more firmly and put her hand on Dean's arm, simultaneously using him for balance and dragging him along.
"We'll know once we're inside," she said, and Dean huffed and went, Sam trailing behind like the world's biggest kite tail.
It wasn't as crowded inside as it could have been, which made Dean relax a tiny bit. But then he tensed right up again as Missouri made a beeline for the 'burning bush' window and the shadowy face Dean had half-convinced himself he hadn't really seen. She stood there, humming to herself, looking first up at the window, then down.
Right into the strange spot on the wall, where Dean was sure the mortar between the smooth, pale stones was a shade darker. Just a shade. After a moment, hesitantly, Missouri reached out, laying her bare hand on the spot. She stood there, eyes shut, and then all three of them shuddered, gasping, as the air for a few feet around them suddenly chilled, becoming as ice-sharp as the air outside.
"Oh. Oh, my....oh, you poor thing...." Missouri swayed ever so slightly and Dean and Sam both made a grab for her. Impatiently, she shook them off. "I'm fine, I'm fine." Her breath puffed white, and Dean put his hand into his pocket, feeling the salt rounds – feeling the weight of his favorite sawed-off in the bag over his shoulder. "There is... There was a woman. Her name was Lia and her husband...her husband was a stone mason here. Oh, he was a prideful man...."
Missouri shook her head, her gaze elsewhere, her hand slowly, slowly stroking over the wall. Dean looked at Sam over her head.
'What the fuck?' he mouthed. Sam grimaced – shrugged – shook his head. "Helpful, Sam," Dean whispered, and Missouri tilted her head and stared up at him for a moment, mouth pursed. "Sorry, you go right ahead, commune with the wall while we –"
"She's trying to help us, Dean. Her husband wanted her buried here, but they said no. So he had her cremated, and he put her ashes into the mortar, and the mortar...." Missouri turned back to the wall, and give it a little pat. "The mortar into the wall. Right here. She's been here for a very long time. She was here thirty years ago, and she tried to stop it, but she can't. She doesn't have enough power. But she wants to."
Missouri took a couple steps back and stared up at the window, her gaze tracing the curving, fire-colored panes. "This was her favorite window. He put her here deliberately. But the elemental...it makes the air scream. It makes it hurt. It defiles holy ground, and when it returns from its killing, it stains the stones with blood...."
Missouri's voice had dropped to a low whisper, and Dean felt a little shiver go over him. She seemed to shake herself then, and she looked around, a little dazed. "She wants to pass over, but she feels she must guard the cathedral. She's the one who sends it out – keeps it away when it kills, so that it must find its victims on unconsecrated ground."
"Wow," Sam said. He looked up at the window, too. "Okay, so – the ghost of a stone mason's wife is successfully driving an elemental away?"
"It's very hard – it drains her – it hurts her. But she won't let it hurt the people here – the church itself. She says...she can help us."
"Help us how?" Dean asked. He wasn't sure he totally believed Missouri – though anything as mundane as 'burying' your dead wife's remains in a church wall shouldn't surprise him, these days.
"She says she knows we need privacy, so – she's going to make sure we get it." Missouri looked a little confused, glancing around, and Dean.....
"I have a very bad feeling about this," Sam mumbled, and Dean squashed the urge to cackle. Then, with a shower of sparks and a theatrical – and slightly terrifying – show of arcing electricity, the lights went out.
"This is helping?" Dean said, and Missouri smacked his shoulder.
"She did the best she could. Got the place cleared out, didn't she?"
"Sure, but – shit, Sammy! Watch it!"
"I got it, I got it," Sam said, catching his balance on the narrow walkway and finally coming to a stop in front of a low, wide door. "Maintenance hatch. They gotta go out, replace bulbs, clean stuff, you know – I can get to where I need to be from here. You just need to do the spell I gave you – distract the elemental so it stays here."
"I know, I know," Dean shifted restlessly, a faint, pale figure in the dim city light that reached through the stained glass. In the utter blackness of the cathedral, Missouri was sure she saw – something – flickering and moving out of the corner of her eye. Maybe it was Lia, or maybe....
"Missouri? You with me?" Dean said, and Missouri took a hard, deep breath and nodded.
"I'm fine, I'm here. Lia's going to do what she can, boys. Just – hurry."
"Hurry carefully," Dean said, and Sam nodded, hunched in front of the door, lock picks clicking quietly. A moment later the tumblers ticked over, loud in the silence, and Sam was pushing through, into colder air tinged with a faint thread of wood smoke and age. Into a sort of crawlspace and then out, onto the icy, exposed walks and ledges of the outside of the cathedral. Dean shoved his bag after him and Sam took it – looked at him for a long moment and then was gone, pushing the door nearly to behind him.
Missouri shivered and turned away – startled back into Dean as Lia appeared without warning, shining pale-blue-white in the murk. She stuttered, not quite here nor there, her dark hair coiled over her head, her dark dress glittering faintly with decorative beading. Her best dress – wedding dress – funeral dress.
"Lord have mercy on us, we who are going to work these difficult tasks tonight. Lord watch over us," Missouri whispered, and Lia smiled faintly and flickered out, like a candle guttering.
"Okay, let's get this show on the road," Dean said. He guided Missouri back the way they'd come with little flashes of his mini-mag light, illuminating the way back and down again, to the crossing directly under the transept – in the center of the cathedral. The center of the glyph. When Lia had blown all the lights, and security had evacuated everyone, they'd hidden in a tiny closet in the crypt level, crammed tight and breathing shallow, waiting until they could creep back out. Missouri had wanted to make a crack about her age, and men, and tight fits, but really – she'd been terrified.
Now she was going to stand by and watch as Dean did some kind of spell that would, presumably, hold the elemental in the glyph until Sam could get the new lines added. By sticking thin rods into moldable epoxy, and sticking the epoxy to the edges of windows – rods that had been carefully inscribed with a little 'don't notice me' spell. Leaning out and away into the river of icy air swirling around the building. Hanging himself over hundreds of feet of empty air, attached by a thin line and sheer luck.
She could feel Dean's terror and anger – his impotent fury and his nearly painful need to be where Sam was. To be doing the job himself, if not helping. Protecting his brother. It was an ache and an aching hunger, both at the same time, and Missouri shook her head and firmly shut him out. They had work to do.
"Are you ready, boy?" she asked, and Dean crouched down, unfolding a cloth of herbs and chalk, the stub of a candle – a tiny silver knife.
"I'm ready," he said. And then – like he knew it would, but fuck, it could have waited...the moon cleared the clouds outside, and every window was suddenly lit by a pale, silver glow, throwing the floor and walls of the cathedral into a panorama of light and shadow. Bringing the glyph to eerie, immediate life.
This isn't working, this isn't working, this isn't working "I don't think this is working!" Dean shouted. Shouted above the rushing, roaring, screaming wind that was corkscrewing around the center of the glyph. That was, increasingly, plucking at candelabras and hymnals and flags, expanding outward and getting stronger, it seemed, with every moment it was contained. Thwarted.
Dean shot a nervous, useless look upward. Sam – up there, somewhere – out there somewhere. Clinging and slipping and maybe falling - stretching too long and too far and Jesus fuck....
"Dean! Dean!" Missouri was shaking him, fist knotted in his jacket sleeve, and Dean looked down at her, impatient. "Lia says Sam's in trouble!"
"What?" Dean yelled, and Missouri half-turned him, shoving him hard. Shoving him right through the specter of Lia-the-ghost, making his breath freeze in his throat and his heart seem to stop, for just a second. And then thump back to painful, galloping life as Missouri's words sunk in. Sam. In trouble.
"Will you be okay?" Dean yelled, and Missouri snatched the spell-paper from him – started the chant back up, nodding vigorously. Dean patted her arm, grateful, and then turned and ran. Lia flickered ahead of him like a dying flame, illuminating just enough of the floor and stairs to keep him from killing himself. The stones underfoot seemed to be shaking, and Dean paused for one agonizing moment of indecision when he heard Missouri yell. But he had to get to Sam – get this done.
He ran again, skidding around corners and slipping on polished stone – took the stairs two at a time and all but kicked the maintenance door down, hurling himself through it, a rising wail at his back, following him. But he was out, then, into air like a wall of silver needles, cold so intense it hurt to breathe and wind like a hammer. Fuck, it's up here, it's got loose....
Ahead, Dean could just make out Sam's long form, hitching itself slowly up an arched wing of carved stone that was bone-white in the moonlight. His boots were slipping and catching, his hands pawing clumsily, and Dean surged forward with a shout. Clawed his hands into Sam's jacket and yanked, pulling Sam down and into him just as his hands slipped and he started to topple.
"Sam! Jesus Christ –"
"I g-got the f-fu-first one. My hands are cu-cold," Sam said, teeth clicking together, and Dean cupped Sam's frigid fingers in his own for a moment, puffing warm breath over them.
"Stick 'em under your armpits. I think it got out."
Sam shot him a disgusted look. "Ya think?"
"Where's the stuff?"
"B-bag," Sam said. There were little crystals of ice in his bangs, and his eyes were tearing, the liquid freezing into spangles in his lashes. The wind was moaning around the arches and pinnacles of stone – whistling through the open mouths of the gargoyles – and Dean watched in horrified fascination as a stone mouth moved. Or seemed to. Opened wide and poured out a scream loud enough to make them both flinch.
Dean yanked the bag off Sam's shoulder and slung it over his own – took a running leap at the buttress, flying buttress that Sam had been trying to climb and was on it, knees locked, rubber heels digging in, his hands scrabbling at the ice-slick stone. Inching himself upward while the wind buffeted him and the scream just went on – and on.
His fingers were freezing – feeling less like fingers and more like sticks of wood, and his grip slipped once – twice. The bag swung loose, taking him further off-balance and then he felt himself losing it altogether, utterly at the mercy of gravity. He clawed uselessly at the rough stone, feeling his skin abrade and his nails tear. Falling – Jesus, he was falling –
"Dean!"
And then he wasn't. He was picked up and flung into Sam – held fast, pinned to the wall, and Lia was there. She looked pissed off, breaking up into blazing static moment by moment and then reforming again, more and more solid with every beat.
Sam was squirming around, half under Dean and squished into the stone behind him. "Knock it off!"
"Get the fucking – bag out of my kidney!"
"Give it to me," Lia said, her voice like water over stone – like a weeping sigh – and Dean flinched back. "Give it to me."
"What the hell?"
"Maybe she can help! I thought I could reach it –" Sam was tugging at the strap of the bag and Dean finally untangled himself from it – let Sam hand it over. Lia was solid now – solid but still not, somehow managing to take the bag and still look like the faded after-image of an old-time movie still. The wind was roaring around them now – picking up ice and snow and whirling it higher – faster – and Dean thought that this was how it did it. This was how it killed.
He imagined that wind – solid as iron and cold as the depths of space – coming down onto him and Sam. Crushing them against the stones of the cathedral – soaking the pale limestone with their blood, and forever defiling this place – the very air – with their deaths.
"Can you do it?" he asked, and Lia smiled at him. Flicker-flash-gone, somewhere in the whirling snow and ice, doing what needed to be done, if they were lucky.
If they were ever that fucking lucky.
"Do you think Missouri's okay?" Sam asked, and Dean remembered that shout, that the elemental had gotten out, and that Missouri had been alone down there with it.
"Fuck no," Dean said, and they both ran.
For the second time in her life, Missouri woke up to the sight of an angel. She really never thought she'd see such a sight until she died, but it's not particularly comforting. Unless.... "I'm not dead this time, am I?" Missouri asked, and Castiel gave her a puzzled look from his position by the fireplace.
"Do you wish to be?"
"No, no, heavens, no." Missouri sat up, wincing. Her back was twanging and her head was throbbing and she felt rather uncomfortable in her...midsection. She was also, she realized, on her Nana's couch, once again snuggled under Nana's afghan. And Shenandoah was sitting tight-lipped in the new easy chair across from her, still in her work clothes, a mug clutched in both hands.
"Doe, baby – are you alright?"
"I think that's what I'm supposed to be asking you. Auntie Mo, I can't believe you. I cannot believe you'd go running off with two hunters, after everything you've told me-" Shenandoah stopped and pinched her mouth shut – not a particularly good look on her otherwise pretty face.
"Hush, you. You don't be telling me what I can and can't do, and clucking at me like some broody hen. I had to be there, and that's the end of it."
"Better listen to her, Doe," Dean said, sidling into the room like a tom cat, all oil-smooth and that gleam in his eyes, cute little grin on his face, and Missouri just shook her head as Doe perked up, crossing her legs and letting her mouth smile a little, instead of twisting it all up.
"Your Auntie, here, is one tough old bi- biddy."
"You keep a civil tongue in that head of yours, Dean," Missouri said. But she fought a little grin, herself, because despite the less than complimentary 'biddy', there was genuine respect in the boy's voice. "Doe, I'm perfectly fine. I'll tell you all about it tomorrow." Missouri didn't quite tell a lie – she didn't feel any worse than if she'd raked the yard, cleaned out the garage, and repacked the entire attic. In the same day. With a cold. But she wasn't hurt, so....
"Well, don't you worry about that, Auntie. Dean's promised to tell me all the scandalous details." Doe rose gracefully from the chair and crossed to where Dean was still lurking by the china closet. "He asked if I would help him get back to his car, and then I thought...." Doe turned, her whole body doing that swaying, leaning thing, physically flirting with Dean, her mouth curved in a little smile. "I thought we could get a drink."
"I think...that's an excellent idea," Dean said, and Doe all but giggled. Missouri rolled her eyes.
"Go on then. Shoo. I want a hot drink, Sam –" Missouri raised her voice, and Sam, who was trying unsuccessfully to sneak upstairs, stopped with a guilty hunch of his shoulders. "Sam, would you go and make me a cup of tea?"
"Yeah, sure, Missouri." Sam scuttled away into the kitchen and Missouri watched with a frown as Dean put on his jacket and Doe gathered up her own coat and keys, murmuring to each other. As they moved toward the door, Missouri couldn't resist one parting shot.
"Dean – you be sure and bring my niece straight home, you hear me? I'll be watching you, boy." She gave him her best 'I am psychic, hear me (psychically) roar' look, but it was a little ruined by Castiel crossing to her, her fuzzy slippers in his hand.
"Sam said you might want these."
"Night, Auntie! Don't stay up too late!" Doe sang out, and then the door shut and Missouri sighed, snatching her slippers from the angel.
"What happened, Castiel? I remember the spell...breaking. It wouldn't hold it in anymore. It came out of the glyph...it was...." Missouri shuddered, remembering the cold – utter, killing cold that had stolen her breath and her sight and her consciousness, all at once.
"It was very angry. But the spirit – the trapped soul – she stepped in. When I arrived, she was making the final shadow." Castiel looked up as Sam came into the room carrying a mug. He put it down on the side table and then settled gingerly on the couch, perched on the very edge as if he would fly away at a moment's notice. Missouri wondered how such a big man could look so...fragile.
"Why did you arrive at all? I thought you said you had more important things to do." Missouri wondered if she should be taking the tone with an angel of the Lord, but it was hard to remember that that's what he was. With his 'angel-ness', as Dean had said, tamped down inside him, he looked more like an absent-minded professor, peering out at the world through a fog of academia.
"I did. I was. But then I felt...something. A crying out...."
"A disturbance in the Force," Sam said, and Missouri smacked his knee.
"Don't be flip."
"Yes, ma'am."
"And don't 'yes, ma'am' me."
"Yes, ma – uh...Yes. Fine."
"I felt Dean and Sam in danger – nearly dying. They were too cold – Dean was...falling. And I felt you, Missouri Moseley. You were nearly dead. So I came."
"Did it work? Did she – is the glyph changed?'
"Yeah, it did, actually." Sam heard the surprise in his own voice and laughed ruefully, running a hand back through his snow-damp, wind-tangled hair. "I mean...it wouldn't have without Lia. I couldn't actually reach the windows like I thought I could. The walkways and ledges didn't go far enough and they were icy...all that snow...and the wind...." Sam shook himself – looked up at Castiel and sighed.
"Anyway – she did it. She put the rods in place and the glyph changed and Castiel shoved it back. And then...Lia...."
"She wished to be at peace. She was tired." Castiel settled carefully in the easy chair, folding his coat over his knees. "I sent her home."
"To heaven, you mean?" Missouri said, and Castiel nodded. "Well then, good. That's good. She deserved her rest. She was unhappy, there. And it's...it won't come back again, will it? There won't be anymore deaths...."
Castiel shook his head once, solemnly. "No more deaths, Missouri Moseley. It is finished."
And then he was gone, soft whick of wings she could almost see, and Sam sighed again. "I'm kinda tired, Missouri. I thought I'd just go upstairs and um...take a little nap? Until Dean gets back –"
"Sam Winchester," Missouri snapped, and Sam's attempt to escape deflated and he sagged back onto the couch. "I don't know what to say to you, Sam. I'm just...what you're doing...." Missouri shuddered all over, cold at the thought. At the brief, hectic jumble of images she'd gotten from their fleeting touch.
Blood, bodies, a demon – power that no man or woman should ever toy with. A deep, restless anger, hurt – need. She shook it off and stared at Sam, who was chewing his lip and trying not to look back.
"I'm trying to stop Lucifer, Missouri. I'm trying to – stop the apocalypse. I...just.... I can't just give up. I have to do...whatever it takes –"
"Even if it damns you, boy? Even if it means your soul?"
Sam finally looked up at her, and his gaze was full of terror – anger – steel. "No matter what. It's what Dean would do. What he can't do. I'm doing it for him." Then he got up and was gone, up the stairs into darkness and Missouri settled back on the couch, the tea the only warm spot in her.
The gargoyles would never scream again. The furious air was stilled, the blood - washed away. But Missouri did not feel better. Not better at all.
Okay - notes! Firstly - America has very few 'abandoned churches' with gargoyles, so I opted for something both easier and harder: the The Washington National Cathedral. Or, here, for the Wiki page. It's an incredible building, with an amazing amount of lore and history. So much that I instantly fell in love. Plus - a Darth Vadar grotesque!!
I knew Dean had to be there, if only for that.
This article gave the idea for Lia, the stone mason's wife. There is an actual legend that a woman's ashes *were* entombed in the cathedral, so of *course* she would haunt it!
This is the 'Burning Bush' window. I'm not really sure *what* it is - that was all i could think of. If anyone out there actually knows - please share!
And i really rather loved what this says about Air as an element.
Now, even though all the many, many, *many* details I discovered didn't get into the fic for obvious reasons, I did have a lot of fun exploring the neighborhoods surrounding DC proper, and settling on the neighborhood of Shaw for Missouri's Nana's house. I even did that thing with Google where you can get a 'street view', and chose the house. Apologies if anyone here actually *knows* that house.... :)
I also was delighted to discover - after talking to m'dear Roxy - that Missouri's niece Shenandoah works at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. That's *such* a cool place. *I* want to work there.
Now, I know i fudged a bit with the cathedral security - it's doubtful anyone could actually hide in there and not be found, even in a blackout. And i also fudged a bit on the 'climbing around outside' thing. I'm sure they do have access to some of the roof/outside, but i couldn't find actual *links*, and so hopefully nobody is pointing and laughing at my idiocy. I've seen similar accesses in other, European cathedrals and churches, so....
*artistic license, artistic license*
Wow - lots of notes! Hopefully, you enjoyed the story, and praised the artist, and are now going off to read more fic with a happy little warm spot in your heart. Thank you for reading!
The Budget Motor Inn was about as cheap and crummy as you could find in Washington, and Missouri shook her head in impatient pity. What these boys put up with.... She waved the taxi off with a flick of her wrist and walked down the cracked sidewalk to room seven. Dirty snow was piled unevenly along both sides, and the sidewalk itself was wet, slippery in patches and breaking into gravel. The air was sharp with cold, prickling in her nose and making her throat hurt. She skidded just a little in the furry boots that her niece Shenandoah had bought her and came to a stop at the door.
It was gratifying to hear the muted scramble that went on when she knocked once, sharply, and announced herself. A few moments later, Dean opened the door, shirt half on and his hair wet, his mouth set in an unhappy line.
"Missouri? What –"
"You boys don't seem to know how to answer your phones," she said, and shouldered past Dean, wrinkling her nose. The place smelled like take out chicken, damp wool, gun oil and boys, with an underlying tang of some industrial cleaner. Both beds were littered with clothes and gear, and the little round table Sam was hunched over was scattered with books, print outs, cans of cola and candy wrappers, and cups of vending machine coffee.
Sam lifted a half-zipped duffel of paraphernalia off of a second chair and made a 'have a seat' gesture, and Missouri nodded in thank you and plumped herself down. Dean finished yanking his shirt on, covering the dark, hand-shaped scar on his shoulder – angel-mark, burning with its own peculiar light – and Missouri hugged herself a little inside her puffy coat.
"We can do this without a babysitter, you know," Dean muttered, shrugging on a flannel shirt and folding up the cuff, glaring at her.
"I'm sure you can. But I need to know what you found today – what you saw. I need to know what's causing this."
"We were going to call you –" Sam said, soothing little cadence to his voice, and Missouri narrowed her eyes at him.
"Once you'd fixed it, maybe. On your way out of the city. That's not good enough."
Sam looked over at Dean, eyebrows raised, and Dean snatched a glass down from the lone cabinet in the corner, one hip against the square of counter top, sink and two-burner stove that formed a bare-bones kitchenette. He slopped three fingers of whiskey into the glass and bolted it, throat working smoothly. Too smoothly. He barely seemed to notice what he was taking in.
"Look, Missouri – no offense, but you're not a hunter. This is no place for you."
"Don't tell me what I can and can't do, Dean Winchester. I may not be a hunter, but I'm not helpless." Missouri turned away from Dean and reached out, shifting a few of the papers that littered the table top. "Now, Sam – tell me what all this is."
Sam gave Dean one more look and shrugged – turned his laptop around and shuffled a few windows until a view of the cathedral floor was topmost. "We found a glyph. It's hard to see at first, but if you look just right, it'll jump out at you." With the chewed cap of a pen, Sam traced lines just above the screen's surface and Missouri leaned in closer – leaned back when she saw it.
"Is it...that's not set into the floor, is it?"
"No. Well, some of it. Some of it's part of the overall design. Some of it's light, and shadow...I found some pictures from last summer – " Sam shuffled the windows again, and another view – slightly different, another angle – appeared. "And see – it's not complete. Whoever made this was using the season – the light. We think it's tied to a particular position of the moon. That's why it stopped, before – that's why it doesn't happen all the time."
Missouri unzipped her coat and pushed it open a little – watched out of the corner of her eye as Dean downed another shot and then sat with ill-disguised bad humor on the end of a bed. His elbows were propped on his knees, his hands dangling down between. His knuckles looked sore – a little red, a little cracked. "So – what is happening? What does the glyph mean?"
"From what I can tell, it's a summoning glyph. Whoever did this was trying to summon an elemental."
"Air," Missouri said, and Sam nodded.
"Whoever made this isn't around any more. And when everything lines up right, an air elemental comes through from...somewhere. But it's only here for a few days, and I guess it's...pissed off. Or something."
"Or something," Dean said.
"But why does it stop? Why doesn't it become part of the world here?"
"It can't. I think. Where it's from...isn't here. I think it's hard for it to maintain itself here, because of the glyph not being right. Maybe it, I dunno, hurts it to be here or something."
"Or maybe it's just a monster like every other monster, and all it wants to do is fuck shit up," Dean said, and Missouri gave him her best 'watch your language' glare. He glared back. "We're talking old stuff, Missouri. Powerful stuff. A few hoodoo bags and a – a séance aren't going to fix this."
"I've never done a séance in my life, Dean Winchester. Table-tapping and nonsense – that's strictly for amateurs."
"And telling people lies is for professionals?" Dean snapped, and Missouri felt her back go ram-rod straight, eyes narrowing.
"Seems to me you need to be looking to your own house before you throw any stones in mine, boy." Dean huffed, obviously furious but just as obviously not willing to say anything else, and Sam finally cleared his throat, fingers rustling nervously through the litter on the table.
"Uh, yeah, anyway....I think I've got an idea how to fix this. It's all about the glyph, right? So we just need to alter it. We need to make it so it won't work anymore. Now obviously –" he went on, as Dean rolled his eyes, "we can't chip part of the floor up or anything. But we can add a shadow. A couple of shadows. And it'll change the meaning. Here."
Sam unearthed a drawing from the table and flattened it out, and Missouri leaned in close. It was the glyph, lightly sketched, with three darker lines added. Two lines that joined two separate sections, with a third line extending the point of an intersection and bending it at right angles, making a blunt point into a hooking scorpion's tail. It made the glyph into something else, subtly, but definitely.
"So what does this sign mean?"
"This is...null. It means nothing. Pretty much what it's going to do is seal whatever crack or...opening the elemental is getting through. Permanently."
Missouri nodded slowly, studying the design – thinking about how the original glyph had been made. Then she looked over at Dean, who was glaring at the worn, nubby carpet as if it had mortally offended him, and at Sam, who was twitching at papers and chewing a fingernail. The tension between them was palpable.
"So, tell me...do you boys have a plan?"
Sam jerked and looked up her – over at Dean – and smiled a sickly little smile. "Oooh, yeah. A plan. We've got that."
Having Missouri in the passenger seat of the car was making Dean twitchy, and he kept shooting looks in the rear view, catching Sam's eyes and then looking back to the road. Sam seemed perfectly happy wedged in the back with a duffle and a sheaf of papers, squinting down, mouth frowning around the tube of a flashlight.
Missouri sat silent and stared straight ahead, only occasionally making a clutch for the dashboard, and Dean stomped on the gas and the brake a little more sharply than necessary. He knows he's being a dick. He doesn't really care.
He's just pissed, at the both of them. At Missouri for putting herself into the line of fire and being way too fucking stubborn for her own good, and at Sam for his incredibly stupid 'plan' that would probably get them all killed. More like 'certainly'. Dean had even tried to get Castiel to come help, but of course the angel wasn't listening. Not when it was important.
Though, secretly, despite everything...Dean's not surprised. That any entreaty – anything remotely resembling a prayer from his lips – would actually be heard is laughable. Heaven may think that Dean Winchester is The Chosen One, but he knows...they're wrong. Just so fucking wrong.
He take a corner a little too fast and the tires slip and catch and slip, and for a moment it's like flying. Dean grins a little, wolfish flash of his teeth as he steers 'into the skid, Dean, always into the skid', and gets her lined up true again.
The gasp from Missouri and startled, quickly muffled yelp from Sam is gratifying, if petty.
"Sorry, sorry," he said, but Missouri's glare could melt steel. He reached out and snapped on the radio, ignoring the looks he got from both of them.
The cathedral at night was – bright. Very bright. "Very, very, very fucking bright, Sam. How in the fuck –?"
"Watch your tongue, boy," Missouri snarled, and Dean resisted the urge to stick it out at her.
"I didn't realize it would be so...um...."
"Bright? It's like fuck – frickin' Time's Square!" Dean stared in astonished irritation at the building. Security lights blazed along the streets around it, and spots and floods traced all the arches and buttresses and carvings, leaving far too few pockets of deep shadow. There was even a big, decorated Christmas tree right in front, with people milling around, snapping pictures and posing for pictures and basically acting like annoying, tourist cannon fodder. The sky was thick with clouds, but there was a high wind up there, blowing them briskly along, and when the moon came out – as it would, as evidenced by the pale, glowing blur in the tarnished pewter of the clouds – the glyph would be alive.
"It's a church, it's supposed to be dark at night, everybody's supposed to just pray and go home!"
"It's a national monument, Dean. And it's, you know – almost Christmas. They have night time services and, you know...tree watching or...whatever. This is what people do."
"People are idiots," Dean mumbled. The slush of the parking lot was starting to soak into his left boot.
"I think we should go in," Missouri said suddenly. Her voice had taken on a sort of dreamy quality, and Dean shot her a searching look.
"What would be the point?"
"I...don't know for sure, but I can feel.... There's something there. Not the elemental. Something else. I think...it could help us."
"Help us how?" Dean asked, and Missouri tucked her scarf in a little more firmly and put her hand on Dean's arm, simultaneously using him for balance and dragging him along.
"We'll know once we're inside," she said, and Dean huffed and went, Sam trailing behind like the world's biggest kite tail.
It wasn't as crowded inside as it could have been, which made Dean relax a tiny bit. But then he tensed right up again as Missouri made a beeline for the 'burning bush' window and the shadowy face Dean had half-convinced himself he hadn't really seen. She stood there, humming to herself, looking first up at the window, then down.
Right into the strange spot on the wall, where Dean was sure the mortar between the smooth, pale stones was a shade darker. Just a shade. After a moment, hesitantly, Missouri reached out, laying her bare hand on the spot. She stood there, eyes shut, and then all three of them shuddered, gasping, as the air for a few feet around them suddenly chilled, becoming as ice-sharp as the air outside.
"Oh. Oh, my....oh, you poor thing...." Missouri swayed ever so slightly and Dean and Sam both made a grab for her. Impatiently, she shook them off. "I'm fine, I'm fine." Her breath puffed white, and Dean put his hand into his pocket, feeling the salt rounds – feeling the weight of his favorite sawed-off in the bag over his shoulder. "There is... There was a woman. Her name was Lia and her husband...her husband was a stone mason here. Oh, he was a prideful man...."
Missouri shook her head, her gaze elsewhere, her hand slowly, slowly stroking over the wall. Dean looked at Sam over her head.
'What the fuck?' he mouthed. Sam grimaced – shrugged – shook his head. "Helpful, Sam," Dean whispered, and Missouri tilted her head and stared up at him for a moment, mouth pursed. "Sorry, you go right ahead, commune with the wall while we –"
"She's trying to help us, Dean. Her husband wanted her buried here, but they said no. So he had her cremated, and he put her ashes into the mortar, and the mortar...." Missouri turned back to the wall, and give it a little pat. "The mortar into the wall. Right here. She's been here for a very long time. She was here thirty years ago, and she tried to stop it, but she can't. She doesn't have enough power. But she wants to."
Missouri took a couple steps back and stared up at the window, her gaze tracing the curving, fire-colored panes. "This was her favorite window. He put her here deliberately. But the elemental...it makes the air scream. It makes it hurt. It defiles holy ground, and when it returns from its killing, it stains the stones with blood...."
Missouri's voice had dropped to a low whisper, and Dean felt a little shiver go over him. She seemed to shake herself then, and she looked around, a little dazed. "She wants to pass over, but she feels she must guard the cathedral. She's the one who sends it out – keeps it away when it kills, so that it must find its victims on unconsecrated ground."
"Wow," Sam said. He looked up at the window, too. "Okay, so – the ghost of a stone mason's wife is successfully driving an elemental away?"
"It's very hard – it drains her – it hurts her. But she won't let it hurt the people here – the church itself. She says...she can help us."
"Help us how?" Dean asked. He wasn't sure he totally believed Missouri – though anything as mundane as 'burying' your dead wife's remains in a church wall shouldn't surprise him, these days.
"She says she knows we need privacy, so – she's going to make sure we get it." Missouri looked a little confused, glancing around, and Dean.....
"I have a very bad feeling about this," Sam mumbled, and Dean squashed the urge to cackle. Then, with a shower of sparks and a theatrical – and slightly terrifying – show of arcing electricity, the lights went out.
"This is helping?" Dean said, and Missouri smacked his shoulder.
"She did the best she could. Got the place cleared out, didn't she?"
"Sure, but – shit, Sammy! Watch it!"
"I got it, I got it," Sam said, catching his balance on the narrow walkway and finally coming to a stop in front of a low, wide door. "Maintenance hatch. They gotta go out, replace bulbs, clean stuff, you know – I can get to where I need to be from here. You just need to do the spell I gave you – distract the elemental so it stays here."
"I know, I know," Dean shifted restlessly, a faint, pale figure in the dim city light that reached through the stained glass. In the utter blackness of the cathedral, Missouri was sure she saw – something – flickering and moving out of the corner of her eye. Maybe it was Lia, or maybe....
"Missouri? You with me?" Dean said, and Missouri took a hard, deep breath and nodded.
"I'm fine, I'm here. Lia's going to do what she can, boys. Just – hurry."
"Hurry carefully," Dean said, and Sam nodded, hunched in front of the door, lock picks clicking quietly. A moment later the tumblers ticked over, loud in the silence, and Sam was pushing through, into colder air tinged with a faint thread of wood smoke and age. Into a sort of crawlspace and then out, onto the icy, exposed walks and ledges of the outside of the cathedral. Dean shoved his bag after him and Sam took it – looked at him for a long moment and then was gone, pushing the door nearly to behind him.
Missouri shivered and turned away – startled back into Dean as Lia appeared without warning, shining pale-blue-white in the murk. She stuttered, not quite here nor there, her dark hair coiled over her head, her dark dress glittering faintly with decorative beading. Her best dress – wedding dress – funeral dress.
"Lord have mercy on us, we who are going to work these difficult tasks tonight. Lord watch over us," Missouri whispered, and Lia smiled faintly and flickered out, like a candle guttering.
"Okay, let's get this show on the road," Dean said. He guided Missouri back the way they'd come with little flashes of his mini-mag light, illuminating the way back and down again, to the crossing directly under the transept – in the center of the cathedral. The center of the glyph. When Lia had blown all the lights, and security had evacuated everyone, they'd hidden in a tiny closet in the crypt level, crammed tight and breathing shallow, waiting until they could creep back out. Missouri had wanted to make a crack about her age, and men, and tight fits, but really – she'd been terrified.
Now she was going to stand by and watch as Dean did some kind of spell that would, presumably, hold the elemental in the glyph until Sam could get the new lines added. By sticking thin rods into moldable epoxy, and sticking the epoxy to the edges of windows – rods that had been carefully inscribed with a little 'don't notice me' spell. Leaning out and away into the river of icy air swirling around the building. Hanging himself over hundreds of feet of empty air, attached by a thin line and sheer luck.
She could feel Dean's terror and anger – his impotent fury and his nearly painful need to be where Sam was. To be doing the job himself, if not helping. Protecting his brother. It was an ache and an aching hunger, both at the same time, and Missouri shook her head and firmly shut him out. They had work to do.
"Are you ready, boy?" she asked, and Dean crouched down, unfolding a cloth of herbs and chalk, the stub of a candle – a tiny silver knife.
"I'm ready," he said. And then – like he knew it would, but fuck, it could have waited...the moon cleared the clouds outside, and every window was suddenly lit by a pale, silver glow, throwing the floor and walls of the cathedral into a panorama of light and shadow. Bringing the glyph to eerie, immediate life.
This isn't working, this isn't working, this isn't working "I don't think this is working!" Dean shouted. Shouted above the rushing, roaring, screaming wind that was corkscrewing around the center of the glyph. That was, increasingly, plucking at candelabras and hymnals and flags, expanding outward and getting stronger, it seemed, with every moment it was contained. Thwarted.
Dean shot a nervous, useless look upward. Sam – up there, somewhere – out there somewhere. Clinging and slipping and maybe falling - stretching too long and too far and Jesus fuck....
"Dean! Dean!" Missouri was shaking him, fist knotted in his jacket sleeve, and Dean looked down at her, impatient. "Lia says Sam's in trouble!"
"What?" Dean yelled, and Missouri half-turned him, shoving him hard. Shoving him right through the specter of Lia-the-ghost, making his breath freeze in his throat and his heart seem to stop, for just a second. And then thump back to painful, galloping life as Missouri's words sunk in. Sam. In trouble.
"Will you be okay?" Dean yelled, and Missouri snatched the spell-paper from him – started the chant back up, nodding vigorously. Dean patted her arm, grateful, and then turned and ran. Lia flickered ahead of him like a dying flame, illuminating just enough of the floor and stairs to keep him from killing himself. The stones underfoot seemed to be shaking, and Dean paused for one agonizing moment of indecision when he heard Missouri yell. But he had to get to Sam – get this done.
He ran again, skidding around corners and slipping on polished stone – took the stairs two at a time and all but kicked the maintenance door down, hurling himself through it, a rising wail at his back, following him. But he was out, then, into air like a wall of silver needles, cold so intense it hurt to breathe and wind like a hammer. Fuck, it's up here, it's got loose....
Ahead, Dean could just make out Sam's long form, hitching itself slowly up an arched wing of carved stone that was bone-white in the moonlight. His boots were slipping and catching, his hands pawing clumsily, and Dean surged forward with a shout. Clawed his hands into Sam's jacket and yanked, pulling Sam down and into him just as his hands slipped and he started to topple.
"Sam! Jesus Christ –"
"I g-got the f-fu-first one. My hands are cu-cold," Sam said, teeth clicking together, and Dean cupped Sam's frigid fingers in his own for a moment, puffing warm breath over them.
"Stick 'em under your armpits. I think it got out."
Sam shot him a disgusted look. "Ya think?"
"Where's the stuff?"
"B-bag," Sam said. There were little crystals of ice in his bangs, and his eyes were tearing, the liquid freezing into spangles in his lashes. The wind was moaning around the arches and pinnacles of stone – whistling through the open mouths of the gargoyles – and Dean watched in horrified fascination as a stone mouth moved. Or seemed to. Opened wide and poured out a scream loud enough to make them both flinch.
Dean yanked the bag off Sam's shoulder and slung it over his own – took a running leap at the buttress, flying buttress that Sam had been trying to climb and was on it, knees locked, rubber heels digging in, his hands scrabbling at the ice-slick stone. Inching himself upward while the wind buffeted him and the scream just went on – and on.
His fingers were freezing – feeling less like fingers and more like sticks of wood, and his grip slipped once – twice. The bag swung loose, taking him further off-balance and then he felt himself losing it altogether, utterly at the mercy of gravity. He clawed uselessly at the rough stone, feeling his skin abrade and his nails tear. Falling – Jesus, he was falling –
"Dean!"
And then he wasn't. He was picked up and flung into Sam – held fast, pinned to the wall, and Lia was there. She looked pissed off, breaking up into blazing static moment by moment and then reforming again, more and more solid with every beat.
Sam was squirming around, half under Dean and squished into the stone behind him. "Knock it off!"
"Get the fucking – bag out of my kidney!"
"Give it to me," Lia said, her voice like water over stone – like a weeping sigh – and Dean flinched back. "Give it to me."
"What the hell?"
"Maybe she can help! I thought I could reach it –" Sam was tugging at the strap of the bag and Dean finally untangled himself from it – let Sam hand it over. Lia was solid now – solid but still not, somehow managing to take the bag and still look like the faded after-image of an old-time movie still. The wind was roaring around them now – picking up ice and snow and whirling it higher – faster – and Dean thought that this was how it did it. This was how it killed.
He imagined that wind – solid as iron and cold as the depths of space – coming down onto him and Sam. Crushing them against the stones of the cathedral – soaking the pale limestone with their blood, and forever defiling this place – the very air – with their deaths.
"Can you do it?" he asked, and Lia smiled at him. Flicker-flash-gone, somewhere in the whirling snow and ice, doing what needed to be done, if they were lucky.
If they were ever that fucking lucky.
"Do you think Missouri's okay?" Sam asked, and Dean remembered that shout, that the elemental had gotten out, and that Missouri had been alone down there with it.
"Fuck no," Dean said, and they both ran.
For the second time in her life, Missouri woke up to the sight of an angel. She really never thought she'd see such a sight until she died, but it's not particularly comforting. Unless.... "I'm not dead this time, am I?" Missouri asked, and Castiel gave her a puzzled look from his position by the fireplace.
"Do you wish to be?"
"No, no, heavens, no." Missouri sat up, wincing. Her back was twanging and her head was throbbing and she felt rather uncomfortable in her...midsection. She was also, she realized, on her Nana's couch, once again snuggled under Nana's afghan. And Shenandoah was sitting tight-lipped in the new easy chair across from her, still in her work clothes, a mug clutched in both hands.
"Doe, baby – are you alright?"
"I think that's what I'm supposed to be asking you. Auntie Mo, I can't believe you. I cannot believe you'd go running off with two hunters, after everything you've told me-" Shenandoah stopped and pinched her mouth shut – not a particularly good look on her otherwise pretty face.
"Hush, you. You don't be telling me what I can and can't do, and clucking at me like some broody hen. I had to be there, and that's the end of it."
"Better listen to her, Doe," Dean said, sidling into the room like a tom cat, all oil-smooth and that gleam in his eyes, cute little grin on his face, and Missouri just shook her head as Doe perked up, crossing her legs and letting her mouth smile a little, instead of twisting it all up.
"Your Auntie, here, is one tough old bi- biddy."
"You keep a civil tongue in that head of yours, Dean," Missouri said. But she fought a little grin, herself, because despite the less than complimentary 'biddy', there was genuine respect in the boy's voice. "Doe, I'm perfectly fine. I'll tell you all about it tomorrow." Missouri didn't quite tell a lie – she didn't feel any worse than if she'd raked the yard, cleaned out the garage, and repacked the entire attic. In the same day. With a cold. But she wasn't hurt, so....
"Well, don't you worry about that, Auntie. Dean's promised to tell me all the scandalous details." Doe rose gracefully from the chair and crossed to where Dean was still lurking by the china closet. "He asked if I would help him get back to his car, and then I thought...." Doe turned, her whole body doing that swaying, leaning thing, physically flirting with Dean, her mouth curved in a little smile. "I thought we could get a drink."
"I think...that's an excellent idea," Dean said, and Doe all but giggled. Missouri rolled her eyes.
"Go on then. Shoo. I want a hot drink, Sam –" Missouri raised her voice, and Sam, who was trying unsuccessfully to sneak upstairs, stopped with a guilty hunch of his shoulders. "Sam, would you go and make me a cup of tea?"
"Yeah, sure, Missouri." Sam scuttled away into the kitchen and Missouri watched with a frown as Dean put on his jacket and Doe gathered up her own coat and keys, murmuring to each other. As they moved toward the door, Missouri couldn't resist one parting shot.
"Dean – you be sure and bring my niece straight home, you hear me? I'll be watching you, boy." She gave him her best 'I am psychic, hear me (psychically) roar' look, but it was a little ruined by Castiel crossing to her, her fuzzy slippers in his hand.
"Sam said you might want these."
"Night, Auntie! Don't stay up too late!" Doe sang out, and then the door shut and Missouri sighed, snatching her slippers from the angel.
"What happened, Castiel? I remember the spell...breaking. It wouldn't hold it in anymore. It came out of the glyph...it was...." Missouri shuddered, remembering the cold – utter, killing cold that had stolen her breath and her sight and her consciousness, all at once.
"It was very angry. But the spirit – the trapped soul – she stepped in. When I arrived, she was making the final shadow." Castiel looked up as Sam came into the room carrying a mug. He put it down on the side table and then settled gingerly on the couch, perched on the very edge as if he would fly away at a moment's notice. Missouri wondered how such a big man could look so...fragile.
"Why did you arrive at all? I thought you said you had more important things to do." Missouri wondered if she should be taking the tone with an angel of the Lord, but it was hard to remember that that's what he was. With his 'angel-ness', as Dean had said, tamped down inside him, he looked more like an absent-minded professor, peering out at the world through a fog of academia.
"I did. I was. But then I felt...something. A crying out...."
"A disturbance in the Force," Sam said, and Missouri smacked his knee.
"Don't be flip."
"Yes, ma'am."
"And don't 'yes, ma'am' me."
"Yes, ma – uh...Yes. Fine."
"I felt Dean and Sam in danger – nearly dying. They were too cold – Dean was...falling. And I felt you, Missouri Moseley. You were nearly dead. So I came."
"Did it work? Did she – is the glyph changed?'
"Yeah, it did, actually." Sam heard the surprise in his own voice and laughed ruefully, running a hand back through his snow-damp, wind-tangled hair. "I mean...it wouldn't have without Lia. I couldn't actually reach the windows like I thought I could. The walkways and ledges didn't go far enough and they were icy...all that snow...and the wind...." Sam shook himself – looked up at Castiel and sighed.
"Anyway – she did it. She put the rods in place and the glyph changed and Castiel shoved it back. And then...Lia...."
"She wished to be at peace. She was tired." Castiel settled carefully in the easy chair, folding his coat over his knees. "I sent her home."
"To heaven, you mean?" Missouri said, and Castiel nodded. "Well then, good. That's good. She deserved her rest. She was unhappy, there. And it's...it won't come back again, will it? There won't be anymore deaths...."
Castiel shook his head once, solemnly. "No more deaths, Missouri Moseley. It is finished."
And then he was gone, soft whick of wings she could almost see, and Sam sighed again. "I'm kinda tired, Missouri. I thought I'd just go upstairs and um...take a little nap? Until Dean gets back –"
"Sam Winchester," Missouri snapped, and Sam's attempt to escape deflated and he sagged back onto the couch. "I don't know what to say to you, Sam. I'm just...what you're doing...." Missouri shuddered all over, cold at the thought. At the brief, hectic jumble of images she'd gotten from their fleeting touch.
Blood, bodies, a demon – power that no man or woman should ever toy with. A deep, restless anger, hurt – need. She shook it off and stared at Sam, who was chewing his lip and trying not to look back.
"I'm trying to stop Lucifer, Missouri. I'm trying to – stop the apocalypse. I...just.... I can't just give up. I have to do...whatever it takes –"
"Even if it damns you, boy? Even if it means your soul?"
Sam finally looked up at her, and his gaze was full of terror – anger – steel. "No matter what. It's what Dean would do. What he can't do. I'm doing it for him." Then he got up and was gone, up the stairs into darkness and Missouri settled back on the couch, the tea the only warm spot in her.
The gargoyles would never scream again. The furious air was stilled, the blood - washed away. But Missouri did not feel better. Not better at all.
Okay - notes! Firstly - America has very few 'abandoned churches' with gargoyles, so I opted for something both easier and harder: the The Washington National Cathedral. Or, here, for the Wiki page. It's an incredible building, with an amazing amount of lore and history. So much that I instantly fell in love. Plus - a Darth Vadar grotesque!!
I knew Dean had to be there, if only for that.
This article gave the idea for Lia, the stone mason's wife. There is an actual legend that a woman's ashes *were* entombed in the cathedral, so of *course* she would haunt it!
This is the 'Burning Bush' window. I'm not really sure *what* it is - that was all i could think of. If anyone out there actually knows - please share!
And i really rather loved what this says about Air as an element.
Now, even though all the many, many, *many* details I discovered didn't get into the fic for obvious reasons, I did have a lot of fun exploring the neighborhoods surrounding DC proper, and settling on the neighborhood of Shaw for Missouri's Nana's house. I even did that thing with Google where you can get a 'street view', and chose the house. Apologies if anyone here actually *knows* that house.... :)
I also was delighted to discover - after talking to m'dear Roxy - that Missouri's niece Shenandoah works at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. That's *such* a cool place. *I* want to work there.
Now, I know i fudged a bit with the cathedral security - it's doubtful anyone could actually hide in there and not be found, even in a blackout. And i also fudged a bit on the 'climbing around outside' thing. I'm sure they do have access to some of the roof/outside, but i couldn't find actual *links*, and so hopefully nobody is pointing and laughing at my idiocy. I've seen similar accesses in other, European cathedrals and churches, so....
*artistic license, artistic license*
Wow - lots of notes! Hopefully, you enjoyed the story, and praised the artist, and are now going off to read more fic with a happy little warm spot in your heart. Thank you for reading!