Slivers, for the Summergen Community

[summergen-mod.livejournal.com]

Title: Slivers
Recipient: As the original recipient withdrew, this wonderful is now a gift to all of us! Please show it much love.
Rating: Gen
Word Count or Media: 2664
Warnings: None
Author's Notes: (Redacted), you asked why Mary was "sliced open" when she was killed, which set me to wondering as well. I hope that my answer suffices.
Summary: Some visitors to my little country house are more welcome than others, but all of them want something from me.

He stood on my porch and called me “brother”. “I need the knife,” he said. The body he wore was shorter than mine, and unassuming. Grey hair combed over the skull, above a round pleasant face with pale blue eyes. A stomach broad enough to show that he could afford the finer things. Reluctantly, I stepped aside, waved at the living room behind me.

“You’d better come in.”

Once he’d seated himself on the long leather couch, I grasped the back of my rocking chair and spun it to face him before lowering myself into it. The chair gave a deliberate creak as I settled.

“You’ll have to be more specific. Brother.” I said. “I know a lot of knives.”

He glowered at me. “For pity’s sake—“ The trace of aristocratic accent grew thicker on his tongue as I grinned at him and rocked to show that I had all the time in the world. Which I did. It was yet too light to go fishing.

“You know which knife. The knife that his pretty little lackey brought to you after he died. The kris.”

The demon witch crossed her arms as she waited for me to open the door, one hip slightly tilted like she didn’t care where she was, but her long blonde hair was curled to impress. “Lilith sent me,” she blurted out as I stepped onto the porch. “I’m supposed to give you the knife.” Clearly she thought this was a bad idea. “And I will, but—“ I waited. “She asks a favor as well.”

I smiled at her. She didn’t like that. “She sends her word, sworn on the kris, that she will protect your solitude from demons and humans, in exchange for another weapon. Something for me.”

She uncrossed her slender arms, reached into her jacket, and pulled out his knife in its golden scabbard. At the last moment, almost as an afterthought, she flipped it so that it lay flat on her palms. She held it out to me in this way, never glancing down at it, as if she didn’t realize she was holding a century’s worth of souls in her hot little hands.

I took it from her by the sheath. “What are you looking for?” I asked.

“Something flashy, good against monsters, ghosts or demons. Dangerous, but not too dangerous.” She looked past me into my living room then back at my face.

“For?”

“Lilith wants me to recruit some guy. It’s just some honey for him.” She finally smiled, a crooked grin. “Or maybe it’s the hook.”

I don’t know where she thought she would end up that day. In my vault? In my bed? I wasn’t inclined to let her across my threshold. “Wait here,” I said and walked back into the house without another word. Behind me I heard her exasperated huff, and I smiled again.

I have a lot of knives. It didn’t take me long to pick out three of them to offer her, and I brought them out to the porch wrapped in a black piece of cloth that I spread out on the floor boards.

She was leaning against the railing, arms crossed again, looking annoyed. The sight of the knives perked her up, though, and I liked her a little better for her interest. She dismissed the ebony-handled athema quickly, to her credit. The silver blade with the rune-inscribed ruby in its hilt gave her pause, but then her fingers gripped the bone handle of the Kurdish blade. “This looks like a hunter’s weapon,” she said, inspecting the glyphs etched into its sides. “What does it kill?”

“Can’t you feel it? Demons. Of a certain quality, if they’re in their meat-suits.”

“Huh.” She eyed me, that crooked grin taking over her face again. “I think that’s—perfect.”

“What do you want it for?” I asked as I rocked back and forth in the chair, mostly to aggravate him.

He glared at me. “More importantly, Ramiel, why would you want to keep it? You’re hardly a sentimentalist.”

“He promised it to me and he kept his word. There’s some power in that. Even without the spellwork.”

He considered me. “Control,” he spat out, finally. I could tell he didn’t want to reveal too much, was weighing his words. “Some of my—people—are having difficulties keeping their wits, and their tongues, in check. Recruitment is also at a standstill. I believe that the kris has some properties that may prove useful. To help me, shall we say, exert greater influence over my ranks?”

My brother-in-arms, Azazel, sat at my dining room table and drew the narrow wavy-bladed knife from its sheath with a flourish, as was his way. “A beauty, isn’t she?” He grinned at me, his eyes flashing yellow in his excitement.

I inspected the intricate designs on the blade, fingered the red lacquered hilt in the shape of a toothy and curly-haired demon leaning ever so slightly to the side, ready to mold itself into the wielder’s hand. “Looks just like you,” I said, and he laughed out loud. I smiled. I’ve missed my brother these last forty years. We’d parted ways amidst the chaos of the Great War on the Continent, the same month that the German shells stopped dropping over the Somme, me to my retirement and he to walk the Earth searching out the key to our creator’s cage.

He was explaining to me how he’d found a master blade smith in Burma soon after the war, and “exploited his fondness for living,” as he put it, and to meddle with the blade’s forging, twisting its purpose to suit his desires and making it hungry. “I killed him with it when it was done, of course. Her first meal was her maker.”

The vessel he was riding at this time had long fingers, a longer face, and far more hair than was fashionable that year, even among the Bohemian crowd. It was far too young a face for him, I thought, as he continued his story. I eyed the workmanship of the knife as he told me of travelling by horseback or train, the kris always tucked into the back of his belt. Something about the abstract pattern on the blade was calling to me.

He said, “I let her choose, every now and then. She always finds me the juicy ones.”

“It talks to you?”

“Nah—mostly just points me in a direction, finds me a sweet belly to sink her into.” The blade glinted in his hand as he drew it away from me. “You know, if you want an angel’s grace, you just flick your knife across its jugular. Just a little flick.” He demonstrated a tiny and quick slice with the kris. The change of subject confused me, and I looked up into his face. “People, now, you gotta dig around a bit more. They hide it, in their blood, in their intestines. They think their beating hearts are the wellspring. But it isn’t there. It’s in their guts.”

The spellwork in the pattern made itself known to me as I listened to him, and the blade’s purpose was abundantly clear.

“It’s a soul-stealer.”

“Oh, she's really more of a taster, old friend. A few drops of blood, a few slivers of soul. They never miss it.”

“Do they live long enough to know what’s missing?”

He grinned again. “Generally? No.”

At the word “properties” I was up out of the rocker and heading towards the back kitchen stairs. My current guest was prattling on about his toys and his pastimes, only stopping when I left the room. He started to rise, but I cut the air downward with my palm, and he sat back down. Good. He still knew his place in the pecking order.

I didn’t bother with the basement light. Even in the gloom I could make out the gold glimmer of the sheath on its display stand. I closed my hand on the knife, feeling the whispering power of its trapped energies as they pushed against the solidity of the hilt.

Azazel came to me again some twenty-five years later, resting the knife across his lap as he lounged on my porch, waiting for me to come home from the fishing-hole. His meat-suit—he never tired of using them up and changing them out—had the slicked back hair and the polyester button-down shirt of a car salesman, but the wolfish grin was all his. It was fitting, I supposed, that he looked like a shyster desperate for a sale. He wanted my help.

He started by confirming the rumor I’d heard, that he’d been given a task by Lucifer himself, that he was gathering an army of demons, if such a rabble could ever be called an “army,” and that he was searching out human children who might someday be worthy of serving his master. “I feel good about my latest crop, Ramiel. I might have the perfect one in this batch—“

I sat down next to him on the porch step. “I’m retired,” I said.

He went on as though I hadn’t spoken. “And when HE is free—“ he clapped his hands together in a sharp retort, then fanned them out in a world gathering gesture. “Big times! Freedom on a plate. We will walk the Earth as its kings, no more hiding and bending our heads—“

“Save the speech, Azazel. I don’t care.” I set my creel with my night’s catch on the ground at my feet. “Lucifer can’t offer me anything I don’t already have.”

“How about what I can give you? An opportunity to put all those dusty relics in your basement to good use? A chance to rip through the world like the old times? A chance to change everything and grind those smug feathery asses under our heels—“

“Your dream. Not mine.”

He subsided, but Azazel was not one to be deterred from his object. He’d keep going till the fish rotted and fouled my favorite wicker creel for good. Hoping to stop him before he could start up again, I waved my hand towards the kris. “Tell you what. Give me the knife, and you can have the pick of my vault for your – campaign.”

“Ahhh. Sorry.” He tilted his head at me. “I need my little beauty.” He drew it out, held it up close to his nose, took a long and sensuous sniff. “She helps me keep track of my kids.”

I may have looked skeptical because he continued. “Blood leads to blood, the witches say. At the very least, parents always seem to know their children. Even the tiniest slivers of their beings—“he pointed the knife tip at me, “—call out to their little bundles of joy."

“Must be noisy in there,” I said.

He snorted. “And to think, some of them just give it to me, hold out their arms and close their eyes, anything, Any-Thing, to get me out of their houses so they can forget that I ever came in. But she likes it better when I have to take my little slice.” He was enjoying his memories now, eyes almost closed, the kris moving through the night air in his hand in a graceful arc of cutting and stabbing. “I don’t even need to wield her anymore, I just do my Houdini bit,” he raised his off-hand, twisted his fingers dramatically into a palm-up fist, “and she goes to work. Less messy this way, but sweet. So very sweet. There was one, not too long ago, long blonde hair and a white nightgown if you can believe it—“

“Enough talk. You’re turning me down, I guess.”

Azazel opened his eyes, looked down at the blade, and took a deep breath. “I’d like to have you by my side. But if that’s not going to happen, let’s at least make a wager. If things don’t pan out the way I expect, I’ll give her to you. No strings.”

“And if things go your way?”

“You give me my choice of your sadly neglected weapons, and bragging rights until the end of time.”

“Done.” We shook on it.

The kris lay between us on another piece of black muslin, which seemed only right. My guest had brightened as he gazed at it.

“Lovely,” he breathed, and reached to to take it by the hilt. I rocked forward and gripped his hand, pressing it forcefully into the little red demon’s face. He flashed a yellow glare at me.

“This is not a gift,” I said, releasing his hand as he let go of the blade.

“Of course not.” With great pomp, he drew another knife from his coat pocket and laid it beside the kris. This one was smaller, silver inset with gold, and Enochian symbols embossed on the crosspiece of the hilt. “A dancing blade. Once owned by Kali herself. We’ve made a few upgrades to it, of course. The boys in the lab do love to tinker.”

“Nice.” He nodded enthusiastically, but I cut that short. “Not enough.”

He pursed his lips. “Very well.” He thought hard for several moments. “Would a little revenge sweeten the pot? An opportunity to do right by our fallen brother?”

I smiled at him without warmth. “A short while ago you said I wasn’t sentimental. Azazel got himself killed for his cause. If I’d wanted to avenge him, I’d have done it by now, don’t you think?”

“What I think—“ He leaned forward now as I rocked back, “—is that the only reason you haven’t bestirred yourself from this little sanctuary is fear of calling attention, of being made to step back out onto the pitch. Azazel was your sworn brother, you doted on his visits. He was your contact, so to speak, both for treasure and for a vicarious taste of his everlasting battle.”

I rocked and held his gaze in silence.

“What I’m offering is vengeance in your own backyard. I can deliver it to you, and you don’t even need to set foot outside your routine.“

I nodded at him to show I was listening. Encouraged, he went on, “You know my resources, my position.”

“You never let us forget. The Old Man behind the ‘old men’. So?”

“Exactly. There’s an American hunter, one of the few who’ve taken our bargain. She was one of his conquests, in fact, which means that his blade,” he gestured at the kris but did not press his luck by trying to touch it again, “holds his souvenir of her. Which will only make her easier for us to control. Now, I can arrange to have her show up here. You can deal with her in any way you see fit.”

“Again. So?”

“So—her name is Mary Winchester.” I stilled in my chair. I’d heard the name. “And if you deal with her as I think you will, her sons won’t be far behind her. And you know who her sons are, I see?”

I held my peace, which unnerved him. “She may even bring them with her, and your set could be complete in one night. Think of it. Dean and Sam Winchester, who spilled our brother’s blood, right under your nose.” He spread his hands out, palms up, pleased with himself at his cleverness.

“I will accept your offer. But, Asmodeus—” I held up a finger as his hand swooped towards the kris. He froze. “After this, you will keep your brawler boys, and yourself, away from me.” He nodded, relieved, and grabbed up his prize.

I sat back, waved him away towards the front door, and he didn’t wait for an actual goodbye.

The Winchesters, under my roof. Azazel himself couldn’t have matched the grin that spread across my face. This could be fun.

I’d be taking so much more than slivers of their souls, this time.