#top ten beasts id help if found injured

[buttered-milky]

Cataloging my thoughts here so I don’t forget but given the general awkward ass vibes of demobats I think the uhh…adult phase (? Demogorgons have insect life cycles idk what to say here) that I like the most is something pterosaur. I mean quetzalcoatlus is right there. Right There. Plus the bat mouths remind me of lampreys and I can’t help but think of how many pterosaurs were oceanic predators (like pteranodon!)

[sylvanfreckles]

Between the Dragon and His Wrath

Chapter Two: The Daughter of Heaven

(don't forget: warning for graphic depictions of violence)

(Read chapter one)

…

Time stretched on endlessly, meaningless in the midst of the fire and ice consuming his body. His hands were chained above him, anchored at opposite sides of the room so his head and shoulders hung between them. He was kneeling, the ground rough beneath his knees through the tears in his clothing.

In the days—or weeks—since his capture his body had barely been able to heal itself. Thankfully they'd left his eyes alone for the most part, and despite the dried blood on his face Castiel was certain his vision was returning. In his clearer moments, he thought he remembered being moved—the rumble of a vehicle around him, the brush of fresh air against his face—but for most of his captivity he'd been left along, hanging in the darkness.

He'd struggled at first, despite his injuries. Even when the Gallu beat him to unconsciousness, or when it shoved him down until the manacles bit so deeply into his wrists that his hands went numb. Not that it had done any good anyway. The manacles were too tight to slip his hands free, and the one time he'd managed to climb to his feet the Gallu beat him back down until he was coughing up blood.

There had been very little contact with his other captor. He knew that Kent had stopped by to speak to the Gallu (Castiel refused to think of it by its ridiculous name, “Oswald”), and the witch had been present in the vehicle, if there was one, but for the most part he'd been left to the questionable hospitality of a beast of Hell.

Castiel's mind had become a swirling fog of pain and fever, so that it took him a few moments upon waking to realize he wasn't alone...and it wasn't just the Gallu with him this time. Or even Kent. There were other voices.

“You must be insane.” A feminine voice, sharp with displeasure. Castiel squinted through the vague, blurry shapes around him but couldn't see any defined forms. Whether that was because his eyes were still too injured to function or they were simply sealed shut with dried blood, he didn't know.

“An angel, Rilly,” Kent wheedled. He was close to Castiel, though the angel still startled when a rough hand seized a handful of hair to pull his head back. “Think of the power in someone like this.”

“Don't call me that,” the woman snapped. “Bad enough that I'm saddled with that ridiculous name, but I will not tolerate your childish affectations.”

“Rilly-nilly,” Kent teased. “Least of her sisters, last of-”

“Enough!” the third voice, a male voice deeper than Kent's, thundered out with a hidden power enough to make even the witch grow silent. “Your place is not to tease the aspects, Kent. And Goneril, yours is not to question my right hand.”

“But Father, please,” the woman—Goneril—sounded more irritated than abashed. “You have to see that this is crazy. An angel? We should kill him now before he brings all of Heaven down on us.”

“Think of the power!” Kent argued. He kept one hand in Castiel's hair and grabbed his chin with the other, forcing his head to face slightly to his right, where one of the blurs seemed more solid than the shadows around it. “Sacrificing someone like this, if done properly, could bring about the strongest aspect yet, even stronger than Regan.”

“Then sacrifice him now. You've only managed the ritual three times so far, why risk setting us all back to nothing if this thingbreaks loose?”

“I said enough,” the second man bellowed again. Power rolled through his words, shaking the ground beneath them, and the other two fell silent.

Heavy footsteps approached, and Kent released his hold on Castiel's head just in time for another hand to grip his chin, tilting his head up and to the side as though in study. “This one is weak,” the second man finally declared, releasing Castiel's chin. “Perhaps he is strong enough for Kent's plan, but not for Goneril's fears. Unless he has friends.”

“He was alone,” Kent offered, though his words were met with a heavy silence.

Castiel blinked and squinted, his vision finally clearing enough to let him focus on the figure in front of him. This man was shorter than Kent, with a wild tangle of dark beard and hair threaded with gray. Sunk deep in a withered face were a pair of copper-colored eyes that seemed to glow in the dimness of his surroundings.

“Cordelia's checking on it,” the woman called Goneril snapped after a few moments. “Unlike you, shethinks of the danger to our mission here.”

“No more,” the dark-haired man raised one hand. “Kent?”

“We can use his blood for the ritual,” Kent said, almost eagerly. “You should taste the power, Lear. Weak as he is, it's still intoxicating.”

Goneril...Cordelia...Lear.... Shakespeare's works had been part of the cultural information that Metatron had infused into his mind, and he recognized these names from one of the plays. If there was a connection between the events of King Lear and the actions of this man and his subordinates, Castiel couldn't understand it.

Lear was waving one hand, almost tiredly. “Bring your sacrifice. Return to your search, Goneril. We should not linger here.”

Goneril gave a short bow and shot Castiel a venomous look. Her features were still vague thanks to his blurred vision, but for a moment her eyes seemed to glow copper like Lear's. Kent was hurrying away, as well, and to Castiel's relief the hulking form of the Gallu trailed after him.

Soon he was alone...with the dark-haired man they'd called Lear. The man leaned forward and caught Castiel's chin again, lifting his head up to study the dark bruises that ringed his neck.

“I suppose conversation is impossible now,” Lear rumbled. He settled into a squat, looking up into Castiel's damaged face. “Pity. In all my long life I've rarely had the chance to match wits with an angel.”

Castiel tried to answer but his throat merely spasmed painfully. He swallowed and choked out a cough, the raw pain enough to bring tears to his eyes. Lear made a sympathetic noise and cupped Castiel's cheek with one smooth hand, gently brushing his thumb over the damage the Gallu's claws had left.

“Beautiful creatures, angels,” he murmured. “But my lady is more beautiful and terrible yet.”

Lear straightened to his feet as noise echoed through the shadows behind him. Castiel stared in horror as Kent appeared with a bundle over one shoulder which he slung down onto a long table Castiel hadn't noticed yet.

It was a woman. Strands of blonde hair, matted with blood, tangled around her face as she fought against her assailants, but she was no match for the witch. With the Gallu's help, Kent had her secured to the corners of the table by her wrists and ankles and picked up a wooden bowl and Castiel's angel blade.

The woman screamed through her gag, but Kent turned away from her to approach the captive angel.

“Let's see how useful you can be, Agent Anthony,” the witch teased. He held the bowl just under Castiel's elbow and placed the tip of the blade to his inner wrist and dragged it down until Castiel's blood ran off his arm to fill the bowl.

…

The concrete was scuffed like someone had recently dragged the picnic tables around, and a scrap of caution tape still clung to one of the table legs, but Sam easily found the markings carved into the slab foundation of the picnic shelter. He crouched beside them, staring down at them as his mind tried to put everything together in some kind of order.

Dean had last talked to Cas right after they left for Yellowstone, over two weeks ago. Claire had talked to him twelve hours or so before, but no one had heard from him since. They'd ended up with three more cases in the area, with Dean complaining the entire time that Cas hadn't gotten in touch with them (“No calls, no voicemails, no emoticons, no pictures of the inside of his pockets,” as Dean had put it). Now, Sam wished they had tried harder to locate the angel before this, but Cas had been out of contact for longer than this and been okay. He could take care of himself...right?

“That was the deputy,” Dean announced, climbing up to sit on top of one of the tables, feet on the bench. He was flipping his phone in his hands in agitation, staring down at the marks on the floor instead of meeting Sam's eye. “Says no one matching Cas's description ever came to their office, and since we don't know what alias he was using...”

Sam huffed out a sigh. That was their biggest mistake. Neither of them had even bothered to find out what name Cas was using here, much less who he was talking to. They'd made Cas a handful of IDs for his own investigations, but it wasn't like Dean could just run through the list without raising suspicions. “Did she say anything about the case?”

“Well, Deputy Cornwall,” Dean grinned over the name, “said there was a request for info on this stuff, pretty much matched up with the stuff Cas printed out at the bunker.”

They hadn't found Cas's truck, but as far as Sam could tell this would have been the last place he'd had it. He'd put the file together at the bunker, and the graffiti at this picnic area had been the only new site as far as Sam knew. Cas's investigation had only taken him out to Osage county, about three hours east of the bunker, and it made Sam's stomach churn to think their friend had gotten into trouble so close to home. “Did the deputy say anything else?”

“Deputy Cornwall?”

“Dean.”

“It's a funny name!” Dean spread his hands in protest. “Just that she got another request from Jackson county, seems like they're having some of the same trouble. Disappearances and weird scratchings, that kind of thing.”

Sam looked up. “Jackson county? That's just an hour away, isn't it.”

Dean shook his head. “Jackson county Colorado. More like ten.”

He winced at that. It wouldn't be too far to rescue Cas, of course, but he doubted they had time to head off half a day in the wrong direction. “Well, this doesn't tell us much,” Sam shook his head and pushed himself up to his feet. “It's Sumerian, I think. I recognize a couple of the pictograms, but it's too worn away to tell what it says.”

“Can you get any of it?” Dean asked, shoving away from the table to stare down at the rough pavement.

“Give me a couple minutes?” they didn't want to spend too much time here, obviously, but this was the first clue they'd found.

Dean grunted, stared at his phone again, and turned back to the path that lead up to the roadside. “I'll check the trail. Again.”

Sam nodded, though Dean was already moving away. He turned on the flash on his phone's camera and took a few more pictures of the inscription at different angles. His stomach was a mass of knots, and he couldn't help thinking that they didn't have time to decode this, even if it was the only clue they had.

“Sammy!”

His brother's urgent shout had Sam on his feet and halfway up the trail before his brain had fully registered the situation. “Dean?”

Dean had the phone pressed to his ear, nodding in response to whoever was on the other end. “It's Jody,” he said over his shoulder. “APB picked up Cas's truck.”

“What? Where?” Sam demanded, though he had a feeling he knew where they were headed next.

“Jackson county, Colorado.”

…

A fierce backhand across his face brought Castiel back to consciousness. “I need more,” Kent snarled through clenched teeth.

He was too weak to fight back when the witch held a cup to his lips and tried to pour a blood restorative down his throat. He choked on the first mouthful, his damaged throat spasming around the thick, cloying liquid, and Kent barely managed to pull the cup away before Castiel was retching up a bitter mixture of potion and blood.

The witch swore and shoved Castiel so that the manacles bit into his wrists as he stormed back to the ritual table. Castiel watched him, eyes swollen with what felt like a lingering infection from the Gallu's claws, body trembling through the odd hot-cold feeling of blood loss combined with a high fever. He let his head drop to one side to look up at his arms, still anchored up and away from his body.

Long, angry cuts from his angel blade crisscrossed his forearms from the witch collecting his blood, though the latest were only bleeding sluggishly. Kent had been draining his blood for ritual sacrifice of the woman on the table, but it was clear it wasn't going to be enough.

“Barely lasted a day,” Kent announced in disgust as he started cutting through the ropes that bound the woman to the table. Lear had lost interest in the witch's ritual after a few hours, and Goneril had never returned (neither had the Gallu, to Castiel's relief). “At least you're still good for the final sacrifice.”

The woman struggled feebly, and Castiel tried to pull against his chains even though every movement sent sharp pain radiating down his arms. “Wait,” he rasped, though his voice was little more than a painful croak.

“She's no good to me, angel,” Kent explained. He propped the woman up against his shoulder and combed her blonde hair back with one hand, turning her to face Castiel. “I could sacrifice you now, sweetheart, but you gave me twenty-six hours at best. Any decent aspect needs to last at least seventy-two.”

Kent met his eyes and the witch grinned. “I could give her to Ozzy still breathing. He likes his little lambs bleating, after all.”

Castiel dropped his head, his limbs weak with despair. The best he could do was plead for the witch to kill the woman quickly, to not drag her suffering out any further, but he couldn't. Not an innocent person. Not even to save them from an even crueler fate...who was he to judge such a thing?

“Little lamb who made thee?”

He pulled his head back up at Kent's voice. The man was singing, and Castiel recognized the words even if the situation twisted them into something with a darker meaning.

“Gave thee life and bid thee feed,” Kent sang, hand tightening in the woman's hair to pull her closer against his body. His free hand stroked her neck, and the entire time his eyes were fastened on Castiel's. “By the stream and o'er the mead.”

The witch's voice echoing eerily through the empty structure around them. It wasn't until the man sang “Gave thee such a tender voice,” as his hand tightened around the woman's throat that Castiel looked away.

“Please,” he rasped, though it made him sick down to the core of his being. He looked up to try to convince the witch, only for Kent to snap the woman's neck with a gleeful smile as soon as Castiel made eye contact again.

“Little lamb, God bless thee,” Kent crooned as he lay the woman's body back down on the altar. Castiel swallowed painfully, too exhausted from days of torment for the anger he should have felt at such a callous disregard for life.

Kent was humming as he cut the rest of the body free and clear away his implements of torture. The angel managed to turn away from the woman's unseeing gaze to close his own eyes. The manacles bit into his wrists, echoing the deep ache of the numerous wounds in his arms, but that was almost comforting...it meant he wasn't on the table.

Yet.

…

They'd reached Walden, Colorado—Jackson's county seat—after midnight, and Sam had to coax Dean into a motel room for a few hours of sleep before they headed out to meet the sheriff.

That had been another obstacle. According to Sheriff Jameson, the truck was just an abandoned vehicle, and unless they could prove Steve Novak (Cas's human alias) had some connection to their case they weren't touching it, and no he wasn't just gonna let them poke around in it without an actual warrant.

It had taken another call to Jody, some hastily-forged paperwork, then a third call to Jody where Sheriff Jameson tried to call her little lady and wound up putting his entire office at her disposal when she ripped into him, but they were finally being shown into the impound lot where Cas's truck had been locked up.

Dean had been practically seething with irritation and impatience at the whole thing, but now that they had the truck he wasn't quite sure where to start.

“There's nothing here,” he called to his brother. Cas had a toolbox in the back of the truck, but it just held a pair of rusty jumper cables and half a tire iron. The truck bed itself was clean, except for the usual road dirt and soot, and the pine needles that crept in everywhere.

Not even a spare tire. He'd have to fix that if...whenthey got Cas back.

“This is just his research from Osage,” Sam replied. He'd spread the folder out on the hood of the truck, but there was nothing they hadn't seen before. “No hotel keys or receipts. If he was staying around here, he didn't leave anything in the truck.”

Dean let out a sigh and tugged the driver's side door open. He started to climb into the driver's seat, planning on checking the gauges and mileage for any clues, and grunted a little in surprise. “Hey, Sam?”

Sam stuck his head in the passenger's side and started rooting through the glove box. “Find something?”

“Does Cas always drive with his knees up around his ears like this?”

No matter how much Dean liked to claim Cas was just a weird little dude, he was well aware the angel was the same height as him (give or take an inch or two). Therefore, it seemed odd that the truck's driver-side seat would be pulled forward as far as it could go if Cas had been driving it.

“What's that?” Sam had come around to Dean's side of the truck where the older Winchester had climbed back down and started tugging at the mat on the floor.

“A leaf?” Dean suggested. It was just a leaf. Kind of long, brown, dried out, maybe smelled a little sweet. Cas didn't clean his truck out as much as Dean cleaned Baby. He hated to admit it, but some guys just didn't take care of their rides as good as he did.

Sam was studying the leaf, muttering to himself. Dean rolled his eyes and pushed the driver's seat back, then ran his hand down between the seat and center console. Then he pulled down the visor to check behind it and a tube of chapstick dropped out, bounced off his chest, and rolled beneath the driver's seat.

Muttering more profanities, Dean leaned down to dig under the seat for the chapstick. Maybe it was some kind of weird brand you could only buy in Omaha or whatever, anything to give them an actual clue.

“This is a tobacco leaf.”

Dean huffed over his shoulder at his brother. “What, Cas has a few bad habits now?” Where had that damn thing gone?

“No, it's not processed. It's just a dried leaf.”

His fingers closed over something round and Dean pulled it out, not looking at it while he turned to stare at Sam. “Hey, good job, looks like you earned that merit badge. Maybe next we can get back to selling cookies and popcorn?”

Sam shot him a bitch-face and held the leaf up again. “Dean, tobacco isn't grown or cured around here. It's back east, mostly places like Kentucky and North Carolina.”

Dean's stomach dropped. “What?”

“I'd have to check, but I'm pretty sure.”

“Dammit.” Dean slumped back against the truck and ran one hand down his face.

“This was the only lead we had, Dean,” Sam said, though Dean wasn't in the mood for his brother's pragmatism.

“Yeah, and now we're ten hours further from wherever these bastards are holding Cas!” he shouted, slamming his empty hand against the truck's side. “We were already two weeks behind, and this just took us even further!”

“Maybe this stuff is really specific,” Sam said, trying to calm his brother down. “Maybe it's a special variety, or a special curing process...we've got the truck, we've got something.”

“Son of a bitch.” With a growl, Dean turned to hurl whatever he'd picked up in the truck as far away as possible, only for Sam to clamp a hand around his wrist. “Sammy,” he warned.

“What is that?” Sam asked. “Dean, what did you find?”

“It was under the seat,” Dean reluctantly released his hold, letting Sam take the object from him. It was maybe two inches across, round, and made of a dull-looking metal that could have been copper. All right, so they had two clues and he'd almost thrown one across the impound yard. He never did think clearly when family was involved.

“Oh my god,” Sam murmured, studying the object in the palm of his hand. The disc was inscribed with a stylized animal head, maybe a dog of some kind, with three over-sized eyes dominating the face. “Dean, I think I know what this is.”

…

“Do you know why the sacrifices need to be kept alive for at least seventy-two hours?” Kent had finished his work and now perched on the edge of the table, watching Castiel with an undisguised hunger.

The angel didn't answer. His body was trying to repair itself, but between the blood loss, the infection from his Gallu wounds, and the deep exhaustion of his torment his grace was little more than a cold flicker down at his core.

“Suffering,” Kent finally said after a few minutes. “The more you suffer, the more powerful you will be as an aspect. Seventy-two hours created an aspect like Goneril—she's barely sufficient, of course, but she still has power. But you? Well....”

Kent pushed off of the table and stalked toward Castiel, resting his fingers under the angel's chin to force his face around. “How long do you think it's been, hmm? A few days? A week?”

Castiel worked his jaw, but his mouth was too dry to answer even if he had wanted to. He knew he'd lost time somewhere, in those first fevered days after the Gallu's attack. Even now, he couldn't tell how long it had been since he'd first awoken here.

“Seventeen days,” Kent whispered, bending forward to rest his cheek against Castiel's. “You will be the seventh, the last, the finest...and our lady will walk the earth again.”

He shuddered and tried to turn away, but the witch's grip was too strong. “You should be praying for my success, angel,” the witch murmured. “I've only completed the ceremony three times.”

Kent laughed and started to pull away, but for the first time Castiel saw the amulet the witch was wearing around his neck. It had been tucked under his clothing, but he'd rolled his sleeves up and unbuttoned the first few buttons of his shirt as he'd worked and now the amulet swung free. Castiel stared at it uncomprehendingly for a long moment, studying the three amber eyes set in dark stone.

“Time to call Ozzy,” Kent announced, turning back to the table. “He'll enjoy his meal, but I think he'd like to play with you again. If your blood is no good to me, well....”

“Wait,” Castiel lurched against his chains, ignoring the spike of pain in his wrists. His voice was raw, the words tasting like blood in the back of his throat, but he pressed on. There was something he was forgetting...something his fevered mind wasn't quite putting together. “Your amulet.”

The witch turned back, one hand raised almost reverently to trace over the center eye. “This?” His smile was bright, almost manic. “Do you recognize it?”

It couldn't be. Something seemed to pull at his bones from the inside, the weight of some kind of deep, long-forgotten dread. “The three-eyed jackal,” he whispered, almost numb.

“She is cruel, raging, and angry,” Kent replied, his voice raising in the cadence of a chant. He leaned over Castiel, one hand on one of the chains above his head and the other cradling his amulet. “A runner and a thief.”

“Lamashtu.” Castiel's throat was dry, his voice little more than a whisper, but Kent threw his head back and laughed in triumph.

“Great is the daughter of heaven!” Kent declared, arms outstretched. “Whose hand is a net and whose embrace is death!”

…

(Finally! Lamashtu! I've been sitting on that for over a year, and now you know! As with the Gallu, I'm combining real mythology with pop culture references, mostly from stuff like Pathfinder and DnD. I'll make a full post for all the lore when I'm a little further along.)