Who: Gus and Justice, with guest appearance by Oolglorblax. When: Very late evening. What: Justice has a run in with a demon, and then has a run in with the Sheriff. Where: Outskirts of town. Rating: R for violence and crude language. Status: Complete.
It was another blustery night in the middle of a Babylon winter. There hadn’t been a single customer to speak of in the last hour because of the weather, not that Justice had done any complaining. Her mind had been elsewhere pretty much all night, centered on the Brimstone Casino and how deep the pile of sulfur-smelling shit she’d landed in really was. She would need allies. She would need strategies stronger than salt and the sharpened thigh-bone of an ancient saint. She would need angels - a fact that had her brain turning around the improbability of gaining any Host of Heaven’s favor, with the blood that ran in her veins.
Case in point, it’d been what was going through her brain when she was heading from the Cellar to her truck when something yanked her arms back at the wrists, and lifted her, screaming, off the frozen parking lot. After that, the only thing going through Justice’s head was pain.
Strappado had been a favored torture of the Inquisition; it’d been just as effective as a mode of transportation over the city. Since her eyes had been clenched and watering, Justice didn’t see the lights below fade as the fiend that’d grabbed her veered to the edge of town, but she sure as hell felt the rotted wood shrapnel that exploded under her when she was dropped through an old barn roof.
The floor broke her fall (and possibly a rib) twenty feet down, where she gasped and lolled to her side in a daze. Along side the feeling of molten metal in her shoulders and lungs that refused to work, a wave of air from a pair of pumping wings spilled over her. It smelled sour, like decay and burning hair; fucking demons...
“Cheap shot,” she groaned out, sluggishly trying to get to her feet.
“Shut your mouth, traitorous bitch!” the demon growled at her. His voice was sibilant and thick, the scolding coming from a toothy maw instead of a more agile human mouth, but clearly her assailant had no intention of going easy on her. Long tail lashing, he sat on his haunches, long yellow talons splintering and scoring the wood beneath him. He almost hadn’t believed his eyes when he’d seen her, but following her, smelling her, just watching her every move confirmed it.
She was the one that had killed his little imp. And hadn’t she been a busy little thing? So loyal. So attentive. He could make another, of course, but that wasn’t the point. This one had demon blood in her veins, and still she chose to fight against their cause.
“You were stupid to come here,” he seethed, bright yellow eyes narrowing to slits. His breath clouded the air in thick puffs, steam coming off his body as moisture settled but couldn’t freeze, “But I suppose it works in my favor. I mean to kill you for what you did. Do you know how rare it is, to have obedient progeny? Twenty-three years, wasted!”
The demon snorted rather prissily, his wings rustling as he folded them along his back. He was clearly quite confident that he had her right where he wanted her.
A sharp twinge in her lower chest cavity suggested she not breathe too deeply for a while, yet ironically resulted in another quiet gasp and a wince. Justice half-listened, a little torn by the effort it took to get her boots under her, but eventually she was standing.
To her, his monstrous outline was crisp and clear, even in the pitch dark of the barn, with eyes that blazed like Holocaust ovens as the centerpiece. Ugly fuckers; the human part of her resisted a surge of bile in her throat, but that could’ve been from the fall. This demon had a personal vendetta; it would be best if she was on the same page. She had a little time - damned creatures had a habit of making sure you knew what they were pissed about before they went for the throat... or more tender places. She had to keep him talking.
‘Obedient progeny’... That rang a few bells.
“You’re gonna have to be more specific,” she said, her voice still a little tight. “My dance card’s been pretty full...” Justice would not recommend goading a full-blooded demon in his natural skin to anyone, but it had it’s purpose. She was still alive - that was proof.
The demon slid back onto all fours and prowled around her like a jungle cat, talons shredding the wood and steam trailing along behind him like he was some kind of nightmarish train. His wings tightened briefly in annoyance when she claimed not to remember, but perhaps she had just killed so many of their kind, it was difficult for her to keep track.
“Five years ago, you simpering blood traitor,” he snapped the words at her, practically bit them. The way his jagged teeth overlapped, it was easy to imagine things being over in one shake if he got them into her flesh, “She was just doing a little infiltration, was all. Not hurting a hair on a nun’s cunt. But oh-ho, no. You just couldn’t abide it, could you?”
He snapped his tail at her ankles, meaning to spill her on the ground again, “You’re on the wrong side you ridiculous little flea!”
She’d meant to leap over the sapling-sized whip, but her body hadn’t recovered enough to combat the demon in speed; the tail caught her at the feet, and Justice hit the floor again. This time a little more controlled, at least, but it still wasn’t much fun on the knee-cap and wrist that bore most of her weight.
Though her hair hid most of it, the hard grimace could be easily heard in her voice, “I never get tired of hearin’ that.” Her tone was dry as the the Sahara.
“Y’know,” she added while getting up, flicking glances around the barn in the process. The bucket of driveway salt sitting by the big door looked promising. Now it was just a matter of getting to it... “Now I think I remember. Was she the one going after the Spear of Destiny? Man--sending an imp that young into the Vatican... you really overestimated that bitch.”
That definitely got under her assailants hell-red skin, and he let out a furious and threatening bay that rattled the rotting rafters of the barn. He snapped at the air between them but held back, obviously not quite done with his monologue.
“You’re awfully glib for a creature that is about to die a miserable, painful death,” he seethed, “I’m going to start with your entrails and work my way up,” his long, malformed face twisted into a sort of horrible canine rictus, “Perhaps I’ll deliver your head to your father. But without the eyes. They really pop in your mouth - fantastic.”
His gloating was reaching its end, and he didn’t even bother hiding how his muscles coiled under his skin, or how his long sinewy tail twitched like some big cat about to pounce on its prey. The air crackled with dangerous tension, and Justice readied herself with a held breath.
He sprang forward, splintering the planks under his claws with a flying leap forward; Justice snatched the relic hidden under her jacket, the femur of Saint George himself, sharpened to a point and etched with holy sigils. He hit her with the momentum of a freight train, but she used the force to duck under the front talons and spread right wing, then plunged the bone-dagger down through the base of his tail and into the barn floor. Half a second later, she dove away from the fury, just barely missing being clocked in the head by a powerful swipe.
The demon howled indignantly when he was pinned to the rotten floor by some holy fucking relic he hadn’t counted on her having. She looked like a vagabond - how was he supposed to know she’d be so... adequately armed? He pulled against the horrible searing pain like a junkyard dog at the end of his chain, snapping at the air she’d briefly occupied with bone-crushing force.
When he reigned himself in slightly, he turned and started to shred the planks around his pinned tail, the actions frantic and frenzied.
There wasn’t time to catch her breath; she snatched up the salt bucket and started shuffling around the pinned demon, dusting a thick circle on the floor. It wasn’t easy, given he’d swiss-cheesed the wood in a lot of places, and others, the salt would just fall through the slats to the cellar beneath. The longer it took, the more pressing the issue would get. That bone wouldn’t hold him still for long.
“SACERDOS ab Ordinario delegatus, rite confessus,” as she worked, Justice growled out words in Latin, the ancient rite created to expel his kind from the bodies of the possessed. In the flesh, however, things were a lot more messy, but it’d slow him down. “Aut saltem corde peccata sua detestans, peracto, si commode fieri possit... Tell me your name, Demon--!”
The demon thrashed violently, shredding up his tail and flapping his wings, more in an attempt to throw her off her guard or disperse the salt than to actually escape. But the rite sank into his sulphurous bones, and all he could do was bristle and obey, every muscle and tendon in his body standing out under his skin.
“Oolglorblax,” he seethed, thick ropes of drool hanging from his jaws, whole body seizing. He even gagged, dry heaving since there was nothing to bring up, “Miserable mortal cunt! I am your better! Cease this at once!”
Of course, she didn’t stop. She couldn’t - not with the hurricane he was dragging up. Soon there wouldn’t be much of a floor left to stand on, let alone circle him with salt. Justice continued to shout the archaic rite, commanding him with his true name to stand-down and recognize the power of God. It took a hell of a lot longer coming from her, given the taint in her blood. In the end, she’d be nearly as exhausted as the still-dangerous beast at her mercy, but...
Justice had a lot of practice.
When the demon choked and sputtered as if drowning in Holy Water, the kill-move came. She yanked the relic from his tail and drove it between the third and fourth rib, piercing the beast’s heart.
The whole process had been brutal; she’d caught a flailing wing across the jaw and left a back tooth somewhere in the mess of a barn floor. Blood trickled from some nick in her hair, all on top of a sprained ankle, wrenched shoulders, and a few cracked ribs. At least the sun was coming up by the time she found herself trudging along the side of the highway, heading back to town. Hopefully no one would be out early enough to ask questions.
Unfortunately, a familiar vehicle came into few just a few minutes after Justice hoped for solitude. It was a Babylon police cruiser, emblazoned with a Sheriff’s star, and about ten seconds after the cruiser came into view, it’s flashers were going. No siren - who would hear it out here? - but the cruiser jerked as the driver put their foot on the gas.
Once he’d swung around and yanked on the e-brake, Gus, all bundled up against the frigid Iowa winter, piled out of the cruiser and to Justice’s side. He was yammering into his radio for an ambulance before he reached her, and he reached a hand out to her once he was at arm’s reach.
“Jesus Christ, Coop, what happened!?” even though most of his face was covered, his brows were drawn together very sharply, and there was real worry in his tone. It looked like she’d been jumped by a fucking gang, and she was just... what? Walking home? Maybe she was in shock. That’d be for the EMT’s to decide when they showed up.
“Nevermind, just get in the cruiser, all right? I got the heat cranked up.”
He’d toss her in if she dug her heels in. She was going to catch goddamn pneumonia or die of hypothermia or something.
The second she’d noticed the flashers, the internal conflict flared up; the bruised and beaten, freezing cold part of Justice Cooper was absolutely goddamn thrilled to see the Sheriff’s car on approach, but her deeper instincts promised her ‘rescue’ would make things complicated. Especially if it was Gus, who knew she wasn’t exactly an easy target for what had to look like a a group assault.
She rolled her lips (one that was swollen and bleeding) when she saw the Star. Maybe she’d just ’faint’ and skip the whole interaction, but that’d only delay the inevitable. Thank god his sense of alarm and duty got in the way of demanding information; Justice willed herself to stay in the ‘daze’, nodding sluggishly. Getting into the cruiser wasn’t as easy; she winced and hissed with the effort.
“Easy, easy,” Gus said. A million questions were racing through his head, but he kept them all back for the time being. She’d obviously been through something serious, and badgering her with questions wasn’t going to help. He shut the door once she was inside and considered meeting the ambulance halfway, but then decided against it. No sense making her belt in when he didn’t know how badly she was hurt. Gus moved around to the driver’s side and finally they were sealed in against the cold, the heater working overtime to reheat all the nasty chilled air that had gotten in. His cruiser smelled like stale coffee, but there was a fresh one steaming in the cupholder.
“Here, you think you can drink this?” he asked, picking up the coffee, “It’ll help you warm up. The Ambulance should be here in a few minutes.”
The worst of it was he’d driven past The Cellar, seen her truck sitting in its space, and just assumed she’d been staying the night at the B&B. What the fuck was she doing all the way out here? And what had earned her such a vicious attack? Christ, he hoped there wasn’t some fucking rapist in town. His stomach turned over just thinking about it, and his worry was practically carved into his face as he stared at her.
The heat was a god-send. It melted over her in a wave that was almost overwhelming, if only because the cold had locked up her muscles so bad, the soreness had spread everywhere instead of being focused at the points of injury. Which, actually for her experience, weren’t that bad. Justice took the offered coffee in tingling fingertips, catching the look on Gus’s face in the process.
Yeah. She expected that.
The cover story she’d tell him was already working through her brain; in the meantime, she stayed quiet to keep up the front of half-frozen, dazed exhaustion. Most of it, she didn’t have to fake. Only problem came when she attempted a sip of coffee; she grunted when her jaw zinged, the hot liquid washed over a tender spot she hadn’t realized yet, and immediately explored with a dirty finger. It came back bloody, with another tooth. Fantastic.
“It looks a lot worse than it is,” she finally muttered in an attempt to calm that look on his face, slumping into the passenger seat. Justice closed her eyes and tried to ignore the taste of her own blood.
Gus’s face creased up in horror when she pulled a tooth out of her mouth, and his big hands, sheathed in gloves, gripped the steering wheel of the idling car. Goddammit, what had happened?
“We’ll get whoever did this, Coop,” he growled, “Nobody gets away with this kind of shit in my town.”
He’d taken to the small town pretty well, and it was completely disturbing to see such a big-city crime inside Babylon’s borders. Barely inside. Had she been kidnapped, maybe? Dragged out to some spot and...? The leather of his gloves creaked a minute as he squeezed the wheel harder, but he kept himself professional. Just because he was friends with her didn’t mean he had to go all loose cannon. Procedure.
Christ, it was hard though. You didn’t let your Brothers get beat on and do nothing.
The Ambulance showed up and she was shooed into the back, one of Babylon’s small handful of EMT’s looking after her with a pensive frown. They didn’t flip their sirens on, and neither did Gus as he followed, communicating via the radio what was going on. His mind was still racing by the time they arrived at Mercy, and he stood in the hall as some nurses finished what triage the EMTs had started.
Once she was squared away, he spoke quietly with a doctor, nodding grimly and writing some things down on a notepad. The entire situation had ‘official police investigation’ written all over it. Finally, he approached her bedside and offered her a smile.
“Hey,” he said tentatively, “I’ve gotta let you rest soon, doctor’s orders, but... you feel up to telling me what happened?”
With it going on mid-morning by the time they finally left her alone, rest was more than a little tempting. On no sleep, her body was using all it’s remaining energy just to stay alert, which wasn’t doing the rough patches any favors.
However, Justice knew better than to get too comfortable. Big-Mean-and-Ugly’s closest friends would’ve heard his death throws, especially here in Babylon. She had to get back to her little warded-up house, which is why she was sitting on the edge of the hospital bed when the Sheriff wandered in, very stiffly pulling her shirt down over wrapped ribs.
She looked at him, then pushed a tired, bruised, and colorless smile, shaking her head.
“You should see the other guy,” the hunter murmured quietly. Morphine and a scrip for Vicodin would take care of the sprained ankle and shoulders; some down-time would take care of her ribs, and far as she could tell, she didn’t have a hockey-smile (thank god for small favors). She really had seen worse.
“Look, it’s a long and twisted story, Gus--” she continued for his sake. She knew he wouldn’t rest until he got something out of her. “I got this ex... He showed up last night, we decided to go for a drive to catch up... Things got a little hairy.” Coop started the slow process of pulling on her coat, making sure to hold Gus’s eyes for meaningful parts of the story. “He’s still pretty fucked up from Afghanistan - but trust me, he got it as bad from me as I got it from him.”
Gus grimaced hard at her story, shifting his weight and sticking his thumbs in his belt. If it was some guy from the Corps... then it was personal business. Not especially professional, but some things overrode work, and in a small town like Babylon, it was a little easier to lose paperwork. Gus wasn’t sure he wanted to lose this particular paperwork, though. Some cracked up vet who’d beat the shit out of his ex?
“If this guy is in Babylon, Justice,” he said, lowering his voice, “I need to know about it. If he’d attack you, he’d attack anyone.”
If she didn’t want to file a report, or press charges, or have the guy picked up... Gus was pretty sure she was the only person in town he’d go along with it for. Nobody was iron clad, no matter how strong they were, but Gus couldn’t tell if she was in a place where she needed someone to take care of things for her or if she honestly just beat the shit out of her ex and.... what? Left him to freeze to death? The holes in the story were bothering him.
“He’s long gone, probably back toward Cincinati,” Justice answered, nothing but honesty in her answer as she edged off the bed to wiggle on her boots. She knew the undertones of what Gus was getting at, and god knew if she were telling the truth, she’d be the first to jump on board that bandwagon. Unfortunately, things were more complicated than that. And that meant Gus needed to keep his distance from her, for his own safety.
“We went at it inside the car, then outside the car, ‘til he got a cheap shot in.” Justice tested her bad ankle with a little weight; it hurt, but if she could stand, she could walk. “When I looked up, all I saw was tail lights.”
Gus didn’t like it, but he didn’t think Justice was lying to him. They were friends, and in a round about way, brothers in arms, and if she was sure the guy had left... he didn’t like it, but if they guy had split town and she wasn’t pressing charges, it was outside his influence anyway.
“Well, you got my number,” he said uneasily, voice low, “If you change your mind about it, Coop, you let me know, all right? C’mon, I’ll give you a ride back to The Cellar.”
He didn’t like that she was being released already, but she looked tired. Gus offered her a hand up if she wanted it - he’d had busted ribs before. They weren’t fun.
She accepted the help, but only for the short amount of time that it took for her to find her legs. After that, she gave him a squeeze before taking it on her own. Once they were in the squad car and she’d buckled in, her eyes were burning from exhaustion. It was a chore to keep from dropping her head on the dash. If she was going to stay awake long enough to get to the couch in the bar’s back office, conversation was a must.
“Sorry for bleedin’ all over the upholstery,” she muttered, sending him a tired look.
Gus shook his head at her, his smile lined with both worry and bemusement.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said, “The state pays for cleaning the thing, bleed all over the place if you want.”
He didn’t say much until they pulled into the parking lot of The Cellar, and Gus looked over at her as he threw it into park. A few things were on the tip of his tongue, but he swallowed them. With effort.
“Take it easy,” he said, fully intending to wait until she got into her car before he left himself.
Whether he was trying to hide the smoking gears turning behind his eyes, or just not saying anything, she could tell there was something there. Unsure if it was a good idea to ask or if she just didn’t want to risk him getting too deep, Justice just looked at him for a moment of silence.
“Hey-- I’m good,” she said, meaning every syllable. There was a certain kind of understanding between people like them; they were all messed up on some emotional level, but on the plus side of that, Gus should know the difference between someone who was maintaining, and someone about to crumble. A row with a rough ex boyfriend was an inconvenience. She didn’t want him to think anything deeper. “Gonna take a hot shower and sleep for a day.”
Gus took in a deep breath, and when he let it out, he was a little more relaxed. Maybe he didn’t like it, but he couldn’t be everywhere at once. As Sheriff, he worked regular hours, so he wouldn’t have been on patrol last night anyway. Justice was a Marine. She could handle her shit.