Riders on the Storm: My 2020 Summergen Fic

[tyrsibs]

I wrote this for canonisrelative, who asked for some Eileen Leahy POV. Summergen is my absolute favorite fandom event, and the participants outdid themselves this year!

Summary: When the bright light broke through, a crack in the ceiling, a lighter flare in the darkness, she didn’t believe it at first. It was a trick, a cruel joke, made to raise hopes and then crush them again. But the light grew stronger, became tinged with purple and red, and she saw some of the prisoners around her grow still. Light spoilers for SPN Season 12 and 15.

When the bright light broke through, a crack in the ceiling, a lighter flare in the darkness, she didn’t believe it at first. It was a trick, a cruel joke, made to raise hopes and then crush them again. But the light grew stronger, became tinged with purple and red, and she saw some of the prisoners around her grow still. They gaped up at the light and she joined them, pushing her way to the center of the courtyard as the cracks grew into fissures that spread across the gloom.

The courtyard was filling with more souls, and a buzzing grew among them that she could feel in her stomach and the ends of her fingers and toes. She dropped her gaze to look around as they pressed closer to her, at their faces, seeing wonder underneath their corruption, seeing the beginning of something that didn’t belong here. Not on these faces. She saw hope.

A guard stood close to her, its oily arms stretched up to reach toward the ever-intensifying light, its skeletal face upturned, beginning to elongate. It opened its mouth, but no words formed on its lips. She thought it might be shouting, or maybe laughing. Its fingers began to lose their sharp solidity as she watched, growing, turning into wisps of black smoke that twined around themselves, floating upwards. The rest of its body followed. It became a black dust devil as it rose, and joined more discorporated guards to swirl over the prisoners’ heads and disappearing into the rupture.

Somebody pushed her from behind. The prisoner in front of her, a woman with long straight blonde hair parted down the center and cascading down her halter-topped back, turned to glare as she stumbled forward, but there was no heat to it. This would be one day she wouldn’t have to defend herself from a fight, it seemed. The blonde didn’t even bother to shove her before a grin broke over her face, and she, too, reached up to the light and began to dissolve. The shade she formed was not black, but a kind of sooty gray.

The gurards’ transformations seemed to have broken something loose in the crowd. All around her, souls were breaking free of their forms, darting into the now blinding light. A man in a frock coat swung his arms out in a mockery of a pious gesture. Another woman, this one with severe hair and a flowing gown, gripped her shoulders briefly in claw-like hands, pushing her down as if to leap over her.

She could feel a tugging in her own body, like her heart was back and yearning to beat. She thought of the wounds she’d received from the hellhound, the teeth marks still crisscrossing her abdomen, and wondered if the blood would begin to flow again, should her heart begin its rhythm after all this time. As if in answer, the wounds began to ache and throb as the light continued to pour into this sunless pit. She brushed her hand over her stomach, looked at the blood beginning to seep through her t-shirt, and decided that the chance of escape was worth a little pain. She reached up to the rupture and let it take her.

She filled with light, was spun around in it, pressure buffeting her from all directions. The blood on her belly flowed up through her shade and disappeared into it.

For a second she saw the woman who she could only remember as “teacher”, dragging her by the arm out into a storm when she was still a child. The teacher was hunting something, a harpy or a godling, and she said it was hiding in the storm. The pressure of the swirling wind hit them as they left their shelter, running into the rain, running somewhere, teacher tugging on her and ignoring her hands as she asked question after question. The hairs on her body stood up then, caught in the power of the storm. Now her entire being was galvanized as the light pulled her into the center of the fissure.

The woman in the flowing gown spun around her, her eyes burning in a face that was now just a skull, recognizable only by the color of her dress. The severe bun the woman had worn in the pit had come loose, and her black hair now streamed upwards as they were pulled into the fissure. She tucked her own arms in, to avoid the temptation of touching her face herself. She didn’t want to feel the bones that would surely be there. Or worse, nothing at all. Together they crashed through the fissure and joined the other escaping souls, and were swept into a whirlpool of shades, smoke, and the white-hot light.

The light coursed through them all, feeling to her like a lightning strike, the pulsing pressure of blood, a scalding screeching. She opened her mouth and someone was screaming in her head. Her hands flew up to her throat, her eyes widening. She could feel the vibrations in her larynx. There, in the midst of the fissure, she was screaming, and her own voice echoed in ears. She heard it as it mingled with the shouts coming from the others. A din of noise—and it was not the inner voice that she caught at times, the memory of a song being drowned out by a wail. It was outside of her, bombarding her senses and overwhelming her. She curled up into herself as they continued to rise, the light swirling and squeezing them all together.

An eternity, a second, later, the other voices fell silent. Her throat was hoarse, but her screams were no longer ringing in her head. She opened her eyes to find that she was moving sideways now, and the light had become the whole world. A wind rushed over her body, and her hands when she glanced down at them looked like a woman’s hands. The blood no longer flowed upwards from her wounds.

More figures swarmed around her, the souls taking on the appearances of their living selves. The sky above them was crystal blue and hurt to look at. Below them she saw a town, the streets laid out in curving patterns that reminded her of quilted blankets that had been sown into one another.

-The bedding was scratchy under her shoulders as she stared up at the new shape, the new mother, her teacher-

This town had bodies, it had people in it who were blind to the chaos that swirled over them. It had fools who were just made to take on the pain of Hell. It held the promise of freedom and well-earned havoc. The others surrounding her sensed all this, too. The whirlwind of souls plunged towards the quiet houses, and she dove with them. They were gape-mouthed, hungry, laughing or screaming again. She felt herself grow more solid with a strange mix of rage and joy as she fell through the sky.

Below her, on a sidewalk turned rosy by the dawn, she saw a mother and two children. The woman was staring up at the mob of escapees as she knelt by her kids, hugging them tightly to shield them from the sight of the souls streaming overhead. Several feet behind them, a stroller was tipped onto its side, abandoned, the child it had carried now clutching her mother’s neck. One of the souls swept over them and kicked at the stroller as he passed by, sending it sliding into the middle of the road.

It would be so easy, she thought, to drop herself into this cowering mother. She’d seen spirits possess the weak, so many times, and she knew that the woman would not know how to resist. She was just a civilian, after all. She knew her will was stronger, that she could force herself inside-

She didn’t realize, not at first, that her hands were moving of their own accord, but when she brushed through the thick foliage of a maple tree, she finally felt them. They were signing rapidly, her first two fingers snapping against the flat of her thumb. One word, over and over. No.

She faltered and slowed, felt herself becoming entangled in the tree. Another soul ripped by her as she stumbled, startling her with a flash of a silk vest followed by patent leather shoes as he passed. He dove for the pavement, grabbed a chunk of cement from a crumbled piece of the curb-

-“Vengeful spirit”, her teacher said in her mind-

And flung it at the woman. No, her hands said again. In a thought she was suddenly out of the tree and standing between the mother and the other spirit.

The years of isolation in Hell’s prison had formed a shell around her soul, and the promise of boundless freedom had momentarily left her willing to harm this family. But hidden deep with her mind was also the memory of what she had once been. Warrior. Protector.

Hunter.

She steeled herself, tried to focus all of herself against the rock. It struck her chest, pushed into her, and she was knocked backwards. But it stopped before it reached her heart. She looked at the other spirit with a smile, though the effort of taking the blow exhausted her. She began to fade, even as the concrete chunk fell harmlessly to the ground.

When she came back, the patent shoe spirit had moved on. She turned around to see the mother and her older child, a boy about three, both gazing up at her from the ground where they still crouched. The woman’s eyes were unfocused, though, and her mouth moved continually, forming the same syllable. “What-What-“

“Get up,” she told her. “Get your children inside.” When the mother didn’t respond, her anger whipped out of her and she rushed forward at the little group, felt the stinging in the palm of her hand before she realized that she’d slapped the mother high on the cheekbone.

“Vengeful-“

“No.”

The little boy’s face crumpled as he began to cry, which set off the baby on the woman’s hip, whose eyes filled with tears as she wrapped her arms around her mother’s neck and rubbed her face into her collarbone. The distress of her children seemed to rouse her as much, if not more than, the slap. The woman pulled her eyes to hers, made an effort to look her in the face. She wondered what the woman was seeing, and if she would understand or even hear what she told her to do.

“Go. Now.” She said. “Take your kids to your car and get out of town. Fast as you can.” She realized that she was signing as she spoke. After a delay, the woman nodded and began to get to her feet awkwardly, balancing her children on her hips. She nodded back, once, before she felt herself fading again. This time she let go, losing herself in memories that she’d buried next to the word “Hunter” for so many years.

-Her parents were kind voices that she heard in her dreams, pale shapes in the air above her, and music. The piercing banshee wail that took them away always followed their voices, and rang in her ears when the guards decided to play with her down in the pit-

-Her teacher was stern instructions that could not be disobeyed, and odd moments of tenderness that left an ache in her heart. Teacher had had a name--

-The first time they met, he tried to sign “Thank you”, and ended up flipping her off instead. She didn’t correct him. When the job was over, she tucked him away in her thoughts. Then, months later, she got a call from him, an invitation to a video conference. She opened the channel and saw his hand filling the screen as he slowly spelled out H-I—E-I-L-

When she came back to herself, the town was gone and it was nighttime. She didn’t know where she was or how long she’d been drifting in her memories, away from the rift in her former prison. She reached out with her senses, looking for more souls that might have followed her. Nothing approached. She was alone.

Not the first time, to be sure.

But now she remembered a name, her name. She said it to no one, her fingers moving nimbly through the letters. E-I-L-E-E-N. Eileen. She looked down at the body she’d manifested when she returned. It felt like hers. It felt whole. She recognized the clothes she saw, the jeans and practical boots. Dark hair hung in her eyes and she swept it up in one hand. With her other hand she touched her cheek, forehead, down to her mouth. She knew the face under her fingertips.

And she remembered where she had been headed, that night so long ago, before the hellhound chased her down. He would not be waiting for her in his fortress of a bunker, not anymore.

Hello, dead hunter here.

She decided she would find him, just the same. She felt no tether in this world, she wasn’t being held to the earth by a place, a body or some cursed object. She was free. Still, it would be good to see him, and to make him see her, if only to say H-I, one more time.

As she let herself fade again, she thought of the place where she always found him when she was alive, the safety of it. She remembered his welcoming smile and clumsy fingers. His name was there, too, just under her own.

Sam.

She hoped he’d be glad to see her.