#this is my oath my sentences will get longer as I re-learn how to use commas etc in ENG

[ectocosme]

why I am seeing tutorial posts about avoiding long sentences so often lately?? I tried it, nuked my capacity to write good, long sentences and even got the "you write like a military person" when submitting a story in my OG language.

I don't understand the urge in ENG circles to shorted sentences as if you're scared of words. It's not reduce, reuse and recycle; it's recover, remodel and relive.

[underthewingsofthblackeagle]

“Berliner Fernsehturm” * Foto: BernardoUPloud

After her marriage with Frank Randall has failed and Claire Beauchamp flees from her violent husband, she finds refuge in the house of the Fraser/Murray family in Berlin-Wilhelmshorst. But then tensions arise between Britain (which has since left the EU) and some EU member states. All holders of an English passport are required to leave EU territory within six weeks … and suddenly Claire’s fate looks more uncertain than ever.

This story was written for the #14DaysofOutlander event, hosted by @scotsmanandsassenach​

Chapter 9: 14 Men (5)

      After she sat down and Jamie poured everyone a glass of water, Ferdinand Groide began:

        "Mrs. Beauchamp, Jamie, Mr. Fraser, told me that your husband is Dr. Frank Randall. Is that correct?"

(...)

        "As you may also know, I have left my husband. Our marriage had been on paper only for several years. I intend to ask for a divorce, if that's possible from here. But I still have to care about this man's life. I'm a doctor, I took an oath. If I reveal the secrets I have learned... what will you do to him?"

        "What do you mean? What are we going to do with him?"

        "Will you hurt him? I mean, will you let someone hurt him?"

        Ferdinand Groide and Jamie looked at each other in amazement.

        "Mrs. Beauchamp, we're not the Mafia. We don't hire hit men."

        "But you're in Intelligence, Mr. Groide."

        Claire said that sentence with the same calm and objectivity as if she was saying to Jenny:

        "If you put one more egg in the batter, it gets better."

        "And intelligence agencies do these things," she added to her statement with the same objectivity.

        "Well, maybe the CIA or the KGB. Let me answer you this way: In my opinion, a living Frank Randall is far more interesting and valuable to a secret service than a dead Frank Randall."

        "In other words, you guarantee me that the information I give you will not endanger his life."

        Groide and Jamie looked at each other again.

        "Promise me."

        It wasn't a question, it wasn't a request, it was a demand, and the words Claire used to make that demand left none of the men unaware that there was no alternative to this bargain for them.

        Groide struck the hand Claire held out to him.

        "You have my word, Mrs. Beauchamp. You don't know me yet and you probably mistrust me. That's only natural. But Jamie, Mr. Fraser, can assure you that I'm a man of my word."

        Claire looked over at Jamie. He nodded.

        "Done."

        She reached for the glass of water that Jamie had put in her hand and emptied it in one gulp.

        Then she began to talk.

"Microphone" by Florian-Media

        "It was in the year 2015, in late November 2015 to be exact."

        "Excuse me, Mrs. Beauchamp," Groide objected, "but we ought to do this properly."

        He removed from his briefcase a device whose rectangular clunkness was reminiscent of an early mobile phone. After placing it in the center of the table, he inserted two small, round microphones attached to longer cables, one pointing at Claire and one pointing at himself. Groide pressed the record button, then he gave the date, time, place, names of those present and, as the reason for the recording, ‘Statement by Dr. Claire Elisabeth Beauchamp’.

        Jamie had to smile. Ferdinand was a friendly person, but he was also a German bureaucrat. Everything had to follow the specific order and everything had to be done 'by the book'. Those Germans. They had rules for everything. They couldn't just have a conversation like that, it had to be a 'statement' and of course it had to be 'recorded'. In this country everything was recorded, either on paper or on tape. And then everything was filed, paginated, numbered and archived. Nothing was lost. They were so damn meticulous, these Germans, but also so damn effective.

        "Please begin with your personal life, Mrs. Beauchamp. Name, birthday, place of birth, family, etc."

        "My name is Claire Elizabeth Beauchamp. I was born in London on October 20, 1993, the only child of Julia, née Moriston, and Henry Montmorency Beauchamp. My mother was a primary school teacher, my father worked as a statistician for an insurance company. In the winter of 1998 my parents were killed in a car accident. My uncle, Lambert Quentin Beauchamp, was appointed by the authorities as my foster father and guardian. He was my only living relative, my father's only brother. Due to the activities of my uncle, who was an egyptologist and archaeologist, I grew up in England for only a short time, the rest of the time we spend abroad. When I was 16 years old, my uncle returned to England permanently and accepted a professorship at Oxford University. Shortly afterwards I began training as a nurse. Also in Oxford. At the age of 19, I had just completed my education, I met my future husband Franklin Wolverton Randall through my uncle. He also worked in the history department and specialised in Scottish history. At times he worked as an assistant to a professor. We married the following year. My uncle died only a few months later. His health had unfortunately not been the best at the end of his life. When my husband was called to Harvard University's history department, we moved to Boston.

"Oxford" by MarlonRondal        

         Groide nodded. Jamie was sure that nothing Claire had told him so far was new to his friend. Guaranteed, they had checked Claire from the day he requested the visa for her passport. And they had certainly not been idle since then. At "In Vino Veritas" there was a small but very effective group of staff who had certainly dug up everything they could find about the young woman in the past few days.

         "When and how did you learn of your husband's secret activities?"        

         "It was in the year 2015, in late November of that year to be exact. Does the name Jonathan Pollard mean anything to you?"        

         Jamie listened with new interest. Groide just nodded.        

         "Then you know that this man has served thirty years in the United States for espionage. In 2015 he was released on parole and in the American media there was a lot of coverage and discussion for days. I had never heard this man's name before and, to be honest, I didn't care about the whole thing. However, I listened up when my husband spoke about it. It was a Sunday, two days after Pollard was released. I remember the whole thing so well because that day was the day of the terrible accident in that jademine in Myanmar, where 90 people were killed and over 100 people were missing. We had had dinner and then Frank turned on the TV. There was a talk show where the case was discussed. My husband had already started drinking in the afternoon. While Frank was watching the talk show, I thought, ‘My goodness, they're talking about an age-old espionage case and people are dying elsewhere without the media even paying attention.’"        

         Claire reached for her glass, which Jamie had refilled in the meantime, and took a big sip.        

         "I didn't pay much attention to the discussion on TV. But then suddenly Frank started mumbling loudly:       

          'Spy! Spy! Spy! Nonsense! The man was an amateur! What real spy leaves secret documents openly on his desk in the office and his wife was stupid enough to leave a suitcase with secret documents with a neighbour who was in the military himself!’”

        Claire reached for her glass again and drank.        

         "What he said made me furious, so I said to him: 'Oh yes, but you know how a real spy behaves!’ I thought his reaction was terribly arrogant. To my surprise, he then turned down the TV. He came over and sat down with me on the sofa. He looked me in the eyes and grinned. Then he said, ‘Yes, my darling, I know that. The MI5 recruited and trained me while I was still studying at Oxford. Right after they heard I was going to specialise in Scottish history. With my family background and the good connections we had in the military and police through my cousin Jonathan, there were no obstacles.’”

"Books" by MichaelGaida        

         "How did you react to that?"        

         "Well, at first I was stumped. I thought he was just showing-off again. So I replied, ‘Why would the MI5 need an expert in Scottish history?’ He replied, ‘Well, of course you can't imagine, you little fool. Good God, Claire! The Scots want independence and just because last year's referendum went so well, they will not give up. It's their history they're drawing strength from! What do you think will happen if they really gain their independence? It could set off a chain reaction. You know that Prime Minister Cameron announced two years ago that he would hold a referendum on Britain's withdrawal from the EU if he was re-elected in 2015? So? He has been re-elected! Now there must be a referendum. And what if Britain's withdrawal from the EU is carried out but Scotland becomes independent and is then admitted to the EU as a member? Did you ever think about that? This is going to get us in big trouble! Then the EU will continue to stand with two legs on our island! We can't let that happen.’”

         Claire paused for a moment, then she went on:                  "I must have looked at him in wonder and disbelief, because suddenly he stormed out of the living room. I heard him looking for something in his study. When he came back he had a newspaper article in his hand which he held in front of my face. ‘Read it,’ he said to me. ‘Our government takes this danger seriously... and so should you!‘          I took the article and read. It was an article in the International Business Times in July 2015. It reported that the Prime Minister had met with the CEOs of a media company. The purpose of the meeting was allegedly to prevent the broadcast of a TV series about the Scottish Rebellion of 1746 before the referendum on Scottish independence. It seems that a request has been made to postpone the broadcast. I later found on his desk a copy of an article from ‘The Scotsman’, which also covered the subject in detail.”                  Groide and Jamie looked at each other and smiled. Both men nodded, but said nothing.        

         "Frankly," Claire continued, "I hadn't given the matter any thought at all. In the five years before, I had been mainly busy finishing my medical studies and gaining experience as a doctor. You don't have much time to worry about other things. Besides, due to my, well, somewhat non-conformist upbringing, I was never so much confined to one country alone ..."        

         "How is it that despite medical school, your husband still refers to you as..." Groide is looking for words, "intellectually... weaker...?”          "Frank believes that medical school would consist largely of memorizing the contents of textbooks. He thought that people's bodies were somehow all the same and that if you had learned the appropriate forms of treatment, then you could treat them. He never understood the diversity and complexity of the human body and how medical science reacts to it."                   "Did your husband explain his duties for the MI5 to you?"          "When I told him that Scotland's history, and Scotland's ambitions for independence, were well known, he told me not to think so superficially. He said that historians are not only concerned with the past. They can also make predictions about the future to a certain extent, based on their knowledge. I should think about what the clan system had meant and still means to the Scots. Why did the English central government everything to destroy it after the Jacobite uprising of 1746? England should not allow a united counter-power to be formed again in the north of the country. He was probably particularly concerned about this lobby group, One Banner for all Scots, which had formed the year before."

"Scottish Independence" by Emphyrio         Claire was focused on Ferdinand Groide and the recording equipment in front of her. She didn't see Jamie's face become more and more thoughtful.        

         "Mrs. Beauchamp, all this is interesting, but... not very specific."          "At first, I too got to know only general things. It only became more specific later when I did... well, my own... research.                  "You did your own research?"                  Groide suddenly seemed interested again. Jamie tried not to smile. What seemed like a minor revelation to his friend only confirmed what he had been thinking all along. Claire was an intelligent, strong woman. Her strength might have been broken for a time by what her husband had done to her. But Jamie was sure that she would find her way back to that strength. And he vowed to himself that he would do everything he could to help her.          "I thought Frank was a braggart for a long time, but... I can't describe it exactly. Something had caught my interest. Then a colleague asked me if I would trade a weekly shift with her. She would have had a night shift, but her babysitter was unavailable. I agreed and that same afternoon I went to the university library and borrowed books on Scottish history and the independence movement. The department where I was on night duty was not very labour-intensive. I had a lot of time to read and think during the nights of that week."          She paused for a moment.          "After that week, I became aware of the urgency of the issue."          Groide didn't say anything, but his gaze urged her to continue.          "National self-determination. Well, there's no need to explain that further. Scotland's oil. 64% of Europe's oil reserves are on Scottish territory. They're said to be worth 4 trillion pounds. Then there is the issue of renewable energy. I mean Scotland has 25 % of Europe's wind energy potential, 25 % of Europe's tidal energy potential and 10 % of Europe's wave energy potential. I do not have to tell you that these are also enormous financial potentials."          A fine smile appeared on Groide's face.          "And then, of course, there is the question of nuclear disarmament: with control of defence and foreign policy, an independent Scotland could tackle the elimination of Trident nuclear weapons, an issue long associated with the campaign for an independent Scotland. Trident class submarines carrying missiles with 120 nuclear warheads are based at the Clyde naval base near Glasgow. In the event of Scottish independence, England would have to withdraw these weapons and revise its defence strategy. I imagine that would be a thorn in the side of the American allies as well. There will certainly be a lot of diplomatic pressure behind the scenes."          Claire took a deep breath.          "Now you're going to tell me that this is all public information and I would agree with you. But I wasn't aware of it before. These informations woke me up. It took a while but when I had the opportunity to take on another week of night shifts I immediately agreed. In this time I developed a kind of plan. I was eager to find out if Frank's statement was true. At first I tried to track when he was going to conferences or work meetings. Not all of them, but several of them took him to England and Scotland. I can't prove it, but I had the impression that his travels became more frequent at times when 'the Scottish theme' was boiling up. Later, after 2015, and particularly after the brexite, his travels intensified.”          To Jamie's surprise, Claire reached into her handbag, which she had hung on the back of her chair, and pulled out a piece of paper she handed over to Ferdinand Groide.

"Tea" by Pexels          "This is a list of all the trips my husband has taken since 2013. supposedly for reasons of his work as a historian."          Groide skimmed the list, then put it aside.          "Thank you very much. We will try to verify the data."          "In the weeks that followed, I voluntarily took several weeks of night duty. Because there was another advantage to this. I was at home while my husband was at university and could look through his records almost undisturbed."        

         "Will you share the knowledge you have gained from this?"          "Yes. But perhaps we could have some tea?" Claire replied as she looked at Jamie.          "Certainly."          He got up and left the room. Ferdinand Groide pressed the 'stop' button on the recorder. Then he got up and stretched a bit. Claire did the same.

[alleiradayne]

LONG JACKET A DESTIEL-ISH SERIES

Over the last few years, I’ve seen some of the craziest shit hunting with the Winchesters and their angel, Castiel. But this story right here? This isn’t about monsters. This isn’t about the battle between good and evil, heaven and hell. I understand all that.

It’s people I don’t get. People are crazy. And we do crazy things when we’re in love.

PART VI - PLAID

Summary: The showdown. Warnings/Tags: Again, awkward flirting, mentions of rape, violence, sexual innuendo, blood, small description of sexual assault. Characters/Pairings: Castiel, Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester/Female!Reader Word Count: 6,875 (whoops)

Darkness encroached on the parking lot’s dim lamplight, the vast, endless nothing oppressive, suffocating. As we stood behind the Impala, that great void loomed, and yet, a tenuous sense of resolution settled in the pit of my stomach. Stuffed to the gills, Sam’s duffel bag—endearingly coined the Bag of Ouch—thumped into the open trunk.

“Isn’t that… a little overkill?”

“It would be if we’d ever actually fought a succubus before,” Sam said with a resigned sigh.

“You know,” I started as I squinted up at him. “Sometimes, I wonder what is wrong with you.”

He pointed to his head. “Don’t worry. I know there are too many screws loose. I didn’t mean to scare you. I don’t want you going into this with any illusions of grandeur. We have no clue what we’re doing when it comes to these bastards. Books, hunter’s notes, the internet. Sure. But that’s why the bag is stuffed beyond full.”

When I looked from him to the bag and back, he shut the trunk. “So, we just have to try something and hope?”

“Essentially, yes. My bet is on decapitation,” he said. “No matter how fast you heal, you really can’t recover from that.”

“Bronze stake through the heart, Y/N,” Dean interrupted. “You know, if you don’t get a clear shot at…” he motioned to his throat with an execution gesture. “Plus, bronze doubles down on ancient metals. They’re not close enough to vampires or werewolves for silver to work. It’s—”

Castiel exited the motel then, and Dean’s teeth clicked shut mid-thought. Angular shadows played tricks on my eyes until Castiel stepped into the light, and I gasped. Blue, white, and gray plaid enveloped his shoulders, paired perfectly with his black jeans, black t-shirt, and Dean’s ill-fitting boots.

Beside me, Dean turned around, and his brow furrowed. “Is that—”

“No, this I bought myself,” Castiel explained. “I like blue. I think.”

Even in the near darkness, Dean’s cheeks reddened noticeably. “You should. Looks good on you.”

I imagined that, if angels could blush, Castiel would have. “Thank you.”

“Get a room.”

The back of my hand met Sam’s stomach as I scolded him. “Sh! Leave them alone.”

Dean’s eyes rolled so hard he gave Sam a run for his money. “What is it with you two? The man looks good in blue, and he should know that. Nothing even remotely suggestive.” He continued grumbling to himself as he rounded for the driver’s side of the Impala.

“Maybe that was too far,” I suggested as I glared at Sam.

He merely laughed as he turned for the car. “I disagree entirely, but I’ll back off. At least, until after this hunt.”

I turned to follow him, but then realized Castiel stood by himself. “You coming?”

Hand to his chest, he smoothed the plaid as he tugged it straight. “Do you agree?”

“With?” I asked.

“Dean. About blue plaid.”

Stuttered words stumbled from my mouth. Had he not seen the way Dean stared? Blushed? A brisk shake of my head cleared my thoughts. “First off, I think you should wear whatever makes you happy and comfortable. If that’s plaid, great. If not, that’s fine, too. Second, you can only control yourself. That’s something you probably already knew, but for some reason, humans take way too long to learn that. And third, blue looks great on you.”

He smiled then and followed me to the car. “This is much more difficult than I had anticipated.”

A bark of laughter burst from my chest. Before responding, I reached the rear passenger door and popped the handle. “Do you want my advice?”

“I abide by your expert wisdom, Y/N,” Castiel replied.

I clapped him on the shoulder and said, “Talk to him.”

Behind schedule, I allowed Castiel no time to respond and sidled into the backseat of the Impala. Once Castiel seated himself, Dean backed out of the lot, and the Impala roared to life as he laid into the accelerator, heading towards the grocer.

“I hate this plan.”

Sam situated the bronze stake up the right sleeve of my newly acquired leather jacket. Dissatisfied and yet resigned to the situation, he moved on to the machete holster concealed beneath the jacket. “I really hate this plan.”

“Do you keep saying that to make me feel better or to convince me to bail?” I asked as I shot a nervous glance down the hill. There, sandwiched between the grocery store and a craft store, sat Madam Drina’s Visions, an eerie purple glow emitting from the partially curtained windows.

Sam grunted under his breath. “I think it makes me feel better,” he replied as he shifted the machete on my back. “Practice reaching for the handle. It’s a very weird holster. I hate wearing it.”

In one smooth motion, I reached behind my hip, grasped the handle, and pulled. The blade freed from the scabbard in a sharp ring of steel that sang between the stone buildings surrounding us. “Okay, I’ve never done that before. That was really fucking cool.”

“It sure as hell looked cool,” Sam laughed, “And it makes me feel better. Now, we’ll be right outside, so you give us the signal if you get the slightest hint shit’s going sideways. Please do not hesitate to call.”

I lowered the machete back behind my hip to re-sheath it. A solid clunk thudded through my chest as the hilt met the scabbard, the blade concealed once more. “Looks like I won’t be going in anytime soon.”

Down the hill, no more than a quarter-mile, the distant ring of Madam Drina’s door chimed through the silent night air. That sound caught Sam’s attention, and he turned to the source where we both watched a woman lean into the darkness of night from her shop’s door. She greeted a patron as he approached, and without delay, invited him inside.

Sam turned back to me and said, “We’ll give it an hour. If he doesn’t leave by midnight, we’ll send you in then.”

Before I could say anything else, Dean burst from the car and stomped to the trunk where he planted himself on the bumper. His folded arms and crossed ankles warned me enough, but my boldness won the battle against caution.

“Hey,” I started as I neared the trunk. “You okay?”

Sam slid into the Impala’s seat, and Dean waited for the door to shut before he responded. “No. I’m not.”

Okay, I hadn’t expected that at all. “Alright, that’s refreshing. Keep going. What’s got your goat?”

He scoffed half a laugh at that, opened his mouth to speak, then shut it and shook his head. Though he remained tightly wound, his arms eventually unfolded, and he reached for the hem of his shirt. There he found a familiar threadbare corner, and he continued to worry at it as he had so many times before.

“You ever…”

Silence. Only the chirping of real, honest-to-god crickets broke the still night air. A thousand-mile stare settled in Dean’s gaze, and though the darkness shrouded us both, a familiar conflict roiled beneath the surface of his outward façade.

“Do I ever… what?” I asked. “Catch myself thinking about someone for hours on end? Imagining the things I would say to them under different circumstances? Wondering how they would feel or what they would say in return?”

His eyes snapped to me, glaring from the corner while his head remained still. Another shiver ran up my spine, but the sensation vanished as soon as it had come. Dean looked back up the road, staring straight ahead. The start of a few sentences stuttered on his lips, his tongue. Each time he swallowed his words, he remained silent longer. Until he finally said, “Yes.”

“Which one?”

He plucked a stray string from the hem of his shirt and tossed it out before him. A gentle breeze caught the tuft of frayed cotton and carried it off to the sidewalk where it landed and stilled. Dean, too, sat still as stone for what felt like hours, staring straight ahead at nothing. But the gears churned between his ears, so loud I swore I could hear him thinking. All too familiar, I knew the imaginary situations that played out in his mind, scenario after scenario. Endless torture, that. No good in ruminating, in worrying what response you might get. I wanted to tell him all those things, but how much of a hypocrite would that make me? 

I wavered on the precipice of futility, that precarious knife’s edge where on one side, an infinite future spread as far as the eye could see and on the other stretched complete and utter nothingness. And yet, the longer I balanced on that deadly razor, my untimely end neared. Dean’s predicament had drawn out the worst of my subconscious. As I turned to regard Sam through the car, I swore a solemn oath, if only to myself, that I’d finally come clean. 

I stood then to do what I should have done months ago, but the moment my boots touched the concrete, the bell above Madam Drina’s door twinkled again, and Dean startled. He grabbed my shoulder and turned me to face him as he spoke, an insistent furrow to his brow.

“All of them,” he stated.

So lost in my head, I asked, “All of what?”

“What you said earlier,” he replied. “I’m constantly thinking about him, and I don’t know why. Besides you and Sam, Cas is my best friend, and I… I don’t know what to do.”

When I opened my mouth to reply, Sam exited the driver’s door, and Castiel followed not a beat later from the passenger’s side. I turned back to Dean and lowered my voice. “Just tell him.”

“What?!” he snarled under his breath.

“I’m serious,” I insisted in a thin hiss. “Tell him everything!”

When Sam rounded the end of the car, all rational thought fled. I’d made a promise to myself. And, in a way, to Dean, too. No way I’d go down as some plaster saint spouting hollow words in my final hours. Go big or go home.

Sam caught me. Barely, but that hardly mattered. When I had jumped, I knew I had leaped in faith, not in Sam’s ability to catch me—although I knew his arms were more than capable—but in his equal, mutual, maddening adoration for me. Like the heat of a summer’s noonday sun, his embrace smothered me. I soared too close to that roaring heat, and my plaster wings melted as I planted my lips on his.

Don’t let anyone ever tell you I can’t take my own advice.

“I am sorry, Dean.”

Castiel’s gruff apology ruined the moment. Almost. Sam squeezed me so tight to his chest and returned my kiss twofold despite our lack of privacy. But my eagerness to witness Dean and Castiel’s truth rivaled my endless exultation. I parted from Sam but remained in his arms as I looked over my shoulder.

Dean’s crooked eyebrow lowered as he turned from Sam and I to Castiel. “I know. But thanks,” he said as he clapped him on the shoulder. “Are you two finished?” He turned back to Sam and I. “Can we go kill this son of a bitch succubus and get the fuck out of here?”

Forgotten. For one glorious, blissfully unaware moment, I’d forgotten that a creature as vile as a succubus could exist.

The four of us looked down the hill towards the shop where Madam Drina waved goodbye to her patron as he walked down the block to the east. “That looks like our window,” Dean stated.

Two worlds collided with that simple phrase. The reality I had dreaded all day loomed like the specter of an urban legend. A sudden hyper-awareness seeped into my skin, my bones, my soul. Every hair on the back of my neck stood on end, and gooseflesh spread across my arms. The ceaseless ticks of my watch counted the last beats of my heart as though finite, and I knew too few remained. Like so many grains of sand, time slipped through my fingers no matter how I clung to them.

Still in his arms, I looked up to Sam, but he said nothing. Those three little words balanced on the tip of my tongue. But as my lips parted, Sam stopped me.

“I know. Me, too.”

That would have to do.

A dreaded chill replaced Sam’s embrace as I headed down the street to Madam Drina’s Visions.

“Hello?”

I’d expected Madam Drina to meet me at the door as she had her previous client. When a few minutes passed with no sign of her, I grasped the handle and swung the door wide. As I spoke, her doorbell’s chime faded, then struck again as the door closed behind me.

Incense suffocated the cramped space. Thick strands of smoke rolled like massive coils of so many snakes, crawling and gliding ever so slowly through the room in an endless drift. Gaudy furniture pressed in from all sides like banks of a river to guide souls to the room’s center. There sat an intimate, circular plinth covered by several ornate silk scarves, and on its center rested a large crystal ball.

Overhead, similar swaths of silk stretched from the corners to the center of the room directly above the plinth. From the center of the ceiling, numerous large crystals hung from delicate silvery chains. Despite the swirling smoke, those crystals remained poised, still as stone. Azure and amethyst and amaranth lights illuminated the walls from floor to ceiling, reflected in glittering crystals and the sizeable transparent ball on the plinth, completing Madam Drina’s incredible soothsaying display.

“Hello?”

Not even a hint of an echo. Slow steps bore me downriver, and I called out once more. “Madam Drina?”

I had done my best to prepare my senses, steel my nerves, and harden my resolve. Few women rivaled Madam Drina’s beauty. But when she entered the room through a thick layer of silk scarves across the room, death breathed its icy breath down my spine, and I shivered from head to toe.

Pale as the moon, Madam Drina glowed in the lamplight. Dark curls of midnight hair hung from her headwrap, and large almond eyes widened when she spotted me. A petite nose ended in a delicate slope upwards, and beneath it stretched plump lips painted so very red to reveal a brilliant smile. She opened her arms, dark linens billowing from her wrists and elbows, and showed a tightly bound dress of sanguine silk, satin, and chiffon. Around her neck wrapped a woven leather choker, and at its center sat a ruby the size of my thumbnail. From that ruby, three delicate leather straps of varying lengths and bearing tiny red stone droplets plunged to her deep neckline and settled just above her admittedly impressive cleavage.

I could hardly take my eyes off her. And not just out of fear for my safety.

“Good evening, my dear,” she cooed, her voice velvety smooth and throaty with a hint of her breath. “I apologize for my tardiness. I had to... powder my nose.”

The first wave of her power rolled through my chest, and the room shimmered in a blurry rush, but the sickening sensation passed in a single breath. When my focus returned, I found Madam Drina glaring daggers at me. But in a blink, her anger disappeared, and she motioned to the table.

“Please, sit. What would you like to know?” She crossed the space and sat in a plush, overstuffed chair on the plinth’s opposite side. The layers of her dress parted as she spread her knees to either side of the pillar and slid her chair closer. “Come, dear. Tell me what you see here,” she beckoned as she pointed at the crystal ball with a black, claw-like fingernail. “I can tell you what it means.” 

A nervous twitch of my hand checked the machete behind my hip. The cold bronze stake up my sleeve needed no such confirmation. As casually and confidently as I could, I strode to the empty chair and sat across from Madam Drina.

The second rush of power caressed my thighs, gentle as a lover’s touch. A heady aroma of oakmoss and elderberry flooded my nose, and once more, death breathed her icy chill down my neck. But again, the moment passed almost as if it had never happened. Disappointment twitched across Madam Drina’s intense gaze, her pale blue eyes flashing in frustration. And just as she had before, that display of emotion vanished, her calm countenance returned.

“You,” she drawled, “are better suited for cards.” A snap of her fingers vanished the crystal ball, clearing the plinth between us. I startled to feign surprise at such blatant use of magic, but I worried she saw through my ruse.

“Place your hand on the table,” she said as she smoothed the fabric. “Right here, my dear.”

Call it prescience, call it a sixth sense, hell, call it a woman’s intuition if that helps. Whatever it was, every fiber of my existence railed against the habit to lay my right hand on the table, and instead, I placed my left in the center with all the confidence I mustered.

Her long nails slipped beneath my palm and lifted my hand from the table. A scant inch from her nose, she examined my skin, fingers, and nails until she turned it over to scrutinize my palm. “Beautiful,” she purred, “so healthy. And strong.”

“You can tell that just by looking at my hand?” I asked.

The corners of her lips twitched, and she traced tantalizing trails along the lines of my palm with the pointed nail of her index finger. “That and much, much more.” She paused, her pale stare locked on mine. “But that is for another night. Cards. The cards will have the most insight for you tonight.”

Fight or flight. An opening squandered surely sealed my fate. Lost in thought, I noticed too late the creep of magic crawling along my arm, and when Madam Drina returned my hand to the covered plinth, death sang her siren’s call to me for the third time. That frigid touch of magic bound my hand to the table, frozen solid as a block of ice. A roiling surge in my stomach threatened to empty it there on the table, instinctual, primal. My final lucid moment chose flight.

As Madam Drina withdrew a deck of tarot cards from her waist wrap, I took my chance. Below the plinth, I slipped my right hand beneath the hem of my coat for my hip. There, the two-way radio’s textured button brushed beneath my fingers as I fumbled for my lifeline. But before I could press the button, Madam Drina held the deck out to me and spoke.

“Cut.”

As though a spun valve had released the pressure on my left hand, sensation returned to my fingers. I reached for the deck and stared Madam Drina directly in the eye. A rookie mistake, one I regretted immediately. Her piercing blue stare bored a hole straight into my soul, and my secrets laid bare. She knew. She saw straight through me, read me like an open book. Most of all, she knew that danger had found her that night. Too risky. I backed down from my radio and returned my right hand to my knee. With the left, I grabbed a large portion of the deck from her hand.

“Bold,” she commented as she placed the cards in her hand atop the cut. “But unsurprising.” The warmth of her touch covered mine on the table, only to seize in a flow of icy magic, chained once more. “I knew you would be an interesting read the moment I saw you.”

With ease, she moved my hand to the edge of the plinth. I tested my invisible restraint to no avail; that magical bond held fast. “Now,” she started, “I want you to think deeply about your being and how it has manifested itself thus far in the universe. Take your time. Connect with yourself. This may feel very new and even uncomfortable.”

To maintain pretenses, I did as she instructed. My gaze fell to the deck of cards where I drifted, unseeing. The room faded into an endless nothing, but within seconds, distant shapes formed in swirling clouds of dark smoke. As I neared them, they focused, solidified, and settled into my best friends. Castiel stood off to the side, his forlorn gaze staring across the nothingness at Dean, who stood beside Sam. And Sam’s appearance faded, opaque and wispy, where tendrils of smoke leached from him. Soon, he disappeared, and, though strange, I understood. I knew, without question, the meaning of that vision.

When Dean and Castiel remained, Dean gazed into the middle distance, and Castiel continued to stare at him.

“Ask your question.”

Madam Drina’s voice interrupted my thought, and in a wild, sliding rush, the room returned to focus around me. Her touch at my left hand, with her nimble fingers drawing delicate circles, elicited a well of sensations that itched beneath the surface, eager for release. But that ache was not alone. Death stalked in the shadows.

“You know what it is you seek, darling. Ask. Ask the universe your question, and the cards will tell you all you need to know.”

I heard myself speak before the thought had even formed in my mind. “How can I help my friend understand the truth?”

Madam Drina breathed in so deep, her chest swelled, and her eyes rolled back as they closed. “Ah, it is a man, no? A man you wish to… know the truth?”

“Yes,” I stated. “He deserves to know.”

“They all do,” she agreed as her gaze drifted to her hand atop mine. “They all should know the truth of a woman’s touch.”

Wait. What? “No, that’s… not—”

“Hush, dear,” she interrupted. “You have asked, and the cosmos will respond.” She lifted the first card from the top of the deck and turned it over. “Oh, how fascinating. You are not one to disappoint!”

A man hung from a tree by his ankle but rose above it against gravity. “The Hanged Man, inverted,” she said. “You are learning a new perspective on love. This man of whom you speak should know this, yes.”

But I knew The Hanged Man had many more meanings. Despite my question, I worried it related more to the situation at hand. I dodged sacrifice every second I lingered in Madam Drina’s presence.

She flipped the second card and hummed a knowing song. “The Seven of Pentacles, upright. You have long put work into this friendship. That is how you weather this storm. It will pay off with romance.”

The urge to contradict her nearly overcame my sensibility. Hard work, perseverance, and patience would see me through my encounter with such an abhorrent creature.

The third card flipped over, and Madam Drina hummed again as if she expected the result. “The Eight of Cups, inverted. You are learning the lessons of fear, sweetheart. Loneliness and loss are hard lessons, undoubtedly.”

Until that moment, I had held absolutely no faith in the power, ability, or knowing of tarot cards. But as I stared down that inverted Eight of Cups, my once unwavering disregard for tarot faltered. I feared not loneliness, but indecision. Inaction. Stagnation. I had to choose a path and commit to it before stalling at the crossroads got me killed.

Madam Drina grasped my left hand in hers and said, “You will see this through to your end, my dear. I know it.” She flipped over the fourth card and beamed with such pride I wondered if I had imagined her sense of danger earlier. “Strength, inverted!” she cried, almost a moan. “You shed your low self-esteem and insecurities, and are born again confident in love!”

No. What I relinquished in her presence was not insecurity, but fear. I stared Madam Drina dead in the eye again. I forced myself to meet her enraptured gaze of pure, unadulterated lust head-on and without fear any longer.

The fifth and final card flipped over with a snap of the cardstock. And that time, she cried out such a lascivious moan, I desperately wished to be anywhere else but in that room with her. “The Queen of Wands, upright,” she sighed. “You move forward with independence, confidence, and openness with your lover!”

In a brilliant flare of icy sorcery, Madam Drina lunged over the plinth and grasped me by the jaw. “You radiate power, sweetling. Do you not feel it?!” she breathed, oakmoss and elderberry filling my nose once more. “You should. You should experience the pleasures of such power. I can give that to you if you want. I can give you everything.”

Courage. The Queen of Wands symbolizes courage and individualism. To survive the encounter, I needed to believe in myself. Weak knees shook as I stood, the last of my willpower draining like water through a sieve. Madam Drina poured every ounce of her power into me, an unrelenting tidal wave. I wanted nothing more than to give in, surrender to her promises, and experience the culmination of that euphoria. And yet, the tiniest of voices, so thin and frail in the recess of my subconscious, forced its way to the fore of my mind and spoke of courage. Of righteous anger. Of life. Of love.

As Madam Drina pressed closer, her visage wavered, the mirage fading away to reveal her true form. Pale, purple skin stretched thin across her angular face, and endless black depths replaced the blue sapphires into which I stared. Long, curved horns smooth as obsidian protruded from her hairline where the skin crackled like broken earth to reveal tiny streams of violent purple energy flowing through her body.

“You will submit,” she ordered, “I own you now.”

Blood rushed past my ears with each furious beat of my heart, drowning out her words. The succubus continued to speak, continued to pour her delusions into my head. But I heard nothing, saw nothing. The last of my strength focused laser-like on the machete, and I reached behind my hip for the handle.

In a ring of metal and a flash of steel, I stripped the machete from its scabbard. The blade arched in a wild bid for her neck, and time stretched far too thin. Each second dragged, and the blade slid slowly, achingly, to its mark. Strike true, I begged. My life depended on it. God, please, let me strike true.

A sharp, earsplitting crack of thunder rang from the blade as it connected with the succubus’ long claws, her fingers against her neck blocking the machete. She smiled then, her long snakelike tongue darting out to lick her lips as she tore the weapon from my hand and tossed it to the floor beside her. “You will be such a pleasure to break.”

The bronze stake slipped from the sleeve of my jacket with a twitch of my wrist. Time raced to catch up, snapping back like a rubber band. I shoved the finely honed point to her chest, my entire body torqueing for all my strength, but in the final inch, the succubus screamed so loud, I collapsed to my knees. She flung me aside, and the stake flew from my hand to roll beneath a thick chest of drawers.  I tumbled with it, crashing into the dense oak, and pain lanced like lightning through my entire body. 

She screamed again, another furious screech that echoed impossibly through the shop. Windows rattled in their panes, and my hands snapped to my ears. The succubus stood then, and for the first time, I consumed her entire form. Heeled feet and slender ankles begged the eye up to the perfect curves of her sensuous hips that swayed as she strode to me and straddled my prone body. From the shiny golden gorget at her neck, delicate chains stretched along her pale skin, down her massive breasts, and capped small metal disks over her nipples. More delicate chains crossed along her soft stomach and wide hips, barely covering her sex with a flimsy gauze cloth that draped to the floor. Over her shoulder curled a wicked, seven-foot-long tail protruding from her spine at the top of her long, supple ass.

Lust, incarnate.

“You are inquisitive,” she purred. “I know what you are thinking. I know what they all think when they see my true form for the first time. You wonder.” She leaned over and reached for my throat. Adrenaline surged as I attempted to fight her off, but she pinned me to the floor with no effort at all. “You imagine. You fantasize,” she whispered into my ear. “I can give it all to you, and so much more.”

Her long, lithe fingers wrapped around my throat and gently squeezed. “This,” she started, “is what you crave. What you’ve wanted for years. To know endless pleasure by my hands of mastery. Agree, and I will give it to you. Fight, like you continue to do as you squirm your lithe little body beneath mine, and I will take it from you anyway.”

Darkness pressed in from all sides as my vision narrowed. Her grasp pressed ever so perfectly, and within seconds, I succumbed to the ceaseless nothing.

A thin shattering of glass and a sharp, shrill cry echoed through the emptiness like a distant memory. Light returned, and the room focused as I shook my head, but nowhere near fast enough. The succubus snatched me up from the floor like a child clutching a favored doll. Tiny diamonds of glass tumbled from my hair, my coat, and when she turned me about, I saw Sam and Castiel standing at the front of the shop, guns loaded for bare.

“Hand her over!” Sam barked. “Now!”

“Or what?” the succubus seethed. “You’ll shoot me? You’ll have to shoot her fir—”

“They might.” The thunk of the rifle at the back of the succubus’ head snapped my attention behind her. There, Dean glared at the end of his short barrel and said, “But I won’t.”

Another blinding flash of power roared through the room as everything happened at once. The succubus flung me from her arms, and I soared across the room to crash into Sam. We toppled together to the floor, and not a beat behind me, Dean and his shotgun followed. He rolled as he landed, but barreled into Castiel, who only just caught him.

An infuriating lilt of her humming pleasure caught us all off guard. “You brought men to defend you?” She howled with haunting laughter. “Maybe you are not so bright after all,” she simpered with a wave of her hand.

On pins and needles, I could only watch as Sam, Dean, and even Castiel reached for their heads, and Sam squeezed his eyes shut. But just as I had resisted her magic, so did they. A few shakes of their heads and a breath later, Dean picked up his shotgun, Castiel aimed with his once more, and Sam helped me to my feet. As I stepped back, my heel kicked something hard, larger than the shards of glass strewn about the shop’s entry, but I dared not look down as the succubus advanced on us.

“Oh,” she mused as she took her sensuous rolling steps. “Your friends are strong, too. Stronger than you? Will I break all four of you? Together?”

“Back off, bitch.”

The crack of Dean’s shotgun exploded in the tiny shop, and my ears rang for several seconds before I heard more pealing laughter from the succubus. Rock salt lay scattered on the ground a foot before her as though it had hit an impenetrable wall. “You think you can just shoot me, Dean Winchester?”

Dean balked then, appearing shocked to hear his own name. “No. You don’t know me. Don’t even pretend like you do.”

“Oh, but I do,” she said as she stepped once more. In that second, her skin shimmered and shifted until it transformed into a dark suit, blue tie, and tan trench coat. “I know everything about you.”

Her eyes turned brilliant emerald green as they snapped to Castiel. “And you. The disgraced angel, Castiel, who once tempted the fate of the entire world by becoming God. The things I would love to do to—”

“Shut it,” Sam hissed as he raised his shotgun.

The succubus looked at the rock salt at her feet, then back to Sam. “What makes you think your gun will work after his didn’t?”

“I’m not packin’ rock salt, honey,” he stated. “Now back up.”

“My dear Sam, do not make me…” her voice clipped short as she hesitated, then her coat and suit shifted to match my own outfit. She turned to me, and her clothing twisted into Sam’s burnt orange jacket. “Well, aren’t I a lucky girl?” Her clothing vanished in a shiver befitting a burlesque dancer. “Four pining souls all desperate for pleasure. You’ve come to the right place. I think I’ll start with you.”

When the succubus pointed, Dean choked as though on cue. His shotgun dropped from his hands and clattered to the floor, and though it was within reach, I dared not move. Sam and Castiel raised their rifles to shoot, but a flippant wave of her free hand sent them flying into the opposite wall of the shop. They crashed into the ornate furniture in a hail of wood and metal, then collapsed beneath the rubble. Where Sam had slumped motionless, Castiel remained conscious, but he struggled to do even that.

“Cas, you hold on!” Dean choked. “Y/N, help him!”

With a subtle shift in her pointing hand, Dean rose to the tips of his boots, barely touching the floor. I alone remained standing, but mine was no longer the only life on the line. Once more, I stood at the crossroads and had to commit to a path.

I dropped to the floor for the rifle, and no sooner than my hands graced the stock, it sailed across the room. “Dean goes first,” the succubus declared. “Then once I’m through with him, I’ll break Sam. And then you.” She turned back to Dean. “While your big, dumb men watch.”

“Don’t you touch them!” Dean choked as he clawed at his neck. The tips of his boots scraped the floor where the succubus dangled him. “I’ll fucking kill you if you lay a single finger on any of them!” 

One heeled foot stepped in front of the other as the succubus closed the space between her and Dean. “Your brother was supposed to be my king. Did you know that?” she breathed. “You could be my king, and I’ll serve you however you see fit. I’ll leave her alone. I’ll leave Sam alone. I’ll even leave dear, sweet Castiel alone.”

She looked to Castiel, who stumbled through the rubble to rouse Sam’s motionless body. “Look at him. Bumbling fool,” she hissed. “What do you see in him that you don’t see in me? I can give you so much more.”

Dean tried to choke out another retort, but her invisible grip at his throat tightened. When she reached him, she pressed her entire body against his, and a virulent wave of power roared to life around them, crackling like fire but dark as night. A violently lewd shiver coursed through her, running from shoulder to tail as she moaned, and Dean’s face turned a putrid shade of green I had never seen on a human before. “Aw, you don’t like being choked? Poor thing. You’re missing out. I can teach you to love it.” Her long forked tongue teased at Dean’s jaw, and she moaned again as he jerked his head away from her violently.

In one infinitesimal second, horrors unlike any I had experienced before flashed before my mind’s eye. In the next breath, those terrible visions faded in a haze of red, insatiable bloodlust. No coherent thought penetrated that curtain of rage, that raw, unbridled fury, and I committed for the third and final time that night.

Fast as lightning, I lunged. My machete lay where I had unknowingly kicked it not minutes earlier. In an odd twist of fate, it had come to rest in a place so perfect. I could not have picked it ahead of time, given a chance. In a move that put Neo to shame, I rolled through the wild dive for the machete and sprang to my feet, armed. Distracted so by her prey, the succubus turned too late to defend herself. And I wasn’t about to let her get the last word before I snuffed out the wick that was her pathetic existence.

“Choke on this, you sick son of a bitch.”

Steal sang through the air, harmony to the melody of my frenzied scream, and sliced through her skin, sinew, and bone like a hot knife through butter. A fine black mist of demon blood billowed from the strike, covering my face. As the succubus’s decapitated head and body dropped to the floor in a resounding thud, a thin arc of demon blood lanced across Dean’s chest, and he vomited.

He continued to wretch until Castiel rushed from the heap of broken furniture and wrapped one arm around Dean’s back as the other cupped his forehead. Dean gasped, plunged so suddenly beneath the icy waves of healing. But as quickly as Dean’s nausea had come on, it passed in the wake of Castiel’s touch, and he stood tall once more. When Dean nodded in reassurance, Castiel headed back for Sam as he stirred to life in the rubble.

Black runnels of thick blood ran in rivulets down the blade of my machete. White knuckles yet clutched the hilt, and a moment passed before reality, dancing at the edges of my consciousness, sank in. Those were my knuckles, stiff and shaking under straining muscles. A freak spasm snapped my fingers apart, and the blade thumped to the floor.

“Hey,” Dean started as he neared me. “Keep it together, Y/N. You did what you had to do. Look at me. Focus on me.”

Lingering bouts of rage trickled through my blood and rendered my mind near useless. Dean’s lips moved, but I hardly heard a sound, his voice muted. That suffocating rage dragged me down like a treacherous undertow. I did my best to read his lips. Did what you had to. Look. Focus. He pointed two fingers at me, at my eyes, then at himself.

I only noticed Castiel had returned with Sam in tow after Dean had turned to ensure they were alright. A short, muted conversation passed between them, but when Sam spotted me, he closed the remaining space between us and asked, “Do you want to leave?”

The silence shattered, and I heard his voice clear as a bell. But with that clarity came understanding. My stare had unwittingly fallen on the lifeless body, once virile and full of limitless power, sprawled on the floor, her head a few feet away. Even in death, the overt lust of the succubus imposed, branding my mind with an indelible memory I begged to forget.

And then she was gone, blocked by Sam’s broad shoulders and towering frame. “Cas and Dean can handle the body,” he said as he reached for me. I recoiled, an unbidden reaction that surprised even myself. A pained frown I never wished to see again knotted Sam’s brow. “I’m sorry, Y/N. I’m sorry you went through this alone. It was a terrible plan—”

He choked on his words as I lunged into his arms again, and he remained quiet as he held me. In that moment of silence, I wanted nothing more than to scream, to take out every ounce of my furious hatred for that abomination on her corpse. But the longer I breathed in Sam’s embrace—free of any oakmoss or elderberry, thank Christ—that righteous rage subsided.

“Jesus. No wonder men just fall into their laps,” Dean commented.

I looked past Sam to find Dean and Castiel looming over the body of the succubus.

“I never understood why God created humans to be so…” Castiel paused as he neared the head. “So…”

“Simple?” Dean asked. “So easily fooled? So… basic?”

Castiel nodded. “Yes.”

Dean managed a chuckle at that. “I wish I knew, too.” He paused as he stared at her for one lingering moment. “I hate everything about this. Let’s torch the body outside of town and get the hell out of here.” He tossed a heavy burlap bag at Castiel.

“Why do you hate them so much?” Castiel asked as he caught the bag.

“Because,” Dean grunted, “it’s not fun if it’s not consensual. And if there’s one thing a succubus gets off on most, it’s an extreme lack of consent. And that is fucking gross.”

As Sam led me to the shop’s front door, I glimpsed the tiniest reassured smile on Castiel’s face. And then I understood.

The tarot cards had been right all along.

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