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When Castiel left her body, he took everything else too. It was like his spirit took a melon baller to Claire’s soul, twisted around and scooped out a vital chunk of who she was, leaving nothing but empty space. A hollowness. She still dreamed about it sometimes, those precious few minutes where she and Castiel were one. There was no weight on her shoulders, no heaviness in her chest. Let go, he had whispered gently to her as her yes rang in both their ears, as the tingling of angelic grace coursed through her veins. I’ll take care of it, Claire. Just let go.
Claire pulled aside the neck of her shirt and looked at it. Her souvenir. Her little piece of Castiel he’d left behind like that could ever make up for what he’d taken. It was small, faint, and silvery; it glinted in the right light. The shape of an angelic eye branded forever over her collarbone, spreading into the divet of her shoulder and down over the top of her breast. She’d tried to cover it with makeup, even the fancy special effects kind that cost more than she could afford to spend on something purely cosmetic, but nothing. The mark of a used vessel shone through anyway.
Sometimes she felt like that, staring in the mirror and seeing that hollowness in her eyes. Like a used beer bottle. Like Castiel came and took everything that was good inside her and used it up and left her to roll into a storm drain and shatter.
She felt that shatter coming on. She was keeping it together, but any day now, it would all fall apart and she would break. And there was no point in trying to fix something already used up.
Claire flopped onto her creaky mattress without even taking her non-slip shoes off, tired to the bone. She had a day job waiting tables - hours upon hours of difficult, thankless work, keeping her on her feet, rushing back and forth, barely eating, barely sleeping - and it still wasn’t enough. She worked herself down to the bone carrying steaming plates and taking down orders. It didn’t help, nothing helped. Nothing ever stopped that empty, ransacked feeling in her gut. The only thing that made her feel even a little bit human, even just for a few minutes…
Her phone dinged. She groaned and dug it out of the pocket of her poorly-fitted Biggerson’s uniform pants.
William Wallace: Got a job. Should be an easy one.
Crowley.
She sighed, opened the notification and tapped back a response.
I’ve been at work all day.
Typing bubbles appeared almost immediately.
Have you? Poor sweet thing. The kind of work *you* need, though?
I don’t need it, she typed, but then quickly deleted it. They would both know she was lying, and desperation wasn’t a good look, especially not when she was on the King of Hell’s payroll. What do you want, Crowley?
It took him almost a full minute of dancing little dots to respond. A few bodies dropped on the corner of Oxford and Thyre. It’s barely an hour there, the way you drive. Most likely a shifter. Do us both a favor and silver the thing. I’ll even be a sweetheart and throw you a few coins for your trouble.
Claire bit her lip until the blood came. She was tired. Really tired. And her feet hurt. But Crowley reimbursed her for gas mileage and anything else she had to spend on the hunt, and with him “a few coins” could mean upwards of a couple hundred dollars. Crowley liked her. She was reliable, she didn’t get caught, and except for some snark, she accepted his authority. Why shouldn’t she? He gave orders; she followed them. And he rewarded her for it. Functionally, it was no different than her Biggerson’s job, except only one of them filled that constant deep, prowling ache within her, pushing her to fight, to defend…to hunt.
Fine, she texted back, hauling herself reluctantly upright. Her aching feet screamed in protest. Send me the address.
That’s a good lass. She could practically see his ugly little smile as he sat on his charcoal throne. Crowley reminded her of a pug, without the cute factor.
Her phone dinged again as she changed from her uniform into hunting clothes; jeans, T-shirt, leather jacket, sturdy boots. The address. She punched it into her phone’s GPS, slung her night bag over her shoulder, dug her silver knife out from underneath her lumpy pillow, and stepped back out into the night.
Her car was the one thing she owned that she even liked, save her weapons; it was a cherry red ‘93 Loyale she called Bessie. Bessie was old, a little rocky sometimes on potholes, but dependable. She’d carried Claire halfway across the country looking for peace until she’d finally landed here in Nebraska, and she didn’t know what she’d do when Bessie’s engine breathed its last.
She turned the key in the ignition and the car hummed to life. She took a deep breath and exhaled, breathing in pine air freshener and gunpowder. “All right, Bess,” she said, tapping the center of the wheel with her fist three times - for good luck. “Got a job to do. Let’s go ice some nasties.”
Crowley was right; the drive wasn’t long at all. With her driving, it was about forty-five minutes, and she could enjoy that. Crank up the music from her CD collection on Bessie’s old stereo, roll the driver’s side window down, and let her long blonde hair whip in her face, the wind stinging her eyes. She almost felt whole sometimes on those long night drives; like she could forget what had happened to her. What had been taken from her. Just her and Bessie and the road stretching out before her, unchanging and straight-set and dependable. Driving with Bess gave her a modicum of control that she craved so badly; just a tiny crumb she could still cling to.
The scene of the attacks was easy enough to find. Flashing blue-and-red police lights, caution tape, a bunch of suits standing around jotting down notes…that told her where the bodies dropped. It also told her that whoever dropped them was long gone.
She parked Bessie on the side of the street, grabbed her bag out of shotgun, and left her at the crime scene, weaving her way through the first empty alley she saw that wasn’t taped off. It was dark, solitary, and damp; she opened her silver knife in her hand and clenched her fist around it till her knuckles went white. Rainwater dripped from the gutters; in some dank corner something was rooting around through the garbage. She moved forward.
The streetlights and police cars gave her barely any light to go on; she relied on sound and sense rather than sight. That was okay. This was where she thrived. If there was one good thing she’d walked away with from her time with Castiel, it was the ability to show no fear in the darkness. Shadows could not cloak her, not entirely; even in the deepest blackness the silvery eye shone on.
Things that relied on skulking in the shadows couldn’t hide from her. And that was what made her such a damn good hunter.
She saw the silhouette before it saw her. But even though she made no attempt to hide her approach; there was nowhere good to seek cover and anyway, it would know she was here in a minute regardless, it didn’t turn, or flee, or even lunge for an attack. The figure simply stood there, watching. Waiting.
He towered over her easily, and his shoulders were nearly twice as broad as hers. She caught a glimpse of his face in the closest streetlight and almost gasped. Every curve of his face was sharp and angular; his eyes were a steely, hawkish grey. Slate-grey hair, perfectly coiffed without a strand out of place, tumbled down to his shoulders. He was wrought of iron and just as cold.
As the streetlight caught Claire and threw her into light, his face twitched ever-so-slightly. “You are a child.”
“I’ll be twenty-one in a month, asshole.” Claire bristled, immediately on the defensive. She’d stopped being a child at twelve years old when Castiel had flooded her senses, shown her everything, funneled the tsunami of a millennia of experience through her youthful eyes. If there was one thing she hated, it was the suggestion that she couldn’t take care of herself. She had no other choice. Hadn’t for a long time. “So, what? You’re the shifter?”
His brow furrowed deeper with confusion. “There is no shifter. What led you to believe…oh.” His eyes softened slightly. “You’re a hunter.”
“Yeah, and a lot of bodies just dropped about a quarter mile that way-” she gestured vaguely off in the direction of the police lights. “And someone had to do it. Was it you?”
“Yes.” He didn’t sound ashamed.
“Great.” Claire held up her knife. “Then we’re done talking.”
“No,” he said simply. “We aren’t.”
And just like that, she froze. Her feet refused to take a single step forwards. Her hand remained clenched around the knife, halfway into the attack position. Her mind rushed against his, ready to wrestle for control. It was like slamming headfirst into a brick wall. The mental presence of this man was solid, impenetrable, lined with years of experience and practice. Claire’s own conscience, bruised and licking its wounds, recoiled at once. She settled for glowering at him; at least her mouth could still move. “Let me go.”
“So you can try to kill me?” He shook his head. “You can see why I might hesitate.”
“If you’re going to kill me, do it,” Claire snarled. “Don’t play mind games with me, Palpatine.”
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Really? Cause you had no problem hurting those people.”
“I assure you, I had a problem with it.” He finally showed a hint of remorse. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Cain.”
Claire snorted. “Yeah, all right. Like ganked-your-little-bro-with-a-rock-Cain? And I’m Blake Lively.”
“The jawbone of an animal, actually.” Cain stared her down, pushing past her digs. “The very same.”
“That was, like, a million years ago. Shouldn’t you be dead?” Claire asked, struggling futilely against whatever was holding her glued to the ground.
“Such is the nature of my curse.” Cain held his gaze steady. “When God condemns one to roam the Earth forever, he tends to take that to the more literal extreme.”
“Huh. Go figure.” Claire glared back. “Well, congratulations, buddy. You look great for a mummy. Are we finished here?”
Cain’s eyes suddenly went wide. “You’re an angel vessel.”
“Oh, great. Someone did his research.” Claire rolled her eyes. “ Former angel vessel. Ol’ Feather-head flew the roost years ago. Damage was done, though. Would you like to go through some family photos, too, or can we get this over with?”
“You may be strong enough,” Cain said, cryptically. “What is your name?”
Claire tried to keep her mouth shut, but she couldn’t. Something about whatever Cain was using to freeze her was working on her in other ways too, loosening her tongue, making her forget how to lie. “Claire,” she said finally. “Claire Novak.”
“You’re brave, Claire.” He looked her up and down like a takeout menu he was considering ordering from. “Foolhardy, a bit, but brave. And strong. And your heart is good. Perhaps my first misjudgement was indeed that…misjudgement. You are beyond your years.”
“Yeah, thanks.” Claire would have stomped her foot with impatience if it wasn’t pinned to the asphalt. “Look, if I wanted to cry about my difficult childhood, I wouldn’t do it to some thousand-year-old creep lurking in an alleyway next to a murder scene. What do you want from me?”
“I didn’t want to kill those people,” Cain reiterated. “The Mark required it.”
“The Mark?” Claire raised an eyebrow, skeptically. “Look, if you’ve got some wannabe Death Eater shit-”
Cain jerked up his sleeve and showed off his forearm; there, branded near the crook of his elbow, was a single jagged mark; a scar in the rough shape of a jawbone. “The Mark of Cain.”
Her confusion must have shown on her face, because he carried on. “My cross to bear. My curse for striking down my brother. The Mark thirsts for blood. If it is not fed…”
He shook his head; visibly shuddered. “I carried it for thousands of years. I was in retirement. I put aside the First Blade, the weapon of the Mark, and swore off killing. But it has been too long…and I have lost too much.”
He opened his jacket and retrieved something; an ancient, cracked bone weapon. A jawbone, jagged teeth still fitted to the edge, crude leather wrapped around the hilt for a grip. “I am crumbling, Claire. I am no longer fit to bear the Mark. To protect the world from its power if it went uncontained.”
Claire swallowed hard. There was a lump sitting in her throat like a golf ball and her stomach sank with a cold feeling of sudden dread. “You’re telling me this…why?”
Cain gazed at her for a long moment. “You are strong, Claire. You hosted an angel. You were able to contain and wield angelic grace. That is perhaps the closest any human can come to preparing to carry the Mark. You are brave. You spend your nights in dark alleys risking your own life because something out there killed people and that bothers you. It bothers you enough that you get out there and do something about it. And underneath all of this…” he waved a hand in Claire’s general direction. “What I said was true. Your heart…is good. You could maybe carry this burden.”
“And if I can’t? If I go all Carrie at the prom with this thing?” Claire licked her lips; her mouth was suddenly dryer than a stone. “What if I can’t keep it in check?”
Cain stared at her solemnly. His face was as impassive as a sheet of rock. “Then we are all damned anyway.”
He tore his gaze away, and suddenly, she could move again. She shook the numb, frozen feeling out of her arms, then pulled her neckline down to show off the vessel’s mark. “Look, this ain’t my first rodeo. So if I’m going to do this…start talking.”
“It may be good for you. At least at first,” Cain admitted. “The Mark will be satisfied by your hunting, at least for the time being. You can satiate its bloodlust by killing monsters. You and the Mark and the First Blade will be one. You will live as long as the Mark lives. No one will be able to defeat you in combat. You will slaughter entire armies, should they rise against you.”
“So immortality?” Claire let go of her neckline, leaned back against the damp alley wall with a sigh. “This is so batshit insane, I hope you know that.”
“All too well,” Cain replied dryly. “The Mark itself is evil, Claire. But when you bear it…it is what you make it. It requires strength. Discipline. A careful balance. But under its influence…you could be the greatest hunter your world has ever known.”
Claire swallowed again, still trying to get that golf ball-lump down. Cain, as much as she hated to admit it, was one hell of a salesman. Crowley would be positively tickled pink to have an immortal, undefeatable monster killer on his staff, and if she could butter him up enough for a thicker paycheck, she could quit the diner entirely. Make hunting her job. Live off it, spend all day, every day driving with Bess and ridding the world of the evils that had brought Castiel down here in the first place. Get half a shot at filling that cavernous, gaping hole in her soul.
“Do it,” she said.
Cain took a slight step back. “Are you sure-”
“Do it,” Claire repeated. “Hurry. Come on, it’s late, and the cops are close. Give me the Mark.”
“Claire, I cannot emphasize how much this should not be taken lightly-”
“Do I look like I’m laughing?” Claire snapped. She rolled up her sleeve, offered up her forearm. “Beam me up, Scotty.”
“Very well.” Cain approached her, sleeve still hitched up to his elbow. “I have only one condition of my own. And it will be easy.”
Claire bit her lip. She’d imagined it and now she could practically taste it - a world where she had a shot at ever feeling whole again. “Name it.”
“Kill me.”
She blinked. “Why?”
“I have lived a hundred lifetimes. I have killed and killed and killed again. Everyone I have ever cared for has died, a hundred times over. I have had one sacred duty - to bear this Mark - and at long last, this too I have finally failed. I admit defeat. The ultimate, final defeat.” Cain gazed at her impassively. “I am very tired, Claire. I do not care what awaits my soul in Hell, as long as it is anything other than this earth. So take the Mark, and wield the Blade, and kill me. Finish this.”
Claire met his creepy, stony gaze. That exhaustion…that, at least, she could understand. She’d felt it nipping at her own heels sometimes, on the days she felt particularly hollow. “Deal.”
Cain grabbed her arm with iron-tight fingers - fingers that would leave bruises in the morning - and smashed her forearm against his. What came next was like having every drop of Castiel’s grace blasted into her veins once more, except times a thousand. It was lightning hot and freezing cold all at once; the power made every hair on her arms stand on end. The veins on her arms glowed like lava coursing through cracked stone. In that moment, she did not only feel whole, complete; she felt more. She had spilled beyond her bounds and over into infinity. She was not just in the universe, she was the universe. She was boundless, indescribable, uncontainable. She wondered, briefly, if this was what it was like to truly be an angel.
And then just as roughly as it had struck, it ebbed. But unlike the loss of Castiel’s grace, it didn’t leave her feeling raw, ravaged, clawed to shreds. It had faded, but the power was still there, humming in the background, ready to be tapped into whenever she called upon it. Even the gap in her soul felt just the tiniest bit shallower.
“Good?” Cain asked, softly. Almost paternally.
Claire nodded, almost smiled. So good. Amazing. Perfect. “I’m good,” she said instead, and for the first time in years, she meant it.
“Good.” He removed the jawbone from his jacket, held it out to her. The Mark lashed out at her at once, demanded that she take it. It missed the First Blade. Even the foot of space between them was too much, too empty. Mark, hand, Blade. That was what they wanted. One and the same, united through Claire. Channeling through her.
“Bear it well, Claire,” Cain said, and he pressed the hilt of the First Blade into Claire’s hand. The second her fingers closed around the bone, both Mark and Blade sang. They rejoiced through her, rushed through her blood and sent a wave of endorphins rushing to her brain.
This wasn’t angelhood. This was a hundred times better.
It wasn’t a fix. But it was a patch. And that would be good enough until she could get back to Bessie, get back to hunting. Mark and Blade and Bessie and hunting, maybe together that could be enough to fill her back up again.
Cain closed his eyes the moment before the Blade struck him. Hot blood spattered across Claire’s face, dripped from the teeth of the First Blade.
She turned and left his body in the alleyway. The soul had already fled. I hope the finish line’s good to you, Cain.
Claire walked back out into the street. The crime scene was winding down; police heading back to the station, victims being carted away in body bags. She left it all behind and sank into Bessie’s driver’s seat. Leaned her head back against the worn brown headrest and breathed in the pine scent and gunpowder, let the Mark of Cain and the First Blade knit her back together. It wasn’t the same as having her soul back in one piece, but it was good. It was really good.
Bessie was waiting. Crowley’s wish list of demons was waiting. The hunt was waiting. And Claire was ready for it. She was never going to not be ready again