Faded (The Sequel To Colors)

Part 24

Jack suddenly grabbed Patricia's sleeve, holding her back. She frowned in protest, but Jack pointed forward. In the dark ahead of us, eight red dots hung in the air. They blinked. 

Those were eyes.

"It's an aranea... We need to get out of here." Jack whispered. Patricia frowned.

"A couple of glowing dots scare you? Please." She pushed the torch towards me, I just barely managed to grab it before she let go of it.

"Patricia, this isn't a good idea." I warned, but she just grabbed a knife and stepped forward. 

"Come at me, glowy bitch!" Patricia yelled, pointing her knife at it. The eyes blinked again, and a long, hairy arm reached out-- well, not a human-like arm, that is. Patricia's eyes widened as a giant spider stepped forward, it's eyes blinked again and each of it's large fangs were at least a foot long. Jack frowned and grabbed her shirt to pull her back. He then shoved me and Patricia into a large indent in the wall, a space just big enough for the two of us to stand. Jack stared at the spider, I tried to grab his arm but he pulled away. 

"I said we should have left." He grumbled angrily as his eyes started to glow a bright orange-yellow color. The spider stepped closer and his eyes got brighter. He held out his hand, a ball of dim light shot out and hit the spider head-on. One of it's eyes turned a greyish color. Jack hit him again and the eye started to close. It got closer and Jack started to back up. He shot a few more times, the spider opened it's mouth-- it's fangs rose up high and a green liquid dripped from them. Jack shot more and the spider lunged at him. Patricia let out a gasp and I jumped out. I grabbed Jack and pulled him down. The spider leaped over us, then turned, it's eyes glowed brighter. It was pissed that it missed its target. 

"Cas! Get back, this thing can hurt you!" Jack yelled, trying to push me away. 

"You're facing one of god's angels, kid." I retorted, my eyes glowed bright blue and my wings spreading out slightly. Jack smiled.

"You're facing Satan's son, kid." He turned and shot at the spider, I did the same and we fought together. The spider seemed to get stronger with every hit, it jumped at us, it tried to kill us. Patricia eventually threw the torch down angrily-- the flame went out and the only light came from our eyes-- and Patricia joined us. Her horns glowed and her eyes turned red as she jumped at the spider with her knives. She got one caught in it's jaw and swung herself up, landing on top of it's head. I shot again, Jack shot, and Patricia slammed her machete down into it's skull. The spider let out a loud screech, I had to cover my ears. The spider then collapsed and Patricia jumped down. She kicked the dead thing and smiled successfully. The glow of our eyes did surprisingly well at lighting the tunnels.

"So, we've got an angel, a demon, and a half-archangel." Patricia clarified, looking at Jack. 

"Apparently so, I didn't know Lucifer had a kid though." I said.

"Lucifer?" Jack mumbled. "He's not my dad."

"Then who is?" Patricia thought aloud.

"The new Satan, Crowley." He replied simply. I frowned and looked at Patricia. She raised her knife.

"We have the bad guy's kid!?" She yelled, raising the knife. "You evil son of a-!" 

"Patricia!" I grabbed her wrist when she went to swing it down at Jack, the knife fell to the floor. "He saved us! He's not evil!"

"He could be! He's the spawn of the world's greatest dick!"

Jack frowned, stepping back. "Patricia, I understand your concerns. I'm not bad, I promise. I'm half human, I have compassion, you know? I'm better than my family, and all I want is to help people."

Patricia tried to break from my grasp to attack him, but I pushed her back. We were stopped by loud footsteps and a light coming into view. Jo and Ellen ran from where we had been going. Ellen held her own torch in her hand. 

"Jack!" Jo yelled, hugging him. "You're okay!" She stepped back and saw the spider corpse behind us. "You killed that?"

"Not alone, these two did most of it." Jack said, pointing to me and Patricia. Jo rolled her eyes and smiled, then turned to her mom.

"We need to show them." She said, seriousness taking over her and her smile fading. Ellen nodded and looked at me and Patricia.

"We found something that you might find interesting." She said. "I think you two should see it."

Jo and Ellen started walking back, Jack and Patricia were quick to follow. I took a deep breath and chased behind them. We walked in the dim light of Ellen's dying torch for a while, maybe an hour or so, and then found ourselves in a cavernous room. The flame died down, and then went dark. Ellen cursed and tried to relight it, ending in failure. Jack, Patricia, and my eyes lit up again, lighting up a small bit of the room. 

"We should stick to the walls, the thing is on the other side of the room but going into the open with this crappy lighting could get us in trouble. We don't need anyone to fight another aranea." Jo said. 

I nodded and took the lead, inching out ahead of everyone. I followed the wall, it was completely coated in cobwebs. I noticed that underneath some of the webbing, it looked like there was... People? I stopped and pulled at the wall, the webs ripped away and a bloody, destroyed head rolled forward. The neck was ripped out and the head looked like it was about to fall off. It's eyeless sockets showed a half empty skull.

"What the hell?" I gasped. 

"This is the aranea's feeding grounds-- a cafeteria, if you will." Ellen said.

"We need to keep moving, we don't wanna be too late." Jo said, pushing at my back so I wouldn't be in view of the corpse. We continued walking and eventually reached the back of the room. 

And I saw them. 

Kristyn and Dean were held to the wall by the spiderwebs-- all was covered except their heads-- and I so desperately hoped that they were unconscious and not dead. I neared them and slowly reached out my hand, gently touching Dean's cheek. He startled awake and stared at me with wide eyes. He saw it was me and seemed to soften the smallest bit. 

"Cas?"