Bela's Back in Town

Bela's Back in Town

A Supernatural story by Doris @doris_helmick

The latest -- but not the last? -- entry in the #SPNWishList fic and art challenge! Doris responded to the prompt: "Bela, now a demon, back on Earth." The voice! The characterization! The ending! It's all dead-on.  I know you'll enjoy it!  -- Jennie

Consciousness hit like a roundhouse punch, awareness slowly creeping in through the fog.

“Bloody hell!” Bela Talbot surveyed her surroundings, and attire. “Could be worse.”

With trepidation, she rose slowly from the floor, approached the mirror, and allowed one chocolate-brown eye to open. "Well, would you look at that? Gorgeous as ever, if I do say so myself.”

Executing a perfect model’s spin, she takes a fraction of a second to admire the vibrant young woman staring back at her, before stumbling back and landing on her perfect model’s ass.

Her eyes blink to black, shattering any possibility that she’s emerged from a nightmare, that the past, nebulous lifetime has been a dream.

Glass shatters, razor-sharp crystalline shards explode from every window in the building at Bela’s enraged shriek. “Win-ches-ters!!!!!”

● ● ●

It’s taken months to find the Bunker, and Bela has discovered that the world to which she has been returned is vastly different from the one she knew before becoming a hellhound’s chew toy.

Monsters of every description hide under every damned rock, and demons run the streets. And Chuck? He’s reset the Armageddon clock.

“So what?” Nothing matters more than Bela’s obsession. Find the Winchesters, set things back on course, and if one or both brothers gets hurt, or dies, in the process? “Oh, well…”

● ● ●

Sitting outside the Bunker, Bela reflects on her arrival in hell: furious, terrified, stripped of dignity and already beginning to plot her new future, one dedicated to revenge, one she intended to pursue immediately.

Bela would be no ordinary resident of hell, and she would not… not!... allow herself to become a powerless, pathetic, condemned and pitiful soul.

She’d been forcefully introduced to the horrendous “delights” of torture early on, soon becoming adept at all of its forms, intricacies, and applications, quickly finding her niche in Alistair’s Torturarium.

When Alistair’s murderous flame was quenched, Bela seized the opportunity to climb hell’s version of the corporate ladder, taking over as the new “torturer-in-chief.”

Then, a flash, and she’d awakened -- back in that same ratty, tatty motel room where she’d met her fate. Shaking off that indignity, and the emotional fatigue it brought, she gazes at the nondescript, weathered, gray cement building and wonders at the combination of euphoria and feral fascination she’s experiencing …

“Bollocks! This just won’t do!”

Here she is, prepared to enter “Fort Winchester” and confront the man, and his ginormous moose of a brother, who’d left her alone to await Crowley’s Canine Collection Crew. The disgusting vision of her arrival in hell’s throne room flooded her memory.

As the object of the hellhound’s quest, Bela, grasped in Juliet’s enormous, fanged, slobbering maw, was dropped unceremoniously at Crowley’s feet, and just as quickly dispatched for Perdition's Due.

Despite her successes in hell, Dean Winchester and his brother, Sam, owed her!

● ● ●

Bela checks her hair, and finds it to be quite becoming. Her makeup is artfully applied, making the most of her exquisite features. Her clothing is impeccably fitted to her, like her own skin. Classically stylish, it contributes to her overall perfection. She’s ready. Donning her Cartier Blackout sunglasses, shouldering her black Coach pocketbook, Bela exits the nondescript midnight-blue sedan.

● ● ●

“Who set these bloody wards?!” She feels the acidic tingling on her skin as she approaches the door. Chuckling to herself -- “Have to give them credit, though, haven’t I?" -- she begins to chant, and feels the moment when the magic fails.

“Yes!” She’s inside. Making no attempt to muffle her steps, she descends the stairs, and is immediately confronted by both Winchesters in full defense mode, and, not surprisingly, armed to the teeth.

“Well, as I live and breathe...or not. If it isn’t the Princes of Plaid.” The brothers eye her, warily. “Have you forgotten your manners? Dean… Sam?”

“Nope,” Dean says.

“Good grief, gentlemen -- and I use that term with reluctance. Roll back the bristling hostility and sheathe your weapons. I'm here to talk, although the stench of testosterone-laden flannel is an offense against my nasal passages, and humanity.”

“Get on with it, Bela,” Sam says.

● ● ●

Sam looks at Bela in sardonic disbelief. “You want us to do what?”

“Lose the sarcasm, Sam. I’m quite sure you heard me. I want your assistance in facilitating my immediate return to hell.”

“Bela, I… uh…” Dean stammers, only to be met by a stare from Bela that nearly shrivels his man-bits.

“Not another word, Dean! If you attempt an apology, I swear, I’ll gut you. As expected, you continue to exist in the echo chamber of your plebeian perception of ‘right,’ ‘wrong’ and misguided guilt.

“In hell, I found the opportunity to settle a score, if you will, and that work has been interrupted. Now, I repeat, as I did on that night when you walked away, leaving me to my fate, ‘You don't understand!’ No one did. Who was going to listen to a little girl, born into wealth, into a culture where silence was expected, and enforced.

“I made my deal with Lillith without remorse, knowing the outcome. I’d have agreed to anything! However, I could not have anticipated the benefits hell held for me, and I’m quite satisfied. So, just this once, without questioning my motives or engaging in some guilt-driven, feeble attempt to save me from myself, help me get back into hell!” Bela bellowed. “Or, I will reduce this monstrosity, this tribute to cement, plaid, and male elitism, along with every thing, living or inanimate, for 100 miles around, to organic sludge and rubble!”

● ● ●

The hellmouth, contrary to Bela’s expectations, is a bit underwhelming. No portent of its ominous reputation, or of the horrific evil it contains, is in evidence. It’s a rather, boring, inauspicious cave entrance.

“Well, as delightful as it’s been, boys, I’ll say my goodbyes here.”

“Bela… wait!” Sam yells. “There’ve been… um... changes in hell’s internal organization. Things may not… aren’t going to be as they were when…”

“Oh, you great hairy moose’s arse! I know that hell is rebuilding itself. Why do you think I was so eager to return? I don’t want to lose my position there. So, please, save your halfhearted concerns for me.”

“Ya know, Bela,” Dean begins. “Things could have been so very different… um… there’s still a chance…”

“Oh, dear boy. Dean, we are NOT going to indulge in hate sex. You *do* understand that, don’t you?”

Bela walks forward and enters the cave, winks one ebony-colored eye, waves a dismissal, and is swallowed up in the belch of a dirty yellow, sulfuric gas cloud.

“Hate sex, Dean? What was that all abo…”

“Shaddup, Sam!”

“Was this a mistake, Dean? Returning her to hell?”

“Probably. But ya know what, Sammy? She’s hell's problem now, and remember: Hell’s under new management. Let’s roll. We've got work to do.”

Baby's engine rumbles to life and then purrs pleasantly as she rolls back onto another strip of endless highway, carrying her boys back to the Bunker.

● ● ●

Bela Talbot finds herself once again on her knees, at the foot of hell’s onyx throne.

“I see you’ve returned, Bela. And, mostly under yer own power, as well, ye wee determined imp.”

“My queen, I have. And may I offer my congratulations on your brilliant assumption of power. Hell’s always suffered from a lack of the ‘delicate touch’ of a woman. Crowley was a good king… You, however, are the queen!”

“Sweetly said, dear Bela, but along with being ruthless enough to press my own advantage, I’m no fool. I’ll assume you’re here to resume your position in the Torturarium. By all means, it’s all yours. Do keep in mind, Bela, I don’t suffer fools -- or betrayal -- well at all…”

As she rises and turns to exit the throne room, black eyes glittering with anticipation, Rowena’s softly uttered words, freeze Bela in mid-step.

“By the bye, Bela… they’re already strapped to the rack and aware that you’re on your way, my dear. Extract your revenge, and know that each blow you deliver softens the memories of my own helplessness and suffering. I truly do understand, girl…”

● ● ●

Inhaling the heady effluvium of torture-driven fear and expectant dread that permeates the portal to the Torturarium, Bela dons her favorite apron, inventories her “tool kit,” slowly turns the knob, and enters the room.

“Mummy! Daddy! I’m home… We're going to have soooooo much fun!”