FROM PERDITION

The air rang with the sound of blades clashing, with curses and cries, and sulphur burned the senses. Castiel darted around one of his sisters grappling with a demon, diving for an imp crawling along the rocky wall. His knife flashed in his hand and the demon was cut away, but the next moment another leapt out of a crack in the rock. Castiel's wings beat and he twisted, his knife with it, but his parry was slow and he only managed to knock the demon aside and back toward the wall. The angel let his momentum carry him around and slashed at another demon oozing from the stone; it shrieked a curse at him and exploded with red lightning.

Castiel dove back into the melee, flitting around the more powerful angels and keeping the small demons off their flanks with short thrusts. The light of the fires beckoned at the corner of his eye but he refused to look, refused to let it distract him. When the Host first laid siege to Hell he had seen one of his garrison who had been sent back to Heaven that way—by letting himself be distracted by the shadows and the smoke of the flames burning all around Hell's Gate.

Then again, he'd seen some who ignored the shadows only to be ambushed by a demon hiding in them.

"To me!" he heard Ariel cry, his voice booming through their combined Grace so even the outermost angels could hear his command. Without thinking Castiel banked in midair to obey, aiming for Ariel's looming presence. He dwarfed everyone there with his seven sets of wings, brighter than the fires below them—almost as bright as an archangel's.

"Another push. What fun, eh?" Balthazar's breathless voice sounded from somewhere beside Castiel, but just as quickly Castiel saw the other angel wheel away, blade flashing as he dispatched a demon that had come out of the rocks above them, trying to come at them from behind. The Host had learned early that the demons could come from anywhere along the craggy rock walls, and only sometimes was there a warning burst of sulphur.

Castiel felt a ripple in the Grace all around him that was accord, and when his brethren dove Castiel was with them, several waves back from the vanguard. This wasn't the first time they had charged the Gate. Once or twice they had even managed to get it open, to keep it for a few days or perhaps even weeks. Then the demons would crowd the space from every direction and they would be forced back, choking on the sulphur and with their ears ringing with the screams coming from below, their wings stained with ash.

They had tried to infiltrate the corridors within the rocks, once or twice. Castiel himself had even crawled into those reeking tunnels, blinded by smoke and demonic energy. Not many angels were small enough to fit.

Castiel hadn't even seen the demon who had dispatched him back to Heaven.

With a crash the Host hit the Gate's frame, a breaking wave of brilliant light that made the Gate rattle in its holdings and the stone around it groan and heave. Somewhere on Earth above, an earthquake rumbled.

Demons shot up out of the crevices, screaming and cursing. Castiel dodged those of his brothers and sisters who wheeled back upward to join the wave again, his knife lashing around him at the demons who chased them. The Pit was crowded; the angels were so close that Castiel felt almost one with them all, except for the pricks of raw demonic energy which withered the light.

"Castiel!" Rachel cried from somewhere behind him. Startled, Castiel banked in time to miss a demon's sword, and his blade spun in his hand, cutting it in two with a burst of light and a crackle.

Beneath him the Gate shrieked as it moved, its moorings shaking. It opened upward and outward, not in, letting its weight keep it closed. Its seam glowed with the red fires behind it. Abruptly there was a crash from the side and Castiel felt the shockwave of Ariel's sword. The Gate bucked on its hinges, lifting.

Not an opening big enough for most—but it was big enough for him. Castiel plummeted, his wings a blur. The Gate started to fall. He felt the blood-stained bone graze his sides, jolting him with the electric touch of evil; then he was through and the Gate of Hell thudded closed behind him with a booming knell.

Had he thought the air above was stifling? The air down here pressed against his Grace so closely that he felt like he was suffocating. His head rang with enraged demonic shrieks and the screams of tortured souls; he kept his wings close, but even so he felt the lash of swords and whips that he couldn't quite dodge.

"Angel!" he heard the demons shout, and cut to the side so sharply that his wings ached, narrowly avoiding being impaled upon a sword. There was no time to think, no time to stop; if he stopped he'd be sent back to Heaven on the demons' blades. Castiel aimed carefully and his knife flew out with a flash of light, striking the buckling pins at the base of the chain weighting the Gate down. They groaned and pulled looser. Castiel flashed past, snatching up his blade where it was buried in the Gate, his wings a flurry of light and wind as he darted and rolled around the demons crowding the space. He took cover behind the chains and there was a cascade of sparks as a demon twice his size raked it with its sword.

The chain shook and the pins rattled from their holes. The Gate shuddered against the force of the Host above, its bone splintering. With a long creak the chain pulled itself free, plunging into the yawning Pit, and the Gate bucked wildly, suddenly without the weight to remain closed under the assault it weathered.

Still clutching the chain's uppermost links, Castiel was yanked down with it. He clung tightly as the demons scattered to avoid being hit, burning wherever he touched the tainted metal. He heard the slam of the Gate, the triumphant shouts of his brethren, felt the sudden wash of Grace behind him.

And he fell, hidden within the links of the chain. Turrets and racks of bone shot past, chains of bloodied steel stretching from wall to wall of the Pit.

'Castiel!'

He felt the calls of his brothers through his Grace more than heard them, the words broken and scattered by the twisting chain around him. He'd meant it to be a ride—now it was becoming a prison.

'I'm going deeper,' he managed to send back, and heard the fragmented syllables of Balthazar's curse.

'I always knew you were half mad!'

'We're coming after you,' Uriel told him, his Grace almost cutting with his delight.

Castiel released the chain and shoved himself away, keepings his limbs close around him. With a crash it caught on a thick bar arching across the Pit, its massive weight arcing upward again before tumbling back down like an overweighted pendulum.

The angel shot downward, too fast for the demons to register beyond the blaze of painful light. The Righteous Man would be in the depths of the Pit, Castiel knew. Where the worst horrors were.

He didn't let himself see the things around him. He was going too fast and he feared exactly what he would glimpse if he did. Yet the Pit grew wider, the chains thicker, and he couldn't miss that some of them held people—humans hanging on meathooks, dangling from their throats and ankles and genitals. Most of them were screaming.

Some of them weren't.

There was a red glow in the far distance but here and now it grew too dark to see, too stifling to see, the demonic energy so thick and cloying that Castiel felt blinded by it. The smells of sulphur and blood and burning flesh choked him. The chains came so thick that Castiel had to expand his wings—just a little—so he could manoeuvre, tiny sparks of Grace angling him around and past and sometimes through the links. Some were too close to slip between; his knife cut them like ribbons. They rattled in his wake, but he didn't dare cut his speed.

He could hear the taunts of demons behind him.

Something raked his wings and he hissed but didn't stop, twisting enough to see a demon trying to match his pace. His knife flashed out and the demon cut away, tumbling on the slipstream. But that let him see the trail of black smoke behind him, lit with red lightning, so thick that it made his wings tremble for a moment.

There was no way he could get back through that.

'Where are you?' he cried back to his brethren. Uriel said they were behind him, but he couldn't see even a flash of Grace through the smoke.

'We're having a bit of trouble cleaning up your mess,' Balthazar told him.

'Find the Righteous Man!' Ariel roared on the heels of Balthazar's words, stifled like miles-distant thunder.

The Righteous Man. Find him, and maybe the others would have the chance to save him, even if Castiel was dispatched.

He'd turn his knife on himself before he was captured.

Abruptly the glow erupted into light, flames red and blue crackling on the walls and in crevices. They sputtered in his wake and he felt them sear the outer layer of his wings even in the centre of the airspace. When he rolled near the sides, it was almost unbearable. A sudden burst of flames shot across his path and with a grunt he flung his knife up over his head, cutting through the fire with his Grace but not enough to escape the lick of its heat. Next moment he heard the screams of demons behind him as they hit it themselves.

Castiel craned his head, his gaze searching the denizens of Hell he swept toward, the humans tiny in their webs of restraining chains. None of them leapt out at him as especially important. Below him was a flattened pyramid sloping down into the lava, lit with spurts of flame and shadowed by the racks above, its crags bathed in red light. There was a rack on the top, its restraints stretched taut with the weight of a prisoner.

There. The Righteous Man would be there.

But he wasn't alone. In his intermittent views of the pyramid's top, Castiel saw a wave of electric smoke leap up toward him, powerful and crashing against itself. That had to be Alistair.

Castiel needed to get past him. His best chance was in speed. He prayed to his Father and grimly pumped his wings. Cupping the air, he rolled aside from the flash of lightning crackling out at him and then twisted, avoiding Alistair's grip on his other side.

The demon was too slow. Castiel had not checked his speed the whole length of the Pit, and he was among the fastest of the Host. He swept past Alistair's groping fingers of smoke even while the torturer filled in the space all above him with his heavy, stifling presence.

Castiel looked toward the pyramid, his gaze first searching the rack, his wings and Grace flowing around him with the gladness of near-victory.

Except … this was wrong. The person on the rack was a woman, not a man. Not the Righteous Man.

The angel's gaze cut toward the figure in front of her, a being he had assumed was a human soul nearly warped to demon, one of Alistair's protégées. He was filthy with ash and blood, nude and raw and wild as he cut into the screaming woman; but around him there was an aura of Fate. Castiel couldn't contain the ripple of grief in his Grace, and he heard Alistair's laughter above him.

They were too late. The Righteous Man had broken.

The Righteous Man will begin Armageddon, Castiel reminded himself, but he will also be given the chance to end it.

He will begin it. He can end it.

The Man looked up. His eyes were deep and void of anything—even madness. Castiel flared his wings just enough to control his speed but not lose it, striking the pyramid with such force that it crumbled beneath him. He seized the Righteous Man's shoulder and swept him close, his hand burning with the touch, then used the remaining gathered energy of his fall to spring upward once again. The Man fought, at first, with beats and kicks, but Castiel sent out soothing pulses of his Grace and the ravaged soul's resistance weakened.

'I have him!' he called desperately to his brethren, lashing out with his knife at the streamers of smoke that came at him. They rebounded off its steel with echoing screams of pain.

Alistair was above him, roiling like a miniature storm. His centre reached down, the beginnings of a demonic tornado. Desperately Castiel channelled all his Grace to his wings and body, everything he had to spare. His blade arched over his head, brilliant with divine light, as he cut toward Alistair.

With a surprised shriek the demon's smoke parted around him, fog chased away by sudden radiance, and Castiel shot through him. His wings were a flurry of light that left a trail behind him and he held his sword ahead, lashing out from side to side to deflect the blows laid against him by the demons that had followed.

Too many. He saw one coming and twisted away, but the blade cut down his back. Castiel cried out in pain, but it was bearable and his wings were unharmed; he shot past, not even bothering to try and heal the wound. He could feel the sting of a thousand little cuts and a few larger ones, but none of that would matter as long as he got out of there.

Fire erupted from the sides of the Pit. Castiel curled himself around the Righteous Man and pushed the flames away with his Grace. But ahead the Pit grew dark. The chains grew thick again, so thick that he knew from experience that he'd graze each and every one—those he hadn't broken. To his horror he saw, in his own light, manifested demons lying in wait.

'Captain!' he shouted, kicking with his wings to send himself into a spin and make it harder for the demons to catch him from behind. The first blade he deflected. The second, the third—the fourth bit into his shoulder and he grunted, his upward spin yanking the knife free of its demon's hand.

'Hold on, Castiel!' he heard Ariel, so faint that he wasn't even sure the captain had said anything at all.

And he wasn't sure how much longer he could obey that command. Grimly Castiel pushed his Grace around him like a shield; approaching torrents of smoke wailed and turned aside at its brilliance, and the demons hanging on the chains burst into lightning-stricken smoke. His wings brushed the chains around him, jolting with their foul touch. The knife burned where it remained buried in his shoulder, a throbbing pain that ran all the way down his arm to his hand.

He gripped the Righteous Man tighter. He felt his Grace begin to waver. And he prayed.

Oh my Father, who is in Heaven—

He climbed, his wingspan choked by chains and racks, his knife leaving a trail in the smoke-laden air as he slashed the restraints. The metal shrieked and the broken links fell behind him, tumbling into the Pit. The demons scattered on smoke, crowding the edges of his Grace as if waiting for a candle in the night to gutter out.

The chains began to thin. For just a moment Castiel felt he might just make it.

Then, between one thrusting wingbeat and then next, pain exploded in him and he was yanked abruptly back. He wings snapped out to keep himself from falling and one struck a chain with a dull thud. Gasping, Castiel glanced down to find a white-eyed visage grinning up at him out of red-lightninged smoke, all fangs and folds.

"Hello, my angel," Alistair whispered, and pulled on the chain he held in black clawed hands. The meathook tore something in Castiel's leg as it tugged him down; the angel couldn't help but cry out at the searing pain. His Grace eroded beneath the weapon's taint, stifling and oppressed by the stink and evil of the air around him. It wavered and his limbs grew weaker, and he bent over the Righteous Man in case another white-eyed demon appeared who could penetrate his waning shield.

His blade swept down but Alistair, laughing, billowed aside, letting more of himself form on the chain upon which he stood. The demon pulled again, letting the slack drop, and Castiel's wings beat desperately as he lost another length of distance. Pain ripped through the angel as another meathook drove into his wing and Alistair pulled it taut. Castiel faltered, hardly even able to gasp.

Then he felt an explosion of Grace above him, saw the way Alistair's eyes widened. The demon released the chains and dissolved into smoke, and with a roar Ariel's great form swept past, filling the Pit from wall to stone wall, his blades blinding. Suddenly freed, Castiel lurched in the air, unsteady at first and then stronger with the Grace of his brethren rushing over him.

Balthazar darted closer and pulled the meathooks from him with yanks and bursts of pain, and Rachel flitted in to lay a soothing hand against Castiel's wing, sending pulses of healing Grace into the wound. It didn't work as well as it should have; the hook's poison resisted the healing, and after a moment Rachel was forced to break off to avoid being rammed by a demon using a length of broken chain as its weapon. Uriel spun about them, laughing and taunting the demons who shrank back against the walls of the Pit, his knife a never-ending ribbon of light. Others dove around them, driving the demons back. Their surprise attack wouldn't last for long—the demons in Hell were innumerable and on their own ground.

"Come on!" Balthazar gave him a push from below and Castiel's wings caught air enough to help him rise again.

Castiel shoved himself upward off a chain as he passed it and hissing at the responding throb. It barely helped him at all; his injured wing felt leaden, burning. His garrison rallied around him, their combined Grace a soothing balm to the sting of his injuries. It helped his own stabilise and he channelled it to his wing to aid what remained of Rachel's Grace. Balthazar flitted overhead, just out of reach, teasing and defending him from the demons diving from above.

"I'm disappointed, Castiel. I thought you were a better flier than this!"

"I didn't ask your opinion!"

"Fall back!" Ariel commanded from below. "Protect the Righteous Man!"

The Righteous Man. He was a slow burn against Castiel's chest, silent, probably unconscious—Castiel didn't want to think the effect his Grace would be having on the broken man. Probably the same as the man's touch had on him.

"Too slow," Uriel growled, and Castiel felt his huge hand close on the scruff of his neck, yanking him upward. Startled, Castiel yelped, but then Balthazar had a grip on his sword arm and they were both hauling him higher more quickly than he could manage himself.

They spiralled towards the Gate on a rush of wings, others of the garrison matching their pace and with Rachel directly overhead to scatter the demons in their path. Ahead Castiel saw the sparking gather of hundreds of demons intent on keeping them within the Pit, saw the white glow of the rearguard as they fought to keep the Gate. He tested his wing and found it had healed, and matched the pace of the others with a flurry, shoving Balthazar aside. "Go!"

A moment later Uriel released him as well, and both of them corkscrewed away to join the garrison in meeting the demons with an explosion of light and smoke. Castiel flashed between them all, ducking beneath a brother's sword and banking from a lunging demon. He saw the Gate propped open, bone splintered and the rock around the frame crumbling. He saw demons flood the space.

Uriel darted in ahead of him with a roar and in wash of radiance the way was clear. Castiel shot through the Gate, his wings a rush of light, his burden now light in his arms. He shouted, ringing and vibrating: "The Righteous Man is saved! Dean Winchester is saved!"

Behind him the Pit quaked and howled with the loss of a soul.

~ finis