Out of the Fire
Chapter 2
"What were those things?" asked Adam as he watched Emma bend down to search the bodies.
"Werewolves, by the smell," she replied, turning over one of the corpses with a grunt of exertion.
He supposed that she was looking for anything useful that they might be carrying, such as food or more weapons, but it still unsettled him to see her touching the mutilated remains so cavalierly. He had seen so much worse in hell, but despite everything that she had told him and he had observed for himself, Emma struck him as a gentle soul. A bit like her father, really; a tough exterior but a surprisingly deep and caring heart.
Dean's daughter. His niece…the term sounded odd in his head. He had never given much thought to the prospect of being an uncle, raised as an only child and then introduced to two brothers he thought unlikely ever to procreate. Leave it to Dean to have a kid through supernatural means.
Adam did think it was rather poetic that his oldest brother had managed to father a girl with feminism in her very genes. During the occasional moments of rest in the Cage, Sam had told him about some of Dean's exploits with women. He had particularly enjoyed the story about the girl who had slipped scarlet hair dye into Dean's shampoo bottle after he cheated on her in high school. Apparently Adam's eldest brother had walked around with a flaming red head for two months before his hair got long enough to cut the color out. Sam had taken great pleasure in telling the people they encountered to ask Dean about his hair.
He was pulled from his train of thought when Emma approached, carrying a bundle of weapons in her arms. She let them fall to the ground at his feet.
"First thing you need in Purgatory is a weapon," she said without preamble. "Pick the one that suits you best. We'll bury the rest of them so that we can find them again if we need them, and no one else will get their hands on them."
She stepped back so that Adam could get a clear look at the crude weapons in front of him. They all looked handmade, like the axe that Emma carried, cut from some kind of black stone and honed to surprisingly sharp edges. Two of them were also axes, the other more of a short, malformed sword. Adam still had in his hand the weapon that he had snatched up from Emma's first victim. It was carved into a gentle crescent, sharp on both edges. He hefted it in his hand, testing out the weight. He did not even bother picking up any of the other weapons.
"I'll use this one," he said firmly, tightening his grip on the worn wooden handle.
"Well good for you," said Emma, raising an eyebrow. "But you still need to help me bury the other ones, princess. I have a gimp arm, and I seem to remember you saying something about doing your share around here?"
Adam hid a smile as he leaned down to scoop up the other blades. She was most definitely Dean's kid.
When they found nothing else of use on the bodies, Emma led him towards the cache of supplies that she had apparently buried close by.
"Nobody really knows how big Purgatory is," she said to her partner as they walked. "Which probably means that it is pretty damn big. If you think about it, millions of monsters must have died since the dawn of creation, and all those creatures take up a lot of real estate. Anyway, it's easier to just stay in one general area; knowing it well helps you survive."
"What happens to the monsters that die here?" puffed Adam, starting to believe that his niece's definition of 'close by' might not be the same as his. Or he was just extremely unused to walking after centuries of confinement.
Emma rounded on him, her expression torn between amusement and irritation.
"You really ask the hard questions, don't you?" she asked. "No one knows. Well, no one we can ask. And I really don't want to find out, do you?"
Adam just shrugged and motioned for her to continue walking. He was still intensely curious, but he had come too far to not make it back to earth. Besides, even though he was in monster heaven, he was human, so his soul would probably just get dragged back to hell if he died here.
"Speaking of hard questions," Emma continued. "I think I've been waiting pretty patiently. But since you don't seem to feel like sharing, I'm just going to have to ask. If you were in the deepest, most secure part of hell, how did you get out?"
Adam did not answer immediately. He had known that this question would be coming sooner or later, and he did not blame his niece for asking it, but he did not know how to answer. He remembered clearly what had happened after he got out of the Cage itself, sneaking for what felt like weeks through the tunnels and cells of hell, fighting the occasional demons that had crossed his path. And he could certainly remember what had happened before he got out. Part of him could still feel Lucifer tearing off his flesh using only his fingernails. But the memory of the actual escape was a haze in his mind.
"I honestly don't really know," he said at last. "One minute, I was being tortured, and the next…I just have this sense of Michael, the angel who had possessed me. He had stopped torturing me in the last couple of decades. I think he felt bad for me, because I was his vessel and it was his fault that I was there in the first place. I sort of get the feeling that he helped me to escape, that maybe it was possible for him to get a human soul out, even though the angels were still trapped. I think he might have wiped some of the memories from my mind too, so that I wouldn't go insane.
"Although," he continued thoughtfully, "maybe he just wanted to give me a different kind of torture. I thought I heard my brother's voice when I first got out of the Cage. I thought I could hear him shouting, and the hope that it gave me… I thought that he had come back for me. But then I couldn't find him. I looked for weeks; I crawled through corners of hell that even the devil has probably forgotten about, I killed my way through dozens of demons, and still no sign of my brother.
"But then I smelled fresh air for the first time in centuries, and I found my way here. I thought that I had gotten lucky, but maybe Michael sent me to the portal to this place on purpose. He let me think that I had a chance at getting out, but really I'm still in another prison, and as soon as I die here, I'll just be his plaything again."
Adam could not prevent the bitterness and despair from leaking into his voice, and Emma clearly heard it. She gave him an unreadable glance, before reaching out hesitantly and placing her good hand on his shoulder.
"Let's make sure you don't die here then," she said. "I'm gonna get you out, Adam. I'll do whatever it takes."
Adam was astonished by her loyalty. He had not even told her that they were related, as it did not seem like she had the best of relationships with his side of the family. Perhaps it was time to tell her though, because for some inexplicable reason, she seemed to trust and even like him. He was even more surprised when he realized that the feeling was mutual.
"Thanks," he said softly. "Listen Emma, there's something that I have to tell you about your dad."
She dropped her hand from his shoulder but did not move away. She just gazed at him in expectant curiosity.
"I'm not adopted, am I?" she asked, startling a laugh out of Adam.
"No," he chuckled. "At least, I don't think so."
He sobered up. He really did not know how to say this, so he decided to just start talking.
"No. Emma, your father, Dean Winchester…he's one of those brothers of mine that I've been telling you about. He and Sam are my older brothers, which makes me your uncle."
She stared at him. And stared at him.
"But your last name is Milligan," she said at last, struggling to understand.
"I'm their half-brother," Adam clarified. "We have the same dad, John Winchester. He raised Sam and Dean as hunters after their mom died, and he met my mom, Kate Milligan…"
He trailed off, remembering the bloody last moments of their lives. He would never forget his mom's screams as she was eaten alive. The ghouls had torn her apart first, forcing Adam to watch and listen. It was part of the reason he had been so eager to accept Zachariah's offer in the first place. After a death like that, he would have done anything to make it right.
Eventually he realized that Emma was still staring at him, waiting for him to continue. He cleared his throat.
"Anyway, John met my mom on a hunt, but he left town before she knew that she was pregnant. She decided to raise me on her own, until I finally convinced her to call him when I was twelve. He was good to me, I guess; he taught me how to drive, took me to baseball games. But he was never around, so I never really got to know him. And he never told me about Sam and Dean. Like I told you before, I found out about them from the angels."
He stopped, unsure of what else to say. It was certainly an unconventional family story, but he was telling it to his dead Amazonian half-niece, so unconventional was really to be expected.
"Okay," said Emma slowly. "So we're family."
She did not seem to be put off by the idea. But then, family probably did not mean the same thing to her as it did to Adam. Suddenly she let out a soft snort.
"What would you have done if I'd told you I was still out for my dad's blood?" she asked.
Adam snorted too. He had been exceptionally relieved to hear that she did not hold a grudge against his brothers, but even more relieved to find out that both of his brothers were still alive in 2012.
"Well, I wouldn't have helped you get out of here, for one thing," he said.
He left it at that, and Emma did not press further. She just gave him a nod and a small smile before turning and setting off again towards her buried cache.
"You'd better not be expecting special treatment because you're my uncle, old man," she called over her shoulder.
Adam grinned and set off after her.
"I wouldn't dream of it, warrior princess."
ooooooooooooooooo
"Good grief," said Adam as he stared down at the massive pit of weapons, clothes, and other odds and ends. He had not been expecting Emma's supplies to be such a large horde. "How did you manage to collect all this stuff in a year?"
The Amazon shrugged.
"I'm a good fighter," she said defensively. "That means I take out a lot of monsters, and that means that I collect a lot of stuff from the bodies. I never know what I might need when, and I certainly don't want to leave weapons around for other people to use against me, so I bury it here."
"I'll say."
Adam had anticipated a couple of stone blades in a small hole under a tree or something. What he was looking at however, was a huge heap of loot stashed in a deep cavity that had been painstakingly dug and covered with a massive boulder. He had not been able to budge the large rock, but his niece had shoved it aside with ease, despite her injured arm.
"Will you just put the spare weapons in the damn hole so we can go?" she snapped.
Adam chuckled but obliged. Emma rolled the boulder back into place.
"So what now?" asked Adam.
"Well, that is the question, isn't it?" Emma replied wryly.
She was silent for a moment, thinking.
"I've heard stories recently," she said slowly, "of humans winding up here like you."
"And you forgot to mention that?" asked Adam incredulously.
"Do you know what 'stories' means here?" she replied angrily. "We don't exactly have a water cooler that we gather around to swap gossip. I only hear things when my opponents are feeling talkative as I'm killing them. Believe it or not, that doesn't happen very often. I'm usually too busy trying to stay alive to interrogate other monsters about humans that I didn't have any reason to care about!"
"I'm sorry," said Adam as his anger faded. "But that sounds like our only lead. Do you have any idea where we might be able to find those other humans?"
"That's just the thing," said Emma after a moment, apparently deciding to forgive his insensitivity. "I only heard about it because the rumor is that the humans made it out somehow. I didn't believe it, but that was why I was checking out the portal that you came through; I thought maybe it was a way out. When I found out that it led to hell though…"
Adam felt a stab of guilt as he saw the pain of that disappointment flash across her face. He knew how she felt, because he had experienced the same emotion when he realized that his great escape had only landed him in another pile of crap.
"It still feels impossible to get back to earth," Emma began. "But you're right, we should find out what happened to those humans. Maybe that's the key; maybe only humans can get out."
Adam appreciated the effort that she was making, especially since it sounded like there was the possibility that he would be able to get out, but she would still be trapped.
"That sounds like as good a lead as any," he said. "So where do we start?"
A/N Thanks for reading! The next chapter may not be up quite as fast as this one, but you should still get it within a few days. I would love to hear what you think!