The Fallen by DeansBabyBird
Thank you Kripke for letting me play with your darling boys! And thanks to my wonderful betas Kirsty and Lou for your infinite support.
Chapter Two: Raguel.
Within seconds of the daemon's Mercedes disappearing silently into the blizzard, the storm calmed significantly. The wind dropped losing its howl and the snow lessened, reverting from a daemonic entity to a more natural phenomenon.
Jo was able to get up from her position on the decking outside the door of the bar, and regain her shaky feet. She stumbled as quickly as she dare through the ankle deep snow towards Sam, there to fling herself to her knees on the soft white carpet and reach nervously towards his stilled form.
The hunter was lying on his back, an inch of virgin white covering his body. Jo gently brushed the damp flakes from his face and shoulders, calling his name softly as she worked. With relief she saw he was breathing, and a cursory once over of his snow shrouded body told Jo that he seemed to have escaped any significant injury.
She shook him gently, calling his name again, and slowly Sam's eyes opened and he found focus on her worried face. As lucidity returned to the young hunter, Jo saw panic rise in his eyes and heard it in his cry.
'Dean!'
Sam's crushing anguish for his brother was evident in that single word and he rose swiftly to his feet, swaying unsteadily with the rapid movement. Jo stood close to him, silent, as she waited to see if he needed her support to maintain his long legs.
Panic hit Sam like a physical blow, and dizziness engulfed him as his heart pounded deafeningly in his ears. The events of the past few minutes replayed in his disorientated brain, horrifyingly enhanced by all too recent ghost Images of Dean writhing in agony and begging for mercy as his body was crushed and broken by the Yellow-Eyed Daemon.
After a few seconds, even though it was evident the tall hunter could stand well enough by himself, Jo found herself moving in close to his side. Their arms linked around each other and Jo pressed her face against Sam's wet jacket sleeve, seeking the comfort of his proximity, hoping it would quell the feeling of terror that was threatening to engulf her.
'What happened, Jo?'
Sam's voice was ragged as he dragged his eyes from the empty road and looked down at Jo.
'Daemon?'
Jo's response was a question and she desperately hoped Sam would contradict her and give a less damming explanation of events, but he stiffly nodded his head as she had known he would, and Jo felt her stomach lurch violently in fear. She bit down the bile which threatened to choke her and concentrated on Sam's face, fighting to hold herself together.
As they spoke Sam was scanning around the deserted parking lot. Jo followed his eyes around the frosted floor. She let go of his jacket and moved with him as he strode the short distance to where the Mercedes had been parked. Sam crouched, his bare hand reaching down to rest on the untouched snow, a look of confusion on his pale face.
'No tracks?'
The ground showed no trace of the heavy car, no drifting of the lying snow where it had been parked, no tyre marks indicating where it had moved away from the lot to the quiet road. It was as if it had been weightless or had not existed at all. Any hope of following the cars tracks to find Dean was instantly gone.
They rose together and by mutual but unspoken consent moved to the spot where Dean had landed after the daemon had flung him effortlessly through the air. Jo watched the muscles in Sam's jaw clench, and heard his ragged breath as they surveyed the blood-splattered churned snow.
There was a huge dent in the door of the truck where Dean had impacted, and fierce shards of bloody glass from the shattered wing mirror mingled with the soiled snow. Jo felt the cold bite the skin of her face where silent tears were beginning to track down her cheeks. Without realising she was doing it, she reached for Sam's hand.
Sam felt Jo's freezing fingers touch his own and gratefully closed his hand about hers.
'There's such...such a lot of...of blood!'
Jo's voice hiccupped in distress and she could no longer prevent the tears from coursing down her face.
Sam drew the tiny girl in towards him, shielding her from the lightly swirling snow with his tall frame. He wrapped his arms about her, feeling her shaking and knowing that its cause was as much fear as cold, knowing too that she would feel his similar tremble, and recognise the panic within him.
After a moment or two Sam felt Jo draw in a long breath and he released her from his embrace. Her tears had stopped and her fear was controlled to be replaced by anger.
'So, how the hell do we trace where it's taken Dean?'
Sam smiled at the returning strength in Jo's question. He opened his mouth, his breath smoking in the cold, only to close it again straight away as he realised despairingly that he had no idea how to answer her or where they might even make a start on finding Dean.
A sudden motion at the periphery of their vision made both the hunters start and they gazed in surprise at the figure that moved from the side of the truck to stand before them.
'Maybe I can be of help with that?
The man spoke softly.
I am Raguel'
Dean could hear nothing. No pattering of blizzarding snow impacting on parked vehicles, no howling wind, and he was no longer cold. So, even though he was struggling to understand where exactly he was, he surmised he was no longer in the parking lot of the bar.
He opened his pale green eyes slowly, past experience telling him that in circumstances such as these, caution was advised. His prediction was correct as even the relatively low level of light in the room flooded his brain with bright flare-flashes of pain. He let his eyes close momentarily until the iridescent patterns of light on the back of his eyelids faded a little, and then, with exaggerated care he opened his long lashes for a second time.
He was lying on the polished beech wood floor of an exquisitely, but minimally furnished room. The furniture was of chrome and glass and black leather, and reeked of good taste and understated luxury. On the walls, large atmospheric Simon Marsden photographs dominated the neutral backdrop and in one corner, a imposing display case drew the eye. It held carefully placed, very expensive looking objects d'art.
The floor was hard and Dean was stiff and sore from lying on its unrelenting surface. He knew his injuries made him physically vulnerable. Yet worse than that he was afraid that the daemon would find the parts of his mind he had so carefully closed down and protected himself from since his encounter with the Yellow-Eyed Daemon. He wanted desperately to get up, however, the returning memory of his already damaged ribs and his projected 'flight' through the parking lot, convinced him that rising was going to be a new adventure to the oft visited shores of Winchester pain.
He steeled himself, and drawing in his breath began to ease his body upright.
Sam cleared the 'Glock' and had it pointed at the tall stranger only a second before Jo freed her knife from the wrist scabbard she wore, and similarly raised it towards the man. The young hunters were thrown off balance by his sudden appearance and more than a little embarrassed to be caught off guard again in such a short space of time.
The man was tall and lean with closely cropped greying hair that set off the smoothness of his black skin. He was dressed casually in boots, dark jeans and a black leather jacket. His face was careworn but handsome, and his eyes were a remarkably vivid pale blue.
He stood deliberately still before them, and smiled reassuringly at Sam and Jo.
Dean made it about 6 inches from the horizontal before pain of ferocious intensity lanced through his left shoulder, flattening him back to the floor. He felt a warm wetness soaking his sleeve and rotated his head to see blood blossoming on his T-shirt.
'Oh, Crap!'
Dean edged the words out through clenched teeth and reached up with his right hand to the neckband of his T-shirt. He cautiously pulled at the dirty fabric, easing it gradually away from his shoulder, wincing as it stuck to the blood gathering there.
There was a large shard of glass protruding from one end of a 5 inch long, open -mouth of a wound, which started near his collar bone and sliced deeply through the skin and muscle of the anterior part of his shoulder. The wound was angry looking, the skin puffy and distended, and now new blood ran freely from it to drip beneath him, pooling warmly at his back. The movement sent waves of pain lancing up his neck into his jaw and all the way down his left arm, to set his fingers tingling. Simultaneously, the ache in his ribs awoke from its dormant state to become a fiery, pulsing throb.
Dean squeezed his eyes shut; trying to slow his rapid breathing and slowly worked his right hand down his body, carefully avoiding his battered ribs until he was in a position to reach over and grasp his own left wrist. Holding his breath against the mounting pain, Dean pulled his injured arm gradually across his abdomen and chest till he could cradle it into his body.
At the same time he pushed with his other shoulder and braced his bare feet against the floor, managing with gasping effort to push himself upright and slide far enough on the slippery wood beneath him so he could rest his battered body against one of the low black leather sofas.
It was from this pain-wracked slump that Dean saw the door open and watched with dread as the daemon calmly entered the room.
Jo sat across from the man who had introduced himself as Raguel almost laughing out loud at the strangeness of the situation she and Sam found themselves in. However, the absurdity was measured against the crushing knowledge that Dean was out there somewhere, alone, bleeding and in pain, in the clutches of a violent daemon, and the enormity of that thought threatened to break Jo.
She pushed it into a corner of her head, conscious that if she let herself dwell on her feelings for Dean just now she would be unable to function, and that would not help the situation one bit.
For his part, their guest smiled the same kind, oddly reassuring smile he had in the parking lot and watched patiently as Sam moved about the room's small kitchen.
Sam finished making the coffee and placed a steaming mug down in front of Jo, she wrapped her hands around it, seeking the warmth and letting it flood into her body. Sam joined them at the tatty little table, handed an identical mug to Raguel, and sat down, hugging his own coffee as Jo had, similarly seeking in it warmth, or reassurance, or both.
Raguel had explained to them as they had stood shivering with cold and shock, in the freezing parking lot that he too was a hunter, and had been tracking the daemon, along with two colleagues for a considerable time.
They had been close to trapping it when they had been forced to separate as one of them had been badly injured, and so he had come on alone, leaving the third to tend their wounded colleague. Raguel had urged Jo and Sam to join forces with him, and work together to find the daemon and therefore Dean. Being that they had absolutely no other leads Jo and Sam had, with a nodded glance of confirmation to each other, agreed, and allowed Raguel to follow them in his car to their motel, where they now sat.
'So, who is this daemon and do you know how to find him? What does he want with my Brother? '
Sam's questions tumbled hurriedly over each other, his words clipped and angry, fear for Dean making him blunter than was perhaps his usual style. Jo looked at Raguel expecting him to find offence at Sam's aggressive tone. She saw none; in fact when the older man spoke she could hear compassion for the brothers in his words.
'The daemon has many names. Belial, Set, Samael, Azazel. His name is different in the many lands I and my colleagues have tracked him through, but he interests me less than the man who hosts him. He is called Michaeland has long been to me a brother. I have sworn to rid him of the foul creature that possesses him and if in doing that we can free your brother, then in that too will I rejoice'
Raguel paused, his blue eyes seeking and holding Sam's. A wordless understanding passed between them and the older man reached out and laid his calloused hand over Sam's. The touch was a comfort to Sam, and he managed a tiny smile for the older man.
'Raguel, do you know want with it wants with Dean?'
Jo glanced at Sam as she asked this question, terrified what she might hear and seeking to ground herself with his eyes. Raguel looked from Sam to Jo and she briefly saw a lifetime of tiredness and pain reflected in his pale blue eyes.
'Yes, I know' Raguel answered softly.
Chapter ends
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