"Sam, hold onto the sides!" Dean shouted, and pushing with all their strength, they shoved the soles of their boots against the sides of the tunnel, slowing their descent until they were almost at the end of passage. Below them was a slurry of hair and teeth and gristle, mechanical blades grinding everything into a hot paste.
"Can you see down?" asked Sam.
"No," said Dean, sounding vaguely sick, "Don't think I want to."
"Can you see a wait out?"
"There's a foothold to your left, if you let me get over, I think I can get us to that airvent."
Slowly the boys crawled over each other, careful not to breathe through their nose or think too hard about the sucking noise below. The vent was surprisingly cold, a draft pulling upwards to an opening in the roof that a cat couldn't hope to climb. Behind them, Sam could swear the vortex was calling his name.
"Keep going," said Sam, contorting his shoulders in the claustrophobic passage, "I can hear water pipes parallel to us, we can probably follow this all the way to the boiler room."
It was a hard crawl, partly from the lack of space to move in and partly because men passed below them every minute or so, the static of walkie-talkies punctuated by angry replies. Sam strained to hear them, ignoring the voice that itched in the back of his brain.
"Sir, I'm sorry, she just released the bodies-" said a quavering voice.
"They were hog-tied and hung upside down in an abattoir, surrounded by hundreds of men!" said a younger man, the Leviathan who'd taunted them earlier.
"One of them had a gun. Sir, my wife is pregnant, she thought they were those bank robbers from the TV..."
"Whatever, lock down the exits and make sure all the guard towers have at least three men apiece."
"This used to be a prison, they're not going to get out that easily."
"Really? You know what it says on the back of the shithouse door in Hell?"
"Um, I wouldn't-"
"FOR A GOOD TIME CALL DEAN WINCHESTER. If they can Houdini the Devil, they can break out of here. Now get your men in place, Warden, before I change my mind and turn your wife into an Irish stew." he said, as his footsteps trailed away.
"I got something," whispered Dean, feeling in the darkness for a seam in the steel, "Here. Got something I can unscrew this with?"
Sam fished in his pockets, but most of his tools had been left in the car trunk. His only "lockpick" was a dime he'd refused to give to Dean earlier, to buy gas station licorice. Likely Dean would still whine about it once they were out of this mess.
Dean unscrewed the door plate, and then cursed when he tried to pry it off.
"Dean, what's wrong?"
"It's...frozen shut."
"Scoot back." said Sam, and angling his boot against the edge, he kicked the plate off one side, enough for Dean to wrench it off the rest of the way.
The room hummed, a long row of industrial cooling fans lining one concrete wall. Feeling in the dark, they followed the walls to a huge insulated door that was locked from the other side.
"Shoot the lock?" whispered Dean.
"And meet the search party in a dark room with one exit?"
"Point." said Dean, turning to head back toward the vent and try another room, when a soft voice came from the darkness.
"...pleeeeease..."
Sam started, not sure whether it was real or not, but Dean didn't notice. He kept his gun out, his left hand held in front of him. "Watch the door, Sammy." he said.
While Sam leaned against the door, happy for the cold as a distraction, Dean made his way across the room. His hand scraped at long figures wrapped in plastic, bunched so close together that he felt like a kid hiding in a walk-in closet filled with garment bags. Pushing them aside, he couldn't help but notice the feel of faces against his, noses and cheekbones and ears, puppets with their strings cut.
"...pleeeeease..."
Following the voice, his hand found a bearded jaw, the mouth twitching under his touch. "Sammy, I got a live one here," he said, hoping his voice didn't carry outside to the hallway, "He's tied up, come give me a hand."
But Sam did not hear him, and no amount of digging into his left hand would make the angel go away.
"You look like you've seen a ghost." said Lucifer, as Sam's breath curled in a warm fog.
