Part 4
A group of men at the far end of the bar had a game of Texas Hold'em going. Dean noticed this absently has he held up a finger to signal the bartender.
"You just want me to leave this?" she asked with a wry smile, refilling his glass for the fifth time.
"Do I look like I should be trusted with it?" Dean retorted.
She took in the slump of his posture and the deep circles under his eyes. "You look like it's going to take more than this to fix whatever you've got riding on you," she said, not unkindly, picking up the bills he'd set down on the table and moving on to her next patron.
Dean looked down at the swirl of amber liquid. "Dammit, Sam," he muttered. He winced at the memory of the look on his brother's face, the tone of his voice. He understood on an intimate level what that look meant. Flashes of Hell assailed him from all directions at once, and he gripped the glass tight to ground himself in the present. He wondered fleetingly how much pressure he would have to apply to shatter a glass in his hand.
Some things break more easily than others.
He smiled a grim smile to himself at his own morbid joke. He wondered what madness felt like, and if this was how it started.
A low, familiar voice interrupted his train of thought. "Mind if I join you?"
Dean looked up at the older man who pulled out a stool at the bar and sat down next to him. "Bobby."
Bobby caught the eye of the bartender and pointed to Dean's glass. She nodded and indicated just a sec.
Dean leaned forward on his elbows. "Nice place you have here," he said conspiratorially, trying for lightness. "You come here often, gorgeous?"
"Cute."
Bobby waited as the bartender set down a second glass and filled it. Once they were alone again, he gave Dean a hard look. "You doin' all right?"
The weight seemed to settle back over Dean. "I have no idea what to think."
"You mean about Ben. Or Sam?"
"Sam was here. Bobby, this wasn't some… hallucination, or… or Demi Moore thing. As much as he and I used to joke about haunting each other's asses, that's not what this is."
"I know, son. I believe you."
"He made me swear not to try and bring him back. I know why he said it, and I know he meant it. But Bobby, if there's even a chance… Any chance I have to get him out, I'm taking it. All bets are off. "
"You said he was trying to tell you something. About Ben?"
Dean's jaw clenched. "Yeah. Before he…"
Bobby hated to press, but needed the details. "Did you see anything else besides Sam? A… light, or a flash of any kind? Was there any other sound?"
"No. No, it was just him, and he was… struggling to get the words out." The meaning behind Bobby's questions dawned on Dean. "You found something."
"Someone. Asked him to meet us here." Bobby nodded at the poker game in the back of the room.
Dean followed Bobby's gaze. "Friends of yours?" he asked.
"Hunters," Bobby filled in. "Come on." He picked up his glass, and Dean did the same, shadowing Bobby as he picked his way through the maze of mostly empty tables and chairs.
Members of the group looked up at them, breaking into grins of recognition when they saw it was Bobby Singer.
"Sorry to bust up your game, boys," said Bobby. "You mind if we steal Hank here for a minute?"
The man named Hank scraped his chair back and set his cards face-down on the table. "Next round's on me," he said to the group. He hitched up his jeans and tucked the loose-fitting, button-down shirt back into his waistband as he trailed Bobby and Dean toward the exit.
Stepping outside into the cool night air, Bobby turned to both boys and said, "Hank, this is Dean. Dean… Hank here has what you might call some expertise in what we're dealing with."
Dean nodded to Hank by way of acknowledgement. "Meaning, what exactly?"
Hank looked down and unbuttoned the cuff of his left sleeve, then his right, efficiently rolling each cuff up to the forearm and pushing them up, revealing a long set of angry, red scars that traveled the length of each arm. To Dean, they looked like electricity burns.
Hank held out his arms for examination. "It took my wife," he explained. "But not before I figured out how to kill it."
Dean said, "You killed it?"
"Said I figured it out." He looked at Dean steadily, and Dean saw the depth of the man's pain and loss laid out bare, like a whole different set of scars. "And I intend to."
"How?"
Bobby held up his hands. "Killing it is not the only consideration. Hank, what I didn't tell you earlier is that we may be dealing with a two-party phone line here."
Dean and Hank exchanged a look, and waited for Bobby to go on.
"It's likely that when this thing cracks open a conduit to Hell, energy travels both ways – up and down, so to speak. In theory, anything that's in the vicinity, Hell-side, could latch on and find themselves yanked through the energy field from one place to the other."
Dean was frowning. "You think Sam managed to grab hold of a tentacle and swing up out of the cage, courtesy of electro-monster?"
"It's possible. That is, until the switch flips off or something else yanks him back."
Dean felt something clench in his chest. "Something else. Like Lucifer."
Hank's eyes widened and he started shaking his head. "I don't know anything about any of that. This thing got ahold of my wife, same way Bobby here told me it's got your boy. She fought it off as long as she could. I was too late, but eventually I got my hands on these."
Hank's hands went to his pockets and he pulled out two small, ornately carved daggers. He held them out to show Dean. Dean took one, turning it over in his hand. "These markings…?"
"Apparently it's an instruction manual," said Bobby, with a soft chuckle. "How to kill a monster in three easy steps."
"Yeah, easy," Hank said bitterly. "I don't think you fellas have any idea what you're dealing with. I've been hunting my whole life and this thing, it right near took me down with it."
"If it's alive," Dean said with conviction, "it can die."
"Boy, it's like I said before, if you would pay attention." Bobby snatched the dagger from Dean and handed it back to Hank. "This ain't just about killin'. It's got its claws into Ben, which means figuring out a way to… I don't' know, kill it gentle."
Suddenly, a cold realization washed over Dean. "Bobby. If Sam can use this – what did you call it, conduit?—to get free… is it possible Lucifer could do the same thing?"
Bobby considered it. "I think if that were possible, he would have found a way to do it eons ago. The seals are back in place now, which means he shouldn't be going anywhere."
"Then why is Sam able to break out?"
Hank had been shifting his weight from foot to foot and studying the ornate Latin words carved into the blades of his daggers. He looked up at Dean, "This your brother you're talking about?"
"Yeah," Dean said.
"Look, I don't know you. But it seems like from the way you've been talking about him that the two of you were close."
"You could say that."
"You close to the boy, too?"
The last thing Dean was in the mood for was to play feelings show-and-tell with a perfect stranger. "What is it you're asking me?"
Bobby looked like he would love to know, as well.
Hank looked from Dean to Bobby and then back to Dean, and leaned in. "I know this thing," he said, with a low, dangerous edge to his voice. "I've hunted it. Tracked it. Watched it. I know what draws it and what chases it off. Like I said, I'm not gonna pretend to know anything more than what I know for a fact, which is that this thing killed the woman I loved. If it's got your boy," he handed both daggers to Dean, "we kill it before it kills him. And if we can use it to get your brother back, so much the better."
"I'm all for that," Dean said. "Any thoughts on the how part of this equation?"
Hank smiled grimly. "These scars? I know how to grab it and hold on. We hold the channel open long enough for your brother – Sam – to jump through. Then I end its miserable little life."
"Now hold on," Bobby interrupted. "Before you both go off half-cocked on this. We don't know what holding the channel open would do to Ben. Plus, there's no guarantee that Sam would even make it out if Lucifer has anything to say about it."
Dean had his answer ready. "Then I go in after him."
"Into Hell."
"Hey, once you get the crowd on their feet, the least you owe them is an encore."
Bobby shook his head. "It's not just Hell, this would be you dropping face-first into the cage, son. And the most likely scenario I see playing out is you and Sam both being trapped down there."
"At least I'd have a shot at doing something." Protecting him, he meant. The prime directive. He turned to Hank. "We're doing this. You're in?"
Hank smiled, a look that spoke of revenge and retribution. "You're damn straight."
In his dream, Dean sees himself standing on the rocky ledge of a vast precipice, surrounded by nothing on all sides. The air is almost too hot to breathe, too thick with soot and sulfur. A harsh, dry wind tears across the cliffs, chapping the exposed skin on his cheeks and making Dean's eyes narrow into a squint.
"SAM?" he calls. The wind steals his voice, carrying the word away in the roar of a current.
He stands still, listening.
The wind is his only answer, howling and whipping all around him.
He edges closer to the side of the cavern that lays before him, conscious of the crumbling ground and rocks skittering under his feet. One of the larger rocks he steps on suddenly gives way, tumbling free to hurl down the mountainside, and Dean's leg goes down with it. He twists to try and catch himself, and feels a firm grip on his arm hauling him back to his feet.
"I knew you'd find me," says Sam. A faint hint of a smile plays on his face. He looks… Dean doesn't know how he expected his brother to look in Hell, but this isn't it. He looks… like Sam. Sam's soft, green eyes squint at Dean, wrinkling his nose, wisps of long hair caught and whipped in every direction by the harsh wind.
Dean steadies himself on his feet. "I thought you were… what happened to the cage?"
Sam looks around, raising his voice slightly over the wind to say, "Do you like it? Nice, huh. This goes on for miles. I've never even seen the sides of it, but I know they're there. I can feel them. Like heat."
"It's not what I expected."
"Oh," Sam says, understanding perhaps what it is Dean had been expecting. "No. This is- It's different every time."
"Every time what?"
Sam gives a small, mirthless laugh.
"They're enjoying this, you know."
"You mean Lucifer? Michael? What, are they just hiding out in the hills somewhere, mountain-man style?"
-flick-
In the space of a heartbeat, the landscape around them shifts and then quickly slides back into place.
-flick-
Blood. Fire. Pain. Screaming. Torture. Iron. Rack. Red. Black. Blood. Pain. Burning. Blinding. Shrieking. Terror. DEANhelpme.
-flick-
The wind swirls around them, picking up dust and scattering a few small rocks at their feet. Sam looks down, his nose wrinkling again as he squints up at Dean with that same sad, regretful smile. "You weren't supposed to see that."
Dean feels shaken to the core. "Sammy…"
"No, Dean, don't. It's okay."
"Sam, I'm going to get you out of here—"
"You know I can't let you do it."
Dean feels himself shouting, and the louder he shouts the less of his voice carries through the wind. "SAM. I am getting you out. Just reach through. I'll be there. I'll be holding it open. You find my hand and you reach for it. I'll grab you and I'll hold on to you! I won't let go!"
Sam flickers.
"Don't you dare put my life ahead of his," Sam says solemnly. "Dean. Don't you dare."
To be continued.
