*Donovan "Van" Lancaster belongs to the ever so lovely Andi (Selah25), . I recommend you read her fic "Thirty Days or Less" on here!*

Chapter 10

Act Naturally

The girls took Van's car, her behind the wheel, and set off for the church. Van knew the town better than either Cass or Andie, so they happily let her take them in the right direction. Andie was the shotgun, repeatedly hitting redial to try and get a hold of Dean. It would just ring and ring and ring. Finally someone picked up. "Dean? Dean, it's me, get out of the church!" Andie yelled quickly.

"What?" Dean's voice crackled through the receiver through static and interference. "Andie, I can't hear—line – ..connection is —ference – get out?"

Andie jammed one finger in her ear to try and hear better. "What?"

"Ca- church is full...—away from here!" And then the line went dead.

Andie cursed and hit redial. "This day just keeps getting better." She mumbled sarcastically as she held the phone to her ear; cursing again when the call went straight to Dean's voicemail.

"He say anything?" Van asked, keeping her piercing eyes on the road.

Andie shook her head. "As much as I can gather he wants us to stay away from the church."

"Which means we floor it?" Van smirked as she shifted gears.

"Absolutely."

"Luka's holed up at the motel," Cass snapped her phone shut and slung her elbows over an arm of each car seat. "I told him to stay put... don't need my man all hopped up on sin."

"Why can't the angels just sweep this place clean like they did with me?" Van inquired as she steered her car around the smoking wreck of an SUV. "This town is a shithole right now."

"They can; they just won't." Andie replied, casting her eyes out to what used to be a nice suburban street. Now the houses were looted, trees burnt to ash and the neighbourhood completely devoid of people. "Thing about angels is they aren't so angelic these days."

"Most of them have resigned themselves to the fact the apocalypse is coming, so they don't want to get involved. And that's how you wind up with a town full of Sin."

"Not that I'm agreeing," Van said as she veered off the main road. "But surely if we stop this, it's just going to happen somewhere else."

"Yeah, well... we kinda have a plan for that." Andie muttered, images of Sam and Dean saying yes to their respective vessels and the prospect of losing both of them flashing in her mind.

Van knew her well enough to understand that tone. "You're not going to tell me, are you?"

"The less people that know, the better." Cass spoke up. "Believe me."

Van was about to retort when a foul, smouldering smell stung her nostrils. "You guys smell that?"

Andie drew in a deep breath out the window and coughed as she inhaled a mouthful of smoke. "Fire." She spluttered.

"Aw, man," Van whined and screeched her car to a stop in front of the church. "Fire is the last thing we need more of around here."

The church was ablaze. There were about five fire engines parked out the front with a couple of dozen fire-fighters battling the flames. Three hoses were aimed at the church at different angles but they didn't seem to be helping; smoke was billowing up into the sky making the afternoon look like midnight.

Andie, Cass and Van approached the fire at a safe distance, covering their mouths with their sleeves. Andie spied the vacant Impala parked behind a couple of fire engines and looked around for Dean and Sam; they were nowhere to be seen. "Alright, they have to be inside..." Andie muttered to Cass and Van. "How can we get in?"

"There's a wheelchair entrance around the back..." Van told her, eying the handful of fire-fighters emerging from one of the trucks right in front of the back door. "We'll have to create a diversion."

"Oooh; me!" Cass elected herself. "Just tell me where to point and I'll shock something..." She pointed her fingers out in front of her.

Andie nodded. "Ok, you do that, I'll go in and you to follow, good?"

"Good." Van nodded firmly. "Come on," She snatched Cass by the arm and pulled her aside.

"What's your plan, Van Wilder?" Cass asked.

"You're crazy, right?"

"Extremely."

"Good." Van muttered instructions into her ear, before letting her go and approaching one of the firemen. "What happened?"

"What's it look like? Fire. You're gonna have to clear out." The handsome, yet angry, man replied.

"Did everyone get out okay?" Van asked, avoiding him as he tried to direct her away.

"Miss, please, you have to get back."

"Oh my God! Fire!" Cassidy came out of nowhere and screamed at the top of her lungs.

"Miss, calm down!" The fireman let go of Van and blocked Cass's path. "Everything's going to be okay."

"You are so hot..." Cass replied dreamily.

The fireman gave her a strange look. "Where are you two from, exactly?"

Cass looked blank. "Ah... Margaritaville?"

"Indonesia." Van interrupted. "She was in the Peace Corps. She suffered a head injury a few months ago."

"Bingo, I win!" Cass yelled and flung her hands up into the air, channelling the craziness of Hot Pink Windbreaker from the motel.

"Come on, Sharon, let's get you back to your cell." Van pushed her by her shoulders towards the Impala.

Once out of the prying eyes of the fireman, Van scanned the back exit and spotted Andie hiding behind a water pipe. There was no way she could make a run for the door without being seen. It was distraction time. Van nudged Cassidy, who extended the fingers of her right hand towards a light post behind where Andie was hiding, she sent a current of electricity surging through the wire, exploding the light to smithereens and starting yet another fire at the base of the pole.

Van and Cass kept themselves hidden as the firemen in Andie's way ran to stoush the flames, giving her enough time to run inside the church. Cass linked arms with Van and they sprinted towards the entrance to the church. It was thick was smoke and very difficult to see. Van took the lead, feeling her way along the wall until the heat simmered down and she could actually see her own boots.

"Andie?" Cass called out, rubbing her stinging eyes. "Andie?"

"She had to go have gone this way," Van pointed to the hall up ahead. "Everything else is up in flames."

Together, they ran and came to an arch leading into an empty hall. Van had been inside this church a few times, and never had she seen this. She could hear the firemen outside and the roar of the flames, but this room was untouched. Candles lined the walls, but funnily enough were unlit.

"This is creepy..." Van muttered, casting a look back at Cass - but she wasn't there. "Cass?" Van swivelled on the spot, a bad feeling creeping up her spine. "Ca..." Her voice trailed off. She was alone. Cass was nowhere to be seen. The ground was cobblestones; Van would have heard her run off. But then before she could move, a fabric hood dropped over her head and muffled her scream as she was dragged away.

Andie was lost. How she managed to get lost in a place like this she didn't know. From the outside, it looked like it was just one, maybe two, rooms, but inside was like a maze. No two doors led to the same place, there were staircases up and down, and hallways with dead ends. At some point she realized she must be underground because the air was cooler, and she couldn't smell the fire. She couldn't find Cass or Van, either, but they were likely to be as lost as she was.

A scuffling noise caught her ear, sending Andie through a couple more doors to a room further upstairs, shrouded in smoke. In the centre of the room on his feet, flipping madly through a thick textbook, was Dean.

"Oh, there you are." Andie gasped in relief when she saw him. "God, this place is like a rubix cube."

"Andie; what are you doing here," He grabbed her arm and pulled her away from the door. "I told you to stay away!"

"It was garbled on the phone!" Andie yelled. "Anyway, we can fight later, we gotta get outta here, this place'll be gone in a few minutes." She became aware that the two of them were the only ones in the room. "Where's Sam?"

"I dunno."

"What? What do you mean? Where is he?" For the first time, Andie scanned the room. There was writing all over every wall in red paint with symbols and words Andie didn't understand. "What happened in here?

"We got separated and now I can't find him... look," He pointed to a sigil drawn on the wall. "War."

"Horseman, War?" Andie repeated. "But we killed him, and stole his bling."

"Yeah, I know, he must have been here before he we killed him. Things have been going downhill here for a couple of months." He jabbed his fingers at the book he was flicking through. "Someone in this town knew what was going on; angels."

Andie scanned her eyes over the page, drawings of archangels, symbols and writing in a language she didn't understand. But before she could even flip a page, a creaking noise from above made her look up; a smouldering beam in the rafters was splintering and, as she watched, cracked in half and sailed down right above them. With a swift wave of her hand, Andie sent the debris across the room, but as she did so she heard more creaking, more beams were splitting from the heat and fire.

"Move, move, move!" Dean roughly shoved Andie through the doorway and they ran.

Andie ducked and weaved through the hallways, banging through a door that somehow led them downstairs to a basement. "Jesus." She wheezed as she leant back against the cool, stone wall. "Where are we now?"

"I dunno, some sorta bunker..." Dean wondered out loud as he inspected the walls of the room. The most notable change was the temperature. It was cold in here. Normal, basement cold; completely opposite to the fire blazing above them.

"A church with a bunker?" Andie questioned.

"Yeah, I know, it's weird." Dean felt around in his pockets for some matches.

"So we've lost Sam, Van and Cass," Andie slid down to the floor on her backside. "Good for us."

"Van and Cass?" Dean repeated as he tried to light a match.

"Yeh, I told them to follow me in here." Andie smacked her forehead. "Stupid. I told them to run into a burning building."

Dean got a match lit and started looking around the bunker. "Wow..." He spied wooden boxes in the corner labelled RICE and cans of artificial meat as well as big, sealed bottles of water. "Looks like someone's preparing for the end of the world."

Andie rose to her feet and came to inspect it. "Well, this is peculiar..." She muttered as she noticed what looked like a large fire extinguisher case secured to the wall; inside she found a handgun, a torch and an extra round of bullets. She handed the gun to Dean and kept the torch for herself.

"Plan?" He asked as he pocketed the extra round.

"Lie on the ground in the foetal position and think about pancakes."

"Plan B?"

"Kick some ass."

xxx

When the hood was pulled off of Van's head, she was met with a cupful of water dousing her face. Coughing and spluttering, Van cursed whoever had thrown it on her. She shook her head a little and managed to see the face of a handsome young man staring down at her. "This one's clean, too." He said as he knelt before her.

"You think I'm a demon?" Van recognized the holy water, and discovered her hands were bound with iron chains.

"We run into more than you would think." The young man told her, releasing her shackles. "I'm James. Don't worry, we won't hurt you."

"Van!" Cass's relieved voice called to her. "They wouldn't believe me when I told them you were human." She fell to her knees in front of Van. "They snatched us out of that room like Ninjas."

"Where are we?" Van asked as she rubbed her freed wrists.

"You're safe." James said, getting to his feet and adjusting his grip on the shotgun in his hands.

"It's like an underground city down here," Cass informed her. "Everyone who wasn't infected; they hide under here."

"It's Armageddon." James said with a shrug. "No way are we going to stay up there in the thick of it."

"How many of you are down here?" Cass asked as she helped Van to her feet.

"Started out a couple of hundred, but people got curious and wandered above ground." He handed them a torch. "We never saw them again. That's why we stay below."

"Waiting for...?" Van prompted him. "You really think just burning down the church is going to stop demons come searching for you?"

"It's better than doing nothing." James replied.

"This is all very interesting," Cass said hurriedly. "But we've got friends up there so we need to get out-"

"You're not going anywhere." James cut in. "We risked our lives taking you because we thought you were demons. Now that you're here; you can't leave."

Cass was fed up. "Ok, look, my friend Andie? She has a habit of attracting demons and she's not going to sleep until she finds me. And my boyfriend Luka? He could kick your ass eight ways from Sunday so I suggest you let us out of here or else!"

"Do you ever shut up?"

"I've known her less than a day," Van spoke up. "And I can comfortably say no, she doesn't."

"I hate you both." Cass grumbled.

"Cass?"

"Sam?" She yelped as her torch fell on her friend, he was coming up the darkened hall.

"Are you ok?" He arrived in front of her carrying his own torch and a pistol.

"Yeah, they nabbed you, too?" Cass guessed.

"Yeah, Dean and I were looking around and then they grabbed me..." His eyes glanced towards Van.

"This is Van, Andie's friend." Cass slapped his shoulder. "Unclench, Samuel, she's cool."

"Sam Winchester." Van smiled and gave him a polite nod.

"Hi..." Sam replied cautiously.

"Alright, if we're done here, can you three keep moving?" James spoke up.

"Move where, exactly?" Sam asked. "You still haven't told me what the hell is going on down here."

"It's a safety zone." James replied as he led the way through the maze of tunnels. "The only place we're protected is down here."

"Protected by who?" Sam inquired.

"Selaphiel." James replied casually.

Van stopped in her tracks. "Selaphiel?" She repeated, recognizing the name from her years of studying.

"What?" Cass glanced sideways at her. "Who is that?"

Van gave her a worried look. "He's an archangel."

xxx