10 – Destroy Everything You Touch

Dean shot at the area where he thought one of the hellhounds was, and Dee joined him. There was a whimper and a double shot of spraying black blood, so they hit, but he knew from the clicking claws that they'd done nothing but piss it off. Damn it.

"In here," Sam said, lunging for the nearest door. They all followed, almost trampling one another as they fell inside, and Dee, the last one in, not only slammed the door but leaned against it. A good thing, as one of the hellhounds slammed into it, making the door rattle in its frame.

"How the fuck does he have hellhounds?" Dee asked. Dean was wondering the same thing.

"Holy shit," Sam said. And it took Dean a second to figure out what she was reacting to.

The room they had come into wasn't another bedroom. It was covered floor to ceiling in various demonic and Enochian symbols, many of which looked and smelled like they'd been drawn in blood. There were pillar candles on the floor, not currently lit, but melted down enough to indicate they'd been used at some point. There were chains and burnt bones near the left hand wall, just outside a summoning circle. "This is where he's gonna do the ritual," Dee said, as the hellhound slammed against the door again. Dean joined Dee pressing against the door, if only to try and hold it up for a couple more seconds. The fact that there were at least two meant they'd be lucky to hold out for an entire minute."If he hasn't already."

"Would trashing this room make any difference at all?" Dean wondered.

Sam shook her head. "Doubt it. I'm not sure burning down the entire house will make a difference."

"We could do it just for fun," Dee said. It was a thought.

One of the hellhounds outside the door gave a huge whimper, and there was a loud crashing noise, followed by another howling noise of pain. After a second, they heard Cass say, "Hallway's clear for now. Let's go."

Thank fuck. Where the hell had she been?

They opened the door, which immediately fell off one hinge, and Cass was standing there with her angel blade still in her hand, the left sleeve of her trench coat shredded almost beyond recognition. There was a huge puddle of black blood near the top of the stairs, and a major chunk of the first floor railing was now missing. It had been a super short fight, but man, it must have been intense.

With Cass in the lead, they charged to the room at the end of the corridor, and Cass kicked it open for maximum bad ass effect.

And that's when the gunfire started.

By the time they sawed the beast's head off, Sam was so drenched in foul smelling blood it had ceased to be funny. Sure, yeah, this was the full Evil Dead treatment, but man, was it disgusting. He smelled like a tire fire in a full septic tank. He was on the verge of vomiting, but had so far managed to keep his lunch where it was. He wasn't sure why he was bothering, since Dean wasn't here to razz him about it, but it was kind of ingrained now. Didn't want to look like a wimp in front of your older brother.

Sylvia was at least in the same boat. Cass looked pretty damn spotless, save for a few odd flecks here and there, and that just wasn't fair. Who did you petition for that?

"We should go," Cass said, as if they weren't all bloodstained piles of goo besides a massive headless monster corpse.

Sam scoffed. "I need to clean up first."

The look Cass gave him was surprisingly judgmental. "The fate of many dimensions is at stake."

"I get that. But I'm gonna barf in a minute. This stuff is fucking disgusting." And his arms hurt, possibly from the strain of holding up the chainsaw and using it to cut into bones as big around as his own leg.

Cass looked briefly annoyed, but he touched Sam, and he got the strangest feeling, like it suddenly got ten degrees warmer. And when Cass pulled his hand away from his arm, he was suddenly clean. "You can clean stuff too?" Sam asked, amazed. He should really have Cass go into their motel rooms before they brought their stuff in.

"Actually I'm simply destroying it," Cass said, as he did the same for Sylvia. She actually took a step back, as if she was afraid of Cass … and suddenly Sam understood she was. She hadn't dealt with angels before, and she must have found Cass baffling, even frightening. She'd seen him kill a man by ripping his heart out of his chest, decapitate a monster with a chainsaw, take a beating that would have killed a human and barely left him with a bloody nose. If you didn't know what an angel's power set was, they'd probably be just another monster to you.

Cass must have gotten that too, as he cocked his head, and said, "I've no wish to harm you."

She nodded in that way you did when you were sure you were dealing with a crazy person who might snap and kill you any second. "Good to know."

Cass seemed confused by her fear. She had no idea he was actually one of the good guys. A strange good guy who definitely had a thing for his brother, but hey, at least they had one angel in their corner. Sam decided distracting him before Sylvia really freaked out was the best course of action. "So what can we do to stop the reality collapse?"

Cass finally looked back at him. "Since it's Gluskab and Malsumis fighting, our best course of action may be to summon Tabaldak and get him to stop the fight."

Sam shook his head, and then attempted to pop his ears, on the off chance they were full of gloopy demon blood. "Were you … was that English?"

"You've never heard of Gluskab and Malsumis? Or Tabaldak?"

"Yes."

Cass frowned at him. "You're unaware of the Abenaki's creator God?"

"Apparently." Sam really hated it when he didn't know something. But Abenaki was familiar, wasn't it? "Wait – the Abenaki? The Native American and First Nation tribe?"

Cass nodded, the irritated look disappearing. "Tabaldak is their creator God. He created Gluskab and Malsumis, and Malsumis seeks out evil. I imagine he started this fight with his brother. Summoning Tabaldak will not be easy."

"Should we try talking to … Gluskab and Malsumis?"

"I believe you may have encountered one in the forest, most likely Gluskab since you're still alive. How did that go?"

Wow. Sarcasm from Castiel. And Dean thought he didn't have a sense of humor. "You think Tabaldak will be any more receptive to us?"

Cass shrugged. "Your race may work against us."

That had never occurred to Sam. But sure, yeah. Decimating a God's people probably wasn't looked upon well by that God.

"Uh," Sylvia said, still hesitant. "You know you're talking about my people, right?"

Both Sam and Cass looked at her with interest. How about that? Luck might have finally been turning their way.

The first bullets hit Cass and passed through her like nothing, because bullets weren't enough to take Cass down. (Didn't he and Bobby learn that the hard way?) But the passing through part was the part that sucked.

One tagged Sam, and another got Dee, who shoved Dean back into the hallway for its meager cover. Dean managed to scramble to the side, and asked, "Clear?"

"Do it!" Dee shouted in reply. Sounded like she was near the floor.

Dean blasted in covering fire blindly, hoping against hope he wasn't hitting Sam or Dee with friendly fire. Over the concussive bangs of gunfire, he heard a lot of shit breaking in the master bedroom, and the occasional shout or yelp. There were other shots too, not slamming into the door or the jamb, and he had to assume Dee and Sam had reached some kind of cover and were shooting back as well.

Wasn't that cheating? Here they were dealing with a black magic guy, and he has his people use bullets. Seemed like cheating.

Dean ejected the empty clip and slapped a new one in in a couple seconds flat, and got right back to blind cover fire. The jamb was taking many shots and starting to dissolve into splinters, when he heard Cass say, "Close your eyes!"

Since Dean was out in the hall, he didn't bother, but he did look away as the bedroom soon lit up white, far too bright for anyone to safely view, and even though he barely saw it, it made his eyes water. There were high pitched screams of pain, but none of them were female.

The light died, and the shooting stopped, followed by sobs and noise of pain. Dean still edged in cautiously, guns first, but immediately saw there was no point. These men weren't going to be shooting anyone ever again.

There were four of them, all about (his) Sam's size, but twice as wide. And they were all on the floor, some with bullets wounds, all with their eyes burned out of their sockets. Dean would have called Cass to task for needless cruelty, except these men didn't look perfectly human. He couldn't tell what kind of monster they were with their eyes burned out, but he didn't much care either. None of these guys were Bishop.

Dee got up, blood pouring down her right arm, and grabbed the nearest eyeless guy by the collar. "Where's your boss?" she demanded, shaking him. "Where the fuck's Bishop?"

"Eat me, bitch."

Dee pulled out her gun, and shot him point blank in the head. Dean would have been surprised, except she'd done this type of thing before. He was actually a little worried about his female alter ego. There was a surprisingly fine line between badass and damaged beyond the telling of it, and she was riding it. He wasn't … was he? Now he was second guessing himself. "Anybody else wanna give me shit?" Dee asked, as the corpse thudded to the carpet.

"Winchesters," Bishop's chiding, sneering voice sing-songed. It sounded like he was shouting from the ground floor. "Looking for little old me?"

Cass helped Sam up. It looked like she'd just gotten nicked in the side; bullet missed everything major. It wasn't bleeding as badly as Dee's wound, or Dean's stab wound. His shirt was clinging to his back, and it made the itchy feeling worse. But he wasn't lightheaded yet, so he couldn't have lost that much blood.

The four of them went back into the hall, weapons out, although Cass took the lead, and was seemingly unarmed, as she didn't have her angel blade out. But she didn't need it either. She was God's weapon, after all, one of many.

Bishop was indeed on the ground floor, and from here they could see him standing in the center of the front room, the decapitated bodies of vamps and demons surrounding him like a summoning circle made of flesh. He still wasn't wearing a shirt, but Dean suddenly saw why. All those demonic sigils tattooed on him? They were moving. They flowed and stretched over his skin like snakes of red and black and blue ink, twisting into new, more dangerous symbols on his torso and arms. Dark tattooed flames wound around his throat and flowed over his face, making it look like black veins were popping out all around his face. It looked like all the color was leaching from his hair and into the sigils, as it turned icy white while they watched. What the fuck kind of creepazoid magic was this?

Bishop turned his blue eyes on Cass, and as Dean watched, tattooed filaments reached his bottom eyelid, and his whites started turning black. "Think I forgot about you, angel?" He snapped his fingers, and suddenly a circle of holy oil fire blazed to life around Cass.

He, Dee, and Sam all moved to bust Cass out, but they seemed to hit an invisible wall, and Bishop snickered. "Didn't think it was going to be that easy, did you?"

Dee had her gun out, and aimed it down at Bishop, even though they all knew it would do no good. She shot him in the face before, and he barely noticed it. "Release her, Bishop."

He grinned, and revealed his teeth were red. Why the fuck were his teeth red? The tattoos on his chest were now swirling, forming what looked like a reversed anti-possession symbol. Why? "Oh, Deeanna, since when do I take orders from meat like you? You're hardly even enough for a snack."

There was a black hole forming in the center of the anti-possession symbol, a pool of ink that grew to encompass his entire stomach. And for a second, Dean thought he saw movement within the darkness, but that was nuts. Right?

Now the ground was shaking, like an earthquake was happening – and California, so maybe – but the way Bishop was grinning, Dean didn't think so. Somehow he was doing this. He was a living Hellgate; a full conduit of black magic. Dean couldn't even imagine how much power that was. That must have put him near god level. Black smoke was starting to drift from his mouth, nose, and eyes, too insubstantial to be demons. For the moment. The dark hole on his torso was now encompassing his chest, and Dean saw movement again, but it was clearer this time. Holy shit. Dean could see the pit of Hell straight through him. How …? This was fucking crazy. How was that even possible?

"Here they come," Cass said.

"I need just one more thing before we get this party started," Bishop said. His face was crisscrossed with black veins, and he still had blue irises even though the rest of his eyes were black. The fact that you could just see the human part in there made him more of a nightmare figure than almost anything Dean had ever seen. "Blood." Bishop just waived his hand, which left dark trails behind it, and something came flying at them, so fast all Dean could see of it was a glint of silver.

"Get down!" Dee shouted, and hip checked Sam out of the way, as the ceremonial dagger hit her square in the chest instead.

"Dee!" Sam shouted, scrambling up from the floor.

Dean caught Dee before she hit the ground, but he already knew she was dead. The dagger had gotten her in the heart, and her eyes were open, staring at nothing. And there was a weird disconnect looking at a face that could be his, but wasn't, dead.

Sam joined him on the other side, tears glistening in her eyes, but they weren't just tears of sorrow. Rage burned there, and Dean got that too. Some creepy ass fucker needed to die, and he was just downstairs.

"You're dead," Cass said, her voice level but filled with steel. The only time he'd ever heard Cass speak with such glaring emotion, a lot of asses got kicked. "I will tear you to shreds." Not a threat; a statement of intent.

Bishop snickered, as more smoke came from his mouth. "Neat trick from behind holy oil, little bird. I've clipped your wings. Now watch your daddy's world end."

And suddenly black smoke gushed from Bishop's torso like a geyser of death.