I see the angels
I'll lead them to your door
There is no escape now
Now mercy no more
No remorse 'cause I still remember
The smile when you tore me apart
-Within Temptation, "Angels" (2004)
That was exactly what Dean wanted to hear. "What did she show you?" he asked.
Sam shook his head. "'Show' is the wrong word. They were more just images and...and feelings." If the look on his face was anything to go by, they were bad, and Dean found his hand reaching to grasp Sam's shoulder before he'd even though about it. Sam gave a grateful smile at the show of support. "But I couldn't make sense of it...at first. After she threw me, though, it came together."
Sam swallowed and winced, shifting uncomfortably. "I honestly don't know how much of the pain right now is hers and what's mine," he admitted. "God."
Maybe Sam hadn't been rubbing at his chest because of what Dean had done. Then to see it happen right in front of him...
"Where is he?" Dean asked, forcing himself to focus. If they found the brother, then he could get everyone out.
Sam gave a wry grin. "The only place in the basement he could have been put without the cops finding him," he said, before casting a look behind him at the elevator doors. The ones Rita had all but thrown him towards.
Well, Sam hadn't gotten the message the other way. "Wait, he's inside the elevator?" Bethany said, clutching her arms around herself now. "We were inside the elevator with..."
"I don't think he's in the elevator," Sam said, even as it clicked in Dean's head. The chewed up floor in the front, probably a desperate attempt on William's part to get his brother underneath the elevator. William's unwillingness to get near the elevator now, when they'd hidden inside. It wasn't the iron scaring him off: Dean doubted there was a single piece of iron inside of the doors or the car itself.
No. It was his brother's remains that had him spooked. Which meant if they really got to him, then they could send William packing, too.
"How the hell are we supposed to get the car up?" Dean asked, looking at the doors. Without power, it'd be a lot easier to prop the doors open, but a hell of a lot harder to get the car up far enough to burn remains.
"One thing at a time," Sam said, as if sensing what Dean was thinking. "Let's just get the doors open." He began pushing himself up, but Dean could see it was costing his brother to do so. Without a word Dean caught his brother and began lifting him to standing.
By the time they were done Sam was panting heavily, and if the death grip on Dean's jacket was anything to go by, the room was pulling a tilt-a-whirl. Still, Sam managed to open his eyes and focus on Dean after only a few seconds. "If those iron bars are still anywhere around, it'll make keeping the doors open a lot easier," he said.
"Stay with Bethany," was all Dean said in reply, already hurrying towards the door near the kitchen stairwell. At first glance, the iron bars were nowhere to be seen, and Dean warily searched the perimeter. It wasn't like the poltergeist could've picked them up and dropped them somewhere, or even really moved them, so where the hell...?
When he turned around, he got his answer. There, embedded in the wall behind the door, were the iron bars. Dean silently shut the door and began the task of pulling them loose. Thankfully, they hadn't been shoved in very far, but enough that Dean wondered again at the force needed. Jesus H. Christ. By a poltergeist, no less.
"We'll see who's better off by the end of the day," he muttered, tugging the last one free. He gathered them up in his arms and all but ran back towards the elevator, a part of him terrified he'd find William back already and his brother's body sliced and diced.
Sam was leaning against the wall next to the elevator, Bethany on the opposite side. "You're going to have to do it," Bethany said apologetically, cheeks flushed. "We just tried to get them open, but I don't have the arm strength to pull them back."
"No worries," Dean assured her, dropping the iron bars near the elevator doors and taking a good look at his brother. Sam still didn't look completely stable, but he was standing, and he had his jaw set which meant the rest of the world could stuff it: Sam was gonna do this.
So long as his big brother let him, of course. Unfortunately, Dean didn't really have a choice in the matter.
"On three," Dean said instead, taking Bethany's place near the elevator. Sam replaced his hands near the split in the doors, fingers in as best he could. "Bethany, shove the iron bars in when we get it open, all right?"
"I think they're too long," she said after a minute, leaving Dean to look at the bars again. She was right: they were too long to fit in the space. He clenched his jaw and scanned the nearby vicinity. There was enough crap there that something had to fit.
He didn't even have to say anything. "I'll find something," she assured him, then added quickly, "And I'm definitely staying close, I promise."
Yeah, Dean doubted she'd go far, not after the whole William and Rita show. God. He shuddered, then returned to the task at hand. Who knew how long the three iron rounds would keep William out of commission. "Ready?" he asked Sam.
"On three," Sam repeated, and Dean tapped his foot three times before they began to pull. The doors screeched in protest, but they reluctantly began to part. Dean could feel his arms straining with the amount of force being used to pull them open. Maybe there was really iron in them, given the weight of the doors-
At the last second they popped open, leaving Dean practically flying backwards. After a moment, he slowly released his grip on the doors, watching Sam do the same on the other side. The doors held open, no force necessary. "Huh," Dean said, eyebrows raised. Rita...?
"I've got something, but it's...it's stacked too high," Bethany's voice called, echoing over the empty space. When Dean turned to look, she was nowhere in sight.
"I've got it," Sam said, pushing himself away from the wall. He stumbled a little, then shook himself and marched resolutely down through the stacks of junk. Dean watched him go, concerned, but finally had to admit that Sam was as good as he was going to get until Dean could get him out of the house. Not like Dean was in a huge amount of physical wellness, either: his back and legs still throbbed, and he could feel the ache of a growing bruise.
A moment later Sam and Bethany quickly returned, with a wooden chair in Sam's arms. "I think it'll fit," Bethany said. "It looked about the right length."
Without preamble Sam turned it sideways and fit the back of the chair, from back legs to top, into the space where the doors slid. A few inches less on one side, but otherwise than that, it looked like a heavy enough piece of wood to hold it. "Good guess," Dean said, and Bethany gave a small grin at the praise.
Unfortunately, that'd been the easy part. And they were on a timer, one that Dean was more aware of with each passing second. They'd gotten about fifteen minutes last time before William had shown up. So far, they'd spent about five, six minutes, and if he was coming back faster...
Sam already had his flashlight in hand, but when he began to crouch to peer through the dented hole, his eyes shut tight and he swallowed hard. Nausea, which generally heralded a concussion. Dean pursed his lips but took the flashlight and hauled Sam to his feet. "People with a concussion shouldn't be doing a lot of ups and downs," Dean pointed out, even while his own legs were already protesting the near-future bending.
"And people with bruised, possibly sprained backs shouldn't be crouching, either," Sam countered. "No. I'll do it."
"Too late, I've already got the flashlight."
"You have two, since you took mine, just give it back."
"Make me."
"I can't believe-"
"Uh, guys?"
Both Sam and Dean turned to Bethany, who was already kneeling on the floor. "If you tilt the light in, I can see inside for all of us," she said, and while she didn't do it, Dean could practically hear the urge to roll her eyes.
In silent agreement of her wisdom (not meekly, Dean Winchester did not do meekly, even when chastened) Dean handed Sam his flashlight back. They flipped the lights on at the same time and shone the light into the small hole.
Bethany peered in as best she could, frowning. "Anything?" Sam asked after a moment. His eyes scanned the basement as he kept the light on, but Dean could see the rising nervousness. Yeah, time to roll.
"There's...something," Bethany said after a moment. "It looks like cloth. And something shiny, too." She glanced back up at them, biting her lip. "I couldn't see any skin. Though...it's probably not skin anymore, is it?" she added after a minute, looking sickened by her own realization.
"Let's get the car up," Dean said immediately, turning the light off. Sooner they got to the brother, the better things would be.
The old furnace suddenly went on. Bethany shrieked and scrambled away, into the elevator. Oh that was not a good sign. "Bethany, out," Dean said, grabbing the gun from his back. His flashlight he tucked underneath his arm in order to grab the extra bullets from his pocket. Six rounds left, that was it. No extra bullets.
"I'm full," Sam said next to him, but he didn't look happy about it. "And then that's it."
Twelve rounds between them. And it was taking more and more to put William down for less and less time. "Be nice if Rita showed up," Dean said, but he had a funny feeling that Rita wasn't going to be helping them out anytime soon. It was them versus William, no help from their friendly (okay, violent, but still friendly) ghost.
And they still had no idea how the hell to get the car up.
"What if we moved the car up? To the next floor?" Bethany said. She was out of the elevator, but just barely. "The doors are held open, right?"
"Except we don't have power," Dean pointed out. "Hard to move the car up without power."
Sam shook his head slowly. "No, Dean, she's right. We do have power," he said, pointing to the furnace. "Probably not one of William's smartest moves."
Turn William's freaky power switch abilities on its head. "I like it," Dean said, then reached inside the elevator and hit the button for 'L', hoping and praying that it'd go. "Please god, c'mon," Dean muttered, pulling his arm out.
Nothing happened. Dean found himself holding his breath when, after a long moment, the doors tried to close. When the doors were pushing on the chairs as much as possible, the elevator car slowly began to lift to the lobby. Dean lifted his flashlight towards the bottom of the elevator shaft the same time Sam did.
There, in a small pile, were the remains of Tony, the brother. The cloth that Bethany had seen was part of his shirt and pants, and while both were dirty, neither were particularly blood stained. The silver glint looked like a tattered watch on his wrist and a tie-clip with something engraved on it. T.A.D. were seen on closer inspection.
"Look out!"
Bethany's scream had Dean turning and firing without any hesitation. William's shadowed form, less than two feet from Dean, disappeared for a moment, before slowly reforming. Dean fired twice more in succession and William melted away permanently. "Sam-"
"Keep him off of me," Sam said, already moving into the shaft. "Bethany, I need the bag."
Dean forced himself to keep his back to the shaft, eyes on the area around them. Three rounds. Three rounds left. He could hear the bag being slid across the floor, then the zipper sliding open fast. The shaking sound that sounded like frozen rain told Dean that the salt – and a liberal amount of it, if his ears were right – was being poured down on the remains.
Dean slid his flashlight across the room. The furnace was still roaring, which meant that William was still nearby. Still too close. His beam of light crossed over the piles of junk, of broken down mattresses and tables from the hotel's lifetime. Once he reached one side, he began panning back to the other, gun at the ready.
His light beam suddenly caught onto the swiftly moving form of William, who had his axe raised and falling down on Dean's head. Bethany screamed next to Dean as he ducked and fired twice into William's chest, and the axe faded away. "Bethany, get into the elevator shaft!" Dean yelled. The closer she was to the remains, the safer she'd be.
From behind him, Dean could make out the sound of a bottle being squeezed, something soft hitting the floor. The fire accelerant. "Sammy, I need your gun," Dean said, reaching back. Solid metal hit his hand, and Dean reluctantly put his gun down in order to keep hold of the flashlight. It was there at his feet if he needed it: one shot left, seven shots total.
Another sound came from behind Dean, though it wasn't the striking of the match. Rather, it was the groaning of something heavy and full of metal, something big trying to move. He froze, paralyzed briefly by fear. The elevator. If it gave-
He couldn't stop himself from turning to look. Sam was digging in the bag desperately, probably trying to find the matches. Bethany was huddled on the ground away from the door and near the remains. "Sam, the elevator," Dean said, just as the elevator above lurched. All three of them whipped their heads up and watched as the elevator dropped a few inches.
Sam turned away first, his eyes catching behind Dean and going wide. "Dean!" he shouted, but Dean was already turning to fire. One iron round didn't stop William from coming, but another two pushed him away. Four rounds remaining between two guns.
They weren't going to make it.
Sam grabbed the bag and tossed it outside of the shaft, the matches already in his hands. "Bethany, get out of here," Sam said, even as the elevator dropped again. Bethany and Sam both ducked instinctively, but the elevator held. "Bethany!"
Dean didn't know if Bethany heeded Sam's warning, and hearing anything besides his own thundering pulse wasn't happening. "C'mon!" Dean yelled behind him, forcing himself to look around the basement. He had to trust Sam to get out of there in time, to get out before William killed Dean by axe or Sam by elevator, because he knew exactly who was pushing the elevator down on them: the one who was controlling the power.
The elevator groaned again, the screeching metal like nails on a chalkboard. He couldn't hear the match lighting up, couldn't hear if Sam had started the fire, if it would be enough to keep William at bay.
Movement from his left had him turning and firing straight into William's form. No sooner had he pulled the hammer back for a second shot did he feel the hairs on his back rise up. He whipped around and found empty eye sockets inches from his. Half a second later he was flying through the air and hitting the hard wall of the basement. The sudden grinding of metal, Sam and Bethany's yells, left him desperately trying to look away, to move, to do anything, but William had him pinned in place. The heavy thud reverberated throughout Dean's body, and he couldn't even flinch at the sound of the elevator hitting the round floor. Couldn't even scream at the silence that followed, at how he didn't know where Sam or Bethany were, if they were dead, oh god-
The emptiness, the black void where William's eyes should've been, felt it was sucking Dean's soul in, paralyzing him completely, and cold spread throughout his entire body. Every part of him felt revulsion, and he desperately fought not to gag. He wasn't looking at emptiness, he realized suddenly. He was looking into William's soul, and it was so twisted, so dark and corrupted, and Dean had never felt so wrong or sick in his entire life. William leaned in even closer, and his fetid breath reeked of old blood and death. Dean fought to lean back and as far as he could, but his body remained frozen in place. A tear rolled from his eye as he shut his eyes tight. Sam could be dead, crushed under the elevator, and Dean didn't care if William sliced him into tiny bits, but goddammit, he'd fought to keep Sam safe-
The gunshot that followed left William melting away into the dark basement. Dean turned and found Bethany and Sam sprawled on the ground outside the elevator doors, Dean's other gun in Sam's hand. Sam panted heavily, chest heaving, but his hand and aim were steady. "You okay?" he asked. One round left in the gun.
Dean fell back against the wall, the relief enough to make him stagger slightly. "You?" he asked in return.
Sam grinned. "Ask me after we get out of here."
"The fire-?"
Sam held up the matches in one hand. The gun was set down, a single match lit. There was enough room in the dented hole of the dropped elevator, Dean realized, to easily slip a match in. The falling elevator would've taken out the fire, anyways. "Should I do the honors?" Sam asked.
Before Dean could say anything, the door to the furnace burst out, and the flames began licking out into the room. Then right behind Sam and Bethany, axe poised to swing and kill them both, was William, dark empty eyes murderous. "Sam-!" Dean shouted, gun raised to fire.
It didn't matter. Bethany whipped around even as Sam tossed the match through the hole. The fire caught easily, lighting up the bottom of the elevator shaft. William stuttered, winking in and out, the axe pulled higher and higher each time.
"Go to hell, you bastard," Bethany choked out, her eyes brimming with unshed, angry tears.
The scream that echoed throughout the basement wasn't William's, but it wasn't Rita's, either. The axe was thrown from William's hands, and Dean ducked to avoid being decapitated. As soon as it stuck in the wall it began to melt into blood. William turned in rage to his unseen attacker, but then began choking, hands reaching for his throat. Blood pooled in his eyes, sliding down his face, even as his chest began to open. Black smoke crackled and melted from inside of him, and William's body began to shake.
The furnace kept burning, flames finally catching hold of one of the mattresses and setting it on fire. Sticking around to watch William die wasn't an option: Dean had a feeling Rita, Annie, and Tony were making sure of that. "Stairs, now!" Dean yelled. His flashlight was hastily thrown into the duffel bag outside the elevator doors, and he ran back to pull Sam up with his free arm.
"Go!" Bethany shouted, and Dean all but dragged Sam to the stairwell near the kitchen, the closest exit they had. The broken door slid open easily, and Dean couldn't help one last look back into the room. It was burning merrily now, the flames from beneath the elevator also reaching out into the basement.
But it all paled in comparison to William's own light show.
Three separate trails of white mist circled around and around him, lifting him high off the floor. William was shaking violently, and blood continued to drip from his eyes. Slowly his form began to melt, blood pooling on the floor beneath him. The white mists suddenly all dove into the black center of his chest, and the room got a lot brighter.
Sam yanked at him, leaving Dean to stumble up the first few stairs before he caught himself and hurried after his brother. They raced through the kitchen, back into the lobby, and straight for the main doors. The second duffel was grabbed fast as Sam grabbed the handle and shoved hard.
They fell out and tripped down the stairs as William's last scream filled the air. Glass from all the windows shattered outwards, and Dean quickly covered Sam as best he could to shield from the broken shards. Light from inside filled the hotel, then suddenly vanished, taking William's scream with it. Silence followed.
Dean swallowed hard and looked back at the hotel, his breathing labored, his heart pounding to get out of his chest. "Holy shit," he managed, sitting up. The cool night air around him felt like a reward for surviving the hotel, and he breathed in deeply. Holy shit wasn't enough for what had happened.
Sam sat up beside him, but it was more of an anxious jerk then a relief-filled, 'we survived' sort of move. "Bethany?" he called, and Dean froze, scanning the area. She wasn't on the stairs or anywhere near them, which meant-
"Oh god," he whispered. With one shove he was up and racing back inside, Sam right behind him. Had she tripped on the basement stairs? Was she down in the fire? He'd been so determined to get Sam out, and he knew he'd heard her-
"Bethany!" he shouted once he was inside the lobby. No matter how shut down the town got at night, the cops were gonna come looking after William's final bow out. His eyes rapidly scanned the lobby, and when he didn't see her, his gut lurched. "C'mon," Dean started, only for Sam to catch his arm.
"Dean, wait."
Dean whipped back around, incredulous, only to find Sam's gaze locked on the floor. Bewildered, Dean glanced down and saw the newspaper, the full one Sam had kept. He must've dropped it on the way out.
The pages were spread out, the cover to the far left, gruesome picture and all. The sports pages and the financial reports were all there, but on top of them all was a page with another picture. One of four smiling people. Dean crouched beside it and stared.
In the picture, eyes bright and happy, were the Deventons. William and Rita were cuddled together on the far right, smiling widely at the camera. Beside William was a younger man with an infectious grin, leaning with his elbow on William's shoulder. And beside him...
The caption below the picture read: A picture taken by a bellhop at request of the guests shows the Deventons happy before the tragedy. Right to left: Rita and William Deventon, Thomas "Tony" Deventon (brother), Bethany Deventon (sister).
Her blonde ponytail hung over her shoulder, and she had her arm wrapped around Thomas, a content smile on her face. She looked happy. They all did.
Through the broken shards of the windows, the sun slowly began to peek through. With the first light of day came the distant sound of sirens, the cops awake and on their way.
Without a word Dean rose and walked outside, Sam beside him.