Chapter 12 – Seven Devils

"Oh god... Kevin!" Sam shouted.
He hurried down the hallway, a piece of paper clutched in his hand. Kevin poked his head out of his room.
"What is it? Is something wrong?" he asked.
"Follow me," said Sam.
Kevin had to practically run to keep up with Sam's long strides as he rushed down the stairs to the basement.
"Sam, what's going on?" Kevin asked as Sam turned on the lights.
A lonely chair stood empty in front of them, chains hanging over the armrests.
"What?! Where did he...?" Kevin exclaimed.
Sam wordlessly handed him the piece of paper in his hand. Kevin read:
"We're going to try to save Cas from hell. If this doesn't work, I'm sorry. –Dean."

"You ready?"
Dean glanced around him at the unkempt cemetery, wondering if this would be the last he'd ever see of earth.
"Yeah, I am," he said.
"Then let's go to hell," said Crowley.
He pushed open the doors of the mausoleum and unscrewed the cap of a mason jar, full to the brim with the ingredients of a blood spell. He painted a large sigil on the back wall and set the empty jar on top of the stone tomb in the center of the room.
"Okay, let's do this," said Dean.
He double-checked that his angel blade was tucked inside his jacket, then stood next to Crowley, who began to recite an incantation. The sigil began to glow and the mausoleum shook. Slowly, the light began to engulf them. Dean shielded his eyes as it burned brighter and brighter. Then suddenly, everything stopped. Dean lowered his hands and looked tentatively around.
"Well, Dean," said Crowley. "Welcome back to Hell."

Crowley pushed open a door and led Dean into a long hallway. Dozens of people were standing in a long line, waiting. As they watched, the person at the front of the line came walked down the hallway and rejoined the end of the line.
"This doesn't look like fire and brimstone..." said Dean, confused.
"No, that's later on. This is a different level of hell, designed by yours truly for the masochists who got a bit kinky on the rack. Nobody likes waiting in line," Crowley explained.
He led Dean past the souls, doomed to wait in a line to nothing for all eternity. They stopped near the end of the hall and Crowley opened a door.
"Cas will be through here. Somewhere," he said.
Dean stepped over the threshold and looked around. This was much more what he expected hell to look like. Dark and creepy and dungeon-like. Dean could hear pitiful moans and whimpers in the dark and the distant echoes of tortured screams. Crowley followed him through the door and shut it behind him.
"Look familiar?" he asked.
"I don't know. Maybe a little..." Dean closed his eyes, listening to the far-off screaming. "Actually... that I almost remember. The screams. But only from nightmares."
He winced and opened his eyes again.
"Let's go," he said.
Crowley started down the narrow corridor and Dean followed closely behind. Soon they came to rows and rows of dark dungeon cells.
"Do you think Cas would be in one of these?" Dean asked quietly, squinting through the bars of the nearest cell.
"Sometimes," replied Crowley. "But not always. And considering he's new down here... he's most likely spending most of his time on the rack."
Dean swallowed hard and turned away from the cell he'd been looking into. He had begun to block out the screaming but now the sound seemed to come back into focus.
"We have to find him. Now," said Dean.
"Patience, Squirrel. Hell is a big place. There are lots of torture chambers and Cas could be in any one of them. And remember, time moves differently here than it does on earth. We could be home in time for dinner, but it would take us months. Years even," Crowley said.
"All the more reason."
"Right," said Crowley. "Then we best be moving on."

Time wore on as they walked deeper and deeper into the bowels of hell. Hours turned into days, into weeks, months. Dean had learned to block out the screams that echoed from unknown places, but when they stopped in hidden corners so he could sleep, he heard them worse than ever in his nightmares. Soon he started to realize that the screams he heard in his dreams were not the ones surrounding him, but memories from when he had been in hell himself... and then he realized that the screams were his own.
"Why did this have to be the first thing to come back?" he said when he told Crowley what was going on.
"Well, I suppose being back here is very...uh... triggering," said Crowley.
"How long have we been down here?" Dean asked.
"Nearly eight months," Crowley answered. "We've been searching quite a while, are you sure it wouldn't be better to just..."
"No. I'm not giving up. Even if it takes eight years, or eighty, or eight hundred. I will find him," Dean insisted.
"You won't last that long, mate. You're still only human," said Crowley.
"I don't care. I'm not giving up on Cas."
"Dean?"
Dean and Crowley froze and looked at each other.
"Hello?" said Dean nervously.
"Dean, it's me," said the unmistakable voice.
"Cas?!"
Dean rushed to the bars of the cell they had just passed and peered in. Huddled up in the far corner, his hair matted and his face streaked with blood, was Cas.
"Dean, what are you doing here?" he said weakly.
"Rescuing you! How do we open this cell?" replied Dean, looking frantically for a lock.
"Allow me," said Crowley, stepping forward.
He waved his hand over the bars and they swung open. Dean bolted to Cas' side.
"God, you look awful," he said.
"I've been in hell for almost a year," Cas retorted.
"Right... yeah, hell does do that to you... I bet I didn't look so hot either..."
"No, not really. How did you get here?" asked Cas.
"I got Crowley to help me in. We've been searching for months," explained Dean.
"You shouldn't have," Cas protested.
"I had to. I couldn't just leave you down here. Especially not now that I remember..." said Dean.
"You remember hell?"
"Yeah, for the most part," muttered Dean.
"I hate to break up the emotional reunion, but in case you didn't notice, we're sort of... still in hell. So I suggest we get back topside as soon as possible," Crowley interrupted.
"Oh, right," said Dean. "Do you think you can walk?"
"I should be able to, at least for a while," Cas replied.
Dean helped Cas to his feet. Cas leaned on him for a moment, swaying slightly.
"I think I might actually need a little assistance," he said.
"I've got you, Cas," said Dean.
He put an arm around Cas and gently led him out of the cell.
"Hello Castiel. Sorry about the torture," Crowley said. "Good thing it's easier getting back out of hell than it is finding a single soul once you're in, because we'd have demons on our tails the moment they discover you're not in your cell otherwise."
"You've got a way out, then?" Dean confirmed.
"Yes, of course I do, numbskull. You think I would drag you down here still alive and not have a way to get you back out?" said Crowley, pulling a small jar from his inside coat pocket.
"You've been carrying that around for eight months?"
"Well I didn't snatch it out of thin air, did I?" said Crowley.
"I'm surprised you both made it this long without killing each other," said Cas.
"Glad to see hell hasn't taken your spunk. Now let's jump ship, shall we?" Crowley said.
He led them around a corner and unscrewed the jar, using the contents to draw a sigil on the rough stone wall. Then he set the jar on the floor and recited another incantation. The ground shook and all three of them were engulfed in a blinding light.