AN: This is the last chapter of Dead Man Walking, folks! But I already started the last story in the Rose Winchester Chronicles. The Battle of Evermore. If you guys still want to read my work badly enough to go and start on the last adventure, you will be the most epic group of people in history. Oh, and I have a poll on my profile related to Roseverse. Something amusing, my boyfriend referred to you all as the Cult of Rose Winchester. I don't think I'm anywhere near that popular, but it made me laugh. Hope it did you guys too. Thanks to Lynn for being the best beta ever.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but Rose.
Sam wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. "What? Who's coming?" He stood up and backed away, toward his siblings.
The blood was circling of its own volition, etching itself into runes and sigils, literally sinking down into the concrete floor, white light emanating from the letters.
"Lucifer." Ruby's eyes were huge and she threw herself on Sam in a hug. "We did it! He's free!"
Sam shoved her away roughly, but she did not seem to notice. "Oh, Sam, he is going to reward you. He's going to be so grateful."
"I don't understand." Something approaching terror was churning in Sam's gut. He looked down and saw it mirrored in the faces of the other two humans. "Lilith-?"
"Lilith." Ruby laughed. "Lilith doesn't exist! Those angels, Alastair and I, we made her up. To divert you. To keep you all concentrating on the wrong target."
"Why?" He knew his voice was cracking, could hear it echo like broken glass in his ears.
"The blood, Sam, I had to get you to drink the blood. It was the final seal, and it was you. It always had to be you." She laughed again, sounding a little insane. "And look! It worked!"
She watched the symbols forming faster, and the black came over her eyes, the demon in her so excited that it could no longer hide.
"Oh my God," Rose breathed, starting to tremble.
"Guess again." Ruby clapped her hands together, then gave Sam a reproachful look. "I'm sure you're a little angry right now. But, I mean, come on Sam. No one suspected me. You have to admit it, I-I'm awesome!"
"You bitch!" Sam spat. "You lying bitch!"
"Sam, all I did was give you the options. You chose the path. I know it's hard to see it now…but this is a miracle. So long in coming. Everything Azazel did. Just to get you here. You were the only one who could do it." She turned and spoke to Dean and Rose, her face with its coal black eyes unbearably smug. "You thought you were so wonderful. So special. To hell and back. Well…you failed!"
"Yeah, guess what?" Rose carefully propped Dean up against the wall then stood, pulling out the demon-killing knife from behind her back where she had stashed it. "I don't care."
Sam lunged forward and grabbed Ruby, pinning her in place while Rose stabbed her, three, four times. Ruby flickered from the inside out, then crumpled to the floor, dead.
"Let's go!" Rose said, turning back to Dean. "Help me!"
Sam and Rose slung one of Dean's arms around their shoulders and hefted his weight between them.
"I-I'm so sorry." Sam knew that he was begging for their forgiveness, and he could not have cared less. He felt that he deserved to grovel and be denied with a kick to the jaw.
Rose gave him a half smile and Dean weakly squeezed Sam's shoulder, when the runes turned into a solid, blinding beam of light.
"That's him." Dean felt short on breath and the words hurt to say, pain that had nothing to do with his raw throat. "That's Lucifer."
All three of the Winchester recognized that they were about to die. They would do it with no words passed between them, but their arms tight around each other.
Suddenly, they were standing in Bobby's living room. Their injuries were miraculously healed. Even the Impala was parked outside.
Bobby came in from the kitchen and dropped his plate, peas rolling everywhere, more frightened by their blood soaked clothes than by their sudden appearance in his house. "What the Hell happened to you?"
Rose ran into his arms like she never had to John, even as a child, and started crying into his plaid shirt.
Taken aback, Bobby did the first thing it occurred to him to do. He wrapped his arms around her and told her it would all be all right, that he would fix whatever it was. He looked up at Sam and Dean and took in their devastated expressions, asked in a gentler voice. "What happened?"
"Lucifer…" Dean said after a moment. "He's here."
It took a moment for the older Hunter to absorb that.
"Well, then, we'd better batten down the hatches."