Chapter 28
Dripping water. Cold stone. Darkness. The sweetish sour odour of decay, distant but underlying it all.
Sam opened his eyes and tried to lift his head.
Pain. A throbbing bulge behind one eye. A sharper ache in his neck.
He lifted his hand and touched the skin there, feeling the ragged edges, the soft warm liquid.
There wasn't a sound, no footfall or slur of robe over stone, but he felt it come into the room. He opened his eyes again, slightly, and started back when the face filled his vision, inches from him.
The skull was long, the skin covering it pale and shining, smooth as polished stone, without a line or hair or blemish. The eyes, deepset in the sockets, were dark, filmed thinly by a reddish tint over the whites. The long nose was hooked, the mouth beneath thin-lipped and a vivid red, the lips shining with blood.
"The pain will go."
The voice was faint, harsh, the words running into each other, thick and liquid, despite Castiel's translation spell. The gust of breath from the mouth blew over him, and his throat closed, his chest hitching as he gagged at the fetid reek filling his nostrils and mouth.
"You don't taste as bad as the others, but still not human, not quite human." The face drew back, and he felt cool, thin fingers skate over his wrist and hand.
"Demon blood." Sam looked up cautiously, waiting for pain to explode in his head again. It didn't, and he opened his eyes a little more.
"Ah."
He didn't see the creature move, but it was on the other side of him now.
"And why are the demons loosed from Tuonela?"
Sam frowned at the word, unsure of its meaning. "A mage is trying to raise the dead, to bring an evil creature to walk on the earth."
"Evil creature? An evil creature … like me … perhaps?" The vampyre moved again, and Sam felt its breath against his cheek.
"More evil than you."
"More evil than me?" It considered the words carefully, drawing away from him again. "I am very evil. I take life."
"This creature wants to take all life. All humans. All creatures."
"So?" The inflexion on the word was unusual.
Sam lay still, feeling his blood pooling in the hollow between his collarbone and the muscles of his shoulder. Dean would be pissed, if he found out that after all they'd been through, everything they'd done, and fought and survived, he was killed by a plain old vampire. But, the thought snuck in slyly, Lucifer wouldn't have his vessel if he bought it here, hidden in this lair, dead and rotting.
"And what do you know of this, mortal?"
"The soldiers, the demons that you took me from, they were taking me to be … for the ritual to raise the evil creature." He tried to see where the vampyre was, but the light seemed to go around it, he could see bits … a winged brow and the gleam of skin over the bone of the temple, a long fold in the dark robes, one long curving fingernail, thickened and ridged like a claw, but not all of it, not at the same time.
"A ritual." Again, the vampyre seemed to savour the words. Sam wondered how old it was, how long it had lived alone here in the dark, taking only those who passed through the forest.
"And if I drain you, leave you as an empty husk, what then?" The voice was next to his ear, soft as a whisper of silk across skin.
"Then the creature will not be able to be born, and life will go on," he said quietly, not knowing if that were true.
"You look for death's embrace, mortal?" The vampyre's face was over him again, the red-rimmed eyes looking into his own, the noxious breath on his lips. "To take away pain? To take away choice?"
Sam closed his eyes, thinking of a woman, lying dead in a forest, next to a dark-skinned hunter and an angel. He'd loved Jess so much he'd thought he'd never heal from her loss. Ruane had been a surprise to him. Completely different, yet there were similarities between the two women … strength, and compassion, and a way of looking past the surface to what lay beneath. He couldn't face losing his second chance, couldn't imagine finding anyone else again who saw past what had been done to him, what he'd done to himself, and love him in spite of it all, because of it all.
"Yes." It was barely a breath, but he knew that the vampyre had heard it. He felt the cold breath against the side of his neck, felt the prick of the long nails driving into his shoulder, felt the excruciating pain of the teeth sinking into him.
Castiel stared up in surprise. It had been a long time since he'd seen any of the Titans walking on Earth. They were not gods, of course. Merely people of a slightly different genetic makeup. Hesiod had glimpsed them, three hundred years ago, crossing the Mediterranean Sea to Africa, and had written about them then. He'd thought they'd migrated south and then died out.
The giant looked down at them, blonde brows beetled in anger. He let out a deafening roar of rage, and bent down to sweep them aside. Castiel and Ruane dragged the horses from the road as the hand swept past, generating a localised wind that bent the saplings by the sides of the trail almost to the ground.
"Demonspawn!" The giant's voice boomed at them, and the angel looked around in frustration, knowing the giant would bring the Scythians down on them if he couldn't get him to shut up.
He tied the horses and ran out into the road, as the giant leaned over suddenly, huge hands gripping Ruane and lifting her out of the trees. She struggled against the impossible grip, the fingers wrapped around her hips and waist felt like stone, each one the size of a sapling.
"You're a woman."
She looked up into the massive face, five times larger than her own, and nodded.
"Demons don't possess women."
Ruane wondered distractedly if that were true, or if the giant had only seen the possessed Scythians and had no other experience to go on. She felt her stomach rise as she was lifted abruptly higher and closer to the giant's face, his eyes almost crossed as he looked at something on her chest.
"Where did you get that?" The eyes lifted to hers again, and she looked down, at the round pin that held her cloak.
"My father gave it to me."
The blonde brows drew together again. "Your father?"
She nodded, clamping her teeth together as she was lowered fast to the ground.
"Vasiliĭ Chernyĭ is your father?"
She nodded again, her fingers rising unconsciously to touch the pin. She was astonished to see the giant's wide mouth curve and lift.
"I met your father, here in these woods, a long time ago. I gave him that pin."
"You're Astraeus?" Ruane looked up at him, remembering the giant from her father's tales. "I thought … it was a tale for a child, I thought he made that up."
The corners of the giant's mouth quirked higher. "No."
He looked behind him, at the burning forest. "Why are you here? This is dangerous land now."
"We're trying to get to our village." She pointed north and east. "The demon army has overrun the road through the mountains, we thought it would be safer this way."
"You thought wrong, then." Astraeus looked north. "They have spread like a plague all along the western forests, driving everything out before them. They are looking for a man, they say."
Castiel nodded. "Yes. We heard that as well."
"How do you think you are going to get past them?"
"Over the peaks. They have many men enslaved but even with so many they cannot watch every trail, guard every path through the mountains."
Astraeus crouched down, and looked at them. "No, that is true. And the main force of the army is still on the eastern flank of the mountains."
"Why were you heading south?"
"I wasn't 'heading' anywhere deliberately. I was trying to get away from the fire."
Castiel looked up the trail they'd been heading for. "We are taking that trail, over the rock."
Astraeus turned to look at the trail. "On the narrow side for me." He looked at the stream. "I will follow the stream, and meet you beyond the treeline."
"It would be better to leave as little indication of where we've gone as possible." Castiel looked back to the stream, the soft ground on both sides would give the giant's path away.
"True. But very few people recognise the imprint of my feet as tracks." The giant looked more closely at the angel. "Do I know you? You seem very familiar to me."
"I knew your mother, briefly," Castiel said shortly, gesturing to the trail. "We don't have much time, the path you left will not be difficult to follow."
Astraeus laughed softly. Behind him, the trees had been smashed down or pushed over, the undergrowth trampled deep into the earth and rock. It looked as if a giant had run through the forest.
"Your animals will slow us down." Astraeus looked down his nose at the horses.
"Perhaps, but we will need their speed once we're past the army." Castiel looked away, thinking of Dean's impatience, of the pressure he would be feeling to go looking for Sam as soon as possible. He hoped Valenis would be able to hold him.
The giant shrugged, standing. Ruane looked up. When he'd held her, she'd thought it was a long way to the ground, but now she could see that he was only half the height of the big trees, barely a third of the oldest ones. That was bearable, she thought, her mind already adjusting from disbelief to acceptance. That was thinkable.
Dean looked up as he rode down the track toward the village walls, seeing the torches lit on the palisade, the big fires on either side of the gates. He'd been gone for a little over a week but it had felt like a month. Eating cooked food again, sleeping in a bed again, he tipped his head back and stretched out the muscles of his neck and back, careful with his left side, feeling the responsibilities he'd held for the past eight days sliding off his shoulders.
Lev had remained with Kiya and Elbek in Black River. He would be moved when he had recovered enough to travel. The pass had been more than closed, he thought with a deep contentment, it had been sealed. The limestone bridge had collapsed completely, filling the gap between the peaks from end to end, effectively stopping any possibility of the army being able to come across in force. They could come without their horses, but he didn't think they would. They would go around, try and find some other way to get to the villages.
He raised his hand as he got close enough to the guards to be recognised, watching with approval the line of arrows aimed at him, and heard the bars being slid back from the brackets inside the gates. It was good to be home.
The gate opened, and he rode through, pulling up in surprise as he saw Vasiliĭ, closely followed by Alis, hurrying down the half-paved path from the keep, his eyes narrowing suspiciously as he saw the expression on the leader's face.
"What's wrong?" He glanced at Alis, as she took the reins of his horse.
"Come." Vasiliĭ looked up at him, and Dean slid from the horse, Alis leading it toward the barn as soon as he was on the ground. He watched her go, her rapid retreat increasing the prickle at the back of his neck, then turned back to the other man.
"What?"
"Valenis has heard from Penemue." Vasiliĭ turned away, striding up the path, forcing Dean to follow him.
"And? Did he say if they got the information?" He lengthened his stride to catch up to the leader, who despite his shorter stature and wider frame, moved light and fast when he chose.
"Yes, but there were … complications."
"Vasiliĭ." Dean stopped as they reached the doors. "Tell me."
"Inside, Dean. You need to eat, and you might as well do that while you listen, yes?"
He turned away, going into the hall and Dean followed him, feeling the flutter in his stomach. Whatever the news was, it wasn't good. The leader of Deep Ice had no talent for prevarication and was uncomfortable with whatever it was he had to tell him. He pushed away his mind's speculations and found a place next to Vasiliĭ at the table. His misgivings grew as he saw Valenis walking toward them determinedly. Double-barrelled assault, he thought, his appetite vanishing at the expressions on their faces.
"Come on, tell me." He looked from Vasiliĭ to Valenis as she down opposite him.
"Penemue contacted me in the water, Dean. Sam was captured in the desert, as they were making their way back from the Watchers. Castiel and Penemue think it was Samyaza. He was moved very quickly through the desert and mountains, and the Watcher took him by boat across the Black Sea."
Dean felt the information rolling over him, his mind trying to sort out the implications, the ominous overtones, both of what Valenis was saying, and the seriousness of her expression, while a part of him simply reeled at the news.
"Why? Why would they take Sam?" He looked at her, then at Vasiliĭ.
"Castiel said that the prophecy, a mortal born of angel and demon, referred to Sam. Your lineage, your ancestors, were Watchers. Sam being given the demon blood made him a part demon, possibly. Penemue told me that Sam couldn't cross the Watcher's door, because of the demon trap they have there." She stumbled a little over the explanation, not really understanding all of it herself, coming secondhand through the Watcher via the water which only transmitted images, not words. She could see he was struggling to take it in. "Castiel says that Sam is descended from angels, and has demon blood also."
Dean looked away, his eyes dark and unfocussed as he tried to assimilate the information. They were from a line of angels? How was that possible? Sam was, again, Lucifer's vessel? What did that make him? Was Michael going to appear and insist that they pick up where they left off in the twenty-first century? He shook his head.
"This is … Valenis, are you sure that's what he said?" He looked at her, and she felt her heart contract at the plea far back in his eyes.
"Yes." She moistened her lips, trying to think of words that would help make it clearer to him, easier to bear. "When the Watchers fell, they had families, with human woman. The children of those unions were the nephilim, considered cursed by some, blessed by others, Penemue said. They had children of their own, and so the lines were formed. Castiel said that only those of the lines of the Watchers could be angelic vessels. He told me that you and Sam had two lines of angels in your lineage. From your mother's side, Azazel, the corrupt. And from your father's side, Araquiel."
He started at the name of the yellow-eyed demon, his face hardening as he looked away.
"If we're both descended from them, why is it always Sam who Lucifer wants? Why not me?" He rubbed his hands over his face, feeling the familiar frustration and anger rising inside of him. Heaven and Hell, fucking with his life, even in a time when no one even believed in them.
"I do not know, Dean. When Castiel returns, he may have the answer that you seek."
He looked down at the table. "When he returns?"
"He is on his way back now. Ruane is with him," Vasiliĭ said very quietly.
Dean frowned. "What about Rascha? Where's he?"
"He was killed, by Scythians, close to Penemue's home."
He looked at her and felt a chill invading him, his expression suddenly bleak and cold. Enough. It was enough. Too many people had died because of him and Sam, he didn't know how to stop it, he didn't know if the curse that followed them was responsible, but he'd had enough of it all.
"The northern pass is closed." He looked at Vasiliĭ. "The harvest is in, the villages have the traps and defences and the blood metal."
Valenis stared at him. "You cannot leave here until Castiel returns, Dean."
He didn't look at her, his attention fixed on Vasiliĭ's face. "I'm sorry, but I can't stay for this, I can't help you with what's coming. I have to find Sam, I have to find my brother, and we –" his voice faltered as a storm of emotion rose up in him, "– we have to stop this."
He felt a hand curve around his arm, and turned. Alis sat beside him, her eyes focussed intently on his.
"Can I talk to you?"
He looked down at her hand, about to shake it off and she curled her fingers more tightly, the increase in pressure a tacit warning. Raising his gaze to meet hers, he saw that unspoken warning repeated in her face, the seriousness of her expression enough to quell the tempest building inside of him, to cut through thought and emotion. "Yeah. Sure."
She nodded and got to her feet and he followed her out of the hall, not looking back at Valenis or Vasiliĭ as he left.
"What?"
"Listen to me, just for a moment, with your whole attention," she said, her voice low and sharp with urgency as she looked up at him. "They will lock you up, to keep you here." He frowned as she glanced back toward the hall. "You know how my mother feels about Castiel, his is the ultimate authority in her eyes, because he is an angel. She will not let you go, because he has told her not to."
Staring down at her, he tensed at her words, the muscle in his jaw jumping, a flush of anger heating him. "You think they can take me, Alis? I'm not that easy."
Alis closed her eyes at his reaction. "They will take you one way or the other, if you fight."
He was silent for a moment, knowing she was right, knowing he would not fight, not Vasiliĭ, not Valenis, not the warriors and hunters here who were his friends. The scenario played out too vividly in his mind, what a fight like that would cost. "The alternative being?"
"Penemue said that Castiel and Ruane left ten days ago. They will not be able to come up the road through the mountains, they will have to find safer routes," she told him, her eyes opening and pleading with him. "They should be back in less than a week, even going down by the sea. Tell my mother that you will stay for a week, after that it would seem likely that they have been captured or killed."
"Sam will be hundreds of miles further away if I stay here for a week." He turned away.
"Yes. Maybe," Alis admitted. "But if you are locked up here, unable to do anything, is that any improvement?"
"It's almost October, if I wait around, then I'll have to deal with the snow as well as everything else."
"No matter if you left tonight, you will still have to face the winter, Dean. Penemue told my mother that Samyaza was taking Sam far to the north, into the sea of ice that lies at the edge of the world."
He stared at her, the words dropping into him like stones. The edge of the world. How the fuck was he supposed to find Sam? He shook his head impatiently, thrusting the doubt away. He'd find him, somehow. But he had to go, now.
"Goddamn it, Alis, I can't sit here for a week doing nothing. I can't." He looked past her to the hall that led down to the kitchen. "Can I go now? Before any guards are posted?"
She followed his gaze and shook her head. "The guards already know. Please, think about this. You will leave without preparation? Without food or weapons or horses?"
She watched the anger and frustration fill his face, saw his hands close into fists, the tendons standing out in his arms, waiting patiently beside him for the emotion to run its course, for him to let himself accept that his options had run out.
Leaning against the cool stone wall, Alis felt relief seep through her as she saw his fists finally loosen, his fingers relax and uncurl again. She looked up at him as he closed his eyes and exhaled.
"Why'd you tell me this?" he asked.
"Because I didn't want to see you locked up, and I wasn't sure you'd see reason if you felt you were trapped between my mother and Vasiliĭ."
He opened his eyes, looking down at her, the corner of his mouth lifting slightly. "You thought I'd start a fight in the middle of the hall?"
"No." She looked away, lifting a shoulder in a slight shrug. "Maybe. It will be better if you take the time of waiting and use it efficiently, effectively, to plan where you will go, how you can do it."
He nodded slowly. "Yeah, it would."
"So, you will be calm?"
"Can't promise that, but I'll listen." He leaned back against the wall. "Will Vasiliĭ let anyone come with me?"
"That is not up to Vasiliĭ. I will come with you." She looked at him. "You need a warrior and a healer. I am both."
"This is likely to be a one-way trip." He looked at the flagged stone floor, uncertain if he wanted her to come or not, the constriction in his chest at her words warring with a sinking feeling in his stomach.
She shrugged. "Every hunt could be that too. And I am more careful now."
He looked up at her, catching something in her tone. "Are you?"
She looked up at him, her eyes lit with a sudden laughter. "You taught me that lesson well."
He dragged in a deep breath. "Yeah, well I won't be saving you again, don't forget that."
She nodded, the laughter vanishing. "You are ready?"
"Yeah, let's do it."
They walked back into the hall, Alis glancing expressionlessly at her mother and away again. Dean sat down, and looked at Valenis.
"Better tell me everything you know."
"You will stay until Castiel returns?" She flicked a look at her daughter again.
"I'll stay for a week, Valenis." He looked at her steadily. "If he hasn't returned by then, I don't think he'll be back at all."
Valenis looked at Vasiliĭ. The leader spread his hands out, his shoulders lifting in a helpless shrug. "I agree."
Three days later, most of the preparations that could be made were underway. The waiting was bearable, Dean had discovered, only when he was busy, his hands and mind fully engaged in getting ready. He found Alis in the barn, sorting through the apples that had been picked that day. Valenis had said nothing to her daughter's assertion that she would accompany the outlander on his search. He still wasn't sure it was such a great idea to take her along, but he needed someone who knew the country, who could fight and her skills as a healer would probably be needed, sooner or later.
She looked up as he walked over to her.
"Did Guin say she would have the winter bedrolls ready in time?"
"Yeah, she's made three, one for Cas." He looked down at the barrels of apples around them. "She has more faith in him than I do."
Alis smiled, looking down at the apples and selecting another, placing it in the rough-woven sack by her side. "She loves him. She won't believe he's dead until she can see his body."
"I guess." He glanced at her and away again. "Vasiliĭ thinks we should take another warrior."
"The more swords we have, the better off we are." She turned over the apple in her hands, looking for softness, for blemishes. She'd been sorting food that would keep for the long journey for the past two days now. "On the other hand, the more of us there are, the easier we'll be to find."
"Yeah." He looked at her. "Anyone you think would be more of an asset than a liability?"
"Lyre is a good hunter, but another man would probably help more."
"Help in what way?"
She gave him a wry smile. "Men are stronger, can carry more, hit harder, just stronger. Sometimes you need strength more than speed."
"So you think we should ask someone else along?"
She looked at him, the surprise in her face genuine. "You are the leader, Dean. If you think we need someone else, then pick someone else. It isn't my place to question what you think we need."
"I'm asking for input, uh, for your opinion, here," he said, turning away from her and leaning against the rail of one of the barn's animal pens.
She thought of the country they would be going through. She'd spent the previous evening asking her mother about it as well. The population was very thin in the northern lands. And like it or not, they would be travelling in the winter, which would make it difficult to hunt, to find food. She thought they would have to leave the horses or turn them loose at some point, Valenis had talked of bog and marsh, little or no fodder for animals, vast taiga forests suited to reindeer but not horses, and to the west, tundra, plains of frozen ground and relentless wind.
"You and Castiel must go, there is no choice. But no, I do not think we need anyone else, and I cannot think of anyone who has a good reason to accompany us. This will not be an adventure."
"No." She was right about him and Cas, he thought. There was no choice for either of them, always assuming that the angel made it back in time. He wondered what her reasons for going were.
"You care very much for Sam." It wasn't really a question, but he felt her curiosity.
"Yeah. He's a pain in the ass, sometimes, but he's my little brother, so I have to look out for him." He saw her brow rise at the descriptive word and the corner of his mouth lifted in acknowledgement. "Yeah, I know but he's four years younger than me, and we … we had a kind of strange childhood … I pretty much raised him, so I'll always see him that way." He shrugged self-consciously, uncomfortable with the admission, as if it were a weakness. He thought of how it had driven him, how vulnerable it had made both of them, and realised it was.
"You have to protect him? Keep him from harm?"
"Yeah." He sighed, those feelings were contradictory too. "It's what I do."
"You feel that way about the village too?"
"Not as strongly, maybe." He'd thought it had been the same, but when the choice came down to the wire, he'd chosen as he always had. "But yeah, I wanted to keep everyone safe here."
"You've done more than that," she said softly. "You have given them all that they need to protect themselves."
"I hope so." He knew he was going to spend a lot of time worrying about the people here, even while he was looking for his brother.
"And for you? What do you have for you?"
"What do you mean?" He looked down uneasily, shifting his position against the rail.
"You look out for everyone else, Dean. What about you? Who protects you? Who takes care of you? Do you want to be the protector and that is all?"
His smile was uncomfortable and it didn't quite reach his eyes as he shrugged, trying to hide the shock that was rippling through him, at her questions and his lack of answers for them.
"That's what I do," he said finally, his gaze cutting to one side. "It's who I am."
