Crowley heard a loud clamor somewhere far above him. His body immediately tensed, pressing his back against the iron rails even though the sharp edges cut into his skin and the metal was almost too hot to touch. There were footsteps hurriedly running, voices arguing loudly with each other, a chain clanging – especially Jim's shrill shrieking was grating, Crowley remembered very well how it had been him that had promoted the hysterical toady to Hell's upper circle.
But what could one expect from demons? Not loyalty, Crowley had never expected loyalty from his minions. But he had expected to one day find reason to rip out those atrocious vocal cords the rat possessed. Now he'd never have that gratification.
The racket became only more frantic, and then the chains loudly moaned. Crowley's cage suddenly jerked.
For what had seemed eons, Crowley had been imprisoned in this miserable hole: shrouded in absolute silence and darkness, dangling in some rusty old bird cage suffering stifling heat and noxious volcanic gasses. But this was not a form of torture – Crowley had gone through Hell's torture, as had any demon, the suggestion that a stay here was any form of punishment would send any demon into roaring waves of laughter – this was just a convenient little nook to store him in when the boss was away. Were he anyone else, he would have been just put back on the rack or been roasting on a spit in the meantime, but not the former King of Hell. No, no one could touch Crowley.
No one except for him.
He could not have been hauled upward more than ten feet when the yelling and leering voices suddenly fell silent. Feet shuffled, cloth rustled and Katie's hooves clicked a few steps on the hard ground.
Far above him, a hatch door fell open and dim light fell onto Crowley's pathetic, human form. One moment later the light was blocked again as a giant, hulking creature followed it downwards into the pit, gliding smoothly on colossal, soundless wings.
…
Crowley knew that on Earth, an angel's true form was made out of light, shining so bright it literally burnt out the eyes of lesser beings foolish enough to try to witness its celestial glory. Crowley guessed, from the knowledge he gathered during his many years as a cross-roads demon, that in Heaven an angel's true form would not harm anyone's eyes – it was their natural habitat, after all, so that would just be inconvenient for everyone involved – but that it was not exactly physical either, possibly even invisible to the limited human perception. Because angels were spiritual beings, just like demons, and that was generally just not a state of being a human mind could comprehend.
It only made sense that Hell, in its turn, had entirely different rules on how the creatures that inhabited it appeared. On Earth, a demon's true form was a useless wisp of smoke, but in Hell all of them had their own physical, yet impossible forms – in fact, the fresh souls on the rack looked not much different from centuries old beings of foulness, the only difference was how much more monstrous fully fledged demons looked. A little rule of thumb on appearances in Hell: the more powerful a being was, the more revolting it looked. He himself, for instance, most resembled a giant, red, fat, slimy centipede, with far more limbs than he should have, while the lesser demons that had brought him here and that now were cowering behind the pillars of the giant throne hall had more rat-like or corpse-like features – a lot less impressive, if you asked Crowley. But well, there was a reason he had been King of Hell for the past few years: he was one of the most powerful demons left alive.
Little good that did now. Head held down submissively, he stared at the being occupying the farthest half of the massive chamber. When the angels besieged Hell, looking for the righteous man, Crowley – cowardly vermin that he had always been – had crawled to the deepest, darkest crevices of Hell and hidden far from the angels' path, simply waiting for the storm to be over. It was a solid technique, one that had ensured his survival, but it did mean he had missed his first opportunity to see what angels looked like in Hell. Now he had a second chance, and as he had no other choice than to cower before its feet, he decided to use this moment to take in the sight for once and for all.
Castiel was massive. In Earth's measurements, Crowley's true form was roughly the size of a large house; Castiel he estimated to a sky-scraper. In true Hell fashion, his exact anatomy was unclear and ever changing.