Chapter 8
Sunrise, Wyoming
Garth sat on the boulder, the binoculars held to his eyes, and watched the road. When the first puff of dust appeared, he felt his heart thump hard against his ribs. He waited for the second and was rewarded with the sight of it a few minutes later. Putting the binoculars back in their case, he slid off the rock, half-sliding, half-scrambling down the hillside and walking fast toward the church.
"They're here."
Sam turned to look at him, nodding. "Let's do it."
Tricia and Marcus climbed to the high windows at the front of the church, both carrying heavy-calibre, long-range rifles. The range was around two hundred yards, they were responsible for taking out the vehicles and picking off whoever they could. Trent and Twist picked up the remaining long-range sniper rifles and headed to opposite sides of the canyon, climbing up through the rocks to get settled in among the Watchers and nephilim, waiting hidden in the scrub and brush.
The cross-fire would take out a few more, even the odds, Sam thought as he watched them climbing. He had the Colt and an M-40; he'd start spraying once the vehicles were down, and hopefully keep enough of them down that the Watchers could do their butcher's work.
Sam slid the Colt's long barrel through his belt, where it was clearly obvious. The machine gun he slung over his shoulder, the gun lying flat against his shoulder blade and flank. He took a deep breath as the clouds of dust drew nearer, able to see the vehicles now, several cars and pickups, followed by a half dozen larger trucks. He had a feeling the Others would be armed as heavily as they were, and he tapped the Kevlar vest that lay under his shirt for reassurance. Frank had acquired several of them from an old friend in law enforcement. Penemue hadn't been able to give him much information on how much experience the Others were likely to have with modern field weapons; he hoped they'd go for the body shots.
The leading cars slowed as they took in the closed nature of the canyon, noses dipping with the hard application of brakes.
Watching from the church doorway, Sam could feel his heart pounding against his ribcage. Come on in, no one here but us hunters, he thought uneasily. Don't get cold feet now.
For a long moment, the cars idled forward, but someone must have felt confident enough that the natural formation wasn't a trap. He released his held breath as the vehicles increased their speed, moving deeper into the throat of the canyon.
The leading SUV pulled over behind Twist's truck, the driver turning off the engine and waiting for the dust to settle before getting out.
Definitely Fallen, Sam thought, watching him approach. He was tall; taller by several inches, he estimated. Broad shoulders tapered to a narrow waist and long legs, dust-covered mottled fatigues not hiding the almost feline fluidity of his gait as he walked toward the church doors.
Sam straightened unconsciously when the fallen angel stopped in front of him. The golden-grey eyes narrowed against the glare of the light on the church's bleached exterior boards as they met his. Pale skin, unmarked by either the years of time or any scar or blemish, and a perfectly symmetrical face of unearthly beauty was framed by long, auburn hair, lit to a fiery red by the bright morning sunshine.
"You have a key, I believe." The voice was smooth and deep, a cultured baritone.
Sam nodded, his gaze lifting over the man's head to watch as the rest of the vehicles crawled into the area in front of the church and came to a stop, the dust they'd raised swirling above the ground and blowing away.
"I do." Sam met the fallen's eyes again. "And a long list of the things we want for it."
"I am Gadriel," the once-angel said. "Where is the Gate that this key opens?"
Sam gestured toward the south east. "You drove past it. It's at the centre of the railways. That's why we're meeting here."
Gadriel's gaze dipped to the gun pushed through Sam's belt. "You know, you have no need for weapons with us. We are not here to fight."
Sam smiled, looking down at the Colt and drawing it from his belt slowly. "This isn't a weapon, Gadriel. It's the key."
The angel looked up at him, surprise animating his features. "Then let us complete the transaction." He took a step forward.
Sam looked at him, seeing something other than friendliness glinting at the back of the vivid eyes. "Yeah. Let's."
He raised his hand, running it through his hair.
The resulting volley of gunshots was shocking in the quiet valley, but was quickly drowned out by the first explosion, one of the big trucks taking a hit to the fuel tank and igniting. The rear end lifted high into the air with the force and flames spread over the timber and canvas frame, immolating its passengers.
Gadriel spun around, falling to the ground and pulling an automatic from beneath his coat as the gunfire began. He looked up at Sam, the 9mm barrel swinging around. His eyes widened as Sam cocked the Colt, centring the barrel's notched sight over the angel's heart.
"Sorry, it's also a weapon," he said, pulling the trigger.
The bullet hit Gadriel in the heart and lightning discharged deep with the body, crackling and spreading through the torso and limbs, filling the unseeing eyes with iridescent blue fire.
In the open ground between the ridges, bullets flew; a deadly crossfire between Trent and Twist, keeping the Others pinned tightly to their vehicles. One by one, Tricia or Marcus' aim found their targets; the engines and gas tanks, immobilising or igniting the trucks and cars and pickups, sending billowing clouds of black smoke into the still air.
Fourth Level of Hell
The tunnel narrowed, the rough-cut steps winding and steep. Phosphorescent creatures clung to the damp walls, invertebrates and funghi, mostly, flinching away from the gentle light of the lamp. Here and there, Dean thought he caught sight of larger creatures, or the movement of larger creatures, but he couldn't get a good look at them, glimpsing only a leg or a tail as they scurried away from their footsteps. None of them looked normal, but then he was in Hell and what was normal down here anyway?
The passage opened, the walls drawing back. Ahead of him, Ellie stopped, the small flame of the oil lamp flickering wildly as draughts of warm wind rose and swirled around them. The light enclosed them, its strength dwarfed by the vast space Dean could sense but not see surrounding them. The moving air, thick with the reek of brimstone and carrying the taste of burned metal, cooled the sweat on his body. He looked around, the hairs on the back of his neck rising.
"This it?" he whispered to the woman beside him.
"Yeah." Ellie's answer was equally low.
Very distantly, he could hear things in the dark.
Sunrise, Wyoming
The area in front of the church was a wasteland, burned out vehicles and still burning ones spread across it, bodies littering the ground. Garth and Twist had ceased fire at Sam's signal and the Watchers came down the hillside, their blades winking and flashing in the dying sunlight, to finish the job.
It was one thing to have someone tell you that an angel or their offspring could not be killed until the heart was taken, Garth realised, his nose wrinkling up in distaste. It was another to realise the truth of it for yourself, as the bodies that were perforated with bullets began to move, rising from the ground, burned or shot or crushed, and looking around for their enemies. He leapt back as a man he'd been about to step over reached for him, the skin of his body crackling and black, his eyes vivid in the burned face.
"Break right, Garth."
He dove to the side at Sam's command. The Colt fired once, into the heart, and the man fell again.
"Take out the hearts before you step over them," Sam suggested.
"Yeah."
Garth pulled the machete from his belt and moved a lot more cautiously as he continued his reconnaissance of the area.
Scanning the area, Sam thought that perhaps half of the Others had been killed outright in the attack; chests burned out completely or pulverised in the hail of bullets. That cut the odds against them, but still left a big number for them to deal with.
He slid the Colt back through his belt and hefted the machete, walking toward the nearest and pushing his sensibilities and doubts aside as he swung the blade down and cut through the ribcage, plunging his hand into the hole to rip the heart free of the chest. The body arched up as he removed the heart, the eyes flying open, staring into his, then the light died out of them and the flesh was still. Sam dropped the heart onto the ground and threw up convulsively. He stood for a moment, spitting and wiping his mouth then his jaw tightened as he moved onto the next one.
Trent and Twist came down the hillside, their long hunting knives in their hands. Trent didn't see the angel who rose up behind him, its arm snaking around his neck, inexorable pressure against the spine. Tricia's rifle cracked from the church window and the angel released its hold, falling to the ground with half the skull missing where the big calibre bullet had exited. Sam nodded at the church and turned away as Trent dropped to his knees and stabbed through the ribs, cutting out the heart and tossing it aside.
In his peripheral vision, he caught movement. More and more of the remaining angels and nephilim were rising. The hunt became an eerily silent game of cat and mouse as the Watchers and hunters moved through the wreckage, and the angels fought back.
Sam ducked under the wild swing of one, his machete slicing upwards as he stepped close. The point hit bone and flexed sickening in his hand, twisting off the ribs. He was too close, and the angel gripped his arm, the fingers disappearing into the flesh and breaking the bone. The scream that tore out of Sam's throat echoed around the hills, and the angel didn't hear the footsteps behind him, as a long black blade plunged through its back, and a darkly tanned hand followed, tearing the heart from its chest.
Penemue threw the heart aside as the angel collapsed, leaning forward to prise the dead fingers out of Sam's arm. The Watcher touched the wound, bringing the two ends of the bone into line, and a flash of light and heat pulsed under Sam's skin, fusing the ends into a whole.
It wasn't like Castiel's healing, with the power of Heaven's souls behind it. The holes from the fingers were still visible in his muscle, but the break had been healed and the pain had lessened. Clambering to his feet, Sam nodded his thanks to the Watcher. The two of them continued together, as the others paired up instinctively as well, and the number of corpses mounted.
Adoian Baltim
Kneeling on the cavern's floor, Ellie set the lamp on the floor and lifted the bow and quiver from her back. She pulled the bottles of black liquid and the ceramic bottle of holy oil from her bag and set them beside her. Unsealing the first bottle very carefully, she drew an arrow from the quiver and dipped the slender iron head into the mouth of the bottle. She held it there for several seconds before extracting the arrow and repeating the process with the next one. The poisoned arrows were laid out to dry on the rock, and once they were all done, Ellie re-sealed the remaining bottle. She stowed it back in her bag, then picked up the holy oil and got to her feet.
Dean turned around at her gesture, and she pulled two thick lengths of wood from the outer pockets of his pack. Castiel had advised their use, both illumination and weapon against demons who could not bear light. Laying them on the ground, she drew two pieces of coarsely woven cloth from her pack, and wound the material around each wooden stake at one end. Handing them back to Dean to hold, she poured holy oil over them, sufficient to soak the cloth and the wood underneath. The oil was pungent and the corner of her mouth tucked in as she noticed Dean's nose wrinkle up. The scent reminded her of the desert, the tombs beneath the sand.
When the arrows were dry, their poison a part of the wood and iron, she hoped, she returned them to the quiver. Settling her bag over one shoulder, she slipped the broad strap of the quiver over the other, adjusting the leather strap until it lay flat and diagonally over her chest, the fletching an easy reach for her hand. Even a half-second's delay in drawing could mean death. She doused the oil lamp and packed it away.
Taking a step toward Dean, she slipped her hand behind his neck, and he leaned closer as she whispered against his ear. "Once we get to the stair, we'll light the torches. The shadow demons guard the bridge and are aware of everything that moves across the abyss." Her voice was almost inaudible and she felt him tense under her fingers, then nod. She knew he'd seen the daeva before, and knew what to expect.
"The bridge is five thousand steps down. The light from the oil torches will hold them off us. Listen in the darkness, as hard as you can, because that's the only warning you'll get of their approach."
She released him and pulled an arrow from the quiver, nocking it onto the bowstring as Dean flicked his lighter and lit the torches. They burned with a pale golden light, pushing the darkness back. He handed one to Ellie. Holding her bow and the nocked arrow by the head in one hand, the torch in the other, she turned for the edge of the abyss.
At the drop-off, she turned left, lifting the torch. The stairs had been cut into the side of the sheer cliff-face, barely two feet in width. There was nothing but blackness next to them, filled with capricious winds, moaning in the dark.
Dean followed Ellie down, the torch in his right hand as his left ran along the vertical rock. Beneath their feet, the narrow steps were uneven and rough and steep, the centres hollowed out and slick. The light of their torches extended maybe five or six feet. Beyond that, he couldn't see a fucking thing.
Time lost meaning as they descended, the stairs apparently endless. His muscles twitched and cramped from the repetitive movement. Sweat rolled down his back, his shirt sticking clammily to him. The heated winds, rising in devilish twists and turns, wailed through the chasm, making a mockery of their efforts to move silently, and the strain to hear the slightest sound under the wailing had given him a sharp tension headache. To his right, the void stretched out without end, and the black was so deep, he kept catching movements in the corner of his eye; spectral dances that vanished when he turned his head.
Ahead of him, Ellie moved like a ghost down the uneven steps. He couldn't detect any noise from her, not a breath, not a whisper of her boot soles across the rock—nothing. He was beginning to understand how she'd been so successful sneaking around Hell. In the back of his mind he'd started counting the steps from the first one—one thousand, six hundred and ninety-five, one thousand, six hundred and ninety-six, one thousand, six hundred and ninety-seven—the knowledge that they hadn't reached the halfway mark and there were the same number to go up on the other side of the abyss held down by an act of will.
Ellie stopped below him and was standing still when his internal counter reached three thousand. He lifted his torch, scowling as the spread of steadily burning light gave no more than six feet of vision around him, even held high. He strained to hear whatever she'd heard. After a tense moment, he caught it: a sibilant whisper somewhere to his right. It was almost a rustle but not quite, almost a sigh, but not that either. He turned his head, trying to pick up the direction and felt a slash down his shoulder, the sudden warmth of blood on his arm.
The void was no longer empty. At the outmost edges of the torch light, he could see the demons, banking and gliding on the fast-rising thermals. Long leathern wings were outstretched, black and oily looking. He caught a flash of Ellie and himself reflected in huge black eyes as a demon flashed past and wheeled away from the pale gold light, the wildly flickering flames gleaming on black hide, glittering on pointed obsidian teeth.
On the stairs below him, Ellie swung around, thrusting her torch at him as she lifted the bow. She didn't wait to see if he took it, and he had to drop to one knee to catch the end before it fell. The arrow whickered through the air over his head and drove its full length into a demon rising from below. The daeva shrieked and fell, its wings beating several times before they folded and the body plummeted straight down.
"Move!" Dean waved a torch at her, swinging the other in the face of the demon that seemed to drop down from nowhere, its wide-open mouth emitting a squawk when the flame touched it.
Ellie half ran, half crabbed down the steps, another arrow nocked, her aim shifting as she tracked the demon headed toward them. She released the arrow when the daeva turned from the light and drew and nocked the next, not waiting to see if her strike had been fatal.
Hurrying after her with a torch in each hand, Dean gritted his teeth against the ache of holding them high, while simultaneously watching his footing and the shadowy forms appearing and disappearing in the blackness. He swung his torch at another demon that flew at him from above, giving a satisfied grunt when the skin bubbled and burst into flame.
They went down the stairs in fits and starts as more and more demons rose from the depths, flying at them from above and below, from either side, forced to turn away when they got too close to the light, but leaving rents and tears in their flesh if the attack wasn't seen quickly enough.
Slammed back against the wall by a long, bony wing, Dean dropped one torch as he twisted from under the raking claw aimed at his head. He saw the demon's head sprout an arrowhead inches from his face, the dead black, too-big eyes turning a sickly green. It arched backward and fell into the abyss. Rolling onto his knees, he grabbed and lifted the second torch. At the edge of the amorphous balloon of light, a smooth, flat reflection edged out into the darkness. "Ellie! The bridge!"
It shouldn't have felt like a relief. He knew that and stumbling down the last few stairs after her, the relief vanished and his stomach curled up when he saw how narrow the damned thing was. They wouldn't last ten seconds on it.
Swinging the torches wildly around, he saw Ellie drop to one knee, drawing and firing continuously at the swooping targets. A second's fumble for an arrow and the demon's claw slashed at her, the tip catching her along the jaw. She was swept toward the edge and his mouth dried as he watched her fingers scrabbling over the slick, polished stone for a handhold, her bow twisting and turning as it fell beyond the light.
He was running before he realised it, some primal noise tearing out of his throat. Stabbing at the demon with one torch, he whirled the other over his head, driving off a second attack. A hand clutched at his ankle and he bit back a startled curse, glancing down to see Ellie pulling herself back over the edge of the stone bridge.
"Fuck!" Dean dropped the right hand torch and reached for her, his hand closing around the straps of her pack. Adrenalin pumped through his muscles and he hauled her weight one-handed back onto the bridge.
Her face was taut and white as she looked up at him. "Thanks."
Shaking his head, he swung the lit brand in his left hand wildly around. "Don't fucking well do that again."
"Okay," she agreed, reaching for the still-burning torch next to his feet. She picked it up and got to her feet. "Back to back?"
He nodded. Seeing her down had taken another ten years off his life. He didn't have time to think more than that as another leathery, nightmarish demon flew at him. The adrenalin rush was still flowing and he hit the creature on the side of the head with the torch, sending sparks and flaming pieces of burnt material in all directions, the demon shrieking as its head caught and blazed.
It wasn't a sound, he thought later. More like a pressure wave. The demons circling them shrilled and wheeled away in all directions. Less than a second later, a massive updraught hit them, the bridge trembling under their feet. He felt Ellie's arm hook around his waist as they both dropped to a crouch, the buffeting gust so strong his fingers clenched uselessly at the stone, sure they'd be swept off.
Glancing down, he saw a thin, red line, some unimaginable distance below, thicken. "The hell—?"
"The Acheron," Ellie said, coughing in the toxic fumes and pushing him toward the other side. "Come on."
They reached the relative shelter of the ascending staircase as a second, far more powerful wash of sulphur-tainted wind blew past them and upward, sweeping the daeva into the walls, and the bridge and tumbling out of view.
As the river below settled, the wind dropped. The daeva had vanished. He found he couldn't raise the energy to care what'd happened to them, he was just glad to see the last of them.
The slow climb upwards brought its own agony, but no further attacks.
Sunrise, Wyoming
Sam was on his knees, cutting and hacking at the chest of the man rolling in front of him when he heard the distinctive hiss. Turning too slowly, he saw the tip of steel as it emerged from the chest of the Watcher beside him, slicked with blood. The angel rose from the ground behind Penemue, twisting the blade it held to open the back and reaching in for the heart. Penemue's mouth opened, blood spilling down his chin, but he made no sound.
Sam's hand curled around the smooth, timber grip of the Colt, the notched sight over the angel's chest and the trigger pulled before he even registered what he was doing. The Other's eyes opened wide, irises disappearing beneath crackling blue fire and it fell, but Penemue's heart was clutched in its hand.
Catching the Watcher as Penemue fell and dropping back to his knees, Sam saw the light die out of the blue eyes.
"I'm sorry," he said, his fingers easing the lids down over the open and glazing eyes.
In his peripheral vision, a twitch from the body behind him reminded him the battle was not over. He turned and fired and the nephilim subsided, sparks and crawling light filling the chest cavity and dying away. Lifting his gaze as he climbed to his feet, he surveyed the carnage.
The dusty cleft valley stunk with the coppery reek of blood, the thirsty ground sucking it down and leaving patches of rust-coloured mud in its place. The Others were almost wiped out. Garth, Marcus and Twist walked through the burned-out vehicles on one side of the narrow canyon, a number of Watchers on the other side, both groups staring at the bodies with acute attention and blades dripping.
A hand touched light on his shoulder and he twisted around to see Tricia standing beside him.
"Come on," she said, her gaze on the dead Watcher.
He couldn't work out her expression, half-hidden under a coating of dust and her eyes downcast.
"You can't save everyone, Sam," she added when her eyes returned to him. "It's over."
The sun had disappeared behind the mountains hours ago. Sam twisted, flipping the body on his shoulder onto the pile. He straightened with a soft groan.
"That's it," Marcus said, linking his hands and stretching his arms out behind his back. "All of them."
There were two pyres. One for the Others, the second for their dead. Trent and Twist had filled their trucks with dry, tortured branches and dead trees for them and the air shimmered with gasoline fumes.
"Anyone want to say anything?" Trent asked, his lighter in his hand. Garth stepped forward, his hands clasped in front of him. Sam glanced sideways at Tricia, catching her small smile. Whatever Garth had in mind, she was aware of it, he realised.
"We call on the Angel of Air, Raphael, to make the way for these souls—even those—uh—that don't have souls—and lead them to Paradise," Garth said. "Uh, that's it." He cleared his throat. "Amen."
Trent flicked the wheel and the small flame glowed against the darkness. He tossed it to the edge of the pyre and the wood caught instantly, going up with a whoosh of ignited air, the flames burning green and blue, then gold and red as the fire burned deeper.
Reaching out blindly, Sam felt Trish's hand slip into his, her fingers squeezing lightly. He returned the pressure and stared at the fire. He'd seen too many pyres. Lost too many people. His brother was right. It would never stop. But they weren't alone anymore.
"Let me look at that," Tricia said, peering at his arm. Sam held it out. "Those dents aren't going away."
He'd expected that. "It's okay."
"Make a fist." She took his hand, rotating his arm. He complied, muscles jumping into prominence from shoulder to knuckles.
"And it doesn't hurt?"
Sam shook his head. There was a little stiffness, around the holes in the muscle, but that was all.
"Does it feel stiff here?" Tricia asked, running her fingertips around the dents.
"Yeah. A little."
Letting of his hand, she looked at him. "Where are we going from here?"
"Back to town, I guess," he said, brow furrowing. "Jackson, anyway."
He wasn't sure about what was happening next. They'd done their part. Everyone could use some time off. He couldn't relax, wondering if Dean and Ellie were still alive. Still in Hell.
"Okay," Tricia said. "I'm driving."
He grinned at her, shrugging. He had no arguments. He could use some sleep.
Fifth level of Hell
They walked slowly away from the abyss, lungs dragging in air, muscles burning, into a huge hall. The walls had been smoothed and polished; the columns supporting the impossibly high ceiling, carved and frescoed; the floor cut into geometric designs, the edges bevelled as if it were tiled. Light, red in many shades, came from the stone with no visible source.
Dean looked around tiredly. "Looks like someone got the decorator in here."
Ellie nodded, sinking to the floor and lying back against her bag. "Not Crowley, I don't think he made it down this far. This would have been Lucifer's work."
He sat down next to her, one brow raised. "Yeah? Hearts and flowers kind of guy?"
She grinned at him. "Cas told me once that the Fifth level was a mirror image of one of the sections of Heaven. Lucifer's way of thumbing his nose at his Father."
"I thought Heaven was whatever the soul wants the most?" He remembered the house in Lawrence, his mother making him lunch.
"That's our Heaven. For the angels, I gather it's quite different. Very grand."
"Whatever turns them on." He looked down at her. "What's next?"
"Specifically? I don't know. I only made it to the edge of Adoian Baltim the last time." She thought of what Castiel had said. "The Fifth level is empty. The Sixth is the Lake of Fire. The Seventh level was where the angels found you—some kind of maze with the portal in the centre. The Eighth is the Wastelands, pretty bad from Cas' descriptions. The Ninth is the Cage."
"When you say 'Lake of Fire' you don't mean a—uh—an actual lake of fire … do you?"
"Cas said it was a lake of magma. The angels had to fly over. I don't think it'll be exactly the same for us."
"Because of the body thing?"
"Yeah. The angels weren't exactly in their vessels when they stormed Hell. They were corporeal but not flesh." She shook her head. "It's not easy to explain. According to Cas, they 'drew the energy of all life' around them to make bodies."
She laughed at his bemused expression. "It doesn't matter. The point is a lot of things here change according to the exact nature of what's viewing them—mind, soul or flesh. Since we can't fly, we'll have to hope that's the case."
"Yeah, I don't want to have to turn around and go back the way we came." He twisted to look at his shoulder. The long gash had stopped bleeding somewhere on the stairs and had crusted over. It hurt, but didn't affect the shoulder's movement.
"We're lucky in a way." She closed her eyes.
"Hell, yeah, I'm feelin' it." He couldn't imagine anyone less lucky than them right now.
Ellie smiled. "Before Crowley, each of the arch-demons ruled a level of Hell. That's why there's nine levels. Three are dead. And the other six seem to be off somewhere else. Sneaking by an arch-demon would not have been a cake-walk."
No, Dean thought uneasily, it wouldn't. His mind shied away from the memory of the shadowy figures rising through the floor in the warehouse in St Louis. If he had a choice in the matter, he really didn't want any more memories of Hell—or its inhabitants.
The hall was warm, in spite of the stark stone everywhere, filled with vagrant airs from deep within Hell. Light, carmine and flickering, seeped through the seemingly impervious walls, tinting their skin to scarlet, Ellie's hair to a dark plum. Letting his gaze drop to her, and wander from her face down the length of her stretched out body, he wondered again where she'd learned that ability, to rest and recoup her energy in the middle of places like this. There were a million things he didn't know about her.
He frowned as that brought back the question he'd had earlier. It still probably wasn't the right time or place, but would it ever be?
"When we—uh—in Chicago, when you were, you know, in the apartment…?" he said, turning away as her eyes opened to look up at him. He hesitated, catching the inside of his lip between his teeth, unsure if he had the right to ask. "There was a look in your eyes … I didn't know what it was then."
She exhaled, her eyes closing as she turned her head.
"Ellie, did you … uh … did you feel this —the same then? As you do now?" He cleared his throat. "Uh, you know, about me? Us?"
Her eyes remained closed, her breath slow and even as she answered. "Yeah."
There was an almost defeated note in her voice and Dean thought of New York, and how much he'd wanted her then, how comfortable with him she'd seemed, most of the time, not like someone wanting…or needing. But she'd told him how she'd struggled home, after Alaska. More pieces. Almost fitting. Not quite, not yet.
"Why didn't you—"
She opened her eyes, her smile derisive as she cut him off. "Throw myself at you?"
He frowned. "Tell me."
"You weren't ready. I wasn't ready. It would've wrecked working together." She raised an eyebrow at him. "Wouldn't it?"
He didn't know the answer to that, turning his gaze away, searching his memories for the way he'd felt, how he might have reacted if she had told him back then, knowing it would be impossible because those memories were of Heaven and Hell, of Lilith and the seals, Sam and the demon blood, angels and vessels and death all around them, trying to fight his way out of the shame of what he'd done in Hell, what he'd felt. She'd been around then, helping when she was there, but he hadn't longed for her then, hadn't yet known that he needed her.
Be honest, what would you have done then? The answer came almost immediately.
He would have taken her to bed and avoided close contact with her from then on. She was right. It would have destroyed a relationship that he'd started to rely on, a need he hadn't been ready to accept or acknowledge, for someone to know him. Someone to talk to.
"Yeah, maybe." He bowed his head, hating that admission. He hadn't been ready. Not then, and not later, either. "And in New York?"
She shook her head. "I thought you needed some time on your own. There was a lot going on."
"Yeah, well you gave me way too much," he said.
He moved closer, and lay down, stretching out beside her on his side, his arm curling around her. He didn't know what to say. It explained some things, raised questions about others. Everything she'd done, over almost the entire time they'd known each other, she'd done from love. Long before he'd been even close to thinking the same way. It should have made him happy, made him feel … he didn't know exactly, but it wasn't. Instead he felt as if his heart was breaking, a little, inside.
"That why you didn't want to tell me about going to Hell?"
"Not entirely," she admitted. "It was a part of it. I didn't—" She drew in a breath. "I thought you'd see the reasons too easily."
He never had. Not once had that crossed his mind. Not even when nothing he could think of made any kind of sense.
"It was okay, Dean," she said softly. "I kept thinking it would go away, but it never did. I got used to it."
"Why didn't you tell me? At Bobby's … or anytime in the last two years?"
"I don't know. It made me vulnerable." Against his chest, he felt her heart beat a little faster. "You know me, I don't like to reveal weaknesses."
It was why she'd left after Raphael's failed attack, he realised suddenly. And why she hadn't turned up to see him in Cicero. She'd already loved him for long enough to want what she'd thought was his happiness, over the chance for her own. The pieces flew together and he tucked his face against the side of her neck, eyes closed tightly, his arm closing more tightly around her.
"Aren't you, uh, allowed to be vulnerable with me?" he asked, his voice muffled. "You know everything about me."
"Not everything," she said. Her ribs rose and fell under his arm with her sigh. "I gave you as much as I could, at the time."
"You know me better than anyone else, and that's not really an answer."
"There was Sam," she said, her voice whisper-soft.
"What about him?" He shifted onto his elbow, looking down into her face.
"Sam always came first, with you. Your family."
She glanced away, then rolled onto her side, sitting up and looking back at him. He couldn't decipher her expression, the crimson light shadowing her face in strange patterns.
"I knew that: knew your loyalty to family was a part of you, something you couldn't let go."
Frowning, he ran her words through his mind again. It was a part of him, and he'd wondered himself if he could—or would—ever let go of those ingrained needs. He wasn't sure what they had to do with her keeping how she'd felt from him. The memory of the hospital room returned without warning.
"You believed … that at the last, if push came to shove, I'd pick him over you?"
"You always have." She shrugged, looking away. "It didn't make that much difference, Dean, only I couldn't quite let you all the way in. I needed to have something apart."
He closed his eyes, and a lot more pieces fell into place, the puzzle becoming clearer. How she'd felt at Bobby's, after his time with Lisa and Ben; why she'd left, when he'd told her about Jo coming to kill him; why she'd never told him about talking to God, or going to Hell…
"What about now?" He opened his eyes and looked at her, his breath held tightly in his chest.
"I don't know, not really." She rubbed her forehead, hiding her expression. "I hope it'll never come to that test."
That wasn't nearly good enough. "You don't believe in the way I feel about you?"
"I do."
The surprise on her face, in her eyes, was genuine, Dean thought. He struggled to reconcile what she'd just said with that.
"I know you love me, Dean. I don't doubt you, I don't think even you know how you would feel if you had to make a decision."
And as aggravating as that was, he thought she was right. He didn't know. He hadn't thought about it, because it hadn't come up, and he wasn't sure, really, if the habits of a lifetime would overrule his heart if it came down to it, a split second decision.
Ellie rolled to her feet, looking at him. "You ready? We should keep going."
He nodded, getting up and putting the pack on again, his thoughts churning.
They walked through the level, following the wide halls and passages, catching glimpses into rooms of astonishing size and exquisite beauty, all empty. The hot winds soughing past them, constant draughts caused by the rising heat of the lower levels and the only sound above the soft moaning of the moving air was the slap of their footfalls on the smooth and polished floors. They walked in silence, lost in their thoughts, barely looking at their surroundings. Dean wrestled with what she'd said, understanding more now, but some part of himself wishing he didn't. He wanted to believe that he would put her first, above anything else, even his brother. He wasn't sure he could. It had been stupid to bring it up here. Those thoughts, those memories, the decisions of the past, they could only distract here. He needed every last atom of concentration on the job.
They reached a great courtyard, the firmament above painted in red and black and grey, clouds like torn and shredded pennants striping the sullen sky. It was as empty as the rest of the level, as if abandoned. On the opposite side, piercing the high, thick walls, a pair of enormous gates stood open, and unguarded.
Dean glanced at Ellie. "What's wrong?"
"The gates should be shut."
"Maybe someone was in a rush?" He looked back at the gates. They were thirty feet high and ten foot thick. Personally, he was kind of glad that they were open.
They walked slowly toward them, the demon knives drawn and ready. Dean felt the heat before they'd even reached the gates, noting unhappily the ruddy glow cast on the outer side of gate and wall.
What the fuck—?
They slipped through the narrow gap and looked down into the gargantuan domed cavern that held the Lake of Fire.
The Lake of Fire
"Oh, you gotta be kiddin' me!" Dean stared at the red and gold bubbling surface of the liquid rock that lay before them, his skin drying and crisping in the baking heat, the toxic air irritating the lining of his throat. "Come on!"
Ellie walked past him, down to the shore line, her attention on the edges of the lake, her face glowing and shining with perspiration. She was almost thirty feet away when he noticed he was standing there by himself. He followed fast across the crunching rocks that formed the uneven beach to the lake.
"How are we going to get across this?" His lungs hitched and gagged at the poisonous fumes rising from the magma.
Ellie opened her mouth to answer him and froze, her face draining of colour. She grabbed his hand and turned, dragging him in a clumsy sprint for the wall of jagged, tumbled rocks that seemed to be the barrier of the level, sixty feet back from the edge of the lava. As they reached the outer edge of the rocks, he heard what had caught her attention, the sound of feet over the pumice behind them.
He dropped to his knees, crawling silently after her into a deep crevice in the pitted black rock. He felt her stop ahead of him and edged closer, ducking his head when he felt the rock above. The crunching outside stopped, and Dean held his breath, wondering if they'd been seen or heard. He pressed his back to the rock, uncomfortably aware that if their presence was felt here, there would be no chance of fighting or running. A creeping cold invaded the crevice. Not so much cold, he realised a second later, as a feeling of lifelessness, as if the energy was being drawn from their bones, their hearts, their souls. He knew whose footsteps they'd heard.
"—not bring him back to power and still keep him on a leash without ensouling him."
The voice, perhaps twenty or thirty feet distant, perhaps closer or further, was deep and raw, rasping as if the throat through which the words issued was ripped and torn, yet it was eerily clear, the words singularly discrete, like they'd been placed, one by one, into her mind. Unbidden, a passage from one of Katharine's books leapt to her mind's eye…the speech of those twisted creatures is not just physical but mental and emotional as well, the meanings layered into madness, and need, and torment, unable to be erased or forgotten or cleansed from the memory.
"Yes."
Ellie squeezed her eyes shut tightly at the sound of the second voice. It was uninflected and sepulchral, acting directly on the nervous system, conjuring evil images in the mind. Against her shoulder, Dean shivered involuntarily and she turned toward him when his arms came around her, burying her face against his neck as his forehead rested on her shoulder. She couldn't feel his warmth.
"Only a soul with an angel's power can do it." The first voice lost substance and volume.
"There is such a child."
In her mind's eye, Ellie found herself rushing down a tunnel, black and narrowing, unseen things pressing against her. She could hear screams, terrified they were hers.
"You lie. Where is it?
"In time."
"Time! Time is what we don't have. Heaven will notice us all too soon." The first voice was strident with fear, and the visions vanished.
"We have all the time of Eternity."
A rending scream split the air like a blow and Ellie clung to Dean, teeth and lips clamped together to keep from joining it. She felt the deep shudder through his frame as the cry trailed raggedly away into a series of half-sobs and gasps.
"How long can we hold him as he is?" The first voice was cracked and broken, wheezing between the words.
"As long it takes." A long slow hiss seemed to penetrate the rocks, searching for them, searching for something. "Something moves between the planes."
"There is nothing here."
"No. Something is here."
"We can search?"
"Yes." The hiss came again. "Level by level. Search."
The pumice shifted and rattled as the feet that disturbed it moved away. Moments later, there was a low grinding noise, followed by a hollow boom as the gates were closed.
It could be a trap, she thought, not moving. Dean was as still as she was, muscles locked, his breathing silent. They waited, in complete stillness, for a long time, the images slowly dissipating, reactions gradually easing. It might have been an hour, or three, before Ellie drew in a deep breath and let go of him.
"I think we can go."
"Those were the arch-demons?"
"Yes, the Princes," she confirmed, easing her legs straight, the feeling of cold still there.
"Are we stuck here?"
"No, but we have to hurry now." She shook her head, gesturing for him to crawl out ahead of her and following as he rolled onto his knees and did so. "If they're searching … they'll find us if they know to look between the planes."
"Is that where we are?" Dean asked, getting to his feet when he cleared the rock opening. "Between the planes?"
"In a way. We're here in our flesh," Ellie said, checking her pack as she climbed to her feet. "Not souls, not minds. The arch-demons wear constructs, like the Watchers and the Others, but theirs are much thinner. Something to do with the way they were tortured, I think." She shrugged. "They can see the souls, and the demons, and the minds, and they'll be able to see us, if they catch up to us."
Dean digested that. There were too many rules to this place, too many exceptions. He wanted to complain about that. Turning, he registered Ellie was no longer standing next to him, and he swung back, a scream rising in his throat as he saw her walking fast toward the lava edge, his legs incapable of moving, in helpless shock when he saw her take a step into the molten rock—
—and stop, looking back over her shoulder at him from a solid platform of pitted rock.
"Dean?"
He couldn't answer her, his throat and chest still tight from fear, reaction shuddering down through his body. He staggered down to the shoreline, looking at the rock, the hardened lava still in the rolls and curves and humps it had been when it was molten. It looked like it'd always been hard, but in his memory, it was still glowing, still belching poison gases, still radiating impossible heat. The two states existed uneasily in his mind.
He stepped onto the rock, half-expecting it to crumble under his weight and pitch him into lava. It didn't.
"Would it've killed you to tell me about this?"
"I'm sorry," Ellie said, her expression not exactly contrite. "I did say it would probably change."
"Next time you decide to test out a theory, give me some warning so I don't have a heart attack thinking you're gonna die," he told her, his gaze on his boots. Beneath them, the rock was hard and cool, though there were puffs of steam, here and there across the dark plain.
She turned away, heading straight out, her gaze on the holes and razor-sharp curls, and he followed, watching his footing, hoping that nothing was watching from the shore. They would stand out like ants on a tablecloth, he thought.
Jackson, Wyoming
The hunting lodge was a rental, a sprawling, self-consciously rustic building on eighty acres, a couple of miles out of town, between the rising mountainside and the Snake River. With excellent facilities, including a car maintenance shed that rivalled any mechanic's, it held the hunters and Watchers in comfort, and was difficult to approach without being seen.
Sam sat on the wrap-around deck, the chill in the evening air beginning to penetrate his coat, his gaze fixed unseeing on the wooded hillside below the house, the loom of the nearby town a glow against the darkening sky. He didn't move when the Watcher took the chair beside him.
"What are the plans now?"
Sam shrugged. "Got me."
The man who had been an angel tilted his head slightly, his long hair catching the light spilling from the house. "It's not over, you know."
"I know. It's never over." Sam agreed. He straightened in the chair, made a vague gesture toward the west. "We…recover. Regroup, I guess. Wait to see if my brother makes it back."
"Your people are very resilient."
Sam turned his head to look at the Watcher. Baraquiel was looking through the lit windows of the living room. Inside, Twist and Garth were playing cards by the fire, Sam knew, while Tricia, Marcus and Trent prepared the evening meal, the television on.
"They've had a lot of practise."
"Yes." The Watcher turned back to Sam. "You could use our help."
"We could use anyone's help." Sam glanced past Baraquiel into the living room. At the long table, the other Watchers and nephilim were laying places, sitting and talking. "What exactly are you offering?"
"There's nothing for us to go back to now," Baraquiel said. "The Others turned the population of our home against us before they left. We'll be safer in this country, for a while at least. And we will fight on Heaven's side when Hell rises."
For a moment, his gaze dropped. "You know this country. You know the people." He lifted his head, meeting Sam's eyes. "An alliance, perhaps. Our strength for your knowledge?"
"That's vague," Sam said, wondering what the Watcher was trying to negotiate. "What do you want?"
Baraquiel grimaced. "I want to find a safe place for my people. I want to continue to train our children, so that when the time comes to fight, they'll be ready. I want to be able to trust in something."
That sounded more like it. Sam nodded. "We need to find a base too. Some place we can defend, retreat to if necessary. We have a temporary place in Oregon, but I can't make it more permanent until I know my brother's alive."
Baraquiel nodded. "We'll wait here, with you."
Lake of Fire, Hell
Dean trudged behind Ellie, wondering, not for the first time, if God was getting a good laugh out of all of this. He thought he might be getting acclimatised to Hell, though having no idea of how long they'd been down here was getting old. The light varied little, neither bright nor dark, but a murky, reddish glare that he thought might be what day looked like on Mars. The temperature remained hot, unrelieved by the winds that blew across the hardened lava plain, sweeping the fumes from one side to the other and back again. He still wasn't hungry or tired, although his body was aching and he longed for enough water to wash the poisons of the lake from his mouth and throat.
Their watches had stopped the moment they'd passed through the Pasadena gate, and distance seemed to stretch and shrink as well, some mental game that Lucifer might have either planned or taken advantage of. Looking back the way they'd come, he couldn't see the far shore, just a straight line across the horizon. But, not that long ago, he'd looked back and seen the serrated rock face that held the now-closed gates quite clearly. Ahead, the flat horizon was breaking up, rising and falling with the landscape surrounding the lake, a lighter band clear along what might have been the distant shoreline. He couldn't gauge how much more walking they needed to do to get there.
Ensouling Lucifer.
The overheard conversation had been returning to him in pieces for the past however many hours they'd been walking over the lake, but that piece had returned most often. How could an angel, now a demon, be ensouled? It wasn't the right place or time for the question but he couldn't shake free of the idea. Cas' vessel still contained Jimmy's soul, voluntarily shut up so the angel could use the body. Lucifer had done the same thing to Sam when Sam said yes. But what the arch-demon had said didn't seem to relate to that. Not a possession of angel over human, but of soul over angel. Was that possible?
Anna had done it. The memory of her explanation came back, the angel without its Grace, merging at a cellular level with the unborn child. Or, at least, he thought it'd worked that way for her. He wished he'd asked more about it now. Had the child been conceived already or had Anna been a part of that process too? Forced it or facilitated it somehow? She'd said her parents hadn't been able to have children before.
He looked up and blinked at the sight of the milky grey beach ahead, and the towering wall behind it. About eighty or ninety feet high, he estimated, smooth in places, rough in others, he turned his head to look either direction and noted glumly it appeared to extend both ways, as far as he could see.
"Seventh level?" he called out to Ellie, as she crunched up the crushed pumice of the beach.
She stopped and lifted her canteen of water, unscrewing its cap and lifting it to fill her mouth with water before nodding. Dean rolled his shoulders as he crossed from the lake edge to the beach, swinging around when he caught the sight of movement behind him. The lake had returned to a molten state, bubbling and spitting out toxins and searing heat. He hurried away from it and took the canteen Ellie offered.
In front of them were the gates, massive porphyry slabs, set into the sheer stone wall, each slab marked over with sigils and wards. Above the gates, an inscription had been carved in the lintel, the characters familiar to him, even though he couldn't read them.
The canteen was light. He let a little trickle into his mouth, swirling it around then swallowing it. He didn't feel thirsty, exactly. Just dry. He screwed the cap on and handed it back.
"Not going to get through those, are we?" He nodded at the gates and she shook her head.
"No, Castiel said it took seven angels to break through the gates when they were here to get you," she said. "I think we need to look for a way up the wall."
Without waiting for a response, she headed for the right hand side base of the wall, her gaze moving slowly over the surface.
Dean caught up to her, following her gaze along the wall. She was looking for blemishes and protrusions, he knew, enough to make a path up the stone face. They would be there, those imperfections in the stone, cracks big enough to slide fingertips and boot toes into, lips and edges and weathering. He and Sam had done some rock-climbing with a friend of his father's back in their teens. He knew how, though he wasn't as certain of his strength as he'd been back then.
"I think we can get up here."
Ellie's voice broke through his thoughts and he focused on the wall, picking out the rough spots she'd seen, following their meandering path up and across the wall to the right. He wouldn't know if the ones higher up were any good until he got there, he realised, settling his pack and tightening the straps. It was rougher than the rest, but still almost vertical.
They would be doing this alone, he knew, unhappy about it but unable to think of a single good alternative. Without ropes and anchor points for them, it would be safer to go side by side, not one under the other.
Ellie started to climb, and Dean moved to the wall a few feet from her, finding the first handhold and locking his fingers into it, searching for a foothold with the toe of his boot, finding one and pulling himself up. The progression was slow, making sure of the holds before attempting to change position. Neither looked down.
The first twenty feet went fast, and smoothly. Technique returned and despite his greater bulk and weight, Dean found himself keeping pace with Ellie. The stone was hard and blocky, with straight edges and cracks, no crumbling as he gripped and hauled himself up and changed hands and did it again. He was approaching the halfway point when he realised he was in trouble.
"What's wrong?" Ellie had stopped, five feet above him.
"Not as easy as it used to be," he said, breathing as deeply as he could to combat the fatigue in his muscles. "Get to the top. I'll make it, just going to go a bit more slowly."
She hesitated then nodded, shifting position and climbing again. He hoped he'd make it. There was nothing either of them could do to improve his chances except what he was already doing. He freed one hand, flexed it and reached up for the next hold, taking his time to find the solid foot rest before he hauled himself higher. Too much driving and too many burgers in the last six months, he thought. Not enough salt'n'burns and running after faster monsters.
Inching up the wall, he kept his thoughts compartmentalised, one part of his mind attending to the wall, to his senses and to the state of his body; another part thought deliberately of the future, of what he would do when he was at the top, when they were out of Hell, projecting to a point in the future. He wasn't sure why but the split concentration helped with the physical distancing.
Dean felt the breeze as he reached the top, flinging his arm over the edge of the wall and finding a solid knob of rock to curl his fingers around. It was cooler, drying the sweat from his face as he shifted the balance of his weight from his feet to his arms and pulled himself to the flat ledge on the top of the wall. Ellie was lying on her back against her bag, eyes closed and her breathing slow and deep.
Dean raised his head from his arms to look at her. "Let's not do that again either."
"You're so picky. Think of how these experiences are bonding us."
"I was bonding fine without them," he retorted mildly, rolling onto his back and smiling.
"You only think that because you hate heights."
"I love heights."
"You do?" She rolled onto her side and propped herself up on her elbows to look at him.
"No," he admitted. "But it doesn't count. How do we get down?"
Ellie snorted. "On the inside, there's a staircase."
"A staircase?"
"For the guards."
Dean sat up. "Shit, guards?"
"Relax," she said, sitting up and gesturing at the long expanse of empty wall top. "None here now."
Looking along the wall, Dean saw the staircase but the view of the interior of the level wiped out his relief at an easier descent. This, Cas had told them, was the level on which he'd been imprisoned, tortured for thirty years, torturer for another ten before the angels of the Host had come to pull him on God's orders. On the inside of the wall, the plain that stretched out in all directions beneath them was a labyrinth, miles of twisting pathways between rock walls, vaguely circular.