Chapter title is from song by Dio.

9

Holy Diver – Dio

He didn't know how he could have forgotten. From the first time Dad had placed the .22 in his hand, the drill had been: Count your shots. Know your ammo.

It was not so difficult with a six shot revolver, but as he graduated to using the semi-autos with a limited number of special bullets, Dad had kept on it. Ask and answer. Recite and repeat.

"How many bullets left, Dean?"

"Nine."

"How many silver?"

" Three."

"How many in the Beretta?"

"Twelve."

"That's my man."

Count. Always count.

Without the muffling effects of the cuff, the First Blade whispered. He did not tell Sam he could hear it even when he wasn't holding it, but he suspected Sam knew. His attention wandered when he looked at people, seeing the sin writhing inside them like black threadworms. More often than not, he came to himself finding Sam's hand on his arm, whoever he had been talking to long gone, the residue of apology on Sam's face before Sam turned to him with a reassuring smile pasted over a hidden sigh.

Counting set boundaries. There was a stop and start to it. He started at one when he felt the Blade in his hand, and counted his swings. 1. Whack 2 Whack 3 Whack 4. The numbers were a reminder, a place to put your focus. 1 vampire 2 vampire 3 vampire 4. Stop when you run out of vampires.

Stop.

It was hard to come back. To breathe. To need air, to need food, to crave warmth. To feel the limits of human limbs, the aches of human muscles. It was hard to come back to needs. Why? He could stay, stay with the Blade in his hand, power coursing through his veins, conviction flooding through his mind. He could keep going, free from the shackles of human sight, doing what he was meant to do.

They kept hunting, but they went after smaller game now. There were a lot of ghosts. Maybe that wasn't surprising, given the state of the Veil. It was tedious digging and salting and burning, and he ended up letting Sam handle the salting and burning most of the time. He contented himself with terrorizing the crazed apparitions that retained enough sense to know when something really bad was after them. It wasn't the same, but it was enough, apparently, to keep the Mark's worst impulses at bay.

They hadn't talked about what happened with the spider massacre in Barnwell. Sam was just—careful. Sam fielded the calls from other hunters, scanned the newspapers and the web, and meticulously steered them away from anything involving multiple bogeys of any kind. Surprisingly, just this once, Sam hadn't gone into his usual must-understand-everything mode.

Guess there some things even Sam figured he was better off not knowing.

Sam's cell phone rang once. Twice. Castiel.

He picked up the phone hurriedly and thumbed to accept the call. "Cas?"

There was nothing. A hard metallic clank banged against his ear and he jerked the phone to arm's length. Sounds of scuffling followed, then the faint but distinct thuds of blows landing on a body.

"CAS!"

The crunching noise of footsteps on gravel.

"Well. If it isn't Sam Winchester."

The voice was foreign to him. Dean crowded around, a concentrated frown creasing his brow. Sam put the phone on speaker before he answered.

"Who is this?"

Sounds of a struggle drifted across the line from the background.

"What have you done with Cas?"

"Oh, nothing. Yet. Castiel is just going to help us with a little something. Aren't you, brother? Or should I say, half-brother? What exactly are you now, Castiel?"

There was another thud followed by a groan, and a weak growl. "I've told you, Arkas. I. Don't. Know."

"CAS!"

Dean grabbed the phone out of his hand.

"What do you want?"

The speaker on the other end paused. "Dean Winchester. My. So the rumors are true. The righteous man bears the Mark of Cain."

"Listen, douchebag."

"Well now. This makes things interesting."

"Let him go."

"I'm afraid I can't, old son. I have my orders."

"Orders from who? To do what?"

"Now why would I tell you, demon?"

Dean's eyes narrowed. Sam stayed quiet.

"What do you want?"

"Who says I want anything?"

"You wouldn't be talking to me if you didn't." Dean snapped.

"Touché." A considering pause came over the line. "Your little buddy, Crowley."

Sam was taken aback. What?

Dean didn't even blink. "What about Crowley?"

"Surely you must have thought the world would be a better place without him."

Dean held the phone away from him, thinking.

"You can do it now, you know. Easy peasy. We can put an end to Hell."

"What are you talking about?"

"Weren't you boys trying to close the gates of Hell? Maybe stop souls from ever having to go there again?"

Sam inhaled, remembering what Crowley had said about an angel melee and the world outside changing. He shook his head at Dean, signaling caution. They needed more information about what the hell was going on out there, badly.

Coordinates, Dean mouthed the word silently, and made the gesture for him to try and GPS the location of Castiel's cell.

"Well?" Came over the phone, silky and expectant.

"Why don't you take care of Crowley yourself if it's so easy?" Dean stalled.

There was a dry laugh. "That little punk demon is a slippery bastard. But you. You he trusts."

Dean's eyebrows shot straight up. "That's your gambit? Take out someone because they trust me?"

"That is what you do, isn't it, Dean? Hasn't it happened to everyone around you?"

Dean snarled, his eyes flashing completely to black.

"Think about it, Knight. How is a two-bit crossroads demon the King of Hell? What's giving him his power? It's certainly not his charming personality."

"Why would I do anything for you?"

Sam shot Dean a look. Was he actually considering it? Dean's eyes were still black and staring at the bookcase on the far wall.

"Oh, don't. Do it for you BFF here. Bring me the keys, Dean. Then you can have whatever's left of Castiel back."

"Dean, just how is Crowley able to control you?"

It figured Sam had to ask. Dean had been trying not to think about it, as if the situation wasn't complicated enough. Who the hell was this Arkas dude? What the hell did he want? To top it all off, if they couldn't ask Cas—what was left of their contacts, angel-wise, was pretty damned limited.

Oh, wait, that's right. They didn't have ANY.

The douchebags sitting pretty on their feathery asses in Heaven had kicked Cas out—after all he had done—for not being one of them. Did it matter that much that the grace-stealing was a little iffy? Like they would have done different. And now there were these new dickwads, whoever they were, on the scene. An even douchey-er species of angel, if such a thing was even possible.

Fuck.

He was reluctant to contact Crowley. There was a whole road there he didn't want to go down, shades of wrong and less wrong again, confusing as heck. He didn't know how Crowley pulled off the whole puppet-master trick. Arkas was wrong. Crowley trusted nobody. Hell, the bastard probably thought his own shadow would double-cross him at the first opportunity, and he was probably right.

Sam was talking again. Dean took his eyes off the road for a second, and looked over at Sam, worrying at the dot on the phone that marked Cas' last known.

"Technically, you should be a Knight of Hell, maybe even more powerful than Abaddon, since you have the Mark."

Sam had the good grace to sound ambivalent about that. Dean pursed his lips. More powerful than Abaddon had its upsides and downsides. Fun as it would be to be able to give Crowley a taste of his own medicine, Cain hadn't been lying when he said it felt so good to have the First Blade in his hand again. The power was … something. He could just taste it now, grab it, and go. Follow the pull of the current and go.

He almost did. The path that way was beautifully clear, uncluttered with hazy human decisions. He would have vanished right out of the driver's seat of the Impala, leaving it to crash into traffic with Sam in it, unaware his fate hung on the knife-edge of Dean's concentration. He tried to pull his mind back, back into the mire of complexity by focusing on Sam's voice. He gripped the steering wheel tighter.

"And what keys is Arkas talking about?"

Dean shrugged. "Damned if I know."

"Maybe we should just…"

"No." He cut Sam off before Sam could get the suggestion out. He didn't want to explain the thing that Sam should, with his big brain, be able to see. If he took Crowley out, who was the most powerful demon of them all? That's right. And he would do it, do it and go on a killing spree through the bowels of earth's rat infested dungeon, give the place a good scrub over and burn everything clean away until it was shiny and new again. And it wouldn't be clean enough, if more souls kept flooding in from topside. He would have to get rid of the source, pull everything out by the roots, so he might as well start here, start now, right now.

The car lurched. The bumping action of the wheels rolling over the lane markers and Sam's sharp "Dean!" pulled him back to the present. Fabric brushed the fingertips of his right hand, reaching into his jacket for the First Blade.

With a shock he pulled back, hand on the wheel again, guiding the Impala back to the dead center of the lane. He stole a look aside at Sam, to find Sam looking at him narrow-eyed. He was in for it now.

"What was that?"

Dean pushed his lips together, hoping the conversation would go away.

"Dean."

Damn. Sam wasn't going to let it go.

"Dean."

"I can't, Sam. Okay?"

"Can't what?"

"Can't off Crowley." God, he felt dirty saying that.

Sam blinked, halfway between startled and shocked. Sam moved straight on to outrage. "What?!"

He gave Sam's big brain a kick. "I don't want to rule Hell."

That stopped Sam cold. "Why would you…"

"Who's top of the pyramid after Crowley, Sam? Me. Who are the demons afraid of? Me."

He was practically spitting the words out. Some things Sam didn't know—he hadn't been there when he'd run those jobs for Crowley. He hadn't seen the utter fear in the eyes of the nightmares when they saw him coming. He hadn't seen Dean reflected in the liquid blackness of demon eyes, First Blade poised above their heads, face taut and grim, lost to the darkness, lost to the perfection of what he was meant to do. Becoming the epitome of all the things they hunted.

Sam didn't know. Sam only saw his brother. The hope and shadow of Dean's soul, clinging on by his fingertips to this body and form.

He reined in his frustration and tried again. "I can't do it, Sam. What comes next…"

His voice trailed off. Sam hushed, glimpsing, perhaps, the things he left unsaid. Sam's brows drew together tightly, turning the problem over in his mind.

"All right. We'll find another way."

Hannah was waiting for them on the gravel path. She held Castiel's cell phone in one hand, and she looked worn for an angel. Two others flanked her, and they had their angel blades out.

"Day late and a dollar short, aren't you, sister?" The First Blade was in Dean's hand as he spoke. Sam's footsteps scrambled frantically behind him as he advanced on the angel who had kicked Cas out of Heaven.

"We're not here to hurt you, Dean Winchester. We need your help."

"That's rich. Thought you guys didn't need anyone now that you've got your wings back."

They were bright to look at with his demon sight. Contained and controlled in their vessels, the light of their grace did not burn, but it was bright. He squinted but kept his eyes on them defiantly. Sam's hand landed on his arm, pulling him to a stop and restraining.

"What do you want?" Sam moderated, his tone frosty.

"We never meant for Castiel to get hurt. We just wanted him to live out his human life in peace."

"Well, bang up job on that. In what universe did you imagine the dickwads you left down here were going to leave him alone?"

"We miscalculated in the heat of the moment." The admission was slow in coming. "He made many of us…uncomfortable."

"You were wondering whose grace he might steal next."

The stocky fellow to her right bristled. "Can you blame us?"

Hannah put out a hand and her grumpy lieutenant subsided. "We need you to get him back for us."

"Why?" Dean scoffed disbelievingly. "So you can kick him some more while he's down?"

"There are things happening you don't understand. Castiel is irreplaceable. We need him if Heaven is to survive."

"Why don't you get him back yourselves?" Sam's voice was heavy with suspicion.

Hannah hesitated. "You have to understand. The ones that took Castiel are…different. They don't follow the rules. There are too few of us, and we have lost too many trying to hold the portal to Heaven. We cannot afford to lose any more. They cannot be allowed in."

"I don't understand. Why can't you just let the other angels back in to help you?" Damn it if Sam wasn't genuinely curious.

The hesitation turned into a full stop. Hannah looked to her right and left at the other two before she continued.

"We don't know who to trust. One wrong move, and we will all be dead. The power of Heaven will be in the hands of the Fallen, and trust me, you do not want that."

Dean frowned, letting the First Blade drop to his side. "The who?"

"The Fallen. The others who took part in the rebellion. They were safely locked up in Heaven's prison until…"

"Metatron's spell." Sam finished for her. "How come we're just hearing about them now, if they're so powerful?"

"You have. Gadreel was one of them."

Sam's breath hissed out. "He wasn't all bad, in the end."

"No. Misguided. He sought redemption at the last. " Hannah's look was sharp. "Don't be misled, Sam. The rest are not like him. What they are after, you do not want."

"What are they after?"

"Besides power?" Hannah's lips tightened grimly before her next words. "To empty Heaven. They want to empty Heaven."

"You get the feeling she's not telling us something?"

Dean slanted a look in his direction. "Something? Try a whole lot of something."

Sam made a puff that passed for agreement. "What I don't get, is that they're afraid. Genuinely afraid. I haven't seen an angel that scared of another one since…"

"Raphael." Dean finished for him.

They lapsed into silence, letting the purr of the engine take the place of conversation. Sam drove with one hand on the wheel, his other tapping an absent pattern on his thigh as he tried to think his way through everything they had just learned.

"Can they even do that?" he finally burst out.

"Do what?"

"Empty heaven of the souls up there."

"Hannah seems to think so. Don't see why she would be so freaked unless it was true."

"What would they do with them?"

Dean shrugged. "Friggin' angels. Who knows? Swallow them all like Cas did when he tried to chow down on purgatory?"

Sam looked over at Dean, horrified.

"Dean, there's millions of souls in Heaven."

"Yeah, well. That didn't work out so well for Cas when he tried it. You'd think they'd have learned."

Sam took the next exit off the freeway, focusing on downshifting and guiding the car along the curve to the right, the driving a soothing distraction. Hannah had given them a location in Geary where they thought Castiel had been taken, as near as the angels could tell.

"You think it's a trap?"

"Of course it's a trap." Dean's tone was scathing. "If it weren't a trap, they'd have gone in and rescued the 'Commander' themselves. If it weren't a trap, these other guys would have warded up."

"Maybe we should re-think this, Dean."

"Too late" Dean's lips pursed, tight with worry. "If Cas is slipping into human…"

He didn't need to finish the sentence.

Sam brought the Impala to a stop along the curb of a side street. This part of town was derelict, the storefronts abandoned. Graffiti was splashed along most of the brick walls. A gray stone church in a state of long disrepair loomed before them.

"Holy ground." He looked at Dean. "Can you?"

"Guess we're about to find out."

They hopped the chain link fence that surrounded the church easily. They crept around the perimeter of the massive complex until they came to a walled side entrance, one long stone covered walkway running from the high outer wall to the main building. Vines from ivy gone wild growing up the stone wall made convenient handholds. He went over easily, but as Dean reached the top of the wall and started to swing one leg over, he suddenly grabbed violently at the nearest tendril of vine, almost toppling back over onto the street.

"Dean!"

" . !" came from the other side.

"Dean!"

"I'm fine. Just need a little." Dean pulled himself up to the top of the wall again, pausing there and looking into the courtyard below. "Preparation."

"What is it?"

Dean shook his head, not answering. He blew out a breath and tensed as he repeated his earlier maneuver. Grimacing with effort, he got both legs over the wall, dropped down onto the brick path below, and shook himself.

"It's nothing."

Right.

"It's a little sting-y." Dean admitted reluctantly.

Sam looked around the weedy courtyard anxiously. "Maybe you should wait here."

"And let you take on however many angels in there by yourself? I don't think so."

"I'll use the sigil."

Before he could say another word, he found himself unceremoniously sailing several feet through the air and tacked up against one of the pillars of the stone walkway.

"Sam. So glad you could make it."

Standing in the doorway of the church was a tall, slim figure wearing a gray suit. Dark hair fell in waves to his shoulders. Long fingers adjusted the gray silk tie over his gray silk shirt, and his pale blue eyes gleamed with amusement in the full moonlight. Candlelight spilling out from the doorway behind him gave him the illusion of a halo.

Sam strained against the invisible force holding him in place. He tried to twist his head around so he could see Dean, but the courtyard was empty. Dean wasn't on the walkway either.

"Interesting. A quick study, your brother." The angel flashed him an insincere smile. "But then, that's not necessarily desirable given his condition, is it?"

"What do you want?"

"Want, dear boy? Nothing, for the moment. You can call this a … test."

"A test of what?"

The gray angel's smile was cool as he secured both of Sam's wrists behind him and forced him forward into the church. "You'll see, Sam. You'll see."

The interior of the church was vast, the floor littered with the rubble of shattered pews and broken glass. At the far end of the nave, three silent gray suits guarded the battered form of Castiel, kneeling on the ground before the remains of the high altar.

Teleporting on holy ground was rough going. The air seemed to repel him, thick and viscous, trying to spit him out and push him back however he moved. Dean grit his teeth, ignoring the distracting sensation of needle-sharp jolts dancing through his funny bone and knees at random intervals.

Having the First Blade in his hand helped. He held the old jawbone point down, and worked his way carefully along the balcony above the altar, stepping around the loose debris. He didn't breathe, but the angels below looked up anyway, tracking his position with bright eyes. He avoided looking at them directly, not wanting his demon vision affected by the light of their grace. He kept his eyes on Cas, the flickering light of Cas' stolen grace and the shimmering naiveté of Castiel's not-human-not-soul.

The side door opened, and Sam stumbled in, arms tied behind him at the wrists, roughly pushed from behind by the gray angel from the walkway earlier. Dean's eyes narrowed. It was a piss poor knot, he could see that from here. Sam would be out of that in a minute once he was away from the angel shoving him. That gray one was… different.

"Sam." Cas sounded alarmed.

Sam shook his head at Cas.

"Dean. I know you're here." Mockery was in his voice as the gray angel threw his words into the cavernous space. "Finding it tough going?"

He didn't bother rising to the bait.

"Come on out. No?" The angel laughed a little dry laugh. "A little incentive, then. I wonder which one you will try to save first? Who are you willing to let die, hmm?"

Dean moved further back into the shadows. Angel eyes followed him, all except the gray one. Stealth was clearly pointless. The gray angel gave a nod, and angel blades slithered out of sleeves and went to the throats of the captives.

"Let Sam go, Arkas. I will help you."

Cas' voice was scratchy and parched.

Dean dropped down in front of the altar, the inhuman ability to make the one story leap evident in the lightness of his landing. He straightened before the knot of angels, Castiel, and Sam.

"Take them both. What do I care?"

He turned demon eyes on Arkas. Maybe it was a trick of the light, but it seemed to him Arkas pulled back slightly. Blue eyes looked sharply back at him, Arkas' grace fully contained in his vessel, not leaking through at all. No light, not the human soul of the angel's vessel, not the angel's grace. It was peculiar.

After a moment, Arkas smiled again. "I think you care very much, demon. You're still here, even though the air here wishes to be rid of your foul presence. So choose."

Dean turned and stepped away. He let his voice drop to the demon's echoing timbre. "You're wrong. Sam wanted to come. It amuses me to see him try to hang on to something that isn't there anymore. I couldn't care less." It cost the world to walk the fine boundary to make his next words convincing with the ghostly echo. "They are all gray things."

Sam visibly flinched back, his dismay convincing because it was genuine.

To Dean's surprise, Arkas' smile broadened, like he had gotten exactly what he wanted. He made a short slashing gesture to his followers. "Kill them both."

What followed he could not really remember. Light. Movement. Darkness. He had to focus on one thing. Three angels, and the gray one. Three.

A blur of motion. His or theirs, hard to tell. The shock of grace hard against the First Blade, burning searing brightness lashing back at him as heated waves, the intensity of it far worse than when Tessa had impaled herself and he was human and saw with human eyes and felt with human skin. The feel of tattered feathers drifting against his face. The awkward smell of human emotion, strange on angel's breaths, hot and sweaty fear, the taste of human sin, resentment and anger, weighting their wings down, tethering them to the earth as shackles they could not themselves see.

Each of his thrusts was certain. He moved without needing to look, trusting his other senses over sight—feeling them dance around him, silver blades flashing with deadly intent. Parry, swing, dodge.

Kill.

He didn't miss.

Three. He had to remember.

He pulled up looking into Castiel's wide blue eyes, the First Blade separated by a hair from Castiel's vulnerable throat. His arm quivered with the effort of restraint. Not the gray one not the gray one NOT THE GRAY ONE.

He jerked back, shaking, unable to unwind his fingers from the leather bound hilt. Demon sight lingered, the stench of death sharp against his nostrils. The pinch of holy ground beneath his feet, and Sam's hand tentative on his arm.

"Dean." Cas' voice, low with concern. What did Castiel see?

"Dean." This from Sam, a bracing arm around him as the shudders started. Cold, so cold. Cold in the dark stillness of death, cold where he belonged, cold six feet beneath the ground where he should have been ages ago, cold, not pinging around in the world like a wrecking ball. It was hard to remember to be warm, to be like Sam, to see things other than the darkness in the world, to endure the uncertainty of his existence.

It was hard to remember to breathe when the smell of blood hung cloying in the soupy air.

Cas stayed where he was, not moving, not even twitching, despite the fact the glass shard he was standing on had to hurt. It was like he somehow knew the count was one short. The gray one.

"Sam." Dean tried to find his normal voice. "The smarmy douche."

"Gone, Dean. He took off the moment you went for the others."

"Wings?"

"No. But he moves pretty damn fast. I heard a car start up outside."

Reluctantly his fingers uncurled around the whispering weapon in his hand and let it fall. Sam moved between the First Blade and his hand, and he let that hand rest on Sam's shoulder. Let himself lean, just for a moment. The urge to hurl was overpowering. He closed his eyes for a moment to settle his stomach, shutting out the bright after-images of death. He heard Cas ease up cautiously, and bend over to pluck the bit of glass out of his foot.

"Sorry, Cas." The words came out thick around the bile sitting in the back of his throat.

"It's okay, Dean. I understand."

Forgiveness he didn't deserve. And Castiel meant it, too. There was nothing he could say to that. Nothing would be adequate.

He went around it.

"Your feathery friends upstairs want you back."

Cas paused in the middle of picking up the discarded angel blades on the ground around them.

He felt Sam's head move. Sam picked up the conversation. "Who are the Fallen, Cas?"

Cas stopped moving altogether. Dean opened his eyes.

Cas had compressed his lips together, his face tense and set.

"All of the Fallen?"

"Hannah didn't say. She just said they had lost too many trying to defend the portal. That they didn't know who to trust."

Cas handed two of the angel blades to Sam and kept one for himself, sliding it into the interior pocket of his trench coat. He murmured, mostly to himself. "I thought it was just Arkas. And maybe Suriel."

"They seemed pretty freaked." Sam pointed upwards, referring to the angels that held Heaven.

Possibilities flickered through Castiel's expression, considering and discarding and reconsidering again. He paled.

"What?" Dean growled at the look that had come over Castiel's face.

"It can't be."

"Cas."

"An archangel."

Sam's hand tightened painfully on Dean's shoulder for a second before he remembered and eased up. Dean pulled away from him and straightened. "I thought they were all dead. Except Michael and Lucifer."

"It's not clear. I thought his powers were stripped from him when he was imprisoned."

"Maybe he got them back?" Sam suggested unhelpfully.

Cas was starting to look a little too unnerved for Dean's liking. Cas, who had stood up to Michael and faced down Raphael.

"Cas!" He barked, mostly to break the moment. Cas' eyes came back to him automatically at the sharpness of command in his voice.

"What is it?"

Cas shook his head, then stared distractedly off into space again. "I need to be sure."

Dean rolled his eyes. Conversations with Cas tended to get to this point where he went all cryptic and absent, like he had dialed up the volume on the angel radio playing in his head.

"I need to go." Cas said.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Go back? You've got to be kidding me."

"Dean." Cas' familiar patient exasperation crept in.

"They kicked you out, man. What's to say they're not going to do it again?"

Cas looked at a point over his shoulder before meeting his eyes. "I did this, Dean. I got them all kicked out of Heaven, and freed the Fallen. I need to fix it."

Dean swore. Dammit all with Sam and Cas and their need to fix things. "Metatron did this, Cas. You just tried to do the right thing."

Cas' look was sad, repelling the excuses Dean tried on him. "They're my family, Dean. I have to help them if I can."

"What about your, uh." Dean gestured at all of Cas, "grace problem? Who's to say your 'family' isn't going to get their panties in a bunch about it again?"

"I'll deal with that when it comes up." Cas looked at him gravely, a little too sincerely for someone who'd just had a knife to his throat a moment ago. "Thank you."

"For what?" Dean was taken aback.

Hannah appeared beside Cas before he could answer.

"Cas, wait." Sam interrupted. "On the phone, before. The keys Arkas was talking about, what keys?"

Cas frowned as Hannah looked at him sharply. He shook his head at her briefly. "The keys to Hell, Sam. Arkas is looking for the keys to Hell."