First and foremost, this has been bugging me. In the last chapter I used the word 'hoard'. What I really meant was 'horde'. I'm sure there are other mistakes, but that one was just carelessness on my part, and I'm a little anal about it...
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Disclaimer: you should all know it by heart by now.
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"Run!" Ellen yelled as the demon nearest her swiped a claw toward the spray wand. In retaliation, she sprayed it directly in it's face, causing it to collapse to the floor, shreaking in pain. They had been fighting the mass of creatures for several minutes and making very little progress.
Bobby was holding his own, alternating between use of the flame thrower and the iron sword. The runes marked on the iron had worked their magic, and both his and Ellen's swords were just as deadly to the beasts as Sam's. Sam, to his credit, was swinging expertly at every oncommer, but the horde (;-D) seemed never ending.
"Enough!" he yelled, reaching forward and grabbing the demon attacking him by the throat with his oil-soaked hand. Smoke issued from beneath his hand where the consecrated oil made contact with the creature. He held the sword to what might be considered the creature's neck.
"You all know what these swords can do." He said fiercely. "Do you all want to die?"
Sam, Bobby, and Ellen were back to back, protecting each other. The onslaught had temporarily subsided, but the beasts were elbowing each other and pulsing with anticipation of their kill.
"Take me to Dean!" Sam demanded of the demon in his grip.
The hellhound squirmed. "You'll never reach him alive..." it said in a whispy voice.
"Well, where there's life, there's hope. Right?" Sam smirked, shoving the creature forward.
They moved cohesively in the direction the demon indicated, Bobby and Ellen's backsides never more than a few inches from each others, or Sam's, for over an hour. Occasionally, small groups from the surrounding crowd would venture forward and be cut down, causing the rest to rethink the strategy until their smoke-filled brains would inevitibly forget again. Sometimes their attack varied, the demons converging on them from multiple sides or from above, but were always fought back.
After a long, arduous trek in this manner, they began to decend into one of the pits; luckily, this one was not flaming.
Once their decent had levelled, the hunters could see the new venue was a cavern with hundreds of alcoves sealed off with bars made from bones, which reminded Sam much of the dungeons in the castles he had seen in some of the old movies Dean forced him to watch when they were kids. Looking into one of the alcoves he noticed that there were people in them, just like a prison.
The demon horde was pacing them; following along as though they wanted to attack, but still wary from their last attempt. In various locations around the dark cavern, approximately every six cells, they could see huge beastly demons, much larger than the ones that were flanking them. The large beasts were adorned with huge metal weapons that seemed to be covered in dried blood, and appeared very sharp. Sam silently hoped he wouldn't be forced to engage these brutal-looking creatures, and to his pleasure, they seemed to be ignoring the new arrivals in the cavern.
"This is where the real hard cases are kept..." the demon said menacingly as Sam dragged it along by the throat. "Those are the Choronzon... the torturers..."
Sam looked to his right at the nearest monster, and dread filled his heart. The creature was currently using a limp human body as a pile-driver. It was the cruelest looking being he had ever seen or imagined in his most heinous nightmares, and considering his childhood, that was a feat of some measure. These were the creatures in whose care Dean had been kept for the last five years; the thought made Sam shudder. "Where are they keeping him?" He demanded, shaking his captive slightly.
"Keep walking, human" the demon sneered. "You've long to go yet..."
Eventually they came to the end of the cavern, to the very last cell in this gruesome prison, which had bars of metal instead of bone. It was the darkest point in the dungeon. In front of this cell were positioned three Choronzon side by side, unmoving.
"So, you've done it," the feminine incarnation of Beelzebub said, materializing beside Sam, dressed now in a blood red gown with a plunging neckline. "You can let him go now, they've done their job. And failed miserably," she added, fixing the horde with a terrible look, indicating that there would be repercussions to that failure.
As Sam released his hostage, he noticed that one by one the vast army disappeared; each had a cruel grin of sheer hate showing on it's disfigured face just before fading out. "Them too?" he asked, motioning to the Choronzon.
"No," she said casually, shaking her head. "No, they will stay here, but they will not impede you. Your brother has been quite a handful since he's been here." With that, the beasts parted to reveal the gate into the tiny oriface. "This should be fun."
The largest demon reached for the gate, which seemed to magically unlatch as the clawed extremity touched it. Pulling it back, he motioned for Sam to enter.
He moved forward slowly. He couldn't believe it. This was it. What he had waited and worked so long for. His brother was just on the other side of that gate. His eyes began to water and he blinked the tears away.
"Oh, Tooo Day! Hurry up. I haven't got all eternity." Sedah complained.
Sam gave her a frustrated look, then crouched to allow his lanky frame through the small opening, and entered almost at a hands and knees position. Sedah followed him into the alcove, but Bobby and Ellen stayed outside, flame throwers pointed at the imposing Choronzon.
It was very dark in the cell, and Sam's eyes struggled to adjust. He could not clearly make out what was in front of him, and stumbled over something on the ground. He reached down, pawing blindly for what had tripped him.
Flesh! His hand touched flesh. Shocked, Sam pulled back his hand as though he had touched something scalding hot.
"Dean..." Sam whispered, his breath caught in his throat.
"Deeean," Sedah said in a sing-song voice. "I have a surprise for you."
Sam heard a grunt from somewhere in the dark.
"Dean," she said again, "Your brother, Sam, is here now." Her smile made apparent by the pleased tone in her voice.
In the dark, Sam heard a soft weeping. "No... Sammy...? No... Sammy...no...no...!" the weeping continued. "He can't be here! That's why I'm here! You leave him alone you son of a bitch!"
"No, Dean," Sam said firmly. "I'm came to get you."
There was a rustling in the dark, but Sam could not tell what was happening. "You leave him alone!" Dean repeated. "Or put me back together and I swear I'll tear you to shreds!"
Put him back together? Sam thought, but tried to get Dean to respond to him again. "Dean! I'm here to get you. We're going home. Together."
"Oh, honey, he can't hear you." Sedah said playfully. "This is Hell. Inmates aren't allowed anything pleasurable, and you, my friend, would be a very happy sight for sore eyes...that is, you would be, if he still had eyes. His mind can't even fathom that a rescue is possible, so he thinks you've died and went to Hell."
Sam only picked up on one thing she had said. "So that's what he mean's by 'put him back together'...you took his eyes??" Sam felt nauseous at the thought of his big brother's eyes being ripped out. He was furious, and was barely containing the urge to run his sword through Sedah just for the fun of it.
She laughed sadistically, Dean still weeping in the background. "No. What he really wants are his arms. And his legs. Oh...and maybe his hands and feet... You see, that's the thing about Hell. Ripping him limb from limb doesn't kill him...and we can put him back together and do it as many excruciating times as we want. Makes for a fun game of tug-o-war for my Choronzons...see which joint's going to come apart first...and second..." She smiled at the memory.
"You evil bitch..." Sam said in a low voice, his mind was reeling, and his stomach churning.
"Ha! Haven't you been paying attention? How many times must I tell you? This is Hell!" She laughed. "And thank you for the compliment. Truth be told, it wouldn't have been like this for Dean if he hadn't been such a pain in my ass. He's dismembered plenty of things himself, since he's been here. We had to take him apart and put him in here just to keep him out of trouble. And I still had to put three damn guards at the gate. He's very persistent."
Sam just sat there in disbelief, his body quivering in anger at what had been done to his brother.
"So," Sedah continued. "Still want him?"
"Yes," he said vehemently.
"Well, good!" Sedah said brightly. "I think we have a wheelbarrow around here somewhere. We'll package him 'to-go'."
Sam had reached his tipping point. He pulled the Colt from it's holster and aimed toward Sedah in the dark, cocking the gun. "Put him back together," he said harshly.
Sedah sighed heavily. "Put your silly gun away. Or fire. Either way, it's as useless to you as that tin pig-sticker you've got." She clapped her hands together and the chamber flooded with light.
Sam gasped at the sight before him. Dean was lying in the floor literally in pieces; hands, feet, arms, legs...entrails...were all strewn about carelessly. His head was still attached to his mutilated torso, but as the devil had said, his eyes were missing from their sockets and looked as though they had been clawed out, leaving gaping, bloody, lid-less holes in what had once been a very handsome facade. Every place his body had been separated was covered with maggots and rats, gnawing at his fetid corpse, and each location was bleeding as if the cut were fresh. His torso and neck had barbed wire wrapped tightly around it, not only bleeding where the barbs dug deep into his flesh, but over the entire length of the wire due to how tightly it was bound. Sam could see scars from whip lashes and from where white-hot pokers had been applied. Dean still wept, mostly moaning "no...Sammy...no..."
"Oh, my God," Sam cried as he took it all in, tears streaming down his face. "Dean, I am so sorry..." He placed a hand to the side of Dean's head, Dean winced at the touch from something unseen, causing the wire cut around his neck to seep anew. Sam looked up at Sedah hatefully, "Why??"
She rolled her eyes. "It ain't Club Med, kid." She picked up Dean's dismembered right hand, letting it flop limply back and forth in her hands. "You know, we tried the 'mental torture' way first, giving him nightmares about you becoming evil or dead, messing with his head; but he never fell for it. He must really think highly of you... So, we went for pain, instead. Did you know he really hates rats?" She said, grinning proudly and tossing the hand back toward the broken body on the ground. "Now get off him and let me get this over with."
He pulled back, eyes never leaving the evil incarnate.
She simply looked at Dean and blinked.
Sam looked back to his tortured brother and stiffled a sob; Dean was now lying whole, naked, and unconscious.
"Take him and go." Sedah said with a scowl on her face. "You won't be bothered. Don't look back."
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Author's Note: You know, I wonder how much Hollywood has really shaped the way we see our surroundings and life...and death...
Sorry, no spell-check on this chapter. Don't hate me.
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