Chapter 11

He jerked his thumb back from the door handle, unconsciously sticking the blistered digit into his mouth as he considered the heavy door. Even the hinges were shifting from their polished nickel coloring to the beginnings of a cherry orange glow.

Not a fire. Not again. It couldn't be happening again. Stealth be damned. Hell, common sense be damned. John squared his shoulders, preparing to bust his way into an inferno. He raised his fist to pound the charred barrier, voice booming through.

"What in the hell is going on in there!?!?!! DEAN?!!?"

The seam between the double doors provided a glimpse of a scene to rival the ninth circle, a doom no sane man would enter. John, however, had checked his sanity at the door the instant his sons turned up missing. He was getting in there . The lock bar held firm. The hinges, then. Scouting the foyer around him, he grabbed a small table, turning it into a battering ram. The wood splintered in his hands, embedded itself in him as he pounded again and again, barely noticing when the table remnants fell away and his shoulder began connecting with the door instead.

The flames of the room beyond had spread to the ceiling above, sparks sizzling into his hair. A final shove and the door caved in, fire bursting forth just as he dropped to the floor , instinctivley rolling to quash the flames that licked at his clothing.

"Dean!!!"

He couldn't see; the black trails of obscuring smoke thick as a demon swarm.

Come on son, a hint here. Where are you? "Dean?!!!"

There! A voice... Not Dean, but any life in here means maybe, just maybe, my son is alive. Please...

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"Abigail! Leave him! We have to get out of here, the ceiling's coming down!" William clawed at her gown, trying to drag her away from the child. "Abigail! Now!"

"NO!" The deranged face she turned on her lover was one he didn't recognize. Soot and sweat streaked the once beautiful face, only partially masking the burns marring her skin. The long plum gown was in shredded tatters, parts burnt away.

Only her hand remained in any semblance of control, shallowly carving an ancient spell into Dean Winchester's chest. He'd fought the first bite of the knife, flinching backwards into the wall, groping blindly for the carving blade he'd stolen from the table earlier. His time here and the fire had weakened him and as the symbol had grown his struggles had lessened. Now, aside from a few feeble tosses of his head, he'd gone still.

"Have to finish," her breath was coming in harsh pants as the flames advanced on the three of them.

"Abby, please. The others are dead or dying. The spell doesn't matter now. Let's go." His voice softened as he regarded the woman he'd loved half a millenia, again trying to pry her away.

"Have to..." she began to choke, even a witch needed air.

William pounced on his opportunity, gathering her into his arms and tugging her away in the blinding darkness. He couldn't see if the boy lived and didn't care. They had to try to get out.

She was chanting something new under her breath, not part of the hunter's spell she'd been desperately trying to complete. He didn't care about that either if they could escape this hell.

Abigail made a last grab at Dean's wrist, jerking it close to her face in the blackness, fingers desperately searching for the mark her chant should have raised there. She had to be able to find him again, even a marker to lead her to his charred bones would help her rebuild the magic circle so clearly being destroyed around her. Unblemished flesh met her knarled fingertips.

"NO! IT HAS TO BE THERE! NO!" That spell should have branded the youngest living Winchester. A new series of spasmotic coughs ended her tirade as a chunk of falling plaster bounced off her thigh. It was then that she realized William was dragging her toward the exit, a strange irregular crawl from a man who had danced in his youth with Renaissance queens. What was wrong with him staggering about anyhow? Oh. The fire-gnarled leg repulsed her.

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John heard the yells and pulled himself up to a half crouch, trying to find what little cooler air remained near the floor. Cool was a relative term, even this low the air seared his lungs through t shirt he'd hastily tied around his nose. He angled toward the noise. If there was that much trouble still alive in here, Dean figured to be in the middle of it.

A soft form nearly tripped him, giving under his feet in a way the fallen beams and crumbled furniture had not. Who? He knelt, one hand seeking the features of the face, the other freeing the machete from the small of his back.

His questing fingers met long silky hair, some of it falling away into his palm in crisped strands. Not Dean. He traced to the tip of the nose, a huff of breath registering in his mind a split second too late to keep the witch's teeth from sinking hard into his hand. Crap.

The machete severed her neck, sticky blood flow over John's fingers confirming what he couldn't see. The increasing howl of the fire blended into her death rattle. One down for Dean. He resumed stumbling toward the noise he'd heard before.

"Stop! Bill? Bill, help me!!"

John turned toward the other man's voice. He had to be close, no way to see or hear more that a foot or two. Squinting through the stinging tears of the smoke he could just make the slithering form out, not ten inches from his outstretched arm.

"Not. Bill." He rasped, grasping the other man and yanking him close. Touch again served in place of vision, wiry curls of hair beginning a third of the way back on the skull.

"Derrick Weaver?"

The man hesitated, unsure how anyone who didn't know him could possibly have gotten into the house under the current circumstances. A fireman, maybe? "Yes."

"Well, hello there, Derrick. I'm Sam Winchester's father." The blade made a pass across the throat, the corpse striking the floor before John finished speaking. "Glad to make your acquintance."

John shook off his rage at the dead man at his feet; wasn't going to help him find Dean. One son might be avenged, but he couldn't lose the other.

"DEAN?!!?" Still no answer. I am not leaving here without him.

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William had tugged Abigail within a foot of the doorway, relieved that the foyer wasn't completely engulfed yet. Relief that was short lived as he felt the heat boiling up from the floor. The massive mahogany doors had fallen in, their flames blocking the way.

"Abigail, you have to think, love. There's no way I can move these by hand. Can you?.. Somehow?...." He'd seen her force people to move against their will a million times, but he wasn't sure that extended to objects, even under the best of circumstances.

"What? No. I..." She couldn't get her thoughts together in the chaos. "Wait. They are wood, were something alive once. Maybe with enough power behind it..."

Words that William couldn't identify tumbled from her lips, but he recognized the gist of it. A blood binding, connecting the life force of one living thing to the will of another. He knew the theory, move the door by bending the remaining life of the tree in the wood, but there was no blood sacrifice here to fuel something of that magnitude.

Sudden pain seared his arm and shoulder, Abigail's dagger ripping from the base of his neck to past his elbow, exposing the bone. Sure enough the wood shifted out of her path as his blood flooded onto the charcoaled timbers.

"Abby?? My arm... Ahhrrrgggh." He fought to form words. "Abby?? I love you. Please?? Help me. Always loved you..."

"Hmmm? Oh, yes. Love you too, William." Abigail stepped over the betrayed form and fled.

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John made his way past four more witches, three dead before he found them, one after. He'd doused the fabric over his face with the holy water flask he habitually kept in his jacket, but he couldn't last in here much longer. He had to find Dean now.

"Dean?!"

Please son...

A new tongue of flame flared directly above him, the red light momentarily overpowering the darkness. Oh no. Oh no, no. Dean.

His son slumped against the wall, congealed blood obscene across his chest and an eye, left half of his face and right shoulder savagely bruised, muscle peeking through a gashed side, ash smeared in sweated streaks over the rest of him.

Having fought so hard to find him, John now found himself reluctant to close those last inches, fear creeping into every recesss of his mind. As long as he was paralysed in this moment, there was hope. Cross the gap and he'd have his answer.....but what if that answer confirmed his son was dead?

CRACK!

The sharp noise over head cut through the wail of the fire, the thoughts careening in his brain; an instant's warning before the last of the ceiling timbers crashed to the floor. John flung himself over Dean's body, curled protectively over his child as the debris hissed into his back. A larger chunk connected with the back of his skull and then the older hunter stilled, consciousness as black as the fire that enclosed them.

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A/N - Couldn't let John go unscathed, now could we? Where's the fun in that?..... So we're back to the part where I try to bum reviews out of everybody - hmmm, hopefully you're not too bored with that. Thank you so much for the lovely reviews thus far, I really appreciate all of you who are reading.