Chapter 5

The night was clear but moonless, a factor that worked in their favour, Ellie thought, looking at the depth of black in the shadows on the roof. Demons saw people differently, Michael had told her. Even in a vessel, through the vessel's eyes, they saw more of the soul that lay within, able to recognise people by that vision, no matter what disguised the outer appearance.

Before they'd left her motel room, she'd painted the sigil that her dead partner had taught her, high on their chests, over the sternum and below the throat. The design was supposedly of angelic origin, Michael had told her, and to a demon, it blocked the unique identity of each soul. If it could hide the part of Sam Winchester that the hellspawn recognised, she would be well and truly satisfied, she'd thought, finishing the symbol and stepping back. Painted in animal blood, the acrid reek subtle but there, and Sam's nose had wrinkled up a little as he'd pulled his tee shirt collar back up, hiding it from view. He looked no different to her, but hopefully he was invisible as himself to the creatures they would be hunting.

That had been two hours ago. She and Sam sat on the rooftop of the building; both dressed in black now, blending into the shadows and waiting. Across the alleyway, the vacant building opposite was in darkness, except for one room. That was lit, candles and lanterns throwing shadows as the possessed man and woman moved around in it. There'd been a third, earlier, but he'd disappeared an hour ago and they hadn't seen him since.

Sam's breath hissed out as he looked through the binoculars into the room. His brother had been hung between two chains, suspended from the ceiling. Stripped to the waist, blood dripping to the floor from the many cuts that patterned his chest and back and shoulders, Dean's head hung low, his cheek resting against his shoulder. Sam hoped that he was unconscious, but as he watched, Dean's head rose slowly, the shadowed eyes opening, looking at the woman who approached him.

Sam thrust the binoculars into his pack, muscles bunched with tension under his clothes. "Let's go, what are we waiting for?"

Ellie looked at him patiently. "We're waiting for the opportune moment, Sam. We know there are at least two of them in there. What happened to number three? Do you have a plan, or were you just going to run in, and hope that they don't kill you before you get to the room?"

Sam looked away. "It works when Dean does it," he muttered mutinously.

She smiled suddenly. "Maybe, for him. But not for us. This is a trap for you, Sam. We're not risking giving them what they want."

She looked at the width of the alley. The building that the demons were using was lower than the one they were on. They could look down into the room. The missing third demon was worrying her. Guarding the entrances? Or on other errands? Something else they were here to do? She didn't know. But they had to find out before they made a move. A detail on the roof of the building caught her eye. She considered it for a long moment, cautiously pleased as it fit in with the tentative outline she had.

Taking the binoculars from Sam's pack, she moved slowly to the parapet, all too aware that movement could be picked up far more easily by a watcher than even sitting out in the open. Shielding the lenses with one hand, she scanned over the building, inch by inch, looking for movement, for a difference in the shades of grey and black in the shadows, for a gleam on a button, or on hair, for anything that would indicate the presence and whereabouts of the third demon. She was distantly aware of the tension radiating from the man beside her, and she made an effort to shut it out completely. His fears were understandable but of no use to either of them and it'd been the first thing Michael had taught her, to close off everything that wasn't going to be useful, that could take energy for no return.

Sam sat against the wall beside her, his jaw clenched as he fought with his imagination over relinquishing the memory of seeing his brother being tortured in front of him. She was right, he thought. He couldn't go rushing in, not when that was what they wanted, what they were expecting. He wasn't sure what she had in mind, but he had to get his emotions back under control.

He heard Ellie's soft exhale and turned his head.

"Found him," her voice, low almost to the point of being sub-vocal, held a note of satisfaction. The glasses continued to move incrementally over the building, finally returning to the room. She looked at the windows that faced the alley, at what she could see of the interior, the position of the doors, of the windows on the other face of the building. Finally, she lowered the binoculars and handed them to Sam.

"We'll need to take out the guard first," she said, moving slowly to lean over the parapet and peer over the edge. Six stories below, a door in the side of the demon's building led into the narrow alley. "That will do."

Sliding back below the level of the parapet, she turned to him. "Can you draw a devil's trap?"

Sam nodded. "We've used them before."

"Good. Come on."

Crouching low, they moved off the roof to the stairs. At the bottom of the stairwell, their gear bags were waiting, they sat on the stairs next to them, checking over their equipment as she laid out the idea she'd had.

"Can we get the timing that close?" he asked, when he'd thought through what she'd told him.

"Within a few seconds, yes," Ellie confirmed, pulling a coil of rope from her bag and slinging it over one shoulder.

"Can you make that jump?" Sam thought about the alley. It was a long way across. And a long way down.

In the last couple of hours, he'd seen her working, seen the methodical approach she'd taken to everything. It'd been reassuring, he thought to himself. Her confidence in what she did had a knock-on effect, making him feel more confident about getting Dean out without any of them dying.

She glanced up at him, smiling at the concern in his face. "With the drop between the two buildings, yeah, it won't be a problem."

He watched her tuck her gun into the modified shoulder-holster under her jacket, listening as she continued, "The main thing we need is the shock. And two separate lines of attack."

Thinking of the way it would go down, if everything went the way it was planned, Sam agreed. Shock and the way it could freeze people, even demonic entities, was an under-utilised weapon. His brother had a good instinctive understanding of those kinds of tactics, he thought. Dean couldn't have articulated how he knew what he was doing with those decisions, but he knew on a gut level they'd work.

He stood up as Ellie got to her feet and passed him the gloss black spray can, wondering what his brother would make of her.

At the corner of the alley, Sam waited for a long time in the shadows. He watched, forcing his mind to be quiet and still, forcing his senses to extend as far as he could – observing, listening. When he was sure that the guard wasn't present on this side of the building, he moved along the wall of the alley, remaining in the darkness of the building's shadow. He stopped opposite the side door they'd seen from above and waited again, breathing deeply to relax the muscles surrounding his chest, feeling his pulse steady. He would be exposed for some minutes, in drawing the trap. He wanted to be damned sure that he would have that time.

Nothing moved behind the dark windows; no sound broke the silence of the alley. Even the wind had stilled, and he felt certain that he was alone.

Stepping out of the shadows, he walked silently across the asphalt to the narrow raised kerb in front of the side door, stopping just before he reached it. He'd practised the sigils and designs of the traps in Bobby's copy of the Key of Solomon for weeks, committing them to memory, training his hand to draw a perfect circle, to know the angles between the lines to within a second of the degree, and he worked quickly, using the aerosol can of paint confidently and accurately, aware that the hiss of the paint could mask other noises. It wasn't loud but it was a persistent noise and along with the rattle of the bead inside the can, it seemed to shout out his presence there.

It took him two minutes to draw it out. The paint was already drying, the glossy black becoming matt, becoming invisible on the black asphalt of the road. He stepped back and checked his watch, pushing the empty can into the deep pocket of his coat. He had another minute to wait.

Inside the demon's building, Ellie moved silently back down the stairs. Sneaking in hadn't been as much of a problem as she'd feared. The sole demon on the lower levels had been easy to pinpoint once she'd gotten into the basement. It was uncaring of being heard, confident that no one would be getting in without its notice.

At the last landing, she stopped, glancing at her watch. Almost time. A shadow passed in front of her, and she froze in place, holding her breath as she watched the demon cross the corridor below her and go into a room on the other side. The single loud bang on the door to the alley was muffled to her, but the demon shot out of the room and ran down to the door, barely checking as he unlocked it and flung it open.

In the alley, Sam backed away, empty hands spread out to either side, his gaze fixed firmly on the demon's face. The demon looked at him, the menacing expression changing slowly to astonishment and then delight as it laughed.

"Too easy," it sneered, stepping out through the door. "You boys have a reputation that exceeds your capabilities."

Sam made no response, and kept his eyes on the demon's face. He stopped moving as the demon stepped into the trap. Then he smiled.

Ellie came out through the side door at the same time, one hand dipping into her coat pocket and pulling out a small book, the cover wrinkled leather, the pages gilt-edged. The demon spun around at the sound of her boot on the tar, its eyes widening.

"You …" it started to say. Opening the small book, the pages fell open to the Roman ritual at the back and she started to read, her voice a little deeper than normal.

"Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio, infernalis adversarii, omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica …"

"NO!" the demon hissed. "Not possible, you are no Authority of God. You have no power!"

Sam watched her ignore it, reading steadily. He felt his pulse leap as her voice gained power, the Latin flowing and somehow commanding, ringing out in the closed alley.

"Ergo draco maledicte et omnis legio diabolica adjuramus te. Cessa decipere humanas creaturas, eisque aeternae Perditionis venenum propinare …"

Sam watched, his eyes narrowed. The demon was sweating, cursing, its eyes rolled back in its head as the words of the ritual rose around it, a cage of invisible power. He remembered how shocked he'd been when he'd exorcised the demon from Meg Masters, remembered the violence of its struggles to remain in the woman, clinging on and throwing her around as the ritual had severed its connections, one by one.

He looked at Ellie's face, and he wondered about the man who'd trained her, wondered how much of her calm focus was due to that training, and how much was just her, the way she was, the way she handled herself. She paid no attention to the furious shrieks and convulsions of the demon caught in the trap in front of her, her face taut with concentration but otherwise expressionless.

"Ab insidiis diaboli, libera nos, Domine. Ut Ecclesiam tuam secura tibi facias libertate servire te rogamus, audi nos. Ut inimicos sanctae Ecclesiae humiliare digneris, te rogamus, audi nos."

The demon started to rise off the ground, the vessel's body twisting impossibly.

"Terribilis Deus de sanctuario suo. Deus Israhel ipse truderit virtutem et fortitudinem plebi Suae," Ellie continued, her eyes half-closed, her face taut with strain.

"Kill you, kill you all!" it gasped, and Sam winced as the body arched back, the back of the head almost touching its heels.

"Benedictus deus. Gloria patri," she said, crossing herself.

It stilled for a moment, then the demon exited the body, the thick charcoal smoke pouring out and dissipating in the still air above the trap.

The human victim fell and collapsed on the ground. Ellie closed the book and slipped it back into the pocket of her jacket, stepping into the trap and crouching beside the man. Contusions and bruising were already rising on the victim's skin.

"Is he alive?" Sam asked, stepping closer to the trap.

She looked up, her fingers light on the man's neck, feeling for a pulse. Nodding to Sam as she found it, she got to her feet.

"He'll be alright." She looked up at the building beside her. "Ready for the next bit?"

"Yeah. How long do you need?"

Ellie looked at her watch. "Two minutes. You need to come in before then, about ninety seconds."

"Okay, I'll be there." He walked past her through the side door, and headed for the stairs.

Ellie turned and ran down the alley, turning right and back into the next building. She was counting off the seconds in her mind, taking the stairs two and three at a time. She came out on to the roof at eighty seconds, accelerating hard as she ran towards the parapet. At four feet from the edge she took an extra long stride, leaping to the top of the low wall, and then with the impetus of her speed, she jumped.

The alley below was about eighteen feet wide. With the advantage of the height difference, she made the opposite roof with a foot to spare. Landing forward, rolling to absorb the impact, she sprang to her feet, her gaze snapping around.

There.

The iron brackets had been embedded in the concrete of the roof. She lifted the coil of rope from her shoulder and caught up the free end, tying a bowline around the upright. Flipping the coil over and picking up the remaining free end, she turned to the edge of the roof, lining it up with the taller building on the opposite side of the alley for the precise location of the window they'd seen Sam's brother through.

Sam hadn't even bothered trying the knob; every bit of his two hundred pound weight was behind his foot as it slammed into the door, next to the lock. The door smashed inwards, the lock flying free and he charged into the room, taking in the location of the two demons inside with one sweeping glance.

The countdown in Ellie's mind reached ninety, and she heard a crash. She took a deep breath and ran to the edge of the roof, her hands tightening her grip on the rope as she leapt out off the roof's edge. The rope had paid out behind her as she sailed out over the alley, snapping taut as it reached the end and her fall was abruptly arrested. Every muscle tightened as she reached the end of the swing and the centrifugal force propelled her back towards the building's side.

One hundred and nineteen, one hundred and twenty, one hundred and twenty one … her booted feet hit the window, the glass exploding inwards, the frame shattering and sending broken pieces of timber flying across the room. She released the rope and rolled forward, hearing the steady booms of Sam's shotgun as she gained her feet and took a single long stride to reach the table behind the man hanging from the ceiling joists. Jumping onto it, the lighter was in her hand, the flame licking at the sprinkler above her.

The sprinklers came on.

Sam reloaded as the demon in front of him flinched and shrieked when the blessed water hit its skin. He cocked the gun, sending another salt round into its side, swinging the barrels around and firing at the woman whose long, dark hair was falling from her burning scalp in clumps. Both demons were saturated with in seconds, their skin bubbling at first, then beginning to slough away as the water continued to flow. Sam's attention flicked back to the demon he faced, blocking its path to the door when it dodged to one side.

"No! Not getting out of here," he snarled, his elbow flashing out, slamming into the demon's jaw.

Ellie pocketed her lighter, jumping down from the table as the demon woman swung back toward her, face twisted in an expression of rage. She saw it draw a long knife and run toward Dean, its intention clear enough. Dropping to the floor, her foot sliding out a little on the wet vinyl, Ellie's leg scythed out, striking the demon's leg at the side of the knee as the clumsy swing of the knife passed over her head. The vessel went down with a high-pitched scream of fury, rolling over and scrambling onto her hands and knees, her once-beautiful face blackening and falling apart as she lunging for the hunter.

Watching her, Ellie's eyes narrowed as she took in the woman's speed and balance, the way she held the knife. After so many fights, the details were filed automatically, needing no thought process to assess her attacker. The demon stabbed at her as it closed in, and she swayed her body slightly, letting the knife pass her by an inch, her hands closing hard on the vessel's wrist. She yanked on the arm in her grip, shifting her weight over the fulcrum of one hip, adding the momentum of her weight as the heel of her hand hammered into the demon's face.

The demon staggered back, dropping the knife, and Ellie picked it up. She was surprised to see the demon back away, its bruised and bloodied eyes fixed on the knife. Ellie advanced on her, blocking the way to the door and the demon kept backing, slipping on the wet floor, the rage gone and fear replacing it as she stared at the knife.

Behind her, from the other side of the room, Ellie heard a crash and a grunt, and she risked a swift glance over her shoulder. The other demon had pinned Sam against the corner of the ceiling, his arm bent the wrong way and the shotgun falling with a clatter to the floor. The demon was bleeding, its skin dropping off in patches as it advanced to the corner and shoved Sam harder into the plaster.

Looking back at the demon in front of her, backed up to the wall, she reversed the knife in her hand, throwing it with a sharp flick of her wrist underhand. The blade buried itself to the hilt, just under the rib cage, and Ellie watched, her mouth dropping open in surprise, as beneath the human skin of the demon's vessel, a molten red and gold light suddenly boiled, illuminating the skeleton like a demonic x-ray. The demon dropped to the floor, a glowing pool of charred ash surrounding the woman's body.

She stepped forward and dragged the knife from the body, pivoting in the same motion and running toward the remaining demon, her boot soles sliding out over the slick wet floor. Focussed on Sam, it didn't hear her come up behind it until the last moment, and she lunged forward as it began to turn, catching one shoulder with her hand and using it as a brace as she drove the knife into its back beneath the ribs, the blade angled up to pierce the heart.

She let go, turning her head away and narrowing her eyes as the same process of boiling livid light turned the demon in front of her into a gruesome lava lamp, lighting up the entire side of the room before the glow burned out and the demon sagged forward. It slid off the knife's long blade and crumpled at her feet.

Sam fell from the ceiling, a wheezing grunt forced out as he hit the floor. He rolled onto his side, his face screwing up as the shoulder joint tore a little more with the impact.

Crouching beside him, Ellie looked at the loosely swinging arm by his side. "Dislocated."

"Yeah," Sam agreed tersely. He turned his head to look at the dead man lying nearby. "What the hell was that?"

"Got me," she said, one shoulder lifting in a quick shrug. "Very handy, though. Sam, I have to push that back."

Sam grimaced as pain sheeted over him from his arm. He pushed himself one-handed to his knees. "I'll live … get Dean down first."

She shook her head. "I'll need your help for that." Moving around him, she took his wrist and elbow in her hands.

He closed his eyes as she brought the arm in close to his chest and pulled it out again, the muscles and tendons stretching agonisingly as the joint hovered on the edge of the socket. He felt her sharp push, her hand forcing the joint with her weight behind it and the pain dissolved into a general ache as the ball slid back into place, leaving him with a cold sheen of perspiration over his body and the memory of the pain fading slowly.

"Okay?"

He opened his eyes and nodded, moving his arm cautiously. "Yeah, it's back."

Ellie nodded and got to her feet, holding out her hand and bracing herself as Sam took it in his left and let her pull him upright. His fingers tingled as he worked them, trying to get more use back into his right arm. He followed her across the mist-filled room to his brother.

Eyeing the chains for a moment, Sam gestured to the table. "If you get that under him, it should take the load off his arms and the shackles."

She nodded agreement, pushing the table over to Dean. Sam saw his brother lift his head slowly as he felt the table against the backs of his legs. He tried not to see the cuts and gouges that seemed to cover Dean's body from the waist up.

"Ellie, he's coming to."

Dean felt hands on his calves, then under his feet as they were gripped and his legs pushed up. Under the bare soles of his feet, he felt the smooth, solid surface of the table and he straightened slowly, the effort taking his weight from his arms and shoulders. The horrendous strain on the muscles and joints vanished, only to be replaced by the pain it'd masked for the past twenty-four hours, the sharp bite of the flesh mangled by the shackles around his wrists, the deep, throbbing ache of bruised and torn muscle and skin. His nervous system reported it all faithfully and he sucked in a breath through closed teeth, trying to ignore the inventory.

It took him a few minutes to realise he couldn't open one eye because the swelling over the socket was keeping it shut, a few minutes more to be able to force the other eye open to a slit. He felt movement behind him, heard the faint rasp of the pins to the shackles holding his wrists s they were undone.

When his arms were allowed to drop, he grunted at the fresh flux of pain that hit him. His vision greyed at the edges and he swayed on the table, hearing a quiet swearing behind him as a pair of arms wrapped around his hips and stopped him falling forward.

"Sam! Can you take him?" the voice behind him said, and Dean forced his mostly-closed eye to focus, making out a blurred outline of his brother stepping close to the side of the table in front of him.

"Sammy?" he croaked, swallowing at the dryness of his throat.

"Yeah, man, I'm here," Sam said quietly, his voice recognisable even if he couldn't see his face. "Ellie, you can let him go. I got you, Dean. I got you."

He felt the arms around him let go and tried to keep his balance as Sam took a step back, but there was nothing but air under his feet and he heard his little brother's hiss as he was caught, his knees buckling when his feet touched the ground.

"You got him?"

"Yeah, mostly," Sam grunted, shifting the position of his arm around Dean's ribs, feeling the slickness of his brother's blood soaking into his shirt sleeve. "Use a little help."

Dean heard the thump behind him and felt another arm go around him, much smaller than his brother's, his confusion at that realisation drowned out as his arm was lifted again and the muscles screamed at him.

"Sorry." The voice wasn't familiar but he'd heard it before, he thought, turning his head toward the voice and trying to see who was holding him up.

"Who the hell are you?" he asked, hearing the words come out slurred and mushy as he tried to hold onto his consciousness.

"A friend," Sam answered, his breath whistling out tightly as he took a step forward. "We really need to go – now."

It took them almost fifteen minutes to get down the stairs and through the alley, Dean losing consciousness after the first few steps. Sam felt the aches and pains of the fight stiffening him up as he tried to keep a tight grip around his brother's ribs, hearing the soft panting from the other side of Dean.

"You okay?" he asked Ellie, stopping as they reached the last landing and holding Dean up as he leaned against the balustrade to catch his breath.

"Yeah," Ellie said, straightening a little and pushing back at a stray strand of hair that'd escaped from the long braid. "Do you want to get the car, bring it into the alley?"

He nodded, then looked at his brother. "You better do it," he said, digging into his jean pocket for the keys. "If he collapses on you, you'll never get him on his feet again."

She caught the keys he threw to her and waited for Sam to rearrange himself into a better position to hold Dean up, turning and running down the stairs for the alley door when he indicated he was stable.

In his arms, his brother was sagging, and in the dim light from the street, Sam saw the bruises and smeared blood as black, making Dean's skin look corroded and pitted.

"You still with me, man?" he asked softly.

Dean made a small noise in his throat and Sam shifted his grip again, trying to support them both against the banister.

"Wh're-we?" Dean mumbled indistinctly.

"Getting out, Dean," Sam told him. "Just a bit longer, we'll be in the car and somewhere safe."

His brother exhaled against the side of his neck, and Sam wondered if Dean felt the same doubt he did about that. Was there anywhere at all that was going to be safe for them now?