Chapter 6

Amy stared at the legendary Colt in her hands. How did Elijah have this? The gun known to kill all but five supernatural beings had been lost in the Apocalypse a decade ago. Unless…this demon had it all this time. But if so, why had Elijah grabbed it while he was searching for the artifact he said could cure him? Too many questions were swirling through her mind and Amy was having trouble processing them.

Elijah stumbled toward her, two-thirds of his body covered in charred flesh as embers sluggishly crawled down his limbs to regenerate muscle and tissue. He clumsily reached for the Colt.

Amy stepped back. "What are you doing with this?" she demanded.

His eyes glowed with inner flames and she could sense the fire burbling under the surface. "I need it," he said, voice raspy from singed vocal cords still repairing themselves.

"This is what you stole from the demon?" she asked incredulously. "I thought you were looking for a cure for this!" Her eyes swept over the lava-like fissures in his body that were slowly yet steadily piecing him back together from ash and bone as they stood in the middle of a burned field.

"This is my cure!"

Amy reeled back, stunned.

Elijah took another staggered step toward her. "The only thing known to kill a phoenix," he went on. "To finally put an end to my excruciating existence."

Amy stared at him in horror. That had been his plan all along? To kill himself? "Why didn't you tell us the truth? We can help you find a real cure! We have resources—"

"Yes, your Men of Letters," Elijah snarled. "Why would I trust the ones who tortured me into this wretched state?"

Amy blinked. "What? No, that's not…we didn't."

"You've allied yourselves with them," he hissed, bearing down on her. She stumbled back in shock. "For all I know, you thought you could cure me simply to turn me over again."

"No! Look, the Men of Letters died out decades ago. Sam and Dean are legacies, but they were never part of any experiments. None of us were! Mom's a phoenix too!" She nearly tripped as she backpedaled, the acrid stench of charred flesh infiltrating her nose the closer Elijah pressed.

He finally stopped, his eyes blazing red in the milky moonlight. "I don't trust you." He paused. "But I need you. The demon didn't have any bullets for the Colt. But the Men of Letters would know how to make some."

Amy's brows rose sharply. "We're not going to help you commit suicide!" She shook her head in growing franticness. "I need to get back to the others. My dad's hurt."

Elijah lashed out a hand to grip her arm, his smoldering palm burning through her sleeve to sear her skin. Amy screamed and doubled over, but his hold was unyielding.

"You will help me," he growled.

Amy managed to lift her head, eyes watering through the pain, and snapped, "No."

His face smoothed into a chilling stillness. "We'll see about that."

And then he reached his other hand up to grab her throat, and Amy screamed again under his scorching touch. The Colt slipped from her fingers to clunk on the ground. Fiery pain speared through her, blotting out her vision with darkness.

Dean pulled out an angel blade from the gear bag and gripped it tightly. Ryn had her katana, which she wasn't sure would work against a Prince of Hell, but she hadn't gotten a good enough hit in the first time to know for certain. Dean doubted the efficacy of his angel blade, too, but maybe with their combined attacks, they could actually take this Ramiel down.

Sam was pouring holy oil in a circle. Hopefully that would work better than the devil's trap. As in, work at all.

Dean glanced at Cas. The angel was pale, save for the Stygian lines crawling up the side of his face. He'd stopped making pained sounds a few minutes ago, but that didn't give Dean a sense of relief, because the crooked barbs digging into Cas's neck made it look like he just didn't have the voice anymore, that the poison was already disintegrating his lungs. His muscles were still twitching, his eyes half-lidded and glazing over.

Ryn went and knelt next to him, brushing some sweaty hair away from his forehead. "Stay with me," she whispered.

His gaze briefly flicked up to hers, pupils dilated with pain and chest hitching.

Dean's throat tightened, and he turned to exchange a fraught look with Sam. This had to work.

They were just finishing getting ready when a shrill cry shattered the night and a body came crashing through the barn door in a shower of broken planks and splinters. Dean gaped in stupefaction as Crowley slammed into a tractor and landed unconscious in the dirt. What the…

He turned just as the demon casually stepped over the wood shards. With an almost indifferent mien, Ramiel roved his gaze over the lot of them as he strolled into the barn, eyes lingering for a moment on Cas. Dean clenched his fist around the hilt of his blade. Sam pulled out his lighter.

Ramiel came to a stop, and Sam dropped the lighter. The flame ignited the ring of holy oil, a band of fire whooshing across the ground in two arcs until they collided on the opposite side. The demon gave the flames an unperturbed look.

"Mm, toasty."

Dean raised his head and started to stalk around the circle of holy fire. "You stabbed our friend."

"Your friend was trespassing," he replied blandly.

Sam paced along the opposite side. "Tell us how to cure him."

Ramiel glanced at Cas, then back at them. "There is no cure."

Dean refused to believe that. Not after everything they'd faced in their lives, everything they'd overcome. They were not going to be beaten by the likes of this.

"You have any idea who we are?" he demanded.

Ramiel sneered at him. "I don't care. I don't care who you are. I don't care why you're here. I don't care about Heaven or Hell or anything. All I wanted was to be left alone." He paused. "But then you come. You…steal from me. And that? Ooh. That I cannot abide."

Dean's jaw hardened, and he silently cursed that Elijah had gotten them into this mess.

Ramiel pulled out a pocket watch and opened the clasp, exhaling audibly as though in preparation of something. "Give me back what's mine, or I take it off your lifeless bodies. You've got…thirty seconds." He held up the watch and clicked the ticker.

Dean furrowed his brow. Give what back? Yes, they'd come to steal something, but Elijah said he hadn't found it. Unless…the son-of-a-bitch had lied.

"Twenty seconds."

Dean glanced at Sam and Ryn. What were they supposed to do? They didn't have what the demon wanted. Not that giving it back would spare them; Dean knew better than to expect that.

The seconds ticked by far too quickly, and then Ramiel stopped the watch and chuckled. "Have it your way."

He pocketed the timepiece, and reached up behind his head. The air shimmered as a silver spear took shape, and Dean's eyes widened as the demon drew the Lance of Michael and raised it high. Before they could react, Ramiel slammed it down to strike the ground, and a concussive force threw Dean, Sam, and Ryn off their feet. The resultant gust of power also extinguished the holy fire.

Dean scrambled to his feet, but Sam was up first and charging Ramiel. The demon jabbed him in the stomach with the butt of the lance, and he fell backward. Dean threw himself at the demon, angel blade raised. Ramiel elbowed him in the face, followed by a blow with the flat of the spear, and Dean went pitching backward to hit the ground.

He saw Ryn leap forward with her katana, and the two supernatural weapons clashed with a discordant clang. But Ramiel blocked the strike and spun around, catching her in the shoulder and throwing her several feet away. Sam jumped back in and caught the lance with his angel blade, but the move locked his weapon in place, and he couldn't break free to avoid getting punched in the stomach.

Dean snatched up a shovel and swung it at the demon. The mundane tool didn't even faze him, and he caught the handle to wrest it from Dean's grasp. Ramiel then struck him in the chest, forcing the air from his lungs, and flung him backward against a structural post. While Dean wheezed in an effort to catch his breath, Ramiel raised the tip of his spear to align with his heart.

Sam darted in from the side, grabbing the lance with both hands and yanking it away. Ryn attacked from the other side and drove her flaming katana into Ramiel's shoulder, which finally drew a bellow of pain and rage from the Prince of Hell, but he wasn't going down. He twisted toward her, murderous fury blazing in his eyes.

And then Sam thrust the lance right between his ribs.

There was a soft gasp, and Ramiel shot both hands up to clutch at the staff as he glanced down at it. He started to laugh, and for a split moment of horror, Dean thought it hadn't done a damn thing, that this demon was invincible.

But then Ramiel threw his head back with a startled cry…and exploded into a cloud of black smoke and dust.

Sam jerked back with a gasp, shoulders heaving as he gaped dumbly. Dean also stared in dismay. They'd done it. They'd taken down a Prince of Hell.

But that meant…

Cas let out a brutal, guttural scream that speared Dean's heart.

Sam threw the lance down and rushed over, dropping down in front of Cas and reaching for him desperately. "Cas. Hey, buddy. Hey, we're here, Cas."

Dean and Ryn were a second behind him, the three of them crowding around the couch. Dean reeled back, though, as black goo began bubbling out of Cas's mouth, choking him from the inside out. No, no, no.

"We're right here, buddy," Sam continued to ramble, squeezing Cas's knee as his leg and body spasmed, eyes rolling back in sheer terror and agony. He couldn't breathe; he obviously couldn't breathe and neither could Dean as he watched in helpless horror.

"Hang in there, alright?" Sam urged, then shot a frantic look at Dean. "What do we do?"

Dean dropped his gaze in abject defeat, because he didn't know. He'd failed to find the cure, and now their brother was dying and there wasn't a damn thing he could do to stop it.

Tears streamed down Ryn's cheeks as she clutched at Cas's arm so tightly her knuckles were white. But Cas was slipping away, his movements stalling out, eyes dimming. Dean wanted to scream.

Gabriel!

A flash of blinding light erupted behind him, and he instinctively ducked, throwing an arm up to shield his eyes. Sam and Ryn also flinched, but the blazing aura was too intense to make out what the hell was happening, if they were under attack or if Ramiel had somehow made a surprise comeback.

But it was neither of those things. There was a secondary illumination from Cas that filled his eyes and mouth, yet before Dean could think this was it, this was an angel's final death throe, the light receded, and Cas was blinking dazedly, the black goo gone.

Dean turned a flummoxed look over his shoulder, expecting the archangel to have finally arrived with a bang like he preferred, but instead he found Crowley standing there, holding two broken pieces of the Lance of Michael.

The King of Hell gave them an equally taken aback look. "The magic's in the craftsmanship," he said, as if that explained everything. Which, it didn't.

Dean whipped back around, desperate hope cracking his voice. "Cas?"

Cas's clothes were still covered in blood, but it was gone from his face, as were the poisonous veins. Cas continued to look shellshocked, but he was alive, and apparently no longer dying.

"Oh, you're welcome," Crowley added, and dropped the broken lance to the ground as he disappeared.

Castiel continued to blink in sluggish astonishment as he gazed down at himself. The blood-soaked tourniquet was still cinched tightly around his waist, but his stomach no longer burned with the stab wound, nor did he feel the cracks in his skin splitting him apart piece by piece. His throat was clear and there was blessed crisp oxygen filling his lungs without impediment.

He could still taste it, though, still taste the putrid decomposition of his own organs surging up into his mouth. His chest hitched with the remembered terror of dying in such a horrible, excruciating manner. Castiel had faced death before; he was a warrior, a soldier of God, after all. But this time…he'd clung with every fiber of his being to holding on because he hadn't wanted to die, hadn't wanted to leave his family. And he almost had.

He choked on a hiccoughed breath, panic setting in again as he gagged on the phantom acid in the back of his throat. And then Ryn was climbing over his lap and pressing her mouth to his. He couldn't react, mind frozen on the cloying tang on his tongue, but a spark tingled across his lips, and suddenly the flavors of cinnamon and woodsmoke were banishing the taste of death. Warmth seeped back into his chilled cheeks and spread out, soothing his seized muscles and nerves. Only after Castiel sagged into the cushion did she break away.

Ryn dropped her forehead against his. "I thought I'd lost you again," she breathed.

Castiel finally found the strength to lift his arms and rub her shoulders. "I apparently have more lives than a cat," he said, voice hoarse. He swallowed hard, and was relieved that the sensation of liquefied insides didn't return.

She let out a strangled laugh, and finally pushed herself off him. Sam and Dean were standing over him now, expressions slack with disbelief. They reached their hands out at the same time and took Castiel's, and together hauled him up in one swift movement. His head swam at suddenly being vertical, but Sam and Dean kept a hold of him, eyes worriedly looking him up and down.

"So, you're good?" Dean asked.

Castiel nodded. He was still shaken, but his wounds had healed.

Sam's face broke into a giddy grin, and he squeezed Castiel's shoulder.

Castiel inhaled deeply and collected himself. "We need to find Amy and Elijah."

That sobered their relief. Dean went to quickly collect their gear, while Sam kept a hand on Castiel's elbow as they made their way out of the barn—only to pull up short at the sight of Elijah standing near the Impala. He was wearing a pair of overalls with a shirt whose sleeves were riding up his wrists a few inches, and his feet were bare. Castiel could sense the power simmering beneath the surface as it gradually resettled into a dormant, yet still volatile, state.

Elijah arched a brow at him. "You pulled through."

"No thanks to you," Dean growled. "And you told us you didn't find the artifact you were looking for, but the demon seemed pretty certain something had been stolen from him. Care to explain that?"

Castiel frowned as he looked around. "Where's Amy?"

Dean stiffened, and cast a frantic look around as well, but there was no sign of her.

"She's somewhere safe," Elijah said nonchalantly. "For now."

"Excuse me? What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"It means if you ever want to see her again, you're going to make me some special bullets for this gun."

Castiel's eyes widened incredulously as Elijah lifted none other than the Colt. "How did you…?"

"Wait," Sam spluttered. "Is that what you stole from Ramiel?"

Elijah turned the gun back and forth to examine it. "Yes."

"Elijah," Ryn said, voice breaking with the devastation of hurt and betrayal. "Why? We were helping you!"

"How can I trust you when you've allied yourself with the people who did this to me!" he raged.

Ryn reeled back. "What are you talking about?"

"The Men of Letters," Elijah spat. "You claimed not to know I existed, but maybe you sold me out to them."

Her mouth dropped open. "What? No."

"Elijah," Sam urged, "Are you talking about Magnus? He was a rogue Man of Letters, kicked out for his unorthodox practices."

"Enough! You will make me bullets for this gun or never see little Amy again."

"Why do you need the Colt?" Castiel asked, his mind awhirl trying to figure out what Elijah had done to Amy. Because surely he couldn't actually contain her somewhere…

Elijah's eyes flickered with a touch of madness as he turned his gaze to the pistol. "This is my cure. The thing that will finally end my suffering."

"You want to die?" Dean snapped. "Tell me where Amy is and I'll still be happy to put a bullet between your eyes."

Elijah's gaze flashed darkly. "I don't trust you not to hand me back to those who did this to me. And I will never go back. So, are you going to comply, or not?"

Ryn took a step forward, her voice coming out low. "Elijah, where is my daughter?"

He lifted his chin defiantly. "Somewhere she won't be getting out of on her own. You see, I picked up a few things about binding an angel. Do you know what it's like to anticipate an eternity being imprisoned? I assure you, after some point, it becomes very difficult to hold onto one's sanity."

Castiel clenched his fists, the urge to swoop over and force Elijah to tell them where Amy was coursing through his veins. But he was still weakened by his recent ordeal with the lance, and he suspected that no amount of pain could compare with what Elijah had already endured. He was right; madness was all that was left to him.

Castiel looked to the others as they all shared grim expressions. What choice did they have?

A/N: Only one more chapter after this.