A/N: Sorry for the late update. I've been really sick again. =/ So my responses to reviews may be delayed, but just know you all have my gratitude and thanks for following along with this story and taking the time to leave comments!

Chapter 7

Amy slammed her fists against the stone slab pressing down only inches from her face. "Let me out!"

The granite was unyielding, and she could feel the pressure of sigils scratched into the lid locking down her grace and numbing her wings to the point she couldn't just fly out of the sarcophagus. A choked sob pushed past her lips as she gave one last weak pound.

"Please."

She dropped her arms to her sides, the iron chains she was bound in clinking at the movement. The air was too close and stifling, and the pile of bones she'd woken up next to made her skin shiver. How had it all gone so wrong? They were trying to help Elijah, and he'd turned on them.

Amy reached up to gently touch her neck where the burns were slowly healing, but that progress had stopped the moment Elijah had put those sigils into the coffin's lid to disable her grace. She'd heard him carving into the stone, had begged him not to do this, but he'd ignored her, and then eventually left her alone and in utter silence, save for her own ragged breathing.

She squeezed her eyes shut against welling tears and tried to focus on slowing her breaths. She technically didn't need the oxygen to survive, but it would help keep her head clear if she didn't start hyperventilating and use it all up. She needed to get out of here. Her family was in trouble and she needed to help them.

But how? She was firmly bound, and she doubted anyone was around to hear her calling for help. Would Elijah come back for her after he got what he wanted? She couldn't count on that, though. Couldn't count on her family being able to find her, either, not with her dad grievously hurt and possibly dying.

No, she had to get herself out of this. She just had to think.

Amy tried to tease her grace into action, but it quavered under the strength of the sigils. She bit her lip and almost broke down again, but barely managed to keep it together. What else was available?

She craned her neck and tried to see in the dark if there was anything on the skeleton's remains that she could use to pick the lock on her chains. They weren't hurting her that much, just stinging at the contact, but it'd help to have less restricted range of motion. She could tell it was iron, and figured Elijah thought he was binding her phoenix half, too, but she wasn't fully vulnerable to the metal because of her angel grace.

Wait…her phoenix half wasn't bound. There had to be a way to use that.

Amy took a steadying breath and closed her eyes, extending her senses upward toward the sigils. It made her stomach cramp and sweat break out across her forehead, but she didn't recoil. Instead, she focused on coaxing her inner fire to the surface. Blue flames flickered along her fingertips, and she reached up to touch the lid, pouring every ounce of willpower into pushing the blue tongues through the stone and out the other side. She envisioned the sigils that were binding her, knowing exactly which ones they were, and imagined her fire burning across their lines and neutralizing them.

She heard a snap and pop above, followed by a crackling sound. Some of the pressure on her chest began to ease up.

Hope surged through her anew, and she poured more power into the flames. With one final sizzle, the last of the sigils burned through, and Amy's grace flared to life with an explosive force that shattered the iron chain links and blew the stone lid of the sarcophagus clear off.

She scrambled out of the coffin, tumbling over the edge and onto the floor in a haze of dust that clogged her nose and throat. But she was free.

Amy straightened and snapped her wings taut with a crackle of sapphire electricity that sent shadows skittering across the crypt.

Time to save her family.

Ryn held her arms tightly around herself as Sam performed the ritual that would make a special bullet meant for the Colt. After Elijah had blackmailed them into doing it, they'd gone back to Ramiel's house, thinking the Prince of Hell likely had various spell ingredients on hand. He did. None of them wanted to even think of heading back to the bunker with Amy out there somewhere, possibly hurt.

Ryn shot a blistering look at Elijah, who was standing in the open front door as though keeping an escape option open. He clutched the Colt to his chest almost protectively as he watched Sam with hungry eyes. Ryn had felt sorry for him, had felt a kinship and yearning to help. And on some level, she still knew that Elijah's derangement had stemmed from the atrocities he'd been subjected to.

But he'd threatened her family, had almost gotten her husband killed, and had taken her daughter. There was no forgiving that.

Castiel untied her jacket from his waist and let the bloodied article fall on the floor. His clothes were still stained crimson, evidence of his still recovering grace. But his eyes crackled with the promise of divine retribution if they didn't get Amy back in one piece.

"Just one?" Elijah asked as Sam placed a single silver bullet from their supplies into a bowl.

"You need more than one to get the job done?" Dean retorted.

Elijah's lip curved upward, but he didn't say anything else.

A muscle in Sam's jaw ticked as he coated the bullet in holy oil, sage, and myrrh. "Signum est imitandum. Signum est imitandum," he incanted, infusing the bullet with the same call of power that had been on the originals Samuel Colt had made when he'd fashioned the supernatural weapon.

There was a pop and fizzle, and tendril of smoke. Sam lifted the bullet out of the bowl.

"That's it?" Elijah asked dubiously.

"Yeah," Sam said stiffly.

"Give it to me."

Sam glanced at Dean, but carefully moved closer, holding out the bullet. Elijah snatched it out of his hand and quickly backed up. He then turned on his heel and marched out the door.

Ryn's heart gave a jolt as they all hurried after him, yet were careful to maintain a moderate distance. "Elijah," she called. "You got what you wanted. Now tell us where Amy is."

He stopped in the middle of the backyard and turned around, fumbling to insert the bullet into the chamber. The moment he got it, an eerie calm came over him.

"I think not."

Ryn stiffened.

"We had a deal!" Dean shouted.

Elijah glared at them coldly. "I may not be able to take revenge on those who tortured and experimented on me, so I'll settle on hurting you. You are, after all, Men of Letters."

"You've only got one bullet," Sam pointed out. "You can't kill us all."

"I don't need to. I'd rather you live with the horror of losing the thing most precious to you. Knowing that she's alive out there, but trapped forever, will have to be enough for me." He raised the Colt to his head.

Dean whipped out his gun and fired, shooting Elijah's hand and causing him to drop the pistol. He threw his head back and screamed. Fire exploded in his broken hand, flames branching through his veins and splitting his skin open. Orange light flashed in his eyes.

"No!" he shrieked, and dove for the Colt.

Dean shot him again, this time in the shoulder, and the impact threw him back a step. The flames of rebirth were igniting, pulsing like a volcanic eruption about to break the surface.

Elijah screamed in rage and agony, tongues of fire spurting from his mouth. He whirled toward them and roared, belching flames like a dragon.

Ryn stepped in front of the others and thrust her palms out, summoning up her own spark. The sweltering heat slammed against her, but washed up and over the barrier she'd erected to deflect it. In the crackling glow, fiery wings arched up behind her back, shielding Castiel and the Winchesters.

Elijah started stumbling toward them, perhaps intent on taking them out after all. He only made it a few feet before his next scream was cut off in the resultant explosion, and the wall of fire cascaded toward them. Ryn's blood quickened, the song of the phoenix reaching out to her.

But Elijah's chords were twisted and mutilated, a screeching wail that sang of pain and suffering and destruction. Ryn gathered her power as the Alpha, and pushed every ounce of volatile energy back toward the source. The fires reared back in a convective arc, crashing down upon Elijah all at once. There was a concussive whomp, and Ryn felt the moment his aura was devoured in his own ruination.

The flames extinguished instantly, and she dropped her arms to her sides. There wasn't even a body left, everything in a five-foot radius completely incinerated.

She shot a hand up to her throat. What did she do? She whirled toward Castiel. "Amy."

There was a flutter of wing beats, and Amy landed in the middle of the yard, breathing heavily and looking harried. "There you are," she exclaimed. "I went back to the barn but you were gone, and then I saw the explosion…" Her eyes widened. "Dad!"

And then she was running forward and throwing her arms around Castiel's neck.

"I'm all right," he told her, squeezing back and cupping the back of her head. He pulled away and looked her over. "Are you hurt?" His eyes narrowed, and he reached out to brush some of her hair away from her neck.

Amy winced. "Oh, yeah. I'm okay, though. It's better than it was."

Ryn's stomach churned at the burn marks on her daughter's throat, able to imagine exactly how they'd gotten there.

Amy spun around. "Elijah! He's…" She trailed off and canted her head at the blackened circle in the dirt. "Um, right there?"

Dean went over and nudged the ashes with the toe of his boot. "He gonna pop up like a daisy?"

Ryn's chest constricted. "No. He's gone for good."

Amy let out a long breath, but then jerked ramrod straight again. "What about the demon?"

"Him too," Dean answered.

She quirked a brow at them. "So I missed both fights, huh?"

Sam came over to give her a hug. "Looks like you had one all on your own."

Castiel reached out and lightly touched her shoulder, and the burns healed a little bit more. He still gave her an aggrieved look, and Ryn knew he wished he could do more, but Amy's phoenix half inhibited straight angelic healing. At least that same half would heal her faster on its own.

"Where were you?" Castiel asked. "Elijah said he'd put you somewhere you'd never escape from."

Amy huffed and lifted her chin. "I bet he thought that." She faltered, though, and bit her lip. "He, uh, put me in a crypt and drew sigils around it so I couldn't get out."

Sam frowned. "Then how did you?"

"I used my phoenix fire to burn them off."

His brows rose in a look of appreciation, and Amy asked what happened with the demon and how Castiel was healed.

Ryn moved away from them and went to stand at the edge of the burnt circle. A few feet to her right, Dean bent down and picked up the Colt, which had somehow miraculously escaped the blast. He turned to give her a considering look.

"You didn't trust Elijah from the start," she said in a low voice. "What was it? What was it that I missed?"

Dean didn't respond for a moment, but then shook his head. "Nothing."

Ryn let out a derisive snort. "Come on, Dean. I endangered our entire family over this. Put Elijah above the rest of you. You've every right to be pissed. So why not let me have it?"

His expression contained nothing but sympathy. "This wasn't your fault. I get it. He was family."

"No, he wasn't," she whispered.

"But he could have been." Dean moved closer. "He was blood, and family don't end there, but it includes it. Of course you wanted to help him. That's what makes you a good person."

She flicked a wry look at him. Why couldn't he have been this understanding from the start? Not that it mattered; it wouldn't have changed things.

"I'm sorry it ended this way," he went on.

Ryn dropped her gaze back to the ground. "Me too."

She bowed her head and allowed herself a moment to grieve for Elijah, who had been driven mad by heinous cruelty, and was too far gone by the time Ryn had found him. She couldn't have saved him, and, in the end, his death was a mercy.

She turned back to the rest of her family, who had grown quiet, apparently having finished filling each other in, and now they were looking at her with pained miens.

Ryn went over and gave her daughter a fierce hug, so relieved and proud that she was okay. Castiel smiled at them, and she opened her arms for him to come in too. He enveloped them both, tucking Ryn close and pressing a kiss to the side of her head. She breathed in the blend of ozone and embers with a shudder of gratitude; she'd almost lost them both tonight, and the horror was still all too fresh.

But they'd come through the other side, just like they always did.

Just like they always would.

Arthur Ketch stood at the end of the old farm road and lowered a pair of binoculars. Well, that had certainly been an interesting and unexpected display.

He pulled out his cell phone and hit one of the speed dials. The other line instantly clicked.

"The asset was lost," he reported, going on before he could be upbraided for his failure to recapture it. "But tell the Old Men I've found something much better."

A/N: Uh-oh... ;P Third sequel, coming up next!