Chapter 11 Oaths, Keys and Bonds
Hell
Dean stared at the wall in frustration, ignoring a creeping thread of panic. There was no sign that a door had ever been here.
Do not lose it, he told himself, Ellen's brief accounts of mortals becoming lost in Hell rising in his mind like bloated and unwelcome corpses. There'll be a way, there's always a way. He sucked in a deep breath and turned back to the pulsing corridor behind him, reviewing the possibilities he could see. He'd have to leave the gun here again, he realised. He needed a way to get back here. This was the gate that led back to Clarksburg, where the angel was waiting.
Even if he could find another way back to the Acheron, he thought uneasily, he had no more silver to pay the ferryman to cross the river and get back to the open gate. Back to his ride home. Worry about that when you're out, he decided, pushing the thoughts aside, and pulling the gun from his pocket. He tucked it back into the crevice. Right now, he needed a way out of here.
Memories pushed against him, triggered and strengthened by the almost-familiarity of everything around him. None of his memories of Hell would help him now and he shoved back at them. The power of many of the worst memories had been diminished, lessened somehow in their telling, in the reliving of them. In the understanding of what had happened and why and knowing she didn't see a monster when she looked at him. Some still had teeth.
He'd look around, he thought firmly. Look around and see what he could find. Should've fucking well known it'd been too damned easy, the stray thought filtered through and his face twisted in acknowledgement. Nothing was ever that easy.
The corridor ran both ways, bending a few hundred yards from the tunnel in which he stood. Neither direction looked more promising than the other. He shrugged inwardly and turned right, moving cautiously along the rough stone floor. In his peripheral vision, he caught movement, the rock walls blank and solid when he turned his head, the movement resuming as he looked away. He had the uncomfortable feeling that he was walking through the souls imprisoned here, through the demons goading and torturing them, but he couldn't see them directly, could only feel the weight of anguish and excruciating torment that filled the air of the place in a noxious, invisible fog. He wondered uneasily what that might do to him, breathing it in.
When he reached the bend, he saw the corridor continue, exactly the same as the stretch he'd just walked through, another bend perhaps three hundred yards further. There were no breaks in the walls, no doors, just the rough rock floor, the unevenly hewn walls, the pulsing non-light that was bleeding in behind his eyes and beginning to throb in his head. This is bullshit, he thought. He had the distinct feeling that beyond the next bend it would be the same, and on and on, as he walked through a place that wasn't real. That changed as it sensed what it was he feared.
Turning around, he started back, lengthening his stride a little. If the other end of the corridor was the same, he'd … he wasn't sure what he'd do, he realised. His options were running out fast.
He stopped abruptly a few minutes later, realising belatedly that he should've been at the tunnel mouth by now. The corridor stretched ahead and behind him, the bend a couple of hundred yards ahead, and he swore softly under his breath as it sank in that he was somewhere else entirely in the levels.
The gun.
Closing his eyes, he visualised it, holding it clear and sharp in his mind's eye and he felt the swirling vertigo as the plane shifted around him. He opened his eyes to find himself standing in front of the short black tunnel, the gun wedged discreetly in a crevice in the rock in front of him, his heart hammering against his ribs.
What the fuck was he going to do now?
An infuriated shriek shattered his thoughts, the noise electrifying his nerves, making him jump and swing around. Voices. Foot steps. Boots. More than a couple. The rattle of metal on metal. He looked up the corridor and backed fast into the tunnel, as shadows leapt on the walls of the bend to the left.
"More fucking trouble than she's worth," a guttural voice said, getting closer.
"'e wants 'er trussed an' ready," a second, higher voice replied. "Figures she knows where it all is, bein' the Devil's whore an' all."
Pressing hard back against the rock, Dean watched two men with black eyes walk by, a struggling woman held tightly between them, her mouth clamped shut by one meaty hand of the larger demon.
"Mothering –!" the larger man swore and whipped his hand away, staring at the blood flowing from the palm.
"I'm gonna fucking rea–" the woman shrieked at them before the other man slapped his hand over her mouth.
In the darkness of the tunnel, Dean frowned as something about the voice, or the delivery, tweaked at a memory.
There was a muffled curse and a thump and he eased himself a little past the wall to see the corridor. The woman was standing now, her feet and both hands trapped in the rock wall and floor, her face twisted with rage as she spat again at her captors.
"Poxie, bleedin' tart," the smaller man said, wiping the saliva from his cheek and backhanding her with casual force, her head snapping back into the wall behind it.
"Come on, she's going nowhere now," the deep-voiced man said, stepping back out of her range and glowering at her.
They walked down the corridor in the other direction, not looking back as the woman hurled a string of blistering inventive and anatomically detailed curses after them.
Dean stepped out into the corridor and walked cautiously closer to her. She was somewhere around five six, he thought, thin and pale-skinned, dark, stringy hair hanging around her face and dark, finely arched brows over glaring dark brown eyes.
She swung her head back to him and he started before realising she wasn't looking at him. The medallion, still doing its job, he thought. There was something familiar about her. Something that triggered a desire to pull out his knife and stab her.
On the other hand, he thought, dry-swallowing as he checked the length of the corridor in both directions again, she was obviously a prisoner of Crowley's and there was an outside chance she might know something that he could use. He lifted his hand, pulling the medallion from under his tee shirt and pulling the thin, silver chain over his head.
He watched as her eyes widened dramatically in front of him, her mouth dropping open as he became visible to her.
"Dean Winchester!" she said, the surprise vanishing as a slow smile curved her mouth. "Damn, that's some trick."
"Do I know you?"
The smile widened. "Oh yeah, Deano, you know me. And Sammy, well, he knows me inside and out." She glanced behind him. "He here too?"
Meg. The thought coalesced instantly and his hand moved to the hilt of the knife before he'd registered what he wanted to do, remembering the dark-haired vessel telling Bobby to kill him. She saw the movement and shook her head.
"Go ahead," she told him, her voice dry. "Beats what's waiting for me anyway."
He hesitated and looked at where her hands and feet were trapped in the rock. "You make more enemies, Meg?"
"A lot more," she agreed readily. "What are you doing here?"
He ignored that, looking back at her. "What's Crowley want with you?"
She shrugged, glancing away. "He thinks I know where some of Lucifer's toys are hidden."
"And do you?"
"I might," she said, looking back at him. "What I'm more interested in is why you're standing there, wondering if you can safely get me out of the rock without me killing or abandoning you, and making conversation, Dean?"
He scowled at her all-too-accurate insight into his thoughts. "If I can get you out of that, do you know how to open a door back to the river?"
For a moment he thought she was going to smile, and if she did, he knew he was going to hit her. But she didn't. The dark eyes narrowed at him thoughtfully.
"When you came in here, didn't you have a plan for getting out?" she asked him, one brow lifted mockingly. He turned away, clamping down on a surge of frustrated anger. She couldn't help but twist the knife, he thought caustically.
"You can stay there and rot for all I care," he said, struggling to evince an indifference he wasn't feeling.
"I can get you out," she told him, the humour gone from her voice. He turned back to her warily. "But it's an even trade, Dean. We go together."
"No." He folded his arms and stared at her. "No way."
"Then have fun finding a way out," she said, tipping her head back and closing her eyes.
Goddamned demons. The sooner he closed the fucking gates, the better off they'd all be. He stared at the floor, wondering if there was any way he'd be able to welsh on the deal. He didn't think she'd leave him an opening for it, once she was free.
Meg heard his deep exhale and smiled inwardly. This would make things so much easier, she thought.
"Alright," he gave in abruptly. "How do I get you out?"
"Get your knife out," she told him. "Needs your blood and mine."
Litteris Hominae, Kansas
Sam walked into the big kitchen, rubbing his eyes. His sleep had been filled with nightmares and he was having trouble shaking them off today, the growing sense of events careening out of control around them getting stronger, even in the daylight hours.
He stopped as he saw Adam Milligan standing by the coffee pot. The young man had been assigned to the keep's garrison after the debacle in Amarillo and he hadn't seen him since then. Hadn't wanted to see him, his memory of Adam's slack face in the confusion of the attack on Dean still powerful.
Adam turned and ducked his head as he saw Sam, swallowing the rest of his coffee in two big gulps and almost dropping the mug into the sink behind him.
"Sorry," he mumbled, walking around the other side of the island bench with his head down as he hurried to the door. "I'll get out of your way."
"Adam."
Dean hadn't been that worried by what Adam had done, Sam thought. But then, he'd never really considered Adam to be family. It'd been his idea that their half-brother was closer to them than any of the other young trainees. It'd been his hope that in Adam, Dean would have someone else to back him up. That realisation filtered through painfully. He knew why he'd wanted that. Knew he was still afraid of failing his older brother. But that wasn't Adam's fault. That'd been an expectation he'd never even articulated to the younger man. And if it'd been anyone else, standing there when the vampires had come through, he would've written it off as just lack of experience and nerves. It was because he was blood that he'd expected more from him.
Adam hesitated, looking at him nervously.
"I'm sorry about the reassignment," Sam said, gesturing vaguely to the patches on the boy's jacket sleeves. "I – I overreacted when Dean was taken."
Adam shook his head. "No, I'm not a hunter," he said. "This is actually better."
Sam looked quizzically at him, unsure if that was the truth or a way to end the conversation. He sighed. "I froze plenty of times with my brother and father on hunts," he said slowly.
Looking away, Adam shrugged slightly. "Not when one of them was in danger, I'm guessing."
Memories slid into Sam's mind, memories he'd have rather left buried. Leaving Dean to run away, not even thinking about the repercussions or the way his brother would feel. Losing him in a haunted prison. Leaving them both again to go to Stanford. He'd hurt his brother worse than Adam ever could've of dreamed of, he thought tiredly.
"Adam, I've done worse," he told him quietly. "A lot worse. That's probably why I took it out on you."
For a moment, Adam considered that in silence. It might've been true, he thought. He couldn't see that it mattered particularly now.
"Me and Dean, we've lost a lot of people. Too many," Sam added, feeling his way through what he suddenly needed to say, to explain. "If you – I – I'd like the chance to get to know my brother."
"I appreciate that, I do," Adam said, looking around the room. "But, you know, with all that's gone on, I have to wonder if that's a good idea."
"Wouldn't hurt to try it out, would it?" Sam asked, leaning back against the counter.
"You and Dean, you're something special here." Adam turned to face him, meeting his eyes finally. He'd had a lot of time in the last few weeks to think about what'd happened, what he'd done and why. "People know you, know who you are, hold you in regard, Sam."
"That's not –"
"Lemme finish, okay?" the younger man said, taking in a breath. "No one here gives a rat's about me. I'm a blow-in who happens to be related to the man who killed the devil. That's … that's okay, I can deal with that," he said quickly to forestall the argument he could see in Sam's expression. "I didn't realise it at the time, but that idea of me came with a lotta expectations. And I screwed them all up in Texas. Now, I'm just like everyone else – no one pays much attention to who I am, or what I do. And I – I think I'm comfortable with that."
Sam looked at him, nodding. "That's fair, I get that," he said. "And I can see why that's a good thing, Adam. But you're still my brother. That's not going to change."
Adam looked away uncomfortably.
"You know what our father's biggest problem was?" Sam said suddenly.
Adam sighed. "No."
"He really loved us, all of us," Sam said. "He made some fucking horrible mistakes, but he could've cut us all loose, put us into the system, not given your mom his number … he could've focussed his life on revenge and forgotten about us. He didn't. He kept me and Dean with him because he was afraid of what would happen to us if he didn't. He did his best to keep you and your mom clear of what he did, but he couldn't not see you at all." He shrugged at the young man's neutral expression. "He did the best he could."
Adam looked at him. "I know he did, Sam. The thing is, he couldn't have done worse if he'd stayed with Mom, if he'd let us grow up together. Could he?"
Dawn came with a deep chill and Sam pulled his jacket tightly around himself as he got out of the pickup and trudged through the refrozen snow up to the keep steps. Chuck's third vision in as many days and Anson couldn't find his brother anywhere. He needed to be back at the library, working on it, not running around looking for Dean.
Climbing the stairs to the apartment, he thought of what Adam had said. What would their life have been like if John'd stayed with Kate, he wondered, smiling a little derisively at himself at the what-if scenario. If he and Dean had grown up with Adam. If they'd been a family. He'd been seven when Adam had been born. Would he have still wanted so desperately to get out? Would Dean have been so devastated about that, with another brother to protect and look after?
He shook his head. John Winchester would never've put any of them in such a risky position, staying in one place, living an ordinary life. He knew that his father had known almost from the beginning about the demon and what it'd done to him, what Mary had done. Jim's journal had detailed the painful saga of their lives and their father's choices and lack of choice clearly.
Knocking on the door, he looked down at his watch. If Dean was sleeping and Anson just hadn't knocked hard enough –
Alex opened the door, the soft knit robe covering her from neck to ankle as she peered sleepily up at him. "Sam, what's wrong?"
"Dean here, Alex?" he asked, looking over her head down the hall.
"No," she said, stepping back. "I don't know when he left … do you want to come in?"
He hesitated then nodded, walking past her to the living room, looking back over his shoulder as she closed the door and followed him. "He didn't say anything?"
"No," Alex said, moving past him as he stopped near the sofa and going on into the small kitchen. "We were looking over the handwritten notes last night, and we went to bed late. He didn't leave a note – I thought he'd just gone over to the order."
"He's not there," Sam said distractedly, walking to the table by the armchair and looking down at the pile of notes on it. The top page detailed the cemetery that held the gate. Under it, was one of the handwritten pages. Under that, he saw as he lifted the pages aside, a glossy printout of a fuzzy black and white image. After a moment he picked out the subjects, his breath catching slightly.
"He might've gone to talk to Jackson," Alex said from the kitchen. "They've almost finished the fortifications to the farmhouses now, and I know he and Riley wanted to ask Dean about getting the trainees over to do the wardings."
Sam put the picture down and looked again at the other two pages. "No, I checked with the farms before I came out."
"What's happened?" Alex asked him as she carried out two cups of black coffee, handing him one.
Dean had been very, very specific about the information flow to Alex and Sam shrugged very lightly. "Chuck had another vision."
She frowned as she sipped the coffee. "That was quick. Does it relate to the army?"
"No," Sam said, his eyes skimming over the page describing the cemetery again. "No, this one doesn't seem to be related to anything else."
"What was it about?"
"It's – it's not really about anything," Sam said, drinking his coffee distractedly as something in the account of the cemetery twitched at the back of his mind. "It's like the notes, just fragmentary pieces of something we can't piece together."
"Did you bring it with you?" Alex asked. Sam nodded, putting down his cup and the papers and pulling out a thin folded sheaf of papers. He handed them to her and picked up the typed page again.
"Did Dean say anything to you about this description of the cemetery?" he asked Alex. She looked up from the pages and shook her head.
"No," she said, her eyes narrowing a little as she took in his expression. "Is there something to it?"
"I don't know," Sam said, exhaling as he sat down in the armchair. "Something about it seems … I wouldn't say familiar because it's not that strong a feeling, but there's something there."
"You two've seen a lot of action in cemeteries," Alex said, watching him. "Maybe it's similar to one you've been in?"
"Maybe."
She looked back at the scrawled handwriting on the pages she held. Sam was right, she thought, deciphering the careless scrawl slowly. It was fragmentary.
The hill. The hill was bleak and bare. The hill was steep. It was steep and strewn with rocks. The shots were loud. LOUD!
She frowned at the emphasis. "How did Chuck seem after this?"
"Agitated," Sam answered her, looking up. "He said he couldn't see what was happening, only flashes of images and sounds. He said it's never come to him that way before," Sam added, his brow creasing up as he tried to remember exactly what Chuck had said when he'd handed the notes over. "Usually, it's like he's standing apart, just an observer. This time, he said it was like he was in the middle of it."
The laughter was shrill and hoarse, a crow's cry against the louring sky. Dean ran, dropping to his knees and the whole world seemed to hold its breath in the silence that filled the narrow ravine.
The demon's rage filled the room, filled the tunnels and the caverns and the endless abyss. Crowley's rage, she wondered absently? The necromancer turned and he shrank back from the visage that had been hidden. One side of the man's face was … melted. There was no other way to describe it. As if it were tallow and someone had held a candle too close, the skin had dripped and sagged, the shiny, hairless brow almost hiding the empty eye-socket. One side of his mouth lifted, the other remaining stubbornly immovable and an unholy glee filled the remaining pale eye at the prospect waiting.
"This seems out of order," Alex said slowly. "When Maggie took out the Grigori's house in Taos, is it possible they were burned but not killed?"
Sam felt the ghost of the memory he was looking for come closer then fade away again. He looked over to her, replaying her question to himself.
"Sure, I guess," he said. "Why?"
"The necromancer – didn't Jerome or Jasper say that the Grigori had been experimenting with black magic in World War II?" she asked, looking back at the paragraph that was nagging at her. "He could be referring to one of them as a necromancer?"
Sam leaned forward curiously. "Okay."
"If they escaped the bomb, but were burned, it might explain this description," she continued slowly. "I don't know why, I just feel like the bit about the hill and the laughter comes after this description."
"So Crowley went and got the Grigori from New Mexico, maybe, and took them somewhere else? There's no army mentioned in those notes."
"Maybe because this bit happens before … or after … the army attacks," Alex speculated. "The notes he wrote before were about Hell, they seemed to be out of line with the linear narrative of the rest of the visions."
"We won't be able to figure it out unless we get some kind of timeline," Sam said, getting up and walking to the sofa and sitting down beside her to read the page again. "What about the next bit?"
The clearing shone with the purest white light, emanating from the man who stood to one side, the great wings folded behind him proclaiming him more than man, more than mortal. Dean and Sam approached him warily, stopping as the light brightened and faded, the bright moonlight seeming dim after the heavenly incandescence.
Alex stared at the page. "That's not Cas, is it?"
"Doesn't sound like Cas, not with wings," Sam agreed uneasily. It sounded more like an arc. Did Michael want a pow-wow with Dean? He couldn't imagine a reason for the archangel to meet with them. Not now, at least.
Leaning back against the sofa, he tried to make the pieces fit. Beside him, Alex rubbed her fingertips slowly over her temple, unaware of the gesture, as she attempted the same thing.
"It doesn't follow the first visions," she said after a few minutes of silence.
"It doesn't follow the last flashes he had of Hell either," Sam added, closing his eyes. "And why are these pieces coming out of whack with the rest?"
"Maybe someone's changing things – Cas told Dean that the lines of destiny could not be changed, when he went back to Lawrence before he was born – but he also said that Dean's been changing the lines ever since –" she cut herself off abruptly, looking back at the pages. Sam looked at her, a rueful smile tugging at his mouth.
"Ever since I said 'yes' to Lucifer," he finished for her, his tone gentle. "You don't have to tip-toe around it, Alex, I know what I did."
"If Dean is changing things around, then Chuck would be playing a kind of a catch up, wouldn't he?" she asked tentatively. "Trying to see far enough ahead when each line could be changed at any moment?"
"But only Dean's changing –" Sam stopped suddenly as at least some pieces fell together in front of him. "He found the fucking gate."
Alex's head snapped around to look at him. "No, he would've told you, told me, told someone if he was going to try to get the tablet."
"No, he wouldn't," Sam snarled, shifting forward in his seat and looking at the pages. "He figured out the gate's location – car's still here, so I'm guessing he called Cas."
Alex drew in a breath as she looked back down at the pages. "If he's got the tablet somehow – then the demon's rage is explained. And possibly that's why you both go to see the archangel?"
Sam didn't hear her, getting to his feet, fury burning in his veins. He should've known, he thought. Dean would never've let him go along on a gig like that, not into Hell.
"He had the medallion, the one Death gave him," he said, extrapolating as he paced the room. "Probably figured he could sneak past Cerberus with it."
"He'd still need a way to open the gate, to get in – and back out," Alex said, following his thoughts.
"Did he look at the all the texts that Bobby's been going through?"
She shook her head. "No, he was focussing on the location."
"Idiot!"
Hell
"That feels better," Meg said, walking cautiously across the corridor and turning back to him. "Much oblige."
"Open the door," he snapped back at her, pulling a cleanish bandana from his jacket and wrapping it around it the cut on the back of his arm.
"Not so fast," Meg tutted at him.
"I swear if you even think of –" Dean snarled, one long stride taking him across to her, his fists bunching up in the front of her jacket.
"Dean, settle down," Meg said, feeling her feet lifting from the floor. "Crowley has the Colt."
The words penetrated and his fingers relaxed involuntarily, slipping from her as he tried to work out if she was telling the truth or it was just another diversion.
"Where?"
"In the rooms he uses for an office, on the highest levels," she said. "Same place you found that, I'm guessing."
She gestured at his jacket and his eyes narrowed. "How do you know what I found?"
"Dean, please," she said, shrugging and straightening her coat. "You've walked deliberately into Hell and it wasn't to rescue anyone. Crowley's had the tablet for just shy of six months now, of course you'd be looking for it."
"What makes you think we'd even know about it?"
"Are you fishing for a compliment?" she asked drolly, looking at him from under her lashes. "Not even you and Moose are that dumb."
"Is Crowley looking for the others?" he asked, ignoring the jibe.
"Yep," she said briskly. "We can have this conversation on the way, can't we?"
"I didn't take note of anything else in that office," he said, stepping back as she stepped toward him.
"But you remember the Colt, right?" she asked, taking another step toward him. "Every detail of it, I'll bet. And I didn't get that good a look at it, so sack up and hold me close."
She stepped up to him, sliding her arms under his jacket and curling them around him, laughing a little against him as she felt him tense. "Just see the Colt, Dean."
Closing his eyes he dragged the memory of the long-barrelled revolver into conscious recall. Black metal, the cylinder had been worn, smooth and the pentagram had been crudely carved into the grip, as if it'd been done in a rush.
Hell swayed and swung around them and he felt Meg's arms tighten around his ribs, felt her ribcage rise sharply as she pulled in a deeper breath.
"Get off me," he growled when he opened his eyes, the panelled room as he'd left it however long before. He pushed Meg aside and walked to the desk. "Where is it?"
"Last time I was here, it was sitting on the desk," Meg said, looking around. "But Crowley's so into the lord of the manor routine, he could've stashed it anywhere in here." She walked to the wall where two large paintings were hanging, a bucolic green landscape that bore no resemblance to anywhere in the United States, and a darkly painted portrait of a plain woman sitting in a single beam of light.
Dean walked around the desk, pulling open the drawers, feeling a trickle of sweat trace its way down his neck and into his collar. Ransacking the office of the King of Hell – twice – wasn't what he'd had in mind for the day.
"How come Crowley made king when Lucifer died?" he asked, more to divert his thoughts than an actual interest.
Meg paused as she lifted the bottom corner of the landscape. "That's a good question," she said sourly, dropping the corner and moving onto the next. "Rumour has it he found a spell to imprison the Fallen and just staged a coup d'etat, taking over before anyone else had time to round up support."
"Politics in hell," he muttered to himself, crouching beside a locked cupboard door and pulling out his picks.
Meg glanced over at him and smiled. "Yeah, even here."
The lock clicked and he opened the door, peering inside. He pulled out a heavy wooden box and got to his feet, setting it on the desk. It was also locked.
"He must've found the Throne though," Meg continued, lowering the corner of the portrait and moving to the bookshelves.
"The Throne?" Dean asked distractedly. The wrench kept slipping and he pulled out the tools, wiping his palms on his jeans and trying again.
"Lucifer's Throne," Meg clarified, opening the first glass-paned door and pulling the books out of the shelves by the handful. "He made it when he was cast down. It contained all his memories, all his knowledge about the powers of the souls." She looked over her shoulder at him. "He was an angel, you know. Hell works the same way as Heaven so far as the power goes. And the Throne is what made the passing of the rule of Hell possible, especially to a crossroads demon."
"Crowley's a crossroads demon?" That explained the red eyes, he thought, easing the pick over the last pin. There was a soft click and the lock gave up.
"He was," Meg said, walking to the desk to look at the box. "He was in charge of the deals, passing the contracts to Lilith until Sammy took her out, then to Lucifer."
The Colt lay on the black velvet interior of the box, twenty-seven bullets in a small box nestled under the barrel.
"Good, let's go," she said to him as he picked it up. "You can kill Crowley with that. King or not, he's just a human-born demon."
Tucking the gun through his belt at his lower back, he put the box of ammunition into his pocket.
"Back to the gate," Meg said quickly, stepping close as he came around the desk and wrapping her arms around him. "Get a move on, I gotta bad feeling."
The automatic in the crevice. Ivory grips. Chased barrel. Thirteen in the mag and one in the chamber. Closing his eyes, the gun materialised behind the closed lids and he rocked into Meg as the room spun around them and disappeared.
Chappaqua, New York
Peter swore as the road dead-ended in a high snow-covered bank. Elena looked through the windshield, a glint of metal catching her attention to one side. She pointed at it and Peter slammed the vehicle into reverse, the back swinging as he hit the accelerator. Behind them, two trees crashed down onto the road, blocking it completely and he hit the brake as the animals came out of the woods to either side.
"Skinwalkers?" Peter looked out the window, counting them.
Elena nodded. "Cousine de loup-garou, yes, I think so too."
In the back, Shamsiel looked at the smooth stretch of snow to the right of the car. "Peter, turn around, we can get down there."
Peter twisted in the driver's seat and nodded abruptly. He hit the accelerator, hearing the engine revs climb and swung the wheel as he yanked on the hand-brake, the rear end swinging wide with a high rooster-tail of snow, two of the dogs disappearing under the rear wheels, their high yelps silenced as the heavy vehicle humped over them and he aimed for the bank.
"The building!" Baraquiel gestured furiously at the square stone shape just visible through the trees, raising his voice over the baying of the pack following them. Winding down her window, Elena cocked the assault rifle and slid halfway out, holding on and firing one-handed as they bounced down the rough ground and over the ditch.
"Don't waste your ammo," Peter yelled at her, hearing the chatter of the gun. She waited for the car to regain a smoother surface and aimed more carefully, three dogs disappearing as Peter swung across the unmarked white snow to the entrance.
He pulled up in front of the wide metal roller door and Elena scrambled out of the window, dropping to the snow and backing toward the door, Penemue following her, keeping out of her line of fire and unlocking the simple bars, pushing it aside into the building.
Driving inside, Peter watched the mirrors, seeing the muzzle flash of the rifle a fraction before he heard the sharp clatter. He stopped the car and grabbed his gun as he swung out of the driver's door, running and firing through the open doorway as Elena backed in and the skinwalkers stopped a hundred yards from the building.
Penemue and Baraquiel pulled the door closed and dropped iron pins into the sleeves, locking them in. The sudden banging on the postern door on the other side of the building made them all jump and Shamsiel ran for the door, Elena right behind him as they heard the cracked voice from outside.
"Help! Please, help me!"
Elena nodded at the Irin and he unlocked the door, opening it a short way, his boot jammed under the inside edge as he looked out. On the other side, a tall, thin man stood, shivering in the cold, his eyes wide with fear.
"They've taken my family, please, please, help me," he begged them. His clothes were threadbare and torn, the boots on his feet loose and without lacing. Elena chewed on the corner of her lip as she heard the baying approaching the building and the man's head snapped around to stare at the corner. "Please, don't let them get me!"
"In," she said, and Shamsiel reached out, his hand closing around the man's arm and dragging him in as Elena levelled the barrel at him. The Irin shouldered the door shut and ran the bolts home, top, bottom and middle, turning to walk behind the man as he crabbed sideways across the floor toward the vehicle, trying to look everywhere at once.
"Thank you," he said fervently to Elena and Shamsiel, nodding to the other men as they approached. "Thank you, thank you."
Peter moved to the car, leaning in across the passenger seat to the small bag he kept under the glove box. He pulled it out, unzipping it as the man stopped beside the quarter panel, Elena still holding the rifle on him.
"What happened?" Baraquiel asked quietly. The man turned to him, his hands spread out helplessly.
"There were a few of us, a few weeks ago," he said, looking from Baraquiel to Penemue, to Shamsiel and Elena. "We were in Austin. There was a big sandstorm. Then we started heading north, looking for other people, looking for food. We stopped here, and there were still a few of us left, after – after everything," he stopped speaking, gulping in a breath, shaking his head. "Then the dogs came. And at first, they were friendly, you know. We hadn't seen dogs since – since – the dogs were friendly and we'd seen cats and, uh, other animals, but no dogs, so we thought, but then – then they attacked us and I got out but they –"
Penemue watched as the man's face crumpled up as he was talking, tears spilling out and running down his cheeks.
Peter closed the passenger door of the car, walking to him. "Hold out your arm."
"What?" The man looked down at the slim silver blade disbelievingly. "But –"
"It'll sting," Peter said prosaically. "That's all."
Penemue felt his mouth drop open as the man's skull elongated and sprouted fur and he dropped to his hands and feet, the clothing ripping and falling from him. Pale pink lips drew back from a muzzle full of sharp teeth as the hindquarters tensed for the leap at the hunter. The single shot was loud in the enclosed space, ringing in their ears and the lean, shaggy dog dropped to the ground with a squealing yelp, the transformation back to human involuntary.
"So … this is a skinwalker?" he asked Peter, gesturing at the man, lying naked on the floor and holding his thigh, the round black hole through the muscle glinting red as warm blood spilled over his skin to the floor. "The transformation is by will alone?"
"Yes," Peter said, crouching beside the man and laying the edge of the silver knife's blade against his throat. "How many?"
"More than you can deal with," the man snarled furiously.
"Oh, I don't know," Elena said softly, taking a step closer, her gun levelled at his head. "We have silver. We can handle quite a few."
"What's happening here?" Peter pressed the knife a little more firmly into the skin, a thin curl of smoke rising from the edge as the flesh began to char along the line. "Skinwalkers do not hunt in large packs."
"Our Father is here," the man cried, flinching back from the burning in his neck. "New orders. New order. Our time."
Peter glanced at Elena. "Your father?"
"Yenaaldlooshii," the man crooned, his face softening suddenly. "Our walking Father, the one who made us all. He says that soon the others will come and we must be strong, stronger than the rest … the population is so limited now."
"The human population?" Baraquiel asked, stepping closer.
The monster's face sharpened, his eyes narrowing as he stared at them. "We must ready."
Peter glanced at Elena and she nodded. "Well, they'll have to be ready without you," she said coolly, her finger slipping over the trigger and pulling it smoothly. The shot rang out and the man toppled sideways to the floor, the second hole centred precisely between his wide, staring eyes.
Outside, there was furious burst of howls, drawing out and up in an ululating crescendo. The Qaddiysh looked around as they dragged the man away from the car.
"How do you want to play this?" Elena asked Peter in a low voice. "If there are as many as he implied, we won't be able to take them all in the open."
Peter nodded. "And the rest of the town is probably blockaded as well." He rubbed a hand over his jaw, scratching absently at the stubble that covered it. "We'll let them come to us."
Elena looked around the interior of the building. "I'll have a look around. We can probably get up under the eaves."
Peter looked up as Elena walked back toward the car. "Anything?"
"There are at least twenty out there," she said, setting the gun against the car and taking the bottle of water he offered her. "They'll attack after dark, in human form, I think, climb onto the roof and try to sneak in."
"I agree," he said. "What do you think of the first-born's plan?"
She shrugged. "It might work on the survivors who don't know what's happening," she said thoughtfully. "But not on the others. He said that their 'father' wanted them to be strong before the others came – talking about the vampires and werewolves, you think?"
Peter sighed. "Yes, I'm sure of it."
"We need to get out of here," Penemue said, walking up to them, the assault rifle looking incongruous in his hands. "The sooner we can trap Nintu, the more likely the populations will survive."
"We are running to multiple schedules, my friend," Peter told him dryly. "In any case, we need to get out of here first. We have another two cases of silver and then we're back to hand-to-hand. Single shot, Elena, you and Penemue and Shamsiel cover all the possible ways in. Baraquiel and I will go out, through the windows above the half-roof and take out whatever moves on the ground."
Elena finished the water and handed him back the bottle, lifting her arms and stretching upwards. "Yes. An' in that case, I will have a nap until dark."
She turned away, and Peter watched her walk to the back of the car, opening the rear doors and slipping inside.
"You should also sleep, if you can, Peter," Penemue said quietly beside him. "Shamsiel and I will watch until dusk here."
The hunter glanced sideways at him for a moment, wondering if he'd imagined the very faint humour in the man's tone, then nodded slowly. He lifted his rifle and walked back to the rear of the car, opening the door and looking in.
"Room for another in there?"
Elena moved across, the rustle of the synthetic sleeping bag loud in the small space. "Oui. There is room."
He climbed in and closed the door behind him.
Hell
"Blood," Meg repeated succinctly, looking the wall. "Blood is the key to open the doors."
Dean stared at her. "Why not yours?"
She rolled her eyes. "Because I'm in here and demons can't use it to get out – or did you think we all stay in here because it's so much fun?"
"What?"
"You're a soul in flesh and blood that doesn't belong here, Dean," she explained with exaggerated care to him. "Your blood will open the doors because you're not supposed to be here."
He scowled at her tone. "How much?"
"A couple of quarts should do it," she said casually, looking down the corridor.
"How do I know you're not just shining me on?" he asked, looking at her suspiciously. Two quarts was a third of what his body held. He'd be fucking lucky to crawl out after losing that.
"You don't," she said with a sigh. "But since I need to get out as much as you do, I would think the math was relatively simple."
"I don't trust you, Meg."
"Really? I'm shocked," she said, teeth snapping together. "Look, there's nothing I could do that would prove I'm on the level, Dean. I swear to you this will work and I will make sure you get back to the real world safely, alright?"
He shook his head stubbornly. "You're right, there's nothing you can do to prove it."
"I didn't have to tell you about the Colt," she said. "Could've just gone straight out."
He thought about that. She was right. "Then you wouldn't've had a way to kill Crowley either."
It surprised a laugh from her. "Oh, Deano, I got a lot more interesting ways to kill that son of a bitch than a single bullet," she assured him.
He moved closer to the rock wall and pushed up the jacket sleeve on his left arm, rolling up his shirt sleeve and drawing the knife from the sheath. The artery ran down the inside, he thought uneasily. He wasn't going to have much use of the hand afterward.
Meg reached out and touched his shoulder. "Have you got anything I can pull the cut together with when it's done?"
He looked at her and shrugged out of the right side of his jacket, handing her the knife. "Use the sleeve."
She took the knife and slit through the seams, dragging the sleeve free, and handing him back the blade.
"As soon as it opens, I'll bind it tight," she told him. "You might feel dizzy –"
She stopped talking as his eyes met hers and the sharp edge of the knife ran down his forearm, a rapidly welling line of blood following the tip. Leaning up against the rock, Dean supported his arm on one knee, the blood spilling out slowly onto the ground.
"Who's in there with you?" he asked suddenly.
Crouched next to him, her shoulder against the wall, Meg lifted a shoulder slightly. "No one you have to worry about," she said. "She killed her grandmother for her pension account to get out of the nothing town she lived in and get a ticket to New York. She'd be down here anyway."
She watched the flash of disgust pass over his features. "We can't just take anyone, you know," she added, tipping her head back against the rock. "There has to be something that gives consent to us taking over."
His head snapped up as he thought of Sam, of Bobby. "Bullshit."
Meg shook her head. "No. It's not like the angel possessions, but the soul must feel as if they could deserve it, somewhere. Guilt. Or doubt. Something that feels that punishment is deserved."
Dean looked away. He knew his brother's self-doubts, and Bobby had his reasons for being able to put away the cheap, rotgut liquor he did from time to time. But he had just as many, or more, reasons to hate himself than they'd ever had. "Why not me then?"
He looked back at her silence to find her smiling a little quizzically at him. "What?"
"No question you're not riddled with guilt and shame, Deano, but there're two reasons no demon could ever possess you, without your consciously given consent."
He ducked his head at the tacit admiration in her voice, her face. "Yeah?"
"You know what you've done and you know you've paid for it," she said lightly, looking down at the blood running out of him onto the rock. "And there isn't a single chink of weakness in you, no crack in your soul to let us get in. You're the vessel of Michael," she added, a little bitterly. "You wouldn't be his vessel if you weren't impervious to moral corrosion."
Her voice was beginning to fade in and out, and he looked at her, his face screwing up as he forced himself to focus on her. The wall against his shoulder moved fractionally, a deep, grinding sound in the lowest registers, vibrating through his teeth.
"Come on, tiger," she said, leaning close to him. "Time to go."
The door was opening and he felt her take his arm, wrapping the sleeve tightly around the wound, drawing the edges together under the binding. She pulled him to his feet, her strength astonishing, and slid his right arm over her shoulder.
"Where's the medallion?" she asked tautly, and he fumbled it out of his jeans pocket.
"Put it on, it'll hide both of us, I think."
Lifting the chain over his head awkwardly, he felt the disc touch his skin as he tucked it beneath the neck of his t-shirt, and the world flattened out. He didn't believe her assertions of his strength. There was probably some other, more mundane, reason for the fact that demons had steered clear of him, he thought disconnectedly. Couldn't think of it right now, but there had to be.
His fingers wouldn't grip the haft of the knife properly and he felt Meg pluck it from them, opening his mouth to protest when he smelled the poisonous stench of the riverbank and the overwhelming scent of wet dog just outside and closed it again.
Cerberus was pacing as they slipped from the crack in the ravine wall, back and forth along the stretch of the river in front of the door. The dog's six eyes moved restlessly, the heads turning from side to side as it looked for the intruder it could feel but not find in its domain.
Meg was pushing against him, forcing him to turn right, along the wall and away from the river. He wanted to protest that it was the wrong way, but his knees were shaking and he was acutely aware that it was only the slight girl beside him holding him up and keeping him moving. And the dog was already agitated without them having an argument about direction in front of it, he thought blearily.
It was a few hundred yards to the bend in the river, where the rising vapours of the escaping gases from the underworld obscured the entire section of ground between rock wall and moving water, but it felt like a thousand miles. He looked down at the rough dressing on his arm, seeing the blood seeping through it and shook his head a little, trying to clear the grey fog that was closing in around the edges of his vision. He felt Meg shrug beneath his shoulder, changing her grip on his right arm and tightening her hold around his back, taking more of his weight as she hurried them both into the concealing miasma.
The puff of fetid, rotten air in front of them stopped her dead, and Dean stumbled at the abrupt halt, lifting his head and opening his eyes. In front of them, Cerberus stood, taller than him, he recognised belatedly, the dog's chest the width of three men, the massive heads lowering as it exhaled again, its breath blowing over them, stirring Meg's hair and filling his nose and mouth with a stomach-turning blast of decomposition-tainted wind. He forced himself not to gag – not to move – as the blood-red eyes of the wolf's head stared straight at him, the nose lifting and casting this way and that for the scent it was sure was there.
Close-up, he could see that the wolf's head was the decision-maker. To the left, the dhole's mouth was open, a long grey-green tongue hanging out, the shorter, broader teeth gleaming like old ivory and dripping strands of saliva that were thick and sticky, filled with small, writhing creatures. Dean's stomach gave a shuddering heave as he realised he was looking at maggots in the ropey drool. He shifted the direction of his gaze without moving. The head on the right of the wolf's was uglier still, he thought vaguely, the hyena's coarse fur striped and brindled, the long, black-tipped ears swivelling like radar dishes. Set deep into the sockets of the flattened skull, the small eyes searched relentlessly for them.
A splash in the river behind them diverted the dog's attention, and Dean watched as Cerberus's outline began to fade, dissolving into transparency until only the red eyes staring at him were left, hanging in the air, then they too vanished. For a moment longer, they stood completely still, breath aching in their lungs. Down the river, there was the soft thud of the boat hitting the bank and they exhaled, long, quiet expulsions of air in perfect unison.
Meg's fingers tightened against his side and he was ready when she took a step forward, slightly amazed that his legs were working at all.
Half-listening to the sounds behind them, the souls disembarking and entering Hell, they walked faster along the river bank, navigating through the thickening fog by the sound of the river beside them.
"What happens if you touch the water?" he breathed.
"You die," Meg answered flatly, her voice as soft as his.
"How do we get across then?" he asked a moment later, as the river turned again.
"Shut up," Meg whispered back. He glanced down at the foreshortened view he had of her face, seeing her hair hanging in damp rat's tails around it. Despite the heat that seemed to rise from the ground, he felt cold and a shiver passed through him. He felt her arm tighten around him, her fingers close harder on his wrist and he leaned against her a little more.
"Not far, okay?" she said, taking his weight stoically. "Just stay upright a bit longer, Dean."
He was fucking tired and that was the truth, he thought, trying to pick up his feet so that he didn't send them both crashing to the ground.
The mists began to thin out, some kind of light that wasn't a pulsing reddish non-light, illuminating the ground ahead of them. Here and there, clumps of dead, dried-up grasses protruded from the blackened soil, and he could see the far bank now, shockingly green and lush-looking.
Meg slowed and turned them to the left, supporting him as she led them down the gently sloping bank. The river was no more than thirty yards across here, and Dean blinked in the brighter light, seeing the stones without registering their meaning.
"This is where we cross," Meg said in a low voice, glancing back over her shoulder up the bank. "We have to hurry, Dean."
He nodded and looked at the stones, their purpose slowing sinking in. "Stepping stones?"
"Yeah," she said. "You have to make each one, okay? If you get stuck, the dog can get you."
He thought of the maggots, squirming in the saliva, and straightened up, dragging in a deep breath. Definitely don't want to end up as puppy chow. The distances between the stones seemed … long … for stepping stones. Leaping stones more like it.
"Dean," Meg said, snapping her fingers in front of his face. "I can't help you with this, you have to do it on your own, you understand?"
"Yeah, I got it," he said, a trace of annoyance colouring his voice. "I can do this."
Meg looked doubtfully at him. "I fucking hope so."
She eased out from under his arm, keeping her hand on him as he swayed slightly. It was hard to maintain a single thread of thought and he reminded himself that if he touched the water, that was the end of it. No life. No family. No closing the gates or getting rid of the monsters or seeing the people he loved again. The thought anchored him a little more firmly and he found his balance, nodding to the demon and watching her turn to the edge of the bank, gather herself and jump.
She landed easily on the first stone, perhaps a yard and a half away. Not so hard, he thought, brows drawn together as he watched her make the second jump. That one seemed a little further, and the third just that much more of a stretch. Come on, get on with it. Medallion or no medallion, if the hellhound figured out they'd escaped, it'd be on them and that too would be the end of it.
He walked down to the edge of the water and filled his lungs and jumped. The first rock was broad and flat, the surface dry and grippy under his bootsoles. He looked back at the bank and saw the vaporous mist swirling slightly. Turning back to the next stone, he jumped again. The second rock was slightly smaller, with a slant to it and he felt his right foot slide a little toward the water, snatching it back, his breath whistling a little in his throat as he looked down at the river, the surface black and opaque. No dips today, he told himself, looking to the next rock.
It was further. Quite a bit further. A standing jump and not enough blood and he began to wonder if he was going to make to the other side. Just do it. He crouched a little and jumped, the water flashing by under him and the third rock was much smaller than the first two had been, moisture over its lumpy, uneven surface and his feet slipping, his heart jumping into his throat as he over-corrected and teetered on the edge on one foot. He regained his balance and felt sweat dripping from his hair and rolling down his face, lifting his arm to wipe it away as he looked across the river.
Meg had reached the other side, and was standing there, watching him. There were another four rocks and he realised that each was spaced a little further from the previous one, each one was smaller than the last and on the last one, he could see the slick gleam of moisture over the surface. He felt his heart sinking and he shook off the doubt that seemed to be rising proportionally, inwardly baring his teeth. He'd just gotten in and out of Hell, and he'd be damned if he was going to fuck up the last stretch.
Not giving himself any more time to think about it, he jumped for the next one, heart pounding against his ribs as he landed on the edge and leaned forward, thrusting hard against the opposite side as he took off for the next one. Too short, he thought, staring fixedly at the surface, stretching out as far as he could and willing himself to reach it. He did, just, swaying as he readjusted his balance and bent over, his hand resting against his thigh as he breathed in and out, shedding the fear and oxygenating his blood. Two more. Just two and he'd be across.
He jumped and made the heart-contracting stretch again, his feet sliding out from under him as he landed, the sharp twist of his ankle wrenching his knee, the combination draining him, his shirt dark and clammy now with the sweat that had soaked through it.
"Don't look back," Meg shouted from the bank. "One more, come on!"
Christ, he thought wearily. Don't say 'don't look back'. He resisted the impulse and looked ahead to the next rock. It was three yards away, tiny, shining with the lapping water that spilled over it. He could see the greenish moss that coated one side now. It was impossible. Fucking impossible.
"Come on!" Meg's voice held a shrill note and he didn't look around, just dug his toes into the crevices of the rock he was standing on and jumped. Don't land on it, he thought in mid-air, just use it for an extra stride. A gust of wind blew past him and he knew that the dog was close behind him, the reeking fetor of its breath pushing against his back. His foot touched the slick surface and the muscles of his leg and back and abdomen contracted, absorbing the landing, building momentum, and he sprang out, four yards from the fucking bank and there was no way he was going to make that jump, no run off, no goddamned energy, just adrenalin surging through him like a bolt from a high voltage line … he saw Meg lean out from the bank, heard the panting behind him, and stretched out as far he could, his hand touching the demon's as the snap of teeth cracked the air and his foot touched solid ground. Meg's strength yanked him clear of the water, her weight thrown back hard, and they both hit the ground, rolling away from the river.
Dean breathed in the clean, living scent of the soil and the grass, eyes half-closed. Rolling onto his side, he levered himself up on an elbow and looked back at the river, seeing no sign of the dog. Mists shrouded the far bank, the stones – ordinary, flat, black stones – evenly spaced across the water seemed simple enough from here to jump across on; the light, not quite sunlight, but warmer and brighter than it'd been on the other side, sparkling on the rills and wavelets of the current as it passed around the rocks.
He let himself fall back, closing his eyes and feeling his heart slow down, his breathing ease.
"Like to cut it close, don't you?" Meg said sourly from a few feet away.
He opened an eye, rolling it toward her. "Quit griping."
She laughed and sat up. "Get up, let's get the fuck out of here."
For a moment, he wondered what he was doing, here with this demon – this demon who'd been responsible for destroying his friends, his family. The memory of his father's face, bleak and anguished as he'd pulled the truck off the road and told them that Jim was dead. Murdered by this demon next to him. The panic in John's voice as he heard Caleb die on the end of the phone line with Meg telling him she'd kill them all if he didn't bring the Colt. His jaw tightened and he lay still, letting the memories and the pain and the remembered fury and frustration wash through him.
Meg watched the expressions cross his face, watched him tense up. The past had risen for him, she thought, all the things that she'd done to bring him here. All the things her father had done. She couldn't explain to him that things had been different then. The whole world had been different. She was almost certain that he wouldn't listen. And it didn't matter anyway. She'd done all those things, done them and revelled in them, in her power, in her position. She couldn't tell him that she regretted it now.
"Why are you helping me?" he asked, his voice hard.
"You're the only game in town," she said simply.
He sat up, turning to look at her. "Not good enough."
"That's all I got."
"I killed Lucifer, Meg," he said, watching her face. "Drove the Spear right through him."
She looked away. "I know."
"You telling me that you don't want me dead?"
"No," she said, looking back at him, her face smooth and expressionless. "No, I'm not telling you that, Dean." She hesitated for a moment. "I would gladly rip you into small, unrecoverable pieces for what you've done. But I've learned something along the way here, something I didn't know back in the day."
"Thrill me."
She glared at him. "I don't have to explain myself to you!"
"Yeah, this time, you do," Dean said, rolling to his knees stiffly. "'Cause we're not going anywhere until I know where you're coming from."
"It's the cause that counts, Dean," she told him, looking away, the words coming out unwillingly. "One thing, one mission, one purpose to life. The reason to get up every morning and strap on the weaponry and go out into the world." She looked up at him. "You already knew that. It's built into your genes." She shrugged, looking back at the river. "Took me a little longer to figure out."
He frowned at her. He did know it. He couldn't imagine how a demon had come to the conclusion that had driven him his whole life.
"And the cause is?"
"Crowley."
"Crowley?" he asked doubtfully. The demon might've been the King of Hell but he wasn't sure that with everything else going on he was the biggest problem.
She smiled humourlessly at him. "Crowley is an anomaly," she said shortly. "Everyone else, the angels, the archdemons, the humans – hell, even the monsters – know their place and what they're supposed to do. Crowley doesn't have a limiter like that. He wants it all. And he's got just enough street-smarts to figure out how to get it. He's looking for the angel tablet – for all of them actually – so that he can control Heaven and Hell and the creatures locked up for all eternity, so that he can manipulate the leftovers of the population – so that he can control everything."
Dean studied her, recognising the passion in her delivery but still suspicious of her motives. "And your cause this week is to prevent that?"
Biting back the retort that sprang to mind, she nodded. "Yeah, that's it."
Getting to his feet, he wondered about how far she'd go. "I keep the Colt."
"Yeah, Dean," she snorted softly. "You do."
She watched him sway, eyelids fluttering shut as dizziness hit him and got up quickly, sliding her arm around his ribs and drawing his arm over her shoulder. She could feel him tense at her touch, ignoring it as she settled his weight over her shoulders and straightened her knees.
"Then what was in this for you?"
"Aside from being spared several hundred years of excruciating torture?" she asked mockingly. "I'm out. And you have what he wanted plus the means to kill him. And I have a lot of ideas of how to get him where I want him so that things can return to normal."
"Normal?"
"Back to the natural order," she clarified tersely. "You do understand about the natural order, don't you?"
The sarcasm pricked at him and he looked away. "The gate's through those woods."
"About time," she muttered, catching his stumble with the first step and holding him steady. The rough dressing around his arm was soaked through, the bleeding much slowed but not stopped. She didn't want to have to carry him through the gate.
What she'd told him had all been true. Not the whole of the truth, of course, but he hadn't asked further and that suited her just fine. Digging up information, watching the Grigori as they'd started to move, she had a good idea that the man walking in front of her was the nexus to all the things that had wrecked the natural order of things, and he still didn't believe it, didn't want to believe it, maybe. But he would come to understand that what he did, what he put into action, would change the world several times over before he'd finished. And she would be around, watching and pushing when she could, to make sure that it all went the way it was supposed to.
She felt the gate as they approached it through the woods. It was pulsing slightly, with the same unnatural heartbeat that could be felt in the depths of Hell. Something was holding it open, she thought, a tremor of fear skittering up her spine. Gates didn't stay open. And they didn't open and close on their own. Someone had used a lot of power to make this one behave in this way.
A zephyr of cold air brushed past Dean's face, the scent of snow and ice on it, and he stopped, turning his head slowly until he caught the shimmer of the gate in the corner of his eye.
"It's there," he said, taking a step closer to it.
Meg felt the power of it crawl over her skin as she walked with him. "We have a deal, right?"
He looked down at her consideringly. If he left her here, she probably wouldn't be able to do much more harm. He thought he could get himself through the fucking gate if need be.
What she'd said about Crowley, and about her own plans for him, was still resounding in his mind. The demon might've been just a human-born crossroads hellspawn, but he had the power of every soul in Hell now. And he'd learned some things along the way here as well. Utilising strengths where he found it, for one. Strategising for the bigger picture for another. Death had told him he stood on the nodes of the lines of destiny. That his actions would be the ones that counted. That was too big. It was unimaginable, that responsibility. He needed help and there was a good chance, better than even odds that the demon holding him upright could help with what he had to do.
He let out his breath, and nodded slowly. "Yeah, we got a deal."
She didn't respond, just tightened her grip on him and took a stride toward the pulsing fabric of the join between planes, feeling his stride beside her as they stepped between.
Castiel blinked as Dean stumbled out of thin air with a woman wrapped around him, his arm soaked bright red and his skin pale.
"Dean," he said, striding forward to catch them, flinching back as he saw the demon's face under the woman's. He lifted his hand automatically.
"No," Dean snapped, catching the angel's wrist as Meg let go of him and backed away.
"She's a demon!"
"I know," Dean said, glancing over his shoulder at Meg. "But for now, she's, uh, neutral."
"Demons are not neutral, Dean!" Cas retorted, pulling his arm free and stepping to one side.
Meg looked at the angel warily as Dean swayed back and forth.
"Cas, it's a long story, but we're letting her go."
Castiel turned to look at him, eyes narrowing as he saw the lack of focus in Dean's eyes. "What happened?"
"Lost some blood," Dean muttered, his knees sagging. "Use a little help here."
He glanced past the angel, seeing Meg nod and vanish as Cas reached out and touched his forehead with two fingers. The … energy? life-force? whatever it was … flowed into him and he drew in a deep breath, eyes closing as the angel restored him.
"Thanks."
"Don't mention it," Cas said, looking around and sighing as he realised the demon had gone. "What happened?"
Unwinding the blood-soaked sleeve from his arm, Dean wiped ineffectually at the now-smooth skin, wondering how to recap in fifty words or less.
"Getting in wasn't too bad," he said, looking up at the angel. "Getting out again, not so easy."
"You didn't know how to open the gates from the inside?"
Dean looked away and shrugged. "I got the tablet. And a bonus gift. So, let's go home."
The angel stared at him for a moment in frustration, then reached out again, fingers closing hard around his shoulder.
Litteris Hominae, Kansas
The jarring contact with the ground brought his eyes open and he looked at the illusions surrounding them in disappointment. He hadn't thought to specify a destination to the angel, thinking he'd be returned to the top of the keep. Glancing at Cas now, he realised that the angel had made his own decision about the tablet.
"Subtle," he said sourly to Cas as the illusions disappeared with the clunking thuds of the locking rings of the safehold undoing in front of them.
"The prophet needs the tablet," Castiel said blandly.
"What the hell, Dean!?" Sam burst through the door and Dean felt the gust as Cas disappeared.
"Where's Chuck?" he asked, walking to meet Sam, his fingers curled around the stone inside his jacket.
"This is totally unacceptable, even for you," Sam snapped, gesturing behind him in answer to his brother's question. "Why the hell didn't you come and get me?"
Dean looked past him and walked down the stairs to the door. "It was an impulse thing," he said, waving his hand dismissively, slowing and turning as they passed into the building and Sam stopped to pull the door closed behind them.
He pulled the tablet out, unwrapping it and handing it to Sam.
Taking the stone, Sam felt a wave of repugnance wash through him, his fingers tightening hard on the slick surface against the desire to throw it from him. He wondered briefly if it'd had the same effect on his brother.
"You're the one who's supposed to close the gates, Dean," he hissed at him as they walked down the stairs. "What are we supposed to do if you die before that happens? Draw straws?"
Dean sighed. "I'm here, aren't I?"
"What the fuck happened to back up? To trusting me? To looking out for each other?"
They reached the situation room and Dean stopped abruptly, turning to face him. "Look, it worked. I got the tablet, and something else. I'm alive. It's okay. Can we just drop it now?"
"No, we can't drop it now," Sam retorted, his worry and anger of the last few hours fanned again by Dean's refusal to see what could've happened. "Alex was worried about you."
Low blow, Dean thought, turning away. He'd thought he might be back before she'd woken, or he would've made an effort to leave a note.
Jerome looked up from the book on the table as they walked up the stairs and into the library. "Back from Hell, I understand."
Dean resisted the impulse to roll his eyes. "Where's Chuck?"
"Here," Chuck said softly, walking into the room from the hallway at the other end. "You got it?"
"Time to get reading," Dean agreed lightly, seeing the trepidation in the writer's face.
Sam walked across the room. Looking at the stone in Sam's hands, Chuck turned away, walking to the table and sitting down. "From what I've seen, I'm probably going to get sucked into that thing," he said to no one in particular, looking at the polished wood surface. "I need a pen and paper."
Dean took the notepad and a pen from in front of Jerome and slid them along the table, looking at Sam. Chuck caught them and positioned them on the table, then reached out for the tablet.
When his hands touched it, the engraved symbols lit up, a flash of light that seemed to burn right through the slender man, showing bones and veins clearly through the skin. Chuck froze, the tablet gripped tightly in his hands, his gaze fixed forward but, Dean thought, looking inward.
"Chuck?" Dean said tentatively, moving along the table. Sam leaned closer on the other side.
"Chuck!"
"He can't hear you," Jerome said prosaically from the other end of the table. "He's become the conduit. He won't see or hear anything now until the tablet stops speaking to him."
Dean glanced at the professor and back to the prophet. "Will he be okay?"
Shrugging, Jerome looked back at his book. "Let's hope so."
"Stay with him," Dean said to Sam, straightening up. "I'm going back to the keep. Let me know when he starts writing."
"This isn't over," Sam said irritably.
"Of course not." Dean smiled and turned away, turning back after a couple of strides. "Oh, and Sam?"
"What?"
He drew the Colt from his belt, grinning as he saw Sam's mouth drop open.
"Where was it?"
"In Crowley's office," Dean said, slipping the gun back through his belt. "Just changed the whole game again, huh?"