Chapter 21 A Harvest of Bitter Memory

Hell

Sam hunched against the bitter gale, eyes half-closed as he staggered over the humps and hollows of the frozen tundra, the sharp, granular snow stinging with the force of the wind against his skin, collecting in the folds of his clothes, sticking to and clumping on his lashes and brows and hair.

He saw souls, now and then, embedded in the ice pools and frozen marsh, their skin blue and eyeballs white, moving sometimes but mostly still. He couldn't imagine the sin that had condemned them to an eternity of this, isolation in a wasteland of continuous frigid wind and snow. The cold was penetrating through his clothing, through his skin and meat down to the bone as he walked forward, into the wind, always into the wind, with the faint blue glow behind the mountains that lay in the distance, never getting any nearer.

Bless me, Father, for I have sinned …

The thought slipped in and out of his consciousness, his limbs getting heavier.

You hate me that much? You think you could kill your own brother? Then go ahead. Pull the trigger. Do it!

The empty click. He heard that sound in his dreams, even now. Over and over again.

I didn't hate you, I just didn't want to be you.

He stumbled forward, arms swinging wildly out to the sides and stopped for a moment, doubled over, holding his hands in front of his mouth, not sure if he was trying to warm them or the air inside his chest.

I just couldn't let go then, Dean, he thought, remembering the constant irritation of being together, the miserable loneliness and longing. You and Dad, you were still family, not real people with feelings and motivations of your own. Still just my brother and my father, both trying to make me live a life I hated. I'm sorry.

When he'd held his brother in his arms in the house in New Harmony, that's when Dean had stopped just being his brother and had become Dean, the man who'd loved him so much he'd given up his life and soul for him. He didn't understand him, didn't understand that, but he understood that his brother had had his own reasons, his own thoughts and life that had nothing to do with him in that moment.

When it was too late.

Straightening, he brushed the crusted snow from his face, staring at the horizon. The mountains, the glow, were still as distant as when he'd started, the wind howling across the icy plain and cutting through his clothes, into his skin. He pulled his coat more tightly around himself and kept walking.

No. I mean, he can't do it. He can't get the job done. Something happened to him downstairs, Ruby. He's not what he used to be. He's not strong enough.

The arrogance of pride. He'd never even seen it in himself. Never had the slightest inkling that all the talk of saving people was a front for a much darker desire. And he hadn't known then that there was a difference between strength and indifference. Indifference to life. To the consequences. Now, Dean could do it, he thought dazedly, dragging his feet one after the other through the stiff, frozen grass and piles of hard, icy snow. Now he didn't care at all, about anything, and he could torture and kill without thought. But before he'd lost her, and all the way back then, his brother had fought with real strength and real courage, knowing exactly what he had to lose and fighting on anyway because it had to be done and there was no one else to do it.

After Jess had been murdered, he'd thought he was the same person, angry and confused and grieving, sure, but still the same. But there was a part of him that wasn't. There was a part of himself that got harder, more calloused, less careful and caring. He'd watched people and the events from a little more outside himself every day, gained a little more distance, what he'd told himself was perspective, objectivity, but it hadn't been. It had been disinterest. So what if he killed another innocent in the name of killing the demon inside the meatsuit? What was one more or less life in the greater scheme of things? So what if he'd lied? It made life easier than facing the disappointment, the anger of his brother, of Bobby, of those who'd cared for him. So what if when the power had flowed through him, he'd felt a sensory pleasure that had buoyed him up for hours, that power addictive, at his fingertips, the power to save the world.

Because it's not something that you're doing, it's what you are! It means—it means you're a monster.

That memory went deeper, and he flinched from it as he'd done at the moment it'd happened, the expression of torment and guilt on his brother's face filling his mind's eye. At that moment, that one moment, it hadn't been too late, still not too late. If he'd listened, if he'd believed, he still could've turned away, and the last seal would have been left intact, the devil locked in.

The tears froze on his face, caught in his eyelashes and he didn't feel himself drop to his knees, head bowed as that understanding filtered through every part of him. Ruby had stoked and stroked him and pride, black and noisome opposite of humility, had taken him all the way.

The choice had been his. And he'd made it, knowing what he was doing. There was just no justification, no rationalisation that could redeem what he'd done. There was only … could he accept it? … or could he not?

No. Please don't. Just listen to me, okay? My name is Cindy McClellan. I'm a nurse in the NICU over at Enfield Memorial. I have a husband named Matthew, okay? We've been married six years. He's got to be worried sick about me. And I don't even know who you are, and I'm not gonna tell anybody anything. Please just let me go.

He leaned forward and threw up onto the thin ice in front of him, shuddering as the memory lit him up. He remembered driving toward Maryland with Ruby, doubts plaguing him, fear and uncertainty and horror making it impossible to think, impossible to figure out if he was making the right choice. And standing over the trunk of the car, looking into her terrified eyes, he'd closed his own as the knife had plunged down.

I don't get it. All the demons you cut with the knife - what do you think happens to the host? How is this any different?

The truth was … it hadn't been any different. Another innocent life taken. Another rationalisation made. The sacrifice of the one for the good of the many. And he'd known, in his heart, and deeper still, in his soul, that sacrifice was murder unless it was made freely. Given freely. I have killed the innocent and drunk their blood. I have lost my way. I have lost my faith. I no longer knew what was good … and what was evil.

Sam threw his head back, the snow peppering against his face, rattling against the stiff, damp fabric of his coat, filling his open mouth.

My choice. My deed. My responsibility.

Heat flared, inside the blood vessels and paths and he welcomed it, driving out the bitter cold and filling him with fire. Burn it out … please, PLEASE! Burn it all out.

Under Sam's skin light poured through every artery, vein and capillary, brightening as it reached through his body, pulsing in time with his heart beat, spilling from the corners of his closed eyes, from his nose and mouth.

There was agony.

There was despair.

And there was penance.

Harrison, Arkansas

"Are those people?" Drew whispered, staring down at the broad valley below them.

Beside him, Riley lifted the field glasses, grimacing as the magnification gave him a good look at those walking over the dry and barren earth alongside the stream.

"No."

Turning his head, Drew squinted at him, the hot afternoon sunshine reflecting from the light-coloured sand under them. "They're walking – what are they?"

Riley sighed and handed him the glasses, rolling onto his back as the other man took them, resting his forearm over his eyes, the images still rolling unsought behind his closed lids.

He heard Drew's sharp intake of breath.

"What the hell –?"

"Yeah, reckon that about covers it," Riley said sourly, the memory of what he'd just seen rising in his mind again.

They were people. Had once been people. Now they were something else, corpses walking through the hot air, skin grey and pouched and slipping from the bones, eyes deeply sunk into the sockets and barely glimpsed under the protruding ridge of their brows. He was extremely thankful for the direction of the wind, carrying the scent he could imagine all too clearly away from them. He'd seen the flies, covering the skin, filling the open holes, the wriggling masses seething in the putrefying flesh.

"Riley."

Kelly crawled up the rock-strewn slope beside him, flattening himself out as he came close to the top.

"Zombies," Riley told him, silently marvelling at the word that had come without volition. Maybe Winchester was right, he thought, maybe he was getting used to a world he'd scarcely believed in when he'd moved to back to Kansas, hoping to just do what he was good at it and be able to leave it at that.

"A lot of them," Drew breathed, staring down into the valley.

The hunter adjusted the field and scanned the narrowing valley floor carefully, taking a rough head count as the corpses kept marching from the cracked road to the south of the valley. His mouth thinned as the numbers kept rising.

"What's that?"

He shifted his view slightly, moving the glasses around to focus on the head of the valley where Drew was looking. Two men – no, a man and a boy – stood waiting there, watching the zombies approaching.

Something in their stance told him that they were reason for the thousands of animated bodies being there. As the first of the decaying corpses got close to them, the boy stepped forward, spreading his arms out.

The rush of air stirred the sand and dirt along the valley floor, moving to fill the spaces where the zombies had been a moment before. Drew blinked, his glasses swinging wildly up and down the floor of the broad valley.

"What – where'd they'd go?"

Kelly lowered his glasses, staring at the empty valley and sighing. "Utah, I guess."

Rolling onto his side to look at him, Riley asked, "Why?"

"To join the army the Grigori are raising." He wriggled downslope a few feet and sat up. "Come on, we have to get back as quickly as we can now, they need to know about this."

Hell

Lying curled on his side, Sam slowly realised that he couldn't feel his feet. He shifted a little and felt a pile of the hard, granular snow slip from his shoulder and neck, pattering onto the ground. Get up, he told himself. Dying here is not an available option.

The heat had gone and he was frozen, his blood flowing sluggishly as he tried to force himself to move, to roll over, to sit up. The wind howled and bit into him and he started to shiver, muscles twitching uncontrollably as his body struggled to keep the liquid warmed in his core circulating. He opened his eyes and started a little as he saw the mountain looming over him, jagged dark grey rock and streaks of white ice, towering into the pewter-coloured cloud.

Most people think I burn hot. Actually, it's quite the opposite.

Lucifer had told him that in the abandoned theatre when he'd finally found him. He pushed the memory away, climbing to his feet, feeling his stiff limbs and joints creaking and shaking as he forced them to work again.

In the dark shadow of an overhang of rock he saw a deeper patch of darkness and walked toward it, teeth chattering helplessly and the snow that crusted his face falling off in small patches, the frigid air stinging the raw, reddened skin.

The darkness resolved itself into a rounded cave opening, a rill of clean meltwater trickling out to one side, the still, cold air inside freezing the moisture in his nose, in his lungs.

He stepped through the opening.

I told you, Sam. It would always happen in Detroit.

Memory rocked him as he stumbled forward, boot sole sliding out from under him on the glazed surface of the icy rock and his eyes widening as he dragged in a deep breath that stabbed into his chest.

The cave entrance was the gate, he realised, turning to look behind him. A long, fantastically twisting tunnel of ice glowed blue and white, continuing in swoops and bends in front of him.

He knew, without knowing how he knew, that he was inside the frozen heart of the mountain, not in the Cage, not yet, but very close. He took a cautious step forward, feeling his foot sliding out and catching himself, making sure his weight was right over each foot as he walked slowly forward.

"So, you're his vessel, huh? Lucifer's wearing you to the prom?"

Sam stared at the road, his fingers tightening around the car's wheel. "That's what he said."

"Just when you thought you were out, they pull you back in, huh, Sammy?"

He frowned. "So, that's it? That's your response?"

"What are you looking for?"

"I don't know. A—a little panic? Maybe?"

"I guess I'm a little numb to the earth-shattering revelations at this point."

"What are we gonna do about it?"

He heard Dean's soft sigh at the other end of the line. "What do you want to do about it?"

"I want back in, for starters."

"Sam—"

"I mean it. I am sick of being a puppet to these sons of bitches. I'm gonna hunt him down, Dean."

"Oh, so, we're back to revenge, then, are we? Yeah, 'cause that worked out so well last time."

"Not revenge. Redemption."

"So, what, you're just gonna walk back in and we're gonna be the dynamic duo again?" Dean asked derisively.

"Look, Dean, I can do this. I can. I'm gonna prove it to you."

"Sam—it doesn't matter—whatever we do. I mean, it turns out that you and me, we're the, uh, the fire and the oil of the Armageddon. You know, on that basis alone, we should just pick a hemisphere. Stay away from each other for good."

"Dean, it does not have to be like this. We can fight it."

"Yeah, you're right. We can. But not together. We're not stronger when we're together, Sam. I think we're weaker. Because whatever we have between us—love, family, whatever it is—they are always gonna use it against us. And you know that. Yeah, we're better off apart. We got a better chance of dodging Lucifer and Michael and this whole damn thing, if we just go our own ways."

"Dean, don't do this."

"Bye, Sam."

The conversation replayed in his head as he lurched along the slick ice tunnel, hands red and burning from repeatedly touching the ice to either side. He'd been driving, somewhere, he remembered. He hadn't asked where Dean was but he'd heard the weariness in his brother's voice, the bone-deep weariness and something else, something he hadn't wanted to hear, hadn't wanted to acknowledge.

Indifference.

He couldn't remember hearing that particular note, not of despair or of fear or of heartache, but just lack of interest, in his brother's voice before. Sitting in the empty picnic grounds under the serried peaks of the Rockies, feeling the faint itch of the blood under his nails, Dean'd said he'd lost his faith in him, had lost the ability to trust him but even then, he'd thought that he would go and get his head together, give Dean a chance to do the same, and eventually, they'd reunite to fight the devil. He hadn't considered that those foundation stones, that bedrock of their upbringing, their childhoods, their brotherhood, might've been shattered beyond the ability of either of them to repair.

As he'd driven north aimlessly, one state flowing into the next, it'd come to him that he'd never been truly alone in his life. Leaving for Stanford, his brother's anguish and his father's anger beating at his back, he'd known that either or both would come if he'd called, if he'd needed them. Then finding Jess and … and becoming a part of her, wrapped in normal, he'd been a long way from alone. Dean had come to get him and aside from that one breakaway moment in Indiana, they'd spent the next five years in the car, in motels, at Bobby's, chasing down monsters and their father, keeping each other safe or trying to. Being alone, knowing that even if he asked, even if he begged, Dean would not come, he'd felt the whole world, the weight of it, falling onto him. And the blood had just about driven him insane with its demands, with its aching, scratching, itching yearning.

Still a choice, Sammy. Dean's voice in his head and he nodded tiredly. Yes, it had still been a choice. To give in to that hammering need or to turn away from it completely.

He hadn't turned away. And Lucifer had been in Detroit.

The tunnel was widening, he thought, looking up and ahead. A chill, white light spilled over the gleaming ice as the floor flattened out, refracting in the deeper fractures of the thick walls, spearing through the thin sheets. He walked a little faster and came out into a cavern, bulging and narrowing, like an hour-glass lying on its side. In the centre of the larger half, a smooth slab of ice jutted up from the floor. And thrust deeply into it, the blade waveringly visible through the occlusions and distortions of the slab, the sword of the archangel, Lucifer.

Strawberry Peak, Utah

At dusk, the gates opened again, another couple of hundred people filing in. Lee looked at them carefully, then turned his attention to the towers. The nephilim, if that's what they were, were watching the square carefully. He had the distinct impression that a few of them had itchy fingers, and the smallest move that seemed out of place would result in a fast and bloody death. Instinct, the hunter's third eye, sent faint trills of alarm through him as he saw their gazes scanning the heavily crowded compound.

With the new people there was barely room to sit. An hour later, when the last light had died out of the sky and the klieg lights came on, pointing down into the square, the gates opened again and a dozen men walked in, carrying huge pots of cooked rice. They left them in the square and went out and Lee watched as the people scrambled for the rations, obviously too little to feed everyone there.

Krissy shook her head when he asked her if she was hungry, drawing back against the stone wall with Archie and wrapping her arms around her knees. The air was cold and it was mostly by huddling together that they kept themselves warm in the long hours of darkness.

They were all survivors, Lee thought, seeing the distinctive brands on some of them, bare and unmarked arms on others. Over the three years since the virus had decimated the population, he and Krissy had been looking for other people, trying to find a decent place to settle and be able to grow their own food, looking for tools and seed and equipment … he wondered where these people had been, all that time. Wondered how they'd survived all of that, only to be rounded and deposited here. Both Archie and Seth thought they would probably be enslaved by the angel half-breeds, made to work in one way or another. Now, he wasn't so sure. Slaves, even when they were plentiful, were usually more use if they were fed enough to work hard.

He watched the disappointed move away from the scraped-clean cauldrons, most trying to find a place against the walls, others hunkering down where they stood. There wasn't any room to lie down any longer.

"You got any ideas on what they want with us?" Seth's voice was low behind his shoulder. Lee shook his head.

"No."

"Doesn't seem much like forced labour is the answer now, does it?"

Lee glanced back at him, seeing his gaze on the empty pots. "No, I got a bad feeling that ain't it."

The other man nodded slightly, his gaze shifting to the towers. "They were watching for any move, when the new people came in, and when the food brought."

"Yeah, they're on the ball," Lee agreed. "I don't think it matters too much to them if we're alive or dead."

The thought was unsettling.

"Get some sleep," Seth said quietly after a moment. "I'll wake you at midnight."

Lee nodded and turned back for the wall, stepping between people as he headed for his daughter, his thoughts churning over the few pieces of information he had, trying to make it fit into some kind of picture.

"Not looking for slaves," Archie said to him softly as he crouched down in the small space in front of the old man and Krissy. "Not on that amount of food."

He looked at him steadily for a moment. "Doesn't seem that way. You got any ideas?"

Archie grimaced. "Nothing you want to go sleep on."

"I'll risk it," Lee told him. "Share with the class, Arch."

"I talked to the people who came in at midday," Archie said, glancing sideways at Krissy's still form and lowering his voice. "They were in Virginia when they were taken. Not far from Arlington."

Lee's eyes narrowed at the emphasis the old man put on the location. "And?"

"Said they saw the graves break open, and the dead rising," Archie said, his eyes fixed on Lee's. "All the dead there."

Lee made a noise in his throat. "More than three hundred thousand graves there, Arch."

"I know," Archie said. "Used it for a scene in a book ten years ago."

"You think they're trying to make a zombie army?"

"I don't know what to think," the writer said, shrugging. "But I don't think it's coincidental, those bodies climbing out of their graves, and us being held here."

"What's the connection?"

"You're the hunter, Lee," he said with a rueful twist of his mouth. "Would a zombie army need the living for anything?"

"Most of the lore on zombies is a pile of horse-shit," Lee said slowly. "To be honest, I wouldn't know what was truth and what wasn't."

"Something to keep us occupied then."

Krissy shivered as the sky began to streak in gold and rose, the edges of the wisps and streamers of cloud lighting up against the pale silver background. She heard the noise and reached out to shake her father awake.

"Dad, something's happening."

Lee looked up, lifting a hand and rubbing it over his face tiredly as he looked around. He registered the noise, a soft roar from the rising ground outside and to the north of the compound, almost like wings, whirring in the still air. Not birds, though, he thought, getting to his feet and looking at the sky. Insects maybe, bees or hornets or something that swarmed.

The cloud burst above the compound wall, a long, elongated ribbon of black and iron and charcoal, twisting high against the dawn sky and circling over them. Sentient, he thought, watching it spiral higher, slowing and writhing as the sun's upper limb broke over the eastern horizon. It seemed to flinch from that thin gold light.

It was all the thought he had time for as the ribbon arced upward and plunged down toward the square, splitting up into hundreds of separate streamers of smoke. He saw one of them hit a teenage girl on the other side of the compound, forcing itself in through her mouth, her body jack-knifing upright, every muscle rigid and her eyes open wide and staring as it filled her up. Then she slumped and looked right at him, blue eyes narrowing and flicking to black, from corner to corner.

Christ! Demons! The thought was barely formed when the slender twisting column of smoke reached him and hit the invisible wall of the protective pendant he wore. He swung around to see another ribbon writhing around his daughter, held back by the same protection, then he felt someone behind him, hands grabbing his arms and reaching for the chain around his neck, yanking it backwards until the links broke and the demon in front of him laughed silently and pushed itself into him.

Held inside his mind, Lee watched in helpless horror as he leaned forward and ripped the chain from Krissy's neck, seeing her terrified expression and knowing that she looked at the demon possessing him. As her pendant fell, the smoke whipped into her, and a moment later her eyes were a flat black, blinking at him, a slow, lascivious smile stretching out her mouth.

The screams and struggles were over quickly, the people who filled the compound getting to their feet and walking toward the gate as it opened, moving together in an orderly fashion. On the towers the half-angels watched them, turning as the sound of marching feet from the other side of the valley drowned out every other noise and they saw the pass filled with bodies, animated and precise, every eye black.

Hell

Sam slowed down as he approached the outcropping, looking around the cavern of ice carefully. Was this the Cage? It had to be, but it didn't seem like a prison, a profusion of tunnels opening from both larger and smaller caves. He stopped beside the sword and looked down at the hilt, long and of some dark substance, engraved for grip and enclosed in a delicate basketwork of gold. Sword in the stone. The thought, and its attendant implications flashed through his mind and he managed a small, self-deprecating smile, a gentle mockery of himself. He was no hero, no worldly saviour. But he still had a job to do.

Reaching out, his fingers hovered over the elaborate hilt for a long moment as another thought hit him. The Throne had called to him, had somehow known him. What if the sword was the same? A trap for him, to pull him back into the devil's influence? Withdrawing his hand, he reached into the deep pocket of his coat and pulled out a large square bandanna, shaking it out of its crumpled ball impatiently and wrapping it around his hand. Even it was safe for him to touch, he realised he didn't want to. Didn't want to lay his fingers where the archangel had gripped, didn't want the slightest contact with whatever might've remained of Lucifer's spirit or physical remains.

He reached out again and closed his hand around the hilt, lifting. Nothing happened. The blade remained firmly embedded in the ice. Sam moved closer to the ice slab and tried again, exerting pressure on the side of the hilt in an attempt to wiggle it free with the same lack of result.

Was he the one to get this sword, he wondered a little uncertainly? Was there someone else more fit than him who would be able to draw it free? His gaze fell on the cloth protecting his hand. Or was the sword waiting for the touch of something it recognised?

Moving around the outcrop, he tried again from the other side, bracing his knee against the slick surface as he strained to lift the blade out. It was immovable, frozen in place, and he released it and leaned against the ice, panting slightly with the effort of the last pull, his body aching and tired from the demands of the journey already made, staring at the hilt in frustration. He was running on fumes, he knew. He couldn't waste time on this.

He unwound the bandanna and shoved it into his coat pocket, taking a deep breath as he leaned close to the sword again and reached for the hilt. Closing his fingers around the cold, hard grip, the ice immediately began to steam, and Sam leaned back as the frozen solid changed to gas without the interim step of transforming to liquid, filling the cavern with dry, cold fog. It billowed up to the concave ceiling, thickening and spreading. In a moment, the slab had vanished completely and he stood in the centre of the cavern, holding the sword, barely able to see a foot in front of him. He lifted the sword and looked at the blade. It was pitted and blackened, spotted and smeared with some kind of tarnish, leprous and pocked across the metal. Something to do with Lucifer? Or the ice? Or the evil of the devil?

Dragging the bandanna out again, he hurriedly wrapped the long blade with it and shoved through his belt, adjusting it until it lay flat against the flat outer muscles of his thigh, the hilt wrapped and resting outside of his coat.

The marker.

He closed his eyes and tried to visualise it, images swimming in and out of his mind's eye, his thoughts and memories and the exact visualisations of the triangular marks he'd brought in seething together as he fought against the anticlimactic exhaustion that was drowning him.

The image appeared and he felt a sickening lurch, a vertiginous drop, and blackness pressing tight against him, thick and viscous and filling his mouth and nose with a scent of burning metal as the levels of the plane shifted around him.

The stop was jarring and Sam's eyes flew open, widening as he took in the valley and the mesh strung high above it, the thundery sky louring over them. He felt the draining suck of his energy a second later and swung around to see the black-robed demon behind him, skeletal hand twice the size of his own, reaching out for him, the darkness inside the cowled hood facing him impenetrable and terrifying.

It was an automatic reaction and he just lashed out, gripping the archdemon's wrist without thought. Instantly he felt himself falling, every atom of energy fed to the rapacious creature he held. At the same time, a high-pitched sound drilled through the cavities in his skull, bursting the capillaries in his sinuses and behind his eyes, blood gushing from his nose and eyes and ears until the backlash of the energy drain blasted him backwards and he released the bony arm.

Third level, he thought blearily. Need the first. The image of the triangle, deeply engraved with the numeral one popped into his head and he was once again shrouded in the darkness as the plane rippled and bulged and folded.

The cracked obsidian gates were there in front of him when he opened his eyes again, and he staggered toward them, every step feeling as if the air he moved through was thickening, holding him back. He could hear his heart pounding against his ears, hear the dry rasp and hitch of the breaths he forced in and out of his lungs. Distantly he could feel the Fallen's rage and pain and need for his life, and he tried to force his legs to move faster, lurching from side to side as he crossed the razor-sharp rocks toward the cliffside where the guardian's blood would let him back into the borderlands.

Every single part of him was aching, stabbing him with pain or, he realised belatedly, beginning to burn. He wiped at his nose and eyes, the thick metallic taste of his blood on his tongue, down his throat, his hands streaked and painted with the blood that was still leaking down his face, and a warm coating down the sides of his neck. Peering toward the rising wall in front of him, his hand dove into the inside pocket of his shirt and pulled out the second vial as he stumbled up to the pitted rock face. He felt another spurt of blood trickling down his neck as he registered the far-off scream of the demon behind him.

The ground, he remembered from opening the door to get in. The ground drinks and the door opens. He yanked the stopper from the top and poured out the blood onto the black soil, hearing the grinding of the stone as it began to move, the scream coming again, closer this time, fresh blood spilling from the corner of his eyes.

Wiping at them desperately, Sam forced himself into the slowly-widening split in the rock, not feeling the cuts and bruising where he pushed too fast or too hard before the gap was wide enough, falling out onto the grey and yellow earth on his hands and knees as he made it through. He dragged in a breath, trying to override the spread of the bubbling heat he could feel coruscating through the blood paths of his body, and threw himself forward, like a runner off a mark, his feet almost tripping him up, slower than the rest of him. For an endless moment his arms windmilled helplessly as he struggled to get his feet moving faster before he went down, then they caught up and he hobbled down the bank of the river, staring down stream then up for the stepping stones that would take him back to the gate.

He could hear the door closing behind him, wondered if the archdemon would be able to open it, wondered if it would give him enough time to get across the river before the damned thing got there.

The crunch of the boat's prow onto the bank startled him and he swung around, looking in astonishment at the boatman who stood a few feet from him, Charon's silver eyes bright under the heavy red brows.

"Quickly."

"What?" Sam said in confusion, glancing back over his shoulder as he heard the stone grinding slowly again. "What?"

"QUICKLY!" Charon commanded, gesturing to the boat. Sam tottered toward it, gripping the low gunwales and half-falling into it as the boatman pushed them from the shore, out into the current, spinning the boat around, poling and then sculling fast across to the other side where the willows lined the grassy banks.

Sam sat up in the bottom of the boat, leaning against the seat and staring behind them. The door in the cliffs was still opening slowly, hotter air swirling through the opening and kicking up soft, powdery dust in front of it.

The boat hit the far shore, under the trailing branches of the willow and Sam winced as his back hit the hard timber edge of the seat, scrambling around on his knees.

"Go, get out." Charon told him, the boatman's voice deep and harsh. "You must get through the gate before it comes."

"Can it follow me?" Sam jumped over the high prow, falling to his knees on the soft bank and looking back.

Charon nodded. "Asmodeus can leave Hell in pursuit of a soul. You must go."

He pushed off the bank, the boat sliding backward out into the river and Sam crawled up the slope, getting his feet under him as he came out of the willow's sheltering canopy and lunging across the short grass to the shimmer of the gate in a half-run, half-walk. He could see, through a slit in the air above the ground, the drier ground of the three-fold valley in South Dakota, a Dali impression wreathed in a pale tendril of lavender-coloured smoke.

Dean was still there, he thought, almost incoherently, fighting to stay upright through the rapidly progressing waves of exhaustion that were hitting him harder and harder. The gate was open and his brother was there, waiting for him. He tripped and fell a few feet from the opening, and heard the buzzing shriek of the demon behind him, not even trying to get up this time, just crawling as fast as he could for that slim line of blue sky and hot sunshine.

Sioux Falls, South Dakota

Dean's eyes widened as Sam collapsed on the ground at his feet, hair and brows and face still frosted with ice and covered with blood, the snow trapped in his clothes melting in the hot summer sunshine. A mind-drilling shriek followed him out of the crack in the rock.

"SAM!"

He sprinted past the fire, grabbing his brother's shoulders and hauling him to his feet, his gaze flicking over Sam's face and neck, over the red staining his clothes, looking for the wounds.

"Dean, one of the Fallen is coming!" Cas yelled, running to the fire and kicking the bowl from the flames and coals as the hunter dragged Sam clear of the gap in the rock. "We have to go!"

"Sam –"

The rock face was closing but not quickly enough and Dean turned as the high-pitched squeal came again, feeling the gush of blood down his face from the corners of his eyes, running over his mouth as it poured from his nose. He caught a blurred impression of Castiel, wings upraised as he cleared the fire. Then the angel was next to him and he saw the darkness as it seeped through the narrowing crack in the rock face.

The glimpse that snagged him was fragmented and too fast to register fully, but he saw the blackened bones of the hand that reached around the edge of the gate, caught the gleam of a misshapen skull within the dark hood as it flung up its head and flinched back from the warm sunlight pouring into the valley. The angel's wings cut off his view and he felt a strong grip close around his shoulder. The world spun and darkness enveloped him, dissolving his hold on his brother, taking his breath and senses away, wrenching him as they disappeared from the three-fold valley floor.

Asmodeus howled as the sunlight burned through him, bright and unnatural and a torment to eyes and shape and form that had only known the dim light of the accursed plane for too many thousands of years. The force of his fury, at the pain, at the disappearance, burst outward, blowing the gate and the rock face and the ridge, dirt and trees and rock and great hunks of earth flying up and smashing back into the ground as the ground shook in the square half-mile surrounding the gate and began to collapse. The car slid down the disappearing ridge and fell into the crater, earth and rock and debris covering it over, burying it until there was nothing to see but a shallow depression in the ground, all signs of the demon, the gate and the valley that had held it, gone.

June 29, 2013. West Keep, Kansas

Dean felt his knees creak as they materialised on the keep roof, his hold around Sam tightening automatically when his younger brother staggered to one side. Sam blinked, straightening as the warmth of the night soaked into him, unfreezing the last pockets of cold in his body.

"Dean, where are we?"

"Back at the keep, man. Hold it together, okay?" Dean looked down at the partially-wrapped sword swinging at his brother's side. "That it?"

"Yeah," Sam told him, looking down. "I have to do the spell."

"You can take a minute."

"No," Cas said, stepping away from them and looking north and east. "Do it now, Sam."

"What?" Dean frowned at the angel.

Castiel flicked a glance toward him. "I don't know. But it would be – safer – if Sam completed the trial now."

"He's right," Sam said, wiping the moisture from his face as he looked down at the sword. He turned to the angel. "I have to hold this, while I do it?"

Cas looked at the sword, unconsciously drawing back from it. "I think so."

"Dean, step back," Sam said, lifting the archangel's weapon from his belt and unwinding the bandanna from the hilt and top of the blade. He held the hilt loosely in both hands, the tip pointing upward.

The harshly guttural words were discordant in the soft air and Dean watched Sam's face uneasily. This time, as the last word was uttered, Sam stiffened, both hands clenching hard around the hilt. There was no heat. Light flickered deep under Sam's skin and grew, Dean stepping forward as he lifted his arm across his face, a fast glance at the angel showing Cas' eyes narrowed as he watched, his expression perplexed.

The light flared out in a coronial aura around Sam and he dropped to his knees, flames of white and silver and gold wreathing along the bright blade from his hands, burning off the spots and marks and smears of black tarnish. From hilt to tip the blade shone, the flames reflecting in the polished metal.

Dean blinked as the light and flames vanished together and the warm dark night pulsed with their afterimages. Then he heard Sam begin to cough, then hack.

"Cas, light," he snapped and stepped forward, catching his little brother before he could fall forward and impale himself on the sword he still held. He was careful to keep his hands away from the blade, grabbing Sam's shoulders and easing him down on his side.

"What is it?" he asked the angel as Cas approached and a diffuse glow surrounded them. "What the fuck is happening to him?"

"I don't know," Cas said, kneeling beside the younger hunter. He reached out tentatively, fingertips brushing against the side of Sam's forehead as Sam retched again, into a growing pool of dark blood next to him.

"I can't help him," the angel said after a moment, looking back at Dean. "The – contract – or whatever this is – it's below basal levels, I can't heal what he's going through."

"Great," Dean snarled, his patience exhausted with all the things the damned angel couldn't do. "Take us down to medical, would you?"

Standing back from the bed, Dean watching as Malley and Merrin intubated his brother, Sam lying back against the crisp white pillow, his hair long and lank, his skin waxen and grey under the pale olive tones. His little brother was shaking continuously, rattling the bed-frame and muttering something too low to make out.

"Transfusion?" Merrin asked, her voice clipped.

"No," Malley told her, glancing back at Dean. "Just saline."

"He's losing blood," the nurse argued.

"He's supposed to be," Dean said, taking a step closer as Sam erupted into a fit of coughing, blood and a thick, dark phlegm spraying from his mouth and nose across the white sheet.

"Can you take this?" Merrin gestured at the sword lying beside Sam on the bed. It'd been wrapped in a white cloth, Castiel securing the fabric with string.

"No."

Castiel looked at the nurse's affronted expression. "Do not touch it. It will kill anyone but Sam. Leave it and when he returns to consciousness he will be able to secure it."

"If he returns to consciousness," Merrin muttered mutinously, moving around the other side of the bed to wipe her patient's face.

Dean's mouth thinned and he turned away. Castiel followed him into the hall.

"Where's Jimmy?"

"No idea."

"I must find him," Cas said distractedly.

"He probably won't give his consent again, Cas," Dean warned him softly, remembering the man's bitterness.

The angel looked at him for a moment then disappeared. Malley came out of the room and stopped, looking at Dean.

"He's more or less stable," he said shortly. "The fever's down and he's sleeping."

"Good."

"Dean, he could die with what's happening to him," Malley said.

Dean looked at him, his expression flat. "I know."

The apartment had been cleaned. Dean stopped in the doorway to the living room and looked around in disbelief.

Books sat tidily on their shelves, the dirty dishes and mugs and saucepans had been washed and put away, the table was cleared and polished, throws and cushions plumped and smoothed on the armchairs and sofa, floor swept and vacuumed.

He took a step into the room, and swung around, long strides taking him to the bedroom. Pushing open the door, he smelled the changes first, windows open to catch the sunlit breeze, the heap of dirty clothes that had been piled on the floor gone, the linen on the bed changed and smelling subtly of some herbal fabric softener, the bed made and the nightstands cleaned.

Going to the closet, he wrenched open the door. His clothes were there, washed and folded, shirts and jackets hanging neatly.

Rage bubbled then burned as he realised that everything of Alex's, every piece of clothing, all the small things, her notes … her scent … had gone.

The small metal knob under his hand creaked as his fist tightened around it. They had no right. The thought beat at him in time with his accelerating pulse. No fucking right to come in here and take the little he'd had left.

He slammed the closet door shut and walked to the living room, gaze flicking around the room for the phone. It sat on the desk, and he started toward it, then stopped abruptly. It didn't matter who'd done it or why. He knew why. Knew that they thought he wasn't dealing.

And that was true. He wasn't dealing.

For a moment, he swayed in the centre of the living room, then he shifted to the left and sat down on the sofa, the anger disappearing, a disorienting confusion left behind.

I can't find her pulse.

He'd looked down at her, seeing the dust that had coated her eyes, the bloodless wound along her cheek, the stillness in her … all the things that spoke of death and had ignored them, trying to find something that would make that fact not true, not real.

I do, you know. The sharp, discrete memory hit him and he leaned back, feeling the cracks widening, a titanic wave coming for him. He hadn't told her, told her he did too, hadn't said it and she'd died without knowing. He remembered Hell, remembered everything that had happened in the pit, how it'd been and how it'd felt and those memories faded and dimmed under the onslaught of agony that flooded through him now. He had let himself hope. Let himself look to a future. And that had been a mistake. There was no hope. No future.

The sunshine coming through the windows tracked across the room gradually, the shadows changing, lengthening as the sun moved from east to west. The small apartment darkened as daylight bled out of the sky. The pain hadn't diminished, it flowed unchecked and uncontrolled, eating through him. There was no escape, no overload possible, no welcomed descent into the oblivion of unconsciousness. Memories rolled through and each one held a dagger, each one was connected to hundreds of others, he couldn't find the off switch, wasn't sure that he wanted to even. A part of him wanted to feel it, have it eviscerate him until there was nothing left.

Dean blinked and looked around. He felt empty. Exhausted and dry and empty. The apartment was in darkness. He could barely make out the faint outline of the windows in the kitchen. He leaned back, closing his eyes. They were sore. Gritty and aching. His chest felt the same way.

The change in the room was silent and invisible but he felt it. Opening his eyes, his gaze focussed on the wall beside the hearth.

"We had a deal," he said, the words coming out cracked through a throat that seemed to be filled with powdered glass.

"I didn't welsh on it," the entity said mildly, substance thickening in the deep gloom until a man stood there, tall and skeletally thin, dignified in an old-fashioned black suit, a starched white shirt and thin, string tie.

"Bullshit," Dean said, forcing himself to lean forward. "It should've been me – at least I could've done the job, and it wouldn't've mattered, not after she – but not Sam."

"You seem very certain of your facts, Dean," Death said, moving to the armchair opposite the sofa, his face smooth and expressionless, the dark eyes glinting slightly in the deep sockets.

"There another way to look at this?" Dean asked derisively, the emotion a bare flicker. "You telling me I missed something?"

Death sat down, inclining his head slightly. "I think that you've given up."

"Fuck you."

"Mind your tone." The warning was instant and chill.

"Go ahead," Dean said, shaking his head. "I got nothing left to lose."

"On the contrary." Death moved his hand and a selection of fried food appeared on the table between them. Dean looked down at the platters and bowls disinterestedly.

"There is a great deal left to lose," the entity continued, picking up a crispy, golden round of pickle and dipping it into a bowl filled to the brim with ketchup. "I told you that you would affect every line, Dean."

"You told me I'd be closing the gates," Dean countered furiously, ignoring the crunching noises coming from the being opposite. "You told me she'd be safe."

"There are no guarantees in this world or any other," Death said prosaically. "Try the pickles, they're excellent." He looked at the man's surly expression and sighed. "You are the one who is changing the lines, Dean. At the time I told you about the gates, that was the only future that was foreseeable. Something else has happened, to have changed that."

"Something else?" Dean asked sardonically. "The second trial needed Lucifer's sword. Which only Sam can touch. Which means I couldn't've gotten it."

"That's not entirely true," Death said, picking up a French fry and consuming it. "You are needed. You are vital, in fact. That is as valid now as it ever was."

Dean ignored that. "Why didn't you come when I was looking for you?"

For a moment, Death looked at him consideringly. The nerves on the back of Dean's neck prickled at that careful regard. Then the entity shrugged slightly.

"I couldn't help you," it said simply.

"Stop lying to me!" he snapped, disbelief overriding caution. "You could've brought her back!"

"I am not lying to you," Death told him, his voice cool and hard. "There was nothing I could do to give you what you wanted."

Dean turned away, brows drawn together. "Thanks for nothing then."

"Your brother has not completed his task and he will need your help to do it."

"It's gonna kill him," Dean rasped, shaking his head. "Why the fuck should I help with that?"

He could feel the ancient eyes on him, the silence stretching out in the dark room. I'll do whatever I have to do, I'll storm fucking Hell if that's what's needed … his words echoed in the empty wasteland. He'd meant it. It'd been his end of the deal. Before the rest had gone south.

"What the hell can I do?" he asked, head dropping into his hands.

"The fallen angels have been raising the dead –"

"Yeah, and how's that possible, since that's your area?" Dean lifted his head to look at Death.

"They have no souls, the dead," Death said, a thread of irritation along the dry voice. "They are meat now, animated by a spell only. I have nothing to do with it." He looked down at the table and made an impatient gesture and the food disappeared. "They are raising the bodies to be inhabited by demons. And one of Lucifer's playthings has climbed out of Hell to this plane."

Dean rubbed a hand tiredly over his face. "He didn't stick around."

"Not Asmodeus," Death corrected him acerbically. "Belial."

The name meant little to the hunter. He looked at the entity, one brow lifted.

"Belial is the ruler of the sixth level," Death explained. "Of all those in Lucifer's command, he is the only one who can cross to this plane and remain on it."

"And?"

"And," Death ground out in annoyance. "He is the leader of the Horde of Hell, in Lucifer's absence. He draws a darkness over the land as he passes to protect the demons from the light of the natural world."

"Demons don't seem to have that much problem with sunlight," Dean frowned.

"Not in a vessel," Death agreed. "But the demons of the abyss cannot tolerate light."

Dean sighed as he realised what Death was saying. "How many?"

"I don't know. Many."

"And the hits just keep on comin'," Dean muttered to himself. "What the hell am I supposed to do about that?"

"Your brother will be alone and exposed in the last trial," the entity said slowly. "Do you think he will be able to complete it if the Horde are alerted to what he is doing?"

Dean's eyes narrowed abruptly. "You're telling me Sam needs a diversion."

Death leaned back in the chair and looked at him. "That is what I am telling you."

"How's he doing?" Dean leaned against the door frame and looked at the bed. Standing beside Sam, Merrin scowled.

"His vitals are stable," she said, making a note on the chart she held. "He's slightly anaemic, but we can't give him a transfusion. He'll have to stay here until his red cell count is stronger."

"How long?"

She looked up at him, seeing past the lack of expression on Dean's face. "A few weeks." Turning to look at the man lying in the bed, she shrugged slightly. "He has no reserves of anything right now, Dean. We're feeding him, trying to stop his body from consuming itself, but that will take time."

Dean nodded. "What about his hand?"

"Bob doesn't know what it is," Merrin admitted reluctantly, looking at Sam's heavily bandaged hand. "It is healing, with the order's cream, but the burn went down to his bones."

"Is it the same kind of burn as you found in his lungs?"

"No, those are lesions, not burns." She shook her head. "Something is eating at him, from the inside out, but we can't find anything in his bloodwork or tissues, or in the bone marrow or cells."

"It's God, Merrin," Dean said humourlessly. "God's eating him."

She looked at him as he turned away and started down the hall, unsure if he'd been serious or not. Something was working in Sam Winchester, she knew. Something was changing every cell in his body.

Litteris Hominae, Kansas

Candle-light flickered over the platters and plates set on the long dining table, the soft golden light of the wall sconces giving the room a warm glow. Jerome sat at one end of the table, watching the hunter next to him consume the food on his plate steadily, without appearing to taste what he was eating.

"Michel has located Nintu in Connecticut and she's heading north. The records from the Church have the lakes region in Maine as a prison for the first shapeshifter."

"Awesome," Dean remarked around a mouthful of food, chewing and swallowing and lifting the next without pausing.

"We can intercept her," Penemue said diffidently. "And that will be a large problem solved."

"Probably not before she frees her offspring," Jasper said tersely.

"Can't have everything," Elias noted, his gaze flicking between the scholar and the hunter across the table. "Getting the goddess is the priority."

Dean finished the last mouthful and pushed his plate aside, eyes dark and hooded as he looked around the table. "That and getting rid of the werewolf."

He saw them shift in their chairs, fiddling with their cutlery and smiled inwardly at the reluctance in their faces to contradict him.

"We can go through Michigan," Nate said practically. "Head into Maine from the north."

"Good," Dean said. "We'll have two to three weeks for this. We'll leave in the morning."

"What about the Grigori?" Baraquiel leaned forward and looked at him. "Castiel confirmed that they have Kokabiel. If they have coerced into our brother into raising the demons –"

"So far, we got zombies in Europe and China, right?" Dean asked, his gaze flicking to Jerome for confirmation. The legacy nodded.

"They'll be looking for survivors here, but we haven't had anything suggesting that they're making zombies here."

The Qaddiysh glanced at each other.

"That might be a matter of time," Penemue said.

"Yeah, might be," Dean acknowledged. "But we gotta get on with what we can while we're waiting."

"We'll need an army, Dean," Rufus said stiffly, his gaze sliding to Jackson. "We can't just sit around and wait for them to come to us."

"Knock yourselves out," the hunter said, pushing back his chair and getting up. "You don't need me for that." He looked around the table again, stopping as his eyes met those of the older hunter. "No point pretending we don't all know what the situation is," he added, leaning on the back of the straight-backed chair. "Franklin said you sent out a couple of groups to clean out the bases in Oklahoma."

Jackson nodded. "They'll be back in a week or so."

"Vince and Rona still at Tawas?" Dean asked Rufus.

"Yeah."

"Tell them to take Ernie, Travis and Marsh and go hunting the bases, out east maybe," he said shortly. "Somewhere there'll be planes – doesn't matter what the fuck kind they are so long as they can fly – if we drop cans of gas on those fuckers, it'll help." He looked at Jackson, wondering if he should be sharing Death's revelations about the archdemon. He decided against it for now. "We find planes and we'll have an advantage. Maybe not much of one, but we're not being fussy."

"We've looked for planes –" Rufus started to argue and Dean cut him off.

"Yeah, when we had no time and other things to worry about. Tell Vince not to come back without one."

He walked out of the room, leaving those at the table silent behind him.

Camp Tawas, Lake Tawas, Michigan

Peter leaned on the table, looking over the map that was spread across it. Blue crosses marked the sightings of the pack, and they were in a loose circle around the two camps, mostly in the fields that Kenny had been struggling to get planted.

"How many were in the last sighting?" he asked Boze, who leaned against the table.

"Eight," the big hunter answered. "That's probably about what got away when Maurice was turned."

"They're not coming any closer than the farms?" Elias looked at him.

"No," Boze confirmed. "Smart enough to know that we'll have to come out in the winter if we've got nothing to eat here."

Dean stood to one side, leaning against the bookshelf near the hearth. "You seen Maurice since?"

Boze shook his head. "I thought maybe, he'd gotten loose. There was some scat over in the remains of Sable," he said, lifting a hand in a vague gesture. "But they pinned us down and I couldn't go check."

Penemue watched Winchester carefully. The situation was difficult, but the hunter seemed almost relaxed about it, listening but not adding much to the discussion. As if he'd already made up his mind, he thought uneasily.

"We'll have a look around in the morning," Dean said, straightening up. "Silver'll work on all of them except the alpha, right?"

Boze nodded. "Yeah, but they're fast, Dean," he said worriedly. "I mean animal-fast – they're pretty much wolves when they transform – and getting the shots, not that easy."

Dean smiled at him, green eyes remaining unchanged. "I gotta couple of ideas about that, Boze. We'll figure out the best play tomorrow." He yawned widely. "Drive's not getting any easier, I could use a bed."

"Right," Boze said, looking around at the others. "First floor, end of the hall. Pick a room."

"Thanks."

Penemue watched him saunter out of the room. The pretence was good, he had to admit, but he didn't believe it. He glanced at the others, wondering if he should bring it to their attention. It didn't seem like Dean had anything planned before morning, anyway.

The moon was only a quarter-full, and less than halfway across the sky when Dean slipped through the black shadows of the camp wall and dropped into the outside ditch, picking his way to the corner of the compound and cutting across the sharply inclining slope down to the lake. He was carrying a long silver knife at the back of his belt and several magazines of silver bullets for the automatic, tucked into his coat pockets.

They'd smell him, he knew, the night breeze increasing slightly, carrying his scent down to the forest. He was hoping that one would recognise that scent, but he was prepared to take them all on to get to that one.

He'd met Maurice first in 2003, not long before his father had taken off for Boston and sent him down to Texas. The quietly-spoken hunter had surprised him, his face slightly round, short-cut curly hair a light brown back then. It hadn't been until he'd looked into the man's eyes and seen the sharp intelligence there that he'd re-evaluated his opinion that the guy was too soft to be a hunter. In all the years he'd known him, Maurice had always thought first, acted second, and in many ways, he'd learned what he knew about thinking through all the possible consequences of a course of action from watching him, hunting with him.

His father had held the man in the highest regard, he knew. That had been enough for him until he'd worked with him and come to realise why. The camps in Michigan, the survivors who'd made it through, the offensive in Atlanta. All of it had succeeded because he'd had Maurice around, and the other hunters like him.

He worked his way down through the woods to the shore of the lake, stopping frequently to listen to the quiet night, stretching out his senses as far as he could, his nervous system thrumming, everything on high alert.

"Dean."

Dean closed his eyes and turned around slowly. The man behind him hadn't made a sound and he looked into Maurice's eyes, searching them for any sign that he wasn't in control, that he was angling for an attack. He couldn't find any.

"Not the way I'd hoped to see you again," Maurice said softly, glancing behind him into the darkness under the trees. "And we can't stay here, they're hunting tonight."

Following him along the lake's shore, Dean watched him move silently and gracefully through the tangled undergrowth, evidently in control enough to utilise the enhanced senses of the wolf in him without it taking over. He put his feet where Maurice had put his and the two hunters walked through the woods like ghosts, not even a trembling leaf showing their passing.

"Where are we going?" Dean asked, his voice barely a breath.

"Sable," Maurice answered, slowing for a moment and tilting his head as he listened.

Dean couldn't hear anything but the man in front of him remained immobile, and he did the same, withdrawing into himself slightly. The breeze had gone around, coming down the woods and he caught the faintest whiff of dog on it. His own scent would be carried down across the water.

"Alright, come on, faster," Maurice said a moment later. "Raat wanted to press closer to the camp tonight."

The quarter moon threw a faint light over the shore edge, enough to be able to see the rocks and the roots that reached down to the water. Dean followed Maurice around the lake and into the woods on the other side, aware of the breeze that kept them downwind of the pack, aware of the lack of noise in the forest, aware that he was well and truly on his own here with Maurice, and it was only his faith in the other man that was keeping him from pulling the automatic out and firing a half-dozen through his back and into his heart.

The ruins of Camp Sable were overgrown and almost invisible, trees thrusting up through what had been stone paved roads and the craters from the plane attack filled with brambles and bracken, still pools in the basements, reflecting only darkness.

Maurice led them down a set of moss-covered concrete stairs, and Dean ducked under the thickly twined vines in the remaining frame of a doorway.

"We should be alright here," Maurice said quietly, turning around and looking at Dean. "Even if the wind changes, they won't pick up our scent here."

"Are you alright?" Dean asked, looking at him in the dim light.

Maurice laughed softly. "No, but that's not the issue, is it?" He gestured to the blocks of stone that had tumbled down into the basement, sitting down on one. "The blood of Raat will kill him."

Dean looked down at another block, then back at him. "And without killing him, how're we supposed to get it?"

"I'll draw his attention, you stick that silver blade into him, wipe the blood on the bullets you got and shoot him in the heart."

"Piece of cake."

The soft laugh came out of the dimness again. "Do-able, Dean. It's do-able."

"Yeah."

"There's something else," Maurice said. Dean could see his eyes, a very dim glow in the darkness. "Once he's dead, the rest of his get – we'll lose some of the powers we have."

"Like what?"

"I'm not sure exactly, I had to be careful with what I was asking, but I think that the transformations aren't as powerful when he's not around."

Dean nodded slowly. "That'll help, a little."

"I need a favour too," Maurice said, hearing the other man's long exhale. "I can't trust anyone else to do it. Boze – he froze on me –"

"I know," Dean said neutrally. "He told me what happened."

"Maybe that was meant," Maurice said, looking around and shrugging. "So I could do this much, but I can't live like this."

"You've got pretty good control over it."

"Raat told me, Dean, if we don't take human hearts, we become wolves, eventually. Forget what it is to be a man, or don't care."

In the silence that followed, Maurice wondered at Dean's thoughts. He was relieved when the younger hunter cleared his throat.

"Alright."

"Thank you."

There was a scrape of boot over rock as Dean got to his feet. "Don't – don't thank me, okay?" He turned and looked at the indistinct outline of the hunter. "Where do we find him?"

"He'll be north and west, near the boundaries of Kenny's place, out on 23."

"Let's go."

Lying on the forest floor, the rich, dark smell of the decaying leaves filling his nose, Dean strained to hear Maurice's movement. The werewolf's senses had pinpointed the alpha, and he'd told Dean where to wait, downwind and screened from the clearing by a massive deadfall between the trees. His hand was curled around the hilt of the silver knife but he couldn't hear anything, couldn't see anything in the dense black shadows beneath the deadfall. He could feel the seconds ticking by and hoped like hell he hadn't been played.

The snarl was shockingly loud and he had to exert every bit of control to keep from starting back at the apparent closeness of it, answered by a deeper growl and the rustle of leaf and green branch as the wolves raced into the clearing in front of him and circled each other.

Raat was huge, a thick black pelt threaded through with silver, rippling in the faint light with the heavy muscles moving beneath it. Beside him, Maurice looked small and wiry, silver-grey fur catching the stray moonbeams that filtered through the canopy of the trees.

On his feet, Dean slipped around the deadfall and between the trees, keeping himself out of sight as he waited for the wolves to engage. It was do-able, he thought with a slight twitch of humour, but it was going to need precise timing and a shitload of speed to get in and out again before the monster wolf could turn on him.

Maurice darted in, jaws snapping and Raat reared up, dropping on the smaller wolf and pinning him down. Dean was running in that second, accelerating, not thinking of getting in and out, just of getting the knife-blade into the alpha. He jumped onto the high shoulders, stabbing down and Raat lifted his head, his howl throbbing through the night air and cut off abruptly as Maurice's jaws closed tightly around the briefly exposed throat. Dean rolled off, his fingers digging for the Colt, the bloody knife in one hand as he popped the magazine and smeared the viscous, oily liquid down the open slot in the metal box, ramming it back in and lifting the gun. The first round, in the chamber, was plain silver and it punched through fur, muscle and bone, the expanding hollow point shredding what it hit. The second round loaded into the chamber and Dean pulled the trigger slowly, gun braced by both hands, his aim accurate despite the wild efforts of Raat to get free of Maurice's jaws, both animals twisting and rolling across the clearing.

The retorts filled the clearing, and distantly Dean heard other howls. The second bullet had hit the heart and the black wolf shuddered deeply, toppling to the ground as the blood smeared over the silver slug mixed with the blood pumped through him.

Rolling to his feet, Maurice wiped his mouth, his body scored with claw marks, the deep bite in his shoulder red and torn, a pile of silver-grey fur scattered over the ground at his feet.

He turned to look at Dean. "Now."

The big bore of the automatic turned and the shot echoed in the stillness of the clearing. Dean looked down at the hole in his friend's chest and turned away, listening more closely to the ululations as he reoriented himself in the direction of Boze's settlement.

Indian Pond, Maine

"You know, if you were gonna do this all on your own, we didn't need to come along," Elias said bitterly as they moved through the thick woods toward the big pond. "Coulda stayed back in Kansas and worried about the Grigori."

Dean lifted a brow at him, his expression mild. "It worked."

"And you coulda got yourself killed," Elias said, kicking the leaf matter at his feet in frustration. "Could'a been turned, now that would've been handy, right? Two fucking hunters lost to the thing, no one to help out Sam –"

Dean's expression flattened out. "It worked," he said again, a warning implicit in his tone.

Elias lengthened his stride, muttering under his breath as he pulled away. Peter glanced at his retreating back and looked at Dean.

"He's right." He gestured around vaguely. "We're here to hunt these things down together and going off solo was a stupid risk."

Dean shrugged. He knew what it had been. It'd worked. So far as he was concerned, that was the end of it. He turned to look at the Qaddiysh, walking a little to one side and just behind him.

"Michel's marker said she'd be here?"

Penemue nodded. "Moving along the southern shore five minutes ago."

"You and the others have to get clear, right?" Dean asked, glancing at Baraquiel and Shamsiel. "Or you get sucked in too?"

"Yes, we'll move further north, call you if she changes direction," Penemue replied, tapping the headset he wore against one ear.

"Better peel off now," Peter said, seeing the glint of the water in the sunlight through the trees ahead.

"Good luck," Penemue told them, turning right and following a trail through the forest, his brothers following him.

None of them knew what to expect, not really, Dean thought, looking at the wider trail ahead of him. Sam'd said that the other one had created an insistence in them, an arousal that had gone bone-deep. This sister was also creative, albeit the flip-side. What did that mean, exactly?

"Any ideas?" he asked Peter, slowing as the Roman hunter reached a cross-trail and stopped, looking down toward the lake.

"Not really," Peter said distractedly. "Katherine suggested it would be more along the lines of a blood-lust, instead of the sexual reaction, a need for power, possibly."

"Awesome."

Peter grinned. "We only have to get it into her path, the box is supposed to do the rest."

"What about the spell?"

"You want to draw straws?"

"No." Dean scowled at him. "I'll sit behind the box, say the spell and close the lid."

"Elias might have something to say about that."

"He can bite me."

Peter raised a brow slightly. "What's going on, Dean?"

"Nothing."

Peter reached out, his hand closing around Dean's arm. "We will follow you anywhere, willingly, except to die for nothing, because that's what you want."

Dean met his eyes steadily. "That's not what I want."

"Then prove it," Peter said, his voice lightening as he released him. "Elias can close the box."

The auburn-haired hunter had walked back to them and looked at Dean questioningly.

"Fine," Dean said with a sour look between them. "Be my guest."

He handed the smooth wooden box over and gestured at the trail. "Take lake-side or forest-side?"

"Forest-side," Peter said, nodding as Elias set the box on the ground and opened the lid. He looked at them. "You feel like cutting someone's throat and drinking their blood, just get into the water."

"Who told you that?" Dean asked, brow creasing.

"Jerome." Peter turned for the trees. "Water's a mutable element. He thinks it'll break any mental hold she might get over us."

"Thinks?"

Peter disappeared between the trees and Dean walked down toward the pond's shore. Winging it, again, he thought sourly. An old memory surfaced, sitting in the car, Sam's voice on the other end of the phone line.

"Church ground is hallowed ground, whether the church is still there or not. Evil spirits cross over hallowed ground, sometimes they're destroyed, so I figured, maybe, that would get rid of it."

"Maybe? Maybe! What if you were wrong?" He hadn't been able to believe what he was hearing.

"Huh. Honestly that thought hadn't occurred to me."

It'd been the casualness of that comment that had driven him crazy. And nothing had changed, he thought, crouching down on the pebbled sand at the water's edge. Damned scholars were all the same. It would've been more helpful if they'd known what to expect out here.

"Dean? She's coming," Penemue's voice was very quiet in his ear and he shoved his memories and irritation aside, shutting off thought and feeling as he waited. He could feel it, distantly yet, but there, a crackling surge of energy in the air surrounding the pond, the acrid taste of copper, along the edge of his tongue, a tension in his body that hadn't been there a moment before.

They should've known she would be moving fast, he thought much later. But at the time, her sudden appearance in front of him came as a heart-stopping shock, dark eyes staring into his through the thin branches of a low bush, long dark hair swinging forward as she parted the vegetation and strode forward and he was scrambling backwards, his throat locked and his heart sledging against his rib-cage with the desire to fight, to rip something – anything – into shreds and drink its blood.

"Here," he managed to croak as he hit a tree-trunk with his back, the impact jarring and breaking the hypnotic hold on him. He rolled fast to the side, brought up short as she stepped in front of him.

No more than a few feet from him, her eyes were fixed on his, pinning him down, an immeasurable weight dropping on top of him as he stared helplessly back.

Almost. You can came close. Close to being one of mine. And you liked it.

The thoughts were barely coherent, bouncing in his head like a madman's screams. She was leaning over him and he had to move, had to get back to the main trail.

Nothing in your heart. Nothing in your soul. You could be strong, hunter. Stronger than all others. You are one of us.

NO!

Dean felt the lick of arousal across his nervous system, he was shaking and humming with the high voltage pure energy she was feeding him and he couldn't break free from those dark eyes, almond-shaped and shadowed by long, thick lashes –

The shots were fired one after another and she jerked slightly, staggering to one side as he heard Peter's shout.

"Dean, break right, break right!"

He was able to move again, and he rolled, scrambling under a fallen tree and not far now from the trail. Onto his knees, then feet as he caught sight of her again, and he strained to reach the trail ahead of her, feet slipping on the moss-covered roots and leaf-fall.

He fell into the trail and saw her break through a few feet down, her arm lifting and Elias flying to one side, the thick thud of his body hitting something solid and a snapping of branches as he fell to the ground. Diving behind the open wooden box, Dean turned to face her, his face twisted into a ferocious scowl as she swung toward him.

One kiss of your blood and you could have the strength you need, the peace you look for in the earth.

Why the fuck wasn't the box sucking her in, he thought dazedly, fighting down the impulses that were filling him, his hands curled into tight fists, nails driving into the palms and every muscle locked into solid rigid contraction.

"Piamo caosgon allar gigipah, drix saanir sibsi qaal caosg haala zacam iadnah."

Peter's voice rang out along the trail and Dean saw the woman flinch and turn, long hair flying out. The spell came back to him and he cleared his throat, spitting out the mouthful of blood that filled it.

"Piamo caosgon allar gigipah, drix saanir sibsi qaal caosg haala zacam iadnah."

She spun around, back to him, eyes widening as she moved closer, her gaze shifting from him to the box at his feet belatedly.

"PIAMO CAOSGON ALLAR GIGIPAH DRIX SAANIR SIBSI QAAL CAOSG HAALA ZACAM IADNAH!" Peter yelled, levelling his gun at her as he stepped closer along the trial.

She rushed straight for Dean, and he had the confused impression of her hair spreading out, growing longer as her limbs lengthened and grew joints where none should've been, her face changing, her abdomen ballooning out. He gripped the lid of the box to keep himself from running as another pair of legs grew from her hips, a smaller pair emerging from behind her jaw –

There was a scream, in his ears and in his mind, a gust of a bitter scent, warm blood and frozen metal and then she was gone, the lid of the box wrenched from his fingers and slamming shut and the woodland trail was suddenly still and empty and quiet. He heard Peter's breath panting. Heard his own, loud in and out of his lungs as he doubled over, feeling the sensations of fury and power and that enormous crackling surge of energy bleeding slowly out. At the side of the trail, Elias let out a low groan.

Intersection, Lake Moxie Road and US-201 S, Maine

"We will return them to the mountain," Baraquiel said, gesturing to the highway.

Dean frowned at him. "We might need you here. We can keep that locked up until the rest is over."

"No," Penemue said immediately, shaking his head. "If the Grigori found that with us, they would cause untold suffering with it. It must be returned, Dean, for the safety of all."

"Baraquiel and Shamsiel will take it to Peru," he continued, looking at them then turning back. "I will stay here, to fight with you and try to free Kokabiel."

Dean wanted to argue, wanted to put forth rational counters that the more angels they had on their team, the better the odds were for them. He looked away instead.

Came close to being one of mine, and you liked it.

The dark, honey-sweet voice replayed in his head and he tried to push it away. He hadn't. He couldn't think about the temptations that had filled him, the small amount of truth she'd seen inside of him. Penemue was right, he realised darkly. Even without the Grigori getting it, the risk of anyone opening that box was too great.

"Alright," he said, looking back at them as he put the truck in gear, leaving his foot on the clutch. In the back seat, Elias was out, his arm splinted and taped to his chest to keep it still. Peter slid across the wide front seat as Penemue got in.

At the intersection, the pickup turned south and the truck turned west, heading back toward Kansas.