CHAPTER 7

Dean swallowed, his hands clenching around the steering wheel as he stared out the front windshield of the Impala. "Hey, Sammy?" he asked, aiming for a casual voice, and failing completely. "You see all that?"

"The demons?" Sam asked. "Yeah, I see them."

"Okay," Dean said, and swallowed again, but nodded. "Okay, good. Just making sure that we're on the same page here."

It was a scene like something out of the worst of his hallucinations. Skeletal demons, black oozing masses, mingling with humans who'd been possessed and dragged into this battle. He could hear the barks, and see where the air rippled as hellhounds ran by.

And he could see the bodies.

There were humans all around, charging each other with angel blades. He couldn't tell who they were – angels or demons or hell, something else entirely. At this point, he wouldn't be surprised if it was all of the above. There was one thing he was sure of, though – that all of them were inside of humans, and it was the humans that were dying the most in all of the carnage.

"Dean," Sam said, reaching over to grab his arm. "Are you okay? I mean, what are you seeing?"

Huh. That was the question, right? And honestly, Dean didn't have the slightest idea how he was supposed to answer it. After all, he couldn't exactly say for sure that he was hallucination, not when they'd come here knowing that there would be demons crawling around everywhere. But then, which ones were real and which ones were all made up in his head? Wasn't like there was an easy answer to that one.

So he just didn't answer it. "Let's go," he said, reaching over and grabbing the door handle, and turning around to check that Sam was doing the same. They'd made it within maybe fifty feet of the crypt in the center of the cemetery, but the bodies had piled up high enough that the Impala couldn't move an inch more, no matter what he tried. Like it or not, they were going to have to go on foot.

Judging by the look on Sam's face, the answer was "not", but he didn't back down. Instead, he clicked the safety off his gun and nodded firmly. "Just... be careful," he said.

"Got it," Dean said, and hesitated just the slightest moment before saying, "You, too, Sammy."

Then they both threw open the doors and took off running for the crypt.

It was even worse out here than it was in the Impala. At least while they were in the car, nothing had gotten in to them – he thought that Hester must've spelled it, or something, to keep the demons from busting down the doors. Now, though, they didn't have anything to keep them safe except themselves.

Sam let off gunshot after gunshot, taking down anything that came anywhere close to him. Dean felt a hellhound right behind him – he swore he could feel it, its breath hot on his neck and its bones pressing around his back. He spun around, swinging the blade straight through where it was standing. It should have sunk straight into the hound's flesh. Instead, the blade moved through empty air.

He froze just a second too long, standing there trying to figure out whether it had disappeared, or if it had never been there in the first place. He was so focused on the missing hound that he almost didn't see the demon until it was too late.

It was Sam's gunshot that warned him, and the demon's scream as the salt struck her in the center of her back. Dean twisted just in time, plunging the angel blade into her stomach and doing his best not to stare at the girl that he was killing as the lights flashed beneath her skin, and then both vessel and demon slumped over, dead.

"Thanks," Dean gasped, looking over at his brother.

Sam didn't respond. There was nothing to say.

At that same moment, a body fell from the sky.

It plummeted to the ground, landing barely six feet in front of them. Her body was spread-eagle on the ground, eyes closed and legs bent at unnatural angles. There was an angel blade in her hand, and dark burn marks on the ground behind her, outstretched in a way that meant that they'd definitely been left by her wings. Dean had seen marks like that on the ground while they'd been driving here, and now he could see a whole lot more of them, overlapping across the ground in all directions. Now, he knew what caused them.

The girl couldn't have been more than eight or nine years old. Definitely too young to make a choice to become an angel's vessel.

"Shit," Dean said softly. Then- "Sammy, lookout!"

Sam spun, letting off three shots at once, but it was barely enough to hold the demon back. It was strong. Salt didn't wound it much.

"Fuck fuck fuck," Dean snapped, and practically shoved the handle of Cas' blade into Sam's hands. Sam looked surprised for just a second, then closed his grip around it. A second later, he'd sunk the blade straight into the chest of the demon coming at him – an old man, of all things.

The kid's body was still on the ground. More demons were still coming after them. Dean didn't think, he just threw himself at the dead angel, ripping the blade from her fist and rolling over onto his back just in time to stick it into a demon who was trying to pounce on him. And it made him feel dirty as hell, stealing from the corpse of some little girl who shouldn't even have been here, but he needed a blade or he'd be joining her in the afterlife. Or, scratch that – he sure as fuck hoped that this little kid wasn't down where he'd end up if he died here.

At least he was only stealing from the dick angel who'd decided it was okay to possess a kid, and not from the girl herself. That made him feel better about it. Maybe.

He kept fighting.

Time blurred after that. Dean fought his way back to his feet, blade tight in hand, ready to take on any demons who came close. Sometimes they were real. Sometimes they were hallucinations. A few of them were so deformed that he couldn't tell whether the real demon actually looked that way, or if they were completely ordinary looking and his mind was just fucking them up. Didn't really matter, though.

He saw one glimpse of Sammy. They were thirty feet apart, and Dean didn't know how that had happened, but suddenly the distance was there, and there were too many demons swarming between them for Dean to try to get closer. He was still going to try, though. He had to reach Sammy, stay by his side, keep the demons from harming him.

Then Sam turned, just a little, and his face abruptly morphed into the kind of twisted creature that Dean'd been stabbing on sight ever since he'd gotten here.

Dean froze, and it was lucky that he'd been trained in keeping hold of his weapons, otherwise he might've done something stupid like drop his blade. But he couldn't shake the images that flashed through his head – Sam, his face twisted because of Dean's fucked-up brain. Dean seeing him and thinking he was a demon.

Dean killing his brother in the middle of the fight because he couldn't tell what was real and what wasn't.

It hadn't happened. He had to keep reminding himself of that. It hadn't happened. It wasn't going to happen. He'd know his brother anyway. It wouldn't matter how much the hallucinations messed with his head, there was still no way that they could ever make him do anything like that.

The images wouldn't leave his head.

A hellhound got him.

He swore, shouting whatever random words flashed through his head at the top of his lungs. And he got the blade jammed down into the hound's brain, but his left arm felt like it was on fire, blood soaking into the sleeve of his leather jacket. Definitely was going to need stitches. And there was no way in hell he would be fighting with that arm any time soon.

It was okay. He'd use his good arm, he could make it work. So what if the odds were already pretty sucky even without stacking this on top? Didn't mean that he wouldn't be able to do it.

Maybe it was better if he didn't stay next to Sam, though. He didn't know which one terrified him worse – the thought of Sam getting hurt or worse because Dean hadn't been beside him, or the thought that Dean could be the one to-

No.

He kept praying to Cas. It was more of an instinct thing now. He wasn't trying to do it, wasn't even thinking about what prayers he sent Cas' way. The message itself didn't actually matter. What was important was that Dean kept saying them, so that Cas would be able to find them again. Because Cas was definitely on his way, Dean didn't have any doubts about that.

He also didn't know what Hester had been playing at, but whatever her plan was, he was pretty certain that it worked. The sky was alight with angels, bright enough that Dean didn't even dare to look up or else he's frickin' burn his eyes out. He just had to keep his head down and guess that they were there. It was only the wingprints that let him know for sure.

This wasn't just about the demons anymore. He was pretty sure the angels were at war.

Which was great and all, but it definitely didn't make things any easier for them. Especially since he honestly didn't care what went down in Heaven. All he wanted to do was find Sam and Cas, gank Azazel, and then get the hell out of here before one of them ended up being the one who got ganked.

That was when Dean saw him.

Azazel.

Dean took off running.

Balthazar set Cas down in the center of the battlefield, just as promised. Cas turned, intent on saying thank you, but his friend was already gone. Maybe Balthazar had never appeared here at all, and had just dropped Cas and then immediately disappeared. Cas supposed that he couldn't blame the angel if that was the case. The fighting had just begun, and already death was heavy around them.

This was no place for humans. Cas had been here for only a few seconds, and already this was clear. The fighting was too intense. Demons fought angels, ripping apart their wings and tearing screams of pain from their lips or wavelengths. Cas could feel them echoing through him, strong enough to make him unsteady of his feet, like their pain was his own, something physical that had turned against him. He shuddered, and desperately hoped that this was the price of remaining partially angelic. He didn't want to even imagine Dean or Sam hearing these horrors. Maybe humans were immune.

A voice in Cas' head – his own, this time, and no one else's – whispered that there was no point in trying to protect them from the horrors. There was no doubt that the Winchesters had already seen their fair share, even in just the few minutes of the battle that had passed since the angels had joined Hester's side. It would be a miracle if they were even still alive.

Cas shoved those thoughts away. He could still hear Dean's prayers, so he knew that Dean must be unharmed. And Dean felt pain, and terror, and confusion, and a million of other swirling emotions that Cas could sense as clearly as his own, but it was nothing like the agony that he would experience if anything were to happen to his brother. Sam was alive, too, then.

Unless Sam had been killed, and in the confusion of the battle, Dean had yet to find out.

Cas would not think of those things.

He was running. There were dead angels scattered over the ground. Some of them had left vessels behind, while others left no sign except for their wingprints and their blades.

Cas bent and grabbed the closest blade, then took off running toward where he could sense Dean's presence. It was the other side of the battlefield. Cas wasn't sure how he would get there, or how long it would take, but he would not let anything get in his way.

There were five angels lying dead in front of him, their wingprints overlapping until you couldn't tell where one ended and one began. He wasn't even sure if there were only five angels, or if there had been more, unvesseled angels that he couldn't see, their prints lost among the others until it was impossible to tell that they had even been there. But there were four vessels piled together where they had all fallen. Four of them, Cas recognized as Naomi's henchmen, angels who had often held him down and strapped him into Naomi's chair in the past. The fifth was Inias.

Cas' throat was tight, but he did not allow himself to stop. He had known that casualties would occur. He was braced for it.

It was still painful, though, seeing his brother lying dead before him. Cas hadn't expected it to hurt quite as much as it did. He could only hope that elsewhere, the ratio was the same, and that their side was killing more of Naomi's followers than they were losing.

He kept running, pausing only when a demon got in his way, and only long enough to take care of the problem. The angels did not bother him. He did not know if those that were on his side were keeping Naomi's henchmen away, or if the angels just had more important things to worry about than someone as human as him. Either way, they continued to die around him, but he was able to move with relative ease.

He felt it the moment that Dean spotted Azazel.

"No," he shouted, despite knowing that it would do no good. He couldn't help it. Dean was injured – Cas could feel that, too, even if he didn't know where, or the extent of Dean's injury. But he knew that now, Azazel would be too strong for him. Dean would not be able to win. Cas had to make it to his side as soon as he could, before he came to harm.

Cas ran faster.

Azazel had almost reached the crypt. Lily was beside him, not trying to fight. Her head was down, the Colt clutched tightly in both hands, her shoulders hunched and her entire body radiating fear.

Dean had almost reached Azazel. Just a few more steps, and he'd be close enough to launch himself forward. Azazel didn't seem to have noticed him, and the angel blade was tight in his hand. He was ready. Everything that they'd been fighting for – Mom's death, Jessica's, Sam's demon blood, the car accident, possessing Dad – all of it was going to end now.

A few more seconds, and he was going to have Azazel at the end of his blade.

A few more seconds, and everything would be over.

A few more-

He didn't see the demon until its arms were around his waist, and the angel blade was ripped from his hand. A second later, a blade was pressed against his throat. It was sharp enough that he could already feel it cutting into his skin, just slightly. He couldn't tell if it was a regular blade, or an angel one – maybe even the same blade that he'd been wielding a second earlier. It was impossible to tell, and at this rate, he didn't think that it was much going to matter.

Azazel turned around, and the smirk on his face made Dean want to stab him twice. The bastard had known he was coming.

"Nice attempt," Azazel said, clapping his hands together slowly, like this was a frickin' opera or something. "Really, you came close. Not quite good enough."

He looked past Dean, toward the demon that held him, and nodded once. And fuck, this was it. Dean was squirming, but the demon was stronger than he was, and it held the blade close enough to him that he wouldn't be able to move much without slitting his own throat.

From somewhere behind him, he thought that he heard Sammy screaming. It sounded like his name. Dean's hands clenched, but he couldn't even turn back to look. He just had to hope that Sam was freaking out on his account, and not because he'd gotten hurt. At the very least, he wanted one of them to make it out of this mess alive.

Best case scenario, Sam would get here in time to make it so that neither of them bit the dust tonight. Sam's voice had been far away, though. Or maybe it'd just sounded that was because the battle was raging so loudly around them. Either way, Dean didn't have much hope that his life was going to be saved any time soon.

The demon didn't slit his throat, though.

Instead, a second passed, and then he felt the blade stab through his leg.

He screamed. He heard it in a distant sort of way, his mind already separating him from the pain. He'd gotten good at that. He'd had a lot of reason to get good at that.

This wasn't his body that felt like it was burning with- holy fuck that hurt, oh god, but he kept pushing it away. Tried to imagine it was someone else. Some other poor bastard who'd just gotten stabbed. The demon let him go, but he couldn't stand. He hit the ground hard, and panted for breath, clutching at his leg.

Deep. Definitely fucking deep, but he had to focus. He grabbed his leg, pressing his palm against the wound, hissing at the pain of it but not letting it stop him. He'd had worse. Remember the chupacabre when was twenty? That'd messed him up way worse- The hellhound bite just a little over a week ago, that'd been fucking bad. This was nothing. He could handle it.

His brain didn't want to believe it, apparently. Either it was hallucinations or blood loss – no, had to be hallucinations, he hadn't lost enough blood yet to be going loco, it was definitely just in his head – but the world was swirling. He thought he was going to be sick. He closed his eyes.

But he definitely still heard it when Azazel said, "I think that this could be a learning experience for you, Lily."

"What do you mean?" she asked. Her voice was small. Shaking.

"I mean that he's going to die one way or another," Azazel said. "And you're going to be the one to kill him."

Dean forced his eyes open, ignoring the way that the world tilted. It was dark, like he was seeing it through a film. Shadows twisting everywhere. But he could still see it, the angel blade on the ground just a couple feet away. Close enough that all he would have to do was stretch out his arm and grab it.

His leg wasn't going to last long, but he could stand, if he needed to. Maybe. He would make himself do it, whether it was possible or not. And Azazel wasn't far. Close enough that it would just take one good charge to get him, and-

"What?" Lily asked.

"Think about it this way," Azazel said, his voice almost soothing now. "He's dying no matter what you do. You're not going to be able to stop it, Lily. How would you rather it happened? It could be you, and painless, or I could set my hellhounds on him and watch as he gets ripped to shreds. The choice is yours."

"I-I," Lily stammered. "No."

But her voice was wavering, and shit, Dean didn't trust her. She was going to do it, he could hear it in her voice, no way would she last. And if she didn't, it'd be a hell of a lot worse. One girl he could take. Okay, he couldn't touch her, but he could find a way. Maybe. Probably not, but he could try, at least. Hellhounds, though. No fucking way.

If they came, he was dead. Meaning that he had to act now, before something got to him first.

He'd get one shot. He lifted his head, trying to see where Azazel was, figure out exactly where he should stab-

And froze.

It wasn't Azazel.

It was Sam, getting his heart ripped out, staring down at the empty hole in his chest with a shocked expression, like he couldn't even feel the pain of it.

Blink, and it was Cas. Dean could see his wings now. Bare. Featherless, like they'd been stripped. Bloody. Cas was clutching them, screaming.

Blink, and it was nothing at all, like he was alone in the dark. Or blind. He could still hear the screams and the pain and the attacks, still knew he had to be in the same exact spot, but he couldn't see it.

His sight came back. More torture. Sam's skin peeling. Cas being killed. Dad's guts spilling out, Bobby with his neck bent, back to Cas again, his skin blackened and burned-

Dean was screaming harder now. He couldn't even see the blade now, tried to remember where it was so that he could grab it, but the memory was gone. None of this could be happening, and he could say that over and over to himself but it was way too fucking real, how could it not be happening, and the logical part of his brain could keep spouting that all it wanted, the rest of him wasn't listening.

"See that?" Azazel asked. Dean tried to focus on the voice, use it to track his location, but it was impossible to tell. The bastard could be anywhere. "He's half crazed," Azazel continued. "Hallucinating. Who knows what he thinks he sees right now? I'd be surprised if he even knew what was happening right now. I bet he's still going to feel it when he the hellhounds get their teeth in him, don't you think? Unless you want to keep that from happening."

Lily was whining, high-pitched noises somehow audible even over everything else that was happening around them. Dean also heard the footsteps.

Then her hands were on his chest, and he was breathing hard. She hadn't touched his skin yet, just his clothes, but any second-

"You can't see?" she asked softly.

Dean tried to focus, to snap his mind back to where it had to be, to get his eyes back on what was actually happening. He thought it worked. The demon crouching over him wavered like a mirage, then faded away. And there was Lily in its place, staring down at him with that terrified look on her face.

Their eyes met, and locked. He saw the surprise cross her face when he didn't look away, when he remained focused on her face. She glanced over her shoulder, watching Azazel, biting at her lower lip. He could see her wavering, and maybe this was his only chance. But he didn't know what to do against a girl he couldn't risk touching, not when she could kill him so easily.

"Please," he said. The word burned his throat. He'd sworn he was never gonna beg for his life, never gonna be that pathetic. But maybe it would work with her. She hadn't made up her mind yet, there was still a chance he could shift it.

He saw the exact moment that a decision was reached. She looked back at him, and met his eyes.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, and slowly lifted her hand.

Then she grabbed the angel blade from where it'd fallen to the ground and dropped it into his hand.

Dean hadn't expected it, but he didn't let that slow him down. he reacted immediately, closing his hand around the blade. He wasn't holding the handle, and he could feet the metal cut deep into his palm, but there wasn't time to readjust. All pain was thrown to the back of his head. He wouldn't let himself feel it.

Lily rolled out of the way, moving back away from him as fast as she could. He shoved himself to his feet, using his good leg to propel himself forward, straight toward the demon.

Azazel had a blade in his hand, too. Dean hadn't seen that before now.

It was too late to turn around, or to stop himself. And he wouldn't have even if he could've. He was about a hundred percent convinced that he wasn't making it out alive, but dammit if he wasn't going to take Azazel with him when he went.

He was almost fast enough.

Cas heard it when Dean Winchester screamed.

The battlefield was a cacophony of noises. Angels shrieked Enochian battle cries above, demons hissed and cackled, cries of agony were ripped from people's lips, the dying angels shrieked almost unbearably-loud as they fell to Earth, crippled angels screamed for the Rit Zien to come and save them, whether that meant healing or death, anything to stop the agony. And yet Cas heard the sound of Dean's cries, echoing louder in his ears than any of the rest. Maybe it was because he could also feel it reverberating through his head, in the wordless noises that Dean was still sending him. Or maybe Cas was just listening.

He'd felt it when Dean was hurt. His prayers were incoherent, and Cas didn't know what had happened, but that it involved a demon and that Dean could no longer fight. Beyond that, Cas hadn't needed to know the details. All that mattered was that he arrived there in time.

This scream was different. Stronger. Cas could feel it in his bones.

Then everything went quiet.

Logically speaking, Cas knew that that was impossible. Fights continued on. The injured were still in agony. Everything else continued on exactly as it had been before. But still, it sounded quieter than it was before, as if all of the noises were muted, or as if something was missing.

The change was dramatic enough – and shocking enough – that it took Cas several seconds to figure out what had caused it. Then he understood.

Dean had stopped praying.