Flame of Vengeance part 4
There was a big demon nearby. Dean could feel it in his bones. He’d tried to ignore it but he knew that if he could sense it like this -the dull ache at the base of his skull ~then the demon could sense him too. He didn’t like to leave Cas alone but the angel was still sleeping. Dean’s long coat was spread out on the ground beneath them. The only other person than Dean that knew about this tiny little cave was Sammy and he was gone.
So Dean had left the angel sleeping. He refused to dwell on the thought of what that implied. Instead he climbed down out of the cave and saddled Impala. It only took a few minutes before he was riding out of the Arroyo and letting the desire for vengeance lead him to whatever demon the rider had picked up. The trail was an easy one. It led to an old abandoned mining town.
The place was entirely deserted, Dean couldn’t sense a living soul for at least a couple miles in any direction. But what he could sense was a demon. A strong one at that. Dean dismounted and made his way down the center of the street. There were tumbleweeds being blown down the street. The buildings were so run down that the place looked like it had been abandoned a good twenty years.
“I was beginning to think you wouldn’t come.”
A man stepped out from one of the buildings at the far end and made his way out into the middle of the street. Dean knew the moment he saw him who it was.
“Alastair.”
“Ghost Rider.” Alastair pushed back his black long coat to reveal a silver revolver slung low on both thighs. He lifted his face and looked up toward the sky. It was midday, the sun directly overhead. Alastair smirked as he settled his gaze back to Dean. “You finally decided to come for me then?”
“I ain’t here because it’s you, Alastair.” Dean pushed the brim of his hat up slightly so he could see without having to lift his head. Then he threw open his own long coat, folding it back behind his holster and resting his hand on the butt of his gun. “I’m here cause I could smell your stink from the other side of the Rio Grande.”
“I heard you were working for Crowley,” Alastair spat, then licked his lips. The juice from the chewing tobacco left a dark stain on the ground.
“You heard wrong.”
Dean sniffed at the air, and sure his human nose wasn’t as good at sniffing things out as when he was the rider. He was still fairly certain that he couldn’t sense any other demons in the area. From what he’d heard Alastair never traveled alone. Yet here he was, all alone in the middle of assfuck nowhere just waiting for the ghost rider to come and gank his ass. There was certainly something fishy with this whole thing. Demon never usually came close enough for him to sense them so strongly when he was human. But if they did they generally didn’t stay around long.
“Well Winchester, if you ain’t here to kill me for Crowley, why don’t you just run along?”
“Now see, was a time when I would. But the thing is,” Dean rolled his shoulders in a shrug. They were no more than forty paces from each other now. “It’s not up to me.”
“You letting the Rider make your decisions for you now?” Alastair craned his neck and Dean was fairly certain he heard the grind of bones when the demon turned his head to the side.
“I do when it comes to scum like you.”
“Can’t say as I can see how that’s rightly fair,” Alastair points out with a smug grin, “since the Rider don’t know what’s really going on.”
“Oh? And I guess you do?”
“Me?” Alastair put his hand to his chest. Like the idea that he knew what was going on was hysterical. “I think you’ll find that Crowley is the only one of us holding all the cards.”
There was a clock tower at the end of the street and Alastair pointed at it. Dean heard the gears inside the tower turn and the clock start ticking. It was two minutes to twelve. Alastair meant for them to have a Mexican stand off and draw when the clock struck twelve. Dean could live with that. There was just one thing that was bothering him.
“You working for Crowley?”
“That would be telling,” Alastair replied with another smug expression. “But before I send you to meet your maker, I will tell you this. The night you made your deal. Crowley made a similar deal with someone else. And they are quite the better lap dog than you ever were.”
Dean wasn’t sure who Alastair was talking about. Or what relevance it held to this transaction they were about to play out. The clock’s loud mechanism continued to whir and tick as it got closer and closer to striking noon. Alastair’s hand hovered over his revolver. Fingers flexing in anticipation. Dean copied the motion, letting the seconds tick by.
There was absolutely no shade in the wide street with the noon day sun high overhead. The buildings were run down enough that the collapsed roofs offered very little shade or shadow in which he could use to bring the rider out. He’d ridden right into the demons trap.
The clock gears ground again and this time the mechanism began to chime out the hour. Dean could see the sweat bead and run down Alastair’s face as each chime rang out over the empty town. Dean licked his own lips as he listened and counted down the chimes. His hand barely an inch from the grip of his revolver.
“Tell me something Winchester?” Alastair asked, his voice echoing slightly in the silence of the deserted town. “I hear you can’t use your powers in sunlight, is that true?”
Alastair’s smirk broadened and Dean could see it in the demons eyes. If Dean couldn’t turn into the Rider during the daylight then he couldn’t damage the demon.
“You heard wrong!”
As the last chime rang out to mark twelve blue flames sparked from his chest and burned their way down his right arm. Both men drew their revolvers and fired.
The first hell fire round hit dead in the center of Alastair’s chest. Blue flame flashed to yellow. Dean stepped forward, his free hand pulling back the hammer repeatedly as he emptied every round in his revolver into the demon. Dean held the barrel of the revolver up and blew the smoke away.
Dean looked down and watched as Alastair clutched at the gaping hole in his chest. The demons blood paled against the black of his clothing. Dean could see the hellfire from his revolver rounds spark inside Alastair’s chest as it killed the demon. Alastair looked up at him with a pained look and laughed.
“Where’s your angel, Winchester?”
Night had fallen by the time Dean made it back to the Arroyo. He couldn’t smell demons but then the hair at the nape of his neck was standing on end. His senses tingling as the rider told him that just because he couldn’t smell them didn’t mean that they weren’t there. His first thought at that was where was Castiel. The angel would have sensed something was wrong. Unless an angel had come. Cas and the rider had been slow to pick up on other angels in the area the last time they’d come across them.
Dean could feel the rider bubbling up and trying to take the driver’s seat. Dean pulled up on the reins to slow impala and closed his eyes. He trusted that she would find her way down the path if he wasn’t guiding her. Dean just needed to make sure that the rider stayed away until he was sure that Cas was safe. He didn’t open his eyes again till they were at the bottom of the canyon.
He had to pass through the small clump of woods before he reached the clearing of the pool and the water fall where the cliff curved back in on itself. But even from this far back Dean could see the way the shadows danced off the cliff walls and cast the long shadows of the trees across the ground. Someone had built a large bon fire in the clearing and whoever it was, they were waiting for him on the other side of the trees.
There was something hanging from the cliff face, but from the darkness among the tree’s dean couldn’t make out what it was. He’d thought at first that perhaps it was some kind of flag. Or a tarp that hung down over the edge of the rock. It wasn’t until Dean reached the edge of the trees that he could see clearly enough to make out what it was.
Castiel looked dead. The angel wasn’t glowing anymore. And there was so much blood that Dean could see where it had pooled beneath the angel’s body. What looked like iron rail spikes pierced each wing where they’d been driven through the angel and into the rock. Blood had flowed down the long feathers till even the rock seemed stained by it.
It had to have been an angel or a demon that had done this. They’d broken the poor angel till he was like a rag doll and then pinned him by his wings like a macabre butterfly exhibit to the face of the cliff. The thought that it was too late to save him was the only thing that kept Dean from riding head long into what had to be a trap. It still didn’t lessen the need to free his angel from that.
Dean dismounted slowly. He kept his head down so the brim of his hat kept Castiel out of view. He couldn’t do this and see Cas looking like that. He raised his hands, whoever did this was going to pay with more than just blood. It was getting harder to keep the rider down. Especially with the scent of the angel’s innocent blood so strong in the air.
“Run, Dean” Castiel called out so quietly that Dean wasn’t sure he’d even heard it. “It’s a trap,”
He could see how Cas’ hands were tied behind his back and the pain in the angel’s expression from this distance. Cas was a good two feet off the ground and all his weight was hanging on those spikes in his wings. Cas’ head lolled and Dean stepped forward. But before he could get close the bon fire flared like someone had thrown alcohol on it.
“Show yourself!” Dean demanded to the shadows.
Dean had been expecting Crowley to stalk forward out of the shadows on the far side of the fire. Instead the last person he ever expected to see strode forward. A grin on his face.
“Sammy?”
“Hello Dean,” Sam huffed and smirked like it was amusing. “And it’s just Sam.”
Sam stepped forward, that same self-confident smirk on his face as he pulled Dean into an embrace. Dean hesitated, then he wrapped his arms around his younger brother as the inside of his chest twisted into knots. Dean had been so certain that Sam had perished in the fire. It had to have just been part of Crowley’s trap to make him agree to be the rider. Sending him to find Alastair had probably been his trick to distract him from finding out that Sam was still alive.
“I thought… You died,” Dean couldn’t breathe. He was so glad that Sam was alive. “The fire?”
“I didn’t stay to watch it burn,” Sam admitted.
“I don’t understand,” Dean knew he could make sense of it. His brain just refused to get past the whole point where Sam was alive. “How did you survive?”
“I think I can explain that.” Crowley’s smug voice had Dean stepping back from his brother.
Sam looked back over his shoulder at the fire. The shadows around it seemed to coalesce into a dark roughly man sized shape. Then they faded back away, leaving the snake oil man standing in the clearing. He wore the same smug grin and the same tailored black silk suit. Dean figured the shirt was probably new though. Crowley stalked forward until he was standing next to Sam.
‘What are you doing here?”
“Now Dean is that anyway to treat the man who reunited you with your brother?” Crowley asked with a raise of an eyebrow.
“You’re not a man,” Dean snarled angrily. He wasn’t going to let Crowley manipulate him again. “You’re the reason I lost my brother in the first place.”
Dean reached for his revolver and Crowley shook his head making a tut tutting sound as he did so.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Crowley snapped gesturing at Sam.
Sam’s eyes rolled back to reveal jet black as his brother stepped between them. It wasn’t Sam, it was part of Crowley’s trap. Sam was a demon. As if to prove the point the demon pulled a knife that hard some kind of writing down the side of it. Dean had to keep control of himself now. If the rider attacked Sam could get hurt. Sam could still be alive inside there and Dean just couldn’t risk letting the rider have his head like he’d been planning on doing.
“What do you want Crowley?” Dean bit out angrily through clenched teeth.
“Well you killed Alastair. You kept your end of the bargain” Crowley clarified he pointed at Sam and smirked. “I kept mine. I’m here to take the rider back.”
Dean wanted nothing more than to wipe that smug smile of the demons face. He was also fairly certain that the whole finding Alastair thing had been a set up. In fact it wouldn’t surprise him at this point if the gunslinger that had shot Sam wasn’t best buds with the bastard. Dean just still wasn’t exactly sure why. Why had Crowley wanted him to be the rider?
“You can’t have it,” Dean retorted. He wasn’t about to give up his only piece in this game. It was the only ace up his sleeve when Crowley seemed to hold the rest of the cards. “You let the angel and my brother go first!”
“Why Dean Winchester, are you offering to make another deal?” Crowley raised an eyebrow in surprise. He stepped to the side slightly so that Dean could see him.
He hadn’t thought of it like that. But Crowley was right. He was suggesting a trade. Right at that moment it occurred to Dean that he shouldn’t give up the rider. That he and Zarathos could work together and keep fighting demons instead of all the killing that he knew they were capable of. If he gave up Zarathos it was the only thing he had to fight against creatures like Crowley.
“Yes, a deal,” Dean agreed with a nod. “My deal, with my terms and none of your tricks.”
“Oh? And what are you proposing?”
“Set Castiel and Sam free,” Dean demanded. “If you set them free, then I’ll be your rider and I won’t fight you anymore.”
Crowley studied him for a moment. Dean could almost make out the turning of the gears as Crowley thought about what Dean was suggesting.
“That’s quite the offer Winchester.” Crowley mused. “Only what makes you think what your offering is worth that much to me?”
“What?” Dean demanded.
“I already have your soul Winchester,” Crowley pointed out. “What you’re offering. It’s only worth one.”
“One?” Dean frowned not sure what Crowley meant.
“Choose,” Crowley demanded. The demon smirked again shrugging his shoulders as he adjusted the cuff on his shirt. “The angel or the brother. You can only save one of them.”
Anger flashed like fire through him and Dean buckled as the fire bubbled to the surface. He couldn’t choose between the two. Sam was his flesh and blood and Cas, the angel had come to mean so much to Dean. How could he be made to pick. It didn’t matter now anyway. The rider wasn’t going to just stand idly by and let him make a decision like that anyway.
It wasn’t like before. The anger that fueled the flames gave the fire more power as it writhed through him. Yellow fire licked over his skin. It burnt and burnt and Dean could feel it scorch through his veins. He could feel it as it disintegrated each nerve ending. He could feel it as his skin melted and dripped from his bones. It burnt him down to the very core of his being. Dean threw his head back and screamed. His voice cracking as his tongue was replaced by fire. The flame consumed him and the rider emerged.
“Enough!” The rider growled as he stepped forward. “No more deals! You’re going to let them go or else I’m going to wear your rib cage as a hat!”
‘You think you can threaten me?” Crowley snapped.
“I think I can send you back to hell!”
The rider stepped forward and Sam moved to meet him. The sound of a thunder clap ringing out as the two opposing forces clashed. The rider got a hand around Sam’s throat and the other curled around his wrist to stop the knife in that hand from being plunged into him. Sam hissed and spat at the rider trying to struggle free from his burning grip. The rider just tilted his head and looked at him.
“Your soul is stained with the blood of the innocent,”
“Dean please, let me go,” The black disappeared from Sam’s eyes and he looks at him with those puppy dog eyes. It’s a face that would have made Dean do anything for his baby brother. “You’re burning me.”
The rider leaned in closer and Sam twisted in an attempt to get free. He struggled and kicked at the rider but it was no good. Sam raised the knife and stabbed it into the rider. It sunk in to the hilt and Sam smirked but the rider just turned his head to glance at it before looking back at Sam. Sam pulled the knife back and the metal of it was melted.
“No Mercy!”
“No please no!” Sam’s eyes went wide as he stared at the rider. He couldn’t tear his eyes from the riders gaze. His limbs hanging limp and Sam screamed before fire erupted from his eyes. The rider let him go and Sam dropped to the ground. His face charred and his eye’s burnt to cinders.
“You’re turn,” The rider called stepping toward Crowley.
Crowley stood his ground but five black shadows streamed across the clearing and wrapped themselves around the rider. The rider gave out a guttural growl as he struggled against the formless black. The rider took a step forward then another and another and the black tightened around him. Covering the flame with its darkness till the light of it began to flicker.
The rider pulled his revolver and fired the bullet passing through the darkness and connecting with Crowley’s chest. The demon didn’t even bat an eyelid. He only stopped to shake his head at the hole in the breast of his tailored suit. The darkness grew darker and squeezed. It drove the rider to his knees and the revolver fell from his hand. Then the flame gutted and died and the rider slumped forward against the force that held him up.
“You’re no match for me.” Crowley crowed as he stepped closer to the rider. “Not you Winchester and not the rider. Or did you forget Zarathos I’m the one who made you what you are.”
“Kiss my bony, flammable ass,” The rider groaned, the threat not carrying half the weight with his voice broken the way it was. “I’m going to stop you!”
“You and what army?”
“Crowley!” Castiel called out.
Castiel had ripped himself free from the spikes that had pinned him to the rock face. There was a lot more blood streaked down the rock and it flowed fresh from the gaping wounds in the wings broken and bloodied, that sagged to the ground behind the angel. Castiel straightened a look of determination on his face as he glared at Crowley. Then Cas raised his wings. Pain flashed across his face for only an instant before the white intense light that started radiating from him drowned out his features.
The light grew and grew until the whole canyon disappeared into its brightness. It blasted the shadows into pieces that faded into nothing but white light. Castiel stepped forward as the light began to fade. By the time he looked human again he was kneeling almost next to Dean. Both of them on their hands and knees in front of Crowley.
“I must say I am impressed.” Crowley admitted bringing his hands up to clap them softly three times.
“How are you still alive?” Dean asked surprised. If he couldn’t kill the demon with his rider powers surely Castiel should have burnt out his eyes with his angelic form.
“Dean,” Castiel huffed painfully beside him. “He is the angel Samael.”
“Yes well let’s just keep that between us, shall we?”
Dean glared at the angel. All this time he’d been doing the things work, killing demons as he hunted down a demon that didn’t even exist. The whole Crowley thing was probably just some kind of cover so that he didn’t end up corrupted and insane like Zarathos had.
“I don’t understand, if you’re an angel why did you do this?”
“We all have our roles to play,” Crowley confesses, with a shrug of his shoulders. “You and your little angel played them even better than I could have hoped for.”
“What are you saying ?” Dean snapped, rising to his feet.
This angel that masqueraded as a demon had ruined his life. He had made him trade his soul for a brother who wasn’t dead. Every time Dean turned into the Rider it was agony. He was also fairly certain that the Rider had just killed whatever was left of his brother. Not only that but Castiel had been drawn into this. The angel choose to fall rather than carrying out his orders and killing Dean. Cas had lost his brothers and sisters. Both of them had lost everything.
“This was all just a game to you?”
“It was never a game,” Crowley clarified as he stepped forward and pressed two fingers to Castiel’s brow. Light glowed from the wounds on Cas’ wings and the damage to them closed over and healed.
“It was about choice,” Crowley explained. “It will always be about choice.”
“What about Sam?” Dean asked, his brother hadn’t gotten to make a choice. He’s fairly certain that even if he did Sam wouldn’t have chosen to be taken over by a demon. Crowley nodded and Castiel stood walking over to Sam and Cas bent down. He pressed two fingers to Sam’s brow. Sam gasped and his eyes flashed open. The green orbs no longer charred to nothing.
“He’ll be fine,” Crowley confessed. “You all get to live to fight another day and make all new choices.”
“Even Castiel gets to make the choice to return home to his brothers and sisters. Or he may choose to stay here with you,” Crowley smiled. This time it was more genuine than the smug grin he usually displayed. “I know which choice I’m rooting for.”
With that Crowley was gone.
Turns out Sam had made a choice. Crowley had told him that if he came worked for him then he’d get to live. Sam had been more than ready to sign his name on the dotted line for the chance to see Jo again. In fact Sam made a second choice. He took that engagement ring and rode to the Harvelle farm that very morning. Jo said yes and made an honest man of the younger Winchester. They raised a family together and lived happily till the end of their days.
Castiel’s choice was an easy one. He stayed on earth. He didn’t need to return to heaven and be with his brothers and sisters who knew nothing of choice. Castiel’s powers never faded although he rarely used them. He rode with Dean and learnt what it was to live and love and be happy.
As for Dean. He’d already made his choice. He’d chosen when he told Crowley that he would rather stay the rider than let the demon hurt his loved ones. It had taken a lot to reach that point but Dean knew it was the right choice to make. Even before he knew it was a choice he could make. Together with Castiel, Dean continued to ride the plains of the American west and protect the souls of the innocent.
