The Devil You Know : Chapter 3
See part 1 for disclaimers
Chapter 3
-----
A little after 3 a.m., Dean pulls over to take a break.
More accurately, he’s pretty much forced to take a break when he jolts awake on the shoulder. He just blinked once as he drifted along on a steady buzz, tires humming over the lines in the pavement… and then the right side of the car dips and it jounces heavily as it hits soft ground. He startles, instinctively stomping the brake.
Sam flies forward and Dean shoots an arm out to catch him before he hits the dash. Because the Nova’s more compact than his muscle memory of the Impala, he ends up smacking Sam hard in the ribs.
They rock back in their seats, hearts pounding, as the car settles. To his credit, Sam doesn’t bitch; he just pushes himself back up in the seat and slides a sideways glance at his brother.
“You okay?”
Dean’s got both hands clamped on the wheel, staring straight ahead at the treeline revealed in the tipped-up high beams. He clears his throat but his voice is still foggy. “I’m good.”
“Mm.” Sam could stretch his arm and touch the branches along the roadside if he rolled down his window. “Let me drive.”
“I got it,” Dean insists, but there’s no conviction behind the words. Sam gets out and comes around to the driver’s side and yanks Dean’s door open.
“Switch places.”
“I got it, Sam. Get back in the car. Next place I see, I’ll pull in and get some coffee.”
“Nope.” Sam’s heart rate has returned to normal, and for the first time in days he feels calm and in control. “Any more caffeine and you’re gonna go into tachycardia. You’ve had, what? Four hours of sleep in the last 48 hours? I’ll drive.”
“I said I was okay. Get back in the car so we can keep going.”
“What good are you going to be to him if you’re a wreck by the time we get there?”
His brother’s red-rimmed eyes blink, and for a second Sam thinks he’s going to give in. Then Dean shakes his head.
“You haven’t eaten in nearly a week. You’ll pass out behind the wheel and kill us both.”
The road is dark and deserted; the only light is that cast by the Nova’s headlights and dashboard. Dean’s face is mostly hidden by the deeply angled shadows, but Sam doesn’t need to see him to sense his growing desperation, the kind that drives his brother to do irrational things.
Sam thinks they’re about halfway across Illinois, thinks maybe they passed Peoria a ways back while he was half-asleep, head resting uncomfortably against his arm on the door. They have a long way to go yet. He drapes his arms over the open door and listens while the spring peepers start up again, their shrill calls almost as loud as the idling engine.
“Okay, look,” he says finally. “I’ll make you a deal.” He sees Dean flinch, but presses on anyway. “I’ll eat something from the next place we pass if you sack out until morning. I know you don’t really trust me, but driving’ll give me something to do. It’s not like I’d be risking the Impala.”
“It’s not that, Sam…” Dean mumbles and he rests his head on the wheel, and Sam knows he’s got him.
“I know,” Sam says quietly. “It’s more like you can’t rest until you’ve found him. I saw you do this with Dad, remember.” He tugs on Dean’s arm, and his brother slowly, reluctantly, swings his legs out of the car and slumps there for a minute, elbows resting on his knees. “You’re the one who was always on my case to pace myself.”
“I am pacing myself.”
“Running into the ground is not pacing, Dean. Get in the passenger seat.”
He drops off and snorts awake in an exhausting cycle all the way to the next 24-hour café, waking for good when Sam pulls in and switches off the engine. “Wh’re we?”
“Just outside Bloomington.”
“’K.” He half-falls out the door. “Gonna take a leak. Get me pie.”
A sleepy-eyed waitress with grease spots on her mint-green uniform hands off plates of food and then retreats to the end of the counter, leaving them in peace, and Sam, thank christ, takes a bite of eggs.
“Was what she said true?” Dean asks around a mouthful of pastry.
“Who?”
“Demon-Gina.” He lowers his voice. “You’re not eating because you’re only hungry for blood?”
“I’m eating.” Sam takes another forkful as proof.
“Sam.”
“Okay, no. That’s not why. I’m just… I’m so sick to my stomach I can hardly swallow. I’ll try not to puke this up. Just don’t… don’t expect me to start right up with three squares a day, okay?”
“Okay, Sam. As long as you’re trying, okay.”
When they finish, Dean takes shotgun without protest. “Wake me at dawn.”
“Yes, Dean.”
“And if you start feeling woozy, wake me early.”
“Yes, Dean.”
“If you see anything weird, or any black things show up…”
“Let me guess-wake you up. I got it, Dean. Shut up and sleep, I can do this.”
Dean slumps in the seat, folding his arms on his stomach. Sam pulls smoothly onto the road, the lights on the café sign flashing bright red for a second across Dean’s lap.
As the Nova picks up speed, Dean realizes with a pang that he never got Cas that promised cup of coffee.
-----
The crack of a hard hand against flesh resonates through the room, and Castiel reels aside. Chuck yelps in protest. The angel in the elderly vessel snaps a hawk-like stare at him and he clamps his mouth shut and shrinks into the couch.
“That’s for your little stunt with the bloodspell,” Zachariah says coldly.
Castiel draws himself up, blood leaking from a split lip. The other two angels’ human appearances are deceiving-there’s a great deal of power banked inside those aging vessels. Zachariah has never liked soiling his own hands, but it looks as if he’s about to make an exception.
He slowly circles Castiel with a predatory gleam in his pale eyes, and Castiel moves in counterpoint, keeping his right side turned away as much as possible. Zachariah smiles.
“It’s no use. I can see the torn places. Ended up a chew-toy, didn’t you?”
“You know about those foul things tracking Dean?” The compulsion to be silent is wearing off, but Castiel’s tongue still feels thick and clumsy.
“I set them in motion.” As Castiel raises shocked eyes, Zachariah shrugs. “Desperate times. Keeping an open mind is why I’m standing on top of the heap, kiddo.”
He strolls closer, and Castiel can feel from the prickling in his feathers that he’s being herded into the corner. He spins aside quickly, but Zachariah is quicker-his hand strikes out and catches Castiel’s cheek with the back of his knuckles, another of those resounding cracks slicing the air.
He staggers, tripping around a low table tilting three-legged beneath fallen plaster and lath. There’s blood swirling behind his teeth, and more oozing down his face. The second angel moves to cut him off, but Zachariah waves him off.
“I want to handle this myself, Titus. Go and watch for the kennel bitch’s signal that she has the Winchesters.”
An icy chill swamps Castiel, and his eyes fall closed for an instant. He hears the rustle of Titus’ departure, and Chuck moans. “Oh, god, what are you doing?”
“Cleaning up the mess left by Castiel’s disloyalty,” Zachariah snaps.
“You have to do it here? Can’t you leave me in peace in what’s left of my house?” Chuck waves his arms at the destruction left by the archangel. “My TV’s busted, I don’t have any dishes left, my toilet exploded. My computer was fried even before the cops confiscated it! They dragged me to the station and the news was on there, and something really strange happened in Maryland.” He slides off the couch. He’s pale, but there’s a stubborn set to his mouth. “It worked, didn’t it? You really got Sam to let Lucifer out and now he’s walking the earth planning his big hostile takeover! So why’s your angel business here instead of out there tracking him down?”
“I have people for that.” Zachariah glares down at Chuck. “Now sit down and be quiet. You had your chance to sit this out and you chose to be annoying.” For those few seconds his attention is fully focused on Chuck.
A second is all Castiel needs.
He launches across the room and smashes into Zachariah, catching him in the chest with his shoulder. The other angel goes down hard, plowing across the littered floor and into the couch. It rocks with the impact, and Chuck shrieks and leaps back up on the cushions.
Zachariah’s neck is jammed at an acute angle against the base of the couch. Castiel seizes his head in both hands and slams it down so hard the floorboards crack. He draws back a fist, intending to drive it into Zachariah’s throat. Before he can strike, Zachariah flexes his back. With a hard popping sound like a banner streaming in a gale, his wings unfurl and propel him from beneath his adversary.
The resulting blast throws Castiel clear into the kitchen. He can’t get his own wing spread in time to slow himself, and he hits something boxy and metallic with jarring force. It crushes his trailing wing against an angular edge.
The pain is excruciating. The tears left by the ifrins’ teeth burst open, skin connecting feathers splitting to the bone.
He bounces down onto a sticky floor and screams.
His vision whites out as an earsplitting buzz fills the air, rebounding off the barrier sealing the house. Castiel twists, blood-streaked saliva pooling beneath his chin. Faintly he can hear Chuck screaming, “Stop! Stop it! No more!” and he does not know if he means the violence or his voice.
The floor vibrates with rapid footsteps. Something thuds heavily into his stomach, lifting and flipping him, and he rolls helplessly until he is brought up short by table legs, his broken wing wrapped in a mangled cloak about him.
Zachariah towers over Castiel, eyes glittering, jaw clenched tightly enough to crack molars. Castiel blinks away blood and struggles to sit up, unwilling to face such rage while sprawled on the floor.
And it is claimed we are without emotion, he thinks hazily.
Somehow he finds his feet. Feathers are falling away behind him, but he cannot be concerned. Zachariah is waiting, wings half-extended. Dirt is ground into his suit and the side of his head bears a deeply indented smudge of blood, but the air around him crackles with restless energy.
Castiel’s fingers catch the lip of the counter and shakily he hauls himself up. Bones grind as he shifts his wing behind him. There is something deeply amiss in his shoulder; his right hand has gone numb, and when he tries to move his arm, the pain lights up in the joint like a flare. He thinks he has taken a step forward, but finds a cupboard is beneath his back instead.
Zachariah watches, amusement pasted like a mask on his face. His wings dip, and he shakes his head. “You always were less warrior than scholar, weren’t you?” He gives himself an irritated little shake and instantly his clothing is immaculate again.
There is no point in remaining hidden now-Castiel pushes a quick surge of healing through the vessel. It is not nearly enough, only sufficient to get him moving. He shoves off the cupboard, leading with his left shoulder as if he intends to slam into Zachariah again. Instead, too quickly for human eyes to track, he lashes one foot out. The crunch of Zachariah’s knee snapping sounds thick and wet and caves him to one side as Castiel spins past.
A blast of air batters him back into the living room. Zachariah is still upright, wings outspread in compensation for his suddenly crippled leg. A mocking laugh peals out and the massive wings flex again, the draft knocking Castiel to the wall. Current needles his skin, blowback from the healing shooting through Zachariah into his knee. He furls his wings and gives a negligent wave of his hand.
Castiel is ground mercilessly into the wall at the back of Chuck’s living room.
The fight has left him stunned, chest hitching in agony from the crushed and twisted bones at his back. He tries to rock forward, tries to wrench his shoulders loose. Zachariah is not even straining to hold him. He studies his fingernails in exaggerated boredom, buffing them on his jacket sleeve, all the while pushing Castiel into the wall so hard his ribs creak.
“You have only yourself to blame for this situation, Castiel,” he chides. “All that effort to readjust your thinking and the minute my back is turned you betray your brethren all over again.” He pulls a sorrowful face, but beneath the veneer of false grief lies real anger. Castiel can feel it leaking around the edges of Zachariah’s vessel, simmering heat that jerks an involuntary flinch from him when Zachariah crowds close.
“Not to worry,” he says softly, breath stirring the hair by Castiel’s ear. “You’ve caused only a slight detour. I still need Dean Winchester to kill Lucifer, it’s true, but I’ve worked out just how you’ll get him to do what I require.”
Castiel coughs against the trickle of blood in his throat. “You deceived him. He will never assist you again.”
“Ah, but that’s the beauty of it-he will, and with a vengeance.” Zachariah draws back, beaming smugly at the battered figure before him.
He points two fingers, and heavy pressure settles atop Castiel’s shoulders. His eyes widen; he tenses against it reflexively. Zachariah twitches his fingers downward, increasing the pressure, and Castiel pushes harder even as his knees begin to shake. Zachariah motions more emphatically, his eyes tightening with annoyance. The pressure becomes a crushing weight.
Castiel buckles. He crashes to his knees on the Prophet’s floor.
“That’s better.” Zachariah clasps his hands behind his back and beams approvingly at the kneeling angel. “Penitent-I like that. Perhaps you can reflect upon your sins while I wait for a delivery. And when it arrives, we can begin.”
“Begin what?”
Zachariah swings around in mock surprise, as if he’s forgotten Chuck is still huddled on his couch. “I thought I told you to be quiet. Something you need to share with us, Prophet?”
Chuck shakes his head. “I just want to know what you’re going to do to him.” He swallows hard and pushes his fingers against his temples. “I haven’t had a vision since the convent.” His hands fall to his lap as Zachariah cocks his head, the bright, beady cast to his eyes oddly suspect. “But you knew that already, didn’t you?” he asks slowly.
The angel spreads his hands, smirking. “You yourself wrote down that angels are the agents of fate. And so we are. You are but our mouthpiece.” He strides to the couch, prompting Chuck to scramble along it, retreating to the far corner. “Relax. Let me show you what I mean.”
He bends forward, hands coming to rest on the back of the couch on either side of Chuck’s head. His lips brush the man’s forehead, and Chuck’s eyes roll back, lashes fluttering as he stiffens. When Zachariah draws back, a moment passes before he slumps and draws in a great whoop of breath. Panting, he stares open-mouthed at Zachariah.
“You… you… the visions are from you. You created them, stuck them in my head!”
“Of course.” Zachariah smiles slyly. “I had a very tight agenda. The best way to make sure the foot soldiers stayed with it was to filter it through a prophet.”
Chuck topples sideways, gasping. He clutches his head again, scrubbing at his forehead with shaking fingers as if he can rub out the images within. He looks past Zachariah to Castiel, swaying ever-so-slightly on his knees on the dirty floor, blood slicking his face and wildly ruffled hair. “You’re going to kill Castiel,” he groans. “Kill your own brother and make it look like Lucifer did it!”
Castiel startles, eyes flying up in shock. Zachariah strolls over and smiles fondly down at him. “I am indeed. Shall I tell you what Chuck sees? Your empty shell is going to be found at the foot of Marblehead Lighthouse - and how do you like that for symbolism? - befouled by demonic sigils and bloodwork and purged by our Fallen brother himself.” He pinches Castiel’s chin, tipping his battered face upward. “But don’t despair, little brother-you’ll be the catalyst for Dean to slay Lucifer at last.”
Castiel tries to wrench away. “Dean will not be taken in,” he says firmly.
“He will. He’ll be too enraged to see anything but what I place before his eyes. He’ll storm Lucifer’s defenses and cut him down in vengeance for your very... ugly... death.”
“I’ll tell him.” Chuck tumbles off the couch in a small avalanche of papers and pizza boxes, and backs away from the sneering angel. “I’ll tell Dean everything.”
“No, you won’t.” Zachariah releases Castiel’s chin with a hard shove and strides after Chuck. Static crackles around him, and he looms over the smaller man. Chuck somehow stands his ground. His chin trembles and his eyes fall closed, but he stands fast in the face of the intimidating figure.
“Let me show you why you won’t breathe a word to Dean Winchester,” Zachariah continues softly. He takes Chuck’s head, hands cupping gently around his ears, and draws him forward to receive another dry kiss on his forehead.
Flashes explode inside his head, like the beginnings of a prophetic dream except much, much more immediate and vivid. Bursts of color, smells, sound-a jumble at first, then lining up into a series of raw moments ripped from people’s lives.
An elderly woman, suffocating on her own blood as her throat is slashed through by a huge knife. A small boy, alternately brutalized and then soothed with perverse caresses. An infant ripped from its screaming mother’s arms and dashed apart on a stone floor. People set afire, torn to pieces, forced to watch children violated and parents murdered, all in increasingly creative and sickening ways.
Chuck isn’t just observing, he’s inside their minds-the victims and the perpetrators both. He lives the moments of terror and bloodlust right alongside each person, feels each atrocity as if it is his own. Tears streak his face when Zachariah breaks the contact. The angel’s hands clasping his head are the only thing keeping him from crumpling into a quivering ball.
“That was less than half a minute,” Zachariah tells him. He pats Chuck’s cheek and smiles beatifically. “Now imagine what will be left of your mind if I keep you in the midst of what man inflicts upon his fellow man for hours… or for days, like Castiel.” He steers Chuck solicitously over to the couch and thumps the shell-shocked man down. “You’ll be on your knees begging Dean to finish the job and put an end to such brutality and suffering.”
“Leave him alone,” Castiel growls as Chuck curls up and pulls his arms over his head.
Zachariah is suddenly in front of him again, backhanding Castiel with an explosive crack that drives his head to the side. “You are in no position to issue orders,” he says blandly. He aims a second blow and Castiel braces himself.
The air shifts. An angel steps down into the room in mid-stride, black boots thudding heavily on the floorboards.
Zachariah lights up with genuine elation. “Morahael. You have it?”
The angel Morahael reaches behind his back. “I do.” He draws out a narrow bundle wrapped in pale blue flannel, and presents it, two-handed, to Zachariah.
Zachariah peels aside the cloth and lets it flutter heedlessly to the floor. With something like reverence he lifts out a golden blade and holds it aloft. Even in the dim, dusty confines of Chuck’s house the sword gleams softly, the crimson smears on the blade glowing like stained glass.
“I had to convince Anna to tell us where she stashed this,” Zachariah says, admiring the sword as he cuts it through the air in slow, looping patterns. “She did… eventually.” He brings it to bear on Castiel, the stained blade only inches from his face. “Of course, in the public version, Lucifer retrieved his sword with the help of Uriel’s contingent, and slew the one who opposed his release.”
A scent like graveyard soil is leaching off the blade; Castiel turns aside in disgust. “What have you done, Zachariah?”
He smiles. “It was… suggested… to me that the blood of an infant, born six minutes after the Lightbringer’s rise and tainted by demon possession, might yield interesting effects on an angel. I sent loyal soldiers to follow the demons who were watching likely candidates.” He slaps Morahael on the back. “Your brother Morahael here was the lucky winner!”
“You are dealing with demons,” Castiel says with quiet horror.
“Why not? Dean’s precious Sammy was, and you didn’t seem to have a problem with that.” He breaks into a broad smile as the words sink in and Castiel bows his head. “Don’t despair, kiddo-what’s past is past. Now your sacrifice will be remembered for millennia.”
He turns and clears the clutter from the nearest tabletop with a sweep of the blade. Chuck doesn’t even twitch as notebooks, bottles and a half-squadron of action figures join the rest of the broken odds and ends on the floor. He lays the sword on the table, and when he turns back, he’s holding something else, something smaller and ancient and worn. When he rolls it in his palm, one end begins to glow cherry-red. A whiff of brimstone drifts through the air.
Castiel jerks his head up. His stoic expression is wiped away by sudden panic and he twists on his knees in an effort to wrench free. He manages to bend enough to push hard with his hands. The toes of his shoes scrape the floor as he rocks side to side.
“Put him against the wall and hold him-he won’t like this,” Zachariah says coldly.
A second later Morahael has him by the throat and is propelling him up off his knees and back until he slams into the wall. Chuck’s house quakes with the impact and a crack runs up the plaster, clear to the angle where wall and ceiling meet. A broad hand tattooed with a finely detailed cross spreads over Castiel’s throat, the heel grinding into the hollow just above his breastbone.
“Don’t help him do this!” Castiel gasps.
Morahael cocks his head, mirroring Castiel when he is curious or perplexed. The resemblance, both surface and internal, ends there. Morahael’s vessel is neither rumpled nor slight, and doesn’t look as though he could ever be battered and held against his will. Even without the angelic presence, he has the strength and power of Zachariah’s proverbial warrior. His face is utterly impassive, without a shadow of feeling reflected in his blank eyes.
Castiel’s plea doesn’t move him in the slightest. He simply jams Castiel flat and waits obediently.
And Zachariah steps up, stretches out Castiel’s left arm, and claps the glowing device ruthlessly onto the back of his hand.
The incandescent end sizzles into his flesh, filling the air with a burnt-meat stench. Castiel’s whole arm jerks as the pain races up his nerves to set off a detonation in his head. Sickening white bursts erupt, bowing his spine until the plaster is nearly pulverized under the back of his head.
Something in his center, inside him, not the vessel, contracts as a lock clicks shut around it. There’s something deeply, fundamentally wrong about it, and he instinctively tries to lift free of the vessel, to escape the bands drawing tight.
He’s snapped back before he even clears the skin surrounding him.
Castiel comes back to throbbing agony in his hand, pain shooting through his veins with every beat of his pulse and a throat so raw he must have been screaming. He rolls his head to the side, expecting to see nothing but charred bones at the end of his outstretched arm. The motion is weirdly delayed, as if he is not quite in control of the vessel’s movements. It takes another second for his aching eyes to catch up and locate his own hand.
It is still intact, although branded with a complex circle of interwoven lines. The configuration should mean something to him, but he cannot recall what. He does know that looking at it triggers a cold clench of dread in his stomach.
Someone chuckles, and his chin is grasped by sharp fingers. His head is turned roughly and his eyes slide-slip in the effort to focus. When they do, Zachariah is before him, smirking. The blurry figure to the side is Morahael, massive arms folded, feet apart, observing impassively.
Somehow Castiel summons up a glare. “Do what you will. Dean Winchester will see through your subterfuge.”
His voice is only a dry rasp, but Zachariah understands nevertheless and shakes his head. He holds up the device, a short block of gnarled wood and bone and blackened nail heads.
“Only demons are known to use binding instruments. They’re crude, but they get the job done. Shall I demonstrate?” Zachariah turns and tosses the binding iron onto the table, picking up the blood-stained sword in exchange. He catches and holds Castiel’s eye. “Be quiet-you’re upsetting the Prophet.”
And he digs the point into Castiel’s stomach, just above his navel.
The pain shockwaves clear into the marrow of his bones. Zachariah delicately twists the blade and an acid heat creeps outward, venom lancing through him, and through his vessel’s body. The point slices across his stomach, and then up and around in a loop as an ancient glyph is engraved into his flesh. Each intricate stroke sends another stitch of toxin into him, until the agony contorts Castiel against the wall.
Through it all, he is unable to make a single sound.
Zachariah completes the symbol with a flourish and cocks his head. Castiel’s torn shirts are glued to his abdomen with streams of blood, obscuring his handiwork. Annoyed, he wraps his fist in the collars and rips both t-shirt and button-down off Castiel’s back.
He tosses them aside with one hand while the sword comes back up in the other. The point circles hypnotically above Castiel. There’s a gleam in Zachariah’s eye that borders on fanatical.
Castiel is shaking, trying to remember to breathe, to swallow. He can feel the crawl of poison seeping through him, harsh and burning. The sword hones in on the joint of his right shoulder, the one that is already full of relentless grinding pain.
This one is going to be bad.
He sucks in a shallow breath while his fingers flex uselessly on the flaking plaster. He finds he is able to squeeze out a few words if he keeps his voice pitched low. “Dean will not be deceived.”
“We’ll see about that.”
The point lodges in the crease where arm meets upper chest, and another shockwave of bitter agony rocks Castiel. The acid burn slams its way to the top of his skull, where it collects and drips down, parting over the locked-down knot at his center and pooling in his belly. His head snaps back, throat working silently, as Zachariah wields the blade with the finesse of a calligrapher. He frowns slightly in concentration as he draws, and when he has finished the second profane glyph, he steps back to admire the dripping lines.
“No, I think Dean will find this very convincing.”
His voice echoes strangely, fading out to a thin hiss and then swelling to clarity again. Castiel tries to give his head a shake to clear it, but he cannot move; Zachariah has willed him to stillness, and still he stays.
Jimmy is clamoring frantically in the back of his mind, his wordless shouts of terror and hurt growing more panicked by the minute. He tries to calm him, to tuck him away from the torment, but he cannot reassure him. The binding power blocks his efforts.
Castiel works coppery moisture into his mouth. “Let Jimmy Novak go,” he breathes.
Zachariah cocks his head. “Who?” He regards Castiel with mild puzzlement, and then his face clears. “Oh, the vessel.” He rolls his eyes. “Of all the things to concern yourself with!” He reaches over and grabs the sagging waistband of Castiel’s too-loose jeans, and tugs sharply until the dark denim hangs below his left hip. “No,” he states flatly, and brings the sword around.
The point sinks in with excruciating slowness until with a nauseating electric jolt it touches bone. Castiel goes rigid against the wall and Zachariah lifts his wrist and begins to etch yet another demonic symbol.
-----
The rapid slowing of the car nudges Dean awake. The tires are rolling over gravel with measured crunches, and he flops his head sideways, not quite concerned yet, to see why Sam’s stopping. Sunlight blinds him and he squeezes his eyes shut again with a muttered curse.
The driver’s door is flung open and Sam scrambles noisily out. Dean goes from mildly annoyed why-didn’t-you-wake-me-it’s-way-past-dawn to holy-shit-Sam! in a tenth of a second flat. Blinking, he falls across the seats, craning to spot Sam, but his brother’s already out and around the car. Dean throws himself back the other way and shoves his own door open.
They’re at a rest stop off the side of some highway Dean doesn’t remember taking. Cars and trucks and tractor trailers are rushing past with steady whooshes, but the rest stop itself is empty and fairly quiet, set back from the highway in a wooded patch. Behind a pair of mossy picnic tables is a concrete block restroom, and Sam’s slamming through the door marked with a stick-figure man.
“Shit.”
By the time Dean catches up to him, Sam’s heaving violently into the bowl, bringing up everything he’s eaten in the last eight months, it sounds like. Dean pushes the stall door wider and Sam lashes behind him without looking, his fist skimming Dean’s chest before clanging into the metal wall.
“Lemme al-.” His snarl is interrupted by another bout of retching.
Dean goes out and roots through plastic bags until he comes up with a semi-clean t-shirt. When he gets back in the restroom, Sam’s on the floor, legs sprawled in crazy angles, sweaty grey face pressed to the stall. His shoulders twitch with the shuddering breaths he’s taking.
Dean wets the shirt in the small steel sink and crouches beside him. “You okay?”
“S-sorry. Tried.”
“I know. It’s okay.” He drapes the wet shirt around the back of Sam’s neck. After another few minutes Sam peels his face off the stall and rolls his head so the back of it rests on the wall. His hands are jittering at blurring speeds in his lap and he drops his eyes helplessly to them.
“How bad is it, Sam?”
He manages a tiny head shake. “Been worse.”
Dean crouches beside his brother and watches the tremors quaking through him. The bolts holding the stall to the floor are loose, and they rattle subtly with Sam’s shaking.
The rattling goes on for a long time.
Finally it begins to taper off. When Sam clenches his hands, he’s able to still the jittering. He draws in a long breath and grimaces. “Mouth tastes foul.”
“Can you stand up? You can rinse in the sink.”
He pulls in his feet, boots scraping on the rough cement, and rises in a series of ungainly lurches, Dean hoisting him by the bicep while his knees and elbows bang the metal walls. He slurps water from the sink while Dean hovers, making sure he doesn’t face-plant in the basin.
“Think I’m okay now.”
“Take your time.”
Dean’s acting like they’re in no hurry at all to get across state lines. He guides Sam out of the dank restroom and instead of urging him back to the car, sits him down at one of the picnic tables. “Take your time,” he tells him again.
They sit and listen to the traffic swishing past. After a minute, Sam lays his head on the sun-warmed wood. “Sorry,” he mumbles.
“It’s okay. You did pretty good for a while there.”
Sam nods without opening his eyes. “Thought we’d make better time on the interstate. Concentrating on driving was helping at first… and then it wasn’t anymore.”
“Hallucinations? Spasms shakin’ you up?”
“Nah.” Slowly Sam pushes up onto his elbows and digs his fingers into his temples. “Headache. And then my stomach. And…” He sneaks a look at his brother. “Don’t freak, okay?”
“What?”
“Just… I thought I heard voices, a couple of times. Quiet, in the back of my mind.”
“Sayin’ what?” Dean’s making a major effort to not freak, to not sound anything but dryly clinical.
“Just whispers. They went away when I tried to listen, came back when I stopped paying attention. They sounded…” Sam breaks off and looks down, picking at a splintery bit on the picnic table.
“You want to turn around?” Dean’s voice is deadly serious, laced with concern. “We’ll go to Bobby’s, get you to his safe room to wait this out. If we turn around right now, we can be there by tomorrow.”
“What about Castiel?”
There isn’t a trace of conflict in Dean’s expression as he looks at his little brother. “I’ll track him down later, after I get you settled at Bobby’s, make sure you’re gonna be okay.”
“No.” Sam stands, only wobbling a little as he extracts his legs from the bench. “No, we’re not leaving him with that son of a bitch. Come on-let’s get going.”
“You sure? Sam, you’d be better off locked in that room so you don’t get hurt.”
He shakes his head. “If it’s going to hurt me, it’ll find a way to do it no matter where I am. I’ll tell you if it starts getting bad.”
“You swear?”
“Yeah, I do.” He pauses. “Can you drive for a while?”
“Damn right I’m driving.” Dean slides behind the wheel and waits for Sam to fold himself into the passenger seat. He still looks way too pale and shaky.
Once they’re back on the road, the rising sun streams full into his face, and Sam peels the t-shirt from behind his neck and drops it over his face. “Music?” he asks, voice muffled by wet cotton.
“It won’t bother you?”
“Nuh-uh.” Sam works the seat until he’s half-reclining and can curl over on his side. “Need something besides whispering in my head,” he says, low.
“Okay.” Dean skates past a dozen or so faint stations until he finds a clear one. Twangy guitars exuberantly fill the car, and Dean groans. “Is this all we can pick up? Shit, you don’t want this, do you?”
Sam lifts an edge of the shirt away from one eye. “Normally I’d say Hell, yeah, just to watch you squirm. But my head really hurts.”
“You’re a pill, you know that?” Dean pretends to whine, and he catches Sam’s weak smile from the corner of his eye before Sam drags the shirt over his face again. He twirls the radio dial until at last he finds a classic rock station out of Chicago that only fades out a little every few minutes. A low buzz of static runs beneath the music, but for some reason it doesn’t bother him.
“This one okay?”
“Mm.” Sam folds his arms tightly over his stomach.
“You okay?”
“Kinda. Stomach aches.”
“Tell me if I gotta stop.”
“’K. Hey, Dean?”
“Yeah?”
“You have any idea how you’re going to fight off Zachariah and get Castiel away from him?”
Dean stares down the rolling highway into the distance. “I’m workin’ on it,” he answers finally.
-----
Which is worse, Chuck wants to know-watching an angel who quite frankly scares the ever-lovin’ crap out of him slice one of his brothers to ribbons right in front of his eyes, or closing his eyes and getting a replay of that hellish slide show of people being tormented in horrific ways?
A wet cough pulls him out of the blood-soaked images flashing relentlessly on the inside of his eyelids. Reality isn’t any better-Castiel is streaming blood from symbols incised over virtually every joint on his vessel’s body; streaks smear the wall he’s pinned against and ring the floor at his feet.
Somehow he’s gotten his chin up off his chest and he looks Zachariah straight in the eye.
“Dean… will not… be deceived,” he whispers with utmost conviction.
Chuck cringes, and sure enough, the defiant words set Zachariah right off again. Fury blasts off him in a dark wave, and he hauls off and clobbers Castiel right across the face. The heavy blow knocks his head aside and speckles Chuck’s wall with yet another constellation of red.
Poor stubborn guy just won’t take a hint and shut up.
There’s an almost inaudible rustle behind the angel. Chuck winces as more of those dark plumes scatter across the littered floor. Zachariah rounds on Castiel with a face full of wrath, one feather crushing into the blood-splattered debris beneath his foot as he moves close. He reaches behind Castiel and seizes something high on his back in an iron fist. Castiel goes rigid, throat working silently.
“Why do you have such faith in that wretch?” Zachariah hisses.
Castiel rolls his eyes to meet Zachariah’s. “Why do you not?” he breathes.
The air crackles with tension. Static begins to snap around Zachariah as he leans in, lips thinning to hard bloodless lines. Chuck scrunches lower in the couch as the angel’s hand clenches tighter and begins a slow, deliberate twist. Castiel’s eyes go wide and blank and Chuck’s stomach lurches so hard bile burns the back of his throat.
Just as he thinks he’s about to become witness to the utter desecration of an angel’s wings being ripped clear off his back, the air shifts. Morahael steps into the room with a loud thud of bootheels.
He likes those boots, Chuck figures; he keeps thumping proudly when he stomps about, and he vaguely remembers the way the angel clattered unnecessarily across the entire downstairs to take off when Zachariah had sent him off earlier.
If he ever gets the visions back, he’s going to write Morahael losing those boots in a really embarrassing sequence of events and then replacing them with plaid fleece bedroom slippers.
Zachariah’s fist relaxes and he swings sharply around. “What is it, Morahael?”
“Sir, there’s no sign of the demon or the Winchesters.”
The air crackles again. The hair on Chuck’s body rises as an electric charge builds dangerously, teetering on the brink of discharging into the nearest vulnerable object-probably him.
And then Zachariah squares his shoulders and the ominous charge subsides. “Inconvenient,” he snaps. “But Dean is needed.” He tips his head to the ceiling for a moment, gaze distant as he weighs his options. Finally he shrugs. “If you want something done right…” he sighs.
And so quickly that Chuck’s eyes can’t track him, Zachariah whirls and drives the golden sword straight into Castiel’s body, spearing him through the right shoulder to the wall.
Chuck screams-he can’t help it. He thought the torture was the stuff of nightmares; now he’s got an angel of the Lord impaled on his living room wall.
Castiel has gone paralytic with shock; his mouth moves once and then his eyes glaze over and his body sags, the weight of him hanging off that golden blade protruding obscenely from beneath his collarbone.
“You wait right there,” Zachariah says with dark humor and a taunting shake of his finger. He whips around to Chuck. “Don’t touch him.”
And then he and Morahael vanish.
For a long time, maybe even hours, Chuck huddles on his couch, eyes clamped shut, hands jammed tight to his ears. Zachariah doesn’t return and as far as he can tell, Castiel doesn’t move.
Maybe he’s dead.
He wonders if his house is still sealed. If it’s not and the cops pay another visit… well, shit, he’s so screwed. He’s got a maybe-dead guy skewered to his wall with a sword.
“Chuck.”
The muted whisper somehow slips past his hands blocking his ears. Chuck moans and burrows his head between hunched shoulders.
He doesn’t want to watch an angel die.
“Chuck.”
He squirms unhappily, but the nearly soundless plea is in his head now, ghosting around and refusing to be ignored. Chuck cracks one eye open and risks a glance across the room.
Castiel runs a dry tongue over even drier lips. “Before he returns…” he rasps, and cuts his gaze pointedly to his branded left hand, splayed out flat and frozen on the spattered plaster.
“Oh, no! No, no, no!” Chuck scooches to the other corner of the couch, shaking his head violently. “He’ll pull my intestines out through my nose if I touch you!”
A strange light kindles in the depths of Castiel’s eyes. Chuck freezes and stares in horrified fascination.
“Just the binding… fire, water, iron of the earth… those will break it… please.”
“NO!” Chuck launches off the couch, away from that imploring voice and disturbing glow seeping out of the angel’s eyes. “He’ll kill me… and bring me back… and kill me again!” He stumbles into the kitchen. “I’m sorry, really I am. But I don’t wanna die any of those ways he showed me.”
He ransacks his cupboards, flinging aside all the packages he so painstakingly salvaged earlier. What a stupid waste of effort-the world is ending and he was putting his house to rights!
It had kept reality at bay for a few hours, at least.
He finds it under the sink, buried behind a burst cylinder of prehistoric Comet cleanser and an unopened sleeve of mouse traps-a bottle of sherry presented to him one Christmas eons ago by an overly friendly neighbor, back before they all discovered Chuck isn’t really the sociable type.
The stuff’s foul, not much better than the drain cleaner it’s been rubbing shoulders with, but it has an alcoholic content and the heavy glass is unbroken.
He backs out of the cabinet, clutching the dusty bottle to his chest. Coffee, yeah, he needs coffee, that’ll make the sherry palatable. Nice hot cup of spiked coffee to settle his jangling nerves. Resolutely ignoring the fact that there’s a rapidly weakening angel at his back, Chuck digs out a saucepan, runs water into it, and sets it on the stove to heat.
He stands at the sink while he waits for the water to boil, staring out the window at the inaccessible street. The scenery hasn’t changed since this began-the light’s still stuck on late afternoon, cars haven’t returned to driveways from 9 to 5 jobs, kids aren’t dashing around lawns. He’s just looking at a screensaver, and an ugly one at that.
He wonders, despite himself, what’s really happening out there.
Where Lucifer is. How many demons are dancing in the streets. What the angels are doing about it.
Besides trying to bring in Dean Winchester, that is.
Dean.
Chuck shifts uncomfortably. The saucepan is steaming, bubbles just starting to rise around the edges, so he turns and roots through the mound of packages until he unearths a coffee can.
It’s going to get nasty if Zachariah does manage to round up Dean.
He can’t stop himself from throwing a helpless glance back at Castiel, and is immediately sorry he did. The angel’s slumped over again, hanging limp and defeated from that sword piercing him. Tremors shiver down his bloodied body in constant waves.
Zachariah is not the kind of creature you cross, not and live to tell about it.
But Chuck’s been writing Dean Winchester for years now-he knows what makes the guy tick. As much as any outsider can, he’s gotten a glimpse of what’s in Dean’s head, in his heart.
And he doesn’t want to be on the same continent as Dean Winchester when he finds out what was done to his angel.
Chuck Shurley picks up the pan of vigorously boiling water.
Castiel drags his head up as Chuck crosses rapidly to him. The eerie light seeping around his eyes drains away, the resigned expression replaced by sudden fierceness. Chuck hefts the saucepan. “You sure about this?”
When Castiel jerks a tiny nod, Chuck flings the bubbling contents over his left hand.
A sickly greenish light explodes outward with a deafening crack that batters Chuck’s eardrums. He drops the empty pan and dives for the floor. When he dares look up, Castiel has pulled his blistered hand free of the wall and wrapped it tightly around the hilt protruding from his shoulder. His face contorts and his arm tenses as he rocks the blade, inching it bit by bit out of his vessel and the wall behind him in excruciating increments.
The scrape of metal on lath and bone grates in Chuck’s molars and sends a violent shudder down his spine. Castiel pauses and gasps and then swallows hard and drags at the hilt again as Chuck clamps his hands over his ears once more.
The floor shakes when Castiel crashes down onto it. He lies sprawled face-down for long moments, the sword still clutched in an outflung hand marked by a now-distorted glyph. Motion shimmers at his back. Plumes drift down on either side of his body, darkened and tattered, and Chuck watches with sorrow as they wink out in the rubble.
Finally he rolls to his knees, the sword point biting into the floor as he pushes upright with it, right arm cradled tightly to his stomach. Pain has washed away all the impassiveness in his expression, and Chuck scrambles up and instinctively offers a hand to him. Castiel turns and Chuck shrinks back from the barely-checked ferocity in his eyes.
Castiel rises, swaying, and takes a halting step. When he has located the door, he weaves over to it and grasps the doorknob. He braces and pulls back on it while at the same time pushing forward with his upper body. The air flexes; then there’s a soft ‘pop’ of a seal breaching. Chuck’s house seems to exhale, and then the door is open and Castiel is through it. He stumbles down the porch steps, knocking against the railing as he goes.
Night has fallen during the nightmarish hours the house was in lock-down. He reaches the bottom of the stairs and throws a disoriented glance around the quiet street.
And then Castiel disappears into the darkness with a last glimmer of golden blade.
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On to Chapter 4