The Lonely City--Chapter 4 (4/5)--SPN Fic
Navigation: Chapter Three--Chapter Four-- Epilogue
Adam keeps hoping that the whispering will stop, but if anything, it gets louder as the day wears on.
By what Adam thinks is about mid-day, it’s loud enough that he can almost pick out words. It’s a constant, insect-like buzz that’s as good a torture as anything in the Cage. It’s not just affecting Adam; Azazel’s jaw is tense and set, and he’s walking faster now, fast enough that Adam has to jog to keep up.
“What’s going on?” he asks, curiosity winning over caution.
Azazel’s eyes are glowing yellow in the gloom. “We need to find shelter,” he says. “Now.”
There’s a harsh, splitting crack of thunder, and Adam jumps. The sky flashes blue-white for a second, and the next roll of crashing sound chases on its heels.
Azazel stops dead in the center of the street. “Too late.”
There’s a cold wind swirling lazily down the street towards them, picking up dust and scraps of paper. It should be innocent, benign. Adam has a sinking feeling that it isn’t.
“Adam?” It’s Sam’s voice again, coming from behind him, and Adam whirls around. His brother, or something wearing his brother’s face, is standing in the road. He’s half-transparent, ghost-like, dripping silvery blood from cuts too numerous and too deep for anyone to survive. Of course, that isn’t really an issue here.
“Hey,” Adam says. There’s something thick in his throat that he has to make an effort to talk around.
“You didn’t help me last night,” Sam says. “You didn’t help me, after everything I did for you, everything I took for you.”
Adam swallows hard. He knows this isn’t Sam, but it’s still hard to see him like this, like something broken and dead. Sam takes a faltering step towards him.
“Please, Adam,” he says. “You can still help me.”
Adam’s step backwards mirrors Sam’s approach. Thunder cracks again, a little further away, but still loud. Adam flinches.
Then the rain lets loose, stinging against Adam’s skin. It burns cold, and he’s soaked and freezing in an instant. The sky’s almost dark now, and the light’s going fast. The wind picks up, and the whispering voices grow louder, carried on the air.
The Sam-thing flickers and reappears a foot away, looming over Adam. In all the years they’d spent together, Adam had never been intimidated by his brother’s height, but now Sam looks like a giant. Adam almost trips as he scrambles backwards again, stopping just short of running into Azazel.
That’s when he realizes that they’re surrounded.
He doesn’t recognize their faces, but judging from Azazel’s bitten off curse, maybe the demon does. That or he’s just vocalizing how very screwed they are.
They’re everywhere, drifting out of the houses like ghosts, shimmering into existence in the road. They’re all as pale and dead-looking as Sam, with the same translucent quality that keeps them from looking quite real.
“Please,” they say, and it doesn’t even sound like fifty people speaking; it sounds like one person speaking with fifty mouths. “Please, why don’t you help us?”
They’re pressing in all around Adam and Azazel, like they’re the plot-relevant sacrifices in a zombie movie. The one that looks like Sam is closest, but he’s speaking with the hollow, broken voice of the group now. It helps, a little, to distance the walking nightmare in front of him from his brother.
The first outstretched, pleading hands reach him, fingers catching on his shirt, his hair. Adam shrinks in, trying to avoid their grip, and trying not to think that this is just the continuation of his fight with the monsters back in the alley.
It takes him a frantic second to realize that they aren’t reaching for him. He’s just in the way. They’re aiming past him, trying to pull themselves over him, to get at Azazel. There’s an opportunity here, and it hits him the split second after he realizes he’s not the creatures’ target.
Adam lets them push past him, ducking low so he can slip between them and out of the crush of non-corporeal bodies.
He’s almost free when something grabs him, cold fingers digging into his wounded arm. It’s the one that looks like Sam, his face set in some twisted, complicated thing between anger and desperation. “Please,” he says again, and the rest echo him like an otherworldly Greek chorus.
Adam yanks hard, ignoring the splitting pain as his arm protests. It works, somehow, on the first try. Adam’s not sure if he could have tried again.
He runs, which is starting to feel as familiar as breathing. He doesn’t know where he’s going, and that’s okay, because if he doesn’t know, maybe Azazel won’t either.
Adam can still hear the ghosts/monsters/whatevers several blocks away in the road behind him, but he doesn’t look back to see if they’re still swarming around Azazel; he really doesn’t want to know.
It still isn’t completely dark; the light’s staying somewhere around a dim twilight, just bright enough for him to see where he’s putting his feet, more or less, but still dark enough that the shadows take on weird, twisted forms. At least the rain’s slackened off.
Adam stops for breath a half-dozen blocks from where he’d left the monsters. He bends over, hands on his knees, just trying to relearn how to breathe normally. The city’s quiet again.
Then there’s a soft splash from the road to Adam’s left and he freezes. He straightens up slowly, trying to see into the gloom of the road. All that’s visible are patches of deeper darkness and faint silvery reflections where puddles catch the light, but Adam knows there’s something-or someone-there. That or he’s finally cracking.
“Are you going to stand there like an idiot,” a familiar voice asks. It sounds annoyed. “Or are you just going to run off again?”
Adam can almost see him now, a small, blurry shape maybe twenty feet away and getting closer.
He can run. It looks like Gabriel’s limping, and archangel or no, Adam should be able to outpace him.
“Give me a reason to trust you.” Adam backs away, keeping the distance between them.
“Um, I died for your brothers? Don’t tell me that doesn’t win me some points.”
Maybe Sam-the real Sam-had mentioned something about that, but it had been centuries ago, and he can’t quite remember the whole story. Crap.
He’s up against the wall now. He could still dart around the corner and run, but he’s tired of running. He didn’t do all that great on his own, and while he’s hoping the ghost-things took care of Azazel, he can’t be sure. Gabriel, at least, kept him more or less safe, and regardless of what else he may be, Adam would rather have him loose on the world than Azazel.
“Adam?” Gabriel sounds less certain now. He’s still advancing, slowly, painfully, and there’s only maybe ten feet between them. “Come on,” Gabriel says, and it’s almost gentle. “Let’s get inside, then we can talk.”
Adam’s tired, tired enough that even trusting an archangel doesn’t sound like such a bad idea.
“Fine,” he says. “Lead the way.”
Apparently, they’re only a few blocks away from the empty store where they’d spent the first full night here and he’d left Gabriel. Adam’s not sure how that works; he’s pretty sure he’s been heading steadily away from there for the last two days. All he’s knows for sure is that he’s ready to be back where things make sense, wherever that might be.
Gabriel’s definitely limping, and Adam’s not sure what could hurt an archangel like that. He’d kind of like to know, and he makes a mental note to ask later.
After the horrible apartment he’d stayed in with Azazel, the store almost feels like home. The narrow cot is soft, and it’s nearly enough to make Adam relax. Gabriel’s already settled onto the other cot with a sigh, lying back against the headboard with his eyes closed. He could be asleep, but Adam knows better.
“So,” Gabriel says casually, not opening his eyes. “What happened to you?”
Because that’s not a broad question at all. It’s easiest to start at the beginning. “Your brothers.”
Gabriel doesn’t open his eyes. “Ah,” he says, then, “my brothers as in ‘angels in general’ or as in ‘immediate family’?”
“That last one.”
“Oh.”
The conversation lulls after that, and Adam finds himself becoming unreasonably interested in the patterns of water damage on the ceiling.
Adam’s almost asleep when Gabriel breaks the silence. “So, Dean never did give the Big Yes to Michael?”
“He might have eventually,” Adam says carefully, which is mostly to disguise that he’s trying not to yawn, “but Michael got impatient.”
Gabriel sighs. It’s verging into over-dramatic territory, but Adam’s starting to think that’s just how he is. “Sounds like something Mikey would do. He never could wait for the nice toys.” He cracks an eye open and makes an apologetic face at Adam. “No offense.”
Adam shrugs. He always knew Michael considered him second-best to Dean; the angel had never been shy about telling him exactly that.
“And Sam?” Gabriel’s eyes are closed again, a look of complete disinterest settled comfortably across his face, but Adam knows it’s just a front. He can see the tension in the angel’s body, hard lines of muscle that don’t match his aura of careless nonchalance.
“He said yes to Lucifer,” Adam tells him. “Then dropped all four of us into the Cage. The angels got him out eventually. Don’t know where he is now.” Hopefully somewhere better than this.
“Ah.” The tension’s still there, but it’s lessened. “I thought maybe he had it in him.”
Neither of them says anything for a long time. The ghost-things are still out there; Adam can hear them somewhere in the darkness, but it’s faint and distant, and the store feels safe, at least for now.
“We should be out of here by this time tomorrow,” Gabriel says. “Earlier, if we’re lucky.”
Adam had almost been asleep again, but he’s wide awake now. “Really? How?”
“We were just coming at it at the wrong angle, like your demon friend was. I think I have it now.”
“Is that why we were looping around-hey!” Adam turns to glare at Gabriel. “How do you know about that?”
Gabriel shrugs, unconcerned. “By the time I picked up your trail, he’d already beaten me to you. I figured it would be safer for you if he didn’t know I was there, so I just followed behind you. Also, I was hoping he knew the way out, and could lead us to the gateway.”
Huh, the real reason. Adam’s ready to tell Gabriel exactly what he thinks of his messed-up priorities, but then he remembers exactly what Gabriel is: he’s not Adam’s friend, not some kind of guardian angel that can be tamed and taught manners, he’s an archangel, and he’s going to do whatever the Hell he wants to. For all Adam knows, Gabriel doesn’t see him as anything more than a way out. It’s a sobering thought, but one Adam knows he can’t forget.
“Alright then,” Adam says, lying back down. “Guess it all comes down to tomorrow.” He rolls over on his side, his back towards the angel, and this time, he does fall asleep.
Adam wakes up buzzing with nervous tension, the same feeling he used to get before a big test back in school. He’s kind of amazed he can still remember what that feels like, like the centuries of Hell never even happened. It’s oddly encouraging, and it makes him hope that maybe he’s not as broken as he’d thought.
He’d expected them to leave as soon as the sun came up, or rather, as soon as it was light. Gabriel fusses around in the morning, though, like he’s trying to remember to pack everything, even though they don’t actually have anything to pack. So, Adam spends what feels like half the morning sitting in the middle of his cot, feeling increasingly irritated.
He does take the opportunity to ask Gabriel about his plan, though he doesn’t get a straight answer, and try and find out what happened to Gabriel’s leg. In response to that, Gabriel had muttered something about how he thought guys with tentacles only existed in porn and Pirates of the Caribbean, and Adam had decided maybe he didn’t really want to know.
By the time they head out, it’s finally stopped raining, and the clouds have even burned off some. For the first time, the sun is shining through, and Adam’s almost excited about that until he realizes that, like the circle of Purgatory before this one, the sun’s just wrong. Here, it’s too red, staining the sky a livid, unnatural orange. He tries to ignore it and just keep moving.
Gabriel doesn’t seem to have a definite plan, leading Adam on a circuitous path through the city. It feels completely random, for a while, Adam wonders if it is. It takes Adam longer than he’d care to admit to realize that they aren’t really wandering aimlessly-they’re following a trail.
There’s a faint line of scorch marks that’s close enough to the burnt stone surrounding the last gateway that Adam feels like he should have recognized it as important earlier. Once he realizes what they’re following, the scorch marks are everywhere. He stops to take a closer look at the nearest one, a long line like a whiplash waist-high on the wall, soot-black against the gray concrete.
Gabriel stops, too, then takes a few steps back to bring him level with Adam. “So,” he says, “you noticed.”
Adam reaches out towards the wall, but stops before he actually touches it, fingers hovering over the mark. “What did this?”
“Something bigger and badder than you’d ever want to meet in the real world. The door was open, and they sure as Hell weren’t hanging around.” Gabriel shrugs. “I found one that didn’t make it out yesterday, and sent it back into the far reaches. It told me what happened first, though.”
So that was what had happened to his leg. “And they’ll lead us out?”
“It might not be the most direct route, but at least we have something to follow. It won’t lead us in circles.”
Which is about as good as they’re going to get. Adam straightens up and starts walking, eyes scanning the walls and pavement for the next mark, Gabriel stalking ahead of him.
About mid-day, the trail ends. Adam’s watching the ground, and doesn’t even notice when Gabriel stops until he almost bumps into him.
“What’s wrong?”
Gabriel doesn’t answer, just jerks his chin towards the road ahead of them. Adam follows his gaze up, and-oh.
It’s not the even circular scarring that surrounded the last gateway. It’s a tangled, writhing mess of the scorch marks they’ve been following, like the site of a battle, or maybe a massacre, blackened stone dark like dried blood against the asphalt.
Adam swallows hard.
The building it’s centered around doesn’t look like much. It’s taller than most of the houses and stores around it-maybe three stories tall-and blocky, perhaps a bank or something similar. It’s made of the familiar gray stone and blank concrete, its façade featureless and uninviting. There are no windows, but about halfway up, something’s smashed its way inside, leaving gaping holes in the walls.
There’s something else about it, too. Adam can feel the echoes of Hell from where he’s standing, and he knows it’s coming from the building. They’ve reached the exit, but all Adam wants to do now is run as fast as he can back into the city.
“Adam?” Gabriel’s watching him, eyebrows drawing together in the beginnings of a frown.
“We-we’ve got to go in there, don’t we?”
“Um, yeah, that’s the idea.”
Adam takes a deep, shaky breath. “I’m ready.”
They’re maybe a block from the building, but it feels like farther. There’s a real door at least; it’s tall and narrow, and it takes both of them pulling on the handle to open it.
Inside, it’s dark and humid. It’s hard for Adam to get much of a picture in the gloom, but there don’t seem to be floors-instead, it’s open to the ceiling, most of which is gone, collapsed into a small mountain of broken concrete and wooden beams that stick up at odd angles like the broken ribs of a prehistoric sea-creature. The light is dim, but the holes in the ceiling and walls let some light in, pale shafts of sunlight that stain the floor a milky yellow.
He’s fine until he and Gabriel take more than a few steps inside. Then the smell hits him. It’s fetid and rotten with a sharp, metallic tang of copper, and the warm, damp air only makes it worse. It’s like the houses they’d had to cut through before, and it’s all Adam can do to keep himself from throwing up, passing out, or both. He makes himself keep going.
They’re about twenty feet in when the door slams shut behind them. Adam jumps, instinctively edging closer to Gabriel. “What was that?”
“Hey.” Gabriel’s voice sounds carefully nonchalant in the dark. “You didn’t happen to notice if we were followed, did you?”
“He’s not very observant.”
Adam can’t see the speaker, but he doesn’t have to. Oh shit.
“I think it’s a family thing,” Azazel goes on. Now that Adam’s eyes have started to adjust, he can almost see him-a dark blurry shape and a pair of pale golden eyes that shine in the gloom. “His brothers and daddy never seemed that bright either.”
“Have to agree with you on that one,” Gabriel says. He’s moving carefully around so he’s standing between Adam and the demon. “Still, they had enough brains to kill you.”
Azazel’s standing on the far side of one of the pools of light now, and Adam can see him well enough to recognize the demon’s shrug. “I was having a bad day. It happens to the best of us.”
Adam’s not sure what their plan is. They’ve only got a few options, really-out the door (pointless), try and open the gateway before Azazel catches up with them (snowball’s chance in Hell), or fight and defeat Azazel (not likely, unless Gabriel can be badass enough for both of them).
“You know,” Azazel says, “I remember you, Gabriel. Back in the old days, before I became Lucifer’s. You might have been impressive then, with your regalia and your father’s favor, but you were never more than a pompous fool hiding behind your stronger, cleverer brothers. And now, stripped of all that, you’re nothing.”
Gabriel’s harsh snort of laughter is startling in the dark. “And you still love the sound of your own voice way more than is healthy, Azazel. We’ve all got issues.”
He’s edging backwards, slowly pushing Adam towards the center of the room. Adam lets himself be herded, moving his feet carefully so he doesn’t trip. Most of the rubble is centered under the impromptu skylight, but the ground is still treacherous and uneven. For a moment, Adam thinks that Azazel hasn’t noticed their retreat. Then he realizes that the demon is mirroring their movements, a steadily approaching shape in the darkness.
“You’re going to run?” Azazel calls. “I’d expected more from you. Not a lot, sure, but something.” He’s fast, and in the dark it seems like he’s moving the same way as the ghost-things, flickering closer and closer.
“Adam,” Gabriel hisses, “make for the top of the pile, draw the sign, and wait. If Azazel gets past me, go ahead and jump.”
“What? No!”
“It’ll close up when you’re through.” He gives Adam a hard shove.
For a second, Adam doesn’t even know if he’s going to follow Gabriel’s orders. He’s never liked being bossed around, and, whatever else he might be, he’s not a coward. Still, he’s already proven just how well he can fight Azazel. He turns and runs for the light, shoes sliding on the rubble.
Behind him, there’s a faint ring of metal as someone draws their knife. Adam doesn’t look back, but he can hear them as he runs, thuds and bitten-off curses. He’s halfway there-maybe only forty feet away, when he hears Gabriel cry out. He half turns, blinking to adjust his eyes to the dark again after staring into the dim light.
Gabriel’s still standing, his knife held loosely in his hand as he tries to staunch the wound on his left arm. He’s backing away from Azazel, who’s advancing towards him with his knife held out and a cold smile on his face. Adam sees the second when Azazel realizes that Adam’s standing frozen in the middle of the room and Gabriel’s no longer between them. Adam makes the connection an instant too late.
An invisible force rams into Adam like a semi-truck, throwing him sideways until he hits the wall, hard. The impact knocks all the air out of him, but the expected fall to the ground never comes. He’s pinned, feet dangling three feet from the ground, helpless.
Azazel strides up towards him until they’re separated by maybe ten feet, which is, in Adam’s opinion, far closer than he ever wanted to be to the demon again. Halfway across the room, Gabriel gives a low angry hiss.
“Now, now,” Azazel says. “You’d better be careful.” He makes a slight movement with one hand, and Adam slides a few inches further up the wall. “You wouldn’t want me to panic and accidentally kill young Adam, would you?” His expression shifts from a pleasant smile into something darker. “Drop the knife.”
There’s a long moment where Adam thinks Gabriel’s going to refuse, that he’s going to take the opportunity of the demon’s distraction and charge. Adam kind of hopes he does. Then the moment is over, and the knife hits the floor with a dull ring of metal against stone.
“That’s better. Now, listen carefully. You are going to stay nice and cooperative while Adam opens the final gate for me. If you both behave, I might even let you live. Or you know, whatever.” He gestures with the knife. “Back up.”
Gabriel obeys. As soon as the angel is almost against the opposite wall, the invisible bonds vanish and Adam falls the last few feet to the floor. He lands badly, his legs giving underneath him, and he ends up on all fours, concrete digging into his knees and the palms of his hands. Also, now that the pressure’s gone, he’s realizing that it wasn’t just Azazel’s power making his ribs hurt. Every breath feels like his chest is on fire, and he’s trying not to notice the way one of his ribs is poking out oddly under his tee-shirt.
“Up.” Azazel pokes at his chest with a booted toe, and everything goes black for a second. “Up,” he says again. “I don’t want to have to carry you, but I will. You don’t have to be alive for this to work.”
Adam’s not sure how he managed to drag himself up and start the long walk to the center of the room again. Some part of him is dimly aware that it’s the same instinct that kept him going when he was in the Cage, but all he’s conscious of is that he hurts like Hell.
Climbing the rubble is even worse than walking. Every movement jars his ribs, as well as the dozen other smaller injuries. By the time he reaches the top, Adam’s gasping for breath and cold sweat is dripping down his nose and making his shirt stick to his back.
He’d expected the top of the pile to be, well, the top of the pile. He hadn’t expected for the rubble to be pushed back around a raised, flat disk, like the caldera of a volcano. The disc itself is maybe four feet across, and it’s covered in runes and sigils in what Adam thinks might be Enochian, or something older. Azazel, who’s been following him closely all the way up, freezes on the lip, and Adam realizes that there’s a Devil’s Trap working into the designs, though the symbols don’t match the ones Sam had taught him.
“Here.” Azazel tosses Adam the knife. Somehow he manages to catch it, though he almost drops it when the hilt hits his skinned hand. Adam takes a deep breath, winces, and re-opens the barely healing cut on his arm. Azazel’s knife is sharper than Gabriel’s had been, and he barely has to apply pressure at all before the warm blood starts to trickle down his arm. He slides the knife into his belt.
He takes another breath, shallower this time, and carefully draws out the symbol he’d used to open the first gateway. When he draws the last line with a sweep of dusty, red-stained fingers, he jumps back. He’d prefer to go through a more dignified way than the floor opening up underneath him, and anyway, he’s still hoping he and Gabriel can both get out of here. He’s not leaving the angel to face Azazel alone.
He stands on the narrow lip of broken cement and waits.
Nothing happens.
“Are you sure you did that right?” Azazel asks, voice dangerously low. “Because, I’m sure a nice ritual sacrifice would work if that’s all you’ve got.”
“It didn’t work because he didn’t know that right sigil.” Adam hadn’t heard Gabriel climbing the pile, but now he’s standing on the lip, the third point of their makeshift triangle.
“Here,” Gabriel says. “I helped build this place, so that ought to count for something. Why don’t you try this?” He crouches down and draws a pattern in the dust. Adam and Azazel both crane to read it, but Gabriel casually blocks the demon’s view with his body.
Logically, Adam’s never seen this collection of symbols before. There’s something familiar about them though, and he wonders if that’s just a side effect of having an archangel in his head. He glances between the design and Gabriel. The angel’s smiling, a wide, predatory grin that’s not quite comforting. Still, it’s the best they’ve got.
Adam’s attempt at copying the symbol is sloppy and uneven. The lines don’t look quite right, and drawing in blood is harder than satanic priests make it look on TV. It’s more complicated than the first symbol, too, and it takes him a few tense minutes to finish tracing the lines in what he hopes is enough of an approximation to work. He scrambles back quickly when he’s done; he’s not sure what Gabriel’s up to, but he doesn’t want to get caught in it.
He can feel the change in the air almost immediately, and he knows it’s working. There’s a wisp of an air current that grows into a wind, twisting around them and rustling his hair. Instead of dispelling the foul smell, it makes it worse, and Adam has the sinking feeling the unnatural wind is coming from wherever the gate is opening into.
The runes and words on the disk shift and move, re-forming around the edges of the circle. In the center of the ring, a dark hole opens, swallowing the stone down into its depths, and Adam has a sharp flash of memory back to a similar hole, one that lead to the darkest corner of Hell.
The pit has almost opened to the edge of the disk. Adam had expected white light, like when he’d opened the first gateway, but instead it’s black shot through with flashes of nightmarish red, and maybe his sense of déjà vu wasn’t completely unfounded. Adam’s looking into Hell.
Across the circle from him, Azazel snarls, eyes shining bright in the reflected hell-fire.
“Not a wise move, sonny-boy.”
Adam stumbles sideways, because he’s figured out Gabriel’s plan now. The rubble shifts under his feet, and between the pain in his ribs and arm and the dizziness from the stench and the mere presence of Hell, Adam’s about ready to pass out. He makes it around the edge of the pile, then freezes. Azazel’s nowhere in sight.
Someone grabs him from behind, and Adam twists around, almost falling. Azazel has his right arm in a tight grip, and when Adam turns, the demon catches hold of the other one.
“Not bad,” Azazel says. “I’d give it maybe, uh, 6 out of 10? For effort, at least. The execution’s considerably more shoddy.”
Adam knows exactly what he needs to do. He can’t help but wonder if this is how Sam felt, the instant before he took all of them down into the Cage; it’s actually kind of peaceful. Yeah, just like drowning.
It’s surprisingly easy. All he as to do is shift, and let his own weight do all the work. Azazel realizes what Adam’s doing a second too late. He leans back, tries to get his footing, but they’re already falling. Adam closes his eyes.
There’s a hard jolt and their fall is suddenly and painfully stopped. Adam’s hanging upside down, Azazel still holding onto his arms, and Gabriel’s leaning over the edge of the gateway, holding his ankle.
“Not so fast,” Gabriel pants.
Adam twists wildly, trying to dislodge the demon without bringing Gabriel over with them. He manages to get his good arm free, and pulls his fist back.
“Do that.” Azazel sounds almost desperate. “And you’ll never find out who released you from the Cage.”
Adam punches him, hard, which does nothing except make both arms hurt like Hell. He winds his arm back again, then realizes that there’s something sharp poking his thigh. The knife. He scrabbles for that instead, gasping in relief when his fingers close around the hilt.
“Wait…” Azazel starts, but he never finishes. Adam drives the knife up and in right under the demon’s ribcage. Azazel’s grip loosens, then goes slack. “Winchesters,” he gasps, like a curse, as one by one his fingers release themselves from Adam’s arm. Then he’s falling into the shadow and flame of Hell.
“Adam.” Gabriel’s trying to pull him back up. “Give me a hand here.”
Adam’s not sure how Gabriel manages to get him back onto solid ground. Once he’s up, the angel gives him a quick, sweeping once over, and turns to face the gaping pit. He says something, a few words in a language that hurts Adam’s ears, but it seems to work. Starting at the edges, the hole begins to close, the symbols shifting back to their original places.
Adam can feel the difference as soon as the gateway closes; it’s like he can breathe again. He leans back against a chunk of ceiling, and just feels glad he’s not in Hell. Again.
It takes him a moment to realize that Gabriel’s talking to him. “Adam, we’ve got to go.”
“What?” Adam’s aware that he sounds only half-conscious, but he doesn’t really care right now.
“Look.”
There are shapes around them on the floor below-the sprit-things from the city, as well as other, more solid forms. There’s a flash of long braids, and Adam almost thinks he can see the vampire girl from his first day here.
“I’ll do it.” Before Adam can protest, Gabriel’s swiping a hand over his still-bleeding arm and kneeling in the center of the circle. He’s better at drawing symbols in blood than Adam is, and it only takes him a few seconds. When he’s done, he jumps back up and stands next to Adam.
“Where will that open?” Adam asks.
Gabriel shrugs. “Not one hundred percent sure. I was actually kinda surprised you managed to open the gateway into Hell.”
Great.
There’s light glowing from the heart of the circle now, but it’s not forming a hole. It’s blossoming outwards, creating a rift in the air that’s almost too bright to look at.
Gabriel helps Adam up. “Come on,” he says, “walk into the light.”
Adam takes a faltering step, and lets the light envelop him.
Previous l Next
Adam keeps hoping that the whispering will stop, but if anything, it gets louder as the day wears on.
By what Adam thinks is about mid-day, it’s loud enough that he can almost pick out words. It’s a constant, insect-like buzz that’s as good a torture as anything in the Cage. It’s not just affecting Adam; Azazel’s jaw is tense and set, and he’s walking faster now, fast enough that Adam has to jog to keep up.
“What’s going on?” he asks, curiosity winning over caution.
Azazel’s eyes are glowing yellow in the gloom. “We need to find shelter,” he says. “Now.”
There’s a harsh, splitting crack of thunder, and Adam jumps. The sky flashes blue-white for a second, and the next roll of crashing sound chases on its heels.
Azazel stops dead in the center of the street. “Too late.”
There’s a cold wind swirling lazily down the street towards them, picking up dust and scraps of paper. It should be innocent, benign. Adam has a sinking feeling that it isn’t.
“Adam?” It’s Sam’s voice again, coming from behind him, and Adam whirls around. His brother, or something wearing his brother’s face, is standing in the road. He’s half-transparent, ghost-like, dripping silvery blood from cuts too numerous and too deep for anyone to survive. Of course, that isn’t really an issue here.
“Hey,” Adam says. There’s something thick in his throat that he has to make an effort to talk around.
“You didn’t help me last night,” Sam says. “You didn’t help me, after everything I did for you, everything I took for you.”
Adam swallows hard. He knows this isn’t Sam, but it’s still hard to see him like this, like something broken and dead. Sam takes a faltering step towards him.
“Please, Adam,” he says. “You can still help me.”
Adam’s step backwards mirrors Sam’s approach. Thunder cracks again, a little further away, but still loud. Adam flinches.
Then the rain lets loose, stinging against Adam’s skin. It burns cold, and he’s soaked and freezing in an instant. The sky’s almost dark now, and the light’s going fast. The wind picks up, and the whispering voices grow louder, carried on the air.
The Sam-thing flickers and reappears a foot away, looming over Adam. In all the years they’d spent together, Adam had never been intimidated by his brother’s height, but now Sam looks like a giant. Adam almost trips as he scrambles backwards again, stopping just short of running into Azazel.
That’s when he realizes that they’re surrounded.
He doesn’t recognize their faces, but judging from Azazel’s bitten off curse, maybe the demon does. That or he’s just vocalizing how very screwed they are.
They’re everywhere, drifting out of the houses like ghosts, shimmering into existence in the road. They’re all as pale and dead-looking as Sam, with the same translucent quality that keeps them from looking quite real.
“Please,” they say, and it doesn’t even sound like fifty people speaking; it sounds like one person speaking with fifty mouths. “Please, why don’t you help us?”
They’re pressing in all around Adam and Azazel, like they’re the plot-relevant sacrifices in a zombie movie. The one that looks like Sam is closest, but he’s speaking with the hollow, broken voice of the group now. It helps, a little, to distance the walking nightmare in front of him from his brother.
The first outstretched, pleading hands reach him, fingers catching on his shirt, his hair. Adam shrinks in, trying to avoid their grip, and trying not to think that this is just the continuation of his fight with the monsters back in the alley.
It takes him a frantic second to realize that they aren’t reaching for him. He’s just in the way. They’re aiming past him, trying to pull themselves over him, to get at Azazel. There’s an opportunity here, and it hits him the split second after he realizes he’s not the creatures’ target.
Adam lets them push past him, ducking low so he can slip between them and out of the crush of non-corporeal bodies.
He’s almost free when something grabs him, cold fingers digging into his wounded arm. It’s the one that looks like Sam, his face set in some twisted, complicated thing between anger and desperation. “Please,” he says again, and the rest echo him like an otherworldly Greek chorus.
Adam yanks hard, ignoring the splitting pain as his arm protests. It works, somehow, on the first try. Adam’s not sure if he could have tried again.
He runs, which is starting to feel as familiar as breathing. He doesn’t know where he’s going, and that’s okay, because if he doesn’t know, maybe Azazel won’t either.
Adam can still hear the ghosts/monsters/whatevers several blocks away in the road behind him, but he doesn’t look back to see if they’re still swarming around Azazel; he really doesn’t want to know.
It still isn’t completely dark; the light’s staying somewhere around a dim twilight, just bright enough for him to see where he’s putting his feet, more or less, but still dark enough that the shadows take on weird, twisted forms. At least the rain’s slackened off.
Adam stops for breath a half-dozen blocks from where he’d left the monsters. He bends over, hands on his knees, just trying to relearn how to breathe normally. The city’s quiet again.
Then there’s a soft splash from the road to Adam’s left and he freezes. He straightens up slowly, trying to see into the gloom of the road. All that’s visible are patches of deeper darkness and faint silvery reflections where puddles catch the light, but Adam knows there’s something-or someone-there. That or he’s finally cracking.
“Are you going to stand there like an idiot,” a familiar voice asks. It sounds annoyed. “Or are you just going to run off again?”
Adam can almost see him now, a small, blurry shape maybe twenty feet away and getting closer.
He can run. It looks like Gabriel’s limping, and archangel or no, Adam should be able to outpace him.
“Give me a reason to trust you.” Adam backs away, keeping the distance between them.
“Um, I died for your brothers? Don’t tell me that doesn’t win me some points.”
Maybe Sam-the real Sam-had mentioned something about that, but it had been centuries ago, and he can’t quite remember the whole story. Crap.
He’s up against the wall now. He could still dart around the corner and run, but he’s tired of running. He didn’t do all that great on his own, and while he’s hoping the ghost-things took care of Azazel, he can’t be sure. Gabriel, at least, kept him more or less safe, and regardless of what else he may be, Adam would rather have him loose on the world than Azazel.
“Adam?” Gabriel sounds less certain now. He’s still advancing, slowly, painfully, and there’s only maybe ten feet between them. “Come on,” Gabriel says, and it’s almost gentle. “Let’s get inside, then we can talk.”
Adam’s tired, tired enough that even trusting an archangel doesn’t sound like such a bad idea.
“Fine,” he says. “Lead the way.”
Apparently, they’re only a few blocks away from the empty store where they’d spent the first full night here and he’d left Gabriel. Adam’s not sure how that works; he’s pretty sure he’s been heading steadily away from there for the last two days. All he’s knows for sure is that he’s ready to be back where things make sense, wherever that might be.
Gabriel’s definitely limping, and Adam’s not sure what could hurt an archangel like that. He’d kind of like to know, and he makes a mental note to ask later.
After the horrible apartment he’d stayed in with Azazel, the store almost feels like home. The narrow cot is soft, and it’s nearly enough to make Adam relax. Gabriel’s already settled onto the other cot with a sigh, lying back against the headboard with his eyes closed. He could be asleep, but Adam knows better.
“So,” Gabriel says casually, not opening his eyes. “What happened to you?”
Because that’s not a broad question at all. It’s easiest to start at the beginning. “Your brothers.”
Gabriel doesn’t open his eyes. “Ah,” he says, then, “my brothers as in ‘angels in general’ or as in ‘immediate family’?”
“That last one.”
“Oh.”
The conversation lulls after that, and Adam finds himself becoming unreasonably interested in the patterns of water damage on the ceiling.
Adam’s almost asleep when Gabriel breaks the silence. “So, Dean never did give the Big Yes to Michael?”
“He might have eventually,” Adam says carefully, which is mostly to disguise that he’s trying not to yawn, “but Michael got impatient.”
Gabriel sighs. It’s verging into over-dramatic territory, but Adam’s starting to think that’s just how he is. “Sounds like something Mikey would do. He never could wait for the nice toys.” He cracks an eye open and makes an apologetic face at Adam. “No offense.”
Adam shrugs. He always knew Michael considered him second-best to Dean; the angel had never been shy about telling him exactly that.
“And Sam?” Gabriel’s eyes are closed again, a look of complete disinterest settled comfortably across his face, but Adam knows it’s just a front. He can see the tension in the angel’s body, hard lines of muscle that don’t match his aura of careless nonchalance.
“He said yes to Lucifer,” Adam tells him. “Then dropped all four of us into the Cage. The angels got him out eventually. Don’t know where he is now.” Hopefully somewhere better than this.
“Ah.” The tension’s still there, but it’s lessened. “I thought maybe he had it in him.”
Neither of them says anything for a long time. The ghost-things are still out there; Adam can hear them somewhere in the darkness, but it’s faint and distant, and the store feels safe, at least for now.
“We should be out of here by this time tomorrow,” Gabriel says. “Earlier, if we’re lucky.”
Adam had almost been asleep again, but he’s wide awake now. “Really? How?”
“We were just coming at it at the wrong angle, like your demon friend was. I think I have it now.”
“Is that why we were looping around-hey!” Adam turns to glare at Gabriel. “How do you know about that?”
Gabriel shrugs, unconcerned. “By the time I picked up your trail, he’d already beaten me to you. I figured it would be safer for you if he didn’t know I was there, so I just followed behind you. Also, I was hoping he knew the way out, and could lead us to the gateway.”
Huh, the real reason. Adam’s ready to tell Gabriel exactly what he thinks of his messed-up priorities, but then he remembers exactly what Gabriel is: he’s not Adam’s friend, not some kind of guardian angel that can be tamed and taught manners, he’s an archangel, and he’s going to do whatever the Hell he wants to. For all Adam knows, Gabriel doesn’t see him as anything more than a way out. It’s a sobering thought, but one Adam knows he can’t forget.
“Alright then,” Adam says, lying back down. “Guess it all comes down to tomorrow.” He rolls over on his side, his back towards the angel, and this time, he does fall asleep.
Adam wakes up buzzing with nervous tension, the same feeling he used to get before a big test back in school. He’s kind of amazed he can still remember what that feels like, like the centuries of Hell never even happened. It’s oddly encouraging, and it makes him hope that maybe he’s not as broken as he’d thought.
He’d expected them to leave as soon as the sun came up, or rather, as soon as it was light. Gabriel fusses around in the morning, though, like he’s trying to remember to pack everything, even though they don’t actually have anything to pack. So, Adam spends what feels like half the morning sitting in the middle of his cot, feeling increasingly irritated.
He does take the opportunity to ask Gabriel about his plan, though he doesn’t get a straight answer, and try and find out what happened to Gabriel’s leg. In response to that, Gabriel had muttered something about how he thought guys with tentacles only existed in porn and Pirates of the Caribbean, and Adam had decided maybe he didn’t really want to know.
By the time they head out, it’s finally stopped raining, and the clouds have even burned off some. For the first time, the sun is shining through, and Adam’s almost excited about that until he realizes that, like the circle of Purgatory before this one, the sun’s just wrong. Here, it’s too red, staining the sky a livid, unnatural orange. He tries to ignore it and just keep moving.
Gabriel doesn’t seem to have a definite plan, leading Adam on a circuitous path through the city. It feels completely random, for a while, Adam wonders if it is. It takes Adam longer than he’d care to admit to realize that they aren’t really wandering aimlessly-they’re following a trail.
There’s a faint line of scorch marks that’s close enough to the burnt stone surrounding the last gateway that Adam feels like he should have recognized it as important earlier. Once he realizes what they’re following, the scorch marks are everywhere. He stops to take a closer look at the nearest one, a long line like a whiplash waist-high on the wall, soot-black against the gray concrete.
Gabriel stops, too, then takes a few steps back to bring him level with Adam. “So,” he says, “you noticed.”
Adam reaches out towards the wall, but stops before he actually touches it, fingers hovering over the mark. “What did this?”
“Something bigger and badder than you’d ever want to meet in the real world. The door was open, and they sure as Hell weren’t hanging around.” Gabriel shrugs. “I found one that didn’t make it out yesterday, and sent it back into the far reaches. It told me what happened first, though.”
So that was what had happened to his leg. “And they’ll lead us out?”
“It might not be the most direct route, but at least we have something to follow. It won’t lead us in circles.”
Which is about as good as they’re going to get. Adam straightens up and starts walking, eyes scanning the walls and pavement for the next mark, Gabriel stalking ahead of him.
About mid-day, the trail ends. Adam’s watching the ground, and doesn’t even notice when Gabriel stops until he almost bumps into him.
“What’s wrong?”
Gabriel doesn’t answer, just jerks his chin towards the road ahead of them. Adam follows his gaze up, and-oh.
It’s not the even circular scarring that surrounded the last gateway. It’s a tangled, writhing mess of the scorch marks they’ve been following, like the site of a battle, or maybe a massacre, blackened stone dark like dried blood against the asphalt.
Adam swallows hard.
The building it’s centered around doesn’t look like much. It’s taller than most of the houses and stores around it-maybe three stories tall-and blocky, perhaps a bank or something similar. It’s made of the familiar gray stone and blank concrete, its façade featureless and uninviting. There are no windows, but about halfway up, something’s smashed its way inside, leaving gaping holes in the walls.
There’s something else about it, too. Adam can feel the echoes of Hell from where he’s standing, and he knows it’s coming from the building. They’ve reached the exit, but all Adam wants to do now is run as fast as he can back into the city.
“Adam?” Gabriel’s watching him, eyebrows drawing together in the beginnings of a frown.
“We-we’ve got to go in there, don’t we?”
“Um, yeah, that’s the idea.”
Adam takes a deep, shaky breath. “I’m ready.”
They’re maybe a block from the building, but it feels like farther. There’s a real door at least; it’s tall and narrow, and it takes both of them pulling on the handle to open it.
Inside, it’s dark and humid. It’s hard for Adam to get much of a picture in the gloom, but there don’t seem to be floors-instead, it’s open to the ceiling, most of which is gone, collapsed into a small mountain of broken concrete and wooden beams that stick up at odd angles like the broken ribs of a prehistoric sea-creature. The light is dim, but the holes in the ceiling and walls let some light in, pale shafts of sunlight that stain the floor a milky yellow.
He’s fine until he and Gabriel take more than a few steps inside. Then the smell hits him. It’s fetid and rotten with a sharp, metallic tang of copper, and the warm, damp air only makes it worse. It’s like the houses they’d had to cut through before, and it’s all Adam can do to keep himself from throwing up, passing out, or both. He makes himself keep going.
They’re about twenty feet in when the door slams shut behind them. Adam jumps, instinctively edging closer to Gabriel. “What was that?”
“Hey.” Gabriel’s voice sounds carefully nonchalant in the dark. “You didn’t happen to notice if we were followed, did you?”
“He’s not very observant.”
Adam can’t see the speaker, but he doesn’t have to. Oh shit.
“I think it’s a family thing,” Azazel goes on. Now that Adam’s eyes have started to adjust, he can almost see him-a dark blurry shape and a pair of pale golden eyes that shine in the gloom. “His brothers and daddy never seemed that bright either.”
“Have to agree with you on that one,” Gabriel says. He’s moving carefully around so he’s standing between Adam and the demon. “Still, they had enough brains to kill you.”
Azazel’s standing on the far side of one of the pools of light now, and Adam can see him well enough to recognize the demon’s shrug. “I was having a bad day. It happens to the best of us.”
Adam’s not sure what their plan is. They’ve only got a few options, really-out the door (pointless), try and open the gateway before Azazel catches up with them (snowball’s chance in Hell), or fight and defeat Azazel (not likely, unless Gabriel can be badass enough for both of them).
“You know,” Azazel says, “I remember you, Gabriel. Back in the old days, before I became Lucifer’s. You might have been impressive then, with your regalia and your father’s favor, but you were never more than a pompous fool hiding behind your stronger, cleverer brothers. And now, stripped of all that, you’re nothing.”
Gabriel’s harsh snort of laughter is startling in the dark. “And you still love the sound of your own voice way more than is healthy, Azazel. We’ve all got issues.”
He’s edging backwards, slowly pushing Adam towards the center of the room. Adam lets himself be herded, moving his feet carefully so he doesn’t trip. Most of the rubble is centered under the impromptu skylight, but the ground is still treacherous and uneven. For a moment, Adam thinks that Azazel hasn’t noticed their retreat. Then he realizes that the demon is mirroring their movements, a steadily approaching shape in the darkness.
“You’re going to run?” Azazel calls. “I’d expected more from you. Not a lot, sure, but something.” He’s fast, and in the dark it seems like he’s moving the same way as the ghost-things, flickering closer and closer.
“Adam,” Gabriel hisses, “make for the top of the pile, draw the sign, and wait. If Azazel gets past me, go ahead and jump.”
“What? No!”
“It’ll close up when you’re through.” He gives Adam a hard shove.
For a second, Adam doesn’t even know if he’s going to follow Gabriel’s orders. He’s never liked being bossed around, and, whatever else he might be, he’s not a coward. Still, he’s already proven just how well he can fight Azazel. He turns and runs for the light, shoes sliding on the rubble.
Behind him, there’s a faint ring of metal as someone draws their knife. Adam doesn’t look back, but he can hear them as he runs, thuds and bitten-off curses. He’s halfway there-maybe only forty feet away, when he hears Gabriel cry out. He half turns, blinking to adjust his eyes to the dark again after staring into the dim light.
Gabriel’s still standing, his knife held loosely in his hand as he tries to staunch the wound on his left arm. He’s backing away from Azazel, who’s advancing towards him with his knife held out and a cold smile on his face. Adam sees the second when Azazel realizes that Adam’s standing frozen in the middle of the room and Gabriel’s no longer between them. Adam makes the connection an instant too late.
An invisible force rams into Adam like a semi-truck, throwing him sideways until he hits the wall, hard. The impact knocks all the air out of him, but the expected fall to the ground never comes. He’s pinned, feet dangling three feet from the ground, helpless.
Azazel strides up towards him until they’re separated by maybe ten feet, which is, in Adam’s opinion, far closer than he ever wanted to be to the demon again. Halfway across the room, Gabriel gives a low angry hiss.
“Now, now,” Azazel says. “You’d better be careful.” He makes a slight movement with one hand, and Adam slides a few inches further up the wall. “You wouldn’t want me to panic and accidentally kill young Adam, would you?” His expression shifts from a pleasant smile into something darker. “Drop the knife.”
There’s a long moment where Adam thinks Gabriel’s going to refuse, that he’s going to take the opportunity of the demon’s distraction and charge. Adam kind of hopes he does. Then the moment is over, and the knife hits the floor with a dull ring of metal against stone.
“That’s better. Now, listen carefully. You are going to stay nice and cooperative while Adam opens the final gate for me. If you both behave, I might even let you live. Or you know, whatever.” He gestures with the knife. “Back up.”
Gabriel obeys. As soon as the angel is almost against the opposite wall, the invisible bonds vanish and Adam falls the last few feet to the floor. He lands badly, his legs giving underneath him, and he ends up on all fours, concrete digging into his knees and the palms of his hands. Also, now that the pressure’s gone, he’s realizing that it wasn’t just Azazel’s power making his ribs hurt. Every breath feels like his chest is on fire, and he’s trying not to notice the way one of his ribs is poking out oddly under his tee-shirt.
“Up.” Azazel pokes at his chest with a booted toe, and everything goes black for a second. “Up,” he says again. “I don’t want to have to carry you, but I will. You don’t have to be alive for this to work.”
Adam’s not sure how he managed to drag himself up and start the long walk to the center of the room again. Some part of him is dimly aware that it’s the same instinct that kept him going when he was in the Cage, but all he’s conscious of is that he hurts like Hell.
Climbing the rubble is even worse than walking. Every movement jars his ribs, as well as the dozen other smaller injuries. By the time he reaches the top, Adam’s gasping for breath and cold sweat is dripping down his nose and making his shirt stick to his back.
He’d expected the top of the pile to be, well, the top of the pile. He hadn’t expected for the rubble to be pushed back around a raised, flat disk, like the caldera of a volcano. The disc itself is maybe four feet across, and it’s covered in runes and sigils in what Adam thinks might be Enochian, or something older. Azazel, who’s been following him closely all the way up, freezes on the lip, and Adam realizes that there’s a Devil’s Trap working into the designs, though the symbols don’t match the ones Sam had taught him.
“Here.” Azazel tosses Adam the knife. Somehow he manages to catch it, though he almost drops it when the hilt hits his skinned hand. Adam takes a deep breath, winces, and re-opens the barely healing cut on his arm. Azazel’s knife is sharper than Gabriel’s had been, and he barely has to apply pressure at all before the warm blood starts to trickle down his arm. He slides the knife into his belt.
He takes another breath, shallower this time, and carefully draws out the symbol he’d used to open the first gateway. When he draws the last line with a sweep of dusty, red-stained fingers, he jumps back. He’d prefer to go through a more dignified way than the floor opening up underneath him, and anyway, he’s still hoping he and Gabriel can both get out of here. He’s not leaving the angel to face Azazel alone.
He stands on the narrow lip of broken cement and waits.
Nothing happens.
“Are you sure you did that right?” Azazel asks, voice dangerously low. “Because, I’m sure a nice ritual sacrifice would work if that’s all you’ve got.”
“It didn’t work because he didn’t know that right sigil.” Adam hadn’t heard Gabriel climbing the pile, but now he’s standing on the lip, the third point of their makeshift triangle.
“Here,” Gabriel says. “I helped build this place, so that ought to count for something. Why don’t you try this?” He crouches down and draws a pattern in the dust. Adam and Azazel both crane to read it, but Gabriel casually blocks the demon’s view with his body.
Logically, Adam’s never seen this collection of symbols before. There’s something familiar about them though, and he wonders if that’s just a side effect of having an archangel in his head. He glances between the design and Gabriel. The angel’s smiling, a wide, predatory grin that’s not quite comforting. Still, it’s the best they’ve got.
Adam’s attempt at copying the symbol is sloppy and uneven. The lines don’t look quite right, and drawing in blood is harder than satanic priests make it look on TV. It’s more complicated than the first symbol, too, and it takes him a few tense minutes to finish tracing the lines in what he hopes is enough of an approximation to work. He scrambles back quickly when he’s done; he’s not sure what Gabriel’s up to, but he doesn’t want to get caught in it.
He can feel the change in the air almost immediately, and he knows it’s working. There’s a wisp of an air current that grows into a wind, twisting around them and rustling his hair. Instead of dispelling the foul smell, it makes it worse, and Adam has the sinking feeling the unnatural wind is coming from wherever the gate is opening into.
The runes and words on the disk shift and move, re-forming around the edges of the circle. In the center of the ring, a dark hole opens, swallowing the stone down into its depths, and Adam has a sharp flash of memory back to a similar hole, one that lead to the darkest corner of Hell.
The pit has almost opened to the edge of the disk. Adam had expected white light, like when he’d opened the first gateway, but instead it’s black shot through with flashes of nightmarish red, and maybe his sense of déjà vu wasn’t completely unfounded. Adam’s looking into Hell.
Across the circle from him, Azazel snarls, eyes shining bright in the reflected hell-fire.
“Not a wise move, sonny-boy.”
Adam stumbles sideways, because he’s figured out Gabriel’s plan now. The rubble shifts under his feet, and between the pain in his ribs and arm and the dizziness from the stench and the mere presence of Hell, Adam’s about ready to pass out. He makes it around the edge of the pile, then freezes. Azazel’s nowhere in sight.
Someone grabs him from behind, and Adam twists around, almost falling. Azazel has his right arm in a tight grip, and when Adam turns, the demon catches hold of the other one.
“Not bad,” Azazel says. “I’d give it maybe, uh, 6 out of 10? For effort, at least. The execution’s considerably more shoddy.”
Adam knows exactly what he needs to do. He can’t help but wonder if this is how Sam felt, the instant before he took all of them down into the Cage; it’s actually kind of peaceful. Yeah, just like drowning.
It’s surprisingly easy. All he as to do is shift, and let his own weight do all the work. Azazel realizes what Adam’s doing a second too late. He leans back, tries to get his footing, but they’re already falling. Adam closes his eyes.
There’s a hard jolt and their fall is suddenly and painfully stopped. Adam’s hanging upside down, Azazel still holding onto his arms, and Gabriel’s leaning over the edge of the gateway, holding his ankle.
“Not so fast,” Gabriel pants.
Adam twists wildly, trying to dislodge the demon without bringing Gabriel over with them. He manages to get his good arm free, and pulls his fist back.
“Do that.” Azazel sounds almost desperate. “And you’ll never find out who released you from the Cage.”
Adam punches him, hard, which does nothing except make both arms hurt like Hell. He winds his arm back again, then realizes that there’s something sharp poking his thigh. The knife. He scrabbles for that instead, gasping in relief when his fingers close around the hilt.
“Wait…” Azazel starts, but he never finishes. Adam drives the knife up and in right under the demon’s ribcage. Azazel’s grip loosens, then goes slack. “Winchesters,” he gasps, like a curse, as one by one his fingers release themselves from Adam’s arm. Then he’s falling into the shadow and flame of Hell.
“Adam.” Gabriel’s trying to pull him back up. “Give me a hand here.”
Adam’s not sure how Gabriel manages to get him back onto solid ground. Once he’s up, the angel gives him a quick, sweeping once over, and turns to face the gaping pit. He says something, a few words in a language that hurts Adam’s ears, but it seems to work. Starting at the edges, the hole begins to close, the symbols shifting back to their original places.
Adam can feel the difference as soon as the gateway closes; it’s like he can breathe again. He leans back against a chunk of ceiling, and just feels glad he’s not in Hell. Again.
It takes him a moment to realize that Gabriel’s talking to him. “Adam, we’ve got to go.”
“What?” Adam’s aware that he sounds only half-conscious, but he doesn’t really care right now.
“Look.”
There are shapes around them on the floor below-the sprit-things from the city, as well as other, more solid forms. There’s a flash of long braids, and Adam almost thinks he can see the vampire girl from his first day here.
“I’ll do it.” Before Adam can protest, Gabriel’s swiping a hand over his still-bleeding arm and kneeling in the center of the circle. He’s better at drawing symbols in blood than Adam is, and it only takes him a few seconds. When he’s done, he jumps back up and stands next to Adam.
“Where will that open?” Adam asks.
Gabriel shrugs. “Not one hundred percent sure. I was actually kinda surprised you managed to open the gateway into Hell.”
Great.
There’s light glowing from the heart of the circle now, but it’s not forming a hole. It’s blossoming outwards, creating a rift in the air that’s almost too bright to look at.
Gabriel helps Adam up. “Come on,” he says, “walk into the light.”
Adam takes a faltering step, and lets the light envelop him.
Previous l Next