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alchemyaliceTitle: On the Wings of War
Author: Alchemy Alice
Genre and/or Pairing: Action/Adventure/Horror, Dean/Castiel
Rating: R for violence
Warnings/Spoilers: Up to 5.14-ish? It goes AWOL from there.
Word Count: No idea yet, but very, very long.
Disclaimer: Entirely not mine. Just playin'.
Summary: The Horsemen are not just people with fancy rings. They aren’t even demons with fancy rings. They are another species entirely, a force unto themselves, and Lucifer is kidding himself if he thinks that they are at his beck and call. They are separate. They are neutral. Dean Winchester is not built like them.
A/N: Serious abuse of italics within.There are also a couple of passages in Greek that I just used an online translator for, so they're only partly accurate. Apologies. If anyone happens to speak Greek, I would love to have a quick consult! Many thanks to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
vasiliki for providing proper Greek translations!
Prologue | Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four | Chapter Five | Chapter Six | Chapter Seven | Chapter Eight | Chapter Nine | Chapter Ten | Chapter Eleven | Chapter Twelve | Chapter Thirteen | Chapter Fourteen | Chapter Fifteen | Chapter Sixteen | Chapter Seventeen | Chapter Eighteen | Chapter Nineteen | Chapter Twenty | Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Dean could almost see the trail Michael left in his wake, and indeed it was heading straight for the crypt, as well as, it seemed, the eye of the angel war-storm.
“What was he talking about--?” Sam started
“That, I imagine,” Bobby said faintly.
‘That’ was right. The storm had turned into a hurricane. “Man, it’s gonna suck flying through that,” Dean said.
“You can count me out of it, that’s for damn sure,” Bobby agreed.
“You have more important places to be anyway, Robert,” Castiel broke in. He looked sternly at Dean. “Lucifer has taken to battle. Michael has gone to meet him, but he will die without his sword to defend him. Seeing as his sword is now yours, I suggest you help him.”
“What’re you gonna do?” Dean asked, drawing John’s Sword from the air.
“I am going to attempt to prevent the Earth from swallowing us all whole, as it is wont to do when Heaven and Hell collide. Robert, I’d like your assistance in this.”
“Oh, great,” Bobby muttered.
“What about me?” Sam asked, clearly trying not to think about what Cas's pronouncement.
“You’re one half of the Lamb,” Castiel answered, glancing at him. “You will have to go with Dean to the crypt. You have an angelic blade at your disposal?” Sam nodded, drew one from his belt and twirled it. “Good. You will have to be ready to use it as soon as you arrive.”
“Hear that, Sammy?” Dean clapped him on the shoulder. “You and me again. Road trip.”
“Into a hurricane,” Sam scrunched his nose.
“Dean,” Castiel said, his voice the very definition of gravity, “You must be swift and careful. Your army will only obey you so long as your goals remain clear and destructive. So destroy Lucifer’s forces, push Heaven’s back, and don’t let their gaze fall upon Man, or they will mark them for destruction as well.”
“No pressure,” Dean said. “Got it. Hey,” he grabbed Castiel’s arm before he had a chance to raise it to Bobby’s head. “You be careful too.”
Castiel wrapped one hand around the back of Dean’s head to pull it down. His lips were dry and chapped against the hollow of his cheek. “I will,” he said, “Now go.”
He disappeared, taking Bobby with him.
When Dean turned back around, Sam was smirking. “What?” he said, too sharply.
“We’re gonna have to talk about what the hell happened after Abaddon sometime,” Sam said, looking too smug for his own good. “Because clearly something did.”
“Shut up, bitch. We’ve got a war to fight. And you had Gabriel in you, so don’t even start with me. We are having strong words about that when this is over.”
“Whatever. Don’t splinch me, jerk.”
“This isn’t Harry frigging Potter.” Dean spread his wings. “It’s a hell of a lot more rock’n’roll.”
***
Lucifer was in the eye of the storm. He was the eye of the storm. And warring angels and demons were the meat of it.
Michael was on the verge of breaking free of his vessel, high as he was in the atmosphere and charged like he’d absorbed a nuclear reactor.
As Dean landed hard on what was left of the cargo ship and looked up, it was like looking into an eclipse. His eyes began to water as soon as he the storm parted enough for him to see, so when Sam tried to follow his gaze he threw a hand out to discourage him.
“Ow! You fucking hit me in the face, Dean!”
“Suck it up. Otherwise I’m pretty sure you’ll fry your eyeballs, Sammy. That shit is not kosher.”
Sam grumbled, but made sure to only look around and not up.
The gale was enormous around them, stealing the breath from their lungs, catching at their clothes and Dean’s wings--he had to arch them into the airflow to avoid spraining or even breaking them. He kept his eyes narrow against the wind even as he looked up.
“Oh Jesus fucking Christ!”
He turned. Sam was mid-swing, Ruby’s knife hard in his hand as it slid through the flesh of a black-eyed demon that looked more like a zombie than anything else. Its skin slid off its bones like a cheap coat even as it burned itself out with a snarling cry.
Dean swore. Castiel had been right. Demons were everywhere, lurching towards them in rotted bodies they must have pulled up piecemeal from the ocean. They were wet and gelatinous, black hollows for eyes.
The ship groaned as it rocked in the storm, and at the center of the deck where the angels had drawn circles and sigils of blood around Dean, there was something like a warp, something like a chasm. Dean had no doubt as to where it led.
“Whatever you do, don’t fucking fall in that hole!”
“Thanks for the advice, Dean!” Sam snapped. “I think I could have figured that out!”
Dean spun, wings parallel to the deck and pulled into deadly arcs that sheared through the wall of demons like a thresher. They came apart like they were made of wet tissue paper, only to pull back together as the demons inside the shells forced them into locomotion. One of them seized Dean’s arm and rasped wetly in his ear, “Come back to hell, Dean Winchester, we’ve been missing you terribly.”
Dean pulled his sword across in a sharp, shivering stroke. The top half of the demon’s head came off, its rotten tongue left to loll obscenely.
“There’s too many of them!” Sam shouted, his own campaign more effective for having the knife at his side. “We’re gonna have to bail!”
“Where to?” Dean yelled back, crouching down to dismember another hoard with the clawed edge of his wing. “I’ve gotta help Mike, but I can’t carry you at the same time!”
“Oy! Tossers!”
They turned, and beyond the storm an unwieldy yacht bobbed like it was on some sort of over-privileged thrill-seeking jaunt on the raucous waves. Around it, vast arcs of black flesh broke the water, circling like dogs waiting for their owner to throw the ball. They weren’t dogs, though. Dean knew that for certain.
“Are those--?” Sam shouted over the gale.
“I’d say so,” Dean replied. “What’s say we blow this popsicle stand?”
“I’m definitely all right with that.”
Dean tore through the mass of demons and seized his arm again.
***
They landed hard. When Dean steadied himself on the heaving ship deck, he looked up to find Crowley at the helm, and Gabriel crouching on the deck, drawing complicated patterns in blood. The archangel straightened as Sam stumbled and the boat rocked in earnest.
Dean strode over to him without looking back at Sam and punched him in the face.
“Ow! Motherfucker, that actually hurt,” Gabriel complained, wiping blood from the corner of his mouth and looking grudgingly impressed.
“‘Swhy I did it,” Dean said. “Now we’re square. What’re you and Crowley doing?”
“Looking after Tweedledee and Tweedledum, what business is it of yours?” Crowley answered snidely from the wheel.
“You did call us over,” Sam said, checking himself over and finding not much more than a few scrapes and bite-marks. “Are we sure those weren’t actual zombies, Dean? Because for demons they were--”
“Pretty low-powered, yeah,” Dean finished. He grimaced at his wings, which were red with old blood and rotting entrails. “Normally they’re at the bottom circles of hell, not good for much. The crypt’s a free-for-all, though, and I guess they were eager to get out.”
“As are most in the Pit,” Gabriel drawled. He looked at Dean for a second, and then said, more seriously, “I take it the crypt’s overrun?”
“Pretty much,” Dean said. “No available ground at all. I’m sending the army there and into the storm, but I’ve gotta help Michael, too. Can you--?”
“We’ve got more than enough on our hands to appreciate some help,” Crowley said. “Is your Greek at all serviceable, Sam?”
Sam sheathed his knife and sword, and stood a little straighter. “I’m fluent.”
“Perfect.”
“Then I’m gonna head back in,” Dean said lightly, and he was not thinking about diving into that storm alone, nor the harsh shine of Lucifer at its core, nor Michael bursting from every corner of his too-small, too-weak vessel--not thinking about it at all.
Though he wouldn’t precisely be alone.
Hot anticipatory breath tongued at his back. He whispered, “To me.”
The army swarmed.
Dean spread his wings, gore coming off of them in gelatinous flecks to spatter the deck around him. Sam grimaced and stepped back.
“Don’t wait up.”
***
“I take it you’ve got a job for us?” Bobby said, barely keeping up with Castiel’s unnaturally long strides. He was pretty sure Castiel was actually shorter than him, so the fact that the angel seemed to be carrying himself at a pace Bobby could only match with some serious effort sort of pissed him off.
“I do,” Castiel replied. “You remember that we have far more to deal with in this battleground than the crypt itself?”
“‘Swhy it’s an Apocalypse, isn’t it?” Bobby grumbled.
“Precisely. Dean and his army will be concentrated over the Atlantic to stop the outpouring from Hell, but there are other, smaller gateways across the globe, places where rifts will open and hellfire shall rain down. We must put a stop to it.”
“Sounds next to impossible.”
Castiel smiled thinly. “Improbable at most. Come with me.”
Before Bobby could even agree, Castiel’s fingers were on his brow, and they were halfway across the world.
***
Dean reappeared in the eye of the storm, and time seemed to slow, all of the sounds and fury in the gale dropping to subsonic levels and resonating in his blood. He beat his wings down hard, and ascended into impact.
Lucifer had burned through every inch of his vessel. And Dean couldn’t take it.
He threw his hand in front of his face even as he pressed upwards, and felt his flesh scorch. It was like flying into the sun.
“The sword!” he heard Michael shout, in something terrifyingly like fear. He swung it forward like a shield, all instinct, and the feeling of burning faded. He opened his eyes.
He saw through a sheen of silver, like a paper veil draw wet and tight over his eyes. There was something warm and wet in his ears and nose, and when he wiped his hand over them they came away bloody.
He pressed upwards, the storm now awake around him with the struggle of demons and angels. They appeared as tunnels of black and gold, whirling in caustic patterns in one massive, rotating hurricane. And now that Death's nameless had joined the fray, it only swirled more angrily. The overwhelming squall of a thousand nails on a thousand chalkboards marked their arrival, and then its chaos rumbling in concentric circles that Dean had to block out if he was going to be of any use.
He put aside one animal part of his mind and dedicated it to keeping his army on task. Every other last cell in him he puts to work rising higher and higher.
Michael remained in his vessel, but it was only the start of him. A miasma of ice and gold spilled from his edges, so that Lucas Wynchestre’s dark features were nearly overwhelmed with light. He moved like lightning, great swathes of fire fulminating like solar flares, his sword moving in massive arcs that would have been useless against an adversary of his own size.
But Lucifer was effulgent and vast, seething like a supernova, and no strike from any sword could be large enough. Dean tried, though; he had to try.
He lurched to the left, arcing down and letting gravity pull him with sword and wing aligned. They cut through something, butter-soft but shrieking like metal, but then the wind changed and Dean was being tossed like a ragdoll. He fought upwards again, the storm dragging at his heels.
Michael came up along his flank, warping space in his wake, and met Lucifer in an explosion of light and sound that sent them both reeling. The storm lurched and faltered, and then crashed upward in a furious return strike.
“Do you have a plan here?!” Dean shouted at Michael, nearly choking on acrid rainwater that was thick and pungent with salt and sulfur.
Michael seethed with light. “Just help me,” he said, Lucas’ voice overlaid with thunder.
Dean groaned, every muscle crying out for mercy, and clawed for altitude, tooth and nail.
***
Sam rolled up his sleeves and staggered across the deck of the yacht. “What do you need?” he asked.
Gabriel looked over his shoulder at him, his hands smeared with his own blood. When he snapped his fingers, it was with a slick popping sound.
Sam barely managed to catch the heavy book that fell out of the air in front of him.
“Page 583. Start reading halfway down,” Gabriel said, turning back to the series of sigils on the deck.
Sam awkwardly eased the book open while trying to stay upright as the yacht swayed precariously. The storm was kicking up waves now, black walls of water that had the boat swerving and bucking dangerously. The pages were old and damp with mildew. He pulled them open as carefully as he could manage.
The Greek was smudgy in places, but legible. Sam blinked hard, forcing his brain to work as the rest of him thrummed with dread and adrenaline.
“Come on!” Gabriel shouted impatiently.
Sam started to read. “Αυτό που γεννήθηκε από τη φωτιά και το νερό, ας έλθει και ας υψωθεί στον αέρα--”[1] He stopped. “Gabriel. What is this for?”
“What is anything I do around here for?” Gabriel shot back. “It’s for backup. Keep reading.”
Sam swallowed, and obeyed. The words spun into the air with the roar of the sea behind them.
The dark forms beneath the water twisted and heard.
***
“You think you can strike me down?” Lucifer asked, unhurried and abyssal, the sound like combustion engines and organ music and the rush of fire through an oxygen tank.
“Not really,” Dean said, swinging wide again and shuddering through the impact, feeling his skin bubble and peel with the fallen angel’s closeness. And then he thought loudly, But I’m a hell of a distraction.
Lucifer whirled, taking a hurricane with him. Michael came down on him in a burst of incomprehensible lightning.
The explosion threw Dean back in the sky, and suddenly he wasn’t flying at all, he was falling.
“Shit! Oh god, fuck!”
The lightning followed him down, one long slash of electricity down the sky. “Give me the sword, Dean!” it said, Michael’s voice in desperation behind it.
Dean hit the water. He relinquished the sword with nerveless fingers as his mouth filled with brackish acid. He didn’t feel when his hand was left empty.
All of a sudden, all he knew was cold.
The shock of impact was enough to stun him; for an agonizing moment he could feel himself sinking like a stone, his limbs like lead weights, his heart frantic and useless in the cage of his chest. And then all he could taste was sulfur and blood, and unresponsive muscles kicked suddenly into a clenching contraction of panic.
He flailed, wings waterlogged, unsure of what was up or down, and fuck his fear of flying, he would give anything, anything to be in the air right now because his lungs were burning and his mouth was filled with the taste of Hell and all he could do was claw blindly for a surface whose distance could have been measured in inches or yards for all he knew.
If he could have used air, he would have sobbed.
Oh please god don’t let me drown.
***
“Πάρε φτερούγες από τον δημιουργό σου, τον Θεό, ούτως ώστε οι δίκαιοι να γλυτώσουν,”[2] Sam finished, stumbling over the words. He looked up. “Oh my god.”
“Is it done?” Crowley shouted over the din of the storm.
“Oh yeah,” Gabriel said, his face set. He was drenched to the elbows in his own blood now, and the symbols on the deck were savage, arcane things that Sam didn’t recognize but knew the shapes of, what they meant when paired with the Greek he had spouted.
The blood was turning black on the wood, great smears of it creeping like tar.
“Gabriel, what have we done?”
“We’re riffing on a theme, Sammy,” the archangel replied. “Seems like the only edge we ever seem to get is the one any sane creature would abhor. Abominations, every step of the way.”
”What have we done?”
He tilted his head. “Gave our marine friends a friendly shot of unholy Red Bull.”
Sam stared at him.
“You know what they say about Red Bull, Sam.”
The boat lurched.
“It gives you wings.”
***
Dean couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t. He knew exactly what lay down that road, and in concept it was almost tempting to give up, let go, but not in this ocean, not when the water tasted like fire and death.
But his lungs were already on fire, his mind dulling but somehow not enough for him not to feel the crushing weight of water against his eyes, stabbing in his ears, shredding his nerves even as oxygen deprivation undid him.
Don’t scream. Don’t scream.
Oh god, he was going to scream, he could feel it bubbling and he’d lose all of his air, all of it all at once.
In a last burst of panic, he flung himself towards what he could only pray was the surface.
His hand brushed something smooth and hard. Smooth, hard, and moving fast.
When the contour of it changed, Dean closed his hand over it.
His shoulder nearly dislocated as directionless struggle turned into momentum. But he held on.
***
“Where are they? Where are they going?” Sam asked.
“I gave them very definite instructions,” Crowley said. “Retrieve their owner, and bring him home.”
***
The transition from water to air felt like resurrection; the scream Dean had been desperately holding down burst from him and then he was sucking down oxygen in great shuddering gasps.
Gasps that turned into gulps of sheer panic as mere breaking the surface turned into heavy muscular jolts up and up.
It occurred to him very belatedly that the contour he was clinging to by hand and wing was the start of a very large, very fin-like limb.
“Oh hell no,” he rasped, and looked up through eyes blurry with brine.
The dragon--because that’s what it was, born of the sea or not--was throwing itself upwards with the reckless abandon of a dim soldier with a heroic order. And though Dean couldn’t see, he could hear the clicking roar of its twin along side.
They were back in the eye of the storm. And by the heat blasting Dean in the face as they went higher and higher, archangels were not far away. The storm was a new and twisted shape too, dispersed without Dean's army driving it to oblivion--Dean sent a feeble thought to it, but it was hardly enough. And there were more important things now, like the giant he's hitched a ride with.
He closed his eyes, and thought as loudly as he could. Michael. Michael!
There was no response, spoken or otherwise. Dean gritted his teeth, he could feel his skin begin to char again, and it was too close now, not enough time.
Michael if you can hear me, you need to get out of here now. You’re not going to kill him, so we’re putting him back in the box. I’m sorry.
And with that, he relinquished his hold, and prayed his wings would hold him. In the red light that bled through his eyelids he thought he saw the ascension of massive black forms with jaws open wide, in relief against angelic light.
He tumbled away before he burned into nothingness, and begged his battered wings to fly.
***
“You don’t have enough juice for this,” Bobby said flatly, eyeing the massive array on the alter of massive Russian Orthodox church. “This is the most ridiculous load of occult instructions I’ve ever seen.”
“No offense meant, Robert,” Castiel said, “But while your experience is extensive, you have not seen everything.”
“Clearly not,” he grunted.
“I will not be powering this. No angel can. Demonic energy is at its core, along with a great many other things which I don’t have time to explain. What I need you to do is take this,” and here Castiel handed him a zippo that Bobby suspected he’d filched from Dean, “And set the first line of pews on fire.”
Bobby stared at him. “I’m going to hell for this, ain’t I?”
The angel smiled very thinly. “On the contrary.”
“You’re nuts. And I’m an idjit for listening to you.”
He flicked the zippo open and sparked it, and threw it down on the oil-drenched pews. Fire roared up, setting the frescoes around them aglow. From the pews the fire spread to the first line of sigils, kicking up the stench of old forgotten herbs and melting copper.
“Now what?” Bobby said over the whooshing of the flames.
“Now,” Castiel said, “We ride the kick of energy from Lucifer’s defeat.”
“We don’t even know if that’s gonna happen!”
“If it doesn’t we’ll all be dead anyway,” Castiel shrugged. He cocked an eyebrow at Bobby. “Have a little faith.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
-----------
[1] That which was born from fire and water, let it come forth and take to the air.
[2] Take wings from your creator, God, and so that the righteous may be spared.
Author: Alchemy Alice
Genre and/or Pairing: Action/Adventure/Horror, Dean/Castiel
Rating: R for violence
Warnings/Spoilers: Up to 5.14-ish? It goes AWOL from there.
Word Count: No idea yet, but very, very long.
Disclaimer: Entirely not mine. Just playin'.
Summary: The Horsemen are not just people with fancy rings. They aren’t even demons with fancy rings. They are another species entirely, a force unto themselves, and Lucifer is kidding himself if he thinks that they are at his beck and call. They are separate. They are neutral. Dean Winchester is not built like them.
A/N: Serious abuse of italics within.
vasiliki for providing proper Greek translations! Prologue | Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four | Chapter Five | Chapter Six | Chapter Seven | Chapter Eight | Chapter Nine | Chapter Ten | Chapter Eleven | Chapter Twelve | Chapter Thirteen | Chapter Fourteen | Chapter Fifteen | Chapter Sixteen | Chapter Seventeen | Chapter Eighteen | Chapter Nineteen | Chapter Twenty | Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Dean could almost see the trail Michael left in his wake, and indeed it was heading straight for the crypt, as well as, it seemed, the eye of the angel war-storm.
“What was he talking about--?” Sam started
“That, I imagine,” Bobby said faintly.
‘That’ was right. The storm had turned into a hurricane. “Man, it’s gonna suck flying through that,” Dean said.
“You can count me out of it, that’s for damn sure,” Bobby agreed.
“You have more important places to be anyway, Robert,” Castiel broke in. He looked sternly at Dean. “Lucifer has taken to battle. Michael has gone to meet him, but he will die without his sword to defend him. Seeing as his sword is now yours, I suggest you help him.”
“What’re you gonna do?” Dean asked, drawing John’s Sword from the air.
“I am going to attempt to prevent the Earth from swallowing us all whole, as it is wont to do when Heaven and Hell collide. Robert, I’d like your assistance in this.”
“Oh, great,” Bobby muttered.
“What about me?” Sam asked, clearly trying not to think about what Cas's pronouncement.
“You’re one half of the Lamb,” Castiel answered, glancing at him. “You will have to go with Dean to the crypt. You have an angelic blade at your disposal?” Sam nodded, drew one from his belt and twirled it. “Good. You will have to be ready to use it as soon as you arrive.”
“Hear that, Sammy?” Dean clapped him on the shoulder. “You and me again. Road trip.”
“Into a hurricane,” Sam scrunched his nose.
“Dean,” Castiel said, his voice the very definition of gravity, “You must be swift and careful. Your army will only obey you so long as your goals remain clear and destructive. So destroy Lucifer’s forces, push Heaven’s back, and don’t let their gaze fall upon Man, or they will mark them for destruction as well.”
“No pressure,” Dean said. “Got it. Hey,” he grabbed Castiel’s arm before he had a chance to raise it to Bobby’s head. “You be careful too.”
Castiel wrapped one hand around the back of Dean’s head to pull it down. His lips were dry and chapped against the hollow of his cheek. “I will,” he said, “Now go.”
He disappeared, taking Bobby with him.
When Dean turned back around, Sam was smirking. “What?” he said, too sharply.
“We’re gonna have to talk about what the hell happened after Abaddon sometime,” Sam said, looking too smug for his own good. “Because clearly something did.”
“Shut up, bitch. We’ve got a war to fight. And you had Gabriel in you, so don’t even start with me. We are having strong words about that when this is over.”
“Whatever. Don’t splinch me, jerk.”
“This isn’t Harry frigging Potter.” Dean spread his wings. “It’s a hell of a lot more rock’n’roll.”
***
Lucifer was in the eye of the storm. He was the eye of the storm. And warring angels and demons were the meat of it.
Michael was on the verge of breaking free of his vessel, high as he was in the atmosphere and charged like he’d absorbed a nuclear reactor.
As Dean landed hard on what was left of the cargo ship and looked up, it was like looking into an eclipse. His eyes began to water as soon as he the storm parted enough for him to see, so when Sam tried to follow his gaze he threw a hand out to discourage him.
“Ow! You fucking hit me in the face, Dean!”
“Suck it up. Otherwise I’m pretty sure you’ll fry your eyeballs, Sammy. That shit is not kosher.”
Sam grumbled, but made sure to only look around and not up.
The gale was enormous around them, stealing the breath from their lungs, catching at their clothes and Dean’s wings--he had to arch them into the airflow to avoid spraining or even breaking them. He kept his eyes narrow against the wind even as he looked up.
“Oh Jesus fucking Christ!”
He turned. Sam was mid-swing, Ruby’s knife hard in his hand as it slid through the flesh of a black-eyed demon that looked more like a zombie than anything else. Its skin slid off its bones like a cheap coat even as it burned itself out with a snarling cry.
Dean swore. Castiel had been right. Demons were everywhere, lurching towards them in rotted bodies they must have pulled up piecemeal from the ocean. They were wet and gelatinous, black hollows for eyes.
The ship groaned as it rocked in the storm, and at the center of the deck where the angels had drawn circles and sigils of blood around Dean, there was something like a warp, something like a chasm. Dean had no doubt as to where it led.
“Whatever you do, don’t fucking fall in that hole!”
“Thanks for the advice, Dean!” Sam snapped. “I think I could have figured that out!”
Dean spun, wings parallel to the deck and pulled into deadly arcs that sheared through the wall of demons like a thresher. They came apart like they were made of wet tissue paper, only to pull back together as the demons inside the shells forced them into locomotion. One of them seized Dean’s arm and rasped wetly in his ear, “Come back to hell, Dean Winchester, we’ve been missing you terribly.”
Dean pulled his sword across in a sharp, shivering stroke. The top half of the demon’s head came off, its rotten tongue left to loll obscenely.
“There’s too many of them!” Sam shouted, his own campaign more effective for having the knife at his side. “We’re gonna have to bail!”
“Where to?” Dean yelled back, crouching down to dismember another hoard with the clawed edge of his wing. “I’ve gotta help Mike, but I can’t carry you at the same time!”
“Oy! Tossers!”
They turned, and beyond the storm an unwieldy yacht bobbed like it was on some sort of over-privileged thrill-seeking jaunt on the raucous waves. Around it, vast arcs of black flesh broke the water, circling like dogs waiting for their owner to throw the ball. They weren’t dogs, though. Dean knew that for certain.
“Are those--?” Sam shouted over the gale.
“I’d say so,” Dean replied. “What’s say we blow this popsicle stand?”
“I’m definitely all right with that.”
Dean tore through the mass of demons and seized his arm again.
***
They landed hard. When Dean steadied himself on the heaving ship deck, he looked up to find Crowley at the helm, and Gabriel crouching on the deck, drawing complicated patterns in blood. The archangel straightened as Sam stumbled and the boat rocked in earnest.
Dean strode over to him without looking back at Sam and punched him in the face.
“Ow! Motherfucker, that actually hurt,” Gabriel complained, wiping blood from the corner of his mouth and looking grudgingly impressed.
“‘Swhy I did it,” Dean said. “Now we’re square. What’re you and Crowley doing?”
“Looking after Tweedledee and Tweedledum, what business is it of yours?” Crowley answered snidely from the wheel.
“You did call us over,” Sam said, checking himself over and finding not much more than a few scrapes and bite-marks. “Are we sure those weren’t actual zombies, Dean? Because for demons they were--”
“Pretty low-powered, yeah,” Dean finished. He grimaced at his wings, which were red with old blood and rotting entrails. “Normally they’re at the bottom circles of hell, not good for much. The crypt’s a free-for-all, though, and I guess they were eager to get out.”
“As are most in the Pit,” Gabriel drawled. He looked at Dean for a second, and then said, more seriously, “I take it the crypt’s overrun?”
“Pretty much,” Dean said. “No available ground at all. I’m sending the army there and into the storm, but I’ve gotta help Michael, too. Can you--?”
“We’ve got more than enough on our hands to appreciate some help,” Crowley said. “Is your Greek at all serviceable, Sam?”
Sam sheathed his knife and sword, and stood a little straighter. “I’m fluent.”
“Perfect.”
“Then I’m gonna head back in,” Dean said lightly, and he was not thinking about diving into that storm alone, nor the harsh shine of Lucifer at its core, nor Michael bursting from every corner of his too-small, too-weak vessel--not thinking about it at all.
Though he wouldn’t precisely be alone.
Hot anticipatory breath tongued at his back. He whispered, “To me.”
The army swarmed.
Dean spread his wings, gore coming off of them in gelatinous flecks to spatter the deck around him. Sam grimaced and stepped back.
“Don’t wait up.”
***
“I take it you’ve got a job for us?” Bobby said, barely keeping up with Castiel’s unnaturally long strides. He was pretty sure Castiel was actually shorter than him, so the fact that the angel seemed to be carrying himself at a pace Bobby could only match with some serious effort sort of pissed him off.
“I do,” Castiel replied. “You remember that we have far more to deal with in this battleground than the crypt itself?”
“‘Swhy it’s an Apocalypse, isn’t it?” Bobby grumbled.
“Precisely. Dean and his army will be concentrated over the Atlantic to stop the outpouring from Hell, but there are other, smaller gateways across the globe, places where rifts will open and hellfire shall rain down. We must put a stop to it.”
“Sounds next to impossible.”
Castiel smiled thinly. “Improbable at most. Come with me.”
Before Bobby could even agree, Castiel’s fingers were on his brow, and they were halfway across the world.
***
Dean reappeared in the eye of the storm, and time seemed to slow, all of the sounds and fury in the gale dropping to subsonic levels and resonating in his blood. He beat his wings down hard, and ascended into impact.
Lucifer had burned through every inch of his vessel. And Dean couldn’t take it.
He threw his hand in front of his face even as he pressed upwards, and felt his flesh scorch. It was like flying into the sun.
“The sword!” he heard Michael shout, in something terrifyingly like fear. He swung it forward like a shield, all instinct, and the feeling of burning faded. He opened his eyes.
He saw through a sheen of silver, like a paper veil draw wet and tight over his eyes. There was something warm and wet in his ears and nose, and when he wiped his hand over them they came away bloody.
He pressed upwards, the storm now awake around him with the struggle of demons and angels. They appeared as tunnels of black and gold, whirling in caustic patterns in one massive, rotating hurricane. And now that Death's nameless had joined the fray, it only swirled more angrily. The overwhelming squall of a thousand nails on a thousand chalkboards marked their arrival, and then its chaos rumbling in concentric circles that Dean had to block out if he was going to be of any use.
He put aside one animal part of his mind and dedicated it to keeping his army on task. Every other last cell in him he puts to work rising higher and higher.
Michael remained in his vessel, but it was only the start of him. A miasma of ice and gold spilled from his edges, so that Lucas Wynchestre’s dark features were nearly overwhelmed with light. He moved like lightning, great swathes of fire fulminating like solar flares, his sword moving in massive arcs that would have been useless against an adversary of his own size.
But Lucifer was effulgent and vast, seething like a supernova, and no strike from any sword could be large enough. Dean tried, though; he had to try.
He lurched to the left, arcing down and letting gravity pull him with sword and wing aligned. They cut through something, butter-soft but shrieking like metal, but then the wind changed and Dean was being tossed like a ragdoll. He fought upwards again, the storm dragging at his heels.
Michael came up along his flank, warping space in his wake, and met Lucifer in an explosion of light and sound that sent them both reeling. The storm lurched and faltered, and then crashed upward in a furious return strike.
“Do you have a plan here?!” Dean shouted at Michael, nearly choking on acrid rainwater that was thick and pungent with salt and sulfur.
Michael seethed with light. “Just help me,” he said, Lucas’ voice overlaid with thunder.
Dean groaned, every muscle crying out for mercy, and clawed for altitude, tooth and nail.
***
Sam rolled up his sleeves and staggered across the deck of the yacht. “What do you need?” he asked.
Gabriel looked over his shoulder at him, his hands smeared with his own blood. When he snapped his fingers, it was with a slick popping sound.
Sam barely managed to catch the heavy book that fell out of the air in front of him.
“Page 583. Start reading halfway down,” Gabriel said, turning back to the series of sigils on the deck.
Sam awkwardly eased the book open while trying to stay upright as the yacht swayed precariously. The storm was kicking up waves now, black walls of water that had the boat swerving and bucking dangerously. The pages were old and damp with mildew. He pulled them open as carefully as he could manage.
The Greek was smudgy in places, but legible. Sam blinked hard, forcing his brain to work as the rest of him thrummed with dread and adrenaline.
“Come on!” Gabriel shouted impatiently.
Sam started to read. “Αυτό που γεννήθηκε από τη φωτιά και το νερό, ας έλθει και ας υψωθεί στον αέρα--”[1] He stopped. “Gabriel. What is this for?”
“What is anything I do around here for?” Gabriel shot back. “It’s for backup. Keep reading.”
Sam swallowed, and obeyed. The words spun into the air with the roar of the sea behind them.
The dark forms beneath the water twisted and heard.
***
“You think you can strike me down?” Lucifer asked, unhurried and abyssal, the sound like combustion engines and organ music and the rush of fire through an oxygen tank.
“Not really,” Dean said, swinging wide again and shuddering through the impact, feeling his skin bubble and peel with the fallen angel’s closeness. And then he thought loudly, But I’m a hell of a distraction.
Lucifer whirled, taking a hurricane with him. Michael came down on him in a burst of incomprehensible lightning.
The explosion threw Dean back in the sky, and suddenly he wasn’t flying at all, he was falling.
“Shit! Oh god, fuck!”
The lightning followed him down, one long slash of electricity down the sky. “Give me the sword, Dean!” it said, Michael’s voice in desperation behind it.
Dean hit the water. He relinquished the sword with nerveless fingers as his mouth filled with brackish acid. He didn’t feel when his hand was left empty.
All of a sudden, all he knew was cold.
The shock of impact was enough to stun him; for an agonizing moment he could feel himself sinking like a stone, his limbs like lead weights, his heart frantic and useless in the cage of his chest. And then all he could taste was sulfur and blood, and unresponsive muscles kicked suddenly into a clenching contraction of panic.
He flailed, wings waterlogged, unsure of what was up or down, and fuck his fear of flying, he would give anything, anything to be in the air right now because his lungs were burning and his mouth was filled with the taste of Hell and all he could do was claw blindly for a surface whose distance could have been measured in inches or yards for all he knew.
If he could have used air, he would have sobbed.
Oh please god don’t let me drown.
***
“Πάρε φτερούγες από τον δημιουργό σου, τον Θεό, ούτως ώστε οι δίκαιοι να γλυτώσουν,”[2] Sam finished, stumbling over the words. He looked up. “Oh my god.”
“Is it done?” Crowley shouted over the din of the storm.
“Oh yeah,” Gabriel said, his face set. He was drenched to the elbows in his own blood now, and the symbols on the deck were savage, arcane things that Sam didn’t recognize but knew the shapes of, what they meant when paired with the Greek he had spouted.
The blood was turning black on the wood, great smears of it creeping like tar.
“Gabriel, what have we done?”
“We’re riffing on a theme, Sammy,” the archangel replied. “Seems like the only edge we ever seem to get is the one any sane creature would abhor. Abominations, every step of the way.”
”What have we done?”
He tilted his head. “Gave our marine friends a friendly shot of unholy Red Bull.”
Sam stared at him.
“You know what they say about Red Bull, Sam.”
The boat lurched.
“It gives you wings.”
***
Dean couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t. He knew exactly what lay down that road, and in concept it was almost tempting to give up, let go, but not in this ocean, not when the water tasted like fire and death.
But his lungs were already on fire, his mind dulling but somehow not enough for him not to feel the crushing weight of water against his eyes, stabbing in his ears, shredding his nerves even as oxygen deprivation undid him.
Don’t scream. Don’t scream.
Oh god, he was going to scream, he could feel it bubbling and he’d lose all of his air, all of it all at once.
In a last burst of panic, he flung himself towards what he could only pray was the surface.
His hand brushed something smooth and hard. Smooth, hard, and moving fast.
When the contour of it changed, Dean closed his hand over it.
His shoulder nearly dislocated as directionless struggle turned into momentum. But he held on.
***
“Where are they? Where are they going?” Sam asked.
“I gave them very definite instructions,” Crowley said. “Retrieve their owner, and bring him home.”
***
The transition from water to air felt like resurrection; the scream Dean had been desperately holding down burst from him and then he was sucking down oxygen in great shuddering gasps.
Gasps that turned into gulps of sheer panic as mere breaking the surface turned into heavy muscular jolts up and up.
It occurred to him very belatedly that the contour he was clinging to by hand and wing was the start of a very large, very fin-like limb.
“Oh hell no,” he rasped, and looked up through eyes blurry with brine.
The dragon--because that’s what it was, born of the sea or not--was throwing itself upwards with the reckless abandon of a dim soldier with a heroic order. And though Dean couldn’t see, he could hear the clicking roar of its twin along side.
They were back in the eye of the storm. And by the heat blasting Dean in the face as they went higher and higher, archangels were not far away. The storm was a new and twisted shape too, dispersed without Dean's army driving it to oblivion--Dean sent a feeble thought to it, but it was hardly enough. And there were more important things now, like the giant he's hitched a ride with.
He closed his eyes, and thought as loudly as he could. Michael. Michael!
There was no response, spoken or otherwise. Dean gritted his teeth, he could feel his skin begin to char again, and it was too close now, not enough time.
Michael if you can hear me, you need to get out of here now. You’re not going to kill him, so we’re putting him back in the box. I’m sorry.
And with that, he relinquished his hold, and prayed his wings would hold him. In the red light that bled through his eyelids he thought he saw the ascension of massive black forms with jaws open wide, in relief against angelic light.
He tumbled away before he burned into nothingness, and begged his battered wings to fly.
***
“You don’t have enough juice for this,” Bobby said flatly, eyeing the massive array on the alter of massive Russian Orthodox church. “This is the most ridiculous load of occult instructions I’ve ever seen.”
“No offense meant, Robert,” Castiel said, “But while your experience is extensive, you have not seen everything.”
“Clearly not,” he grunted.
“I will not be powering this. No angel can. Demonic energy is at its core, along with a great many other things which I don’t have time to explain. What I need you to do is take this,” and here Castiel handed him a zippo that Bobby suspected he’d filched from Dean, “And set the first line of pews on fire.”
Bobby stared at him. “I’m going to hell for this, ain’t I?”
The angel smiled very thinly. “On the contrary.”
“You’re nuts. And I’m an idjit for listening to you.”
He flicked the zippo open and sparked it, and threw it down on the oil-drenched pews. Fire roared up, setting the frescoes around them aglow. From the pews the fire spread to the first line of sigils, kicking up the stench of old forgotten herbs and melting copper.
“Now what?” Bobby said over the whooshing of the flames.
“Now,” Castiel said, “We ride the kick of energy from Lucifer’s defeat.”
“We don’t even know if that’s gonna happen!”
“If it doesn’t we’ll all be dead anyway,” Castiel shrugged. He cocked an eyebrow at Bobby. “Have a little faith.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
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[1] That which was born from fire and water, let it come forth and take to the air.
[2] Take wings from your creator, God, and so that the righteous may be spared.