Wardings & Words @amentiaewrites - Tumblr Blog

CHAPTER 3: There Will Be Blood

°⛧. A sequel to Ordinary ⛧°。

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Wife!Reader

Rating: mature, violence, gore, Dean's Hell trauma

Word count: 10.6 k

Summary: Hell is as bad as you expected, and it knows you’re coming. Dean and Sam are forced back into old wounds while your blood magic becomes more powerful than any of you thought.

CHAPTER 2 MASTERLIST

Story tags: Plus-Size reader, Reader is from a different reality, Action, Violence, Angst, Drama, Blood Magic, Blood play, Smut, Rough sex, Emotional strain, Moral conflict, POV Dean Winchester, Canon Divergence, Married Dean Winchester, POV Second person, POV Alternating, No use of y/n, Ordinary sequel

A/N: I know I keep circling back to their trauma in their inner thoughts, but I guess that’s kind of how trauma works. It doesn’t just let go of a person easily.

Anyway, this might not be my strongest chapter in terms of flow, but it’s a packed one. Don’t worry, though, there’ll be a lot less action in the rest of this fic.

Thank you for reading and engaging ❤️

It was a good thing Dean was holding your hand when you entered Hell, because otherwise you might have gone down.

Your knees didn’t give out completely, but for one ugly second, they threatened to. The passage dropped you into the familiar cellar, and before your brain could fully catch up with what was in front of you, the smell hit.

You were sure you remembered Hell with awful clarity. Something like that should have been impossible to forget. But the truth was, some part of you had forgotten just how bad it really was.

The stench, especially.

Your stomach heaved. You clamped your jaw shut and forced yourself to breathe through your nose, which was a terrible decision, because that only dragged the rot deeper into your lungs. Sulfur, old blood, burned meat, damp stone, something spoiled and horribly sweet under all of it. Calling it air felt generous. It was still the worst thing you had ever smelled. Nothing else even came close.

Your eyes watered. Your throat tightened. And the sound came next.

Screaming, sobbing, pleading from somewhere deeper in the dark. Souls in pain, over and over and over, layered over each other so heavily it stopped feeling like a sound and became pressure. It pressed against your skull, behind your eyes, inside your teeth. Within seconds, your head started to ache.

Something shifted beside you. Sam, probably, coming through the passage right after you. But you barely looked. Because another sensation stole all your focus.

Dean’s hand.

It tightened around yours slowly. Not in his usual deliberate way. Not the little squeeze that meant I’m here. Not the we got this one either. This felt different. Absent, uncontrolled. His fingers kept closing, pressure building until it started to feel painful.

You looked down at your joined hands, then quickly up at his face.

Dean was staring straight ahead. Face hard, jaw locked tight, eyes fixed on the dark cellar beyond the passage. You saw the little pulse jumping in the side of his neck, the slow movement of his throat when he swallowed.

His grip tightened again. This time, it hurt enough that you had to bite the inside of your cheek.

You laid your other hand over his, pressing your fingers flat across his knuckles.

‘Dean?’ you said gently.

He didn’t respond. He just kept staring into the damp, heavy dark in front of you.

‘Baby,’ you tried again, firmer this time. ‘You’re crushing my hand. It hurts.’

That got through.

Dean jerked, blinked hard, and looked at you. Then his eyes dropped to your hands. His grip loosened immediately.

‘Shit,’ he muttered, frowning. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘It’s okay.’

It wasn’t really. Dean was strong as hell, your fingers throbbed. But it wasn’t what mattered.

‘Are you alright?’ you asked, even though the question was almost pointless.

Because of course he wasn’t.

How could he be?

Your husband had spent forty years in this place. His little brother had spent what must have felt like hundreds in the Cage. The fact that either of them could stand upright at all still shocked you. People talked about strength like it was something noble and elegant, but there was nothing elegant about surviving something like this. It left marks. It took pieces.

And now Dean was here again. Just stepped right back into it. No wonder it rattled him.

You watched him pull himself together by force. One breath. Then another. His eyes moved to yours, and the second they locked there, you saw him drag himself back into the present.

‘Yeah,’ he said. Too fast. Too firm. ‘Yeah, of course.’

You didn’t believe him.

Sam’s voice came from your side, low. ‘Let’s go.’

When you looked at him, he seemed a little paler than before. His face was calm, almost frighteningly so, but his eyes had gone sharp and distant in a way you hated. He had to be feeling it too.

Sam took the lead with the demon-killing knife in hand. Dean shifted behind you and nudged you gently forward, making sure you were between them. Sam in front. Dean behind. You in the middle, covered closely from both sides.

The three of you moved through the cellar in silence.

And even here, one ridiculous thought still managed to shove its way into your head. If someone had told you a few years ago that one day you would be sandwiched between the Winchester brothers, this was not what you would have pictured. Not even close.

You almost laughed at your own brain for that one.

The corridor ahead narrowed into stone and rusted metal, the walls dark with old blood and things you refused to identify. Chains hung from hooks in the ceiling. Some of them moved even though nothing touched them. Cells lined the path, iron bars thick and black, and the closer you got, the harder it became to keep your eyes forward.

You tried.

God, you tried.

But souls inside were impossible not to look at. Mangled, damaged, twisted in ways your mind would store forever. You tried, for a second, to tell yourself they must have done something terrible to end up here. To deserve this.

Then immediately hated yourself for it, because you knew better.

You knew innocent souls ended up here too. Tricked, sold, dragged down, trapped. Souls that belonged in Heaven.

Your stomach turned hard.

You were passing a particularly awful cell when something about it made your steps slow.

At first, it looked like the others. Hooks, chains, stained stone floor, meat hanging from the ceiling in strips.

But there was no soul inside.

Curiosity got under your skin and you stepped closer before common sense could stop you. And the details started lining up. The claw marks carved deep into the floor. The chunks of torn flesh scattered across the stone. Bones piled in one corner. Human bones. A heap of slick, foul-looking residue near the back wall, the stink from it so intense it made the back of your throat burn.

Your stomach dropped.

This wasn’t a cell.

It was a kennel.

Cold dread locked your whole body up.

You knew it was empty. If there had been a hellhound in there, it wouldn’t have stayed silent. Not with fresh prey walking past. But knowing that didn’t stop the memory from coming back. The second trial. The sound of one breathing too close. Crowley’s experiments. The teeth in your shoulder. The pain. The helplessness of being bitten by something you couldn’t see.

Your hand twitched.

The holy-fire-scorched glasses were still packed away in your bags.

You turned quickly to alert Dean, but the words died before you could get them out.

He had stopped one cell behind you, his head was turned toward the bars.

Through them, a fair-skinned hand was reaching toward him. Pale and delicate, fingers trembling with hope.

A young woman stood inside the cell, smiling at him with a look so hopeful it made your skin crawl. She kept repeating once sentence, over and over.

‘You came,’ she whispered. ‘I knew you would. I’ve been waiting for… forever.’

A chill went through you so hard it almost hurt.

You remembered her.

You had heard her the first time you were here with Sam, and she had stayed with you ever since in a way you never wanted to admit. Not because she was louder than the others. Because she sounded so certain. So… lively.

Dean’s chest rose and fell too fast.

You knew exactly what this was doing to him.

One thing was seeing souls suffer. That was horrible enough. But this? This one was looking right at him. Believing in him. Waiting for him to save her.

And that was Dean, wasn’t it?

Saving people. Trying to save everyone. Always.

Your throat tightened painfully.

Because once, he had been the one screaming for help. Once, he had been the one needing someone to come for him. To take him off the rack.

You closed your eyes and reached inward, past the smell, past the screams, past the pressure of Hell trying to crawl under your skin. You focused on Dean. But not here, not like this. You focused on him somewhere safe. Green eyes, warm and bright, the small lines at the corners when he smiled for real.

The warmth answered fast. Faster than you expected.

You pushed a little deeper.

Not into the magic exactly. Into your memories. And they came. Small flashes, clear and bright in your mind. Dean’s forehead pressed to yours after your first kiss. Dean holding you after you came back from dead. Dean’s hands shaking when he gave you the ring. Dean whispering he loved you on the pier after you said your vows.

The warmth spread through your chest, down your arms, into your palms in an unfamiliar tingling rush.

You focused on pushing it out.

To him.

The release came stronger than you were used to. Sudden, wide, and warm enough that your own breath caught.

‘How… how did you do that?’

It wasn’t Dean’s voice. That made your eyes open.

Sam was walking back toward you from farther down the corridor, expression stunned in a way you rarely saw on him.

‘What?’ you asked.

‘I saw you two stop, so I checked around the corner.’ Sam looked between you and Dean, still frowning. ‘Then I felt this… I don’t know. Warmth. It just washed over me. I felt calm. Relieved.’

You stared at him.

That didn’t make sense.

It wasn’t like you had never used your magic on Sam. You had done it plenty of times. Keeping him and Dean steady on hunts had become part of what you did. But you usually had to focus on them specifically. You had to know where the magic was going. You had never done it with your back to him and thirty feet away.

Your head snapped toward Dean.

He was staring at you too, eyebrows slightly raised.

The change in him was obvious now. His breathing had slowed. His hand wasn’t clenched anymore. His shoulders had dropped just enough.

But what really sent a cold little shiver down your spine was the woman in the cell.

She was silent now. Watching you.

And then you realized you couldn’t hear the other cells anymore either. No screams, no sobs. No begging.

For the first time since you entered Hell, the corridor was quiet.

‘Did I… do that?’ you asked carefully.

Dean looked around the corridor, jaw tight. ‘I think so. Yeah.’

There was something in his voice. Something he wasn’t saying.

Sam stopped beside you, eyes still fixed on your face. ‘What did you do?’

You ran a hand through your hair and regretted it immediately when your fingers caught in dirt, dried blood, and whatever else Purgatory had left there.

‘I, uh…’ You swallowed. ‘I focused on Dean.’

Dean’s eyes flicked to you.

Sam’s brow furrowed. ‘No, you must’ve done something different. Because that was big.’

‘Well,’ you started carefully. ‘I kind of-’

‘Memories,’ Dean muttered.

You turned toward him. He was scanning the corridor, but his face had gone serious in a different way now.

‘She thought of memories.’

Your mouth nearly fell open. ‘How do you know that?’

Dean finally looked at you again.

‘Lucky guess.’

You narrowed your eyes. ‘Dean.’

He shifted the gear on his shoulder, suddenly very interested in not looking directly at you. ‘I saw ’em.’

You just stared at him.

‘When that thing hit me. Your magic, I mean,’ he said. ‘Just flashes. Bits and pieces. Over before I really knew what was happenin’. But yeah. I saw ’em.’

You frowned so hard it made your forehead ache.

‘What… the hell?’ you said.

Dean gave you a look.

Sam’s expression shifted into curiosity. ‘You saw her memories?’

‘Yeah,’ Dean said quickly, then glanced at you like he needed to make sure you understood that.

Your face warmed despite the fact that you were standing in Hell.

‘This is crazy,’ you muttered.

It was absurd. Even talking about this, here, now, in the middle of blood and rot. But the guys were thrown by it, and so were you. Not just the intensity, although that alone was enough to scare you. Your magic had never calmed dead souls before. It had never spread through a corridor like that.

And Dean seeing what you'd been thinking when it happened?

That was new.

That was very new.

The benefits of having your husband blood-bound to you as your magical anchor apparently just kept getting stranger.

Both Sam and Dean were still looking at you, obviously expecting at least some sort of explanation.

You took a careful, deep breath and immediately gagged. You swallowed hard, and forced yourself to talk.

‘Okay. I think we should talk about it later. But bottom line? Remember how you got my memories back?’ You looked at Sam. ‘The ritual. You made Dean focus on the most important memory.’

Sam nodded slowly.

Dean shifted beside you, eyes fixed on the corridor again, but you knew he was listening.

‘I figured memories could help with my magic,’ you said. ‘Especially with Dean as my anchor. So I decided to try it. Just now. With, uh…’

You hated that you felt flustered. That was ridiculous. You were in Hell. There were body parts hanging from hooks ten feet away. This was not the time to be embarrassed over your own husband.

‘With memories of us,’ you finished.

Sam’s expression shifted at once. Fascinated, but also a little worried.

‘Wait,’ he said. ‘Did you just… tap your soul?’

The question made your stomach tighten.

You hadn’t thought of it like that.

Dean’s head snapped toward Sam.

Sam raised a hand slightly, already seeing the reaction coming. ‘I’m not saying that’s bad. I’m just saying it kinda sounds like you did. Which is cool-’

‘Yeah,’ Dean cut in, voice flat and sharp. ‘Frickin’ awesome.’

You looked at him.

He was frowning at you, jaw tight again. The discomfort was loud and clear on his face. Then he glanced down the corridor again.

'Now let's keep movin'.'

Sam gave you one last look, then nodded and snapped back into focus. 'Right. Yeah.'

He took the lead again, demon-killing knife raised.

You stepped closer to Dean before he could follow, your hand coming up to rest against his chest. He went still at once, eyes dropping to your face.

‘Sorry I freaked you out,’ you whispered.

‘I wasn’t freaked out.’

You just looked at him.

Dean held out for maybe two seconds, then gave up with a small shrug. ‘Okay, I was. A little. But it’s fine. I’m fine.’

You rubbed your thumb against his shirt, just once. ‘Are you sure?’

His hand covered yours immediately, holding it against his chest. ‘Yeah.’

You didn’t move. Neither did he.

The corridor around you stayed quiet. The woman in the cell kept watching, still silent, her hand resting through the bars.

Dean swallowed and looked away from her.

‘It’s just… weird,’ he said, voice lower. ‘Bein’ here again.’

‘I know.’

You wanted to say more. Wanted to say you were sorry, even though sorry was useless. Instead, you asked the thing sitting sharp and awful in your mind.

‘Were you…’ You stopped, not sure if you had the right to ask. Then you pushed through. ‘Were you here? In these cells?’

Dean’s expression changed. A shadow crossed his face so fast it would have been easy to miss if you didn’t know him as well as you did.

‘No,’ he said.

You barely heard it. He cleared his throat and tried again. ‘No, I, uh… I got the deluxe treatment from the start. Hooks and chains and all that.’

Your chest pulled painfully tight.

You hated that.

You hated that there was a sentence like that in his life. Hated that he could say it in that rough, almost dismissive voice. And you hated, maybe even more, that he was standing here again now, right back in the place that had done it to him.

You took his hand in yours and squeezed.

‘Come on,’ you said quietly.

He let you tug him forward.

It was time to move. The sooner you found the Lance, the sooner you could get out of here.

But first, you were getting the hellhound glasses on. All three of you.

Dean had expected coming back to this fucking place to hit him.

Of course he had.

He wasn’t an idiot. Hell wasn’t exactly the kind of place a guy forgot because a few years went by and he got married and started doing normal crap like arguing over honeymoon plans and pretending he didn’t like having her toothbrush next to his.

But he hadn’t been ready for how hard it hit.

Maybe it was the walk through Purgatory first. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe he’d already been cracked open before they stepped through the rocks, because he’d had to watch his wife disappear down a slope and listen to her scream from somewhere he couldn’t reach.

Maybe he was still carrying those two or three minutes in his chest, still seeing her covered in blood and dirt and standing over dead monsters with her knife in one of their eyes.

He still couldn’t wrap his head around that.

He knew what was in her. Course he did. He’d seen her do badass stuff plenty of times. But not like that. That was a stripped-down, furious survival. Purgatory probably helped with that. Seemed to pull that out of people whether they wanted it or not.

And now he had to see her scratched up, beaten, covered in blood and mud, and somehow, as usual, all he could see was his fault. Because it always was, wasn't it? He should’ve been faster, should’ve kept her closer. Should’ve grabbed her before the ground gave way. Should’ve done a whole damn list of things that didn’t matter now because she had still ended up down there alone.

So yeah.

Maybe stepping into Hell already carrying all that made him a little shakier.

Maybe that was all it was.

Right.

Dean walked close behind her, the dart gun heavy in his hands, eyes scanning the corridor they had just stepped into. The cells lined both sides, stretching farther than they should have, disappearing into wet dark and old metal. The souls that couldn’t shut up a minute ago had gone quiet after her magic hit, which should’ve been a relief.

It wasn’t.

The faces were still there. Watching through the bars. Some of them, anyway. Some didn’t have enough left of themselves to watch anything.

Dean tried not to look too long. Tried to keep his focus where it belonged. Movement outside the cells. Corners. Shadows. Any sign of black eyes, hellhounds, traps, anything waiting to jump out and make this day even more of a crap-storm than it already was.

It was harder than it should’ve been.

Because he was pissed.

Pissed and freaked the hell out.

And not because she’d accidentally shoved the highlight reel of their greatest hits into his head. After all the weird-ass magic crap they’d been through, that barely cracked the top five. Wasn’t as weird as her stargating his apocalypse ass into another reality, and it sure as hell wasn’t as weird as waking up in her body and having to deal with that whole mess.

He’d made his peace with them having some strange anchor thing between them. Mostly. And the binding ritual probably kicked it up a notch.

So no, the memory-flash thing wasn’t the real problem.

She had tapped her soul.

Her goddamn soul.

That was the part sitting under his skin, hot and ugly.

Dean still remembered her losing him. Losing all of them, but mostly him, because yeah, he was selfish enough to think about that first. Remembered standing in front of her after the magic overload. Seeing nothing in her eyes that recognized him as hers. Remembered the panic. The grief.

And now she was in Hell, after giving blood, after fighting her way through Purgatory, after using magic on herself and him and Sam God knew how many times in the last two days, and she had just accidentally reached deeper.

Into her soul.

Awesome.

Frickin’ fantastic.

If tapping her soul and throwing out a charge big enough to calm damned souls, settle them both, and push memories into Dean’s head wasn’t a perfect way to drain herself, then what the hell was?

It took everything in him not to stop right there and chew her out. Or grab her shoulders and tell her to never do that again in that tone that made her glare at him like she was two seconds from setting him on fire.

But she hadn’t known. That was the thing he kept forcing himself to remember.

She hadn’t done it on purpose. She’d been trying to help him. Trying to drag him out of whatever the hell had almost swallowed him in front of that cell. And yeah, it worked. He could breathe again. His head wasn’t splitting down the middle anymore.

Still didn’t mean he liked it.

And okay, maybe the flashes didn’t help either.

Having someone else’s thoughts pushed into his head had knocked right into all that old crap with Sam and the psychic visions. Totally different thing, Dean knew that. But even so… Not exactly the best memories for him.

Dean gripped the dart gun a little tighter.

She glanced back at him again. And he wished to God she would stop doing that.

He knew what she was doing. Checking on him. Trying to read his face, his breathing, the way he held himself. She knew him too damn well, which was usually one of his favorite things about being married to her. Right now it made him feel like he was one bad second away from cracking right down the middle.

Couldn’t have that. Not here.

Sam stopped up ahead. Dean almost ran into her when she stopped too. He caught himself in time, one hand landing at her waist out of habit before he lifted the gun again.

The corridor ended in a split. Two directions, opposite each other. The layout changed there too. Fewer cells, less blood smeared over the stone. No chains hanging close enough to brush their shoulders.

Sam looked left, then right, knife raised.

‘Does this seem a little too quiet to you?’ he asked, voice low.

Yeah.

Dean had been thinking the same thing for a while now.

He’d expected demons every five damn feet. Expected screaming, fighting, some kind of ugly chaos from a Hell stuffed full of sons of bitches who couldn’t get topside anymore. Sure, maybe demons didn’t hang out in the cellars unless they had work to do, but still.

This felt off.

‘Yeah,’ Dean said, turning his head to check both directions. ‘Something definitely ain’t right.’

‘The last time we were here,’ she said, and Dean heard how hard she was working to keep her voice steady, ‘there weren’t many demons in the cellar either.’

‘Yeah,’ Sam said, forehead creased. ‘But there were at least some.’

She didn’t answer. She only adjusted the glasses on her face, the ones scorched with holy fire, making sure they sat properly.

Dean’s brain, because it had apparently picked now to be a complete moron, noticed that she looked kinda cute in them.

Cute wasn’t the right word.

Hot, maybe.

Yeah. Like a sexy librarian. Or sexy scientist. Sexy-

‘Which way now?’ she asked.

Dean blinked once.

Right.

Hell.

Focus.

‘I don’t know,’ Sam admitted. ‘But there’s a door at the end of the hallway to the right. Left just keeps going straight into the dark.’

‘Then we try the door,’ Dean said.

He had no idea if that was smart. But if he had to keep walking down an endless hallway of cells and hands and pleading voices, he was gonna start chewing through the walls.

No one argued.

Sam shifted the knife higher and took point again. His wife drew in one controlled breath beside Dean. She didn’t have a weapon in her hand now. Her hands were the weapon. Her blood. Her skin.

Hopefully.

Dean didn’t love that. Not one damn bit.

He checked the dart loaded in the rifle again. One of the seven left.

Sam reached the metal door and paused with his hand on the handle. Dean braced the rifle against his shoulder, finger ready but not tight on the trigger. She stood close enough that he could feel her at his side, and he shifted half a step to keep himself between her and the widest angle of the hall.

He expected the door to be locked.

It wasn’t.

Sam pressed the handle down slowly, and the heavy thing opened with a long, low groan. Warm, flickering light spilled into the corridor.

Then the smell hit.

Dean thought he’d gotten used to the stink down here.

Nope.

This was worse.

His wife turned her face slightly, hand coming up to cover her mouth, disgust clear even through the dim light. Dean wanted to pull her back on instinct, but Sam kept moving, careful and silent, and Dean had no choice but to follow.

They stepped inside.

It was a huge chamber. A torture room.

Of course it was.

Full medieval nightmare. Flickering torches threw dirty light across stone walls blackened by grime and old blood. Tables sat in the middle of the floor, some flat, some tilted, all of them stained dark. Iron racks. Chains hanging low. Rusted pulleys overhead. Cages shoved against the walls. Knives and saws and tools Dean didn’t even want to name because he knew most of them.

The heat was worse in here, too. Wet and heavy.

Dean’s stomach turned.

He remembered rooms like this.

Some smaller. Some about this size. Didn’t matter.

He remembered being dragged in. Remembered the first time, and the second, and the thousandth, and how somewhere along the way surprise turned into a different kind of horror because his soul just… kept taking it. Kept breaking and coming back enough to break again.

He remembered Alastair asking the same question. Every damn day.

How long, Dean? How long are you going to do this?

And then he remembered standing on the other side of it.

Holding the blade. Making souls scream.

The dart gun shook once in his hands. Just once. Dean locked his grip down hard enough that his fingers hurt.

Not now.

He dragged his eyes away from the tables and forced himself to scan the room. Exits. Threats. Anything useful.

That was when he saw the barred doors. One on the left wall, one on the right. Heavy iron, low to the ground, reinforced with thick crossbars.

Dean’s jaw tightened.

Oh, that was bad.

Beside him, she took one slow step into the room, eyes moving over the walls, the tables, the hanging chains. Her face had gone pale. Her hand hovered near her stomach for half a second, as if she was trying to decide if she was going to be sick.

‘This is worse than I imagined,’ she said under her breath.

Then her eyes flicked to Dean, and something like regret crossed her face immediately. Like she’d remembered too late that this wasn’t something he had to imagine.

Dean opened his mouth, not even sure what he was gonna say, but Sam’s voice came from a few feet ahead, low and tight. ‘Dean.’

Dean looked up.

Sam was pointing with the knife toward the far side of the room. ‘Same kind of door on the other side. Could be the exit.’

Dean followed his line of sight. Saw it now, farther back, half-hidden in shadow.

Then he glanced back at the barred doors on either side. His grip shifted on the rifle. ‘Yeah. We gotta move.’

The door behind them slammed shut.

The crash tore through the room hard enough to rattle the chains.

All three of them spun.

The heavy metal door they’d come through was sealed. No handle on this side now. No visible lock. No easy way back. Dean’s chest tightened, but his body was already moving before panic got the chance to set in.

‘Move!’ he barked.

Sam surged forward. She moved with him, fast, staying low, one hand out, ready to burn whatever came close. Dean backed them up from the door, rifle raised, eyes cutting from one kennel to the next.

The barred door on the left groaned open.

Then the right.

Deep growls rolled into the room.

Dean’s blood went cold.

‘Son of a bitch.’

The first hellhound came out low and huge, shoulders scraping the sides of the kennel as it stepped into the torchlight. The scorched glasses made the outline visible. Wrong muscle. Thick neck. Teeth too big. Drool dripping in long strings from its jaws.

It was the biggest damn hellhound Dean had ever seen.

The second came from the other side slower, head lowered, claws carving lines into the stone.

They were trapped.

Someone had shut the door behind them. Someone had opened the kennels. Someone knew they were coming and decided to have a little fun with it.

Arena. That was what this was. A goddamn arena.

The first hellhound lunged.

She moved before Dean could stop her, stepping into its path with both hands raised.

‘No!’ Dean snapped.

Too late.

The beast hit the air in front of her and recoiled with a shriek when her palms slammed against its muzzle. Smoke ripped off its face. Burned fur and meat filled the room so fast Dean almost gagged. She dug in, teeth clenched, arms shaking with the force of holding the thing back.

Sam was already there, demon-killing knife ready.

Dean didn’t have time to watch them. The second hellhound charged straight at him.

He braced the rifle against his shoulder and fired.

The dart hit deep in the thing’s chest.

For one second, nothing happened.

Then the hound howled.

It clawed at the spot, thrashing sideways, slamming into one of the tables hard enough to flip it. Metal tools scattered across the floor. Smoke poured from the wound. Its front legs buckled, then kicked out again as it crashed into the wall, leaving a smear of black blood on stone.

But it didn’t die.

Dean’s stomach dropped.

Too big. The dose wasn’t enough.

‘Fuck!’

Behind him, the other hellhound howled. Dean whipped his head around.

She and Sam were fighting it together. Her hands kept burning it every time it got too close, but the thing was smart enough to jerk back after each hit. Sam came in from the side, blade flashing, but the hound twisted with a snarl and shoved him back. He hit one of the racks hard, grunted, and rolled before the jaws snapped where his arm had been.

She grabbed the beast’s face again.

Smoke exploded from under her fingers. The hound screamed, thrashed, and then its jaws snapped around her forearm.

Dean’s heart stopped.

Her scream cut straight through him.

The hellhound shook her once and threw her across the room. She hit the floor hard, skidding through old blood and broken metal.

‘Baby!’

Sam lunged at the hound with a snarl of his own, knife driving toward its neck. The thing reared back, mouth smoking, blood and saliva dripping from its teeth where it had bitten her.

Dean started toward her.

But the second hellhound got up.

Its front leg dragged, chest smoking around the dart wound, but it was up. Still alive. Still dangerous. Its head swung toward Dean, then toward where she lay on the floor.

Dean’s vision narrowed.

No.

Not happening.

He dropped to one knee, ripped the insulated box from his backpack, and fumbled it open with one hand. Seven darts. No. Six now. His fingers closed around another. He loaded fast, faster than he’d ever loaded anything, hands moving on pure muscle memory and panic.

Come on, come on.

The hound lunged.

Dean lifted the rifle and fired.

The dart sank straight into its head.

This time, the reaction was instant.

The hellhound yowled so loud the whole room seemed to shake. Smoke burst from its skull, then fire under the skin, burning outward from the inside. It slammed into the ground, claws scraping deep grooves into stone, body convulsing hard enough to knock a rack sideways.

Then it went still.

Dean was already moving toward her-

‘Dean!’ Sam shouted.

Dean turned.

The first hellhound had Sam pinned near the far table. Sam’s jacket was torn open across the chest and shoulder, three deep claw marks cutting through fabric and skin. Blood poured down his shirt.

The hound snapped again.

Sam barely got the knife up in time, holding its jaws back with the blade braced across its mouth.

She was on her feet.

Her left arm was bleeding hard from the bite, blood running down her sleeve and over her hand. Her face was tight with pain, but her eyes were locked on Sam.

She grabbed at Dean’s backpack as she passed him.

Dean barely had time to twist toward her before she yanked the angel blade free from the side pocket. Her bloody hand closed around the grip, and the blood from her arm ran down over the blade, coating the metal.

She rushed the hellhound from the side, blade high, blood dripping from her arm onto the floor. The hound turned toward her at the last second, jaws opening wide.

She drove the blood-covered blade straight up into its jaw.

The hellhound screamed.

Not just from the angel blade. From her blood.

Smoke poured from its mouth. It shook violently, trying to pull away, but she held on with both hands, face twisted with pain and fury, shoving the blade deeper while Sam rolled free and came up coughing.

Dean was already there.

He grabbed her from behind, one arm wrapping hard around her waist, and yanked her back the second the hound collapsed forward. The blade tore free with a wet sound, still in her hand, and the hellhound hit the floor right where she’d been standing.

And then it was quiet.

You stood there for one long second, breathing hard, Dean’s arm locked around your waist from behind, your hand still wrapped around the angel blade.

The room was quiet now.

The hellhound lay right in front of you, huge and dead, its jaws still open around smoke and burned blood. The other one was a few feet away, collapsed against the wall where Dean’s dart had taken it down. Both of them were visible through the scorched glasses. Both of them were dead.

Because of your blood.

Not the shared protection. Not whatever weaker version of your bloodline magic he and Dean were supposed to carry. Sam had touched the thing, fought it, been close enough to bleed under its claws. Nothing had burned it until you got your hands on it.

Your arm throbbed. Hard. The bite had torn through your jacket and flannel and skin, and now the pain was arriving properly. Blood slid down your forearm and gathered at your wrist, dripping onto the blade still clenched in your hand.

Dean’s grip tightened around your waist.

‘Sweetheart-’

Your eyes snapped to Sam.

He was pushing himself up from one knee, one hand pressed against his chest, face tight with pain. Blood was already seeping between his fingers.

‘Sam,’ you breathed. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Yeah,’ he said immediately, then winced as he straightened. ‘Yeah, I’m fine.’

He was not fine.

Three deep slashes cut through his jacket and shirt, running from his upper chest down toward his ribs. Not deep enough to drop him, but deep enough to be a problem. Your stomach turned and your fear came back as anger before you could stop it.

You yanked yourself out of Dean’s hold.

He let you go, probably because he was too startled to tighten his arms fast enough.

You crossed to your bag, dropped to your knees beside it, and started tearing through the supplies. Gauze. Disinfectant. Bandage. Tape. Painkillers. Anything you could reach quickly. Your hands were bloody, shaking, clumsy with adrenaline, and that only made you angrier.

You did the ritual. You had drawn the protective sigil on him. You had smeared your blood over his chest just to be sure.

And it wasn't enough.

‘I knew it,’ you snapped.

Sam looked at you. ‘What?’

You were already in front of him, pulling his torn jacket aside with more force than necessary. He hissed through his teeth.

‘Sorry,’ you said automatically, then immediately kept going, because stopping would make you feel too much. ‘I fucking knew it.’

Dean moved closer. ‘Babe…’

‘No.’ You pointed at him without looking away from Sam’s wounds. ‘Do not.’

Dean stopped.

You uncapped the disinfectant with your teeth and poured it over the claw marks. Sam sucked in a sharp breath and grabbed the edge of the nearest table.

‘This is exactly why I didn’t want you to come,’ you said, voice too loud, too sharp, bouncing off the stone walls. ‘Exactly this.’

You pressed gauze over the worst of the slashes and ignored the way your own arm screamed when you moved wrong.

Dean’s hand landed carefully on your shoulder. ‘Baby-’

You jerked away before you could think better of it.

‘I said don’t.’

His hand fell.

You hated the look that flashed across his face. You hated that you had put it there. But the fear had nowhere else to go, and if you stopped moving, you were going to shake apart right here in the middle of Hell.

‘I knew you’d get hurt,’ you said, pressing the gauze down harder against Sam’s chest. ‘You could’ve died. Either of you could’ve died. And we’re not even at the vault. We don’t even know where the vaults are. We don’t know who locked us in here, who opened those kennels, who knows we’re here.’

‘Sweetheart,’ Dean said, rough but careful. ‘You’re doin’ great down here. Seriously. Like, totally fucking awesome. But you know damn well you’d probably be dead already if you’d come alone.’

You snapped your head toward him.

‘You just don’t get it, do you?’

Your voice came out too loud. Too sharp. The sound of it bounced back from the stone walls, and for one frozen second, all three of you went still.

Dean blinked.

You looked at Sam. At the blood on his chest. At the gauze under your hands. At the brother you had died to save.

Then back at Dean.

‘I died for him, Dean.’

Sam’s face changed immediately.

You saw it and hated yourself for saying it like that, but you couldn’t stop now.

‘And I risked my life for Benny. I almost didn’t come back from Purgatory because I couldn’t leave him there.’ Your throat tightened, but you forced the words out anyway. ‘And now they’re both here. You all are. And if something happens, if I lose any of you down here, then I-’

Your voice broke.

You stopped before the rest could get out.

Then what was it for?

That was the part you couldn’t say. Not with Sam looking at you like that. Not with Dean standing right there, jaw tight, eyes suddenly full of something painful.

You forced one breath in.

Then another.

‘I can’t do that,’ you finished, quieter now. ‘I can’t survive that.’

Dean and Sam exchanged a look over your head.

You saw it. Pretended you didn’t.

‘Hey… I’m fine,’ Sam said, very carefully. ‘Seriously. It’s not that deep. I'm okay.’

‘Shut up and hold this.’

He held the gauze without arguing.

You wrapped the bandage around his chest as best as you could in a torture chamber with dead hellhounds on the floor and blood all over your hands. It was not pretty. But it would hold. That was all you could ask for. You shoved a bottle of pills into his hand when you were done.

‘Take two.’

Sam sighed and shook the pills into his palm.

Only when he swallowed them did you finally look down at yourself.

Your jacket was ruined. Torn open at the sleeve, soaked with blood and hellhound saliva and whatever else had been in that thing’s mouth. You peeled it off with a grimace and dropped it to the floor. Your flannel underneath wasn’t much better. Ripped, wet, sticking to your skin. You tried to tug the sleeve up and the fabric pulled against the bite, sending a bright line of pain up your arm.

‘Damnit,’ you muttered.

Dean stepped in immediately. ‘Let me-’

‘I’ve got it.’

You grabbed the torn fabric and shoved it down off your shoulders, biting the inside of your cheek when it dragged over the wound. You were left in your undershirt, humid air and hot pain hitting your skin at the same time. At least your arms were free now and you could see the bite properly.

It looked bad.

Dean made a sound under his breath that told you he thought the same thing.

‘Don’t,’ you said, sitting back against one of the heavy tables and reaching for the disinfectant again. ‘I already know.’

‘Yeah, well, I’m gonna say it anyway. That looks like crap.’

Sam crouched beside you, already reaching for clean gauze. ‘Here. Let me.’

You almost argued. Then you looked at his patched chest, his pale face, the blood still under his fingernails, and something in you finally tired out.

You handed him the gauze.

Sam worked carefully, cleaning the bite with more gentleness than you had shown him. The disinfectant burned hard enough that your eyes watered, but you kept still.

For a moment, no one said anything.

Then Sam glanced at you, voice quiet. ‘Hey.’

You stared at the dead hellhound instead of him.

‘Look, I know why you’re upset,’ he said. ‘I get it. I do.’

Your throat tightened.

‘But you have to understand something. We love you. And we are never letting you go into danger alone. Ever.’

You closed your eyes. That hurt more than it should have.

Dean’s voice came from above you, rougher now. ‘We’ve always got each other’s backs. That’s the only option in our book. You know that.’

Your anger faltered. The heat of it burned down enough for exhaustion to get through. Enough for the fear underneath to come out.

You opened your eyes and wiped sweat off your forehead with the back of your clean hand.

‘I know,’ you said, and your voice sounded smaller than you wanted. ‘I know. It’s just… this was intense.’

‘Yeah,’ Dean said.

You looked up at him.

He was standing close, dart gun strapped across him, face tight with everything he was trying not to show. His eyes dropped to your arm, then to Sam, then back to your face.

‘But goddamn, baby,’ he said, and the corner of his mouth twitched. ‘You’re one hell of a fighter. Made my blood run south a couple times.’

Sam froze with the bandage half-wrapped around your forearm. He closed his eyes for a second like he was praying for patience.

You stared at Dean.

‘Dean.’

‘What?’

‘We are in Hell.’

‘Yeah, and I’m still just a man.’

You should not have laughed. It came out short and exhausted and a little broken, but it was there.

Dean saw it immediately. Of course he did. His mouth softened, just a little.

You shook your head. ‘You’re an idiot.’

He wiggled his eyebrows once. ‘You love it.’

You rolled your eyes, but the tightness in your chest loosened another inch.

Sam finished wrapping your forearm and secured the bandage with tape. ‘Try not to shove this one into anything’s mouth for at least ten minutes.’

‘I’ll do my best.’

Dean crouched in front of you then, reaching for your wrist. You let him. He turned your arm carefully, checking the bandage, checking your fingers, making sure you could move them.

His thumb brushed over your knuckles.

‘You good?’

You took a mental check of yourself. Arm throbbing, ribs aching, hip still sore from the fall in Purgatory. Exhausted, dirty, scared, probably running mostly on adrenaline and spite.

But alive.

‘Good enough.’

Dean obviously didn’t love that answer, but he accepted it anyway because there wasn’t time for anything else.

All three of you drank some water. Sam took another careful breath and adjusted his jacket over the bandage as best as he could. You checked the bite once more, flexed your hand, and decided the pain was manageable if you didn’t think too hard about infection.

Dean reloaded the dart gun.

The sight of it made your stomach twist.

Five darts now.

Five darts, and you hadn’t even reached the vault.

Dean snapped the rifle closed and looked at both of you.

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘We ready?’

Sam lifted the demon-killing knife and nodded once. ‘Yeah.’

You stood, slower than you wanted, and picked up the angel blade again. Blood still stained the metal. You tightened your grip around it.

‘Yeah.’

Dean’s eyes held yours for one second longer.

‘They know we’re here,’ he said. ‘Be ready for anything.’

This time, Dean took the front.

He crossed the chamber first, stepped over the dead hellhound, and reached the sealed door. Whatever had locked it before was gone now, or released when the hounds died. It opened under his hand with a low metallic groan.

He looked back once, making sure you were close.

Sam moved behind you, knife ready, breathing a little more carefully now. His bandage was already darkening under the torn layers of his shirt, but he was upright and focused.

Dean pushed the door wider and stepped through.

Another corridor waited beyond it. Shorter than the last one, but much wider, with several archways lining both walls. No doors this time. Just dark openings leading God knew where.

You didn’t like that. At all.

You were just about to say it out loud when a figure walked out from the far archway at the end of the hall.

A man. Tall, broad. His eyes were black and his mouth pulled into a smug, angry smirk.

Dean lifted the rifle at once. But you knew he wouldn’t fire. Not unless he had to. He wouldn’t waste a dart on just anything now, not with only a handful left.

The demon’s eyes moved over Sam first. Then Dean. Then you.

His smirk widened.

‘The Winchesters and their annoying fat bitch,’ he snarled.

Something cold and familiar moved through your stomach. Not hurt, exactly. Not surprise either. You had heard worse. You had thought worse about yourself on bad days. Still, the words landed.

Dean went very still beside you, which usually meant somebody had just made a terrible mistake.

‘Would you look at that,’ he said, voice deep and steady in a way that made the hair at the back of your neck rise. ‘A fan.’

The demon’s smirk twitched into a grimace.

‘Believe me, I’m not a fan,’ he said. ‘None of us are.’

Before any of you could answer, movement exploded from both sides. Figures rushed from the archways. Men, women, bodies of different shapes and sizes, all black-eyed, all feral. Too many to count in the first second.

Dean slung the rifle across his body without taking his eyes off them.

You shoved the angel blade into his hand.

He took it immediately.

This was not the time for ranged combat.

And you had your hands.

The first demon hit Dean hard from the side. He met it with the blade, driving the angel blade up under its ribs and ripping it free before the body even had time to drop. Another one came at him right behind it, faster, one hand closing around Dean’s throat.

The demon screamed.

Not Dean. The demon.

For one split second, all three of you froze.

The demon yanked its hand away, stumbling back with a shocked, furious sound. Its palm was covered in blisters, skin cracked open and smoking where it had touched Dean’s neck.

Your breath caught.

It worked.

The protection had actually worked.

Not like yours. Not the violent, melting destruction your touch could do when a demon got too close. But it was enough. Enough to hurt, to make anything stupid enough to grab them regret it immediately.

Dean looked down at the demon’s smoking hand.

Then he grinned. Dangerous. Mean.

‘Well, how about that.’

The demon lunged again.

Dean moved into it with new energy, angel blade in one hand, the other curled into a fist, slamming into the demon's face hard. The thing hissed as smoke rose under Dean’s knuckles. He drove the blade into its chest and shoved the body aside before turning into the next one.

Sam saw it too.

He was in front of you at once, the knife flashing in one hand, his other hand catching the face of a demon that got too close. It screamed when his palm pressed against its cheek, not melting, but burning enough to make it recoil right into the knife.

Another rush of adrenaline cut through the exhaustion in your body.

The next demon came straight for you. You let it.

It grabbed for your shoulders, and you caught its face with both hands.

The reaction was instant.

Your palms burned through skin and flesh so fast the demon’s scream broke apart in its throat. Blisters rose and burst under your fingers. Smoke poured between your hands. You shoved harder, teeth clenched, and the smell of scorched hellflesh filled the corridor in a thick, disgusting wave.

Another demon came from your right. You turned, caught its throat, and drove it back into the wall. Its hands clawed at your wrists, but your skin burned every place it touched. It screamed into your face, and you shoved one hand up under its jaw, feeling the flesh give under your palm before Sam’s knife drove through its chest from the side.

The fight moved fast after that. The three of you cut through the corridor in a brutal line, leaving bodies behind you. Dean was ahead and to your left, burning demons with one hand and stabbing with the other, his face locked. Sam stayed close on your right, teeth gritted through the pain in his chest, still moving with frightening precision. You stayed between them, hands raised, letting the demons come close enough to learn exactly what your touch could do.

For a few moments, it all worked.

Then a sharp, violent pain tore through your body.

You screamed.

It hit all at once, ripping through every muscle, every nerve, every place you had already been hurt. Your knees buckled before you could catch yourself. The floor slammed into you hard, pain bursting through your hip and ribs where Purgatory had already messed you up.

Your hands scraped against the stone.

For one second, you couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t move.

Something rushed toward you.

Sam stepped over you and took it down before it reached your face, his knife cutting through the demon with one hard, furious motion.

‘Dean!’ Sam shouted.

You heard Dean shout your name.

Then the pain spiked again.

Your vision went white around the edges. A broken sound tore out of your throat, and you curled in on yourself, fingers digging into the dirty stone.

You forced one eye open.

At the far end of the hallway, the first demon still stood. He was grinning now, one hand lifted, fingers curled tight, black eyes fixed on you with cruel satisfaction.

Dean saw him too.

He was already moving, tearing through the last of the demons in his way with nothing pretty about it.

Sam kept fighting off anything that tried to get close to you. There weren’t many left now. Two. Maybe three. You couldn’t count through the pain.

Dean crossed the corridor fast. The demon tried to twist away, tried to throw another pulse of pain into you, but Dean hit him before he could finish whatever the hell he was doing.

The pain stopped.

You sucked in air so hard it hurt.

For a second, you could only lie there, shaking and trying to catch your breath.

Then you looked up.

Dean had the demon by the throat, pinned up against the wall.

His hand was locked around its neck, and smoke poured from under his fingers. The demon clawed at him, trying to pry his hand away, but all that did was burn its own hands too. Its face twisted, blisters rising along its jaw, skin cracking where Dean’s grip pressed into his flesh.

Dean lifted the angel blade.

‘Dean!’ you shouted.

He stopped.

His head snapped toward you, eyes blazing, chest rising hard.

The demon choked under his hand.

You forced yourself to your feet. Your legs trembled, but they held. ‘Wait.’

Dean’s jaw worked like every part of him wanted to ignore that. Then he lowered the blade by one inch.

You moved.

A demon staggered into your path, half-burned and furious. You didn’t slow down. You caught it by the side of the head with one hand and shoved it into the wall. It screamed as your palm burned through its cheek.

You barely looked as it dropped.

You reached the demon in Dean's hand and yanked the handcuffs from your bag. Demonic handcuffs. Iron, etched with a trap.

Dean shoved the demon down hard enough that its knees hit the stone. You grabbed one wrist, then the other, ignoring the way the thing hissed when your fingers brushed its skin. The cuffs clicked shut.

The demon jerked, then stilled, breathing hard through burned lips.

Only then did Dean let go.

The demon collapsed onto its side, coughing and clawing uselessly at the cuffs. Blisters covered its neck and jaw where Dean had held it. Its hands were ruined too, smoking in patches from trying to fight him off.

You stood over it, breathing hard, sweat cooling against your skin, your arm throbbing, temples still pulsing with the echo of that pain. Sam came up behind you, one hand pressed against his bandaged chest, knife still ready.

You looked down at the demon. Then up at your husband.

His face was hard, furious, but he understood.

You wiped a streak of blood off your mouth with the back of your hand and tried to ignore the dull ache beating behind your eyes.

‘We’re gonna have a little chat.’

Dean was still riding the high of what had just happened.

Not the fight right in the middle of this nightmare.

The burn.

That was what kept looping through his head as he dragged the demon down the corridor by the back of its jacket, away from the pile of bodies and closer to the torture chamber door they had just come out of.

It worked.

Son of a bitch, it actually worked.

His hand had burned a demon. Sam’s too. Not enough to melt the bastards clean through the way she could, but enough to hurt, to make demons scream bloody murder. Enough for them to think twice before laying a hand on either of them.

She did that.

She had bound them to her, bled herself damn near dry for them. Risked her magic, her memory, all of it. And it worked.

Dean usually wasn’t the one doubting her. He knew better. He had seen her do too much impossible crap to start doubting now. But after the hellhounds, after Sam had been clawed open and her face had gone all wrong because the protection hadn’t done a damn thing against them, he understood why she had snapped. She thought she had failed.

She hadn’t.

Not even close.

Now there were dead demons all over the hall, burn marks on half their faces and throats, and one cuffed son of a bitch ready to talk.

Dean shoved the demon hard against the wall and forced him down until his back hit the stone.

His wife stood over him, breathing hard, thin undershirt streaked with blood and grime. Her injured arm was still bandaged, but blood had already started to spot through the gauze. She looked exhausted.

She also looked steady.

Sam took position behind them, knife still up, eyes scanning both ends of the corridor. Watching their backs.

Dean crouched in front of the demon and rested one forearm on his knee.

‘Alright,’ he said. ‘Let’s make this easy.’

The demon gave him a bloody grin. His cheek was blistered, jaw burned raw where Dean’s hand had held him. Still cocky. Still stupid.

‘Easy?’ it rasped. ‘You think anything down here will be easy for you?’

Dean smiled back.

‘Yeah, see, that’s the attitude that makes this take longer.’

The demon’s black eyes slid past Dean to her. ‘What, you think your little blood cow will scare me?’

Dean’s hand shot out and clamped around the demon’s throat.

The effect was instant.

Smoke curled up between Dean’s fingers. The demon’s grin broke apart into a choked scream, body thrashing against the wall, both cuffed hands jerking uselessly.

Dean leaned in closer.

‘You say one more word about my wife,’ he said, low and even, ‘and I’m gonna let her step in. And believe me, pal, you really don’t want that.’

The demon’s eyes flicked to her. He bared his teeth, but the sound that came out was closer to pain than defiance.

Dean let go.

The demon coughed and sagged back against the wall, neck smoking.

His wife didn’t say anything. She only watched with that frighteningly calm look she got when her patience was hanging by a thread.

‘So,’ Dean said, flexing his hand once because it still felt strange, still felt good in a way that made him a little uncomfortable. ‘The more you cooperate, the quicker and less painful your death’s gonna be.’

The demon spat blood onto the floor. ‘Go to hell.’

Dean snorted. ‘Buddy, look around.’

Sam’s eyes flicked toward them, but he didn’t interrupt.

His wife shifted her weight beside Dean. ‘How did you know we were coming?’

The demon laughed under his breath.

Dean sighed. ‘Wrong answer.’

He reached out again, just two fingers this time, and pressed them against the demon’s temple.

The demon screamed and tried to twist away. Dean held him there for two seconds. Three.

Then pulled back.

‘How'd you know?’ he repeated.

The demon breathed hard through his teeth. ‘Crowley.’

Dean’s jaw tightened. ‘Come again?’

‘You think Heaven is quiet about anything?’ the demon snapped, voice rough now. 'You think the little winged dicks are careful?’

His wife’s eyes narrowed. ‘The angels?’

‘Angels were talking to Crowley,’ the demon said. ‘And Crowley still had eyes on him.’

Sam frowned. ‘Crowley is human.’

‘Crowley was the King,’ the demon hissed. ‘And some old meatsuits stayed loyal. People topside still watching who crawls in and out of whatever hole you left him in.’

Dean felt his stomach turn cold.

Of course.

Because why would anything be easy? Why would Heaven’s brilliant plan not come with something to screw them over?

‘So some of Crowley’s old meat kept tabs on him,’ Dean said.

‘After you locked us down here?’ The demon’s smile returned, ugly and bitter. ‘Yeah. We kept tabs. We listened. Communication got harder, but not impossible. The former king starts talking to angels about a shiny little toy in a vault, and word gets around.’

His wife’s face tightened.

‘You know what we’re after,’ she said.

The demon didn’t bother hiding the satisfaction in his face. ‘Everybody knows what you’re after.’

Dean glanced up at her.

She stepped closer, all polite calm now, which Dean recognized immediately as dangerous.

‘In that case,’ she said, voice smooth in a way that made the demon flinch, ‘we would like the shortest directions to the vaults, if you please.’

Dean almost smiled.

The demon looked up at her and laughed. ‘That would be pointless.’

Dean’s eyes sharpened. ‘Why’s that?’

‘Because the Lance isn’t there.’

Dean went still.

Sam shifted on his feet behind them.

‘You’re lying,' she said flatly.

The demon shrugged as much as the cuffs let him. ‘Go look. Waste your time. Get torn apart by whatever’s left guarding the place. Doesn’t matter to me.’

His wife looked down at him for a long moment.

Then she looked at Dean. He had been with his wife long enough to know that look.

‘What do you think, Dean?’ she asked casually, turning her blade in her hand and dragging the dull edge slowly across her palm. ‘Shall we start with the VIP spa treatment?’

Dean felt his mouth pull into a smirk. Something hot and sharp rolled through his chest.

‘I don’t know, babe,’ he said, keeping his eyes on the demon. ‘You think he can take it?’

The demon’s gaze dropped to her hand. The cockiness finally slipped.

Damn right.

‘Let’s find out,’ she said.

She didn’t cut deep. Barely more than a prick at the tip of her finger. A bead of blood welled up, red and bright in the dim light of Hell.

The demon went still. All smugness drained from his face now.

‘Wait.’

She held her hand over him.

‘Last chance,’ she said. ‘Where is the Lance?’

The demon swallowed. Dean watched him look at her blood. Watched him understand.

The drop fell.

It hit his cheek.

The reaction was violent.

The blood burned straight through flesh, cutting deep and fast, and the demon screamed so hard his whole body jerked against the cuffs. Smoke burst from the wound. The smell hit the corridor, sharp and ugly.

‘Ramiel!’ the demon choked. ‘Ramiel has it!’

She pulled her hand back.

Dean’s smirk faded.

‘Ramiel?’ he asked. ‘That your new big-shot king?’

The demon’s eyes snapped back to his. ‘Hell has no king. Hell needs no king.’

His wife gave a small, humorless huff.

‘Cute,’ she said, wiping the blood off her finger. ‘Sauron's gonna be pleased.’

Dean spared her half a glance.

The demon’s face twisted. ‘No. He’s a Prince.’

Sam went very still behind them.

Dean nodded slowly. ‘Well, that’s fantastic. Always wanted to catch Purple Rain live.’

His wife’s mouth twitched, but the worry in her eyes was already there.

The demon breathed hard, cheek still smoking, black eyes fixed on Dean now.

‘Joke all you want,’ it rasped. ‘He’s not someone to mess with.’

Dean leaned closer, angel blade resting against the demon's chest. ‘Yeah, well, neither am I.’

The demon’s burned mouth curled slowly. More amused than cocky.

‘That’s why he wants to meet you.’

Dean’s hand went still. His wife looked down at the demon, frowning now.

Sam’s voice came low from behind them. ‘What does that mean?’

The demon’s smile widened as much as the damage would allow.

‘It means the Lance isn’t waiting in some vault for you to steal.’ His black eyes locked on Dean. ‘Ramiel has it. And he’s been waiting for Dean Winchester to come home.’

CHAPTER 4 here

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