FIC: Pulling Out The Nails, Chapter 15: Impact [16/20]
Back to 14. Brace, or go to the Masterpost.
Maybe it was because Sam was safe, or maybe it was because he'd truly made his peace, but Dean felt at ease as they approached the outskirts of Washington. Crowley's shop was in a dingy back alley-not the standard for magicians at all, but he was in disgrace; it wasn't so surprising, in the end. This would be an opportunity he couldn't pass up: Dean Winchester, leader of that pesky Resistance, walking right into his shop and handing himself over. If he didn't see that as a way to get back in with the big wigs a few miles east, then he really didn't know a good deal when he saw one.
And nothing would get them closer to the heart of the magicians' growing empire than being captured and led straight in.
From there, though, he just had to hope that Henriksen would be able to get to them in time, and maybe they could make a mess of this after all.
"Okay," he muttered, tucking his handgun into the back of his jeans. "If this is going to be convincing, we'd better look really desperate."
"I haven't checked a mirror for a few hours, but you look the part," Castiel returned. Dean rolled his eyes.
"Back at you, asshat." Castiel chuckled weakly as Dean stepped out of the car. They were still a good mile from Crowley's dingy back-alley shop, but no way was Dean leaving the Impala close to that snake. He'd been the one who sent Bela to steal it from Dean, after all. In the horrible event that Crowley survived the coming hours, Dean didn't want him to have the satisfaction of making off with the Impala.
"See you, baby," he said quietly, patting the hood for luck. Castiel, groaning, evicted himself from the other side of the car. Dean yanked the tarp out of the backseat and covered her shiny black paint with dull canvas, tugging the edges straight.
"What if Crowley doesn't turn us in?" Castiel asked, cringing as he straightened up.
"There are two things I know for sure," Dean said, gesturing for the djinn to follow him. "One, Sam is going to haul ass right back here in a few hours, and probably be very disappointed that he missed all the action. Two, Crowley knows a good deal when he sees one, and since there's nothing in it for him if we take all his stuff and ride gloriously into battle, there's no way he doesn't call his old associates on us."
Castiel gave a heavy sigh that might have been agreement or just resignation, but followed Dean forward anyway.
"What's Lilith's deal, anyway?" Dean asked his companion, remembering Petersburg. "What was Anna talking about?"
"Specifically, I don't know," Castiel returned, frowning. "She certainly seemed convinced of Lilith's chances at success, though, which is new. Anna is usually a neutral party-not one of those spirits who gets caught up in vengeance. Not like Meg. Lilith must be making convincing movements if Anna has followed her."
"The following thing didn't seem to be working out so well," Dean pointed out. "She's still taking orders from Azazel. Bastard," he muttered compulsively.
"Maybe she thinks it's only short-term," Castiel said.
"Surprised you didn't take her up on the offer. Seemed like a good one."
"I would never willingly throw myself at Lilith's mercy," Castiel said dismissively. "We have old disagreements. Much older than you," he added, as though he'd guessed that Dean was about to ask about Lawrence. "Spirits don't cultivate much in the way of bonds anymore, but we do have rivalries. Lilith and I have been pitted against one another often, and we have personality differences. It wouldn't be a good fit, no matter what Anna thinks."
Dean snorted. "'Personality differences?'"
"Some spirits have a more similar moral code to humans than others," Castiel elaborated. "Hers is fairly far from human. That's usually the case, the more powerful the spirit is. Lilith is a marid."
Dean let out a low whistle. "Didn't you take her on yourself? How'd that work out?"
If he wasn't mistaken, Castiel's wings puffed up a bit in pride, even though they were clearly worse for the wear. Dean resisted the urge to roll his eyes as the djinni preened. "It was one of my more difficult battles. She has more raw power, of course, but cunning does count for something among spirits. Obviously, I did not manage to kill her; my priority was getting the Winchesters out alive, so my techniques were meant as a mere distraction to buy us time."
"Still," Dean admitted. "Impressive."
Castiel smiled. "Thank you."
"Don't get too full of yourself," Dean added. "If we get through this alive, then you can start bragging."
"You mean if I get through this alive," Castiel pointed out. His voice was hard again, the deadpan edge a poor front for his irritation. "You are, as they say, a dead man."
"Nice," Dean muttered, rolling his eyes. They fell back into silence as they approached the dingy back alley. The door to Crowley's shop swung open before they could reach it themselves. The man himself-short, bearded, and with the typical portly stature of a shopkeeper-held it open, a look of smug satisfaction on his face.
"Dean Winchester," he called, beckoning. "Finally climbed down from your high horse, I take it?"
Crowley, like Bela, was British, and even after more than twenty years stateside, he still had a smooth, arrogant accent to prove it. He'd been a young magician when the British Empire fell, and in the chaos that followed, had fled the country before he could be prosecuted with the rest of the remaining British magicians. As far as Dean knew, he'd been a shady shopkeeper ever since, dealing in artifacts and minor demons, because the Americans didn't trust him enough to let him into their ranks.
Dean didn't blame them. He didn't go to great efforts to look particularly trustworthy, after all.
"Could you be any louder?" Dean growled. Crowley glanced past him to Castiel, but clearly didn't notice anything amiss; he probably had the contact lenses that most magicians did, but those only saw to the third plane at best, and Castiel's disguise was intact up to the seventh. If he was surprised by their bloody and beaten appearances, he didn't show it.
"It's not often that a general himself comes to see my humble business," Crowley replied, letting the door shut behind them. "I must win my credibility where I can."
"I wouldn't count on us for that," Dean said, glancing around the shop. The shelves were half-bare; whatever special stock Crowley had, he clearly kept under wraps.
"How can I help you, Dean?" Crowley said, moving around them to take up his position behind the register. Dean would be surprised if a man like Crowley had a panic button back there, but at the very least, they couldn't see his hands, and the right phone call would work just as well.
"Bela said you would deal," Dean said. "Word on the street is you've got the best stock of magical artifacts there is. The most potent."
"Given your sudden arrival in Washington," Crowley said, shuffling around beneath the register, "and judging by your brother's sudden flight with the entire Resistance toward Mexico, I suppose I can safely assume that these are to be put to immediate use." He glanced up, finally taking stock of their injuries. "Seen better times, have you."
Dean forced a laugh. "No." Castiel shuffled, suddenly anxious, beside him.
"I thought I knew all your associates," Crowley said absently, heaving a large box up to the counter. "This one's not familiar. Word on the street is you've had a demon following you around lately, Dean. Have you become that desperate?"
"I think you can tell how desperate I am," Dean gritted out. "Are you going to deal or not, Crowley?"
The disgraced magician waved a dismissive hand over the box. "See what you like. Make sure you have the coin to pay, though, Winchester."
Dean moved forward. The balance between suspicious and obvious was a difficult one, but, if all went well, he'd be knocked off his ass and dragged right into Washington in a few minutes, anyway, and then he wouldn't have to bother with this stupid play-acting at all.
Castiel let out a muffled shout behind him. Before Dean could turn and glare at him, Crowley snapped, and a load of black powder rose up out of the box. Dean tried to take a step back before he realized he was doing it, and something behind him held him in place.
"Hold still, Dean," Crowley said, a smug look of self-satisfaction plastered on his face. "This won't hurt much."
The black powder swarmed up, swept down his sinuses, and left a burning in its wake that deprived him of oxygen. Gravity tugged hard at him, and he collapsed within seconds. He was unconscious before he hit the ground.
By the time Castiel regained consciousness, he thought it would have been better for everyone if he'd stayed asleep.
He recognized his location. He'd been summoned to the chambers multiple times by as many masters, and a number of them were in attendance. Dean, on the other hand, was nowhere to be seen; undoubtedly, he was being held somewhere else. Probably, he was still unconscious. Humans were more fragile than spirits. In the meantime, Castiel was on his own.
The only small mercy was that Dean's modified Mournful Orb was still locked around his neck, which meant that no magician-not even Azazel-could do much to him in the way of punishment. They could, however, freely sic other spirits on him, and he was hardly in a position to defend himself. His freedom of movement had been taken away; he was back in a pentacle, though it was hardly necessary at this point to keep him contained.
It had been a long time since he had been so aware of his chains. They had become almost forgettable over the last several decades; in a state of constant imprisonment, one usually forgot that the bars were there and simply acted within them. But he had been free for weeks with Dean-allowed the leisure to move around, use his powers at will-and now his shackles seemed intolerable.
Castiel got to his feet within the pentacle, brushing off dusty suit pants. From across the room-amidst the swell of angry, terrified conversation-Azazel saw him stir.
By all rights, the man shouldn't have commanded as much respect as he did. He was short, for a human-Castiel found himself thinking that Dean, given the chance, would dwarf him-and he had peculiar eyes that were just this side of too yellow. Wherever they caught sunlight, they shone like molten gold. His face was heavily lined, aged beyond his actual years, his hair short and peppered liberally with gray. There was nothing particularly notable about him, and yet, as he moved across the room, the other magicians present-only the highest-ranking, Castiel noticed-fell silent as he passed, watching him with eager eyes.
"This one has been inside the heart of the Resistance," Azazel called out to the room. "And do you know what he found there? A leader powerful enough to subvert all my efforts, and turn a loyal slave against me. You all see the collar around his neck?"
The men and women in the room nodded, fearful again; their lenses would allow them to see the slim blue ring settled at Castiel's throat.
"We should have known better," Azazel continued, "than to think that John Winchester's brat wouldn't use the magic we taught him to overthrow this government. We have no defense against this, ladies and gentlemen. I had hoped that by eliminating Dean, the Resistance would crumble, but I was wrong."
The crowd whispered. Sheep, Castiel thought resentfully.
"I have no doubt that Dean has passed on his skills to his followers," Azazel went on. "This one will be interrogated. This one will tell us everything he knows. But an attack is imminent, and we need my solution to have any hope of defending against it. This Resistance is more dangerous than we could have ever imagined."
From the corner of his eye, Castiel glimpsed Lilith, disguised in the crowd as a woman with long, blond hair-the same guise she'd worn in 1983. She smiled sweetly at him. He frowned back. She had been working on this a long time, he realized absently, still watching Azazel's movements warily. Dean should have run for his life. The capitol would self-destruct in its own time.
Castiel settled in to watch. He almost wished he had popcorn.
Azazel stepped into the nearest pentacle, connected to a much larger one. "Lilith," he called, and she shuffled from the crowd, stepping delicately into the empty chalk across from him. She dropped her head respectfully.
"Ready," she said sweetly. He stared across at her and started the chant.
It would break Dean's heart not to tear through Azazel the way Lilith was about to do, Castiel reflected, but he would have to live with the fact that it had at least been done. Azazel would be no more in a matter of moments, and if Dean had any sense, he would run the instant he realized what had happened.
Lilith drained through the connecting pentacles and absorbed into Azazel. His eyes briefly shone white, the pupil and iris swallowed completely. He twitched, jerked, a puppet on disjointed strings, breathed too harshly, and then, suddenly, he was still.
"Take your pentacles," he announced firmly. "We will face their attack with more power than we have ever dared imagine."
Castiel watched him warily. He didn't seem particularly possessed, as Castiel had anticipated. The other magicians, in various states of fear and exhilaration, lined up behind one another near their chosen pentacles. Incantations echoed around the room. Castiel heard more than one name he recognized-Anael, Megaira, Abbadon, Uriel, Balthazar, Rubye-and suppressed a shudder. A few of them were djinn, but more were afrits, even marids; their summoners couldn't possibly hope to control them.
He risked another glance at Azazel, who stood calmly, apparently completely at ease, fingers drumming against his arms as he watched the proceedings. The FBI Director seemed fine. He even retained the self-possessed way Azazel usually held himself, back ramrod straight, feet firmly supportive. From what he'd heard of London, this was not exactly the way Castiel had expected a mass possession to occur.
"Can I help you, Castiel?" the man asked, and while there was still a familiar husk to the voice, the sweet undertone was unquestionably feminine. Lilith was definitely in there.
"You seem very comfortable," Castiel said carefully, wishing he had something more protective than a cage and a Mournful Orb at his disposal. If he'd been able to dispose of the pentacle, he would have had a good shot at fleeing, at least. As it stood, he was effectively waiting for Lilith to settle their old grudge.
"Oh, I am," she said amendably. "This isn't the first time he's invited me in. We're very close, Azazel and I."
"We have common goals," he added. It was Azazel's voice now; Lilith's was a mere echo.
"He has a very shrewd mind for a human," she continued. "I can appreciate his talents."
Castiel felt, unsurprisingly, nauseous. Lilith turned her attentions back to the proceedings, and Castiel found himself desperately hoping that Dean was on his way back to the Impala. Magicians were one thing, spirits were another, but the two of them, amiably working together-that was something they weren't prepared to deal with.
Forward to 16. Dismissal.