Blood Runes: Chapter 6
Chapter 6
Sam stepped out onto the roof of the tower and was approximately equal parts disappointed and suspicious to find the area deserted. Ruby followed somewhat more cautiously.
“This sure screams ‘trap’ to me,” she mumbled.
“If it is, they should have sprung it right away,” Sam mused, scanning the area around them. “As it is, it looks like they’ve left me an opportunity to prepare, which is a major mistake on their part.”
“If you say so,” Ruby agreed with a shrug.
There was an elaborate rune structure scrawled across the ground beneath their feet in something that looked like chalk, but it didn’t smudge. The diagram covered one corner of the rooftop. Even if Sam hadn’t recognized the purpose of the spell, he would have recognized the call to the power he’d been steadily building inside himself on the way up to this place--the runes called out for blood to activate them.
“I need to drink again,” he told Ruby.
She raised both eyebrows in surprise. “Are you sure? You’re already as powered up as you’ve ever been. What if you can’t control it this time?”
Sam did feel almost as though he were about to burst apart at the seams already, the magic seeking a way out, kept under control by sheer force of will.
“Don’t worry, I’m planning to use some of it in a moment, and I know what I can handle.”
“What are you planning?” Ruby asked, eyes narrowed.
“I’m going to use their own spell against them. If I activate this spell structure, I can harness it and either destroy their plans or redirect it at the dragon-snakes.”
Ruby drew a sharp nail across her wrist and offered the arm to Sam, who drank as much as he could stand before the press of the magic became a physical pain and not just a constant distracting discomfort. He drew his hunting knife, removed one of his gloves, sliced across his own palm, and dribbled the blood across the entire diagram. The runes glowed briefly before going dark again.
Sam frowned. Maybe he hadn’t used enough blood? He didn’t want to shed enough to weaken himself, knowing he would need full control to wield the magic later. He pulled the glove back on again.
“You’ve got the right idea,” a voice behind him announced, “but you only had one of the ingredients required.” Sam whirled to find Azazel observing him with his usual disturbing smile. Suddenly, Sam found himself penned into the corner by dragon-snakes. Turning to the edge of the roof behind him, he realized there would be no escape in that direction. A magical barrier prevented him from jumping or using his magic to fly away. He prepared to gather up enough power for a burst attack all around himself.
“Relax,” Azazel ordered with a dismissive gesture of one hand. “We can’t start the party until all the guests arrive. It would be rude.”
With more conscious effort than he would like to admit, Sam was able to reel the power back into himself. He still watched the dragon-snakes warily, especially when he noticed Ruby had moved from his side to join their ranks, but he decided to wait and see what would happen. If he were lucky, an opening would present itself.
***
“You let him go back in alone?” Castiel was indignant, and it was the most emotion Haplo had ever seen the dragon express. The other dragons that he had brought back to aid them looked a bit surprised by the outburst, too.
“We didn’t let him do anything!” Marit countered. She had never taken well to having her mistakes pointed out to her. “He probably planned to sneak away from the beginning.”
The truth of the statement didn’t absolve them of neglecting to keep an eye on the missing Dean, but standing around feeling guilty about it wouldn’t accomplish anything, either. Haplo was about to say something to that effect, but someone else spoke first.
“Lost him, eh? Well, leave him alone and he’ll come home, wagging his--no wait, that’s sheep.” Haplo hadn’t missed Zifnab’s particular variety of crazy, but the man somehow excelled at dispelling tension. He placed a bony hand on the fuming dragon’s arm. “Just make sure you put everything back in the right places when you do find him.” Cryptic statements were the man’s other specialty.
“We all know where he went, and now that we stand a chance, we can follow,” Haplo suggested.
“The sooner the better,” Zifnab’s dragon agreed. “Their plan is already in motion. Can you feel it?”
No one verbally acknowledged it, but they all did. The area around the tower was heavy with building energy, only adding to everyone’s agitation. They all glanced toward the top of the tower occasionally, instinctively knowing that was the focal point of whatever was meant to happen sometime soon.
With a visible effort, Castiel calmed himself and the group entered to tower to find the entry hall deserted. It wasn’t a good sign because it meant the dragon-snakes were either confident that they could not be stopped or they were expected.
It was possible that everyone they sought was already on the roof, but Haplo had a feeling that wasn’t the case and they had no time to second guess themselves. He cast a spell that had served him well in the past, replaying the events that had occurred in the room over the last few hours in a matter of moments. They all watched Sam and a woman that appeared to be a dragon-snake’s fight with the token group of guards and later ascension up the stairs, followed shortly by Dean’s arrival and capture.
“Dean was not taken to the roof,” Castiel mused aloud with a concerned frown. “It would appear he is being deliberately kept away.”
Zifnab’s dragon was looking at Castiel with what Haplo might almost term a fond smile. “If you must find him, do so, but you must hurry.” The dragon then turned his attention to the group as a whole. “My brethren and I will go on ahead. Follow as quickly as you can.” Then the dragons, and Zifnab with them, were gone.
“You heard him; let’s go!” Marit headed purposefully toward the stairs, and Haplo began to follow, only to be stopped by a hand on his arm. It was Alfred.
“I will help our dragon friend look for Dean.”
Haplo acknowledged him with a nod and turned back to the stairs. He focused on running up the stairs in a manner combining maximum speed with minimal energy expenditure, not knowing what awaited him at his goal.
***
Castiel was scanning the room around them intently, and Alfred wondered if he could perhaps see more than the obvious.
“I can find no trace of him,” the dragon grumbled. “I should be able to sense his presence. The enemy is probably blocking me.” He sounded frustrated, and Alfred marveled that one of these usually stoic creatures could be so unsettled by the unknown fate of a single Patryn.
“Can you sense any individual?” Alfred asked and then flushed when he realized he must sound like he was more interested in the dragon’s abilities than finding Dean. “I’m sorry! I don’t mean to pry.”
“We can sense the essence of all creatures,” Castiel answered absently, eyes still futilely scanning the room for any clues to the missing man’s whereabouts, “but Dean is...special.”
“The bloodline?” Alfred let his own eyes wander over their surroundings. He did not expect to find anything the dragon had missed, but it made him feel more useful.
“No. It happens only rarely, but my kind can form a bond with a creature not like us. Zifnab is such a case, though I believe my brother sometimes has occasion to lament that the process is both permanent and often involuntary.”
Alfred thought that sounded very much like his own connection to Haplo. He got so caught up in his own musings that he missed Castiel asking him a question. “Pardon?” he stammered.
“Why did you decide to remain here to help me search for Dean?” the dragon repeated his inquiry.
“I’ve never much enjoyed fighting,” he confessed, “though I no longer allow myself to give into the fainting spells to which I used to be prone. I’d much rather provide support to others, and I fear Dean may be in dire need of help.”
Alfred knew the cruelty of the dragon-snakes, and he shuddered to think what Dean’s captors might be doing to the young warrior, provided he was still alive. Alfred forced that negative thought from his mind. Until it was proven otherwise, they had to hope.
Suddenly, Castiel’s head snapped to the side a split second before Alfred’s eyes were drawn to the same shadowed area by a slight movement. A small wildcat was huddled in the corner. It mewled at them plaintively. Alfred took a moment to ponder what the creature might be doing in the tower before he realized he had seen something like this before at the same moment Castiel muttered, “Dean.”
They both rushed toward the creature, which shied away and slunk quickly along the base of the wall. They followed it to what appeared to be a blank stretch of wall, where it vanished. Alfred knelt to examine the spot and felt a slight draft of air.
“There’s a hidden door!”
The illusion was easy enough to dispel once it had been discovered, and Castiel and Alfred made their way down the stairs revealed behind the secret portal. Soon they could see a light ahead of them and heard a single voice speaking.
“Broken already?” the voice taunted. “I expected you to last longer than this. If you can’t entertain me any longer, I may as well just kill you.”
Alfred and Castiel shared a quick glance before rushing onward into the hidden basement room. Dean was chained upright to the wall, limbs spread wide to prevent him from casting any magic or closing the healing circle. His head hung limply from his neck, the chains clearly the only things keeping his unconscious body from slumping to the floor in a boneless heap. His shirt had been slashed open and blood dripped down from a multitude of small cuts deep enough to be painful without being immediately dangerous. Knowing as much as he did about Patryn magic, though arguably not very much, Alfred could tell that the wounds were strategically placed to disrupt the connections between Dean’s rune tattoos, negating all of his defenses. The process would have felt infinitely more painful than the simple lacerations alone, the magic tied so directly to the Patryn’s very being as it was. Several injuries surrounding Dean’s heart rune were most concerning.
A dragon-snake in Patryn guise stood before him, back facing Dean’s would be rescuers. In his raised right hand a small, sharp blade gleamed in the flickering light of a torch in a wall sconce. The dragon-snake chuckled to himself, the sibilant sound echoing off the stone walls creating an effect of the sound surrounding them all.
“Welcome,” he greeted them without turning to look in their direction. “Dean here was hoping you might come, but I don’t know that you’ll be able to do him much good.”
Castiel let loose a growl that startled Alfred and then leapt forward to engage the dragon-snake. The two bodies tumbled to the floor in a whirlwind of vicious blows, and Alfred honestly could not say which of the two, if either, had the upper hand. For a moment, it seemed to the Sartan as though the shadows cast on the walls showed the image of two giant serpentine forms entwined, but he tore his gaze away from the fight to focus upon the injured man.
The chains did not appear to have any keyholes or clasps in the shackles at Dean’s wrists and ankles, but any key would likely have been with the dragon-snake and thus of no use to Alfred. Instead he cast a simple spell of opening, pleased that his voice did not waver as he sang the runes. He caught Dean’s body as it fell away from the wall, but he was unprepared for the dead weight and they both tumbled to the floor.
Alfred carefully laid Dean out on the cold ground, even though he knew the man felt nothing anymore. He began healing the shallow injuries, starting with those around the heart rune and working outward. Eventually, the Patryn’s own innate magic began to assist Alfred and his body lay there, physically whole, but still unresponsive.
Alfred scanned the room for any sign of the wildcat, suspecting its presence would be required for Dean’s full revival. He saw no sign of the creature, though he did note that the match between the dragons appeared to have reached a stalemate.
“Very well,” the dragon-snake spat at Castiel, “take him if you want him. That’s nothing but an empty shell. He abandoned it, you see, just as everyone else abandons him.” A cruel grin spread across the dragon-snake’s face and he disappeared, his parting words echoing in the air around them. “I must join my brethren anyway--the main event is about to begin!”
Castiel began looking around the room, much as Alfred had moments ago. Alfred resumed his own searching. They must find the cat and somehow reunite it with Dean’s body. He was bit bewildered because, although similar to Haplo’s dog, this situation was clearly different. Both had been created in moments of desperation, but Haplo remained conscious and able to act independently of his dog, while Dean appeared to have surrendered everything he could into the animal they now sought.
Alfred recalled how the dog had behaved very much like a dog, if a highly intelligent one. He felt like a fool, but if there was any chance it might work...
“Here, kitty!” he called softly. Louder, “Kitty, kitty?” He clucked his tongue and felt his ears burning at the ridiculousness of the situation, but then a meow sounded from a dark corner of the room.
He and Castiel both turned to see a small dark form huddled as closely to the wall as was possible without somehow melding into it. Another, slightly larger form crouched beside it, but Alfred blinked and it was gone, perhaps never their to begin with, a trick of the dim light.
Alfred crouched and extended a cupped hand, cooing softly. The wildcat slunk toward him warily, eyes darting around wildly and whiskers twitching. Before it reached him, Castiel scooped the animal up in his arms. Alfred was surprised to see the animal instantly calm itself, not scratching or biting as he feared it might. The cat was panting heavily and did not look well.
“Dean must be awakened. We don’t have much time,” Castiel announced, carrying the animal over to Dean’s still limp form. He turned back to Alfred, expression grim. “It took everything Dean had left to generate this form, and he never intended it to be returned to him. It will take a great deal of power to reunite them. I’m afraid I will not be of much use after this.”
“I understand,” Alfred acknowledged. He placed himself where he could both observe the doorway to watch for the approach of any threat and Castiel’s actions.
The dragon pulled the animal to his chest and it became a ball of light cupped in his hands, the glow so bright it hurt Alfred’s eyes to look at it directly. Castiel held the light in his left palm and placed his right on Dean’s left shoulder to brace himself as he crouched next to the unconscious Patryn. He turned his cupped left hand over and pushed the ball of light into Dean’s body, just below his rib cage, the hand actually disappearing into Dean’s flesh, though there was no blood or visible damage.
As Castiel withdrew the hand, Dean gasped and opened his eyes. The was a flash of blue and a crackle like lightning at the spot where Castiel’s right hand still touched Dean. The dragon was thrown backward a short distance and remained where he had fallen, seemingly unable to regain his feet.
Dean blinked owlishly and glanced about him, expression bewildered. He looked at his shoulder, and even from a distance, Alfred could make out a reddened handprint. The mark lay beneath the tattoos on the skin, causing no disruption, as though it had always been there.
Dean noticed the collapsed dragon and scrambled over to him. Alfred rushed to assist as well. Castiel sat up on his own. He placed his hand over the mark and met Dean’s eyes.
“Go. Stop it, if you can.”
Dean looked hesitant. “I will help him,” Alfred reassured the young man.
Dean startled and turned to Alfred as though he had not even known the Sartan was there until this moment. He nodded and rose smoothly to his feet and ran to the stairs and upward toward the roof.
Alfred drew one of Castiel’s arms over his shoulders and followed more slowly, wishing the young warrior speed and luck.
***
Haplo and Marit slowed their pace as they approached the roof. It wouldn’t do them any good to arrive at a battle out of breath. However, there were no sounds of fighting coming from behind the door at the top of the final flight of stairs.
They glanced at one another warily. Was it possible that they were too late? Haplo placed one hand on the door handle and the other on the hilt of his short sword and quirked an eyebrow at Marit, who gripped her own weapon tightly and gave a nod of acknowledgement.
They burst through the doorway simultaneously prepared to fight if necessary, only to find the other occupants of the rooftop at a stalemate.
Sam was hunched over in one corner of the roof, standing on top of a rune structure drawn upon the ground. He didn’t appear to be physically injured, but it was difficult to tell from this distance. The young Patryn’s eyes darted wildly about like a cornered animal, which was not surprising, given the circumstances.
A group of dragon-snakes stood in the other far corner of the roof. In contrast to the tense energy of Sam, the dragon-snakes appeared to be patiently awaiting something. Most of the group seemed to be deferring to Azazel, who stood at the front of the group, a self-satisfied smirk gracing his features.
The dragons of Pryan stood in their own group just beyond the doorway. Zifnab’s dragon was looking very displeased, and none of the other dragons in his company seemed any happier. Even Zifnab was serious, and if that wasn’t an indication that the situation was dire, Haplo couldn’t imagine what would be.
“What’s going on?” Marit asked before Haplo had the chance himself.
“If we attack,” Zifnab’s dragon explained, “we will only risk giving them exactly what they want.” The dragon cocked his head toward the construct beneath Sam’s feet. “Those are blood runes designed to channel a vast amount of energy in order to generate the new gate. The spell cannot activate without three kinds of blood; Sam has already contributed his own, now it needs only the blood of both dragon races. We cannot risk bloodshed if we want to stop them.”
“Come now,” Azazel broke into the conversation, “why fight this? Surely you don’t really want to be trapped in this place forever any more than we do! Aren’t you tired of paying the price for the misdeeds of these lesser creatures? We are bothers, after all--two sides of the same coin. One cannot exist without the other, so why not work together?”
“These ‘lesser creatures’ were placed in our care,” Zifnab’s dragon declared, head raised proudly. “Perhaps if we had acted sooner, things would not have come to this. We wouldn’t stoop so low as to join you.” Even as the words left his lips, one of the other dragons stepped forward. “Brother, no!”
The dragon turned to look at them, a sneer marring the impassive expression normally found on the dragons’ human forms. “Can’t you see that he’s right, foul though he may be? First, they destroyed the beautiful world they were given, and even when we ensured their continued survival, they deemed themselves gods! Imprisonment here for eternity is a suitable punishment, but why must we suffer, too? The universe would be better if they had never been created at all.”
The dragon continued walking forward until he stood between Azazel and the rune construct on the ground, careful not to disrupt it. “How much blood do you require?”
“Oh, not much at all.” Azazel turned the dragon to face the runes, hands on his shoulders. One hand crept toward the dragon’s neck, but he seemed unaware. “Of course, it never hurts to be cautious, so I think I’ll take it all.”
With a sudden sharp motion, Azazel drew a sharp nail across the dragon’s throat. Blood sprayed across the area in front of the dragon, the runes glowing briefly upon contact. The dragon reverted to his true form in his death throes, and they were forced to step back until the reptilian from finally lay still.
Azazel smiled at the shocked expressions of the remaining dragons. “A traitor will always be a traitor,” he explained with a shrug. “Now we have only one step remaining.” He turned to the small group of other dragon-snakes, one of whom began to hesitantly step forward.
If they were going to do something to stop all of this, they would have to do it both quickly and without bloodshed. Before Haplo could even begin to develop a plan of action, he heard the echoing pounding of feet running up the tower stairs behind them.
Dean burst out onto the roof top, panting for air and taking the scene in a rush. His eyes immediately went to his cornered brother and then settled upon Azazel with a seething glare. Haplo knew with absolute certainty that Dean was out for the kill, not only from his expression, but also by the glowing and vibrating Blood Blade clenched in his grip--he’d clearly been feeding it blood on his run up the stairs.
Dean tried to muscle his way through the group toward the dragon-snakes, and though Haplo and a few of the dragons made an effort to restrain him, he managed to wrest the arm holding the Blood Blade free. They could only watch in dismay as the weapon reformed itself into a weapon Dean could use to attack his enemy from across the roof--a gun like one they had seen in the relic collection.
It was difficult to say who was most surprised by the sharp retort of the gun firing, but the bullet found its mark in the chest of Azazel. There was a crackle of magical energy before the dragon-snake collapsed to the rooftop, the face of his human guise frozen in an odd mixture of triumph and befuddlement before he reverted back to his original body, serpentine form draped across the other fallen dragon.
“You don’t know what you’ve done,” Zifnab’s dragon lamented.
“I did exactly what I meant to do.” Dean looked at the solemn faces around him, confused. “We didn’t want him dead?”
“Even in death, Azazel will have what he wanted.” The dragon gestured to the body, where a pool of blood was spreading inexorably toward the rune structure beneath Sam’s feet.
The brothers locked gazes briefly and Sam said, “I’m sorry,” too softly to be heard, though the words could be read from his lips.
The blood reached the edge of the runes and there was a crackle of energy, a blinding flash, and a shock wave that knocked them all off of their feet, typically unflappable dragons included.
Dean scrambled back to his feet first and gaped at the spot where he’d last seen his brother. A dome of light covered the area, the glow bright enough to hurt the eyes. The light was brightest at the apex of the arch, where it seemed to pulse for a few moments before a beam shot straight up toward the sky. High above them it stopped as though it had struck a barrier, flattening out into a disc shape that began to spin, faster and faster, the very sky seeming to swirl with it. There was a second shock wave, though milder than the initial one, and a heavy silence fell over everything.
It almost hurt to look upon it, but Haplo knew what he would see before he laid eyes on it. A tiny pinprick of blackness that seemed to take up too much space at the same time, swallowing all the light around it yet producing its own strange glow.
Alfred scrambled onto the roof behind them, an only partially conscious Castiel leaning heavily on his shoulder.
“What has happened?” Alfred asked, no doubt picking up on the somber mood. His words seemed too loud in the stillness.
“See for yourself,” Zifnab’s dragon answered morosely, gesturing above them. “The gate has been opened.”
***
Within the dome of light, Sam struggled to maintain control over both himself and the insane amount of energy remaining even after he had directed most of it towards the creation of the gate. He’d had no choice but to allow the energy to course through him, just as the spell had been designed to do. He’d been nothing but another piece of the rune structure, a conduit for the power required. Sam cursed himself for a fool for walking right into the dragon-snakes’ plan, blinded by his newfound magical confidence.
The remaining energy crawled beneath his skin like a live thing, seeking some kind of direction or purpose. He was mentally and physically drained by the spell, but uncontrolled magic could be extremely destructive, so he bent every remaining ounce of will to containing the power. Eventually he would fail, and he shuddered to imagine what the result would be. At least he wouldn’t be around to see it! His last thought before he was consumed by the task of holding back the power was that he hoped his brother had run far enough to escape the inevitable magical blast.
Previous || Master Post || Next
Sam stepped out onto the roof of the tower and was approximately equal parts disappointed and suspicious to find the area deserted. Ruby followed somewhat more cautiously.
“This sure screams ‘trap’ to me,” she mumbled.
“If it is, they should have sprung it right away,” Sam mused, scanning the area around them. “As it is, it looks like they’ve left me an opportunity to prepare, which is a major mistake on their part.”
“If you say so,” Ruby agreed with a shrug.
There was an elaborate rune structure scrawled across the ground beneath their feet in something that looked like chalk, but it didn’t smudge. The diagram covered one corner of the rooftop. Even if Sam hadn’t recognized the purpose of the spell, he would have recognized the call to the power he’d been steadily building inside himself on the way up to this place--the runes called out for blood to activate them.
“I need to drink again,” he told Ruby.
She raised both eyebrows in surprise. “Are you sure? You’re already as powered up as you’ve ever been. What if you can’t control it this time?”
Sam did feel almost as though he were about to burst apart at the seams already, the magic seeking a way out, kept under control by sheer force of will.
“Don’t worry, I’m planning to use some of it in a moment, and I know what I can handle.”
“What are you planning?” Ruby asked, eyes narrowed.
“I’m going to use their own spell against them. If I activate this spell structure, I can harness it and either destroy their plans or redirect it at the dragon-snakes.”
Ruby drew a sharp nail across her wrist and offered the arm to Sam, who drank as much as he could stand before the press of the magic became a physical pain and not just a constant distracting discomfort. He drew his hunting knife, removed one of his gloves, sliced across his own palm, and dribbled the blood across the entire diagram. The runes glowed briefly before going dark again.
Sam frowned. Maybe he hadn’t used enough blood? He didn’t want to shed enough to weaken himself, knowing he would need full control to wield the magic later. He pulled the glove back on again.
“You’ve got the right idea,” a voice behind him announced, “but you only had one of the ingredients required.” Sam whirled to find Azazel observing him with his usual disturbing smile. Suddenly, Sam found himself penned into the corner by dragon-snakes. Turning to the edge of the roof behind him, he realized there would be no escape in that direction. A magical barrier prevented him from jumping or using his magic to fly away. He prepared to gather up enough power for a burst attack all around himself.
“Relax,” Azazel ordered with a dismissive gesture of one hand. “We can’t start the party until all the guests arrive. It would be rude.”
With more conscious effort than he would like to admit, Sam was able to reel the power back into himself. He still watched the dragon-snakes warily, especially when he noticed Ruby had moved from his side to join their ranks, but he decided to wait and see what would happen. If he were lucky, an opening would present itself.
***
“You let him go back in alone?” Castiel was indignant, and it was the most emotion Haplo had ever seen the dragon express. The other dragons that he had brought back to aid them looked a bit surprised by the outburst, too.
“We didn’t let him do anything!” Marit countered. She had never taken well to having her mistakes pointed out to her. “He probably planned to sneak away from the beginning.”
The truth of the statement didn’t absolve them of neglecting to keep an eye on the missing Dean, but standing around feeling guilty about it wouldn’t accomplish anything, either. Haplo was about to say something to that effect, but someone else spoke first.
“Lost him, eh? Well, leave him alone and he’ll come home, wagging his--no wait, that’s sheep.” Haplo hadn’t missed Zifnab’s particular variety of crazy, but the man somehow excelled at dispelling tension. He placed a bony hand on the fuming dragon’s arm. “Just make sure you put everything back in the right places when you do find him.” Cryptic statements were the man’s other specialty.
“We all know where he went, and now that we stand a chance, we can follow,” Haplo suggested.
“The sooner the better,” Zifnab’s dragon agreed. “Their plan is already in motion. Can you feel it?”
No one verbally acknowledged it, but they all did. The area around the tower was heavy with building energy, only adding to everyone’s agitation. They all glanced toward the top of the tower occasionally, instinctively knowing that was the focal point of whatever was meant to happen sometime soon.
With a visible effort, Castiel calmed himself and the group entered to tower to find the entry hall deserted. It wasn’t a good sign because it meant the dragon-snakes were either confident that they could not be stopped or they were expected.
It was possible that everyone they sought was already on the roof, but Haplo had a feeling that wasn’t the case and they had no time to second guess themselves. He cast a spell that had served him well in the past, replaying the events that had occurred in the room over the last few hours in a matter of moments. They all watched Sam and a woman that appeared to be a dragon-snake’s fight with the token group of guards and later ascension up the stairs, followed shortly by Dean’s arrival and capture.
“Dean was not taken to the roof,” Castiel mused aloud with a concerned frown. “It would appear he is being deliberately kept away.”
Zifnab’s dragon was looking at Castiel with what Haplo might almost term a fond smile. “If you must find him, do so, but you must hurry.” The dragon then turned his attention to the group as a whole. “My brethren and I will go on ahead. Follow as quickly as you can.” Then the dragons, and Zifnab with them, were gone.
“You heard him; let’s go!” Marit headed purposefully toward the stairs, and Haplo began to follow, only to be stopped by a hand on his arm. It was Alfred.
“I will help our dragon friend look for Dean.”
Haplo acknowledged him with a nod and turned back to the stairs. He focused on running up the stairs in a manner combining maximum speed with minimal energy expenditure, not knowing what awaited him at his goal.
***
Castiel was scanning the room around them intently, and Alfred wondered if he could perhaps see more than the obvious.
“I can find no trace of him,” the dragon grumbled. “I should be able to sense his presence. The enemy is probably blocking me.” He sounded frustrated, and Alfred marveled that one of these usually stoic creatures could be so unsettled by the unknown fate of a single Patryn.
“Can you sense any individual?” Alfred asked and then flushed when he realized he must sound like he was more interested in the dragon’s abilities than finding Dean. “I’m sorry! I don’t mean to pry.”
“We can sense the essence of all creatures,” Castiel answered absently, eyes still futilely scanning the room for any clues to the missing man’s whereabouts, “but Dean is...special.”
“The bloodline?” Alfred let his own eyes wander over their surroundings. He did not expect to find anything the dragon had missed, but it made him feel more useful.
“No. It happens only rarely, but my kind can form a bond with a creature not like us. Zifnab is such a case, though I believe my brother sometimes has occasion to lament that the process is both permanent and often involuntary.”
Alfred thought that sounded very much like his own connection to Haplo. He got so caught up in his own musings that he missed Castiel asking him a question. “Pardon?” he stammered.
“Why did you decide to remain here to help me search for Dean?” the dragon repeated his inquiry.
“I’ve never much enjoyed fighting,” he confessed, “though I no longer allow myself to give into the fainting spells to which I used to be prone. I’d much rather provide support to others, and I fear Dean may be in dire need of help.”
Alfred knew the cruelty of the dragon-snakes, and he shuddered to think what Dean’s captors might be doing to the young warrior, provided he was still alive. Alfred forced that negative thought from his mind. Until it was proven otherwise, they had to hope.
Suddenly, Castiel’s head snapped to the side a split second before Alfred’s eyes were drawn to the same shadowed area by a slight movement. A small wildcat was huddled in the corner. It mewled at them plaintively. Alfred took a moment to ponder what the creature might be doing in the tower before he realized he had seen something like this before at the same moment Castiel muttered, “Dean.”
They both rushed toward the creature, which shied away and slunk quickly along the base of the wall. They followed it to what appeared to be a blank stretch of wall, where it vanished. Alfred knelt to examine the spot and felt a slight draft of air.
“There’s a hidden door!”
The illusion was easy enough to dispel once it had been discovered, and Castiel and Alfred made their way down the stairs revealed behind the secret portal. Soon they could see a light ahead of them and heard a single voice speaking.
“Broken already?” the voice taunted. “I expected you to last longer than this. If you can’t entertain me any longer, I may as well just kill you.”
Alfred and Castiel shared a quick glance before rushing onward into the hidden basement room. Dean was chained upright to the wall, limbs spread wide to prevent him from casting any magic or closing the healing circle. His head hung limply from his neck, the chains clearly the only things keeping his unconscious body from slumping to the floor in a boneless heap. His shirt had been slashed open and blood dripped down from a multitude of small cuts deep enough to be painful without being immediately dangerous. Knowing as much as he did about Patryn magic, though arguably not very much, Alfred could tell that the wounds were strategically placed to disrupt the connections between Dean’s rune tattoos, negating all of his defenses. The process would have felt infinitely more painful than the simple lacerations alone, the magic tied so directly to the Patryn’s very being as it was. Several injuries surrounding Dean’s heart rune were most concerning.
A dragon-snake in Patryn guise stood before him, back facing Dean’s would be rescuers. In his raised right hand a small, sharp blade gleamed in the flickering light of a torch in a wall sconce. The dragon-snake chuckled to himself, the sibilant sound echoing off the stone walls creating an effect of the sound surrounding them all.
“Welcome,” he greeted them without turning to look in their direction. “Dean here was hoping you might come, but I don’t know that you’ll be able to do him much good.”
Castiel let loose a growl that startled Alfred and then leapt forward to engage the dragon-snake. The two bodies tumbled to the floor in a whirlwind of vicious blows, and Alfred honestly could not say which of the two, if either, had the upper hand. For a moment, it seemed to the Sartan as though the shadows cast on the walls showed the image of two giant serpentine forms entwined, but he tore his gaze away from the fight to focus upon the injured man.
The chains did not appear to have any keyholes or clasps in the shackles at Dean’s wrists and ankles, but any key would likely have been with the dragon-snake and thus of no use to Alfred. Instead he cast a simple spell of opening, pleased that his voice did not waver as he sang the runes. He caught Dean’s body as it fell away from the wall, but he was unprepared for the dead weight and they both tumbled to the floor.
Alfred carefully laid Dean out on the cold ground, even though he knew the man felt nothing anymore. He began healing the shallow injuries, starting with those around the heart rune and working outward. Eventually, the Patryn’s own innate magic began to assist Alfred and his body lay there, physically whole, but still unresponsive.
Alfred scanned the room for any sign of the wildcat, suspecting its presence would be required for Dean’s full revival. He saw no sign of the creature, though he did note that the match between the dragons appeared to have reached a stalemate.
“Very well,” the dragon-snake spat at Castiel, “take him if you want him. That’s nothing but an empty shell. He abandoned it, you see, just as everyone else abandons him.” A cruel grin spread across the dragon-snake’s face and he disappeared, his parting words echoing in the air around them. “I must join my brethren anyway--the main event is about to begin!”
Castiel began looking around the room, much as Alfred had moments ago. Alfred resumed his own searching. They must find the cat and somehow reunite it with Dean’s body. He was bit bewildered because, although similar to Haplo’s dog, this situation was clearly different. Both had been created in moments of desperation, but Haplo remained conscious and able to act independently of his dog, while Dean appeared to have surrendered everything he could into the animal they now sought.
Alfred recalled how the dog had behaved very much like a dog, if a highly intelligent one. He felt like a fool, but if there was any chance it might work...
“Here, kitty!” he called softly. Louder, “Kitty, kitty?” He clucked his tongue and felt his ears burning at the ridiculousness of the situation, but then a meow sounded from a dark corner of the room.
He and Castiel both turned to see a small dark form huddled as closely to the wall as was possible without somehow melding into it. Another, slightly larger form crouched beside it, but Alfred blinked and it was gone, perhaps never their to begin with, a trick of the dim light.
Alfred crouched and extended a cupped hand, cooing softly. The wildcat slunk toward him warily, eyes darting around wildly and whiskers twitching. Before it reached him, Castiel scooped the animal up in his arms. Alfred was surprised to see the animal instantly calm itself, not scratching or biting as he feared it might. The cat was panting heavily and did not look well.
“Dean must be awakened. We don’t have much time,” Castiel announced, carrying the animal over to Dean’s still limp form. He turned back to Alfred, expression grim. “It took everything Dean had left to generate this form, and he never intended it to be returned to him. It will take a great deal of power to reunite them. I’m afraid I will not be of much use after this.”
“I understand,” Alfred acknowledged. He placed himself where he could both observe the doorway to watch for the approach of any threat and Castiel’s actions.
The dragon pulled the animal to his chest and it became a ball of light cupped in his hands, the glow so bright it hurt Alfred’s eyes to look at it directly. Castiel held the light in his left palm and placed his right on Dean’s left shoulder to brace himself as he crouched next to the unconscious Patryn. He turned his cupped left hand over and pushed the ball of light into Dean’s body, just below his rib cage, the hand actually disappearing into Dean’s flesh, though there was no blood or visible damage.
As Castiel withdrew the hand, Dean gasped and opened his eyes. The was a flash of blue and a crackle like lightning at the spot where Castiel’s right hand still touched Dean. The dragon was thrown backward a short distance and remained where he had fallen, seemingly unable to regain his feet.
Dean blinked owlishly and glanced about him, expression bewildered. He looked at his shoulder, and even from a distance, Alfred could make out a reddened handprint. The mark lay beneath the tattoos on the skin, causing no disruption, as though it had always been there.
Dean noticed the collapsed dragon and scrambled over to him. Alfred rushed to assist as well. Castiel sat up on his own. He placed his hand over the mark and met Dean’s eyes.
“Go. Stop it, if you can.”
Dean looked hesitant. “I will help him,” Alfred reassured the young man.
Dean startled and turned to Alfred as though he had not even known the Sartan was there until this moment. He nodded and rose smoothly to his feet and ran to the stairs and upward toward the roof.
Alfred drew one of Castiel’s arms over his shoulders and followed more slowly, wishing the young warrior speed and luck.
***
Haplo and Marit slowed their pace as they approached the roof. It wouldn’t do them any good to arrive at a battle out of breath. However, there were no sounds of fighting coming from behind the door at the top of the final flight of stairs.
They glanced at one another warily. Was it possible that they were too late? Haplo placed one hand on the door handle and the other on the hilt of his short sword and quirked an eyebrow at Marit, who gripped her own weapon tightly and gave a nod of acknowledgement.
They burst through the doorway simultaneously prepared to fight if necessary, only to find the other occupants of the rooftop at a stalemate.
Sam was hunched over in one corner of the roof, standing on top of a rune structure drawn upon the ground. He didn’t appear to be physically injured, but it was difficult to tell from this distance. The young Patryn’s eyes darted wildly about like a cornered animal, which was not surprising, given the circumstances.
A group of dragon-snakes stood in the other far corner of the roof. In contrast to the tense energy of Sam, the dragon-snakes appeared to be patiently awaiting something. Most of the group seemed to be deferring to Azazel, who stood at the front of the group, a self-satisfied smirk gracing his features.
The dragons of Pryan stood in their own group just beyond the doorway. Zifnab’s dragon was looking very displeased, and none of the other dragons in his company seemed any happier. Even Zifnab was serious, and if that wasn’t an indication that the situation was dire, Haplo couldn’t imagine what would be.
“What’s going on?” Marit asked before Haplo had the chance himself.
“If we attack,” Zifnab’s dragon explained, “we will only risk giving them exactly what they want.” The dragon cocked his head toward the construct beneath Sam’s feet. “Those are blood runes designed to channel a vast amount of energy in order to generate the new gate. The spell cannot activate without three kinds of blood; Sam has already contributed his own, now it needs only the blood of both dragon races. We cannot risk bloodshed if we want to stop them.”
“Come now,” Azazel broke into the conversation, “why fight this? Surely you don’t really want to be trapped in this place forever any more than we do! Aren’t you tired of paying the price for the misdeeds of these lesser creatures? We are bothers, after all--two sides of the same coin. One cannot exist without the other, so why not work together?”
“These ‘lesser creatures’ were placed in our care,” Zifnab’s dragon declared, head raised proudly. “Perhaps if we had acted sooner, things would not have come to this. We wouldn’t stoop so low as to join you.” Even as the words left his lips, one of the other dragons stepped forward. “Brother, no!”
The dragon turned to look at them, a sneer marring the impassive expression normally found on the dragons’ human forms. “Can’t you see that he’s right, foul though he may be? First, they destroyed the beautiful world they were given, and even when we ensured their continued survival, they deemed themselves gods! Imprisonment here for eternity is a suitable punishment, but why must we suffer, too? The universe would be better if they had never been created at all.”
The dragon continued walking forward until he stood between Azazel and the rune construct on the ground, careful not to disrupt it. “How much blood do you require?”
“Oh, not much at all.” Azazel turned the dragon to face the runes, hands on his shoulders. One hand crept toward the dragon’s neck, but he seemed unaware. “Of course, it never hurts to be cautious, so I think I’ll take it all.”
With a sudden sharp motion, Azazel drew a sharp nail across the dragon’s throat. Blood sprayed across the area in front of the dragon, the runes glowing briefly upon contact. The dragon reverted to his true form in his death throes, and they were forced to step back until the reptilian from finally lay still.
Azazel smiled at the shocked expressions of the remaining dragons. “A traitor will always be a traitor,” he explained with a shrug. “Now we have only one step remaining.” He turned to the small group of other dragon-snakes, one of whom began to hesitantly step forward.
If they were going to do something to stop all of this, they would have to do it both quickly and without bloodshed. Before Haplo could even begin to develop a plan of action, he heard the echoing pounding of feet running up the tower stairs behind them.
Dean burst out onto the roof top, panting for air and taking the scene in a rush. His eyes immediately went to his cornered brother and then settled upon Azazel with a seething glare. Haplo knew with absolute certainty that Dean was out for the kill, not only from his expression, but also by the glowing and vibrating Blood Blade clenched in his grip--he’d clearly been feeding it blood on his run up the stairs.
Dean tried to muscle his way through the group toward the dragon-snakes, and though Haplo and a few of the dragons made an effort to restrain him, he managed to wrest the arm holding the Blood Blade free. They could only watch in dismay as the weapon reformed itself into a weapon Dean could use to attack his enemy from across the roof--a gun like one they had seen in the relic collection.
It was difficult to say who was most surprised by the sharp retort of the gun firing, but the bullet found its mark in the chest of Azazel. There was a crackle of magical energy before the dragon-snake collapsed to the rooftop, the face of his human guise frozen in an odd mixture of triumph and befuddlement before he reverted back to his original body, serpentine form draped across the other fallen dragon.
“You don’t know what you’ve done,” Zifnab’s dragon lamented.
“I did exactly what I meant to do.” Dean looked at the solemn faces around him, confused. “We didn’t want him dead?”
“Even in death, Azazel will have what he wanted.” The dragon gestured to the body, where a pool of blood was spreading inexorably toward the rune structure beneath Sam’s feet.
The brothers locked gazes briefly and Sam said, “I’m sorry,” too softly to be heard, though the words could be read from his lips.
The blood reached the edge of the runes and there was a crackle of energy, a blinding flash, and a shock wave that knocked them all off of their feet, typically unflappable dragons included.
Dean scrambled back to his feet first and gaped at the spot where he’d last seen his brother. A dome of light covered the area, the glow bright enough to hurt the eyes. The light was brightest at the apex of the arch, where it seemed to pulse for a few moments before a beam shot straight up toward the sky. High above them it stopped as though it had struck a barrier, flattening out into a disc shape that began to spin, faster and faster, the very sky seeming to swirl with it. There was a second shock wave, though milder than the initial one, and a heavy silence fell over everything.
It almost hurt to look upon it, but Haplo knew what he would see before he laid eyes on it. A tiny pinprick of blackness that seemed to take up too much space at the same time, swallowing all the light around it yet producing its own strange glow.
Alfred scrambled onto the roof behind them, an only partially conscious Castiel leaning heavily on his shoulder.
“What has happened?” Alfred asked, no doubt picking up on the somber mood. His words seemed too loud in the stillness.
“See for yourself,” Zifnab’s dragon answered morosely, gesturing above them. “The gate has been opened.”
***
Within the dome of light, Sam struggled to maintain control over both himself and the insane amount of energy remaining even after he had directed most of it towards the creation of the gate. He’d had no choice but to allow the energy to course through him, just as the spell had been designed to do. He’d been nothing but another piece of the rune structure, a conduit for the power required. Sam cursed himself for a fool for walking right into the dragon-snakes’ plan, blinded by his newfound magical confidence.
The remaining energy crawled beneath his skin like a live thing, seeking some kind of direction or purpose. He was mentally and physically drained by the spell, but uncontrolled magic could be extremely destructive, so he bent every remaining ounce of will to containing the power. Eventually he would fail, and he shuddered to imagine what the result would be. At least he wouldn’t be around to see it! His last thought before he was consumed by the task of holding back the power was that he hoped his brother had run far enough to escape the inevitable magical blast.
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