oselle | Lazarus Came Forth: Chapter 7, Part 2

7. Body and Soul: Part Two
He drove sixteen hours in one hard backroad haul from Duluth to the energy fields of southern Wyoming and finally parked behind the concrete outbuildings of an abandoned pumping station in Judas Valley. He could see gas flares burning in the distance but here the old grasshopper rig was a still black monolith against the night sky.

He was tired but he couldn't sleep and he turned on the radio and skimmed over the FM dial and then the AM. The news he heard was very bad. It had been some six weeks since he had left Buddy Lennox's house in Mississippi and the country had deteriorated in that time and he thought of Lilith waiting for this. Of hell, waiting for this.

There were stations broadcasting in Spanish and he thought he might be picking them up from Mexico already and he had a sudden vivid memory of Sam about eight years old and telling him that at night the AM signal traveled over skywave not groundwave and some AM stations were so powerful at night that they weren't even allowed to broadcast. When they had been kids the Impala had only had the original AM radio with its big chrome pushbuttons and they'd spent countless nights in that car listening to country music and sports talk and Jesus freaks and singsong French from the Canadian stations and soccer games from broadcasters way over the Mexican border. That was so long ago that Dean could hardly believe that he and Sam had ever been those children. He dialed past an angry voice and turned back and listened to a preacher hectoring about the coming tribulations and the end of days and how the earth would burn and burn in the everlasting lake of fire. For a minute Dean sat there and listened and then he kicked the door open and got out and walked out past the derrick toward the road. He heard nothing but the low whine of the wind over the flat earth of those southern plains and the ghostly chatter of the radio behind him yet for all that it was quiet it was not peaceful. He felt so close to hell it was as though the pit were about to open up at his feet and swallow him and God. Dear God, he wanted to see his brother one last time.

Orange fire flared on the horizon and there were no stars. After a while Dean went back to the car and turned off the radio and knew that he would never sleep and so he got back on the road.

* * *

He packed up what he could carry and abandoned the car in Arizona at the northern edge of the Yuma Desert. Twenty-five miles to the Mexican border. He hadn't slept in almost thirty-six hours and had barely eaten. He waited until dusk and then started out across the desert. The air smelled wet and after dark it began to drizzle then to rain then to downpour. There was no road and the gray earth was gullying into mud under his boots and that could mean a flash flood and he was in very low ground. He knew there were low hills half a mile to the west and he struck the hills as the rain was at its worst and felt his way over the rocks. He lost his footing and fell clutching at ocotillio and creosote roots and ricocheting off jagged stones until he hit bottom winded and rolled over to catch his breath while the rain pounded on his back.

When does it rain in the desert? he thought. When the fuck does it ever fucking RAIN?

He pulled himself up and began ascending again on his hands and knees. He saw the bus at the top of the narrow gorge, seated on high ground and butted up against a rock wall, an ancient Volkswagen camper van that must have been sitting there for decades, the tires long since rotted out from underneath it and the windows opaque with age but unbroken. My lucky day, he thought and pulled himself into the van. He made one sweep around with the flashlight and then another and on the second he saw the man crouched in the corner with a pistol aimed at him.

"Who are you?" the man said.

"No one."

"What are you doing here?"

"Same as you."

"Yeah? What's that?"

"Trying not to drown." It was cold in the van and Dean was soaked through to the skin and he was shivering. The flashlight shook in his hand and in its wavering beam he saw the front of the man's jacket shift and part and a child's hand and eyes appeared. Dean looked at the child and then looked at the man and put his other hand up. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm not gonna be any trouble to you. I'm just trying to get to the border and I got caught out."

"Are you armed?"

"Yes."

"In the bag or carrying?"

"Both."

"Put the bag down on the floor and put anything else you got on you on top of the bag and back away from it. And don't do anything stupid because I will shoot you."

"Got it," Dean said. He put the flashlight down and unshouldered the bag and took the one gun out of its shoulder-holster and the other from the small of his back and crossed them on top of the bag and put his hands up and stepped away. "All right?"

"Fine," the man said. "Sit over there."

The van's seats had been stripped out and Dean sat down in the van's opposite corner with his back to the sheetmetal wall. From across the van he heard the child's muffled voice, "Daddy," and the man bent his head and said something and then looked at Dean. "I'm going to lower this gun," he said. "But I want you to know it's right here."

"Okay," Dean said. The man set the gun down and the child turned in his father's lap and now Dean could see that he was a little boy, about five years old. The man stroked his son's head and the boy stared at Dean in the pale flashlight glow and Dean smiled at him.

* * *

After a while the man said that he could hear Dean's teeth chattering.

"Sorry about that."

"Catch," the man said and threw a blanket at him.

"Thanks," Dean said. He took off his wet jacket and wrapped himself in the blanket and looked at the man. The flashlight on the floor threw a white streak of light across the van. "Can you turn that off?" Dean said. "I don't want it to burn out."

The man didn't say anything but he leaned across the floor and the little boy stretched out his hand and picked up the flashlight and gave it to his father and he switched it off. They sat in the dark.

Dean put his head against the wall and closed his eyes and listened to the rain drum on the roof and run in little rivers through the rocks down towards the desert floor. He was still cold and the gunshot wound in his back had started aching. The rain slacked off and wind hooted through the hills and across the valley. Dean didn't fall asleep but he was dozing when light struck his face and he shaded his eyes and squinted at the man.

"Hey," the man said.

"What?"

"Do you know what you're doing?"

"About what?"

"Getting over the border."

"I'm the one sitting here unarmed," Dean said. "Not for nothing but you look like you can take care of yourself."

The man turned the flashlight up so that the glare wasn't in Dean's eyes and Dean saw that the little boy was asleep against his father's chest with his hands folded under his chin and the man was staring at him.

"My name is Jim," he whispered. "I'm a high school teacher from Lubbock."

"Well," Dean said. "This ain't Lubbock."

"I'm in trouble," Jim said and when Dean didn't say anything he kept talking. "I had a website, you know? I had this stupid, stupid website and they told me to shut it down and I didn't."

"Who told you?"

"The guys who tell you these things," Jim said. "You been to Texas lately?"

"Yeah, I've been to Texas."

Jim nodded. "Rangers. You know about the rangers?"

"State militia."

"They came to the house a week ago. Ten o'clock at night. Took the computer, printer, everything then told us to get in the car. We wouldn't do it and my wife picked up the phone and they told her to put it down and she didn't and they..." He dropped his voice so low that Dean could barely hear him. "They shot her. Right in front of Alex, he was standing there in his pajamas, in his fucking pajamas..." He put his face down on the boy's head and sat there.

"I'm sorry," Dean said.

"I got away with Alex when they were moving us. I don't even know where we were going." He looked at Dean. "My picture was on the news. It was all over the web. They said I killed my wife and kidnapped my son and I have to get to Mexico and I don't..." He shook his head. "I'm a schoolteacher, for Christ's sake."

Dean didn't say anything. He looked out of the van's dirty windows and saw pale moonlight shining on the desert. He looked back at Jim and after a while he said, "What else are you?"

"What?"

"Why did you tell me all that?"

"Because I need help, that's why. Jesus Christ..."

"What makes you think I can help you? I'm just a guy who came in out of the rain."

"I don't know," Jim said. "You just...you don't look like a schoolteacher."

Dean pulled the flask of holy water from his jacket and skidded it across the floor at Jim. "Drink that," he said.

"What is it?"

"It's water. It's just water. Holy water."

"Holy water?"

"I'm born again. Like to keep righteous company."

"Since when do born agains carry holy water around?"

"Humor me."

Jim picked up the flask and unscrewed the cap and sniffed at it. "Holy water?"

"Just a sip," Dean said.

Jim licked his lips and tipped the flask into his mouth and took a swig and swallowed it. He looked at Dean and put the cap back on.

"How're you feeling?" Dean asked.

"Um...fine. How should I be feeling?"

"Fine," Dean said. "You should be feeling fine." He stood up and shrugged off the blanket and folded it without looking at Jim. "There's a tunnel," he said. "About fifteen miles from here, under that wall they built along the border. It's not easy to find but that's the point. I can tell you what landmarks to look out for..."

"Can we go with you?"

Dean shook his head. "You don't want to be with me."

"I can't do this alone."

"You got this far, you're tougher than you think," Dean said. He glanced at the sleeping boy. "So is he."

"Please."

Dean sighed and stood there and rubbed the back of his neck. He looked at the man. He looked at the little boy. After a while he said, "You'll have to carry him or he'll slow us down."

"All right."

"If we leave now we should get there by dawn."

"Okay," Jim said. He shook Alex awake and the boy rubbed his eyes and looked at his father and looked at Dean. Dean crouched down and smiled at the kid.

"You ready to go to Mexico, Alex?"

"No."

"I dunno, it's pretty great...tacos, pinatas...um...wrestling?"

"I want to go home," Alex said.

"Yeah," Dean said. "I know." He thought of all the things people had said to him after his mother died and how he'd wished they would shut up and so he shut up too. He stood up and gave the blanket to Jim and put on his jacket and took his guns and bag and climbed out of the van with Jim and Alex behind him.

* * *

They tramped some fifteen miles through the desert and for a while Alex rode on his father's shoulders but he kept falling asleep and slipping off and then Jim carried him. Jim looked like he'd had even less sleep than Dean in the past week so by the time they came to the border Dean was carrying the boy. They stopped about a quarter of a mile from the border. The sky was turning gray and the first pale light of dawn was seeping over the flat country and in the distance they could see the black wall that had been built at a time when keeping Mexicans out had been a bigger problem than keeping Americans in.

"No border guards," Jim said. "That's good."

"That's bad. How can this be unpatrolled?"

"They don't know about the tunnel."

"Still," Dean said. "What do they have that we can't see?"

Jim shook his head. "I know parts of the border have unmanned drones flying patrol. They've got heat detectors, motion detectors..." He looked out over the desert. "There's no personnel here."

Dean's eyes scanned the wall. It was smooth and black and Dean couldn't imagine what it was made of but it was something that could only be breached by going over or tunneling under. Along the top of the wall he saw cameras and every few yards something like a small satellite dish but there were no guards or guard towers and the desert was quiet but for the wind. Gus had told him how to find the tunnel and from where they stood he could see the landmark of rocks that pointed the way.

He turned to Jim and handed Alex into his arms. "You follow me. If I run you run but stay behind me." Jim nodded and wrapped his arms around Alex and the boy stared at Dean and at the alien countryside and the black wall in the distance.

* * *

They were a few yards from the tunnel when the fire hit them and Dean heard Jim behind him screaming. Alex screaming. Dean was on fire and burning he turned on his hands and knees and saw Jim lying face down with his son beneath him to protect him. There were no flames or smoke and Dean didn't know what he was seeing but they were burning all the same.

He couldn't stand up but he crawled to Jim and pulled at his arm and Jim looked up half conscious and Dean shouted, "Get up get up!" Jim stared at him and Dean couldn't talk anymore and then he heard an engine and looked up and saw a truck coming across the desert. Black, four-wheel-drive. Dean grabbed Alex's arm and pulled him out from under his father and staggered to his feet. The boy was limp in his arms. "Get up!" he said to Jim. "Run!"

Jim was on his feet and staggering along the wall in a shambling run and he fell down screaming and beating at himself. "GET UP!" Dean yelled at him and the man got up and fell and got up again and then there was the tunnel and he kicked Jim into it and shoved the boy after him and threw himself in. At the mouth of the tunnel was a straight drop down into the earth and Dean fell. Burning.

He hit the ground hard and grayed out for a second and when he came to he was shuddering and he couldn't see. It was too dark or maybe he had gone blind. His eyes felt seared in their sockets. Far above he could hear a truck engine and somewhere beside him he heard Alex crying for his father and Dean felt his way to him in the dark and picked him up and put a hand over the boy's mouth.

"Shh, shh," he whispered. "Your dad's right here but we have to be really quiet, okay? Okay, Alex?"

Alex nodded and Dean stayed there for a few seconds with the boy's tears trickling over the back of his hand. After a while he started patting the boy's hair and face but there were no burns and none on himself either. He wasn't in pain any longer only very cold and very tired and he couldn't see a goddamned thing.

From the dark Jim said, "Alex?" in a thick voice and Dean shushed him.

"He's all right. They're right above us. Are you okay?"

"Yeah."

"We should get moving."

"Okay," Jim said. They started crawling through the dark. It was cold and wet in the tunnel but the sun was fully risen when they came out on the other side and they were in Mexico.

* * *

Jim told Dean he thought they'd been hit by a heat shield. It boiled the moisture under the skin to make the victim feel as if he'd been set on fire. "How the hell did you stay on your feet?" Jim asked. "Jesus Christ, I could hardly move."

"Been there, done that," Dean said.

"What?"

Dean shrugged. He shook his head. "Nothing."

* * *

He needed to get to San Lazaro but it was more than two hundred miles away and no one was giving out rides for free. Dean would walk it if he had to and if he fell over dead from exhaustion when he finally got there he hardly cared as long as he found Sam first. Jim said that he hoped to find people that he knew in Caborca and they could take Dean to San Lazaro. They came to the junction of Mexico's State Highway 2 and here they gave a man in a pickup truck a hundred American dollars to take them to Caborca. Jim and Alex sat in the cab with the driver and Dean sat in the truckbed and watched the dry landscape rolling away alongside the road under the white southern sun.

They reached Caborca around noon, the three of them looking like the vagrants that they were. Hot, dirty, exhausted. Alex couldn't stay on his feet. The city was full of American refugees and there were no places to stay. Jim spoke Spanish and Dean didn't so Dean sat on a bench in a plaza with Alex sleeping on his lap while Jim talked to people and tried to find his friends. It was Sunday and church bells were ringing across the city and there were girls feeding pigeons in a dry fountain and Dean fell into a stupor watching the rhythmic arc of their arms throwing seed at the birds. Jim came back and told him that he'd found a room where they could get some sleep for a few hours and Dean shook himself awake and stood up and handed Alex to Jim.

"I have to go," he said. "You guys'll be okay."

"Michael," Jim said, because that was the name Dean had given him. "If you don't get some rest you're never gonna make it to San Lazaro."

"I'll make it," Dean said.

"Give me a few hours to sleep and I can find my friends and we'll take you there. Look, it's the least I can do. We'd never have gotten over the border without you." Dean stared across the plaza in a haze of fatigue. He wanted to sleep. He wanted to go to San Lazaro. He wanted this to be over, however it ended.

Jim said, "Michael?" and Dean hardly knew who he was talking to. "Michael?" he said again.

Dean looked at him and said, "Okay," and went with him.

* * *

It was a closet next to the storeroom of some bodega and there was no bed, just a mattress. Dean lay down on the floor and was almost asleep when Alex said, "There's room." He opened his eyes and looked at the boy and Alex was staring at him and Dean smiled.

"That's okay," Dean said.

"But there's room," Alex said and he patted the mattress next to him. Behind him, Jim was already asleep, an arm around Alex's shoulders.

"All right," Dean said. He pulled himself up the few inches onto the mattress and fell into a thin and restless sleep. He dreamt that he was in a motel room with Sam and Sam was maybe eight years old and he was scared. They were alone and outside it was raining and Dean sat on the couch with his arms wrapped around Sam and they watched the rain striking the window turn from clear water into blood and then into something like black tar, running down the window in thick sludgy streaks.

"Is Dad coming?" Sam whispered.

"No," Dean said. "He can't."

"Where is everyone?"

"They're all gone," Dean said.

"Are you leaving too?"

"No way," Dean said. The windows filled up with black ash and Dean drew Sam closer to him. "Never, Sammy. I promise."

He snapped out of the dream and with his eyes still closed he could feel Sam's hair tickling him beneath his chin and could hear his father's light snoring. He lay there deeply relieved and then he opened his eyes and the unwelcome present slowly slotted itself back into his mind. He wasn't a kid. His father was long gone. His brother was lost.

Alex was sleeping with his head tucked against Dean's chest and Dean pushed him away gently and got up. He left them some money and one of his guns and slipped out of the room and started out for San Lazaro alone.

* * *

He paid a man to take him to San Lazaro and the man pulled up in a Wal-Mart parking lot and said that they were there.

"This is San Lazaro?" Dean asked.

"Si," the man said. "Nuevo Lazaro."

"No, I need to go to San Lazaro. Not Nuevo Lazaro."

"Americans don't go to San Lazaro. Here is where to be." He made a sweeping gesture at the scenery. Wal-Mart. Pizza Hut. Taco Bell. "Here is everything you want."

"Where is San Lazaro?"

The man pointed in a vaguely westward direction. "Twenty miles. But you don't want to go there. Poor people there, very bad."

"I do want to go there."

"I do not want to go there," the man said. Dean sighed and looked at the man and the man shook his head and repeated, "I do not want to go there." Dean got out of the car and started walking.

* * *

It was dark when he reached San Lazaro and he didn't know where he was supposed to go. He walked down a dirty street of bars and cafes where men and women loitered outside and called out to him or just stared at him. A few cabs pulled up alongside him as he walked and offered to take him to different establishments and he thought about asking them if they knew anyone that looked like Sam but he didn't. He came to the center of town where there was a neglected plaza and an elaborate cathedral whose white facade lit up everything around it. In front of the church was a posterboard with photographs and fliers of missing people, Americans and Mexicans. Some of the fliers were brand new and some were yellow with age and curling at the edges and the idea of seeing Sam up on that posterboard was ridiculous but he stopped and looked all the same.

"Busca alguien?"

Dean turned and saw a priest standing beside him. "No habla espanol," he said.

"I asked if you were looking for someone."

"I'm..." He trailed off and looked at the priest. He looked at the church and thought that Sam might have come here, no matter what the torquetum had said. He might have come here looking for help. He'd been the religious one, or at least the one who prayed. He might have come here. "I'm looking for a friend of mine. Someone told me he's here."

The priest pointed to the board. "These people are all kidnapped or murdered by the narcos. Was your friend in the cartels?"

Dean shook his head. "No, no. He was...I don't know why he'd have come down here."

"Not many Americans come to San Lazaro. Would he have been here lately?"

"Yeah, I mean it was...I don't know, just a few days ago I heard that he was here."

"What does he look like?"

"He's tall, taller than me. Darker hair. Mid-twenties..." Dean corrected himself. "About thirty. He's thirty now. His name is Sam but I don't know if he was using that name..." The priest's face had changed. "What?" Dean said. "Did you see him?"

"You should come inside."

"Is he there, have you seen him..."

The priest put a hand on Dean's arm. "Come with me."

Dean shook him off. "No. Where is he?"

"I have seen him but if you say you are his friend I don't want to talk to you here. Come inside."

The priest took him to the rectory where he sat down behind a desk and Dean wouldn't sit but stood there with his heart hammering and waited for the priest to talk and then finally the priest said, "I am sad to tell you that this person you describe is dead." Dean didn't say anything. The priest kept talking. "He came here in August and he was very sick. No one knows how he got here. But he was already very sick when he came and no one could do anything."

"Sick...I don't...sick or hurt? Was he hurt?"

"He did not have any wounds but he was bleeding. From his eyes, his nose. He was in pain, his head, terrible headache. We sent for a doctor but it was too late."

"He..." Dean put his hand over his eyes. "He would get headaches when he...they weren't enough to kill him for God's sake, they..."

You think getting someone out of hell is like picking them up at the airport? Who had said that? The demon. The demon in Bobby's house. There's a price to be paid. In blood.

"The doctor thought maybe it was a brain hemorrhage but some of the people who saw him were afraid he was sick. There are so many sick people on the road..."

"Where is he?"

"Excuse me?"

"Did you bury him, autopsy him, stick him in a meat locker, where is he?"

"They burned him," the priest said. "Because they thought he was sick they burned the body."

"That can't be true."

"I am very sorry."

"No...no. I know he's here. I know it." Dean stood there and stared at the priest. "What are you?"

"What?"

"You must be a powerful fucking demon to walk in here and wear that big cross around your neck."

"I don't know..." the priest began and Dean threw himself at him. Over the desk and knocked him out of his chair to the ground and pulled out his gun and shoved it under the priest's chin.

"Where is he? What the fuck did you do with him you sonofabitch?"

The priest stared up at Dean terrified. "Please, please, I don't know what you're talking about, please..."

"What are you?"

"Please..."

"Tell me where he is!" The priest started praying in Spanish. "Nice touch, fucker," Dean said and he pulled back his fist and hesitated for one second and then hit him squarely in the face. The priest's eyes rolled up and he went still.

* * *

The Devil's Trap was almost finished on the floor and the priest was just coming to behind him when there was a light rap on the door and Dean looked up and aimed the gun at the door. He didn't say anything but the door opened and a woman peered around the door at him. An old woman, tiny, barely higher than the doorknob.

"Please," she said. "You must come with me." Dean stared at her. "This man is no priest. He is lying to you. Your brother is alive."

"Where?"

"He is sick, that is true, but he is alive." She looked at Dean and then stuck her arm into the room. There was a font of holy water by the door and she dipped her fingers into in and crossed herself. "By Holy Jesus Christ I am telling you the truth."

Dean looked back at the priest. He looked at the woman. She reached into her pocket and pulled something out and held it up to Dean and he saw the amulet that he had worn since Sam had given it to him that Christmas when they were kids, the one Sam had taken from him when he'd died. "Do you see?" she said. "This is your brother's. So you know that he is here."

Dean reached out and took it. He stared at it in the palm of his hand. He looked up at the woman and he didn't say anything but she turned to go and he followed her.

* * *

She took him through bleak alleys to a dirty street and a hotel where loud music was playing and there were men and women and girls in the bar downstairs and she started going up the stairs and Dean grabbed her arm.

"Sam is here?"

"We had to hide him," she said. "We know who is looking for him."

"Who?"

"The devil," she said and turned back to the stairs.

The stairs were dark and Dean stumbled after her. The second floor was lined with closed doors and lit by one bulb and she stopped before one of the doors with her hand on the knob and turned to him. "He is inside. You must come." She pushed open the door.

Dean came to the door and she moved aside. The room was small and dark and the only light came from the streetlamp outside and there was someone lying on the bed with his back turned to Dean and his dark hair above the covers and Dean said, "Sam?" and he came closer to the bed and the person lying there turned over and Dean said, "Oh my God, Sam?" and then something hit him from behind hard enough to drive him to his knees. He looked up through watering eyes and saw nothing but a shadow before him and he was struck again across the face and had enough time to taste blood in his mouth before he blacked out.

* * *

He came to concussed and nauseated and lying on the floor with his wrists strapped behind his back. Music from downstairs pounded through the floor and into his head. There was a light on in the ceiling and Dean rolled onto his back and looked at the bed and it was empty. A low funk of sulfur hung in the air and he rolled back onto his side and looked around the room and saw a man sitting in the corner dressed in black pants and a white shirt like a waiter from the bar downstairs except for the black scleras of his eyes.

"What're you waiting for?" Dean said. "Do it."

"Do what?"

"Kill me.

The demon shook his head. "No one's going to kill you."

"What?"

"If we'd just wanted you dead your face would have been on every goddamn website and 24-hour news channel. We'd have had everyone from the Secret Service to Joe-fucking-Sixpack gunning for you. You'd never have made it out of Mississippi." The demon got up and came over to Dean and crouched a few feet away from him. "We don't want to lose you, Dean. Dead, you're gone. Out of reach."

Dean grinned at him. "Only can collect once, huh? Sucks for you. Guess we won't be hanging around the pit like old times."

"Oh, you're going back to hell. I never said you weren't."

"What're you gonna do, wait around for me to die? Hope that I make another deal with one of you? I don't think so."

"What's the body, Dean?"

"What?"

"What's the body?"

"Oh for Christ's sake..."

"Temple of the soul. Temple of the soul, Dean." The demon cocked its head at Dean. "Prison of the soul, too. You starting to follow me?"

"I don't know what the fuck you're talking about."

"You're going back to hell body and soul, Dean. Body and soul."

Dean stared at the demon. "You're full of shit. Even if you can do that, so what? How long do you think flesh and blood will last down there?"

"We can keep it alive and you trapped in it. Can you imagine? Lilith is so happy. Oh, she's gonna take such care of you."

"Why does she even fucking care? She's gotten everything she wants."

"But she needs to keep it. She can't have you out here on your own where anything could happen to you. The world's become very dangerous, you know."

Dean closed his eyes. He was tired and sick and the demon was talking shit that didn't make any sense and he didn't want to listen to it anymore.

"Poor Sam," the demon said and Dean opened his eyes and stared at him.

"What about him?"

"All that work to save you and for what? You haven't done one goddamn worthwhile thing since you got out. Got some old lady killed. That poor kid and his cat. Your friend there, gutshot in a parking lot. Did he die?" Dean didn't say anything and the demon shot an arm out and grabbed Dean by the throat. "Did he die?"

"Yes," Dean said and the demon tightened his fingers until Dean was wheezing.

"How long did it take?"

"Fuck you."

"How long?"

Dean grinned at him. "Little harder," he said through clenched teeth and the demon relaxed his fingers and let go and Dean laughed. "You need to handle me with kid gloves, asshole. Boss won't be happy if you choke me to death."

The demon stood up. He walked a few steps away and stood there with his back to Dean. Then he turned and ran at Dean and Dean couldn't get out of the way and the demon kicked him in the side and Dean heard something crack inside him and he bellowed in pain. The demon kicked him again and another rib went and Dean's vision blurred and he rolled over and almost puked. The demon grabbed him by the arm and turned him over like a doll and half-straddled him with one knee on the floor and the other on his broken side and Dean lay there gasping.

"You're gonna rot, you pathetic shit," the demon said. "Body and soul, you're gonna rot and Sam's never gonna find you again, he's never..."

"He's alive?" Dean said and the demon froze. "He's alive," Dean said and suddenly he was smiling. "He's alive and you don't know where he is. She doesn't know where he is, oh my God." He started laughing. "Oh my God, that's beautiful. That's fucking priceless."

"You won't be laughing when they come for you. You'll be screaming." The demon grabbed Dean's head. "You'll be screaming," he said and he bashed Dean's head against the floor and Dean passed out thinking, Sam's alive. Sam's alive.

* * *

When he woke up it was dark and he was alone. The music downstairs had stopped and he could hear his own heartbeat in his ears. He heard the bell in that cathedral toll twice and thought about how he'd beaten up that priest and left him there and it was almost funny because if for nothing else he'd probably earned himself a space in hell for that.

He was in a lot of pain and thought the demon must have kept wailing on him after knocking him out. His side was a white flare of agony and whatever bound his wrists had stripped them raw and his head felt close to splitting. Maybe was split. His thoughts faded in and out. July Scales prayed a psalm while rain beat on the roof. Dust drifted up like brown snow against Bobby's backporch door. A long road uncoiled before him, yellow lines slipping one after the other beneath the wheels. Steely Dan was on the radio, his mother had liked that song, had danced around the kitchen to it ten thousand years ago.

He remembered waking in Caborca with the little boy Alex tucked up against him and how he'd thought in that moment that Alex was Sam and they were both still children and he thought about his childhood now and about his mother, whose image was still so vivid after so many years, and about how his father had fought so hard to prepare them for this and he thought about Sam and of all the things that he hadn't protected him from. He thought of all their years on the road and what a waste, what a senseless waste it had all been.

I'm sorry, Mom, he thought. I'm sorry, Dad, I'm sorry, Bobby and oh God, Sam I'm so sorry, if you find out about this please don't come for me again, please don't. Please, for God's sake, don't. Just leave me, leave it, let this be over.

He lay there in pain and his mind drifted and then the cathedral bell struck three and he was suddenly afraid. He had no fear of dying but he wasn't going to die, he knew where he was going, body and soul this time, and he was terrified. Body and soul. He tried to make sense of it but he couldn't, Lilith didn't need him and yet she did and something wasn't right and it scratched at him but he couldn't get his mind around it. He thought if he could get up he would throw himself out the window but the demon must have thought of that because his wrists were tied to something that wouldn't move. Maybe the leg of the bed he couldn't tell.

He heard steps on the stairs. They came up the stairs and down the hall and stopped in front of the door of the room he was in.

No. No, no, no...

He thought it would be Lilith but it wasn't. It was one of the legion who had no name and it wore no human skin and its eyes burned in its head like twin furnaces. It crossed the room and bent down to where Dean lay and he tried to pull away from it but there was nowhere to go. It reached out and looped one blackened finger around the silver chain on Dean's neck and snapped it and threw it and the saint's medal across the room and they hit the floor with a faint ring.

There had been howling last time, and screaming and blood but this time was all silence and suffocating fear. Dean could hear himself panting in terror and the demon reached behind him and broke whatever had bound him to the bedframe. He wanted to fight and couldn't, wanted to scream and couldn't. Wanted to die and couldn't, never would and when the demon pulled him up and threw him over its shoulder he didn't even know it. He was choking on sulfur and shit and blood and fire and descending, descending, descending and it was over and not over and would never be over and so eternity swallowed him up.

* * *

"Dean."

He wouldn't look. He knew that voice. He wouldn't look.

"Dean?"

He turned away from it. The movement was painful and he moaned and something touched him and he jerked away from it. Get off me.

* * *

He opened his eyes and saw a wall. A window in it with a dark shade pulled down. A sink bolted to the wall beside the window. Mirror above it. Clock ticking somewhere. He was in bed. On his side. One arm was up on the pillow and on the wrist was a bandage with a little blood seeping through. What is this? He was in hell. They could make him see what they wanted. They could make him think he was safe and then the next minute they'd be tearing him to pieces. This is a lie.

He turned over onto his back, an arm wrapped around his ribs. Some light came in from around the shade over the window but there was no other light. The room was cool and gray. He lay there. After a while he turned his head. He wasn't alone. Someone was slumped in a chair at the foot of the bed with his forehead down in his hand. Dean pushed himself up on one elbow and stared. This is a lie.

He stayed there until the other one stirred and rubbed his face and then he looked at Dean and froze.

"Dean?" Dean said nothing. "Dean, it's me."

Dean didn't move. Sam didn't move. They stared at each other.

To be concluded in Chapter 8

A/N: The "heat shield" described in this chapter has already been developed by Raytheon under the catchy name of "Silent Guardian." It actually does work by boiling tiny water molecules just under the skin's surface. If you're interested, you can read more about it: here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

sistermagpie.livejournal.com

You got more than on gasp out of me with this chapter. You really create the perfect mood for this kind of story, where there's this dread of what Dean is going to find even while you also want him to plow ahead and find it. Which is probably what Dean himself is also feeling but he's got to be used to that feeling by now.

Also again you create such vivid characters so quickly I love it. If the girl at the coffee place hadn't turned out to be a demon I would have been ready for her to be a great character too--which is good, because the demon's imitating a human. But even better was Jim and Alex.

From:

Lazarus Came Forth: Chapter 7, Part 2

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