CHAPTER FOUR

DEAN WINCHESTER

The forest on the outskirts of town was borderline hell—a crossbreed between storybook swampland and infinite void. Somewhere in its deepest recesses, a small offshoot of The Great Serpent slithered through the tightly-knit trees, gurgling in repetition. Wild bird calls ricocheted out of the canopy. Weeds and ivy crawled from the undergrowth; war-weary stragglers, all.

Dean shook his head in disbelief. Disbelief at himself, mostly. Jo scoffed, setting her hands on her hips.

"I can't believe this," He muttered under his breath. He adjusted his grip on his silver pistol, the only weapon he dared bring with him into the darkness. This was it. This was the day he'd find exactly what he was looking for, or else put his doubt to rest forever.

He could feel it in his bones.

"Alright," His smaller guide introduced him to the length of the woods with a wave of her hand, "Are we ready to rumble, or what? We just gonna stand here and admire the scenery all day?"

"Let's go," Dean grimaced, "I want to get this over with."

Jo stepped forward first and the party of two pushed into the beckoning deep.

The foliage and leaf litter crunched underfoot. Progress meant braving inch-long thorns and hacking away at steel-strong tendrils of ivy. Dean moved with uncertainty, like running into a snow storm blind. Hands held aloft in front of his face, feet testing for any signs of traps. The sound of water drew nearer, and Dean side-stepped a particularly green piece of flora, following Jo's much more practiced lead, to arrive in a mildly open clearing. The canopy above knit together so tight that still no sunlight was visible.

Full of…nothing.

Dean whipped around in confusion. This was the first clearing he had come to, so it wasn't as if he'd expected anything grand. But, he still expected something grander than nothing at all.

Overhead, a colorful bird peeped in alarm and vanished into the near night. Dean startled and turned to its cry. Too little, too late. The bird was gone.

"Nice company," He commented drily, "Is this it?"

"No," Jo shot back, "The next clearing over is where we're headed, moron. Do I look stupid to you?"

It was a welcome to the neighborhood, he supposed.

It was also unsettling, to be in the deep-woods alone. So Dean pushed ever onward, abandoning Jo's disgruntled lead, through the tangled brush, until he came to a halt about halfway through the clearing. Had the grass just creaked? No, that was impossible. An after effect of his strange, alcohol-induced stupor last night. Dean continued on his path.

"Hey!" Jo objected, "Wait for me! You don't even know where you're going, Dean!"

Three steps later, he was tumbling through the thin wooden ceiling of an underground room. The floor was hard and tiled in neat porcelain, with a thin coat of water that trickled at a downwards slope into oblivion. He knew this only because it was the first thing his face met when he landed. Sputtering from the impact, Dean shoved to his feet and spat out a mouthful of dirt water. Gritty residue remained on his tongue. It tasted like putrid fish; putrid dead fish. Dean grimaced in distaste. He'd always hated fish.

A voice screamed down the hole he'd made in the roof, and Jo's face appeared in the ceiling. Dean rolled over and flicked the water off of his shoulders in disgust.

"Are you alright?" She asked, angry and worried all at once, "I told you to wait! The caves are all over the place, and the ground's super unstable!"

"I didn't know that," Dean spat.

"It's because you don't think enough. Hold on, I'm climbing down to meet you. I usually don't make a habit of jumping down strange-ass holes in the ground, but I'll make an exception this time, 'kay?"

"Alright," Dean muttered, "Just be careful."

Regaining his steady composure, Dean glanced quickly about the room. It was a dilapidated and ruined room, with tiles and mismatched metals strewn all about, vines growing into walls, tables overturned and chairs busted across the slightly intoxicated floor. Two open doors led to walls of rooty mud. Another wide, crooked hallway arced down. A flood of water gushed into its precipices. Muddy, inky water. Dean leveled his pistol at eye-level and craned forward, glancing down the evil-looking hall. There came a splash behind him as Jo dropped down a few feet away, sending water flying. Dean startled, realized his error, and turned back to the cave.

Darkness and steam, ringed with blazes of numb light and sterile buzzing. He hated caves—going underground made him noxious as all hell. Dean remembered distinctly, when he was younger, his father dragged him along on an underground hunt and the ceiling collapsed in on them. Warily, Dean turned to the ceiling, sucking in a few breaths of air through his mouth. Jo glanced at him skeptically. He doubted this cave was like other caves. It looked civilized, had structure other than rock or dirt holding it up. Besides, this was where all the signs were pointing for open-season on angels.

Still, he clutched the edge of the opening to the steep hallway and hesitated. In or out? Up or down? He felt a nervous tremor go through his hand. He had to make a decision, and he had to make it now. What if he went back to the city before exploring any further?

The decision was made for him only a moment later. From the opening in the ceiling, through a small stream of water, the voices of many fluttered to him. The cry of a bird. Jo glanced up, bewildered, and motioned for Dean to 'get his ass down the pipe'. Dean shook his head and, cursing to himself, ducked inside the sloped hall. He lost his footing right away and careened into a sideways table. Jo followed more gracefully, taking each step sideways with precision. Careful not to make a sound, Dean shuffled to the outer wall and made his way down slowly, taking each handhold in stride, using queues from Jo, who had stepped alongside him now. Multiple rooms lined the hall, making things a little harder, but they managed well enough. One room held what looked like an old hospital stretcher. Another, a few chairs and a bed. A large letter 'C' had been carved into the busted door. Dean utilized the door to stem the flow of water around their feet and slide into the flatter portion of the hall. It opened up into a larger room, much larger, much wider and taller, with an ornate metal staircase that led up to an open door, flooding with sunlight. Dean sighed in relief. An emergency exit. They wouldn't have to go up the hallway of hell again, if worse came to worse.

The sagging room stank of mud and mildew. Dirt and roots broke apart the ceiling, webbed with cracks that spouted murky water down the buttoned walls. The sludge-like liquid pooled on the floor, ankle-deep at best. Dean treaded—or rather, waded—lightly in the viscous water. There was no telling what sort of beasts in concealed. Jo lifted her voice with reverence. An echo responded to her doubly.

"I've never been inside here," She cooed, "I've only ever looked in the door over there—that's where we were supposed to come in from. Hey, Dean, check this out." She threw a small, disembodied red switch she'd picked up somewhere in their brief explorations, and it bounded across the surface of the water and disappeared down a savage-looking hole. Suddenly, Jo was distracted by something else. She ran over to it eagerly, kicking up gallons of water as she went. "Whoa! What's that?! Dean, come look at this weird table! It's got some sort of funny drawing on it."

In the center of the dark, dank room, a wooden-and-plastic monolith rose up out of the water. Dean followed Jo's footsteps, crossing over to it with a little more care, and pressed his hand to its surface—smooth and even. The top had been colored in many different areas. Big blobs here and there, with the paint chipping off from water damage. Red dots spotted certain locales. Maybe a map? But it wasn't any land that Dean knew. Cautious, he ran his hand over the top of the olden map and pushed deeper into the cave. Like an excited puppy, Jo bounced after.

Another, more ominous-looking hallway stretched before them. A wall with many switches and buttons. The water at their feet tapered into near nonexistence. In the hall, many chairs had been toppled over, pushed onto their sides or backs. Their fabric cushions in puke-green were water-stained, charred, burned through with holes as deep and dark as the cave itself. Dean and Jo clambered over a few to reach the panel of buttons; he tripped and slammed the side of his skull hard against the metal. He startled as the machine screamed to life, whirring. The buttons lit up and beeped ceaselessly. Dean scrambled to turn it off again. So much for the element of surprise.

"Nice goin', Dean," Jo accused. Her voice resounded from the acoustic walls. "And you were worried about me screwing something up. Look at you. I guess you were right, you can do it all by yourself."

"Can it, Jo, or I'll tell Ellen," Dean groaned. She rolled her eyes, but was silent.

In a last-ditch effort to silence the strange, noisy wall, Dean slammed his fist into a small, important-looking panel near the center. It shattered and he pulled back, glass in his knuckles, bleeding.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, fine." Dean responded curtly through gritted teeth.

A sign above the panel read in hastily-painted red letters: BREAK IN CASE OF EMERGENCY.

Dean shook out his fingers, humming dully with pain, and grimaced. The machine had lulled into a numb murmur; nothing but a pulsating red lamp sounded off.

But his head was pounding—he was getting closer to something, he knew it.

Who are you? You must be…but you couldn't be, could you?

Curiosity twisted Dean's stomach into knots. Narrowing his eyes, he pocketed his injured hand and brushed away the remaining debris around the emergency box. Jo craned around his shoulder to watch as he reached inside. Cautiously. Slowly. Not assuming anything good or important.

Their faces fell slightly when he drew out its contents.

A blacked-out mason jar, secured with dried glue around the inner edge of the screw-on lid. Dean brought it closer to him and turned it over. The jar burned the palm of his hand. Determined to receive some sort of reciprocation for the long journey to the cave, Dean held tight to the oven-like jar and—holding it up to his ear—shook it.

Jo grimaced, leaning back against a fallen chair with gusto. "Sounds like sand," She muttered, "How boring."

"That can't be right. Is this the only thing here, really?" Dean grimaced angrily. He'd come for angels, not for a jar full of dirty sand. In a fit of rage, he lifted the jar to shoulder-level and let it drop to the jagged flooring. The jar shattered, sending even more glass flying through the air, and spilled its contents. Not sand. Dean and Jo retired from their standing positions to get a closer look, dropping down to their hands and knees. The grains were small, thin, silky, and grey. From different angles, each individual spot fringed with ember-red. As Dean leaned in even closer, they began to buzz. Experimentally, he reared back. They stopped speaking. A large pressure built in his chest. He thought it to be a feeling at first—foreboding, maybe. He gripped at his heart, pulling his hand back nearly immediately. Jo shot him a questioning look.

"What is this stuff?" She asked aloud, but it went unanswered.

On Dean's hand, an elongated burn mark erected itself, standing out from the multitude of other scars promenading about his skin; even the most prominent, the slice between his palm and wrist, stood no chance when waged against this new contender. It was in the exact shape of Dean's pendant. He gaped at it for a while before hurrying back to the leather necklace and snapping it from his neck for further inspection. The supple fabric strip swung steadily between Dean and Jo's noses. A pendulum of heat and vibrations.

"Well, what have we here?" A new voice boomed down the hall, screaming off the metal surfaces. Dean and Jo whipped around in unison, horror painted across their features. Quickly, Dean stowed the pendant in his right jacket pocket. The leather hissed as they came into contact, spewing smoke like a small dragon. He tried to ignore it. Instead, his attentions went to the wall behind them.

There was no way out.

A man at the end of the hall, wearing a dark black soon complimented by a similarly black tie, hurtled nimbly over the obstacles in his way and stood off to Dean and Jo with a light of superiority in his eyes. Dean pushed Jo back and barred her from the enemy. She squirmed under his arm, protesting.

"Let me go, I can handle myself!"

Dean shook his head, "If you never came home, your mother would kill me."

"I don't care!"

"Just sit still, would ya?"

The man drew closer and closer until he was little more than a step away from colliding with Dean's feet. The two shot violent glares into each other's eyes, contemplating murder or worse.

"Nice to finally meet you, Dean," The man greeted congenially, a hint of venom in his voice, "I've been waiting for you to show up here. My name is Michael, and I'm here for the phoenix. Now, where is the vial, Dean?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Dean hissed back.

"Oh," Michael tsked, "Don't be like that. We can do this the easy way, or the hard way."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Dean roared, repeating himself for clarification, "There's no such thing as a phoenix! It's just a myth, man, get over it. I should know. My father spent his entire life looking for the damned thing."

"Did he really?" Jo wondered.

"Shut up!" Dean shot back, "Just let me handle this, okay?"

Michael paid no mind to their bickering; he paced a circle around Dean and Jo, glancing over the ashes spilled on the floor and the shattered glass from the mason jar in vague amusement.

"You broke it," He chuckled, "You broke the container without even realizing it."

"Listen, pal," Dean insisted, taking a few steps back now that Michael had the brunt of the dead-end at his back, "The way I see things, there is only one of you, and two of us. So we can fight our way out, or we can settle things peaceably."

Michael smiled slyly, casting Dean a sarcastic glare from the corner of his eye. The ashes fizzled around his feet, hopping and jumping.

"Oh, Dean," He complimented lightly, "That's just like you. Seeing only one side of things when there are obviously so many more. I don't want your lives, Dean. I only want the ashes around your neck and a drop of your blood. Then, you're free to go. No charges. You can spend the rest of your life in a piteous squalor."

"What are you going to do with the ashes?" Dean narrowed his eyes. He didn't trust this Michael—his suit was too shiny, his hands were too clean.

Rolling his shoulders back in a failed attempt to look less threatening, Michael gestured widely with his hands and shrugged. "I don't know," He responded at last, "But this sort of thing is better left to professionals than the likes of you. You'd squander the power, Dean. You know you would. So, hand them over."

Dean double-checked, "We get away? Both of us live?"

"Of course," Michael responded, appalled that anyone might think otherwise, "Dean, your life is worthless to someone like me. Now, the ashes."

Digging in his pocket, Dean carefully removed the lava-hot vial from his person and tossed it over to Michael, aiming to miss. Michael grinned as he stepped back to catch it. The precision was devastating and painful to watch. Dean grimaced. He inched Jo back a few steps and sent her scurrying back out of the cave, pushing his pistol into her hands. She was gone in an instant, little rocks and tiles tittering down the hall behind her hurried feet. Michael watched her with detached disinterest gleaming against the dark surface of his pupils. Shadows moved in strange ways behind him—serpentine, taking the shape of tattered wings, at times other things, not able to be named. He examined the glass vial without flinching at its heat. Then, pointedly, he snapped the cork open and let its contents fly into the ashes already spread upon the floor.

Michael held out his hand.

"Blood," He requested promptly, "Only yours will do, Dean Winchester."

"Why's that?"

"So many questions!" Michael drawled, "Just give me what I asked for, or I'll make sure your little female friend won't take two steps outside of this bunker with her head still attached."

Dean blew out an aggravated sigh and dug inside his jacket for a knife. Luckily, he kept one on him at all times. The blade curved toward the sagging ceiling hungrily, cruelly. He let it suck in its fair share of spotlight before pressing it to his palm. A sticky tide of auburn plunged from his broken skin, drippling onto the sodden floor at his feet. Dean lathered the blade in the liquid. He tossed it at Michael, who caught it with a deadly glint in his smile.

"Don't aim for the heart, Dean," He advised, "That hurts."

"That so?"

"Your sarcasm is painful," Michael muttered, "Either way, I have no need for you now. Do you know what people like me do to little brats like you, Dean Winchester?"

"Spankings?"

Michael's features contorted into a rough grimace. "Oh, I will have fun with this."

The 'angel' had taken no less than three steps with the blade. The blood and ashes on the floor emitted a furious light. Michael paused to stare at it; both he and Dean bore confused and bewildered expressions.

"Oh, what now?!" Michael exclaimed frustratedly.

He dropped the knife.

In an instant, the droning glow erupted into a full-blown, forceful explosion of void and darkness. The conflagration burned fiery-hot, and blew Dean against the closest wall. He covered his eyes with his arm, hoping the leather would protect him from the worst of the heat. He waited for a death that never came.

The darkness ebbed and the heat focused in on a single, humanoid shape.

A voice. A familiar voice.

"Don't touch him, Michael," the voice commanded grimly.

And Michael responded, "Try and make me, Phoenix. You belong to me, now."

"No," the voice did not falter. It was not in dismay. This voice demanded what it knew. It was not that he was disappointed in being owned by a new master; he simply had no new master to speak of.

"That's impossible. I followed the legends to a T."

Dean lowered his arm.

"Stay where you are!"

He felt the blast before he saw or heard it. The force pinned him viciously to the wall, burning and brimming and eating at his very existence, yet it touched him only in inches. Friendly inches. Somehow, Dean had the feeling that this fire was not going to hurt him. He opened his eyes and beheld the world for what seemed to be the first time.

There was nothing.

Nothing but the high-pitched scream of the explosion and the painful blue light it gave off.