Chapter 4

The Fifth level was utterly empty. They ran at a steady pace through the deserted tunnels and caverns, past chambers and great halls. Here the walls had been smoothed and polished, the floors cut into elaborate designs, patterns of trees and leaves and flowers carved into the columns of shining black stone. But no demons attacked, no souls were present; the endless winds of the halls of Hell, driven by the rising thermals from the lowest levels, swept past them, the only sound that they themselves were not making in the entire place.

The Sixth level gates were closed but unguarded. It made Castiel uneasy. He touched the gates, feeling for anything that didn't match the structure of the materials. He could feel nothing out of place.

"Might be an ambush," he said softly to Balthazar. "Make sure everyone's ready."

He set his hands over the locking mechanism and closed his eyes. A second later, the deeply set locking rings moved apart and the monstrous tenons pulled free. The gates swung open. Castiel's eyes widened.

The cavern was immense, enormous. He couldn't even see entire extent of it. Like a great domed bubble in the fabric of the earth, the Sixth Level was almost spherical, the centre filled with bubbling, hissing and spitting lava that was, Castiel realised belatedly, the Lake of Fire.

From the gates, the ground sloped gently down to the lava-kissed shore. The heat was overwhelming, so dry and acrid that Castiel looked down at his hands, seeing the skin stretch and thin, taut over the bones. The Lake's fumes were a poisonous mixture of carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide, hydrogen fluoride, hydrogen sulphide, methane and carbon monoxide, a toxic miasma that burned at the skin and eyes, even of angels.

"Tell me you're sure that this has a far shore." Balthazar came up beside Castiel and looked across the molten lake, at the small eruptions that burst into flame here and there across the vast surface.

"This is not a construct of Lucifer. It's a part of the natural world on this plane. At some point, I would imagine it will erupt, when the pressure increases and the magna rises too high, but for the moment it is stable."

"How reassuring." Balthazar glanced sideways at Castiel. "So we fly over it?"

"That's the only way." Castiel nodded.

Balthazar sighed and turned towards the company. "Swords to hand, everything else stowed. We're flying across."

The bubble, formed by the rising magma pushing against the impervious crust above, was forty miles wide by forty miles long, a circle that lay within the more oval confines of the rock. The legends of his home said that there were many places where the planes touched and joined, features existing in both on either side of the division. This was one. One day it would erupt, the pressures of the earthly plane overwhelmingly the accursed plane's control.

One hundred and twenty angels soared with outstretched wings on the rising heat above the Lake of Fire, their shining white skin gilded and reddened by the glow of the molten rock beneath them. Even several hundred feet above the lake's surface the temperatures were extreme and Castiel stared at the fiery horizon as he flew, counting down the minutes until they would reach the relatively cooler far shore.

They reached the far side and landed on a milky grey shore, pumice crunching under their feet. The slope gently ascended to a cliff wall, pierced by the towering porphyry gates to the Seventh level. The smooth red stone was etched with sigils and signs, the red-gold light of the lake lighting the bas relief and throwing shadows around every design.

Uriel stood beside Castiel, and read the inscription that ran above them. "You are brought down to the Realm of the Damned, to the Depths of the Pit, where Angels fear to tread. Here, is pain for Eternity."

Behind them, Balthazar snorted. "Plainly, angels do not fear to tread here – melodramatic narcissists, demons."

Castiel hid a smile. Balthazar could be counted on to lighten the situation, no matter how dire it seemed.

He put his hands against the doors. The stone was cool, despite the proximity to the lake, and he could feel the rings and tenons deep within its mass. He looked over his shoulder.

"This is held too firmly for me to shift alone. Uriel, Balthazar, Mustriel, stand beside me, we must do this together."

They laid their hands on the stone, each of them aware that they were far from the power of Heaven, that here, in this domain, it was their fallen brother's power that flowed through rock and metal.

When the gate's locks refused to yield, Castiel shook his head, turning to look at the company. "To me, brothers," he ordered over his shoulder. "Unite and harmonise, we must be in concert to break through."

As he felt their massed strength blend together, a sweet chord of power flowing into and through him, Castiel wondered if it was this that Lucifer had never been able to see. Unity – and the sublimation of each angel to the greater good in perfect obedience to the cause – had been what the Morning Star had rebelled against. Demons were not capable of it. Perhaps even humanity was not capable of it, the individual lost in the whole, giving themselves up to a greater purpose than a single life. His song entwined with the others', soaring to a euphonious crescendo as each frequency of celestial intent found its place within the heavenly symphony.

Under their hands and minds, the gates shuddered once. Deep within the rock, the rings and mortises and tenons cracked and broke apart, and the stone slabs moved, opening inwards inch by inch.

Uriel had felt his connections to his master in Heaven thinning with every step they'd taken, stretched to a thread at the crossing of Adoian Baltim; to a hair's width once they'd passed over the Lake. Now, as he walked between the gates of the Seventh level, it was gone completely. He stopped involuntarily, earning a complaint from the seraphim behind him. Hesitating, as that final strand of awareness snapped and vanished, he realised he couldn't just remain there. His orders were clear. The human soul had to be brought free of Hell.

The Seventh level was completely different from any other level they'd passed through. There was no recognisable ground to speak of. Serrated and saw-toothed rocks, razor sharp and frozen into shape as the exploding lava had cooled rapidly was embedded with upthrust daggers of obsidian and diamond-bright shards, a floor of knives to torture those who walked here. The larger, tilted slabs of upthrust rock and hardened flowing waves of brittle stone reached above the jagged plain, a twisting labyrinth of gargantuan size. Far in the distance, a mountain range lay black and craggy against a dim blue light that even at this remove, felt chill.

Balthazar looked down at the rocky ground. "This will be fun." He raised his gaze and stared at the far range of mountains. "Is it just me, or does that look like ice reflection to you?"

Castiel nodded. "Beyond those mountains are the Eight and Ninth levels. The Eighth Level is a frozen wasteland. The Ninth holds the Cage. Lucifer's prison is enclosed in a mountain of ice."

"How suitable." Balthazar looked around. "How are we supposed to find this soul here?"

"Through the labyrinth," Castiel said, looking around the edges of the broken rock walls. "He will be at the centre."

They both flinched back as a blast of furnace-hot wind blew out of one of the openings in the wall, carrying fine dust and spinning into a savagely driven vortex in seconds. Balthazar watched as the whirlwind rose abruptly, feeling the scourge of the glass dust against his construct's skin, his eyes widening as the wind seemed to flick out and break over the jagged rocks.

"We can't fly across this," he muttered to Castiel. "We'll be ripped to shreds."

"No. We'll walk." Castiel began to pick his way across the ground, his face tightening as the sharp edges sliced at his feet. Watching him, Balthazar saw the trail of blood the angel left.

"Close ranks," he called out to the company, ignoring the sharp, stabbing pain as he strode after his commander and the razor-edges cut into him. With each step, his construct was healing itself, the deep wounds closing up until he put his feet down again. Each impact ripped through him anew, as perhaps it did to the souls that were cast here.

The seraphims feet were lacerated and bleeding freely when they came to the centre of the labyrinth. Each twist and turn in the pattern had led them across worse and worse ground, and the open wounds had taken longer and longer to heal.

At the centre, the rock had gone completely; replaced by a bristling floor of shards of black crystal, thrusting this way and that, long and short, wide and narrow, the strange grey light of the louring sky catching every edge. The growing chill should have warned them, Castiel thought as they came around the last bend and stepped into the circular clearing.

Moloch, Fallen, archdemon, stood waiting for them, his murky aura of dark cold almost filling the unnatural amphitheatre, the shreds of the black cloth wound around him fluttering in an acid-scented, directionless wind. A thousand demons perched on the outthrust pillars of black glass and pocked, volcanic rock that rose up to every side.

Castiel scanned the interior of the arena quickly. To one side, a huge stone table stood. Beside it a metal rack, its chains and pulleys coated with a thick black substance. And beside that, the human soul they had come to rescue, held firmly in a demon's grip, a demon with an elongated skull, mottled grey and black skin, silver eyes. Castiel spared the human a careful look as he walked into the bowl of stone. Like most humans, the soul had taken the same form as in life, a tall young man, broad-shouldered and fair-skinned, with green eyes and closely-cropped dark hair. In those eyes were a depth of darkness, and Castiel could see that they were indeed too late to prevent the breaking of the Seal.

"The arrogance of your kind continues to amaze me," the guttural whisper came from within the black hood of the archdemon, its dissonance instantly repugnant to the angels.

Castiel turned to stare at the archdemon, his expression cool and remote. "Arrogance is not in short supply in your domain, Moloch."

He was outclassed and he knew it. In single combat against this foe, he wouldn't last more than a few seconds. But he wasn't planning on single combat against the archdemon. He felt Uriel step out to his left, Balthazar to his right, the faint ring and hiss of their swords echoing from the walls.

"Give us the soul and we will depart, without further bloodshed to either of our kind," Castiel offered.

The grating, sepulchral laugh of the Fallen One started softly but grew in volume and resonance, rumbling through the arena of glass and echoing oddly from the sharp edges all around them.

As it died away, the archdemon attacked and the waiting demons rose into the air, a hurricane of flapping wings, wheeling and diving as they fell on the company of angels.

The Fallen's sword, long and black, snaked from the folds of his cloak, stabbing at the angel. Castiel's sword, brightly lit against the blackness of the rock, swung upward, blocking the thrust and sweeping it to one side as he stepped closer to the archdemon. A blade of glass pierced his foot, slicing through the flesh. He tried to ignore it, to keep his concentration focussed tightly on the enemy he faced but he could feel the blood flowing, the wound not healing up at all. To either side of him, Balthazar and Uriel swung at the archdemon together, their blades clashing as the demon vanished.

"Micaloz odqvasb orri" Uriel's deep voice cried out in Enochian, and he swung his sword around, pivoting as the blade lit up the amphitheatre in a blast of argentine light. The sharp points of the obsidian shattered, leaving the ground uneven but no longer impossible to cross or step on. Moloch materialised in front of them, snarling as he drove forward, his sword moaning through the thick air.

Uriel intercepted, the heavily-built angel grunting as he took the impact through his blazing blade, his eyes lighting silver for a second, and Balthazar and Castiel struck from the other side, sword blades disappearing for a moment into the tattered cloth of the archdemon and an unbearably shrill discord filling the ether as their points reached their target.

Balthazar caught Castiel's eye and nodded, turning his attention immediately back to the archdemon as he parried another high cut, offering an opening to draw the demon's sword and leave him vulnerable to Uriel.

Castiel spun around, and ran for the soul, his sword blazing in his hand. The silver-eyed demon dragged the soul behind the stone table, and Castiel saw the man flinch from the stone, from the stains that covered it. There is hope then, he thought, a little incredulously.

Behind him, he could hear the clash of swords, the whistle of arrows and the shrieks of the dying, of rage and wrath and fury from his brothers, and from those they fought.

In front of him, the silver-eyed demon laughed softly. "It is Castiel, isn't it? Long time no see."

Castiel nodded. "Not long enough, Alastair."

"Hmm … what were you doing, meddling in our affairs in '43?"

"You have no affairs with humans." Castiel feinted to the right, then put his hand on the table and vaulted over, wings extended and Grace burning in him as he landed in front of the soul. For a second, Castiel stared into the man's face, catching a fleeting vision of the depths of pain, of torment and despair that writhed within the soul. Had Balthazar been right, he wondered? Was there a point to saving this soul?

Alastair thrust the man at him, trapping his sword between them, Castiel's hand reaching up to steady the soul automatically. Through the soul's memories of flesh and life, the glimpse he'd seen was multiplied a millionfold, hitting him with a blast wave of excruciating agony that was both devastating and disorienting.

"You're safe now," he said, the words coming out involuntarily as the man stared up at him. "God has commanded it."

"Keep him," the demon laughed. "We don't need him anymore!"

Castiel thrust the soul behind him as the demon ran, stopping himself from pursuing the torturer as he remembered his most important charge.

From behind them there was a rising ululation, the pitch increasing until the crystalline rocks surrounding them began to vibrate in sympathy. He swung around, one arm curved around the man's shoulders, in time to see Balthazar's sword sweep the head of the archdemon from its shoulders. The howl was silenced abruptly, no song sung for the blackened remains of what had once been one of his brothers. He lifted his sword as the demons still alive shrieked and fled, leathern wings crackling as they gained height, the fierce hot winds surging and buffeting them above the labyrinth and slamming many onto the rocks.

"It's over," he said softly to the soul beside him. The man's expression was blank, but the silvery light gleamed on a moving thread of moisture, as it slipped down his face.

Michael. Castiel called to the archangel, hoping he would hear.

Castiel, do you have him? Michael's voice was faint.

Yes, I have him. Castiel took a deep breath. Dean Winchester is saved.

Epilogue

He stood in front of the simple wooden marker, one wing curved protectively around the soul in his arms. Beneath his feet, under the earth, lay the body that the soul remembered; decomposing, but recoverable. He closed his eyes and slipped through the grass, and the roots, through the softly turned soil, and the cheap pine lid, and into the body.

His fingers lay against the slipping skin of the forehead and he drew on the power of Heaven, feeling it flow through him, into the flesh that lay under him. Cellular reconstruction began; the nervous system regenerating, the fluids returning to solid state as the cells multiplied and divided, rebuilding from the genetic keys held in every one.

The body lived, the heart beat, the lungs drew breath, in and out, synapses opened and closed, neurons fired … he looked down at the soul resting against him and touched it.

There was nothing he could do for the man's mind, he thought, a little regretfully as he watched expression return to the face. The burden of what this soul had done and what had been done to him would remain. He could not even remove those memories, for they were essential to this man's task. He had watched humanity struggle on this small planet for more than two thousand years, he reminded himself. They were his Father's creations, and all were capable of the strength demanded from them, even if few realised it.

Dean Winchester woke, fighting his way from a confused tangle of memories of heat and flame, of pain and torment and anguish and shame, of suffocation and light too brilliant to look at, of the smell of feathers and flowers. He sucked in a breath of air, and another, his ribs shaking from the force of the pounding of his heart.

"There is no chance, no destiny, no fate,

that can circumvent or hinder or control

the firm resolve of a determined soul."
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox

END