Chapter Text
The woman comes up to Castiel as he stands by the pump, filling the gas tank on his car. She's slender, brown-eyed, with wide cheekbones and waves of glossy black hair. She looks young, and there's a tired look in her eyes that reminds Castiel of how he felt when he was human, the weariness that hounded him day by day. Perhaps that's why, when she asks for a ride, he hesitates only a moment before nodding. Or maybe it's just that he wants to help, for once—the past months, locked in his skull with Lucifer at the reins, had been a path he'd chosen because he wanted to be of service in the fight against the Darkness, but he can't ignore the certainty that his limbs were used for more harm than good.
"What's your name?" he asks her, as he pulls out of the gas station and back onto the road.
"Lien," she answers. She doesn't ask for his name. Castiel is fine with not giving it to her, fine with not being known. Most of the people who know him want him dead, after all. The Winchesters might still be on his side, but Castiel can't forget how he opened his eyes on the floor after the fight with Amara, to see Dean looking at him with such hatred. It was warranted, of course—Dean couldn't have known that the Devil was gone. But the moment stays burned into Castiel's mind, the moment when Dean had looked at him, had looked at Castiel, and had seen Lucifer.
He can't blame Dean for that; sometimes he looks at himself, at the hands he's regained control of, and isn't sure that they truly belong to him. Amara ripped Lucifer out with a flick of her wrist, but his vessel still doesn't feel quite his own. He still has moments where he wonders if he ever left the false mirage of the Bunker that he constructed within his mind, moments when he thinks that what he sees and feels are just figments of his imagination, that Lucifer is still wrapped around him and over him, a torrent of fire and light and hate, operating Castiel's body like a puppet, using it to kill and maim.
In the driver's seat of the car, Castiel flexes the incorporeal tatters of his wings, the broken remnants curiously comforting, proof that he's not an archangel, proof that he's only Castiel, who fell. He remembers making his slow, earthbound way back to the Bunker after Toni Bevell's banishing sigil flung him through space, remembers halting as he saw Dean, the way his heart had skipped a beat in a way it hadn't done since he was human. He remembers the clench of dread in his chest, the certainty that he was still asleep, ensnared by the freezing wind of Lucifer's stronger grace, bound tight and helpless in a dark corner of his own head. Dreaming of a dead man.
But Dean is alive, he reminds himself. He remembers the feel of Dean's arms wrapping around him, the warm smell of Dean, real and present and alive in the dark bunker. He remembers, too, the stricken guilt that had followed his moment of relief—he hadn't been able to protect Sam, hadn't been able to honor Dean's last request.
In the span of those few awful minutes (before Sam had miraculously stumbled in, having escaped Lady Bevell and made it home safe, after all), Dean had prayed to him—just his name, just Cas uttered quietly into the space between them. Cas, Dean had prayed, the word piercing through Castiel's apologies and remorse, the prayer overflowing with Dean, with the warmth of him, the weight of him, the sincerity and truth of him. Lucifer is gone and Castiel still feels hollowed-out, charred by the archangel's cold hate, but Dean's arms around him had felt anchoring, like he was holding Castiel steady, closing up the gaps left by the Devil. (Cas, Dean had prayed, the word so warm and weighty. Lucifer's voice had been all wind and fire and light and lies.)
"Thank you for the ride," says Lien suddenly, breaking the silence.
Castiel blinks and shakes himself from his reverie. He glances at Lien. She's wearing a shirt the color of poppies, and over it a tiny white jacket that seems intended more for decoration than warmth.
"You're welcome," he says hesitantly, the words sounding strange in his mouth. He wonders how often he's said them before—how often he's successfully helped. He had left the Winchesters and their mother in a motel room in Nebraska, one of many such rooms that they've been treating as home, now that the Bunker's safety is uncertain. He'd left to track down a lead in Colorado, hoping for more information on the London Men of Letters. But that was only part of the reason, he knows, and he's afraid even now that it was the wrong decision, that he wasn't so much leaving as fleeing.
It's better if we stick together, Dean had said, frowning. It had only been a week since they'd all reunited at the Bunker, only a week since they hastily packed their bags and fled, and Dean had been vibrating with anxious energy ever since, barely resting a moment as he held them all together, as he managed the hundred little things necessary to look after everyone, keep everyone safe. We're safer together, Cas, he'd said. Yet he'd made no move to stop Castiel.
This could help us, Dean. I'll be back in a few days. He'd said it in the motel room doorway, his hand still on the knob. Dean's prayer from days before had hung heavy in the air between them, too overwhelming to be discussed, too electric to remain unspoken for long.
In the car, Castiel shivers, drawing a sideways glance from the silent Lien. The new threat represented by the Men of Letters had overshadowed everything else, but even now to think of Dean (Dean whom Castiel had nearly lost, Dean who is alive) is frightening and enthralling all at once, because to think of Dean is to remember how Dean's prayer had, beneath everything else, felt like a kind of promise. Even if he can't bring himself to think about it. (Cas, Dean had prayed, and the flood of emotions behind it had terrified Castiel even as it drew him forward.)
***
They've been driving westward on I-76 for perhaps an hour when Lien suddenly says, "Please pull over."
Castiel glances at her, startled. They're in the middle of nowhere, the highway almost deserted, the nearest exit miles away.
"Pull over," she repeats sharply, and he complies and brings the car to a stop along the side of the road. Lien gets out, not closing the door. She walks around the front of the car as Castiel watches, perplexed, and bends to rap on his window.
Perhaps it's an odd hitchhiker custom. There's so much he still doesn't understand about humanity. Lien keeps tapping, her brow furrowed, urgency in her manner.
Slowly, he rolls the window down. "What are you—"
She reaches in, grabs his shoulder, and yanks them both into the void.
***
His feet hit solid ground and Castiel stumbles, falling backwards into a driver's seat that is no longer there. He lands hard on his back, palms and forearms slapping against the ground.
Lien turns to look at him. "That," she comments, almost to herself, "was far easier than I expected it to be."
"How did you—"
But she's stepping back now, a match flaring to life in her hand. She drops the light with a flourish and Castiel watches as flames leap up from where it lands, racing in a circle to surround him. Holy fire. He can smell the sweet tang of the smoke as he climbs slowly to his feet.
He scans his surroundings. The floor beneath his feet is smooth, dusty cement, and high above he can see a ceiling crisscrossed with pipes and metal rafters. The windows are high up on the walls, all of them boarded up except the nearest one, which lets in a few faint rays of light through its coating of grime. An abandoned building, he thinks. Perhaps a warehouse or a factory, once, that has been gutted and left in disrepair.
From the other side of the flames, Lien watches him, her head slightly tilted to one side. Her posture has changed; it's straighter, more open, thrumming with a sharp, dangerous grace. Firelight flickers in her eyes.
"Who are you?" says Castiel quietly.
She blinks and her eyes click beetle-black. "My name is Set."
His grace shivers with recognition. "You're a demon."
Her eyes return to brown. "Very good, Castiel." He registers the use of his name with a thrum of unease. She begins moving around the circle of holy fire, her gait predatory, confident. Castiel pivots slowly on the spot, keeping her in view. The circle of fire is perhaps ten feet in diameter, the flames leaping knee-high, though it might as well be twenty feet or a hundred for him. Behind Set, he can see dark, irregular shapes—a stack of pallets, a long table, some long-obsolete machine hunkered in its final repose. Other objects farther back, difficult to make out in the gloom of the space.
"I couldn't sense you," he says, frowning. And he still can't sense her, can't glimpse her true form or detect the foul scent of brimstone, the way he can with other demons. He studies her and sees a slim dark-haired woman in jeans and a plain red shirt, and if he hadn't just seen her eyes flicker obsidian that would be all he'd think she was. Castiel wonders if Lien had been the real name of the vessel, and feels a pang of sorrow, wondering who the woman had been, what she might have wanted to be, before a demon came and—took, as demons do. As he'd done, he reminds himself. To Jimmy Novak, and to others before, in times long past.
"I have been on this earth a long time, angel. Millennia." A few steel poles rise from the floor to the rafters above, like ribs in this old skeleton of a place. Set leans against one now, running a slender finger down the dusty metal. "I have survived by learning how to hide myself, from Heaven and Hell alike."
"And what do you want?" demands Castiel. "What do you want with me? How did you find me?"
"So many questions." She brushes her hair behind her ears and studies him for a moment. "I want the throne," she says finally. "I want Hell. And I have been searching for you for some time, for that purpose."
Castiel frowns. "There is no love lost between me and Crowley," he says, "but he is at least a known evil. Surely you don't believe I would help you overthrow him."
"I don't need your help," Set snaps. "And as for Crowley, he has already been overthrown. He's been a weak leader for years, and Lucifer's return was the final straw that broke his reign. You ought to know that. You hosted the Devil in your own skin, did you not?" Castiel flinches (wind fire light hate cold) but Set seems not to notice, continuing, "The demons of Hell no longer follow Crowley. Hell has no leader." She tilts her head again, a thoughtful half-smile tugging at the edge of her mouth. "But demons were made to follow, and an appropriate display of strength will rally them."
Castiel snorts. "And capturing me, that is your so-called display of strength?"
Set laughs at that, a pure, cruel, beautiful sound, though it's devoid of humor. She straightens up from the pillar and, turning, walks away from the holy fire toward the long table behind her. Castiel takes the opportunity to scan the room again. He sees nothing that looks of immediate use, but given time, he thinks, he can find some way to bridge the holy fire. He's done it before, after all. Keep her talking, he thinks Dean would tell him. It doesn't seem like that will be difficult; Set is expounding over her shoulder to him as she bends over the table, fiddling with something.
"Crowley's problem," she says, "is that he makes everything far too complicated. Hell is a straightforward place. It's not his weak-willed, watered-down bureaucracy." She straightens, her back still to Castiel, but he can hear how she spits the last word out contemptuously. "Hell is pain, and darkness, and death. The weak are ground down, and the strongest rise. There is a purity to that, a simplicity."
"And you believe you are the strongest," says Castiel. He tilts his head back, considering the metal pipes running along the ceiling. He has the power to yank one free, but not faster than Set will notice. And the pipes are too narrow to block the holy fire.
His phone is in his coat pocket, the Winchesters' numbers a few taps away. His fingers twitch towards it. If he can distract her—
Set turns around at last and walks back toward the ring of holy fire, turning something over in her hands. It clinks softly, the sound of metal on metal. "I believe in simplicity. And the simplest way to the throne of Hell is to do what Crowley could not do. What even Lucifer did not accomplish." She stops on the other side of the flames, letting the object swing loosely from one hand. It's a whip, Castiel realizes—metal, the handle bone-white, the lash a chain of overlapping triangular segments that glint silver in the light as they slide through her fingers. "I'm going to kill the Winchesters. No elaborate plans, no cat-and-mouse games." She grins, the first expression of true amusement that he's seen cross her face. "Just their dead bodies laid before the hordes of Hell."
Castiel pushes down the surge of protective anger that flares in his chest, the cold stab of fear in his heart. Dean and Sam are on the alert for danger, he reminds himself. They are well-hidden from demons, humans, and angels alike. But he's never met a demon who could cloak itself from his sight before, and he reads a calm, calculated confidence in the Set's bared teeth. He forces himself to laugh, making it as derisive as he can. "If that is your plan, go find the Winchesters and try, demon."
Set laughs too, the sound just as ancient and joyless as the first time. She flicks her wrist and the tip of the whip goes skittering over the concrete floor. "The Winchesters will come to me, Castiel. They've always been weak when it comes to family, and I have you now, after all."
Ah. So he's to be bait, then. Castiel curls his hands into fists. The demon's not wrong—the Winchesters have always let their guard down, when it comes to their family and friends. And now, because Castiel was weak, because he was a fool, he's going to endanger them again.
He sees Set draw her arm back, and steels himself against the coming blow. There's nowhere to go, no room for him to maneuver within the circle of holy fire, so he tries to focus his thoughts, tells himself that the pain will be only skin-deep, an assault on nerve endings that angels don't need. He's disciplined, he can ignore the damage to his vessel and concentrate on escaping—
The jangle of the whip, as it snaps out, chimes in his ears, and a line of fire carves its way across Castiel's uplifted arm and down his side. He staggers back with a cry, blinded by the pain of it, and it's hurt him, in a way ordinary metal shouldn't have—it's a searing agony against his grace, it's cut him down past the flesh of his vessel, into his essence, his true form.
His vision is blurry, whited-out at the edges. He can see the faint shine of his grace, seeping out from the lash marks. He forces his head up and Set smirks at him. Her eyes are alight with pleasure. She shakes the whip out, a long curl of silver. "Reforged angel blades. Crowley does have some good ideas." The whip flies out again, and Castiel braces himself, but it does little good—he feels the bite of the metal against his legs like a live wire, and then he's yanked to the ground as the whip snaps his feet out from under him. He rolls with the impact, coming dangerously close to the holy fire, frantically pulling his wings in close to his body to keep them from the flames.
Set stalks around the edge of the circle towards him.
"I won't call them for you," Castiel gasps. Lying on his back, looking up at her, he feels vulnerable, exposed, but he refuses to look away, refuses to scramble for shelter where there is none.
"Don't worry about it, angel," Set assures him. The fire casts her features in ghoul-like splendor, throwing odd shadows over the planes of her face. "I'll handle it." She raises her arm again. "Just need to prep you first."
She brings the whip down, the overlapping segments whistling and hissing through the air. Castiel grits his teeth, wills himself not to make a sound, but the lash lays him open from shoulder to hip and he screams anyway.