Among Us: A Supernatural Novel written by Carver Edlund

All In

The turbulence lasted only a second. Dean slammed into the ground so hard it felt like his shins telescoped right down into his boots. His knees hit the ground next. Then his hands.

He did manage to keep from kissing reddish cement, but barely. His dropped crowbar rang like a bell, quickly silenced.

"Sonofabitch," he wheezed, leaning his forehead against the cement. There was a reason he refused to fly the friendly skies! He wasn't afraid of flying, exactly. It was of not flying. Damn Sam and his statistics, planes crashed!

Nauseated, he pushed himself into a crouch on stinging palms. There would be blood, but it didn't feel like he'd broken anything. Then, he realized what had happened. It had happened a few times before, just never that violently. "Cass! I thought you said you couldn't fly. You gotta warn a guy before you do something like that, buddy. Okay? Cass?"

No answer. He spotted his friend a few feet away. Facedown and unmoving.

"Dean!" Sam hollered.

He shot to his feet. A pair of arms clamped his elbows to his sides.

The arms constricted. He grunted involuntarily as his boots left the ground. Held there for fleeting seconds, he had an excellent view of Red Rocks. Castiel had brought him right to the stage, a flat expanse of sandstone and red cement. Below—

The dream grips him in the talons of a devil.

Strobing light. Flashes of tortured sight, longer stretches of absolute darkness.

He gasped, reeling from the Hell flashback. Whatever was down there, it was bad. Really, really bad. Sort of oozing out like a slug, kind of see-through, all manner of bulging slimy convulsing horrible. Weird, high-pitched moans and deep howls ricocheted off the rocks. The wind whipped past, ghosts projected upon it like the creepy tunnel scene from the original Willy Wonka. They screamed as they disappeared into the slug's giant flapping mouth. The thing heaved its misshapen bulk a few more feet out of the pit. Though transparent like a ghost itself, wood cracked and splintered under its weight.

Sam had somehow ended up down there, right at the rim of the pit, and he'd lost his crowbar. Thank God he hadn't gone in. He dashed down the rows of seats, hair flying, stork legs carrying him over the gaps. He reached the railing that separated the house from the stage and vaulted over it.

Dean did not feel like being rescued by his baby brother.

"Let go of me, you assclown!" he ground out, kicking. His heels bashed into somebody's kneecaps.

The arms flipped him to the side. He spun all the way around before he landed and skidded over in a messy sprawl. He rocked on his back, momentarily stunned. Strength like that, it had to be a demon.

He scrambled to his feet and rushed to meet it, a stringy-looking biker. He got his arms around the guy's middle and shoved, trying to tackle him, but an elbow drove into the back of his head. A knee came up to meet his face. He staggered back. Dodged a punch. Threw one of his own. Felt his knuckles connect.

Dean and the demon traded blows for a few seconds. He scooped up his crowbar and swung. It couldn't hurt a demon—much. Biker-dude hissed as the iron contacted the bare skin of his hand and began to sizzle, but he pulled it closer and hugged Dean's arm. He twisted. Dean yelped.

Castiel grabbed the demon by the mouth, hurled him onto his back, and squeezed. Fiery light, as bright as the thick ropes of lightning whipping across the sky, strobed from the demon's eyes, nose, and ears. When Castiel wove unsteadily to his feet, the demon lay still and smoking.