Lazarus Falling [Supernatural]

Chapter Two - The Demon King

Sam Winchester could feel the power within him rising, curling in his chest. The first time he had felt the darkness of the demon blood in his veins, he had been frightened. But now, he welcomed the metallic tang that came with using his Boy King power.

Dean hadn't understood. Hell, he had hardly tolerated it once he found out. Sam would never forget the flash of disgust flitting across his brother's features when he learned of Sam's psychic abilities. Of course, it wasn't just prophecy anymore...now he could control and kill demons with a thought. Very handy talent for a hunter.

Still, Dean wouldn't have thought it was right. He would have fought Sam and Ruby every single step of the way, and might have even convinced them to stop. He was that stubborn.

But Dean wasn't here anymore. He had died, killed by Lilith a whole year before. In resurrecting Sam, Dean had ensured his own death, and yet he had faced his demise bravely. Even as the hellhounds tore into the soft flesh of his abdomen, painting everything in gruesome red, he didn't waver. And Sam had been left to bury him.

But after his puzzling resilience to Lilith's blast of white light, the reappearance of Ruby, a series of unsuccessful attempts to sell his own soul, and an unsettled grudge with Lilith, Sam had decided that Dean was wrong. His demon blood didn't have to be a curse. He could use it to stop the Apocalypse, and Ruby had shown him how. Never mind the stern angels, who had warned him against ingesting more demon blood, then had leveled a whole town. After that, he had refused to work with them. The only other mention of angels he had heard of was a distress call from a young girl and her mother. They claimed the other member of their family, a man named Jimmy Novak, had been talking to an angel named Castiel before he vanished. For reasons unknown, they were being targeted by demons, but by the time Sam got there, they were both dead.

Now he was here, in an abandoned convent, beneath which Lucifer was contained in his cage. And Lilith was here too, wearing the guise of an attractive blonde woman in a long, white dress. Finally, after all the searching...and here she was, standing in front of him with all-white eyes.

Sam raised his hand out, palm flat, throwing Lilith against the front of the altar and pinning her there. He psychically reached, scanning her body with his power and grasping hold of her twisted, demonic soul. She was a lot stronger than most demons, so she would be that much harder to kill. But Sam had just consumed almost an entire body's worth of demon blood.

With a thrill of fear, he realized that right now he might be more demon than human. But there was another emotion underneath the panic...excitement, almost.

Squeezing his eyes shut, he pushed his mind against the confines of Lilith's soul. She resisted, of course, but not nearly as much as he had expected. Apparently, he had overestimated her strength, he thought with a smirk. Kill. He forced the word, and all the intent that came with it, into her body.

His eyes flew open as lightning flickered underneath her rib cage, illuminating each bone. Kill. He pushed the thought towards her again, hardly minding the feeling of demon blood rising to his neck, his face, his eyes...

His eyes. His vision was slowly becoming different, becoming darker and sharper at the same time. Lilith laughed around her pain when she saw his black demon eyes. However, as he sent the kill intent towards her one more time, her laugh turned into a scream. Finally, she died, the light inside her chest flickering weakly before she slumped to the stone floor.

He let out a breath and felt his demon eyes receding as Ruby stepped into the room, admiring Sam's handiwork. "Good job, Sam," She said, and he didn't have to look at her to know there was a smirk painted on her pretty features. "You did it."

"I did it," He echoed disbelievingly. Lilith was dead. Lucifer would not rise. The Apocalypse would not happen. And maybe most importantly, Dean Winchester was avenged.

However, Sam watched as little lines of blood – Lilith's blood – drew a patterned circle around the center of the room. That wasn't supposed to happen, was it?

"What's going on?" He looked over at Ruby accusingly, pointing at the circle of blood on the floor.

"He is rising," She looked more delighted than Sam had ever seen her. "Lucifer. Those bastards thought I was disloyal...when I was the most loyal of all."

"But Lilith was going to destroy the final seal! I stopped her from breaking it."

She laughed mockingly, bitter malice twisting her pretty features. Sam felt disgusted that he'd ever been attracted to her. "Oh, Sam, that's where you're wrong. Killing Lilith was the final seal, and you broke it."

"You used me," He realized, his fingers closing around the demon knife stashed in his jacket.

"And I got what I wanted," Ruby grinned, but her jubilation was short-lived. Sam plunged the demon knife into her heart. It was the only thing he could do at that point, and he was furious that she had been able to manipulate him so easily.

"Bitch," He whispered in her ear just before he pulled the knife out of her chest and let her fall to the ground, dead.

Sam turned back to the center of the room just as a thin beam of light burst from the center of the circle, slowly expanding. He took a step back, terror thrumming through his every muscle. There was something about the light that just felt wrong. Sam had spent most of his life facing down the most terrible things that lurked in the shadows, but he didn't think anything ever came close to this. The pure malice...it was overwhelming.

For a split second and probably for the millionth time that past year, he wished Dean was here. At least he'd have an ally who would stand by him no matter what.

But Sam was alone, facing a terrible threat.

The light expanded and began to fill the entire room. He might have been able to survive Lilith's onslaught of power, but he certainly wouldn't survive Lucifer's.

He blinked. One second: that was all it took.

One second, and then he was sitting on a plane, surrounded by ordinary people living their ordinary lives. They had no idea of the horrors that lay in store for them.

Sam gasped as the plane careened, narrowly avoiding a pillar of white light shooting skywards.

Lucifer was free.

The Apocalypse had begun.

And it was all his fault, Sam realized with a sinking heart.