Heaven's Child ≫ SPN

30.1

I didn't know what I expected the fallen angels to look like. They were mismatched and each person looked like they were plucked out of a normal average life scene. They all stood like soldiers, even though none of the faces they wore were meant for war. Each expression was impassive, not a trace on any to say the angels knew where they are or what they were about to do. But they didn't look like they cared. None of them looked forced to be here, more like they were grateful to have a taste of what it used to be like before the Fall.

The angels spanned the small clearing, making a half circle before the cabin we were in. Thin trees stretched around us in a wide circle, dark green and dense. In the half light of the mid day, eerie shadows shifted, skittering around the clearing as the trees swayed and clouds passed.

I found difficulty in allowing myself to meet anyone's eyes. Truthfully, I was afraid I'd find blame boring back, like the nameless angel who screamed my name moments before his gruesome death.

It felt like ages ago.

It suddenly occurred to me how he said someone forced him to destroy me. And now, with the angels standing in uniform, waiting for command, I realized how much Alec being that someone didn't make sense.

My eyes landed immediately on the group that came shuffling, dragging someone with them, interrupting the steady line. As I saw his face, I became abruptly conscious of how much I missed him. My heart squeezed just at the sight of him, then rage clenched in my stomach at the state of him.

Cas was bonelessly collapsed between two angels propping him up roughly. He was bleeding from the many gashes on his face, and leaking soft glowing light from a deep wound on his side. He was still breathing, I could tell that much. Stubbornly keeping his heavy lids from closing, rolling his eyes every couple of labored breaths he took. His jaw was clenched, tight, holding back from groaning in pain.

Sam and Dean stiffened behind me, rigid as the trees that surrounded us. Hard faces locked on the angels, anger ebbing off them in every visible way. You could almost see the fight in their eyes, holding back from charging at the angels now and running to Cas's aid.

We waited. No one stepped forward to claim responsibility for the gathering. Silence echoed.

Until it didn't.

There was a rumble in the trees, a rustle, a furious disturbance. Trees yielded from afar, breaking beneath the inescapable strength that bustled through them.

"What the hell," Dean breathed from behind me. We waited before the ominous certainty of the impending doom that came with whatever beast was coming for the clearing. Just a minute later, my suspicions came true, crushing my chest and everything in between.

Sullivan emerged first from the trees, knocking two more over with a loud crack and a cloud of dust. Eight more angels flanked him, each carrying a different weapon of the same metal. Something twisted in my gut. Unpleasant, unbearable, cold. I recognized it as anxiety as his entire body came into view.

He was in shackles and chains and a muzzle. But wherever the chains crisscrossed around his body, wherever the iron-like collar touched his neck, the fur and skin beneath was scorched. Like the metal that twisted around his body, his ankles, neck and mouth was made from the fires of Hell herself. It ate through Sullivan's fur like acid, melting layers of skin so fiercely, the marks all around his body were dark pink and red, some even had a crusted layer of black like his skin was turned to coal.

Sullivan was panting, constantly switching his feet. He didn't look up once, but kept moving his neck, finding a way around the heavy, burning collar. He flinched and winced and kept moving in restricted movements like he was trained to know that moving too fast or too much meant more pain.