Chapter Text
At first, the bone-biting cold disappeared. Then this sense of calm came over me as I felt a strong pull towards the blackness of the cat's eyes. It expanded into the void, and it swallowed me whole. I fell and fell and fell. Or rather, I should say I was being drawn to something... A specific place... A tiny bright dot somewhere in this universe of complete darkness. I saw it eventually... the blue light... It expanded rapidly until I plunged right into it. Its brightness was blinding yet felt strangely comforting. I found myself breaching a surface and sitting up in a bathtub full of ice. I gasped for air like a deep-sea free diver after just coming up to the surface. But it was rather an instinct than a desperate need. There was no burn in my lungs, no overpowering desperation.
I felt wet. The shards of ice pressed against my skin, but something was different. This time, I didn't feel the biting cold that had crippled me before. I felt no shiver... It was as though the ice itself had lost its crippling freezing power over me. It was a strange feeling, as if my basic senses and human needs had become completely useless here. It freaked me out a little...
However, I didn't come here to be Professor Proton.* I had a task at hand which needed my utmost focus.
Looking around, I realised I was in the same bathroom I had been in just moments before. The same expansive marble tiles lined the floor, the same sickeningly perfect painted walls... One huge difference though... I was completely alone in here...
The silence around me felt unnatural. Even a graveyard at night had more life than this place... No dripping water, no creaking of pipes. Not even a fly farting... Just an eerie stillness that made my skin crawl. My fingers wrapped tightly around the edges of the bath and I pushed myself up. I slid my legs over the edge of the tub and stood up on what was supposed to be a cold solid surface. I expected the chill to run down my body, and yet again, I only felt the solid ground against my bare feet. Weird... I didn't remember taking my shoes off...
Every movement I made felt strange... disconnected... like I was moving through a dream that refused to fully form.
My hand reached for the towel hanging nearby and dabbed my face with it, trying to dry off, but my hands met only dry skin. Confused, I looked down and realised I was already completely dry. Not a damn wet patch on me or my clothes. The dampness and chill I had expected were nowhere to be found. My eyes flicked back to the bathtub as though a string had tugged on them, and my breath lodged within me. It was utterly empty; not a single piece of ice or a drop of water remained. The surface gleamed as if it just came out of a showroom.
My chest tightened. This was my entrance point... With panic beginning to sink its roots in me, I groped through my pockets. Thank fuck I found it! In the front pocket of my jeans, there was a tiny crystal bead coloured in gold and green, a perfect replica of the cat's eye. I wrapped my fingers around it as relief flooded my veins and tucked it safely back into my pocket. I better not loose that... or else I would be in serious trouble.
I left the room and strode into a large, long corridor lit by cold, sterile lights. My steps were cautious... Call it a gut feeling... The Veil was never empty, and from my experience, the Reapers were not always the friendliest. Not to me, anyways...
The corridor stretched endlessly before me. Its walls were lined with doors that seemed to be locked. Perhaps even for the best; otherwise, I'd be here for the entire eternity searching for...
Damn it... What was his name?
'Agh... Clive?' I tried to call out, but it came out as an aggressive whisper as I stepped down the stretching corridor. 'Colin?!' No... that's not right... 'Dude with a freaking bow?!'
Nope... Just the silence that made me almost want to stab sharpened pencils into my ears. It wasn't just the absence of sound... it was the absence of life... of breath... of anything that could break this chilling stillness. My own heartbeat seemed too loud, too out of place in this unnatural quiet. Every instinct screamed at me to move faster, to escape this void as quickly as possible, which felt alive and was watching my every move.
Then, without warning, a sharp ping shattered the silence, making me jump out of my skin. The sound echoed off the walls, reverberating through the corridor like a sudden crack that could split the Earth in half. My breath lodged in my throat; my heart hammered like a set of drums from Phil Rudd's hands. I spun toward the source. At the far end, the elevator doors slid open with a slow, mechanical buzz. The yellowish light inside spilt out, and I couldn't help but think of the scene from The Shining. The blood gushing down towards me like a furious tsunami. Thank fuck there was no blood here... It was just my stupid-ass imagination... Seriously, I will give myself a heart attack, that is if some creepy monster won't take me out first.
I took a few deep calming breaths and began counting to ten before I peered inside, expecting to see someone—or something—but the elevator was completely empty. Just a vacant box waiting silently for me to enter. I've seen enough horror movies to know that stuff like that never ended well for the badly written characters. Like, come on! How stupid one must be to think it's a good idea to use a possessed elevator to escape a haunted hotel?
I bit my bottom lip and threw my head over my shoulder in search of an alternative way out, but all I could see was a solid dark wall at the very end of the corridor and plenty of locked doors.
'Oh, fuck me.' I groaned, accepting my fate.
Cautiously I stepped into the elevator. As soon as I was in, the door slammed shut behind my back. I almost pissed myself from the unexpected sound. A click crackled through the air and the elevator began its slow descent; I didn't even click a freaking button yet! I gripped the railing tightly; my every nerve seemed to be on fire with anxiety. I and confined spaces were not the best of friends... And giving what happened to "Kevin" just hours ago, I liked elevators even less... especially the ones that operated by themselves...
I tried to steady my breathing, willing myself to stay calm, but the silence was deafening. Every creak and hum felt amplified as though mocking my edginess.
Thankfully, the elevator jolted to a stop a few floors below. The lights flickered briefly before stabilising. A surge of panic ran through me – flickering lights in my world never meant a safe place. The doors slid open with a hesitant groan, revealing a vast, brightly lit chamber. For a moment I thought I was taken to the common room of the Avengers' tower, as the familiar New York skyline greeted me behind humongous windows. However, as I stepped out cautiously and scanned the enormous room before me, I realised that the furnishings were different. Instead of a luxurious bar and couches, a giant table stood in the centre. Its surface was smooth and dark, stretching out like a shadow across the floor. Sitting in one of the chairs was the archer — the one I had been searching for... Relief washed over me like a warm wave of the Caribbean Sea. My tense shoulders relaxed for the first time in what felt like forever. Even 'Oh, thank fuck!' slipped out of me.
The archer turned to me upon hearing my entrance, but as I took a few rushed steps forward, my gaze caught something else. Another figure sat silently in the shadows at the far end of the table. He was pale and gaunt, with eyes that seemed to pierce through the dimness. He radiated a hair-raising power that made the air itself feel charged with static. An icy shiver ran down my spine as I felt his eyes on me. Whoever... No... Not whoever... WHATEVER this man was, he was far more dangerous than anything I had faced before.
I stopped mid-step.
'Miss Winchester.' A low yet unsettlingly calm voice broke the stillness. My blood curdled just hearing it. 'I was begging to worry that you might not be showing up.' He lifted his almost skeletal hand from a table, where he kept it neatly pressed against a hard surface, one adjacent to the other like a perfect pupil in his first-ever class. However, the vibes he was giving were anything but... He waved it to a chair at the very end of the table, right across from him, and the chair slid backwards as though an invisible butler had pulled it out specifically for me to take a seat.
I was going to tell him, 'No fucking way I am sitting in that chair,' but before I could even utter a sound, the man's fingers twitched, and I found myself moving closer... and closer... as if something else were manipulating me like a marionette. My movements were slow, yet my eyes never left the pale figure who watched me with a predator's calm. The air around him was permeated with a power that felt ancient and merciless, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
'Apologies for doing this,' he spoke again the moment my body sat down and the chair dragged itself, with me on it, closer to the table. 'I knew you were going to refuse, and I do not have all day.'
'WHAT are you?' I finally managed to ask. My voice was barely loud enough to be a whisper. It trembled like a baby bird feeling the wind for the very first time. I did my best to sound calm and badass, but this dude had really unsettled me.
His thin, almost purple lips formed a chilling curve that didn't reach his cold, unblinking eyes. 'Why do you ask questions that you know the answer to, Miss Winchester?' His voice was like silk wrapped around a steel blade... smooth yet dangerous...
The archer shifted uneasily beside him, and for a fleeting second I glanced at him, silently pleading for some kind of reassurance or answer, but even he seemed... disturbed... in the presence of this unnerving entity.
'You'll have to excuse me,' I replied, 'my brain is a little slow after having two concussions today. And nearly suffocating... And almost dying in the car crash.' I said, doing my best to hide the knot tightening in my stomach.
The pale man's gaze bore into me, and for a moment, the room seemed to shrink. The shadows around him appeared to expand further and deepen as though they were a living creature. I gulped. I came here completely unprepared... All I expected was a quick journey in and out... Meeting some talking corpse that almost made my guts run free like it was a slide in the waterpark was not in my plans. But then I should've known better – every single plan we make goes tits up in the blink of an eye.
'Indeed you did.' He sounded calm as he leaned forward, bent his elbows, and knotted those stick-like white fingers of his above the table. His protruding chin landed on the fragile bridge that he built. 'I must say, it was quite an entertainment to watch you teeter on the edge of death and pull through just the last second... Multiple times...' Those thin lines on his mouth stretched a little further. 'I almost had you, Abigail, but your persistence to cling to life was a true pain in my back side.'
Wait... What the fuck?!
'So I had to improvise.' The man leaned back into the chair and waved his hand in a dismissive manner at Clint...
CLINT!!! That was his name! Clint Barton... The Hawkeye! Phew... I guess I didn't have that concussion after all. It was just my brain having a moment.
My eyes darted at him, and only now I had noticed how tensed he was. I could even see tiny beads of sweat dotting all over his forehead. He sat in his chair, almost like a statue. Only his head twisted slightly and his eyes darted around the room as though he were a maniac wrapped in a straitjacket.
He let out a moan while his eyes temporarily locked on me... Pure panic... that was all I saw in them.
'I knew you'd come for him. I just needed to sit patiently and wait.'
'And what if I didn't?'
I didn't know where my bravery came from to speak like that to him. Or perhaps it was the Winchester stupidity that unleashed my tongue. This dude did not look like someone I should be pissing off.
However, he just smiled at me instead and put on an expression of a parent who could see right through a child's lies. It was like I had chocolate smeared all over my face and claimed I had none... For a brief moment that maddening silence returned. My eyes darted back at Clint.
'He's fine.' The man spoke once more, drawing my attention back to him.
'He doesn't look fine to me,' I insisted.
'But he will be.' His voice got a little louder; clearly his patience was wearing off. 'Once you agree with my terms.'
My eyebrows arched. 'Terms?'
'Did I stutter?' Those two black eyes, as dark as the constantly pulsing darkness around him, narrowed at me.
I took a hint and pressed my lips shut. Sealed them with superglue...
A calming breath filled his chest and after a moment he spoke again.
'I have a deal for you.' He paused, probably for dramatic effect.
My breath hitched somewhere in between my mouth and lungs. He said the D word... From my own experience, whenever a supernatural being mentioned the D word, we learned to either kill it or run like the Road Runner in that silly cartoon with the always starving coyote.
Once again he leaned forward and did that knotting-fingers thing.
'I'll restore Clint Barton to life.' He began talking as if he were ordering a lobster in a burger joint rather than talking about performing miracles. 'And I'll even let you go...'
'Reapers don't have such power.' I interrupted him.
It was a bluff. But before I even considered the slightest possibility of agreeing to any kind of deal with this creepy ass guy, I needed to know exactly WHAT I was dealing with.
But instead of snapping at me, he just crooked the corner of his lips.
'No, they do not. Only very few entities in the entire universe are capable of such a thing. And I am one of them.' There was a hint of pride in that calm, yet blood-chilling, voice of his.
Okaaaay... Not a reaper... My heart began to race a little as the worse possibilities began to flood my mind. Every single fibre in me began to tense.
'Are you... Lucifer?' My own voice cracked a little.
The man scoffed.
'Oh please. You are insulting me. Lucifer is just a spoilt toddler having a tantrum. It's bad enough he dragged me into his family drama. Which is kind of the reason you are here.'
I did feel relief for the briefest moment. Since Sam killed Lilith and broke the final seal for Lucifer's cage six months ago, we heard nothing about the devil walking among us. Well, we kept seeing the random homeless-looking weirdo with the cardboard sign that read "The End Is Coming", but that was nothing new... or out of place in our dear old America. There were no sudden fireballs falling from the sky, no earth splitting in half, and no demons coming out to party. But if HE was not the devil, then it meant only one thing. This dude was far worse...
A long, impatient sigh came before he spoke again.
'Since you are so keen in figuring me out, I will give you a hint.' Something gleamed in those dark-filled pits of his. 'Look around you, Miss Winchester, and tell me, where are you?'
I was going to say that the place surely did not look like Disneyland, but sensing his ancient power, which pricked every single hair on my body, I decided to swallow that reply.
'The Veil...' I said, taking things seriously this time.
'And the Veil is?' He reminded me of a teacher with a very short fuse, drilling his students about the subject he just taught. He looked the type that the wrong answer would earn you a slap over your knuckles with a wooden ruler.
'It's where the souls go before they are reaped.'
'Very good. And if I were the boss of such place, so what would that make me?'
A cold wave of disbelief crashed over me, freezing my very soul despite the absence of physical sensation. As the realisation sank in, my heart abandoned its normal function. Instead of going da-dam at a higher speed, it went FUCK!.. SHIT!.. CRAP!.. HOLY-MACARONI!..
I think I reached a whole new level of panic, but since I was separated from my body, I didn't just simply pass out but sat there all numb.
'Death...' finally left my lips and those thin purplish lines on his face parted to show me the perfectly white teeth.
He almost did a little curtsy, as though he were a true gentleman upon meeting a lady. Very subtle but the gesture was there. My mind raced, struggling to grasp the enormity of what was happening.
My voice trembled as somehow I found a smidge of courage to speak. 'What... what could someone like you possibly want from me?'
Death's eyes gleamed with a strange mixture of amusement and something darker... something more inscrutable. He leaned forward once more; the shadows around him deepened as if responding to his will.
'To run a little errand for me,' he said nonchalantly.
The archer made a loud groan, drawing my attention to himself. His eyes were wide, and he trembled, but not from cold, but as though a statue made of stone were bursting with the need to come alive. I caught a very tiny movement in his head. He tried to shake it, as if bidding me not to accept the deal.
All it took for Death was one flick of a finger and Hawkeye went limp. He collapsed from the chair he sat on to the ground, suddenly a statue turning to a lifeless corpse. I jumped to my feet, terror flooding my veins, eyes locked on Clint. However, Death twitched the same finger and my own body returned to the seat as though an enormous weight had pressed me down onto it.
'Now, that distractions are out of the way, shall we discuss the terms and conditions?' That calmness in his voice... I could swear my own blood turned to rivers of ice, just from hearing it.
'What did you do to him?' I demanded.
'Nothing,' Death replied a little less patiently. 'He's just sleeping. Now, back to the deal.'
'Why would I do anything for you?' I gritted my teeth at him. A fire was slowly sparking within me. I mean the chances of me getting out of here were as huge as a mosquito's penis. What did I have to lose, right?
'Because the world you adore so much is going to end if you don't.'
I gulped but kept my dread hidden this time.
'I've heard such threats before.'
'But none of them came from me,' he insisted with a tone ready to slice the entire mountain in half. But then, it softened a little. Not by much. It still made me want to pee my pants. 'Besides, this is not a threat, Abigail – it's a fact. Why do you think, of all the millions of years, suddenly I am here?' His eyes burrowed into me like a fat child's finger into a chocolate cake.
'I don't know. A holiday on a Hawaiian beach? I heard their pina coladas are to die for.'
He smirked. That bastard found my insult funny.
'Charming. Though I doubt their pina coladas are worth the apocalypse they're about to witness.' His eyes glinted with dark humour, but there was no mistaking the deadly seriousness beneath it.
Did he just say...?
He leaned back, fingers steepled together as if preparing to deliver a royal decree. 'Enough nonsense. I have an important task for you – one that requires your... particular set of skills.' His gaze turned from the usual intensity to death-serious. 'I need you to find my ring.'
My mind scrambled.
'Your ring?' Not that I wasn't listening, but I just needed to make sure I heard him right.
Death's smile shifted from being slightly amusing to more of a start-fucking-listening type of smile. 'Yes, Abigail, my ring.' He tapped the table lightly; the sound echoed like an omen in the vast chamber. 'It's not a mere trinket or a fashion statement. It contains a fragment of my power – an extension of my very essence.' He paused, allowing a moment for the gravity of his words to sink in. 'It was forged with three others by God himself as a sort of fail-safe plan in case his new experiment with humanity would go wrong... just like many of his other projects.'
I just sat there dumbfounded, listening to Death talk about our creation and existence as though it were nothing but a playdough set in a toddler's hands.
'The other three rings were allocated to another destructive forces: Famine, Pestilence and War...'
'Wait...' stumbled out of me as the dots began to connect in my poor bang-up brain. 'You're saying that the Apocalypse was a plan by God to... destroy us? I thought Apocalypse was about purging the sinners and saving the believers.'
His lips twisted into a wicked, almost mocking grin and then Death chuckled softly. The sound echoed like distant thunder.
'Ah, the grand lies your kind tend to cling to just to have a glimmer of hope. The Apocalypse as salvation, a cleansing fire for the righteous. How poetic, yet utterly naive.' He leaned back, his skeletal fingers tapping rhythmically on the table. 'The truth is far less romantic. The rings are tools of total destruction.' The gaunt face of his suddenly turned grave and serious. 'Famine, Pestilence, War, and I are the four horsemen not of divine mercy but of necessary endings. God's experiment with humanity was fraught with chaos, rebellion, and decay. These rings were forged as a fail-safe, a way to ensure that when the world spirals beyond repair, it can be... erased.'
'Well, that will make a lot of people pissed off.' The words just slipped out of me.
His eyes bore into mine, wielding so much darkness... For a second I even thought that they were even darker than the pulsing shadows behind him.
'The Apocalypse is not salvation; it is an extinction. A brutal, unforgiving purge to wipe the slate clean. And the fact that I am here means that the others are most likely not far behind. If only this was the God's will.' He added, throwing me off my tracks.
'If only?' I might have a concussion, but I wasn't stupid. Something in his words reeked of foul play to me.
Death, for the briefest second, seemed in doubt. He once more shifted in his chair and positioned himself closer to the table. His voice lowered, reverberating with ancient authority.
'The rings work not only as power holders – they are summoning devices. The rings were secured in a vault deep within Hell, guarded by powerful enchantments that only allowed those in God's bloodline to access them. And here comes the fascinating fact: when I was summoned to your universe, it wasn't the archangels that greeted me. It was your own kind.' Another pause, which I appreciated. My brain was already starting to throb from all of this information.
'They imprisoned me in some kind of underground bunker, weakened me with ancient spells, and tried to make me do their bidding. But they made one tiny mistake and I freed myself. So, here I am, asking for your assistance.'
'Why me?' Probably a stupid question, but I needed to hear the answer from him.
'Because your world is too fragile to handle my power for prolonged periods of time. There is a balance that needs to be upheld between life and death, and the scale would tip massively if I just made one step in the living world. I need a human to find it for me. That is why I need you, Abigail. If my ring falls in the wrong hands, the damaged it will cause can be... immeasurable, not just to your planet, but the entire universe.'
'Let me get this straight.' This time I leant forward, placing my hands over the desk. 'You want me to find your ring and prevent destruction to my world, so you and the other horsemen could bring on the Apocalypse and destroy it instead?'
Death's smile curled into something colder, something sharper than a surgical scalpel.
'Not quite. I do not wish to bring about the Apocalypse – I merely exist to maintain the balance. The other horsemen, however, have their own agendas. Without my ring, I cannot intervene properly.' He took a long breath, and it dawned on me this was the very first time I saw him draw a breath... I mean, did Death need air to breathe? Would HE simply die if he couldn't breathe? I highly doubted it...
'My purpose in Apocalypse is not to spill blood but to oversee the smooth collection of souls after such a devastating event. So, you see, I need you to find my ring before it falls into the wrong hands. Only then can the balance be preserved and, perhaps, the world spared from utter destruction.'
I swallowed hard, the enormity of the mission pressed down on me like an entire planet crushing down my shoulders.
'And if I refuse?'
Death's eyes darkened further, and the shadows around him deepened like a gathering storm. 'You know the answer to that, Abigail. Can you please stop wasting my and, most importantly, your own time by asking stupid questions?'
Yeah... good point... Refusing wasn't an option. At least not to find the rings...
'You said that you were summoned by humans, not by the archangels. Is it possible that only your ring was taken from the vault?'
Death stayed quiet for a moment.
'That I do not know. Hell and Heaven are out of my reach. Regardless, my ring in the wrong hands can be as damaging as the Apocalypse itself.'
I was really hoping for a much shorter answer. Just 'yes' or 'no' would have sufficed. But I guess, just to be sure, I will have to pay a little visit to my least favourite realm.
'You can check if you want; just be cautious.' He replied as if he just read my mind.
I froze. Shit... Can he really read minds?
'Yes, I can.' He answered again and a cold shiver ran down my spine. 'And in case you find the ring and decide to not return it to me, I will revoke my kindness.' Death added, voice serious enough to turn my blood to ice. 'Clint Barton will drop dead the very same moment. So will you.'
I gulped. There's always a fine print on every single deal... And this fucker had trapped me like a cornered pig before a slaughter.
Death raised his hand and waved it faintly. Clint suddenly disappeared. I just blinked and he was gone. Just an empty space was where he lay one heartbeat ago. An elevator door buzzed to life behind my back, which kind of made me flinch. I turned to see the door slide open.
'A free ticket to Hell, as you were so eager to visit it.'
I stood up slowly from my chair and turned towards the elevator.
'Godspeed, Abigail.' I heard Death say.
I flicked my head towards him, but to my surprise he was gone already. A vacant, pulled-out chair was all that was left. No gaunt skeletal figure in a tailored suit, no shifting shadows... And probably no more sanity left in my head... If I had any, I wouldn't be even thinking of going to Hell so willingly. But here I was... staring at the opened gates... I just needed to know if the threat about the apocalypse was real or just speculation.
I took a deep steadying breath and forced my feet to move towards the elevator.