Silence filled the room as Ruby and I stood together, our mission complete. I’d done it. I’d stopped the apocalypse. But something deep down told me that I was missing out on a vital detail. Hadn’t I heard Dean urgently pounding on the door a मिनट या two ago? To कन्फर्म my sanity, a smaller pounding resumed again from the other side of the door. I wondered what Dean had wanted to tell me so badly, but turned my attention back to Lillith’s body, strewn across the mottled marble floor, eyes shocked, and a single, fine, trickle of blood flowing from her mouth and onto the floor. But there was something unnatural. The blood seemed to be flowing in a pattern, या shape – as if trying to spell a message या symbol to me and Ruby. I took a step back, my instincts beginning to take over, and I knew somewhere inside me that this was not right. All demons I’d ever killed before hadn’t done this; once they had been killed, that was the end of it. But then, Lillith was no ordinary demon, I supposed. Nevertheless a little disconcerted, I looked at Ruby.
“You did it,” she whispered, in awe. The situation remained unreal to me, too; we had stopped Lucifer rising on earth. “You did it.”
I glanced down at the trail of blood on the floor again and stopped in my path. It had formed a large वृत्त beside the two of us, and lines, evenly spread in distance from each other, had begun to emerge from the वृत्त edge and flowed down into the centre, ready to meet in a मिनट या two. A feeling in my gut told me to go towards someone I trusted. I stepped towards Ruby again as a fierce hammering on the door echoed somewhere in the back of my mind.
“Ruby, what’s going on?”
She didn’t look at me, but kept her eyes transfixed on the blood symbol a few yards away.
“I can’t believe it,” she said. “I mean, it was a little touch-and-go for a while, but आप did it.”
Feeling I was missing out on something important, I had to ask what she meant. “What?” I asked, confused. “What did I do?”
She turned to look at me with triumph clearly spreading across her face as confusion took over mine. She कहा it barely audibly, but I heard it. God help me, I heard it.
“You opened the door.”
I stepped back from her and tried to understand what was going on, but the whole scene seemed to be a blur.
“What?” The word came out as a whisper. Thoughts collided with reason in my head as I failed to grasp what had happened. “No...Lillith was going to...I...I stopped her!”
“And it is written,” Ruby replied, a smirk creeping up from the corners of her mouth, “that the first demon shall be the last सील, मुहर –”
I gasped and held my hands up to my head as it finally dawned on me what I’d done. Ruby had been playing me all along. My breathing became uneven as deep panic began to spread through my body.
“– and you’ve opened to door. Now guess who’s coming to dinner.” A smug victory was unmistakable in her voice as my knees began to shake under me.
“Oh my god,” I whispered. This couldn’t be happening.
“Guess again,” Ruby replied, smiling a smile I had never seen before. I kept my hands to my head and fell to my knees as the battering on the door persisted. Ruby must have shut Dean out, because there was no way he’d have found it that hard to break down a normal door. Dean. He’d been right about Ruby all along. Why the hell hadn’t I listened?
“The blood,” I कहा quietly, slowly figuring out what she’d done to me. But it was seven या eight months too late. “You poisoned me!”
Ruby shook her head and bent down to my level. “No,” she said, “I just gave आप the options, and आप picked the right one every time. आप didn’t need the feather to fly; आप had it in आप the whole time, Dumbo!”
Tears filled my eyes as I longed to re-wind time and see Dean और than ever.
“You don’t even know how hard this was? It was only Lillith, not even Alastair knew! I was the best of those sons of bitches! I mean come on, Sam, आप might be little angry now, but even आप have to admit: I’m – I’m awesome!”
“You bitch,” I shouted back. “You lying...bitch!”
She ignored me and continued. “And now you’ve done it. You’ve set him free. And he’s going to repay आप in ways that आप can’t even imagi–”
The door burst open and Ruby stood up, leaving my staring at the blood symbol as the lines slowly began to meet one द्वारा one. This was it. I heard Ruby saying something about being too late, and I heard my brother’s voice, but none of it registered properly. I was forced to take my eyes off the circle, however, as I saw Dean stride up towards Ruby with her चाकू in his hand. I got up quickly and grabbed Ruby to hold her down as Dean’s चाकू sunk in deep. Ruby’s lifeless body fell to the floor so she was between the two of us, just like she had been for the last few months. Hopelessness and guilt flooded through me as I felt Dean look up at me. For a second, I couldn’t bring myself to face him. What I’d done...had Dean realised? I found the courage to look up at my older brother and see shock and fear in his face, telling my immediately that he knew what I had just done. I कहा the two words that first came to my mind and that I meant the most.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. The way Dean looked at me...I couldn’t tell what he was thinking.
A deep, roaring noise erupted from a few feet away and we both looked at the वृत्त as the trails of blood finally met in the middle and a hole in the floor was created.
Fear had seemed to paralyze both of us on the spot. Dean clutched at my जैकेट and tried to pull my away. “Sammy, let’s go.”
Something far, far down inside me argued against all my other instincts, and evidently Dean’s, too, to run. My feet rooted me to the ground as Dean tugged at me.
“Dean,” I whispered, my eyes fixed on the hole that was now shooting light out through it that was sure to envelop us, “He’s coming.”