Roads Untraveled ~ Sam Winchester

Chapter One Hundred and Seventy - A Witch's Reckoning

Dean looked over the edge of the pit with a crowbar in hand and a duffel bag of weapons over his shoulder.
"Is it still as bad as yesterday?" Willow asked, watching as spirits continued to vacate the cavernous hole.
"Oh, yeah. In fact, I think it's getting worse. I guess the word's out about the walls failing." Dean sighed, crouching behind a tombstone a couple of feet from the pit edge. "You sure you're up for this, kid?"
"I've been wanting to get out into the field since I started Hunter training with mom. What better place to start than a bunch of ghosts at the edge of a hole to Hell?" The teen chuckled.
"Well, you got guts, I'll give you that. And thanks, by the way, for the back-up." The Winchester nodded.
"Figured I'd probably be either with the other Hunters or on the side-lines right now if I wasn't here. Might as well make myself as useful as possible and help out Uncle Dean, right?" Willow smirked.
Dean gave a small scoff, shaking his head with a faint smile.
"'Uncle Dean.' I guess I better get used to that one, right?"

In the crypt, Sam was too focused on the doors to concentrate on anything else.
"Eyes on the page." Rowena instructed. "I need you off book for this incantation."
"Yeah, sorry. I just feel like I should be out there, fighting." He replied, fiddling with the small spell book in his hands.
"And magic isn't fighting?" Rowena gave a toothy grin from the opposite side of the room, where she'd laid out an alter on a tomb. "Dean's doing his part, it's time for you to do yours. The plan."
"Of course. Right." The Winchester uttered, giving an uneasy glance to Eden, who was lent against the wall half-way between her two companions. "Our one shot."
The Witch gave a singular nod and pointed a finger to him.
"Read."
As she placed a final ingredient into a copper bowl, Sam turned to the correct page in his book and Eden took her place on the opposite side of the alter to Rowena.
Just as Sam was about to recite the pages in his hand, the deafening bellow of a horn sounded, shaking the very foundations of the crypt.
"That's our cue." Eden stated, casting her eyes upward at the crumbling ceiling.
"It's time, Sam." Rowena beckoned to him.
The Winchester walked over and the three took each other's hands, immediately beginning to recite the spell in a chant until the ingredients, topped with the owl skull, began to glow Rowena's purple and clouded over with Eden's black smoke.

Outside, the vacated spirits began to fly downwards, back into the pit at the call of the horn. Dean held the hex bag Rowena had given him, clutching it to his chest until he felt it heat up. He and Willow cast their eyes down to it, seeing it glow the purple and shrouded with black smoke.
"It's working." Willow's eyes widened with shock and hope. "Throw it. Now, Dean!"
The Winchester stood up, slipping out from behind the gravestone to do as instructed. The pair watched as its glowing light fell into the pit and exploded.
The dirt walls of the pit began caving in.
Willow was about to lose her footing under some collapsing grass when Dean threw himself at her, tackling her to the ground a few feet away from the pit's edge as the sound of the horn abruptly stopped.
"You okay?" He asked, looking down at her underneath him.
"Yeah, I'm good. Thanks." The young Vampire replied breathlessly.
Dean got up, holding out a hand for her before looking around the graveyard and the pit that continued collapsing, but at a much slower rate.
"The Hell?" He asked himself.

Back in the crypt, Sam, Rowena and Eden looked just as confused as the pair outside.
"Did it work?" Sam asked, getting no answer. "Rowena?"
The Witch gave a grave face that said all it needed to.
Sam's phone rang in his pocket and he abruptly reached for it.
"Sam?"Dean answered on the other end.
"Hey. What's going on? Are the ghosts gone?" The younger brother asked.
"The Hell if I know." Dean replied. "But the crack's starting to close up. Little VP and I had a close call. Something doesn't feel right."
"Alright, just... Don't-" Sam cut himself off when he turned and saw Rowena had moved to the front of the makeshift altar, knelt on the floor and handed a blade to Eden.
"Rowena?" The Winchester frowned, lowering his phone from his ear. "What are you doing?"
"I don't have the strength to carry out this next bit on my own." She sobbed. "Eden, my dearest, I need you to take this and carve out my resurrection sachet."
"What? Why?" The Dark Angel asked, hesitantly holding out her hands for the Witch to place the knife in.
"Just... I need you to trust me, okay? Can you do that?"
Eden looked over to a confused Sam, before her gaze returned to the Witch before her.
"Of course." She said.
"Then do it. Take out the sachet. It's a couple of inches in, right underneath my shoulder joint."
The Dark Angel's eyes began to well up, her mind racing with only one thought. There'd only be one reason as to why a resurrection sachet would need to be removed.
Rowena gave her a reassuring smile through glassy eyes as she took Eden's hands under the knife and gave them a small squeeze.
Eden took one more look at Sam before she slipped the shoulder of Rowena's dress down a touch and began to dig around with the knife, desperately trying to ignore the Witch's agonised groans.
After a couple of moments, she dropped the blade with a loud clatter on the stone floor and buried her fingertips into the blood-spurting wound, removing a tiny cloth-bound bag.
Rowena gave another nod, taking the sachet from her to drop onto the floor.
"Won't need that where I'm going." She stated, picking up the blade.
"Where you're going? What are you talking about?" Sam narrowed his eyes.
"Lilith's Crook? Belphegor sucking the souls into Hell? That was your only shot, it wasn't mine." Rowena told him, walking passed him to the crypt doors. "Magic can do anything, Samuel - can contain anything. Even the vast multitudes of Hell."
She paused at the bottom of the small set of stairs.
"Contain? What do you mean 'contain?'" Sam pressed.
"I can soak them up for a time. If I pay the price." The Witch continued, still facing away from her company.
"She's going to pay the only price left to save us." Eden whispered to avoid her voice cracking.
"Death is an infinite vessel." Rowena added, finally turning to face them. "A spell so simple, it draws its power from its caster. Just two ingredients."
"And you have them here?" Sam asked, pointing at the floor.
"Aye." Rowena nodded.
"Rowena, why didn't you tell us?" The Winchester demanded.
"Because, dear, the first ingredient is my own still-coursing blood. And the last is my final breath." The Witch panted.
"What?"
"I'll absorb the ghosts and Demons and return them to Hell. In time, my body will break down and they'll be released right where they belong."
Eden sniffed back her emotions, turning around briefly to take a deep breath.
"No. Rowena, no." Sam took a step forward, holding a finger out to pause her.
"Yes, Samuel. To perform the spell, I have to die." The Scotswoman urged, holding out the knife handle-first. "And it has to be you that kills me."
"The prophecy says so. It's got to be you, Sam." Eden's voice shook.
"If I could ask Eden to do it, I would. I don't want to leave that burden on your shoulders." Rowena continued.
"No." Sam shook his head.
"It has to be you. My real, permanent demise is at your hands. It's in Death's books."
"Well, you know what? Screw the books." The Winchester leaned forward and went to take the knife from her, but she gripped it harder.
"I can't do this myself, Sam. I can't." She shrugged through tears and a smile. "It has to be you that kills me. Hell's closing, the walls are falling..."
"There has to be another way." Sam breathed, moving to turn away, but Rowena grabbed his shoulder, forcing the knife into his hand and pointing at her abdomen.
"I wish there were, I do. I don't care about anything enough to take my own life. Not you, not Eden, not your brother, not even the world. But I believe in prophecy, I believe in magic and I'm here and you're here and everything we need to end this right is in our hands." Rowena's voice was pleading now as her hands balled around Sam's fist and the knife. He tried to pull it away, without success as he began to panic. "I know this in my bones. It has to be this way. Do it! Kill me, Samuel!"
The Winchester frantically looked back to his love, seeing her cheeks stained with make-up tears and her hands in a praying position at her lips.
"I know we've gotten quite fond of each other, haven't we?" Rowena continued, her voice softening as Sam looked back to her, trying to force his own emotions back. "We've made quite the team, us three. But will you let the world die, your brother, your unborn child, just so I could live?"
Sam looked up, blinking back his tears.
"No..." He uttered, pulling the Witch into a hug as the blade pierced through her abdomen.
Rowena gasped out, groaning and panting through the agony as she parted from him. She looked down, clutching the knife.
Sam took a couple of staggered steps back. Eden moved forward, catching him before he fell.
"That's my boy." Rowena whispered.
She twisted the knife with a muffled cry through gritted teeth before removing it altogether.
"Do you need help to the pit?" Eden asked, her voice quivering.
"No. This? This I can do on my own." The Witch nodded affirmingly, turning to make her exit.