Excerpt: Light Up the Sky for Me

“Sammy--” His fingers hurt. They just hurt, a normal kind of pain, and he squeezed back instinctively. The world tilted: Sam pulling him up. Him making Sam pull him up, hold him up, until he was sitting again. “Where’s Cas?”

“Can you see?” Sam demanded.

Dean batted his hand away, the one that was waving in front of his face. “I can see fine,” he snapped. “Where’s--”

Castiel was standing back, behind Sam. He looked hunched and horrified, like he’d accidentally kicked a puppy and it had turned out to be a hellhound. The light vibrating off of him was muted, badly contained, and nothing at all compared to the figure at his side.

Anna looked like a freakin’ angel of the apocalypse. Wings outstretched, rivers of light cascading down her arms like waterfalls, she could have been something out of Bobby’s books. If she’d been holding a sword, he would have looked for God’s armies behind her.

He did look, actually. All he saw was a familiar demon wearing a new face--and for the first time, he recognized her.

“Yeah,” Dean said, staring. “I can definitely see. What did you do?”

“We need to go,” Anna said. “Cas just told every angel on the planet that he’s with you. I probably made it worse. If they couldn’t find us before, they’ve got a lot more incentive to try now.”

“Whoa, hang on a second.” Dean waved Sam off, lurching to his feet under his own power. “What are we--”

There was broken glass on the floor. The windows were blown out. The lights were all gone except one in the corner that hadn’t been on before, and Jo was holding a flashlight. “What happened?”

“Cas spoke to you,” Anna said. “In Angel. Congratulations for keeping your eardrums and your eyesight.”

“You what?” Sam wheeled on Castiel, all trace of hesitation gone. “What’s wrong with you! He’s human, Cas! I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but just because he works as a shield, or a spear, or whatever crazy angelic destiny you’ve got planned for him now, that doesn’t mean he’s unbreakable!”

“Sam,” Dean said. “I think I can handle an angel talking.”

“I am sorry,” Castiel said, not looking at Sam. He hadn’t taken his eyes off of Dean. “I should not have done that. I didn’t think.”

“Well, it wouldn’t be the first time,” Ruby declared. “Angels put us all in danger. Must be Thursday. Can we hide first and apologize later?”