CAN HE DO THAT?.

HEY, BUDDY! IN CASE YOU HAVEN'T NOTICED, THIS IS A LOT WORSE THAN BALL HOCKEY!.

Thankful that somewhere along the way he'd lost his gla.s.ses. Dean ignored the voices because Claire had asked him to. She'd even said, "please."

He blinked, hit by a sudden realization. The voice he'd heard yesterday in the hall had been the voice of the pit.

BINGO.

And he'd listened. He'd hesitated.

OH, FOR... SIX SECONDS OUT OF TWENTY SQUEAKY CLEAN YEARS!.

He deserved to go to h.e.l.l.

YOU'RE KIDDING, RIGHT?.

Except he didn't want to die.

Over, or maybe under, the voices in his head, he could hear the drone of words chanted in a language he didn't understand. Slowly, working within the invisible bands that held him, he turned until he could see along his left arm. Gazing past his clenched fist, out over the edge of the pentagram, he could see Diana Hansen. She was just a kid, he realized, she'd never have believed that she'd set this whole mess in motion. If by some miracle he got out of this, he was after kicking her right in the b.u.t.t.

Her back against the wall, barely daring to breathe, Claire crept the last few feet to her sister's side. Once she took Diana's hand, she'd control both their power.

Dean's eyes widened as Claire slid into his field of vision.

Rescue!

Claire saw the word in Dean's eyes and flinched.

Dean saw her flinch.

Sara chanted louder, spitting out consonants. The pentagram began to glow.

Maybe because he was suspended over a hole to h.e.l.l. Maybe because he'd been breathing the fumes of his own evaporating blood. Maybe because he'd spent almost a year next to a metaphysical accident site.

Maybe just because he could read it on Claire's face.

Dean knew.

She couldn't save him and the world.

He'd hesitated.

He was being given a chance to make up for that.

h.e.l.l could have him, but it couldn't have the world.

Do it, he told Claire silently.

Claire shook her head. There had to be another way. The pentagram began to dissolve.

It was almost worth it to know she was willing to risk the world for him.

Do it.

Because she had no other choice, she did.

Claire grabbed Diana's hand and opened the conduit. Quickly retracing the pentagram, she etched her own name into the pattern.

Sara turned.

Dean fell.

Claire hit the other Keeper with everything both she and Diana had.

Suddenly finding herself in a sphere of blinding white light, Sara flung up a bloodstained hand to cover her eyes. Lips too red parted...

... and she laughed.

Designed to prevent any sort of metaphysical power from waking a Keeper bent on cataclysmic evil, the shield Sara had worn for more than fifty years held.

Stepping down to the floor, Sara straightened her jacket and nodded toward Diana. "I thought our friend here too young for this site. Not," she added after a critical inspection of Claire, "that you're so much older." Her smile was frankly patronizing. "You killed him for nothing, you know. Power can't pa.s.s into this shield."

Claire dragged Diana aside as a bolt of red light blew chunks of rock out of the wall.

Sara's smile broadened. "How nice for me that it pa.s.ses out of it just fine."

Teeth clenched against rising nausea, Claire stepped forward, but before she could speak, Sara raised her hand again.

"Oh, yes, you can enter the shield physically, pummel me if you like, but don't expect me to stand here and allow..."

Which was when Baby launched himself from the top of the stairs.

Sara had time to scream as she fell back but only just.

Clinging to each other for support, Claire and Diana walked to the edge of the pentagram and cautiously leaned forward.

GOT HER!.

OW! BE CAREFUL, SHE KICKS!.

Claire felt her power fill the pentagram, holding h.e.l.l off from the world. That was it, then. A lifetime in the Elysian Fields Guest House.

Diana swallowed and found her voice. "Poor Ba..."

THAT'S OUR PUPPY! IS HE GLAD HE'S HOME?.

WHO'S A GOOD DOGGIE-WOGGIE, THEN? WHO'S A GOOD BOY!.