For Want of a Nail
Location: Mount Hood Rebel Camp
50 miles from Portland, Oregon
Date: July 3rd, 2012
Bobby Singer sat outside his tent, his body going through its usual morning routine without any input from his mind. Even with only one good eye he could still take apart, clean, and put back together his rifle, in a time that would have put a trained soldier to shame. Hell, he could have done it blindfolded, if necessary. He'd given this particular rifle the name 'Ellen', because although it was a beautiful weapon, it had a habit of kicking back a little too hard; just like the woman it was named after.
He was not the only one cleaning his gun this morning. Dozens of tents, pitched wherever there was a scrap of level ground between the trees, were what almost a hundred and fifty people called 'home'. Were it not for the fact that half of the people were children, it would have been a decent sized army, by current standards at least. Still, a hundred and fifty, and not a civilian amongst them. There was no such thing as 'civilians' these days; you were either a fighter, or you were cattle.
There was an angry growl from further within the camp, and its owner came storming into view a few seconds later, wearing a face like thunder. Bobby wasn't sure what Crowley hated worst; the kids, or living rough without his creature comforts. The former King of Hell had been forced to give up his airs and graces when the Leviathans had actively begun hunting and slaughtering demons by the dozens. Now, the demon king's tailored suit was dirt-stained and torn, his lower face covered by a two-week beard, and there was little to distinguish him from the refugees who scurried out of his way. Wise of them to do so; Crowley's mood had been growing darker and darker with every passing day, and right now he was making a beeline for Bobby.
Everybody knew where Bobby's tent was. Even when they had to move camp, they made sure they knew where he slept, in case they needed to find him quickly. 'Leader', they called him. It was not a title he had asked for, and not one he had ever coveted, but somebody had needed to stand up and take charge. The Leviathans had proven to be largely unstoppable, and without somebody to organise a resistance, things would have been far bleaker for mankind.
"I 'ate kids," Crowley complained, raising his voice so that any nearby children would hear him. He stopped in front of Bobby's tent and folded his arms across his chest, as if waiting for an answer.
"I know," Bobby told him, looking up at the former King of Hell through his good left eye. The right one didn't open anymore; a skirmish with one of the monsters Eve had created had seen the right side of his upper face scarred and damaged. The doctors at the time had told him that he'd need months to fully recover; he'd taken two days and then hit the road again, hot on the trail of more of Eve's abominations. "You tell me that every day. And like I tell you every day, you're free to leave whenever you like. Nobody's forcing you to stay here, Crowley."
"And just where am I supposed to go?" the demon asked. "In case you hadn't noticed, Dick Bloody Roman has put an enormous price tag on my dashingly attractive head."
"I've thought about collecting on that more than once," Bobby replied. But he didn't mean it. Not really. This exchange was as common as his morning rifle-cleaning ritual. The sad truth of it was, Crowley was more useful alive than dead, and Bobby had learnt to - very reluctantly - trust the previously high-ranking demon. The thought would once have been enough to make his bile rise. Crowley had lied, cheated and manipulated not only Bobby, but the Winchesters too. He'd used Sam and Dean to hunt alphas to help him find Purgatory, and of course, there was that small business with Bobby's soul, a couple of years ago...
"I'm sure." Crowley humoured him with a cold smile. "So. Day before the big day, and I can't help but notice that our resident angel's tent has been empty all night. Doesn't bode particularly well for this suicidal plan of yours."
"He'll be here," Bobby said. He put confidence into his voice that didn't exist within his heart. Some of the rebels nearby were listening as they went about their business, and the last thing they needed to hear was Crowley's trouble-stirring. They needed to hear that all was well, that the plan was unfolding as it should.
"Right. Of course. Because angels have been so reliable up until now. Need I remind you that it was an angel who got us into this mess in the first place?"
Bobby stood, squaring off to Crowley, and glared down at the shorter man. "And need I remind you that you were right there with him, ready and willing to open the gates of Purgatory?"
"Maybe if he hadn't stabbed me in the back and taken in all the souls of Purgatory and the Leviathans, it would have ended differently," Crowley countered, with a glare of his own.
They reached an impasse. Crowley's host wasn't the tallest person in the world, but the demon's ego - roughly the size of Mount Hood, the inactive volcano which loomed in the background over the rebel camp - more than made up for it, and he could out-stare almost anybody else in the camp. Fortunately, just as Bobby thought he might have to back down from this one, their staring contest was interrupted by another person Bobby would gladly have knifed if circumstances were different.
"Ahh," Meg said, swanning into view of his good eye, "I thought I smelt testosterone on the morning breeze. You do know the fastest way to end all this homoerotic glaring would be to just whip 'em out and measure them, right boys?"
Both men turned to glare at her, and she grinned smugly. Despite the fact that she had been slumming it even longer than anybody else, her clothes and skin were immaculate. How she managed to keep herself so clean, Bobby suspected he didn't want to know.
"Aww, why the long faces, you two? Maybe you've realised that tonight is the last chance you'll get to spend an evening together. If you're planning on declaring your undying love for each other, now's the time."
"That's just the kind of short-sighted thinking I've come to expect from you, Meg," Crowley said, stepping towards the other demon who almost matched him for height. "You just keep making the same mistakes again and again. First Azazel, then Lucifer, now this? Try to get it into your abnormally dense skull, that even if by some miracle this suicidal plan actually works, it's not going to end here. The Leviathans have four more factories in progress, and they're all going to be up and running within three months. Even if we succeed in blowing up their flagship farm and poisoning their well, they're going to step up construction of the other factories and make damn sure we're not around to try anything again. This isn't the end of the war, it's the beginning."
"That's enough, Crowley," Bobby growled quietly. He was conscious of the worried looks being cast in their direction by some of the refugees. "Both of you, stow it for later."
"Whatever you say, boss-man," Meg said with a sly smile. "I think I'll go and find myself some fun. There's a tall, dark and marginally handsome truck driver named Dave loitering around this place somewhere, and I don't plan on spending my last day on Earth sad and alone… like you two."
She sauntered off, her head of nearly immaculate dark loose curls disappearing amongst the tents. Crowley glared after her for a moment.
"Are you sure you wouldn't prefer to have her put somewhere she can't cause any trouble?" the demon offered. "Permanently, I mean."
"You know, she offered the same thing about you," Bobby replied.
Thankfully, Crowley left, no doubt to make a nuisance of himself elsewhere. He flatly refused to 'lower' himself to cleaning weapons, and Meg always made herself scarce when there was menial work to be done. Still, at least they were here, and unlike a certain celestial being, they hadn't developed the habit of randomly disappearing for days at a time.
Bobby shook his head as he sat back down and resumed his cleaning routine. He'd seen a lot of things in his life, most of it dark, and some of it bad enough to reduce a less capable man to a gibbering wreck. He'd worked with demons before, though usually not by choice, but he never thought he'd see the day when he'd be reliant on them. For the most part they kept to themselves, in their own section of the camp, kept tightly leashed by Crowley. Meg was the sole exception; she and Crowley fought like cat and dog whenever they were together, and neither trusted the other. Meg had been a firm supporter of Azazel, and seemed to consider the yellow-eyed demon a father-figure of sorts. She had helped him work towards his goal of freeing Lucifer from his cell. Crowley, on the other hand, had recognised the threat posed to demons by the fallen arch-angel, and had turned on his master at the first available opportunity. It was a miracle, and a shame, the two demons hadn't killed each other yet.
From the corner of his eye he saw one of the camp's kids watching him. The boy, Peter, was an orphan at only eight years old, both parents and his little sister herded into the Leviathan's processing factory before Bobby and his team of newly recruited hunters had been able to intervene.
He gave Peter what he hoped was a reassuring smile, but the boy merely walked away, his brown eyes hollow, devoid of emotion. It would be years before the kid would be able to overcome the dual trauma of seeing his parents herded off like complacent cattle to a slaughter-house, and being exposed to the mind-numbing effects of SucroCorp's brain-altering food additive. Of course, there was no guarantee that Peter would recover, and he was not the only child affected, and this wasn't the only refugee camp. The US was dotted with places like this, moved regularly to avoid discovery.
Leviathans, he thought in disgust. Nobody could have predicted them. They were far, far worse than any monster - any demon - that Bobby had ever encountered before. They weren't just apex carnivores, they were entrepreneurs and business men. They didn't have to hunt their prey - indeed, they seemed to consider hunting to be beneath them, something only lowly and savage beasts resorted to. Leviathans considered themselves above that. Why hunt your prey when you could factory-farm them? The Leviathans learnt their best tricks from humanity itself.
As he put Ellen back together, he tried not to think too much about the plan. Like Crowley, he was a realist. He knew that even if he could pull it all off perfectly, it wouldn't spell an end to the Leviathans. At best it would buy humanity some time, and save some lives. But he had to believe it was worth it.
o - o - o - o - o
Bobby's tent was one of only three which had a table inside. It wasn't a good table; it was old, collapsible, and wobbled unless you wedged something under one of the legs, but it was large enough and sturdy enough to hold an open map upon it, which was currently exactly the purpose it was being used for. The map in question was a layout of the Leviathan's flagship factory site, including the main entryway, the central processing unit, the rear packaging area and the incinerator which was used for disposing of the bits the Leviathans didn't find as appetising. A lot of demons had died to complete this map, and Crowley assured Bobby it was accurate. He hoped to God it was; all of his plans hinged on it.
Not for the first time, he reflected upon the past year of his life. It shouldn't have been like this… it should have been different. He wasn't the one who should have stepped up to the plate and led the fight against the Leviathans. That task should have fallen to a younger generation of hunters. Sam and Dean Winchester were supposed to be here, fighting beside him, telling him his plans were crazy, offering him better ideas. But it wasn't to be. Sam and Dean were lost to history.
It had seemed like such a good idea at the time. Eve had been rampaging across America, monsters rising in her wake, abominations she had created to find and defeat Crowley, to protect her 'children' who were being tortured by the King of Hell in his attempt to find an entrance to Purgatory.
Of course, it had been Dean's idea, so that meant it was always going to be completely fruit-loops with minimal chance of success at best, but it was the only idea the three of them had been able to come up with. The brothers and Bobby had recruited Castiel in sending the boys to Sunrise, Wyoming - or how it had been in 1861. The plan was to find Samuel Colt's fabled gun and use it to kill a Phoenix, the ashes of which could in turn be used to kill Eve and stop her from turning humans into monstrous abominations.
Looking back, it all seemed so simple, despite the nature of the Winchesters' sojourn. Angels could manipulate time, and Cas had given the boys twenty four hours to complete their task before he would have to bring them back. Twenty-four hours was such a short period of time, and Dean had thought the angel was being overly cautious. As it turned out, he wasn't being cautious enough.
Not long after sending the boys back, Castiel had been ambushed by one of his friends, an angel who had served faithfully as one of his lieutenants in his civil war against the arch-angel Raphael. Bobby didn't know why she had betrayed Cas, nor did he care. By the time Castiel had regained consciousness and made it back to Bobby's house, twenty-eight hours had elapsed. Cas had been in a bad way, but he'd tried to bring the boys back and damn near killed himself in the attempt.
That's when everything had started going wrong. With Cas unable to fetch Sam and Dean back, the boys were stuck in the past. Bobby had searched for them in the history books but found nothing except a brief mention in Samuel Colt's journal describing how two 'hunters from the future' had gone off on some sort of search for a holy grail, and never been seen again. It was an entry that hadn't been in the journal before Cas had sent the Winchesters back in time, and Bobby could only speculate that it was about the brothers, and feared they had probably died in some fool-hardy attempt to get back to the future.
Cas hadn't been the same, after that. He'd stopped looking into the Eve situation, started spending more embroiled in his civil war, and had stopped answering Bobby's prayers. It was almost as if he felt he no longer had a reason to care about humanity. As if Sam and Dean had been the only things he had cared about on the entire Earth. Bobby had seen his angelic friend only once after that, and it was not a meeting he recalled fondly.
Eve had sought him out, entering his home one night, ignoring all of the defences and traps he had in place. She was old, she had told him; older than angels and demons, older than the traps of a child race. Bobby had been certain that he'd die that night, but instead of killing him, Eve told him she was here to help him. Crowley was alive, she said. She'd been creating her army of abominations to fight the King of Hell and protect her children. Crowley, she told him, wasn't trying to reach Purgatory because he wanted to expand his realm, but because he wanted to use the souls held there. Souls were power, and with that much power, Crowley would be unstoppable.
The Mother of All had given him a location, where she believed Crowley would be opening the gates of Purgatory so he could absorb the souls of the monsters sent there after death. Stop Crowley, Eve said, and she would stop turning humans into monsters. Stop Crowley, and she would return to Purgatory, leaving the Earth to the balance it had previously enjoyed. Stop Crowley, or she would end his miserable life.
There was nothing to do but agree to her request. Even if she hadn't been threatening him with death, Crowley still needed to be stopped. With the power of the souls from Purgatory, Crowley would be able to bring Hell to Earth. He would be able to lay siege to Heaven, and might even bring about the end of the world. Bobby hadn't sold his soul to stop one Devil, only to allow another to rise in his place. So, armed with as much weaponry as he could carry about his person, including the demon-killing knife taken from the traitorous Ruby, he'd set off to the location Eve had given him.
It was the night that began the end of the world. Crowley was not the only one in the old building; Raphael had been there as well, and Castiel had shown up not long after. That's when Bobby had learnt the painful truth. Castiel had been working with Crowley to capture alpha monsters and find Purgatory. Castiel was the one who had brought Sam back from Hell for that very purpose, hoping that with half the souls of Purgatory at his disposal - the other half, of course, going to Crowley - he would finally be able to resist Raphael and restore order to Heaven.
But something had happened that Crowley had not suspected. Castiel had betrayed him, telling the King of Hell that he alone would be benefiting from power of the Purgatory souls. Crowley could never have seen it coming, because Castiel had morals and standards, and he was not a betrayer. Or at least, he hadn't been, until desperation had pushed him into reneging on the deal he'd made with the demon king. Crowley had fled to Raphael, hoping to use the arch-angel against Castiel, and making Raphael the same offer he had made to Cas; half the souls in Purgatory. Raphael had jumped at the chance to finally stop his opponent once and for all, and together they had completed the ritual to open the gates of Purgatory.
It had all been a lie, nothing more than a deception. Unbeknownst to Crowley, Castiel had swapped one vital component; blood needed to open the gate. Whilst Crowley and Raphael had tried to open the gates of Purgatory using the wrong blood, Castiel had completed the ritual himself, absorbing every soul from within that realm. The power of the souls had elevated him to a God-like status, all-powerful and completely unstoppable. His first act had been to kill Raphael, ending the reign of the arch-angels both in Heaven and on Earth.
That was the last time Bobby had seen Cas, at least in person. He'd watched news reports of a dark-haired man in a trench-coat, and seen the destruction the new 'God' had wrought. Cas had targeted those he felt were unworthy of life; preachers who sinned and lived their lives in hypocrisy; politicians who made promises they couldn't keep and benefited from the suffering of others; evangelists who claimed everybody needed to repent immediately because the apocalypse was coming. He'd seemed determined to wipe the slate clean.
His third act as 'God' had been to kill Eve and smite the abominations she had created. Then, everything had gone quiet. Bobby had thought that Cas had finally done with the wholesale slaughter, but now he knew better. Around the same time Cas had stopped making his presence as 'God' known on Earth, the first of a new type of monster had appeared. Cruel, intelligent and relentless, the Leviathans were like nothing anybody had seen before. With a single touch they could absorb the genetic pattern and memories of a person, becoming an almost exact duplicate of that individual right down to the fingerprints. They swiftly began their takeover, replacing people of importance within various branches of the government. And the most frightening thing about them was how easily they became human, how well they fit into society. If demons could be said to be wolves among sheep, then Leviathans were cannibalistic sheep amongst sheep, with precious few weaknesses to exploit.
"Hey, Big B."
Bobby's introspective recollection was interrupted by the arrival of Garth. The young man stepped inside Bobby's tent and offered a mock salute. Bobby closed his eyes briefly and shook his head, telling himself to be patient. He had no idea how Garth was still alive; the kid was a walking affront to the term 'survival of the fittest'. Tall, gangly-limbed, sometimes possessing all the common sense of a fiddler crab, Garth should rightly have been made some monster's lunch years ago. But for some reason he just kept hanging on, beating the odds, proving evolution wrong.
"How many times have I gotta tell you, Garth," Bobby sighed, "don't call me that."
"Sorry boss," Garth replied, though he didn't seem particularly penitent. He raised one hand to scratch at his week worth of facial stubble with his long fingers. "Just thought you'd want to know that he's back."
"Well it's about damn time," he growled irritably. "Did he say where the hell he's been?"
"Nope." A negative response should not have sounded so chipper, but that was just Garth all over. He could even make 'no' sound happy. Nothing could keep the kid down. "But judging by the smell of him, I'd say he's been getting wasted again."
"Fan-frigging-tastic." He folded up the map on the table and stored it away in the small safe under his bed. When he left his tent Garth followed him outside, but one good pointed glare sent the kid scurrying away.
Bobby strode towards the bulk of the campsite, keeping his eyes peeled for trouble. You learnt to expect trouble at every moment of every day, when you were dealing with Leviathans. Three months ago, one of them had infiltrated the camp, taking on the form of a young woman who'd joined the resistance barely a week before. She'd killed three people, and would have killed Bobby, if Crowley hadn't been close to hand to douse the thing in borax to distract it and allow another hunter to behead it. Now, regular borax testing of everyone within the camp ensured that there would be no further incursions, but that didn't mean he was going to underestimate his enemy. The price on his head was even larger than that on Crowley's.
When he reached the tent he'd been looking for - a spacious family-sized thing with a door tall enough for him to step through without ducking - he opened the door flap and entered without calling first. His sense of smell was immediately assaulted by the bitter aroma of stale alcohol, but fortunately there was no sign of vomit. The single figure on the wire-framed camping bed looked up as Bobby zipped the door flap shut, and it groaned.
"What do you bloody want?" Balthazar asked him.
"To know where you've been, for a start," he shot back. "I thought I told you not to go disappearing on us."
"Ah, yes, you did. But you still haven't got it into your ape-like skull that I don't actually give a damn about your orders. Leash your pet demons all you like, but I refuse to wear your collar like some bloody poodle."
Bobby fought back his irritation. Who'd've thought that between demons and angels, demons would be the easier to work with? Once you'd made it clear that what was in your best interests was in their best interests, they went along with it for the most part, as long as they continued to believe it. Angels, however, were far more of a pain in the ass. Most of them possessed twice as much arrogance as your typical demon, and Balthazar was no exception.
"Now, did you want something?" Balthazar asked.
"I want to make sure you're in a decent condition to play your part tomorrow," he replied. Too much work had gone into this to have it ruined now by one petulant angel throwing a tantrum.
"Screw your plan, and screw my part in it."
Bobby felt his fingers curl into fists, and it took real effort to straighten them out again. All he wanted to do was strangle Balthazar with his bare hands, but he told himself he had to be patient. He had to be understanding. Balthazar hadn't had an easy time of it, over the past year. He'd been forced to observe as his friend not only made a deal with a demon, but then went back on that deal for his own gain. He'd been helpless to do anything as Castiel was slowly influenced from within by Leviathans, and had barely escaped with his life when the beasts finally overcame Cas's vessel and broke free into the world.
To make matters worse, six months ago the Leviathans had found a tablet. 'The Word of God' Balthazar had called it, or one of them at least. Too late the rebels had discovered what the tablet could be used for. Dick Roman, the Leviathan leader, had kidnapped a prophet called into service when the tablet had been uncovered, and forced the prophet into translating the words scribed upon it by the arch-angel Metatron. The gates of Heaven had been sealed permanently closed, condemning every Earth-bound angel to live solely in their vessels. Cut off from Heaven's power, Balthazar had lost much of his strength and many of his abilities. The demons in the camp knew that he could no longer smite them with a touch, and they goaded him constantly about it.
Bobby had to give the angels their due; they'd tried. Once they realised they were cut off from Heaven they'd attempted to fall back to safety, to work together to fight the new threat, but it had been a bloody and ultimately futile affair. Leviathans were one of the few things in existence which could kill an angel, and kill angels they did. Of Castiel's former garrison, stationed on Earth for over two-thousand years, only Balthazar now survived, and only because he hadn't listened to the call of his brothers and sisters. Whilst they fought and died, he drank and did drugs, until the Leviathans finally turned their attention to him and forced him to go on the run.
He looked at the man on the bed, and felt a combination of disgust and pity. Balthazar was cold and ruthless, and he cared for nothing but himself. Cas hadn't been perfect by any means, but at least he'd tried to make a difference. All Balthazar cared was that he had somewhere safe to hide. He probably hoped that if Leviathans came to the camp, the humans and demons would provide a distraction long enough to allow him to escape. But right now, Bobby couldn't afford to give a damn about the angel's flaws. For better or worse, helping the rebels meant helping himself. He just needed to be reminded of that.
"So that's it?" Bobby asked. "You're just going to give up? Sit here whining and wait for the Leviathans to come and get you?"
"Oh, don't try to appeal to my pride, I have none left."
Bobby almost laughed at that statement, but he managed to hold it back.
"If you must know," Balthazar continued, sitting up on the camp bed, the springs groaning as he moved, "I fully intend to carry out most of your plan. I'll be your taxi drive for the day, but once you've reached your stop, I'm not getting out of the car."
"I get it," he said. "You're afraid to fight Leviathans. I can't blame you. After what they did to-"
Balthazar started laughing, and Bobby stopped talking. "I'm not afraid to fight them, you ridiculous hairless monkey. I simply have another plan. A better plan."
Bobby narrowed his eyes at the angel. Balthazar had never offered to help plan anything before, much less come up with plans of his own. Whatever he was playing at now, it couldn't be good.
"What plan?" he asked.
Balthazar reached into the pocket of his dirty coat, and brought out his hand. Held between his fingers was a small metallic object, and as soon as Bobby laid his eyes upon it he felt a shiver run across his skin.
"What the hell are you going to do with that?" he asked. It came out as barely more than a whisper. But he needn't have asked; the object had only one purpose. It was a key, and it opened a single door.
Balthazar smiled. "What the hell indeed," he agreed. "Tomorrow, when you and your lemmings are busy committing acts of terrorism, I plan to let Uncle Mikey and Uncle Luci out of their boxing ring."
"Are you nuts?!" Bobby said. It came out as an explosion of anger, and too late he realised he was shouting loud enough to be heard outside the tent.
"Completely nuts, yes," Balthazar said without shame.
"The last time those guys were on Earth together, they almost destroyed it!"
"Ahh, yes, but that was when Michael had the hosts of Heaven at his beck and call, and Lucifer had an army of tame demons behind him. Do you really think they'll continue their petty squabbles whilst they have the Leviathans to worry about? Without their good little soldiers to back them up? I think not. They'll be forced to put aside their differences if they want to stop those bloody piranhas. And let's face it, we're running out of options. I'm pretty sure an arch-angel can kill Leviathans."
"You're pretty sure, but you're not absolutely sure?" Bobby asked incredulously. The whole thing sounded like madness. Complete and utter madness. It was the kind of plan Dean might have come up with, which was a sure indication of just how crazy it was.
"Well no, I can't be absolutely sure, can I?" Balthazar said drily. "It's not as if we have a few spare arch-angels just lying around for experimentation purposes. Lucifer killed Gabriel, and dear Cassie very short-sightedly liquified Raphael. Michael and Lucifer are all we've got, short of God making a miraculous appearance."
"And what's to stop Michael and Lucifer returning to their epic battle once the Leviathans have been dealt with?"
Balthazar shrugged. "Not a bloody clue, but as I suspect I'll probably be dead long before that happens, I couldn't care less."
"Why didn't you tell me earlier about this stupid plan of yours?" he asked.
The angel stood up, swayed a little, then seemed to recover his balance. He pocketed the key to Lucifer's cage once more.
"First of all," Balthazar said, holding up one finger of his left hand, "you're neither my mother nor my wife, therefore I have no reason to tell you anything despite the fact that you nag me like you're both my mother and my wife combined into one bearded monstrosity. Second," he added, lifting another finger, "you would have tried to stop me. Third," another finger joined the first two, "because I needed you and your groupies to distract Dick whilst I went looking for the three rings you hid, and found a way to summon Death. You have no idea how hard it was to get him to give up his ring again. He wasn't very pleased about being summoned by me, either. You see, apparently he'd warned Dean Winchester all of eighteen months ago about the whole 'souls' situation, and Dean... well, he failed to perform as expected. Death made it very clear that he's done with us, now."
Not for the first time, Bobby wished he'd kept a bottle of bourbon stashed away for a moment like this. Months spent meticulously planning, scheming, sacrificing lives - admittedly, most of them demons - and Balthazar had come along at the eleventh hour and revealed his hand. It wasn't a bad hand, either, but it reeked of suicidal desperation. There was no way he could stop Balthazar from seeing it through, because regardless of whether he was cut off from Heaven, he was still an angel, but he had to be sure this was the right thing for everyone.
"Do you really think this is our best hope?" he asked
"Hope?" Balthazar scoffed. "I can barely even remember what that is."
"Are you okay?" Bobby asked. He didn't particularly care how the angel felt, but he owed it Balthazar to at least try and be civil. The guy might be an asshole, but he was still a rebel in the Mount Hood camp. He was still one of Bobby's people.
"For the first time in over a year, I'm okay."
Bobby saw something in his eyes, at that moment, something that had not been there before. It was the look of a dying man who had accepted his fate without question.
"Do you know how exhausting it's been, living like this?" Balthazar continued. "Day in, day out, watching you apes, teleporting around the world to find you food that hasn't been ruined by SucroCorp, knowing that if I could even glimpse Heaven again, I could regain all of my former powers? But the physical things haven't been the worst of it. No, the worst is knowing that I could have stopped this. Cas came to me, you know, a couple of hours before the ritual, and told me what he was doing. Said he needed my help to avoid being caught by Raphael and Crowley. I had a cold feeling about it, right in the pit of my stomach, but I ignored that feeling. And why? Because my friend, somebody I trusted and respected, asked me to believe in him. And when somebody asks you to believe in them, you're supposed to agree, aren't you?
"So I agreed. I watched and I waited, and when Cas smote Raphael, naturally I celebrated. Then the killing started. Not just on Earth. Not just Eve and her abominations. Not just humans, although admittedly, I was slightly concerned about that. But when the closest thing you have to a best friend becomes God, what else can you do? The worst of it, though... the worst was what he did in Heaven. The sheer and utter devastation he wrought there. Every angel who had ever supported Raphael, instantly killed with no more effort than that." Balthazar snapped his fingers, and Bobby jumped, his heart beating momentarily faster in his chest.
"And then I had to watch as my friend was corrupted by those monsters inside him. I had to watch as they twisted him into something he wasn't, something that he, on his own, would never have had the capacity to be. And I have to sit on this pathetic, doomed planet, with the knowledge that wholesale destruction is the only thing Cas will be remembered for. That the Leviathans are the only legacy he left behind.
"It seemed so easy to run and hide, at first. I ran from the Leviathans and I ran from my myself. I hid amongst you humans, and hid my guilt and my regret beneath a veneer of alcohol. But I'm tired, Bobby. Very, very tired. I can't stop the Leviathans. You can't stop the Leviathans. So maybe the only way to stop them is to burn the whole thing down from within. Better to go out in a blaze of glory and take your enemy with you, than to be led to the slaughter-house too dumb and stupid to realise what's waiting for you behind the walls."
"Is that what'll happen, if you let Michael and Lucifer out?" he asked. "They'll destroy the world to kill the Leviathans?" Balthazar's words had shocked him to the core. Never in a million years would he have expected such unguarded honesty from the usually petty, selfish angel. He knew, then, why Balthazar had made this plan. He wasn't expecting to survive the re-opening of Lucifer's cage. He didn't want to survive it.
"Honestly, I have no idea. Maybe they can defeat the Leviathans without wiping out humanity, maybe not. But I'm not going to be Castiel. My legacy is going to be much grander."
"I don't follow," he said, trying to make sense of the angel's worlds. "Surely if Michael and Lucifer destroy the world, that's about as terrible a legacy as you can leave."
"Destroy one world," Balthazar said, his blue eyes focused on Bobby's face. "One. Out of countless worlds which are out there, all it will take to rid creation of the Leviathans forever is the destruction of one world."
"You think the Leviathans will start looking at other worlds, once they've chomped their way through this one?"
"Look at the facts, Bobby. They were the rulers of Purgatory. They've wrested control of Hell away from Crowley and turned it into yet another of their domains. They're quickly on their way to become masters of the Earth. Does it not seem that they're attempting to eat their way up the celestial foodchain?"
"You think they're aiming for Heaven?"
"I'm certain of it," Balthazar said, his voice and posture oozing his usual confidence. "After all, it's one of the places they resided before God locked them in Purgatory. And once they reach Heaven they will have access to countless other worlds and countless other realities. Mark my words; they won't stop here. If you could save the whole of creation by sacrificing one little world, wouldn't you make that decision?"
"I can't make that decision for the seven billion people of the Earth, and neither can you," Bobby countered. Couldn't he see that making such a decision was playing God, just as surely as Castiel had been playing God after consuming all the souls of Purgatory?
"The seven billion people of Earth are being culled, domesticated and devoured. I've seen it, Bobby. How the people sit in their homes, stuffing themselves to obesity. How anybody athletic or with a high metabolism suffers a degenerative condition which kills them in a matter of days. And it's not just here, Bobby, it's in other countries too. Canada, Australia, China, the whole of Europe... You think five little human-processing factories are your biggest problem? The Leviathans are everywhere. SucroCorp is everywhere. And nobody suspects a thing."
Bobby felt his blood run cold. He couldn't believe it. He just couldn't. It wasn't possible for the Leviathans to have spread so far, so fast. They were just monsters. Efficient, deadly monsters, but still...
"Believe it," Balthazar said, with a remarkably sober expression for somebody so drunk. "I didn't tell you before because I wanted you to have hope. To keep trying. To believe there was even a small chance you could beat Dick. I thought you could hope for the both of us. But it's time you knew the truth. Regardless of what you accomplish tomorrow, this world is lost. It's time to let go of that dead man's switch. Time to let it all come crashing down."
Bobby said nothing. What could he say? For months he'd been running and hiding, collecting up anybody with enough wits left about them to pull the trigger of a gun, believing he could free people from the clutches of the Leviathans. Believing that he actually had a chance. Now that chance was being pulled away by the departing tide, dragged beyond his reach. All of his planning and cleverness had been for naught. Tomorrow, whether he lived or died, succeeded or failed, his world was doomed one way or the other. What he had thought was a cancer in the bowls of America had turned into a global pandemic, and he was still focusing on the single tumour.
When at last he found the ability to speak once more, he recalled something Balthazar had said.
"You mentioned that Death warned Dean about this a year ago?" he asked the angel. Balthazar merely nodded in return. "Do you think Dean could have stopped it? If he'd been here all this time, if he'd been around from the moment this all went down... do you think the world might be a different place today?"
"It wouldn't be the first time one man has changed the world," Balthazar said. "But that's something we can never know. Now," he said, his voice returning to its normal superior tone, "I suggest you go and spend a bit of time with the troops, reassure them that all is going to be well tomorrow, and maybe give them one of those go-get-'em speeches you're so good at." The angel clapped him on the shoulder. "There's a good chap."
Bobby didn't have the strength or the will to object. An hour ago, his hopes... well, they hadn't been high, but a tiny thread of hope had existed. It was a thread he had been clinging to for dear life ever since the first Leviathan had reared its ugly head. Now he found his grip on that thread failing, and he saw that nothing he had done over the past year had made any difference. He wasn't stupid; he'd always known that he'd been one step behind Dick Roman. Now, however, he saw the truth; he wasn't even running the same race as Dick Roman. The Leviathans were on a completely different track. They'd been running a marathon, whilst Bobby had been trying to catch them on the hundred-metre sprint.
His mind barely registered that he'd left Balthazar's tent, and he walked without seeing as people travelled around him, their faces nothing more than indistinct blurs. Tomorrow he would be asking almost a third of these people to join him in an offensive against their oppressors. Many of them would die. He'd always known that. But now he knew that many of them would die for nothing. He couldn't call off his offensive, nor could he tell his obedient soldiers any of the conversation that had transpired between himself and Balthazar. He still needed them to follow him to their deaths, because whilst the Leviathans were looking at the left hand, they wouldn't see what the right hand was doing. This was Balthazar's final trick; he had always intended to use the rebels as his smoke and mirrors. And when the smoke cleared, the whole stage would come tumbling down, magician and all.
Bobby hated the angel for his plan, but at the same time, he could see the wisdom in it. The destruction of the Leviathans could be mankind's legacy. One final sacrifice to save creation. He hoped that, if God was watching from somewhere, he would be proud.
o - o - o - o - o
July 4th, 2012
Bobby singer sat outside his tent, watching the sunrise. He'd told his resistance fighters to sleep, told them they'd need to be well-rested for the big fight in the morning. Of course, most of them hadn't slept. They'd done what anybody did, when faced with certain death; they'd eaten their last meals, shared a couple of bottles of moonshine somebody had produced, and spent the evening drinking and screwing. That was basically what humans came down to; shelter, food and sex. But he couldn't blame them. Once upon a time, he might have done the same. But he was old enough to know that the best way to spend your last night on Earth was sitting in the company of good friends who understood you.
He had no friends left. John Winchester, who had been a pain in the ass more than he had been a friend, had been killed years ago. Ellen Harvelle and her daughter Jo had given their lives trying to stop Lucifer, and now Lucifer was about to walk free despite their sacrifice. Rufus Turner had died during Eve's onslaught, killed by Bobby himself whilst he had been possessed by a mind-controlling Purgatory worm. Sam and Dean were gone, the closest thing he had to sons and they were dead by a century or more. Castiel had, in all likelihood, disintigrated as the Leviathans exploded from his vessel. Jody Mills, the one woman he had become close to throughout all of this mess, had died in his arms during one of their skirmishes against the Leviathans four months ago, leaving yet another empty hole in his heart.
It wasn't right, that he be the only one left standing. He didn't deserve life anymore than his friends had deserved death. His world did not deserve the fate that had befallen it. This time, he knew, there would be no reprieve. There would be no last-minute saviour, nobody to say "Stop, I'll fix it all for you." This time, it was for real. It was all for real. The world was going to end, because it could not continue to live.
Where had this all started? On the surface, it was easy to say that it had started with Cas, that the angel's desperation and over-confidence had led to the downfall of the entire planet. But Bobby wasn't the type of man to be taken in by what was on the surface. He knew, deep down, that this future had been written the moment God created angels and humans. Lucifer's jealousy of humanity, his refusal to bow down to his father's new favourite children, and his subsequent banishment from Heaven, had started a chain reaction of events which had culminated in the birth of Sam and Dean Winchester, and then later led to the Winchesters, along with Bobby and Castiel, standing up for what they believed in and shoving Lucifer back in his cage. When Michael had been sucked in the cage with his brother, it had created a power vacuum in Heaven, culminating in a civil war that could only have ended with the death of either Raphael or Castiel.
Creation, it seemed, was the mother of both chaos and destruction. For only by creating angels and humans had God allowed there to be room for the chaos that would ensue, and the destruction it would bring. Without humans around, Lucifer would never have fallen from Heaven, and the events of the apocalypse would never have played out. And without angels, humans would never have turned into demons, there would have been no Hell, and no way to access the gates of Purgatory. But when you put angels and humans together you got demons, and then chaos, and then destruction. It was a volatile mix that never would have worked, even in paradise.
"You look pensive."
Garth appeared from the trees behind the tent, and he sat down on the leaf-covered ground beside Bobby.
"I look old, and tired, because I am," Bobby grumbled at the younger man. "If that's what passes for 'pensive' these days, then the world's in a sorrier state than I thought."
"It could be worse," Garth replied, a sparkle of happiness in his eyes even now.
Bobby gave him a level look. "How in God's name could things possibly be any worse?"
"Well, we're still alive. And whilst we're here, there's always hope, right?"
"Right." He turned his gaze back to the still waters of Mirror Lake, which stretched off into the distance as far as the eye could see. He couldn't look at Garth. He couldn't meet the boy's eyes and pretend that everything was fine, pretend that they were going to come out of this one unscathed. He wasn't that good an actor.
As the morning rays began to pierce the tents of the camp, people began to congregate on the shore of the lake. Anybody over the age of sixteen who could shoot a gun had been conscripted for this mission, which gave Bobby a standing army of fifty one. Half of them carried guns; pistols, rifles and shotguns, whilst the other half carried toys. Two years ago, if somebody had told Bobby that the greatest weapon he could get his hands on would be a water-gun, he would have laughed about it for days. Now, a decent water-gun was nothing to be laughed at. Sodium borate, known colloquially as borax, was one of the few things Leviathans had little tolerance for. It was to the Leviathans what salt and holy water were to the demons, and most of the monsters shied away from it, especially if you sprayed it in their eyes. Of course, it didn't kill them. That was why every member of the rebel army carried a machete on their belt. Even decapitation didn't kill a Leviathan, but it did slow them down, and if you were able to separate the head from the body, you could stop it from sticking itself back together.
"Looks like we're just about ready to get this show on the road," Crowley said. He approached from the direction of the camp with eight demons in tow, two possessing the bodies of women, the rest possessing men. They were all that was left of Hell. A handful of renegades with nowhere left to go. "Where's the bitch?"
"You rang?" Meg asked, appearing silently from behind a nearby tree. She, like all the other rebels, was armed. Her weapons were a water pistol and a machete, and she was carrying a bag on her back. She wasn't the only one with a bag; Garth had one too, as did eight of the other fighters, each armed with the best water-guns the camp could muster. Their bags were filled not with ammunition, but with powdered sodium borate. It had been Meg's idea, to spike the SucroCorp shipments of food additive with borax. A good way of introducing a poison into the food chain, and also a method of mild torture for the Leviathans. If they didn't know which of the humans had been exposed to the poisoned food additive, they'd either have to kill the lot of them or stop eating them entirely. Bobby had been against the plan, until both Crowley and Balthazar had pointed out that there were fates worse than a swift death.
"I think everyone's present and accounted for," Garth said, after doing a head-count.
"Not everyone." Balthazar appeared from nowhere beside the lake, his arms folded across his chest. "I hope you weren't thinking of leaving without me."
"So you finally sobered up, did you?" Crowley said.
"No, I'm still completely and utterly wrecked, but it's the only way I can tolerate your company."
"I'm flattered."
Bobby turned away from the bickering angel and demon, to address the men and women who had come to trust and rely on him. He let his eyes roam over their heads, not trusting himself to look at their faces. He didn't want to see the hope and the fear in their eyes, because he was barely holding it together already.
"Is everybody armed and ready to go?" he asked. There was a chorus of 'yes', and a few sobs of sadness from the camp, where those being left behind were watching the gathering rebels. "Good." He stepped closer to them, so they could better hear him. "I'm not going to give you some grand speech," he said. "The time for speeches is long past. We all know what's at stake here. So get in there, do your jobs, and God willing, I'll see you back here before nightfall. Last one back brings the booze."
There were calls of farewell from the camp. Last minute goodbyes were said. Hugs were shared, hands were shaken, and the rebels gathered closer together, to prepare for what was to come next.
"Nice speech," Garth whispered, smiling in approval.
"Balthazar?" Bobby said.
"Ladies and gentlemen," the angel said, drawing everybody's attention to him. He stepped forward and opened his arms wide. "Your chariot."
The world blurred and Bobby stumbled into Garth. Pushing himself upright, he looked around and saw that they were no longer by the waters of Mirror Lake, but were instead standing not far away from the SucroCorp factory, where the obesity-inducing mind-numbing food additive was created. As soon as everyone had regained their balance, Meg began rounding up her strike team. It was small out of necessity; they needed stealth more than force, to pull this off. That was one of the reasons they were armed with water-guns instead of real guns. It was hard to be silent with a real gun in your hands.
"Well," Garth said, stepping in front of Bobby and offering his hand. "Guess this is it, Big B. Don't worry, I'll make sure the job gets done if it's the last thing I do."
Despite his former irritation towards the boy, Bobby felt his gruff exterior softening just a little. Ever since Jody had died, Garth had been a near-constant companion, pitching his tent near Bobby's, waiting around in case the rebel leader needed any errands doing, and he was always the first to volunteer for a mission. He hadn't hesitated, not even for a second, when Meg had requested the assistance of nine other suicidal lunatics for her strike-force.
"You've done me proud every single day, Garth," he told his young friend, grasping his hand and shaking it firmly. Of course, for Garth, a hand-shake was just an invitation, and two seconds later Bobby found himself being pulled into an uncomfortable Garth-hug.
"Would you two like a room?" Crowley sniped.
"Sounds like somebody needs a hug," Garth said, letting go of Bobby and rounding on the demon. Bobby could have cried with laughter; Garth was actually crazy enough to attempt to hug the former King of Hell.
"Touch me and I'll deep-fry your balls and feed them to you," Crowley warned.
"Time to get moving," Meg said. Bobby noticed she'd separated her team from the rest of the group, and now she was gesturing for Garth to join them. "Wish us luck, boys," she said, to Bobby and Crowley.
Good luck, he thought silently. He watched only until the team were out of sight behind another building, then turned to Balthazar. It took him a moment to find the angel, because he was bent double behind the rest of the group, breathing deeply and apparently in some pain. When Bobby approached him, Balthazar held out his hand to keep him out of reach.
"This was so much easier when I was an all-powerful celestial being," Balthazar panted.
"Are you going to be alright?" Bobby asked. Though he was concerned for the angel, he was more concerned for his plan. The bulk of the resistance would be going with him to the processing factory, to lay explosive charges in the vulnerable bits and generally create a distraction big enough to draw the Leviathan's attention away from SucroCorp. Meg and her team needed such a distraction, if they were to succeed with their mission.
"Yes, yes, just winded," Balthazar replied. He took a deep breath and stood up straight, masking the pain on his face. The rest of the rebels looked relieved to see him well, though one or two also appeared disappointed they'd have to go through with their mission. "Well, are we just going to stand here chatting all day like a group of old women, or are we continuing with the mission?"
"By all means," Bobby said.
The world blurred as Balthazar teleported them once more, but this time the landing was more violent. Almost everybody lost their balance, many people fell over, and Crowley landed on his back.
"Bloody angels!" the demon shouted as he leapt to his feet. He briefly looked around for Balthazar, but failed to find him. The angel just hadn't reappeared after the teleportation. "They'll be the death of me, one day," Crowley grumbled.
Bobby hadn't expected to see Balthazar again. He'd done what had been asked of him, and now the rest was up to the humans, and the few remaining demons. The angel had probably gone somewhere quiet and remote, to begin the process of opening Lucifer's cage. Of course, nobody else knew that. Nobody else knew that Balthazar had stopped pushing the dead man's switch, or that Bobby had simply let him do it. Nobody else knew that today the world would end. And suddenly, Bobby was glad that his friends weren't here to see it. He was glad that they didn't have to stand here beside him and witness the stage coming down, the actors killed off one by one.
But for a hurricane here or a butterfly there, the world might have ended differently, or it might not have ended at all. None of that mattered, now. What was done was done, and there could be no going back. With a mixture of sorrow, regret and grim determination, he lifted his pump-action water pistol and turned towards the factory.
- The End -
A/N: No angels, demons or Winchesters were harmed in the making of this story.