….No Hell Below Us

Gabriel returned to the Resistance Headquarters with Jesse and his team of Hunters, who immediately discarded their gear in assorted racks and bins and headed for the barracks, presumably to catch up on some much needed sleep.

Gabriel and Jesse watched them go and let out a nearly synchronized sigh. They stood side by side, both with their hands in their pockets. They turned their heads toward each other and nodded.

"You felt that, too, huh?" Gabriel asked. Jesse nodded again and looked away.

"Lucifer's gone. The Gate..."

"Yep, just me, looks like," Gabriel answered. "Should be used to that by now."

There was a long silence between the two as they made a half-hearted attempt to oversee and peruse the various activities within the Resistance warehouse.

"He's coming, isn't He?" Jesse finally whispered.

Gabriel wrinkled his brow and frowned. "Actually not so sure about that, kiddo."

Jesse frowned in return and looked at Gabriel. "What d'ya mean by that? He's almost got the Gate down. He just needs to remove you from the equation, and God gets what He wants...full blown Armageddon."

Gabriel smiled slightly and clapped Jesse on the back. "That's why I'm sticking around you, 'mate...I'm not sure He would want to try it now."

"You think...that I can protect you from Judah...from God...?" Jesse asked doubtfully.

Gabriel shrugged. "My last shot, I think. Look, kid, with the last of the New Heralds dead, all of your power has returned to you."

"Lucifer's gone too, Gabriel."

Gabriel nodded and held up a finger. "And don't think I haven't thought of that."

"I'm only at full power if Lucifer walks the earth. You know that," Jesse continued unabated. "So there is no way I could stand up to Judah now."

Gabriel squinted and nodded to himself. "Maybe..." he muttered.

"Maybe what?"

Gabriel was quiet for a second and shook his head vigorously. "Nothing. Look, better safe than sorry, right?"

Jesse turned to him and looked the Archangel up and down. "So you're just gonna...what when Judah comes for you? Throw me at him and hope for the best?"

"It's not like that, kid..."

"Oh, I think it totally is," Jesse shot back angrily. "Never changes with you Angels, does it?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Jesse glanced away as someone came out of a back office and made his way towards them. When he saw that it was Castiel, his face darkened even more.

"Perfect example," he answered once Castiel was there. "This one comes for me when I was like 12 years old, to kill me, might I add..."

Castiel looked confused. "Jesse, that was a long time ago, and I was wrong...I'm truly, truly sorry for..."

Jesse held up a hand, stopping him. "Then, when I had just about figured everything out, had a little bit of peace and quiet in my life, Michael shows up and recruits me, telling me I'm supposed to stop you and Crowley because you had plans on taking over Heaven and Hell...and it turns out that was actually his plan all along..."

"To be fair, he was quite insane at the time," Castiel mumbled.

"Now, Gabe here wants to use me as cannon-fodder for an equally insane, Apocalypse motivated God Himself..." He glared at Gabriel. "It just never ends..."

"Like I said, it isn't like that, Jesse," Gabriel retorted, his mood also darkening.

"Which part?" Castiel asked, confused. Gabriel rolled his eyes at him and shot him a withering look.

Jesse threw up his hands and stalked off. "Yeah, exactly. You know, just...stay out of my damned way, OK? Both of you...all of you!"

Gabriel and Castiel watched him stalk off. Castiel turned back to Gabriel and frowned deeply.

"Which part, Gabriel?" he repeated his question, eyes narrowing.


Cartaphilus bustled through the crowd, head down,, his mind reeling.

He had been so close. And Judah had thwarted him.

Again.

He meandered into a Starbucks and sat down at one of the empty tables, rubbing his forehead with his hand.

He had been thinking over his next plan of action. The Old Ones were still there - as they had always been, actually - just beyond the veil. And he had the power to let them cross that void, to break through the threshold.

But not fully. Cthulhu had merely been a partial manifestation.

The Gate. It still came down to that damnable Gate. With it still sealed, the Old Ones wouldn't be able to come through en masse and end this wretched Creation once and for all.

Judah...He had said that He also sought to bring the Gate down - that they had, in fact, the exact same goals.

The Roman chuckled to himself. No,no...their means to this end might be the same, certainly, but that particular end was absolutely not the same.

There would be a catch if he allowed Judah to accomplish that Himself, some kind of backdoor to allow God to restart everything again. This was what God did – He worked in circles. An ever-turning wheel of misery and torment and laughable 'justice' – a ignorant, spoiled child's attempt to Create a 'perfect' world. Failure after failure after failure, leading to suffering and madness and torture and cruelty.

What a joke. A cosmic joke. And decidedly not a funny one.

No. It had to end. Completely and totally...

"Actually, the muffins here are surprisingly delicious," a cold , mellow smooth voice spoke to him from across the small table. Cartaphilus stiffened in surprise – he had been so wrapped up in his own thoughts that he hadn't noticed the other person sitting down at all.

Of course, the term 'person' here was highly inaccurate.

He looked up slowly, ready to run, his every muscle taught. He felt a cold sweat breaking out on his forehead.

The tall, thin, gaunt entity stared back at him with black eyes. He was almost daintily holding a blueberry muffin in one ancient, gnarled claw and had the hints of a smile on his face.

The Roman felt like a mouse under the gaze of a silent Owl in the forest. A raptor watched him, holding the power of life and death over him based merely on a whim.

The fact that it was Death himself that sat there watching him made this metaphor even more acutely poignant.

"Relax, Roman, I am not here in an official capacity," Death said, his voice filling the air between them, despite it's low and smooth tones. "I am only here to visit...perhaps chat a while."

Cartaphilus felt himself involuntarily leaning back.

"You...want to talk?"

"Of course," Death answered, with a facsimile of a smile on his horribly thin face. "Do you have anything against talking?"

Cartaphilus blinked. "About what?"

"Ah, I see - it depends on the subject matter. Very well," Death purred. "I wish to discuss your plans for the future."

Cartaphilus blinked again, more rapidly this time. "The future...?"

"More precisely, if there will actually be one," Death finished, eating the last of the muffin and tenting his fingers together, staring around them at the Roman and chewing slowly.

"I'm not sure that I understand..."

Death held his hands out to his sides. "It's a simple question, really. There is an Apocalypse coming. This is inevitable. Either you shall be the author of it, or God will. With God, I know what to expect, as I have been through this with Him an unbelievably, uncountable number of times," Death drawled on. Cartaphilus noted the particularly bitter note in Death's tone when he spoke about God.

"You, however, are a completely unknown commodity. A wild card that, until now, has never shown up in any of the cycles of Creation that God has set in motion. Therefore, as literally the only principle besides God Himself that is intimately entwined in this little endless dance of His, I am wondering if I should, perhaps, consider switching dance partners."

He leaned forward, fixing Cartaphilus with his cold glare.

"If the tune is right, that is."

The sweat on the Roman's brow stopped as he let out a breath that he had been holding, and he felt a smile come onto his face.


Dean helped Sam into the Impala and closed the door behind him. They pulled out of the parking lot of the hospital and Dean glanced over at his brother, who was pale and looked weak.

"Pain meds not kicking in or what?" Dean asked hesitantly.

Sam grunted and shook his head. "Meds are fine...still...you know..."

Dean nodded to himself. "Yeah. Yeah, I know."

"Lucifer..." Sam whispered. "Dean, it was..."

"Yeah, I know," Dean replied, gunning the car onto the highway.

Sam hung his head. "So, how did you do it? Get him out, I mean."

Dean frowned. "You don't remember? I thought..."

"Yeah, normally, yeah, I could see everything that was going on...but the last few days...mostly nada. A big black blur."

"Total blackout?" Dean asked considering. "That's weird."

Sam huffed out a half-laugh. "Yeah, tell me about it. Never had that happen before. It was almost a relief, you know? Not having to watch what...he did..."

They rode in near silence for awhile, the only sound coming from the 8-track of AC/DC's Back in Black that Dean had been playing.

"You know...there was something else, too," Dean finally said reflectively.

"What's that?"

Dean shrugged. "Probably, nothing...probably."

"What?" Sam asked insistently, worry creeping into his voice.

"Well, at the end there...it just...you...I mean, him...he wasn't really acting much like Lucifer, you know?"

"No, Dean, I don't. Please tell me."

Dean sighed, glancing over at Sam quickly, then looked back towards the road. "Well, I didn't really think too hard about it, because I thought that Lucifer was cornered and all...but at the end there, he was snarling and attacking and shouting ...you know...like random Demon crap...not the typical Lucy rhetoric, you hear me?"

Sam leaned back and closed his eyes. "It was still him...I would have known it if it was another Demon, or he switched up."

Dean raised his eyebrows. "You sure about that? 'cause you just told me that you were blacked-out there for the last few days."

Sam smiled slightly, eyes still closed. "I said 'mostly'. Anyway, I was still fighting, Dean. Even incoherent and blind, I never stopped fighting. He's just...so powerful..." He shook his head. "No, if he left even for a second, I would have noticed that." He looked out of the passengers side window, considering. "I wonder..."

"What?"

"Well, the blackout started when Judah stripped most of his Archangel power away. I got the feeling that the Demon side of him was taking over...taking advantage of that. All that dark energy he had...it just started winning, you get me?"

"You sayin' that he went over to the Dark Side?" Dean quipped, smirking. "Boy, Sammy, this is Lucifer we're talking about here...he was pretty much Dark Side already...kinda the actual boss of it, you know?"

Sam returned the smirk. "No, no, that's not what I'm saying at all really. I'm saying..." he stopped and shook his head. "Man, I dunno either."

Dean glanced over again and nodded. "Uh-huh. Sure. You absolutely got nothin' on your mind, that's for sure."

Sam frowned. "Yeah, Ok...but what if...he was like an animal, Dean...what if...what if there was no angelic side left in him?"

"Whatchootalkingbout, Sammy?"

"I mean, Lucifer was an Archangel who fell, then took the power of the Darkness into himself, then fused it to him. When Judah ripped that Archangel power out of him...the angelic power wasn't enough to keep the Darkness back...in balance, so to say...and it just destroyed the angelic side." He looked over at Dean, his red-rimmed, tired eyes open with an obvious sense of urgency. "Dean, how...how did you get Lucifer out of me?"

Dean paled, gripping the steering wheel more tightly. "Um...I had an idea..."

"What?"

"I...I used a tracking spell..."

Sam snorted. You...? Oh man..."

"Can I finish?" Dean snapped, annoyed. Sam nodded, suppressing a smile. Dean let out a deep breath. "Anyway, it said that Lucifer, you know...that he was a Demon, not an Angel..."

"Wait...the spell told you that?"

"No, the map, smart-guy...red for Demons, blue for Angels..."

"Oh, you used that spell..." Sam nodded sagely. "Man, I seriously don't want to see the mess that you left in the kitchen..."

"Shut up, Sam."

"No, ok, please continue. So, he was red on the map..." he frowned as he repeated that. "Actually, yeah, that is weird..."

"Yeah, I figured like you did, well, sort of...that he was more Demon than Angel, so I grabbed a book of exorcism..."

"Wait,waitwaitwaitwaitjustaminutehere... are you saying that you exorcised Lucifer while he was pure Demon...?!" Sam asked, alarmed.

"Yeah, I did...what? It worked, you know?"

Sam looked at Dean, incredulous. "Dean...Dean, you are aware that there is no Heaven and Hell right now, right? They are closed off...there's nowhere for souls or vacated energy to go back to...you have to be able to remember that from your time being possessed by Michael, right?"

Dean looked back at Sam. "Yeah...so?"

Sam watched him, then leaned back and closed his eyes again, letting out a deep sigh. "Dean...I don't know how to say this...so I'm just going to say it..."

There was a long silence as the Impala raced down the highway, engine roaring.

"What?!"

"Dean...I think you just might have killed the frikkin' Devil."

Dean looked over and then back to the road. "Huh."

"Yeah," Sam answered, half-laughing and shaking his head.

"Huh," Dean repeated. He turned the Impala onto the highway leading out of Los Angeles as the tape in the radio started over again, the red light clicking from Track 8 back to Track 1 and Hell's Bell's started playing.

"Cool," he said finally, smirking as he gunned the engine again.


Aleister Crowley squirmed in the chair, once again testing the ropes and straps that held his arms there. He grimaced as he found them just as non-responsive as the first time that he had tried them.

"Now, let's start all over again, shall we?" Crowley said, pacing in front of him and smiling. "You found me, how?"

"I've told you that already...I have an algorithm that uses face recognition to match against various databases..."

Crowley looked at the ceiling. "Yes, I know...let me clarify...what I want to know is: which of those databases gave you a hit on my face?"

Aleister frowned. "Um...Rolling Stone, actually."

"Excuse me?"

"Rolling Stone. The magazine. One of your acts went double-platinum a few years back, and there was a picture of you with them backstage presenting it to them."

"Ah," Crowley answered, thinking, nose wrinking. "Yes. Yes I seem to recall that party." He shook his head. "Damned smartphones. I'm usually more careful about photographs." He shrugged to himself and walked over to his desk and scribbled a note down furiously.

"What was that?"

Crowley turned back around to Aleister and shrugged nonchalantly. "Nothing. Just a reminder to wipe out the entire Rolling Stones digital archive is all."

Aleister's jaw dropped open a little. "You...you aren't serious about that, are you?"

"As a heart attack. Now; next question – aren't you supposed to be dead?"

"Er...what?" Aleister answered. "Oh...oh...no, no! I'm not the original Aleister Crowley, naturally...I'm his grandson."

"Son of Randall Gair Crowley, I presume?"

Aleister smiled. "See, that's where you're wrong. Not a half-son at all, rather the son of the son of Crowley and Rose Edith Kelly."

Crowley frowned. "They had no sons."

"None that were reported..." Aleister smiled triumphantly. "But all of his heritage, witchcraft and knowledge was passed along a secret line, my line actually, down to me, the last surviving male of the Crowley name."

Crowley smiled down patronizingly at Aleister. "I see mental illness still runs in the family."

Aleister frowned. "Not at all."

"What 'witchcraft' then are you referring to? Real witchcraft?" Crowley prodded.

"Oh come now, is it so hard to believe? After all, you and your friends just battled bloody Cthulhu down on Venice Beach. Surely you don't have trouble believing in magic?"

Crowley smiled benignly. "OK, assuming that I do for a second...believe you, that is...for pure amusement's sake...what exactly are you proposing to offer me?"

Aleister's eyes lit up. "Everything!" Crowley raised his eyebrows at him in question. "I...I...mean, of course," he added, hastily correcting his statement, " I mean that I can offer everything as to helping you banish the Old Ones from our world...forever, actually, if I have access to the correct resources..."

"'Correct resources?'"

"Well, if I am not mistaken, one of the people down there on the beach was an Angel, am I correct?"

Crowley sighed. "Oh dear...yes, yes, you are pesky, I'll give you that." He tapped his finger on his chin, "I hate pesky." He leaned in dangerously. "OK, tell me why?"

Aleister blanched. "Er...why...why what?"

"Why would you offer to help me?"

"Well...the...the whole bloody world is in danger, isn't it? I...I mean...I can't imagine that you'd actually want it to be eaten by the Old Ones...do you have any idea what they'd do to us all?"

"Eat us?"

"Among other things!"

Crowley looked down at Aleister, considering. He finally sighed and rolled his eyes. "Fine. Fine. You're too smart to let go, and too stupid and naive to just kill." He bent down and released the straps holding Aleister to the chair. "Just what I need – another bloody Boy Scout."

"Heh? Not following;" Aleister answered, rubbing at his wrists.

"That angel that you mentioned? You two just have to meet..."