Prologue: "In the Arms of Angels"
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
Thursday, August 13th, 2009
Dean Winchester could not sleep. It had been months since that night. Yet, it still kept him up at night.
Dean stood up and walked over to the table across the room. On it sat a full bottle of scotch. He lifted it and poured himself a drink, filling the glass to the brim. He shot it into the back of his mouth and instead of putting more of the liquid into the glass, he just started drinking from the bottle. He had been inundating himself in booze lately.
"It won't help, Dean," Mr. Constantine said from behind him.
Dean turned to face the room's new occupant. "What did I tell you about coming in like that? Knock first, man."
"I'm sorry. I'm not used to the whole common courtesies of humanity yet."
"It hurts, doesn't it?"
Mr. Constantine gave Dean a quizzical look. He tilted his head to the side and Dean remembered being given the same look when he had first met this man almost a year ago. "Does what hurt?"
"Being like me."
"It's not bad. I'm just not used to it yet. It has only been three months."
"John, you need to quit lying to yourself. I know you didn't choose this and I know you don't want it. What you've become, it hurts."
The lights started to flicker. Dean's instincts kicked in and he reached for the .45 resting by the television set next to the alcohol. One of the lights on the chandelier blew out and electricity arced. Dean cocked the gun and held it with both hands, steadying it as he feared what was about to come into the room.
The door blew in and a young boy, about thirteen or fourteen stepped through it. Dean fired off several bullets into the kid's chest. They were through-and-throughs. All the bullets now rested inside the wooden door and door frame. The boy continued to approach Dean and John.
"Dean, don't do that again. Those actually stung a bit."
"Lu, I'm not all that interested in how much pain you're in, you son of a bitch."
"We've had this talk Dean. Lucifer's not in this body anymore."
"He has to be. He's not where you say he is.""Dean, you may not want to believe what you saw, but you did see it. Stop denying it." Dean raised the gun again and shot the boy until the gun jammed. "Are you finished?" he continued, now a tad irritated.
Dean's face was lit up in fury. He hated this boy. He refused to give him the satisfaction of an answer.
John saw Dean's pain and interjected. "What do you want, Gabriel?"
Gabriel turned to face the man. "We have a problem."
"What is it?"
"I don't think that I should tell you. Dean wouldn't like it," he said, shooting Dean a snide look. Dean didn't notice.
Uriel and another man stepped through the obliterated door. The man, whom Dean had never seen before, wore a white muscle shirt with a button-down t-shirt laying limp over top of it. The t-shirt had a palm tree pattern to it. He also wore khaki shorts and sandals.
John looked at him with a frown on his face. The man, seeing this, began speaking. "Why so glum, brah?" John did not answer. "Gonna pretend like ya don't know me again?"
John scoffed and turned his attention back to Gabriel. "What information is this?"
Uriel with his pitiless voice entered the conversation, uninvited. "You haven't told the mud monkeys yet?"
"No, I haven't, brother."
"This is going to blow y'alls minds!" the other man exclaimed.
"Raphael, please," Gabriel responded."Who?" the angel answered.
"Raph, please," Gabriel corrected. Now Gabriel shared John's annoyed look. "Have some decorum. You are an archangel."
"Not by choice." Raphael moved over to Dean and put a hand on his shoulder. "If it were up to me, I'd be as much of an archangel as Dean Winchester is."
Dean shook the angel's hand off after taking another swig of scotch. "Will you all just tell us what happened?"Uriel finally informed them. "Lucifer has returned."
Dean stared the evil angel down. "What did you say?""Lucifer is back, Dean." Dean and John shot each other a look. The others didn't care. "That's right. Sammy's come home."