Chapter 4: A Puissant Deity
"Find anything?" Dean asked as his brother dropping another large stack of books down on the already overloaded table before him. They'd arrived back at the bunker before dark the following day and had jumped into the research immediately. Talking through the idea of the letter over the course of the long drive had set them both to the task at the hand, mostly out of curiosity.
"Nothing," Sam said with a sigh as he sat down. "Nothing that sounds like this, I'm grasping at straws. All the lore, from all over the world, with death in the titles," he said and picked up the paper and waved it over his head. "Immortals, anti-aging spells, but nothing that causes a man to die, at irregular intervals, and wake up in water."
"Maybe it's not always water," Dean offered but his words sounded more like a question. "Listen to this; Aliyan Baal is a puissant deity who concurred the dangerous waters only to be challenged by Mot, the ruler of the underworld, to descend into his realm. After some trepidation, he goes to the lower realm and is believe to be 'as if dead', and Anat goes down after him to retrieve the body so that a successor to Baal can be appointed. There is a bunch of jumbled junk in here but eventually it seems that Baal is not actually dead but alive and fighting other gods. In another version," Dean began again and pulled the book closer. "Hadad, aka: Baal, hides in a bog for seven years to escape a group of monsters. He lies there sick until his brother comes to find him, but it doesn't say that he actually dies and wakes up from it."
"You think we're dealing Aliyan Baal?" Sam asked in shock that his brother had stumbled on something so relevant and yet so wrong.
"No, he doesn't wake up in water, according to the lore, but it's something," Dean answered. "He hides in water, and concurred the dangerous water, but he doesn't wake up in it. But there is a tie to the water and so the concept of resurrection by water isn't as unbelievable as we might have thought before."
"Does it say how to kill Aliyan Baal?" Sam asked.
"No," Dean answered and sighed and shut the book before him. "Still sounds like square one, but I'm optimistic."
"Which you never are," Sam accused as he sat down.
"I'm trying something different, just for you Sammy," Dean teased.
"Liar," Sam said.
"What do you want me to say?" Dean asked. "I mean, it seems like something, but not something that really merits all this work. If he's not hurting anyone, why do we care? Isn't it tugging at your heart strings, don't you just want to let the man live in peace? That's usually your argument, isn't it?"
"Sure, but aren't you curious?" Sam asked. "We have dealt with a whole hell of a lot in the time we've been hunting together, and this is something new. New is very rare in our line of work, wouldn't you say?"
"Yeah I guess," Dean nodded.
"Maybe we should just go to New York, find the guy and ask him what the hell is going on," Sam said as he slumped further into chair. "If we do that, at least we might have some direction because right now we have dies and wakes up in water."
"We've got nothing," Dean said as he stood, stretched and began to pace. "I'm invested now, so I don't wholly dislike the idea of heading to New York, I just don't like the idea of being in New York City."
"It goes against all the rules, I'll give you that, but I want to know," Sam said. "And at least give the guy the benefit of the doubt. What if he's been raised by angels and this story is completely false?"
"Then we'll have wasted our time," Dean huffed.
"Or we'll have given him hope by seeing us and knowing that we've been through the same thing," Sam offered.
"You're too good for your own good, you know that, right?" Dean asked.
"One of us has to be," Sam said with a smile. "And I make you better because of it. So, let's go to New York and if it turns out to be nothing, we'll see the sights and take a little break to enjoy it."
"But we just got home," Dean said. "Safe and sound, snug in the bat cave, and you want to leave again."
"You're trying to say that you want to just stay cooped up here waiting for something to fall in our laps? Here, this fell in our laps," Sam said and waved the paper again.
"All right fine; tomorrow morning we leave for NYC, to find Abe's Antiques, and speak to this Henry Morgan," Dean said and left the library to get ready. "But first, food, beer, then sleep."
"And we still have to repack the car," Sam said over his shoulder.
"Car's still packed from the last wild goose chase you took me on," Dean countered.
"We still need to clear out the day-old food and your dirty laundry," Sam retorted.
"You can handle that, can't you Sammy?" Dean asked sarcastically and rushed off to the kitchen.
"No one else is going to do it," Sam huffed under his breath and headed for the garage to deal with Dean's baby.