Chapter 8
Takin' Care of Business
Cas dozed off again after lunch, and though it would take them at most nine hours to drive the 450 miles to Davenport (if the traffic was exceptionally bad or they were ambushed), Dean didn't want to hang around any longer, partly because of the tension over Sam and Salim's totally insane plan and partly because neither he nor Sam wanted to be the one to put his foot down and tell Cas that they weren't going to risk his being unable to fight off whatever germs Pestilence might throw at him. The symbiotes were all the backup they needed for this job, and though Cas was recovering faster than they'd anticipated, they couldn't expect him to be completely back in fighting form by the next day if he was truly mostly human. So they bade Gabriel and Bobby farewell and left before Cas could wake up.
As the Impala pulled away from Bobby's house, Dean cranked up the radio and forced both himself and Dishon to put Detroit on the far back burner, letting the miles between Sioux Falls and Davenport ease away the anxiety he felt. Gabriel was right. Getting Pestilence had to be their top priority for the moment. They could worry about Detroit after Chicago, and they'd worry about Chicago after Davenport.
They were just outside of Cedar Falls when Daniel finally called back. "Jack said we can do the briefing by speakerphone as long as you'll let Col. Carter bring you the life-signs detector and explain how to use it," he reported
"Fair enough," Dean agreed. "We'll call you when we're at the motel."
Daniel's blink was almost audible. "You're already on the road?"
"Yeah, Bobby's house gets a little crowded with five people in it."
Sam shot him a grateful look at that.
Daniel didn't have any other news, except that Vala had given up on the nursing home's records and was pestering Mitchell about the possibility of hunting for any artifacts Crowley might have stashed at the house in Nevada. "We should send Castiel and Bobby with her if she goes," Dishon suggested.
Sam snickered, but Daniel thought it was worth considering.
"I wonder why they never gave us a life-signs detector before," Dean mused as he hung up.
Sam shrugged, but it was Salim who answered, "It is Ancient technology from Atlantis. The Tok'ra have never used them."
"Hey, Dishon," Sam said after taking back control, "I know Vala likes Bobby, but do you really think we should send Cas? She's more Dean's type."
Dishon chuckled. "All the more reason to send Castiel. He won't let her distract him from the mission."
Sam laughed again. "Good point."
"She will need protection. Crowley may have booby-trapped his hoard, and there may be other demons searching for it. And at the rate he is recovering, Castiel will need something to do tomorrow. If he believes himself incapable of aiding us..."
"You think he'll try to drink another liquor store?"
Dishon... Dean warned.
Dishon kept his eyes on the road, but his voice was grim. "You did not see him as Dean did in that alternate timeline, unable to cope with the loss of his power and the fact that his God and his brothers had abandoned him. Had he been fully mortal, the means he used to combat his despair would have killed him. That depression has already begun. We must not leave him to drown in it."
Dean relaxed as Dishon relinquished control. He hadn't told Sam much of what he'd seen in 2014, and the image of a stoned and apathetic Cas was one he definitely didn't want to reveal to anyone. Dishon's version explained their shared concern without giving away too many details.
Sam sighed and pulled out his cell phone. "Okay. You're right, there's really not much else he could do to help out tomorrow. And we don't need him coming after us, either. I hate feeling superior to an angel, but..."
"Cas ain't at the top of his game," Dean agreed. "But he's not gonna take it easy unless we make him."
Sam nodded and called Bobby.
Having reclaimed his usual clothes, Castiel was perched in a tree behind Bobby's house, staring morosely into the woods and not really looking at anything, and was halfway through a bottle of Jack Daniels when he felt the bottle disappear from his hands at the same time as the palm of a hand connected with the back of his head, jarring him back to alertness.
"And here I thought Dean had been a good influence on you," Gabriel grumbled, appearing next to him on the stout branch where he was seated.
Castiel sighed and slumped against the trunk of the tree. "Please go away, Gabriel."
"Nope. Not happening. Spill." The last command was accompanied by a gentle poke at his vessel's ribcage.
Castiel shook his head. "It is the eleventh hour, and I am useless."
"No, you're not."
"They left me, Gabriel."
"They left me, too, bro. And Bobby. And the squad of Marines Jack O'Neill was prepared to send with them."
"I ought to be able to help them."
Gabriel's hand landed on the back of Castiel's head again, but gently. And Castiel had a sudden vision of Sam and Dean in agony on the floor of the nursing home, slowly dying as Pestilence multiplied diseases in their bodies—and of himself, bursting through the door only to be struck down in the same way, barely managing to summon the strength to cut the ring from Pestilence's hand and kill the young demon who attacked him.
Gabriel pulled his hand away and ended the vision. "That's one way this could have gone without the Tok'ra," he explained as Castiel looked at him. "The most likely way, actually. You're already stronger than that in this reality, but you'd never be able to keep your vessel free from infection. And they don't want you to suffer any more than you already have."
"I'm an angel," Castiel countered, sounding more petulant than he meant to. "I'm not supposed to suffer at all."
"If you want to get technical, you're not supposed to be here, and neither are they, and neither am I. Right now there are a lot of 'not supposed to's that are. So are you gonna sit here and curse the darkness, or are you gonna go on this mission Sam just called Bobby about?"
Castiel blinked. "What mission?"
"Vala Mal Doran wants to hunt down Crowley's stash of ill-gotten goodies. Dishon thinks she needs some help. And tomorrow I'm going to be checking up on this lead we got from Skaara."
Castiel tried to consider this announcement and found that he was already more buzzed than he realized.
Gabriel huffed. "How did you get up here, anyway?"
"I flew... I think." Why was he already drunk?
Gabriel grabbed him by the back of the neck and flew both of them back to the bed that was now Castiel's. "Get some sleep, little brother," he ordered, changing Castiel's clothes back to the flannel pajamas he'd worn earlier and pushing him over onto the pillows. "You're gonna need it if you want to keep up with Vala."
"You think I should go?"
"I know you should go, and so does Dean. You won't do yourself any good hanging around here."
Castiel sighed and nodded and let Gabriel push him into a dreamless healing sleep.
Gabriel felt out the SGC's wards as he arrived with Bobby and a mildly hungover Castiel the next morning. "There's a vent on Level Twenty that someone missed," he informed Landry briefly before heading off to Carter's lab, chuckling at the startled face Landry had made.
"Hey, Gabriel!" Carter smiled brightly as he walked in, and O'Neill looked up from a device that looked like a Gameboy and nodded at him. "You're just in time to help me test the modifications I've made. It's a monochromatic screen, so I can't make it distinguish between angels and demons, but I think I've at least gotten it to register supernatural life signs as a different shape."
"Yep," O'Neill agreed, studying the screen. "Two circles for us, and a square for Gabriel. And another square in... the mess hall."
"I'm not a square!" Gabriel replied, pretending to be offended. "I'm very hip, thank you. It suits Castiel, though."
As intended, both humans laughed.
"Sam, the reason I came down here was to borrow a firewalled computer. To follow up on Skaara's hint, I need to send some emails with an encryption layer I don't want to risk on just any network."
Carter glanced at O'Neill, who shrugged, and nodded at Gabriel. "Sure. Come with me."
Not only did she come up with a firewalled laptop, she escorted him to VIP quarters and posted a guard with orders that Gabriel not be disturbed. Gabriel waited until she'd left before sending a bowl of blue Jell-O to her desk.
Emailing Ash was a tricky proposition. Not as tricky as trying to get in and out of Heaven again, of course—he wasn't stupid enough to think Michael and Raphael hadn't noticed the number of souls that had gone on that little jaunt on Thursday, and he didn't want to risk them catching him if he went back now—but not exactly the sort of thing even an archangel did every day, and certainly not the sort of thing he wanted advertised. But even though he couldn't hear much about Death's dealings amid the angelic chatter he was still privy to, a major catastrophe was bound to be a hot topic of conversation Upstairs, and Ash did have a scanner. So email it was.
And he didn't have to wait long for the reply:
noon monday - major storm, 3 mil dead, other natrl disasters tba
He let out a low whistle. Three million fatalities in one blow. Gabriel could just hear Dean cursing when he found out, and he wouldn't blame the guy. They hadn't killed that many people in the Flood, for crying out loud, and Dad had promised Noah that He'd never do that again.
Any idea where in Chi-town we should look? he wrote back.
sry, amigo, they dont tell me everything but rumor has it he wants 2 talk 2 dean - abdiel said something abt pizza?
Dean and Death facing off over Chicago-style pizza. Gabriel had to laugh—and then sent Ash a pizza of his own.
i aint sharing this w/abdiel
And that made Gabriel laugh even harder.
After handing off the life-signs detector and giving a brief explanation of the device to Dean while Sam studied the screen intently, Carter relayed Gabriel's minimal information about Chicago despite being distracted by the run-down motel room where the Winchesters were staying. She got the sense that this was the sort of place where they spent most of their time, had done since they were tiny, and she couldn't bear to think what kind of childhood they'd had. Her dad might have been a workaholic, but at least they'd had a house of their own.
"Monday," Dean repeated, gently banging the back of his head against the headboard of the bed where he was lounging. "Okay. Since we're this close, we should probably head that way tomorrow."
"Gen. O'Neill wants you at the SGC for the Atlantis check-in tomorrow morning," Carter noted. "And I think he'll insist that we get you a nicer hotel room than this."
The brothers exchanged a slightly embarrassed glance at that, and she could almost hear the Tok'ra expressing their displeasure with their surroundings. Not that Tok'ra tunnels were as luxurious as most Goa'uld preferred, but Spartan was still better than squalid.
Sam rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand. "Can we still choose our own aliases?"
Carter shrugged. "Don't see why not."
Dean sighed. "Okay. We'll call when we're done."
"Okay. Good luck." Carter activated her radio. "Carter to Hammond—all clear."
The last thing she heard before beaming out was Dean saying, "Hey, Sammy, lemme see that thing."
If flying was currently out of the question, Castiel decided, the Asgard transporter technology employed by the SGC's ships might be the next best thing. It wasn't completely comfortable, but at least it was almost instantaneous and not nearly as confining as traveling by automobile, and it didn't require any energy output from him. That, Col. Caldwell's obvious amusement at Castiel's pronouncement that he really did look like Samuel Campbell, and the momentary glimpse of Earth he had gotten from the bridge of the Daedalus had cheered him up no end.
It still hurt to have lost so much of his grace, but maybe being mostly mortal wouldn't be as hard as he'd feared.
Teal'c, who reminded Castiel of happier days when Uriel was still the funniest angel in the garrison rather than a cranky, human-hating traitor, was currently escorting Castiel, Bobby, and Vala through the house where Crowley had lived. Gabriel had apparently broken the Enochian wards when he first arrived, so Castiel had no trouble entering the house, but the demonic taint still lingered, and he found himself herding Bobby and Vala around the hellhound blood in the front hall before he realized that the stains should be dry by then. Vala murmured something about him being "such a gentleman" and smiled in a way Castiel supposed was an attempt at seduction, but a few uncomprehending blinks on his part convinced her not to continue.
He didn't quite know what to think of Vala. In some ways she reminded him of Dean, brash and amoral, fun-loving and flighty, but deeply wounded by both an absent father and her possession by Qetesh. Perhaps it was the fact that she wasn't from Earth that confused him... or maybe it was the fact that she cheerfully admitted to taking hostages simply to have something to do. Dean's means of relieving boredom didn't always meet with Castiel's approval, but at least they weren't that extreme.
Regardless, he was glad to have her with them, since he'd never had to search for a crossroads demon's cache of dealt goods before and she claimed to be an expert in locating hidden treasures. She made quick work of examining the house, declared that she'd been in more appealing ruins on completely dead worlds, and headed for the backyard, wondering idly on the way down the stairs from the second floor whether they'd be able to find and destroy Crowley's contracts while they were at it. "Not that it matters so much if time really is about to end, but I suppose it can't hurt to try..."
"It isn't that simple," Castiel replied. "There is no physical contract to destroy, and Crowley's authority as executor has assuredly passed to one of his lieutenants."
"But if it's not on paper, or a tablet or crystal or whatever, how do you sign it?"
"The agreement is sealed with a kiss."
He didn't have to read Bobby's mind to understand the fleeting look of revulsion that crossed the older hunter's face; he'd been trying to wake up when Gabriel and Bobby had discussed Crowley's jaunt to Sioux Falls. Teal'c's raised eyebrow showed that he was thinking the same thing.
"Bet he took pictures, too," Bobby grumbled.
Castiel couldn't help feeling amused at that. "For unusual cases, undoubtedly so."
"Indeed," said Teal'c.
Vala shot each of them a confused look, but when no elaboration was forthcoming, she shrugged and started toward the back door. But as soon as she touched the knob, Castiel sensed that something was wrong.
"Wait," he commanded, and Vala jumped back, wide-eyed, as if she'd been burned.
"Somethin' out there, Cas?" Bobby frowned.
"I'm not sure." Castiel strode forward and put a hand on the door, stretching his senses as far as he was able. "Nothing living or undead that would harm us," he reported, "but there is... something. Wait here."
Vala objected, but Castiel didn't even listen to what she said. Indeed, so intent was he on getting outside to investigate that he almost forgot that he needed to open the door before he walked through it. Bobby coughed politely just in time to save him from an embarrassing collision.
Castiel had half expected Crowley's hellhound to be guarding his master's cache, to be honest, and it was a relief to be wrong about that. But he still sensed something... off. Not just wards, but something actively dangerous. He couldn't see whatever it was, though, so it took a good five minutes of closing his eyes and following his other remaining extra-human senses to be able to pinpoint the source. Once he did locate it, he stooped and touched the ground to place a ring of fire around the perimeter of the area where Crowley had laid an elaborate trap. Then he went back to the house.
Vala looked unsettled. "Well! Good job we let you go first. I shouldn't have liked getting caught in that fire."
"The fire was my doing," Castiel explained. "I had no other way to mark the location of the trap."
"Do you know how to bypass it?" Bobby asked.
Castiel shook his head. "I can't even see it. I am simply aware of its presence."
"That's still something," Vala shrugged. "If there's a trap, it must be guarding something valuable, right?"
"That is a logical conclusion," Teal'c replied. "It is a single trap that does not encompass a large enough area to be effective against anyone trying to enter the house. Crowley appeared to believe that the wards he had placed upon the house were sufficient to keep his enemies at bay."
"They would have been," Castiel agreed with a slight smile, "if Gabriel had not broken the wards against angels."
Teal'c answered with a slight smile of his own. "Indeed."
Bobby muttered something about Vulcans, and Teal'c's smile grew as he chuckled. It hardly seemed fair that the Jaffa understood more pop culture references than Castiel did, but then, Teal'c had lived among the humans of Earth for eleven years or so longer than Castiel had. He made a mental note to ask Teal'c what a DeLorean was, since Dean never had explained that one to him.
Vala clapped her hands once. "So! Goodies hidden under invisible trap that's probably lethal to humans and angels both. What do we do now?"
Castiel, Teal'c, and Bobby exchanged a look, but before any of them could voice the thought, they were interrupted by:
"Therrre's no need to fear, Unnnnderdog is here!"
"Hello, Gabriel," Castiel and Bobby chorused flatly.
Vala looked confused. "I didn't know angels went to the movies."
Gabriel scoffed. "Don't insult me. The cartoon was way better."
"There's a cartoon?"
Gabriel started to laugh incredulously, then caught himself and shook his head. "I forget you're not from Earth, sorry. Yeah, it was a great cartoon, about forty years ago. You should check it out sometime—after all this is over, I mean." He turned and clapped Castiel on the shoulder. "So, little brother, I take it you found something?"
"Yes." Castiel pointed to the fire-ringed trap.
"Hum. Haven't seen that sort of thing for a few millennia. But I think... yeah." He snapped his fingers, and a fireball erupted from within the circle. Another snap, and a small cloudburst put out both fires. Gabriel sighed contentedly.
Vala muttered something about Marines and explosions, which made Gabriel and Teal'c chuckle.
"We good to go now?" Bobby asked.
"Let's see." Gabriel led the way back to the trapped site, which was still smoldering, and fanned away the smoke with his wings while he checked for further traps. Castiel sensed one a second before Gabriel snapped his fingers again and broke it. A third layer of sigils surfaced, some of them visible even to Castiel, and Gabriel paused, considering.
"What's wrong?" asked Vala.
"If this layer's broken, it summons a hellhound." Gabriel drummed his fingers against his chin thoughtfully before turning to Castiel. "Think you can shield them long enough for me to take care of the hound?"
Much as he wanted to say yes, Castiel didn't think he could handle shielding three people at the moment. "Perhaps we should fall back to the house," he suggested. "I can renew the wards while Bobby and Teal'c set salt lines."
Gabriel nodded and waved his hand in dismissal, and suddenly the rest of the group was in the kitchen. Bobby found the box of salt in the pantry and headed for the back door while Castiel pressed his right hand against the kitchen wall, searching out and repairing the wards placed by Crowley and adding a few of his own using Enochian incantations.
Vala shivered prettily as he backed away from the wall. "I felt that. Can you teach me how it's done?"
Castiel frowned. "Such knowledge was not intended for humans."
She pouted. "Gabriel gave Daniel an exorcism."
"That's different. The placing of wards requires power beyond human capabilities." In fact, even the few wards he'd just placed had taken more of a toll on his weakened grace than he'd expected. But he wasn't about to tell Vala, of all people, that he was tired; she seemed to be building up to an inappropriate suggestion as it was.
Bobby cleared his throat loudly, and Castiel turned to him with relief he hoped was not too obvious. "We're set. Teal'c's just finished salting the front of the house."
Castiel nodded and went to a window that overlooked the yard. Gabriel was watching the house, so Castiel was able to catch his eye right away and nod. Gabriel nodded back and returned his attention to the trapped area. Even at a distance, Castiel was able to feel the trap break.
Then the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end when the hellhound bayed in the distance, and he wondered idly if all humans reacted so strongly to the voice of the hounds or if the sensations he felt would be shared only by someone like Dean who had also done battle with and been injured (or in Dean's case, killed) by them. Part of his question was answered when Vala pressed herself against his side; she may have been playing up to him in some ways in a further attempt at seduction, but the fear he sensed in her mind was genuine.
So, swallowing hard, he tentatively put an arm around her shoulders. "We are safe here. The hound will attack Gabriel first in any case, and he will kill it before it can attempt to enter the house."
"I had wondered if we ought to catch it instead," Vala confessed hoarsely. "Might be worth a fortune on another world, you know? But, ah... that doesn't sound like an animal I care to meet."
Castiel murmured an Enochian spell that would allow them both to see the hound as it crossed the property line, and Vala gasped and shuddered. There was no pretense now as she clung to him, and his arm tightened protectively around her shoulders. "We are safe," he repeated. "Fear not."
He could almost hear Bobby roll his eyes behind them, but at the moment, he didn't care. Vala genuinely needed him.
"Watch now," he instructed her, and they watched as Gabriel's sword appeared in his hand and effortlessly severed the hound's head. They waited for a few more tense moments before it was clear that no other hounds were coming. Gabriel then set the remains ablaze, cleaned his sword, and gave Castiel a thumbs-up.
"All clear," Castiel reported. "Let's go see what Crowley was hiding."
Vala took a deep breath and released Castiel as she cleared her throat and tugged at the hem of her tunic to straighten it, suddenly embarrassed. "Sorry, boys... stupid of me, cowering like a little girl."
Confused, Castiel frowned. "Hellhounds are dangerous. Had we not been with you, you would have died."
"Yes, well..." She took another deep breath and flounced out the door, calling to Gabriel with her accustomed brazen cheerfulness.
"Women," Bobby muttered and followed.
"Vala Mal Doran is unused to displaying such weakness in the company of other warriors," Teal'c explained with an amused smile.
Oh. "Dean is like that," Castiel nodded.
Teal'c's smile grew, and he followed Castiel into the yard, where Bobby had apparently insisted on doing the digging, probably with liberal use of the term "idjit," if past experience and Gabriel's laughter were accurate guides.
"I'll let you guys get on with it," Gabriel was saying.
"Bring us some curse boxes, would you?" Bobby asked.
"Sure. Have fun, Castiel," Gabriel added with a wink and left.
It took Bobby only a few minutes to uncover the large metal box that held Crowley's cache. Castiel took another minute to study the lid and determine the word of command needed to unlock it. But they were all stunned when Bobby opened the lid and revealed that the item on top was a rusty hand scythe that only Castiel recognized.
"How did he get this?" Castiel wondered, carefully removing it from the box.
"Why would he want it?" Vala asked, wrinkling her nose.
"This scythe belongs to the Horseman Death. It is rumored to kill anything. But the last time I saw it, Alastair was using it to kill Reapers. He still had it when we captured him."
"Uriel must have given it back to him when he escaped," Gabriel replied, having just returned with his arms full of curse boxes. "Alastair probably gave it to Crowley for safe keeping before he came back to the warehouse."
Castiel studied the scythe for a moment longer, rubbing absently at a patch of something that probably wasn't rust. Then he sighed. "I should give this to Dean."
In the end, Sam thought afterward, the actual hunt for the Horsemen's rings was far easier than perhaps it should have been. The briefing Saturday night lasted all of five minutes, after which Carter remotely uploaded the nursing home's layout to the life-signs detector and informed them where an abnormally strong life sign was. They grabbed shotguns, hand devices, and cloaking devices and went in as invisibly as possible, deliberately passed a minor demon possessing a nurse and followed her to Pestilence, and dispatched both demon and Horseman inside of a minute before Pestilence could unleash a deadly wave of disease through the building. Carter spent Saturday night configuring the Hammond's sensors to be able to track Death on the basis of the readings she'd gotten from Pestilence.
Sunday morning the Winchesters collected their team and Death's scythe from the SGC and found out from Atlantis that Teyla had insisted on warding the Gateroom; she'd had McKay and Zelenka paint a Key of Solomon under the Gate while she, Ronon, and Sheppard installed iron plates in the thresholds of the doors and under the stairs to the control room. The angels approved, and Bobby promised to send more information in the next data burst. Beckett also reported that the Croatoan vaccine might be ready to manufacture inside of a week if he and Todd could iron out a few last kinks in the serum they were cobbling together from various alien sources. And Sunday night found Team Free Will settled in a suite at a three-star Chicago hotel and arguing over the best course of action regarding Death.
By the time the Hammond traced Death's location Monday morning, Dean had convinced everyone else to let him go in alone. So Sam, Bobby, Gabriel, and Cas waited in the car, Sam staring nervously at the life-signs detector and Bobby staring nervously at the sky, while Dean walked into the Rinascita Pizzeria with Death's scythe and came out ten minutes later with Death's ring and a vow never to eat Chicago-style pizza again. The storm that blew through during that time was no worse than a summer squall in South Texas. And they made their report to the SGC and went back to Sioux Falls.
But Dean refused to tell Sam what Death had said. He talked with Bobby for a while on Tuesday, and Sam caught him playing with the rings every so often, but beyond admitting that he knew how to open the cage, he wouldn't talk about Chicago at all.
Let be, Salim advised the one time Sam considered pestering Dean to spill the beans. You know he will tell you in his own time.
Annoyingly, Salim was usually right. Sam left Dean alone.
A few days later, Sam was surprised to walk into the living room and find Dean on the floor by the fireplace, deep in kel'no'reem, while Cas sat in the easy chair watching over him with an air of curious concern. Sam nodded to Cas and passed into the kitchen as quietly as possible, retrieved a beer, and went out the back door to sit on the hood of the Impala for a while, just to get some fresh air and not think about Detroit for a while.
Maybe an hour later, he heard Dean come up from behind the car, open a beer of his own, and lean against the front passenger door with a barely audible sigh. Sam glanced around in acknowledgment, but Dean didn't look at him, so Sam sat forward in concern.
"Dean?"
Dean still didn't meet his eyes, but he said the two words Sam had half hoped, half dreaded, but never truly expected to hear:
"I'm in."
.
A/N: I haven't been able to find a good estimate of the number of people killed in the Flood, but considering that neither canon adheres to a young-earth creationist view to begin with, I have no reason to assume that Gabriel's reaction to Ash's first email is inaccurate for this AU.
One chapter to go in this installment. Thanks to everyone who's reviewed, favorited, etc.!
