Chapter 21 On A Field of Gold
Brookhaven, Atlanta, Georgia
Lucifer sat in the golden chair in the long white marble hall, looking out through the line of French doors to the garden, his face smooth and expressionless as Clarence finished his briefing.
The silence stretched out in the chill room, and Clarence wondered if he should say something else, or genuflect and back out of the room, when the devil turned his vessel's head to look at him.
"Thank you … it's Clarence, isn't it?" he asked, dropping his chin into his hand as he stared at the man.
Clarence nodded uncomfortably, his gaze shifting to one side. The face, the hazel eyes, seemed to be that of a young man, but the expression in them was old. And calculating.
"And the army left six days ago?"
"That's what they said, sir," Clarence confirmed. It'd seemed like an easy job, a simple way to gain some advantage over the other free civilians in the city, to get power, began to climb up the tiers of hierarchy near the head. He wasn't so sure now that it had been a good idea to put his hand up. The man sitting in front of him was frightening. A good deal more frightening than he'd imagined.
"Yes, nearly two thousand of them, marching down here to fight me," Lucifer mused. Inside, he could feel Sam's agitation, his fear. "And Winchester holds the Spear of Destiny."
"Yes, sir," Clarence said. "They said it came from an island, in the Atlantic."
Lucifer nodded, smiling a little as he thought of the location. The Litteris Hominae, without a doubt. They'd short-circuited more than one of his plans in the long struggle to break free. Had killed Abaddon, of all things. Still … omelettes and all that.
"You know what really astounds me about your species, Clarence?" he said, tilting his head to look up at the engraved ceiling.
Clarence wasn't sure if he should answer or not. Lucifer didn't seem to be paying attention to him.
"It's your utter lack of principle and … loyalty," the devil said slowly, gesturing around the room. "I mean, most of the population – globally – has been wiped out. The few who survived have been possessed and tortured, chained and forced to labour on my projects, and yet, there are still those of you who will volunteer to gather the information I need to wipe out those who are free and fighting me."
He lowered his gaze to the man standing in front of him. Clarence swallowed.
"I once believed that the demons were worse, with their thirst for pain and their delight in dipping their hands in the blood of others, but lately, I've had to revise that opinion," he said. "You see, I made the demons what they are. I twisted and tortured their souls, burned out everything that had shone in them. But you – and those like you – my Father made you." He looked out through the glass doors. "Made you with His own pure divine spark and gave you the ability to choose."
Clarence took a step backwards. Lucifer looked back at him.
"And you choose to do evil to each other. Actually, deliberately, choose it, under no duress and with no constraint."
He snapped his fingers and the man turned to dust, retaining the living shape for a second before collapsing into a pile on the floor.
He looked up at the ceiling again. "Now, why is it alright for them to choose but not for me?"
Sighing deeply, he got to his feet. You see, Sam, what your beloved people are like?
Two demons materialised by the door as he looked for them.
"Give the pilots the co-ordinates," he told them. "I don't want anything left up there when they've finished."
The demons nodded and disappeared. Lucifer walked to the doors that led to the garden. Jacksonville to Michigan at Mach two point five, come on Sammy, you do the math. They'd be there just as the sun was coming up and won't Dean's friends get a hell of a surprise with their morning coffee?
He could feel his vessel's brother, somewhere around. Couldn't see him or the army he'd led down from the north but he could feel them. He stopped as he opened the glass-paned door to the stone terrace, turning abruptly and slamming it closed behind him as he walked down the hall. There were three areas of vulnerability in the city, but the first, and the most important to him right now, was the little Baptist church in East Atlanta.
Loring Heights, Atlanta
The rumble of the diesel trucks, a long line curving around the edges of the narrow asphalt road, echoed over the water and bounced from the hill one side and the concrete buildings that lined the reservoir on the other.
Rob looked up as Paul climbed the side of the truck to perch next to him.
"Should've been fire-fighters," the dark-haired man said with a grin. "All we seem to be doing lately is filling these trucks."
Rob nodded, watching the gauge on the tanks. "How's Gideon doing?"
"Blessing away like an old Testament prophet," Paul said. "You think God's gonna listen to his prayers?"
The gauge read full and Rob uncoupled the fitting, lifting the hose from the filler hole and waving at the men who were manning the pump.
"I think we have to keep some kind of hope, Paul," he said, handing the heavy, reinforced hose line to the men standing below them. "Hope that we've got help."
Paul nodded and climbed down the side, Rob following him as the driver put the truck into first and began to move away. The second truck in the long line pulled up next to them and they climbed up the shiny side of the tanker, Paul moving to check the truck's onboard pump, as Rob took the hose and screwed it into the thread of the hole.
At the other end of the road, Maurice checked the tank gauges and climbed up beside the driver.
"Down to the airport, Emmett and Max are waiting for you, Pete," he said, glancing across at the woman sitting beside the driver. "Make sure that you stick to the western side of the city, Sue, the 139, any sign of activity and move to the back streets."
She nodded and Maurice turned and jumped down. He nodded to the four who were sitting on top of the tanker, close by the hoses, and turned away to wait for the next truck to move up to him.
On the other side of the reservoir, Rona directed another line of fire trucks and tankers eastward, to the industrial area south-east of the city.
"Go east until you're past the Botanical Garden and stay on Moreland until you get to Perimeter, okay?" She looked at Gary, one brow raised.
"Got it," Gary confirmed.
"You've got four on the deck so no wild evasions, let them do their job if anything comes at you."
"Right," he nodded. "See you on the refill."
She gave him a slight smile. There wouldn't be any refills, at least not up here. They had eighty trucks, from every town they'd been able to scrounge them along the way and the fire stations in the city itself. Two groups of slaves to be freed and armed, a hellgate to keep locked up tight, a demon army scattered across the city … the trucks would be a small but vital part of getting through and getting the enemy's numbers reduced as fast as possible, then they'd be abandoned.
Maggie stood beside Pastor Gideon on the narrow causeway between the two reservoirs.
"Lord God almighty," Pastor Gideon said quietly, "Creator of all life, of body and soul, we ask you to bless this water." He made the sign of the cross above the reservoir, and pressed the rosary in his hand against his lips. "As we use it in faith, forgive our sins and save us from all illness and the power of evil. Lord, in your mercy give us living water, always springing up as a fountain of salvation: free us, body and soul, from every danger, and admit us to your presence in purity of heart. Grant this through Christ, our Lord." Tossing the rosary into the water, he felt something pass through him, a sigh or a breath. He closed his eyes.
"Is that it, padre?" she asked, looking down at the rosary as it vanished beneath the surface of the water.
He nodded. "It's all I can do," he said, looking at the smooth surface. He'd blessed the salt that had gone into the loaded shotgun rounds as well. Better too much than too little.
"Let's get going then," Maggie said, slinging her gun over her shoulder. "We'll need you at the gate as well."
Nodding, he followed her to the line of vehicles. From the moment he'd realised that Leah was no longer his daughter, he'd found himself wrestling with the questions of his faith. Belief he had plenty of … watching life return to the blackened and charred soil of the camps, watching hope returning to the people who lived there, he couldn't doubt that they were being protected. But for himself, it was another matter. God tests us all, he thought bleakly. In whatever ways He must. But that test had been too much.
College Park, Atlanta
Max leaned against the side of the building, binoculars against her eyes, moving the glasses incrementally over the wide runways and taxi strips between them and the terminals on the other side of the airport.
"Talk to me," Emmett said from beside her, his eyes narrowed as he looked across in the same direction.
"Fifty or sixty," she said softly. "Probably more inside."
"Can we use the sprinklers?"
"Yeah, I think so," she said, shifting the glasses to the rooflines. "At least on the main terminal." She lowered the glasses and flicked a look at him. "We'll need a diversion."
He nodded. "Tankers should be here in about twenty minutes," he said, looking at his watch. "Front assault and draw them out, four for the roof tanks and two to get inside to set them off."
"We've got ten bombs, that's it," Max reminded him. "So if we're gonna use them, it should be for maximum damage."
"I'll take the front," he said, looking at the way the buildings were laid out. "Colin, Martin, Danielle and Rudy can take the tank. You and Josh are on the inside."
She nodded, tucking the binoculars back into the small bag at her side.
Emmett reached out, his hand closing her arm. "Nothing heroic, Max. Just get the sprinklers on and wait for the cavalry, alright?"
Max looked up at him in surprise, nodding after a moment as she saw a flicker of something in his eyes. Something that hadn't been between them before.
Emmett stood on the running board of the first of the water tankers, looking around the vehicles and the people he was leading. He had ten tankers and a dozen Army trucks, mounted with machine guns. Franklin had reloaded the cartridges, the 50mm bullets holding a mixture of blessed salt and powder and each engraved with the binding sigils that would hold their targets in the meatsuits with every penetration. Once the bodies were burned, the demons would be in limbo, unable to reform or escape from the ashes that would be all that remained.
The people he was leading were inexperienced, he thought uneasily. Inexperienced in fighting anything. And demons didn't just attack the flesh when they fought. They attacked the mind as well. He hoped everyone would stay calm, focus on what they needed to do. He wasn't betting they would, though.
He tapped the throat mike that lay against his larynx. "Alright people, time to go … we're goin' in full throttle, full volume, we want max confusion. You see anything that isn't on one of our vehicles and you hit it full power and knock it down!"
He banged his palm on the roof of the tanker and Greg hit the play button on the cab's stereo, shifting the truck into gear and changing up as they gained speed across the concrete runway. Emmett swung around to the ladder that went up the side of the water tank, climbing to the top and taking the hose end from Annie as the pounding bass notes vibrated through the frame under his feet. Behind them, every vehicle was moving, gaining speed, the stereos cranked up as loud as they would go, the music, mostly rock from the era when it had reigned supreme over the airwaves, a cacophonous roar, drowning out the engines and the yelling and shouting of the people who rode them.
And the demons poured out of the terminals, running this way and that, eyes black, lips drawn back in soulless grimaces as they realised they were under attack.
Emmett's truck swung around in a big circle in front of Arrivals, and the hunter and the four civilians clinging onto the top of the tanker braced themselves as the compressor kicked in and the water sprayed in a high pressure stream over the leading edge of hellspawn running to them, their movements unconsciously in time with the furious beat of Still Unbroken. For a split second, as the tankers pulled around the demons in a semi circle and the gunners drew beads on their targets, there was an eerie harmony between the Rolling Stones, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Creedence, Zeppelin, The Who, Def Leppard, Floyd and the Eagles, a single note, in the different octaves, that formed a rising crescendo of accord. Then it vanished and the demons shrieked and howled and dropped as water blasts and machine gun fire ripped across their numbers.
Colin ran across the roof, doubled over below the gable line, hearing the soft thud behind him. He had the book of Common Prayer in one hand, the ebony rosary wrapped tightly around it, and his shotgun, loaded with blessed salt in the other, his eyes fixed to the tank at the far end. Even running, they could hardly hear their own noise, the music and screams, both agonised and triumphant, filling the airport and echoing from the metal and cinderblock walls, from the concrete and glass of the terminal buildings.
Pressed tight against the rear side of the terminal, Max bit her lip to keep from laughing as she watched the melee on the apron in front of the building. She could hear Emmett's voice, a whiskey-rough baritone, yelling out the words of the defiant song, in snatches over the roar of gunfire, the hiss of the pressurised hoses, the screams of the fallen. The demons were panic-stricken, running in every direction, trapped within the circle of gunfire and water, their skin steaming and bubbling and sloughing off as the holy water saturated them.
"Ready."
The single word sounded quietly in her earpiece, and she tapped the young man standing beside on the shoulder, taking a step back from the side door and jumping forward. Her booted foot hit the door precisely above and slightly to one side of the lock, and it burst free of the jamb, swinging inwards and hitting the wall.
Don't need to go too far in, Max thought, her eyes following the run of pipes along the ceiling of the long corridor. The first office had what she wanted, and she jumped smoothly to the top of the desk, lighter out and flame flickering under the petal-like metal protuberance. It took five seconds of steady heat and the sprinklers came on, soaking her and Josh, standing by the door and watching the corridor. Deeper inside the building, she heard screams and she dropped to the floor, tucking her lighter back in her pocket and swinging the barrel of her rifle up. She looked past Josh up the hall, and nodded, slipping out and running soundlessly through the misting water toward the interior of the terminal.
Smyrna, Atlanta, Georgia
Dean looked at the edge of the city that lay just beyond their position. He'd be splitting off from the rest here with Rufus and Cas, heading east to Brookhaven while Boze and Sean took the army to the hellgate at the corner of Cummings and Gibson, east of midtown.
Rufus walked over to him, handing him a headset. "Angus got the comms up. Time for us to get going."
Slipping the earpiece in, Dean shifted the throat mike on his neck and nodded. "Where's everyone at?"
"Emmett and Max got their tankers, they should be hitting the terminals by now," Rufus said, fiddling with the earpiece. "Maggie called in and said she and Gideon are on their way to East Atlanta. Boze is already there, a couple of blocks back from the gate. Franklin and Mel are waiting in the freight yards for the tankers to get there."
Dean glanced over his shoulder at Castiel. "You ready?"
The angel nodded, slinging a rifle over one shoulder, a green duffel over the other, straightening up and following Dean down the hill. He thought that the increased beating of his heart, the soft rush of fear through his veins meant that he was feeling fear. It was novel, yet unpleasant. He hoped uneasily it wasn't an indicative omen of the outcome of their endeavour.
Jacksonville, Florida
On the ribbon of smooth concrete, ten planes waited in the darkness. Around them the ground crew and pilots scurried, fuelling, loading the armaments, running the system and flight checks, the demons inside keeping a thread of control over the men, but not interfering with their knowledge or their skills.
"Target?" The wing leader looked at the man standing beside him.
"Michigan," the captain said tersely. "East Tawas, 44.28556°N, 83.48917°W . The camps are spread around it. We'll eyeball from there."
The pilot standing beside him looked up as the bombs were loading under the wings. The LGBs were heavy payloads for the fighter planes. Their deployment only meant one thing. "Leaving craters only?"
"Affirmative. No survivors. Orders are specific on that point."
"Enemy of the State?"
"Something like that," the captain said, looking at his plane. "Enough chatter, formation take off in T-minus ten minutes. Approximate ETA will be sixty-five minutes." He turned abruptly and walked to the first plane along the strip, climbing the short ladder and easing himself into the narrow cockpit. The hatch lowered over him and he looked over the instrumentation crowding the panels in front and to the sides, pulling his helmet from the hook beside the seat.
The upper limb of the sun broke over the flat horizon as the engines began to whistle, and the F-15C taxied slowly across the apron to the runway that ran north-south. Pushing the throttle forward, the captain watched the speed increase, ignoring the rush of the ground under him, the buildings that flashed by beside him. The nose lifted and the plane climbed into the wide expanse of silver sky, pink and gold light outlining the edges of the aircraft and the wispy streamers of cloud that stretched across the heavens northwards, pointing the way.
Forest Park, Atlanta
Mel glanced at the older man beside him, as Franklin muttered to himself.
"What?"
"Need something to let us get in without them attacking in the first five seconds," Franklin growled, staring at the two buildings that held the slaves. There had to be something. The tankers were there, and they could take care of anyone who tried to get outside but the buildings didn't have roof tanks for their sprinkler system, and he thought that if they just went in, guns blazing, it might end up as a massacre instead of a rescue.
"What about those?" Mel looked across the asphalt parking lot, eyes narrowing as he recognised the structures.
Franklin turned to follow his gaze, and a slow, reluctant smile creased his face.
"Yeah … I think they'll do nicely," he said, turning to look at the lean, ex-Marine. "I like the way you think."
Mel grinned self-consciously.
The necessary modifications took almost two hours. Mel glanced around as Franklin climbed down the last tower.
"How much extra juice did you route in?"
Franklin grinned humourlessly at him. "A lot. They'll last about three minutes I think, before they burn out, but they'll be brighter than the sun till they do."
"Is that enough time?"
"Have to be," the older man said prosaically. "We're gonna want a teeny diversion just before, to bring them to the front of the building."
He looked over the broad stretch of parking lot between the two buildings. "Maybe something along the lines of the Keystone Cops …"
Mel followed his gaze, thinking of the vehicles they had. Could work. "I'll go get some volunteers."
The demon looked around the interior of the terminal uneasily. It was well past time that the buses should've been here, loading up the meat. It wasn't just another work day. They were needed. The land lines were down, and that was more worrying since it didn't have an alternative means of communication with the chain of command.
They held more than sixteen hundred people here, in the two monstrous buildings that had once belonged to FedEx. Most of them were thin and pale, sores weeping from the chains that bound ankles and wrists, shadows in the hollows of their faces and in their eyes. For the past two years, they'd worked every day, taken out to clean the buildings of bodies and rubble, clean the streets and provide the muscle for the rebuilding. But today was different. Today the gate would be opened. It was an old gate, and it had been closed and sealed for a millennia. And it would need a lot of blood.
In the distance there was the sound of an engine, red-lining as it climbed through the gears. The demon frowned, walking over to the broad, plate-glass wall that constituted the front of the building, where once there'd been a showroom and offices. The engine got louder, the sound bouncing between metal walls as the car screamed around the corner of the building, a second low-to-the-ground car hot on its tail, the two of them spinning out in a cloud of white smoke as they reached the front, the turns too tight and the engines stalling on the missed gear change.
Four men struggled to get out of the vehicles as a bright red fire brigade water tanker roared around the corner, braking hard next to the cars, men and women crouched on the roof pulling out hoses and spraying them over the vehicles. The demon's eyes widened as the men from the two cars began to scream, dropping to the ground and rolling around the concrete. They'd been warned of this … Winchester's army coming into the city. It hadn't realised it would happen this soon.
"It's an attack!" it yelled, and the eyes of every demon in the building flicked to black as they surged toward the glass wall.
It wasn't sure what happened next. Perhaps half of the demon force inside the building had made it out through the doors, running for the tanker, slowing as another two tankers came around the other side of the building and water sprayed over them. The rest were close to the glass wall when the world was enveloped in a brilliant white light, blinding them completely.
From behind them, the doors on the other side of the warehouse burst open, men and women racing inside, closing the distance and trapping the demons against the glass. There was a soft whoompf noise inside the warehouse and an expanding light and then nothing.
Mel threw the second demon bomb down, catching a group in the corner, throwing his arm up over his face as the explosion lit up the corner like a magnesium flare. The light died and he saw the shadows, burned against the glass, burned into the glass, he thought, looking at it more closely. He heard the explosions outside, showers of sparks from the over-charged stadium lights that lined the parking lot and the softer whumps of the demon bombs and looked out, seeing the tankers hosing the few remaining demons together, the swing of Alicia's arm as she threw the last bomb into the centre of them.
"Bolt cutters! Need some bolt cutters here," Ray yelled, crouching near the slaves. The tools were passed around and the lengths of chain were cut and thrown aside.
Franklin walked into the building, shifting his bag higher onto his shoulder as he stopped in front of the people crowded at the back of the warehouse.
"Okay, folks, take a few deep breaths," he bellowed, looking around at them. "We're getting you out of here."
Vinings, Atlanta
The house was huge, set on an acre of gardens, and it was bare and empty. Dean walked through the rooms silently, aware that Rufus and Cas were prowling the levels above and below him, unable to hear them.
He looked at the smooth bare parquetry floor of the large living room thoughtfully. This would probably the best place. There were doors at either end and the curving breast of the chimney would give Cas a place to stand, not readily noticed. He whistled softly, a two-tone that penetrated through the silent rooms and set his duffel on the floor, pulling out the heavy ceramic bottle and easing the waxed wooden stopper from its neck, jerking his head back as the strong scent hit him.
Castiel took the holy oil from him as the angel walked into the room, moving around the centre of the floor in a perfect circle. He was glad to see that Cas was making it a big circle. He still wasn't sure he was going to have enough time to get out before the archangel grabbed him.
"So you call him, and he turns up, and we light the fire?" Rufus said, watching the angel finish the circle and lift the bottle.
"That's the plan," Dean said, staring at the floor. He could just make out the faint gleam of the viscous oil against the brighter polish of the parquetry.
"Well, it's simple, have to say that for it," Rufus said disparagingly. "What happens if he's faster than you?"
"He won't be," Dean said, his voice clipped. Everything they'd done, everything they'd fought for would be wasted if Michael was, he knew. The archangel would have the vessel he wanted and the battle of Armageddon would commence as destiny had dictated.
Rufus looked at him, seeing the tension in the younger man's neck and jaw. No guarantees, he thought wryly. Odds were bad, considering it was an angel they were talking about. But then, the nature of the opponent had never bothered the man he stood next to.
"Alrighty then," he said, inhaling deeply. "Let's get this show on the road."
Dean shifted the duffel back beside the door and walked into the circle, closing his eyes. Need some help here, he whispered to himself. He shunted the thought aside and straightened up, thinking about the archangel, the last time he'd seen him, in Adam's body, the way the light had flooded everything, the sound of the angel's voice drilling deep into his mind.
You hearing me, Michael?
The silence in the room was complete, yet he felt something, like a deep sigh.
"Yes," he said aloud. "You win. Yes."
Seconds ticked by and the silence around them stretched and deepened. Dean could hear his heart, thudding against his ribcage, could hear the soft hiss of his breath, as it travelled in and out of his lungs, could hear the slight creak in his knee as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
Light and sound came together in a blast wave, filling the room, piercing their minds. Rufus and Dean dropped to their knees, hands pressed tight over their ears, although the painful frequency wasn't so much heard as felt, oscillating through the bones and cavities of their skulls, and deeper, humming along the cells in their bodies. Eyes screwed shut, the light still penetrated, the pain of its brightness filling the hollow spaces in their heads, burning like fire along the exposed skin. Blood spattered on the bright parquetry floor as capillaries and veins swelled and began to leak.
From beside the chimney, Cas waited, feeling the blood trickling from his vessel's ears and the corners of Jimmy's eyes, ignoring it as he watched the circle with his angel's vision.
The noise ceased and the light faded and Adam, not quite Adam anymore, stood in the centre of the circle.
Dean shook his head and looked up as Cas strode to the circle and Rufus rolled over at the other end, feeling for his lighter and dropping the flame into the oil by touch.
Michael's hand snapped out and Dean threw himself backwards, feeling the fingers brush over his shoulder and close around the collar of his jacket. He pulled back hard, eeling his arms out, twisting around and dropping to roll across the flames as Michael stepped right to the edge, both breathing heavily at the closeness of the escape.
"Holding me here will only doom your world," Michael said slowly, looking at the circle surrounding him, eyes narrowing slightly as he saw Castiel standing on one side.
"Yeah, well, we'll see," Dean said, getting to his feet and looking at the archangel. "We can always let you out if Plan A fails."
"Plan A?" Michael said derisively. "You? Against Lucifer? With the Spear?"
"See you've been keeping up." Dean turned away and went to the duffel, drawing the wrapped bundle that held the two halves of the Spear.
"Lucifer will crush you, Spear or no Spear," Michael snapped.
"The Spear protects the bearer," Castiel said mildly. "You know that, Michael."
"It won't protect him." The archangel turned to look at the seraphim. "Not once he's toe to toe with him." He looked back at Dean. "You will be protected from his guards, from mishap and accident, but my brother will not stand there and let you stick that into him. He is an angel and you are just a mortal man!"
Ignoring the icy thread of doubt that trickled through him, Dean shrugged. "He'll be trapped."
"Like this?" Michael snorted derisively. "An arena to limit your options as well as his? Or do you think your brother can somehow gain the strength to wrestle control from his captor when he has failed to do so over all this time?" He inhaled deeply. "Or will you kill them both with the Spear, Dean? Can you do that? Kill your brother as well as mine for the good of the world and all who are left in it?"
Castiel looked across the circle of fire at the man, feeling his heart sink slightly as Dean's gaze cut away. It was the last resort, of course, if Sam couldn't fight Lucifer, couldn't get free. But seeing the doubt in his friend, he realised that Dean might not be able to do that either, at the very last.
"I didn't think so," Michael snarled, turning away. "Your worth was as my vessel, that's all. And even in that you are flawed – arrogant, stubborn, too filled with pride to save your world –"
"You wanna bandy semantics about pride?" Rufus cut in sourly as he climbed to his feet. "You should look to your own before you start blaming anyone else for what you've done."
"Silence, mortal!" Michael shouted, the deep, velvet baritone filling the room and shaking the walls. "I will not listen to the lies of a man."
"Not lies," Dean contradicted sharply, looking at him. "We wouldn't be here if someone on your team hadn't been arranging things to break Lucifer's cage."
Michael stared at him narrowly. "What are you talking about?"
"He's talking about the lines of Campbell and Winchester, Michael," Cas said quietly. "He's talking about the efforts that were made by Heaven to create two men to break the first and last seals. He's talking about conspiracy with Hell and angels working with demons and events manipulated to ensure the Lightbringer's release."
Michael spun around. "No."
"Yeah," Dean said. "So you better hope that I can kill your brother, because even when this is over, it's not over."
He walked from the room, carrying the wrapped bundle with him. Rufus glanced at Cas and followed him.
"What is he talking about?" Michael looked at Castiel.
"Raphael and Uriel, those two I'm certain of, probably others … there must be others," Castiel said wearily. "Someone gave the orders to join the lines of Araquiel and Azazel, Michael. Someone made sure that the brothers would be born. Would grow to manhood in a certain way. Trained. Versed in a life that would pit them against demonkind. Someone from Heaven."
"And you think I knew about this?"
Cas looked at him thoughtfully. "You are the commander of the Host, Michael. All Heaven is under your control. Are you saying that you didn't?"
The archangel twisted away, pacing around the circle. "Of course not! Release Lucifer? To what possible purpose? Who would be served by his release?"
"Raphael told us that angels who were with him were tired. They wanted Paradise."
"And they thought releasing the Morning Star would bring them that?"
"If you fought him, and cast him down again," Cas said. "It was thus written."
"That –" Michael shook his head. "That was a man's vision, not the will of Heaven!"
"That is what Raphael and the others hope for," the angel said with a shrug. "Humankind gone, peace on the Earth."
"They are wrong! There was never any plan to –" Michael cut himself off abruptly, stopping to look at Cas. "And you are wrong. About this plan, this attempt – Lucifer will kill him. Is that what you would have happen to the man you call your friend, Castiel?"
Cas looked away. "He has surprised me, he may surprise you."
He walked to the door, glancing back as he reached it. "Someone will be here to release you, when it is over."
Morning Star Baptist Church, East Atlanta
Boze sat in the cab of the truck, parked a little back from Gibson Street, staring up the road at the small brick and tile church that was less than a block from him.
"This is a hellgate?" he asked Sean disbelievingly. "Looks like my mamma's church in Akron."
Sean glanced past him and shrugged. "Not many regular churches have got bodyguards like that," he said, gesturing at the group standing on the pavement across from the church. All carried automatic weapons, and while they were too far away to see them, both men knew that all would have black eyes, corner to corner.
"Think the devil started getting antsy?"
"Looks like," Sean said. He glanced back over his shoulder. Their main force was a suburb away, parked under the leafy canopy on the other side of the freeway. "How many to clear the area?"
"What's the headcount?"
"Sixty outside, no idea what's inside."
"We'll bring eight of the tankers, two down each street. Flank 'em with a hundred on the ground. We can't afford to let one of those bastards get away and warn the boss."
Sean nodded, picking up the mike from the radio under the dash.
Boze listened to the other man call in the orders quietly, chewing on the inside of his cheek as he stared down the quiet street. He would've preferred to wait for Emmett and Franklin to get here, but he couldn't. They had to take the gate and hold it. They couldn't risk it being opened, letting more of the hellspawn onto this plane.
He looked around as he heard the deep rumble of diesel engines coming from the north.
"What the hell –" Straightening in the seat, he leaned out the window. Coming up the street were buses, dozens of them. His brows drew together tightly as he saw that they were filled with people.
"Sean, get everyone here, now," he said to the hunter sharply. "We're out of time."
The first bus pulled up in front of the little church, the doors opening and the people filling it pushed out onto the sidewalk. Several demons emerged from the dim interior of the building through the double doors, coming down the long ramp and harrying the civilians up and back inside.
Boze watched them anxiously. Sixty-odd, he noted, mostly women and kids, all of them hunched up and frightened-looking. He heard the deeper growl of the tankers, approaching along the side streets, under the rumble of the bus engines, and breathed a sigh of relief, turning to Sean.
"As soon as they're in range, tell 'em to hit the buses hard with the water and block them off," he said quickly. "They'll use the civilians as shields if we give them –"
The volley of gunfire was sudden and shocking, coming from the interior of the church. Boze's head snapped around, seeing the second busload of people freezing on the sidewalk in front of the ramp, trying to back away, turning to run or get back on the bus, and every demon on the street brought up a weapon, the guns chattering as they mowed down several on the church's lawn, bright red blood vivid as it pooled across the grass.
The hunter shoved the tanker into gear, his face stony as he swung out of the cross-street, past the waiting line of buses, heading for the side of the church. The heavy vehicle lurched to one side as he hit the brakes, driving it up onto the grassy verge next to the ramp, hitting the switch for the compressor as he swung out of the cab. The M16 stock was hard against his shoulder and he fired at the demons who were being knocked off their feet by the high-pressure hoses from the top of the tanker, the steady shots hitting them one by one.
From each of the cross-streets in the straight-grid neighbourhood, tankers and Army trucks rumbled into the street, followed by hundreds of people on foot, blocking off the buses, hoses pumping streams of holy water, angry, hard faces lit by muzzle flashes, the thunder of automatic fire and screams filling the air.
Jocelyn dropped from her truck, racing to the rear of the bus and firing a single shot into the lock of the rear emergency exit. She yanked at the door, lifting it clear and yelling to the passengers to come out. Behind her, Gary picked off a demon who ran around the corner of the bus, the meatsuit it was wearing dropping to the ground as the binding sigil trapped the demon inside.
Sue screamed, staggering backwards along the roof of the tanker, the hose lifting high into the air as four deep slashes appeared across her abdomen, her jacket and shirt in pieces, her blood staining the edges. Miles caught her hand before she fell, snatching the hose from her fingers as he pushed her down beneath him and turned the hose on the demon standing and grinning on the porch of the house next to them. The water knocked it off its feet, and Tom fired, a dozen bullets stitched across its chest as it struggled to rise, leaving a line of dark holes.
"Hu-ah!" the man shouted, swinging the barrel to take another as it came from the cross-street. "Bring it on!"
The thud of running feet drowned out even the gunfire as the army of the camps came down the streets, racing toward the church and buses. At the church ramp, Boze fought his way up against the demons blocking the way, held pinned to the brick walls by the steady pressure of the holy water, or down on the ground, locked into the bodies of the possessed, dozens of black holes leaking red onto the concrete, diluted and washed away even as it ran out of them.
The bomb was in his hand as he crossed the threshold, tucking and rolling fast inside, the slender bottle rising in the air, fuse flaring brightly. It exploded and he rolled to one side, arm thrown over his face. When he came to his feet, there was no more movement in the church, just the pile of bodies in front of the altar and dozens of black shadows burned into the walls and the stained glass windows.
He looked around the interior and saw it, a flickering reddish light coming from the entrance in the floor to one of the altar. How far did the gate reach for blood, he wondered? People were dying, outside, down the street … perhaps not the thousands that Lucifer wanted to sacrifice here but still enough to have cracked the seal on the damned thing.
Walking to the window nearest the trapdoor, he reversed his gun and smashed through it, waving at Sean.
"Need the water in here, fast!" he yelled, stepping back as Sean turned the hose around and the hose pumped its load in through the broken window and over the floor, the holy water running down into the hole. The light paled further.
Need Gideon, he suddenly thought.
Interchange I-85, I-75, Atlanta
The two long convoys stopped at the interchange, and Emmett leaned out of his window to look at Franklin.
"How many you got?"
"Something over fifteen hundred, I think," Franklin shouted back, over the noise of the engine. "Sean got through – they're at the gate and they need reinforcements."
Emmett nodded. "We'll take the gate, get the civilians over to the stadium."
"You're not taking them?"
"Gate needs blood to open, best if there aren't too many dying around it."
Franklin shifted into gear, pulling out and taking the exit to the right, the sign above it directing the off-flow to Atlanta's downtown business district and the Field of Gold sporting stadium.
Brookhaven, Atlanta
"Keep him busy," Rufus said softly, as they dropped to the base of the high stone perimeter wall. "We'll go around."
Dean nodded, unwrapping the slender haft of the Spear and fitting the two ends together, twisting and pushing and hearing the faint tock of the locking mechanism within the haft. Michael's words rang around in his head and he pushed them away with an effort. All he had to do was to get the sonofabitch into the circle and Sam would have a chance, he told himself.
The garden. It led straight to the hall. It would be where the devil would be. The odd sense of certainty made him shiver. He walked around the house, keeping to the shadows of the trees. On this side of the house, the shadows lay long from the high walls, and the air seemed murky, the shapes of the trees and shrubs indistinct and uncertain.
He stopped at the edge of the tree-line when the gardens drew back, opening into a wide stretch of emerald-green lawn. A gazebo stood close to the house, almost invisible under its heavy burden of rampant foliage, and he saw the line of glass-paned doors, the stone terrace with its shallow, wide steps leading up to them.
Nothing moved in the sunlit space. He couldn't hear anything, not a bird or insect, no voice or sound penetrated the deep silence of the garden. He should have been able to hear something, he thought nervously, looking around again, his gaze scanning the woods that curved to his left, the windows of the house in front of him.
There was nothing. It was empty. He took a step out of the shadows, and felt the sunlight on his face. Another step took him onto the smooth green grass.
"You made it."
The voice was behind and to one side of him and he spun around. There was no one there.
"Not going to be so easy, is it, Dean?"
Turning fast, the Spear whistling high as he raised it, he saw him – Sam – not Sam – Lucifer – the devil … standing in the middle of the lawn, tall, broad-shouldered frame in a crisp, perfectly-tailored, white suit, smiling at him.
"The Spear of Destiny," he continued, looking at it. "You want to know who put out the rumours that it was the only thing that could kill me, Dean? Me." He laughed at the way the man's face hardened. "Seemed like a good move at the time, I mean, look at it, you could hardly kill a bunny with that little thing."
Bluffing, Dean told himself firmly. B'rer Rabbit in a white suit.
"In that case, you don't have anything to worry about, do you?" he said, relieved that his voice was steady.
"Oh, I've got plenty to worry about," Lucifer said. "And so do you. Michael's going to be here pretty soon, and when he sees you, he'll be wearing you so fast your head'll spin."
Dean walked toward him slowly, the Spear's tip extended. He watched his brother's – not Sam! – face, seeing the faintest movement of the muscle under his eye as he got closer. The tells were the same, even though the personality, the timbre and syntax of the voice were not. Lucifer moved more sinuously than Sam had, more relaxed in the vessel than its soul had been. But his expressions, the way he used the body, they were ingrained with years and years of Sam and they wouldn't disappear so quickly.
"Not if I ram this through your heart first," Dean suggested.
"And kill Sam?" Lucifer smiled. "I don't think you can, Dean."
He shifted his feet a little further back as Dean got closer, smiling again. "You've been difficult to keep track of."
Change the subject as much as you like, Dean thought. You're going nowhere but down.
"I told your brother I wasn't going to kill you, wasn't going to hurt you," Lucifer continued, taking another step back. "But everything you've been up to over the last couple of years, well … it was a deal-breaker, I'm afraid. You can understand that."
From the corner of his eye, as he kept his gaze on the devil, he saw a movement beyond the glass doors and felt a tiny loosening of the tension that was making his neck ache. They were in.
"Sam didn't tell you I wouldn't be hiding out and sitting around while you destroyed the world?"
Lucifer snorted as he turned and walked up the terrace steps. "I didn't destroy the world, Dean. I've just been … pruning the weeds."
Dean stopped at the bottom of the steps, watching the angel as he opened the door to the hall. His alarms were going off but he couldn't see a reason for it. He followed Lucifer across the terrace and through the door.
The hall was curiously shadowed, considering the sunlight coming in through the doors to the north. Dean slowed as his eyes adjusted to the contrast between the brightly lit squares on the white floor and the reflecting columns beyond the glass doors, and the shadows that seemed to fill the other side of the long room, thickening under the high, vaulted ceiling.
"You shouldn't have come, Dean," Lucifer said softly, turning around to face him.
"You don't have as much as control over Sam as you thought," Dean countered, stepping out of the light and lifting the Spear head.
"That all changes now," Lucifer said, his agreement unspoken but there. "Watching you die will be the last thing Sam sees before I lock him down forever."
Dean backed into the open room, moving between the columns. "What are you waiting for?"
Lucifer followed him across the room. "I was surprised by Sam's feelings about you, Dean."
"Yeah?" Dean felt his foot slide fractionally along the floor, careful to lift his boot up higher as he took another step back.
"All that blustering about the great brotherly bond you two have," Lucifer said slowly. "And it turns out that it's not such a great feeling after all. I mean, I understand sibling rivalry, some of the things I've said to my brothers – but Sammy, he takes what you tell him hard."
Dean stopped moving and looked at him.
"Telling him he was a monster, for instance," Lucifer said, walking closer. "I don't think he's ever going to get that out of his head, Dean. Especially now."
Dean swallowed, shunting aside the memory as it rose. "Once he's free of you, we'll figure that out."
Lucifer laughed, the sound echoing from the walls. "God, you're priceless."
He twisted aside as Dean lunged forward with the Spear. The doors to either end of the hall burst open and Rufus and Castiel ran toward the circle. Dropping suddenly under the next swing, one long leg scything out and catching Dean's ankle as he was stepping back, the archangel sent him crashing to the floor.
Lucifer swung around, rising to his feet and staring at the angel who slowed as he came up to the edge of the circle. "Castiel, a rebel after my own heart."
He snapped his fingers and the angel disintegrated. On the other side of the circle, Rufus dropped his lighter into the oil and the flames ran around the line. Lucifer lifted his arms and a roaring, rushing sound filled the air. Dean was on his feet, swinging the Spear as demons dropped from the shadows of the high ceiling, the first one he touched turning to dust.
He could hear Rufus screaming as more came at him, caught a glimpse in his periphery of black, leathery bodies dropping over the flames on the other side of the circle, of Lucifer striding out over them. He was surrounded by swirling dust and ash, demon after demon suiciding on the edges of the Spear as he swung it around, trying to get clear. The last one imploded at his feet as the door at the end of the hall slammed behind the fallen angel.
Rufus lay on the edge of the still-burning circle, the flames reflecting on the sheen of sweat that covered his face. Dean dropped beside him, looking at the long incisions cutting through clothing and skin and the muscle underneath, from ribs to pelvis. The hunter's hands were pressing hard against them.
"Get … after … him," Rufus said furiously as he dragged in mouthfuls of air. "I'll be fine."
The demon lay a foot away from him, the knife still embedded in its chest. Reaching over, Dean pulled it free and gave it back to Rufus.
"Hang on, okay?" he said tightly. Rufus nodded, fingers closing around the bone hilt of the knife.
"Jus' … kill … the … sonofabitch."
Dean nodded and got to his feet, running for the door the angel had gone through. Gate or stadium, he wondered briefly. Stadium. He'd be looking for Michael.
Morning Star Baptist Church, East Atlanta
Maggie pulled up four blocks from the church. It was the closest she could get.
"Holy crap," she breathed, staring at the fighting, at the bodies strewn over the asphalt streets and grass lawns of the modest homes, at the tankers that shone, bright red in the early sunshine, rainbows surrounding them as the hoses pumped and filled the air with a fine, pearly mist.
"The gate is in the church?" Pastor Gideon looked down the length of the street at the small church just visible on the corner.
"That's what Boze said," Maggie answered, pushing her door open. "C'mon, we'll try and get around this."
He followed her along the sidewalk, stepping over black-eyed, writhing men and women, trapped in the vessels they'd taken as those vessels lay dying. The barrel of his shotgun rose automatically when a fight swung close to them, the booms of the gun drowned out by the shrieks of the demons as the salt-and-iron filled shells hit them, driving their loads in deep.
"This way," Maggie snapped, reaching out to pull him to one side, her gun swinging around and sending a spray of bullets into the three demons that ran toward them. The first two dropped instantly, the third kept coming and Gideon added a double-barrelled load into it, its face ripped apart by the shot, mouth falling open as it toppled backwards.
"Should I be exorcising these?" he asked as he stumbled through the narrow lych-gate into the rear garden.
"Sigils'll keep them in the meatsuits," Maggie told him, her hand locked around his wrist and dragging him forward. "When the bodies are burned, they're still forced to remain in the ashes. They can't do anyone any further harm."
She rapped hard on the back door and pushed Gideon inside ahead of her as Boze opened it, swinging it wide for them.
"We have to hurry," he told them, slamming and bolting the door behind them, pushing the salt line back across the threshold. "Word got out somehow that we got a priest here to seal it up for good and someone's been sending reinforcements."
"You know there's nothing in the Bible about sealing the gates of Hell, don't you?" Gideon asked as he followed the two hunters through the vestry and into the church.
"This one hasn't been opened yet, Pastor," Boze said, glancing back over his shoulder. "Figure if you bless it and ask God for help, it'll work."
"You figure?"
Boze grinned at the disbelief in the man's voice. "Hell, padre, we're always just making it up as we go along."
Gideon gave him a dour look as he stopped at the trapdoor in the floor. "Down there?"
The light emerging was a wash of gold, tinged with pink. It pulsed like something living, and he felt a frisson of fear spread through his organs, taking the strength from his legs.
"'Fraid so," Boze nodded, looking at Maggie. "Watch his back, I'll make sure nothing gets through up here."
She nodded, reloading the magazine in her rifle and checking the mag in the automatic.
"Do you need anything, David?"
Gideon shook his head. He had his Bible and a flask of holy water, refilled from the blessed reservoir. He had a kitchen container of salt, similarly blessed. The laws of Hell, as he understood them, had been largely confined to the catechisms of the Church, mankind's beliefs feeding and controlling the seething pit of evil in a way he couldn't really understand, but had no doubts about. What I have created, I can also destroy, he told himself firmly.
Maggie stepped down onto the narrow wooden steps that led into the basement of the church, flicking a glance behind her. Gideon met her eyes and nodded and she turned away and climbed down.
If it hadn't been for the light and the creaking of the foundations of the floor, it would've looked like any ordinary basement, he thought, stepping onto the smooth concrete at the foot of the steps.
But it wasn't any ordinary basement. He could see the edges, outlined in that disturbingly throbbing light, could hear the earth straining underneath his feet and the not-heard whispers brushing against his mind of the demons that stood on the other side, pushing hard against the fabric of this plane.
Without forethought or volition, he found himself murmuring the Lord's Prayer as he approached the gate, the words strengthening a little in volume with each step. To his surprise, he heard Maggie's voice beside him, stumbling a little over the words here and there, her voice thin and ragged as she watched the shadows around them, her gaze reluctant to settle on the floor.
"Thy kingdom come, Thy Will be done on Earth, as it is in Heaven."
He knelt in front of the glowing light and pulled out the salt, removing the top and pouring the crystals along the edges he could see. From underneath, there was a massive percussion, the floor lifting and falling. Gideon put his hand down to steady himself as Maggie staggered to one side. The floor was hot under his fingers and he swallowed, finishing the line with the last of the salt.
"And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil."
Maggie's voice strengthened a little and he glanced at her. She was looking around the room, her gaze scanning and scrutinising every shadow, the rifle gripped tightly in her hands.
"For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen."
Again the floor boomed beneath them, and he closed his eyes. "Lord God Almighty, give me the strength to seal this gate of evil forever."
He pulled the flask from his jacket, and unscrewed the lid, sprinkling the water over the surface. A deep groaning and grinding filled the basement. Pay it no mind, he told himself forcefully, holding the vision behind his eyes of a power flowing through him.
"I am He that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore and I have the keys of hell and of death."
Maggie's gasp forced his eyes open and he fell back as concrete stretched and rose in front of him, thinning out as the visage pushing under it lifted higher, pulled taut over brow and nose and jaw and smooth, long skull.
"With these keys I do so lock this gate of Hell, in this time and for all time," Gideon shouted, getting to his feet and sprinkling the water over the floor again.
The roaring deepened, reverberating through their feet and in their teeth as the creature pushing against the fabric of the world opened its mouth in fury.
"This body is the servant of God, this soul is the servant of God, and all that is done in His name shall be everlasting for His is the power, to make right against the abomination and the harlot and the demon and even so the angel, fallen to Earth," Gideon bellowed, lifting the Bible in one hand above the gate and the rosary against the flask in the other.
"In the name of the Father. I seal this gate!" he yelled, sweat pouring from his face and down his back, a sharp, stabbing pain in his left arm as he stared down at the face in the floor, watching it turn from side to side.
"In the name of the Son. I seal this gate!" he shouted, lowering the book and necklace together, ignoring the pressure that was filling his chest. The face lunged out at him and he bared his teeth at it, leaning forward as he swung his hands from left to right in front of him.
"In the name of the Holy Ghost. I SEAL THIS GATE!" Gideon screamed the words, darkness clouding the edge of his vision, no air to breathe, no strength in his body. The book was shining brighter and brighter in his hand and the cross on the rosary flashed out with a searing argentine light. It burned him and his fingers released them, both falling onto the concrete.
Maggie felt herself thrown back into the wall near the trapdoor steps with the concussive force of the explosion as Bible and rosary touched the floor. She fell to the ground and looked up. The room was quiet and still. Pastor Gideon lay on his back, his hands blackened and crisped where they'd gripped the book and the rosary, the flask lying a foot away. She rolled to her knees, wincing at the throbbing ache at the back of her head, and crawled to him.
His eyes were open, staring blankly ahead. The irises and pupils were gone, the eyeballs white and unmarked across the sockets. She lifted her hand, fingertips pressed lightly against the carotid artery at the side of his neck. No pulse beat there. There was no rise and fall to his chest.
Looking where the gate had been, there was nothing to see there now. The floor was concrete, unremarkable, smooth and unmarked.
"How many more?" Boze looked around the streets. The bodies of the possessed were burning in the front yard of the house across the street from the church. They'd counted a hundred and thirty here, and on the buses.
"That's it," Emmett said, rubbing a hand tiredly over his face. "As soon as the gate was sealed, the rest turned and headed south and west."
"For the stadium?"
"Guess so," the hunter said, shrugging. "We better get over there."
"Yeah," Boze agreed, glancing at Maggie.
He'd heard the roaring and felt the booming percussion of the demon that had tried to break through, had seen the light, pure and silver and not at all of this world, fill the square trapdoor entrance and spread through the church. He'd been fighting four demons at the time and they'd all been vaporised by the touch of that light, disappearing in front of him. Maggie had staggered out a moment later. When he and Sean had gone down to get the pastor's body, they'd seen nothing to indicate that a gate had ever been there.
Emmett jerked his head back at the church. "You gonna leave the padre in there?"
Boze followed his gaze and nodded. "He died there, closing that gate. The church needs his protection."
"How many did we lose?" Maggie straightened up from the side of the truck and looked at them.
"A hundred and ten," Boze said stiffly, gesturing the pyres that were burning two blocks down Gibson Street. "Demons poured in when you were down with the gate. Too many here who froze up or had no defences."
She nodded. It wasn't just the physical harm the demons could do. Some people had secrets they'd tried to keep, even from themselves. And most demons could ferret out that kind of weakness in a heartbeat.
"Saddle 'em up, Emmett," Boze said, gesturing to Maggie to get in the cab ahead of him. "We're leaving."
East Tawas, Michigan
The morning sunshine poured across the porch, and Alex closed her eyes against it, smiling a little as she listened to the children's voices, raised as they sang the anthem, coming through the open windows of the little schoolhouse. The overnight rain had left the deep, vibrant scent of wet earth, and it was a pleasant contrast to the clean scents of the growing trees.
"You looked content," Ellen said, holding a cup of coffee and sitting down on the top step next to her.
She opened her eyes and shrugged. "Not content, not yet, but getting there, I guess."
"Jerome said they've gone in past the wardings," Ellen said, sipping the coffee. "He can't see them anymore."
"A few days?"
"At most," Ellen confirmed with a sigh. "How are we doing here?"
"Good," Alex said, putting her empty cup beside her. "The way everything's been growing …" She gestured at the trees growing in between the house and cabins, already over twelve feet high. "I think, if we have enough people at harvest, it'll last everyone through the winter easily." She glanced at the older woman. "I heard wolf music last night."
Ellen smiled. "Jo said that she saw a deer, white-tail, down at the other end of Tawas Lake two mornings ago." She shrugged. "A third of everything was supposed to have been left – the wilderness areas. Perhaps they're coming down from Canada?"
"Perhaps." She looked up at the distant noise, frowning as she took in the familiarity of it.
Recognition dawned at the same as realisation and for a split second, she and Ellen stared at each other in horror.
"I'll get the children," Alex said, bolting upright and jumping down the steps. Ellen rose and spun around, racing for the front door. Just inside the door frame, the large red button was inside a glass case. She flipped the lid up and hit the button with her palm, the klaxon alarms hooting through the house and compound. In the other camps, the alarms would be sounding as well. Since Baal's attack, the alarms had been installed across all five camps and in the half-finished defended walls of the western side of the town.
Bobby ran out of the office, looking around wildly.
"Planes!" Ellen shouted at him, heading for the stairs. "Goddamned planes!"
"Ellen! NO!"
The side of the house exploded when she was halfway up, and the stairs disappeared from beneath her feet as she was thrown sideways into the wall like a rag doll. Thunder and lightning, she thought, confusedly. I'm falling a long way. There was a bright, sharp stab in her side and she hit the floor, feeling it buckle up under her, sliding downward fast again.
A hand gripped her shoulder and she looked up, seeing Bobby's mouth moving but no sound coming out. Inside her leg, fire burned and she looked down again, watching blood spreading over the side of her jeans.
"Musta broke something," she muttered, but she couldn't hear that either, not with her ears, only in her head. She felt Bobby's strength pull her to her feet, pulling her arm around his shoulder and she hobbled alongside him. The second explosion was soundless but the glass in all the windows blew in and the man holding her pushed her against the wall, his head down beside hers and arms around her as the glittering fall seem to fly at them in slow motion.
Alex reached the door of the school room as the formation flew overhead, the shriek of the engines deafening against the quiet of lake and forest.
"Under the tables!" she screamed and the last word was wiped out by the explosion that hit the corner of the big house. She had a glimpse of Russ' face, eyes wide as his arms swept some of the children under the long teacher's table. She saw the walls shudder and heard a crack in the timbers of the roof. Then the second explosion filled the world with light and sound and movement, all of it extinguished as her head hit the floor.
Jo saw the planes, black dots against the pale blue sky and felt her heart drop.
"What?" Ty eased himself upright in the bed, looking at her face worriedly.
"Planes," she told him shortly. "Get everyone down into the basement tunnel."
"Wait! Where're you going?" He swung his feet from the bed to the floor and stumbled slowly after her, holding his ribs and stomach as he forced himself to move faster. She didn't answer him and she was gone by the time he'd reached the door. He knew anyway. Swearing under his breath, he staggered down the hall, shouting at the top of his voice to anyone around to get downstairs.
Jo shot down the hall and turned at the end, racing up the narrow flight of stairs that led to the lookout tower on the corner of the building. Franklin had set up one of the anti-aircraft guns there, a Cold War M45 Quadmount, four barrels, two over, two under, and she ran to it, mouth thinned as she forced herself to slow down enough to remember exactly what she had to do. It was loaded, the boxes in their places. The dots weren't dots any more, clearly defined, they were approaching at speed. She swung the heavy barrels up and stared through the scope, dragging in deep breaths and letting them out to loosen the tension in her shoulders and back. Slow is smooth and smooth is fast. The mantra of the ex-soldier was quiet and calm in her head. Max range was a kilometre and they were coming to that … now.
Seamus climbed up behind her as she fired, crouched beside the gun, under its turntable. The gun fired four hundred rounds per minute, but most were wasted as the rate was too slow to engage the fighters as they flew over.
"Out," Jo yelled, watching the bombs dropping, two planes per camp. She forced back her fear and grief as she watched the explosions rip through South West and Chitaqua, hearing the rapid booming of the cannon on Lookout Hill and watching the planes bank as they came around for their second run. One exploded mid-air as Lookout's gun found its target, the double-explosion of the payload it was carrying and its own fuel spitting out shrapnel over Lake Tawas. Seamus unloaded the big tombstone-shaped canisters and shoved the next ones on, and Jo narrowed her concentration down to the four planes within her range, leaving the others for Tim on Lookout.
"Alex!" Russ' face was above hers, grimy and streaked with blood. She frowned at him for a moment, then memory returned. Trying to move, she stopped as something pricked at her back, stabbing her as she drew in a breath.
The equally grime-covered faces of the children peered from behind him. "Get them out," she said, swallowing quickly as her throat tickled with the dust coating her, not wanting to cough. "Bright colours off, roll in the mud, get darker, under the trees."
He nodded, and looked at the eighteen-inch beam that was lying through the school room and on top of her. It seemed to be a corner post from the house, but he couldn't be sure. The remains of the small desk was over her, two legs intact, the other two broken, the tight triangle left holding the weight off, but trapping her.
"I'll get you out –" he said, moving to the end of the beam and wrapping his arms around it. It didn't move.
"No," she said. "No time, get them out now. Get deep – into the forest – under the trees – attacking the buildings – go – now!"
The stabbing sensation felt deeper and she felt something trickle from the corner of her mouth and down the side of her chin. From the horrified look on the teacher's face, she thought it was probably blood. In the distance she heard the whistling scream of the fighters, banking, she thought, to come around again.
"Now!"
He nodded unwillingly, hearing them too, and turned, leading the children out through the room that had been Father Michael's and under the cover of the fast-growing conifers and deciduous trees that filled the spaces between the cabins. Another month and the cabins would've been hidden under the canopies, he thought bitterly.
"Prudence, Mikey, Rosie, rub the mud on your shirts," he whispered as they moved away from the camp, away from the buildings. "You too, Robby. And Madeline."
The children dropped to the ground, covering each other with the damp, black soil and rubbing it in, the bright colours of their clothing disappearing into a patchwork of grey and black, muted enough to hide them under the cover of the trees.
Field of Gold Stadium, Atlanta
The Impala growled as Dean apexed the corner to the underpass, hands light on the wheel and stick. Ten miles to the church, thirteen or thereabouts to the stadium. In his mind, the map of the city and the surrounding suburbs lay clearly and he made the tight left onto the four-lane road that led to the interchange and downtown without thinking about it. His fingers reached out for the stereo, stiffly jabbing the tape into the deck. He twisted the knob as far to the right as it would go and the scratchy, raw voice of Bon Scott filled the car as he pushed down on the accelerator.
Cas was gone. And he'd left Rufus dying on the floor. And he couldn't let those thoughts in right now, couldn't let them eat at him. You've got one shot at this now. Just once chance to undo what you've done.
He took the left under the interchange and gunned the engine, hearing noise above the car's rumble, as the signs for the university campus became more prevalent.
Stamping of feet. Thunder of vehicles. The glow of white light above the stadium stands.
If Emmett had gotten there in time, there should be a circle in the centre of the field, he thought. At the end of the gravelled drive, a white car had been left, engine running, parked askew in front of the stadium.
Pulling up beside it, Dean killed the engine. He slid out, snatching the Spear from the seat beside him. People filled the grounds, turning and parting as they saw him approach, jostling and pushing back against each other to clear a space wide enough for him to move through. The marching thud of thousands of feet still sounded in the streets, multiple echoes resounding from the high walls of the stands and buildings. He glimpsed men and women, all carrying weapons, converging from the side-streets into the narrow park that held the sports field.
Dean slowed to a walk as the press of the crowd shifted to let him pass. The stands had been built for the college ball fans, designed to hold perhaps five thousand people. From one end to the other, they were filled with the incandescent vessels of the Host. Outnumbering the angels, he saw people, his people, thousands of them, their faces hard and cold as they stared across the playing field toward the angels on one side and the much smaller mass of demon-possessed at the head of the field, their hands holding weapons at the ready.
Lucifer stood at the centre of the field, head thrown back and eyes closed. Dean saw Emmett and Max, standing on opposite sides of the green. The circle would be between them, he thought suddenly, seeing Max's head incline slightly as he walked toward the devil.
And still the grounds and the streets were filling. He could hear them. Could feel them. The noise and movement ceased abruptly when he stepped onto the grass, crossing the hundred-yard line.
Lucifer's head lowered, his brother's eyes hooded as they stared at him.
"Where is Michael?"
"Not available right now," Dean said, lifting the Spear as he crossed the eighty-yard line. "Kind of light on the backup."
The demons at the end of the field were surrounded. Angels on one side, humans on the other.
"That won't matter," Lucifer told him coldly. "All anyone here'll see is a human. Dying."
He lifted his fist in the air and closed it abruptly. Dean felt a shiver pass through him, but nothing else and he smiled humourlessly as the archangel's eyes narrowed at him.
"Guess the Spear is strong enough to protect me from angel magic," he said lightly, crossing the seventy-yard line, his voice clear and deep in the complete silence that filled the field.
Lucifer glanced over his shoulder. "Fool me once, Dean, shame on you … but there's no fooling me twice."
Dean stiffened as the angel's arms snapped out to either side and Emmett and Max dropped to the ground, the cracks of their necks heard around the stadium. The human army surged forward and the devil laughed, a long, mocking laugh that rang around the open space, overriding the angry murmur from the crowd of humans, the raucous catcalls from the demons and the sibilant rustle of wings from the stands.
"Come on, plenty for everyone!" he shouted at them.
Dean stepped forward, his expression tight and his eyes dark. "Gate's been sealed. Michael isn't coming," he said hoarsely, gesturing to the people to keep back. "You wanted to kill me, here I am, ready and waiting!"
Inside the meshed lattice of his prison, Sam stared out, seeing his brother adjust his stance through the double-vision of human and angelic perceptions. The fallen angel controlling his body could see through flesh and blood, could see the waxing and waning of the energy levels in the human facing him, the coronial flare of the energy field that surrounded him, in shades of midnight and silver and rose.
Lucifer knew about the trap. Knew about the Spear. He couldn't move, couldn't fight until the trap had broken the link from the angel's connection to the power of the souls in Hell. He'd almost caught him, in the house, in the hall, but he hadn't seen the strategy, hadn't heard the call to the demons. He'd heard their wailing as they'd thrown themselves over the flames. But not the angel's mind.
The strength against him was enormous. Crushing. He'd shown his hand and the creature had doubled the walls, doubled the chains, pounded against him until he could barely remain himself, awash in excruciating agony, holding onto the shredded remnants of his soul with fingers torn down to the bone. There was a second chance. But it was receding. And he couldn't warn Dean. Couldn't tell him that the devil knew about it. Knew it all.
Dean waited for him warily, every thought banished and locked away, every sense engaged, stretched out, alert. You are just a mortal man. Michael's words had been burned deep into him, and he watched his brother's face for the tells, for the faintest telegraphing twitches to tell him what the devil would do and how and when and why.
He had the blurred impression of speed, a rush toward him and he twisted aside, raising the point of the Spear and slicing in the direction his senses told him was the right one. His hands registered the touch along the thin haft of the weapon, a slight shudder against them as the tip tore through the shoulder of the white suit, a flash of deeper power as it slid through skin and touched blood. Dropping and rolling fast, he felt the strike he hadn't seen graze past his cheekbone, tearing the skin off even with the lightness of the glancing blow. But he was just a mortal man, and the next blow struck him above the brow, jarring down to the bone, a hairline fracture opening up under its power. He fell forward, driven down, and felt his knuckles hit the grass, heard the collective indrawn breath of the armies surrounding the field. Look out for the foot, he thought dazedly, throwing his weight to the side, too late, the toe of the narrow shoes striking his ribs, the weight behind it driving the point in between the bones, splitting apart the cartilage with an explosion of pain that paralysed his nervous system.
Get up, get up, he told himself, getting a hand and knee under him, feeling for the slender length of the Spear. Hands bunched in the front of his jacket, and hauled him to his feet and there wasn't time to even look up before the fist drew back and swung into him again, this time midway along the jaw, the crack of the bone loud as his head snapped back with the force. It was like being hit by a tree … or a train … the thought came and went in the miasma of light and shadow and movement and noise that was all he could register.
"You were always the weak one, Dean," Lucifer whispered against his ear as he pulled him close again. "Always the one who looked to others – your father, the old drunk, even the angel – to tell you what you to do."
The words penetrated slowly, and he looked into his brother's face. "Sam …"
"Sam can't hear you," Lucifer snarled, staring at him. "Sam is locked up tight."
"Sam, you in there?"
The cheekbone shattered and he felt his mouth fill with blood, letting his head fall to the side as he tried to spit it out.
"You know, when your brother said yes, I could feel his relief," the angel said, lifting him off his feet and taking his weight in one hand. "No more Dean. No more guilt or fear or anger. Just the two of us, as we were supposed to be."
Dean felt his eye swelling shut and he rolled the other one, looking down at the ground. They were over the fifty-yard line. He coughed as his feet hit the ground again, sending a fine bloody spray over the white suit in front of him.
"Sam, I'm here, man," he said, looking into the hazel eyes above him. "Here."
"Not for much longer." Lucifer slammed his fist into the man's torso and felt the muscle split under his knuckles, the organs beneath crushed with the blow. Dean sagged as the pain hit, his eye rolling up to show the white, his face draining of blood, paper-white, the freckles standing out.
Stay.
He didn't know where the thought came from, but he found something to help push back against the fiery acid that was eating him from the inside out, something to keep a hold of consciousness. His head snapped back again as the angel's fist hit his nose, splitting the skin and breaking it, forcing him to drag in a breath through his mouth. Mists were gathering around him and he felt cold, the sunlight on his skin no longer warm.
He was dropped and he felt the grass, comforting under his cheek, every part of him hurting, hearing Lucifer's footfalls move away from him. He could smell it. That pungent scent that reminded him of museums. Of mausoleums. Of age and death and the desert.
Move your hand.
He forced his hand across the blades of grass, grateful for the uniform length. Muscle protested as he made his arm lift. Pain raced along his nerves, igniting with every junction. His hand slid inside the pocket and he curled his fingers slowly around the object that rested there.
Sam looked down at his brother. The energy web that surrounded him was dimming, the colours changing, darkening, reddening with the pain he could see through the angel's eyes. Lucifer turned away and looked at the crowd surrounding him. Sam felt the blaze of his triumph. The Spear lay on the grass, a few feet from Dean but it might as well have been a thousand miles distant for all the good it could do him.
Dean pulled his hand free, teeth clenched against the shuddering reaction that brought. Pushing his hand back across the grass was easier than pulling it had been. He looked at the closed lid hopelessly for a second, his thumb twisted to one side and unable push it back. Turning it over, he dragged it against the grass and it opened. Have to run the wheel, he thought distantly. He wasn't sure he could.
You can.
Bracing the smooth, metal container against the earth, he stared at the wheel. His thumb rested over it. Just pull back.
He did. The wheel ran and the spark from the flint caught the wick. The flame danced. He pushed the lighter over and watched the fire race around the circle.
"NO!"