Chapter 26: Wake Me Up
"Demons, Demons everywhere and no First Blade to use." Crowley said sarcastically as he looked out another window to find that the house was indeed surrounded. He glanced at Cain and I, who was still pushing me against the wall. "Could we deal with your crisis a la Diable later please, we have more pressing matters."
Cain let me go reluctantly and I hastily put as much distance between us as possible. I may be willing to die if it came down to it, but I didn't want to die. There was no death wish on my mind. "They can't get in." He said as he took a seat by the fire. Putting his feet up on a footstool and otherwise looking perfectly relaxed. "So it looks like you'll just settle for nothing and let Crowley get you out of here."
"We're not leaving without the First Blade." Crowley countered. I was glad he didn't seem to want to jump ship. I hadn't put his bindings back on since Tara's shop but he hadn't seemed to want to abuse his new found freedom.
Cain gave Crowley a bored stare, it seemed the first murderer didn't have any patience for the King of Hell. "Then you won't be leaving." He said a matter-of-factly.
"Okay enough of this crap!" Dean's voice was harsh. "We want to kill a Knight of Hell, now give us the First Blade so we can get out of here!"
Cain's attention focused on Dean for what seemed like the first time. "Dean Winchester, I've heard a lot about you. So far you've lived up to your reputation, let's see about the rest of it." Suddenly Cain and Dean weren't in front of us, but in the kitchen. The two glass doors into the room were closed and I tried to open them since I was the closest. They wouldn't budge. I watched in horror as Cain sat down at the table and clicked his fingers as three Demons were let into the kitchen.
Just as Dean started taking on the Demons with no help from Cain, the front door burst open and four Demons walked in grinning. "Oh crap." I squeaked as the first lunged towards me. I jumped to the left, rolling so I landed on all fours behind the couch. I extracted the gun from the back of my jeans and stood up. Emptying my entire clip right into the waiting Demons chest. He jerked back at the force of the bullets, but then kept coming. I dropped my now useless gun and picked up an end table by one leg and swung it directly into his face with all my might.
I saw out of the corner of my eye that a Demon punched Crowley so hard, the King of Hell crumpled to the ground. "You're good." He consented, then in one sweeping motion stabbed the Demon in the chest. I watched as it fell and Crowley tugged an Archangel blade from its chest. "But I'm Crowley."
"CROWLEY!" I yelled holding my hand out for the blade. He tossed it at me and I plucked it from the air with ease. The Demon lunged at me again, I sidestepped his blow then turned, stabbing him through the throat. Crowley threw a lamp at another Demon.
"BETHANY!" Gabriel called from behind me and I tossed the blade at him as I jumped over the couch. I delivered a round house kick to the Demon but he caught my foot in the air. He tried to break my leg, but I jumped in the air as he twisted my ankle. Using the momentum I swung my free leg and latched it onto his neck so I was sitting on his shoulders. I couldn't help but grin stupidly, I felt so badass. As the smallest of the group of Hunters, Dean, Sam and Castiel had put there heads together and helped me learn all these fighting moves that they couldn't do. And it was awesome.
Gabriel stabbed his Demon in the chest and she fell with a final shriek to the ground. "GABRIEL!" I shouted as I pulled the Demon down and we collapsed onto the coffee table. Breaking it with our combined weight. Even though I was on the bottom, I recovered first. I held out my hand as the Archangel threw the blade towards me. It landed neatly in my palm as I raised it above my head. Grasping it with both hands I put my full strength into my strike. The Archangel Blade plunged right through the top of his skull and poked out underneath his chin.
I rolled the Demon off me and stood up, grasping the hilt of the blade I put a foot on the dead Demon's shoulder and pulled it out of his skull. "Well that was unexpected." Gabriel said conversationally.
"We need to get out of here." I growled, impatient. "Every moment Cain doesn't give us the Blade is another moment Castiel is being tortured." Dean stormed through the doors, made his way over the destroyed coffee table and then picked up a photo from the mantelpiece. He shoved it wordlessly towards Cain and the old man took it with unsteady hands.
"Colette right?" Dean asked as he watched Cain bow his head to study the picture. "Who was she? Your wife?" He was silent as his fingers light traced over the glass of the frame. "You say you don't care, that you're retired. But you must have cared once, still do, if you keep that photo with you."
"I always cared." He replied, his voice rough as he continued to hold the photo. "That's what got me in this mess in the first place. You say you're doing this for your family to keep them safe. That's what I did for mine."
"When you killed your brother?" Gabriel spat out, I never realized before but Gabriel had a face of loathing whenever he spoke to the man. I guess Angels hated Cain for what he did to Abel.
"You know more than anyone that I saved him." Cain snapped back, he took his eyes off the picture to glare at the Archangel.
"Saved him?" I asked in disbelief. I wasn't someone who had read the bible cover to cover. But I was pretty sure that Cain had killed Abel because Lucifer told him too. I didn't know how saving fit into that category. "Abel was talking to God when you killed him. If anyone needed saving it was you."
"Abel wasn't talking to God." He replied disgusted by the thought. "He was talking to Lucifer. I was the one who got my stupid, pig-headed little brother into Heaven. I was the one who made the deal. His soul in Heaven for mine in Hell and Lucifer agreed. But only if I was the one who put his soul there. So I killed my brother to save him from damnation and then I jumped in the pit myself." I was stunned, the whole story was a lie. I felt guilty, I had judged this man when at the end of the day; he had done what he did for the ones he loved. And you made a deal with that monster. A voice in my head told me, dammit, I knew that was going to come back to bite me in the ass later. "So call me what you want, sinner, liar, murderer, but I was the one who gave up everything for God, and I was given this miserable existence in payment." He took a deep breath as we heard more cars from outside, the Demons had called for back-up. "So I became a Knight of Hell, Lucifer's most terrifying weapon. And he told me to make more and I did. The acts we committed…" He trailed off, he looked so guilty. It was nice to know that despite everything Cain had a conscious. "Colette she knew everything about me, and she still loved me. Unconditionally, her love was infinite. She only asked for one thing…"
"To stop." I said, comprehending where this story of his was going. And that's when my heart twisted in pity for the first murderer. As I watched him talk about his wife, his features softened and his eyes filled with love. A blind man could see how much he loved her. I also knew she was dead, because if he had loved her that much, he would have found a way to keep her alive forever. "She wanted you to stop killing. So you turned on your own."
Cain nodded, "So I took the bone I used to kill my brother and I sunk it into the chest of every Knight I created. Except Abaddon, she knew how to get me to stop hunting her. She took possession of Colette and then why I tried to kill her, jumped ship. That's why I'm retired, it was her last request, no more bloodshed."
He slammed the photograph back onto the mantelpiece with more force then was necessary, the noise making me flinch. "We still need the blade." I said quietly. Breaking the tense silence.
"I don't have it." Cain said and I closed my eyes in defeat. Of course he didn't, why would anything ever be easy? At seeing our reaction he explained. "You can't destroy the blade, so I tossed in the depths of the Pacific Ocean and I walked away." Crowley grimaced at the thought.
"Then why did the spell bring us here, it was for the Blade, not you." Dean asked, you could see he was angry. After all he had left his brother to hunt while he chased up this lead.
"It brought you to the Blade's power." Cain rolled up his sleeve to reveal a mark burned in his skin. It was shaped like a backwards 'F' and it made the veins around it stand out pink and angry.
Crowley took a step back and quickly did the sign of the cross. I raised an eyebrow at him, "Really, now?" Dean asked. Gabriel too, looked apprehensive at Cain's reveal. Though he didn't display quite the dramatic action that Crowley did, he did cast his eyes upward in what seemed like a silent prayer.
Crowley scowled at him, "It's the Mark of Cain."
"It's what gives the Blade its power." Cain shot back. "Without it, it is just a piece of bone. More importantly, the Mark can be transferred to someone who is worthy."
He was looking at Dean as he said it, worthy? "You mean a killer like you?" Dean asked.
Cain nodded, "Yes." Well, that ruled me out. I didn't think that the mark would transfer to Gabriel, he was an Archangel after all. And somehow, I didn't think Crowley was going to volunteer, he didn't seem like the branding type.
"Can I use it to kill the bitch?" Dean asked, as he reached the same conclusion as me.
"Yes." He repeated, "But you have to know with the Mark comes a great burden." Cain looked earnest as he tried to make Dean listen. But in true Winchester style, once Dean had gotten it into his head that he was the only one who could do this, he wasn't going to change his mind.
"Yeah, well," Dean hesitated for a moment before making his final decision. "Spare me the warning label, you had me at 'kill the bitch'."
Cain sighed and rolled up his sleeve even further, until it was almost at his shoulder. "Good luck Dean," There was a pause as he held out his hand. "You're going to need it."
Dean snorted and rolled up his sleeve too, "Yeah, I get that a lot." He muttered, finally he was ready. I got the sinking feeling that this was a bad idea, a very bad idea. But we need the First Blade and we needed to get to Castiel. So though it pained me, I kept my mouth firmly shut. "Let's dance." Dean said and firmly grasped Cain's hand.
"This comes with a bargain, when you find the Blade and you kill Abaddon. You come back and you kill me." Cain said, the eldest Winchester nodded and then screamed in pain as the Mark was transferred onto his forearm. "Now get out of here." In a blink of an eye, Dean was gone. Then Cain placed a hand on Crowley and Gabriel's shoulders and the two of them disappeared as well. Then it was just me and him. "You brought Lucifer into my house." He growled as he stalked towards me.
"I didn't mean to, I don't even know why I'm seeing him." I said in a rush as I backed away towards the door. He continued to come at me and my heart began to beat extremely fast as my back hit the door. I looked down at the door in horror, only to be staring at the Impala's back seat. Bewildered I looked up to realize I had been teleported outside the house, which was now being overrun with Demons.
"Bethany get in!" Gabriel hissed and I sat in the car and closed the door behind me as quietly as possible. We watched as the last of the Demons entered the house and then the doors slammed shut of their own accord. Everything was silent until one horrific, nightmare-inducing scream echoed through the night. Hellish red light pierced every window, door and crevice of the house. Lighting up the farm like a Christmas tree. Soon the other Demons could be heard shouting in pain.
"Drive." I whispered horrified. Dean didn't need to be told, he twisted the key in the ignition and the engine roared to life. With well-practiced ease he turned the car around and sped off back the way we came.
GABRIEL POV:
We had been driving in silence as we inched closer and closer along the map to where Sam, Kevin and Castiel's last known location was. Crowley had been dropped off an hour ago, he had promised to find the First Blade, since none of us had the ability, money or resources to scour the bottom of the Pacific Ocean for it. It had taken some convincing on Bethany's part, but eventually Dean agreed to let him go. After all, there was one thing Crowley wanted more than screwing the Winchesters over and that was killing Abaddon. Besides, if he was out and about, more Demons would stay at his side and anything that lessened Abaddon's powerbase was a good thing. Bethany didn't think Crowley would have gone back to his cell meekly after the road trip anyway. Not now that he had, had his first glimpse of the outside world in months.
Currently, Bethany and I were sitting in the back of the parked Impala. Dean was buying fuel and food. I watched the girl beside me, she looked conflicted as she bit her lip in indecision. "I'm an Angel." She said abruptly, not beating around the bush. I felt my mouth open and close as I tried to get my vessel's vocal chords to function. I always knew she was special, anyone with an ounce of magical ability in their veins could sense it. But there was something always off about her, she gave off this vibe of 'I-only-want-to-be-your-friend' only with the slightly saddening feeling of 'I-have-been-abused-before-so-don't-hurt-me'. At any rate it had stopped me pinpointing exactly what she was. After I had determined that she hadn't no idea what she was and that she wasn't going to hurt my little brother, (which was why I had come back in the first place) I hadn't really thought much about it. It had just been one of those things that had been swept under the rug as the hurricane of the Winchester's lives hurdled past.
But now she seemed to know for sure and was openly talking about it. What had changed? Had she remembered? "I remembered the battle, in the bathroom at Cain's house, it was why I took so long. It just sort of came to me." She said in way of explanation. It didn't exactly explain much, but before I could pose my question she continued on. "But that means that I'm related to Castiel and I'm so confused!" She finished in a rushed babble. Oh, so that's what this was about. She was related to Castiel, she was related to me. This dawned on me and I surveyed her with new eyes. I remembered something I had said when we first met.
She's more like the little sister I never had.
I could see why she was confused, I felt a grin spread across my face as I thought of why she might be really confused. I decided to focus on that instead of the more pressing matters. When she decided she could handle all the other stuff, when she decided she was ready to talk about what was really important. I would be ready to help her in any way possible. But the instinct to lighten the mood, to make her laugh and not worry, was so overwhelming I couldn't help myself. "I see," I mused as I had to fight the urge to laugh. "You want to talk about the big hoopla."
"Gabriel!" She whined, quite like a younger sibling would when someone older did something embarrassing or inappropriate.
"Yodelling in the valley…"
"Gabriel!"
"Doing your taxes…"
"Stop!"
"Friends of women, Countrymen, lend her your ears"
"Please shut up!"
"Testing the suspension!"
"Stop talking!"
"Unleashing the fury!"
"Now that's just gross!"
"Four-legged fox trot."
"Gabriel, just be quite!"
"Happy sheets"
"I'm sorry I asked!"
"Spelunking the Bat Cave."
"My ears are on fire!"
"Eating the-"
She clamped a hand over my mouth and glared at me, "You are officially the most inappropriate, immature dickhead I have ever met!" She growled, but I could tell she wasn't mad, she was smiling too. "I'm trying to have a serious identity crisis and you're the only one who can help me!" She complained.
Now that made me laugh, "Why, because I have seen the most action compared to the rest of you?" I had just grouped her with my family. It had been easy to do so, like my subconscious just sort of accepted it where as my brain was still trying to process. "Well, that is true."
"Gabriel," She said, her tone serious. "Please, I don't know what to do!" She hissed. "I am an Angel, which means that my dad is God. I really don't want to offend him by shnooping anyone or something. Are Angels even allowed to do that kind of thing? What about kissing? Because if that's on the black list then I am a terrible Angel. What if people are praying to me? How do I answer, do I answer? Is there like an introductory package or something?" She threw her head in her hands and let out a deep sigh followed by a frustrated growl. "I'm so confused!"
"Bethany, Bethany!" I said, slowing down her babble and forcing her to breathe, "Just chill for a second. First of all, I don't know if you've noticed, but Dad is not really as active as he used to be. If you spend the rest of eternity trying to serve him, you'd be better off trying to get love from a brick wall. It took of couple of millennia to figure this out the hard way. But he doesn't care what you do, nobody's perfect, Angels included." That seemed to calm her down enough for me to continue. "As for doing the deed," I waggled my eyebrows to cheer her up, I grinned when she struggled to suppress a smile. "I've done it plenty of times and it doesn't seem to hail the end of the world. Therefore I'm pretty sure kissing is fine too."
She nodded and looked at me with innocent eyes. My heart twinged, no sibling of mine had done that in a long time. Trusted me to teach them about the world, it had been many millions of years since I had helped a fledgling, Which in essence was what Bethany was, a newborn Angel, this was going to be hard, but it was a task I was willing to undertake. After all, what wouldn't I do for my family? "As for the praying stuff, I get a kind of buzz at the back of my mind, but since you don't seem to have that, either no one is praying to you or you don't have your ears switched on. If you do start hearing it, my suggestion is to ignore it." Her eyes widened.
"But Gabriel, surely we should be answering their prayers?" She asked in astonishment. "I mean, isn't that what we're here to do? Help people?"
I sighed, "You can't spend your whole life playing cupid, saving lives, giving money, curing illnesses and killing those who others hate. There isn't enough grace to help everyone in this world, humans are needy, greedy and most of the time, full of spite. Besides you need to remember the golden rule. The day Daddy gave them free will, they ended their ability to ask for help. It's not free will if you keep interfering is it?" I asked her, she frowned as she contemplated my words. "Speaking of grace, we have to find out what the Hell is up with yours."
"Why?" She asked alarmed, "Is something wrong with me? Can you fix it?"
I shrugged, "All I know is this, three key points that signify that something is up in that wack job of a head of yours." She scowled, but I held up a finger to silence her. "One, you don't remember anything, which is the biggest warning bell in the Angel doctor handbook." I threw up a second finger, using my other hand to grab it. "Two, besides your apparent stamina, you're not showing any Angel powers at all, you aren't suffering from falling, your wings aren't damaged, you don't even seem to have them in the first place. That narrows down what is wrong with you by a whole bunch. Angels can hid their wings from everyone else, it takes a Hell of a lot to hide an Angel's wings from the Angel."
Bethany's hands went instantly to her back, she arched her spine and twisted her arms around at awkward angles in an attempt to touch where her wings would be. Eventually after several moments of struggling she gave up and turned her gaze on me instead. "Will you show me?" She asked shyly. "Please?"
Very slowly, I peel back layer after layer of my grace to reveal my wings. I didn't know if she could handle my true form so I used some of my weak magic to cover them in a sort of looking glass. She would see what her brain could interpret, kind of like the roads of Heaven. Some see a river, a road, others a motorway, a path of flowers, a trail of Easter eggs or even a length of ribbon. I reached out and peered into her mind and was genuinely surprised at what she saw.
My wings weren't mangled and broken like they felt, they were sleek and soft. Glossy golden feathers, some thin and aerodynamic for flying, others, only slightly poking out, were fluffy and light, down feathers. These pissed me off to no end, I had been alive since the dawn of time, yet I still had freaking fluffy down. Of course, back in the day, Michael had reassured me that all Angels were different, like different species of bird. I was meant to be Daddy's messenger, not a fighter, which was why my wings weren't as 'mature looking' as Michael's, Raphael's or Lucifer's. While each feather looked as soft as cotton, in reality they could be razor sharp if I wanted them to. My wings were an outward extension of my grace, I could manipulate them as I wanted.
Her hand slowly went up to touch them, hovering slightly until I gave her the go ahead. I nodded and I felt her gently stroke them. A tingling sensation went down my spine as her fingers delicately brushed over a particularly sensitive spot. "They're beautiful." She breathed in awe. I couldn't help but swell with pride at that comment. "I want some." She complained and I chuckled. Her fingertips grazed over another spot and I visually shuddered in pleasure at the feeling. She stopped and gave me a wide eyed stare. "I'm not hurting you am I?" She asked, her words laced with worry.
I shook my head and she continued touching them, she hands touched another spot and I reacted in a similar way. She stopped, looking at me for confirmation that it was okay. "It just feels really nice." I explained, "Like a massage." She bobbed her head and continued. She began trailing across my down feathers and I took in a sharp breath. That was a different sensation entirely. She glanced at me but kept exploring, my breathing hitched and I felt my hands grasp the edges of the seat involuntarily. "Bethany stop now," I ordered and she froze.
"I didn't hurt you did I?" She asked alarmed. I concentrated for a moment before letting my wings disappear, it felt as easy as slipping on a warm coat.
"No," I said, my grin was huge, "But you were starting to turn me on." Her eyes went comically wide, almost like saucers as her hand stayed frozen in mid-air. Her cheeks flushed a deep scarlet and she looked down at her lap.
There was an awkward silence for a moment before she spoke, "You never told me the third point." I looked at her quizzically. "You said that there were three reasons why you knew there was something wrong with my grace." She repeated. "What was the third point?"
Oh. That. I held up my last finger and gave her a serious stare, "It is quite simple and yet the most confusing and unexplainable of my three points. Which is why I think that your grace is being used against you, and I didn't think that was possible." Her brow furrowed, "If you're an Angel, for which there is little doubt." I assured her. "You can't remember anything, which is strange in itself but we've already talked about that. But what is even stranger is this," I took a deep breath before coming to my main point. "Why don't I remember you?"
A/N: And the plot thickens! Hello everyone, old and new, how are we all? How was chapter, the Mark of Cain... We all know where that particular road goes. And it isn't pretty. How'd all like the Gabriel POV? I wanted some Gabriel/Bethany bonding here. I think that they have interesting relationship that is only going to get better and I wanted to share some of that with you guys. And you have to admit, just the thought of Gabriel doing his version of the talk is enough to make you giggle.I'm 95% sure that's the last POV hopping we'll have for a while so I'm sorry if that annoyed you but it's over now! Big reveals and we are motoring through storyarcs here! You guys don't get to know how Castiel is doing this chapter, it all come to head next week so I'm going to keep you in suspense. Trust me when I say that I anticipate the resolutions to these cliffhangers as much as you do.
As has become weekly tradition, please feel free to review with good, bad, comments, questions, whatever comes to mind really. We are only 3 reviews off from 50 and I am sooooo excited. So if any of you are moved to write a few simple words, do not be afraid and go right ahead. Speaking of reviews, a warm supernatural filled thank you to: TheDoctor221 (I hope that answered some questions for you on the whole mark of cain stuff, and poor, poor Cas, I just. I feel so evil, it's like kicking a puppy and it wounds my soul. But I gotta do it, so...) and Larlyn062509 (I have now P.M'd you some supernatural fics you might enjoy, I'm so glad you are reading and liking mine!) You guys are incredible. So treat yourself to a big slice of pie because you are amazing!
I'm trying to cut down my Author's notes because they were getting huge there for a while, so I'm going to sign off here. I hope you all enjoyed the chapter and that your week was good. See you all next time and remember: It's only 16 or so more weeks of Hellatus left right?