Chapter 28 Confluence


Lebanon, Kansas

Sam looked at the prophet. "Of course, whatever we can do."

"Find my mother," Kevin said.

"Kevin, whatever Crowley told you –" Dean started to say and the ghost cut him off.

"I know she's alive, I've heard her, Dean," he said sharply. "I didn't know where, but a few days ago there was a new arrival, and she told me that she was with my mother, somewhere near Wichita."

"Some random spirit tells you she knows your mom?" Dean asked disbelievingly. "C'mon, you know how long it takes to get your head screwed on straight –"

"That's why I believe her," Kevin cut him off again. "She didn't say it, she showed me. Her name's Candy, or Candice, I think," he continued, his hands curling up tight as he stared at the hunter. "She was in a cell, a prison, somewhere close to where she was killed. And she said – she showed me her memories, the ones she had before her death – and I've heard my mom, Dean, praying to me, reaching out –"

Dean looked at Missouri, one brow raised sceptically. "That possible?"

"Nearly everything's possible, Dean," the psychic told him dryly. "Kevin, I need something of yours, something that you had a strong connection to –"

He nodded. "In my room, in the bureau drawer, the second one," he said quickly. "There's a box of stuff. My dad's ring is in it."

Sam nodded and turned away, and Kevin flickered slightly. "What do you need it for?"

"You need to lead me to this spirit," Missouri said absently, thinking of how best to contact the new spirit. "I think I can talk to her a little more easily than you can." She looked at Dean. "If we can find out who she was, we'll be able to summon her more easily to her place of death, and she might be able to remember enough to help you find his mother."

"Is there any way we can confirm if Mrs Tran's alive or dead, before we, uh, get too deep into trying to find this chick?"

"Do you have anything of your mother's, Kevin?" Missouri asked the spirit.

He nodded. "Her original identification's in that box," he told them. "When we started running, we packed it away."

"That will be fine," Missouri said. "Well, don't just stand there," she added to Dean, making shooing gestures at him. "Go make sure your brother brings the whole box."

He looked at her for a moment and hastily turned away, heading for the stairs when her brows drew together, presumably at what he was thinking.

"I heard that!" she called out after him.


The circle was empty, the room back at above-Arctic temperature and Dean packed away the packets of herbs and powders that Missouri had picked out from the apothecary, glancing up the steps and into the library.

She and Sam sat at the closest table, working with Mrs Tran's purse and a large scale map of Kansas as she felt through the Veil for any trace of Kevin's mother's presence.

"She's not dead," she said a moment later, opening her eyes and looking at Dean as he came up the steps. "I can't get a location; it feels thick, when I reach out for her, as if she's wrapped in something."

Sam looked at Dean. "Wardings."

He nodded. "What about this spirit, Candy or whatever her name is?"

"I'll need Kevin for that," Missouri said, looking at the circle. "He'll need another few hours before he's able to gather the energy together again."

"Can he use that without you here?" Dean asked, looking back at circle on the floor.

"Once he understands the mechanism of drawing the energy, he won't even need that," she told him.

"What'd he mean about being able to hear things, where he is?" Sam asked.

"Usually things are pretty quiet in the Veil," she explained. "Violent deaths, those things stand out, strangers stand out as well. It's just a bridge, really, between this plane and the next," she continued, looking at the table top and the map there. "Now, it's chaos, a lot of emotion, a lot of pain. I've heard from several spirits trapped there that they can feel the presence of the divine on our plane, can feel the angels, where they've fallen."

"You're kidding?" Dean looked from her to Sam. "Can we find the angels that way?"

"I don't think so," Missouri said, a little regretfully. "The dead don't have much of a sense of direction, in there. They can feel the presences of those not like themselves, but as for locating them – well, it's not likely they could."

"What about Kevin?" Sam asked. "He's got a better grip on what's happened to him, could he find them – or at least some of them?"

"You'd have to ask him," Missouri told him.


Four hours later.

"I got a Candice Saunders, went missing about four months ago, from DC," Sam said, scrolling down the screen. "Mistress of a Congressman, big hooha for a couple of months then the Congressman suddenly stopped talking about her." He flipped across the open windows on the laptop. "Also got a Candy Ryerson, missing from NYC, two months, a Candide Allson, missing from Pittsburgh, also four months ago and a Candy Spitzmann, who went missing from her parent's home five months ago. Father's a military type and mother is related to the Kennedys, somehow."

Dean nodded, leaning back in the chair and stretching as he watched Missouri come up the steps from the situation room.

"Kevin give you any solid leads?"

"The spirit was disoriented," she said, pulling out the chair at the end of the table and sitting down. "Her last name is Sanders or Saunders, maybe. She lived in DC. Her apartment address," she added, passing the slip of paper to Dean. "She'll be able to come across more strongly if you can get something for her to cling to."

"Body hasn't been found," Sam said, switching back to the police reports for Wichita. "So won't that be enough?"

Missouri smiled thinly. "It might be, if you want to dig around in her decomposing flesh."

"I'll get to DC, get her stuff, drop you home on the way," Dean said, rubbing a hand over his face as he felt the prospect of another two-day drive looming in front of him. "I'll meet you in Wichita," he added to Sam, getting up and walking out of the library.

Missouri watched him go, her head tilted a little to the side. Sam looked up as he felt her turn to look at him.

"There's something different about you," she said to him without preamble and he blinked at her.

"Different – how?"

"I don't know."

He could see the concern in her eyes, in her face and that worried him more than he was willing to admit.

"Do you still get visions, Sam?" she asked and he felt a faint shiver run up the back of his neck.

"No, that stopped when we killed the demon," he told her. "Why?"

She shook her head, her gaze sliding away. "I can feel your confusion," she admitted unwillingly. "But it feels like …"

"What?"

"I'm not sure," she said, looking back at him. "Dean told me you were possessed, by an angel?"

Sam nodded, his gaze dropping. "Yeah."

"Do you feel as if you're sometimes arguing with yourself?"

He looked up. "Sometimes, yeah," he confirmed. "But the angel's gone, Missouri. A friend – he told me that the angel's Grace, the, uh, residue of it, had gone completely."

"Then maybe I'm wrong," she said uneasily.

"What do you sense? About me?"

"I've never felt this before," Missouri told him. "But there's a … doubled … feel to your thoughts, to your emotions."

"A 'doubled' feel? What does that mean?"

Dean appeared in the doorway, canvas duffel over one shoulder, black gun bag in his hand. "You ready to go?" he asked Missouri.

Looking at him, Missouri nodded and got up from the chair. She turned back to Sam. "I don't know what it means, it's like an echo, but it's not, it's something different, something … not sentient, not alive, but not you."

Walking to them, Dean looked from the psychic to his brother, seeing the shock in Sam's face. "What?"

"Nothing," Sam said abruptly, looking at the computer. "I'll see you in Wichita, about four days?"

Dean nodded, brows drawn together as he recognised his brother's withdrawal. "Yeah."

"Sam, you take care," Missouri said, turning for the steps and the situation room. "Take a lot of care."

Watching her walk out, Dean behind her, Sam felt his chest constrict. An echo? Something not alive? What the hell did that mean? And why did it feel like he'd already known it?


US-36 E, Kansas

The black car drove into the oncoming dusk, its shadow thrown out far in front of it, the fields and houses and woods to either side of the blacktop road painted in bright gold and vivid reds as they approached them, faded and indistinct in soft purple-greys and blues as they passed and left them behind.

"You gonna tell me what you were talking to Sam about?" he asked Missouri an hour out, unable to come up with any reasonable explanation for the look on his brother's face when he'd come into the library or for the concern he'd seen in Missouri's expression.

"You gonna tell me why you boys don't talk to each other?" she countered snappily, sniffing when he was silent. "Suit yourself."

It wasn't like he could just blab out the problems between them to anyone, he thought in exasperation, feeling the tacit pressure from the woman next to him to talk about it. There were Sam's secrets to consider as well as his own, none of it had just been one or the other of them, and as much as he'd sometimes longed for an impartial referee to arbitrate the arguments between them, he wasn't deluded enough to think that there actually was such a thing. He'd done what he'd had to do. Sam'd always done what it was in him to do. There were few points of commonality left between them. Talking about it wasn't going to help.

"You know," Missouri said, some time later. "The last time I saw your father, was the day you and your brother drove out of Lawrence, after we'd cleaned the house."

"What?" He turned his head sharply to look at her. "He was there?"

She nodded. "Sitting in my parlour, when I got back. I asked him then why he didn't talk to you boys, why he didn't keep you with him."

He felt his chest aching and realised he was holding his breath, waiting for her answer.

"He told me he couldn't," she continued, her soft, high voice almost musical. "He said that he couldn't risk the danger to you, that he hadn't found the truth yet." She sighed, very quietly. "He told me that Dean would look after Sam, that he'd always looked after both his brother and his father, would lay down his life before he let harm come to either. Said that he trusted you to keep Sam safe."

Dean stared at the road, his emotions caught and frozen by her words. Too little, he thought, too late. He'd tried his whole life to do just that and he'd failed with both of them. He couldn't keep failing.


At Seneca, he stopped at the fill-up, pumping gas into the black car's tank. He knew Missouri was watching the reactions of the people around him, knew she saw how they moved back or aside, some reacting with revulsion, others just avoiding him entirely, moving away, looking away, ignoring him. Didn't need to be a psychic to catch that drift, he thought sourly, getting a coffee as he paid for the fuel, the clerk behind the counter watching him with a scowl on his face.

"It's getting stronger?" she asked, when he got into the car and started the engine. He didn't pretend not to know what she was talking about.

"Yeah."

"I don't have no truck with demonkind nor their opposites," Missouri said, pulling her purse onto her lap and digging around in it as he checked the traffic and pulled back onto the highway. "But I know someone, someone who might be able to tell you more about it."

He already knew more about it than he wanted to, he wanted to tell her, but didn't, deciding to let her think that he would follow whatever she suggested. She found paper and a pen and scribbled a name and number onto it, passing it to him.

"Don't look at me like that, Dean," she said reprovingly and he schooled his features into something he hoped was neutral. "And don't think you can hide those sour thoughts neither. She's studied these things, wouldn't it be worthwhile to get just one piece of information about that abomination that you can actually use?"

'She', he thought, already dismissing the unknown scholar. Some academician who'd never put her nose out of a book more likely. "But no guarantee, right?"

"No, of course not," she allowed, watching him fold up the paper and tuck it into his coat pocket without looking at it. "The way your luck's been running, I'd've thought you jump at the chance to give fate a second chance."

"Doesn't work like that," he said, half-smiling to take the edge from the comment.

Missouri subsided, a single huff from the passenger seat telling him she thought he was a fool. Wasn't the first time, he told himself.


He took the bypass around Topeka automatically, his eyes and hands and feet controlling the car without the need for him to think about what he was doing. Which was just as well, he thought as he made the turn for Lawrence, since he couldn't keep track of the mess in his head she'd stirred up.

When he pulled in front of the plain, frame house, Missouri turned to look at him.

"It's not a bad thing to let go," she said to him. "Walk on your own and let others do the same."

He didn't know what to say to that. If he'd a choice in the matter, he'd've preferred to have had backup, someone he could trust watching his rear. And he'd've preferred to have known that he would be there for his brother, as he'd always been, making sure that Sam was … if not, safe, exactly, then alive, anyway. He didn't have a choice.

"Eight years, Dean Winchester," she said, opening her door and sliding one leg out, foot braced on the road. "Don't leave it so long next time."

"No," he said awkwardly, clearing his throat as it came out high. "We won't – uh, I won't."

She smiled and slipped from the car, stepping onto the sidewalk and closing the door. He saw her watching him pull away in the rear-view mirror, standing there, her hands clasped together around her purse. She would've been a help with Bobby, he thought belatedly as he turned the corner and she disappeared from his view. She would've been a help with a lot of things, but he hadn't remembered, and neither had Sam.


Lebanon, Kansas

Sam looked in disbelief at the number of items in the list of spells, files, books and accounts the order had on the use of blood in supernatural ritual. More than thirty-six thousand in the files alone. More than two hundred thousand in all the reference materials that had been transferred and cross-referenced in the order's database.

Something not sentient, not alive, he thought unsteadily, getting up from the table and walking slowly for the kitchen to make a fresh pot of coffee. Like an echo.

Blood is a key.

The phrase returned to him, the memory of Crowley's face, sweating and crafty and shadowed by the church's murky yellow overhead lights.

A key to what?

Of the few accounts he'd already skimmed through, blood could be used for a variety of purposes, but none of them had mentioned being a key. And the whole concept was, at best, vague. Was blood to blood transfer a key? If so, how? And for what possible purpose?

Not sentient.

Not intelligent, not thinking on its own, not self-aware, he frowned at the word the psychic had used. It was very specific and he had the idea that Missouri had meant it in a way to suggest that it wasn't like the demon blood, it wasn't something that could affect him or his emotions in the way that had. Except … Azazel's blood had been a key, hadn't it? It had opened the areas of his brain, of his mind, that all humans were supposed to have, to a greater or lesser degree, but which in most were completely latent, unreachable. The visions, the psychic abilities that had begun to manifest from his twenty-second birthday, the other 'special children's' abilities … that'd been a key, from the demon to the infants he'd poisoned. Hadn't it?

She had to have known about it, even though he hadn't really told her the details. Or was this somehow different again.

The blood is gone.

He could never have gotten as far into the third trial as he had if it hadn't been. Could he?

Watching the refilled pot begin to brew morosely, Sam tried to sort through the tangle of memories he had of the last trial, the headache that had been small and almost unnoticeable a few hours ago, now throbbing behind his eyes and making spots dance across his vision. You're gonna bust a blood vessel you keep doing this, his brother's voice said sardonically in his mind. He shook his head, stretching again to try and ease the hard knots he could feel in the muscle of his shoulders and neck.

He could rest for an hour, he thought, trying to find a compromise between driving himself into the ground over the anxiety he could feel building and the sense that stopping now was a form of insanity he couldn't indulge. Just an hour. Then back at it. He looked at the pot and forced himself to turn away, heading out of the kitchen and up the stairs before he could give himself time to form an argument about it.

Just rest, he thought again, shucking his boots but lying on top of the stiff, gold brocade cover in his clothes. Not to sleep. Just to let the pressure out for an hour.

Sleep came for him anyway, despite his best efforts to resist it.

In the circle on the floor of the situation room, Kevin manifested, feeling the emptiness of the building. He drew energy from the floor, from the walls and warm hum of the motors of the computers and printers, from the air, leaving a faint sparkling trail of frost as he moved around the room, then the drifted through the bunker.


Wichita, Kansas

Dean glanced down at the map Sam had spread over the small motel table. To the south of the city, the Arkansas River meandered in loops through mixed residential and industrial areas, and two woodlands. He stabbed a finger at the park to the right of the river. "Bridge, woods, not that remote."

Sam nodded. "If we can find the body, it'll make it easier."

"Nothing from the cops on that?"

"Not so far," Sam said, picking up the second room key from the table and handing it to his brother. Dean took it without commenting.

"Let's roll, we've got about an hour of daylight left," he said, tucking the key into his pocket and turning to the door.

"What did you find at her place?" Sam asked as he rolled the map and followed him.

"Uh, jewellery, photographs, hair, toothbrush," Dean said, walking out to the car. "Stuff that was either physical remains or seemed like it might have a connection."

"This was the Congressman's girl, wasn't it?"

"Yeah, lotta jewellery," Dean confirmed, grinning at him over the roof of the Impala.


The drive took less than ten minutes and Dean parked the car in a lay-by just short of the trestle bridge, getting out and scanning the area to orient himself. Across the river, the woods of another park bristled against the dusk. One at a time, he decided, locking his door and walking down the slope toward the river.

"Quarter it?" Sam asked when they reached the bank. "North/south then east/west?"

"Yeah, I'll take the roadside," Dean told him, feeling for his flashlight as the light faded under the trees. He pulled out his phone. "Just text if you find her."

Next to the river and north of the bridge, the woods crowded thickly, spreading out a little as he climbed back up the slope toward the road, then turned, following a vague path through the undergrowth northward. He smelled Candice several minutes before he found her, a week of warmer-than-usual weather accelerating her decomposition. Texting Sam, he looked down at her. Slender, long legs and might've been blonde, he thought. The rest was indistinguishable, leaves and soil had been heaped loosely over her, most of it had fallen to either side. The crackle of Sam's tread came up the narrow, barely-there path behind him.

"Where do you want to summon her?" Sam looked over his shoulder at the body, his face scrunching up as he took in the details unwillingly.

"Upwind."

Sam dropped the match into the bowl at the centre of the circle, and the contents burst into flame, reaching up and sending thick, black smoke into the darkness above the small clearing.

The summoning spell was a much more powerful one than they'd used for the dead sailor, even with the Hand of Glory that'd been acting as the spirit's connection. Like Missouri's circle for Kevin, it focussed the spirit called, iron and gold and carbon providing access to the earth, candles and burning herbs giving pathways to the even more accessible transformative energy of heat. They watched as the flames shivered in unison and stilled and the ghost of Candice Saunders drew together in the circle.

Congressman'd had good taste, Dean thought absently. Candice was tall and slender, with long legs and long, blonde hair, a face that would've been pretty if not for the confusion and dread on it.

"Candice?" Sam said, clearing his throat.

She looked around, shaking her head, her hands twisting around each other. "Yes?"

"Do you know where you are?"

"Died." She shivered and the flames flickered together, the smoke spiralling to one side of the circle as the cool draught blew out of the circle. "There."

"Do you remember how you died?"

The energy sink of the spell was limitless and she stood still, head bowed, forehead furrowed as the things she'd lost in the Veil came rushing back.

"Dark."

Sam looked at Dean who shrugged.

"Dark in the boxes," the ghost continued after a moment, lifting her head to look at them. "I was at home, then I was in the box. Alone. The man's eyes were black, all black, no white. There were … chains. On my hands and feet. The man looked normal but his eyes were all black."

Demon, Sam thought, nodding. "Can you tell us about the boxes?"

"Side by side by side," she said. "Cold. Hard. So dark. The door opened once a day. Food. Water. Once a week the bucket was emptied."

"Did you hear anything?" Sam said, his forehead creasing up as he wondered how to get the information they needed from the disoriented spirit. He'd been dead a few times. But not like this.

"The vents," Candice said, her face clearing for a moment. "There were three of us, in the boxes. We could talk. To each other. Linda, Noah, me."

"Linda?" Dean said, leaning forward. "Linda Tran? Did she talk about a son?"

"Yes, yes, Kevin!" She looked at him excitedly. "Kevin would know, Kevin would find us!"

Not in time, Sam thought a little bitterly. "Can you tell us about the boxes?"

"They smelled," she said, the excitement dying away. "Not just of … us … but cold, damp. The floor was hard, gritty. The door was like a garage door, you know –"

"Like a metal roller door?" Dean guessed, the picture forming in his mind's eye. "Made a rattling noise when it opened?"

"Yes!"

"What else, Candice?"

"Candy," she said, shaking her head. "Only Mom … only Mom calls me Candice."

"Candy," Sam amended. "What happened?"

"The man came into the box, to get the bucket," she said. "Just the one this time. He took off the chains and I hit him. And I ran."

For a moment, she wavered into translucency, and Dean took a step forward involuntarily, feeling a stab of cold as she drew his energy from him. "Was it light? When you ran?"

Solidifying again, she nodded. "Too bright. I couldn't see. There was a corridor and a door and then the outside, grass and a parking lot, I think. And then the trees." She looked up. "I ran and ran, through the woods and down by the river, and I was afraid to call for help, afraid it would find me. It followed me. Followed me to the bridge. There was a sharp pain and then I was gone."

Dean glanced at his brother. "Storage units?"

"Who's keeping them?" Sam asked distractedly. "And why?"

"The King," Candy said abruptly. "The King of Hell needs you."

"What?"

"He said, he said that we were prisoners, by order of the King of Hell," she said, shaking her head again, her arms crossing over her chest.

"Leverage," Sam said, his tone thick with disgust.

"Okay," Dean agreed, not sure why Crowley would need the services of a Congressman but unwilling to think about that right this minute. He looked at the spirit.

"I want to go home," Candy said, looking at them. "I want to go home."

Sam glanced at his brother. Dean nodded.

"Candy, you'll be safe in the Veil," Sam said, not sure if that was true. "It might not be all that comfortable," he added, thinking of what Kevin had told them. "But it'll open and you'll be able to move on."

Dean turned away, heading back to the body, the black bag in one hand. Leverage against the prophet, he could understand, but what was Crowley's game that he needed politicians and whoever had been stuck in the third unit to further?

Sam watched Candy's materialised form flash into fire and fall to the centre of the circle as ash when Dean burned the body.


Storage units were ubiquitous across the country. Concrete boxes, one roller door, complete privacy, secure enough for the average citizen. He gathered the spell's ingredients, breaking the circle's lines and sigils as he packed everything into the duffel bag. Prisoners needed feeding, he thought. Needed to be attended to, not once in a while but every day.

Pushing aside the food wrappings, Dean looked down at the map. "How many places are we looking at?"

"Four within a mile's radius," Sam said, glancing at the map on the screen next to him. "The closest is about a half-mile from the river, in a straight line."

"Start there."

"Now?"

Dean nodded, getting up. He stopped and looked back down at the map, brows drawing together. "You got prisoners you're keeping for future favours, why kill one of them?"

"She escaped, maybe he wanted to make an example?"

"Crowley?" Dean shook his head. "He wanted them alive. The local muscle, maybe."

Sam's eyes narrowed as he looked at his brother. "Crowley's got no heart."

At the tone, Dean looked up. "No. But he doesn't ditch an advantage either."

"You want to give him a medal?" Sam asked, his voice edged. "Did it slip your attention that Crowley's the one who put them there?"

"No, I know. Just, uh, talking it out," Dean said mildly, turning away from the table and retrieving his keys from beside the door.

Sam watched his brother open the door and walk out. He wasn't sure of where that brief flash of anger had come from. He'd told Dean he didn't trust him, couldn't trust him any longer and he'd meant that he couldn't trust him to do the right thing for him, not that he didn't trust his brother to … what? … not work with a demon? Dean had, had gone with Crowley to find Cain.

He frowned at the thought. There was no possible way Dean would work with Crowley against people, he told himself. He remembered the news report about Tulsa and the furrows in his brow deepened. He still hadn't asked his brother about that.


"Five-five, pasty white, black-rimmed glasses," Dean mused, half to himself as he dinged the service bell on the counter again.

Sam repressed a smile as the young man who came through the Staff Only door matched the description precisely. He could feel his brother's smugness radiating beside him.

"Can I help you?"

"Special Agents, Mattison and Jefferson," Sam said, stepping up to the counter and holding his identification up for the clerk to see it. "We need to see your customer rental records."

"Uh, you got a warrant for that?" the clerk said, pushing his glasses higher up his nose. "Those records are confidential without –"

Dean leaned across the counter, smiling coldly. "Just found a body in the woods down by the bridge," he told the clerk, glancing at the name tag pinned to the right-hand side of the man's chest. "Del. The victim had several items that connect this storage unit to her death," he added. "We'd like to see those records now, or we can have this talk in our field office, downtown."

"Uh, yeah," Del muttered, looking around dazedly. "Barry!"

Sam's hand slipped inside his coat as the door opened again and another young man emerged, perhaps an inch or two taller than Del, but with the same pasty white skin, stringy hair and black-rimmed, thick-lensed glasses.

"Last six months, every unit," Dean elaborated, keeping his face expressionless.

"Rental records, for the agents," Del said, waving his hand in a hurry-up gesture at the other employee.

"But we're not supposed to –"

"Now, Barry," Sam said smoothly, his smile holding no more warmth than his brother's.

Barry turned back to the door and disappeared and Sam looked around the small, windowless office. On the other side of the room, a large map showed the layout of the complex, units designated by number, rows by letters.

"Dean." He walked to the map, scanning the groupings. "Row Q, three adjacent units."

Barry returned with three binders, and Dean flipped open the first, lip curling up as he looked for the units Sam was talking about. "All rented by the same customer. A J. Stalin."

Snorting, Sam shook his head. "Really? Sounds like a winner."

"Keys to those units?" Dean said, skimming over the rest of agreements. "Mr Stalin has another unit," he said, catching the name again. "On the other side. Keys for that one as well."

"That's a premium unit, I'll have to take you to see it," Del said primly. "Barry, keys for Q for the agent."

Dean looked at them carefully. Crowley never missed a trick, he thought as Barry handed a set of keys to Sam.

"You check out those," he told his brother. "I'll have a look at the other one."

Sam nodded and glanced back at the map, noting the direction of the row.


Memphis, Tennessee

The office was modern and sleek. Too sleek, Cas thought, looking around at the bare surfaces. Too much glass and chrome. Too many reflections. He blinked. Too much like the office in Heaven.

Naomi's room of reflections.

The memory didn't bite the way it had. As destructive as he'd become under her control, it wasn't one of the things he'd chosen to do. His memories of being rescued from Purgatory, if he'd ever had any, were gone. Wiped clean. What she'd attempted to replace them with was shattered, a few bare shreds that related to nothing and connected nowhere. Full memory had resumed only when he'd touched the tablet.

"Are we waiting for someone?" he asked the dark-haired angel standing on the other side of the long, square sofa.

"Do you have somewhere else to be?" the fair angel asked, mouth curling up in a sneer.

The doors to the office swung open, and a tall, slender man walked in, hair brushed smoothly back from an expressionless face, made memorable only by the vividness of his eyes. Cas looked at him, seeing the angel within the vessel's cold exterior and felt his heart sink.

"Bartholomew."

"Castiel," Bartholomew said, his mouth widening in a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "His blade, Asrael," he added to the fair-haired angel.

"Just protocol," Bartholomew said to Castiel when Asrael stepped forward and Cas' grip tightened on the sword hidden within his sleeve. "Can't be too careful these days."

Cas let the sword drop and handed it to Asrael. He looked at Bartholomew.

"Sit," the angel told him, gesturing to the chair. "It's been too long, my friend."

"What are you doing, Bartholomew?"

"I'm rewriting destiny," Bartholomew said, glancing at the dark-haired angel. "My own, and everyone else's." He turned back to Cas. "As you did."

"You think that what I've done deserves emulation?"

"I think you turned the entire universe on its ear, Castiel," Bartholomew corrected him. "And I think that, together, we can take out Metatron, restore Heaven and all live happily ever after."

Cas restrained the impulse to roll his eyes, looking at the table between them instead. Pride was not only his sin. He wondered vaguely if this was the reason for his Father's disappearance. A lesson to his sons on the principles of pride and humility, of the consequences that followed arrogance without end. He thought, a touch caustically, that it was a hard lesson for the humans swept up in his brothers' war.

"Castiel, join me," Bartholomew said, leaning forward. "Malachi will give up if he hears we fight together. You know how it was when Raphael was defeated and driven out. They will all rally to your banner, if you join it to mine."

The angel remembered the rout in Heaven of the last archangel and his army. He remembered too what had happened to the captives left in Bartholomew's charge from that battle. Remembered that none had lived. He'd left them with the angel because a prayer had summoned him back to Earth.

Divided loyalties, he thought, looking at Bartholomew. No soul, no conscience. No conscience, no real idea of what was the right thing to do. No guide to show the way.

"Let me show what we've done here," Bartholomew said, getting to his feet. "I think you'll find we haven't been idle."

He got up, following the other angel warily.

"What is this place?" he asked as they descended a curving timber and metal staircase through the atrium. The glass walls were etched with angels, wings outstretched and faces lifted to Heaven. Everywhere he looked, human vessels moved, the angels shining brightly within them.

"Our initial benefactor proved to be too weak for the cause," Bartholomew said with a shrug. "We decided his industry could be put to better use without the necessity of an intermediary."

Cas' lip curled down. "So you killed them."

"No," Bartholomew said, waving a hand around at the people busily working. "We enlightened them and made them vessels." He paused for a moment, his eyes vacant. "At least, those that didn't go 'pop'."

Crossing the floor, Cas saw more than one of the angels turn to look at him, at first speculatively then with growing anger.

"Your followers want me dead," he said to Bartholomew, lengthening his stride as the taller vessel strode out in front of him. "I'm not certain that you don't as well."

Coming to an abrupt stop, Bartholomew turned and looked at him expressionlessly. "Be very assured, Castiel, that if I wanted you dead, you'd be dead."

"So," Cas said, following as the angel turned and began to walk again. "We're friends here."

"Yes."

"And I'm free to go?"

"Of course you are," Bartholomew said, slowing again. "Though I don't know why you would." He turned from the hall and entered another large room, this one filled with workstations and network substations. "What is there for you, out there? What do you really think you would accomplish on your own? You'll never find Metatron that way."

"Finding Metatron, that's your goal?"

"Look around," Bartholomew said, stopping in the centre of the room. "We have every device on this small planet tracking the electro-magnetic disturbances of his sigil and listening to the aether for his signature."

"He's been down here?" Cas asked disbelievingly, looking around at the hardware filling the room.

"Three separate times that we've confirmed so far," Bartholomew said. "Six locations, three in this country, another three in the continent of Europe."

"For what purpose were you tracking Rebekha then?"

"Originally, we tried to find her for her knowledge of him. She was his student, she knew him, knew his habits, his personality."

"Originally?"

"We came to discover that she could not help us in finding Metatron, having set herself to a different purpose," Bartholomew said, walking to the one of the workstations. "She was gathering the fallen, leading them astray."

"She was trying to complete the work that been tasked to her – to us all – in Heaven," Cas argued.

"Our only task now is to bring down the Scribe and return to our home," Bartholomew snapped, looking coolly at him. "Any other purpose is a waste of resources."

He stopped at a large monitor. "Here, this was the last place we confirmed the readings. You've seen him – is this the vessel he wears now?"

Cas looked at the chubby-faced man on the screen. Behind him, a taller man stood, with an austere face and hard eyes. "Yes, that is the vessel that Metatron wears," he told Bartholomew. "Where is this?"

Glancing at the next screen, Bartholomew shrugged. "London. That picture is two weeks old. We can move faster now." He lifted his voice to the room. "The vessel is confirmed. Run the FR software with that image."

Around them, people – angels – Cas corrected himself – began to bustle around the monitors and keyboards, entering new information, sending the image from station to station.

"We want an exact match, people," Bartholomew called out. "He's still down here, I can feel it."

Cas wondered if that were true. "Can I have a print of that?"

"Of course," Bartholomew said, smiling and hitting a button on the keyboard next to him. "Printer's over here."

If it weren't for the severity of the situation, Cas thought he'd feel almost amused by the industriousness of his brothers. The technology of humanity had long been a point of mockery in Heaven. Until now, when they needed it, he considered.


Wichita, Kansas

"FBI agent, huh?" Del said, looking back over his shoulder as he walked up the narrow lane to the next row of storage units. "Hard to get into, I guess?"

Dean followed him, the back of his neck prickling. "Yeah, it's not easy."

"So, you get to travel, meet people, carry a gun," Del continued, turning left down another lane and stopping in front of a large unit. "Beats this crappy job."

Dean grunted in non-committal response. "How often does this guy come here?"

"Uh, for a while it was pretty regular," Del said, pulling out his phone and bringing up the storage facilities application. "Maybe three, four times a month. Last few months he's hardly been here."

The electronic lock disengaged and the roller door rattled its way open. The space inside was divided into an open area and a separately locked wire-cage, very similar to his father's lockups. Dean stepped in as Del hit the lights, looking around.

Shelving lined the walls, loaded with the sort of stuff that one or two marriages might've generated and outgrown, he thought. Old luggage, two lawn-mowers in various stages of disassembly, awaiting repairs, boxes of books, magazines, stuffed toys and gardening equipment. The Mark was burning on his arm.

He turned around. Del was standing by the door, a 9mm in his hand, the barrel levelled at him.

"'Course, I do carry a gun," Del said, smiling as his eyes flicked black, from corner to corner. "I know you're supposed to be fast, Winchester, but I don't think you're that fast."

He gestured with the gun. "Pull out your piece and drop it on the floor."

Piece? Dean thought in amusement. "You watch too many movies, kid," he said casually, drawing the automatic from the inside coat pocket and letting it fall at his feet.

"Probably," Del agreed without rancour. "Not much else to do around here. Kick it over here, nice and slow."

"So you killed the woman when she escaped?" Dean asked, lifting his hands to either side. "Your idea?"

"The boss was pissed but I've been stuck on this assignment for a long time, demon's gotta have some fun."

"Sure, all work and no play …"

"Exactly," Del said, nodding self-righteously to himself.

"Well, let's see how good you are at playing," Dean said, walking toward him.

"You stay back, or I'll shoot!"

"Go ahead," Dean told him, his gun visible in his peripheral vision, two steps to the right, one forward. "Tell Crowley you killed the only man capable of taking down Abaddon, see how he likes it."

"What!?"

"You might get a big promotion, or the express elevator to Hell, hard to say," Dean quipped, taking a step closer to the demon and one to the side.

"You're bluffing!"

Dean grinned at him. "Whaddya say? You feelin' lucky?"

The demon pulled the trigger and the Mark incandesced under Dean's skin, light boiling out through the seams of his sleeves, from under the cuffs and along the bones and blood vessels of his hand. He didn't think, just reacted, lifting his hand to intersect the path of the bullet and it stopped, maybe an inch or two from his palm, the lead melting in a flashpoint of white.

"Guess not," Dean said shakily, looking at the cooling metal pooled on the floor. Del was staring at him bug-eyed, and he strode to the demon, right hand grabbing the gun and the demon squealing as the metal became as incandescent as the hunter's arm.

"Sit down and shut up," Dean barked at him, tossing the gun to the back of the storage unit and leaning over to pick up his. "Alright, let's hear it," he said, turning back to Del and tucking his Colt back into his coat. The light had faded from his arm, but Del couldn't take his eyes off it. "All of it, from the beginning."


Moving along the narrow corridor of Row Q, Sam listened. He reached the first door and knocked, taking the electronic remote and hitting the 'Open' button. The door rattled up to show an empty unit, bare walls and floor thick with grime and rust-coloured splashes that he didn't want to look at too closely. The unit smelled a little, despite the cold, human waste, overlaid with a familiar nauseating scent. Sulphur. He crouched by the door as he saw the residual powder, gleaming yellow in the corridor's flat white lighting.

"Mrs Tran!" Getting to his feet, Sam moved fast to the next unit, hitting the lock button and ducking as the door rattled up. Linda Tran stared at him, dark eyes narrowed tightly against the light that flooded in behind him.

"Mrs Tran," Sam said, relief filling him. "It's Sam, Sam Winchester, it's okay, you're gonna be okay."

She cowered back as he walked slowly into the unit, shaking her head. "Winchester?"

"Yeah, Sam Winchester, do you, uh, remember me?" he asked her gently, crouching down next to her.

"Sam?" she repeated slowly. She was thin, he thought, looking over her. Her wrists and ankles were torn up, fresh blood and dried blood coating her hands and feet, the skin almost rubbed off by the heavy bronze shackles that attached her to the floor. He saw the deep groove to one side of the plate bolted to the floor and smiled slightly. She'd nearly made it through to the underside of the plate.

"Yeah, come on, let's get you out of here," he said, pulling out his picks.

"Where's Kevin?" Linda whispered to him as the manacle around her ankle dropped free. "He's safe, isn't he?"

"Uh, let's get these off –"

Linda's bird-like hand closed around his wrist hard and he looked at her face, feeling his guilt overflowing helplessly into his expression.

"What happened?" she asked, her voice steady, the act of will to keep it that way showing in the hard lines of her face.

"I'm so sorry," he said and he watched her jaw tighten as her gaze dropped to the floor. "It was my fault –"

"I doubt that," she said, shaking her head and looking back at him. "Get me out of these. I want – I want to see my son."

Behind them, the door rattled down and there was a soft clunk.

"Tell me your gizmo works from the inside?" Linda said tightly.


Dean paced across the length of the storage unit, half his attention on the demon sitting by the door, the other half pulling apart the information said demon had just spilled.

What the hell was Crowley up to, he wondered, brows drawn together in frustration. Why was he mixing it up with the human power brokers when he could do or get whatever he wanted without them?

He stopped abruptly and looked at Del. It wasn't out of the question that the demon was just a feed, he considered, unaware that his expression had become cold and expressionless, even when Del's face paled beyond its normal white to some shade of off-milk-grey.

Another thought hit him, and he looked at his watch, the scowl deepening further as he realised Sam'd been too long. "Where the hell's my brother?"

"Uh, um … locked in the unit with the prisoner," Del offered immediately. It was funny how no one had said that Winchester had the power to melt bullets, the demon thought frantically. Or that for all his time in Hell and Purgatory, for all that the rumours were that he'd broken in both places, the hunter radiated a lethal vibe that didn't look fucking broken at all. "My phone – my phone has the controls for the place," he added as Dean took a step toward him.

"Unlock them," Dean snapped, half-turning away then back. "Word was there were three prisoners. You killed one. Where's number three?"

"The old guy?" Del said, the words coming out without consideration. At this moment, he'd rather face Crowley's future punishment than whatever was lurking behind the cold, green eyes of the man in front of him. "Uh, he got taken away, somewhere else, right after the blonde got out."

"Name?"

"I – uh – I don't know," Del stammered, squirming in the chair as he pulled out his phone and realised he couldn't remember his own access code. "Crowley didn't give me their details."

A player or bit part leverage, Dean asked himself, turning away again. It didn't matter. He'd recorded the garbled story from the demon on his phone and he'd go through every fucking storage unit, abandoned building or defunct shipping container holding from Seattle to Miami and get those people loose.

"Uh, it's unlocked," Del said nervously.

"Good," Dean told him. "Time to go home."

"What?"

He had no idea if it would work, or how it would work. He just knew that if he did it, he'd be taking another step toward an end zone he didn't want to reach. The fact that he was already on that road made his doubts meaningless.

Stretching out his hand, he touched the demon's head and closed his eyes as the Mark flamed. In his mind's eye, he saw Hell again, as it'd been for him when he'd been down there. Whether the scar jacked up his sense memories or whether they'd simply become more clear for some other reason, he flinched inwardly as he smelled the acid and brimstone, saw the non-light throbbing, just out of time with his remembered heart-beat, forever forcing him to try to match it, when it speeded up or slowed down. He felt the heat, radiating from the air, from the rock, from the pools of bubbling liquid that filled every crevice and heard the chittering scrape of claws and the beat of the unseen wings that filled the caverns with gusts of wind.

Under his hand, the young man who'd been Del Fairfield shook and quivered as the demon that was locked into every cell burned up, his nervous system twitching and attempting to report the overloads of pain that every cell felt. Del's eyes rolled back in their sockets and he slid bonelessly to the floor as the red and gold light died out of his flesh.

Dean opened his eyes and looked down at the man at his feet. Dropping to one knee, he rested a couple of fingers against Del's carotid, feeling the slow beat of a pulse under the thin skin. He straightened up and pulled the unconscious man over to the wall beside the door, leaving him propped up there. Sam had done this, he remembered. Had pulled the demons from the meatsuits without harming the people being possessed.

"I'm pulling demons out of innocent people," Sam had said to him.

He hadn't wanted to hear it. "Use the knife!"

"The knife kills the victim!" Sam had cried out, his voice breaking. "What I do, most of them survive! Look, I've saved more people in the last five months than we save in a year."

At the time, he remembered, he'd thought it was the same old justifications. It's better my way. As opposed to it being completely not the right way, he'd thought.

Well, Sammy, I got it now. And yeah, the victim was alive.

He left the unit, and walked back to the office, Sam and Linda Tran coming in through the door a few minutes later. He swallowed as she looked up at him.

"You don't have to worry that I'm going to have a breakdown," Linda told him, her expression a warning not to say anything. "Just – Sam said you can talk to him – I want to see him."

Nodding, he gestured to the office door, deflecting Sam's questioning look with a slight shake of his head. He'd tell them about the demon on the ride home.


US-24 W, Kansas

"So, Crowley's got people stashed all over the country?" Sam asked, staring at the highway as the road disappeared under their wheels.

"That's what he said," Dean confirmed neutrally.

"We saw the other guy, Barry, taking off."

"Yeah, I thought that was Crowley's idea of a joke," Dean said, glancing in the rear view at the unmoving figure of Mrs Tran. "Revenge of the Demon Nerds."

Sam snorted and shook his head. "Did you kill Del?"

"No, exorcised the demon," Dean told him blandly. "Del was breathing when I left."

He felt Sam's gaze shift to him and kept his attention on the road. "The other prisoner was moved out a couple of days after Candy got out. The demon didn't have a name."

"Noah," Mrs Tran said from the backseat. "His name was Noah."

"He mention what he'd done to get locked up?" Dean's gaze shifted again to the rear view mirror.

She shook her head. "He said it would be safer if we didn't know."

"Helpful," Sam muttered.

"Yeah, well, I got a list of states and towns, but not much else," Dean said with a shrug. "Figured I'd give whoever's free a heads-up to start tracking them down and getting them out."

He felt his brother's look of surprise. "That sounds like a plan."


Memphis, Tennessee

Bartholomew turned away from the screens and looked at Castiel. "The benefits of a massive ground operation. Eyes and ears everywhere. It's only a matter of time before we get an active location."

The angel shrugged. "Why wait? With this kind of information, why not lure him out?"

Bartholomew smiled. "I knew you'd be an asset. No one's as motivated as you to take him down. I've had my hands so full with the factions … it's distracted me from the real goal. But with you by my side – the new boss and the ultimate rebel working together – think of the message that would send to would-be dissidents. They'd finally understand that resistance is futile. Think of the bloodshed we could avert ... what a united angelkind could accomplish in Heaven ... anywhere."

Turning back to the printer as it pushed out the photograph, he said, "We have already tried to lure Metatron several times. Each time failed. But with you, I think a trap would succeed."

He handed the printout to Castiel. "We need you, Castiel. And the truth is, you need us – an army at your back. There's no other way to win."

Cas folded the sheet and slid it into his coat pocket. "It's questionable as to whether Heaven is pregnable at all, Bartholomew."

The angel inclined his head. "Metatron will undo what he has done, with the right persuasion."

Cas let that go. Naomi had had the Scribe for days and had garnered only the information that Metatron had wanted her to have. He didn't think that was going to be the answer.

"Come, there's something we need to do," Bartholomew said, heading for the atrium.


Lebanon, Kansas

Linda stood beside the circle in the situation room of the bunker, her face calm but her eyes full of tears.

"I'm sorry," Kevin said.

"For what?" she retorted, her face screwing up. "For being a prophet? My son? You have nothing to be sorry for."

Looking down, Kevin shrugged helplessly. He was dead and he still didn't understand his mother.

"I am so proud of you," Linda said, forcing herself to look at him without the regrets and pain she could feel pressing up against her. "Your father would've been proud of you too, don't you ever think he wouldn't."

Dead and unable to speak for the mixture of emotion those words brought so easily.

"We have to find someplace safe for you," he said, coughing a little when his voice threatened to break. How could you be dead and still choked up, he wondered?

"But Crowley knows you're dead," Linda said, turning to look at the brothers who were sitting at the tables in the library. "There's no need for him to come looking for me now, is there?"

"Dead isn't always dead," Dean said, not looking at her. "It'd be better if you weren't visible for a while."

"That's what you said last time," she snapped at him and he looked at Sam.

"We have better resources now," Sam said, taking the cue without thinking about it and getting up. "You must be nearly tapped out anyway, right?"

She looked away, her focus sharpening on the room around her. "I can't stay here, in your boy's club," she said uncomfortably.

"No," Dean agreed instantly, Sam's concurrence sounding like a mis-registered echo.

"No," Sam repeated, forcing his expression into something he hoped approximated reassurance. "Our, um, lawyer, will set you up with a new identity, new place to live, someplace warded and guarded." He gestured to the box sitting on the library table. "Kevin can go with you."

"Guys, I figured out the problem with the table," Kevin said, drifting out of the circle and up the steps into the library.

"Can we track the angels with it? Metatron?" Dean asked, turning around to look at him.

"If we can find his key, yes," Kevin said. "The keys in the database are collective, not individual. That's why the table showed the groups as they fell. They were like, um, symphonies, lots of melodies together."

"That's what Rossitti said. And the database doesn't have the individual phrases?" Sam frowned at him.

"No, not as separated data," Kevin confirmed, shaking his head. "I think only an angel would be able to provide you with that. But what I can give you is the signature of the tablets. I know them."

"Alright, that's still a place to start, right?" Dean said, glancing at Sam. An unspoken understanding flickered between them. "Sam's gonna take you to the order's shyster to get your new life," he continued to Linda. "Kevin and me'll figure out how to get the tablets to show themselves on the table."

Sam nodded as Linda started to protest. "You'll need to be there, they need biometric data for identification as well as the usual stuff. It'll be the cleanest new life you can imagine," he told her then looked at Dean. "Can we take the Impala? It's warded from everyone, pretty much."

Dean nodded. "Yeah, faster too."


Memphis, Tennessee

"What I need from you, Castiel, is a commitment to the cause," Bartholomew said as they walked back into his office.

"A commitment?" Cas repeated cautiously. "What kind of a commitment?"

He looked up as the doors opened again, three angels entering the room, and winced inwardly as he saw Heman held between the other two. The angel was forced to his knees in front of Bartholomew.

"A solid commitment," Bartholomew said, looking down at Heman.

"What are you going to do?"

"What needs to be done. I'm going to torture the rebel, find out what he knows, then kill him," Bartholomew said bluntly, looking at Cas. "And you're going to help."

"No."

"No?" Bartholomew lifted an eyebrow quizzically.

"He doesn't know anything, and you've already destroyed their group." Cas looked at the gleaming glass walls. "The discordances in your signature are apparent to all, Bartholomew, and you will not harm him or kill him. Not if you want a partnership."

For a long moment, the angel stared at him and Cas could almost feel him weighing up the possible benefits he might offer against his ultimatum. It was insubordination. He was no longer an angel, obedient and respectful to those above. Bartholomew should've expected it, he thought without humour.

"What are you offering, exactly, Castiel?"

"We will find Metatron together," Cas said expressionlessly. "We will reverse the spell that has locked Heaven to all, angel and soul. I can give you my word that I will work with you to that end."

"And if your 'word' isn't good enough?"

"That's all I have to give, Bartholomew," Cas said simply. "You can take it, or leave it."

"Do you know why they brought you back from the battlefield? The truth?"

"Yes, I know the truth," Cas said. It was a memory that Naomi had preserved.

"They knew you'd stand in the way of their order. Said you didn't have it in you. That you couldn't do what needed to be done. But I know different. I know you've changed," Bartholomew pressed.

"I'm not a murderer."

"You weren't. Not then," Bartholomew agreed, the corner of his mouth lifting in amusement. "But since then, you've slaughtered thousands of angels. Samandriel. Hail. Ephraim. We all heard their songs, you know, as they died by your hand. You killed Malachi's man for his Grace," he pointed out helpfully. "You have killed for your own purposes, to save your own skin."

Cas bowed his head. "I will not kill for no reason, Bartholomew. Nor torture for the twisted pleasure of having control over another. I am not you."

"No? Then who are you? I want to work with you, Castiel, but I need proof," Bartholomew said, gesturing to the two angels standing by the door. "They need proof that they were wrong. That you can do what has to be done. This has to be done."

"I was never free to leave. My only choice was to obey or be killed. Well, I choose," Cas said. "You have my blade."

"Yes, I do," Bartholomew said, turning to Heman as the silver sword dropped from the sleeve of his coat and thrusting it into the angel to the hilt.

"No!" Cas knew he was too late, light pouring from the angel's eyes and open mouth, from the wound in his chest. "Damn you to Perdition, Bartholomew, there was no need!"

"I prefer to have no loose ends," Bartholomew said, swinging the blade back to him. "As your refusal to join me makes perfectly clear, you have always thought you were superior to me. Shall we put that to the test?"

"No," Cas said heavily. "Angels fighting angels has to stop somewhere. It might as well be here."

"Fine."

He lunged forward, the sword extended in his grip and Cas reached forward, stepping to one side at the same time, hand gripping Bartholomew's sword hand as he used the kinesis of both their movements to swing the angel around on the fulcrum of his arm and step behind him. Bartholomew sagged against him, trying to break the hold around his neck and Cas moved with him, taking the power from the move easily.

"Stand down!"

Cas didn't look behind him, knowing that Asrael and the other had moved closer. He held Bartholomew's hand, the tip of his sword against the angel's throat.

"Can you kill me, Castiel? Now? It's life and death, yours or mine."

"No," Cas said, recognising the truth of that even as he thrust Bartholomew away, stepping back as the angel turned to face him.

"What are you now? A penitent?"

"Even that course has been denied to me," Cas told him. "I'm nothing."

"Yes, I thought you'd changed, but I see I was wrong," Bartholomew said in sneering agreement, straightening up. "You are nothing."

A sword dropped into his hand and he spun toward Cas. There was a clear note as the blades met, Cas letting his run up Bartholomew's to the hilt, using the shallow guard to catch against the sword's edge and twisting it hard, breaking Bartholomew's grip on his weapon. The angel sword fell and Cas lifted the tip of his, the point slashing upward into the angel's face, and flickering as he twisted his wrists again, driving it down now, two-handed, through the vessel's ribs and into his heart.

He looked surprised, Cas thought emotionlessly as Bartholomew's vessel hit the floor. He shouldn't have been. It'd been many years now since he'd fought with the garrison, surely it must've occurred to Bartholomew that he might've learned some new tricks from fighting hand-to-hand, everything from humans and demons to other angels?

Turning away from the body, he stared at the angels guarding the door. Both were young, and in shock at the death of their leader. He thought he'd get away with relying on the angelic trait of obedience here.

"Let me pass," he growled at them and they stood back, unused to not obeying instantly as yet. Cas walked out between them, and down the stairs, not looking at anyone else, tension throbbing in his skull as he reached the front doors of the building and exited them without another confrontation.

It wouldn't last, he thought. He needed to see the Winchesters. Needed to tell them what he'd learned.


Lebanon, Kansas

"Can you see where they are?" Dean asked Kevin as he painstakingly typed in the lines of ones and zeroes the spirit had given him.

"No," Kevin said, watching his entries like a hawk. "I can't even describe what they are or what they feel like to me, only how I recognise them."

"And you think Metatron's keeping them with him?"

"I think he would," Kevin said carefully. "But no, I'm not sure. Heaven would probably be a pretty safe place for them."

"Yeah, well, you pays your money and you takes your choices," Dean said philosophically, lifting his hands from the keys and cracking his knuckles. "Done."

"Let me see."

"All in there, just the way you had them," the hunter said, a little miffed at the blatant lack of trust.

"Good," Kevin said unrepentedly. "You still haven't heard from Charlie?"

"No," Dean said, his tone terse.

"You know, you two have a bad habit of losing people when you really need them?" Kevin said, hovering over the screen. He looked around when Dean didn't respond. "Oh, sorry – I didn't mean that the way it –"

Dean shrugged. "It's true. Don't apologise."

Turning to face him, Kevin saw the shuttered expression that he'd come to recognise, and understand.

"Dean, listen to me, alright?"

"Mmm."

"What happened to me was not on you," Kevin said, looking at him intently. "I know you don't want to believe it, but you need to because it's true."

"Right."

"For whatever reason, I was born a prophet of the Word," Kevin continued, drifting around in front of the hunter as Dean turned away. "I'm guessing you didn't have anything to do with that." He shifted a bit further along as Dean's gaze moved to one side. "And sure, if you hadn't opened the damned Leviathan tablet, I'd probably have lived out my life in ignorant bliss – or – at least until Roman cracked it open. Right?"

"This going to take long?"

"As long as it takes," Kevin snapped. "And Crowley? Crowley had the demon tablet, Dean, he was after me from the moment he'd discovered it."

"Kevin –"

"No, I'm not done!" The ghost floated across the computer and back to him. "Metatron saved my life – because you shamed him into it. He told me. And then the son-of-a-bitch killed me."

Dean's head snapped up at that and Kevin looked at him in surprise.

"You didn't know that Gadreil was acting on Metatron's orders?" he asked, then shook his head impatiently. "No, sorry, how could you've? He said he had no choice –"

"Stop it," Dean said, holding up his hands. "Just – just stop, okay."

Kevin looked at him expectantly and Dean's mouth twisted up.

"Look, I'm sure you had this whole speech worked out, but none of that matters, man," the hunter said tiredly. "This place was safe. I brought you here. Then I put that fucking angel into Sam and brought him here. If I hadn't done that – look, you would've been safe here. Even Metatron couldn't've gotten in. So that's the way it is, alright? Now, just drop it."

"No," Kevin said mulishly. "No, that's not the way it is. Metatron wanted me dead, then wherever I was, or whatever I was doing or whoever was supposed to be protecting me? Wouldn't've mattered. Dean," Kevin said, his voice louder. "I'm the – I was the prophet. I knew what that meant, even back when I didn't want to know anything about it, even back when you were trying to tell me how it was gonna be, and I didn't want to listen to it. No life. I knew it."

He looked at the man's expression, half-shocked, he thought, half-disbelieving. Like someone looking at a mirage out in the desert.

"Your angel friend made it all real, when you guys came back before – all this," he continued, more quietly. "Don't you remember what he said?"

You are a Prophet of the Lord, always and forever ... until the day you cease to exist, and then another Prophet takes your place. Now, are you clear as to the task before you?

Dean nodded, that memory seared in. Cas had been more like himself, or at least like the warrior he'd first met, than he'd been for years. Out of control, he thought to himself, but definitely one of God's soldiers.

"I'm not a child, Dean. I faced off Crowley and when Sam came into the library, I knew it wasn't him," Kevin said, watching the expressions pass like shadows over the man's face. "I knew what that meant."


York, Pennsylvania

Linda looked around the old-fashioned office from the depths of the wing-back, velvet upholstered armchair. It looked turn-of-the-century, and not the last turn either, she thought to herself as the old lawyer on the other side of the big desk gathered the papers together. Yavoklevich, he'd introduced himself as, his manners as courtly and old-fashioned as the office.

"Passport, driver's licence – you'll need to renew that in two years' time, Mrs Lau," he told her, smiling as he used her alias for the first time. The smile was reassuring but she was quite aware that her old life had vanished without a trace in that same moment. "Savings account, checking account, investment funds, the title deeds to the house and your cards … ah, yes, here it is, Social Security, credit cards, store cards and referrals for the local medical practitioners, all present and accounted for." He pushed the documentation back into the slim leather folder and zipped it closed, handing it across the desk to her, then pressing the button on the flat, modern telephone. "Ashley, could you have Mrs Lau's keys – house, car and safety deposit box – ready for her on her way out, please?"

"Of course, Mr Yavoklevich," Ashley's voice emerged flatly from the speaker.

"Now, you understand that the house is warded from everything, Mrs Lau?" he said to Linda, peering over his spectacles at her. "Once Kevin is inside, once the object he's connected to is inside, he cannot leave."

"I understand," Linda said, repressing the memory of the short conversation she'd had with Dean before she'd left. "I have been advised that the situation might go on for some time."

"Quite," Yavoklevich said, nodding. "If you experience any difficulties, I hope you will contact us immediately, that's what we're here for."

"I'm sure it will be fine, Mr Yavoklevich," she said firmly. She'd survived her son's toddler years and his teenage years, her expression said. She would deal with whatever happened next.

"I am sure that Kevin could have no greater protector, Mrs Lau," Yavoklevich said.

She ducked her head at the faint thread of admiration in his voice and rose from the chair, extending her hand. The old lawyer's grip was surprisingly firm, wiry strength in his fingers as he shook hers.

"It's been an … education to meet you, sir," she said.

"And you, my dear," he said frankly back to her, eyes twinkling behind the thick lenses of the fine, wire-rimmed glasses. "Sam knows the way out."

Nodding, she turned and headed for the door, blinking slightly as the hallway seemed to change light tones for just a second, then looked normal again. In the reception area, Ashley held out a manila envelope, the distance in her expression indicating that she was on a call, although nothing could be heard from the discreet headset she wore.

"Thank you," Linda said, taking the envelope and tucking it next to the leather folder under her arm. She followed Sam out of the office, stepping to one side as a tall, strikingly lovely redhead walked past them in the hall.


"Where's the car?" Sam asked when they hit the street. Opening the envelope, Linda pulled out the electronic remote and pressed the button. A quiet beep made them both turn their heads to see the lights flash on a black Lexus, parked three spaces up.

"No Mercedes?" she said with mocking disappointment.

Sam grinned at her. "Nothing flashy. You're in the world's best witness protection program now."

"Hmpf."

He walked to the car and examined it carefully. The sigils and wards were barely visible in the interior and had been embossed subtly on the inside of the trunk's lid. It would certainly hide her, he thought with a moment's satisfaction.

"You're good to go," he said as she put her purse, the leather folder and envelope on the passenger seat. "I'll be right behind you, the whole way."

"Sam," Linda said, turning to look up at him as she stood by the driver's door. "Kevin told me what happened."

"Uh, that's, I –" he stumbled over the words, shame rising.

"Sam, I believe you took pre-law in college?"

He blinked at her, thrown by the change of subject, then nodded warily. "Yeah."

"Then you must know this - actus me invito factus non est meus actus?"

"The act done by me against my will is not my act," Sam said slowly, the words and their meaning leaping out of his memories of sunshine-filled rooms and the dry, rambling voice of his professor.

"Yes," Linda said. "My son was a prophet, by no choice of mine, or yours or his. And his death does not lie on you."

"Mrs Tran-"

"Neh! Mrs Lau," she corrected him. "When you see the world as it really is, every choice we make is a responsibility. But I will not allow you to take the responsibility for something that someone else has done. And neither will my son. Kevin said that the angel was acting on orders."

"Orders from whom?"

"Metatron."

"No, Kevin was his prophet, he wouldn't –" Sam stopped, his memories of the angel unclear where the trials had scrambled them.

"Of all of us, I think Kevin would know this, and I believe him," Linda said. "So let's keep our focus on bringing that son-of-a-bitch down."

He nodded and she turned away, sliding into the driver's seat and starting the engine. "I'll see you back there."

"Yeah," he said, watching as she pulled out into the traffic and turning belatedly for the Impala.


Lebanon, Kansas

The fire was burning low on the library's hearth, fitful flames casting wild shadows over the stacks and shelves and walls. Dean watched them, not seeing them at all. On the small table beside the armchair, the decanter and the half-filled glass stood forgotten, and a pile of books sat on the floor next to his feet, skimmed through and half-read, his notes sitting on top of them.

He'd tried to calling to Cas earlier but the angel hadn't responded. He'd wondered if Cas was again trying to fix things on his own, then had pushed the thought aside. One way or another, it wasn't going to help or hinder what he had coming. Crowley hadn't answered his calls either, the demon either walking the bottom of the ocean – and drowning, he hoped – or being deliberately aggravating. The table had lit up for five minutes when the assembler had finished compiling his additional data, the tablet key flashing from location to location and finally disappearing altogether. After that anticlimax, Kevin had disappeared and he'd decided to do some more research on the one-time Scribe of God.

Metatron's life and times had been speculated and argued over by theologians for centuries, but there weren't that many conclusions and not a single certainty. The order's accounts were in agreement that he'd fled Heaven sometime soon after finishing the tablets, but that was where their trail had stopped.

Chewing on the corner of his lip, he went back over the meeting with the angel he'd thought was Ezekiel, replaying the fight in the parking lot under the hospital, the conversation he'd had in Sam's room, and every conversation he could remember following that. No matter how many times he went over them, he couldn't find a hint that the two angels had played him deliberately. Opportunistically, definitely. But he didn't think it had all been planned.

He wasn't allowing himself to think over what Kevin had said. Not yet. Maybe not at all, he admitted to himself. It was too late. He'd done what he'd thought was the right thing and … and it had turned out to be wrong for everyone involved.

The sharp beep of his phone dragged him back to the library and the present and he looked around, disoriented by the sight of the books and the whiskey and the fire, hand scrabbling automatically in his pocket. The new phone was pristine and the message on the screen was crystal clear.

Done with your moping? Springdale, Washington.

He stared at it, then flicked to the caller details. B. Delaney. [Number not found].

Sonofabitch.

The temptation to toss the phone onto the fire was considerable and he restrained himself only after several minutes of internal struggle. It wouldn't help. Whoever B. Delaney was, they had more fixes on him than he could counter and even Yavoklevich wasn't going to be able to stop that.

He picked up his glass and got up, walking down to the situation room and sitting down at the computer to type in the location.


Linda held the box of Kevin's belongings, tucked against her chest as she nodded to Dean.

"Still nothing from Cas?" Sam asked his brother. Dean shook his head.

Kevin stood, pale and washed out, but solid-looking, the air in the room cold and dry around him.

"Guys … thank you," he said, glancing at his mother.

"You can thank us when we get you to Heaven," Dean said bluntly. He saw Kevin's face scrunch up in concern, and added quickly, "Okay, until then, enjoy your time with your mom. The, uh, uninterrupted, twenty-four-seven, no-escape quality time."

"Dick," Kevin retorted quietly, smiling as he saw Dean's expression lighten. "I'll be watching, from the Veil," he told them. "If I find anything, I'll let you know."

Sam nodded, his gaze moving to Linda. "Just don't stick your necks out."

Smiling at him, she said dryly, "Quiet as church mice."

Sam followed her as she turned away and started up the steps, Kevin vanishing when her hand touched the iron balustrade. At the door, Linda turned back, her gaze cutting down to the lower floor briefly.

"You take care of each other," she said to him. "This is no time for fighting."

He stiffened a little, then nodded, reaching past her to unlock the door. The clunk-clunk of the tenons filled the strained silence between them. When the door swung open, Linda walked out and Sam watched her go to the car. He closed the door when the engine started.

Dean stood on the shallow flight of steps between the situation room and the library, his expression unreadable. He looked up as Sam came down the stairs.

"Well, that was –"

Sam turned at the foot of the stairs, heading for the narrow hallway on the other side of the room, stride lengthening as he ignored his brother's tentative opening. He didn't want to talk about what'd happened, not now. He needed time.

On the steps, Dean watched him go and nodded to himself. He picked up the slim sheaf of papers he'd printed out about the deaths in Springdale and walked up the steps. It was a two-day drive to Washington and he'd go in the morning, he decided. Too much had happened in the last few days, he could use the time on his own to work it out.