and the tension thickens...
"Did you have to tell him that we quit though?" Aubrey laughed lightly. "I mean, you just made three people lose their jobs all at once."
"Can't they get it back by volunteering or something?" Dean said, frowning.
"I don't think so. Anyway—Virgil. How'd he get the key again?" She stepped through the doors of Jared Padalecki's mansion, the familiar scent of rain wafting off each of the hunters as they dried their feet on the welcoming mat, without regard.
Sam grunted. "He must have slipped it out of my pocket while the stunt people were keeping me off him or something."
"How do you think we can get it back?"
"Maybe if we get inside the police dispatch system," he suggested, sounding quite driven despite the fact that he was the one who had lost the key in the first place.
Dean nodded in agreement. "Put out an A.P.B. on Virgil," he said. "Might work, if he stays obvious."
"It's not like we have a lot of time…"
Sam was interrupted by a shrill cry coming from their right. Aubrey whirled around, her hands already clenched into fists and ready to punch something. As it turned out, it was only fake-Ruby (Sam discovered that her actual name was Genevieve). Lines of make-up ran down her cheeks, and she was sobbing loudly: "Oh my God! Oh my God!"
"What?" Sam demanded, sounding rather callous towards the actress. Aubrey threw him a warning look, because some part of her knew that that was what Candice would do… and, she felt that he had been too unfeeling towards Genevieve.
"What happened?" Aubrey asked her. She barely understood Genevieve's words through her sobs, but they were straightforward enough:
"Misha, he's been stabbed to death!"
When they asked where Misha had been stabbed, Genevieve, albeit terribly befuddled, told them that his body was found in an alleyway only a few blocks away from the set. Aubrey immediately assumed that he'd been hijacked or something of the sort on the way to his car… or, while he was already in the car, but that was doubtful. Sam and Dean had raced to the car, going to drive to the scene, and Aubrey was just behind them when she felt Genevieve's hand wrap around her arm, effectively halting her.
"I'm sorry, Candice," the actress said, sympathy laced within her sobs. "I know you two were really great friends."
Not knowing what to say, Aubrey just gently shook her hand off her arm and said, "I want to see it for myself." Was that something Candice would say? She wasn't sure. She'd already turned around and started running for the Impala before Genevieve could formulate a proper response.
The crime scene wasn't at all hard to find, considering the police cars littering the alley and the yellow tape reading "CAUTION DO NOT ENTER" distributed very evenly everywhere. There weren't very many pedestrians looking in though, but that was probably because it was in the middle of the night. Aubrey, Sam, and Dean didn't even need ID to enter the scene. Whether the police in the city were careless or that was just standard Canadian rules, Aubrey didn't know. She stared down at Misha's body lying by her feet. It had been covered with a white sheet, but the blood from his slit neck had seeped through, carefully contrasting the dark, wet pavement with bright red.
Aubrey started wondering whether there were rules of a parallel universe that stated: when a person died, then their counter double in another universe would die as well. Or would they just feel a slight prick, which was the signal that their double had just lost their life? Cas can't die that easily, Aubrey scolded herself. And were angels even bound by laws of time and space? She was sure that they weren't. She was just being paranoid, and protective, and angry, and hurting, and—
Dean tapping her arm shocked her out of her stupor.
"What is it?" Aubrey said, blinking rapidly to remove the raindrops she didn't know had slipped into her eyes.
"We know how we're gonna get back," Dean stated simply. Behind him was Sam, as apparently it was his turn to stare down at a dead Misha. Still blinking, though attention caught, Aubrey gestured for Dean to continue. "Some hobo guy overheard Virgil talking to himself after he stabbed Misha"—Aubrey had to do a double-take to make sure that she'd heard that right. Virgil stabbed Misha?—"and he said he heard a voice. Virgil's crossing over to the real world tomorrow, same place he got here from, same time. Raphael's gonna pull him out, with the key. Did I mention that Virgil stabbed Misha?"
"No, but I gathered it," Aubrey replied sharply. "So… set-Bobby's house? That's where Virgil's gonna cross over?" Dean nodded. "Okay, so we rest up tonight, go to set with guns blazing tomorrow and knock Virgil out right before Raphael pulls him out so instead, we're gonna be pulled out."
Sam frowned. "You make it sound so easy."
"It's nothing we haven't done before."
"Aub, if Virgil gets back with that key," Dean started, his voice laced with reasoning. "Cas is dead and our world is toast."
Aubrey knew he'd only mentioned Castiel dying because both he and his brother knew that she cared very much for the angel, which is why she kept her glare to a minimum. "Which is why we'll stop him before he crosses over," she replied shortly. "How bad can an angel with no wings be?"
Turns out, it could be very bad. Virgil hadn't been lying around waiting for high noon to come. He'd bought guns, the weapons Aubrey, Sam and Dean were supposed to have but couldn't have because the set didn't permit them. They were waiting for the angel, though. As soon as he walked into the set (shooting more people than was necessary), Sam caught his attention, and Dean and Aubrey team-tackled him into a prop wall.
Dean pinned the angel's arms to his sides as Aubrey landed punch after punch on his face. At least she was doing damage; a cut appeared on his upper lip, his nose started bleeding, and bruises the size of apples started forming on his cheeks. But she knew she couldn't last forever. Virgil brought his leg up and kneed the small of her back. Pain shot up her spine and she crumpled to the side, cursing violently. Virgil somehow managed to grab both of Dean's wrists and flipped him over. Dean landed on his back with a great crash. Aubrey tried to get her hands underneath her but Virgil landed a kick on her jaw. Stars appeared before her eyes, and she struggled to stay conscious. Virgil, apparently, was stronger than most angels.
From the side, there came the sound of a door being kicked open. What Aubrey knew to be Sam's feet entered her view, and she watched as he landed a punch on Virgil's jaw. Hands suddenly slipped beneath her armpits, but it was only Dean helping her onto her feet. She grunted in thanks before the two of them engaged Virgil once more.
It was supposed to be hard for one man to fight three fully-grown and experienced hunters at once, even for an angel. It took them a whole minute to finally get him on his back once more. This time, Dean pinned his arms, and Sam his legs as Aubrey struggled to fish the key out of his pocket. Dean continued punching Virgil senseless, and by the time the key had slipped into Aubrey's hand with a satisfying rattle, he had rendered the angel unconscious.
Breathing heavily, Aubrey held both her hands up to the boys for a high-five. They returned it, even letting small smiles stretch across their faces, but this was before the bright red symbol appeared on the prop window. It was the same symbol Dean had drawn there the previous day, and Aubrey couldn't fathom why their improvised spell hadn't worked.
"Raphael," Sam said below his breath. "RUN!"
Aubrey whirled around and made a break for it. The key rattled in her hand as she did so, but then a large hand seemed to sink into the small of her back. She gasped in pain as the hand pulled her backwards. At the back of her head, she knew the same was happening with her companions. Her feet left the ground and they crashed into the prop window. At least, it was supposed to be a prop—plastic. But the sudden pain that ripped across her back was just like what she'd felt in their original jump, from Bobby's real study.
Her stomach seemed to turn in over itself, and Aubrey was seized with the sudden urge to throw up. Her back hit hard pavement, as well as several glass shards. They pricked her skin through the fabric of her clothes. She forced her eyelids open, groaning slightly. They were no longer on the set; that was what Aubrey had gathered from the unfamiliar surroundings, at least.
A dark-skinned woman in a business suit was walking up to them, and Aubrey could remember much from her last encounter with a certain archangel that she didn't need to wonder who the new face was.
"Raphael," Aubrey said, groaning slightly as she flipped onto her stomach, getting her hands beneath her. "Found a new meat suit, have you?"
"After you and Balthazar teamed up on me, I had to." Her tone was menacing. "See, you three have the strangest luck." She glared down at Aubrey, and Aubrey returned the favor as she wrestled herself onto her feet.
"You look great," Dean said from her right, before muttering from the corner of his mouth to his brother: "Dude looks like a lady."
Quicker than Aubrey could move, Raphael squeezed her fist. At the same time her palm closed, it seemed, Aubrey's organs felt like they were being cut open. She howled in agony, clutching her stomach as her knees buckled. She was determined to keep standing, however, and that was what she did. But she, once more, wasn't far off to losing consciousness.
"The key," she vaguely heard Raphael say. Aubrey knew that it was still tucked tight within her hand. In spite, she spat at the archangel's feet. The pain came again. Raphael seemed to be pouring boiling acid into her brain. White dots appeared in her vision, and Aubrey was forced to drop the key, finally falling to her knees as she squeezed her temples.
The sound of breaking glass reached her ears as Raphael approached them. She bent down to pick up the fallen key, her hand closing around it as if it were a star. Aubrey huffed pointedly, hard enough for the wisps of air to reach the archangel's face. Raphael looked down at her for a long moment before waving her hand. The agony disappeared as soon as it came, and Aubrey gulped in large amounts of air, coughing as the cold dried her throat.
There was the unmistakable sound of flapping wings, and Aubrey raised her head. Through the tears that had accumulated in her eyes, she saw the distinctive figure of Balthazar in his V-neck shirt and jacket. Small volumes of relief flooded through Aubrey, enough to give her the strength to get back on her feet. She stumbled, but Dean caught her, and continued to support her as they watched the all too familiar scene unravel before them.
"—open you a locker at the Albany bus station," Balthazar was saying, delicately raising a hand for added effect.
"Really?" said Raphael; her voice was smooth, but bordering on the edges of fury.
Balthazar nodded. "You see, I needed a modest decoy to make it more convincing—"
"Give me the weapons," she interjected sharply. The two angels were only a few feet apart, now, and Aubrey was subtly pulling Dean backwards with her; if ever an angel duel were to break out, they needed to be as far away as possible. They didn't need to become casualties in the war they'd been sucked into.
"Sorry, darling," Balthazar smoothly replied. "They're gone."
There was a pause. "What?"
"I said: too bloody late." The angel's eyes held a soft blaze in them that Aubrey just assumed he was angry about something… or two. "You see, they were so well-hidden that I needed time to find them. So, I volunteered these three marmosets for a game of fetch with Virgil." He gestured to the hunters hanging back. "No offense, Phoenix."
"Asshole," Aubrey shot back, no hesitation whatsoever. Balthazar did a double-take with her, so something in her face must have frightened him even the slightest bit.
Balthazar cleared his throat. "Anyway, you three were such an adequate stick. Thank you, truly. Thank you."
'You can take your thank you and shove it up your ass' Aubrey wanted to say, but kept her mouth shut because Raphael was still there, and she wasn't exactly keen on experiencing gut-wrenching pain thrice in one night.
"You've made your last mistake," stated said archangel, rather menacingly.
"Oh, I've got a few more up my sleeve," Balthazar retorted, "honey."
Raphael's figure turned rigid. From where Aubrey stood, she could see the emotions ripple across her face: embarrassment, anger, malice. The archangel approached Balthazar in long strides, and Aubrey was surprised to find Balthazar not moving. She made a move against Dean, to somehow help the angel. Why—she wasn't sure. Dean held her back though, grunting because apparently, even while injured, she was still very strong.
She stilled when another pair of wings came fluttering down.
"Step away from him, Raphael," Castiel said. A light shudder ran through Aubrey's cold state as his voice seemed to seep into her. She felt reassured to see him, after everything they'd gone through in the past days; at the same time, she felt an intense anger. Heat rose up her neck as she stared at the angel with a newfound irritation, though she knew she couldn't exactly hit him at that moment. She resolved to wait it out.
"I have the weapons now," he continued. His voice turned hostile. "Their power is with me." Lightning flashed (though it hadn't been raining), and Castiel's figure was illuminated by the heavenly light. On the wall behind him wasn't his own shadow, but the shadow of his wings. They stretched out from his back, spanning as long as a fully-grown human. Were they that large the last time he'd shown them? Aubrey couldn't remember.
The sight was oddly intimidating, but Aubrey still felt new wells of rage pouring into her, speeding up her healing ability so that she didn't need to lean against Dean anymore. He didn't seem to notice though, his eyes trained on Raphael.
"Castiel." She said his name with what sounded like reverence… or perhaps it was fear. The latter seemed a better option to Aubrey.
"If you don't want to die tonight," Castiel said, closing in on the archangel, "Back off." His eyes were steely. Raphael stared at him for a moment longer before the sound of wings once more filled the square. Aubrey blinked, and she was gone.
Her gaze switched to Balthazar, who had spared a quick glance at her, smirking slightly. She narrowed her eyes. "Well, Cas," he said, stepping towards his brother-in-arms. "Now that you have your sword, try not to die by it."
Aubrey felt a sudden rush of nostalgia. Months ago, but what seemed like a millennia, Castiel had teamed up with her, Sam and Dean to find Balthazar, for he needed the weapons in order to defeat Raphael. Now he had it, and Balthazar was, more or less, in good terms with the Winchesters. Not so much with Aubrey herself, but seconds ago she'd been willing to step into the fray to keep Raphael off of him, so she supposed they were… acquainted as well.
Castiel, unfortunately, had taken her trust and stuck a shard of glass into it.
She glared at the angel. Balthazar was long gone, disappearing with a heavy flurry of flapping but it wasn't like she would have noticed. Castiel seemed to be uncomfortable beneath her heavy gaze, and that was exactly what she wanted. She wanted him to feel guilty. A memory sprung up from her mind from several months ago: he had told her Phoenixes possessed the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Now she was absolutely positive that what he said was bullcrap; wisdom, counsel, understanding, piety? Aubrey might have had all of those when she wasn't blinded by anger.
After moments of just watching Aubrey from afar, Castiel finally seemed to pluck up the courage to approach them; he did it hastily, with brisk steps and his head bowed.
"Cas, what the hell?" Sam started earnestly. The angel didn't seem to hear him. Before Aubrey could protest, he had placed his hand on her and Sam's shoulders. For the second time that night, her stomach lurched. Her hand flew to her mouth and she gagged, closing her eyes tight. When she was fairly positive that the bile had retreated back into her throat, she opened her eyes, and was astonished to find herself and Sam standing in the middle of Bobby's study—the real one, not the one on set. Castiel was nowhere to be seen, but after a second or two, he reappeared with Dean in tow.
He hadn't even let go of Dean's shoulder yet before Aubrey was on him. She grabbed the scruffs of his coat and pushed him up against a wall. Several items slid onto the floor, but she didn't mind those. Eyes blazing, she demanded from him: "You were in on this? Using us as a diversion?" She pulled him back before shoving him against the wall again. Sam and Dean rushed up to her and started pulling her off him; she didn't struggle, not wanting to hurt them. And something inside her was still sane. They needed answers.
Castiel's face remained stoic. "It was Balthazar's plan…" he trailed off, shrugging lightly. "Though I would have done the same thing."
Aubrey snarled. "You piece of—"
"That's not comforting, Cas!" Dean yelled, doing his best to keep Aubrey at bay, though she was feigning weakness.
The angel in the room shook his head. "When will I be able to make you understand?" he said. "If I lose against Raphael, we all lose. Everything." Even then, he wouldn't raise his voice. Aubrey hated his sense of self-control. He had lost it once, when it was just the two of them against the world. Now he was back under his leash. Aubrey roughly pushed Dean's hands off her, not taking her cold eyes off the angel who wouldn't look at her.
"Yeah, Cas, we know the stakes," Dean shot back hotly. "That's about all you've told us!"
Castiel regarded Dean with his same, blank expression; though behind his eyes, Aubrey saw differently. It was too bad she was still very much upset with him. Otherwise, she might have been able to see what was clawing at him from the inside.
"I'm sorry about all this," he said, barely a whisper. "I'll explain when I can."
Then a strong gust of wind entered the room, masking the sound of wings that was surely there. Aubrey didn't blink, but he disappeared anyway. She let out a frustrated shout:
"Dean Winchester, I swear to God, who I don't even like that much! The next time that dick shows up, I am gonna hit him so hard his entire legion will feel it!"
Dean didn't smile. "Count me in."
"What do you mean we were only gone a few hours?" Aubrey all but yelled. "We were in that hellhole for—what?—almost three days!"
Bobby shook his head. "I'm tellin' you, Aub. We went out to buy stock at eight, got back a little past 9. There was a hole in my wall but you weren't here. So we searched the house. I hear some yelling, we rendezvous back here and the three of you are just standin' there gawking at each other."
Aubrey switched her gaze to Greg, who was sitting in one of the chairs between Sam and Dean. "Is he serious?" she asked him. He had already put Aiden to sleep in their room. Lorraine had retreated into her room as soon as they got back from the store, but Aubrey was just happy she didn't run to the cops.
Greg nodded slowly. "He's serious. So uh…" he trailed off, scratching his head. "Is disappearing out of the blue a normal occurrence for you guys?"
Pursing her lips, she looked at each of the hunters in the room. They came to the same conclusion: "Yes." Greg bobbed his head once, but said nothing more.
"Why don't you get some sleep, Greg?" Aubrey suggested softly. "It's late. I'm sure you're tired."
"Not nearly as tired as you guys are, I'm sure," he retorted, though not unkindly. "And it depends; are you guys gonna talk about anything else if I go?"
"Well, yeah. There's a lot of stuff we need to talk about, actually—"
"Then I'm staying." Greg's face turned stern. "If Aiden's gonna be staying here, with you guys as his guardians, I want to know about everything that's happening. I don't want to risk not knowing."
Aubrey frowned. There was no stopping it now. He was going to be pulled deeper into everything than she'd previously imagined. So was Aiden. So was Lorraine (though Aubrey didn't care much for her). Aubrey shared a fleeting glance with Dean and Sam, and they both showed hesitation on their faces. She conveyed her anxiety through her eyes, and they returned it. Looking at Bobby, now, he seemed to have more willingness than any of them, so she gained sureness from him.
"Alright," she told Greg, grabbing a chair for herself. "Might as well, I guess… Bobby, what'd you got?"
The older man heaved a heavy sigh, opening one of his drawers and pulling out a stack of newspaper articles. "I've been getting blasts from hunters all week," he said as he took out a map from his back pocket.
"And you just failed to bring this up before?" Dean asked, raising an eyebrow.
Bobby shrugged. "It only started getting so bad last night. Nest of vamps,"—he encircled a town somewhere in Salt Lake City—"werewolf dance party,"—Cheyenne—"shifters, six of 'em; two hunters died taking 'em out." He drew a larger red circle on Des Moines. "Ghouls, ghouls… ghoul-wraith smorgasbord"—three circles on Joliet, South Bend, and Toledo, in that order.
Dean suddenly took the red marker from Bobby and connected the circles. "Is it just me," he said, "Or is that a straight kick-line down I-80?"
"Exactly," Bobby drawled, eliciting a sharp whistle from Aubrey.
"I'll be damned."
"Looks to me like it's a Sherman March Monster Mash," Dean mused out loud; a small smirk traced up Aubrey's lip, but it disappeared when she noticed Greg inching his chair closer to the four hunters hunched around the desk. Frowning slightly, she moved her chair as to allow more space for the newcomer, no matter how much she didn't want to. He'd made his choice, she had to respect it.
"… But where are they marching to?" Sam was saying. Bobby drew a messy, but large, circle around Youngstown, where the trail seemed to stop.
Aubrey stared at it in deep curiosity. "What happened there?"
"Guy bashes in his family's heads," Bobby simply replied. Sam and Dean shifted on their feet, while Aubrey glanced over her shoulder at Greg, whose face seemed to be paler than normal.
She nodded at Bobby. "We going there tomorrow?"
"First thing," he told her. "But here's the thing…" He seemed to hesitate, sharing looks with the brothers who sat across from him. Aubrey narrowed her eyes in suspicion just as he said, "You ain't coming."
She laughed. "The Mother of All might just be waiting there for us and I'm not gonna come. Yeah, right." The boys didn't start cracking up, though, and she turned sober soon enough. Her eyes turned cold. "Wait… you can't be serious!"
"No one's gonna stay with Aiden if you come with," Sam told her in his gentle, reasoning voice.
"Then Bobby can stay!" Aubrey shot back.
"I've been waiting to get back in the action for months, Aubrey," said Bobby. "And we're not even sure yet if the Mother is actually there. It could just be one of her children cooking up trouble."
"This is bullshit," she muttered to herself, dropping back into her chair as she had unconsciously stood up in her fit of disbelief. They were going to leave her behind? After finding a hunt that could possibly lead them to the Mother of All? She couldn't believe it. "This is bullshit—"
"Look," Dean said, and she couldn't believe he was siding with Bobby too. "We'll be gone five days, tops. We'll call you every day, keep you posted on what's happening."
She scoffed, grumbling, "You think that'll keep me sane for five days?"
"No, Aiden will keep you sane for five days," Bobby said, and she couldn't help the slight glare that eased into her gaze. He softened up. "Look, Aub, if anything about the Mother comes up, we'll call, and I give you my permission to drop everything and run. But only when we call. Got it?"
Aubrey pursed her lips. "No promises."
Bobby sighed. "Not like you'll just leave 'em here though. You're more protective over 'em than the rest of us." At this, Aubrey shot the old hunter a warning look. But she could already feel Greg's eyes boring into the back of her head, because he had heard.
DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNNNNNN review please