Light will shine and we won't stumble in the dark.
-For Unto Us (Point of Grace)
"So still no luck with the witch hunt, huh?" Dean said, glancing at Cass even as he did so.
"No," Sam's voice on the phone replied, "How's Cass?"
"Still got a hole in his chest. Started wheezin' when he breathes a little while ago," Dean answered mildly, though inside he was knotted up with fear for the Angel's life.
Cass had become less responsive than he'd been earlier, if such a thing was at all possible. He no longer moved his head to follow Dean when he walked around the room, and there was an increasing look of vacancy in the way Cass stared, like he wasn't really looking at Dean anymore, but kind of through him. And he'd still made no attempt whatsoever to heal himself physically. The Angel was fading, Dean was sure of it. But he didn't want to say it straight out, as if avoiding saying the words could somehow prevent it from being real.
With equal forced casualness, Sam said, "That's probably bad. Angels aren't supposed to do that."
"Yeah, thanks, for that medical opinion, Doctor," Dean retorted sharply, regretting it even as he spoke, adding almost immediately after the end of the sentence, "Sorry. I'm just..."
"I know," Sam interrupted, "We're all tired."
They were quiet for a little bit, before Sam asked the inevitable, though he already knew from Dean's tone throughout the conversation what the answer would be.
"Any luck with the traffic cameras?"
"No. It's more like we're chasin' a ghost than a witch. Car goes in, never comes out. But we know for damn sure the witch isn't still at the farmhouse... right?"
"Mom and I went over every inch of that place before we left while you were busy getting Cass into the Impala," Sam reminded him, "If she was there, she was invisible."
"Well that's a comforting thought," Dean muttered sarcastically.
"We'll keep looking," Sam said, but he did not sound optimistic.
"And..." Dean sighed wearily, "I'll keep sitting here, pretending to do useful things on the internet."
After a couple more sentences where they each avoided saying aloud that they were afraid they weren't going to win this one, at least not before it was too late to do Cass any good, Sam hung up. Dean sat holding his phone for awhile longer, thinking of all the people over the years who had helped them, worked with them, been friends and family to them all their lives... nearly all of whom were dead now.
That Cass might become yet another casualty even though they'd gotten him out of the clutches of a Demon alive was too awful to bear much consideration... but Dean considered it anyway.
"You don't wanna weigh in or anything, do you?" Dean asked of Cass, who twitched slightly and looked past him briefly, but otherwise offered no response, which was exactly what Dean expected at this point, "No? Well, I guess it's back to camera footage then."
He didn't like Cass's continued silence. It was weird, and reminded him of the way the Angel used to just show up behind him and stand there waiting for Dean to notice without saying anything. And the fact that the Angel used to hang around, watching them when they couldn't see him. Usually, Dean preferred to forget those times. Even if he still had his wings, Cass knew better than to do that sort of thing now. He'd learned a lot about how to interact with people... or maybe just how to interact with Dean.
Even though he'd vehemently discounted what The Demon said aloud, Dean couldn't internally dismiss all of its words so easily. Was it possible that The Demon was right about one thing? Had Dean somewhere along the line stopped being Cass's ally and friend, gone right past being his brother and somehow become some screwed up kind of god to this particular Angel? It was disturbing to even think about.
That couldn't be true. It was ridiculous. They'd all met actual for real God. And God's Sister too. And anyway, it wasn't like Cass treated Dean with any particular reverence, right? In fact, of late, he'd been firing back when Dean insulted him. Dean had merely served as Cass's model for what free will and humanity looked like. That in itself had been pretty damn humbling... but surely it didn't go any further or get any weirder than that... right? But, on the other hand, Dean didn't treat God with much reverence, in fact it was usually a lot more like contempt... and Cass had used him as a role-model, so...
The longer Dean looked at the camera footage without seeing anything of value, the harder it was not to think about the possibility that The Demon had somehow been right, especially considering all the other -admittedly twisted- truths it had spoken. And, the more he thought about it, the more unsettled he became. As darkness fell outside, Dean's exhaustion caught up with him, and he found he could keep quiet no longer.
Tiredly, Dean rubbed his eyes, "I think I let that Demon get in my head, Cass, even if you were smart enough not to. And it gave me delusions of grandeur. So tell me it was wrong. Please. Tell me you haven't got me up on some fancy-ass golden pedestal in your head, because that'd be all kinds of screwed up. You're family, like my brother... and that's how it should be. You hear me, Cass?"
Cass didn't even really look at him as he spoke, saying nothing, expressing nothing, just... silent.
Feeling suddenly foolish about even entertaining such notions, much less speaking them aloud, Dean leaned back in his chair and took a deep breath, "I need to take a break. No... I need to sleep. I'll be hallucinating sheep in a minute. And you," he looked meaningfully at Cass, "Not a word of what I just said to Sammy, you hear? You breathe one word of that to him and I'll have to kill you myself. I'm serious, he don't need that kind of ammunition against me."
Cass didn't bat an eye, and Dean began to wonder if the Angel was listening but unable to actually understand what was being said to him.
Abruptly, Cass twitched. His eyes widened and unfocused, and he suddenly seemed desperate to move in some way that wasn't immediately clear because the limbs of his vessel didn't actually respond much. The twitch repeated, becoming more of a marked flinch, which in turn grew into a cringe, and Cass closed his eyes. The cringe expanded into a shiver, which flowered into all out shuddering.
Dean realized that whatever had struck Cass last night must be striking him again, and he was uncomfortable with how much it looked like Rowena's attack dog spell.
"Hey, whoa, whoa, Cass, whoa, easy," Dean said, getting up and moving closer, unsure if he would be providing support or restraint within the next few seconds, "Take it easy."
Cass had found the bodily control to start to pushing himself more upright on the bed but then he started to draw his limbs toward his body, withdrawing defensively, his eyes widening, seeing something that wasn't in the room with them, something which apparently terrified him.
"Cass!" Dean called more urgently, hoping the Angel would listen to him.
When Dean reached out to him, Cass grabbed hold of Dean's arms, at first as though to fend him off, but then hanging onto him as if for balance. Dean felt the Angel's shuddering through his arms, and it scared the Hell out of him.
A small whimper escaped Cass, and Angelic light briefly flickered in his eyes, then faded out. His tremors got worse, beginning to feel almost more like a seizure than anything. It tore Dean up inside that there seemed to be nothing he could do except hold onto the Angel and hope Cass could ride it out.
Dean didn't even realize that the pressure in the room was going up until he heard the walls begin to creak; it was as though the Angel was unconsciously attempting to push away his disembodied fears. A high-pitched whine warned that the Celestial being within the vessel was beginning to use its true voice. Dean felt his ears pop, and wondered how safe it was to be in the room right now.
The light in Cass's eyes flickered again, became a flash, and finally Angelic light blazed forth so brilliantly that Dean was forced to squint and then close his eyes to shield them. He knew what that light could do to him if Cass decided to use it as a weapon. But Dean refused to go, instead continued to cling to the Angel, kept his eyes shut, and set his jaw.
"I'm not goin' anywhere, Cass. I'm here. And I'm stayin', dammit."
Night had fallen, and Sam and Mom had come no closer to actually finding Lisa Harrow.
Tired and discouraged, they had admitted defeat for the day and were heading back to the motel to share the unhappy news with Dean. Not that Dean wouldn't have already guessed as much. After all, if Sam and Mom had found Harrow and dealt with her, they'd have called him, and he knew it.
Of course -ideally- Cass's condition would have notably improved in fairly short order. At least, that was how it normally worked when something blocking or warping his powers was removed. It was sort of like putting kryptonite in a lead-lined box. Superman usually recovered almost instantaneously.
Of course, Cass was typically still drained for awhile afterwords. Healing took a fair amount of energy, and he seemed to have less to spare these days, something that had begun to worry Sam a little, even though he preferred not to think about it, and he, Dean, and Cass seldom brought it up.
But before he could get too deep into that thought process, Sam's full attention was drawn by light from the window of an apartment building to the right. And not just any light. Angelic light, the kind that flared in an Angel's eyes, glowed in their hands, and burned through the bodies of those they smote.
"I don't believe it," Sam breathed, slowing the Impala to a crawl, then stopping entirely as he looked out and up through the windshield at the window above.
It wasn't very bright as such light went, far from blinding, but it was unmistakable nonetheless.
Sam was surprised enough by the sight of the light itself, but the form it took was still more baffling. It looked for all the world like a decorative feather angel someone had hung in the window, like the ones edged with strings of Christmas lights that were in the windows of several homes they'd driven past already. But anyone who'd seen the sort of light Angels emitted would never mistake the light from that decoration as anything else. The feathers, therefore, were real Angel feathers. They had to be.
"Is that what I think it is?" Mom asked, no more able to believe the sight than Sam was.
"Uh," was all Sam managed to say in response, his mind busy scrambling madly to find some explanation, some logic, some reason for what he was seeing.
He'd seen a lot of bizarre things in his life. A lot. But he had never seen this.
Not only did it feel blasphemous in some way he couldn't have explained to use the feathers of the Heavenly Host as mere window dressing, it seemed wasteful. The feathers were so rare and held such tremendous power within them that leaving them in the window was a simply absurd way to use them.
It also seemed dangerous.
Anyone even passingly familiar with Angels would be unable to miss the supernatural equivalent of a brilliant neon sign advertising the source of those feathers. It would draw the interest of every Heavenly and Hellish thing that saw it, either because they wanted to see if there was an Angel they could kill or else seeking to smite whoever had the gall to do this.
Not to mention that it would also attract notice from anyone or anything that knew what Angel feathers could be used for, many of whom would be interested in taking the feathers -by force if necessary- for their own uses. It was a flashing beacon calling all that was supernatural or was in any way involved with that world to come and kill the owner of the apartment for one reason or another.
"Why would anyone do that?" Mom asked after they'd sat in silence, just staring up at the window for an uncounted number of seconds.
Sam tried to think of an answer, realized he couldn't, and said, "We could go find out."
Mom nodded, and rephrased what he'd said, "We should go find out."
In an awe-struck whisper, Harrow asked aloud, "What is this?"
Exiting the bathroom wrapped in a towel after a refreshing shower, rubbing the moisture from her hair with another towel, Harrow stopped dead at the sight of the ethereal light which had flooded the apartment. For an instant, she was frozen not by surprise or confusion, but simply by the fact that it was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen. Though she had seen Angelic light before, and recognized it almost immediately for what it was, she'd never seen it quite like this.
The light seemed to call out to her, beckoning her closer, offering her a truth or insight she had somehow missed until now and -without quite knowing that she had done so- Harrow stepped deeper into the room, looking from one side to the other, surrounded by the light emanating from the jarred feathers on all sides of the apartment.
Harrow had never noticed any light coming from Angel feathers, perhaps because the light was normally only visible in darkness. And it had not occurred to her that there might be anything different about the feathers she had ripped away and stolen from the Angel.
Until now.
More surprising than the light itself was the sudden realization of what she had done earlier.
Without even thinking about it, she had fashioned a DIY feather Angel, and then hung it up in the window. She gazed at it with abject confusion and a growing sense of dread. She didn't know what had possessed her to make that object, or to hang it in the window. And it did feel in retrospect as if she'd been... well, not quite possessed, but somehow compelled to do it. As if some outside force had told her to.
Because she'd felt safe in the apartment, sure of her hiding place, and her own power, she hadn't thought to resist the impulse when it came to her, or even question where the thought had come from. She hadn't wondered, and now she sensed it was too late.
Horror struck her, for she did not know who or what had entered the suggestion into her mind, much less how or even why the feathers were flooding the room with celestial brilliance. That scared her, because she had felt for a long time -at least subconsciously- that she knew a great deal about magic: the supernatural in general and Angels in particular.
The steady exposure to Angel feathers as she collected and sold them over the years had inured her to them, and she had stopped thinking of them as something mystical. They were just objects, property to be bought and sold for personal gain. Something of value, and very powerful yes, but only materially, nothing more.
Light the likes of which she had never seen coming from every feather in every mason jar was a shocking and unwelcome reminder that these feathers were not just valuable, not only imbued with incredible power, not merely magical. They were from beyond the realm of humanity, made of stuff humankind could not even begin to fathom the nature of. They were not a piece of a flesh and blood creature, but instead had been plucked from something awesome in the oldest sense of the word.
Something Holy.
What had become ordinary to her was suddenly unbearably extraordinary. What she had unconsciously assumed was impossible was suddenly presented as being not only very possible, but in fact quite real. She didn't know how it was happening. Didn't know why either. Didn't know how to stop it. All those unknowns terrified her, in a way that no person or thing of Hell or Earth ever had.
Staring at the fiery feather angel in the window, Harrow began to tremble with fear.
Though she heard no voice internally or externally, Harrow sensed the message of the light, the feathers, and the bloody angel in the window as clearly as if that message had been screamed right in her face: What you have stolen was not yours to take, and you will now face damnation for your crime. For your sin against one of God's Chosen, you will burn for eternity in the fires of Hell.
As the damning words reverberated through her like unheard but clearly felt thunder, her fear escalated to panic as she sensed that there was no escape from this... this unknown and unknowable presence in the room with her. She knew more with each pulsing heartbeat thudding in her chest that this apartment was about to become a chamber of death.
A loud crash, the sound of a door being kicked open, heralded the arrival of two of the Winchesters. Harrow jumped and whirled to face them and, for the first time, truly began to understand why The Demon had been so afraid of attracting their wrath.
Impossibly, yet undeniably, they had found her.
In the back of her mind, Harrow was certain they had somehow done it with the feathers, but how they could possibly have made the feathers light up -especially from a distance- eluded her, and served to deepen the fear which was pulsing in her veins.
She threw a hand out towards them and screamed, "Abite!"
In the same instant, there was a deafening roar as a bullet left the muzzle of a gun.