Seven Devils
Chapter 9 / Devil-May-Care
"Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent."
— Book of Revelation 3:19
Entry from March, 1997
People fear death because it is a mystery shrouded in darkness. I already know what awaits me after I've drown my last breath, and yet it scares me nonetheless. Does it make me a coward?
I don't fear death itself, but what comes after. Because I have a feeling that it's much more terrifying. And my daughter is destined to meet the same end.
However normal her life is, however carefree, she will find herself in a place where the most brutal tortures of Hell would seem merciful. And I can't do anything to stop it.
I think that scares me most of all.
— the snippy sound of a reloaded gun made Marlene look up from the journal. Dean was meticulously oiling his weapons at the desk while she lied on the bed, reading. He caught Marley looking, "You ever shoot a gun before?"
"Do I look like someone who has?"
"You might have to get used to it."
"Shooting a gun? Yeah, no," Marley scoffed and stood up, completely forgetting about the journal. It fell from her lap and landed on the carpeted floor, "Shit." She crouched down to pick it up and noticed that a photo had fallen out as well. It was the one with Dean and Sam. Marley glanced at Dean, worrying her lip in thought. Should she tell them the truth? Not all of if, of course, but...
"Hey, Dean." He levelled her with a bored look, busy polishing the barrel of a handgun, "Have you ever been to Cambridge, Massachusetts?"
"What, we playin' drinking games now? Gotta say, there's no booze and it ain't fun without it."
Marley could never possibly imagine Dean playing "Never Have I Ever", but she let it pass. "Can you just answer the question?"
He cut her an annoyed look, "Yeah, I think so. Why?"
Marlene walked to the desk, put the photo on it and slid it towards Dean without saying a word. He glanced at her quizzically, put the gun down and took the polaroid. When he looked at it, his entire face changed, brows instantly furrowing, eyes going wide, "What is this?"
"A picture," she answered slowly.
Dean squinted at her, "Don't you sass me around. Where did you get it?"
She raised her father's journal and waved with it, "More where that came from."
Marley was careful with the pages she showed. She could navigate most of them by now and knew that John and his sons were mentioned only in three passages, all in the same year. There was another photo, one of Marlene and Sam, dating back to 1991, taken two month after Halloween. Dean read the entry and frowned, scanning through Arthur's scribbles. Marley knew what came next.
When Dean turned the page, his stilled. Yellow orbs stared back at him, dozens of them.
There is nothing wrong with my daughter.
I tell this to myself every day. Looking at her, putting her to sleep. Feeding her. She is just a child — how could something terrible have happened to a soul so new to the cruelness of this world?
Slowly, Dean raised his eyes at Marlene, his face unreadable. She pursed her lips in remorse. It was then that Same strolled through the door in surprisingly high spirits. They significantly soured when he spotted Dean and Marlene in a silent face-off.
"Sorry, did I interrupt something?" Sam walked to the desk and saw the pictures. He recognised himself and Dean, but the little girl...Sam looked up at Marley, brow furrowed, "What..."
"You're gonna want to hear this, Sammy," he stared at Marlene and raised a brow as a cue for her to start talking.
"Dean, what are you doing?" Sam asked like he'd already given up on trying to reason with his brother.
"She has something to tell us. Don't you, Marlene?"
Sam looked at her in confusion. She sighed. "Sam, I...I — um, I'm...like you."
"'Like me'?" He frowned, "What do you — " his face cleared as the realisation hit him.
So Marley continued, "My father told me a month ago, on my 22nd birthday after I — I was almost killed by my friend. By Lilith, who'd possessed and then killed her. He hoped he wouldn't have to, but..." She trailed off and looked at Dean, "That's how our fathers knew each other. They were haunted by the same demon."
Sam looked dumbstruck, "Wow," he breathed, "That...Why don't I remember it? Do you?" He turned to his brother.
"No, not much," Dean answered gruffly, "So your father was a hunter after all?"
Marley shook her head, "No, no, he...he researched things. Made notes, observations — it's all there," she gestured to the journal, "He was looking for people like you," she told Sam, "Like us, I suppose. To get some answers."
"Do you...have any powers?" he asked.
"Powers?"
"It's, uh, what demon blood does," Sam said carefully and glanced at Dean who gave him a stern side-eye look.
"I mean, no? Aside from seeing ugly demon muzzles, there's really nothing to it," Marley lied smoothly. It wasn't a lie, per se. More like a half-truth."
"You can see demons?" Dean deadpanned.
"Yes."
Sam seemed fascinated, "In their true form?"
"Yeah...You can't?" she sort of figured all of them whizz-kids could do it.
He shook his head, "No, I...I have visions, sometimes. Had visions, I don't now. Not anymore." There was something strange in the way Sam said it. As thought he was careful not to say too much.
"So that's why Ruby came looking for you? An extra freak in case Sam flaked out?" Dean advanced towards her, "She feed you blood too?"
Sam glared at Dean and sent Marley an apologetic look.
"What the hell are you — you know what, it doesn't matter. She's dead. Lilith too." Marley told Dean, "We have more important things to worry about now. Like the Apocalypse? Zachariah's probably got his IT cherubs scouring every cheap hooker motel as we speak."
At that, Sam seemed to remember something, "About that," he pulled something out of his shirt and tossed it to Dean. He gave another one to Marlene — a little velvet pouch.
"What's this?" she wondered curiously.
"Hex bags. No way the angels will find us with those," Sam seemed really excited about it, "Demons, either, for that matter."
"Where'd you get it?" Dean asked, examining the pouch.
Sam's excitement slowly diminished, "I made it," he replied curtly.
"How?"
His hesitation to reply made Dean look up at him. "I...I learned it from Ruby."
At that, Marlene, too, drew her eyes away from the pouch and looked at Sam with surprise.
"Well, isn't that nice. Couple bonding time," he muttered, "Speaking of. How you doing? Are you jonesing for another hit of bitch blood or what?"
What? Did she hear that correctly?
Sam shook his head, "I — it's weird. Uh, tell you the truth, I'm fine. No shakes, no fever. It's like whoever...put me on that plane cleaned me right up."
Dean seemed impressed, "Supernatural methadone — "
"I'm sorry, what are you talking about?" Marlene cut in, disturbed by the ambiguous references.
They stopped. Sam lowered his eyes, Dean raised his brows, "Well, since we're all about honesty today... Sammy here was shooting up demon blood."
"What?" Marley's eyes shot to Sam. He looked away guiltily. So that's what Dean'd meant, "Why...What? What on Earth compelled you to do that?"
"Ruby told him he needed more strength to ice Lilith. Look how that turned out, huh?"
Sam looked like he was about to go off, "Dean —"
"It's okay, Sam," Dean turned away as if unable to meet his eyes, "You don't have to say anything."
"Well, that's good," Sam said, just standing there awkwardly. Marlene felt sorry for him. But should she have? He'd ignored all pleas for reason and instead listened to a demon who'd manipulated him into breaking the last seal. "Because what can I...even say? "I'm sorry"? "I screwed up"? Doesn't really do it justice, you know? Look, there's nothing I can do or say that will ever make this right—
"So why do you keep bringing it up?!" Dean yelled suddenly.
Marley stepped forward, "Guys — "
Dean turned back, checking himself, and walked over to Sam, "Look, all I'm saying is, why do we have to put this under a microscope? We made a mess," he spread out his arms, "We clean it up. That's it."
Sam gave a hesitant nod, still not fully convinced he had his brother's forgiveness. And Dean wasn't sure he was ready to give it to him just yet. The atmosphere in the room was pretty tense, so Marlene felt like she had to say something.
"You guys do it every day, right? Kill stuff, watch over Gotham?" She glances from Sam to Dean, the looks on their faces equally thoughtful, "What would you do if it was any other hunt?"
Sam looked caught off guard by the question, "We'd, uh, figure out where the thing is," he said.
"All right," Dean nodded, "Then we just got to find...the devil."
𖤐𖤐𖤐𖤐𖤐𖤐
Up until recently, Marlene had considered herself an agnostic. With a theologist for a father, it was hard to fully put your trust into something he considered a science. But try as she might to find reasonable explanations to all earthly wanders, she could never quite explain why the food in vending machines tasted better than the same food everywhere else.
Marlene gazed at the heavenly-lit array of junk food trapped behind glass, considering her options. She could go with Doritos, but then she's be drinking water every ten minutes which meant peeing every twenty minutes, and she was too sleepy for that. Or she could go for sweets —
"Hey."
Marley jumped away in panic and breathed a sigh of relieve when she saw it was Sam, "Sorry, you startled me. God, I was half expecting to be flashed at by a mysterious man in a trench coat." Just as she said it, Marlene realised how it came out. Sam couldn't help but smile at that. "My life is so bazaar."
He laughed. It made Marley smile, because it turned out Sam had a very nice laugh. He hadn't laughed once since they met.
"Trouble sleeping?" he asked.
Marley nodded, examining the contents of the vending machine, "You could say that. Haven't had a good night's sleep ever since..."
Sam nodded in understanding, "I'm really sorry about your friend. It must've been hard, being thrown into this life like that."
"Oh, you've no idea," Marley chuckled humourlessly, "But I guess growing up in it wasn't a treat either." She remembered what her father'd written about Dean and Sam, about having no true home, always on the move. Marley glanced at Sam — he seemed wistful. Pensive.
"It...had its moments."
Sam's face looked tired, almost gaunt. She couldn't even begin to imagine what thought plagued his mind at night.
"What about you? Trouble falling asleep on that horrendous cot? Sorry about that by the way. I'l take it next time — "
"No, it's fine, really," Sam assured her, "I'm just...I can't really stop thinking. About what's going to happen."
"Yeah, me neither," Marley whispered. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Tessa and thought of all the people who would die because of her father. Because of her... "Okay, so — " Marlene spoke cheerfully to drive away the darkness," — what are we getting? M&Ms or...3 Musketeers?" she glanced at Sam.
"Almond Joy?" he suggested.
Marley looked at him like he was insane, "Almonds do not belong in chocolate," she said with a seriousness that made him smile.
"There're really good for you."
"I'm not eating chocolate bars for their nutritional value," Marlene dialed the right combination, and a pack of peanut M&Ms fell from the rack. She retrieved it, awfully pleased with herself, and turned to Sam, "Now this is the shit."
They sat on the stairs near the motel by the road, an occasional car driving by and breaking the nocturnal quiet. Marley opened the pack of candy, poured some into her palm and handed it to Sam. He accepted the sweet offering, thought with some hesitation.
He eyed the ones in her palm — they were all the same colour, "Why are you only eating the brown ones?" he asked in good-natured confusion.
Marlene seemed surprised by the question as though she hadn't even realised she was doing it until Sam pointed it out, "Oh, that..well," she chuckled, "My dad never really let me eat junk food, was super strict about it, too. This was one of the only things he would get for me about...once a month?" Marley shrugged, "But he'd throw all the colourful ones away because they had food colouring in them, and it's poisonous. So I guess, it kinda stuck with me," she popped one candy into her mouth, relishing the taste of peanuts and chocolate.
Sam smiled. He had a dimple, Marley noticed. Just a very objective observation. "So...you want to poison me?" he asked with a palm filled with reds, blues, greens and yellows.
"Oh, definitely. Dean was right not to trust me — it was been my plan all along. Death by chocolate," she pondered on it, "Sounds kind of nice, actually, when you think about the imminent alternative."
They lapsed into a strangely comforting silence. It was rare for Marlene to be comfortable with that — she viewed silence as a lack of things to say, which, in her book, was an unforgivable offence. It was only later that she learned that silence was, in fact, the lack of necessity for words when they clearly weren't enough.
"So...Yale, huh?" Sam spoke again, "Sorry, Dean told me — "
"It's okay, I know you guys gossip about me," Marley smiled at him coyly, "Yeah, I studied Linguistics. Did you go to any school?"
Sam nodded, "Stanford. I did law."
"Wow, fancy," Marlene didn't expect that, "So you went to law school?"
"Uh, no. It didn't work out," he gave her a tight-lipped smile. There was a sadness in Sam's eyes when he spoke about the life he could've had. She wondered what'd made him leave it behind.
"I'm sorry," Marley said quietly.
"No, it's okay. That life wasn't for me anyway."
"Why do you say that?"
Sam was silent for some time. Then he looked at her, his hazel eyes filled with so much resignation, it made her heart ache, "Because once you're in, Marlene, once you see it, you can never go back. Not really."
𖤐𖤐𖤐𖤐𖤐𖤐
Somewhere in Delaware, a man was being plagued by his demons.
𖤐𖤐𖤐𖤐𖤐𖤐
Marley had to give it to Carver Edlund. Or Chuck Shirley — whatever you liked to call the author of the Supernatural series, because they were, surprisingly, pretty good. So good, in fact, that she had spent all day reading after picking up a couple of books at a gas station. She made sure to hide them behind the journal when Sam and Dean were in the room, of course.
They were so gripping, Marlene would sometimes get lost in the story and forget that all of it had actually happened. The Bloody Mary, The Wendigo...Sam's girlfriend dying right before his eyes, the same way his mother had. It was now clear why he had abandoned his aspirations for a normal life and joined Dean on the road. Why try to build something when it would eventually be destroyed?
Marley could tell that Sam still hadn't fully recovered from Jess's death. And the occasional flings on the road were the true testament to his fear of closeness, of belonging to someone and of someone belonging to him. The fact that he had to kill the first woman who had helped him forget about his past certainly hadn't helped the matter. Even if she was a werewolf.
Lying on the bed with the book, Marlene's eyes flickered up at Sam once in a while, studying him. He was hunched at the desk, going through John's journal and making notes. They still hadn't figured out what to do next — was there even a way to know what body Lucifer would fancy enough to possess? Sam's brows were deeply furrowed in concentration, and he'd bite on his lip sometimes when he got frustrated with research.
Marley was startled when Sam looked up from the journal, feeling her eyes on him, "What?" he asked. She just shook her head, mumbled a barely audible "nothing" and returned to the book.
"How would you then explain an earthquake, a hurricane, and multiple tornadoes, all at the same time, all around the globe?" a reporter asked.
"Two words," the other replied, "Carbon emissions."
Dean scoffed at the TV, "Yeah, right, wavy gravy."
"Change the channel," Marley told him distractedly, absorbed in a particularly gruesome passage in the book, "If I hear about one more biblical disaster, I'll go crazy."
Dean looked at her askance and obliged, though rather reluctantly.
"...The search still continues for Marlene Ter-Gabrielyan, a former Yale student and a person of interest in an ongoing murder investigation. She was last spotted at a gas station in Waterloo, Iowa..."
Slowly, very slowly Marlene looked up from the book and saw her face plastered over the TV screen. Dean threw her a shit-eating grin, "Want me to change it back?" Eyes glued to the TV, she threw a chocolate bar at him. At first, Dean looked pissed off, but then he opened it and took a bite. Even Sam's attention was drawn to the news.
"Peter Gernsey, the sheriff of the New-Haven Police Department, held a press-conference ealier this morning, naming Marlene Ter-Gabrielyan the prime suspect in the case."
A burly, plump man with a greying moustache appeared on the screen, surrounded by reporters, "All the evidence found at the crime scene and at the apartment that the victim shared with Miss Ter-Gabrielyan, link her to the murder of Tessa Armitage. The details of the case..."
"And what freaking evidence is that?" Marlene muttered.
"Could be a trick," Sam told her, "They want you to take the bait. This is why they don't disclose any details — because there are no details."
"Awesome," Dean looked at his brother, "Her face is all over the news. What if they spot us with her? We're supposed to be dead."
Marlene glared at him, "Hey, I'm right here."
"Yeah, that's the problem."
Sam sighed, trying to concentrate on the TV in the midst of their bickering, "The suspect's father, Arthur Ter-Gabrielyan, professor at Harvard University, refuses to give any comment on the allegations made against his daughter," the reporter said. Arthur's academic portrait appeared on the screen.
"So that's the man, huh," Dean drawled sarcastically.
A knock on the door made them jump up. All three pairs of eyes instantly flashed to the entrance, wary. Sam and Dean exchanged looks — the kind only siblings could understand. Dean took out his gun and sat up on the bed while Sam, already armed, walked stealthily to the door. He turned to Marley and jerked his head towards the bathroom.
Willing herself out of stupor, she nodded and did as she was told. As soon as the door was closed, Marlene leaned against it, mumbling useless "Oh my Gods" and taking deep breaths. Dean'd been right, it was bad.
She heard a voice. A woman's voice. Marley put an ear to the door and — were those...giggles? Brows twitching together, she cracked the door open just a little to see what's going on. And it definitely wasn't what she had expected.
A girl was standing in the threshold of the room, her hand on Sam's chest. Marley's brows shot up — it wasn't the kind of police she had in mind.
"...Uh, do I know you?" Sam asked, clearly uncomfortable.
Dean was staring at them in bewilderment and glanced at the bathroom door. He caught Marley's eyes, and she mouthed "What the hell?". He shrugged and put the gun away.
The girl pulled back, "No, but I know you," she said, gazing up at Sam with an unsettling reverence, "You're Sam Winchester. And you're," she looked at Dean, significantly less excited, "— not what I pictured. I'm Becky."
She pushed past Sam and straight into the room which was the exact same moment Marley chose to come out of hiding. "I read all about you guys," Becky blabbered animatedly, "And I've even written a few — " the girl went still. Her eyes zeroed down on Marlene like a missile target, smile slipping.
"Who are you?" Becky asked in a shrill voice and turned to Sam, "Who is she?"
Dean gave her his signature no-shit-taking look, "The better question is, who are you?"
"Oh, oh, right," she made an effort to compose herself, though still giving Marlene a side-eye, " told me where you were."
"As in, Chuck?" Marley asked. Dean instantly stood up, his attention piqued.
Sam closed the door.
"He's got a message, but he's being watched. Angels," Becky sing-sang in a high-pitched voice. Dean and Sam shared a knowing look. "Nice change-up to the mythology, by the way. The demon stuff was getting kind of old."
"R-right, right. Just, um...what's the message?" Sam pressed.
"He had a vision," Becky told him, completely ignoring Dean and Marlene. She closed her eyes and recited the message by memory, " "The Michael sword is on earth. The angels lost it." "
"The Michael sword?" Dean asked.
"Michael didn't have a sword..."
Sam ignored the remark, "Becky, does he know where it is?"
"In a castle," she told him reverently, "On a hill made of forty-two dogs."
"Forty-two...dogs?" Dean gave Same a pointed look. The girl was batshit.
Marlene failed to hold back a snicker. Becky glared at her. She held her hands up in surrender and bit down on her lower lip not to smile.
"Are...you sure you got that right?" Sam asked, brows furrowing.
Becky gave him the look of a Southern bell thanking a confederate soldier, "It doesn't make sense, but that's what he said," she stepped closer to Sam, "I memorised every word." Marlene and Dean watched as she laid a hand on his chest and craned her neck to meet his eyes. Sam was trying to avoid just that, "For you," she heaved out.
Sam glanced over at Dean and Marley looking ridiculously helpless, then down at Becky. "Um, Becky, c — uh, can you...um, can you quit touching me?"
Becky closed her eyes, her hands travelling up and down the planes of Sam's chest, fully relishing in its firmness. It was thoroughly disturbing and yet incredibly entertaining. For Dean and Marlene, that is.
"No," Becky whispered.
And that was that.
𖤐𖤐𖤐𖤐𖤐𖤐
When Becky finally left, or better say, was gently showed out, Dean, Sam and Marlene set down to research. Dean called Bobby to come over and bring Baby (which Marley learned was the name of his beloved car) along with some books about angels. Sam was scouring the Bible for any lore about the sword, but as Marlene'd said, there was no sword. At least, it hadn't been mention in any of the Testaments. It was much later that Michael began to be portrayed with a weapon to fit the image of an angel-warrior from the Book of Revelation. The one who put down the rebellion.
"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband — "
— Marley shut the book, the sound making Sam and Dean look up from their own reading.
"Didn't like the plot twist?" Dean asked.
Marlene heaved a sigh, "Too many spoilers." She rose from the desk, her butt almost numb after hours of sitting, "I'm gonna go get some food. D'you want something?"
"The Michael sword would be nice," Dean muttered and aggressively turned over the page.
"Anything else?"
"Could you grab some water?" Sam glanced at her from John's journal, "I think we've run out."
Marley smiled, "Yeah, sure thing."
She grabbed her coat from the chair and got out of the room. She couldn't spend another minute in that foreboding silence, reading on and on about all the ways the world would meet its unavoidable end because to pricks decided to throw a pissing contest.
Shoving her hands in the pockets of her parka, Marlene went on a scavenger hunt for the most obscure shop she could find. She'd also pulled up the hood of the jacket underneath to insure a total anonymity. Get that, security cameras.
Marley steered away from crowded streets and big companies, eyes downcast every time she couldn't avoid the collision. It was pretty exhausting, being a fugitive. And also time consuming, because it had taken her twice the time it would've normally only to find a reasonably empty store.
She was so on edge, even a ring of the bell above the door startled the crap out of her. Making sure no one'd seen that, Marley took a grocery basket and headed straight for the isle with sweets. With all the Apocalypse talks, it would take an ungodly amount of carbs to keep her serotonin levels from dropping.
It was nice. Marlene could imagine she was just a regular, law-abiding citizen, out for a stroll and some shopping. She had a thesis due, friends to have drinks with after work and an exam she had yet to prepare for. Marley put some Doritos into the basket, a can of soda and some water, per Sam's request.
It was funny, Marlene thought.
She'd gone to Palo Alto five years ago to visit a friend at Stanford. They'd gone to a party, had some drinks with her friends — Biology majors, who were trying to figure out how much shots of vodka it would take to get into the perfect state of inebriation.
Had Sam been there? Under different circumstances, their paths might've easily crossed.
The bell rang again, but Marley didn't look up this time. She was trying to decide whether she should've bought some beer. Since she looked fifteen, they'd probably ask for an ID. And she couldn't very well use hers. Marley put the pack of beer back into the fridge and headed to the checkout counter.
"Thanks, Marty. Could ya give me a pack of Winstons?" A police officer walked over to the register.
Marlene lurched to a stop in the missile of the isle. The man was obviously a regular — just her luck, apparently — and wasn't going to leave quickly. He exchanged some words with "Marty" the cashier. They both laughed.
"Fucking police," Marley muttered, dropped the basket and hurried out of the store as inconspicuously as possible. Couldn't he have gone for freaking cigarettes to literally any other place in the area? The prick.
God, how could it be her life? Jumpy fugitive with unfinished higher education with a cult leader for a father. The last time she'd seen him, he'd taken Zachariah side and locked her in her room. Was he still alive after what she'd done? Marlene didn't even want to entertain the other possibility. Her father couldn't be dead. He just...couldn't.
She trudged back in the direction of the motel and spotted a payphone by the mental walkway across the street. Marley glanced back at the motel, then at the payphone again.
She quickened her step before she could change her mind and got into the booth. Fumbling in her pockets for 50 cents, Marley eased out a couple of coins and put them into the slot. Her hands were shaking as she dialled the number.
A ring. Two rings. Five rings. Her heart was thumping in her chest, images of Arthur's lifeless body with holes where his brown eyes used to be flooding her head. He couldn't be dead. He couldn't —
"Hello?"
Her eyes prickled with tears at the sound of the familiar voice. Marlene gripped the phone tighter, stifling a whimper. She wanted to say something so badly, to tell him that she was alright, but it was impossible. She'd be putting herself, Sam and Dean in danger.
Arthur breathed, "Ma — " Marley put the phone down, ending the call before he managed to say her name. It was a stupid thing to do, but he was alive. That's all that mattered.
No Michael sword and no water, she plodded wearily along the walkway and noticed a figure moving towards her. It was Sam. He walked with his head down, deep in thought. Dejected, even.
"Hey," Marley called.
Sam looked up. His face brightened a little when he saw her, "Good run?" he joked, noticing her hands were empty.
"An officer walked in. I didn't want to risk it," Marlene grumbled, "Where are you going?"
"There's an old library not far from here. Thought I'd go do some research, read some of the lore books."
Marley smiled. Now that was something she could do, "Want some help?"
𖤐𖤐𖤐𖤐𖤐𖤐
Bobby had brought some pretty good books with him, but none of them were helpful. Dean was getting frustrated with the lack of progress and the fact that Sam still hadn't come back. And on top of all that bullshit, Marlene had gone MIA ever since her grocery run. Dean half expected to hear about her arrest on the news.
"So that girl, Marlene," there was something derisive in the way Bobby said her name, "She stayin' with ya?"
"I don't know. Maybe," Dean droned, scanning a page from his dad's journal.
Bobby let out a sigh, "Alright," he drawled.
Dean stopped reading, catching the familiar accusatory note in the old man's voice, "What?" He asked pointedly.
"Nothin'. You sure you can trust her?"
Dean looked up from the journal, "Are you saying I shouldn't?"
"I didn't say nothin'. But we don't know squat about that girl other that her daddy's real friendly with the angels."
"And that he and John knew each other."
"So you saw the photo?"
Dean nodded, "I don't remember much. But knowing dad, he must've really trusted the guy. That counts for somethin'."
"Well, yeah, he and your father had a common enemy."
Dean looked away, jaws clenched, "Azazel."
"His wife died in the hospital. But I betcha the girl got demon blood in her, too."
There was a beat of silence.
"I know," Dean said, "She told us."
Bobby cut a disbelieving look at him, "And you don't think that's suspicious? Seems like awful good timing to me."
"What do you mean?
"She pops up right when things go south and wants to be best pals?" he said sarcastically, "Should I remind you what triggered the Apocalypse, Dean?"
Dean shot him a warning look, "Bobby."
The old man let the subject go, and they lapsed into silence again. Dean tried to go back to research but couldn't stop thinking about Bobby's words. They'd found a dark corner in his mind and begun to scratch on the walls.
"I never would have guessed that your daddy was right," Bobby said after some time.
"About what?"
"About your brother. About their kind."
Dean looked up at him.
"What John said — you save Sam or kill him. Maybe..." Bobby trailed off.
"Maybe what?" Dean asked harshly.
"Maybe we shouldn't have tried so hard to save him."
Dean shook his head, "Bobby..."
"He ended the world, Dean," the old man said, "And you and I weren't strong enough to stop him proper. That's on us. I'm just saying...your dad was right. We can't let that girl — "
But Dead wasn't listening anymore. His face went slack with a sudden realisation, "Dad," he whispered.
"What's that?"
Dean shot up from the desk and rummaged through his bag. He eased out a plastic ziplock full of John's old fake IDs and other useless plastic cards and began to look through them, "It's got to be in here somewhere," Dean muttered.
"What the hell are you talking about?" Bobby asked.
Dean finally found the one he'd been looking for. "Here," he read it and puffed out an amazed laugh, "I don't believe it." Bobby stood up when Dean came over to the desk. "I don't believe it," he shook his head.
"What the hell is it?"
"It's a card. For my dad's lockup in upstate New York," Dean handed it to Bobby, "Read it."
"Castle Storage. 42 Rover...Hill," he looked at Dean, confused.
"Castle on a hill of forty-two dogs," Dean said pointedly to stress the connection between the address and Chuck's prophecy.
"So you think your dad had the Michael sword all this time?" Bobby asked, incredulous.
"I don't know. I'm not sure what else Chuck could have meant."
"Yeah..." Bobby nodded, thinking about it, "Okay. It's good enough for me." Dean hadn't noticed the sudden change in his voice.
The blow came out of nowhere. Bobby knocked Dean through the barrier between the beds and the kitchen area and advanced towards him. He hadn't fully registered what happened until Bobby yanked him up by the shirt and slamed him into the closet.
And when Dean finally managed to look up, he saw Bobby towering before him.
His eyes were pitch-black.
𖤐𖤐𖤐𖤐𖤐𖤐
"This is insane," Marley proclaimed, leaning back into the criminally uncomfortable chair, "I think Chuck is insane. His lovesick emissary is insane, too. And I'm going to go insane very soon."
Sam laughed from his own station, scrolling through a numerology website on the library computer. "And here I thought you were Chuck's fan. Or should I say, a fan of his work?"
Marley stilled. "Why would you think that?"
"Marlene," Sam turned to her, barely able to contain a smile, "I saw the books."
"You did?" He nodded. Marlene sighed, exposed and put to shame for her crimes, "Well... what can I say? I love a good story. It was a great prequel for the whole Apocalypse thing."
Clearly, Sam didn't agree, "These books are..."
"A total violation of privacy?" Marley supplied, "I mean, there are some pretty steamy chapters."
Sam cleared his throat, and returned his attention to the computer, "Hey, get this: "The meaning of the number 42 is derived from its direct connection to the coming Antichrist," he read out and turned to Marlene, "Pretty close to home to be a coincidence."
Intrigued, she rose from her seat and came over to Sam, looking at the screen over his shoulder, ""It is prophesied that for 42 months the Beast will hold dominion over the Earth". So the number's somehow connected to Lucifer?"
"Possibly. I mean, if we know about Michael sword, the demons are probably looking for it too," Sam said.
Marley's eyes lit up with an epiphany. She remembered reading about it in the Book of Revelation and went back to the desk to pick it up. Marlene flipped through the pages until she find the verse she was looking for. "Here," Marley pointed to it when Sam came over, ""Rise and measure the temple of God and the altar and those who worship there, but do not measure the court outside the temple; leave that out, for it is given over to the nations, and they will trample the holy city for forty-two months," she read and then added from memory, turning to Sam, "And he was given a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies, and he was given authority to continue for forty-two months."
Sam looked impressed, "You can quote Bible from memory?"
"My father is a theologist. Those were my bedtime stories."
"That...is certainly original," Sam chuckled.
Marley sat down on the corner of the desk. "Yeah, it was alright."
There was beat of silence before Sam spoke again, "So, what, it would take him forty-two months to destroy the world?"
"I mean, Lucifer is an overachiever. I'm sure he could do it a little faster than that," Marley joked, earning a smile from Sam, "But that's what the Book says. He was given authority. Remind you of something?"
His face darkened. Of course it did. If it hadn't been for Zachariah, Lucifer would've still been locked in the cage, burning in the deepest pits of hell. Or if it hadn't been for him.
"But it still doesn't make much sense. You said it yourself, it's too on the nose. The dogs, the hill the castle — it's obviously a code for something."
But Sam wasn't really listening to her. His was somewhere else, eyes looking but unseeing, stuck in a limbo of self-deprecation inside his mind. Marley saw the pain reflected on his weary face — he hadn't slept through one night since that day.
"Hey, how about we get out of here?" She jumped off the desk.
Sam looked at her in bewilderment, "And go where?"
"I don't know," Marlene shrugged and grabbed her coat, "Somewhere. Preferably, where there's no police. Come on, Sam. We've only got, like, 42 months left."
Sam shook his head at her, smiling. "Alright. Let's go."