A.N.: Posting twice bc I'm probably gonna be busy tomorrow. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone who is celebrating!
"Here?" Dean asked, pulling up in front of an old church. "You sure we're in the right spot?"
"I think. Here or somewhere close. But it's a church. It's got to be here." Jack led the way, Grace keeping a hand on her gun, just in case. Something alive didn't mean it had to be something good. The four of them walked in to find candles lit all over the sanctuary.
"Someone's been here. Someone must have been alive to do this. None of them are burned all the way down, so it had to have been recently," Grace mumbled, drawing her gun out of caution. "They might still be here."
"I am," came a voice. Grace spun around to see someone she hadn't seen in a long time, but she recognized him all the same. "That's not going to work on me." Her hope was extinguished immediately. Adam was gone.
"Michael." She holstered her gun, visibly tensing all the same. "Long time, no see."
He nodded, telling her that, "Adam's no longer here. I took refuge in this church - Saint Michael's, did you notice? Chuck is a lot more Old Testament than you think. He never stopped. But it was my job, my mission, to convince the humans otherwise. They venerate him because of the message I spread." Michael paused, turning to the others. "I want to help."
It was a long drive back to the bunker, especially for an archangel who could have teleported them back much faster. Sam let Grace have the front seat, knowing that she distrusted Michael in any form. It was a lot better if he scrunched himself into the back of the car with Michael and Jack than if Grace was forced to sit with him, even for a little while. Grace tossed him Death's book on Chuck, Michael extending his hand. For a brief second, they had hope as the archangel's eyes glowed blue, the book nearly flying off of the table. But he sighed, the light dimming as he shook his head. "Like you told me, only Death can open this."
"We tried," Dean shrugged, his phone vibrating. A ray of hope lit his face as he stared at the name on the screen. "Cas?" He listened for a second, then bolted for the stairs. "Hold on, I'm coming." Sam followed, Grace and Michael watching from below as they wrenched the door open and slammed it shut a millisecond later.
As Grace processed what happened, another voice came from beside her, a voice that she felt like she had known for a long time. She's hardly met him in person, but Miczael and Lucifer went way back. "Hey there, bro. Guys. Oh, hi Mickey. How ya doin'?"
Something ancient stirred inside her mind, Grace recognizing his way of speaking instantly. "Good to see you again." She forced a smile as the boys came back downstairs. "It's been centuries."
"So… I'm gonna need this." He picked up Death's book, turning it over in his hands. "See, the Empty isn't too happy. It threw me out, told me to find the book, and use it on Chuck. Then we can all rest."
"How do you plan on doing that if only Death can read it?" Sam asked, crossing his arms. Michael bristled as his brother tried to wrench the book open himself. "Michael's already tried."
Lucifer snapped his fingers, conjuring a woman who had been bound and gagged. "This is Betty. Say hi, Betty." The woman attempted to speak, struggling against the chains. "Betty here is a reaper." Without warning, he drew a blade, stabbing her in the stomach. "Wait for it. Wait for it... just a second..."
Everyone waited, knowing that if they had to, they could overpower him. But Betty sat up, almost smiling underneath her bonds. "What have you done to her?" Jack asked, going with Dean to untie her.
"She's the first reaper to check out since Billie. That means she's the new Death."
Betty stood up, stretching and rolling her neck. "Hi. Let's see the book." The boys stared, incredulous. Replacing Billie was a lot easier than it seemed. "Slower than you look. So the end of Chuck is in the special book. If you give it to me, I can read it. Understand?"
Grace was the first one to move, grabbing the book off of the table and passing it to her. "How does it end?"
"We'll have to see." Betty went to set herself up in the basement, locking everyone else out of the room while she read. Michael, Lucifer, Sam, Dean, Jack, and Grace sat in the war room, restlessly trying to keep their minds off of the waiting. Sam tried to get between Michael and Lucifer to keep them from arguing, but kept checking his watch. Dean sat further back, not wanting any part of it. Jack too didn't want to be near his father, so he quickly followed Dean's lead when he suggested they grab a snack and a drink.
Grace, while distrustful of Michael, sat on the table next to Lucifer. "It's weird," she began. "It feels like I know you. Like we were friends from a long time ago who lost touch, but I - the part of me that's still Grace - I don't know you at all. I shouldn't, anyway. I've heard you in the halls of Hell, right before I found her."
"The witch that's bouncing around in your noggin was a top-tier demon. Great girl, helped me with some of my best work. But she was trapped too," Lucifer explained. "We were neighbors. She lived in the cell next to mine. We were in solitary, so we never saw each other. But we talked a lot. That's why you think you know me."
"I do know you. Not just the biblical you, but… I know you, Lucy."
"Mickey -"
"Hey, if you insist on not calling me Grace, I insist on not calling you Lucifer," she warned, trying to figure out what he was playing at. Something didn't feel right, but she couldn't put her finger on it.
Betty reappeared, all eyes trained on her. "Okay, so it's pretty standard stuff until we get to the end." She looked down at the book, Grace and Lucifer hopping to their feet. "Though he be powerful and mighty, all things must come to an end, even this one. He -" She was cut off by Lucifer snapping his fingers, dissolving her into a ray of light.
"Thanks, sweetheart," he smiled, grabbing the book. "Soooo, daddy was the one who really needed this," he shrugged. "Not so fast, boys." He raised his hand, throwing Sam and Dean across the room just as they had started to run for him. Grace managed to throw a shield up around herself and Jack and soften the impact for them, even though they still landed against a solid brick wall.
"Lucy, you really sided with him? We've been fighting him for millennia."
"What was I supposed to do? Say no?" He turned to Jack, offering to take him with to, "be on the winning team. Join me and Grandpa and we can remake the world however we want it." Lucifer smiled at Grace, extending the same offer. "You too, princess. You kept me company for ages. You're entitled to a free pass. Ooh, somebody's behind me."
He was right. Michael had drawn his archangel blade, stabbing his brother without hesitation as soon as Lufcier turned around. Lucifer's eyes widened in shock, a blinding ray of light exploding across the room as he dissolved into pure energy, being reclaimed by the Empty. "Thanks," Sam breathed as he dusted himself off, the boys climbing to their feet. "What now?"
"Hey, look," Grace smiled, picking the book up and holding it to her chest. "We might not be able to read it on sight, but the book's open. Some of these symbols look familiar. We might be able to - the Book of the Damned," she realized, making eye contact with Sam. "The book's open. If we can figure out what some of these symbols mean, then we can decode the ending."
Sam went to grab the Book of the Damned, meeting Grace in her office as the others took some time to recover and try to plan a next move. As soon as he had shut the door behind him, she cast a spell on the door, the frame glowing purple with threads of light. "What are you doing?"
"Warding it so he can't hear us. We need to come up with something we can feed to Michael," she explained, finally setting the book down. "He so desperately wants to be the favorite. You saw his face whenever Lucifer talked to him. He's planning something. He'll get ahold of Chuck, if he hasn't already. We can't trust him, so he's dangerous. So we need a story. Something that makes sense so he feels like we haven't noticed anything."
Flipping through the pages of the book, Sam thought aloud. "I wish we could actually read this. There's nothing here… I mean, it makes sense that only Death can open the book and only Death can see the writing, but still. If we could actually read any of it, we'd have a shot at ending him for real."
Grace nodded, staring at the page he had turned to. She couldn't make out all of the words, but some of the letters were bleeding through the page. It was all written in Enochian, but some of the letters made sense. Tearing her eyes away from the page, she couldn't help but to feel like something was wrong. Everyone else agreed the pages were blank. But very slowly, letters were coming into view. Only for her.
As Sam paced around her desk, Grace picked up a book she had been meaning to take back into the war room. She lifted her hand, slowly transforming it into an exact copy of Death's book, but made sure to leave the pages completely blank. "We'll take this one with us. Michael can't read it, so there's no sense in making it anything special. We might not be able to read it now, but I feel like this is one of the things that's best locked in the bunker. Even if there is no one else out there."
Sam had to agree. There was no way they could risk having the book out in the world with Chuck. Even if he couldn't read it, it was best to keep it with them. For the next few hours, they outlined a plan that would hopefully fool Michael and summon Chuck. There was a way to take him out, a way to make sure both of them couldn't do any more damage. They would need a bit of luck and a bit of magic, but it wasn't out of the realm of possibility.
"So get this," Sam announced, leading the way back into the war room. Dean, Jack, and Michael all turned to face the two of them, setting down the hands of cards they were holding. From the looks of it, Dean had been trying to teach an archangel how to play poker. "There's a spell that has to be performed in a specific place at a specific time in a specific angle of the sun, but it'll release an unstoppable force that will find Chuck and kill him."
"For good?" Dean asked.
"For good."
"How far of a drive are we talking?"
Grace walked over to the once-glowing map table, looking it over and trying to judge the distance between the bunker and the spot she and Sam had picked. "A couple hours."
