Chapter Thirty-One: The Hands of God
Disclaimer: We'd be in trouble if I owed Supernatural. At my production rate, we'd still be in Season 5, lol.
Author's Note: I'm trying to meld the dialogue heavy style this story started out with, with better writing involving actual narrative description, lol. Hopefully I'm succeeding!
-SQ
The abnormally strong gust of desert wind snuffed out the lamp hanging from the tent rafters and Crowley appeared in the clinging darkness left behind. It had taken him a week of surreptitious listening in on snatches of Michael and Lucifer's conversations to figure out what it was they were looking for, and even longer for him to track the item down himself to this remote area of the Arabian Desert. Then it had been a matter of biding his time until he found an opportunity to escape. It had come nearly to late.
The startled men eyed him warily as they drew back the gauzy linen curtain, gesturing mutely for him to enter the inner sanctum where the famed archeologist lay dying. It was, Crowley reflected, an incredible stroke of luck that the man in possession of the artifact he sought had sold his soul to Crowley ten years before.
"Noel," he said conversationally, looking down at the sick man on the narrow bed, "how are you?"
Noel lifted his head and narrowed his eyes, watery from cough and fever, at the demon. "Crowley…" he said, his voice little more than a rasp. "I was expecting…"
"I know who you were expecting," said Crowley, cutting him off. "But I'm here and he's not, and time is short." He put his hand beneath his long, black coat and withdrew Noel's contract with a flourish. The archeologist's eyes followed it avidly as Crowley used the hand holding the neatly sealed scroll to gesture as he spoke. "Do you have it?" With difficulty, the dying man nodded. Crowley smiled in a way that made the man standing guard by the curtain swallow hard and take an involuntary step backward. "Good. What did they offer you for it?" Noel remained silent. Crowley rolled his eyes. "Very well, it doesn't matter anyway. I take it you will accept this?" He brandished the tightly rolled contract. Licking his cracked lips, the old man nodded again.
"Brilliant," said Crowley.
With a great effort, the dying man managed to pull himself upright on the little bed. The man in the corner eyed him with concern but wisely stayed silent. "I've had a good life, thanks to you," said Noel laboriously in his faint, upper class English accent, mellowed by years of traveling the world. His sunburnt forehead shone with sweat. "Very few of the world's secrets I haven't cracked." He sighed, the sound of a man who has learned an important life lesson too late to make use of it. "It seemed worth a soul, at the time."
"Oh, it always does," said Crowley, resisting the urge to glance nervously over his shoulder. It wouldn't do to appear any less than fully in control of the situation.
Noel's eyes still hadn't left the scroll in Crowley's left hand. "Destroy that thing," he spat.
The demon held up a finger of his free hand. "Show me the object first."
The old man narrowed his eyes, but motioned for the guard to bring forth the contents of a very old, ornate wooden box, which had been sealed with a large brass lock. Reverently, the man lifted a corner of the cloth concealing the object. Crowley's eyes gleamed. It was just as Michael and Lucifer had suspected, a genuine shofar. The Horn of Joshua himself, touched by the hand of God and imbued with immeasurable power. He barely registered the rest of his exchange with the man who, for all intents and purposes, was already dead. He'd keep his promise to release Noel from his contract, he was a demon of his word, after all, and then as soon as he had his hands on the Horn, he would dispose of the whole lot of witnesses. What did it matter to him whether their souls went to Hell or to Heaven? He had bigger, Darker fish to fry.
*****Icarus*****
Sam found Dean sitting in the driver's seat of the Impala, staring moodily at the steering wheel.
"I hope you're not planning on wasting the gas we just put into that thing," he said, once Dean had rolled the window down in response to the tap of Sam's knuckles against the glass. He glanced at the keys which were, thankfully lying on the passenger seat next to Dean and not in the ignition.
"I'm not a complete idiot, Sam," said Dean irritably, twitching his shoulders as though he could dislodge his brother's unwelcome scrutiny. "Besides, this garage is way too big and well circulated for that." Sam's brow furrowed slightly, but he didn't comment, just opened the door and stepped out of the way so Dean could climb out of the car. The two brothers settled themselves on the hood.
"So," said Sam after several moments.
"So," Dean echoed heavily, scrubbing a hand over his face, rough with five-o'clock-shadow. "Cas." He dropped the angel's name into the silence like a stone.
"Yeah," said Sam. Because what else could he say?
"And Gabriel," added Dean after a moment.
Sam's shoulders sagged and he shivered, though the air, spring warm without the heaviness that would come later with summer, was pleasant. "Yeah." He glanced toward the empty parking spot where the T-Bird used to sit. "So, what do we do now?"
Dean lifted his head to look at his brother, green eyes suddenly blazing through the sheen of pain and despair that had clouded them. "What else?" he said fiercely, fists clenching against the polished hood of the car. "We hunt Lucifer and Michael, trap the bastards, and save Cas."
"And Gabriel," Sam added.
Dean's eyes flicked away toward the garage exit. "Right. And Gabriel."
Sam took a breath. Let it out. Took another one. It smelled like tires and motor oil. "Like I said before, Dean, Lucifer and Michael may be in control now, but Cas and Gabe…" he hesitated, then ploughed ahead, "they may not come back willingly. I mean, you heard Lucifer, they chose it."
Dean turned on him angrily. "Since when do you believe anything Lucifer has to say?"
Sam held up his hands. "I don't, Dean, but you know it's true. In order for him and Michael to possess them, they had to have said yes."
"No," said Dean, though he knew it was true. "No," he repeated, feeling his heart constrict painfully in his chest, making it difficult to breathe despite the mild, well-circulated air. "Maybe Gabriel did, but not Cas."
"Dean—"
"He wouldn't, Sam!" said Dean, jumping down from the car hood and pacing angrily toward the other end of the garage, his heart, still squeezed by that invisible hand, hammering painfully in his chest. Despite the size of the garage, the walls suddenly felt as though they were pressing in on him suffocatingly close. "He was tricked or-or manipulated, I don't know. What I do know is that he wants to be saved. Even if he doesn't know it yet." He turned back to Sam, and the younger hunter was shocked, though not all together surprised, to see his brother's eyes shining with unshed tears. "We have to, Sam. He's family."
Sam nodded slowly, hand going automatically to where the feather no longer hung around his neck. "Alright, Dean," he said, using the other hand to push himself off of the car hood. "If you say we're gonna win, then we're gonna win. Ice the Lucifer, shank the Darkness, the whole nine yards."
"But first," said Dean," "we'll find a way to bring our friends back." He caught Sam's gaze and held it, not sure which one of them he was trying to convince. "Both of them. And anyone who gets it our way, well God help them."
Sam nodded, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth despite the heavy weight that had settled in the pit of his stomach. "Damn right," he said.
"Damn right," Dean agreed.
*****Icarus*****
"What do you want, Crowley?" Dean scowled down at his phone before answering it. He had almost let it ring out, not in the mood to deal with the smug, British demon after the depressing affair with the wrestler Lawless and his crossroads deal. But in the end, he had answered it, arresting his trajectory toward the coffee pot to lean against the kitchen doorway and press the accept call button on the illuminated screen. There was a chance the (former?) King of Hell had a lead on Amara. Though what exactly they were going to do about it with both their angels out of commission was beyond him.
"Is that any way to greet the man who's about to save your bacon?" asked the cockney voice on the other end of the line in a hushed tone of mock hurt. "I'm risking my life just making this call to you." The demon clicked his tongue. Not for the first time, or likely the last, Dean wanted to throttle him. "I assume you do know what's been happening in Hell recently," Crowley continued. "Or did you two flannel-clad half-wits really not notice Michael and Lucifer walking around under your noses?"
Dean gritted his teeth. Seriously, why was Crowley still breathing (well, metaphorically speaking)? The man was like a cockroach. "We noticed," he bit out, not about to admit to the demon just how long it had taken them to realize Cas and Gabe were no longer what they seemed. "And how am I supposed to know you're not working for them?"
There was an impatient tut from the phone. "I doubt the Dynamic Duo would appreciate me handing over the artifacts they have been looking for to you instead."
"Get to the point, Crowley," Dean growled, tension causing the corner of the doorframe to dig painfully into his hip.
"You have no appreciation for the art of acquisition and negotiation," muttered Crowley. He sounded out of breath, as though he had been running. "I can still rescind my offer, you know."
"You haven't made me an offer," said Dean, running out of patience. He was poorly rested, un-caffeinated, and his head hurt. The sound of Crowley's smug English accent wasn't helping matters. "And if you don't tell me something worthwhile in the next three seconds, I'm hanging up."
"Fine, fine," said Crowley hurriedly, exchanging his tone of affected disinterest for one of genuine urgency. "No need to get your panties in a twist. I just so happen to have located not one, but two items which I have on good authority possess the ability channel enough power to take on even such a force as the Darkness." Silence. Dean, who had pushed himself off the doorframe and started once again in the direction of the coffee pot, froze, the plastic and glass of the phone suddenly feeling clammy against his ear and cheek. "Hello? Earth to Squirrel. I said I have in my possession the solution to our collective problems. You should be doing a jig."
"I don't jig," said Dean flatly, his harsh tone covering churning feeling his stomach. "And I still don't know why I should believe you."
Crowley swore softly but colorfully in frustration. "Because I want her gone as much as you do! Don't tell me you haven't been looking for just such an item. Something that was touched by the Big Man Himself. It's all Michael and Lucifer can talk about."
"A Hand of God?" said Dean, his heartrate quickening in spite of his skepticism. "Of course we have. But why are you telling me this? What's in it for you?"
"Besides not being wiped from existence?" Crowley snapped. There was a definite thread of anxiety in the demon's voice now, which had dropped another few decibels and was now coming through the speaker in a clipped half-whisper. "In case you'd forgotten, we're all on Amara's hit list. And giving Lucifer the slip when his back was turned hasn't exactly put me in his good books either."
"In other words," said Dean with a snort, pausing to lean against the kitchen table and massage the throbbing pressure point between his eyes with a finger. "Amara and Lucifer both dumped you, and I'm your last resort."
"In other words," Crowley hissed. "You still owe me a favor, and here I am doing you another one instead. Absolutely no appreciation." There was a pause, during which Dean was pretty sure Crowley was holding his breath New York City. Then the demon said, even more quietly than before, "Manhattan. Royal Self Storage on Canal Street." The line went dead.
"Crowley? Crowley! Dammit!" Dean pounded the fist with his phone in it against his hip, wincing as he hit the spot made sore by the corner of the doorframe. Sam picked that precise moment to walk into the kitchen, hair and sweatshirt damp from the drizzle that had started near the end of his jog. His eyebrows lifted towards his tousled widow's peak.
"Talking to Crowley?" he asked, crossing to the cabinet for a glass and then turning to the sink to fill it with water.
"No," said Dean sarcastically, earning him an eyeroll over the glass of water. He scowled back.
Sam, knowing it wasn't really him his brother was scowling at, drained his glass, put it in the sink, and then turned back to Dean, leaning back against the stainless steel countertop with one hand. "What did he want?"
"He says he's found a Hand of God." Sam's eyebrows traveled back up toward his hairline. "Two, actually," amended Dean.
His brother whistled softly. "Do you believe him?"
"I don't know," said Dean in frustration, sinking down into the nearest chair, looking at the empty table in front of him, and realizing morosely that he had never actually made the intended pot of coffee. Though, in light of his recent phone call, maybe he needed something stronger than coffee.
Correctly interpreting the brooding look his brother was giving the tabletop, Sam grabbed two beers from the fridge, popped them open, and slid one across the table to Dean as he settled himself in the chair on the opposite side of the kitchen table. "We can't really afford to pass up the opportunity to get our hands on one, can we?" he said. "If he is telling the truth. We already know it's our best bet against Amara."
Dean grimaced and took a swig of his beer. "I know. And so does Crowley." He rocked his chair onto its back legs, a habit his dad had always scolded him for. "He gave me an address."
Sam sighed, ran a hand through his shaggy hair, and finished off his own beer, making an impressive shot with the bottle into the recycling bin. "Should I bring a change of clothes?"
AN: Thanks for sticking with me! I know not too much happened in this chapter, but the next chapter, which I've already started, is long and action packed. Until then!
-SQ