Chapter 2 – Survivor
Once they had exited the compound, the quartet took shelter in an abandoned barn. Barry and Gail had nosed around and found a couple of blankets for him and Peter, to help keep them warm as they slept. Based on the fact that the blankets had been found in a barn, and judging from their musty smell, the two of them concluded that they must have been horse blankets.
Barry shrugged. "Well, it's still better than nothing." He shook the dust off the blanket he was holding, then grabbed the other blanket from Gail's hands and did the same.
"I guess as long as you're warm, that's the mane thing," Gail joked instinctively, but then she winced. It was super-inappropriate to be joking around right now. Luckily, her former "work husband" knew that it was a defense mechanism on her part.
Gail looked around for her actual husband, and then she remembered that he'd said he was going outside to look at the stars.
"Go ahead and get Peter as comfortable as you can," she said to Barry. "Cas is trying to figure out which direction we should be going in from here. Don't worry about that part of things. You remember who he is, right? If there's no electricity or anything, he's the best person we could be with, right now. He knows how to do all that stuff."
"I'm thirsty," Peter whined. He yawned, rubbing his eyes. Barry looked down at the boy. Peter was acting like a child half his actual age. Still, Barry guessed that was understandable. Look at the type of trauma young Peter had just been through. And now, they had this bizarre situation to deal with. Apparently, the people of the Earth were now starting from scratch. No electricity, no technology, no plumbing. No working cars, or telephones of any kind. Gail was right, from an intellectual standpoint, anyway. If some kind of reset button had been triggered, the best person to lead them and ensure their survival was the Angel who had once been Abel, a humble shepherd who had existed at the start of it all. Cas would know how to keep them sheltered, fed and protected in this type of environment.
But Cas had also murdered Carolyn and Mike, and it didn't even seem like he was sorry he'd done it. Gail had muttered something about hating it "when he got like this", intimating that this had happened before, in some form. Of course, Barry would have no idea how bad Cas had gotten when he had been God, and he'd had that poison from Dr. Roarke's injections swimming in his bloodstream. Whatever was happening with Cas now was far more mysterious, and Barry had no clue what it was, or how long it might last. But Gail didn't seem worried for his and Peter's safety, so Barry would trust her judgement. Still, he kind of wished she hadn't lost her powers, at the same time. Talk about inconvenient. Gail couldn't zap them to Frank's place, and Cas wouldn't. Yeah, this was one for the books, all right.
"Peter's thirsty," Gail told Cas. He was standing outside the barn, looking up at the sky.
"There is a water pump on the grounds," he said absently, still stargazing. "Many of these types of properties have underground wells. The barn is in good repair, and the hay smells fairly fresh. I believe that means the owner of this property has rebuilt a bigger barn nearby, so the water should still be good. If you can find a receptacle in the barn, I'll pump the water." He squinted at the stars once more, nodded briefly, and then looked at his wife. "I have our route," he told her.
Gail let out a breath. Well, she guessed that was something, anyway. "How long will it take us to get back home?" she asked him.
"Approximately sixteen days," Cas responded calmly.
"Sixteen days! Are you kidding me?" she exclaimed.
"No," he said tonelessly. "I find nothing amusing about the situation."
Gail's lips tightened. Boy, he was lucky she didn't have her powers right now. "Why can't you just take us home, Cas? Why do we have to go through all this nonsense?"
"I believe I explained that to you," he said and incredibly, he was moving away from her, presumably to find the water pump.
She followed close behind. "No, you actually didn't," Gail argued. "You said you had to 'conserve your powers'. Since when?"
"I have been imbued with Archangel-level powers, for the moment," Cas answered her, still on the move. "I don't know how, or why. I only know that they are temporary, and I have to conserve them." He stopped walking and turned around to look at her. "This is a time of great upheaval, Gail," he said grimly. "Everything we used to have is no more. The forces of Evil currently have the upper hand, and the Angels will do their bidding."
Gail's heart fell to her stomach. "What do you mean, Cas?" she said, grabbing his arm. "Would you stop talking in Bible verses, and just talk to me? Your wife? Who's got the upper hand? Vincent? Why would Angels do his bidding? What about Bobby?"
"Bobby is God in name only," Cas replied. "Vincent is the new God, and I have to conserve every ounce of power I have to do battle with him, when the time comes. I am the only one who can. Heaven's Angels are compromised, though they do not know it." He peered closely at his wife's face. "You will regain your powers, but I don't know how long that will take. I have to keep you close to me." His expression softened, just a bit. "See if you can find something in the barn that will hold water. If Barry and Peter will rest, I can forage for some berries for them to eat. Then, in the morning, we will find the nearest viable farm, and ask the people there to share."
Gail let out a slow breath. She knew Cas well enough to realize that this was the most she could get from him at the moment. Great. Just great. Vincent was the new God. It was enough to make an Angel want to turn in her wings. Not that she had any, right now. It was strange how she'd come to take her powers for granted. Sort of like an apt analogy for the way the rest of the world would be feeling, she thought. Gail had no idea what time it was here in Ontario, but it felt very late. She wondered if Sam and Dean and Frank and Jody had any idea what had befallen the planet. What would they do? Would they be OK? Frank had always been very resourceful, ever since they were kids. He had put roofs over their heads, fed the two of them, eluded Demons and killed numerous monsters, all with extremely limited resources. And Jody had had all that survival training with the police academy that she'd described to them when she'd come back from the Afterlife. Gail's heart hurt to think of that. It hadn't been that long ago that their family had welcomed Jody back. Then there had been Rob and Suzanne's wedding, complete with the fantastic news that Suzanne was expecting triplets. What was this apparent new world status going to do to someone who was going to have three babies? Would there be enough food? Winter was coming; would there be enough warmth?
How about Sam and Dean? Gail knew that the bunker had an emergency lighting system that was supposed to work under pretty much any adverse circumstances. Sam had told her once, out of Cas's earshot, that when the Angels had fallen, the emergency system had kicked in. But this was a much more pervasive scenario. What good were world communications when there was no one to communicate with?
Cas had mentioned Bobby as being God in name only. Frankly, that comment didn't surprise her much. They'd known for a long time now that Bobby's powers weren't exactly Godlike. Vincent knew it, too; he'd made reference to that fact, back there at the scene of the disaster. However, there was more: according to Cas, it was up to her husband to fight Vincent "when the time came", whatever that meant. Well, great. Good. She would bet on Cas, any time. Every time. But what had he meant when he'd said that Angels were "compromised"? It was frustrating as hell. She knew that there was no point in badgering this version of her husband for further clarification, though. At a certain point when Cas got like this, he would dig in his heels, and then she would get nothing.
It was good to know that she was going to regain her powers, though. Gail didn't even question how Cas knew that. He seemed so certain of everything he'd said to her that she had no doubt it was true. It had done her heart good to see the expression on his face soften when he'd talked about keeping her close to him, though. That meant he still loved her, despite the yardstick that Vincent's spell had inserted up his butt. Gail smiled to herself. They would get through this together; they always had.
She went back to the barn to search for something to put the water in.
Cas stood next to the water pump, bathed in the eerie red glow of the Blood Moon. He just stood there, motionless, waiting for Gail to return. Dean would have recognized his friend's posture. Castiel was standing at parade rest, like he used to do when he would call Dean in the middle of the night, on that modern contraption they had called a "cell phone". Dean would object, saying that he needed to sleep. So Cas would just stand and wait in the spot he had called Dean from, until the amount of time Dean requested had elapsed.
Cas knew that Gail was both confused by his behaviour and annoyed by it, to say the very least. He realized that in the modern world, sixteen days' travel seemed like an eternity. It did to him, too. Or at least, to the human side of him, anyway. But even though that side of him was still present, Castiel was tamping it down. Suppressing it. He had been filled with the Holy Light now, and he had a sacred mission to perform. He couldn't let anything distract him from the path.
Cas had been telling the truth about the Angels. At dawn, Bobby was going to deploy a host of Angels all over the globe to help humanity cope with the many challenges they would face. On the surface, that seemed like the right and compassionate thing to do, and many people would greatly benefit from it. But there was a problem, and it was a big one. When Castiel had felt the effects of the spell consume him through his own and Cain's blood, he had received the echoes of certain prophecies in his head. They were fleeting glimpses, only; the kind that Chuck used to describe. Kevin, too. Unless a particular Prophet was shown a clear and distinct vision, they might receive bits and pieces, only. Castiel was no Prophet. He had been fortunate to have been shown as much as he had been.
Unfortunately, even though Cas knew that a handful of Angels would abet this evil regime, either inadvertently or otherwise, he was not in the way of knowing who they were. All he did know was that there would be a number of disaster-related deaths on Earth caused by those Angels, and he feared there would be even worse evils to come.
And the most frightening thing of all? When Castiel had seen the Earth burn and heard the screams of humanity, he had also seen Gail's face. And she had been smiling.
The following morning, the little group started their journey, moving southwest.
It wasn't too long before they came upon a large farm. The land was so vast, in fact, that the first living being they encountered there was a cow. It was mooing loudly, almost bellowing. Cas's eyes narrowed as he looked more closely at the animal.
"This cow needs to be milked," Cas observed. "It is suffering."
Barry was less than impressed. So was he. He'd gotten maybe an hour's sleep. Maybe. His head hurt, his back hurt, and he was shivering in the cool morning air. He might be Canadian, but there was a reason he lived in the Lower Mainland area of British Columbia. Not to say that it didn't get chilly there too, but it was only October, for crying out loud. Barry could see plumes of steam coming from his mouth, and a light dusting of white on the ground. Frost. Great. Just great.
The cow bellowed again, and Cas veered off the country road they'd been walking on. "Stay here, please," he said to the others. He moved to the fence and put one foot on the bottom slat, preparing to climb over it.
"What do you think you are doing?" a tall, stocky man with a bushy beard said to Cas. The man was crossing the field, walking at a brisk pace. Funny; none of them had even seen him coming.
"This cow needs to be milked," Cas repeated, climbing nimbly over the fence. "I believe it's got mastitis. That's an infection in the udder."
"I know what it is," the farmer said, somewhat irritably. "Had I known that our neighbour's milking machine was going to suddenly stop working, I would have had all of my sons milk the herd days ago."
Cas looked at the man sharply. "Milking machine? Aren't you Amish?"
"I won't tell God if you don't," the man replied sarcastically.
Gail burbled out a laugh, which she tried to turn into a cough. Both Cas and the farmer glanced at her, and she was happy to see Cas's mouth twitch for a split second. So there WAS still some of him in there!
The moment was fleeting, however. An instant later, Cas bent down to look at the cow's distended udder. "Do you have receptacles for the milk?" he asked the farmer. "The animal must be milked right now, or it will die."
"Do I look like I have a dozen pails?" the Amish man retorted, spreading his hands out at his sides.
"Fine, but in future, you will need to be more prepared," Cas said, tight-lipped. He squatted and began to milk the cow.
The farmer frowned, but he made no move to stop Cas. Gail moved closer to the fence. "We're travelling southwest," she told the Amish man. "We have a small boy with us, who hasn't eaten in a day or so. Is there any way that we can ask you to spare us a meal, before we head on our way? I'm sure his father would really appreciate it." Barry looked at her, but he didn't say anything. Gail was right; that was simpler.
"Yes, of course we will share," the farmer responded. "What kind of a religious order would we be if we didn't?"
"Your people will fare well in the days to come, but many others will not," Cas remarked from his crouched position next to the cow. He glanced up at the man while still milking the animal. "Do you have any weaponry?"
"We keep guns, to hunt with," the Amish farmer said. Then, his tone became wary: "Why do you ask?"
"I should think it would be obvious," Cas said calmly, turning his attention back to the cow. "The people in the community who you call 'worldly' will be looking to you for your resources, and your supplies. And, unlike us, not all of them will ask politely."
The Amish man frowned. He understood what this stranger was trying to say. His own settlement was a little more progressive than some of the others', so they hadn't had as many clashes with the "English", or worldly community. But many of their brethren had. "What do you mean about 'the days to come'?" he asked Cas.
"The End of Days," Cas said succinctly, and the man's face paled.
Wow, Gail thought. She'd forgotten what a Castiel with no people skills could be like. "I apologize for my husband," she said to the farmer. "He can be a little... terse, sometimes." She moved closer to the fence, reaching her hand over it. "My name is Gail. This is Barry, and the young man is Peter. And, my husband is Cas."
The Amish man didn't take her hand, but his expression relaxed a bit. "My name is Aaron." He looked at Cas, who was straightening up from his crouched position.
"The animal has been saved," the Angel told Aaron. "How many sons do you have?"
Aaron did a double-take. What did that have to do with-? But then he looked at the ground around the cow, and his mouth dropped open. There were several dozen pails filled with milk sitting there.
"Barry and I will help you carry some of these to the barn, but as you can see, numerous trips will be required," Cas said.
Gail let out a frustrated breath. Obviously, Cas had used some of that power he was supposed to be conserving to do what he'd done. She pressed her lips together. Cas was lucky that farmer guy was here right now, or her husband would be hearing from her about that. How come he could use his power for something like this, but he couldn't zap them all home?
Cas glanced at his wife. He knew what she was thinking. Truthfully, he had been prepared to just spoil the milk in order to save the cow. But ultimately, he couldn't bring himself to do it. Milk was sustenance for humans, and it could be made into other things, such as cheese. So he had waved his hand, and the pails had appeared.
"How did you do that?" Aaron asked Cas in a dazed voice.
"God will provide," Cas said evasively. He picked up a pail in each hand and started off in the direction of the barn.
After a moment, Aaron did the same. Barry looked at Gail, who shrugged. "Peter and I will meet you at the house," she said to him, extending her hand to the boy.
Barry sighed. Great. He was hungry, exhausted and sore, and now, he was going to be a milkmaid. Excellent. Still, if Aaron was willing to feed him, Barry would carry as many pails as it took. He was starving.
"So that's the long and short of it, boys," Bobby said to Sam and Dean. "As soon as Laurel came to my home place in Heaven and told me the alarm for the cabinet that holds the red files went off, I rushed over there. Sure enough, the thing was blaring. I didn't even know it was there! Maybe Cas installed it, or maybe even Patricia. Anyway, the alarm was braying, and the cabinet door was wide open. There was one of those red confidential files, labelled "REVELATION", lying on the floor. It had only one sheet of paper in it, and there was only one sentence on that paper. It said: 'The End Is the Beginning, and the Beginning Will Be the End'. As soon as I picked that up and read it, the file disintegrated."
"'Revelation'," Dean said sarcastically. "Great. More Bible crap."
Sam glanced at his brother, but he could understand how Dean felt. The last time they'd sat around this table talking about the final chapter of the Bible, Crowley had sat next to where Bobby was sitting now, and Lucifer had been running around loose on the Earth.
"'The End Is the Beginning'," the younger Winchester mused aloud. "I guess that makes sense, since the file was called 'Revelation'. But, what about 'The Beginning Will Be the End'?"
"Did you ask Cas?" Dean inquired. "He usually knows about that kind of stuff."
"I don't know where he is," Bobby stated. "Nobody's seen him, or Gail, either. I tried calling them on Angel Radio, but they're not answering."
The Winchesters exchanged glances. Last they remembered, Cas and Gail had been talking about going to Ontario, Canada, to rescue Carolyn from a possible cult-type situation.
Bobby was doing the slow burn. This was the first he was hearing about any of this stuff. Not that Cas and Gail needed to report to him about everything, but it would be nice if they would return his calls, every once in a while.
"Where, in Ontario?" God asked the Winchesters irritably.
But that was just it: neither of them could remember. Before this... whatever this was, they had been planning to hit the road, first thing this morning. Sam had done the stomach-turning research on that Roch Theriault guy, and then their Angel friends had taken off.
"It had something to do with wine; I remember that," Dean offered, but Bobby scowled.
"Thanks. That's real helpful," their friend said sarcastically.
Dean looked at him. "Bottom line it for us, Bobby. What are we looking at, here?"
"We're back to square one," their friend replied grimly. "No electricity, no running water, no technology of any kind. I sent a whole bunch of Angels to different countries and cities in the world, to help out. Some of the old-school ones go back as far as Biblical times, so they'll know how to feed and shelter people without all that modern stuff. Some of them from our circle went, too. Even Laurel wanted to go. She said that Chuck would have been one of the first to step up and volunteer. I couldn't say no to that. So I sent her and Ethan to the Eastern seaboard. As a former Philly man, I thought Ethan would be familiar with the area. And since Laurel has never been on a mission here on Earth before, I thought I'd pair her with somebody more experienced."
The brothers nodded. Made sense to them. "How can we help?" Sam wanted to know.
Laurel was in Rhode Island, showing the people in the small community where Ethan had dropped her off how to purify water. Her Angel companion had told her that he was headed to some of the bigger cities, along with some of his Academy students. Going by his law enforcement experience and by the sheer numbers alone, Ethan believed that the urban areas would be much more likely to descend into chaos once people figured out that they couldn't just nuke their breakfast, or run down to the local coffee shop. No electricity or technology of any kind would be baffling to many city dwellers. And don't even get him started on lack of indoor plumbing facilities. As part of his training as a first responder on Earth, Ethan had learned some basic survival skills in the event of certain disasters, such as earthquakes. So had many of the other guys on his squad. But Ethan didn't think that Laurel would be able to handle that kind of a situation, not on her first Earth mission. So he'd deposited her in a smaller community in the smallest state, and told her he'd be back to check on her in a little while.
Laurel had been in Heaven for many years now. She had served the original God the Father for decades, way before Gail or Ethan or even Bobby had gotten there. Because Angels didn't age, many of their group tended to forget that fact. She knew a lot more about living without technology than they might think.
And so it was that the first disaster which befell the Earth at the hands of an Angel was quite accidental. When Lucifer had escaped his cage, Bobby had designated seven Angels to go to Earth along with the core Hunter group to locate the Devil. Chuck had been one of the seven, so as Chuck's widow, Laurel was a designated Angel by proxy. When Vincent had precipitated the current events, his spell had triggered a number of circumstances, like dominoes falling against each other.
Therefore, each of the designated Angels had been imbued with a single ability to effect one disaster-level event upon the Earth. The thing was, none of them knew about it. Neither did Bobby, of course, who had been kept in the dark about many things. The present occupant of the High Office was still a newbie, by Heaven's standards. Since Bobby had not been around in Biblical times, he would have no idea what was actually going on, here. Gabriel might have had an inkling, although it was likely too soon in the game to tell. But Gabriel was gone, again. The Archangel was in the wind once more, and Bobby had ceased to consider him a reliable source for help. And Cas was allegedly in Ontario, trying to save a family member. Well, Bobby supposed he couldn't be too mad about that. Cas and Gail would show up eventually. They always did.
Laurel was standing outside the town hall, which was being pressed into service for the more rural people in the community to teach others how to cope without modern technology. With all of those people crowded in there, the room had become extremely loud. Laurel had been enjoying the feeling of helping people, but it was all becoming a little overwhelming for her. Heaven was quiet, and even though it was densely populated, there were seldom these types of crowds gathered together in an enclosed space. Also, Chuck had been murdered outside the reception hall at Linda and Paul's wedding, and Laurel had been having a few flashbacks about that.
So she'd ducked outside for a bit of fresh air, because that was another thing Heaven didn't have. Laurel hadn't realized how much she'd missed that. Except for the occasional extended-family function, she hadn't been on Earth much. Not since her own untimely death, which had been a tragic event in and of itself. Chuck was the only one in their circle who had known the story behind that. Not even Bobby knew, and Bobby was the nearest thing to a father figure Laurel would ever have. He had never asked, and even after all this time, she had never volunteered the information. Maybe she would, one day.
But this was hardly the time for backstories. The Earth was in crisis. Laurel hadn't known about the alarm on the file cabinet, either. She'd nearly fallen from her chair when it had gone off. Then the door to the locked cabinet had flown open, and the red file labelled "Revelation" had come sailing out. That was when Laurel had panicked and gone to see Bobby, who had left the office for the day.
Revelation. Laurel was thinking about that, now. She knew a lot about the subject. God the Father, her original boss, had given her a lot of dictation to transcribe with regard to the Bible. Wasn't it strange, how radically things had changed? In Revelation, God had advised that there would be seven Angels who would visit seven Plagues upon the Earth. Laurel remembered that part very vividly, because she remembered having wondered why the Father would do that to the human race. God hadn't been the type of authority figure who would tolerate those kinds of questions, though. Not like Bobby. His door was always open to her. The trouble was, it didn't seem like Bobby knew very much about... well, very much. Bobby had done the right thing by sending the Angels to Earth to help the human race, in Laurel's opinion. She wondered what God the Father would think about that.
Angels. Plagues. Imagine that. Laurel remembered that a couple of the ills that the Angels had brought in Revelation were hail, and fire. The fire would be a nightmare right now, but they could actually use the hail, she thought with wry humour. They could let it melt, and convert it into drinking water.
A moment later, she heard a sound at her feet. A dull, thudding sound. Then another, and then another. Laurel peered closer. Hailstones. Hmm.
Then more and more of them started to fall from the sky which, curiously, was bright blue and cloudless. Amazing. Had God heard her thoughts?
She turned back to look at the town hall, smiling widely. Wait until she told the townspeople the good news. They were good people, folks who had gathered there to share their knowledge with each other to help their community. Laurel considered it a privilege to have been one of the Angels who Bobby had designated to work with the humans, to help them survive these difficult times.
She took a step toward the town hall, but that was as far as she got. An enormous fireball plummeted from the sky and obliterated the building, killing everyone in it. They'd never even had a chance.
Cas and Gail, Barry, Aaron and a couple of the Amish man's older sons were sitting at the table, drinking tea. Barry and Peter had eaten the meal that Aaron's wife and daughter prepared for them, and Cas and Gail had accepted small plates too, so as not to be rude to their hosts.
Gail had been relieved to find out that she didn't have much of an appetite. A strange thing to think, maybe, but that fact signified to her that she was still an Angel who had just been temporarily... unplugged. Kind of like the rest of the world. But at least she wasn't mortal, or anything. If she was, she would be hungry and thirsty, and have to go to the bathroom. Without any indoor plumbing, what a disgusting ordeal that would be. Yuk.
It had annoyed Gail at first to see the women serving up the food, but then she realized she had to check herself on that. This was the way things were done in Amish households, and it wasn't as if the men didn't work hard, too. She and Peter had sat there in the kitchen making small talk with the women while the men had been transporting all those heavy pails of milk from the field to the barn. The bottom line was, if the women were OK with the arrangement, then it was none of Gail's business.
"Thanks for your hospitality," Barry said to their hosts. "I've got to say, I've never met any Amish people, before. I was expecting to hear a lot of 'thee' and 'thou', and to see you driving in a horse and buggy."
"Oh, we do," Aaron told him, nodding. "But we have to install headlights and turn signals on our buggies, in conformance with the law. As far as 'thee' and 'thou' goes, that's mainly just a stereotype. There are some settlements which are more conservative than ours who may use that terminology, but I think it's unnecessarily archaic."
Cas was impressed by Aaron. He was intelligent, and articulate. This was why Castiel had always balked at humans' ideas of "one true religion". There was no such thing. As long as a person was conducting themselves properly, God the Father didn't care which organized religion that person chose to follow.
"In many respects, your ways are superior to those of the people you refer to as 'worldly'," Cas remarked. "Not relying on technology is the much more preferable option."
"It's certainly a lot more serene," Barry added. "I was wondering why it was so quiet outside when we were walking here today. It's because there's no traffic noise. No airplanes, flying in the sky."
Gail was nodding. "That's right. No ambient noises of any kind. I noticed that, too."
"One of the purest experiences in human existence is living off the land," Aaron said. "Raising crops and farm animals, and helping your neighbours. There is nothing like the fellowship and satisfaction that can be derived from those things."
"Well said," Cas agreed. "I have often felt that way, myself."
"Really? Are you a farmer, too?" one of Aaron's sons inquired.
Cas looked at Gail, and a ghost of a smile was dancing on his lips. "A shepherd," he responded, and she looked at him warmly. It was so weird; every time she got fed up with the way he was acting, he would go and do something like that.
"Papa," a little girl said, approaching the other son of Aaron's who hadn't spoken thus far.
"Yes, Sarah?" he asked his daughter, lifting her onto his lap.
Gail flinched. Little Sarah was holding a doll in the crook of her arm, but it had no face. What was THAT all about?
Aaron had seen her reaction, and he smiled thinly. "Amish dolls have no faces, because we believe that only God can make a human image."
Oh. Okie-dokie. Gail guessed she could understand that, from a religious viewpoint, but the doll still looked creepy to her. She wondered what Sam and Dean would have to say about it. Oh, great. Now she was worrying about them again, and Frank, and...
"How long have you and your wife been married?" Aaron asked Cas now, and Gail had to bite the insides of her cheeks to avoid asking him whether he'd meant to each other. But that was actually an interesting, if tricky, question, since they'd had two weddings, now. And, technically, she'd been married to Dean, in the middle.
"Since the beginning of time," Cas replied, and Gail smiled.
Aaron's forehead wrinkled, but he went on: "How many children do you have?"
Gail had been taking a sip of her tea to keep herself from making an inappropriate quip, and she sputtered now, spraying tea on Barry's arm. He gave her a look that made her want to laugh some more. Hey, it had been a rough couple of days.
While Cas was presumably trying to formulate an answer to the question, Aaron turned his attention to Barry. "Where is your wife? Do you have any other children, besides Peter?"
Now it was Gail's turn to look at Barry. There was something to be said for the fact that Aaron seemed to only be addressing the men. Whether that was an Amish thing or just the man's style, she had no idea. All she knew was that it worked to her benefit, in this instance. Now she could just sit back, and watch them squirm.
But Barry surprised her. "I'm a widower," he replied smoothly. "I also have a little girl, Ilene. She's staying with relatives, in the States. We're making our way back there now, but with the hiccup in technology, it'll take us about two weeks, on foot."
Aaron nodded. "We will be able to take you to the county's edge, but I'm afraid that's all we can do. Now that we have a whole herd of cattle we have to milk manually, and a harvest to reap without any farm equipment, we don't have much time to spare."
Cas nodded. "That's completely understandable. We appreciate any kind assistance you are able to provide."
Aaron's wife, who still hadn't been named nor introduced to the visitors, nodded to her adult daughter. "We will pack some food for you to take on your journey."
Gail felt that frisson of annoyance again. Why hadn't Aaron introduced his wife and daughter by name, or looked at them, even once?
But before Gail had the chance to think about whether she should express herself, Peter came running into the kitchen. He'd been in the other room eating the plate of food they'd given him, ostensibly talking to the other children. Children. Plural. Holy moly. How many did they have? Gail thought incredulously.
Peter's face was pale, and he was trembling. He had been sitting at the window, just staring at the barn outside. He would never again be able to look at a barn without seeing his Uncle Cas killing his mom and Mike. Never.
The boy's eyes rolled back, until only the white was showing. "'The Earth is reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgement and the destruction of ungodly men'," Peter intoned. A moment later, his eyes returned to normal.
Barry and Gail exchanged astonished glances. What the hell was this, now?
"That's from the Bible," Aaron remarked, noticing their expressions.
"Peter," Cas said quietly, but he wasn't saying the boy's name. "It's from 'Peter'."
"That's right," Aaron said with raised eyebrows. "You really know your Bible."
Barry hugged Peter to him, and Gail bit her cheeks again.
Mere minutes before Laurel accidentally caused the Holy Fire that had killed the countless unfortunate souls who had been in the town hall and Peter had uttered that terrifying Bible quote, Ethan was standing on a dock at the Boston Harbour.
He and his fellow Angels had been helping the citizens of various cities in the Eastern USA. Ethan had been unable to resist popping himself over to Philly, to check in on the humans there. He'd assisted when and wherever he could, but then Jim had called him on Angel Radio and asked him to come to Boston.
When Ethan had gotten there, he and some of his squad members had had to break up a fight that had started at the docks and spilled out into the streets surrounding the harbour. The combatants had been quarrelling over fishing rights. Ethan had corralled the ringleaders and used his hostage negotiation skills to persuade them that in times like these, paperwork was irrelevant. People needed to be fed, and fishing transcended technology.
Once peace had been achieved, Ethan had taken a moment to appreciate the history of where he was standing right now. The infamous Boston Tea Party had taken place right here in the year 1773, if he remembered correctly. He thought back to his American history class. The locals had been protesting British taxation on tea, as not being fair to Americans. Boy; the more things changed, the more they stayed the same, as the old expression went. No matter what century it was, the government always tried to make things harder on its citizens. Ethan was, naturally, a big proponent of law and order, but he also felt like too many strings and too much red tape impeded the process, sometimes.
During the incident everyone knew now as the Boston Tea Party, the American protestors had boarded the ships that were moored here, throwing chests of the controversial tea into the waters of the harbour. The episode had set off a chain of events that had eventually escalated into the American Revolution. A pretty big deal, as it had turned out.
Ethan chuffed out a laugh. He could just imagine the faces of the stuffed-shirt politicians when they'd heard about a bunch of drunken yahoos raiding British ships, and dumping their precious tea into the dirty waters. By today's standards, that seemed more like a prank than an act of aggression. He gazed out into the harbour, looking at all the fishing boats that were moored there. The fishermen would have a harder time of it without technology, but they could still do their thing. Hadn't some of the Apostles been fishermen? Ethan would have to ask Cas that question, the next time he saw him. Bobby must have Cas deployed somewhere on Earth too, showing people how to cope without modern conveniences. If anybody would be an expert on that kind of stuff, it would be Cas.
He continued to stare out at the ships. Why was Ethan so mesmerized by them? What had become of the luxury ocean liners, and all of the warships that must be out on the open seas? Had they just ground to a halt? Were the passengers and the soldiers on them crowding into lifeboats, like those people had done on the Titanic? Imagine being a couple who had set out on a 30-day ocean cruise, maybe for their anniversary, only to find themselves suddenly adrift in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Yikes.
On the other hand, as far as Ethan was concerned, the world would be better off without all those warships. In fact, if he was Bobby, as soon as the servicemen-and-women had cleared them, he would rain down Holy Fire on each and every one of those ships. There was enough trouble on the planet, as it was.
A minute later, a number of fireballs descended from the sky, obliterating all the fishing boats that were moored in the harbour. And as Ethan stood there rooted to the spot in shock, the city of Boston descended into complete chaos.
THE BOOK OF GABRIEL – I've Got a Secret
The Apocalypse was here, and Gabriel was sweating bullets.
It was a good thing that Bobby no longer had The Eye, or Gabe would have been in serious trouble. The Archangel had been dodging his responsibilities by never staying in one place for too long. As soon as Gabe had felt the paradigm shift on Earth, he had left Heaven and popped down there, to see how bad things were.
The event was fresh enough that there had been no further disasters yet, not that he could see. But Gabriel could tell that they would be coming. A society that was as coddled by modern technology as humans in the present era were? It wouldn't take long to break down entirely. Once people experienced cold and hunger and lack of proper sanitation, anarchy would reign. Gabriel knew that Bobby had sent a legion of Angels to Earth to help the human race. He could feel them all around, like those points of light on that map in the bunker. Bless Bobby's heart. He meant well, but the event that Vincent had triggered was pervasive, like a virulent disease. Two of the Angels had already caused localized incidents, and there would be more to come. Knowing Laurel and Ethan as he did, Gabriel knew that their actions had to have been inadvertent. Still, the fact remained that some of the Angels who Bobby had sent to help the humans would end up killing them, and in large numbers, too. What a mess.
And what was Gabriel doing about it? He was hiding out like a coward, that was what. He'd rationalized his behaviour by reasoning that he couldn't be everywhere, not all at once. But the fact was that Gabe was acting like a big fat weenie.
What would Gail say, if she could see her Brother now? Gabriel had scanned all those points of light for her, but he'd been unable to pick up her signal. That was extremely odd, but it didn't concern the Archangel as much as it probably should. She still had that cute little warding tattoo as far as he was aware, but that was no impediment for someone with Gabriel's pedigree. It was the same with Castiel. Gabe had always known where either or both of them were, at any given time. But the main reason he wasn't overly concerned about not being able to sense Gail was because Castiel's signal was coming in, loud and clear. Gabriel knew that Cas and Gail would be together, because they were always together.
In fact, Castiel's signal was much brighter than Gabriel was used to seeing. Like, Archangel-level bright. Maybe it was overlapping Gail's, then. But why was it so bright? Because that voodoo bastard Vincent had done a spell using the blood of the two original Sons, Cain and Abel; that was why.
Damn Crowley. Gabe couldn't envision any circumstance in which Vincent would be able to take Crowley's blood without the King of Hell's acquiescence. Therefore, the Archangel could only conclude that Crowley had made a deal with Vincent behind their backs. Quelle surprise.
If Gabriel had been in the position to do the right thing, he should be winking himself over to Ontario, Canada, and offering his assistance to Castiel. But there was only one problem with that: the latest modification he had received had expressly forbidden Gabriel to have anything to do with Castiel.
The entity who had been giving Gabriel his instructions had been pleased with the way that the incidents were unfolding. It was very early in the game, of course, but he saw no reason why the plan would not carry forward to its intended conclusion.
It was too risky for Gabriel and Castiel to be in the same location; not this soon, at any rate. There was the danger that one or the other of the long-serving Angels might deduce what was actually happening in time to circumvent the plan. Even the Angel Gail might pick up on a clue or two, leading the men to the answer.
There were going to be many disaster-level events in the coming weeks and months, and the Archangel Gabriel had loose lips. He had already said something he shouldn't have several years ago, when the Archangel had told Castiel and Gail that he had appropriated the Staff of Moses in order to halt the floods on Earth. The entity who was controlling Gabriel's mind had been shocked and angered to learn that fact. All of this careful planning could have been unravelled by that simple statement alone. Luckily, it appeared as though that grevious error had gone unnoticed. Presumably, Castiel's mind had been so muddled by the toxic drugs that Patricia had been pumping into his system that he hadn't realized what a huge mistake Gabriel had made.
The Archangel had referred to the Staff he'd liberated from the special annex to Heaven's weapons room as belonging to Moses, but he should never have said that. As far as Castiel had always been led to believe, the individual that the Bible referred to as Moses had never existed.
When Castiel had provided that particular Biblical history lesson to a teenaged Rob a number of years ago, the Angel had told the boy the truth, at least from his own point of view. Great lengths had been taken to convince Castiel that Moses was a fictional character only, created from the fanciful imaginations of the authors of the Bible. But, what about when he had received the Commandments? a puzzled Castiel had asked. What about when he had parted the Red Sea with his mighty Staff?
Oh, those incidents had happened, all right, they had assured him. But it had actually been Aaron who they had happened to. Aaron? Castiel had repeated, astonished. He knew Aaron. Like Castiel had once been back at the time of Creation, Aaron was but a humble shepherd. Exactly, Castiel's educators had agreed. A humble shepherd, indeed. Aaron had been a reluctant servant of the Lord, who had more or less stumbled into the miracles he'd been able to perform. But that was hardly the message the Father wanted to send to His children via the Holy Scriptures, was it? So, the heroic figure of Moses was created. A larger-than-life personality, whom God had chosen to bring the Word to the people of Earth. Who had the divine ability to part waters with a simple wooden staff that had been imbued with God's power. In modern times, many humans would have pictured the actor Charlton Heston in that epic movie, shouting, "Let my people go!" A ten-foot-tall man with a rugged beard and a booming voice, leading the slaves out of bondage.
What a marvellous concept. What a heroic figure. It was too bad it was a work of fiction, both in Biblical times, and in modern. By the time Castiel had had the opportunity to see the film, he had long been aware that Moses himself had been no more real than the gun-loving, card-carrying weapons enthusiast who had portrayed him.
But lies beget lies, and the entity who had been orchestrating the elaborate deception this whole time had found himself in a potential firestorm. In order for future events to play out as they should, he needed to keep the principals apart, lest one of them pulled on the proverbial thread.
That shouldn't be too difficult, though; not at the moment, anyway. Castiel and Gail were making their way southwest on foot, with two humans in tow. Gabriel had been instructed to stay away from them. And the entity who was pulling all of the strings was about to pull a wild card out of the deck, a Biblical figure who hadn't been on the game board for a while. This man had an axe to grind, and grudges against a number of parties on both sides of the equasion. The short-term goal was chaos and obfuscation, and John's reappearance on the Earth should provide an abundance of both.