Once Dean was finished yelling at Castiel, Sam walked over to him, "They'll be fine. If it gets too bad Cas will just bring her back."
"Right, because that plan has worked out so well in the past." The older Winchester snapped.
Sam sighed, "Dean, with how much Castiel has done for us you should have faith that he won't let anything happen to Ana."
Dean just ignored his brother, his thoughts filled with every possible thing that could wrong. They could be walking into a trap for all he knew. Hell, they probably were walking into a trap and we're going to be in more trouble than they had planned for. With a heaved sigh, Dean sat down, praying to anyone listening that Ana and Cas both made it back.
Charlie closed her laptop and scooted closer to Dean, placing a hand on his shoulder, "Hey, she'll be alright. You Winchester's are hard to take down." she offered him a comforting smile.
"If it's any consolation, I can feel her magic, so she's still alive." Connor spoke up, sitting on the foot of one of the beds.
Sam raised an eyebrow, "How can you feel her with her being so far away?"
Connor shrugged, "You could say I'm more tuned in to her now. The thing where I could sense what she was feeling with the demons is similar to what gave me the first look at her power, the more we do it the more attuned I am to her." Sam nodded in understanding and silence fell over the room, each of them worried about the two who had just left.
It had been no longer than fifteen minutes when Castiel appeared back in the hotel room alone. Dean was the first to notice the fatigued angel and quickly moved across the room, "Cas, where is Ana?" Dean demanded, voice stern.
"She-" Castiel began, but was quickly cut off.
"Don't worry, I've got her Deano." Gabriel appeared by the window, an unconscious redhead in his arms. He carefully laid her down on the bed that Connor sat on. With a grin he turned to Sam and Dean, "So, did you guys miss me?"
Dean quickly closed the space between himself and the archangel, grabbing him by the collar of his brown jacket and shoving him up against the wall, "You have thirty seconds to explain why my daughter is unconscious." he threatened through gritted teeth.
"Woah there, why don't we all just calm down a little?" Gabriel cast a glance over at Sam, who looked just as happy to see him as Dean did.
"Twenty seconds." Dean countered, glaring daggers.
Gabriel rolled his eyes and snapped his figures, moving himself out of Dean's hold and across the room. "She's unconscious because she expelled all of my grace from her body."
"Your grace?" Sam questioned, borrow furrowed.
"Yeah, Samsquatch, my grace." Gabe sat down at the table, a lollipop appearing in his hand, "That whole white light nonsense that kills demons. That was my grace basically exploding out of her."
Castiel walked over to his brother, "Gabriel why did the girl have your grace within her to begin with? How are you even alive? Lucifer killed you."
At the mention of his older brother Gabriel frowned, "Lucifer thought he killed me. I had this failsafe setup for a while, just in case."
"Dammit, Gabriel, that failsafe is my daughter!" Dean yelled, barely holding back the urge to shove an angel blade through the short man.
"I'm aware of that," Gabe grew serious, "why do you think I chose her? Not only would she build up on the small amount of grace I put into her, but I knew she'd find you eventually and be well protected."
"I'm gonna kill him." Dean stated, stomping across the room, being stopped by Sam's hand on his shoulder.
Sam held him there, looking at Gabriel, "What do you mean she built up on your grace?"
The archangel stood up and crossed the room, standing next to the bed Ana laid on, "She's from the Caomhánach bloodline, descendant of Sarah Good, she's going to be one of the most powerful witches this world has known. When I formulated this plan I knew I would need someone strong enough to function while guarding my grace and hopefully help it grow back to the strength it was before I had to go off of the grid." he explained, "You Winchesters can host Michael so I knew my grace wouldn't kill her if it was kept in check, which, thanks to Connor, it was."
Connor hadn't moved from the edge of the bed, his gaze focused on the unconscious girl lying next to him, "It almost killed her a handful of times." he pointed out.
"Semantics. She's still alive, isn't she?" Gabriel retorted.
"The same won't be able to be said about you." Dean threatened, trying to push his way around Sam, but his little brother wasn't budging.
Charlie stood and moved over to Dean, "Come on, papa bear, let's go for a walk." She offered, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder.
Dean scoffed, pushing himself away from the hunters in front of him, "I am not leaving this room while he is here!" He yelled, shoving a finger in Gabriel's direction.
A groan came from the girl on the bed, "Why do I always wake up to you arguing with someone, dad?"
"Because people piss me off." He responded, anger curbing only slightly now that she was awake.
Gabriel squatted next to the bed, looking at Ana's face, "How are you feeling, kiddo?" His brow scrunched together slightly.
"Like I almost died in a factory full of demons to save a dead archangel." She stated, opening her eyes to see him right in front of her, "How are you feeling, Gabriel?"
The angel grinned at her, "Better now that my grace is fully restored. Thanks for keeping an eye on it for me."
"Like I had a choice." She weakly snapped, pushing herself into a sitting position, but quickly regretting it as a wave of dizziness hit her. "Woah."
Dean crossed the room, "What's wrong?"
"Her body hasn't adjusted to being without my grace." Gabriel explained, placing two fingers to her forehead, "There. Good as new."
Once the room stopped spinning, Ana threw her legs over the side of the bed and stood up, "Dude, what the hell? I thought you were dead!" she glared at Gabriel, slapping his arm.
With a roll of his eyes and a shrug he let her assault on his arm pass before grabbing her hand, "Oh, Anastasia, you should've known better." The angel pulled her close to him with a tug of her hand, holding her in a formal ballroom stance he began to waltz with her out from between the beds and around the room, humming a familiar song as he did.
"Like I've never heard that one before." She grumbled, easily following his lead until he stopped and basically threw her into a low dip. "I'm not even Russian."
"Would you stop prancing around with my kid and get the hell out of our room!" Dean snapped, causing both the angel and the witch to look up from the strange embrace they were still in.
Gabriel looked back to Ana and gave her a wink before pulling her back up on her feet, "You may not be the Russian princess, but you kind of look like her." he explained, "Plus Once Upon A December was the best thing to come out of that movie."
"That's where I know that song from!" Charlie blurted out with a smile, but her grin slowly faded at the stare she received from Dean, "What? Anastasia is a decent movie."
"What movie? You know what, never mind." Dean spun on Gabriel, "You can leave anytime now."
Gabriel chuckled, "You aren't getting rid of me that easy, Dean. I basically threw myself on the pyre for you and Gigantor, then left you a message of how to throw Luci back in his cage. I've more than earned my stay."
"How many times did you kill me, Gabriel? How many Tuesday's did you put Sam through?! You do a couple of good things and it's just supposed to make up for all of that?" Dean shook his head, "No, I don't think so."
"Uh, dad?" Ana stepped away from Gabriel's side and walked over to stand in front of Dean, "Can I get some questions answered before you kick him out? I kind of woke up to find out that I was carrying his grace around for however long, causes a girl to wonder a couple of things."
Dean just stared down at his daughter for a couple of moments before his expression softened just slightly, "Fine. You get it all out now though, because the moment you're done I want him gone."
"Got it. Why don't you and Sam go out for a little bit? This is obviously not a good place for you to be right now." She offered, she could feel the tension and anger rolling off of him.
He shook his head, "No, I'm not leaving you here alone with him." he all but snapped, "Plus, I'm going to want to hear what he as to say for himself about all of this."
Ana reached up and patted his shoulder, "Whatever you say, but don't interrupt me. This is between me and the angel that hid his grace in my body." she gave him a tight smile before turning to look at Gabriel.
"What do you want to know?" The shorter man crossed his arms over his chest and raised an eyebrow at her.
"Oh, I don't know, let's start with why the hell you put your grace inside of me without asking permission?!" She snapped, her anger getting the better of her. There were only a handful of things that could send Ana completely over the edge and having something done to her without her permission was one of them.
"You were twelve when I placed part of my grace in you, far too young for me to just pop in to your room and ask you about it. I wouldn't even know where to begin explaining something like that to a child. As for the reason I did it," Gabriel sighed, "I knew the world was going to go to Hell, literally, so just in case things didn't go so well for me I set up a plan to hide for a while. I knew you could handle it."
Ana rolled her eyes and scoffed, "Because that makes it okay. You may be an archangel, Gabriel, but you pull something even slightly similar to that with me again and I will make your life Hell."
"Message received." He assured her, hands up in a 'I surrender' gesture.
"Good. Next question. How are you not dead?" She had watched him die in one of her dreams and though part of her was never truly convinced, it had looked extremely real.
The angel gave her a smirk, "They don't call me The Trickster for nothing."
"That is not an answer, Gabriel." Ana placed her hands on her hips and glared at him.
He sighed, "You Winchesters, all work and no play." he grumbled, "There was more than one double in the room with Lucifer. I know my big brother, he wouldn't have stopped until he was certain I was dead. Though the first double was easy to see through, the second wasn't because I put a fraction of my grace inside of it. The burned wings thing was a special effect."
Though Ana was pissed, she could see the genius in that plan, "So part of your grace was in me, part of it died when Lucifer killed your double, is that what left you so weak?"
"Partially. I had to let a little more of it go when I went under the radar. I knew that it wouldn't take long for what I gave you to build up, but honestly I thought it would have taken a little longer than it actually did. The original plan was to wait a bit longer and then find you before it became too much for you to handle. The first time you let some of it loose, I felt it and knew that I needed to get to you before it killed you. As I was trying to find you I was captured by the group of demons. The second time I felt it, part of it made it's way back to me so I was a little stronger." He took a couple of steps toward her, "Once we were in the same city, I called out to my grace, to you. When you showed up with Cassie and unleashed it, I was able to pull all of it from you. Now the battery is fully charged and I'm back in action."
Ana nodded, processing the information, trying to make sense of it all, "So no more weird power overload? The white light thing is gone?"
Gabriel nodded, "Yep, now you're just a witch with semi-normal witchy powers."
"What do you mean by semi-normal?" She raised an eyebrow, "All of my crazy strong witch stuff isn't gone because of your grace is it? Am I weak now?" the last part was almost a whine.
That earned a scoff from the angel, "You are far from weak, Ana. I say semi-normal because you're going to be able to do a couple of things other witches can't. What those are, I'm not sure about, but we'll figure it out soon enough."
"We won't be doing anything." Dean glared at the angel, "You aren't going to be hanging around much longer."
Ana looked at him, "Dad, this city is still full of demons and there's a weird ghost thing we have to deal with. It might not be a bad idea to add another angel to our group. I took out maybe a fraction of the demon population at the factory."
"There are three hunters, two witches, and an angel in our group. We can handle it." Dean argued.
"Or we could use Gabriel's help and not have to bury one of us." Ana argued back, "I told you before we got to the city that this was going to be big. We can use all the help we can get."
Castiel cleared his throat, walking over to the arguing pair, "Ana is right, Dean. There are a lot of demons here and we need to take care of it quickly. We could use Gabriel's help."
Dean scowled, looking to his side he caught Sam's eye and they seemed to have a silent conversation before he turned back to look at Castiel, "Fine, he can help with this demon thing and once it's over he's gone."
Gabriel closed the space between him and Ana, "I hate it when mom and dad fight." he commented softly, causing the girl to snicker. Dean shot a glare their direction, "Oh no, now I've made dad mad." the angel feigned fear.
"Hush or he's going to kill you." Ana chided him, slapping his arm. "So that's been settled," she addressed the whole room, "What's our first step with this whole thing? Obviously the demons are here for a reason and I'm going to assume that having Gabriel here has something to do with it."
Connor had been sitting silently on the bed, watching everything that happened around him, mostly what Ana had been doing, "You haven't had any more feelings since we've been here? A vision would be helpful, but if you've felt something it might lead us in the right direction."
Moving across the room, Ana sat down next to Connor on the bed. Though she knew she was surrounded by people who cared about her, or at least cared about Dean enough to care a little bit about her, she felt like Connor was her only friend in the room. Which was odd to say since they'd known each other such a short amount of time. "Just the same feeling that this is big. Not affecting the whole world big, but like whatever is going to happen next is going to affect us big time."
"Death big?" Sam questioned, now fearing for those of them in the room.
She shook her head, "No, I think if one of us was going to die I would see it. I don't know how to explain it, but we should move fast on whatever this is." Turning her attention to her father, she raised an eyebrow, "So what's the plan?"
"First order of business is making sure we're all packing. No one leaves this room without a weapon that can take down a demon." He met everyone's eyes before focusing on his brother, "Think we should check out the ghost thing first?"
Sam nodded, "Makes sense. It all started there. How much luck do you think we'll get trying to solve that with the town filled with demons?" his eyes flicked to the two angels and Ana, seeing as they were the ones that understood the severity of the problem.
Ana shrugged, "Don't look at me. With Gabe's grace out of my system I can't sense them anymore."
Castiel and Gabriel shared a look, "The city is still well populated with demons. Luck does not seem to be in our favor." Castiel answered.
"Wait!" Ana sprung up from the bed and crossed the room quickly, stopping when she was standing in front of Gabe, "The light thing. I'm assuming since little ol' me could do it that you can do it on a larger scale right?"
"And in the process blind and/or kill every human with their eyes open." Gabriel answered, raising an eyebrow. "Didn't you pay attention to any of your visions, kid? You've seen what that can do to a person."
The girl rolled her eyes, "What if they were all asleep?" she threw her hands out to her sides, "I paid very close attention, thank you. If Connor and I can do a spell that puts all of the humans within the city asleep, when we're attacked by massive amounts of demons you and Cas can do the light thing and pow! Dead demons everywhere and we can figure out the ghost thing in peace."
Gabriel glanced around Ana to look at Dean, "So, I think it's safe to say that she didn't inherit your brains in the whole genetic process."
"Would it work?" Dean all but growled, his jaw clenched.
"Technically, yes, it would work. That is if you two can put the whole city down." Gabe gestured between the two witches.
Ana turned to look at Connor, "I know there are herbs that induce deep sleep, I'm assuming there's a spell that can widen the effects."
Connor nodded, "I'm not sure how well it would work with an entire city, but there are a couple of spells we can look through."
"If we need to we can alter whatever spell we think will work best." Ana stated, turning her attention to Dean, "We may need a few things we don't have."
"You two start working on the spell, whatever you don't have we'll find a way to get." Dean assured her. He couldn't say that he was completely okay with the thought of her doing magic, a part of him was still trying to process the fact that she was a witch, but he had faith in her. There was nothing to worry about if what she was doing was good, that's what he had to remind himself of. "While you're doing that we're going to make sure we're prepared for demons and spirits."
"Good plan." Ana walked over to Connor, "The books you have with you, would they have what we need?"
Connor stood and dug the books he had out of his bag, "If not, it's going to give us a good start. That's the great thing about magic, spells aren't that difficult to form if you have the right information and enough power. Between the two of us, we have both." he gave her a warm smile and handed her a book.
-A-
The witches worked for a solid two hours, going back and forth between which herbs would be the best to use. The symbols, the words, the language; apparently it all mattered and that was something Ana hadn't been expecting. The rest of the group made sure that they were well prepared incase the plan failed for whatever reason. By the time they were both certain of the spell, there was only one last thing to take care of.
Connor grabbed a small packet full of seeds on the table and emptied some of them into his hands, "Okay. Dean, Sam, and Charlie," he called their attention to him, "you're going to need to ingest these so the spell doesn't put you to sleep with the rest of the city. It's not going to taste very good." he warned as he placed a seed in each of their hands.
"Why don't the rest of you have to do this?" Dean frowned at the seed in his palm.
Ana was tieing a small bundle of herbs together at the table, "Since Connor and I are casting the spell it won't affect us and we're both certain that Castiel and Gabriel are too powerful to be affected by it either."
Dean reached for the bottle of whiskey that he kept in his bag, "Sometimes, being human sucks." he grumbled before throwing the seed into his mouth and chasing it with the whiskey. The man began to cough, "God, the aftertaste is terrible."
"Great." Charlie whined, taking the bottle out of his hand and doing the same thing. Sam took the bottle from her hand and followed suit. When they were each done gagging over the residual taste everyone else was ready to go.
"So you two to do the spell and hang out here. We're going to see if we can hunt down the ghost. If we get into trouble, Wings One and Two," Dean jerked his head toward Cas and Gabe, "will kill the demons, we'll figure out what we can and hightail it back here."
Ana scoffed, walking over to her bag and grabbed her pistol out of it, "You're not going out there without us. If this goes wrong, you're going to need all the help you can get."
Dean frowned, "What did I say about you hunting, Ana?"
"This has gone so much further than hunting, dad. This is survival." She double checked to make sure the pistol was loaded with devil's trap bullets before placing it in the waistband on her jeans. "We do this spell and then we all go."
Connor looked over the spell they had prepared, "Actually it may work better if we do it from the center of the city." he mentioned, his focus on Ana.
She nodded, "Where were the spirit sightings, Charlie?"
The newer hunter was making sure she had back up weapons for her back up weapons, but she stopped when Ana addressed her, "Pretty close to the center of the city actually. Coincidence?"
"Not likely." Sam told her, looking to Dean, "This could be another trap."
Dean had been considering it, "How is a spirit involved in a trap? You and I know that for the most part, they just want to kill people." he turned to Charlie, "Have their been any deaths that could involve this ghost?"
The huntress shook her head, "No deaths, I was more curious about the way it was appearing to different people in different places."
Ana smiled, of course Charlie was more focused on the why instead of the kill it part of this particular hunt. "You have everything for the spell?" When Connor nodded, she turned to look at Dean, "Are we going to fight more on this or are you going to let me help?"
The scowl that Dean had on his face since Gabriel showed up only depend, "You do the spell and then you hold back. The only exception is if someone is hurt and you can help or there is no one around you to keep you safe. Got it?" Ana nodded meekly, "Good. Connor you stick with her the entire time, anything happens to her that you could have stopped, it's your ass." Dean quickly spun to look at Gabriel, "You." Gabriel raised an eyebrow, "You cover them during the spell and if the fight starts to go south, you get them both out."
When Dean was sure that everyone understood his orders he gave a quick nod, "Alright, let's get this show on the road. Maybe we can get the information we need to before we're swarmed by demons."
Ana raised an eyebrow at him, "I highly doubt that."
"Everyone form a small group around Gabriel and myself." Castiel instructed. With the three hunters and two witches surrounding them, the angels transported them near the center of the city. The exact center was inside of a small shop in the shopping center, so the angels decided that the alley behind it would be their best option. Thanks to the cover of night no one saw them appear out of thin air. "It would be best if you worked quickly on the spell." he told Ana, eyes looking toward one of the entrances to the alley.
As Ana and Connor got to work Dean looked around where the group stood, "Gabriel, stay with them. Charlie and Cas, take that opening," he pointed to the side that opened onto a small back road, "Sam and I will take the other." the other entrance to the alley opened to one of the city's main streets. Each pair moved to their side of the alley, watching out for anything coming their way.
Since the witches had most of the spell prepared already it didn't take them long to finish setting everything up. "Are you ready for this?" Connor gave her a worried glance, "I was hoping that your first spell would have been something simple."
"Go big or go home." Ana muttered, with a tight smile. The girl was nervous, if something went wrong they could be putting a lot of people in danger.
Gabriel watched as the witches wrapped their hands around a ceramic bowl, fingertips touching as they focused on the smoking herbs being held in it. The angel was aware of the magic rolling off of the young witch, but when the two began to incantation the strength of it wasn't a feeling he was prepared for. As their voices fell silent the bundle of herbs suddenly went up in a quick burst of flames and then they were completely gone.
"It's done." Connor looked to Gabriel, "We just need make sure it actually worked."
Each of the pairs that had been at the ends of the alley came jogging up to the witches, "Oh, it worked." Charlie told them with a smile. "It was weird, people who were driving cars just slowly pulled over to the side of the road and passed out."
Ana nodded, "It was meant to slowly set in so no one was injured. People driving had time to pull over, those standing had time to lay down." she explained.
"Alright," Dean pulled everyone's attention to him, "Let's go see if we can find this spirit and avoid demons while doing it. You have the EMF?" he directed the question to his brother.
Sam nodded, pulling the smallish device out of his pocket. "Should we split up? We'd cover more ground?"
Dean shook his head, "No, if this is a trap we should stick together. Charlie, anywhere near here a ghost sighting spot?"
"The majority of them were on that main street, though a couple were a couple of blocks in either direction." Charlie explained.
Connor placed the bowl they had used for the spell in the small pack he was carrying on his back, it held other herbs and things they might be able to use if they got into trouble. He was looking over the group but then his attention stopped on Ana, the look of concentration on her face was something he was beginning to recognize. "Ana?"
Dean moved his eyes to his daughter, "What is it?" he asked her, wondering if she was having a vision.
"I don't know." Ana answered, voice soft, her focus clearly not on the people around her as she looked down the alley toward the main street. Before she could fully process what was happening, she was walking toward the street and then her walk quickly picked up into a full on sprint.
"Ana!" Dean called, running after her with everyone else on his heels. He finally caught up with her when she stopped in the middle of the street, "What the hell was that?" he snapped at her when he was by her side, but her focus wasn't on him, it was on the something in front of her. The sound of a breath catching mid-intake pulled his attention away from the girl and to his brother, whose eyes were wide and focused in the same direction of Ana's. "What?" he yelled, spinning to see what all of the fuss was about.
There across the street, where everyone's eyes were focused, was the spirit. It was a face Ana had seen only in her dreams and she instantly understood why she had been drawn to it, in the same way she understood what she was supposed to do next. Raising her hands in front of her, she took a couple of steps forward, pulling on her power as she did so to build it, "Vita." she spoke the one word with such a force that the magic that followed surrounded the spirit and glowed until the form in front of the group was no longer the strange bluish tint that came with the dead, but rosy like a living being and Ana knew that if she wanted to, she could reach out and touch the man.
Dean quickly moved to his daughter's side, not trusting his eyes and waiting for whatever was actually standing in front of them to attack, but the man merely smiled at his action. "Hello, Dean." the man spoke his first words with affection.
"Dad?"
A/N: Sorry about the two cliffhangers in a row, but I couldn't help myself! I just keep gaining readers and I have no words for how happy that makes me, so thank you all so much for reading, following, and favoriting! DracoPotter80 thank you for the review! Guys, let me know what you think, I don't bite and would love more feedback. I hope you enjoyed this chapter! :)
