Chapter 5 – Heavenly Fire:
Despite Dean's insistence, they didn't contact Crowley until later in the evening.
This was partially to give Dean a chance to calm down from Castiel's visit, partially just because Harry didn't want to, and partially because Harry had only just woken up and he needed to be thinking clearly when they spoke. Harry and Crowley might be on good terms – for a demon – but that didn't mean Crowley wouldn't gleefully take advantage of Harry's distraction to try and coerce him into making stupid agreements for Crowley's own amusement.
Since Dean found out about Crowley, they had only checked in with him once. That call had consisted mostly of Harry complaining about their general lack of progress in finding information about anything at all, and Crowley commiserating in an only semi-mocking manner. (Crowley wasn't exactly on 'good' terms with any of the other demons, so his own lines of questioning couldn't be too probing, and while plenty of demons were stoked about the whispers of the approaching apocalypse, none of the ones Crowley had reached out to seemed to know anything about the details.)
Shifting to a new line of inquiry might hopefully produce some results to drag them all out of their slump, even if it did involve an entirely different issue.
Seated around the (newly cleared) kitchen table, Harry brought up Crowley's contact and put his phone in the centre, finger hovering over the call button.
"Are we all ready to get laughed at?"
Sam sighed good-naturedly. Dean rolled his eyes with a huff.
Shrugging, Harry hit call, making sure to switch it to speakerphone. Harry had attempted the courteous route the first time, announcing that fact to Crowley, but he didn't care who heard what he had to say. In fact, Harry swore he actually said much more outrageous things when he knew someone other than just Harry could hear him. So, for the sake of at least attempting to streamline the conversation, Harry opted not to bother this time around.
"911, what's your emergency?"
Ah, Harry thought wryly. Crowley didn't want to talk about the investigation into the seals either. It seemed they were all feeling pretty burnt out in that regard.
"Murder."
"Oh? What kind? Not demons I hope, how boring. You know I always just blame your little tag-alongs for all of those. No intrigue at all."
Dean spluttered in indignation. "If anyone's a tag-along it's Peverell!"
Back to last names because he hurt your ego? Real smooth Dean.
Sam held his hands out pleadingly. "Dean, calm down."
"Ah, Loverboy and the Angry One are there too huh? What a party."
Harry rolled his eyes. "Don't you want me to finish telling you about the murders?"
"Fine, fine, go ahead."
"They're angels."
"… Angels murdering people?"
"Worse. Angels being murdered."
Crowley fell silent.
If Harry strained his ears, he could almost hear tortured screams in the distance. But that could just be a hallucinatory side-effect of having spent time in Hell and Hell-adjacent areas and knowing exactly how well certain sounds could travel.
"That's… new. Demon on demon violence is pretty run of the mill, but I'm sure there's some rule or another against angelic violence. Still, if one of Us had discovered a sure-fire way to off those feathery bastards for good I'd have expected news to be everywhere. Hell, they'd run off to war without bothering to wait around for old Lucifer to free himself if they had that sort of power!"
"A horrifying thought," Sam said. "But it makes sense."
"Sure," Harry agreed. "That's what the masses would do. What about the higher ups? They're always off doing their own things, working towards their own plots. Could it be one of them? Has anyone been acting particularly suspicious lately?"
Dean leaned forward, scowling at the phone as if it were Crowley himself. "That's great and all, but ain't writing off an Angelic culprit like that without an ounce of consideration kinda stupid?"
"You have met Castiel, right Dean?" Sam pointed out, bemused.
"No, for once he makes a good point."
"Whaddaya mean 'for once'?!" Dean squawked, outraged at the barely-a-compliment Crowley offered him.
Privately, Harry wondered why he was making such a big deal out of it. Dean already expected Crowley to be a dick purely for being a demon, so why was he offended when he was proved right? Plus, that was actually a pretty decent acknowledgement considering how much Crowley enjoyed ignoring other people's opinions.
"I'm hardly bosom-buddies with the angels, but that Castiel is really taking the whole robotic worker bee thing way too seriously. Maybe all the lower ranked angels are like that, who knows, but I doubt the ones in power are that willing to be lead around by the nose."
Ah, so that's where they were going with this.
"And who would know how to kill an angel better than another angel, right?"
Pointing a finger dramatically in Harry's direction, Dean cried, "Exactly!"
Sam glanced between the two of them and the phone, his expression complicated. He had the highest opinion of angels out of the three of them - four if you counted Bobby - but he wasn't exactly religious, and talking to one in the flesh had muddied the admiration he felt from Castiel rescuing Dean in the first place. Not to mention that, just like Harry and Dean, Sam had seen too much of the darkness to believe in a system or people that never had any sort of internal conflict.
Still, "I think Castiel might actually cry if we suggested that to him."
"What a shame that would be," Crowley drawled in a tone that suggested it was in fact something he would rather enjoy seeing.
"We're just covering all our bases," Harry assured. "We don't have to tell him every thought that crosses our minds while we're investigating, all he needs is the answer. If it's not angels, then he never needs to know we were casting aspersions on the Heavenly Host."
"And if it is," Dean continued, stern, "then that's a cold hard truth he needs to hear, even if he doesn't like it."
True enough, but Harry absolutely did not want to be the person who had to explain it to Castiel if that eventuality came to pass. As Dean's pseudo-guardian angel it could be his job.
"As fascinating as I'm sure that conversation would be to watch, best put it aside for now. I'll have to do some digging, but I can tell you off the top of my head that Alastair has been spending an unusual amount of time top-side these days. It caught my attention because I thought it was odd for him to abandon his toys for so long."
Dean had distanced himself from the phone as Crowley spoke, and his entire body was coiled tight with tension as he evaded eye contact.
Bewildered Harry raised a questioning eyebrow at Sam, but he just shook his head and shrugged slightly. Neither of them knew what had changed, but it could only have been something Crowley said. Harry waved Sam away and picked up his phone, taking it off speaker and pressing it to his ear.
"Okay, thanks for the heads-up. We'll look into it. Call me if you find anything else."
"..."
Harry didn't know how Crowley felt about being hurried along so obviously, but for once he didn't kick up a fuss about it. That didn't mean he wouldn't make a note of it. It honestly wouldn't surprise Harry if Crowley kept track of every time Harry did something he considered rude and was tallying it all up to hold over his head one day when Harry asked for a favour. He'd just gotten lucky so far in that all of the things he was asking of Crowley lately were things that also benefited the demon somehow.
The piercing screech of the dial tone blasted into his ear. Harry realised that Crowley had hung up on him in order to get the last word while he was momentarily lost in thought. Typical.
Tossing his phone aside Harry shifted his attention back to Dean. If he took but a second to reflect on the conversation it became obvious that it was something Hell related that had set him off. Unsurprising, really, if Harry's suspicions about his memory were at all true. But Harry was a considerate person - when he wanted to be - and he didn't enjoy having emotional conversations with people who hated emotional vulnerability - like Dean - so he continued to let the issue be. Even if he tried to bring it up, Dean wouldn't admit to anything unless he was backed into a corner, and this was no time for in-fighting.
"Crowley didn't say anything about where to find that guy," Sam pointed out after a handful of minutes of oddly charged silence.
A minute shudder rippled across Dean's tense frame before he forced himself back into stillness. "Fucking typical. Can't even offer a hint without making it yet another mountain to scale."
While Crowley did enjoy making things unnecessarily difficult, Harry would wager that wasn't the case this time. He'd asked about more important demons, but even if Alastair was some bottom-rung grunt it wasn't as if Crowley had locator beacons on all of his colleagues so he could find them at will. 'Not in Hell' was likely the best he could do unless he stumbled across a legitimate sighting or even rumours of what they guy might be up to.
Offering a silent farewell to even more of his patience and sanity, Harry sat forward. "There's only one thing to do when at a roadblock like this. Scouring current events."
Dean's disgusted groan echoed Harry's sentiments perfectly. It was bad enough tracking down new hunts through news reports when they had a region in mind, but unless some clue fell from the sky into their laps then this would be a country-wide venture. They didn't even know what they were looking for.
oOoOo
As one would expect, even with the aid of the internet, pouring through news articles from across the entire country, without so much as a few promising States to narrow the search down, was a laughably thankless endeavour. A true fool's errand.
In other words, they were stuck in the exact same rut as beforehand but on a new topic.
At least, they were…
Right up until Dean had a surprise encounter while on a grocery run.
The whole house shuddered from the force with which he slammed open the front door, marching empty-handed into the kitchen before calling to the house in general "We're headed for Wyoming!"
Startled from his thoughts - or from a light doze, it was sometimes hard to tell the difference during the more frustrating research binges - Harry stared, uncomprehending, only managing to scrounge up a mildly confused "huh?" in response.
Rather than the words themselves, his tired brain was more interested in why Dean hadn't brought any groceries back from his surprisingly quick shopping trip. He looked so smug about it too…
His sluggish thoughts found a saviour in the sound of Sam's voice from the hallway, prudently asking "Why Wyoming?" as he neared the kitchen.
"Okay, get this," Dean began, turning towards Sam and gesturing at random. "I was heading out, because you two are useless and someone needs to make sure we don't all die of starvation."
Harry grumbled under his breath at the slight. He couldn't exactly deny it, but that was Dean's fault anyway. He was the one who got restless the easiest and had given himself the excuse of grocery runs to get out of the house and away from the haze of fruitless research.
"Anyway, I was halfway there when bam!" Dean smacked the counter for (unnecessary) emphasis. "Castiel and some other feathery dickbag appeared out of nowhere in the back seat. I almost swerved straight into oncoming traffic when I noticed them back there!" His gaze darkened momentarily at the memory. The Impala had been totalled pretty badly once already in the time Harry had been acquainted with the Winchesters, he couldn't imagine Dean being at all enthused about the possibility of it happening again.
"You talked to Castiel? Why didn't he just come to the house?"
Although he nodded along - Sam had a point after all, Castiel knew full well where they were staying and could've shown up at any time when Dean wasn't driving - Harry couldn't truthfully say he was at all sorry about this secondary mystery angel not showing up on his doorstep.
"Hell if I know. Maybe he wanted to pass along the tip ASAP?"
"What tip?"
"Something about a town where people have stopped dying. Anyway that's not important right now, we can get into details on the way there. We're all agreed that this is something to look into, right?"
A town abandoned by death huh? That sounded ominously apocalyptic.
Harry tapped a finger thoughtfully against the arm of the couch. "Who was the other angel?"
"Huh? Dunno, he didn't exactly introduce himself. Just… stared at me. Silently. Kinda gave me the creeps actually."
And Castiel hadn't introduced him either. If not directly asked he sometimes didn't offer up information like that, but Harry thought he'd been getting better about smaller things like that. Maybe he'd been instructed not to?
No, that was a problem for another day.
"Okay. I think we should go."
Harry wasn't exactly fond of Wyoming. A lot of shitty stuff had gone down there. But the Winchesters weren't the sort of people to let a bad memory or two stop them from going somewhere, and it sounded like something that seriously needed to be looked into. Harry wasn't going to start putting his foot down about hunts at his point in the game.
Sam added his own consent.
Dean grinned at them. Not happily, but energized. Having a tangible goal was important for him, and he'd finally managed to grasp one, even if it had been handed to him through literal divine intervention.
oOoOo
Pamela was a woman with many more tricks up her sleeves than Harry had originally thought.
I mean, astral projection? Come on, how was he supposed to guess she could do something like that?! He hadn't even known that was a real thing people could actually do!
(Dean took a little too much delight from Harry's confused floundering when the idea was first raised. Harry would like it known, for the record, that mundane people were weird for finding ways to separate their souls from their bodies. Simply not thinking about that sort of thing seemed like the more normal state of being.)
But since the case involved Reapers, and the easiest way to interact with a Reaper was to be dead, astral projection had somehow become their method of investigation.
Pamela was confident she could guide all three of them at the same time, but Harry was perfectly happy not being involved in this particular scenario. Call him crazy but he'd had enough soul-sucking near-misses to not want to go about leaving his body for any length of time. Plus, it seemed foolish and dangerous for all of them to be unconscious and defenceless together at the same time. That was really just asking to get attacked.
(When you mixed together Harry's bad luck with the dark clouds that seemed to follow every Winchester he'd ever met, it was no real surprise to him when they were, in fact, attacked. He hadn't been expecting demons, specifically, but in retrospect didn't everything seem to tie back to demons these days?)
oOoOo
With everyone back in the waking world and Pamela on her way home Harry had - perhaps naively - assumed that it was case closed. Dean explained that he managed to save one of the reapers, and indeed they could see for themselves just by stepping out into town that Greybull's vacation from death had come to an end. As far as Harry was aware that was the extent of the errand they had been given from on high.
The trio had stayed another couple of days after Pamela left just to make sure things were truly returning to some semblance of normal, and were packing their stuff in preparation for the trip back to Jackson when the angels returned to inform them of just how wrong their assumption had been.
"Listen." Sam, the best at playing polite, was attempting to understand what they were playing at. "We know that angels dying - being murdered, rather - is a bad thing, and a big deal apparently. But it isn't exactly new information. Aside from the fact that it's still happening, and even then that has nothing to do with us."
While Sam did his thing Harry was eyeing up the new angel, who had been introduced as Uriel. Based off of Dean's reaction to their appearance Uriel was in fact the same angel from earlier, and Harry could sort of see what he meant about the weird vibe he gave off.
For now Uriel was standing back and letting Castiel field all of Sam's questions, but even if Castiel hadn't once mentioned a superior he was technically working under Harry never would have bought the newcomer as some lower-ranked angel who was supposed to be helping Castiel out. The way he held himself, the way he watched them, even his very silence itself, it all felt so… judgemental, somehow.
It would be impossible just from observation to pinpoint why, but all that mattered right now was that Dean was right, and his presence had to mean something.
"We have captured Alastair."
Ah, apparently Uriel had grown tired of Sam and Castiel's repetitive back-and-forth.
The brothers hadn't name-dropped the demon they encountered during their out-of-body experience, but that wasn't unusual. Actually knowing or learning a demon's name wasn't usually on the agenda during a hunt. It would seem, however, that this particular demon had hit a little close to home.
"Dean Winchester."
Everyone reflexively turned towards Dean as Uriel spoke.
"Heaven demands that you interrogate him."
It was impossible to miss the way Dean flinched back as if the statement were a physical blow.
For the sake of Dean's privacy Harry had tried not to think too hard on his previous reactions to mentions of Alastair, but he was beginning to believe that Alastair probably played a major role in Dean's time in Hell. No other scenario made sense.
That aside, although Uriel said 'interrogate', if all they wanted was to question him then why would they need to offload that task to someone else? Were angels so incompetent that they couldn't do something as basic as a verbal interrogation? It seemed unlikely.
"Why? You're the ones who have questions for him. Why does Dean need to do it?"
Uriel levelled Sam with a look that would count as a glare on a regular person. "You think yourself in a position to question Heaven's orders?"
Sam looked ready to fight if need be, but a dark chuckle broke his concentration.
"It's because he won't be willing to happily sit there and answer their stupid questions, and these assholes don't want to get their own hands dirty wringing out the answers they're looking for."
Ah.
Yes.
Torture made more sense than an interrogation. It felt like it should be against some sort of heavenly code of conduct, but maybe they functioned on an 'it's a demon, who cares?' basis?
"We aren't your servants. You can't just name-drop Heaven and expect us to fall over ourselves completing whatever task you set us. We helped you capture Alastair in the first place. Have you even tried getting answers yourself?"
Uriel stared at Harry as if he were an ant he desperately wanted to squash beneath his heel. It sent a brief spark of panic racing down his spine. He suddenly remembered that this was only the second angel they had ever encountered, and that Crowley had deemed Castiel's behaviour as somewhat unusual.
"Heaven demands it," Uriel repeated, tone clipped and pointed. His cold gaze returned to Dean, eyeing him up. For what?
Shoving aside the unease trying to silence his voice and the clamouring of his fight-or-flight instincts as they warred over the urge to either punch Uriel in the face or take their chances and run for it, Harry steadied himself and continued to probe.
"Let me get this straight. Heaven has sat back, silent and uncaring, while we ran around trying to fix things before they get even worse, and somehow that means we need to obey orders when something inconveniences them instead of us? Sounds a tad self-serving to me."
As he spoke Harry gestured behind his back for Sam to come closer, to close ranks. Whatever was going on inside Uriel's head, Harry didn't trust it for a second. That meant being too spread out was dangerous. All three of them were well acquainted with angelic teleportation, so being out of touching range of each other would make them easy pickings.
"Heaven is not incapable," Uriel ground out. "Dean Winchester owes many debts. It is merely time he start repaying them."
Dean mumbled "debts?" in confusion.
Momentarily taking his eyes off of Uriel Harry found that even Castiel looked confused by this new angle.
"Dean didn't ask you to rescue him," Harry pointed out. "Heaven chose to do that. All he owes is gratitude, a favour at most."
"And favours," Sam continued, "are voluntary. He can refuse it and repay it in some other way."
"I ain't handing out favours to faceless nobodies," Dean added. "Sure as hell never agreed to do anything for you."
If he were a less composed man - angel; being? - Uriel would have been grinding his teeth, the frustration clear in his eyes even while his body remained outwardly calm. Whatever plan he had ticking away in his head, he hadn't anticipated this much push-back.
"Castiel is your saviour." The 'you owe him,' while left unsaid, hung pointedly in the silence. Uriel turned a stern look towards the angel in question, plainly demanding Castiel force Dean into doing their bidding.
"... Perhaps we should attempt to extract answers ourselves, first."
Everyone stared at Castiel. He blinked nervously back at them. A vein throbbed in Uriel's neck.
"Useless."
Suddenly, Uriel had a blade in his hand.
Sam dragged Dean away from Uriel's initial lunge.
Harry snatched a pocket knife from a half-packed bag on one of the beds, flicking it open and slashing a line down the centre of his palm, only allowing himself the slightest of flinches at the sudden stinging pain.
While Uriel was focused on Sam and Dean - or rather, strangely enough, just Dean - Harry coated his fingertips in blood and pressed them to the wall, offering up a silent apology to the motel staff. It was a good thing they'd spent such a long time buried in all sorts of miscellaneous research, because he had a way to defuse the situation - at least temporarily. Only…
"Castiel, you need to leave, right now."
He turned to Castiel as his fingers traced the final lines of the sigil, staring him down until he acquiesced. The moment he was gone Harry slammed his bloodied palm against the banishing sigil and poured intent into it, not moving until all that remained of Uriel was the memory of his furious snarl as he was flung somewhere far away.
The anxious tension vanished from his body in a rush, leaving Harry to crumple to his knees on the floor. That had been… Well. Something.
"What the fuck was that?" Dean spat as he started pacing back and forth, steps quick and angry. "What the actual fuck was that?"
Sam appeared from the bathroom with a damp facecloth which he pressed into Harry's hands.
"He seemed… annoyed that I was interfering. More than once he redirected a swing that probably would've hit me instead of Dean. It was more than just him wanting to hurt Dean - for whatever reason. I think he was… actively avoiding injuring me?" Sam shook his head, frustrated. "But that doesn't make any sense! None of this makes sense!"
"Knew I couldn't trust him the moment I first saw him," Dean muttered darkly, caught up in his own thoughts.
Ignoring them for the moment, Harry focused on the reluctant flow of his magic as he healed his hand. Methodically wiping away the blood gave him a chance to calm down and find his equilibrium. Once his hands were clean - well, as clean as they'd get without running water and some soap, which he'd get around to eventually - he tilted his head back to look at the bloody smears on the wallpaper.
Part of him felt like they'd get blacklisted by the motel if they left it there. The sigil was useless now anyway, lines covered and smudged beneath a macabre hand-print, but it still felt safer somehow to leave it there.
Here's hoping they didn't need to return to Greybull any time soon.
oOoOo
Halfway back to Jackson, after a tense lunch at a quiet diner, they summoned Castiel in the parking lot out back. All of them had mixed feelings about it, but given that he hadn't helped Uriel try to murder them all and he was their only avenue for information they ultimately didn't have any other options.
Castiel didn't say a thing when he arrived, subdued and confused in the most open display of emotion they'd ever seen on him. But they didn't have time to worry about things like that. Uriel had suddenly become a ticking time bomb and they needed to do everything they could to try to understand what he was planning.
Dean started them off with his usual level of bluntness. "So, what the hell was all that back there?"
Staring down at his hands Castiel frowned.
"Do you know why they wanted Dean to speak with Alastair?" Sam coaxed, offering a more concrete starting point.
Castiel shook his head ever-so-slightly as he looked towards Sam. "Only that Uriel said it was an order from above."
"Is Uriel your boss then?"
"He is of a higher rank than I am."
Dean clicked his tongue, irritated, arms crossed tightly against his chest as if to physically hold himself back. "And of course angels follow orders unquestioningly. How could we forget that fun piece of trivia? Useless."
Castiel wilted beneath Dean's angered criticism. On one hand Harry sort of wanted to sympathise; it was clearly the first time mindlessly obeying orders had turned into a situation like this and Castiel was certainly feeling some sort of way about it. On the other… Harry was going to guess that Heaven didn't bother interfering with things on Earth very often, so the fact that something like this happened so quickly once they did? Kinda feels like Heaven wasn't as harmonious as they would like to think.
"I… The Heavenly Host sent me to rescue Dean Winchester. They would not have ordered Uriel to kill him. But he attempted to do just that. I do not…"
"Listen up." Dean pointed a finger in Castiel's face. "One of two things is happening right now. Either Heaven doesn't give two shits about us and have laid out kill orders for if we get annoying or something else stupid like that. Or, Uriel's gone rogue. Both of those options fuck us over, but one is easier to deal with than the other. Use that brain of yours for once in your life and try to think things through."
"Dean, that's kind of…"
"Quiet Sam. If he can't learn to think for himself then we might as well just cut ties with him, because he won't be of any help with anything."
Harry offered Sam a commiserating pat on the shoulder, but honestly he agreed with Dean in this case. If Castiel couldn't work past the roadblock in his mind that Heaven was just and everyone followed their orders then none of the information he possessed would be meaningful for them.
This wasn't really something that he would expect Castiel to be capable of as immediately as they would like. They could just leave him here with his thoughts and get on with it, planning to be without his assistance but hoping for the best, but Sam was also right. They were dumping a lot of heavy stuff on Castiel without any warning, and abandoning him straight afterwards while he was struggling also sucked. At the very least, Harry believed they could count on him for help if Uriel pulled himself together quickly enough to jump them while they were here. It was better than nothing.
"That was an interesting blade though," Harry commented idly a while later, directing the thought towards the brothers. Although he'd only gotten a brief glimpse of it before things got hectic he couldn't say he'd seen one quite like it before.
Not that he got into a lot of knife-fights. Still.
"Pulled it out of nowhere too. Did that asshole keep it up his sleeve? Or is it some magical bullshit again?"
"It's a pretty bad shape for an arm holster," Sam noted. "But that doesn't mean the blade itself has to be magic. Angels probably have all sorts of tricks up their sleeves."
Dean snorted darkly at the unintentional wordplay.
Castiel's voice interrupted them. "That was an angel blade."
He wasn't looking at any of them, face down as if the concrete held the answers to all his questions.
"Every angel possesses one. Normally there's never any cause to use it, but they are powerful weapons. Capable of killing-" he froze up suddenly, expression twisted. It was difficult to tell from that angle, but Harry would guess something between realisation and mocking.
"An angel," Sam inferred.
Dean cursed.
That was one mystery solved, but it continued to paint a dark and confusing picture.
When Castiel raised his head there was a dark look in his eyes as he confirmed Sam's conclusion. "Indeed. Angels are actually particularly susceptible to the blade's might, even more so when inside a vessel, but no one would ever… At least, I had assumed no one would ever dream to turn their blade on their own brethren."
A naive line of thought, for sure, but not unreasonable given Castiel's seemingly lacking life experience (regardless of how old he might be).
"Listen. No matter what happens there will always be someone more than willing to do all the things you think are horrid and unthinkable. That's just life - the curse of our free will, perhaps." Sam fell silent for a moment, recalling some of the things they had witnessed over the years. "You might not think you did, since you seem to think that angels don't get free will, but once upon a time you made a choice - however subconsciously - to always obey the Heavenly Host. Not every other angel in existence will have made that same choice. Now you have a new choice to make. Castiel, what are you going to do now?"
At his sides, Castiel balled his hands into fists.
"I… I believe in Heaven. But," he hesitated, then ploughed on, determined. "But Uriel's behaviour is out of line. As for the murders… I need to find the truth of them myself. If it truly was Uriel then he is an enemy who needs to be dealt with."
While he probably meant that in an 'enemy of Heaven' way rather than 'our enemy' that was still a pretty good outcome.
Harry and Sam glanced over at Dean, who huffed and headed for the car.
"Okay, great. Good talk. We're going now then. Someone'll shout if we need you for something."
Rough as always. Still, Castiel didn't appear upset by it. Poor guy probably still had a lot of introspection in the cards for the foreseeable future, and that was often better done away from the company of others.
oOoOo
Entering the Jackson city limits usually offered Harry a subconscious feeling of comfort. He wouldn't go so far as to say it was like coming home, because there were still parts of him which felt untethered and unsure of calling anywhere home, but it was still the sort of warmth that peeled away some of the stresses and anxieties that tended to plague him when most of his trips outside the city revolved around hunting. Even the sporadic appearances of those mysterious demons who seemed to love watching him never changed that.
Today was different.
The streets felt… wrong, somehow. Not quieter, necessarily, not abandoned. Just… off. It wasn't even a feeling he thought he could put into words past a vague uneasiness, but that didn't mean he should ignore it. He'd spent too many years of his life reading up on all the strange creatures and phenomena that could possibly one day cross his path to brush off whatever his instincts were trying to tell him.
Harry leaned forward, curling his fingers over the edge of Dean's seat, and said "Don't go back to the house. Just circle the streets or something for a bit. Something's not right."
Dean made eye contact with him through the rear-view mirror, noted he was serious, shrugged, and continued driving. Sam turned to look at him over his shoulder, brows creased.
"Is everything okay?"
"I'm not sure. That's the problem." Harry settled back into his seat, glanced out the window, and decided to call for help. "Castiel, you out there?"
For once he didn't so much as twitch as Castiel appeared in the back seat next to him. It had only been a day since they last saw him, but he seemed different somehow. Now wasn't the time to ponder it though.
"Can you do some recon for us? Scan the city for anomalies, that sort of thing?"
The angel disappeared again with a silent nod.
Harry didn't really know how angelic powers worked - would he be flying all over town looking for things? Did he have some sort of sensory radar power? - so he had no idea how long it would take. Ideally he'd get comfortable and wait it out, but nervous tension was beginning to creep into his chest as time passed so relaxing was currently off the cards.
Thankfully it was only a handful of minutes before Castiel returned.
"Find anything?"
Castiel inclined his head. "Yes. There is a large cluster of demonic presences near the outskirts. Let me…" Instead of finishing his thought, he leaned forward and pressed two fingers to Dean's head, doing… something.
Dean cursed when he pulled away, hands white-knuckled around the steering wheel. "Christ, warn a guy before you go sticking things in his head."
Other than being startled and annoyed Dean seemed to be fine. Still, Sam sounded wary as he asked "What exactly did you just do?"
Castiel blinked owlishly at him. "Navigation. I do not understand your roads and maps, so I gave him the location in a more useful manner. Should I not have?"
Harry shrugged at Sam who sighed. "No, it… That helps, for sure, but like Dean said you should definitely ask for permission first before doing stuff like that."
"I see." Castiel didn't apologise or promise to keep it in mind for next time. Placating gestures probably weren't a part of an angel's social interaction training.
"Anyway," Dean said, "seems your bad feeling was right on the money. So? We going after them?"
"Demons aren't super big on teamwork, so for a bunch of them to gather together like this… It's probably an ambush or a trap. That doesn't mean we can ignore them and just let them do whatever they want."
"Was hoping you'd say that. Ganking some demons should be a nice morale boost after the last few days."
"Really Dean? That's what you got out of all this?"
"What?" Dean scoffed. "Don't look at me like that Sammy. Killing demons is protecting the town, right? It's a good thing!"
Resigned to the fact that Dean had shifted into a stab-happy mood, Sam backed down with a mumbled "Never mind."
It wasn't killing demons that Sam was worried about, but Dean being over-eager for violence. But that was, as always, one of the times when it was most difficult to talk to Dean about anything other than accomplishing whatever goal he'd set his eye on. Sometimes he got too reckless in the moment, but Harry figured he was still bitter enough about Uriel to keep his head in the game this time around.
Besides, not going simply wasn't an option, so they'd have to make do either way.
oOoOo
Maybe 'ambush' had been the wrong conclusion to come to, Harry realised as they pulled up at a 'might have been something once upon a time but now it's just abandoned' concrete lot. Peering out the window he could see maybe twenty or thirty people - demons, he corrected himself - loitering about the place, making absolutely no effort to hide or otherwise disguise their presence. Several of them were faces he vaguely recognised, so he assumed they were all likely locals who had been unwillingly and unknowingly dragged into whatever this was supposed to be.
Harry considered mentioning this realisation, but ultimately kept his silence. While he didn't exactly want to go around potentially killing people he might know, this was a burden of knowledge that didn't need to be shared amongst them.
"I'm not the only one who thinks this is weird, right?" Sam asked as they sat in the car, surveying the scene. None of them were quite ready to head out into the mess yet.
"The set-up kinda feels like a street gang turf war in a movie."
Sam turned to stare blankly at Harry. "You don't even watch movies like that, what are you talking about?"
"Just that it feels sort of cliché, I guess." Harry shrugged and reached for the door. "Come on, we might as well get this over with."
The others followed his lead without comment.
Four people against that many opponents - even when those people comprised of experienced hunters, a wizard, and an angel - was going to be a pain if it really did come down to an all-out brawl scenario. Being that badly outnumbered when stealth wasn't an option? It sucked. But who knows what they'd do if they just got back in the Impala and drove off; terrorise the city to draw them back out, probably.
All thoughts of strategy fled in an instant when an unexpected figure emerged from the crowd, setting themselves up centre-stage.
"That fucker," Dean snarled.
Being outnumbered 5 to 1 was already a bad situation. Adding Uriel to the mix? A nightmare in the making.
Harry pressed his fingers to the brand on his neck and tried to convey a sense of urgency and intent. Crowley wouldn't be the greatest boost to their combat strength, but if this escalated they would need all the help they could get, and Crowley was the only one capable of instantaneous transport. As a plus, making him witness this first-hand would save them having to explain the situation to him later.
"I'd warn you to mind your tongue, Dean, but soon enough you won't be capable of anything at all. If cursing me is your final desire then who am I to stop you?"
Uriel spread his arms and the gathered demons - they had to be low-rank bottom-feeders, there's no way anyone higher up the chain would bend a knee to an angel, no matter what plan he fed them - closed ranks behind him, all lined up and docile like footsoldiers obeying their general.
"You would collude with demons?" Castiel asked sharply, going to step forward but being held back by Sam. "Why?"
Harry caught the sharp scent of sulphur and the brief presence of a hand against his upper arm before Uriel directed a look full of pointed disbelief their way. By his ear Crowley muttered "Well now, that's not something you see everyday."
"Humanity is a stain upon God's glorious earth. If I require a few more tools in my arsenal to ensure Lucifer can rise to cleanse the world then so be it."
"Quite proud of himself, isn't he."
Ignoring Crowley's commentary Harry racked his brain, trying to come up with a good angle of approach. Uriel was grandstanding, monologuing like some cartoon villain. Certainly he was hoping to rile Dean up enough for him to make a mad dash, making him easy pickings, but Dean wouldn't be falling for that, not with his little army at his back.
It was over-confidence and ego - both in himself and in his plan - driving this little show Uriel was putting on, but that didn't mean it would be as easy as shooting him in the head mid-speech to end things before they began. That was the problem with making an enemy out of something non-human.
"Isn't there supposed to be some kinda angelic death match once old Lucifer breaks out?" Dean called, tone surprisingly steady given how angry Harry expected him to be on the inside. "What if he loses? Just bites the fucking dust the second he gets free? Seems like a risky bet."
The tension sky-rocketed with Dean's provocation. Uriel's expression grew thunderous. Harry was almost afraid to blink in case Uriel took that moment to close the gap and ram his accursed blade straight into Dean's heart.
"Even if I fall, Lucifer will be freed. But you, you. Heaven's grand plan falls apart without you, Dean Winchester, and I will take immense pleasure in personally ending your pathetic existence."
Uriel raised his hand - to snap? To signal the demons to attack? - but several loud noises one after another broke through the silence, surprising absolutely everyone on both sides of the stand-off.
Almost as one, all eyes turned towards the source of the noises.
Someone had come to gatecrash the party.
A/N: Behold, a gift of three chapters for enduring my silence before I inevitably fall straight back into it again
