You know how it goes, death isn't what it used to be in the good ol' days.


Chapter 22

The mood in the library was still and silent, contrary to the accelerated pace that had been merely a minute ago. Half the people were tending to the other half, but the unbelievable appearance of the two uninvited guests had left them speechless and motionless, agape.

"I warned you about being lazy, Gabriel," Kali said in a chastising tone. "But you only ever seem to haste while escaping, not arriving."

The archangel scowled and rolled his eyes in annoyance, but didn't rebuff the accusation.

"I just didn't think it would be so easy for them. I thought there was time," he sighed. "Ok, so what's done is done. And now what?"

Such a question, tossed around so carelessly as if all of this was just a game, finally made the hunters snap back to their senses. Still clutching his best friend for support, Dean cared little to nothing about the possibility of being smitten or torched in the spot, and yelled at the two newcomers.

"And now what?" he repeated. "That's all you have to say, you son of a bitch? We thought you were dead, we needed so much help so many times, and suddenly you simply appear out of nowhere after being dilly-dallying, and you just ask 'What now'?"

"Ok, I get it. Sorry, Mum, for misbehaving," Gabriel snarled, not giving a damn but still a bit ticked off. "Can we get past the How are yous and the I'm fine thank yous, and focus on what the hell have you done, sweetcheeks?"

"How is it that you're not dead, Gabriel?" Sam asked, recovered from the surprise but slightly awed.

"Ah, there's the more polite moron," the archangel smirked, raising his hands. "That's an easy one: I was never dead, not really."

"But Lucifer killed you."

"Yeah, well... That's pretty much true, but I already had a very smart contingence plan."

"He belongs to me," Kali interrupted, already fed up with the archangel praising himself. "In the summit of the gods, I casted the same blood spell that I used on you two to bind Gabriel. He got you free, but didn't release himself. Therefore, when Lucifer killed him, his essence went to me instead of vanishing into the Empty. I later rebuilt his vessel."

"So you were alive all along," Dean grunted in despise. "While the leviathans are roaming the Earth, when the angels fell and started their killing spree, when Amara was psycho-free and with Heaven crumbling... You knew everything, and yet you did nothing."

"What I'm doing right now, is wondering if buying you a dictionary will finally make you understand what 'Witness protection' means," Gabriel answered, serious for once. "I never wanted to take part in your holy crusade, in case you don't remember, and yet I did. I placed my bets on you, which got me killed, kinda. So excuuuuse me princess, for not wanting to be caught in the crossfire again."

The air in the bunker almost fizzled with celestial wrath, wards be blessed. Who knew if the building would still be standing if not for them.

"Please, gentlemen," Rowena spoke daintily. "If you're already done with your testosterone match, perhaps we could go back to more pressing matters? Like, for example, what has happened here with the spell?"

Gabriel breathed deeply, calming himself and falling back into his usual Trickster persona.

"Is anyone hurt?" he asked, looking at Jessica and Kevin, who still hadn't spoken a word.

"No, they seem to be fine, just unconscious," the blonde said. "We're okay too."

"Except for these two," Dean concreted, meaning the two angels. "Rowena says they're gone."

"She's right," Gabriel confirmed, after checking on his brothers. "No worries, though. I'm sure they've been sucked back to Heaven."

"What?" Sam gasped. "Why?"

"You've casted the Nine Choirs spell, haven't you? That means you've shaken the frontiers of this world and laid them bare to reset. Every creature that crawls the Earth has been called back home as a security measure not to get stuck in an unliveable place, until the frontiers are set again."

"Then why haven't you gone to Heaven too?" Kevin asked him.

"Because he was already with me," Kali answered instead. "My ownership rewrites his tied home."

"Hey, stop there a second," Dean demanded, rising up from beside Castiel. "What you said about creatures being sucked back home, what it exactly means?"

"Well, angels were already home, except these two," Gabriel amiably kicked Balthazar's foot. "Demons go to Hell, fairies return to Avalon, reapers to the Veil... you get it."

"Leviathans?" the younger hunter dared to hope.

"I wouldn't call Purgatory homey, but yeah, they probably too. Buuut, and before you ask, Sammich, it certainly hasn't worked for the shedim. Locked in an unreachable part of Hell, remember? Impossible to reach equals impossible to return to, meaning that it remains out there."

Dean sighed deeply, half in relief and half in frustration. Damn thank Chuck for getting rid of the black goo crawlies, at least, but the shifting abomination was still an even bigger problem.

"Then what the hell is hap-..."

"GAAAHHHH!"

Before the older Winchester could finish whatever question he had, Balthazar's vessel returned to life rather unpleasantly, violently inhaling air, jerking and coughing on the floor.

"For Chrissake!" he spoke with a hoarse voice, as if he had been screaming for hours. "Never again I'm giving someone a ride to my body in this way! How did you stand it, Cas?! And with Lucifer no less!"

Forcing himself to move, Balthazar turned to his side, where Castiel's vessel was, and grabbed both sides of his face. Instantly, a bright light shone back in the seraph's eyes.

"Never again..." Balthazar murmured, slumping back to the floor. "At this rate, I'm going to start taxing my wings for extra services and overwork."

"Thank you, Balthazar," Castiel said, difficultly sitting up. "I could not have come back on my own."

"Cas?" Dean was immediately on his knees again, gripping his angel tight by the shoulders and inspecting him. "Cas, are you ok?"

"Yes, Dean. I am alright," he answered, a reassuring smile on his face. "And welcome back, Gabriel. We heard everything from Heaven. And while giving the circumstances I am extremely pleased to know that an archangel, specifically you, is still alive, it would have been nice to be aware of this sooner. Very much sooner."

Gabriel bit the inside of his cheek, annoyed, but didn't say anything.

"Tell me about it," Dean tried to joke. "What's with this, everyone coming back from the dead? First Jess and Billie, then you and Rowena, Balthazar, Kaia, Kevin, now Gabriel... I'm losing count."

"Sorry to tell you, Dean, but apparently this is far from being over," Castiel said in an ominous tone, supporting himself on the hunter's arm and finally getting up. "After casting that spell from the Angel Tablet, there have been several unexpected consequences that we did not take into account."

"Which is exactly why I decided to finally show myself," Gabriel mumbled. "You have no idea what the Nine Choirs spell actually does and doesn't."

"Well then, would you be kind enough to share with the rest of the class?" Rowena sighed, tired of the stalling and wanting some answers to be given already.

"How about you first take a look at this?" the archangel replied, going between Jack and Kaia. He crouched and carefully turned the girl to the side, revealing her nape. "Do you recognize this, Castiel?"

The dark-haired angel looked, frowning. Of course he recognized it.

"It is a sigil, an extremely ancient one, branded in the soul very recently. In fact, I have seen it only once, in one of the nine apexes in Heaven. If I am not mistaken, this is the symbol for 'Authority'."

"That's right! What a good, dedicated student you were!" Gabriel mocked him a little, turning to the nephilim and exposing his nape too. "And this one?"

"It is the sigil for 'Archangel'," Castiel closed his eyes, defeated. "Jack has also been selected."

"Selected?" Sam repeated, confused. "Selected for what?"

"You bunch of morons tried to summon the anunnaki to close the door in AltMichael's face, as far as I know. News travel fast," Gabriel stated, standing up. "But do you even know how that works? Or did you think it was simply a matter of asking nicely? Let me answer that for you: NO. They weren't mere angels like the rest of us, they were... they are the pillars that sustain this world. They can't simply leave their post when called upon."

"They need vessels," Kevin concluded.

"Not vessels. Channels, just like in the past." The archangel looked tired just for being forced to be serious for so long. "So you made the call, and the call was answered. Now there are nine people out there with freshly branded napes, and until you reunite them all, you can't advance to the next level of the game."

"Wait, is there more?" Jessica exclaimed. "I thought that the spell we did would reset the frontiers."

"Oh no, my fair lady. The spell was only to invoke the power to do so, nothing else. You have now a borrowed chance, but do you know what to do with it? No, you don't, and that's why you're all morons. Like taking Daddy's car for the first time and already believing to know how to drive it."

The sudden realization of what the archangel meant hit them all almost at the same time. He was so right! Once again, they had some almighty force in their hands but no clue about how to use it. Same old story.

"Fuck," Dean cursed, dragging a hand down his face. "Ten times fuck, and we were so sure this was the solution."

"But this was what Chuck and Atropos suggested us to do!" Sam protested. "We can't be that wrong. Ok, so this needs a few more steps than we planned, but... but the plan is still good. There must be a way."

He looked earnestly at Gabriel, at Kali, and then at Castiel and Balthazar. They were old and powerful beings, surely there must be something they knew.

"I didn't say there wasn't a way," Gabriel eventually gave in. "I only said that you were morons for starting a game without knowing how to finish it. Did any of you ever watch Jumanji?"

"I did," Balthazar finally felt strong enough to talk, his voice sounding normal now.

"Let me guess," Dean ventured. "We have to find those nine people that have been selected as channels or whatever, and then also find another spell to reset the frontiers of the world as we want them."

"Not exactly," Castiel replied. "The nine channels have already been found, more or less. The moment we casted the spell, nine tongues of fire flared across the world, two of them being Jack and Kaia. I told you, Dean. Unexpected consequences."

"Wait, so you already know where they are?" Sam asked, awed again. "That's great! Then we just have to retrieve them!"

"It's not so easy as you make it to be," Kali retorted, closing her eyes for a moment. "I can feel them too, even if barely, and some of them may prove difficult to retrieve. One is in Heaven, one is in Hell, and one is more powerful than any of us... except perhaps the nephilim."

"I am confident that Naomi will collaborate with us about the one in Heaven," Castiel said. "But retrieving the one in Hell is a perilous task, even for an angel."

All at once, everyone looked at the archangel.

"What? Oh, ok, I know where this is going. You want me to risk my ass again and play along with you. Well, folks, sorry to tell you but..." It was obvious what he was going to say, until the impassive goddess beside him grabbed his ear and pulled hard, like you would do with a misbehaving kid. "Aa-ah, ok, ok, dammit! I'll play with the other children, ok!"

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Jody hastily opened her door, not caring that it was already half past three in the morning. She didn't need to look to know who was there, knocking on her doorstep, for she was the one who had phoned her visitor and asked her to come over.

"Donna, thanks for coming," she said, hugging her friend. "Sorry to make you come all the way from Minnesota."

"Nah, don't apologize like I was in the other side of the country. We're state-neighbours!" the other sheriff smiled, returning the hug. "How are the girls?"

"They seem to be fine, but I can't wake them up," Jody answered, closing the door and offering the blonde a coffee from the kitchen. "Since they fainted last evening and stopped bleeding after a while, none of them have even moved a muscle. But now there's this symbol burnt on their napes."

"A symbol? Like a tattoo?"

"No, not like that. I meant burnt like branded. Hot-iron branded."

"It's really strange," Donna acquiesced. "Specially all three of them at the same time."

"You don't know what a scare that gave me. We were just about to have dinner, and suddenly I have three girls having a seizure. Or what looked like one."

"I can imagine," Donna said, patting gently her friend's hand. "Where are they?"

"I put them in my bed, since it's a double. That way I can watch over the three of them at the same time," Jody sighed, massaging her sore neck. "But I think I should call Sam and Dean. Whenever something strange happen, it always seems to be related to them one way or another. And probably Castiel could tell me something about those marks."

"Go make the call. I'll go upstairs and keep company to the girls, just in case they wake up."

"Thanks, Donna. For coming and helping me. I was feeling really crappy all night."

"No, Jody! Why would you even say that?" the other woman worried.

The brunette sheriff sighed, looking downcast, her smile dreary.

"Kaia left... whatever Kaia that was, she was still one of the girls I did welcome into my home. And yet she left because I couldn't protect her from a monster," the woman spoke, sadness clear in her voice. "I almost lost Claire to a werewolf, same as I almost lost Alex to a vampire and Patience to a wraith, even before knowing her. They... they are my girls now, Donna, but it looks like no matter what I do, how hard I try, I can't keep them safe."

"Oh, Jody..." the blonde cooed, taking her friend into another big hug and rubbing her back. "It's not your fault, and you know that very well. Bad things happen, things that we can't avoid. But you're making it better for them, never doubt that. If not for you, Alex would be out there drinking lives instead of taking care of them; Claire would have ended in jail, considering the path she almost took; very likely Patience would have psychotic episodes all the time, because her and her father didn't know how to deal with her gift; and Kaia... she'd be absolutely dead, killed by the shedim, if you hadn't accepted her in your house."

Jody listened in silence, sobbing on her friend's shoulder for a little while until calming down.

"It's been some time since anyone told me that. I almost forgot how awesome I am," she attempted to joke, wiping her tears with a sleeve.

"That's the spirit, buddy!" Donna smiled friendly. "Now take a sip of water and go call those two little rascals. Who knows what they have done this time?"

"That's a question I'm actually afraid to make."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Hello? Is somebody there?

Jack woke up suddenly, sitting up on his bed like pulled by a string, and feeling like his head was about to split in two. He rested it in his hands, groaning in pain.

Oh, there you are. Sorry, were you sleeping?

He opened his eyes again, looking around, but there was nobody. He was alone in his bedroom.

I'm not there. I'm actually very far away, if I spotted you right.

Growing anxious, Jack tried to get up from the bed, but as soon as he put a foot on the floor, a wave of dizziness flooded him. He had to sit back.

Ouch, please, don't do that! At least not while I'm still talking to you. The line works in two directions.

"Hello?" he said in his mind, reckoning that whoever was contacting him wouldn't need his voice.

Yes, hello. Something happened lately that allowed me to reach you. Nice to meet you at least!

"What do you mean, 'at last'?"

I've been trying to talk to you for some time now, since the moment I first felt your presence. And that's almost half a year ago.

"Why?" Jack shook his head, noticing that the pain was already subduing considerably.

I guess I was curious. I had never before felt anyone so clearly as I felt you when you appeared. Can you tell me what happened?

"Half a year ago? I don't know. I was only born."

... You were born? But aren't you still a baby, then? How do you understand me?

"No, I'm not a baby. I had to grow fast. I think I look like... eighteen, maybe?"

Are you a monster?

"No, I'm not," Jack frowned, bewildered. "Or I'm trying not to become one. I think my species is called a nephilim."

A nephilim. Half human, half angel. I can relate, in some way.

"Can you?" Jack was surprised. "Are you another nephilim? I didn't know there were more."

No, I'm not a nephilim. I'm in fact the exact opposite. What's your name?

"Jack. I'm Jack Kline," he thought, smiling a little. "And you?"

Hi, Jack. My name is Jesse Turner.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The next day was hell in the bunker, figuratively speaking. Save for Gabriel, who at the end graciously accepted to go downstairs to actual Hell in order to retrieve whatever poor soul (or lucky soul, depending how you looked at it) had been chosen to participate in their little scheme. But for the rest of them, it was not a stroll in the park.

After Jack and Kaia had awaken from whatever deep dream they had been forced into by the spell and the situation was explained to them, sheriff Jody Mills had called the hunter brothers, demanding to know what they had done this time and why her foster girls had been branded like cattle. That was how everyone learned who three more of the anunnaki's selected channels were. Needless to say, Jody had been less than happy to hear about it, and now the bunker was being prepared to receive even more inhabitants.

"Don't you think this is beginning to look like a real secret society?" Dean couldn't help to grin, carrying a pile of clean blankets and sheets. "It started with only the two of us plus Cas, and now suddenly we're a merry bunch! And each one of us has an awesome story to tell too: two hunters, three angels, an avatar demigoddess, a nephilim, a resurrected soulmate, an almost-vampire girl, an almost-werewolf girl, a psychic... Makes me wonder how much weirder this can get?"

Sam was about to bitchface his brother, but ultimately decided not to dampen his childish joy. Puffing a pillow before placing it on a fresh bed, he played along.

"What else would you like?"

"I don't know. We had more than our fair share of demons, so I think we're good, thanks. Fairies are annoying, but I'm sure we could handle them. Maybe a reaper? They aren't that bad once you get to know them. And about monsters, we know that not all of them actually deserve the name."

While the brothers were busy preparing more bedrooms, Balthazar had escorted Rowena back to her home and then returned to Heaven, intending to talk with Naomi and explain why a marked soul had flared up there. Jessica and Kevin had gone to Lebanon, tasked with buying as much food as the given credit card allowed. Castiel travelled to South Dakota to pick up the three foster girls, since it had been the consensus that all the branded channels should stay at the same place, where they were needed and protected. Kali had already returned to her pantheon. And the two last, Kaia and Jack, had been put to study angel stories and ancient lore.

It was almost midnight when the Winchesters finally allowed themselves to take a break and sit down in the library, enjoying the delicious pizzas that Kevin and Jessica had brought back.

"Sorry for Cas for missing this," Dean munched happily. "This cheese is to die for. And I'd know it."

"He could have a taste tomorrow if you deprive yourself from even a single piece," Jessica commented.

For a second, the hunter looked utterly disheartened at the thought of not enjoying food when it was still freshly made and hot.

"Or you could also treat Castiel to another pizza when he comes back," suggested Kevin.

"Now that sounds better," Dean nodded, claiming the last slice.

They were about to clean the table when the lamps flickered.

"Looks like Thaz is back."

Effectively, a couple of seconds later the angel materialized a few metres away, in the war room, but he wasn't alone. There was a boy behind him, head bowed down, almost like trying to go unnoticed.

"I got your third anunnaki doll," the angel spoke, grinning. "No need to thank me, but please do so."

"Thank you, Balthazar," Jessica said after a moment, since apparently not his fiancé nor her future brother-in-law were willing to do it.

But something was wrong, she realized. Both men were quiet, almost petrified, looking at the boy that didn't dare to raise his head. Not like it was necessary, because he had been recognized anyway. Dean was holding the empty box of pizza with so much strength that the cardboard was about to break, and Sam was barely even breathing. They looked astonished.

"It can't be," Dean whispered, finally reacting. "No, you can't... Adam?"


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