Sam and the Librarian – Chapter 6
"Are you hunting demons in general, or just a particular one? I assume you know about the opening of the hell gate in Wyoming?" Mrs. S doesn't mince words.
"We were there." Dean answers. "We closed it too, but not before a small army of demons escaped."
"That's not why we're here." Sam squeezes my hand. "Dean needs to get out of a deal."
Mrs. S sighs, "Hunters…always jumping into the fire with both feet."
Bobby cuts in, "You said Men of Letters before, I thought that was just a myth."
"No, they were a group of men who for more than 600 years compiled and studied all the available occult knowledge in the world."
"And you know this how?" Bobby asks.
"My father was a member. The collection of books in the basement is his collection, passed down to me. During WWII, my father was part of the group who tried to save great works of art from Hitler. He helped liberate Wolf's lair, Hitler's mountain retreat. When he found the Nazi stash of occult books, he shipped it here to his hometown. He built that storeroom and inscribed it with every protective symbol known to the MoL. Only he and I knew everything that room contains. On (date), 1958, two new members were to be inducted into the MoL. I was to be inducted officially the following year, even though my father had taught me more than most initiates. He went to the ceremony, but never came back. I don't know where the chapter house was located, but I can only guess they were attacked by a powerful demon."
She reaches out a hand to me and I take it without thinking. "I've searched ever since then for someone to be my apprentice. You and Tionne fit the bill. You with your gift for inventing new ways of preservation, and Tionne for her dedication to the library and to education."
"Wow. This is the week for big reveals."
"So now that you know about me and the MoL's books, I'll ask again; why are the three of you here?" Mrs. S pins the three hunters in their places with a glare that makes me want to hide in a box until it's all over.
Sam and Dean exchange a look and Dean sighs, "Alright, I'll tell you the story." He does a decent job of it; Sam and Bobby add facts where necessary.
"No crossroads deal I've ever heard of went like that." Mrs. S stands and paces. "Demons make those deals in order to trap innocent souls that would otherwise never go anywhere near the pit." She taps her lips with her pen. "And she wasn't even going to deal with you at first?"
"Right. She flat out refused at first."
Bobby narrows his eyes, "What are you thinking?"
"I'm thinking there's no crossroads demon in all of hell that wouldn't leap at the chance to get a hold of this boy's soul. He's been stopping evil and saving lives since he was a child. He's exorcised multiple powerful demons at an age when most hunters wouldn't have taken on anything more powerful than a lone werewolf."
"He killed Azazel." Sam puts in.
Dean makes a disparaging sound, "She knew she had leverage. She knew I'd do anything for Sam" Beside me, Sam flinches, so I take his hand where it rests under the table and squeeze his fingers.
"Then the one-year deal makes even less sense. You boys have a lot of experience and you're not stupid." She shakes her head. "The short time means you're going to be laser-focused on staying out of hell."
"Sure, but isn't that what they want?"
Mrs. S shakes her head. "If you had ten years, goodness, if you only had two, Sam and Bobby here would have time to look at the big picture instead of just looking for a way to get you out of your deal."
"Alright, I'll give," Bobby says, "Why did she give him only one year and more importantly, what is the big picture?"
"The short time is a misdirection. They wanted you so focused on getting Dean out of his deal, that you'd assume it was just revenge and wanting to get a formidable hunter in their clutches." Mrs. S puts one hand on the big book Sam carried to the table for her. It's six inches thick, covered in layered, decorated leather with gilding on the cover, the binding, and the edge of the pages, and it has a huge, enameled clasp. "Two questions, "What were Azazel's real plans for Sam, and why is it so important that Dean go to hell?" She paces and taps her lips with her pen. "We can assume that Azazel's plans have been in the works for centuries, so one way or another, he was opening that hell gate."
"Ok, but he didn't make that deal with me. That was a regular crossroads demon." Props to Dean. I can tell he wants to pound on the table and yell at her, but for now, he keeps his cool.
"Yes, but in your account, you said that he knew about it. He was here in our world, long before his minion opened the hell gate. That leads me to believe that he was a high echelon demon. He was old, powerful, and in charge down there." She pulls a key ring out of her skirt pocket, and uses a small iron key to unlock the book's clasp. When I see the first page it confirms what I suspected from the quick glance I'd gotten at the cover. I'm on my feet in an instant.
"That's a-a-a Nicaean bible! There can't be more than three or four of those in existence!" My hands itch to pull it to me and devour every page.
She nods to me before adjusting her glasses. "Indeed. One is at the Vatican, one with the Greek Orthodox church, this one, and there's said to be one more, but no one knows for sure."
Dean raises an eyebrow. "Why does that make a difference?"
Before I can say anything, Bobby speaks up. "The leaders of early Christianity got together in the town of Nicaea to decide what to put in the bible. It's been changed and translated so much over the last 1600 years that there's likely to be whole chapters worth of writing in that book that aren't in any other bible."
"Sounds like a good idea, but can you read something that old?"
"That's the right question to ask, young man." Mrs. S manages to sound patronizing even though she just complimented Dean. I hide a smile, because now I realize how Luke could love Yoda, but be exasperated with him at the same time.
Dean's lips compress into an almost flat line, and I can see he's about to make a sarcastic reply. I wink at him and roll my eyes at S. He looks confused for a second before he returns my smile.
"And yes, I can. If I have any trouble I'm sure Mr. Singer here will be glad to assist me." She's right about that. Sam and Bobby stood when I put a name to the ancient tome. Now they hover behind Mrs. S like a pair of vultures hoping to get a chance at a fresh carcass. They pepper Mrs. S with questions while crowding her between them.
She finds it just as annoying as I did. "Enough! Gentlemen. I appreciate your interest, and both of you will get a chance to look at it, but I've already read the important parts." She opens the book to the final chapter…Revelation.
"Revelation? Like the apocalypse?" Sam looks at Mrs. S, then Bobby, then me in confusion. "What does the apocalypse have to do with Dean going to hell? It's really important to us, but he's like one person. How does he have anything to do with the end of the world?"
"The apocalypse starts with Lucifer. Once he's freed from his cage he goes out into the world and starts doing all manner of terrible things. It culminates in the great battle – Lucifer verses Michael."
"Michael, the archangel?" Dean asks.
"Yes." Mrs. S adjusts her glasses and her cardigan and sits a little straighter. "Michael fights and defeats Lucifer, puts him back in his cage, and for the few survivors it's paradise on Earth until God calls everyone home."
"The problem with that is not the battle, it's the part about the 'few survivors' that we have to worry about." Bobby adds.
"And that's horrible, but it still doesn't tell us how we're going to save Dean!" Sam exclaims.
Before the room can erupt into chaos, though, Bobby steps in again, "Sam calm down." He sits, and the other two men follow suit. "I'm guessing, Mrs. S, that you're giving us the backstory that's going to be the key to everything?"
She nods. "As I said, everything starts with Lucifer, but he can't do anything until he's released. In order to do that, his oldest and most powerful demons must break 66 of the seals on the devils cage."
"How many seals are there on the devil's cage?"
"Hundreds."
"And they only have to break 66 of them? Shouldn't it be more work?" I look around at everyone for confirmation.
Mrs. S gives me the smile that says, 'yes, you're funny, but not right now.' She looks at the others. "It is not. Not only is each seal difficult to find, each one is tougher that the one before it, and unless you can get ten demons to work together on something more than mayhem, close to impossible. They will get through them all, it will just take time. We, however, are only concerned with seal one and seal sixty-six." She adds a new teabag to her mug, removes the first one, and adds more hot water. Then she turns to a particular page in the book, and begins to read.
"The first seal shall be broken when a righteous man sheds blood in Hell. As he breaks, so shall it break."
For a moment, all I hear is the sound of the building's heating system. I always knew we had one, I'd just never heard it. All the muscles in my legs turn to jelly. Thank Goddess I'm standing with my palms flat on the table, my arms spread wide, otherwise I might have just dropped to the floor. As it is, I collapse to my forearms and then my knees. Sam's arms are around me in an instant, but his eyes are all for Dean. I want to throw up, but I swallow down the urge and let Sam shift me to my chair. Once I'm sitting, Sam runs around the table to his brother.
My heart shrinks and whimpers, trying to hide itself behind my lungs. The thought of Dean in hell (no God please! I'll do anything, anything! Please not him!) being tortured until he's so screwed up that he becomes the torturer threatens to unhinge me. How could they!? He's the personification of a Disney movie made for bikers. He would star in the remake of Kindergarten Cop.
Dean is slumped forward in his chair with his forehead pressed into his folded arms. Sam pauses behind him and then squeezes his shoulder with one hand. Dean tenses for a moment as though even this small touch is too much, but then his shoulders relax, one hand comes up to cover Sam's.
I stand and ignore Sam's glance while pulling Mrs. S to her feet and all but drag her out of the conference room and into her office. The horror that bloomed in the pit of my stomach turns to fury. "What the Fuck, Mrs. S!? How could you do that? You read that to him cold! Why didn't you warn him?"
"They need to know what they are up against."
"You heard their story; Dean's been doing this since he was four years old! I'm pretty sure he knows what he's up against!"
"Are you sure? We're not talking about a witch that went to hell in the 15th century and became a demon. These are millennia old demons who've been planning this jailbreak since before Cain and Abel were born."
"I understand it well enough not to terrorize the men we're trying to help! You read that passage in a voice that says Dean should just pack his bags and get on the express elevator right now. How is that stopping the apocalypse?"
She scoffs, "You said he's been a hunter since he was a child - not some pampered academic who can't handle a hard truth."
I ignore her jibe. "Of course not! But he met you an hour ago, has never heard of your MoL's secret club, has no reason to trust you, and yet must trust you if we are to save him." I pace away from her to the door and back. "Plus, he's a fucking hero and his brother's only emotional support. It should be your mission to save him just because he's goddamn wonderful and doesn't deserve this shit!" I realize I'm berating my terrifying boss. How is this my life?
Picking up a pen from her desk, she taps it against her lips as she watches me. "So, you're saying I should be gentle with them?"
"No, I-I think that ship has sailed."
"This is how I deal with everyone." She shakes her head. "Your generation and the one before you were allowed to show emotion on the job; my generation could not afford such luxury."
"Yes, alright, you have a point, but Sam and Dean are of my generation. They expect us chicks to have emotions. I suppose we'll just move forward, and they'll get used to you."
In a Dean-worthy move she rolls her eyes to the other side of the world before she gets down three more books from the shelf, hands me two, and shoos me out of the room.
To my astonishment, when I return to the conference room the three of them are sat around the table calmly drinking coffee and looking…bored.
Bored. How the frack is that possible?
"Weren't you hyperventilating a minute ago?" I narrow my eyes at Dean.
He returns my gaze with a stare so direct and full of mischief that I pity the demons who think they're going to be able to control this man. "Sure, until I heard just how 'damn wonderful' I am." All three of them release snickers out of their now enormous grins.
Well, fuck. I look at the wall between this room and Mrs. S office. "Do you think there's any insulation inside that wall?"
"Doubtful." Bobby answers. "Just paneling and two by fours. Wouldn't really matter if there was, anyway, you left the door to this room open."
Double Fuck. I turn to give them a withering glance, but it doesn't work. The boys fall all over themselves laughing while Bobby smiles fondly.
"I hate you guys."
We spend the rest of the morning on research. Since we only have a vague notion of what we're looking for, it's slow going. On more than one occasion I have to remove Sam's hand from my knee. He sits as close as the conference room chairs allow, and every time Mrs. S leaves the room the hand on my knee starts to inch up my thigh. When I come back from the bathroom just before noon, Dean has acquired the dry erase markers, a notepad, and a pen, and is drawing colorful doodles from one end of the page to the other. The drawings incorporate a surprising number of fairly accurate penises. I glance at Bobby only to see him leaning on his fist with his eyes closed.
"Ok, break time!" I announce, clapping my hands together. Sam almost falls out of his chair, and Dean jerks as though I've poked him with a live wire. Mrs. S, as unflappable as a British school matron, marks her place in the book she's studying and stands.
"A good mornings' work everyone. Let's meet back here at two to discuss our findings." She picks up the bible, turns on her heel, and strides from the room.
"Wow." Dean says. "I never thought I'd meet a woman I was more afraid of than Ellen, but she's fucking terrifying."
"Maybe so, but she knows her stuff." Bobby rubs the back of his neck.
As I'm following Sam out the door, I turn to Dean and say, "You realize you said that while this door was open." Dean's eyes pop and he crouches down and peaks around the corner. I have to bite my tongue.
"Son of a bitch!" He hisses.