She Who Wears the Crown
They had settled an agreement that once the werewolf hunt was done, they would meet at the Men of Letters' bunker to go over all their information on Purgatory. They were going to enlist Castiel, Kevin and even Charlie for some help. In a way, Rowan was excited to meet two new faces, friends of the Winchesters. She could only imagine that Castiel and Kevin weren't too happy that they got the Angel tablet in two pieces.
They'd be really upset to know that she had the Demon tablet.
In the meantime, she had a couple of things to tell Death.
Rather than going back to the Underworld, she appeared in Death's little reading room, in body this time. The room was the same, but it was empty.
Not for long.
"Death!" she shouted, glancing around the room. "We need to talk." She added. The sentence that no one liked to hear, even for a Horseman with a very ticked off Goddess, she was sure.
"Since when do you summon me here?" he asked from behind her. Rowan didn't bother to turn around; she simply pointed to the two chairs, and sat in the one that was always left for her. She looked up at see Death coming around to sit in his chair with a very unimpressed glare.
"I summoned you here because we have a couple of things to discuss." She replied, matching his expression with her own.
"I don't see the need. I don't have stupid stamped on my head." Death replied. He wasn't really a Horseman of many expressions, but the anger was in his eyes.
"You know everything." Rowan said, more like an open question.
"Yes. I don't find opening Purgatory for your brother to be particularly wise." He replied with a hint of sarcasm. "And opening Lucifer's cage for Dean's youngest brother is highly foolish." He added and she raised an eyebrow at him with a calm demeanor.
"His name is Adam. Or is it difficult to use the name of the soul you abandoned?" she asked and his eyes narrowed on her with a spark of rage. Despite crossing a fine line, she wasn't afraid. He might be the almighty Horseman, but he wouldn't kill her. He needed her.
"Quite brave." He said and the corner of her mouth twitched into a grin, but the anger she had felt when she first discovered he had forced Dean to choose had returned, making her grin fade quickly.
"You made Dean choose between his brothers. You, the great Horseman of the Apocalypse, big bad wolf on campus, put fear into a man so you wouldn't have to do more than you had to." Rowan said and the rage flared in his eyes, spreading into his body language as he balled his hand into a fist that remained still on the arm rest of his chair.
"I beg your pardon?" he asked, the rage slipping into his voice. "I didn't have to do anything, you presumptuous child." he added and she stared him straight in the eye with a flicker of her power, igniting the glow in her eyes.
"Souls are such an inconvenience to you." She said and they had a sort of staring match of rage; who could show more anger. "What was it, Death; wouldn't or couldn't save both brothers?" she asked and he leaned forward, both hands balled into fists.
"You will not open Purgatory nor Lucifer's cage." He said with a sharp glare and a sharp chilling tone of voice that would have put fear into anyone, but Rowan wasn't afraid, thanks to her rage.
"Than I'll close the Underworld for business and do as I damn well please because I give a shit about Adam and my brother." She replied, her aura of power glowing strong in her eyes. She had to keep a tight lid on her aura of power as to not start a fight with Death. She didn't want to prove herself wrong about him needing her.
As they stared at each other, Death slowly leaned back into his chair, still very angry, but knowing that she meant every word; she could shut down the Underworld and the souls would have nowhere to go. Only Heaven and he already made it clear he finds Heaven to be an inadequate place for souls to be.
"You think that threatens me?" he asked and she relaxed a bit as well. "You have lots to learn." he added.
"Send the souls up to Heaven. Like it or not, I will get my brother out of Purgatory and Adam out of Lucifer's cage. I risk letting out a lot of nasty things, but I'm not about to do nothing because it's such an inconvenience to me." she replied with a harsh tone of voice hinted with sarcasm. "You don't know what it's like to have a family, loved ones, or to know what it's like to be human. Maybe, just maybe, you do know, but that heavy ring of ours makes it hard so I assume, so I'll cut you some slack. However, I am doing this with or without some of your help." Rowan said.
"Why drag me into this? Why not use your demon partner?" he asked and she frowned at him, narrowing her eyes. "You don't know what's written on the Demon tablet. But he does." He added and Rowan felt a déjà-vu coming on. Once again, Crowley doesn't tell her everything. How shocking. "There's a spell to give a demon much power. Use that on him and leave me out of this." Death said, standing up, fixing his jacket as if to say their discussion was done. "After all, you give him everything he wants." He murmurs and Rowan contemplates not having a fight with the old bugger.
Did he really want Crowley to be more powerful? Just so he could be left alone?
Well, if it was a choice between him and Lucifer, many outside of Hell would probably go with Crowley. She had a feeling that the demons preferred Lucifer, although she couldn't understand why.
Point is, Death was being a jerk. This had nothing to do with her and Crowley. Although Death had a point much to her disdain; she did seem to give Crowley everything he wanted, mostly unintentionally.
Death might have been done with their little talk, but she wasn't finished.
He glanced around the room, slightly perplexed, and then narrowed his eyes on her, really not impressed. Yeah, she wasn't letting him go yet.
"I'm a lot stronger and smarter than you give me credit for." Rowan replied as Death came to realize that she temporarily sealed the room. "You wanted to recreate Helheim and you helped me do that. The souls are happy. We're happy. So I foolishly thank you for making that possible. But now it's my turn; help me get Adam out of the cage. That's all I'm asking. If something goes horribly wrong, I'll take the blame. But for once in your long miserable existence, give a shit about a soul that undeservingly gets tortured by Lucifer." Rowan said with conviction, determined to get what she wanted.
Death's sharp expression on her remained, but she didn't back down. A few seconds stretched on for what felt like minutes, but he looked away with a clenched jaw.
"I couldn't get both out at the same time. Lucifer is no fool, he would have known I was returning for the other soul. I couldn't give him the chance to escape." Death admits, keeping his eyes away.
Rowan won. His eyes finally met hers once he got back his tough guy allure.
"I'm only helping so that Lucifer does not get out. Purgatory is solely on you." He said and she stood up, releasing her seal on the room. There was no smile on her face, but it was in her eyes as the glow faded to reveal her light brown, nearly hazel, eyes. She was content.
He was not.
Then, Death vanished, which didn't surprise her because he was still very angry.
Rowan didn't care. She got what she wanted.
She teleported back to the Underworld and went to the office. When she walked in, she saw Agmundr showing Veronica things on a computer and an iPad on the table next to Bjarni's desk. They apparently accommodated Veronica with a space of her own with her own tech.
She pulled open the drawer of her desk and sighed with relief as the Demon tablet was still there. It's not that she thought Crowley would take it from her, but it was such a powerful object that it made her feel like it wasn't safe to be anywhere, let along the drawer of her desk.
What made her feel like it was so powerful was the spell Death mentioned. It could grant a demon so much power and it seemed Crowley knew about that. Did he want to perform the spell? She had no doubt. Did she want to stop him? Not if it meant avoiding a demon revolt (if it were to happen) and facing Lucifer (if that were to happen too). However, no one but Metatron and a prophet, no doubt Kevin, could read it. And she was certain no one wanted Crowley to perform that spell.
"This is so cool." Veronica said, snapping Rowan out of her thoughts. "You did all this? Holy crap." She added and looked at the app Rowan had created, looking through the profiles of souls on her iPad.
"I did everything you see here." Rowan replied with a slight smile on her face.
"Literally. Including me." Agmundr said as he looked at Veronica. She looked at him with a little laugh, and then back at the iPad. Yeah, he was flirting with her.
"Oh Agman," Rowan said, looking at him with a grin that broadened when he was puzzled for a second at the nickname. He didn't seem ashamed or embarrassed, which made her smile. "I only made you a draugr." She added and Veronica looked up at her from the iPad.
"What is that word anyway? Is that a Norse word?" she asked and Rowan smiled.
"You could say that. It means again-walker. Not a zombie, but I guess you could say it's the same concept." Rowan said and Veronica grinned at her. Her friend already knew that, but it seemed that she didn't understand that you couldn't change a word; change it and you change its meaning.
"Can't we name it something else? Something I can pronounce?" she asked and Rowan let out a small laugh.
"I've been calling them Draugar for far too long to suddenly change the name." she replied, making Veronica smile, shaking her head.
"What would you call us?" Agmundr asked Veronica, making her smile at him. Oh yeah, the flirting was going both ways. Rowan tried not to watch because she had much more important things to do than listen to Veronica suggesting they be called shadows of death.
She left the office, uncertain of what to do in the meantime. As she stood in the center of the elevator lobby, she looked down at the object in her hands. For a second, she thought it was her iPad, but it was the Demon tablet. She wasn't thinking of doing anything with it, at least not at the moment.
She needed a place to think and then thought of the perfect place: the Men of Letters' bunker, but first, she needed a drink. She conjured a glass of red wine, something different, and stared at the Demon tablet. She couldn't read a damned thing off of it, but every couple of seconds, it would seem she would catch a word recognizable enough, and then she'd lose it.
It wasn't fun to depend on others to help you get shit done. Was it like that in the old Helheim days? She couldn't remember that very well. As it turns out, not all her memories have surfaced from the abyss of her old mind.
It's why she wants her family back together so badly: the memories of the old days hurt. All she has left is Fenrir and all those years in between her brothers and her have caused her to watch the death of Jormungand. She could have prevented it, but her father's way of protecting her from Lucifer had been too good. She could have been there to save her father from his death, but she was just a girl, just little helpless Rowan McKinley.