High Noon – chpt 14.

by: sifi.

OOooOO

Laura opened her eyes and stood up unsteadily then looked around the cavern, "Okay. The muscles are attached to the new bone... I've done everything I can."

"You pushed too hard," Sam whispered into her ear, "AGAIN."

She met eyes with each of them one by one; Shep, Bobby, Imdugud, and Ammit, "Get him through the veil into Cernunnos' grotto, the sidhe can finish the job. Wait for us as long as you can."

"Where do you think you're going?" Bobby asked.

"Sam and I have something that needs to be done. There's only one place left that has a fire hot enough to re-forge the part of the tablets that Nergal still possesses."

Imdugud sputtered, "You're not talking..."

"Yeah." She nodded tiredly.

"Didn't you just come from there?" Ammit growled.

"Yeah."

"What? Laura? What're you...?" Sam started.

"There isn't enough of it left to make a sword..." Imdugud pointed out.

"A dagger can kill just as easily as a sword, or a lance, or a short-sword, or..." she rattled off.

"I know I know..." the demi-god nodded, his voice rife with exasperation.

"Those who wouldn't be evacuated are going to be assembling on the far side of Massacre Rocks, right now Tommy's outfitting them at Bobby's place..."

Shep gasped, "Tommy? He's alive?" and his eyes began to water.

Laura smiled moving toward the older man, "He is alive and well... in fact he's the reason I'm here if you take my meaning."

"Not really..." Shep shook his head, "But I don't care... my boy's alive!" he sniffed throwing his arms around her as a joyous sob shook him.

"You were dead... how do you know what all's goin on?" Bobby asked curiously, "Was it some kinda... all knowing thing?"

Laura chuckled, "Not quite. Let's just say while I was filling up this new body here... what DO I look like by the way?" she asked, "Cernunnos and Anunnaki kinda gave me a crash course in what was going on and what the main plan is at this point." She looked down inspecting as much of her self as possible then shook her head, "guess I'll find out eventually."

"You look like you but... different," Sam grinned, "So what's the plan then?"

She nodded, "You guys get Enki to the grotto, get him healed up... they'll fill you in once you're there... and if we can't meet you back there, we'll get to the plain behind the rocks as quickly as we can," she turned to Sam, "You've got a LOT to learn and not much time I'm afraid," she warned handing the partial scroll to him while sliding the conjoined tablets that had been made at Bobby's into the messenger bag. "Come on."

She handed the newly made sword to Sam and linked her arm through his before nodding at the sidhe who'd brought her there, "Okay."

OOooOO

"Shouldn't we leave this with Dean?" Sam asked.

"No."

"Where are we going?" he asked as they stepped off the lush grasses and onto a rocky, craggy barren plain.

"The road to dead, we have to get to Ereshkegal's throne room," she said softly.

"Ereshkegal? You can't go there she'll kill you!"

"She already did," she smiled tremulously, "the fire in her throne room is the only one left that he could use to burn out Enki's essence from the piece of bronze he still has."

"Without Enki's essence as part of the metal itself, it can be used against him sure, but he's IN a mortal body..." Sam shook his head, "He CAN be killed with relatively simple means."

"His body can be killed with ease..." she nodded.

Sam stopped and turned her to face him, "But the soul is what he really wants to kill," he breathed as the light bulb went on inside.

"Exactly. Ereshkegal is the goddess of the underworld, part of her job is to purify the remnants of a soul's earthly life OUT of existence. So when it returns it has no inborn prejudices or preconceived notions about what it's supposed to become, or what it's supposed to do..." she explained.

"A clean slate."

"Exactly, and since Enki's essence is part of the tablets hence part of the sword, if Nergal's going to try and use the portion of it that he still has in his possession AGAINST him... he's going to have to burn out that essence. Otherwise it could never be used to hurt him... see?" she explained.

"Don't you think we should have some backup if we're going to confront that son of a bitch?"

"Believe it or not, we're not going to confront him yet, there's something more important than whether or not he can burn away your father's essence from a chunk of metal. We're going for the third edge." she smiled.

"Everybody keeps saying that... I don't understand."

She reached up and patted his cheek with a smile, "They're speaking figuratively... sorta. WE are the three sided blade that can stop him, your father, you and me."

He nodded understanding, "The three of us working together."

"Yep."

Sam dropped a hand onto her shoulder, "I can feel you... you have a body here... but... out there? We had to..." he tried to explain.

"Salt and burn," she nodded, "I know... that's why they had Tommy sculpt this one for me."

"Sculpt? Out of what?" he asked.

"Flesh and blood and bone Sam, the same way I remade your father's humerus."

Is it strange that I don't even think about dad when she refers to him as my father? "That was clay..." he thought for a second and nodded to himself, "Okay, mud, clay, Enki made man out of the stuff of Earth so that he'd have a connection to the world... okay..." he shrugged, "Y'know scientifically none of this stuff would ever hold up."

"Depends on the kind of science you're talking about now doesn't it? We're in an entirely different realm, literally a different dimension... the laws of nature and physics that apply here may very well be different from those that apply in our natural realm which is why so many of the things we can do here couldn't be done there... and why they could be done when we first became part of the world, before the realms or universes started to expand and drift apart." she grinned.

"Y'know Dean warned me never to get you talking about multiple dimensions."

A low vibration rumbled through the ground against their feet seconds before a mighty explosion rolled through the air.

"He's ahead of us... we have to get to the seventh gate..." She broke into a run toward a rising wall of darkness on the horizon.

"What's at the seventh gate?"

"The tablets of destiny... you have to command them."

"I thought he had half of 'em?" Sam's brows furrowed in confusion.

"Duplicates. Gader'el created the sword at Enki's command. He knew that there was no more power that he would ever need than those tablets at his master's fingertips, so he made a duplicate set, bound them too to Enki and forged the sword to do his will."

"Wait a minute... you mean to tell me that the demons Marax brought out to join this fight..." he started to ask.

Laura shook her head, "I think so. It looks like the highest ranking of the demons and demi-gods that came? Those had had been gathered by Azazel and were waiting to follow you...looks like they've been loyal to the family, to you for several millennia."

Sam slowed to a stop overwhelmed and quaking inside as he shook his head, "Hoh..." he puffed, "I can't...Laura."

Gently she cupped his face, "Yes you can. After Tiamat got the fourth tablet back from you guys she put it back where it belonged, it's one of the four panels of the seventh gate."

"How do you know that?" he asked.

Memory of fire and the hard stony floor beneath her brought more pain than the corpse around her had been able to feel at the time. She had leaned back watching the flames fill the writing on the back of the doors, illuminating it, and the words filled her mind, but it could not be her that would speak them.

All four panels had been alight with the first written language of the Gods until she knew those words by heart. But to learn the words by rote would not serve their purpose, the need was to FEEL them, and for that he would have to learn them on his own and know them in his own heart.

She startled at the memory of the clacking sound of the bones that had kept her prisoner and remembered thinking then as she did once more, it will take them both. This is why I came, THIS is what's important.

OOooOO

"Dude you alright?" Myron Casey put his comic book down and didn't quite know whether to move forward or back as the man with the blood running down his face crossed the open floor of the diner.

Slowly he moved forward and poured a glass of water for the guy who looked about to drop. It was obvious he'd been running, and it was obvious he was in a bad way, between the dried and baked-in blood, his clothes were already salt stained, indicating he'd sweated out as much of his water as his body could stand to loose.

I got a walking corpse here... he thought knowing the signs all too well. He grew up in the Utah heat and knew the stretch of highway that ran past the stop and across the desert.

"You need to sit down man... c'mere..." he moved around the counter, feeling his own breath suddenly cramping tightly in his chest and throat as he maneuvered the man to a chair, "I'm gonna call and get you an ambulance... just sit back and relax okay... sip the water..." his chest felt like it was caving in on itself and his heart skipped several beats, "don't... gulp...what the hell?" he wondered as his limbs seemed to turn to lead and his knees buckled. He grasped at the counter on the way down, he could've sworn his hand hit a stool instead, but aside from the pressure and the bounce of his line of sight he suddenly felt nothing.

Only as the last vestiges of his soul were being torn from his body did he see the swarm of warty gray creatures that seemed to cover him, having pounced like a pride of lions on a kill.

"Heh...help..." he reached toward the salt encrusted man, his dying vision clear enough to see something hideous inside, something undeniably... evil as the outer shell walked around the counter, and as if it knew exactly where to find it... reached under and withdrew the rifle.

I had to be a good guy and tell Rick I could handle the shift on my own... son of a bitch! He thought as the creature wearing the man-suit crouched before him and dug through his pockets.

The last thing Myron Casey saw was an impossible visage heading back out into the Utah heat with his car keys in hand. Then, with relief he simply ceased.

OOooOO

He slid behind the wheel, cranked over the engine and turned on the air. He then opened the cell phone and dialed Nationwide Information.

"City and state please?"

"I'm not sure of the city... but South Dakota is the state..." he smiled faintly as the air began to turn cool.

OOooOO

"What are we waiting for?" Sam whispered as they peered around the edge of the shattered wall. I've never felt anything like this before he thought running his hand over the black stone. IS it stone? Or is it metal? he wondered briefly before he caught sight of those huge black wings moving deep in the shadows.

The ground vibrated and something huge cracked thunderously, whatever it was I bet it was made of this, he caressed the wall again.

"We need him to go away," she draped her arm over his back, pressing her lips to his ear, "You MUST remember the first language... you MUST remember how to read it... the words will summon and harness the energies your father will need to channel to either banish or kill him."

"I can't read that!" he hissed pointing at what looked like scratches on the back of the door opposite their position.

"You HAVE to, or this sword will NOT be able to serve its purpose and we will lose," she said.

"I don't understand," he shook his head.

"This," she tapped the blade, "is already PART of him, and through him, part of you, but to become the extension of either of you that it needs to be, it must be given its destiny. It must be given life... and only you or Enki can do that... and in order to do that... THOSE words must be incanted, but to learn them is only ONE thing... to bring them to life they must be felt. And for that you need time," she explained then wrapped her hand around his, " and that's my job. Now, give me the sword..."

"What? You're not gonna go face that monstrosity!"

"We need him drawn away from the throne room... Ereshkegal has fled..." she shook her head, her lips pursed, clearly disappointed, "The coward..." then pressed her lips to his cheek, "If anything happens, call the sword... it will respond to you as well as him."

"Laura..." he shook his head.

"I've been dying and returning for twenty four hundred years Sam... what's one more time huh?" she smiled tremulously, cupping his face on one side while she pressed her forehead to his temple.

The ground beneath them trembled with a series of deep poundings, a titanic clash beat the air around them and before she could let go of him, a towering melee poured out of the entryway.

She shoved the young man behind her, her eyes quickly distinguishing the two gallas from Nergal as their claws tore and slashed at the intruder's twelve foot tall obsidian body.

The marauder bellowed a nauseating sound and overhead the sky filled with a swarm of dark gray igigi summoned to aid their master.

Laura pushed Sam deeper into the shadows behind her and covered him with her body until the summoned had passed to descend on the gallas.

Strong hands fell, one to her shoulder, the other reaching in front of her to her son. Without hesitation the sword came up, the point at the hollow of the other woman's throat. As Marduk raised his gaze he saw murder in his mother's eyes.

"Come this way, the gallas will try to keep him busy. If they can retrieve the scroll they will bring it to you." Ereshkegal motioned to a small trap door in the wall.

He glanced between the women.

Ereshkegal, goddess of the underworld was a bronze beauty that set his heart racing, between the smooth flowing curves of her body and the lusty mouth he could imagine capturing; and Inanna the warrior goddess who'd brought his very soul into existence and would gratefully either kill or die for either of her men. In his mind's eye he could see the two of them on the balcony of their room. As a child he had often watched their rapturous abandon as they possessed one another, and as he saw his father take her staking his claim with sheer joy, his own center burned with desire.

Inanna nodded, guiding Ereshkegal a fair distance from her son with the point of the sword.

"My job is done Ina... my vengeance exacted..." she nodded toward the melee of rolling stony giants, "You know what his fate is to be..."

"I know what is HAS been before... but only my lord and king will have the final say."

Ereshkegal nodded her understanding, "Come."

Sam felt his brows crease, but allowed himself to be led by the hand through the human sized door that would take them into the throne room.

Outside of the gate, on the cracked and baked plain the battle continued, the gallas wielded their hooked chains with unrivaled expertise, tearing through the marauders igigi troops, shredding them as they flew, but to keep their attention split between the encroaching pawns and the marauder himself was inevitably a losing battle.

Laura turned to Sam, "You must FEEL it... you will remember but you must feel it to do so."

He shook his head, "What do you mean?"

At a loss for words, miserably unable to explain what must be done, she shook her head, "You'll figure it out, I have faith in you."

Ereshkegal moved to her sister's side, girded for battle, "Shall we go buy our king some time?"

Inanna nodded smiling brightly and pressed her palm to Sam's cheek.

Faintly he shook his head, on fire from the inside as he cupped her face and pressed his lips hungrily to hers, his heart pounding deafeningly in his ears while his body burned, "I love you," slipped almost inaudibly into her mouth as her arms wrapped around him, her fingers through his hair and his every rock hard inch pressed to her firm but yielding curves for just a moment.

With a final capture of his lower lip between hers she released the man, "I love you too," then nodded at the doors, "Now... remember."

In a breath the warrior females, with their swords held high ran full speed toward battling giants.

OOooOO

tbc.

Please R&R.

thanks.

sifi.