CHAPTER FIVE

There was a moment of horrified silence, in which only the further bubbling of a bewildering burst of borborygmi echoed ominously.

Castiel winced, his face looking slightly green. "I don't understand," he grated out through gritted teeth, "I feel... terrible."

"Castiel," began Bobby carefully, "When you say 'be sick', do you mean, you may be coming down with some disease, or..."

"I mean that I believe I am going to throw up, puke, barf, heave, upchuck, spew, hurl, blow chunks, toss my cookies, or my tacos, feed the fish, empty the carrot reserve, get down and get chunky, make a call on the big white phone, drive the porcelain bus to Woof City, or call for my long lost brother Ralph," clarified Castiel with another wince. "At least, those are terms that I have heard Dean use to describe the action I believe my vessel is preparing to take. Although, I would prefer not to speak of it; just using the words is making the feeling worse..."

"Castiel, this is very important," Sam said, "Have you, in your vessel, eaten anything since... since your elevation to godhood?"

Castiel gingerly shook his head. "I have not," he confirmed. He turned miserable eyes to them. "I feel truly dreadful."

"Okaaaaaay," Dean said calmly, in the same tone as a bomb defusing expert who's been working on a device that has just started to beep with an increasing tempo and in a rising tone, "Cas, listen to me. This is probably all those souls that you took in when Purgatory opened."

"But..." Castiel's face bore the confusion and disappointment of a child who has just been told that the Easter Bunny isn't real – before the eggs have been delivered. "I don't understand. I am the new, better god..."

"You started off as an angel, though," Dean reminded him, "And you as an angel, and your vessel, were never intended to contain that much occult... oomph. This is the result.

Castiel nodded gingerly. "Yes," he ventured, "I believe that the word 'oomph' is surprisingly appropriate for what I am feeling."

"There may be a complicating factor here," Sam added. "Cas, were you aware that things called 'Leviathans' were imprisoned in Purgatory?"

The new, better god's slightly green face flushed with the deer-in-the-headlights expression of a child caught with both hands in the cookie jar, one foot wrapped around Mommy's special secret stash of Belgian chocolate and the packet of jerky Daddy was saving for later stashed down his pants. "They are... powerful creatures," he ventured.

"Yes, yes they are," Dean nodded, "Powerful, nasty creatures. Powerful, nasty, bloodthirsty not-nice creatures." Castiel's midriff gurgled ominously again. "And they appear to be getting restless."

"There is nothing to fear," Castiel smiled shakily, "I am perfectly capable of containing and harnessing the Purgatory souls and the Leviathans. I am turning their abomination to good ends!"

"Oh, dear," sighed Sam, "Been there, done that. It all ends in tears in the panic room, Cas."

"This time it will not," Castiel said with more conviction than his expression conveyed. "I assure you, I am in complete control... urrrrrrrrrrrp!"

A burp that Dean might, under less dire circumstances, have given at least seven out of ten issued from Castiel's astonished face. A small grey cloud of vapour emerged; in the smoky wisps there formed a face, looking just as astonished as the angel. It had a snout, and pointy ears, and let out a startled yelp.

Bobby deftly grabbed a small spray bottle from a bookshelf, and gave it a squirt. It dissolved with another small yip.

"Colloidal silver," he announced, waving the bottle, "Useless as a non-conventional medical therapy, but works like mace on werewolves. And that, friends and neighbours, was a werewolf soul making a break for it."

"I apologise, Bobby," mumbled Castiel, "It appears to have escaped as a result of the... discomfort I am currently experienciiiiiurrrrrrrp!"

Another grey wisp issued from Castiel's mouth, assuming a surprised-looking rudimentary visage. It bared a mouthful of smoky fangs; Sam picked up the butter knife, and drew it smartly through the middle of the cloud.

"Vampire," he announced, watching the small cloud dissolve. "Decapitation works."

"This is most... embarrassing," muttered Castiel, "I apologise for this temporary disruption to my omnipotence... uuurrrrrrp!"

"Changeling," noted Dean, pulling a lighter from a pocket and using it to deal with the small astonished cloud.

"Oh dear," Castiel murmured, his face going from green to white, "I do apologise, I believe that I am now about to be..."

Dean was a veteran assessor of that look. From the age of four, he had been watching his Sammy closely, and had seen every cause of abrupt (and occasionally projectile) illness play out in his little brother: the bottle drained too quickly and greedily by a hungry baby, one too many snails tasted by a curious toddler, the ingestion of a whole basket of eggs gathered at a pre-school Easter hunt, the colourful yet inevitable result of a candy floss overdose at a carnival, the aftermath of a school banana-eating contest, the completely predictable progress of the first hangover, and many after that one, Dean was intimately familiar with the sequence of events. The vaguely bemused look, the slightly worried sounding apology for what was about to transpire, the slight sheen of sweat, the sudden pallor, the deepening, quickening breathing, and finally the wince and the hitching, hiccuping gasps that presaged the onset of an emergency evacuation (one exit, no waiting)...

So he'd dashed into the kitchen and grabbed a bucket and shoved it under Castiel before the gastrointestinally inconvenienced angel even realised what was happening.

"Oh, that's just... " Sam couldn't come up with a word adequate to describe his revulsion at the... stuff that splattered into the bucket.

"Go get some tissues," Dean instructed, "And some towels." Sam scrambled to obey as Bobby reluctantly peered at the grey, mushy... stuff. He grabbed for a flask of holy water, and gave a generous slosh into the bucket. A dozen small, bewildered pairs of eyes appeared, and glared accusingly up at him from its depths.

"That'll hold 'em for now," Bobby commented, "But we gotta dispose of 'em properly, and that means putting 'em back where they came from."

"I am sorry to impose upon you like this, Bobby," Castiel quavered, "As soon as I have re-established my... equilibrium, I shall..."

Bobby put a hand on Castiel's shoulder. "Son," he said gently, "I may technically be younger than you, but right now, I'm goin' to give you some advice. When you find yourself in a hole, the first thing you gotta do, the very first thing, is stop diggin'."

"This is wrong, Cas," Dean told him, "And it's making you sick. It has to end. We have to put these things back in Purgatory, before they really hurt you, or before they get out and start wreaking havoc."

Castiel closed his eyes and looked defeated. "I want to be a better god," he moaned sadly. "I want to be there. I want to help. I want to fix things. I want to... be sick again." He hunched over the bucket once more, parting company with a larger volume of... stuff than the first time.

"Tissues," announced Sam without preamble, shoving the box into Dean's hands. Dean gave Castiel one to wipe his mouth with.

"We gotta shove those things back into Purgatory," Bobby announced, "We gotta open it up, and shove 'em back in."

"But... how?" asked Sam, bewildered. "We need an eclipse, and we need the right blood..."

Slowly, as if he was afraid that moving too fast might set him heaving again, Castiel put a hand into his coat pocket, and pulled out a jar of dark liquid. "I have it with me," he told them quietly. "I was keeping it with me, to make sure that Crowley didn't get hold of it and do anythiiiiiiiinghrgrglrhglrhglaaaaaaaargh!"

"You think too literally, Sam," Bobby told him with a grimace, noticing how full the bucket was getting. "It's the symbolism that's important. That, and we're desperate. Desperate enough to make it work."

"How?" demanded Sam, as Dean made soothing noises to the gurgling angel.

Bobby looked thoughtful. "If we can get him as far as the bathroom, I believe I know how," he said grimly.

"What do you think, Cas?" asked Dean, proffering another tissue. "Can you make it as far as the bathroom."

"Yes," affirmed the queasy-looking angel, "However, I cannot promise that I can get there without needing to throw up again."

"Well, we gotta risk it," instructed Bobby.

It was a strange and carefully shuffling procession, with Castiel holding his bucket, Dean and Sam holding up Castiel, and Bobby making frantic preparations ahead of them. When they finally made it up the stairs, with a pause for further purging that left the bucket dangerously full, he was ready to proceed. He told them what he needed.

"What?" Sam blinked in disbelief. "You cannot be serious!"

"Look into my eye, boy," growled Bobby.

"How can you possibly think that will work?" Sam demanded.

"Symbolism!" Bobby snapped. "That's what it's all about, ya idjit! Symbolism! That, and the fact that the one thing we know, the one single thing we absolutely know about the Big Guy who designed the whole shebang, is that God has a sense of humour!"

"It's true," mumbled Castiel, from where Dean had him propped against the wall. "My oldest brothers often told stories of how Father has such a sense of humour, He made Uriel look like a Puritan preacher. And Uriel was the funniest angel in the garrison."

"So, you stop your complainin'," Bobby went on, "I need your brother here to help Cas, and I gotta read the ritual, so unless you got a better idea, you get up there and do what needs to be done to fix this clusterfuck!"

"Uh, guys," interjected Dean in the worried voice of the bomb tech who's seriously considering just dropping the wire cutters and running as fast as possible in any direction, "I think we might need to hurry here..." Castiel's face was screwing up in what was clearly the prelude to another voluminous vomit. "They've been getting more... voluminous with each, er, discharge, and the last one filled at least half the bucket..."

"Now, Sam," directed Bobby in a tone that brooked no argument. With a put-upon sigh, the younger Winchester did as he was told, trying to console himself with the idea that in five years they would look back and laugh at this, whilst knowing that in reality, once the seriousness of the situation had abated, Dean would never let him hear the end of it.

Symbolism. Symbolism and God's sense of humour. It was an awfully thin premise on which to hang the casting of a spell that could be instrumental to the fate of humanity. He could only hope that Bobby's usual knack for This Sort Of Thing was on the money in this instance.

The opening of a gateway to Purgatory required the reading of a rite, over particular symbols and sigils marked in a mix of the blood of a virgin mixed with the blood of a native of Purgatory, during an eclipse. An eclipse, that strange state of not quite day but not quite night, a fleeting half-way state, teetering between day and night as Purgatory does between Heaven and Hell, being when a full moon blocks the light of the sun...

Sam climbed up onto the vanity, blocking the sunlight and casting the bathroom into shadow. Dean held a slumping Castiel over the toilet, of which the bowl, rim and cistern had been carefully inscribed with the blood mixture.

Sam turned his back to the small bathroom window, sighed, and dropped his pants.

And as the full moon blocked out the light of the sun, Bobby began to read.

I have no excuses, except sleep deprivation and too many red sweeties. And it's going to get worse. Much worse.

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