Chapter 3

Shell Game

"We understand how dangerous a mask can be. We all become what we pretend to be." Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind

"You're Gabriel?" Tish asked, eying up the new angel suspiciously. She wasn't sure what she found more disturbing, that the Christmas angel had such a warped sense of humor or that something so powerful could be so gentle and doting on the little boy pulling toys out of his toybox.

"The one and only. Surprising, I know."

"Just a little," she said. "Emma's tried to explain what things have been right and wrong in our beliefs about angels, but I always assumed you would be more serious, professional."

"With my two attention hog brothers? There were only two options for those of us born after them, either become grateful for whatever scrap of attention you could get from the old man or the big brothers or you become a cynic. I became a cynic."

Tish watched the little boy as he smiled and played with the angel. "Can't you fix his hand?" she asked.

Gabriel ran his fingers through the boy's light red hair. "We can fix things, but we can't mess with the basic programming. If he'd lost it in an accident, sure. But he was born this way., and even though it means that he will have a rough life, it also makes him who he is I've had it out with the old man about this in the past, same as with the fact that we can't always get involved in human affairs."

Given what had happened to Emma, that was something Tish had been thinking about from the moment she'd first met Castiel. "Why is that?"

"Because there are too few of us and too many of you, and ultimately, humanity is only at its best when it has the ability to choose on its own. I mean, look at Dean, as an easy example. The man was practically an atheist until he had real live proof he was wrong, but for all of the comments my brothers have made about his past and his own problems, you'd be hard-pressed to say his soul wasn't worthy of heading up there." He pointed to the ceiling, but Tish got his meaning. "He's also one of the most independent, choice-focused people I've ever met. He's on par with Dad on that. They both love free will."

He chuckled as he watched Johnny find a tiny Loki doll and excitedly toss it in his direction.

"It's all clear!" came a shout from downstairs.

Gabriel scooped the baby under his arms and pulled him to his chest. Johnny quickly snuggled into place beneath the archangel's chin. Tish couldn't help but smile, yet marvel at the sight. "It must be much simpler to be this young and have no idea that you or his father are any different than anyone else."

"He knows, actually," Gabriel said. "I mean, as much as a baby can know. The kid's the descendant of a few dozen of the heavy hitters, Biblically speaking. Moses, Elijah, Joshua, Ishmael, Abraham, Adam and Eve, Esther, Ruth..." He stopped in the hallway and directed Tish's attention to the little boy. "Watch this." Gabriel didn't seem to be doing anything, but it was clear that he was. Johnny's eyes immediately shut and his left arm moved to touch something in the air. "He can feel my wings. Not sure if he can see them, or if he's just seen Cas's."

"And most people can't feel them?"

"Nope. I'm moving one against your side right now and you are none the wiser." He chuckled as Tish touched the air.

"I guess I'm not a descendant of anyone special."

"Well, most people have a little of Adam and Eve in them," he said. "And you have..." He looked at her closely. "A little of Aaron."

"Moses' brother?" Tish asked as they started down the stairs. "So we are very, very distant cousins, Johnny and I."

"You would be anyway. Most people are related a few times over somehow." They walked into the living room to find a well dressed man in his mid thirties sitting in a chair and looking ill at ease. The door opened to a lanky woman who could have been anywhere between forty and seventy. She had few lines on her face to belie her age, and her gaunt features may have aged her further. Behind her was a young woman close to Emma's age, perhaps closer to Sam or Dean. Her hair was red, and her face animated as they were obviously in the middle of a long conversation."

"How long did it take you to beat Skyrim?" the younger woman was asking as they walked in together.

"Time is very, very relative to me," the other woman said. She had an air of the otherworldly about her, and Tish began to wonder if she was something not human as well. "And I am also very thorough. So it was at least 85 hours."

"Imperials or Stormcloaks?"

"Imperials, but mostly because I was playing an Imperial."

"Tall and lean. It makes sense that you would. I was a Khajiit. I sided with the Stormcloaks."

"Charlie?" the uncomfortable-looking man finally said, which made the redheaded woman look in his direction. "Do you want to start setting up the security system?"

"Sure. Azrael was nice enough to bring all of the boxes onto the porch. You know, she's kind of awesome."

"Also the angel of death," the man said.

"Is that supposed to make her less cool?" Charlie began looking over the electrical and internet connections beside Bobby's decidedly dated computer.

"You play video games now?" Dean asked the angel with so little formality—given Azrael's title—it surprised Tish more than the way he interacted with Castiel.

"Have since Pong."

"Don't get me started on Pong," Charlie said as she crouched on the floor.

#

"So a whole bunch of shifters are going to descend on this town?" Bobby asked, watching as Charlie began to work on his computer system, while talking to Azrael about Skyrim and arrows to knees. "How close do you think they were?"

"Unfortunately," Ash said, as he sat on the sofa with Cas still keeping a close eye on him, "the only one I'm connected to is the so-called 'Alpha.' So I have no idea. But it makes sense that there would be others who could get here at least as quickly as I did."

"And what would their first move be, if they weren't law abiding shifters like yourself?" Bobby asked, beginning to worry about Jody and her break-in downtown.

"Try to get to you. Either cause enough trouble you got involved or find someone you might trust to get here close enough."

"There was a break-in downtown," Bobby said, and though he may have thought of this first, it was a credit to the two boys as their heads shot up and they looked first at Bobby, then at one another, and finally at the shifter wearing their old friend's skin. "What are the odds it's a shifter?"

"Better than usual," Ash said.

"I need to get in touch with Jody now." The police in Sioux Falls, due to the number of supernatural events that tended to hit the town, had protocols for non-human arrests, but they needed a heads up that this was a possibility.

"I'll take you," Azrael said, before either of the two other angels could volunteer. Oddly enough, the angel of death was actually Bobby's second choice of the three. He just didn't trust Gabriel, and though Azrael still had a way to go before she was up there with Cas, she compensated for being damned powerful. "Souls are my business. I can match the soul with the person."

Scratch that. She was all the way to the top now. Even Cas couldn't do that with shifters or skinwalkers, because he saw only a human soul, something Bobby tried not to focus on when he needed to think of them as monsters. "Let's go, then."

Bobby felt a weight rest on his shoulder and less than a second later, they were standing in an alley downtown. He eyed the angel warily; he'd gone angel express a few times over the last few years, and it had never felt like that. Azrael offered him a knowing smile. "Don't go poking at that with a stick, Bobby."

Yeah, that was really going to make him stop.

They'd arrived within a block or so of the jewelry store. The flashing blue and red lights of the patrol cars lit up the small alley where he was now standing beside the angel. He had to admit some appreciation for the fact that Azrael had far more social skills than she appeared to, given her overall offputting demeanor. She at least knew that, despite the fact that Jody and her deputies knew about angels and the supernatural, the public at large did not. It was also probably a good idea not to appear suddenly and give even those aware of angels heart attacks.

As soon as they rounded the corner, Bobby saw two sheriff's cars parked out front, one of which he recognized as Jody's. He quickly crossed the street and tapped on the glass of Jody's car, where she was sitting, calling dispatch on her CB radio. She wound down the window. "Bobby?"

"Your burglar might be a shifter," he said.

"Shit," she hissed, then got on the CB again. "Possible Silver Three in progress. I repeat, possible Silver Three."

She looked behind him to where Azrael was almost certainly standing at this point. "I will be going inside to see if I can spot the shifter by his soul. What are the names of the people who might be inside?"

"Two of my deputies, George Running Deer and Stephanie Arbor, are inside. The owner called from her house, and her name is Clara Varren."

"That will help me to spot an imposter. I will have a look."

"We have a specialist going inside," Jody said into the CB. "Do not fire. I repeat, do not fire at the woman entering in the suit."

Azrael practically glided toward the building. Bobby had to admit that hunting had gotten a lot easier since they became friends with some of Heaven's heavy hitters. He was pretty sure that there was a part of Dean that balked at how easy it was for them now, and once upon a time, Bobby would have, too, but he had been through enough to appreciate that they were no longer alone when they got in over their heads.

"So shifters..." Jody said as she began scanning the laptop in her vehicle. Bobby couldn't help but notice as she switched programs from the criminal database to something else that the name was the same as Ash's company.

"Where did you get that?"

"The boys and I were looking up programs online. I think this was developed as a sort of teacher's aid for mythology classes in college, it's been helpful for us. Lets us make changes and additions. It even matches a lot of what you gave me about various monsters," she said as she scanned through the database."

"First of all," Bobby said, a little insulted she'd pulled that up in the first place, "you have me here. You don't need some kind of creature compendium. Second of all, that program. It was made by a shifter. The one we have at my place who ratted out his family."

Jody looked between the database and Bobby. "What? But this has hunter information. Even on shifters."

"Turns out good ones might just exist, and this one actually wants to help hunters."

"I found Mr. Running Deer unconscious inside," came a voice from behind Bobby. The hunter decided that his earlier praise of the angel might have been premature. She obviously didn't give a damn about scaring people. "I have taken him to a hospital, but I did not cut the connection to the shapeshifter."

"Could you have done that?" Jody asked.

"I could have," Azrael said. "But not without raising the shifter's suspicions. They were close to one another, and I didn't want to risk her safety."

The woman seemed to believe that and gave a sharp nod before seeming to consider what she should do. "George, Stephanie," Jody said into the CB. "We have a lead on the Silver Three. We think he might be armed." Which he almost certainly was now if he had gotten a hold of George's uniform and gun. "I need you to leave the building until we can call for additional back-up."

"Sheriff," came a male voice across the radio, "do you think that's wise?"

"I won't risk either of you. I'd rather you out here with me where we can wait until this burglar sneaks his way out." Bobby had to respect the fact that she kept the anger out of her voice. Everything in her demeanor, from the way her back went straight to how her hand holding the radio mike shook, said that she was pissed off. Not only had the shifter taken George's body, he was using the radio to try to pull the wool over her eyes. "So get your asses back out here."

"There is a good chance," Azrael said once Jody released the button on the mike, "that it will switch to Stephanie if it thinks you're on to it, and there is no guarantee that it will be as kind to her as it was to him."

"You have a code for your deputies if you suspect someone is a shifter?" If Bobby knew his girlfriend, she would. It was the smart thing to do, and Jody tended to do the smart thing.

"Yes. Each deputy has a code. Are you thinking I should tell Stephanie?" Jody asked.

"Actually, I was thinking you should tell 'George.'"

Jody nodded. "Keep him off the trail." Jody got back on the CB. "Stephanie, George, I need you out here soon. Stephanie, I'll need you to talk to our expert out here, tell her what you saw. George, I'm going to need you to take cover behind my car and monitor the building for anything suspicious. Keep a low profile, though. Our expert will handle things."

Both deputies signaled they got the message. Bobby was certain that Dean, who liked to create fake IDs and badges using rock star names, would find her special cue boring, so much so that Bobby wasn't entirely sure what part of her statement over the radio actually was the signal. But the fact it was so basic, so unnoticeable, it made him want to kiss Jody in that moment. Common sense was unbelievably attractive to him.

"What now?" she asked, looking between Bobby and Azrael.

"Now, I wait. Make sure that the area is clear of people, unless you want me to do a lot of memory wiping."

Bobby nodded and grabbed the yellow police line tape to create perimeter as two figures emerged from the building. "George" was playing his part remarkably well, keeping his weapon trained on Stephanie. That was good news. It meant he hadn't shifted to someone else. The hunter barely caught it as Azrael waved her hand to send the gun flying safely beneath Jody's car. Then, the angel, without any physical contact, whammied the shifter so hard that he dropped to the ground almost instantaneously. That only reinforced Bobby's suspicion that this woman was more than just an archangel—and wasn't that just a trip; he'd become blasé about archangels.

"Is he dead?" he asked.

Azrael shook her head. "No. Just unconscious. I suspected you would want him for questioning."

In the meantime, Stephanie was yelling at Jody for not saying her personal warning. Bobby couldn't blame her, though he stood by the tactic for everyone's safety. It was also probably easier for Stephanie than focusing her attention on the powerful being who had taken out a monster with a flick of her wrist.

"We will need to implement something to keep the shifters out of town," she said. "I would suggest a bit of advertising for your business on the main roads in town. A few billboards would suffice." She did another motion with her hand, and Bobby could guess that there were now signs for the salvage yard all over town. "That should lead them out of town and to your house, which is much simpler to protect."

Bobby knew Dean wouldn't like a whole bunch of creatures being directed to the house where his son was, but he and his brother were the reasons that they were in Sioux Falls to begin with.

"We should get 'George' back to the house."

"Agreed." And like that, Bobby found himself back in his home, smack dab in the middle of the panic room.

"So none of these symbols have any effect on you?" he asked.

"I thought you were aware they didn't," Azrael said as she bound the shiftter on the bed in the center of the room.

"We going to talk about the fact that there's no way you're any normal archangel?"

"Again, I thought that went without saying."

"Dean knows, doesn't he?" Bobby asked. He'd noticed the other hunter's strange behavior.

"He does, and he is... I don't know that comfortable is the proper word for it, but perhaps accepting is the best choice," she said. "He wouldn't allow me around his son, otherwise..

"Anyone else?" Bobby didn't think so, since no one was acting nearly half as suspicious as Dean.

"No. Dean's barred from telling."

"Just like I'll be."

"I quite like that I don't have to explain these things to you," Azrael said.

"So I can tell you—"

"Or Dean."

"That you're Death. But no one else." She nodded.

"Now, unless you wish to be here while I investigate this man's soul, I recommend you go upstairs." Bobby thought it better to take the suggestion, and not just because the angel was actually an ancient being. He didn't want to be around while the shifter screamed.

#

Dean had just finished installing the last of the silver doorknobs on the outside of the house and went to the kitchen to check on the turkey. He was giving his family a Thanksgiving if it killed him. He saw Cas, pouting slightly, as he fed Johnny a late lunch. The angel had been effectively evicted from the livingroom when it became obvious that he didn't have the slightest clue about computers or wiring. Even Tish had been authorized to help installing the security system.

Hell, even Metatron and Balthazar had been brought in to help—on opposite sides of the house because things were still weird between them.

"Someone has to watch him, too," Dean said, rubbing his hand over Cas's shoulders as Johnny insisted he get to hold the spoon and Cas tried to convince the boy to at least let him help. Johnny thought he was a pro with a spoon, but he had an uncanny knack of pouring the baby food goop down his arm rather than get any in his mouth.

"I do not like feeling useless," Cas said. "Anyone can feed Johnny."

"With his independent attitude right now, not really. And someone has to keep him safe while we do all this work. Sam and Bobby, I'd trust to keep him as safe as I would. You are the only one who might just do it better." Cas seemed to realize that was one hell of a compliment and offered Dean a proud smile. "I hate to ask this while you're watching Johnny," he said, treading this water carefully, "can you keep an eye on the potatoes?"

Cas let out a sigh, but nodded his head and asked Dean what he needed to look for. He told him, then gave him a quick peck on the lips before prepping to go back outside into the cold. What he didn't expect was to see Bobby coming into the living room the same time he did. "Was it a shifter?"

"It was. Azrael's got it downstairs," Bobby said. "Jody's got her deputies on high alert and I just cornered Balthazar to go heal the one the shifter got the jump on."

"How bad was it?" Dean asked, feeling sick to his stomach at the thought of someone being hurt just because he happened to live in the same town.

"Concussion," Bobby said. "He's fine. And Azrael has a lot of signs around town now leading the shifters to us instead of downtown."

Which meant they would be coming for his house and Johnny. It might have been the necessary thing to do, but it didn't mean he had to like this plan any better. "How long until they get here, do you think?" Dean asked.

"Depends on how many he got through to and how many of those are like our new friend here," Bobby said, jerking his head in Ash's direction.

"There will be a few," Ash said. "I don't pretend that there isn't a higher than normal number of bad apples in the bunch with shifters. Though a lot of that has to do with how we were raised and whether or not we were raised by the Alpha."

"You weren't?" Dean asked. Because it seemed to him if there were going to be any "bad apples" it would be because of the thing who unknowingly raped women in the form of their husbands then killed them after they gave him a baby.

"Nope. Grandmother was, but she settled down once my mom was born and changed her mind about the Alpha. Mom was raised by her and I was raised by my mom. Some of them go bad when they're rejected by the 'normal' parent, like I was. But usually, it's because the shifter parent is kind of shitty at being a mom or dad."

Dean thought back to the shifter they'd encountered just after he got Sam hunting again. He didn't seem like he was raised by the Alpha, which meant he was one of those sad sons of bitches who was left with nothing in terms of family. It almost made him feel bad for the bastard, but not really.

He heard the sound of footsteps on the stairs, followed by Chewie's happy trot behind them. "We've got the wiring set up in the bedrooms," Emma said. "Sam's just about done with the attic."

"Good," Ash said. "Then that means we have some silver to install." He put on a pair of thick leather gloves—not the kind Dean wore working on the car, but the kind that probably cost a pretty penny. It was strange seeing someone wearing his old friend's face but with a sense of style and a hell of a lot more in the way of money. He opened the plastic container he'd brought in from his car and pulled out several new doorknobs. They had a slightly tarnished look and at first glance, they might appear to be pewter, but Dean knew better. "You hunters cut yourselves too often testing for this. We are highly, highly allergic to silver, like some people are to nickel. We touch this stuff and we break out in hives. You'll want to keep them semi-polished, like this. Too much tarnish, it might be enough of a barrier not to work. Too little, anyone will know that's silver and not pewter or steel."

"So you mean all these years we've been cutting up our arms... all we needed to do was touch something silver?" Dean asked.

"Also applies to werewolves, skinwalkers... all of us." At Dean's incredulous look, Ash shrugged. "See what happens when we work together? You get useful information like that."

Dean grabbed the plastic bin, ready to do a little handiwork; he didn't bother this ash because not only was he allergic to the stuff, it was fairly obvious he didn't do this kind of work often. "I'll be right—"

"We have some visitors," Metatron said, appearing so suddenly that Dean nearly dropped the box and sent the silver fixtures clamoring to the ground. "A lot of them. I could see them from the roof. A van with at least eight inside, and two more cars."

On a snowy day, a holiday, there was no reason for anyone to be coming up the road to Bobby's house. He gave a quick look in the kitchen and saw Cas had cleaned their son up with a quick touch of his fingers and was unbuckling him from the high chair. Johnny was in good hands, which meant Dean could keep his focus on the fight heading their way.