Chapter two
Gray smoke rose from green hills, the sounds of battle speeding through the once-snowy landscape of Colorado. The ash of bodies drifted in the air now, mingling with breaths and the sweat and blood of mortals.
And angels.
And demons.
All that fire the angels and their fallen brothers had brought to bear upon the Ancient Enemy had turned the Midwest into a wasteland… Holy and Unholy retribution had only served to anger the things, to swell their ranks, to… Gabriel shuddered, despite his vessel… Feed them. This carnage was only the first wave.
Because,
After the Apocalypse…
After the Apocalypse, something far worse had awakened, in God's absence.
Somehow a Great Old One was stirring from the depths of sleep.
Archangel Gabriel raised his hand to the fray, thinking wistfully about his iTunes account as he blasted another wave of Damn Monsters to temporary oblivion with a nice timely finger snap. Then he smiled down at the masses of grey tentacles and toothy mouths and eyes that were blacker than dear brother Lucifer's moods. Things had well and truly gone to Hell after Castiel took Michael's place as an Archangel. But it hadn't been little brother's fault. He'd tried, died, Fallen and Risen, and gone and been the best of them all. He'd sought to find God, and failing that, brought order to Heaven in His stead, for as long as it had lasted. And those three short mortal years, barely a few breaths in a human's lungs, had been… nice. For some reason it reminded Gabriel of that scene in Blade Runner, when the Lovers find the origami unicorn. Life after Roy. Life after Understanding, after Transformation, Realization. But no angel claimed to know what waited for them afterward. The humans, at least, were assured the relative safety of Heaven or Hell at the time of ending. Ah, Castiel, sweet Castiel… where was Father when you needed Him? Well, Little Brother had done more for Creation lately than Daddy had. Which was why Gabriel was here now, helping some of the little humans Castiel loved so well to escape.
"You had better be breathing, Castiel, for both our sakes. Let's just hope the old goat's still alive!"
Then he yelled a few hallelujahs, slapped his ass, and raised both hands.
"Come and get some prime rib Archangel meat, you bitches!"
And then the things descended on him like a roiling wave of diseased fog, which was funny, because he was standing barefoot in the last patch of snowy ski slope in America.
Things had been so much simpler with Sam and Dean.