Chapter 7 Lies the Whispering Wind
West Keep, Lebanon, Kansas
The guards on the keep wall gave a ragged cheer as the gleaming susvees pulled through the gates and Dean looked around in surprise as people came out of the buildings that lined the inner walls, watching them as they drove down the length of the southern bailey toward Franklin's. Bad enough he was driving something that looked like a kid's toy, he thought uncomfortably, he didn't need a friggin' parade to go with it.
Swinging the vehicle's blunt nose around, he stopped it near the entrance and turned off the motor.
"Glad to see you made it," Franklin said, walking out and looking at the vehicle appraisingly. "Told you they'd be fine, didn't I?"
"Coming home was easy," Dean said, swinging down from the cab. "Getting there, not so much."
"Dean!"
He turned to see Bobby walking down beside the deep tracks the machines had left in the powder, Ellen on his heels.
"We think we've narrowed the location of the Grigori," Bobby wheezed as he reached him. "This side of the Rockies, in New Mexico."
"Somewhere around Santa Fe, maybe," Ellen added, reaching out to touch a bruise on the side of his face, her expression changing to a scowl. "What happened?"
He tipped his head away from her. "Just the usual."
"I've got a shed for these, Dean, down the way," Franklin interjected, pointing. "It's next to the arms store, so whatever you've got packed in the caboose can go straight in."
Dean glanced at him. "Keys are in it, knock yourself out," he said shortly, turning back to Bobby. "We can talk about the Grigori later, can't we?"
"Sure," Bobby said, looking surprised.
"Come on, Singer, let the man get some hot food and a cold beer," Ellen said. "We'll fill him on all the details when he's had a chance to rest."
Dean looked around as Nate walked over. Rufus had taken his vehicle straight to the keep, to get Billy to Kim as fast as possible. He was starting to wish he'd had the kid with him.
"Adam, you're on duty, get Jules and Roger and get these machines into the shed and unpacked," Franklin barked out behind them. Dean turned to watch his half-brother scurry past. He hadn't spoken to him since Amarillo and he realised he shouldn't've let that slide as he watched the young man turn his face aside and head into the workshops without looking at him.
"Dean tell you about the wolves?" Nate asked Bobby, lifting his arms and stretching his back.
"No," Ellen said, looking at Dean. "What about the wolves?"
"Hot food and cold beer, remember?" he countered, walking past her and toward the keep. He couldn't have cared less about food or beer right now, he thought, hearing the squeak of their footsteps behind him on the dry powder. He lengthened his stride a little.
"And tigers," Nate added to the pair behind him and he rolled his eyes. Well, Nate could fill them in on all the details. The job was done.
He walked through the tunnel, hearing Ellen's voice but not the men's as they dropped further behind. The snow was still falling fitfully, flurries being pushed around by eddies of wind in between the high walls. He saw Rufus on the steps of the keep and sped up a little more.
"Billy with Kim?" he asked the hunter as he got close.
Rufus nodded. "She didn't give me a rating."
"Too early," he said, glancing down at the susvee. "Grab a trainee. Franklin's got a shed waiting."
"Dean!"
He turned around, recognising the voice, his stomach sinking a little. "Hey, Ben."
"I'm glad you're back, you made it just in time!" Ben said, his voice cracking and rising in his excitement, gesturing inside the keep. "Come and see what we've been doing!"
"Uh, maybe in a little while, kiddo," he said reluctantly. "I've got a few –"
He caught Rufus' quickly hidden grin from the corner of his eye as he watched Ben's face fall. "But you've been gone for weeks."
"Yeah, well …" he trailed off uncomfortably. "Uh, okay, sure, if you can make it quick." He gave in hopelessly, hearing Rufus chuckle behind him, and Ellen's voice gaining volume again as the three hunters approached the steps.
"And do you think he's gonna tell us anything about –?"
He hurried into the keep after Ben.
The hall, as huge as it was, was almost dwarfed by the twenty foot conifer that had been dragged in and set in a massive concrete tub between the two sets of stairs, dressed from top to bottom in lights and tinsel and glowing balls, the branches weighed down with candies and decorations.
He stared at it, wondering how on earth they gotten the damned thing in.
"It's awesome, isn't it?" Ben said, looking up at it with pride. "We made it – not the tree, duh, but all the decorations and the star and most of the balls are really hollow with candles or candies on the inside, Mrs Philps said they were like piñatas, you know where you can break the ball and the candies spill out, and the kids – I mean the little kids – will be able to do that Christmas morning –"
Dean looked down at him for a moment, then over his head to Rufus, the hunter's dark eyes crinkled up in amusement.
"– but that's not the cool thing, come on," Ben continued, blithely missing Dean's gusty exhale and Rufus' snort, as he turned right and walked fast toward the tall, arched doorway.
"Leave you to it," Rufus said cheerfully. Dean gave him a dry look and followed Ben through the doorway and into the series of interconnected living areas that Liev had designed to satisfy the needs of the different groups living in the keep. Ben slowed down, pointing out the decorations that wreathed each of the rooms, specifically those he liked the best or had helped with.
Rockwell on acid, Dean thought in bemusement, letting his gaze travel over the green boughs and fairy lights and candy canes that seemed to have overtaken the rooms wherever he looked. He stopped in the double-wide doorway of the last and largest room. At the end, to the side of the enormous hearth, a nativity scene stood, almost life-sized, the group carved carefully from softwood, oiled and polished to a high satin sheen that glowed in the soft golden lights of the room. He couldn't raise much enthusiasm for the subjects, but the craftsmanship was pretty fucking extraordinary, he thought, walking closer.
Ben stood beside the sheep, beaming at him and he looked down at it, brows rising. "You did the sheep?"
"Well," Ben hedged, a little anxiously. "I had a lot of help but yeah, this one's mine."
"He has a natural talent for it, I think," a light tenor voice said behind them and Dean looked around, seeing a short, stocky man standing there, the simple black suit and white collar making his occupation, at least, obvious.
"You must be Dean Winchester," the priest said, holding out his hand. "I was wondering when I'd get to meet you, Ben's been telling me a lot about you. Father McConnaughey."
Dean took the offered hand and shook it, sliding a glance at Ben. "Has he?"
The priest smiled at the wariness in his face. "All good, have no doubt." He released Dean's hand and gestured to the sofa behind him. "I've heard you like a good whiskey?"
Dean cocked a brow. "From time to time." He looked back at the carved statues. "Did you do these?"
"Lord, no," Father McConnaughey said with a self-deprecating laugh. "No, those are the work of Michael. Michael Farino. We were both rescued by Elias."
"Oh," Dean said, nodding and following the priest to the sofa. "You're over at the east tower?"
"Uh, no, actually I have the rooms beside the chapel, along the inner bailey wall. Alex, the lady I met when I arrived, said that there were a few people who would welcome a new priest and the chapel had been empty."
He nodded. "Well, welcome to Lebanon. The … uh … sculptor, Michael –?"
"Michael is the coolest, Dean," Ben said, dropping to floor beside him. "He's nineteen and he plays guitar, nearly as good as Rudy."
Father McConnaughey smiled. "It's all true, a very talented young man. The nativity was his idea, and all the older children have been working on it for the last four weeks. He's really had an impact on them."
"That's … good, I guess," Dean said, glancing back at the figures. He leaned forward as he recognised the face of Mary. "He used Alex for Mary?"
Ben laughed. "Yeah, she wouldn't pose for him, too busy she said, so he asked if he could take a bunch of photos of her and she said yes. You recognise everyone else?"
Dean looked more closely at the faces – Joseph was … Maurice? The three wise men … he frowned and swallowed a laugh as he belatedly recognised Chuck, Mel and Elias. The shepherds were less obvious. He thought one of them was Bobby but without the baseball cap he realised it was hard to be sure.
"That's pretty awesome," he said, looking from the padre to Ben.
"I told you!" Ben grinned.
"Yeah, you did," Dean agreed indulgently. "It's good to meet you, but I – uh – just got back and –"
"Of course," Father McConnaughey said immediately, standing up. "I won't keep you, a real pleasure to meet you. I'd like to talk to you about a few things, but nothing urgent."
Dean looked at him a little doubtfully. "If it's anything you need, you can see Alex or Liev anytime, padre."
The priest nodded readily. "This has more to do with the journeys you will be undertaking, not the needs of the people already under your protection, Mr Winchester."
"What journeys?" Dean asked suspiciously, his neck prickling.
Father McConnaughey's eyes widened slightly. "I was told that it would be you who is undertaking the closing of the gates of Hell?"
Dean's gaze flashed down to Ben, his brows drawing together as he looked back at the man in front of him. "That's – there's nothing solid about that right now."
"I know," Father McConnaughey said in a low voice. "But I can help, when the time comes. I wanted you to know that."
"Have you spoken to anyone else about this? Bobby or Ellen or Jerome?" Dean asked him, taking a step closer.
"No," the priest said, shaking his head. "Father Emilio said I should speak directly to you – and only to you."
"Father Emilio?" What the hell was the Jesuit playing at now, he wondered irritably? "How do you know him?"
"Ah, we spent some time together, when I was younger, in the Vatican."
That put a different slant on things, Dean thought uneasily. "I'll talk to you tomorrow," he said abruptly. "With Father Emilio, if he's around."
"That would be ideal," the priest said. "Don't let me keep any longer," he added, looking at the bruises on the younger man's face. "I'm sure you have things to do."
Too many, Dean thought sourly. He nodded at the man and looked down at Ben, wondering how safe it was to leave him with the priest who knew a lot more than he was letting on. "You got stuff you're supposed to be doing, Ben?" he asked, the question coming out a little gruffly.
Ben looked up at him, his eyes widening at the tone, then he nodded, dropping his gaze to the floor.
"Better get on with it, then," Dean said, gesturing to the doorway and following the boy out.
What the hell was that, he wondered? Father Emilio and another priest talking about the gates of Hell? And what did they know about closing them that the order didn't – apparently? Or maybe Jerome had new information and had told the Jesuit, who'd passed it on? Whatever was going on, he thought, Alex would know about it and she could fill him in – the broad strokes at the very least.
He shook his head and lifted his hand in acknowledgement of Ben's parting wave, turning for the offices and the kitchens. His stomach was rumbling and he needed to grab something before he went up to the apartment.
"Dean – looking everywhere for you," Mel said, falling into step with him. Dean sighed. "Alex said you got in two hours ago."
He looked at his watch disbelievingly. "Crap."
"We've got those kids from the last intake – the fearless vampire hunters, you meet them?"
"No," he said shortly, turning into the kitchen and looking around for something – anything – to eat.
"They were with Nate and Toby?" Mel said, following the hunter's gaze around the kitchen. "You looking for something?"
"Food," Dean growled, going to the fridge. He didn't know what he was doing here, there would be food – his kind of food – in the apartment. He should've gone straight there.
Mel walked around the long pine table and opened a cupboard, pulling out a fresh loaf of bread and a dish of butter and carrying them to the table. Dean looked at it and shrugged inwardly as Mel pulled out a knife and cut a couple of slices from the end.
"Fearless vampire hunters?" he asked, curious in spite of everything else.
"Yeah, too many movies from the old days, but they want to start training as hunters."
He pulled a wedge of cheese and two bottles of beer from the fridge and put them beside Dean, using the edge of the table to lever the top off his and swallowing a mouthful. Dean looked up at him.
"Where's Maurice?" he asked, slicing the cheese and knocking the top off his bottle. "Or Vince?"
"Maurice is over in Michigan right now," Mel said. "Vince is training his plus Rufus' last intake."
"Yeah, well, Rufus is back now, so go annoy him about it, not my problem."
The broad-shouldered blond hunter grinned down at him, pulling out a chair and turning it around, dropping into and resting an arm along the back. "Well, Bobby told me to come to you."
"Huh," Dean grunted through a mouthful of cheese and bread. "Bobby should be training too."
Mel shook his head. "Says he too old for that shit. Told me you needed to know about it."
Dean closed his eyes. "Who's here?"
"Apart from thee, me and Rufus?" Mel asked sardonically. "Bobby, Ellen, Elias, Nate – I presume he's back too – Toby … that's about it, I think."
"Where's Kelly?"
"Working out of Ghost Valley with Jackson and Riley while they're fortifying the houses over there."
"What's wrong with Toby – or Elias for that matter? They're both experienced?"
Mel shrugged. "Bobby didn't know if you'd seen them in action, and he didn't want the trainees taught the wrong –"
Dean snorted. "They're both alive, aren't they? Since when did we become elitist about training? Tell Toby and Elias they're both on duty from now on, and send Rufus' bunch over to Kelly for a few weeks." He looked down at the beer, feeling his frustration rising. "This isn't fucking brain surgery, Mel! Whoever's here can handle this crap, it doesn't need a rubber stamp from me!"
"Right you are, boss."
"And quit that, will ya?" He stood up, finishing his beer and tossing it in the trash can in the corner of the room, picking up his knife and dropping it in the sink. "Where's Alex?"
"She was in the office when I saw her," Mel said, standing up. "But I think Bobby was looking for you too."
"I saw Bobby," Dean said abruptly. "And I want –"
He cut himself off and turned, walking out of the kitchen and down the hall to the offices, opening the door to the one she used the most and peering inside. Maria and Freddie looked up curiously at him.
"Where's Alex?"
"She left here about an hour ago," Maria said, glancing at Freddie who confirmed with a nod. "She didn't say where she was going, sorry."
He sighed and backed out, closing the door and looking indecisively down the hall. The main stairs were too busy, he thought. Too easy for him to get trapped by someone there again. He turned around and headed for the smaller back stairs that led around the exterior walls, giving access to the narrow casement windows that Liev had put in for sniper fire.
He made it to their floor without seeing anyone else and walked down the curving hall. Opening the door, he walked in and stood still for a moment, listening. He couldn't hear anything in the small apartment and he wondered if she was here. Even if she wasn't, he could still grab a shower and an hour's sleep, he thought. He closed the door and walked into the small living room, seeing the light on desk as he came around the corner and Alex getting to her feet.
"Hey," she said quietly, her eyes warm and welcoming and a slow smile lifting one side of her mouth.
He crossed the room in two long strides and looked down at her, wrapping his arms around her as she lifted hers to encircle his neck, her face tilted up to him. He saw her focus briefly on the side of his face but her gaze shifted back to his eyes and she didn't say anything.
"I'm sorry I didn't –"
"Sssh," she said, tucking her head against the side of his neck, maple-gold curls soft against his skin. He lowered his head to her shoulder and closed his eyes, breathing in her scent, aware that he probably didn't smell as good himself, but unable to care about that right this minute. As he'd known it would, the unbearable weight fell off him and the deep breath he drew in came easily and without effort for the first time in three weeks.
Litteris Hominae, Lebanon, Kansas
Felix looked down at the brittle papyrus documents on the table and sighed, picking up the flat-headed tweezers and carefully lifting the top one to the other pile. On the other side of the polished table, now almost covered with similar texts, books, notepads, printouts, pens, pencils, miniature ultraviolet lamps, magnifying glasses and the miscellaneous debris of the researchers, Jerome took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose, squinting past his fingers to look questioningly at the older man.
Feeling his gaze, Felix glanced up, mouth twisting into a rueful smile. "I was just thinking that the contents of this library could've occupied me for the past seventy years," he answered the look, gesturing vaguely around. "Instead of wasting my time with accounts of agriculture and the evolution of money."
Jerome polished the lenses and slid the glasses back onto his nose, smiling. "And we might be in a significantly better position than we are now," he said. "Hindsight is ever humanity's tool for regret. Let's not play 'if only'."
"No," the old man agreed readily, looking down at the sheets. "These are a somewhat incoherent account of a battle in the desert in Jordan," he continued. "I've narrowed the dates down to between three hundred and fifty and three hundred years before Christ, and they seem to relate to the nephilim and the angels."
Jerome frowned. "The fallen angels?"
Felix shook his head. "No …" He bent closer to the papyrus. "'In the east, there was a clash of metal as the giants fought the holy ones, and the earth shook and trembled for days. I saw the flashes of light from the great wings and heard the sounds, higher than the voices of children or animals. And when I looked after forty days of silence I found the dead, spread over the sand, giant and angel lying together and everything around them dead, the plants and animals with blood on their faces, all in the sand together.'" He looked up at Jerome. "There should have been something left there, if the nephilim and animals were killed, bones at least."
"I'll ask Davis," Jerome said, looking at his watch with a repressed sigh. It was well past three. "Perhaps we can find out from Castiel if the angels have any records of fighting the nephilim at that time."
Felix shrugged. "This is the last of the records I can find where the nephilim are mentioned, except in a legendary sense. It seems to be the last time they were seen as inhabitants of the area."
"What about the area? Do we have a location?"
"It's vague, it could be Jordan, could be further east," Felix said, silver brows drawing together. "Why?"
"There is a reference, in the few texts we found on Gem Shel Yed'e," Jerome said, closing his eyes as he tried to remember the exact information. "I'll have to get Aaron to bring those up. But there was a sandstorm that wiped out every landmark, every tree and building and oasis," he said slowly, opening his eyes and looking at the other scholar. "Wiped the desert clean."
"So perhaps the bones are there … just buried?" Felix speculated. "And the nephilim were protecting the Word?"
Jerome smiled suddenly, hearing the words afresh. "Possibly. Maybe. I don't know, Felix – are we chasing stories again?"
Catching his scepticism, Felix smiled too, faded blue eyes twinkling behind his glasses. "Haven't we always been?"
The sharp beep from the situation room made them both turn to look at the archway and Jerome backed his chair from the table, swivelling around to head down the ramp. Along the long wall of monitors, a green light flashed imperiously and he stopped in front of it, bringing up the screen and reading the message from Lourdes.
Felix stood and stretched, pulling off the fine, white cotton gloves he used to handle the oldest records. He walked down the shallow steps, going to stand behind Jerome, squinting at the bright screen as he read the text.
'They made it," he murmured and Jerome nodded.
"And they've found the verifications of the Grigori and the tablets," he said, brows beetling as he printed out the information and watched the files flowing from Lourdes to the computers in front of him. "We'll need to start working on these – can you wake the others?"
Karakum Desert, Turkmenistan
The desert horizon was flat in every direction, the enormous inverted bowl of the heavens black and pricked with billions of stars, their light faint but enough to show shadow and edge on the rough ground. To the north, the glow of the still-burning hole showed distinctly against the dark earth and sky.
"Easy enough to find," Shamsiel said, looking at it as the three men sat around the small fire. He lifted the pot from the flames and poured strong tea into bowls.
"It won't be easy to get to the crypt," Penemue remarked dryly, taking a bowl and sipping the scalding liquid. "You can be sure of that."
Shamsiel looked at his brother. The black-haired Watcher looked more like a resident of the desert than most of them, his skin tan and weathered from the wind and sand and sun, brows black and winged over a long aquiline nose, the full-lipped mouth half hidden by a close-cropped black beard. Only his eyes, the bright and piercing blue of the desert sky, gave away a different heritage.
"It doesn't matter," Baraquiel said shortly. "This is the most likely location."
The wind fanned the flames of the fire, casting flickering shadows over their faces. They had walked for fifty one days now, across the deserts of Jordan and Iraq, the dry, rocky plains of Persia and briefly, along the cool shores of the Caspian Sea. It would take longer to reach France and all three were aware subliminally of time ticking away. The longer the goddesses remained free to roam the world, the more changes they would make. Ninhursag's power was far too great to be allowed to burgeon uncontrolled, without limits, and Nintu would be seeking her children, the first-born monsters, and releasing them, endangering the small human population further.
"Do you think Gadriel was right?" Shamsiel asked diffidently, his gaze remaining on the burning crater to the north. "Are the tablets safe?"
Penemue sighed softly. "We have to hope so."
"No one has even suspected their existence for a millennium, Shamsiel," Baraquiel agreed.
"No one needed them for a millennia," Shamsiel argued mildly. "And the prophet has awoken."
"That was for Lucifer," Penemue said, finishing his tea and rising to his feet in a fluid motion. "Not for the Word."
He looked across the black desert. "We'll be there by dawn."
West Keep, Lebanon
Dean woke in sleep-filled snatches, circling consciousness slowly, too comfortable to move. When he admitted at last that sleep was retreating too fast for him to keep up, he lay on his back, eyes closed, letting his thoughts drift. He was home. He could hear the soft whisper of breath beside him, feel warm skin along his arm and side. He opened an eye and turned his head, reaching out for the watch discarded last night on the nightstand and squinting at it in the soft grey light from the windows. Early, his mind registered disinterestedly, sharpening as he caught sight of the date. Christmas Eve and early.
Every part of him felt relaxed. Six hours and no dreams had gone a long way to making up for the past three weeks, he thought, the corner of his mouth lifting slightly as he remembered the previous evening. Memory brought a trickle of desire to loose, heavy limbs and a sated nervous system, and he rolled over, sliding his arm over the curve of Alex's hip, shifting close enough to feel her along the length of his body.
Ducking his chin under the silky fall of her hair, he kissed her lightly along the side of her neck, the combination of scent and taste and feel igniting a slow burn through him. Alex leaned back against him, murmuring indistinctly and he lifted his head, looking down at her half-closed eyes.
"Hey, you asleep?"
"Mmmm."
"Alex?" he tried again, sliding his arm under her neck and pillow and moving back a little as she rolled toward him.
"Mmmm."
Her eyes were closed, her breathing deep and slow and even. He smiled a little ruefully, shutting the heat and longing away as his gaze moved over her face, mostly shadowed now.
Once he got up, he knew, the weight would be back. It was only here that it vanished completely, along with the tension and the barely-noticed constant grit of pain and memory and regrets that had rubbed him raw through the years.
He stared at the thick, long lashes, and the shadows they made against the smooth cheek under them, a wash of an unknown and unnamed emotion fluxing through him, catching at his breath and accelerating his heartbeat for a long, drawn-out moment. The emotion, and the sense it brought with it, of some inexplicable yearning wrapped up in fear, widened his eyes and dried his mouth. Teetering on the edge of his consciousness, he could almost see what it meant, see what he needed to know, but he couldn't quite and it dissolved as suddenly as it had come when Alex moved her head, and the light in the room showed him the purply shadows around her eyes and made obvious the hollows under her cheekbones and jaw and collarbone.
Brows drawing together, he wondered how the hell he'd missed it last night. He shifted his weight onto his elbow, leaning over her. Thinner, a lot thinner and exhausted-looking. He wanted to wake her, wanted to demand to know what was going on, but he eased himself away instead, drawing the covers up over her shoulders and sliding out of the bed as quietly as he could, gathering an armful of clothes and walking out of the room, doubt and uncertainty fluttering under his ribcage.
In the living room as he dressed, he wondered who might know what had been going on with her for the time he'd been away. Maria, probably, he thought. Maybe Merrin, if the nurse had seen her any time recently. She was a friend of Alex's. His head snapped around at the knock on the door, and he dragged the t-shirt on over his head as he walked to it.
Ellen walked straight in and past him when he opened it, looking around the room quickly as she turned back to him.
"We got some more information from the French last night –"
"What the hell happened to Alex?" he cut in over the top of her, his voice low and harsh as he closed the door and walked past her to get his shirt. "She looks like she hasn't slept in a week."
Ellen looked at him blankly. "I haven't seen Alex since you left for McAlester."
"Well, no one's been seeing her, apparently," he snapped, missing the change in the woman's expression as he grabbed his socks and yanked one over his foot.
"I must've missed the memo that went out about checking in on whoever you're living with," Ellen said tightly.
He looked up at her, the second sock halfway up as he heard her anger – and the implication behind the words – straightening and looking at her.
"You think I don't look out for you – or Bobby – if one of you has to be someplace else?" he asked, his expression flattening out.
Ellen looked away. "Dean, Alex is a grown woman and you haven't –"
"I haven't what?" he asked her shortly. "Sent a memo out telling everyone that she means something to me? Guess the fucking argument with Death didn't get it across clearly enough?" He stared at her. "You thought I cared enough about her to send her in after Lisa's death."
"You wanted her kept out of the vampire thing," Ellen snapped back at him, her patience for the conversation wearing thin. It was impossible to work out from him how much or little Alex should be included in the information that flowed in. When he was there, she was sometimes included, but sometimes not. "And no one knew –"
"That was because I –" he cut himself off, before he got any more pissed. "I told Bobby she gets included." He added in a quieter tone. "What's going on here?"
"Nothing is going on," Ellen said. "Alex hasn't been to the order since you left. And the times I have been over to share whatever information we've dug up, I haven't been able to find her."
"And that didn't strike you as weird?"
"No, she runs the whole damned place, I thought she was busy!" Ellen said sharply. "And I didn't realise you were worried about her, or I would've looked harder."
He ducked his head, flicking a glance at the small hall as he heard the bedroom door open. Alex walked in, stopping at the doorway as she looked from him to Ellen.
"Hey," she said, a little cautiously.
Ellen nodded, her gaze sharpening on the younger woman as she stepped into the room and she saw why Dean was worried. Alex had lost weight and her face looked pinched in the early morning light, her clothes loose and carelessly thrown on, she thought.
Dean wondered how much of the conversation she'd heard, sitting down and pulling on his boots.
"You want a coffee, Ellen?" Alex called from the kitchen, the small noises of cups being set out and the tap running filling the silence between Ellen and Dean.
"No, thanks, hon, I've got to run," Ellen called back, looking at Dean. In a lower voice, she said. "I can see why you're worried but you should've said something to me before you left."
He nodded tiredly. He should've. Should've made it plain – plainer – that he needed to know she was okay, when he wasn't there.
"Jerome wants us at the order around twelve," she added, turning for the hall and the front door. "I'll see you then."
"Right."
He got up and listened for the door's closing, then turned to the kitchen.
"What's going on?"
Alex turned around to look at him, brows raised. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, what's wrong?" he said, walking to her. "You look exhausted."
She shook her head, turning back to the coffee pot. "Just having trouble sleeping lately. I'm fine. What did Ellen want?"
He looked at her back, knowing it wasn't the truth, feeling it, but unsure of how to raise that. "French chapter got the books from the Vatican and have more information," he said instead, sitting down at the small table. "We need to be over there around twelve for the update."
Alex flicked the switch and looked down at the counter. "I'll have to skip that," she said, half over her shoulder to him. "There's a problem with the stores they brought in for the east tower people."
Just tell him, she thought, tell him and get it over with. Her mouth was dry and her palms were damp. She turned around and leaned back against the counter, looking at him nervously.
"I –"
He looked up at the same time. "It would help if –" he stopped as his words ran over hers. "Sorry, what?"
"Nothing," Alex said, dropping her gaze as the impulse to tell him everything, to just get it out and know for sure what he was thinking and feeling, abandoned her. "I'll … um, try to get everything done before you go."
He nodded, looking past her as the pot bubbled and getting up. "Okay."
As he walked to the counter, she moved around the table, heading for the door and he turned in surprise. "Alex."
She stopped and looked at him, one brow lifted, and he gestured vaguely around the kitchen. "You're not eating?"
She shook her head, turning away. "No, I better get going if I'm going to have this sorted by twelve," she said, the words mostly directed at the floor.
He heard the door open and close, the hiss of the pot beside him suddenly louder with her absence. And the peace he'd felt last night and when he'd woken was gone, overridden by the replay of her sidling out past him, not looking at him, out the door before he could say anything else and a question that was starting to haunt him … did she? Still?
Boston, Massachusetts
Even through the thick stone walls, the demon could hear the crash of the sea against the rocks at the base of the cliff. It was one of the reasons the place had appealed, the scent of salt and the unbearable freshness of sea air permeating the house, tickling memories he'd thought had been burned out centuries ago. But it was just one of the reasons, he thought, looking around contentedly at the generous proportions and elegant décor of the room, dark, panelled walls and rich Persian carpets and plushly upholstered furniture. It'd taken a lot of work to protect the place from Baal's passing but it was worth it, he thought, lifting the crystal tumbler and half-sipping, half-inhaling the contents. A shame that none of the enemies he'd made through his long history could see him now.
On the polished ebony desk, the goblet of blood bubbled for a moment and he leaned forward, looking at it curiously. Communication by blood was, for the most part, a hit and miss affair. Misunderstandings invariably arose. There was no other choice, however and he concentrated harder on the message sent from the west.
Passes still closed.
Well, that was bloody fascinating, wasn't it? Well worth the effort. He scowled at the goblet and leaned back in the chair, tossing back the contents of the excellent whiskey before he'd considered what he was doing. No matter, he told himself with an attempt at cheeriness. Plenty more where that came from. An entire distillery actually. Pouring another generous amount into the tumbler, he leaned back again, feeling the heat of the fire behind him as the flames consumed the logs blackening on the wide hearth, hearing the distant roar of the Atlantic storm outside and thinking about the Grigori.
He'd thought that nothing on earth could surprise him, but the fallen angels certainly had. Baeder had said that they'd been a part of Lucifer's army, and had carefully omitted the tale of why they were still walking around the surface of the earth, instead of buried deeply with the others in the accursed plane. The level of Hell that was reserved for those who turned against their vows, who betrayed the trust given to them was not so much a level as the dividing point between the upper and lower levels of the plane, and it was a depthless abyss, the undisputed domain of the daeva who took their job of shredding the souls pitched to them extremely seriously. He'd had no doubt that Baeder knew of the abyss.
That they were still walking around was the point of the meeting they'd arranged through Draxler, a half-breed that Crowley had only learned about in the last few weeks. There were twenty-seven of them, Baeder had told him, plus their children and a dozen or so cambion they'd recruited over the centuries. It was their time, the Grigori had said, the time of demons and domination over the human population that was huddled in its shelters, afraid of the dark and all that lived in it.
Poetic, Crowley had countered, but what's in it for me?
The Word of God, Baeder had returned as unerringly as a tennis pro. And power beyond imagination.
There were five tablets, the fallen told him. Three were of no consequence to either of them, simple instruction manuals for the control of the monsters that God had allowed to be created, his own and those of the balancing creator. None of those monsters were of any interest to the inheritors of the earthly plane. No, it was the Demon tablet and the Angel tablet that were of interest and the power they contained that could be utilised for any purpose they deemed fit, the power of God itself.
Grandiose, Crowley had commented, privately thinking that the tall Aryan was off his nut.
Possible. Baeder had said seductively. But they were not powerful enough on their own, and Crowley needed their help, their knowledge, to obtain the key to the tablet he'd already acquired.
He'd spent fucking months staring at the stone, giving himself spear-through-the-eye headaches with no appreciable gain. He'd listened.
The tablets, Baeder said, could only be read by a Prophet of the Lord. And only one prophet lived on earth at any one time. And the living prophet was sheltered in a keep of concrete and stone, marked with protection against angels and demons, in Kansas.
Kansas? Crowley had stared at him.
Kansas, the fallen had confirmed. They couldn't break the defences of the keep. Their numbers were too few even with the power they wielded. But an army could.
Precious few humans to be possessed, Crowley had said sorrowfully.
The cambion can find survivors, Baeder had offered. Do we have a deal?
He'd looked at it six ways from Sunday and had finally concluded that although the Grigori would probably attempt to exterminate him in favour of one of their locked-up brothers, if he could come up with a stopper for that, there was no problem. The tablet, apart from its use as a paperweight, was not going to progress without the prophet.
He'd spent some time considering attacking the Kansas settlements before the Grigori could reach them, but had finally decided against it. They were, as Baeder had told him, well-defended. His army could beat themselves against the salt and iron filled walls till kingdom come without doing much else. Even with the enormous range of weapons left lying around, bringing down the towers on top of the prophet was too much of a risk to use them. And the demon army could still not cross over the wards and salt and iron to get in even if the walls lay in pieces before them. No, he needed the Grigori to get in there and snatch the prophet and bring him out.
And where is the Angel tablet, he'd asked politely?
We haven't been able to locate it yet, Baeder had admitted. Even the cambion, who could smell out virtually anything, had not been able to find it.
But, the fallen had continued, once the power of the Demon tablet was released and accessible, the Angel tablet would be simple to find.
He rather doubted that. Nothing worked that easily, particularly those things that were the work of God. But, so long as the power of the tablet in his possession was his, he wasn't all that worried about the rest. At least, not for now.
He looked at the books scattered over the desk. Filched from the few surviving libraries around the world, gathered by his demons, they were exclusively limited to three topics. The myth and thin, scattered accounts of the tablets known as the Word of God. The nephilim. And the cambion.
The texts on the Word were few. The Vatican vaults had been mostly cleared before he'd thought to look there. The rest, he presumed, were tucked away in the libraries of the surviving and non-surviving chapters of the society the monks had belonged to. The demons had returned to Tibet only to find that the mountain had collapsed, burying the monastery beneath a half-mile of rock. That didn't seem like a coincidence to him. He had no idea where the other members of the order they'd served might be. The Litteris Hominae, the Grigori had told him. Begun before Christ's time, gathering knowledge and hiding it. That had been all they knew of it.
The books on the half-breed issue of angels and demons and humans, were a different matter, however. There was a plethora of information on those. Much fantasy, he had to admit sadly. Nevertheless every myth had its grain of truth at the centre, if one could discern it. Both types were said to be powerful, more so in youth. He wondered why that was. Power usually grew with maturity, not diminished. He put aside the thought for a moment, reviewing what else he knew as he sipped the fine whiskey.
The key was the soul, he knew. It was the key to many things. The offspring had them and even in maturity they were more powerful than their male parent. In every instance of their conception, only a human woman could produce the half-breed. Angels did not, strictly speaking, have genders, only a leaning this way or that to a more 'masculine' energy or a more 'feminine' one, balanced as all things between active and passive, between courage and compassion, between extrovert and introvert, positive male energy, receptive female energy. But a demon soul from a woman sent to Hell could not produce a cambion, even ensconced in a male meatsuit. Another little peculiarity for which he could not find a logical reason. Offspring could be male or female. Neither seemed more powerful than the other.
All lived an extraordinary span of years. All were noticeably different from the human norm. All could be killed, by the removal of the heart.
Draxler had been a good example, he thought, considering the tall, black-haired man who arrived at the house a week ago. Not really attractive, he thought, leaning forward and resting his elbow on the desk. But riveting, for some reason he couldn't define. The man had crackled with a dark energy that drew the eye and the heart. The shoulder-length hair had been combed back from an angular face, dark eyes hooded beneath dark brows, the nose curving slightly over fleshy lips that seemed almost obscenely lush in the otherwise sharp-featured face.
Crowley shook his head, dispelling the memory. The mind behind the face had been exceedingly sharp as well. He'd gotten the feeling that the cambion could see far ahead, and would play every angle to suit his own, unknown agenda. He had a good feel for the character of others and he'd been unable to penetrate the mask of the man at all, left to find clues in what he had been shown.
Looking down at the empty glass, he let out a small sigh. One way or another, he would get the prophet, he thought pensively. He had the advantage of numbers, and by the time the Grigori realised they'd been duped, he would be far out of reach, and they would be on their own. He leaned forward and picked up the crystal decanter, tipping another couple of fingers into the glass, lifting it to the light and staring at the golden amber liquid it contained. All good things to those who wait, his mother had told him more than once. And so it would be.
Litteris Hominae, Lebanon
Alex waited on the keep steps, arms wrapped around herself despite the thick woollen slacks, layers of shirts, woollen sweater and thick wool overcoat she was wearing. With the scarf wound over her head and around her neck, she was aware that she was almost unrecognisable, but the cold still seeped in somehow.
The snow had stopped a day ago, but the temperatures had remained low and the cover established in the earlier weeks of the month had remained, impervious to the thin, watery sunshine that filled the courtyard now. She wondered, a little uneasily, how long it had been since Kansas – even northern Kansas – had had a white Christmas like this.
The deep rumble of the car engine bounced from the walls as Dean drove out of the long garage and across the bailey, stopping beside the steps, the hot exhaust leaving a trail that curled up behind it. His hand was on the door when he saw her run down the steps, reaching the side of the car and getting in before he could've gotten out. The passenger door closed with a clunk and he looked over at her.
"You okay?"
Alex nodded, pulling the scarf down from her chin as she registered the warm air flowing through the car from the rattling heater.
"All done," she said, looking through the windshield. "Did you find Father McConnaughey?"
He put the car in gear and eased out the clutch, letting it trundle down toward the tunnel slowly. "No, but if he's talking to Emilio, it's possible he's already over there."
"And he said that he had information about closing the gates? Specifically?" she asked, aware that he didn't necessarily want to discuss this now, while they had time together, on their own. She could feel his curiosity, his worry, about her. She didn't want to precipitate a conversation that would lead to her news right before he needed to concentrate on the big picture, though. I'll tell him when we get back, she assured herself. Tonight.
"That's what he said," Dean agreed, nodding at the guards as the gates drew back and they drove through. The snow ploughs had been along all the roads and the asphalt was wet and black, contrasting strongly with the clean, white snowbanks high to either side. "What was your impression of him?"
She thought back to meeting him, in the great hall of the east keep, surrounded by the survivors Rufus and Maurice had brought back, trying to find places to sleep for everyone, food, clothing, blankets … he'd been calm, she thought, and patient, and grateful when she'd sent him down to the chapel with Jeff and Freddie. He'd had a small bundle with him, clothing and books, he'd said, and he'd hugged it close when he'd left.
"He was pragmatic," she said slowly. "Calm. And he's been working hard with the children since he's been here. He's cleaned up the chapel and held services." She caught the edge of her lower lip between her teeth, trying to remember any other interaction she'd had with him, or had heard about. "Merrin told me that he'd volunteered to help with the patients they had who weren't coping well at the changes – said he was good with them."
"All around good guy?" Dean asked sardonically.
"On the surface," she agreed. "But if he's won Father Emilio's trust, that's a different matter," she added. "That man doesn't miss anything and I don't think he'd be taken in easily."
"No," Dean agreed, letting out a resigned exhale. "That's what I what I thought too."
He turned off onto the narrow gravel road that led through the forest of illusion to the order's safehold, driving slowly but blithely through the trees which looked solid, but weren't, the tyres crunching over the thick, hard snow and pulling up where the road really ended. They got out and walked to the door, waiting as the locking rings clunked their way through opening and the warmth from the interior flowed out over them as the door opened. Sam grinned at them, standing aside to let them through and pulled the door closed.
"What's the word?" Dean asked his brother in a low voice, following Alex down the stairs.
"Between Chuck's vision, the demon signs popping up in New Mexico and the info backing it up from Lourdes, it's pretty long-winded," Sam murmured back. "Looks like we have a target, though."
"Good."
"Only three susvees, I'm guessing you're not thinking of storming the castle?" Sam asked as they hit the floor and crossed the situation room.
Dean glanced back at him, mouth quirking up. "No, hit and run."
"Who do you want to take?"
He looked at his brother as Sam looked over to the men and women sitting around the long polished table, a little surprised at the deference to his opinion. Sam usually included himself as a matter of course.
"Us, probably Elias, Kelly, Maggie and Maurice, maybe one or two of the trainees," he said, climbing the steps to the library.
Sam nodded, and Dean saw the tension bleed out of his brother's shoulders at the decision. He shrugged inwardly. They'd worked together for a long, long time. He could count on his brother to know what he was thinking if things deviated from the plan, which they almost certainly would. It was no big.
He saw Bobby's rather pointed look at Alex as she moved away from the table and sat in one of the armchairs by the fire, unwinding her scarf and taking off her coat. He had to get that clear with everyone too, he realised, his expression tightening slightly as he looked back at the older man.
Jerome looked at them as they settled down and tapped the file on the table in front of him. "Michel sent these last night, the first of the translations of the heretical texts that the hunters retrieved from the vaults." He looked at Dean. "He asked me to tell you that Peter is with them, he managed to join them in Rome."
Dean nodded, feeling a thread of relief that the hunter had been able to get there in one piece.
"So far, much of what they've deciphered is what we already knew or suspected. The texts confirm the existence and the history of the fallen angels that we called the Grigori, giving us a few more details. We also have confirmation that the tablets that were known in mythology as the Word of God were hidden on this plane when the scribe of Heaven, an archangel, known variously as Mattara, Mattatron, Metatron – the 'keeper of the watch' – or simply the Voice, finished them and vanished."
"Vanished?" Bobby asked curiously. "From where?"
"From Heaven on completing his task, apparently. A meeting was recorded in the year fifty six A.D. between the apostle, John, and an angel believed to be Raphael. According to the text which was found in the writings and teachings he set down as his gospels, the angel appeared to him looking for the scribe. John had no knowledge of him and Raphael disappeared." Jerome looked at Bobby, whose brows had risen. "This is why we needed these papers, Bobby. The Church has held onto such seemingly meaningless secrets for the length of its history, deeming them to be too fanciful for public scrutiny."
He looked back down at the file. "The Church texts also confirmed a battle that we found a reference to here," he continued. "Some three hundred years before Christ, there were several recorded accounts of a war between the nephilim and the angels, in the desert to the east of the Qaddiysh fortress. The account we had here was a first-hand one but the observer only heard the battle and did not see it with his own eyes. The Church accounts are eye-witness and although not completely reliable, they give us more information about the event."
He flipped open the file, scanning down the page, looking up at the people seated around him. "This takes place some twenty-two hundred years or so after the Flood, you understand." There was a murmured assent and he looked back down to the file. "The accounts detail a battle of thousands. Thousands of nephilim – the giants of Moab – and thousands of angels. The screams of the dying angels supposedly killed every other living thing for a hundred miles in every direction –" He looked up with a slightly wry smile. "There's no explanation for how the observers escaped this fate."
"I expect a little exaggeration from the older accounts," Katherine said dryly. "Is the location given?"
Jerome shook his head. "Just east. In the desert somewhere between the borders of Jordan and its neighbour, Iraq."
"However," Felix said from the other end of the table. "Geologically and archeologically speaking, we have a possible location." He looked at Davis who shrugged.
"Around this same time, three hundred years B.C. there was a well-known event. A sandstorm that lasted three months in the same region and buried everything there. A number of digs were conducted from the late eighteenth century until 2010 and bones have been uncovered," Davis admitted, with an uncomfortable cough. "They were denounced and ignored as an anomaly."
"What kind of bones?" Katherine turned to look at him.
"A number of entire skeletons, preserved under the layers of sand," Davis told her, his face stony.
She smiled at him. "Come on, Davis, spit it out."
"The first skeletons found, near Al Qurayyat, were between seven and nine feet tall, proportional, showing no signs of deformity. The genetic assay was deemed to be contaminated because the strand contained three extra pairs of chromosomes," he said reluctantly. "Another skeleton was found in the vicinity in 1999. It was considered a fraud and the reports were buried."
"Considered a fraud why?" Dean asked, looking at him. The archaeologist was extremely uncomfortable, he thought. Over being wrong?
"The skeleton, although humanoid, had wings."
Bobby let out a sharp bark of laughter. "Yeah, so they buried it and pretended they never found it?"
"I believe so."
"The existence of the nephilim and the angels isn't the point," Jerome cut through curtly. "The third account of the battle mentions that it was believed a great treasure was hidden in the desert in the area and the battle between the giants – the nephilim – and the angels was over the treasure. The location was a series of caves, some believed that went down to the centre of the earth. The caves were known as Gem Shel Yed'e."
"This legend was the original basis for the tales of the Arabian Nights, Aladdin and the treasure guarded by a djinn of enormous power," Felix interjected helpfully, ignoring the look that Katherine sent his way.
"The treasure being the Word of God?" Sam asked Jerome.
He nodded. "And possibly other things that Metatron brought with him from Heaven."
"If it's buried under god-knows-how-much sand, how are we supposed to get to it?" Maurice asked.
"That is another part of the translations that the French sent us," Jasper said, gesturing to Jerome for the relevant page. "There was a legend in Syria, possibly circulated by the same reports of the battle, that a mortal who had been tested in fire and blood would come and the desert would draw aside and reveal the caves," he continued, skimming down the page as he spoke. "It's vague, as are all legends, of course, but it was repeated as far east as Persia and on the borders of China, taking on a local variation but basically the same." He looked around the table. "We believe this was kept alive in oral folklore for a purpose."
"Legend outlives truth in a lot of cases," Ellen remarked.
"Precisely," Jasper said.
"A mortal?" Dean looked at him. "Anything more specific that that? Kind of covers a wide range."
Jasper shrugged. "The legend was already threadbare a thousand years ago when the Church began collecting these tales. Peter may find a more detailed account as they go through the texts."
"And we think that the other tablets are there?" Rufus asked, glancing at Dean.
"The Angel tablet is there," Father Emilio corrected him, stepping toward the table. "That is why the battle was fought there, and why the sandstorm was sent. They were looking for the Angel tablet."
"What about the others?" Sam looked from Jerome to the priest.
The adept looked at Father Emilio, brows raised quizzically, and the priest shook his head. "We don't know where they are, and they haven't found a reference to them yet."
"What about the Grigori," Dean said, shunting the problematic information of the tablets aside. "Bobby, you said something about demon signs."
"Yeah, coming and going lately, but over Taos, according to Michel's geophysical satellite info," Bobby said, pushing his cap back. "Looks like they're stuck between the end ranges, waiting for the passes to open."
Dean looked at him for a moment, thinking of the route he could take there. "The susvees will get through alright. We don't have the manpower to take them on directly …" He turned back to Jerome. "Is there any other way we can kill them – fire, anything – that can be done with some distance?"
Jerome's eyes widened a little behind his glasses. "I haven't heard of anything but cutting out the heart, but I'll ask Peter to get them to look for something."
"We're not going in there and taking them on hand-to-hand," Dean said, looking from Maurice to his brother. "We want as many as we can dead, but worst case, destroy every vehicle they have, their shelter and just disrupt the crap out of them, make them think again about coming for us."
"Holy oil might have an effect?" Alex suggested diffidently, looking at Father Emilio. "They were angels once."
Dean turned to look at her, the idea pinballing through his head. He looked back at Jerome. "Lucifer didn't want to cross it and he was Fallen."
"Do we have enough holy oil left after Atlanta?" Bobby looked at him.
"We've got some left," Dean said slowly, thinking of the ceramic bottle in the store-room at the keep. "Cas might be able to get us more."
Alex stood up stiffly as the meeting ended, scholars and hunters drifting into small groups to discuss the possibilities of dealing with what they were facing. She saw Dean, Sam, Bobby, Ellen and Maurice head for the hall at the end of the long room, probably to find an office to get the details of the proposed attack down, she thought tiredly.
"You do not look well, Alex," Father Emilio said behind her, and she turned to him, forcing a smile.
"Just tired."
He looked at her for a moment and shook his head. "Not just," he said, sighing as her gaze dropped and she didn't respond.
"You have met Father McConnaughey, I believe?" he continued, turning to include the priest standing next to him.
"Yes," Alex said, grateful that he hadn't pursued the question. "You seem to be settling in, Father."
"I am, my dear," he said, glancing up at Father Emilio. "With help."
"Dean said that you had information for him about closing the gates of Hell?" she said bluntly to him, glancing at the Jesuit briefly.
The two men looked at each other, Father Emilio lifting a shoulder slightly in a small shrug. "Yes, we are waiting on confirmation from Peter but the texts here had more information than I'd realised."
"Why didn't you raise it at the meeting?" she asked curiously.
"That task is not for all to know," Father Emilio replied, his gaze moving casually around the room. "There is a lot more rumoured to be written on the tablet than merely instructions for managing Hell."
"How do you know that?" Alex frowned at him. "Jerome said that all the myth surrounding the tablets was fragmented and questionable."
"The Church texts as well," the priest agreed readily. "But in the prophet's vision there is more information."
She frowned as she tried to remember the details of Chuck's vision, half-seeing the type-written pages in front of her. She had a copy of them at home.
"Why Dean?"
"Death said it was foreseen that he would close the gates," Father Emilio said, looking down at her. "It was why he wanted to take you."
Father McConnaughey stepped closer to them. "The lines of destiny are still changing, that is not a sure thing," he said reprovingly to the Jesuit. "In the Greek Septuagint, it was written that all things on this plane had a balance, an antidote, an opposite, and humanity would evolve to the point that it would not need the guidance of Heaven nor the punishment of Hell. A contender would be chosen then to undertake the necessary trials to close the Accursed and the Divine planes from this one forever."
"Tests," she said flatly, looking from one to the other. "What kind?"
Father McConnaughey shrugged slightly. "The details are on the tablet," he said. "It's possible that Chuck may see more, if the visions continue."
"Or if we can retrieve the tablet," Father Emilio added.
She felt the room shift, as if the world had moved under her feet and swayed slightly. Lack of food, she told herself, seeing that neither priest had noticed. A quick look at her watch told her it was almost six. She wasn't going to last here much longer.
"Will Dean see us, when he is finished with the hunters?" Father Emilio asked her.
"He said he wanted to talk to you both," she said, looking around the room. It would mean that he wouldn't be free for hours, she thought. And she needed to get home. "Would you excuse me?"
Father Emilio inclined his head, and Father McConnaughey nodded, both men's eyes following her as she turned away and walked down to the situation room.
"Will she be a help or a hindrance?" Father McConnaughey asked quietly. Father Emilio watched her stop beside Jerome.
"She will be truthful," he said thoughtfully. "And she will not stand in his way if that is the path that he chooses to take."
Jerome looked up as Alex paused beside him. "That was a nice sideways solution to the Grigori," he said, smiling at her.
"It might not work," she said.
"But it might," he countered lightly. "I think you would find what we do here to be interesting, Alex."
"You want to know why I could tap into my soul," she said, a little dryly. He smiled back.
"Ah. Dean mentioned that, did he?"
"Yes."
"You're not interested? You have a questioning mind," he said.
"I have a job, Jerome," she told him, smiling to take any sting from the rejection. "Is anyone heading back to the keep?"
"You need a ride?" He looked around at the library. "Of course, Dean will be here for hours. And you don't look well," he added, brows beetling a little. "Aaron can take you, wait here."
He pressed a button on the console and Aaron appeared a moment later from the doorway beside the elevator.
"Can you take Alex back to the keep, Aaron?" Jerome asked the young man. "And see if Kim finished her projections on the possibilities of the success rate of the births."
"What projections?" Alex asked him sharply.
"The data from Tawas and Lake West, and here, has given us a hundred percent successful conception rate," he said, looking up at her. "You know how unlikely that is in nature, there's always something not quite right at any given time."
She nodded impatiently at him. "And?"
"I asked Kim to calculate some statistical probabilities on the pregnancies that will go to term, taking into account any physical problems of the mothers and the fathers that are known. That's all."
Aaron looked at her. "We can go now, if you're ready."
She turned away from Jerome and nodded at the young man, forgetting about the meeting and everything else as the professor's words sank into her. Problems with the mother. The phrase richoted around her mind. Problems with the mother. She needed to see Kim, as soon as they got to the keep.
Following Aaron up the stairs, she couldn't rid herself of the feeling that if anyone was going to have problems, it would be her.
Dean looked at his watch as he and Sam walked back down the hall to the library, groaning inwardly as he saw the time. Nine o'clock. He was starving and he looked around for Alex as he walked into the long, book-filled room, seeing Jasper and Davis arguing quietly by the fire, Katherine buried behind a pile of books at the table, the two priests talking to Felix in the chairs grouped to one of the stacks. He walked down the steps to the situation room, turning as he saw Jerome sitting at the comms desk.
"Have you seen Alex?" he asked the professor, walking slowly to him.
"She didn't seem to be feeling well, so Aaron took her back," Jerome said, looking around at him. "That was around six."
Dean kept his gaze on the monitors as he nodded. "Thanks."
"Dean?" Father Emilio said from the library stairs. "Do you have time to discuss what Father McConnaughey raised?"
Dean looked at him for a long moment, debating the priorities. Even if he left now, she would probably be asleep by the time he got back, he thought, the flutter under his ribs back. He would talk to her tomorrow, he thought. Just lock the fucking apartment door and ignore everything and everyone else.
"Sure," he said, turning back to the stairs and going up them. "Let's hear it."
Derweze, Turkmenistan
The lurid and toxic glare of the burning cavern was lessened by the dawn light, filling the eastern sky as they walked toward it. The Irin ignored the glowing crater, moving around the edge as they searched from the western side in sweeps back to the village for the building that had been shunned by the local tribe, a tomb built into a low rise, with steps leading down into the crumbling desert earth.
It was still there, the thick timber door gone with the passing of the angel of the abyss but the stone walls intact, and at the back of the sepulchre, the signs of recent building, roughly cut stone pasted together with weak mortar.
"This is it," Baraquiel murmured, using the hooked hilt of his long, curved knife to dig out the thin joins and loosen the stones.
"This is recent." The dark-skinned fallen angel said, moving beside him to wrestle a stone free. "I believe we'll have company."
Baraquiel nodded, working at the crumbling mortar. At the doorway, Penemue watched the steps and the lightening sky beyond. Easier than the palace under the water at Alexandria, anyway, he thought, listening to his brothers below. There was a good possibility that the Morning Star had a store-house under that as well, although it might've been cleaned out before the city sank into the sea. Despite being locked up, Lucifer had increased his power over the last thousand years, humanity's evolution had been distorted and had followed paths it was never intended to take, paths that had opened gates to the accursed plane and sped the lines toward the release of the angel faster than any of them had realised.
And Heaven had aided that, he thought. Castiel had been distracted and unnerved in Jordan, telling them of a hidden conspiracy within the Eighth, riddled through the ranks. Michael was indecisive, unwilling to provoke outright civil war. Raphael was smooth and reasonable, knowing that whatever he did, it would not be proven now that Lucifer was gone. The soldier had been more than worried, Penemue realised. He'd been afraid.
The man who had altered the lines, who had killed the devil, had been a surprise as well. He'd thought he would be … larger, somehow. The thought brought a faint derisive smile. Was he the first zephyr, announcing the winds of the storm of change, or the storm itself, he wondered? They'd watched the battle, in the country on the other side of the world, in the flawless depths of the crystals. At the time, he'd felt ashamed, leaving the mess that Heaven had created to be cleaned up by a mortal – an ordinary human man – while they held to their safety, deep within the canyon. And they'd thought he'd failed. When he'd risen to his feet and stepped across the flames, it'd been a revelation, of sorts. And afterward, reflecting again on the battle between man and angel in the silence of meditation, Penemue had wondered if they had seen the Creator's vision, come to fruition at last.
It was impossible to tell from the brief meeting they'd had with Winchester and his brother.
"We're through!" Shamsiel's cry echoed from below and Penemue turned to scan the desert again. It was empty and lifeless. In time, the animals might return. Or they might not. He swung around and descended into the tomb, ducking his head as he passed through the rough hole his brothers had made through the wall and following them down the worn stone steps into the earth.
The tunnel, roughly hewn and hacked from the soft stone, twisting in a spiral as it descended. One wall radiated heat, from the gas cavern that still burned, close to them here. The other wall was cold, and the Irin sensed that the tunnel had been carved along the fault line between a harder slab of upthrust rock and a softer, conglomerate layer that had fallen in at one point. The steps were more worn to the right, giving them the uncomfortable of being canted sideways as they descended.
Within the conglomerate, hundreds of pockets of gas, rising slowly through the spaces between the particles of rock from the core of the planet, existed and the men who were not really men moved cautiously, senses stretched out through the darkness for the traps that were almost certainly present. The floor flattened and Shamsiel stopped, lifting his hand to halt his brothers.
"The air is thicker here," he said in a low voice.
He bent, his fingers finding a small stone in the passageway. Straightening, he threw it gently into the widening chamber ahead of them. They all saw the stone shudder and slow in the air as it passed through the invisible barrier and shatter into fragments before it hit the floor.
"Welcoming," Shamsiel commented brightly.
Baraquiel looked along the rock walls and the uneven floor. "There must be a locking device here."
Penemue pointed to the floor a yard ahead of them. "That section is paved, this is not."
Shamsiel turned to the walls where the paving began and sighed deeply. Holes of various sizes riddled both sides, some large enough to push a melon into, others fist-sized, some barely large enough to insert a finger. He glanced back at Penemue.
"Ideas?"
Penemue walked to him, lifting his torch to study the holes on the left-hand side of the tunnel. "The other side is unstable. The catch will be on this side," he said thoughtfully, examining the edges of the roughened holes. "Like the stairs, this has been used for a long time." He lifted the torch higher and nodded. "And where there is use, there is wear."
Shamsiel peered past him. The fist-sized hole was eighteen inches under their eye-level and the lower edge was smoother than the others. He watched, unconsciously holding his breath as Penemue slid his hand into the hole, fingers moving incrementally along the inside.
There was a soft groan from the rock and the air in the widened section of the tunnel seemed to clear. Baraquiel bent and picked up a loose stone, tossing it in. The stone landed on the paved stones with no ill-effects.
"Your bravery and wisdom shall be remembered forever in an ode I will compose when we're home," Shamsiel told Penemue as the Irin withdrew his hand.
"I'm sure that will be magnificent," Penemue said dryly, the sweat beaded on his face shining in the torchlight. "But the next time, you can spring the trap."
He wiped his arm over his face and dragged in deep breath, walking across the paving and into the next section of tunnel.
Winding downwards, the darkness seemed to press closer around them as the tunnel narrowed, the torch flames upright, flickering only with their movement.
The chamber appeared abruptly, the steps finishing and the tunnel bulging outward, a spherical cavern that had been carved into the likeness of a bird's cage, thin, fluted columns outlining the edges and joining together at the apex of the domed ceiling. On the other side, opposite the stair, the door was iron, bound and strapped, the panels in between engraved and embossed with sigil of the Lightbringer.
Standing at the foot of the stairs they looked suspiciously around the cave. It would be too easy to move incautiously now and die. Baraquiel touched Penemue's shoulder, pointing at the fine holes that pocked the rock walls behind the columns.
"Paranoid, wasn't he?" Shamsiel said sourly as he saw them as well. The floor was smooth and polished. No one had walked on it.
"Behind the columns?" he asked, looking at the narrow space between the rock and the column closest to him. "The rock has been worn."
Penemue nodded. "Only one of us can proceed past here, I think. There are instabilities in the rock floor that will react if too much weight is on them."
"Do we draw straws or shall I volunteer to show that my organs are not puddling up?"
Baraquiel snorted. "Of the three of us, Penemue is the lightest."
The dark-haired Irin nodded. Baraquiel was taller, broader across the shoulders. Shamsiel, although shorter by an inch or two, was stockily built, with wide shoulders and a deep, barrel chest. Both men carried more muscle on their frames than he did.
"Start composing," he said to Shamsiel, turning sideways and crabbing along the gap between the rock and the columns, careful to touch neither.
In the desert above them, the wind sighed and lifted the dust from the gravel plain in slow eddies as the sun warmed the rock. Even the locusts hadn't managed to penetrate the stone sarcophagi that surrounded the tomb's entrance. The heavy lids shifted slightly, and charcoal smoke spiralled from the sky down into the coffins, animating the desiccated bodies that lay within.