Chapter 12 By Order of the Demon King
February. Hell
The demon looked at the empty rock wall and back at the two men in front of him.
"Well? Where is she?" Crowley asked, his voice curt. There were times when he realised that the general population of his kingdom were less than bright. In fact, there were times when he considered that the majority of the souls contained in the pit were not worth the effort it took to turn them into demons.
The larger man's eyes were black, corner to corner. It should've been a terrifying sight, Crowley thought bleakly. Instead, accompanied by the steady flop-sweat of the man in front of him, it was merely annoying. Like looking at a bug flattened on a windshield.
"She was here, this is where we left her!" the demon muttered, his gaze flicking nervously from side to side, travelling along the length of the corridor in both directions. "She couldn't have gotten out, she was in the rock."
"Uh-huh," the King of Hell remarked noncommittally, looking at the smaller man.
"'e's right, guv, we puts 'er 'ere yesterday, an' she couldn't've gotten out," he wheedled, hands twisting around each other like restless snakes.
Crowley sighed. Proportionally speaking, the numbers from east London were high down here.
"And yet …" he said, lifting a hand and waving it at the empty wall. "Are you suggesting that someone wandered in and released her?"
"N-n-no, sir," the larger demon stammered. He didn't have the faintest idea of what could've happened. He knew, in some detail, what would happen – to him – if the King decided to make an example of him.
"So there exist's a possibility that you did not, in fact, secure her well enough?" Crowley asked, looking from one to the other.
"She were in there tight, guv!" the smaller demon protested. "The rock 'ad 'er!"
Turning away, Crowley walked slowly away from them, considering the possibilities. He should have been there to supervise her incarceration himself, he knew. The fallen were taking up far too much of his time with their war-mongering. And the daughter of Azazel was a unprecedented anomaly in and of herself. Born nephilim and raised by a witch on the earthly plane, she had, according to the rumour mill, given up her soul willingly to Hell to join her father in the pit. And had willingly suffered the centuries of torture under Alastair himself to become her father's most powerful tool. That kind of loyalty was rare indeed and when the oldest Winchester boy had killed her father, she'd transferred it immediately to Lucifer.
She loathed him with a hatred that had long passed obsessive, Crowley knew. She'd been plotting against him for the last few months with an eye for detail that showed her heritage. And she knew far too much – about him, about the workings of the accursed plane, about his predecessor – he should've killed her outright.
If she had escaped … the thought of what she could do, down here, roaming freely, brought a faint sense of alarm. The office! The realisation brought a convulsive jerk. He vanished, the air rushing to fill the space he'd occupied with a soft pop.
In the corridor, the demons looked at each other and begin to walk quickly in the opposite direction. Neither were very old. Both had heard of the abyss and what happened to those who had failed the new king. Better to make themselves scarce and lay low.
Crowley looked around the office slowly, eyes narrowed. His gaze crossed the desk without registering what should have been there and wasn't, once, then jerked back to look at the empty spot in disbelief.
No.
Nononononononononono! Reaching the desk in a stride, his hand passed over the smooth wood as if he were expecting to feel it, invisible but still there and his face spasmed as his hand met nothing.
NO!
She'd been bound into the meatsuit they'd found her in, he thought feverishly, bound and trapped in it. Not even her power could've broken her free. Even if she could escape from the rock, and make it here, she could not've touched the fucking tablet, not without agony. Even he could barely handle it, the power it contained too alien to what had become of his soul. For her it would've been a thousand times worse. And she could not have opened a gate, not even a door to the borders. Her blood wasn't a key, none of the ingredients necessary for the opening were here … if not escape then what, he wondered furiously?
Rescue?
Who would rescue her, he asked himself, pacing across the office. No one even knew she was here. He threw himself into the chair behind the desk and grabbed the bottle sitting on the polished black surface impatiently, dropping the decanter's cut crystal stopper as he poured the whiskey into his glass. Turning, he looked down. The stopper lay on the Persian rug beside the desk. Above it a thin shadow lay against the wood frame of the desk in a way that was completely wrong.
Pushing the chair back, Crowley stared at the sliver of shadow that lay between the cupboard door and its frame. The door was open. He kept it locked.
He yanked it open, fingers scrabbling for the box that was kept in there, feeling the lack of expected weight with a deepening spiral of anxiety as he lifted it to the desk's blotter. His fear was instantly sublimated in a rage that forced the vein to one side of his forehead into a thick, rapidly pulsing blemish as he stared fixedly at the empty interior of the velvet-lined box.
The tablet. And the Colt.
Meg had been here, he knew that with a certainty that shook through his frame like a peal of thunder. But not alone. She couldn't've gotten here alone. And very, very few knew about the Colt, knew it well enough to recognise it if they came across it by accident.
Erupting to his feet, his arm swept violently across the desk, sweeping box, glass, decanter, blotter and files to the floor in an explosion of noise and debris and the sharp, acrid smell of spilled whiskey. The goblet was in the cupboard on the other side and he snatched it out, closing his eyes and snapping his fingers.
The larger of the two men who'd been in charge of securing the prisoner appeared beside him, blinking at the sudden transition, unaware of his danger until the knife had transected his throat completely and the blood from his meatsuit was pouring out of him, filling the cup held under his arteries.
Crowley threw the man from him as soon as the goblet was full, murmuring the incantation softly and stirring the surface of the warm, thick liquid.
What's happening there?
There was some coming and going between the castles. Nothing else.
Did anyone leave? Anyone come back?
Not that we've seen.
Crowley stared at the goblet. Four demons were watching the town and the surrounding countryside, from a distance. They couldn't get closer, the patrols encompassed a five mile radius around all the keeps they'd built there and what he wanted to know was generally of a look-and-alert nature, following the attack on the forward post of the Grigori.
Watch them closely.
Yes, my liege.
He leaned back in his chair, glancing down at the wreckage of the decanter and glass, registering finally the sharp smell of the wasted whiskey. He pushed the fleeting pang of regret aside. He had more.
His assistant had found a considerable amount of information on the Winchesters and he'd come to the conclusion that they were indeed spoilers, created by design to upset and cock up the various threads of destiny that others had put into action. The killing of Azazel and the raising of the eldest from the pit – on God's orders, his source had said succinctly and more than once – and the killing of Lucifer. The younger one had destroyed both Samhain and Alastair and had then killed Lilith, although according to one demon, that had been the plan all along. It beggared belief that a human could have destroyed three of the most powerful demons in the hierarchies of Hell.
The English girl had told him that the Winchesters had had the Colt in their possession for a long time. But if they hadn't left Kansas, how would they've been able to get into Hell to retrieve it, even if they knew of the way the plane worked.
He leaned on his elbows on the desk. The Colt. And the tablet. They were the only ones who needed both. However they'd gotten in, Meg had undoubtedly shown them the way out. And connecting the dots … as few as there were … he thought that the Winchesters were the ones holding his possessions now.
It would put the time-table forward. That would please Baeder, if no one else. But he was going to need a diversion, something irresistible. Leaning over to pull out the top drawer on the left hand side of the desk, he withdrew a small, white candle. Raphael would have to handle that part himself, Crowley thought with a small spurt of delight that he could actually involve the archangel in getting his hands dirty for once.
West Keep, Lebanon
Alex poured coffee into five mugs and set them on a tray, lifting it and carrying it into the living room.
"You could've been trapped down there for good," Ellen snapped at Dean, shifting automatically as Alex moved past her to set the tray on the low table and transfer the mugs of steaming black liquid to the table top. "What good would that have done anyone?"
"What kind of a dumb-assed idea was it to go off without even tellin' anyone, or takin' backup?" Bobby added, his voice hoarse.
Glancing up at him as she moved his cup in front of him, Alex saw the muscle jump in Dean's jaw. She carried the tray to the table behind the sofa and sat down next to him.
"How's Chuck?" she asked, taking advantage of the thirty-second window of silence as Bobby and Ellen picked up their cups.
"Still reading," Bobby growled, his gaze returning to Dean. "He hasn't moved, except to write."
"What's he writing?" Dean asked, deciding to ignore the rhetorical questions of the previous half-hour rant. So far, he'd had Rufus and Maurice, and now Bobby and Ellen yelling at him. Sam was sitting in the armchair kitty-corner to the long sofa, glaring unrelentingly at him, no doubt waiting his turn.
"We don't know," Ellen snapped, her scowling expression unmollified by the change in topic. "Marla is giving him fresh sheets as he fills each one, but the handwriting itself is pretty bad, and we're only getting bits and pieces."
"Not visions, then?" Alex looked from her to Sam.
Sam shook his head. "No, this seems to be a direct translation of the tablet."
"Meg said that the archdemons had been imprisoned," Dean said casually, putting his cup down as he looked at Bobby. "She thought Crowley figured out a spell of some kind to keep them out of the way while he took over."
"Katherine's been working on figuring the hierarchy in the pit," Bobby said, his tone a little more reasonable. "She says this Crowley isn't even mentioned in the lists."
"Unsurprising, he was a crossroads demon, apparently," Dean agreed. "Meg didn't know how he found the throne, but that's how he got the power."
"Which was supposed to go to one of the archdemons?"
"That's what she said." Dean shrugged, leaning back. "Do we have much on the archdemons?"
"Plenty," Ellen nodded, recalling the information she'd been going over in the last six months. "They were the first-fallen, the ones who fell at Lucifer's side. They were all he had available to torture for the first thousand years, until God decreed that Lilith would go to Hell."
"What happened to all the human souls that were evil before then?" Alex asked curiously.
"They were thrown into the bottomless abyss," Bobby said shortly. "There were no demons back then, at least, none but the elemental kind – those souls just existed in endless pain."
"Meg said that Crowley is a sport, of a kind," Dean told them, leaning forward a little. "Doesn't play by the rules, doesn't follow the protocols, has a big, ambitious agenda. She said he was more dangerous than anything else because he'd manipulate everyone to get what he wants."
"By 'everyone' she meant?" Bobby lifted a brow at him.
"Heaven, Hell, everyone," Dean said. "She said he didn't care about the other tablets."
"This is Meg we're talking about, Dean," Sam interjected suddenly, his coffee slopping up the sides of his cup as he leaned toward his brother. "Meg, who killed Jim and Caleb and tortured Dad. Tried to kill you and forced Bobby into sticking a knife into himself, Meg."
Dean turned to look at him steadily. "I know."
"And all of a sudden you trust her? Trust everything she tells you?"
"No," Dean said mildly. "I don't trust her. But I'm damned if I can think of a reason for her to lie about this."
"Hello? Demon? She lies like breathing, man," Sam retorted, his brow wrinkling. "Why didn't you kill her when you got the Colt?"
"Because I was stuck in Hell," Dean countered irritably.
"Then when you got out?" Ellen asked him.
"I made a judgement call," Dean told her, his tone sharp. "She's more use hunting down Crowley than dead."
"If you can believe that's what she's doing," Sam muttered.
Dean looked at him for a long moment. "Yeah, well, that's what I think she's doing."
"This ain't helping," Bobby cut in between them. "It's too late to worry about Meg."
"No argument," Dean said, staring at his brother with a stony expression.
Sam looked away and picked up his coffee.
"Thanks for the coffee, Alex," Ellen said into the growing silence. "We need to get back to library," she added to Bobby and Sam as she got to her feet.
For a moment, Sam remained stubbornly where he was, then he gulped down the rest of the coffee and got up, not looking at his brother.
"You're stayin' put for the next few days?" Bobby asked Dean as they both stood.
"Yeah, I'll be around."
"If we find out anything more on weapons against the demons –" Bobby said, looking at him.
"I'll be there," Dean confirmed with a flickered glance at Sam. "How's Adam working out over there?"
"Good," Sam said, shifting his feet. He'd wanted to talk to Dean about their half-brother – the tension over the side-trip to Hell had blown that prospect out of the water. He glanced uncomfortably at Bobby and Ellen who were listening with interest. "Uh … if you're coming over to see Chuck's stuff, we could … um …"
"Yeah," Dean agreed quickly, knowing both what Sam wanted to say and why he wasn't going to say it in front of the others. "Good idea."
"Okay." Sam turned for the hall and walked away, Ellen following him more slowly. Bobby looked at Dean.
"We'll need your input on this," he said tensely, his gaze skittering to Alex and back to the hunter.
"We're looking at what we've got so far, Bobby," Dean told him, ignoring the sceptical glance the hunter'd given Alex. "We'll be over later."
The older man nodded resignedly and turned away and Dean followed him to the door, closing it behind them.
"That was a minefield," Alex said as he came back into the room.
Dean nodded dryly. "Yeah."
He'd known he'd get hell when he got back, had been hoping to have the tablet before anyone had realised he'd gone. But of all of them, it'd only been Alex who hadn't yelled at him for risking his life on an ill-thought-out and impulsive action, and it wasn't because she hadn't seen the longer-reaching consequences of what might have been, he thought. She'd just thought he was capable of handling whatever had come up and she hadn't let whatever she'd felt about the risk of him not coming back override her obvious relief that he had.
He watched her pick up the cups and take them back to the kitchen, wondering at that depth of belief in him.
"Did you find out anything about protection against the nephilim and cambion?" he called out, walking to the table and looking at the piles of books and older, hand-bound manuscripts that were piled at one end.
"A bit," she said, coming back into the room and walking to the table to pick up her notes. "Most of the stuff we already know and use isn't a help, but Katherine gave me some translations of a couple of older texts, from when the Qaddiysh and their children were living openly with people in Canaan."
She sat on the sofa and he dropped next to her, looking over her shoulder at the neatly typed papers she was holding.
"They were regarded as special from the moment they appeared," she said, skimming through the pages. "Guardians, almost, to a few of the tribes living there, sharing knowledge and protecting them from warfare with other peoples."
"What about the Grigori? Where were they at this point?"
"On the other side of the Dead Sea, to the north, mostly." Alex shifted as he settled himself against the high arm of the sofa, propping one leg along the back and drawing her closer. She leaned back against his chest, lifting the pages so that he could read them as well. "They were regarded differently. They meddled – a lot – with the local people and they were feared for their power. I'm not a hundred percent sure of the translations in some of those texts, I need to go over it with Jasper, but the overall feeling was that the Grigori were outcasts and cruel – even their children were cruel."
"Why? What'd they do?" He frowned, trying to recall the conversation the scholars had had about the two factions of fallen angels and what the Qaddiysh had told them in Jordan.
"They would take slaves, mostly kidnapped from the caravans that moved along the trade routes between Egypt and Turkey, but sometimes from the local villages or nomadic tribes as well," she said, flipping through the pages to find the details. "They were practising black magic, I think, because there was a lot of stories that turned into mythology about them using people for sacrifices."
"Here," she said, lifting the page and reading. "Many people disappeared in the lands between the Dead Sea and the Broken Mountains. They were not seen again, and propitiations were made against the evil sorcerers who lived there. Strange creatures sometimes walked the night, and many times someone who had disappeared would come back, but without their memories or themselves, walking like the dead out of the desert, their eyes blank and blood-filled, unable to speak."
"Zombies?" Dean wondered aloud. Alex tilted her head back against his shoulder to look up at him.
"I was wondering if those weren't their experiments in making doppelgängers?"
He nodded slowly, the conversation about their Nazi involvement coming back to him. "Did we find the spells or whatever it is to do that?"
"No, the library doesn't have anything on it, and neither does the French chapter," she said. "The Scots and the Cape Verde scholars were still looking."
"Not creepy at all."
"Yeah," she said and he felt the shiver against his chest as it rippled through her. "The Grigori didn't care at all about the people they were living amongst."
Dean nodded. "The Qaddiysh said that they'd run, when Lucifer was defeated and cast down, half his army just took off into the desert."
"They'd already betrayed Heaven, I guess it wasn't such a leap to betray their leader as well," she said, the last word caught in a yawn. "I wonder if it was after that that disobedience became one of Heaven's worst crimes?"
He hadn't considered it but it fit. "Seems likely."
"Anyway," she said, opening her eyes and looking back through the notes. "There are a number of sigils, that were given to the people living near the Grigori, to ward off the nephilim."
"Good," he said, looking over shoulder.
"It's not easy," she warned him, passing the page that detailed the protection. "Oliver says we have some of the ingredients, but only in small amounts, so we need to decide what're the most important things to protect."
Dean read over the ingredients, brows drawing together. "Did Maggie leave a list of what was at the Smithsonian when she looked at it last month?"
"December," Alex corrected him. "And yeah, she did. Some of these things we can definitely get from there, almost all the organic ingredients, but some – I don't know where you'd find them. The library didn't have a record of where their stocks had been obtained from originally either." She looked at the list, eyes narrowing. "And I don't think we can get to the Smithsonian and back before something happens. Unless Cas takes you?"
"He made it pretty clear he was pretty busy right now," Dean said, wondering if the angel would come for a supply run. If it made a difference to them surviving … or not. "How much do we have right now?"
"Enough to ensure that the order can be protected, and perhaps a part of this keep," she said, hiding another yawn behind her hand.
"Is that being done?" he asked her, his arm curving around her waist to draw her closer as he heard the yawn.
"The entrance to the order's building has been, Oliver did it straight away," she said. "Aaron and Felix are arguing with Rufus and Father Emilio about how to protect the keep."
"What's the problem?"
"Felix believes that a single large room should be protected, so that people can go there if we are attacked," Alex told him. "Rufus and Father Emilio think that the walls should be done to make the building inviolate."
"We don't have enough to do all the walls, do we?"
"No," she agreed, closing her eyes. "The sigils' power would hold even if the walls were brought down, but only if every one was marked. And there's not enough to do that. The size has to be fixed."
"I'll talk to them later," he decided, half to himself, aware that the tiredness that categorised this stage of her pregnancy was stealing her away moment by moment. He'd talked to Merrin about it reluctantly, the nurse drawing him aside when he'd gone to see Kim about supplies. She'd told him far more than he'd really wanted to know about the biological and psychological effects of pregnancy, but he had to admit, looking at the last couple of months with the benefit of hindsight and that information, a whole lot had made much more sense.
"Mmm." Alex opened her eyes and lifted the pages. "There's nothing that covers the cambion, though, Dean." She rubbed her eyes with the heel of her hand. "I talked to Jasper about it, and their demonic heritage is supposed to be – according to the myth, anyway – completely through the human body they're born with but no devil's trap works on them – he thinks that's because they have a soul – and iron is only a little more irritating to them than it is to us, or any normal human."
"Did he have any ideas about the knife?" he asked her, catching the pages as they slipped out of her hands.
"Uh, um … no," she said, her eyes dropping closed again. "But there was a reference that Davis found in relation to a fight the Qaddiysh had with some demons …"
"What reference, Alex?" Dean prodded gently when she trailed into silence.
"Um … it said something about a metal that could …"
"Could?" he prompted, wondering if this could wait until morning.
"Could what?" she asked him sleepily. His mouth lifted slightly at one corner.
"That was my question."
"Oh … the metal was specially forged," she said. "On the table. I don't know …"
Her breath escaped in a long sigh and he fished the rest of the pages from her lap, reaching over to drop them on the table beside him. He'd look for the reference in a while, he thought, letting his eyes close as he listened to her steady breathing, feeling the tension of the earlier meeting dissipating.
The sigils would not allow a nephilim to pass them, he thought absently, but what they really needed were traps. To hold them. Give them leverage of their own against the fallen and the demons. And they needed something for the cambion, something final. The man he'd fought had been enormously strong and fast, and it'd only been the half-breed's over-confidence in his abilities, and luck holding at the end, that'd saved him.
His hand slid over the growing curve of Alex's belly, resting lightly against it. She was fifteen weeks, according to Kim, the pronounced bulge partly a result of two in there, partly due to the fact that they were a little larger than the doctor had expected. Kim hadn't given a reason for it and he wasn't sure if Alex was okay with that or worried. Something else he wanted to ask her, he thought drowsily.
The flutter against his palm was shocking in its unexpectedness and he lifted his hand instantly, looking down over Alex's shoulder at the smooth stretch of fabric that covered her where his hand had been. Lifting it, he stared at the taut curve, eyes widening as he saw a very faint, fast ripple under the skin. He moved his hand back tentatively and felt the flutter again, barely discernible but definitely there, leaving an echo of sensation in the nerves of his palm.
"Alex?" he whispered, feeling ridiculously as if he might scare them into quiescence if he spoke too loud. "Alex?"
She was out completely, he realised, as not so much as a flicker of an eyelash in response. Had she been feeling that, from the inside? She hadn't mentioned movement. He couldn't take his eyes off her pale, smooth skin. A minute ago, he'd been thinking that she was pregnant. Now, in a way that was still spinning him around, that thought had changed. Now, she was carrying his children. They were in there, growing, but apart from her already. Independent, in a way. No longer passive but actively there. He shook his head at his own confusion of what to think about it.
Whether he was ready or not, he was going to be a father. The enormity of that still hadn't sunk in, not really. He recognised, a little self-deprecatingly, that he might not get it completely until they'd been born. And it would be a little on the late side to figure out how he felt about it then.
He pulled in a deep breath, watching her lift and subside with the movement, and tried to be honest with himself. Scared. He was, in a way that had no correlation with his life to this moment. Dying didn't scare him. Facing entities and creatures and power much stronger didn't scare him. Responsibility scared him only when he thought he might fail. And that was the key to this responsibility, wasn't it? Failing the woman he was holding, the children she was bearing? In a myriad of ways that he could hardly even imagine yet. Failing to protect. To be there. To give them what they needed.
Failing to let them know how much he was going to love them.
He sighed very softly as his past rose around him. There'd been a lot of times when he'd been convinced that his father had no longer loved him. Times that he'd failed to protect his brother. Or had made a bad judgement and put them in danger. Occasional times when his father had seemed incapable of loving anyone or anything, drowning himself in the hunt and his frustrations at the lack of progress in bottles that stank out the rooms and removed every shred of caring from his face, from his eyes.
As an adult, he'd figured that John Winchester hadn't stopped loving his sons. But the memories of the child were still there.
This life, this chaotic and dangerous life they were in now wasn't going to slow down and let him get off. He wasn't going to be allowed to have safety and security, not for himself and not for them. He wasn't sure how the fuck he was going to live with that, he realised. Being afraid for them, all the time, was going to be the hardest gig he would ever have.
It didn't change anything, he thought abruptly. He wasn't going to walk away and he wasn't going to whine about it. And the peace she brought was worth it, worth the doubts and worries that he couldn't escape from when he wasn't right here. He thought better here, more clearly, more focussed on the actual problems, not the side-issues. He felt stronger, he knew, a bizarre contradiction that was somehow caused by the alchemy between them, her belief in him … and his need for her strength, for that unwavering conviction that she saw him as he was, every mistake and every scar, and she loved him for it all.
His breath shuddered out of him and he closed his eyes at the admission. No one had done that, not even his father. There was no expectation from Alex that she wanted anything other than what he already was. Who he already was.
Heaven
Raphael scowled as a small candle at the end of the quiet room leapt into flame. The demon was already exceeding his patience with the agreement he'd made with the Grigori, he thought, striding across to it and staring into the flame, not bothering to hide his displeasure as he listened to the demon's speculations and suggestions through the elemental medium.
He straightened as the flame went out, a thin tendril of smoke curling from the wick to the ceiling and turned away. If Castiel had helped Winchester to get into Hell, that changed many things. Michael might be prepared to listen to reason on the advisability of … discussing … matters more frankly with the outspoken and self-willed angel under that aegis.
It would take careful manipulation of both, he thought. The consent of a vessel, once given, could not be lightly removed. But all vessels held some compatibility to others, the bloodlines were few and the population had once been vast. He knew of two others who would be able to do the job. Only one of them was completely loyal to him, but one was precisely enough.
The demon was in a state of fury. He would march his army now. Closing his eyes, Raphael envisaged the whole of the lower plane, stretching his particular frequency through the energy web of the planet, through the atmosphere and the ocean currents, feeling for where they moved, what they controlled. A short delay was needed, and the weather, always unpredictable to the hairless apes, would provide one.
Along the eastern coast of the continent that stretched from north to south, the current shifted slightly, moving out from the land and slowing down. In response, a system that would've travelled further west began to edge eastward, its frigid winds reaching out as the north-flowing warm water left the coast.
The archangel opened his eyes, still seeing the cloud patterns shifting under the changes he'd wrought. It would keep Crowley in Indiana for another week, he thought with a grunt of satisfaction. Long enough.
It did not occur to him that once the angels would have looked along the lines woven and maintained the balance between light and dark. It did not occur to him that once, such meddling in the affairs of humanity would have been punishable by death, and all Heaven bent in efforts to undo what had been done. In this time, there was no one watching the lines and no one to watch and report on changes that happened daily, by the minute. Everything was free-falling. He took it for granted that nothing he'd done had left even the most ghostly and intangible of prints that could lead back to him. As long as the man continued to change the lines, anything could be accomplished at any time.
Camp Atterbury, Indiana
Crowley scowled at the dark line on the northern horizon that was approaching the base rapidly. Convenient that a blizzard had arrived to underline Raphael's insistence that he have more time, he thought furiously. Convenient that it hadn't been driven here, according to Baeder and Dietrich, but seemed natural enough, an unforeseen shift in the Gulf Stream to the east and the system had been able to move on top of them.
Convenient for Heaven.
He dragged the collar of his coat higher and spun on his heel, heading back indoors. The army was ready – as ready as they would ever be, he amended to himself sourly. The only thing in their favour was the abilities of the cambion. Had he realised that they were so powerful, he'd have rethought his plan of attack but of course Draxler had only pointed it out that morning. He'd seen the look of shock on Dietrich's face as well, and had seen the almost-invisible look of satisfaction in the half-breed's eyes as he'd turned away after dropping his bombshell.
It didn't matter, not in the long run. They had the list of names. They had almost two thousand men and women, armed and reasonably well drilled in what they would be doing. They had ordnance coming out of their backsides, he thought, looking around the icy, windswept base from the comfort of his office, the glass of whiskey in his hand. He would get the tablet and the Colt back and the Winchesters would be out of the picture permanently and plans would once again proceed as desired.
And the lines would stop changing.
The Throne had told him something of the lines of destiny and the entities that spun and wove and cut, but not much. He didn't have the time he needed to just sit and absorb all the information he knew was held within it. What he did know was that what was happening right now, had never happened before, had been considered completely impossible.
The bloodlines of the compatible seraphim who had fallen with their Grace intact were limited to three lines. Araquiel. Azazel. Amaros. Only those descended from those three lines could produce vessels suitable for the Eighth Choir. And of those three, only two were able to produce vessels for Michael and Lucifer. Originally, as he'd come to understand it, it was only vessels that had been desired. Then someone in Heaven had discovered that one of the bloodlines could also be manipulated to another end. The breaking of the seals on the Cage in the ninth level. Specifically, the breaking of the first seal and the last one. A lot of careful manipulation – of Heaven and on the earthly plane, and in Hell – had been required to get exactly what was needed. And they had not seen the side-effect, the great, glaring elephant-in-the-room side-effect that was bringing them undone now.
"The storm will last only a couple of days," Baeder said from the doorway. Crowley glanced at him and nodded.
"It won't matter," he told the fallen angel. "Just a couple of days to eat, drink and be merry and then we'll be on the road."
Baeder's expression, at least on the side of his face that could hold expression, was stiff and disapproving, Crowley saw with an inward flicker of contentment.
"Lighten up, man," he told him with a cheeriness that grated further. "We'll have the prophet and the tablet, and the prophet will be able to give us the location of the angel tablet, and it'll all be roses, you'll see." He turned to the sideboard and poured a double into a crystal glass, picking it up and handing it to Baeder. "Have a drink, you'll feel better."
Baeder stared at him for a moment, then threw back the whiskey in a single gulp. Crowley winced.
"Once the main passes across the mountains have cleared, how long till your mates get over here?"
"Here or Boston?" Baeder asked coldly.
"Boston," Crowley clarified, resisting the urge to put a fist into his face.
"A few weeks," Baeder confirmed. "They will want the existing populations left intact, but we will need more of your demons to round up the creatures that have been turned."
"Yeah, Dietrich told me," Crowley said with an indifferent shrug. "Well, we'll see how we're getting on with the angel tablet before we commit ourselves to anything major."
The implicit rebuke in the statement again made the angel stiffen and Crowley turned away, hiding his amusement. He would be running this show and it would be better if the Grigori didn't persist in a delusion of partnership. He still needed to figure out a better answer for the cambion though.
Baeder stood rigidly in front of the window, staring at the snowflakes that blew almost horizontally across the empty parade ground, his hands clenched behind his back.
From the armchair several feet away, Dietrich watched him thoughtfully. The angel was almost out of control, he thought. Certainly ready to rip the King of Hell into small, unrecognisable pieces given the slightest opportunity.
"The gun will kill him," Baeder said, the words bitten out.
"Yes," Dietrich agreed. "But he will not allow it out of his sight, and you know that. The cambion can take him easily when the time comes."
"I want to see him surprised, Dietrich," Baeder said, turning slowly to face him. "And I want to see him suffering."
"I'm sure that can be arranged." Dietrich shrugged indifferently. "Eric, you need to rest. This is a good time –"
"Do not talk to me of rest," the fallen snapped. "I will rest when we have succeeded. Not before."
"You will burn out before then," Dietrich said mildly. He gestured to the nephilim who were gathered at the end of the room. "Ariana is willing. Shed some of your fury so that you are thinking clearly when we leave."
Baeder stared at him. "My thoughts have never been as clear as they are now, Dietrich. They are razor blades of clarity."
Dietrich exhaled softly as he watched him stalk out of the room. It was like watching the countdown to a bomb, he thought. The only question was if Eric would last the distance or blow himself up before they got to the end of the next task. He had a strong feeling that his brother would hang on long enough.
Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania
In the shelter of the dark wood, the snow fell almost straight, huge, fluffy flakes that clung to the windshield and clotted and froze together, the wipers flipping over them. Peter slowed again, swearing under his breath as Penemue wound down the window and half-crawled out to knock them off the freezing glass.
"We'll have to stop," Elena said, hunched in the seat between the Irin and Peter and staring out at the darkening landscape.
Peter nodded grimly, his mouth thinning as the car idled forward and the fall grew thicker, covering the road in front of him.
The substation was almost invisible by the time they'd reached it. Shamsiel reached forward and gripped Peter's shoulder as they drove slowly past it, seeing the man-made geometry in the half-mantled shape between the thick trees.
"There."
Pulling over, they struggled through the deepening snow, loaded with the gear bags, to the iron door set in the front of the small building. Peter's hands stiffened in the cold as he worked the picks to free the lock. A single shot would have been quicker, Baraquiel thought, looking around the forest that surrounded them, but impossible to repair if they needed to lock anyone – or thing – out.
Inside, a narrow platform led to a set of brick steps that followed the wall down. Peter closed and locked the door behind them, and followed the Qaddiysh and Elena's flashlight down.
At the bottom of the stairs, Elena moved into the large, square room. On one wall, a number of boxes and boards showed the power coming in and going out, festooned with cobwebs and dark. On the far side, a broken pipe dripped water with a steady, surprisingly annoying plink into a shallow puddle below but the rest of the room was dry.
Peter dropped his bag to the ground, pulling out the small gas lantern and canister and lighting it and they set up a simple camp, moving without speaking, each well practised in their tasks.
"What now?" Shamsiel asked, looking at them as soup heated on the tiny stove.
Penemue looked over at the almost still pool in the corner of the room. "We should try to see what is going on."
Sighing, Shamsiel uncrossed his legs and got up, walking to the pool. Elena and Peter turned to watch him beside it, his hand moving a couple of inches about the surface as his eyes closed and he murmured something in a soft, sing-song language.
"What's he doing?" Elena asked, looking back at Penemue.
The Irin smiled a little quizzically. "You are legacies of the Order, are you not?"
Her look of surprise, and Peter's flash of a grin stopped him.
"No, we are hunters," Peter said, glancing sideways at Elena. "Not scholars."
Penemue's brow rose. "I did not realise there was a difference?"
Elena laughed. "A huge difference, mon ami," she said, lowering her voice a little. "My family, for many, many generations, have been sworn to the Chambre d'ombres, that is our legacy, if you like."
Beside her, Peter nodded. "Mine also, were sworn as the weapons of the Church, for many hundreds of years now."
"But you are both –"
"Versed in lore?" Peter cut in with a smile.
"Yes, we know what we hunt, we know what we protect," Elena added, lifting a shoulder in a slight shrug. "But we do not study the patterns, Penemue – as I believe you do – you and your brothers?" She looked at Baraquiel, sitting by the vehicle, the black metal knife across his knees as he sharpened the edge smoothly.
Penemue nodded slowly. "We were asked to fall, by our Father. To protect and teach humanity. We have also been scholars and soldiers."
"Why did you fall?" Elena asked him curiously. "It must be hard, to be apart from Heaven, from your kin?"
"It was a great honour, to be chosen" Penemue answered, his gaze turning to Shamsiel. "And a great adventure, at the time. And I –" he cut himself off, shaking his head. "There was much we could learn from each other, I thought."
Peter watched the man's face carefully. "And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose."
The Watcher looked at him and smiled, his expression a little rueful. "Yes, and there was that as well."
"You fell in love?" Elena looked at him. Penemue made a vague gesture.
"Does it not come to all, eventually?"
"Penemue!" Shamsiel's voice was a hiss across the room.
Penemue and Baraquiel got up, and Elena and Peter glanced at each other, rising after them. They walked to Shamsiel, crouching around him and looking into the pool.
On the surface, they saw a thickly covered snowscape, mounds and drifts rising in dunes, a wood to the left mantled in snow. Two children stood in the centre, holding hands, their free arms lifted and pointing ahead of them. Elena held her breath as she watched the snow melt and disappear in front of the children, steam billowing as the road on which they stood was revealed, a shining black ribbon curving between the snow banks. The children lowered their arms and walked forward, and behind them a vehicle drove over the newly cleared surface, broad tyres flicking moisture backwards. It was an open Army vehicle, a wide wheelbase and boxy shape identifying it easily as a HMMVV similar to their own. In it, three men and two women sat, warmly dressed, all carrying automatic weapons.
"Ashriel," Baraquiel breathed from beside her, staring intently at the images. "And Mossaque."
Penemue nodded. "Look at the lie of the shadows, they are heading west."
Behind the vehicle, a long line of trucks followed, men and women walking to either side, dressed uniformly in mottled grey and brown clothing, rifles slung over their shoulders, their faces impassive, their eyes black, from corner to corner.
"The demon's army is marching," Shamsiel said, his face screwing up as he forced his concentration on the scene shown in the water tighter. The army marched along the road, filling it from side to side, and they kept watching, the line showing no end.
On the side of the road, the melted snow revealed a green and white sign, battered and crumpled. All of them could read it. St Louis, one hundred and fifty miles.
Litteris Hominae, Kansas
Sam watched as Marla sat at the laptop, her fingers flying over the keys. To her left, the pile of the scratched and scrawled notes Chuck had been producing for the last few hours sat, red ink glaring out from the black handwriting. On the other side of the table, Alex was bent over the latest notes, reading through them, her brows drawn tightly together as she deciphered the atrocious handwriting and made corrections. He had a pile of her corrected notes in front of him, checking that what she'd managed to pull out of the barely legible solid blocks of text was meaningful.
He'd been surprised when she'd turned up with Dean four hours ago, but grateful when it appeared that she could actually read most of the notes.
"Two years working together in Chitaqua," she'd told him with a wry smile, dropping her coat and settling herself at the table. "But I'll need someone to check for the words that I'm not likely to know," she'd added, skimming over the first page.
He'd nodded and their little prophet production line had worked smoothly since.
The printer on the other side of the room was printing the typed versions. Dean was sitting down in the situation room with Jerome and Father Emilio and Father McConnaughey, going through those. Bobby, Ellen, Rufus and Maurice would be over later, when they had more of an idea of what they had here.
So far, he thought, reading through the page in front of him, it was mainly lists. The hierarchies of Hell. Demon names and their respective responsibilities in the accursed plane. Briefly sketched histories of the major events. Jerome was grabbing those, he knew, and handing them to Aaron and Mitch to be entered into the order's histories.
"Sam," Alex said, staring at the page in front of her. "This looks like it's detailing protection spells."
"Dean!" Sam turned and called down to the other room, getting up and walking around the table to lean over her shoulder.
The spidery hand had been clarified where the words had become too illegible, Alex's neat printing in the red pen clear and filling in the gaps. She was right, he thought, looking at the complex diagrams interspersed with the text. He skimmed down the page.
Dean walked to the table. "What?"
"Protection," Sam said shortly. Walking behind his brother and Alex, Dean leaned on the table and started to read the pages. He looked over at Sam.
"I can get the trench-diggers from Franklin, but I got no clue about artefacts with psychic residue," he said, shaking his head.
"A mile west of Hays, there was a town called Rome. It was the original settling point for that area," Alex said, looking up at him. "In 1867, a cholera epidemic wiped out most of that town's residents and the rest relocated to Hays. Six months later, a group of settlers stopped there and they were murdered, at least a hundred and forty men, women and children. They were camping near the church. If you can find any of the building's foundations, or brick or stone from there, it will be enough."
Dean blinked at her. "How the hell do you know that?"
"The history part was a school project," she said, waving a hand dismissively. "But one of the projects Chuck was working on at Chitaqua was a correlation between mass death events and the gates to other planes … well, specifically to Hell. He was talking to Cas about it, and I was helping him research the larger events."
He looked at his brother. "Hays is about a hundred miles from here –"
Sam nodded, following the thought easily. "Vince can take the susvee, Jack, Chris and Lee," he said, turning to head back to the situation room and the radio. "Alex, did Chuck have the co-ordinates for that town in his files?"
"Yeah, he had them on the laptop. Mitch can get them," she said, getting to her feet.
Dean put his hand on her shoulder, and looked at her. "Stay here, keep reading, I'll tell Mitch."
Sam glanced back at them, slowing as he watched her sit down, his brother lean forward, speaking quietly to her. He was too far to hear what Dean said, but he saw something between them, something potent and intimate as Dean brushed his lips lightly over hers. The gesture was uncharacteristically tender and Sam turned away, feeling uncomfortably as if he'd intruded on something private, tinged with surprise at seeing it all. He walked to the radio, the image playing in his mind.
He heard Dean come down the steps a few minutes later, as Anson nodded that the transmission had gone through, and looked at the table where the priests were reading the typed notes.
"We've got stronger wards for the buildings, and stronger traps," Dean said without preamble, sitting down beside Father Emilio. Sam walked over to them, standing next to Father McConnaughey. "But there's still nothing on the cambion."
"How long can we have Alex for?" Sam asked his brother. Dean shrugged.
"She left the keep business to Maria and Fred, she can be here as long as Chuck keeps churning it out."
"Good." He looked down at Dean, another spurt of surprise hitting him as he realised that Dean actually looked relaxed, half-sprawled in the chair and questioning the two priests on their knowledge of the demon offspring. When had that happened?
"Sam, there's more," Alex called, and he turned to look up the stairs at her, nodding.
"This is talking about trapping souls – it doesn't relate specifically to demons, but it might have a bearing on the cambion, or even the nephilim," she said, handing the sheets to him. "It's possible Father McConnaughey might know something of this – he said something about the souls of the half-breeds give them their power, but are also their weakness?"
"Thanks," Sam said, gathering up the papers and taking them back down the stairs, sitting down at the situation table.
The men crowded around the corner of the table, reading the notes. Father McConnaughey looked up and shook his head.
"Emilio, we did know about this," he said, scowling. "The node stones."
"What node stones?" Sam looked at him.
"Jerome, are there node stones – any kind – here in with the artefacts?"
Jerome looked around from the computer screens and nodded. "We have a couple. Why?"
"There was a Romani story, centuries ago. And spells, I think. To trap the soul – and the mind – in a stone found in the nodes of the leys," he said shortly, getting up. "Would Oliver know where they are?"
Jerome nodded again. "They were in the apothecary store-rooms."
"Leys … ley lines?" Sam asked, looking at Father Emilio. The Jesuit rubbed a hand over his face.
"It was just a myth, but the Church had them too," he confirmed. "They're special crystals, with a lattice that does not occur frequently in nature. There was a spell, to draw any soul that crossed the stone into it."
"So we can trap the cambion that way?" Dean asked tightly. "Or a nephilim?"
Father Emilio shrugged. "If we have the stones and we can spell them correctly, yes."
"Let's do it," he said, getting up. "Sam, you got this?"
Sam nodded. "Where are you going?"
"I need to see Jackson and Riley about protecting our stores," he said, glancing up at the library table. "Alex was going to come as well, but she's probably better off here."
He looked back at his brother and saw the tacit request in his face. He nodded. "What did you have in mind?"
"If we can spare the stock, we'll use the stronger wards right over everything there," Dean said, pulling his jacket from the back of the chair and dragging it on. "Otherwise, we'll try and get as much hidden in the mine as we can." He turned for the stairs. "I'll be back in a couple of hours."
Lightning Oak Keep, Kansas
Ellen rubbed the fogged-over thickened glass of the window and stared outside, the gathering dusk hiding the woods to the south, the first few stars showing in the indigo sky.
"Franklin has two hundred, ready to be deployed," Rufus said, stretching back in the chair. "Not counting keep guards."
"Two hundred isn't going far," Bobby said tiredly, getting up to put a couple more logs on the bright fire in the hearth. "Chuck's vision showed a thousand, at least, probably more."
"We don't need as many numbers for defence as they need for attack," Rufus reminded him. "And now, we can take them out with the outer defences, especially any bigger weapons they might bring with them."
The populations of all five keeps had been working on the outer defences since Chuck had had the first vision, Liev managing siting and construction of the small forts that ringed the town in a mile radius from the protected holds. Each fort had Franklin's long-range artillery installed, dual targeting and defended with ten-foot thick stone and steel-reinforced walls. Under the foundations, deep tunnels had been dug to allow for whatever Crowley's army was bringing with them.
The army – on foot – could come from any direction. But the roads leading into Lebanon, except for the US-36 from the west, and the US-281 from the north, were mined, ten miles out from the town. Any vehicles would have to stay outside that range, and any weapons they were going to bring with them would have be humped across country by hand. It would, they hoped, reduce the possible damage that could be done to the keep walls and buildings. Each fort would have eyes on the roads. Each fort was in range of the two open roads with its guns. Each fort would be manned by twenty-five of Franklin's recruits, all of whom had done nothing but drill and practice with the armament since construction had begun.
"What about everyone else?" Ellen asked, turning back to them and drawing the soft knitted coat more closely around her. "And Michigan?"
Bobby moved over on the armchair as she came to sit beside him. "We've got no reason to think Michigan's in danger," he said, knowing she was worried. "And Boze called in yesterday, said that another big fall dumped more on them, couldn't even see the roads anymore. Nothing'll get through there until the thaw."
"Everyone is going to be on defence here, Ellen," Rufus added. "Those who can't fight will be making sure that the wounded are taken care of and there's enough food for those coming off the walls."
"Rufus, we have two hundred women here who are in their fourth month – that's just here, in the main keep there's more than five hundred –"
"Yeah, including you," Bobby growled at her. "Don't you think we've thought of this?"
It'd been the biggest shock of his life, when she'd come out of Kim's office and told him he was going to be a father. He hadn't known what to say, what to feel. And the man he would've gone to talk to about it had been under his own strain. Rufus had told him a little of his conversation with Dean. Ellen was near the high-risk end of the spectrum and neither had wanted to add their concerns to whatever the de facto leader was going through.
"There's a reason Liev built the tunnels, Ellen," Rufus said firmly. "If we can't hold them at the perimeter, then everyone who can't fight will be evacuated into the tunnels."
"We won't lose 'em," Bobby said, his arm curving around her hips. "The demons won't be able to cross the walls, no matter how many pieces they're in. Those wards are built into them, into the concrete and into the stone and the fill is all salt and pure iron. And we already know that if the cambion try to get in, they'll be after Chuck and the tablet, first and foremost."
"There's nothing to stop them from destroying us when they don't find him here," she said astringently.
"Just us," Rufus agreed readily. "We don't die so easy."
She looked away, her hand unconsciously creeping up from her lap to curl around her stomach. Twins, Kim had told her, the worry in her eyes held back but still there. She hadn't realised Bobby'd still be shooting live rounds. Hadn't really thought of herself as being fertile either, and probably, she thought, if things had been normal, she wouldn't have quickened, but things were such a long way from being normal that she no longer even remembered what normal looked like.
She'd told Jo a few days ago, glad for once that she couldn't see her daughter's face. She'd caught a faint edge to her voice, for a moment, as Jo realised that she wouldn't have her mother to help her through this, but that had vanished when they'd talked about the risk factor and the things that Ellen had finally allowed were worrying her. Father of the Bride II, Jo had jokingly said to her, Ellen mystified over the reference until she'd explained. She and Ty were having three, according to Bernice, Ray and Meredith, and they'd be the same age as their two aunts. It wasn't much of a joke, just the best her daughter could come up with given the circumstances and it made her smile a little now. At least Bill's genes would be carried forward. The thought brought a pang of sadness and she felt Bobby's arm close around her a little more firmly. Damned man could sense her feelings better than her daughter could.
"Besides," Rufus was saying and she looked at him, blinking against the pricking behind her eyes and forcing herself to concentrate on him again.
"We made it this far, Ellen," he said, draining his glass. "We can make it to the end zone."
Bobby tapped the plans in front of him. "This what we're taking to Dean tomorrow?"
"All of it, yeah," Rufus confirmed. "He's sent Vince and some of the kids down to Hays, grab that crap that's going to beef up the walls."
"Did they get back to you on the traps for the nephilim and the cambion?" Ellen asked.
"They've got two stones, Dean said," Bobby told her, turning to look into her face. "They'll use one at the keep and one at the safehold, and I want you at the keep when we get first warning."
She shook her head. "No, I'm staying here."
"No," he countered tightly. "You're not. Keep's got the best and strongest protection we can find. Chuck's translating the crap out of that stone but even with the sigils and the spells, without the ingredients we can't provide the same level of safety here. So … for my peace of mind, you'll be over there."
In his voice there was an entreaty and she heard it. Don't fight me on this. Don't make me worry more'n I already am. Stay safe so's I got something to fight for. They'd been over this twice already. This was her home and she wanted to be here, by his side. She'd let Bill go off and he hadn't come back. She wasn't sure she'd cope too well if that happened again. But for him, it was the same. He'd be too worried about her, about the family that he wanted more than he could say, if she was here.
Rufus cleared his throat. "Dean's already figured the roster for who's where once the sirens go, Ellen," he said casually. "You're going to be there, so if you want to fight with him about it …" he let the rest of the sentence trail off.
Ellen's lips pursed slightly. "Don't think I wouldn't if there weren't other considerations, Turner," she said shortly.
"Ah, would never think you'd take an order lyin' down, Ellen," he said with a crooked smile.
She glared at him but it was habit only. She'd seen Dean two days ago at the keep, and her winter clothing had hidden her news effectively until she'd taken off her coat. He'd seen the curving bump immediately, and had been genuinely happy for her and Bobby. She'd thought it might've added to his worries, but for the first time, she thought he'd been … alright. Better than alright, he'd been good. Confident and working through every problem smoothly, more relaxed than she'd ever seen him, that one-sided smile widening, the wary cynicism that had been shadowing his eyes ever since she'd met him … gone. Watching him, she'd seen him laugh with Ben, shrug off the minor difficulties that Mel and Nate had brought along to the meeting, figure solutions and when she'd come again and asked Bobby about it, he'd agreed straight away. He thought it was the impending prospect of being a father, but she remembered the way he'd been, before Lisa had died, and she didn't see it. He looked like a man who'd finally figured out his place in life, she thought. Finally found where he fit.
Ghost Valley Farm, Kansas
The three men walked across the bare fields to the woodland boundary, looking across the gently rolling hills as the sun inched higher above the horizon and the world turned from silver to gold.
"You think they'll come after the farms?" Riley looked at the distant buildings, shining white in the early morning light. "Come after us?"
"No," Dean said, shaking his head. "They might if they see resistance here, but if nothing's moving, they'll probably just leave them. They don't know that they won't be able to get in, even if they come." He looked to the left of the buildings and gestured to the squat, square tower sitting on a slightly higher hilltop a mile to the south. "And they'll be distracted," he added. "Franklin's got some heavy artillery on all the forts. They'll engage and cover the buildings for as long as they can. The ammo is designed to take the meatsuits down, bind the demons inside them. You keep low, and use the tunnels, worst case, and you'll come out okay."
"What about our stores? We can forget the fucking wheat if there's an army trampling across the fields, but we've got seed in those silos." Jackson glowered at the silos near the buildings as if they were personally responsible for their vulnerability.
"I don't think they'll hit the silos or the barns," Dean said, following his gaze. "But we're not taking a chance with it. There'll be people coming for the next four days to move the seed stores to the basements and the tunnels. Leave whatever you think can be left, but get what we need for the future under cover."
The older man nodded sourly. "First really good year we've had in the last three and we get invaded," he grumbled.
"So long as we come out of it vertical, we can catch up," Riley said mollifyingly. "What about these goddesses, Dean. Another round by them, and we're either going to have to expand the holdings or figure on some sort of protection against the monsters, like we've got against the demons."
"Michel said he got a shot of the boat off the east coast, two weeks ago," Dean told him. "If they can find a vehicle, one that'll move in the snow, we might see the Watchers in the next couple of weeks. If they're slogging it out on foot, it'll be longer."
"Can we get rid of them, for good I mean?" the lanky farmer asked, tucking his gloved hands into his pockets.
Dean snorted. "The box is a transdimensional doorway, Riley," he said disparagingly. "Now you know as much about it as I do."
"Used to love sci-fi as a kid," Riley grinned at him. "I'll take your word for it."
Dean laughed, turning to scan the fields for the boy. He saw Ben near the edge of the woods, whistling and waving as he turned toward them.
"Let me know if there's anything you need."
"Yeah, we'll do that," Jackson grunted. He looked at the windswept sky mistrustfully. "Should be getting a thaw now."
Dean walked beside him, hearing the crunch underfoot. "Not unusual for a long winter, though?"
"No, but this is the third one like this we've had in a row."
The words triggered a memory of a memory in Dean's mind and he hunched deeper into his coat, trying to drag it out. Like most of the memories that weren't related directly to family, a hunt or the situation at hand, it refused to come and be looked at, fading away to nothing as he saw Ben's face.
"What?"
Ben frowned a little, looking up at Jackson. "No one's hunting in the woods this morning, are they?"
Jackson shook his head. "No, son, why?"
"I thought I saw someone in there."
Dean felt himself tense slightly. "Without looking over there, can you describe where?"
"Two hundred yards from the fenceline and three hundred from the corner post, behind that oak that grew bigger than the rest," Ben said quickly.
"Good, okay," Dean said, catching his lower lip between his teeth as he mentally reviewed what he was carrying with him today. "You go inside with Jackson and Riley," he told the boy, glancing sideways at the farmers. "All completely natural, nothing going on, right?"
"Right," Ben said quickly.
Riley lifted his face to catch the sun. "Not going in on your own," he said casually.
Dean grinned humourlessly. "Yeah, I've done this a few times, Riley. You keep the people here safe."
He kept to the shadows, and the damp ground, in between the trees where the snow had fallen but didn't lay on the ground, the rich humus muffling his footsteps, the mottled grey, brown and white jacket he wore hiding his outline. The medallion lay warm against his chest and his mind was empty and cold.
Dean saw the man, lying beneath the low, sweeping branches of the conifer, binoculars pressed to his face, and stopped. He pressed his shoulder to the rough tree trunk beside him, his gaze moving over the prone figure, over the area surrounding him slowly and cautiously, watching and waiting for any sign of a partner. After ten minutes, neither of them had moved an inch and he was reasonably sure the man was alone – at least in this part of the wood. He had the feeling that there were others, on the outskirts of the land they'd pushed into, watching as this one was.
The barrel of the automatic flicked up and the shot rang out in the silent forest, followed by a shrill scream of pain. He straightened up, stepping out from the tree and walking unhurriedly to the man, who rolling on the ground, one arm limp, the other wrapped over his chest, hand clutching at his shoulder as blood leaked out between his fingers, the glasses dropped and forgotten beside him.
"Hey," Dean said brightly, stopping beside him.
The man's mouth opened wide, his eyes bulging slightly as he attempted to force a way out, but nothing happened. Dean nodded understandingly.
"Binding sigil, on the bullet," he explained, dropping to one knee beside him and driving his thumb close by the wound, eliciting another shrill and breathless shriek. "We've been fooling around with a few rounds," he continued conversationally, glancing at the wound. "These are modified hollow-points. Makes sure they stay in."
The man's eyes were a flat black, corner to corner. "You gonna kill me? Do it then!"
The small lift of one side of Dean's mouth didn't really resemble a smile. "Kill you? Hell, no," he said. "Gotta ask some questions, first."
"You're wasting your breath, Winchester," the demon spat at him. "I'll take whatever you've got over Crowley any day."
"Well, we'll see how you feel about that," Dean said in a mild tone, his fingers digging into the shoulder and lifting the man from the ground as he straightened up. "I got some free time."
"I ain't tellin' you nothin'," he snarled, stumbling forward as the wire caught at his ankles, forcing him into a shuffling trot.
"Yeah, well, you probably think that you've got the whole pain thing down, after Hell," Dean told him, pushing a little harder. "But the thing about flesh and blood is the variety. There're a helluva lot of ways to take it to the limit up here in the real world."
He drew out the knife from its sheath behind his hip. The demon stared at it, following the movement as Dean turned the blade to look along the edge.
"You know what this is?"
"Yeah."
"How many more hiding out here?" Dean asked, pushing him casually back against the tree.
"Go ahead, do what you want!"
The tip slid easily in through the muscle and sinews between shoulder joint and collar bone and the top of the rib cage and Dean turned the blade slowly. The demon's scream sent a flock of birds flapping into the sky at the other end of the woods, and dissipated into a series of breathless moans as the blade withdrew.
"How many?"
"Fuck you!"
"Not my type," he quipped, slicing across the demon's abdomen, the jacket and clothing beneath fluttering, the edges turning red as the curving tip split skin and fat slowly. Watching the face, Dean saw a gradual recognition dawning in the eyes, and he nodded encouragingly.
"You know what I did in Hell?" he asked it, pushing a little deeper as he made a second cut below the first.
"Alastair's pet!"
Dean's mouth stretched out in a humourless smile, his eyes arctic. "How many?"
The meatsuit was shuddering deeply, the nervous system dealing with too many reports of injury and the demon couldn't suck in enough air to answer. Dean dropped a little, slicing through the hamstring at the back of the knee, the demon sagging suddenly as the leg gave way, a burst of reddened spittle exploding from its mouth with the high-pitched squeal.
"I can leave you here tonight," Dean said, straightening up. "Wolves have been around, they won't care if you're still in there when they start to chow down."
"Four!" it shrieked at him, dropping to the ground. "There're four others."
"Where?"
"Five mile radius around the town," it gasped, lifting its hand as a bloody froth dribbled from the corner of its mouth.
"What'd you tell Crowley?" Dean asked, his gaze moving from the demon to scan the area.
"Nothing, just a grunt, wasn't in contact!"
"Really?" He stepped back and kicked at the small, bronze goblet half-hidden in the undergrowth. "Why've you got a squawk-box?"
The demon rolled its eyes, tipping its head back against the tree trunk. "You'll kill me? If I tell you?"
"Quick as can be," Dean agreed, the blade catching the strengthening light through the thin branches as he dropped to a crouch.
"Everything."
"Everything?"
"The forts, the mines, the farms, the guns, the training," the demon said, hawking a throatful of blood and spitting it out. "Been here a month."
"Since we hit the Grigori?"
"Yeah, Crowley knows everything you've done," the demon agreed. It lifted its head and looked at him. "So … kill me."
The knife was reversed and in the air before the last word, burying itself to the hilt in the demon's chest. Red-gold light boiled in the vessel, spilling out through the cuts and tears, flooding from mouth, eyes and nose. It died away and Dean stood up, leaning over to brace his hand against the shoulder and drag the knife clear. He wiped the blade absently on the demon's jacket and slid it back into the sheath.
Everything. It wouldn't change the plan, he thought, looking around the clearing. They could sweep and pick up the others and put some booby traps in along the woods that marked the boundaries of every keep and the farms.
It wouldn't change a thing. He walked back through the trees, feeling the sunlight dappled and patterning his back. There was nothing Crowley had learned that would enable him to alter his plan of attack, and their defences were stronger now, with the blood sigils from the tablet.
He felt the back of his neck prickle and pushed the feeling of unease aside. Chuck was wrong. The visions were wrong. He and Sam would be here and they'd take whoever the demon and the fallen tried to send in and they'd be here, protecting the population and keeping them safe.
What the prophet has written can't be unwritten. As he has seen it, so it shall come to pass.
The angel's word echoed ominously in his head and his expression flattened out to a dark scowl. Well, this would be the exception that proved the rule, he thought mulishly. He'd just found what he needed, found what he'd been searching for, and he wasn't going to risk that, wasn't going to take a chance with it. He'd be here and they would have to fucking well come through him.