Chapter 25 A Family Legacy

Iola, Kansas

The Strip 91 Motel was a couple of steps up from sleazy with an eye-searing wallpaper in yellow, silver and gold. The room held two queen-sized beds, a sofa, a small, round plywood table painted in gloss white and four matching chairs. Henry sat on the sofa, his eyes half-closed, whistling softly as Dean searched through the county's records for Captain Thomas Carey, the Third's current address and Sam made notes on the searches he'd done earlier.

"I know that," Sam said, his head cocked to listen as he turned toward Henry. Dean looked up at him, a hint of a smile curving his mouth.

"'Casablanca'," he said to Sam dryly. "'Play it, Sam'. Don't you remember? Every damned time the movie was showing Dad'd watch it."

Henry looked at him, his expression softening. "Somewhat foolishly, I took your father to see 'Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy' at the drive-in one night. It scared the beeswax out of him. So I got him a little music box that played that song to help him sleep at night." He looked away, the slight smile vanishing. "It worked like a charm."

Sam shook his head. "It's kind of hard to believe Dad was ever scared of anything."

Dean's eyes narrowed slightly as he looked from his brother to Henry. He was so not in the mood for family reminiscing, especially about their father. He rapped lightly on the table top, drawing the attention of both. "Hey, uh, according to county records, Tom Carey lives in Lebanon, Kansas, and is a very happy one hundred and twenty-seven-year-old," he read the details from the screen and looked at Sam, closing the laptop. "I say we get some shut-eye, head over first thing in the morning."

Sam nodded distractedly, frowning down at his notes. "Why is Abaddon so much more powerful than the rest of the demons in Hell?"

Henry closed his eyes, leaning his head back. "There were nine, originally. The nine angels who Fell from Grace with Lucifer in the Rebellion of Heaven and were thrown into the Pit with him. Lucifer tortured them for a thousand years and they were twisted and deformed and transformed into the first demons. The archdemons."

He opened his eyes and looked at Sam. "They were made from angels and had no souls, and when Lucifer had finished there was nothing left in them but a darkness so deep no light could ever penetrate it." He gestured vaguely. "The mythology said that they each ruled a level of Hell, but they were in the Pit with the Lightbringer so it's difficult to say if that was true or not. Legend has it that they were killed by the archangels but that too is unverifiable, at least at this time. And Abaddon's presence here seems to belie the legend anyway."

Sam felt a shiver trickle down his spine. There was so much they didn't know, so much legend and lore that covered the world they lived in that they had no idea about. Even those he'd thought were knowledgeable – his father, and Bobby and Rufus – seemed to have barely scratched the surface of what was out there. It raised something inside of him, that knowledge. An itch to know what they knew, to know for sure the things he could only speculate about.

Henry looked at the leather-bound journal lying on the table and lifted a brow. "You say that belonged to your father?"

Sam nodded. "Yeah."

"May I?"

Sam felt Dean tense beside him and pushed the journal across to the edge of the table closest to Henry as he got up and reached for it.

"I was supposed to teach him, he was supposed to be one of us," Henry said as he sat down at the table, opening the journal.

"Well, he learned things a little differently," Dean corrected him, his expression and voice cold.

"How?" Henry looked at him, seeing the hostility in the man's face. Whatever had happened in his son's life, he'd secured the unyielding loyalty of his eldest son, he thought to himself.

"The hard way," Dean bit out, unwilling to share the details of his father's life with a man who'd left him alone. "He had everything taken away from him, including his soul. But you know what? He kept going. And in the end, he did a hell of a lot more good than he did bad." He flicked a look at Sam, daring him to say anything different.

"I'm sorry. I should've been there for him," Henry said, looking at the journal.

"Yeah, it's a little late for that now, don't you think?" Dean stood up, walking past Henry and grabbing his coat.

"It's the price we pay for upholding great responsibility. We know that," Henry said reprovingly, raising his voice a little.

Sam winced inwardly, watching his brother stop and turn around, Dean's hand tightening into a fist around the material of the coat.

"Your responsibility was to your family," Dean said, his eyes dark. "Not to some … glorified bookclub!"

"I was a Legacy." Henry refused to turn and face him. "I had no choice!"

For a moment, Dean stood there, just looking at him, then he turned away. "Yeah, well, you keep telling yourself that."

He opened the door and walked out, closing the door behind him. Sam looked at Henry, who kept his gaze fixed to the table in front of him.

"Dean …" he started softly, looking at the closed door. "He's pretty strict on family. He would kill or die for them … hell, he has." He looked down, the corner of his mouth lifting humourlessly. "He just … betrayal by family is just worse than anything else he can think of."

"I didn't know, Sam," Henry said bitterly, turning to look at him. "I was doing what I had to do, what I thought was best – I didn't know I'd never see him again, never see him grow up, become a man!"

Sam nodded. "He was a good man, he did what he thought he had to do. And he did his best too. Sometimes it wasn't good enough, but he always did what he thought was best."

He got to his feet and walked to the door, opening it and following his brother to the bar across the street that he was pretty sure had been Dean's destination.

Sam found him there, as expected, sitting at one end of the long L-shaped bar, nursing a beer. Nodding to the bartender, Sam walked over to him and sat down next to him, taking the bottle the bartender brought, twisting off the top.

"How could he leave his son like that?" Dean asked bitterly, staring at the beer in his hand.

Sam shrugged. "How could Dad have left us for days at a time, put the responsibility of taking care of me onto you? How could Mom have made a decision that killed her, tore our family apart, forced our father into a life he didn't want, turning us into hunters? How could you sacrifice yourself for me? How could I have trusted a demon over you?"

Dean scowled at him. "You got a point?"

"Henry was doing the best he could. Same as Dad. Same as Mom, same as you and me. We fucked up. All of us." Sam tipped the bottle up, swallowing a mouthful. "You want to blame Henry for trying to keep something safe from a demon? Our history isn't squeaky clean in that arena, Dean. I know you don't want to hear it."

"Then why're you telling me?"

Sam's smile was wry and one-sided. "Because I'm tired of pretending that there were good reasons for any of it, Dean. I didn't have good reasons. I had good intentions. They're not the same thing."

Dean twisted on the bed, eyes screwed shut as memory invaded his dreams.

Sam staring at him furiously. "Yeah, well, you're a hypocrite, Dean. How did you feel when dad sold his soul for you? 'Cause I was there. I remember. You were twisted and broken. And now you go and do the same thing. To me. What you did was selfish."

It was the only choice, there was no way he could live if he let his brother die, there was no way for him to keep going, no way to look at himself in the mirror, no way to carry on.

"Sam's almost there, but not quite, you need to help me get him ready, for life without you; to fight this war on his own," Ruby had said to him, in a parking lot, the yellow sodium lights glaring over the wet asphalt.

Life on his own. You're abandoning him, Dean, gonna leave him to fight this war on his own. No big brother at his back. That choice still looking so good? Was this what you wanted for your brother, to have to face Lilith alone?

He rolled over, arms tightly folded across his chest, cold and unsure and hollowed out. Sam could've gone back, gone back to school, gotten out, lived his own life … that's what he'd thought, that's what had driven the decision. He never could, but his brother could've … except he knew now that wasn't true, had never been true. He'd thought it was the right thing to do, the only thing to do at the time. And time had proved that Sam was doomed, he was doomed, both of them trapped like flies in honey.

No good reasons, Dean. Just good intentions.

"Hey!" Sam's voice, behind him. Angry. Dean curled his arm closer around the pillow. "Wake up!" The fast thwapping of something across his shoulder.

"What? He rolled onto his elbow, resentfully opening his eyes. "What!?"

"Henry – he's gone," Sam said, standing beside the bed, his face tight.

"Where is he?" Dean asked groggily.

"No idea. He just left a note saying he was gonna fix everything," Sam snapped, turning away.

Dean groaned, sitting up. "Or screw it all up."

He rolled off the bed, feeling the cool of the floor seep through into his socks and reached for his boots. He felt tired and disoriented, the sleep he'd gotten had been broken and restless with dreams and memories and unpalatable insinuations.

"Any coffee?" He looked at Sam's scowl and leaned down to tie the laces.

"Now we know what he meant by 'fix everything.'" Dean said, as he walked back into the room ten minutes later.

"What?" Sam turned around, looking at him.

"He broke into the trunk," Dean said. "Stole an angel feather."

Sam's brow creased up. "We had an angel feather?"

Dean glanced away, shrugging. "Yeah, well Garth said they were pretty in demand for spells, he had a buyer and uh, Cas gave me a few."

Sam stared at him blankly.

"Anyway …" Dean gestured vaguely around the room. "He's got one. And I'm guessing he's going to try and open another portal, take himself and Abaddon out of here."

"Take her back to 1958, where he still doesn't have any help?"

"Or grab Dad and haul ass? Does it matter? He's doing it."

"Not without the rest of the ingredients – and he said that he needed to rest his soul – so even if he tried, he probably won't succeed," Sam argued, turning around and opening the laptop. "Tears of a dragon, a pinch of the Sands of Time … where the hell he's gonna find those?"

"I'll call Kevin," Dean muttered, pulling out his phone. Maybe those had been listed somewhere on the tablet piece that Kevin had deciphered.

"Hey," Sam said suddenly.

"Hmm?" He listened to the phone ringing out and cut the call, looking at Sam. "I think Kevin stiffed us on the new number."

"It just hit the wires – one dead at Astro Comics," Sam looked at the police log on screen.

"The demon?"

"Yeah," Sam said, looking up at him. "Has to be."

"She's close," Dean said, rubbing a hand over his jaw. "I'll go find Henry. You go find Larry. Maybe he knows how to kill this chick."

"Right," Sam said, closing the laptop. "Uh, Dean …"

"What?" He stopped at the doorway, looking back.

"Don't let her get him," Sam said, chewing the corner of his lip.

Dean nodded and walked out, getting into the black car and starting the engine. They needed a real way to stop the demon, even if they couldn't kill it, they needed a way to trap it. He twisted around in the seat and reversed out.

Lebanon, Kansas

Sam checked the address again and pulled into the kerb, untwisting the ignition wires, the engine dying.

The two-storey frame house was white and grey and pale blue, the paint peeling and faded, the wrought iron fence separating the yard from the sidewalk rusting. Sam pushed open the gate, wincing a little at the drawn-out screech of the hinges, and walked up the overgrown path to the front door.

He knocked, and saw a twitch of the lawn curtains in the side panel a moment later. The door opened and an elderly red-haired woman stood there, looking up at him.

"Hi, I'm looking for Captain Tom Carey?" He looked down at her with his most ingratiating and reassuring smile plastered across his face.

"And you are?" she asked, her voice high but firm. He blanked, staring at her.

"Uh, I'm Sam … um … Page," he got out after a moment. "I was a friend of Henry Winchester's, and I wanted to let Mr Carey know that he'd passed."

"Oh. Oh, dear," she said, glancing back over her shoulder down the hall. "That's terrible. Do come in, Larry will want to hear about it himself, I'm sure."

"Thank you, ma'am." Sam smiled awkwardly as he inched past her and waited until she'd closed the door. He followed her up the bright hall, and into a pleasant living room, white painted walls reflecting the sunshine and filling the room with light, simple, varnished timber furniture providing a warm contrast. Sam stopped at the doorway, seeing an old man sitting in a plush wingback armchair, reading.

"Larry? This nice young man has something to tell you about a friend of yours," the woman said gently, laying a hand on the old man's shoulder.

"Eh?" He turned his head, putting the book down on the table beside the chair. "Who?"

"Uh, Mr Carey?" Sam stepped forward into the man's eyeline and held out his hand. "I'm Sam Page. I found your name among the papers of Henry Winchester."

"Henry?" Larry glanced at the woman. "Vera, could you please make us some tea?"

"Of course," she said, glancing at Sam as she turned to leave.

"Where is he?" Larry leaned forward, the side of his face lit clearly now. Sam saw the twisting scar that pulled the man's right brow down, travelling across the eye socket and to the edge of the cheekbone, the eye lifeless under it.

"He's dead, sir," he said quietly. "I found his journal. And some personal effects."

Vera came back into the room, carrying a tray with a teapot and china cups. She set the tray on the table and poured, smiling at Sam as she lifted the lid of the sugar pot. "One lump or two?"

"Ah … none, thanks," Sam said, looking past her at Larry.

"So, Henry is dead," Larry said, his hand curled into a fist. "I was so sure that – that he had survived."

"Yes, well, um, like I said – I found his journal and was hoping you could fill in the gaps and explain to me what happened that night in 1958," Sam said, leaning forward.

"It doesn't matter. They're gone," Larry grated. "We're gone."

"But Abaddon is not."

Behind Larry's chair, Vera looked at him, her eyes widening slightly.

"Demonspawn very rarely have the strategic skills to plan things on their own, Mr Page," Larry said. "Abaddon was under orders, whose we never knew. She killed us all that night – but she did not get what she'd come for."

"The key."

Larry smiled humourlessly. "Ah yes, the key."

"What is it? What does it unlock?" Sam asked, trying to keep his impatience out of his voice. "She is here and looking for it now."

"The key unlocks the collections of two thousand years of study, Mr Page. Objects and spells, manuscripts and histories and demonologies, angelologies, the hierarchies of the greater and lesser creatures of Purgatory and the Natural Plane and gods, goddesses, sprites, elementals and pure forces of this world and many others like it," Larry said slowly, his face softening slightly with whatever it was he was recalling.

"The order was formed originally to gather the knowledge, to study it and categorise it and learn from it, glorified librarians really, having no idea of what to do about such things, but keeping them hidden, keeping them in the dark," he continued. "Nine hundred years ago, when the Church began to seek out power, and became corrupted, we dissolved the ancient society in which it had all began, and divided it, into separate sects, with limited membership, in the hopes that if one fell, the others could continue, could keep our secrets safe."

"And the world went on, and we did too. Gathering, studying, learning. In the fifteen hundreds, when the old countries were too small to hold the greedy and ever-growing populations and exploration was the new sport of kings, we spread out as well, to the new worlds that the ships found."

He leaned forward, his eye fixed on Sam's face. "We brought that knowledge here and buried it deep, and encircled it with ward and guard, with a mazon of spells and walls of illusions, to keep it safe."

Iola, Kansas

Dean drove slowly down the street, options and possibilities ticking over in his mind. He saw the store and pulled into the kerb, a prickling at the back of his neck seeming to confirm that he'd found the right place.

Henry stood in front of door at the back of the store, the sigil glowing golden and casting its light over his face, his voice low as he spoke the incantation.

"باز کردن راه را برای خون به خون ..."

"Henry, wait!" Dean called out from the door, hurrying across the room to him.

"No. I brought this demon to this place. The blood of those she's killed here lies on my hands, Dean."

Dean grimaced, unable to argue that. "And what if you die, huh? Who says you'll even survive a jump? You told us that your soul needed rest!"

Henry turned around to face him, his expression haggard. "You cannot begin to understand how I felt after reading John's journal."

"Oh, I think I can," Dean disagreed, his gaze cutting away. "See, I've read that thing more times than you can imagine, and it hurts every time."

Henry looked at him unhappily. "Maybe so, but you didn't let him down. I did! Just like you said!"

"Well, I was wrong." He heard the words come out, without thought, without realising that he was going to say them.

"No! No, you were right. And I'm going to go back and give him the life he deserves, not the one he was forced to live," Henry argued. "You were right. My family was – is – my first and most important responsibility, and I failed them."

"Get used to it, Henry, it comes with the job," Dean said acerbically. "Listen, I understand that this is not your idea of a happy ending, okay? And that – that you're disappointed that me and Sam are mouth-breathing hunters … but if you do this, and you die, nothing will have changed except that you'll be dead – and Sam and me, we'll be fighting this hell bitch on our own, without the knowledge that you have that could help us."

He closed his eyes briefly. "I met my father in 1973. He'd just done two tours in a war that broke a lot of men, and he came back unbroken. He fell in love with a beautiful girl, and he had ten years with her, before it all went to hell. His life after that sure wasn't what he wanted – but that had nothing to do with you."

"How do you know that?" Henry stared at him.

"Because it was my Mom's choice that brought everything down," Dean admitted unwillingly, feeling his throat tighten and close. "She … there was nothing Dad could've done about it, and he tried his best to keep me and Sam safe, and prepare us and teach us what we needed to know."

"Why – how –" Henry stammered, looking at the pain that was etched into the face of the man in front of him.

"Why are you telling me this now?" he tried again.

"Because we need to figure out how to kill or disarm or neutralise this bitch somehow, and we need your help," Dean told him, forcing the words past the thickness. "Family stick together, right?"

Henry looked away. "Right."

Lebanon, Kansas

Sam looked at Larry. "So ... Abaddon is looking for this knowledge, this repository?"

"For her master, perhaps. To turn it all against us, counter our resistance, deflect our offences, destroy our safeholds. Yes," Larry said slowly.

"How do we stop her? How do we kill the demon?"

Larry smiled humourlessly. "You don't. You can't. There is nothing that can kill one of the Fallen, except an angel – a powerful angel. And I – I have heard that they are gone." He took a pen from his pocket and a small notebook, putting it on his knee and writing. "If you know where the key is, then take it to these coordinates. Throw it in. Shut the door forever. And walk away."

"What? Why would I do that?" Sam looked down at the pad Larry held out, seeing a fine tremble in his fingers as he took it. The old man's story was reverberating in him in a way he couldn't understand, couldn't get a grip on.

"Because it is the safest place on earth. It is impervious to any entry, except the key," Larry said, his face expressionless.

"But then all that knowledge would be – would be lost and gone forever," Sam said, his mind reeling at the thought. All the answers? That he and Dean desperately needed? That the other hunters needed? Perhaps answers to questions they didn't even have yet?

"And that is the price we have to pay for keeping it safe, Mr Page. Knowledge … knowledge is never lost. As long as people search for it, it will be found again. And I suppose that, in time, that knowledge will be gathered and studied and written down once more. Long, long beyond the length of my years – or yours," he said comfortably. "You do ... have the key, don't you?"

"I don't, but, uh … my brother ... my brother does," Sam hedged as he stood up.

Vera stood up as well. "I'll escort Mr … Page … out, dear," she said, walking behind Larry's chair. Sam smiled at her, then looked down at Larry as he passed his chair. He didn't see the fist that swung toward him, hitting him precisely below the temple with the weight of an axe.

Vera looked down as he crumpled to the floor, her eyes a flat black from corner to corner.

Larry heard the blow. Heard the young man fall to the floor. Smelled the taint of brimstone filling the air where his wife's perfume had been. "Abaddon."

Vera turned to look at him speculatively. "The years have not been kind, Larry."

She drew a short, broad-headed triangular blade and slashed it across his throat, the knife cutting deeply through the arteries and cartilage, back to the bone. Arterial spray spattered over the tea tray and the table, the crisp, white slipcovers and the white wall, filling the air with a sweetish metallic scent.

Iola, Kansas

"So this demon is a Fallen angel – which is why the knife can't kill her?" Dean searched through the storeroom for the ingredients that Henry had told him to find.

"Yes," Henry said absently, reading through store catalogue. "The only lore we've found on the archdemons is that only an angel – and not just any angel, but one of the seraphim – can kill them. They can draw the power from a living body as well as the souls damned in Hell, literally drain the life force out of you if you're close to them."

"Peachy." Dean pulled out a box from the shelf, looking at the label and making a face. "Eyelashes."

Henry nodded, leaning forward to take the box from him.

"A devil's trap?"

"Abaddon holds all of Josie's memories, Dean. She will not walk into a trap and a devil's trap must encompass the entire body to be effective, it has no spreading field of influence."

"Holy oil – if she was once an angel?" Dean searched through his memories for anything that could be of use as his eyes scanned the shelves.

"If we had it, yes. That would work," Henry nodded thoughtfully. "At least, I'm reasonably sure it would. But unfortunately a trip to Jerusalem might take a little long for our current time-frame."

"But there must a way to slow it down …" Dean said, trailing away as a memory hit him. "What about a binding sigil? On the meatsuit?"

Henry looked at him. "You're referring to the Seal of the Dead?"

Dean blinked. "Uh, maybe?" He walked to the table and pulled a pad and pen over toward him, drawing a circle with a line through one edge. "That."

Henry shook his head. "No, that will never hold a Fallen. But this …"

He drew a circle with a triquetra in the centre, and an inverted triangle over it. "Yes, that may hold her indefinitely."

"What is it?" Dean looked at the drawing, committing the design to memory automatically.

"It is called the Seal of the Dead," Henry said, looking around the shelves. "The triquetra is drawn with one line, representing infinity, the triangle focuses the energies of Heaven, Hell and the Earth into a binding lock for the circle."

"We have to get her to step into it?"

"No, that's the beauty of it, you see," he said, seeing the box of cat bones on the shelf to the left and walking over to get it. "The Seal of the Dead will work because it acts on the very thing that the archdemons draw on – the life force. They can't help themselves and the design of the Seal takes their draining and turns it back on themselves, in an endless – infinite – loop. It won't kill her, but it's like a – a straightjacket, immovable, unbreakable, inescapable."

Dean looked at him, seeing the excitement in his eyes. "Man, I see where Sam gets this from now."

"What?"

"Nothing," he said, turning away, his mouth quirking. "What else do we need?"

Henry opened his mouth to tell him, when the shrill ring of Dean's phone filled the room.

"Sammy?"

"No. Much sexier," a warm, female voice purred at the other end of the line. "Try again."

"Abaddon."

"Good boy," the demon's voice held a smile and Dean's fingers tightened around the cell. "Now listen up – I want to make a good, old-fashioned horse trade. Henry and the key for your brother. Or little Sammy dies. Am I clear?"

"Crystal."

"Good," Abaddon said. "Four miles out of Lebanon, there's a processing plant. Don't keep me waiting."

Dean looked at the phone as the call ended.

"She has Sam?" Henry asked from behind him. Dean nodded.

"A trade?"

"Yeah."

Henry smiled at the anger in his grandson's voice. "This will be our opportunity, Dean."

Dean turned to look at him. "To get you killed?"

"To get close to her," Henry corrected him. "To stop her once and for all time."

"How?"

"Did you see any salamander tongues on those shelves?" Henry asked, picking up the rest of the things he'd gathered. "I'll explain in the car."

US-54 W, Kansas

"The Seal of the Dead is normally made as a seal," Henry said, staring through the windshield as the car's headlights lit up the road. "Usually of lead, an inert metal, with the activators inside two sheets that are then sealed together."

"She's not going to let us walk up and hang something like that around her neck," Dean commented dryly.

"No, precisely," Henry said, nodding. "And we need something that she can't get rid of."

Dean lifted an eyebrow as he glanced at the man beside him. "You mean … like … a bullet?"

Henry started to smile slightly. "Yes, that's what I mean."

"I can get one apart, but getting it back together again is going to be tricky," Dean said, turning the problem over in his mind. "Maybe …"

"I meant to ask you, before, how it is that you have an angel feather in your trunk?" Henry asked suddenly.

Dean chewed on the corner of his lip. "Uh, well, someone told me that they were kind of pricey, so I asked a friend if he could spare any."

"Your friend has angel feathers to spare?" Henry asked, his surprise evident in his voice. "They are very rare and very expensive."

"Yeah, well, he's an angel, so he had a few."

Henry turned his head to look at the man behind the wheel. "You have a friend who is an angel?"

Dean felt the intensity of the stare and lifted a shoulder in a defensive shrug. "Yeah. Why? Is that something else only us muscle-head hunters do?"

Henry's eyes widened. "No, not at all. I mean, that's fascinating that you actually know an angel."

Dean looked at the road. He didn't think 'fascinating' was the word he'd use.

"How did you meet the angel?" Henry said diffidently, a moment later. "What is his name?"

"Uh, his name is Castiel, and – it's a long story," Dean said, flicking a sideways glance at Henry.

"Of course," Henry said, a little stiffly.

Dean frowned. "I'm not lying, it's just that a lot happened, and it kind of goes on and on, especially after Death got involved."

"Death?" Henry interjected. "I don't suppose you're referring to the actual multiplane entity who controls the flow across the –"

"Well, yeah, Death," Dean said, a little mystified by Henry's tone. He couldn't work out if the man was disapproving or trying to hide his excitement. "We summoned him when Cas started to get delusions of grandeur."

"Oh."

Dean looked at the road for a moment then turned his head to take a good look at Henry. "You about to blow a gasket, man?"

Henry shook his head. "My apologies, I – I – I just can't believe how casually you're relating these – these experiences. Befriending an angel. Talking to Death … I wish …"

"What?"

Henry shrugged helplessly. "I wish we had time to talk – I would – I would give a lot to hear about your life."

Dean's lip curled slightly. "It's not that interesting, Henry."

"I beg to differ," Henry said, his voice rising a little. "Reading about these things, learning them, studying them for years on end … I loved it. But this – you've done the things I've only read about. You've lived them. Breathed them …"

"Nearly died from them," Dean added sardonically.

Henry looked at him for a moment. "This – what you've done - this is a life."

Lebanon, Kansas

The plant was dark and still and silent when the Impala drove in along the wide entrance road, gravel popping under the tyres. Dean followed the road to the loading dock, pulling up when he saw the lights inside.

"You're gonna have to get close. And 'close' means it's gonna get ugly." Dean turned to Henry as he turned off the engine.

"I know," Henry said, looking at him steadily. "Reluctant hostage, terrified bookworm, harmless and defenceless. I've got it."

"That bullet … it's kind of hinky now," Dean said, his face screwing up a little at the memory of pounding the cartridge back on. "If you can, press the end of the gun hard against the skin, it should do."

"I'll remember," Henry nodded. "You and your brother, John really trained you well. You – I wish –" He looked down, mouth curling up to one side.

"Yeah," Dean said abruptly. "Me too."

He turned away, opening the door. "Let's get this show on the road."

The room was cavernous and Sam and Abaddon stood at the other end. Dean pulled in a breath and let it out.

"I'll send Henry here over with the box. You do the same with Sam. No tricks."

He turned to Henry and put the wooden box holding the key into his pocket, pulling the jacket out a little as he pulled his hand out, the cloth hiding what he held in his palm.

"My only interest is Henry and the key," the demon said, her voice projected easily across the space. "You two are free to go."

Henry stood there, staring at her and Dean pushed him a little, pulling out his gun.

"You can do this standing, or you can do it crawling. Your call," he said loudly, lifting the barrel.

Henry looked at the gun and stumbled away from it. At the other end of the room, Sam began to walk, his hands bound in front of him.

"Henry, I'm sorry," Sam said softly as they passed each other.

Henry kept his eyes on the demon. "Save it."

Sam reached Dean and lifted his hands, the knife in his brother's hand slicing through the rope bonds with a single smooth cut.

Looking back at Henry, Sam said, "Don't do this, Dean. This is a bad idea."

"Shut it, Sam. Let's go." He turned back to the big sliding door. "Come on."

Sam turned away as Henry reached Abaddon, following Dean to the door. Before they reached it, it rumbled across the opening, closing with a clanging echo from the metal walls.

Dean spun around. "We had a deal!"

There was a peal of laughter from the demon. "Surprise! I lied."

She turned to Henry, still smiling, and thrust her hand into his abdomen, closing it around his organs. Henry moaned through tightly clenched teeth as she withdrew it slowly, blood spilling from the wound, spreading in a rapid stain across his shirt front.

"Henry!" Sam started toward him and Dean put out his arm, stopping him.

"Wait," he told his brother, his gaze fixed on Henry. "Wait."

Henry let the handcuffs drop to the ground behind him, forcing his hand to tighten on the grip of the handgun as he stepped toward the demon.

"You're not the only one."

He rammed the barrel hard against the underside of her jaw and pulled the trigger, feeling his strength disappearing as his blood ran out. A little longer, he told himself. Just hold on a little longer.

The demon coruscated wildly inside the skull, the flickering light dying almost immediately.

"Whoo!" She blinked, smiling. "What a blast." The smile vanished as she turned her head to stare at him. "Now, give me the box."

Henry stood still, the gun still held in his hand. He couldn't see her properly, she kept wavering in and out of his vision, like a shadow behind old glass.

Looking at him sourly, the demon reached into his jacket pocket, feeling the smooth square inside and pulling it out. She looked at the pack of playing cards in her hand in disbelief for a moment then flung it to the ground, turning on her heel to stare at Dean.

"Where is it?!" Her voice rose and fell between a woman's high shriek and a deeply guttural roar, and around the room objects fell from shelves, crashing to the ground and into each other, the lights flickering and disintegrating in explosions of sparks.

Dean looked around, waiting for anything more, feeling his shoulders loosen slightly as nothing came at them. He'd done it, he thought. Henry'd bagged the bitch.

Abaddon frowned, turning to Henry. "Okay. We can do this the hard way."

Her hand snapped out and closed around Henry's jaw like a vice, forcing his mouth open as she breathed a thin tendril of charcoal smoke toward him. It was stopped a few inches from her, curling around and dissipating against an unseen barrier.

"No."

She shoved the man to the floor, twisting around, her feet locked to the floor.

Sam ran to Henry, lifting him away from the demon as she threw back her head and screamed in fury and frustration.

"WHY AM I STUCK!?"

Henry looked up at her. He was cold, and he could feel his pulse slowing, little by little as his body, in trying to protect his core, restricted the pumping of his blood directly to the torn hole in his flesh. It didn't feel so bad now, the nerves shutting down. He felt drowsy and triumphant and – like a hero, like one of the heroes he read about in his books.

Abaddon stared down at him, her face screwing up into a scowl as she saw the glint of triumph in his eyes. "You still didn't kill me!"

Behind her, Dean smiled. "No, but you'll wish we did."

He swung the machete in a fast, clean stroke and watched her head bounce across the floor.

"The seal in your noggin is gonna keep you from smoking out or doing – pretty much anything," he told the demon. "We're gonna cut you into little fillets and bury each strip under cement. You might not be dead, but you'll wish you were."

Henry looked up at him, struggling to keep him in focus. "We did it," he said, feeling his mouth fill with blood.

"No, you did it," Dean said quietly as he crouched in front of his grandfather. "For a bookworm, that wasn't bad, Henry."

"You know – know – Albert Einstein?" Henry asked, coughing a little.

Dean glanced at Sam, then looked back at Henry and nodded slowly.

"He said … once … the only source of knowledge is experience," Henry said, his chest hitching as he tried to drag in a breath. "He was – was right … I learned … learn …ed."

Dean felt his chest constrict as he watched the light fade out of Henry's eyes.

Iola, Kansas

Sam swung the sledge and the simple wooden cross descended another few inches into the ground. They'd dug the grave beside Magnus', the five Legacies of Litteris Hominae side by side in the small private plot.

Dean watched as his brother swung again, the cross going deeper as the iron head hit the top of the post. Sam'd told him that the trees surrounding the plot were protective, and he hoped that Henry would feel the protection.

Sam stepped back. H. Winchester had been cut into the cross-piece. Above the name, Dean had carved the Star of Solomon.

Dean thought of Henry's face, alight with excitement when he'd heard a little about Cas. It'd been a very different aspect to his grandfather, that boyish delight and the yearning in his eyes, the superiority gone, replaced by an admiration that even in memory made him shift uncomfortably.

He looked at Sam. "Samuel told me once that the Campbells came out to this country on the Mayflower," he said, looking at the cross.

Sam looked at him, brow creasing as he wondered what was on his brother's mind. "And?"

"I don't know," Dean said slowly. "Doesn't it feel … somehow … planned to you? Hunters from Mom's side – and now this – this Legacy business from the other?"

"That Cupid we met in Ohio – he told us Heaven went to a lot of trouble to make a Campbell-Winchester union. You think we're supposed to be doing this?" Sam asked curiously. In his pocket was the wooden box holding the key.

"And there's this." He pulled the box out and held it up.

"You think the place is still standing after all this time?"

"Larry said it was the safest place on earth," Sam remembered, shrugging slightly. "I think we need to go and see."

"God."

"What?"

"You in a room that's wall-to-wall books and answers," Dean said, the corner of his mouth lifting derisively.

"Maybe it is where we're supposed to be, Dean."