Chapter 33 The Bow of the Huntress

Lebanon, Kansas

First Oliver, then Prometheus emerged from their resting places, both starving hungry and disoriented. Hayley took them to the kitchen, looking through the surprisingly well-stocked fridge and pantry to make a meal, her thoughts still circling on the mythology of the gods of Greece.

In the library, Dean and Sam worked their through the books the order had gathered on the pantheon of the Greek gods. They ranged from the well-known retellings of the mythology and legends, of the Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, of Jason and Perseus and Hercules, through to more ancient hand-written texts, recordings of the oracles of Delphi and Dodone, of Ammon in Egypt and the muses of Dionysus, collections of the tales and stories of heroes and hunters, the creatures they fought and slew, Gorgon and Hydra, Minotaur and witches and sirens, and their interactions with Zeus and Hera, Pallas Athene and Poseidon and the lord of the underworld, Hades. Here and there, the mythology correlated with the transcribed journal accounts, and Sam made notes of where that occurred, references that would save time on future searches if required.

"You guys want something to eat?" Hayley came into the room hesitantly. "There's spaghetti going?"

Dean looked up and nodded. He got up and walked past his brother, turning as he realised Sam hadn't even looked up.

"Sam, food," he said, slapping his hand against Sam's shoulder lightly. "Fuel. Come on."

Sam looked up at him. "Uh … not really hungry, I'll get something later."

Watching him look down again, Dean frowned. The last thing he'd seen Sam eat had been a day ago in Montana, a few bites of a burger in Billings on the way out, hastily thrown when he'd finished filling the car. He nodded slowly and walked out of the library, following Hayley down to the kitchen.

"Your brother certainly is dedicated," she said as she dished out a bowlful of spaghetti and poured a ladle of rich meat and tomato sauce over it.

"Yeah," Dean muttered uneasily.

"Why are you helping us, Dean?" Prometheus asked, sitting next to Oliver. "It's not your fight."

Dean chewed his mouthful, thinking about the answer to that. "It's what we do," he said finally, looking down at the food.

Hayley's brows rose. "Put yourself in the way of gods and monsters and ghosts to help people without even getting paid for it?"

He smiled at her disbelieving tone, the expression slightly derisive.

"But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and provide new Guards for their future security," Prometheus said softly, his eyes half-closed. "I was there, when that document was signed. I had a lot of hope then."

"What is it?" Hayley asked him.

He opened his eyes and looked at her for a moment, glancing down at Oliver. "It is from your Declaration of Independence," he said. "A provision against the tyranny of men against each other, but one, I think, that suits here just as well."

He looked at Dean. "When darkness descends, those with the ability to take action against it, also have the responsibility to do so, for they are the vanguard of humanity, the only ones who both see what is happening, and can do something about it."

Dean looked down at the table. Words were fine in a warm room with good food sitting in your stomach, he thought a little bitterly. That sense of responsibility lay inside of him, all the way down to the marrow that filled his bones. He couldn't escape from it, couldn't set it aside. Couldn't separate it from himself and pretend it didn't exist. The warrior's gift is to willingly storm Hell that Heaven may remain unstained. He recognised his father's voice in his head, quoting someone, probably a military quote, he thought. Heaven had not remained unstained, but then they'd inserted themselves into the fight.

Prometheus watched the expressions fleetingly cross the man's face. "It always seems, at the end, that the cost is too high," he said gently. "But without that courage, the honour and loyalty and the responsibility, there would be no hope at all in this world."

Looking at his watch, Dean groaned softly as he saw the time. He poured out another inch of whiskey into his glass and shut the book he'd read, pushing it aside and picking up the next.

His head was reeling from the complexities of the interactions of the gods of Greece and their incessant meddling in the world. Machinations and manipulations, petty jealousies and love, endless manoeuvrings by human and god and monster to get the upper hand. It wasn't inspiring, he thought sourly, tipping the glass up and swallowing a mouthful.

There were weapons in the arsenals of the gods and hidden away by the various monsters and mortals. Weapons that could kill immortals. He'd particularly liked Perseus' solution to the killing of the kraken. It'd been creative. But so far, he hadn't found any reference to anything that would kill Zeus, or even be enough of a threat to change the god's mind.

At the other table, Sam read on, going through the books from the apothecary on poisons and antidotes. There were hundreds, covering dozens of creatures, many of which would have been damned useful a few years ago, poisons that worked with a scratch, that had to be ingested, that worked on the membranes or the lungs, liver, heart. He pushed his hair back off his forehead and kept reading.

The shield of Athene. The mace of Ares, god of war. The bow of Artemis. Dean read the description, remembering the huntress, her speed and strength in the dark room had been a rude shock. Made of yew, the bow could only be drawn by an immortal, its weight beyond the strength of any man. She carried three different types of arrows … wooden shaft and head, made from the heartwood of an oak killed by lightning; metal shaft and head, wrought from the heart of a falling star, and stone shaft and head, cut from obsidian. Each type would kill certain immortals, but only the timber arrows could kill any of them.

"Might have something here," Dean said, rereading the description. "Artemis has arrows that can kill any immortal."

Prometheus looked up, nodding slowly. "The oak arrows. Zeus killed the tree with lightning for her. But it was never certain that the wood would kill him, despite holding his own power."

"This will," Sam said, looking tiredly at them. "Mortes Immortalis. It was made by Hera to kill Hades."

"Her brother?" Dean said, leaning forward. "Nice family."

"Hades trapped her daughter and she went to the Stygian witches for a way to get her free." Sam shrugged. "We need the hair of a beautiful woman, the blood of a black animal, the root and branch from a laurel and … uh … the bone of a Titan."

"Doesn't sound too hard. Where do we get the bone of a Titan?" Dean asked.

"Since they're all in Tartarus, we might have to make a trip there," Sam replied dryly.

"I thought you said that Tartarus was on a different plane?" Dean said uncertainly.

"It is," Sam agreed, pulling a thick book from the pile he'd already been through and flipping through the pages. "I saw a spell in here, used by a hunter to cross over and –"

"No. That won't be necessary," Prometheus said, shaking his head. "One of mine will be enough."

"You sure?" Sam asked him. "You said you weren't –"

"My mother was Leto, one of the twelve," Prometheus said. "It will be enough."

He looked at them. "When I've died tonight, cut off my finger. Burn the flesh from the bone."

"We still need a way to get the bastard somewhere we can use this stuff," Dean said, looking at Sam.

"Keep looking."

Prometheus died at four o'clock in the morning. Dean got up and lifted the dead god over his shoulder, looking at Sam.

"I'll get the finger," he said. Sam nodded and opened the next transcribed journal, picking up the cup of cold coffee and finishing it absently as he read.

He hadn't eaten in over thirty-six hours. The thought drifted through his mind tenuously. He wasn't hungry but it worried him. He hadn't slept in forty-eight hours. That worried him as well. Twice he'd left the room and books when he'd felt the urge to cough come over him, hurrying down to the bathroom beyond the kitchen. Blood had spattered out with each wrenching contraction of his chest. He didn't have a temperature and aside from the fact his lungs seemed to be eating themselves, he didn't feel much different. Not bad enough yet, he'd told himself. Not yet.

The book he was reading was the transcription of the journal of a hunter who'd lived three thousand years ago, in Greece primarily, but travelling back and forth across the Mediterranean, between the northern countries and the coast and interior of the African continent. He'd managed to make an enemy of Poseidon somewhere in the middle of his life; his last few journeys had been made the long way around, through Egypt and Israel, Syria and Turkey.

The last attack was too close, the basilisk had plainly been given my location and sent to find me, it was no chance encounter. I realised then that I would have to bargain because I couldn't continue to hope that he would give up and leave me alone. They say that the memory of the gods is long, and every year I get older, lose my strength and agility. Sooner or later, I would run into something I could not kill.

I prayed to Artemis for guidance, and she sent a vision. To the north a man, old and grey. In the morning I left the coast and started north. It was over a week's journey, to that man and when I arrived, he had died two days before. My heart was weakened by the disappointment but I searched through his few belongings and I found the ritual.

Sam picked up the pen beside his hand and started writing.

To summon Zeus, I burned the body of a white animal over an open fire. From the ashes, I mixed my blood and the powder of the tears of the fire of the father of gods. I drew out the trap, in shape like a shell, with the mix and burned the herbs of offering, ash from the sacrifice, bay laurel and sage, twigs from the olive and wine. In the centre of the trap a great, black bull appeared and I made obeisance, requesting his help. He transformed into a towering man, his eyes the colour of lightning and his countenance harsh, but he took pity on my story and gave me a key, fashioned of a milky green stone to pacify his brother.

Sam drew out the trap, as the legacies had drawn it from the hunter's journal, and leaned back in the chair. They could summon and trap him. Getting the god to accept poison, that was a different matter.

"What do we need?"

"The ashes of a white animal burned over an open fire. Tears of fire from the father of gods. Some of the summoner's blood to mix with them and draw out the trap. A few common herbs."

"White animal?" Dean looked at him.

"Any white herbivore will do," Sam said, tapping the book. "We can get a dead lamb from the butcher, burn the body and use the ashes."

"And the … what was it? Tear of fire –"

"Tears of fire from the father of gods," Sam repeated.

"Fulgurite?" Dean asked. Sam nodded.

"I think so."

"Okay then … where do you want to lay the trap out?" Dean said.

"Same factory Abaddon picked?" Sam suggested. Dean nodded in agreement.

"Plenty of room there," he commented. "You two get the butcher run. Hayley and me'll handle the B&E for the stone."

"When do you want to get started?" Sam asked him.

"Not much point starting until after Prometheus and Oliver have died and come back," Dean said to him. "We can start in the morning, I guess."

Sam nodded.

Dean watched them as they sat on the long sofa together; Oliver between them, Prometheus telling his son a story, his gestures dramatic, Hayley's eyes crinkled with held-in laughter, the boy openly smiling.

As far as families went, he thought, they had plenty of problems, and they always would. They looked okay, though, right now. He looked up as Sam sat down in the chair next to him.

"Never going to be a normal life for them, is it?" Sam said quietly, looking past his brother to the family.

"No," Dean said. "Even if we manage to break this curse."

"Family is the one thing people hold onto through everything," Sam said. "You were always right about that. Wars, persecutions, gods, nature … doesn't seem to matter. They find each other and stay together and protect themselves however they can."

"Not always," Dean said, refusing to be drawn.

"No," Sam agreed. "Not always, but way more surviving than dying. And look at them … they're not thinking about the next bit, just right now, what they've got right now."

Since he'd just been thinking that, he couldn't argue, Dean thought, but he wasn't going to get suckered into agreeing either.

"Mom made a deal to have her family," Sam pressed. Dean's brows drew together.

"She was young, she didn't know what she was doing," he said brusquely. "If she'd been older, she wouldn't have done it."

Sam turned away, the corner of his mouth lifting slightly. "You don't know that."

"No, I don't," Dean admitted. "But I hope she wouldn't have."

"You'd rather have not existed at all?"

"Hell yeah, than go through what we have?" Dean looked at him. "Don't you?"

"No," Sam said, shaking his head. "I'm glad I've known you, known Dad, even at the cost we've paid, even with everything that happened."

"Then that's where we're different," Dean said heavily, getting to his feet.

"So we need to get a white animal?" Prometheus looked up at Sam questioningly.

He nodded. "Butcher in town will have one. Let's go."

Dean tossed him the car keys and they walked down through the war room and up the stairs.

"We need to find some fulgurite," Dean said to Hayley, opening the laptop. "Someplace close. Last time we needed to get it, we had to break in to –"

"Here," she said, her fingers slipping beneath the collar of her shirt, hooking out a necklace and lifting it over her head. "The central piece is fulgurite."

She handed it to him and he looked down at the crazed white crystalline stone in the centre.

"I worked for a crystal shop for awhile," she said, by way of explanation. "They used to sell these as 'Tears of the fire of the Father of Gods' – guess they read the same mythology as everyone else. Fulgurites were a big favourite with the new age crowd, all that energy from the lightning, gods, whatever, frozen for eternity in stone. They're cheap enough."

Dean looked at her, smiling tightly. "In … uh … crystal stores?"

"Yeah, you knew that, right?"

"Sure, yeah, right," he said, closing the laptop with a sigh. "Thanks."

"Dean," she said. "From all the accounts, would you say that Zeus has one particular weakness?"

He looked at her, thinking about it. "Well, he can't seem to keep it zipped up for long," he said slowly. "Is that what you mean?"

She looked away, nodding. "Yeah, I got that too."

"No!" Prometheus looked at Hayley incredulously. "Absolutely not!"

"All of the accounts – mythological and the transcriptions – agree, he drops his guard around a woman," she argued with him, glancing at Sam for support.

She'd found the long evening gown in one of the bedrooms upstairs, black velvet with a high, collared neck and a plunging back, and had styled her hair into a very soft, almost Grecian fall, the bangs swept back, the sides gathered up. She looked completely different in the get up, Dean thought angrily.

"She's right, Prometheus," Sam said with a shrug. "Lechery is pretty well the outstanding characteristic of Zeus."

"That makes it better?" Dean hissed at him. "I thought you wanted to keep these people safe?"

"I'm the only one who has a chance of getting close enough to give him the poison without him being suspicious, and you know it," Hayley said.

"Even if you could, the risk is too high, Hayley," Prometheus said, looking away. "If he thought he was being played, you'd be dead before you knew it, before any of us could do anything about it."

"What could make him suspicious?" she asked, looking between him and Dean. "They are multiple reports, even up to this year, of women summoning him to get his favours."

"And Sam, you found a single happy ending to those stories?"

"Well, most of them didn't have the faintest idea of how to summon him –" Sam hedged.

"Just the ones we think did," Dean snapped.

"No, but –"

"No buts," Prometheus said. "Just no."

"They didn't have hunters and a god providing back up," Hayley argued, shaking her head. "He's my son, Prometheus," she added, looking at him. "I'll do what I have to, to protect him."

Sam looked at his brother. "Even she can't get him to drink, a scratch with the poison on her nails will do it – more slowly than ingestion, granted – but it'll still work."

"And she'll be a pile of charcoal on the floor!" Dean's voice rose. "And Oliver won't have a mom."

"He'll be in the trap," Hayley said. "Won't he? Without his power?"

"That doesn't mean nothing's gonna happen."

"Dean, Prometheus, there's a risk, for all of us, no matter which way we do this," Sam said logically. "We'll all be there. This way, the risk is lessened –"

"For us, not for her!" Prometheus protested, looking at her.

"For everyone," Sam insisted. "He'll be in the trap. We'll be out of sight. So long as he thinks it's a routine … thing," he swallowed the word he'd been about to choose. "He won't get suspicious. And if he drinks the wine, we can step in and offer the antidote for him to recant the curse."

"Which doesn't prevent him from reinstating it – or worse, once he's free and realises that he's been tricked – again," Prometheus said tightly.

"Except that the poison is there forever, and you'll have the antidote which you agree to provide once a year, on the condition that you and Oliver are allowed to live your lives," Sam said.

Prometheus scowled at the floor. "This is a bad idea."

"I agree," Dean added, looking at his brother.

"If it even looks like going south, then we'll step in, overpower him in the trap and force the poison down and wait for him to die." Sam looked at Hayley. "We don't have Artemis' arrows, and even if we could get them in time, she would have to shoot them. The bow can't be used by us. This is the only way I can see that we can do this with the least amount of risk."

"He is treacherous, Hayley, and stubborn and proud," Prometheus said to her. "If it even looks like he's not going for it, get out."

She nodded. "I will. I promise."

He looked at Sam, shrugging reluctantly. "Alright."

Dean drove the little silver compact, the rain-slicked road shining in the headlights. He glanced at Hayley, sitting silently beside him, staring at through the windshield.

"You okay?"

"There's a part of me that's just sitting in a corner, staring blankly at the wall," she said, her tone wry. "I know it's all happening … it's just … not what I imagined when I thought about where I'd be at thirty two, you know?"

The corner of his mouth lifted slightly. "Yeah, can't see those curve balls."

She looked at him. "And you do this … all the time … how do you stay sane? I mean, do you blow off steam to friends? To a shrink? What?"

He was silent for a moment, and she looked away. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to –"

"No," he said, shaking his head. "It's okay. We … uh … we don't really think about that way."

"How do you see it? If that's okay to ask?"

"It's a job, I guess," he said. "We grew up with it, trained for it from when we were kids."

"Oh my god," she said softly. "Did you – how did you feel about that?"

He turned his head to look at her. "Back then, it was better. It was … I don't know if I could explain, or if I would want to. But it was different. I loved it back then."

"What changed?"

What hadn't, he thought sourly. "We lost some people, family and friends. The price was too high."

"Is that what Sha– Prometheus meant?" she asked him curiously.

"I guess." He saw the driveway of the factory ahead and slowed down. "I tried to get out, a while back. It didn't work out and I – I find it hard to imagine now."

"How to be close to people again, you mean?"

For a second, his fingers tightened on the wheel, wondering if he'd been so transparent that she'd picked up on that.

"I went through that, after I ran away," she continued, her gaze fixed to the droplets lit up on the windshield. "It seemed like a huge risk, and when Oliver started … I just thought, well forget about ever having anything good again. But, you know, even though it's nowhere near like everyone else's lives, and never will be, these last few days, all of us together, that feels real … and it feels good. I don't want to give that up."

Dean parked the car alongside the building and turned off the engine, looking down at the wheel in front of him.

"You think you can make that work?" he asked finally, looking up through the windshield.

Hayley nodded. "I think we can, the three of us together. I think we can make anything work if we can stay together."

"I hope you're right."

Headlights washed through the car, wanly lighting up the interior as Sam pulled in beside them in the black car.

"Time to rock'n'roll."

Sam knelt on the floor, the thin brush making a slight scratching noise as he painted the mixture of ash and blood and stone over the concrete. To one side of the long, wide room, Hayley stood with Oliver and Prometheus. Dean walked through the place slowly, fixing the layout in his mind. The trap would not last indefinitely, only one full pass of the moon, then it would be weakened enough for the god to break through. Not that that mattered particularly, since if they didn't get this finished before about three a.m. Prometheus and Oliver would die again and it would take hours for them to resurrect.

If Hayley couldn't convince Zeus that the deal was the best he was gonna get, they'd have to kill him and do it as fast as possible. Prometheus had carved out a short spear and three short stakes from a lightning-struck tree they'd located. The fire-hardened tip was coated in the poison. He thought his best chance would be getting in and personal, rather than attempting a throw. Chances of success were better than average. He shook himself and walked back down to the room, pulling the linen bag from his pocket and taking the brass bowl from Hayley as Sam nodded and got to his feet.

Setting the bowl beside the trap, Dean emptied the ingredients into it, and turned, giving Hayley the matches. She set two goblets on the floor next to the bowl, filling them with wine and adding the poison to the one nearest the trap.

"You ready?" he asked her quietly. She nodded, looking down at the box of matches in her hands.

"You think anything's off, anything at all, you go straight to the door," he said, gesturing to the big door at the end. "Take Oliver and stay out there until we come out, okay?"

She lifted her chin, pulling in a deep breath and looking at him. "Nothing's going wrong."

"Good," he said approvingly. Prometheus and Sam had already withdrawn to the dark shadows around the room's walls. He walked quickly to the side, slipping behind the bulky frame of a wall mounted crane.

Standing alone, her skin pale against the black velvet of the dress, Hayley lit the match. She dropped it into the bowl and stepped back as it ignited, a column of blue-white fire reaching for the ceiling and burning to nothing in seconds. Thunder rumbled outside, softly at first, becoming louder as the cloud built up and successive bolts of lightning hit the building, strobing the room with their light, flickering through the skylights in the roof, the walls shaking as the thunder built up and up in a deafening crescendo.

Hayley threw up her arm and stumbled away as a bolt hit the glass above the trap, smashing it and arcing down to the ground at the centre of the blood design, crackling with power, as thick as a man's body, the tendrils crawling along the metal frames of the building, of the machinery it held, twisting and sparking as if it were alive. The smell of ozone filled the room, an acrid, biting scent of burning metal and storm fronts over the ocean.

Turning her head back to the trap, she saw a tall man standing in the centre of the trap.

"Well, it's been a while since I've been trapped by a beautiful woman," he said, smiling at her.

Pull it together, she thought, forcing herself to walk slowly back toward him. Pull it together and convince him.

"I didn't believe it would work," she said, stopping as she reached the bowl.

"Yes, the problem of your times, my dear, faith is … what was the term I heard recently? Oh yes, faith is … 'so five minutes ago'," he answered her, looking down at the goblets. "Do you have a reason for … wanting … me here?"

She picked up the goblets, looking at him. He was old, in a way that seemed to suggest eternity, that he had reached a certain age and could not age any further. Bright blue eyes twinkled from under strong brows, even, white teeth revealed between full lips as he smiled warmly at her.

"I would ask a favour," she said, stepping across the first line of the unicursive trap.

"A favour?" he repeated slowly, rolling the word in his mouth. "Come closer, so that I can see you clearly."

She stepped forward, trying to disguise her reluctance, glancing down at the lines painted on the floor. "I read … I read that you will grant favours to those you liked."

"Did you now?" He looked down at her feet. "A little closer, my eyesight isn't what it was two thousand years ago."

She took another step and stopped, holding out the goblet toward him. "If you liked them well enough," she said, looking up at from under her lashes.

"Oh yes," Zeus said, his hand lifting. "Yes, I was very generous to my conquests – and I'm assuming that's what you're offering?"

His hand snapped out and he gripped her wrist tightly. "Of course, between the lack of faith and the lack of humility, I don't think I'll be as generous with you, as lovely as you are." She dropped the goblet as his fingers bit into the tendons of her wrist, crying out as his hand forced her arm behind her.

"Come out, the poisoned cup didn't work and hiding in the shadows isn't going to save her, or you," he said conversationally.

"Don't!" Prometheus burst from his hiding place, half running toward the trap.

"Did you really that this would bind my senses as well as my power, Prometheus?" Zeus tut-tutted. "And it will not hold me forever."

"Let her go."

Zeus smiled. "Of course."

He slashed across Hayley's arm with a long fingernail, the cut opening as he pressed the flesh around it, her blood dripping to the floor. "Tell your friends to come out."

Sam walked out and Dean shot out of the shadows as the god turned to look at his brother. He'd crossed the trap, the lightning-struck short spear in his hand and rising as Zeus spun around, throwing Hayley to the floor, her head cracking on the concrete, his hand catching the tip of the wooden weapon with blinding speed.

The blood from her wrist had crossed four of the lines as Dean fought to keep hold of the spear against the immortal's strength, but the wound on her head was bleeding too, and the trickle crossed the last line.

"Mommy!" Oliver screamed from the doorway, running into the room. Prometheus twisted around.

The spear turned to ash in Dean's hand as the trap was broken, and Zeus raised his hand, a crawling lightning bolt branching into three lines and hitting them, lifting and throwing them back across the room.

"You brought a child, Prometheus?" Zeus looked at him disbelievingly. "Or … is this one your own?" He gestured with a hand and Oliver was swept across the room, Zeus' hand gripping his shoulder as he was dropped in front of him.

Dean landed on his back, rolling aside as his head snapped around to look for Sam. He nodded when he caught his brother's eye and they sprang to their feet together, running for Zeus. The force that grabbed them yanked them backward off their feet, slamming them into the wall and holding them there tightly enough to make it difficult to breathe.

In the doorway, Artemis stood, her hand raised as she looked at them. Tall and lean, she wore close-fitting black pants, tucked into boots, a fitted leather jacket over a tight black shirt. In the clearer light, Dean saw that she was striking, straight dark hair framing an oval face, dark eyes and full mouth, her expression coolly appraising as she met his gaze.

Zeus glanced around and smiled. "Have you met my daughter? Gentlemen, this is Artemis."

He turned back to Prometheus, stepping over Hayley and lifting a hand, the lesser god jerked to his feet, his eyes going to his son's face.

"This is the son of Prometheus, and he is cursed to die every day," Zeus said quietly, looking down at the boy's face. "I must admit, I could never have conceived of such a terrible fate for a child so beautiful. But this is why we must allow room for happy accident, when the Moirae weave their thread."

"No, you cannot –" Prometheus said, staring at the god. "He is an innocent!"

"As you are not," Zeus agreed readily. "And his pain shall be a thousand-fold on you, Prometheus, his eternal, ever-lasting pain will carry from one plane to the next until you wish to rip the heart out of your chest."

He glanced over his shoulder. "Artemis, dispose of them."

Turning back to Prometheus, he smiled. "You know, I think this may be better than my original conception."

Artemis walked to the hunters held against the wall. "Move."

The force holding them vanished and Dean felt his weight on his feet again, looking at her bitterly. She stared back at him coldly, her gaze cutting to the corridor behind them. He turned and started walking.

"So you know who this is, walking behind us?" Sam said to him as they turned the corner.

"Don't know, don't care," Dean muttered, wishing his brother would shut up so that he could think for a few seconds about how to get them out of there.

"It's our goddess, the goddess of hunters," Sam said, an edge to his voice.

Dean shot a sideways look at him. "Well, that's fascinating."

"See, she's who we pray to for courage when hunting the gorgon, or the minotaur," he continued relentlessly. "Of course she's not really worth worshipping any more, having lost her step an' all –" He glanced back at her, half-smiling.

Artemis lifted her arm and swung it toward the wall of the corridor and Dean and Sam were lifted and slammed face first into the cinderblock, pressed tightly there.

"The hell I have," Artemis retorted flatly, behind them.

"Really, Sam? You're trash talking a god?" Dean managed to get out, wondering if the grating sound he could hear in his face was the cheekbone cracked apart again.

"Still full power? Really?" Sam ignored his brother. "So why'd it take you seven years to track down Prometheus?"

"He was hiding," Artemis reminded him.

"Hiding? From you?" Sam's voice dripped with sarcasm. "The god of hunters couldn't find a shack in Montana? Or maybe it's just that you didn't want to find him."

Artemis' hand shifted forward slightly, grinding both harder against the wall.

"Your father is going to curse that child to die over and over, just like Prometheus," Sam forced the words out, spraying a little blood over the wall, the sharp edge of a molar having cut through the inside of his mouth.

"Don't worry," Artemis leaned close to him, the bright blade of her knife sliding down his cheek. "He'll come back again. I like you."

"He's in love with you, you know," Sam said quickly. "He told us."

Dean grimaced, feeling his ribcage creaking loudly as the pressure against them increased for a moment. He didn't know what the hell Sam was doing, but he had the feeling that the goddess would kill them with the next hard push into the wall.

"You're lying," she said, stepping back from Sam and looking at him suspiciously.

"Okay, sure, yeah, I mean … whatever you want," Sam said.

"What did he say?" she asked, glancing from the back of Sam's head to Dean and back. Dean saw the uncertainty in her face.

"He said that it wasn't the first time he'd gotten free of the mountain and that you'd let him go free as long as you could hide your tryst from the old man," Sam said.

"The hell he said that," Artemis snarled. "His brain is mush."

"Oh yeah?" Sam thought quickly. "Then how did I know?"

He didn't, not really. Prometheus hadn't said anything about her. He'd felt it though, in the way he hadn't spoken of her, hadn't elaborated on what had happened the times he'd escaped before. And her interest confirmed it.

"I mean, have you spilled to anyone?" he asked her abruptly. "Homer? Issiad? Herodophus?"

Her silence was an answer, Sam thought. "Of course not. You were afraid that your father would find out that you fell for the person he hates most in this world."

He could sense her thoughts, in some strange way. Sense the struggle between obedience and her heart, duty and love. "You know what? Go ahead and kill us. And then let your father slaughter that child over and over again."

The force against them eased off and they both took deep breaths.

The meadow had been sweet and clean, bright with flowers and birds and sunlight. Prometheus had been lying next to her, propped on an elbow, his eyes on hers.

"You always hated his tyranny," he'd said softly. "And you help them, to hunt, to find the weapons, the solutions to the monsters he and the others have created. You can't pretend that you are willing to leave them helpless in the dark?"

"He is my father, Prometheus,' she'd said, looking away.

"And even a good father can make bad decisions, Artemis," he'd pressed her. "Can make choices that afflict his children, that confuse them and hurt them."

"He has supported humanity so long as they give him – us – the proper respect."

He'd shaken his head. "Once, perhaps. Not now, and you know it. Now he demands obeisance, tribute, the best of everything, like a rich miser desiring ever more gold."

"Let's not talk," she'd rolled over and pressed her fingers against his lips. "Please? Just be … here together?"

Dean stepped back as the force holding them vanished. He turned around cautiously, looking at the dark-haired woman staring at the floor.

"You can make him stop it," he said to her. "You're the only one who can."

In the centre of the room, Zeus stood in front of Oliver, tame lightning spitting and arcing between his hands. On the floor, Prometheus was trying to rise, and behind Oliver, Hayley stood rigidly, her eyes wide with fear.

"This has to stop, Father," Artemis said as she walked into the room, her bow raised, the oak arrow nocked and drawn.

"Stop?" Zeus looked around at his daughter, his voice harsh. "I'm only getting started, daughter."

"You've done enough," she told him, the arrow head unwaveringly centred over her father's heart. She wouldn't miss. She'd never missed.

"I am doing this for us," Zeus said, his voice gentling as he noticed the arrow on her bow. "For our kind, Artemis. He is the reason we're here … and not ruling the world as we once did, as we should be. He is the reason they have forgotten all about us!" He turned toward her, his hands extended. "Daughter, do not forsake me now."

Artemis felt a stab of pain, disloyalty cutting into her and she drew in a deeper breath, steeling her heart against him. "Let them go! All of them!"

"I am your father, and you will obey me," Zeus said, his hands dropping to his sides.

The arrow drew back to the point of her jaw as she looked at him. "You were once my father," she said sorrowfully. "Now, you are someone else."

She watched his face, the tension in the muscles around his eyes, the flicker of his eyelashes. She looked for his tells, the tiny things that would tell her if he would strike or if he would accept that his death was in her hands. She looked … but she didn't see them in time.

The Father of Gods swung around, clothed in lightning, thunder filling the room as his hands reached toward her, fingers widely stretched and then closing sharply into fists.

The lightning vanished. The bow and arrow fell to the floor with a light clatter in the sudden silence in the room. Artemis was gone.

Hayley felt the power holding her dissolve and she ran for Oliver, catching him up in her arms and racing for the cover of the crane. Prometheus rolled to his knees as Sam bolted for the last piece of lightning-struck timber, sharpened into a short stake. Dean dove toward the bow automatically, the fingers of one hand closing around the riser, those of the other nocking the arrow in a single fluid motion as he came to his feet, and pulled back on the string.

It was a weight against him. Like a tidal wave, like a mountain, the bow resisted him as his muscles and tendons and bones strained and creaked. He shut it all out, jaw clenched tight, drawing back the last few inches as pain shrieked through his shoulders and neck, his back and chest, arms and hands, but the white fletching of the arrow reached the point of his jaw, and the arrow was centred on the god's chest. He released it, seeing not the flight, but the feathers bright against Zeus' shirt. Light lanced out from around the arrow's shaft, not blood, and it glowed under the god's skin, leaking from his eyes and mouth in a pulsing rhythm that brightened with every passing second.

Sam had stopped, staring in open-mouthed surprise as Dean dropped to his knees, the Huntress' bow loosely held in one hand. Prometheus had turned, staring at the man behind him as well. Both had seen it. Neither could believe it.

"Impossible," Zeus stared at Dean, his eyes wide and shocked. "You … Herakles?"

He fell to the floor, the coruscating light inside him growing more and more powerful as his eyes stared blankly at the ceiling above. Prometheus staggered to his feet, stumbling across to Hayley and Oliver and dragging them to the big door.

"Get out, now!" he cried to Sam, gesturing at Dean who was still on his knees, gaze fixed on the dying god, pain fluxing through him in time with his pulse.

Sam nodded, spinning around and running to his brother. "Dean! Snap out of it, get moving."

Glancing up at him, Dean's face was expressionless and Sam felt his heart skip a beat at the blankness in his brother's eyes. Then Dean blinked and they cleared, awareness returning to them. He picked up the quiver of arrows that lay beside him, his face spasming with the effort, and let Sam drag him to his feet, his breath hissing out as each step shook the torn muscles and damaged tendons.

Sam slammed the postern door shut behind them, half-dragging, half-carrying his brother across the walkways and down the stairs, across the ragged grass verge to the cars as the building suddenly seemed to be filled with the energy of a supernova, an excruciatingly bright white light bursting out through every crack and crevice, through every window and doorway, every screw and nail hole, under the eaves and along the foundations.

When it disappeared, the last of the overcast daylight seemed very dark. Dean looked down at the bow in his hands, wondering how the hell he'd drawn that weight. The cost would be high, he thought, unable to lift his arms, every indrawn breath agonising, moving his head impossible. He looked over at Prometheus, the god's arms wrapped around Hayley and Oliver tightly, the three of them smiling with relief, eyes closed as they drew comfort from each other.

But worth it.

Lebanon, Kansas

Dean groaned as Sam's fingers gently massaged the paste into his back. "God, Sam, not so hard, you're tearing holes in me!"

"I'm hardly touching you," Sam countered mildly, scooping out another load of the healing paste and smearing it over the mottled and bruised skin. "What the hell possessed you to even try and use that bow?"

His eyes tightly closed, Dean shook his head. "I don't know. I wasn't thinking, just reacting."

"You did it, though," Sam said slowly. "You actually drew it."

"Yeah, don't get too excited about it, Sammy, it nearly fucking killed me."

Sam looked down at him. "No mortal can draw the Huntress' bow, Dean. The myths, the legends, hell, even all the hunters' accounts that the order has transcribed and saved, they all agree to that."

"What do you want to hear?" Dean said, flinching as a pat of the paste touched his neck. "Maybe no one ever tried?"

"What'd Zeus say to you, when he died?" Sam asked, realising that Dean wasn't interested in thinking about the impossibility of what he'd done.

"Uh … he said 'impossible' and then he muttered some word I didn't get."

"Do you remember it?"

Dean frowned. "Not … Hera … something, I think."

"Heracles?"

"Could've been," Dean said. "Why?"

"That's the Greek word for Hercules," Sam said quietly, moving around in front of him.

"No kidding?" Dean said, and Sam hid a smile at his expression. "You think he thought I was Hercules?"

"I don't know," Sam hedged, smearing more of the thick, sticky paste over his brother's arms. "But Hercules saved Prometheus in the mythology, killed the eagle that was eating him alive every day."

"Awesome."

"I'm going to have to wrap some gauze over this or it'll just get over everything you touch."

"How long do you think it'll take before I can move?"

"Not sure," Sam told him. "Hold still."

"You think that Prometheus and Hayley'll be alright?" Dean said, his voice softer. Sam glanced at him, recognising the vagueness in Dean's face. His pain threshold was unbelievably high but eventually it did reach the point where overload was inevitable and he'd pass out.

"I hope so," he said, working faster. "Dean, stay with me a bit longer, okay? I'm nearly done."

"Okay." Dean said agreeably. "Their life, man, it's not going to be easy."

Sam scooped another handful and worked it down over the other arm. "Maybe that's not the point."

"What d'you mean?"

"Maybe what'll make it worthwhile is being there for each other, not if it's easy or hard."

"How'd you know Artemis had a thing for Prometheus," Dean asked, frowning suddenly. "Prometheus didn't say anything about it."

Sam shook his head. "I don't know, intuition? Luck. I got a sense that there was a history there, between them."

"Where'd she go?"

"Tartarus, I think," Sam said absently, winding the thin gauze bandage around Dean's arm, from wrist to shoulder. It would stop the paste from rubbing off, maybe trap a little more heat around the sore and damaged tissue.

"When he died, would she get free?"

"I don't think so, but maybe." He looked at Dean's face. "Why?"

"She was hot," Dean said, eyelids half-closed. "She liked you."

Sam smiled. "Well, you've got her bow and arrows, if she turns up looking for them, you can take first shot."

Dean didn't answer, and Sam looked down seeing his eyes had closed. "Dammit, Dean, stay awake a bit longer!"

There was no answer and he eased his brother back onto the bed.

Sam woke abruptly and looked over at the clock beside the bed. One hour. He felt tired and irritable, but he sat up, swinging his legs out of the bed and rubbing a hand wearily over his face. He wouldn't be able to go back to sleep, no matter how tired he felt.

Getting up, he walked to the bathroom, leaning over the sink and turning on the taps, splashing the cold water over his face. He felt a deep rumble in his chest, and closed his eyes, coughing into the running water, the paroxysms getting harder, shuddering through him. He opened his eyes and saw the red turning to pink as the water diluted the blood, the wracking cough carrying on for a few minutes before it settled down.

He rinsed out his mouth and filled a glass, swallowing mouthfuls until he couldn't taste the thick, copper tang in his throat any more. Turning off the tap, he looked into the mirror above the sink, seeing the fine red capillaries in the corners of his eyes, and as he turned his head slightly, the eight-ball haemorrhage against the outer corner of his left eye.

God, what was happening to him, he wondered, looking at it. He dried his face and walked out of the bathroom and downstairs into the library, heading for the stacks.

Dean sat up in his bed, leaning back against the heaped pillows. He could hear the coughing from his room. This last week, the healing paste had done its job. He was stiff and sore, but he could move around now, at least. He listened as the taps were turned off, heard the soft thump of Sam's feet down the hallway and on the stairs.

He looked around the room. "Cas, you got your ears on?"

He waited for a few moments, hoping to see the angel – even too close and in his space would have been a relief. But there was nothing … just silence and a sense of aloneness that he hadn't felt for a while.

"Listen, you know I'm not one for praying," he said, looking down at the floor uncomfortably. "In my book it's the same as begging."

It wasn't quite the truth, he thought. He'd prayed whenever the game had gotten too big for him to handle on his own, whenever Sam had been in the worst danger. It had been like begging, but there were times when he just didn't care about that. Times when he threw aside pride without a second glance, focussed entirely on getting the help he needed.

"This is about Sam, and I need you to hear me," he continued, his voice thickening slightly as everything he'd been holding back seeped upward and outward. "We are going into this deal blind and I don't know what's coming, or what it's going to bring for Sam."

He pulled in a breath. "Now he's covering pretty good, but I know that he's hurting … and this one was supposed to be on me."

Sam should never have killed the hound. And whatever it had been, that seizure or spasm after he'd said the Enochian spell in the little room, that had accelerated things, taken them beyond the point where he could've stopped his brother. Sam hadn't talked about it, and he didn't know why, exactly, only that his brother stopped talking about things when he was scared. And the more scared he got, the less he would talk.

"So for all that we've been through, I'm asking you, you keep a lookout for my little brother, okay?"

If anything, the silence was somehow louder. He looked around the shadowy corners of the room, the odd pockets where the lamp light didn't reach. He thought of Purgatory, looking for the angel, praying to him every night, keeping alive the thin thread of hope that Cas hadn't died, hadn't been ripped apart by the monsters, hadn't found a way out and left him there to die on his own.

It wasn't your responsibility to save me.

Maybe not, but he'd felt it anyway. He'd left too many people behind, left them to die, and each death had torn out another piece of him, he couldn't afford to lose any more.

"Where the hell are you, man?"

Had the angel returned to Heaven, to stay there, not even an explanation or goodbye, forsaking their friendship as if it had meant nothing? Or had he been killed, as his orders had been to kill Archie?

Either way, he'd never find out, never know for sure and there'd be another thing he couldn't grieve for, couldn't put to rest.