Chapter 8

-o0o-

Can you burn down the house, friend

You built with your own hands?

"Songs in the Night," Samantha Crain

Stull Cemetery, in the spring, is a barren place. The grasses are brown, blowing in the cool breeze, rattling like brittle bones. The old stone and wooden grave markers sprout across the lawn like mushrooms, moldering to dust in the Kansas elements.

Sam can hear the faint sound of traffic from a nearby highway, smell the charcoal scent of a grill burning, burgers cooking. Normal, everyday sounds and smells. It seems strange that they should still exist. It's only been a handful of days, Lucifer has said, since he took Sam, but it feels like years.

Lucifer keeps speaking to him, trying to cajole him into conversation, smooth the memory of slaughter at their conjoined hands. But Sam has drawn into the back of his minds-pace, listening, watching, but not speaking. Not even when Lucifer does something that makes him feel warm and sleepy, like a gentle hand flowing over his head and down his back. A stroke for a favorite pet.

He keeps his silence until the moment Lucifer flies them to Stull Cemetery.

"The gateway to Hell," Sam murmurs, remembering some piece of lore he'd read years ago. Legend said Lucifer himself had used the abandoned church in the cemetery as a portal between Hell and Earth. Obviously nonsense, given the Cage situation, but the rest of the lore around Stull read like a paranormal buffet: rain not falling on the inside of the unroofed church, strange electrical storms in the area, tombstones split down the middle, mysterious fires burning and smoking through the soil in the four corners of the cemetery. It seemed the perfect place for a Devil's Gate.

"No, Sam," Lucifer says. "No Devil's Gate. No portal to Hell. No demons. Nothing but imaginative storytellers and home-grown bored teenagers looking to…raise a little hell." Lucifer chuckles. "But the location did seem poetic given the lore and it is close to where this all began, Sam. With your birth."

Lucifer comes to stand in an area that's clear of markers, at the top of a gentle slope. They're the only ones here, Sam thinks, and then his mind is overwhelmed by the presence of another angel. He even feels Lucifer take a short, sharp breath.

Michael stands in front of them, wrapped in the body of Sam's other brother, his eyes fever bright, his face strangely lit, as if the sun is shining from inside his skin, and his mouth pulled into a grim smile.

For just a moment, Sam is so grateful that Michael had taken Adam instead of Dean. Then he grits his teeth against the shame.

"Brother," Lucifer says, so much feeling in that single word that it almost takes Sam's breath away. "It's good to see you."

"You as well. It's been too long." The skin around Adam's eyes softens for a moment before he looks away. "It's finally here. Are you ready?"

"No," Lucifer says. "I'm not. Michael, why do we have to do this?"

"You know why. Because of what you did."

"What I did?" Lucifer's voice is a whispered shout. "What if it's not my fault?"

"Which means what?" Michael says.

"Think about it. Dad—He made everything. He made us. Which means He made me who I am. He wanted the Devil."

"So?" Michael holds himself rigid, arms at his side.

"So? So—why? And why make us fight? I don't get the point."

"And what's your point, little brother?"

"My point?" Sam feels a fine tremor run through Lucifer. "We're going to kill each other. And for what? Another one of Dad's tests? His little experiments? His need to wind things up and watch them go? We're brothers. Let's not do this. Let's walk away. Off the chessboard."

Michael stares at them for a moment. Sam holds his breath, or whatever the mental equivalent of his breath would be.

Then Michael shakes his head. "I'm sorry. I-I can't do that. I'm a good son. And I have my orders."

"But you don't have to follow them." Sam wonders if Michael can taste the desperation in the plea, Lucifer's need for his brother to choose and choose him.

Michael scoffs softly. "Do you think I'll rebel? I'm not like you. And you haven't changed. Always needing to be at the center of everything. Always blaming everyone else. We were happy, Lucifer. We were together. But then you betrayed us. You betrayed me. You never learned. Time and again. After the Cage, after the Garden. And it made Dad leave."

"No one makes Him do anything. He's doing this to us."

Michael shakes his head, looks them in the eyes. "You're a monster, Lucifer. And I have to kill you."

Sam feels something let go inside Lucifer, then. People always talk of breaking points like a rubber band snapping. But this is more like a rubber band pulled to its limits suddenly disintegrating. The tension that was building vanishes, leaving behind a sudden, unexpected void that makes Sam shiver.

Michael has made his choice.

Lucifer raises his chin. "If that's how it must be, brother…I'd like to see you try."

That's when Sam hears it. "Rock of Ages," blaring from a sound system he'd recognize in his sleep, bass tuned just so. And then, the sleek black of the Impala pulls into the clearing and both Lucifer and Michael turn to watch Dean get out of the car, all familiar swagger and bravado.

"Howdy boys. Sorry. Am I interrupting something?" Dean looks at Lucifer, but Sam can see that his eyes aren't meant for the angel. "Hey. We need to talk."

"Dean," Lucifer says. "Even for you, this is monumentally stupid. Do you really want to put your brother through this?"

"I'm not talking to you. I'm talking to Sam."

"You are no longer the vessel, Dean." Michael says. "You have no right to be here."

"Bullshit. My brothers are here. And Adam, if you're in there somewhere, I am so sorry."

Michael's face twists. "Adam isn't home right now." Sam marvels at the ugliness of the scowl.

"Well," Dean says, "You're next on my list, buttercup. But right now, I need five minutes with Luci."

Sam can feel the anger off Michael like a blast of hot summer air.

"You little maggot. You are no longer part of this story."

"You kiss your mother with that mouth?" Dean says, just as another voice yells "Hey, ass butt!"

Sam's head jerks toward Cas. And he's surprised to find the head on his body follows suit. Just in time to watch Cas lob a Molotov at Michael. The flames envelope the archangel as though he's no more than dry kindling and he vanishes in a wash of oily smoke and a preternatural flare of light.

From there, everything moves almost too fast for Sam to keep up. He sees Cas explode into pieces, Bobby crumple to the ground like a broken doll at the flick of a wrist.

And then there's Dean, under his hands, the soft flesh of Dean's cheek splitting open under his knuckles, Dean's teeth loosening beneath Sam's fist, Dean's blood warm on his fingers, his face. Then Dean's hand tangles in his jacket and his broken and swollen face comes close, breath hot against Sam's. "It's okay, Sammy. It's okay. I'm here. I'm here and I'm not gonna leave you."

And Sam feels a hitch in Lucifer's movement as he punches Dean again. Feels something coiled inside himself begin to burn.

-o0o-

Miles outside Stull Cemetery, in the town of Lawrence, on the edge of a little park, Gabriel stands in a copse of trees, waiting. The pagan persona he's been wearing for centuries is wrapped tightly around him like a cloak, keeping him off heaven's radar. Though the snare that's set with a combination of his power and Hers will soon be drawing a piece of Heaven toward him.

He snorts at that thought. Phrasing.

The park around him is hushed, as if the world and all its creatures are holding their collective breath, in this calm before the storm.

Then Gabriel feels Cas disappear, his brother's presence blown out like the flame of a match. And there's another presence hurtling toward him, a fiery meteor splitting through the sky.

The quiet is broken by the sudden crackle and crash of wings falling through branches, accompanied by the odor of smoke and heavy oil. And then Michael is standing in front of him, blinking and dazed and wearing the body of the youngest Winchester brother. It doesn't fit him well, Gabriel thinks. There are light and shadows in strange places, the angelic countenance trying to escape from the host body.

They stare at one another, Gabriel placid and poker faced and Michael with that constipated look that speaks of a combination of confusion and concern. Especially when he realizes he can't fly.

"Gabriel," he says at last. "You're alive."

That might, Gabriel thinks, be genuine affection in Michael's voice. "Ease off the water works, bro."

"I felt your passing," Michael says. "It…left a hole."

"Pothole sized?"

Michael tilts his head, blinking slowly, considering. Gabriel's seen that gesture before, albeit on a face that was so entirely different from a human's it was laughable. Still, it looks strange and too old for young Adam's face.

"You left, Gabriel. Ran out on our Father. On us. But I never wanted to see you dead. How did you come back? Our Father?"

Gabriel shakes his head. He feels Her behind him then, watches Michael's eyes widen as he sees Her.

"Mother," Michael says, and the word is a reverent curse that only Michael could ever pull off.

"First born." Isis steps forward, gauzy length of her black dress flowing around her like a shadow, her spine pulled long and straight, dark eyes flashing. "Still trying to wear your Father's mantle?"

"Someone has to."

"Yes. But not like this."

"This is the way it must be."

"No," She says. "One of the things I most regret not instilling in you and your siblings the necessity of change. Not everything need go according to a specific plan."

"And besides," Gabriel adds, "you've already made changes to that plan. 'Cause I'm pretty sure that's not Dean Winchester you're wearing."

Michael sneers. "You always were a mama's boy."

"And you were a sycophantic little kiss-ass desperate for our Father's approval. Never willing to step out of line. Never willing to stick your neck out. Not even for your own brothers."

The animosity between them is electric, raising the hair on the back of Gabriel's neck. Then Isis puts Her hand on his arm and pulls him back. He hadn't even realized he'd stepped toward his brother.

"Michael," She says, "go home. See to your siblings. See to the souls in your charge, languishing in their separate heavens when they should be able to mingle with one another or choose another life. Now is not the time. The world is not ending today."

"And who are you to go against His plan?" Michael says, pulling his vessel to its full height. The light and shadow that spill out from his form contract and shudder.

Isis smiles, eyes flashing warm brown to black. Not the flat ombre of a demon; it's the blackness of the universe, wide and endless and filled with stars. When She speaks, Her words carry a tremble of thunder.

"I am the one who made you. You may idolize your Father, but I am the balance in this world, the water to the flame and the earth to the air. My name was on the lips of humans before your Father's or any of our children. They prayed and built temples to me and asked me to look after them. And I have.

"And even when your Father's plan to bring everyone together under that fanciful story of the young sacrificed god failed so spectacularly, in the violence and the bloodshed, still they sought me out. For love, for safety.

"They call me the Great Mother and I will not leave them to the machinations of selfish children who wish to destroy them because they haven't gotten everything they wanted.

"Now. Unless you want to share a cage with your brother, let that poor boy go. And go home."

Michael closes his eyes, twitches. Those last words drop heavy as a planet, echoing in the depths of his grace. They make Gabriel's teeth hurt and he's not even the focal point.

Michael's eyes are glassy when he opens them, his lips part, tremble and he wets them with his tongue, the gesture all too human, all too vulnerable. Daddy's boy he may have been, but still, no one likes to disappoint mom.

Isis steps in front of him, lifts a hand to his cheek. "I love you," She says. "Go home."

And with an explosive rush of wind, Michael is gone and Adam Winchester lurches, slumps forward into Isis's arms and She balances him with his head on Her shoulder.

When She turns to Gabriel, Her eyes once more a rich brown, fatigue obvious in the lines at their corners, and he realizes Michael didn't quite go all on his own. But still….

"One down," Gabriel says and stretches his senses in the direction of Stull.