[fic] hell or high water (2/5)

[electricskeptic]

Warnings, notes & summary in full here.

(I.)

“You two idjits in there?!”

Bobby pounded on the door of room 4B, trying to ignore the voice at the back of his mind telling him something was terribly wrong. Dean had called him only a few hours earlier, asking him to come up and help with their latest case, and though Bobby had grumbled and bitched about Winchesters making unreasonable demands on his time, he was secretly glad for the excuse to get out of the house and see some action. It was hard to forget, sometimes, the year he’d spent with his thumbs up his ass in that damn metal chair.

Only now he found himself wishing that he’d set off a little earlier, driven a little faster, that he hadn’t stopped off in that diner on the Nebraska state line for a cheeseburger and some lukewarm coffee. It was late, late enough that the boys might be in bed -- but they were light sleepers, had to be in their line of work, and not likely to miss Bobby knocking on the door fit to break it down for three solid minutes, cursing up a blue streak.

“If one of you doesn’t open this damn door in the next five seconds, I’m kicking the thing down!” He warned. At this point, he should be hearing movement inside, some snappy comment from Dean about how clearly not everything improved with age before the door opened.

There was nothing.

He didn’t bother to count the five seconds.

It probably would have been more satisfying to make good on his threat and put his foot straight through the cheap plywood, but he didn’t want to attract any undue attention and instead opted to pick the lock.

When the door swing inwards, he was struck by the notion that there wasn’t enough air in the room, his lungs drawing up tight as though somebody had fitted an iron band around them. He didn’t know what he’d expected to find, but it sure as hell hadn’t been this. Rufus had always told him when he’d first been starting out to be prepared for any situation, no matter what -- but there was no way he could ever have prepared himself for the sight that greeted him now.

As far as grisly crime scenes went, he’d seen worse. There wasn’t even that much blood, save for the arterial spray decorating the floor and ceiling. But this was personal, and it had him fighting not to lose his lunch all over the ugly motel carpet, tears stinging his eyes that would have been downright embarrassing at any other time.

Sam and Dean were dead, unmistakably, throats slashed so deeply that the wounds left behind gaped wide, the fresh blood still oozing out suggesting it hadn’t been done all that long ago. The fact that they were each in their beds, eyes closed, that there was no evidence of a fight, suggested they’d simply been put down in their sleep, and that made the whole thing ten times more sickening.

Bobby felt panic grip him, then anger, fear, grief, each emotion chasing the last until he could barely distinguish between them. His legs threatened to give out and he didn’t fight it, kneeling beside the nearest bed (Sam’s), stubbornly looking anywhere but at the bodies. Both Sam and Dean had died before, of course, more times than he cared to think about, and none of them had any illusions that they were going to live long, prosperous lives -- but it wasn’t supposed to go down like this. Not with everything that had happened, everything that was still waiting to happen, just over the horizon. The boys practically had a damn guardian angel, and they still couldn’t --

Bobby sat back in realization, the train of thought grinding to a halt as he remembered coming to in a cemetery in Lawrence when Lucifer had snapped his neck like a dry twig only moments before, Castiel crouching over him with that unnervingly calm expression.

He’d never quite seen what Dean had found so damn likeable about Castiel; the angel was brusque and impatient and a manipulative son of a bitch to boot, but any idiot could see that he had a soft spot for the Winchesters -- one of them in particular -- a mile wide. If he had brought Bobby back to life then surely, surely, he would do the same for them.

The thought was one thing -- and Bobby felt a damn sight better for it, already finding that he was able to breathe a little easier with a plan of some kind in mind -- but actually getting hold of the angel would prove to be another matter entirely. He knew for a fact that Castiel didn’t still have his cell phone; maybe God forgot to put it back together along with the rest of him after he was blown up that second time, who knew? That left prayer, which wasn’t exactly Bobby’s forte, and as Dean told it there was only about a fifty-fifty chance Castiel would bother to answer. Nonetheless, he had to try.

At least, he thought ironically, he was already kneeling.

“Castiel,” he growled, and his voice came out hoarse and broken. He passed one hand shakily over his face and realized that his cheeks were wet. Clearing his throat, he tried again. “I don’t know what you’re doing up there, but you’d better get down here right the hell now. D’you hear me? Get your ass here, or so help me, I’ll roast you in holy fire myself --”

An echo of wingbeats, a gust of displaced air, and Castiel stood between the two beds, as out-of-place and off-center as ever, tiny scowl of irritation on an otherwise impassive face. There was blood on his coat, Bobby noted absently, and his hair stuck up in all directions, like he’d just been running -- or fighting.

“What do you want,” the angel asked, in his weird, flat inflection that made it sound like a statement rather than a question. “It’s unusual for you to --”

He stopped abruptly as his brain seemed to catch up to his mouth and he realized the carnage he’d just walked into. His gaze flickered for a moment between the two bodies; Sam to Dean and then back again before settling fully on Dean, and for a moment Bobby glimpsed something like crushing grief in his eyes before the shutters came back down again. Castiel took a step closer to Dean’s bed, brushed his hand lightly through the man’s hair, touched his cheek in a way that was almost reverent. Bobby looked away, feeling as though he was intruding on some kind of private moment and annoyed that Castiel had the power to make him feel that way. He’d long since given up trying to figure out the convoluted relationship between those two, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out that Castiel was hung up on Dean in a bad way. Even if Dean was apparently too blind to see it.

“These cuts were made by angelic weaponry,” Castiel told him, examining Dean’s slashed throat. His voice was worryingly devoid of emotion; but then, Bobby had emotion enough for the both of them.

“Should have realized it was one of your lot,” he bit off. Castiel’s head snapped up, and the look he leveled at Bobby would have made lesser men quail.

“I can assure you, whoever did this did not have my permission,” he said icily. And yeah, Bobby knew that, but he didn’t care overly much about sparing Castiel’s feelings right now.

“I’m not interested in playing the blame game just now,” he ground out. “How about you just fix them, and then we can get to finding out who’s got the smoking gun.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Why the hell not? You brought me back.”

“Resurrection is more than just a matter of re-animating dead flesh,” Castiel lectured impatiently, adopting a vaguely condescending tone that Bobby resented. “I would have thought that after your dealings with Sam when he returned from Hell, you would have realized that the soul is the essence of humanity. When I brought you back, I called your soul down from Heaven and reunited it with your body.”

“Okay, so just do that now.”

“I can’t ‘just do that’, because their souls are not in Heaven.”

A beat passed while Bobby attempted to process this.

“How can you know that?”

“I would have felt them pass.”

No matter how frustrating he found Castiel, Bobby wasn’t about to argue with an angel over something like this -- but if Sam and Dean weren’t in Heaven, there weren’t too many other options. He didn’t want to consider the alternative, though, couldn’t think of either of them back in Hell, not when he knew for a fact that Dean still woke up screaming some nights, that the only thing keeping Sam from stark raving insanity was a wall in his head that could come down at any moment.

“They were both granted absolution for their sins and offered eternal life in Heaven,” Castiel said, with the air of one who was thinking aloud. “The only reason they would be in Hell is if something wanted them there.”

“Is there any way you can check?”

If Castiel were anyone else, Bobby suspected he would have rolled his eyes. “I can’t just look into Hell,” he said, “but I can contact someone who can.”

He held Bobby’s gaze, and there was a determined set to his face that Bobby had last seen in Detroit.

“I’m going to need some things.”

+

Before he met Dean Winchester, Castiel had not been accustomed to worrying for others. He did not feel grief because he could not feel love, beyond the vague, abstract term used by angels. Going to battle had not seemed like a hardship, because it was his duty, just as it was the duty of every angel, and when a brother or sister fell at another’s sword, it was an acceptable price to pay for upholding order.

Now… now Castiel felt, so much so that he was in danger of overflowing with it. He knew love in all of its forms: agape for the world at large, his Father’s creation; a kind of brotherly affection for Sam that he had never felt towards any of his own siblings, save for possibly Balthazar or Anna. Those were simple kinds of love; the variety he harbored towards Dean was a great deal more complicated, and he often felt unequipped to understand it, awkward and clumsy in his attempts to navigate the feelings that came attached with it. It was friendship, yes, the kind of bond that came from several years of shared experience, but it was tied up in an undeniably carnal desire that left him wondering on occasion what it would be like to kiss Dean, to make him gasp and sigh and moan like the actors in the pornographic film he had watched. And then there was a needy, covetous element, something proprietary that left him far more protective and possessive than he was comfortable admitting, as though he had the right to claim Dean as his own.

Whatever the exact nature of their relationship, Castiel knew that he tended to place Dean above all others; that there was very little he would not do for the man. It was a weakness, and a dangerous one at that, but he could help it no more than he could help the passage of time, the mechanics of the universe. It was just something that was.

All of which explained the panic and grief that had ripped through him when he’d seen Dean -- and to a lesser extent, Sam -- lying cold and lifeless in that motel room, missing the vital spark that Castiel had carried up from Hell. Messy, human emotions they might have been, but he could feel them now; because he felt love, and everything else followed after.

The fact that the damage had been done by angels made the situation all the worse because it meant he became responsible, however indirectly. There were several parties that could have been at fault: either Raphael’s forces, or a rogue agent with grudge against the Winchesters for their role in stopping the Apocalypse. Castiel was quite certain that if he ever found out the name of the one who had wielded the sword, they would receive his wrath. It would be the one death he would feel no guilt over.

But for now he had to focus on the task in hand. He stood in Bobby’s front room, the empty vessels of Dean and Sam hidden away in the panic room; safe, for the time being. There was a large devil’s trap drawn on the floor in front of him, hidden by an old rug; in his hands, he held a small bowl filled with various magical herbs he had collected, human blood provided by Bobby.

The spell was to summon a demon, but adapted for one in particular. In theory, it should bring the current ruler of Hell to them.

“Even if this works,” Bobby started, hope warring with doubt in his voice, “even if the thing tells us whether or not Sam and Dean are in the Pit, why should we believe it? Demons lie.”

“No demon can conceal the truth from me.” Castiel did not mean for his reply to sound prideful, though he expected it came out that way. He was simply stating the truth.

Not wishing to delay any longer, he began the incantation, speaking in the ancient language, Enochian syllables resonating with power as they entered the atmosphere. The words sounded awkward, shaped by a human larynx, a human tongue, but Castiel had always been resourceful and he did the best job he could with the tools at his disposal.

The demon that appeared in response to his summons was a surprise, because Castiel knew her -- far more intimately than he liked to remember. He had tangled his fingers in the dark hair of the unwilling woman whose body she possessed in a fit of wanton desire he now regretted, and the smirk that was already forming on her lips caused what little patience he had to quickly wane.

“Hey, Clarence,” Meg chirped; all swagger, though Castiel noticed with some amusement that she appeared faintly uneasy. Perhaps seeing what he had done to Crowley had served as an adequate reminder that he was no longer… impotent. “Just couldn’t wait to see me again, huh? I gotta say, if this is a booty call there are more polite ways of asking. And I’d prefer it if the old man wasn’t involved,” she added, looking to Bobby with an expression of distaste.

“You’re the big head honcho downstairs now?” Bobby asked with a note of incredulity. Castiel wondered the same thing. Though he had to grudgingly admit that Meg appeared to possess a degree of intelligence most demons lacked, and he could only assume she was proficient in the art of torture if she had truly studied under Alastair, she was still just a common demon among thousands of others.

“What can I say? You killing Crowley created a huge power vacuum -- I took advantage. Thanks for that, by the way. I should really send you some flowers some time. So, let me guess: you summoned me here because Dumb and Dumber went and got themselves killed again. And since I’m now effectively Hell’s CEO, you want me to tell you whether or not they bought themselves one way tickets back down to the furnace. I miss anything?”

“I am in no mood to play games,” Castiel warned her. “Believe me when I say that it will be extremely painful for you should you fail to tell us what you know.”

Meg snorted, stepping forwards until she was stood at the very edge of the devil’s trap. “I don’t see how it’s my problem if you can’t look after your toys properly. You know what? I wish they were in Hell; I wish I could strip the meat from their bones myself. I wish I could hear them scream. I’d make sure Dean remembered everything he learned from Alastair, tear down that wall in Sam’s head and leave him to torture himself to insanity. But since you ask so nicely -- no, they’re not in Hell. The only way I’d let them come near is if I had the satisfaction of dragging them there myself.”

“She telling the truth?” Bobby asked after a beat of silence.

“Yes,” Castiel answered. Demons were more difficult to read than humans, twisted perversions of God’s favorite creation. But however corrupt and evil Meg was now, she had been human once and as such, he could look into her and see that she was not lying.

He wasn’t entirely sure where that left them.

“Great. Can we kill her now?”

Meg’s eyes glittered to black, like shards of onyx or the wing casings of a longhorn beetle Castiel had once seen in Peru.

“You really think that’s such a good idea?” She asked. “Hell has to have a leader, but you morons keep killing them: Azazel, Lilith, Lucifer, Crowley. If you keep going, you’re gonna have total anarchy on your hands. You never heard the saying, ‘better the devil you know’?”

Castiel had not heard the saying, but -- and much as he was loathe to admit it -- she had a point. Hell was chaos, but at least it was structured chaos. Castiel had seen firsthand in Heaven what the effects of removing order and regiment could be, and he was fairly confident in the assumption that a rogue Hell was something none of them wanted.

But for all that -- when Castiel had kissed Meg, he had felt the soul of her host trapped inside, wrapped up in the demon’s coils and screaming for deliverance. Though he knew in an abstract manner that it was absurd to place the wellbeing of one human over the wellbeing of several million others, he could not in good conscience allow Meg to live, knowing that her continued existence caused so much suffering.

Before she had time to so much as blink, he stepped into the devil’s trap, slamming his palm against her forehead and purifying her with a touch. Meg died screaming, in a blaze of orange light; the host body crumpled bonelessly to the floor, and Castiel did not have to check in order to know that she was also dead. Compared with the agonies of possession, it was probably a blessing.

Castiel tried very hard not to think of Jimmy Novak.

“So if they’re not in Heaven and they’re not in Hell,” Bobby began slowly, “where exactly does that leave?”

“I don’t know,” Castiel replied honestly, disturbed by the lack of solid ideas that came to mind. “But I will find out.”

“Oh, yeah? How exactly do you plan to do that?”

At one time, Castiel would have taken offence at the blatant disrespect in Bobby’s tone, but he was wiser about humanity now, and he understood all too well that the man was grieving.

“I will find them,” he promised, and prayed that he would be able to deliver on it. “You have my word.”

He would possibly have said more, but it was at this point he felt a distinct tug on his essence, something calling him from some other place in the world. Castiel attempted to resist the summoning, but it was futile; he had no choice but to obey, and with one last, helpless look at Bobby, he let himself be pulled away.

+

It was not an easy thing, to summon an angel. When Castiel had first appeared to Dean and Bobby in Pontiac, it was because he had decided to reveal himself to them, not because he had been compelled to in any way. It was for this reason that he felt something akin to anxiety at being summoned by some unknown force to what appeared to be an empty diner similar to the ones often frequented by Dean and Sam.

He was disoriented from the journey, and so it took him a second or two to regain his bearings. Once he did, he also realized that he was not alone, and drew his sword in anticipation. It was a second longer before it dawned on him that the weapon would be of no use whatsoever against his present company.

The being sat in the back of the room was an ancient one, and more powerful by far than Castiel or any of his brothers. Something not contingent, but necessary; not so much a physical being as a concept, an abstraction made flesh. Castiel knew beyond any shadow of a doubt who it was that had brought him here, though a part of him couldn’t help but wish that he did not.

“Hello, Castiel,” Death said, without looking at him or acknowledging him in any other way, and the Horseman’s voice was like a thousand plagues, like the tearing of Castiel’s sword through the soft give of a vessel’s flesh, like the Apocalypse threatening to rise up and swallow them whole all over again. “Won’t you join me?”

Castiel ignored the overwhelming urge to flee, moving towards Death’s table with a caution he hoped did not show. He stowed the sword back inside his coat but could not help tightening his grip on the hilt, as though it would offer some kind of protection; he scoffed internally when he realized what he was doing, how very human the whole thing was. He sat down in the chair opposite Death when he reached his destination, keeping his eyes trained on the entity across from him. Death appeared human, but Castiel was well aware that this was an illusion; the air in the diner was heavy with something arcane. Not magic -- something older and more intrinsic to this world.

Death pushed a hamburger on a plate across the surface of the table towards him, and Castiel realized belatedly that the Horseman had a half-eaten sandwich of his own. He wondered at how he had failed to notice these details before now; it was unlike him to be so inobservant, and it made him uneasy.

Then again, there was very little about this situation that did not make him uneasy.

“I was in the mood for something sweeter myself, but I believe you harbor a particular fondness for red meat,” Death remarked idly. His tone was courteous but detached, as though he cared very little one way or another for Castiel’s preferences but found them interesting enough to indulge.

Castiel studied the burger, but made no move to pick it up. It was a curious thing: even though he had not been thinking of food -- had not, in fact, thought of food at all since those last desperate days of the Apocalypse, when he was all but human and needed to keep a relentless supply of carbohydrates and fats to his body just to remain conscious -- he suddenly found himself craving it with an intensity not unlike the way he had felt under Famine’s manipulation. He resisted the temptation, however, clenching his hands into fists and waiting for Death to speak again.

He did not have to wait long.

“I’ve been wanting to speak with you for an awfully long time, Castiel. Tell me something, do you know what you are?”

Castiel was the angel of Thursdays; he was a soldier of God; he was the leader of Heaven’s revolution (though it was a position he deeply resented) and he was a friend of the Winchesters. He was tired and frustrated and lonely and rapidly running out of options in a war he was losing by further degrees every day. Any of these responses would have answered the question both honestly and accurately, yet Castiel suspected that Death was looking for something else entirely, and so he remained silent.

“You are an anomaly,” Death told him, apparently unconcerned by Castiel’s inability to reply. “A fluke. A mistake in the scriptures of Creation that was somehow overlooked. Did you ever wonder how it was that the actions of one rebellious angel managed to subvert a prophecy put in place millennia ago by those far older and wiser than you?”

“My actions accomplished nothing,” Castiel argued; whatever it was that Death was trying to tell him, he must surely have been mistaken. “I was too late. Lucifer still rose --”

“Be that as it may, your choice to stand with humanity -- or more specifically, with Dean Winchester -- set in motion a chain of events that eventually led to the Apocalypse being averted. Tell me, if it had been another angel to find Dean in Hell -- your friend Uriel, perhaps -- would the story have unfolded in quite the same manner? All actions have consequences, and an alteration to even the smallest detail would have resulted in an entirely different outcome. There is no such thing as luck, but that doesn’t mean that fate is set in stone.”

There was a brief pause while Castiel attempted to process this, but he didn’t get very far before Death was glancing down at his plate, the burger still untouched.

“Eat.”

The imperative carried with it a hint of threat, and Castiel reluctantly picked up the burger, taking the smallest bite possible. Even then, the tastes and sensations seemed to erupt on his tongue: the tang of the cheese; the grease from the meat; crisp lettuce and the slight doughiness of the bread. It had been so long since he last did something simply for the pleasure of it -- because he wanted to rather than because it was required of him -- that he couldn’t stop the slight sigh of appreciation from passing his lips. Death watched him closely, and Castiel suddenly understood why Dean had always complained of feeling unnerved whenever he was stared at.

“You truly are a fascinating creature,” Death observed. Lucifer had said something similar to him once, and it was as disconcerting to hear now as it had been then. Castiel realized with a jolt that he had not thought of Dean and Sam at all since being summoned here, and cursed himself for being so easily distracted.

“I don’t have time for philosophical discussions,” he snapped, failing in his attempts to keep the irritation from his voice. Patience might have been a virtue, but it was never one of Castiel’s. “I need to find --”

“Castiel, are you aware that the only reason for your continued existence is a contract that exists between myself and your Father, forged at the time of your second resurrection? Curious though you undoubtedly are, you are still nothing more than a tool with a job to carry out; the second you cease to be of use, that contract can be… terminated.”

This time the threat was obvious, and Castiel found that he felt strangely cold in a way that had little to do with external temperature fluctuations. Even that, however, did not douse the bright flare of anger that surged within him at the implications of what Death had revealed, his temper short and frayed in a way that it had never been before the Apocalypse.

“My Father would do well to remember that He also gave free will to angels,” he seethed, not caring how close to blasphemy he was. “I am nobody’s hammer.”

The hard plastic chair Death was sitting on gave a wounded groan as the Horseman leaned forwards, narrowed eyes intent upon Castiel’s face. Castiel sat tense, wings poised for flight even though he knew it would do him no good.

There would be no outrunning Death itself.

“I can certainly see Dean’s influence on you,” Death mused after several seconds had passed. “A fascinating creature indeed.”

He sat back again, but Castiel did not relax. He was far from being out of danger, even if the imminent promise of execution seemed to have passed.

“As it happens, this latest plight of the Winchesters is the reason I wished to speak with you,” Death began. Castiel wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or nervous; any news should surely be something, but given that it was being delivered by the Fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse, he doubted it would be anything good. “I’m going to assume you are already aware of the matter of their missing souls.”

It wasn’t really a question, but Castiel found himself answering anyway. “Yes. They are not in Heaven; not in Hell either, as far as I can tell. I --”

“That’s because your brother is holding them hostage.”

Castiel had millions of brothers, but it did not take him very long to work out which one Death was referring to. It wasn’t as though the possibility hadn’t occurred to him before, given the nature of the killings.

“Raphael.”

Death inclined his head in acknowledgement. “The angel who carried out the killings intercepted my reaper and stole the souls. This, by the way, is precisely why I loathe angels. You call yourselves the agents of fate, and you play with life and death as it though it were your right, as though you are anything more than pawns in this game, just because your Father is no longer around to tell you how to behave. I will be the first to criticize God on numerous accounts, but I can’t truly blame Him for running away if this is what He had to contend with: a bunch of squabbling, neurotic infants, squandering the immortality you were gifted with by slaughtering one another because you can think of nothing better to do.”

Castiel’s anger swelled again, a growing tempest he could barely contain within his vessel; his hands -- which had been gripping the edge of the table -- tightened to such an extent that his fingers left indentations in the metal. Several salt shakers exploded spontaneously, sending plumes of white up into the air. Death spared a brief glance for the carnage; if Castiel did not know any better, he would say that the Horseman looked vaguely amused.

“As I was saying,” Death continued calmly, as though nothing had happened, “The souls of Sam and Dean Winchester are in Raphael’s possession. He intends to use them to bargain with you.”

Castiel felt a brief tremor of unease at the confirmation that the brothers’ current predicament was, indeed, his fault. He forced it down, however; wallowing in guilt would not aid him in his quest to restore them.

“Raphael knows I have the weapons of Heaven. Why --?”

“He also knows that you would not dare to use them when your human friends may be caught in the crossfire.”

It occurred to Castiel to wonder why Death was bothering to share this information with him; it was not typically the way of Horsemen to act as messengers between angels.

“If these are truly Raphael’s intentions, why does he not tell me himself?”

“I’m sure he will do, eventually. However, it was… beneficial to me to get here first.”

Castiel still did not understand, and felt desperately as though he was missing something. “Why?”

Death regarded him for a long moment before leaning closer once again. “I wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of retrieving Sam Winchester’s soul from the Cage if I had wanted he and his brother to become bargaining chips in your ridiculous war. Sam and Dean are doing a job for me, and it’s far from over. I could have them replaced, of course, but that would require more time and effort, so I’m being economical about it and utilizing one of my other players. Namely, you.”

And suddenly all became clear. Death’s plan was infallible; as much as Castiel resented being used as a pawn, there was no way he could refuse. To do so would seal whatever fate Raphael had envisioned for the Winchesters. Castiel remembered all too clearly his brother’s threat of torture when he and Dean had first imprisoned him in Maine over two years ago. He could only hope that Raphael would not harm them for the time being, until he had presented Castiel with his ultimatum.

“I don’t understand what you want me to do,” he admitted, though not without some resentment. “Without the weapons, I have no hope of defeating Raphael. An archangel can only be killed by another archangel’s blade.”

“Yes,” Death agreed mildly. “I see the problem. It might interest you to know that the goddess Kali shared an… intimate relationship with one of your older brothers, and may be in possession of something that can help you.”

The words nudged something deep within Castiel’s memory; the name Kali resonated with him, although he knew that he had never met her. For some reason he found he associated it with Dean… Yes, Dean had spoken to him once about Kali, he was quite sure, though Castiel had not been himself at the time. That painful jolt in his existence when he had been human; after Pestilence and before Detroit, sitting on Bobby’s moth-eaten sofa, and Dean had handed him a beer and offered to fill you in on everything, and then he had talked about a storm of Biblical proportions, and a hotel that put chocolates on the pillows, and Kali, and… Gabriel.

Instantly, he knew what Death was trying to tell him. Kali had Gabriel’s sword. And Castiel could use it to kill Raphael. Win the war, and save his friends, all in one go.

And just like that -- for the first time in what felt like an eternity -- Castiel felt a small flicker of hope.

+

The Dakshineswar Kali Temple was a relatively new structure in terms of human history, only completed in the middle-nineteenth century, but it was imbued with an ancient power that Castiel could feel in the very foundations of the place. Power that was only strengthened in the presence of the one who stood before him now, the temple’s namesake and its benefactor: Kali, Bhavatarini; the Black One, the Destroyer; also, paradoxically, the Redeemer.

Unlike angels, pagan gods did not need a vessel in order to take human form. Instead they used illusions, warping reality in such a way to conceal themselves so that they could walk the earth undetected. Castiel was not human, though, and the attractive female that Dean and Sam knew as Kali did a poor job of hiding her true form from his angelic perception. The two visages overlapped and merged in a way that was disjointed and incoherent, and every so often an extra appendage or an expanse of bluish skin would flash into existence at the edge of his periphery.

The ineffective disguise, however, did not make Castiel any less wary of her. Kali was an old goddess, the weave of time and change caught up in her essence. A vicious slayer of demons known for her ruthlessness since antiquity, and one who had held angels in disdain long before her encounter with Lucifer.

“Castiel,” she greeted him neutrally, and his name sounded strange on her tongue. “Yes, I know who you are, not to mention what. You have some nerve, I’ll grant you that.”

“Kali,” he returned carefully; his wings unfurled themselves on the metaphysical plane, arcing upwards in a defensive pose. He knew that Kali could see them from the way her eyes tracked above his head with the barest flicker of amusement. “I need to speak with you.”

“Oh?” One delicate human eyebrow arched even as her true face flared briefly into view, contorted with irritation. “For what purpose, exactly? And make it quick; my patience is limited.”

Castiel licked his lips; another pointless habit he had acquired during his Fall. Nervous tics, Dean called them. “I wish to strike a deal.”

Kali snorted, moving closer in what was a clear violation of personal space. “Then perhaps you would fare better standing at a crossroads. I am no common demon, Castiel.”

“Nevertheless, it must be you.”

Kali studied him a moment longer. She reeked of death and war; the acrid scent of burning flesh, the coppery taint of freshly spilled blood. They were smells Castiel was all too-well acquainted with.

“Whatever you want, the answer is no. I know your kind, and you’re all the same; as arrogant and self-serving as anything that ever crawled out of Hell. You have far more in common with Lucifer than any of you are willing to admit.”

“Gabriel -”

“Gabriel was a fool,” Kali snapped, eyes flashing. “He was a coward and a traitor, and he is dead because of it.”

In spite of the vitriol, there was feeling in her words that it took Castiel a second or two to correctly place as grief.

“You mourn for him,” he observed, surprised in spite of himself.

“And you do not? You feel nothing for the loss of your brother?”

“Gabriel was neither the first nor the last. Many of my brothers have fallen during the course of this war.”

“And many of them by your sword,” Kali returned coolly. Castiel inclined his head in concession of the point, though it pained him to do so.

“Whatever you thought you were going to achieve by seeking me out,” she added, “I’m not in the business of dealing with angels. I suggest you leave, and be thankful that I‘m feeling generous enough to allow you your life.”

Castiel felt his wings twitch in agitation, desperate to do as she asked and fly far away from this place, but he forced himself to stand his ground and the next words came out as steady as any he had spoken before them.

“Is it not true that you owe your life in part to Dean and Sam Winchester?”

Kali seemed to twist and change in her anger at the reminder that she had been helped by humans, the small, delicate thing she masqueraded as briefly swallowed up by her true self in its monstrous entirety before she regained some semblance of her former composure. To her credit, however, she did not deny the accusation.

“My debt is with them; not their attack dog.”

The sneering insult struck an unpleasant chord within Castiel. He found himself remembering what Famine had said to Dean as he hunkered down on the floor of some filthy diner to chew on raw meat: “you sicced your dog on me; I just… threw him a steak.” It was degrading, humiliating, to be thought of in such a way; his job was not to do the Winchesters’ bidding. If he helped them, it was out of a sense of friendship, loyalty -- not duty and certainly not obligation.

“The Winchesters’ souls are currently being held hostage by Raphael; it is his intention to use them to bargain with me. I can’t let him destroy them, but if he wins this war, he will bring the Apocalypse -- the Apocalypse you tried to stop. If that happens, your kind will be exterminated just as surely as everything else that calls this planet home.”

Kali did not relent, scrutinizing him in such a way that Castiel had the impression she was looking past the vessel of flesh that he had made his own, staring right into his very essence, the wisps of thought and feeling and intention that made him Castiel rather than any other angel.

“What would you have me do?” Kali asked finally. “I’m not going to fight your holy war for you.”

“I wouldn’t ask you to,” Castiel replied briskly, pressing on when his tone caused Kali’s expression to harden once again, “but my sources tell me you have something in your possession that will help me win.”

“And what sources might those be?”

“Reliable ones. I know you have Gabriel’s sword, Kali,” he said bluntly, all too aware of the passage of time, every second ticking past like a death knell as the chance of returning Dean and Sam to their bodies grew ever slimmer. “Give it to me.”

“With manners like that, how could I refuse?” Kali asked -- dryly, but with the promise of real danger.

“Please.”

Begging went against the very nature of angels, but so did many other pastimes Castiel was guilty of, and he was not above lowering himself if it would deliver results.

Kali spun on her heel and took three quick paces away from him; the shoes she wasn’t really wearing clicked against the unyielding floor, and Castiel thought of Shiva’s prone body beneath her feet. When she faced him again, the sword was in her hand; larger than Castiel’s own and somehow more lethal in appearance, throwing off sparks where the light hit it. Kali ran a finger along the blade in a way that was almost reverent, and startlingly familiar; Castiel had once witnessed Dean caress a small knife that had belonged to Joanna Harvelle in a similar manner, days after her death.

“You can have it,” Kali said slowly, as though she had not been aware which words would manifest themselves until she started speaking. “On one condition.”

“Name it.”

“My kind is a dying breed. Lucifer’s attack on us didn’t help matters, but we’ve been the victims of Western religion since long before the Apocalypse began. So when you drive this sword into your brother’s heart, you leave us alone. Leave us to conduct our business, and we will do the same for you. Stop trying to convert our followers. Your father is not the only God, and you have no right to push for dominion. For all your self-righteousness, your ways are no more sophisticated than ours, and certainly not less bloodthirsty.”

“You have my word.”

Kali smiled like the first spread of frost in the winter, a cancerous thing that extinguished any struggling sparks of warmth.

“I’m afraid I’m going to need a little more than that.”

She sliced her palm with Gabriel’s sword; the blood that welled up was too bright, too vivid to be considered anything like human. Grabbing Castiel’s hand, she did the same to him without waiting for his consent, and he gasped as the Heaven-forged steel tore through Grace as well as the human meat of his palm.

Kali pressed their bloodied hands together in a mimicry of a human handshake, and Castiel felt the air around them begin to singe and burn before her body ignited, flames licking down her arms to where their hands were joined. The real Kali surfaced once again as the avatar immolated; glaring red eyes and a multitude of waving arms, a string of shrunken severed heads adorning her neck.

The heat seared through his own vessel, blistering him down to the very core; it was torturous, and it was all Castiel could do not to cry out from the pain as his wings thrashed uselessly, struggling to escape. It seemed as though it would never end; it was like being back in Hell, like being reconditioned once again by Zachariah, only it was infinitely worse than either of those things. He was surely about to die, and his last thought was that he had failed Dean and Sam, that he would never see his friends again; never debate theology with Sam or put that grin on Dean’s face and wonder what it would taste like -- and then Kali pulled away, taking the agony with her as she assumed human form once more.

Castiel was left gasping for the breath he didn’t need, and it was some time before he regained his senses enough to realize that he now held Gabriel’s sword in his own hand. He could feel the power of it, heady and overwhelming in a way that his own weapon had never been. It almost felt like a separate entity, some wild, untamed beast that he could attempt to train but would never really succeed in domesticating.

“That was a binding promise you just made,” Kali told him. Castiel blinked and looked up at her; he’d almost forgotten she was even there. “So if you break it -- if a single one of my cousins dies at the hands of an angel -- I will be the next in line to declare war on you. And believe me when I say that all that torture they put you through in Heaven would seem merciful compared to what I can do.”

Castiel nodded; he had no doubt that she was telling the truth. “Of course.”

“If that’s all?” Kali asked sardonically. She disappeared without waiting for an answer.

Castiel tested the weight of the sword in his hand, and the hope he had begun to feel after his conversation with Death increased infinitesimally. He could win; he was quite sure of it now, and it was a welcome feeling to have.

First, however, he would need some help from an old friend.

(II.)