Apocrypha 9
There hadn't been any hint, any omen, about how wrong it would all go.
Bill had talked his ear off about everything and anything all the way from Nebraska to California. By the time they were in Nevada, John knew more about Buddhism, horse racing, offshore oil rigs, Renaissance artists, medieval surgery, and British science fiction than he had ever known there was to know. They even ended up talking about Star Trek for nearly two hours straight. If he hadn't worked with Bill once before, he'd have wondered how on earth they could ever hope to sneak up on anything.
On the job, though, Bill was quiet as a cat. He wasn't a small man, but he could insinuate himself through the tightest spaces without a rustle when he wanted.
After they pulled off the road and hid the Impala behind some scrub, they picked their way down into the arroyo. It was a hot miserable day, and the dry air tasted of metal and smoke. Any scent of sulfur would have been drowned out. They each had a canteen, but the water warmed up too fast and didn't slake their thirst as much as it should have.
Bill took point and John took slack. Every now and then, Bill looked over his shoulder to ask John a silent 'you feel that?'
John would nod. It was obvious that something had happened here and might still be happening.
Bill picked a trail that was circuitous but gave them decent and silent footing. John just wondering how much further it was when Bill paused to duck under a branch and turned to flash John a quick 'almost there' grin, then headed sure-footed down a steep grade and up the following rise.
John followed his steps, catching each foothold just as Bill had. He did fine until he tried to brace against what he thought was a solid outcropping of rock.
It wasn't an outcropping. It was simply a rock stuck in the dry soil, and Bill's passage had knocked it loose. John caught himself barely in time, merely straining his ankle instead of breaking or spraining it. He'd managed to stay quiet through it all, though. In fact, he was quiet enough that Bill didn't hear him.
Instead of waiting, Bill had continued on and was out of sight by the time John made it up the last slope. It only took a minute for John to catch up to him; Bill had stopped cold a few yards past where they broke tree cover and was staring at the rock face in front of them.
The ground sloped sharply down from where they stood, and then back up to the cliff. Bits of dried vine clung to the cliff except in one place. In that one place, a crack split the rock like a sideways smile. It was hard to look at directly. At least it was for John. His eyes kept wanting to skid to one side or the other of it. Bill didn't seem to have a problem, though. He looked at it so intently it was like he was trying to see through to the other side. If anything, John thought he'd have trouble looking away.
No one else was around, and John wasn't sure if that was a good sign or a bad one.
John unslung his backpack. "Okay, Bill. Time to vandalize a state park," he whispered. Along with copious quantities of silver, mandrake, and holy water, they each had three cans of Rustoleum spray paint. Cutting off the hellgates might not stop whatever it was that the demons were doing, but it would slow them down and maybe through a good-sized wrench in the works. If they set it up right, they'd catch one in the process of escaping or returning, and they could have themselves a good old-fashioned interrogation session.
Bill let his backpack slide from his shoulder, and he didn't try to catch it as it fell to the ground.
"Nah, it's a little late for that."
Bill sounded as cheerful as ever, but the cheerfulness had an edge to it.
"What? What do you mean, it's late?" Something was wrong, very, very wrong. John reached for his gun. He had only lost sight of Bill for a minute. One fucking minute.
"Late as in too late. You've already lost." Bill turned around and grinned way too wide. "Hi there, Johnny. Good to see ya again."
John looked the thing in the eyes. He expected to see solid black.
He saw sulfurous yellow.
"You're looking good, John. A bit rough around the edges, and you've got some gray coming in, but still--looking good. Your neck healed up real nice. I have to say," he said, patting down Bill's body, "this isn't a bad meatsuit, all told. I've had worse."
The demon used Bill's mouth to smile, but it looked nothing like Bill's smile.
John kept his gun on the thing even though a gunshot wouldn't stop the demon. All it would do was hurt or even Bill. "Who are you?"
"Aw, don't you remember me? I'm hurt! Mary and I used to be so close. And I think you'd remember what I did to you when I interrupted your happy little moment."
John went for a vial of holy water as he began muttering the rites of exorcism.
"That won't hurt me, John. Nothing you can do can hurt me. I'm completely unhurtable." The thing drew Bill's gun. "See?"
It put the gun to Bill's head.
John broke off the rite as he leapt forward desperately. He almost made it.
His hand was on Bill's arm when something yanked him from mid-air and slammed him hard up against the rock. The crack was just inches from John's body, and he could feel it pulling at him.
The demon was laughing when it pulled the trigger, blowing out Bill's brains and right eye.
"Oh god, oh god, no..." John's ribs bent. They began to crack.
"Oh, there's no god here." The demon didn't seem to care that half its head was missing. "It's just like that song 'Imagine.' Mary used to like John Lennon, didn't she? Or was she a more of a Paul girl? The look I got inside her daddy's head didn't go into much detail. Now, that was a mighty fine meatsuit. All kinds of knowledge kicking around in there. It told me exactly how to push sweet Mary's buttons."
"What... did you..." Speech became impossible. Pain crackled through his chest in a series of sharp snaps. He gasped for breath and tasted blood.
The demon grinned with what was left of Bill's mouth. "What did I do to her? Made a deal, the usual. She loved you so, so much. You'd be surprised what that little bitch was willing to do to save your pathetic life. I gave her ten years together with you she shouldn't have. Ten years, and she had two healthy, lovely boys at the end of it that never should have been born. With all that I was generous enough to give her, she shouldn't have protested when I came to pay the price."
He had died? Mary had paid for his life with her own? Was that it? She shouldn't have, she never should have, but then the boys...
"It's a real shame, if she hadn't woken up, she'd never have even known I'd come to collect. You'd all be a happy family right now, if she weren't such a light sleeper. You'd be worried about paying for college, not about... me."
Through the pain, what the demon said barely registered, but John heard 'collect' and knew that his most paranoid theories were right.
The demon walked right up to him, so close he could feel the heat of Bill's body. Was Bill still in there, seeing all this, hearing all this?
"Last time I saw you, I should have just burned you up instead of throwing you down the stairs and getting myself out of Dodge," he drawled as he looked John up and down. The undamaged side of Bill's face tightened in anger as the demon reached up. "You startled me, you know. You'd picked up a passenger since I'd seen you last. An important one."
Bill's hand felt hellfire hot against the side of John's face. John was cold. So cold. Everything was still being crushed slowly inside of him. He was bleeding out and nothing could stop it.
"Well, it's gone now, and you don't have any clue who it was, do you?" The demon smiled again. "You know, you had me worried back then, Johnny. I thought you might have actually caused me some trouble if I'd tried to tangle with you, but not so much, maybe. Well, that doesn't matter any more. It's time for lights-out, Johnny. Nighty-night!"
The demon pulled its hand away, but it held it where John could see as it squeezed and ended it all. If he could have, John would have screamed in agony.
Without warning, the pressure stopped. The demon whipped around to look back at the woods.
A little girl stood there. She couldn't have been much older than Sam. Long dark hair, Asian features. A red pendant that stood out like a splotch of blood on her lavender shirt.
John wanted to yell for her to run, to get away, but he couldn't. There was nothing he could do for her except watch her die.
She stood her ground. "You are not to touch that one," she told the demon in a voice that was childish, sweet, and utterly terrifying. Her eyes fixed on the demon the way a hawk's might fix on a mouse.
"Why? There's nothing left in there, honey." He knocked hard on John's head a couple of times. "See? Empty. Your boss has been and gone. Anyhow, I guess this is my cue. I've got people to see. Deals to make. Another crop to sow. I don't have time to tangle with you assholes."
He turned to wink at John with an empty socket. "Maybe I'll be seeing you in ten years, give or take. Or not. Bye!"
Bill's ruined head tilted back, and demonsmoke erupted from his mouth into the sky to vanish in the wildfire haze. His body crumpled to the ground as John slid down from where he'd been pinned against the rock.
The little girl walked over to them. She stepped over Bill's body, heedless of the carnage. No trace of emotion showed, but there was something distinctive there, something oddly familiar. Her red pendant swung back and forth as she walked. It was a circle of red stone, with a design inlaid in silver. John had seen that design many times before, but thought was becoming difficult. His vision was graying out. He was freezing cold.
"The abomination was right. You are not who I thought you were," she said. She looked back at Bill Harvelle's body and sighed. "This should not have happened. It never should have come this far."
No, it shouldn't have. He had found the demon that killed Mary, only to be killed by it in turn. It wasn't fair. It wasn't right. And the boys... what would happen to Dean, to Sam...
The demon child hunched down. Her necklace dangled in front of him. A silver circle on red, a quartered labyrinth. Vietnam, he remembered. He had seen it there. Metal maze on bloody red. Good luck and long life.
Bad luck, hard life. It was almost funny, now that he was dying. Maybe he had died decades ago, blown to shreds. Maybe this was just a dream. A dying vision.
Yes. That was right. This was all a nightmare that had never happened. None of the bad. None of the good. He thought of that summer day, and the open road, and the last time he had really seen Mary.
He mourned the sons who had never been born.
"Someone should have been on guard," he thought he heard her say. She reached down to touch his face. "This is not over. You may still be required."
The last thing he heard before he fell into darkness was a sound like a thousand birds taking flight at once.
To his surprise, it was not the last thing he heard, ever. What woke him was the buzz of flies. He woke up, feeling like he was on fire and staring into an inferno.
He was so disoriented, it took him a while to notice that nothing was broken and nothing was bleeding. He could breathe again.
He was also badly sunburned. The demon child had healed him for some reason (you may still be required) but had left him there to fry in the August sun. From the feel of things, the burn would blister. He was also thirstier than he could ever remember. He rinsed out his mouth with now-hot water from the canteen and spit before he drank. His spit was pink with blood.
It took him a moment before he could bring himself to drink. The flies had already started to gather on Bill's body. John tried to fan them away, but they wouldn't leave, not until he doused the body in salt and lighter fluid and set a match to it.
The sun was setting by the time he had finished burying Bill's bones. He was still piecing together what had happened, but he knew he couldn't tell anyone exactly what had happened or what he had heard. Not until he knew he could keep Sam safe.
He lied to Bobby, and when he stopped for the night, he rehearsed the lie he would tell Ellen. He tried to drink the memories away, but that night the fires that consumed Bill's body simply merged with the fires that had consumed Mary.
After talking to Ellen, he drove straight on through to Bobby's, repeating the story he had told her over and over again until he was sure he would get it right no matter who asked him.
Bobby and the boys were gone when he got back to Sioux Falls. A note had been left on the door for him, sealed in an envelope in the event of prying eyes. It said Bobby had taken the boys into town to go see Mortal Kombat (making it clear that this wasn't his choice by a long shot) and then get some pizza. He figured John wouldn't be up for company that evening.
John crammed down his disappointment even as he crammed the note in his pocket. He went inside, not even stopping to wash up before heading to the kitchen and helping himself to the first bottle of whiskey he could find.
He had almost kept driving and driving, past South Dakota, past everything, but something like autopilot had brought him back here to his boys.
In some ways, it was a relief not to have to deal with anyone, but then the whiskey started to knock down all the defenses he had flung up to get him through the drive and the visit to Ellen, and he was all alone. Alone with all those unfiltered thoughts and memories.
Before long, he wasn't fit company for anyone, least of all himself.
Eventually, he heard Bobby's truck pull up and a door slam shut. Then, Sam calling out, jarringly loud and jubilant.
"Dad's home! Dad's home!"
Damn. He must have noticed the Impala. Footsteps pounded up the porch steps.
"Hold on, Sam! I need you to help me up these steps. Goddamn crutches..."
"Dad! Dad! You're back!" Sam tore into the living room, but stopped short when he saw John. The broad smile froze then fell. "Dad?"
"Not now, Sam," John said. He turned away. "Go help Bobby."
Sam started to protest. He looked at the table next to John, and the mostly empty whiskey bottle. His nose wrinkled and his lips tightened to a thin line that was becoming all too familiar. "Did you drink all of that?"
"I said, go help Bobby." He gave Sam a look. No further comment would be welcome.
The look on Sam's face faded into something very adult and very disapproving. He didn't budge.
"What did I just tell you, son?"
Silence. He and Sam locked eyes. The stubbornness John saw there was much like his own, but Sam caved and looked away when Dean came into the room.
"Dad! Are you okay?" Dean asked, nearly frantic.
"I'm fine, Dean." He should be dead three times over. He could still remember what it felt like to have his lungs crushed to jelly. But he couldn't say any of that. "I'm just... tired. And the damn sunburn itches."
Dean clearly didn't believe him, but he nodded at the unspoken order. "C'mon, Sam. Bobby needs our help." He put a hand on Sam's shoulder, but Sam didn't look like he was going to budge any time soon. He simply kept looking at John, waiting for an answer to a question that had nothing to do with how much John had been drinking.
"Sorry about this, Dad. I've got it," Dean said. "Sam, c'mon. Let's not do this, okay?" The last part was pleading, and directed as much to John as it was to Sam.
"A little help out here?" Bobby called from outside.
"I just need some time to myself, boys," John said.
Sam didn't look any less disappointed, but he muttered a 'yessir,' and let Dean lead him away.
The boys' silent tension burst into a quarrel as soon as they hit the kitchen. The last thing John heard as they stomped out the door was them calling each other names.
Just a few hours ago, he had craved seeing his boys the way his ruined lungs had craved oxygen. He had hoped the whiskey would ease the craving. All it had done, though, was make it harder for him to not think about what the demon had said. It had poisoned what should have been a reunion that had him on his knees with gratitude.
So many implications. For him. For Sam. It would take time to sort out.
Already, he regretted the past few minutes. He wished he was sober. He wished he hadn't shooed the boys away.
What was done was done, though. Sam was pissed, but he would get over it eventually, John told himself.
As he thought, the look of disapproval faded by the next morning. After lunch, Sam crept up and gave John a silent, one-armed hug that John returned in equal silence before Sam chased after Dean to nag him about a promise to practice soccer with him.
That night, Bobby and John talked about a what might be werewolf down in Flagstaff while Sam told Dean all about a local soccer club he'd been invited to join.
"Full moon's in three days, Bobby. Is there anyone closer by who can go after it?" John hoped the answer was no. Sitting around Bobby's place and thinking was not what he needed right now. He also didn't want Bobby to start asking questions he might not be able to answer. Then, there were those maps Bill had left in the car. John wanted to make sure he was alone when he looked at those.
"No one I'd trust," Bobby said. He looked a little too innocent, as if he knew John needed this. "If you want, you can leave the boys here. If you don't catch the thing right off, it could be another month before you get a chance."
A few days ago, John would have taken Bobby up on his offer without a second thought. Now, the idea of leaving the boys for a whole month sent a chill straight through him. He couldn't stop thinking about what the demon had said about crops and collection. "No. I've got a few things I'll want to follow up on right after, so I'll take them with me."
Dean looked relieved, but Sam's face fell.
"But the soccer club..."
"Don't whine. You can do soccer later," John said.
The muttered 'that means never,' was not meant for him to hear, and it was easier to ignore it. Besides, John had other worries about Sam that far outweighed the start of a rebellious attitude.
Okay. Storytime. Let me tell you about your boys. You want the suspenseful version or the dull, unexciting version?
Cut to the chase.
Holy crap, you are one of the most boring, joyless people I have ever met. Fine. Your boys are the culmination of a millennia-old plot to jump-start the apocalypse. Sam's been primed as Lucifer's vessel, and Dean's supposed to be Michael's. There's enough irony and parallels and symbolism in the whole mess to choke an English major. Anyhow, your boys manage to trap Mikey and Lucy in a cage, but I don't know too many details about that. I was sidelined before the main event.
John is confused. Very confused. If he remembers correctly, Gabriel was killed by Lucifer, but how could that happen if Sam and Dean had captured him? Also, from the sound of things, Azazel's plans are still in the works. Or is it too late?
Azazel sure likes to rub things in, doesn't he? He's a real prick, that one. Gloat, gloat, gloat. And no, it's not too late. Things can still go very wrong. Anyhow, let me fill you in a bit on Limbo.
Wait... go back a second. You're saying my boys defeated Lucifer? Satan himself?
Yup. Pretty much.
John rolls that thought around in his mind for a while. It's a nice one.
Well, hot damn.
Are you waiting for me to compliment you on your parenting skills?
There's a guilty silence from John and a long, thoughtful one from Gabriel.
To be honest, you kinda sucked.
I know, John admits.
But I've seen worse!
John acknowledges that might be so, but he doesn't think it would be wise to acknowledge the flicker of pain behind Gabriel's aggressive cheer. It's familiar to him. It's a way of masking hurts in that even silence cannot achieve.
Anyhow, Limbo. This is where angels end up when we die. It's hard to kill us, so there's not many of us here. A few hundred or so, and the number keeps dropping. I think I told you that the longer we stay here, the more we dwindle and decay. Anyhow, I've been here for about three hundred years. Another three hundred, and all that will be left of me is a bunch of Monty Python and Marx Brothers quotes repeating themselves over and over in the darkness.
Again, John doesn't understand. Gabriel died after John, so how can he have been here longer?
Liiimmm-bo, Gabriel says in a way that gives a definite impression of laciviously shimmying hips dipping low under a bar held up by a pair of scantily clad women. It's all timey-wimey, wibbly-wobbly in here, and never mind, you wouldn't understand the reference. To make a very long story short, Limbo is an interstitial space. Kind of like packing peanuts surrounding and separating the different realities and keeping them from colliding. Heaven and all its parts, Hell, Sheol, Purgatory, Xibalba, Jigoku, Orun Buburu, Valhal-ooh-la-la, and lots of other suburbs you probably haven't heard of. Oh, and all the different bubbles of creation. Alternate realities--you know, Evil Spock and all that.
Packing peanuts?
Right. Except useful. Limbo feeds into creation. Theoretically, we angels, who are the closest thing you get to the raw stuff of creation, will dissolve into this timeless, placeless place and be remade.
Kind of like compost in a garden?
Oh, thank you for that lovely analogy. Gabriel sounds less offended than he does annoyed that he didn't think of it himself. I won't explain the physics of it, but when we die, we come in here randomly. The flow of time diminishes us, and pulls at us until there's nothing left but those babbling voices you hear. It's easy to fall apart in here. It's hard to stay linear. Staying near these chains helps. They're connected to Hell, yes, but they're also connected to time. That's why good old Azzie can fish you out in chronological order. Gabriel sighs, and Limbo swirls. I thought I knew how this place worked, but I didn't realize it would be this difficult. There's so much less of me, now.
So, how did he know about Limbo at all? Azazel didn't know.
Azazel's a demon. An unusual one, but still a demon. Angels, we know about Limbo because we use it. If we need to move through time, we just sort of... skate across the outer layers of it. But we don't do it often. We lose too much of our power, and eventually, our selves.
John doesn't quite follow, but he tells Gabriel to go on.
The strongest of us can also use it to make temporary micro-creations where we can explore what-ifs. Micro-creations are fun. I used to play with them all the time. I made a few for your boys when I--aaaand that's a whole 'nother story and you really don't want to hear about our holodeck adventures right now.
Actually, yes I d--
Time for that later, mi amigo! We were talking about how I found out about what happened apres mort. I was able to piece the story together thanks to a few of my siblings who came in here from further down the timeline... and let's just say it's more than a little troubling that there's still angels being killed off after the apocalypse got shut down. You'd have thought it would all be hugs and bunnies after that, but no.
There is a long pause, and there is a surge of regret that surprises John. It even surprises Raguel.
I had sidelined myself for a long time. A very long time, Gabriel says. Otherwise I might have seen which way the wind was blowing.
Gabriel's attention shifts from John. Hey, Zee! Get your sweet wings over here.
The curious thing--angel--from earlier drifts over.
John Winchester, this is Zadkiel. Zee, this is John. She tells me you two met already. You know, back when you were both alive.
We have?
There's a quiet affirmation from Zadkiel. There doesn't seem to be much left of the angel. Before, she had spoken readily, almost eagerly. Now, it's about as communicative as Raguel. John recalls what Gabriel had said about decay.
I've got a story for you, and I'll need Zee here to fill in a few of the juicier bits.
It took John nearly an hour to tell Harry what had happened. From time to time, he had stopped, either to recall a detail or to collect himself before moving on to the next part. It had been ten and a half years, and it was the first time he had ever told anyone the true story in full.
Harry listened without interrupting. His eyes shut with pain when John described how the demon put a bullet in Bill's head.
"God damn it..." he whispered when it was all over. "Why did he have to go with you?"
"He was filling in for a friend who had a busted leg," John said numbly. He had asked him that same question over and over and over. Every time he asked it, he also pictured Bobby with yellow eyes and half his head gone. Sometimes, in a world where she had won that last argument and taken Bill's place riding shotgun, it was Ellen.
"Just filling in?" Harry laughed softly. "Oh, that is so typical of him. Did Bill ever tell you how he got into hunting?"
John shook his head.
"I got pulled into hunting thanks to growing up in a haunted house. The ghosts killed my two sisters and left my mother blind. It nearly killed me, but in searching around for someone who could help, I found a hunter who helped me get rid of the things. I know how you got into the life. Bill, though..." He shook his head and laughed again. "Curious as a damned cat. We were in-country, and I was trying to help our translator with a ghost that had started troubling his village. Bill just decided to, well, tag along. And then he tagged along on another case. And another. He's the only hunter I ever met who hadn't lost someone before getting into the life."
Harry looked over at the far wall. John turned around to see what he was staring at. There were two framed sketches. One was of two young girls, both with deep-set eyes like Harry's. The other was a pencil portrait of Bill Harvelle. Harry had captured the grin perfectly.
"He was a good man," Harry said. "Things didn't... well, we began to drift apart somewhat around the time he found Ellen. Not entirely, but things just weren't the same. She was good for him, I think."
He sounded like he was talking himself into the idea.
"It got the idea when I was talking to Ellen that she thinks of you as a friend."
Harry snorted. "Of course she does. She won, and I don't even think she knew there was a contest." He took a drink. "I'm not sure Bill ever knew, either."
There was a bitter smile and something else John couldn't quite read, so he turned away to look at the swampy waterfront. What the hell was he supposed to say in response to something like that?
All he could do was sit there in an increasingly uncomfortable silence until Harry had finished wallowing in the past.
"Thank you for telling me what happened," Harry finally said. "When Ellen broke the news, she said it was because Bill got careless. Something sounded wrong about that. I thought it might have been to shield you from blame, but I have no idea why she would do that."
Perhaps it was to hide the fact that there were a bunch of loose ends, even if she was only hiding that fact from herself. John told himself it wasn't worth worrying about, and he almost believed himself.
"So why now? Why not track me down ten years ago?"
"What good would it have done? Even though Ellen was obviously hiding some of the sordid details, for a long time I thought Bill had simply met the same kind of stupid, pointless death that eventually gets most of us. The how didn't really matter much."
Harry downed the rest of his drink, then put the empty glass down and folded his hands over his stomach. "Then, I got a draft of the first of Mr. Edlund's books from my agent back in October. I like to work from full manuscripts when I can. It cuts down on the bookstore bills. It didn't take me long to notice that the lore and the casual lingo were spot-on."
"And that's when you called."
Harry picked up his glass and lifted it in congratulations. "Exactly. Once I read through it, I knew that what was described in there was real, no matter how badly written. Real, and apparently with an overarching story arc that meant something. I couldn't reach your sons, and that only proved to me that something was going on. It was probably stupid, but I decided to contact you. What happened on your end, by the way?"
John gave him a wry smile. "A burst of feedback that nearly punctured my eardrum. What about you? Weather, I'm guessing."
"Exactly. In this case, I was nearly killed by a freak, very localized, and somehow very personal nor'easter. Because I am a sane man, I turned down the offer. I didn't tell the publisher the truth, of course. I told them it was about the money. They must have believed me, because they came back to me recently with a better offer after their second-choice artist turned out to be an even worse hack than the author. This time, I accepted the offer."
John couldn't help looking out to the sky. There were a few more clouds than before and a breeze came off the water, but he saw nothing unusually ominous.
"So, what changed your mind? Why'd you say yes?"
"Not to be melodramatic about it, but I'm dying, John. As the one online support group I've found that I can stand says, 'fuck cancer.' I found out a few weeks after I called you in October. I'd blame it on the manuscript, but the truth is, I hadn't been feeling well for months. At first I thought I only had two choices: I could die six months from now in a hospice with a nurse changing my diaper, or I could simply hoard pain pills until I have enough to wash them down with a bottle of good bourbon while I'm still me."
John thought he knew which of the two options Harry might have taken. "And then you found yourself a third option."
"Yes. Thank to Mr. Edlund's hackery, I may get myself killed, but now it might mean something. And given that you were a pivotal character in this story, I thought that maybe I could find out that Bill's death meant something, and wasn't just a stupid accident or him letting his curiosity get the better of him again."
John thought about that for a long time.
He shook his head, staring at the floorboards rather than look Harry in the eye. "I'm sorry. Bill was just a pawn in all of this." There was another part to that thought, one that he had been trying not to acknowledge for the past few days.
Or maybe he had been fighting the idea for much longer than that. He supposed it didn't matter, in the end.
"Just like me," he said finally.
Part of him still rankled at the idea, told him it was stupid. Of course he was important. This was his story, after all. His family. His vengeance.
Harry chuckled. "I'll spare you the trite analogy about what happens to pawns when they cross the chessboard. I'm not sure it applies here, anyway. Besides, bringing chess into this is mixing the metaphors. We're talking about books, John. Books where you play a minor role, and Bill apparently has no role at all."
John looked at the manuscript again, and the conversation that had been written in detail weeks or even months before a word of it was even spoken aloud.
"So there's no part in this for me, other than as a plot device that put Sam and Dean right in the demon's path? If I hadn't called, they wouldn't have gone to Indiana. They wouldn't have fought over going to find me." He rolled up the manuscript and slapped it hard enough against his palm to send the binder clip clattering off across the porch. "This thing had me do the exact thing I have been trying to avoid for the past twenty years!"
Harry picked up his glass and frowned to see that it was empty. He grimaced and put it back down. "Did it force you to, or did it simply record what would have happened, anyway?"
John thought about it, but no matter how he spun it, both amounted to more or less the same thing. Whether his hand was forced or the book was recording things that would happen, it had the same effect in the end. Except...
He leaned forward, tapping his fingers together. The thought was elusive, and it was one of those things that hurt his mind when he tried to force it into making sense, but it was important. Something wasn't right.
"What is it, John? You're looking awfully constipated."
"You called me at Missouri's..." He had to take this slow and watch his mental footing. "You called me with a list of names."
"Well, yes. Of course. The synopsis made it clear what had happened to Holly and Vince. I was able to find out the other couples' names easily enough. It was tedious, yes, but it wasn't at all difficult."
Careful, careful... John kept concentrating on the tapping of his fingers, but he was aware of the brisk salt wind that had picked up. He almost had it, but it felt like trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle where all the pieces were moving and the table kept sliding around as if they were in a storm at sea.
"No, it wasn't difficult. I duplicated your research, and it didn't take long to find a connection between the names."
"Yes, whereas I knew the connection and found names to fit." Harry spoke slowly and carefully, as if he was following along the same twisty path as John. "So, in short, I read a story where you gave a list of names to your sons, and I then called and gave you a list of names. Which you then gave to your sons."
"Chickens and eggs," John muttered. He leaned back. "Until you called, I had no idea about disappearances in Indiana. If you hadn't called, how would I have found out about them? It's not a pattern I would have spotted on my own."
"Another hunter would have called you, asking for help, but no. If they did that, your phone message would have directed them to Dean." Harry scratched thoughtfully at his chin. He looked out at the water. While the wind had picked up, the water was still mostly calm. "I wonder..."
Pieces fell together, but were still not forming a whole.
"You were starting an analogy about books and about bit parts," John said. "How do plot holes fit into that?"
"The obvious answer is that Edlund is a hack," Harry joked.
John glowered at him. "What Edlund is, is next on my list once I take care of this fucking demon."
"The less obvious answer is that our author--or whoever he's working for--doesn't care much for the finer details of the story outside of whatever's happening to Sam and Dean. Yes, a few unlucky souls get dragged onto the page for the requisite love, blood, and rhetoric, but mostly we bide our time as we will until we're needed. And then we're dragged on whenever or however."
John tapped the rolled-up manuscript against his palm. He remembered listening to Jim and Bobby debate predestination versus free will, and he now wished he hadn't tuned most of it out.
"So, if Edlund or whoever he's working for needs me to be up in, say, Vancouver by tomorrow morning, I get knocked on the head and thrown into a cargo plane or something."
"Or you get kidnapped by a rogue circus troupe, or you fall into a freak wormhole, or an ailing artist gets a bee in his bonnet and starts--or completes--a paradox loop. The how doesn't matter. When you're off the page, you're free to do what you want. You could even take a vacation if you wanted."
John watched the water roughen as Harry blathered on. It was starting to look less like an extremely talented clairvoyant was recording details, and more like something was pulling strings. But who? The yellow-eyed demon? Those soot-winged demons? Whatever or whoever it was, it was doing what it could to make sure things happened as they were written.
"I wonder what would happen if you tried to track down Edlund," Harry mused.
The wind surged through the screens. It tasted of salt.
"I wouldn't recommend it, though. I suppose it's best we just let things play their course."
John didn't believe that for a moment, but he thought knew what Harry was doing. He played along for the moment.
Both men went silent, and the weather started to quiet in response.
While John bided his time by poring through the partial manuscript as if more words might magically appear, Harry gazed up and out past swampy shoreline to the open sea. The water was still choppy, and a line of clouds was piled up on the horizon like a warning. When John looked back up, Harry was smiling.
It was not a very nice smile. It was also not directed at John.
Harry schooled his features, then stood up. This time he hissed with pain as he tried to stand straight.
"Thank you for coming by, John. I needed to hear that story."
"Wait. What about--"
Harry raised an eyebrow and put a finger to his lips.
"Want me to tell you what happens after 'Scarecrow'?" he said innocently. The sky started growing darker, and John felt his ears pop as the atmospheric pressure shifted abruptly. Harry winked at him. "No, you don't. You can just read the books as they're published like everyone else. It will be safe to do so, then, because it will be too late. Everything will have already happened. I'll see you out. Call me when you reach New Bedford? You're passing through there on your way back to wherever it is you're going, right?"
John grinned. It was just as friendly as the one Harry had sported earlier. "Depends on how busy I am. I've got a full day ahead of me."
Harry ripped a page out of one of his sketchbooks, folded it, and wrote down detailed instructions on the best way to get to New Bedford.
"Trust me--it's more than a little roundabout, but you'll avoid some awful construction this way. Don't try to make sense of it on a map. You'll just confuse yourself even more."
By the time they made it back out to the front porch, the heavy cloud cover had started growing patchy again. They headed down the oystershell driveway. A crow cawed from up in one of the cedars.
"I truly appreciate the visit, John. I don't have many friends left these days, but it's never too late to make new ones. Oh, how strange... there's something in that birdbath you're walking past just now."
John picked up his cue, and neatly fished the dull gold object out of the birdbath. A quick check showed him it was a safety deposit box key. The wind didn't change.
"Anyplace you recommend I stop while I'm in New Bedford?" John asked. "Also, I'm going to have to get some cash while I'm there."
Harry chuckled and shook his head. "I recommend Isaiah's on Pleasant Street, or I would if I felt like eating anymore. Excellent Portuguese food, and there just happens to be a bank across the street."
John nodded his understanding. "Sounds like a plan. Thanks, Harry."
As John drove off, he looked back to see Harry waving goodbye in the rearview mirror.
He clutched the key against the steering wheel tight enough to break skin, but he barely noticed. There was a safety deposit box full of answers waiting for him. He told himself they might not be the answers he wanted, or even needed, but he couldn't stop himself from quietly chanting this is it, this is it, this is it as he headed up Route 28.
The directions sat on the passenger seat. Harry's handwriting was large enough that John could read it in casual flicks and glances. The directions were simple, even though Harry had said they were round-about. If he were in less of a rush, he would have checked the directions despite what Harry had told him. John preferred maps--he always had. Not only did they show you where you were going, they showed you any number of escape routes along the way.
What could be in those manuscripts? What was was stirring up the storms and electrical feedback kept Harry from getting in touch with Sam and Dean and simply telling them what was waiting for them down the road? He clutched the wheel even tighter and winced with pain.
The key was smeared with his blood when he finally let go of it and put it in the ashtray. He tried not to see the blood as an omen.
The directions took him to Route 6 and then to Point Road. Point Road was as straight and flat as a Kansas highway, although instead of fields stretching out to either side, he was hemmed in by cedars and old stone walls. He could only see a thin strip of sky overhead.
Aside from one wisp of cloud, the sky was blue.
A road sign told him he was four miles from Wing Cove. There was no mention of New Bedford or the highway spur Harry said should be about six miles ahead.
He pulled over on the narrow, sandy shoulder and checked the directions again. Then he pulled out the road atlas.
It took him less than a minute to find out that Harry had not sent him to New Bedford. Harry had sent him down a spit of land on a road that dead-ended at the sea.
John nearly broke the phone dialing Harry's number.
"Listen, Wagner. What the hell do you--"
"Did you finally look at the map or did you find my note?"
"What note? Stop ducking my questions! I looked at the map. Why the hell are you sending me into the middle of nowhere?
"Elex.. ex... good!" Harry sounded like he had slammed down a few more drinks since John left. "No one around, I hope? Oh, the note's on the paper I gave you. Unfold it."
He did. On the reverse of the direction was a note that simply read Call me.
"I'm tired of your games, Harry. What the hell are you up-- No, forget it." John turned the ignition, forgetting that the truck was still on. He swore, and threw the truck into gear. "I'm done. I'm heading out to New Bedford. If those manuscripts aren't--"
"I'm terribly sorry to do this to you, John," Harry said, and he truly did sound sorry. "You're in the middle of a forest, aren't you. If you'd thought about it, you would know there was no way we would be having this conversation with you in the middle of a city. You may want to pull over if you haven't already. I have a story to tell you."
"Harry, what the hell are you doing?"
"Testing a theory!" he said brightly. "You're going to go to Chicago, and you're going to see your boys again, and oops! Here comes the wind. Right on schedule!"
The cedars surrounding him started swaying. He looked up, and saw a storm front moving along the strip of sky like mercury up a thermometer.
"Funny, how it barely kicked up a fuss when all you were doing was reading words on a page," Harry shouted over a background roar. "None of the letters I sent to Miss Moseley reached... but if I do things indirectly..."
The tree next to the truck started to crack. John gunned the engine, and for a heart-stopping second one of the wheels dug into the sand. Then the truck lurched free, and he serpentined back into control and sped back up the road and away from all the trees.
"Now don't hang up on me... going to survive this."
"Are you sure about that?" John said. The wind had picked up to where he could barely keep the truck on the road. He was going to have to drop the phone soon.
"Like I said, it's a theory... too late for me, but you've still... role to play, you'll see... Killing you... wreck the story."
Lightning like he had never seen arced through the sky.
"Stop this, Harry! There's no point!"
"Yes, there is!" Even through the static, Harry sounded jubilant. "There's one... not in the deposit box--and you just try to stop...bastards!"
Harry was laughing, and lightning flashed. It looked like a pair of giant wings.
"Tell you... You'll find... Elkins... vampires... all along..."
John had to drop the phone. The last thing he heard over the rising feedback was Harry, laughing madly.
John slammed the truck into park. He could no longer hold it on the road. The howling rose and rose, the lightning lashed down from a green sky and John hunched over, hands over his ears as the lightning pounded out a circle around him, as if showing him who was boss before delivering the final blow.
It was meant to make him feel small. Insignificant. Meaningless. It told him Harry's theory wasn't correct. It told him he could be replaced.
The sky had gone green. The rain came sideways and the wind followed the lightning in its circle, lifting the truck from the ground for a second. The truck landed with a spine-jarring thump. John tasted blood.
He looked up, and even though it came faster than he should have been able to see, he saw a giant hand made of lightning reaching down to crush him like a gnat.
He knew he was meant to feel afraid, to regret his transgression, but what he felt was... annoyance?
A sigil leapt to mind. It was simple. It was powerful.
John spit blood into his palm, and used it to scrawl the sign. He clapped his hands together just as the hand reached the truck.
The hand veered away, striking deeper into the forest. The crash of thunder sounded... confused?
John hit the gas. He took another fingerful of blood and scrawled a sigil on the dashboard as he peeled out of there as fast as he could.
The sky cleared to perfect blue as he sped towards New Bedford.
Thoughts that shouldn't have been in his mind jangled around. Everything was so close to making sense. It was like looking at an optical illusion and seeing only one of the two images that was in it, and trying to bend his mind to see the other one but it just wouldn't come clear.
What did that thing want with his boys? How did he know that sigil? What did it mean? Why did he recognize the lightning demon? What had happened to Harry? What was he trying to say about Daniel? Questions tumbled one after another, distracting him from the terror of what had just happened.
Most of all, what the hell kind of power was stacked against them? He had distracted it, driven it off... but for how long?
He knew he would always remember that hand reaching down from the sky. How was he supposed to beat something like that? That and Azazel? Maybe he could turn them against each other, but no. They were already fighting, and his family had been caught in the crossfire.
When he got to New Bedford, he stopped at the bank to collect the contents of Harry's safe deposit box. The box contained a battered faux-leather briefcase. John did a quick check to make sure it contained manuscripts and not, say, a collection of minature liquor bottles, and checked himself into the nearest motel.
He lay down for a moment, hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling and waiting for his heart to stop racing. He could still see that lightning hand, could feel the jump of his skin as it drew near.
Harry probably would have liked illustrating that, he thought.
He wondered if Harry had survived. He kind of doubted it, but he had no way of knowing just yet. A phone call or two could settle it, but it would also make it final.
If Harry had died, then at least it wasn't in vain, John told himself. He had the manuscripts. He had some degree of assurance that he would survive long enough to find something important, something to do with Daniel.
He moved his foot, nudging the briefcase he had dropped on the foot of the bed. He had no idea what was in those manuscripts, and now that he had them, he found he was more than a little afraid to find out what truths they would tell him.
It had been a close call, and they still didn't know the final outcome. John lay next to Mary, as near as he could get without touching. He rested his hand over hers where it lay protectively on her belly, crooking his wrist to keep from brushing any of the raw and bandaged areas. She was still shivering.
"Are you okay?" he asked, even though it was a stupid question. Her uninjured eye was still red and puffy with tears, while the other was almost purple and swollen nearly shut.
"Yeah," she rasped. He couldn't read minds, but he knew she was replaying that morning's events over and over again. It had been a simple fall, but the results had been anything but simple. It had only been because she insisted that she was home and not at a hospital. She'd said she'd feel safer at home, and who was John to say otherwise? "Where's Dean? Still at Mike and Katie's?"
"No, Mike brought him back while you were sleeping. He's back here and asleep. Or in his room, at least."
Mary closed her eyes. "Good. What did you tell him?"
"Just that you slipped and fell and you wanted to take a nap for a while and that it was very important he be quiet. I didn't say anything about... What he doesn't know won't hurt him, right?"
He squeezed Mary's hand gently and she started to shake again.
"I'm starting to feel like the universe just doesn't want me to have another baby," she said.
"Shhh... It's okay," he said, even though it wasn't. A few days ago, she'd had some cramping. The doctor said it was probably nothing, but gave her a list of other warning signs to keep an eye out for and moved her next exam up to Friday. Just in case.
Yesterday, there had been spotting. Again, the doctor said it was probably nothing, but he didn't sound sure and he said that Mary should come into the office tomorrow at noon instead of waiting another day until Friday. They would do an exam and run what tests they could. It was probably still be okay. Maybe.
A year ago, the doctor had said almost the exact same thing, but it wasn't okay in the end.
That morning, worry kept Mary from sitting still. She figured that moving would be less stressful than resting and that it wouldn't hurt to make a big pot of stew that she and John could have for easy suppers in case the doctor put her on full bedrest.
It was a good idea, in theory. But then she slipped on a wet spot on the kitchen floor and hit her head on the counter on the way down. That was bad enough, but it wasn't all. The cast iron pot of full of stew she had just pulled off the stove landed square on her stomach, knocking the wind out of her and scalding her badly. John had heard the shriek of pain and come running. He'd stopped in shock when he saw his wife on the floor clutching her belly, the stew all red and brown on and around her and he was back in the middle of the mortar bombardment that had wounded him and had spilled Don Sykes' guts all over the ground.
Seeing Mary like that...
The crump of the mortar hit like a physical blow, and the next moment he was on the ground, a sharp pain in his side. To one side, he saw what was left of Don. Above, Deacon was leaning over him, leaning on him, pressing hard right where it hurt most, yelling for a medic, where was the fucking medic...
He felt like he was just standing there, lost in shock, but he heard himself yelling at Dean, ordering him to stay upstairs, then calling Katie Guenther. He told her what happened and what he needed her to do, all short, sharp bites. He ignored her panicked plea for more details (was Mary all right, and what about the baby, oh no, not again, not like this...) all but ordering her to come get Dean and get him out of there.
Katie was there in less than five minutes. John took Mary straight to the hospital but could not for the life of him remember anything about the trip. Only sheer discipline got him through.
No such thing as an ex-Marine, he thought with as much gratitude as he could spare at the moment. It wasn't much, because he didn't know yet if there was anything to be grateful for. It felt like a sick joke that Thanksgiving was only a week away.
"I'm so scared, John."
The second-degree burns on her hand and stomach would heal with minimal scarring, if any. The doctor had also told them both multiple times that regardless of what they might have seen on TV or in the movies it was highly unlikely that the fall or the burns would cause her to lose the baby. They should be far more concerned about the possible concussion.
The reassurance was too glib, though, and did nothing to erase all the fear and what-ifs that had set deep roots as they rushed to the emergency room. It also didn't answer the question if it was already too late by the time Mary had her fall.
There was nothing he could do but wait. Nothing he could do but be there and hope for the best.
"I am, too."
At the beginning of November, Mary had greeted him after a long day of work with a truly memorable kiss. Dean had already been put to bed, she said. A few hours later, as they lay together, she told him that she was finally pregnant. Three months, she said. She had wanted to be sure before she told him. Two years of trying and too many false and dashed hopes, and they were finally going to have another child.
He had only known about his second child for less than a month. Mary was barely starting to show.
Still, he would do anything for this child, and knowing that there was nothing he could do right now and that it might even be too late scared him more than anything he'd seen in the war.
There were times when the thought of something happening to Dean struck him still with a terror he couldn't even comprehend.
Already, he knew he would be just as scared for this child as well.
A year after the demon, and the worry about Sam hadn't lessened one bit. Ten years, the demon had said, but demons lied.
In Flagstaff, Sam had disappeared for two weeks. Two whole weeks where John and Dean searched frantically and John tried to hold together shattered fragments of hope.
When John had come back from the unsuccessful werewolf hunt, Dean had stammered out something about Sam having gone missing. He was sorry, he was a wreck, he obviously hadn't slept in days, but none of that mattered.
"Don't even speak to me right now," John hissed, before turning his back on his oldest son. It was either that or hit him.
From the way Dean withdrew into himself over the next several days, the usual motor-mouth cockiness fading into an old and familiar silence, John thought it would have been easier on the boy if he had struck him.
For two weeks, John had believed that the demon had come to finish whatever he had started back in eighty-three. He had believed that despite everything, despite all the sacrifices he had made and had demanded of his children, he failed.
In the end, it was as simple as a rebellious pre-teen deciding to run away from home.
John knew he owed some sort of apology to Sam, and to Dean as well, but it was easier to offer to let Dean drive the Impala from time to time than it was to apologize for turning his back.
Less easy, but still easier and far less dangerous than trying to explain anything, was finding a way to stay put in one town for a most of a semester. It was long enough for Sam to leave with a championship trophy his school team won at soccer. It didn't make up for nearly enough, but John hoped it at least meant something.
Most of the boys' school detritus had been cast aside or left behind over the years, but John would keep the trophy. The trophy itself was a piece of crap, but throwing it away would mean throwing away the look of disbelief and sheer joy on Sam's face when he realized that his father had actually been there to see that final game.
In many ways, the trophy was a reminder of what he was fighting for. More and more, he felt he was in danger of forgetting. It was easy to forget, as he got lost in studying the maps Bill had marked up. In the year since he'd found the maps, he had discovered errors, confirmed connections, and dug up new information.
The most critical piece of information was that Sam was not the only six-month-old who had lost his mother in a fire back in 1983.
The yellow-eyed demon was playing some sort of long-term game. Very long term, with moves being made decades or even longer apart. But what was the point of the game? What were the stakes?
And what about the demons that were opposing the yellow-eyed one? One had apparently possessed him, while another had cured him for god-knew-what reason. Had what happened to Mary Alice been a result of this demon squabble?
Bobby hadn't known anything about factions among demons, but he had said it was a fact that demons would happily turn on each other if it was in their interest.
"Just like people, in some ways," he'd added knowingly.
John thought of that warning now, as he sat with his new 'friend.'
John had known withing minutes of meeting Gordon Walker that the man would turn on him in a hot second if it served his purpose. The man was friendly enough, and he'd heard through the grapevine that Daniel trusted him completely. Still, there was something behind Gordon's jovially gruff 'we're all in this mess together' attitude that had John checking to make sure his gun was in easy reach.
After a quick and nasty pissing match over territory when they ran into each other, they had teamed up to get rid of the rawhead they were both tracking. It went well enough, and if it weren't for the itch to reach for his gun, John might have agreed more enthusiastically when Gordon said he wouldn't mind teaming up again.
"Heard from Elkins that you used to work with him, back when you first got into the life," Gordon said as they sat in John's motel room for a couple of post-hunt beers. It wasn't what John wanted to do, but he owed Gordon after the assist. "Good man, Elkins."
John nodded. Despite everything, he agreed with the assessment. "Yup. Had a bit of a falling out with him, though." He thought for a moment, trawling through old regrets. "Nothing can't be patched up, though. Eventually. Maybe."
"Something to do with your kids, is what Elkins told me," Gordon said, and John felt a surge of anger at the idea of Daniel telling Gordon just one side of that particular story. He also found himself increasingly angry at the idea that Daniel might see this man as a replacement for Matt.
"Yeah." There was a lot that could be said about that part of their last argument and who was right and who was wrong. Some of Elkins' objections had hit home. Others, well, John knew that his retorts about Elkins not trying to undo his own childhood damage had hit home equally as hard. The fact that Elkins might resent how he was brought up had no bearing on the fact that John had two boys to keep safe. "It was a sore point."
Gordon nodded sagely. "Elkins was wrong," he said.
"Pardon?"
"You raising your kids to know what's what, to know what kind of evil is out there? You did the right thing."
Just the fact that Gordon said that with obvious approval did more than any of Daniel's arguments to make John second-guess everything he had done over the past thirteen years.
"It's a hard life," Gordon said as if this pleased him. "A hard life, with hard choices. You wouldn't do them any favors if you coddled them."
"I dunno. There's times I wonder if they'd be safer if they were ignorant." Knowing what was out there hadn't kept Dean from nearly letting that shtriga from getting to Sam. Knowing what was out there hadn't kept Sam from trying to strike out on his own without so much as a knife on him. Knowing that yellow-eyed monster was out there didn't mean that John knew how to stop it.
"Those kids of yours, Winchester. They're close, right?" Gordon's smile glinted like a knife. "Close the way I was close to my little sister. You know, she was the best thing in my life."
It sounded more like a challenge than a memory.
"I heard about what happened to her," John said. Gordon was sprawled in his chair, holding a beer in one hand, but John was on the lookout for sudden moves.
"Did you, now? Did you hear the whole story? She wasn't killed, John, not by the vampire. She was turned." Spittle actually flew at the word, and he leaned forwards in his chair, posed as if to jump up. "They made her into one of them. Into a monster."
"You killed her." It wasn't self defense, John realized. Not like it was when Bobby had been forced to kill his wife. "You hunted her down."
The knife-smile flashed at him again. "Damn straight. I'm not bragging, and I'm sure as hell not asking for your approval. It is what it is, you know? You gotta do what you gotta do. If there's a monster, you kill it. End of sentence. Doesn't matter who or what it used to be."
"I know that." Funny, how he could agree fully with the man while still wanting to shut his mouth with a fist.
"Yeah, I bet you do. Way you took out that rawhead, I can see it. You can be stone-cold when you need to."
It was easy to be cold when he was frightened. He was frightened now. If John had started putting two and two together about kids whose mothers had died in nursery fires, other people could, too. In those early years, he hadn't been as careful as he was now. He had told too many people too much.
"I don't have much of a choice," he said softly.
"What about your kids, though? What would happen if one of your boys became something evil? Or if you did? You think you've taught them enough that they would be able to do the right thing?"
"What I think is that maybe we should change the subject."
Gordon's eyes hardened to match his smile. "Sure thing, friend. Consider it dropped."
They spent the next few minutes in idle gossip about people they both knew, and then John said he was tired and that Gordon should leave.
"I look forward to working with you again, friend. Maybe I'll meet your boys next time." Gordon flicked his hand in farewell as he left.
John sat quietly for a few minutes afterwards. He thought about calling Daniel, and asking him what the hell he was thinking, getting involved with someone like Gordon.
What would happen if one of your boys became something evil?
If John believed in prayer, he would have prayed that Gordon never figured out John's fears for Sam. A crop, the yellow-eyed demon had said. And John now had less than ten years to figure out how to prevent the harvest.
He had never thought that other people might want to prevent the harvest as well, and might have their own thoughts on the best to do that.
Losing Mary had been horrible. It had easily been the worst thing to ever happen to him. A year ago, though, he'd had a bare taste of what it would be like to lose one of his children. He now knew things could be even worse.
Nothing would happen to his children, he vowed. Nothing. Not while he was still around to prevent it.
Part 10