If You Will Go With Me [Part Two]
Masterpost | Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Soundtrack | Art
+++
After Jo and Ellen got back from meeting with Missouri, they went straight to the empty bar where Ellen went to do paperwork, while Jo found a seat in a nice secluded corner, then sighed and slumped over in the booth. It wasn't anywhere near close enough to night for her to actually sleep, but she could feel weariness settling into her bones, making her feel older, which wasn't a good thing for once. Missouri wanted to help them, had said that she would try to figure out Meg's plans and whereabouts, but she hadn't been sure she could do anything.
Jo had just decided to get up and grab a beer when Lorael popped into the seat across from her, wearing an expression Jo had never seen on her face before. She still felt sort of awkward around Lorael, even though Lorael seemed to be trying to become her friend, or at least someone who didn't think she was completely worthless.
"What happened?" she asked, immediately nervous.
Lorael shifted in her seat, another strange look crossing her face. "It is… personal. I don't want to talk about it."
"Too late," Jo said cheerfully, her awkwardness suddenly disappearing. She was trying to do her best to relate to Lorael and Anna as women, as people, so she should take every opportunity to enjoy the benefits of friendly teasing now that she was fairly sure Lorael wouldn't smite her for it. "You got me interested, so spill."
Lorael rolled her eyes, but unlike when Jo had first met her, she appeared amused by Jo's pushiness. "Always have to know everything, do you?"
Jo just waited, her need to rest gone.
"Fine," Lorael huffed. "Nosy little girl. It's this… this body."
Now that Jo hadn't expected. She mostly ignored that issue, trying to pretend the vessels didn't exist; she felt guilty about it, but she didn't want to think about the poor people who'd been removed from their lives to fight an angelic battle. She had to believe it was different from demonic possession, but that didn't seem like it would mean much to the actual people being possessed. "What about it? It's a vessel, isn't it?"
"No, well, only sort of," Lorael answered, clearly surprised. "I thought - didn't Anael tell you?"
"Obviously not." Jo waited for a moment. "Well, c'mon, what's the deal?"
"We - Sarakiel and I - made bodies to inhabit when we began this mission - Anael already owned hers because of her time as a human, and we used her as a template to make our own. Taking a vessel would have been too dangerous given the level of secrecy we must use, for us and for the human involved. It took some… unorthodox magic use, but compared to the rest of our rebellions, it seemed small."
Jo felt sucker-punched. "Really? That's - that's all you?" Her stomach flipped and she was suddenly aware of how beautiful Lorael was, as if knowing Lorael owned her body had changed it in some way. It was strange enough to make her almost lose the thread of their conversation - she couldn't ever remember thinking of a woman that way, of being so affected by a woman's attractiveness. She'd been doing her best to ignore the fact that Lorael even had a physical presence for so long, and maybe it was just the shock. It had to be the shock.
"Yes, all me, in as much as a human body can be mine," Lorael shifted uncomfortably again, unaware of Jo's mental struggle. "We had to make the bodies as human as possible, and that apparently included… sensations. Physical ones." She wrinkled her face into a disapproving frown, as if her body had personally offended her, and Jo couldn't stop her laugh.
"It's all well and fine for you," Lorael complained. "You're used to having urges!"
"Wait - what kind of urges are we talking about here?" Jo giggled, trying to cover up the buzz of awareness that she couldn't ignore. Even she knew it would be inappropriate to hit on an angel. She didn't know if it was worse for her to do it to an angel currently inhabiting a female body, but she didn't want to find out either way.
Lorael winced. "I would really like a cheeseburger. With bacon."
Jo could handle that, no problem. "Okay then, let's get you a cheeseburger, hungry hungry hippo."
"I don't need to eat," Lorael protested. "I just want to."
"That's good enough for me," Jo smirked at her and stood up, waiting until Lorael joined her before heading back to the kitchen to start corrupting an angel with carbs. Anna showed up when they were halfway through the first round, and they hung around until the bar opened for the night and Ellen shooed them into the backroom.
It was a good night, and if Jo had to keep stopping herself from looking at Lorael with new eyes now that she knew Lorael was alone in her body, well, she didn't have admit it. It would go away, she was sure. She concentrated on their plans, trying to prepare for meeting with Sam and Dean the next morning, but Anna and Lorael seemed unable to focus on anything, jumping from topic to topic. Jo eventually gave up and just enjoyed herself. She might not be able to relax like this again for a long time.
+++
"What's taking so long?" Lorael said, pacing awkwardly from one end of the room to the other. It wasn't really a question, so Jo didn't bother answering. They'd been waiting for Anna to arrive with Sam, Dean and Castiel for over twenty minutes, and they both knew it probably meant that Anna was having trouble convincing them to let her teleport them in to a location they knew nothing about.
"I mean it," Lorael said. "If she's not back in five minutes, I'm going to go get her."
Jo smiled, quickly hiding it with her hand. She didn't want Lorael getting indignant, but she was, well, adorable when she got angry and impatient. "They'll be here soon," she said. It really didn't help her state of mind to be noticing the way Lorael's face flushed darker with feeling, her lips set in a firm line that Jo kind of wanted to taste. Jo blinked and did her best not to look like she'd just had impure thoughts about an angel.
Lorael just rolled her eyes. "Don't patronize me."
Before Jo could protest her innocence, Anna snapped into the room, one hand holding tightly to Sam Winchester's arm. Barely a second later, Castiel appeared with Dean in tow.
"Sorry we took so long," Anna said. "We almost got caught out by some of Zachariah's religious fanatics, and I didn't want to inadvertently lead them here."
"It's okay," Jo said, preemptively cutting off Lorael's sure-to-be curt reply. "Guys, this is Lorael - she's one of the angels going against Zachariah."
Sam and Dean both looked wary, and Jo couldn't really blame them. She did think it was kind of rude of Dean to turn to Castiel and ask if he knew Lorael, but Sam elbowed his brother and said hello politely.
Lorael didn't let anything show on her face, and it was unnerving to see nothing but the blank mask after so many days of being allowed to see beneath.
"Hello," she said, and turned to Castiel. "Brother, you've done a very brave thing."
Jo watched as they did the creepy angel staring thing, but afterward they both seemed to visibly relax.
"No braver than you," Castiel replied with a nod of his head, and at that, Dean finally relaxed a little, too.
Jo stifled a laugh. "Now that the incredibly solemn angelic greeting rituals are over, can we talk about the apocalypse?"
Dean winced. "Jo, are you sure Ellen isn't hiding somewhere waiting to castrate me if we let you go hunting?"
"What?" Jo shook her head, feeling like maybe she shouldn't have been so surprised to hear that old argument trotted out again. "Mom's been pretty supportive of this whole thing, and it doesn't really matter. I'm an adult, Dean."
"Yeah," Dean said, blustering ahead. "But Ellen is scary."
"You could get really hurt, Jo," Sam said, and Jo knew he didn't mean to be condescending, but that was definitely how it came out.
The memory of the first time she'd tried to hunt with the Winchesters, with Dean, welled up in her mind. Would they ever be able to look at her and see a grown-up human being, not just a young girl? All the doubts she had about the idea that she could do anything to stop Lucifer pressed into her, almost overwhelming, until she felt her inner stubborn bitch kick in. So what if Dean couldn't see past her tits? So what if Sam still felt guilty about that one time he'd been forced to tie her up and didn't want her "in harm's way"? Was Jo Harvelle the kind of woman who let other people boss her around? Anna and Lorael believed she had a part to play. More importantly, she believed it too, and she knew how to handle the Winchesters. She snapped then, she had to admit it. But if she'd let either of them say another word, neither of them would be fit for being anyone's vessel by the time she'd finished with them.
"Hold it right there, Dean Winchester!" Jo had her mom's voice down perfectly. Dean and Sam both shut their mouths and stood up straight like they'd been called to attention, and she guessed that was her intent. Anna smiled encouragingly and Lorael had a spark of something in her eyes that Jo had never seen before. Respect, maybe. Castiel just switched his steady stare from Dean to Jo.
"What in hell makes you think you're in charge, here?" she asked them both.
Sam recovered from his shock. "Uhh, the entire populations of heaven and hell?" he said sarcastically.
Jo pointed to Anna and Lorael. "Not according to them."
Dean sneered. "Yeah, well, I wouldn't trust anything an angel tells you."
Jo just stared at Dean for a moment, then walked over next to Castiel, who didn't let anything he might've been feeling show on his face.
"What do you call this, Dean?" she asked. He looked down and then back up again defiantly.
"That's different," he protested. "Cas has saved both our lives multiple times. He's proven himself."
"And Anna and Lora have saved my life, and my mom's," Jo replied. "And if Anna can forgive Castiel for betraying her, and Castiel believes Anna's telling the truth, I don't see why you don't believe him if you trust him so much, even if you won't believe me." That got Dean's attention, for sure, and Jo could see the wheels turning in his head.
"I'm not saying we should all buddy up and make friendship bracelets," she continued, "but the whole idea behind this working together thing is that we're stronger that way. I don't need to be in charge, but neither do you. It's called teamwork."
Dean sighed and relaxed his stance. "Fine," he said, rubbing a hand at the back of his neck. "It makes sense, but I'm not convinced there's anything anyone can do to keep this from being all about me and Sam." He looked over at his brother. "Sam?"
Jo could see Sam struggling and sighed a little internally. He kept giving her that puppy-dog "I don't want you to get hurt" look.
"Look, you know what I'm going to do if you don't let me help, right?"
Dean and Sam shared an exasperated look, and the three of them chimed in together, although Jo's voice was decidedly more cheerful.
"Tag along behind anyway."
"And this time, I have my own angelic help," she added mercilessly.
Dean and Sam exchanged a meaningful look, and then Dean sighed and turned back to the others.
"We might have a lead on the Colt," he said. "There's a demon we know, and we're pretty sure he has it."
"How do you know that?" Jo asked, and Dean and Sam both shuddered.
Sam twitched repeatedly, ignoring the question, and Dean finally said. "Uh, Sam's number one fan found out and clued us in."
"Oh, right," said Anna. "The Winchester Gospels."
"The what of the who now?" Jo asked, looking from Dean to Sam and back to Dean again.
Dean shook his head. "Oh no, we are not talking about it. We know where the Colt might be, and if we can get it and use it, this whole thing will be over. Let's focus on that."
Jo wanted to keep pressing, because anything that had both Sam and Dean so spooked had to be good, but Anna nudged her and whispered, "I'll tell you later," so she let it go. When Dean outlined his plan to actually get the Colt, though, she thought about bringing it back up in retaliation.
"Why do I have to be the bait?" she complained. It was one thing to use her physical appearance as a ploy when she was the one who planned it and benefitted, but it was entirely another to do it for Dean and Sam. And she was trying to do this whole apocalypse thing like a grown-up, like someone who wasn't pale and blonde and sort of tiny. She turned to Anna for support, but didn't get anything but a sheepish smile.
"You are the only one of us who can convincingly act like a young girl in need of help," Anna said. "I mean, can you imagine Lorael trying?"
"No," Lorael and Jo said at the same time, Jo with amusement and Lorael with firm refusal.
Anna laughed. "And anyway, Crowley would know we were angels immediately. This is one trick you will have to play on your own."
"Fine," Jo said. "But if I hear one comment about my ass I'm going to turn you all in to Zachariah myself."
+++
Once they had the Colt, and Jo had been forced to admit that the plan had been perfect (if kind of unnecessary, since Crowley had just given it up without a fight), Ellen and Jo left to get ready for the showdown. Ellen had decided to shut down the bar until things were finished. Jo tried to talk her into keeping it open and staying there, relatively safe, but Jo had definitely inherited more than half of her stubbornness from Ellen and she lost that argument. Luckily, Sarakiel had come to ask Ellen for assistance with finding hunters who would be willing to work with the few angels she'd been able to recruit, and Jo only ended up losing half the argument in the end. Ellen closed the bar and set up with Sarakiel in the back, and Jo left with Anna and Lorael to meet up with the Winchesters and Castiel.
Anna insisted on trying the protective sigil on Jo in the car, and made Lorael drive. Jo had to shut her eyes and avoid looking at the driver's seat, because the sight of Lorael driving without actually touching anything kept creeping her out. Anna distracted her by carving a sigil into Jo's forearm and cauterizing it.
"There," she said when she had finished. "Now we're as prepared for angelic attack as we possibly can be."
The town was silent and empty when they arrived, and it gave Jo the creeps. She kept close to Anna as they walked down the deserted main street, and nearly jumped out of her skin when Anna, Lorael and Castiel all froze at the same time.
"Reapers," Castiel said after a moment, sharing a worried look with Anna. "They're everywhere."
"Like, I'm stepping on one right now kind of everywhere?" Jo asked, turning her head to peer at what looked like a completely empty town to her.
"Not quite that bad," Anna said. Lorael ignored them all and walked a distance away, staring hard at various places in the air around her.
"Missouri said Meg was here," Jo said, "but she didn't say anything about reapers."
"Reapers mean death," Dean muttered. "Maybe death as in Death?"
"We should call Bobby," Sam said. "Maybe there's a reference to something involving reapers that's supposed to be a part of the apocalypse."
"Let me try to find out first," Castiel said. He didn't wait for approval, and when Jo turned to look, the space where he'd been standing next to Anna was empty.
"Great," Dean said. "I hate it when he does that."
Jo watched as Sam and Dean argued about calling Bobby, keeping Lorael in her peripheral vision. When Lorael started back to the group, Jo cut into the argument.
"Find anything?" she asked loudly, and Dean and Sam both stopped talking.
Lorael shook her head. "I cannot compel any of the reapers to speak with me, and I can only guess that they are here for Death in some capacity."
"I don't feel like standing out here in the open is a good idea," Anna said, a look of worry creased across her forehead. "Castiel should not have needed this long to investigate."
"That I can agree with," Dean said. "Let's get to a less obvious location and figure out what's going on."
By the time they reached the deserted general store and found the aisle with the salt, Sam had Bobby on the line. They waited, listening to Sam's part of the conversation, and when Sam hung up he looked grim.
"It is Death, according to Bobby. He said Lucifer has to give a sacrifice of some kind to get Death to rise."
"When?" Jo asked.
"Tonight, right now?" Sam replied. "Bobby wasn't sure. Either way, we should get there while we still can, and take care of Lucifer before Death rises. Bobby said it'll be at the cemetery."
Walking back outside, Jo felt her entire body vibrate as she reached the middle of the street. She jumped when Anna's hand closed down on her shoulder, and the vibration happened again, this time accompanied by a low growl.
Dean froze in front of Jo, and Sam stopped just next to him. Lorael and Anna pressed Jo into the Winchesters and tried to flank the three of them, which wasn't quite working because there were only two angels.
"What it is?" Jo asked, her back to Dean and Sam's, wildly looking around for whatever had made the noise. She couldn't see anything, and since the reapers hadn't tried anything like this earlier, she was guessing it wasn't them, which meant another invisible presence. She had her gun out anyway, feeling safer with the weight of it in her palm.
"Hellhounds," Lorael said. "Just stay close, and they won't get through."
"How many?" Dean asked, and Jo could feel the tension in his back, stiff against hers. "God, it's worse when I can't see them," he muttered under his breath.
"Enough," Anna said. "They won't leave until they've gotten what they came for, which I think we can assume is us."
"We have to stop Lucifer," Jo said. "Can we kill them? Can you see them?"
Lorael didn't turn to look at Jo as she replied. "We can…sense them. It isn't the same as seeing them, but they are wary enough of angels to be cautious. And they can be killed."
"Can't you just zap us all out of here?" Sam asked, but Anna was shaking her head before he'd finished his sentence.
"They have your scent, now. They won't necessarily be stopped by a change in location, even if it did manage to slow them down."
"Could you send Dean and Sam away to the cemetery, and keep me here for bait?" Jo asked.
"No," three sharp voices said in unison, and Jo glared at Sam, Dean and Lorael.
"It makes sense," she argued. "Lorael and Anna can take care of me, and we have to finish this."
"It's the best way," Anna agreed, setting her shoulders and pushing at Dean and Sam, who disappeared. "That way they can't argue," she finished, smiling tightly at Jo. Lorael had already drawn her sword and was attacking the air around her, and Jo assumed from the yelping that the hellhounds were her target. Anna tried to stay in front of Jo, but took out her own sword and began hacking at the air. If Jo hadn't been so fucking terrified, it would have been comical to watch the swords slicing at nothing, fierce expressions on both the angels' faces.
Jo kept her eyes on Lorael and Anna, unwilling to look away for a second in case she missed something important. When she felt the touch, low on her ankle, she jumped forward, yelling as a claw sliced through her skin.
"Jo!" Lorael jumped over something Jo couldn't see and pulled her up and away from the attempted bite, then shoved Jo behind her, slashing at the hellhound with her sword. Her voice was strained in a way Jo had never heard it sound before. Jo lost track of Anna, and reached down to touch her ankle, then fell heavily into a sitting position on the ground. The cut wasn't deep, thankfully, but it stung. Jo felt grateful for the pain; it grounded her in her body and she focused on pressing her hand around her ankle, on stopping the bleeding.
Anna came to stand next to her, helping Jo stand up a moment later.
"Is it over?" Jo asked, and Anna shook her head.
"Almost," she gestured toward Lorael and Jo followed her hand to look. "Lora is intent on destroying all of them."
Lorael grinned, her face lit up with excitement as she killed the last hellhound and turned to look right at Jo. Jo tried very hard to not get distracted, focusing on Lorael's ripped jeans instead of her face, because watching an angel kill a hellhound should not be a turn-on, but it was kind of a lost cause. Anna finally smacked her hip to get her attention while Lorael did something to clean and put away her sword.
"Jo, are you okay?" Anna asked, her face concerned and tired.
Jo snapped out of it. "Yeah, fine," she muttered. "Let's get out of here."
Lorael nodded to Anna. "Find the Winchesters and make sure they're safe," she said. "I'll take Jo and meet you back at the bar."
Anna gave Jo's shoulder a squeeze and disappeared, leaving Jo and Lorael standing, staring at each other. Before Anna had even been gone thirty seconds, a new voice sounded from behind Jo. She whirled to see Meg standing on the other side of the street, her eyes furious.
"What did you do to them?" Meg yelled. Lorael turned to Jo. "What is it?" she asked, and Jo started to panic.
"You can't see her?" she asked, as Meg started to walk towards them. "It's Meg, the demon from before, at the convenience store? I think she's mad that you killed the hellhounds."
Lorael stared right at Meg, clearly not seeing anything. Meg smirked.
"I'm wearing angel-block five thousand," she said. "No angels, no problems. Hell of a motto, huh?"
A small part of Jo cringed at the bad pun, but most of her energy was taken up with keeping Meg in her sight, pulling Lorael along with her as Meg came closer at a slow, easy pace.
"It doesn't matter how much angel-block you've got on," Jo shot back. "You think she needs to see you to kill you? She couldn't see the hellhounds either, and they're all gone."
"She can't sense me, either," Meg said, just as Lorael pulled her sword back out and took Jo's right hand in her left, keeping Jo slightly behind her. Be my eyes, she said silently into Jo's mind. Jo thought back yes as hard as she could, but had no idea if the sudden and kind of alarming telepathy went both ways or not. Lorael squeezed her hand and said it does, and it is only temporary with an amused cast to her mental voice.
"I'm getting really tired of you, Joanna, and all your big, bad angel friends," Meg drawled, her eyes turning black and a wicked-looking knife appearing in her hand. "I'm finishing this now."
"You always say that," Jo said, only half her attention on her words. "And it never works." She felt a pressure in her head, and she knew that Lorael would be striking soon. She tried to relax and not fight the presence of Lorael in her mind, but she didn't know if she was all that successful.
Meg raised her knife, and it grew exponentially bigger, until it more than matched the size of Lorael's weapon. She lunged, and Jo thought to your right and felt Lorael's reassuring hand-squeeze. Lorael blocked the blow easily, and Meg frowned, suddenly noticing Jo's hand wrapped tightly in Lorael's.
You don't need to tell me what the demon is doing, Lorael said into Jo's mind. I can see her through you.
They fought for what Jo thought must have been a few minutes, even though it felt much longer as she scrambled to stay behind Lorael and keep their connection strong at the same time. Lorael only had human perception to guide her movements, and Jo could feel her frustration at not being able to gain the upper hand against a mere demon.
Finally, Meg made a mistake while she was trying to slice Jo's hand away from Lorael's, and Lora's sword caught her in the arm, knocking her knife away. Lorael raised their joined hands and Meg froze in midair, caught by angelic power.
Put your hand on her forehead, Lorael said. Jo obeyed cautiously, and by the time Meg realized what was happening, it was too late. Lorael placed her hand over Jo's, and Jo felt white-hot heat rush through her, burning Meg up where she stood.
When Meg's silhouette had completely disappeared, Lorael removed both their hands, separating them in the process, and Jo felt the presence in her mind leave carefully.
"You did well," Lorael said, and Jo startled just a tiny bit, hearing that voice outside of her head again. "We're fortunate that it worked without harming you."
"I guess," Jo replied with a rueful grin. "So much for not being the damsel in distress all the time."
"If all damsels did as much as you, the rescue business would definitely suffer," Lorael said firmly, her gaze making Jo flush.
"Well, at least we don't have to worry about Meg anymore." Jo could feel her adrenaline draining away, but she didn't have time to think about her fatigue before Lorael put a hand on her shoulder, zapping them into place next to Jo's car and Dean's Impala. She let go of Jo and fiddled with her hair, tightening the ponytail without really seeming to physically re-do it.
"We can't leave Dean's car behind," Jo said, watching Lorael and searching for a safe topic of conversation as her inappropriate lust came slamming back. "He'd kill us if anything happened to it."
Lorael nodded. "I'll send both cars to Ellen's," she said, and reached out to take Jo's shoulder again. Jo pulled back.
"Wait, I just - " she stumbled over the words. "Thank you, again. I don't know why you keep saving my life, but - but I'm grateful."
Lorael lowered her head, and Jo thought she looked embarrassed, but it was hard to tell. "It's not difficult to want to save you," she said quietly. Jo raised a tentative hand and placed it on Lorael's shoulder, mirroring the only way Lorael had ever touched her before they'd spent an entire demon fight holding hands. Lorael looked up, her eyes guarded.
"I'm still grateful," Jo said, and then Lorael reached for her and the world dissolved around them as she teleported them both away.
+++
When they got back to the bar, Dean and Castiel were talking quietly in a corner while Sam stared blankly at nothing, ignoring the concerned looks Ellen kept giving him. Jo took one look at the tableau, and knew that Lucifer had somehow dodged the bullet, literally or figuratively.
"What happened?" she asked
"It didn't work," Dean said, his eyes empty of emotion. Lorael, Anna and Castiel seemed to be having a telepathic angel conversation, and Sam hadn't even looked up yet.
Ellen gave Jo a brief hug, her fingers digging into Jo's arms. "Go get some clean clothes," she said. "You're filthy."
Jo looked down at herself, and was almost surprised to see how disgusting her clothes had gotten. "Okay," she said obediently, and Ellen looked at her searchingly.
"I'm leaving to meet up with some hunters," Ellen said. "Call me if you need anything."
When Jo finished changing into something that wasn't covered in dirt and hellhound slobber, and had properly cleaned and bandaged the cut on her ankle, she went back downstairs for a full debriefing in the backroom of the bar. Lorael was gone, and Anna just shrugged when Jo asked where she was. It unsettled Jo to not have Lorael there, even though she was almost grateful for the chance to think about what Lorael had told her earlier without the distraction of Lorael's presence.
The future seemed pretty bleak. Dean was getting sort of hopeless, and Jo couldn't really blame him. The Colt had been their best hope, and now they were back to square one. Sam watched his brother carefully, and so did Castiel. Jo guessed they were all on Dean-suicide watch. Castiel himself wouldn't talk about what had happened while Lucifer had held him captive, just that Lucifer's vessel was dying and that he would be moving quickly now, to try and force Sam to accept him.
"That's it," Dean sighed into the silence. "That was the last hope, right? Our last chance to stop this thing without me and Sam becoming meatsuits, gone."
"Maybe - maybe it's not about a magic bullet or a foolproof spell at all," Jo swallowed, unsure of her words, but certain that she needed to speak. "Maybe it's about making do with what we have, what we already know. I mean, we're subverting destiny, right?"
Anna grinned, and Jo could tell she'd just been waiting for her to say exactly that.
"Think about it," Anna said eagerly. "We keep looking for something to save us, to give us a magic button to push and bam, it's all over. But it doesn't work like that, not really." She paused and gave Castiel a significant look. "We know that "God" doesn't wave a hand and fix everything."
Castiel nodded, his serious eyes lighting up just a fraction. "But God always gives us what we need to fix our own problems, according to the concept of free will, which, apparently, now also applies to angels."
Jo wasn't really sold on the God part of that, but she knew plenty about fixing (and not fixing) her own problems. Dean and Sam seemed reluctant, too, but probably for different reasons. Dean kept looking at Anna and then at Castiel and then back to Anna, like he didn't know what to think, and Sam frowned.
"What do we have, though?" he asked. "A few angels, a few hunters, against Lucifer and the armies of hell and heaven? That didn't work out so well last time."
That Jo could refute, so she did. "We have more than that, remember? Mom's been working with Sarakiel and some of her angels to get all the hunters in the US connected, so we can all be informed about what's going on in other places. Mom knows pretty much every hunting family in the Midwest, and almost everyone else has at least heard of her. The Roadhouse used to be research central."
"Lorael is working on recruiting more angels, too," added Anna. That was news to Jo, which Anna must have known. "She didn't want to tell you, Jo, she knew you wouldn't like it."
"Well she's just asking for someone to betray her to Zachariah," Jo mumbled. "Can't imagine why that would bother me."
"We need to know what Zachariah is planning," Castiel said firmly. "We know what Lucifer wants, and we just need to find a way to stop him. But Zachariah will have an elaborate plan by now, and if we want to avoid losing Dean to Michael, we need to be prepared."
Dean looked like he wanted to protest the possibility that he'd ever let Michael in, but he swallowed whatever he'd been planning to say when Sam gave him a look.
"Yes," Anna said, "and if he knows anything about Lucifer, about the Horsemen, we need to know that, too. The Horsemen will lead Lucifer's charge when he begins his main assault, and if we can incapacitate them first, we'll have a fighting chance. We've been so focused on Lucifer that we've forgotten about the other players."
Jo snorted. "A fighting chance for Lucifer to kill us instead." Anna frowned at her, and she continued. "I'm not saying it's not a good idea to try, but we do have to find a way to actually stop Lucifer."
"Stop him," Sam repeated, almost to himself. "We don't have to kill him, we just have to stop him. How did the angels trap him in the cage in the first place?"
Dean and Jo turned to the angels with questioning looks, but Anna just rolled her eyes and Castiel shook his head.
"Even if we had the power of Michael on our side, we couldn't repeat the act," he said. "It took thousands of angels working together to set the seals that kept the way into the cage shut. And only Michael and maybe the other archangels know how they locked the door itself in the first place."
"But there was something?" Sam asked. "Something they used to trap Lucifer before they set the seals?"
"We can look for it," Dean added. "While Lorael and Sarakiel are searching for information on the Horsemen in heaven, can't they keep an eye out for something we can use on Lucifer?"
"It's dangerous enough for them already," Jo protested. "We can't ask them to risk more, and if Zachariah finds out…"
Anna, staring into empty space, finally shook herself. "Let them make that decision, Jo," she said determinedly. "The angels, the ones who want to do what is right, we have to take responsibility for what our leaders have done. I've said that before, and Sam is right."
Castiel closed his eyes for a long moment, and Jo saw the emotions clearly played out in his usually impassive face.
"If we can, we must," he said, sharing a long look with Anna, who just nodded.
"We'll be back shortly," she said to Jo, and then she and Castiel disappeared.
"What the fuck?" Dean swung around as if he expected to find Castiel and Anna in a different part of the room. "I'm never going to get to used to that!"
"What did they even leave to do?" Sam asked.
"Cryptic angel bullshit," Jo muttered, and Dean laughed.
"It sounded like they knew something we didn't," Sam said, and then Jo started laughing, too.
"What else is new?" she said, and Sam reluctantly smiled.
"Well, come on," Dean said, ignoring them both. "We should go check in with Missouri and Bobby, maybe get them looking into the idea of trapping Lucifer instead of killing him."
After Dean spent five minutes on the phone arguing with Bobby about directions, they all piled into the Impala and began the journey to what Bobby said would be their new base of operations. Jo almost insisted on driving herself, but it did seem pretty silly to waste the gas when she knew Dean would never agree to leave his car behind. Instead, she climbed into the back seat of the Impala and tried her very best to not feel like a five-year-old on a road trip with her older brothers. It took three hours to get to their destination, which appeared to be a big lot of nothing in the middle of Kansas. Jo had almost gotten used to instantaneous angelic transportation, and the trip felt much longer than three hours to her.
When they finally reached a sign with the house number Bobby had given them, on the side of the dirt road they'd been on for the past few miles, Dean heaved a sigh of relief.
"Goddamn finally," he said, as he turned into what could have been referred to loosely as a driveway, and Jo swallowed a laugh at the concerned look on his face. "My poor baby's suspension will never be the same again."
"Do we even know what's out here?" Sam asked. "Is it like a house, or a barn or what?"
Dean just shrugged. "No idea, but it's Bobby, so…" he trailed off as they reached the end of the very long driveway, and an enormous house came into view. There were several outbuildings surrounding the main house, and it looked to Jo like an abandoned farm. When they made it inside and joined Bobby and Missouri in the huge kitchen, Jo gratefully took the cup of tea Missouri brewed for her.
"How'd you know about this place?" Dean asked, refusing the offer of tea and taking a beer from the well-stocked fridge instead. Jo almost asked for one, too, but decided to stick with tea. She needed warmth more than she needed a buzz.
Bobby rolled his eyes. "It's mine," he said, making it clear that he thought they were all stupid.
"All of it?" Sam's eyes were huge and round. "How come we've never seen it before?"
"You don't think I have back-up plans in case of anything?" Bobby said. "You don't know everything about me, boy, and don't think you ever will, either."
Jo laughed, and when she caught Missouri giving Bobby a longsuffering headshake, she laughed even harder, until Dean and Sam had reluctantly joined in.
"Come on," Jo said a moment later, blowing on her tea to keep herself from cracking up again. "Let's get to work and find a way to lock Lucifer up again."
Several hours later, Jo stopped herself from dozing off for the third time in the middle of reading one of Bobby's old books. "There's nothing here," she whined, and Dean gave her a commiserating smile.
Bobby just grunted and turned a page in his own book, ignoring them both. Missouri looked up from where she was sketching out patterns of some kind - Jo thought they might be Enochian sigils, and wondered where Missouri had learned them - and smiled a little.
"You were the one who wanted to research," she told Jo.
"Before I knew it was a waste of time," Jo said. "Now that I'm enlightened, can we go to bed? Or at least do something productive?"
"Would trapping Lucifer in hell forever be productive enough for you?"
Jo dropped her dusty book onto the floor. "Where did you go?" she asked Anna, who had just appeared in the middle of the room along with Castiel.
"Heaven," Castiel replied, and Dean glared at him.
"Why the fuck did you go to the one place where everyone who wants to kill you hangs out?"
Anna coughed, which Jo suspected was to cover up a laugh, and then grew serious. "Now's not the time to argue, Dean," she said. "We have it, we have the answer."
"What is it?" Jo asked, standing up and swiveling her head to look at Anna, then Castiel, and back again to Anna. She felt dizzy, the promise of a true way to end this making her head spin.
"It's the rings," Castiel said.
Anna looked smug. "I knew there was a reason I was so sure the Horsemen were the answer. The rings can open a portal to hell, and lock Lucifer inside again. We just have to get the rings from Pestilence, Famine and Death, and then get Lucifer into the trap."
"You do still have War's ring, don't you?" Castiel asked, turning to Dean and Sam.
"I've got it," Bobby offered. "It's locked up in the panic room, safe and sound."
"The panic room back at Singer Salvage?" Dean asked. "We should probably get it here with us just to be safe."
"The panic room here," Bobby said. "Why would I leave something like that behind?
Jo pulled Anna aside. "We should get my mom out here," she said. "Can you ask Lorael or Sarakiel to bring her?"
Anna nodded. "Consider it done."
Sarakiel and Lorael showed up an hour later, along with Ellen, who brought a huge duffle bag with her. Jo laughed when she saw it as she greeted them at the door to the main house.
"How much makeup do you have in there, mom?" she asked. Ellen gave her a serious glare and Jo reflexively swallowed and apologized like a good daughter, helping her mom carry the bag inside.
"We don't have time for this," Lorael said. She stretched out a hand and gave the air in front of her a twist, and the room dematerialized around Jo. When she opened her eyes a second later, she was standing in the panic room with Lorael, Sarakiel and her mom. Bobby, Anna, Castiel and the Winchesters appeared two seconds later. The three humans were in various states of shock, but Anna and Castiel didn't show any surprise. Jo wasn't used to it herself, really, but she just sat down on a rickety folding chair in the dimly lit room and waited for Lorael to explain.
"God fucking damnit," Dean said. "I fucking hate it when you do that." He directed his anger at Castiel, who looked like he wanted to protest that it wasn't his fault, but Lorael wasn't going to wait for anyone.
"I'm going to find out where the Horsemen are, and then we can go and get the rings," she said emphatically.
"How?" Jo asked. "You can't risk your cover by asking that in heaven - Zachariah would know something was up right away."
"I'm not going to ask," Lorael said. "I'm just going to steal the information. Zachariah has been twisting the Word for centuries now, and he still has the original messages, the things he should have been letting go directly to the prophet. The answers we need will be there."
"Just sitting around unguarded?" Jo asked, and she could tell her sarcasm was a little too strong, but she couldn't find another way to keep the spike of worry pulsing in her mind under control.
"If it is guarded, I will have to fight," Lorael said. "I can do it."
"We can all go," Anna said. "All the angels together will be more than a match for whatever Zachariah can throw at us."
Sarakiel shook her head, and over her shoulder, Jo could see Dean and Sam having a wordless conversation, something along the lines of let the angels argue it out, and then we'll talk some sense into them. She hid a tiny grin. Not much chance of talking sense into these angels, even if she would rather Lorael not go alone.
"It can't be you or Castiel," Sarakiel said. "You've already become fugitives, and you'll be noticed before you can do anything useful, not to mention that you've already snuck into Heaven once today."
"And it can't be you," Lorael said to Sarakiel. "You'll be the only one of us who isn't on heaven's hit list if I get caught."
"That does make the most sense," Anna admitted.
Castiel looked depressed. "I doubt I even have enough power left to be useful," he said in a low growl. Dean looked worried, and Sam guilty, at that admission.
"You never said anything," Dean told Castiel. "Why didn't you tell me?" He looked about ready to start a real knockdown drag-out fight about it, so Jo cut in before he could really get going.
"If Lorael says she can go alone, then she can. The rest of us can decide how we're going to split up the Horsemen while she's gone."
"Tomorrow," Ellen said over the sound of Dean arguing. She glared at him. "We're going to sleep now, those of us who need it, and tomorrow we'll decide who takes what."
+++
Jo was helping Missouri put together hex bags when Anna came back the next afternoon. She'd left that morning after telling them that she'd take whichever Horsemen they wanted her to go after. The rest of them had argued for a while, but settled on teams eventually once Ellen and Sarakiel started threatening people. The rest of the morning Lorael had spent staring at various things in various rooms, which was apparently a form of meditation, and ignoring Jo until she said goodbye, and had disappeared before Jo could do anything but say good luck. Ellen tried to distract her with news from the hunting community, and who was coming to help out in the big fight, but Jo's mind was settled on worrying about Lorael, and she couldn't concentrate on anything else, which meant following Missouri's simple directions for hex bags was the first task.
Now Anna looked almost frantic, and Jo's low level worry for Lorael became huge and consuming.
"We've got to hurry," Anna said, pulling Jo up from her chair at the sturdy kitchen table. "It's Lora."
"What?" Jo asked. "What about Lora? Is she okay? She just left two hours ago."
Missouri peered at Anna, then stood briskly. "You'd better go, sugar," she told Jo, "and ask your questions on the way."
Jo closed her eyes and braced herself when Anna reached to touch her forehead with two fingers, and when she opened them again, she and Anna were standing alone in the middle of a deserted parking lot.
"Zachariah knows about Lora," Anna said, pacing up and down the length of one parking space. "An angel she tried to recruit sold her out, and now she's been taken for questioning. She managed to broadcast a message before they silenced her. I don't know if she had time to accomplish her mission."
"Where?" Jo asked, her entire being settling into brisk, cold efficiency. She couldn't afford to feel anything else.
"Zachariah is very predictable," Anna replied. "I believe I know where she'll be, but he'll have taken extra precautions, especially after the way I escaped."
"Can we get help? Call Sarakiel?"
"No, it's too risky," Anna said, shaking her head. "Now that Lora has been discovered, Sarakiel is our only link to heaven." She stopped pacing and looked directly at Jo. "We'll have to go alone, and we have to go now. Every second we wait is a second too long."
"Okay," Jo said. "I assume we're going to need blood."
Anna smiled faintly. "Blood is power," she said, and pushed the sleeve of her shirt up past her elbow. "We both need to have banishing sigils ready to go, on pieces of paper that we can leave behind."
"And those protective ones on our bodies," Jo finished with a sigh. She was vain enough to still wish she didn't have as many scars as she did, but there was no question that she would gladly give herself another one to save Lorael. "Will you be able to get us both to the place he's holding her, or will we have to fight our way in?"
"I think I can get us there," Anna said. "But you'll have to get Lora - I will need all of my strength to hold off Zachariah, and anyone else he may have with him. We'll place the banishing sigils outside and send any angels there away, but once we're inside, we'll have to physically reach Lorael and get away before Zachariah can call reinforcements or use a sigil of his own."
Jo reached into her pocket and pulled out an army knife, handing it to Anna. She grimaced, but didn't cry out as Anna carved a small sigil into the skin of her forearm, and spoke a short word that cauterized the bleeding and burned it into her flesh. Anna did the same thing to her own arm, and then made another cut on her other arm and used the blood to draw two different sigils onto pieces of paper she'd produced out of nowhere and handed the knife back to Jo.
"Right," Jo said, putting the knife away after making one last shallow cut on her hand. They'd need the fresh blood to make the banishment effective. "In, grab Lora, out, piece of cake." She didn't smile, and neither did Anna, but Jo relaxed slightly when Anna took her hand; the one that wasn't bleeding.
"We will do this," Anna said, giving her hand a squeeze. "Ready?"
Jo nodded and they left the parking lot and appeared in the back of what looked like the parking lot of a fast food restaurant, crouching behind a dumpster. Three angels stood outside the tiny back entrance, swords in hand. Anna handed Jo one of the sigils and motioned to her right, and Jo stood when Anna did, their movements perfectly in sync.
"The traitor," one of the angels said, brandishing his sword, but Jo wasn't listening. She whirled to the right side of the entrance and slammed her bleeding hand down on the sigil as she dropped the paper to the floor. Anna hit her own sigil at the same time, and all three angels vanished.
"Ha," Jo said in triumph, but Anna frowned at her.
"That was the easy part," she said, "and they won't be gone long. Come on." She walked to the door and painted several sigils before pressing her still-bloody hand to one of them and whispering a quiet word. The sigils flared brightly for a second, and Anna nodded, satisfied.
They pushed open the door slowly, revealing a darkly-lit room with cement everything. Lorael lay on the floor of the far side of the room, breathing hard and covered in bruises, trapped in a circle of fire. Jo knew she was only seeing a representation of Lorael's wounds, that she couldn't perceive the real damage, and that only made her angrier. Zachariah stood at a window that faced nothing as far as Jo could tell, and he looked over as soon as they entered the room.
"Didn't I tell you, Lorael?" he said with a gloating smile. "Of course your friends came for you, and now I have them, too."
Lorael made a spitting noise around the gag in her mouth, and Jo moved as slowly as possible towards her, in tiny shifts, trying to seem as if she wasn't moving at all. Anna walked confidently into the room and went for Zachariah, holding out her hand to stop him from moving.
"Anael, I may not be able to subdue you all by myself, but unless you want your little friend to stop breathing, you really should just leave right now."
"I'm not leaving without Lorael," Anna replied calmly, but the strain of holding him still was starting to show on her face.
Zachariah laughed, and moved his arm just enough to be able to snap his fingers, then frowned at Jo when nothing happened. "What did you do?" he asked Anna suspiciously.
She smiled. "You never did do very well with protective magics, did you? You were too busy trying to master warfare and diseases."
"I'll show you a disease," Zachariah bit out, freeing himself enough to fling a hand up and point it at Anna, and it was all Jo could do to ignore him. She crept slowly and steadily around the edge of the room, until she finally reached Lorael. Anna was trembling, locked in an invisible struggle with Zachariah, which turned out to be a good thing because it meant he wasn't paying attention to Jo at all as she broke the ring of fire and holy oil holding Lorael captive. Jo quickly undid Lorael's gag and the ropes holding her hands and legs together. Lorael stood shakily, keeping perfectly silent and leaning on Jo, and they moved slowly together towards Anna.
Zachariah stumbled back against the window he'd been looking out of earlier with a pained gasp, and Anna took a step closer, her hand raised and pushing at the air in front of him. Jo made it to her side, and Anna's concentration waivered as she took Lorael in her arms. Zachariah stood, free of Anna's power, and made a lunge toward them, but it was too late. Jo's last glimpse of Zachariah showed her his furious face, hand outstretched toward them, before Anna grabbed her arm and they vanished, reappearing in an unfamiliar motel room.
"We're safe," Anna said, still holding Lorael, as Jo stumbled around, trying to get her balance back. "We're near the farmhouse, but I thought we could use a quiet place to get cleaned up."
"I told you not to worry," Lorael said, as if her face weren't dirty and bruised, with a long line of blood streaking down her cheek.
Jo knew, she did, that Lorael was fine, that she would heal, that her body didn't accurately represent her power and strength. The knowledge didn't stop her from being frantic with worry, and she almost slapped Lorael when she grinned, carefree.
Anna set Lorael down on the couch, and helped her find a comfortable position, then swayed, and sat down herself.
"Are you okay?" Jo asked, suddenly anxious for both of them.
Anna laughed quietly. "Fine, I just need a moment. Zachariah is stupid, but he's also very strong."
Slightly mollified, Jo paced up and down the room, trying to control her thoughts and calm down enough to speak again.
"I got it," Lorael said, still smiling. "I found out where the Horsemen are here on earth."
Jo stopped pacing and stared at her.
"That's wonderful," Anna said. She looked at Jo, and then followed her gaze to Lorael, leaving heavily on the couch, still obviously in pain. "I'm well enough to fly now. I'm going to find the boys and tell them," she informed them. "Ellen, too - we'll need to start preparing."
Jo nodded absently as Anna stood and left the room, but never took her eyes from Lorael. "I guess you're real proud of yourself," she bit out, not even caring that she sounded exactly like her mother.
Lorael stopped smiling and really looked at Jo, then sighed. "I'm sorry," she said. "But it was the only way, and you know it."
Jo grimaced. "Doesn't mean I have to like it," she said, feeling herself relenting against her will.
"No," Lorael replied. "But you do understand it, and that's what matters. We have a chance now, the best chance we're going to get, and I was the best person for the job."
Jo nodded and walked to the bathroom without saying anything. She wet a washcloth in the sink and took it back to Lorael.
"I'll be strong enough to clean myself in just a moment," Lorael said, when she saw what Jo had done.
"Just indulge me," Jo said firmly. "Trust me, this is easier than the alternative."
Lorael tilted her head, giving Jo access to her neck, and Jo wiped up the blood gently.
"What's the alternative?" Lorael asked as Jo worked silently.
"Me sulking for a week and refusing to talk to you," Jo replied, reluctantly smiling. "I hear I'm a champion sulker. If you don't believe me, just ask my mom."
"I'll take your word for it," Lorael said, smiling back, and Jo finished cleaning Lorael's skin in silence, doing her best to ignore the warmth of Lorael's body and the depth of the fear she had felt when she'd thought Lorael had been lost for good.
This was no time for feeling like this - too much was at stake. Jo kept repeating it, but she still could feel the worry. More concerning, she could feel the warmth the worry came from in the first place. Every time Lorael glanced her way, her heart would twitch, and she couldn't ignore it any longer. I'm not in love with an angel, she told herself firmly, hoping she'd convince herself if she kept repeating it. She focused on the other thought she couldn't get rid of, to distract herself. She settled down on the couch and pulled her knees up to her chest, locking her arms around her legs.
"Why is this worth it to you?" she asked in a hesitant voice, not looking at Lorael. "I know Anna said you all wanted to do the right thing, make up for what Zachariah has done wrong, but why are you risking your existence?"
Lorael sighed, and turned to look at a lamp across the room, obviously avoiding eye contact as much as Jo.
"During the last mission I was sent on, before Sarakiel and I found each other, I was ordered to kill a whole family," she said quietly. "They were one of the vessel bloodlines, and Zachariah wanted to control how many angelic vessels there were, but I didn't find that out until later. No one gave me a reason, they never did, and I didn't ask for one."
Jo kept her breathing steady, trying not to telegraph how tense she felt, waiting to find out if Lorael had done it, if she'd killed the family. Jo would forgive her, she realized, as the silence stretched out between them. She could forgive that, because she knew who Lorael was now, but the knowledge still made her feel a little guilty. The fact that Lorael had changed couldn't undo what she had done in the past.
"You don't have to tell me," Jo said, when it seemed as if Lorael wouldn't finish her story.
"No," Lorael replied with a sigh. "You should know this. I obeyed my orders, but the doubt had lodged itself firmly by then. The family had been no threat to anything that I could see; they weren't involved in any of the Seals or other angelic endeavors. When Sarakiel was assigned to me as a partner for my next mission, we slowly discovered that we were both questioning our superiors, and we decided to start finding out why orders were given and if God was truly still in control of the angelic leaders. When Castiel was recalled to heaven, we realized that the prophet was being controlled by Zachariah and just how serious the situation was, and began working on a way to fight back."
Jo reached out and pressed her hand to Lorael's shoulder. "I'm glad you questioned it," she said. Lorael took Jo's hand and held it, awkwardly, as if she'd never done such a uniquely human thing before. Jo supposed that hand-holding during a fight didn't really count.
"I am, too," Lorael said softly, her hair falling forward to cover her face in shadows. Jo tightened her fingers around Lorael's, and they didn't move again until much later.
Jo dreamt that night with a clarity she hadn't had since Anna quit dream-walking in her head. She woke up earlier than usual, groggy and disoriented and fucking confused. When she made it downstairs to get coffee from the kitchen, Dean was sitting at the table with his own mug of caffeine, looking pretty much how Jo felt. She managed to pour the rest of the coffee into a mug and join him at the table without scalding herself.
"Can't sleep?" Dean asked, his voice rough and tired.
"Strange dreams," Jo replied, curling her fingers around the warm coffee mug in her hands.
Dean looked up sharply. "Like, a freaky dude in a robe and scythe following you around, strange?"
"Fuck," Jo said, losing all interest in her coffee. "Yeah, exactly that kind of strange. I can still feel his eyes staring at me from under the hood. You think it means something?"
"I was hoping it didn't," Dean sighed. "That's so fucking typical, isn't it? I argued all day that I should get to go after Death, and then I dream about death coming after me all night."
"I didn't argue about getting to go after Death," Jo said, and Dean's reply was lost in the noise of glass shattering on the floor. They both turned and jumped up when they saw Missouri standing at the entrance to the kitchen, a broken plate in pieces on the floor in front of her. Jo grabbed Missouri to push her out of the room gently, carefully avoiding the glass, while Dean started picking up the mess.
"Are you okay?" she asked Missouri as softly as she could, and Missouri shook herself and seemed to come back from wherever she'd been.
"I'm fine," she said, "but you and Dean have a rough day ahead of you."
"Rough?" Castiel came walking down the hallway and stared at Missouri. Dean had finished with the glass on the floor and stood at the entrance to the kitchen, leaning against the wall, and when Castiel showed up he came closer, moving to Missouri's other side.
"Rough," Missouri confirmed. "They've got to go meet with Death, alone."
"What?" Ellen's voice joined Dean's in the hallway and Jo groaned inwardly. "That isn't part of the plan."
Missouri remained perfectly calm, which Jo really appreciated. "They've each got a powerful compulsion laid on their souls," she told Ellen. "I don't know exactly where it came from, but it's got to be them, or Death won't talk, and we'll lose our chance."
"Talk?" Dean asked. "Don't get me wrong, I haven't figured out how to fucking kill Death, but I don't think talking's on the agenda."
Missouri fixed him with a stern expression. "You'll get further with conversation in this case, Dean Winchester," she said. "So I suggest you practice your small talk."
Part Three
+++
After Jo and Ellen got back from meeting with Missouri, they went straight to the empty bar where Ellen went to do paperwork, while Jo found a seat in a nice secluded corner, then sighed and slumped over in the booth. It wasn't anywhere near close enough to night for her to actually sleep, but she could feel weariness settling into her bones, making her feel older, which wasn't a good thing for once. Missouri wanted to help them, had said that she would try to figure out Meg's plans and whereabouts, but she hadn't been sure she could do anything.
Jo had just decided to get up and grab a beer when Lorael popped into the seat across from her, wearing an expression Jo had never seen on her face before. She still felt sort of awkward around Lorael, even though Lorael seemed to be trying to become her friend, or at least someone who didn't think she was completely worthless.
"What happened?" she asked, immediately nervous.
Lorael shifted in her seat, another strange look crossing her face. "It is… personal. I don't want to talk about it."
"Too late," Jo said cheerfully, her awkwardness suddenly disappearing. She was trying to do her best to relate to Lorael and Anna as women, as people, so she should take every opportunity to enjoy the benefits of friendly teasing now that she was fairly sure Lorael wouldn't smite her for it. "You got me interested, so spill."
Lorael rolled her eyes, but unlike when Jo had first met her, she appeared amused by Jo's pushiness. "Always have to know everything, do you?"
Jo just waited, her need to rest gone.
"Fine," Lorael huffed. "Nosy little girl. It's this… this body."
Now that Jo hadn't expected. She mostly ignored that issue, trying to pretend the vessels didn't exist; she felt guilty about it, but she didn't want to think about the poor people who'd been removed from their lives to fight an angelic battle. She had to believe it was different from demonic possession, but that didn't seem like it would mean much to the actual people being possessed. "What about it? It's a vessel, isn't it?"
"No, well, only sort of," Lorael answered, clearly surprised. "I thought - didn't Anael tell you?"
"Obviously not." Jo waited for a moment. "Well, c'mon, what's the deal?"
"We - Sarakiel and I - made bodies to inhabit when we began this mission - Anael already owned hers because of her time as a human, and we used her as a template to make our own. Taking a vessel would have been too dangerous given the level of secrecy we must use, for us and for the human involved. It took some… unorthodox magic use, but compared to the rest of our rebellions, it seemed small."
Jo felt sucker-punched. "Really? That's - that's all you?" Her stomach flipped and she was suddenly aware of how beautiful Lorael was, as if knowing Lorael owned her body had changed it in some way. It was strange enough to make her almost lose the thread of their conversation - she couldn't ever remember thinking of a woman that way, of being so affected by a woman's attractiveness. She'd been doing her best to ignore the fact that Lorael even had a physical presence for so long, and maybe it was just the shock. It had to be the shock.
"Yes, all me, in as much as a human body can be mine," Lorael shifted uncomfortably again, unaware of Jo's mental struggle. "We had to make the bodies as human as possible, and that apparently included… sensations. Physical ones." She wrinkled her face into a disapproving frown, as if her body had personally offended her, and Jo couldn't stop her laugh.
"It's all well and fine for you," Lorael complained. "You're used to having urges!"
"Wait - what kind of urges are we talking about here?" Jo giggled, trying to cover up the buzz of awareness that she couldn't ignore. Even she knew it would be inappropriate to hit on an angel. She didn't know if it was worse for her to do it to an angel currently inhabiting a female body, but she didn't want to find out either way.
Lorael winced. "I would really like a cheeseburger. With bacon."
Jo could handle that, no problem. "Okay then, let's get you a cheeseburger, hungry hungry hippo."
"I don't need to eat," Lorael protested. "I just want to."
"That's good enough for me," Jo smirked at her and stood up, waiting until Lorael joined her before heading back to the kitchen to start corrupting an angel with carbs. Anna showed up when they were halfway through the first round, and they hung around until the bar opened for the night and Ellen shooed them into the backroom.
It was a good night, and if Jo had to keep stopping herself from looking at Lorael with new eyes now that she knew Lorael was alone in her body, well, she didn't have admit it. It would go away, she was sure. She concentrated on their plans, trying to prepare for meeting with Sam and Dean the next morning, but Anna and Lorael seemed unable to focus on anything, jumping from topic to topic. Jo eventually gave up and just enjoyed herself. She might not be able to relax like this again for a long time.
+++
"What's taking so long?" Lorael said, pacing awkwardly from one end of the room to the other. It wasn't really a question, so Jo didn't bother answering. They'd been waiting for Anna to arrive with Sam, Dean and Castiel for over twenty minutes, and they both knew it probably meant that Anna was having trouble convincing them to let her teleport them in to a location they knew nothing about.
"I mean it," Lorael said. "If she's not back in five minutes, I'm going to go get her."
Jo smiled, quickly hiding it with her hand. She didn't want Lorael getting indignant, but she was, well, adorable when she got angry and impatient. "They'll be here soon," she said. It really didn't help her state of mind to be noticing the way Lorael's face flushed darker with feeling, her lips set in a firm line that Jo kind of wanted to taste. Jo blinked and did her best not to look like she'd just had impure thoughts about an angel.
Lorael just rolled her eyes. "Don't patronize me."
Before Jo could protest her innocence, Anna snapped into the room, one hand holding tightly to Sam Winchester's arm. Barely a second later, Castiel appeared with Dean in tow.
"Sorry we took so long," Anna said. "We almost got caught out by some of Zachariah's religious fanatics, and I didn't want to inadvertently lead them here."
"It's okay," Jo said, preemptively cutting off Lorael's sure-to-be curt reply. "Guys, this is Lorael - she's one of the angels going against Zachariah."
Sam and Dean both looked wary, and Jo couldn't really blame them. She did think it was kind of rude of Dean to turn to Castiel and ask if he knew Lorael, but Sam elbowed his brother and said hello politely.
Lorael didn't let anything show on her face, and it was unnerving to see nothing but the blank mask after so many days of being allowed to see beneath.
"Hello," she said, and turned to Castiel. "Brother, you've done a very brave thing."
Jo watched as they did the creepy angel staring thing, but afterward they both seemed to visibly relax.
"No braver than you," Castiel replied with a nod of his head, and at that, Dean finally relaxed a little, too.
Jo stifled a laugh. "Now that the incredibly solemn angelic greeting rituals are over, can we talk about the apocalypse?"
Dean winced. "Jo, are you sure Ellen isn't hiding somewhere waiting to castrate me if we let you go hunting?"
"What?" Jo shook her head, feeling like maybe she shouldn't have been so surprised to hear that old argument trotted out again. "Mom's been pretty supportive of this whole thing, and it doesn't really matter. I'm an adult, Dean."
"Yeah," Dean said, blustering ahead. "But Ellen is scary."
"You could get really hurt, Jo," Sam said, and Jo knew he didn't mean to be condescending, but that was definitely how it came out.
The memory of the first time she'd tried to hunt with the Winchesters, with Dean, welled up in her mind. Would they ever be able to look at her and see a grown-up human being, not just a young girl? All the doubts she had about the idea that she could do anything to stop Lucifer pressed into her, almost overwhelming, until she felt her inner stubborn bitch kick in. So what if Dean couldn't see past her tits? So what if Sam still felt guilty about that one time he'd been forced to tie her up and didn't want her "in harm's way"? Was Jo Harvelle the kind of woman who let other people boss her around? Anna and Lorael believed she had a part to play. More importantly, she believed it too, and she knew how to handle the Winchesters. She snapped then, she had to admit it. But if she'd let either of them say another word, neither of them would be fit for being anyone's vessel by the time she'd finished with them.
"Hold it right there, Dean Winchester!" Jo had her mom's voice down perfectly. Dean and Sam both shut their mouths and stood up straight like they'd been called to attention, and she guessed that was her intent. Anna smiled encouragingly and Lorael had a spark of something in her eyes that Jo had never seen before. Respect, maybe. Castiel just switched his steady stare from Dean to Jo.
"What in hell makes you think you're in charge, here?" she asked them both.
Sam recovered from his shock. "Uhh, the entire populations of heaven and hell?" he said sarcastically.
Jo pointed to Anna and Lorael. "Not according to them."
Dean sneered. "Yeah, well, I wouldn't trust anything an angel tells you."
Jo just stared at Dean for a moment, then walked over next to Castiel, who didn't let anything he might've been feeling show on his face.
"What do you call this, Dean?" she asked. He looked down and then back up again defiantly.
"That's different," he protested. "Cas has saved both our lives multiple times. He's proven himself."
"And Anna and Lora have saved my life, and my mom's," Jo replied. "And if Anna can forgive Castiel for betraying her, and Castiel believes Anna's telling the truth, I don't see why you don't believe him if you trust him so much, even if you won't believe me." That got Dean's attention, for sure, and Jo could see the wheels turning in his head.
"I'm not saying we should all buddy up and make friendship bracelets," she continued, "but the whole idea behind this working together thing is that we're stronger that way. I don't need to be in charge, but neither do you. It's called teamwork."
Dean sighed and relaxed his stance. "Fine," he said, rubbing a hand at the back of his neck. "It makes sense, but I'm not convinced there's anything anyone can do to keep this from being all about me and Sam." He looked over at his brother. "Sam?"
Jo could see Sam struggling and sighed a little internally. He kept giving her that puppy-dog "I don't want you to get hurt" look.
"Look, you know what I'm going to do if you don't let me help, right?"
Dean and Sam shared an exasperated look, and the three of them chimed in together, although Jo's voice was decidedly more cheerful.
"Tag along behind anyway."
"And this time, I have my own angelic help," she added mercilessly.
Dean and Sam exchanged a meaningful look, and then Dean sighed and turned back to the others.
"We might have a lead on the Colt," he said. "There's a demon we know, and we're pretty sure he has it."
"How do you know that?" Jo asked, and Dean and Sam both shuddered.
Sam twitched repeatedly, ignoring the question, and Dean finally said. "Uh, Sam's number one fan found out and clued us in."
"Oh, right," said Anna. "The Winchester Gospels."
"The what of the who now?" Jo asked, looking from Dean to Sam and back to Dean again.
Dean shook his head. "Oh no, we are not talking about it. We know where the Colt might be, and if we can get it and use it, this whole thing will be over. Let's focus on that."
Jo wanted to keep pressing, because anything that had both Sam and Dean so spooked had to be good, but Anna nudged her and whispered, "I'll tell you later," so she let it go. When Dean outlined his plan to actually get the Colt, though, she thought about bringing it back up in retaliation.
"Why do I have to be the bait?" she complained. It was one thing to use her physical appearance as a ploy when she was the one who planned it and benefitted, but it was entirely another to do it for Dean and Sam. And she was trying to do this whole apocalypse thing like a grown-up, like someone who wasn't pale and blonde and sort of tiny. She turned to Anna for support, but didn't get anything but a sheepish smile.
"You are the only one of us who can convincingly act like a young girl in need of help," Anna said. "I mean, can you imagine Lorael trying?"
"No," Lorael and Jo said at the same time, Jo with amusement and Lorael with firm refusal.
Anna laughed. "And anyway, Crowley would know we were angels immediately. This is one trick you will have to play on your own."
"Fine," Jo said. "But if I hear one comment about my ass I'm going to turn you all in to Zachariah myself."
+++
Once they had the Colt, and Jo had been forced to admit that the plan had been perfect (if kind of unnecessary, since Crowley had just given it up without a fight), Ellen and Jo left to get ready for the showdown. Ellen had decided to shut down the bar until things were finished. Jo tried to talk her into keeping it open and staying there, relatively safe, but Jo had definitely inherited more than half of her stubbornness from Ellen and she lost that argument. Luckily, Sarakiel had come to ask Ellen for assistance with finding hunters who would be willing to work with the few angels she'd been able to recruit, and Jo only ended up losing half the argument in the end. Ellen closed the bar and set up with Sarakiel in the back, and Jo left with Anna and Lorael to meet up with the Winchesters and Castiel.
Anna insisted on trying the protective sigil on Jo in the car, and made Lorael drive. Jo had to shut her eyes and avoid looking at the driver's seat, because the sight of Lorael driving without actually touching anything kept creeping her out. Anna distracted her by carving a sigil into Jo's forearm and cauterizing it.
"There," she said when she had finished. "Now we're as prepared for angelic attack as we possibly can be."
The town was silent and empty when they arrived, and it gave Jo the creeps. She kept close to Anna as they walked down the deserted main street, and nearly jumped out of her skin when Anna, Lorael and Castiel all froze at the same time.
"Reapers," Castiel said after a moment, sharing a worried look with Anna. "They're everywhere."
"Like, I'm stepping on one right now kind of everywhere?" Jo asked, turning her head to peer at what looked like a completely empty town to her.
"Not quite that bad," Anna said. Lorael ignored them all and walked a distance away, staring hard at various places in the air around her.
"Missouri said Meg was here," Jo said, "but she didn't say anything about reapers."
"Reapers mean death," Dean muttered. "Maybe death as in Death?"
"We should call Bobby," Sam said. "Maybe there's a reference to something involving reapers that's supposed to be a part of the apocalypse."
"Let me try to find out first," Castiel said. He didn't wait for approval, and when Jo turned to look, the space where he'd been standing next to Anna was empty.
"Great," Dean said. "I hate it when he does that."
Jo watched as Sam and Dean argued about calling Bobby, keeping Lorael in her peripheral vision. When Lorael started back to the group, Jo cut into the argument.
"Find anything?" she asked loudly, and Dean and Sam both stopped talking.
Lorael shook her head. "I cannot compel any of the reapers to speak with me, and I can only guess that they are here for Death in some capacity."
"I don't feel like standing out here in the open is a good idea," Anna said, a look of worry creased across her forehead. "Castiel should not have needed this long to investigate."
"That I can agree with," Dean said. "Let's get to a less obvious location and figure out what's going on."
By the time they reached the deserted general store and found the aisle with the salt, Sam had Bobby on the line. They waited, listening to Sam's part of the conversation, and when Sam hung up he looked grim.
"It is Death, according to Bobby. He said Lucifer has to give a sacrifice of some kind to get Death to rise."
"When?" Jo asked.
"Tonight, right now?" Sam replied. "Bobby wasn't sure. Either way, we should get there while we still can, and take care of Lucifer before Death rises. Bobby said it'll be at the cemetery."
Walking back outside, Jo felt her entire body vibrate as she reached the middle of the street. She jumped when Anna's hand closed down on her shoulder, and the vibration happened again, this time accompanied by a low growl.
Dean froze in front of Jo, and Sam stopped just next to him. Lorael and Anna pressed Jo into the Winchesters and tried to flank the three of them, which wasn't quite working because there were only two angels.
"What it is?" Jo asked, her back to Dean and Sam's, wildly looking around for whatever had made the noise. She couldn't see anything, and since the reapers hadn't tried anything like this earlier, she was guessing it wasn't them, which meant another invisible presence. She had her gun out anyway, feeling safer with the weight of it in her palm.
"Hellhounds," Lorael said. "Just stay close, and they won't get through."
"How many?" Dean asked, and Jo could feel the tension in his back, stiff against hers. "God, it's worse when I can't see them," he muttered under his breath.
"Enough," Anna said. "They won't leave until they've gotten what they came for, which I think we can assume is us."
"We have to stop Lucifer," Jo said. "Can we kill them? Can you see them?"
Lorael didn't turn to look at Jo as she replied. "We can…sense them. It isn't the same as seeing them, but they are wary enough of angels to be cautious. And they can be killed."
"Can't you just zap us all out of here?" Sam asked, but Anna was shaking her head before he'd finished his sentence.
"They have your scent, now. They won't necessarily be stopped by a change in location, even if it did manage to slow them down."
"Could you send Dean and Sam away to the cemetery, and keep me here for bait?" Jo asked.
"No," three sharp voices said in unison, and Jo glared at Sam, Dean and Lorael.
"It makes sense," she argued. "Lorael and Anna can take care of me, and we have to finish this."
"It's the best way," Anna agreed, setting her shoulders and pushing at Dean and Sam, who disappeared. "That way they can't argue," she finished, smiling tightly at Jo. Lorael had already drawn her sword and was attacking the air around her, and Jo assumed from the yelping that the hellhounds were her target. Anna tried to stay in front of Jo, but took out her own sword and began hacking at the air. If Jo hadn't been so fucking terrified, it would have been comical to watch the swords slicing at nothing, fierce expressions on both the angels' faces.
Jo kept her eyes on Lorael and Anna, unwilling to look away for a second in case she missed something important. When she felt the touch, low on her ankle, she jumped forward, yelling as a claw sliced through her skin.
"Jo!" Lorael jumped over something Jo couldn't see and pulled her up and away from the attempted bite, then shoved Jo behind her, slashing at the hellhound with her sword. Her voice was strained in a way Jo had never heard it sound before. Jo lost track of Anna, and reached down to touch her ankle, then fell heavily into a sitting position on the ground. The cut wasn't deep, thankfully, but it stung. Jo felt grateful for the pain; it grounded her in her body and she focused on pressing her hand around her ankle, on stopping the bleeding.
Anna came to stand next to her, helping Jo stand up a moment later.
"Is it over?" Jo asked, and Anna shook her head.
"Almost," she gestured toward Lorael and Jo followed her hand to look. "Lora is intent on destroying all of them."
Lorael grinned, her face lit up with excitement as she killed the last hellhound and turned to look right at Jo. Jo tried very hard to not get distracted, focusing on Lorael's ripped jeans instead of her face, because watching an angel kill a hellhound should not be a turn-on, but it was kind of a lost cause. Anna finally smacked her hip to get her attention while Lorael did something to clean and put away her sword.
"Jo, are you okay?" Anna asked, her face concerned and tired.
Jo snapped out of it. "Yeah, fine," she muttered. "Let's get out of here."
Lorael nodded to Anna. "Find the Winchesters and make sure they're safe," she said. "I'll take Jo and meet you back at the bar."
Anna gave Jo's shoulder a squeeze and disappeared, leaving Jo and Lorael standing, staring at each other. Before Anna had even been gone thirty seconds, a new voice sounded from behind Jo. She whirled to see Meg standing on the other side of the street, her eyes furious.
"What did you do to them?" Meg yelled. Lorael turned to Jo. "What is it?" she asked, and Jo started to panic.
"You can't see her?" she asked, as Meg started to walk towards them. "It's Meg, the demon from before, at the convenience store? I think she's mad that you killed the hellhounds."
Lorael stared right at Meg, clearly not seeing anything. Meg smirked.
"I'm wearing angel-block five thousand," she said. "No angels, no problems. Hell of a motto, huh?"
A small part of Jo cringed at the bad pun, but most of her energy was taken up with keeping Meg in her sight, pulling Lorael along with her as Meg came closer at a slow, easy pace.
"It doesn't matter how much angel-block you've got on," Jo shot back. "You think she needs to see you to kill you? She couldn't see the hellhounds either, and they're all gone."
"She can't sense me, either," Meg said, just as Lorael pulled her sword back out and took Jo's right hand in her left, keeping Jo slightly behind her. Be my eyes, she said silently into Jo's mind. Jo thought back yes as hard as she could, but had no idea if the sudden and kind of alarming telepathy went both ways or not. Lorael squeezed her hand and said it does, and it is only temporary with an amused cast to her mental voice.
"I'm getting really tired of you, Joanna, and all your big, bad angel friends," Meg drawled, her eyes turning black and a wicked-looking knife appearing in her hand. "I'm finishing this now."
"You always say that," Jo said, only half her attention on her words. "And it never works." She felt a pressure in her head, and she knew that Lorael would be striking soon. She tried to relax and not fight the presence of Lorael in her mind, but she didn't know if she was all that successful.
Meg raised her knife, and it grew exponentially bigger, until it more than matched the size of Lorael's weapon. She lunged, and Jo thought to your right and felt Lorael's reassuring hand-squeeze. Lorael blocked the blow easily, and Meg frowned, suddenly noticing Jo's hand wrapped tightly in Lorael's.
You don't need to tell me what the demon is doing, Lorael said into Jo's mind. I can see her through you.
They fought for what Jo thought must have been a few minutes, even though it felt much longer as she scrambled to stay behind Lorael and keep their connection strong at the same time. Lorael only had human perception to guide her movements, and Jo could feel her frustration at not being able to gain the upper hand against a mere demon.
Finally, Meg made a mistake while she was trying to slice Jo's hand away from Lorael's, and Lora's sword caught her in the arm, knocking her knife away. Lorael raised their joined hands and Meg froze in midair, caught by angelic power.
Put your hand on her forehead, Lorael said. Jo obeyed cautiously, and by the time Meg realized what was happening, it was too late. Lorael placed her hand over Jo's, and Jo felt white-hot heat rush through her, burning Meg up where she stood.
When Meg's silhouette had completely disappeared, Lorael removed both their hands, separating them in the process, and Jo felt the presence in her mind leave carefully.
"You did well," Lorael said, and Jo startled just a tiny bit, hearing that voice outside of her head again. "We're fortunate that it worked without harming you."
"I guess," Jo replied with a rueful grin. "So much for not being the damsel in distress all the time."
"If all damsels did as much as you, the rescue business would definitely suffer," Lorael said firmly, her gaze making Jo flush.
"Well, at least we don't have to worry about Meg anymore." Jo could feel her adrenaline draining away, but she didn't have time to think about her fatigue before Lorael put a hand on her shoulder, zapping them into place next to Jo's car and Dean's Impala. She let go of Jo and fiddled with her hair, tightening the ponytail without really seeming to physically re-do it.
"We can't leave Dean's car behind," Jo said, watching Lorael and searching for a safe topic of conversation as her inappropriate lust came slamming back. "He'd kill us if anything happened to it."
Lorael nodded. "I'll send both cars to Ellen's," she said, and reached out to take Jo's shoulder again. Jo pulled back.
"Wait, I just - " she stumbled over the words. "Thank you, again. I don't know why you keep saving my life, but - but I'm grateful."
Lorael lowered her head, and Jo thought she looked embarrassed, but it was hard to tell. "It's not difficult to want to save you," she said quietly. Jo raised a tentative hand and placed it on Lorael's shoulder, mirroring the only way Lorael had ever touched her before they'd spent an entire demon fight holding hands. Lorael looked up, her eyes guarded.
"I'm still grateful," Jo said, and then Lorael reached for her and the world dissolved around them as she teleported them both away.
+++
When they got back to the bar, Dean and Castiel were talking quietly in a corner while Sam stared blankly at nothing, ignoring the concerned looks Ellen kept giving him. Jo took one look at the tableau, and knew that Lucifer had somehow dodged the bullet, literally or figuratively.
"What happened?" she asked
"It didn't work," Dean said, his eyes empty of emotion. Lorael, Anna and Castiel seemed to be having a telepathic angel conversation, and Sam hadn't even looked up yet.
Ellen gave Jo a brief hug, her fingers digging into Jo's arms. "Go get some clean clothes," she said. "You're filthy."
Jo looked down at herself, and was almost surprised to see how disgusting her clothes had gotten. "Okay," she said obediently, and Ellen looked at her searchingly.
"I'm leaving to meet up with some hunters," Ellen said. "Call me if you need anything."
When Jo finished changing into something that wasn't covered in dirt and hellhound slobber, and had properly cleaned and bandaged the cut on her ankle, she went back downstairs for a full debriefing in the backroom of the bar. Lorael was gone, and Anna just shrugged when Jo asked where she was. It unsettled Jo to not have Lorael there, even though she was almost grateful for the chance to think about what Lorael had told her earlier without the distraction of Lorael's presence.
The future seemed pretty bleak. Dean was getting sort of hopeless, and Jo couldn't really blame him. The Colt had been their best hope, and now they were back to square one. Sam watched his brother carefully, and so did Castiel. Jo guessed they were all on Dean-suicide watch. Castiel himself wouldn't talk about what had happened while Lucifer had held him captive, just that Lucifer's vessel was dying and that he would be moving quickly now, to try and force Sam to accept him.
"That's it," Dean sighed into the silence. "That was the last hope, right? Our last chance to stop this thing without me and Sam becoming meatsuits, gone."
"Maybe - maybe it's not about a magic bullet or a foolproof spell at all," Jo swallowed, unsure of her words, but certain that she needed to speak. "Maybe it's about making do with what we have, what we already know. I mean, we're subverting destiny, right?"
Anna grinned, and Jo could tell she'd just been waiting for her to say exactly that.
"Think about it," Anna said eagerly. "We keep looking for something to save us, to give us a magic button to push and bam, it's all over. But it doesn't work like that, not really." She paused and gave Castiel a significant look. "We know that "God" doesn't wave a hand and fix everything."
Castiel nodded, his serious eyes lighting up just a fraction. "But God always gives us what we need to fix our own problems, according to the concept of free will, which, apparently, now also applies to angels."
Jo wasn't really sold on the God part of that, but she knew plenty about fixing (and not fixing) her own problems. Dean and Sam seemed reluctant, too, but probably for different reasons. Dean kept looking at Anna and then at Castiel and then back to Anna, like he didn't know what to think, and Sam frowned.
"What do we have, though?" he asked. "A few angels, a few hunters, against Lucifer and the armies of hell and heaven? That didn't work out so well last time."
That Jo could refute, so she did. "We have more than that, remember? Mom's been working with Sarakiel and some of her angels to get all the hunters in the US connected, so we can all be informed about what's going on in other places. Mom knows pretty much every hunting family in the Midwest, and almost everyone else has at least heard of her. The Roadhouse used to be research central."
"Lorael is working on recruiting more angels, too," added Anna. That was news to Jo, which Anna must have known. "She didn't want to tell you, Jo, she knew you wouldn't like it."
"Well she's just asking for someone to betray her to Zachariah," Jo mumbled. "Can't imagine why that would bother me."
"We need to know what Zachariah is planning," Castiel said firmly. "We know what Lucifer wants, and we just need to find a way to stop him. But Zachariah will have an elaborate plan by now, and if we want to avoid losing Dean to Michael, we need to be prepared."
Dean looked like he wanted to protest the possibility that he'd ever let Michael in, but he swallowed whatever he'd been planning to say when Sam gave him a look.
"Yes," Anna said, "and if he knows anything about Lucifer, about the Horsemen, we need to know that, too. The Horsemen will lead Lucifer's charge when he begins his main assault, and if we can incapacitate them first, we'll have a fighting chance. We've been so focused on Lucifer that we've forgotten about the other players."
Jo snorted. "A fighting chance for Lucifer to kill us instead." Anna frowned at her, and she continued. "I'm not saying it's not a good idea to try, but we do have to find a way to actually stop Lucifer."
"Stop him," Sam repeated, almost to himself. "We don't have to kill him, we just have to stop him. How did the angels trap him in the cage in the first place?"
Dean and Jo turned to the angels with questioning looks, but Anna just rolled her eyes and Castiel shook his head.
"Even if we had the power of Michael on our side, we couldn't repeat the act," he said. "It took thousands of angels working together to set the seals that kept the way into the cage shut. And only Michael and maybe the other archangels know how they locked the door itself in the first place."
"But there was something?" Sam asked. "Something they used to trap Lucifer before they set the seals?"
"We can look for it," Dean added. "While Lorael and Sarakiel are searching for information on the Horsemen in heaven, can't they keep an eye out for something we can use on Lucifer?"
"It's dangerous enough for them already," Jo protested. "We can't ask them to risk more, and if Zachariah finds out…"
Anna, staring into empty space, finally shook herself. "Let them make that decision, Jo," she said determinedly. "The angels, the ones who want to do what is right, we have to take responsibility for what our leaders have done. I've said that before, and Sam is right."
Castiel closed his eyes for a long moment, and Jo saw the emotions clearly played out in his usually impassive face.
"If we can, we must," he said, sharing a long look with Anna, who just nodded.
"We'll be back shortly," she said to Jo, and then she and Castiel disappeared.
"What the fuck?" Dean swung around as if he expected to find Castiel and Anna in a different part of the room. "I'm never going to get to used to that!"
"What did they even leave to do?" Sam asked.
"Cryptic angel bullshit," Jo muttered, and Dean laughed.
"It sounded like they knew something we didn't," Sam said, and then Jo started laughing, too.
"What else is new?" she said, and Sam reluctantly smiled.
"Well, come on," Dean said, ignoring them both. "We should go check in with Missouri and Bobby, maybe get them looking into the idea of trapping Lucifer instead of killing him."
After Dean spent five minutes on the phone arguing with Bobby about directions, they all piled into the Impala and began the journey to what Bobby said would be their new base of operations. Jo almost insisted on driving herself, but it did seem pretty silly to waste the gas when she knew Dean would never agree to leave his car behind. Instead, she climbed into the back seat of the Impala and tried her very best to not feel like a five-year-old on a road trip with her older brothers. It took three hours to get to their destination, which appeared to be a big lot of nothing in the middle of Kansas. Jo had almost gotten used to instantaneous angelic transportation, and the trip felt much longer than three hours to her.
When they finally reached a sign with the house number Bobby had given them, on the side of the dirt road they'd been on for the past few miles, Dean heaved a sigh of relief.
"Goddamn finally," he said, as he turned into what could have been referred to loosely as a driveway, and Jo swallowed a laugh at the concerned look on his face. "My poor baby's suspension will never be the same again."
"Do we even know what's out here?" Sam asked. "Is it like a house, or a barn or what?"
Dean just shrugged. "No idea, but it's Bobby, so…" he trailed off as they reached the end of the very long driveway, and an enormous house came into view. There were several outbuildings surrounding the main house, and it looked to Jo like an abandoned farm. When they made it inside and joined Bobby and Missouri in the huge kitchen, Jo gratefully took the cup of tea Missouri brewed for her.
"How'd you know about this place?" Dean asked, refusing the offer of tea and taking a beer from the well-stocked fridge instead. Jo almost asked for one, too, but decided to stick with tea. She needed warmth more than she needed a buzz.
Bobby rolled his eyes. "It's mine," he said, making it clear that he thought they were all stupid.
"All of it?" Sam's eyes were huge and round. "How come we've never seen it before?"
"You don't think I have back-up plans in case of anything?" Bobby said. "You don't know everything about me, boy, and don't think you ever will, either."
Jo laughed, and when she caught Missouri giving Bobby a longsuffering headshake, she laughed even harder, until Dean and Sam had reluctantly joined in.
"Come on," Jo said a moment later, blowing on her tea to keep herself from cracking up again. "Let's get to work and find a way to lock Lucifer up again."
Several hours later, Jo stopped herself from dozing off for the third time in the middle of reading one of Bobby's old books. "There's nothing here," she whined, and Dean gave her a commiserating smile.
Bobby just grunted and turned a page in his own book, ignoring them both. Missouri looked up from where she was sketching out patterns of some kind - Jo thought they might be Enochian sigils, and wondered where Missouri had learned them - and smiled a little.
"You were the one who wanted to research," she told Jo.
"Before I knew it was a waste of time," Jo said. "Now that I'm enlightened, can we go to bed? Or at least do something productive?"
"Would trapping Lucifer in hell forever be productive enough for you?"
Jo dropped her dusty book onto the floor. "Where did you go?" she asked Anna, who had just appeared in the middle of the room along with Castiel.
"Heaven," Castiel replied, and Dean glared at him.
"Why the fuck did you go to the one place where everyone who wants to kill you hangs out?"
Anna coughed, which Jo suspected was to cover up a laugh, and then grew serious. "Now's not the time to argue, Dean," she said. "We have it, we have the answer."
"What is it?" Jo asked, standing up and swiveling her head to look at Anna, then Castiel, and back again to Anna. She felt dizzy, the promise of a true way to end this making her head spin.
"It's the rings," Castiel said.
Anna looked smug. "I knew there was a reason I was so sure the Horsemen were the answer. The rings can open a portal to hell, and lock Lucifer inside again. We just have to get the rings from Pestilence, Famine and Death, and then get Lucifer into the trap."
"You do still have War's ring, don't you?" Castiel asked, turning to Dean and Sam.
"I've got it," Bobby offered. "It's locked up in the panic room, safe and sound."
"The panic room back at Singer Salvage?" Dean asked. "We should probably get it here with us just to be safe."
"The panic room here," Bobby said. "Why would I leave something like that behind?
Jo pulled Anna aside. "We should get my mom out here," she said. "Can you ask Lorael or Sarakiel to bring her?"
Anna nodded. "Consider it done."
Sarakiel and Lorael showed up an hour later, along with Ellen, who brought a huge duffle bag with her. Jo laughed when she saw it as she greeted them at the door to the main house.
"How much makeup do you have in there, mom?" she asked. Ellen gave her a serious glare and Jo reflexively swallowed and apologized like a good daughter, helping her mom carry the bag inside.
"We don't have time for this," Lorael said. She stretched out a hand and gave the air in front of her a twist, and the room dematerialized around Jo. When she opened her eyes a second later, she was standing in the panic room with Lorael, Sarakiel and her mom. Bobby, Anna, Castiel and the Winchesters appeared two seconds later. The three humans were in various states of shock, but Anna and Castiel didn't show any surprise. Jo wasn't used to it herself, really, but she just sat down on a rickety folding chair in the dimly lit room and waited for Lorael to explain.
"God fucking damnit," Dean said. "I fucking hate it when you do that." He directed his anger at Castiel, who looked like he wanted to protest that it wasn't his fault, but Lorael wasn't going to wait for anyone.
"I'm going to find out where the Horsemen are, and then we can go and get the rings," she said emphatically.
"How?" Jo asked. "You can't risk your cover by asking that in heaven - Zachariah would know something was up right away."
"I'm not going to ask," Lorael said. "I'm just going to steal the information. Zachariah has been twisting the Word for centuries now, and he still has the original messages, the things he should have been letting go directly to the prophet. The answers we need will be there."
"Just sitting around unguarded?" Jo asked, and she could tell her sarcasm was a little too strong, but she couldn't find another way to keep the spike of worry pulsing in her mind under control.
"If it is guarded, I will have to fight," Lorael said. "I can do it."
"We can all go," Anna said. "All the angels together will be more than a match for whatever Zachariah can throw at us."
Sarakiel shook her head, and over her shoulder, Jo could see Dean and Sam having a wordless conversation, something along the lines of let the angels argue it out, and then we'll talk some sense into them. She hid a tiny grin. Not much chance of talking sense into these angels, even if she would rather Lorael not go alone.
"It can't be you or Castiel," Sarakiel said. "You've already become fugitives, and you'll be noticed before you can do anything useful, not to mention that you've already snuck into Heaven once today."
"And it can't be you," Lorael said to Sarakiel. "You'll be the only one of us who isn't on heaven's hit list if I get caught."
"That does make the most sense," Anna admitted.
Castiel looked depressed. "I doubt I even have enough power left to be useful," he said in a low growl. Dean looked worried, and Sam guilty, at that admission.
"You never said anything," Dean told Castiel. "Why didn't you tell me?" He looked about ready to start a real knockdown drag-out fight about it, so Jo cut in before he could really get going.
"If Lorael says she can go alone, then she can. The rest of us can decide how we're going to split up the Horsemen while she's gone."
"Tomorrow," Ellen said over the sound of Dean arguing. She glared at him. "We're going to sleep now, those of us who need it, and tomorrow we'll decide who takes what."
+++
Jo was helping Missouri put together hex bags when Anna came back the next afternoon. She'd left that morning after telling them that she'd take whichever Horsemen they wanted her to go after. The rest of them had argued for a while, but settled on teams eventually once Ellen and Sarakiel started threatening people. The rest of the morning Lorael had spent staring at various things in various rooms, which was apparently a form of meditation, and ignoring Jo until she said goodbye, and had disappeared before Jo could do anything but say good luck. Ellen tried to distract her with news from the hunting community, and who was coming to help out in the big fight, but Jo's mind was settled on worrying about Lorael, and she couldn't concentrate on anything else, which meant following Missouri's simple directions for hex bags was the first task.
Now Anna looked almost frantic, and Jo's low level worry for Lorael became huge and consuming.
"We've got to hurry," Anna said, pulling Jo up from her chair at the sturdy kitchen table. "It's Lora."
"What?" Jo asked. "What about Lora? Is she okay? She just left two hours ago."
Missouri peered at Anna, then stood briskly. "You'd better go, sugar," she told Jo, "and ask your questions on the way."
Jo closed her eyes and braced herself when Anna reached to touch her forehead with two fingers, and when she opened them again, she and Anna were standing alone in the middle of a deserted parking lot.
"Zachariah knows about Lora," Anna said, pacing up and down the length of one parking space. "An angel she tried to recruit sold her out, and now she's been taken for questioning. She managed to broadcast a message before they silenced her. I don't know if she had time to accomplish her mission."
"Where?" Jo asked, her entire being settling into brisk, cold efficiency. She couldn't afford to feel anything else.
"Zachariah is very predictable," Anna replied. "I believe I know where she'll be, but he'll have taken extra precautions, especially after the way I escaped."
"Can we get help? Call Sarakiel?"
"No, it's too risky," Anna said, shaking her head. "Now that Lora has been discovered, Sarakiel is our only link to heaven." She stopped pacing and looked directly at Jo. "We'll have to go alone, and we have to go now. Every second we wait is a second too long."
"Okay," Jo said. "I assume we're going to need blood."
Anna smiled faintly. "Blood is power," she said, and pushed the sleeve of her shirt up past her elbow. "We both need to have banishing sigils ready to go, on pieces of paper that we can leave behind."
"And those protective ones on our bodies," Jo finished with a sigh. She was vain enough to still wish she didn't have as many scars as she did, but there was no question that she would gladly give herself another one to save Lorael. "Will you be able to get us both to the place he's holding her, or will we have to fight our way in?"
"I think I can get us there," Anna said. "But you'll have to get Lora - I will need all of my strength to hold off Zachariah, and anyone else he may have with him. We'll place the banishing sigils outside and send any angels there away, but once we're inside, we'll have to physically reach Lorael and get away before Zachariah can call reinforcements or use a sigil of his own."
Jo reached into her pocket and pulled out an army knife, handing it to Anna. She grimaced, but didn't cry out as Anna carved a small sigil into the skin of her forearm, and spoke a short word that cauterized the bleeding and burned it into her flesh. Anna did the same thing to her own arm, and then made another cut on her other arm and used the blood to draw two different sigils onto pieces of paper she'd produced out of nowhere and handed the knife back to Jo.
"Right," Jo said, putting the knife away after making one last shallow cut on her hand. They'd need the fresh blood to make the banishment effective. "In, grab Lora, out, piece of cake." She didn't smile, and neither did Anna, but Jo relaxed slightly when Anna took her hand; the one that wasn't bleeding.
"We will do this," Anna said, giving her hand a squeeze. "Ready?"
Jo nodded and they left the parking lot and appeared in the back of what looked like the parking lot of a fast food restaurant, crouching behind a dumpster. Three angels stood outside the tiny back entrance, swords in hand. Anna handed Jo one of the sigils and motioned to her right, and Jo stood when Anna did, their movements perfectly in sync.
"The traitor," one of the angels said, brandishing his sword, but Jo wasn't listening. She whirled to the right side of the entrance and slammed her bleeding hand down on the sigil as she dropped the paper to the floor. Anna hit her own sigil at the same time, and all three angels vanished.
"Ha," Jo said in triumph, but Anna frowned at her.
"That was the easy part," she said, "and they won't be gone long. Come on." She walked to the door and painted several sigils before pressing her still-bloody hand to one of them and whispering a quiet word. The sigils flared brightly for a second, and Anna nodded, satisfied.
They pushed open the door slowly, revealing a darkly-lit room with cement everything. Lorael lay on the floor of the far side of the room, breathing hard and covered in bruises, trapped in a circle of fire. Jo knew she was only seeing a representation of Lorael's wounds, that she couldn't perceive the real damage, and that only made her angrier. Zachariah stood at a window that faced nothing as far as Jo could tell, and he looked over as soon as they entered the room.
"Didn't I tell you, Lorael?" he said with a gloating smile. "Of course your friends came for you, and now I have them, too."
Lorael made a spitting noise around the gag in her mouth, and Jo moved as slowly as possible towards her, in tiny shifts, trying to seem as if she wasn't moving at all. Anna walked confidently into the room and went for Zachariah, holding out her hand to stop him from moving.
"Anael, I may not be able to subdue you all by myself, but unless you want your little friend to stop breathing, you really should just leave right now."
"I'm not leaving without Lorael," Anna replied calmly, but the strain of holding him still was starting to show on her face.
Zachariah laughed, and moved his arm just enough to be able to snap his fingers, then frowned at Jo when nothing happened. "What did you do?" he asked Anna suspiciously.
She smiled. "You never did do very well with protective magics, did you? You were too busy trying to master warfare and diseases."
"I'll show you a disease," Zachariah bit out, freeing himself enough to fling a hand up and point it at Anna, and it was all Jo could do to ignore him. She crept slowly and steadily around the edge of the room, until she finally reached Lorael. Anna was trembling, locked in an invisible struggle with Zachariah, which turned out to be a good thing because it meant he wasn't paying attention to Jo at all as she broke the ring of fire and holy oil holding Lorael captive. Jo quickly undid Lorael's gag and the ropes holding her hands and legs together. Lorael stood shakily, keeping perfectly silent and leaning on Jo, and they moved slowly together towards Anna.
Zachariah stumbled back against the window he'd been looking out of earlier with a pained gasp, and Anna took a step closer, her hand raised and pushing at the air in front of him. Jo made it to her side, and Anna's concentration waivered as she took Lorael in her arms. Zachariah stood, free of Anna's power, and made a lunge toward them, but it was too late. Jo's last glimpse of Zachariah showed her his furious face, hand outstretched toward them, before Anna grabbed her arm and they vanished, reappearing in an unfamiliar motel room.
"We're safe," Anna said, still holding Lorael, as Jo stumbled around, trying to get her balance back. "We're near the farmhouse, but I thought we could use a quiet place to get cleaned up."
"I told you not to worry," Lorael said, as if her face weren't dirty and bruised, with a long line of blood streaking down her cheek.
Jo knew, she did, that Lorael was fine, that she would heal, that her body didn't accurately represent her power and strength. The knowledge didn't stop her from being frantic with worry, and she almost slapped Lorael when she grinned, carefree.
Anna set Lorael down on the couch, and helped her find a comfortable position, then swayed, and sat down herself.
"Are you okay?" Jo asked, suddenly anxious for both of them.
Anna laughed quietly. "Fine, I just need a moment. Zachariah is stupid, but he's also very strong."
Slightly mollified, Jo paced up and down the room, trying to control her thoughts and calm down enough to speak again.
"I got it," Lorael said, still smiling. "I found out where the Horsemen are here on earth."
Jo stopped pacing and stared at her.
"That's wonderful," Anna said. She looked at Jo, and then followed her gaze to Lorael, leaving heavily on the couch, still obviously in pain. "I'm well enough to fly now. I'm going to find the boys and tell them," she informed them. "Ellen, too - we'll need to start preparing."
Jo nodded absently as Anna stood and left the room, but never took her eyes from Lorael. "I guess you're real proud of yourself," she bit out, not even caring that she sounded exactly like her mother.
Lorael stopped smiling and really looked at Jo, then sighed. "I'm sorry," she said. "But it was the only way, and you know it."
Jo grimaced. "Doesn't mean I have to like it," she said, feeling herself relenting against her will.
"No," Lorael replied. "But you do understand it, and that's what matters. We have a chance now, the best chance we're going to get, and I was the best person for the job."
Jo nodded and walked to the bathroom without saying anything. She wet a washcloth in the sink and took it back to Lorael.
"I'll be strong enough to clean myself in just a moment," Lorael said, when she saw what Jo had done.
"Just indulge me," Jo said firmly. "Trust me, this is easier than the alternative."
Lorael tilted her head, giving Jo access to her neck, and Jo wiped up the blood gently.
"What's the alternative?" Lorael asked as Jo worked silently.
"Me sulking for a week and refusing to talk to you," Jo replied, reluctantly smiling. "I hear I'm a champion sulker. If you don't believe me, just ask my mom."
"I'll take your word for it," Lorael said, smiling back, and Jo finished cleaning Lorael's skin in silence, doing her best to ignore the warmth of Lorael's body and the depth of the fear she had felt when she'd thought Lorael had been lost for good.
This was no time for feeling like this - too much was at stake. Jo kept repeating it, but she still could feel the worry. More concerning, she could feel the warmth the worry came from in the first place. Every time Lorael glanced her way, her heart would twitch, and she couldn't ignore it any longer. I'm not in love with an angel, she told herself firmly, hoping she'd convince herself if she kept repeating it. She focused on the other thought she couldn't get rid of, to distract herself. She settled down on the couch and pulled her knees up to her chest, locking her arms around her legs.
"Why is this worth it to you?" she asked in a hesitant voice, not looking at Lorael. "I know Anna said you all wanted to do the right thing, make up for what Zachariah has done wrong, but why are you risking your existence?"
Lorael sighed, and turned to look at a lamp across the room, obviously avoiding eye contact as much as Jo.
"During the last mission I was sent on, before Sarakiel and I found each other, I was ordered to kill a whole family," she said quietly. "They were one of the vessel bloodlines, and Zachariah wanted to control how many angelic vessels there were, but I didn't find that out until later. No one gave me a reason, they never did, and I didn't ask for one."
Jo kept her breathing steady, trying not to telegraph how tense she felt, waiting to find out if Lorael had done it, if she'd killed the family. Jo would forgive her, she realized, as the silence stretched out between them. She could forgive that, because she knew who Lorael was now, but the knowledge still made her feel a little guilty. The fact that Lorael had changed couldn't undo what she had done in the past.
"You don't have to tell me," Jo said, when it seemed as if Lorael wouldn't finish her story.
"No," Lorael replied with a sigh. "You should know this. I obeyed my orders, but the doubt had lodged itself firmly by then. The family had been no threat to anything that I could see; they weren't involved in any of the Seals or other angelic endeavors. When Sarakiel was assigned to me as a partner for my next mission, we slowly discovered that we were both questioning our superiors, and we decided to start finding out why orders were given and if God was truly still in control of the angelic leaders. When Castiel was recalled to heaven, we realized that the prophet was being controlled by Zachariah and just how serious the situation was, and began working on a way to fight back."
Jo reached out and pressed her hand to Lorael's shoulder. "I'm glad you questioned it," she said. Lorael took Jo's hand and held it, awkwardly, as if she'd never done such a uniquely human thing before. Jo supposed that hand-holding during a fight didn't really count.
"I am, too," Lorael said softly, her hair falling forward to cover her face in shadows. Jo tightened her fingers around Lorael's, and they didn't move again until much later.
Jo dreamt that night with a clarity she hadn't had since Anna quit dream-walking in her head. She woke up earlier than usual, groggy and disoriented and fucking confused. When she made it downstairs to get coffee from the kitchen, Dean was sitting at the table with his own mug of caffeine, looking pretty much how Jo felt. She managed to pour the rest of the coffee into a mug and join him at the table without scalding herself.
"Can't sleep?" Dean asked, his voice rough and tired.
"Strange dreams," Jo replied, curling her fingers around the warm coffee mug in her hands.
Dean looked up sharply. "Like, a freaky dude in a robe and scythe following you around, strange?"
"Fuck," Jo said, losing all interest in her coffee. "Yeah, exactly that kind of strange. I can still feel his eyes staring at me from under the hood. You think it means something?"
"I was hoping it didn't," Dean sighed. "That's so fucking typical, isn't it? I argued all day that I should get to go after Death, and then I dream about death coming after me all night."
"I didn't argue about getting to go after Death," Jo said, and Dean's reply was lost in the noise of glass shattering on the floor. They both turned and jumped up when they saw Missouri standing at the entrance to the kitchen, a broken plate in pieces on the floor in front of her. Jo grabbed Missouri to push her out of the room gently, carefully avoiding the glass, while Dean started picking up the mess.
"Are you okay?" she asked Missouri as softly as she could, and Missouri shook herself and seemed to come back from wherever she'd been.
"I'm fine," she said, "but you and Dean have a rough day ahead of you."
"Rough?" Castiel came walking down the hallway and stared at Missouri. Dean had finished with the glass on the floor and stood at the entrance to the kitchen, leaning against the wall, and when Castiel showed up he came closer, moving to Missouri's other side.
"Rough," Missouri confirmed. "They've got to go meet with Death, alone."
"What?" Ellen's voice joined Dean's in the hallway and Jo groaned inwardly. "That isn't part of the plan."
Missouri remained perfectly calm, which Jo really appreciated. "They've each got a powerful compulsion laid on their souls," she told Ellen. "I don't know exactly where it came from, but it's got to be them, or Death won't talk, and we'll lose our chance."
"Talk?" Dean asked. "Don't get me wrong, I haven't figured out how to fucking kill Death, but I don't think talking's on the agenda."
Missouri fixed him with a stern expression. "You'll get further with conversation in this case, Dean Winchester," she said. "So I suggest you practice your small talk."
Part Three