If You Will Go With Me [Part One]
Masterpost | Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Soundtrack | Art
It ended with a huge bang that changed everything about the world as Jo knew it, which was in no way her fault, but try convincing her mom of that.
The real story started earlier, obviously, long before anyone thought it would get so bad. In September, Ellen and Jo were hunting together again, and they heard from Bobby that those "damn fool Winchesters" (her mom's words, not Jo's, though she couldn't say she'd disagree at this point) had kick-started the apocalypse. They got to see it first hand when War got loose and started making trouble.
Pretty much right after that, Jo began having these weird dreams. They started out fairly normal, for her anyway - she'd be digging up a corpse to salt and burn, or just realizing she was naked on top of the bar at the old Roadhouse. Then the scene would change, always to something different, a forest one time and a desert or a city the next, and a pale young woman would be pointing out some kind of scene or event. Once she showed Jo a bar fight and another time they watched a giant dog systematically eating an entire flock of seagulls. Jo hoped like hell that the seagull-eating was some kind of creepy symbolism, and not a literal event.
Most often the woman showed Jo what she knew must be demons, but the surroundings were never specific enough for her to figure out if she might be able to find them while she was awake and actually do some good. The one time she did recognize exactly what she was seeing, it was a replay of War inciting the paranoia she almost hadn't lived through. That made it clear that the dreams were apocalypse-related, but Jo was still trying her best to ignore that.
The woman never said anything and Jo couldn't seem to speak either, even though she tried often, and each dream ended when Jo woke up just as the woman started to walk close to her, an intent and slightly nerve-wracking look on her face. Jo had one of the dreams almost every night for a month. They left her pretty unsettled and she had to work hard to keep her mom from noticing the black circles under her eyes. She couldn't make any sense of the things she was shown, couldn't find any reason behind the dreams, and that bothered her more than the actual dreaming did.
She kept having strange feelings creep over her in different places in the waking world, too, like parks or supermarkets. It was a cross between someone watching her, and an awareness of something out of place, only noticeable in the corners of her perception, like she'd catch it if she could just move her head fast enough. She didn't tell anyone, which might have been stupid, but her mom had enough worry about her as it was, and Jo didn't want to give Ellen any extra reasons to try and talk her out of hunting.
As a result of all the new weirdness in her life, Jo wasn't as surprised as she might have been when this nice, mild-looking soccer mom type jabbed her fingers at Jo's forehead as she was paying the cashier at a gas station one afternoon, and she suddenly jerked and appeared inside what looked like an old nursing home or hospital. Jo had her gun out in about two seconds, but the entire round she emptied into the woman's chest didn't do anything and she didn't react when Jo yelled christo, either. She just tutted and shook her head like she was someone's grandma and Jo was being a naughty kid.
"We don't have time for that, dear, I'm running late as it is." The woman stretched a little, cracking her back, and that's when Jo realized how oddly she moved, as if she didn't quite fit inside her body. If it was a demon, it was powerful enough that it hadn't flinched when Jo had tested it, which probably meant she was screwed anyway, so she stayed put.
The demon thing seemed satisfied that she wasn't going to run and started talking.
"Now here's the deal," it said, sounding like an alien trying to use slang for which it had no context. "I'm an angel of the lord. I know you know we exist, and you know I'm not a demon, so I expect you to take me at face value and listen up.
Jo listened, but it was more out of shock than belief.
"It's been clear for a while now," the angel-demon-thing said, "that the angels currently in charge of the Lucifer problem have let their judgment become clouded. They've lost sight of the heavenly purpose, and some have gotten stuck in the limitations and drives of their vessels."
Jo had no idea how to react - sure, the angels they'd heard about so far hadn't seemed like the peace and love types, or even the "won't kill you at the drop of a hat" types, except for the one that had rescued Dean when Lucifer rose, but Jo didn't have much hope that there were many like Castiel.
"What she means," drawled a new voice, and Jo jumped and turned to see a lanky, dark-skinned brunette lounging against the window in dirty jeans and a tank top, apparently not affected by the cool temperature. "Is that we've let those testosterone-laden fools handle things for far too long."
"Now, Lorael," admonished Soccer Mom. "The testosterone is not the real problem and you know it. You'll have to excuse her, Joanna, she's not used to acknowledging or expressing her emotions, yet."
Sounded like an old argument to Jo, and she tried to use the distraction to start edging nearer to the door so she'd be ready to run the second she got the chance. Soccer Mom didn't even blink, just waved her hand and the door disappeared. So much for that escape route. Lorael frowned at Jo.
"Don't you realize how serious this is?" she snarled. "We've been sending you visions for weeks now, preparing you!"
That brought Jo up short. "You're the ones sending me the wacked out dreams?" She stared kind of foolishly for a long moment. "Why?"
They shared a look and Soccer Mom took the conversation back under her control. "I know it's probably a shock, Joanna," she said calmly. "But we're going to stop the apocalypse, and we need your help. You're the right person for the job, and those visions were meant to give you an idea of what we're up against."
"Excuse me?" Jo started getting mad. These people actually expected her to fall for this shit? "I'm not particularly righteous, and definitely not a man, so unless you're telling me all that prophecy nonsense is wrong, I'm not an important figure in the apocalypse fight. How the hell do you know who I am, anyway? And don't call me Joanna; you're not my mother."
Soccer Mom sighed loudly. "I wish that prophecy had never seen the light of day," she complained. "Every time I try to recruit some help I have it thrown back in my face."
Lorael shook her head. "I told you we should have burned it a long time ago."
"Hey!" Jo yelled, her full courage returning when it looked like they might start arguing the point. "I need some damn answers, and I need them now. What makes you think I can stop the apocalypse?"
The two wom - angels shared another look and Lorael took over the exposition.
"The prophecy is just that - a prophecy. It's not set in stone, not entirely." She clenched her fists and slowly unfolded them, letting out a deep breath, making Jo wonder how long she'd been in her vessel to have picked up the habit of breathing, not to mention fist-clenching. "Interpreting words that were written down in one person's language and cultural context is a tricky thing, even for an angel. Just because someone writes the word "man" doesn't mean the person indicated is actually male, especially when it comes to biblical prophecy. And what gets put on the page is still just one version of the story, the one way out of many that the original vision could be interpreted."
"So you're saying it could be wrong?" Jo asked incredulously. "But Dean's already fulfilled half of it."
Soccer Mom shook her head. "Well, even if he is the "righteous man" who broke in hell, there's no guarantee that the rest of the prophecy also refers to him, or even that the person it refers to is the only one who can kill Lucifer."
"And more importantly," Lorael put in, "focusing on that one interpretation has blinded all of heaven to other options. Castiel is not the only angel to have doubts about Zachariah and heaven's current management, or the actual value in having heavenly peace on earth."
That had Jo sort of reeling. She wasn't cut out to handle a heavenly rebellion - this destiny stuff was Sam and Dean's deal, not hers, and to tell the truth, she didn't pay too much attention to the gossip Bobby gave to Ellen about the latest Winchester shenanigans unless it included a way for her to kick some demon ass. But if she could really help - and if these particular angels actually were telling the truth about not wanting to destroy humanity - she couldn't really afford to tell them to fuck off. If they'd even listen to her in the first place, which seemed unlikely.
"But why me?" Jo asked. "If it doesn't have to be Dean, why does it have to be me? Why not my mom, or you two, or someone else?"
Soccer Mom gave Lorael a look Jo couldn't decipher. "We're changing the rules," she said. "It doesn't have to be anyone, but we believe you have the skills to do this."
"We're not trying to say that you have a destiny," Lorael added, hands in her pockets and looking as far from Jo's idea of angelic as Jo thought it was possible to get. "But that's kind of the point - you know the background of the apocalypse, and you're a hunter."
"Most importantly," Soccer Mom said, "you're not part of the plan, the one that Zachariah has created and manipulated almost all of heaven into following. We're going to alter the future, and it's going to require humans and angels working together."
"Okay," Jo said. "If I can stop the apocalypse, I want to. But you're gonna have to explain all this to my mom if you want to escape this whole thing without getting your wings burned off. She's pretty protective of me and if I go missing for much longer, you aren't going to get on her good side." Jo didn't mention that they'd probably already gotten on Ellen's bad side just by talking to Jo and making her late to meet Ellen at the site of their latest hunt.
Lorael looked amused, like an army of over-protective mothers wouldn't bother her. Jo smirked a little on the inside, because the angel had never met Ellen Harvelle. Soccer Mom looked more understanding, and she smiled (stiffly, like she'd never done it before) and nodded.
"Of course," she said. "Let's go explain it all now."
+++
"Do you mean to tell me," Ellen yelled, "that you expect my daughter to swan off with you who the hell knows where to stop the apocalypse because those damn fool Winchesters can't seal the deal?"
Jo huddled back against the far wall of the barn where they'd found Ellen (the poltergeist had turned out to be a rat with a nasty temper), trying to avoid her attention. After a nice round of shotgun fire and holy water dousing, she'd calmed enough to listen to Lorael and Sarakiel (Soccer Mom, as it turned out) make their case.
Then the yelling started again. The angels let her shout without trying to interrupt, which sort of impressed Jo. Not many people knew enough to just let Ellen get it out of her system.
"Joanna Beth Harvelle, are you even listening to me?" Oh, great. Jo was on the chopping block now.
"Mom, I know it sounds kind of strange, but if there's any way I can actually help stop this thing, don't you think I should?" Jo started out slow, letting her mom think she might be persuaded to listen to her opinion. She'd found it worked about twenty-five percent of the time.
"Not by your damn self!" Ellen replied fiercely. "Not without backup that isn't a bunch of out of touch angels!"
"Not all of us are as clueless as you seem to think, Ellen." The new voice was quiet compared to Ellen's, but it resonated, breaking through the noise and making itself the most compelling sound in the room. Jo thought she'd gotten used to new people popping up everywhere with the day she'd had, but she still jumped and turned, and then almost jumped again, because the woman who'd been appearing in her dreams stood at the entrance to the barn. Her red hair fell around her shoulders, and she tugged a strand behind her ear as she spoke again.
"None of us can afford to fight alone any longer."
Lorael stepped forward and gave the new angel the most solemn hug Jo had ever seen, which seemed pretty odd. Angelic hugging didn't strike her as all that likely a pastime, solemn or not.
"Anael, it's about time you got here," Lorael said, glancing at Ellen. "I cannot be held responsible for my actions if this woman does not stop screaming at me."
Okay, that was it. Jo could insult her mom, Bobby could insult her mom, and the list ended there. "If you really want my help, smiting my mom isn't gonna get you anywhere."
"Jo," the newcomer said, looking exactly like she had in Jo's dreams - visitations, apparently - down to the jeans and dusty black boots. "There won't be any smiting, but this is important."
"Yeah, the apocalypse, I get it," Jo retorted. "I just wish you guys had sent clearer visions - I still don't have any idea what you want me to do."
Anael shook her head. "I guess I should have known better," she said. "I remember what it's like to have dreams you don't understand."
"Anael," Ellen said, experimentally, like she was trying to remember something. "The angel Anna that Dean and Sam rescued last year? They didn't know what had happened to you."
"That's me," Anael said. "And lots of things happened, but I'm here now, and we've got work to do."
"If you're an angel again, why on earth do you need help from us?" Ellen asked, a look of disbelief on her face. "Just go figure it out the angel way."
All three angels exchanged glances. "We're watched," Lorael said eventually. "Anael has some freedom of movement because the angels no longer have the ability to track her, but Sarakiel and I are still connected to the Host."
Anael nodded. "Any use of angelic grace is visible to Heaven, if anyone there cares to look. If Sarakiel and Lorael are found out, here on earth with human bodies and defying orders, we'll lose our only insight into what the angels are planning."
Which made sense, as far as it went, but Jo was about ready to lose it. It had been a long day, it was getting longer by the second, and she could tell her mom wouldn't be so polite for much longer.
"Is there anything specific you need from me right now?" she asked the three angels.
Sarakiel glanced at Anael and then spoke. "No," she said hesitantly. "We need to know that you will work with us to stop this catastrophe, but there are no specific tasks for you right now."
"Okay," Jo said, trying to work out her next step. "Then why don't you guys figure out exactly what you need from me next, and then come and tell me once you know what that is?"
Anael nodded. "But first, there are a few things I should explain."
Ellen snorted. "Sure thing, honey, but we're moving to a safer and more comfortable location before the storytelling."
Lorael made a motion toward Ellen, but stopped herself when Jo glared at her.
Jo sighed, and made her way to the barn's entrance. "We'll see you at the motel," she said, as Ellen joined her, figuring that since the angels had been stalking her for the past however long it had been, they could find their own way just fine. "Don't be late."
Lorael frowned, but Anael smiled and Jo found herself feeling a little better about all of this. Maybe there were some angels worth knowing.
+++
Jo twisted and turned that night, unable to sleep. Anna had said there would be no more dreams, but Jo remembered them too strongly to trust her subconscious not to create its own version with which to torment her.
Ellen slept soundly in the room's other double bed, and Jo wished she could wake her up to talk. She knew her mother wouldn't mind, but they had a long trip back home to the bar in the morning, and one of them would have to be awake enough to do the driving. It was always "the bar," even though it did have a name, because neither Ellen nor Jo could bring themselves to get too attached after losing the Roadhouse.
Jo sat up and hugged her knees to her chest. Now that some of the symbolism from her visions had been explained, they made more sense, and she went over it all again, trying to wrap her head around the new information. War had only been the first of the Horsemen to be released, and Anna believed the other three would follow soon. Sarakiel and Lorael were still working undercover in heaven to find out as much about the prophecy and all the related information as they could, but everything they'd learned so far indicated that stopping the rest of the Horsemen was the task they needed to focus on until a way to kill Lucifer became clear. Once the Horsemen were out in full force, Lucifer would have even more power and killing him would be next to impossible.
No one knew where the Horsemen were, of course, and that was the problem. Anna thought they were already on earth, as War had been, in hiding, and that was Jo's task now - watching for signs and trying to figure out where they were. Jo sighed. There were so many more possessions and other supernatural problems happening since Lucifer had risen that she and Ellen were already working harder than they had in years. Maybe splitting up was a good idea, although she had no idea how she'd convince her mother of that. Maybe they needed to start bringing in more hunters, team up with Sam and Dean - if they could convince other people to work with the Winchesters. At the very least, Jo would have to ask Ellen to start communicating with all the usual suspects, to get news from everywhere directly, instead of filtered through the news and other outlets run by people who didn't know anything about the supernatural parts of the world.
Things were going to change, though, no matter what and Jo felt a thrum of excitement running underneath her uncertainty. Maybe the circumstances weren't ideal, but she was finally getting an adventure.
The mix of anticipation and worry kept her up until dawn.
+++
Jo and Ellen made it back home without anything else strange happening, and a week went by, then two. Jo almost felt cheated when things continued on as they had before she'd started having angelic visions, but she could tell Ellen was relieved. Bored, and more restless than she could ever remember being, Jo researched constantly, looking for signs of the apocalypse, and then eventually for a hunt, any hunt, something that would get her out of the house and hopefully out of her head, too.
She finally found a case not too far away, and by that time Ellen was almost happy to send her off on her own. Jo could admit that when she wanted to be a brat, she really excelled at it, and she almost wouldn't have blamed her mom if Ellen had physically shoved her out of the house and into the car. Research was her least favorite part of the hunting gig, and it always had been. She didn't see the fun in going over details again and again when all she wanted was to accomplish something, save someone and kill a monster at the same time. She let her mind empty and relax during the drive, concentrating on the road and the music blaring from her crappy little speakers.
When she got to the address scrawled onto the paper containing her notes about the case, she pulled her attention back and focused on her surroundings, which didn't match the picture she'd had in her mind when she read about the problems the house had been reported to have. For one thing, it was clearly someone's home, with a cared-for yard and various toys scattered around on the porch. There weren't any cars in the driveway, or lights on in the house, but Jo still felt wary. Something was off - the house she'd come to investigate should have been old and unoccupied, continually on the market because of the problems anyone who purchased it soon had. There were several families who'd lived there with suspicious deaths in their histories, and this trip had been reconnaissance, to figure out exactly who the culprit was so she could put them to rest. She'd been suspecting a poltergeist or a really pissed off ghost, but she was fairly sure this was actually a trap, or above her pay grade, or possibly both.
That didn't stop her from getting out of the car to see exactly which option it was, though, and she ignored the voice in her head that sounded exactly like her mother, urging her to turn around and get back in the car.
Jo crept as quietly as she could to the edge of the property, hoping to slip into the back yard and approach the house itself from a less exposed angle. Her gun felt heavy in her hand and her instincts all said to run while she still could, but she was a hunter, goddamnit, and she wasn't going to leave until she knew what was going on. She made it to the back deck without encountering any trouble, and there still hadn't been any movement inside the house that she could see. Taking a deep but quiet breath, Jo crept up the wooden steps and around a large barbeque. She stopped when she reached a window, avoiding the glass sliding door that had been blocked off from the inside by what looked like a blanket, and crouched underneath the windowsill to plan her next move.
The voice, when it came, didn't really surprise her. She'd been hoping to at least make it inside the house before being noticed, but she'd known it would happen eventually.
"Well, well, well," it said, as Jo felt the tip of a knife hit the back of her neck. "Looks like my little idea worked."
Jo tried to turn her head, but the knife pushed threateningly against her skin.
"Ah ah," the voice said. "Drop the gun and push it away, then stand up slowly and walk over to the door. If you try and run, I'll slash your spinal cord in half."
Jo obeyed, walking calmly while she desperately tried to think of how to escape. She knew that if the demon, or whatever it was, got her inside the house, she'd have more trouble getting away. There was no telling how many accomplices her captor had, and now was the best time to make a run for it. She waited carefully until she was as close as she could get to the steps leading to freedom, then ducked her head and spun around, kicking out at the demon's legs. She felt the knife scrape her neck as the demon fell back, but it didn't draw blood, and as soon as she could, Jo ran down the steps and headed for her car.
She got about as far as the front driveway before the demon caught up and knocked her out cold.
When she woke up, her hands were tied behind her back, and her legs were securely fastened to the chair she sat on. Her eyes were uncovered, though, and she tried to take in as many details as she could. She was inside the house, the basement probably, given the low ceilings, and she could see a woman standing a few feet away, talking to a tall man who looked frustrated.
"I'm not going to tip them off by hurting their little friend before I have to," the woman said, and Jo recognized her voice - it was the demon that had captured her. "Let's keep them in the dark - " she paused and turned, then laughed. "Look who's awake."
"What the fuck do you want?" Jo asked, trying not to react to the taunting cast of the woman's voice.
"Jo, I'm so disappointed you're not happy to see me," the demon pouted. "I guess you're not used to seeing me in this body. I'll give you a hint - when we last met, I was wearing a Winchester. The tall one, to be precise."
"Doesn't matter," Jo bit out, having a flashback to Sam's mouth spitting out lies about her father. "Didn't catch your name back then, and I don't care anyway."
The demon frowned and started playing with the knife in her hand. "You can call me Meg," she said. "You'll remember it this time. I promise," and her teeth flashed in a grin while her eyes turned black.
Jo closed her own eyes and turned her head away. The panic was starting to rise up, and she knew she had to work fast to counter it. She focused on her hands, flexing her fingers to test the rope, and tried to think about anything other than demons and the apocalypse and her current predicament.
The demon, Meg, moved to her side and squatted in front of her, using one hand to tip Jo's face up, and when Jo still refused to open her eyes, the demon slapped her face viciously. Jo bit her lip hard enough to draw blood, and her eyes flew open, but she managed to keep from crying out.
"Look, princess," Meg said coldly. "You've been poking your nose into some places it doesn't belong, and I want to know why."
"I don't know what the hell you're talking about," Jo said, trying to be cocky, but mostly just sounding mad.
Meg laughed. "Oh, that's so cute. You don't think demons know how to use the internet?" Standing, she moved back a little and cocked her head at Jo. "You've been looking pretty hard for signs of the apocalypse."
"I'm writing a paper for school," Jo said, and then regretted it when Meg slapped her again, this time with the handle of her knife. It left a sharp ache in her jaw, and she felt tears welling up in her eyes. She closed them tightly. She was not going to cry in front of this demon, not if she could help it. She heard a rustling noise, and when her eyes opened, Lorael was standing in front of her, mouth set in a grim line, reaching two fingers toward her forehead. Jo had time to hear Meg scream in frustration, and then she was in the back seat of her own car, sitting next to Anna.
"What," Jo gasped, her arms and legs tingling now that they were free from the rope. Anna frowned with concern.
"I'm truly sorry, Jo, I had no idea Meg would be looking for signs of a resistance already," Anna said. "We should have taken more precautions."
Jo just nodded, and then realized the car was moving. "It's okay - wait, who's driving?" Anna nodded to the front seat, and Jo followed her gaze to see Lorael sitting there calmly, not touching the steering wheel, even though the car was speeding down a highway.
Jo laughed, a hysterical sound that almost tipped her from relief back to panic as the adrenaline flooding her system screamed for action. Anna gave her the concerned face again, and Jo pulled it together.
"We didn't want to leave your car behind, seeing as you're so attached to it," Lorael said in a brisk, business-like tone. "Now that we're away, you can take over. I find driving very boring." She disappeared and the car came to a stop at the side of the road on its own.
Jo grimaced. "Thanks for the rescue," she said to the space where Lorael had been. She didn't know why Lorael always seemed so grumpy, but she wasn't going to make an issue of it, not when she'd just been saved from a potentially fatal situation.
"We're going to have to get started sooner then I'd been planning," Anna said, ignoring Lorael's exit. "I'll be in touch, hopefully in a day or two - can you drive home?"
Jo got out of the back seat and stretched, cracking her back and cataloging her aches and pains. Nothing she couldn't drive with for a little while. "Yeah, I'll be fine," she said. "Seriously, though, thank you."
Anna just stared at her for a moment with a rueful look in her eyes. "I'm sorry," she said again, looking down. "I'm sorry you've been made a part of this. I've put some wards on your car, so you should be able to make it home safely."
"It's not your fault," Jo protested. "It sounded like Meg had been keeping an eye on me anyway, probably to make sure the Winchesters hadn't contacted me or my mom."
Anna sighed. "Either way, we're all going to have to be more careful."
Jo smiled. "No arguments here," she said. "Now get going, figure out the next move, and then let me know what it is, okay?"
Anna smiled back, and waited until Jo made it to the driver's seat before leaving in a rush of silent air. Jo drove back as quickly as she dared, feeling eyes on her back the whole way. She couldn't decide if being watched made her feel safer or not.
The next day, she had Bobby fax her the design for an anti-demonic possession tattoo and went to have it done right away. Things were heating up, and she couldn't afford to make any mistakes from here on out.
+++
Three days later, Anna and Lorael caught up with Jo on her way home from a simple salt-and-burn, one so easy that Ellen hadn't protested when she wanted to go alone. Jo knew it was only because she hadn't mentioned her near miss, but she didn't feel guilty about it. She was going to have to make sure Anna and Lorael didn't mention it, either. She'd needed something simple to get her over the fear of being captured again, held by a demon and made to feel helpless. She hated the slimy crawl of fear, of knowing she couldn't help herself, more than just about anything, and burning a vengeful ghost's bones had helped her more than she could say.
"Things are accelerating in heaven," Anna said as she appeared in Jo's rear-view mirror.
"Fucking christ!" Jo yelled, automatically reaching for the shotgun under the front passenger seat, and she was pretty sure that angelic interference was the only thing that kept them from running off the road. When she'd managed to calm down and concentrate on driving again, Lorael had joined Anna in the backseat.
Anna managed to look contrite. "I'm sorry, I should have remembered not to do that."
"No shit," Jo said, still a little breathless from panic. "Don't you guys have cell phones?"
"That’s not a bad idea," Anna mused, and Lorael frowned and elbowed Anna in the side.
"Zachariah is getting impatient," Lorael said. "We think it's time to start putting together a concrete plan. He won't be sitting still for much longer, and the Winchesters will be his first target, even with the sigils that hide them from angelic sight. Not to mention the demons and Lucifer."
"They won't be safe alone," Anna said, "and we could use their help to track down the Horsemen."
"Look," Jo said. "I can get in touch with the Winchesters, find out what's happening on their end of things. But I don't think they're going to believe me when I say that I've got my own angelic representatives telling me that everything they've been told for the past year was a lie."
Lorael frowned. "That's their problem, not ours. We don't really need them to finish this fight."
"We might," Jo retorted. "You've said it yourself - you have no idea how much of the prophecy is changeable and how much isn't, and realistically, subverting Zachariah's plan is going to take more than just us."
"I can convince them," Anna said, so quietly that Jo almost missed it. Lorael turned and stared curiously and Anna continued. "I can find Castiel."
Lorael kept staring at Anna, something like worry in her expression, looking more human than Jo had ever seen her before. Jo could tell she was missing something, but didn't really feel like she could ask. She'd already heard some of Anna's story as it pertained to the Winchesters, but Anna hadn't volunteered much more than that. Jo had the feeling that Lorael wasn't much for chit-chat or gossip, so she hadn't even tried talking to her.
"Okay," Jo replied instead. "That would probably help."
Anna shifted, as if she were preparing to stand. "I'll be back soon," she said, and disappeared.
Lorael shook her head, and then looked at Jo. "While she's gone, I should check in with Sarakiel."
Alone, Jo laughed at herself. It was still disconcerting when they did that popping in and out of thin air trick into regular rooms, much less her fucking car. She pulled over and called her mom to let her know she might be late getting back, then kept moving until she got tired. She could have made it home if she kept driving, but a motel room sounded like a better idea if her angelic guests returned, so she stopped two towns away from her destination and got a room. She paid with a fake credit card, one her mom didn't know about, and the faint tinge of guilt she usually had when she used it felt much weaker than it had the last time she'd done it.
She settled in with her laptop, using the wifi and some tricks she'd learned from Ash to access the few, carefully hidden discussion boards and help forums frequented by hunters, hoping to find mentions of anything that could be related to the Horsemen or Lucifer. Now that she knew Meg might be watching, she made sure to mask her trail as well as she could. Maybe she should have the laptop checked, too, just to make sure it wasn't tagged in some way.
She hadn't had any luck by the time Lorael found her there, and they both waited in silence. Jo had wished earlier for sweatpants and a cleaner top, but with Lorael standing in the room, she was grateful for her jeans and several shirt layers. Jo still felt as if she didn't quite know how to talk to Lorael, dramatic demon rescue or not, and Lorael seemed perfectly content to stare out the window. She still wore her jeans and tank top combo, but managed to make it look oddly formal. Her hair was much too long to be practical, and Jo found herself watching the dark strands that fell free and curled all the way down to Lorael's hips in something like envy. Her own hair was as long as she could get it, but she still had to keep it back most of the time if she wanted to be able to do anything. Jo suspected that Lorael's hair wouldn't dare shift out of place, and she wondered who Lorael was possessing, if her hair always behaved, too, and why she'd agreed to let an angel take control of her body.
When Anna returned, luckily just minutes later and finding Jo's motel room with no apparent difficulty, she was paler than usual. Lorael took one look at her, glared up at the ceiling for a second, and then started to speak.
"If he hurt you," she growled, and Anna looked up.
"No," she said. "Everything is fine. Castiel will talk to the Winchesters, and hopefully we'll all meet up later this week."
Lorael nodded and left abruptly, leaving Jo more confused than ever and seriously ready for some answers. She sat next to Anna on the edge of the bed and put on a firm expression.
"Okay, you really need to tell me what all of this is about. Why is talking to Castiel such a big deal? Isn't he one of the good angels?"
"He sold me out," Anna said. "Before he changed his mind and saved Dean, he got me re-captured by heaven."
"Oh," Jo said, not even knowing where to begin.
Anna laughed a tiny bit. "It's fine now, it really is. Sarakiel didn't let me stay in Zachariah's clutches for long, but Lorael is over-protective and impetuous and…" she broke off and laughed again.
"What's so funny?"
"I - I was wrong," Anna said, looking steadily at Jo even though her voice cracked on the words. "Wrong to think that I was the only one of us who felt, who wanted to feel. I told Castiel that he could never understand what it was like, but he and Lora and Sarakiel are proof that I was completely wrong."
"And it feels strange to call Lorael impetuous when she shouldn't be that at all," Jo said. Hell, she was still having trouble with the concept, and so far, she'd only met angels who did profess to have feelings, and something like free will.
Anna smiled. "Yes. Strange, but good - it makes this mission feel less lonely."
"Wait," Jo said. "Are you allowed to call her Lora?"
"Of course," Anna replied. "Aren't you?"
Jo shook her head, feeling a little strange about having asked the question at all. "I, uh, I haven't tried."
"You should," Anna said. "I don't think she'll mind. She's saved your life, formalities probably aren't necessary."
Jo shrugged. "Maybe." She didn't think Anna was right about that, but before she could argue, she thought of another question. "Why do you care?" she blurted out, not thinking of how it sounded until it was too late. She hurried to recover the conversation when Anna looked almost hurt.
"I - " Anna started to say, but Jo interrupted.
"I mean, how is it possible that there are angels who can feel?" she asked. "What about humanity makes you think we're worth saving? We've done some pretty fucked up things."
"No matter how badly humanity has acted in the past, you don't deserve annihilation," Anna replied. "And this situation, Lucifer and Michael and Zachariah - none of it is your fault. The angels made this mess, and we should clean it up."
"It still seems like an unpopular opinion for most angels to have," Jo said, watching Anna's rueful smile.
"I couldn't save my parents," Anna said after a moment. "My earthly ones, who raised me when I fell. They were killed by demons who were looking for me. My parents were good people - they didn't deserve to die like that."
"I'm sorry," Jo whispered, and Anna shrugged.
"I've made my peace with my life," she said. "But I want to make it possible for people like them to live on, and have families and futures and happiness, and keeping my other family from ruining the earth is the best way to do that. Even when I took back my grace, I still had my memories of being human, and that's something Zachariah can never take away from me."
Jo felt like the silence that followed was awkward, but she still didn't say anything to fill it. Anything she could say would just be inadequate. She did feel a little more connected to this whole crazy scheme of taking down the devil in a way she hadn't before. Even being tied up and yelled at by Meg hadn't brought things into such a clear picture. Angels were defying the will of Heaven to do the right thing, and she couldn't just treat this like a chance to prove herself or have an adventure. This was more important than that, and the thought made her switch to tactics.
"We need to find Meg," Jo said. "If she's worried enough about the research I was doing on the apocalypse and the Horsemen to kidnap and interrogate me, she must know something."
"Agreed," Anna replied. "Lora and I looked for her, after we rescued you, but we found nothing. She must be using Enochian sigils of some kind to avoid detection. It was only luck that we found you before she was able to use them to keep you hidden from our sight."
"Is there any way to get around the sigils?"
Anna shook her head. "That's why they're so useful - angels are completely blocked by them. Depending on which ones she's using, I might be able to counter some, if I was prepared beforehand with the correct counter-sigils."
"And we don't necessarily know which ones she's using, so you wouldn't be prepared," Jo said, nodding with understanding. "But humans aren't affected by them, right?"
"Well, no, a human couldn't be banished by one, but you could be blocked from angelic sight or otherwise affected indirectly, and you can use them."
Now that Jo found interesting. She stood up and pulled Anna from the bed.
"Can you teach me?" she asked. "Just the basics, nothing fancy."
Anna hesitated, and Jo met her gaze with pleading eyes.
"It's dangerous," Anna said slowly, "but I believe you're right. I'll teach you the basics."
Jo had always been a fast learner, and she picked up the design for a banishing sigil even more quickly than she'd been hoping, even if she didn't have to draw it in her own blood the way she would need to if she used it in a real situation. After Anna seemed satisfied at Jo's ability to draw the design with her eyes closed, left-handed and possibly tied up, she hesitated again, stumbling in the middle of a sentence.
"What?" Jo asked, looking up from the pile of used notebook paper surrounding her on the motel room floor. "Did I make a mistake that time?"
"No," Anna said, and then seemed to make up her mind about something. "There's a protective sigil I'd like to put on you, but it's dangerous, and I haven't ever used it on a human before. It would keep most sigils from affecting you," she paused and considered before going on. "Well, it's more that it makes you visible to angelic sight, even through a blocking shield, and there's another that might keep you safe from angelic power, but I think we should stick with the first one for now."
Jo nodded easily. "Okay, sure. Put it on me."
"It means you'll be visible to all angels, not just me," Anna continued as if Jo hadn't spoken. "I don't believe any of the angels even have you on their radar except for Sarakiel, Lorael and I, but it is a risk to make you so vulnerable to angels just to protect you from demons."
"I think demons are the more immediate problem right now," Jo said. "I can always get rid of it later, right?"
"You can," Anna admitted. "But it would be very painful."
"I can handle it."
"Okay, if you're sure," Anna said. "This part is going to hurt," she warned, pulling a knife out of her back jeans pocket.
Jo shrugged. "I can handle it," she repeated, even as she winced inwardly. Anna took Jo's right hand and cut a straight, shallow line about an inch long across her palm, and added more shapes until the blood welled in her hand, forming a strange circle that almost filled her entire palm. Jo kept stoic, biting her lip against the sting of the cuts into her flesh. When Anna finished, she pressed her own hand against Jo's bloody one. She met Jo's eyes and said "it's going to be worse for a moment," and burning pressure surged against Jo's palm. Her legs trembled a little and she closed her eyes against the tears threatening to escape.
After what seemed like minutes, Anna lifted her hand away from Jo's, and the pain and the blood receded, leaving behind a series of scars forming the sigil on her palm.
"Is the scar permanent?" Jo asked, frowning, then blinked in surprise. She hadn't really thought she cared that much about scarring.
Anna nodded. "It's as permanent as I can make it. It should let me find you anywhere."
Jo grinned, flexing her hand. "Let's hope we don't have any reason to test it," she said.
+++
She hadn't planned to jinx herself, but when Meg caught up with her the next day, Jo cursed her own stupidity even as she hoped like hell that the sigil would work. Anna was supposed to meet up with her at the bar in just a little while, and if Jo didn't make it, surely they'd assume the worst. Her mother would, that was certain.
Jo was confused as much as she was angry; why on earth did Meg seem to think she was so important? None of her research had turned up anything useful so far, and she hadn't even talked to Sam or Dean since the incident with War. She'd been getting gas, almost ready to head back home after leaving the motel where she'd spent the night after Anna left. When she walked inside the little convenience store to pay, the doors had slammed shut and both of the clerks' eyes had flashed black. They came at her together, and she'd only just managed to get one good hit before she ran, trying to get some distance. Now she was crouched in the miscellaneous items aisle, which was luckily where the salt was stored.
Jo finished pouring the salt in a circle around her little barricade of soda boxes and cursed herself for leaving her gun in the car. The demons skidded up to her spot and the tall one scoffed at her salt line, but they didn't cross it, seemingly content to wait. They looked like teenagers, skinny and innocent, and Jo had a moment of guilt, sure that they had only been possessed because of her. But she couldn't do anything about that now, and she closed off her sympathy to deal with the situation.
"What are you waiting for?" she asked, hoping to goad them into spilling something. "You can't take one little girl?"
They didn't take the bait, standing preternaturally still and not even looking at her.
"Great," she sighed, resting her head in her hands, sitting cross-legged. "Guess we'll just wait for the boss."
"Oh, you missed me," said Meg from where she stood at the entrance to the aisle. "I'm so glad."
Jo stood quickly, and the two demons guarding her stepped back to let Meg come closer.
"Fuck you," Jo snapped, too upset to try playing it cool. She wanted to be done with this, with always being needing to be rescued. She should be able to take care of herself, but Meg kept proving her wrong about that.
"I don't think so," Meg said, rolling her eyes. "And you might want to be a bit nicer to me, seeing as I've got your mommy locked up in a basement."
"No you don't," Jo bit out, but her heart was racing with fear and anger, and she couldn't quite convince herself that Meg was lying.
"So here's how this is going to go," Meg said, without acknowledging Jo's words. "You're going to sit down like a good girl and answer some questions, and then maybe I'll let you see your mom."
Jo sat, hating herself a little for complying.
Meg smiled with vicious pleasure. "Good job. Now, why are angels trying to keep you away from me?"
"I don't know," Jo said firmly. "Why do you keep kidnapping me?"
"Oh, you know something, princess, and don't think I won't get it out of you eventually, even if I have to pull your mother apart into dozens of tiny pieces." Meg glared at the two demons standing to either side of Jo. "Piss off until I call you back," she said, and they both walked to the store's entrance and stood just inside. Meg turned back to Jo.
"Well, the angels won't get you back this time - they can't even see this store at all, and they definitely can't get in." Meg crouched down and slid her knife up Jo's cheek, using it to push back the strands of hair that had escaped her ponytail to hang over her face. "Lucifer has a plan, and you aren't part of that plan, precious. You're new, and we don't like new players this late in the game. We've had this one mapped out from the start, and you don't fit in the bigger picture."
Jo's courage lifted a little, because who knew demons were that good at mixed metaphors, and she smiled. "Too bad," she said. "Sorry to cause so much trouble."
"Don't flatter yourself," Meg said. "You won't be any trouble."
Jo smirked at her, and used the hand she'd been sneaking closer and closer to Meg's legs to knock her over, snatching the knife. Meg lost her balance and fell, a shocked look on her face, and Jo didn't linger to enjoy it. She ran for the front door, but Meg grabbed her ankle and held on, stopping her in her tracks. The demons at the door didn't seem to either notice or care about what was happening, and Jo couldn't risk taking her gaze away from Meg to find out why. She used the handle of the knife to smash Meg's fingers from her leg, and then jumped back as Meg sprang to her feet with demonic speed.
"I've had enough of you," she growled, and lunged at Jo, who stepped aside and used Meg's momentum to slam her into the wall. The demon shook herself and stood up again, a trickle of blood on her temple.
"I think you have," a low voice said behind Jo, and she whirled to see Lorael standing there, her hair tied back and a long, silver sword in her hand. The sword seemed wildly out of place next to her casual jeans and grey t-shirt.
"What," Jo said helplessly, but then she saw Anna standing over the bodies of the now presumably demon-free convenience store clerks, grinning at her.
Meg looked at Lorael, then at her sword, and her mouth opened a second later, black smoke pouring out for what seemed like minutes. The body Meg had been possessing fell back, slumping lifeless to the floor.
"You did a good job holding her off," Lorael said to Jo, nodding with a more pleasant look on her face than Jo had seen before.
"Thank you," she stammered, and then slapped her hands on her thighs to get it together. "Do you - is my mom okay?"
"She's fine," Lorael said, turning to walk outside, motioning for Jo to follow. "I've been keeping an eye on her, and when Meg sent demons after her, we figured you were probably in danger, too. Anna found you quickly due to the sigil on your hand."
"It's lucky we did that."
Lorael stopped walking and looked directly at Jo. "Yes, it is," she said, "but your mother managed to fight off almost all the demons sent after her before I stepped in, and I can see that you would have done so as well. You are more than a match for them."
Jo stood, staring stunned at Lorael. "Thank you," she said again. Lorael pressed a hand to Jo's shoulder, a fleeting touch that felt heavier than it actually was, and then started walking again. Jo followed, and grabbed Anna's hand as she joined them at the entrance to the store. "Thank you," she told Anna, and then winced when she heard her mother's voice.
"Joanna Beth." Ellen stood in front of Jo's car, arms crossed, a calm and therefore dangerous expression on her face.
Jo looked at Lorael and Anna. "I'd better ride home with her, but we'll talk tonight, okay?"
Anna nodded gravely, and they both blinked out of sight.
Jo meekly tossed her mother the car keys, and Ellen drove in silence, her lips pressed tightly together. Jo curled into herself in the passenger seat, doing her to best to be quiet as well, and so neither of them said a word until they'd gotten home. Ellen waited for Jo to get all the way inside the bar, closing the door behind her, before she finally spoke.
"That's it, Joanna," she said. "You have to tell the angels that you're out of this."
"I can't," Jo protested. "Don't you understand? They need my help, and it's more important now than ever."
"I've been pretty understanding up until now," Ellen shot back. "You can't tell me you think this is still a good idea. Look at what almost happened to you!"
"The key word there is almost, mom," Jo said as steadily as she could. "The fact that Meg is so determined to keep me out of this is a clear sign that this is a good idea."
Ellen sat heavily, dropping her head onto her arms, elbows resting on the tabletop. "I never get to be selfish," she muttered, so quietly that Jo had to strain to make out the words.
Jo didn't know how to respond. It was true after all - Ellen had lost her husband, her home and her livelihood, all while fighting the same evil they faced now, and Jo couldn't blame her for not wanting her daughter to be caught up in it, too. But she couldn't step away now, either. She could feel it down in her bones, a certainty, loud and insistent, telling her that she had to see this through.
"I just," Jo started, then stopped. "I have to do this. I don't know what to say to make you understand, but I know this is the right thing to do. And I know I can do it. I have to do it."
Ellen laughed darkly. "Right, maybe. That doesn't mean it won't kill you anyway."
Jo sat down next to her mother, and didn't protest when Ellen took her hand, pressing it between both of her own.
"I am so proud of you, of the person you've grown to be," Ellen whispered. Her eyes glittered, and Jo still hated to see her mother cry. "And I almost hate you at the same time. But that's pretty hypocritical of me, because I'd be saying and doing the same thing if I were you."
"I'm sorry it can't be easier," Jo said, her own eyes stinging.
"It's not really your fault," Ellen answered. "You're stubborn like your father."
Now that made Jo laugh. "You mean I'm stubborn like you," she said, taking her hand out of Ellen's and poking her in the side.
"And like me," Ellen agreed. "You didn't have a chance."
Jo slumped over to lean on her mother's shoulder, feeling safe and grown-up and slightly off-kilter, like she didn't quite have a handle on what she was doing but was forging ahead anyway. Maybe that was what being responsible for yourself always felt like, no matter how long you'd been doing it.
"I could use some help," she admitted out loud, more to herself than to Ellen.
"Is it the kind of help I can provide?" Ellen asked.
"Maybe," Jo replied. "Do you know anyone who does magic and isn't evil?"
"That's a tough one. What do you need magic for?"
Jo sighed. "Well, I guess it doesn't have to be magic, but I want to know what Meg is up to, and she's hidden herself pretty well from the angels, but I thought she might not have thought to defend herself against a different kind of spying."
"I might know someone," Ellen said, and that was how Jo met Missouri Mosley.
When Jo and Ellen arrived in Lawrence the next day and knocked on Missouri's door, she answered, took one look at them, and shook her head.
"Another one?" she said cryptically. "My luck ran out a long time ago, I guess."
Ellen just smiled. "It's nice to see you, too, Missouri."
Missouri smiled back, and then stepped to the side and motioned for them to enter the house. "Well, come on in," she said, "and tell me all about the apocalypse."
Part Two
It ended with a huge bang that changed everything about the world as Jo knew it, which was in no way her fault, but try convincing her mom of that.
The real story started earlier, obviously, long before anyone thought it would get so bad. In September, Ellen and Jo were hunting together again, and they heard from Bobby that those "damn fool Winchesters" (her mom's words, not Jo's, though she couldn't say she'd disagree at this point) had kick-started the apocalypse. They got to see it first hand when War got loose and started making trouble.
Pretty much right after that, Jo began having these weird dreams. They started out fairly normal, for her anyway - she'd be digging up a corpse to salt and burn, or just realizing she was naked on top of the bar at the old Roadhouse. Then the scene would change, always to something different, a forest one time and a desert or a city the next, and a pale young woman would be pointing out some kind of scene or event. Once she showed Jo a bar fight and another time they watched a giant dog systematically eating an entire flock of seagulls. Jo hoped like hell that the seagull-eating was some kind of creepy symbolism, and not a literal event.
Most often the woman showed Jo what she knew must be demons, but the surroundings were never specific enough for her to figure out if she might be able to find them while she was awake and actually do some good. The one time she did recognize exactly what she was seeing, it was a replay of War inciting the paranoia she almost hadn't lived through. That made it clear that the dreams were apocalypse-related, but Jo was still trying her best to ignore that.
The woman never said anything and Jo couldn't seem to speak either, even though she tried often, and each dream ended when Jo woke up just as the woman started to walk close to her, an intent and slightly nerve-wracking look on her face. Jo had one of the dreams almost every night for a month. They left her pretty unsettled and she had to work hard to keep her mom from noticing the black circles under her eyes. She couldn't make any sense of the things she was shown, couldn't find any reason behind the dreams, and that bothered her more than the actual dreaming did.
She kept having strange feelings creep over her in different places in the waking world, too, like parks or supermarkets. It was a cross between someone watching her, and an awareness of something out of place, only noticeable in the corners of her perception, like she'd catch it if she could just move her head fast enough. She didn't tell anyone, which might have been stupid, but her mom had enough worry about her as it was, and Jo didn't want to give Ellen any extra reasons to try and talk her out of hunting.
As a result of all the new weirdness in her life, Jo wasn't as surprised as she might have been when this nice, mild-looking soccer mom type jabbed her fingers at Jo's forehead as she was paying the cashier at a gas station one afternoon, and she suddenly jerked and appeared inside what looked like an old nursing home or hospital. Jo had her gun out in about two seconds, but the entire round she emptied into the woman's chest didn't do anything and she didn't react when Jo yelled christo, either. She just tutted and shook her head like she was someone's grandma and Jo was being a naughty kid.
"We don't have time for that, dear, I'm running late as it is." The woman stretched a little, cracking her back, and that's when Jo realized how oddly she moved, as if she didn't quite fit inside her body. If it was a demon, it was powerful enough that it hadn't flinched when Jo had tested it, which probably meant she was screwed anyway, so she stayed put.
The demon thing seemed satisfied that she wasn't going to run and started talking.
"Now here's the deal," it said, sounding like an alien trying to use slang for which it had no context. "I'm an angel of the lord. I know you know we exist, and you know I'm not a demon, so I expect you to take me at face value and listen up.
Jo listened, but it was more out of shock than belief.
"It's been clear for a while now," the angel-demon-thing said, "that the angels currently in charge of the Lucifer problem have let their judgment become clouded. They've lost sight of the heavenly purpose, and some have gotten stuck in the limitations and drives of their vessels."
Jo had no idea how to react - sure, the angels they'd heard about so far hadn't seemed like the peace and love types, or even the "won't kill you at the drop of a hat" types, except for the one that had rescued Dean when Lucifer rose, but Jo didn't have much hope that there were many like Castiel.
"What she means," drawled a new voice, and Jo jumped and turned to see a lanky, dark-skinned brunette lounging against the window in dirty jeans and a tank top, apparently not affected by the cool temperature. "Is that we've let those testosterone-laden fools handle things for far too long."
"Now, Lorael," admonished Soccer Mom. "The testosterone is not the real problem and you know it. You'll have to excuse her, Joanna, she's not used to acknowledging or expressing her emotions, yet."
Sounded like an old argument to Jo, and she tried to use the distraction to start edging nearer to the door so she'd be ready to run the second she got the chance. Soccer Mom didn't even blink, just waved her hand and the door disappeared. So much for that escape route. Lorael frowned at Jo.
"Don't you realize how serious this is?" she snarled. "We've been sending you visions for weeks now, preparing you!"
That brought Jo up short. "You're the ones sending me the wacked out dreams?" She stared kind of foolishly for a long moment. "Why?"
They shared a look and Soccer Mom took the conversation back under her control. "I know it's probably a shock, Joanna," she said calmly. "But we're going to stop the apocalypse, and we need your help. You're the right person for the job, and those visions were meant to give you an idea of what we're up against."
"Excuse me?" Jo started getting mad. These people actually expected her to fall for this shit? "I'm not particularly righteous, and definitely not a man, so unless you're telling me all that prophecy nonsense is wrong, I'm not an important figure in the apocalypse fight. How the hell do you know who I am, anyway? And don't call me Joanna; you're not my mother."
Soccer Mom sighed loudly. "I wish that prophecy had never seen the light of day," she complained. "Every time I try to recruit some help I have it thrown back in my face."
Lorael shook her head. "I told you we should have burned it a long time ago."
"Hey!" Jo yelled, her full courage returning when it looked like they might start arguing the point. "I need some damn answers, and I need them now. What makes you think I can stop the apocalypse?"
The two wom - angels shared another look and Lorael took over the exposition.
"The prophecy is just that - a prophecy. It's not set in stone, not entirely." She clenched her fists and slowly unfolded them, letting out a deep breath, making Jo wonder how long she'd been in her vessel to have picked up the habit of breathing, not to mention fist-clenching. "Interpreting words that were written down in one person's language and cultural context is a tricky thing, even for an angel. Just because someone writes the word "man" doesn't mean the person indicated is actually male, especially when it comes to biblical prophecy. And what gets put on the page is still just one version of the story, the one way out of many that the original vision could be interpreted."
"So you're saying it could be wrong?" Jo asked incredulously. "But Dean's already fulfilled half of it."
Soccer Mom shook her head. "Well, even if he is the "righteous man" who broke in hell, there's no guarantee that the rest of the prophecy also refers to him, or even that the person it refers to is the only one who can kill Lucifer."
"And more importantly," Lorael put in, "focusing on that one interpretation has blinded all of heaven to other options. Castiel is not the only angel to have doubts about Zachariah and heaven's current management, or the actual value in having heavenly peace on earth."
That had Jo sort of reeling. She wasn't cut out to handle a heavenly rebellion - this destiny stuff was Sam and Dean's deal, not hers, and to tell the truth, she didn't pay too much attention to the gossip Bobby gave to Ellen about the latest Winchester shenanigans unless it included a way for her to kick some demon ass. But if she could really help - and if these particular angels actually were telling the truth about not wanting to destroy humanity - she couldn't really afford to tell them to fuck off. If they'd even listen to her in the first place, which seemed unlikely.
"But why me?" Jo asked. "If it doesn't have to be Dean, why does it have to be me? Why not my mom, or you two, or someone else?"
Soccer Mom gave Lorael a look Jo couldn't decipher. "We're changing the rules," she said. "It doesn't have to be anyone, but we believe you have the skills to do this."
"We're not trying to say that you have a destiny," Lorael added, hands in her pockets and looking as far from Jo's idea of angelic as Jo thought it was possible to get. "But that's kind of the point - you know the background of the apocalypse, and you're a hunter."
"Most importantly," Soccer Mom said, "you're not part of the plan, the one that Zachariah has created and manipulated almost all of heaven into following. We're going to alter the future, and it's going to require humans and angels working together."
"Okay," Jo said. "If I can stop the apocalypse, I want to. But you're gonna have to explain all this to my mom if you want to escape this whole thing without getting your wings burned off. She's pretty protective of me and if I go missing for much longer, you aren't going to get on her good side." Jo didn't mention that they'd probably already gotten on Ellen's bad side just by talking to Jo and making her late to meet Ellen at the site of their latest hunt.
Lorael looked amused, like an army of over-protective mothers wouldn't bother her. Jo smirked a little on the inside, because the angel had never met Ellen Harvelle. Soccer Mom looked more understanding, and she smiled (stiffly, like she'd never done it before) and nodded.
"Of course," she said. "Let's go explain it all now."
+++
"Do you mean to tell me," Ellen yelled, "that you expect my daughter to swan off with you who the hell knows where to stop the apocalypse because those damn fool Winchesters can't seal the deal?"
Jo huddled back against the far wall of the barn where they'd found Ellen (the poltergeist had turned out to be a rat with a nasty temper), trying to avoid her attention. After a nice round of shotgun fire and holy water dousing, she'd calmed enough to listen to Lorael and Sarakiel (Soccer Mom, as it turned out) make their case.
Then the yelling started again. The angels let her shout without trying to interrupt, which sort of impressed Jo. Not many people knew enough to just let Ellen get it out of her system.
"Joanna Beth Harvelle, are you even listening to me?" Oh, great. Jo was on the chopping block now.
"Mom, I know it sounds kind of strange, but if there's any way I can actually help stop this thing, don't you think I should?" Jo started out slow, letting her mom think she might be persuaded to listen to her opinion. She'd found it worked about twenty-five percent of the time.
"Not by your damn self!" Ellen replied fiercely. "Not without backup that isn't a bunch of out of touch angels!"
"Not all of us are as clueless as you seem to think, Ellen." The new voice was quiet compared to Ellen's, but it resonated, breaking through the noise and making itself the most compelling sound in the room. Jo thought she'd gotten used to new people popping up everywhere with the day she'd had, but she still jumped and turned, and then almost jumped again, because the woman who'd been appearing in her dreams stood at the entrance to the barn. Her red hair fell around her shoulders, and she tugged a strand behind her ear as she spoke again.
"None of us can afford to fight alone any longer."
Lorael stepped forward and gave the new angel the most solemn hug Jo had ever seen, which seemed pretty odd. Angelic hugging didn't strike her as all that likely a pastime, solemn or not.
"Anael, it's about time you got here," Lorael said, glancing at Ellen. "I cannot be held responsible for my actions if this woman does not stop screaming at me."
Okay, that was it. Jo could insult her mom, Bobby could insult her mom, and the list ended there. "If you really want my help, smiting my mom isn't gonna get you anywhere."
"Jo," the newcomer said, looking exactly like she had in Jo's dreams - visitations, apparently - down to the jeans and dusty black boots. "There won't be any smiting, but this is important."
"Yeah, the apocalypse, I get it," Jo retorted. "I just wish you guys had sent clearer visions - I still don't have any idea what you want me to do."
Anael shook her head. "I guess I should have known better," she said. "I remember what it's like to have dreams you don't understand."
"Anael," Ellen said, experimentally, like she was trying to remember something. "The angel Anna that Dean and Sam rescued last year? They didn't know what had happened to you."
"That's me," Anael said. "And lots of things happened, but I'm here now, and we've got work to do."
"If you're an angel again, why on earth do you need help from us?" Ellen asked, a look of disbelief on her face. "Just go figure it out the angel way."
All three angels exchanged glances. "We're watched," Lorael said eventually. "Anael has some freedom of movement because the angels no longer have the ability to track her, but Sarakiel and I are still connected to the Host."
Anael nodded. "Any use of angelic grace is visible to Heaven, if anyone there cares to look. If Sarakiel and Lorael are found out, here on earth with human bodies and defying orders, we'll lose our only insight into what the angels are planning."
Which made sense, as far as it went, but Jo was about ready to lose it. It had been a long day, it was getting longer by the second, and she could tell her mom wouldn't be so polite for much longer.
"Is there anything specific you need from me right now?" she asked the three angels.
Sarakiel glanced at Anael and then spoke. "No," she said hesitantly. "We need to know that you will work with us to stop this catastrophe, but there are no specific tasks for you right now."
"Okay," Jo said, trying to work out her next step. "Then why don't you guys figure out exactly what you need from me next, and then come and tell me once you know what that is?"
Anael nodded. "But first, there are a few things I should explain."
Ellen snorted. "Sure thing, honey, but we're moving to a safer and more comfortable location before the storytelling."
Lorael made a motion toward Ellen, but stopped herself when Jo glared at her.
Jo sighed, and made her way to the barn's entrance. "We'll see you at the motel," she said, as Ellen joined her, figuring that since the angels had been stalking her for the past however long it had been, they could find their own way just fine. "Don't be late."
Lorael frowned, but Anael smiled and Jo found herself feeling a little better about all of this. Maybe there were some angels worth knowing.
+++
Jo twisted and turned that night, unable to sleep. Anna had said there would be no more dreams, but Jo remembered them too strongly to trust her subconscious not to create its own version with which to torment her.
Ellen slept soundly in the room's other double bed, and Jo wished she could wake her up to talk. She knew her mother wouldn't mind, but they had a long trip back home to the bar in the morning, and one of them would have to be awake enough to do the driving. It was always "the bar," even though it did have a name, because neither Ellen nor Jo could bring themselves to get too attached after losing the Roadhouse.
Jo sat up and hugged her knees to her chest. Now that some of the symbolism from her visions had been explained, they made more sense, and she went over it all again, trying to wrap her head around the new information. War had only been the first of the Horsemen to be released, and Anna believed the other three would follow soon. Sarakiel and Lorael were still working undercover in heaven to find out as much about the prophecy and all the related information as they could, but everything they'd learned so far indicated that stopping the rest of the Horsemen was the task they needed to focus on until a way to kill Lucifer became clear. Once the Horsemen were out in full force, Lucifer would have even more power and killing him would be next to impossible.
No one knew where the Horsemen were, of course, and that was the problem. Anna thought they were already on earth, as War had been, in hiding, and that was Jo's task now - watching for signs and trying to figure out where they were. Jo sighed. There were so many more possessions and other supernatural problems happening since Lucifer had risen that she and Ellen were already working harder than they had in years. Maybe splitting up was a good idea, although she had no idea how she'd convince her mother of that. Maybe they needed to start bringing in more hunters, team up with Sam and Dean - if they could convince other people to work with the Winchesters. At the very least, Jo would have to ask Ellen to start communicating with all the usual suspects, to get news from everywhere directly, instead of filtered through the news and other outlets run by people who didn't know anything about the supernatural parts of the world.
Things were going to change, though, no matter what and Jo felt a thrum of excitement running underneath her uncertainty. Maybe the circumstances weren't ideal, but she was finally getting an adventure.
The mix of anticipation and worry kept her up until dawn.
+++
Jo and Ellen made it back home without anything else strange happening, and a week went by, then two. Jo almost felt cheated when things continued on as they had before she'd started having angelic visions, but she could tell Ellen was relieved. Bored, and more restless than she could ever remember being, Jo researched constantly, looking for signs of the apocalypse, and then eventually for a hunt, any hunt, something that would get her out of the house and hopefully out of her head, too.
She finally found a case not too far away, and by that time Ellen was almost happy to send her off on her own. Jo could admit that when she wanted to be a brat, she really excelled at it, and she almost wouldn't have blamed her mom if Ellen had physically shoved her out of the house and into the car. Research was her least favorite part of the hunting gig, and it always had been. She didn't see the fun in going over details again and again when all she wanted was to accomplish something, save someone and kill a monster at the same time. She let her mind empty and relax during the drive, concentrating on the road and the music blaring from her crappy little speakers.
When she got to the address scrawled onto the paper containing her notes about the case, she pulled her attention back and focused on her surroundings, which didn't match the picture she'd had in her mind when she read about the problems the house had been reported to have. For one thing, it was clearly someone's home, with a cared-for yard and various toys scattered around on the porch. There weren't any cars in the driveway, or lights on in the house, but Jo still felt wary. Something was off - the house she'd come to investigate should have been old and unoccupied, continually on the market because of the problems anyone who purchased it soon had. There were several families who'd lived there with suspicious deaths in their histories, and this trip had been reconnaissance, to figure out exactly who the culprit was so she could put them to rest. She'd been suspecting a poltergeist or a really pissed off ghost, but she was fairly sure this was actually a trap, or above her pay grade, or possibly both.
That didn't stop her from getting out of the car to see exactly which option it was, though, and she ignored the voice in her head that sounded exactly like her mother, urging her to turn around and get back in the car.
Jo crept as quietly as she could to the edge of the property, hoping to slip into the back yard and approach the house itself from a less exposed angle. Her gun felt heavy in her hand and her instincts all said to run while she still could, but she was a hunter, goddamnit, and she wasn't going to leave until she knew what was going on. She made it to the back deck without encountering any trouble, and there still hadn't been any movement inside the house that she could see. Taking a deep but quiet breath, Jo crept up the wooden steps and around a large barbeque. She stopped when she reached a window, avoiding the glass sliding door that had been blocked off from the inside by what looked like a blanket, and crouched underneath the windowsill to plan her next move.
The voice, when it came, didn't really surprise her. She'd been hoping to at least make it inside the house before being noticed, but she'd known it would happen eventually.
"Well, well, well," it said, as Jo felt the tip of a knife hit the back of her neck. "Looks like my little idea worked."
Jo tried to turn her head, but the knife pushed threateningly against her skin.
"Ah ah," the voice said. "Drop the gun and push it away, then stand up slowly and walk over to the door. If you try and run, I'll slash your spinal cord in half."
Jo obeyed, walking calmly while she desperately tried to think of how to escape. She knew that if the demon, or whatever it was, got her inside the house, she'd have more trouble getting away. There was no telling how many accomplices her captor had, and now was the best time to make a run for it. She waited carefully until she was as close as she could get to the steps leading to freedom, then ducked her head and spun around, kicking out at the demon's legs. She felt the knife scrape her neck as the demon fell back, but it didn't draw blood, and as soon as she could, Jo ran down the steps and headed for her car.
She got about as far as the front driveway before the demon caught up and knocked her out cold.
When she woke up, her hands were tied behind her back, and her legs were securely fastened to the chair she sat on. Her eyes were uncovered, though, and she tried to take in as many details as she could. She was inside the house, the basement probably, given the low ceilings, and she could see a woman standing a few feet away, talking to a tall man who looked frustrated.
"I'm not going to tip them off by hurting their little friend before I have to," the woman said, and Jo recognized her voice - it was the demon that had captured her. "Let's keep them in the dark - " she paused and turned, then laughed. "Look who's awake."
"What the fuck do you want?" Jo asked, trying not to react to the taunting cast of the woman's voice.
"Jo, I'm so disappointed you're not happy to see me," the demon pouted. "I guess you're not used to seeing me in this body. I'll give you a hint - when we last met, I was wearing a Winchester. The tall one, to be precise."
"Doesn't matter," Jo bit out, having a flashback to Sam's mouth spitting out lies about her father. "Didn't catch your name back then, and I don't care anyway."
The demon frowned and started playing with the knife in her hand. "You can call me Meg," she said. "You'll remember it this time. I promise," and her teeth flashed in a grin while her eyes turned black.
Jo closed her own eyes and turned her head away. The panic was starting to rise up, and she knew she had to work fast to counter it. She focused on her hands, flexing her fingers to test the rope, and tried to think about anything other than demons and the apocalypse and her current predicament.
The demon, Meg, moved to her side and squatted in front of her, using one hand to tip Jo's face up, and when Jo still refused to open her eyes, the demon slapped her face viciously. Jo bit her lip hard enough to draw blood, and her eyes flew open, but she managed to keep from crying out.
"Look, princess," Meg said coldly. "You've been poking your nose into some places it doesn't belong, and I want to know why."
"I don't know what the hell you're talking about," Jo said, trying to be cocky, but mostly just sounding mad.
Meg laughed. "Oh, that's so cute. You don't think demons know how to use the internet?" Standing, she moved back a little and cocked her head at Jo. "You've been looking pretty hard for signs of the apocalypse."
"I'm writing a paper for school," Jo said, and then regretted it when Meg slapped her again, this time with the handle of her knife. It left a sharp ache in her jaw, and she felt tears welling up in her eyes. She closed them tightly. She was not going to cry in front of this demon, not if she could help it. She heard a rustling noise, and when her eyes opened, Lorael was standing in front of her, mouth set in a grim line, reaching two fingers toward her forehead. Jo had time to hear Meg scream in frustration, and then she was in the back seat of her own car, sitting next to Anna.
"What," Jo gasped, her arms and legs tingling now that they were free from the rope. Anna frowned with concern.
"I'm truly sorry, Jo, I had no idea Meg would be looking for signs of a resistance already," Anna said. "We should have taken more precautions."
Jo just nodded, and then realized the car was moving. "It's okay - wait, who's driving?" Anna nodded to the front seat, and Jo followed her gaze to see Lorael sitting there calmly, not touching the steering wheel, even though the car was speeding down a highway.
Jo laughed, a hysterical sound that almost tipped her from relief back to panic as the adrenaline flooding her system screamed for action. Anna gave her the concerned face again, and Jo pulled it together.
"We didn't want to leave your car behind, seeing as you're so attached to it," Lorael said in a brisk, business-like tone. "Now that we're away, you can take over. I find driving very boring." She disappeared and the car came to a stop at the side of the road on its own.
Jo grimaced. "Thanks for the rescue," she said to the space where Lorael had been. She didn't know why Lorael always seemed so grumpy, but she wasn't going to make an issue of it, not when she'd just been saved from a potentially fatal situation.
"We're going to have to get started sooner then I'd been planning," Anna said, ignoring Lorael's exit. "I'll be in touch, hopefully in a day or two - can you drive home?"
Jo got out of the back seat and stretched, cracking her back and cataloging her aches and pains. Nothing she couldn't drive with for a little while. "Yeah, I'll be fine," she said. "Seriously, though, thank you."
Anna just stared at her for a moment with a rueful look in her eyes. "I'm sorry," she said again, looking down. "I'm sorry you've been made a part of this. I've put some wards on your car, so you should be able to make it home safely."
"It's not your fault," Jo protested. "It sounded like Meg had been keeping an eye on me anyway, probably to make sure the Winchesters hadn't contacted me or my mom."
Anna sighed. "Either way, we're all going to have to be more careful."
Jo smiled. "No arguments here," she said. "Now get going, figure out the next move, and then let me know what it is, okay?"
Anna smiled back, and waited until Jo made it to the driver's seat before leaving in a rush of silent air. Jo drove back as quickly as she dared, feeling eyes on her back the whole way. She couldn't decide if being watched made her feel safer or not.
The next day, she had Bobby fax her the design for an anti-demonic possession tattoo and went to have it done right away. Things were heating up, and she couldn't afford to make any mistakes from here on out.
+++
Three days later, Anna and Lorael caught up with Jo on her way home from a simple salt-and-burn, one so easy that Ellen hadn't protested when she wanted to go alone. Jo knew it was only because she hadn't mentioned her near miss, but she didn't feel guilty about it. She was going to have to make sure Anna and Lorael didn't mention it, either. She'd needed something simple to get her over the fear of being captured again, held by a demon and made to feel helpless. She hated the slimy crawl of fear, of knowing she couldn't help herself, more than just about anything, and burning a vengeful ghost's bones had helped her more than she could say.
"Things are accelerating in heaven," Anna said as she appeared in Jo's rear-view mirror.
"Fucking christ!" Jo yelled, automatically reaching for the shotgun under the front passenger seat, and she was pretty sure that angelic interference was the only thing that kept them from running off the road. When she'd managed to calm down and concentrate on driving again, Lorael had joined Anna in the backseat.
Anna managed to look contrite. "I'm sorry, I should have remembered not to do that."
"No shit," Jo said, still a little breathless from panic. "Don't you guys have cell phones?"
"That’s not a bad idea," Anna mused, and Lorael frowned and elbowed Anna in the side.
"Zachariah is getting impatient," Lorael said. "We think it's time to start putting together a concrete plan. He won't be sitting still for much longer, and the Winchesters will be his first target, even with the sigils that hide them from angelic sight. Not to mention the demons and Lucifer."
"They won't be safe alone," Anna said, "and we could use their help to track down the Horsemen."
"Look," Jo said. "I can get in touch with the Winchesters, find out what's happening on their end of things. But I don't think they're going to believe me when I say that I've got my own angelic representatives telling me that everything they've been told for the past year was a lie."
Lorael frowned. "That's their problem, not ours. We don't really need them to finish this fight."
"We might," Jo retorted. "You've said it yourself - you have no idea how much of the prophecy is changeable and how much isn't, and realistically, subverting Zachariah's plan is going to take more than just us."
"I can convince them," Anna said, so quietly that Jo almost missed it. Lorael turned and stared curiously and Anna continued. "I can find Castiel."
Lorael kept staring at Anna, something like worry in her expression, looking more human than Jo had ever seen her before. Jo could tell she was missing something, but didn't really feel like she could ask. She'd already heard some of Anna's story as it pertained to the Winchesters, but Anna hadn't volunteered much more than that. Jo had the feeling that Lorael wasn't much for chit-chat or gossip, so she hadn't even tried talking to her.
"Okay," Jo replied instead. "That would probably help."
Anna shifted, as if she were preparing to stand. "I'll be back soon," she said, and disappeared.
Lorael shook her head, and then looked at Jo. "While she's gone, I should check in with Sarakiel."
Alone, Jo laughed at herself. It was still disconcerting when they did that popping in and out of thin air trick into regular rooms, much less her fucking car. She pulled over and called her mom to let her know she might be late getting back, then kept moving until she got tired. She could have made it home if she kept driving, but a motel room sounded like a better idea if her angelic guests returned, so she stopped two towns away from her destination and got a room. She paid with a fake credit card, one her mom didn't know about, and the faint tinge of guilt she usually had when she used it felt much weaker than it had the last time she'd done it.
She settled in with her laptop, using the wifi and some tricks she'd learned from Ash to access the few, carefully hidden discussion boards and help forums frequented by hunters, hoping to find mentions of anything that could be related to the Horsemen or Lucifer. Now that she knew Meg might be watching, she made sure to mask her trail as well as she could. Maybe she should have the laptop checked, too, just to make sure it wasn't tagged in some way.
She hadn't had any luck by the time Lorael found her there, and they both waited in silence. Jo had wished earlier for sweatpants and a cleaner top, but with Lorael standing in the room, she was grateful for her jeans and several shirt layers. Jo still felt as if she didn't quite know how to talk to Lorael, dramatic demon rescue or not, and Lorael seemed perfectly content to stare out the window. She still wore her jeans and tank top combo, but managed to make it look oddly formal. Her hair was much too long to be practical, and Jo found herself watching the dark strands that fell free and curled all the way down to Lorael's hips in something like envy. Her own hair was as long as she could get it, but she still had to keep it back most of the time if she wanted to be able to do anything. Jo suspected that Lorael's hair wouldn't dare shift out of place, and she wondered who Lorael was possessing, if her hair always behaved, too, and why she'd agreed to let an angel take control of her body.
When Anna returned, luckily just minutes later and finding Jo's motel room with no apparent difficulty, she was paler than usual. Lorael took one look at her, glared up at the ceiling for a second, and then started to speak.
"If he hurt you," she growled, and Anna looked up.
"No," she said. "Everything is fine. Castiel will talk to the Winchesters, and hopefully we'll all meet up later this week."
Lorael nodded and left abruptly, leaving Jo more confused than ever and seriously ready for some answers. She sat next to Anna on the edge of the bed and put on a firm expression.
"Okay, you really need to tell me what all of this is about. Why is talking to Castiel such a big deal? Isn't he one of the good angels?"
"He sold me out," Anna said. "Before he changed his mind and saved Dean, he got me re-captured by heaven."
"Oh," Jo said, not even knowing where to begin.
Anna laughed a tiny bit. "It's fine now, it really is. Sarakiel didn't let me stay in Zachariah's clutches for long, but Lorael is over-protective and impetuous and…" she broke off and laughed again.
"What's so funny?"
"I - I was wrong," Anna said, looking steadily at Jo even though her voice cracked on the words. "Wrong to think that I was the only one of us who felt, who wanted to feel. I told Castiel that he could never understand what it was like, but he and Lora and Sarakiel are proof that I was completely wrong."
"And it feels strange to call Lorael impetuous when she shouldn't be that at all," Jo said. Hell, she was still having trouble with the concept, and so far, she'd only met angels who did profess to have feelings, and something like free will.
Anna smiled. "Yes. Strange, but good - it makes this mission feel less lonely."
"Wait," Jo said. "Are you allowed to call her Lora?"
"Of course," Anna replied. "Aren't you?"
Jo shook her head, feeling a little strange about having asked the question at all. "I, uh, I haven't tried."
"You should," Anna said. "I don't think she'll mind. She's saved your life, formalities probably aren't necessary."
Jo shrugged. "Maybe." She didn't think Anna was right about that, but before she could argue, she thought of another question. "Why do you care?" she blurted out, not thinking of how it sounded until it was too late. She hurried to recover the conversation when Anna looked almost hurt.
"I - " Anna started to say, but Jo interrupted.
"I mean, how is it possible that there are angels who can feel?" she asked. "What about humanity makes you think we're worth saving? We've done some pretty fucked up things."
"No matter how badly humanity has acted in the past, you don't deserve annihilation," Anna replied. "And this situation, Lucifer and Michael and Zachariah - none of it is your fault. The angels made this mess, and we should clean it up."
"It still seems like an unpopular opinion for most angels to have," Jo said, watching Anna's rueful smile.
"I couldn't save my parents," Anna said after a moment. "My earthly ones, who raised me when I fell. They were killed by demons who were looking for me. My parents were good people - they didn't deserve to die like that."
"I'm sorry," Jo whispered, and Anna shrugged.
"I've made my peace with my life," she said. "But I want to make it possible for people like them to live on, and have families and futures and happiness, and keeping my other family from ruining the earth is the best way to do that. Even when I took back my grace, I still had my memories of being human, and that's something Zachariah can never take away from me."
Jo felt like the silence that followed was awkward, but she still didn't say anything to fill it. Anything she could say would just be inadequate. She did feel a little more connected to this whole crazy scheme of taking down the devil in a way she hadn't before. Even being tied up and yelled at by Meg hadn't brought things into such a clear picture. Angels were defying the will of Heaven to do the right thing, and she couldn't just treat this like a chance to prove herself or have an adventure. This was more important than that, and the thought made her switch to tactics.
"We need to find Meg," Jo said. "If she's worried enough about the research I was doing on the apocalypse and the Horsemen to kidnap and interrogate me, she must know something."
"Agreed," Anna replied. "Lora and I looked for her, after we rescued you, but we found nothing. She must be using Enochian sigils of some kind to avoid detection. It was only luck that we found you before she was able to use them to keep you hidden from our sight."
"Is there any way to get around the sigils?"
Anna shook her head. "That's why they're so useful - angels are completely blocked by them. Depending on which ones she's using, I might be able to counter some, if I was prepared beforehand with the correct counter-sigils."
"And we don't necessarily know which ones she's using, so you wouldn't be prepared," Jo said, nodding with understanding. "But humans aren't affected by them, right?"
"Well, no, a human couldn't be banished by one, but you could be blocked from angelic sight or otherwise affected indirectly, and you can use them."
Now that Jo found interesting. She stood up and pulled Anna from the bed.
"Can you teach me?" she asked. "Just the basics, nothing fancy."
Anna hesitated, and Jo met her gaze with pleading eyes.
"It's dangerous," Anna said slowly, "but I believe you're right. I'll teach you the basics."
Jo had always been a fast learner, and she picked up the design for a banishing sigil even more quickly than she'd been hoping, even if she didn't have to draw it in her own blood the way she would need to if she used it in a real situation. After Anna seemed satisfied at Jo's ability to draw the design with her eyes closed, left-handed and possibly tied up, she hesitated again, stumbling in the middle of a sentence.
"What?" Jo asked, looking up from the pile of used notebook paper surrounding her on the motel room floor. "Did I make a mistake that time?"
"No," Anna said, and then seemed to make up her mind about something. "There's a protective sigil I'd like to put on you, but it's dangerous, and I haven't ever used it on a human before. It would keep most sigils from affecting you," she paused and considered before going on. "Well, it's more that it makes you visible to angelic sight, even through a blocking shield, and there's another that might keep you safe from angelic power, but I think we should stick with the first one for now."
Jo nodded easily. "Okay, sure. Put it on me."
"It means you'll be visible to all angels, not just me," Anna continued as if Jo hadn't spoken. "I don't believe any of the angels even have you on their radar except for Sarakiel, Lorael and I, but it is a risk to make you so vulnerable to angels just to protect you from demons."
"I think demons are the more immediate problem right now," Jo said. "I can always get rid of it later, right?"
"You can," Anna admitted. "But it would be very painful."
"I can handle it."
"Okay, if you're sure," Anna said. "This part is going to hurt," she warned, pulling a knife out of her back jeans pocket.
Jo shrugged. "I can handle it," she repeated, even as she winced inwardly. Anna took Jo's right hand and cut a straight, shallow line about an inch long across her palm, and added more shapes until the blood welled in her hand, forming a strange circle that almost filled her entire palm. Jo kept stoic, biting her lip against the sting of the cuts into her flesh. When Anna finished, she pressed her own hand against Jo's bloody one. She met Jo's eyes and said "it's going to be worse for a moment," and burning pressure surged against Jo's palm. Her legs trembled a little and she closed her eyes against the tears threatening to escape.
After what seemed like minutes, Anna lifted her hand away from Jo's, and the pain and the blood receded, leaving behind a series of scars forming the sigil on her palm.
"Is the scar permanent?" Jo asked, frowning, then blinked in surprise. She hadn't really thought she cared that much about scarring.
Anna nodded. "It's as permanent as I can make it. It should let me find you anywhere."
Jo grinned, flexing her hand. "Let's hope we don't have any reason to test it," she said.
+++
She hadn't planned to jinx herself, but when Meg caught up with her the next day, Jo cursed her own stupidity even as she hoped like hell that the sigil would work. Anna was supposed to meet up with her at the bar in just a little while, and if Jo didn't make it, surely they'd assume the worst. Her mother would, that was certain.
Jo was confused as much as she was angry; why on earth did Meg seem to think she was so important? None of her research had turned up anything useful so far, and she hadn't even talked to Sam or Dean since the incident with War. She'd been getting gas, almost ready to head back home after leaving the motel where she'd spent the night after Anna left. When she walked inside the little convenience store to pay, the doors had slammed shut and both of the clerks' eyes had flashed black. They came at her together, and she'd only just managed to get one good hit before she ran, trying to get some distance. Now she was crouched in the miscellaneous items aisle, which was luckily where the salt was stored.
Jo finished pouring the salt in a circle around her little barricade of soda boxes and cursed herself for leaving her gun in the car. The demons skidded up to her spot and the tall one scoffed at her salt line, but they didn't cross it, seemingly content to wait. They looked like teenagers, skinny and innocent, and Jo had a moment of guilt, sure that they had only been possessed because of her. But she couldn't do anything about that now, and she closed off her sympathy to deal with the situation.
"What are you waiting for?" she asked, hoping to goad them into spilling something. "You can't take one little girl?"
They didn't take the bait, standing preternaturally still and not even looking at her.
"Great," she sighed, resting her head in her hands, sitting cross-legged. "Guess we'll just wait for the boss."
"Oh, you missed me," said Meg from where she stood at the entrance to the aisle. "I'm so glad."
Jo stood quickly, and the two demons guarding her stepped back to let Meg come closer.
"Fuck you," Jo snapped, too upset to try playing it cool. She wanted to be done with this, with always being needing to be rescued. She should be able to take care of herself, but Meg kept proving her wrong about that.
"I don't think so," Meg said, rolling her eyes. "And you might want to be a bit nicer to me, seeing as I've got your mommy locked up in a basement."
"No you don't," Jo bit out, but her heart was racing with fear and anger, and she couldn't quite convince herself that Meg was lying.
"So here's how this is going to go," Meg said, without acknowledging Jo's words. "You're going to sit down like a good girl and answer some questions, and then maybe I'll let you see your mom."
Jo sat, hating herself a little for complying.
Meg smiled with vicious pleasure. "Good job. Now, why are angels trying to keep you away from me?"
"I don't know," Jo said firmly. "Why do you keep kidnapping me?"
"Oh, you know something, princess, and don't think I won't get it out of you eventually, even if I have to pull your mother apart into dozens of tiny pieces." Meg glared at the two demons standing to either side of Jo. "Piss off until I call you back," she said, and they both walked to the store's entrance and stood just inside. Meg turned back to Jo.
"Well, the angels won't get you back this time - they can't even see this store at all, and they definitely can't get in." Meg crouched down and slid her knife up Jo's cheek, using it to push back the strands of hair that had escaped her ponytail to hang over her face. "Lucifer has a plan, and you aren't part of that plan, precious. You're new, and we don't like new players this late in the game. We've had this one mapped out from the start, and you don't fit in the bigger picture."
Jo's courage lifted a little, because who knew demons were that good at mixed metaphors, and she smiled. "Too bad," she said. "Sorry to cause so much trouble."
"Don't flatter yourself," Meg said. "You won't be any trouble."
Jo smirked at her, and used the hand she'd been sneaking closer and closer to Meg's legs to knock her over, snatching the knife. Meg lost her balance and fell, a shocked look on her face, and Jo didn't linger to enjoy it. She ran for the front door, but Meg grabbed her ankle and held on, stopping her in her tracks. The demons at the door didn't seem to either notice or care about what was happening, and Jo couldn't risk taking her gaze away from Meg to find out why. She used the handle of the knife to smash Meg's fingers from her leg, and then jumped back as Meg sprang to her feet with demonic speed.
"I've had enough of you," she growled, and lunged at Jo, who stepped aside and used Meg's momentum to slam her into the wall. The demon shook herself and stood up again, a trickle of blood on her temple.
"I think you have," a low voice said behind Jo, and she whirled to see Lorael standing there, her hair tied back and a long, silver sword in her hand. The sword seemed wildly out of place next to her casual jeans and grey t-shirt.
"What," Jo said helplessly, but then she saw Anna standing over the bodies of the now presumably demon-free convenience store clerks, grinning at her.
Meg looked at Lorael, then at her sword, and her mouth opened a second later, black smoke pouring out for what seemed like minutes. The body Meg had been possessing fell back, slumping lifeless to the floor.
"You did a good job holding her off," Lorael said to Jo, nodding with a more pleasant look on her face than Jo had seen before.
"Thank you," she stammered, and then slapped her hands on her thighs to get it together. "Do you - is my mom okay?"
"She's fine," Lorael said, turning to walk outside, motioning for Jo to follow. "I've been keeping an eye on her, and when Meg sent demons after her, we figured you were probably in danger, too. Anna found you quickly due to the sigil on your hand."
"It's lucky we did that."
Lorael stopped walking and looked directly at Jo. "Yes, it is," she said, "but your mother managed to fight off almost all the demons sent after her before I stepped in, and I can see that you would have done so as well. You are more than a match for them."
Jo stood, staring stunned at Lorael. "Thank you," she said again. Lorael pressed a hand to Jo's shoulder, a fleeting touch that felt heavier than it actually was, and then started walking again. Jo followed, and grabbed Anna's hand as she joined them at the entrance to the store. "Thank you," she told Anna, and then winced when she heard her mother's voice.
"Joanna Beth." Ellen stood in front of Jo's car, arms crossed, a calm and therefore dangerous expression on her face.
Jo looked at Lorael and Anna. "I'd better ride home with her, but we'll talk tonight, okay?"
Anna nodded gravely, and they both blinked out of sight.
Jo meekly tossed her mother the car keys, and Ellen drove in silence, her lips pressed tightly together. Jo curled into herself in the passenger seat, doing her to best to be quiet as well, and so neither of them said a word until they'd gotten home. Ellen waited for Jo to get all the way inside the bar, closing the door behind her, before she finally spoke.
"That's it, Joanna," she said. "You have to tell the angels that you're out of this."
"I can't," Jo protested. "Don't you understand? They need my help, and it's more important now than ever."
"I've been pretty understanding up until now," Ellen shot back. "You can't tell me you think this is still a good idea. Look at what almost happened to you!"
"The key word there is almost, mom," Jo said as steadily as she could. "The fact that Meg is so determined to keep me out of this is a clear sign that this is a good idea."
Ellen sat heavily, dropping her head onto her arms, elbows resting on the tabletop. "I never get to be selfish," she muttered, so quietly that Jo had to strain to make out the words.
Jo didn't know how to respond. It was true after all - Ellen had lost her husband, her home and her livelihood, all while fighting the same evil they faced now, and Jo couldn't blame her for not wanting her daughter to be caught up in it, too. But she couldn't step away now, either. She could feel it down in her bones, a certainty, loud and insistent, telling her that she had to see this through.
"I just," Jo started, then stopped. "I have to do this. I don't know what to say to make you understand, but I know this is the right thing to do. And I know I can do it. I have to do it."
Ellen laughed darkly. "Right, maybe. That doesn't mean it won't kill you anyway."
Jo sat down next to her mother, and didn't protest when Ellen took her hand, pressing it between both of her own.
"I am so proud of you, of the person you've grown to be," Ellen whispered. Her eyes glittered, and Jo still hated to see her mother cry. "And I almost hate you at the same time. But that's pretty hypocritical of me, because I'd be saying and doing the same thing if I were you."
"I'm sorry it can't be easier," Jo said, her own eyes stinging.
"It's not really your fault," Ellen answered. "You're stubborn like your father."
Now that made Jo laugh. "You mean I'm stubborn like you," she said, taking her hand out of Ellen's and poking her in the side.
"And like me," Ellen agreed. "You didn't have a chance."
Jo slumped over to lean on her mother's shoulder, feeling safe and grown-up and slightly off-kilter, like she didn't quite have a handle on what she was doing but was forging ahead anyway. Maybe that was what being responsible for yourself always felt like, no matter how long you'd been doing it.
"I could use some help," she admitted out loud, more to herself than to Ellen.
"Is it the kind of help I can provide?" Ellen asked.
"Maybe," Jo replied. "Do you know anyone who does magic and isn't evil?"
"That's a tough one. What do you need magic for?"
Jo sighed. "Well, I guess it doesn't have to be magic, but I want to know what Meg is up to, and she's hidden herself pretty well from the angels, but I thought she might not have thought to defend herself against a different kind of spying."
"I might know someone," Ellen said, and that was how Jo met Missouri Mosley.
When Jo and Ellen arrived in Lawrence the next day and knocked on Missouri's door, she answered, took one look at them, and shook her head.
"Another one?" she said cryptically. "My luck ran out a long time ago, I guess."
Ellen just smiled. "It's nice to see you, too, Missouri."
Missouri smiled back, and then stepped to the side and motioned for them to enter the house. "Well, come on in," she said, "and tell me all about the apocalypse."
Part Two