A Case of Do or Die 7/8
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Chapter 7
Here’s Looking at You, Kid
“DAD!!!”
Henry was amazed at how that stereo scream threw the entire ICU ward into action. He’d been too busy trying to catch John to cry out himself, but almost before he knew what was happening, the nurses were bundling John onto a gurney and wheeling him out of the room at a run. Dean ripped the monitor leads and IV drip away from Sammy, who didn’t so much as yelp. Then Henry scooped Sammy up and grabbed Dean’s hand, and they were running off after the gurney with Gabriel, Bill, and Jim hard on their heels. There were some kind of vehicles waiting at the emergency entrance-they didn’t look like the ambulances Henry was used to, but that might have been what they were-and the staff loaded John into one and everyone else into the other. Methodist Hospital was right around the corner, so it was only a minute or so later that they were rushing John into that emergency room and making the rest of the group wait in the waiting room. Henry filled out as much of the paperwork as he could, though there was some medical history that Jim had to fill in for him and some that they had to make up.
“Is Dad gonna be okay?” Sammy asked Henry quietly in the first calm moment.
Henry sighed. “I don’t know. I hope so.”
Sammy snuggled against his shoulder. “Where’s Mom?”
“Your mother’s in Heaven.”
Sammy huffed. “Nooo, she’s-”
“What he means...” Dean tried to interrupt.
Henry held up a hand and lowered his voice even further. “I know what he means. I saw her that way, too. But I also saw her go to Heaven, with my own eyes. Your dad and I watched to make sure she got there okay.”
Dean blinked. “When?”
Henry glanced at the clock and saw that it was after 4 a.m. “Guess it’s morning, so night before last.”
Dean swallowed hard and blinked back tears. “So sh-sh-she’s... really gone?”
Henry put a hand on Dean’s cheek. “She’s safe.”
Dean let a tear escape but scrubbed it away, and Sammy buried his face in Henry’s shoulder and cried quietly.
They were still sniffling when a doctor came out to say that the Children’s Hospital had called and asked him to examine Sammy so he could officially be released. Henry and Dean went back with Sammy, and Dean answered most of the doctor’s questions while Sammy patiently let himself be poked and prodded.
Then, when the doctor stepped out for a moment, Sammy finally asked Henry, “Wait, who are you?”
“I’m your Grandpa Henry,” Henry replied quietly, “your dad’s dad, but that’s a secret. Your dad wants me to tell people I’m your uncle.”
Sammy frowned. “You don’t look like a grandpa.”
“That’s why it’s a secret.”
“But why don’t you look like a grandpa?”
“That, my dear Sammy, is a very long story that I will have to tell you later.”
“Is it a good story?”
“Well, I don’t know how it ends yet.”
Sammy pondered that for a moment. “Yeah. The good stories have a happy ending.”
“Well, some do. The thing is, the best stories don’t really end. One part of it comes to an end, but there’s always more that comes after that part.”
“Like King Arthur?” Dean volunteered.
“Sure, like King Arthur. There are lots of stories about him. But even when you get to the very end, where Arthur goes off to Avalon, the story doesn’t truly end.”
“’Cause Arthur’s supposed to come back someday.”
“That’s right.”
Sammy gasped. “Are we in a King Arthur story?”
Henry shrugged. “I don’t know. We could be.”
And from there the boys distracted themselves with talking about what their Arthurian romance would be about until the doctor returned and pronounced Sammy in perfect health. He also reported that John was in critical but stable condition and was going to be admitted to ICU; they had been able to get his fever down below 105°, but it was a constant fight to keep it there, and they weren’t sure how soon he’d regain consciousness. One person was allowed to stay with John, but the doctor recommended that everyone else go try to get some sleep.
“Gabriel stays,” Henry declared. “It’s rather complicated”-he wasn’t sure he understood himself-“and also classified, but Gabriel is required to stay with John at all times.”
The doctor nodded. “All right. I’ll come with you to explain the situation to the others.”
Once the others were apprised of the situation and they had been allowed back briefly to see John in ICU and let the boys tell him good night, Gabriel settled in to watch, and Henry once again took charge of the boys and followed Jim and Bill back to their cars and thence back to the motel where the hunters were staying. When it had looked like Sammy would be in the hospital a while, Bobby and Bill had agreed to get adjoining rooms so that John, Henry, and Dean could share one while the other hunters shared the other; both rooms were already warded. So while the boys got ready for bed, Henry joined Jim and Bill in briefing Bobby, who was still awake, and then got ready for bed himself. The hunters promised to take charge of everything and to let him know how things were progressing. And that was good, because Henry was finally beginning to register the fact that he’d been on the road almost non-stop for ten days.
After getting cleaned up, he came out of the bathroom to find the boys asleep in one bed, curled up together like their lives depended on it. But as much as his heart broke anew over how his family had suffered in his unintended absence, what he had seen these last ten days had convinced him that John was right. Not only did Henry need to let John finish his quest, but he also needed to be present here and now, not just for John, but for Dean and Sammy as well. So resolved, he switched out the lights and lay down to try to get some sleep himself, hoping that the situation would improve shortly.
It didn’t.
A week passed, in which the hunter network took charge of treating the demon-blood-afflicted children under the falsified aegis of the CDC. By the end of that time, all but one had received treatment with parental permission; the remaining child, Max Miller, was treated by hunters who slipped into the hospital after hours and then reported his parents to Child Protective Services for abuse. But that was the extent of the good news. John’s condition remained essentially unchanged, and he hadn’t regained consciousness. While the group spent as much time at the hospital as they could, there was little for the boys to do in the waiting room besides worry, so Henry took the doctors’ advice and took the boys out to the various child-friendly landmarks around town. None of them could fully enjoy any of it, but they did get to know each other better. And it did beat waiting around helplessly.
On the eighth day with no change, Gabriel traded places with Bobby and pulled Henry aside. “What’s that last trial again?”
“Curing a demon.”
“Which requires that we first trap a demon.”
“Right.”
“We don’t need John for that part. So here’s what I’m thinking. We grab our demon, set up someplace safe-say, the abandoned church in Stull Cemetery-and then I get John back on his feet long enough to finish it.”
“I suppose that works, but why Stull? Isn’t there someplace closer?”
Gabriel looked at him oddly. “You’re a Man of Letters and you don’t know about Stull?!”
Henry blinked as he tried to remember.
“There’s a hellmouth there-and not just any hellmouth. It’s one that connects to Lucifer’s Cage, and it’s supposed to be the site of the final showdown between Lucifer and Michael. I can’t think of a better way to smack the destiny-mongers in the face than for John to shut Hell down from there.”
“That close to a hellmouth, do we risk interference?”
“Not with me around.”
Henry nodded slowly. “All right, sounds like a plan. What do we need?”
Gabriel snapped his fingers, and a list appeared in Henry’s hand. “You have half an hour to get everything on that list, including the shackles. And... go!” He snapped his fingers again, and Henry found himself back in the bunker in Kansas.
Shaking off his surprise, Henry made a mad dash through the bunker, collecting spell ingredients (easy) and trying to find the warded chains (not). After about fifteen minutes, however, Try Room 7B appeared next to the word chains, which was all the hint he needed to find the hidden chamber with the devil’s trap and, yes, chains. He had just stuffed everything into a satchel when he found himself back in Omaha with Gabriel smiling at him in approval.
“Everything’s here,” Henry reported. “Now what?”
Gabriel clapped him on the shoulder. “Now, you come with me.”
This time they walked down to what appeared to be the morgue. Gabriel snapped his fingers again as they approached, disabling the security cameras and sending all of the nearby personnel to sleep. There was an intact body on the table, an unidentified dark-haired young woman who had just died. At Gabriel’s direction, Henry laid out the summoning supplies and chains on and around the table and the body itself. Gabriel then did something Henry didn’t catch to the rest of the room, studied the layout, and then glanced at Henry and did a double-take.
“Oop. Hold up.” Gabriel pushed a finger against Henry’s upper chest, just to the left of the breastbone, and Henry gasped as he felt a shock like being zapped with a cattle prod. “There. That’ll ensure the demon doesn’t go into you instead of Susie the Stiff. And before you ask, the hex bag you’re carrying is a good idea, but it doesn’t help much when you summon the demon into the room you’re standing in.”
“What’d you do?” Henry wheezed.
“Tattoo. Don’t worry, it won’t wash off.”
Henry was Not Impressed.
“Hey, I give you one now, your grandkids won’t need one in twenty years. Now get on with it.”
Henry sighed, pulled himself together, and recited the summoning. And whatever Gabriel’s precautions were, they paid off; the demon smoke that billowed up from the floor when he lit the mixture in the bowl circled the room twice before flowing into the body on the table. Yet no sooner had the young lady’s eyes opened, solid black, than Gabriel snapped his fingers again. The shackles immediately attached themselves to her neck, wrists, and ankles, and a brand Henry didn’t recognize appeared on her forearm.
She screamed and sat up, looking wildly at the chains and then at Henry and Gabriel. “DAMN YOU, LOKI!” she shrieked.
“Put a sock in it, Megara,” Gabriel shot back. “If you’re a good girl, you’ll live through this.”
“Oh, but I’m not a good girl. I’m a demon.”
“And you’re stuck.”
“I’ll find a way out of here. All you’ve done is give me a way to get topside so I can find the man who killed my father!”
“What a coinkydink. He wants to have a few words with you. Henry, get her out of here; we’ll meet you and Jim down there. Oh-” Gabriel snapped his fingers one more time, and Megara’s hospital gown was replaced by street clothes in the latest fashion. “Might need those.”
“Oh, look at you, Mr. Considerate,” she mocked.
Henry grabbed her elbow. “All right, chickie, let’s go.”
She tried to pull away from him, but to no avail, and he pulled her to her feet and marched her to the elevator. Jim was waiting for him upstairs, and together they escorted her out to the car and took off for Stull.
As Henry drove up to the cemetery three and a half hours later, heartily tired of Megara’s taunts but not tired enough to give her the satisfaction of taunting back, he finally remembered some discussion among the Letters about goings-on here. The consensus back then had been that any genuine infernal events were low-grade, certainly no more than a Class 2, and thus best left to hunters to deal with. Henry couldn’t help wondering how they had failed to learn of Stull’s true significance-and how many other potentially disastrous gaps in their knowledge might exist.
Jim left Henry to guard Megara while he prepared the interior of the church for the trial, during which time she speculated aloud about everything from his origins to his choice of bedmates. He was nearing the end of his patience when Jim returned, spray paint still in hand, to help him haul her inside before completing the devil’s trap.
She snorted as Henry pushed her into a chair set in the middle of the center aisle and Jim closed the gap in the line near her feet. “You know how easy it would be to break that, right? This old wood floor’s not too solid.”
“I wouldn’t advise you to try,” Jim returned mildly. “I hear the spellwork on those chains would keep the King of Hell on lockdown.” Then he tossed the spray can to Henry. “Go see if they’re here yet, would you?”
Henry nodded and took the spray paint back to the car. No sooner had he closed the trunk again than Gabriel and John appeared. John still looked horrible, but he was standing on his own and managed a smile.
“Hey, Pops,” John said quietly.
“John.” Henry hugged him. “You had us worried.”
“I’ll make it. Wanted to... to talk to you a minute before we go in, ’case I’m not up to it later.”
“Okay. Shoot.”
“Bill’s staying with the boys right now, but he says you’ve been real good with them this week.”
Henry’s stomach clenched. “They’re good boys.”
“I’m... I’m remembering a lot more of the good now, from... from before. Think I was so mad when you disappeared ’cause I loved you so much.”
“John, I-”
“We’ve been over it. I get it. And I’m sorry now I spent so long hating your guts because I didn’t understand.”
“Oh, John. You know I forgive you.”
John took a deep breath. “What I’m... tryin’ to say is... when... I want you to have them. Them and the car-it goes to Dean when he’s sixteen. And the Colt goes back to Daniel Elkins, as you know. That’s about all I got left.”
Henry nodded slowly as he searched for something to say. “Does Bill know?” he finally asked.
John nodded. “Yeah. We talked it over for a minute. He thinks that’s best. Give the boys a better place than the Roadhouse, safer, no younger kids or anything like that.”
“I don’t know how well I’ll do alone.”
“You don’t have to, Pops. Remarry if you want. If you don’t... you’ve got Jim, Bobby, Rufus, Bill and Ellen.”
“Me,” Gabriel volunteered with a wink.
Henry chuckled but sobered quickly. “You do have good friends, son. I’m sorry I judged all hunters by the few I knew before.” He drew a ragged breath before continuing shakily, “And I’ll do the best I can for your sons.”
“All I ask, Pops,” John replied as he pulled Henry into another hug. “’S all I ask.”
And Henry lost it. He clung to John and wept, and John shed a few silent tears of his own.
“I’m sorry,” John whispered after a long moment. “For everything.”
“I forgive you,” Henry whispered back and sniffled. “And I’m so sorry I failed you.”
“Aw, Pops. I forgave you weeks ago.”
“I know. I... I just h-had to say it.”
John rubbed his back. “I love you.”
“I love you, too, son. And I’m so proud of you.” Henry sniffled some more and finally pulled himself together enough to release John. “All right, Corporal Winchester. One last battle.”
John ducked his head and smiled. Then he, too, took a deep bracing breath and turned to Gabriel. “Um. Do I....”
Gabriel shook his head. “No, your last confession’s still good. But fair warning: Meg is Azazel’s daughter and heir. She’ll be a tough nut to crack.”
John nodded and held out his hand. “Thanks, Gabriel.”
Gabriel shook hands and clapped John on the shoulder. “Go get ’em, Tiger.”
John nodded once, took a deep breath, and strode into the church. Swallowing down the lump in his throat, Henry followed.
Inside, Megara was launching insult after catty comment at John, but John flatly ignored her. Rather, he made his way to the altar, picked up the syringe that Jim had placed there, and took off his watch and checked it before setting it down. Then he rolled up his sleeve, drew the first dose of blood, and checked his watch again.
“Ooh!” Megara said brightly as John turned around. “Are we having one of those parties? I didn’t think preachers came to those parties, but hey, I’m up for anything. Besides, torturing a padre is always good for a laaa-ahhh-AUGH!” she broke off as John injected her with rather less care than he’d shown in injecting Sammy. “Dude, what the hell? Was that brown acid? That stuff burned!”
Still ignoring her, John went back to the altar, carefully cleaned the needle, and braced himself on the altar top. And a brief jolt of power, like what Henry had seen hit John the night the second trial ended, ran glowing up John’s arms.
What followed was one of the worst nights of Henry’s life as a father. John generally napped or ate between doses, often lying flat on a pew but sometimes sitting with his head on Henry’s shoulder. But every dose wore him down a little more, and every jolt of power remained visible a little longer. There was little Henry or Jim could do, though, except keeping vigil with John; even had conversation or cards been safe without endangering the efficacy of John’s confession, they could hardly hear themselves think over Megara’s ceaseless stream of invective. That John was able to sleep at all was testament to how exhausted he was.
The first sign of change came about six hours in, when Megara finally worked out John’s identity. She shrieked and spat and cursed for a good fifteen minutes and nearly bit John when he injected her again, and then she spouted threats and lies about Sammy for another fifteen, after which she launched into a long, rambling monologue about Azazel and what a devoted son of Lucifer he’d been, the plan he’d set in motion, and the unholy dystopia he’d planned to unleash on earth. After an hour and a half of that-or thereabout; Henry had failed to stay awake through the whole thing-she moved on to the qualities she had admired about Azazel and tried to emulate. Sometime after the next dose, those qualities became actual qualities like determination and devotion, not vices like cruelty and deceit. It all came to a head nine hours in, when John injected her once more and she screamed in his face:
“I loved him! I loved him and you killed him!”
That statement echoed for a moment as Megara and John stared at each other in silence and Jim gripped Henry’s shoulder in shock.
Then Megara made a small noise that might have been a hiccup or a sob. “He was my father,” she said more quietly. “I loved him.”
John finally broke his silence with a barely audible, “I know.”
And she let out an ear-piercing keen and began to sob uncontrollably.
Half an hour later, a black woman came running into the church and made straight for John. “Lands!” Henry could just barely hear her say under Megara’s wailing. “I heard that screech clear in Lawrence!” Then, before John could say anything, the woman pulled him into a bear hug.
“’M glad you’re here, Missouri.” Henry had to lip-read that; John’s voice wasn’t audible from where Henry was sitting.
The woman-Missouri?-rubbed John’s back. “Oh, John. You’re close, baby, you’re so close. You keep pushin’. You got this.”
John nodded.
Missouri thumped his back and bustled over to where Henry and Jim were sitting. “Lord bless you, brothers,” she said tearfully, shaking hands with each of them in turn. “That boy needs all the strength you can give him.”
Both men blinked, but Jim found his voice first. “Um. Thank you, Sister....”
“Missouri Mosely. I’m a psychic,” she informed Henry, as if Jim should already know her name. “John came to me after the fire. And mercy, Henry, if you ain’t the best medicine his poor heart could have.”
Embarrassed, Henry cleared his throat. “Well-”
“Oh, you Winchesters! I could just slap you! You got to quit blamin’ yourself, honey. I don’t know if I coulda kept my cool so well in a situation like that. And besides, John done forgive you anyway.”
John’s amused snort carried much better than his voice had.
Megara howled again, and Missouri winced. “Can’t hardly hear myself think,” she confessed more quietly. “I’ll be outside. Bless you,” she repeated, squeezing their hands in turn before hurrying out again.
John dropped down into the pew in front of them while they were still catching their breath.
“Was that a woman or a force of nature?” Jim asked him.
John chuckled fondly. “That’s Missouri.”
Megara cried herself out by the end of the hour and was silent through the next two doses. But the quiet wasn’t peaceful; indeed, it was almost harder to bear than her incessant yammering had been. Henry could hear everything from the slight snore John had developed as he dozed to the crackle of power that ran up his arms every time he injected Megara. It took every ounce of strength Henry had to hold himself together and keep watch.
There was nothing else he could do, anyway.
“Why did I love him?” Megara wondered aloud somewhere around the middle of Hour 13. “He turned me. He tortured me. He... he didn’t love me.” And she began to cry again, more quietly this time. “Why did I follow him?”
John was dozing then and didn’t answer.
When it came time for the next dose, Megara tilted her head to one side to make it easier for John to inject her. He did so-and the orange glow in his arms didn’t fade this time.
“John?” she asked. “Do-is-is there a life out there for the likes of me? I mean, is... is there some cause out there I could fight for?”
“Only one way to find out,” he replied and sliced open his palm.
Henry barely remembered to breathe.
John cautiously recited the altered exorcism and pressed his bloody hand against Megara’s mouth. She sucked noisily, then exhaled a shaky sigh.
“It... it worked,” she breathed. “I f-feel so clean.”
Jim ran to unchain her as Henry ran to catch John, who was staggering backward toward the altar and on the brink of collapse. Just as Henry stopped his son’s fall, Gabriel appeared beside them and gave John a burst of a different kind of power, but the glow in John’s arms didn’t abate.
“Outside,” Gabriel said, pulling John more upright, and suddenly they were outside. “Just a couple minutes more.”
Henry looked around and saw a small crowd near them-Bobby, Bill and what looked like his wife and daughter, Sammy, Dean, Missouri, even Jim and Megara. John, with Henry’s help, made his way around to give a parting hug to each adult and a kiss to Jo. And at the last, he dropped to his knees and held Sammy and Dean for a long moment.
“I love you boys,” John whispered hoarsely. “And I’m proud of you. Be good for Grandpa.”
The boys were too choked up to reply with more than a nod.
Gabriel gave John one more burst of power that enabled him to stand on his own and hug Henry before making his way slowly to the middle of the open area that seemed to hold the hellmouth. But when he got there, he looked back at Henry with tears in his eyes.
Henry swallowed hard and somehow found the strength to call, “Here’s looking at you, kid.”
John understood and smiled. And his voice was clear and strong as he recited, “Kah-nuh-ahm-dahr.”
A mighty gust of wind whistled past the onlookers and slammed into John, twisting him around and driving him to his knees, whence he collapsed flat on his face and lay still. There was a pause in which Henry could almost swear he heard a distant heart monitor: Bip. Bip. Bip. Bip. Beeeeee-
And all that orange-gold energy that had built up in John’s body finally exploded, blowing past them in a massive shockwave that Henry would later hear reached clear around the globe, forcing demons from their hosts and collapsing or covering long-rumored hellmouths. All he could think to do at the moment was to drop to his knees and pull his grandsons tight against his chest, shielding them as best he could as their world was literally rocked to its foundations.
When at last all was still, Henry finally dared to look up... but there was nothing left of John.
“He made it,” Bobby breathed. “The son of a gun, he did it.”
“What did he do?” Megara cried in a panic. “WHAT DID HE DO?!”
But Henry couldn’t hear any answer over the sound of his and his boys’ hearts breaking.
“Damn,” John breathed when the flash cleared.
Tessa nodded. “Yep. It consumed your flesh completely. Nothing remains to tie you here naturally.”
“And now?”
“Well, you still have the choice to stay or go, but I can’t be sure what you’d haunt. And humans can still go to Hell when they die, though demons can’t get out. The Fall of humankind can’t be undone with merely human sacrifice. But your boys are safe from demons, and Mary is waiting for you.”
John considered. “One last goodbye?”
“Sure.”
John turned to Pops and the boys, who were huddled together and crying their eyes out. He ran his hand through Sammy’s hair, then Dean’s, then squeezed Pops’ shoulder. “Here’s looking at you, kid,” he echoed. Then he pulled himself together and turned back to Tessa. “Let’s go.”
“I can’t promise what you’ll find up here,” she warned as she pulled him Heavenward. “Mary might not be the first thing you see, at least not the real Mary. But if all you find at first is a memory, follow the Road. You’ll find her.”
John smiled. “Thanks, Tessa.”
Next
Chapter 7
Here’s Looking at You, Kid
“DAD!!!”
Henry was amazed at how that stereo scream threw the entire ICU ward into action. He’d been too busy trying to catch John to cry out himself, but almost before he knew what was happening, the nurses were bundling John onto a gurney and wheeling him out of the room at a run. Dean ripped the monitor leads and IV drip away from Sammy, who didn’t so much as yelp. Then Henry scooped Sammy up and grabbed Dean’s hand, and they were running off after the gurney with Gabriel, Bill, and Jim hard on their heels. There were some kind of vehicles waiting at the emergency entrance-they didn’t look like the ambulances Henry was used to, but that might have been what they were-and the staff loaded John into one and everyone else into the other. Methodist Hospital was right around the corner, so it was only a minute or so later that they were rushing John into that emergency room and making the rest of the group wait in the waiting room. Henry filled out as much of the paperwork as he could, though there was some medical history that Jim had to fill in for him and some that they had to make up.
“Is Dad gonna be okay?” Sammy asked Henry quietly in the first calm moment.
Henry sighed. “I don’t know. I hope so.”
Sammy snuggled against his shoulder. “Where’s Mom?”
“Your mother’s in Heaven.”
Sammy huffed. “Nooo, she’s-”
“What he means...” Dean tried to interrupt.
Henry held up a hand and lowered his voice even further. “I know what he means. I saw her that way, too. But I also saw her go to Heaven, with my own eyes. Your dad and I watched to make sure she got there okay.”
Dean blinked. “When?”
Henry glanced at the clock and saw that it was after 4 a.m. “Guess it’s morning, so night before last.”
Dean swallowed hard and blinked back tears. “So sh-sh-she’s... really gone?”
Henry put a hand on Dean’s cheek. “She’s safe.”
Dean let a tear escape but scrubbed it away, and Sammy buried his face in Henry’s shoulder and cried quietly.
They were still sniffling when a doctor came out to say that the Children’s Hospital had called and asked him to examine Sammy so he could officially be released. Henry and Dean went back with Sammy, and Dean answered most of the doctor’s questions while Sammy patiently let himself be poked and prodded.
Then, when the doctor stepped out for a moment, Sammy finally asked Henry, “Wait, who are you?”
“I’m your Grandpa Henry,” Henry replied quietly, “your dad’s dad, but that’s a secret. Your dad wants me to tell people I’m your uncle.”
Sammy frowned. “You don’t look like a grandpa.”
“That’s why it’s a secret.”
“But why don’t you look like a grandpa?”
“That, my dear Sammy, is a very long story that I will have to tell you later.”
“Is it a good story?”
“Well, I don’t know how it ends yet.”
Sammy pondered that for a moment. “Yeah. The good stories have a happy ending.”
“Well, some do. The thing is, the best stories don’t really end. One part of it comes to an end, but there’s always more that comes after that part.”
“Like King Arthur?” Dean volunteered.
“Sure, like King Arthur. There are lots of stories about him. But even when you get to the very end, where Arthur goes off to Avalon, the story doesn’t truly end.”
“’Cause Arthur’s supposed to come back someday.”
“That’s right.”
Sammy gasped. “Are we in a King Arthur story?”
Henry shrugged. “I don’t know. We could be.”
And from there the boys distracted themselves with talking about what their Arthurian romance would be about until the doctor returned and pronounced Sammy in perfect health. He also reported that John was in critical but stable condition and was going to be admitted to ICU; they had been able to get his fever down below 105°, but it was a constant fight to keep it there, and they weren’t sure how soon he’d regain consciousness. One person was allowed to stay with John, but the doctor recommended that everyone else go try to get some sleep.
“Gabriel stays,” Henry declared. “It’s rather complicated”-he wasn’t sure he understood himself-“and also classified, but Gabriel is required to stay with John at all times.”
The doctor nodded. “All right. I’ll come with you to explain the situation to the others.”
Once the others were apprised of the situation and they had been allowed back briefly to see John in ICU and let the boys tell him good night, Gabriel settled in to watch, and Henry once again took charge of the boys and followed Jim and Bill back to their cars and thence back to the motel where the hunters were staying. When it had looked like Sammy would be in the hospital a while, Bobby and Bill had agreed to get adjoining rooms so that John, Henry, and Dean could share one while the other hunters shared the other; both rooms were already warded. So while the boys got ready for bed, Henry joined Jim and Bill in briefing Bobby, who was still awake, and then got ready for bed himself. The hunters promised to take charge of everything and to let him know how things were progressing. And that was good, because Henry was finally beginning to register the fact that he’d been on the road almost non-stop for ten days.
After getting cleaned up, he came out of the bathroom to find the boys asleep in one bed, curled up together like their lives depended on it. But as much as his heart broke anew over how his family had suffered in his unintended absence, what he had seen these last ten days had convinced him that John was right. Not only did Henry need to let John finish his quest, but he also needed to be present here and now, not just for John, but for Dean and Sammy as well. So resolved, he switched out the lights and lay down to try to get some sleep himself, hoping that the situation would improve shortly.
It didn’t.
A week passed, in which the hunter network took charge of treating the demon-blood-afflicted children under the falsified aegis of the CDC. By the end of that time, all but one had received treatment with parental permission; the remaining child, Max Miller, was treated by hunters who slipped into the hospital after hours and then reported his parents to Child Protective Services for abuse. But that was the extent of the good news. John’s condition remained essentially unchanged, and he hadn’t regained consciousness. While the group spent as much time at the hospital as they could, there was little for the boys to do in the waiting room besides worry, so Henry took the doctors’ advice and took the boys out to the various child-friendly landmarks around town. None of them could fully enjoy any of it, but they did get to know each other better. And it did beat waiting around helplessly.
On the eighth day with no change, Gabriel traded places with Bobby and pulled Henry aside. “What’s that last trial again?”
“Curing a demon.”
“Which requires that we first trap a demon.”
“Right.”
“We don’t need John for that part. So here’s what I’m thinking. We grab our demon, set up someplace safe-say, the abandoned church in Stull Cemetery-and then I get John back on his feet long enough to finish it.”
“I suppose that works, but why Stull? Isn’t there someplace closer?”
Gabriel looked at him oddly. “You’re a Man of Letters and you don’t know about Stull?!”
Henry blinked as he tried to remember.
“There’s a hellmouth there-and not just any hellmouth. It’s one that connects to Lucifer’s Cage, and it’s supposed to be the site of the final showdown between Lucifer and Michael. I can’t think of a better way to smack the destiny-mongers in the face than for John to shut Hell down from there.”
“That close to a hellmouth, do we risk interference?”
“Not with me around.”
Henry nodded slowly. “All right, sounds like a plan. What do we need?”
Gabriel snapped his fingers, and a list appeared in Henry’s hand. “You have half an hour to get everything on that list, including the shackles. And... go!” He snapped his fingers again, and Henry found himself back in the bunker in Kansas.
Shaking off his surprise, Henry made a mad dash through the bunker, collecting spell ingredients (easy) and trying to find the warded chains (not). After about fifteen minutes, however, Try Room 7B appeared next to the word chains, which was all the hint he needed to find the hidden chamber with the devil’s trap and, yes, chains. He had just stuffed everything into a satchel when he found himself back in Omaha with Gabriel smiling at him in approval.
“Everything’s here,” Henry reported. “Now what?”
Gabriel clapped him on the shoulder. “Now, you come with me.”
This time they walked down to what appeared to be the morgue. Gabriel snapped his fingers again as they approached, disabling the security cameras and sending all of the nearby personnel to sleep. There was an intact body on the table, an unidentified dark-haired young woman who had just died. At Gabriel’s direction, Henry laid out the summoning supplies and chains on and around the table and the body itself. Gabriel then did something Henry didn’t catch to the rest of the room, studied the layout, and then glanced at Henry and did a double-take.
“Oop. Hold up.” Gabriel pushed a finger against Henry’s upper chest, just to the left of the breastbone, and Henry gasped as he felt a shock like being zapped with a cattle prod. “There. That’ll ensure the demon doesn’t go into you instead of Susie the Stiff. And before you ask, the hex bag you’re carrying is a good idea, but it doesn’t help much when you summon the demon into the room you’re standing in.”
“What’d you do?” Henry wheezed.
“Tattoo. Don’t worry, it won’t wash off.”
Henry was Not Impressed.
“Hey, I give you one now, your grandkids won’t need one in twenty years. Now get on with it.”
Henry sighed, pulled himself together, and recited the summoning. And whatever Gabriel’s precautions were, they paid off; the demon smoke that billowed up from the floor when he lit the mixture in the bowl circled the room twice before flowing into the body on the table. Yet no sooner had the young lady’s eyes opened, solid black, than Gabriel snapped his fingers again. The shackles immediately attached themselves to her neck, wrists, and ankles, and a brand Henry didn’t recognize appeared on her forearm.
She screamed and sat up, looking wildly at the chains and then at Henry and Gabriel. “DAMN YOU, LOKI!” she shrieked.
“Put a sock in it, Megara,” Gabriel shot back. “If you’re a good girl, you’ll live through this.”
“Oh, but I’m not a good girl. I’m a demon.”
“And you’re stuck.”
“I’ll find a way out of here. All you’ve done is give me a way to get topside so I can find the man who killed my father!”
“What a coinkydink. He wants to have a few words with you. Henry, get her out of here; we’ll meet you and Jim down there. Oh-” Gabriel snapped his fingers one more time, and Megara’s hospital gown was replaced by street clothes in the latest fashion. “Might need those.”
“Oh, look at you, Mr. Considerate,” she mocked.
Henry grabbed her elbow. “All right, chickie, let’s go.”
She tried to pull away from him, but to no avail, and he pulled her to her feet and marched her to the elevator. Jim was waiting for him upstairs, and together they escorted her out to the car and took off for Stull.
As Henry drove up to the cemetery three and a half hours later, heartily tired of Megara’s taunts but not tired enough to give her the satisfaction of taunting back, he finally remembered some discussion among the Letters about goings-on here. The consensus back then had been that any genuine infernal events were low-grade, certainly no more than a Class 2, and thus best left to hunters to deal with. Henry couldn’t help wondering how they had failed to learn of Stull’s true significance-and how many other potentially disastrous gaps in their knowledge might exist.
Jim left Henry to guard Megara while he prepared the interior of the church for the trial, during which time she speculated aloud about everything from his origins to his choice of bedmates. He was nearing the end of his patience when Jim returned, spray paint still in hand, to help him haul her inside before completing the devil’s trap.
She snorted as Henry pushed her into a chair set in the middle of the center aisle and Jim closed the gap in the line near her feet. “You know how easy it would be to break that, right? This old wood floor’s not too solid.”
“I wouldn’t advise you to try,” Jim returned mildly. “I hear the spellwork on those chains would keep the King of Hell on lockdown.” Then he tossed the spray can to Henry. “Go see if they’re here yet, would you?”
Henry nodded and took the spray paint back to the car. No sooner had he closed the trunk again than Gabriel and John appeared. John still looked horrible, but he was standing on his own and managed a smile.
“Hey, Pops,” John said quietly.
“John.” Henry hugged him. “You had us worried.”
“I’ll make it. Wanted to... to talk to you a minute before we go in, ’case I’m not up to it later.”
“Okay. Shoot.”
“Bill’s staying with the boys right now, but he says you’ve been real good with them this week.”
Henry’s stomach clenched. “They’re good boys.”
“I’m... I’m remembering a lot more of the good now, from... from before. Think I was so mad when you disappeared ’cause I loved you so much.”
“John, I-”
“We’ve been over it. I get it. And I’m sorry now I spent so long hating your guts because I didn’t understand.”
“Oh, John. You know I forgive you.”
John took a deep breath. “What I’m... tryin’ to say is... when... I want you to have them. Them and the car-it goes to Dean when he’s sixteen. And the Colt goes back to Daniel Elkins, as you know. That’s about all I got left.”
Henry nodded slowly as he searched for something to say. “Does Bill know?” he finally asked.
John nodded. “Yeah. We talked it over for a minute. He thinks that’s best. Give the boys a better place than the Roadhouse, safer, no younger kids or anything like that.”
“I don’t know how well I’ll do alone.”
“You don’t have to, Pops. Remarry if you want. If you don’t... you’ve got Jim, Bobby, Rufus, Bill and Ellen.”
“Me,” Gabriel volunteered with a wink.
Henry chuckled but sobered quickly. “You do have good friends, son. I’m sorry I judged all hunters by the few I knew before.” He drew a ragged breath before continuing shakily, “And I’ll do the best I can for your sons.”
“All I ask, Pops,” John replied as he pulled Henry into another hug. “’S all I ask.”
And Henry lost it. He clung to John and wept, and John shed a few silent tears of his own.
“I’m sorry,” John whispered after a long moment. “For everything.”
“I forgive you,” Henry whispered back and sniffled. “And I’m so sorry I failed you.”
“Aw, Pops. I forgave you weeks ago.”
“I know. I... I just h-had to say it.”
John rubbed his back. “I love you.”
“I love you, too, son. And I’m so proud of you.” Henry sniffled some more and finally pulled himself together enough to release John. “All right, Corporal Winchester. One last battle.”
John ducked his head and smiled. Then he, too, took a deep bracing breath and turned to Gabriel. “Um. Do I....”
Gabriel shook his head. “No, your last confession’s still good. But fair warning: Meg is Azazel’s daughter and heir. She’ll be a tough nut to crack.”
John nodded and held out his hand. “Thanks, Gabriel.”
Gabriel shook hands and clapped John on the shoulder. “Go get ’em, Tiger.”
John nodded once, took a deep breath, and strode into the church. Swallowing down the lump in his throat, Henry followed.
Inside, Megara was launching insult after catty comment at John, but John flatly ignored her. Rather, he made his way to the altar, picked up the syringe that Jim had placed there, and took off his watch and checked it before setting it down. Then he rolled up his sleeve, drew the first dose of blood, and checked his watch again.
“Ooh!” Megara said brightly as John turned around. “Are we having one of those parties? I didn’t think preachers came to those parties, but hey, I’m up for anything. Besides, torturing a padre is always good for a laaa-ahhh-AUGH!” she broke off as John injected her with rather less care than he’d shown in injecting Sammy. “Dude, what the hell? Was that brown acid? That stuff burned!”
Still ignoring her, John went back to the altar, carefully cleaned the needle, and braced himself on the altar top. And a brief jolt of power, like what Henry had seen hit John the night the second trial ended, ran glowing up John’s arms.
What followed was one of the worst nights of Henry’s life as a father. John generally napped or ate between doses, often lying flat on a pew but sometimes sitting with his head on Henry’s shoulder. But every dose wore him down a little more, and every jolt of power remained visible a little longer. There was little Henry or Jim could do, though, except keeping vigil with John; even had conversation or cards been safe without endangering the efficacy of John’s confession, they could hardly hear themselves think over Megara’s ceaseless stream of invective. That John was able to sleep at all was testament to how exhausted he was.
The first sign of change came about six hours in, when Megara finally worked out John’s identity. She shrieked and spat and cursed for a good fifteen minutes and nearly bit John when he injected her again, and then she spouted threats and lies about Sammy for another fifteen, after which she launched into a long, rambling monologue about Azazel and what a devoted son of Lucifer he’d been, the plan he’d set in motion, and the unholy dystopia he’d planned to unleash on earth. After an hour and a half of that-or thereabout; Henry had failed to stay awake through the whole thing-she moved on to the qualities she had admired about Azazel and tried to emulate. Sometime after the next dose, those qualities became actual qualities like determination and devotion, not vices like cruelty and deceit. It all came to a head nine hours in, when John injected her once more and she screamed in his face:
“I loved him! I loved him and you killed him!”
That statement echoed for a moment as Megara and John stared at each other in silence and Jim gripped Henry’s shoulder in shock.
Then Megara made a small noise that might have been a hiccup or a sob. “He was my father,” she said more quietly. “I loved him.”
John finally broke his silence with a barely audible, “I know.”
And she let out an ear-piercing keen and began to sob uncontrollably.
Half an hour later, a black woman came running into the church and made straight for John. “Lands!” Henry could just barely hear her say under Megara’s wailing. “I heard that screech clear in Lawrence!” Then, before John could say anything, the woman pulled him into a bear hug.
“’M glad you’re here, Missouri.” Henry had to lip-read that; John’s voice wasn’t audible from where Henry was sitting.
The woman-Missouri?-rubbed John’s back. “Oh, John. You’re close, baby, you’re so close. You keep pushin’. You got this.”
John nodded.
Missouri thumped his back and bustled over to where Henry and Jim were sitting. “Lord bless you, brothers,” she said tearfully, shaking hands with each of them in turn. “That boy needs all the strength you can give him.”
Both men blinked, but Jim found his voice first. “Um. Thank you, Sister....”
“Missouri Mosely. I’m a psychic,” she informed Henry, as if Jim should already know her name. “John came to me after the fire. And mercy, Henry, if you ain’t the best medicine his poor heart could have.”
Embarrassed, Henry cleared his throat. “Well-”
“Oh, you Winchesters! I could just slap you! You got to quit blamin’ yourself, honey. I don’t know if I coulda kept my cool so well in a situation like that. And besides, John done forgive you anyway.”
John’s amused snort carried much better than his voice had.
Megara howled again, and Missouri winced. “Can’t hardly hear myself think,” she confessed more quietly. “I’ll be outside. Bless you,” she repeated, squeezing their hands in turn before hurrying out again.
John dropped down into the pew in front of them while they were still catching their breath.
“Was that a woman or a force of nature?” Jim asked him.
John chuckled fondly. “That’s Missouri.”
Megara cried herself out by the end of the hour and was silent through the next two doses. But the quiet wasn’t peaceful; indeed, it was almost harder to bear than her incessant yammering had been. Henry could hear everything from the slight snore John had developed as he dozed to the crackle of power that ran up his arms every time he injected Megara. It took every ounce of strength Henry had to hold himself together and keep watch.
There was nothing else he could do, anyway.
“Why did I love him?” Megara wondered aloud somewhere around the middle of Hour 13. “He turned me. He tortured me. He... he didn’t love me.” And she began to cry again, more quietly this time. “Why did I follow him?”
John was dozing then and didn’t answer.
When it came time for the next dose, Megara tilted her head to one side to make it easier for John to inject her. He did so-and the orange glow in his arms didn’t fade this time.
“John?” she asked. “Do-is-is there a life out there for the likes of me? I mean, is... is there some cause out there I could fight for?”
“Only one way to find out,” he replied and sliced open his palm.
Henry barely remembered to breathe.
John cautiously recited the altered exorcism and pressed his bloody hand against Megara’s mouth. She sucked noisily, then exhaled a shaky sigh.
“It... it worked,” she breathed. “I f-feel so clean.”
Jim ran to unchain her as Henry ran to catch John, who was staggering backward toward the altar and on the brink of collapse. Just as Henry stopped his son’s fall, Gabriel appeared beside them and gave John a burst of a different kind of power, but the glow in John’s arms didn’t abate.
“Outside,” Gabriel said, pulling John more upright, and suddenly they were outside. “Just a couple minutes more.”
Henry looked around and saw a small crowd near them-Bobby, Bill and what looked like his wife and daughter, Sammy, Dean, Missouri, even Jim and Megara. John, with Henry’s help, made his way around to give a parting hug to each adult and a kiss to Jo. And at the last, he dropped to his knees and held Sammy and Dean for a long moment.
“I love you boys,” John whispered hoarsely. “And I’m proud of you. Be good for Grandpa.”
The boys were too choked up to reply with more than a nod.
Gabriel gave John one more burst of power that enabled him to stand on his own and hug Henry before making his way slowly to the middle of the open area that seemed to hold the hellmouth. But when he got there, he looked back at Henry with tears in his eyes.
Henry swallowed hard and somehow found the strength to call, “Here’s looking at you, kid.”
John understood and smiled. And his voice was clear and strong as he recited, “Kah-nuh-ahm-dahr.”
A mighty gust of wind whistled past the onlookers and slammed into John, twisting him around and driving him to his knees, whence he collapsed flat on his face and lay still. There was a pause in which Henry could almost swear he heard a distant heart monitor: Bip. Bip. Bip. Bip. Beeeeee-
And all that orange-gold energy that had built up in John’s body finally exploded, blowing past them in a massive shockwave that Henry would later hear reached clear around the globe, forcing demons from their hosts and collapsing or covering long-rumored hellmouths. All he could think to do at the moment was to drop to his knees and pull his grandsons tight against his chest, shielding them as best he could as their world was literally rocked to its foundations.
When at last all was still, Henry finally dared to look up... but there was nothing left of John.
“He made it,” Bobby breathed. “The son of a gun, he did it.”
“What did he do?” Megara cried in a panic. “WHAT DID HE DO?!”
But Henry couldn’t hear any answer over the sound of his and his boys’ hearts breaking.
“Damn,” John breathed when the flash cleared.
Tessa nodded. “Yep. It consumed your flesh completely. Nothing remains to tie you here naturally.”
“And now?”
“Well, you still have the choice to stay or go, but I can’t be sure what you’d haunt. And humans can still go to Hell when they die, though demons can’t get out. The Fall of humankind can’t be undone with merely human sacrifice. But your boys are safe from demons, and Mary is waiting for you.”
John considered. “One last goodbye?”
“Sure.”
John turned to Pops and the boys, who were huddled together and crying their eyes out. He ran his hand through Sammy’s hair, then Dean’s, then squeezed Pops’ shoulder. “Here’s looking at you, kid,” he echoed. Then he pulled himself together and turned back to Tessa. “Let’s go.”
“I can’t promise what you’ll find up here,” she warned as she pulled him Heavenward. “Mary might not be the first thing you see, at least not the real Mary. But if all you find at first is a memory, follow the Road. You’ll find her.”
John smiled. “Thanks, Tessa.”
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