The Grandfather Paradox 1/?
Yes, I know, another WIP--but even though it's AU, jennytork and I agreed that it'd be best to get at least this first chapter out before the opening gets well and truly Jossed. As usual, no promises on the speed of updates.
Summary: Zachariah intended for Dean's trip to 1973 to be a closed loop in terms of causality. He hadn't figured on a pair of monkey wrenches named Gadreel and Castiel.
The Grandfather Paradox
By San Antonio Rose
Chapter 1
A Disturbance in the Force
The warehouse was in utter chaos. Dean had slain Abaddon, Crowley, and Metatron in quick succession, and the First Blade rejoiced in the slaughter. But Sam was in his sights now, backed against a wall and unable to run; and from where he lay, wounded by Castiel’s sword, Gadreel feared Dean’s will would succumb to the power of the Mark of Cain, causing him to do the one thing he’d sworn he’d never do. What would become of him then, not even an angel could foresee, but Dean had the potential to become an even greater fiend than Cain had been, just as he could have been the greatest saint of his generation had Heaven and Hell not interfered. Yet Castiel was engaged in fighting off Malachi’s faction and had no way to hold his friend back from the brink of doom.
Gadreel knew he himself was done for. But he had one last chance to redeem himself, to do the thing Dean had asked of him a year ago, and to undo all the harm he and his brothers had wrought in the last forty-plus years.
“Dean!” Sam was calling desperately. “DEAN!”
Dean was wavering, snarling, torn between bloodlust and brotherly love. Yet the Blade was inching higher, ready to strike one more fatal blow.
“NO!” Gadreel cried, exploding the lights, and with one mighty effort both threw himself between Sam and Dean... and threw Dean into the past.
“But you look in my eyes,” Dean was saying to Azazel, “’cause I’m the one that kills you.”
Castiel already knew how this scene played out and watched unhappily as Azazel stabbed Samuel and broke Deanna’s neck. Even had Castiel not been constrained by orders, the house was warded against angels-probably the demon’s doing-and he had no way to intervene. But he chafed at the doubly-forced inaction, somehow feeling it wrong to stand by and watch while the spiral of destruction involving the Winchester family began this way.
But suddenly, just as Deanna’s spirit fled, another Dean appeared behind Azazel... an older Dean, his mind and soul clouded with darkness, the Mark of Cain pulsing on his arm, and the bloodied First Blade in his upraised hand. Castiel would have gasped audibly had he been in corporeal form. This new Dean swayed a moment, surprised at his new location, giving Azazel just enough time to register the new arrival and turn to face him. But all the new Dean needed to see were Azazel’s yellow eyes. He swung the First Blade with a wild yell, and Samuel’s head went flying.
No demon lesser than Lilith could have survived the First Blade’s stroke. Azazel’s spirit sparked and flickered as Samuel’s body fell; as the two Deans watched, both human and demon died together. And time seemed almost to stop.
Then the older Dean blinked slowly, like one returning from a trance, his mind finally beginning to register what had just happened. Stunned, he dragged his eyes away from his grandfather’s corpse to his right arm, where the Mark stopped pulsing and faded from his skin altogether. His hand trembled, spasmed, and let fall the Blade, which dissolved into nothingness before it could hit the floor. Bewildered and struggling to breathe, the older Dean collapsed to his knees, his head wavering from side to side as he looked around wide-eyed at the house, at Castiel’s Dean, at Deanna, at Samuel.
“Mom?” he asked, his roughened voice somehow still sounding remarkably small and young, his eyes fixed on Samuel’s corpse but not truly seeing it. “D-Dad?” He dragged his gaze up to Castiel’s Dean with an expression of mingled horror and hope as his breath hitched. “S-S-Sammy?!”
And suddenly, with a sigh like a breath of wind, he too faded from existence.
“The hell-” Castiel’s Dean managed before even he was no more, the Colt clattering to the floor as the only sign that he had ever been there.
Castiel barely had time to brace himself before he felt the timeline shift pulling at him as well. Jimmy he let go; he had no immediate need of a vessel, and it would be unkind to keep Jimmy here, where the man would have no way to return to his own timeline should they be separated. Instead, Castiel focused all his energy on anchoring himself to this house until time should stabilize. Something deep down, that same small part of him that questioned orders and yearned to help the Winchesters, told him that he might yet be needed here, that there was something he still needed to do.
But blessed if he knew what or why.
Henry tumbled through the portal to find himself stumbling onto what looked like a country road. The night was as black as the blacktop beneath his feet-evidently the moon had already set, and the trees mostly obscured the stars-but as his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he could just make out the chromed back end of a black car across the way from him, parked in a gap between trees with a perfect view of the river and bridge. There didn’t seem to be anyone else in sight. So hoping that he hadn’t made a terrible mistake, he sprinted across the road and pounded on the passenger’s window.
Startled, the blonde passenger turned and leaned back, but the dark-haired driver leaned hard against the steering wheel with a wide-eyed exclamation of “POPS?!!”
Henry wrenched open the back passenger door, jumped in, and shut the door behind him before turning back to the couple in the front seat. “John, I’m sorry to interrupt your date like this, but I need your help.”
“Pops, what the hell?!”
“I’ll explain everything, I promise, but we need to leave, now. I may have been followed.”
“By who?”
“Abaddon.”
The girl put a hand on John’s shoulder. “John,” she said gravely. “Don’t argue.”
John frowned, but the motion had given Henry a glimpse of the silver bracelet on the girl’s wrist, adorned with protective silver charms. He looked at her more closely. “You’re a hunter?”
“A what?” John asked.
But the girl nodded and offered her hand. “Mary Campbell.”
“Henry Winchester,” Henry replied and shook hands. “I’m a Man of Letters. Who’s your father, Miss Campbell?”
“Samuel.”
Henry nodded thoughtfully. “So we must be near Lawrence. Good. I’ve worked with your father before, and I expect I’ll need his help again, along with yours and John’s.”
“I’m not sure Lawrence is safe, either. We’ve been tracking another demon-”
“What the hell is going on here?!” John interrupted. “You disappear for fifteen years, and all of a sudden, the night I propose, you turn up talking to my girlfriend about demons?”
“John, please,” Mary pleaded. “This is serious.”
Henry shook his head. “I’m afraid you’ll just have to trust me, son. I can explain on the way, but we really do need to go to the Campbells’ house. Right now.”
John looked at Mary oddly. “Is this what you were trying to tell me, about the things I don’t know about you?”
Mary nodded once sadly. “I love you, and I’m trying to get out. But if Abaddon and Yellow-Eyes meet, there’s no telling what could happen. The whole world could be in danger.”
John angrily started the car and put it in reverse. “I do not know what the hell is going on. But I am taking you home and going back to my place to get a good night’s sleep in the hope I’ll wake up in the morning and discover this whole thing’s been a bad dream.” And with that, he backed onto the road.
“John....”
“Mary, don’t. Just don’t, okay?” John stopped and changed gears. “I love you, but-” Then, as he put his foot back on the accelerator, he glanced in his mirror, uttered a sharp Oriental curse, and floored it.
“What?” Henry and Mary asked at the same time.
“Your friend, Miss Sands, she just appeared out of nowhere-covered in blood!”
Henry felt the blood drain from his face. “Oh, no.”
Mary looked back at him. “Is that....”
Henry nodded. “Abaddon. I don’t know when it happened, m-maybe... on our last case. There were demons at a convent, stealing souls. It seems Abaddon was their leader. I didn’t think Josie’d been in danger, but... maybe while I was knocked out. I’m not sure. All I know is, the night of our final initiation into the Men of Letters, she was already possessed.” He ran a hand over his mouth as he tried to regain his composure. Then he finally recognized the profanity John had used. “John, was that Vietnamese?”
John huffed. “Yes, Pops.”
“John just got back,” Mary explained with evident pride. “He served two years over there in the Marines.”
Henry blinked. “There’s been a war in Vietnam?!”
“Yes!” John exploded. “Where the hell have you been, under a rock?”
“It’s called time travel, son,” Henry shot back. “Will you let me explain?!”
John straightened in surprise. “What?”
“The night I left in ’58, I was going to my initiation. I wasn’t supposed to be gone even overnight; I should have been home by midnight. But Abaddon attacked us, killed most of the elders. Larry Ganem gave me something to keep safe, but I couldn’t get out, so I ran to a lab and... and came here.”
“With a time machine?”
“No. It’s-it’s a spell, ‘Blood leads to blood.’ Didn’t Larry teach you?”
“Mr. Ganem is dead, Pops.”
Henry gasped. “What?”
“The night you left, there was a huge fire in that club on Gaines Street. Everyone died-Mr. Ganem, Mr. Ackers, Mr. Bowen, some guy called Magnus-”
“Magnus? Albert Magnus?”
“Yeah, you know him?”
“That was the alias we used when we went undercover. Albertus Magnus was the greatest alchemist of the twelfth century. Somebody must have survived to plant that name in the news story, to let me know something was amiss.”
“All right, so how do we find out who made it?”
“That’s why we need the Campbells’ help. I’m sure Samuel has resources, and I doubt we can make it to Normal tonight.”
John sighed in frustration. “Just so you know, Pops, Mom’s remarried, and I’ve got my own life here in Lawrence. I still don’t know if I buy all this stuff about demons and time travel, but you’ve been gone a long time. So don’t think you can just waltz right back into our lives like nothing’s happened.”
Henry sighed in turn, but sadly. “I can get a hotel if I have to, Sport. But maybe the Campbells can put me up. Samuel and I didn’t completely get along in the past, but perhaps, since you’re marrying his daughter....”
Mary shook her head. “Dad doesn’t like John, either. He doesn’t trust other hunters, but he thinks I’m making a mistake, wanting to marry a civilian.”
“I AM NOT A CIVILIAN!” John yelled.
“No, you’re not,” Henry agreed. “You’re a legacy. You should have become a Man of Letters, like I and my father and his father have been. I was supposed to start passing those things on to you after my initiation was complete. John, I’m sorry. I meant to come home.”
“Pops, just-just stop, okay? Just stop.”
Henry sighed again and settled back in his seat miserably. He didn’t dare confess what he thought of most hunters, either, or voice his thought that if John had to marry a hunter, at least he was marrying a Campbell. Mary seemed like a nice enough girl, beautiful but stronger than she looked, and he didn’t want to offend her as much as he had apparently offended John.
The silence lasted until the car pulled into what Henry assumed was the Campbells’ driveway. John stopped but didn’t turn off the engine.
“Son,” Henry said quietly, “you need to come in with us. The house will be warded; I don’t want you out here where Abaddon can get at you.”
With a sigh that was just short of a groan, John put the car in Park and turned off the engine. “Fine.” He pocketed his keys and got out to get the passenger door for Mary.
By the time Mary and Henry had joined John on the sidewalk, however, John’s stance had changed from irritated to wary. And Henry knew why. The night was far too quiet, and he had the sense that something was terribly wrong. John put an arm around Mary’s shoulders and looked around cautiously, and Henry fell in behind the kids, wishing he had a better way to watch their backs.
Mary opened the unlocked door carefully. “Mom? Dad?” she called as they crossed the threshold.
But John’s face grew grave. “Pops, you smell that?”
Henry nodded. “Sulfur-and blood.”
Mary hurried toward the dining room. “Mom? Dad? Dean?” Then she turned toward what was probably the kitchen... and screamed.
John and Henry ran to her, and she threw herself into John’s arms, crying loudly. There was an antique Colt on the floor near the doorway, and both Samuel Campbell and the woman who must have been his wife lay dead on the floor. Mrs. Campbell’s neck appeared to be broken, but Samuel’s headless corpse had been stabbed, and the head lay some feet away, a small pile of sulfur near the mouth.
“What the hell?” John asked quietly, shaken.
“Yellow-Eyes,” Mary sobbed.
“Azazel,” Henry said automatically. He’d never thought he’d need to know the names of the rulers of Hell, but evidently one had escaped.
“He s-said he liked me.”
“When was this?”
“Tonight. We were trying to kill him. Dean said he’d be making a deal with Liddy Walsh, and he was. But Dean missed the shot, and he smoked out.”
“Wait,” John broke in, trying to keep up. “Who’s Dean?”
“Another hunter. He thought Yellow-Eyes was after you for a while.”
“So where is he?”
“I dunno. He was here when I left, talking with Dad.”
Henry swallowed hard and pulled himself together enough to step back a few paces to take in the scene. “Where were they?”
“At the table, most likely.”
There was a chair pushed back against the dining room wall, with scuff marks in front and a few traces of sulfur on the wall behind-it had been pushed back by demonic force against the will of the person sitting in it. Henry walked toward it, thinking aloud. “So Dean was here, and Azazel pinned him to the wall. I’m sure they talked.” He turned. “Then your mother came in and....” He went to examine the stab wound on Samuel’s torso. “No, this wound must be self-inflicted. She would have stabbed him in the back, though without the right knife it would be no use. But he caught her somehow. She tried to escape....”
A sob burst from Mary. “And d-did Dean....”
Henry looked at the gun and picked it up. “This is Samuel Colt’s gun.”
“Dean had it.”
“Then surely he would have tried to use it, if he knows what it can do. No, someone... someone else was here. Someone caught Azazel off guard.”
“Another demon?” John asked.
Henry shook his head. “No, no, demons mutilate; they don’t normally behead.” He looked more closely at Samuel’s neck. “This tissue was cut, not torn. Maybe an angel sword, but angels haven’t walked the earth in centuries, and our lore says they usually stab. I don’t think this was done with a metal blade, either. Maybe... maybe bone, like the First Blade, which could kill a demon, but-but Cain’s not been seen since the Civil War-”
Suddenly his head swam as the enormity of it all overwhelmed him, and he found himself gasping for air as his stomach clenched. A moment later, he was bent over the sink, losing what remained of his dinner. As the heaves subsided, someone rubbed his back and turned on the tap to rinse the vomit down the drain. Henry fished his handkerchief out of his pocket and shakily wiped his mouth, then turned to thank his comforter-and found himself looking at his son’s pale, worried face.
“I meant to come home,” Henry whispered mournfully. “I’m so sorry, John.”
John’s only answer was to pull him into a hug. Henry returned it and tried not to cry.
Then John broke the embrace and stepped back to look Henry in the eye. “So what do we do now?”
Henry turned to Mary. “Does your family have a safe house nearby?”
She sniffled and nodded.
“Does it have a telephone?”
She nodded.
“Okay. Let’s go there for tonight. We can call someone to come help... Ed, I guess, and maybe Robert. They’re the closest to us, as I recall. They can arrange a hunter’s funeral for your parents, and maybe they can also help us find the surviving Men of Letters. But if the wards here weren’t enough to stop Azazel, they won’t stop Abaddon, either. She’s a Knight of Hell-incredibly old and incredibly powerful.”
She nodded again. “What about the Colt?”
John picked it up from the counter beside the sink, where Henry had set it without realizing he still had it in his hand. After checking the cylinder, John tucked the gun into his own waistband. “What’s so special about it?”
“It kills anything.”
“Almost anything,” Henry amended. “According to our information, it won’t harm Lucifer or the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and it’s said only the First Blade can kill Cain. But it ought to work against Abaddon.”
John nodded once. “Good enough. Let’s go.”
“Wait,” Mary objected, “what about Dean?”
Henry sighed and shook his head. “Either whatever killed Azazel took him, or something happened here tonight that even I don’t understand. Either way, we should let your uncles handle it. As hunters, they’d be better equipped to mount a rescue than we are-assuming Dean needs rescuing.”
John frowned. “Pops, I’m a Marine.”
“And as such, you’re trained to fight against humans. But until we know what killed Azazel, where it went, or anything more than what we do know right now, we have no way of knowing whether you’d even be able to get close enough to use the Colt.”
John huffed.
Henry put a hand on his shoulder. “Son. I want you safe.”
An unreadable look crossed John’s face before he sighed and repeated, “Let’s go.”
With a heavy heart, Henry followed the kids back outside. But as he slid into the back seat once more, he sensed something settling over the car... something at once terrible and wonderful, powerful but friendly.
Fear not, it whispered into his soul.
And suddenly he felt safer than he’d ever felt before in his life.
Abaddon’s annoyance grew with every step she took in these wretched kitten heels Josie had set aside to wear for her initiation. It was bad enough that that idiot Henry had somehow muffed his spell such that the portal he’d created spit her out in an empty field rather than a room somewhere. She could only assume he’d been in the car that had sped away as soon as she arrived; there hadn’t been time for her to get a good look inside. But whatever relative he’d found-John, most likely, if Josie’s memories were any guide-had stupidly been waiting for him in the middle of nowhere in the dead of night on the new moon. She’d followed the road on foot, but there was absolutely no traffic coming the opposite direction, and there were no houses within sight of the road. That meant no witnesses she could use to find out whether the car had even stayed on this road rather than turning off somewhere.
She kept herself amused by tormenting Josie with memories of how she’d tortured Father Thompson before setting up her demon factory at St. Bonaventure’s. That little adventure in Milton had had a dual purpose, creating quick replacements for Father Thompson’s guinea pigs and luring in Henry and Josie. Abaddon relished Josie’s anguish at the knowledge that she’d been played for a fool-she’d been Abaddon’s target all along. The threat to possess Henry had been a feint, and it had worked like a charm.
Finally, the road reached civilization. Yet even that didn’t yield anything Abaddon could use, at least at first. Most of the houses here at the edge of town, whatever town this was, were already dark, their inhabitants long since gone to bed. She growled and kept walking.
“Hey, baby.”
Abaddon paused and turned her borrowed head to see an intoxicated man sitting on a porch swing at a house a short way ahead, on the far side of the nearest intersection-a crossroads, which she hoped was a good sign. His hair was long and stringy, his beard scraggly, and he probably hadn’t bathed in a week, but he would do for her purpose. She smiled seductively and sashayed over to him.
He leered at her until she came within the range of the porch lights, which allowed him to see the blood on Josie’s dress. His smile faded then. “Hey, you okay?”
“Actually,” she said as she climbed the stairs, “I could use a little help. I mean, I, ah... I’m not hurt, but... it’s something I could... use a man for.” She lowered her eyelids a little as she looked down at him. “If you know what I mean.”
He reeked of alcohol and marijuana, but his mind wasn’t so dull that he couldn’t understand what she wanted him to think she meant. With a low chuckle, he stood. “Well, baby, I’d say you came to the right place.” He put his hands on her shoulders and pulled her closer, mouth open for a kiss.
She blew part of her smoke into his mouth. “Show me what you’ve seen.”
But his mind revealed next to nothing. He had seen a black Impala drive past, but he didn’t know whose it was or where it was headed. The idiot hadn’t even looked at its license plate. He did, however, show her the date and her location, which was enough to keep her from snarling as she recalled her smoke.
He reeled slightly as he came back to himself. “Whoa. That was trippy. Kinda kinky, too.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Really? You liked that?”
“Yeah.”
She toyed with the collar of his burnt orange double-knit polyester shirt briefly. “You, ah... you’re not married or anything, are you?”
“Nah. ’S just me.”
“No housemates?”
“Nuh-uh.”
She kissed him, savoring both his reaction and Josie’s revulsion, and left him gasping for breath. “I’d say we can both help each other,” she purred then. “So why don’t we take this inside?”
“Yeah,” he breathed and ushered her into the squalid little house.
As he paused to close and lock the door, she sauntered through the living room, which was littered with beer cans and lighted with strange lamps filled with water and some kind of thicker, brightly-colored fluorescent liquid that oozed and bubbled like lava, and into the kitchen. Despite his slovenly housekeeping elsewhere, her mark had done the dishes that night, and the drain rack held both a steak knife and a good-sized bowl.
“Hey,” he said, coming in behind her. “Bedroom’s this way.”
“I’m afraid playtime will have to wait,” she replied as she turned, then slit his throat, gathered the blood into the bowl, and placed a call.
Abby! Lilith squealed. You’ve been gone ages! I missed you.
“Can the cute little girl act, Lilith,” Abaddon snarled. “I was sent to take down the Men of Letters in Illinois in 1958. Now I’ve lost Henry Winchester, and I’m in Nowheresville, Kansas, in 1973. Would you care to explain why I’m in Nowheresville, Kansas, in 1973?”
There was a pause, and then the front door blew open to admit another demon without a host. It entered Abaddon’s victim’s corpse and picked itself up off the floor, eyes black. “So you lost your pretty boy toy, huh, Abaddon?” it drawled.
Abaddon blinked. “Megara?”
“You got it.”
“Why would Lilith send you?”
“Because I want some answers, too.” Megara took a step forward. “Someone just killed my father.”
Abaddon couldn’t suppress a gasp. “Azazel? Azazel’s dead?”
“And I’m guessing it wasn’t you.”
“No. I didn’t know he’d been here-I didn’t even know he was out of the Pit. What was he doing here?”
“Making deals.”
“Why the hell would he do that?”
“He got orders.”
Abaddon’s borrowed eyes widened further. “He finally got through to Lucifer?”
“Yep, back in October. Lord Lucifer told him to find a special child. So he’s been making deals with prospective parents, in the hopes some of ’em have six-month-olds in ten years.”
“Ahhh. The blood spell.”
Megara nodded. “Dunno what the hell he was thinking, coming to Lawrence, unless maybe he liked the idea of the brat growing up this close to Stull. But there’s a family of hunters here, the Campbells. I figure maybe they caught up with him. Unless Crowley did something-”
“Did I hear my name?” a British voice interrupted.
Both Megara and Abaddon turned to the black-clad demon who’d just appeared on the other side of the kitchen.
Crowley smirked at Abaddon. “Hello, darling. Love the suit.”
“What are you doing here, salesman?” Abaddon demanded.
“Eavesdropping, if you must know. And I can guarantee this: whatever bumped off Our Fearless Leader, it wasn’t a crossroads demon. Not that I’m happy about Azazel making deals behind my back, but we’ve our orders from Lilith not to interfere.”
Megara frowned. “Who holds those contracts now?”
“I don’t know. And that is the truth. I’ve not seen them myself-I doubt anyone has. It may be they devolve to you or Tom, but more likely, the deal names Azazel alone on our side. I mean, I don’t think he foresaw whatever the hell it was just happened tonight, do you?”
Abaddon tilted her head slightly. “So you don’t know what’s going on, either.”
“No. I’ve heard tell there’s an angel about, but I don’t think that’s the answer.”
Abaddon sighed and turned to Megara. “All right, ditch the idiot and take me to the Campbells. Josie knows the name, so Henry may have tried to contact them. And you can possess one of them to find out what they know about Azazel.”
Megara nodded once and smoked out, hovering near the ceiling.
“Just... one more thing, luv,” Crowley said before Abaddon could leave. “I wouldn’t take up where Azazel left off without checking with Lilith, if I were you. Some of our new fish haven’t even heard of you.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” Abaddon returned. “I take what I want. I don’t make deals.” And with that, she followed Megara out of the house.
Next
Summary: Zachariah intended for Dean's trip to 1973 to be a closed loop in terms of causality. He hadn't figured on a pair of monkey wrenches named Gadreel and Castiel.
The Grandfather Paradox
By San Antonio Rose
Chapter 1
A Disturbance in the Force
The warehouse was in utter chaos. Dean had slain Abaddon, Crowley, and Metatron in quick succession, and the First Blade rejoiced in the slaughter. But Sam was in his sights now, backed against a wall and unable to run; and from where he lay, wounded by Castiel’s sword, Gadreel feared Dean’s will would succumb to the power of the Mark of Cain, causing him to do the one thing he’d sworn he’d never do. What would become of him then, not even an angel could foresee, but Dean had the potential to become an even greater fiend than Cain had been, just as he could have been the greatest saint of his generation had Heaven and Hell not interfered. Yet Castiel was engaged in fighting off Malachi’s faction and had no way to hold his friend back from the brink of doom.
Gadreel knew he himself was done for. But he had one last chance to redeem himself, to do the thing Dean had asked of him a year ago, and to undo all the harm he and his brothers had wrought in the last forty-plus years.
“Dean!” Sam was calling desperately. “DEAN!”
Dean was wavering, snarling, torn between bloodlust and brotherly love. Yet the Blade was inching higher, ready to strike one more fatal blow.
“NO!” Gadreel cried, exploding the lights, and with one mighty effort both threw himself between Sam and Dean... and threw Dean into the past.
“But you look in my eyes,” Dean was saying to Azazel, “’cause I’m the one that kills you.”
Castiel already knew how this scene played out and watched unhappily as Azazel stabbed Samuel and broke Deanna’s neck. Even had Castiel not been constrained by orders, the house was warded against angels-probably the demon’s doing-and he had no way to intervene. But he chafed at the doubly-forced inaction, somehow feeling it wrong to stand by and watch while the spiral of destruction involving the Winchester family began this way.
But suddenly, just as Deanna’s spirit fled, another Dean appeared behind Azazel... an older Dean, his mind and soul clouded with darkness, the Mark of Cain pulsing on his arm, and the bloodied First Blade in his upraised hand. Castiel would have gasped audibly had he been in corporeal form. This new Dean swayed a moment, surprised at his new location, giving Azazel just enough time to register the new arrival and turn to face him. But all the new Dean needed to see were Azazel’s yellow eyes. He swung the First Blade with a wild yell, and Samuel’s head went flying.
No demon lesser than Lilith could have survived the First Blade’s stroke. Azazel’s spirit sparked and flickered as Samuel’s body fell; as the two Deans watched, both human and demon died together. And time seemed almost to stop.
Then the older Dean blinked slowly, like one returning from a trance, his mind finally beginning to register what had just happened. Stunned, he dragged his eyes away from his grandfather’s corpse to his right arm, where the Mark stopped pulsing and faded from his skin altogether. His hand trembled, spasmed, and let fall the Blade, which dissolved into nothingness before it could hit the floor. Bewildered and struggling to breathe, the older Dean collapsed to his knees, his head wavering from side to side as he looked around wide-eyed at the house, at Castiel’s Dean, at Deanna, at Samuel.
“Mom?” he asked, his roughened voice somehow still sounding remarkably small and young, his eyes fixed on Samuel’s corpse but not truly seeing it. “D-Dad?” He dragged his gaze up to Castiel’s Dean with an expression of mingled horror and hope as his breath hitched. “S-S-Sammy?!”
And suddenly, with a sigh like a breath of wind, he too faded from existence.
“The hell-” Castiel’s Dean managed before even he was no more, the Colt clattering to the floor as the only sign that he had ever been there.
Castiel barely had time to brace himself before he felt the timeline shift pulling at him as well. Jimmy he let go; he had no immediate need of a vessel, and it would be unkind to keep Jimmy here, where the man would have no way to return to his own timeline should they be separated. Instead, Castiel focused all his energy on anchoring himself to this house until time should stabilize. Something deep down, that same small part of him that questioned orders and yearned to help the Winchesters, told him that he might yet be needed here, that there was something he still needed to do.
But blessed if he knew what or why.
Henry tumbled through the portal to find himself stumbling onto what looked like a country road. The night was as black as the blacktop beneath his feet-evidently the moon had already set, and the trees mostly obscured the stars-but as his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he could just make out the chromed back end of a black car across the way from him, parked in a gap between trees with a perfect view of the river and bridge. There didn’t seem to be anyone else in sight. So hoping that he hadn’t made a terrible mistake, he sprinted across the road and pounded on the passenger’s window.
Startled, the blonde passenger turned and leaned back, but the dark-haired driver leaned hard against the steering wheel with a wide-eyed exclamation of “POPS?!!”
Henry wrenched open the back passenger door, jumped in, and shut the door behind him before turning back to the couple in the front seat. “John, I’m sorry to interrupt your date like this, but I need your help.”
“Pops, what the hell?!”
“I’ll explain everything, I promise, but we need to leave, now. I may have been followed.”
“By who?”
“Abaddon.”
The girl put a hand on John’s shoulder. “John,” she said gravely. “Don’t argue.”
John frowned, but the motion had given Henry a glimpse of the silver bracelet on the girl’s wrist, adorned with protective silver charms. He looked at her more closely. “You’re a hunter?”
“A what?” John asked.
But the girl nodded and offered her hand. “Mary Campbell.”
“Henry Winchester,” Henry replied and shook hands. “I’m a Man of Letters. Who’s your father, Miss Campbell?”
“Samuel.”
Henry nodded thoughtfully. “So we must be near Lawrence. Good. I’ve worked with your father before, and I expect I’ll need his help again, along with yours and John’s.”
“I’m not sure Lawrence is safe, either. We’ve been tracking another demon-”
“What the hell is going on here?!” John interrupted. “You disappear for fifteen years, and all of a sudden, the night I propose, you turn up talking to my girlfriend about demons?”
“John, please,” Mary pleaded. “This is serious.”
Henry shook his head. “I’m afraid you’ll just have to trust me, son. I can explain on the way, but we really do need to go to the Campbells’ house. Right now.”
John looked at Mary oddly. “Is this what you were trying to tell me, about the things I don’t know about you?”
Mary nodded once sadly. “I love you, and I’m trying to get out. But if Abaddon and Yellow-Eyes meet, there’s no telling what could happen. The whole world could be in danger.”
John angrily started the car and put it in reverse. “I do not know what the hell is going on. But I am taking you home and going back to my place to get a good night’s sleep in the hope I’ll wake up in the morning and discover this whole thing’s been a bad dream.” And with that, he backed onto the road.
“John....”
“Mary, don’t. Just don’t, okay?” John stopped and changed gears. “I love you, but-” Then, as he put his foot back on the accelerator, he glanced in his mirror, uttered a sharp Oriental curse, and floored it.
“What?” Henry and Mary asked at the same time.
“Your friend, Miss Sands, she just appeared out of nowhere-covered in blood!”
Henry felt the blood drain from his face. “Oh, no.”
Mary looked back at him. “Is that....”
Henry nodded. “Abaddon. I don’t know when it happened, m-maybe... on our last case. There were demons at a convent, stealing souls. It seems Abaddon was their leader. I didn’t think Josie’d been in danger, but... maybe while I was knocked out. I’m not sure. All I know is, the night of our final initiation into the Men of Letters, she was already possessed.” He ran a hand over his mouth as he tried to regain his composure. Then he finally recognized the profanity John had used. “John, was that Vietnamese?”
John huffed. “Yes, Pops.”
“John just got back,” Mary explained with evident pride. “He served two years over there in the Marines.”
Henry blinked. “There’s been a war in Vietnam?!”
“Yes!” John exploded. “Where the hell have you been, under a rock?”
“It’s called time travel, son,” Henry shot back. “Will you let me explain?!”
John straightened in surprise. “What?”
“The night I left in ’58, I was going to my initiation. I wasn’t supposed to be gone even overnight; I should have been home by midnight. But Abaddon attacked us, killed most of the elders. Larry Ganem gave me something to keep safe, but I couldn’t get out, so I ran to a lab and... and came here.”
“With a time machine?”
“No. It’s-it’s a spell, ‘Blood leads to blood.’ Didn’t Larry teach you?”
“Mr. Ganem is dead, Pops.”
Henry gasped. “What?”
“The night you left, there was a huge fire in that club on Gaines Street. Everyone died-Mr. Ganem, Mr. Ackers, Mr. Bowen, some guy called Magnus-”
“Magnus? Albert Magnus?”
“Yeah, you know him?”
“That was the alias we used when we went undercover. Albertus Magnus was the greatest alchemist of the twelfth century. Somebody must have survived to plant that name in the news story, to let me know something was amiss.”
“All right, so how do we find out who made it?”
“That’s why we need the Campbells’ help. I’m sure Samuel has resources, and I doubt we can make it to Normal tonight.”
John sighed in frustration. “Just so you know, Pops, Mom’s remarried, and I’ve got my own life here in Lawrence. I still don’t know if I buy all this stuff about demons and time travel, but you’ve been gone a long time. So don’t think you can just waltz right back into our lives like nothing’s happened.”
Henry sighed in turn, but sadly. “I can get a hotel if I have to, Sport. But maybe the Campbells can put me up. Samuel and I didn’t completely get along in the past, but perhaps, since you’re marrying his daughter....”
Mary shook her head. “Dad doesn’t like John, either. He doesn’t trust other hunters, but he thinks I’m making a mistake, wanting to marry a civilian.”
“I AM NOT A CIVILIAN!” John yelled.
“No, you’re not,” Henry agreed. “You’re a legacy. You should have become a Man of Letters, like I and my father and his father have been. I was supposed to start passing those things on to you after my initiation was complete. John, I’m sorry. I meant to come home.”
“Pops, just-just stop, okay? Just stop.”
Henry sighed again and settled back in his seat miserably. He didn’t dare confess what he thought of most hunters, either, or voice his thought that if John had to marry a hunter, at least he was marrying a Campbell. Mary seemed like a nice enough girl, beautiful but stronger than she looked, and he didn’t want to offend her as much as he had apparently offended John.
The silence lasted until the car pulled into what Henry assumed was the Campbells’ driveway. John stopped but didn’t turn off the engine.
“Son,” Henry said quietly, “you need to come in with us. The house will be warded; I don’t want you out here where Abaddon can get at you.”
With a sigh that was just short of a groan, John put the car in Park and turned off the engine. “Fine.” He pocketed his keys and got out to get the passenger door for Mary.
By the time Mary and Henry had joined John on the sidewalk, however, John’s stance had changed from irritated to wary. And Henry knew why. The night was far too quiet, and he had the sense that something was terribly wrong. John put an arm around Mary’s shoulders and looked around cautiously, and Henry fell in behind the kids, wishing he had a better way to watch their backs.
Mary opened the unlocked door carefully. “Mom? Dad?” she called as they crossed the threshold.
But John’s face grew grave. “Pops, you smell that?”
Henry nodded. “Sulfur-and blood.”
Mary hurried toward the dining room. “Mom? Dad? Dean?” Then she turned toward what was probably the kitchen... and screamed.
John and Henry ran to her, and she threw herself into John’s arms, crying loudly. There was an antique Colt on the floor near the doorway, and both Samuel Campbell and the woman who must have been his wife lay dead on the floor. Mrs. Campbell’s neck appeared to be broken, but Samuel’s headless corpse had been stabbed, and the head lay some feet away, a small pile of sulfur near the mouth.
“What the hell?” John asked quietly, shaken.
“Yellow-Eyes,” Mary sobbed.
“Azazel,” Henry said automatically. He’d never thought he’d need to know the names of the rulers of Hell, but evidently one had escaped.
“He s-said he liked me.”
“When was this?”
“Tonight. We were trying to kill him. Dean said he’d be making a deal with Liddy Walsh, and he was. But Dean missed the shot, and he smoked out.”
“Wait,” John broke in, trying to keep up. “Who’s Dean?”
“Another hunter. He thought Yellow-Eyes was after you for a while.”
“So where is he?”
“I dunno. He was here when I left, talking with Dad.”
Henry swallowed hard and pulled himself together enough to step back a few paces to take in the scene. “Where were they?”
“At the table, most likely.”
There was a chair pushed back against the dining room wall, with scuff marks in front and a few traces of sulfur on the wall behind-it had been pushed back by demonic force against the will of the person sitting in it. Henry walked toward it, thinking aloud. “So Dean was here, and Azazel pinned him to the wall. I’m sure they talked.” He turned. “Then your mother came in and....” He went to examine the stab wound on Samuel’s torso. “No, this wound must be self-inflicted. She would have stabbed him in the back, though without the right knife it would be no use. But he caught her somehow. She tried to escape....”
A sob burst from Mary. “And d-did Dean....”
Henry looked at the gun and picked it up. “This is Samuel Colt’s gun.”
“Dean had it.”
“Then surely he would have tried to use it, if he knows what it can do. No, someone... someone else was here. Someone caught Azazel off guard.”
“Another demon?” John asked.
Henry shook his head. “No, no, demons mutilate; they don’t normally behead.” He looked more closely at Samuel’s neck. “This tissue was cut, not torn. Maybe an angel sword, but angels haven’t walked the earth in centuries, and our lore says they usually stab. I don’t think this was done with a metal blade, either. Maybe... maybe bone, like the First Blade, which could kill a demon, but-but Cain’s not been seen since the Civil War-”
Suddenly his head swam as the enormity of it all overwhelmed him, and he found himself gasping for air as his stomach clenched. A moment later, he was bent over the sink, losing what remained of his dinner. As the heaves subsided, someone rubbed his back and turned on the tap to rinse the vomit down the drain. Henry fished his handkerchief out of his pocket and shakily wiped his mouth, then turned to thank his comforter-and found himself looking at his son’s pale, worried face.
“I meant to come home,” Henry whispered mournfully. “I’m so sorry, John.”
John’s only answer was to pull him into a hug. Henry returned it and tried not to cry.
Then John broke the embrace and stepped back to look Henry in the eye. “So what do we do now?”
Henry turned to Mary. “Does your family have a safe house nearby?”
She sniffled and nodded.
“Does it have a telephone?”
She nodded.
“Okay. Let’s go there for tonight. We can call someone to come help... Ed, I guess, and maybe Robert. They’re the closest to us, as I recall. They can arrange a hunter’s funeral for your parents, and maybe they can also help us find the surviving Men of Letters. But if the wards here weren’t enough to stop Azazel, they won’t stop Abaddon, either. She’s a Knight of Hell-incredibly old and incredibly powerful.”
She nodded again. “What about the Colt?”
John picked it up from the counter beside the sink, where Henry had set it without realizing he still had it in his hand. After checking the cylinder, John tucked the gun into his own waistband. “What’s so special about it?”
“It kills anything.”
“Almost anything,” Henry amended. “According to our information, it won’t harm Lucifer or the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and it’s said only the First Blade can kill Cain. But it ought to work against Abaddon.”
John nodded once. “Good enough. Let’s go.”
“Wait,” Mary objected, “what about Dean?”
Henry sighed and shook his head. “Either whatever killed Azazel took him, or something happened here tonight that even I don’t understand. Either way, we should let your uncles handle it. As hunters, they’d be better equipped to mount a rescue than we are-assuming Dean needs rescuing.”
John frowned. “Pops, I’m a Marine.”
“And as such, you’re trained to fight against humans. But until we know what killed Azazel, where it went, or anything more than what we do know right now, we have no way of knowing whether you’d even be able to get close enough to use the Colt.”
John huffed.
Henry put a hand on his shoulder. “Son. I want you safe.”
An unreadable look crossed John’s face before he sighed and repeated, “Let’s go.”
With a heavy heart, Henry followed the kids back outside. But as he slid into the back seat once more, he sensed something settling over the car... something at once terrible and wonderful, powerful but friendly.
Fear not, it whispered into his soul.
And suddenly he felt safer than he’d ever felt before in his life.
Abaddon’s annoyance grew with every step she took in these wretched kitten heels Josie had set aside to wear for her initiation. It was bad enough that that idiot Henry had somehow muffed his spell such that the portal he’d created spit her out in an empty field rather than a room somewhere. She could only assume he’d been in the car that had sped away as soon as she arrived; there hadn’t been time for her to get a good look inside. But whatever relative he’d found-John, most likely, if Josie’s memories were any guide-had stupidly been waiting for him in the middle of nowhere in the dead of night on the new moon. She’d followed the road on foot, but there was absolutely no traffic coming the opposite direction, and there were no houses within sight of the road. That meant no witnesses she could use to find out whether the car had even stayed on this road rather than turning off somewhere.
She kept herself amused by tormenting Josie with memories of how she’d tortured Father Thompson before setting up her demon factory at St. Bonaventure’s. That little adventure in Milton had had a dual purpose, creating quick replacements for Father Thompson’s guinea pigs and luring in Henry and Josie. Abaddon relished Josie’s anguish at the knowledge that she’d been played for a fool-she’d been Abaddon’s target all along. The threat to possess Henry had been a feint, and it had worked like a charm.
Finally, the road reached civilization. Yet even that didn’t yield anything Abaddon could use, at least at first. Most of the houses here at the edge of town, whatever town this was, were already dark, their inhabitants long since gone to bed. She growled and kept walking.
“Hey, baby.”
Abaddon paused and turned her borrowed head to see an intoxicated man sitting on a porch swing at a house a short way ahead, on the far side of the nearest intersection-a crossroads, which she hoped was a good sign. His hair was long and stringy, his beard scraggly, and he probably hadn’t bathed in a week, but he would do for her purpose. She smiled seductively and sashayed over to him.
He leered at her until she came within the range of the porch lights, which allowed him to see the blood on Josie’s dress. His smile faded then. “Hey, you okay?”
“Actually,” she said as she climbed the stairs, “I could use a little help. I mean, I, ah... I’m not hurt, but... it’s something I could... use a man for.” She lowered her eyelids a little as she looked down at him. “If you know what I mean.”
He reeked of alcohol and marijuana, but his mind wasn’t so dull that he couldn’t understand what she wanted him to think she meant. With a low chuckle, he stood. “Well, baby, I’d say you came to the right place.” He put his hands on her shoulders and pulled her closer, mouth open for a kiss.
She blew part of her smoke into his mouth. “Show me what you’ve seen.”
But his mind revealed next to nothing. He had seen a black Impala drive past, but he didn’t know whose it was or where it was headed. The idiot hadn’t even looked at its license plate. He did, however, show her the date and her location, which was enough to keep her from snarling as she recalled her smoke.
He reeled slightly as he came back to himself. “Whoa. That was trippy. Kinda kinky, too.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Really? You liked that?”
“Yeah.”
She toyed with the collar of his burnt orange double-knit polyester shirt briefly. “You, ah... you’re not married or anything, are you?”
“Nah. ’S just me.”
“No housemates?”
“Nuh-uh.”
She kissed him, savoring both his reaction and Josie’s revulsion, and left him gasping for breath. “I’d say we can both help each other,” she purred then. “So why don’t we take this inside?”
“Yeah,” he breathed and ushered her into the squalid little house.
As he paused to close and lock the door, she sauntered through the living room, which was littered with beer cans and lighted with strange lamps filled with water and some kind of thicker, brightly-colored fluorescent liquid that oozed and bubbled like lava, and into the kitchen. Despite his slovenly housekeeping elsewhere, her mark had done the dishes that night, and the drain rack held both a steak knife and a good-sized bowl.
“Hey,” he said, coming in behind her. “Bedroom’s this way.”
“I’m afraid playtime will have to wait,” she replied as she turned, then slit his throat, gathered the blood into the bowl, and placed a call.
Abby! Lilith squealed. You’ve been gone ages! I missed you.
“Can the cute little girl act, Lilith,” Abaddon snarled. “I was sent to take down the Men of Letters in Illinois in 1958. Now I’ve lost Henry Winchester, and I’m in Nowheresville, Kansas, in 1973. Would you care to explain why I’m in Nowheresville, Kansas, in 1973?”
There was a pause, and then the front door blew open to admit another demon without a host. It entered Abaddon’s victim’s corpse and picked itself up off the floor, eyes black. “So you lost your pretty boy toy, huh, Abaddon?” it drawled.
Abaddon blinked. “Megara?”
“You got it.”
“Why would Lilith send you?”
“Because I want some answers, too.” Megara took a step forward. “Someone just killed my father.”
Abaddon couldn’t suppress a gasp. “Azazel? Azazel’s dead?”
“And I’m guessing it wasn’t you.”
“No. I didn’t know he’d been here-I didn’t even know he was out of the Pit. What was he doing here?”
“Making deals.”
“Why the hell would he do that?”
“He got orders.”
Abaddon’s borrowed eyes widened further. “He finally got through to Lucifer?”
“Yep, back in October. Lord Lucifer told him to find a special child. So he’s been making deals with prospective parents, in the hopes some of ’em have six-month-olds in ten years.”
“Ahhh. The blood spell.”
Megara nodded. “Dunno what the hell he was thinking, coming to Lawrence, unless maybe he liked the idea of the brat growing up this close to Stull. But there’s a family of hunters here, the Campbells. I figure maybe they caught up with him. Unless Crowley did something-”
“Did I hear my name?” a British voice interrupted.
Both Megara and Abaddon turned to the black-clad demon who’d just appeared on the other side of the kitchen.
Crowley smirked at Abaddon. “Hello, darling. Love the suit.”
“What are you doing here, salesman?” Abaddon demanded.
“Eavesdropping, if you must know. And I can guarantee this: whatever bumped off Our Fearless Leader, it wasn’t a crossroads demon. Not that I’m happy about Azazel making deals behind my back, but we’ve our orders from Lilith not to interfere.”
Megara frowned. “Who holds those contracts now?”
“I don’t know. And that is the truth. I’ve not seen them myself-I doubt anyone has. It may be they devolve to you or Tom, but more likely, the deal names Azazel alone on our side. I mean, I don’t think he foresaw whatever the hell it was just happened tonight, do you?”
Abaddon tilted her head slightly. “So you don’t know what’s going on, either.”
“No. I’ve heard tell there’s an angel about, but I don’t think that’s the answer.”
Abaddon sighed and turned to Megara. “All right, ditch the idiot and take me to the Campbells. Josie knows the name, so Henry may have tried to contact them. And you can possess one of them to find out what they know about Azazel.”
Megara nodded once and smoked out, hovering near the ceiling.
“Just... one more thing, luv,” Crowley said before Abaddon could leave. “I wouldn’t take up where Azazel left off without checking with Lilith, if I were you. Some of our new fish haven’t even heard of you.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” Abaddon returned. “I take what I want. I don’t make deals.” And with that, she followed Megara out of the house.
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