The Grandfather Paradox 2/?
Previous
Disclaimer: John's opinions and descriptions of Vietnam are based on things actual vets have said to me in RL.
Chapter 2
Stuck in the Middle with You
Castiel hovered over the Winchesters’ car as it sped toward the Campbell safe house, which turned out to be an isolated, run-down farmhouse near Clinton Lake. It was already warded to some degree, but Henry added such wards as the Men of Letters knew while John assessed the state of the weaponry and Mary called her uncles. And Henry’s additions were enough to stop most demons-but only Castiel knew that even they might not be enough to stop Abaddon. So he covered the outside of both house and car in Enochian wards that would, to the best of his knowledge, be enough to at least give the humans time to escape should Abaddon find them again. The Host were still in too much of an uproar for him to be able to tell whether she had picked up Henry’s trail again, but-
Castiel!
He cringed. Zachariah.
Castiel, what do you think you’re doing?
He took the equivalent of a deep breath and replied, I’m protecting Michael’s vessels. And then, before Zachariah could respond, Castiel did something he’d never done before: he closed his mind to the rest of the Host.
The silence, as humans would say, was deafening. He’d never felt so alone, and the immediate pang of regret, of panic, was almost enough to make him change his mind.
“Psst! Castiel!”
Had he been in a vessel, he would have blinked. That was a voice he’d never expected to hear again-and spoken with a vessel’s tongue, no less!
“Psst! Over here!”
It took a moment for Castiel to spot Gabriel beckoning to him from the small building behind the house, which might have been a stable at one point but was now being used for storage. John had parked the car beside it at Henry’s recommendation, to ensure that the car couldn’t be seen from the road.
“C’mere,” Gabriel whispered, waving to Castiel again. “I brought you something.”
Puzzled, Castiel followed him into the building. And there, in a corner, lifeless, lay-
“It’s a replica,” Gabriel said quietly, sensing Castiel’s shock. “Brand new, never been used. It’s all yours. And you’re going to need it, because those muttonheads in there are going to need you.”
Castiel entered the vessel and found it just as Gabriel had said, a perfect duplicate of Jimmy Novak’s body that had never housed a human soul. Well, almost perfect-as he rose, Castiel sensed a ward above his left hip that Jimmy had never borne, one that would hide him from other angels. He frowned at Gabriel in confusion. “Why have you given me this?”
“It was too dangerous not to.”
“What do you mean? Why would I be in danger from the Host?”
Gabriel blinked. “You have no idea what just happened, do you?”
“No.”
“You can’t go home, kiddo. The timeline you left is no more, but the future is massively in flux. The only thing anchoring these changes is you.”
“What about Henry?”
“Now, that? Was not supposed to happen. I don’t know where he was supposed to end up, but the plan had always called for John to die without ever seeing Henry again. The only reason he got dumped out here was that space-time’s been too destabilized for him to go any further. But just the fact that he’s here now is not in and of itself enough to ensure that the changes to the timeline will be permanent.” Gabriel put a hand on Castiel’s shoulder. “You’re the linchpin. You’re the key. Anything happens to you, and the whole thing unravels-maybe to ’58, maybe further back than that. Even I can’t be sure.”
“But why hide me from the Host?”
Gabriel scoffed. “Zach. Has. A plan. And you know how he is when he has a plan.”
Castiel blinked. “Is this plan... not Father’s will, then?”
Gabriel sighed, dropped his hand, and paced away from Castiel. “I used to think it was-hells, we all did. Now... now I’m not so sure.” He stopped walking but didn’t turn back to Castiel. “Azazel’s death is what drew my attention, but I got there before Dean disappeared. The second one. And I saw more of what happened in that timeline than you did.”
“What did happen?”
“You don’t want to know.” Gabriel sighed again and finally turned around. “But this much you should know; it’ll help you fill in most of the blanks on your own. Lilith doesn’t break the final seal. Lilith is the final seal.”
Castiel felt his heart beat faster-a human reaction, but an appropriate one. “Zachariah never told us this.”
“Of course he didn’t. He never wanted you to stop the Apocalypse. He wants it to happen. He wants it all over.”
“And you thought-”
“Look, nobody wants the fighting to stop more than I do. That’s why I ditched. But now I know it doesn’t stop Zach’s way. It doesn’t even stop Sam and Dean’s way. It only gets worse.” Gabriel shook his head. “You can’t let it happen, little brother. But you’re on your own here, you and those three in the house. Stick with them. Don’t trust anyone else. Ever.”
“What about you?”
Gabriel held up a hand. “Leave me out of this. It’s up to you and the Winchesters now. And you can handle it-I think. Like I said, not too clear on what happens from here out.”
Castiel frowned. “Aren’t you going to help at all?”
“I didn’t say that. If you run into real trouble, you can call, though you’ll have to tell me where you are. You’ll be hidden from me, too. But I’m talking real trouble, the kind you can’t get out of even on a good day with the whole Host for backup. If it’s just Abaddon, you can always run.”
Castiel sighed and nodded. “I understand.” He ran a hand over the white shirt covering the sigil on his side, feeling both bereft because he was cut off this way from his brothers and sisters and loved because one brother had cared enough to hide him this way. “Thank you, Gabriel.”
Gabriel gave him a tight smile and left.
Castiel took a deep breath and let it out again. So he was on his own. At least he knew where his duty lay.
He hid himself from mortal sight and went back outside to keep watch.
Metatron stretched as he set down the book he’d just finished, Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72, and glanced at the clock. It wasn’t quite 2 in the morning, which meant he had a long wait ahead until the mail arrived with his latest shipment of new books. He sighed and got up to search his stacks for the next book on his to-read list, Harold Bloom’s The Anxiety of Influence.
“Seriously?”
He spun to find Gabriel standing behind his chair and holding Fear and Loathing with two fingers and grimacing, as if he were holding a particularly putrid dead rat.
“Thompson?” Gabriel continued. “Seriously? You read schlock like this all the live-long?” A burst of flame, and the book was gone. “Oh, and you ditched Heaven to play Great White Father to a bunch of natives? How racist can you get?”
Metatron gulped and grabbed his shotgun. “Don’t come any closer.”
Gabriel rolled his eyes. “Oh, please.”
“I’m not telling you anything.”
“I’m not here for information, bucko. I’m here because you stole my handle.”
“... What?”
Gabriel snapped his fingers, and the shotgun vanished. Before Metatron could recover, Gabriel had him pinned against the wall, his furious face mere inches from Metatron’s. “Dad’s got one Messenger, kid. Yeah, he speaks through the prophets, and he spoke through Yeshua, but I am his herald. You were only his scribe-and somehow you think now that makes you a better writer than Dad?”
“W-what are you talking about?”
“The back of the book. I’ve read it. Dad’s just issued rewrites, but I know how it ended before. Now, it’s one thing to tell stories, to play in Dad’s sandbox, even to play god for a while in your own little fictional universe. Dad gave humans that right. Hells, I’ve done it myself. It’s called sub-creation. But you’d jump at the chance to take over Dad’s chair, write your own epic fantasy with yourself as the hero and all creation as your pawns, steal Dad’s name and his throne and his glory.”
Metatron couldn’t deny it; he’d been obsessed with the idea ever since the Romantics hit on it. Instead, he shot back, “Wouldn’t you?”
“No, I wouldn’t. I haven’t. I can make damn good tricks, but I wouldn’t dare try to make anything from nothing. But you think, just ’cause Dad gave you the base code, it’s yours to tinker with however you want as soon as there’s no one to stop you. Well, newsflash, kid: That doesn’t make you God. That doesn’t even make you Lucifer.” Gabriel manifested his sword. “That? Makes you a plagiarist.”
“No, wait-”
But Metatron didn’t get the chance to defend himself. With a snarl, Gabriel plunged his sword straight through Metatron’s heart.
Once the light show died down and Metatron’s lifeless vessel slumped to the floor, Gabriel closed his eyes with a sigh. He hated killing family. But taking out Metatron had stabilized space-time somewhat; the knowledge of the spell to cast down the angels had died with the creep who hadn’t followed orders and had deliberately written that section of the angel tablet in a language no prophet could read. That particular future was gone for good now.
Sighing again, Gabriel took a quick glance through the piles of books cluttering Metatron’s suite. The genuine rarities he sent with a snap to the nearest library with a competent archivist. Then he gathered up everything else, took it outside, and burned Metatron on a pyre of his own tawdry paperbacks.
As an afterthought, before he left, Gabriel placed a blessing of his own over the Two Rivers reservation. The people had acted in good faith; they didn’t deserve any backlash that might result from Metatron’s death.
Henry startled awake on the dusty couch from a dream he hoped he’d be able to forget to the quiet snikt of metal against metal. He wasn’t sure what time it was-one item on the day’s to-do list was getting his watch reset-but it was still dark out. Yet a glance at the dining room showed him that the source of the noise he’d heard was John sitting at the table, cleaning guns.
With a quiet sigh, Henry got up and walked over to join his son. “Hi.”
John spared him a brief glance before returning his attention to the gun in his hand. “Morning.”
“Couldn’t sleep?”
“Not really.” John checked the gun’s barrel one last time before closing it and setting it aside in favor of a knife and whetstone.
Henry nodded and sat down across from John. “I can relate.”
John snorted. “I doubt it.”
Something about that flat statement rankled with Henry, as did the fairly pointed way in which John started sharpening the knife without looking up. “Don’t you take that tone with me, John Eric.”
“What do you know about war? You never served.”
“It was hardly my fault that I didn’t turn 18 until after the war ended. And by the time things heated up in Korea, your mother and I had you. My draft was deferred.”
“You still could have enlisted.”
“I couldn’t abandon my family that way!”
John finally looked up at him. “Oh, you couldn’t abandon your family for your country, but it was okay to abandon us for some book club?!”
It took a moment of the two of them staring at each other for Henry’s shock to wear off into anger. “My plan,” he said quietly, “was to learn what I needed in this time, rest long enough to be able to repeat the spell, and then return home to ’58. Clearly, I don’t yet know why that won’t have happened. But until I find out, I will be here for you and Mary, so will you kindly give me a chance?”
After another pause, John dropped both his eyes and his hands with a heavy sigh. “I’m sorry, Pops.”
Henry reached across to squeeze John’s left wrist. “I understand, son. I can’t blame you for being angry that I disappeared without a word. I just....” The words about having a responsibility to protect the knowledge that the Men of Letters safeguarded died in his throat. John wouldn’t-couldn’t-understand them right now. All he knew was that Henry hadn’t come home... and Henry couldn’t look him in the eye and compound that hurt. Not now.
John set down the knife and covered Henry’s hand with his own, rough and callused from hard work and war, as he looked Henry in the eye again. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“Me, too, son. Me, too.”
John squeezed Henry’s hand a little and let go, and Henry did the same. Then John went back to sharpening the knife, but there was no anger behind it now.
Henry took a deep breath and let it out again. “So catch me up. Your mother’s remarried, you said. You’ve been in the Marines. You live in Lawrence?”
John nodded. “Moved here in ’60. Mom had you declared dead-guess she figured you hadn’t survived the fire on Gaines Street, even though no other bodies were found. Theories were either that or that you’d run off with Miss Sands, which....”
“Well, it’s halfway true.”
John huffed, but the corners of his mouth twitched upward.
“You did graduate?”
“Yeah, but I never liked school all that much. Came out about middle of the class. It was boring, Pops,” John added before Henry could express his disappointment. “And the teachers were stupid. I couldn’t see how it was worth my time. Only things that really held my interest were football and baseball... well, and....”
“Mary?”
John smiled again, the gentle smile of a young man in love. “Yeah. Didn’t like her that much when we first met, but by high school... man, she was something.”
Henry smiled back. “I can tell.”
John huffed again, and his smile turned wry. “Figures the night I ask her to marry me, the roof caves in.”
“I’m sorry, son.”
“Don’t be. Guess it’s better I find out the truth now, this way, than... hell, have some demon show up on our doorstep ten years down the line.”
Henry got a sudden chill, as if something of the kind would have been exactly what happened but for the sudden appearance of Azazel’s killer. “Yes, well,” he said in an attempt to cover. “We can-um-wh-who’s the president?”
John looked at him with one eyebrow raised but allowed the change in subject. “Dick Nixon.”
Henry blinked. “Seriously?”
“Yup. Lessee, when you left, it was Ike, right?”
“Right.”
“Jack Kennedy followed him, was assassinated in ’63 by a Commie named Oswald. Then Lyndon Johnson was elected once and decided not to run again in ’68. So that left the door open for Nixon. Most people hated the way Johnson micromanaged the war in Vietnam. Not sure Nixon’s way was all that much better, though I think the real fault lies with Congress.” John punctuated that with a particularly vicious swipe across the whetstone. “Johnson’s dead, by the way-died in January, couple days before the war ended.”
“So the war’s over?”
“Yyyyup.” Another vicious swipe and a huff. “You shoulda seen the bugout, Pops-no, on second thought, I’m glad you didn’t. So many people tryin’ to escape South Vietnam, hangin’ on to the airplanes, and the authorized passengers havin’ to stomp on their hands so the planes could take off. We just left them there to get steamrolled by the Vietcong. Then we come home and get screamed at and spit on. And the hell of it is, we could have won the damn war if it hadn’t been for Washington.”
Henry didn’t know what to say but settled for, “I’m sorry, son.”
John shook his head. “Not your fault.”
“Um. Look, why don’t I... right.” Feeling awkward, Henry went into the kitchen and got some coffee going.
John was smiling fondly when he came back to the table. “Thanks, Pops.”
Henry smiled back and decided to backtrack to a potentially safer topic. “So tell me more about Mary.”
“Guess I didn’t know her quite as well as I thought I did, but... hell. She’s smart. She’s sweet. She’s competent. She’s strong.” John’s eyes got a faraway look to them. “She’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known.”
“So you are going to marry her?”
John thought about it for a moment and set down the sharpened knife before focusing on Henry again. “Honestly, Pops... I don’t think I can not marry her. I promised to take her away from all this.” He gestured at the house with his whetstone, taking in the faded wallpaper, walls with bare lath showing, the wards and iron fixtures and the bag of salt that still sat in a corner after having been used to bar the doors and windows. “And now, with her folks dead... who’s she got, her dad’s family?”
Henry chuckled wryly. “Oh, I know the Campbells. They will not be impressed that she wants to leave hunting.”
“So she’s alone. So she needs me. And... y’know, even after last night... I love her. I want to keep her safe. I... I can’t walk away from her, not now. Not like this.”
Henry nodded slowly. “Well, then, for what it’s worth, you have my blessing.”
And there was his little boy’s smile that he loved so well. “Thanks, Pops.”
“Thought the Men o’ Letters di’n’ like hunters,” Mary’s groggy voice interrupted as she shuffled in from the back bedroom.
“Well, in your case, I can make an exception,” Henry replied with a twinkle as both he and John stood.
She chuckled and shuffled over to John for a hug and a peck on the cheek.
“As a matter of fact,” Henry continued, going in to check the coffee, “assuming I stay once we deal with Abaddon-and I do think I will-I’d be happy to teach both of you the ways of the Letters. John, you’re a legacy, as I said, but I see no reason why Mary should be excluded, especially since she already knows hunting lore.”
John frowned. “What does that mean, I’m a ‘legacy’? Legacy of what?”
“You know how some families always send their children to the same college, generation after generation?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, our family is like that with the Men of Letters.”
“Which is?”
“A secret society. We’re preceptors, beholders, chroniclers of all that man does not understand.”
And as he brought the kids their coffee and started on making breakfast, Henry explained as much as he could about the Letters, their mission, and how they differed from hunters. Mary wasn’t terribly articulate until the first cup of coffee was in her system, but after that, she filled John in on as much of her family’s business as he seemed willing to absorb.
“And you grew up doing this,” John finally repeated, as if he was having trouble picturing her hunting at all.
Mary nodded. “Pretty much my whole life. I might have given some thought to joining the Letters before this, but I’d never met one before last night, and Dad never h-had anything good to say about them.”
Henry sighed. “I’m sorry, Mary. It was thoughtless of me to-”
She shook her head firmly, even as she sniffled and blinked back a tear. “No, please. I... I still want... I mean, this....” She paused with a huff to try to regain her composure. Then she took a deep breath and continued shakily, “It would be my worst nightmare for my children to be raised as hunters.”
John put an arm around her shoulders and rubbed her arm gently. “I can see why. I still wish Pops had said more before he left, but... all the rest of this... I mean, I get it now, Pops. You were trying to protect me.”
Henry nodded slowly. He’d been constrained by the rules for initiates-but would he have told John everything even if he’d been at liberty to do so? On consideration, he probably wouldn’t have, any more than Millie had been willing to allow Johnny to go see scary movies, no matter how ridiculous or fake the monsters were.
“But this Men of Letters thing,” John continued. “I dunno how well I’d do sitting around in a library, but I guess I’m willing to give it a shot, at least for a while. And for Mary... it-it sounds like a way to keep helping people without being on the front lines. Intelligence work, kind of.”
Mary’s eyebrows went up. “Hadn’t thought of it like that.”
The eastern sky had progressed from pink to gold by this point, and the conversation was interrupted by the sound of a car approaching the house.
Mary sniffled again and stood. “That’s Uncle Rob’s car.”
John and Henry also stood and accompanied Mary into the living room as the car stopped and two doors opened and closed. A moment later, someone knocked on the front door, and John opened it to reveal Robert Campbell, looking significantly older and sootier than Henry remembered. Robert nodded once to John before going to Mary and giving her a hug, allowing her to break down again.
“I’m so sorry, baby girl,” Robert whispered, a tear blazing a fresh trail through the grime on his cheek.
When Mary could speak again, she asked, “Is... is everything....”
“We took care of it. What we could, anyway-I’m sure the family’s lawyers will have something to say about the house and Sam’s civilian business, but if you’d prefer to sell....”
She nodded. “I’ll... I’ll be moving in with John pretty soon anyway, once we get married.”
Robert turned back to John and shook his hand, then finally caught sight of Henry. Startled, he looked at Mary again. “You didn’t tell me you were dating one of those Winchesters.”
“Didn’t know it myself until last night,” John replied with a wry smile aimed at Henry.
“That’s true,” Henry agreed and stepped forward to shake Robert’s hand. “Very sorry about Samuel.”
Robert accepted the handshake but shook his own head. “Should have known the Men of Letters would be mixed up in a hunt this weird.”
“So you don’t know what or who might have killed Azazel?”
“No. Hell, it’s the first time we’ve ever run across something killing a demon by beheading. Makes no sense. Ed might-” Robert broke off and looked around, just then realizing that Ed was still outside. “What the-” He stepped back out on the porch, which allowed Henry to see that Ed was standing at the foot of the stairs and looking around as if watching for something. “Hey!” Robert called to him. “Aren’t you coming inside?”
“Not right now,” Ed replied... in a slow near-drawl, unlike the way Henry remembered him having spoken in the past. “Got a little something to do first.” And as he turned to face the door, his eyes went black, and Robert flew backward against the wall, hard enough to knock him out.
Before Henry could react, Abaddon appeared beside whatever was possessing Ed. And John let out a curse-the Colt was still on the table with the other guns he’d been cleaning.
“Nice place,” Abaddon stated, eyebrows raised in appreciation as she looked over the front of the house. “Enochian warding. Didn’t know you had it in you, Henry.”
Mary shot Henry a confused look, but Henry didn’t know how to react. The wards he’d put up hadn’t been Enochian.
Abaddon slithered closer to the foot of the stairs. “Now, be a good little boy and throw me that box you’re carrying.”
Henry started edging backward toward the table. “Never.”
“Oh. Well, then, I guess I’m just going to have to come in and take it.” She shrieked, shattering the windows and causing cracks to run through the front wall and the foundation, breaking the wards he could see.
But suddenly a man in a trenchcoat stood in the doorway, facing the demons with a short silver sword in his right hand. The sky suddenly darkened, and a flash of lightning revealed the shadows of wings stretching protectively out from between the stranger’s shoulder blades.
Abaddon recoiled. “An angel?!”
“GO!” the stranger-the angel?-called over his shoulder to Henry and the kids.
They didn’t have to be told twice. Finally unfrozen, the three humans ran for the back door, not even pausing to collect the Colt. The demon possessing Ed appeared between them and the car, blocking their escape, but the angel appeared again, and the demon fled before the angel’s sword could make contact. Henry and the kids piled into the car...
... and suddenly found themselves and the car in the parking lot of a mall, with the angel sitting in the back seat with Henry.
“Where the hell are we?” John asked breathlessly.
“Topeka,” the angel answered. “I thought it expedient, and it is on your way.”
“Whoa, wait, what-and who the hell are you?!”
“My name is Castiel. I’m an angel of the Lord.”
Henry frowned. “Forgive me, Castiel, but... it’s been centuries since angels walked the earth. Why are you here now? And why-why are you with us? What about Mary’s parents?”
Castiel sighed. “It’s a long story.”
“We’ve got all day.”
“Not... quite. There is something I need to do first, if I may.”
The humans all looked at each other in confusion and shrugged. Taking that as tacit permission, Castiel put his hand flat on each of their chests in turn. Henry gasped as a sharp pain sped around his ribs; John hissed, and Mary let out a pained yelp. Then Castiel touched each of them just above where his hand had been before, and another sharp pain flared up, though this one went no deeper than the skin.
“There,” Castiel stated in apparent relief. “The three of you are now hidden from angels and demons and warded against demonic possession. I am also hidden, and the car is warded. Now it’s safe to talk.”
“You damn well better,” John growled.
And Castiel talked.
Ed Campbell didn’t have time to kick himself for making such a rookie mistake, forgetting his anti-possession charm and not noticing that one of the clouds of smoke that had been swirling around him in the darkness hadn’t come from Samuel and Deanna’s pyre. He could tell that this demon, Megara, was just hoping he’d react in a way that would give her an excuse to attack Rob or Mary or the Winchesters. So instead, he held himself as still as he could and observed, waiting for Megara to let down her guard long enough for him to take back control and maybe even force her out.
He couldn’t suppress a cringe, however, when the angel disappeared with John Winchester’s car and Abaddon’s scream of frustration nearly caused the house to collapse.
“There weren’t supposed to be angels involved,” Megara stated flatly.
“You’re telling me,” Abaddon shot back.
“So how do we find them again?”
Before Abaddon could answer, Rob stirred... but looking through a demonic filter, Ed could tell Rob wasn’t himself anymore. When the hell it might have happened, Ed couldn’t even begin to guess, but....
“Zachariah,” Abaddon breathed as the angel in Rob stood and straightened.
“Well,” said Zachariah, crossing the porch and coming down the stairs. “That went just swimmingly, didn’t it? You were supposed to destroy the Men of Letters, Abaddon!”
“I did!” Abaddon returned. “Henry will never be able to revive the order on his own.”
“But he is not ‘on his own.’ He still has John and Mary and the box. Now he has Castiel. And you didn’t finish the job before you followed him here.”
“Nobody could have survived!”
“Yet someone did.” Zachariah manifested his sword. “I’m afraid you’ve outlived your usefulness, kid.”
As he lunged at Abaddon, however, she was already moving. The blade struck home at the same moment she grabbed his wrist and spun so that her back was to his body. Thus, the sword rammed through her heart and into Zachariah’s, killing them both. Megara just managed to protect Ed’s eyes before the angel’s grace exploded, leaving only the burned-out shells of a man and a woman piled flat on their backs, pinned together with the angel’s sword.
Man and demon stared at the scene in shock. Then, at the thought that she might well be blamed for both deaths by parties that didn’t believe in fingerprint evidence, Megara swore loudly and fled, leaving Ed to clean up the mess. But Ed was too dumbfounded at losing both of his brothers so quickly, not to mention the rest of it. He couldn’t move, not even to wipe away the tears that were streaming down his face.
He didn’t know how much time had passed when another car pulled in and an unfamiliar man got out of it. “This the Campbell place?” the stranger asked.
Ed finally found his voice. “Sorry?”
“Name’s Elkins. I’m looking for the Campbell family. Somebody in Lawrence said they had a place out here.”
Ed drew a pained breath and nodded. “Yes, you’ve... you’ve come to the right place. But you’re too late to talk to anyone who might have known you were coming.”
Elkins finally spotted the bodies and walked over to Ed. “Your kin?”
“One of them was. Both possessed.”
Elkins gave a sympathetic sigh and squeezed Ed’s shoulder. “Sorry for your loss.”
Ed could only nod.
“Man borrowed a gun from me, said he’d leave it with your family. But I suppose I can wait to look for it until I’ve helped you get these two taken care of.”
Ed nodded again, and Elkins squeezed his shoulder once more and started toward the woodpile.
Next
Disclaimer: John's opinions and descriptions of Vietnam are based on things actual vets have said to me in RL.
Chapter 2
Stuck in the Middle with You
Castiel hovered over the Winchesters’ car as it sped toward the Campbell safe house, which turned out to be an isolated, run-down farmhouse near Clinton Lake. It was already warded to some degree, but Henry added such wards as the Men of Letters knew while John assessed the state of the weaponry and Mary called her uncles. And Henry’s additions were enough to stop most demons-but only Castiel knew that even they might not be enough to stop Abaddon. So he covered the outside of both house and car in Enochian wards that would, to the best of his knowledge, be enough to at least give the humans time to escape should Abaddon find them again. The Host were still in too much of an uproar for him to be able to tell whether she had picked up Henry’s trail again, but-
Castiel!
He cringed. Zachariah.
Castiel, what do you think you’re doing?
He took the equivalent of a deep breath and replied, I’m protecting Michael’s vessels. And then, before Zachariah could respond, Castiel did something he’d never done before: he closed his mind to the rest of the Host.
The silence, as humans would say, was deafening. He’d never felt so alone, and the immediate pang of regret, of panic, was almost enough to make him change his mind.
“Psst! Castiel!”
Had he been in a vessel, he would have blinked. That was a voice he’d never expected to hear again-and spoken with a vessel’s tongue, no less!
“Psst! Over here!”
It took a moment for Castiel to spot Gabriel beckoning to him from the small building behind the house, which might have been a stable at one point but was now being used for storage. John had parked the car beside it at Henry’s recommendation, to ensure that the car couldn’t be seen from the road.
“C’mere,” Gabriel whispered, waving to Castiel again. “I brought you something.”
Puzzled, Castiel followed him into the building. And there, in a corner, lifeless, lay-
“It’s a replica,” Gabriel said quietly, sensing Castiel’s shock. “Brand new, never been used. It’s all yours. And you’re going to need it, because those muttonheads in there are going to need you.”
Castiel entered the vessel and found it just as Gabriel had said, a perfect duplicate of Jimmy Novak’s body that had never housed a human soul. Well, almost perfect-as he rose, Castiel sensed a ward above his left hip that Jimmy had never borne, one that would hide him from other angels. He frowned at Gabriel in confusion. “Why have you given me this?”
“It was too dangerous not to.”
“What do you mean? Why would I be in danger from the Host?”
Gabriel blinked. “You have no idea what just happened, do you?”
“No.”
“You can’t go home, kiddo. The timeline you left is no more, but the future is massively in flux. The only thing anchoring these changes is you.”
“What about Henry?”
“Now, that? Was not supposed to happen. I don’t know where he was supposed to end up, but the plan had always called for John to die without ever seeing Henry again. The only reason he got dumped out here was that space-time’s been too destabilized for him to go any further. But just the fact that he’s here now is not in and of itself enough to ensure that the changes to the timeline will be permanent.” Gabriel put a hand on Castiel’s shoulder. “You’re the linchpin. You’re the key. Anything happens to you, and the whole thing unravels-maybe to ’58, maybe further back than that. Even I can’t be sure.”
“But why hide me from the Host?”
Gabriel scoffed. “Zach. Has. A plan. And you know how he is when he has a plan.”
Castiel blinked. “Is this plan... not Father’s will, then?”
Gabriel sighed, dropped his hand, and paced away from Castiel. “I used to think it was-hells, we all did. Now... now I’m not so sure.” He stopped walking but didn’t turn back to Castiel. “Azazel’s death is what drew my attention, but I got there before Dean disappeared. The second one. And I saw more of what happened in that timeline than you did.”
“What did happen?”
“You don’t want to know.” Gabriel sighed again and finally turned around. “But this much you should know; it’ll help you fill in most of the blanks on your own. Lilith doesn’t break the final seal. Lilith is the final seal.”
Castiel felt his heart beat faster-a human reaction, but an appropriate one. “Zachariah never told us this.”
“Of course he didn’t. He never wanted you to stop the Apocalypse. He wants it to happen. He wants it all over.”
“And you thought-”
“Look, nobody wants the fighting to stop more than I do. That’s why I ditched. But now I know it doesn’t stop Zach’s way. It doesn’t even stop Sam and Dean’s way. It only gets worse.” Gabriel shook his head. “You can’t let it happen, little brother. But you’re on your own here, you and those three in the house. Stick with them. Don’t trust anyone else. Ever.”
“What about you?”
Gabriel held up a hand. “Leave me out of this. It’s up to you and the Winchesters now. And you can handle it-I think. Like I said, not too clear on what happens from here out.”
Castiel frowned. “Aren’t you going to help at all?”
“I didn’t say that. If you run into real trouble, you can call, though you’ll have to tell me where you are. You’ll be hidden from me, too. But I’m talking real trouble, the kind you can’t get out of even on a good day with the whole Host for backup. If it’s just Abaddon, you can always run.”
Castiel sighed and nodded. “I understand.” He ran a hand over the white shirt covering the sigil on his side, feeling both bereft because he was cut off this way from his brothers and sisters and loved because one brother had cared enough to hide him this way. “Thank you, Gabriel.”
Gabriel gave him a tight smile and left.
Castiel took a deep breath and let it out again. So he was on his own. At least he knew where his duty lay.
He hid himself from mortal sight and went back outside to keep watch.
Metatron stretched as he set down the book he’d just finished, Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72, and glanced at the clock. It wasn’t quite 2 in the morning, which meant he had a long wait ahead until the mail arrived with his latest shipment of new books. He sighed and got up to search his stacks for the next book on his to-read list, Harold Bloom’s The Anxiety of Influence.
“Seriously?”
He spun to find Gabriel standing behind his chair and holding Fear and Loathing with two fingers and grimacing, as if he were holding a particularly putrid dead rat.
“Thompson?” Gabriel continued. “Seriously? You read schlock like this all the live-long?” A burst of flame, and the book was gone. “Oh, and you ditched Heaven to play Great White Father to a bunch of natives? How racist can you get?”
Metatron gulped and grabbed his shotgun. “Don’t come any closer.”
Gabriel rolled his eyes. “Oh, please.”
“I’m not telling you anything.”
“I’m not here for information, bucko. I’m here because you stole my handle.”
“... What?”
Gabriel snapped his fingers, and the shotgun vanished. Before Metatron could recover, Gabriel had him pinned against the wall, his furious face mere inches from Metatron’s. “Dad’s got one Messenger, kid. Yeah, he speaks through the prophets, and he spoke through Yeshua, but I am his herald. You were only his scribe-and somehow you think now that makes you a better writer than Dad?”
“W-what are you talking about?”
“The back of the book. I’ve read it. Dad’s just issued rewrites, but I know how it ended before. Now, it’s one thing to tell stories, to play in Dad’s sandbox, even to play god for a while in your own little fictional universe. Dad gave humans that right. Hells, I’ve done it myself. It’s called sub-creation. But you’d jump at the chance to take over Dad’s chair, write your own epic fantasy with yourself as the hero and all creation as your pawns, steal Dad’s name and his throne and his glory.”
Metatron couldn’t deny it; he’d been obsessed with the idea ever since the Romantics hit on it. Instead, he shot back, “Wouldn’t you?”
“No, I wouldn’t. I haven’t. I can make damn good tricks, but I wouldn’t dare try to make anything from nothing. But you think, just ’cause Dad gave you the base code, it’s yours to tinker with however you want as soon as there’s no one to stop you. Well, newsflash, kid: That doesn’t make you God. That doesn’t even make you Lucifer.” Gabriel manifested his sword. “That? Makes you a plagiarist.”
“No, wait-”
But Metatron didn’t get the chance to defend himself. With a snarl, Gabriel plunged his sword straight through Metatron’s heart.
Once the light show died down and Metatron’s lifeless vessel slumped to the floor, Gabriel closed his eyes with a sigh. He hated killing family. But taking out Metatron had stabilized space-time somewhat; the knowledge of the spell to cast down the angels had died with the creep who hadn’t followed orders and had deliberately written that section of the angel tablet in a language no prophet could read. That particular future was gone for good now.
Sighing again, Gabriel took a quick glance through the piles of books cluttering Metatron’s suite. The genuine rarities he sent with a snap to the nearest library with a competent archivist. Then he gathered up everything else, took it outside, and burned Metatron on a pyre of his own tawdry paperbacks.
As an afterthought, before he left, Gabriel placed a blessing of his own over the Two Rivers reservation. The people had acted in good faith; they didn’t deserve any backlash that might result from Metatron’s death.
Henry startled awake on the dusty couch from a dream he hoped he’d be able to forget to the quiet snikt of metal against metal. He wasn’t sure what time it was-one item on the day’s to-do list was getting his watch reset-but it was still dark out. Yet a glance at the dining room showed him that the source of the noise he’d heard was John sitting at the table, cleaning guns.
With a quiet sigh, Henry got up and walked over to join his son. “Hi.”
John spared him a brief glance before returning his attention to the gun in his hand. “Morning.”
“Couldn’t sleep?”
“Not really.” John checked the gun’s barrel one last time before closing it and setting it aside in favor of a knife and whetstone.
Henry nodded and sat down across from John. “I can relate.”
John snorted. “I doubt it.”
Something about that flat statement rankled with Henry, as did the fairly pointed way in which John started sharpening the knife without looking up. “Don’t you take that tone with me, John Eric.”
“What do you know about war? You never served.”
“It was hardly my fault that I didn’t turn 18 until after the war ended. And by the time things heated up in Korea, your mother and I had you. My draft was deferred.”
“You still could have enlisted.”
“I couldn’t abandon my family that way!”
John finally looked up at him. “Oh, you couldn’t abandon your family for your country, but it was okay to abandon us for some book club?!”
It took a moment of the two of them staring at each other for Henry’s shock to wear off into anger. “My plan,” he said quietly, “was to learn what I needed in this time, rest long enough to be able to repeat the spell, and then return home to ’58. Clearly, I don’t yet know why that won’t have happened. But until I find out, I will be here for you and Mary, so will you kindly give me a chance?”
After another pause, John dropped both his eyes and his hands with a heavy sigh. “I’m sorry, Pops.”
Henry reached across to squeeze John’s left wrist. “I understand, son. I can’t blame you for being angry that I disappeared without a word. I just....” The words about having a responsibility to protect the knowledge that the Men of Letters safeguarded died in his throat. John wouldn’t-couldn’t-understand them right now. All he knew was that Henry hadn’t come home... and Henry couldn’t look him in the eye and compound that hurt. Not now.
John set down the knife and covered Henry’s hand with his own, rough and callused from hard work and war, as he looked Henry in the eye again. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“Me, too, son. Me, too.”
John squeezed Henry’s hand a little and let go, and Henry did the same. Then John went back to sharpening the knife, but there was no anger behind it now.
Henry took a deep breath and let it out again. “So catch me up. Your mother’s remarried, you said. You’ve been in the Marines. You live in Lawrence?”
John nodded. “Moved here in ’60. Mom had you declared dead-guess she figured you hadn’t survived the fire on Gaines Street, even though no other bodies were found. Theories were either that or that you’d run off with Miss Sands, which....”
“Well, it’s halfway true.”
John huffed, but the corners of his mouth twitched upward.
“You did graduate?”
“Yeah, but I never liked school all that much. Came out about middle of the class. It was boring, Pops,” John added before Henry could express his disappointment. “And the teachers were stupid. I couldn’t see how it was worth my time. Only things that really held my interest were football and baseball... well, and....”
“Mary?”
John smiled again, the gentle smile of a young man in love. “Yeah. Didn’t like her that much when we first met, but by high school... man, she was something.”
Henry smiled back. “I can tell.”
John huffed again, and his smile turned wry. “Figures the night I ask her to marry me, the roof caves in.”
“I’m sorry, son.”
“Don’t be. Guess it’s better I find out the truth now, this way, than... hell, have some demon show up on our doorstep ten years down the line.”
Henry got a sudden chill, as if something of the kind would have been exactly what happened but for the sudden appearance of Azazel’s killer. “Yes, well,” he said in an attempt to cover. “We can-um-wh-who’s the president?”
John looked at him with one eyebrow raised but allowed the change in subject. “Dick Nixon.”
Henry blinked. “Seriously?”
“Yup. Lessee, when you left, it was Ike, right?”
“Right.”
“Jack Kennedy followed him, was assassinated in ’63 by a Commie named Oswald. Then Lyndon Johnson was elected once and decided not to run again in ’68. So that left the door open for Nixon. Most people hated the way Johnson micromanaged the war in Vietnam. Not sure Nixon’s way was all that much better, though I think the real fault lies with Congress.” John punctuated that with a particularly vicious swipe across the whetstone. “Johnson’s dead, by the way-died in January, couple days before the war ended.”
“So the war’s over?”
“Yyyyup.” Another vicious swipe and a huff. “You shoulda seen the bugout, Pops-no, on second thought, I’m glad you didn’t. So many people tryin’ to escape South Vietnam, hangin’ on to the airplanes, and the authorized passengers havin’ to stomp on their hands so the planes could take off. We just left them there to get steamrolled by the Vietcong. Then we come home and get screamed at and spit on. And the hell of it is, we could have won the damn war if it hadn’t been for Washington.”
Henry didn’t know what to say but settled for, “I’m sorry, son.”
John shook his head. “Not your fault.”
“Um. Look, why don’t I... right.” Feeling awkward, Henry went into the kitchen and got some coffee going.
John was smiling fondly when he came back to the table. “Thanks, Pops.”
Henry smiled back and decided to backtrack to a potentially safer topic. “So tell me more about Mary.”
“Guess I didn’t know her quite as well as I thought I did, but... hell. She’s smart. She’s sweet. She’s competent. She’s strong.” John’s eyes got a faraway look to them. “She’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known.”
“So you are going to marry her?”
John thought about it for a moment and set down the sharpened knife before focusing on Henry again. “Honestly, Pops... I don’t think I can not marry her. I promised to take her away from all this.” He gestured at the house with his whetstone, taking in the faded wallpaper, walls with bare lath showing, the wards and iron fixtures and the bag of salt that still sat in a corner after having been used to bar the doors and windows. “And now, with her folks dead... who’s she got, her dad’s family?”
Henry chuckled wryly. “Oh, I know the Campbells. They will not be impressed that she wants to leave hunting.”
“So she’s alone. So she needs me. And... y’know, even after last night... I love her. I want to keep her safe. I... I can’t walk away from her, not now. Not like this.”
Henry nodded slowly. “Well, then, for what it’s worth, you have my blessing.”
And there was his little boy’s smile that he loved so well. “Thanks, Pops.”
“Thought the Men o’ Letters di’n’ like hunters,” Mary’s groggy voice interrupted as she shuffled in from the back bedroom.
“Well, in your case, I can make an exception,” Henry replied with a twinkle as both he and John stood.
She chuckled and shuffled over to John for a hug and a peck on the cheek.
“As a matter of fact,” Henry continued, going in to check the coffee, “assuming I stay once we deal with Abaddon-and I do think I will-I’d be happy to teach both of you the ways of the Letters. John, you’re a legacy, as I said, but I see no reason why Mary should be excluded, especially since she already knows hunting lore.”
John frowned. “What does that mean, I’m a ‘legacy’? Legacy of what?”
“You know how some families always send their children to the same college, generation after generation?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, our family is like that with the Men of Letters.”
“Which is?”
“A secret society. We’re preceptors, beholders, chroniclers of all that man does not understand.”
And as he brought the kids their coffee and started on making breakfast, Henry explained as much as he could about the Letters, their mission, and how they differed from hunters. Mary wasn’t terribly articulate until the first cup of coffee was in her system, but after that, she filled John in on as much of her family’s business as he seemed willing to absorb.
“And you grew up doing this,” John finally repeated, as if he was having trouble picturing her hunting at all.
Mary nodded. “Pretty much my whole life. I might have given some thought to joining the Letters before this, but I’d never met one before last night, and Dad never h-had anything good to say about them.”
Henry sighed. “I’m sorry, Mary. It was thoughtless of me to-”
She shook her head firmly, even as she sniffled and blinked back a tear. “No, please. I... I still want... I mean, this....” She paused with a huff to try to regain her composure. Then she took a deep breath and continued shakily, “It would be my worst nightmare for my children to be raised as hunters.”
John put an arm around her shoulders and rubbed her arm gently. “I can see why. I still wish Pops had said more before he left, but... all the rest of this... I mean, I get it now, Pops. You were trying to protect me.”
Henry nodded slowly. He’d been constrained by the rules for initiates-but would he have told John everything even if he’d been at liberty to do so? On consideration, he probably wouldn’t have, any more than Millie had been willing to allow Johnny to go see scary movies, no matter how ridiculous or fake the monsters were.
“But this Men of Letters thing,” John continued. “I dunno how well I’d do sitting around in a library, but I guess I’m willing to give it a shot, at least for a while. And for Mary... it-it sounds like a way to keep helping people without being on the front lines. Intelligence work, kind of.”
Mary’s eyebrows went up. “Hadn’t thought of it like that.”
The eastern sky had progressed from pink to gold by this point, and the conversation was interrupted by the sound of a car approaching the house.
Mary sniffled again and stood. “That’s Uncle Rob’s car.”
John and Henry also stood and accompanied Mary into the living room as the car stopped and two doors opened and closed. A moment later, someone knocked on the front door, and John opened it to reveal Robert Campbell, looking significantly older and sootier than Henry remembered. Robert nodded once to John before going to Mary and giving her a hug, allowing her to break down again.
“I’m so sorry, baby girl,” Robert whispered, a tear blazing a fresh trail through the grime on his cheek.
When Mary could speak again, she asked, “Is... is everything....”
“We took care of it. What we could, anyway-I’m sure the family’s lawyers will have something to say about the house and Sam’s civilian business, but if you’d prefer to sell....”
She nodded. “I’ll... I’ll be moving in with John pretty soon anyway, once we get married.”
Robert turned back to John and shook his hand, then finally caught sight of Henry. Startled, he looked at Mary again. “You didn’t tell me you were dating one of those Winchesters.”
“Didn’t know it myself until last night,” John replied with a wry smile aimed at Henry.
“That’s true,” Henry agreed and stepped forward to shake Robert’s hand. “Very sorry about Samuel.”
Robert accepted the handshake but shook his own head. “Should have known the Men of Letters would be mixed up in a hunt this weird.”
“So you don’t know what or who might have killed Azazel?”
“No. Hell, it’s the first time we’ve ever run across something killing a demon by beheading. Makes no sense. Ed might-” Robert broke off and looked around, just then realizing that Ed was still outside. “What the-” He stepped back out on the porch, which allowed Henry to see that Ed was standing at the foot of the stairs and looking around as if watching for something. “Hey!” Robert called to him. “Aren’t you coming inside?”
“Not right now,” Ed replied... in a slow near-drawl, unlike the way Henry remembered him having spoken in the past. “Got a little something to do first.” And as he turned to face the door, his eyes went black, and Robert flew backward against the wall, hard enough to knock him out.
Before Henry could react, Abaddon appeared beside whatever was possessing Ed. And John let out a curse-the Colt was still on the table with the other guns he’d been cleaning.
“Nice place,” Abaddon stated, eyebrows raised in appreciation as she looked over the front of the house. “Enochian warding. Didn’t know you had it in you, Henry.”
Mary shot Henry a confused look, but Henry didn’t know how to react. The wards he’d put up hadn’t been Enochian.
Abaddon slithered closer to the foot of the stairs. “Now, be a good little boy and throw me that box you’re carrying.”
Henry started edging backward toward the table. “Never.”
“Oh. Well, then, I guess I’m just going to have to come in and take it.” She shrieked, shattering the windows and causing cracks to run through the front wall and the foundation, breaking the wards he could see.
But suddenly a man in a trenchcoat stood in the doorway, facing the demons with a short silver sword in his right hand. The sky suddenly darkened, and a flash of lightning revealed the shadows of wings stretching protectively out from between the stranger’s shoulder blades.
Abaddon recoiled. “An angel?!”
“GO!” the stranger-the angel?-called over his shoulder to Henry and the kids.
They didn’t have to be told twice. Finally unfrozen, the three humans ran for the back door, not even pausing to collect the Colt. The demon possessing Ed appeared between them and the car, blocking their escape, but the angel appeared again, and the demon fled before the angel’s sword could make contact. Henry and the kids piled into the car...
... and suddenly found themselves and the car in the parking lot of a mall, with the angel sitting in the back seat with Henry.
“Where the hell are we?” John asked breathlessly.
“Topeka,” the angel answered. “I thought it expedient, and it is on your way.”
“Whoa, wait, what-and who the hell are you?!”
“My name is Castiel. I’m an angel of the Lord.”
Henry frowned. “Forgive me, Castiel, but... it’s been centuries since angels walked the earth. Why are you here now? And why-why are you with us? What about Mary’s parents?”
Castiel sighed. “It’s a long story.”
“We’ve got all day.”
“Not... quite. There is something I need to do first, if I may.”
The humans all looked at each other in confusion and shrugged. Taking that as tacit permission, Castiel put his hand flat on each of their chests in turn. Henry gasped as a sharp pain sped around his ribs; John hissed, and Mary let out a pained yelp. Then Castiel touched each of them just above where his hand had been before, and another sharp pain flared up, though this one went no deeper than the skin.
“There,” Castiel stated in apparent relief. “The three of you are now hidden from angels and demons and warded against demonic possession. I am also hidden, and the car is warded. Now it’s safe to talk.”
“You damn well better,” John growled.
And Castiel talked.
Ed Campbell didn’t have time to kick himself for making such a rookie mistake, forgetting his anti-possession charm and not noticing that one of the clouds of smoke that had been swirling around him in the darkness hadn’t come from Samuel and Deanna’s pyre. He could tell that this demon, Megara, was just hoping he’d react in a way that would give her an excuse to attack Rob or Mary or the Winchesters. So instead, he held himself as still as he could and observed, waiting for Megara to let down her guard long enough for him to take back control and maybe even force her out.
He couldn’t suppress a cringe, however, when the angel disappeared with John Winchester’s car and Abaddon’s scream of frustration nearly caused the house to collapse.
“There weren’t supposed to be angels involved,” Megara stated flatly.
“You’re telling me,” Abaddon shot back.
“So how do we find them again?”
Before Abaddon could answer, Rob stirred... but looking through a demonic filter, Ed could tell Rob wasn’t himself anymore. When the hell it might have happened, Ed couldn’t even begin to guess, but....
“Zachariah,” Abaddon breathed as the angel in Rob stood and straightened.
“Well,” said Zachariah, crossing the porch and coming down the stairs. “That went just swimmingly, didn’t it? You were supposed to destroy the Men of Letters, Abaddon!”
“I did!” Abaddon returned. “Henry will never be able to revive the order on his own.”
“But he is not ‘on his own.’ He still has John and Mary and the box. Now he has Castiel. And you didn’t finish the job before you followed him here.”
“Nobody could have survived!”
“Yet someone did.” Zachariah manifested his sword. “I’m afraid you’ve outlived your usefulness, kid.”
As he lunged at Abaddon, however, she was already moving. The blade struck home at the same moment she grabbed his wrist and spun so that her back was to his body. Thus, the sword rammed through her heart and into Zachariah’s, killing them both. Megara just managed to protect Ed’s eyes before the angel’s grace exploded, leaving only the burned-out shells of a man and a woman piled flat on their backs, pinned together with the angel’s sword.
Man and demon stared at the scene in shock. Then, at the thought that she might well be blamed for both deaths by parties that didn’t believe in fingerprint evidence, Megara swore loudly and fled, leaving Ed to clean up the mess. But Ed was too dumbfounded at losing both of his brothers so quickly, not to mention the rest of it. He couldn’t move, not even to wipe away the tears that were streaming down his face.
He didn’t know how much time had passed when another car pulled in and an unfamiliar man got out of it. “This the Campbell place?” the stranger asked.
Ed finally found his voice. “Sorry?”
“Name’s Elkins. I’m looking for the Campbell family. Somebody in Lawrence said they had a place out here.”
Ed drew a pained breath and nodded. “Yes, you’ve... you’ve come to the right place. But you’re too late to talk to anyone who might have known you were coming.”
Elkins finally spotted the bodies and walked over to Ed. “Your kin?”
“One of them was. Both possessed.”
Elkins gave a sympathetic sigh and squeezed Ed’s shoulder. “Sorry for your loss.”
Ed could only nod.
“Man borrowed a gun from me, said he’d leave it with your family. But I suppose I can wait to look for it until I’ve helped you get these two taken care of.”
Ed nodded again, and Elkins squeezed his shoulder once more and started toward the woodpile.
Next