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alchemyalice Title: On the Wings of War
Author: Alchemy Alice
Genre and/or Pairing: Action/Adventure/Horror, eventually Dean/Castiel
Rating: R for violence
Warnings/Spoilers: Up to 5.14-ish? It goes AWOL from there.
Word Count: No idea yet, but very, very long.
Disclaimer: Entirely not mine. Just playin'.
Summary: The Horsemen are not just people with fancy rings. They aren’t even demons with fancy rings. They are another species entirely, a force unto themselves, and Lucifer is kidding himself if he thinks that they are at his beck and call. They are separate. They are neutral. Dean Winchester is not built like them.
A/N: Christ, it's been forever since I updated this. Sorry about that. I was finishing the 50-page paper that determines whether I earn my master's degree or not, and then I was moving house. Excuses, excuses, I know. Sadly, internet takes a back seat to real life, unless someone decides to pay me for this shit, or something.
Prologue | Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four | Chapter Five | Chapter Six | Chapter Seven | Chapter Eight | Chapter Nine | Chapter Ten | Chapter Eleven | Chapter Twelve | Chapter Thirteen | Chapter Fourteen | Chapter Fifteen | Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
The steps shattered and swayed as Dean threw himself up them to the second floor. Half the roof was already down by the time he reached the landing.
“Dean!” Castiel called from behind him. “The wards are down, he'll be in any moment!”
“Head him off, then!” Dean shouted back. “You take the right, I’ll take left!”
The steps fell apart beneath his feet just as the roof’s main beam gave way. Dean leaped as far as he could, and spread his wings.
In an explosion of shingles and wooden slats, he blew out of the top of the roof just as a whir of shadow and power came down on the house.
One blow, and Abbadon decimated the Montana ranch. Dean flapped hard to keep himself upright, and took a look at what the Devil had sent for them. It wasn’t pretty.
“Cas?” he said tentatively.
Standing amidst the rubble, Castiel looked up. “Yes, Dean?”
“How the hell are we supposed to deal with this?”
“Why do you think we kept half your army, Dean?” Castiel answered dryly.
“Right.”
One hundred million soldiers of unknown and fathomless origin did sound encouraging. They would be more so, however, if Dean could see all of them. Because at the moment, all he could see was Abaddon.
Sam had read him the Biblical interpretations of Abaddon. In Hebrew scripture, he was a ‘place of destruction’. The Coptics called him the Angel of Death.
Dean looked down at the figure who now stood just outside the ring of destruction that had moments before been a house. He didn’t look imposing on his own—just a slightly paunchy middle-aged man in fatigues and flak jacket. His hands were shoved into his pockets as he surveyed the wreckage.
But around him…well. Dean beat his wings against air shadowed by swarms of locusts that screeched and undulated, and formed a giant, formless abyss in the sky punctuated only by a whirlpool of hell-stoked fires. It looked like a diseased nightfall, and smelled like acid rain.
The captain thrummed at his side, wings and grease and roving eyes. Dean said to him, his own wings churning through the plagued air, “I know this isn’t your usual gig, but I’ve got some action for you anyway.”
The captain listened, and Dean smelled the sharp spike of acid on it, undercutting Abaddon’s swirling scent of muddy greed and malice. He cut a grin at the thing that wasn’t a thing and added, “We can take him.”
And then he went to ground. Castiel was already walking slowly towards Abaddon, stepping lightly over the debris.
“Hello, angel,” Abaddon said, watching him, rounded office-manager face expressionless. “You’re far from home, and well above your pay-grade.”
“So I’ve been told on numerous occasions,” Castiel replied.
Dean landed behind him in a puff of ash and dust, wings flaring around him. Abaddon looked over Castiel’s shoulder and raised an eyebrow. “I thought Lucifer destroyed you,” he said mildly.
“He tried,” Dean said. “I got better.”
The locusts swarmed, coiling in blackened spires. At the same time, however, Dean began to see the tell tale shiver and shift of bodies and forms scraping their way into reality, hearing their captain’s call. Come on, he thought, willing them to understand. Follow me.
“Then it will be my pleasure to assist him,” Abaddon said politely, like he was going to correct an error on Dean’s credit bill or something. He adjusted his cuffs, and strode forward.
Dean tightened his grip on John’s Sword. And he launched.
He wasn’t expecting the blast of power that met him. It felt like diving into brick, and a small part of his brain was surprised the sword didn’t shatter in his hands under the impact. Instead he felt himself propelling backwards, bouncing like so much rubber, flapping madly to maintain his altitude, reeling. “Fuck!” he spat, barely managing to not fall to the ground in a pathetic tumble and roll, boots catching on broken wooden siding to propel him back upwards.
Abaddon looked vaguely bored, which he resented.
Castiel looked skeptical. “You have more than brute force at your disposal, Dean,” he said in disapproval. He stepped forward, intent clearly concentrated on less physical things.
“Sorry, not really used to this whole supernatural thing,” Dean said, groaning and pushing himself back into the air. He took a second aloft to suck in a lungful of air, and then he sensed it.
Oh. That’s what Cas meant.
He could feel the seething tremor of war jangling in his rib cage, the tang of it in the air. In the distance, he saw the locusts whirl angrily, and then seem to reel back as flashes of limbs and teeth form in hoards out of the ether.
Dean clenched his jaw, and thought bitterly, Bury those fuckers.
He swung John’s Sword in an experimental arc, and Abaddon watched him with a raised eyebrow.
Castiel said, “Come on, Dean.”
Dean nodded. Okay.
He dove.
***
Sam glared at Gabriel, and slammed the door of the Impala shut. Gabriel appeared unfazed.
Luckily for him, the Impala only sputtered slightly before kicking into drive. “Where are we going?” Sam said.
“The nearest church is down the road about two miles. But it’s probably surrounded already. The closest with any sort of chance to get the occupants out is five miles east.”
“The nearest one, then,” Sam said. “If there are people there, we can get them to the safer place.”
“How noble,” Gabriel commented. Bobby growled something under his breath.
It wasn’t a long drive, but it was an eerily quiet one. “Isn’t there supposed to be a demon infestation here?” Bobby said warily, after a couple of minutes.
“Oh, they’re here,” Gabriel said. And then more quietly, “Just wait.”
Sam turned onto a side street, and then slammed his foot down on the brakes. “Holy fuck,” he said.
There wasn’t a church at the end of the road, not a visible one, anyway. The feeble gold crucifix at the top of the spire was the only thing left to see. The rest of the building was smothered with one massive, roiling black cloud.
“How many is that, anyway?” Bobby said quietly.
“One hundred and forty-four,” Gabriel said. “There will be one hundred and forty-four at each point of the pentagram. Seven hundred twenty in total.”
“And if we open the door to that church to try and help anyone inside,” Sam started.
“Instant possession of everyone in there,” the archangel finished. “Yeah.”
“Who was this thing meant to boost, anyway?” Sam asked. “Is Lucifer going to be here?”
“It was made for Abaddon,” Gabriel answered.
Sam swung around to look at him. “Abaddon,” he repeated. “Abaddon, the fucking first-level demon we just abandoned Dean and Cas to.”
Gabriel looked at him. “That’s the one.”
Sam barely managed to restrain himself from punching him. Instead he clamped down on his jaw and said, “Okay. How do we take on more than a hundred unhosted demons?”
The archangel looked out at the angry cloud of demons, and said, “Depends. What’ve you got in the trunk of this behemoth of a car?”
***
Dean could barely see, everything was too dark and too fast and just too far beyond his comprehension. Abaddon was destruction, Dean could feel it on him, in the weight of the blows he ducked and dodged, and the screech of insects that followed in his wake. He swung his sword wide, blocking and then thrusting upwards, and this angel of death just looked fucking bored, like he wasn’t certain if Dean was even trying or not yet.
Cas was tiring; Dean could tell from out of the corners of his vision. The angel was double-wielding, thin silver blades in each fist, and he was lashing out with the concentrated ferocity that never failed to terrify Dean at the most basic primal levels of his brain, but he was still tiring, it was in his eyes.
Dean brought the sword down hard, but Abaddon blocked it with an upraised arm without even flinching. One twist, and his hand was gripping Dean’s wrist, hard enough that Dean could feel his bones crack. He snarled.
Castiel struck, blade sinking into Abaddon’s wrist like stigmata before wrenching back outwards, leaving a gaping wound in the paunchy man’s arm that bled profusely. It was enough to sever the tendons, and Dean threw himself back as he felt the muscles in the hand that was holding him go slack. It wouldn’t take Abaddon long to put his unwilling host back together, but it was good enough.
He moved to strike.
Abaddon was not going to take it lying down.
The blow skittered off harmlessly; Dean beat his wings upwards twice to gain ground to try again.
Too slow.
Castiel moved in, and was thrown off with a gesture.
Locusts swarmed, and the army faltered.
No, Dean though fiercely, Hold the fuck on.
He went in again in Cas’s wake, sword and wings swirling.
The blade was blocked; his right wing was not.
Abaddon howled and Dean made an unearthly sound that he would not, will not ever admit to, the sound of a bear as it killed. The long first spine of his right wing swung and connected, first in a long slash across Abaddon’s ribs, then driving upward through his throat, parting muscle and bone and sinew.
It wasn’t enough. Abaddon bared his teeth even as his throat welled with blood.
“Go on, you son of a bitch,” Dean growled. He shoved his wing up farther. Abaddon’s host’s brain ruptured.
“So commanding, Dean,” he gurgled. “So sure of the outcome.”
“Fucking die!” Dean shouted, gripping the host’s arms, letting him thrash helplessly as the demon drove him into dust.
Smoke gathered in the apex of Abaddon’s host’s body.
“Just try it,” Abaddon growled, surging up against Dean’s unrelenting grip. There was a cry of anguish behind them, but Dean couldn’t turn himself away. He held the demon down, with limbs and wings, feeling the unrelenting thrum of his army, his, surging around him, killing off this train of pandemonium and hate with every ounce of its own. Fire with fire works sometimes, he thought absurdly.
“I will,” he sneered into Abaddon’s gaping face. “I’ll see you in hell, bucko.”
“No doubt,” Abaddon replied.
Every muscle in his body straining, Dean parted his wings, and shredded him.
Smoke billowed, and turned into fire.
Dean reeled as sparks exploded outward. The locusts were screaming now, crackling and shriveling into coals that rained down on Montana, setting the fields alight. The army thrashed, triumphal, forms sliding in and out of visibility.
Dean felt hot shards of rock and coagulated blood sear his face in bright gashes, and he held up his arms to shield himself, turning and curving his wings, trying for flight and failing. He caught sight of tan trench coat, and with ears ringing he threw himself towards it.
“Cas!”
The trench coat stirred, but didn’t rise from the rubble and ash.
“Cas, goddamnit, come on!” Dean reached the rumpled pile and pulled. “Fuck. No.”
Castiel was unconscious. The rest Dean was resolutely not thinking about. He glanced up and took in the landscape, a veritable hell on Earth if he ever saw one. The fields were black in places, on fire in others, staining the rocky outcroppings black. The locusts were faltering, but still whined and beat their wings in the wake of their fallen lord while the army railed at them, cutting back and forth across the sky like thunderclouds in time-lapse photography. The place where the fragments of Abaddon lay was a mess of congealed plasma and dust streaks and beyond that, a great and broken ashen wingspan.
“Used to be one of yours, huh?” Dean muttered, because it was better than having a breakdown here in the middle of this wasteland. He pulled again, and managed to get Castiel’s torso into his grip. Legs next.
He should have been on a stretcher, but Dean didn’t have one. He wasn’t even sure if he had the energy to move them. But he’d have to.
He searched his memory for safe places, far away places.
He thought of tombs and an old holy man.
Praying he had the strength, he stretched back shuddering wings and pulled.
***
“Castiel stole you a whole jug of this stuff?” Gabriel said with something like surprise in his voice.
“Guess so,” Sam said. “I wasn’t around for it.”
“No, he and Dean were playing house. Right. Well, it might help. Ooh, this too.”
“What’re we doing, exactly?” Bobby inquired.
“We’re taking apart this Bethlehem Pentagram,” Gabriel answered, “And saving New Mexico in the process. Any questions?”
“Yeah. How?” Sam said drily.
Gabriel didn’t answer. He just grabbed a book out of the Impala, flipped a few pages into it, and then shoved it at Bobby. “Follow the instructions on here,” he said. “We should have everything we need for it. Sam, you take the holy oil. You got a lighter?”
“Always.”
“Good.”
Bobby frowned at the book in his hands. “What’s this for?” he asked. “It looks like a devil’s trap, but it’s not.”
“It’s a devil’s trap,” Gabriel said, with deceptive lightness. “With a few lesser-known modifications. Most people don’t dare experiment with it, since, well, you don’t really want to fuck around with these things, but in the right context it can be quite useful.”
He looked back at Sam. “Here’s the thing. The only way those demons are gonna move away from that church is if they have a body to get into. You and Bobby won’t do—you have your anti-possession tats for that. And normally I won’t do, because this body is already occupied. But,” he paused, “I can move.”
“Move? Where?” Sam asked.
Gabriel watched him, wariness in his eyes. “I’m a far better houseguest than Lucifer,” he said quietly. “And that’s a promise.”
Chapter Eighteen.
Author: Alchemy Alice
Genre and/or Pairing: Action/Adventure/Horror, eventually Dean/Castiel
Rating: R for violence
Warnings/Spoilers: Up to 5.14-ish? It goes AWOL from there.
Word Count: No idea yet, but very, very long.
Disclaimer: Entirely not mine. Just playin'.
Summary: The Horsemen are not just people with fancy rings. They aren’t even demons with fancy rings. They are another species entirely, a force unto themselves, and Lucifer is kidding himself if he thinks that they are at his beck and call. They are separate. They are neutral. Dean Winchester is not built like them.
A/N: Christ, it's been forever since I updated this. Sorry about that. I was finishing the 50-page paper that determines whether I earn my master's degree or not, and then I was moving house. Excuses, excuses, I know. Sadly, internet takes a back seat to real life, unless someone decides to pay me for this shit, or something.
Prologue | Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four | Chapter Five | Chapter Six | Chapter Seven | Chapter Eight | Chapter Nine | Chapter Ten | Chapter Eleven | Chapter Twelve | Chapter Thirteen | Chapter Fourteen | Chapter Fifteen | Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
The steps shattered and swayed as Dean threw himself up them to the second floor. Half the roof was already down by the time he reached the landing.
“Dean!” Castiel called from behind him. “The wards are down, he'll be in any moment!”
“Head him off, then!” Dean shouted back. “You take the right, I’ll take left!”
The steps fell apart beneath his feet just as the roof’s main beam gave way. Dean leaped as far as he could, and spread his wings.
In an explosion of shingles and wooden slats, he blew out of the top of the roof just as a whir of shadow and power came down on the house.
One blow, and Abbadon decimated the Montana ranch. Dean flapped hard to keep himself upright, and took a look at what the Devil had sent for them. It wasn’t pretty.
“Cas?” he said tentatively.
Standing amidst the rubble, Castiel looked up. “Yes, Dean?”
“How the hell are we supposed to deal with this?”
“Why do you think we kept half your army, Dean?” Castiel answered dryly.
“Right.”
One hundred million soldiers of unknown and fathomless origin did sound encouraging. They would be more so, however, if Dean could see all of them. Because at the moment, all he could see was Abaddon.
Sam had read him the Biblical interpretations of Abaddon. In Hebrew scripture, he was a ‘place of destruction’. The Coptics called him the Angel of Death.
Dean looked down at the figure who now stood just outside the ring of destruction that had moments before been a house. He didn’t look imposing on his own—just a slightly paunchy middle-aged man in fatigues and flak jacket. His hands were shoved into his pockets as he surveyed the wreckage.
But around him…well. Dean beat his wings against air shadowed by swarms of locusts that screeched and undulated, and formed a giant, formless abyss in the sky punctuated only by a whirlpool of hell-stoked fires. It looked like a diseased nightfall, and smelled like acid rain.
The captain thrummed at his side, wings and grease and roving eyes. Dean said to him, his own wings churning through the plagued air, “I know this isn’t your usual gig, but I’ve got some action for you anyway.”
The captain listened, and Dean smelled the sharp spike of acid on it, undercutting Abaddon’s swirling scent of muddy greed and malice. He cut a grin at the thing that wasn’t a thing and added, “We can take him.”
And then he went to ground. Castiel was already walking slowly towards Abaddon, stepping lightly over the debris.
“Hello, angel,” Abaddon said, watching him, rounded office-manager face expressionless. “You’re far from home, and well above your pay-grade.”
“So I’ve been told on numerous occasions,” Castiel replied.
Dean landed behind him in a puff of ash and dust, wings flaring around him. Abaddon looked over Castiel’s shoulder and raised an eyebrow. “I thought Lucifer destroyed you,” he said mildly.
“He tried,” Dean said. “I got better.”
The locusts swarmed, coiling in blackened spires. At the same time, however, Dean began to see the tell tale shiver and shift of bodies and forms scraping their way into reality, hearing their captain’s call. Come on, he thought, willing them to understand. Follow me.
“Then it will be my pleasure to assist him,” Abaddon said politely, like he was going to correct an error on Dean’s credit bill or something. He adjusted his cuffs, and strode forward.
Dean tightened his grip on John’s Sword. And he launched.
He wasn’t expecting the blast of power that met him. It felt like diving into brick, and a small part of his brain was surprised the sword didn’t shatter in his hands under the impact. Instead he felt himself propelling backwards, bouncing like so much rubber, flapping madly to maintain his altitude, reeling. “Fuck!” he spat, barely managing to not fall to the ground in a pathetic tumble and roll, boots catching on broken wooden siding to propel him back upwards.
Abaddon looked vaguely bored, which he resented.
Castiel looked skeptical. “You have more than brute force at your disposal, Dean,” he said in disapproval. He stepped forward, intent clearly concentrated on less physical things.
“Sorry, not really used to this whole supernatural thing,” Dean said, groaning and pushing himself back into the air. He took a second aloft to suck in a lungful of air, and then he sensed it.
Oh. That’s what Cas meant.
He could feel the seething tremor of war jangling in his rib cage, the tang of it in the air. In the distance, he saw the locusts whirl angrily, and then seem to reel back as flashes of limbs and teeth form in hoards out of the ether.
Dean clenched his jaw, and thought bitterly, Bury those fuckers.
He swung John’s Sword in an experimental arc, and Abaddon watched him with a raised eyebrow.
Castiel said, “Come on, Dean.”
Dean nodded. Okay.
He dove.
***
Sam glared at Gabriel, and slammed the door of the Impala shut. Gabriel appeared unfazed.
Luckily for him, the Impala only sputtered slightly before kicking into drive. “Where are we going?” Sam said.
“The nearest church is down the road about two miles. But it’s probably surrounded already. The closest with any sort of chance to get the occupants out is five miles east.”
“The nearest one, then,” Sam said. “If there are people there, we can get them to the safer place.”
“How noble,” Gabriel commented. Bobby growled something under his breath.
It wasn’t a long drive, but it was an eerily quiet one. “Isn’t there supposed to be a demon infestation here?” Bobby said warily, after a couple of minutes.
“Oh, they’re here,” Gabriel said. And then more quietly, “Just wait.”
Sam turned onto a side street, and then slammed his foot down on the brakes. “Holy fuck,” he said.
There wasn’t a church at the end of the road, not a visible one, anyway. The feeble gold crucifix at the top of the spire was the only thing left to see. The rest of the building was smothered with one massive, roiling black cloud.
“How many is that, anyway?” Bobby said quietly.
“One hundred and forty-four,” Gabriel said. “There will be one hundred and forty-four at each point of the pentagram. Seven hundred twenty in total.”
“And if we open the door to that church to try and help anyone inside,” Sam started.
“Instant possession of everyone in there,” the archangel finished. “Yeah.”
“Who was this thing meant to boost, anyway?” Sam asked. “Is Lucifer going to be here?”
“It was made for Abaddon,” Gabriel answered.
Sam swung around to look at him. “Abaddon,” he repeated. “Abaddon, the fucking first-level demon we just abandoned Dean and Cas to.”
Gabriel looked at him. “That’s the one.”
Sam barely managed to restrain himself from punching him. Instead he clamped down on his jaw and said, “Okay. How do we take on more than a hundred unhosted demons?”
The archangel looked out at the angry cloud of demons, and said, “Depends. What’ve you got in the trunk of this behemoth of a car?”
***
Dean could barely see, everything was too dark and too fast and just too far beyond his comprehension. Abaddon was destruction, Dean could feel it on him, in the weight of the blows he ducked and dodged, and the screech of insects that followed in his wake. He swung his sword wide, blocking and then thrusting upwards, and this angel of death just looked fucking bored, like he wasn’t certain if Dean was even trying or not yet.
Cas was tiring; Dean could tell from out of the corners of his vision. The angel was double-wielding, thin silver blades in each fist, and he was lashing out with the concentrated ferocity that never failed to terrify Dean at the most basic primal levels of his brain, but he was still tiring, it was in his eyes.
Dean brought the sword down hard, but Abaddon blocked it with an upraised arm without even flinching. One twist, and his hand was gripping Dean’s wrist, hard enough that Dean could feel his bones crack. He snarled.
Castiel struck, blade sinking into Abaddon’s wrist like stigmata before wrenching back outwards, leaving a gaping wound in the paunchy man’s arm that bled profusely. It was enough to sever the tendons, and Dean threw himself back as he felt the muscles in the hand that was holding him go slack. It wouldn’t take Abaddon long to put his unwilling host back together, but it was good enough.
He moved to strike.
Abaddon was not going to take it lying down.
The blow skittered off harmlessly; Dean beat his wings upwards twice to gain ground to try again.
Too slow.
Castiel moved in, and was thrown off with a gesture.
Locusts swarmed, and the army faltered.
No, Dean though fiercely, Hold the fuck on.
He went in again in Cas’s wake, sword and wings swirling.
The blade was blocked; his right wing was not.
Abaddon howled and Dean made an unearthly sound that he would not, will not ever admit to, the sound of a bear as it killed. The long first spine of his right wing swung and connected, first in a long slash across Abaddon’s ribs, then driving upward through his throat, parting muscle and bone and sinew.
It wasn’t enough. Abaddon bared his teeth even as his throat welled with blood.
“Go on, you son of a bitch,” Dean growled. He shoved his wing up farther. Abaddon’s host’s brain ruptured.
“So commanding, Dean,” he gurgled. “So sure of the outcome.”
“Fucking die!” Dean shouted, gripping the host’s arms, letting him thrash helplessly as the demon drove him into dust.
Smoke gathered in the apex of Abaddon’s host’s body.
“Just try it,” Abaddon growled, surging up against Dean’s unrelenting grip. There was a cry of anguish behind them, but Dean couldn’t turn himself away. He held the demon down, with limbs and wings, feeling the unrelenting thrum of his army, his, surging around him, killing off this train of pandemonium and hate with every ounce of its own. Fire with fire works sometimes, he thought absurdly.
“I will,” he sneered into Abaddon’s gaping face. “I’ll see you in hell, bucko.”
“No doubt,” Abaddon replied.
Every muscle in his body straining, Dean parted his wings, and shredded him.
Smoke billowed, and turned into fire.
Dean reeled as sparks exploded outward. The locusts were screaming now, crackling and shriveling into coals that rained down on Montana, setting the fields alight. The army thrashed, triumphal, forms sliding in and out of visibility.
Dean felt hot shards of rock and coagulated blood sear his face in bright gashes, and he held up his arms to shield himself, turning and curving his wings, trying for flight and failing. He caught sight of tan trench coat, and with ears ringing he threw himself towards it.
“Cas!”
The trench coat stirred, but didn’t rise from the rubble and ash.
“Cas, goddamnit, come on!” Dean reached the rumpled pile and pulled. “Fuck. No.”
Castiel was unconscious. The rest Dean was resolutely not thinking about. He glanced up and took in the landscape, a veritable hell on Earth if he ever saw one. The fields were black in places, on fire in others, staining the rocky outcroppings black. The locusts were faltering, but still whined and beat their wings in the wake of their fallen lord while the army railed at them, cutting back and forth across the sky like thunderclouds in time-lapse photography. The place where the fragments of Abaddon lay was a mess of congealed plasma and dust streaks and beyond that, a great and broken ashen wingspan.
“Used to be one of yours, huh?” Dean muttered, because it was better than having a breakdown here in the middle of this wasteland. He pulled again, and managed to get Castiel’s torso into his grip. Legs next.
He should have been on a stretcher, but Dean didn’t have one. He wasn’t even sure if he had the energy to move them. But he’d have to.
He searched his memory for safe places, far away places.
He thought of tombs and an old holy man.
Praying he had the strength, he stretched back shuddering wings and pulled.
***
“Castiel stole you a whole jug of this stuff?” Gabriel said with something like surprise in his voice.
“Guess so,” Sam said. “I wasn’t around for it.”
“No, he and Dean were playing house. Right. Well, it might help. Ooh, this too.”
“What’re we doing, exactly?” Bobby inquired.
“We’re taking apart this Bethlehem Pentagram,” Gabriel answered, “And saving New Mexico in the process. Any questions?”
“Yeah. How?” Sam said drily.
Gabriel didn’t answer. He just grabbed a book out of the Impala, flipped a few pages into it, and then shoved it at Bobby. “Follow the instructions on here,” he said. “We should have everything we need for it. Sam, you take the holy oil. You got a lighter?”
“Always.”
“Good.”
Bobby frowned at the book in his hands. “What’s this for?” he asked. “It looks like a devil’s trap, but it’s not.”
“It’s a devil’s trap,” Gabriel said, with deceptive lightness. “With a few lesser-known modifications. Most people don’t dare experiment with it, since, well, you don’t really want to fuck around with these things, but in the right context it can be quite useful.”
He looked back at Sam. “Here’s the thing. The only way those demons are gonna move away from that church is if they have a body to get into. You and Bobby won’t do—you have your anti-possession tats for that. And normally I won’t do, because this body is already occupied. But,” he paused, “I can move.”
“Move? Where?” Sam asked.
Gabriel watched him, wariness in his eyes. “I’m a far better houseguest than Lucifer,” he said quietly. “And that’s a promise.”
Chapter Eighteen.
no subject
Date: 6 Sep 2010 20:48 (UTC)HOLY SHIT.
(ILU so much more with every chapter you write.)
no subject
Date: 7 Sep 2010 09:18 (UTC)no subject
Date: 6 Sep 2010 20:53 (UTC)Okay! I wasn't expecting that. What a cliffhanger.
And poor Cas. At least he's still alive though.
no subject
Date: 7 Sep 2010 09:19 (UTC)Thanks for reading :)
no subject
Date: 6 Sep 2010 21:08 (UTC)Nice double cliffie with Dean and Cas battered and bruised, and our intrepid heroes about to face off with numerous demons to save a whole state.
I await your next update with anticipation!
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Date: 7 Sep 2010 09:21 (UTC)no subject
Date: 7 Sep 2010 09:29 (UTC)no subject
Date: 6 Sep 2010 22:24 (UTC)“I thought Lucifer destroyed you,” he said mildly.
“He tried,” Dean said. “I got better.”
Oh Dean, ILU. Love this understated dark humor.
This is spectacular! Dean's fight was my favorite, with the army kicking ass, and then he shreds him with his pointy wings of deathy death! What an amazing mental image! And then everything's on fire, and Dean's army of abominations is dancing in triumph (lol, that's what the thrashing came across as, in my weird brain).
Wicked ending too! Gabe, Sam and Bobby saving New Mexico from demons. Gabe's gonna take up residence in Sam, most interesting! Can't wait to see what happens next! Tho what happens with the Pentagram since Dean killed Abaddon? Tho I guess 720 demons are problematic enough.
no subject
Date: 7 Sep 2010 09:35 (UTC)I'm glad the action sequence worked for you, it was stupidly hard to write, for some reason. So I'm pleased it was worth it :D
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Date: 7 Sep 2010 01:49 (UTC)no subject
Date: 7 Sep 2010 09:35 (UTC)no subject
Date: 7 Sep 2010 02:48 (UTC)no subject
Date: 7 Sep 2010 09:36 (UTC)wow!
Date: 7 Sep 2010 09:06 (UTC)Dean's fight with his scythe-wings, his army and Castiel double angelic blades? The wait was so WORTH this! Oh yeah!
And Gabriel is going to possess Sammy? That's going to be so interesting! (I can already see Dean's reaction to that...)
That was so great! I hope you'll be able to update soon to let us know what will happen next!
<3 <3 <3
Winged Golden Tiger
Re: wow!
Date: 7 Sep 2010 09:36 (UTC)no subject
Date: 9 Sep 2010 02:18 (UTC)no subject
Date: 9 Sep 2010 09:33 (UTC)no subject
Date: 9 Sep 2010 07:27 (UTC)Ack. What are you thinking Gabriel?! Don't get yourself killed! Or piss off Dean when he realizes to the point he wants to kill you! =P
Awesome chapter! Thank you for it. =D
no subject
Date: 9 Sep 2010 09:33 (UTC)no subject
Date: 16 Jan 2011 00:13 (UTC)no subject
Date: 16 Jan 2011 02:02 (UTC)no subject
Date: 30 Jul 2011 11:59 (UTC)