Plan B or C or Whatever... 5/6
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Chapter 4
They had failed.
That was the topic of conversation for the entire drive to the co-ordinates point: something just outside of Lebanon, Kansas. Both grandfather and surrogate father were upset that the expected phone call never came, which told them they would not see the brothers again until 2016.
In the meantime, Henry grew to realize that Bobby was a pragmatist. There was nothing they could do about their missing children, so they would focus on what they could. And that was whatever was waiting for them in Lebanon. And once he had learned how to operate the strange controls of 1980s cars, Henry was able to take over the task of driving when Bobby flagged, and they managed to make the drive pretty much straight through.
They arrived at the coordinates to find concrete steps leading down to an unassuming brick archway surrounding a steel door set in the side of a hill below an abandoned power plant.
“Doesn’t look very impressive,” Bobby said.
“I’m sure that’s the whole idea,” Henry replied and led the way down to the door, which unlocked and opened easily.
They found a light switch and turned it on. The hallway they were in led out to a balcony that overlooked a pre-war command center and—joy of joys!—a gorgeous library.
“Well, this is it,” Bobby said firmly. When Henry looked at him, he swung out his hand. “Somewhere in here is the key to defeating Azazel’s plan and knowing what it is.”
“And also the key to getting our boys off Gloucester Island, I hope,” Henry agreed. “Even if the spell can’t be broken, at least we can try to convince Dean that Sam’s no longer in danger.”
Bobby rubbed his hands together. “Right. Let’s get started!”
And so began a two-year trawl through the archives in what turned out to be a very secure bunker. Bobby eventually sold his salvage yard and moved his phone bank to the bunker; he still took the occasional hunt and accepted research requests from other hunters, but mostly, he was as focused on finding the information they needed as Henry was. His friends Rufus and Ellen took up the slack of dispatching hunters to work cases around the country—and reported that, at least for the first year, demonic activity had suddenly dropped sharply.
What they found didn’t completely explain Azazel’s plan, but it did explain a good deal of it. There were prophecies in the archives stating that the Winchester family had some part to play, for good or ill, in the Apocalypse—and Azazel was evidently hoping to use Sam, at least, to release Lucifer and trigger a final fight against Michael to end the world. But it was equally evident that Azazel was hedging his bets, given what John and the boys had already found about other children who were in the same boat Sam was.
They began to track those children, leading to Cold Oak, South Dakota, and a bunch of them gathered for a prizefight with superpowers, as Bobby crudely put it. They managed to save some of the children—and then Azazel showed up.
By this time, Ellen had informed them, the whole supernatural world seemed to think that Azazel himself had possession of the only weapon capable of killing him. But Henry had managed to track down the Spear of Longinus—no thanks to Cuthbert Sinclair, whom Bobby had had to kill for trying to double-cross them—and learned how to wield it.
Azazel was quite surprised to find his monologue interrupted by a “glorified librarian” shoving a spear through his gut. He was even more surprised to find himself very quickly dying.
“Is that it?” asked Andy Gallagher, one of the kids who’d actually met Sam and Dean. “Is it over?”
“He’s dead,” Bobby said. “He won’t be bothering you kids again.”
Once they’d delivered the kids to the nearest town, however, Henry looked at Bobby. “That might be the end of Azazel, but you know as well as I do that it’s not the end of his schemes. He was acting on Lucifer’s own orders. Somehow Hell will find a way to regroup between now and 2016, I’m sure.”
“Then we’d better do everything we can to get ready, hadn’t we?” Bobby grinned at him.
Henry grinned back. He’d never expected to find such a good friend and partner in a hunter, of all people... but by now, he could easily see why John had befriended Bobby and why Bobby had unofficially adopted John’s sons. Beneath that gruff, rough exterior were a warm heart and a lively mind.
Seeing him balance both worlds had led Henry to becoming more physically fit as well—best the monsters look at him and see an unassuming weak individual whose interests were clearly more cerebral. That way they would underestimate him and be blindsided when he knew how to use a gun or a spell or a charmed lance. The pair made a good team.
And so they worked and researched together, always searching for the key to undoing both Hell’s plans and the curse on Gloucester Island—until one day in December of 2012, when one of Bobby’s phones suddenly rang.
Bobby frowned and answered it. “Willis, FBI.”
“Dammit, Singer,” returned a voice he thought he’d never hear again, “where the hell are you, and where the hell are my boys?!”
“You sound remarkably spry for a dead man.”
John huffed noisily into the receiver. “Tell me about it. Woke up in a crater about a mile from that hospital where I died. Took me all day to hitchhike to Harvelle’s, and then Jo slugged me in the face, Ellen and Ash won’t talk to me except to say you’re not in Sioux Falls, and the boys’ phones go straight to voice mail. What the hell’s goin’ on?”
Henry held up a note and Bobby read it and nodded, asking, “Your daddy gave you a music box when you were little. What did it play?”
“‘As Time Goes By,’” John replied, sounding confused. “I told you that one time when the boys were little—you asked me why Dean was singing ‘Hey, Jude’ to Sammy, and I’d had just enough whiskey to tell you about Mary singing it to him and Pops giving me that music box to play for a lullaby when I started having nightmares after we saw Casablanca at the drive-in.”
“Where are you, Jarhead?”
“I’m... I’m still at Harvelle’s. Ellen hasn’t run me off with a shotgun yet, although she sure looks like she wants to.”
“Put her on.” When he heard her grumpy tone, he asked, “Passed all the tests?”
“All the standard ones,” Ellen admitted grudgingly. “He tell you about the spirit that’s followin’ him, though?”
“Not yet. Tell me.”
“Doesn’t seem to be a demon—no visible form we can see. All we can hear is a loud whine, and it blew out the lights in the parking lot. Ash and Joanna Beth are out fixing them now. We’re damn lucky we weren’t open yet.”
“Keep him there. We’ll be there in two hours.”
He could almost see her shake her head. “Six years he’s been gone—six years the boys have been gone—and now....”
“And he’ll be gone again in two and a half hours. Hang in there, Ellen.”
“Yeah, I’ll try. Thanks, Bobby.” And Ellen hung up.
Henry sighed and sank back into the chair in the War Room, glancing at the glowing dot on the map table. “Well, now we know what pinged that.”
Bobby hummed in agreement. “Still a lot of unanswered questions, though. Good thing Rufus was free to check it out—too bad he missed John, but at least we know where John is now.”
Henry stood up. “I’ll go warm up the truck.”
Bobby nodded. “Thanks. I’ll check in with Rufus.”
Henry nodded. Once in the truck he found himself quietly hyperventilating over the steering wheel. Johnny was alive.... HOW?
Mercifully, it was only a few minutes before Bobby joined him. “Welp, John wasn’t kiddin’ when he said he woke up in a crater,” Bobby reported. “Rufus said the area where the boys burned John looked like a bomb had gone off. EMF off the scale. The one thing we can be sure didn’t happen is someone makin’ a deal—the boys couldn’t have, we didn’t, an’ nobody else woulda bothered.”
“That’s troubling,” Henry said, scooting over so Bobby could drive. “That suggests something powerful and potentially malicious.”
“Exactly.” Bobby put the truck in gear and drove off. “And there’s whatever followed John to the Roadhouse. John don’t sound like he has answers, or at least not answers he’s willin’ to share, so I called a friend o’ mine to meet us there. She’s a psychic, should be able to tell us what this thing is.”
Henry nodded. “My fellow Letters used to interrogate psychics—I know, I know,” he said, interrupting Bobby’s open mouth. “We’ve had this discussion before. I can’t believe I followed them so blindly.”
Bobby huffed. “Well, Pamela’s the real deal. So don’t you start in on her.”
“If I do, I trust you’ll stop me.”
“If I don’t, Ellen will. Truth is, though... I’m more worried about how John’s gonna react to seein’ you.”
Henry chuckled. “Honestly, that never crossed my mind.”
“Ain’t no laughin’ matter, Henry. He never forgave you for disappearin’ like that.”
Henry sobered instantly. “He didn’t....” He leaned back into the headrest and closed his eyes as they rolled on down the road. What else could be said after that?
Two hours later, the truck pulled into the muddy parking lot of Harvelle’s Roadhouse. They were met there not only by Rufus but also by a black-haired, green-eyed woman who greeted Bobby with a hug and then gave Henry a grinning once-over. “Well, well,” she said. “Never met a time traveler before. Nice to meet you, Henry. Name’s Pamela Barnes.” And she offered her hand.
He took it and returned her smile. “The pleasure’s mine. He’s inside, then?”
“We just got here,” said Rufus.
“In the basement,” said Pamela. “Partly because Ellen doesn’t want the seance scaring the regular customers and blowing out the lights, partly because she’s still mad at John—more for what his death did to his sons than for his role in Bill’s death.”
Rufus stared. “How the hell did you know about Bill?”
She smirked, but it was Bobby who said to Henry, “Told you she was the real deal.”
Henry laughed; he couldn’t help it. He followed them to the basement.
And there, pacing nervously, was a man Henry recognized only from the one photograph Bobby had of John and his boys—tall, muscular, dark hair and beard turning grey in places, face hardened and eyes haunted by the life he’d led. Was this really the same boy Henry had last said good night to all those years ago?
Until his dying day, Henry would always wonder why what came out of his mouth was, “My G-d, you look just like your grandfather.”
John froze for a moment, then spun wide-eyed to face him. “POPS?!”
He smiled. “Hello, Johnny. It’s been while.” He wasn’t quite sure what to expect.
Except being spun to the ground by a right hook .... wasn’t quite it.
“Hey.” Pamela stepped between them. “It wasn’t his fault, John—he was being chased by a Knight of Hell. That’s a better excuse than you had for the times you left your boys alone for weeks on end, to say nothing of the way you failed to say goodbye to them.”
Henry was suddenly very glad Bobby had told him much of this. Otherwise, he might well he decked his own son just on principle.
John was seething. “Look, lady—”
“Did you know that your last words to Dean would be instructions to kill Sam if he couldn’t save him?” Pamela interrupted. “Did you even once think about what that would do to Dean?”
“Don’t tell me how to handle my sons!” John roared.
“Why? Because I don’t know what it’s like to have a son who’s been tainted by demon blood?”
The room went dead silent.
“You’re afraid,” Pamela pressed as Bobby helped Henry up, presumably to keep both of them from attacking John with more than words. “You love your sons, but you don’t know what to do with the information you’ve tortured out of those demons, even less now that you’ve done it Downstairs. You’re afraid Sam’s going to turn into a monster, actually become the Boy King of Hell—and you’re afraid you won’t have it in you to stop him. But you never considered that treating him like a monster might push him down that path more effectively than anything else ever could.”
“Don’t you dare lecture me,” John snarled, but his hands were shaking.
She crossed her arms and fixed him with a glare that could have frozen a sun. “I’m merely stating an uncomfortable truth. You’re the one taking it as a lecture.”
“Don’t have to worry about the boys for a few more years yet, anyway,” Rufus chimed in. “Dean took your instructions to heart and found a way to keep Sam as safe as can be. They’re on Gloucester Island.”
There was a shocked silence, then John—there was no other word for it—erupted. He yelled and screamed until Pamela walked right over to him and slapped him so hard he ended up sitting in a chair.
“We can discuss your sons later, John,” she said firmly. “Right now, we’ve got a bigger problem: figuring out why you’re back and what this spirit that’s following you is and what it wants. Show us your shoulder.”
John called her a nasty name, but he tugged his shirt off enough for them to all see the handprint seared into his shoulder like a horrible burn.
“You can’t hurt me with the truth,” she shot back and motioned for everyone else to take seats around the table Ellen had set up for them while she set up for the seance.
At last, all was ready. They held hands and Pamela pressed her palm to the palm of the burn.
“I invoke, conjure, and command you, appear unto me before this circle,” she repeated several times until she broke off, listening to something. “Castiel?” she asked, apparently repeating the spirit’s name. “No, sorry, I don’t scare easily. I invoke, conjure, and command you—”
“Wait,” Henry interrupted. “Let me try something else.”
Pamela fell silent.
Henry closed his eyes and bowed his head. “Blessed Castiel, Angel of Thursday, hear our prayer.”
Pamela took a sharp breath. “... it says... it’s listening.”
“We earnestly desire to speak with thee, but we are mortal and cannot bear the presence of the holy angels unaided. We beseech thee therefore to appear unto us in a guise our eyes may see and speak unto us with a voice our ears may hear.”
Her eyes snapped open. “For this? Only for this?” After a pause, she sighed. “All right.” She barked out a laugh. “Oh, you’re pedantic. Yes, then.”
And the flames on the candles jumped high. When they went down, Pamela... was different. Henry, who was sitting next to her, could sense power in her presence and in her touch that hadn’t been there before, even before her head turned and her wide, unblinking green eyes stared into his soul.
“Castiel?” he gasped.
“I am Castiel.” Pamela’s voice was lower than normal. “This woman is not my true vessel, and thus I cannot remain with her long. Why must you speak with me?”
“Why are you following my son?”
“I gripped him tight and raised him from perdition. In return, we expect him to perform tasks for us.”
“Who’s ‘we’?” Bobby asked. “An’ why resurrect John specifically?”
“I was told to.” Pointedly, there was no answer to the first question.
Henry decided to press his luck. “Is this to do with the Apocalypse?”
The angel blinked. “I was told to raise this mortal from Hell, as he is a Righteous Man.”
Henry’s blood went cold. “There was something in the library,” he murmured. “Something about when a Righteous Man sheds blood in Hell....”
“I found him beside the rack,” Castiel’s voice was suddenly tight.
“I’m right here,” John growled, but his face had gone pale.
Henry ignored him. “What do your superiors want John to do?”
“Stop Lilith,” answered Castiel.
Henry felt the blood drain from his own face. “But... isn’t Lilith still confined to the Pit of Hell?”
A blink. “... we were told she was active. But she... seems to be below.”
“So how am I supposed to stop her if she isn’t even topside?” John asked, frowning.
“I was told... I am confused.”
Rufus asked something in Hebrew; Henry didn’t quite catch it, but he thought it was something like, “What were you told?”
Castiel answered in English, “Lilith had escaped when the Hell Gate was opened and now she wants to break the 66 seals and we have to stop her.”
Bobby, Henry, and Rufus all looked at each other and chorused, “What Hell Gate?”
“The Hell Gate... that was opened by the winner of Azazel’s Death Match.” Castiel frowned.
Bobby shook his head. “We put a stop to that. Nobody won.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” said Henry, thinking so hard his eyes slid shut. “Are you talking about the Devil’s Gate built by Samuel Colt somewhere in southern Wyoming?” He opened his eyes a crack.
The angel nodded Pamela’s head.
“The one that’s said to open only when the barrel of Colt’s demon-killing gun is inserted in the lock?”
Another nod, but this time the eyes —now an unearthly blue—began to widen.
“Azazel had that gun on him when I killed him last year. I put it in a secure vault myself. No other demon could have gotten to it since then.”
“But... that would mean I had been... lied to.”
“Looks that way, don’t it?” Bobby agreed.
“Impossible. My superiors would not....”
“You sure about that?” Rufus asked.
“I....” The angel clearly didn’t know how to respond.
Henry leaned forward. “John’s been dead for six years, Castiel. Why have you resurrected him now?”
“It took us this long to battle through Hell.” Pamela’s head shook. “Though I do not understand why we went the long way ’round.”
“You mean you coulda gotten to me sooner?!” John exploded. “I was in Hell for seven centuries because you took the scenic route?!!”
“If we could have gone in the other way, we might have gotten to you before you were off of the rack.”
John swore bitterly.
But a niggling thought occurred to Henry. “Castiel... when did you start fighting your way into Hell?”
Pamela’s eyebrows drew together. “We do not perceive time as you do, but… I believe… it was July of last year.”
“We killed Azazel last May.”
John swore again.
Castiel shook Pamela’s head. “I must go now. I will find out what I can and return when I am able. Please shield your eyes.”
Henry turned his head, screwed his eyes shut, and put an arm over them just to be safe. He was still aware of the blinding flash that heralded Castiel’s departure and Pamela’s groan as she came back to herself.
“You all right, Pamela?” Bobby asked as Henry turned back to look at her again.
“No,” Pamela rasped. “Whiskey….”
Rufus passed her his flask, and she drank from it gratefully. Once she’d downed a couple of large swigs, she uttered a very unladylike phrase.
“Need somethin’ more?” Bobby pressed.
“Just time.” Pamela drank again. “I don’t know what that’s like for the average vessel, but for me it was like going Dr. Strangelove on a comet, except I was holding on by my fingernails.”
Then Henry noticed that John wasn’t at the table anymore. He was standing several paces away with his back to the table, shoulders hunched and arms crossed like he was trying to fold in on himself.
“Johnny?” Henry asked, getting up and going to him. “What is it, son?”
It was a moment before John spoke, without looking at Henry. “Time’s different in Hell. Near as I can figure, a month up here is ten years down there.”
“And?”
“I was down there… almost eight hundred years. But after the first… year, maybe, where they were torturing me like it was an initiation rite, I spent the next… I dunno… seven hundred, thereabout, in a pretty good replica of the Hanoi Hilton. They messed with my head a lot, but it wasn’t… wasn’t torture, y’know? I even thought once I was gonna be able to make a break for it, but they changed the guard schedule, and then they moved me to a lower circle.” John ran a hand over his mouth. “And then… about fifty years ago, Hell time, everything changed. There was this… this demon called Alistair, and he had me put on the rack and… Pops, there just aren’t words.”
Henry rubbed John’s shoulder. “You don’t have to describe it.”
“He kept saying he’d stop if I’d agree to torture somebody else. I… I held out as long as I could… t-twenty years, I think it was… but in the end….”
“Everyone breaks, John. And you didn’t have the option of dying.”
John finally turned to him, unshed tears glittering in the candlelight. “Pops, don’t you get it? Fifty years ago in Hell was July of this year.”
“So it ain’t just Hell that’s got it in for your boys,” Bobby concluded.
John frowned. “What?”
“It seems everything changed when the boys went to Gloucester Island,” Henry stated and summarized the past six years for John, who went from swearing in English to swearing in Vietnamese. “So since we scuppered Azazel’s Plan B,” Henry concluded, “it appears you’re somehow at the center of Plan C—although as long as it’s taken them to regroup each time, there may have been other plans in between that failed before we even found out about them.”
John swore again, and his shoulders slumped in defeat.
“Hey,” Bobby said. “Where’s the Jarhead fighter?”
“What’s left to fight for?” John asked miserably as Henry steered him back to the table. “Mary’s avenged, but I’ve lost the boys. Never believed in angels, but now I’ve met one, and his side’s as much against us as Hell is. Whatever I’m supposed to stop Lilith from doing, I don’t see the odds of success being that good, given that the angels are likely to be the ones to bust Lilith out in the first place. I... I just....”
“You haven’t lost the boys, Johnny,” Henry said. “They’re just temporarily misplaced.”
John laughed, but it rang hollow. “Temporarily misplaced. Right. Just like you were.”
“With a huge difference,” his father grinned. “We know when they’re coming back.”
John told him what he could do with himself—and Bobby reached over and slapped John upside the head. Hard.
“What the hell, Singer!” John erupted.
“I have had it to here with you bein’ a damn suicidal idjit,” Bobby roared back. “Your daddy’s a good man. He don’t deserve to be cussed at and slugged, ’specially just for tellin’ you the truth. Now, are you gonna shut up, suit up, an’ help us solve this, or do we have to lock you up ‘til you get your head straight?”
“Why, this is Hell, nor am I out of it,” John grumbled.
Bobby smacked him again.
“Stop that!”
“You don’t think you deserve to be alive,” said Pamela, her voice still hoarse. “But you are alive, John. Get used to it.”
Looking for a way to break the stalemate, Henry quickly went to the cabinet where Ellen kept her herbs. Once he’d found what he needed, he went back to the table, tapped John on the shoulder, recited an Enochian spell as John turned, and blew a handful of chamomile into John’s face. John’s eyes instantly rolled back in his head, and Bobby caught him before he could fall out of his chair.
“Nice,” said Rufus.
“Let’s get him home,” Henry said. “Thank you, all, for your hospitality. When we know what’s going on, we’ll keep you apprised.”
Pamela murmured a farewell, but Rufus helped Bobby carry John up the stairs and out to the truck.
“Thanks, Turner,” said Bobby. “I owe you a hundred.”
“Hell, Bob, I quit countin’ how many you owe me years ago.” Rufus smiled and slugged Bobby on the shoulder. “Let me know how everything shakes out. I’ll keep tryin’ to find out what I can on my end.”
“Will do,” Bobby replied and shook Rufus’ hand.
Rufus then shook Henry’s hand and went off to his own truck while Henry and Bobby climbed into theirs and left. John slept all the way back to the bunker and through their manhandling him inside and into a bed—in fact, he didn’t wake until the next morning, when Bobby and Henry were fixing breakfast.
Bobby shoved a cup of coffee under the startled hunter’s nose.
“Good morning, son,” said Henry, looking away from the skillet full of bacon only briefly. “I’d apologize for knocking you out, but since you seemed to be stuck in gloom-or-grouch mode, it seemed the only thing to do was to shut you down and let you restart after a good night’s rest.”
“Wh... Where are we?” John asked.
“This is a bunker, somewhere in Kansas, belonging to the Men of Letters. It’s warded against everything imaginable. You’ll be safe here.”
“Until they catch up with me.”
“Shut up and eat your breakfast, idjit,” Bobby grumbled.
Henry sighed. “When you’re at war for so long, it becomes your default mindset.”
“They could,” John insisted.
“They’d have to find you first,” said Bobby.
“You think they can’t read minds?”
“Why do you think we didn’t tell you the exact location?”
John blinked.
“I checked the records relating to the bunker’s construction when we got back last night,” Henry stated, transferring the last of the bacon to a paper towel to drain. “The warding does prevent anything, even angels, from entering unless we open the door to them. So even if Castiel’s superiors are able to work out where you are, they can’t just walk in and take you.”
“So... I-I really... am safe?”
Henry squeezed the back of John’s neck. “You really are.”
“I can’t... it’s been too long....”
“Try, son. For the boys’ sake.”
John drew a deep breath. “For the boys.”
Henry gently but firmly steered him to the table, where Bobby put a loaded plate in front of him. And slowly, hesitantly, John began to eat… and relax.
Next
They had failed.
That was the topic of conversation for the entire drive to the co-ordinates point: something just outside of Lebanon, Kansas. Both grandfather and surrogate father were upset that the expected phone call never came, which told them they would not see the brothers again until 2016.
In the meantime, Henry grew to realize that Bobby was a pragmatist. There was nothing they could do about their missing children, so they would focus on what they could. And that was whatever was waiting for them in Lebanon. And once he had learned how to operate the strange controls of 1980s cars, Henry was able to take over the task of driving when Bobby flagged, and they managed to make the drive pretty much straight through.
They arrived at the coordinates to find concrete steps leading down to an unassuming brick archway surrounding a steel door set in the side of a hill below an abandoned power plant.
“Doesn’t look very impressive,” Bobby said.
“I’m sure that’s the whole idea,” Henry replied and led the way down to the door, which unlocked and opened easily.
They found a light switch and turned it on. The hallway they were in led out to a balcony that overlooked a pre-war command center and—joy of joys!—a gorgeous library.
“Well, this is it,” Bobby said firmly. When Henry looked at him, he swung out his hand. “Somewhere in here is the key to defeating Azazel’s plan and knowing what it is.”
“And also the key to getting our boys off Gloucester Island, I hope,” Henry agreed. “Even if the spell can’t be broken, at least we can try to convince Dean that Sam’s no longer in danger.”
Bobby rubbed his hands together. “Right. Let’s get started!”
And so began a two-year trawl through the archives in what turned out to be a very secure bunker. Bobby eventually sold his salvage yard and moved his phone bank to the bunker; he still took the occasional hunt and accepted research requests from other hunters, but mostly, he was as focused on finding the information they needed as Henry was. His friends Rufus and Ellen took up the slack of dispatching hunters to work cases around the country—and reported that, at least for the first year, demonic activity had suddenly dropped sharply.
What they found didn’t completely explain Azazel’s plan, but it did explain a good deal of it. There were prophecies in the archives stating that the Winchester family had some part to play, for good or ill, in the Apocalypse—and Azazel was evidently hoping to use Sam, at least, to release Lucifer and trigger a final fight against Michael to end the world. But it was equally evident that Azazel was hedging his bets, given what John and the boys had already found about other children who were in the same boat Sam was.
They began to track those children, leading to Cold Oak, South Dakota, and a bunch of them gathered for a prizefight with superpowers, as Bobby crudely put it. They managed to save some of the children—and then Azazel showed up.
By this time, Ellen had informed them, the whole supernatural world seemed to think that Azazel himself had possession of the only weapon capable of killing him. But Henry had managed to track down the Spear of Longinus—no thanks to Cuthbert Sinclair, whom Bobby had had to kill for trying to double-cross them—and learned how to wield it.
Azazel was quite surprised to find his monologue interrupted by a “glorified librarian” shoving a spear through his gut. He was even more surprised to find himself very quickly dying.
“Is that it?” asked Andy Gallagher, one of the kids who’d actually met Sam and Dean. “Is it over?”
“He’s dead,” Bobby said. “He won’t be bothering you kids again.”
Once they’d delivered the kids to the nearest town, however, Henry looked at Bobby. “That might be the end of Azazel, but you know as well as I do that it’s not the end of his schemes. He was acting on Lucifer’s own orders. Somehow Hell will find a way to regroup between now and 2016, I’m sure.”
“Then we’d better do everything we can to get ready, hadn’t we?” Bobby grinned at him.
Henry grinned back. He’d never expected to find such a good friend and partner in a hunter, of all people... but by now, he could easily see why John had befriended Bobby and why Bobby had unofficially adopted John’s sons. Beneath that gruff, rough exterior were a warm heart and a lively mind.
Seeing him balance both worlds had led Henry to becoming more physically fit as well—best the monsters look at him and see an unassuming weak individual whose interests were clearly more cerebral. That way they would underestimate him and be blindsided when he knew how to use a gun or a spell or a charmed lance. The pair made a good team.
And so they worked and researched together, always searching for the key to undoing both Hell’s plans and the curse on Gloucester Island—until one day in December of 2012, when one of Bobby’s phones suddenly rang.
Bobby frowned and answered it. “Willis, FBI.”
“Dammit, Singer,” returned a voice he thought he’d never hear again, “where the hell are you, and where the hell are my boys?!”
“You sound remarkably spry for a dead man.”
John huffed noisily into the receiver. “Tell me about it. Woke up in a crater about a mile from that hospital where I died. Took me all day to hitchhike to Harvelle’s, and then Jo slugged me in the face, Ellen and Ash won’t talk to me except to say you’re not in Sioux Falls, and the boys’ phones go straight to voice mail. What the hell’s goin’ on?”
Henry held up a note and Bobby read it and nodded, asking, “Your daddy gave you a music box when you were little. What did it play?”
“‘As Time Goes By,’” John replied, sounding confused. “I told you that one time when the boys were little—you asked me why Dean was singing ‘Hey, Jude’ to Sammy, and I’d had just enough whiskey to tell you about Mary singing it to him and Pops giving me that music box to play for a lullaby when I started having nightmares after we saw Casablanca at the drive-in.”
“Where are you, Jarhead?”
“I’m... I’m still at Harvelle’s. Ellen hasn’t run me off with a shotgun yet, although she sure looks like she wants to.”
“Put her on.” When he heard her grumpy tone, he asked, “Passed all the tests?”
“All the standard ones,” Ellen admitted grudgingly. “He tell you about the spirit that’s followin’ him, though?”
“Not yet. Tell me.”
“Doesn’t seem to be a demon—no visible form we can see. All we can hear is a loud whine, and it blew out the lights in the parking lot. Ash and Joanna Beth are out fixing them now. We’re damn lucky we weren’t open yet.”
“Keep him there. We’ll be there in two hours.”
He could almost see her shake her head. “Six years he’s been gone—six years the boys have been gone—and now....”
“And he’ll be gone again in two and a half hours. Hang in there, Ellen.”
“Yeah, I’ll try. Thanks, Bobby.” And Ellen hung up.
Henry sighed and sank back into the chair in the War Room, glancing at the glowing dot on the map table. “Well, now we know what pinged that.”
Bobby hummed in agreement. “Still a lot of unanswered questions, though. Good thing Rufus was free to check it out—too bad he missed John, but at least we know where John is now.”
Henry stood up. “I’ll go warm up the truck.”
Bobby nodded. “Thanks. I’ll check in with Rufus.”
Henry nodded. Once in the truck he found himself quietly hyperventilating over the steering wheel. Johnny was alive.... HOW?
Mercifully, it was only a few minutes before Bobby joined him. “Welp, John wasn’t kiddin’ when he said he woke up in a crater,” Bobby reported. “Rufus said the area where the boys burned John looked like a bomb had gone off. EMF off the scale. The one thing we can be sure didn’t happen is someone makin’ a deal—the boys couldn’t have, we didn’t, an’ nobody else woulda bothered.”
“That’s troubling,” Henry said, scooting over so Bobby could drive. “That suggests something powerful and potentially malicious.”
“Exactly.” Bobby put the truck in gear and drove off. “And there’s whatever followed John to the Roadhouse. John don’t sound like he has answers, or at least not answers he’s willin’ to share, so I called a friend o’ mine to meet us there. She’s a psychic, should be able to tell us what this thing is.”
Henry nodded. “My fellow Letters used to interrogate psychics—I know, I know,” he said, interrupting Bobby’s open mouth. “We’ve had this discussion before. I can’t believe I followed them so blindly.”
Bobby huffed. “Well, Pamela’s the real deal. So don’t you start in on her.”
“If I do, I trust you’ll stop me.”
“If I don’t, Ellen will. Truth is, though... I’m more worried about how John’s gonna react to seein’ you.”
Henry chuckled. “Honestly, that never crossed my mind.”
“Ain’t no laughin’ matter, Henry. He never forgave you for disappearin’ like that.”
Henry sobered instantly. “He didn’t....” He leaned back into the headrest and closed his eyes as they rolled on down the road. What else could be said after that?
Two hours later, the truck pulled into the muddy parking lot of Harvelle’s Roadhouse. They were met there not only by Rufus but also by a black-haired, green-eyed woman who greeted Bobby with a hug and then gave Henry a grinning once-over. “Well, well,” she said. “Never met a time traveler before. Nice to meet you, Henry. Name’s Pamela Barnes.” And she offered her hand.
He took it and returned her smile. “The pleasure’s mine. He’s inside, then?”
“We just got here,” said Rufus.
“In the basement,” said Pamela. “Partly because Ellen doesn’t want the seance scaring the regular customers and blowing out the lights, partly because she’s still mad at John—more for what his death did to his sons than for his role in Bill’s death.”
Rufus stared. “How the hell did you know about Bill?”
She smirked, but it was Bobby who said to Henry, “Told you she was the real deal.”
Henry laughed; he couldn’t help it. He followed them to the basement.
And there, pacing nervously, was a man Henry recognized only from the one photograph Bobby had of John and his boys—tall, muscular, dark hair and beard turning grey in places, face hardened and eyes haunted by the life he’d led. Was this really the same boy Henry had last said good night to all those years ago?
Until his dying day, Henry would always wonder why what came out of his mouth was, “My G-d, you look just like your grandfather.”
John froze for a moment, then spun wide-eyed to face him. “POPS?!”
He smiled. “Hello, Johnny. It’s been while.” He wasn’t quite sure what to expect.
Except being spun to the ground by a right hook .... wasn’t quite it.
“Hey.” Pamela stepped between them. “It wasn’t his fault, John—he was being chased by a Knight of Hell. That’s a better excuse than you had for the times you left your boys alone for weeks on end, to say nothing of the way you failed to say goodbye to them.”
Henry was suddenly very glad Bobby had told him much of this. Otherwise, he might well he decked his own son just on principle.
John was seething. “Look, lady—”
“Did you know that your last words to Dean would be instructions to kill Sam if he couldn’t save him?” Pamela interrupted. “Did you even once think about what that would do to Dean?”
“Don’t tell me how to handle my sons!” John roared.
“Why? Because I don’t know what it’s like to have a son who’s been tainted by demon blood?”
The room went dead silent.
“You’re afraid,” Pamela pressed as Bobby helped Henry up, presumably to keep both of them from attacking John with more than words. “You love your sons, but you don’t know what to do with the information you’ve tortured out of those demons, even less now that you’ve done it Downstairs. You’re afraid Sam’s going to turn into a monster, actually become the Boy King of Hell—and you’re afraid you won’t have it in you to stop him. But you never considered that treating him like a monster might push him down that path more effectively than anything else ever could.”
“Don’t you dare lecture me,” John snarled, but his hands were shaking.
She crossed her arms and fixed him with a glare that could have frozen a sun. “I’m merely stating an uncomfortable truth. You’re the one taking it as a lecture.”
“Don’t have to worry about the boys for a few more years yet, anyway,” Rufus chimed in. “Dean took your instructions to heart and found a way to keep Sam as safe as can be. They’re on Gloucester Island.”
There was a shocked silence, then John—there was no other word for it—erupted. He yelled and screamed until Pamela walked right over to him and slapped him so hard he ended up sitting in a chair.
“We can discuss your sons later, John,” she said firmly. “Right now, we’ve got a bigger problem: figuring out why you’re back and what this spirit that’s following you is and what it wants. Show us your shoulder.”
John called her a nasty name, but he tugged his shirt off enough for them to all see the handprint seared into his shoulder like a horrible burn.
“You can’t hurt me with the truth,” she shot back and motioned for everyone else to take seats around the table Ellen had set up for them while she set up for the seance.
At last, all was ready. They held hands and Pamela pressed her palm to the palm of the burn.
“I invoke, conjure, and command you, appear unto me before this circle,” she repeated several times until she broke off, listening to something. “Castiel?” she asked, apparently repeating the spirit’s name. “No, sorry, I don’t scare easily. I invoke, conjure, and command you—”
“Wait,” Henry interrupted. “Let me try something else.”
Pamela fell silent.
Henry closed his eyes and bowed his head. “Blessed Castiel, Angel of Thursday, hear our prayer.”
Pamela took a sharp breath. “... it says... it’s listening.”
“We earnestly desire to speak with thee, but we are mortal and cannot bear the presence of the holy angels unaided. We beseech thee therefore to appear unto us in a guise our eyes may see and speak unto us with a voice our ears may hear.”
Her eyes snapped open. “For this? Only for this?” After a pause, she sighed. “All right.” She barked out a laugh. “Oh, you’re pedantic. Yes, then.”
And the flames on the candles jumped high. When they went down, Pamela... was different. Henry, who was sitting next to her, could sense power in her presence and in her touch that hadn’t been there before, even before her head turned and her wide, unblinking green eyes stared into his soul.
“Castiel?” he gasped.
“I am Castiel.” Pamela’s voice was lower than normal. “This woman is not my true vessel, and thus I cannot remain with her long. Why must you speak with me?”
“Why are you following my son?”
“I gripped him tight and raised him from perdition. In return, we expect him to perform tasks for us.”
“Who’s ‘we’?” Bobby asked. “An’ why resurrect John specifically?”
“I was told to.” Pointedly, there was no answer to the first question.
Henry decided to press his luck. “Is this to do with the Apocalypse?”
The angel blinked. “I was told to raise this mortal from Hell, as he is a Righteous Man.”
Henry’s blood went cold. “There was something in the library,” he murmured. “Something about when a Righteous Man sheds blood in Hell....”
“I found him beside the rack,” Castiel’s voice was suddenly tight.
“I’m right here,” John growled, but his face had gone pale.
Henry ignored him. “What do your superiors want John to do?”
“Stop Lilith,” answered Castiel.
Henry felt the blood drain from his own face. “But... isn’t Lilith still confined to the Pit of Hell?”
A blink. “... we were told she was active. But she... seems to be below.”
“So how am I supposed to stop her if she isn’t even topside?” John asked, frowning.
“I was told... I am confused.”
Rufus asked something in Hebrew; Henry didn’t quite catch it, but he thought it was something like, “What were you told?”
Castiel answered in English, “Lilith had escaped when the Hell Gate was opened and now she wants to break the 66 seals and we have to stop her.”
Bobby, Henry, and Rufus all looked at each other and chorused, “What Hell Gate?”
“The Hell Gate... that was opened by the winner of Azazel’s Death Match.” Castiel frowned.
Bobby shook his head. “We put a stop to that. Nobody won.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” said Henry, thinking so hard his eyes slid shut. “Are you talking about the Devil’s Gate built by Samuel Colt somewhere in southern Wyoming?” He opened his eyes a crack.
The angel nodded Pamela’s head.
“The one that’s said to open only when the barrel of Colt’s demon-killing gun is inserted in the lock?”
Another nod, but this time the eyes —now an unearthly blue—began to widen.
“Azazel had that gun on him when I killed him last year. I put it in a secure vault myself. No other demon could have gotten to it since then.”
“But... that would mean I had been... lied to.”
“Looks that way, don’t it?” Bobby agreed.
“Impossible. My superiors would not....”
“You sure about that?” Rufus asked.
“I....” The angel clearly didn’t know how to respond.
Henry leaned forward. “John’s been dead for six years, Castiel. Why have you resurrected him now?”
“It took us this long to battle through Hell.” Pamela’s head shook. “Though I do not understand why we went the long way ’round.”
“You mean you coulda gotten to me sooner?!” John exploded. “I was in Hell for seven centuries because you took the scenic route?!!”
“If we could have gone in the other way, we might have gotten to you before you were off of the rack.”
John swore bitterly.
But a niggling thought occurred to Henry. “Castiel... when did you start fighting your way into Hell?”
Pamela’s eyebrows drew together. “We do not perceive time as you do, but… I believe… it was July of last year.”
“We killed Azazel last May.”
John swore again.
Castiel shook Pamela’s head. “I must go now. I will find out what I can and return when I am able. Please shield your eyes.”
Henry turned his head, screwed his eyes shut, and put an arm over them just to be safe. He was still aware of the blinding flash that heralded Castiel’s departure and Pamela’s groan as she came back to herself.
“You all right, Pamela?” Bobby asked as Henry turned back to look at her again.
“No,” Pamela rasped. “Whiskey….”
Rufus passed her his flask, and she drank from it gratefully. Once she’d downed a couple of large swigs, she uttered a very unladylike phrase.
“Need somethin’ more?” Bobby pressed.
“Just time.” Pamela drank again. “I don’t know what that’s like for the average vessel, but for me it was like going Dr. Strangelove on a comet, except I was holding on by my fingernails.”
Then Henry noticed that John wasn’t at the table anymore. He was standing several paces away with his back to the table, shoulders hunched and arms crossed like he was trying to fold in on himself.
“Johnny?” Henry asked, getting up and going to him. “What is it, son?”
It was a moment before John spoke, without looking at Henry. “Time’s different in Hell. Near as I can figure, a month up here is ten years down there.”
“And?”
“I was down there… almost eight hundred years. But after the first… year, maybe, where they were torturing me like it was an initiation rite, I spent the next… I dunno… seven hundred, thereabout, in a pretty good replica of the Hanoi Hilton. They messed with my head a lot, but it wasn’t… wasn’t torture, y’know? I even thought once I was gonna be able to make a break for it, but they changed the guard schedule, and then they moved me to a lower circle.” John ran a hand over his mouth. “And then… about fifty years ago, Hell time, everything changed. There was this… this demon called Alistair, and he had me put on the rack and… Pops, there just aren’t words.”
Henry rubbed John’s shoulder. “You don’t have to describe it.”
“He kept saying he’d stop if I’d agree to torture somebody else. I… I held out as long as I could… t-twenty years, I think it was… but in the end….”
“Everyone breaks, John. And you didn’t have the option of dying.”
John finally turned to him, unshed tears glittering in the candlelight. “Pops, don’t you get it? Fifty years ago in Hell was July of this year.”
“So it ain’t just Hell that’s got it in for your boys,” Bobby concluded.
John frowned. “What?”
“It seems everything changed when the boys went to Gloucester Island,” Henry stated and summarized the past six years for John, who went from swearing in English to swearing in Vietnamese. “So since we scuppered Azazel’s Plan B,” Henry concluded, “it appears you’re somehow at the center of Plan C—although as long as it’s taken them to regroup each time, there may have been other plans in between that failed before we even found out about them.”
John swore again, and his shoulders slumped in defeat.
“Hey,” Bobby said. “Where’s the Jarhead fighter?”
“What’s left to fight for?” John asked miserably as Henry steered him back to the table. “Mary’s avenged, but I’ve lost the boys. Never believed in angels, but now I’ve met one, and his side’s as much against us as Hell is. Whatever I’m supposed to stop Lilith from doing, I don’t see the odds of success being that good, given that the angels are likely to be the ones to bust Lilith out in the first place. I... I just....”
“You haven’t lost the boys, Johnny,” Henry said. “They’re just temporarily misplaced.”
John laughed, but it rang hollow. “Temporarily misplaced. Right. Just like you were.”
“With a huge difference,” his father grinned. “We know when they’re coming back.”
John told him what he could do with himself—and Bobby reached over and slapped John upside the head. Hard.
“What the hell, Singer!” John erupted.
“I have had it to here with you bein’ a damn suicidal idjit,” Bobby roared back. “Your daddy’s a good man. He don’t deserve to be cussed at and slugged, ’specially just for tellin’ you the truth. Now, are you gonna shut up, suit up, an’ help us solve this, or do we have to lock you up ‘til you get your head straight?”
“Why, this is Hell, nor am I out of it,” John grumbled.
Bobby smacked him again.
“Stop that!”
“You don’t think you deserve to be alive,” said Pamela, her voice still hoarse. “But you are alive, John. Get used to it.”
Looking for a way to break the stalemate, Henry quickly went to the cabinet where Ellen kept her herbs. Once he’d found what he needed, he went back to the table, tapped John on the shoulder, recited an Enochian spell as John turned, and blew a handful of chamomile into John’s face. John’s eyes instantly rolled back in his head, and Bobby caught him before he could fall out of his chair.
“Nice,” said Rufus.
“Let’s get him home,” Henry said. “Thank you, all, for your hospitality. When we know what’s going on, we’ll keep you apprised.”
Pamela murmured a farewell, but Rufus helped Bobby carry John up the stairs and out to the truck.
“Thanks, Turner,” said Bobby. “I owe you a hundred.”
“Hell, Bob, I quit countin’ how many you owe me years ago.” Rufus smiled and slugged Bobby on the shoulder. “Let me know how everything shakes out. I’ll keep tryin’ to find out what I can on my end.”
“Will do,” Bobby replied and shook Rufus’ hand.
Rufus then shook Henry’s hand and went off to his own truck while Henry and Bobby climbed into theirs and left. John slept all the way back to the bunker and through their manhandling him inside and into a bed—in fact, he didn’t wake until the next morning, when Bobby and Henry were fixing breakfast.
Bobby shoved a cup of coffee under the startled hunter’s nose.
“Good morning, son,” said Henry, looking away from the skillet full of bacon only briefly. “I’d apologize for knocking you out, but since you seemed to be stuck in gloom-or-grouch mode, it seemed the only thing to do was to shut you down and let you restart after a good night’s rest.”
“Wh... Where are we?” John asked.
“This is a bunker, somewhere in Kansas, belonging to the Men of Letters. It’s warded against everything imaginable. You’ll be safe here.”
“Until they catch up with me.”
“Shut up and eat your breakfast, idjit,” Bobby grumbled.
Henry sighed. “When you’re at war for so long, it becomes your default mindset.”
“They could,” John insisted.
“They’d have to find you first,” said Bobby.
“You think they can’t read minds?”
“Why do you think we didn’t tell you the exact location?”
John blinked.
“I checked the records relating to the bunker’s construction when we got back last night,” Henry stated, transferring the last of the bacon to a paper towel to drain. “The warding does prevent anything, even angels, from entering unless we open the door to them. So even if Castiel’s superiors are able to work out where you are, they can’t just walk in and take you.”
“So... I-I really... am safe?”
Henry squeezed the back of John’s neck. “You really are.”
“I can’t... it’s been too long....”
“Try, son. For the boys’ sake.”
John drew a deep breath. “For the boys.”
Henry gently but firmly steered him to the table, where Bobby put a loaded plate in front of him. And slowly, hesitantly, John began to eat… and relax.
