Gilgamesh Wulfenbach and the Men of Letters 1/?
Master Post
Gilgamesh Wulfenbach and the Men of Letters
By San Antonio Rose
Chapter 1
The Rift Opens
“Idenifizieren Sie sich.”
Dean Winchester frowned, looking around the Men of Letters’ garage for the source of the tinny electronic voice. Why was it speaking German?
“Identifizieren Sie sich.”
He pulled out his phone and texted his brother Sam to come help him search, then started listening more closely to see if he could determine which direction to turn.
“Identifizieren Sie sich.”
Sam jogged into the garage moments later. “What’s up?”
Dean held up a hand. “Shh.”
“Identifizieren Sie sich.”
Sam frowned and turned his head a little, and then both brothers spotted a brass... something in one corner. “’Ey, it’s a thingy,” he said in a tolerable impersonation of George Harrison. “A fiendish thingy.”
Dean snorted in amusement. “So it famous is. Let’s check it out.”
“Identifizieren Sie sich,” insisted the thingy.
On closer inspection, it turned out to be some kind of robot that stood about six feet tall; it had a trilobite logo embossed on its chest and one eye in the middle of its head, which opened when they walked up to it.
“Identifizieren Sie sich.”
“Uh... Winchester,” Sam tried.
A beam of blue light shot out of the eye and scanned the brothers and the cars in the garage. “Funkprojekt Klang gefunden. Identifizieren Sie sich!”
“Sam and Dean Winchester,” Dean stated. “We’re Men of Letters.”
“Bezeichnung nicht erkannt. Identifizieren Sie sich!”
“Sam and Dean Winchester. We’re hunters.”
“Tätig... tätig... tätig....”
Suddenly the whole bunker started shaking with what sounded like an echo of a distant but very loud and very ominous DOOOOOOM!
“What the hell-” Sam began.
But he didn’t get to finish the thought, because the robot... didn’t explode, exactly. However it broke down was orderly and purposeful, just too fast for Dean to follow. Within seconds, there was a portal where the robot had been, and scarcely had he registered that it was there before he and Sam were hurtled through it. They landed with a thud on the Impala’s hood... on a narrow cobblestone street lined with half-timbered buildings. Unseen crowds were roaring; the sky overhead was full of smoke and clouds and dirigibles; and the air reeked of gunpowder, ozone, and blood.
“Where the hell are we?” Dean asked quietly.
“HOY! Meester Gilgamesh!” cried a rough voice from above them, and Dean looked up to see an open window above a doorway that bore the words Mamma Gkika’s. The voice belonged to... to... well, some kind of humanoid monster with green skin, yellow hair, and pointed ears, teeth, and claws. But the creature, though it was pointing down at them, was turned to call to someone further inside the beer hall. “Ve gots company!”
Sam and Dean instantly drew their guns to keep the monster covered, which didn’t seem to worry the monster a whit. “I’ll cover him,” Sam murmured. “You watch for the other one.”
Dean nodded and watched for the second monster. But none appeared. Instead, the being that turned up a few moments later turned out to be... human, probably, a brown-haired young man in a long-sleeved white shirt and two vests, one blue with brass buttons and one brown with pockets and watches. It was kind of a Han Solo look, apart from the screwdrivers and stuff on the tac vest. And he was carrying... well, some kind of massive brass weapon, carried on the shoulder like a bazooka but about twice the diameter. Swearing, the Winchesters dove behind the Impala for cover as the weapon whined and the air began feeling like lightning was about to strike.
“Hay,” said the monster. “Mebbe dey iz friends. Dot dun look like a var clenk.”
“Good point,” said a second voice that probably belonged to the man. “In fact, I’ve never seen a clank like that before. YOU MEN!” he thundered. “Are you friend or foe?”
“How the hell should we know?!” Dean shot back. “We just got here!”
The weapon whined again, but the charge in the air dissipated. “Put your guns where I can see them.”
Sam put his Taurus on the hood, and Dean put his Colt on the roof. They wouldn’t normally comply so readily to someone who was clearly in league with monsters, but someone with a weapon that scary? Hell, yeah.
“Put your hands on top of your heads and stand-slowly.”
They exchanged a look and did so.
The man gave them a frowning once-over. “Step out where I can see you.”
“Haven’t done this dance in a while,” Dean muttered as they obeyed.
Sam shushed him.
“Military training,” the man observed quietly to the monster while the Winchesters were still moving, “but not by any force I know. Armed, but not in uniform. Dangerous... but to whom?”
“Dey hef a new kinda clenk,” the monster returned at the same volume. “Mebbe dey iz schmot guys like hyu.”
“How did they arrive?”
“Dunno. Dey chust vas dere.”
The man continued frowning at the Winchesters a moment longer, then handed his weapon to the monster and pointed at Sam. “YOU!” he called. “Who are you?”
The brothers exchanged a startled look. Dean shrugged one shoulder, and Sam nodded and called back, “Sam Winchester. This is my brother, Dean.”
“Americans,” the man noted, and Dean finally placed the guy’s accent as vaguely Central or Eastern European. “Whom do you serve? Quickly!”
“Nobody,” Dean replied. “We’re hunters.”
“... Men of Letters,” Sam said at almost the same time Dean said hunters. “Who are you?”
“I am Gilgamesh Wulfenbach,” the man declared, as if he expected that to mean something to them.
At their blank looks, the monster suggested, “Mebbe de hat-”
Wulfenbach looked annoyed. “The hat won’t mean anything to an American. Besides which-”
“Look,” Sam interrupted. “We don’t even know where we are or why we’re here. We found some kind of robot in our garage. Somehow it got activated. There was a really loud sound-”
“The Doom Bell?”
“I... guess. Anyway, the robot formed a portal and brought us here, wherever... here is.”
“Mechanicsburg, Transylvania.”
The brothers looked at each other, looked back at Wulfenbach, and chorused, “Transylvania?!”
Wulfenbach’s face finally cleared. “I’m sorry. We’re under attack from so many sides, I couldn’t be sure. That clank of yours.”
Dean glanced back at the Impala. “My car?”
“It has seats. Is it used for transport?”
Dean blinked. “Yeah. Most cars are.”
Wulfenbach shook his head. “I’ve got to visit America someday. Look, I need to get out of this city quickly, to help the Lady Heterodyne with the defenses. May I borrow your-your car?”
“Hell, no.” Wulfenbach frowned again, but Dean continued, “Nobody drives my baby except me or Sam. We’ll take you.”
Wulfenbach actually smiled in relief. “Thank you. I’ll be right down.” He took his gun from the monster and turned to leave the window but turned back. “Oh. You can put your hands down now.”
Both brothers did so with a sigh and started back to the car to collect their guns as Wulfenbach left the window.
“Hay, keeds,” said the monster. “Hif hyu helps Meester Gilgamesh und Mees Agatha, ve iz on de same side. Hyu no gots to shoot Jägerkin.”
Dean frowned. “What the hell is-”
But Sam cut him off with a groan. “The robot must have mistranslated. Hunter in German is Jäger. And if this bar is run by these Jäger things....”
“Jägermonsters,” called a female voice muffled by one of the plate glass windows at street level, where Dean belatedly discovered two more human faces-one a red-haired woman, one a bespectacled dark-skinned man who might be from India-and a whole host of multicolored Jäger faces peering out at them. “It is!” the redhead continued.
“I bet this wasn’t where we were supposed to go,” Sam concluded. “We were probably supposed to go directly to this Heterodyne lady, whoever she is.”
“Hoy!” exclaimed the Jäger at the upstairs window. “Hyu iz a schmot guy! Bot hyu no gots Heterodyne schtories in Hamereeka?”
Sam blinked a couple of times and said, “Okay, I’m thinkin’ parallel universe.”
Dean scoffed. “Parallel, nothing. Dude, we are on beyond zebra here. Time passes at the same rate in every universe within the same multiverse-but this is clearly not 2015.”
Sam raised an eyebrow. “Did you just-”
“Shut up, Sam.”
The upstairs Jäger chortled. “Anodder schmot guy!”
“YOU shut up!” Dean shouted back.
Fortunately, that was when the beer hall’s doors opened to reveal a slightly disgusted Wulfenbach with his weapon in one hand and what looked like a hot air balloon under his other arm. The crowd of grinning Jägers followed, led by a very large turquoise-haired female that was wearing some kind of Victorian-era uniform with heavy use of brass accents and decorative skulls on the belt. She was also carrying a giant double-bladed battleaxe with skulls embossed on the blades and Dollink carved on the axe eye.
“Ve still gonna escort hyu to de gate,” she told Wulfenbach. “Dees clenk dun look like hit gots armor. Und dees boyz dun sound like dey know vere to go.”
Wulfenbach’s shoulders squared. “Messrs. Winchester, may I present Jäger General Gkika. Her people owe allegiance to the Heterodynes, but my father and I have been allied with them for the last fifteen years as well.” He paused, then added less regally, “Uh, could one of you get the door for me?”
As Sam got the back passenger door for Wulfenbach, Gkika came over to Dean. “Hyu gun drive dis clenk?”
“It’s a car,” Dean snarled.
She chuckled. “Hokay. Hyu follow us to de city gate. Ve gots to leef hyu dere und go beck to de Lady Heterodyne. Hyu gun hef to drive krezy fast und tek he-face-if action to get Meester Gil to de kestle.”
“Evasive, I can do. What’s your definition of crazy fast?”
“How fast ken hit go?”
“Top speed’s 120 miles an hour.”
Wulfenbach popped back out of the back seat, wide-eyed and grinning eagerly. “Really?!”
Dean rounded on him. “Get back in the car!”
Gkika chuckled again, almost fondly, which was nearly as disconcerting as her sharp-toothed grin. “Ho, keed, hyu do chust fine. Veneffer hyu ready.”
Biting back a grumble, Dean ducked into the driver’s seat, and he and Sam shut their doors in unison before Dean started the engine and put the car in gear.
Gkika hefted her axe aloft and called, “Hokay, boyz!”
“VE HUNT!” cried the Jägers in response.
“And that’s not creepy at all,” Dean muttered and started following Gkika and her advance guard down the street.
“You’ll get used to them,” said their passenger.
“Look, no offense, Wulfenbach, but back home, me and my brother, we hunt monsters.”
“But you’d never seen a Jäger before.” Wulfenbach leaned forward. “What monsters do you hunt?”
“All of ’em. Demons, vampires, werewolves, pagan gods, wraiths, shapeshifters, shtrigas-”
“Hm.”
“Skinwalkers, wendigos-”
“Never heard of those.
“Rawheads, ghosts, djinn....”
“Revenants?”
“Yeah.”
“Geisterdamen?”
“... What?”
Sam sighed. “We’re not from this reality.”
Wulfenbach sat back, stunned, but then leaned forward again, with a touch of madness in his voice as he said, “Ohoho, you have got to tell me-”
“HEY!” Dean interrupted. “Focus! We need to know what we can shoot!”
“Oh. Right.” Wulfenbach cleared his throat. “Well, most of the attackers in the city have probably been disabled by the Doom Bell, considering that it actually opened the interdimensional rift that brought you here. So we’re mainly looking at anything that’s still outside the city. And for better intelligence than that, we’re going to have to get back to Castle Wulfenbach.”
“How far is that?”
“By ground, only ten kilometers or so. Getting up to it is the problem.”
“Up?”
“It’s an airship.”
The only reason Dean didn’t slam on the brakes then and there was that half of the Jägers were still right behind him, practically on his bumper.
“Dean,” said Sam, “we only promised to get him out.”
“Um,” said Wulfenbach. “I... take it you don’t have airships?”
“Well, we have airplanes. People travel by them, but they don’t live in them. But Dean hates to fly.”
Dean’s hands tightened on the wheel. “Planes crash, Sammy.”
“We got to Scotland and back safely.”
“Yeah, but the time before that, and the time before that-”
“You’re not gonna want to leave the car in the middle of a battlefield anyway, are you?”
“Exactly,” Wulfenbach chimed in, a little too eagerly. “So you fellows just get me to where I can catch a support ship back to Castle Wulfenbach, then follow the Jägers back to Agatha.”
“Not so fast, bud,” Dean growled. “Before we decide to trust you at all-”
“Hold that thought.” Wulfenbach rolled down his window, leaned halfway out with his gun shouldered, and shot... a bolt of lightning at something in the sky, which exploded, much to the Jägers’ delight. “Sorry,” he said as he sat down again. “You were saying?”
“You are gonna have to bring us up to speed. What the hell is going on around here?”
“Long story.”
“Shorten it.”
Wulfenbach blew the air out of his cheeks. “Cutting out all of the science and most of the madness? Agatha is the last heir of the House of Heterodyne, which produced some of the maddest of mad scientists until her father and uncle decided to become heroes instead. Evidently she takes after her father in most ways. But then the Heterodyne Boys disappeared, and the ensuing war took such a toll that my father decided to end it himself. He’s never claimed a title greater than the baronage he was born to, but he massed an army and conquered most of Europa. The Wulfenbach Empire is hailed for ushering in the Pax Transylvania-but even I have to confess that Father is a tyrant. Or... was, anyway. He may have been killed by now. I won’t know until I get back to the castle.”
“Oh, so all this....”
“Some of it is to kill or capture Agatha. Some of it is revolt against the empire. There’s more I’ll have to explain later. But the result is going to be chaos and carnage unless I can take control of the empire long enough to save Agatha and put down the revolt. Once peace is restored and the political situation’s more stable, I can start introducing reforms and... and maybe... I mean, I hope....” Wulfenbach trailed off.
Sam looked back at him. “Marry Agatha?”
Dean could practically hear Wulfenbach blush.
Before the conversation could get any more awkward, however, the lead Jägers suddenly fanned out, clearing a path for the Impala through the menacing city gate toward the smoking battlefield, littered with bodies and downed robots and aircraft. It took Dean a moment to steel himself against flashbacks from Hell and from Purgatory.
“Hokay, boyz!” Gkika hollered over the battle din. “Hyu gots a clear shot now!”
“Look,” Wulfenbach said, “you can let me off here-”
Dean snorted. “We already stopped one Apocalypse. We can handle a damn war of succession.” And he floored the gas.
“I really can’t ask you to-yeeeEEEAAAHOOO!” Wulfenbach yowled as the V8 roared and the Impala apparently leapt past any speed he’d traveled before. “OH, this machine is MAGNIFICENT! You’ve got to let me-”
“NO! Nobody touches my baby but me!”
Sam frowned. “Dean, are you okay? You’re starting to sound like him.”
“I am not!” Yet despite his nerves singing with adrenaline and his usual levels of irritability being heightened by the situation, Dean did suddenly feel more in tune with the Impala than ever before, which... was saying something, really. And she seemed to be responding better than ever, handling almost at the speed of thought as Wulfenbach shouted directions and Sam shouted warnings. Even Wulfenbach’s occasional hanging out the window to fire his lightning gun barely registered, especially when the radio came on.
“DEAN!” Sam finally hollered, and Dean instinctively braked. Not until the car came to a complete stop did he register the rope ladder descending in front of the hood.
Wulfenbach was chuckling with that crazed edge again. “Heh... hehheh... ehehhehheh... that was amazing....”
“HEY!” Sam barked.
“Ah! Right!” Dean looked back to see Wulfenbach shaking his head to clear it. “This is where I get off. You two can go back into Mechanicsburg, find Agatha, and help her.”
“No. Dean’s going back to Mechanicsburg. I’m going with you.”
Dean frowned. “Hang on, Sam.”
“Dean. Trust me.” There was something in Sam’s tone that brooked no argument.
Dean hated to agree, but he couldn’t stomach the thought of flying, and this Agatha chick might really need help. And he couldn’t take all day to make up his mind, given the number of craters from artillery fire they’d dodged on the way out. “Fine,” he growled and turned to Wulfenbach. “Watch out for my little brother, huh?”
“Hey!” Sam objected.
Wulfenbach, on the other hand, met Dean’s eyes and gave him both a genuine smile and his hand. “You have my word.”
Dean nodded once and shook his hand.
Then Wulfenbach sighed and gathered up his gun and the balloon-looking thingy. He and Sam got out, and Wulfenbach settled the balloon-looking thingy on his head. Evidently that was the hat the Jägers had gone on about-Dean caught a brief glimpse of the front, where above the bill stood a wide ribbon reading Gilgemesh Wulfenbach, Schmott Guy. Sam managed to keep a straight face, as did Dean... until he turned around.
Then he laughed all the way back to Mechanicsburg.
Winchester didn’t say much as Gil rushed back to Castle Wulfenbach’s war room, using the idiotic Jäger hat to overcome objections. He mostly stayed two steps behind Gil as silent backup, letting his sturdy 6'4" frame do most of the talking for him. In fact, so quiet was Winchester that after introducing him to Father’s chiefs of staff, four-armed administrative genius Boris Dolokhov and pirate queen Capt. Bangladesh Dupree, and especially after discovering that the Wulfenbach army’s movements were being coordinated by Prince Tarvek Sturmvoraus, Gil just about forgot that Winchester was there.
Until, that is, word came that Father had returned. Gil and Sturmvoraus took off at a run, but when Gil heard footsteps right behind them, he glanced back to see Winchester, gun in hand, following with a grim face. Yet said gun was pointed at the ground between Gil and Sturmvoraus’ feet, and said face was turned slightly as if Winchester were listening for pursuit.
Sturmvoraus noticed at about the same time Gil did and began, “What the devil are you-”
“Helping Agatha,” Winchester interrupted, looking Sturmvoraus in the eye. “Don’t know all the whys and wherefores, but all signs point to that being the reason my brother and I are here. And from the sound of it, the best way for me to help Agatha is by making sure you two don’t get caught.”
Sturmvoraus blinked and looked at Gil. “You sure he’s not a Tryggvassen?”
Gil snorted. “I haven’t felt the urge to chuck him out a window yet.”
Winchester huffed. “You’ve only known me an hour.”
That startled a laugh out of Sturmvoraus. “Friends beat you up often, do they?”
“Well, my brother’s best friend did once call me an abomination-but to be fair, he was getting over having drunk an entire liquor store at the time.”
“... How did that not kill him?”
“He’s an angel.”
Sturmvoraus gaped.
“Alternate reality,” Gil explained.
“... Oh,” said Sturmvoraus.
And there the matter stood as the three men fled toward Gil’s secret lab, joined en route by Bang and by the infamous Capt. Vole (the only Jäger ever to be disowned by his own kind for being too evil). Gil had to order Winchester not to shoot Vole, but otherwise, Winchester stuck to the back of the group “to watch our six”-whatever that meant. And he didn’t put his gun away until they were all safely through the electrical access hatch and the hatch itself was closed.
Gil was still trying to work out how to convince Winchester to go back to Mechanicsburg with Sturmvoraus when the aforementioned Othar Tryggvassen, Gentleman Adventurer, showed up to try to take Gil to Father. That necessitated a quick song and dance to snag Sturmvoraus’ notebook, get both Sturmvoraus and Tryggvassen into the experimental dragonfly flying machine-chained together-because of Tryggvassen’s impeccable record of surviving impossible situations, and drop the flying machine out through the floor hatch. Not until he’d shoved Vole out after them and dodged Bang’s expression of displeasure over the loss of her new crush did Gil realize that Winchester was still with them.
And that was primarily because Winchester finally spoke up. “I’ve had monster girlfriends, Capt. Dupree,” he said. “My first kiss was a kitsune. After my college girlfriend was murdered, I had a three-night stand with a werewolf. And the girlfriend after that was a demon. None of those relationships ended well. You’re probably better off without Vole.”
Bang snarled.
Figuring out how to get Winchester back to Mechanicsburg would have to wait. Gil closed the hatch and started toward his chemical stores while flipping through Sturmvoraus’ encrypted notes in search of the formula that would protect them against the mind-controlling slaver wasps developed by Lucrezia Mongfish Heterodyne, also known as “The Other.” He didn’t know if he would have enough of all the ingredients to make three doses, but either way, preventing himself, Bang, and Winchester from getting wasped had to take priority. And hell, maybe Winchester would keep Bang occupied while Gil worked. In fact, judging from the sounds of a scuffle behind Gil, Winchester was probably doing just that.
But then Gil turned just in time to see Bang brain Winchester with a wrench. Yet Winchester didn’t fall. His hazel eyes flashed briefly with blue-white light, almost the color of the Dyne-and his entire demeanor changed.
“Enough of this,” he said, his voice soft but stern all at once. He straightened and spun, catching Bang’s right wrist with his left hand. Then he touched the first two fingers of his right hand to Bang’s forehead, just above her skull bindi.
And Bang sagged to the floor in an untidy heap.
Winchester turned back to a slack-jawed Gil, his posture oddly stiff. “Fear not, Gilgamesh,” he said, voice still soft and strange but without the stern edge. “She is merely asleep.”
“You’re not Winchester,” Gil breathed.
Whatever was possessing Winchester held up both hands, empty, palms out in a placating gesture. “I am here only for his protection. I will not hurt you.”
“Who are you?”
“A friend.”
“Not good enough.”
“I cannot tell you here. Finish the potion for yourself and Bangladesh-Sam can wait. I will explain myself once we are safely away.”
Even as unnerved as he felt, Gil realized he didn’t have any choice but to trust Winchester’s passenger for the moment. That also meant he didn’t have any choice but to leave with Winchester, not if he wanted to find out the truth. He certainly couldn’t let Winchester stay and possibly fall into his father’s hands, but neither could he let Winchester go anywhere near Agatha until he found out what was really going on. “Let me talk to Winchester,” he demanded.
“I cannot,” came the reply. “He is unconscious.”
“What about his brother? Is he possessed, too?”
“No. Dean is fully human. But we are wasting time.”
Gil drew a deep breath and let it out again. Then he turned to his long-time assistant, the little blue arthropod he’d built as a child and clothed in an orange coat and hat. “Zoing? Strap Bang down somewhere.”
Zoing obediently zipped over to Bang and dragged her to a table with restraints, then fastened the restraints around her wrists and ankles while Gil pulled on his lab coat and goggles and got to work. Winchester’s passenger walked over to the table to stand guard over Bang, but he didn’t say anything more until Bang came to, just about the time Gil finished the potion.
Then the entity put one hand on Bang’s shoulder. “Stay still,” he commanded.
“Gil,” Bang growled, “what the hell-”
Gil sighed. “Bang, you’re going to have to trust me.”
“What are you talking about? What is that stuff you’ve been making?”
“It’s supposed to protect us against slaver wasps. I haven’t had time to study the theory, but knowing who Sturmvoraus is-”
“Wait, he’s the prince from Sturmhalten?! That royal family-”
“-is neck deep in the plans of The Other. I know. That’s why I think this has a chance of working. And I have to risk it. There’s a possibility that my father has been wasped.”
“Sparks can’t-”
“They can now. The Knights of Jove figured out how to infect us.”
“And you expect me to drink that?!”
Gil accepted the beaker of finished potion from Zoing and went to the table, where Winchester’s passenger had moved his restraining hand to the center of Bang’s chest. “Look, I don’t care if you believe me or not. I need you free.” And with the help of the entity, Gil dosed her before she could squirm loose.
When she started glowing and jittering as the temporary side effects kicked in, he was very glad to have the entity there to restrain her. She broke free of the table restraints and tried to fight free of Winchester’s passenger, but whatever the entity was, he was superhumanly strong and kept her pinned to the table until the side effects passed and she slid into unconsciousness.
“Do you have another flying machine?” he asked Gil then.
“No,” Gil confessed. “I can make one, though.”
“Take the potion first. I will see to her.”
Still feeling disturbed but out of options, Gil chugged the potion, caught his breath, and let the side effect energy sweep him into a building frenzy. When it faded and he collapsed, panting but still conscious, he found himself looking up at a flying machine of a design he didn’t completely recognize but that ought at least to get him and Winchester to the ground in one piece.
Speaking of whom, Winchester crouched beside Gil with a look of concern. “Are you well, Gilgamesh?”
“Uh,” Gil nodded.
The passenger entity sighed a little and touched two fingers to Gil’s forehead, but instead of putting him to sleep, the touch sent a surge of bracing energy through him. Gil gasped as it passed and he realized that he felt completely well. Then the entity offered a hand, which Gil took, and helped Gil to his feet.
Gil glanced around then, saw that the table was empty, and turned back to the entity. “Where’s Bang?”
“I left her some meters down the passage from the entrance to this section and erased her memory of its location. Even if she wakes before we depart, she will not be able to lead your father to us.”
“Great. Thanks.” Then Gil noticed that Winchester’s face was kind of pale, making the moles beside his nose and on his chin stand out more prominently. “Are you all right?”
“No worse than weary. I am... glad you have the means to fly without my aid.”
Hoping his worry didn’t show on his face, Gil bundled Winchester into the back seat of the flying machine, pocketed Sturmvoraus’ notes, waved goodbye to Zoing, climbed into the front seat, and opened the hatch. The engine took a bit of coaxing to start, but it did so long before they were in any danger. Then, rather than going straight to Mechanicsburg, Gil headed for one of the mountains close to which Castle Wulfenbach was hovering. He still needed to get the passenger’s story before he went anywhere near Agatha.
As the flying machine neared the mountain, Gil spotted the mouth of a cave that looked big enough to land in and headed for it. The entrance wasn’t quite wide enough and sheared off the wingtips-but that was okay. Surely somebody had seen him leaving; a bit of wreckage left outside might convince any pursuers that he had truly crashed.
Winchester’s passenger chuckled as the machine came to a standstill. “I think we need not mention this to Dean. He would never forgive you for crashing this plane with Sam aboard.”
Gil snorted. “Are you all right?”
The entity nodded. “Still weary, but that is not your doing.”
Gil hopped out onto what remained of one wing and helped the passenger entity maneuver Winchester’s body out of the back seat and down to the ground. Then he looked at the machine critically. “I suppose this ought to be in more pieces.”
Winchester’s passenger brought a fist down on the nose of the machine, which fell to bits with a clatter, forming a pile of smoldering scrap metal that would take some little time to search before anyone could discover that it concealed no bodies.
“Ah.”
“This also we should not mention to Dean,” said the entity with the barest sparkle of humor in his eyes.
There were some downed branches just outside the cave entrance, so Gil stepped out just long enough to grab one and light it from the fire still burning in the cockpit. “Right. This way.” And he headed toward the dark passage that led out of the back of the room.
“Do you know where we are?” the entity asked, following.
“... No, honestly. And I’m not planning to go far enough to get us lost, just far enough that the torchlight can’t be seen from the wreckage.”
“That is wise.”
The passage led around several bends, and Gil had just decided they’d gone far enough when another room opened up ahead of them-and something was moving in it. Yet Gil had barely stopped walking when Winchester’s hand came down on his shoulder.
“Stay,” whispered the entity. “I believe it is a friend.”
“Hoy!” called a familiar Jäger voice, and its owner came into the light-a pale-haired female dressed in purple and grey, with a wide-brimmed hat and a mask... Jenka, that was her name. She stopped short in surprise. “Meester Gil! Vot hyu doink here?”
“Ah, well, we’re escaping from my father. This is-”
But Jenka was already studying Winchester with a frown. “Hyu iz hurt bad. Hyu schmells... burned.”
Gil turned to Winchester in alarm, but the passenger entity only sighed. “Yes. I have not been able to heal Sam as well as I had hoped.”
“Heal?” Gil gasped. “I thought you said-”
The entity raised a hand. “Not from the ‘crash.’ These injuries happened weeks ago.”
Jenka hummed thoughtfully. “Ve better tek hyu to Mamma.”
“No,” Gil replied. “I don’t want him in Mechanicsburg until we’ve gotten the whole story out of him.”
“Ov cozz. Denn ve go someplace closer, yah? Diz vay.”
“So what are you doing here?” Gil asked as Jenka led them further into the cavern. “I thought all the Jägers went back to town when the Doom Bell rang.”
“Zomebody gots to mek sure de old tonnels iz clear. Ve dun vants nobody schneakink in Miz Agatha’s beck door.”
“Ah, true, certainly.”
After a few more rooms, one of which was concealed by a door that seemed like the dead end of a passage, Jenka turned aside to another hidden door and ushered the others inside a room sparsely furnished with a table and chairs, a Schrank with some wooden mugs adorned with the Heterodyne trilobite, and a barrel in one corner that probably held beer. She took the torch from Gil and set it in a wall bracket. The passenger entity, however, was more interested in the mugs.
“This symbol,” he said after a moment. “That was the only sign Sam saw on the robot that formed the portal. What does it mean?”
Jenka frowned. “Hyu dun know?”
“He’s... not from here,” Gil answered. “That’s the badge of the House of Heterodyne.”
The entity hummed and set down the mug. “Curious.”
“Here, come sit down.” Gil pulled out a chair.
The entity came over to the table and sank into the proffered chair with a sigh. Then he looked from Gil to Jenka and back again and sighed once more. “I... I believe I must trust someone. I do not know how long my secret will keep if I do not. And you will not judge me, I deem. Just... let me be the one to reveal all to Sam and Dean, please.”
“I can’t promise that,” Gil said. “Not until I’ve heard what you have to say.”
The entity took a deep breath. “My name is Gadreel. I am an angel of the Lord.” At Gil and Jenka’s shocked looks, he continued, “You... do not know the name?”
“My father is hardly a religious man.”
“Things may be different in this world in any case.” Gadreel took another deep breath. “In our world... my brother Lucifer deceived me, and I... allowed him entry to the Garden of Eden.”
Jenka gasped.
“My Father imprisoned me for thousands of years for that failure. I was not even aware when he left Heaven. I received only scraps of news now and then-until my brother Castiel raised Dean Winchester from Hell. Even after that, I heard little, though I was aware when first Castiel and then Anna were imprisoned for defying orders and aiding the Winchesters in their attempts to stop Lilith from starting the Apocalypse. But I did hear that Sam had freed Lucifer from Hell-and a year later, I heard that Sam had stopped the Apocalypse by returning both Lucifer and Michael to the Cage, at great cost to himself. His soul still bears the scars, even some wounds that remain open, and I... I have not been able to heal them.”
Gil frowned, though he wasn’t sure whether he was the more disturbed by the story about the Winchesters’ role in their Apocalypse or by Gadreel’s confessions of failure.
“But there was war in Heaven between Castiel and Raphael, for Raphael wanted Lucifer and Michael freed so that the Apocalypse could end as he believed it was foretold, and Castiel would not allow the Winchesters to be put at risk again. I... know little of what happened after that, but Castiel won, though it drove him mad. I have not risked probing Sam’s memories of that time. And then... a few months ago, the Winchesters inherited a bunker belonging to the Men of Letters, a society that gathered intelligence on the kinds of monsters Sam and Dean had been raised to hunt. At about the same time, they also received information on how to close the gates of Hell forever.”
Gil’s eyes widened. “And Sam tried it?”
Gadreel nodded. “He came very close to succeeding. But the final trial would have killed him, and after all they had been through, Dean could not let him die. Dean persuaded Sam to stop, but the trials left Sam’s internal organs badly burned. He was barely alive when Dean got him to a hospital. Yet somehow-and exactly how, I truly do not know-something happened just at the time Sam stopped, and all the angels were cast down from Heaven. Castiel himself was rendered human. So Dean called out to all of us to come to Sam’s aid. I was the only one who answered who did not want the Winchesters dead.”
“So... why....”
Gadreel shook his head sadly. “I was too badly injured by the fall.” To demonstrate, he stood, and the torchlight flared to show the shadow of tattered wings stretching out from Winchester’s shoulders. A few of the pinions even fell off as the wings unfolded.
“Gott’s leetle feesh in trousers,” Jenka breathed.
The light faded, and Gadreel sank back into the chair. “I had to lie to Dean about my name for fear he would not accept my help if Castiel warned him away from me. He believes I am Ezekiel, a good and honorable angel. But Ezekiel did not survive the fall. And I, as I have said, was too weakened, and Sam was too badly injured, for me to heal him from without. Our only hope was for me to attempt to heal Sam from the inside. But we both knew that after Lucifer, Sam would rather die than accept possession. So I... convinced Dean to help me talk Sam into agreeing to whatever Dean had planned to save his life.”
Gil frowned. “Wait, Sam doesn’t even know you’re in there?”
“It was to be temporary,” Gadreel pleaded, looking miserable. “I was to heal both Sam and myself and then return to my former vessel without Sam being any the wiser. But I could not do so quickly enough. Sam insisted on returning to hunting, and Castiel was murdered and needed to be raised, and then Dean asked me to resurrect another friend who had been killed. Every time I use my power in that way, I am weakened further, and it becomes harder and harder for me to regain my strength and return to the work of healing Sam. And... now... now we are here.”
After a moment’s silence, Jenka turned to Gil. “Hyu tink battledraught?”
Gil shook his head. “We don’t know how it would affect a human possessed by an angel. It might heal the burns, but that would be all.”
“No,” said Gadreel. “I still wish to keep my word to Dean and heal Sam myself. But I have no idea where to go afterward, especially if we cannot get home.”
“Could you form your own body?”
“I... suppose. It was forbidden in the past, but that must mean it would be possible. But I cannot do so until I heal both Sam and myself sufficiently. And even then, if Sam becomes aware of me, he can cast me out at any time.”
Suddenly an idea occurred to Gil. “Supposing I built you a clank. Could you possess that after you heal Sam?”
“A clank? Like-like Zoing?”
“No, Zoing’s a construct... er, a biological construction. A clank would be mechanical, and more humanoid.”
“Ah.”
“It wouldn’t exactly be a Van Rijn, but you’d be able to move independently. I could even give it wings if you like.”
“You... you would....” Hope dawned on Gadreel’s face. “We could try it. It probably would not work in our world, but here... here it might. But I cannot leave Sam like this.”
“I’ve got an idea for that, too. The waters of the Dyne have curious properties, including an unusual amount of energy. Agatha had to drink some to regain enough energy to stabilize herself, Sturmvoraus, and me after we used the Si Vales Valeo procedure to cure them both of Hogfarb’s Resplendent Immolation. I can’t be sure, but it might be enough to heal you to the point that you can heal Sam.”
“Gilgamesh... how could I repay you?”
“Tell Sam and Dean the whole truth. And help me help Agatha.”
Gadreel suddenly huffed and smiled a little. “Perhaps the clank would be wise. That way, Dean will be less likely to kill me for having lied to him.”
“... Could he?”
“Oh, yes. I believe there are still angel swords in the arsenal in the Impala’s trunk.”
Gil’s mouth fell open, but Jenka chuckled. “Hy lyk dees guyz.”
Gil cleared his throat. “Right. Jenka, can we get into the castle from here?”
“No, but ve gots a tonnel to Mamma’s. Iz eezy peezy to get beck to de kestle from dere.”
“True, and I should check on Theo and Sleipnir while we’re there. They might even be willing to build the clank while I’m getting Gadreel and Sam stabilized.”
“Hokay. Hyu ready, Meester Gadreel?”
Gadreel stood. “I am ready.”
Jenka nodded and picked up the torch, and Gil and Gadreel followed her into the darkness of the caverns.
Next
Gilgamesh Wulfenbach and the Men of Letters
By San Antonio Rose
Chapter 1
The Rift Opens
“Idenifizieren Sie sich.”
Dean Winchester frowned, looking around the Men of Letters’ garage for the source of the tinny electronic voice. Why was it speaking German?
“Identifizieren Sie sich.”
He pulled out his phone and texted his brother Sam to come help him search, then started listening more closely to see if he could determine which direction to turn.
“Identifizieren Sie sich.”
Sam jogged into the garage moments later. “What’s up?”
Dean held up a hand. “Shh.”
“Identifizieren Sie sich.”
Sam frowned and turned his head a little, and then both brothers spotted a brass... something in one corner. “’Ey, it’s a thingy,” he said in a tolerable impersonation of George Harrison. “A fiendish thingy.”
Dean snorted in amusement. “So it famous is. Let’s check it out.”
“Identifizieren Sie sich,” insisted the thingy.
On closer inspection, it turned out to be some kind of robot that stood about six feet tall; it had a trilobite logo embossed on its chest and one eye in the middle of its head, which opened when they walked up to it.
“Identifizieren Sie sich.”
“Uh... Winchester,” Sam tried.
A beam of blue light shot out of the eye and scanned the brothers and the cars in the garage. “Funkprojekt Klang gefunden. Identifizieren Sie sich!”
“Sam and Dean Winchester,” Dean stated. “We’re Men of Letters.”
“Bezeichnung nicht erkannt. Identifizieren Sie sich!”
“Sam and Dean Winchester. We’re hunters.”
“Tätig... tätig... tätig....”
Suddenly the whole bunker started shaking with what sounded like an echo of a distant but very loud and very ominous DOOOOOOM!
“What the hell-” Sam began.
But he didn’t get to finish the thought, because the robot... didn’t explode, exactly. However it broke down was orderly and purposeful, just too fast for Dean to follow. Within seconds, there was a portal where the robot had been, and scarcely had he registered that it was there before he and Sam were hurtled through it. They landed with a thud on the Impala’s hood... on a narrow cobblestone street lined with half-timbered buildings. Unseen crowds were roaring; the sky overhead was full of smoke and clouds and dirigibles; and the air reeked of gunpowder, ozone, and blood.
“Where the hell are we?” Dean asked quietly.
“HOY! Meester Gilgamesh!” cried a rough voice from above them, and Dean looked up to see an open window above a doorway that bore the words Mamma Gkika’s. The voice belonged to... to... well, some kind of humanoid monster with green skin, yellow hair, and pointed ears, teeth, and claws. But the creature, though it was pointing down at them, was turned to call to someone further inside the beer hall. “Ve gots company!”
Sam and Dean instantly drew their guns to keep the monster covered, which didn’t seem to worry the monster a whit. “I’ll cover him,” Sam murmured. “You watch for the other one.”
Dean nodded and watched for the second monster. But none appeared. Instead, the being that turned up a few moments later turned out to be... human, probably, a brown-haired young man in a long-sleeved white shirt and two vests, one blue with brass buttons and one brown with pockets and watches. It was kind of a Han Solo look, apart from the screwdrivers and stuff on the tac vest. And he was carrying... well, some kind of massive brass weapon, carried on the shoulder like a bazooka but about twice the diameter. Swearing, the Winchesters dove behind the Impala for cover as the weapon whined and the air began feeling like lightning was about to strike.
“Hay,” said the monster. “Mebbe dey iz friends. Dot dun look like a var clenk.”
“Good point,” said a second voice that probably belonged to the man. “In fact, I’ve never seen a clank like that before. YOU MEN!” he thundered. “Are you friend or foe?”
“How the hell should we know?!” Dean shot back. “We just got here!”
The weapon whined again, but the charge in the air dissipated. “Put your guns where I can see them.”
Sam put his Taurus on the hood, and Dean put his Colt on the roof. They wouldn’t normally comply so readily to someone who was clearly in league with monsters, but someone with a weapon that scary? Hell, yeah.
“Put your hands on top of your heads and stand-slowly.”
They exchanged a look and did so.
The man gave them a frowning once-over. “Step out where I can see you.”
“Haven’t done this dance in a while,” Dean muttered as they obeyed.
Sam shushed him.
“Military training,” the man observed quietly to the monster while the Winchesters were still moving, “but not by any force I know. Armed, but not in uniform. Dangerous... but to whom?”
“Dey hef a new kinda clenk,” the monster returned at the same volume. “Mebbe dey iz schmot guys like hyu.”
“How did they arrive?”
“Dunno. Dey chust vas dere.”
The man continued frowning at the Winchesters a moment longer, then handed his weapon to the monster and pointed at Sam. “YOU!” he called. “Who are you?”
The brothers exchanged a startled look. Dean shrugged one shoulder, and Sam nodded and called back, “Sam Winchester. This is my brother, Dean.”
“Americans,” the man noted, and Dean finally placed the guy’s accent as vaguely Central or Eastern European. “Whom do you serve? Quickly!”
“Nobody,” Dean replied. “We’re hunters.”
“... Men of Letters,” Sam said at almost the same time Dean said hunters. “Who are you?”
“I am Gilgamesh Wulfenbach,” the man declared, as if he expected that to mean something to them.
At their blank looks, the monster suggested, “Mebbe de hat-”
Wulfenbach looked annoyed. “The hat won’t mean anything to an American. Besides which-”
“Look,” Sam interrupted. “We don’t even know where we are or why we’re here. We found some kind of robot in our garage. Somehow it got activated. There was a really loud sound-”
“The Doom Bell?”
“I... guess. Anyway, the robot formed a portal and brought us here, wherever... here is.”
“Mechanicsburg, Transylvania.”
The brothers looked at each other, looked back at Wulfenbach, and chorused, “Transylvania?!”
Wulfenbach’s face finally cleared. “I’m sorry. We’re under attack from so many sides, I couldn’t be sure. That clank of yours.”
Dean glanced back at the Impala. “My car?”
“It has seats. Is it used for transport?”
Dean blinked. “Yeah. Most cars are.”
Wulfenbach shook his head. “I’ve got to visit America someday. Look, I need to get out of this city quickly, to help the Lady Heterodyne with the defenses. May I borrow your-your car?”
“Hell, no.” Wulfenbach frowned again, but Dean continued, “Nobody drives my baby except me or Sam. We’ll take you.”
Wulfenbach actually smiled in relief. “Thank you. I’ll be right down.” He took his gun from the monster and turned to leave the window but turned back. “Oh. You can put your hands down now.”
Both brothers did so with a sigh and started back to the car to collect their guns as Wulfenbach left the window.
“Hay, keeds,” said the monster. “Hif hyu helps Meester Gilgamesh und Mees Agatha, ve iz on de same side. Hyu no gots to shoot Jägerkin.”
Dean frowned. “What the hell is-”
But Sam cut him off with a groan. “The robot must have mistranslated. Hunter in German is Jäger. And if this bar is run by these Jäger things....”
“Jägermonsters,” called a female voice muffled by one of the plate glass windows at street level, where Dean belatedly discovered two more human faces-one a red-haired woman, one a bespectacled dark-skinned man who might be from India-and a whole host of multicolored Jäger faces peering out at them. “It is!” the redhead continued.
“I bet this wasn’t where we were supposed to go,” Sam concluded. “We were probably supposed to go directly to this Heterodyne lady, whoever she is.”
“Hoy!” exclaimed the Jäger at the upstairs window. “Hyu iz a schmot guy! Bot hyu no gots Heterodyne schtories in Hamereeka?”
Sam blinked a couple of times and said, “Okay, I’m thinkin’ parallel universe.”
Dean scoffed. “Parallel, nothing. Dude, we are on beyond zebra here. Time passes at the same rate in every universe within the same multiverse-but this is clearly not 2015.”
Sam raised an eyebrow. “Did you just-”
“Shut up, Sam.”
The upstairs Jäger chortled. “Anodder schmot guy!”
“YOU shut up!” Dean shouted back.
Fortunately, that was when the beer hall’s doors opened to reveal a slightly disgusted Wulfenbach with his weapon in one hand and what looked like a hot air balloon under his other arm. The crowd of grinning Jägers followed, led by a very large turquoise-haired female that was wearing some kind of Victorian-era uniform with heavy use of brass accents and decorative skulls on the belt. She was also carrying a giant double-bladed battleaxe with skulls embossed on the blades and Dollink carved on the axe eye.
“Ve still gonna escort hyu to de gate,” she told Wulfenbach. “Dees clenk dun look like hit gots armor. Und dees boyz dun sound like dey know vere to go.”
Wulfenbach’s shoulders squared. “Messrs. Winchester, may I present Jäger General Gkika. Her people owe allegiance to the Heterodynes, but my father and I have been allied with them for the last fifteen years as well.” He paused, then added less regally, “Uh, could one of you get the door for me?”
As Sam got the back passenger door for Wulfenbach, Gkika came over to Dean. “Hyu gun drive dis clenk?”
“It’s a car,” Dean snarled.
She chuckled. “Hokay. Hyu follow us to de city gate. Ve gots to leef hyu dere und go beck to de Lady Heterodyne. Hyu gun hef to drive krezy fast und tek he-face-if action to get Meester Gil to de kestle.”
“Evasive, I can do. What’s your definition of crazy fast?”
“How fast ken hit go?”
“Top speed’s 120 miles an hour.”
Wulfenbach popped back out of the back seat, wide-eyed and grinning eagerly. “Really?!”
Dean rounded on him. “Get back in the car!”
Gkika chuckled again, almost fondly, which was nearly as disconcerting as her sharp-toothed grin. “Ho, keed, hyu do chust fine. Veneffer hyu ready.”
Biting back a grumble, Dean ducked into the driver’s seat, and he and Sam shut their doors in unison before Dean started the engine and put the car in gear.
Gkika hefted her axe aloft and called, “Hokay, boyz!”
“VE HUNT!” cried the Jägers in response.
“And that’s not creepy at all,” Dean muttered and started following Gkika and her advance guard down the street.
“You’ll get used to them,” said their passenger.
“Look, no offense, Wulfenbach, but back home, me and my brother, we hunt monsters.”
“But you’d never seen a Jäger before.” Wulfenbach leaned forward. “What monsters do you hunt?”
“All of ’em. Demons, vampires, werewolves, pagan gods, wraiths, shapeshifters, shtrigas-”
“Hm.”
“Skinwalkers, wendigos-”
“Never heard of those.
“Rawheads, ghosts, djinn....”
“Revenants?”
“Yeah.”
“Geisterdamen?”
“... What?”
Sam sighed. “We’re not from this reality.”
Wulfenbach sat back, stunned, but then leaned forward again, with a touch of madness in his voice as he said, “Ohoho, you have got to tell me-”
“HEY!” Dean interrupted. “Focus! We need to know what we can shoot!”
“Oh. Right.” Wulfenbach cleared his throat. “Well, most of the attackers in the city have probably been disabled by the Doom Bell, considering that it actually opened the interdimensional rift that brought you here. So we’re mainly looking at anything that’s still outside the city. And for better intelligence than that, we’re going to have to get back to Castle Wulfenbach.”
“How far is that?”
“By ground, only ten kilometers or so. Getting up to it is the problem.”
“Up?”
“It’s an airship.”
The only reason Dean didn’t slam on the brakes then and there was that half of the Jägers were still right behind him, practically on his bumper.
“Dean,” said Sam, “we only promised to get him out.”
“Um,” said Wulfenbach. “I... take it you don’t have airships?”
“Well, we have airplanes. People travel by them, but they don’t live in them. But Dean hates to fly.”
Dean’s hands tightened on the wheel. “Planes crash, Sammy.”
“We got to Scotland and back safely.”
“Yeah, but the time before that, and the time before that-”
“You’re not gonna want to leave the car in the middle of a battlefield anyway, are you?”
“Exactly,” Wulfenbach chimed in, a little too eagerly. “So you fellows just get me to where I can catch a support ship back to Castle Wulfenbach, then follow the Jägers back to Agatha.”
“Not so fast, bud,” Dean growled. “Before we decide to trust you at all-”
“Hold that thought.” Wulfenbach rolled down his window, leaned halfway out with his gun shouldered, and shot... a bolt of lightning at something in the sky, which exploded, much to the Jägers’ delight. “Sorry,” he said as he sat down again. “You were saying?”
“You are gonna have to bring us up to speed. What the hell is going on around here?”
“Long story.”
“Shorten it.”
Wulfenbach blew the air out of his cheeks. “Cutting out all of the science and most of the madness? Agatha is the last heir of the House of Heterodyne, which produced some of the maddest of mad scientists until her father and uncle decided to become heroes instead. Evidently she takes after her father in most ways. But then the Heterodyne Boys disappeared, and the ensuing war took such a toll that my father decided to end it himself. He’s never claimed a title greater than the baronage he was born to, but he massed an army and conquered most of Europa. The Wulfenbach Empire is hailed for ushering in the Pax Transylvania-but even I have to confess that Father is a tyrant. Or... was, anyway. He may have been killed by now. I won’t know until I get back to the castle.”
“Oh, so all this....”
“Some of it is to kill or capture Agatha. Some of it is revolt against the empire. There’s more I’ll have to explain later. But the result is going to be chaos and carnage unless I can take control of the empire long enough to save Agatha and put down the revolt. Once peace is restored and the political situation’s more stable, I can start introducing reforms and... and maybe... I mean, I hope....” Wulfenbach trailed off.
Sam looked back at him. “Marry Agatha?”
Dean could practically hear Wulfenbach blush.
Before the conversation could get any more awkward, however, the lead Jägers suddenly fanned out, clearing a path for the Impala through the menacing city gate toward the smoking battlefield, littered with bodies and downed robots and aircraft. It took Dean a moment to steel himself against flashbacks from Hell and from Purgatory.
“Hokay, boyz!” Gkika hollered over the battle din. “Hyu gots a clear shot now!”
“Look,” Wulfenbach said, “you can let me off here-”
Dean snorted. “We already stopped one Apocalypse. We can handle a damn war of succession.” And he floored the gas.
“I really can’t ask you to-yeeeEEEAAAHOOO!” Wulfenbach yowled as the V8 roared and the Impala apparently leapt past any speed he’d traveled before. “OH, this machine is MAGNIFICENT! You’ve got to let me-”
“NO! Nobody touches my baby but me!”
Sam frowned. “Dean, are you okay? You’re starting to sound like him.”
“I am not!” Yet despite his nerves singing with adrenaline and his usual levels of irritability being heightened by the situation, Dean did suddenly feel more in tune with the Impala than ever before, which... was saying something, really. And she seemed to be responding better than ever, handling almost at the speed of thought as Wulfenbach shouted directions and Sam shouted warnings. Even Wulfenbach’s occasional hanging out the window to fire his lightning gun barely registered, especially when the radio came on.
“DEAN!” Sam finally hollered, and Dean instinctively braked. Not until the car came to a complete stop did he register the rope ladder descending in front of the hood.
Wulfenbach was chuckling with that crazed edge again. “Heh... hehheh... ehehhehheh... that was amazing....”
“HEY!” Sam barked.
“Ah! Right!” Dean looked back to see Wulfenbach shaking his head to clear it. “This is where I get off. You two can go back into Mechanicsburg, find Agatha, and help her.”
“No. Dean’s going back to Mechanicsburg. I’m going with you.”
Dean frowned. “Hang on, Sam.”
“Dean. Trust me.” There was something in Sam’s tone that brooked no argument.
Dean hated to agree, but he couldn’t stomach the thought of flying, and this Agatha chick might really need help. And he couldn’t take all day to make up his mind, given the number of craters from artillery fire they’d dodged on the way out. “Fine,” he growled and turned to Wulfenbach. “Watch out for my little brother, huh?”
“Hey!” Sam objected.
Wulfenbach, on the other hand, met Dean’s eyes and gave him both a genuine smile and his hand. “You have my word.”
Dean nodded once and shook his hand.
Then Wulfenbach sighed and gathered up his gun and the balloon-looking thingy. He and Sam got out, and Wulfenbach settled the balloon-looking thingy on his head. Evidently that was the hat the Jägers had gone on about-Dean caught a brief glimpse of the front, where above the bill stood a wide ribbon reading Gilgemesh Wulfenbach, Schmott Guy. Sam managed to keep a straight face, as did Dean... until he turned around.
Then he laughed all the way back to Mechanicsburg.
Winchester didn’t say much as Gil rushed back to Castle Wulfenbach’s war room, using the idiotic Jäger hat to overcome objections. He mostly stayed two steps behind Gil as silent backup, letting his sturdy 6'4" frame do most of the talking for him. In fact, so quiet was Winchester that after introducing him to Father’s chiefs of staff, four-armed administrative genius Boris Dolokhov and pirate queen Capt. Bangladesh Dupree, and especially after discovering that the Wulfenbach army’s movements were being coordinated by Prince Tarvek Sturmvoraus, Gil just about forgot that Winchester was there.
Until, that is, word came that Father had returned. Gil and Sturmvoraus took off at a run, but when Gil heard footsteps right behind them, he glanced back to see Winchester, gun in hand, following with a grim face. Yet said gun was pointed at the ground between Gil and Sturmvoraus’ feet, and said face was turned slightly as if Winchester were listening for pursuit.
Sturmvoraus noticed at about the same time Gil did and began, “What the devil are you-”
“Helping Agatha,” Winchester interrupted, looking Sturmvoraus in the eye. “Don’t know all the whys and wherefores, but all signs point to that being the reason my brother and I are here. And from the sound of it, the best way for me to help Agatha is by making sure you two don’t get caught.”
Sturmvoraus blinked and looked at Gil. “You sure he’s not a Tryggvassen?”
Gil snorted. “I haven’t felt the urge to chuck him out a window yet.”
Winchester huffed. “You’ve only known me an hour.”
That startled a laugh out of Sturmvoraus. “Friends beat you up often, do they?”
“Well, my brother’s best friend did once call me an abomination-but to be fair, he was getting over having drunk an entire liquor store at the time.”
“... How did that not kill him?”
“He’s an angel.”
Sturmvoraus gaped.
“Alternate reality,” Gil explained.
“... Oh,” said Sturmvoraus.
And there the matter stood as the three men fled toward Gil’s secret lab, joined en route by Bang and by the infamous Capt. Vole (the only Jäger ever to be disowned by his own kind for being too evil). Gil had to order Winchester not to shoot Vole, but otherwise, Winchester stuck to the back of the group “to watch our six”-whatever that meant. And he didn’t put his gun away until they were all safely through the electrical access hatch and the hatch itself was closed.
Gil was still trying to work out how to convince Winchester to go back to Mechanicsburg with Sturmvoraus when the aforementioned Othar Tryggvassen, Gentleman Adventurer, showed up to try to take Gil to Father. That necessitated a quick song and dance to snag Sturmvoraus’ notebook, get both Sturmvoraus and Tryggvassen into the experimental dragonfly flying machine-chained together-because of Tryggvassen’s impeccable record of surviving impossible situations, and drop the flying machine out through the floor hatch. Not until he’d shoved Vole out after them and dodged Bang’s expression of displeasure over the loss of her new crush did Gil realize that Winchester was still with them.
And that was primarily because Winchester finally spoke up. “I’ve had monster girlfriends, Capt. Dupree,” he said. “My first kiss was a kitsune. After my college girlfriend was murdered, I had a three-night stand with a werewolf. And the girlfriend after that was a demon. None of those relationships ended well. You’re probably better off without Vole.”
Bang snarled.
Figuring out how to get Winchester back to Mechanicsburg would have to wait. Gil closed the hatch and started toward his chemical stores while flipping through Sturmvoraus’ encrypted notes in search of the formula that would protect them against the mind-controlling slaver wasps developed by Lucrezia Mongfish Heterodyne, also known as “The Other.” He didn’t know if he would have enough of all the ingredients to make three doses, but either way, preventing himself, Bang, and Winchester from getting wasped had to take priority. And hell, maybe Winchester would keep Bang occupied while Gil worked. In fact, judging from the sounds of a scuffle behind Gil, Winchester was probably doing just that.
But then Gil turned just in time to see Bang brain Winchester with a wrench. Yet Winchester didn’t fall. His hazel eyes flashed briefly with blue-white light, almost the color of the Dyne-and his entire demeanor changed.
“Enough of this,” he said, his voice soft but stern all at once. He straightened and spun, catching Bang’s right wrist with his left hand. Then he touched the first two fingers of his right hand to Bang’s forehead, just above her skull bindi.
And Bang sagged to the floor in an untidy heap.
Winchester turned back to a slack-jawed Gil, his posture oddly stiff. “Fear not, Gilgamesh,” he said, voice still soft and strange but without the stern edge. “She is merely asleep.”
“You’re not Winchester,” Gil breathed.
Whatever was possessing Winchester held up both hands, empty, palms out in a placating gesture. “I am here only for his protection. I will not hurt you.”
“Who are you?”
“A friend.”
“Not good enough.”
“I cannot tell you here. Finish the potion for yourself and Bangladesh-Sam can wait. I will explain myself once we are safely away.”
Even as unnerved as he felt, Gil realized he didn’t have any choice but to trust Winchester’s passenger for the moment. That also meant he didn’t have any choice but to leave with Winchester, not if he wanted to find out the truth. He certainly couldn’t let Winchester stay and possibly fall into his father’s hands, but neither could he let Winchester go anywhere near Agatha until he found out what was really going on. “Let me talk to Winchester,” he demanded.
“I cannot,” came the reply. “He is unconscious.”
“What about his brother? Is he possessed, too?”
“No. Dean is fully human. But we are wasting time.”
Gil drew a deep breath and let it out again. Then he turned to his long-time assistant, the little blue arthropod he’d built as a child and clothed in an orange coat and hat. “Zoing? Strap Bang down somewhere.”
Zoing obediently zipped over to Bang and dragged her to a table with restraints, then fastened the restraints around her wrists and ankles while Gil pulled on his lab coat and goggles and got to work. Winchester’s passenger walked over to the table to stand guard over Bang, but he didn’t say anything more until Bang came to, just about the time Gil finished the potion.
Then the entity put one hand on Bang’s shoulder. “Stay still,” he commanded.
“Gil,” Bang growled, “what the hell-”
Gil sighed. “Bang, you’re going to have to trust me.”
“What are you talking about? What is that stuff you’ve been making?”
“It’s supposed to protect us against slaver wasps. I haven’t had time to study the theory, but knowing who Sturmvoraus is-”
“Wait, he’s the prince from Sturmhalten?! That royal family-”
“-is neck deep in the plans of The Other. I know. That’s why I think this has a chance of working. And I have to risk it. There’s a possibility that my father has been wasped.”
“Sparks can’t-”
“They can now. The Knights of Jove figured out how to infect us.”
“And you expect me to drink that?!”
Gil accepted the beaker of finished potion from Zoing and went to the table, where Winchester’s passenger had moved his restraining hand to the center of Bang’s chest. “Look, I don’t care if you believe me or not. I need you free.” And with the help of the entity, Gil dosed her before she could squirm loose.
When she started glowing and jittering as the temporary side effects kicked in, he was very glad to have the entity there to restrain her. She broke free of the table restraints and tried to fight free of Winchester’s passenger, but whatever the entity was, he was superhumanly strong and kept her pinned to the table until the side effects passed and she slid into unconsciousness.
“Do you have another flying machine?” he asked Gil then.
“No,” Gil confessed. “I can make one, though.”
“Take the potion first. I will see to her.”
Still feeling disturbed but out of options, Gil chugged the potion, caught his breath, and let the side effect energy sweep him into a building frenzy. When it faded and he collapsed, panting but still conscious, he found himself looking up at a flying machine of a design he didn’t completely recognize but that ought at least to get him and Winchester to the ground in one piece.
Speaking of whom, Winchester crouched beside Gil with a look of concern. “Are you well, Gilgamesh?”
“Uh,” Gil nodded.
The passenger entity sighed a little and touched two fingers to Gil’s forehead, but instead of putting him to sleep, the touch sent a surge of bracing energy through him. Gil gasped as it passed and he realized that he felt completely well. Then the entity offered a hand, which Gil took, and helped Gil to his feet.
Gil glanced around then, saw that the table was empty, and turned back to the entity. “Where’s Bang?”
“I left her some meters down the passage from the entrance to this section and erased her memory of its location. Even if she wakes before we depart, she will not be able to lead your father to us.”
“Great. Thanks.” Then Gil noticed that Winchester’s face was kind of pale, making the moles beside his nose and on his chin stand out more prominently. “Are you all right?”
“No worse than weary. I am... glad you have the means to fly without my aid.”
Hoping his worry didn’t show on his face, Gil bundled Winchester into the back seat of the flying machine, pocketed Sturmvoraus’ notes, waved goodbye to Zoing, climbed into the front seat, and opened the hatch. The engine took a bit of coaxing to start, but it did so long before they were in any danger. Then, rather than going straight to Mechanicsburg, Gil headed for one of the mountains close to which Castle Wulfenbach was hovering. He still needed to get the passenger’s story before he went anywhere near Agatha.
As the flying machine neared the mountain, Gil spotted the mouth of a cave that looked big enough to land in and headed for it. The entrance wasn’t quite wide enough and sheared off the wingtips-but that was okay. Surely somebody had seen him leaving; a bit of wreckage left outside might convince any pursuers that he had truly crashed.
Winchester’s passenger chuckled as the machine came to a standstill. “I think we need not mention this to Dean. He would never forgive you for crashing this plane with Sam aboard.”
Gil snorted. “Are you all right?”
The entity nodded. “Still weary, but that is not your doing.”
Gil hopped out onto what remained of one wing and helped the passenger entity maneuver Winchester’s body out of the back seat and down to the ground. Then he looked at the machine critically. “I suppose this ought to be in more pieces.”
Winchester’s passenger brought a fist down on the nose of the machine, which fell to bits with a clatter, forming a pile of smoldering scrap metal that would take some little time to search before anyone could discover that it concealed no bodies.
“Ah.”
“This also we should not mention to Dean,” said the entity with the barest sparkle of humor in his eyes.
There were some downed branches just outside the cave entrance, so Gil stepped out just long enough to grab one and light it from the fire still burning in the cockpit. “Right. This way.” And he headed toward the dark passage that led out of the back of the room.
“Do you know where we are?” the entity asked, following.
“... No, honestly. And I’m not planning to go far enough to get us lost, just far enough that the torchlight can’t be seen from the wreckage.”
“That is wise.”
The passage led around several bends, and Gil had just decided they’d gone far enough when another room opened up ahead of them-and something was moving in it. Yet Gil had barely stopped walking when Winchester’s hand came down on his shoulder.
“Stay,” whispered the entity. “I believe it is a friend.”
“Hoy!” called a familiar Jäger voice, and its owner came into the light-a pale-haired female dressed in purple and grey, with a wide-brimmed hat and a mask... Jenka, that was her name. She stopped short in surprise. “Meester Gil! Vot hyu doink here?”
“Ah, well, we’re escaping from my father. This is-”
But Jenka was already studying Winchester with a frown. “Hyu iz hurt bad. Hyu schmells... burned.”
Gil turned to Winchester in alarm, but the passenger entity only sighed. “Yes. I have not been able to heal Sam as well as I had hoped.”
“Heal?” Gil gasped. “I thought you said-”
The entity raised a hand. “Not from the ‘crash.’ These injuries happened weeks ago.”
Jenka hummed thoughtfully. “Ve better tek hyu to Mamma.”
“No,” Gil replied. “I don’t want him in Mechanicsburg until we’ve gotten the whole story out of him.”
“Ov cozz. Denn ve go someplace closer, yah? Diz vay.”
“So what are you doing here?” Gil asked as Jenka led them further into the cavern. “I thought all the Jägers went back to town when the Doom Bell rang.”
“Zomebody gots to mek sure de old tonnels iz clear. Ve dun vants nobody schneakink in Miz Agatha’s beck door.”
“Ah, true, certainly.”
After a few more rooms, one of which was concealed by a door that seemed like the dead end of a passage, Jenka turned aside to another hidden door and ushered the others inside a room sparsely furnished with a table and chairs, a Schrank with some wooden mugs adorned with the Heterodyne trilobite, and a barrel in one corner that probably held beer. She took the torch from Gil and set it in a wall bracket. The passenger entity, however, was more interested in the mugs.
“This symbol,” he said after a moment. “That was the only sign Sam saw on the robot that formed the portal. What does it mean?”
Jenka frowned. “Hyu dun know?”
“He’s... not from here,” Gil answered. “That’s the badge of the House of Heterodyne.”
The entity hummed and set down the mug. “Curious.”
“Here, come sit down.” Gil pulled out a chair.
The entity came over to the table and sank into the proffered chair with a sigh. Then he looked from Gil to Jenka and back again and sighed once more. “I... I believe I must trust someone. I do not know how long my secret will keep if I do not. And you will not judge me, I deem. Just... let me be the one to reveal all to Sam and Dean, please.”
“I can’t promise that,” Gil said. “Not until I’ve heard what you have to say.”
The entity took a deep breath. “My name is Gadreel. I am an angel of the Lord.” At Gil and Jenka’s shocked looks, he continued, “You... do not know the name?”
“My father is hardly a religious man.”
“Things may be different in this world in any case.” Gadreel took another deep breath. “In our world... my brother Lucifer deceived me, and I... allowed him entry to the Garden of Eden.”
Jenka gasped.
“My Father imprisoned me for thousands of years for that failure. I was not even aware when he left Heaven. I received only scraps of news now and then-until my brother Castiel raised Dean Winchester from Hell. Even after that, I heard little, though I was aware when first Castiel and then Anna were imprisoned for defying orders and aiding the Winchesters in their attempts to stop Lilith from starting the Apocalypse. But I did hear that Sam had freed Lucifer from Hell-and a year later, I heard that Sam had stopped the Apocalypse by returning both Lucifer and Michael to the Cage, at great cost to himself. His soul still bears the scars, even some wounds that remain open, and I... I have not been able to heal them.”
Gil frowned, though he wasn’t sure whether he was the more disturbed by the story about the Winchesters’ role in their Apocalypse or by Gadreel’s confessions of failure.
“But there was war in Heaven between Castiel and Raphael, for Raphael wanted Lucifer and Michael freed so that the Apocalypse could end as he believed it was foretold, and Castiel would not allow the Winchesters to be put at risk again. I... know little of what happened after that, but Castiel won, though it drove him mad. I have not risked probing Sam’s memories of that time. And then... a few months ago, the Winchesters inherited a bunker belonging to the Men of Letters, a society that gathered intelligence on the kinds of monsters Sam and Dean had been raised to hunt. At about the same time, they also received information on how to close the gates of Hell forever.”
Gil’s eyes widened. “And Sam tried it?”
Gadreel nodded. “He came very close to succeeding. But the final trial would have killed him, and after all they had been through, Dean could not let him die. Dean persuaded Sam to stop, but the trials left Sam’s internal organs badly burned. He was barely alive when Dean got him to a hospital. Yet somehow-and exactly how, I truly do not know-something happened just at the time Sam stopped, and all the angels were cast down from Heaven. Castiel himself was rendered human. So Dean called out to all of us to come to Sam’s aid. I was the only one who answered who did not want the Winchesters dead.”
“So... why....”
Gadreel shook his head sadly. “I was too badly injured by the fall.” To demonstrate, he stood, and the torchlight flared to show the shadow of tattered wings stretching out from Winchester’s shoulders. A few of the pinions even fell off as the wings unfolded.
“Gott’s leetle feesh in trousers,” Jenka breathed.
The light faded, and Gadreel sank back into the chair. “I had to lie to Dean about my name for fear he would not accept my help if Castiel warned him away from me. He believes I am Ezekiel, a good and honorable angel. But Ezekiel did not survive the fall. And I, as I have said, was too weakened, and Sam was too badly injured, for me to heal him from without. Our only hope was for me to attempt to heal Sam from the inside. But we both knew that after Lucifer, Sam would rather die than accept possession. So I... convinced Dean to help me talk Sam into agreeing to whatever Dean had planned to save his life.”
Gil frowned. “Wait, Sam doesn’t even know you’re in there?”
“It was to be temporary,” Gadreel pleaded, looking miserable. “I was to heal both Sam and myself and then return to my former vessel without Sam being any the wiser. But I could not do so quickly enough. Sam insisted on returning to hunting, and Castiel was murdered and needed to be raised, and then Dean asked me to resurrect another friend who had been killed. Every time I use my power in that way, I am weakened further, and it becomes harder and harder for me to regain my strength and return to the work of healing Sam. And... now... now we are here.”
After a moment’s silence, Jenka turned to Gil. “Hyu tink battledraught?”
Gil shook his head. “We don’t know how it would affect a human possessed by an angel. It might heal the burns, but that would be all.”
“No,” said Gadreel. “I still wish to keep my word to Dean and heal Sam myself. But I have no idea where to go afterward, especially if we cannot get home.”
“Could you form your own body?”
“I... suppose. It was forbidden in the past, but that must mean it would be possible. But I cannot do so until I heal both Sam and myself sufficiently. And even then, if Sam becomes aware of me, he can cast me out at any time.”
Suddenly an idea occurred to Gil. “Supposing I built you a clank. Could you possess that after you heal Sam?”
“A clank? Like-like Zoing?”
“No, Zoing’s a construct... er, a biological construction. A clank would be mechanical, and more humanoid.”
“Ah.”
“It wouldn’t exactly be a Van Rijn, but you’d be able to move independently. I could even give it wings if you like.”
“You... you would....” Hope dawned on Gadreel’s face. “We could try it. It probably would not work in our world, but here... here it might. But I cannot leave Sam like this.”
“I’ve got an idea for that, too. The waters of the Dyne have curious properties, including an unusual amount of energy. Agatha had to drink some to regain enough energy to stabilize herself, Sturmvoraus, and me after we used the Si Vales Valeo procedure to cure them both of Hogfarb’s Resplendent Immolation. I can’t be sure, but it might be enough to heal you to the point that you can heal Sam.”
“Gilgamesh... how could I repay you?”
“Tell Sam and Dean the whole truth. And help me help Agatha.”
Gadreel suddenly huffed and smiled a little. “Perhaps the clank would be wise. That way, Dean will be less likely to kill me for having lied to him.”
“... Could he?”
“Oh, yes. I believe there are still angel swords in the arsenal in the Impala’s trunk.”
Gil’s mouth fell open, but Jenka chuckled. “Hy lyk dees guyz.”
Gil cleared his throat. “Right. Jenka, can we get into the castle from here?”
“No, but ve gots a tonnel to Mamma’s. Iz eezy peezy to get beck to de kestle from dere.”
“True, and I should check on Theo and Sleipnir while we’re there. They might even be willing to build the clank while I’m getting Gadreel and Sam stabilized.”
“Hokay. Hyu ready, Meester Gadreel?”
Gadreel stood. “I am ready.”
Jenka nodded and picked up the torch, and Gil and Gadreel followed her into the darkness of the caverns.
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