Beneath Every Layer of Skin - IV
It's four a.m. when Bobby's phone goes off.
Bobby's in a deep sleep, helped along by a bottle of Jack, but even he can't ignore when Jody sleepily stumbles in and shakes him. “Bobby, yer message box has been going off for ten minutes.” Eventually, Bobby rolls unceremoniously out of bed, tripping on the bedroom mat and out into the hallway.
“- ou have, twenty-two, new messages: Beep. Bobby-kkzzch-help-chh-Cas is-zzzck. End of Message. You have, twenty-three, new messages: Beep. Bobby-please!-kkzz -Leviath-bzzzzzzzzz. End of Message. You have, twenty-four, new messages: Beep. Tzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzch. End of Message. You have, no, new messages.”
Bobby pushes the replay button with a trembling hand.
“You have, no, new messages.” Again. “You have, no, new messages.”
“Balls.”
Jody pulls at her t-shirt pajama top. “Jesus. They've only been gone three days.” In the moonlight filtering in through the cabin windows, she looks ghastly pale. “What are we going to do?”
The first thing Bobby does is to call every single phone the Winchesters should have on them. They all go straight to voicemail, and he leaves a useless message on every one.
The next thing he does is to call an angel.
“I pray to.. ah, Inias was it?” Bobby says uncertainly, crossing his arms. He's still in his flannel sleepwear, though he's put his cap on. “We're in need of some angel wisdom, and I may be as stubborn as an ass, but even I'm not as stubborn as Dean Winchester. So if you'll come here we'll be eternally grateful and all that. Just Inias though, none of your siblings, please.” Jody lets out a snicker she's been holding in beneath her breath. “Shut it.”
“Bobby Singer.” The angel appears behind them, making both people jump. He's dressed in a male vessel, tall and thin, with deep rings around his eyes and shabby jeans and sneakers. “I had lost hope of locating you- Castiel hid you well.” He eyes the sigil freshly drawn on the wall, Jody standing near with her hand raised and poised. “You don't need to fear me. I really have no desire to be banished again. It is very unpleasant.”
“Sorry if I'm not the most trusting old bastard in the world,” Bobby says, shrugging. “But we've been screwed by the angels before.” Inias nods, lips pursed.
Jody whistles, not dropping her hand from its wary position near the sigil. “A real live, juiced up angel. I admit, I was beginning to think you boys were lying about them.”
Inias gives a curt nod in Jody's direction. “Very live, Ms. Mills.”
“And he knows my name!” Inias gazes at her confusedly, but she only laughs.
“So, the prophet’s not good enough a vessel for you?” Bobby asks.
The angel looks at their attire. “Strictly speaking, I should never have done that. Were heaven the way it had been, I would have been severely punished. But the prophet is safe now.”
“Safe like the last one?”
Inias flinches, almost imperceptibly. “There are those of us who theorize that... higher forces may be at work there, much like in Castiel's continued resurrection. Regardless, we have protected Daphne Allen and all of the potential prophets, and I have taken a different vessel, one of the bloodline suitable for me.” Inias delicately picks at their band t-shirt. “He... was a musician.”
“Was?” Jody asks. She looks at him with a hard edge sneaking into her expression. “You don't kill your vessels, do you?”
“No, no-” He says holding up his hands peacefully. “Not if we take a vessel that suits us, no. My vessel... when I came to him, he said he was tired and he gave me consent, but requested that I first... 'drop him off' in heaven. We're not supposed to inhabit an empty vessel, but times being what they are...” He mimics Bobby's shrug. “It's a very interesting feeling. A vessel of your own is very... itchy. There's so much sensation, how do you stand it?”
“A lot of us can't. 'S why there's so many people chasing the idea of things like you, and so many drunks.” Bobby sighs. “Listen, kid, we need you to tell us everything you know about the Leviathans, and fast. Sam, Dean, and Castiel are missing, and those bastards have something to do with it.”
“I am not a kid,” Inias replies, frowning quietly. “Castiel is missing?”
“Yeah, since I guess less than a couple days ago. He, uh, suffered a kind of psychotic break I s'pose. Scribbled on a bunch of maps while out of his mind on painkillers and drink. The three of them drove off, chasing what we thought was probably nothing, or at least nothing they couldn't get out of.”
Inias frowns. “That sounds like a trap.”
“Yeah, well our boys have something of a habit of walking right into them. They're cocky.” Jody gives Bobby a pointed look. She finally lowers her hand, slowly approaching Inias.
“Yeah, yeah,” Bobby says. “Now, what can you tell us about these leeches?”
“Not too much more than you might know, I fear. Even the angels do not really remember them, for they came and went before most of us,” Inias admits quietly. “They are ancient. And they are monsters, the first and only collaboration between God and Eve.”
“Eve? As in the mother of all monsters?”
“Yes, her. It's... more of a legend amongst most angels really. Many do not believe it, but I think...” the words sound new and unsure in his mouth. “I think that our father and Eve shared similar designs, in the beginning.” Inias grimaces and covers his mouth. “I'm sorry, that was blasphemous.”
“No need to worry about that here.” Bobby runs a hand over his cap. “So how do we kill them?”
“We cannot.”
“What do you mean?” Jody asks tersely.
“I mean we cannot kill them, not in any way that I know. It was foretold that the wrath of the Gabriel and Michael would destroy them, but...”
“Can't we call either of them up?” Jody asks, putting her hands on her hips.
“One's dead and the other's locked up down below with their meanest brother. Gabriel was on our side at the end, but... you know how it goes for the people on our team,” Bobby explains.
Jody turns wide eyes at Bobby. “Dead archangels. Huh. One of these days I need you guys to tell me the full story. After the world stops trying to end and all.”
“There may be something...” Inias says quietly. “The prophecy, as it was told in heaven, goes as thus: 'And Gabriel's Horn shall ring throughout earth and the heavens and all the dark places, and Michael's sword shall fall to smite the first beasts, driving them back into the holes from whence they came forever more.'”
“Yeah, sounds like typical prophecy junk,” Bobby says.
Inias nod. “But I think it may not be so simple. If I have discovered one thing, it is my Father's love of twisted words.” He frowns again, but doesn't comment on his blasphemy. “None of us questioned that it simply meant Gabriel and Michael taking down the leviathans. But now, I am not so sure.”
“You think it's the weapons?” Bobby says critically, before he shrugs. “Hell, we've worked on flimsier theories.”
Jody's face brightens. “Great. Where can we find them?”
“The horn has been lost since Gabriel fled heaven a millennia ago, and Michael's sword... well he is lost, obviously.”
“He?”
“Dean Winchester.” Inias says, looking incredulous.
“Oh yeah, forgot about that. No chance of Michael's sword bein' his actual sword, if this stupid theory'a yours ain't just a waste of time?”
"Michael's sword was no different from any other archangel's blade. Besides, he preferred the staff."
“So we just need to find a long lost musical instrument, that may be just be a stupid damn hope anyways, all while hoping Dean isn't dead yet so he can... what, angst the leviathans back to death? Great. Easy. Typical apocalypse junk.” Bobby scrubs a hand over his face, other hand scrabbling for an open bottle of whiskey set on the nearby desk. Jody gets to it first, and takes a long pull.
Dean wipes blood off his face. “Ugly son of a bitch.”
It doesn't do much, not even beginning to cut through the dirt caked on, black smears of ash running over every inch of his body and mixed with stale sweat. His hair is flat, plastered to his forehead.
It's been nearly a week since they've been trapped.
Sam, rests, panting in the shadow of a crooked, burnt out bar. They'd been scavenging for food, but all they had found was more ash.
Most of the buildings were like that, ruined shells scattered haphazardly throughout the fog. They had discovered on the very first day that if they stepped out side, if they left their shelter, they would never find that place again. And it could be a long walk between safe places. Some of the places were achingly familiar, near perfect replicas of places they'd seen before, places they'd lived, places they'd died, though some barely looked like real buildings.
Sam shudders, keeping the colt at the ready. “I've never seen one... like that.”
“I don't think there was even a speck of human left in it,” Dean says. He looks around him.
“That...” Sam breathes, lungs burning horribly in his chest. “That Wendigo, if that's what it was... couldn't get past the... fence, so where are these coming from?” He gestures to the carcass of what they assume is a dead werewolf, fully transformed and bleeding sluggishly on the cracked pavement from a hole in its head. Sam's stomach aches pitifully, though it's undecided on whether it is due to nausea or hunger.
“Dunno,” Dean replies. “Nothing makes a lick of sense about this place.”
Sam curls in on himself, hugging his long legs. “We're almost out of bullets.”
Dean sighs, and crouches with his brother, their knees knocking together. “We're gonna have to find or make some sorta weapons. Can't kill anything with our good looks, yeah?” Dean attempts to smile, but Sam isn't looking at him. His eyes are unfocused, his jaw working furiously and his trembling hands fisting in the legs of his jeans. Dean leans forward and pats the sides of Sam's face. “Hey, Sammy.”
Sam's eyes dart to Dean, barely controlled terror itching across his features. “Please, not him,” he begs quietly. “Don't use his face, please.”
Dean's smile becomes heavy, but he merely shifts closer and smoothes Sam's dirty hair behind his ears, sadly. “It's me. It's me, Sam. I need you to come back to the real world. I know it's shit, I know. But I need you here, with me, now.”
Sam shudders and leans into Dean's hands, eyes drifting closed. “You're not Lucifer.”
“No way, dude. Way better lookin'.”
Sam breathes deep. It's quiet for a long moment and Sam's hands cup Dean's shoulders, squeezing tight to reaffirm Dean is real. “They're getting worse.”
“I see that,” Dean replies. “Don't worry. We're gonna find a way out of this mess. We're gonna get Cas back and we're gonna fight our way out, if we have to. Not like it’s nothing we haven’t done before.”
Sam’s eyes flicker out to the open streets. “I see him,” Sam says. “Cas. He watches us a lot.”
Dean's mouth twitches. “Yeah. I see him too.”
Sam takes another minute to sort out his breathing, and Dean eventually parts from him, standing and stretching his aching legs. “C'mon,” he says. “Let's find somewhere for the night. We don't want to get caught out here when it gets dark.” Dean offers him a hand up.
Sam doesn't move. “Dean.”
“Yeah?”
“Dean, is this real?”
“Whu-” Dean follows Sam's gaze and recoils. The mess of the dead werewolf's head is pulsating, moving slowly, its one remaining eye open and pinpointed on them. Snarling with a half of a jaw, it’s crawling slowly but surely towards Sam, great claws renting the street beneath it. “Definitely-really-real!” He gasps. “Move!” Dean pulls Sam out of the way, both of them tumbling to the concrete, just as its claws take a great swipe at where Sam had been. The wolf's head is slowly piecing back together, reversing, rebuilding brain matter first, then bone, muscle. “Run!” Dean shouts, as he pulls Sam to his feet. The fog is clearing, replaced by the complete and utter dark.
They've waited too long. Night is falling around them.
The werewolf runs much faster than they do once its cerebral integrity has been restored. It howls and bounds after them, claws ripping up the asphalt as it chases them through the dark. It’s nearly pitch black, and the batteries in their flashlights wore out two nights ago.
Sam screams in pain and Dean can just barely make out his form pressed against the ground. The werewolf is crouched over him, jaws glistening with saliva. The scent of blood wafts over to Dean. “No, Sam!” He levels the colt with the werewolf’s head and the last bullet takes off its jaw entirely.
The werewolf barely acknowledges it. That is the way of night in purgatory. It pauses just long enough for Dean to dart forward and drag Sam to him, though he knows they can't move in time. Warm blood coats Dean's hands as he cradles Sam close and waits for the blow.
“So what's the chance of this actually working?”
“With what the boys told me about their previous encounter? Not much.” Bobby shrugs and lays down an arrangement of red hibiscus flowers and a chalice of honey. Jody lights some sickly smelling jasmine incense.
“I do not think she will be willing to help if I am here,” Inias says quietly as Bobby begins to mutter beneath his breath.
“You're probably right,” a voice behind him rings. The woman saunters up behind him, slender hands itching as though wishing to snap the angel's neck. Two streams of fire decorate her arms and a belt of miniscule silver skulls dangles around her the waist of her pencil skirt. “What gall would bring two humans and a low level angel to summon me?”
Inias rubs his skinny hands together, eying her nervously. “Goddess Kali,” he begins, slowly, “We beg you for your help and thrust ourselves upon your mercy.”
Kali eyes him, striding around him with powerful steps. “You're being quite respectful, for one of God's lackeys.” Fire dances out of her fingertips and up her arms, and in the shadow of the flames, she has six. A lit fingertip touches Inias's throat, but he does not move, but for a slight flinch.
“I've got to say,” Jody says, smiling nervously. “You've always been my favourite goddess.”
Kali removes her hands from Inias's throat and shoots her an actual smile. “I'm listening, but not for long. And don't think to pull any tricks on me. I've experienced enough by your kind.”
“That's what we wanted to ask you about, actually.” Bobby says, scratching his beard. “Dean told me a little- told me you and Gabriel were close.”
“I did not even know who he was,” Kali replies scathingly. “He lied his way into my confidences. I only ever knew him as Loki.” The hibiscus flowers catch fire and wither.
“I know, I know, don't get yer skulls in a bunch,” Bobby says. The room is beginning to feel dangerously hot.
“What Bobby means,” Jody says, sending him a glare. “Is that we need to know if you have any clue where Gabriel might have stashed his horn of truth.”
“You think he told me anything?” Kali scoffs. “What would you need it for?”
“It may be the only way to defeat this world's current threat.” Inias says quietly.
Kali crosses her arms, the flames falling. “Those black, gooey beasts...”
“The Leviathans, yes.”
“So they're one of your father's creations, I should have known. They've spread all the way to my corner of the world.” she says viciously. “They're eating my people.”
“And we're trying to stop them,” Jody says, “So if you know anything, anything at all, please help us.”
Kali sends a look of such hatred Inias's way that he takes a step back, though he does no more than that, standing as proudly and tall as he can before one of the most powerful beings on the planet. She may be several inches shorter, but she dwarfs him. “Your brother left something for me. After the Winchesters and I escaped,” she frowns angrily fists clenching. “After we ran like cowards before a petulant child with too much power. I found this at my temple in Bengal.” She holds up a hand, with a DVD clutched tightly between her fingers. Bobby breaks out into actual laughter.
“Casa Erotica 14?” Jody asks incredulously.
“Is this is a joke?” Inias asks.
Bobby takes a moment to control his laughter. “Nope. He gave number 13 to Dean and Sam, when he told us how to throw Lucifer in the cage. Never was so confused as when they popped that on for me.” Jody looks at Bobby like he's gone crazy. Bobby composes himself. “So what did it say?”
Kali averts her eyes. “Many things for my ears only, but he also said that one day Sam and Dean or someone associated with them would likely come looking for me, because of him, and that I was to tell you three things; Firstly, that if you ever come after me again, I had permission to kill you, not that I needed such a thing. Secondly, that the thing you seek from him he buried beneath the branches of a long gone world tree. And lastly, that you've had the other thing you seek all along.”
Agitation itches through Inias's expression. “But what did he mean?”
Kali shrugs. “Not a clue. Heed your messages.” In a flash of flame, she disappears.
When Dean opens his eyes, the first thing he realizes is that he is not dead, followed immediately by the realization that Sam may soon be. His thigh is bleeding profusely out onto concrete below him and he is gasping weakly. There is no sign of the werewolf.
“Sammy, you're okay Sammy,” Dean whispers beneath his breath, barely sparing a second glance to the missing beast. He puts pressure on the wound, deep ragged claw marks renting down the length of Sam's upper leg. The darkness settles around them, thick and impenetrable. No natural night has ever been so pitch black, and utterly lightless.
“No,” grunts a familiar voice from the shadows. He's been following them for days, never coming close enough to shoot, but always watching from the background, enjoying the show, as it were. “We're running this show. You don't get to interfere little morsel.” It sounds pained, like it's struggling to keep breathing. A long shallow hiss escapes between pressed lips and then is gone.
Dean hadn't managed to hold onto the duffel bag when they fled the wolf, so he throws off his jacket and pulls off his grimy shirt. It's not clean, but he tears it into strips anyway, laying them over the wound until it creates a thick pad that clings readily to Sam's sticky blood. With the dark comes the night's cold, so both Sam and Dean shiver, but the blood flow is slowing, and eventually stops and Sam breathes on.
They need to move. They've been lucky, run across scant few monsters, but they're sitting ducks out in the dark. Dean can't manage to bring them to their feet.
“Dean,” Sam says weakly. “I'm okay.”
Dean forgoes all machismo and pulls Sam full into his arms, hands fisting in the back of Sam's coat.
“Gross. You're getting your boobs on me,” Sam manages weakly. Dean can feel him smiling against his cheek.
“Yeah, closest to boobs you've been, I bet,” Dean says, releasing Sam and zipping up his coat over his bare chest. He clamors into a ready crouch. “You're not gonna pass out on me if we get moving, are you?”
Sam shakes his head, before realizing it's too dark for him to be seen. “No. Gotten clawed worse than this.” He replaces Dean's hand with his own to keep pressure on the wound, and their fingertips brush together. Dean springs to his feet, before gathering Sam's free arm and pulling him into his support. Sam leans into the crook of Dean's arm, and they wander off, aimless - it's far too dark to see.
After a few minutes, Sam starts to lag, dizzy and stumbling often. “So, uh, what do you think the whole werewolf disappearing thing was about?” Dean asks, giving Sam a little shake.
“Dunno,” Sam says, sounding sleepy. “But didn't you hear it? It sounded like that wasn't supposed to happen.”
“You think...”
“I think Cas really is still in there, yeah.”
They walk on in silence, until they come across a shack about an hour later, almost missing it in the night but for the fact that they actually walked right into it. They have to feel their way to the door. It's no lighter inside than outside in the darkness, so Dean sits up vigilantly, guarding the door with nothing more than Ruby's knife and the empty colt in his belt while Sam sleeps off the blood loss.
With morning, comes the return of the dark grey fog and Dean finally sees the place they've holed up in - a shabby wooden building Dean remembers, even though it's a piece of Sam's past.
Sam grimaces when he awakens and gets a good look at his surroundings. Lucifer giggles in the back of his mind, his face swims with the images of other special children, just as scared as he had once been. He doesn't make them flesh, but Lucifer's grin on Andy's face is enough.
Dean brushes off Sam's insistence that he rest - he's too hungry and Sam is too. They hadn't managed to find anything before getting attacked. More than that, they're dreadfully thirsty. They take off into the fog, limping and supporting in turn, gladly leaving that particular memory behind.
Dean shivers with nothing but his coat and they press a little tighter together. By the middle of the day, Sam's steps begin once more to stumble. “Dean, I haven't had a drink in a day.”
“I know, Sam,” Dean says, pulling Sam a little closer. His stomach groans and he swears he can practically feel the blood pulsing beneath Sam's neck. He feels a surge of hunger thrum through him, and shudders.
“Do you think we could eat monsters?” Sam asks.
“Do you think it would be a good idea?” Dean counters.
“Better than starving.”
“Mm, yeah, how much meat do ya think we could get off a wendigo?”
Sam's stomach churns. “Yeah, okay maybe not.”
They walk for the rest of the day, but find nothing.
Part Five