Season Three

Episode Twenty-One: Heaven and Earth

By irismay42

Part Four

Mount Diablo, CA

“Helgi!”

Gudrun scrambled desperately to her feet, her former husband’s name ripped violently from her throat as she tried to claw her way back toward the Conduit; back to the place where she had last seen him, charging toward the advancing army of shadows with his shining sword held aloft and a battle cry on his lips.

“Gudrun, no!”

Dean threw himself after her, finally managing to envelope her in firmly restraining arms while she struggled weakly against him.

“Helgi,” she whispered again, for a moment continuing to fight before finally sagging back against him. “Please.”

Dean took her weight, holding her up as her body trembled, all her strength seeming to abandon her as she frantically scanned the mass of seething darkness that had consumed the Einherjar warrior.

“He’ll be okay,” Dean whispered in the girl’s ear. “Believe me, Erika, he can take care of himself.”

“But there are so many…” Gudrun’s cracked voice drifted off as she leaned back against Dean’s shoulder, her body continuing to shake uncontrollably as she tried to muster her strength. “I have to help him…”

Dean’s eyes followed Gudrun’s, scanning the roiling blackness pouring out of the mouth of the Conduit for any sign of Volsung.

But there was nothing, only red eyes swarming toward them like an angry crimson sea.

But only swarming so far.

“Why aren’t they coming for us?” Dean asked uncertainly, gaze never leaving the hoards of demons spewing forth from the Conduit.

“The remains of the angels,” Gudrun replied softly. “The devil’s trap may have gone, but the remains still have power over demons.” She shook her head. “It may slow them down a little, but it won’t hold them for long.”

“We need to go,” Sam urged from behind them, but Dean was no more willing to leave Jon behind than Gudrun was, and he noted Sam wasn’t making any obvious attempts to escape either.

“Go where?” Dean shot back over his shoulder, his eyes never straying from the approaching mass of demons who were making slow but definite headway across the poisoned earth surrounding the mouth of the Conduit. “The exit’s blocked, remember?”

“I have to help him,” Gudrun insisted again, once more attempting to squirm away from Dean’s grasp. But her struggles were weak and ineffectual and Dean merely wrapped his arms tighter around her.

“Not like this you don’t,” he told her, his voice lowered. “You’re too weak. You’ll just get yourself killed…or—” he faltered, “—whatever.”

“I’ll find the strength!” Gudrun asserted. “I won’t let him die! I won’t!” Suddenly she spun in Dean’s arms, a new resolve hardening her features. “It’s my job to protect him,” she said, eyes locking with Dean’s. “I have to protect him! You understand that, don’t you, Dean? It’s my job.”

Dean swallowed, nodding slowly. He understood all right. “What do you want me to do?” he asked levelly, his voice cracking a little.

Gudrun paused for a second, thinking. “Finish the gunpowder,” she ordered at length, her voice seeming to gain strength along with her body and her resolve. “I’ll hold off the demons—”

“You and whose army?”

“Reaper. That’s what you call me, don’t you?” Gudrun sighed. “Well I suppose it’s almost an accurate description.”

Dean raised an eyebrow. “All the crap you’ve given me for calling you that and I was right all along?”

Gudrun huffed and rolled her eyes. “Almost.” She shuffled her feet uncomfortably. “Okay, I’m sorry, but I just don’t like that word, all right?”

“All right,” Dean agreed. “Then I’m sorry too. I won’t call you a Reaper anymore. I’m glad we got that cleared up. Now are we gonna just stand here chatting while the hoards of Hell get real up close and personal with us or was there a point to this conversation?”

Gudrun huffed again. “All right, don’t get your boxers in a twist!” she snapped, causing Dean to virtually growl at her. “So you know I have the power to convey the souls of the dead to Valhalla, right?” When Dean nodded, she lowered her eyes before continuing. “Well I can kind of send them to Hell too.”

Dean blinked. “Like a Reaper,” he interjected drily.

“Yes, like a Reaper,” Gudrun conceded. “So I figure if I can send a few of these demons back where they came from, I might be able to hold the rest of them off long enough for you to finish the gunpowder.”

Dean’s brow furrowed. “I thought you said gunpowder wouldn’t be enough to close the Conduit?”

“It won’t,” Gudrun agreed. “But it might be enough to reinforce the devil’s trap—to stop any more demons getting out.”

“It will?”

“The angel remains have kept this Conduit sealed for millennia, remember?” Gudrun said. “The stuff’s deadly to demons. If you use some in the gunpowder the explosions will stir up even more and hopefully scatter enough around the Conduit to repair the trap, at least long enough for us to come up with a more permanent solution.”

“Such as?”

A sly grin lit up Gudrun’s pale features. “Don’t you worry your pretty little head about that, Dean,” she said, patting his cheek fondly. “Go blow stuff up. It’s what you’re good at. Leave the thinking to me.”

Dean scowled at her before shoving her hand away. “You know, just when I think maybe I misjudged you, you go prove me right!”

“And maybe I should believe you when you tell me you’re never wrong?”

“You bet your eternal ass, honey,” Dean agreed. He shook his head. “Okay I’m still not sure this is gonna work, but if you say it will then… where do I sign up?”

“Gunpowder. Now Dean, go!”

Dean hesitated as the Valkyrie pushed him away from her, his face becoming suddenly serious. “Erika, are you sure you can—?”

“Dean, I’m immortal,” Gudrun interrupted him. “Jon isn’t. Go blow something up for me!”

Dean nodded, reluctantly releasing his hold on her as she turned and headed down toward the Conduit, down toward the last place she’d seen her former love.

The place currently swarming with demons.

“Be careful!” Dean tossed after her, before turning back to Sam, who was standing expectantly behind him, alternating nervous glances between the approaching tide of demonkind and the securely blocked cave entrance behind them. “C’mon, Gigantor,” Dean ordered him shortly. “You stand still much longer your body’s gonna get bored and decide to have another of those monster growth spurts just to relieve the tedium. And you’re not gonna fit in the damn car if you get much taller, dude!”

Sam blinked at him blankly, apparently not appreciating his brother’s finely-honed distraction technique. “Dean, we can’t just let her go down there—”

Dean’s expression sobered as he caught Sam’s arm. “Yes we can, Sammy,” he said. “It’s what she wants. Plus, y’know, she’s got that whole Who Wants To Live Forever thing goin’ on. If anyone can save Frodo’s ass it’s her.”

Sam relented slightly, allowing Dean to pull him backwards toward the cave entrance as he continued to gaze at the sea of roiling blackness into which Gudrun had now completely disappeared.

“Here.” Dean thrust two flashlights into Sam’s hands before feverishly diving back into the duffel which was splayed open on the cave floor, rummaging around frantically before producing a couple more. “Sammy, I gotta say sometimes it pays you’re such a Boy Scout. I mean, four flashlights? Who packs four flashlights?”

Sam huffed slightly. “Redundancy,” he returned quickly. “And just in case we wind up doing what we’re doing now.” He paused for a beat. “What are we doing now?”

Dean rolled his eyes before choosing to ignore his brother’s enquiry altogether. “Zach, Professor!” he called out instead, the two men who were currently rather fruitlessly attempting to help Daisy shift some of the rock blocking the cave’s entrance both glancing up at his hail. “Little help?”

Zach straightened, taking a hesitant step toward Dean, while Maynard jumped up and practically stomped on the younger man’s feet in his enthusiasm to offer Dean any assistance he could.

Dean raised an amused eyebrow. “Think you guys can get me sulfur and saltpeter?”

Maynard nodded so vociferously Dean thought his head might actually come off. “Of course, my boy!” he burst out, a knowing glint in his eye, and Dean was pretty sure the diminutive professor had caught on immediately to what he was up to. “Collecting mineral samples from dark caves? Takes me right back to my childhood!”

“You visit a lot of Hellgates when you were a kid?” Zach asked drily. “’Cause I think I missed that field trip.”

The professor chuckled. “Come with me son,” he insisted, taking a firm grip on Zach’s arm and dragging him off toward a nearby cave wall. “I’ll show you what real geology’s all about!”

“Sammy?” Dean turned his attention back to his brother once he was sure Maynard and his less-than-willing assistant were getting busy scraping what he needed off the walls. “Need you to get me some of the earth from nearer to the Conduit.”

Sam stared at him for a second. “Nearer…?” he burst out. “Please tell me you’re not seriously thinking about using angel remains to make gunpowder?”

Dean kept his expression purposefully neutral. “Why yes I am, little brother,” he confirmed, snatching the flashlights back out of Sam’s hands now he’d finished rooting through the duffel. “An immortal Valkyrie told me to do it, and when an immortal Valkyrie tells me to do something I figure I better do it!”

“When have you ever done anything she’s asked you to do before?”

“I went up in that freakin’ plane didn’t I?”

“And look how well that turned out.”

“C’mon Negative Nancy, go get me some angel dirt.”

Sam hesitated for a second. “You really think this is gonna work?”

Dean hesitated for even longer than his brother had. “Hecked if I know. Sure as hell don’t have the tools to do it properly, so the yield’ll probably suck. But right now? We’re kinda running low on options, Sammy.”

Sam nodded reluctantly. “Okay. How close you want me to get?”

“Nowhere near those demons,” Dean returned.

“Sounds like a plan.”

“And Sammy?”

“Yeah?”

“Be careful.”

“Yeah.”

“And gimme your shoelaces.”

“Huh?”

Sam paused for a second, glancing down at his sneakers before looking back up at Dean, who was already tearing his own laces from his boots.

“Now, Sam!” Dean urged him impatiently, holding his left hand out toward him while with his right he resumed rooting around in the duffel, finally pulling out half a bottle of water and a couple of shotgun shells.

“Okay, okay!” Sam complied a little reluctantly, apparently having little clue what Dean was doing, but bending down to pull his laces out of his shoes nonetheless. “But if I trip and fall flat on my ass and get eviscerated by demons ’cause you made me take out my shoelaces, you’ll have to live with the guilt, okay?”

The corner of Dean’s mouth ticked up as he knelt down and pulled out his pocket knife, cutting open the shotgun shells and pouring the powder out onto a chunk of rock that appeared to have shaken itself free of the ceiling.

Yanking open the bottle of water, he added a little to the powder, mixing the stuff into a paste with the knife before dumping his and Sam’s shoelaces into the whole soggy mess.

Sensing Sam still standing there watching him, still apparently clueless, Dean didn’t look up as he muttered, “You know, if you still don’t know what I’m doing, little brother, you deserve to fall on your ass and get eviscerated by demons.”

Dean could almost see the light bulb snap on above his brother’s head as Sam suddenly burst out triumphantly, “Fuses! You’re making fuses!”

Dean shook his head. “And they say you’re the smart one, Stanford,” he commented, trying to sound exasperated but pretty much failing to keep a big grin from breaking out on his face. “Knew you were paying attention to Caleb. Even when you told Dad you weren’t.”

Sam shrugged dismissively. “You know me, Dean,” he said, finally turning away from his brother and heading off toward the Conduit. “Anything to tick the old man off.”

“Well don’t tick him off by getting eviscerated by demons!” Dean instructed him sharply. “’Cause you know it’d be my ass he’d kick from here to Timbuktu if you did!”

“Well you’d deserve it,” Sam tossed over his shoulder. “For taking my shoelaces.”

* * * *

Sam didn’t know how Dean ever got it into his head his little brother thought he was dumb. It was so not true and kind of hurt that Dean would think Sam looked down on him that way. Bad enough he should be constantly looking down on him in the physical sense, but intellectually? Dean might not have gotten a free ride to Stanford, but Sam wasn’t lying when he said Dean was one of the smartest people he knew.

Making fuses out of shoelaces? That was pretty ingenious, even for Dean, and he always had had a knack for conjuring something up out of nothing. Sam still remembered the madly creative meals his big brother used to come up with when they were kids and all they seemed to have in the fridge was a bulb of garlic and a jar of Cheez Whiz.

Sam smiled to himself at the memory, glad of the distraction from the churning mass of leathery wings and glowing red eyes only a few yards away from him. It was harder, however, to ignore the howls of frustrated anger and unpleasant sizzle of demon flesh emanating from the direction of the Conduit as one after another the demons attempted to crawl over the poisonous earth that stood between them and freedom.

This close to the Conduit, Sam had hoped to see some sign of Jon—the flash of a blade, a glimpse of pale blond hair—but so far he’d seen nothing, and there was no sign of Gudrun either. He just hoped the two of them were holding their own against the demonic onslaught.

Trying not to think too hard about that, he crouched down and began digging, carefully transferring the earth into an empty family-sized bag of peanut M&Ms, which had lasted Dean all of about an hour earlier this morning.

Sam was almost disappointed the earth didn’t feel any different from regular dirt, having half hoped the angel remains within the soil would give off some kind of vibration or sign that there was more here than just decomposed flesh. Something important. Something divine.

Sighing, he transferred more earth to the packet, so intent on trying to figure out how much Dean might need that it took him a couple of seconds to register the dark shadow suddenly falling across him.

He looked up with a start, blood red eyes mere inches from his own.

Sucking in a startled breath, he fell backwards, just as the demon’s claws slashed the air above his head where a second earlier his face had been.

“Oh crap…!”

Scrambling back on his elbows, Sam braced himself for the inevitable agony of the demon’s talons slicing through his innards, but instead of feeling his insides shredded to hamburger meat, the scaly monstrosity hovering above him unexpectedly exploded in a cloud of black smoke, and Sam found himself coughing as the haze eventually cleared to reveal Gudrun standing there, her hand raised and her eyes squeezed tightly shut.

As the smoke cloud was sucked back toward the Conduit behind her, the Valkyrie opened her bright blue eyes and smiled at Sam, before abruptly collapsing to the ground at his feet.

“Gudrun!”

Sam scrambled to his knees, crawling over to the downed shield maiden and carefully pulling her into his arms, running his hand over her pale cheek and pushing her hair from her damp forehead as his eyes shot back toward the cave exit in the hope of attracting his brother’s attention.

But Dean was already standing right in front of him, right where the demon had been standing, a shotgun clutched in his hand and slightly out of breath from apparently having dashed down from the cave entrance the second he saw a demon rear up in front of his little brother.

“You okay Sammy?”

Half-panicked concern thrummed through the older brother’s voice as Sam looked up at him and nodded, his heart rate slowly returning to something approaching normal.

“Yeah, I’m good,” he lied, glancing down at the barely-conscious girl in his arms. “But I’m not sure I can say the same for Gudrun. Help me get her back to the exit will ya?”

Dean nodded, making to bend down to help the girl, but suddenly yanked clean off his feet by the hideous mass of demon unaccountably standing right behind him.

“Dean!”

Sam barely had time to register what was happening as the demon’s ebony claws clamped tightly around Dean’s throat, the older brother’s eyes widening in shocked surprise as the shotgun clattered uselessly to the ground while his feet kicked out at empty air and his fingers scrabbled hopelessly at the huge hand intent on choking the life right out of him.

“Winchester!” the demon growled, it’s voice as deep and dark as Hell itself, and Dean’s eyes widened still further, shooting helplessly in Sam’s direction before the demon yanked him a couple more feet into the air, holding him up so they were at eye level, parched black lips and bloodstained fangs mere inches from Dean’s neck.

“No! Let him go!”

Sam tried to get to his feet, but Gudrun was a dead weight in his arms, her eyes suddenly fluttering open to take in the scene before her. Alarm flooded her features and she tried to raise her hand toward the demon, her fingers shaking with the effort and her lips parted but no words escaping.

“Can’t…” she managed finally, her voice so weak Sam could barely hear her. “Can’t do it…” she whispered. “Too weak. Can’t…”

Sam’s frantic gaze shot back to his brother, whose lips had turned a distinct shade of blue, his eyes beginning to roll back in his head as he began to lose the battle to remain conscious.

“Dean! No!”

Just like in Phoenix, in Leicester, in Plano and Fort Worth, Sam felt the familiar tingle begin to build behind his eyeballs. Alyssa, Mia, Lucifer—all of them had succumbed to the force of Sam’s “gift,” all of them subjected to the power Sam now felt once again thrumming through his limbs: electricity and broken glass; power and pain; fear, love and anger; all of it building, building to something he couldn’t define, couldn’t quantify, couldn’t even name.

Gritting his teeth he closed his eyes as the thunder of blood pounding through his veins almost deafened him, and just when he thought every cell in his body might explode with the force of it, it left him in a powerful burst of energy, lifting the seven foot demon clear into the air and shaking it hard until it released his brother, Dean dropping like a stone to the cave floor as the demon was tossed through the air like a football, landing with a howl and a hiss of burning flesh back where the angelic remains were their most powerful and potent.

Sam breathed hard as he tried to focus, the demon’s screams reverberating in his ears as it struggled to its smoldering feet, one painful step after another toward him, toward Dean, and Sam felt the burning behind his eyes and the aching in his head, and suddenly Gudrun’s fingers were interlaced with his own, her eyes turned up to his in wonder.

“You’re a mirror!” she gasped. “Your purpose! That’s your purpose, Sam!”

Closing her eyes once again, Gudrun gripped his hand tighter and Sam felt something else stir within him, a greater power, white hot and blinding, building and building within him. He tried to close his eyes but all he could see was the huge form of the demon taking another step toward his barely-conscious brother, looming over his downed form, lips pulled back in an ugly snarl and talons elongated like merciless blood-soaked razor blades.

“Dean!” He heard someone scream his brother’s name, not entirely sure it wasn’t him, his vision blurring and whiting out as something fizzled and crackled in his ears.

“Sam, help me!” Gudrun screamed from somewhere, and then he felt it, a power so overwhelming it was like nothing he’d ever experienced in his life before, his fingers tingling where he touched the Valkyrie’s, and when he opened his eyes his hand was outstretched with hers and the demon was dissolving into a cloud of sulfurous smoke, billowing back toward the Conduit with a scream of anger still reverberating around the cave in its wake.

Sam held completely still, not even breathing, the shock of what just happened too much for him to process right away.

The demon. He’d reaped the demon…

“It’s all right, Sam,” Gudrun was softly murmuring into his ear, her hand still grasped in his own. “It’s all right. Everyone has a purpose. Everyone has a purpose, Sam.”

Sam sucked in a breath, his eyes finally meeting the Valkyrie’s. “What… what did I—we… What did we do?”

Gudrun placed her free hand on his cheek. “You’re a mirror, Sam. I used your ability to mirror my powers, concentrate them, augment them with your own.”

Sam blinked at her. “You used my power?” he gasped a little incredulously.

“To make mine stronger, yes,” Gudrun confirmed.

“Gudrun—”

“Help me, Sam,” the girl repeated. “You can help me. You have to help me!” Her eyes widened and Sam followed her gaze as she glanced back in Dean’s direction, the older Winchester struggling to his feet as yet another demon bore down upon him. “Now, Sam!”

“Winchester!”

The demon repeated its predecessor’s taunt, throwing the name at Dean like an accusation, and before Sam really knew what was happening he once again felt Gudrun’s weakened power flooding into him, through him, out of him. The Valkyrie was too weak to wield it by herself, her body trembling as Sam somehow managed to keep them both on their feet, but with the younger Winchester’s help she made short work of reaping the demon, sending it back to Hell with an unearthly bellow that followed the twisting column of black smoke as it was dragged back down into the Conduit.

When Sam opened his eyes again, it was to see Dean looking at him, his face pale and his lips drawn into a tight line.

Sam wanted to say something, ask if he was okay, but there was something in Dean’s eyes that stopped him cold and all he could do was return his gaze helplessly.

“Sam,” Gudrun said again. “The demons. I can’t hold them by myself. You have to help me!”

The Valkyrie was trying to stand and it took Sam a few seconds for his brain to catch up with her, pulling himself up shakily and helping her to her feet, his eyes never leaving Dean’s.

The older brother swallowed, his hand moving cautiously to his throat, which was already painted an impressive array of purples and reds. “Sam?” he managed to croak. “You okay?”

Sam thought about that for a second before nodding. “As I’ll ever be,” he confirmed, glancing down at Gudrun and smiling a little awkwardly.

She returned his smile with a rather grim one of her own, her attention shifting to Dean as she suddenly barked, “Gunpowder! Now, Dean!”

Dean glanced at Sam uncertainly, the younger Winchester’s slightly shell-shocked expression melting into something approaching reassurance.

“I’ll be all right, Dean,” Sam promised his brother. “I think I need to do this.”

* * * *

Dean couldn’t breathe, and he was pretty sure it wasn’t because a seven foot demon had just tried to crush his windpipe.

He did his best to suck in a breath as Sam turned away from him, Gudrun clinging to him like some kind of six foot four inch crutch as the two of them headed off toward the Conduit, toward the heaviest concentration of demons.

His gut twisted, and not just out of fear for Sam’s safety. What the hell had his little brother just done?

What had Sam just done?

In his head, he knew there was no way Sam just reaped a demon. He knew that. He did. But still, the sight of Gudrun using his baby brother to send a demon back to Hell? That he could have done without. Even though he knew it was Gudrun who did the actual reaping, not his brother. He knew that. He did. Sam wasn’t a Reaper. He wasn’t.

He took another breath, massaging his neck gingerly as he glanced about himself, trying to remember what the hell was going on here before Sam just reaped a demon.

The several hundred more demons pouring out of the Conduit quickly reminded him, flames shooting up higher and higher from the steadily widening breach in the barrier between Hell and Earth, lighting the entire cave an eerie blood red.

He glanced upwards as a loud crack tore the air above his head, fingers of flame reaching up from the Conduit toward a tiny sliver of blinding white light spearing down from what appeared to be a breach in the ceiling of the cave. And yet Dean knew that wasn’t possible—the ceiling was still intact, and there was no way any daylight could be coming in from anywhere up there, not with several hundred feet of mountain still on top of them.

So where the hell was the light coming from?

Dean suddenly remembered how Gudrun had entered the cave; the white light that had almost blinded him when she’d opened the Conduit from Above.

Above.

Lucifer’s demon army had forced its way up from Hell to Earth and now seemed intent on continuing its journey.

With a shudder, Dean realized that Sam had been right: Earth wasn’t the demons’ primary objective.

They were trying to force their way back into Heaven.

He could only watch in mute horror as a phalanx of demons poured from the Conduit, one by one unfurling leathery black wings and launching themselves up toward the light. With a painful thud, each came to a sudden and incongruous halt just inches away from the opening, as if the light—and what lay beyond—was protected by some kind of invisible barrier.

As demon after hideous demon slammed into the barrier, undaunted by their comrades falling back to the poisoned earth with screams of disgruntled protest and obvious pain, Dean wondered whether the remaining power of the devil’s trap and the angel remains extended upwards, or whether this was something else, something generated from Above, one last line of defense designed to keep out anyone—or anything—that should attempt to enter Heaven by force.

A battle cry from over to Dean’s left drew his attention back to the edge of the Conduit, where with some relief he spied Volsung striding among the demon hoards, his silver sword held high above his head, cutting them down one after another. He seemed untouchable, hacking and slicing at anything that came within striking distance, black blood and demonic entrails smeared across his face and his torso.

Dean could only watch in admiration as the Einherjar advanced upon a large group of demons, most of which, quickly realizing the danger, immediately fell back, corralled toward the lip of the Pit as they endeavored to retreat as far from the certain death offered by the blade of Volsung’s sword as they possibly could. Some of them screamed as they toppled backwards, swallowed by the flames and the heat as they were dragged back into Hell’s fiery embrace. Others tried to fly to safety, but Jon made quick work of them, hacking at their wings dispassionately, the obsidian feathers turning to ash the instant they made contact with his blade.

Dean briefly considered offering to help the Einherjar, but it was painfully obvious Volsung didn’t need his help, and neither did Sammy, mirroring Gudrun’s reaping powers and sending demon after demon back down into the Pit with what appeared to be effortless ease.

So what could a mere mortal like Dean do to help the cause?

Blow stuff up.

His gaze slid to the bag of earth Sam had left at his feet, and he snatched it up purposefully, scooting back toward the cave entrance where Daisy, Zach and Maynard were currently crouched, having given up on trying to shift the mountain of rock still denying them escape.

“Is Sam okay?” Zach asked as Dean skidded to a halt in front of the small pile of minerals he and the professor had managed to collect from the cave walls. “Where is he?”

Dean glanced back over his shoulder, no longer able to pick out Sam, Gudrun or Volsung in the mass of writhing demons, but somehow knowing as long as he had Gudrun by his side, his little brother would survive.

“As okay as he’s gonna get,” Dean replied shortly, echoing his brother’s earlier reassurances. “But we need to get some of those demons off his ass or he’s not gonna stay that way for long.”

Upending the M&M bag onto the pile of sulfur and saltpeter, Dean grabbed his bowie knife from the duffel and began mixing his explosive concoction together, absolutely no idea whether this crazy idea of his had a hope in Hell of working.

He chuckled to himself wryly. Hope in Hell… Yeah that’s exactly what he had.

Snatching up the four discarded flashlights, Dean twisted off the end caps, removing the bulbs and cutting the housing from the plastic case with his pocket knife before shaking the batteries out of each tube. Carefully, he packed the empty tubes with the makeshift gunpowder, threading one of his patented shoelace fuses through the hole he’d made where the bulb housing used to be before screwing the end caps back onto the gunpowder-packed tubes and finally taking a very shaky breath.

He sat back and admired his handiwork for a second, oddly proud of the jury-rigged explosives.

“Are those things gonna work?” Daisy asked a little skeptically, and Dean honestly wished he could assure her “yes.”

As it was, the opportunity to respond never arose, Daisy’s attention abruptly torn away from him and a scream ripped from her throat as Zach simultaneously let out a cry of surprised terror.

Dean’s head shot up just as a demon threw itself on top of Sam’s former college buddy.

“Zach, no!” Daisy cried out, and Dean’s fingers instantly began scrabbling about on the ground, desperately tried to find the shotgun.

With no weapon in sight save the bowie knife which, if Dean was honest, he knew wasn’t going to be much use against a demon, it didn’t take a genius with a Sammy-sized brain to figure out they were in trouble.

Which was when the earth beneath them decided to give a familiar judder, his focus skittering instantly back to Daisy.

Her eyes were closed, forehead creased in concentration, the rocks blocking the cave entrance shuddering and shifting against one another as the ground around them suddenly lurched with enough force to throw the demon from on top of Zach, the monster rolling and landing with a thud a couple of feet away from him.

Regrouping, the demon pulled itself to its feet as Daisy’s eyes opened and the ground beneath them stilled.

She took a breath, eyes meeting Dean’s awkwardly.

Dean didn’t say anything—he didn’t have to. Her sheepish gaze told him everything he needed to know.

Daisy had been causing earthquakes. Just not all of them….

Dean was shaken back to the current danger by the demon suddenly letting loose a ferocious growl, it’s Hellish gaze now turned on Daisy rather than Zach, as if it knew where the real danger lay in the group of puny humans laid out at its feet.

It took a step toward the girl, coal-dark wings extended up and out creating the illusion of a creature much bigger than the one in front of them. Although it was plenty big enough, Dean mused, trying not to think too much about that as he jumped to his feet and firmly planted himself between the Hellspawn and the young archeologist, only then once again remembering he had no weapon with which to defend either of them.

It occurred to him he had no idea what had happened to the shotgun, vaguely remembering dropping it when the first demon had decided to play chew toy with him, and for a brief moment his gaze slid longingly to his bowie and his pocket knife discarded several feet across the cavern floor near his homemade pipe bombs. They might be useless against a demon, but at least he’d go down swinging. Or slashing. Or both.

He smiled nervously. “Nice demon,” he muttered, hands raised placatingly in front of him. “Just a big pussycat really, aren’t ya? Just misunderstood. Bet you don’t really want to rip me to shreds and eat me for lunch, now do you, huh?”

The demon shook out its wings in response, narrowing its crimson eyes and baring its fangs threateningly.

“I think someone has some anger issues,” Dean observed, taking a nervous step back as the demon advanced on him, quickly chancing a glance over his shoulder at the girl cowering behind him on the ground. “Hey Daisy?” he managed, doing his level best to sound calm and collected, as if he faced off with seven-foot demons every day of the week. “Could use some of that rocking ’n rolling of yours right about now!”

Daisy was trembling visibly, Zach having scooted over to her and wrapped her in his arms protectively.

“I’m not a freak!” she insisted, her voice tremulous and tear-filled. “I’m not!” She shook her head at him before burying her face against Zach’s shoulder, as if that would make the approaching demon somehow disappear.

Dean swallowed, shifting his attention back to the demon, which he was rather alarmed to discover was now only inches from him, so close he could feel the heat of its breath on his cheek, smell the sulfur in every exhale.

Locking eyes with the Hellspawn, Dean only had time to think, “Dammit, not again!” before he was unceremoniously grabbed by the throat, yanked into the air and tossed several feet across the cave like a rag doll, landing hard and striking his shoulder painfully against a chunk of rock no doubt dislodged from the ceiling.

“Goddammit!” he cried out, somehow managing to stifle a string of further profanities as he rolled onto his back and raised himself up onto his elbows.

Only to find himself looking up into the demon’s blood red eyes.

“Crap,” he muttered, once again wondering where the hell he’d left his shotgun.

* * * *

So this wasn’t so bad, Sam told himself, another blast of Gudrun’s augmented reaping power shooting from their entwined fingertips and sending Hell’s most recent escapee tumbling back into the Pit with a howl of protest.

Sam allowed himself a tiny smile of triumph, which quickly died on his lips as two more demons emerged from the Conduit where the first had fallen, nostrils flared and black lips pulled back over snarling fangs.

“There’s just too many of them!” Gudrun gasped, sagging a little at Sam’s side. “No matter how many we send back to Hell, there’s always twice as many to take their place!”

Sam hadn’t been keeping a tally of the number of demons he and Gudrun had reaped so far, but as he glanced around himself at the advancing throng of Hellspawn, it was pretty obvious their numbers hadn’t noticeably lessened.

He turned his attention upwards for a second as the blinding white sliver of light spearing down from the Conduit became inexplicably brighter, the tiny crack Lucifer’s army had opened in the gateway to Heaven widening considerably, accompanied by the sound of something that may have been a cheer had the demons battering themselves against the opening been human.

“They’re forcing their way past the barrier,” Gudrun told him. “If they make it through…” She didn’t have to voice her fears about what would happen should Lucifer’s advance guard successfully batter their way into Heaven the way they had battered their way up to the Earth.

It would be war. And it would be Apocalyptic.

They both turned sharply at the sound of a pained yelp, Jon coming into view for the first time since he’d initially disappeared into the roiling throng of demons.

“Helgi!” Gudrun yelled.

The demons had him surrounded, a semi-circle of Hellish teeth and claws snapping and tearing at him, forcing him back, back toward the precipice of the Conduit. He continued to hack at them with the silver sword, limbs and wings and the occasional head all turning to ash with each arc of his blade, but their numbers were too great, and even if he was still partly Einherjar, he was just one man.

“We have to help him!” Gudrun insisted, making a desperate move toward him.

Sam didn’t argue, racing after the Valkyrie with his hand still clasped in hers, demon after demon thrown unceremoniously out of their path as Gudrun’s now-familiar power coursed through his body, dispatching the enemy back to Hell with frighteningly cool efficiency.

“Helgi!”

This time it felt different as Gudrun halted her forward momentum, planting her feet and closing her eyes.

She was still clutching his hand in hers, holding on for all she was worth, but instead of feeling her power within him, Sam felt something else. That familiar vibration, that energy he’d felt when the demon had grabbed hold of Dean, when Lucifer had threatened to throw him into Hell, when Alyssa had wiped his memory and Mia had told Sam Dean was dead; that power was what he felt now. His power. But it wasn’t his concern for Dean that was fueling it.

It was Gudrun’s love for Jon.

With a startled gasp, it suddenly dawned on him what was going on here.

Up until this point, Gudrun had been using Sam’s powers to bolster her own, using his gift to reflect her ability to reap the souls of the Damned and vanquish more demons than she ever could have done by herself, particularly in her currently weakened state.

But now, things were changing. Their positions were becoming reversed. Gudrun wasn’t using Sam’s abilities anymore: she was letting Sam use hers.

Sam could feel everything she felt: her overwhelming devotion to her former husband; the devastation she had felt when he had been ripped from her side and laid in the ground; the intense power of her love for him, which transcended everything she was and everything she could be to such an extent that she would die for him if such a thing were possible. And she had. Back in Canada. And now she was prepared to do it again.

But she didn’t need to.

Because this time, she had Sam on her side.

And this time, he knew what he was supposed to do.

Closing his eyes, he allowed Gudrun’s love for Jon to fill him up completely, let her need to protect him block out every other thought in his head as the familiar tingle began once again in his fingertips, working its way up his arms and lodging in his chest, building up to a crescendo over his heart before bursting out of him in a sudden rush of power even more fearsome than anything he’d experienced previously.

He was everything and he was nothing; he was the universe and he was empty space. He was Erika Gudrun and he was Sam Winchester.

And the world would end before he’d let a demon take from him another person he cared about.

“Sam!”

It was Gudrun and it was Dean; Jon Volsung and John Winchester; Jessica Moore and Sarah Blake; Kyle Williams and Bobby Singer; Nathan Cole, David Mitchum, Matthew Ismay. It was Alyssa Medina and Mia Cameron. And it was Mary. Mary Winchester. Sam’s mother. Every person he’d saved, every person he’d failed to save. Mother, father, brother, lover, friend, ally and enemy.

He would save them all.

Even if it meant ending everything.

“No!” Gudrun screamed at his side, and suddenly everything went white….

* * * *

It felt chillingly familiar, this tightness in Dean’s chest, the demon looming over him with glowing eyes aflame and an outstretched hand.

It wore its true face this one, hadn’t put on the flesh of an innocent the way Haris had worn his father like protective wrapping. Dean won’t shoot Daddy, and neither will Sammy… He’d relied on that, that bastard demon.

But still it was the cabin all over again, and Dean clutched at the flesh above his heart, remembering. Haris’ yellow eyes peering out at him from Dad’s face. “He’s gonna tear you apart. Taste the iron in your blood…”

Dean thought his head might explode, or at the very least he might pass out, struggling for every breath as the demon leaned in closer, saliva dripping from bared teeth and a hungry glint in fiery eyes.

Dean fought to draw in another breath as a wet warmth crept across his constricting chest, and he was back in the cabin, the demon shredding him from the inside out just as Haris had.

And yet there was no pain.

Somehow managing to glance down, Dean watched the crimson stain blossoming across his shirt in fascination, a pool of blood spreading over his chest that he wasn’t entirely sure was his own.

The demon snarled, nostrils flared as it smelt the blood, and sensed the life of its prey right there for the taking.

Reaching out one taloned hand, it gripped Dean’s t-shirt, scrabbling for purchase on the slick material as the blood collecting on the shirt oozed between bony black fingers.

Dean prepared himself for the inevitable, expecting screams of agony to be torn from his throat at any second.

Instead, a howl of pure anguish was unaccountably ripped from the demon’s scaly lips, the creature throwing back its head and screeching as the hand clutching at Dean abruptly exploded into ash.

Dean’s eyes widened in stunned astonishment as the demon continued to wail and thrash, its arm, then its torso and finally its entire body crumbling into dust and ash, a cloud of blackness raining down on Dean until the only parts remaining of the demon were its two red eyes glowing fiercely at him in the darkness, before they too dissipated into nothing.

Dean coughed, anxious not to breathe in anything that had once been part of a demon, and not entirely sure what the hell just happened.

He lay completely still for a second, listening to the sound of his own accelerated heartbeat and waiting for the cloud of ash to fall to the ground around him before managing to drag himself up into a sitting position.

His head swam, the demon’s screams still ringing in his ears as he apprehensively began examining himself for a wound he knew would not be there.

He wasn’t bleeding. He wasn’t mortally wounded. It wasn’t his blood…

What the hell?

He tugged at his shirt, fingers slipping in the slick crimson staining the cotton. Thankfully, unlike the demon, his flesh remained intact and all he had to show for his exploration was a bloodstained hand.

No ash, no dust, no pain, no injury.

Seriously. What the hell?

Gingerly, he peeled back his jacket, looking for something, anything, that could explain what just happened, where the blood was coming from, what the hell was bleeding all over him.

What he found was the feather.

The same feather Jon had dug up from the earth by the Conduit; the same feather Dean had wanted to discard, but instead had secreted safely in his inside jacket pocket, mindful of Volsung’s insistence that the thing might come in handy someday.

Who knew that day would be today?

Gently extricating the feather from his bloodstained pocket, Dean held it a little warily in the palm of his hand.

It was glowing.

And it was bleeding.

As Dean continued to hold the thing uncertainly, the blood dripping from the end of the hollow shaft like a quill pen in some clichéd horror movie gradually began to slow, finally desisting altogether, the soft glow gently fading to the feather’s customary gray.

“Holy crap!” Dean muttered to himself as he stared at the innocuous-looking object in the palm of his hand. “Demon-killing angel feather!”

Jon hadn’t been kidding when he’d said it might come in handy….

* * * *

Sam couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, couldn’t think. Every nerve ending felt like it was on fire, his skin tingling and burning, his vision blurred and colorless. All he could hear was the roar of his own blood in his ears and Gudrun’s terrified scream of “No!”

Everything was lit up a brilliant white—like when he used a flare to banish the Daevas back in Chicago. Shadow demons. He could hear them screaming all around him, demons, hundreds of them, and in his confused state he thought he was once again running from the Daevas, supporting his dad and his brother, blood dripping down his face where their claws had ripped at his skin.

“Sam don’t—it’s too much!”

But he heard Gudrun. Gudrun hadn’t been in Chicago, only Dad and Dean and Meg, and Meg was dead and Dad was God knows where and Dean… Where was Dean?

He tried to see, tried to open his eyes, but all he saw was white, angel bones all around him glowing, brilliant and blinding, and everything was melting together inside his head, ice and fire and glass and sand and Gudrun’s power thrumming through him, right there, he could feel it, tearing, ripping and shredding the demons, rending their bodies and tossing their miserable souls back to Hell where they belonged.

But there was more, so much more. Not just Gudrun’s power, not just her love for Jon. It was almost as if Sam couldn’t tell where the Valkyrie ended and he began, her need to protect Jon almost indistinguishable from Sam’s need to protect Dean. It was all confused and mixed up, so much emotion, so much love and need and power, and something else, something that made the ground tremble, something—someone—he’d not felt in his head like this before. Another power; another need to protect. Another kid from a cursed family, just like Sam. Trembling ground and earthquakes and “Zach, no!”

Daisy.

It was Daisy. Sam could feel her power too, vibrating through his body just as Gudrun’s did, the ground, the walls, the ceiling beginning to tremble around him as demon after demon was dispatched back to the Underworld, all that need, all that love, all of it mixed up in his head—Jon, Zach, Dean—he was Sam and he was Gudrun and he was Daisy and the earth moved when he told it to, while he made demons scream with a single thought.

Too much. It was too much.

The world was ending, and all he could do was protect his family—Jon, Zach, Dean—send away the demons before they took those lives he valued more than his own—Gudrun, Daisy, Sam—send every demon that had escaped back to Hell before it was too late; before Earth, Heaven and his family fell.

End it all.

He had to end it all.

“Sam! No!”

He was falling, falling off the world and falling to his knees, hands gripping his shoulders as someone—Gudrun?—fell with him, and dimly, as if he was underwater, he heard explosions in the distance, rock shattering, more demons howling in anger and anguish and pain.

There was another loud bang, and another, and something in the back of his head whispered gunpowder. Gunpowder. Dean.

“Dean?!”

Sam called his brother’s name, but the sound barely made it out of his throat, his voice as spent as the rest of his body.

“Dean!” he tried again, more strength in the word, forcing opening his eyes, but still able to see nothing but white, hear nothing but white noise.

“Sam, it’s all right.”

He could feel Gudrun clinging to him, as weak and exhausted as he was, her cold hand pressed flat against the side of his face where he still had sensation, could feel her near him, even if he couldn’t see her and could barely hear her.

“It’s all right Sam. We’re all right now.”

As sensation made its way back to the rest of his body, he realized he could still feel the ground trembling beneath him, but the fire, the power, Daisy’s power, had gone, leaving Sam alone again. One person alone in his head.

But the ground was still shaking.

“I’m not—I’m not—the earthquake… It’s not me…”

“That’s okay, Sammy.”

Suddenly there were strong arms around him and he was being hauled gently to his feet. Warmth and strength and a familiar presence anchoring him to the world.

“Dean?”

“C’mon, Sammy,” he heard his brother say. “Time to go.”

Dean’s face swam into focus inches from his own, the color slowly returning to the world as Sam recognized the green in his brother’s eyes. There was red on his face. Blood. His face was streaked with blood and dirt and Sam blinked hard, needing to see. There was blood all over him, all over his shirt. Lots of blood, garish red to Sam’s color-sensitive eyes and he was tugging at Dean’s shirt, desperately trying to find the injury, the source, stem the bleeding, stop him dying, anything….

“Sam? Sam! Sam it’s okay!” Dean caught his brother’s hands, stilling them, the warmth of his fingers reassuring Sam he was really there, really alive. “It’s okay, Sammy, it’s not my blood, okay? I’m okay, okay?”

Sam frowned at his brother, not sure he understood. Not sure he understood anything.

“C’mon, Sammy,” Dean continued to coax him. “You did great. You did really great. But now we need to go.”

Sam was standing somehow, more by strength of his brother’s will alone than under his own power, blinking as the garish colors resolved themselves into something resembling reality, Dean’s face turned up to his in concern, an arm wrapped around his waist holding him up, solid and real, and Sam was trembling so hard he wasn’t sure he could move.

Was he trembling? Or was it the ground?

“Sammy, just let me get you out of here, okay? Before Daisy brings the whole place down on top of us.”

“Daisy?”

Sam heard the name and was pretty sure it came from his own mouth, screwing up his face in confusion.

“Yeah, Sammy,” Dean continued, shrugging slightly as he readjusted Sam’s weight against his shoulder. “She’s—uh—pretty much picking up where you left off.”

“Left? What did I leave?”

“Not much,” Dean replied shortly.

Sam blinked again, the colors finally beginning to resolve into shapes. Gudrun in Jon’s arms, carrying her, running for the cave entrance; light spearing in from the outside. Outside. The rocks that had been blocking their escape were gone, shattered, Daisy standing in front of them with her eyes closed as the earth continued to quake at her direction, Zach watching her wide-eyed as Maynard gripped his arm.

“Yeah, Sammy. You—you pretty much—they’re…” Dean didn’t—couldn’t?—finish what he was trying to say, eyes skittering around the cavern, behind them, back towards the Conduit.

Somehow Sam managed to twist in Dean’s grip, looking up to see that the shaft of light that had been forcing its way out through the rift created by Lucifer’s attacking army had been extinguished, the breach now sealed. Below, the flames of Hell were receding, dragging with them black shadows, demons screaming and writhing in agony, carcasses pulled back toward the Pit against their will with flesh sizzling from their bones and wings broken and burnt to cinders.

Dean swallowed. He seemed a little more than perturbed as he followed Sam’s gaze, but managed a half-hearted smile. “Gunpowder worked,” he informed his brother. “Better than napalm.”

Sam winced, eyes scanning the cave for the mass of demons that had been advancing on him when he was last fully aware of his surroundings. But, save for the damned souls still clinging to the rim of the Conduit with torn, bloodied claws, screeching and wailing as the earth disturbed by Dean’s explosions clung to and scorched their skin, there were no more shadows, only trembling rock and Sam’s shell-shocked friends, pale-faced and uncertain.

Zach was glancing nervously between Sam and Daisy, his face creased in concern and worry and—fear?

Was Zach afraid of him?

“Dean, what did I do?”

It took Sam everything he had to ask the question, eyes never straying from Zach’s, and Dean merely tightened his grip on his brother, urging him toward the exit insistently.

“You did good, Sammy,” the older brother repeated, the certainty in his voice causing the knot in Sam’s stomach to untwist a little. “Mass exorcism. Or mass reaping, I guess. Never seen anything like it. And the bastards you didn’t get? Boy, was Gudrun ever right about the angel remains. Sent ’em scuttling back to Lucifer’s favorite Hotspot with a suntan they ain’t never gonna forget.”

Sam nodded minutely.

“Okay so no more emo, Sam,” Dean continued. “We gotta get the hell outta here before Daisy gets really pissed.”

Even as Dean finished his sentence, chunks of rock once again began to break free of the cave ceiling, raining down all around them as Daisy continued to stand stock still, eyes closed and expression oddly serene.

“Think Cousin Daisy’s found her true calling, Sammy,” Dean continued, finally managing to get Sam’s feet moving in the direction of the exit. “Now come on, before we wind up like these angel bones.”

Sam let Dean half-shove half-drag him toward the exit, stumbling over fallen boulders, dodging showers of rock.

“Dean?” Jon was standing at the mouth of the cave, blessed daylight making his blond hair glow like a halo around his head, Gudrun apparently still insensible in his arms.

“Right there with ya, Frodo,” Dean replied, pushing Sam toward him before casting a glance in Maynard’s direction. “C’mon Professor, time to go!”

Maynard nodded, gently pulling at Zach’s arm. “This way, my boy. Time to get your young lady to safety, hmm?”

Zach paused for a second before hesitantly approaching Daisy, one gentle hand on her shoulder before he murmured, “Come on, baby. You’ve done enough now.”

The ground gave one last enormous lurch before Daisy’s eyes flew open, looking at Zach but not really seeing him, her pupils dilated and sluggish and her skin the color of milk.

“I’m not a freak,” she mumbled. “Not. Not a freak.”

Zach nodded slightly before wrapping his arm around her and pulling her to him, yanking her out of the way just as a boulder the size of her Jeep almost landed on top of her.

“The ceiling’s collapsing!” Jon yelled.

“No kidding,” Dean returned. “Full marks for observation there, Frodo!”

Sam felt Dean give one last shove against the small of his back, and the next thing he knew he was standing in daylight, golden sunshine streaming down onto his skin as behind him the cave continued to shake itself into wretched, shadowy oblivion.

Dean push-pulled him down the sloping pile of boulders leading back to Daisy’s dig site, Jon and Gudrun ahead of them while Maynard, Zach and Daisy brought up the rear.

“It’s gonna be okay, Sammy,” Dean kept reassuring him as they picked up the pace, hightailing it back to the relative safety of the Jeeps. “It’s gonna be okay.”

Sam wasn’t entirely sure his big brother believed what he was telling him as the earth beneath their feet continued to rumble and judder, and as Daisy and Zach caught up with them, he could hear Zach reassuring Daisy in a similar fashion and sounding equally as unconvinced.

“It’s okay, baby,” the young man was muttering. “We’re gonna get through this.”

“It’s not me,” Daisy was saying, bringing herself to a stop and turning back toward the mountain. “I’m not doing this. It’s not me. All I did was unblock the exit. I swear. I’m not a freak, Zach. I just unblocked the exit.”

Zach pulled her gently into his arms, rubbing slow circles on her back. “I know, honey, I know.”

“Sam?” Dean asked his brother a little uncertainly. “Are you…?”

For a second, Sam wasn’t sure of the question, finally turning to look at his brother and reading the concern in his eyes. Sam would have laughed if it hadn’t been for that thread of fear lingering in the set of Dean’s mouth and the tightness of his shoulders.

“No,” Sam shook his head vehemently. “No, it’s not me either.”

Dean nodded, blowing out a short breath as his attention slid back to Daisy, still enfolded in Zach’s protective embrace.

“It’s okay,” Zach was murmuring. “It’s okay. We’re okay now.”

“Uh, I wouldn’t speak too soon…” Dean commented, as a deep rumbling thrum began to emanate from somewhere far beneath their feet, rocks and dirt and angel remains slowly sliding down into the crack threading its way from where they stood to the base of Mount Diablo.

“What’s happening?” Zach asked, looking from Dean to Sam, and finally back to Daisy, whose face was still pressed against his shoulder.

“It’s over,” Gudrun’s tired voice drifted from where Jon was still holding her in his arms. “The Conduit. It’s over.”

As the rumbling intensified, the ground shook harder, the huge chasm finally collapsing in on itself, obliterating all trace of the angel remains and Daisy’s archeological find of the millennium.

Sam felt Dean tense by his side, as if he was waiting for something, waiting to run, waiting to hide, waiting to drag Sam off to safety somewhere. If anywhere around here could ever be described as safe again.

“It’s not me. It’s not me.” Daisy repeated her assertion, the rumbling intensifying in pitch and volume until a final, ear-splitting crack seemed to tear a hole in the sky above their heads and the whole mountain gave one long hard shake, rattling from its double peak to its footings deep in the earth, loose rocks, shale and boulders the size of a person shaking loose and sliding down toward the plain beneath where they hit the ground in a plume of dust and debris that billowed out several feet in every direction.

Sam felt Dean pull on his sleeve urgently.

“I think we need to find cover,” the older brother said nervously, urging Sam back a step toward the Jeeps. “If this quake gets any worse, the whole thing could come down…”

“No,” Gudrun suddenly put in from behind them, her voice sounding tired and washed out. “It’s all right.”

“It is?” Dean asked a little skeptically.

Sam turned his attention from the whey-faced Valkyrie back to the mountain, which seemed to have stilled as if drawing breath.

Slowly, a powerful rumble began to build in volume and intensity beneath them, a crash like an explosion shattering the brief silence as the entire mountain shifted and lurched violently. A resounding thud nearly shook them off their feet as the mountain swayed dangerously, before the twin peaks seemed to plummet, as if the whole of Mount Diablo was collapsing in on itself.

The mountain gave one last judder before it seemed to settle, still mostly intact but its peaks a good fifty feet lower in the sky than they had been before Lucifer’s minions had decided to open an unearthly Conduit deep within its bowels.

The silence that followed was almost deafening, not a bird, not a coyote, not a living creature anywhere on the plain making a single sound, and all Sam could hear was his brother’s breathing, short and choppy, right there by his side, proof of life, proof that this wasn’t all some terrible nightmare and Sam really was standing here beneath azure Californian skies with his brother at his side and his friends around him, very much alive.

It was at this point he remembered to breathe himself.

“What—what just…?” Zach couldn’t even frame the question, and Dean blew out a long whistle in response.

“Dude,” he muttered, shaking his head and blinking owlishly at the transformed shape of Mount Diablo, now seemingly settled into its new position. “I thought dropping a factory on a Hellgate was somethin’. But a mountain? How freakin’ awesome are we?”

Sometime later,
Mount Diablo State Park, CA

Dean glanced down at the blood slowing drying on his t-shirt and shuddered. Demon-killing angel blood. Go figure.

He knew they really ought to get moving—the National Guard or at the very least a whole slew of park rangers could show up at any minute, wondering how their mountain suddenly got fifty feet shorter.

That was one conversation he really didn’t want to have.

Nothing he could say would ever explain what happened here today.

And yet here they sat, their little band, feeling the warm earth beneath their bodies and the sun on their faces as they did their best to catch their breath and get their heads into some sort of order. Dean wondered if he was the only one whose thoughts kept straying to the cave and the Conduit, to demons and angels, Gateways and gunpowder, to Heaven and Hell and Earth caught somewhere in the middle.

What the hell just happened? What did they just do? And was it over now?

Gudrun smiled wistfully as he caught her eye, as if she knew exactly what he was thinking.

She leaned back against Jon, who in turn had his back propped against Daisy’s Jeep, and Dean hoped to God—or someone—that one of them had some answers.

“This all happened for a reason, Dean,” Gudrun said carefully, still smiling that damn enigmatic smile of hers, and Dean couldn’t help thinking she’d give the Mona Lisa a run for her money.

“Oh yeah?” Dean said uncertainly.

“Yes,” Gudrun insisted. “Or are you that much of a believer in coincidence?”

Dean raised an eyebrow and snorted. “Coincidence like us and Jon showing up at the site of an ancient Conduit between Heaven and Hell at the exact same time? Like us getting called here by Sam’s old college buddy whose girlfriend turns out to be another of Haris’ Psychic Wonders, and, oh yeah, let’s not forget she’s also our distant cousin? Like you showing up just as we’re about to get our asses kicked by a whole mess of demons?”

Gudrun continued to smile at him. “Something like that.”

Dean shook his head. “No,” he insisted. “That’s all a little bit too convenient for me.”

Gudrun’s lips quirked. “A little bit too coincidental,” she agreed. “As if we someone brought us here for a reason. As if we were meant to be here. And this was meant to happen.”

Dean raised an eyebrow. “You’re not sellin’ me on divine intervention if that’s what you’re after, sweetheart.”

“Dean,” Gudrun continued. “Look at what just happened. If Jon hadn’t been here to protect us, I wouldn’t have been able to use Sam’s powers to magnify my own and send all those demons back to Hell. If you hadn’t been here to make that holy gunpowder of yours, the devil’s trap wouldn’t have been partially re-established and kept the demons in so that Sam could use my powers to reap the whole lot that were left. If Zach hadn’t known Sam and asked for his help, you guys wouldn’t have been here at all, wouldn’t have met Daisy, wouldn’t have found out you were related, and she wouldn’t have been here to use her powers to get us out of the cave once the earthquakes sealed us in there. Dean, we were all meant to be here, to help seal the Conduit. You see that, don’t you?”

Dean held Gudrun’s gaze for a couple of seconds before shrugging reluctantly. “Well if you put it that way…”

“How long?” Sam asked suddenly, and Dean glanced over at him, his brother’s attention fixed solely on Daisy.

The archeologist’s cheeks colored and she nestled closer to Zach, embarrassment and shame turning her neck almost the same shade as her hair.

“Twenty-second birthday,” she admitted quietly, not meeting Sam’s inquisitive gaze as she picked at imaginary threads on the thighs of her jeans. “I—I thought I was imagining it at first. I got angry with Zach because he wanted to stay home and watch the game. On my birthday. My birthday! One little tremor, and the TV fell off its stand and exploded on the living room floor.”

Zach shifted uncomfortably, gently stroking the girl’s hair and offering quiet reassurances that only she could hear.

“Since then,” Daisy continued, brushing an errant tear from her freckled cheek, “whenever I’ve gotten angry or upset, the ground’s kind of shaken. Just a little bit.” She looked up reluctantly at Sam. “But nothing like—like this. I swear.”

“It’s okay,” Sam told her. “You’re not on your own here. When I hit twenty-two I started to get death visions. Real helpful. And now—” he shrugged awkwardly. “Now, you see what I can do.”

Daisy swallowed. “What is it?” she asked. “Is it a family curse or something? Is it because we’re related?” She looked over at Dean. “What can you do?”

Dean laughed hollowly. “Me? I can’t do much of anything,” he told her. “But as long as I keep this thing on?” He waved the amulet at her. “As long as I keep it safe I don’t die.” He shrugged a little dismissively. “But that’s a different deal altogether. That’s the Claviger family secret, not Sam’s deal.”

“Family secret?”

“We protect the amulet. Firstborns. Big honor. Or something.”

“What we can do?” Sam added. “Death visions, earthquakes? Something else entirely.”

“Then we’re not—” Daisy swallowed, “—demonic or anything?”

Sam almost flinched. “No,” he assured her quickly. “There was this demon called Haris. He took advantage of our powers. Then Lucifer killed a bunch of us.” He flexed his left hand unconsciously, and Dean shifted where he sat. “But neither of them was responsible for what we are.”

“L-Lucifer?” Daisy blinked at him before taking a long shuddering breath. “And—and what are we?”

Sam paused before shrugging one shoulder. “The universe balancing itself out?” he offered. “All of us have some ancestor who—who did something so bad that we’re the universe’s way of making our families atone for what they did.”

“Winchester. Like the rifle.” Daisy nodded. “That’s why you asked me if I had any infamous relatives, huh?”

Sam nodded. “Yeah,” he conceded. “Fact checking.”

“Well I don’t,” Daisy informed him. “Not that I know of.”

“Yeah, we figured,” Sam said. “We guessed maybe Haris didn’t notice you because of that. Could have been something someone did centuries ago.”

“That’s a little unfair,” Daisy said. “Punishing us for something that happened before we were even born.”

“Only if you see it as a bad thing,” Gudrun put in. “Look what Sam just did—look what you just did! You just saved all our lives! And helped stop a demonic mutiny!”

Daisy sniffed. “Almost killing you all in the process.”

“Daisy, you didn’t cause the earthquakes that destabilized the mountain if that’s what you’re thinking,” Gudrun said.

“And you didn’t cause the lake or the ocean to boil either,” Jon put in. “That was the demons trying to break through the Conduit.”

“He’s right, my dear,” Maynard added, abruptly reminding Dean he was still there. “The heat they were generating trying to battle their way—uh—up? It must have been phenomenal! Superheating the water from below—like an undersea volcano. You weren’t responsible for any of that, as far as I can tell.”

Daisy nodded a little reluctantly, and Dean twisted to look at Gudrun again. “So now that the Conduit’s gone bye-bye?” he hazarded. “It’s over? They can’t try this again?”

Again with the enigmatic smile!

“Do you think those who exist in the plane above this one would be any more willing to allow their home to be invaded by demons than you were?” Gudrun asked him. “Any less willing to defend their territory?”

“Wait—” Dean held up a hand. “Just hold on there, Yoda. You’re not saying—” He blinked, glancing around at the rest of the group, who were looking at Gudrun a little uncertainly. “You’re not saying—” Dean looked up. “You’re saying the Big Guy Upstairs sealed the Conduit?” He laughed, even though he didn’t find it remotely funny.

Gudrun shrugged. “Working through us, maybe. Why not? You know what they say about His mysterious ways, right? Someone put children like Sam and Daisy into this world as a counterbalance to all the evil that exists here. You said so yourself.”

“Sure, but God?”

“God. The Universe. Fate. Destiny. Maybe we’re not supposed to know.”

“You’re a friggin’ Reaper! If you don’t know, who does?”

Gudrun sighed. “Mysterious ways, Dean. Mysterious ways. And you promised you wouldn’t call me ‘Reaper’ anymore,” she added lightly.

Dean sighed. “Yeah,” he mumbled, eyes downcast. “I guess I did. Okay, sorry your Valkyrieness.”

Gudrun nodded, laughing just a little bit. “That’s better,” she agreed imperiously, before inclining her head and gazing at the altered horizon, the smile slipping slightly from her lips. “For now, the danger’s past,” she continued. “No more demons are escaping from Hell here.”

“For now,” Sam echoed.

“That’s the best any of us can do,” Gudrun replied. “We did our best. That’s all anyone can ask of us.”

An uncomfortable silence fell upon the small group, Dean fighting the urge to look up. No one was watching him from Up There. No way. That idea was just… disturbing.

“So what happens next?” Zach asked suddenly.

“Well it’s the end of my dig, that’s for sure,” Daisy lamented. “No way I’m coming back here ever again.”

“It might be interesting to study the area from a geological standpoint,” Maynard put in, his gaze drifting to the foreshortened mountain in the distance. “But then again,” he continued wistfully, “if those bones really were left here as a warning for us nosy humans to keep away… then maybe we ought to keep away.” He sighed. “It’s not like we’ll ever be able to get back inside that incredible cave ever again.”

“God, I hope not,” Dean observed. Again he glanced over at Gudrun, as if she was the only one who could possibly answer any of the questions he had about all this. “So the Conduit’s closed in both directions now?” he asked. “Can you—can you get back home?”

Gudrun smiled wistfully before turning her watery gaze to Jon, squeezing his hand with her own. “I think maybe I’m going to stick around down here for a while,” she said.

Jon returned her smile, and Dean treated them to an exaggerated bout of retching.

Gudrun pinned him with a good-natured scowl before continuing. “Anyway, I’m needed here.” Her face became deadly serious and she gripped Jon’s hand even tighter. “If Lucifer really is mobilizing his troops—if he’s brazen enough to mount some kind of sneak attack on the Hosts of Heaven—then this is where I should be. This is where I’m needed. Fighting the good fight.”

Jon nodded his agreement, gently running one large thumb along her cheek. “With me,” he said. “Fighting the good fight here with me.”

“Always,” Gudrun whispered. “And forever.”

Dean cleared his throat exaggeratedly before pulling the angel feather out of his jacket pocket. “And what about this thing?”

Gudrun tore her gaze from Jon for a second. “Everything has its purpose,” she said, looking pointedly at Sam, who shifted awkwardly. “Just as everyone has their purpose. Helgi—Jon—was meant to find that for you.”

“To save my life?” Dean asked.

“Maybe,” Gudrun offered. “But it has the potential to do so much more, save so many more lives than just yours, Dean.”

“But why us?” Sam asked suddenly. “Why give the thing to us if it has the potential to be such a powerful weapon? Why not keep it yourselves? You’re in this fight just as much as we are.”

“I know in my bones that feather was meant for you,” Jon replied. “Those demons knew you. They knew you by name. They know you are a force to be reckoned with, the two of you. You should wield the power of the angels, not me. Look what just happened. Erika was too weak to have sent those demons back to Hell without your help, Sam. Daisy wasn’t strong enough to bring that mountain down and seal the Conduit. Don’t tell me you didn’t have a hand in that too.”

Sam shook his head, a tiny spark of anger igniting behind his usually placid eyes. “So that’s my purpose?” he burst out. “To let other people use me as some sort of ‘conduit’?”

“Daisy and I didn’t use you,” Gudrun pointed out gently. “You used us, Sam! You used our power! Whoever—whatever—wanted that Conduit closed worked through all of us, but you most of all. And yet ultimately it was your power that saved us, Sam! You survived Lucifer’s slaughter of the others like you for a reason. Maybe today was it. Or maybe this is just the beginning. Sam, the universe looked in your heart and saw that you could be its greatest ally. That’s why you were brought here today. That’s why we were all brought here.”

Sam bit his lip. “I don’t know what that means,” he admitted. “I don’t know what that means for me. For Dean. For Daisy. For any of us.”

“And that’s the mystery, Sam,” Gudrun replied. “None of us know what life—what death—has in store for us. But we’re not puppets. We have free will. Destiny is what we make of it. While it might not feel to you that you’ve found your place, your calling in life, I’m sure you’re where you’re supposed to be, doing what you’re supposed to be doing. You and your brother both. You wouldn’t be here without him, either. None of us would. Sam, that feather wouldn’t have found its way to the two of you if it wasn’t supposed to. If you weren’t supposed to be here, doing this, right now.”

“But we’re in charge of our own destiny?”

Gudrun laughed. “Most of the time.”

Sam shook his head, running a hand through his hair tiredly. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I don’t know whether this is where I’m supposed to be, whether this is what I’m supposed to be doing.” He paused for a second, collecting his thoughts. “But I do know something’s coming,” he continued. “Something dark and terrible. Something we have to fight until we can’t fight anymore. Lucifer and his armies might just be the tip of the iceberg.”

“Yes,” Gudrun agreed. “I’ve felt it too.”

“Jeez, way to lighten the mood, guys,” Dean pointed out. “We just dropped a mountain on a Hellgate, remember?”

“Yes we did,” Gudrun nodded. “But there are other Hellgates, other ways out of Hell. Lucifer will find them.” She sighed, settling once again into Jon’s embrace. “We must be vigilant, all of us.” She held each of their gazes in turn. “Demons are everywhere. We’re in danger wherever we go, even in places we think are safe. Anything could be a trap. Anyone could be a demon. Our enemies are closing in. The Signs are everywhere.”

She took a deep breath, her eyes drifting once again to the mountain, to the bright blue sky and the golden sunshine, to the trees and the birds and the living things all around her.

“If the Apocalypse isn’t coming,” she said slowly. “Then Lucifer is faking it for a reason…”

The End

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The Winchester Chronicles