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Part Four
*
Dean parked the Impala in the big dirt parking lot behind the church and went to the trunk. He gave Leland a charm to protect him against demonic possession and put the young psychic in charge of lining all the doors and windows of the church with rock salt. If Lilith was going to have a show down on the lawn, then they might be able to protect some people - someone, anyone - inside the church. Salt and holy ground should protect them as much as anything else. Meanwhile, he and Sam went through their weapons stash, pulling out anything that could be useful.
“You boys have got yourselves in a load of trouble this time.”
Dean jumped, the older hunter having caught him by surprise. “Bobby, how did you find us?”
“Or get here that fast?” Sam added, not looking up from the Beretta cradled in his hands.
“Swamp monster in Mississippi,” Bobby explained. “And this place is a little hard to miss, what with your fancy little lawn ornaments.”
Dean peered around the edge of the Impala’s trunk. On the front lawn of the church, Zachariah and Castiel appear to be in deep discussion. They were both carrying swords, Zachariah’s almost as big as his vessel’s body. There were other people with them, men and women milling around the church steps and the pair of weeping willow trees by the Jesus sign. Dean assumed, from the glorious lights and heavenly presences hovering in the bodies, that they were fellow angels, arrived in Arkansas to face down the armies of Hell. They carried a strange assortment of items: trumpets, drums, swords, bows, and spears. The Trickster was also there, some distance from the angels. He was lounging in the shadow of the church, munching slowly on what appeared to be a Moon Pie and drinking from a styrofoam cup. He was watching the angels with something akin to fascination.
“What the fuck?” Dean asked.
“You think you’re the only ones who care about the Apocalypse?” Bobby asked him, his voice sharp and reprimanding.
Dean dropped his head, embarrassed. “Leland Brodbeck said Lilith will be here to break the final seal.”
Bobby nodded gruffly. “We won’t go down without a fight.”
Sam nodded sharply, like he was expecting it and tucked the Beretta into the waistband of his jeans. Bobby just frowned at them, like there was something sadder about them and the Impala than there was about the end of the world. Sometimes Dean didn’t understand Bobby.
*
The Apocalypse didn’t go down like Dean thought it would. Dean had read the Bible, of course. Dad had even read it with him, when he was kid, reading passages with him from the Gideon Bible. Dean had scared Sam, when he was really little, with stories from the Old Testament. Dean knew how the Book of Revelation went. He knew how Lucifer fell from Heaven. He’d read the books of the prophets. Armed with Colt’s Colt and the knowledge that it was his job to stop Lilith, Dean waited on the lawn of the little Baptist church outside Stuttgart and waited for the end of the world.
Richard Lawley had shown up at the church in the early morning, wanting to know what was going on at his church. He had recognised some of the angels’ other vessels and insisted on standing with them, even though the angel that had possessed him remained in heaven. Ruby arrived shortly after the reverend, bringing with her a coterie of demons who supported Sam over Lilith. The church lawn became divided at that point, with the angels and demons eying each other warily.
The demons made Dean uncomfortable, with the feeling of negative space that surrounded them. He could see the good deeds of their possessed bodies and the hardened, Hell-broken pain of the demon spirits. It was sickening. The Winchesters and the Trickster remained between the angels and the demons, an ironic trick of life.
Bobby tried calling other hunters, Tamara and Ellen and Rufus and others Dean had never met or even heard of, but something was playing havoc with cell phone reception. Sam and Bobby told Leland to stay inside the protected church, behind salt lines and closed doors until everything was over. He had accepted the prayer book Lawley had given him and locked the doors behind him. The Trickster offered everyone coffee, but no one accepted.
The atmosphere was tense, crackling with energy. The angels were tense, their hands never leaving their weapons. Castiel watched Dean with unblinking eyes, standing between Dean and the other angels, his sword drawn, but not raised. Ruby, too, stood closer to Sam and Bobby, periodically taking Sam aside to talk to him. Dean didn’t like it and kept an eye on them when it happened, but had no idea how to say, “Stop talking to a potential ally,” without sounding like a tool or like he was some kind of jealous idiot. It helped that even when Ruby was talking to him, Sam kept his eyes on Dean.
Lilith arrived quietly and without fanfare. She was in the body of a teenage girl, wearing tight jeans and a sweatshirt. She just strolled up to the churchyard, accompanied by a trio of other demons, all of them shining with the painful negative space and darkness of pain and Hell, and eyed the milling group with curiosity and hunger. “You’re waiting for me.”
At the sound of Lilith’s voice, the angels turned to Dean and the demons to Sam. Remembering the dimming of the lights around Sam that morning when he picked up Ruby’s knife, Dean stepped forward. “Stop.” He didn’t know what else to say. It would have been better if Dad had been rescued by the angels, if Dad had been the one to need to save the world. Dean didn’t know how to convince a powerful demoness to stop breaking the seals of the apocalypse. He was willing to bet that if they somehow managed to kill Lilith, destroy her in a little green churchyard in the Bible Belt, that another demon would step up, take her place, and release Lucifer. Dad wouldn’t have felt this kind of despair. He would have figured out something to do.
Lilith laughed, her lithe, stolen body shaking with it. “What? You? You couldn’t bear Hell. You really think you’ll stop me?” She waved her arm, silver bangles jangling, and Dean felt himself slam into the trunk of the nearby willow. He heard Sam let out a whining cry and the angels unsheathe their swords and fit arrows to their bows.
“You know you won’t survive,” Sam told her, his voice as dark and deep as Hell itself.
“No, I won’t,” Lilith watched Sam with flat, beetle-black eyes, clearly resigned to her fate. “But my King will be risen today.”
In the stillness that followed Lilith’s statement, the Trickster snorted, blowing hot coffee across the path leading up to the church doors.
“You do not respect Lucifer?” Lilith asked him, her voice as cold as ice and with the edge of a knife.
The Trickster shook his head and pulled another Moon Pie out of thin air. “That’s a thing,” he said, “going through with it even when you know you’ll die.”
“I will do it.” A breeze picked up and blew Lilith’s blonde hair out behind her like a banner. Dean wondered, for a moment, why Lilith only chose blonde bodies to possess. “Whatever you do, He will rise. And you will be powerless to stop Him.” She twisted her hand holding Dean to the tree, slamming his head back against the hard trunk and choking him.
Dean’s vision grayed a little when Lilith was choking him, but he could see, even with his head twisted back against the tree, the blur of glory and negative space that could only be both the demons and the angels crossing the lawn to fight Lilith. Just as suddenly as he had been slammed against the willow, he fell to the ground. Picking himself up and wincing as he tried to put weight on his right knee, he saw the blur of Lilith and the other demons fighting. Dean winced, the blur and sharpness of the battle, of shining light and bright color against darkness and empty space too painful to watch.
“Moon Pie?” the Trickster asked, coming up beside Dean.
“I’m not taking food from you again,” Dean snarled, trying to watch the fight, trying to see where Sam was.
“You’re not still mad about that, are you?” The Trickster sounded sincerely surprised. “It was for your own good.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
The Trickster shrugged. “You’d have gone haring off on your own. Or told your brother that his powers were hellish or something else like that. We couldn’t have that.”
“We?”
Before the Trickster could answer Dean’s question, the fight, the battle, in front of them froze as quickly as it had begun, and pulled away from Lilith. Dean could see that she had Reverend Lawley and a knife, one not dissimilar to Ruby’s knife, resting against his throat. The angels pulled back, giving Lilith her space, and flooded around Dean.
“The seal of the martyrs,” Castiel whispered, appearing at Dean’s side. “She can’t -”
Lilith pulled the knife across Lawley’s throat. As the blood spilled from his throat, the light of day dimmed. Dean looked up and saw, even as the blood fell from the pastor’s body, the sun turn the color of freshly spilled blood. The angels around him bowed their heads as the earth shook beneath their feet. Struggling to keep his balance, Dean looked desperately through the crowd of holy vessels, trying to find Sam. He saw him standing under the other willow, blood flowing from his nose and ears. Dean pushed his way through the angels, trying not to fall down despite his knee and the quaking earth.
He had just made it to Sam’s side when Lilith spoke again. “The sixty sixth seal is broken. Lucifer is free.”
The sky remained dark, but the earth stopped shaking. The angels raised their weapons again, but Lucifer did not appear. Sam gripped Dean by his arm, but did not say anything.
“Lucifer,” Lilith called, her voice lilting and musical and Dean realised that she was summoning him. She said a few words in a language older than Latin, older than any language Dean had heard in his life.
The Trickster stepped forward, through the parting crowd of angels. He sipped his coffee from the styrofoam cup and rolled his shoulders like he was stretching the muscles in his back. “Damn, that feels good.”
Lilith’s eyes widened and she fell on one knee, bowing before him. “My Lord.”
The Trickster watched her for the moment. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I ask to be your consort, to stand by your side as you bring Hell to Earth and reign over Creation as its rightful King.”
The Trickster laughed.
Lilith looked up sharply, clearly not expecting that reaction. The angels and other demons kept their eyes on the Trickster, on Lucifer, as he stood before Lilith.
He stretched again, this time spreading wings out behind him. His wings were gorgeous things, huge and as white as driven snow. In the sunless day, they shone with their own inner light. Dean didn’t know if it was his magicked sight or not, but Sam’s sudden gasp and tightening grip on his arm suggested that it was a real light.
“You are Lucifer, King of Hell,” Lilith said, still on one knee. “You are the King of All.”
“I might be, I might not be,” the Trickster bargained with a smile. “I was a light-bearer for the heavens. I despaired of any hope for humanity. I am a wanderer of the earth.” He hummed a few bars from Sympathy for the Devil and his smile broadened into a grin. “But I don’t think I’m who you want.”
A demon called out from the churchyard, “You are the Lightbearer, the one who led us.”
The Trickster sighed and shook his head.
“You rebelled against the Lord,” Zachariah said, wielding his sword. “You rebelled and fell and you should have lost your grace. It is an abomination that you have it back.”
“Abomination, shobomination,” Lucifer scoffed. “It’s not that big a deal.”
“You will rain sulfur upon the people,” one of the demons with Lilith told him, clearly eager. “You will release the denizens of Hell and give us our just place on Earth. We will lay siege to Heaven and you will be our King.”
The angels, edgy since they’d appeared in the churchyard that morning, raised their weapons, trained on the Trickster.
“He said he is the wanderer of the earth.”
Everyone froze at the tone of command in Bobby’s voice. He was sitting on the steps to the church, wearing his John Deere cap and a stained plaid shirt, and he didn’t stand up. Dean frowned. There was an edge of a glow around Bobby’s hat and in his beard, as though Bobby were doing a great deed, just sitting there.
“‘Whence comest thou?’” Bobby asked the crowd. “And he answered and said: I have gone round about the earth, and walked through it.’”
The Trickster smiled at Bobby, something sincere and not quite as wild as anything Dean had seen previously. “That’s sweet that you remembered.”
Bobby snorted at the Trickster’s comment. “He is the Adversary.”
“He rebelled,” Castiel said.
“I am the Accuser,” the Trickster proclaimed, sauntering up the concrete path, from the gate where Lilith remained on her knee toward the steps where Bobby was sitting. “I am the Wanderer. I am the Adversary and the Light-Bearer and the One Who Despaired.”
Zachariah stopped the Trickster in his tracks, pressing his sword against the Trickster’s stomach. “You rebelled against the Lord.”
“Are you some kind of idjit?” Bobby asked, finally standing. It should have been foolish, Dean thought, Bobby standing up against an angel trying to take down Satan. But, somehow, it wasn’t strange to see Bobby staring down the well-dressed angel, as though he had some kind of authority. “You are all Sons of God.”
The Trickster raised his left hand and snapped his fingers. Zachariah’s sword was in the Trickster’s hand and he continued up the path toward Bobby. “Individuals are forgetful and groups are dangerous.”
Behind him, Lilith rose to her feet. Her hands were clenched in fists at her sides in a nearly childish show of fury. “So, you leave your own people?” she asked, her body’s voice carrying. “You abandon us? You abandon me, even after all I did for you?”
The Trickster spun on his heel. “I didn’t ask for it, now did I?” His wings stretched and bobbed. “I won’t complain, but I never said I wanted that.”
Lilith’s anger was palpable. She was clearly unprepared for the Trickster’s reaction. Her eyes scanned the crowd gathered in front of her for a moment and then went white. She raised one hand up, pointing at Bobby, but nothing happened. She did it again. Still nothing happened.
The Trickster’s movement was fast and practiced. Dean didn’t realise what was happening until he had already cut down Lilith with Zachariah’s sword. It was a smooth, clean motion and the Trickster seemed neither triumphant nor regretful.
“What the Hell?”
The Trickster smiled at Dean. “I am the brightest star, the light of the morning. Do you think I became the brightest light of the heavens by being an ass?”
Sam trembled beside Dean, the hand holding him close shaking like a leaf, whether with relief or fear, Dean couldn’t tell. “It was just that simple.”
“She wasn’t expecting her king to betray her,” Castiel said, watching the Trickster carefully. “But he is a traitor. Betrayal is his stock in trade.”
“Didn’t you hear what He said?” the Trickster asked him. “We are, all of us, the Sons of God. He has called us all by our names.”
“And you despised Him and you fell,” Castiel told him, his own sword held defensively in front of him.
The Trickster snorted. “Just like precious Uriel fell?” He rolled his eyes. “I told your precious, Dean-o, damnation doesn’t change what you are. And you’re assuming falling is damnation, like you aren’t standing in arms with the fallen.”
“Enough,” Bobby said. “That’s enough.”
Zachariah stared Bobby down, measuring him up. “It isn’t your business to interfere in the matters of angels.” He turned to the other angels standing behind him. “You know what we do with the fallen.”
“That’s inadvisable.” Bobby’s voice seemed deeper and carried over the churchyard as though it had been amplified.
Zachariah moved to push Bobby aside, so that he could get to the Trickster, and then something happened. As when the Trickster slew Lilith, Dean wasn’t quite sure what had happened. One moment, Bobby was standing between Zachariah and the Trickster, looking like he hadn’t showered or shaved in a few days and with bags under his eyes showing that he could use some more sleep. The next moment, it was like the sun had returned to the sky. Dean had never seen anything so bright or so powerful. It was stunning and beautiful and awe-inspiring. It was physical, too, and so shocking that he was almost knocked to his knees. Instead, he fell against Sam and they both held each other up.
When he blinked, however, almost everything was the same as it had been. The Trickster stood on the concrete path, looking as amused as he ever did, and Bobby stood between Zachariah and the Trickster, his green cap dirty and a little dented. However, all of the other angels were down on one knee, bowing the way Lilith had before the Trickster. And the demons who had been with Lilith appeared to be gone, their bodies lying prone on the road near the broken corpses of Lilith and Lawley.
“What was that?” Sam asked, his voice shaky.
“I am sorry,” Zachariah said, his face paler than usual, his heavenly lights dimmed. “I did not know.”
“‘And hospitality do not forget; for by this some, being not aware of it, have entertained angels,’” the Trickster said, the amusement clear in his voice. “‘But their eyes were held, that they should not know him. ‘ You forget so easily, Zachariah.”
Zachariah kept his eyes on Bobby. “I did not know, my Lord. I did not know.”
Bobby frowned, but didn’t say anything. The other angels rose to their feet. Silence reigned over the churchyard. Dean turned to Sam and mouthed, “Bobby? Lord?”
Sam shrugged, but didn’t let go of Dean. He held tight to his brother with both hands, as though he were afraid that the angels were going to taken Dean away from him.
Lucifer - the Trickster - clapped his hands together loudly, his snowy wings bobbing. “Well, then, if that’s all settled, I’m sure the pearly gates are missing you lot.” He paused and peered among the angels. “I didn’t even get the archangels out of heaven? What kind of motley army are you?”
Bobby coughed. Dean recognised the noise; it was the same thing Bobby did when Dad was getting ready to do something exceptionally stupid.
The Trickster merely rolled his eyes at Bobby and pulled another styrofoam cup from thin air. “You’ve got to be kidding. If they didn’t recognise you when you were standing right in front of them, Mr I’ve-Got-The-Biggest-Sword-Look-What-I’m-Compensating-For Michael isn’t going to know you from Adam.”
Bobby shrugged and pulled the cup from Lucifer’s hand, taking a long, slow sip. “Then they don’t know me.”
The angels visibly quavered at this and Dean saw some of their lights and colors dim, much as Sam’s had when he planned to use Ruby’s knife. He wasn’t sure he was quite following what was going on in the churchyard, but he was pretty sure there was only one guy the angels would call Lord. His mind was still struggling with the idea, reminding him of when he was eight and Bobby took him deer hunting while Dad recuperated from a run-in with a pack of ghouls and how Bobby had been there when Dad took off to hunt alone after Sam left for college. He was a great guy, closer than family, but he couldn’t possibly be God. It just wasn’t possible.
“What about Dean?” Castiel asked, his voice still as pure and full of light as it had always been. “What of his brother?”
Bobby kept drinking his coffee, clearly unperturbed by the angels. “What about them?”
“They have been tainted, touched by the fallen.” Castiel’s mouth was a thin line, but Dean couldn’t tell if he was angry or if this was what he looked like when he was nervous. “They claim you as their family, their father in place of their father, but you let them be broken in this way.”
“Nobody let anybody anything,” Lucifer told him. “And you don’t get a gold star for breaking the rules and snatching golden boy out of Hell either. Azazel’s been playing that game for years and I didn’t touch your boy until you changed the game. It’s on your head if anyone’s. Turnabout’s fair play.”
“Enough,” Bobby said, his voice booming when Castiel looked ready to argue with the Trickster. “They have each other. They have always had each other. They always will. Do not question more than that.”
Castiel took a slow step back and bowed his head in deference to Bobby.
Lucifer grinned a salacious grin and strutted over to Sam and Dean. “And look at the two of you, already clinging together in the end time. It’s almost sweet.” Bobby didn’t say anything, but the Trickster turned to him as if he had and said, “Fine. I’ve got better places to be than here anyway.”
He stretched his impossibly bright wings above his head as though he were preparing to fly, but instead walked down the road, stepping over the corpses in the way. Some distance from the church, a small dog joined him, but Dean couldn’t tell if Lucifer had conjured him or if he was just a neighborhood dog.
One by one, the angels left, all giving praise and deference to Bobby, until it was only them and Castiel standing amid the bodies. Castiel was staring intently at Bobby as though he would be able to figure him out if he just watched him long enough. Bobby was still drinking Lucifer’s coffee, as though this were all perfectly normal, when the doors of the church creaked open.
“It’s over?” Leland looked like a nervous wreck, his pale hair slicked tight to his forehead with sweat, and the collar of his shirt loose and undone.
“You would know.”
Sam glared at Bobby and told Leland, “It’s as done as it ever will be.”
Leland paused on the church steps, clinging to the prayer book as he observed the tableau of the darkened sky and broken bodies on the ground. “So this is what you call saving the world?”
“We saved as many as we could,” Castiel said evenly, finally taking his eyes off Bobby.
“You’re the angel,” Leland murmured. “You’re the angel who started it all.”
“He knew what he was doing,” Bobby told him. “Do you need a ride back to your motel? I’ve just got my car with me, but it’ll carry us.” Bobby motioned to his car, parked on the street some distance from the church, with its mismatched door panels.
Leland nodded nervously, keeping his eyes on Castiel, and followed Bobby quickly when the older man pulled out his keys and headed for the car. Dean watched Leland go, his heavy coat billowing behind him, making him look bigger and stronger than he really was.
Castiel watched them go. “He is right. You have each other.”
“What does that even mean?” Dean snapped, frustrated with the whole situation.
But Castiel was gone before Dean even finished asking his question, leaving Sam and Dean alone among the corpses.
*
A year later, Dean and Sam returned to Stuttgart. They had grown used to the dull, shadowed light of the darkened sun and the unholy red light of the moon. Scientists had spent the past year trying to explain the phenomenon. According to Sam, the most popular theory was something involving volcanic ash and greenhouse gases, but Dean couldn’t bring himself to care. Some of the more vocal religious groups were convinced the it was a sign of the apocalypse. The first time Dean had read that, in a diner outside Fort Smith, he had laughed so hard he threw up. It hadn’t been pleasant. No one, except them, except the angels, except Bobby and the Trickster, no, God and Lucifer, knew that the apocalypse had already come and gone.
Dean’s vision hadn’t changed. He could still see good and bad deeds. He could see the spirits they hunted, knew the good lives of the bodies they burned. Frustrated, in autumn in Colorado, Sam had called Bobby, his love for Dean overcoming his fear and his betrayal. Bobby told him that he wouldn’t change what the Trickster, Lucifer, had done to Dean, that it wasn’t a bad thing. Sam was in charge of burning the bodies now. He hadn’t bothered to ask Dean, he’d just taken over.
Every once in a while, now, they’d call Bobby. Sometimes the Trickster would be there. They hadn’t stopped by the junkyard in South Dakota, but they’d heard, through other hunters, that Bobby had taken on a partner in the junkyard. When they’d run into Ellen in Des Moines, she’d tried to talk to them about Bobby. Dean hadn’t known what to say, if anything. “Oh, we’re not talking to Bobby, since it turns out that he’s really God and this whole thing is for shits and giggles?” Even hunters had their limit on what they’d believe.
They hadn’t really talked about everything else that had happened that day in Arkansas. They hadn’t talked about what Bobby and the Trickster implied before they left the church to parts unknown, eventually a haunting in Montana. Dean had been too embarrassed, at first, too ashamed. But then he noticed that Sam wasn’t meeting his eyes either, but wasn’t trying to walk away like Dean had feared he would. He was fumbling with his words, like he used to do with the cute girls in high school. And Dean had gone over their words again - and again and again - and then he hadn’t said anything to Sam. But, eventually, he told himself, he would.
“Here he is,” Sam said, standing over the gravestone.
Dean put the flowers down on the grave. The stone read, 'Richard Lawley, Beloved Son, Devoted Husband, You Will Be Missed.' “He never even knew what was happening.”
“He didn’t need to.”
“It wasn’t fair,” Dean said, frustrated, still.
“I think we’ve figure out that life isn’t fair,” Sam told him, sounding as broken and said as he had all year. “Nothing is.”
Dean didn’t know what to say to that, so he just turned around to head back to the Impala. With any luck, they could be out of the state before moonrise. He didn’t say anything when Sam took his hand and held it tight.
Notes
*
Dean parked the Impala in the big dirt parking lot behind the church and went to the trunk. He gave Leland a charm to protect him against demonic possession and put the young psychic in charge of lining all the doors and windows of the church with rock salt. If Lilith was going to have a show down on the lawn, then they might be able to protect some people - someone, anyone - inside the church. Salt and holy ground should protect them as much as anything else. Meanwhile, he and Sam went through their weapons stash, pulling out anything that could be useful.
“You boys have got yourselves in a load of trouble this time.”
Dean jumped, the older hunter having caught him by surprise. “Bobby, how did you find us?”
“Or get here that fast?” Sam added, not looking up from the Beretta cradled in his hands.
“Swamp monster in Mississippi,” Bobby explained. “And this place is a little hard to miss, what with your fancy little lawn ornaments.”
Dean peered around the edge of the Impala’s trunk. On the front lawn of the church, Zachariah and Castiel appear to be in deep discussion. They were both carrying swords, Zachariah’s almost as big as his vessel’s body. There were other people with them, men and women milling around the church steps and the pair of weeping willow trees by the Jesus sign. Dean assumed, from the glorious lights and heavenly presences hovering in the bodies, that they were fellow angels, arrived in Arkansas to face down the armies of Hell. They carried a strange assortment of items: trumpets, drums, swords, bows, and spears. The Trickster was also there, some distance from the angels. He was lounging in the shadow of the church, munching slowly on what appeared to be a Moon Pie and drinking from a styrofoam cup. He was watching the angels with something akin to fascination.
“What the fuck?” Dean asked.
“You think you’re the only ones who care about the Apocalypse?” Bobby asked him, his voice sharp and reprimanding.
Dean dropped his head, embarrassed. “Leland Brodbeck said Lilith will be here to break the final seal.”
Bobby nodded gruffly. “We won’t go down without a fight.”
Sam nodded sharply, like he was expecting it and tucked the Beretta into the waistband of his jeans. Bobby just frowned at them, like there was something sadder about them and the Impala than there was about the end of the world. Sometimes Dean didn’t understand Bobby.
*
The Apocalypse didn’t go down like Dean thought it would. Dean had read the Bible, of course. Dad had even read it with him, when he was kid, reading passages with him from the Gideon Bible. Dean had scared Sam, when he was really little, with stories from the Old Testament. Dean knew how the Book of Revelation went. He knew how Lucifer fell from Heaven. He’d read the books of the prophets. Armed with Colt’s Colt and the knowledge that it was his job to stop Lilith, Dean waited on the lawn of the little Baptist church outside Stuttgart and waited for the end of the world.
Richard Lawley had shown up at the church in the early morning, wanting to know what was going on at his church. He had recognised some of the angels’ other vessels and insisted on standing with them, even though the angel that had possessed him remained in heaven. Ruby arrived shortly after the reverend, bringing with her a coterie of demons who supported Sam over Lilith. The church lawn became divided at that point, with the angels and demons eying each other warily.
The demons made Dean uncomfortable, with the feeling of negative space that surrounded them. He could see the good deeds of their possessed bodies and the hardened, Hell-broken pain of the demon spirits. It was sickening. The Winchesters and the Trickster remained between the angels and the demons, an ironic trick of life.
Bobby tried calling other hunters, Tamara and Ellen and Rufus and others Dean had never met or even heard of, but something was playing havoc with cell phone reception. Sam and Bobby told Leland to stay inside the protected church, behind salt lines and closed doors until everything was over. He had accepted the prayer book Lawley had given him and locked the doors behind him. The Trickster offered everyone coffee, but no one accepted.
The atmosphere was tense, crackling with energy. The angels were tense, their hands never leaving their weapons. Castiel watched Dean with unblinking eyes, standing between Dean and the other angels, his sword drawn, but not raised. Ruby, too, stood closer to Sam and Bobby, periodically taking Sam aside to talk to him. Dean didn’t like it and kept an eye on them when it happened, but had no idea how to say, “Stop talking to a potential ally,” without sounding like a tool or like he was some kind of jealous idiot. It helped that even when Ruby was talking to him, Sam kept his eyes on Dean.
Lilith arrived quietly and without fanfare. She was in the body of a teenage girl, wearing tight jeans and a sweatshirt. She just strolled up to the churchyard, accompanied by a trio of other demons, all of them shining with the painful negative space and darkness of pain and Hell, and eyed the milling group with curiosity and hunger. “You’re waiting for me.”
At the sound of Lilith’s voice, the angels turned to Dean and the demons to Sam. Remembering the dimming of the lights around Sam that morning when he picked up Ruby’s knife, Dean stepped forward. “Stop.” He didn’t know what else to say. It would have been better if Dad had been rescued by the angels, if Dad had been the one to need to save the world. Dean didn’t know how to convince a powerful demoness to stop breaking the seals of the apocalypse. He was willing to bet that if they somehow managed to kill Lilith, destroy her in a little green churchyard in the Bible Belt, that another demon would step up, take her place, and release Lucifer. Dad wouldn’t have felt this kind of despair. He would have figured out something to do.
Lilith laughed, her lithe, stolen body shaking with it. “What? You? You couldn’t bear Hell. You really think you’ll stop me?” She waved her arm, silver bangles jangling, and Dean felt himself slam into the trunk of the nearby willow. He heard Sam let out a whining cry and the angels unsheathe their swords and fit arrows to their bows.
“You know you won’t survive,” Sam told her, his voice as dark and deep as Hell itself.
“No, I won’t,” Lilith watched Sam with flat, beetle-black eyes, clearly resigned to her fate. “But my King will be risen today.”
In the stillness that followed Lilith’s statement, the Trickster snorted, blowing hot coffee across the path leading up to the church doors.
“You do not respect Lucifer?” Lilith asked him, her voice as cold as ice and with the edge of a knife.
The Trickster shook his head and pulled another Moon Pie out of thin air. “That’s a thing,” he said, “going through with it even when you know you’ll die.”
“I will do it.” A breeze picked up and blew Lilith’s blonde hair out behind her like a banner. Dean wondered, for a moment, why Lilith only chose blonde bodies to possess. “Whatever you do, He will rise. And you will be powerless to stop Him.” She twisted her hand holding Dean to the tree, slamming his head back against the hard trunk and choking him.
Dean’s vision grayed a little when Lilith was choking him, but he could see, even with his head twisted back against the tree, the blur of glory and negative space that could only be both the demons and the angels crossing the lawn to fight Lilith. Just as suddenly as he had been slammed against the willow, he fell to the ground. Picking himself up and wincing as he tried to put weight on his right knee, he saw the blur of Lilith and the other demons fighting. Dean winced, the blur and sharpness of the battle, of shining light and bright color against darkness and empty space too painful to watch.
“Moon Pie?” the Trickster asked, coming up beside Dean.
“I’m not taking food from you again,” Dean snarled, trying to watch the fight, trying to see where Sam was.
“You’re not still mad about that, are you?” The Trickster sounded sincerely surprised. “It was for your own good.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
The Trickster shrugged. “You’d have gone haring off on your own. Or told your brother that his powers were hellish or something else like that. We couldn’t have that.”
“We?”
Before the Trickster could answer Dean’s question, the fight, the battle, in front of them froze as quickly as it had begun, and pulled away from Lilith. Dean could see that she had Reverend Lawley and a knife, one not dissimilar to Ruby’s knife, resting against his throat. The angels pulled back, giving Lilith her space, and flooded around Dean.
“The seal of the martyrs,” Castiel whispered, appearing at Dean’s side. “She can’t -”
Lilith pulled the knife across Lawley’s throat. As the blood spilled from his throat, the light of day dimmed. Dean looked up and saw, even as the blood fell from the pastor’s body, the sun turn the color of freshly spilled blood. The angels around him bowed their heads as the earth shook beneath their feet. Struggling to keep his balance, Dean looked desperately through the crowd of holy vessels, trying to find Sam. He saw him standing under the other willow, blood flowing from his nose and ears. Dean pushed his way through the angels, trying not to fall down despite his knee and the quaking earth.
He had just made it to Sam’s side when Lilith spoke again. “The sixty sixth seal is broken. Lucifer is free.”
The sky remained dark, but the earth stopped shaking. The angels raised their weapons again, but Lucifer did not appear. Sam gripped Dean by his arm, but did not say anything.
“Lucifer,” Lilith called, her voice lilting and musical and Dean realised that she was summoning him. She said a few words in a language older than Latin, older than any language Dean had heard in his life.
The Trickster stepped forward, through the parting crowd of angels. He sipped his coffee from the styrofoam cup and rolled his shoulders like he was stretching the muscles in his back. “Damn, that feels good.”
Lilith’s eyes widened and she fell on one knee, bowing before him. “My Lord.”
The Trickster watched her for the moment. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I ask to be your consort, to stand by your side as you bring Hell to Earth and reign over Creation as its rightful King.”
The Trickster laughed.
Lilith looked up sharply, clearly not expecting that reaction. The angels and other demons kept their eyes on the Trickster, on Lucifer, as he stood before Lilith.
He stretched again, this time spreading wings out behind him. His wings were gorgeous things, huge and as white as driven snow. In the sunless day, they shone with their own inner light. Dean didn’t know if it was his magicked sight or not, but Sam’s sudden gasp and tightening grip on his arm suggested that it was a real light.
“You are Lucifer, King of Hell,” Lilith said, still on one knee. “You are the King of All.”
“I might be, I might not be,” the Trickster bargained with a smile. “I was a light-bearer for the heavens. I despaired of any hope for humanity. I am a wanderer of the earth.” He hummed a few bars from Sympathy for the Devil and his smile broadened into a grin. “But I don’t think I’m who you want.”
A demon called out from the churchyard, “You are the Lightbearer, the one who led us.”
The Trickster sighed and shook his head.
“You rebelled against the Lord,” Zachariah said, wielding his sword. “You rebelled and fell and you should have lost your grace. It is an abomination that you have it back.”
“Abomination, shobomination,” Lucifer scoffed. “It’s not that big a deal.”
“You will rain sulfur upon the people,” one of the demons with Lilith told him, clearly eager. “You will release the denizens of Hell and give us our just place on Earth. We will lay siege to Heaven and you will be our King.”
The angels, edgy since they’d appeared in the churchyard that morning, raised their weapons, trained on the Trickster.
“He said he is the wanderer of the earth.”
Everyone froze at the tone of command in Bobby’s voice. He was sitting on the steps to the church, wearing his John Deere cap and a stained plaid shirt, and he didn’t stand up. Dean frowned. There was an edge of a glow around Bobby’s hat and in his beard, as though Bobby were doing a great deed, just sitting there.
“‘Whence comest thou?’” Bobby asked the crowd. “And he answered and said: I have gone round about the earth, and walked through it.’”
The Trickster smiled at Bobby, something sincere and not quite as wild as anything Dean had seen previously. “That’s sweet that you remembered.”
Bobby snorted at the Trickster’s comment. “He is the Adversary.”
“He rebelled,” Castiel said.
“I am the Accuser,” the Trickster proclaimed, sauntering up the concrete path, from the gate where Lilith remained on her knee toward the steps where Bobby was sitting. “I am the Wanderer. I am the Adversary and the Light-Bearer and the One Who Despaired.”
Zachariah stopped the Trickster in his tracks, pressing his sword against the Trickster’s stomach. “You rebelled against the Lord.”
“Are you some kind of idjit?” Bobby asked, finally standing. It should have been foolish, Dean thought, Bobby standing up against an angel trying to take down Satan. But, somehow, it wasn’t strange to see Bobby staring down the well-dressed angel, as though he had some kind of authority. “You are all Sons of God.”
The Trickster raised his left hand and snapped his fingers. Zachariah’s sword was in the Trickster’s hand and he continued up the path toward Bobby. “Individuals are forgetful and groups are dangerous.”
Behind him, Lilith rose to her feet. Her hands were clenched in fists at her sides in a nearly childish show of fury. “So, you leave your own people?” she asked, her body’s voice carrying. “You abandon us? You abandon me, even after all I did for you?”
The Trickster spun on his heel. “I didn’t ask for it, now did I?” His wings stretched and bobbed. “I won’t complain, but I never said I wanted that.”
Lilith’s anger was palpable. She was clearly unprepared for the Trickster’s reaction. Her eyes scanned the crowd gathered in front of her for a moment and then went white. She raised one hand up, pointing at Bobby, but nothing happened. She did it again. Still nothing happened.
The Trickster’s movement was fast and practiced. Dean didn’t realise what was happening until he had already cut down Lilith with Zachariah’s sword. It was a smooth, clean motion and the Trickster seemed neither triumphant nor regretful.
“What the Hell?”
The Trickster smiled at Dean. “I am the brightest star, the light of the morning. Do you think I became the brightest light of the heavens by being an ass?”
Sam trembled beside Dean, the hand holding him close shaking like a leaf, whether with relief or fear, Dean couldn’t tell. “It was just that simple.”
“She wasn’t expecting her king to betray her,” Castiel said, watching the Trickster carefully. “But he is a traitor. Betrayal is his stock in trade.”
“Didn’t you hear what He said?” the Trickster asked him. “We are, all of us, the Sons of God. He has called us all by our names.”
“And you despised Him and you fell,” Castiel told him, his own sword held defensively in front of him.
The Trickster snorted. “Just like precious Uriel fell?” He rolled his eyes. “I told your precious, Dean-o, damnation doesn’t change what you are. And you’re assuming falling is damnation, like you aren’t standing in arms with the fallen.”
“Enough,” Bobby said. “That’s enough.”
Zachariah stared Bobby down, measuring him up. “It isn’t your business to interfere in the matters of angels.” He turned to the other angels standing behind him. “You know what we do with the fallen.”
“That’s inadvisable.” Bobby’s voice seemed deeper and carried over the churchyard as though it had been amplified.
Zachariah moved to push Bobby aside, so that he could get to the Trickster, and then something happened. As when the Trickster slew Lilith, Dean wasn’t quite sure what had happened. One moment, Bobby was standing between Zachariah and the Trickster, looking like he hadn’t showered or shaved in a few days and with bags under his eyes showing that he could use some more sleep. The next moment, it was like the sun had returned to the sky. Dean had never seen anything so bright or so powerful. It was stunning and beautiful and awe-inspiring. It was physical, too, and so shocking that he was almost knocked to his knees. Instead, he fell against Sam and they both held each other up.
When he blinked, however, almost everything was the same as it had been. The Trickster stood on the concrete path, looking as amused as he ever did, and Bobby stood between Zachariah and the Trickster, his green cap dirty and a little dented. However, all of the other angels were down on one knee, bowing the way Lilith had before the Trickster. And the demons who had been with Lilith appeared to be gone, their bodies lying prone on the road near the broken corpses of Lilith and Lawley.
“What was that?” Sam asked, his voice shaky.
“I am sorry,” Zachariah said, his face paler than usual, his heavenly lights dimmed. “I did not know.”
“‘And hospitality do not forget; for by this some, being not aware of it, have entertained angels,’” the Trickster said, the amusement clear in his voice. “‘But their eyes were held, that they should not know him. ‘ You forget so easily, Zachariah.”
Zachariah kept his eyes on Bobby. “I did not know, my Lord. I did not know.”
Bobby frowned, but didn’t say anything. The other angels rose to their feet. Silence reigned over the churchyard. Dean turned to Sam and mouthed, “Bobby? Lord?”
Sam shrugged, but didn’t let go of Dean. He held tight to his brother with both hands, as though he were afraid that the angels were going to taken Dean away from him.
Lucifer - the Trickster - clapped his hands together loudly, his snowy wings bobbing. “Well, then, if that’s all settled, I’m sure the pearly gates are missing you lot.” He paused and peered among the angels. “I didn’t even get the archangels out of heaven? What kind of motley army are you?”
Bobby coughed. Dean recognised the noise; it was the same thing Bobby did when Dad was getting ready to do something exceptionally stupid.
The Trickster merely rolled his eyes at Bobby and pulled another styrofoam cup from thin air. “You’ve got to be kidding. If they didn’t recognise you when you were standing right in front of them, Mr I’ve-Got-The-Biggest-Sword-Look-What-I’m-Compensating-For Michael isn’t going to know you from Adam.”
Bobby shrugged and pulled the cup from Lucifer’s hand, taking a long, slow sip. “Then they don’t know me.”
The angels visibly quavered at this and Dean saw some of their lights and colors dim, much as Sam’s had when he planned to use Ruby’s knife. He wasn’t sure he was quite following what was going on in the churchyard, but he was pretty sure there was only one guy the angels would call Lord. His mind was still struggling with the idea, reminding him of when he was eight and Bobby took him deer hunting while Dad recuperated from a run-in with a pack of ghouls and how Bobby had been there when Dad took off to hunt alone after Sam left for college. He was a great guy, closer than family, but he couldn’t possibly be God. It just wasn’t possible.
“What about Dean?” Castiel asked, his voice still as pure and full of light as it had always been. “What of his brother?”
Bobby kept drinking his coffee, clearly unperturbed by the angels. “What about them?”
“They have been tainted, touched by the fallen.” Castiel’s mouth was a thin line, but Dean couldn’t tell if he was angry or if this was what he looked like when he was nervous. “They claim you as their family, their father in place of their father, but you let them be broken in this way.”
“Nobody let anybody anything,” Lucifer told him. “And you don’t get a gold star for breaking the rules and snatching golden boy out of Hell either. Azazel’s been playing that game for years and I didn’t touch your boy until you changed the game. It’s on your head if anyone’s. Turnabout’s fair play.”
“Enough,” Bobby said, his voice booming when Castiel looked ready to argue with the Trickster. “They have each other. They have always had each other. They always will. Do not question more than that.”
Castiel took a slow step back and bowed his head in deference to Bobby.
Lucifer grinned a salacious grin and strutted over to Sam and Dean. “And look at the two of you, already clinging together in the end time. It’s almost sweet.” Bobby didn’t say anything, but the Trickster turned to him as if he had and said, “Fine. I’ve got better places to be than here anyway.”
He stretched his impossibly bright wings above his head as though he were preparing to fly, but instead walked down the road, stepping over the corpses in the way. Some distance from the church, a small dog joined him, but Dean couldn’t tell if Lucifer had conjured him or if he was just a neighborhood dog.
One by one, the angels left, all giving praise and deference to Bobby, until it was only them and Castiel standing amid the bodies. Castiel was staring intently at Bobby as though he would be able to figure him out if he just watched him long enough. Bobby was still drinking Lucifer’s coffee, as though this were all perfectly normal, when the doors of the church creaked open.
“It’s over?” Leland looked like a nervous wreck, his pale hair slicked tight to his forehead with sweat, and the collar of his shirt loose and undone.
“You would know.”
Sam glared at Bobby and told Leland, “It’s as done as it ever will be.”
Leland paused on the church steps, clinging to the prayer book as he observed the tableau of the darkened sky and broken bodies on the ground. “So this is what you call saving the world?”
“We saved as many as we could,” Castiel said evenly, finally taking his eyes off Bobby.
“You’re the angel,” Leland murmured. “You’re the angel who started it all.”
“He knew what he was doing,” Bobby told him. “Do you need a ride back to your motel? I’ve just got my car with me, but it’ll carry us.” Bobby motioned to his car, parked on the street some distance from the church, with its mismatched door panels.
Leland nodded nervously, keeping his eyes on Castiel, and followed Bobby quickly when the older man pulled out his keys and headed for the car. Dean watched Leland go, his heavy coat billowing behind him, making him look bigger and stronger than he really was.
Castiel watched them go. “He is right. You have each other.”
“What does that even mean?” Dean snapped, frustrated with the whole situation.
But Castiel was gone before Dean even finished asking his question, leaving Sam and Dean alone among the corpses.
*
A year later, Dean and Sam returned to Stuttgart. They had grown used to the dull, shadowed light of the darkened sun and the unholy red light of the moon. Scientists had spent the past year trying to explain the phenomenon. According to Sam, the most popular theory was something involving volcanic ash and greenhouse gases, but Dean couldn’t bring himself to care. Some of the more vocal religious groups were convinced the it was a sign of the apocalypse. The first time Dean had read that, in a diner outside Fort Smith, he had laughed so hard he threw up. It hadn’t been pleasant. No one, except them, except the angels, except Bobby and the Trickster, no, God and Lucifer, knew that the apocalypse had already come and gone.
Dean’s vision hadn’t changed. He could still see good and bad deeds. He could see the spirits they hunted, knew the good lives of the bodies they burned. Frustrated, in autumn in Colorado, Sam had called Bobby, his love for Dean overcoming his fear and his betrayal. Bobby told him that he wouldn’t change what the Trickster, Lucifer, had done to Dean, that it wasn’t a bad thing. Sam was in charge of burning the bodies now. He hadn’t bothered to ask Dean, he’d just taken over.
Every once in a while, now, they’d call Bobby. Sometimes the Trickster would be there. They hadn’t stopped by the junkyard in South Dakota, but they’d heard, through other hunters, that Bobby had taken on a partner in the junkyard. When they’d run into Ellen in Des Moines, she’d tried to talk to them about Bobby. Dean hadn’t known what to say, if anything. “Oh, we’re not talking to Bobby, since it turns out that he’s really God and this whole thing is for shits and giggles?” Even hunters had their limit on what they’d believe.
They hadn’t really talked about everything else that had happened that day in Arkansas. They hadn’t talked about what Bobby and the Trickster implied before they left the church to parts unknown, eventually a haunting in Montana. Dean had been too embarrassed, at first, too ashamed. But then he noticed that Sam wasn’t meeting his eyes either, but wasn’t trying to walk away like Dean had feared he would. He was fumbling with his words, like he used to do with the cute girls in high school. And Dean had gone over their words again - and again and again - and then he hadn’t said anything to Sam. But, eventually, he told himself, he would.
“Here he is,” Sam said, standing over the gravestone.
Dean put the flowers down on the grave. The stone read, 'Richard Lawley, Beloved Son, Devoted Husband, You Will Be Missed.' “He never even knew what was happening.”
“He didn’t need to.”
“It wasn’t fair,” Dean said, frustrated, still.
“I think we’ve figure out that life isn’t fair,” Sam told him, sounding as broken and said as he had all year. “Nothing is.”
Dean didn’t know what to say to that, so he just turned around to head back to the Impala. With any luck, they could be out of the state before moonrise. He didn’t say anything when Sam took his hand and held it tight.
Notes