by Tim Waggoner
“So… you betray me in the end, Geoffrey?” Adamantine said. “No matter. Priests come and go, but I shall live forever.” She bared her teeth in a cold, cruel, and above all hungry smile, and started toward Renee.
The brothers stepped in front of Renee, Geoffrey, and Lena, drew their guns, and fired at Adamantine. Sam feared their bullets would be useless against the god now that she was nearly at full strength, and he was right. A barrier of crackling electricity appeared in the air in front of Adamantine, repelling every round the boys sent at her. Within moments, their clips were empty, and when the last shot was fired, the electric shield vanished. The brothers tossed their guns aside, drew their knives, and rushed forward.
Adamantine laughed with delight as they came at her and spread her arms wide, as if in greeting. Sam aimed his blade at her heart, while Dean swept his toward her throat. But the knives had no more effect on her than the bullets. The blades struck her gleaming metal flesh and broke against it without leaving a scratch. The brothers tried to pull back before Adamantine could take hold of them, but she was too fast. She grabbed them by their throats and held them tight. Sam feared she would electrocute them, and as if reading his thoughts—and maybe at this point she was powerful enough to do so—she said, “I wouldn’t waste the energy on you two.” Then, as easily as if they were ragdolls, she tossed them aside.
The brothers flew a dozen feet in opposite directions and landed hard. Sam felt a rib or two crack as he hit the asphalt, and he wished he still had the healing powers granted to him by Paeon. The impact stunned him, and although he tried to get to his feet, his body refused to cooperate. The best he could do was push himself up on his hands and knees and watch through blurred vision as Adamantine continued striding toward Renee, Lena, and Geoffrey.
Lena and Geoffrey stepped in front of Renee, although what they hoped to do to protect the girl wasn’t clear. Neither of them held weapons, nor did they possess the special abilities their gods had bestowed upon them. They were ordinary humans now, and while Sam admired their bravery, he feared it would only get them killed.
“Renee!” he shouted. “Run!”
If she heard him, she gave no sign. She only stood and watched, eyes wide and filled with fear, as Adamantine approached.
When Adamantine reached Lena and Geoffrey, she stopped and regarded them for a moment, upper lip curled in disdain.
“I can’t believe that Paeon and I ever thought the two of you were worthy to serve us.”
Then, before either Geoffrey or Lena could react, she flicked a hand toward them, as if shooing away a pair of insects. Tendrils of electricity shot from her fingers and struck the former priests directly between the eyes. Their bodies stiffened, convulsed, and then they collapsed to the ground. Sam had no idea if they were dead or merely stunned, but right then his primary concern was for Renee. Now nothing stood between her and the being she’d created. She had given Adamantine life, but the god—no, the monster—wouldn’t be satisfied until she had taken every bit of energy housed in Renee’s body, leaving her a drained and lifeless husk.
No way in hell was Sam going to let that happen. He forced himself to his feet and began staggering toward Adamantine and Renee, fighting the dizziness in his head and the pain in his body. He looked across the parking lot and saw Dean doing the same. The ground was littered with discarded weapons—guns, knives, and more—but Sam knew that none of them would do any good against Adamantine. There was only one thing that could kill her.
“Dean!” he shouted. “The gauntlet!”
His brother nodded grimly, and the two Winchesters ran toward Adamantine.
She seemed unaware of the brothers’ approach. She gazed at Renee as if transfixed, and with her left hand she reached out and almost tenderly stroked the girl’s cheek.
“I thank you for bringing me into this world,” Adamantine said. “Your death shall give me everlasting life, and in the end, isn’t that what any creator wants? For her creation to outlast her?”
Renee shook with terror and tears slid from her eyes. “Please don’t,” she whispered.
For the briefest of moments, it seemed Adamantine actually considered Renee’s request. But then she said, “I must fulfill my destiny, just as you must fulfill yours.”
She raised her gauntleted hand and reached for Renee’s throat.
Sam and Dean came at Adamantine from opposite sides, and before she could take hold of Renee, they each grabbed her gauntlet by the wrist and, working together, bent her arm downward and plunged the sharp fingertips into her abdomen. The mystic gauntlet pierced her silver flesh with ease, as if her body was no more solid than water, and she shrieked with equal amounts pain and fury. The brothers jammed the gauntlet as far into Adamantine as they could, until a silvery substance gushed from the wound. Her shriek became a deafening scream of agony, and Sam and Dean let go of the gauntlet and turned toward Renee. They bore her to the ground and shielded her with their bodies as the divine energy stored within Adamantine exploded in a single blinding burst of light.
After several moments of silence, the brothers risked turning back to take a look, but Adamantine was gone, without so much as a single strand of metallic hair remaining to show she’d ever existed.
“Looks like the Apotheosis was canceled,” Dean said.
Sam turned to look at Renee, who was sobbing now, her face in her hands. He saw Lena and Geoffrey stirring and was glad they had survived, but he thought of all the men, women, and children who had been forced to fight in Paeon and Adamantine’s war, too many of whom were wounded or dead. “Too bad it didn’t happen sooner.”
“Yeah,” Dean said.
FIFTEEN
“I remembered how we killed the Lord of the Hunt by stabbing it with its own antlers,” Sam said. “And we’d already seen how the gods could only be killed by their own weapons.”
“So you figured Renee was still part of the gods she created—or they were a part of her—so she could be our weapon this time.” Dean nodded. “Makes sense.”
“Yeah. It didn’t work out quite the way I thought it would, though. She wasn’t able to destroy them.”
“Hey, she was able to take Paeon and Adamantine down more than a few notches. If she hadn’t weakened them, we might be singing hymns to one of those jumped-up monsters right now.”
Sam and Dean sat at what had become their usual table in Doughnutz. It was after nine in the morning, and by this point they’d been up for more than twenty-four hours. They were both tired, but neither was particularly sleepy. Maybe it was all the excitement, maybe it was due to some residue of the power Paeon and Adamantine had given them, or maybe it was simply due to the amount of coffee they’d had since they’d returned here. Whatever the reason, they were both wide awake.
After Adamantine’s defeat, Lena tried calling 911, but there was no one left in the Sheriff’s Department to answer the call. So she called the Illinois State Police, told them that she was a doctor and there had been a riot outside the TechEdge store in Corinth. She said hundreds of people had been involved, there were dozens wounded—at least—and they needed every paramedic that the State Police could find, and they needed them now. It had taken some work to convince the State Police, though. After all, a riot involving hundreds of people in a small town like Corinth was a bit hard to believe. Sam and Dean helped Lena tend to the wounded until the first emergency vehicles began to arrive—followed closely by the first news vans—then they got in the Impala and headed for Doughnutz, where they’d been ever since. They’d asked Renee if she wanted to come with them, but she’d said she wanted to stay. I may not have made this mess on purpose, but I did make it. I think I should stick around to help clean it up.
Sam took a bite of his cruller and chewed slowly. “You’re right. These things are awesome.”
“Didn’t I tell you?”
For a time they ate donuts and drank coffee in silence. After a while, Dean said, “What do you think will happen with Renee?”
“I hope so, for her sake as much as the world’s. Can you imagine the guilt that poor kid must feel? And for something that wasn’t even her fault.”
“A lot of people were hurt,” Sam said. “And a lot died, too.”
“But a lot more lived. That’s what matters.”
“Easy to say, but not so easy to believe. We both know that.”
“Yeah.”
“While we were helping treat the wounded, Renee told me that she’s going to quit art and change her major. She said she can’t stand the thought of ever painting or drawing something again after what happened. And she said she doesn’t want to take the risk of another Apotheosis happening.”
“That sucks,” Dean said, “but it’s probably for the best. If nothing else, it’ll help her sleep better at night.”
“Let’s hope.”
“At least we know Geoffrey’s going to be okay,” Dean said.
Once Lena had learned that Geoffrey had been homeless for several years, she promised to help him find a job—once his shoulder wound had healed, of course. We ex-priests have to stick together, she’d said, and Geoffrey had laughed.
“And Lena’s promised to stay in touch with Renee, too,” Sam said. “Hopefully, the three of them will be able to get past this together.”
“In the end, that’s all we really have, you know?” Dean said. “Each other.”
Sam smiled. “Now that’s something I can believe in.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks as always to my agent, Cherry Weiner. Thanks to Natalie Laverick for lovingly shepherding this book from concept to finished product, and thanks to Hayley Shepherd whose sharp eye improved the final manuscript. And a very special thanks to the team at WB: Chris Cerasi, Amy Weingartner, and Victoria Selover—stalwart keepers and defenders of all things Supernatural.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shirley Jackson Award finalist Tim Waggoner has published over thirty novels and three short-story collections of dark fiction. He teaches creative writing at Sinclair Community College and in Seton Hill University’s MFA in Writing Popular Fiction program. You can find him on the web at www.timwaggoner.com.
