Supernatural: War of the Sons
Page 1
ALSO AVAILABLE FROM TITAN BOOKS:
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by Keith R.A. DeCandido
Supernatural: The Unholy Cause
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SUPERNATURAL™
WAR OF THE SONS
REBECCA DESSERTINE
& DAVID REED
Based on the hit CW series SUPERNATURAL created by Eric Kripke
TITAN BOOKS
Supernatural: War of the Sons
ISBN: 9781848569287
Published by
Titan Books
A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd
144 Southwark St
London
SE1 0UP
First edition August 2010
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
SUPERNATURAL™ & © 2010 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. Cover imagery: Front cover image courtesy of Warner Bros.; Ancient Scroll © Shutterstock; Black Vector Silhouettes Skyline © Shutterstock.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
Printed and bound in the United States.
Contents
PROLOGUE
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
TWENTY-FIVE
TWENTY-SIX
TWENTY-SEVEN
TWENTY-EIGHT
TWENTY-NINE
THIRTY
THIRTY-ONE
THIRTY-TWO
THIRTY-THREE
EPILOGUE
AUTHOR’S NOTE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
HISTORIAN’S NOTE
This novel takes place shortly after the season five episode
“My Bloody Valentine.”
PROLOGUE
This guy’s not from around here.
The thought occurred to Caleb as soon as he saw the man’s car. It was almost silent, drifting up the long driveway to the camp with no engine noise, the only sound the crunch of gravel under its tires. The gunmetal-gray frame came to a halt in the grass field adjacent to the camp that was too-generously labeled “Parking Lot.”
Caleb stared as the driver’s door opened and a tall man got out. The stranger’s appearance was immaculate—every hair perfectly in place—but something was off. Caleb figured it was probably the Hawaiian shirt.
“Where is Justin Black?” the man intoned, without preamble.
Despite Caleb’s considerable strengths as a camp counselor, actually keeping track of the children was a remarkably low priority for him. We’re in the middle of the woods, he told himself, where are they gonna go? For that reason, the Hawaiian-shirted man had caught him off guard.
“Uh... at camp?” Caleb said, and regretted the words as soon as they spilled from his mouth. Is Justin Black the fat one with the Harry Potter birthmark, he pondered, or the creepy little one who was always trying to give out free hugs?
“My son. His location.” The man paused for effect. “I require more specific information.”
Caleb glanced into the open window of the activities building, hoping that he’d happen to see the boy in there.
Nope.
“I’ll find him. He’s out by the lake, I think,” Caleb said, putting on his best reassuring voice. He’d better be, he thought, or this is going to be awkward.
“No,” the man said. “I’ll find him myself.”
The man walked purposefully toward the forest path, and Caleb quickly followed. There was something off-putting about the guy, and Caleb didn’t recognize him from parents’ night. Could have been the weed, though, he thought. Actually, wasn’t it Justin Black’s dad who’d brought the weed?
Caleb hurried to catch up to the man’s long strides.
“Is there a problem?” he asked. “Usually Justin’s mom picks him up—”
“No problem.” The man cut him off. “I just need to speak with the boy.”
Yup, he’s a pervert. Who else calls their son “the boy?” Caleb sped up his pursuit.
“What was your name again?” Caleb asked, hoping it would jog some memory of this guy. “I didn’t catch it before.”
The man turned, slow and deliberate.
“Don. Call me Don.”
The camp counselor was certainly annoying, but it was by no means the worst thing Don had had to put up with in his long and storied existence. His former profession had brought him into contact with the absolute worst of the worst, the darkest blights on the fabric of humankind that ever walked the Earth. I’m like Jerry Springer without the fame, Don thought, amused by his own analogy. After his previous occupation, it didn’t take much to amuse Don. Well, the fame part is about to change.
Losing the counselor in the forest was a simple matter. One moment, the kid was an arm’s-length away. The next, Don was a quarter-mile ahead of him. The path wound its way down a hill, dense thickets of forest obscuring the view. It would all be over before the counselor caught up.
The lake itself was pristine and beautiful, its glassy surface rippling with the slight breeze. An amazing summer day, one like Don hadn’t seen in... too long to remember.
“Ew! Don’t touch it with your bare hands!”
Don’s head turned an unnatural degree to find the source of the shout. It had come from a girl, about ten years old, running away from a boy of the same age.
Justin Black.
“You’re gonna get warts!” the girl cried, desperately dodging away from the frog in Justin’s outstretched hands.
“No I won’t,” Justin said, “my brother said frogs give you herpes.”
“What’s that?” the girl asked innocently.
“I dunno. Why don’t you ask the frog?” Justin thrust the amphibian at her, only to have it leap out of his hands and into the bog at the lake’s edge.
“Great, now you made me lose it,” Justin complained.
He reached down into the bog to find the lost creature, but another pair of hands got there first. Don lifted the frog out of the swampy water, holding it delicately, as if the slightest pressure would shatter it.
“It’s not lost, my boy,” Don said, a warm look on his face.
>
Justin took a step back, confused.
“Dad?”
“No, Justin, not exactly.”
The frog croaked loudly, startling both of the children. Justin’s brow furrowed.
“Mom said you’re not supposed to come see me. She said the police wouldn’t let you.”
“My boy, that was the old me. There’s a new set of rules, now.” Don held out the frog to Justin, trying to bring the boy closer.
“You like frogs, don’t you?”
Caleb’s mind was racing. Where had the man gone? Should he call the cops? How the hell had he got so far ahead? He began to run, hurtling down the path as he started to panic, stumbling over the uneven ground. Then he felt his foot hit a rock, sending him tumbling down the slope and slamming into a tree.
“Damn it!” he groaned, as the pain shot through him, bringing tears to his eyes. Wincing, he shifted into a sitting position and peered at his leg. His pants were ripped and a trail of blood was seeping down his thigh.
Crap.
He pulled himself up, took a step forward, and collapsed. Oh God, I can’t stand. Maybe it’s broken.
Fear filled his mind. Fear of what would happen to the kids at the lake, fear of what would happen when his boss found out about his inattentiveness, and fear of dying slowly of bloodloss out in the woods where no one could find him.
Calm the hell down, he thought, this isn’t even that bad. It’s barely even bleeding. That realization helped him get back to his feet. He had managed to hobble a few steps forward when he heard it.
The blood-curdling scream of Justin Black.
ONE
I can feel it, Dean thought. The sky is falling. It wasn’t a new feeling. In fact, the sky had been falling on Dean Winchester since he was four years old. The difference, of course, was that this time could very well be the last time. And this is where it all ends? The Apocalypse is gonna go down in the ass-edge of nowhere?
Dean let out a tired sigh as he gunned the Impala onto County Road 6. There was nothing on either side of the asphalt except cornfields, cattle, farms and farmers—the very Americana that Dean and his brother Sam fought to protect. For a moment, Dean’s imagination took hold, and the clouds on the horizon became pillars of smoke, spilling from unseen tongues of flame. The rotting wooden beams of a decrepit barn became the last remnants of humanity. Dean shook the vision out of his head, and the clouds were once again clouds. The barn was, once more, just a barn.
For months, Dean and Sam had been on the suicide mission to end all suicide missions—to hunt down and kill the Devil. Though the weight of the task seemed unbearable, the brothers knew that they were the only ones who could shoulder it. It was, after all, their fault that right now Lucifer walked the earth.
No. Sam’s fault.
Dean shoved the thought to the dark recesses of his mind. It wouldn’t do him any good to dwell on it. His younger brother—the boy who Dean had practically raised since their mother died—had broken the Final Seal. In a moment of weakness, Sam had killed the demon Lilith, unintentionally popping the lock on Satan’s cage. Now, after nearly a year of chasing him, they were no closer to shoving the bastard back into the lock-up.
But that wasn’t even the bad news. The angels, ostensibly protectors of humanity, had in fact been behind Satan’s jailbreak.
“They wanted you to break the Seal,” Dean had explained to his brother in the moments after Lucifer’s rise. “They’re sick of waiting around in Heaven. With Satan out, they get to bring on the prizefight. Winner takes Earth.”
The angels already had a plan in motion—according to the winged bastards, the only way to defeat Lucifer was for Dean to be the host for the archangel Michael, the most powerful weapon in Heaven’s arsenal. They even had an overdramatic pet name for Dean: the Michael Sword. Every fiber of Dean’s body rebelled against the idea. The battle between Michael and Lucifer would have the minor side effect of destroying half the Earth. A “planetary enema,” Zachariah had called it. The douche.
Lucifer’s final vessel was to be Sam. The symmetry must be funny to someone upstairs, Dean thought. Michael and Lucifer were brothers, one of them following closely in their father’s footsteps, the other... Well, just like Sam, Lucifer had always wanted to go his own way.
However, the one thing neither Heaven nor Hell could control was human will. While on Earth, angels—both righteous and fallen—had to take a willing human host. If Sam and Dean didn’t say “yes” to Lucifer and Michael, the battle couldn’t happen. The archangels would have to putter around in their alternate, non-ordained meatsuits, tearing their lesser vessels apart while they waited for Sam and Dean to come around to the party line.
The Winchester brothers weren’t going to fight each other. There had to be another way.
But every time they thought they had Lucifer within their sights, fate slapped their faces again. They had tried their old standby: straight-up violence, attempting to kill Lucifer outright. First with the Colt, a gun so powerful it was said to be able to kill anything, but that had barely given their Adversary a headache. They had Ruby’s demon-killing knife, but that was just as impotent against an archangel. The only chance they had left was to catch Lucifer by surprise. No small feat.
“Take a right at Camp Dakota Road,” Sam directed.
“Really? Couldn’t have figured that one out, Sam,” Dean shot back. “Since we’re going to a camp.”
Sam had been getting under his skin recently. Actually, everything had been getting under his skin. The endless hours on the road had proven useless thus far, and Dean was beginning to doubt that they would be able to win this war.
Can’t fight something you can’t find, he thought. But he also had doubts about his role in the battle to come. Even if I’m doing everything in my power to find another way... can someone change the role they’re destined by fate to play? Avoiding destiny is what Dean and Sam had been doing so far. But how much longer can we keep that up? They were flying under the angels’ radar, and for now, that was enough.
It had to be.
A week ago Sam had started tracking the local news from a small town in South Dakota. It had been lighting up with apocalyptic signs like an end-of-the-world Christmas tree.
Maybe we’re finally getting a freakin’ break, Dean thought hopefully.
Their first stop was a kids’ day camp. A gas station attendant a couple of towns over had told them about it. The scruffy dude had said he didn’t rightly know what had happened, but his cousin’s girlfriend’s mom had told him that it was like something out of the Bible and children had been harmed. That alone was enough to warrant a visit.
Dean pushed the accelerator to the Impala’s firewall, his hazel eyes glinting with anger. Every second they were delayed, Lucifer got another step ahead of them.
Sam threw a sideways glance at Dean. Thanks to all the years they had spent on the road, Sam could read his older brother’s mood just by the way he tightened his grip on the steering wheel or blew his breath out through his nose in short staccato bursts.
Dean’s pissed about something again, Sam thought. And probably for no good reason. Sam felt the constant burden of his brother’s anger and expectations. Chief among them was the expectation that they’d do things Dean’s way—or, more accurately, John Winchester’s way. The pressure to fit into their father’s shoes had always been immense—doubly so since his death—and Dean was the poster child for Daddy’s boys. He dressed like John Winchester, drove his car, listened to his music. He even walked like John. Sam, on the other hand, had tried time and time again to get free of his father and everything that he represented. Now, Sam realized that Dean felt like his brother had strayed too far off the path, at times even irretrievably. He had dealt with demons, using the power that their blood gave him... all things that John would never have allowed. Despite all of that, Sam was fine. He knew that, he just wished that Dean would realize it too. For the most part, Dean seemed to trust him, but that didn’t mean they wo
uld always get along.
The final battle is looming, and we’re stuck smack dab in the middle of it. Sam pursed his lips together—he felt like they were coming to the end of something. He just didn’t know what.
Preoccupied, Sam glanced out the passenger window just as the Impala careened by the split log sign for CAMP WITKI NIKI.
“There!” he shouted, a little too loudly, pointing at the sign.
“G-and-an-H crap!” Dean yelled, as he turned the wheel quickly to the left, fishtailing the Impala’s tires, a spray of gravel hitting the trees on both sides of the deeply rutted driveway. “Inside voice, inside voice!” Dean spat. He opened his mouth to say more, then clearly decided to drop it.
The Impala bumped its way over the gravel.
“Okay,” Dean said. “So what are we walking into?”
Relieved his brother’s outburst was over, Sam grabbed his laptop.
“From what I can find, a bunch of creeped out parents, but no dead kids. Guess our gas station buddy was overstating that part.” Sam pulled up the Grenville, South Dakota Tribune webpage and scanned the article.
“There’s this posting on a comment board written by some totally hysterical mother named Nancy Johnson. Something huge happened yesterday, but she doesn’t say what, just that a strange man walked into the camp. It scared the bejesus out of all the parents, but there’s nothing in the police report, so technically no crime was committed. This woman writes, ‘Considering the highly sensitive nature of the children at Witki Niki, it is of the utmost importance that each child be under an adult’s care at all times.’”
Dean brought the Impala to a stop on a grass field. Pulling on the hand-brake he turned to Sam.
“We’re here because some berserk Betty on a mommy-blog vents that a ‘strange guy’ walked into little Timmy’s day camp? Are you effing kidding me, Sam?” Dean paused for a moment to let his frustration sink in. “What, so if somebody farts in Yankee stadium, we run it down as a demon?”