"You're kidding."
"I'm really not."
"You really... killed your first werewolf with a pair of scissors?" Sam asks me in disbelief. I laugh a little.
"Well, I had dropped my gun and... they were just sitting on the table," I say. Sam grins and raises his eyebrows, laughing a little again. "It was pretty crazy."
"Sounds like," Sam says. Talking with him for a few hours has been nice. He didn't judge me when I was telling him hunting stories, he just listened intently. I still haven't told him everything he needs to know, only a chunk of it.
By now, it's already early in the morning. He must have been awake for a while, so I urge him to go back to his room and get some sleep. He hesitated to leave me alone, but finally agrees.
After brushing my teeth and finding a change of clean clothes, I come out of my room and go straight to the war room. Dean is sitting at the table with his laptop in front of him, hopefully looking for leads on Lucifer. From what I heard from Sam, he did get away after I poisoned him a little. Or... what did I even do to him?
•••
"You're colleagues are already inside," the doctor tells us as we flash him our badges. We heard about this guy named Wallace Parker, some big CEO, billionaire, philanthropist, you know. I barely had time to make conversation with Dean at the Bunker after I woke up, we rushed off so fast.
The boys look slightly confused as the doctor walks away. Colleagues?
They both let out little huffs of frustration at seeing Castiel and Crowley inside, standing on the other side of the table with the dead body covered up.
I take a second look at Cas. He's not wearing his trench coat, just the regular suit. I've seen him in it a few times, you know, without the trench coat. It's not a bad look.
"Agents," Crowley acknowledges us. I roll my eyes.
"Okay, this has gotta stop," Dean says. Sam pulls away the sheet, revealing Wallace Parker's burned out eyes.
"Ooh, looks like somebody forgot to put on his sunscreen," Dean says. I nudge him a little and give him a glare. "What?"
"Dude... he's dead," I say. "Show some respect."
"This was Wallace Parker, the very powerful CEO of almost everything," Cas explains.
"And apparently, Lucifer's latest vessel," Sam says. "Wasn't strong enough to hold him." He folds the sheet back over the dead body.
"Lucifer's not content with slutting it from one random vessel to the next," Crowley says. "He's moving on to blue chips. Celebrities, captains of industries. He just got a lot more dangerous."
"I agree with Agent Zappa," Cas says.
"Oh, will you stop?" Dean says, clearly annoyed.
Back at the bunker, I sit across from Sam at the table with my laptop in front of me. He has his out too.
"So, find anything?" Dean comes into the room, sliding a beer to Sam. "Anyone powerful or respectable who suddenly changed or exploded?"
"Well this is pretty interesting," Sam says, turning the laptop to Dean. I, on the other hand, haven't found anything yet. Most of the time I'm good at this researching stuff, I get results, but today I'm just not in the mood. "This is the Archbishop of St. Louis with Wallace Parker."
"So?" Dean says.
"So that was him three days ago," Sam explains, turning the screen back towards himself. "And this—" he clicks a button a few times. "—is him last night."
He turns the screen again and I immediately know the difference. In the first picture, the dude was wearing a big (really noticeable) cross around his neck, and in the picture from last night, he wasn't.
"Notice anything missing?" Sam asks. Dean flicks through the pictures and sees it.
"Yeah, the big mother of a cross around his neck," Dean says.
"Exactly," Sam says. "And this morning, his office cancelled all further public appearances without comment."
"That's not suspicious at all," I say, taking a drink of water from the glass in front of me.
"So you're thinking Lucifer blasted out of Parker and into his buddy, the Archbishop here," Dean concludes.
"Worth a shot," Sam says.
"I'm grabbing my stuff," I huff and press my hands to the table as I get up, taking my water with me.
"Hold on," Dean says. "Bailey, if whatever you did back in LA was supposed to weaken him, how come he's still able to hop vessels?"
I shrug, giving him a look. "You think if I knew that, I'd keep it to myself?" I ask in disbelief.
"I don't know, you're pretty good at keeping things to yourself," Dean argues, giving me a pointed glare. I scoff. He's really not over that?
"What do you want me to say? I did what I could. Obviously what I was doing was hurting him, but he's still strong, he's the freaking devil," I explain.
"Uh-huh," Dean says, probably only half believing what I'm saying, if that. "By the way, what's his beef with you?"
"What?" I furrow my eyebrows.
"It seems like he's always going after you, like it's personal. How come?" Dean asks.
"I don't know, we were working together a while back and then I left. Maybe he's still bitter about that," I say.
"Mm-hmm," Dean says, turning back to his screen. Man, he's starting to piss me off.
"Look, I don't have all the answers, okay?" I say a little angrily before walking away.
By the time the three of us arrive at the Archdiocese of St. Louis, the rain is coming down pretty good. It's dark outside too. The whole trip here I went out of my way to ignore everything Dean has said to me.
"It's awfully quiet," Dean says as we walk through the rain and up towards the building. It is dark and quiet, save for the pitter-patter of the rain hitting the ground.
"Yeah. I put in a dozen calls to the Chief of Staff," Sam says, wiping his suit down. I don't understand why, we are still in the rain and it's just going to get wet again. "No one returned."
I push my own wet hair back away from my face.
"Well, we'll look around," Dean says as Sam rings the buzzer next to the door. "If it is Lucifer, we'll call the rest of the Scooby Gang."
"Hey," Sam says, gesturing to the button which isn't working. "Great." Dean knocks at the door a few times, then tries it. It's locked. Sam retrieved his lock pick and goes to work.
It's dark inside and when we try the lights they don't come on. Sam and Dean pull out their lights. I forgot mine, so I just grab my phone and switch on the flashlight.
The first thing I notice are papers littered across the floor in a mess. There's also a cross with a fake Jesus on it. It was probably in the wall. There is an overturned chair as well. Dean shines his light further into the room and a body comes into view. It's a preacher lying on the ground with a bloody head, and a little bit around his mouth. He has his eyes open a little; he's still alive.
"Father, hey," Dean crouches sown next to the injured man. "What happened?"
"We knew something was wrong," his voice is weak but I can still understand it. "He..." he groans in pain. "He—"
"The archbishop?" Dean asks. The man gives a strained nod in confirmation.
"Staff decided, handle internally and intervene," the preacher tells us. I guess they knew there was something wrong with the Archbishop as he was walking through the place and all of the crosses on the wall were moving upside down.
"And exorcism," Dean says.
Down the hall, we find more bodies, these ones a hundred percent dead. All the crosses down the hall are flipped upside down, just like the preacher said.
Unfortunately, we find the dead body of the Archbishop, his eyes burned out and all.
Lucifer isn't here.
Back at the bunker once again, I take another shower as if that will wash off all the death that I was just around.
Cas stands next to the table where Sam is on his computer. The angel looks at the pictures on the cell phone. I think it's Sam's.
"The level of violence, it's completely unnecessary," Cas says, swiping through the pictures. Sam or Dean must have taken pictures of the dead bodies.
"Lucifer doesn't like being messed with," Sam says. "I guess when the Archbishop's priests figured out he was possessed, they tried to keep it quiet, so an exorcism. I mean, not that it would've worked." Castiel looks at him. "Lucifer blew town, but not before he slaughtered the entire staff." Dean walks in the room. "So we were on the right trail, but where does it go now?"
"Who won the Nobel Peace Prize? Why don't we start there?" Dean suggests sarcastically, setting down a bag on the table. He takes out a few wrapped sandwiches, sliding one over to me. I look at him skeptically before unwrapping the sandwich.
A little later, I'm sitting across from Cas as he looks through newspapers. I'm trying to find stuff on the computer, but I keep getting distracted by advertisements and random links that have nothing to do with Lucifer. Ugh.
"Did the Bunker's warding fail?" Cas says, lowering the paper and furrowing his eyebrows as Dean comes in the room.
"I just powered it down," Dean says. "Crowley called, said he had some big news about Lucifer. Whatever the hell that means."
"Wait, wait, wait. Wait a second. So now, Crowley can just, what, drop in whenever he feels like it?" Sam asks, clearly not happy about it. Dean only shrugs as he takes a seat at the next table. "I'd prefer keeping Crowley at a distance. Long distance."
"Not very charitable, moose," Crowley says, appearing in the bunker, right behind Sam in the corner of the room. "Particularly, since once again I'm saving both your asses." The boys both just roll their eyes. "So, as you know, I'm temporarily persona non grata in my own palace."
"Palace?" Sam and Dean ask simultaneously.
Crowley ignores this. "However, there are those I still control," he says. "Operatives—"
"Crowley, can we just get the damn news without the drama?" Sam asks, irritated.
"Can I get you without the flannel?" Crowley pipes back. "No. Still, I endure." He steps forward and reaches for Sam's laptop. Sam doesn't like this and goes into defense mode.
"What?" He scowls at the king of Hell as he begins typing on Sam's laptop.
"Did a little digging," Crowley says. "Acting on a tip. I think I know the identity of Lucifer's newest vessel."
"Oh, for God's sake," Dean mumbles, getting up.
"A-ha!" He turns the screen so we can all see the picture on it. "I give you one Jefferson Rooney, President of these United States."
•••
"Even if Crowley does bring in Rowena, the problem remains," Cas says as he walks around the tables in the bunker. I wish he'd just sit still. "Lucifer can't be returned to the cage inside his vessel. His essence has to be extracted."
"Yeah, and Lucifer has found the perfect safe house," Sam says, sitting and opening his laptop. "I mean, how do we even start getting close to the president?"
"Well, it helps that he's not in DC," Dean informs. "Rooney's actually on a fund-raising swing through the Midwest."
"Yeah, right now it looks like his whole party, aides, Secret Service, the whole circus is staying at an estate owned by Ron Forester, the hedge fund zillionaire," Sam explains, reading the article on the screen. "It's right outside Indianapolis. But it is completely surrounded by walls, security, Secret Service, military. Plan B?" He turns to Dean.
"He's got a hell of a speaking schedule," Dean says. "He's averaging three events a day. And he's got a gala dinner Friday night."
"Well, at least he'll be outside the mansion," Cas says.
"Yeah, guarded like the Hope Diamond," Sam says. "Plan C?"
About an hour later we are still waiting on Crowley to return with Rowena. Cas disappeared into the other room to get coffee or something, leaving the brothers and I to our research.
My head lifts as I hear something breaking in the other room. All three of us stand up as if on cue and rush into the other room to find the source of the noise. Cas is inside, pressing his fingers to the sides of his head and looking like he's in some pain. There are pieces of broken cups on the ground with coffee around them. Oh.
"Cas, you okay?" Dean asks, going to his friend.
"Something's happened, something's... it's angel radio. There's so many voices," Cas tells us, eyes squeezed shut in pain as he leans against the table.
"What are they saying?" Sam asks. Cas opens his eyes.
"There's been a massive surge in celestial energy," Cas says. He lifts his head. "A Nephilim has come into being."
I raise my eyebrows. "A... Nephilim? Like, half angel, half human?"
"Yes," Cas says.
"And that's big news?" Dean asks, not seeing the big deal.
"Yes," Cas says. "But the power that produced this is immense. It's much, much greater than a typical angel."
"Lucifer," Sam realizes.
"Lucifer?" Dean repeats. "I didn't know he was dating."
***
A/N: yay! A new chapter! It's been a while, so I'm sorry.
Also, it's October yay! What's your favorite kind of candy? Mine are those Life Saver Gummies :)