The Wheels On The Bus Chapter 13

XIII.

Jack quickly snaps his fingers, modifying the compulsion to pure unawareness. Shit. Okay. They’d definitely seen the car arrive because Jack hadn’t caught that. He could try to change their memories or something, but he has no idea how to do that. Michael probably could, but he’s not here right now. 

Although it’s probably best to deal with that later. Right now, he wisely steps back before Rowena can even march forward towards them. The air temperature is rapidly dropping, and she’s noticed, speedwalking over to them until she’s crossed the barrier. 

“Jack,” she greets, and then, with a bit more exasperation, “Adam.”

“I am so sorry,” Adam immediately says. “I promise that was not intentional.”

She hums, still slightly irritated, but more amused by how terrified he is at the fact that he just busted a headlight. She glances to the hunters, staring blankly into the distance, and then turns to Jack with a raised eyebrow. “What’s all this?”

“If we say ‘nothing’, will you let it go?” Adam asks.

She smiles thinly.

Jack laughs nervously. 

“Do Sam and Dean know what you’re doing?” she asks.

“No,” Jack says.

She nods. “Then you have ten minutes to explain to me what’s going on.”

Behind her, Jack can see that three spirits have already formed behind the barrier. It’s intact, though. There shouldn’t be any problems. He shares a look with Adam.

If there’s no ruckus and nobody’s screaming murder, neither Sam nor Dean should have any reason to leave their posts, so they tell her.  There’s no bluffing past it, and Rowena would feel it if Jack was trying to compel her, because while he’s powerful, he’s not experienced enough to be stealthy about his abilities. They couldn’t fool her if they tried, and she’d probably be able to help them with all this anyway.

They tell her, between constantly interrupting each other to finish the other’s sentences, about Belphegor’s plan to siphon everything that came out of Hell via Lilith’s Crook, in order to stop the barrage of ghost attacks. They tell her about their plan to break Belphegor and Michael out of the salt barrier, which they just executed, and about how Sam and Dean have no idea what the hell they’re doing and would probably draw and quarter them if they did.

Shit, if Cas knew Jack would be dead. Actually, he’d be grounded for some time, but everyone else would probably be dead. 

Rowena pinches the bridge of her nose when they’re done. The crowd of spirits behind the barrier has returned to how it was before Michael had blasted them back, although these were likely different ghosts. Jack shifts uneasily. They’d tried to explain quickly. It’s been less than ten minutes. 

“Every year, someone tries to compete for the Stupid Olympics,” Rowena says, “And it doesn’t matter which one, it’s always a Winchester in the lead.”

Adam looks offended. “Excuse me?”

“Winchester-adjacent, then. Your little band of would-be heroes, every single time,” she says, actually flicking a finger at his forehead. “Michael and Belphegor are on their way to the cemetery?”

“Yes,” Jack says. 

“There’s not much out there that can stand up to The Archangel himself, aside from maybe your collective brains put together, and he’s on your side, so they should be fine,” she says. “Where are Sam and Dean?” 

“Sam’s up front, I think,” Adam says. “I don’t know where Dean is.”

“Castiel?”

“In the gym,” Jack says. “The civilians are there.”

“Then my first order of business is there,” Rowena says, brushing past them. When she notices they aren’t following, she turns around, looking impatient. “Well?”

Jack blinks. So does Adam.

“Well,” Adam says. “Are you, uh, gonna tell Cas?”

“No,” Rowena says. 

Jack’s shoulders sag in relief. Adam lets out a sigh. 

“You’re going to tell them yourselves.”

“What? No!” Adam says. “He’s going to kill us.”

“You should have thought of that before you launched your stupid plan,” Rowena says, turning on her heel to continue towards the door. “Besides, I don’t think he’d mind much if you actually explained it instead of hid it. It certainly got me here.”

“Michael’s blast range was that wide?” Adam asks. “Holy shit.”

“Indeed, but what you should be concerned about is, if that bomb of grace went off with that large a coverage area,” she says, and motions to the barrier behind them. “Then how is it that so many ghosts can return to the barrier in so little time?”

Jack turns towards the barrier. 

The entire street is covered with ghosts, all pushing and shoving at each other with more force than the earlier crowd did. Jack can see more of them, crawling or flickering over, wide-eyed, and almost-animalistic looks on their faces.

Jack steels his jaw.

“If anything, I think this crook plan of yours is pivotal,” Rowena says, opening the door. “So let’s hope it goes off without a hitch. Now get inside. You have some explaining to do.”

“Um,” Jack says.

Rowena huffs. “What now?”

Jack motions towards the hunters. “I don’t know how to change their memories,” he says. “I kind of rendered them unresponsive to anything the second I noticed you, but they definitely saw your car arrive, and, uh.”

Rowena looks up, like she’s considering praying. “Oh, for goodness’ sake,” she says. “Must I do everything myself?”

-

It’s like Stull all over again.

Michael doesn’t know why he’s thinking that. He’s not headed for certain grief, like he had been when he’d had to face off his own brother, knowing that one of them would have to die - although that had been derailed because of Sam, and perhaps that was for the best. He’s not sitting on some throne either, waiting for the pieces to fall into place while he was directing his generals from on high, until he finally had to descend to the battlefield himself. 

He’s running barefoot down a cold, asphalt street since some ghosts had grabbed his shoes and he’d immediately slipped them off, dragging a Fallen with him, swatting a frying pan at anything Hell’s spat out that has decided to stand in their way.

“Watch it, Michael!”

Belphegor ducks as Michael kicks the frying pan he’s tossed into the air and is just coming down, foot hitting the flat bottom of it and sending it straight over the demon’s head, where it bursts past five ghosts behind him, at the same time coating both hands in a minute amount of grace to spear through the ghosts around him, twisting on his foot that’s still on the ground. As the direct area around them clears, he plants his raised foot on the ground and extends a hand out, telekinetically summoning the frying pan back. The second it hits his palm, he swings it around to smack it into the face of a rather angry spirit, which disperses with a scream.

“Fucking Prince of the Heavenly Hosts,” Belphegor mutters under his breath. 

Michael grins as he pulls the hand holding the pan back, and then throws the pan out. It arcs around them. “Let’s go!”

Thankfully, Belphegor is quick on his feet when he’s terrified, and he immediately sprints after Michael. The frying pan’s already curved around their side and is losing momentum from gravity, so Michael gives it a bit more telekinetic push. It completes its 360 degree trip around them and returns to his outstretched waiting palm. 

Michael doesn’t wait, instead, he throws it straight out, cutting a line through the ghosts in front of them. He twists as he moves forward, hands out, striking as many ghosts as he can. As he turns, he coats his feet in grace, bending downwards and catching himself on his palms, still twisting, kicking out everything in his way before pushing off ground to get to his feet.

He hasn’t fought in so long.

“You look like you’re having fun and I hate it,” Belphegor says. 

Michael laughs. The space ahead of them that the frying pan has cut open is beginning to fill up again due to the ghosts, so he calls it back, watching them dissolve from iron contact, and catches the frying pan, swinging it out as he spins. 

He’s not human, and he’s never been human, so he doesn’t know what it feels like to have blood pumping in his veins in excitement, he doesn’t know the adrenaline rush of battle, and he doesn’t know the thrill of being in a fight or flight situation. 

But he does miss this. It makes him stop for the briefest of seconds to realize that he misses this, because it reaffirms that the only language Michael has ever been fluent in is violence. He was built for it, even, if his father had in fact, planned his and Lucifer’s battle from the start. 

But -

But he hadn’t. Not really. He planned it from the start as a backdrop, an obstacle, a mere checkpoint in the grand story of the Winchester Gospels so he could see what the brothers would do in the face of the apocalypse. 

Michael was created to seek and destroy, because if that was not true, then there wouldn’t have been any need to create an army and have a commander for all of them ready at hand. People could tell him all they wanted that no, war only came to be after Lucifer’s betrayal, but first and foremost, Michael was born to be a soldier. He was born a heavenly weapon, and his ultimate purpose was, with all the knowledge he has now, simply to destroy his brother, just to see if two humans could think their way out of a situation.

There was no crushing grief that he would feel at the death of his brother written into that equation, even if at the time, he would have been able to convince himself that there wouldn’t be any of it. There was never any consideration for what else he was to be outside of this. The end-all and be-all of his existence was to be a prop for the end.

And that’s really just fucking sad.

But he’s not waiting for his cue at the end. Not this time. No, this time, he’s fighting in the middle of the street with a frying pan, a stranglehold of control on his grace, and no shoes on. There’s no script, there’s just him and some stupid ideas and a shitton of ghosts. 

“You are having fun!” Belphegor yells, appalled.

“So what if I am?” he asks, “Step left!”

Belphegor does, and Michael violently throws the pan at Belphegor’s right, where a ghost has attempted to swipe at him but is now nothing more but dissipated particles. The pan hits the ground so hard the asphalt cracks.

“Idiot,” Belphegor says, smart enough to toss him his own frying pan so Michael can turn and smash it into the face of the ghosts behind him. “Your pan’s cracked.”

“I know,” he says, summoning the poor thing from the ground. It’s dented too. “But we’ll make it there, don’t worry.”

“I hate you,” Belphegor says. “I hate you. I will not stop saying this until we’re back at the bunker and I am safe and sound, with my stolen tamagotchis, and my nice, comfortable, non-haunted bedroom. We are surrounded by ghosts, and you are dancing in the street.”

“You haven’t stopped running, though,” Michael says, because they both haven’t. He’s plowing down every single ghost swarming their way, but they’re continuously moving forward because he refuses to stop, and so does Belphegor.

“Yeah, duh,” Belphegor says. “We’ve gotta save the fucking world.”

Michael grins to himself as he kicks a ghost in the face. 

On second thought, this is nothing like Stull.

He’s going to Hell to save the fucking world.

-

Castiel is pissed. 

Adam briefly considers hiding behind Jack, but if Castiel somehow summoned the might to do a smiting, even hiding behind the angel’s son wouldn’t protect him, so he ditches that plan. 

“You let Belphegor go out the school?” Castiel’s voice is strained, like he’s holding himself back from strangling both of them.

“Michael was with him,” Jack says.

Castiel’s frown deepens, but he doesn’t say anything, likely immediately seeing the necessity of the situation. If Belphegor betrays them and takes all the power for himself, for whatever reason, then Michael can stop him. If Belphegor doesn’t and is their only shot at stopping a potential bloodbath, then Michael can assure he’s getting Lilith’s Crook.

He pinches the bridge of his nose instead. 

“Sorry?” Jack offers.

Adam thinks Castiel’s eye actually twitches.

“I’m going to tell Sam and Dean,” he says. “You two stay here. It’s best they hear it from me.”

“Oh, I think Dean will still find a way to let them know he thinks that was a stupid move,” Rowena says, mixing her ingredients on one the cleared-out desk of the commentator’s booth.

“It’s our only move, right now,” Adam says. “There are rifts all over the world, Hell is wide open, and if we do stop anything, they’re just going to keep pouring in from there. There’s a good chunk of human history in Hell.”

“And demons,” Jack says. “Of all ranks. Not just black-eyed ones. Yellow-eyed ones, former angels. White-eyed demons.”

“And whatever other experiments Hell seems to have every century or so that results in like, a special demon taskforce.”

“And that.”

Castiel seems to freeze. 

“What?” Adam asks. “What is it?”

Castiel takes a second too long to answer. Adam feels himself start to sweat. 

“The Shedim,” Castiel says.

Rowena freezes. She continues her mixing as she catches herself, but she looks up. “I beg your pardon?”

“The Shedim,” Castiel says. “The demons that Asmodeus - when Jack was younger…”

“He tried to get me to free them,” Jack says, eyes widening as he catches up. “But if Hell is open now - “

“Then they’re out too,” Castiel says. 

Oh. 

Everyone in the room - at least, everyone who understands, because there’s a group of confused, frightened civilians across from them who are trying to eavesdrop even though they’re talking as quietly as they can without having to whisper.

“Then this appears to be a smarter plan than we’ve accounted for,” Rowena says. 

“I’m going to find Sam and Dean,” Castiel says, although he sounds a little disturbed. “Stay here, stand guard.”

“We plan to,” Adam says.

Castiel nods. He exits the booth quickly, but with markedly more terror on his shoulders. 

Rowena finishes her ingredient mixing and takes a step back, invoking her words of power and watching as the mixture goes up in a puff of blue smoke. Energy pulses out from it and into the room in ripples, seeping out into the rest of the gym.

“Protection spell?” Adam asks.

“An extra measure. The civilians cannot protect themselves, unlike us,” Rowena says. She gathers up her ingredients into her bag and zips it up. “Now, I move onto the barrier.”

“The one around the school or the one around the town?”

“The school first,” Rowena says. “And then I’ll fix the one around town, if it’s the one broken and these aren’t just some stray ghosts who’ve already escaped and decided to converge here.” She winces. “But frankly, I hope your boys’ plan comes through, because I would rather not wade into streets infested with ghosts to fix something that’s just going to come down with enough force anyway.”

-

They reach the town barrier.

Belphegor shudders as a realization comes to mind, and he stumbles over his own feet, landing face-first into the dirt.

“Belphegor, what are you doing?” Michael throws out both pans, clearing the direct area in front of them of ghosts.

The force of their energy is enough to weigh down Belphegor’s feet. Still, he pushes himself up to stand, and he looks up. The space around them is empty, but ahead, not even ten feet away, there are more, and they’re rushing towards them with gleeful looks on their faces. 

Michael’s almost glowing, now, still keeping heavy control on his grace, and still flying around like some dancer, but there’s so many of them. Belphegor has to stay standing. He has to run, so they can both get down to Hell and end this.

But the barrier - 

“The barrier is still intact,” he says.

Michael kicks at the twisted bodies of three people all mangled together, each individual’s bones sticking out of the wrong person, and lands on his hands. He spins, feet sweeping the spirits around him, before he catches both summoned pans between his toes. Quickly, but carefully, he lowers one leg first, snatching a pan with a hand, and then lowers the other as soon as his free foot hits the ground, snatching the other pan before sending them out again. 

In the momentary peace, he turns to Belphegor. “I know.”

The look in his eyes says that he’s come to the same realization Belphegor has.

Belphegor had assumed that the barrier had gone down. It was the only explanation. This many ghosts, headed for the school on purpose, and all at once could only mean that the nearest rift was the source of the attack, and that the barrier would then have, logically, fallen. 

But it’s still standing. 

Which means that the ghosts attacking the school are from outside the barrier. 

“How many are they?” he asks.

“I don’t know,” Michael says. “But we have to get going, Belphegor, that crook is the only chance we have of getting them under control.”

He nods. Right.

There’s a lot of ghosts in here, but Michael’s been plowing through the ones outside and he’ll plow through the ones here. 

Even if there’s already so many of them that they can swarm the whole school, and their rifts would have to be far, far away.