Godhood: for Dummies - Chapter 30

Sorry for the delay, guys. Life decided that all of August was going to be an entire bitch sandwich.

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“What kind of bullshit brought the Winchesters to Georgia today?”

The words left his mouth without his input. They just fumbled out of his voice box like a drunk, tripping over the doorframe of a bar. Pure incredulity, dread, and pretty much every emotion that could be confused with confusion. He could keep none of it from his tone, nor his face.

“Great,” Dean’s eyes narrowed, and his hands tightened on the RPG. “We’re famous even in other universes.”

Yeah, that was the thing, wasn’t it? With all of his magical sights active, it was clear these two weren’t from around here. A long time ago, he had spoken to the Ancient One about dimensional travel, and the foundational issues with moving between universes. If he had to put the difference into words, it was like the color of their cores were a bit different than everything else. No less stable, no less true. Just a slightly darker blue. 

It was as if they were a drop of the wrong shade of paint, plopped in the wrong bucket. He could see the universe trying to assimilate them at the edges. Trying to make sense of them, and bring them into the fold. 

Their edges were fraying, and blending. The longer they spent here, the more they would change. That was obvious, but it wouldn’t be fatal. It wouldn’t necessarily alter their structure. Just the type of foundation. Like a house made of marble, slowly shifting to granite. 

That would still cause a lot of issues, though. If they stayed for too long, some of the powers they relied on would break down. The first being…

A couple words in Arabic, and compression of power in his palm saw to the creation of another ring, which he tossed to Sam.

“You’re going to want to wear that. At least until you get back home,” he said, ignoring how the man stumbled a bit to catch it, not letting the shotgun fall away. 

Sam looked at the ring in his off hand with distrust. “Why?” 

“Drop it, Sammy,” Dean demanded. “Don’t take candy from strangers.” 

Nathan chuckled. “Oh cool it, would you? I’m not going to attack you. If anything, I could probably use your help.”

“What is this?” Sam asked, holding up the ring.

“Temporarily enchanted ring,” Nathan said. “You’re in the wrong universe, so that will lock your signature from being influenced by this one. Also, stop pointing those things at me. They won’t do anything anyway.” 

Neither stopped pointing their weapons at him.

“Why does he get one and not me, then?” Dean asked with narrowed eyes. “You an angel?” 

“Never heard of an angel that goes by Nathan,” Sam added.

“Sam doesn’t have a soul. So if he gets assimilated by this universe, he’ll break down and die. The ring will prevent that for a few weeks. You’ll be fine without it, Dean.”

Dean’s eyes narrowed, obviously not quite believing him. His core tensed with wariness when his brother’s state was mentioned, but he made no outward signs otherwise.

Nathan tilted his head, then continued, “Not an angel, no. Speaking of, don’t you guys have one that follows you around? Castle, or something?” He hadn’t seen much of Supernatural. Just a few episodes here and there. 

“Castiel,” Sam corrected, slipping on the ring.

“Sam,” Dean said warningly, eyeing the ring. Nothing visibly happened when he put it on, but Nathan saw his edges shore up against the assimilation. 

“So,” Nathan said, bringing their eyes back to him, “We’re on a bit of a time crunch, and I might be able to use your expertise here. Quick version, Mephisto is trying to break through and summon himself, my mentor is currently giving a pedicure to the giant foot in the sky, and I’m trying to locate the altar.”

The two brothers spared a glance at said foot, still poking out disgustingly from the whirlpool of clouds. Though now it was covered in golden chains that seemed to lock into and beyond the clouds. He could see the Ancient one floating up there as well, arms spread out with a massive, golden mandala behind her back. 

“You guys have experience with all this, right?” He asked, moving his attention back to the Winchesters. “Or should I just send you back to the evac zone?” He asked, kind of hoping for a bit of help. Even if he didn’t expect them to be able to lift on his level, he knew these two could punch way above their weight class on occasion. 

“We’re fighting off a demon invasion in an alternate universe. You’re either a wizard of some sort, a god, demon, or lying about being an angel. Normal Tuesday for us,” Dean said with a small, disgruntled frown.

“It’s Wednesday,” Sam corrected, finally lowering his gun.  

“Normal Wednesday for us,” his brother shrugged, then glanced at his launcher. “Please be lying. I really want to shoot this thing.”

Nathan laughed. Uneasiness wafted off of Dean’s core like a pie, straight from the oven. He was obviously lying that this was normal - at least the scale of it. 

“Great!” he said with a smile. “Walk and talk? I’m trying to triangulate the altar, and like I said, we’re in a bit of a time crunch.” 

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Despite what Nathan said, they didn’t walk. No, Nathan didn’t have the patience for that. Instead he picked all three of them up with his Celestial energy and floated them around the city as Alice finished mapping the sigils.

The brothers’ initial screaming about it was hilarious, but they quickly got used to it and started taking potshots at roaming demons from their new vantage point. The first shot fired, of course, was from the rocket launcher. Using up its only shot. It slammed into a cluster of imps that were on the roof of a building, about to fly off after them. 

Pure childish joy, and an exuberant, “Fuck yeah!” were all that came from Dean from that. Even though he was getting more and more wildly pissed off at being manhalded through the air. 

Nathan himself was absently throwing around spears of energy at anything demonic as well. Though most of his attention was on helping Alice map the sigils, and talking with the brothers. The first question that was answered was about their ammo.

They were apparently shooting something they called, “Devil Trap bullets.” Simple slugs that had a pentagram carved on the tip, though these ones had apparently been left to soak in holy water. As a sort of experiment that Sam had been toying with. 

Before they lifted off, Dean had slung his launcher over his shoulder and grabbed another shotgun from the trunk of his car. Nathan had been impressed by the brothers’ aim, floating around as they were. He wasn’t particularly used to carrying others with him like this, but they were making the most of it.

They had run out of ammo pretty quickly, though. So he crafted a couple bandoleers for them, and filled them out with a supply of similar ammunition. Though, he didn’t have any holy water, nor the time to soak them in it. So he tried out his divinity, and blessed them directly. Seemed to do the job just fine. Hell, it looked to be a bit stronger than the holy water method if he was honest. 

He might have tried giving them a better, enchanted set, but that would have taken too much time. He would have needed to enchant everything individually as he created it, so he stuck with the quickest option that was still effective. 

Before they left for their home universe, though, he made a note to enchant the shit out of their stuff. If they were effective now, with the bare minimum of resources, imagine what they could do with him as their arms dealer? The thought made him smile a bit, but he didn’t share it with them just yet. He would talk to them about it later on.

At one point, Nathan’s curiosity got the better of him, and asked what was loaded in the rocket launcher. Sure, it was an explosion, but even that shouldn’t have wiped out the group of imps. The brothers, though, had just glanced at each other and shrugged. Neither of them knew where it came from, and were entirely unwilling to ask questions about it. It worked, and that’s all that really mattered to Dean. Sam, soulless as he was, lacked any real impression on it other than mild interest. 

Speaking of, everything that came off of the guy was just… grey. Like he was some sort of robot, filling out the shoes of the person he had been. It was disturbing on a deep level for someone like Nathan. Someone who had a connection to the fabric of reality, where souls waded through the current and shaped the river. Sam barely interacted with it at all. As if he wasn’t affected by it, but could affect it in turn regardless. 

Nathan’s own soul might have been gone with his ascension. But it was less a void, and more a part of the universe around him. Melded with the weave like water soaking through a shirt, where Sam was a needle without a thread attached. Piercing and moving through the threads without care. 

But the brothers didn’t belong here, and so Nathan didn’t take it personally. The wrongness of it. They were a temporary addition, so while the Quill inside of him found the soulless man’s presence uncomfortable, he could deal. 

Nathan might have said that they made a good team, clearing out all of the demons they saw with efficiency. But the fact of the matter was that he could have done it all himself with little difficulty. These were the chaff. They were little more than ants to him, and even the larger ones were more like wasps. Annoying, but causing him little issue beyond that. 

So while he was basically humoring the Winchesters and their help at the moment, he didn’t actually bring them along for the fight.

Alice had been quiet, not showing herself further to the brothers. They had barely gotten a glance at her from when he first landed on that minotaur demon, and she seemed more preoccupied with the task at hand, so he didn’t want to disturb her. Though he glanced down at his bracelet every so often, waiting for input or direction. 

It was in the middle of Nathan asking how the two had even gotten there in the first place, that she finally spoke.

“I’ve got a location. East side of the city in a park near the river. Round building.”

“Oh that’s creepy,” Dean said, looking at Nathan. “You have a little girl hidden under that jacket, or something?” 

Sam just tilted his head. Expression empty, though curious.

Nathan smiled wryly and held up his wrist, where Alice’s little hologram appeared and waved at them. “My daughter, Alice.”

Dean’s brain appeared to shatter. “Nope,” he said simply, and fired off another shot at an approaching imp. 

Nathan laughed. “Time to kick Mephy in the teeth, then. Point me?” he asked.

Alice’s hologram disappeared, and was replaced by a little holographic arrow. And with that, they sped off.

A moment later, the trio hit the ground as gently as he could manage, but the Winchesters still stumbled a bit to regain their balance. Weirdly, this area was entirely devoid of demons. There were no corpses. No blood on the ground, or torn up streets. Very little was on fire. 

The building in front of them was whole, and seemingly untouched by the chaos in the city. 

“I swear to God, if you do that again I’m going to shoot you.” Dean shook out his limbs and rolled his shoulders, planting his feet firmly on the ground. 

Sam did the same, but just appeared to roll with it without comment. 

“You sure this is the place?” Nathan asked, ignoring the brothers. The building in question was round with four, columned entrances, and covered in windows. Through the windows was nothing but darkness - though if that was due to the shadows of the overcast clouds, or something more sinister, Nathan didn’t know. 

His perception couldn’t pierce the building. 

“It’s where the sigils point,” his daughter responded.

He could see the logic in the lack of chaos, now that he thought about it. All resistance would be funneled to the areas that were under obvious attack. All help would go to where the fires burned, and people were dying. Neatly hiding the very center of the problem behind a veil of normalcy. 

Mephistopheles was noted as one of the more cunning bastards out there, wasn’t he? 

Nathan moved toward the closest of the four entrances, and pushed open the door. Sam and Dean right behind him. 

“Well this isn’t ominous at all,” Dean commented, shotgun raised and sweeping the room as they entered.

“Nothing’s glowing. Usually that’s a good sign,” Sam added, blank faced and doing his own sweep.

The room was a big circle - as dictated by the shape of the building, Nathan supposed, but it was just one large room - and had a ring of columns in the center, supporting a raised dome ceiling. The outer ring of the room, outside of the columns, was entirely empty save for a singular dead body. The inner part, though. That’s what caught Nathan’s attention.

“Fuck. Of course it’s here,” he cursed, then turned to a telepathic channel. “Boss lady. I found the thing. Working on it now with some help I found.”

“You found help? And why do you feel terrified?”

“Yeah, I’ll tell you about them later. But I’m just connecting some dots that I should have connected earlier. I’ll handle it.” 

“What’s here?” Dean asked warily. “The book?” 

Nathan nodded, looking at the ritual setup in the center of the room. Thousands of demonic sigils littering the floor, drawn in blood. Candles that burned with red flames, but putting off no excess light. Human skulls, freshly stripped from their bodies and still covered in viscera, placed at uneven intervals around the room.

And the book at the center. Bound in human skin, and propped up on some poor bastard’s ribcage.

“That, my friend,” Nathan began slowly, cautiously, “Is the Darkhold.”