Crusaders 4/7
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“Joanna Elisabeth,” Ellen snapped before Joanna could say aught.
“Mother,” Joanna huffed.
“No. Hast not my leave to go. Folk would call thee camp-follower, and men might well treat thee as such.”
Joanna rolled her eyes, but Dean shook his head. “Look you, Joanna, your mother has the right of it. We are very like to meet with men much nearer in temper to that wretched FitzUrse than most of the men who sup here. ’Twould be no little feat to keep your person safe, even were we never to separate.” FitzUrse was baron of Bulwick in Northamptonshire and had tried to have his way with Joanna when he passed through Oxenford some years before. Only John and William’s timely return and skill with swords had saved her—and William had lost his life in his daughter’s defense, though it had been John’s misericorde that William chose to end what FitzUrse had begun rather than lingering for days. John had never quite recovered.
Joanna shuddered at the memory. “I had not thought of that. The titled brutes seldom stop here, but there will be many among the crusaders—whited tombs who will not change their ways to honor the cross they bear.” She sighed. “I hate being a woman sometimes.”
“Hey.” Dean took her by the shoulders gently, and she looked up to meet his gaze. “I thank you for wanting to help. Truly. You are a good friend and a stout heart. And on a normal hunt, I would welcome your skill with a crossbow. But this journey is no place for you—there will be too many monstrous men about and not enough mere monsters.” He shook his head with a wry smile. “Devils I fathom. People are mad.”
“I could dress as a nun.”
Samuel snorted and covered it with a cough.
“Still a bad idea,” Dean replied. “One nun with three monks and an outlaw?”
“Sounds like a joke,” said St. Gabriel deadpan.
“I still say no,” Ellen stated, crossing her arms. “For aught we know, those rogues would as lief tumble a nun as any other woman.”
Joanna huffed again. “Mother....”
Dean squeezed Joanna’s shoulders slightly. “Look you. With Father and me being away, some monsters may go unchecked. Your mother has forbidden you to come with us. How then if you stay and hunt in our place?”
Joanna brightened and looked at Ellen.
“’Tis little better,” Ellen said, “but ’twould keep her home.”
“Only the easy ones,” Brother Asce suggested. “The tricky ones I could send on to another hunter.”
Ellen nodded. “Fair enough.”
Joanna raised an eyebrow at Brother Asce, who winked. That made her smile. Dean gave her a friendly kiss on the cheek and let her go.
Robert turned to Cynehunde. “Would you mind the smithy if I go with the lads?”
Cynehunde nodded. “With a good will. I would be glad of one place to work until spring or summer.”
“Very well then. Seamus?”
Father Seamus shrugged. “I imagine I can find cause to go to Rome, if not beyond.”
Dean’s heart eased. Traveling with Samuel was always fun, but it would be good to have the older men there as a buffer between the brothers and the angels. And Father Seamus and Robert were both little less dear to him than was John himself.
Robert smiled. “Rufus?”
Rufus sighed deeply. “I do not deny that I would fain see the Holy Land—‘Next year in Jerusalem’ and all that. But I know not whether, as a Jew and a Moor, I might not attract even more trouble than Joanna. I have trouble enough here in England.”
Dean had some very choice West Saxon words to say to that, and a few more in Gaelic. He apologized to the ladies afterward.
Samuel looked over at Brother Asce. “Rufus can take the hard ones.”
“Aye,” said Brother Asce with a nod.
Samuel then turned to Robert and Father Seamus. “How soon can ye leave?”
Father Seamus frowned as he thought, then shook his head. “Not before the Twelfth Night. But ye need time to gather your own supplies, do ye not?”
Robert nodded. “Let us say, then, that we shall meet again here on the seventh of January and depart at first light on the next day.”
And so it was agreed.
Dean alternated between feeling that the fortnight would never end and fearing that it would not be time enough to prepare. The other hunters dispersed, but Samuel and Dean and the angels remained at the Eagle and Child, where Samuel (writing as “Brother Samuel, a monk of Rievaulx,” which was sure to gain the trust of anyone who did not know his handwriting) and Brother Asce sent letters flying to Winchester and Dover to learn precisely when Azazel’s summons had come and when John had left England. And Dean took the time to raid as many Norman castles as he safely could, taking only coins and foodstuffs. He usually wore black for these tasks and covered the top half of his face and head with a masking cowl, which prompted a very strange reaction from St. Gabriel the first time he donned the mask in the archangel’s presence:
“Please tell me you don’t call yourself Batman.”
Dean blinked. “N-no. An I must perforce give a name, I say Todd.”
St. Gabriel slapped a hand over his eyes and shook his head. “Zorro. Figures. And The Curse of Capistrano hasn’t even been written yet.”
“You’re confusing him, Gabriel,” St. Castiel chided.
By the time Dean had raided enough supplies to both get the small band of travelers well on their way and bolster Ellen’s stores for a time, Samuel and Brother Asce determined that the few crusaders who had answered Azazel’s summons had departed from Dover in mid-September and that if they had caught up to the Provence force on the sea voyage through Sicily and if John had not parted from them to pursue Azazel alone, he would likely have gotten no further than Laodicea. However, if he had chosen to take ship at Ephesus, he might well be in Jerusalem already.
Dean cursed when he heard this thought. “How the devil do we catch up to him now? We have little hope of crossing by land in fewer than four months, and faring by sea would be perilous at this time of year, to say naught of the cost.” They were also likely to need to buy horses on the way unless they wanted to walk the whole distance; Dean’s black mare had been a yearling when John saved her from the aftermath of the fire, and she was far too old now to travel so far.
“Fear not, Deano,” said St. Gabriel with a smirk. “I have a plan.”
Dean was not entirely sure how to take that remark.
Christmastide passed more swiftly than Dean had expected, however, and soon Robert and Father Seamus had returned to the Eagle and Child. They drank a cup of parting with Ellen and Joanna that night, and early the next morning, the travelers took their leave.
Suddenly, for no reason Dean could explain, he was loath to leave Joanna behind, though he knew he must. Perchance he realized that their deep, life-long friendship was unlike his other friendships or that she was unlike the maids with whom he had shared a bed. Whatever the cause, though, he stood a while at the tavern door, simply holding her hands and searching for something to say.
Finally, he said, “Joanna, if... if I should return....”
“Thou shalt,” she answered quietly. “Let us say no more ’til then. Ferþu hæl.”
“Wæsþu hæl,” he returned and kissed her gently before tearing himself away to join the others.
As they left Oxenford, Father Seamus said, “Dean... ’twas I who wedded thy parents. ’Twould be my joy to wed thee to Joanna.”
Dean swallowed hard. “Let us see to the devil first, good Father. We can speak of weddings when we are safe returned.”
Father Seamus nodded, and there the conversation ended.
They had scarce gone a mile out of Oxenford, however, when St. Gabriel snapped his fingers—and the six travelers stood in a completely different place, where the sun was already risen halfway to the noon!
“Gabriel!” Samuel, Dean, and St. Castiel cried together, completely forgetting his title, while Father Seamus and Robert stared about them in wonder.
St. Gabriel rolled his eyes. “Do you want to catch up with your dad or not?”
“How did you...” Robert began.
“Gabriel,” Father Seamus gasped. “I never thought—S-s-saint....” His knees slowly began to buckle—but St. Gabriel snapped his fingers again, and Father Seamus’ fall was stopped by a cushioned settle.
“Stop groveling,” St. Gabriel demanded crossly. “And if you have to call me anything, call me Gabriel, just plain Gabriel. There happen to be two of me at the moment, and if you start praying to ‘Blessed St. Gabriel, Power of God,’ you might summon the wrong one. Same with Castiel—drop the ‘Saint,’ and I don’t think he’d mind if you even shorten his name to Cas.”
Samuel frowned. “How can there be two of you?”
But Dean suddenly understood. “You said ye had seen our offspring as with sight. Ye know them.”
Gabriel turned to Castiel, eyebrows raised. “He’s quick.”
Dean took a step forward. “Have ye truly fared through time to bring us to this pass?”
“We had little choice, Dean,” said Castiel gravely. “Once Azazel contacts Lucifer, his plan will be almost impossible to stop. Your namesakes are good men; they do not deserve the fate that awaits them should we fail.”
Robert frowned. “Fared through time? How can such a thing be?”
“We’re angels,” Gabriel said shortly. “It’s easier than you think.”
Samuel bit his lip. “How do we know that killing Azazel will make the future better? How if this one act changes so much that the men ye know turn evil, or are not born at all?”
“We don’t know. But the odds of that happening are slim. Like I said, if we don’t kill him, Azazel will still be bound in Hell for a very long time. He won’t be affecting lives on Earth, and any souls he might torture or commands he might give could just as easily be handled by another high-level demon such as Abbadon. So the only real changes will be to events that occur... oh, forty years or so before the time we left. It’s not as bad as, say, preventing a ship from sinking.”
Castiel blinked. “Which one?”
“Titanic. And before you ask, that bright idea came from one of your friends who hated the movie, and Atropos had to fight dirty to get you to make him let it sink.”
“Why would I... never mind. I don’t want to know.”
“Trust me. You don’t.”
Dean decided not even to try to make sense of those remarks. Instead, he said simply, “Well, I do thank you for one thing. I find little joy in sailing and am most glad not to have a long sea voyage to get here.” He paused. “Wherever... here is.”
“Damascus,” said Gabriel. “Sam needs a sword, and we should probably pick up a few supplies that aren’t available in England as well.”
“Supplies for what?” Robert frowned.
“Summoning ritual.” A piece of parchment appeared in Gabriel’s hand, and he handed it to Robert. “And it’s not exactly something we can do ourselves, so you guys will have to—for the last time ever, we hope.”
After some quick discussion, the group split up. Father Seamus and Robert went to collect the supplies for the ritual; Dean and Samuel went to buy swords and horses; and the angels went to do... something. Dean was too dazed to make sense of it.
“No joy in sailing?” Samuel asked when they were out of earshot of the others. “Hast never sailed, to my knowledge.”
“’Twas after thou left,” Dean confessed quietly. “Father and I had a hunt in Ireland—druid causing trouble for one of the abbeys. The hunt itself was none too hard, but coming back....” He sighed. “I misliked the weather, but Father did not heed. And we both came nigh to drowning.” Then he huffed. “’Twas one time I was glad thou wert cloistered safe. Even one of thy dreams would not have turned him. Swore ’twas a sign a devil was nigh, and thou hast seen him in those moods.”
Samuel nodded. “Aye. But was it?”
Dean snorted. “Nay. Just a normal winter storm. Father was drunk for a week after.”
“From the wetting or the fact there was no demon to torment?”
Dean’s eyes narrowed. “He said ’twas that he’d liefer die himself than see me drown.”
Samuel shook his head. “Typical. Thou wert ever his favorite.”
“Me?! Nay, Samuel, ’twas the loss of thee drove him nigh to madness. Ever we did what thou wouldst; ever thy need was greater than mine. ‘Do thou look after Sammy,’ that was ever his command. Naught I ever did was good enough. Father Seamus taught us both to read, but thou went on to Latin, and thou wert hailed as the clever one, though I did bind his parchments into a book with room to spare!”
“Oh, aye, ’twas such an honor to be clever when ever and anon ’twas ‘Do thou mark what Dean doth’ and ‘Why art thou not so good a hunter as thy brother?’ Faith, I thought he would as lief have but one son than to be saddled with a scholar!”
“I’sooth? Then why did he say naught of rue to me until his third day drunk? But when thou had gone, ’twas but an hour ’fore, ‘Oh, Dean, why spoke I thus, he is lost to us forever—but nay, seek him not, he will not return now, and all on my head be it...’—and that was ere he sought the uisge beatha!”
Samuel faltered. “Spoke he thus in sooth?”
“Aye. Ten days, that lasted.”
“I thought he blamed me for Mother’s death.”
Dean blinked. “For what cause? Azazel sought to kill us both.”
“We know that now, but Father....”
“Said he aught?”
“Not he.” Samuel looked wretched. “’Twas a demon—Father thought I could not hear. He adjured it to speak, and speak it did... saying Hell had special care for me, that Mother sold me to a demon ere she married Father, and the like. It said Mother should not have died but for me.”
“Devils lie, Sammy.”
He nodded. “Aye, I see that now. Even then I had hoped it was not so, but... if it is our line Azazel seeks to end, then of course he would seek to kill us both.”
Dean nodded in turn. “Aye, and Father swore to me that Azazel said ‘thy sons,’ that ’twas not one alone he sought. Perchance the devil knew thou heard, or perchance it had some cause to seek to drive Father from thee.”
“An Azazel wants us each alone, may be he sought to make me run then, the easier to catch and kill. ’Twould serve his purpose ill for me to seek the Church unless he sought to assail me himself.”
Dean put a hand on his shoulder. “In any case, brother, ’twas not thy fault that Mother died, and whatever ill will still lies ’twixt thee and Father, I am glad of thy company.”
Samuel smiled. “My thanks, Dean.”
“Come. Let us find thee some fine damasked steel, that no one take thee for a wench, Samantha.”
Samuel huffed and rolled his eyes, but his mood lightened, and they took off through the strange sights, smells, and sounds of the Damascus marketplace. And soon they had found a swordsmith and chosen a good sword, and Samuel showed off his Latin while haggling with the smith to get a better price. Then Castiel joined them as they chose two good horses for the journey, and while Castiel and Dean led the horses out of their stalls and met up with Father Seamus and Robert, Samuel went to try to bargain for a third at the same price.
Scarce had he paid the lower price for the two horses that was the merchant’s only other offer, however, than a mob of turbaned men attacked him. Dean, Castiel, and Robert ran to his aid, as did Gabriel as he returned from his own errand, but Samuel had not forgotten all his skill with a sword. Between the five of them, they quickly felled the attackers—mostly Turks, from the look of it. Father Seamus brought the horses over to Castiel, and he and Robert began searching for a cause of the attack.
“Art well, Samuel?” Dean asked.
“Aye,” Samuel nodded, gasping a bit for breath. “Slavers, I deem.”
Dean frowned. “Art a monk. Art yet clad as one, i’faith! Why would they work this deofoldæd on thee?”
“This one lives,” said Father Seamus, kneeling by one with lighter skin than the rest. “An outlaw from Europe, I deem. Mayhap he can tell us aught.”
Robert walked over and shook the outlaw roughly. “Here! Come, wake you!”
The outlaw woke with a groan... and when he saw the men standing over him, he paled and croaked, “’Twarn’t me, masters, ’twarn’t me. Told Achmed ’twould be trouble for to touch a clerk. ’Twas the witch, I swear!”
“What witch?” Dean and Samuel asked at the same time.
“Tamar, Achmed’s lemman—eyes turn red as blood when she’s angry.”
Samuel drew in a sharp breath. “Red eyes. Crossroads demon.”
The outlaw looked doubtful. “Don’t know nothin’ ’bout no crossroads, Father, but Tamar, she did say as she knew someone in Jerusalem as would pay well for thee—for thee special, mind. I told him ’twould be trouble, and didn’t we have enough gold from last year, but Achmed, he said ’twarn’t gold she meant and he’d have thee soon as we could catch thee away from the others. Said as you was big and stupid, ’twouldn’t be no fuss.”
Samuel looked sour.
Dean turned to Gabriel. “What pay would she have meant?”
Gabriel chose his words with care. “I know of a case where a woman who had made a crossroads deal was promised release if she stole a certain relic and gave it to a certain demon. It wasn’t that simple, of course; once she’d handed over the relic, the demon told her to kill the man who’d owned it, which she refused to do. So my guess is that Tamar had some kind of deal with Achmed that was about to come due and saw Brother Samuel here as a low-risk gamble. Achmed succeeds, Azazel gets his hands on Samuel and can renege on Achmed’s release; Achmed fails, Tamar doesn’t have to summon the hellhounds.”
Robert sighed. “May the Almighty deal with him justly. Meanwhile, friends, what shall we do with this piece of filth?”
Father Seamus looked at the outlaw narrowly. “Hold you any more pilgrims in bonds?”
The outlaw shook his head. “Nay, Father, no palmers to my knowledge. Some wenches and a pair o’ Kurdish lads.” Then he leered at Dean. “Would ye care to sample the wares, milord? ’Tis but two streets from here, and there’s one or two o’ them lasses would make quite the sport to tame—”
Dean ran him through before he could say more.
Gabriel nodded to Castiel, who vanished for a brief moment. “They are free,” he reported when he returned.
“Good,” Gabriel sighed. “Everybody got everything?”
“Aye,” Dean replied. “But what—”
Gabriel snapped his fingers twice, and Dean got a brief glimpse of fire consuming the slain slavers’ bodies before the group suddenly shifted to a point on the road that was a good five miles southwest of Damascus.
Robert cursed briefly in Norse, and Samuel cried, “Moneto nos!”
“Do thou speak English, Sammy!” Dean snapped, feeling a headache coming on.
Gabriel only cackled and started walking toward the Holy Land, trusting the others to follow.
Next | Notes
“Joanna Elisabeth,” Ellen snapped before Joanna could say aught.
“Mother,” Joanna huffed.
“No. Hast not my leave to go. Folk would call thee camp-follower, and men might well treat thee as such.”
Joanna rolled her eyes, but Dean shook his head. “Look you, Joanna, your mother has the right of it. We are very like to meet with men much nearer in temper to that wretched FitzUrse than most of the men who sup here. ’Twould be no little feat to keep your person safe, even were we never to separate.” FitzUrse was baron of Bulwick in Northamptonshire and had tried to have his way with Joanna when he passed through Oxenford some years before. Only John and William’s timely return and skill with swords had saved her—and William had lost his life in his daughter’s defense, though it had been John’s misericorde that William chose to end what FitzUrse had begun rather than lingering for days. John had never quite recovered.
Joanna shuddered at the memory. “I had not thought of that. The titled brutes seldom stop here, but there will be many among the crusaders—whited tombs who will not change their ways to honor the cross they bear.” She sighed. “I hate being a woman sometimes.”
“Hey.” Dean took her by the shoulders gently, and she looked up to meet his gaze. “I thank you for wanting to help. Truly. You are a good friend and a stout heart. And on a normal hunt, I would welcome your skill with a crossbow. But this journey is no place for you—there will be too many monstrous men about and not enough mere monsters.” He shook his head with a wry smile. “Devils I fathom. People are mad.”
“I could dress as a nun.”
Samuel snorted and covered it with a cough.
“Still a bad idea,” Dean replied. “One nun with three monks and an outlaw?”
“Sounds like a joke,” said St. Gabriel deadpan.
“I still say no,” Ellen stated, crossing her arms. “For aught we know, those rogues would as lief tumble a nun as any other woman.”
Joanna huffed again. “Mother....”
Dean squeezed Joanna’s shoulders slightly. “Look you. With Father and me being away, some monsters may go unchecked. Your mother has forbidden you to come with us. How then if you stay and hunt in our place?”
Joanna brightened and looked at Ellen.
“’Tis little better,” Ellen said, “but ’twould keep her home.”
“Only the easy ones,” Brother Asce suggested. “The tricky ones I could send on to another hunter.”
Ellen nodded. “Fair enough.”
Joanna raised an eyebrow at Brother Asce, who winked. That made her smile. Dean gave her a friendly kiss on the cheek and let her go.
Robert turned to Cynehunde. “Would you mind the smithy if I go with the lads?”
Cynehunde nodded. “With a good will. I would be glad of one place to work until spring or summer.”
“Very well then. Seamus?”
Father Seamus shrugged. “I imagine I can find cause to go to Rome, if not beyond.”
Dean’s heart eased. Traveling with Samuel was always fun, but it would be good to have the older men there as a buffer between the brothers and the angels. And Father Seamus and Robert were both little less dear to him than was John himself.
Robert smiled. “Rufus?”
Rufus sighed deeply. “I do not deny that I would fain see the Holy Land—‘Next year in Jerusalem’ and all that. But I know not whether, as a Jew and a Moor, I might not attract even more trouble than Joanna. I have trouble enough here in England.”
Dean had some very choice West Saxon words to say to that, and a few more in Gaelic. He apologized to the ladies afterward.
Samuel looked over at Brother Asce. “Rufus can take the hard ones.”
“Aye,” said Brother Asce with a nod.
Samuel then turned to Robert and Father Seamus. “How soon can ye leave?”
Father Seamus frowned as he thought, then shook his head. “Not before the Twelfth Night. But ye need time to gather your own supplies, do ye not?”
Robert nodded. “Let us say, then, that we shall meet again here on the seventh of January and depart at first light on the next day.”
And so it was agreed.
Dean alternated between feeling that the fortnight would never end and fearing that it would not be time enough to prepare. The other hunters dispersed, but Samuel and Dean and the angels remained at the Eagle and Child, where Samuel (writing as “Brother Samuel, a monk of Rievaulx,” which was sure to gain the trust of anyone who did not know his handwriting) and Brother Asce sent letters flying to Winchester and Dover to learn precisely when Azazel’s summons had come and when John had left England. And Dean took the time to raid as many Norman castles as he safely could, taking only coins and foodstuffs. He usually wore black for these tasks and covered the top half of his face and head with a masking cowl, which prompted a very strange reaction from St. Gabriel the first time he donned the mask in the archangel’s presence:
“Please tell me you don’t call yourself Batman.”
Dean blinked. “N-no. An I must perforce give a name, I say Todd.”
St. Gabriel slapped a hand over his eyes and shook his head. “Zorro. Figures. And The Curse of Capistrano hasn’t even been written yet.”
“You’re confusing him, Gabriel,” St. Castiel chided.
By the time Dean had raided enough supplies to both get the small band of travelers well on their way and bolster Ellen’s stores for a time, Samuel and Brother Asce determined that the few crusaders who had answered Azazel’s summons had departed from Dover in mid-September and that if they had caught up to the Provence force on the sea voyage through Sicily and if John had not parted from them to pursue Azazel alone, he would likely have gotten no further than Laodicea. However, if he had chosen to take ship at Ephesus, he might well be in Jerusalem already.
Dean cursed when he heard this thought. “How the devil do we catch up to him now? We have little hope of crossing by land in fewer than four months, and faring by sea would be perilous at this time of year, to say naught of the cost.” They were also likely to need to buy horses on the way unless they wanted to walk the whole distance; Dean’s black mare had been a yearling when John saved her from the aftermath of the fire, and she was far too old now to travel so far.
“Fear not, Deano,” said St. Gabriel with a smirk. “I have a plan.”
Dean was not entirely sure how to take that remark.
Christmastide passed more swiftly than Dean had expected, however, and soon Robert and Father Seamus had returned to the Eagle and Child. They drank a cup of parting with Ellen and Joanna that night, and early the next morning, the travelers took their leave.
Suddenly, for no reason Dean could explain, he was loath to leave Joanna behind, though he knew he must. Perchance he realized that their deep, life-long friendship was unlike his other friendships or that she was unlike the maids with whom he had shared a bed. Whatever the cause, though, he stood a while at the tavern door, simply holding her hands and searching for something to say.
Finally, he said, “Joanna, if... if I should return....”
“Thou shalt,” she answered quietly. “Let us say no more ’til then. Ferþu hæl.”
“Wæsþu hæl,” he returned and kissed her gently before tearing himself away to join the others.
As they left Oxenford, Father Seamus said, “Dean... ’twas I who wedded thy parents. ’Twould be my joy to wed thee to Joanna.”
Dean swallowed hard. “Let us see to the devil first, good Father. We can speak of weddings when we are safe returned.”
Father Seamus nodded, and there the conversation ended.
They had scarce gone a mile out of Oxenford, however, when St. Gabriel snapped his fingers—and the six travelers stood in a completely different place, where the sun was already risen halfway to the noon!
“Gabriel!” Samuel, Dean, and St. Castiel cried together, completely forgetting his title, while Father Seamus and Robert stared about them in wonder.
St. Gabriel rolled his eyes. “Do you want to catch up with your dad or not?”
“How did you...” Robert began.
“Gabriel,” Father Seamus gasped. “I never thought—S-s-saint....” His knees slowly began to buckle—but St. Gabriel snapped his fingers again, and Father Seamus’ fall was stopped by a cushioned settle.
“Stop groveling,” St. Gabriel demanded crossly. “And if you have to call me anything, call me Gabriel, just plain Gabriel. There happen to be two of me at the moment, and if you start praying to ‘Blessed St. Gabriel, Power of God,’ you might summon the wrong one. Same with Castiel—drop the ‘Saint,’ and I don’t think he’d mind if you even shorten his name to Cas.”
Samuel frowned. “How can there be two of you?”
But Dean suddenly understood. “You said ye had seen our offspring as with sight. Ye know them.”
Gabriel turned to Castiel, eyebrows raised. “He’s quick.”
Dean took a step forward. “Have ye truly fared through time to bring us to this pass?”
“We had little choice, Dean,” said Castiel gravely. “Once Azazel contacts Lucifer, his plan will be almost impossible to stop. Your namesakes are good men; they do not deserve the fate that awaits them should we fail.”
Robert frowned. “Fared through time? How can such a thing be?”
“We’re angels,” Gabriel said shortly. “It’s easier than you think.”
Samuel bit his lip. “How do we know that killing Azazel will make the future better? How if this one act changes so much that the men ye know turn evil, or are not born at all?”
“We don’t know. But the odds of that happening are slim. Like I said, if we don’t kill him, Azazel will still be bound in Hell for a very long time. He won’t be affecting lives on Earth, and any souls he might torture or commands he might give could just as easily be handled by another high-level demon such as Abbadon. So the only real changes will be to events that occur... oh, forty years or so before the time we left. It’s not as bad as, say, preventing a ship from sinking.”
Castiel blinked. “Which one?”
“Titanic. And before you ask, that bright idea came from one of your friends who hated the movie, and Atropos had to fight dirty to get you to make him let it sink.”
“Why would I... never mind. I don’t want to know.”
“Trust me. You don’t.”
Dean decided not even to try to make sense of those remarks. Instead, he said simply, “Well, I do thank you for one thing. I find little joy in sailing and am most glad not to have a long sea voyage to get here.” He paused. “Wherever... here is.”
“Damascus,” said Gabriel. “Sam needs a sword, and we should probably pick up a few supplies that aren’t available in England as well.”
“Supplies for what?” Robert frowned.
“Summoning ritual.” A piece of parchment appeared in Gabriel’s hand, and he handed it to Robert. “And it’s not exactly something we can do ourselves, so you guys will have to—for the last time ever, we hope.”
After some quick discussion, the group split up. Father Seamus and Robert went to collect the supplies for the ritual; Dean and Samuel went to buy swords and horses; and the angels went to do... something. Dean was too dazed to make sense of it.
“No joy in sailing?” Samuel asked when they were out of earshot of the others. “Hast never sailed, to my knowledge.”
“’Twas after thou left,” Dean confessed quietly. “Father and I had a hunt in Ireland—druid causing trouble for one of the abbeys. The hunt itself was none too hard, but coming back....” He sighed. “I misliked the weather, but Father did not heed. And we both came nigh to drowning.” Then he huffed. “’Twas one time I was glad thou wert cloistered safe. Even one of thy dreams would not have turned him. Swore ’twas a sign a devil was nigh, and thou hast seen him in those moods.”
Samuel nodded. “Aye. But was it?”
Dean snorted. “Nay. Just a normal winter storm. Father was drunk for a week after.”
“From the wetting or the fact there was no demon to torment?”
Dean’s eyes narrowed. “He said ’twas that he’d liefer die himself than see me drown.”
Samuel shook his head. “Typical. Thou wert ever his favorite.”
“Me?! Nay, Samuel, ’twas the loss of thee drove him nigh to madness. Ever we did what thou wouldst; ever thy need was greater than mine. ‘Do thou look after Sammy,’ that was ever his command. Naught I ever did was good enough. Father Seamus taught us both to read, but thou went on to Latin, and thou wert hailed as the clever one, though I did bind his parchments into a book with room to spare!”
“Oh, aye, ’twas such an honor to be clever when ever and anon ’twas ‘Do thou mark what Dean doth’ and ‘Why art thou not so good a hunter as thy brother?’ Faith, I thought he would as lief have but one son than to be saddled with a scholar!”
“I’sooth? Then why did he say naught of rue to me until his third day drunk? But when thou had gone, ’twas but an hour ’fore, ‘Oh, Dean, why spoke I thus, he is lost to us forever—but nay, seek him not, he will not return now, and all on my head be it...’—and that was ere he sought the uisge beatha!”
Samuel faltered. “Spoke he thus in sooth?”
“Aye. Ten days, that lasted.”
“I thought he blamed me for Mother’s death.”
Dean blinked. “For what cause? Azazel sought to kill us both.”
“We know that now, but Father....”
“Said he aught?”
“Not he.” Samuel looked wretched. “’Twas a demon—Father thought I could not hear. He adjured it to speak, and speak it did... saying Hell had special care for me, that Mother sold me to a demon ere she married Father, and the like. It said Mother should not have died but for me.”
“Devils lie, Sammy.”
He nodded. “Aye, I see that now. Even then I had hoped it was not so, but... if it is our line Azazel seeks to end, then of course he would seek to kill us both.”
Dean nodded in turn. “Aye, and Father swore to me that Azazel said ‘thy sons,’ that ’twas not one alone he sought. Perchance the devil knew thou heard, or perchance it had some cause to seek to drive Father from thee.”
“An Azazel wants us each alone, may be he sought to make me run then, the easier to catch and kill. ’Twould serve his purpose ill for me to seek the Church unless he sought to assail me himself.”
Dean put a hand on his shoulder. “In any case, brother, ’twas not thy fault that Mother died, and whatever ill will still lies ’twixt thee and Father, I am glad of thy company.”
Samuel smiled. “My thanks, Dean.”
“Come. Let us find thee some fine damasked steel, that no one take thee for a wench, Samantha.”
Samuel huffed and rolled his eyes, but his mood lightened, and they took off through the strange sights, smells, and sounds of the Damascus marketplace. And soon they had found a swordsmith and chosen a good sword, and Samuel showed off his Latin while haggling with the smith to get a better price. Then Castiel joined them as they chose two good horses for the journey, and while Castiel and Dean led the horses out of their stalls and met up with Father Seamus and Robert, Samuel went to try to bargain for a third at the same price.
Scarce had he paid the lower price for the two horses that was the merchant’s only other offer, however, than a mob of turbaned men attacked him. Dean, Castiel, and Robert ran to his aid, as did Gabriel as he returned from his own errand, but Samuel had not forgotten all his skill with a sword. Between the five of them, they quickly felled the attackers—mostly Turks, from the look of it. Father Seamus brought the horses over to Castiel, and he and Robert began searching for a cause of the attack.
“Art well, Samuel?” Dean asked.
“Aye,” Samuel nodded, gasping a bit for breath. “Slavers, I deem.”
Dean frowned. “Art a monk. Art yet clad as one, i’faith! Why would they work this deofoldæd on thee?”
“This one lives,” said Father Seamus, kneeling by one with lighter skin than the rest. “An outlaw from Europe, I deem. Mayhap he can tell us aught.”
Robert walked over and shook the outlaw roughly. “Here! Come, wake you!”
The outlaw woke with a groan... and when he saw the men standing over him, he paled and croaked, “’Twarn’t me, masters, ’twarn’t me. Told Achmed ’twould be trouble for to touch a clerk. ’Twas the witch, I swear!”
“What witch?” Dean and Samuel asked at the same time.
“Tamar, Achmed’s lemman—eyes turn red as blood when she’s angry.”
Samuel drew in a sharp breath. “Red eyes. Crossroads demon.”
The outlaw looked doubtful. “Don’t know nothin’ ’bout no crossroads, Father, but Tamar, she did say as she knew someone in Jerusalem as would pay well for thee—for thee special, mind. I told him ’twould be trouble, and didn’t we have enough gold from last year, but Achmed, he said ’twarn’t gold she meant and he’d have thee soon as we could catch thee away from the others. Said as you was big and stupid, ’twouldn’t be no fuss.”
Samuel looked sour.
Dean turned to Gabriel. “What pay would she have meant?”
Gabriel chose his words with care. “I know of a case where a woman who had made a crossroads deal was promised release if she stole a certain relic and gave it to a certain demon. It wasn’t that simple, of course; once she’d handed over the relic, the demon told her to kill the man who’d owned it, which she refused to do. So my guess is that Tamar had some kind of deal with Achmed that was about to come due and saw Brother Samuel here as a low-risk gamble. Achmed succeeds, Azazel gets his hands on Samuel and can renege on Achmed’s release; Achmed fails, Tamar doesn’t have to summon the hellhounds.”
Robert sighed. “May the Almighty deal with him justly. Meanwhile, friends, what shall we do with this piece of filth?”
Father Seamus looked at the outlaw narrowly. “Hold you any more pilgrims in bonds?”
The outlaw shook his head. “Nay, Father, no palmers to my knowledge. Some wenches and a pair o’ Kurdish lads.” Then he leered at Dean. “Would ye care to sample the wares, milord? ’Tis but two streets from here, and there’s one or two o’ them lasses would make quite the sport to tame—”
Dean ran him through before he could say more.
Gabriel nodded to Castiel, who vanished for a brief moment. “They are free,” he reported when he returned.
“Good,” Gabriel sighed. “Everybody got everything?”
“Aye,” Dean replied. “But what—”
Gabriel snapped his fingers twice, and Dean got a brief glimpse of fire consuming the slain slavers’ bodies before the group suddenly shifted to a point on the road that was a good five miles southwest of Damascus.
Robert cursed briefly in Norse, and Samuel cried, “Moneto nos!”
“Do thou speak English, Sammy!” Dean snapped, feeling a headache coming on.
Gabriel only cackled and started walking toward the Holy Land, trusting the others to follow.
