21. A Hand of God

"Seriously, dude? We've got little money as it is, we can't just do coffee runs every other day!" I exclaim. I was looking forward to a morning cup of coffee in the bunker kitchen, but apparently, Sam beat me to it and downed the rest of the batch.

"Calm down, Jo," says Sam, not looking up from his computer. "It's just coffee."

"It's something that helps me tolerate my two knucklehead brothers." Dean walks into the kitchen. "Don't bother, Dean. We're out."

"There was a half a bag yesterday!" he protests.

"I killed it," Sam speaks up. "Hey, did you know the Nazis had a special branch devoted to archaeology?"

"Little early for Nazi trivia, especially without caffeine."

"Amen," I mutter.

"It's called the 'Ahnenerbe'," our little brother explains, "there were sites all over Germany, and then as the Nazis increased their territory, they started popping in Poland, Finland, uh, North Africa..."

"Yeah, how is this more important than our coffee situation?"

"'Cause I found something. I mean, we need something. Magic. A weapon strong enough to give us a shot against Amara. So, I've been looking outside the lore in history. And I found this, the Vichy Memorandems. They were Nazi communications that puzzle historians to this day. And they speak of a super weapon obtained by the Ahnenerbe, said to be strong enough to win the war."

"Yeah?" I ask curiously. "What was it?" I go to the fridge, shuffling things around.

"Well, these memos refer to it as 'The Hand of God.' I mean, that was sort of a catch-all term for several objects he touched in Earth in Biblical times. But they're believed to contain traces of His power."

"Yeah, well the Nazis believed in a lot of things," says Dean.

"Dean, Lucifer's caged. God's MIA, the only beings strong enough to battle Amara are gone. If we're gonna fight her, what better way to arm up than with an actual dose of His power?"

"Okay, so you said the Nazis got their hand on one of these, uh, hands?"

"Right."

"Well if it was so powerful it could win them the war, why didn't it?" I ask from the fridge. "Guys, this thing reeks. Do either of you throw out anything?"

"Because they lost it," Sam says, completely ignoring my second question. "En route to Berlin, it was stolen. The Nazis searched high and low for the thief, but they never found their prime suspect, uh, here—Delphine Seydoux. French mistress to a high-ranking Nazi. Thought to be a French traitor, 'til she killed her German lover, and made off with the weapon."

"Allied spy?" Dean guesses. "French resistance?"

"That's what the Nazis thought," says Sam. "But their investigation led them to a different conclusion. That she was an 'un femme de lettre'."

"English, Sammy," I say, ducking out of the fridge.

"A Woman of Letters."

"Yeah, you guys go ahead and research, I'll clean this nasty thing out before experiments start to grow and come alive."

It takes me a good half hour of throwing things out and trying not to throw up my guts in the bunker kitchen. I can't bring myself to scrub the thing clean, I run out of the kitchen before the putrid air suffocates me.

I breathe so much easier once in the bunker library. My brothers are scrounging through books and drawers.

"Who knew the Men of Letters had European chapters?" asks Dean.

"Maybe it wasn't an entire chapter, just an asset, you know?" says Sam.

"Yeah, and letting women join way back in the forties? I just never got the impression that they were so big on gender equality, you know, it's right there in the name."

"Well it was World War II," I pipe up. "Kind of an all-hands-on-deck situation, you know?"

"Yeah, Rosie the Riveter. Cool."

"Here we go," says Sam. "This report was written by Clifford Henshaw, a bunker-based Men of Letters back in nineteen forty-three. It's the right era. But it's in French."

"How good is your French?" I ask curiously.

"Not good enough to be considered reliable."

"Well, we can leave the translating to you, then," Dean says. "I need a breather from all this. I'm grabbing a beer. You guys want one?"

"I'll pass," I say.

"Ditto," says Sam.

"You didn't throw the beer out, did you, Jo?" Dean asks me.

I shake my head. "Nope, it's still in there and still good."

"Hey, Jo?" Sam says as Dean disappears into the kitchen.

"Yeah?" I sit at the table.

"You feeling okay?"

"Yeah, why wouldn't I be?"

"It's just, you've looked a little...off lately."

I ruffle my hair. "It's been hectic, Sam. We did Hell Tour Part Two, and we managed to survive an encounter with the Devil. It's...it's way more than I thought it was gonna be. But I guess that's our thing, right? Getting ourselves into deeper trouble than we expect."

"Sounds like us."

"I've just been trying to take it easy. I'm still not fully back yet, you know?" I watch as my little brother runs a translator over the book in front of him.

Dean's short trip to the kitchen is over when he comes back, beer in hand. The smell makes my nose wrinkle. I'm not a big alcohol fan as it is. "Well?" he asks.

"Hey. So it's definitely about Delphine," Sam reports. "Her name's at the top of every page. Check this out. Transcriptions. From transatlantic cables between Clifford and Delphine."

"What'd they say?"

"Give me a second. Web translation's kind of buggy."

I give Dean a questioning look. "Seriously? Dude, it's, like, noon."

"Uh, well Sam drank all the coffee, so what am I supposed to drink, water?"

"Um, yes."

"Look at this," Sam cuts our bickering off. "They were making arrangements to get the artifact out of Europe to keep it safe. Henshaw pulled some strings with a Man of Letters in the OSS to requisition an active US submarine to transport Delphine and the weapon back to the States. Back to here."

"The bunker?" I ask.

"Yeah."

"So it's been here the whole time," says Dean.

"Uh...No. It never arrived. The USS Bluefin came under German attack midway through its trip across the Atlantic, the sub was sunk, the ship and its contents haven't been recovered to this day. Great. It's lost."

"Or is it?"

"Yeah, I'd say so. I mean, tides took the wreckage, submersibles have been trying to locate it for years. I mean if James Cameron and his Avatar billions can't find it..."

"Yeah," I say slowly, "but—we have something James Cameron doesn't have."

"What's that?"

I pull out my phone and dial a number. "An angel."

"Hello Josette," comes Cas's slightly gruff voice.

"I'm surprised you answered."

"Why would you say that?"

"We haven't heard anything from you for a while. You busy right now?"

"What do you need?"

"You." I clear my throat. "We, uh, need you for something."

"Where do you need me?"

"The bunker. We'll catch you up when you get here."

"Is it something serious? What did you and your brothers pull yourselves into this time?"

"It's nothing bad, just something interesting. It could be something to help us fight Amara."