38. The Scribe of God

Sam finally falls asleep, but his tossing makes me nervous. All I can do is sit and watch him like the stalker I have to be. With Sam's stubborn spirit, I can't leave him alone for even a minute. I rap my hands on my thigh. I look to the open bathroom, then down at Sam. I'll be quick.

Without disturbing the sleeping body, I creep into the bathroom and shut the door. I splash water onto my face to liven myself up some. If Metatron isn't here, we've wasted gas and our time. Sam shouldn't even be out here, he should be on house arrest in the bunker. Dean and I should be the ones out here in Colorado. Even if Sam is responsible for the hunch that led us here, he's not in peak condition.

The water cools my face, and I feel slightly better. I rub my cheeks, but when I look into the mirror above the skin, I stumble back into the wall. My eyes are wide in terror as I see it, my reflection. I don't want to get closer, the image will only look worse.

I swallow, taking in the reflection's features. Her hair looks intact, but that's about it. Her clothes are torn, shredded, and bloody. Blood coats her exposed skin, giving it a reddish tint. Deep gashes tear into the skin of her neck. But the worst thing is her eyes: eyes that were once blue and now milky, corpse-like.

It takes all the restraint I have to not scream and disturb Sam. My eyes fall down to my body, not the reflection. I'm not covered in blood, or gashes. Pretty sure my eyes aren't dead inside either. When I look back into the mirror, I see my clean, lively self.

Get it together, Max. You still have time. You still have time to change this. All you have to do is kill the King of Hell. That sounds like a feat, an almost impossible feat. But it can be done. It's just a long shot.

Mortified, I decide to get out of the bathroom. The first thing I notice is that Sam isn't in bed. I begin to think he's run off since the door is wide open, but then I hear it.

"Sam?" It's Dean's voice, but he's not present in the room.

"Sam!" I panic as I see him passed out on the floor. I grab his phone quickly.

"Max?"

"Dean?! Sam's passed out!"

"Okay, okay, calm down."

I feel Sam's forehead. "Shit, he's Hell temperature."

"Okay, okay. Max, you need to listen to me, okay?"

I nod though Dean can't see it.

"I need you to start getting Sam towards the bathtub, fill it up with ice-cold water. I'll grab as much ice as I can."

"But, Dean—"

"Look, I'll help you when I get there. Just do what I tell you to, alright?"

"Okay. Hurry." I end the call and rush to the bathroom first and set the water to the coldest setting. I swallow as I try to figure out how to approach getting Sam into the tub. At this point, nobody's gonna want to strip him naked. If this breaks the heat sweat, I don't think Sam will care about being clothed in the tub anyway.

I try to grab him by his upper half, but since he's fully passed out, I don't have the help that I desperately want. Unfortunately, I've got half of his body weight against me, and the other half is dragging across the floor as I lead him towards the bathroom. Damn it, Dean. Hurry your ass up!

Just as I get Sam into the threshold of the bathroom (after much pulling and straining on my part), Dean comes bursting in. He squeezes past me first to dump all the ice he's brought into the tub.

"Did you check his temperature?"

"With what?!"

"Chill out, Max." Dean pulls out the thermometer and sticks under Sam's tongue.

"Now isn't the time for it, Dean! He could be dying!"

Dean yanks the thermometer out. "Shit. Come on, come on," he grunts as he helps me carry Sam.

"How bad is it?"

"One-oh-seven."

That's practically a death sentence fever. We get Sam's body into the tub, and Dean sends him completely under. "This is the only way it's gonna help him, Max." He holds me back, and I'm holding my breath.

There's a chance that Sam can die right here and now. Our shot of closing Hell's gates could be terminated. Then I'll have to worry about Dean starting the trials over again.

"I-I'm sorry," I panic. "I stepped in here for a minute, and he—he must've tried to run off. Or he did and came back fast. I don't know."

"It's okay, Max." He's holding me at his side as we painfully watch Sam submerged in ice water. "You did what you were supposed to."

I bite my lip, loathing myself for stepping into this damn bathroom in the first place. I could have prevented this, maybe. Or maybe I wouldn't have. Maybe Sam would have ended up in here anyway.

I yelp as Sam suddenly emerges from the water, splashing the floor and Dean and myself a little bit. I'm the first to try and help him.

"Get off!" he says. I don't take it too personally. Dean holds me away from his little brother so we can give him some space. Sam desperately tries to get out of the tub.

"Take it easy, Sam," I say soothingly.

"Hey, whoa, whoa, whoa, take it easy, take it..." says Dean. He grabs a towel and puts it around Sam's shoulders as he puts more water on the floor by stepping out. "Max found you on the floor, passed out. Your temp was one-oh-seven. We had to force it down or you were toast."

"He's here, you guys," Sam sputters. "Metatron is here, I know it, I can hear him."

"What're you talking about?"

"All I know is that I'm connected to it somehow."

"What, like you got a link to him, like a prophet?"

"I don't know! I just know he's here. Metatron is here."

"Okay, 'here' where?" I ask.

"I can show you. I can show you. The manager. He was delivering books to him."

So Sam did venture out while I had my episode. "Books?"

"Books. Hardcovers, paperbacks, novels—books."

"Stories," Dean utters.

"Show us, Sam," I urge.

With Dean and me flanking him, we all usher out of the room. Sam is using the doorpost as we go.

"We should be taking you to the ER," I say.

"They can't do anything for me. You know, I've been remembering things, little things, so clearly—"

"What, donkey rides?" asks Dean.

"You used to read to me, um, when I was little, I—I mean, really little, from that—from that old, uh...Classics Illustrated comic book. You remember that?"

"No."

"Knights of the Round Table. Had all of King Arthur's knights, and they were all on the quest for the Holy Grail. And I remember looking at this picture of Sir Galahad, and, and, and he was kneeling, and—and light streaming over his face, and—I remember...thinking, uh, I could never go on a quest like that. Because I'm not clean. I mean, I w—I was just a little kid.

"You think...maybe I knew? I mean, deep down, that—I had...demon blood in me, and about the evil of it, and that I'm—wasn't pure?"

"Sam, it's not your fault."

"It doesn't matter anymore. Because these trials...they're purifying me."

We reach the end of the hall. None of us see the stacks of books Sam proclaimed to have seen.

"They were here, the—the—the books, the boxes! They—they're gone."

Dean pushes open the door, and we all file in. Did someone say hoarder? There are books upon books upon books. Boxes, tall piles that don't look like they'll topple over. I wonder if this Metatron is OCD and has them organized. This would definitely be an OCD's worst nightmare. It intimidates me, the intensity.

"Whoa, hey, hey," I say as we come face-to-face with a rifle. Dean tries to move me behind him. Past the rifle, we see the man. But this can't possibly be Metatron, can it? I didn't know what to expect when hearing "Scribe of God."

"Who're you?" the guy asks. His voice isn't what I expect either.

"Metatron?" asks Dean. "This is Metatron?"

"Sit down," comes the voice. We all turn around to see the Scribe of God has reappeared behind us. Son of a bitch, I think. Don't think he's one to piss off.

We all sit. I take nest on the arm of Dean's chair. My eyes flicker to Sam, who's grabbing at his head.

"Who sent you?" Metatron demands of us.

"We came on our own," Sam half-shouts. "We're the Winchesters."

"I'm Dean, this is Sam," says Dean. "And this is Max."

"Not a Winchester," I point out.

"You work for Michael? Or Lucifer?" Metatron still has the rifle on us, very alert.

"What, you really haven't heard of us?" Sam practically shouts. "What kind of angel are you? We're—we're the freaking Winchesters."

It shouldn't surprise me that the Scribe of God is an angel. Nothing should surprise me anymore.

"I'll ask again. Who do you work for, Michael or Lucifer?"

I'm lost in the dark.

"Michael and Lucifer?" Dean asks. "T-those—those dudes are in the deep fryer."

"Yeah," Sam adds. "We put them there ourselves."

"What about Gabriel? And Raphael?" asks Metatron.

"Dead."

"You really don't know this?" Dean questions.

"I've been very careful," the Scribe of God notes.

"Hey, can you—can you turn that down?" asks Sam.

"Turn what dow—oh. You're resonating." He finally lowers the rifle, which eases my stress a little.

"Resonating?" I ask curiously. "What—what do you mean, resonating?"

"You've undertaken the trials. You're trying to pull one of the great levers, aren't you? You're pretty far along, too. You get that far along, you start resonating with the Word. Or with its source on the material plane. With me."

"You said you were being careful." I shift. "Careful how?"

"I'm not one of them. I'm not an archangel. Really more run-of-the-mill. I worked in the secretarial pool before God chose me to take down the Word. Anyway, he...seemed very worried about his work, what would happen to it when he left, so he had me write down instructions. Then, he was gone. After that, the archangels took over." Metatron pulls up a chair and sits. "And they cried, and they wailed. They wanted their father back. I mean, we all did.

"But then...then they started to scheme. The archangels decided if they couldn't have Dad, they'd take over the universe themselves. But they couldn't do anything that big without the Word of God. So I began to realize, maybe they would realize...they needed me."

"So you get a ruffle in your feathers and just decide to disappear?" Dean questions. "Go stick your head in the sand, forever? You have no idea what's been going on out there."

"Nope. That's the whole point."

"So you've been holed up here, or, or, or in a wigwam, or before that in some cave, listening to stories, reading books?"

Metatron grins. "And it was something to watch. What you brought to His Earth, all the mayhem, the murder. Just the raw, wild invention of God's naked apes...it was mind-blowing. But really...really, it was your storytelling. That is the true flower of free will. At least as you've mastered it so far. When you create stories, you become gods, of tiny, intricate dimensions unto themselves. So many worlds! I have read...as much as it's possible for an angel to read, and I haven't caught up."

I look around at the compilation of books. He's had so much time on his hands and he hasn't caught up?

"You know what?" Sam cuts in. "Pull the frigging trigger."

"What?"

"Pull the freaking trigger, you cowardly piece of garbage."

"Sam!" I say as he pulls the end of Metatron's rifle and directs it at himself.

"All the time you've been hiding here, how much suffering have you read over? Humanity's suffering! And how much of it has been at the hands of your kind?!"

"C'mere, hey." Dean pushes Sam back. "You want a story? Try Kevin Tran's story. He was just a kid. He was a good, straight-A kid, and then he got sucked in to all of this—this angel crap. He became a prophet, of the Word of God. Your prophet. Now, you should've been looking out for him, but no! Instead, you're here, holed up, reading books."

"He's dead now," I say coldly, feeling the pieces click in my head. "Because of you."

Metatron says nothing for a long time, and I begin to wonder if the guilt has gotten the better of him. He should feel guilty. Kevin didn't want any of this! He closes his eyes, and I begin to think that maybe he's fighting himself. Maybe fighting back showing us any emotion.

Instead, I'm proven wrong.

Almost as though he's an angel himself, Kevin appears unconscious on the floor.

"Kevin!" I bolt straight to him. I gulp as I see the red fingers along his neck. I put an ear to his chest. He's alive. I almost want to cry in relief. I look up at Metatron, who's looking down on us. "How did...Did you know...?"

"He wouldn't be here if he wasn't alive," says Metatron. "Someone got a hold of him."

"Crowley." I look back at the brothers. "Of course..." But Kevin survived. He survived long enough for the Scribe of God to yank his ass away. But Metatron taking Kevin seemed too easy. Surely Crowley isn't a stupid person; he wouldn't want Kevin to be found. I begin to heave Kevin up. "Someone give me a hand."

Dean helps me get Kevin off the floor and into the nearest chair. I can't take my eyes off the kid as Metatron goes to him. I'm startled as the scribe's hand starts to glow. He places the hand on Kevin's chest, and miraculously the marks on his neck begin to disappear. What it must be like to be an angel. To have that kind of power. It's an ability most would die for, or possibly kill for.

"Is that it?" I ask. "Is he good?"

"Give him a minute." Metatron walks off.

"Stay with Sam and watch the kid," Dean tells me. He kisses my temple before he goes off, probably to talk to Metatron.

"You okay?" I ask Sam, who looks like someone's pinching him or something. He's fidgeting.

"Not really."

"At least you're speaking at a better volume than before." My lips press into a thin line. I try and search for Dean and the Scribe of God, but the forest of books is too massive to really search through.

"Max, look."

I turn my head and see Kevin start to stir.

"Dean!" I call. I give the kid a waning smile once he's got his eyes open wide enough to see his surroundings.

"Kevin?" Dean's at my side now. "Hey. I thought we lost you, kiddo."

"I'm good," Kevin croaks. I blink as he pulls out something vaguely familiar. "Second half of the Demon Tablet. And I got it. Third trial. I didn't tell Crowley."

I can't help but admire this kid right now. He managed to survive Crowley, and he didn't give away the third trial. I could seriously kiss him right now.

"So what is it?" I ask.

"To cure a demon." Metatron is the one to tell us, not Kevin.

"Yeah," says Kevin. He looks in the angel's direction. "Who are you?"

* * *

Cure a demon. What the hell does that even mean? Do we have to kill one? Is that considered "curing" one? I bite down lightly on my tongue as we're in the Impala.

Night has taken over for the time being, and I feel like I need to sleep for a week. I rub my eyes, practically feeling the circles that have been indented into my skin.

"Cure a demon," I find myself saying out loud. "And we have no clue where to start on that."

"Okay," Dean cuts in, "ignoring the fact that none of us have any idea what that actually means, if we—if we do this, you get better, right?" We all know he's talking to Sam, since he's the only one suffering through these trials. "I mean, you stop trying to cough up a lung, and, and, and bumping into furniture?"

"I feel better, yeah, um, just having a direction to move in," says Sam.

"Well, good, cause where we're headed doesn't sound like a picnic."

"But we're heading somewhere," I note. "The end."

The end. My head begins to pound a little bit. My end is coming soon. Not sure when, but soon. Damn Crowley for not fulfilling a dying girl's wish.

Out of nowhere, the Impala's tires squeal, and we're jolted around.

"Dean!" I shout, grabbing onto anything I can in hopes that I don't get jostled around more. I hit the back of my head against the seat once we're at a jarring halt. The Winchesters get out of the vehicle. "Guys?" I quickly unbuckle and stumble getting out.

Oh my God. At least we hadn't seen a ghost. But this was worse than a ghost. What's worse than a ghost?

Try finding your angel ally lying in the middle of the road, looking beat up and bloody.

"Cas?" I squeak.

"A little help, here?" the angel whispers.

**Man, Metatron seemed like a dick even before he started raising Hell.

But on the plus side, Cas is back! We know about the third trial!

But, Max's deal still hangs over her head.**