neotoma

Title: Birds of Passage
Author: neotoma
Artist:cashay
Genre/Pairing: (slash & drama), Sam/Gabriel/Vessel
Rating: NC-17
Word count: ~61,000
Warnings/Spoilers: gore/animal sacrifice, gore, implied past abuse, gore/torture, homophobia/transphobia, set post-S5 SPN/ S1 Jericho

Summary: Lucifer is back in his Cage, but one averted Apocalypse doesn't mean much in the face of another, more human one. Sam Winchester, the Archangel Gabriel, and a man millennia out of his own time have wandered into a small Kansas town, where they get to deal with tree thieves, suspicious sheriffs, shady characters, political in-fighting, looming starvation, and the occasional pagan deity passing through. It's just one damn thing on top of another after The End of the World. [Crossover with JERICHO (tv series)]

Part Six: a voice on the wind, and the wages of sin

Hrafn had Fenja and Menja moving cattle from one pasture to another. He whistled the dogs through the gate, then dismounted to close it, admiring again the ingenious twisted wire and posts that made up the fence line. Such an wonderful invention of the later day, and so useful in this land of few trees.

Fífilla snorted, and stamped her hoof suddenly, pricking up her ears and raising her tail in alarm. Hrafn looked off in the direction the mare was snorting at. There was nothing visible in the wide open pasture, but he felt the strangeness in the air.

'Asvald, do you feel that? What lurks there, in the north?' he asked his angel.

He felt his angel shift in his chest, like a bear disturbed in its long winter's sleep.

'Dunno. Feels like... happiness.'

'Happiness?'

'Happiness. Warmth. Fuzzy. I like it.'

Hrafn rolled his eyes. The angel would be no help, obviously, so he led Fífilla out through the dirt road between the pastures. He did not mount, as he had no block to mount from, and his ribs were still too tender to pull himself into the saddle from the ground with great need. He angled the mare to follow the feeling he was getting from the distance. Fenja and Menja would be fine with their herd for a while, and frankly, were happiest when Hrafn let them mother and boss the cows anyway.

He handwalked his mare down to the far end of the property, still feeling that strangeness in north. Fífilla did not like it, snorting every few moments, and shaking her dandelion yellow head.

She snorted at the property-line and refused to budge, so Hrafn ground-tied her and left her there. Anything that could frighten one of his horses was probably dangerous, and had to be investigated, but he wouldn't take an animal that would spook with him.

He stripped her of her saddle, though, and pulled his rifle out of its scabbard. He would have liked to take his bow as well, but the rifle was a better weapon if there were people or monsters to kill. It had better range, hit harder, and could be shot as fast as he could pull the trigger. And he was a decent enough shooter, now, with Sam's training.

He slipped under and through the railed fence and over the property borders. The far side of the fence was rippling winter wheat, brown and sleeping under the scrim of late snow. Hrafn tried not to trample it too badly as he walked towards the strangeness, tired from his work but not willing to ignore the feeling.

As he crested one of the slight hills that rolled over the local area, Hrafn sniffed the air.

'Hey,' his angel drawled, 'that's chocolate!'

'Yes,' Hrafn replied with a smile, 'it is.' He liked chocolate, the drink dark and bitter and sweet all at once, and best with the bite of chilies and salt against its dark sweetness. And of course, his angel was as bad as drunkard when it came to dainties.

He stepped forward.

Smoke, crisp and sharp with scent of burning grass, made Hrafn stiffen, and then hurry his pace, hands tightening on the strap of his rifle.

The sight he confronted in the little hollow of a creek drew him up short.

Men and women, beautiful with toasted skin, dark hair, and friendly, liquid eyes stared up at him from their campfire. There was spitted meat roasting, and a pot smelling of chocolate on the fire.

"Loki!" one of the men cried, and then Hrafn could see the divinity beneath his skin. He wasn't a very great god, with his uncanny nature so close to his skin, but he was obvious when you knew where to look. Not like Vali at all, whose divinity was well hidden and well forgotten.

Hrafn took a breath to respond, but didn't. Instead, Gabriel surged out from under his heart and filled him up, until there was no room for him and he folded up inside his own skin. He could see what his angel saw – the button noses, soft fur, and long ears of their hosts, for example – but Hrafn didn't find the expanded perception any real consolation. He had no control; Gabriel had the bit in his teeth, and would run wild until he fell over again. Blast it...

"Tepoztecatl," Gabriel said with Hrafn's voice, and smiled with Hrafn's mouth, twisting his face into a happy grin.

"Ha!" the god said, "You old menace! Are you here to feast with us? Have some pulque. Quick, bring pulque for our old friend Loki Laufeyarson!"

Hrafn rustled under his own skin, disgruntled with his angel's quick acceptance of the offered drink. Gabriel downed the cup of milky liquor with an unbecoming swiftness – it wasn't like Hrafn hadn't been imbibing, but he didn't like the slightly viscous drink, while Gabriel obviously still did.

"What are you doing here, Tepoztecatl?!" Gabriel said. "Kansas is a bit far north for the Four Hundred Rabbits."

Tepoztecatl shrugged his shoulders and said, "It's the place to be, now. Humans are killing themselves, and a clever god can feast here."

Gabriel raised Hrafn's eyebrows and cocked his head. "Eating humans? You're better than that, Tepoztecatl. You're pulque and parties and barbecues out in the desserts."

"It's hard days, old friend. You Tricksters might be all right, but the rest of us are hungry. And the humans are in chaos –"

"It's not the Rabbits' style, though. Barbecue, sure, but eating humans?"

"We've been starving, Loki. Tlaloc has promised–"

"Gator-face?! You're listening to him?!"

"He is our ally."

"He's the reason humans don't believe in you anymore. Him, and Tezcatlipoca, and Xipe Totec, and all those other lunatics. If they'd just lead quiet lives, instead of asking your humans to slaughter everything and everyone who got in the way, they wouldn't have deserted you for the Christian God."

"This is an old argument, Loki."

"Doesn't mean I'm not right!"

Tepoztecatl slumped, and waved a hand in the air. "It doesn't matter. Tlatloc has found a lost child – some abandoned bastard that he will eat and grow strong on. With that death, he says he can found us a new home, a new Teōtīhuacān."

Hrafn felt ice shoot through his body, as Gabriel stiffened.

"No, he fucking can't!"

"Loki?!"

"Tepoztecatl, you tell that goggle-eyed bastard that this is my territory, and the humans here are under my protection. And that 'lost child' is mine."

The pulque god frowned, his face growing hard. "You are an old friend, Loki, but this is our survival–"

"It's Vali, damnit! You aren't going to kill my son!"

That drew Tepoztecatl up short, and his long ears flopped down in distress. "Oh. Your son. I'm sorry, Loki."

"You should b–"

Hrafn rocked as the pulque god punched Gabriel – his body! – in the throat. He fell, and was barely able to stare up at Tepoztecatl in confusion.

"I'm sorry, Loki," the divine rabbit said. "But it's our survival. If only you hadn't come."

And then he kicked Gabriel in the face, and Hrafn went away with the blow.

Bill didn't like that they couldn't find Hrafn Friththjófsson, even though his horse was found on the Richmond farm. Scouring the pastures and the fields proved no good, even though the light was still high when the Rangers started looking, and you could see forever across the open farmland, except when the windbreaks of trees screened a field or pasture from the road. But if Friththjófsson had somehow tossed up under the trees or in a creek, well people were searching there, too, so why couldn't they find one lone farmhand who had no habit of running off – though he did have a habit of falling into trouble, taking on tree thieves and tigers and who knows what else.

Maybe he'd stumbled on something that he couldn't win against this time?

Bill dismounted but kept walking Slipper over the fields, peering into the fast fading light. There was just something that niggled at him, that kept him thinking if he went just a little further, he'd find the missing man.

"This is no good, is it, Slipper? There's no way we'll find him tonight?" He patted the horse's neck, and made to turn back before the twilight faded entirely and he broke Slipper's legs by walking the horse through the fields in the dark.

"On that horse, mortal, you should be able to find any road you need. The best of all horses rides anywhere, from the halls of the Aes down to the homes of the fire-giants and the cold realm of Hel herself. How came you by Odin's darling?"

Bill jerked, causing Slipper to shy and sidestep.

There was a man frowning at him – big burly guy, dressed in boots and flannel and a broad floppy hat. Bill glared at him because where had he come from? There was no place for him to have been, the nearest trees were 200 yards away. And his clothes were wrong – too clean, too new.

"He's a lease," Bill said, and patted Slipper's neck. "Mind telling me who you are, sir?"

The man frowned at Bill.

"Call me … Járnskór."

"Ironshoe?" Bill frowned at the man.

"You are educated, for a mortal."

"He is not a mortal at all, Vidar," came a rumbling smoky voice.

Bill turned to stare at a Hispanic man with dark hair and eyes that were strangely bright, even in the fading light.

"Oh no, no, he's not," came a woman's voice from his other side, and Bill spun to look at this new threat.

He knew her. He knew her – she was as beautiful as the sun and the moon, but she wasn't nice. His mother had told him, told him and his brother both (Bill didn't have a brother) never to trust her, never to trust beautiful, cold Freyja, because she was Vanir and hostage and would not keep true.

"Why, Vidar, Tezcatlipoca, it's one of Sigyn's little brats! The one that isn't dead! What are you doing here, boy? Hmm, what was your name... Valtham? Vari? Ah, Vali, that was it..." the woman purred.

"I have to go," Bill murmured, more to himself than to them, with their cool hungry faces, and tried to back away.

"No, no, you must stay. Tlaloc has been looking for you," the dark one said, his voice liquid and as dangerous as a panther.

"No. I'm going." Bill said, and took another step away.

"You are not, Vali. Will you or nill you, you are not leaving," the woman – Freyja! screamed a wiser part of himself – said, and gestured to the men she was with.

All Bill could think was 'not again' as the big guy hit him in the face. He hissed and stumbled and tried to get his gun, but someone ground his hand under their heel, and someone else – different angle, he could tell because the blow came from a different angle – kicked him in the kidneys. After that, it was all a blur of light and shocks, and his horse screaming angrily, until Bill went away into the dark.

"He's no kin of mine," was the first thing Bill heard that made sense. "Do what you want to him."

Bill blinked at that, and coughed, feeling the slicker than normal sensation of a bloody mouth. He shifted, trying to find all the part of himself, and found he couldn't move his arms much – he blinked hard, trying to clear his eyes, and was really unhappy to finally see that he was bound like a rodeo calf, rope in heavy coils from wrist to mid-forearm and staked to the ground.

Knocked out and tied up again, though at least this time he hadn't been stuffed in the trunk of his own patrol car. Instead, it looked like he was in a barn or maybe an old farrowing shed. The structure was poorly lit, and had that musty smell of disuse.

There was the crunch of footsteps, and then a hand gripped his shoulder and rolled Bill onto his back. He managed to yelp, instead of shriek even though it shot pain up into his shoulders, as the sharp fingers turned him over and he looked up into the face of one of his captors.

"What the fuck are you?" Bill gasped.

The thing... it wasn't a person, even though it stood upright on two feet and hands – long, spidery fingers that were tipped with claws – and was kind of person shaped. It smiled with a mouth too full of teeth for a person, crinkled goggle eyes straight off of one of Linh's toy dragons.

"Tlaloc," the thing said, in a voice that gurgled. It stretched out one of its too long fingers, and scraped a claw down Bill's cheek, so sharp and slow that Bill didn't realize it had cut him until he felt the blood trickling down his skin like tears.

It pulled back its hand and licked the blood off its claws with a tongue that was black and doglike. "You are not a parent yet," it said with satisfaction. "Still a child, then."

Bill snarled at the thing. "I've got a family."

"The girl isn't yours. Not your blood. So you are still a child. You are still fit for me."

"Keep your claws to yourself, gator-face," a ragged voice said from behind Bill.

The thing laughed.

Bill turned his head, peering to see the source of the voice.

"Hrafn?!" he asked. The missing farmhand was splayed out along a far wall, his hands cuffed and chained to posts above his head. He looked almost as bad as Bill felt, with blood crusting his braided hair and both his eyes bruised into a raccoon mask.

"No. Hrafn's not here right now, but if you'd like to leave a message, I'm sure he'll get back to you," the man replied, his English entirely without Hrafn's thick and occasionally hilariously incomprehensible accent.

"Loki's little bird mask has flown away and left him," gurgled the monster looming over Bill. "Left him here for us, all bound and helpless..."

"I can still take you, you goggle-eyed abomination," the man who wasn't Hrafn said. "Just as soon as I get free–-"

"You are bound by the guts of one of your sons, Loki. Soon, I will feast, and it will be two sons binding you to your fate."

The man who was not Hrafn – Loki? Seriously? Loki? He was a character from one of Stanley's comic books – snarled.

"Yes," the thing that called itself Tlaloc purred, and turned to look down at Bill with a pleased cat smile. "Soon I will feast. Shall we begin, my dear young thing?" it asked, and ran its finger over Bill's cheek again like a razor.

Bill shivered as he felt blood spill down his chin. It got worse from there. So much worse.

Hrafn shifted in the rafters, listening to the foreign god at its tortures. He cawed faintly, unhappy, and flapped his wings. Separating from his angel and his body had been painful and so hard. He had no strength to fly for help, not yet. Maybe after nightfall he would be able to go, but for now, he hid in the shadows, he waited, and he prayed to Thor and to the Lady of the Last Hope.

There was no one else to ask for help, not with Frey and Freya and White Heimdall down there, torturing his angel (his Asvald) and letting the foreign god-monster torture the boy.

Hrafn tucked himself small, and prayed. Thor, Defender of Mankind, Lady Hel the Gracious Hostess, help me, help them. Please.

Sam knew things had to have gone seriously wrong for Hrafn to be missing – Gabriel was weak as a kitten, but he was slyer than a fox and Sam didn't think he was actually capable of getting lost, not like a human. Calling in the Ranger patrol to look for Hrafn hadn't been Sam's idea – Mimi had decided he was panicking and not thinking – well, she'd actually called Sam 'hysterical' – and overruled him.

Now, the deputy Bill Koehler was missing, and Sam had a horrible sinking feeling. Gabriel and Hrafn disappearing was unlikely enough. Gabriel and Hrafn and then Bill (who was probably better concealed than Gabriel had ever been, given how protective Gabriel was of the man who was what was left of his son) was so unlikely that Sam could only assume that something a lot nastier than a road gang had taken them all.

So he loaded himself for bear – metaphorical bear, anyway – by taking the Colt and strapping it on. He'd be ready against anything other than the Devil himself (and four other unnamed things – of course Lucifer hadn't elaborated, and getting a straight answer out of Gabriel required more leverage than Sam had ever had).

Unfortunately, Jake and Jimmy followed him out into the fading light, and Sam couldn't manage to detach them. They wouldn't be shaken, they wouldn't be diverted, and they were just slowing him down, because he had figured out how to open himself to the hidden, supernatural aspects that Gabriel had shown him that one night. Admittedly, it had been through trial, error, and Hrafn hissing at him that he was being an idiot, but he'd figured out how to open a mental peephole.

When Sam opened himself now, the entire countryside was bright with life and sensation.

Sam mostly ignored Jimmy and Jake, who were dense and brightly contained inside their bodies, and searched for Gabriel, who was huge and diffuse, like a cloud of power. He should be centered on Hrafn, so if Sam could just find the immensity of Gabriel, he should be able to find Hrafn.

"This is the stupidest thing we could possible do," Jake said, but he has a lantern in his hand.

Jimmy just looked at Jake reproachfully and said, "Bill's missing."

Sam just peered out into the evening and wished he could ditch them to move faster. He was feeling something off to the north, near where the farm ended, where Hrafn's yellow horse Fífilla had been found. There was something there.

"Jake! Sam!" Jimmy yelled, off to Sam's left, near a clump of brush along a fence line. Sam followed the shouting.

Jimmy was crouched over a figure of the ground, and Jake was trying to calm a panicking horse. A slate gray horse, on the small side – Slipper!

"Shit," Sam snapped. "It's Deputy Koehler?"

Jake frowned, but nodded. "You've got the EMT training, Sam."

Sam nodded, and crouched next to Jimmy, who was trying to rouse Bill where he was curled on the ground. He looked like he'd tangled with something big. Sam hoped it wasn't another tiger. Or another troll.

"He's breathing, but not waking up," Jimmy said worriedly.

"That's something," Sam said. "Here, hold the light while I take a look –"

Sam gasped when he touched Bill – but not Bill, not Bill at all.

'Not Baby! Mama! Mama help!' he heard Slipper – Slipper, who was screaming to anyone who had ears to hear and dancing on his eight legs – which meant he was Sleipnir, and wasn't Sam a fool for not noticing that when the gray horse just showed up one day when he and Hrafn had been on the road all those months ago – even as he recoiled. Whatever he'd laid hands on looked like Bill Koehler – but Bill was tight and bitter and defensive, and this thing was effervescent and bloody, like vampire soda.

"Shit!" was all Sam had time to say before the thing that was pretending to be Bill Koehler snapped its eyes open and rolled to its feet, quick and catlike.

"Bill?" Jimmy asked in confusion just before the thing backhanded him to the ground and he was out.

"Bill!" Jake yelled. "What the– ?"

"It's not him!" Sam yelled, even as the thing lunged forward and caught his arm, fouling his draw of the Colt.

"You're clever," the thing rumbled. "Too clever. Who gave you such eyes to see? I'll have to pluck them out."

"What the hell, Sam?" Jake yelled again.

Sam tried to punch out with his other hand, but the monster caught him there too, and then Sam was flying, tossed into Jake by something that was strong enough to send them both flying.

"Fuck!" Sam bellowed as he tried to untangle himself. He'd lost the Colt. And somehow he'd landed under Jake as they rolled. Jake tried to climb off him, but they were tangled up and fouling each other as they tried to get to their feet.

"Shit!" Jake said after he managed to scramble off Sam.

The thing had a club raised over Jimmy's slumped body. The length of it shimmered slightly in the fading light, as it had obsidian chips embedded all down it – a maquahuitl, an Aztec sword.

"Huehuecoyotl?" Sam asked, guessing that it might be a Trickster come calling. Copying Bill Koehler's shape was a good trick to get the Jerichoans close, after all.

"Do I look that old coyote?" the thing said.

Sam peered at him, focusing tight the way Gabriel had opened in him. He could smell chocolate and baked earth, blood and burnt copal, and had an impression of tawny eyes and black rosettes and a deep, devouring hunger.

"Tezcatlipoca..." Sam snarled.

"Sam, what the hell– ?" Jake began.

"Would you shut up?!" the god snapped at Jake. "Your ignorance is annoying, and you're making me wonder if you're worth the effort." Then it looked at Sam and smiled, "But you... you are. Well read, aware, valiant. Yes, you are very worth the effort...hunter."

"This was a trap. This was a trick." Sam cursed himself for walking right into it too. Frantic with worry over Hrafn and Gabriel, and Bill Koehler, unpleasant shit though he could be, Sam Winchester had walked right into a trap set by a pagan god. He hadn't even managed to draw the Colt effectively before losing it. Damnit.

"Your friend Loki isn't the only Trickster in the world. And he's certainly not the one who deserves a feast. He's been getting more belief than most of us – scraps from the damned comic, tellings of old tales. He even has worshipers now – Loki, who never had a public cult, has worshipers! While I, the patron of my people, have nothing!"

"What do you want with us?" Jake said.

Sam rolled his eyes. Civilians! "It wants to eat us, Jake. That's what pagan gods do. Eat people and act like assholes."

Tezcatlipoca snarled, and blurred out of Bill Koehler's shape to something a bit taller, darker, with raven black hair and a sculpted bony face that would have looked at home anywhere south of the border. "Oh, my friends and I have much bigger plans that that."

And then he stepped forward, and Sam only dimly registered the punch before he fell, down and out and into unconsciousness.

Bill groaned when Jimmy and Jake and Sam Winchester were dragged into the barn. He had been hoping for rescue, but the three most likely to provide it – Jimmy wouldn’t have given up on him, Jake had turned out to be a good leader under the ne’er-do-well of memory, and Winchester was probably one of the best hunters and trackers Bill had ever met, besides Hrafn Friththjófsson – whom Bill was quite sure wasn’t human anymore.

"Something bothering you, little one?" Tlaloc purred as he walked around examining Bill’s friends, like a man checking his purchases at the feed store.

Bill didn't responded, just watched the Aztec god. He knew – remembered! – what Tlaloc was now. Remembered Tlaloc and Tezcatlipoca from journeys across the sea with his father when he was small. He'd never journeyed with his father – Hank Koehler had been a postman his entire life and the closest they had ever gone to the sea were trips to little towns up and down the Mississippi, visiting his mother's relatives.

Bill winced against the dissonance, his memories were all confused, and wished he had a knife, a sharp nail, a goddamned rock to work the ropes tying him up against.

"Tlaloc, I let you have him, but don't make this an ostentation display."

Tlaloc and the man – god—being beside him frowned at the tall pale man who came into the barn.

"Heimdall, just because your people have no sense of proper pageantry…"

Heimdall barked out a laugh. "Torturing for sport is torturing for sport. Don't. Do what you need to get the life out Vali, but only that. Your taste for blood is foul."

"Our taste for blood keeps us alive," the god beside Tlaloc said. Bill shivered at his voice – it was the heat of the sun, and flowers, and rivers of blood down stone steps. He remembered it.

"Your taste for blood makes you little better than mortal monsters, Tezcatlipoca. If you didn't have such a connection to this land, I would make do without you."

Tezcatlipoca snorted. "You have a bare toehold, Aesir, and you know it. The humans in your homeland have all but forgotten you. All they remember is your name, and your horn, and that was a gift, was it not?"

"Aww, is there trouble in paradise?"

Bill lifted his head up just enough to glare at the being chained to posts, dangling beaten from irons. "Shut up," he hissed.

"Yes, Loki, listen to your son. Shut up. No one wants to hear your voice," Heimdall snapped.

"You’re the ones who are willing to kill one of your own for power. Not me, kinslayer."

Heindall whirled to face Loki – Hrafn – whoever he was – in a fury, "You are no kin of mine, Jotun!”

"Heimdall of the Nine Mothers, son of Odin who was my sworn brother, we are kin and past kin and you helped kill my son! Do not do it again!"

Bill shuddered, and tried to curl up against the accusation. He didn't want to remember that. He didn’t want to remember.

"Vali killed his brother, not I," Heimdall said.

"Under a curse that Odin and you Aesir cast on him!"

"We did not kill him! Our hands are clean!"

"Your hands are foul! You set one boy on another, and when it was over, you drove him out mad and foaming! You are all guilty! You are all kinslayers!"

"Stop it! Stop shouting!" Bill yelled, curling up and trying not to remember the taste of blood and raw flesh, and Narfi’s last surprised shriek. "I don’t want to remember!"

There was blessed silence for a moment, and Bill relaxed fractionally.

"Oh, child,” Tlaloc gurgled. "You’re awake. We can start again…"

Bill stared up as the goggle-eyed god approached, frozen as the deity's clawed hands spread wide.

Upon waking up, Jake threw up. It wasn't dignified at all, and he suffered through it even as someone held him by the back of his shirt and kept him from choking in his own vomit. He was flopped back against a wooden beam, and after several long moments, figured out that he was in an abandoned barn, he was tied up, and so were Jimmy and Sam on either side of him.

After a few more moments, it registered that there was quite a commotion going on across the width of the barn, and when he stared that way it took more time for Jake to resolve the scene in front of him – the trough, the man, the heap – into something other than one of their captors scrubbing laundry. He knew that wasn't it, because the water was glowing and thrashing...

As if the man was holding someone's head under the water. Rags resolved into a shirt tattered into ruin, and the man's hand wasn't tangled in cloth, it was tangled in wet hair.

"Shit," Jake hissed.

Sam was just staring at the man, his whole face fierce and disapproving, like a statue of a wrathful Zeus.

"Shit," Jake repeated, and then yelled at the man, "Stop that, you asshole!"

The man turned to look over his shoulder at Jake.

Jake yelped, and flinched away from the goggle-eyed face with its wide leering mouth and flickering tongue. The man... creature... thing, released its grip and the person it was torturing bucked out of the water with a desperate gasp and flopped into a wet ball.

"...Bill?" Jimmy said, in a small voice.

Jake stopped staring at the monster – monster! – and looked at the person hacking and coughing at its feet. Hair soaked to darkness, face wet and mouth open in pain, the deputy was curled up in the puddled water.

"I was just driving the humanity out of him," the monster gurgled, its impossible lizard-y face quirking up in a smile.

That didn't make any... "What?" Jake said.

"By killing him a little bit, time and again. It's delicious," the monster went on.

"You're feeding off him," Sam snapped.

"I've been hungry for so very long," the thing said, and crouched down. It brushed the back of its hand over Bill's head, which made the deputy flinch and curl up even tighter.

"Wh-what are you?" Jimmy asked from his place further away.

"I am Tlaloc, the Giver."

"Gator-face is a fertility god. Rain and harvests," came a ragged voice from beyond the dim interior lights.

"Hrafn?" Sam asked, hope in his voice.

"Sorry, Sam. It's just me."

The monster tilted his head and looked at Sam in fascination. "You know Loki? How do you know Loki, little mortal?"

Sam pressed his lips together and just glared at the thing.

"Oh, you know how it is. You meet a cute mortal when you're giving some assholes their just deserts, one thing leads to another, and you wind up riding out the End of the World at his place," the ragged voice said. It sounded like Hrafn to Jake, but without his thick accent; instead, the speaker sounded American, plain and simple and unremarkable, except that Jake knew that voice and knew it should be yowling vowels and mangling consonants and generally sounding distinctly if unplaceably foreign.

"Is that how it happened, mortal? Did the Lie-smith seduce you?" The creature grinned, its goggle eyes bright and mirthful. "Did he turn into a woman for you? I would not blame you, for falling to the temptations of a shapeshifter."

Sam's frown deepened, and he said, "You're a feeding off of Bill, but not us yet. Why? We not good enough for you?"

The monster responded by smacking Sam in the face with its clawed hand.

"... bastard," groaned a weak voice from behind the monster. "You don't... don't get to hurt... anyone... else."

The monster grinned, and turned back to loom over Bill. "Hello, child," it crooned, and reached down to stroke Bill's hair again. "You're doing well."

"...le' my friends go..."

"But they've just arrived. They must stay for chocolate."

"I am so going to kill you," the ragged voice that wasn't Hrafn stated. "Stab you, right in the face."

"You are not a god-slayer, Loki. You always left that to others, like the coward you are."

"In the face. With mistletoe."

The monster snorted, and patted Bill's shoulder. "Chocolate, soon, I promise. A treat for you and all your friends." It stood, and walked away into the depths of the barn.

Jake watched it go, and when it was gone, he scrambled forward, trying to get to the trough. But the rope tying him to the wall didn't reach, and Sam scrambled past him by virtue of longer limbs and pulled Bill away. They crawled on their hands and knees, awkwardly hobbled, dragging the deputy with them, until they were back at the wall, far from the trough and its horrors.

Sam had shoved Bill at Jimmy, and then started what looked like a rough medical check. Rough, but more thorough than anything Jake could have managed. Sam's mysterious past must have had some well-grounded EMT training, the way he was questioning Bill softly, checking for orientation and damage from the water torture.

"What the FUCK was that?" Jake said.

"Tlaloc, like he said."

"What was it..?" Jimmy asked, even as he patted Bill reassuringly and made clucking noise.

"Itza god," Bill slurred. His eyes were all strange, almost black in the dim light. Jake thought he might have blood under the surface of them, hematomas like Jake had seen after wrecks and firefights in Iraq.

"It is not a god," Jake hissed.

"Iz too."

"Aztec, right?" Sam asked, nodding at Bill.

"It's not a god! That's like saying Hrafn really has an angel!"

"I'm shocked and hurt you don't believe in me, Jake," the ragged voice called out from the far shadows.

Sam glared and snapped. "Stop helping! You're not helping! That's the opposite of helping!"

"Sorry, Sam. He's just too tempting. Skeptics and unbelievers, they're so much fun to mess with."

"I bet. Figure a way to get us out of here first; then you can mess with Jake."

"I would if I could."

"Still too weak?"

"He'z boun'," Bill mumbled.

"Bound? What could bind him?" Sam asked.

Bill shuddered at that and turtled up into a ball. He moaned out a word.

"Narvy?" Jimmy asked. "What's a 'narvy'?"

"...brother," Bill replied

"Narfi..." Sam murmured. "Narfi is the other son."

"What?" Jake shook Sam's shoulder. "What other son? Whose other son?"

"Narfi is the other son of Loki..."

"Bingo, Sammy."

"You're bound by Narfi..." Sam stared into the shadows. "We're not just dealing with Tlaloc and his minions –"

"The Innumerable Rabbits aren't his minions. Not exactly–"

"We're dealing with Norse gods?!"

"Sorry, kiddo."'

"Fuck my life."

Hrafn going missing – worrying, but not actually weird.

Bill Koehler going missing on the search for Hrafn – more worrying, especially since he was a local and knew the land better than anyone. At least, Mimi hoped he knew the roads and farms better than most people – it had to be part of the job of a sheriff's deputy, didn't it?

Jimmy and Jake and Sam going missing – frankly terrifying – Mimi had the sinking thought of a road crew, or maybe New Bern finally letting their desperation overtake them enough to start attacking people. Stanley had certainly frowned at the idea, but hadn't denied the possibility, and he'd been in New Bern for months.

Meeting the big, burly guy with the goat-drawn cart on the road – just plain weird. Especially when he'd jovially said, "Call me Thor!" and volunteered to help them look. Goat-cart, Thor. Kansas was full of crazy people – even Stanley had shrugged his shoulders and accepted the man's help, because... well, frankly, Mimi didn't know why. She knew they should have been suspicious of Mr. Big-Burly-and-Bushy-haired, but he just exuded trustworthiness, along with his boisterousness and overwhelming masculinity.

Hrafn flew, through the worlds bound by the Great Ash Tree. His eagle-chieftain, his Asvald, who gave him strength, lay bound and tormented under the hands of foreign gods, and Hrafn had no one left to pray to.

Except She-Of-the-Thankless-Tasks.

So he spread his wings – arms, wings, they were all the same now– and flew through the boughs of the Great Ash, until he comes to the branches rimed with frost.

He breathed deep, air whistling through the nares of his beak. He clacked his tongue and caws, scattering crows and scavenger birds as he descended toward the Ever-Snowy Hall, and the cold throne the Lady sat on.

He passed the sooty-red cockerel, and the great devouring hound, before he landed, his talons transforming into feet and boots as he dipped into a bow for the Lady.

"Great Lady," he said, breathing heavily in cold, "I, Hrafn Friththofson, bring news."

The lady looked at him, beautiful but cold on her throne, and said, "I know you, little raven. You were a man once but no longer. You were a man once but are not dead. You are nothing of mine–"

Hrafn interrupted, which was rude and boorish, but he must tell the lady, "Your father has need of you. Your brother has need of you."

The half-faced goddess looked down at him from her high seat. There was a wolf at her side, its throat torn out and its belly split open, that shifted to its feet and bumped its head under her hands. She petted absently and responds to Hrafn with measured words: "My father can handle his own affairs. Jormungand and Fenrir likewise."

"It is not your brother the Serpent, nor your brother the Wolf I speak of. It is Vali Sigynsson, and a foreign god has him and will torture him and drown him as a sacrifice to itself, great lady."

The lady stared at him, with such intensity that Hrafn's arms melted back into wings, and he tried to hide himself under their mantled span.

"Which god? What is its name and people?"

Hrafn knew that, blessed luck, he knew the answer. "Tlaloc of the Waters. Tlaloc of the Azteca."

The lady bolted upright on her throne. "He has no right. My brother is not a child, and not a mortal."

Hrafn shrugged, feathers rustling. "Your brother has no child of his body, and he does not know he is not mortal. He is meat for whatever god can claim him, unless he can stand on his own, or is protected by one who can."

"My father–"

"–Is bound in chains made of your brother's guts."

The wolf at the lady's side whined, past its throat bloody and torn out.

"Vali is under my hand, and my father's. Is this Tlaloc a fool, to challenge me? I am Inglorious Death. And my father is Loki the Liesmith, who is Asvald, the Godly Might of YHVH . We defend what is ours."

"Sister..." hissed the wolf at her side. Blood gurgled pasts its lips, and it spoke in a soft, boyish voice. "They want to kill Vali. They want to kill my brother..."

"Hush, little brother," the goddess said, and petted the mutilated wolf's muzzle. "They will not hurt Vali. I will not let them."

"Lady," Hrafn said, "time is passing, in Midgard. Vali may not have much left, nor your father..."

"Time is mine to control," the goddess of the Dead snarled, "I will not have some barbarian who couldn't figure out cartwheels eat one of my family."

Hrafn dipped his head, "As you say, Great Lady. I must go. The eagle-chieftain is in dire straits, and he is mine to shelter."

The lady frowned at him, and peered at him, looking through the layers of his being to what he was at his core. "You would protect an archangel, and I think you could do it. What are you, Hrafn Friththofson? What have you become, after so many years in my father's burning presence?"

"Refined, lady," Hrafn said. "Burned pure and separate, and all my shadows have fallen away to slag and dross, now that I am awake again."

The goddess of Death stretched out her cold hand, and brushed a lock of his hair back. Her fingers caught and tugged his scalp, and when she drew away, there was a feather of gleaming brass in them. It glowed, softly, with an ever-burning light.

"I think you are something new, something wondrous and strange, Hrafn Friththofson. You may yet change worlds, new old thing that you are."

Hrafn bowed, because there was nothing else to say, and threw himself up into the air, and beat dark glossy wings, leaving the Goddess of Death and her dead and worried brother.

Hrafn wondered if he did any good, carrying trouble to the lady Hel, who never did him harm. But she was a child of Loki, of his Asvald, and she had a right to know that her wandering father was in trouble, that her lost, maddened brother was in danger.

Perhaps she would help, perhaps she could help. Hrafn had to try, for his eagle-chieftain, for Vali-who-was-Bill, for Sam whom he now loved, and for the town he called home. He had to.

Sam looked in bogglement when the barn door swung open and a huge red-headed bruiser waltzed in, trailing Mimi and Stanley, who both looked shell-shocked. He had a wood-splitting maul propped on his shoulder, like he was going to start cutting timber any second – like he should be trailing a blue ox and maybe a logging crew.

"Ho ho ho!" the man boomed, like a demented, steroidal Santa.

"Oh, great," Gabriel said where he was chained, "Just what we need... Thor."

Sam stared at Gabriel, and then at Super-Santa in his lumberjack flannels.

"Thor?" Sam whimpered, and then rolled his eyes at Jake's disbelieving look

"Heimdall, brother, what are you doing in this drafty old barn!"

"Thor. I don't have time–"

"Of course, you do, Heimdall. Who doesn't have time for kin?"

"Thor, I'm working here."

"Yes, yes, but on what? What could you possibly be doing with Tlaloc and Tezcatlipoca of the Azteca?"

Tezcatlipoca looked up from where he'd been watching the other god's entrance with the lazy fascination of a cat. "Heimdall of the Nine Mothers has a plan for us to share the humans in these cold days..."

"Share the humans?! I didn't know that there weren't enough to go around!"

"Red Thor, you, like I, can feed on mortal death by fire. You, like I, had a wonderful feast. But much of your kin, like mine, could not eat such death..."

"No, but I have a solution to that!"

"You do?" Tezcatlipoca looked interested.

"The mortals, well, the White Christ isn't answering their prayers, is he? I've been able to scoop up any number of the sad little things," Thor said, his face turning melodramatically sad and pitying, "with just the simplest of gifts and blessings! All you have to do is feed the little things, and you can milk them for all the worship you'd like. Poor things are starved for attention–-"

"My kind are not a dairying people–" Tezcatlipoca began.

"Sucks to be you," Gabriel interrupted, which made Sam wince. "Thor's a good husbandman; he'll actually take care of his people. You Azteca though, you're just Lovecraftian horrors, ain't ya? No one is going to be stupid enough to take up worshiping you agai–"

Crack went Gabriel's jaw as Tlaloc leaned over and slapped him hard. Sam wondered why the god didn't break his hand, but maybe a god was strong enough to smack an angel – or maybe those horrible chains that were actually keeping Gabriel confined made him vulnerable too. Or maybe the archangel was just playing possum.

"Loki!" Thor exclaimed, and bounced on his feet. "You have Loki here!"

"Yes, Thor. We have Loki, chained again," Heimdall said in the tone of one who was used to having to explain things, patiently and repeatedly. Seeing as how Thor seemed to be as distractible as a dog in a park full of squirrels, Sam suspected that was a normal state for Heimdall.

"You, Uncle, have seen better days," the red-headed bruiser chuckled.

"I love you too, Thor," Gabriel said dryly.

Sam just wished he could make himself smaller. Even with all attention riveted to the enormous god in the center of the room, Sam felt too conspicuous. Especially with Stanley and Mimi trying to sneak around behind Thor and get over to where Sam and the others lay.

Mimi, blessedly resourceful, had a pocket-knife. One of Hrafn's, by the look of it, shiny and red with its Victornix cross all spiffed up. She opened it awkwardly and began sawing incompetently at the ropes. Sam hissed and wished he could take it away from her, but she'd gone to Jake first.

"Mimi, the knife," Sam said as urgently and as softly as he could.

"In a minute, Sam."

"My knife," Sam said, and nodded his head at it. The gods were continuing their argument – Thor seemed to think killing humans that were trussed up was unsporting or ungodly or something. If they just continued to jabber, and Sam got his demon-killing knife...

Mimi froze for a moment, her eyes sliding sideways. Stanley was looming behind Thor, fidgeting and being conspicuous. Which was fine as far as Sam was concerned. No one had paid attention to Mimi – maybe the gods weren't used to human women as threats? It seemed unlikely, given that Freya seemed to be a termagant, but what the hell.

"Thank you," Sam murmured as Mimi snatched the knife while the gods weren't look. Well, when the enemy gods weren't looking. Gabriel bobbed his head, as if he was listening to whatever the Aesir and the Azteca were blabbing about with all care, and Bill twisted to look over his shoulder, eyes sullen red in his splattered face.

The knife was sharp, and Sam only needed Mimi to put it in his hand. He knew more than any of them how to get out of bonds – slice here, slice there, wriggle slowly so as not to attract to much attention.

"Get out of here..." Sam said as he crawled over to cut Jimmy free.

"Bill too," the big deputy said.

Sam grimaced, but nodded. Bill was leaking power, enough to make Sam's teeth vibrate, and if he tried to use it...

Bill looked up at Sam, and Sam bit back a hiss. Bruised and cut up though he was, Bill's jaw was set mulishly, and the sullen eyes were glowing, like banked embers.

"Don't do anything stupid," Sam murmured. The rope split easily, unable to stand up to the unearthly power of the knife, and the deputy squirmed up into a crouch. Sam started to check him over, hoping that he wasn't too hurt to make a run for it.

But instead, the man made a low growling sound, and lunged forward, scrambling on hands and knees, sparking red all around him in a cloud.

"Jesus fuck!" Stanley yelped, as Bill Koehler went from tattered human to blood-encrusted wolf.

Went from human to wolf and straight for Tlaloc's back, leaping on the Aztec god with jaws snapping around his neck in fury.

It would have worked too, if Tlaloc had been anything like a human. Instead, he just threw Bill off, knocking him off to skid in a sad heap where Gabriel was still chained.

"You foul little brat–!" Tlaloc gurgled.

"Good going, kiddo," Gabriel said, putting his hand on Bill's furry head. Sam might have found it touching, but he was mostly just furious at Bill. What part of 'don't do anything stupid' was THAT?!

The wolf pulled its teeth back as the gods turned to glare. Even Thor looked annoyed that his argument with his fellow Norse gods had been interrupted.

"Give up. You have no move left to make, Vali," Freya said, in her beautiful cool voice. "This round of Hnefatafl is ours."

The wolf's ears flickered, back and forth, and a look that was almost sly came over him. Cocking his head, he looked up at Gabriel, who still had his fingers buried in his ruff, and then snapped his jaws out sideways.

"Mother of god..." Sam heard Jake yelp, as he watched what happened.

Bill as a wolf snapped out, his jaws clamping around Gabriel's wrist, and he pulled down, like he was going to yank Gabriel's arm out of its socket. But it wasn't Gabriel's arm that came off, but the chain, rolling up like a sausage casing and sloughing off over Gabriel's hand.

Just like a sausage casing, Sam realized, seeing the chain turn from dark and ominous metal to flesh as it fell. Not just flesh – intestines.

"The bowels of Narfi," Sam said, and made a face.

The wolf snapped its jaws again, and suddenly Gabriel was standing in a pile of intestines, the most grim look on his face.

"You," he said, directing his words to the Aesir and the Azteca, "are in for a worlds of hurt."

"No, Loki," Heimdall said, and pulled the Colt from his belt. "We are not."

Sam didn't even have time to cry out before Heimdall shot Gabriel in the head. Bill howled in wordless fear, and ducked sideway, bolting back in wolf shape to Jimmy's side.

"What is this?" Thor bellowed, and grabbed Heimdall's gun hand, forcing him to drop the Colt. "That was dishonorable, Heimdall."

"That was sensible!" the other god snarled. "Ragnarok is broken now, with Loki dead. There will be no steersman for Nalfgar, no boat of the dead to swarm us on the last battlefield."

"Ragnarok was broken before, with Odin dead," came a calm, liquid voice.

Sam stared at the man in the barn door – he must have followed Thor and Mimi and Stanley in, but why in the world was Yuri Koltsemirov here? What the hell was a drug-smuggler doing at a gathering of pagan gods?

Thor inhaled, his face drained of color, and he spat, "Jormungand..."

Yuri – no, Jóri, Sam realized, holy hell, the World Serpent! – smiled with his sharp, white teeth and purred, "Hello, Thor."

Mimi didn't know who the skinny black man was, but his appearance had all of the violent lunatics flinching.

And the dog... wolf... thing that had been Bill Koehler not three minutes ago pricking up its – his – ears and wagging his tail, so she was going to provisionally classify him as 'on our side'.

But this was really getting crazy– crazier, and she tugged on Stanley's arm. "We need to go. Now."

Stanley glanced at her sideways, and nodded. He looked at Jake, and motioned with his head towards the door.

Jake frowned and bite his lip, staring at the thing that had been Bill Koehler, that was still fetched up by Jimmy's side, and said softly, "We can't get out the door – too many of them are in the way. Loosen a board and go out through the walls?"

"Do it quietly," Sam murmured, from where he was watching the stand-off with rapt attention, his eyes flickering over the.... things, and back to where Hrafn – or whoever he'd been in the end – lay dead.

"You're far from your ocean, serpent," Freya said, drawing Sam's attention back to the gods and away from the human plan to get out before everything went even deeper into the shit, "You have no power here, so far from the water."

Jormungand tilted his head at her, in a manner that was so like Castiel Sam was almost breathless with shock, and then smiled. "There were oceans here, long ago, and the bones of those that swam in them still rest under the earth. I can call them up, if you like."

Jake shot a look at Sam where they crouched out of the way of the arguing gods. Stanley leaned forward and hissed, "Did he just threaten her with zombie mosasaurs?"

Sam considered the World Serpent's threat. They were in Kansas, there were fossils of all sorts of oceanic critters under the earth, and his sister was the Norse God of the Dead. So the odds were that he could sic million-year dead sea monsters on whoever he liked. "Yeah, pretty much."

Jake blanched. "He can't do that."

"He's a chaos god, Jake – I'm pretty sure he can do what he says, if he tries. His father trapped me in a Groundhog Day loop for over three months once."

Jake blinked, and turned to look where Gabriel lay crumpled. He turned back, with an unhappy frown. "I thought you were friends with Loki– Hrafn – him."

"It's complicated," Sam said. "And he and Hrafn aren't the same person. They just share the same body– it's really complicated."

There was a crackling from the back of the barn, that made Jake jump.

"Where you planning on heading out the back door, Tlaloc?" Yuri Koltsemirov – Jormungand – whatever his name was, asked mocking.

"What have you done, Jotun?" the goggle-eyed monstrosity snarled.

"Nothing. Not a thing," Yuri said, making an exaggeratedly innocent face. "Except send my brother to go around back and stop anyone running away that way."

"You sent the horse?!"

"I am not Sleipnir," said a voice, deep and froggy as the bottom of a well, and something flew out of the shadows at the back of the barn.

Two rabbit carcasses hit the mouldy straw at Tlaloc's monstrous feet.

"You need better servants, Tlaloc of the waters," a man said as he stepped into the light.

"FENRIR!" the woman Freyja shrieked.

Sam choked and strangled out, "Oh, my god, that's Ralph!" before breaking down in shocky laughter.

Jake didn't want to believe that the man who stepped into the light, with his warm brown skin and his shaggy, red-brown hair could be Yuri Kolsemirov's dog Ralph, but Jake had just seen Bill turn into a wolf. And the man did have Ralph's golden dog-collar around his neck like a chain. It wasn't exactly out of place with the leather vest and tight jeans – he looked like he should be trolling the gay clubs in San Diego in that outfit, spanking sailors on shore leave.

"Yuri, and Ralph," Sam said between his hysterical giggles.

Jake shot him a glare.

"Not, you know, Jori and Hrólf," Sam continued.

"What are you laughing about human?" Heimdall snapped, suddenly focusing on Sam and his giggles – probably to keep from panicking at the two god-slaying giants he was bottled up between. Especially with Gabriel lying apparently dead at his feet.

"Just names. Yuri and Ralph, huh. Had me fooled. I knew about him," Sam waved at Gabriel, "but I had no idea about those two."

"Did you know about Vali, too?" one of the Aesir – Sam though his name was Vidar, maybe – sneered.

"Pretty early, yeah. It was kind of obvious, since I knew his father..."

Bill made an inquisitive whine at that, his ears pricking, and he crept forward out of Jimmy's shadow.

"How did that work?" Thor interjected. "I felt you, and an actually seidwoman, beseeching me at Thorrablot."

Sam stared at the big god, and then blushed a little. "Uhm, that was Hrafn, I think."

"Who?" Thor asked.

"The ixiptla, the god-avatar. Your Loki was wearing a human as a mask to hide behind. Very clever," Tezcatlipoca said, "but completely perverse."

"Well, that's Loki for you," Thor said philosophically. "'Hrafn'? A male seidworker? And not just one of those children trying to reconstruct our ways, but one who actually knew what he was doing?" He turned to Heimdall and frowned, "You shot a priest, Heimdall! We're going to need priests! That was wasteful!"

"He was out of the body anyway," Tlaloc grumbled.

"Oh, so you didn't kill him."

The gods got into another ridiculous squabble about Hrafn's presumed spirit walk, and who he could have been running to for aid, considering all the Norse gods of note were in the barn. Sam was beginning to understand why Lucifer had despised the pagans as 'petty' so very much. Even Jormungand and Fenrir seemed to content to ignore the humans as long as they didn't make too much noise in favor of watching the gods have a spat.

But at least that argument kept them from noticing Mimi and Stanley trying to quietly pry off a wall board. Or noticing Bill creeping closer and closer to the Colt on the floor.

Until Vidar looked down and stomped his foot on down on the Colt just as Bill sidled with reach of it.

"Ha! Thought you'd get a weapon, did yoEAGGGH!"

Bill's teeth sunk into Vidar's calf over and over, until the big god reeled away, and Bill skittered sideways – with the Colt in his mouth. He was trapped on the opposite side of the barn from Jimmy and the rest of his friends as the Aesir and Azteca turned to glare at him.

"You don't even have hands to shoot–" Freyja began.

Bill shifted up into his own shape – a battered human in tattered clothes. The deputy's mouth was bloody where he'd bitten Vidar, but he had the Colt in his hands, grip proper and eyes grim as he pointed it at the gods.

"Vali," Heimdall said soothingly, "We are all Aes here, all your kin."

"You made me kill my brother," Bill said, and Sam winced at the grief and hatred shaking the deputy's voice. What wards Gabriel and Hrafn had put on his memories, they were all shattered now. What the hell was he remembering?

"Vali..." Freyja said.

"You made me kill my brother! I hate all you Aes! I am no kin of yours! I am Jotun!" Bill howled.

"You will not kill me, Vali." Heimdall said in soothing tones, "It was your father who was destined to kill me, not you."

"I will if I have to," Bill said, and Sam winced. Bill was leaving the Aes openings, places where they could try to talk him into submission. He should have just shot the monsters.

"Ragnarok is broken and I will not be killed by you, Vali Lokasson. It was your father's destiny, not yours–"

Heimdall cut off, gurgling – gurgling from the shining silver blade poking through his chest.

"It's still my destiny, Heimdall," Gabriel said from behind the Aesir. "But you – you were never going to be able to kill me, because I was only ever a Jotun by adoption, like I was an Aes."

Heimdall fell to the floor, blood welling up from his mouth and nose and the hole though his back and chest.

Sam felt himself unwind, just a little, at Gabriel, glowering in the middle of the barn with his bloody angel sword in hand. Until Gabriel knelt and pulled the horn off Heimdall's belt.

"What are you doing?" Sam yelped.

"Reclaiming what's mine," Gabriel said, "I gave Gjallahorn to Heimdall a long time ago. Better he should have it than me. He could only start Ragnarok by blowing it."

Sam looked at the instrument, which was melting from ram's horn into something longer, thinner, metallic. Son of a bitch! That thing was the Trump of Doom, the Horn of Truth – and Gabriel had stashed it with the Norse gods so he couldn't be forced to us it...

"Thor, take the humans and leave," Gabriel said, looking up and catching the eyes of the burly red-headed god.

"Loki—"

"Take the humans and leave. You weren't trying to eat them, you've been getting worshipers the old fashioned way, by actually doing things for them. I have no quarrel with you, my friend."

Thor frowned, but moved to shepherd Jake and the others out.

"Thor!" Vidar snapped.

The big god turned to look at the other gods. "You chose a dishonorable path, brother. I will not go down into Niflheim with you," he said, and left.

"What are you?" Freyja wailed as Sam hustled out of the barn, last human out.

"Wrath," Gabriel snarled, and the barn doors banged shut of their own accord.

"Holy shit," Stanley gasped right as Jake bumped into him. There were people all around – people who were sick looking, or blue and bloated, or sloughing skin – Jake had the sudden creeping suspicion that he'd stumbled into a zombie movie.

"Draugr," Thor – or whatever his name was – muttered in disgust. "We are surrounded by dead men."

"Are we going to have to fight our way out?" Sam asked from the rear.

"No, you are not, Sam Winchester," said a woman a on – Jake supposed it might be a horse, a rotting, hideous, three-legged horse, "My people are here to help."

"Ah... thank you? Uhm... Lady Hel?" Sam said. "How did you know to be here?"

The woman smiled, or at least she seemed to, it was hard to tell with her wrapped in that huge cloak. "Your beloved was most persuasive," she said, and brought her other arm up. There was a bird perched on it, like a falcon on a falconer's glove. Except it that heavy, straight beak never graced a bird of prey. The huge raven spread its wings and flew to Sam, landing on his shoulder.

"Saaaaam," it croaked.

"Hrafn?! You're all right!" Sam exclaimed, and reached up to muss the bird's feathers.

Jake was not willing to accept that the bird was Hrafn Friththjófsson. Not even after seeing Bill turn into a wolf and back – speaking of that, he turned to look at the barn.

It was shaking, and glowing, like fireworks were going off inside, but Jake couldn't hear anything.

"Oh, crap," he murmured.

"We need to leave," Sam said.

"I have horses for you," the woman said, and snapped her fingers. Some of the... people … brought up horses for them.

"This horse looks dead," Mimi wailed.

Jake looked at the horse he'd been offered. The lightning-bolt blaze was familiar. He swallowed convulsively.

"Get on it anyway!" Sam barked, and pulled himself up on a horse that was visibly missing chunks over its ribs. "We're out of here!

Jake mounted, and turned his horse towards home, urging it into a canter, desperate to get away from the barn and the fearsome things inside it.

They were over a rise and well on their way back, when the sky lit up behind them, and they all pulled up to look.

What must have been the barn was exploding, light that flashed brighter than day, leaving afterimages on his eyes like the beating of mighty wings.

"We're out of here," Sam repeated, and Jake was all too glad to follow him home.

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