17. Chapter 17

Disclaimer: Supernatural belongs to Erik Kripke, Warner Brothers and quite possibly others who are not mentioned here.

Stargate SG1 is the property of MGM and probably several other people and corporations.

No money will be made from this fan fiction.

Summary: When Dean goes to sell his soul at the crossroads to bring Sam back, someone else steps in to negotiate the deal. Cas did get a sign and it sent him off into the past to change things. AU from The Man Who Would be King and All Hell Breaks Loose.

It's All in the Details

By Colleen

Chapter 17

Normally, Uriel would be the last Angel in Heaven to display nervousness in front of a superior, but being pulled from the siege of Hell by Zachariah personally would disturb almost anyone.

"Ah, Uriel. Good to see you."

Uriel nodded to his superior. "Sir."

"The siege is going well?"

"It progresses. We have been able to break down the outer layer of spells that kept diverting our forces from marching on the Pit. Sadly, we have hit a second layer that is causing a slowdown of movement. We believe once we managed to arrive on the other side of it we can break it, but it may take several years, Hell's time of course, before that happens."

"Well, such setbacks are to be expected." Zachariah looked the other angel over. "Uriel, as you might have guessed, I've called you here for more than just an update."

"Yes sir."

"I'm sure you've heard about what happened with the prophet, and of course, Raphael?"

Anger was a fleeting emotion across the other angel's face as Uriel nodded.

Zachariah smiled. Emotion might be frowned upon, especially for the lower ranks, but a little righteous anger was often seen as a good thing. "As you know, a prophet of the Lord always has an archangel assigned to them. However, Michael is the only one left and while he has taken on that responsibility for the moment, he has other duties. Therefore, we would like to raise you to the rank of archangel of your garrison and assign you to protect the prophet. I realize that after what has happened that it is a dangerous position, but I believe that given your past work, it is one you are capable of filling."

Uriel couldn't quite manage squash all of the pride he felt at that moment. Anyone would have been hard pressed to, angel or not.

"Thank you, sir. I shall take up my new post immediately."

"Before you do. It has come to our attention that after the incident with your previous superior, you collected her grace."

Uriel blinked, surprised. "Yes, I found it in a tree, on Earth. Although I was unable to find her, it seemed best to collect it rather than give her the chance to reclaim it."

"Yes of course, I quite agree. However, we would prefer that you pass it on to us, for safe keeping."

Uriel nodded and pulled out a glowing crystal vial on a chain, passing it to Zachariah.

"Thank you. Now take up your post and do your garrison proud."

Zachariah waited until Uriel left before taking a deeper look at the trapped grace he had been given.

"You may not be the first demon created by Lucifer, but I think once we find the rest of you, a fallen angel will work just as well to hold the final seal." He smiled. "Until it comes time to break it, of course.

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The coroner sighed when Henricksen came in and asked about the autopsy. "I haven't even started the newest one and I just finished explaining the earlier case to one of your men. Can't he pass the information on to you?"

"Other case? "

"Yes, other case. Serial killers tend to create several of them."

Actually, now that he thought of it, Victor had heard about a series of messy murders, taking place across Kansas and Missouri. He hadn't paid them much attention though, busy as he was with having his world view turned upside down and shaken like a piggy bank that refused to give up its last penny. "So, my vic here is one of them?"

"Looks like."

"Okay. Got a problem though. I haven't sent anyone over here today."

The doctor grabbed a sign in log. "SA Willis. Older man, greying at the temples. Had a beard."

"Son of a…"

"Agent Henricksen?"

"Sorry. He's from a different branch, so I'm afraid I'm going to need all the information on the first case, again."

The coroner sighed and slumped slightly. "Fine, right this way."

When the coroner pulled the sheet back from the body, Victor's stomach and expression both soured. True, it wasn't any worse than the kill he'd come in to talk about, but that didn't make it any easier to look at it.

"What did that?"

"Something thin, we suspect that they used a whip with a sharpened metal end. I realize it looks a bit like he went through a meat grinder, but really, what happened is that someone or more likely several someones, inflicted a series of shallow cuts all over his body."

"So he bled to death?"

The coroner shook his head. "No, choked actually." He went over to a refrigerator and pulled out a container and a plastic bag. The container had a red clump of something in it.

"This was in his throat." the coroner said, indicating the container. "We managed to pull loose part of the mass and once we cleaned it up we discovered this." He handed Henricksen the plastic baggy.

Victor grimaced as he realized that it contained a slightly bloody, twenty-dollar bill. 'Scratch that,' he thought as he held it up to the light to get a better look at it. 'Make that a counterfeit twenty-dollar bill.'

"The other agent said the bill was counterfeit."

Henricksen nodded. "He wasn't wrong, damn." He looked the body over again, focusing on one of the cuts, and then he looked at the bill again.

"Don't tell me you're going to suggest death by paper cut."

"Sorry?"

"The other agent, he asked me if the cuts could have been made by a piece of paper."

"Well?"

The coroner sighed. "Okay, technically, it's possible. But to have sustained that many cuts from paper in as short a time as it must have happened over, he'd have had to have been in a tornado with the stuff."

"Yeah, I suppose." Victor mulled it over for a bit and then shook his head. "I'll need a copy of your report."

"I'll get one for you." The doctor slid the body back into its drawer. Henricksen wasn't sorry to see it go. "Will you be checking in with the other agent?"

Damn well better believe he would be. "Yes, but we'll be working this case from different angles, I'll still need my own copy."

The coroner sighed again and went to deal with the paperwork. He hated dealing with government agencies. One hand never knew what the other was doing.

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In Jack's opinion, his new neighbours were the worst example of undercover surveillance he'd ever seen. You would think that if you were going to be fake vacationers at a lake, that you wouldn't constantly wear a suit and trench coat. That, and you'd think if you were at the lake, you would actually use the lake, but noooo. No swimming, no boating and no fishing. The most he'd see them do was sit on the dock.

From the lack of vehicles, it appeared that two of the four men who'd been stationed there were away and the other two hadn't come out since they'd left. Jack constantly had to fight down the urge to go over and mess with them by being neighbourly and invite them over for beers and some fishing.

Actually, now that Teal'c was visiting him, the desire was even stronger. Doing something like that when the odds were two to one was foolish. With Teal'c here though, his odds were a lot better than even.

"O'Neill, for a man who is on holiday, you do not seem to be relaxing."

"Yeah, let's just say my neighbours aren't a soothing presence."

"They have loud parties?"

"No, they are NID. Or something like."

Teal'c frowned. "Then perhaps we should go over there and deal with them."

Jack smiled. "Actually, I was thinking of being a little more subtle. Say, maybe going over there and messing with their minds."

Teal'c nodded. "That would an acceptable start."

"I thought so."

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While he was planning to go up and knock on their door, Jack figured a little advanced knowledge wouldn't hurt. To that end, he and Teal'c each picked a window to spy on and sneaked up on it.

Jack got the living room. He carefully peeked over the sill and…

…Carefully sank back out of sight and tried to process what he'd just seen. He blinked a couple of times as his brain reset. Once he was sure that his thought processes were moving as they should, he carefully eased upward and looked through the window again.

Nope, it was still there.

The guy who normally wore a suit and trench coat stood there, stripped down to nothing but a pair of black boxer briefs. The guy who had introduced himself as the first man's brother was currently painting weird symbols and squiggly lines all over said brother's body.

As Jack watched, the guy stuck the handle of the paintbrush between his teeth and snapped the fingers of his right hand. A very beautiful woman, wearing almost nothing, walked out of the kitchen, carrying a soda, which she handed off to the guy with the paintbrush. Even with the thing still in his mouth, he smiled at her and gave her behind a slap with his free hand.

The guy with the body art shook his head and said something that Jack couldn't hear. Paintbrush guy just shrugged and shooed the young woman back to whatever she had been doing. The guy took the brush out of his mouth and downed half of the drink, before he set it down and started painting his 'brother' once more.

Jack snuck away from the house.

Teal'c met him.

"I do not believe they are NID." He told Jack.

"Yeah, I kinda get that feeling too." One of Jack's eyebrows rose as he noticed that Teal'c looked very uncomfortable. "How did you come to that conclusion, anyway?"

Teal'c looked away from him. "I glanced into the bedroom. There were two very healthy young women in there… They were doing things that I once saw with you that involved jell-o and bikini's, only without the jell-o, or the bikini's."

"Ah." Jack nodded. "Well, at least I know why they haven't been out of the cabin much since they got here." He looked at his friend. "How 'bout we go back to my cabin and get very drunk and pretend we never saw that?"

Teal'c nodded. This was a much better plan than the last one Jack had had.

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"I believe they are gone Gabriel."

The archangel finished the last bit of the Enochian warding spell he was painting onto Cas' body. "Yep, I think you're right."

Cas waited a moment. "That mean's you don't need to have two of your creations making out in the master bedroom."

"Spoilsport." Gabriel snapped his fingers and silence descended on the cabin.

"Thank you." Putting these spells together was hard enough without that kind of distraction.

Gabriel put his paintbrush down and backed away. "Okay, do it."

Cas sent power into the symbols. Starting at his feet, the painting started to glow gently, the brightness increasing as it moved up his body. By the time it reached his chest, it was blinding. When it reached his head, there was a flash and above them, something very like thunder cracked the sky open. The glow receded and Cas stood there, his body now clean of Gabriel's artwork.

"Well, that's one ward reset." Gabriel said. "We're going to have to wait a day or so to let things settle before we attempt the last one."

Cas nodded, looking himself over.

"So," Gabriel asked, his expression an attempt at innocence. "How about we go mess with your neighbours some more while we wait? "

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Sam and Dean both trained their guns on Cas and a grumpy looking Gabriel as the two of them suddenly appeared in the boys' motel room.

"Don't do that!" Dean said as he lowered his weapon. "One of these days I'll end up shooting you and I'll be holding the Colt when I do."

Cas smiled slightly, recognizing Dean's words as worry, rather than a threat. "I apologize. I just thought it best to get Loki away from the cabin for a while. "

Gabriel sat down on one of the beds and slumped. "It's not like I was going to hurt them. Not permanently anyway."

Dean looked at the trickster angel. "Do we even want to know?"

"The neighbours were spying." Cas told them. "Ga..Loki took care of it."

Both Winchesters stiffened. "When you say he took care of it…" Sam started to ask.

"Don't panic. I only messed with their minds." Gabriel smiled in sudden realization. "They'll probably look at us funny the next time we're there. I can definitely build off of that."

"Again, do we want to know?"Cas sighed. "My brother was helping me reset one of my wards."

"Why would that..?"

Gabriel cut Dean off. "It required semi nudity and body paint on Cas' part."

"Yep, didn't want to know."

Cas coughed slightly. "Loki also added a few of his underdressed female creations to the mix. Whatever it was that Jack and his friend were expecting when the peered into the windows, I do not believe it was that."

"Yeah." Dean frowned. "I wonder what they were expecting."

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Bobby looked at the caller id on his cell phone and grimaced. As soon as he'd seen that counterfeit twenty-dollar bill, he'd had the sinking feeling he'd be dealing with Henricksen sooner, rather than later. He flipped his phone open, but didn't say anything.

"Agent Willis?"

"Agent Henricksen?" Yes, the man did not sound happy.

"I see that your department has taken a sudden interest in my case. I was wondering if we could meet and discuss the situation."

"If you think that's wise."

He heard Victor sigh. "Better than walking in blind."

Well, Bobby couldn't argue that. "Where are you now and can you get away from your partner?"

"I just left the coroner's office. He's probably still at the scene." Silence followed, but Bobby suspected that the man was just mulling over his options. "How about meeting me at my hotel."

"You got your own room?"

Victor laughed. "Yeah, no way I'd feel safe sleeping in the same room with that man."

Bobby frowned. He wasn't sure what was going on with Henricksen and his partner, but it didn't sound good. "Okay, give me the address, I'll meet you there."

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Henricksen didn't see Bobby anywhere in the lobby as he entered his hotel. Moving to the front desk, he checked if he'd had any messages or mail. The clerk passed him a couple of phone messages and then laid a heavily filled, manila envelope on the counter for him. Frowning, Victor reached for it, only to have someone grab his hand before he could touch it.

Startled, the agent looked up into Bobby Singer's frowning face.

"What?"

"I wouldn't touch that if I were you. As far as I can tell, every person that the ghost I'm tracking killed, got one of those before they died."

Bobby let go and Victor moved his hands away from the package.

"Okay. Any idea why? Or more specifically, why me?"

"I'm working on it." Bobby pulled out a cloth bag, with symbols stitched into it. Only touching the cloth, he managed to slide the envelope into it. He shut it and tied it off with a sigh of relief.

"So." He said, looking at the agent. "I'd say we definitely need to compare notes."

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Henricksen looked at the tiny little bottles of room service alcohol and briefly imagined how nice it would be to down the lot of them.

"You can go to a bar and get drunk, after we deal with this." Bobby told him.

"Yeah, they're too small anyway."

They both sat down at the small table in the room and pulled out a file. Victor decided to forge ahead and went first.

"Five years ago, I and my partner of the time, SA Groves, tracked a team of counterfeiters to this state. Most of the small fry, the guys who were doing the distributing for them, managed to disappear on us. However, we did manage to catch one of them. He rolled on the artist and the main distributor. When we caught the distributor, Rubin Bennion, he rolled on the artist, Philip Spars. When we went after him, he resisted. Pulled out a gun and tried to take my partner out. I ended up shooting him to stop him. He died on the way to hospital. "

Bobby shook his head at the mess. Victor had to nod in agreement. "Yeah, welcome to my world."

Bobby laughed, and then opened his file. "I've been tracking what looks like either a cursed item, or a ghost tied to an item. Given the envelopes that were found at each of the scenes, I think someone living is directing whoever or whatever it is."

They both looked at the bag that held the package.

"Here's who's already dead." The hunter started to pull pictures out of his file. "Rubin Bennion was the newest one. Ben Darcy…"

"Darcy?" Victor asked, interrupting. "That was the small fry distributor."

Bobby nodded. He had suspected as much. "He also went down in Kansas City. Kyle Waters bit it in St. Louis. Cassandra Abbot in Topeka, Kansas and Erwin Shaw in Carthage, MO. All of them had records and they dealt with funny money more than once."

"They're probably the guys that originally got away. " Victor looked the pieces over. "So, we have them, the partners that screwed Spars, and me, the guy who killed him."

"What about the agent that was with you back then?"

Victor shook his head. "He's undercover. It's why I got stuck with checking on this. He's probably alright." Victor shrugged. "Even I wasn't allowed to know where he is."

"Okay, not perfect, but okay. So, do you remember anyone from back then who was especially upset about you offing this guy?"

Victor winced. "Yeah, his mother.

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The day before Bobby and Victor's conversation, Vera Spars sat and carefully glued stamps to the last two of six packages she had made up. She was running out of time. She thought she'd have years to work out her and her son's revenge, but a recent trip to the doctor's had told her that the fatigue and the aching bones weren't just a sign of old age. The doctors told her it was cancer and that she had maybe three to six more months to live. She knew better though. She could tell it wasn't months. It was days.

Once she'd found Philip's last stash. The last example of his artistry and had managed to tie his spirit to it, she had intended that they take their revenge out on one or two of them a year, saving the FBI agents who had killed him for last. Now though… She wouldn't last long enough to do it, so she'd sped things up. The only problem was, she couldn't find the last of them.

So now, she was going to have to do something desperate and uncertain.