EXCLUSIVE: Chapter One from the new novel Supernatural: War of the Sons

This novel takes place shortly after the season five episode
“My Bloody Valentine.”

CHAPTER ONE

I can feel it, Dean thought. The sky is falling. It wasn’t a new feeling. In fact, the sky had been falling on Dean Winchester since he was four years old. The difference, of course, was that this time could very well be the last time. And this is where it all ends? The Apocalypse is gonna go down in the ass-edge of nowhere?

Dean let out a tired sigh as he gunned the Impala onto County Road 6. There was nothing on either side of the asphalt except cornfields, cattle, farms and farmers—the very Americana that Dean and his brother Sam fought to protect. For a moment, Dean’s imagination took hold, and the clouds on the horizon became pillars of smoke, spilling from unseen tongues of flame. The rotting wooden beams of a decrepit barn became the last remnants of humanity. Dean shook the vision out of his head, and the clouds were once again clouds. The barn was, once more, just a barn.

For months, Dean and Sam had been on the suicide mission to end all suicide missions—to hunt down and kill the Devil. Though the weight of the task seemed unbearable, the brothers knew that they were the only ones who could shoulder it. It was, after all, their fault that right now Lucifer walked the earth.

No. Sam’s fault.

Dean shoved the thought to the dark recesses of his mind. It wouldn’t do him any good to dwell on it. His younger brother—the boy who Dean had practically raised since their mother died—had broken the Final Seal. In a moment of weakness, Sam had killed the demon Lilith, unintentionally popping the lock on Satan’s cage. Now, after nearly a year of chasing him, they were no closer to shoving the bastard back into the lock-up.

But that wasn’t even the bad news. The angels, ostensibly protectors of humanity, had in fact been behind Satan’s jailbreak.

“They wanted you to break the Seal,” Dean had explained to his brother in the moments after Lucifer’s rise. “They’re sick of waiting around in Heaven. With Satan out, they get to bring on the prizefight. Winner takes Earth.”

The angels already had a plan in motion—according to the winged bastards, the only way to defeat Lucifer was for Dean to be the host for the archangel Michael, the most powerful weapon in Heaven’s arsenal. They even had an overdramatic pet name for Dean: the Michael Sword. Every fiber of Dean’s body rebelled against the idea. The battle between Michael and Lucifer would have the minor side effect of destroying half the Earth. A “planetary enema,” Zachariah had called it. The douche.

Lucifer’s final vessel was to be Sam. The symmetry must be funny to someone upstairs, Dean thought. Michael and Lucifer were brothers, one of them following closely in their father’s footsteps, the other… Well, just like Sam, Lucifer had always wanted to go his own way.

However, the one thing neither Heaven nor Hell could control was human will. While on Earth, angels—both righteous and fallen—had to take a willing human host. If Sam and Dean didn’t say “yes” to Lucifer and Michael, the battle couldn’t happen. The archangels would have to putter around in their alternate, non-ordained meatsuits, tearing their lesser vessels apart while they waited for Sam and Dean to come around to the party line.

The Winchester brothers weren’t going to fight each other. There had to be another way.

But every time they thought they had Lucifer within their sights, fate slapped their faces again. They had tried their old standby: straight-up violence, attempting to kill Lucifer outright. First with the Colt, a gun so powerful it was said to be able to kill anything, but that had barely given their Adversary a headache. They had Ruby’s demon-killing knife, but that was just as impotent against an archangel. The only chance they had left was to catch Lucifer by surprise. No small feat.

“Take a right at Camp Dakota Road,” Sam directed.

“Really? Couldn’t have figured that one out, Sam,” Dean shot back. “Since we’re going to a camp.”

Sam had been getting under his skin recently. Actually, everything had been getting under his skin. The endless hours on the road had proven useless thus far, and Dean was beginning to doubt that they would be able to win this war.

Can’t fight something you can’t find, he thought. But he also had doubts about his role in the battle to come. Even if I’m doing everything in my power to find another way… can someone change the role they’re destined by fate to play? Avoiding destiny is what Dean and Sam had been doing so far. But how much longer can we keep that up? They were flying under the angels’ radar, and for now, that was enough.

It had to be.

A week ago Sam had started tracking the local news from a small town in South Dakota. It had been lighting up with apocalyptic signs like an end-of-the-world Christmas tree.

Maybe we’re finally getting a freakin’ break, Dean thought hopefully.

Their first stop was a kids’ day camp. A gas station attendant a couple of towns over had told them about it. The scruffy dude had said he didn’t rightly know what had happened, but his cousin’s girlfriend’s mom had told him that it was like something out of the Bible and children had been harmed. That alone was enough to warrant a visit.