Disclaimer: Again, I seriously do NOT own Supernatural. I sure as hell wish I did though!
A/N: Can I just say that the Christmas episode ROCKED!! By the way, bold signals text messages and italics signals a passage from a book.
NON VENATOR (Not a Hunter)
By: Dean's Leather Jacket
Chapter Thirteen
Research ensued for the next couple of days. On the fourth day we hadn't found jack—nothing on the internet and nothing in any of the books that Jay had. I volunteered to make a trip out to the library. Jay agreed only on the condition that I took a few people with me: one, for safety and two, to make the process go faster.
So, on the fifth day, Dean, Sam, Kammi, Jamie, and I all jammed into Dean's car and drove to the local library. Once inside, we quickly split to hit books about the town and surrounding environs and hit the microfiches of old newspapers. Sam, Jamie, and Dean went for the microfiches while Kammi and I went for the books.
Hastings was founded in 1872 and shortly after the Hastings Gazette was started up. That was a long way back for Sam, Dean and Jamie to research. I kind of felt sorry for them.
Kammi and I went to the circulation desk and asked to be pointed in the direction to the right books. We quickly found them and each brought a stack to a table.
"Jesus, this is going to take forever." Kammi observed as she opened a dusty old book.
"Tell me about it." I bemoaned as well.
For the next few hours we flipped through old books to no avail. I hadn't had any more dreams giving me clues on where to look and we weren't turning up anything in these God forsaken books. It was mostly on the history of the town and who started it and so on and so forth.
"Screw this." Kammi said, putting a couple of books on a cart to be re-shelved. She disappeared again into the rows of books and came back a few minutes later with an excited look on her face.
"Check this out!" She exclaimed in a whisper and unceremoniously dropped the book on the table. It made a loud thud and a few of the other people in the library turned their heads towards the commotion. When they didn't see anything interesting, they turned back to their own books.
I quickly glanced at the spine of the book: The Occult in Hastings.
"Oh my god." I breathed hoping beyond hope that there was something in this book.
"I happened on this by chance." Kammi began as she plopped down into her chair again, pulling the book toward her. "I thought, 'hey, what the hell, I'll just make one more sweep of these books. Maybe I'll find something.' I shit you not this book fell from the shelf." I looked curiously at her.
"It fell from the shelf?" I reiterated. She nodded vehemently.
"I don't know who or what did it; I think it was a sign." And with that she cracked open the ancient looking book and started skimming the pages. To pass the time, I finished looking through my stack of books, put them back on the re-shelving cart, and also went back into the rows.
It was rather like the stacks back at Assumption. The lighting in this area was dull and there was deadly quiet. The rows of books were packed close together which gave you a feeling of claustrophobia. I skimmed again over the section the librarian had pointed us too. There really weren't any more books because we had looked through most of them. My phone buzzed in my pocket once signaling I had a text message. I groped in my pocket for my phone and flipped it open. It was from Dean.
Having fun?
I smiled and answered back.
No. U?
I waited a minute and soon got a reply:
Loads.
I sighed and grabbed some random book on the history of the corn crop in Hastings and returned to the table. Kammi was still there flipping through the book. I sat and no sooner had I sat down than Kammi jumped from her chair with a cry of excitement.
"Shhh!" Came the librarian walking by and a couple of other library patrons. Kammi looked sheepish for an instant as she pulled me into a study room off to the side. Once she had shut the door, she practically threw the book in my hands and exclaimed: "Read this!" I glanced down at the page she had the book open to:
Section Five: The Legend of the Templar Treasure
There were no mysterious societies like the Knights Templar of the Age of the Crusades. They were warrior holy men who fought for Christendom to take back the Holy Land and they ensured that pilgrims made the journey to the Holy Land safely. They soon grew very rich and powerful but were later persecuted and many were burnt at the stake for heresy.
While in the Holy Land, the Knights Templar took up headquarters at the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. This Mosque had been built on the site of the ruins of the Temple of Solomon hence where the Knights Templar, or the Order of the Temple as they were sometimes called, got their name. While there, it has been said that the Templars found a relic of great importance and significance that one day they vacated their headquarters and made their way back to France.
The organization was in existence for all of two centuries and while their grand masters and followers were being executed in the 1300s, the relic was secreted away and hidden for no one to find except its guardians.
Templar culture had soon assimilated into many other "secret societies" such as Freemasonry and the elusive Priory of Sion. Legend has it that the sacred relic found in the Holy Land was kept secret for a few more hundred years within a Rite of Freemasonry until the guardians were able to whisk it away to a distant land—America. Many speculations as to previous hiding places of this relic have been in places like Boston, Georgia, and the mountains of Virginia.
After the American Revolution was fought and won and when settlers were finally able to venture west past the Appalachian Mountains, this sacred relic was brought by its guardians to the Midwest. Recently, the relic has most likely found a place in Hastings, Nebraska. Hastings was considered to be the very center of the country at this time and this was somehow significant to the guardians of this relic.Lore of this object past the founding of Hastings in 1872 has been lost and the supposed whereabouts of this relic are unknown.
As to what the relic may have been, scholars are uncertain. There have been many speculations though. Since the fabled Temple of Solomon had been home to the legendary Holy Grail and Ark of the Covenant, some scholars have thought it to be the Holy Grail of Jesus itself. Others have believed it to be the Shroud of Turin, the cloth Jesus had been wrapped in when he was buried. The Spear of Destiny has also been considered (the spear that had penetrated Christ's side when he was on the cross and is said to have magical powers
Whatever this relic may be, no treasure is more sought after than the elusive treasure of the Templar Knights. Adolf Hitler tried to recover many religious and occult artifacts during World War II because he felt they would aid him in making the Third Reich succeed in taking over the world. Napoleon Bonaparte was also credited with making an attempt to find these artifacts. As evidenced by the careers of these two men, it seems that finding the relics was more of a hindrance than a help.
"Holy shit, Kammi. This is awesome." I exclaimed as I finished the section. My mind began racing the moment I had read the title. It only continued as I progressed through the passage. Could we have an ancient Templar treasure underneath the Black Cat Saloon? Kammi still had a really excited look on her face and I could tell she was thinking the same thing as me.
"Let me tell you, my life is never dull." Kammi observed. "First we find out that the world is going to be taken over by demons from Hell, then we meet three ACTUAL archangels, and now we're talking about religious relics that have magical powers. I'll never tire from this shit." She laughed. I had to agree. Life was certainly a never dull moment when you were a part of the paranormal world.
I whipped out my phone and shot a quick text message to Dean:
Get ur asses up here, we found sumthin.
A couple of minutes later, Jamie, Sam and Dean came rushing up from the basement and we all piled into the study room again and passed around the book. By the end of this, we were all thinking the same thing. If this relic the Templars found has magical powers, it would make sense that the demons would want it. It would only increase their chances of taking over the world. They would also want to get it out of our hands because we could use it against them. This was a great development.
Since none of us had a library card, we copied the section about the Templar treasure and hurried back to the Black Cat Saloon. As always, once inside the Devil's Trap, I felt safer and more invigorated. We were going to find whatever this thing was, and we were going to use it to kick some demon ass.
The five of us rushed into the Saloon and the atmosphere was pretty low key. When we entered though, everyone's head shot up (including the archangels) and hopeful looks crossed their faces.
"Well, did you guys find anything?" Jay asked coming from the kitchen with Sue in tow.
Kammi held up the copied papers in triumph and we all piled down into the "war room" to share the information we had found. The three archangels came down as well and surprisingly sat alongside me. Gabriel was to my left and Michael sat to my right. Dean sat with Sam to his right and Jackson to his left on the other side of the circle from me. He looked just as excited as the rest of us felt.
"Alright, so, what did you guys find?" Jay asked once everyone had settled in. Kammi stood up and read the section that we had found. Once she had finished, whispers erupted amongst the circle as everyone speculated as to what it meant.
"So, you guys are telling us that you think we're currently sitting on the last known hiding place of some old piece of whatever that moldy old knights found a shit ton of years ago?" Willard asked in his oh-so-eloquent way.
"That's exactly what we're proposing." Kammi confirmed. More whispers erupted through the circle again.
"Where in the hell do you say we start looking?" Jackson asked skeptically. Figures he wouldn't go for it. Kammi shrugged.
"I don't have all the answers. We just have a lead to go on." She simply replied and sat back down in her chair. I gave her a reassuring smile and the talks began. Where would we start looking? There was a ton of places it could be hidden and it didn't necessarily have to be on Jay's property. The book said it was in Hastings; it didn't say anything about being under cornfields (although that's what most of this place was). After a while I just felt kind of in the way so I stood and left the "war room." The sun was setting outside and it was a beautiful Nebraskan sunset.
"Beautiful isn't it?" Came a voice behind me from the window I was perched at. It was an accented voice this time, Irish to be exact.
"Yep, it is." I replied without turning around. Out of all the archangels, Gabriel had been the one to rub me the wrong way right off the bat. Michael was Michael, the one archangel I had always had a crush on as a kid, and Raphael was just a big softy. Gabriel was something different. I wasn't sure how to describe him though. I always thought back to the movie Constantine where Gabriel turned out to be the bad guy.
"One could get used to something like that." And this time the voice was WAY closer than it was last time. I turned and saw that Gabriel had come right up behind me. He was stepping WAY into my personal bubble.
"Um, excuse me." I said trying to step around him. He didn't move and I sighed in frustration. "Seriously, dude." I attempted again. He didn't budge.
"You know, humans aren't so bad." He said instead. "They can be quite enjoyable company."
Where the Hell was this coming from? I wondered. This was definitely a new and very random development considering he did not like humans and he seemed to be hitting on me.
"Riiiiight." I said in my best impersonation of Dr. Evil from Austin Powers. In other words, huh?
"Granted, they are a little slow on the uptake, but I could get used to that." He said again and did the stereotypical thing where he placed his hand on the wall to the side of my head and leaned in. Oh Hell no, this really wasn't happening! All my life I had never attracted men and then all of a sudden in a space of a few weeks I was attracting the worst guys!
So there I was, an archangel pulling a cliché move to kiss me and I had no idea what the hell to do. I mean, I liked this guy, he was funny and all, but I didn't like him like that. In other words, he wasn't Dean. So, I did the only thing I could think of. I brought my knee up into his groin. His reaction answered my question I had a few days ago. I guess angels really did have their parts still because Gabriel was down on the floor and he didn't look like he was going to get up anytime soon. I was definitely going to go to Hell for injuring an angel. Oh shit.
"What did you do that for?" He asked pain thickening his accent.
"You tried to kiss me!" I exclaimed silently thanking God no one was around to see this.
"I thought that's what humans did when they felt attracted to one another." He managed.
"Yes, when they BOTH like each other. I don't like you, at least not like that. God, what the hell is it with me and men! I pick the weirdest ones!" I threw up my hands in surrender and just walked away. I wasn't too worried about Gabriel. I knew he would recover.
Since I didn't want to get myself involved in the boiling arguments in the "war room" I thought I'd catch up on some reading. I hadn't gotten a chance to read in a while, and on my last trip to Barnes and Noble I got a really interesting sounding romance novel. I'm a sucker for those things. They are my biggest guilty pleasure. I can't live without them.
I grabbed the book and propped myself in bed and started reading. What seemed like moments later a knock came at my door. Upon looking at the clock on my cell phone, I saw that two hours had passed. Whoa, time flies when you're having fun!
"Come in!" I beckoned and in walked Dean.
"Hey." He greeted with that smile of his.
"Hey." I greeted back with my smile. He came fully into the room, shut the door behind him, and sat himself down on my bed.
"So, I definitely had to get out of that room. They just talk too damn much." He said. I laughed.
"Yeah, they usually have to take two days of talking before deciding on what restaurant they'd want to go to." I said. It was his turn to chuckle.
"I noticed Gabriel was limping. Do you know what is up with that?" He asked. I shrugged and put on my best innocent look.
"No idea." I stated simply.
"So, do you think we're finally on to something here, Sherlock?" He asked while taking my book from my hands and placing my bookmark on the page I had stopped. He lightly tossed it onto my bedside table.
"I think so." I replied glancing curiously at him as he took off his shoes and shoved me to the side some so he could get fully on the bed and laid out next to me.
"I think so too. This sounds like something out of an Indian Jones movie." He said with a laugh as he squirmed to get himself situated. "I'd kill to be a hot professor like that."
That last comment made me laugh out loud.
"Hey, you may not be a professor, but you're hot and you're an adventurer like him." I replied. He shrugged in that arrogant way again.
"Well, you know, I can't help it."
I laughed again and snuggled up to his side.
"Well, whatever the hell this thing is, we're going to find it and then, we're going to send all those sons a' bitches back to hell." He said. And hopefully not you with them. I thought to myself.
I sighed contently when he placed a sweet kiss on my lips and then enveloped me into his arms. I felt so damn safe, I fell asleep instantly.
A/N 2: Ok, so, all the italics stuff, yeah, I used Wikipedia as research even though I'm not supposed to. I did know some of that stuff prior, so I thought I'd just cite them anyway. Don't own Barnes and Noble (wish I did though) or anything like that mentioned in this chapter. I have to give a thanks to Hero Lily for the suggestion of one of the angels hitting on Connie. I had to go with Gabriel, it just seemed like his thing. I also have to thank her for getting my rear in gear to write this chapter. I've always loved Indian Jones and Templar legends and I thought it'd be kind of cool to incorporate it into the story. I also kind of took National Treasure's idea of the relic coming to America. Great movie by the way, and I can't wait for the sequel to come out! It's soon! YAY!!
Thanks so much to my reviewers as always. I hope you enjoyed this update and since I'm on Christmas break, hopefully there will be at least two more written before I have to go back to school.