Chapter Text
2043 A.D.
For the past decade, Earth has been the battleground in a war between angels. Out of the ashes of that war, a human rebellion has risen — led by a man named Dean Winchester.
In the wake of several crucial victories and with spies infiltrating the angels’ ranks, peace is within reach.
But the final battle of this war will not begin in the future. It will start here, in our present.
Tonight.
***
Prologue
2023 A.D.
Los Angeles
Just after midnight, the bells in the courtyard outside Our Lady of the Angels began to toll.
No one was there to mark the occasion except a young novitiate named Sister Matthias and a homeless man named Marv. The latter was slumped against a corner wall, too lost to vodka-fueled unconsciousness to be roused even by the clamor of the bells.
Sister Matthias, however, stopped dead on the cathedral steps, startled by the sudden uproar. The bells were mounted thirty feet up, along the wall that lined the courtyard, and there was no one to ring them at this hour. There wasn’t so much as a breeze.
As quickly as their tolling had begun, the bells fell silent. Beneath the coarse fabric of Sister Matthias’ light gray habit, the hair on her arms stood on end.
Something else was beginning to happen.
To one side of the courtyard stood a fountain. It was not particularly ornate or remarkable in any way. In fact, it was nothing but a circular stone slab from which water flowed perennially into a pool beneath.
As Sister Matthias watched, the water ceased to flow. Utter silence prevailed in the courtyard, broken only by the distant wail of a siren echoing off the concrete canyons of the city.
Sister Matthias held her breath. When she was forced to take another, the smell of ozone filled her nostrils.
With a boom like the splitting of glaciers, a bolt of electric-blue lightning struck the top of the stone slab. It crackled and twisted, the air filling with the ear-splitting sound of discharging electricity.
As Sister Matthias watched, the lightning split in two. Once, then again, until four bolts danced crazily upon the slab, like a horde of demons let loose upon the earth.
The bolts writhed and spit as they twined around each other. Slowly, they coalesced into a shape.
The shape of a person.
Frozen with terror, Sister Matthias stared at the woman who had appeared in the center of the fountain. To the naked eye, there was nothing extraordinary about her — she wore her dark hair pinned neatly at the back of her head, and her attire was a simple gray suit and white blouse; the sort of thing that might be worn by any of the countless professionals that populated the streets of downtown during the daytime.
But then the woman’s eyes filled with a deep, unearthly blue, as though she had harnessed the lightning itself and carried it within her. Sister Matthias trembled with fear and awe. This must have been how the virgin felt when an angel of the Lord appeared unto her to deliver news of the immaculate conception.
When the woman spoke, the ground shook beneath her.
“Human,” she roared. “What year is this?”
Sister Matthias stumbled down the last few steps and fell to her knees in the courtyard. “It… it…” she stammered. “It’s the year of our Lord 2023.”
A few moments passed in silence. When Sister Matthias dared to raise her head, she found that the blue light in the woman’s eyes had gone out. A smile had spread across her face. It was not the benevolent smile of the saints painted on the walls of the cathedral. It was the edge of a knife coming unsheathed.
“Excellent,” the woman said. “Rejoice, human, for I bring you tidings of great joy.”
Sister Matthias sat back on her knees, but she did not rise. “Are you… an angel?” she whispered.
The woman’s smile slid off her face, replaced by a grimace of impatience bordering on disgust. “Obviously,” she said.
There was another crackle of lightning, and two massive shadows, darker even than the night air, spread on either side of the woman’s back. They were the absence of light, made manifest.
Wings.
Sister Matthias whimpered. She was shaking from head to foot.
“Ask me,” the angel commanded.
“Ask what?” Sister Matthias’ voice was barely audible even to her own ears, but the angel responded as though she had spoken aloud.
“Ask me what tidings I bring!” the angel roared, the wings at her back flaring before they vanished in another flash of lightning. The sharp smell of ozone intensified.
“What… what tidings do you bring?” Sister Matthias asked, in a small, shaky voice. She hoped that when this story was told to believers someday, it would be changed to make her brave and dignified in the face of celestial power.
Atop the fountain, the angel straightened up to her full height. Another bolt of lightning flashed across the sky, bringing rolling thunder in its wake. A mighty wind blew across the courtyard, setting the bells tolling again and tugging at Sister Matthias’ veil.
“I have come,” the angel said, blue light flickering to life inside her eyes once more, “to usher in the end of humans. The age of the angels is at hand.”
Sister Mathias knew a final moment of terror as the angel raised her hand upward. Then a pain such as she had never known surged all through her body.
She was dead before her body hit the ground.