Tenebrea

Disclaimer: I don't own them. I just like to mess with them. Enjoy the story, I'll try to update as much as possible.

Cold has never really affected Castiel. Weather was one of the many things he never minded, including harsh, cold, blizzard nights like this one. Trudging through the deepening snow towards the dark building, Castiel was only troubled by feelings of curiosity and worry. Secret orders, specifically for him, were never a good sign. Especially when they were from Zechariah.

The huge door creaked open to reveal the inside look of the dirty windows and vast empty, dark entry hall. Castiel took a few steps into the hall, looking up the stairs and into the heart of the building. Holding up his hand, some of the lights along the walls flickered back to long forgotten life.

"You were always afraid of the dark, Castiel." Zechariah was sitting on the stairs. His hands clasped loosely. Castiel took that as a good sign, meaning that the matter must not have been too serious. Castiel raised his hand again, with a questioning look.

"If you prefer…?"

"No, no. It's fine." The angel looked up at his companion. "It's time to consider alternative options, Castiel."

Castiel had been wrong. The matter was that serious. He cocked his head in the way he did when he didn't like where the conversation was going. Zechariah reached into his coat pocket while standing up. Castiels eyes widened at what he pulled out.

"Measures like that should never be considered. Where did you get that?" His tone was cautious.

"We just acquired it recently. He needs to be stronger, and right now, that doesn't seem to be happening."

"So you would turn him farther away from god to achieve that?"

Zechariah walked past Castiel, toward the entrance. The snow outside did not falter, and in fact seemed to fall harder. "We're running out of time. He's running out of time. At the state he's in, he won't be able to handle the struggles that come with stopping the apocalypse. If he's going to lead us in battle, he can't hesitate to do what needs to be done."

"If you give him that, he'll do worse than what needs to be done." Castiel faced Zechariah, who was right behind him.

"All the better. With what happened with Alastair, it's only proven that he won't be able to face the pressures of the battlefield."

Castiel immediately backed off. Zechariah was his superior. Disobedience was a great crime. Though in the words of Dean, he really was a "holy pain in the ass."

Zechariah held up his hand, the object lying forebodingly on his skin. "But I'll do you a favor. I'll let you decide when to give it to him." The item dropped into Castiels unexpected hand. Castiel stared down at the object, feeling it's weight on both his skin and on his soul. When he looked back up, Zechariah was gone. Meaning, once again, Castiel had no choice. The lights went out, and the cold and darkness returned. Castiel guessed that he had to pay Dean a visit. He wondered what he was dreaming about.

The trees were silent except for the slight wind that kept the heat of the sun above the trees at bay. Dean was just sitting there at the base of a tree trunk, listening, letting the small spots of sunlight dance behind his eyelids.

"For a person who's been through so much, you have really calm dreams." Dean's eyes snapped open at the sound of the voice. He slightly turned his head to see Castiel standing beside him, not looking at him. Dean felt like moaning.

"Yeah, but it's better than what else I could be dreaming about." Dean said, getting up. He knew it was too good to be true. Cas fished into his pocket and drew out an object that he kept hidden in his hand. The two men faced each other.

"So what is it this time, Cas?" Dean said. "You want me to torture another demon for information it doesn't know? Or perhaps maybe I can torture other poor souls, like I did in hell."

Castiel said nothing. Dean had just confirmed everything Zechariah was saying. Cas sighed. He held out his hand to show the object resting there. Dean didn't know what to make out of it. It was just a small black vial, no bigger than Dean's second finger. The vial was filled with a dark gray liquid, and written on a label was Dean's name.

Dean looked up at Cas. "You gonna keep me waiting? What is that? It's not like angel beer is it?"

"It's probably best you don't know what it is." Cas said, still not looking at Dean.

Dean shook his head. "And you wonder why we don't trust you."

"Dean, all I can tell you is that it will help you, make you stronger. Give you the strength to do what needs to be done."

Dean looked annoyed. "Your superiors were that disappointed with the Alastair thing, huh?"

"There is good news. Zechariah has left me in charge of when to give it to you." Castiel held out the vial. "So I'm going to give it to you, and let you decide when to take it."

"Cas this is a dream, how am I going to have it?" Dean asked skeptically.

"You'll have it when you wake up. Dean, I trust you enough to know when the time is right." Castiel put a hand on his shoulder, and Dean felt a rushing feeling. He closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, he was lying in the bed of the motel room, Sam's soft breathing came from the next bed. Dean sat up, and felt something cold in his hand. He looked down and sure enough, the vial was there, glowing with a strange dark light, illuminating his name.

Dean got up and went to the bathroom, inspecting the vial. Now that he had a closer look, the stuff in the vial seemed more vaporous, a mist instead of a liquid. There were a few tiny black chunks drifting around, and Dean didn't even want to think about what those were. Dean pocketed the vial and walked back out into the room. The red LED of the clock said that it was a little after three in the morning. Dean groaned softly. What could he do? Go back to sleep? Dean thought against it. Pulling on a shirt and jacket, Dean quietly left the room and drove the Impala to a nearby 24 hour diner. He sat down at the bar and ordered coffee from the overly tired waitress.

The case they were working on had already turned for the worst. Four mutilated and mangled bodies had been found in the woods not far from the highway leading to the town. The cops could make out possible bear or cougar attacks, but the thing is that there aren't very many bears or cougars in New Jersey. Of course, Sam and Dean already knew what it was. Well, not exactly, but they had a better idea than anybody else.

Bobby had suggested it might be another Rugaru, like the one they had gone up against with that other hunter. Dean doubted it for some reason. Something was just a little to precise about these killings, and not to mention that all of the men and one woman killed had been a part of the trade of special artifacts. And what was even more weird was the fact that each of them had been killed with their most prized possession. One beaten in with a 17th century bust of some famous guy, the other sliced and gutted with an ancient Chinese katana. All of them made to look like suicide. But even the cops knew that a person couldn't continue to slice themselves when their bodies were past dead. But Sam and Dean knew that something else could make a person do.

Demonic possession had always fascinated Dean simply by the prospect of how much it took to kill them physically. Flashes of Dean torturing Alistair and Alistair him, both in hell and in that room, went through Dean's mind. He had remembered feeling the exact same way when he was torturing souls in hell. But torturing Alistair had had a little more of the sour taste of revenge. Alistair was right about one thing, though. This reality was too limited. The range of torture on Earth was nothing compared to that of hell, where being flayed and shucked was part of minimal damage. Oh, how Dean wished he-

No, Dean shook his head. His coffee lay untouched before him, he never even saw the waitress set it down in front of him. Dean drank it straight and black, hissing through his teeth a little at the bitter taste and the hot liquid, which now probably killed his taste buds. The waitress was cleaning the bar, probably for lack of anything better to do only a meter from Dean.

"You look like you've had a rough night." Dean realized she had a British accent. She was a middle-aged woman, probably in early forties with tattered curly brown hair helplessly tied up in a bun and a beauty spot under her right eye. Dean imagined that in her younger years, she might have been quite the catch. But now she looked kind and wise, but most of all lonely, and just wanted some one to talk to. Dean figured they both had something in common at the moment.

"You could say that. Sleep didn't go as well as I thought." As soon as he said that, he felt the weight of the vial against his leg in his pocket.

"Wife not treating you well?" The woman asked.

Dean straightened. "Pardon?"

"Excuse me sir, but I thought a fine featured gentleman such as yourself would have a special some one to go home to when the day was done." The woman looked down.

"No, just me and my brother right now, looking out for each other. We're working a case right now." Dean took another sip of his coffee.

"Ooh, a man with a badge. The surprises never stop." The woman chuckled. "You looking into those deaths?" Dean nodded. "Well, if you ask me, I think they deserved it. Weren't the nicest of people, always taking what didn't belong to them…" The woman suddenly looked solemn.

Dean started to feel awkward, and the woman must have sensed it, because she looked back up again, her friendly attitude restored. "But who am I to judge people."

Dean realized that the day was birthing, and he should probably be getting back to Sam. But, another part of him told him he shouldn't leave the woman alone so suddenly like that. Dean stood, and walked over to the woman on the other side of the counter, pulling out and digging through his wallet. The woman was about to say something, but he laid a twenty down in front of her hand that held the dirty rag in it.

"Thank you for the coffee." Dean said flashing her a kind smile. With that he turned and walked out of the diner. Driving back to the motel, Sam was awake, just coming out of the bathroom. He froze when he saw Dean.

"Hey, man. You ok?" Sam finished wiping the toothpaste off his mouth.

Dean gave a weak smile back. "Yeah, just had to wake up a little harder this time." Dean sat down on the bed. "So what are we killing today?"

"Actually, now that you mention it, I heard that there's another big trade business dealer coming in today." Sam sat in a chair across from him. "So, I think that if the memo for this thing keeps up, we should try to protect her."

"Yeah, either that, or catch whatever this thing is in the act." Dean suggested. Sam gave him a look.

"And protect her, right?"

Dean sighed and nodded. Dean had always understood the concept that they could not save everyone. Sam however, was always so determined to prove that they could. He had been proved otherwise on several occasions. Dean had always suspected it was because Sam felt guilty for something. Probably having kept all these secrets from Dean. And only God, if there was one, knew what else Sam was keeping behind his shiny green eyes. Sam and Dean checked out of the motel and peeled out of the parking lot in the Impala.

"Her name is Sandra Caine, and she's coming in at around two today." Sam reported after hanging up the phone and slipping the fake ID into his inside jacket pocket. "She's got the perfect profile for this things memo. Big business dealer, special artifacts, it's almost too perfect."

Dean looked distractedly at the road ahead of him. "Huh? What?"

"Dean, did you hear me at all?" Sam asked, a little annoyed. "Something happened, didn't it? Dean?"

Dean shot a sideways glance at Sam. Damn that kid and his intuition. Dean figured if he was going to get anywhere with this, he ought to set an example. He reached into his jeans and pulled out the little vial. Sam hesitated to take it. He held it up to his face and inspected it closely, his big brothers name written neatly down the side.

"How…?"

"Castiel gave it to me. He said it would give me the strength to do what needs to be done." He looked at Sam. Sam let his mouth hang open a little and looked at the vial one more time. He handed it back to Dean.

"What do you think that means?" Sam asked.

"Means I screwed up big time with Alistair. And now the angels think they can give me steroids to help them with their mission."

"What are you gonna do with it?" Sam asked casually. Dean paused, which discouraged Sam.

"I don't know yet." Sam sat back in silence, and the Impala was gunned down the road towards town.

Three hours later, dressed in nice suites and ties, Sam and Dean were walking behind Sandra Cain, who happened to be a skinny Asian chick, and happened to look a lot like the girls Dean looked at on "Busty Asian Beauties". Except she looked a lot more serious and had a lot more covered up. They followed her into the hotel and up the elevator, as well as all the way to her bedroom. At the door frame, she turned to the two of them.

"Thank you, you guys have been excellent escorts. I think I can handle it from here."

"Of course. We know your tired, so if you need anything just give us a call." Sam said scribbling his number down on a card. Sandra took it and smiled, then closed the door. Sam and Dean looked at each other. "What now? We gonna sleep out in the hallway?"

Dean gave him a look, then started walking away. No more than five steps away, they heard a scream coming from the room. Both of them whipped out there guns and Dean broke down the door. They saw Sandra standing rigid in the hallway and the very last wisps of black smoke disappear into her eyes. She stopped screaming, and her body relaxed. She turned around and Dean and Sam lowered their guns. Her eyes were still black, and she smiled at the brothers.

"Hello, Dean, Sam. Been awhile hasn't it?" The thing said with a British accent. A sudden recognition washed over Dean like a tidal wave.

"Oh god," he barely said. A familiar sly smile crept across her lips.

"What? What is it?" Sam gave Dean a scared look.

Dean swallowed. "Bella."

A/N: Haha, exciting, right? please comment and review.

Hey, don't stop! The Story get's a LOT better, I swear! Only reason I'm saying this is because the first chapter has over 800 hits, then second chapter has just barely 300, which means a lot of people are dropping out. Don't do that! I worked late into the night on this story, so I would appreciate it if you read further, but if you don't like it, please let me know!