Summary: Lillith is trying to break the sixtieth seal and it's up to the Winchesters to stop it. Sam and Dean are joined by past friend Josh in a fight that will cost them all dearly. Cas is realizing there are three-sides to this war, not two, and the time has come he must decide whether to stand with the angels or the Winchesters. Out of his love for the brothers, Bobby is thrown into a situation far more terrifying than any he has faced before.

This story starts off in the episode 'The Monster at the End of this Book' right after Dean brought Chuck and his guardian Arch-angel into the room where Sam was with Lillith and Lillith split. It is a continuation of my other two stories (Stones Unturned and Going Vader) but is a completely separate hunt. If you don't want to read those ones, a bit of the backstory of the OC's in the first 3 chapters may be lost on you but you could probably figure out the gist of it and it won't matter as much once they get into the hunt. Sam and Dean are completely cannon so you'll know what's going on with them.

Chapter 1 - Prologue

Tag to The Monster at the End of this Book...

May 2009

Dean placed two fingers gently on the neck of the blonde dental hygienist Lillith had been possessing, managing to find some small measure of comfort in the slow but strong pulse he felt there. He looked up and glanced around the cheap motel room, still trying to gather his wits together after what had just happened.

Sam was still sitting on the bed, back up against the far wall, a look of surprise and what Dean thought might be disappointment on his face. Dean knew Sam had hoped to kill Lillith tonight but when he had burst into the room, he had found Lillith on top of Sam, inching Ruby's knife down towards his brother's chest. Proof Sam couldn't take her on. Proof Dean had been right and that they should have avoided the demon bitch to start with until they had a workable plan. A plan that didn't include Sam using his demon powers.

Chuck was still standing near the door, wide-eyed and practically hyperventilating. Dean racked his brain trying to decide what their next move should be but a slight stir from the blonde at his feet made the decision for him. He turned sharply to Sam.

"Dude, pack up. We're gettin' out of here. Now."

Sam obeyed quickly and silently, his face betraying nothing but a determination to pack, his fury and bitter disappointment hidden far below the surface. Lying and hiding his thoughts and emotions had become easier for Sam in recent months, his skills at the deception now well surpassing those of his big brother.

"What about her?" Chuck asked meekly, pointing to the mostly unconscious girl on the floor.

"We'll be outta here before she wakes up," Dean assured him briskly, grabbing his own already-packed duffel from the chair. Seeing the look on Chuck's face, he realized that hadn't been the point of the writer's question. "She'll be fine," he added more gently.

Within one minute Sam was packed and they were all piled in the Impala, the tarp over the back window flapping in the wind as Dean roared out of the Toreador Motel's parking lot. The three were silent for the ten-minute drive to Chuck's house, Sam and Dean both wanting to wait until they were alone to discuss what had happened. Not that it mattered anyway, Dean thought ruefully, as Chuck pretty much had a front row seat to everything the Winchesters did. That was really gonna bother him the next time he got laid.

Dean guided the Impala to the curb behind a silver sedan in front of the writer's house, not bothering to turn the engine off. Chuck sat still and silent in the back seat for a few seconds before both hunters turned to face him expectantly.

"Dude, this is your stop," Dean said, trying not to sound impatient.

Chuck looked warily up the walk to his porch, still making no move to get out of the car. "I didn't see this part," he said finally, his voice on the cusp of being whiny. "How do I know Lillith's not in there waiting for me?"

Dean groaned loudly but shut off the engine and threw the Impala's driver's door open, quickly stepping out of the car into the rain. He headed up the walk with a mockingly fearless stride, not looking back as he called out to the prophet. "Come on Chuck, I'll check it out for you."

Sam turned to look at Chuck in the back seat, a teasing grin spreading across the young hunter's face. Chuck gave him a sheepish look before getting out and following Dean up the path, taking two steps to the taller man's one.

Dean threw the door open and stepped boldly inside. "Lillith!" he called out loudly in a mocking tone. "Oh Lillith, are you hiding in here waiting for Chuck? Come out, come out, wherever you are!"

"Alright, alright," Chuck grumbled, reaching for a half-empty bottle of booze on his coffee table.

Dean grinned. "Look," he said in a more friendly tone, "You're safer than anybody on the planet. Archangel watchin' your back, remember?"

"Yeah, yeah. I get it. You know, I should have known all along you weren't just my imagination. I could never have made you such a wise ass."

Dean had to laugh. Chuck was borderline neurotic, but he was likeable. And he had come through for Dean tonight, as had Cas. "Yeah well, try to write something nice about me soon, would ya? I'm getting really tired of all this crap that keeps happening." He surprised himself with the admission but gave Chuck a friendly thump on the shoulder as he stepped past the writer to head outside.

"Uh, Dean?"

The hunter turned back around. "Yeah?"

"About that crap, I uh, well, there's something I should probably tell you. Something I didn't write about."

"What now?" Dean rolled his eyes. "Better not be anything else happening to my car."

Chuck bit his lip and hesitated, a look of trepidation on his face.

"Spit it out Chuckles."

"Well, it's about Lex."

That caught Dean by surprise. His head jerked up and he narrowed his eyes at the smaller man. He had been trying not to think of Alex Brenton for over three months now, since the day he had turned her over to her uncle for psychiatric help. Trying but not succeeding. "What about her?" he demanded, sounding fiercer than he had intended.

"Uh, Red-Eyes is real."

SPN-SPN-SPN

Sam sat alone in the car, the only sound to distract him from his thoughts being the sound of the rain drumming loudly on the back window tarp. He was angry. That bitch Lillith had escaped again. He had killed Alistair no problem; in fact, it had been almost easy. He would have actually enjoyed the experience had Dean not been lying unconscious and hurt on the floor and Castiel hadn't been staring wide-eyed at him with shock and revulsion. Why could he still not kill Lillith? He hadn't even been able to make her flinch. Granted, it seemed to work both ways, but it was still damn frustrating. It was Lillith he needed dead. She was the biggest threat to Dean right now.

What else did he need to do? He had been drinking Ruby's blood for months now. Just a few days after taking down the demon Thanin in Kansas, Ruby had shown up and sliced a deep cut on her own arm, offering him a taste so he could see that it wasn't just a one-time thing. He had told her not to but when he saw the red liquid pooling in her elbow crease he vividly remembered the sensation he had felt when he had taken a few mouthfuls of Thanin's. It could be a valuable weapon, he had argued to himself. He should try Ruby's once, just a sip so he would know what to expect when the time came that he needed it.

'Just a sip' turned into greedy mouthfuls and within seconds he was sitting shotgun in her stolen car, eyes closed and head back, taking deep, satisfying breaths as the surge of power flowed through him. It felt invigorating, stimulating, energizing. He had suddenly felt an incredibly strong urge to kill a demon and relive the experience he had enjoyed when he had killed Thanin. He was bitterly disappointed there wasn't an expendable one around but before he knew it, he had found an alternate method of release. A method that he had forsaken since Dean's return from Hell. A method that had ended with he and Ruby mostly naked in her back seat. Honestly, he would have preferred to have had a demon to gank.

He had started drinking it only when a possible fight was imminent but it quickly became a regular occurrence. Now he had gone so far as to keep a flask of it handy in case he couldn't get a hold of Ruby. It was a matter of convenience, he had convinced himself at the time. Ruby couldn't always drop what she was doing, whatever the Hell it was that she did when she was away from him, to come and juice him up.

His inner struggle not to admit that he wanted the blood, craved the blood, needed the blood, was an almost physical battle. He spent many hours a day convincing himself it was for Dean's sake that he was doing this. For humanity's sake. The angels were wrong; Dean wasn't strong enough to take on Lillith. Sam was stronger and after everything Dean had done for him his whole life, he could at least spare his brother that burden. Sam would take care of it. Like he had taken care of Thanin. Like he had taken care of Alistair. He would prove this demon blood in him didn't mean he was evil by using it to literally save the world.

He glanced up the overgrown walk at Chuck's slightly derelict house. What was taking so long? A sudden thought struck him and his heart lurched in fear. Was Chuck telling Dean about the demon blood? The Prophet had voiced his opinion to Sam, which had not been favourable, but had promised not to tell his brother. Dean would never understand; he saw things too much in black and white. Dean was the only person that had any measure of faith in Sam and the younger hunter was absolutely petrified of losing that faith, of having his brother look at him like he was a monster. It was already happening, he could see that, but until now Dean had kept it to himself. Tonight had been the first time his brother had openly admitted his fear of Sam going darkside.

Sam was near panic mode by the time he saw Dean emerge from the house and stride quickly towards the Impala.

As his brother got in, Sam noticed the look of thunder on his face and the stiffness of his shoulders. Reading each other's body language came as second nature to the brothers and Sam didn't need any words to know something huge was bothering Dean.

Chuck had told him about the blood. He knew.

Sam scrambled for the right words to say as Dean started up the engine and yanked the Impala out into traffic, never once looking directly at his younger sibling. Sam had no idea where to start because he knew Dean wouldn't listen to his reasoning anyway. He was still scrambling when Dean spoke first, an unmistakable tenseness in his voice.

"Look Sam, I'm gonna drop you off in Bloomington, okay? Then you're gonna have to find your own way to Bobby in Montana."

Sam's heart literally skipped a beat then came back with a painful pounding in his chest. Dean was leaving him! After a lifetime of caring for him and protecting him, Dean was washing his hands of the monster Sam had become. "Look, Dean, I can explain…" he stammered.

If Dean had been thinking clearly, if his wits weren't quite so smothered in guilt, he may have picked up on the admission of some wrongdoing Sam had just let slip. As it was, his brother's words didn't even register. He glanced over at the frantic man in the passenger seat, only making eye contact for a split second before returning his gaze to the road.

"Red-Eyes is real, Sam. We…" He let the sentence drop, knowing there was no need to spell out what they had done. "I have to go to California. Get her out."

Sam processed the words in stunned silence. Red-Eyes was real. That meant Chuck hadn't told Dean anything about the demon blood. A huge wave of relief swept over Sam, followed by a small measure of guilt for feeling it. If Red-Eyes was real, then they had been very wrong about Alex and had put her in a potentially very bad situation.

They had met Alex and Josh Brenton last year to discover the pair of siblings had spent years running from a sadistic monster that had been stalking Alex. Turns out she was a 'sensitive' and had a psychic perception of supernatural creatures – and they of her. Josh was caught by the authorities a few months after that and thrown in Fort Worth Prison and the brothers had spent a week with Alex, during which time she and Dean had become very close. If Sam was to describe it, he would use the L-word.

Upon further investigation and after being approached by the girl's Psychiatrist uncle, Sam had discovered the monster she simply called 'Red-Eyes' wasn't real after all. It was complicated, but it turned out she suffered from Persecutory Delusional Disorder combined with Schizophrenia and Self-Injurious Behavior. Sam and Bobby had watched the evidence on the security footage of her uncle's psychiatric hospital and along with all the other evidence they had compiled, had finally convinced Dean to let them call her uncle have her committed involuntarily to his facility in California. So the news that Red-Eyes was indeed real was indeed a very unfortunate shock.

"Has Red-Eyes found her?" Sam asked his brother with genuine concern.

The look Dean spared him answered the question without words. Yes, he most definitely had. "But the videos…" Sam said in confusion, his own stomach knotting up at the repercussions of their mistake. Correction, his mistake. He had been the one to go through the information Alex's uncle had given him. Dean never even would have questioned the girl's sanity had he not pushed the evidence on the older hunter. But the evidence had been so very convincing and therefore so very damning to Alex. He didn't understand how it could have been wrong but decided now was not the time to press his brother for details.

"It's a pretty secure facility," he said matter-of-factly. "I'll come with you. You'll need help getting her out."

Dean shook his head. "No. Bobby needs help with that cleansing in Billings. I'll take care of it and meet you at his place in a few days."

Sam knew Dean felt this was his responsibility. He knew the older hunter was completely blaming himself for the mistake, even though it was anybody's fault but his. But Sam knew his brother well enough to know there was no point in arguing with him. The pair sat in silence for a minute, each weighing their own culpability in Alex's current situation. Finally, Dean turned to Sam.

"So, dude, what the Hell happened with Lillith?"

SPN-SPN-SPN

So she's not crazy after all – I had to kick Dean while he was down *evil laugh* Just the first couple of chapters deal with the repercussions of the Winchesters' mistake with the Brentons (i.e. Dean's rescue attempt) then the hunt starts up in full swing. This is a big story, with high stakes, a high hurt!Dean quotient, plenty of Bobby and Cas, friendship, brotherly angst as well as brotherly love, ... oh, and not everybody will live through it. Please let me know what you think :-)

I will be posting every couple of days so very frequent updates.