The phone rang somewhere in one of his coat pockets, sharp, startling him from his quiet reverie. It was the ring that Dean had programmed in himself, a piece of a song played far too loud, and it always caught him off guard. He looked away from the lake, and its swaying grasses and delicate birds. He had come here for peace, to collect his thoughts. He would have been bothered by the intrusion, if it hadn't been Dean.

He always found it hard to get upset with Dean. Even when he knew that he should. Even when everyone else did.

"Yes?" He asked in way of greeting, even though he knew what words would come next. Dean was not always predictable. Most of the time he completely startled and confused Castiel… but not when he called. He only ever called for one reason.

Dean's voice came soft and familiar- and Cas felt a warmth in his stomach. "Hey, Cas. We could use your help."

Castiel liked that he knew his friend so well.

"Where are you?" He got to his feet.

"Millington, Illinois. It's right next to Aurora."

And Castiel brought himself down alongside the hunter with a single beat of his wings.

Dean's eyebrows shot up, the whites of his eyes intense against his summer tan. "God damn it, Cas."

Castiel's brow twitched minutely at the blasphemy.

"Don't just pop in like that." The hunter closed his phone with a clap and he tucked it away. "Someone's gunna' notice."

Castiel looked around, taking in the collection of police officers standing about, all pointedly not looking at a too small body lying among the weeds.

"They seem otherwise occupied." The Angel let him know, not entirely sure how Dean hadn't noticed.

"Hey, Cas." Sam offered a strained smile and a nod.

"Sam." He nodded back… it seemed like the right thing to do. "What do you need?"

The younger brother looked like he was about to answer, but Dean cut him off quickly, demanding Castiel's attention.

"Someone dug up some bodies from the local cemetery and cut 'em up. That was two weeks ago and now we've got a fresh one. Same kind of damage."

"And what is it that you expect me to do about this?" He tore his eyes from Dean, looking to the girl that someone was finally moving into a large black bag. She looked so small and broken and Castiel couldn't understand how one person could do that to another. He couldn't understand how his father could have given the ability for such violence to the things he had created.

"We-we're not sure what we're hunting this time." Sam sounded almost guilty, like such a thing had never happened to him before. "We've been looking for days and haven't come up with anything. We don't even know if it's even human or …something else."

The boys didn't hunt down humans. They left such things to the police. Castiel looked over at the men in uniforms and the ambulance that they were loading the poor child into. It took two men to lift her, which Castiel thought odd because it could have been accomplished by only one.

He looked up at Sam, craning his neck. "Again, what is it that you expect me to do?" He could not undo what had been done. Her soul had left hours ago and it was not his place to call it back. She was at peace now.

"Use your mojo, Cas." Dean demanded. "See if there's any …monster residue that we aren't seeing."

"Residue?"

"You know, anything that points to…" He scuffed his boots, sending up a pale dust cloud. "-to whatever did this. We need a direction to go in. We're getting nowhere on our own."

Castiel sensed that it took a lot for Dean to ask for help, and he didn't understand the strain. But Dean was a proud man, and he tended to see in himself signs of weakness where there were none.

The police were dissipating, some getting into small black and white cars, some stepping further away to have drinks from little styrofoam cups. The Angel walked among them, relatively unnoticed. He saw the footprints of many men, the trampled weeds, the Indian red smears in the dirt where the child's blood had dried. He looked for a mark, some remnant of something. Anything that might help Dean.

He found nothing.

"I'm sorry." He honestly was. "But whoever did this to her did it elsewhere. I sense nothing, human or otherwise."

Dean looked accepting of this news, though not happy.

Sam was frowning. "Maybe there's something in the cemetery."

"I can take him." Dean spoke fast and earned an odd look from his younger brother. "You go with the ambulance, Sammy. I think they said they were taking her into Aurora for the autopsy."

"Alright." His brother said slowly, glancing at Cas, then back at Dean. "I'll call if they find anything." He left on his long legs, talking to a man in uniform before getting into the back of the ambulance with the body.

Castiel was alone with Dean. He looked over at the hunter, expectantly.

"Come on, dude." Dean shook his keys in the air between them before making his way to the street where his car glistened bright afternoon, like wet obsidian. Castiel trailed a little behind, not making an effort to catch up- because he sort of enjoyed watching Dean walking away, even though he didn't know why. Dean was sweating, the back of his shirt wet, and the muscles in his shoulders visible though the thin white fabric.

Castiel was the only person in that field still wearing a jacket. His vessel didn't sweat, or at least it hadn't so far. It seemed like an unpleasant thing to do, and even so, Castiel always had to fight the temptation to reach out and touch his friend when he was like this. To feel the wetness of his skin.

He got into the car, sitting in Sam's usual seat, folding his hands uncomfortably in his lap. "How long have you and your brother been investigating these murders?"

"Only one murder so far." He started up the car, with a quick jerk of the keys. "The other six bodies've been dead for months or longer. There were no signs of anything unnatural in the deaths… we looked." He rapped his hand against the wheel as he drove, his ring making a steady rhythm. "Now, I personally think it's just some psychopath who wasn't satisfied in robbing graves and went after something a bit fresher. " He hit his hand a little harder against the wheel and Castiel blinked. "Sam's leaning towards it being something else, but he can't figure out what yet. I'm gunna' find it either way, and kill the son of a bitch." He wore an intense expression, a little hollow in his cheek from where he was biting it.

"I don't know how much help I will be." Castiel confessed. "I'm not a hunter."

"Not asking you to hunt, Cas. Just see if you can find something we couldn't. You look at the world a bit different than we do. You've been around a lot longer, seen a lot more."

The Impala pulled into the parking lot of a dusty motel and Dean cut the engine.

"I thought we were going to the cemetery." He hesitated, not really wanting to question Dean or his motives, whatever they might be. The man usual had a fairly clear idea what he was doing.

"We are, but I need to get out of this money suit." He pulled himself from the car, squinting into the sun. "Maybe get a shower. I smell like an armpit's asshole."

Castiel thought that Dean smelled wonderful, but he knew better than to say such things. Instead he followed, appreciating the view, all the way into the motel room.