Previously: Sam, Dean, Tasha and Jo were led out by Gwen and wasted no time getting into the cars and leaving but Dean pulled over into the parking lot of a motel barely ten minutes away. "Something shady's going on here," he said in response to the questioning looks he was getting. "And I'm not leaving until I find out what it is."

CHAPTER 4 - Cloudy Allegiances

Just a couple of minutes after the four hunters pulled over to express their suspicions about the Winchesters' newly-resurrected grandfather and his shady crew of hunters, Samuel Campbell drove past in an older model pick-up truck. Dean lowered his head, gesturing to the others to do the same, and hoped like hell the people in the truck hadn't noticed them. Guessing Samuel was heading out to meet up with the men and the vans from the Daeva building now that the inconvenient family reunion was taken care of, they all agreed following him would be the best move.

With both Samuel and the Davea building to stake out plus Sam to keep an eye on, Dean was feeling spread a little thin. He and Tasha headed back to the building in Casper to keep their eyes open for signs of Crowley's demons, a task the hunter just couldn't trust Sam with yet, while Bobby agreed to meet up with Sam and Jo as they tailed Samuel in the Impala.

Ten minutes later found Dean behind the wheel of Tasha's Challenger, heading south and hoping like hell he could trust Jo to not let Sam out of her sight until Bobby got there. He was still debating the wisdom of splitting up when he sighed and turned to steal a glance at the brunette sitting quietly beside him.

"So," he ventured. "You and Mark, huh?"

She gave him a one-shouldered shrug. "It was a long time ago."

"Guy's creepy. He doesn't exactly talk much, does he?"

"We didn't exactly do much talking."

He screwed up his face in distaste. "Okay, TMI."

She laughed. "It's not like you thought I was a virgin, Dean." She gave him an amused look before shaking her head at him. "It was like a three week fling, that's it," she told him sincerely.

Dean nodded but his shoulders remained stiff. Fine, it was before he was in the picture but that didn't mean he had to like it. He thought she had pretty much told him everything and she had never mentioned Mark before. He pursed his lips when she laughed out loud at him, punching him playfully on the arm and enjoying his apparent jealousy a little too much.

"He was a hunter," she finally elaborated with a roll of her eyes. "I was nineteen at the time so I'd only been hunting by myself for like a year and then he came along – older, experienced, and he had that silent and broody bad boy thing going on. I mean, what can I say? I was young and impressionable. It wasn't anything serious and it didn't last long - a couple of hunts, that's it."

She paused and smiled at him. "You know you have nothing to worry about, right?"

"Do I look worried to you?" he scoffed, allowing himself a laugh. He did know that. He had never actually doubted that. He grinned when her hand glided over his thigh, rubbing gently and she leaned over to nuzzle his neck.

"Of course, maybe I should get you to prove it to me," he chuckled mischievously, shrugging off the whole thing with one last, fleeting wish that it hadn't turned out to be his own cousin she had a history with, however short-lived.

Cas showed up in the back seat thirty seconds later, winging in as usual with no warning and causing Dean to wonder briefly if the angel took the time to check what everyone was doing before showing up unannounced. It wasn't exactly like he and Tasha had never been 'indecent' in the car before, even while driving. Luckily this time she was behaving and both of them were still completely dressed.

"Hey Cas," he greeted his friend in response to the loud throat-clearing the couple was given. He was glad Cas couldn't see the look of slight annoyance on Tasha's face as she quickly sat up straight and pursed her lips. It might have bothered him but he had seen firsthand just how close Tasha and Cas had been in the other timeline and knew she would warm up to him eventually this time around also. "Where've you been, dude?" he questioned the blue eyes in his rear-view mirror. "There were Daevas at that house but no sign of demons."

He explained the appearance of the Campbells and the apparent resurrection of Samuel Campbell but Cas had heard nothing about it. The angel did have an update on the Daeva building, however. Apparently the sigils were all gone and the place was now completely empty, with no signs of Daevas nor demons. "They must have moved on," the angel stated.

Realizing there was no longer any point in staking out the building, Dean turned the car around while Cas informed them of a new lead he had on Crowley. He had found a demon in New Jersey who had directed him to another in Nevada in hopes of escaping the angel's wrath. Cas smote him anyway but was now going to Nevada to check out the information. Looking decidedly displeased at the loss of the Daeva lead, the angel told them he would also try and see if he could learn who or what had brought Samuel back from his thirty-five year grave before he disappeared as quickly as he had shown up.

"He's always so serious," Tasha commented when they found themselves alone again.

"He wants to clear up all this supernatural mayhem before we have our kids," Dean explained. "He wants them to be safe." He gave her a lopsided smile. "And he wants you to be safe."

~x~x~x~x~x~x~

Sam and Jo had to ease back from tailing Samuel so as not to get caught by the trained hunter, who had both Gwen and Mark in the truck with him. Fortunately, the Campbells had made a pit stop for gas near the border and Sam had managed to slip one of the Winchesters' many cell phones with the GPS turned on into the truck box so they could track them from a safer distance.

They were headed east along the I94 just inside North Dakota when Bobby caught up with them, Dean and Tasha a half hour later. Shortly before dawn, Samuel's truck finally came to a stop just past Bismarck. The Chevelle being the only car not recognizable to the Campbells, the Winchester brothers hopped in with Bobby to drive past the location shown on the planted GPS. It looked like a hospital or institution of sorts, long since abandoned but with chainlink fencing still intact around the entire place. One of the vans from the Daeva building, the one Christian had been driving, was parked out front next to Samuel's truck. A couple of guards with rifles could be seen patrolling the perimeter.

"What kind of hunters need armed guards everywhere they go?" Dean groused. "And why do they need two military-looking compounds?"

"Ain't nobody arguin' yer new kin's all kinds of shady," Bobby agreed. "I've been askin' around and word is your Granddaddy's in charge and he tends to keep it in the family."

"Well he didn't exactly welcome us with open arms," Sam said wryly. "Practically threw us out."

Dean stole a glance at his little brother just in time to catch the brief hurt look that crossed his face. It occurred to him that Sam didn't remember their mom and, unlike Dean, he never got the chance to travel back in time to meet their grandparents or their younger parents. No, Sam's only experiences with blood family were a tumultuous relationship with their father and the complicated bond he shared with Dean that even though it was strong, was far from normal. He'd never known anything else and, judging by the look on his expressive face right now, he had been excited by the possibility of changing that.

"So what do we do now?" Dean questioned.

Bobby shrugged. "I say we watch the place. It's almost dawn and we ain't gettin' in there without the cover of darkness so we sit tight and watch and we figure out what these Campbells are up to. If we still don't know by tomorrow night, we go in."

~x~x~x~x~x~x~

With three of them still battered and hurting from the Daeva fight, the hunters were actually glad for the chance to recuperate a bit during the restful day spent watching the facility. Their rotating shifts of surveillance, however, had produced very little evidence of what was going on inside by the following night. The guards outside swapped out every four hours like clockwork but nobody came or went from the property. At one point, Jo thought she heard inhuman screeching coming from inside but she was on watch with Bobby, whose older ears didn't pick up anything and she wasn't entirely sure.

They were just preparing to leave their covert vantage point in an abandoned pump house across the street and attempt to break into the facility when there was a sudden bustle of activity. They watched as eight people, including Christian, Samuel, Mark, and Gwen tumbled into the van and the truck and took off down the road at full speed.

They hustled to their own cars, which were hidden off the road in the bushes, and raced down the road after them. Without the benefit of the GPS-tracking cell in Samuel's truck this time, following them was harder to do while keeping enough of a distance that they weren't seen. They tailed them through the night but lost them in the busier streets of Cheyenne, Wyoming just after dawn.

Cursing, Dean circled the streets near where they had last seen the van. He was in the Impala with his brother in the passenger seat, both of them straining their eyes to see down every sidestreet and alley in hopes of catching a glimpse of the Campbells. Finally, just when they were about to give up, Sam cried out and pointed out his window. Dean pulled over quickly behind the cover of a leafy tree and some shrubs.

The van and the truck were both there but so was the other van from the Daeva house plus a couple more trucks. They were all parked in front of a large, older home that was set back quite a distance from the road, the closest neighbors a few hundred yards away. They could hear sporadic gunfire coming from the house and flashes of bright lights could be seen in the windows. Dean went for his door handle but Sam put a restraining hand on his arm.

"Dean, wait," he said urgently. "We don't know what they're up against in there. That and there could be thirty of them and most of them don't know us. Let's just wait and see what happens."

Dean grumbled out loud but couldn't argue with his brother's logic. He'd already been rescued by these dicks once; he certainly didn't want to give them a chance to do it again by jumping into some unknown situation unprepared. Instead he called Bobby, Jo, and Tasha in the other two cars with the radios and gave them the address, warning them to stay out of sight.

It wasn't more than a few minutes later that at least fifteen hunters came pouring out of the building. Some looked seriously hurt but a couple that were being carried over the shoulders of their comrades looked dead. "Crap," Sam hissed quietly, wondering if he had just lost two relatives he hadn't known existed.

Then six of them came out the front door together, all carrying a large, ornate box with handles on the sides. It looked like it was made of iron and had strange markings burned or painted onto every square inch of its surface.

"Those markings are Zoroastrian," Sam announced with a frown. "See that one that looks like a lopsided TIE-fighter? That's a Daeva marking, for sure. Daevas are really old shadow demons from at least 2000BC so they can be bound and some of those symbols look like binding sigils."

"Nerd," came Tasha's voice over the radio. Dean just grinned.

They watched quietly as the box, measuring at least five feet on all sides, was carried towards one of the vans. It started to shake at one point and two more men came rushing over to help muscle it into the open van doors.

"What the hell was that?" came Jo's voice from where she sat with Bobby in his Chevelle.

"It's alive!" Sam exclaimed, his hazel eyes wide with shock. "They've caught one alive."

"Why would they want to do that?" Dean demanded.

"That's playing with fire," Bobby snarled. "If you see a monster, you kill it. That's just common sense."

The Campbells loaded up into their vehicles hastily and started to pull out into the street. The Winchesters and company watches as the group split into two, with Samuel's truck and the van containing the mystery box turned one way and the rest of the crew headed in the opposite direction.

"Crap," Dean growled. "Bobby, you and Jo go left, follow those ones. Looks like they're heading either back to the main compound or that other facility." He narrowed his eyes as he steered the Impala to the right. "I'm following that box. Hey Tash..."

"Right behind ya," the brunette replied, not giving him a chance to send her with Bobby and Jo.

Dean's face pulled into a lopsided smile. "Just checking," he said into the radio.

~x~x~x~x~x~x~

Bobby and Jo followed their Campbells back to the compound in Billings. Among them were Gwen, Doc, and Mark. Bobby had been checking into the addresses of both the compound and the more remote facility in Bismark and started to get calls back from his contacts. Turns out both places were owned by some cagey-sounding company that seemed to Bobby was nothing more than a dummy corporation. How Samuel got his hands on these places after only being back with the living for about a month was a complete mystery.

Meanwhile, the Impala and the Challenger followed the box. It was daylight though and the drivers being tailed were certainly trained hunters and knew how to avoid being followed. After a couple of close calls, it was mid afternoon when they finally lost them for good, just south of Grand Island, Nebraska.

Disappointed and stiff from endless hours sitting in the cars, the three of them gave up and stopped at a diner to eat. Sam immediately acquired the unwanted attention of the forty-something waitress as he made his way to the booth with a slight limp. He spent the meal in weary silence, trying his hardest to ignore the sarcastic encouragement he was getting from the pair sitting across from him to make a move on their server. After the third MILF crack and at least the sixth cougar comment, he was actually pleased when Cas popped into the seat next to him, even if the angel was sitting uncomfortably close.

"Cas!" Dean exclaimed in surprise, glancing warily around the diner to make sure the trench-coated newcomer's supernatural appearance hadn't been noticed while Sam scooted himself over on the seat. "What's going on, dude? Tell me you got something on dear old Grandad."

Cas shook his head. "No, but I did find out where Crowley could be. There is a place in Lincoln."

"Lincoln, Illinois or Lincoln, Nebraska?" Sam asked.

"Or Lincoln, Rhode Island?" Tasha added.

"Nebraska," Cas elaborated, turning his blue eyes on the brunette sitting across from him. "The same city in which you killed your first vampire," he added, giving her a slight smile.

"How do you know..." Tasha cut herself off, remembering again that Cas had five years worth of memories with her that she didn't have. It still creeped her out and she wondered what else he knew about her. She hadn't even had the chance to share that first-kill vampire story with Dean yet so it was strange to find out that she had shared it with the weird guy in the trench coat with no sense of personal space.

"Okay, what's Crowley doing in Lincoln?" Dean interjected, knowing Cas's one-sided familiarity still bothered his long-time loner of a girlfriend. She just needed a little time to adjust to the fact that she had actually let someone in besides Dean.

"I don't know," Cas admitted, "But he has a large house there that he frequents. I cannot enter because he has wards against angels in place but if you remove a few of the key sigils for me, I can go in and retrieve the Colt for you and hopefully find out what Crowley has been up to."

Dean nodded, waving to the waitress to bring over the tab. "Sounds good," he agreed. "Only we're coming in with you."

~x~x~x~x~x~x~

"Fuck," Tasha grumbled as she concentrated on walking straight in the heels and short skirt. "Jo should be here doing this part. I fucking hate heels." She made her way up to the gate of the large, walled-in estate and pressed the buzzer. When two guards appeared, her damsel in distress routine had the gate open in seconds but no sooner was she ushered inside than the guards dropped their good Samaritan pretence and turned on her, licking their lips and roaming their black, hungry eyes. Ruby's knife was out of her purse and in the neck of the closest demon before she even saw Sam and Dean slip through the gate behind him and pin the second demon while she sank the knife into his gut.

"Nice work, babe," Dean grinned, exaggeratingly looking her up and down. "You should dress like that all the time."

Tasha snorted, reaching down to pull the shoes off her feet and tossing them into the grass. She had spent much of her youth in Central and South America and was used to bare feet but she could never get used to walking in heels. "Yeah, coz kicking demon ass in a skirt that barely covers my underwear makes so much sense."

"Lara Croft does it," Dean smirked as she handed Ruby's knife back to him. "And Sailor Moon."

"Lara Croft wears shorts."

"Not in the version I like."

"You and your anime porn fetish. You know that's..."

"Uh, guys?" Sam cut in, his hands turned upwards in disbelief at the bad timing for their flirty banter. "Crowley, the Colt, demons..."

"Yeah, yeah," Dean rolled his eyes, pulling out his cell phone to call Cas. "Okay, we're in," he said into the phone. "Where are these sigils we need to wipe out to get you in here?"

Cas directed them to spray-paint a large area on the gate as well as a few spots on the side of the house and finally the front door. The last one involved taking out another of Crowley's demon guards, a task easily done by Cas, who had winged himself into the yard to stand next to them and simply placed his hand on the demon's face.

They slipped quietly in the front door in single file and began searching the huge house. There was nothing on the main level or upstairs but Cas's eyes widened as soon as Dean opened a door in the kitchen with a set of stairs heading down to a cellar. "There are demons down there," he announced in a grave voice.

"Perfect," Dean said, gripping the knife and leading the way down the stairway.

Like the house above, the cellar was huge. There was a commotion coming from a wooden door past a large wall-sized wine rack that was extremely well-stocked with both wine and whiskey. The brothers headed straight for it but Cas got there first by flashing out and in. Ignoring Dean's muttered "cheater", Cas threw the door open and strode through, killing the first demon in his path with his deadly angel touch.

The hunters followed him into a large room with markings on the walls and the floor and two demons standing near the center. Dean recognized one of them instantly. "That's Crowley!" he warned, pointing to the one without an alarmed look on his face.

Crowley just smirked at them as they entered the room. "Well, I'll be damned. You must be the Winchesters," he sneered before glancing at Cas. "And their little pet."

Cas strode forward towards the demon, smiting the lackey who tried to stop him without even breaking his stride. Crowley didn't flinch as the angel approached but instead just stood there with an almost eager expression. He pulled the lighter from his pocket and flicked it so quickly the hunters didn't even see it happen. It wasn't until the ring of fire sprang up all around Cas that they realized what had occurred.

Unable to breach the circle of flames, Cas stopped short and glowered at the demon. Sam and Dean, however, jumped into action instantly, both lunging towards the man in the dark suit. "Break the circle!" Dean shouted at Tasha. She and Sam had never seen the holy oil ring before but Dean knew how powerful it could be. After all, in the other timeline, it had held Raphael, an archangel way farther up the celestial food chain than little Ol' Cas. He knew their angel sidekick would be completely trapped as long as the flames were burning.

Before he got the chance to sink Ruby's knife into the demon, Dean felt himself flung through the air by an invisible force. He slammed back-first into the cement behind him with a painful grunt and looked up to see both Sam and Tasha pinned against the wall also, Cas's fiery prison still intact.

Damnit, Crowley and his demon mojo.

Crowley clapped his hands slowly and took a few slow, steps forward, a gloating smirk on his face. He strolled around Cas's circle, eyeing the captured angel triumphantly before turning to look back and forth between Sam and Dean. He paid no attention to Tasha, who was pressed up against the wall between the brothers.

"Well I'm gonna go out on a limb and say the giant woolly mammoth one over here is Sam," he said finally in a thick, English accent. "And you must be Dean." He nodded at the elder Winchester. "Thanks, by the way. From what I hear, if it wasn't for you, we'd have Lucifer topside right now and I'd still be merely a crossroads demon. King of Hell has a much nicer ring to it, don't you think?"

"Don't get used to it," Dean fired back.

"Dean, look!" Sam called him. He glanced over to his brother, who was pinned twenty feet away, and followed his gaze to a large box on the floor on the other side of the room. It looked exactly like the box the Campbells had carried out of that building in Cheyenne this morning.

He mirrored Sam's puzzled expression. "Where the hell did you get that?" he demanded of Crowley, his mind reeling with the possibility that Samuel could have been attacked and possibly hurt by demons or worse, that his own grandfather could have willingly handed it over.

Before Crowley could answer, Sam cut in again. "It's open," he pointed out.

"You let a Daeva loose!" Tasha exclaimed, looking around the room wildly. Dean knew how she felt. Demons were dangerous but at least you could see them coming. Being attacked by the invisible shadow creatures had been terrifying, an experience he didn't particularly want to repeat.

Crowley scoffed. "Loose? Do I look like a complete prat?"

"Well, now that you mention it..."

Dean's wisecrack was cut-off when he was jerked forward and slammed back against the wall with enough force he could practically feel his bones rattle.

"It's dead," Cas deadpanned from inside the circle. He raised his finger and pointed to the floor next to the box, where the hunters could only see a smeared patch of blood on the ground. That's right, Dean remembered. Angels could see Daevas. "The Daeva Alpha is dead," Cas elaborated.

"Alpha?" Sam gasped.

"Tell me, Crowley," Cas said, his voice deepening. "What do you want with the Alphas?"

Crowley laughed again and picked up a jar of dark, red liquid. "Just needed a few pints of this."

"Blood? What for?" Cas pressed, his fists clenched at his sides in frustration at being trapped so helplessly.

"Ahhh, not just blood, Angel-pup. Alpha blood. The blood of a native."

"A native of what?" Sam asked, brow knitted in confusion.

"Of Purgatory, of course."

"Purgatory?" the three pinned hunters repeated in unison.

"Give the humans a cookie," Crowley jeered, clearly enjoying having the upper hand as much as the sound of his own voice. "See, you need the blood of a native to open a gate to Purgatory. The Daeva Aplpha is possibly the weakest Alpha of the lot and definitely wouldn't have been my first choice but," he shrugged, "You take what you can get these days. It does mean this door won't be enough for my grand finale, though. It probably won't last more than a few minutes so it'll be more like a test run." He smirked in turn at all four of his captives. "As it turns out, you lot interrupting my little party turned out to be perfect timing."

With that he began to smear the blood from the jar on the far wall with his hand, chanting words in some unrecognizable language as he did so.

"You see," Crowley paused and turned to Sam, unable to refrain from further gloating. "You being Lucifer's vessel and all, makes you a walking time bomb. Say Lilith's followers ever figure out a way to get that cage open? Can't have you just walking around, waiting to get jammed, can I? Killing you would be pointless because those fucking angel pricks would just bring you back again, even if I managed to get you downstairs and buried you in the deepest corner of hell." He drew a couple more sigils on the wall as he spoke. "Now this... this is a permanent solution to my problem."

"You can't!" Cas exclaimed, putting the demon's plan together faster than the hunters.

Crowley glanced at Cas. "Don't worry, sweetcheeks. After I give your friends here a good send-off, I'll send someone to put you out of your misery." A few more words in the strange language and there was a sudden thrum in the air. The demon's face lit up in an excited grin.

They all watched with dread as a circular blurry shape started to appear in the wall where the largest of the symbol had been drawn, struggling to break the hold the demon still had on them. The shape grew and darkened until it was a swirling vortex of darkness with specs of light throughout. The strange vibe in the air strengthened and it's increased intensity must have interfered with Crowley's mojo for the three hunters suddenly found themselves free from the invisible restraints.

Dean instantly dove for the ring of fire around Cas, knowing they didn't stand a chance without the angel free to use his mojo. He was just throwing his body over a portion of flames to break the circle, however, when he saw his worst nightmare unfold. With a flick of Crowley's hand, Sam went flying through the air, across the room, and right into the massive vortex. The last thing Dean saw of his brother was his terrified face being swallowed up by the darkness.

"SAM!" he screamed, scrambling to his feet as panic ripped through him. Crowley raised his hand towards him next and Dean suddenly felt his own body hurtling forward in to the air towards the hole also. He stopped short just a few feet along, however, as Cas stepped out of the ring and wrapped a fist in the back of his jacket, yanking him backwards and dropping him roughly at the angel's feet.

Cas immediately took a menacing step towards Crowley, whose smirk had definitely disappeared at this point.

"Oops, time to go," Crowley said before disappearing in a blink.

Without even the slightest hesitation, Cas turned from where Crowley was standing and ran instead towards the hole, diving right into the center of it and disappearing.

Dean was just a second behind him. He was about to launch himself into the blackness when he was knocked sideways off his feet. He lashed out at whatever had tackled him, desperate to help Sam, to make sure his brother wasn't facing whatever was on the other side of that hole without him. He was scrambling back to his feet when a blow was dealt to the back of his knee. As he stumbled, hands wrapped themselves around his wrist, yanking him downwards and a panicked voice tore his focus away from his single-minded mission to get to that hole.

"No! Dean! Don't!" Tasha was screaming, tugging at him for all she was worth. "Please don't! Please. Let Cas get him!"

He faltered, the fear for him that was pouring from her brown eyes giving him pause.

"You'll only make it harder for him," she was arguing desperately. "He can't save both of you! Please don't go in there! Let Cas save him."

It occurred to Dean she was right. He wouldn't be able to help Sam over there, but maybe Cas could. His instinct had always been to save Sam at all costs and that instinct had been known to cloud his judgement and completely disregard his own safety as well as logic and rational thought and the smarter plan. He swallowed and a choked whimper escaped him but he stopped fighting against her pull on his arm.

Cas would save Sam. He had to believe that. Dean's breathing was heavy and ragged with fear and worry but he stood his ground.

He also had more than just Sam to think about now, he realized. He had Tash.

He helped the brunette to her feet and it only vaguely dawned on him that he had struck her in his panic to get to the hole. She never loosened her death grip on his hand as they stood side by side, waiting with held breath and staring at the gaping hole in the wall. A hole straight to Purgatory. A hole that had just swallowed his brother and his best friend.

~x~x~x~x~x~x~

A/N: Man, I had a bitch of a time trying to get this written! Sorry not much excitement until the end – but the story should be a lot more fun to write from now on :-) Sorry for the cliffie but when it's Sam and Cas, we know they'll get back somehow so not really a cliffie, right? Don't forget to review and let me know what you're thinking!