ACT FOUR

Bobby drives her car as she sits in the back and Dean in the front. Angel grimaced as she wiped the blood from her face. Dean turned to her, "How ya feelin?"

"My head's pounding and my ears have bells in them but aside from that… freakin great." She sniped then huffed, "Where the hell is Sam?"

"On it." Dean pulled out his phone and dials his number

He answers on the first ring, "Hey."

"You're on speaker with Ang and Bobby." Deans said, "What are you doing?"

"Couldn't sleep, went to get a burger."

"In my car?"

"Sorry. Couldn't really take Angie's though so…" He cleared his throat, "What are you guys doing up anyway?"

"Bobby's back." Angel piped up from the back, "We're uh… we're going to grab a beer at the bar in town." At their shocked looks Angel signaled for the two of them to stay quiet

"All right, well, uh, spill some for me, huh?"

"Sure Sammy." Angel nodded taking the phone from Dean, "See you later."

After she hung up Bobby looked at her through the rearview mirror, "Why the hell didn't you tell him?"

"Because he'd just try to stop us. Trust me if i hadn't just been attacked i would've said this was crazy too but i think this is our only move."

"And what move is that?" Bobby asked

She and Dean shared a look, one her brother read immediately, "You wanna summon this thing?"

Bobby sputtered, "You can't be serious!"

"As serious as i'll ever be. This is our only move boys." She huffed, "We gotta do it."

"Ang…" Dean countered, "We don't know what the hell we're dealing with. This thing almost killed you just Now."

"That's why we've got to be ready for anything." She nodded to him, "Still got Ruby's knife?"

"Yeah…"

"Good."

Bobby shook his head at her, "This is a bad idea."

Dean nodded looking grim, "Yeah, I couldn't agree more, but she's right, what other choice do we have?"

"We could choose life."

"Look…" She eyed the two of them, "This thing is after me hardcore. That's obvious. There's nowhere i can hide so we can either wait for it to attack when we're all off guard again or we can go after it on our own terms."

"Shes right." Dean nods, "We need to make our stand."

Bobby still didn't look convinced, in fact he looked quite tense, "Okay… but we could really use Sam on this."

"No. Leave him be." Angel instructed, "Hes better off that way. We can handle this."

Back with Sam…

Sam sneaks into the darkened diner and slips his lock-picking tools into his shirt pocket. A song is playing on the jukebox in the otherwise quiet deserted restauraint. Sam sneaks in quietly, and immediately sees the cook from earlier face-down on the floor, his hands bloody, its obvious he was dead. Sam crouches and turns the man over revealing his eyes burned out and drying blood caked on his cheeks. Sam grimaced and got up but as soon as he did a figure tackles him from behind – they grapple for a moment and Sam sees that its the demon waitress that confronted Angel earlier. They trade blows for a few moments until Sam shoves her away. She too has empty, burned out eye sockets and blood trickling down her face. She looks both terrifying and terrified.

Sam grimaced again in shock and disgust, "Your eyes."

She growled, "I can still smell your soul a mile away."

"It was here." His brows lifted, "You saw it."

She sobbed, "I saw it."

"What was it?"

"It's the end. We're dead. We're all dead."

Sam insisted, "What did you see?"

She growled again, "Go to hell."

"Funny. I was going to say the same thing to you."

He steps back, plants his feet, and shuts his eyes in concentration. He extends his right hand towards the demon and she heaves as she begins to vomit black smoke into her hand; in seconds, the waitress has collapsed to the floor as the demon is sucked down into the Pit.

Sam opens his eyes and crosses to the woman on the floor. He checks her pulse, sighing in disappointment, "Damn it."

The kitchen door opens and a woman comes out. He looks up, not surprised to see her. It is the hot woman from earlier when Angel, Dean and Sam came to his hotel room, "Getting pretty slick there, Sam. Better all the time."

Sam stands and they share a smoldering look. He looks down at the corpse at his feet, his face falling, "What the hell is going on around here, Ruby?"

"I wish I knew."

Sam shook his head, "We were thinking some high level demon pulled Angel out."

"No way." She countered, "Sam, human souls don't just walk out of Hell and back into their bodies easy. The sky bleeds, the ground quakes. It's cosmic. No demon can swing that. Not Lilith, not anybody."

"Then what can?"

"Nothing I've ever seen before."

Back with Angel, Dean and Bobby in a warehouse...

Bobby draws a symbol with white spray paint on the cement floor. As he stands, he surveys the entire floor, walls, and ceiling of the empty rectangular warehouse. They are covered in similar images as Angel finishes up.

Dean was at a table, setting up equipment, "That's a hell of an art project you two have got going there."

"Traps and talismans from every faith on the globe." Bobby answered

Angel smirked as she shut the book she was looking at and put the apray bottle down, "Not a bad place to start. This has to help us out somehow. How you doin?"

Dean motioned, "Stakes, iron, silver, salt, knife. I mean, we're pretty much set to catch and kill anything I've ever heard of."

Bobby shook his head at them again, his face even more grim than before, "This is still a bad idea."

"Yes i understand how you feel Bobby. We both do but like i said before… we're kind of backed into a corner here."

As silence stretched between them Dean shifted, "What do you say we ring the dinner bell?"

Angel sighs and nods as Bobby nods reluctantly. He goes over to another desk, takes a pinch of some powder from a bowl, and sprinkles it into a larger bowl, which begins to smoke as he chants in Latin.

Back with Sam and Ruby…

Ruby and Sam are seated across from each other at a small table. She reguards him, "So. Million dollar question, are you going to tell Angel and Dean about what we're doing?"

He nods, "Yeah, I just gotta figure out the right way to say it." Ruby gives him a look, "Look, I just need time, okay? That's all."

"Sam theyre going to find out, and if it's not from you theyre going to be pissed."

"Both of them are going to be pissed anyway." He dismissed, "I mean, Deans so hardheaded about this psychic stuff he'll just try and stop me, and Angel still treats me like her six year old little brother."

"Look. Maybe I'll just take a step back for a while."

"Ruby, you…"

"I mean, I'm not exactly in your siblings fanclub. Especially your sisters, but they are your brother and sister, and I'm not going to come between you three."

"I don't know if what I'm doing is right. Hell, I don't even know if I trust you."

"Thanks."

"But what I do know is that I'm saving people. And stopping demons. And that feels good. I want to keep going."

Back at the warehouse...

The three hunters are all seated on seperate tables, swinging their legs and looking bored. Dean glared over to Bobby, "You sure you did the ritual right?" Bobby gives him a look, "Sorry. Touchy, touchy, huh?"

"Dean." Angel quipped, "Enough with the smartass comments okay?"

As if on cue, a loud rattling shakes the roof and the hunters arm themselves with shotguns and take positions at the far end of the warehouse. Dean let out a stiff laugh, "Wishful thinking, but maybe it's just the wind?"

Angel looks around at the commotion and grips her shotgun hard, "Doubtful."

The door bursts open and a handsome man in a business suit and trenchcoat stalks in. Castiel. Angel raisies a brow at him and the light bulbs above his head shatter in a shower of sparks as he passes them. As he approaches, the three hunters all open fire, but the shots do not even slow him down. Dean takes the magic knife as Castiel gets closer and closer to his sister.

Angel tenses backing away from him, her heart beating erratically but oddly enough a sense a familiarity filled her, "Who the hell are you?"

The man stared her down, "I'm the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition."

"Thanks, that much i put together myself."

Dean then jumps forward and plunges the knife into his chest. Castiel looks down, unconcerned, pulls it out, and drops it to the floor. Behind him, Bobby attacks; without looking away from Angel, Castiel grabs Bobbys weapon and uses it to swing him around. He touches Bobby on the forehead with fingertips and Bobby crumples to the ground before doing the same to Dean.

"We need to talk, Angel. Alone."