CH 10

"What are you doing here?" Dean yelled. Mary drew her gun, clicked off the safety, but Crowley flicked his wrist and it was flung of her grip just like Dean's had been.

"I told you not to go after these bastards without me," Crowley said. "I wanted a piece of the action."

"How did you get in here?" Ketch snarled. Blood dripped from his gunshot wound onto the floor in small drops.

Crowley cocked his head. "A guard gate does little good without a guard."

"You killed my men?"

"Hello, demon," Crowley said. "You've killed scores of my men, it's only time I repay the favor."

Ketch spat out a wad of blood, and began to recite the exorcism ritual. Crowley sighed and looked at his nails. Dean watched with wide eyes as Ketch continued the ritual, and nothing happened. Ketch grew visibly more frustrated the longer he went and nothing happened. Crowley sighed boredly.

"Why isn't anything happening?" Ketch said.

"King of Hell. Dead vessel," Crowley explained. "Can't kick me out of my own tailored meatsuit, darling. I, however. . ." Crowley raised his hand. Ketch pitched forward. A burst of blood spewed out of his mouth. His face turned scarlet, and a horrible wheezing sound pinched from his lungs. He dropped to his knees, and more blood came out of his mouth like a faucet.

Mary screamed. She rushed towards Ketch, but Dean caught her by the elbow and pulled her back.

"Dean, stop him!"

Dean remained silent. He watched as Ketch fought for breath and lost; and he admitted with some modicum of shame that he didn't feel an ounce of guilt or worry as he witnessed the life literally dribbling out of Ketch's mouth. Mary kept trying to pull herself out of Ketch's grip, but Dean kept her firmly in place. She pulled hard, wrestled like a fish out of water, but Dean's grip never wavered. He was taller, and stronger than his mother, and though his mom was a skilled hunter, even she couldn't escape basic biology. The biggest thing always won.

It didn't last much longer. Ketch collapsed on the ground, and the awful choking noise silenced. Dean wished it had been longer, but he was glad the threat to his family was gone all the same.

Dean's grip on Mary slackened enough that she was able to pull free, and she covered her mouth with her hand. Ketch's face was swollen, and flushed, blood stained his chin and neck, and his tongue barely poked out of his mouth.

"Well," Crowley said, clicking his tongue. "That's that, I suppose."

Mary reached down and pulled out the gun Dean had secured to his ankle strap. She fired a shot before Dean even realized what had happened. The bullet lodged harmlessly into Crowley's chest. He didn't flinch, but instead stared at the gaping wound in disbelief.

"Ow," he said emotionlessly. "You hurt my feelings."

"You son a bitch!" she cried.

"Mrs. Winchester, you don't know how right you are."

"Dean, do something!" Mary's frustration was palpable.

"Get out of here," Dean snapped. "Go, before someone else shows up."

"Dean!"

"You don't need to tell me twice," Crowley said. He got that look on his face that he was ready to zap away, when he suddenly paused, and his smirk twisted into something sinister. "Oh, before I go, one more thing, Dean. Sam lost the choir boy. Ta-ta."

"Wait, what?"

But Crowley was gone before Dean could say anything else, the spot he had just occupied vacated completely, no sign of him having been there at all. Ketch's body lay there on the floor, rigor mortis already beginning to become visible as his muscles stiffened.

Mary was still in shock, but Dean's mind was racing a mile a minute, trying to process what Crowley had just said. He hadn't heard that right, surely? He had to have misheard. Yeah, that had to be it, because there was no way Crowley said that Sam lost Cas, because there was no way that happened.

Dean's stomach churned. He walked up to Ketch's corpse and bent down just enough to take the angel blade from where Ketch had it secured at the waist. Dean weighted it in his hands, then tucked it into his belt loop. He spat on the body.

"We should go," he said. He got the guns that had been flung from his grip, and he and Mary scurried out the building. Both the lookout and gate guards were dead, their faces as flushed and swollen as Ketch's had been. Dean took Mary by the elbow and hurried along, suddenly regretting the decision to park Baby so far away. His heart pounded in his chest, blood rushed hotly in his veins, as he replayed what Crowley said over and over again, to try and make sense of what it could have been Crowley actually said. Because Crowley said something, all right, but he did not, Dean resolutely believed, he did not say that Sam lost Cas.

Sam would not have let anything happen to Cas.

Dean's pace quickened. When they finally got into Baby, Mary was still quiet. Dean pulled out his cell phone and called Sam. He waited with baited breath, but then his heart dropped into his stomach when he got the shrill dial tone, the ascending pitch of beeps, and a female voice that chimed We're sorry, your call cannot be completed as dialed. Please hang up, and try again.

Dean's throat grew dry. "We gotta get back to the bunker," he said. He threw the car in reverse, and wasn't even bothered by the mud by that slung onto the side panels as he backed out of the wild grass. Baby was due for a wash anyway, he'd handle it once he got home, but he had to get back home as soon as possible.

"Dean," Mary said, as Dean straightened out onto the road and switched the gear shift to drive, "Ketch may have been. . . sadistic, and dangerous, but those other men did not deserve to die."

Dean clicked his tongue. He didn't think he agreed with Mary. The British Men of Letters all seemed crazy to him. Toni was, Mick was, Ketch definitely was-and if they were crazy, then people had to be crazy to work with them.

"Try calling Sam," Dean said instead. Mary sighed. She rubbed at her arms, before finally taking out her cell phone. Dean was still somewhat taken about by how fast Mary had caught on with the newest technology. She used a smart phone like she'd grown up with on, and had the phone pressed to her ear with no hesitation.

Dean heard the voice from the receiver. We're sorry—

He slammed his fist on the wheel. "Damn it!" He pressed harder on the gas pedal.

Mary sighed. "I can't believe you let him go," she said. "Again."

Oh, Dean was not in the mood for this right now. "Look," he growled. "I don't like Crowley. Hell, I'd love to stick a knife in his gut and twist it, but we. . . have a working relationship, okay? He's come through for us a lot over the years."

"Yeah," Mary scoffed, "I'm sure his motives are so altruistic."

"Absolutely not," Dean said. "We know Crowley's out for himself. Actually, we can trust him more than most people because we know we can't trust him."

He ignored the 'what the hell' look his Mom shot him and continued. "But he wants the world to not be destroyed, just like us. Our interests align occasionally."

"So you just let yourself be in his debt all this time? A demon? How's that any different than a deal, Dean?"

"Look," Dean snapped. "You don't have to like it, but that's how it's goes down. We join forces sometimes and the world doesn't end in fire."

"But—"

"Now is not the time to be having this argument okay? Something's wrong with Sam and Cas—Sam's phone is busted, and you heard what Crowley said—"

"I did," Mary said begrudgingly. "Fine. We'll get to the bunker and see what's happening, get it all figured out. And then I'm having a talk with you—all of you."

Dean rolled his eyes, and pressed harder on the gas.

-0-0-

Sam stared at the information in the text for a long time. He re-read it so many times he lost count. That couldn't be it. No way in Hell. It was way too easy, and nothing in Sam's life was ever easy. This had to be included.

He swallowed.

Wounds sustained from holy fire can be cured with a mixture of holy oil and salt.

Hell, Sam could make a gallon of holy water in under five minutes, and they had enough salt stocked in the bunker they could open a meat factory. If it was this easy, Cas would have known about it. Surely.

…Then again, no angel had ever survived a holy fire wound, had they?

Sam chewed on his lips.

He closed the book and tapped his fingers anxiously on the cover. He did that for a few seconds before he stood up and paced the room, chewing on his fingernails. Crowley still hadn't come back. He had no way to track Cas, and waiting was driving him insane. Crowley's snarky comment about putting a tracking chip in Cas was insane, but, it did get Sam thinking about something they could do so that this shit would stop happening.

He pinched the bridge of his nose and sank back onto the chair. Holy water and salt, huh. It couldn't hurt. And it was the only thing they had going so far.

The text went into further detail, explaining how the holy water and salt worked together to purify the wound and purge it of the taint that came from holy oil. If the situation hadn't been so dire, Sam would've appreciated the logistics of it more. He would've "geeked out" over every inch of it, but he couldn't calm the storm in his head.

He knew Crowley was back in the room when the air grew colder and heavier, and Sam could taste the sarcasm.

"Nice try, Moose," Crowley said. "I've finally one upped you."

Sam sighed and glared at Crowley. "What are you even talking about?"

"I told your brother how you're very irresponsible, and cannot be trusted to take care of any pets ever again."

"Fine," Sam said. If Crowley only came back to gloat and see Sam squirm, Sam would not give him the satisfaction. He came to the conclusion just shortly after Crowley zapped out that he was being a selfish brat—he would take Dean's rage, if it meant saving Cas. Crowley was as trustworthy as a suspicious mole. Sam begun to doubt if Crowley really even did need to hear that 'bell' or whatever, or if he was just biding time to make Cas suffer more. Sam wasn't too sure what their relationship was like at this point-they baited each other constantly, and acted as though just being in the same room as one another was insufferable, but Crowley had saved Cas's hide more than once, and Cas still hadn't killed Crowley, so. . .

But if now was the time when animosity overpowered whatever it was they had, Sam wasn't going to play.

"He's coming like a bat out of hell to put those steel toed boots up your arse."

"You gonna hang around to watch? I knew you weren't going to help Cas, so what the hell are you even still doing here? Get out!" Sam smashed his fist against the table. Crowley was not intimidated—he even seemed somewhat amused, and that pissed Sam off more than the lying and wasting Cas's time.

Crowley was gone again. Sam's shoulders deflated and he dug his fingers into his scalp. He kept seeing that crazy angel, just disappearing with Cas—

An idea struck him. He grabbed his laptop off the neighboring table. He strained his memory to pull out the words of the spell Isabel had used. He typed them into his search engine, and almost cheered in relief when he got the translation.

It was only a short range spell. Wherever Cas was, he was still in Kansas, probably not more than fifty miles away. Granted, that was fifty miles in any direction, but it was a much narrower field of search than the entire freaking globe.

He could work with this. Sam got busy, pulling up maps, radars, local news websites, searching for anomalies, anything that would led him closer to Cas. Sam got so engrossed in his work, he didn't hear the Impala pull into the garage, but instead, he heard the massive, enraged,

"SAM!"

Sam jumped out of his skin, and raced down the hallway. He almost slammed straight into Dean, just narrowly managed to stop in time to avoid a collision.

Dean's face was flushed, eyes wild, a look Sam was accustomed to.

"Before you say anything," Sam said, swallowing. "I've almost found him, I swear."