21

CHAPTER 8

Erin rolled over and snuggled deeper into the covers, waking slowly as warm sunlight pouring through her bedroom window warmed her face. She opened her eyes and stretched languidly. She hadn't slept so well in years she thought, maybe centuries, unplagued by dreams that swam with memories of all she hated about herself, all she mourned. Not wanting to lose the feeling of serenity she found herself in Erin wrapped her arms around the pillows and thought she could sleep in for a little while.

She'd had the strangest dream though. Christian possessed by a demon, angels on the doorstep telling her she wasn't what she thought she was, in the company of two men calling themselves hunters. She figured she should have been unsettled by a dream like that but somehow, she wasn't. Very weird dream. One of the hunters had been very handsome though. She wouldn't mind him showing up in another of her dreams as long as it wasn't as odd as this one had been.

Erin was just about to shut her eyes again and see if the good-looking hunter might show up in her next dream as say, a hot car mechanic who'd help her change her spark plugs, when she noticed the clock on her bedside table.

Twelve thirty showed on its digital face. It was a lot later than she thought. With a disgruntled sigh, Erin decided that she really would have to get up. Beth was probably downstairs wondering where she was, having opened the store hours ago, and somehow Erin had managed to sleep through her alarm. She wondered why Beth hadn't called or come knocking when she hadn't turned up but maybe the shop was having one of its rare busy days.

Reluctantly, Erin threw back the covers and sat up, running a hand through her hair. She looked down at herself and saw she was still clothed, in the same clothes she'd worn in her dream. Why was she still dressed? Where were her pajamas? Erin immediately looked around on all her bedroom surfaces for a collection of empty rum bottles. Had she been on a bender last night and forgotten about it? Maybe Christian had been right when he told her, her habit of indulging in too much rum a little too often would take its toll one day. Her gaze landed on the sill of her window and the salt that had been poured there and it hit her.

"On no," she breathed in dread as it came flooding back with terrible clarity. She hadn't been dreaming after all. Automatically, she checked for her sword beside her bed but it wasn't there where she usually kept it as she slept. Erin got up and padded for the door, taking a deep breath and opened it. Maybe she'd be wrong and it would still all be a dream.

"Good afternoon sunshine. We were beginning to think you were going to sleep all day," Dean greeted perched in the same chair Erin had sat in the night before, a gun field stripped on the end table beside him as he cleaned it. The room was strewn with equipment and weapons in various states of readiness. They were getting ready for a fight.

"Sorry about the mess, brought our gear up," Dean added.

Cass stood over Sam's shoulder reading along, hands in his coat pockets as Sam poured over the Gathas she'd borrowed from the university library. Sam looked up from his work a moment to acknowledge her.
"Hey. There's coffee in the kitchen."

"Damn it," she cursed bitterly.

"Well, aren't you a grouch when you wake up," Dean quipped reassembling the gun.

"Something wrong Erin?" Sam asked concerned.

"I was hoping I dreamed you," she grumbled.

"You did not dream us," Cass promised her, with his usual stoic facade back in place.

"Speak for yourself Cass, she can dream about me all she wants," Dean joked with a sly smile.

Erin arched a brow and scoffed in amusement at the older hunter's not so subtle innuendo. She appreciated his bold approach for some reason and his infectious smile didn't hurt. She liked a man who could find humor in even the most dire situation. Of course, she also enjoyed giving as good as she got and you took what you could where you found it when the world was falling down around you.

"Oh? But would the dream compare to the real thing?" Erin cracked back with a sly grin of her own. Dean's eyebrows went up. The girl had a quick tongue, he liked that.

"Ow," Sam said laughing at his brother's failed flirting. Cass watched in mild confusion, once again mystified by the double entendre and hidden meanings of human social dances. Dean shot Sam a dirty look for his trouble and replaced the last piece of the gun, Erin's. He'd cleaned it along with their weapons while she slept, since he still had it stashed in his pocket. He slid off the arm of the chair and swaggered over to Erin, holding it out for her.

"Thought you might want that back," he said. As soon as she put her hand on it he used it as an excuse to step forward and whisper loudly in her ear. "We could always find out." When he stepped back, she had a satisfyingly intrigued but slightly bashful expression on her face.

Erin looked him up and down once appraisingly and smiled, then lost her nerve to quip back. "You said there was coffee?" she said nonchalantly, but Dean had a self-satisfied smirk on as she made for the kitchen before she could turned red. Dean had won that tête-à-tête hands down and he knew it. She'd set herself up for that one.

Sam shook his head and laughed, "Unbelievable."

Still confused by what had just happened Cass asked him, "What do they want to find out?"

"They don't...," Sam said trying to phrase it so the still socially awkward angel would get it, "They like each other."

"I'm right here dude," Dean complained as he resumed his seat in the chair.

"That is good. They will work better together if they are comfortable in each others company," Cass observed.

"Oh, I bet we could get real comfortable together," Dean muttered to himself. Sam choked on the mouthful of coffee he had just taken and forced himself not to laugh. Sometimes Cass just didn't get things.

"They like like each other," Sam tried to explain again.

"That makes no sense, it's redundant."

"Biblically Cass," Sam elaborated.

"Guys I am right here," Dean stressed again, picking up a sawed off to clean.

Cass could only raise his eyebrows slightly in surprise at Sam's revelation, "I understand now."

###

A few minutes later Erin came back with a large mug of coffee and a bagel slathered with cream cheese. "I see you found your way around the kitchen," she observed as she took a seat on the end of the couch opposite Sam and sipped the coffee.

"I hope you don't mind, you were asleep and the stuff to make coffee was just sitting there in the open," Sam began to apologize realizing she might see it as impolite to have helped themselves.

"No, no. It's fine. Make yourselves at home. Who am I to refuse food and drink to people who are trying to help me save my brother from a demon?" Erin dismissed, taking an ample bite out of her bagel. Only now did she realize it had been days since she'd eaten she'd been so wrapped up trying to find a way to save Christian from Ahriman. Sam and Dean exchanged looks and then both shot Cass a hard look, he had the decency to look guilty.

"You didn't tell her?" Sam asked. Erin swallowed her bite of bagel and tried to figure out what they were talking about. She had begun to accept that a higher power had screwed her kind royally, not that she was about to bow down and accept it, she'd fight it tooth and nail, stop it if she could. But here and now she had to find a way to get Ahriman out of her brother, then she'd figure out what to do about being God's weapons of war. What was Castiel supposed to tell her he hadn't?

"Didn't tell me what?"

"I couldn't," Cass said in abashment.

"You couldn't? Cass...," Dean admonished but Castiel cut him off before he could finish.

"I thought we agreed to find another way?"

"Another way to what?" Erin asked.

"We did Cass. And we're going to try, but if we can't, she has to know what she's facing," Dean insisted.

"Excuse me, would someone like to tell me what's going on?" Erin interrupted again, the bagel and her hunger forgotten.

"You had much food for thought last night. I didn't want to upset you further," Cass explained. Erin gazed back at him expectantly and he found he couldn't say the words. They just wouldn't come. He'd already torn her world apart, he couldn't do it again. Sam and Dean saw that he either couldn't or wouldn't and stepped in.

"Erin, we're going to try and find a way around it I promise but," Sam explained pausing in his own hesitance to tell someone they might have to kill their family and die horribly. "To kill Ahriman you might have to die. It may be the only way."

Erin blinked. "I'm sorry? I thought those were supposed to kill him?" she said, sweeping her hand in the direction of vial, ring and knife Cass had brought them.

"They only make it possible to kill him. They don't actually do it. If we can't find another way to kill him we'd need you, Sam said sadly.

Then, Sam and Dean told her everything. They told her how the Devil's Gate opening had triggered the countdown to the apocalypse and that they were trying to stop Lilith from breaking the sixty six seals to prevent it from coming. They told her that Ahriman was intent on making sure they didn't succeed, that neither side in the war between heaven and hell succeeded, by killing them both, as a nice aside to getting his revenge on Duncan MacLeod. They told her how Ahriman had information on the next seal Lilith would break and how important it was they find out so she could be stopped. And then they told her how the weapons worked and that the only way to kill Ahriman might be to kill Christian, force Ahriman to possess her, and then kill her and Ahriman with her. Neither could bring themselves to tell her that Cass had asked Dean to torture her while she was possessed by Ahriman to get the information about the seals, even if Dean had flat refused.

"The hits just keep on coming don't they?" Erin said when they'd finished. Sam and Dean both felt terrible that they'd had to tell her but it couldn't be helped. Erin shook her head fervently with absolute conviction, "No. I'd die to save Christian or Duncan in a second but I cannot kill Christian. I won't. He's my brother. I've been fighting to find a way to save him and you think I'm just going to say to hell with it and take his head? No. Never."

Again, Erin was struck by the same possibility she herself had already thought about but refused to entertain. The same thing Methos had insisted was the only way. Ahriman's ultimate target was Duncan, he'd possessed Christian. It was Sophie's choice. If she didn't consent to the terms to destroy him and Ahriman killed her as he planned, Christian would still be possessed and Duncan would still die, along with everyone else he cared for, then Sam and Dean, leaving the apocalypse an open door to walk through. If she did agree, she and Christian wouldn't just die, they would be utterly destroyed. Either choice was unthinkable. She wanted to rail, to scream, to tell all of them to get out but there had to be another way and the Winchesters were her only hope of finding one. And for some reason she couldn't begin to phantom she trusted Sam and Dean and most amazingly, Castiel.

Dean felt like someone had kicked him in the stomach. Sam had the same expression. She was like them. She'd do anything save the ones she loved. But she couldn't kill her brother. It wasn't in her. It imbued a great amount of respect for her in Dean and a tremendous amount of sympathy. She was in the same position they had been in many times. Cass had said nothing during the entire exchange. Dean had the feeling more was going on with him than he or Sam knew and that whatever it was involved Erin. He'd rarely seen the angel so seemingly torn.

"We will find another way. So help me God we will," Dean promised forcefully. Erin looked at him then with such clarity Dean was stunned by it.

"Then where do we start?" she asked, her voice hard as steel and as immovable, giving herself over to their expertise.

Dean and Sam were surprised by Erin's resolute acceptance of the situation. They'd expected her to rail at them or at least at Cass.

"When Erin makes up her mind, nothing can sway her from her path," Cass offered in explanation. It didn't occur to either of the brothers to wonder why it was Cass seemed to know that. Dean, felt a warm prickle on his skin. Nothing he liked more than a woman of action.

###

Hours later, showered and fed, Sam was buried again in the Gathas and the Yasna looking for a possible lead and Dean was grilling Erin on Demon killing 101 while they finished prepping all their weapons, since her best attempts so far had been luck. Sure she'd seen a few things, they even discovered she knew how to call or kill a few more obscure monsters but she had no real idea how Hunter's did their job and she'd need to, just in case they found a way to take Ahriman out in a more conventional manner. Cass had taken an abrupt exit to confer with Zachariah on possible alternatives.

Erin was sitting on the floor with one of their 9mm's stripped in front of her with a cleaning brush down the barrel, her hair loose around her shoulders in still damp waves, dressed in jeans, a t-shirt and a pair of low biker boots with a dagger tucked into the top of each, as Dean threw questions at her. She no longer looked like the stylish book dealer they'd met, now she looked like what she was, a fighter hell bent on kicking the bad guy's ass her way and damn what anyone else said.

Dean was about done with the machete he was sharpening. He, like his brother, was dressed as they always were when they weren't impersonating some form of law enforcement. T-shirt, jeans, work boots. Okay maybe not exactly the same. Sam favored clothes that looked a little more... how would Dean describe it? Civilized? Softer? Less like a demon killing, monster hunting bad ass? But, just barely.

"So, one more time, you use what to put a hurt on a demon?" he asked.

"Salt, holy water or salt rock rounds," Erin answered, trading the barrel for a different piece of the gun, beside her The Lesser Key of Solomon was open to a depiction of a Devil's Trap.

"How do you keep them out of a room?"

"Salt lines at the entrances and windows."

"How do you get rid of them?"

"The demon killing knife or an exorcism."

"Okay and how do you trap them?"

"Devil's trap."

"Good," Dean said. Erin learned quickly but he supposed she had to. As an immortal one bad day, one misstep, meant losing her head; her brother's life was on the line and possibly hers. He still felt like his father, John, teaching someone how to kill the big bads out there. He set down the machete he'd just finished with and didn't see anything else. They'd worked their way through all of Dean and Sam's regular arsenal. Of course, there was a plethora more in the trunk of the Impala they hadn't brought upstairs while Erin slept.

"Just so you know," he said putting away the machete, "The crucifixes and crosses you were drawing with oil won't work. Blessed by a priest or not. The water gun doesn't get enough holy water on them at a time to do more than really piss 'em off."

"Okay," Erin said snapping the slide back onto the now clean gun. Dean looked for something else to work on, Erin's sword was propped against the entertainment center behind Erin, where an episode of Dr. Sexy M.D. whispered in the background, and he reached for it. Erin saw him.

"Don't," she warned. Dean, who'd only been methodically working his way through any weapon that came to hand out of instinct and habit, looked surprised.

"Oh, it's no big deal. I don't mind," Dean assured her.

"But, I do," Erin insisted gently but firmly.

Dean held his hands up in a hands off gesture, "Okay. I get it. Don't touch the lady's sword."

"Apparently she's as bad about her sword as you are about the Impala Dean. Must be different when the shoe's on the other foot huh?" Sam teased looking up from his work briefly. He was in the middle of translating a chunk of text that might prove to be useful. Erin was probably as capable at doing it as he was, but she was better served learning how to kill demons while he did the research.

"No offense. But an Immortal's sword is a part of them. It goes everywhere I do."

"None taken," Dean said in understanding but glaring at his brother for picking on him.

"Just tell me you don't sleep with it like Dean does his gun," Sam said in jest.

"Perfectly reasonable precaution," Dean pointed out. Erin just looked at Sam.

"How do you sleep with that thing in the bed?" Sam asked incredulous as he realized the look meant she did sleep with it.

Dean grinned. "She's an Immortal Sammy. What's she supposed to do if another Immortal shows up in the middle of the night? Gank him with a pillow?"

"It's usually under the edge of the bed," Erin said, sighting down the barrel of the gun to make sure everything was aligned.

"That happens?" Sam asked. Erin inclined her head in the affirmative.

"Sometimes, especially if they have a grudge against you or they're hunting."

"Hunting? Just to be doing it?"

"Head hunting. Some Immortals do nothing but head hunt. Not being on guard at all times can lose you your head in my world."

"All the time? Can't you take a break or something?" Sam asked.

"Some of us try. It never works. Some try to find sanctuary on holy ground, but you can't stay there forever. You could be going to the grocery store and run into another Immortal itching for a fight. Other times, we try to remove ourselves from the Game. That never works either. It always finds you. Might take three hundred years might take three but sooner or later, another Immortal is going to come hunting your head. I know, I've tried. More than once," Erin confessed. Sam felt sorry for her. Immortals had it as bad as Hunters. Once you were in, it was for life. You couldn't just decide you were tired of it and retire. "I'm sorry. If it's any consolation Hunters don't have it any easier in that department," Sam said sincerely.

Erin shook her head. "Not your fault. Don't mind me, I can't imagine running around hunting demons and whatever else you two tangle with. The Gathering isn't even a skirmish compared to trying to stop the apocalypse. Seems we're all victims of a capricious God," she said, but her voice held a deeply bitter note. She was still angry about the revelations she'd learned. Neither of them could blame her.

"Well, that's all the weapons then," Dean announced. Erin handed over the 9mm reassembled and got up. "No it's not," she said and padded off to her bedroom.

She returned a few moments later pulling the trunk from her closet. Sam and Dean rushed over to help her carry the monstrosity. It had to weight a ton. They set it close to the coffee table and Erin flipped back the lid. Dean and Sam gaped at the arsenal of weapons and gadgets inside. Sam hadn't expected anyone who wasn't in their line of work or a demented serial killer to have anything like it. Dean was gaping out of sheer delight at the contents. There was a luger, a colt .45, innumerable knives and daggers, two swords and most drool worthy of all a Tommy gun and a Sten gun. Erin smiled at their reactions.

"You didn't think I'd spent my whole life being a book dealer did you?"

"Nice haul," Dean remarked, admiring some of the pieces. Girl with guns. He liked that.

"Relics of a misspent youth," Erin joked.

"If you're immortal what do you need with all of these?" Sam asked.

"Well, some immortals don't fight by the rules for one and for another I've done a lot more than sell old books in my life. Car thief, ran a chop shop at one point, solider, other illicit activities," Erin confessed with a touch of chagrin, not wishing to elaborate.

"Solider?" Dean asked.

"World War II. I was with the French Resistance."

"Wow," Dean said.

"How old are you?" Sam breathed. Dean elbowed him in the ribs.

"You aren't supposed to ask a woman her age, idiot."

Erin laughed and answered Sam, "I'll be one thousand nine hundred and fifty seven this September." Sam couldn't think of a response to that, that wasn't lame. Dean did it for him.

"Well, uh, you look great," he said and then cut himself off before he said anything else embarrassing.

"For a one thousand nine hundred and fifty six year old?" Erin quipped back. "You're not so bad yourself." Dean grinned at her and she grinned back with a gleam in her eye. The more he was around Erin the more he liked her, two thousand year old Immortal or not.

"Go ahead dig in," Erin encouraged breaking the moment before it became awkward.

"I thought you didn't want anyone touching your weapons?" Sam said.

"Just my sword... and my car. No one touches the car," Erin said.

"That an Immortal thing too?" Sam joked.

"No. That's just an Erin thing," she laughed.

As Dean and Sam, perused the trove of weapons Erin owned, the strains of an incredibly chipper and incredibly annoying song started to play. They all looked at each other. It was someone's cell phone and Dean and Sam wouldn't have been caught dead with the Gummy Bear song as a ring tone.

"It's not us," Sam said. Erin looked very uncomfortable, trying for just a moment to pretend she hadn't heard it.

"The Gummy Bear song? Really?" Dean teased. Erin turned scarlet and fumbled in her pants pocket for her phone.

"Beth must have changed my ring tone when I wasn't looking," she insisted truthfully, as she flipped the phone open and answered. Beth loved pulling things like that on her. They were good friends, had been for three years, since Erin had come back to this place. "Hello? Joe?"

###

Castiel found Zachariah with relative ease. The heaven he was borrowing was lackluster by any standards, the paradise of a CEO of a fortune five hundred company who'd jumped from a seventeen story building to his death when the company went bust. It was an executive corner office with a view of the New York skyline and Zachariah was perched in the leather chair behind the large desk, his feet propped up on the corner looking out the window, casually.

"You're back. I assume that means we can rest easy knowing it's done?" Zachariah said, pulling his feet off the desk and swiveling the chair around to face Castiel. Cass didn't beat around the bush he got straight to the point.

"No," he admitted. "Is there anything you know that could kill Ahriman without Erin having to kill her brother and herself?" Zachariah's brows furrowed and he frowned.

"Excuse me? You can't be serious. No, there's no other way. Now get back down there and get her to do what she is supposed to."

"The boys are reluctant to sacrifice an innocent to accomplish the job," Cass said, "So am I." Zachariah looked at him with disbelief.

"Innocent? She's a nephilim, she's no innocent. They're abominations, pale imitations who should have been wiped out to begin with. If the Winchesters won't cooperate then remove them from the situation," he said with venomous exasperation. Cass looked at the elder angel hard in consideration when he said it. Something seemed even more off to him, than it had when Zachariah had sent him on this mission.

"I don't think they are Zachariah. They are distant kin. Our nieces and nephews if you will. Doesn't that matter to you? God had mercy on them. He gave them a chance. Are you contradicting what our Father proclaimed?"

"No. Of course not. Doesn't matter either way, it's a foregone conclusion," Zachariah insisted with just a little too much force. Cass was beginning to think there was something he wasn't telling him.

"She has a name," Cass pointed out, petulant.

"Oh, don't tell me you're getting attached?" Zachariah said with disdain getting up from the chair and coming around the desk to stand before him.

"Why? Why did you send me on this mission? You know I shepherded her. Why does she have to die?"

"Castiel, first her, then the Winchesters. You really are prone to sentimentality lately aren't you? You were the best one for the job, simple as that. She has to die because that's just the way it is. It's prophecy Castiel. You can't buck prophecy. Even as we speak your gaggle of pets are finding out about it."

"Why wasn't I told this before now?" Cass asked darkly. He could see no reason not to have told him. If it was a prophecy and by extension unavoidable, no matter what anyone did, why not tell him? For that matter, he had the names of every prophet etched into his brain, every scrap of religious prophecy and scripture stored there. He should have known. The only way he wouldn't have is if his bosses had deliberately kept it from him but for what reason?

"You didn't need to know. Ahriman knows which seals Lilith will break next and we need that information. All you need to know is you have to get her to consent and she has die. Ahriman is killed and we all go back to saving seals," Zachariah said with an open gesture of his hands.

"If it's a prophecy why must Erin consent? Why do I have to convince her to? If it's a foregone conclusion, as you say, it shouldn't matter. What exactly does the prophecy say?" Cass pressed, stepping forward toward Zachariah menacingly.

"Why don't you run back to your howler monkeys and find out?" Zachariah taunted angry. Cass had hit on something but he wasn't sure what. He knew it had to do with the prophecy but not why.

"Zachariah. Is this mission, God's will? Or yours?" Cass asked. Zachariah's jaw tensed and he took a moment to answer.

"Don't you dare question me. She has to die. You have to get her to consent. She is too big a risk," Zachariah spat truly showing his anger at Cass.

"A risk to what?" Cass pressed, advancing on Zachariah until he was nose to nose with him. There was more to this. Something big Zachariah was trying to accomplish. If it was God's Will, if it was just, there was no reason why Cass shouldn't now about it.

"Nothing. You have your orders. Do your job Castiel. Do you understand?"

Cass looked back at Zachariah unblinking.

"I understand."

Cass understood perfectly. He understood that Zachariah was manipulating the situation for his own gain somehow. Now he just had to figure out why, before it was too late.

###

Dean shook his head and laughed at Erin and Sam, satisfied with his brief view of Erin's weapons collection since that was more Dean's thing, returned to his translation. Both could hear Erin's side of the conversation.

"What?" she said in stunned surprise. "They didn't listen when you warned them to have him taken off me?" "Damn." There was a long pause then and Dean watched as all the color drained from Erin's face. "What do you mean you can't reach him?" "This is bad Joe. If you can't reach him... God, I hope he's not coming here." "Yeah I know." "I've got some... specialists... working on it with me." "I'm trying. If you hear from him tell him to go home. Tell him I said go home." "I know Joe. Thanks for letting me know."

Erin closed the phone and ran her hand over her face.

"Bad news?" Sam asked.

"Was that the Joe? Joe Dawson?" Dean asked at the same time a little bit star struck, the Tommy gun he'd been ogling limp in his hands.

"Yes on both counts," Erin told them, "Michael Edwards, my Watcher, is dead. Ahriman got him. Car crash at a hundred and twenty on A1A, he had Ahriman's named etched into his forehead. So is a gun storeowner down on Military Trail. He had the pleasure of being boiled in his skin. Guess we know where Ahriman got a gun now. The Watcher's managed to get it cleaned up before the authorities caught it."

"Damn it!" Erin spat angrily. "The Watchers even tried to get the poor old guy out. He never had a chance."

"I'm sorry. Was he a friend of yours?" Sam offered. Erin shook her head.

"No. I didn't even know who he was until a couple of days ago. I was afraid of this. I tried to warn Joe in time, I guess it wasn't enough. One more casualty to add to the list," Erin cursed, clenching the phone until Dean could hear the plastic groan.

"It's not your fault," Dean tried to tell her.

"Yes it is," she growled and shot Dean such a fiery glare for even suggesting it wasn't, he clamped his mouth shut. There was no way of arguing that with someone when they were that set on accepting the guilt. He knew, he did it often.

"We have more problems. Methos is probably on his way here. I knew that already, but Duncan may be too. Joe can't get a hold of him. They're walking right into Ahriman's waiting jaws and I can't stop them. I can't stop any of it. Everyone I care about is just lining up for the execution like good little sheep and they don't even know it," Erin snapped. Sam and Dean knew she wasn't snapping at them, she just felt helpless.

"Hey, it's not your fault," Dean hazarded again. "You can't save everyone. No matter how hard you try. We've had it happen to us."

Erin paced in a tight circle, her teeth gritted in fury, hands buried in her hair as her emotions built to a fever peak. She traced her steps twice and then snapped, her pent up anger consuming her, sending a small decorative table over on its side with a clatter and all the tiny antique glass pieces on top of it went careening across the room like projectiles with a roar of rage. Dean and Sam ducked to avoid being hit.

As soon as Dean was fairly sure he wasn't going to get hit with broken glass he was on his feet. Cautiously, he approached Erin, who's shoulders heaved with harsh breath, fists clenched at her side, teeth gritted until it hurt, with arms out as if he were trying to calm a enraged wildcat.

"Whoa, whoa." He soothed. She moved her head in desperate way, her eyes squeezed shut. Dean risked putting a hand on her shoulder."It's not your fault," Dean told her in a soft, deep voice. He understood what she was feeling. Nothing she could do would do any good right now except killing her brother and herself. It was a no win situation. No one could be a rock through those circumstances. She was torn and lost. For just a moment, he felt she might break and burst into tears but she didn't.

Sam, judged that Dean had the situation under control and he should probably just pretend he wasn't seeing this, so he lowered his eye to the books again but he felt the same way Dean did. They could both relate.

"God damn angels and their God damn plans. I hate them, all of them!" she railed so loud it was a hoarse roar. "Cass too?" Dean asked. He understood her rage but Cass was trying to help.

"No," she assented softly, "Not Castiel."

"Cass," Dean corrected, "Nobody calls him Castiel."

"All the people Ahriman has already killed. All the innocent lives and I don't understand why. And I can't do anything about it. They had nothing to do with Duncan or me. Now Micheal Edwards. He's doing exactly what he promised, killing everyone I care about," Erin said in a harsh voice.

"We're going to kill the bastard," Dean assured her.

"I gave Beth the week off, told her to get out of town take a vacation maybe," Erin went on spilling her emotions in an uncharacteristic display of vulnerability. Then it hit her. Michael Edwards hadn't been lucky enough to escape Ahriman's wrath, Beth might not have been either. "Beth," she breathed and flipped out her phone, dialing Beth's number.

"Who's Beth?" Dean asked.

"She works in the book shop. She's a friend, probably the closest mortal friend I have. I have to make sure she's alright."

###

Ahriman gazed up at the second story of Between the Lines from an immortal sensing proof distance; it was a small drawback to possessing one of them. The ability to feel each other was innate and he couldn't tamp it down but it was a small inconvenience. He could see the Winchesters and Erin moving through the windows. Preparing to try to fight him, then Erin got a phone call and sent a table flying. Then, just as he'd known she would she crumpled like the weak soul she was into Dean Winchester's arms. So typical of her, looking for solace anywhere she could find it. If she only knew what he did. So much more to his plans no one knew about. He hadn't expected this would be so much fun.

He paused and looked at his watch. Just a little while longer and everyone would be in place. All he had to do was wait while they walked straight down the path he'd laid for them, dancing to his drum without even hearing the beat. Clueless, stupid creatures that they were. Ah, it was good to be a demon.

###

Ruby watched Between the Lines from across the street, hidden in her shadowed position, just beyond the circle of light cast by the corner street lamp. On another corner, out of Immortal sensing range, stood Ahriman in his angelic bastard meat suit. He looked at his watch and smiled deviously. He had something up his sleeve and Ruby knew it. She waited. The opportune moment would present itself. He'd make a move, the Winchesters, the nephilim and the angel on their shoulders would rush in and she'd be there to save the day, just in the nick of time.

She had to do this carefully. Dean didn't trust her, Castiel wouldn't either, Erin really wouldn't, given her very recent and very violent introduction to demon kind but, Sam would and when she was the one who saved their necks she'd be right where she wanted to be. They were playing their parts like they were following a script. All she had to do was wait.