Author's Note: First, I must apologize to any of you faithful readers out there who've been waiting for a new chapter for so long. I'm SO SORRY! I just haven't had time!

Unfortunately this is gonna be the last for a while, and I hate to leave you like this (you're really gonna hate me xP) but I can't come back for at least about 2 months, because I have big exams coming up! :O But until then, I leave you with this chapter. Hope you enjoy it!

Chapter 10: The Beginning of the End

Katherine ran back into the kitchen, breaking the salt line across the floor.

"It's okay papa, they're all gone. You can come out now." She continued, searching the room for a first aid kit, which she finally found at the back of the room. She ran back out and sat down next to Dean, handing the box to Amy. Her grandfather cautiously followed her out.

"Is he gonna be okay?" she asked quietly, watching Amy as she began patching Dean up.

"I'll be fine!" Dean said, and Katherine jumped, not realizing that he was awake. "Believe me, I've had worse." He said, wincing, as Amy put pressure on his wound.

"Stop! Please stop! I'll do it. I'll tell you anything you want to know! Just stop, please!" The demon begged Sam while chocking down some salt, his skin still sizzling from holy water. It had been about 15 minutes of the torture to get to this point. That had taken quite a toll on Sam as well.

He stopped pouring salt down he demons throat & looked it in the eye, ready to start again if need be. But instead the demon started talking, quickly, satisfying Sam at last with information. Sam put the salt down and turned back to tell the others the news.

"Wait, what about me?" The demon called after him.

"Oh, I almost forgot. Don't worry; you'll get what you deserve." And with that, Sam recited the exorcism and sent the demon back to hell.

"Hey."

"Hey. –Did you find out where they took him?"

"Yeah, and it doesn't sound too good." Sam told Dean everything he had learnt from the demon.

"Aw man!" Dean said, shocked at the news.

"But what does it mean?" Katherine asked, now sitting next to her grandfather.

"It means our troubles aren't over yet." Angel answered her question. All of them were now together sitting around Dean, who still hadn't moved from the floor.

"Well, I guess this means we better get going!" Dean said. He winced from the pain as he sat up, then found his feet. He felt quite dizzy –he suspected it was from the loss of blood– and he almost fell over before he managed to stand still, catching himself on a chair.

"Maybe I better drive." Sam said, seeing Dean's condition. Dean didn't complain, he just chucked Sam the keys, knowing it was best.

"What about me and my grandpa?" Katherine called out to the team as they left.

"You've done enough. You've been great. You can go home now, get some rest." Sam said, and Katherine nodded in agreement, realizing how tired she actually was.

"Thank you." She told them, then waved farewell.

"Come on papa, let's go home." She said, heading outside to their car.

When they were gone, Dean went over to Amy. "You know, I'd give you some good advice if I thought you'd listen to me." He told her.

"Oh yeah? And what would that be?"

"That you should also be going home. You're clearly exhausted, you've done us some good work and-"

"Not on your life! You're right, I'm not listening to you. Now come on, we have to go." She said, rushing off to the Impala.

It was way too close for comfort now. Horrifyingly close. The gut-wrenching screams now occurred more often and Bobby and Wesley were wondering how many people had actually been down there with them, and how many were left now.

Another metallic scrape pierced the nights' silence, only meter away now. However loud the screams were they still couldn't block out the scraping sounds, which sent shivers down the spines of those who heard them.

"It's almost time now, isn't it?" Wesley asked during one of the short moments of silence. He received only silence from Bobby, however, and realized, of course, that no one would want to talk about that.

"Yessss," another voice hissed from the blackness in front of Wesley, astoundingly close. "Yesss, it'ssss almossst your time." Wesley could feel his heart beating faster, the fear making adrenalin pound through his veins, pulse pumping in his ears. But for all he felt, he was still helpless to whatever it was, standing hardly a few meters in front of him, watching as he struggled in the dark.

Whatever was coming would come. There was no longer a choice or chance for freedom.

"So, of to the industrial area we go." Amy said, trying to break the uncomfortable silence in the car.

"Hi ho, hi ho." Sam added in a sing-song voice.

"Wow, well look at that! Angel, I think you've got yourself another Nancy-boy friend." Spike taunted.

"Haha, you got that right, man," Dean replied, laughing then stopping because it hurt too much. Sam and Angel both ignored them, they were annoyed, sure, but also used to it.

"Wow, it's quite astounding how similar the pairs of you are," Amy told them. " 'specially coz you lot were gonna kill each other earlier on."

"Yeah, sorry about that, dude." Dean told Spike.

"No problem, I got over it."

"Hey, guys?" Angel interrupted, "Sorry to spoil your fun, but what time is it?"

"It's about... ummm, 1am." Amy replied, glancing at her watch.

"So that leaves us what? Say, 4, 5 hours? We gotta get a move on already! We have to be outta there before sunrise."

"Shit, I forgot about that!" Sam said, pushing down the accelerator again.

"Yeah, that may be a problem." Dean added, and they drove off without another word.

"What are you?" Wesley called out into the darkness. "Where are you?" He added, quietly.

"You need not know who or what we are," it spat. "Merely that we are better than you, you have no way of beating usss. You now have a choice to make-"

"A choice? What choice? Why did you lock us all down here?" Bobby interrupted, leaving out the one question they dreaded; what was happening to the others around them; what were those hideous noises.

"Your choice-" the voice continued, sounding angry, "Your choice isss whether you wisssh to join usss. Join usss or die. And you have five minutesss to decide. Then I will return."

The Impala pulled into a parking. The doors squealed open -all four of them- and five people emerged. They first went around to the back of the car and got something out of the trunk, then headed away from it towards the building. The building was old. A run-down factory which looked like it had been abandoned years ago. They hadn't realized they were being watched, however, and, too late, they saw the men standing there and were stopped before they could enter.

"What are you lot doing here? Come to do a drug deal or something like that? Look at the time; no one should be wandering around the streets at this hour." The two policemen were looking menacingly towards the team, then, they saw Amy. "What's this? You're not rapists are you!"

"No! No, it's nothing like that," Amy explained. "Listen, we just need to get into this building, okay? We won't be long. We're not criminals. Don't worry about us."

"Wait a minute, don't I know you from somewhere?" The second cop asked, eyeing Dean. "Yeah, I'm sure I recognize you. Now why would that be?"

Spike intervened before the cop could remember anything about any possible criminal activities of Deans'. Little did Spike know about the many incidents concerning Dean and his habit to 'appear' just around the same time as dead bodies turned up.

"Of course you know him! Who doesn't? He is a famous musician after all."

Thinking for a change, are we, Spike? Angel thought, realizing Spike's logic. Convince the cops that they know him for all the positive reasons, and maybe they'll forget about the negative. Don't tell them his names, and they might 'remember' who they think he is. Angel had learnt this for all his years around humans; they liked to believe what they wanted. Anything good rather than the bad was usually accepted, and more explainable.

"A musician?" The second cop looked again, puzzled for a second. Then it clicked. "Oh yeah! I know who you are! You're Jayson Cires!" He turned to the other cop, mumbling something about this 'Jayson' being a famous guitarist and singer in some sort of boy-band.

"Yeah, you got me." Dean admitted, trying to keep himself from bursting out with laughter... or anger... or both.

"Alright! Have a great night then! It was awesome meeting you." The cop gushed, sounding rather like a school-girl.

"Hey, you were just doing your jobs. That's alright with me." Dean replied, and the policemen walked off at last.

The group sighed with relief as soon as they were out of earshot, then they started laughing. "Jayson Cires? Oh my god! Classic!" Amy yelled out.

"Wait, that's not fair! What do you mean join you? Join you in what? Who are you?" Wesley called out into the darkness, receiving no answer, of course, as the creature had already left. The injustice of the whole situation weighed down on him, he felt it as a physical weight pressing him to the ground.

"Bobby, are you still there?" He spoke quietly after a few moments.

"Yeah, I'm here." Bobby's gruff voice broke the silent darkness. "Not for much longer though, by the sound of it."

"So you're choosing to die rather than 'join' them? God only knows what they're doing to those poor people out there. We could stop them. Maybe if we say yes, if we join them, we can stop it."

"Yeah, I'm sure we'd just be able to go around freeing people down here. We don't know how many of them there are, what they want from us, or what they even are! How are we supposed to fight creatures that we can't even see? Especially if we don't know what they are, so we don't know if they have any weaknesses. Idjit."

"Well, that's the best option we have! We have to try." Wesley tried reassuring Bobby, but in actual fact he was also reassuring himself.

"Oh fine!" Bobby submitted. "But you better hope that there's not something worse than death waiting for us out there in that darkness."

"Why are we doing thisss?"

"Doing what?"

"Giving thessse pitiful creaturesss hope? We ssshould jussst annihilate them all and be done with it!"

"You know it iss not our decisssion, Del. The ordersss have come from our leadersss and if we disssobey, it would make usss no better than them."

The creature named Del seemed to consider this for a moment. Then he made a low sort of hissing noise. "Yesss, I supossse you are right, Cron." It had been a sigh. "I will go receive a reply from the next two, assss ordered." Del went off in the direction of Bobby and Wesley.

"So what do you sssay?" The voice emerged again.

"We will join you." Bobby replied, then quietly to Wesley he whispered "I hope you know what you're doing!"

"Good." The voice seemed satisfied. Suddenly Bobby & Wesley saw a definite figure emerging from the dark. It was a surprisingly humanoid form. And then it stopped. Still coated in darkness.

Then just nearby, they heard the sound. The loudest yet. A piercing scrape of metal on metal and a scream of complete and utter pain, and of fear, and of sorrow. These feelings all summed up in one man's scream. Or was it two? Two voices blended together so perfectly in a harmonised torment that one was unable to tell whether they heard one voice, or two.

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