A/N: Okay, so this chapter is a little introspective, but I felt like perhaps we needed a little story recap, before we segue into the next series of adventures. So, Dean is feeling pretty hopeful, but don't worry, Sam and the others haven't turned some magic corner of sweetness and light.

Dean's been seeing a lot of the best side of Sam, but when push comes to shove, though Sam loves Dean (as much as this Sam can love anything), he's one of Hell's most dangerous for a reason. Don't worry, we haven't seen the last of sly, cunning, masterful Sam. I thought perhaps since the prologue is no longer giving you guys behind the scenes info, every couple of chapters I may need to write a more introspective chapter like this, so that everyone can touch base with some of the plot lines that are all running at once in this story.

Reviews are love, this story seems to have plateaued as far as alerts and such go, which makes me sad, as it's actually my favorite of my four projects, but by the numbers, it reads as the least popular.

As Always,

EverReader

Disclaimer: Still. Not. Mine.

All The Pretty Monsters – Chapter Twenty Eight

"The Memory Of Murder"

Dean studied the landscape introspectively as he drove, desperately trying to process everything that had happened in the last two weeks. The interrogation with Ava, followed by the conversation with Missouri was almost too much to wrap his brain around.

He was a legacy hunter, as was his brother.

His father had come from some sort of secret society that had cataloged the things that went bump in the night, and his grandfather had apparently died for the cause. His father had come into hunting without ever knowing his own heritage, in what had to be one of the worlds weirdest coincidences.

His mother, on the other hand, had known exactly who and what she was, and had turned her back on the life, choosing to live as a civilian, until her past had somehow managed to catch up with her.

Both his parents had come from supposedly 'powerful' bloodlines, though Dean was still hazy on what that all meant.

Mary Winchester had made some sort of crossroads deal to save John's life, and the end result of that was the attack that ended her life while marking his little brother as some sort of demon super-soldier in the making.

It was like he'd said to Bobby, everything in his whole entire existence was a lie, a caricature of the truth drawn on top of decades of secrets that had all culminated in the perfect storm that was now his life.

And that didn't even touch on the subject of Sam.

Sam, his gentle little brother who'd dreamed of going to college and becoming a lawyer, who'd once adopted a stray dog named Bones until John had made him give him up, who'd cried the Christmas he had discovered that the monsters under his bed and in his closet were real.

His gentle little brother, who had somehow been caught up in all their parents' secrets and lies and horrible decisions, and had been sent to hell for it.

Sammy, his fierce, stubborn, KIND little brother, who had been tortured for what turned out to be decades without breaking, who'd made horrible, heart breaking choices in order to save the other children like him.

Sam, who'd had his kindness and empathy and forgiveness burn away in Hell.

Or at least that was what he wanted the world to think.

Dean was no longer so sure.

At first, Dean's determination had been based on hope and memories and the driving need to know for certain whether or not Sam really was the monster John claimed he was.

That Sam himself now claimed to be.

If what Ava said was true, than Sam had tortured, had almost certainly killed, and would most likely do so again, who had drunk demon's blood in order to survive almost a century in Hell.

Who lived and breathed and plotted and planned for revenge against the ones who had hurt him.

And yet...

And yet...

Sam had done those things in hell, not to save himself, but to save as many of the other innocent children trapped in Hell as he could.

Dean had gotten the sense that the other kids practically worshiped Sam, that they counted on him and trusted him to keep them safe.

Could Dean really say he would have done any different if it had been Sam's life on the line, or John's?

Now Lily and Max's actions back at the lake made more sense. Lily had helped him save Lucas, because she had viewed Lucas as an innocent child caught up in a loved one's mistake, just as they had been.

To her, the Sheriff's death would have seemed like justice.

And there was the way Sam had saved Jenny and her children, particularly the way he had gone after Sari.

Missouri's note had also said that Sam was helping her.

He'd had no reason to help them, or Dean, and now Dean was forced to acknowledge just how many times Sam and his adopted siblings had helped him.

So why?

If their souls were as twisted and blackened as they wanted the world to believe, as they themselves really seemed to believe, why would they help anyone?

Perhaps Hell hadn't burned away their hope and kindness and pity as much as it had burned away their belief that they could be any of those things and survive.

Could demons feel any sort of empathy or injustice?

Were they different because they were still living, still growing?

If that were the case, and Hell and the demons had bent them into the twisted shapes they now bore, could exposure to the opposite help them grow back into something closer to what they would have been?

Could they be, if not cured, healed at least partly?

Was there a way to foster their humanity, Sam's humanity?

Dean couldn't help but view Sam's current actions, saving Dean, Jenny, Sari and Missouri as proof that somewhere inside, some part of the old Sam was left.

Perhaps it was small and buried deeply, but Dean was sure it was there, somewhere.

The trick would be to manage to stay near Sam and the others long enough to build that spark into a flame, before Sam's demonic nature took over fully, or worse, Sam was physically killed here and sent back to hell, where he'd become a fully fledged demon.

And floating lightly on top of all these thoughts and theories and worries about Sam and Mary and John and demon armies was a wry, almost flabbergasted amusement at the idea that he was actually on his way down to Mississippi, because Cassie, of all people, had called him for help.

In the end, maybe everyone became a believer.

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"What do you mean, the psychic is gone?" The volume of Azazel's voice had never risen, and that made the situation even more dangerous, and every cowering demon in the room knew it.

Azazel turned to Rainier, where he'd been standing wordlessly in the background, frimly entrenched in his new host. The body suited him, with darker hair and darker eyes and a smile that had been cold and cruel even before Rainier had hitched a ride.

Rumor was, Rainier's vessel had invited him in.

"Well, son, it looks like this is your chance to redeem yourself." Azazel drawled.

Rainier nodded but knew better than to reply when his father was in this sort of mood.

"Sam's little playmates have been causing havoc out west. It's time to remind them that we've been playing this game far better for far longer." Azazel said, a cruel smiled overtaking his own face.

"Do you want them dead, or simply returned to you?" Rainier finally asked when it became clear Azazel wasn't going to elaborate, unwilling to risk taking the wrong course of action with his most recent tour of hell still so fresh in his mind.

"I want Sam, the others are just cannon fodder, now that they've shown their true colors. And after all the kindness and hospitality we've shown them. But don't waste them foolishly. Any one of them would make excellent bait for the little boy king."

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Andy opened the package Lily and the others had sent him, grinning in satisfaction when he ascertained that Max had been correct in his identification of the two books inside.

These were indeed the journals of Samuel Colt.

They had spent decades trying to discover the process by which Samuel Colt had managed to create the gun that could 'end anything', though of course they knew better than to think it really could kill everything.

Legend had it there were only four or five things, or perhaps entities was the better word, that the Colt was powerless against.

The most important, unfortunately for them, was Lucifer himself.

Whether or not that meant all angels were immune, or perhaps simply arch angels, they didn't know.

The Older Ones, likewise, were most likely to be immune, among them, Eve, the mother of monsters, and her brethren, the Leviathan, who were said to be so powerful they could even kill angels.

Eve, they knew for a fact, existed, as Sam had actually met her.

Andy therefore had no reason to doubt the existence of the Leviathan either.

Instead, he chose to be glad that they were trapped in purgatory. The spell binding purgatory was complex magic, a neat little trick set up by the top gardener himself, and just like Lucifer's cage, it was a trap well laid. The power hungry Leviathan were trapped in purgatory by a spell that used their own power against them. Their own power was what actually sustained the alternate dimension. So long as any other soul was trapped in purgatory, the Leviathan could not escape, bound to their prison.

That was one of purgatory's oldest secrets, one that Eve had whispered to Sam before their escape.

Eve was the mother of monsters, but she had been born of the Leviathan. All monsters on earth descended from her, and all monster's souls were cast into purgatory when they died, each soul another seal trapping the Leviathan there.

And that was undoubtedly a very, very good thing, as Andy doubted that even Sam could combat Lucifer, the angels, and the Leviathan.

There were a handful of other things they had reason to believe might be able to withstand the colt, but without the gun, they really couldn't test their theories.

The important thing was, they were very certain that Azazel was not immune.

And even more importantly, though they still didn't know the process by which the gun was created (Sam had once found a reference to someone called 'Joseph', but they'd never determined exactly who that was), they knew one thing the original would do.

It would unlock the binding spell Samuel Colt had cast on the Western Hell Gate, on of the largest on the planet, now that Atlantis was sunk.

The devil's trap laid into the earth out west, camouflaged by the rail road tracks Colt had laid down were not meant to keep demons in, on the contrary, they were meant to keep demons out, and the rails were made of blessed iron, forged by priests who had used holy water and salt in the process. As each section was laid, a priest had again blessed it, working layer upon layer into the iron. The spell had held, at least until now, but if Azazel found the Colt first, Andy had no doubt he had a plan to destroy the trap.

The Western Gate was massive, metaphysically speaking. Physically it was small, housed inside a marble crypt in an old country cemetery, but once it was opened, it would let all sorts of trouble out, demons and other monsters that couldn't normally squeeze through the smaller rips in the seams between this world and hell.

It was also the gate closest to where Lilith's own cage was located.

Lilith was the first demon, and she was powerful in the extreme. But God's fury and Michael's righteousness had trapped her in the pit. Not the way Lucifer was trapped, unable to communicate with even his own creations, but bound nonetheless to the realm of Hell.

Legend was that only when the Western Hell Gate was opened that Lilith could gain the surface.

And until she was topside, their plan couldn't move forward.

But first, they needed the Colt.

Andy sat down and began reading.

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Ava tightrope walked along the ledge that separated the small board walk from the water of the harbor, not even flinching as the sound of wings suddenly echoed behind her.

"I have trouble believing that you've managed to hide those wings for so long if they're so loud every time you go somewhere." She murmured, watching the fishing fleet as it moved further out onto the water.

Gabe tilted his head at her curiously, studying her. "Most people can't hear them unless I want them too." He said.

Then, with a narrowing of his eyes, he asked "Can you see them?"

She glanced over at him, shrugging as she extending her arms, a playful imitation of the Arch Angels invisible appendages. "Sometimes. I can see the shadow of them, the way they move. I can see the...space...around them."

Gabe looked at her thoughtfully. The ability to see an angel's wings naturally was rare, and not necessarily a gift all demons had.

"Sam can see them." She added unnecessarily, twirling in a pirouette, and he rolled his eyes.

"How not surprised am I?" He asked sarcastically.

She pursed her lips. "Touchy little tree topper today, aren't we?"

"And just what is it about racist ghost's murdering upstanding citizens that's got you so excited?" He asked with a raised brow.

"I'm probably going to get to rip the heart out of some uptight racist asshole with a stick up his-" The angel cut her off before she could go any further into her pre-lunch plans.

"So, I take it that it's your turn to baby sit the righteous man." He guessed, wondering if she would admit to it. The demon was a funny mix of lies and honesty, playfulness and violence.

If he were honest with himself, he kind of liked it.

"They don't exactly grow on trees." She murmured. "Besides, Dean's fun to watch. Like a dog chasing a stick that's actually his tail."

"And he's rather excellent bait, if I had to guess." Gabe added, lifting his brow.

It was no secret that the elder Winchester had been digging around, and as time went by, it was more and more likely that he would begin to attract attention from the wrong sorts.

That was probably what Ava was really looking forward too, but the idea of the capricious Arch Demon handling damage control was both amusing and terrifying.

She shrugged again, a smirk gracing her features. "A girl's gotta eat."

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Sam hung up the phone, thinking over the conversation he'd just had with Andy.

His brother had finished reading through Samuel Colt's journals, and though they had been full of plenty of valuable information, they gave no hint as to whether their lead on Elkins would really pan out.

Jake, Max and Lily were still hunting for the nest responsible for the hunter's death, but Sam had never manged to confirm that the destroyed vault at Elkin's home had ever actually contained the weapon they sought.

The journals had ended several years before Samuel Colt's death, however, leading Andy to believe there may have been others, or at least one more, and Sam concurred that it was quite likely.

Which meant they were now searching for several things.

The Colt and the bullets that went with it, as well as any information on how they had been made in the first place.

Azazel's location, and any other arch demons he might have created that they didn't know about. Sam and Ava had both been keeping an eye out, but there was always the possibility.

Anselm was still working on the ingredients to the spell Metatron had given them, but it was proving difficult.

And now, thanks to Viaxes, Sam now had reason to believe that Dean was not only the righteous man, who may or may not have to go to hell in order to break the first seal, but that he was also the Michael sword.

Sam had heard whispers of the Michael Sword, but he had not realized the angels had Dean lined up for that position. He needed to find out if such a thing were possible, for one man to both start and potentially end an apocalypse.

Now, to add to all that, he needed to locate a journal that may or may not exist, while keeping the arch demons safe, Dean alive, John out of the way, Meg off Azazel's radar, and he probably needed to check in with Ava soon, to see how she was handling her tree topper stalker, all why hopefully locating half a dozen more angel blades, a cupid, a nephilim, to discover any other potential information on the seals Lilith would most likely try to break, and, of course, the Demon cure, which would also, somehow require the righteous man who would either start, end or in some other way complicate the impending apocalypse.

Perhaps it was time to...delegate.

He picked up his phone, dialing decisively.

"Bela. I have a job for you."

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Dean pulled up to the gracious house sitting under the old trees filled with trailing moss, making a face at the humidity in the air as he got out of the Impala.

A dozen times on the drive down, he'd had to fight the urge to turn around and head north again, where his gut told him Sam was, most likely still in the mid-west, or perhaps simply the west by now.

But something in Cassie's voice had called to him, reminding him of how many times she had comforted him while he'd searched desperately for a lost little brother.

She hadn't been able to handle the real truth, of course, when he'd finally broken down and told her everything, but still, she'd been a warm body at a time when he'd wondered if he'd ever feel warm again, and he knew he'd never have a chance of reminding Sam who he really was if he didn't force himself to remember who he was, also.

A pretty, mocha skinned girl in a black dress was coming down the stairs of the front porch, and a tiny part of him mourned what they might have been, but he forced it down.

If Sam didn't have time for 'might have beens' then Dean sure as hell didn't either.

"Dean. I wasn't sure you'd come."

"Neither was I." He admitted honestly, she still had that same knack of wringing the honesty out of him despite himself.

"I'm sorry about your dad." He offered.

She looked at him, serious eyes luminous with tears. "It's even worse now than when I called last night. There's been another death. Whatever is doing this, it's escalating."