An angel.

A smite-first-ask-questions-later holy memo jockey of the Big Guy Upstairs.

The demon who now thought of himself as Vahe darted through the polished wood and glass doors that led into the Tattered Cover bookstore. He lost himself among the haphazard shelving, navigating to the center of the maze of flying staircases so that he could reassemble his wits.

A fucking angel. Not a cherub either, no, not one of those simple-minded cupids, but a bleeding seraph! He'd heard the recent rumors about Alastair's run-in with one, of course. Or had it been three? Hard to tell, because no one sat down over a pint with the Grand Torturer. He had been evicted from his vessel – a vessel disintegrated simply by being in the presence of one of the harp-and-halo crowd's true form – and sent hurtling back into Hell. Before that, no one had seen a seraph in over two thousand years. So, what the actual fuck was this one doing on Earth?

It couldn't possibly know about the seal . . . could it?

When Vahe had seen the girl interacting with the soul of the dead redhead, he'd known she had to be one of the sacrificial keys. Right age, right gender, right place. However, the angel had taken her before Vahe could, simultaneously adjusting the memories of every human on the block to erase its presence, and hers. The damn thing hadn't shed a single feather doing it, either.

That kind of power . . . a grunt like him didn't stand a chance against it.

Vahe gulped a breath, staring unseeing at a row of travel photography collections featuring Japan, Hawai'i, and Finland. The sweat continued to roll down his temples, collect in his armpits, and stick his shirt to his back. The angel had left him alive but hadn't done him any favors by doing so. When she heard what a cock-up he'd made of this simple fetch job, Lilith was going to suck his guts out of his borrowed body like a child slurping spaghetti noodles off a plate. She would make sure he couldn't smoke out before she was done, too. Let him feel every moment of exquisite agony.

Vahe began to shake. The sweat dripped off his chin like tears. He couldn't let her know. He had to fix this.

His boss, Kittney, should have arrived at the gate by now with the other keys. He considered contacting her to ask for new orders, or to request assistance, but Kittney would turn him over to Lilith faster than he could jump ship. Anything to save her ass.

The thought lent him strength. Like he wouldn't do the same to her. A demon was a demon, no matter the color of their eyes.

Vahe swallowed the last of his cowardice with a mouthful of air that hurt his esophagus on the way down. He straightened his posture and raked a hand through his hair, then smoothed his goatee.

Right, then. He was on his own.

He was still holding the girl's bag. He considered it now; it looked like it had been fashioned from a cheongsam, the buttoned collar flattened across the front flap, shiny threads creating a motif of sinuous dragons. Rummaging through it, he came across her ID and a crumpled envelope containing a pay stub.

Putting those back, he dug deeper for the heavier objects, like keys. Her black phone fit in his hand. Thumbing the slide so that it powered on, he smiled. Though he hadn't gotten the girl, she had handed him everything he needed to find her.

Vahe repacked the bag and swung it over his shoulder. He exited the store with a new purpose in his step.

..::~*~::..

Dean selected a bottle of Landlocked Ale from the minifridge and then flopped onto his rickety motel bed. He wiggled his denim-clad glutes into a more comfortable dent of the mattress. He sighed in contentment. He hated that monkey suit.

Sam was sitting at the table by the window in his sock feet, his broad nose inching closer to his laptop's screen. A field of paper had taken over the tabletop. He'd taped some newspaper clippings together and printed out photos and maps at the local copy shop. A few legal-pad sheets covered in black Bic and red Sharpie scrawl dotted the paper landscape with yellow. As the field had spread, the remains of to-go coffee cups and boxes smeared with huckleberry pie filling had taken up residence in the small wastebasket by the TV.

How many times had Dean looked at this same scene in the past four years? The only thing that changed was the shape of the furniture, the color of the curtains, and the time of day.

And that was all he was willing to change.

"What did you find?" he asked, crossing his legs at the ankle and propping his head on a folded arm. He took a swig of his beer. Nice and cool, not too bitter. Just the way he liked it.

"Remember how I said something was bothering me about the last four disappearances? Here." Sam spent a minute shifting books and papers around until he found two blue file folders.

Dean took them. Dossiers, stamped with the Colorado State Police shield. He flipped through them and then looked at his brother.

"Julia MacGregor and Luka Vrban," Sam said, ready with his explanation. "Two of the people I traced to The Church here in Denver last Friday night. Julia is twenty-four, Luka twenty-seven."

"And you think that's important, the age?" Dean asked seriously. Much as he liked to tease his little brother, Sam was as adept as John Winchester at connecting the dots. Research could win half the fight before it started.

"Yeah, I do," Sam answered. "Now look at these." He proffered a manila folder full of grainy, blown-up photos of a black-haired man. Most of them seemed off-center, from the side, partially obscured, and out of focus.

Dean riffled through them. "I thought there weren't any surveillance photos." He slid one from the folder. He'd recognized the blond curls of Luka Vrban, who was standing next to the black-haired man.

"There aren't," Sam said. "These are from cellphone cameras, tagged with the location and the date on Facebook and MySpace. I cropped them and then enlarged them."

"Awesome," Dean said. The things Sam could find on the internet. So much better than walking the beat, spending hours on the phone, or waiting days for information to arrive in the mail, like when their mother had been a hunter. "So, who is the vampire wannabe?"

Sam awarded his joke a dimpled grin. "That's Vahe Donabedian, twenty years old. In fact, he was reported missing. Luka was identified as one of the abductors. See, that was what was bothering me. In all other instances, couples were taken. Dating, engaged, or married – but Julia and Vahe weren't connected at all."

"Wait." Dean scrunched up his nose, squeezing his eyes shut so he could shuffle the faces of these people around like poker cards against the backs of the lids. He gestured with his handful of photos. "So, this Vah-hay guy –" he tried out the unfamiliar name – "was a victim? But he's not twenty-two, either."

"Exactly," Sam said, as though satisfied. He reclaimed the file folders and held up one of the blurrier shots. "Neither is this girl. Kittney Johnson. She's seventeen. And the second abductor."

"Neither one of them was old enough to get into the club. Nice." Suddenly, Dean sat up, feeling more awake than he had been. Kittney. It wasn't a common name. "Hey, wasn't that the girl Aya was asking about?"

"Yup." Sam sat forward, propping his elbows on his thighs, his whole aspect alight with his I Figured It Out! face. "Kittney Johnson is from Duluth, Minnesota, where she attends Denfeld High School and lives with her biological parents and one baby brother."

Dean leaned back again. "Long way from home. Runaway? Or demon possession?"

"Possibly both. So how did Aya know about her? And why lie about Kittney's home situation?"

"Sounds like one of us needs to question Aya further." Dean savored his next mouthful of beer. "What the hell. I can take one for the team. I'll do it."

Sam gave him a long-suffering look, which made Dean grin.

"Sure," Sam said, his voice thick with insinuation. "You're going to 'interview' the chick who might be a demon. You're a saint, Dean."

"Hey," Dean said, grinning now for an entirely different reason. He tilted the bottle to his lips. "She was hot."

The scream ripped into him like a chainsaw in the hands of Leatherface. It was loud, it was piercing, it was loaded with pure terror, and it was right there in the motel room with him and Sam. He jumped several inches off the mattress, muscles as locked as though he'd drunkenly pissed on an electric fence, which caused his beer to fountain all over him.

"Jesus!" Heart galloping a hundred miles a minute, Dean rolled off the bed, shaking beer off his hands. Then he realized his mistake. Not the Son of God, who may or may not exist, but – "Cass!" he roared.

The angel looked as disgruntled as Dean had ever seen him, which wasn't saying much. Castiel did his head-tilted side-eye at him. Then he addressed the groaning bundle at his feet in his customary monotone. "Was it necessary to scream at me?"

"Was it necessary to drop me?" the bundle whimpered, and Dean did a double-take. It was Aya Nakano, looking distinctly the worse for wear.

"What the hell?" Dean said, not surprised to hear Sam ask the same thing at the same time. At least his heart and respiration were returning to their normal rhythm. He glanced at his little brother.

Sam rubbed his head as though he'd cracked it on the lamp hanging above the table. Which he probably had, since it swung in a tight, squeaking circle. His chair lay on its side two feet away from him and papers littered the floor. Fortunately, the laptop had not fallen.

Neither the angel nor the girl paid them any attention.

"You screamed at me. That is why I dropped you." Castiel leaned down and offered Aya a hand to help her stand.

She eyed it as though it were a dog about to bite her. "I can't see you anymore. What did you do to me?" Her trembling fingers explored the curve of her forehead.

"I applied a veil to your reikan," he said; Dean couldn't believe how easily the foreign-sounding word popped out of the angel's mouth, especially since he had no idea what it meant. Castiel straightened, letting his arm drop to his side. "It is easier to converse with you through my vessel."

"Your what?"

"My vessel."

Aya's face crumpled and her little hands curled into littler fists. "Is that supposed to mean something to me?" she growled.

Dean recognized the clenched teeth, the obvious desire to either scream or to hit something. Castiel had that effect on him, too. He set his empty bottle on the nightstand between the single beds and used the bend between thumb and first finger to squeegee the beer out of his stubble. "Cass. We talked about this."

Castiel's eyes widened innocently, but he wasn't faking it. "Not about this. I saved her from a demon."

"You saved her." Dean snorted. Well, at least they knew now that Aya wasn't possessed. "Last I heard, you angels were all about the non-involvement in human affairs. You've never helped us save anyone."

Castiel gave him another soulful look, slightly wounded, a whole lot condescending. "Orders are orders. You understand," said the look. Dean made a noise of disgust in the back of his throat. Typical angel prick.

At least Castiel wasn't the rabid dog that Uriel seemed to be, since he preferred to put people to sleep rather than fight them. But Uriel? Dean hoped to God that junkless son of a bitch wasn't going to show up, too. The motel room was cramped enough.

"But why did you bring her here?" Sam asked, attempting to inject reason into the conversation. Tentatively, he leaned down and offered Aya his hand. That one, she took.

"Agent Buchanan?" As he levered her upright, she looked frantically around. "Why – How – Where are we? Agent Abbot?"

"Hi," Dean said. The winning smile he offered her was ruined a bit by the fact that she had, unintentionally, caught them with their pants down. Then Castiel, par for the course, broke the fourth wall.

"He is Dean Winchester," he said, a slight line appearing between his brows. "And that is his brother, Sam. There is no one named Agent here."

"Aw, Cass, come on," Dean groaned. "Read the room!"

"It is a sin to lie," the angel chided.

"But it makes things so much easier!"

"Wait," Aya said slowly. "You aren't FBI?"

Sam opened his mouth, but only a few half-formed letters came out. Aya gazed up at him, perplexed, but he seemed, for once, at a loss. He turned the full force of his lost puppy eyes on Dean, and Dean wondered what that big brain of his little brother's was making of the situation.

"Dean," Castiel said into the awkward gap. "Remember how I told you that certain people – special people – can perceive my true visage? She is one of them, and she is being hunted."

At this alarming proclamation, Aya edged around Sam, hiding behind his arm. The top of her windblown head came nowhere near his shoulder.

Interesting that she would trust a man who had impersonated a Federal agent over one who housed an angel. Then something else occurred to Dean and he snickered.

"Come on, Cass, she's totally freaked out," he said, still chuckling. "You can't look that bad, can you?"

When no one, not even Sam, said a word, Dean subsided, embarrassed. "Well, do you?" he wondered in a quieter voice.

Castiel considered that. "I am . . . mighty," he finally said.

A beat of silence. A tick of the second hand.

"That's not the word I would have chosen," Aya muttered.

Ha! Girl had a spark. Dean coughed into his fist, but Sam barked a laugh before hastily turning it into a throat-clearing, which made Dean feel better.

Aya peeped around Sam's elbow, suspicion woven through her expression. "That thing, you said it was a demon. But who are you? What are you?"

"My name is Castiel. I am an angel of the Lord," Castiel said, drawing himself up proudly.

Aya stared at him as though he'd grown four heads. "Yeah, right."

Castiel graced her with the condescending, pitying look.

Dean and Sam both sighed.

"Dean," Sam said, "we've gotta deal with this. What do you want to do?"

"You take this one, Sam. The last time I explained anything to a girl, she punched me," Dean said. He headed for the bathroom, pulling his sodden shirt over his head. His amulet slipped out of the collar and thumped him in the chest. Then he stopped and stuffed the shirt into Castiel's hands. "You. Stay. Clean up this mess you made."

The angel frowned. "It is not my job to –"

"I don't care what your job is," Dean snapped. "You brought her here, you help explain. Capisce?"

"Yes, of course," Castiel said, though hesitantly. "Capisco. What do I do with this?"

He held up the shirt.

Dean poked his head out of the bathroom door. "Find a laundromat," he said, knowing full well that all the angel had to do was snap his fingers and poof! – shirt all clean. Then he slammed the door and turned on the shower.

A/N: Quick update, but I was too excited to get into this to wait! I know that Castiel isn't a seraph at this point in time - I think he gets promoted while in Purgatory? Somewhere in that season? I believe he's actually a Power, of the Second Sphere. [Powers help us overcome the temptations of the world that are brought upon us by Satan and his demons. They are our protectors because they make sure that these demons do not harm us in any way. In pictures, they are depicted as warriors or soldiers.] BUT. Seraphim are scarier. LOL. And he was so strong early on.

Also, his "mighty" comment. I kept asking myself, how would an angel describe itself? I came up with this and it seemed to suit him: [Bless the LORD, O you His angels, you mighty ones who do His bidding, obedient to His spoken word (Psalm 103:20).]

Reviewer Thanks! Darwin, Topkicker26, happyperson42, and Momochan77. THANK YOU.

I could go on for ages about all the things I learned about angels, their intelligence and innocence, and their ability to transcend language barriers but also being limited in that they actually have to travel from Point A to Point B . . . I really do think that the SPN writers gave them full justice. But instead of rambling your ear off, I'm going to let you have a chance to review and tell me your thoughts! X3 You had to know I was going to say something like that.

Thank you, Dearest Readers!

~ Anne