She'd lost everything.

Everything she'd ever worked for. Everything she'd built for herself. Everything she'd started but never got to finish, like the glorious, uplifting happiness and uncertainty of new love.

Gone.

Desmond was still alive, thank God, but the relief settled around her like the cold, satiny walls of a coffin. When all this was over, he would go on without her. Forget her. Find someone else to love.

She'd lost it all. Her dreams. Her future. Her life.

Taken. Gone.

All that was left was a great, yawning grief. Bewilderment. Anger.

She didn't even know how she'd died. Her moment of death had been taken from her, too. So had her body, because it sure wasn't here.

Sunlight. Warmth. Comfort. She would never have these things again.

It had been cold and dark forever.

Lemara miserably returned to her cage and lay down, all bent and cramped. What was the point of doing anything else?

It wasn't fair.

..::~*~::..

After a while, something changed. The air got chillier.

"Oh, look! Some of them are still here – and they're alive! Someone, go get Castiel. Maybe he can help them," said a vaguely familiar voice, and then a draft of chilled air swept over Lemara's bare skin.

She couldn't seem to dredge up enough interest to bother with these small disturbances. Her thoughts kept circling the drain. She'd lost everything. Everything she'd ever worked for. Her dreams. Her future.

Everything. Gone.

"The little lady isn't here," said a deeper voice. That one was unfamiliar, and, therefore, had nothing to do with her. She tried to ignore it.

"Come on, we've got to find her," said the first voice.

That one was familiar. So familiar. It was starting to bug her. It brought to mind a dark nightclub, throbbing music, and rainbow lasers. Desmond kissing her. Desmond sliding his hands over her tummy. Desmond saying my girl with so much pride.

Desmond was alive, but she wasn't. God, it hurt. It hurt so damn much. A sensation a lot like heartburn forced her to sit up. She peered out of her cage. That voice. Whose was it?

A leggy redhead. She looked as good as she had that night, when she had tossed her long, shiny hair out of the way of her hands, laughing over pink margaritas.

"Julia?" Lemara mumbled. "What are you doing here?"

The redhead whirled toward her.

"Marr?" she knelt and peered through the chain-link, and her voice broke. "Oh, no, Marr. I hoped – I prayed – You can see me?"

Lemara nodded, sinking back to the pad. Julia. Red's name was really Julia. "You died. You're dead. Me, too. Sucks, huh?"

"Oh, Marr. I'm so sorry." Julia touched Lemara's back.

"Careful," said the deeper voice. A man. He stared down at them with pity, his face shadowed by his cowboy hat. "You might not want to get that close. Friend or no, that one is on the edge. She might not be able to understand you. She could lash out."

Lemara was too tired to pay attention. She closed her eyes. Julia's hand went in little circles. It felt nice. Warm, and solid . . .

"Marr?" Julia ventured. "I know it's hard to concentrate right now, but can you tell me something?"

Julia's hand kept rubbing. Very warm. Very solid.

"Mmm?" Lemara asked sleepily.

"Have you seen Aya?"

"Aya?" Lemara rolled over. "How do you know Aya?"

"She helped me. Right after it happened." Julia stopped her back-rubbing and pressed Lemara's hand instead. "Right after I died, I mean. I was in a lot of trouble. Stuck at the moment of my death, she said. If I'd stayed like that, I would have become an evil spirit. But she helped me through it. And she told me about you. She tried so hard to find you." Julia paused. "Did she ever tell you she can talk to ghosts?"

Lemara climbed toward wakefulness like a diver rising too fast from deep water. Reality rushed down at her like the surface of the water. "Kinda," she said, cringing as she remembered how Aya kept insisting that her dead cat was still around. "I didn't believe her. I guess I kind of have to, now. She could see me. She was here, just a few minutes ago, I think, but that – guy – took her somewhere."

Julia didn't miss the way she stumbled over the word.

Neither did the cowboy. He hooked his duster aside and slipped both hands into his trouser pockets. "The demon, you mean," he said, watching Lemara's expression carefully.

There it was again. That word. Demon.

"Okay, somebody has got some explaining to do," Lemara said, waving an imperious finger in the air.

With that, she popped out of the water. It was like everything snapped into focus, and she took in a huge breath of . . . not quite joy, but maybe acceptance. She felt like herself again.

Lemara Bako would never, in a million years, lie here moping when Aya needed help.

She tried out a smile for Julia and said, "Hey. I know we're dead and all, but I'm glad you're okay."

"Me, too!" Julia actually giggled, though Lemara detected a note of hysteria in it.

Then they leaned right through the cage and embraced. Lemara held on tight, grateful that she could touch another person like this. As though they were more than ghosts.

"It's not over," Julia said, sounding dangerously close to tears. "There's still something we can do."

Boldly, Lemara stood up, helping Julia up with her. She checked her hair. Then, she walked out of her cage for the last time. The cowboy smiled encouragingly at her.

She lifted her chin and threw back her shoulders. "Count me in. I owe that little bitch Kittney a good kick in the face."

..::~*~::..

Kittney grabbed a fistful of bleached hair, right against the scalp where it would hurt the most. Her former partner squirmed, shouting into the spelled leather mask that kept him imprisoned in his meat. She was running out of time. She could feel it in the rush of crackling static through the air. She could hear it in the commotion outside, the shouts and the crashes.

Kammapa had to be summoned. Now.

It could be done, though without all twenty-four sacrifices it would take longer for the creature to cross the dimensional gate. Not that it mattered. The summoning was all that was necessary to break the seal. Whatever happened after . . . Whoever was still alive after . . .

Well. That wasn't her problem.

Without her helpers, her vessel was simply too small to lift a man a foot taller than she was, to hang him from the hook. She heaved the demon, still bound, to the edge of the pentagram. Holding his head still, she touched the tip of her pewter knife to the mask.

"Be grateful. Your life is worth something after all," she whispered to him, and then she laughed at the impotent fury and terror in what she could see of his pretty, borrowed face. She trailed the knife down to the soft pink skin of his throat, and she watched in delight as goosebumps rose in its wake. He whimpered and struggled, but she lifted him partway off the floor by his hair to position the knife just right. "Your soul will shatter the seal and let Kammapa out of its box. We will be one step closer to our promised Apocalypse." She slipped into a singsong at the end. "All. Thanks. To you!"

She closed her fist around the horizontal handle of the leaf-bladed knife so that it stuck up between her middle and ring fingers. One easy motion to the side and red blood would flow, a river of life energy.

The outer door banged against the tiny antique refrigerator in the mud room.

Kittney jerked. As she did, the pewter knife sliced up the other demon's neck, causing him to yell, and then the blade bit into a strap of the leather mask. Blood welled up and began to run, but not enough.

The inner door slammed against the wall next. Gale-force wind, shockingly cold, blew all her candles down and knocked the space heaters over. She dropped both knife and demon when she threw up her arms to protect her face. The knife clattered on the floorboards; the demon landed heavily, with no way to break his fall.

Orange and white sparks and tongues of flame erupted from the toppled space heaters, then died. The incandescent work lights, powered off, burned so brightly that the glass of the bulbs popped with the musical sound of lake ice cracking. Half-seen figures swarmed inside on the wind, the whites of their eyes luminous, their skin gray, their hair and their clothes streaming. They attacked the walls and the ceiling like waves crashing against a cliff. Smoking, blackened handprints appeared all over her carefully painted sigils, burning them out, depowering them.

In seconds, the spirits had disconnected her sanctified ritual space from the gate. Sacrificing anyone here now would do less than nothing!

"How did you get in here?" Kittney raged. She began to blast the spirits apart, turning them into dust and embers. "You're not supposed to be here! I warded this building against spooks like you!"

"You did, yeah," said a woman, right behind her.

Kittney spun around. Her eyes widened. "You!"

"Me. I came here once before, remember that? I figured out what you were doing. And, see, you forgot about the angel," the spirit said. Her long red hair swirled around her. She zoomed up to Kittney and shoved her, hard.

Kittney flew across the room and crashed into a pile of broken furniture.

"That's what you get for murdering Luka!" the spirit shrieked.

"Your lives were meaningless," Kittney said, half-lying in splintered wood. It hurt, but she was a demon. Pain was no stranger to her. She threw up her hand. "And now, your death will be, too. Displodo –"

"I don't think so," said another woman, her voice huskier.

A large, sparkly sandal swung out of nowhere and cracked against Kittney's nose. She flew sideways, broken wood cascading after her. She rolled into the wall with a bruising whump. When she pushed herself upright, blood dripped steadily from both of her nostrils.

She touched her nose. Her fingers came away slick and red. Astonished, she looked up. "You!" she said again. The tall girl, the one she had killed an hour ago, grinned and then made a kissy face at her.

"Expellere –" Kittney tried next, but the first spirit slapped her.

As she staggered to the right, the second spirit kicked her again with her man-sized foot. She stumbled left. It went like that for several blows, the two spirits attacking from both sides and then dematerializing faster than she could vocalize an incantation. Kittney snarled like a wounded animal. She should have been safe here. Protected.

"Ligare –"

"Castiel!" the first spirit cried. She and her friend vanished before Kittney could get out more than the first word of the Latin binding spell, but her ghostly voice rang out clearly from the wind. "The demon is here!"

The angel walked in.

There was no mistaking that aura of Heavenly power, nor the expression of righteous fury. It made her feel unclean. Slimy. Dead inside. The way her people had once made her feel for being different, for being powerful, for being a witch, so long ago.

Kittney snarled at the angel. Then, gathering her demonic power, she called her knife back to her hand. She slid into one of the shadowy dimensional byways demons used to travel.

Never mind the prophecy. She would break this seal a different way. She'd come too far to stop now.

..::~*~::..

Denied its prey, the angel rounded on Vahe. It twisted its fist in his shirt and lifted him off the floor. Then it ripped the damaged mask away. The ancient, shiny brown leather disintegrated in a puff of yellow powder, stinking of sulfur. Vahe huffed a few breaths of untainted air.

"Where is she?" the angel growled, their faces about two inches apart. "Where is Aya?"

"I put her with the other sacrifices." He had no intention of lying to this thing. He had come too close to dying up here and wanted nothing more than to get the hell off Earth. "She should be in her cage."

"No." The angel frowned. "She's no longer there."

"Then how should I know?" he asked, squirming. It was really uncomfortable to have a guy's face that close to his. Especially when that guy was eyeing him as though he were a stepped-in pile of dog shit, and was considering lighting it and the shoe and possibly the entire sidewalk on fire.

The angel, a silver-blue light in its eyes kindling, pressed its palm to his forehead.

An embarrassingly loud squeal burst out of Vahe. He tried to turn his head away but five fingers, as inflexible as iron, squeezed his skull.

"The amphitheater!" he gasped. "That's where the gate is. Someone probably took her up there! Because she can call the spirits!"

The angel tilted its head. Its blazing blue eyes held his in a grip as strong as that of its fingers. Vahe couldn't look away no matter how desperately he wanted to. His demonic essence brimmed to the surface against his will.

After what felt like an age, the angel drew back a scant inch or so. The light in its pupils shrank to a pinprick. It removed its hand.

"Leave," it growled.

Vahe opened his mouth and began to scream.

..::~*~::..

Castiel relaxed his grip enough that the demon could vacate the human body and spiral, a thick black snake of smoke, toward the cracks in the floorboards. Then, before it escaped into them, he grabbed it. The smoke curled and lapped helplessly at his hand, flopping like an eel out of water.

Dean charged in, his boots thudding to a stop. His mouth dropped open.

Castiel squeezed. The fire of salvation burned along the demon's length, devouring it in seconds. He watched it go up in ashy embers, suffused with a feeling of justice and completion. It was very calming.

Dean grinned lopsidedly, pointing his handgun to the side, at the floor. "Why do I feel like you've been holding out on us?"

He often asked questions about angels that Castiel didn't deem appropriate to answer. "That was the demon who tried to take Aya, before," he said instead.

"Before? You mean, when you brought her to the motel?"

"Yes. I was reasonably sure I could convince it to leave its host willingly. I didn't wish to harm this one." He'd recognized Paulie from Aya's dream. A friend. A beloved not-brother. He lowered the barely responsive boy to the floor.

"I know him. He was with Aya." Dean frowned down at Paulie, at his bloodless face and unfocused, half-shuttered eyes, and then he swiftly knelt and traded his gun for a switchblade. He sliced the twine off Paulie's wrists and ankles.

Castiel checked the boy over, relinquishing some of his dwindling power to heal his wounds, as he had already done for the drugged victims. The wounds of the soul that had been inflicted by demonic possession, however, he did not currently have enough power to heal. That would have to be done on its own. So, he sent the boy to sleep.

Dean, who had prowled around the hall and found nothing else of interest, was already on the way out the door. Wordlessly, Castiel followed, leaving Paulie on the floor, unconscious but alive.

The campground had descended into chaos. Fire had broken out in at least two green-roofed buildings, the light and vibrant color dancing against the clouds. Periodically, troops of souls charged past, wreaking havoc upon everything in sight. Debris and the bodies of those either killed by the brothers or put to sleep by him littered the gravel road. A few souls, whooping and hollering, chased the remaining demons down the hill, toward the blizzard still ringing the park. The unceasing wind continued to fan the fires, which belched thick clouds of woodsmoke.

Even though the scene felt like a success, the sacrifices rescued, the demons routed, Castiel wrestled with a strong sense of foreboding. The nine people they had saved here didn't seem like enough. Too many had died.

And the seal, and Aya, were still in danger.

He closed his eyes so that he could concentrate. Something hovered there, pressing against the Earthly dimension, seeking entry. The presence seemed everywhere, a swollen spider crouching in the center of its corroded web, its venom oozing down the pathways of energy. It noticed him and sent curious, hungry, tar-like tendrils in his direction. He twitched his wings but kept them furled. The last thing he wanted was for that presence to touch them. Chances were good that even if he managed to make the transition into a telluric current, he'd end up careening right into the Void, anyway. He opened his eyes.

Smoke billowed across the campground, laced with tiny, red-hot sparks. The trees were starting to go up. Sam's leggy form appeared, a couple of crowbars clutched in one hand. The three of them met in the middle of the dark road.

"Did you find Lilith?" Dean asked.

"No," Sam said. He took a couple of deep, angry breaths through his nose, his dimples blindingly absent. "I think Lilith split when she heard we were coming."

"No loyalty among demons, huh?" Dean asked.

Sam gave him a narrow-eyed look. "Did you find Aya?"

Castiel answered. "No. A demon told me she is up at the amphitheater."

Dean snorted. "And demons don't lie?"

"I did believe him," Castiel said. "Where else would she be?"

All three of them turned to look. The tips of the towering rocks looked black against the stormy sky.

It's so far, Castiel thought unhappily. The physicality of this world could be very disorienting for an angel. It was so far, and he could not fly.

"Well, I'm not ready to throw in the towel," Dean said.

He sounded perfectly calm. As did Sam, who said, "Me, neither."

At an unspoken signal that Castiel missed entirely, the brothers proceeded to check over their weapons and other tools of the trade, squirreled away in numerous pockets and the lining of their jackets.

"Wish we could have gotten the shotgun, at least," Dean muttered, pulling out a book of matches, peering at them, and then tucking them away again.

"I think we pushed the deputy far enough without showing her the trunk. She'd have arrested us on the spot," Sam said, and they both let out a brief chuckle.

"We'll just have to go with what we have," Dean said.

Which was: The crowbars, solid iron. The police officer's matte-black Glock, regular ammunition. Dean's ivory-handled Beretta and Sam's pearl-handled Taurus, silver bullets. Extra rounds. Flasks of holy water and one rosary. An old prayer book, palm-sized. Two hex bags and several small plastic canisters of rock salt. The humble necklace of divining charms that had once belonged to a demigod. A handful of blades, ranging from Dean's switchblade to the demon-killing knife.

This, Sam offered to Castiel, surprising him. "Here. You might need it."

Ah. Because the hunt wasn't over yet. For the Winchesters, even one person was enough. As long as that one person was out there, they would never stop fighting.

Castiel looked at the knife. He didn't need it, but he realized that this was the way Sam and Dean said goodbye and I love you. They never actually did say these things, as though they believed doing so meant that one of them would not survive. Instead, they tried to give each other their best chances to make it out alive.

As Zuriel had done, when lending him an angel blade.

Family. His family, in Heaven, was everything to him.

Bonds. The bond the Winchesters shared was everything to them. Each other was all they had in the world.

Today, for the first time, they had included Castiel.

He accepted the knife. "Thank you, Sam," he said.

"All right," said Dean. "Let's get this show on the road."

A/N: *sings* THIS IS THE STORY THAT NEVER ENDS! How have you all been? I am mired in crushing anxiety and uncertainty at this point. It seems to take me about three days to get a chapter to a point where I think it's good enough to post, and no matter how hard I try, I don't seem to be getting closer to the end. I have two days left before the Watty's deadline, and two more chapters to write (please, let it just be two chapters). TWO DAYS. I guess, if you can spare it, wish me luck!

And,

Reviewer Thanks! Thank you for leaving reviews during this time of my not responding. I promise, I read EVERY one, and I APPRECIATE every one. happyperson42, Darwin, MiMiMargot (twice!), Momochan77, Moonlight Willows (welcome! I'm always thrilled to see a new name!), IHeartSPN (once here and once for Deleted Scenes), and YaoiLovinKitsune (yes, you got it in one!).

And I have, just this moment, learned from our vet that my kitty of sixteen years has malignant tumors in his lungs (a mass of melanoma in his mouth is responsible) so I have completely forgotten what else I wanted to say . . .

I do hope you're still enjoying this story. I am going to go sit with my kitty. And then I will keep writing. And probably do nothing else because I don't want to think.

Love to you all,

~ Anne