Thank you so much MaggieMay17 for your help. Thank you all for reading.

Chapter Seventeen

Sam saw the cop cars outside the abandoned church when he arrived, and he sighed. He was going to have to work around several cops while he investigated the deaths he'd heard about on the police band.

It had been weeks since he healed Nick, and he'd focused on practicing his powers and tracking Michael. He thought Michael might make his presence known to humans—though they wouldn't know what it meant—so he'd used old school methods of tracking hunts.

He went through the open door, and the stench of the room reached him. He didn't know if it was because he still wasn't working with his full grace or not, but he felt nauseous as soon as it hit him. It was repulsive. He'd spent a lot of time around death and corpses, and he was usually better at holding onto his gorge, but the stench of burned and rotting flesh was strong. He had no idea angels could get sick.

There were five cops in the room. Two of them were dressed in the jumpsuits of forensic investigators; one was taking photographs, and the other two uniformed patrol standing guard by the door, watching for potential rubberneckers at the isolated location. They all looked a bit green.

Concealed from their sight, Sam moved around them to examine the bodies. They were piled in a heap, so it was hard to tell exactly how many there were, and he tried counting legs to estimate them before a uniformed cop stepped back and bumped into him.

"What the hell was that?" the cop asked, his eyes moving back and forth over Sam, searching for what he'd felt.

"What was what?" another replied.

"I felt something there."

Sam sighed. He needed to be able to look properly without working his way around them. He walked back to the man that was furthest from the bodies, one by the door, and touched his temple. The man dropped like a stone, unconscious before he hit the floor, and the others in the room rushed towards him, calling out in shock, and two of them drawing guns. What good they thought guns would be for a man who had—to all outward appearances—passed out, Sam didn't know.

When they reached Sam, he quickly brushed his fingers over the foreheads of everyone in the huddle, knocking them out easily in a pile. He stepped around them and went back to the bodies. He didn't want to move them too much as it would leave the cops with unnecessary questions, but he needed to check them out.

They were all obvious angel kills, eyes burned out, and he suspected he knew whose victims they were. There were three angels on earth the last time he'd spoken to Naomi: him, Michael, and Castiel. He didn't think Castiel would be killing people, though he supposed he should check, so he was pretty sure they were Michael's kills.

He lifted the head of one of the bodies to see the one beneath, wanting to check the eyes, but there was more to see than the burned eyes. The teeth that showed beneath the parted lips were familiar. It was a werewolf, though the teeth were larger than he'd ever seen on a werewolf before. There was also something strange about the way it felt to touch it. He felt a sense of home, the way he felt with Dean, though this place had no connection to his brother.

That's Heaven, bucko, Gabriel said cheerfully.

Sam frowned as he considered. What would a werewolf have to connect him to Heaven?

Boy, oh boy, you're slow.

Sam ignored the smug voice and moved back and rubbed his hand to his pants leg to remove the tainted feeling of the dead creature's cool skin.

Michael had killed a werewolf, but a werewolf unlike one he'd ever seen. Not even a pure-blood werewolf looked like this.

He raised his voice and called out to someone he thought might be able to explain. "Violet, I need to talk to you."

She arrived silently and instantly, as she always did. "Yes, Lucifer."

"Do you know what's going on here?" he asked, gesturing to the werewolf.

She moved closer and frowned. "That's a monster."

She's quick, Gabriel said with amusement.

"It's a werewolf, I know, but I've never seen one like this before," Sam said. "Have you?"

"No, never. It's an abomination. Its blood has been mixed with grace." She looked Sam dead in the eyes. "An archangel's grace."

Sam's breath caught. "Michael did this?"

"Unless it was you, yes."

Told you it was Heaven, Gabriel said. You really need to start listening to me, buddy.

Sam ignored the voice. He wasn't about to start engaging with the voice in his head. He wasn't sure why he was hearing the dead archangel unless it was some facet of Chuck's plan to screw him over even more, but the last time he'd engaged with something in his own head like that, he'd almost died from sleep deprivation.

"It wasn't me," Sam said. "But why would Michael give monsters grace? What would it do?"

She considered the question, her eyes roving over the bodies. "I can't be sure. I don't think it's ever been done before. I imagine his plan was to enhance them somehow. It's obviously not worked. They're dead."

"Obviously," Sam muttered.

He mulled over the facts. If Michael was trying to enhance monsters with grace, it had to be to use them as soldiers. He'd had an army of angels in his own world, but there weren't enough angels here to use. The few angels that were left were all in Heaven, no help to him. From what he knew about Michael, he guessed he wouldn't want to work alone. Perhaps Sam's warnings had reached him, and he was looking for protection. If the monsters could be given the power of an archangel, would they pose a threat to Sam? Even if they couldn't hurt him, they could hurt other people. He had to do something about it.

"I need to tell Dean," he said.

She looked puzzled. "Dean Winchester? Why?"

"Because if Michael finds a way to make it work, to enhance these monsters, Dean and all hunters are in danger. Hell, all humans are in danger."

"Yes," she said, her voice carefully controlled. "But why do you care?"

Sam pushed his hair back from his face and locked his eyes on her. "I'm not the Lucifer you remember, Violet. I'm nothing like him." Her doubtful look told him she wasn't convinced, and he went on, impassioned. "Billie is helping me. Do you really think she'd do that if I was a danger to the world? To Dean Winchester?"

"I don't know," she said. "She's not exactly a fan of the Winchesters."

"No, maybe not, but she sees they're useful. She's given Dean a free pass once, and you know she didn't want that before she became Death. She wanted him and… Nick in The Empty, right?"

"She did…" Violet said thoughtfully.

Sam noticed the fear in her eyes that was always there when she was with him was fading and being replaced by confusion. He pressed his advantage. "I can't tell you the full story since it will be impossible for you to believe, but you have to trust me, I'm really not who you think I am. I…" He trailed off as a low growl reached him. "Do you hear that?"

She nodded and looked at the pile of bodies that were inexplicably shifting. "There's something alive under there."

Sam shoved her back and stepped defensively in front of her. He had no idea what was alive under there, what kind of monster, but he wasn't going to let her take the hits in his place.

The pile shifted, and then the bodies tumbled to the side as a male figure rose from among them and straightened. It was a vampire, though—like the werewolf—this was a creature of a kind he'd never seen. The fangs were elongated below the teeth, parting the lips in a smile that tugged up widely at the corners.

"Lucifer," it sneered, words slightly muffled by the twisted shape of its teeth. "I've got a message for you."

"Go ahead and give it," Sam said, straightening his spine.

In answer, the vampire sprang into the air and landed on the balls of its feet, a yard in front of Sam.

Sam pushed Violet further back and squared his stance as something slipped into his hand. He lifted it and saw the long length of his archangel blade. His fingers tightened around it, and he pointed it at the vampire. His instinct was to kill it, to defend himself and Violet—though he didn't know if either of them were really in danger—but he needed to question it.

The vampire came forward a step, and Sam pushed it back and brought the tip of his blade to its throat. "What did Michael do to you?" he asked.

It laughed maniacally. "He blessed me!"

"With grace?"

"Yes!" it said triumphantly.

"Why?"

"I'm his general. We're going to be an army."

It showed no sign of fear, it seemed happy to be talking even, and Sam guessed it was confident in its ability to survive the interaction. It made him nervous that he might be the one that was going to suffer from their meeting. He tried to push the thought away and concentrate on what he needed to know.

"If you're his general, why did he leave you here?"

"For fun," it said. "He told me what to do, and then I'll go find him."

"What's the fun?"

The smile grew impossibly, and it said, "You are. I get to enjoy myself with you."

As Sam mulled over the threat, Violet shifted at his back, and his momentary distraction was the chance the vampire needed to strike. It shoved aside Sam's blade and threw itself at him, its teeth snapping close to his face.

Sam didn't stop to think. He just shoved his blade into the vampire's gut and drove it forward until it was pressed against the wall. With a final thrust and the grinding of stone, he drove the blade into the wall, pinning the vampire like a bug.

Geez, remind me not to piss you off, Gabriel said, a smile in his voice.

The vampire was panting with pain, and blood was seeping around the place the sword was in its gut, but it didn't look scared.

"Where is Michael?" Sam asked.

"You really think I'll tell you that? If he kills you, it means I don't get to."

Sam twisted the blade, and the vampire snarled, almost drowning out the screech of metal against stone that Sam's sensitive ears picked up.

"Michael wants you to kill Lucifer?" Violet asked, speaking up for the first time as she stepped around Sam to face the vampire.

The vampire turned hateful eyes on her and said, "No, it's what I want."

"Then what does Michael want?" Sam asked, giving the blade another twist.

When the vampire had calmed from its pained panting, it said, "He wants you. He has big plans."

"Plans to do what?"

"I don't know; I just know he wants you with him."

"To kill me?" Sam asked.

"No, to work with him. He's prepared to put aside the fight for a common goal. He wants the world, you want the world, you can have it together."

Sam pondered the words. If the vampire was telling the truth, it meant Michael had believed what Sam said about being the one destined to kill him. And it meant he didn't want to go home.

Sam hadn't truly believed it would be that easy to deal with Michael, and he'd never planned to go through with it; he wanted him dead more than gone. If Michael was willing to deal, he might be able to use it in his favor. He could play along until he had his full strength and then strike to kill.

Or it's a damn trap, Gabriel said. Be smart, Sam. Would Mickey share power? And he knows who you really are. What could make him believe you'd give up the world when Dean is in it?

Sam shook his head briskly to clear the confusion. Michael knew he would never do that to Dean, so this was a trap. Had he left this monster for him on the off-chance that it might be able to kill Sam, left it with this ruse to make him pause and be vulnerable? Michael didn't know him the way Lucifer had known him. All he had to gauge by was what he'd seen and what Sam had said.

"Say I do want to deal with him," Sam said, "how do I find him to talk?"

Violet gasped, but Sam was too focused on convincing the monster with his lies that he ignored her for the moment.

The vampire's eyes narrowed. "You'll have to get this blade out of my gut for a start. I can take you to him."

Sam thought for a moment. He couldn't go to Michael to strike yet as he wasn't strong enough to fight him. He wondered if there was a way to keep the vampire locked down until he was ready. If he could trap him somehow, he could use him when it was time.

Before he could make the decision, Violet spoke up, "Lucifer, no…"

"Shut up!" Sam snapped.

She made a small pained sound, and he knew any progress he'd made convincing her that he wasn't Lucifer had been lost. She was convinced that was who he was now.

"What's it going to be, Lucifer?" the vampire asked.

Kill it, Sam, Gabriel urged. You can't risk locking it down until it's time. If it gets free, it'll be a massacre. And it really might be able to hurt you. It's got archangel grace in it. I know it can't kill you, but…

Sam paused one more moment and then yanked the blade out of the vampire and, before it could do more than stagger forward a step, he swung the blade into its neck, neatly decapitating it.

The pieces fell, and Sam turned to Violet. She looked scared, but there was something in her eyes that made the words he was going to speak die on his tongue. She was scared again, that was clear, but there was also a hint of hatred. She no longer saw him as just the devil that was powered-down. She was seeing him as the threat he had appeared to be, and she loathed him for it now that she thought he'd work with Michael.

It was worse than just losing progress as it was taking it further back. He hadn't seen her as an ally exactly, she'd been scared of him, but he'd believed he could use her somehow when the time came. She would openly fight him now, and that meant other reapers might, too.

It was a complication that he didn't need.

"You can go, Violet," he sighed.

She nodded once and disappeared.

Sam looked around at the unconscious cops, the piled bodies, and just breathed for a moment.

He was going to have to warn Dean and the rest of his family about Michael's monsters so that they could pass along the news to other hunters that they were out there. He had felt the strength of the vampire, and he was an archangel; Dean and the others would be even more vulnerable. They needed to find a way to deal with them. Decapitation had worked on the vampire, and he figured that was the safest bet for any others out there. The only thing he'd ever known to survive a decapitation was a leviathan, and he didn't think even grace could make that possible for any other monster.

He spread his wings and took flight to the mountain peak he'd found after healing Nick. He'd been there a lot in the month since that had happened, and he'd found it peaceful. He was going to need the added peace with what he had to do next.

He closed his eyes and opened his mind to the voices of the angels that had been a murmur to him before. They became loud, and he reached out for a specific angel, "Castiel, are you there?"

There was nothing for a moment apart from the other voices that were only background noise, and then a tentative voice answered, "Sam, is that you?"

"Yes," Sam said. "I need to talk to you."

He expected hesitation or fear, but Castiel showed none. He answered quickly and confidently, "We need to speak to you, too. We have things to say."

"Where?" Sam asked. "I'm not coming to the bunker."

He wasn't going to set himself up to be trapped. Lucifer had been able to negate the angel warded handcuffs when he was at full strength, but Sam wasn't at full power. And there was holy fire. He needed to be free to fight, not locked down in the dungeon.

"Where would you feel more comfortable?"

Sam did a quick calculation in his head, thinking of a place he could get to before them but not somewhere he would have to wait a long time for them to arrive at.

"Glen Elder. I'll be at the lake near the north docks. Come soon."

"Okay, Sam, we'll see you there."

Sam withdrew to his surroundings again and prepared to take flight as something occurred to him. Castiel had called him Sam. He was still working with the theory that Sam was the vessel.

He wondered if there was a way to make that work in his favor.

So… An appearance of Michael's super monsters and Sam ruined any progress he'd made with Violet. Bummer.

Until next time…

Clowns or Midgets xxx