A/N: I love Mo's constant support too! :-) It never fails to brighten my day. {insert heart emoji here!} And sorry about that last cliffhanger, luv. To make up for it, here's a bonus Monday update!

Chapter title is from song by Bon Jovi.

52

Wanted Dead or Alive – Bon Jovi

"Dean?"

In the explosive mist of white ash that was all that remained of Inias, Sam's voice was tentative, careful eyes watching his brother, Dean's hand still curled around the First Blade.

Dean straightened. The First Blade disappeared as he turned to face them.

Sam inhaled sharply and she let out the breath she had been holding. Dean's eyes were green. Human. Somehow, some way, he'd not gone dark side, despite the fact he'd just vaporized another angel.

"Come on." Dean said roughly. "We've got to get out of here."

He held his right hand away from himself, as if it still burned, his face a grim mask of nothingness. She eyed him carefully, remember the broken in his voice as he tried to stop Inias. But he was right. They needed to get the hell out of here before anything else showed up.

She headed for the Durango.

"Nuh-uh." Dean got in front of her, blocking her way. "You're coming with me. Sam?"

She flicked him a hard glance, preparing to step around him. Almost nonchalantly he reached into his jacket pocket with his left hand and fished out a set of keys—her spare keys, to which, hey—and threw them over her head at Sam. She didn't need to turn to know Sam caught them one-handed, moving around her to her car's driver side, and squeezed himself awkwardly into her driver's seat, levering the seat as far back as it would go to accommodate his ginormous frame.

Well….Fudge.

She calculated her odds. Plan A to split had been sunk by the Mentalist in front of her. God knew what was after them, but without a rib-engraved angel invisibility cloak, she was a shining beacon in the night, and they would be better off with her as far away from them as possible.

"We'll ward up." Dean growled, glaring at her, still fucking reading her mind.

She scowled at him. "I'm better off on my own."

He blew out an exasperated breath. Before she could say how-do-you-do, he grasped her by the upper arm and hauled her bodily around the Impala to the passenger side, yanking open the passenger door.

"These are angels, sweetheart. That heavy anti-demon mojo you've got going ain't going to cut it."

She planted her feet. It was on the tip of her tongue to retort Cas hadn't painted the lake house over for nothing, and she did have a decent memory, thank you, when he leaned in, one finger brushing over Toby's amulet before tipping her chin up until she met his eyes. Her breath faltered under the intensity of his gaze.

"We promised the kid we'd watch your back. Don't make liars of us."

It was important to him, burning bright in sunlit green—that idiotic sense of responsibility, ignoring the impossible odds, needing to save people.

Trying to be a damned hero.

Sam had fired up the Durango's engine, and the idle purr of it waited patiently.

She held that determined green gaze until she could hold it no longer. This was folly. But his fingers beneath her chin didn't budge, his gaze didn't move, and his thumb moved against her skin, all-for-one and one-for-all, hell bent on leaving no man behind, even when he damned well should.

Breaking out of his grasp, she turned abruptly and slid into the Impala's passenger seat.

"Well, what are you waiting for? Let's get the hell out of here."

They drove west through the night, climbing again, deeper into the Sierras. Dean took a back road off a back road, twisting up into the mountains, tunneling deep in between giant sequoias that were deeper shadows against the clear night sky. At the end of the road there was an old log cabin, four thick walls keeping out the snow, and hunter sign on the door. They had to break the demon wards to get Dean inside, but they repainted those, and added Enochian sigils in fresh white paint on top. Sam raised both eyebrows when she went straight to the cabinet where the paints were kept, but Rufus always organized his cabins the same way. It saved time on looking for crap, and these back-up, back-up cabins were back-ups for a reason.

Dean paced.

Their combined arsenal was piled in one corner of the room. Rock salt and shotguns, holy oil and flares and their entire assortment of stakes, rowan, oak, and Siberian alder, most of what was in the trunk of the Impala and the Durango, a completely random guess at what might slow down a thing that was white smoke bright enough to burn, and strong enough to hijack an angel.

She was sitting at the dining table across from Sam, her katana in her hands, because she needed something to do. Sam had his eyes fixed on his laptop, scrolling and intermittently clicking, while Dean paced.

She wiped the long blade down, and dusted it with powder. She wiped the powder off in turn, aware of Dean glaring at the sword in her hands.

"That's useless against what we're up against, you know."

She flicked him a cool look and went back to inspecting the blade. He stomped around the room again, antsy and unsettled.

"Dude." Sam muttered, not taking his eyes off his laptop. "Go clean a shotgun or something."

Dean shot his brother a look full of aggravation.

"It's a trick, Sammy. Trying to get me to get rid of the Mark—when I'm the only sure thing against the zombies, and God knows what else, maybe even that douchebag Ramiel himself. It has to be a trick."

"I know that, Dean." Sam replied, sounding a bit tried. "That's why I'm looking for the Book. If Inias managed to get to Metatron in lockup, then the Book has to be what Inias was talking about. If we get that closed, Heaven's gates will be open again, and Ramiel won't be able to create any more zombies. We just have to figure out where the last place on earth Ramiel would look might be."

Dean threw up his hands. "And where the hell is that? It could be anywhere. Hell, with friggin' angels, it could be in any time. Remember the phoenix?"

She looked up at that. "What do you mean, any time?"

"We needed phoenix ash for a thing. Long story, upshot is that Cas had to send us back to 1861 to get it. That wasn't the first time he zapped us back either. The point is—Metatron had the angel tablet. His power was pretty much infinite. He could have stashed the Book anywhere. In any time."

Sam huffed. "Yeah, but there's nothing to stop Ramiel from just going to that same time and getting it back. No, Dean, I think it has to be something else. Some other kind of protection or disguise, or something."

"Friggin' Metatron and his riddles." Dean grumbled, and went back to pacing.

She picked up a clean piece of rice paper and poured a little oil onto it. She ran it down the length of the katana, ignoring the restless clomp of Dean's boots on the dusty wooden floor. Time travel. It shouldn't have surprised her, considering the scale of the things the boys got themselves into.

"Here, this might be something." Sam said suddenly, scrolling down with one thumb, reading as he went. "A Scroll of Remembrance, sometimes also called the Book of Life, age unknown, at … " Sam's forehead furrowed. "Oh."

"What?" Dean walked over so he could read over Sam's shoulder. "The Wodehouse Manor? What the hell's that?"

Her hand paused midway down the blade.

Sam grimaced. "The Manor houses the Wodehouse Collection. At least part of it; the part that's in this country, anyway. Rumor has it that the Wodehouse family has been steadily acquiring whatever biblical artifacts come on to the open market. Plus, they're big sponsors of digs in the Middle East, especially around the Dead Sea."

"What for?" Dean asked.

Sam huffed. "No one knows. They've been at it a long time."

"And you think they might have the Book?" Dean asked skeptically.

Sam's head tilted to one side in thought. "I wouldn't put it past Metatron. The Manor's not far from where he was holed up, and it is protected up the wahzoo."

"So we'll go have a look."

"It's not that easy. Word is, the Wodehouse Manor is kind of like the…" and Sam stopped abruptly there, and tried to bat signal his brother with his eyebrows. "…you know."

She kept her head down, because she did know, and Sam didn't need to know that she knew. There'd always been rumors about some new secret society, not to mention that upstart Cutbert Sinclair, horning in on the Families and their Collections. She fixed her gaze on the sword in her hands, because that was all in the past, and she wanted it to stay that way.

"Anyway, we're not the first folks that have wanted a look at the Wodehouse collection." Sam continued. "But the rumor is, no one who has set foot on the property without an express invitation from the Wodehouses has ever even made it as far as into the Manor."

Dean's brows knit together. "What? They all just drop dead?"

The katana was solid in her hands. She made her hands move, dragging the oiled paper against the blade's flatness. The Wodehouses had been around a while, lineage going back to the Crusades, it was said, and their collection of Biblical artifacts was extensive. The Book of Life would be right up their alley.

"They disappear."

Dean stopped in his tracks. The typing noises Sam was making ceased, and she could feel the full weight of their undivided curiosity. She inspected the sharp edge of her blade, and pointedly didn't look up.

"It's a collection." She angled her blade into the light, checking for nicks. "No one builds a collection without some security measures. You've got the usual options: hide it, lock it, or curse it. Tutankhamun's tomb ring a bell?"

Sam's eyebrows went up.

"Let's just say the Wodehouses find that kind of thing inspirational. But these days, it's hard to explain the mutilated bodies that keep showing up on your lawn, so people go poof. They turn up later, very dead in very unpleasant ways. Word gets out. Most people leave the Manor alone."

The boys exchanged another look, before turning back to her in freaky unison.

She tipped the katana against the scabbard and slid it home. If everything Sam had said about this Metatron was true, she wouldn't put it past the Wodehouses to have made…friends. She scowled.

"Fine. I'll get us an invite."

Sam's eyebrows jumped up all the way to his hairline. She didn't look at him, focused on the sword in her hands, preoccupied. There was no question the Wodehouses would happily give her an invitation into their parlor. She glanced over at the stash of weaponry in the corner.

"That'll get us to the manor, at least. But…" she trailed off, getting in was going to be the easy part. "…we may need to stop off for a few things before we go."

Sam stared at her. She could practically hear the wheels whizzing in Sam's brain and she carefully kept her expression neutral. There was only so much Sam was going to be able to piece together; she just had to be careful not to tell him anything else.

Dean looked at Sam, and looked back to her, but there was nothing but blank incomprehension on his face.

Good.