Chapter Twelve

"What the hell, Cas?" Dean murmured at his phone. He had repeatedly tried to get ahold of Castiel, but he wouldn't answer his phone. They had even tried calling Mark, but Mark had left his phone behind.

Sam had moved Amy's body to the bed and covered it. They had cleaned up the blood as much as they could. Sam had gone to dispose of the bloody materials. Then Dean kept trying to call Castiel.

He had left several messages. All of them were some form of "answer the damn phone!" Dean didn't know any other way to contact Cas. So unless Dark had come back and took them, Castiel wouldn't call him back until he wanted to.

Dean put the phone away when Sam walked back into the room. "Any ideas?" he asked. "Because I just keep coming up with blanks. They could be anywhere right now! And if Dark took them, they're probably dead."

"I don't think they're dead," Sam said. "Dark made a show of killing her. He pulled us out of Mark's dream to make sure Mark saw it happen. It wouldn't make sense for him to do that, leave, then come back and kill him."

"You're probably right," Dean said. "Do you think he took them to torture them?"

"Just say it, Dean," Sam said. "You know Cas took Mark."

"But why?" Dean said. "That's what I don't get."

"Cas knows that Amy's alive," Sam said. Wherever Amy was, Dean wouldn't classify her as alive. Not until they got her back. "He would have told us if he was going to try and get her back."

"So he's doing something he knows we'd be against," Dean said, the pieces falling into place. "And it'd be something Mark would go along with."

"Dark," Sam said. Dean nodded, cursing under his breath. "They're going after Dark."

"They're both idiots," Dean said. "How are we gonna find them? There's no way in hell I'm letting them do this on their own."

"Celine."

Dean gestured to the body covered on the bed. "Celine's dead."

"She was no longer tied to the World Between Worlds," Sam said. "She crossed over here. Unless..."

"She's a vengeful spirit," Dean said. "You think she'd know where Dark went?"

"That or she can get us into the World Between Worlds," Sam said. While in the World Between Worlds, they could view Mark wherever he was. It might work the same for Dark. "We don't have a lot of other options."

"After what happened, she might gladly help us find and get rid of Dark," Dean said. He still wouldn't trust her, but as Sam had just said, they didn't have a lot of other options. "Let's do it."


~World Between Worlds~

Amy paced in front of the mirror, part of her hoping that she would see Sam and Castiel again. That they would tell her that everything was okay. Of course, she could use that window into her world that Dark had left her, but after the last time she had looked into it, she couldn't stomach any more. Mark kept an eye on it, though. He would tell her if something happened.

Mark...but not MY Mark.

"I can feel your thoughts, y'know," he said. "I get it. You don't have to like me. Just don't rub it in my face."

Amy stopped her pacing and turned away from the mirror, looking at him. "You never explained how you ended up here," she said, changing the subject.

"I died," he said. "Again." He looked annoyed by that. "Thought I was free. I guess I'm cursed."

"How did you die?"

"Assassination," he said. "Great actor doesn't equal great mayor, apparently. When I realized I was dying...part of me was relieved. Until I woke up here, of course."

"I don't feel sorry for you," she said. "I'm not on Dark's side either, but you kinda don't deserve a happy ending."

"I know," he said. "I wish I could go back and change things."

Amy didn't have to read his feelings to know that that wasn't the full truth. "Do you?" she asked. "Or do you just want to change what you did to Damien?"

He didn't say anything at first. "If I hadn't done what I did," he said. "I'd probably be in his place now. You never would have met him. I wouldn't have had any reason to go after Mark."

"True."

"But that doesn't mean I wouldn't have eventually come to your world."

"What?"

He gestured her to the window that was floating in front of him. Amy looked into it and saw that he was making the images move backwards. Rewinding it. After a few moments, it stopped. The scene she saw now was of Sam and Castiel sitting at a table, papers and books spread out before them.

"Thousands of years ago, a dark power surfaced," Castiel was saying. "We originally thought it was created by Lucifer, but it was something that didn't come from our world. While it was here, it formed it's own army..." The scene skipped forward some. "...locked it away in another world..." The scene faded away then the small window vanished.

Amy remembered the new information Sam had mentioned, but she had told him she would rather not know. "That dark power..."

"The same power that changed Damien," he said. "It let me escape when it trapped Damien and Celine. I could have saved them..."

"But at the cost of yourself," Amy said. Either way, the outcome wouldn't have been any better. "Was it Dark that formed that army thousands of years ago? Can he time travel on top of everything else?"

"I wouldn't be surprised," he said. "But, no. That dark power was before it had a vessel. Your Hunter friends believe that Dark may regain those memories. It only forgot because it consumed Damien's and it was locked away for thousands of years."

"If it had been you instead of Dark, do you think you would've ended up here just because that dark power was once here?" Amy asked. He didn't have to say anything. She knew it was the truth. "Did they lock it away in that house? Your house?"

He nodded. "Apparently they were confident that it wouldn't get out," he said. "Locked away to never be heard from again."

"They stopped him once, they can do it again."

"He's more powerful now," he said. "He can't be stopped. They'll be lucky if they managed to trap him again."

"Sam and Dean trapped him once," Amy said, remembering the Devil's Trap. "They'll find a way. They've probably faced tougher foes."

"We're safer here."

"You're just gonna give up?"

"We'll die if we go back," he said. "And I'll probably end up back here anyway."

"Then the least you can do is warn them."

"Warn them of what?" he asked. "They already know this! I learned it from them!"

"But the power here... There's gotta be something we can do!"

"Nothing," he said then turned and walked away.