"Explain to me how using my brother to bait a demon is okay."

"Explain to me how it's okay your brother killed a man in cold blood. Another hunter. I saw what your brother did. The stories about him, I ignored them until I saw for myself."

Dean twisted to look the man directly in the eye. "And if I told you he was possessed? For a damn week." His head swirled, how had this guy seen what had happened?

That bit of information did seem to give the man pause. He straightened, glared down at Dean and for a minute Dean thought he was reconsidering.

"How is it your brother survives a possession that long when most others don't survive more than a few hours?"

The statement, and the truth of it, sent Dean's hopes of reasoning with the man, or any hunter, crashing through the floor. Then again this guy wasn't high up on the intelligence level. He seemed to think holding a gun on Dean would keep him sitting still and compliant. Fool.

Dean shifted around, pretending to get into a more comfortable position. "So, we just sit here for an hour until you put a slug in my head and I'm done?"

"Yep, that's the plan."

"Okay." Dean shifted again, hearing the man behind him shuffle back a few steps. "Mind if I stretch my legs?" He settled on the ground, now facing the man. His eyes flicked to the car and back again. Twice more he did the same thing, making the man before him fidget, his own gaze moving quickly to the side before resting on Dean again.

"Not going to work. No one is behind me."

Dean shrugged. "Can't blame a guy for trying." He smiled amiably, leaned back on his elbows.

Bellowing from the Impala's horn reverberating through the parking garage made the man jump and spin around. Dean smirked, curled his legs under him and threw himself at the man, tackling him. Fingers gripping the man's wrist, he slammed the hand with the gun into the ground, using his weight to pin the man for the few precious seconds he needed to disarm him.

Other arm free, the man's fist smashed into the side of Dean's head, sending a spray of small lights twinkling along the edges of Dean's vision.

Closing his eyes to the pain in his head, Dean smashed the man's hand again and again, until he felt bones break. The man's face screwed up, his teeth and jaws clenched tight. Dean ignored what he was doing to the man. It was this guy or Sam. No contest there. The man shoved the heel of his hand against Dean's ear, throwing him enough to the side Dean landed on his elbow, sending more pain to ricochet up to his shoulder. The gun, now free of the man's broken hand, dropped to the ground. Dean swung his arm across the hard concrete, crashed into the gun and sent it spinning away.

Throwing Dean off, the guy rolled to his feet, injured arm clutched against his side. Dean barely had time to stagger to his feet before the guy was coming at him, head down, shouting. Catching more than stopping him, the man forced Dean back until he hit the low outer wall of the garage hard and fast. Free hand fisting in Dean's shirt, he yanked Dean forward and slammed his head into the wall.

More stars exploded across Dean's vision. His weight would have sagged to the ground had he not been pinned between his assailant and the wall. Bending him over backwards, the guy grabbed Dean's belt, started hoisting him to the top of the wall. Pushing his hand against the man's jaw, Dean grunted and threw his weight back and to the side.

Head spinning, Dean's feet scrabbled for purchase on the cement flooring as more of his weight was tipped backwards. Unable to breathe properly with the man's weight bearing down on him, Dean's vision went from exploding white to hazy gray. In one last-ditch effort to free himself, Dean hooked one leg under the man's foot, got a hand between himself and the man and shoved.

In a sudden whoosh the man was gone, sent tumbling over the edge of the wall and to the street below.

Panting in ragged, sawing breaths, Dean rolled to his side, grimacing when he saw the man's body spread out, the way his skull caved in on one side and the blood oozing out. His senses reeled and spun wildly along with the rest of the world. The pounding in his head was in perfect time with the pounding of his heart against his chest.

Dean took two stumbling steps away before he fell back against the wall and down to the ground. Gray turned to black and pulled Dean under.

Concha stopped long enough to verify the man on the ground was dead. Not only was he dead, he was gross and dead. Moving quickly, she made her way to the garage entrance, putting one arm over her face for protection from the wind and rain hitting her. Once inside she stopped, leaned back against the wall, gasping for breath, trying to steady her shaken nerves and rattled stomach.

Satellite phone chirping, she dug it out and answered. "One is dead."

"I'm on one of the others, but we need to know for sure how many." Dante's voice, always sure and calm came through loud and clear from his end. "You okay?"

"Yeah. Craven said they took Sam. Dante, you need to be here. Dean needs back up, not me."

"Conch, you'll do just fine. Stick with Dean, do what he tells you, and it'll be fine. As back up goes, you're on the top of my list."

Squeezing her eyes shut, how was she to tell her brother, the consummate soldier, the most perfect damn warrior on the planet, his faith in her did more to bolster her than anything. "Thank you." Would he ever stop to remember she wasn't the hunter here, he was, Dean and Sam Winchester were, not her. She gathered information, she tracked.

"You can hunt with me, you can hunt with Dean. Listen to him. He's gonna need the information you have, and he'll know what to do with it. I'll be in touch as soon as I have a location."

"Dante."

"What?"

"With your shield."

She could hear him shuffling the phone, probably moving it so he held it between his chin and shoulder as he drove. The very slight hitch in his breathing, she nearly missed. "You betcha. You too. Never on it." The last was spoken softly, his voice thick and deep.

Ending the call, Concha held the phone pressed to her forehead for a few seconds, drawing in deep breaths. With your shield or on it. The only option was with it, never on it. For them it was 'good luck', 'good hunting', and 'I love you' all rolled into one. She wanted Sam to come back with his shield too. Running through each level until she found the Impala on the third level, Concha's legs couldn't carry her fast enough. Gaze sweeping the area, they landed on Dean.

Be alive. She begged silently. Just goddamn be alive.

"Dean!"

He desperately wanted out of the dark place. This wasn't the demon; he understood that, it was his head. Pushing and struggling to surface, it seemed the more he tried the more he was dragged down.

Dean!

His name sounded strange to his ears. Wrong, the voice was wrong. Sam's voice was deeper, not so much of an edge, softer. Persistent tugging on his arm accompanied the voice insisting he get his ass up off the ground. Warm hands, softer than Sam's, not as strong as his brother's but with strength, wrapped around his arm, touched his forehead.

"Come on, Dean, help me out here." That voice again, clearer, closer, stronger. It wasn't Sam, but it was familiar.

The dark faded to a hazy gray, bits of the world swam across his vision.

"Dean."

"Whuaaaa…?" It came out more of a groan. Getting one hand to move, he got his fingers to his head, rubbed at his forehead, then between his eyes. Women who were pushy and he had no intention of sleeping with where annoying.

"Off the ground you go."

His arm was moved across the back belonging to the voice, a shoulder was hooked under his. Figuring out a second too late that closing his eyes for the standing up was a wise move, Dean staggered against the body next to him—not Sam—nearly toppling the two of them.

"Work with me, Dean."

His weight was shifted, the body—not Sam—pushed more tightly against his. He dared to crack open an eye. "Concha?"

"Yeah," She laughed the word out, then eased him in the opposite direction. "Come on, big guy, we can do this."

Dean staggered while Concha steered, until his butt was firmly on the hood of the Impala. Sliding up and away from her, he grinned. "We've done this before."

"Getting to be a regular habit, though you were...hmm…how can I put this politely? Drunk out of your stupid gourd the last time."

Rubbing at the back of his head, Dean grinned, "You sure know how to make a guy feel special."

Concha snorted. Backing away, she held her arms out, not letting go until she seemed satisfied he was steady enough to not slide off and crack his skull on the pavement. Dean watched as she stretched on the ground and shimmied under the front end of the car, first near one wheel, then the other.

"What are you doing?" He watched her move to the back of the car, repeating the action by the rear, left wheel well. "How'd you know where I was?"

"Craven." Her voice floated from under the car, followed nearly at once by a satisfied, "Ha!" Straightening, she held up one hand for him to see. "And this is how they found you." She flipped the object she held at him.

Dean trapped it between one hand and his chest more than caught it. He stared down at it for a few seconds before pulling his eyes up to meet Concha's. Fingering the duct tape that had held a cell phone under his car he never took his eyes off hers.

She shrugged. "Dante told me to check. Apparently it's a trick used to track people with cheap equipment. We've used it with each other too."

Folding forward until his elbow rested on his knee, he held his head in the other hand and groaned. "They've known where we were all along. On the way here, we stopped at the same motel. I spotted them when we went to eat. Never saw them after that."

Straightening, he eased off the car, bracing against it and made his way to the back door. He fumbled for a minute with the door handle, getting it open and reaching in for two of the bottles of water. Turning to lean against the car, he stuff the phone under one arm, held out a bottle of water to Concha, and downed the other one.

"Thanks." She drank some and set the bottle carefully on the car.

"They're using him as bait." Dean drew in a deep breath. "He, uh…doesn't exactly call it, this demon. It's more like it's attracted to him, hunts him…us." His throat and voice failed him. Turning away from Concha, Dean wiped one hand over his mouth. "It forces its way into his mind, makes him see things. It hurts him." He had no idea how to explain, make Concha understand what he didn't understand himself.

A hand coming to rest gently against his shoulder drew Dean's attention to Concha. "We'll find him. Sam'll be okay." She let her hand drop away. "I figured you'd want to know who you're dealing with." Her lips turned up in a small, quick smile as she pulled a messenger bag from her shoulder.

Dean watched as Concha opened a file, spreading it out on the same spot on the car's hood he'd just vacated. He stared down at the picture, the older hunter. Anger welled up through his chest, expanded out and pushed until he had to clamp his lips shut. Then he decided to hell with it, he let the rage out. Letting the phone used to track and trap he and his brother drop to his palm, Dean shouted wordlessly and let it fly, intent on seeing it smash to bits against the wall.

"Aaahhhh…don't do that!" Concha's hand shot out, the phone did a complete one-eighty and swirled around mid-flight and into her waiting palm. "We can track them the same way, and we don't want them to know we know." She shoved it in her bag. Pointing to the open file, "Stewart Calgary."

Dean leaned heavily against the car, nodded and waited silently for her to continue.

"Military, black ops, Secret Service, until nineteen-eighty-three."

That got Dean's complete attention, his eyes jumped to her face.

Nodding, Concha offered him another small smile. "Yeah I thought that was interesting too. He had a spotless record until late in eighty-three when he and his partner were on some assignment that went very wrong. His partner died, Calgary was found abandoned in the Mexican desert, babbling incoherently about demons attacking them. Hospitalized, then moved to a psych ward within a day or so, he just disappeared from his room one night about a week later."

"How's he fit in with Wandell?"

"His partner."

"You just said his partner was killed."

A blush crept across Concha's cheeks. "Life partner."

Dean blinked at her. "But he had a daughter."

Shrugging, looking everywhere but at Dean and waving her hands in some useless gesture she mumbled out, "I don't know. He got around?"

"Great." Dean's hand scrubbed a hand over his face. "Just great. So, he's really, really unhappy with Sam and me."

"Yeah. Anyway, hooked up with Wandell, dropped out of society, did the normal hunter thing. I'm thinking it was Wandell who broke him out of the hospital." She speared her thumb over her shoulder. "Your pal out there, is…was Tom Martingale. He, Calgary, and Wandell go back years, did lots of hunts together. Wandell, by the way, was a mercenary as well as a hunter. They had to know Sam alone probably wouldn't have gotten the drop on him and that something was wrong. This kid, Martingale's nephew, August…" She pointed to a picture of the painfully skinny boy and shrugged helplessly when Dean snorted a laugh.

"He might have taken better care of the kid." Dean couldn't help but remember how gaunt and thin the boy was. He might have been Martingale's nephew, but somehow Dean doubted the older men cared a great deal for the boy with them.

Pulling yet another file out, Concha tapped it. "This is Rick Molloy. They're all known associates of Gordon Walker. The other two, petty thieves I think they recruited to help. Maybe wannabe hunters, not sure."

"Gordon. Where is he?"

"Still in prison, but he's not restricted from outside communications or visitors, so I have no idea what, if any, his involvement is. Or if he passed on any information to these yahoos, but I'm thinking Calgary at least might have known to contact him." She stopped; eyes fixed on the files for long enough Dean finally cleared his throat. "There's one other thing."

"He," Dean interrupted, pointing at the outside wall. "He said he'd seen what happened to Wandell."

"Yeah, that's what I'm trying to tell you. When I started putting out feelers, asking questions I got a video file emailed to me. Apparently Wandell's daughter as well as Martingale had automatic feeds sent to them from Wandell's computer."

"I busted it up."

"I'm thinking these were sent every hour or so, at least every twelve."

"It was a day, maybe two I think before we got there."

"I have—"

"I've seen it." Dean folded his hands together, rested his forehead against his clasped fists. His breath came in shaky drags. "He's just a kid, Concha. And all these people, they're the monsters, not Sam. They want him dead, just use him and let him die because of one video. Not caring what that thing will do to him in between time."

"Dean, I tried everything I could to enhance the pictures, get a clear shot, some proof that Sam was possessed, but I couldn't. I'm sorry. And I didn't want to send it to anymore people."

Dean nodded, grateful for her efforts. "Thank you. Sam's not a monster, a cold-blooded killer. He was possessed."

She smiled and laid a hand on his shoulder again. "If I didn't believe that, I wouldn't be here now. Dante's…crap."

"What?"

Holding her watch out, Dean shrugged and shook his head, confused.

"He's five minutes late checking in."

"How'd you get here?"

"You kidding me, Dante knows lots of people in the military, and the military has vehicles that can be driven through a hurricane."

"Good." Dean forced himself straight, pushed the bile and nausea away, forced his vision to stop spinning. Everything was collected quickly, what he didn't need in the immediate future was tossed into the back seat of the car. The rest he repacked in two duffels, being sure the spotting scope was tucked in safely beside his shotguns. "Can we get through?"

"I think so." She nodded slowly. "Yeah, if we're careful. I have a truck outside specially fitted for this type of weather and driving in water. Dante was following them. I can trace that phone, but I need a computer connection."

"I have a pretty good idea where they went." Dean shouldered the bags, headed toward the garage entrance with Concha on his heels. "Those monsters aren't going to hurt my brother. They're not taking Sam." He turned his head far enough to see her face. She was pale and a bit wide-eyed and reminded him far too much of his brother as Sam watched some nasty creature bear down on Dean, a look Dean had seen much too often in his life. Reaching out, it was his turn to pat her shoulder. "Those monsters aren't taking your brother either." He said kindly.

Concha relinquished the truck's keys without comment. Dean pressed his foot onto the gas pedal, careening through the first level of the garage at as high a speed as he dared, until they splashed into the open, greeted by wind, rain and a few inches of water on the road.

The monsters were in his sights. The monsters weren't going to win.