(Castiel)

Dean lays back on the church's alter, the marble tiles all around it red, awash in his blood but I know he's not close to death...yet. His bulldog of an 'uncle' stands sentinel over him keeping the demons, who, if they could, would dip their fingers in his blood and mark their faces in celebration, away.

I look over at the two contenders for demon of the year and, running true to form, I see Sam's right hand demon, Ruby, start to back away from him. Using some ridiculous mojo bag she heads quickly for the door, which will open for her and her alone, salt or no salt, and I watch as she slips out.

Lilith and Sam move closer to one another and if the younger Winchester's not careful she might just reach inside of him and show him his spleen so I send him a mental kick in the ass, a picture of his beloved brother along with my assurance that I can save him...but only if Lilith is destroyed.

My little coming attraction seems to have done the trick because Sammy's in rare form as he holds his right hand out towards Lilith and begins the incantation. It's the same one Dean tried to use on her to no avail but with Sam's 'juice' it starts to work.

The temperature inside the cathedral suddenly drops to about thirty degrees and then rises again to nearly one hundred as hosts begin vomiting up demons en masse, all of which quickly catch fire and burn, the dying embers drifting to the floor. The lesser demons are all gone within minutes and the hosts, who are not dead, with my help simply go to sleep, their memories wiped clean when they awaken.

Lilith is old and powerful and a tough nut to crack and Sam continues to hurt and bleed until she finally starts to twitch like a heroine addict. Bobby watches Sam intently, probably wondering how long he can hold up under the pressure and when the incantation will turn back on the youngest Winchester, sending him to hell as well. But I'm not worried about Sam because I only have eyes for Dean.

As I look down on him, a sly smile of satisfaction on my lips, he starts to wretch and a cloud of black slips from between his lips and I turn to root Sam on. Lilith screams her death knell and her demonic being, so thick and so dark that it sucks in light like a black hole, spews forth and ignites with a thunderous clap after which the cathedral is deathly quiet.

I see Bobby Singer out for the count, knocked back against the chapel wall and Sam Winchester lays where he has fallen, bloodied and beaten but still alive to fight another day. I hear Dean's voice again and wonder why in the hell he's still alive.

"What happened?" Dean asks groggily, rolling over onto his side.

I hunker down next to him and ask him, "Have you ever heard of a Judas goat, Dean?" He shakes his head and more demonic black slips from between his lips. "A Judas goat associates with sheep and is readily accepted and is trained to eventually lead the lambs to slaughter. Your brother just became that goat," I tell him and I know what he would say if he could speak, "Whatever, dude" but I continue anyway.

"The demons believed he was one of them, the chosen one in fact, and they followed him to this place where they could worship at his feet. But he chose to send them all back to hell or worse when he invoked the Lord himself to destroy them all even though to do so meant death for him, too." I bend down to get a better look and instead of the hate that is always in Dean's eyes, there is only confusion and misery.

"Is Sammy...?" he croaks out, his breath bubbling the black ooze on his lips but he can't say the word 'dead'.

I look over and Blind Melon Sammy is still out cold and in no danger of being sent to perdition despite his all encompassing demon vanquishing incantation. Sam Winchester was never in any danger of going to hell and I tell Dean this little secret but what has happened is not getting through that thick skull of his.

"But he has demon blood in him," he whines and I laugh in his face and begin to school him on angels and demons.

"Although cast out of heaven, Azazel is no demon," I remind him, "He is in fact, first and foremost, an angel. You however," I'm only too pleased to tell him, "sold your soul to the devil, spent forty years in hell, more than enough time to become..."

"...a demon," he finishes for me. Dawn finally breaks over Marblehead and Dean Winchester starts to laugh, then tries to cough up a blackened lung and, as I wait patiently for my payoff, he sucks in a ragged breath and rasps it out asking me, "If I'm a demon, then why am I still here?"

I shrug and tell him, "Although it's too late to help you, for what it's worth, you have a friend in high places."

He asks, "Is it God?"

Dear Lord, I can't believe his arrogance and I tell him so and he says, "Thanks."

"If it wasn't for her," I tell him, "you'd have been gone long before this."

When he realizes it's a female angel who's stayed my hand, he laughs and tells me, "Ha! A girl kicked your ass."

What he doesn't realize is that "the girl", once fallen, was raised back up to her lofty position because of him. Her only reason for being cast out in the first place eons ago was her desire to be human and to bear children and she's now content to be the brilliance of fertilizing water and the fruitfulness of the earth and to watch over one piss-ant of a human being named Dean Winchester. "The girl" outranks me and needs neither a host nor a reason to come to earth and, if I'm lucky, I've stayed under her radar and will be left to my own devices until this all plays out.

Realizing that his brother has damned him back to hell, Dean looks at me his, lip curling. He tries to speak and chokes on the foulness springing forth from within him and I think I see his eyes close in death but a golden glow suddenly surrounds him, keeps him from slipping away entirely, and I know who it is that is coming.

When she arrives, all the beautiful stained glass windows in the cathedral shatter and shards of three hundred year old rainbow colored glass rain down sounding like a thousand wind chimes in a hurricane. The stucco walls crack as does the marble flooring and chunks of painted ceiling falls, crashing to the ground and, similarly, buildings crumble all over town and the winds blow and the skies opens up pouring rain, belching lighting, deafening with thunder and it's true, hell hath no fury as a woman scorned.

Anahita, the Immaculate One, blonde and beautiful, even for an angel, stands before me and shouts, "You will not do this! You will not do this to him again!" and the earth shakes beneath my feet.