A/N: Shout-out to The-Knight2000 for reviewing the last chapter. Feedback is always deeply appreciated. :) Two chapters left after this one. Spoilers ahead for SPN 10 episodes 1-3.
June 11th, 2016, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Demon bars, despite their usefulness in most other situations, were less than helpful when it came to locating angels. Faith spent the entire day threatening anything with horns or scales that she could lay her eyes on, but when midnight rolled around, she was no further along her path to tracking down an angel than she had been when she started. To make matters even more irritating, the demon at her heels had been of little use. He loomed behind her at all their stops during the first half of the day, but then he had ditched her for a strip club around noon, and she did not see him again until he waltzed into the motel room half an hour after she got back.
"Any luck?" he asked casually from the doorway, as if he didn't give a damn. Which, Faith supposed, he probably didn't.
She wanted to call him out for his sheer obnoxiousness, but Faith restrained herself. Instead, she answered the question. "No joy." The Slayer exhaled in frustration. "I think it's time for plan B."
"Plan B?" The demon opened his mouth, most likely to make a birth control joke, but Faith headed him off at the pass.
"We ask Crowley. He's got to have at least one set of wings on his payroll. Or we could call your buddy Ca-"
"No," he said flatly, reluctant to complicate an already over-complicated situation. "You wanna talk to Crowley, be my guest. But I thought this was your divorce strategy?"
"If I can't get a divorce from you, why should you get one from our darling evil overlord?" grumbled the Slayer rhetorically.
"You chose to come back," Dean pointed out.
Faith scoffed, "Because I had nowhere else to go."
His eyes narrowed. "You're lying," he accused her. "You've got the whole damn country - hell, the whole damn world." He smiled coldly. "Or are you just like Crowley and Sam, and you can't leave me alone?"
The Slayer's mouth twisted into an ugly grimace. "You want the truth?" she snapped, finally running out of patience.
"Truth's always better than lies," said Dean shortly. "Thought you prided yourself on how you and I didn't lie to each other. How I would keep secrets from Castiel and my brother and everyone else who wanted a piece of me, but I never kept them from you." The muscles along his jaw tensed. "It made you feel special, didn't it?"
She chose not to answer that. "I came back because I was an idiot," Faith frowned at her own foolishness. "Because some dumb little girl part of me thought that you were mine. That you were the one thing in this whole g-ddammned world that had ever been mine. But I realize now how stupid that was. You weren't mine. You were always somebody else's - John's, Bobby's, Castiel's, Lisa's, Sam's - but not mine. Never mine."
Despite his distaste for how melodramatic this was all becoming, Dean realized that if he wanted to keep the Slayer nominally on his side and out of the looney bin that she was careening towards, he needed to say something placative. "And yet, for all of that, it's still you and me at the end of this, isn't it? Well, you, me, and Crowley."
It was if she had not heard him. "You don't need me. You don't even want me. Why the hell did I come back for this?" Faith directed the last question to herself, her voice wavering uncertainly.
"Oh, sweetheart." Dean took her by the elbows, his fingers digging into her skin hard enough to hurt, but not quite hard enough to bruise. "I always want you," he murmured, lowering his voice half an octave. "Body like yours, who wouldn't?"
Faith laughed, a high-pitched, unbalanced sound, and wrenched her arm loose to slap him across the face. "Get out."
Apparently, he had miscalculated. Wincing, Dean reached up to probe gently at the scarlet handprint on his cheek. "Excuse me?"
Having decided that he was beyond excusing, the Slayer did not bother with any words beyond the absolutely necessary ones. She shoved the demon in the chest, pushing him back towards the door. "Out!" she hissed. "Out! Out! Out!"
More from shock than a conscious desire to go, the demon allowed her to force him all the way out of the motel room and into the hallway. Faith slammed the door shut furiously, and the dead-bolt clicked into place behind him.
Shoving his hands into his pockets, Dean wandered back towards the car. He had seen a dive bar not too far from here on his way over. Maybe he would go drink for a while, until the Slayer got over her freakout. It wasn't like her. Faith Lehane had been a wide variety of things, but prone to hysterics was not one of them. Lately, however, more and more often she was unable to keep it together.
If he had cared, Dean would have wondered what the hell was her problem. But that, he reminded himself firmly, had been the him of the past. The new and improved version of Dean Winchester did not care at all. This was inconvenient, and nothing more.
As soon as she had kicked the demon out, Faith cleared the motel room carpet and got to work. She laid down a line of salt in front of the doors and windows and then retreated to the bathroom, where she drew a narrow summoning circle in chalk on the linoleum. The Slayer set a metal travel mug in the center of the circle and stuffed thyme and sage into the mug before tossing a lit match in afterwards. She had stolen the herbs from a spell-casting kit filched from the secret compartment in the trunk of the Impala. All her ingredients assembled, Faith muttered an incantation under her breath and waited for her visitor to appear.
"Hiya, sweat pea," said Richard D. Wilkins III, former Mayor of Sunnydale and ascended demon, staring at his summoner, who was seated in the bathtub, her arms wrapped around her knees. He took in the half-wild, distracted expression on her face, and he prompted soothingly, "What's wrong, buttercup? How can your old man help?"
"I'm in trouble, boss," said Faith, her calm voice a sharp contrast to her trembling fingers. "Big trouble."
The Mayor raised his eyebrows, but he said only, "What do you need?"
Ideally, Faith needed a way to summon and trap an angel. But right now, she would settle for advice - and maybe a little comfort. The irony of the situation was not lost on her. She had come so far, and yet here she was once again, in a crappy motel where the only person she could trust was a dead demon.
"What do you want to do?" Wilkins asked when she had finished catching him up on her return from the grave.
Clearing her throat, the Slayer admitted, "I feel like I'm dying, boss." Her chest burned as she finally said the words that had been swirling around her head for the last three days, ever since she left Spike behind in that diner in Reno. "Not on the outside, but the inside. Everything is . . . empty. It's - It's almost worse than when I was a ghost."
"But not quite bad enough to make you want to be a ghost again?" he guessed shrewdly.
"No. I wish . . ." Faith hesitated, then gulped and went on. "If there was a way to cease to exist, like those lights that you just clap, and then they're off - well, I'd take that route. But all my options are as bad as here - or worse."
"And so you want to spread the pain by eliminating God's former secretary? Will that really help?"
It was the Slayer's turn to raise her eyebrows. "You telling me that you never went after a little revenge?"
The Mayor's gaze darkened. "Careful now, sweet pea," he warned, his tone just a shade too light to be considered threatening. "No need to be disrespectful."
"Sorry, boss," apologized Faith out of habit. She glanced back down at her knees.
"And your young man's no help these days?" prompted the demon curiously.
She did not bother to ask which young man the Mayor was referring to. In all of their conversations, there had only ever been just the one young man. "Not really," she explained, finally allowing her distaste with the demon her best friend had become to show. "He's vicious, lazy, bored - he'll only help me if he sees something in it for him."
"I'm sorry, firecracker."
Faith wiped angrily at the escaping tears leaking down her cheeks. "Yeah. Me, too."
June 12th, 2016, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 12:05 a.m.
Crowley found himself a booth in the darkest corner of the bar and listened to Phillip's evening report, swirling a celery stick in his Bloody Mary and pondering the dubious delights of fried potato skins. They were only six dollars - seven if he splurged on sour cream and bacon . . .
"And what did she do today?" he asked Phillips, forcing himself to momentarily abandon his contemplation of greasy bar food.
"Angel hunting, I believe, my lord," said Phillips in his usual emotionless tone.
"Curious." The King of Hell took a single sip from his Bloody Mary and then snapped the celery stick in half. The sound of the breaking celery was quite satisfactory, but the taste left something to be desired, and his stomach growled in protest.
"She mentioned something to Winchester about assassinating Metatron."
It was a terrible idea. Crowley crunched down onto the remaining half of the celery stick, swallowed, and said, "They will never succeed."
"Yes, sir."
"Still, I suppose it will be entertaining to watch them try," the demon mused. He had not had a chance to examine the Slayer that morning - for once, he had found himself quite at a loss for a good excuse. Perhaps it was the foursome that Dean had orchestrated the night before - hours ahead of the time that the Slayer returned to Santa Fe. A good foursome tended to leave the brain scrambled for longer than the King of Hell could really afford.
"Yes, sir."
"She'll come to me, sooner or later, when her search exhausts itself." And then he would have the chance to see if her three weeks were up. "How many angels do we know the locations of at the moment, Phillips?"
"Twelve hundred and sixty-three, my lord."
Crowley clucked his tongue. "Very good. Very good, indeed, Phillips. When this is over, remind me that it's time to discuss your promotion."
"Yes, my lord. Thank you, my lord."
After ending the call, the King of Hell quickly polished off the last few ounces of his Bloody Mary and slowly made his way up to the bar. His stomach had won, and potato skins it would be. Hardly had Crowley placed his order when the door to the bar swung open and a grim-faced Dean Winchester stalked into the building. Crowley instantly knew that Something with a capital S was up. He ordered a second round of potato skins from the bartender and then turned to the younger demon. "Where is the Slayer?" he asked as innocently as he could manage.
Dean's shrug was a masterclass in surliness. "At the motel. She kicked me out."
"And you let her?"
The demon shrugged a second time. "I'd already emptied the mini-bar. Besides, I'm in the mood for a blonde tonight, not a scrawny brunette."
"Mmm." Deciding to push a few buttons, Crowley muttered under his breath, "I should have known."
As he had intended, the black-eyed demon whirled on him angrily. "What does that mean?" he snarled, gesturing to the man behind the bar for a whiskey.
In for a penny, in for a pound. Besides, it was always more interesting to put his cards on the table – well, whatever cards that he wanted people to think that he had. The King of Hell purred, "That you would still be in love with the Slayer."
Dean frowned at him. "I'm not in love with her," he growled. "I was never in love with her."
I do not get paid enough for this, Crowley thought to himself, although he had to struggle to keep the smirk off of his face. Human or demon, Dean Winchester was surprisingly easy to provoke, if you knew where to find the chinks in his armor. Aloud, he said, "Then why is she here? Why is walking away so hard for you?"
"What – you want her gone?" Dean attempted to turn the tables.
"I didn't say that."
The demon threw back his whiskey and glared at Crowley. "Then what the hell is it that you want?"
"I was thinking . . . " It was indeed an idea that the King of Hell had been tossing around, but not one that he had seriously considered. He broached it now to further wind the other demon up. "The angels have their Nephilim, as rare as they are, and those are surprisingly powerful."
"Get to the point," growled Dean.
"It makes one wonder, doesn't it?" mused Crowley. "How powerful the child of a Vampire Slayer and a Knight of Hell might be."
"How much have you been drinking?" demanded the black-eyed demon incredulously. "You'd have to be wasted out of your mind to think Zombie Girl would ever go along with that."
"I didn't say that she had to agree," he continued to push the idea, mostly out of curiosity to see what would happen next. "Would you do it?"
Dean shrugged. "Screwing her's never really been that difficult," he said, inwardly thinking that they needed to put pedal to the metal on the escape strategy. "So why the hell not?"
June 12th, 2016, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 3:25 a.m.
Many hours later, Dean left Crowley alone at the bar and returned to the motel room. If Faith had recovered from her bizarre fit, he needed to have a little talk with her. This angel-hunting thing was fine and all, but the demon thought it might be a good idea to speed up their timeline a bit more. He wanted freedom, and he wanted it now.
As his earlier conversation with Crowley tumbled over and over through his mind, Dean slipped into bed beside the silent Slayer. He jerked the covers up and over his bare legs - for decency's sake, he had acquiesced to Faith's demands that he at least wear boxers if he was going to bunk with her. He could have slept with Crowley, if he really wanted - to be frank, either of them could have. But neither of them did. The demon did not rationalize this to himself. The reaction of his body as he scooted across the linen sheets closer to the Slayer was rationalization enough.
"Your feet are cold," grumbled Faith when the sole of his foot brushed against her ankle. Apparently she was not asleep after all.
He forewent the apology, instead wondering, "You still campaigning for Bedlam?" The demon reached across the empty space between them and wove his hand into her hair, his fingertips pressing against her scalp and feeling their way over the ridges and bumps at the base of her skull.
Damning herself for not pushing him away, Faith leaned back into the contact. "Can't say that it would be worse than this, with you always worming your way into my bed," she muttered. "Why don't you kip with Crowley for once?"
"He likes to cuddle."
"And you don't?" she scoffed. "What happened to the good old 'your side, my side, demilitarized zone in the middle'? You're a hell of a lot snugglier than you used to be pre-demon."
"So are you," said Dean, his voice low and scratchy in his throat, and he continued to massage her scalp, his fingers working their way up to the top of her head.
The Slayer shrugged. "No point in not doing what feels good. Not anymore." Closing her eyes, she allowed herself to pretend for a mere milisecond that it was her friend lying there in the dark behind her, and not the douchebag jackass that he had become.
"Speaking of things that feel good . . ." The demon's fingers trailed through her hair, over the hollow of her throat to the curve of her shoulder, then down to her elbow and back up again, "Crowley wants us to procreate."
"That's not funny," she said in a knee-jerk response, unable to pretend any longer.
"I thought it was." His hand continued its journey downwards, gliding along the outside edge of her ribs, pressing more firmly against the softened concavity of her stomach and pausing just above the waistband of her sweatpants. "He wasn't joking."
Faith rolled over to face him, her brown eyes narrowed. Thankfully, the movement relocated his hand to safer spaces. "You have got to be kidding me," she hissed, lowering her voice to just above a whisper.
"Not kidding."
Fighting the urge to slap him again, the Slayer rubbed frustratedly at her eyes. "This isn't some kind of Shakespearian farce, Dean."
"You steal that line from Lily?" he snarked back at her.
"Don't talk about Lily," Faith ordered sharply. "I'm . . ." She exhaled through her teeth. "There is no imaginable world in which I would ever have children. Let alone with a demon for a father and Fairy Godmother Crowley." The Slayer trembled - whether with rage or fear, Dean wasn't entirely sure.
"I know that," he said, injecting his tone with a modicum of comfort. He had intended to tease her, not put her back on the express train to Crazyville. It wouldn't do to get the plan any more screwed up by the Slayer spazzing out now. "I told him to sober up."
Ignoring him, Faith muttered, "I need to get out of here." She scrambled off of the mattress and hurriedly began changing her clothes.
"Stop," commanded Dean when she tugged and kicked her way out of her sweatpants, giving him a good view of her legs and her hips.
"What?" snapped Faith, but she paused anyway.
"Look at your hands."
In confusion, the Slayer glanced down. Her hands were liberally stained crimson. She looked further and found the source: a gaping wound in her abdomen, just above and to the left of her bony right hip. How could she not have noticed it? She glanced back to the demon in horror. "What did you do?"
Dean rose from the bed, his hands extended in a calming gesture. "Slayer - "
"What did you do to me?" she demanded, her voice shaking.
"Zombie Girl," he said soothingly, "hang on."
The Slayer stumbled backwards away from him, until she ran out of room and her backside collided with the dresser against the far wall. Her hands scrabbled over the dresser top in search of a weapon, and then her fingers closed around the hilt of the First Blade. Teeth bared, she jerked the donkey jawbone up into a guard position in front of her.
Dean went rigid with tension when she picked up the Blade. He infused his tone with every bit of the not-inconsiderable seduction and persuasion at his disposal. "Faith." Her name was a prayer falling from his lips. "Faith, put that down."
Her chest heaved as she hyperventilated. "What did you do?" she repeated, panicking. "This is . . . This was . . ." She reached down with trembling fingers to probe the bleeding wound, then withdrew her hand as if she had been burned. "Buffy did this."
"Ehem." They had a visitor. In their heated discussion, they had not noticed the motel room door creak open and Crowley join them. The King of Hell snapped his fingers. Faith's eyes rolled back into her head, and she crumpled to the floor.
"Well," said Crowley, nudging the door closed with his foot as Dean pulled the First Blade out of the Slayer's hand and lifted the unconscious, still-bleeding woman by her armpits to deposit her on the bed. "I think it's time we all had a talk."
"What the hell?" Dean pushed the Slayer into a somewhat-upright position against the pillows of the bed that they had been sharing and then reached for his jeans. He had a sinking feeling that whatever sleep he had been going to get tonight was gone for good. Turning to glare at Crowley, he demanded, "You know something about this?"
The King of Hell shook his head. "Know? No. I have my suspicions. If I may –" he pushed past the younger demon to place a hand on Slayer's forehead. "I need to take a look."
Just as he had three weeks before, Crowley focused his energy and pushed. It was less difficult than it had been the first time, which did not fill him with confidence. In mere moments, it was clear to the King what was happening. The binding that he had placed on the Slayer was fading The gleaming ribbons of crimson magic that he had used to tether her soul to her recreated body were now nothing more than rusty, tattered fragmented threads. He had planned to fix things, to enact a more permanent solution. Unfortunately, that would no longer be an option.
When he removed his hand, the Slayer's eyes opened, and she stared up at him with resignation. Whatever it was he was about to say, she had already decided on the worst.
"So?"
Crowley cleared his throat. When he spoke, he addressed his fellow demon. "The geas that your brother installed has run its course. It looks as though Samuel did not think far enough ahead to manage the unfortunate after effects. If I understand what I saw correctly – which I do – the Slayer will be destroyed by all the wounds that her original body ever withstood. Quite clever, actually. Nasty, but clever."
Faith went ghostly pale. The bloodiest moments of her life flashed through her mind, and she gulped. There was no way that this could end well. "Did you know about this?" she croaked, her resignation giving way to dread. "Before?"
"I wasn't sure," admitted the King of Hell. "And there was no way to check which exact resurrection spell was used – not without calling on Jolly Green, anyway. This is a very obscure side effect of some of the worse resurrection rituals. He probably had no idea what would happen."
Mind racing, the Slayer stared down at the blood oozing from the stab wound in her side. Now that she thought about it, the wound did hurt. It was a faint echo of the agony that had ripped through her when Buffy stabbed her for the first time, but it was still there. She would need to staunch the bleeding and clean herself up sooner rather than later. "This thing have an off-switch?" she asked the demon.
"Not in the lore."
"Can you fix it?"
"I am afraid not," said Crowley sadly.
"Dammit," muttered Faith to no one in particular. She glanced up from her hip to watch Dean, who had yet to say anything. His black eyes were fixed on the blood seeping between her fingers. "What about . . . " The Slayer thought frenziedly, casting around for straws. Maybe . . . maybe she could knock out two birds with one stone. Maybe she could make this work for her in some small way, after all. "What about the angels?" She added an extra note of hysteria to her tone. "Could the angels fix this?"
Crowley raised his eyebrows. "Perhaps," he said after a long moment's thought. "Their methods are different from mine. Why would they say yes?"
For the first time since the revelation that the Slayer was falling apart, Dean spoke, "I may have the answer to that," he said. "If we phrase it right, I can think of an angel who'd wet himself at the chance to help me. You have any idea how to find him?"
The King of Hell smiled coolly, his dark eyes giving away none of the thoughts behind them. "Yes. I believe that I can. I will need to speak to a few of my little birds."
"You see?" grumbled the Slayer at Dean. "This is what happens when you let him marathon Game of Thrones. He thinks he's Varys."
"Please," snorted Crowley. "I'm ever so much more fun than Varys."
"You do have a bigger sack," admitted Dean. "I'll give you that. But then again, he's a eunuch, so that's not saying much."
"So," said Faith, after Crowley had indignantly swept out of the room to contact whoever it was that he needed to contact, "you mind sewing this up for me?"
Pursing his lips, the black-eyed demon leaned in to take a closer look at the stab wound. "How deep does that go?" he asked gruffly.
Faith shrugged. "Don't remember." Nor did she want to. The original incident had not been a highlight of her adolescence. "Deeper than I wanted it to, but I don't think it hit any organs or guts or anything. It wasn't the knife so much as the fall and the blood loss that almost did me in."
"That why you're looking more albino than usual?" the demon half-teased.
"It's whatever. Just stitch it up so I'm not bleeding all over my damn pants, and get me some Gatorade. I'll be fine."
"Until you aren't." Dean stepped back out of the Slayer's way.
"Until I'm not," she agreed.
They retired to the bathroom, and Faith grit her teeth, chomping down on a folded-up washcloth while the demon sterilized the wound with half a bottle of Everclear and then began sewing the sides back together with a flame-heated needle and the tougher brand of dental floss. The Slayer remained silent while he worked, instead staring at the black mold growing on the wall above the shower head.
Once Dean finished, she had him leave while she rinsed the worst of the blood off of her body. Then Faith threw on a pair of clean jeans, a blue tank, and her black leather jacket before capturing her hair into a low ponytail and brushing her teeth. She gathered up the rest of her things into her duffel without favoring the ache at her hip. Sure, it hurt like stink, but it wasn't important. Not right now, anyway.
By the time she reemerged from the bathroom, Crowley had returned. He passed Dean a piece of paper with an address and a phone number written on it. "Good luck," he said with one of his trademark insincere smiles as the two of them trooped past him on their way out the door.
Faith flipped him the bird as she left, walking out into the cool night air. "You're driving," she informed Dean, and she sprawled out across the back seat of the Chevy. She lifted one of his abandoned jackets out of the floorboard and bunched it up to make an improvised pillow. "Wake me up when we get there."
"I ain't your chauffeur," Dean reminded her unnecessarily, but he didn't bother with an actual fight.
Once they had put an hour between themselves and the King of Hell, he spoke again. "We still doing this?"
Faith glanced up groggily from the backseat. "He's going to have people watching us, you know."
The demon scoffed at her. "He's had people watching you ever since you took a sabbatical last week."
"I wondered," muttered the Slayer to herself, a long-felt suspicion confirmed. "So I wasn't going crazy, then."
"Oh, I'd still say that you're going crazy," said Dean. "Just maybe not quite as crazy as you thought."
"I find it hard to imagine how you always score with the waitresses, what with how utterly charming you are and all," the Slayer grumbled, burrowing deeper into her jacket pillow.
Dean snorted. "You think they get the actual me?"
"Does anybody get the actual you?" Faith countered.
"Other than you and Crowley?"
"Seriously?"
"I see you, you see me, and if Crowley's very lucky, he'll catch you an' me in the shower and see us both."
Yawning, the Slayer said, "Dean, cut it out."
"What?" replied the demon, far too sweetly to be believed. "No point in lying to each other now, is there? Just tell me one thing - you really want this angel to heal you?" asked Dean.
But she had already fallen back asleep, and no answer would be forthcoming.
June 12th, 2016, Breckenridge, Colorado, 11:30 a.m.
They drove until they were a hundred miles away from the location that Crowley had given them, and then Dean tossed the burner cell phone that he carried in case of emergencies into the backseat with Faith. "Call him," he instructed.
Tossing her head to clear it of the last sleepy cobwebs, Faith crawled over the seat back into the front seat, carrying the phone back up with her. Ignoring the eye roll that the demon shot in her direction, the Slayer punched in the requisite ten numbers.
"Hello?" said a gravelly voice flavored with a touch of confusion.
"Castiel?" Faith infused all her panic and concern into her tone. "Cass, is that you?"
Dean flicked her on the knee. She glanced at him. "Don't overdo it," mouthed the demon.
" . . . Faith?" queried the angel, his confusion growing.
"Hey, Cass. It's me. I'm . . . I'm in a spot of trouble. Sam . . . Sam used a spell to resurrect me, and I think - I think there's been some consequences to it."
"Why don't you call Sam?" said the angel in a play for time.
"I . . I don't think he can help me. I'm - I'm on the run right now. Dean is - he's not himself, Cass. Something's horribly, horribly wrong, and I don't know why Sam sent me after him, but it was a really, really bad idea." A single tear slid down the Slayer's cheek and she sniffed loudly before asking in a very soft voice, "Can you help me?"
"What do you need?"
"I think . . ." Faith allowed her voice to trail away, and then she said, "I think I'm dying, Castiel. Please - please help me."
"Where are you right now?"
The Slayer looked down at the map spread out on the bench seat between herself and the driver. She raised her eyebrows at Dean and he stabbed one index finger down at the highway between Denver and Cheyenne. Faith gave them their approximate location and asked if he could meet her in the small town that was adjacent to Castiel's current hide-out. Then she ended the call.
"You realize this is going to turn into a trap, right?" said Dean stiffly when the woman chucked the burner phone back into his lap.
"Mmhmm." Faith stared out the window at the greenery flashing by outside. "Since when has that ever stopped us?"
Dean chuckled. "Never."
"How much holy oil do we got in the trunk?" wondered the Slayer.
"Enough. Plus I nicked a pair of handcuffs spelled in Enochian off of Crowley while you were using up all the hot water in New Mexico."
"By nicked, you mean that he offered them to you, didn't he?"
"I plead the fifth," said Dean.
"Cuffs, holy oil, the angel blade . . . I think we're set." Faith smiled grimly.
"You gonna kill him?" asked the demon nonchalantly after a beat of silence.
"I dunno. Are you?"
"Guess we'll find out."
June 12th, 2016, Walden, Colorado, 11:50 a.m.
Castiel waited for a moment after the Slayer hung up the phone before he began dialing out another number. Sam had given it to him a little over a week ago and made him promise to call if the Slayer or Dean should ever contact him.
On the third ring, a female voice answered.
"Hello?" The woman sounded vaguely familiar, but the angel could not quite place her voice.
"Hello," he responded. "This is Castiel. Sam Winchester told me to call this number in case of an emergency."
"Casti - oh. Hi, Castiel. I'm Buffy. We've met once, but maybe you don't remember." The Slayer on the other end of the line exhaled into the phone. "What can I do for you, Castiel?"
The angel explained, "I just received a call from Faith Lehane."
"And?" pressed Buffy.
"She asked for my help and told me to meet her at a particular address in two hours."
"Did she mention if Dean would be there?"
Castiel shook his head, and then belatedly realized that of course Buffy could not see him. "No. But I'm sure that he is," he added darkly.
"You think it's a trap?"
"It would not be surprising if it were. Faith and I have never been - what's the phrase? - on excellent terms, and I doubt that has changed."
"Okay." Buffy turned away from the phone and mumbled something incomprehensible. A male voice mumbled back at her. With a sharp cough, the Slayer resumed the call, "Thanks for the heads up, Castiel. Text me your coordinates, and I'll get my people there as soon as I can. We're running short on spell-casters at the moment, but we should be able to put at least a handful of Slayers in the field. When Faith and Dean show up, can you distract them long enough for us to reach you?"
"I can try," said Castiel. He did not mind acting as bait. Not really. Not if it meant that they could rescue Dean.
"Thank you."
June 12th, 2016, Coalmont, Colorado, 1:05 p.m.
Faith and Dean arrived at the rendezvous point thirty minutes early, a forlorn-looking warehouse on the edge of the an industrial town - well, as industrial as northern Colorado could get. The Slayer figured that it was probably an old mining town. Dean parked the Impala around the back, and he and Faith bent over the opened trunk to pull out this afternoon's tool kit.
After hefting a small amphora of holy oil into her duffel, Faith grabbed the handcuffs engraved in Enochian sigils and slipped her angel blade into the sleeve of her leather jacket.
"He'll be expecting trouble," warned the demon, striking down across the padlocked door with the First Blade. He shoved the door open along its sliding track, metal scraping across metal in a creaky whine of protest.
"Good," grunted Faith as she began to drizzle a thin trail of glistening oil in a large oval that stretched from the front door to the center of the warehouse. "This should be fun, then."
In the end, it was not quite as fun as she had anticipated. Castiel entered the warehouse twenty minutes later, his head swiveling from side to side like an owl's on its perch. From behind the door, Faith struck a match and stepped over the thin line of oil, dropping the lit match onto the ground as she did so.
Angel and Slayer were encompassed by a wall of roaring fire, the yellow-orange flames licking hungrily at the air around them, soaking up oxygen like parched ground in a desert after the first spring rainfall.
"Hey, Cass." Dean left the shadows on the far side of the warehouse floor. He strode slowly towards the fire, tapping an ominous tattoo with the First Blade against his thigh with every step. "Long time, no see."
Suddenly moving much faster, the demon walked through the holy fire without flinching, crossed the remaining concrete separating him from Castiel, and brought the hilt of the First Blade down solidly on the back of the angel's head. Castiel crumpled like a felled tree.
"Well," hummed Faith, bending over the fallen angel and snapping the bespelled manacles into place around his wrists, "that was easy."
Dean rolled his eyes at her. "Hold the gloating for a minute," he said. He stepped back across the flames and dragged a metal folding chair into the oval.
Working in silence, they shifted Castiel off the concrete and into the folding chair, where they rearranged the chains to lock the angel's arms around the back of the chair. The demon cleared his throat and edged back, leaving Faith near the angel. "Ladies first, Slayer. Go on and knock yourself out."
Faith knew that she had to move quickly. Someone would be coming for Castiel, and she had no interest in still being here when whatever that someone or something was arrived. She allowed her angel blade to slide out of her sleeve and into her hand. Raising the blade, the Slayer tapped the tip of the blade once on either side of Castiel's chin, and then she lowered it to scratch the skin above his right wrist.
With a grunt of pain, the angel's eyes snapped open. He said nothing, merely stared up at her with his cold blue gaze and waited for her to speak.
The Slayer had never been big on patience. She lasted maybe thirty seconds before opening her mouth and saying in an overly friendly voice, "I need you to do something for me, Castiel."
"What do you want?" growled the angel, and his gaze flicked sideways to where Dean stood. The demon's expression was shadowed by the flames behind him.
She pressed the blade more firmly against his wrist and leaned down over Castiel. "Focus, Cass. Eyes up here."
With her free hand, Faith tugged at the hem of her shirt to reveal the bandaging over her right hip, already half soaked through with blood. She stepped forward, grabbed the angel's hand, and forced him to touch the blood-stained bandage. "Two things, actually, Twinkle Toes. I need you to fix this," she dipped her chin down towards her wound, "and I need you to tell me how to find that piece of sh-t Metatron. I've got a bone or two to pick with him - excuse me, did I say with him?" She leaned in even closer. "I misspoke. I've got a bone or two to pick out of him."
"Metatron?" The angel tilted his head to one side and looked at her strangely. "You . . . you think you can defeat Metatron?"
"We can defeat Metatron." Faith nodded in Dean's direction. "He's kind of indestructible these days. And me? I get a little bitchy when I'm pissed off."
"She ain't kidding," commented Dean.
"But that can wait. All that - it can wait. First, I need you to fix me."
Castiel glanced from the Slayer to the demon and back again. Then he spread his fingers wide open, until they spanned the length of her bandaged side. His blue eyes flashed a brilliant, glaring white, and Faith lifted her arm to shield her face.
When she lowered her arm, the angel's eyes were crystal blue once again, almost regretful as he looked up at her.
"What?" snapped Faith. She knew already that he had failed. If anything her hip ached even more than it had prior to the healing attempt.
"There is no utility in healing this," said Castiel solemnly. "It will not help you."
"Come again?"
"Healing this wound will not be enough. How much do you know about how Sam called you back from the Veil?"
Faith's throat went dry. "Not much," she admitted resentfully. "I was kinda stuck in the Veil at the time. Crowley said . . . Crowley said that he couldn't stop whatever it is that's happening to me. I hoped maybe you could." It was the most sincere she had been with anyone apart from the Mayor since Dean Winchester had died.
"When I attempted to heal you, I saw that the ritual that was used bound your soul to a newly crafted form of your body."
"Okay . . ."
"And now both that binding and the new body are unraveling. There is not much space for deterioration left before they will have unraveled completely."
"How long?"
"What?"
"How long?" repeated the Slayer grimly, and she shoved the point of her angel blade against the curve of Castiel's throat. "How long until it ends?"
"When did the bleeding start?" the angel asked, unfazed by the threat of violence.
"Last night. Maybe twelve or fourteen hours ago."
"From the state of the binding, I would hazard that you perhaps have that much time remaining. Perhaps a little more, but not far beyond that."
"Oh," said Faith.
In that moment, suddenly everything was clear. She had one day to live, less than twenty-four hours before this spell-shackled shell of a body crumbled into nothing, and she was once again merely a collection of pained, wistful memories. Faith reflected on a dream that she had had that morning in the car, a twisted version of one of her many nights in England.
"What do you hear, Faith?" That had been Angel, jogging next to her in the rain-soaked streets of Northwest London. There had been an emergency in Magic Town (three deaths, two explosions), and now they were late for dinner with Fred and her parents.
Faith looked up at the dark, cloudy sky. "Nothin' but the rain," she answered him.
"Then grab your gun." It was Giles on her left, rain trickling down the familiar glasses, his voice low and calm in that uniquely Watcherly way of his.
"And bring in the cat," finished Wesley with a grim smile as he took Giles's place. He ran beside her to the end of the block, but there Wes and Angel both vanished, leaving Faith to run on into the night by herself.
"Faith." Dean's gruff grumble dragged her back to the present and the ring of holy fire surrounding them. The demon crossed his arms casually over his chest in a perfect display of unconcern. He nodded towards the captive Castiel. "You gonna stand there and daydream all day? Or are you gonna get to work?"
The Slayer flirted briefly with the idea of just saying "kill him," but she shoved it down. On the cold day if - when - Dean ever stopped being a demon, the memory of murdering his best angel friend would destroy him. Instead, she relieved some of her own frustration and despair by striking Castiel hard, across the face. The silver ring on her thumb cut his lip, and a trickle of scarlet blood seeped out.
"He's not worth using the Blade on," she said dismissively before leaning in and taking the angel's face in her hands. Her fingernails dug deep into the soft tissue on either side of his eye sockets. "Metatron's ass is mine. So tell me, Feathers, where's the gate to Heaven?"
"Even if I could tell you," said Castiel impassively, his gaze never straying from the demon to so much as glance at her, "the Vanguard would destroy you before you make it within a hundred yards."
"Weren't you listening to yourself a moment ago?" snarled Faith. "I'm a dead girl walking, angel-cakes. Your vanguard doesn't scare me."
We've barely gotten started on the five basic torture groups, the voice of her younger self rang in her ears. Blunt, sharp, hot, cold, and loud. But Castiel was not Wesley, and she would not be letting him pick.
"Dean, please," the angel was attempting to plead with the man that he had raised from Perdition. "Concerns of morality aside, you must listen to reason - or at least think of survival. They will obliterate you." In spite of everything that had happened, everything that the Slayer and demon were threatening to do to him, he would still do anything to save Dean Winchester.
The demon in question merely shrugged. "Zombie Slayer here calls the shots. I'm just the muscle." It was more than a little bit of a lie, but Faith appreciated it regardless.
"She'll die."
"She's dying anyway."
"I could help her."
"You can't even help yourself."
"I'm right here, you know," Faith pointed out, turning away from the angel long enough to scowl at Dean. "What?" she snapped when the demon's black eyes flashed momentarily to green as he stared at her.
The demon moved forward to brush the pads of two fingers against the left side of her throat. When he pulled back, his fingertips were dark with blood.
"What?" The Slayer touched her own neck and winced as she encountered the two jagged holes. Damn Angelus and his damn fascination with biting every Slayer he tangled with.
"Ah," exhaled Castiel in self-satisfaction. "I was right. She doesn't have much time left, Dean."
Whirling to the left, Dean backhanded the angel with the hilt of the First Blade, knocking him unconscious in one smooth movement. He wiped his bloody fingers against the leg of his jeans.
"What was that for?" Faith demanded.
"He's not wrong," said the demon quietly. "You are running out of time."
"So we just quit? What happened to taking down Metatron? What happened to me being the boss?"
Dean shook his head. "Sweetheart, if it ain't going to work, it ain't worth doing. Come on." He gripped her arm and began tugging her out of the warehouse.
The Slayer did not put up a fight, not even when he shoved her through the ring of holy fire. She beat out the flames on her jacket and her jeans before they could do more than singe the fabric. Tearing a strip of cotton from the hem of her t-shirt, she pressed it against the vampire bite on her neck. "So that's it?" she wondered hysterically, speaking more to herself than to him. "G-d, this is all so frakking futile. Life - death - all of it. I wanted it to be something. I wanted it to mean something."
"It never does," the demon interrupted her soliloquy when they reached the car. "Get in. We'd better hurry. Something tells me that not even Castiel was dumb enough not to call the cavalry when he realized you'd be dropping by for a little sit'n'chat."
Regarding him suspiciously, the woman said, "I'm dying. An' you're taking me along why?"
Dean stared at the horizon. He thought he could see a swirl of dust where the highway blended into the sky. "In," he urged her, opening the front passenger door and nearly shoving her inside.
"Dean - "
"You're my bargaining chip, okay? If whoever that is catches up with us too soon." He jerked his head towards the dust cloud, spinning the Chevy out in a one-eighty and pulling onto the highway with a screech of tires.
"Sh-t," said Faith. "Crowley's crew?"
"Maybe. Or your Slayer pals. Or Sam. Or the angels."
The woman exhaled. "Wow. We really are popular these days, aren't we?"
Dean floored the accelerator. "Grab that gun that's lying in the backseat," he told her. "We're gonna need it."
The Slayer unbuckled her seat belt long enough to twist over the back of the black leather bench seat and fish a small semi-automatic submachine gun out of the floorboard, not giving him the satisfaction of asking why he was packing that kind of firepower. She dropped back into her seat, one hand wrapped around the stock of the gun, the other hand still holding the scrap of fabric to her neck. "I'm not going to shoot Slayers," she warned him. "Or your brother."
"But you'll shoot angels?" he clarified.
"Angels and demons, baby. Always fair game."
"How's the neck? Pain gonna wreck your aim?"
"It's fine," said Faith tersely. "The pain isn't the worst part of a vampire bite, anyway."
The demon chuckled. "No, I'd imagine that would be the vampire."
Faith smiled grimly. "You'd be right."
June 12th, 2016, Coalmont, Colorado, 1:53 p.m.
Castiel opened his eyes to a familiar pair of workboots. "Sam?" he croaked, his skull still ringing from that last blow from the First Blade.
"You okay, Cass?" The hunter lifted Castiel up to his feet. The holy oil had finally burned itself out into a few still-smoking patches, but Faith and Dean had been inconsiderate and had left the manacles in place. The angel was forced to hobble sideways out of the warehouse and up to the ancient tan Ford pick-up that Sam was driving. The hunter lifted an axe of the truck bed.
"Hold still," he warned the angel, and he broke the chair into fragments with four quick, sharp blows. Hands still chained behind his back, Castiel was nonetheless able to clamber up into the front seat of the truck with a little assistance from the hunter.
Sam confirmed a final time, "You okay?" and then he fired up the Ford, and pulled out on the highway after the three cars that had already passed while he was rescuing the angel. His cellphone began to ring in the glovebox, and the man turned to it with widened eyes. "I forgot about that," he mumbled, answering the call. "Hello?"
"Where in the world is Sam Winchester?" sing-songed Lily far too loudly into his ear. "I thought you were right behind us."
"Yeah. I stopped to grab Cass - like Buffy told me, remember? I'm maybe five minutes back. But don't worry, I'll catch up soon enough."
"With Spike driving? I'm not too sure of that."
"Lily, who do you think taught me how to drive a car?"
After considering the most likely candidate - and that candidate's penchant for driving like an Indy 500 racer out to sabotage the competition - the Slayer changed her mind, "Right. We'll see you in a bit then. Hey, you wouldn't happen to know an ex-military looking guy in a souped-up black Jeep, would you?"
"Sh-t," exhaled Sam. "That's Cole. He thinks Dean killed his father when he was a kid."
"Did he?" the blonde asked with a reasonable amount of skepticism.
"I'm not sure. Chances are he's got the wrong guy or if he's right and it was Dean, his dad must've been a monster."
"Ri-ight. Anyway, he's trying to play car chase with us, and Spike just wanted me to clarify that it wasn't a case of friendly fire before he side-swiped him."
"Aren't you driving Becka's car?" said Sam incredulously.
"Yeah. If he does actually side-swipe the Jeep, she's gonna need a sedative. Holy sh-t!" Her voice rose an octave and a half.
"What? Are you okay?"
Returning to a more normal pitch, the Slayer said, "Barely. Some idiot sedan just pulled out in front of us."
In the seat beside Sam, Castiel closed his eyes, his forehead scrunching into a series of wrinkles as he frowned. "I think . . . tell her . . . those are angels. I can hear them," he explained. "They seem to have finally decided that the newest Knight of Hell is an abomination which must be put down."
"Stellar timing," grumbled Sam, but he passed the information along to Lily anyway.
When he finished, she said, "Yeah, I figured they weren't friends of Dean's when Faith started firing on them."
"What?"
"You guys usually keep an Uzi in the Chevy? 'Cause Faith just leaned her head out the window and tried to plug the sedan's tires with lead."
"Don't get hurt," Sam cautioned her. "Tell Spike to be careful."
Lily snorted. "Like hell I will. He's already got Buffy and Angel and Becka all yammering at him. I'm just sitting here in the backseat watching Mr. Angry Jeep. Drive a little faster, Sam? We kinda need you here."
"We'll be there as fast as we can," the hunter promised.
Something crashed ominously on the other end of the line.
"Yeah," said Lily, her voice emerging from a muffled din of multiple people swearing, "you may want to make it faster."
June 12th, 2016, Coalmont, Colorado, 2:03 p.m.
They made it twenty miles down the highway from the warehouse when the Slayer's left arm caught on fire, and she was forced to pull her torso back through the window into the front seat of the Chevy.
"The frak?" gasped Dean as the woman dropped the submachine pistol into the floorboard and reached into the backseat for his jacket. She used the abandoned coat to beat out the flames on her arm, beads of sweat glistening on her forehead.
"Ifrit. Two thousand and five." Faith was almost starting to enjoy this, in a horribly destructive and masochistic way. "If I remember right, my legs should start burning, soon, too - that lab explosion back in New Jersey with the homicidal graduate student."
"And that doesn't hurt?"
"Of course it hurts. Everything hurts," the Slayer muttered. "I'm just used to it."
"Whatever. Just put your legs out when the flame starts, okay, Rambo?"
"Why?" snarked the Slayer. "Because it freaks you out, and G-d help us if you lose your manly mystique?"
"No," Dean corrected her dryly. "Because if you catch the car on fire . . . "
"Oh. Right." Faith gritted her teeth. "We passed a sign a mile or two back - there's another ghost town about three miles on from here. Maybe we better pull over?"
"And have your girlfriends catch us?" the demon countered.
"You got any better ideas?" demanded Faith.
He really didn't. "We'll see how things are when we get to the next exit."
By the time they reached the next set of signs to leave the highway, Faith's legs had indeed caught fire. She smothered the flames with little more than a grimace and then leaned back against the rolled-up window.
"What comes next?" asked Dean, his gas pedal pressed down to the floor.
"I'm not sure. Ah!" There came a snapping sound, and the Slayer bent in half with pain. "Oh, G-d. How could I forget?" she half-whispered to herself. "That was the leg. When Angel stomped on it and broke the damn thing."
"All right, then." He twisted the steering wheel to the side and took the exit ramp off of the highway.
"Why don't you keep driving?" mumbled Faith, crumpling in on herself.
The demon braced his knee against the car door as he hurtled around the curves of the exit ramp. "You're on your way out, Zombie Girl, and I don't want you haunting my car," he informed her. "I like being able to pick my own radio station, thanks."
Faith pushed herself back into an upright position. "Where are you taking me?"
"Looks like there's something not too far up along the road here."
"Mmm." She slumped against the window again, her lips a tight thin line across her teeth, her face drawn.
Dean sped along the cracked and cratered access road towards the structure up ahead. As they drew closer, he realized that it was nothing more or less than an abandoned gas station. In a distant corner of his mind, he reflected how ironically symmetric this whole situation was. He had found water and a car in a gas station when he had been resurrected the first time. And now, it was looking like the Slayer would be dying in one.
The demon whipped around the corner of the gravel parking lot to slam to a halt behind the building made of whitewashed cinderblocks. He had put a decent distance between himself and his pursuers before leaving the highway. Hopefully, it would take them a good few minutes to catch up. Dean glanced across the front to the Slayer. She couldn't leave, not without his help, anyway. The demon realized to his mild surprise that he didn't want her to.
"Easy does it." He walked over to her side of the car and helped her out. The Slayer's skin was milk white, corpse-white, except for the scalding red burns on her arms and legs. Her shin was bent at a funny angle, and blood was dripping down from the bottom hem of her jeans onto the dry gravel.
Dean took one look at the Slayer's stoic expression and rolled his eyes. "Stop being such a damn martyr."
Without bothering to explain himself, he lifted her up into his arms and carried her into the abandoned gas station, kicking in the locked back door as they went. He deposited her on the one piece of suitable furniture in the place, the wrecked jump seat of some SUV, and tugged his Colt revolver out from the inside pocket of his jacket. The demon pressed the pistol into her hands. "You good?"
"Five by five," grunted Faith.
"Good." He patted her on the non-burnt shoulder and headed back outside for his arsenal. After bringing in their two duffel bags full of rifles, grenades, and handguns, Dean barricaded the front and back doors with the rusting shelving units and checked the line of sight from each window before returning to the jump seat and plopping onto the upholstery beside Faith. Careful not to jar her broken leg too much, he pulled her into him, and her head lolled limply against his shoulder.
"You sure you're not ready to tap out yet?" he asked her.
"And miss this party?" Faith attempted to straighten up but subsided when Dean relentlessly dragged her back down.
"We've got a few minutes," said the demon. "Looks like they're all fighting it out at the bottom of the exit ramp. You can see the smoke from here."
"They'll quit fighting soon enough and head this way." Not for the first time, she wondered, "Why are you still here?"
"They can't hurt me," Dean reminded her, "and I want to see how this plays out. Forget cowboys and Indians. We've got Slayers versus angels versus Sam versus vigilantes out there."
"No demons?"
"Only me." Except for whatever shadow Crowley had following them around today. Dean would have been willing to bet the Chevy that the King of Hell had either eyes or ears on them.
The Slayer coughed. "You don't count."
"I'm a Knight of Hell. Kinda do count."
Lifting her head from his shoulder, Faith looked up at him with slightly unfocused eyes. "Yeah, but you're on my side, aren't you? No other explanation for why you're still putzing around here that makes sense. And even then, it's only a kind of sense." Her head dropped back against the jump seat.
"Faith."
She did not open her eyes. "Mmm?"
"You're rambling."
The ghost of a smile blossomed at the corners of her mouth. "I'm dying."
"You want me to leave? 'Cause I can."
"No." The Slayer gestured feebly with the revolver. "'Cause if you leave, then they'll find me. I can't run - can't even hobble. And if . . . if they find me, they won't let me die."
"I could kill you now," Dean offered.
"Not . . . ready."
The demon scoffed, "You ever gonna be ready? We both know how this ends - you choking on your own g-ddamned spit."
Pointing the barrel of the Colt at his kneecap, Faith complained, "Can you be quiet for a minute? Or . . . " she turned to him, half-pleading. "Can we just pretend?"
"Like what?" said Dean light-heartedly, pushing the muzzle of the Colt back towards the ground. If pretending was what she wanted, then pretending he would give her. "Shoot-out at the OK Corral? The Battle of Alcatraz? Bonnie and Clyde? Thelma and Louise?"
Faith grinned weakly. "You'd make a good Louise."
"There's the zombie I know." He unloaded and reloaded the Colt and then placed it back into her blood-stained hands. Already, her skin felt far too cool against his. "Here." Dean reached into his duffel for a bottle of Jack Daniels. Unscrewing the cap, he held it up to her lips. "Drink."
Faith drank.
Afterwards, the demon leaned her against the back of the rumble seat and stepped back to his post by the windows. There were four vehicles on the edges of the old gravel lot: a no-nonsense sedan now riddled with bullet holes, a black paramilitary Jeep, Becka's CRV, and an old pickup truck with two familiar silhouettes in the front seat. They were parked in a semi-circle around the gas station. Dean grimaced. He had hoped they would thin each others' ranks a bit more. At least he had had the foresight to take the Impala around to the back.
His hand accidentally brushing against the phone in his pocket, Dean remembered that he, at least, still had a way out of this mess. Crowley was only a call away. The King of Hell could be here in an instant and take both of them far out of Colorado. And yet, despite his reluctance to tangle with his little brother and the cadre of Slayers on his doorstep, Dean felt the need to stay put for a little while longer. He had to see this through to the end - to her end.
Returning to the rumble seat, he seated himself once again and dragged the Slayer's head down into his lap. The demon ran a hand through her hair, tangled and dusty as it was from leaning out the Chevy's window to fire at the angels earlier.
"Who do you want to win?" Dean asked her gently, wondering why she was still clinging to every moment, fighting the inevitable end every last inch of the way.
"Don't care," muttered Faith, her face pressed into the leg of his jeans. "I just don't want my girls to lose."
"Mmm." He continued to stroke her hair, easy and relaxed and slow, as if there weren't a pack of self-righteous wolves outside the cinderblock walls of the gas station, just waiting for the first chance to blow the doors down and storm in, guns and hypocrisy blazing.
The Slayer let out a staggering breath, and some of the tension seeped out of her body. With some effort, she twisted over onto her back and looked up into his cold green eyes. "Dean?"
He glanced down at her. "Hmm?"
"Please," was all she said.
It was all he needed to hear.
"Shut your eyes."
Her eyelids fluttered closed. Dean took a moment to survey the face that he knew almost as well as he knew his own, the wrinkles in the corners of her eyes, her lips pursed against the pain of her burns and broken leg, her scarlet lipstick somehow still perfect in spite of everything. The demon's thumbs skated over the edges of Faith's cheekbones, and then he clasped her face in both hands and wrenched.
Snap went the Slayer's neck, and his Colt fell from her suddenly limp grip.
Dean caught the gun before it could hit the concrete. Extricating himself from beneath the dead woman, he dug around in his bag for the final, necessary supplies. A can of salt in one hand, a bottle of lighter fluid in the other, the demon stared down at the corpse. In death, she looked almost peaceful and far too still. Faith Lehane had never been one for stillness, not even in her sleep.
Moving with sharp, precise efficiency, the demon first doused her in lighter fluid. Next, Dean upended half of the can of salt onto her chest. Finally, he yanked the turquoise cross off of her neck, snapping in the silver chain in the process.
He tucked the necklace into his front jeans pocket, reflecting that it wasn't that he was attached - he just didn't trust anyone else not to drag her back to life. And even a heartless son of a bitch like him knew that Faith Lehane deserved better than that.
The demon ducked out the back towards the Impala. Once he was clear of the building, he hurled two grenades into the gas station in quick succession. Then Dean threw himself behind the wheel of the Chevy and took off like a bat out of Hell, while the last of his ties to humanity burned up in the flames behind him.