The Council meeting was held a week after Malazir's death at a lovely home in the Hollywood Hills that Mr. Vincent had used as a safe house and battle-planning retreat. Sam and Dean had previously scoped out the location and, fifteen minutes before Castiel arrived, they parked their stolen dark-blue Camry in front of a house on a hill overlooking the Vincent house. Sam, at the wheel, gave a little sigh and rolled his head; Dean, using binoculars, studied the house below.

"I have the feeling this is going to take hours," Sam said, tipping his head back and closing his eyes.

"I think so too, but I wanted to see the demons and their cars as they arrive. I don't want to try to shoot a bullet through Castiel's window with one of them right behind us on the highway. Here's someone, a little early." And a moment later, "The man himself, going full Mafia bigwig – black Lincoln Continental, with a driver. Guess that must be Lester."

"Well, with all the demons around him getting killed, Castiel can't look like he feels safe tooling around by himself. I'm surprised he got away to our place the other day."

Dean smiled quickly, but kept observing the house. "His aide Hannah is having some kind of surveillance equipment installed at the Bel Air place. He knew she'd be all absorbed in that when he snuck out to our meeting. OK. Cas just popped the trunk, and Lester's pulling out – a trunk. How appropriate."

"Any indication what's in it?"

Dean shook his head. "Les isn't having any problem hefting it, but he's a demon, so it could be full of bricks and he'd lift it like it was empty."

Castiel opened the front door and held it for Lester. "Just put it in the front hall here," he said.

Lester shook his head, still holding the trunk. "They're not gonna like this."

"At any other time, I'd agree. But with what's been happening, they'll understand the need for increased security."

"You want me to clear the meeting room?"

"No, I'll do that. You guard the front door."

Lester set the trunk down as Castiel went into the meeting room. It had previously been a formal dining room at a front corner of the house, with large windows giving views of the acre of grass that surrounded the house. There were trees, but not close enough to provide cover for anyone threatening the house; they bordered the property just inside the tall wrought-iron fence. The windows, set in the rock exterior walls of the house, were of bulletproof glass and outfitted with both decorative lace jabots and businesslike blackout curtains.

Castiel stood by the large polished cherrywood table at the room's center and, at first, simply turned, observing the walls and ceiling. It was the same look he'd given the office and hallway at Sucro before Mr. Vincent's murder. Then he physically began moving about the room, opening drawers, checking under and behind furniture, opening floor and wall vents.

He went back into the front hall and said, "Lester."

Lester, standing on the front porch, gave a short yell and, with a jumping turn, grabbed the hilt of his angel blade.

Castiel held up both hands, a little amused. "Don't attack, it's me. I'm going to clear the rest of the house. I should be done about the time we're ready for company."

An abashed Lester nodded, pulled his jacket straight, and surveyed the yard.

Watching through the binoculars, Dean snorted. "Lester's standing on the front porch, shifting his weight, keeps touching the angel blade sheath under his jacket. Try and stand still, Les, you'll look tougher."

Then he looked around. "You doin' OK?"

"I'm a little nervous, but I'm OK."

"Well, just remember there's not going to be any actual killing. Only reason I let you come on this job."

Sam didn't even open his eyes. "Is that why? I thought you needed my superior driving skills."

"Oh-ho. You're livin' dangerously." And after a moment, "God, it's good to have you back."

"I don't know." Sam's eyelids trembled a little. "Don't know how I'm ever going to repay you."

"Just by being my family, that's all. I can't be trusted if you're not constantly whining to keep me in line."

Sam smiled, and Dean said, "OK. Blue Taurus, parking behind the limo. Nice contrast. And the driver is – the headmistress of the world's scariest girl's school."

A tall, severe-faced woman with perfectly coiffed silver hair got out of the car. She was wearing a gray skirt suit, and looped a briefcase with a long strap over her left shoulder. She pulled an angel blade out of a pocket in the driver's side door, closed the door, and stood with her back to the car looking all around her.

"Where the hell is Lester?" Dean asked. Then, as Lester skidded through the front door, "There he is. Great security there, Les. I'm going to tell Cas, next time put the scary lady on the door."

Then, as the scary lady approached the door of the house, Dean reported, "OK, here we go. Silver Benz and a black Alfa Romeo Stelvio. That's more like the demon mob. I bet that's the same Benz that was parked outside Malazir's house."

Revard parked his Stelvio several yards away from Parcell's Mercedes on the home's long two-lane curved driveway. He was wearing a gorgeous black leather trench coat over his business suit. It didn't hide the hilt of his angel blade in its sheath, but he probably didn't want it to.

"Alfa Romeo guy's by himself, but it looks like Benz guy brought muscle." Then as both men got out of the silver car, Dean laughed. "That must be the sorcerer who replaced Malazir. A sorcerer's idea of muscle is different from the rest of us."

Parcell was wearing a dark blue poet's shirt. He carried no blade, but had a small bag hanging from his belt and a black book in one hand. The man who stepped out of the passenger-side front door was wearing a long black robe and carried a black metal object that looked like a censer by a handle. He put one hand into the censer and, as he withdrew it, red-orange smoke poured out of it. As Parcell looked warily around the grounds, the robed man circled the car with the smoke, then circled Parcell, chanting the while. The two of them walked up to the house, the robed man still chanting. He moved the censer up and down in the doorway, and Parcell passed in through the red-orange cloud. Lester waved his hand and coughed, looking annoyed. The robed man stepped down from the porch and began circling the house as smoke poured from the censer unabated.

"All right, we're getting close to a quorum, and holy cow, hot brunette in a red Camaro convertible."

Sam opened his eyes for that one, looking over Dean's shoulder. "Give me the binoculars. You can't appreciate this."

"I can appreciate a beautiful woman, I just don't lust after them." But Dean surrendered the binoculars as a slender Asian-American woman, her long hair clipped behind her ears, parked the convertible and jumped out. She was wearing a black catsuit with a belt low on her hips; the belt had a gun holster on one side and an angel blade sheath on the other, and she had a dagger strapped to her ankle. She was carrying a laptop in a bright red case.

Sam had no sooner grinned than the grin left his face and he pulled the binoculars away. "Poor woman. She had some kind of plans of her own, some dream. And a demon said, 'Hey, a good-looking meatsuit!'" He gave the binoculars back to Dean and shrank back against the driver's-side door.

"She might have passed on, like, decades ago," Dean said gently. "The demon dressed her up sexy and contemporary, but the woman's spirit might be long gone."

"Still horrible."

"Yes."

After a moment, Dean looked down the hill again, swept the lenses back and forth. "I think there's supposed to be someone else, but I'm not seeing anybody coming down the road."

"With what's been going on lately, any demon is probably thinking long and hard about attending a meeting of highly-placed demons."

"Good point." Dean continued to survey the house and road below.

As each demon entered the house, but before he or she entered the meeting room, Castiel greeted the guest politely, asked what he or she wanted to drink, and told each to put weapons and cell phones into the trunk in the hallway. The arguments that ensued took up some time, but Castiel's quiet persistence won the day. Revard and the brunette kept their angel-blade bullets, but surrendered their guns, and when the trunk was locked, the guests assembled around the meeting room table.

Castiel served drinks personally to Lester, who remained on guard at the door, and Parcell's aide, who continued to circle the house with the infernal censer, as well as the Council members in the meeting room. Castiel and the silver-haired woman drank water, Revard had black coffee, Lester drank soda pop, the "hot brunette" sipped a glass of red wine, and it was probably just as well not to ask about the dark red liquid Parcell and his aide drank. Whatever they wanted, Castiel seemed to have prepared for it.

Then Castiel closed the door and stood at the head of the table. "There have been so many – changes, of late, that we may not all be acquainted with each other. I am Castiel, the Assistant Operations Officer of Sucro. I was consigliere to Mr. Vincent."

"And now you're moving up to capo, judging by your position at the table?" the brunette said in a scathing tone.

"I prefer to act in an advisory capacity," Castiel said easily. "I assumed this seat because I want to perform the introductions and to establish the order of business. After that, I'll sit wherever you'd like." He looked at the silver-haired woman to his right. "This is Ms. Hughes, who was a Vice President of Sucro. She was the contingent beneficiary of Mr. Vincent's key-man insurance policy, allowing her to buy Mr. Vincent's controlling shares in the company if Edward was unable to."

"Much to the dismay of some male humans," Ms. Hughes said crisply.

Castiel smiled. "Ms. Hughes has the same gift that Mr. Vincent had for combining mundane business affairs with our more – other-worldly activities." He indicated Revard, who was sitting to his left. "I think you all know Revard, who has assumed Edward Vincent's role as general in our war against the Terrestrials." He moved his open hand to indicate the brunette. "Megaera has taken on Revard's former job as head of our armory, in charge of anti-angelic, anti-demonic, and anti-human weaponry."

Megaera nodded coolly, and Castiel indicated Parcell, who was sitting across the table from Megaera and next to Ms. Hughes. "Parcell was Malazir's aide, and is now taking charge of our efforts to raise Lucifer."

He looked around at all of them. "There are two demons who are not members of this Council whom I nonetheless invited, because they should be here to explain some things, but neither is here. Hex is incommunicado. And Vulcan called me a few minutes ago and said that he was too frightened to leave his house, that he intends to remain on lockdown until the killer – or killers – of our comrades is found."

Ms. Hughes raised an eyebrow. "That's suspicious."

"Well, Vulcan is a coward," Megaera said – not with animus, simply stating a fact. "It's odd that the best demonic weapons-maker is so afraid of weapons – "

"Or perfectly logical," Parcell said. "He knows what they can do."

"I believe that Vulcan has changed loyalties," Ms. Hughes said. "I think that he conspired with Hex, providing Hex with weapons to kill Mr. Vincent and Edward and Malazir."

"Malazir was protecting Hex," Parcell said. "Even if he intended to double-cross her, he'd have waited until he was in a position of power to do it."

"Why are we assuming it's Loyalists?" Megaera asked. "We're at war with Terrestrials."

"We know that Hex killed Edward – he left his old meatsuit at the scene," Castiel replied. "And it seems more likely that Loyalists, rather than Terrestrials, would have access to, and steal weapons from, Mr. Vincent's personal armory."

There was a dumbfounded silence.

"Are weapons gone from Mr. Vincent's armory?" Megaera asked.

"An angel blade. A tempered jawbone. And six angel-blade bullets."

Megaera popped open her laptop and began working the keyboard.

"Two bullets used at Mr. Vincent's killing," Revard said at the same moment. "Three at Edward's killing. One at Malazir's. He's out."

"I still say that Hex wouldn't have killed Malazir at this time," Parcell said.

"I would tend to agree," Castiel said. "Which raises the specter that there are two killers in our midst, one supplied by Mr. Vincent's armory and one by Vulcan himself, working at cross-purposes."

The door popped open suddenly, and a room full of killer demons jumped.

It was Lester, holding a cell phone in his hand. "I'm sorry, sir – Sorry, all – " he said, looking around the room. "Hannah insisted that I interrupt. She needs to talk to you, very urgently, out – " he looked around again – "out of earshot of the meeting."

Revard narrowed his eyes at Castiel. "Tell her you're out of earshot, and put it on speaker."

"What?" Lester said into the phone. He looked at Revard nervously. "Um – uh, sir, she heard that."

"Hannah would not interrupt a Council meeting for trivia," Castiel said calmly. "I will tell you what she tells me."

Lester left the room and the house, carrying the phone to the car as Castiel followed.

Parcell stood. "I'm going to have my aide circle the room with protective smoke, while there's a break."

"Good idea," Revard said enthusiastically, but made a face, as Parcell turned his back, that made Ms. Hughes crack a smile.

Out by the car, Castiel took Lester's phone. "Speak, Hannah. – Hello? Hannah?"

In the meeting room a phone rang, and Ms. Hughes asked, "Who thought they were too good to give up their phone?"

There was a thud that Sam and Dean could hear even up on the hillside; they almost felt it, it resounded off the side of the Camry. Windows on the first floor blew out; Parcel's aide, who'd been crossing in front of one, was thrown by the blast, and the Winchesters could see jets of blood and orange light flying from him.

The blast rocked the Lincoln on its tires. Lester fell to his knees as Castiel grabbed the car's roof for support. Lester scrambled back up and ran for the driver's door. "Let's get out of here!"

"There may be survivors!"

"Who cares?" Lester yelled. It was the proper demonic attitude, but Castiel headed toward the front door, turning only long enough to say, "If you leave, Lester, I will deliver you to the infernal torturers." Then he disappeared into the front door, leaving Lester sitting in the car, looking all around him, wild-eyed.

"Damn it, Cas, don't go back in there," Dean hissed under the binoculars. "Don't." He turned in the seat and pulled the devil's-trap gun from his ankle holster. "Get us down there, now."

The wall between the hallway and the meeting room looked like wooden lace, dark gray smoke streaming through dozens of punctures. The wall beneath the stairway on the other side of the hall was punched through in dozens of places as well. Parcell was lying face-down on the hallway floor. Black glittering shards were stuck in the backs of his arms and his shoulder blades, and he was moaning in pain, but he was alive.

Castiel dropped to his knees. "Parcell, try not to move. I'm going to take these shards out of you."

Parcell nodded. Castiel cast an anxious glance at the door of the meeting room. He couldn't see any of the other three attendees from that viewpoint. He went to work pulling pieces of metal out of Parcell, who yelled and swore but remained as still as possible.

Castiel put the shards in the pocket of his trench coat, but paused as he pulled out one large piece to rub it between his finger and thumb. The explosion itself, and Parcell's blood, had layered a dark film on the metal, but when Castiel rubbed it the true, softly lustrous silver color was revealed.

"Shards of angel blades," he said. "It's amazing that you're alive, Parcell."

"The smoke, the protective incense," Parcell said. "Where's my aide?"

He stood, with the eerie enraged rigidity of a demon who's just carried its meatsuit through an attack that should have been fatal, and stalked out the door. Castiel looked after him just in time to see the Camry pause at the electronic gates at the foot of the drive.

Parcell let out a brief roar and staggered toward the body of his aide in the side yard. Lester looked around to see what was going on, and Cas took a step out the door, looked at the Camry, and made a commanding, dismissing gesture with one hand.

"He says go. Let's move," Dean said, and Sam accelerated past the house.

Parcell fell – he'd tried to move too soon. Castiel banged his hand on the Lincoln's window. Lester jumped and rolled the window down. "Get Parcell in the car and stay here until I come back out," he snapped, and plunged back into the house.

The meeting room table was shattered, and its scattered pieces were on fire. The sheetrock over the front wall was shredded, revealed blackened shards jammed into the rock exterior wall that had saved Castiel's and Lester's lives.

Seeing a boot under a chunk of the table, Castiel lifted the burning wood. Megaera was underneath. The shards had almost decapitated her. Ms. Hughes was less mutilated, but no less dead.

Castiel looked around. Even the flame-resistant carpeting was slowly, sullenly burning in patches, grayish-green smoke impeding visibility. "Minus fumi," he said, and the air cleared even as fire kept flickering.

In the Camry, Sam turned a corner, did a U-turn, and stopped the Camry on the intersecting street at a place where they'd have a good view of any car going from the house toward the freeway. "I'm assuming that you want to follow Castiel's car at least as far as the border of Bel Air."

"Damn, you're good. Yeah." Dean rested the gun on his knee, out of sight of a casual observer. "Just in case anything else interesting happens."

"Are those angel-blade bullets?"

Dean shook his head in exasperation. "I was so sure we were just going to put a normal bullet through Cas' car and drive away, I didn't bother to bring 'em. But this has devil's-trap bullets. It stopped Vincent cold, it can stop other demons. Hopefully we won't need it."

Castiel found Revard slumped by one wall. At first he thought that Revard was waving for help, and then he realized that Revard's wrist was pinned to the wall above his head by a large shard. The handsome face of which he'd been so proud had multiple gashes and was covered with blood. A chunk of his cheek hung loose, exposing some teeth, and a small shard had put out his left eye before lodging in the eye's orbit.

Castiel shook his head and stood.

Revard's good eye opened. It was like a dead man's eye opening, and it riveted Cas for a moment before he dropped back down.

"Wuh?" It was the closest Revard could come to enunciating.

"A bomb," Castiel said. "This will hurt, but it's necessary." He yanked out the chunk of metal pinning Revard's arm to the wall, and Revard grunted as his arm dropped.

His other hand went to his face, and as he felt the ruination he let out a roar of rage. "Don't move for a moment," Castiel said, and, with surgical precision, pulled the shard out of the bone by Revard's destroyed eye. Revard yelled again. "Killm!"

"We will," Castiel said. "But first we need to get out of this house. Parcell survived, perhaps he has a healing spell that will help – "

He was trying to put his hands under Revard's arms to help him up, and suddenly felt sharp cuts on both wrists. The sight of Revard's face had been so reminiscent of something from Hell that Cas hadn't even realized there were shards lodged in Revard's black leather coat.

"Your coat stopped shrapnel," Castiel said in astonishment.

"Kebluh. Agic."

Castiel watched Revard's mouth for the sounds he was trying to make, as well as the sounds that came out. "Magically strengthened Kevlar? A wise use of human technology."

Revard somehow managed to stand without help. Blood and drool ran out of his shredded cheek, and the remains of his eyelid couldn't completely cover his empty eye socket, which was also draining. "Ageeyah."

"Megaera is dead. So are Ms. Hughes and Parcell's aide. We need to leave."

Revard staggered toward the door, his depth perception destroyed by the loss of one eye. Castiel retrieved the angel-blade bullets from the zippered pouch on the thigh of Megaera's catsuit. He took her laptop, found and took Ms. Hughes' briefcase and Parcell's book, and followed Revard to the Lincoln.

Lester opened the door locks, then looked away from the sight of Revard's face. Revard dropped into the back seat and damn near passed out on Parcell, who looked disgusted but began chanting. Castiel beckoned to Lester, who reluctantly got out of the car.

The two of them carried the body of Parcell's aide into the meeting room, where the smoke and fire were beginning to build again. Then they carried the trunk of cell phones and weapons to the Lincoln and put it in the trunk, along with the items Cas had retrieved from the meeting room. Glass from a blown-out window behind the car crunched under their feet, and as Castiel closed the trunk, Lester pointed to shrapnel that had gouged the fender and taken out a taillight. "If we'd been – just a few feet – "

"Yes," Castiel said. "We were lucky."

With a nod, he indicated that Lester could get back into the car. He himself looked into a shattered window and said, "Ignem." He felt a gust as the small blazes in the room suddenly roared to life and sucked oxygen from surrounding space. He could see red-orange flames racing in straight lines up the corners of the room.

"Here comes the car," Sam said a minute later. "Is Castiel there?"

Dean put down the binoculars. "Yeah, in the front seat. Couple of demons in the back seat who survived, too bad." And as Sam pulled forward, "Lots of following distance, don't bring any attention."

Castiel glanced into the rear-view mirror and saw two things: Revard's mutilated face as his head rested on the back seat, and the blue Camry of a pair of humans who were several car lengths behind, watching over him. Sympathy, and gratitude for friendship.

He let out a puff of air and bent a little in the seat. He felt like his bones were on fire.

"Are you injured?" Lester asked.

"I am enraged," Castiel said, as much to himself as to Lester. "I am consumed with hate."

"Damn right. Don't worry, consigliere. We'll get the SOBs."

By the time the fire department was called, the house was fully engulfed in flames.

.

Although Castiel's phone was locked in the trunk, Castiel still had Lester's phone in his pocket. He decided, however, not to make any calls until they were safely in the mansion. When they arrived, Lester ran upstairs and called Hannah out of the room where the SavorStop surveillance monitors had been installed. He told her briefly what had happened. Hannah summoned the four security guards who lived on the premises and the five of them met in the living room, where Parcell was removing the shrapnel-riddled coat from Revard. Revard half-collapsed onto the sofa; one of the guards gasped visibly at the sight of his face.

Parcell put the folded coat on the floor and beckoned Castiel to one side. "I can make a poultice that will speed the healing of his face, if you have magical herbs and equipment on the premises."

Castiel nodded down the hall toward the kitchen. "I think you'll find what you need in the pantry. Ask Frederic for help. If not, let me know what you need, and I'll send someone out for it."

Parcell nodded, took a step, stopped. "I cannot regenerate an eye," he said in a low tone. "No one can."

Castiel nodded. "Do whatever you can. We need him in fighting shape as soon as possible. And see to your own wounds."

"I'll do that first," Parcell said. "I don't like being in pain."

He headed down the hall, and Hannah moved from Revard to Castiel. "What happened?" she asked her voice aghast. "Lester said there was a bomb?"

"Yes. The blast threw shards of angel blades in all directions." Carefully, he pulled a couple of them out of his pocket and showed them to her. "Megaera, Ms. Hughes, and Parcell's aide are all dead. You see Parcell and Revard. I thought I had completely inspected the house before the meeting began. Either I failed, or the bomb was magically hidden or transported to the meeting room after my inspection." He looked over at the four beefy guards. "Axel and Leo." All four of them looked over. "Thoroughly examine our perimeter security. Devin, you are posted at the front door. Inzur, call Logan and the other three, tell them to come here. Four guards around the house in eight-hour shifts, until further notice."

The four guards nodded and moved. Devin pulled a coat from the front hall over his angel blade before going to the door; Axel and Leo checked angel-bullet guns as they left.

Castiel turned back to Hannah, who was looking at him questioningly. "What are you wondering?"

She probably didn't mean to sound suspicious. "How does it happen that you and Lester are unharmed?"

And he was right back at her with the suspicion. "Your call insisting that I leave the meeting to talk to you came at just the right moment."

She took a step back, looked at him sharply. "I made no call."

"None at all?"

"None. I spent the day trying various methods to find Hex, then did observations on the SavorStop monitors."

Castiel's gaze went sideways up the staircase, then back to Hannah. "Where's Lester?"

"In his room, I believe."

She and Castiel vanished, materialized at the top of the steps, and headed toward the back of the house.

Castiel threw open the door of Lester's room. Lester was sitting in front of a burning candle, fists held out before him, and jumped at the intrusion with a frightened yell.

"Tell me about the phone call from Hannah."

Lester stammered, looking back and forth between them. "It – I – She, she said that she'd received new information. About someone conspiring with Hex. She said you had to leave the meeting to talk about it. I figured she was saying that someone at the meeting was the one conspiring with Hex."

"Liar," Hannah said coldly.

"Not necessarily," Castiel said. "Bear in mind that there are demons who can mimic others' voices. There was no one on the phone when I picked it up."

He pulled Lester's phone out of his pocket and checked the last call received. Hannah looked at the screen too, then looked at Lester with a combination of amusement and disgust.

Castiel showed the phone to Lester. Lester blinked at it, looked up at Castiel. "That's not Hannah's number."

"No," Castiel said. "It's not."

Lester reached for the phone, but Castiel put it back in a jacket pocket.

"I just – There was so much stress, and I just answered the phone, I didn't pay any attention – and it was her voice! It was! She said it was urgent, more important even than the Council meeting, and – "

He made futile gestures with his hands.

"It's hard to be angry," Castiel said. "Your gullibility is the reason we're still alive. But we must get to the bottom of this. Let's go back downstairs and see to Revard."

For a moment they thought Revard was dead, and then realized that he was sleeping like the lowliest human, even with his face torn.

"I'm going to tell Parcell to hurry," Hannah said. "And I'll tell Frederic to make dinner for – "

"All of the usual, plus Revard and Parcell and four extra security guards. If Frederic needs more of anything, send Axel and Leo. Don't go anywhere by yourself."

She just looked at him.

"And I won't either," he said.

She hurried down the hall, and Castiel sat in a chair across from Revard.

A few minutes later Parcell came in. He was shirtless, a green ointment spread across his shoulder blades and arms, and he was carrying a large piece of cloth with more of the ointment spread over one side. "You allow your aide too much latitude, Castiel. She actually snapped at me. With the suspicion attached to her now, she should be much more meek."

Castiel quelled a smile. "I'll take that up with her. But no suspicion attaches to Hannah. The call didn't come from her phone, it came from this number."

Parcell was sitting on the sofa beside Revard, trying to hold his cheek together while pressing the poultice on it. Castiel turned to the record of the last call on Lester's phone, stood up, and showed it to Parcell. "Does that number look familiar?"

"No. But anyone could buy another phone."

"Precisely. Anyone could."

Parcell seemed to concede as he nodded, closed his eyes, and began chanting while his fingers pressed on the poultice. Revard remained still, his good eye closed.

"The phone call is a secondary consideration, anyway," Hannah said from the doorway. "The primary question should be, who made and planted the bomb?"

"I would say that the planting of the bomb is the primary question. I don't think there's any doubt as to who made it."

"Vulcan," Hannah said. "He's the only one with skill enough to reduce angel blades to shrapnel."

"And he called me just before the meeting to say that he would not attend – supposedly, because he was so fearful of the recent violence."

She shook her head. "And by now he could be halfway across the continent."

"Not if he had an arrangement with his employer that he wouldn't get his full pay until after the bomb went off. Is there any chance that Vulcan did this by himself for some reason, not for hire?"

"Not a chance," Hannah said, and even Parcell interrupted his chanting to say, "Very unlikely."

"I will send Axel and Leo to Vulcan's home to begin a search."

"I can scry for him if you have something that belongs to him," Parcell said.

Hannah and Castiel exchanged a blank look. Then Castiel pulled a couple of the angel-blade shards from his pocket. "I don't know if he touched them, but if Vulcan made the bomb he would have dealt with these in some way."

"I'll try to make it work," Parcell said, leaving the poultice propped on Revard's face and standing.

"No. Finished your healing work first."

The other two looked at Castiel sharply.

"This is not sympathy. When we find who hired Vulcan, we'll need Revard in the best possible condition to find and defeat him."

There were muffled voices, and they all looked around. Someone was having an argument on the front doorstep.

Castiel went to the door, looked at the peephole. "Human police. I presume they identified Ms. Hughes' car, or Revard's, at the safe house. Parcell? Can Revard walk?"

Parcell woke Revard, who was able to move. Castiel did a vanishing jump down the hall and summoned the elevator that had replaced the back staircase. Revard stalked toward the elevator, pressing the poultice to his face, his one eye fixed straight ahead of him, Parcell chanting as he walked beside him. Castiel shed his coat and handed it to Hannah. "As soon as Revard's face is in one piece, get Parcell anything he needs to scry for Vulcan."

She reached inside the coat. "Your blade – "

Castiel smiled. "It's still locked in the car. Of course, I wouldn't need it with humans."

She looked a little embarrassed and nodded. The elevator door closed between them. Castiel pulled his shirt cuffs straight from under his jacket sleeves, straightened his tie, and went to the door just as the doorbell resounded throughout the house.

Devin was trying to maneuver between the doorbell and the broad-shouldered, middle-aged man who'd just pushed it. Another man in a suit, younger than the first, stood behind both of them, his jacket unbuttoned and his hand near his gun, watching Devin like a hawk. Devin was saying " – not without a warrant, you don't!"

"Devin, there's no need to be over-protective," Castiel said in his most suave tones. "Detective Edwards is a well known member of the LAPD. We're actually safer when he's on the premises, as he is so often. Come in, gentlemen."

He stood to one side and the two detectives walked in, Edwards looking over every inch of the front hall and the living rooms on either side with one sweeping gaze. Castiel gave the younger detective a disarming smile. "I don't believe we've met. I'm Castiel De Santis."

"Um. Detective Torres." The man pulled a small case from his pocket and gave Castiel a business card.

"Have a seat, gentlemen." The sofa where Revard had been bleeding was dark, so stains didn't show, but of course Castiel gestured with an open hand toward the other living room. "Would you like some coffee?"

"Where were you between noon and four today?" Edwards asked, without moving.

Castiel looked back and forth between the detectives. "Has something else happened?"

"Answer the question, please."

"Well, for most of the afternoon I was in my car. Lester, my chauffeur, can vouch for that. I find the movement clearing to the mind. Toward the end of that time we picked up one of the board members of Sucro, Revard Williams. I believe you've met him. We discussed the situation at the company – you can well imagine the number of changes that have had to be made, with the deaths of the Vincents."

"You had a business meeting," Edwards said, "driving around in a car."

Castiel raised one eyebrow. "Is that against the law? Why are you here, Detective?"

"Let's get the details on your story first." Now Edwards headed for a chair. Castiel nodded to Torres, but Torres wanted Castiel to precede him into the living room, so he did, sighing just a bit.