Chapter 3

"Sammy, just leave it alone." Dean spat, pulling on his jeans and a t-shirt.

"No, Dean. I want to know what she did to you. You guys were literally shining." Sam pleaded with Dean, but his brother was being oblivious as always to the potential danger.

"Whatever it was, it's got my appetite back. I feel like I haven't eaten for my whole life." Dean paused for a moment and pursed his lips together. "I think I want some pie. You coming?"

Sam rolled his eyes. If he wasn't thinking about getting laid, Dean was thinking about food. "Fine. But you're going to tell me what happened." They left the motel room and walked round the corner to the diner they'd went to nearly every night this week. Finding a booth in the corner, Dean had his eyes straight on the menu. Sam sighed in frustration. "So, what was it like?"

"What was what like? The pie here better be awesome, or I'm putting in a bad word with the big man upstairs now that he's back in the driving seat." Dean chuckled. Sam reached across the table, slammed down the menu and gave Dean an exasperated look. "What? It was nothing. It was just a kiss, she didn't kill me; in fact it was kinda hot, but I'm fine. I'm better than fine. I feel better than I have in weeks, Sam. Let me enjoy it for a half an hour before you make everything all angsty and complicated like you always do."

Sam rolled his eyes. He honestly didn't know why he bothered. Dean was impossible to talk to sometimes. When it came to matters of the heart, Dean rarely let anything slip. God, it had taken him weeks to tell Sam the truth about Hell. There'd be glimpses every now and then, but then Dean would make fun of Sam's 'girly' parts and change the subject.

The waitress came and took their order, and as usual Dean ordered enough food for a small elephant. As he dug in to his apple pie, Sam tried to take a different angle.

"Did she say anything about how much longer this whole things gonna take?"

Dean shook his head. "Nope."

"'Cause it'll be nice when it's just us again, you know? She sorta creeps me out a little."

"Why? Don't you like her?"

Sam gave a shrug and tried to keep a straight face. "No, it's not that…she's just all business all the time."

Dean shoveled a spoonful of pie into his mouth and looked at Sam. "Look, she's helping me, okay? And you know what the angel's are like. They're either evil or have the social skills of a donkey. She's cool underneath it all."

Sam held his hands up. "Sorry man, I'm not dissing your girlfriend." He said with a grin.

Dean pointed a finger at his brother and raised his eyebrows. "Don't make me hurt you."

They'd managed to pin down the most likely place for the nest, so Sam and Castiel were going to take it out around dawn. However, Dean was not appreciative of being left out even though he was feeling a lot better.

"Dean you're not coming." Castiel told him firmly. "You're not even supposed to be walking around after what you've been through." The angel nodded at Sam and the two left, leaving Dean and Lirael alone in the motel room.

"You sure we should leave those two alone?" Sam asked as they got into the Impala.

Castiel smiled, but said nothing.

They reached the docks about thirty minutes before the sun was scheduled to rise. Sam hoped it would give them an advantage, perhaps make the vamps disorientated if they were exposed to or near the sunlight. Most of the warehouses down here were busy, people were milling around, loading crates up onto the ships that were docked.

But there was one, a little further away from the rest that seemed a little too quiet in such a lively working dock. Sam nodded his head in the direction and the angel and the hunter went to check it out.

Castiel disapparated in order for an ambush to be more successful, leaving Sam alone to find a way inside. However, as he peeked through the dirty, cracked window in the door, he saw the vampires lined up in his direction.

"Oh Sam!" One of the called. It was never good when they knew your name. And it was never good when they were waiting for you. The hunter cursed under his breath and chewed on the inside of his lip. He wished Dean was there with him, he'd call him stupid and tell him they'd find another way to kill the vampires. Walking into a trap was just suicide.

Sam was itching for a fight though. Ever since Lirael had healed him a few nights before, he'd felt like he was on top form. He needed another good fight – plus, he had an angel on his side.

Letting out a quick breath, Sam pulled the machete from his coat and readied himself to go in.

Sparks flew all around as the heavy iron door scraped against the concrete floor as Sam pushed it open. He thought his heart was going to burst out of his chest, but he worked hard to keep his face controlled and hard. There were about ten vampires lined up in front of him, and the one who had called him stood in the middle of them. Well at least he knew who the ringleader was.

"You rang?" Sam said arrogantly, forcing a smile to pass his lips.

This obviously wasn't the reaction the vamps were after as he heard a number of low growls come from the mass of vampires before him.

"Yes, thanks so much for coming. I wasn't sure how many kids I was going to have to kill to get you here." The vampire licked his fangs, his eyes wild.

Sam held his arms out wide. "I'm here now, aren't I? What do you want?"

"I'm gonna suck you dry, Winchester. And then Baal is going to find your brother and have some fun." The vampire said, his companions laughing and growling as a group. The leader looked around him, and nodded to a couple of the vamps.

Sam gritted his teeth together and gripped his machete all the more tightly.

A female vampire to his left darted forward, fangs and claw-like nails bared. Sam quickly stepped to one side and used her momentum to make her stumble forward. He used this moment to hack off her head. The sound of her head hitting the floor made the other vampires recoil.

Sam saw Castiel appear behind the vampires on the other side of the warehouse, and the angel gave Sam a slow nod. Two more vampires rushed towards him, but Sam parried as best he could, taking any opportunity to slice off as many limbs (and hopefully heads) as he could. Castiel on the other hand was ripping heads off of vampires with ease, and apparently enjoying it. He had grown accustomed to being a hands-off sort of soldier, but fighting evil with his bare hands was something he was growing to like.

The two of them fought until there was no one left but the leader of the coven, who growled.

Sam snorted and closed most of the distance between them until they were about two meters apart. He rearranged his grip of the machete and wiped some blood from his brow.

"You can either die quickly, or die slowly," Sam told him, pulling out a syringe of dark red liquid. "Tell me about Baal and I'll show you mercy. If you don't, you can die slowly and painfully."

He found himself looking at her, and totally losing track of what she was saying. He felt calm around her, and he didn't know why. He watched her lips move, inviting him in. A smile crept across his lips as his eyes wandered over her face. Dean leant across the table to kiss her, but the angel tilted her head to one side. He had realized she did that whenever someone was contacting her.

She took his hand and squeezed it, smiling at him. "I've got to go. One of my old charges needs help."

"Charges?"

"Yes, as a guardian angel I am sworn to protect all my charges. You are one of them. I'm sorry; I'll be back as soon as I can. If you need me, just call out to me and I'll find you." Lirael said, standing up. She bent down, kissed Dean softly on the lips and disappeared.

"I hate it when they do that." Dean muttered.

Days passed and Lirael still hadn't been back and Dean was feeling more than a little restless. He paced the motel room that he had been stuck in for the past week, occasionally pulling at his hair. There was a feeling in his stomach that was frightening the hell out of him.

He'd called, shouted, screamed, begged…but she obviously wasn't listening. Or couldn't come back.

Sam was researching omens connected to the demon that the leader of the vampire nest had named and shamed to see if it checked out. They'd never seen different types of evil rallying together before. Usually they stuck to their own kinds.

Castiel had explained that Baal was more of a legend than a known demon. The name had been used in so many different cultures and religions, it was hard to tease apart the myths from the truths. Baal had often been another name for Satan in some faiths, but in others it was the name for the highest ranking demon. And they didn't like the sound of that. They thought that can of worms had been tackled already with Lilith. Even Cas was confused, so he'd visited the management upstairs.

"As far as I can tell, there's only the usual stuff, unexplained murders and sightings of things that shouldn't exist. Nothing like when Lilith had ever surfaced." Sam called, scrolling through pages and pages of news reports for the county. He even widened the search to the state, but still there were no omens as such.

"So what does that tell us?" Dean asked, moving to stand behind Sam. He didn't know what to do with himself.

"Well either the vamp was bluffing. Or, Baal doesn't have the same effect on a place that Lilith did."

"Meaning…?" He could feel his patient slipping away and his temperature rising. He wasn't sure how much longer he could sit and wait when it felt like a part of his soul was being dragged in a different direction.

"I dunno." His younger brother shrugged, closing the laptop and spinning round in his chair.

"That's just not good enough! What if something's happened to her? I'm not losing her, Sam!"