Chapter 2

In the shabby bathroom, with its exposed pipes, peeling paint and missing tiles, Ellie dropped her pack on a narrow cupboard beside the pedestal sink and opened it, pulling out the long, shapeless tee shirt she used to sleep in from time to time. She left the shirt on the top of her pack and lifted her head, turning to look at her reflection in the fly-spotted and delaminating mirror.

She looked different. That recognition was immediate and surprising. Older and yet younger, the freckles and scars hidden, her eyes and mouth too vivid. She didn't habitually wear makeup and although the application had been light, between it and the pollution and humidity in the city, it felt heavy on her face. Turning on the tap, she took a hairband from her pack and pulled her hair back, picking up the soap and bending to wash it all off.

Such a bad idea.

No argument, she thought as she scrubbed at her skin. Aside from the fact that too much had happened in the last few months and their old working relationship had practically gone, she was used to working alone, grimacing at the thought of the next few days. Used to being alone, for much of the time, not having to guard her thoughts or expressions from anyone else.

Rinsing the soap off, she wiped her hands over her face and looked up, the image looking back once again familiar. There was a single towel in the room, hanging from the back of the door and Ellie reached for it, burying her face in it and only registering the faint scent of the man who'd used it, still clinging to the fabric and filling her senses, when it surrounded her.

Don't even think about it, she warned herself, returning the towel to the hook. This is a job. The last thing you need is complications.

It was good advice. She'd told him the truth, not the whole truth, but as much as she'd been able. After Long Beach, she'd thought he was wrestling with too much on his own and she'd watched him pick and choose what he felt he could say and what he couldn't. Snorting softly at herself as she pulled off the tight singlet and unbuttoned and slid her jeans down to the floor, she knew it was about as much as she'd picked and chosen what she could tell him.

Over the last month, there'd been a sudden stop to the flow of information she'd been able to access and while it'd felt like the quiet before a storm, she hadn't found a single direction she could follow to get a lead on what was happening. The angels and demons had, it seemed, finally learned the meaning of 'loose lips sink ships' and both planes had been buttoned down. That alone should've raised her internal alarms, but she hadn't been in contact with any of the hunters who knew the Winchesters over the past few weeks, and at the time, that hadn't worried her particularly. It wasn't a close-knit community at the best of times, although Bobby's continual absence had begun to worry her.

Pulling the hair band free, she stripped off her underwear and thought of what Dean'd said about the older hunter. She would have to find the time to get to Sioux Falls and check in with him. Maybe after this gig.

The pipes banged and the tap let out a little shriek as she turned on the shower, not waiting for the water to heat up before stepping under it.

There'd been no time for another trip to Egypt and a couple of difficult hunts had occupied her enough so she hadn't noticed the signs that should've been obvious. Would've been obvious if she'd been looking at everything objectively, she corrected herself with a sigh. If she hadn't wanted to stay away from him and let the effects of their conversation in Nebraska soften with time. Nothing he'd said should've had the impact it had, she knew, picking up the bar of soap and lathering herself with it. None of it had been untrue, or unjustified. She hadn't wanted to tell him about the seal. Hadn't wanted to see his shock and pain. Hadn't wanted to be the one to deliver that blow. Hadn't wanted to do it because she'd known what his reaction would have been.

The water reached blood temperature and she closed her eyes, tipping her head back into the rush.

He would've withdrawn. Would've been angry. Then devastated. Then gone. He wouldn't've listened to her and wouldn't've accepted sympathy or understanding or any kind of comfort. And when it'd come right down to it, that moment when she could've made him listen, she couldn't do it.

Flipping the shower off, Ellie stood for a moment in the tub, pushing the thick plastic curtain aside and staring at the bathroom blankly.

It didn't make a difference. She'd only discovered that there'd been more to Hell's prophecy after Sam had killed Lilith. And it is written, that the first Demon shall be the last Seal.

She reached for her pack, dripping water on the floor and over her things as she rummaged for a towel. Pulling it out, she dried herself, the events of the last three weeks still bright and vivid.

Bela's document hadn't included part of the prophecy. Patrick had called from Rome only a week ago. And she'd already known that it was too late. The devil was apparently free and on this plane.

Picking up the over-long tee and dragging it over her head, she wondered what could've happened between the brothers that Dean seemed comfortable on his own, and not, as he'd put it, chewed up with worry over Sam.

He'd hesitated as he'd said it, she remembered. Had been holding back on some part that he didn't want to talk about. Sam's number had been changed again. She'd tried calling him after the news report in Ilchester, calling to see if they knew anything about the phenomena that had terrified the residents of Maryland and confounded the scientific sector. Of course, since then, there'd been more and more reports of natural disasters, none of them looking particularly natural. Ray had been tracking most and had come up with nothing so far. Out of season, out of normal regions, but not accompanied by the massive electro-magnetic fluctuations that demonkind seemed to generate as a matter of course when meddling with the natural world.

Rubbing the towel over her hair, she took a brush from the pack and brushed through the long, fine lengths, the static in the humid air crackling in the rapidly-drying strands. Her fingers automatically divided it into three sections and began to braid it into the habitual long plait that kept it out of her way, subduing the charge as her gaze moved inattentively over the sink's curved porcelain edges.

The zipped leather bag that lay on the right side of the sink was scuffed, large enough to hold bathroom necessities. As she finished the braid and wrapped the band around the end, she reached for her pack, pulling out a similar bag and setting it on the other side of the sink. The sight sent an odd shiver down her back, not of dread or concern, but a disorienting impact, as if she'd just done something that would change the future.

Cut it out.

Opening the zipper and pulling out her toothbrush and toothpaste, she glanced up at her reflection. Anyone would think you're going soft.

Lucifer's loose, looking for a vessel. Looking for Sam, she reminded herself and that thought wiped away the others. And Michael would be looking for Dean. She didn't really think either man would be able to avoid the angels' notice for long, no matter how they were protecting themselves.

Turning the tap on again, she loaded the brush with paste and leaned over, brushing and spitting as her thoughts churned around the man in the next room.

The attempt he'd made at an explanation had been for Nebraska, she knew. She didn't know why he'd asked her to join him, either on the hunt, or in this room. There was no question that it would make it easier, more efficient to hunt together, but … she spat out the final mouthful of water and looked at herself in the mirror … it was going to make it so much harder too.

Rinsing the brush out, she left it on the sink top next to the toothpaste. Worry about it when it happens, she told herself firmly. If they could find the crocottas wherever it was they were hiding, or even while they were stalking their victims in the park after dark, they wouldn't have to deal with the situation too long.

She picked up the pack and turned for the door, opening it and turning off the light as she came out. Dean lay on the bed, apparently riveted by an infomercial that promised wealth, love and happiness if the viewer just bought this one product. She dropped her bag at the foot of the sofa and looked around the room for the closet that would hold spare linen.

"Where do you want to start? Tomorrow?" he asked her as she crossed the room. "The last crocotta we saw had a job."

Ellie nodded, opening the closet door and pulling out a spare pillow, sheet and thin quilt.

"The one in Soho was working for a funeral home," she told him, stacking the linen on one arm of the sofa and making it up. The day's temperatures hadn't really cooled and the room was warm. She'd probably toss most of it off, she thought. "I was thinking about the hotels around the park."

She glanced over her shoulder when he didn't respond. He was staring at the TV, his expression focussed.

"How would we find them?"

"Not sure on that yet," she admitted, sitting down on the sofa and dragging her pack toward her to pull out her notebook.

"You keep a journal?" he asked, looking curiously at the leather-bound lined book.

She looked up and smiled, a little deprecatingly. "It was one of the first things I got drummed into me," she told him, looking down at the pages. "Keep a record."

He looked away and Ellie glanced back at him, seeing his attention had returned to the TV. His father had kept a journal, she knew. So did Bobby and Rufus. All the older hunters did. Ellen'd had several, her own and Bill's, maybe gone now, after the fire. In her apartment, there were ten notebooks like the one she held, detailing everything she'd come across since she'd begun. The first couple were more like diaries. In the storage unit in Nevada, there were three cartons of notebooks that'd belonged to her first partner.

Staring down at her notes, she listened to the muted sound of the television, to Dean's breathing, the faint rustles he made as he shifted his position. She was too aware of him, lying there. She caught the inside of her lip between her teeth and tried to force her attention on the words on the page in front of her, shut out all the distractions. After she'd read the same paragraph three times and absorbed nothing from it, she reluctantly acknowledged that this was going to be harder than she'd thought.

"Question?"

"Mmm?" She lifted her head to look at Dean, giving up on the pretence that she was busy. "Yeah?"

"You said that hunting hadn't made what happened … to your family … any better, hadn't fixed anything."

"Mmm-hmm."

"Why do you keep hunting?" he asked. "There are a lot of things you'd be good at, good enough to earn a living, live well."

Looking back down at the notebook, Ellie wondered how to answer him. It wasn't that cut and dried. There had been a lot of things she'd given up to do this. But it hadn't felt like a sacrifice.

"Sit in an office all day?" she asked him, shaking her head. "I like this life, in a lot of ways. I can't go and find a nine-to-five life now. I don't want to work for an intelligence agency, not that any self-respecting one would have me, or do the armed forces thing, and nothing else would give me the satisfaction of using both the mental and physical skills that hunting does."

He turned back to the screen, brows pulled together. "But you're cut off, from regular life, from regular people. Doesn't that … bug you?"

"Sometimes. I usually find irregular people more interesting," she said, the corner of her mouth tucking in. "Does it bother you?"

"Yeah it does. Sometimes." He shrugged. "Okay, not all the time."

"Maybe there is no other choice, once you've done something like this for a long time. A lot of soldiers don't fit back into civilian life either. It doesn't worry me. At least I'm doing something that means something, even if only to a few people. I'm not pushing paper or data around in a meaningless round. And, for the most part, I like the people in this life." She glanced at him curiously. "Do you want a different life, Dean? A regular job, a wife, and kids, and the white picket fence?"

He turned back to her, his eyes narrowing a little as if he was trying to work out what she thought of those things.

"I don't know. That's now. What I really want is to have had that for my family when I was growing up." He shook his head, his mouth twisting. "Sometimes I wish everything was different. That what happened to us, to Mom, to Sam, had never happened, we all got live normal lives."

"Oh, that," she said, remembering the conversation in Michigan. "Yeah, well, we all want that."

She dropped her gaze back to her notes, the edge of the journal sitting under the plans. They were part of an accumulation of years of hunting. He had the same knowledge, filed away in his mind; years of experience, of understanding. Did either of them really want to pretend that never happened, that they'd grown up never knowing about the flip side? If he hadn't been a hunter, if his father hadn't, she wouldn't be alive right now.

"We wouldn't be the same people, Dean." Lifting her head, she kept her expression carefully neutral. "Who would you be now if your life hadn't made that sudden left turn?"

His eyes cut away abruptly and she wondered if he was thinking of the wish he'd made, the one he'd never told anyone about, not even himself.

"Maybe, for you, it would have been better."

"Not for you?" He raised his brows disbelievingly, visibly shaking off the uncertainties she could see in his face. "You like this way of living?"

"I like who I am because of it," she told him, tired suddenly of the conversation. It was a specious argument, those 'what ifs'. It was what it was. "I like what I do, yeah."

Looking down at the notebook, she added, "I might have found something useful to do, if everything had gone along as expected. But I might not – I might have been stuck in a safe life, feeling different, wanting something else."

His silence dragged her gaze back to him and she saw a twitch in his face, there and gone.

"I don't think I'd have felt that way, not if I'd grown up without hunting," he said, and Ellie was instantly certain that was a lie, but not to her. For whatever reason, it was a lie to himself. In Michigan, he'd said that the wish had been his life, if nothing had happened. She wondered what the djinn had shown him, about himself, in that life.

"Maybe not. Or maybe you'd have gone into some other profession where saving people is a part of the job." She could imagine him doing a lot of things, doing them well. "That could just be a part of you, Dean."

Watching him shift his position against the head of the bed and turn away uncomfortably, Ellie sighed inwardly. He didn't like people noticing those sorts of things about him.

She wondered if he really could settle down to a normal life, a life where the biggest worry would be what colour to paint the house, or whether the roof needed to be fixed before the next winter storm. Maybe he could.

Leaning back, she stretched out her legs, propping her feet on the low table. "I hope you find what you want, Dean."

He didn't respond and she let the silence grow, the low background chatter of the TV barely audible.

"What do you want?" he asked several minutes later, and she glanced up at him in surprise, wondering a little guiltily if the question had been prompted by something he'd seen in her expression. His attention was still on the flickering screen and she let out her breath in a small huff of relief as she considered her answer.

"I want to do something that I'm good at and that means something to me," she said. "I want to do my job."

"Even if it kills you?"

"I could get hit by a bus tomorrow," she pointed out.

He didn't seem to have a response to that and Ellie glanced up from under her lashes, studying his profile in the flickering white light from the television. She wondered if the answer had satisfied him.

For the next few minutes, her notebook's neat handwriting remained unintelligible but as the TV's inane murmur faded into a distant drone, she began to concentrate on her notes.

The mythology of the creatures they were hunting was world-wide; every culture had them. What they were called, and their habits, differed, from country to country, sometimes a lot but often not much. Their methods, what they took or how to kill them remained consistent.

She drew her legs up, resting the journal against her knees and read back over what she'd found about the two she'd managed to find and kill. Both bodies had cracked and crumbled into dust with the first light. Picking up her pen, she underlined that. She'd never seen one in daylight. Under the flat white fluorescent lighting of the funeral home, yes. But not in the full spectrum of sunlight. Skimming backwards through the rest of her notes, she made a note as she realised that there were no anecdotal accounts of anyone seeing them during the daylight hours.

When she looked up again it was just past three, and Dean was asleep, the television still droning, its pale, changing light playing over his face. She closed the notebook and tucked it back into her bag, straightening and stretching as she stood up.

She turned off the television and walked over to the bed, carefully disengaging his fingers from the glass he still held and setting it safely on the nightstand. Looking down at him, she caught her lower lip between her teeth as she realised he was still fully dressed. Surely, it couldn't be comfortable to sleep in your boots?

"Dean?"

He remained silent and still, eyes closed, his chest rising and falling steadily.

Moving to the end of the bed, she reached out tentatively, tugging on the ends of the lacing. He didn't move and the laces slid free of the knots without a fuss. She slid her fingers under the loops, working up the boot until they were very loose and eased them off. His jeans and shirt didn't look all that comfortable to sleep in either but she wasn't going to undress him.

She walked back to the sofa and laid down, drawing the loose end of the cover over her shoulder as she rolled onto her side and tucked her arm beneath the pillow. It had been a long, weird day and she was ready for it end. Her decision to stay here, to hunt with him, still rankled slightly. She preferred to hunt alone, to not have responsibility for anyone else but herself. She knew why she'd agreed, but she wondered if it wasn't going to be something she was going to regret.

Dean opened one eye slightly as he heard her settle on the sofa. He lay still, listening to her breathe, catching the faint scent of her in the still air of the room. It wasn't one of his best ideas, asking her to stay, he thought restlessly.

When she'd come out of the bathroom, face scrubbed and hair pulled back, looking more familiar, he'd been relieved. The tee shirt came down to her knees and it was loose, hiding the curves he couldn't quite make himself forget about, and he'd told himself that they were just hunters, collaborating on a case.

It wasn't just the unsettling unfamiliarity of having her in the room, the light on the nightstand turning her hair to flame as she bowed her head over her notes. It wasn't just the persistence of the faint scent of her in the still, warm air of the room, or the strange and disturbingly potent little image of her toothbrush lying on the sink next to his – an image that'd invaded his thoughts and had taken some effort to push away – as disquieting as all those things were.

It was the fact that he'd had to clamp his teeth together more than once to stop himself from asking her things, telling her things, things that he wouldn't've – couldn't've – told his brother or anyone else about, things that he'd thought were buried and gone but which kept rising and turning over and seeping into his thoughts or dreams, day or night.

All his life, he'd thought he'd kept his own counsel, a habit inculcated deeply by his father's rule – we do what we do and we shut up about it – but also by the responsibility he felt, had lived by. He'd had his family and it hadn't felt like he'd needed too many others. It hadn't been until he'd tried to let Cassie in, deliberately, that he'd known he needed more, wanted more … but that had blown up in his face and left scars that even now ached, from time to time.

Looking back, he realised that he'd had people around, at least until his father had died, people he'd trusted, people he'd been able to talk to. Jim had been one. Caleb, another. Then, faster than he'd been able to deal with, there'd been just Sam and Bobby. And talking to his brother had become difficult. And dangerous. And as much as he knew Bobby was there, there were some things he couldn't talk over with the older man, some things that he couldn't face letting out. It felt … disloyal … to talk to him about Sam. Felt as if he were skinless when he'd thought about trying to talk to Bobby about his brother's choice.

Waiting for the demons in North Dakota, he'd let some of those things out, unintentionally for the most part, the unbearable tension loosening in the darkness, her voice quiet, calming, her light touch an anchor in the middle of chaos and doubt. In the house in Michigan, it'd been the same. He'd waited, for those conversations to come back on him, to bite him somewhere down the track but they never had.

Rolling over silently on the bed, he stared at her outline, under the thin cover, clear enough in the ambient light of the city that came through the high, bare windows.

She'd kept his secrets.

The morning light cascaded through the windows, filling the room, and Dean rolled over, one arm flung across his face, trying to hold on to sleep a bit longer, trying to hold onto the last slivers of a dream that hadn't been about blood and death and pain.

He heard the burr of a chair being pushed back, then the click of the kettle on the counter, clinking as a spoon hit a cup. Lying still, his eyes slitted against the light that penetrated the shadow of his arm.

He could smell coffee; not the good, fresh kind but instant, from the hotel supplies. Still, coffee was coffee, especially first thing in the morning. He heard the kettle muttering to itself, and the slight rustle of paper from the direction of the small table on the other side of the room, a faint tap-tap of a pen against it.

He wanted to get up, get some caffeine flowing through his system but he'd have to wait a bit longer, lying curled on his side. This was not a problem when he had a room to himself, he thought with a vague annoyance. On the other hand, it didn't often happen when he had a room to himself. The dream had been incomprehensible, more feeling than thought, but better than the nightmares he usually had. The image of a pair of jade-green eyes lingered behind his mostly-closed lids.

The kettle clicked itself off as the water boiled and he heard Ellie get up, the liquid slosh of a cup being filled, the scent of the instant coffee stronger.

"Black?"

He nodded, opening an eye as she brought the cup over to the bed and set it on the nightstand. He reached for it, the discomfort of sleeping in his clothes momentarily overridden by the prospect of something to help him wake.

"What time did you get up?" he asked, grimacing slightly as he swallowed a mouthful of the bitter brew.

"Early," she said, returning to the table. "Doesn't matter, I don't need a lot of sleep."

Looking up at the tall windows behind him, he realised that their angle meant the sun would've been pouring in since dawn. He liked more sleep. He didn't get enough usually. Maybe a couple of blankets over the windows would let them both get that bit more.

The distension in his jeans was no longer so noticeable, or uncomfortable, and he eased himself up the bed, forcing himself to swallow another mouthful of the coffee.

"Breakfast?" he asked, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed.

Ellie looked up from the map she was studying and nodded. "Sounds good. That coffee is awful."

He watched her straighten up, gathering her notes and the map and putting them into her pack. In the clear, pitiless light that filled the room, her skin was bare, the pale amber freckles just visible in their smattering over cheeks and nose. The sunlight lit up her hair, drawn back from her face and held firmly in a long braid down her back. The long tee had been replaced by a thin, sleeveless blouse and jeans, and she wore the same light sandals he'd seen the previous night instead of her usual boots, in deference to the heat, he guessed, that was already starting to infiltrate the building.

Grabbing his bag from under the bed, he walked to the bathroom. The clothes he was wearing still held a slightly sour aroma of sweat from the previous evening's exertions and while he'd have ignored it if he'd been on his own, it kept catching his attention with someone else around.

The diner was on the corner, small and crowded, the smells intoxicatingly appetising as they came through the door. A tired-looking waitress waved her hand in the direction of an empty booth as she carried four loaded plates across the room, weaving in and out of the tables.

"Be with you in just a minute," she said over her shoulder, hurrying away.

The booth hadn't been cleared and they moved the debris of the previous breakfast to the end of the table, Ellie grabbing a handful of serviettes from the dispenser to wipe off the coffee and ketchup spills before she pulled out a map of the city and spread it over the surface.

"Look at this," she said, pointing to the red crosses she'd marked earlier. The crosses showed the big hotels that surrounded the park. "All the vics were from out of town, the ones who got hit in Central Park," she continued, glancing up at him. "I don't think that was random."

He stared at the map, turning over the possibilities in his mind. Hotel staff were unnoticeable, especially in the big ones, where there were hundreds of staff, all in uniforms.

"They'd know the details of these people, know how long they were staying for, who wouldn't be missed if they didn't show up later," Ellie told him, her gaze dropping back to the map.

"They're not hiding the bodies," he said, frowning a little. "Most of these people are found the same night, or the next day."

"Why bother?" Ellie looked up. "They're visitors. The park's known for muggings and assault."

"But how're they getting them out there?" he asked, leaning over the table. "Maybe they're using the hotel phones?"

"That shouldn't be too hard to check–"

"What can I get you?"

Dean leaned back as the waitress materialised beside him, a pencil and pad in her hands, her expression slightly harried.

"Uh, the special and coffee, black," he told her, glancing at the chalkboard. "Extra bacon."

"Sure." She turned to look at Ellie.

"Same, please," Ellie said, looking back at the map.

"Sure, hon," the waitress said, scribbling as she about-faced and walked away.

"The same?"

Ellie looked up at Dean. "What?"

"Nothing," he said. "So, uh, front desk, you think?"

"Could be anyone," she said. "They can pick up memories easily. People who are grieving, or feeling any strong emotion about someone would be standing out like neon to them."

"We can't go stab them in the spine when they're not ganking someone," Dean pointed out doubtfully. "We still have to wait till they get to the park."

"Not if they have another vulnerability that we can check," Ellie said.

"Like –?"

He looked around as Ellie turned her head, moving the map back as the waitress approached with loaded plates, cups and a pot of coffee.

"Here you go, hon," she said, unloading plate, cutlery and cup in front of him, turning to do the same for Ellie, the coffee pot releasing a pungent waft as she filled their cups. "Refills are free, call when you're ready."

Dean nodded, barely hearing her, his brain hijacked by the sight and smells rising from his plate. Eggs, glistening and golden and firm, bacon, crispy and a small mound of it, curling along the edges, sausage, browned and gleaming, a pile of thin, translucently golden onions heaped over them, hash browns the deep amber of clear toffee, crunching slightly as he picked up his knife and fork and pushed the knife through the thin crust.

Heaven, he thought, saliva filling his mouth as he stared down. The real heaven, not some dick-riddled, pie-in-the-sky alternative. He reached for the salt and ketchup, spreading both liberally over his food, and sighed as the first forkful hit his tongue, eyes closing slowly.

On the other side of the table, Ellie looked at him in amusement. "You're not hard to please, are you?"

His mouth was full, and he satisfied the need for rebuttal by waving an eggy fork at her plate. She looked down and smiled ruefully.

"Yeah, okay, no more throwing stones," she allowed, picking up her cutlery.

When he'd swallowed the mouthful, he asked, "What other vulnerability?"

Ellie chewed and swallowed before answering. "The bodies always turn to dust in sunlight, right?"

His brows drew together. He should've thought of that, not that it was going to make it much easier to test possibilities. "So, short of shoving them out a door or window, or, uh, into the hotel's tanning salon, how're we supposed to check that?"

"Well," Ellie said, loading her fork again. "It's going to depend on what part of the visible light spectrum does the damage, but we could start with UV and work our through from there."

His fork remained suspended above his plate as he saw the smile that lit her up. It didn't last all that long, that smile, but it was always worth the wait. Ducking his head when he realised he'd been looking too long, he found himself wondering what she'd come up with to test possible crocottas for an aversion to sunshine, or at least some part of it. He was wiping his plate with the last of the toast when it occurred to him that, for the first time in a long time, he was actually looking forward to this hunt.

On the corner opposite the diner, a public phone booth still had a mostly-intact copy of the Manhattan phone book and Dean crowded in behind Ellie as she lifted it onto the narrow counter in the booth and opened it.

It was a mistake, he realised as soon as he got close enough to read over her shoulder. The city's heat had built rapidly while they'd been eating and in the closed glass-paned booth it was almost stifling, concentrating the scent of the woman in front of him and enveloping him in it.

For several seconds, he blanked out, trying to work out what combination of fragrances it was that were making him feel as if he was floating an inch or two above the concrete pavement. Something woodsy, he thought, something that brought back his few memories of being on the shore, tangy and light and somehow fresh like a breeze. He almost had it when Ellie finished writing down the details she'd looked up and tried to back out of the booth, running into him.

"Sorry," she said, twisting around in the narrow space to look up at him.

"My fault," he muttered, his gaze dropping to the ground as he backed awkwardly away from her, fiercely ignoring the disappointment felt as he stepped onto the traffic-scented street again. "So what're we looking for?"

"Lighting specialist," she told him, stepping out beside him and turning to look up and down the street. "There's a place on Houston that will probably have what we need."

"Uh, you wanna take the car?" he asked, looking at the slow-moving crawl of vehicles in front of them.

Ellie shook her head. "Subway."

She pointed at the entrance less than a block away. "You'll never get a park down there."

The platform had already made it over ninety degrees, Dean estimated as he and Ellie inched their way through the packed, sweating and irritable crowd of commuters toward the edge, feeling the run of sweat down the back of his neck soaking into his tee shirt.

As the train pulled in, there was a heavy gust of much hotter air, acrid-smelling and steamy, through the tunnel and the already-pressed crowd squeezed closer together to let those on the train off as the doors opened.

Pushed along with the surge as the last disembarkees cleared the gap and the leading edge of the crowd on the platform leapt forward to make it on, Dean wrinkled his nose at the press of people around him. The mixed odours of sweat and cologne and perfume, breakfast krollers and donuts, leather and cotton and synthetics combined and overwhelmed even the potently bitter smell of the hot rails and tunnels.

He kept his gaze fixed on the bright hair in front of him, inching forward with the mob, uncomfortably aware they had no control over where they'd end up on the carriage. A garbled, disembodied voice said something over the speakers and he found himself squashed through the doors and propelled to the other side of the carriage, his back hitting a vertical pole as Ellie was shoved against him by a very large man in a charcoal-black suit pushing his way behind her.

The train pulled away with a jerk and he heard her gasp as the weight of the businessman fell onto her, his arm snaking around her waist to keep her from being thrown the other way as the carriage snatched forward again.

The car was cooler, significantly so, and although it didn't make the tight confines any easier, it did cut most of the bodily scents of the passengers back to bearable levels. His sweat cooled on his skin and he lifted his gaze to the metal roof as he realised he had another problem.

Ellie was pressed against him by the guy behind her. She was so close, he could feel every inch from chest to knees through the all-too-thin barrier of their clothing. It wasn't helping that the mingled scents of her hair and skin, intensified by the growing heat of the people crowded into the carriage, was surrounding him, making it impossible to breathe in anything else. The curved metal sheet of the car's ceiling was held together by rivets and he started to count them, hoping to short-circuit any possible reaction before she noticed it.

The train hadn't quite made the next station when there was an ominous thudding bang and the passengers looked up and around uneasily. The problem became apparent quickly and Dean stifled a low groan as he felt the heat slowly rising, the movement of the cooled air from the car's fans stop and dissipate fast.

"Subway?" he muttered peevishly at Ellie, glancing down and looking away as he realised that he didn't need a visual to accompany what he could already feel. "Really?"

"Not usually this bad," she offered apologetically, looking away as the passenger behind her twisted around, his weight grinding her more tightly against Dean.

Neither spoke for the next seven stops. Dean kept his gaze over Ellie's head, reading the subway map, the advertisements, watching a fluorescent light flickering at the end of the carriage.

Colleagues, he repeated to himself as the train rolled to one side, and Ellie's hips slid against his. Hunters, he grated internally, when the train braked and her breath huffed against his neck, her arms around him for a second before she let go. Professionals. On a job. But the images that were flashing through his brain had nothing to do with crocottas or guns and were increasingly difficult to shut out.

When the business man got off at Canal Street, he was reviewing, in the most minute detail he could recall, his top ten list of gruesome cases, in an effort to ignore the way she felt against him. The sudden removal of her body's heat produced a wave of light-headedness and he blinked as she stepped away.

Ellie grabbed the next pole, wiping her brow and the back of her neck, turning away to stare at the darkened windows. Her skin was flushed and Dean could see her pulse, pounding fast in the hollow of her throat.

They got off at Chambers Street Station and walked back up to Chinatown, even the humid breeze from the river more refreshing than the subway as the mercury rose. He could count on the fingers of one hand the times he'd been here, and he followed Ellie's lead as she cut through alleys and back streets. The lighting manufacturer's building took up half a block and had the look of a Prohibition warehouse; grimy dark brick patterned incongruously with a lighter pattern in some of kind of 20's style.

The manager they spoke to had exactly what she wanted. The flashlight was long and heavy, and took a lot of batteries, but the lenses filtered only a part of the ultraviolet spectrum that most normal lighting didn't, and he smiled at Ellie's smug expression as she slipped it into her bag.

Emerging from the cool of the air-conditioned interior and hitting the solid wall of humid heat on the street, they stopped on the sidewalk and looked at each other. The Canal Street station was only a short walk.

"It's cheaper?" Ellie suggested half-heartedly. "And faster."

"It's crowded and hot," Dean countered, shaking his head vehemently as he saw where she was looking. There was no way in hell he was doing another trip like that.

She shrugged and turned to look down the street.

"Taxi!"

The taxi ride wasn't much of an improvement on the subway, but once they'd crossed over to the East Village, the ride got smoother and faster.

Dean paid the fare, and they walked back to the hotel, picking up sandwiches and drinks on the way.

Ellie leaned back against the sofa, eyes half-closed as she savoured the tastes exploding over her tongue. The room was hot, and the small, electric fan management had provided did little more than push the heated air around the small space. She was longing for a shower.

"Okay," Dean said from the table, the word a little muffled as it came out around a mouthful of Italian meatball sandwich. "Where do you want to start?"

"The Plaza, I guess," she said, licking her fingers and reaching for her soda. "It's right on the park."

"When?"

"As soon as we're done here," she said, putting the soda down as she looked at her watch. "Afternoon shift'll start at eleven-thirty."

The last of the pastrami, sweet, pickled onions and mustard on rye was swallowed with a moment's regret and she washed it down with the tepid remains of her soda, straightening up on the sofa and looking at him.

"This is still a long shot, you know," she said as she wadded up the bag and serviette and got to her feet. "We'll probably have more luck just staking out the park tonight."

He shrugged. It was a long shot, but it was a good idea all the same. If they could take down some of the monsters with surprise on their side, it would make it easier to deal with what was left. He finished the sub and cleared the table, spreading out the hotel schematics they'd printed off before eating.

"The older hotels, their service areas are like rabbit warrens," Ellie commented, leaning across the table. "If we lose one in there, we're not going to be able to find it."

Leaning on one elbow beside her, Dean turned his head. Her skin was flushed faintly with the heat, one long strand of hair loose from the braid and clinging to the moisture on her neck. The thin, sleeveless blouse was unbuttoned at the throat and he got a sudden and vivid replay of looking down and seeing creamy cleavage framed in that opening, feeling the press of her breasts against his chest. He blinked and looked away. God, get your shit together, he told himself with a mental snarl. It was a job. A case. Hunting things. Saving people. Remember?

"What about those ones?" he asked, turning his attention back on to the map and pointing at a hotel on the east side of the park.

"A couple of them, yeah," she said, straightening and pushing the errant strand back with the inside of her wrist. From the corner of his eye, he saw the movement lift her breast, outlining her briefly and sending another distracting flush of heat through him. He turned away and walked over to the fridge, pulling out a beer that was barely below room temperature with an internal grimace.

"But the modern ones and the ones that have had a lot of renovations, no, I don't think so."

Glancing back at her as he knocked the top off and lifted the bottle, he saw she was still studying the plans, her expression absorbed. Clearly, his proximity wasn't having the same effect on her as hers was on him.

"Not enough hiding spaces when the interiors were gutted and it was all made open-plan," she added, lifting her gaze to meet his. The sudden eye contact caught him by surprise and he waved his hand at her pack.

"So, we can just walk in and start pointing that thing around at people?"

"More or less," Ellie said. "We'll, uh, try to look like out-of-town guests, but otherwise, yeah. The beam will invisible to the naked eye. If I keep it under something, it should be pretty inconspicuous."

Lifting her pack from the chair, she walked back to the sofa. "You want first shower?"

He shook his head, going to the bed and pulling out his bag, wondering what he had in it that fit the description of an out-of-town guest of a hotel like the Plaza. Not much, he thought uncomfortably. He glanced over his shoulder as he heard the bathroom door close behind her and the taps go on a couple of seconds later.

It had been a bad idea to ask her to stay here, he thought, refusing to acknowledge that he had no intention of changing the arrangement.