Not Exactly Ovid

by ErtheChilde

When Castiel mysteriously disappears the night Dean is reunited with Sam, the brothers hit the road to find answers. But the Apocalypse was not as neatly tied up as they hoped, & pursuit by enemies forces them into "supernatural witness protection". Along the way, new truths come to light, Dean re-evaluates his relationship with Cas & Sam seeks redemption. [short arcs now long eps]

10. 6x05 - Dangerous Attractions

Five

Club2-N-1,
New York City, New York
Monday 7 June 2010

"This object is cumbersome," Castiel remarked, glowering down at the sling that immobilized his arm.

It was a complaint he had voiced more than once over the past two days, and Sam wasn't looking forward to another week of it. Even after the sling came off, Cas was looking at a minimum of four weeks before his shoulder fully recovered.

"Yeah, well, that's what you get for not falling the way I showed you," Dean replied as he pulled the Charger over on the side of the road and parked.

"There were many overturned bookcases in the way. I did not have much of a choice," Castiel returned, almost petulantly. There was a beat, and then he said in a voice that mixed complaint with hopefulness, "I believe the painkillers are wearing off again."

"Nice try, buddy, you've got another hour before you're getting any more drugs," Dean retorted easily, sending Castiel a significant glance in the rear-view mirror. "Until then, let's go do something distracting." The driver's side door creaked open as he got out, but Sam thought he heard him mumble, "Like get our livers carved out so we can be real boys again."

Sam shot Castiel a sympathetic, 'yeah, he's a jerk' look, as he too got out of the car. He frowned at Dean over the roof of the car.

"I'm kind of with Cas on this one. It's the first time he's really felt a dislocation," he argued. "Maybe something a little stronger than ibuprofen might not be a bad idea this time?"

"Not happening, Sam," Dean answered, turning away to focus on the familiar old building across the street. In daylight, the former fire station's pink hue stuck out even more than it did at night.

"Yeah, well, you haven't really explained why not."

"Because I said so."

"Dean –"

"One addict in the family is enough, Sam. Now drop it." He glanced both ways and then started across the street, while Sam watched him with a hard look.

Sam was all for defending himself against that dig, except there was an intense quality in his older brother's tone that brooked no argument on this. Under normal circumstances, that would have goaded Sam into a snapping rejoinder, but Dean had been really edgy for two days now, and Sam wasn't really in the mood for a huge blow-out.

Castiel got out of the car as well, wincing as the movement jostled his arm.

"I dislike your brother's patronizing attitude," he grumbled mutinously.

"Welcome to the past twenty-seven years of my life," Sam sighed. "Acting like an overprotective prick is how Dean shows he cares."

Castiel's silence as he followed Sam across the street was contemplative, his mind apparently off his injury for the moment. Sam was glad for that, at least, because even if Dean wasn't as adamant about the ex-angel toughing this out right now, it wasn't as though they could just drag him to a hospital on a whim and have him looked at. Not after what had happened in Decatur.

They had had to leave the town in a bit of a hurry – and none too soon if the report on the car radio had been anything to go by. The discovery of Nicki Tobin's body and her ransacked house had sped through the community the ways news usually travelled in small towns. If Sam was right, investigators would be finding a few new sets of DNA between both scenes.

For now, he and Dean were still safe, as according to Aggie their blood signature had been altered enough that they couldn't be linked to any of their crimes on file. That in and of itself was great, because when they got their bodies back, neither of them wanted to be looking over their shoulders because some of their blood had allowed the feds to declare the Winchester file open again.

Their legal deaths had been the only good thing to come of Henricksen's sacrifice in Colorado.

Still, the problem they now faced was that the feds could probably tie the very mortal Castiel to the crimes – or at least Jimmy Novak. Once the law checked out Jimmy's information, and then heard about the two women breaking him out of Sinai Grace, it wouldn't be too hard to put two and two together. When that happened, it wasn't likely they would be able to remain under the radar much longer.

Dean had been bitching for days about how Castiel was going to spend the rest of his mortal life with a criminal record, while the former angel had simply watched him pace around their motel room, calmly spouting platitudes about free will. Sam had always thought that he was the only one able to rile Dean into a fury, but apparently the fallen warrior of God had learned those ropes really well.

The one upside to the snafu in Decatur, according to Dean, was that with the possibility of the police looking for them, they had an excuse to get their bodies back. He seemed more than happy to rely on hex bags and angel sigils for protection, and while Sam was doubtful of the effectiveness of that strategy in the long-term (due to previous experience), he wouldn't lie and say he didn't want his own body back.

Being a woman was interesting, of course, and there were advantages, but he really, really wanted to be himself again before certain disadvantages arose. It was one of the reasons why when Dean insisted on heading to New York to find Aggie, Sam had only put up a token of resistance.

The only address they had for Aggie was her club, which wasn't open yet, but Sam figured if it was being run like a normal club, the day staff would already be inside preparing for the night's activities.

Dean prodded the buzzer a few times, and they could hear a distant ringing beyond the solid door. They waited several minutes before the sound of a lock opening confirmed that there was someone around.

When they saw who it was, Sam winced in dislike.

"Yes?" Ethon drawled, looking as bored and unfriendly as he had the night they met him.

"Where's Aggie?" Dean asked without prelude.

Ethon wrinkled his nose as recognition alit in his eyes. "She's not available."

"What do you mean, she isn't available?" Dean spat.

"Exactly what it sounds like," Ethon replied, sounding bored. "She's not here. But if you wish me to pass on a message or perhaps another vital organ, I'll be sure she gets right back to you."

This wasn't the response Dean wanted, Sam knew, and his brother's mood was not improving his reaction to Ethon's attitude. Dean clenched his fists and looked for all intents and purposes like he was about to dive forward and lay into the balding pagan.

"Dean," Sam reached forward in an attempt to calm his brother, but Dean shrugged him off roughly. Sam held back a sigh and glanced at Castiel, who was hanging back a foot or so behind them. He was watching Ethon with an expression of distrust and repugnance.

'I guess even if he's not an angel anymore, he's still not too keen on pagan gods,' Sam thought, although he wasn't exactly sure if Ethon could be considered a pagan god, exactly; maybe some kind of primordial nature spirit? He hadn't yet narrowed down Ethon's exact identity, but he had a suspicion the guy hailed from a time when the Greek gods had been big.

"Where the hell is she then?" Dean demanded, jarring Sam from his thoughts.

"Turkey – not that it's any of your business," Ethon replied silkily. "A former client was in a spot of trouble and needed her help."

"We need her help!"

Ethon observed Dean like he was an interesting yet disgusting insect. "Do you really think she caters only to charity cases like yourselves? Lady Agdistis's services have been sought by the most powerful families in the world since bull-leaping was in fashion."

"I don't give a shit – get her back here!"

"I hardly think your little foray into gender dysphoria is going to give her much incentive to return before she's ready," Ethon sniffed. "Not unless you can top the seven figure sum she was offered and the private jet that flew her out."

Which, of course, they couldn't, and even Dean had to know that trying to scam an ancient deity with fake credit cards was a bad idea. Just like he should know that full-on attacking one without a weapon was an even worse one, but from the gleam in his brother's eyes, he was actually entertaining that thought.

Castiel moved before he did.

"Dean," he implored, reaching forward and placing his hand on the hunter's left shoulder.

Sam fully expected his brother to shake the ex-angel's hand free as well, but for some reason Dean's entire frame instead went still. He spared a long-suffering glance at the former angel, and then exhaled an exasperated sigh before taking a step back. Castiel's hand lingered barely a second longer before he remembered himself and increased his distance as well.

"I require a moment," Castiel said to Ethon, though his eyes remained on Dean.

"My dear, you can have as many moments as you want," Ethon said, and then – and Sam shuddered at the sight – all but leered at Castiel.

Dean noticed it as well.

"Hey!" he bit out, planting himself back next to Castiel, fists clenching and unclenching. From the way his eyes snapped, Sam knew he was imagining going for Ethon's throat again, but instead he simply jutted his chin out and growled, "Keep it for the health club, pal."

Sam's eyebrows shot up, and he took a second to look from Castiel's placid expression to Dean's livid one. He'd seen that exact look before, but never on his own brother's face. It looked remarkably like…

'Nah,' he told himself, immediately stopping that thought process. 'Not possible.'

In the meantime, Castiel was ignoring Dean's over-protective routine and met Ethon's gaze.

"Akoús, kaukásios aetós," he began, and the rest was lost in a sea of syllables and words that Sam's rudimentary understanding of ancient Greek couldn't help him with. Judging from the way Ethon went steadily paler, though, and replied quickly and fearfully, Sam had a feeling Ethon knew exactly what Castiel was saying. He also suspected that Castiel had literally just put the fear of God into him. "Are we clear?"

"Of course," Ethon said nervously.

"Very well," Castiel said, and turned to Sam and Dean. "I believe we are finished here. I would like to go eat something now."

He started back to the car, leaving Dean and Sam looking at each other questioningly. Only the sound of Ethon slamming the door hastily as he returned to the club shook them from their disbelief, and then both of them hurried across the street after Castiel.

"What was that all about?" Sam asked breathlessly, while Dean broke in, "Dude, that was badass!"

"It was nothing," Castiel lied unconvincingly.

"It didn't sound like nothing," Sam pressed.

Castiel frowned, thoughtful, and then with an air of finality stated, "We had a brief exchange of philosophical differences."

Sam stared. "Seriously? That's what you're going with?"

"The pagan assured me that as soon as Agdistis returns she will get in contact with you and reverse her magic," Castiel, pointedly ignoring Sam's question. "Until that point, it might be advisable to do something else with our time."

He didn't seem keen on sharing exactly what he had said to Ethon, and while Sam was all for figuring out that mystery, he supposed they had more important priorities at the moment. Like –

"Goddamnit," Dean cursed, the impressed look on his face fading with realization. "That means were stuck in these bodies until that friggen' bitch gets back here, doesn't it?"

"Looks like," Sam agreed. "But hey, how long can it take? I mean, she did us in a night. So she flies overseas, deals with whatever she got called to do, and comes back. It can't be more than a few days, right?" They climbed back into the car. "We survived two weeks, a few more days won't kill us."

"Won't kill you, maybe," Dean grumbled. "Pretty sure you're in your element right now, Samantha. I feel like jumping out of my skin."

"That would be inadvisable," Castiel remarked seriously.

Dean groaned and leaned back in the driver's seat for a moment. "Christ, I need a drink."

"It's eleven-thirty," Sam pointed out chidingly.

"Yeah, well, it's five o'clock in Barcelona."

"Hey, how about we get some work done before Happy Hour?" Sam deadpanned. "We still have a lead to check up on while we're here."

The day they had left Decatur Sam had spent the evening in their latest motel going through all of Nicki Tobin's emails and browser history, looking for a clue as to whoever she had gotten the demon blood from. After several hours of work while Dean had tried to introduce Castiel to the wonders ofmotel television, Sam had discovered several interesting conversations between Nicki and someone with the username QueenBeeStark, as well as online records of money transfers.

Curiously, there were never any descriptions of what was being bought or paid for, but he had tracked the email and IP address to an art gallery in New York. Considering it was always the same IP address, it was obviously not someone used to hiding their tracks. So he had suggested checking into the rather spurious lead while they were in the city.

"We might as well see if it pans out," Sam went on. "And I think we should check in on Professor Yong. See if we can wheedle a bit more info on this so called way into Hell. It would suck to go through all this trouble just to find a witch and have it turn out the ritual's a fluke."

"There'd still be a witch dead at the end of it," Dean pointed out. "That's an upside in my book."

"Do you want to check out the gallery or should I?" Sam asked, already knowing the answer.

"You kidding? I want to see Yong crap his pants when Cas pulls his 'Angel of the Lord' thing."

"I am not an angel anymore," Castiel reminded them both, sounding half-exasperated.

"Yeah, but he doesn't know that. Just spout some biblical crap and give him that freaky stare of yours, and he's a goner," Dean said in satisfaction. When Castiel pinned him with an unimpressed, intense gaze, Dean shifted his shoulders uncomfortably and turned the car key in the ignition. "Yeah, that's the one."

(*)

A half hour later they pulled off in front of the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World. Dean practically jumped out of the car, waiting impatiently for Cas to follow him as Sam got into the driver's seat.

"Don't know how long this'll take, so we'll meet you back at the motel," he told his brother.

"Right. Call me if there's anything. And Cas? Try not to let him terrorize the guy too much," Sam instructed dryly.

"I will do my best, however even I can't work miracles," Cas answered in a similar tone.

Dean bristled. "This teaming up thing? So not cute."

"Yeah, well, neither are your mood swings," Sam retorted, and he pulled away from them.

Dean flipped the finger after the disappearing Charger, and huffed in annoyance as he gestured for Cas to follow him into the nondescript building.

He didn't know why he was feeling so edgy of late, but he was. Cas's injury had a lot to do with it, he figured; for two nights now, he had been treated to nightmarish memories of the drugged out version of his friend from 2014. But there was something else that was making him uncomfortable and restless. It felt like there was something he needed, or wanted, but for the life of him he couldn't figure out what it was.

Whatever was putting him on edge was making him more abrasive and impatient than he normally was, and things which he would usually just shrug off irritated the hell out of him.

'This sucks,' he thought to himself sourly. It was probably stress over the mess they had found themselves in. especially now that he knew he was going to be stuck as a woman for even longer than he had anticipated. He hated that he was being such a, well, a bitch, lately, but he couldn't control it. 'Add that to the list of shit I can't control in this body.'

"You believe this man truly knows a way into Hell?" Cas asked as they climbed the spiral staircase to the floor where Yong's office was located.

"I wouldn't call it believing, but until we got you back, it wasn't exactly like we had any other leads to follow," Dean pointed out, half-defensive. "The only other idea we sort of discussed was using the Horsemen's rings, but there was a slight hitch in that idea, if you know what I mean."

"Yes," Cas said, nodding thoughtfully. "Did this Yong person give you any idea of what was needed?"

"Other than the spell that's supposed to jumpstart the whole process? Not a whole lot, which is why we've been on this witch-shtick the last week or so. He also said something about a key and a guide and the 'protection of Death', but that was as much as he would give us. The little worm decided to get us to do his dirty work for him." Cas was quiet for a spell, and when Dean chanced a glimpse at him, he noticed the calculating frown. "What is it?"

"Those components sound legitimate, but I cannot be sure," Cas told him. "Not until I know what the rest of the requirements are."

"Well, great, that's why you're here," Dean stated cheerfully. "Just scare the pants off him with some intense angel staring and –"

"I will not impersonate an angel."

Dean stared, and then slowly said, "Dude…you're not impersonating an angel. You are an angel."

"Without grace, I am mortal," Cas said, speaking to Dean like he didn't understand a very simple concept.

"Okay, maybe you're not all full of grace right now, but you've been an angel for like a million years," Dean rolled his eyes. "Just because you got your club membership revoked for a bit doesn't change who you are."

Cas stilled, and then his expression softened. "Thank you, Dean."

"Don't thank me for something that's true," Dean replied, gruff. "Just go in there and work your angel mojo. Or, you know, lack thereof."

"I still will not lie about my abilities," Cas insisted.

"Why the hell not?"

"Because we want this man to help us, and deceiving him will only make him less likely to do so."

"Who said anything about deceiving him? I just want to freak him out enough to show us the damn ritual." Cas pinned Dean with one of his intense stares, and Dean rolled his eyes. "Yeah, fine, we'll do it your way – Jesus, you're worse than Sammy – but if Yong still doesn't budge, you're buying me lunch."

Cas blinked. "I do not have any money."

"I'll lend you some, and when you can hustle pool on your own, you'll pay me back," Dean declared, going to clap Cas on the back and only just reigning in the impulse when he remembered his friend's injury. Instead, he settled on lightly tapping Cas's right shoulder and stalking off before he could see whatever face the ex-angel was giving him now.

Yong wasn't at his desk when they got there, and according to the guy in the cubicle a few feet away, he wouldn't be back until his noon class ended in half an hour. Dean elected to wait around, playing idly with the professor's mini collection of HotWheels while Cas examined the postcards that were pinned to Yong's wall. They must have been extremely interesting, because for thirty-seven minutes his thoughtful expression didn't let up.

Yong arrived then, flustered, with an overflowing briefcase and his bow-tie askew. "I apologize for making you wait, I wasn't expecting – oh. It's you."

"Try not to sound so enthusiastic," Dean said, leaning back in Yong's chair with no intention of getting up any time soon.

"Did you find the witch, then?" Yong asked, lowering his voice as he put down his briefcase.

"Not exactly. Maybe," Dean shrugged. "Not why we're here though. This is Castiel. He wants to take a gander at that ritual of yours."

"I see," Yong frowned, looking incredulously at Cas; his eyes lingered on the sling. "And why do you think I'm going to let him see it when I wouldn't let you?"

Dean smirked. "He's an Angel of the Lord."

"Bullshit."

"Does anyone ever believe that even when it is true?" Dean asked Cas conversationally.

"Not yet, it would seem," Cas returned.

"Okay, he was an Angel of the Lord," Dean amended. "He's actually the one that hauled me out of Hell."

Yong crossed his arms. "If you think you're being funny –"

"It's not a joke – in fact, I'd give you the whole story, but the more time we waste the longer my brother's in Hell, so the teaser's gonna have to cut it," Dean stated decisively, while Cas poked at the Blanka figurine on Yong's desk. "Angels really exist, just not in the diaper and harp variety." He remembered the Cupid he had run into in Sioux Falls. "Usually."

Yong didn't appear convinced. "Prove it."

"What part of 'he was' are you not understanding?" Dean deadpanned.

"You're going to have to do better than a fake angel to change the terms of our agreement," Yong said dryly. "We don't have anything else to talk about, unless he's about to sprout wings."

"Gamureo," Cas said quietly, and Yong suddenly froze. Cas then continued into a flowing, smooth language with a few harsh syllables that had Yong's eyes widening with every word. Even Dean blinked in surprise, although it wasn't the first time that day that Cas had hauled his language skills out of retirement.

More surprising was when Yong replied in the same language, albeit more haltingly. He switched back to English in a moment. "How did you…?"

"You have several depictions of the Cheonjiyeon Waterfall and other locations on Jeju Island," Cas said, gesturing at the postcards and photographs. "Some with family members. It was not a stretch to infer you spoke the language."

Dean raised his eyebrows, and glanced closer to the postcards and photos Cas had been studying before. In one of them, a more youthful Yong was portrayed with his arms around an old Asian woman who shared his features.

"But how…?"

"Despite becoming mortal, I still retain a small percentage of my former knowledge," Cas explained. "Languages are apparently part of that."

Yong's mouth was agape, and when he realized it, he shut it with an audible snap. Shaking, but clearly trying to recover himself, he bit out, "That doesn't prove you're an angel. For all I know, this is just a really good con. You're hunters, I wouldn't put it past you."

"I am not a hunter," Cas said quietly, taking a step closer and immobilizing Yong with nothing but the intensity of his gaze. If nothing of his angel mojo had remained, that at least hadn't changed. "I am what you have been told I am. I can stand here and describe to you the beauty of the Library of Alexandria or the carnage of the Battle of Canae, but at the end of the day you will believe what you wish and we will simply have wasted time. The choice is yours."

Dean couldn't help the smirk on his face at Yong's absolute shock as he tried to process this. He glanced nervously at Dean. "You're serious? He's really…?"

"Told you. Angel of the Lord.

"Oh," Yong appeared suddenly nervous. He ran a hand through his hair, then stared at his hand like he had just done something impolite, and gave Cas a pained look. "I…sorry, I didn't…"

"Cas doesn't really care about the formalities," Dean remarked.

"Our continued association has almost entirely removed any expectations I ever harboured of being shown a fitting degree of respect," Cas told him dryly, "at least from you."

Yong suddenly looked knowing, eyeing Cas and then Dean with realization. "Oh…wait…is this a City of Angels deal?"

"I do not understand that reference," Cas said, curiosity in his tone.

Dean, however, did.

"Never mind," he told Cas quickly, and then pointed a finger at Yong. "And dude, just…no. Not least because Nick Cage is on my extreme douche list and Meg Ryan couldn't act her way out of a paper bag."

Yong opened his mouth to speak, maybe to protest, but was interrupted.

"Show me what information you have gathered," Cas ordered, with the same conviction of someone who was used to his orders being obeyed. It the type of conviction that always tempted Dean to do the exact opposite.

Unlike Dean, though, Yong immediately reached into one of the drawers of his desk, removing the false bottom with no more than a cursory glance around, and then passed the former angel a silk and leather-bound book that was as thick as Dad's journal.

Cas stared down at the book for almost ten minutes, ignoring Dean's attempts to get him to talk, or Yong's anxious, curious stares. When Dean was sure he couldn't take the silence any longer, Cas finally did glance up. There was a confident glint in his eyes.

"This is genuine," he said, the words a breath of near reverence.

"How do you know?" Dean asked, noticing Yong's expression flicker away from awe at Cas into momentary smug validation.

"Each of these components, and the directions…they are too specific for it not to be authentic," Castiel explained, dragging a finger down the wrinkled page. "The elements themselves are powerful individually, but together…together they just might work."

"Of course it works," Yong insisted. "I told you it did, I saw it work."

Cas opened his mouth to ask a question, but Dean cut him off before he could.

"Why didn't you know about this ritual before?" he demanded of Cas. "And don't pull the 'above my pay grade' line, because if you were a freakin' archangel long enough to clue into Daddy's secret key, you could have known about this."

Yong did a silent double-take at the word 'archangel'.

"No, I couldn't."

"Bullshit! You could have saved us a lot of trouble, man, not least of all you having to give up your grace just to free –"

"I didn't know about it because its existence was hidden from me!" Cas snapped testily, and Dean blinked at the sudden loss of contractions. Cas was actually glaring at him with real frustration…and anger. "Whatever you may believe, I don't have all of the answers. I have even fewer now that I'm mortal."

He didn't voice it, but Dean could almost hear 'because of you' tacked on to the end of that sentence. They scowled at each other for another second, before Dean looked away. "Fine, okay, whatever. So you didn't know about this ritual."

"None of God's angels knew about it, because he didn't create it. I imagine it was created recently, and at someone's behest. " Cas explained stiffly. He seemed to notice Dean's discomfort despite the attempts to hide it, and his tone gentled somewhat. "Even if I had known about it, you would still be exactly where you are now, only without Sam by your side."

Dean felt his stomach clench at the thought, and even his current angry anxiety couldn't keep him from admitting that Cas was right.

"Sam?" Dean and Cas tuned to Yong, who they had momentarily forgotten. "Who's Sam?"

"My sister," Dean replied easily, shooting Cas an annoyed glower for letting that slip.

"I thought your sister was Jane?"

"She is. Samantha Jane," Dean lied. "She prefers Jane – you know, it's more feminine. I've always called her 'Sam' to piss her off." Yong gave Dean a stare that a lifetime of hunting had taught him meant his con was falling apart, and so he cleared his throat and nodded to the book in Cas's hands. "So, you're saying someone asked for a custom made gate to Hell?"

"Yes," Cas nodded, finally returning his own attention to Yong. "You intimated that it was your father who left this to you?"

"Yeah," Yong said, attention lingering on Dean for a moment before it shifted to Cas. "Like I told them, I walked in on my father just as the portal was closing. All that was left of him were all his notes."

"But no ritual items? No clues?"

"Nothing outside of what's in the book," Yong nodded to the journal. "I figured it was all one-time use stuff that got burned up when the portal closed. Besides, most of it is stuff I never would have…" He trailed off, looking angry and regretful for a moment. "I'm not a hunter. I don't have the guts to go out into the field. The one time I tried…I nearly got killed by a ghost. It was an accident that I lived. I've never been able to help my Dad because I'm a coward. It sucks, but I've accepted that." He gave Dean a repentant look. "It's why I asked you and your sister to do it. I figured you'd have experience."

"You could have just said that instead of sending us on a wild goose chase," Dean pointed out roughly. "If you showed us some of the shit we needed for the ritual, we could have started with something else. Getting a witch to help might not be the easiest thing to start with."

"It is one of the easier components," Castiel said absently, without looking up from the journal that he was flipping through.

Dean rolled his eyes. "Jesus, who even came up with this, anyway?"

"A god," Cas explained unconcernedly. To Yong, he said, "Your father must have petitioned a specific deity to receive these directions. It was likely a god of travel, or perhaps the afterlife." He went quiet again, thoughtful. He gazed at Yong's pictures again, and then nodded in resolution. "Bari-degi."

Dean made a face. "Who?"

"In Korean mythology, she was a human who became a goddess," Yong explained, not taking his eyes off of Cas. "My grandmother used to tell me stories about her." When Dean made an impatient noise, he hurriedly went on, "The myth goes that she journeyed to the afterlife to save her ailing parents. She was hindered by many ghosts along her way. When she finally made it to the Water of Life, its guardian wouldn't agree to help her unless she married him. Which she did, and then she was able to save her family. After she died, she became the goddess of guiding the dead to the afterlife."

"Okay, that's a nice bedtime story, but it doesn't mean it's her. There are hundreds of gods it could be."

Castiel pointed to the picture of Yong and the old woman. "Your grandmother was a mudang."

It wasn't a question.

"Yeah," Yong nodded.

"Meaning what, for those of us who don't speak Korean?" Dean snapped, his temper rising up again.

"An intermediary between the spirits and gods and humans," Cas explained. "If she told him myths when he was younger, chances are she did the same with her own son. He would likely have sought help from a pantheon of deities he was familiar with."

"Wait a sec – you mean all that was real?" Yong gaped.

"You know angels and demons and ghosts are real but you don't think gods are?" Dean asked in disbelief.

"I had always assumed…" Yong trailed off, shook his head and then peered at Cas, as though seeing him for the first time. "You know, for a Judeo-Christian being, you seem to know an awful lot about pagan mythologies."

"I have been a soldier since before mankind existed. I have become adept at studying my enemies," Castiel returned.

He paused to let that sink in.

"Well, what are we waiting for?" Dean demanded. "There's got to be a way of summoning this goddess here."

"Why would we do that?" Yong asked tightly.

"So that we could see if there's a way to get into Hell without the whole ritual?" Dean suggested impatiently. "Maybe whatever gave your dad the directions can be convinced to help us out."

"It is not a good idea," Cas contended. "We have nothing to offer this deity as incentive to appear in a summoning, let alone to trade for ideas about how to travel into Hell."

Dean shrugged, and then grinned winningly. "Doesn't mean it's not worth a shot."

(*)

Sam hadn't been to an art gallery in years.

The closest he had come since getting back on the road with Dean was the auction house in New Paltz, but even that didn't really count because he and Dean had been working a job at the time. Before that, he had tried going with Jess, but she had been a lot like Dean in that she wasn't fascinated by modern art so much as partying with friends.

The last time he had been to an art gallery was his first semester in college; in his recently emancipated glory, he had taken an art history with the sole intention of trying to meet girls. Instead, he had discovered a genuine interest in impressionist art.

'None of which will be seen here,' he thought, glancing around the open space at the various examples of modern art. He'd really never gotten the allure of the stuff, and even pop art pushed the limits of what he could call tasteful.

The Margaret Stark Art Gallery was a privately owned studio located in a rather large loft deep in the city center. According to the website Sam had checked that morning, it was owned by the wife of a property developer in Prosperity, Indiana. Mrs. Stark flipped houses for a living and was very active in charity work in her spare time. According to the society notes on the web and in the online newspapers, she divided her time between Indiana and New York throughout the year.

'Apparently, though, she's spent the past six months here in the city,' he remembered as he circulated through the gallery, stopping every now and then to pretend to look at the art while in reality searching the crowd for Mrs. Stark. The event that Sam was gatecrashing that day was actually one of her bi-monthly charity auctions.

It hadn't taken a great leap to focus on Mrs. Stark as the prime suspect in the case. The online moniker QueenBeeStark and the IP address leading to the gallery provided a strong case for her being Nicki's demon blood supplier. The only problem was, on paper, Margaret Stark was more vanilla than those bored book club witches he and Dean had encountered the year before Dean's deal came due.

At this point, Sam wasn't even sure that the woman was even going to be present at the auction, but he might at least be able to find out where she was staying while in New York. The internet hadn't turned up a permanent residence, which could either mean her address was unlisted or she was living in a hotel suite somewhere.

He began to make another round of the gallery, listening carefully around the stodgy art speak and inane chatter of art aficionados chattering around the paintings. His best bet would be someone who worked at the gallery – better still, someone who was affiliated with the Margaret Stark Charity Foundation.

There were several people dressed in similar black professional ware circulating the event with appetizers and papers for buyers interested in participating in the silent auction going on, but he wouldn't be able to tell who worked with the foundation without interviewing each and every one of them.

'Which I can't do in one day,' he thought with a frown. He glanced down at his watch, noting that it had been two hours since he dropped off Castiel and Dean and then hightailed it to a nearby mall to buy some more formal clothing. (He'd allowed the salesgirl to choose the black blouse and pencil skirt, not trusting his own judgement in the matter). He was just hoping they were having better luck than he was when he changed to look up across the room. 'Then again, maybe I just got lucky.'

A beautiful woman in chique clothing had wandered into the room, followed by one slightly diminished looking but no less coifed. Her assistant, Sam supposed absently, as he studied Margaret Stark. She was olive skinned and leggy, with dark eyes and a flirtatious smile which she seemed to be turning on everyone she came in contact with.

'Best to get the basic tests out of the way,' Sam decided, fingering the holy water in the pocket of his skirt. There was a small chance that whoever supplied Nicki with the demon blood had actually been the demon itself, and if that was the case, Sam and Dean would have to be careful.

He strode forward, intent on getting to Mrs. Stark quickly through the throng of people.

He obviously wasn't paying attention to where he was going, because in his haste to maneuver around the guests that packed the gallery, he ran headlong into a dark-haired woman who was gliding in the opposite direction.

There was a moment of impact where the clipboard and pens which she had been carrying flew out of her hands, and Sam automatically reached out to steady the woman before she could fall down.

"Sorry," he said, face flushing when the people around them looked over and inwardly cursing the attention now focussed on them. Without looking at her, he let go of her and knelt down to pick up her things, cursing his wasted chance at getting to his target.

"Oh – no, you don't have to – it was my fault," the woman said. Her voice was familiar. "I've been running around like a chicken with my head cut off all morning."

Sam straightened up, pen in hand, ready to fake a laugh at their little gaffe, but he froze before he could.

Disbelief flitted through him.

"Sarah?"

There was a pause.

"Can I help you?" the woman who was most definitely Sarah Blake inquired, her polite smile not able to hide her confusion at how some stranger knew her name.

"Uh…"

It was a measure of how caught off guard he was that Sam couldn't immediately think of anything to say to her. It should have been a simple, automatic matter for his brain to formulate some story, and it wasn't like he had said anything to her yet which would give her any kind of expectation. As far as she knew, this was a first meeting, an impromptu introduction following a rather amusing act of clumsiness.

Staring into Sarah's earnest hazel eyes and noting the curve of her smile, Sam felt like his tongue was made of lead. His only immediate thought was that the last four years had been very kind to her.

She had gained a little weight in all of the right places, which was immediately apparent in the short, wide necked black dress she wore and the way her body moved when she shifted away from him into what was a socially acceptable distance. Her hair was shorter now, cut into a professional looking bob whose long bangs framed her high cheekbones and she was watching him expectantly, the set of her shoulders suggesting the same confidence she had displayed the first time he met her.

Sudden realization flickered in her expression. "Oh! Did Derek send you?"

"…yes," Sam said, not sure what else he was supposed to say. His brain flicked back into gear and maneuvered the pens and papers he had just picked up into the crook of his left arm, offering her his hand. "I'm, uh, Jane. Campbell. I was told to speak to you? I mean, I guess it's you, because you're Sarah, right? Sarah Blake?"

And Christ, could he sound like any more of a complete moron? But she didn't seem to notice, only chuckling brightly and taking his offered hand. "That's me – and it's good you got here when you did. A lot more people showed up than we thought. I didn't think Derek would be able to find anyone for us on such short notice." Her eyes flicked up and down Sam's body searchingly. "Must have been really short notice, he didn't even send you with a uniform."

"I literally got the phone call fifteen minutes ago," Sam lied with ease. "I was at a funeral this morning."

"Oh, I'm sorry!" Sarah cried, looking disheartened. "If I had known the jerk was going to call you at a funeral –"

"It's no problem, it was just a cousin that everyone hated anyway," Sam said quickly, and gestured to his attire, deciding to go with the story she had provided him with, "So, this is okay, right?"

"It's going to have to be, we're on a tight schedule," Sarah sighed. She pointed across the gallery to a small alcove. "The backroom is that way; it's being used as a prep-room, so you can get a tray and everything back there. Just make sure the wine keeps flowing and the guests stay happy, and you're good." She raised her eyebrows when she noticed that he was still staring at her. "Are you okay?"

Sam shook himself.

"Yeah – I'm fine. It's just…you don't really strike me as the party-planner type," he commented, trying to gain a little more information about her without blurting out, 'hey, you and I had a thing a few years ago, except I was a guy then, I just wanted to know if you remembered me and hey, what have you been doing all this time?'. It wasn't the weirdest thing he'd ever said to her, but it still wasn't a great thing to lead with. "I thought you were…"

He trailed off meaningfully, as though he knew exactly what she was doing there, and as expected, Sarah laughed. "Yeah, I know. I thought I was going to be behind the scenes the whole time, but Maggie's really stressed right now, so she needed all hands on deck. Seriously, though, I'm getting off easy. Her PA, Marcie, hasn't slept in three days trying to make sure everything's perfect."

"Sounds like Maggie's kind of a slave driver," Sam offered with good-natured humor.

Sarah's eyes widened at that, a quirk to her lips, but before she could reply, a smooth voice behind him intoned, "Only during functions, I swear. I'm Mother Theresa the rest of the year, I promise."

Sam had to control himself not to whirl around to face the owner of the voice, and carefully schooled his expression when he came in contact with Margaret Stark. She raised a perfectly arched eyebrow at him coyly, in an expression that was haughty and challenging.

"I don't know," Sarah put in jokingly before he could come up with some kind of apology, "I remember the silent auction at the Museum of Modern Art last winter, and 'slave driver' is putting it lightly."

The momentary tension dissipated immediately. Maggie laughed, a high sound which Sam expected to sound false but which was actually warm and honest. Beside her, the woman Sam had taken to be her assistant tittered nervously. She was waiflike and of average height, with dull brown eyes and hair, and seemed physically dwarfed by her boss, despite them being the same height.

"Sarah's been putting up with my Foundation's art auctions for the past three years, so she gets a pass," Maggie explained in a would-be conspiratorial voice. She suddenly snapped her fingers, and her assistant straightened up. "Marcie, can you go get us something to drink?"

"Champagne or wine?"

"Surprise me," Maggie purred, and when Marcie looked expectantly at Sam, Sam simply shook his head. He had yet to figure out if his alcohol tolerance was the same in this body, and he didn't intend to start today.

As Marcie hurried off, Maggie considered Sam. The action was more judgemental than the way Sarah had done it moments ago, but when she spoke her tone remained polite.

"Sarah's the best buyer I've ever had. Everything you see here –" she gestured to the paintings on the walls and several sculptures, " – is entirely due to her excellent taste." Maggie lowered her voice conspiratorially. "I prefer Renaissance art myself, but Sarah just has talent with the more recent stuff."

"You're not that bad!" Sarah protested.

"Please, honey, I pay you to do this for me because anything after Dali reminds me of cartoon drivel," Maggie made a dismissive motion as Marcie returned with two glasses of sparkling white wine, which Maggie and Sarah both took gingerly. "You sure we can't get you anything?"

"She's not actually here for the actual auction," Sarah said delicately as Maggie raised her glass to her lips. "This is Jane. Derek sent her over."

Maggie's entire demeanor shifted instantly, and she lowered the glass with a pleased smile. "He managed to find someone after all? That's great! I thought we were going to be so short-staffed that I'd have to start serving people."

Sarah and Marcie both rolled their eyes at that comment, but Sam could tell it was all in fun while he smiled hesitantly.

Maggie's friendly expression suddenly disappeared and an expression of annoyance over took it.

"Oh, no, they did not!" she hissed, practically shoving her glass into Marcie's hands and stalking away, bee lining for two men with cameras.

"Wasn't this supposed to be a press-free event?" Sarah asked Marcie.

"I bet they just heard that Don's in town for the divorce proceedings," Marcie sighed, rubbing her temple with her free hand.

Sarah made a noise of sympathy. "I don't know how she does it."

"She pawns it all off on me," Marcie grinned. She winked at Sam and raised Maggie's untouched wine to her lips. "Something tells me I'm gonna need this…better not let it go to waste."

"Better not, that stuff was expensive," Sarah joked as Marcie downed the stuff in one gulp.

There was a moment where time seemed to stop, and then suddenly Sam saw Marcie's eyes widen.

The glass fell to the floor, smoking and giving off a sharp smell. Marcie doubled over, clutching at her throat and making retching noises. Sarah gave a cry and jumped back, while Sam dove forward to catch Marcie before she hit the ground, getting a glob of blood spat in his face for his trouble. Smoke emanated from her throat as well, and her eyes were wide in pain and confusion.

"Call an ambulance!" Sam shouted, pleased to note that Sarah was already hauling her phone out. There were shouts of surprise and dismay all around as guests realized that something was going on.

As Sam tried to calm Marcie down and figure out how to help her, he caught sight of the twisted glass. It looked like someone had filled it with some kind of acid, because it was still smoking and the cup part was twisting in on itself. He could only imagine what Marcie's insides were looking like right now –

Something glinted at the base of the warped flute, and it took him a second to realize what he was seeing before he dove forward. He wrapped his fingers around the object, wincing as acid residue burned at his fingertips.

It was a coin, ancient, and exactly like the cursed ones he had seen used by the brother and sister witches that had summoned the demon Samhain the year before. It wasn't inside a hex bag, but it was clue enough to what was happening that Sam had to move quickly.

Behind him, Sarah was frantically giving directions to whoever was on the other end of line. Maggie had reappeared and she was immediately on her knees, her features twisted into disbelief and worry. "Marcie! Honey, can you hear me?"

Everyone was so focused on the twitching form of the personal assistant that they didn't see Sam set the coin on the ground and begin to grind it beneath his heel. It wouldn't have worked for a modern coin, but the oxidized silver of the ancient coin was weak enough that he soon felt it crumble. Marcie gave a final shuddering heave and went still.

"Is she okay?" he demanded, already reaching for her pulse, which was weak; by some miracle, she was still breathing.

"I don't know – what's happening?!" Maggie cried, tears smudging her mascara.

"They'll be here in five minutes!" Sarah was saying, and then she was moving around trying to get the guests to move away from Marcie's prone form. There were several bright flashes, and Sam heard her curse at the press, "Get the hell out of here! Don't you people have morals?"

Her voice retreated to the back of Sam's mind as he stared down at his fingers, stained from the blood on the coin. It was probably a binding agent to strengthen the curse.

Mildly, he brought it up to his nose and sniffed, tensing when the underlying scent of sulphur made its way up his nasal cavity and into his lungs.

Demon blood.

It looked as though their lead had panned out; Nicki's mysterious supplier had to have some kind of affiliation with the gallery.

"Is there anyone who would want to hurt Marcie? Or you?" Sam asked as paramedics finally showed up.

"How should I know?" Maggie demanded, obviously distraught. A moment later, she stared at Sam with wide eyes. "You think someone did this on purpose?"

"I doubt someone accidentally laces a wine flute with acid," Sam pointed out.

To his surprise, instead of shock and fear at the suggestion, a knowing look flickered in Maggie's face. It was so brief that only someone trained to notice detail, like Sam, would have noticed, before her concern returned in full.

"I'm going to the hospital," Maggie said firmly, already starting after the paramedics.

"I'll stay here and hold down the fort," Sarah was saying as Maggie and Sam stood up.

"Thanks," Maggie said, reaching for Sarah's hand and squeezing it lightly. "You're a lifesaver."

"Let me know how she's doing!" Sarah called after her, and then turned to Sam with a tense expression. "My God…"

'I don't think God had anything to do with it,' Sam thought, but wisely kept it to himself as he tried to parse everything he had seen in the past hour.

"Poor Marcie," Sarah sighed as people began to mull about again, chattering excitedly over the last few minutes events. There was a hard, thoughtful look in her eyes. "Who would do something like that?"

"Good question," Sam murmured, watching as Maggie disappeared.

(*)

If they didn't arrive at Yong's apartment and get this stupid summoning ritual over with soon, Dean was going to shoot the guy.

It turned out that the goofy-looking professor was a fiend for questions, which he asked with the rapid-fire curiosity of a school child as they drove to his apartment in a crappy Honda Civic. When Cas had finally given in to Dean's suggestion to summon Bari, he had insinuated that a more private place would be advisable. The professor had immediately volunteered his apartment.

Right now, the air around Yong seemed to vibrate with nervous excitement as he posed every vapid, angel-fanboy question he could think of. The guy was putting even Sam's nerdiness to shame.

It had only been ten minutes but Dean already wanted to haul out his own stupidly long hair.

Even worse than the questions were the awed looks Yong was shooting at Cas. It happened so often that Dean was surprised the guy hadn't crashed the car yet. He looked at Cas like he was the number 42, which was ten times more disturbing than the way Sam had looked at Cas when they first met. Like he was about to go down on his knees in front of him.

Which was a really, really disturbing image and he hoped he never thought about it again.

The absolute kicker, though, was that Cas didn't even seem to notice the epic wretchedness that was Yong popping a nerd boner. He answered all of the questions with a patience he had never shown with the Winchesters. And okay, granted, Dean had always maintained that he didn't want to know anything about angels beyond how to avoid them and how to kill them, but back when Sam was still the proper little angel-lover, he'd have given anything to know some of the stuff Cas was explaining. Being the 'Boy with the Demon Blood', however, had completely alienated him from ever again asking Cas questions.

'And now bow-tie-boy is lucking out,' Dean thought sourly, glaring at the two men sitting up front. He'd been relegated to the backseat because of some stupid logic having to do with his diminished height, which he really didn't appreciate, because the last few times he had been sitting in a car's backseat he had been dying from blood loss or had just been arrested. There was just something fundamentally wrong about him being in the back while Cas was riding shotgun.

"You could clear up so many academic questions – and not just in the field of classics, but in science as well," Yong was saying excitedly. "The things you must have seen…you have a unique perspective –"

"I really doubt they're going to accept 'because I lived it' as actual evidence of anything besides Cas needing to be locked in an institution somewhere," Dean spoke up sourly, annoyed to find that his voice had taken on a rather catty tone.

Christ, he needed to be out of this body sooner rather than later.

Yong looked momentarily taken aback, but then shook his head. There was a hopeful look in his eyes. "Maybe…maybe if he offered proof about things, the locations of forgotten civilizations – what Jesus of Nazareth was actually like –?"

"The knowledge is irrelevant to our mission, as well as my current purpose," Cas deflected disinterestedly.

"Which is?" Yong wanted to know.

Cas was the one to meet Dean's gaze in the rear-view mirror this time. "To ensure my charge doesn't do anything foolish like getting sent back to Hell."

The words 'my charge' sent something that was equal parts resentment and equal parts warmth cursing through his veins, and Dean had to remind himself to glare at Cas. "That'd work a lot better if you still had your wings, don't you think?"

Cas's response was cut off by Yong's breathless exclamation, "You had actual wings?"

Dean rolled his eyes. Honestly, the guy was turning out to be like a male Becky Rosen.

"Yes, but not in the sense that humans depict them," Cas answered after a moment's thought. "They are metaphysical manifestations of our grace and as such do not exist on this plane."

"Sure, Cas, give away all the trade secrets," Dean deadpanned.

Cas turned in his seat to stare at Dean. "You are always suggesting I be more personable. Am I doing it wrong?"

"Oh, no, bang up job," Dean replied sarcastically. "Just make sure he buys you dinner before you go all the way, okay?"

Cas's expression was utterly perplexed. "Go all the way where? We just had lunch not an hour ago."

And Dean really couldn't help the way his mouth quirked upward at that, because it was just such a Cas thing to say. It also helped that Yong's eyes, framed in the rear-view mirror, flashed with embarrassment and he quickly turned his attention back to the road. A sense of vindication flared within Dean for a moment, before he clued into just how many changes his mood had gone through within the past five minutes.

'Holy shit, I need a hit of testosterone before I completely cross over,' he thought with mounting horror.

He spent the remainder of the drive trying to remember when the next Stallone movie was coming out and making a mental note that they were going to a fucking steakhouse for dinner.

Yong's apartment was decently sized, and just as messy and ramshackle as his desk space at the university. Within minutes, Dean could see exactly why he and Bobby were colleagues, the way ancient books and odd relics cluttered up the space.

Something in him clenched up, because he hadn't spoken with Bobby in days – hadn't seen him in weeks. The only reassurance that the old hunter was alright was based on the word of a supposedly trusted dick angel that he'd never met.

'Can't think of that right now,' Dean told himself as he and Cas cleared as large a space as possible while Yong hovered around anxiously, getting in the way as he proposed different ways to make the space more protected or rushing around to get the materials that Cas said he needed. It was a measure of how much of a life the guy didn't have that he actually had every spell component needed.

They laid out a makeshift altar along the kitchen table, placing various bowls and containers in a specific pattern and filling them with offerings of fruit and wine. While Yong burned incense and Dean lit the candles, Cas took a paring knife and slit open the palm of his immobilized arm, using the blood to paint symbols in what looked like Korean across the top of the table.

"I could have done that, you know," Dean muttered as Cas grasped a napkin to stem the flow of blood.

"We've already discussed why that's a bad idea," Cas returned. "Now be quiet, I have to concentrate."

Dean's annoyed protest was cut off as the ex-angel began to chant something in the same, fluid language he had spoken with Yong in earlier. He made yet another mental note to complain that Cas was inheriting some of Sam's bitch tendencies, and tightened his grip on the wooden stake he had found in one of Yong's closets.

Just because they were asking this thing for information, didn't mean that he was stupid.

On the final syllable, the entire building shook, and then every candle in the apartment suddenly let off spurts of flame like they had morphed into fireworks.

Dean blinked when the lightshow stopped, realizing a moment later that they were no longer alone.

Bari, or whatever her name was, had taken the form of a pretty Korean woman of average height and with dark eyes that dominated her entire face. Eyes that were glaring out at them with such rage that Dean was surprised she didn't go for their throats right away.

Cas said something in Korean, and then bowed his head and finished in English, "Your presence is appreciated."

"That particular summoning hasn't been spoken in more than two thousand years. No one living should know of it," the goddess said, also in English. Her tone accusing as she stared Cas down. "You are no mere mortal, are you?"

"Not until recently," Cas replied, "but that has nothing to do with why we wish to speak to you."

"And you think three day old apples and melons are enough to warrant an audience with me?" she sniffed. "I have souls to guide and not enough time to deal with the likes of you."

"Then let's make this quick," Dean spoke up. He jerked his thumb in Yong's direction. "Did you give his old man a ritual to get into Hell?"

"How should I know?" she asked in annoyance.

"My father was named Hwan-Seung Yong," the professor spoke up, his wide in disbelief. For someone who supposedly knew so much about hunting, Dean was surprised at how new to the more practical side of things Yong was. Still, he was taking it rather well. "He was…he was a hunter."

"Hwan-Seung Yong," the goddess murmured, her eyes suddenly softening. "Yes, I knew him."

Yong looked hopeful.

"Hwan-Seung did contact me regarding a route to the Afterlife," Bari went on quietly, "but only when all other options exhausted themselves. When it turned out his wife's Savior God would not come through."

This was said with scorn, and the stare she leveled at Cas was unfriendly and judgemental in a way that made Dean sure she suspected what his friend had been.

"So, you helped him open a gate to Hell?" Dean prompted.

"I did no such thing," she replied coldly. "I merely showed him the way. The choice to travel that path was left to him. I knew what awaited him if he tried, and I attempted to warn him against the folly, but he would not listen."

"Then why give him a way in in the first place?" Dean wanted to know.

"Because I had no choice. I had a debt to repay, and that was what he asked for in return. A way to enter the Beyond to find his wife...that that path brought him to Hell…"

She trailed off, looking genuinely upset for something so inhuman.

Yong's voice was trembling, probably from disbelief over the entire ordeal. "What debt?"

Bari's expression softened as she looked at him. "Your father saved my life. The life of an immortal is precious, and I did not know how else to repay him but to promise him a favor. That was what he chose."

"So you did help him, then. Does that mean you can open the portal for us?" Dean wanted to know.

"I can. But I will not."

"What do you mean? Why not?" Dean demanded.

"Exactly as I say," Bari retorted. "Hwang-Seung's fate is already on my conscience, I will not condemn his son, or any other mortal, to the same one. Not before their time."

"Will you at least grant us your protection?" Cas asked. "The ritual you left suggests we require the 'protection of death'. You are considered an intermediary of Death, I would expect that would fulfil the requirements?"

"It would, but as I said, I will not," Bari answered. "Find some other being who will provide that to you, if you are so desperate to enter damnation. My work in this business is done." She glowered at all of them. "Do not summon me again."

Every candle in the apartment went out, leaving them in the semi-darkness of the afternoon.

"I suppose we should be lucky she wasn't hungry," Dean commented after a while.

"That was a terrible plan," Cas told him after a pause.

"Yeah, well, next one's yours," Dean shot back grouchily.

(*)

"Sarah?" Dean repeated incredulously as he leaned back on his motel bed, can of beer in hand while he stared up at his brother.

"Yeah."

"New Paltz auction house 'Sarah'?"

"Yes."

"Like, helped us hunt down Little-Orphan-Sweeny-Todd 'Sarah'?"

"Yes, Dean!"

"Okay, okay, relax, just making sure," Dean snorted, took a sip of beer, and then leered. "So, she still hot?" Sam made a face, and Dean whistled. "Hotter?"

"That's…not the point."

"The fact that you believe that is grounds for another check in the 'Sam was always a girl' column. Just so you know."

Sam rolled his eyes, not impressed. Dean had been testy since returning to the motel, probably because their latest attempt at supernatural help in saving Adam had been turned down by 'another bitchy pagan goddess'. Sam also suspected that Dean's initial dislike of Yong might have something to do with it, if his contemptuous snort when Sam had asked Castiel how he had managed with the professor was anything to go by.

'Looks like Cas made a friend and Dean's jealous,' Sam thought, eyeing Castiel, who was now hunched over Sam's laptop across the room, trying to look up the coin Sam had described to him from memory.

The ex-angel had a perplexed look on his face, like trying to navigate Google was as difficult as deciphering the Sumerian language. Granted, he probably spoke Sumerian, so maybe browsing the Net was a bit more difficult for him. Either way, Sam was going to take pity on the former angel in a few minutes and suggest a break.

For now, though, he refocused on his discussion with Dean. "Can we get back to the whole witch situation? A woman was attacked today."

"Yeah, I know. And it sucks, but it means we're on the right track. We've found ourselves a witch," Dean said in satisfaction. "And now that we know the ritual Yong gave us is the real deal, we're that much closer to getting Adam."

Which Sam couldn't really argue and it did make him feel a little better. But there was still one thing bothering. "I'm just…worried that maybe it's Sarah."

Dean stared, nonplussed. "Why would it be Sarah?"

"Because we don't randomly meet up with people from cases in the middle of another case. Not unless they're involved," Sam pointed out. "Remember Meg? And Gordon or Bela?"

"They were trying to kill us," Dean returned, and then after a thought, "Well, Gordon was trying to kill you."

"The point still stands."

"And I think you're being paranoid. We knew all those people were weird when we first met them."

"Meg was pretty normal the first time I met her."

"Yeah, well, speak for yourself. I knew she was trouble right away. No one ignores the Dean Winchester charm unless they're battin' for the other team or possessed by a demon."

"That why you kept trying to get me to sleep with her?" Sam deadpanned.

Dean shrugged. "Evil sex is better than no sex – and you had one hell of a dry spell going on." A look of dawning comprehension came over his face. "Holy shit."

"What?" Sam demanded.

"I haven't had sex in like a month," Dean said, eyes wide as though he was just become aware of the end of the world. Again.

Sam was not impressed. "Seriously? That's what you're focussing on now?"

"It all makes sense," Dean went on, like someone solving one of the world greatest problems. "That's why I feel like ripping my skin off lately."

"Aw, come on, Dean, TMI!"

"Guess this body just feels it differently and that's why I didn't notice," Dean continued. He suddenly looked at Sam. "And you! Sammy, it's been forever for you, how are you not spontaneously combusting right now?"

"I can't talk to you when you're like this," Sam groaned.

"According to this Google person, the coin Sam saw was a Sicilian aquile," Castiel announced, breaking up their little discussion. "They were used as currency as far back as the fifteenth century."

"Meaning we're not dealing with the garden variety witch," Dean groaned. "Great."

They spent the remainder of the afternoon in the motel. While Dean did some research on Marcie Ross and Maggie Stark and Castiel fell into an exhausted, cautious sleep, Sam called Sarah again under the pretense of having been given her number by whoever Derek was.

"I'm just calling to see how everything's going," he said, pacing absently back and forth in the room. "Today was really weird, and I wanted to see if you were okay."

"Oh – no, I'm fine," she assured him over the phone. "Trust me when I say it's not the freakiest thing I've ever seen." Sam couldn't help smile at that. "I should be asking about you – I mean, you weren't even supposed to be there today, right? Are you okay?"

"Also not the freakiest thing I've ever seen," Sam said, ignoring how Dean was glancing up from his research and giving him a thumbs-up. He flipped him the finger. "And Marcie's okay?"

"Maggie called to say she was out of surgery an hour ago, but that's the last I heard.

"Right…and how's Maggie?"

"Completely shook up."

"Understandable," Sam said, turning his back on Dean, who was making obnoxious kissing faces at him. "Man, who do you think would have done that to Marcie? Or why? Does Maggie have any enemies?"

"Not really, unless you count her soon-to-be-ex-husband," Sarah said. There was a sudden pause, like white noise, and then she said, "Listen, Jane, that's my other line. It might be Maggie, so I'll talk to you later. I'll be at the gallery tonight if you need to reach me."

"Okay. Great," Sam cleared his throat. "Bye."

She hung up, and Sam let out a sigh. Talking with Sarah again after so long felt strange, not least of all because she had no idea who he was.

When he turned back again, Dean was watching him with a filthy smirk.

"Shut up, jerk, I just got a lead we might want to check out," he said, cutting off the teasing he knew Dean was itching to break out. "Maggie's getting divorced – and at the party Marcie mentioned something about him being in town this week."

"The websites just say temporary separation, not divorce," Dean pointed out. "Isn't that what people say when they intend to get back together?"

"I guess it's being kept quiet," Sam shrugged. "Either way, it makes a case for the ex-husband being the witch. Give me a sec and I'll find out where he's staying." He reached for his laptop, which Dean made a half-hearted grab for. A split-second later, Sam saw why. "Oh, come on!"

Castiel jerked awake, making a surprised and annoyed sound at the fact his tenuous sleep had been interrupted by Sam's dismayed cry; meanwhile, Sam glared down at the unfortunately familiar homepage for Busty Asian Beauties Dot Com flashing up at him.

Dean just grinned. "What?"

"You're supposed to be researching, not…damn it Dean, we're sitting in the same room as an angel, don't you have any scruples?"

"Ex-angel," Dean reminded him shamelessly. "Besides, it's for everyone's own good. I need to get laid soon or I'm going to have a meltdown. This is…research."

"Why wasn't I born an only child?" Sam grumbled to himself as he closed down the porn site and opened up his anti-virus.

"Because Heaven ordained that you and Dean were meant to be born siblings," Castiel put in, earning a laugh from Dean and an annoyed grunt from Sam.

It wasn't hard to track down where Maggie's husband Donald was staying, and agreeing that Castiel wasn't up to active duty yet in case it turned out that Stark was their witch, Sam and Dean made the short drive across town to the Plaza Hotel.

The receptionist was accommodating enough when they flashed their fake NYPD badges and directed them to one of the larger suites on the eleventh floor.

When Sam knocked, the door to Mr. Stark's suite opened and a blond, blue eyed young woman, barely legal by the looks of it, dressed in a sharp looking pantsuit answered the door. "Yes?"

"I'm Detective Millington, this is Detective de Buhr," Dean said as he hand Sam flashed their badges. "We're with the New York City Police Department. Is Donald Stark here, miss?"

"Uh, one second," she said, eyes wide, and then called over her shoulder. "Don?"

Dean looked away from her, and then waggled his eyes meaningfully at Sam who shot him a disgusted look. Clearly Dean had porn on the brain again.

A man in his late forties appeared from one of the suites, tucking a cellphone into his pocket as he approached the door. He was tall and sharp featured, dressed just as smartly as the woman, like he was headed to a business meeting or something.

"Can I help you ladies?" Stark asked, his eyes performing the familiar appraising flick up and down.

"We're with the New York City Police Department," Sam said, flashing the badge again. "We have a few questions we need to ask you."

Stark's face was a picture of blank confusion. "Concerning what?"

"Are you aware there was an incident at your wife's charity auction this afternoon at twelve-thirty-five?" Sam asked. "A Marcie Ross was poisoned."

The woman's eyes widened, while Stark winced sympathetically. "Yes, I saw on the news." He turned to the girl. "Anne, I'm going to talk to these ladies for a moment. Would you do me a favor and grab me some of those onion blossom things from the restaurant? Been craving those things since I got here."

"Oh, of course," she beamed.

"And maybe a coconut muffin too?" he asked, hopeful like.

"Sure thing."

"Grab one for yourself, while you're at it. And hurry on back – you know how things fall apart without you," he told her earnestly. She giggled and left, pushing past Sam and Dean.

Dean sent Sam another meaningful look, which Sam resolutely ignored.

"Best assistant I've had in years," Stark told the brothers in a would-be confidential tone, motioning for them to come in. As he closed the door, he added, "Can we do this quickly? I've got a business dinner with Trump in an hour."

"There's a woman lying in the ICU with severe third degree burns down her esophagus, Mr. Stark," Sam said quietly. "This will take as long as it takes."

Stark's entire demeanor shifted into one of seriousness. "Right. About Marcie…poor girl. No one deserves that." He looked between Sam and Dean, and his expression hardened. "Have you found out anything about how that happened?"

"The crime scene was empty, and the catering company can't explain how a glass of sparkling wine got replaced with acid," Dean said meaningfully.

"Ah," Stark said, pursing his lips. "And if the NYPD is involved, I assume you think there's a would-be-murderer out there."

"It's looking that way, yes."

"And you're coming to me because…?"

"We believe the intended target was your wife," Sam said, carefully watching Stark's reaction.

Either he was really good at faking it, or the mixture of worry and anger were genuine. "What? Why?"

"A witness at the crime scene said the beverage was initially meant for her, and that her assistant drank it by accident," Sam said. "Mr. Stark, have you ever heard of anyone using the name QueenBeeStark? Perhaps through email or…?"

Stark shook his head. "Honestly, no. Although, Maggie could have changed her email address. She's changed a lot of things in the past year…and that sort of sounds like something she'd come up with."

Sam and Dean exchanged glances, before Sam continued, "Do you know of any enemies that your wife might have?"

"Enemies? No – well, other than me, at the moment," Stark offered a sheepish grin. "I don't know if you've heard, but we're in the midst of a rather…tense period." Dean raised an eyebrow, and Stark suddenly sobered again. "But I would never hurt Maggie. I love her. This separation…it's her idea, but I'm going through with it to make her happy. That's all I want."

"Sure," Dean said, not believing it.

"We are just going through a tough time," Stark maintained firmly. "It's temporary. Sometimes, you know, you grow apart. It's no one's fault."

"And how would you describe the, uh – the issues, between you and your wife?" Sam prompted.

"It's just one of those marital misunderstandings, you know," Stark looked exceedingly uncomfortable now.

"No, I'm sorry, I don't," Sam said, although he had a feeling he understood all-to-well.

Stark's discomfort increased. "It's one of those vague, hard-to-define passages."

Dean was practically grinning. "She caught you cheating, huh?" At Stark's defeated expression, he continued, "I couldn't help but notice, uh, things are kind of cordial between you and your assistant. Pretty good with the ladies there, Mr. Stark? It's a blessing and a curse, isn't it?"

"Ladies…I'm a people person," Stark defended himself, trying to keep his voice friendly despite obvious disquiet, "and I admire dynamic, confident women."

"Define 'admire'," Sam deadpanned.

"Okay, look – " Stark made a dismissive gesture. "It's true, I had a recent…little thing with a business associate, but that's all it was."

"A 'thing'," Dean repeated.

Stark flinched. "Yeah."

"Like a – like a shoe, or a golf club," Sam suggested.

"Right, like a waffle iron," Dean added.

"Yeah ."

Dean snorted. "Yeah – no, see, Don, uh, wives generally think of an affair as something more than a thing."

"Yes, and when Maggie found out about it, she needed some time off, temporarily," Stark stated stiffly, and then peered at them both again. "I'm sorry, but what does all of this have to do with what happened to Marcie Ross?"

"It's standard procedure, Mr. Stark. Everyone we've spoken to about Marcie said she didn't have any enemies, and if our suspicions about your wife being the target of the attack are true, the next course of action is to talk to anyone who might have cause to harm her – or who might have in the past."

"So I cheated on my wife and now you think I'm trying to kill her?" Don raised an eyebrow.

"Happens every day," Dean shrugged.

Stark's jaw clenched, and he stood up. "I think we're done here. If there's anything else you ladies would like to insinuate, have your department contact my lawyer. For now I think you should leave."

"Will do, sir," Dean said. "Just, uh, don't head back to Indiana any time soon."

Stark followed them to door, like he was seconds away from pushing them out himself. Dean jerked the door open and stopped dead, causing Sam to bump into him "What are you…?"

He went silent when he realized what had stopped his brother.

Anne was lying on the hotel carpet in a crumpled heap, blood congealed down her mouth and the front of her clothing, her eyes frozen wide in an expression of anguish and terror. By her feet, the Styrofoam container of food was also covered in blood, which spewed from the cupcake beside it.

"What is it?" Stark asked, pushing past Sam and Dean and stopping in his tracks. "Anne."

Dean was on his knees checking her vitals, barking out to Stark to call an ambulance. Trying to ignore the fact that this was the second Sam had been in this situation today, he reached down and gingerly picked up the cupcake. Whatever was spewing the blood from within looked eerily like a miniature human heart, and as he peeled away the soggy muffin paper he saw that there was a coin stuck to the bottom of the dessert.

"She's gone," Dean said heavily when Sam met his gaze, while Don looked completely distraught. "Whoever's doing this, they're going after people close to the Starks. Which means…"

It felt like the bottom had dropped out of Sam's stomach for a moment.

"Sarah!" he breathed.

(*)

They left Donald Stark with the assurance that their colleagues at the NYPD would take his statement and skipped out of the hotel before any of the real authorities could show up. There wasn't much else they could do, not with Sam looking like he might suddenly pull a runner.

As it was, he kept flipping his phone open and trying to call Sarah, only to be dissuaded when there was no one to take the call. The sixth time he did this as they got into the Charger, he glanced at Dean worriedly, "I keep getting her answering machine."

Dean tried to take the lighthearted approach to the situation, if anything to get his brother calmed down. "Should I be more amused by the fact that she didn't change her cell number in the past five years, or that after all that time you actually remember it off by heart?"

"Not funny, Dean," Sam scowled. "She could be hurt. Or dead, for all we know."

"She's probably fine," Dean said. "Didn't you tell me she's just a buyer? That doesn't necessarily mean that she and Maggie are close."

"They looked pretty friendly this morning," Sam grumbled. He groaned, running a hand through his hair in frustration, and then voiced something that had bothered him since running into her. "What's she even doing here? I mean, she sounded really happy with what she was doing in New Paltz –"

"Sam, it's been almost five years," Dean pointed out. "You really expect her to just freeze in time after meeting you? I mean, I know you're charming and all, but Sarah didn't strike me as the pining type."

"That's not – she's not – look, it's just messed up that she's here while we're trying to hunt out some sadistic demon worshipping witch," Sam finally bit out.

Dean nodded in silence, eying his brother knowingly. He hadn't seen Sam so upset about a girl since they had found out that chick he liked in San Francisco was a werewolf. When Sam tried to reach Sarah two more times, he eventually asked, "You gonna tell her?"

"Tell her what?"

"That you're you."

The statement encompassed quite a few things, but Sam still looked aghast. "Why the hell would I do that?"

"It's called being honest. I hear it's good for relationships."

"Ha-ha, like you would even know," Sam retorted. "And there's no relationship."

"I dunno, man, you said it yourself," Dean reminded him. "We never just randomly meet up with people we haven't seen in years, unless there's something going on. Maybe someone out in the universe is telling you to knock off the emo-crap and relax."

"Maybe you haven't noticed, Dean, but we're kind of in the middle of something," Sam retorted. "And in case spending all our time trying to jailbreak Hell isn't on your list of priorities, maybe you should check out the nearest mirror again. Unless you're warming up to your new cup size."

Dean whistled, actually sparing his feminine face a passing glance in the rear-view mirror. "Looks like I'm not the only one that needs to get laid."

Sam made a face and bit back a frustrated groan.

"Cas called while you were pretending to be a teenaged girl," Dean went on. "He says the coin we found by Anne is Romanian Cyrillic, and that it was only used in the mid-fifteenth to the nineteenth century. So, either our witch is a coin collector or –"

"Or there's more than one that we're dealing with," Sam finished. When they had dealt with witches that cursed coins in the past, they tended to use coins from a specific time period; it was almost like a calling card.

"And guess what else?"

"What?"

"Cas also found out that the Starks originally came to the States ten years ago. Guess where from?"

"You're kidding," Sam sat back, trying to put together his thoughts. A moment later, he frowned at Dean. "Cas found all that himself?"

"Apparently 'tedium endured due to a handicap encourages the acquisition of other skills'," Dean said, lowering his voice into a mocking imitation of Cas's. It didn't sound remotely similar, not least of all because Dean's current voice was too high. He went back to his normal tone. "Dude should just learn to jerk off when he's bored."

Sam bitchfaced. "Gross, Dean."

They parked outside the building and took the stairs up, the elevator obviously being too slow for Sam's knight in shining armour routine. The doors to the gallery were locked, but Dean made quick work of them, before following his brother in as back-up.

They were both armed, on the off-chance they were about to come face to face with a witch. Despite what he had said to Sam about the matter, Dean fervently hoped for his brother's sake that Sarah wasn't actually their mark.

The lights were mostly out in the place, casting sinister shadows on paintings that Dean didn't even have to really look at to categorize as highly overpriced trash. There was one light across the open concept space, leading into some kind of alcove or other room.

Dean nodded at Sam and prepared to cover his brother, who slowly hid his gun and moved forward.

"Sarah?" he called, the female voice echoing with the room's acoustics. "You here? It's Jane. From this afternoon?"

There was a sound of movement from the alcove in the back, and then someone came out. Dean squinted slightly, recognizing the familiar face –

'Damn, she did get hotter,' he thought idly, in the part of his brain that wasn't focussed on the job, 'Go, Sammy.'

"Jane?" Sarah asked, sounding confused but pleased. "What are you doing here?"

"I came by to check on you," Sam said in the soothing voice he used to deal with spooked witnesses in order to gain their trust. "You said on the phone…?"

"Oh, right – sorry, slipped my mind," she shook her head, and her gaze landed on Dean. "Who's this?"

"My sister Erica," Sam told her. "I didn't want to walk here alone at night."

"Yeah, that's probably a good idea," Sarah said, smiling. "I hate having to come by at night, there're all these psychos around. It's why I always…lock…up." Her smile faded, and she was suddenly staring at Sam and Dean in apprehension. "How did you get in here?"

"Uh," Sam shot Dean a panicked look.

"Well –" Dean began, but stopped when Sarah's eyes suddenly went wide at something over Sam's shoulder. He whirled around instantly, a second sooner than his brother, only having time to catch sight of a gorgeous woman with blazing angry eyes stride through the door, before he found himself thrown backward.

"I take it that's Maggie, huh?" he grunted as he tried to get up. Sam raised his gun and took aim at the woman.

"No, don't!" Sarah cried, knocking the hand that held the gun; Sam's shot went wide.

"Look – Sarah, you don't understand – !" Sam was grunting, trying to shove her off without hurting her while Maggie sent Dean careening across the polished floor. "She's a witch –"

Maggie flicked her wrist, and Dean was once again flying across the room. He swore a he collided with Sam, the two of them went headlong into another horribly solid wall.

When he recovered his wits and looked up, he saw Sarah standing over them, now holding Sam's gun.

"Tell me something I don't know," Sarah panted, and the sound of the safety of the gun being unclicked echoed in the empty gallery. "Like who the hell you two are."

(*)

To say that Sam was stunned was saying the absolute least.

For a moment as he considered the familiar woman standing in front of him, wielding his own gun with an ease he would never have credited her with. He flashed back to how she had looked five years before: face pale, braided hair astray and eyes wide in terror as she clung to him while he shielded her from that homicidal little girl's spirit.

The memory was gone a second later, replaced with dismay at the realization that he had been right about Sarah being involved in the case. She seemed too comfortable with what Maggie was for this to be a recent discovery, either.

His brain sputtered back online and he thought determinedly of a way to get out of this sudden turn of events, trying not to wince at every scenario which led him to seriously injuring the woman. Even if she was working with the witch – or God forbid was the supplier of demon blood somehow – he didn't want to hurt her.

"Who are you?" Sarah repeated, looking from Sam to Dean and back again.

"Not the ones you should be pointed the gun at, that's for damn sure," Dean spat, eyes flashing angrily. Apparently, Sam wasn't the only one disillusioned with the way things had turned out.

Sarah was cut off by Maggie's annoyed snort as the witch stepped forward, waving her hand with intent. Sam and Dean found themselves hauled upward and pushed tightly against the nearest wall, their feet dangling about a foot off the ground. The hard edge of a portrait dug into Sam's back, and there was an uncomfortable pressure on his windpipe.

"You're already skating on thin ice, missy," Maggie sneered at Dean, "You're lucky I don't have you coughing up your lungs yet. I hate nosy little hunters like you."

"Hunters?" Sarah queried, her grip on the gun loosening somewhat. She eyed Maggie beseechingly. "That's what they are?" She glanced to them and back. "That means they couldn't have been the ones that did that to Marcie."

"Not necessarily," Maggie scowled, showing no sign of releasing them. Instead, she increased whatever magical force was keeping them immobilized. "They're sneaky little toads…"

"Hey, we had nothing to do with that," Sam panted out in protest.

"You're wasting your breath," Dean bit out at him, glaring at Sarah. "And you – I thought you were supposed to be cool."

"Why would you think that?" Sarah wanted to know. "I've never met you before in my life."

"Sam told us," Sam said, deciding on a gamble that might at least put her off her guard. Dean made a pissed-off noise beside him, but Sam ignored him. His decision seemed to be the right one, at any rate, because Sarah started to lower the gun.

"Sam?" she repeated, surprise lacing her words. "Not Sam Winchester? You know him?"

"Intimately," Sam said, which wasn't a lie, really. There was a minute narrowing of her eyes and a look like suspicion, and he thought through what that had sounded like and winced, before amending, "We're cousins."

He winced again, because that didn't sound much better.

"They're lying," Maggie interjected conversationally.

"He told you about me?" Sarah wanted to know, lingering suspicion in the question.

"He said you helped him and his brother with a haunted painting a few years ago, up in New Paltz," Sam mumbled with effort, the pressure keeping him pinned to the wall distracting him slightly from watching her features. "He said you took it real well." He flinched as another burst of invisible power pressed him more tightly to the wall, "Then again, if you're hanging out with witches, maybe he was wrong."

"Racist," Maggie muttered.

Sarah frowned at him and said, "You don't know what you're talking about."

"I know she cursed her ex-husband's secretary," Sam argued. "Anne? She choked to death on her own blood a few hours ago –"

He groaned as Maggie made a squeezing motion with her fist, and began to cut off his oxygen supply in earnest. Beside him, Dean made a startled croak which convinced Sam the witch had done the same thing to him as well.

Sarah was facing her friend. "Is that true?"

Maggie made a scoffing sound, but when Sarah raised an eyebrow at her, she then huffed in annoyance. "He started it."

"Maggie!"

Sam's vision was beginning to go spotty.

"You saw what he did to Marcie? It was payback!"

"It's people's lives! Besides, you said you didn't do that anymore."

"I said I didn't do it often," Maggie corrected, "and you weren't complaining last time. Remember? The Tanzanian warlock that cursed you when you outbid him on that Goya?"

"I was throwing up leeches, it wasn't like I could have said anything anyhow –"

"Uh, hello? Choking to death?" Dean gagged.

"Maggie, let them down. Please," Sarah sighed. "There's obviously more going on here than we know."

Maggie looked like she really wanted to ignore Sarah's words. A moment later, though, she adopted a falsely cheery expression and Sam felt the invisible hand on his throat disappear. He hauled in a painful gulp of air just seconds before he felt himself released from his invisible bonds and landed clumsily on his feet.

A second later he and Dean went flying across the room again.

"Was that really necessary?" Sarah was asking as Sam recovered himself, though she sounded kind of amused. Beside him, Dean was rubbing at his throat and glaring at the two women with a look that promised violence as soon as he figured out how to do it without getting his ass kicked.

"Yes," Maggie was answering without a hint of remorse. She crossed her arms and focused her attention on Sam and Dean, looking expectant. "You've got about two minutes to explain yourselves before I change my mind." A dirty look at Sarah, and then, "Ask me if I'm kidding."

"She's not," Sarah assured them casually.

Sam raised an eyebrow, despite everything a little bit amused by the fact that an ex-auction house worker and a trophy-wife witch were actually playing the good-cop-bad-cop card on him and Dean. Sarah for her part didn't look as though she was working an angle, but seemed genuinely interested in hearing what he had to say. Still, he wasn't going to be taken off guard by her again. He'd done that once already today and it had landed him and Dean in this whole mess.

Then again, going about it the usual way wasn't going to cut it this time. He was going to have to play the cooperative hunter until he and Dean knew more of what was going on. Besides, if he managed the situation right, they might kill two birds with one stone, hunting down Nicki's demon blood supplier and getting a witch to create a spell for them to open a Hell gate.

"We're not going to try anything on Maggie," Sam assured slowly, ignoring Dean's 'speak-for-yourself'' snort. "We just want to talk."

To Sam's surprise, Sarah sighed and expertly removed the magazines from the gun, tossing them in one direction and the gun in the opposite. Then she faced him, hand on her hip. "So talk."

"You're down by thirty seconds," Maggie put in.

"We've been trying to track down a witch for a while now – not to kill. We need some help," Sam explained earnestly. "Along the way, though, we got a bit sidetracked by a case. There's someone dealing in demon blood – they've already supplied it to at least one person that we know of. It caused a lot of trouble, so we followed the trail here to see if we could stop it."

Sarah addressed Maggie curiously. "Demon blood? That's actually a thing?"

"A really old thing," Maggie confirmed grudgingly. "Old and dangerous."

"We thought it was a witch or a demon doing it," Sam went on, surprised at the witch's candor. That was new.

"And you followed the trail to me, did you?" Maggie inquired frostily. "Or is this just one of those bang-up jobs you people do where you make the evidence fit whatever crazy conclusion you came up with?"

Dean couldn't suppress a snort. "You're lecturing us on morals? Am I the only one who sees the irony here?"

"Oh, you're about to see a lot more than irony, honey," Maggie threatened.

"Bring it –!"

"Look, all we had to go on was an IP address and a Hotmail username," Sam interrupted quickly, before Dean's mouth got them into more trouble, "and it led us to your gallery. And with what happened at the event this afternoon, and then to your husband's assistant, we –"

"You just jumped to the conclusion that it was me, right?" Maggie returned. "Why would I hurt my own PA? Do you realize how hard it is to find a personal assistant these days without some kind of childhood trauma? That was Don."

"Christ, married witches?" Dean groaned.

"Besides," Maggie continued, as though she hadn't heard him, "if the only lead you've got was an IP address and a – a what was it? A username?"

"QueenBeeStark," Sam revealed grudgingly, because even he could recognize it wasn't a lot to go on.

"Ugh, I wouldn't socialize with someone who used such a tacky, self-promoting name, let alone use it myself," Maggie disdained, "I don't even use Hotmail, I have a corporate email account linked to my charity."

"Right, yeah, that's convincing," Dean sneered, "because you being a witch makes me really want to trust you."

"Face it – you came in here, guns blazing over something that could have been anyone and –"

"Found you, didn't we?"

"Enough, both of you," Sarah interrupted, just as Sam was about to do the same thing. She focussed on Sam. "What is it you want?"

"Right now? To stop whatever's been dealing demon blood," Sam said. "It's involved in what happened to Marcie, at least, because the coin we found beside her was covered in the stuff."

"Then whoever's doing it is both monumentally stupid and monumentally insane," Maggie said. "There's a reason witches don't work with demon blood, not least of all because it's too volatile." She smiled grimly. "It's sort of one of those 'bite the hand that feeds' kind of substances."

"We think the wine glass was meant for you," Sam said. "I asked you before if you have any enemies, and you didn't answer."

"Are you serious? Now we're helping the witch?" Dean exploded, at the same time that Maggie rolled her eyes and said, "Of course I have enemies – I spent the past eight hundred years screwing with people's lives, why do you think I'm so involved with charity work now?"

"What, you think funding soup kitchens and feeding orphans is going to save your immortal soul?" Dean deadpanned. He pretended to think, "Oh wait, you sold that already."

"It's insurance," Maggie sniffed.

"It's insane."

In the distance, there was a sound like a door banging open.

"Maggie?" someone called from the entrance hall, and everyone looked up as Don Stark strode into the room. He seemed to falter for a moment, taking in the four people gathered, and then recognition set in when his gaze fell on Sam and Dean. "You two!"

Once again, Sam and Dean were thrown backwards, skidding painfully across the floor as Don waved violently with one hand.

"I'm gonna start wearing fucking body armour," Dean mumbled furiously

"Stay the hell away from my wife!" Don snarled, stalking forward, hand still raised. He glanced aside, and in a normal voice, "Hi Sarah."

"Don," Sarah said in a strained voice.

"Did you get that email I sent you about the terracotta –ow!"

Maggie had stalked over and was smacking him upside the head. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"I'm trying to – ow! – save your – stop that! – life! They're hunters –"

"As usual, you're a decade late and a dollar short," Maggie growled, trying to slap him again even as he moved away. "I'm handling it. I don't need you riding in here in your shiny corvette every time I break a nail. I've been telling you that for eight hundred years!"

"Again with the women's lib," Don rolled his eyes. "You expect me to just sit by while a bunch of hunters go after my wife?"

"Dude, she just killed your assistant," Dean pointed out.

"Shut up, you," Maggie said, reaching out and sending Dean face-first into a painting.

"No, Maggie, that's a fair point," Don drawled. "Another case where you jumped the gun without finding out the whole story."

"The whole story? You tried to kill my PA – and you cheated on me! Humiliated me!"

"That was a long time ago," Don protested.

Sam saw the anger burgeoning on the faces of both witches, and realized they were minutes away from a meltdown that might end up killing everyone in the room. It was clearly time to switch tactics.

"Look, what Don did…we're not saying it's right, but when a relationship cracks, usually both parties have a hand in it," Sam attempted, looking at Sarah for support, but she was shaking her head viciously.

"You're defending him?" Maggie demanded, and then reached out to Sam. He crumpled forward, pain like fire in his veins lacing through him.

"Whoa! Okay, okay!" Dean exclaimed, pulling himself up again. He glared at Sam, a silent 'what the hell are you doing?' in the expression. "Okay, look – n-nobody can defend Don. Right? Uh, totally. But, uh, we get that you feel betrayed…because you were."

"Don't suck up to her," Don said, throwing out an arm and sending Dean up to hit the ceiling and then drop. Sam winced, sure that he heard something crack.

"Okay, okay, look –" he interrupted hurriedly, aware that his plan was completely falling apart. "I don't think Don was lying when he said he regrets the whole cheating thing."

"'Thing'?" Maggie hissed. "Sit down."

She pressed her palm flat and Sam's knees buckled.

"Affair," Sarah put in, wincing at the abuse Sam and Dean were going through. "I'm sure Don regrets the affair, Mags."

"The only thing he regrets is getting caught," Maggie returned, although she didn't make a move to attack Sarah. "It's part of a pattern, okay? Do not make me bring up the Renaissance."

"Oh! Oh!" Don snapped. "You're one to talk! 1492 ring any bells?"

"The man was about to set sail!" Maggie yelled. "He could possibly fall of the edge of the earth. I took pity – so what's your excuse?"

"The Medici chick was me coping! I'd just watched the love of my life waltz off with some big nosed, redheaded –"

"Ugh, this is ridiculous," Maggie groaned, raising her hands in annoyance, although this time it was thankfully free of any magical doozies aimed at Sam and Dean. "This is why I can't talk to you."

She turned on her heel to leave, and then stopped by the entrance of the gallery, staring back menacingly.

"Sarah, I want them all off my property by the time I get back, or you're fired." She then jabbed a finger at the Winchesters. "And if I ever see you two again, I'm going to boil your entrails in front of you."

She didn't even spare Don a parting remark, instead disappearing out the door in a huff.

There was a long, uncomfortable silence.

"That actually…went better than expected," Don volunteered after a moment.

(*)

"She's actually really nice once you get to know her," Sarah said after another moment, shrugging helplessly.

Dean shot her a disbelieving look, not quite in the forgiving mood just yet. "Yeah, I'll bet."

"Hey, watch it," Don snapped. "That's my wife you're talking about."

"Soon to be ex-wife," Dean reminded him.

Don's eyes narrowed and he raised his hand threateningly. "She's not the only one who can boil entrails, you know."

Dean snorted. "Buddy, I spent forty years in Hell. You don't scare me."

Sam nudged him roughly, giving him a warning look, and Dean rolled his eyes. It was highly unlikely Don knew anything about the apocalyptic shit-storm that had been the Winchesters destiny, why Sam was bothering to be so overly-cautious about revealing information like that, he didn't know.

Still, he dropped the matter and fixed Don with a cold look. "Why do you even care, anyway? I mean, you tried to poison her."

"I did not!"

"We found the coin," Sam said. "It wasn't hers."

"I don't use coins," Don replied, with the same contemptuous tone of voice that Maggie had used when she denied using Hotmail. Dean rolled his eyes again. It was just their luck that they had stumbled upon the witch-version of the Cleavers. "That's Maggie's thing. She likes the plausible deniability that comes with them. Me? I like to get my hands dirty."

"Wow, is it such a mystery why we don't trust you?" Dean asked sarcastically, and then said to Sarah, "And you're friends with these people?"

Sarah pursed her lips and crossed her arms at him, obviously unimpressed with his line of questioning. Dean didn't care, he was still stung by the fact that his judgement of her had been so off.

"So, wait," Sam cut in, his eyes narrowed in the familiar thinking expression that not even a feminine face could change. "Maggie went after your assistant because you had gone after hers…but if you're saying you didn't –"

"– which we're not saying we believe," Dean put in helpfully.

"– Then that means there's another witch out there, targeting your wife. Either trying to kill her, or maybe trying to pit the two of you against each other so you can destroy each other," Sam finished.

"Met any witches from the fifteenth century?" Dean asked. "Maybe someone who uses an Italian aikido?"

"Aquile," Sam corrected.

"Whatever," Dean remained unconcerned. "Maybe someone working with demon blood?"

"Maggie said demon blood is too dangerous to work with," Sarah pointed out helpfully.

"It is," Don agreed. "It's too potent. It completely magnifies the spells so much that they backfire more often than not. So whoever's using it is not terribly concerned with surviving to cast their next spell, or…"

"Or?" Dean and Sam prompted.

"Or they're extremely powerful," Don concluded. "They could be sworn to a demon that's particularly high up on the food chain."

"Which one's more likely?" Sam asked.

"The first. As far as I know, there are very few demons more powerful than the one Maggie and I are beholden to," Don said, smirking ruefully.

"And that is…?" Dean promoted.

"Oh, right, like I'm going to tell you?" Don scoffed. "My luck, you'd get some harebrained idea about summoning that bastard down here. We're not exactly on speaking terms this century, and I like it that way."

"Then how are you able to do your witchy crap, if you're not in bed with a demon?" Dean wanted to know, ignoring Sam's eye twitch at his wording. Served him right; as far as Dean was concerned, he had 'I told you so' rights for eternity on that one.

"Not every demon has a thing for mindless devotion," Don explained, "If that were the case, they'd possess those pretty-boys from Twilight and get their worshippers that way. Some just want a natural disaster committed in their names every few years. It's kind of a quality over quantity thing." He shrugged. "The point is: I don't need to be under the hairy eyeball of a demon right now. That thing's like the mother-in-law from Hell. Literally."

Dean mouthed wordlessly for a second, staring at Don, and then at Sarah, who didn't look at all surprised by this information.

"Our lives are weird," he said after a moment of processing all of that.

"You're only getting that now?" Sam snorted.

Dean ignored him, scrubbing his hand down his face in exasperation as his thoughts raced. The evening was obviously not going to progress in any way that made sense, and as much as he really wanted to start knocking off the self-satisfied asshole and his wife on principle, he was also very aware that right now, they needed his help. From the way Sam inclined his head just so, he was thinking along the same lines.

"Ok, look, we'll make you a deal," Dean said after a pause.

Don raised an eyebrow. "Oh, this I've got to hear."

"We'll help you figure out who's trying to off you and your wife. We'll help you stop them. And instead of us ganking you sons of bitches like I really, really want to, you're gonna do us a favor and we'll leave you alone this time."

"What makes you think I want your help?" Don snorted. "I'd much prefer to kill you here and be done with it. I can find whoever's doing this myself."

"Don," Sarah reprimanded.

"I'm sorry, Sarah, but that's the fact. You know how Maggie and I feel about hunters."

"And you know how I feel about them," Sarah reminded. "I happen to work with a lot of pretty decent ones." She then looked pointedly at Sam and Dean, "And a lot of pretty decent witches. There's no reason you can't all work together."

"Sorry, sweetheart, but this isn't a teambuilding exercise," Dean retorted. "You can't be friends with witches and hunters at the same time. At some point you're going to have to make a choice."

"Maybe, but not today," she told him firmly. She looked at the three of them in turn. "We're all trying to do the same thing here, right? It'd be nice if we could get through it with as little bloodshed as possible."

"And if we don't?" Dean wanted to know.

"Then Don kills you and, and I never speak to him or Maggie again," Sarah replied calmly. "Trust me, they value my friendship more than your lives."

Dean blinked, because, ouch. A glance in Don's direction suggested that was true.

"You've changed," Sam told her quietly.

Sarah gave him an odd look. "What do you mean?"

"Well, from what…Sam said," Sam said, looking a little flustered for a moment. "I mean, he said you were cool with all this stuff, but this is kind of like…Wow."

"I haven't seen your cousin in almost five years," Sarah said, with the remnants of an icy tone that Dean knew all too well. "Five years changes a lot."

"Apparently," Sam agreed quietly.

"Moving right along," Dean cleared his throat and returned his attention to Don again. "I don't care how old you are, hunting is what we do. You might have the patience to sit and wait while more people get killed while this thing tries to get to its intended target, but I don't. So if you want this shit over and done with within the next decade, I think your best bet is helping us out."

Don smirked.

"Much as I'd really like to cut off your head," Dean added after a moment.

"And say I decide to cooperate? What is this favor you want?" Don asked. "What kind of dark magic would a self-righteous little hunter like you want?"

"We need you to write a spell for us," Dean said. "Something infused with enough power that it can open a door."

"A door where?"

"Hell."

Don's eyebrows raised, and his mouth quirked. "Done."

Dean blinked. "O-kay, that was pretty easy."

"Are you kidding?" Don chuckled. "That deal's a no-lose situation for me. We screw up, you die, we don't, you go to Hell. I get to keep sending Sarah Christmas cards. Good odds for me, I'd say."

"Why are you trying to get to Hell?" Sarah wanted to know.

"That's not important right now," Sam said, sounding impatient. Dean could sort of understand why, they had been lingering here for the last ten minutes while there was a pissed off witch on the loose. And Maggie, too. "We need to get working. Now, while we're here, maybe we can get some more clues from that IP address – the gallery has a computer somewhere around here, right?"

"I think Maggie has one in the office upstairs. It's where she does all her finances," Don said, earning expressions of surprise from the brothers. "What? I helped her build up this gallery, before she wanted to roast my lungs."

A rather awkward journey upstairs later, in which Dean spent more time making sure he didn't have his back turned on Don than anything, they made it to a small, neat corner office. It was locked, of course, and neither Sarah or Don had the key. Sam started to pull out his lock pick, but Don simply rolled his eyes, waved and hand and sent the door flying open.

"She's going to be mad at you for breaking the door," Sarah pointed out.

"Add it to the list," Don replied wearily while Sam booted up the PC.

"Who has access to this computer?" he asked a few minutes later as he pulled whatever hacking job he was doing. Dean's skills when it came to computers were less pronounced, and so he left his brother to it, instead digging into his jeans for his phone. He hadn't checked in on Cas in a while.

"Just Maggie, I would imagine," Sarah said. Then, as an afterthought, she added, "Oh, and Marcie, of course."

"No one else?"

"It's password protected," Sarah said with a shake of her head. "I have to have Maggie sign me in on the few times I've ever needed to check anything out. I'm just a buyer – our business relationship is entirely separate from our friendship."

Dean stared down at his phone, noticing that he had missed seventeen calls and six voicemails, all from Cas's new cellphone. Before he could check his voicemail, it vibrated again. He flipped it open. "Cas?"

"I have been calling you several times over the last hour," Cas said without preamble, sounding annoyed. "Why haven't you picked up?"

"My phone was on vibrate. Didn't hear it."

"Why was it on vibrate?"

"We were sneaking onto private property, I had to turn it down."

"And did that somehow render you incapable of checking your messages?"

"Been kind of busy, dude."

"What is the point of procuring a phone for me if you are not going to answer when I call you from it?" the ex-angel wanted to know, sounding frustrated.

He wasn't yelling, but his voice was pitched loudly enough that Dean had to hold the phone away from his ear. Don was smirking at him again. "Boyfriend troubles?"

Sam burst out laughing, while Dean glared, and turned his back on the other people in the room. Lowering his voice, he ground out, "Cas is there a reason you're calling, or are you just going to bitch?"

"I have looked into the history of this Don Stark, and outwardly he seems "clean", as you say, but further research shows that he is connected to seven women who have died in the past year."

"Oh really?" Dean said, glancing back at Stark. "Can you text me their names?"

"Of course. Although, you should know, there is little evidence to support he knew these women beyond –" Cas's voice cut out, and then back in, " – and thus not likely."

"What?"

"I said –"

There was the cut of sound again, and Dean gave an annoyed sigh. "Cas, I keep losing you."

"Dean – there is – beeping noise – why is there a beep?"

"It's called call-waiting, dumbass, that's what happens when you give nerdy fanboys your cellphone number even after I told you not do."

"Is this the button I use to check – ?"

The dial tone sounded in his ear.

Sam was looking back at him, amused. "He can figure out how to Google, but he can't figure out call-waiting?"

"I still have trouble with that shit, cut him some slack," Dean said defensively.

It was another quarter of an hour before Cas managed to send the names – apparently Dean was right about Yong being the annoying caller – and Dean couldn't help grin at the misspellings in the words. Cas was still all thumbs when it came to texting, it was kind of cute.

Which, whoa. Just, no.

"These women," Don was saying, thankfully bringing Dean out of whatever disturbing, twilight zone he had briefly entered, looking over the photographs and information Sam had elected to bring up on the computer's browser. "I don't know them – well, obviously, I met them, but those are mostly photo ops. The only one I did know personally was Shelly." He pointed to a voluptuous blond woman with full lips and obviously fake breasts. "She was a realtor I worked with on a project in Indiana. Terrible accident last year, she was skiing and fell in the path of a snow blower."

"You sure it was an accident?" Sam prompted.

"Well, I was before," Don returned. "Given what we know now, though…"

"You know what this looks like, right?" Dean said. "All the victims so far have one thing in common. What looks on paper like a nice, close relationship with Don Stark."

"Well, except Marcie."

The three of them looked over to Sarah. Sam was the first to speak. "What?"

"All these women," Sarah explained, pointing to the photos on the computer. "They've showed up in pictures with Don or worked closely with him. They're all mentioned in news articles with him or having been at the same events. Except Marcie."

Don looked nonplussed, and then thoughtful. "That's true. I've met her a few times in the past when Maggie could stand being in the same building as me, but she's always been painfully shy. We barely exchange two words, and she's always looking at the floor."

"Obviously it was enough interaction for someone to get the right idea," Dean said. "Either Maggie thought so too and is a really good actress, or you've got a stalker on your ass."

"Maybe," Sam said thoughtfully, earning surprised looks from both Dean and Don.

"What do you mean, maybe?" Dean pressed, a little miffed. His theory was just as plausible as some of the stuff Sam came up with.

"Well, look at all of these women that died – Don said earlier he likes confident women, independent women – look at who he's married to," Sam suggested thoughtfully. "And according to all these blurbs on the vics, they were all successful, strong…but then you look at Marcie…"

"She's kind of the opposite of that, isn't she?" Sarah mused, catching on. She looked at Sam, and then Dean. "You don't think she…?"

"It's possible," Sam granted.

"But she's in the hospital," Sarah protested.

"If she's a powerful witch, she's not going to worry too much about a hemorrhaging esophagus for a while," Sam said. "She might even have set the whole thing up from the beginning to ensure she survived, just to keep herself safe. I mean, if I were going to take on two eight-hundred-year-old witches, I'd want all my bases covered."

"But that leaves the million dollar question," Dean said, turning to Don, "What the hell did you do to her that – ?" He trailed off, staring at the spot that had just been occupied by Don Stark. "These guys love to storm off, don't they?"

"I think we should find Marcie before Don does," Sam said carefully. "She could be the witch – but on the off-chance she isn't, and Don finds her?"

"Point taken."

(*)

"She's checked out," the tired looking nurse at New York Presbyterian said, checking her computer.

"But she was in the ICU," Sarah said, disbelieving.

"Well, according to this, she's got a clean bill of health and left here a few hours ago," the nurse replied.

"Did she leave herself, or was someone with her?"

"I wasn't on duty, ma'am, I couldn't tell you."

Sam forced a smile. "Thanks for your help."

He and Sarah left the reception area and headed out into the hospital parking lot. As soon as they cleared the doors, Sam dialed Dean's number. His brother picked up on the second ring.

"Marcie's our DB supplier, alright," Dean said, not bothering with a greeting. "There's a body here chained to a chair in a devil's trap. Been dead for a day, I'd say. And I checked her computer? She's spoken to about fifteen different people – all of them sound like spurned women, in my opinion – about transactions for the blood. And you should see her apartment."

"You found an altar?"

"More than that – vats of what I can only imagine is demon blood, couple dead animals and a hell of a lot of pictures of Don and Maggie."

"So she is trying to get rid of them," Sam said, nodding at Sarah meaningfully.

"Not exactly," his brother hedged. "All of the pictures of Don are intact, the pictures of Maggie – well, the pictures of any woman who's had contact with Don in the last year – not so much."

"Full-on Swimfan, then?"

"In a big way," Dean answered. "Listen, I'm going to pick up Cas on the way to meet you. If we've got a three-way witch-off going on, chances are we're gonna need some of his input on how to make it out with our balls intact."

'Figuratively speaking,' Sam didn't add.

Out loud, he said, "Okay. See you in a few," and hung up.

Sarah was already on her phone, trying to get through to both Don and Maggie. After several attempts and some worried voice messages, she offered him a worried glance. "They never ignore phone calls. Ever."

"It sounds like Marcie went looking for them. Or at least for Maggie."

"She's probably headed for the hotel penthouse. Maggie's been living there for six months now, ever since she left Don."

"We'll head there when D – Erica gets here – unless you're into stealing cars now too," Sam said, his voice colder than he intended.

"And what do we do when we get there?" Sarah challenged, frowning at him. "If Maggie's fine, she's not going to be happy to see you, and I can't promise to be able to keep her from killing you. And if she's not fine, then Marcie's there, and if what Don said is right, she's more powerful anyway. You want to just run in and take your chances, or do you want to come up with some kind of game plan?"

"Any ideas?" Sam returned.

"No," she answered shortly, and they dissolved into uncomfortable silence.

Sam frowned at nothing in particular, and then sighed. He wasn't being completely fair, and he knew it. As Sarah said, it had been years. They had both changed. And beyond that, she didn't even know that he was Sam Winchester, so there was no reason for him to be acting like he'd found out some unsavory secret his girlfriend was keeping from him.

Because she wasn't his girlfriend. He hadn't seen her in years, hadn't thought about her at all, really.

'Crap, what if Dean was right?' he thought suddenly, the thought coming out of left field. He was starting to think irrationally, what if it was some kind of sign that he, well, hadn't let off steam in a while? 'No, screw that. That's Dean-logic. So not applicable.'

In an effort to chase away those thoughts, he elected to break the uncomfortable silence.

"So..." he began, slightly unsure as to where he was going with this. He sensed movement out of the corner of his eye, probably Sarah turning to face him and kept his eyes on the the cars going in and out of the hotel parking lot. "Sam said you worked for your dad's auction house."

"Yes," she answered, the slight inflection at the end of the sentence telling him she knew he was trying to ask her something.

"How do you go from that to…well, being friends with a couple of witches?"

This time Sarah shifted in such an obvious way that Sam couldn't help turning to look at her. She was fixing him with the same shrewd gaze as she had when she asked him that loaded question about American Primitive the first time he met her. Only instead of the heated look of someone who was attracted to him, she seemed calculating.

"How did you become a hunter?" she countered.

Sam shrugged. "Sort of the family business."

"Have you ever tried to get out?" she asked.

"Yeah." He offered a rueful smile. "It didn't take."

She snorted. "Well, that's what it was like for me. After Sam and Dean left, after what I'd seen – I tried to go back to normal. I spent weeks telling myself I'd just gotten spectacularly drunk with my girlfriends and dreamed the whole thing up."

"What changed?" Sam asked tentatively.

"I was just curious – I started looking into all my dad's old files, records on pieces we had sold over the years, where they had ended up. Know what I found?"

"What?"

"Sixteen cursed pieces – and that's only in the last ten years. My family's been in the auction business for generations," she said sadly. "Sixteen pieces that we sold to people who ended up killed or hurt for no reason. And by the time I figured that out, there wasn't anyone I could call or tell. Sam changed his number or something, and I didn't know who else to contact…so I checked it out myself."

"No way," Sam said, part dismayed by such a stupid decision and part impressed.

"Yep. The first time, I made up some stupid story about scouting for an antiques road show so I could get a look at this old Maori warrior mask we'd sold. Turned out the spirit of the warrior was still trapped inside of it and was going around killing and, er, eating people."

Sam stared, fascinated and disgusted at the same time. "Eating? But it was a ghost. Right?"

"I guess while it manifested solidly it didn't matter," Sarah shrugged. "Anyway, I managed to burn the mask and get out of there before the police were called. Since then, I've been tracking down anything my family's auction house has sold and destroyed it if it was cursed. Of course, there are some things I don't know how to destroy. That's where Maggie and Don came in. They get rid of anything I can't."

"How'd that relationship get off the ground?" Sam asked, curious and impressed despite himself.

"I'd built up contacts in this line of work, when my reputation for identifying artefacts became known," Sarah shrugged. "Maggie and Don actually started off as just a business relationship. They hired me to determine the authenticity of a pair of Lhasa fertility idols they were interested in purchasing." She pursed her lips in a rueful smile. "This was when they were still together."

"Ah."

"Anyway, it turned out they were the real thing, so they wired me the money and they weren't cursed, so it was an easy job. I must have impressed them, because they called me again and again – and Maggie started to ask my input on non-magical items, and then we became friends."

"And when did you find out they were witches?"

"Well, I always knew they weren't the average happily married couple on the block," Sarah said with a smirk. "The things they asked me to authenticate kind of gave it away, but it's only in the last year they told me the truth. Or, well, I kind of found out while Maggie was saving my life."

"Right. Uh. Leeches?"

"So gross," Sarah shuddered at the memory.

There was another silence.

"And it…doesn't bother you that they worship demons and kill people for fun?" Sam asked for a moment. He knew it was a bit hypocritical coming from him, considering his history and the whole Ruby indiscretion, but he was having trouble picturing sweet, good-hearted Sarah associating with witches.

"They don't kill people for fun," she said after a moment, and then sighed, "Look, Jane, I know they're not going to be canonized any time soon, but they do a lot more good than evil these days. I think they're trying to make up for the last eight hundred years."

"What could possibly make up for the chaos they're responsible for?"

"…They saved my father's life."

Which put Sam right in his place, because he had forgiven a lot of things for the sake of his brother's or his father's life. He decided not to reveal that, though, instead asking tentatively, "What does your dad think of all this?"

Sarah laughed then. "He only knows about the legit consulting stuff. I mean, he even hires me sometimes, which is great because I can make sure he's not selling anything bad. As for the supernatural…I don't tell him. He wouldn't understand."

"Right."

"What about yours?" Sarah asked. "You said it's the family business. You hunt with your parents, or is it just you and your sister?"

"Both my parents are dead," Sam confided. "It's just me and Erica. And, well, Cas, but he's a new addition."

"Cas," Sarah repeated. "Is that who called your sister before?"

"Yeah," Sam said, and then grinned wickedly to himself in spite of the lie. "He's her husband."

"Wow," Sarah raised her eyebrows. "It really is a family business to you guys."

They were interrupted when a familiar car drove up, and Sam saw Dean and Cas in the front seats.

"Sarah, Cas – Cas, Sarah," Dean said as Sarah and Sam climbed into the backseat. As he buckled himself up, Sam noticed that Cas was holding onto a cardboard box with several items in it.

"He's her husband?" Sarah whispered innocuously, loud enough that everyone heard though. "But he's so…academic looking."

'Which is really a polite way of saying nerdy,' Sam thought to himself, snorting mirthfully as Dean glared at Sam in a way that promised violence later on and Cas just looked confused.

"So, what's our plan now?" Sam changed the subject as they pulled away from the hospital. "We can't exactly go in there, guns blazing on this one."

"Way ahead of you on that one," Dean said, nodding in Cas's direction. "He's got a plan."

"Witches get their power from demons, therefore if we separate this witch from her power source, we should be able to destroy her," Castiel explained in his usual neutral tone.

"How do we do that?" Sarah wanted to know.

"He knows an anti-witchcraft spell that might work," Dean said.

"'Might'?" Sam repeated.

"The spell is Akkadian, and the materials needed for it to be successful are by and large extinct," he gestured to the box in his lap, and added, "I have…had to improvise."

Sam suddenly recognized a scrap of black material in the box. It was the blouse he had worn to the function earlier. "Is that my shirt?"

Cas looked down, and then back up at Sam. "The witch bled on it."

"You cut a piece out of my – that was expensive, you know!"

"Shut up and deal with it, you big girl," Dean declared. "That's the only way we're going to be able to make sure the spell doesn't hit the Starks too. Remember? We kind of need them alive."

"If they're not already dead," Sarah said mournfully.

Dean shot her a look in the rear-view mirror, and then nodded at Sam. "Okay, so this is what we're going to do…"

(*)

Just because Cas had been the one to come up with the plan, and he happened to have been one of Heaven's finest strategists, didn't mean that Dean liked it. It depended on a lot of different factors going right at the same time, as well as the hope that Dean and Sam wouldn't get themselves killed waiting for everything to happen as calculated.

The key was Cas and Sarah being able to get to the building's water supply in time. On the way over, the ex-angel had created some kind of potion from Marcie's blood and whatever other materials he had cobbled together, which with the right incantation would supposedly bind Marcie's magic. Sarah had called one of her contacts for the building schematics for the Ritz, where Maggie was staying, and would help Cas dump the stuff into the hotel water supply.

Dean was still iffy on trusting Sarah, especially around Cas, injured as he was, but as Sam pointed out while they drove, her goals were exactly the same as theirs right now. He'd even used the puppy-eyes, which meant Dean was agreeing before he even noticed it.

'Kid's fucking dangerous,' Dean thought as he and Sam slipped into Maggie Stark's hotel suite at the Ritz. It had been easy enough to get a master key-card after flashing the concierge their homeland security badges, but Dean knew it was only a matter of time before their luck stopped. Jody Mills might have been manning Bobby's phones while he was…wherever he was, but managers in these swanky places were known for digging deeper than the one phone call.

They heard voices as they crept closer, coming from one of the rooms farther back. As they got closer, they could make out Don's speech.

"I'm sorry," he said, sounding desperate yet firm. "I really don't remember you, Marcie."

"Marcella!" the woman snarled, and Dean took a chance to glance around the doorframe.

He could only see her from the back, but what he noticed was that Marcie was a waiflike brunette, dressed like a librarian. The look was at odds with the powerful voice coming from her and the way she carried herself was anything but helpless.

He glanced at Sam, wanting confirmation that that was her, and Sam nodded grimly.

A second glance revealed Don several feet away from her. He was standing, but from the way his head was angled back, it looked like he was being held up by an invisible hand.

He seemed to have gotten off lucky.

Behind him, Maggie was pinned to the wall opposite, iron rebar from within the partition impaling her through her abdomen. Blood seeped through the wound and downward, staining the carpet. She was still alive, though, her eyes blazing in pain and fury; still she was being kept immobile. Dean could see the pressure cracks of the wall around her, meaning Marcie was holding her there by her will alone.

Not a good sign, considering Maggie and Don were supposedly more powerful than the average witch.

"Marcella," Don agreed, voice tense and sounding like he was in pain. "Listen, I really don't – "

"Florence!" she spat, sounding angry and hurt. "1493. In the home of my uncle, Lorenzo. You told me your wife was a traitorous whore and…we…you said…"

There was a sharp intake of breath, and then Don muttered, "Oh, shit."

Dean and Sam exchanged identical looks of sympathy.

'Christ, Don, couldn't keep it in your pants?' Dean thought grimly. 'No wonder Maggie wants your oysters on a tray…although, that explains that old coin…'

"…I looked for you," Marcie said, in a softening voice, pleading like she was trying to make him understand. "But you had gone – she took you away!" There was a loud groan of pain and the sound of iron moving, which made Dean think Marcie had just hauled another rebar out of the wall and through Maggie's body.

"Look, Marcie – Marcella," Don was imploring, "What we had…it was great, really. Wonderful. You were a…spirited girl." Dean winced, because apparently Don wasn't great at digging himself out of trouble, "But I was in a bad place – and Maggie and I, we made up. Because I –"

"Don't say that!" Marcie shrieked. "You can't say that! He told me you would stop, that once I found you, everything would be made right!"

Dean rolled his eyes. Seriously, this was becoming as far-fetched as an episode of Dr. Sexy.

Sam glanced at his watch, and then tilted his head in a 'go ahead' movement.

Dean took a breath, hoping he wasn't about to get his neck broken before their plan could come to fruition, and dove out from behind the wall. Careful to not hit Maggie or Don, he squeezed the trigger, praying that maybe he'd be able to take the witch by surprise and get a kill shot without her noticing.

The bullets slowed in midair, stopping directly in front of Marcie as she turned around. Her brown eyes flashed at Dean, and she sent him tumbling backward onto a glass end table, his gun falling from his grip.

Sam had already vaulted after her, shooting with intent, and managed to get one bullet to graze her shoulder, before he was thrown up against an antique looking oak cabinet. He crumpled downward and didn't move.

Dean cursed inwardly, because Marcie didn't even look fazed by the injury.

"And what have we here?" she mused, turning away from the other witches to face Sam and Dean. Maggie and Don remained immobilized as before, although Don had begun to murmur something under his breath. "Hunters?"

Dean hauled himself up, trying to ignore the creak in his bones and the rattle of the rib he was sure he had cracked earlier that evening.

"Lady, you ever heard of the saying 'he's just not that into you'?" he asked brazenly. "It's actually a book– no, you know what? I heard it was a movie now."

"You insolent little –" she made a cutting motion with her hand, and Dean winced as he felt a sharp throb in his spine. There was a searing burst of fire within him, and for a moment he thought she had severed his spinal cord. When her expression turned confused, though, he realized she hadn't.

As she turned, Dean saw Don continue muttering, and realized he was speaking some kind of spell. He must have been dampening Marcie's powers.

The witch realized this too, because she waved a hand and Don't mouth suddenly closed with an audible snap. He let out a pain moan, and from the drip of blood coming from the corner of his mouth, Dean figured she'd made him bite into his own tongue.

"No interference, amore mio," she said chidingly. "You and I will have our moment. Let me get rid of the vermin first." She leveled an unkind stare at Maggie. "And the dog."

She returned her attention to Dean, stalking forward like a large cat. She stopped in front of him though, a curious expression on her face, which changed to one of glee.

"Oh, this is beautiful," she breathed, and Dean winced, because her breath smelled like metal and sulphur. It occurred to him suddenly how she was so powerful. Not only had she been selling the stuff on the side, she had been drinking demon blood to increase her powers.

'Great,' he thought desperately.

"I can smell it on you, you know?" she purred at Dean, looking from him to where Sam was still not moving. "The magic on you? It's bound so tightly into you…I wonder what would happen if I unravelled it, hm?" She smiled widely. "I bet all your insides would break apart. And you…" She gazed at Dean with hungry glee in her eyes. "I bet your soul would just…shatter. It's so fragile right now…I've never shattered a soul before."

Dean forced a smirk. "Lady, you don't want to go there."

"Oh, really?" She started to pull the Force-Choke crap on him. "Want to try to tell me why?"

Just then, the sound of a fire alarm going off somewhere shattered the air. The sprinklers on the ceiling of the hotel room came on, spraying everyone with water and (hopefully, if Cas and Sarah had done their job), the materials used for the spell.

Marcie paused for a moment, staring contemptuously at the falling water, and then leveled an unimpressed stare at Dean. "I think I'll start by ripping your veins out of you, one by one. Starting with…"

She made a twisting motion with one finger. Excruciating pain flared all over his body, and Dean tried to scream, but couldn't make a sound over the blood that was suddenly spilling up his throat. His stomach heaved at the pain, and the world spun –

Behind Marcie, Sam suddenly appeared, hobbling to his feet like he had been biding his time.

"Akassīkunūši akammīkunūši anamdinkunūši," he rattled off determinedly, Cas's tutoring having stuck better with him than with Dean, "ana girra qāmê qâlî kāsî kāšidu ša kaššāpāti."

The effect was almost immediate.

Marcie froze, staring down at Dean in horrified rage as he continued to cough up blood and bile. She held her hands to her, as though the answers lay therein, and made the same twisting motion again, trying to finish him off.

Nothing happened.

Dean was dimly aware of Maggie and Don crumbling forward as Marcie's hold on them suddenly vanished, and then Marcie was wailing, "No! NO!"

Dean felt his lungs free up and he could breathe again as she rounded on Sam, who was still chanting.

"Akassīkunūši akammīkunūši anamdinkunūši ana girra qāmê qâlî kāsî kāšiduša kaššāpāti…Akassīkunūši akammīkunūši anamdinkunūši ana girra qāmê qâlî kāsî kāšiduša kaššāpāti…"

"Shut up! Shut up –!" she screamed, and there was a sharp, acrid scent in the air, and as he looked up, he saw that Marcie's entire form had begun to smoke; wherever the spray from above touched her, tiny green flames sprang up.

She tried to go for Sam's throat, but he held her off, and they watched in silence as her skin began to melt and burn off of her body and bones.

Don was crawling over to Maggie, cradling her in his arms. Both of them were drenched in the water, but neither seemed to be affected by it the way Marcie had been. Evidently the witch's blood had tailored the spell exactly the right way. Which was good, considering they had been trying to bind her, not turn her into goop.

"Well," Sam said, after a moment, staring down at the melted skin and bones that had been Marcie, "Cas did say he had to improvise…"