Previously on Supernatural...

"I'm gonna slam that pagan bastard harder than a fifty-car pileup at rush hour. Then I'll run him over until he's roadkill. And then I'll make him regret ever touching my boys."

When Sam woke up on a sofa instead of a concrete floor, he sat straight up and was momentarily disoriented when he noticed that all the injuries he'd suffered were healed. The last thing he clearly remembered was Adonis instructing a car-woman to take him to the showroom and frame him -

For murder. Baby's murder.

Baby was -

"Sammy?"

His head snapped to the side and saw Baby kneeling beside him, alive and well. His confusion and fears evaporated as he wrapped his arms around her, immersing himself in her familiar aged-leather-fresh-air smell. "You have no idea how happy I am to see you," he said roughly.

Judging from how tightly she returned the embrace, she was obviously just as relieved. "I've got a good notion."

"How did you restart? Adonis said - "

Baby jerked her head to the side to indicate Castiel standing beside her. "Cas gave me a jump and reset my engine. But let's save the Twenty Questions for later, okay?" She quickly filled him in on Rose's change of heart as she directed him to his computer and look up the legend of Adonis.

Ten minutes later, he looked up from the screen to see Baby slipping weapons in her pockets and jacket. "So Adonis is the Greek god of beauty and desire," he reported. "Braxton probably summoned him to influence potential customers into desiring the cars enough to buy them. Then Adonis must've killed Braxton and assumed his identity."

"But then why start changing cars into girls? Doesn't make sense." Baby frowned as she twirled a knife between her fingers before sliding it into her boot. "What's the lore on this guy?"

"Fairly standard Greek tragedy crap, really," Sam shrugged as he browsed. "He was a mortal who caught the eye of Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty. She kept him as a lover, but a couple other gods were said to have him killed because they had issues with Aphrodite."

"A couple other gods?" Castiel repeated, curiosity present in the tiny furrow of his eyebrows.

"Depends on the version, but there's one thing in common - how he got whacked. A wild boar hooked him in the groin and he bled out."

"Ouch," Baby deadpanned as she jammed the last of the weapons inside her jacket. "So, we're thinking a stake dipped in boar's blood or a boar's tusk should do the trick, right?" Silver eyes glanced to Castiel, who disappeared amid the sound of flapping wings. Plopping on the now-cleared beds, Baby pulled out a handful of bullets and started slotting them into the clip of Dean's Colt. "I've seen enough to know how to work most everything in my trunk," she said at Sam's impressed look.

"I can see that."

"What about the dead plants I pinched?"

"According to legend, Aphrodite mixed his blood with nectar and up sprang the anemone, which is what these are," Sam said, picking up one of the withered blooms. "All the spells in the book call for them, including the one Adonis is going to be using tonight." Closing his laptop, Sam turned in his chair and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees as he looked at the Impala. "Hey, Baby? What happened after we left?"

Her hands stilled as her eyes went curiously flat, almost as lifeless as they'd looked while under Adonis' control. "I told you already."

"Not everything. What happened to Rachel?"

"I offered to patch her up, but she refused to give up where you and Dean were being held." Picking up the loaded clip, she slid it into the stock and pulled the slide back, clicking a bullet into the chamber. "So I cut her fluid lines and let her bleed out."

The clinical way she spoke chilled Sam to the point that he couldn't look at her, averting his eyes to stare at his computer. Deaths on the job didn't bother him as much as they once had, but the thought of Baby so coldly ending another being's life of her own volition...The hunter licked his lips before meeting her eyes again. "You sure you're okay?"

Baby rolled her eyes. "I'm getting real sick of people asking me that."

"So are you?"

"Never said I was." Setting down the ivory-handled gun, Baby met Sam's gaze squarely. "Look, can't cry over spilled fuel after a match lights it. I fucked up and you and Dean paid for it. I gotta accept this fact and move on." She licked her lips and added, "Besides, there's no way I'm letting you go out there without me."

Further arguments were silenced by Castiel's reappearance. "I went to Greece and slew the largest wild boar," he reported, placing a jar of blood, a pair of short tusks, and a handful of short branches on the table. "The branches are from a myrrh tree in the same region."

"Excellent. Here." She whipped out a combat blade and flipped it in her hand to offer it hilt-first to Sam. "You two start sharpening stakes and hammer out our gameplan. I'll find us a ride out."

Sam had to ask. "You're gonna steal a car?"

"Nah, I'm gonna bippity-boppity-boo one out of a squash," was her dry reply.

Castiel's tilted head and puzzled expression was followed by his stating, "I do not think your transformation granted you the power of reality warping."

"That was another joke, Cas." Baby shucked off her jacket and left it draped over a chair. "And I'm driving cuz I call it."

"Isn't that kind of redundant? You driving?" Sam asked, staring when he saw no sign of the trunkload of weapons she'd just concealed.

She put her hands on her hips as if daring him to argue, but her lips were twitching with mirth. "I'm the car, so of course I'm driving. You got a problem with it, you can walk."

"Seriously?" he scoffed in disbelief, but his own smile was pure amusement. "You'd make me walk to my own brother's rescue?"

"You've got two legs and a heartbeat, Running Man. What's the issue?"

Castiel cleared his throat. "I believe you are forgetting that I can merely teleport us to the warehouse," he interjected. "There is no need to commit car theft."

Baby burst out in a peal of laughter, clapping a hand on the angel's back. "You really need to learn when somebody's teasing you."

Getting walloped by Adonis was slightly less embarrassing than being walloped by a Leshii posing as Paris Hilton. At least back then he'd been able to fight back. But here, chained to the stone altar and utterly unable to defend himself, Dean could only take the abuse and ride it out.

Finally the beating ceased and Adonis drew back. Dean coughed up blood as he watched the god wipe his knuckles clean on a rag. "What, gettin' bored princess?" he joked. "That barely tickled."

A blatant lie, but bravado was all he had at the moment. Adonis had no idea of how to properly inflict pain using the least amount of damage, and Dean couldn't feel most of his extremities anymore. Blood loss was already making his vision blur and his body go numb. If the god didn't heal his internal injuries soon, Adonis wouldn't have a living soul for his ritual very much longer.

"You're tougher than most humans I've encountered. A very hard man to break." He sounded almost petulant, like a child who found a math problem more difficult than usual. "Well, I do love a challenge. Probably why I decided to press on even when Baby's advance failed."

Dean started at this admission, remembering their guessing why she'd drunkenly kissed him outside the bar. "Say what?"

"Who would've thought that it would take so much magic to force Baby to act on her wants? And then for you to break free of the hex and bring her out with you..." Adonis shook his head in disbelief, as if he were jealous of what the hunter had. "That's powerful love, Winchester. That love is what I need my girls to feel. That's the love I want."

"What d'you - " Dean was suddenly lightheaded, and it wasn't because of blood loss. A drowsy feeling stole over his body like the lapping water of a rising ocean tide. His eyelids felt like they were a hundred pounds each, fluttering as he fought to keep them open.

"Do you wonder why I chose to transform cars into women?" Adonis asked, his voice sounding like it echoed through an enormous cavern. Dean saw him pick up one of the flowers on the altar and rubbing the stem between his fingers to send the blossom spinning. "I once was desired by a goddess. But after I was cut down by those seeking revenge against her, my goddess forgot about me. She moved on." His hand clenched around the blossom and crushed the petals mercilessly. "She tore my heart apart more painfully than that boar's tusks tore at my flesh."

Dean tried to quip about how chowing down tubs of Ben and Jerry's usually soothed broken hearts, but whatever Adonis was doing really messed with his head. Everything was fuzzy, like breathing through a layer of gauze, and his eyes couldn't focus correctly...

"But my loves depend on me. They love me because I have given them far more than what mere humans are capable." Adonis turned his dark head, and through the gloom and moonlight Dean caught a glimpse of his inhuman eyes, twin pools of molten quicksilver that burned with centuries of rage. "Once I make my loves human, they'll love me forever. I will never be forgotten or unloved again. And for that, I need your soul."

Despite the languid feeling in his body, Dean managed to snarl, "You want it, you'll have to take it by force."

"Foolish human. You're going to give it to me."

"Yeah? How'd you figure?" The air suddenly smelled sickly sweet, like his face was buried in a pile of flowers. He coughed and choked on the smell, feeling drunk enough to see a Shojo...And suddenly Baby was standing in front of him. "What the...Baby?"

The look on her face so puzzled but so relieved to see him. "Dean? What are you doing chained up like a - " A short blade suddenly burst from her midsection, cutting her off with a squelching choke. A mixture of air and blood frothed at her lips, and she dropped to her knees to reveal Adonis standing behind her, his hand clenched around the short sword's hilt.

"Baby!" Dean struggled against his chains, trying to reach for her as she bled out mere inches from his tethered grasp. "Baby, no!"

"Give me your soul," Adonis said, "and I'll save her."

"NO!"

"Dean!" The sound of her voice made his head whip to the left where she stood alive and well. "Dean, hold on! I'm coming!" The words were barely out of her lips before Adonis materialized next to her and impaled her with his blade. Baby went down with an ear-splitting scream and writhed as her blood poured from her body.

"Give me your soul," Adonis demanded without changing expression. Baby reappeared again - just in time for Adonis to kill her once again.

"You bastard! Stop it!" screamed Dean. Tears poured from his eyes. "Please!"

"You know how to make it stop." A cruel smile adorned the god's face as Dean's screams pierced the night. It won't be long now. Another ten illusions' deaths and he'll be begging me to end his suffering.

Stick around, because next up is the rescue!

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