I gave her another kiss but ended it sooner than the first one. If I didn't I'd probably never leave, she understood and backed away. All those emotions she'd been showing vanished. She was back to business, that helped me focus. I got my bathroom stuff, just in case we'd be gone for a few days, packed clothes, walked past her to my old room and rooted around under the bed for the box of bullets. It was right where I'd left it, "Perfect, looks like I'm back in business." I told her as she waited in the threshold of the room.

"You know, Sam does have a point about the silenced 9 mils being a lot less likely to attract attention."

I stood back up and shoved the box into my bag. "Pssh, if I'm killing something I want the full effect. Firing one of those things is just so damn anti-climatic."

"Ahh, I see, it's a mood thing."

"Exactly. If I'm hunting, it's going to be loud and old school."

Laughter danced in her eyes but she managed not to smile, "Just like Baby huh?"

"Damn straight!" I managed to keep the mood light-ish but inside I was anything but. I needed the Purgatory blade. I'd already decided that was how I was going to end Gordon this time, then I was going to torch his fucked up ass and make damn sure he stayed down there. I made my way back to where the rest of them were, I hadn't seen the blade when I went into the armory the first time. Sam probably filed it somewhere under weapons we don't ever want to see again. "Hey."

Sam looked up from his laptop, "Yeah?"

I was starting to wonder if he'd even started packing yet. Then I realized he probably still had a bag always packed like I used to. "Where's my blade? The one I brought back."

It took him a second, I'd brought a few things back over the years, "From Purgatory?"

"Yup."

He hesitated as his eyes shifted to Coyote who was next to me, I saw her nod slightly. Apparently they were tag teaming keeping an eye on me, I guess I shouldn't be all that surprised. "Back of the armory, cabinet, here." He tossed me a set of keys. "The green one."

I caught the keys and looked at them. He'd bought those color coded key holder things, I just hope the lock wasn't painted green to make it overtly obvious which key went where. That would sort of defeat the purpose of having a secret lair and all. I chose not to say that out loud though, "Got it. Thanks."

Coyote chose not to follow me, she'd said and done everything she could for now. Ultimately, me staying on an even keel was up to me, she knew it, so did I. I opened the door to the armory, located the cabinet, the lock was not painted green, unlocked it and opened the door. All my old weapons that Sam chose not to use were there and they were spotless. He'd maintained them just like I would have, damn. My machete was there, most of my guns, my favorite sawed off, the Purgatory blade, they all gleamed in the bright white light from the ceiling fixtures. I knew he'd maintain Baby but part of me expected him to just lock these up. Sam's always liked to carry less stuff and be more efficient and Roy wouldn't use the guns as much as I did. I should have known better. I checked the barrels of some of the guns, there wasn't even the slightest bit of dust and they were all freshly oiled. I wondered how many times he'd cleaned them since I'd moved out and what he thought of when he did. Even though in a lot of ways he's always been the most independent of the two of us, it had to get to him being here all alone. Sam was never one for solitude. I didn't feel guilty for moving out, it was probably the only thing that had saved me, but seeing this, it felt like Sam was somehow a guardian of part of me, my past. Which was a damn weird thing to feel. Or maybe he'd just always known at some point or other I'd be back in it and would be pissed as hell if my stuff was dirty. I'd go with that, less weird.

I put the guns back and grabbed the bone hilt of the blade. Nothing hit me, no memories, no crappy emotions. I'd take that as a win. I set it on the countertop next to the cabinet and picked out what I wanted to add to the stash in the trunk and filled another bag with them. Then I locked the doors, picked up the blade, my bag and the vamp killing shells then went to go see what the rest were up to.

"That's some blade," Roy said when he saw me. "That's from Purgatory?"

"Yeah."

He took a closer look at it and noticed what it was made of, "Is that a bone?"

And let the reassessment of me begin, "Yeah, I took it off someone else, didn't make it myself. And no, I don't know where the bone's from but seeing as how all that's down there are monsters, I'll let you put two and two together."

He got a slightly sick look on his face but didn't say anything else. Oliver raised one eyebrow, cocked his head a bit to the side but left it at that. He'd survived on an island, I'm sure he'd made do with what he could find, no matter where it came from. Coyote didn't even look at it, maybe she'd seen in it our shared dreams.

Sam shut his laptop, "All right, job claimed as ours. I told Gerald and the rest to sit tight for now, but I sent out over the email that a group of hunters was going to Kansas City, Missouri to check out a hunt there. One of my researchers found something plausible enough to check out. Let's see if that makes any monsters show up. It's a big city, Felicity is going to hack into as many traffic cams as she can to monitor the place. If she sees anyone she's going to text us so we can call Gerald. It's a four hour drive, they can check it out same day."

"Sneaky, I like. You ready?"

"Yeah, I gave Oliver the extra shotguns and vamp killing shells already." He reached under the table and grabbed his bag.

"I got Coyote's stash of weapons in Baby, grab your favorites from you car and add it to the pile.

Coyote spoke up, "I got the rental while you were in the armory. Sam's letting me take his car to take Oliver to get it. I'll take the extra vamp death juice to Gerald then lock Sam's car up in the garage, he gave me spare keys, then we'll follow you. Anything else you guys can think of?"

"Vamp killing stuff, Purgatory blade, guns, underwear...nope, think I got everything." I replied. That got a half smile out of Oliver, which, with the situation we were looking at I figured was about equal to him falling to the floor laughing. Sam didn't say a word, Roy was still trying to process the fact that I was holding a bone attached to a jagged obsidian blade by strips of leather as calmly as he would a bow, while Coyote kept her face completely serious.

"Good," she said, "It sucks getting to a hunt and realizing that you don't have clean underwear to change into after getting the shit kicked out of you."

"Sure does." I wanted to hold onto her and never let go but I couldn't, "Sam? Let's roll. We'll see ya'll in a few hours."

We walked out, he grabbed a few things out of his car, put them in Baby then we got in. I turned the key, Soundgarden's Fell on Black Days started up, "Well, that fits."

"Whatsoever I've feared has
Come to life
Whatsoever I've fought off
Became my life

Just when everyday
Seemed to greet me with a smile
Sunspots have faded
And now I'm doing time
Now I'm doing time

'Cause I fell on
Black days
I fell on
Black days"

"I think Baby just knows what to play," Sam said.

"Yeah." I pulled onto the road. "It's not nearly as handy when the bad guys come back from the dead."

"Does tend to screw things up."

"Whomsoever I've cured

I've sickened now

Whomsoever I've cradled

I've put you down

I'm a searchlight soul they say
But I can't see it in the night
I'm only faking
When I get it right
When I get it right"

"Do we want to theorize as to how many other things got out of Purgatory and who this Alpha is?" He asked.

"Would it make any damn difference?" We hit the freeway and I accelerated to get into the fast lane as soon as I could. I wasn't in the mood for backwoods driving and I wanted to get there quick. "We can toss around ideas, but let's just save time and assume all of them and the Alpha Vamp. That way if it's not, we can have a pleasant surprise for once instead of a fucked up one."

He shrugged and looked out his window, "All right."

"Instead of that, let's talk about Cas. Did you know he's on Heaven's do not invite to anything, ever again, list?"

"Not officially, no." He didn't turn to look at me, "But I had a feeling. He's spent weeks at a time at the Bunker, won't even mention any other angels and won't tell me what he's doing when he's gone. When he is hanging out with me something's off. Yeah, he's gotten a bit more of a sense of humor, but it's pretty forced, even for Cas. He doesn't belong here, and it's starting to wear on him."

"It's not just that, he's not even allowed to talk to angels, not even on angel radio. A silent treatment there's no escape from because as long as he's got Grace he can feel them. Sam, he's choosing not to turn off angel radio, he feels it's some sort of penance. This exile is a mercy."

That got his attention, "He has a point, he's lucky he's not locked up like Gadreel was or dead, but still. Damn."

"How would I know?
That this could be my fate
How would I know?
That this could be my fate

So what you wanted to see good
Has made you blind
And what you wanted to be yours
Has made it mine

So don't you lock up something
That you wanted to see fly
Hands are for shaking
No, not tying
No, not tying"

The song ended, which was just fine by me. I didn't need anything else to make my mood worse. "So he never told you?"

He shook his head, "No."

"Damn. I think he's in trouble, like depressed. He made a comment about how he'll always be just a tool for someone else to use and if that was the case, he'd rather us use him than God or Heaven. This whole possible Purgatory prison break scenario hit him hard. He thinks it's his fault and that the portal could still be open, but he's screwed because Heaven wants nothing to do with us anymore so he can't really tell them to go check it out."

That hadn't made him too happy, "Like Heaven ever wanted anything to do with us anyway,"

"You know how he is. I had to ride his ass to not go run off and check Purgatory because we need him, but the more he thinks about this.."

"Yeah, I know." He interrupted, "Wow, this is like old times."

"So, ideas?"

"About helping depressed angels? Uh, no, not really."

"Well, think about it."

"All right."

The rest of the trip was pretty quiet, we pulled into town and followed our standard hunter protocol. Find dingy ass, cheap motel, check in, put on Fed threads, go talk to cops. This town only had two cop stations so we went to the closest one. Felicity had filled us in that Mark had owned a house here, bought it about five years ago. He was working at the local gun shop, his wife worked at a grocery store and the kids were in school. Seems they'd blended in well enough. I sent the address to the cop station to Coyote and we pulled into a restaurant across the street to wait for Coyote, and get lunch.

We took a seat on the patio of the place and I was quickly reminded of how much fun it is wondering which of the people around you is out to kill you. Normally our hunts aren't that bad, but trying to pretend I wasn't on edge, when I was, took some getting used to. Sam played his role perfectly, laptop opened, talking about the case like we had no background info and laying plans for the next steps. I followed along, inserting appropriate smart ass cynicism while keeping an eye on the traffic and who was looking at us. I pegged three people, two women and a guy, who seemed way too interested in our conversation. They all seemed to be our age, dressed in normal street clothes and looking at their phones. The problem was their eyes weren't all that focused on their screens and their fingers weren't moving all that often. So either they were watching crappy movies or were just pretending. I added the fact that they were all trying rather hard to stay out of the sun in and figured we had some winners. I nudged Sam's leg with my foot.

He looked up and I shifted my eyes towards the guy then right back to Sam, "Poor guy, those two chicks over there," I moved my finger in their general direction. "The short haired brunette and the punky blonde."

Sam nodded, "Yeah?"

"They keep sneaking looks his way but he's not even paying attention. If he'd look up from his phone he might be able to get some threesome action going. They kind of go together don't you think?" The blonde gave it away, her eyes jerked towards me then went right back to her screen which made her brunette friend shoot her a pretty pissed off sideways glare. The guy immediately started typing and I heard the blonde's phone go off. She shoved her phone in her bag, got up awfully quick and left. Amateurs. Fortunately, I saw Coyote pull up right then. She'd texted me the make, model and plates of the rental. I, unlike those idiots, have a girlfriend that's a pro who I happen to have on speed dial along with a Facetime app. She picked up on the first ring. I just kept talking to Sam. "Well damn, guess our friend is down to one playmate, since the hot blonde figured he wasn't worth the time to keep an eye on. Too bad, chick with a punk cut like that is bound to know some tricks."

"Brown pants, black blouse?" Coyote texted.

"Yup." Sam replied, "Sucks to be him. Maybe he should try to update his look."

I tilted the phone up enough so she could see the tables where the two were sitting, "Who the hell wears pinstripes these days anyway?"

I saw Roy get out of the back seat and follow the blonde. That'd help.

"Well, maybe he'll have better luck with the brunette," I continued, "At least her pants match his shirt. Sort of." She was wearing black and white striped spandex pants.

"All three, vamps." Popped up on my screen, great.

I put it back on the table and tapped the screen to get Sam to look at it. He glanced at it, but nothing showed on his face as he shoved his empty plate away, "Guess we should get moving."

"Yeah. We've got cops to talk to."

We acted like nothing interesting was happening, just two guys doing their job. As soon as we got off the porch I took a quick look back, wonder of wonders, both of them had disappeared. I glanced back towards the car. Coyote was leaning against the hood and Oliver was nowhere to be seen. The two must have headed off in the same direction and Oliver was following along. Coyote ran her hand through her hair and lingered by her ear for a second.

"Time to listen," I muttered to Sam who immediately put his hand on his right ear and scratched at it. He'd put the earpiece in as soon as we'd gotten into town.

"Kind of surprised we get such great cell reception here," he replied. "When I called the office earlier, it sounded like they were right next to me."

All this talking in code was kind of entertaining, sort of felt like I was in a spy movie. "Your government at work I guess." We walked into the station and spent the next half hour harassing cops, who of course had no useful information. We didn't really need them anyway. Oliver and Roy had followed the three to the same building, had set up surveillance on it and had seen two other people go in. Coyote was hanging by us to make sure no monsters visited the station while we were there. We did get the full location on the crime scene though, which was nice. I figured that should be our next stop. If we were going to get jumped by multiple vamps I wanted it to be as far away from innocent people as possible. Especially if Gordon somehow managed to show up, I didn't want to worry about collateral damage during that fight.