I'm sure that I don't need to preach to you about the importance of sleep when it comes to human beings. If your childhood was even slightly less weird than mine was, then you heard it from parents, teachers, doctors, coaches - every authority figure out there with a reason to be interested in your health. You don't wanna hear it again. You don't need to hear it again. I'm actually not sure why I wrote this article, because odds are that none of you are going to click on it.

Maybe I've just got too much time on my hands. So, hey, here goes.

Adolescents need about ten hours of sleep each night. Adults need eight. The average hunter gets five - if he feels really good about the place that he's sleeping in. And then he gets up and puts himself and, more often than not, about half a dozen other people, most of them civilians, in a life-or-death situation. What kind of effect do you think exhaustion will have on you when you're tracking a very old and very craft nest of vampires through a maze of dark aqueducts? Performing a complicated spell to seal away a wrathful god? Drawing information about missing children from a stubborn troll? Adrenaline is a hell of a hormone, but I could tell you about thirty different stories that prove it only goes so far.

Bottom line is that you need to sleep. Every night. For as long as you can. I don't care how many years of hunting you have under your belt or how dire the situation is: you need to rest, to give your mind time to reset and your body time to heal itself. You can't go for three days straight on coffee and whiskey. If you do, you're going to make mistakes, you're going to miss things, and you're going to get yourself and a whole bunch of other people killed. All because you were too stubborn to take a nap.

- "Sleep: What You Should be Doing," posted on website of Sam Winchester

CRASH!

Sam was woken from a light, fitful sleep that he could swear he'd just barely slipped into by the sound of metal and wood hitting cement, with roughly two hundred pounds of force behind it. He blinked the dry, achy gumminess of exhaustion out of his heavy-lidded eyes, then groaned into the pillow that his head was resting on and dragged the covers of his bed up over his ears. They felt like they weighed a million pounds, and his whole body ached.

Another ten minutes. That was all he needed. Just another ten minutes, and he'd be fine for the rest of the day. But sleep was being a dick about coming back to him this morning, and even if it hadn't, a steady symphony of rattling and banging noises had started up. Drilling into his head with all the precision and none of the aesthetic of a surgeon. Sam could have sobbed.

But he didn't. He couldn't. That kind of weakness wasn't allowed, at his age and in his line of work. He threw off the heavy covers and sat up, then sucked in a gasp when his leg abruptly cramped up. Sometimes, he was sure that it had a personality and a mind of its own, and that mind was a finicky one. It didn't like it when it didn't get enough sleep, enough rest, and he guessed that he couldn't blame it. He didn't like that, either.

Just like him, though, his leg was going to have to suck it up and deal with yet another day after a night that'd been anything but peaceful. That was why Sam walked on it, despite the pain and the weakness, as he left his bedroom after turning off his space heater. He almost put his foot through his dormant laptop when he got out of bed, and had to grab onto the wall when he stumbled to avoid it. His hip bumped his nightstand and sent a plastic glass full of lukewarm water tumbling to the floor and soaking into his rug. He groaned softly as he rubbed at his stinging, blurry eyes, then staggered out into the cabin's main room. God, he was out of it. He needed coffee.

As soon as the coffeemaker was ticking and bubbling away, Sam stood in the middle of the room, blinking past what felt like grains of pepper. He pushed his hands up through the mess that the night had made of his hair and yawned so widely the tendons of his jaw creaked. Slowly, he started to put his thoughts, as swollen and unappealing as the huge gray slugs that always came out after it rained, in order.

It was an odd day. That meant that he didn't need to feed Nadia and Vaughn until tonight, which was both a relief and a little troubling. He'd almost forgotten that they needed dinner on the last odd day and had had to scramble to get everything ready right before he went to bed - and he hadn't been nearly as tired then. He'd have to make a real effort not to forget.

Sam couldn't face Elspeth today. She was insanely dangerous, and he couldn't afford to screw up with her because he hadn't gotten enough sleep to think straight. He could put the headphones on wrong and be dead by tonight because he got an earful of her cry. And even if her screaming wasn't actually deadly, he could knock one of the stones of her circle out of place when he threw a weight at her and free her to claw his face off. She was not an option today. Just as she hadn't been for the last three days or so.

That just left the demon. Sam dropped his hands and let them dangle, knowing what he'd find before he glanced over his shoulder and through the bars of the iron gate: the same thing he'd found every morning, without fail, since the day after the Knight had spit at Sam.

He wasn't disappointed. The demon had tipped his chair over and was lying on his side, head resting on the floor and eyes staring ahead. They were green. He was rattling the chains that he could (those on his arms, the ones between the bracelets of his handcuffs) tirelessly, incessantly, and loudly. He hadn't stopped since Sam had gotten up, and Sam was in serious danger of getting used to the racket that he was making.

"Okay," Sam said. His voice, rough with lack of sleep, was drowned out by the chains, but the demon's eyes darted over to him anyway. He blinked, and they went black. "I'm just about sick of you."

But he hadn't even taken a full step towards the demon cell when there was a knock on the door. He turned and squinted at the battered, water-stained calendar by the door, glancing down from the picture of a red golden retriever, past MAY in block letters, and the square that indicated the nineteenth. He thought it was the nineteenth. It'd better be, because it'd taken a red pen to the nineteenth and used it to write and circle Delivery.

The chains must have kept him from heating Garth's car pulling up. Sam made an effort to smooth the fog of hair around his head away from his face, trying to look less insane, as he padded barefoot over to the door. He willfully ignored the demon as he unlocked the door and yanked it open."

"Hey-oh - oooh…" Sam was initially greeted by Garth's smiling face, but the happy expression quickly changed to one of concern as soon as he got a good look at him. "Somebody's grumpy."

"I didn't sleep well," Sam replied.

"Well, I wouldn't say so. I've seen lakes smaller than those circles under your eyes," Garth said with a frown, leaning in so that he could scrutinize Sam's face. Sam resisted the urge to lean back. "But I guess I can understand what they're doing there, if that was going on all night." Obviously talking about the rattling, he leaned around Sam, trying to see what was making it.

"Off and on," Sam said with a nod. He waited for a moment, awkwardly, then began, "Do you have - "

"Oh! Right, right...yeah, I've got all your stuff," Garth said, sticking his thumbs in the belt loops of his jeans and nodding emphatically. "The brains, and the blood…"

Sam waited again, and when Garth didn't go on, he cleared his throat. "So, d'you have any of my - "

"Of course I have your food and stuff too, Sam," Garth interrupted with a chuckle, rolling his eyes. "All the essentials." On the word "essentials," he reached up and tapped Sam on the nose with an index finger and a smile.

Sam blinked down at Garth, slowly. On a good day, Garth was a pick me up, a welcome and fun change in his repetitive routine. He liked hanging out with him, talking about what was going on in the world outside his cabin and basking in his quirkiness. Vaughn was decent enough company, but he was a teenager. And a wraith, though that didn't matter all that much, since it wasn't like he was dangerous. Garth was his friend. A peer.

In his current state, though, he couldn't find him anything but annoying. Really annoying.

Garth seemed to wilt a little, as if he'd picked up on what Sam was feeling. Which he might have. He was freakishly tuned in to other people's emotions, and if Sam hadn't already tested him, he'd think that he was some sort of weak psychic - an empath or a telepath.

"I'll go get everything in," he said, hopping off of Sam's front porch (backwards) and turning around.

"Lemme help you," Sam said, following him. Dried mud crunched beneath his bare feet. It hadn't rained since the day before Gordon's visit. "It's my stuff."

Reaching the open back door of Garth's car, Sam took the handles of several plastic bags into his hands and lifted them out. Garth grabbed for a scarred plastic cooler of the sort that you'd take on a fishing trip. Hauling it out with a groan, he staggered under the weight, and rapidly nodded his thanks when Sam reached out a hand to steady him.

"That butcher down there thinks you're crazy," Garth told him.

"Dr. Rochester?" Sam asked, raising an eyebrow. "I only asked him for chloroform that one - "

"No, no, no, the real butcher," Garth said, shaking his head. He nodded down to the cooler. "The one you get these pig parts from."

"Oh." Sam would have blushed, if he weren't so tired. "I...don't really care all that much."

"Yeah, I sorta figured," Garth said with a grin. They headed inside. "So, what's making that rattling sound?"

"Knight of Hell," Sam replied, putting his good foot on the first step of porch and heaving himself and the bags up with a grunt of effort.

Garth snorted behind him, and Sam could practically see him grinning. "No such thing."

"Yeah?" Sam asked, stepping inside and carrying the bags to his kitchenette. "Maybe you should tell him that." He jerked his head towards the demon cell. The rattling hadn't stopped. Or even slowed down. "You know where the brains go, right?"

"Yep," Garth said distractedly, craning his neck to try and get a glimpse of the demon as he carried the cooler towards the back door.

"You forgot the Tupperware, Garth," Sam reminded, going back outside. He carried in the rest of the groceries while Garth took care of Nadia and Vaughn's food. They were, for the most part, still in the plastic bags that they'd been put in at the store, but Garth had placed all the cold things in a Styrofoam cooler with bags of ice. Sam appreciated that.

Garth came back in as Sam was putting everything away. He leaned against the counter, nodded to the demon cell, and commented, "He doesn't look so tough. I mean, I wouldn't wanna wrestle him or anything, but he's not really…" He squeezed at the air in front of him. "Knight of Hell material."

Sam paused, glancing at Garth with a jar of creamy peanut butter in one hand. "That's partly because he's got more restraints on him than Hannibal Lecter. And no matter how loud he rattles them, he's not getting out." He put the peanut butter up. "How much do I owe you?"

"Oh, Sam." Garth waved a hand at him with a benevolent smile. "You know you don't owe me anything."

"I'm not doing this today, Garth," Sam replied. He closed the cabinet and rested his forehead against it, shutting his eyes.

Garth sighed. "Well, okay. If you insist. But tell you what." He leaned in to murmur directly in Sam's ear. "If you let me eat here, I'll take fifty dollars off."

Sam opened his eyes and looked at Garth without moving. Then he pushed off of the cabinet with a sigh of his own, straightening up and turning towards the coffeemaker. "Fine. I'll get the coffee - it should be ready by now."

Garth was a little guy. He would have been small next to Sam even if Sam had been a foot shorter. He was sort of mousy, too, with his brown hair and bright eyes, and shockingly big nose. But Sam had never found anybody who could smile bigger than he did, or more genuinely.

Garth ended up cooking. Sam let him, since he could probably burn cold cereal right now. He pulled on jeans while Garth made pancakes - he'd wanted bacon, too, but Sam didn't have any bacon, and the thought of eating something that came from a pig made his stomach lurch.

They ate outside on the porch to escape the rattling. Sam didn't have any furniture out there, so they just sat on the weathered boards with their backs up against the house and their plates on their laps. Sam's pancakes were gone within a matter of minutes. It'd been a long time since he'd had pancakes for breakfast, and Garth wasn't a bad cook.

"So," Garth began, mouth full. He swallowed, then continued. "Why's your Knight laying on his side in there?"

Sam had been resting, sitting with his head tipped back against the wall and his eyes closed, but he opened them and looked at Garth when he started talking. "Well, first of all, he's not 'my' Knight," he said. "If anything, he's Gordon's Knight. Gordon caught him."

Garth made a face. Sam shared the sentiment, though he didn't say anything about it.

"And second of all, he tipped himself over during the night," he continued. "It seems like it might be his favorite thing to do. I need to figure out how to bolt his chair to the floor."

"Are you just gonna leave him there?" Garth asked with a frown.

"No." Sam sighed. "I was gonna go in there and put him upright, but then I got distracted."

It took Garth a couple of seconds to get it. When he did, his eyes widened. "Oh." He hastily stood up, handing his empty plate and fork to Sam, who took much longer to get to his feet. "Well. I'll get out of your hair. So you can...sit your demon back up."

"Lemme pay you first," Sam replied. Garth must have finally gotten it, because he let Sam dig out his checkbook. He repaid him for the groceries, giving him the amount he claimed he'd spent (though he suspected he shaved about a hundred dollars off instead of the fifty he'd promised) and the fee that he felt people deserved when they brought him supplies.

Before he could hand the check off to Garth, though, the smaller man seemed to remember something. His eyebrows bounced up, and he raised a finger. Then he darted out the door. Sam, having no idea what was going on, stood where he was for a few seconds, then rolled his eyes and set the check aside. He sank into the nearest chair, which happened to be the one at his desk, to the sound of the demon's rattling.

Then, abruptly, the sound cut out. Only a few soft clinks drifted out of the cell for the next few seconds, and then there was nothing. Sam had been rubbing at the bridge of his nose, but now he raised his head, frowning, and peered over his shoulder. He found the demon staring at him, of course, but now his expression had changed - just like his arms had finally stilled. It almost looked...petulant. Like he was wondering why Sam hadn't picked him up yet.

Sam stared at him for a second, pushing the tip of his tongue against his lower lip, then raised his eyebrows. He shrugged and shook his head at the demon.

"Well, you tipped yourself over," he pointed out. It was only because he wasn't sure that he should be talking to him like this that he didn't add And you spit in my face. "Maybe it'll be good for you to lay there for a while."

At first, he wasn't sure that he'd been heard. But then he saw it - the demon rolled his eyes. So quickly that he couldn't be sure that it'd actually happened. Sam blinked.

The door opened again before he could think about it too much; Garth had been polite enough to close it behind himself when he ran out. Garth stepped in, smiling and waving a small package in one hand.

"Found it!" he announced cheerfully.

"Found what?" Sam asked, ignoring the demon as he moved to stand up. Garth hurried over before he could.

"No, c'mon, Sam - " Garth began, reluctantly trading the package for the check when Sam picked it up and offered it to him. "Stay where you are. Your leg is really hurting you right now. I can tell."

Sam decided it'd be easier not to protest. Besides - it wasn't like he was wrong. He spun the package in both hands, examining it, as Garth tucked the check away. Post office. His P.O. box scribbled on the address label. No return address, but that wasn't really uncommon, since a lot of hunters were paranoid about being tracked through any mail they sent.

"That was in your P.O. box when I checked," Garth informed him.

"Must've shown up pretty recently," Sam replied, pulling open one of the drawers of his desk. A cursory search turned up a reasonably sharp letter opener, which he took to the tape that sealed the box shut. "They haven't called me about it yet."

Garth shrugged by way of an answer, then watched curiously as Sam got the box open. He knew better than to just reach in there with his bare hand. He got a lot of dangerous stuff in the mail, and just because someone wasn't intentionally trying to hurt him didn't mean that he couldn't lose a finger or five. So he used the letter opener to pry out the contents.

A bunch of crumpled-up paper, packing material, tumbled out, and a plain silver lighter clattered onto the wooden surface of his desk. A small slip of paper fluttered down to rest beside it. Sam turned the paper with the point of the letter opener until he could read what had been scribbled on it.

"'Cursed lighter,'" he read out, then pushed said lighter away from himself. He swept all the paper off of his desk and into the small plastic wastebasket next to it, then dropped the letter opener back into the drawer that it'd come from. "Well. That's helpful."

"What're you gonna do with it?" Garth asked. Sam closed his eyes and massaged the lids with his fingers.

"Don't know," he replied. "First I gotta figure out what's wrong with it. I'll do that later."

He felt a hand on his wrist, and pulled his fingers away from his eyes in order to open them and squint up at Garth's earnest face. He started trying to tug him to his feet, but two hundred pounds of muscle didn't budge easily.

"Let's go lay down," Garth suggested. "You look like you're about to fall right over."

"Let's get me another cup of coffee," Sam replied. "I need to get him upright." He jerked a thumb in the general direction of the demon. "Nadia and Vaughn aren't gonna feed themselves tonight. And if I lay down right now, I'm not gonna get back up." Or the demon would start rattling his chains again and Sam's mind would snap as cleanly as a weathered bone.

Garth made a face, but scrambled to get Sam more coffee anyway. As much as Sam enjoyed his solitude, it was kinda nice, having somebody bring everything that he needed to him. When Garth set a mug full of steaming black liquid on the desk, Sam grabbed his hand and gave it a warm, grateful squeeze.

"Thanks, Garth," he told him. "For bringing everything up, and for making me breakfast. I really appreciate it - and it was great to see you."

Garth grinned, and playfully asked, "Is this your way of telling me to scram?"

Sam cleared his throat, looked away, and shrugged with one shoulder, embarrassed. Garth laughed.

"All right," Garth said, straightening. "I'll get outta your hair. Are you gonna be okay?"

"Fine," Sam assured him, nodding. "I'll take a shower, do some reading...take it easy."

"That is a good idea," Garth proclaimed, and made a beeline for the door. He paused as he put his hand on the knob, then glanced back over his shoulder at Sam, who did his best not to visibly grit his teeth. "Oh. Just remembered something I was supposed to tell you."

Sam spread his hands welcomingly, and Garth continued: "The pig parts didn't actually come from a pig this time."

"Uh...okay." Vaughn would probably be disappointed. "What're they from, then?"

"I think that your guy said that they came out of...lambs?" Garth squinted, wrinkling his nose. "He got a big order for them a little while ago, and decided that he didn't want the brains and the blood to go to waste. How green is that?"

He actually looked impressed. "Lambs. Okay. Got it. Thank you, Garth." That got rid of him, and the sound of his engine fading down the road both relieved and depressed Sam. He picked up the coffee, which appeared to be exactly the right temperature, took a long pull from it, and muttered, "At least Vaughn's gonna get some variety in his diet." Sure, he hadn't seemed too interested when they'd talked about it, but it would probably be good for him.

Sam drained the cup of coffee. That made him feel a little better, so he struggled to his feet, and forced his leg back into action. Limping over to the demon cell, he unlocked the gate, and pushed through. The demon watched him until he was standing behind the chair, where he couldn't see him anymore. Sam bent down, grabbed the back of it, and heaved both it and its contents upright in one go with a breathless grunt of effort. His back twinged with small pain, and he scowled at nothing in particular. One of these days, he was going to throw it out - all because he couldn't lift with his legs.

He walked back around to face the demon, giving his head a wide berth. It was the only part of his body that he could move freely. His hands were bound by the cuffs, his arms were chained to his chest, and the straps of the chair held him down, too: thick, scarred leather, more runes than Sam could count worked into it and the iron buckles. The demon was restrained at the chest, the stomach, across the thighs, right below the knees, and at each ankle. The straps on the chair's arms remained empty, for obvious reasons. The head was all Sam had to worry about, but it was a pretty formidable opponent, with the biting and the spitting. Neither of which he wanted to experience again.

The demon studied him curiously as he came to a stop several yards in front of him. Sam brushed a few tangled strands of brunette hair out of his face before speaking.

"Gonna rattle your chains again all night tonight?" he asked him. The prospect made him wilt inside, but no way was he gonna let the demon see that. "You know it doesn't do you any good. It never will."

Yeah, it didn't accomplish anything, besides keeping his captor awake all night and devastatingly tired all day. Tearing away swaths of a psyche that Sam suspected had already been unstable for several years now. He wished that there were something he could do to keep the sounds out, the clinking, the crashing, the thudding. But closing his door didn't block them, not completely, and both sets of headphones that he owned were too uncomfortable to wear while sleeping. They'd keep him up all night on their own.

The demon didn't answer. But Sam hadn't really expected him to; he imagined that his throat was still damaged, under the days-old bandage that had begun to show its age. After a couple of moments, though, the demon raised his hands. Sam automatically tensed, thinking that he was going to start rattling again. The Pavlovian response triggered a rush of shame, but now the demon was opening his hands, spreading his fingers wide. Sam had no idea what he was being shown, at first. Then he got it.

His fingers were perfectly straight. There was no swelling, no bruising, and no obvious fractures that Sam could pick out. They were no longer broken.

Sam stared. Then flicked his eyes up to the demon's face. He was impassive for a second, then his full lips pulled themselves into a smile that almost looked benevolent. Sam swallowed, turned, and left the cell, making sure to lock the gate behind him. His head was spinning as he retreated into his room.

This probably wouldn't have been that big of a deal to somebody who wasn't him, but he knew practically everything there was to know about demons, and how they worked. The thing was currently trussed up like a turkey in the demon-specific cell should not have been able to heal like that, according to what Sam understood about his kind. Not even if his vessel was alive. His fingers had been twisted brutally out of place...and it'd only been a few days. A normal human would have required surgery and months of rehabilitation to recover from that. The Knight had healed himself in under a week. There were very few things that were supposed to be able to do that, and angels (which Sam didn't ever plan on messing with) were among them.

Sam raked his hands through his hair and blew out a deep breath, momentarily closing his eyes. Well, now he had a better idea of what he was dealing with, at least. Which had been the demon's intention when he showed him his unmarred hands. It'd been a display of power - probably the only one he was capable of right now, with how tightly he was locked down in that cell. Or maybe it was a threat. He was showing him that he was healing, that he'd be back at his full power soon and that Sam'd better watch out. But he couldn't actively use any of that power, thanks to the runes and wards that surrounded him, so the healing must be a latent ability, passive magic…

Sam dropped onto his bed and reached for the nearest pencil and paper, which happened to be the Ticonderoga and notebook that he'd been using to jot things down about Elspeth, then flipped to the nearest blank page. He started scribbling, fear and shock turning to professional interest.

He'd gotten through about half the page, rapidly jotting down his observations and theories in his personalized shorthand, when the phone rang. Sam hissed through his teeth, but scooped it up from where it's dock was sitting on his nightstand with his left hand. After finishing up one last thought, he put his pencil down and leaned back against the wall. He was pretty sure that it was Garth, but he was wary about assuming, so he answered with a simple, "Yeah?"

"You're sounding pretty tired," Gordon observed.

Sam's eyes rolled skyward. Just what I need.

"Rough night," he replied. "Rough couple of nights, actually. How have you been?"

"Impatient." An engine thrummed behind Gordon's voice. He must be on the road, calling Sam on a cell phone. "Honestly expected you to call me the day after I dropped that Knight off with you. Tell me what you learned."

"Oh," Sam said. "Right. Yeah, I can see how you would've expected that. But I'm pretty sure you don't understand how busy I am right now. I've still got the banshee, and the wraith, and the dj - "

"And you couldn't've bumped a fucking Knight of Hell to the top of your to-do list?" Gordon demanded. "I know all about the wraith, by the way. You and I need to have a long talk about your relationship with that thing."

Sam reached up, rubbing at his eyes, and pulled the skin beneath one down as he struggled to hold back a sigh. Words bubbled out of his mouth - things that he probably wouldn't have said if he'd been less tired, had a better hold on himself.

"You didn't catch him, you didn't bring him in, and you didn't hold him for the last seven months." It came out weary and exasperated instead of annoyed, and he wasn't sure if that was better or not. Probably not. "You can snap at me all you want about your Knight, but the wraith's none of your business, and I think you know that."

He got a snort in answer, which he guessed was probably the best that he could hope for. "Careful, there, Winchester. You gotta keep a civil tongue in your head if you don't want somebody to cut it out for you." There was a pause, then Gordon grudgingly admitted, "But fair enough, I guess. So. Talk to me about that Knight - you get anything outta him yet?"

"Not really," Sam replied. He clamped down on a spark of bitterness before explaining. "He can't talk. His throat's hurt."

"He's faking it," Gordon said immediately. "Crocodile tears."

"His windpipe's crushed," Sam countered, an edge creeping into his voice before he could stop it. "Somebody grabbed him and squeezed until they broke the cartilage. It's a mess, and he physically can't talk."

Silence for a couple of seconds. Then: "We only did what we had to."

"Yeah, I'm sure." Sam blew out a breath. "I did find something, though."

"Yeah?" Gordon asked, interested.

Sam nodded, then remembered that Gordon couldn't see him, and continued. "He heals. Really, really fast. You guys snapped seven or eight of his fingers, and today, you can't even tell. He'll probably be able to talk again this time next week."

Gordon made an unimpressed tsking noise. "He heals, huh?"

"Yes."

"And how's that useful, exactly?"

Sam opened his mouth. His brain couldn't move fast enough for him to defend himself, though.

"I wanna know how to hurt this thing," Gordon went on. "How to kill him and all his kind. And I wanna know everything that he knows about the movements of his troops, and their plans, and the other leaders. You got no idea what it's like down here."

Sam assumed that he was referring to the supposed war against the forces of Hell that he had alluded to several days before, the battlefield that the Knight had been captured on. Neither of which Garth had mentioned today, which he felt like he should bring up.

"Garth who?" Gordon asked. "If I don't know him, I doubt he's involved. Listen, this thing is brutal, but it's still small, and you're the closest thing we've got to a network. You and Ellen and Ash, at the Roadhouse. Unless they're in the Midwest, they probably don't know what's going on. Guerrilla warfare and suicide missions. And that Knight's the only leader we've caught who hasn't been Oswalded yet." As he went on, something slipped into his voice that Sam could almost mistake for a plea. "We need information, here. We gotta nip this in the bud before it really gets going. And you gotta help us.

Sam didn't say anything for a little bit. He was so tired. Definitely not up to squaring off against the demon - which might've been his intention, actually, rattling his chains and tipping himself over every night. But he had a responsibility, didn't he? Especially if what Gordon said was true.

"Okay," he said finally. "I'll work on him today. Find out what hurts him bad enough to keep him down for at least a minute or two."

"That's more like it," Gordon said coolly. "He doesn't need to talk for that."

"Guess not," Sam agreed, but Gordon had already hung up, leaving him with nothing but dead air to keep him company.