CHAPTER 11

By about ten AM, the tension in the car had risen to an almost-unbearable point.

Dean kept his eyes locked on the house, and didn't say a word. Neither did anyone else in the car, not for the past hour at least. And even then, that had only been because Sam and Cas had made a quick bathroom run down to the local gas station – that was the one good thing about having so many eyes, it meant that they could afford to have half their numbers leave once in a while, even if they still didn't dare get out of the car that often, since they didn't want to attract attention.

Dean had handed over the angel blade to Sam before he and Cas went. Sam had frowned and protested, but Dean had been firm on that one – if Sam was going to be going anywhere, then either he had to be armed, or he had to be with someone carrying a weapon. Sam had finally given in and taken it, though he'd practically shoved it back into Dean's hands the moment that they returned. Dean had grudgingly sheathed it in his jacket, then taken the coffee that Cas had held out to him and downed half of it in one gulp. Since then, nobody had said a single word.

It was going to be a long day.

Stakeouts were supposed to be silent. Hell, the last thing they wanted was for them to start yacking away and miss some sign of the demon's appearance. But this was different than the kind of silence that he and Sam usually shared. It was tenser. Way more stressful. Dean was pretty sure that the next time somebody even opened their mouth to speak, all four of them were going to explode.

The one good thing was that the hallucinations had at least gone away after the first ten minutes or so. Well, mostly. Every once in a while he got a glimpse of something floating in the corner of his eye, or of one of the others transforming into some sort of fanged beast. It was fucking with him, honestly. How the hell was he supposed to be watching for a demon when his mind still thought that this was a good idea to play make believe with him?

No way was he going to be able to spot when the demon actually came. He figured that the other three were going to have to handle that part, and he was going to have to follow their lead.

At least it wasn't as bad as it could've been. If Dean had been hallucinating all the time, he was pretty sure he would have lost it already.

Wait, scratch that. Actually, he was positive that he would've lost it by now in that case. As it was, he could feel the silence prickling his skin, and he was about two seconds away from scratching off his skin.

Okay, then, new plan.

Dean cleared his throat. "Do you got an FBI badge with you, Dad?" he asked. He figured that Dad had to. He was definitely dressed nice enough to be an agent – he must've had the same idea that they'd had.

Dad nodded, and Dean pulled open the glove compartment and started rooting through, pulling out the first three badges that he found that had the right pictures, not bothering to look for a matching set. "Okay, then," he said, pocketing the one badge and tossing the other two into the backseat, towards Sam and Cas. "I say that it's late enough for the FBI to be paying her a visit, don't you think."

"And what exactly do we say to her?" Cas asked.

Dean shrugged. "We'll make something up." Honestly, he didn't give a fuck what the story was, as long as it got them into her house. Besides, he and Sam were good at improv. He figured that if they went up their and started bouncing ideas off each other – and if Cas just kept his mouth shut and didn't actually say anything – then they'd find a way to get into her house, no problem. Staying there all day might be a problem, but worse case scenario, they could always come back out to the car and wait here if she tried to kick them out of the house.

But Dean was pretty sure that he couldn't stay in the Impala for another second. He'd go insane.

"Yeah, awesome," Sam said immediately, and quickly climbed out of the car, which made Dean think that he'd gotten just as sick of the sitting and waiting as Dean had. Dean followed his brother out, and the two of them headed up to the house without looking back, leaving Dad and Cas to hurry behind.

Dean wasn't entirely sure if Dad was going to approve of this sudden change of plan, or if he'd say that they should've stuck it out in the car and just watched for the rest of the day. The thought was enough to make it look like the ground was rising and falling under his feet, and he almost missed a step because how the ground looked to him was way different than where it actually was. But he recovered quickly, then took a breath and kept going, telling himself that he wasn't going to let these stupid hallucinations get in his way. And he definitely wasn't going to let them trip him up like a complete idiot.

Sam rang the doorbell, and they waited. After a minute, the door opened, revealing a girl who looked to be about Sam's age. Or, Dean guessed that she was the same age as Sam, based on what little he could see of her. She was wearing an oversized hoodie with the hood pulled up, covering half of her face, though Dean thought that he could see strands of dirty blonde hair sticking out of the hood. It was hard to tell anything else about her, considering that he couldn't even see her eyes. Still, though, he decided to go out on a limb and guess that this was their girl.

"Lily Baker?" he asked, giving her the most charming smile that he could manage and holding out his FBI badge towards her. He didn't introduce himself, mainly because he hadn't bothered to even glance at which badge he'd grabbed, or what his name was today. Instead, he just asked, "Do you mind if we come in and ask you a few questions?"

She crossed her arms tight over her chest, staring at the badge – or, at least, she inclined her head like she was looking at the badge, though it was hard to tell for sure. Dean was holding it out enough that she could take it from him if she wanted a closer look, but she didn't try to. Instead, she just said, "Agent Ace Frehley. Isn't that the singer from KISS?"

Sam stepped on Dean's foot, and Dean resisted the urge to glare at his brother – Sam always insisted that the celebrity aliases were a bad idea, and no way was Dean going to let him start thinking that he'd been right. Instead, he just kept his smile in place. "Yeah, I know, my parents were big fans. My dad couldn't resist."

She just nodded, not looking like she was really paying attention, and didn't question it further. Instead, she just took a deep breath and squared her shoulders, then stepped back. "Come in," she said, her voice soft enough that Dean could barely hear it.

"Are there any other family members currently in the house?" Sam asked as he led the way into the living room. Lily followed behind all four of them, her arms still wrapped tight around herself, and hanging way back, at least ten feet behind all of them.

Lily paused for a moment, staring at Sam for a long moment before finally shaking her head. "No," she said slowly. "My parents are out for the weekend." Then she cleared her throat, and gestured them all toward the couch over along one wall. "Go ahead and sit over there," she said, and gingerly lowered herself into the chair across the room from where she'd directed them.

Dean exchanged a look with Sam. Okay, clearly something was up with this girl – aside from the fact that she was one of the psychics, and obviously had demon blood in her. And jeez, that was the exact last thing that Dean needed to be reminding himself of right then, not when he still had to keep interacting with this girl for the rest of the day.

After a second, Sam just shrugged, and the two of them sat down on the couch beside each other, while Cas perched on the arm of the couch, next to Dean. Dad chose not to sit at all, and instead leaned back against the wall. His arms were crossed, and he looked casual enough, though Dean knew him well enough to be able to see that he was ready to whip out the Colt at a moment's notice.

"So," Lily said slowly. She was sitting with her legs tight together, her hands in her lap, one hand picking at a loose thread on her hoodie sleeve. She didn't look at them. "You're here to talk to me?"

"Uh, yeah," Dean said, somewhat awkwardly, and exchanged another glance with Sam. When he'd first come in here, his plan had basically been to invent a story about a murder, and a witness seeing someone who matched her description at the scene of the crime. It wasn't the best story in the world, and it'd fall apart the moment that she got on her computer to Google whether this supposed murder had actually taken place, but he figured it would serve its purpose. She wouldn't find out about it being faked until after they were gone, and it'd take a while to double check her alibi. Police formalities and all that. And of course, they wouldn't be able to leave her alone until everything was cleared up. Hell, if they played their cards right, they might even be able to put her under "surveillance" for the rest of the night.

Now, though, Dean wasn't so sure if that was the alley they should go down. Mainly because she looked guilty as fuck, and didn't even seem surprised when they'd showed up at her door. It was more like she looked resigned, maybe even like she'd been waiting for this to happen.

There was definitely something suspicious going on here, and until they knew what it was, Dean wasn't entirely sure what to say. Maybe they should've taken the time to do a little more research on Lily Baker before they'd rolled in here.

Sam looked like he was just as uncertain as Dean felt, meaning that he wasn't going to be any help. Dad was just watching, eyes narrowed, looking like he was content with letting Dean and Sam handle the talking while his eyes darted around, probably mapping out escape routes or watching for any demonic activity. That meant that Dean was probably going to be on his own with this one.

So of course Cas would be the one who decided to speak up.

"You look nervous," he said, tilting his head and looking at her carefully. "Have you done something that warrants your nervousness?"

Okay, Dean had to admit, that one was actually a pretty good question.

"What?" Lily asked immediately, then shook her head hard enough that it made her hood slide backwards, so Dean could see her face for the first time. "No," she said quickly, and yeah, that was pretty much the perfect way to guarantee that none of them actually believed her.

"Is there anything that you want to tell us?" Sam asked, leaning forward to fix her with some intense look, the kind that usually worked for getting people to crack. Clearly he was following Cas' strategy of asking vague questions until they figured out what the hell was going on, which seemed like a pretty good idea to Dean. Better than messing up and saying something to reveal that they didn't actually know what was going on.

She paused and frowned at Sam, just like she had before, but shook her head again. "I don't know anything, alright?" she said, and this time her voice was sharper, more insistent. "I've gone over this before with the other agents. I don't know what happened. She just-" Her voice broke off, and she shook her head and swallowed, then said, "It just happened."

This girl was getting fishier and fishier by the moment. "We just need to hear your side of the story," Dean said.

Sam nodded. "Why don't you start from the beginning?" he suggested. "Tell us what you were doing on the day of- On the day that this happened."

Lily had already opened her mouth to respond to Dean, but now she snapped it closed and leaned forward, looking hard at Sam. Her eyes narrowed for a moment, then suddenly widened. "I know you," she said, voice sharp, body stiffening. "You're the guy who called me to say that I was going to be kidnapped by demons."

John's head immediately snapped toward the side, giving Sam an odd look. Sam frowned, but Dean had to give him credit, he didn't shift in his seat or do anything else to make himself look guilty. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said, and sounded confused enough that he almost had Dean half convinced, even though Dean had heard Sam make the call himself.

Lily, though, just shook her head and insisted, "No, I recognize your voice. I listened to that voicemail a hundred times, I memorized everything that you said. It was definitely you."

The four of them all exchanged a glance. Or, well, Dean exchanged a glance with Sam and Cas, while Dad mostly narrowed his eyes and didn't look at all happy. And Cas, for the most part, seemed like he was just utterly baffled, looking at them with wide eyes like he was trying to figure out what the hell he was supposed to do.

For a moment, Dean thought that Sam was going to continue protesting, trying to convince her that it hadn't actually been him. Based on the way that she kept watching him, the suspicious look practically tattooed on her face, he wasn't going to have much luck though. And Dean could practically see the moment that Sam realized that, because he quickly switched gears and said, "But you know that I was telling the truth, don't you? You wouldn't have listened to it so often if you didn't."

Lily shifted in her chair, and from the way that she grimaced, Dean would say that Sam was spot on with that one.

Dean figured that it was about time that he jumped into this, give Sam a hand with convincing her. "And you have some sort of power, don't you? Something that started appearing a little less than a year ago?" Again, she didn't answer, but Dean just spread his hands and said, "Hey, no point in denying it. You would've called the cops on us if you didn't."

Lily scowled, but nodded. "Fine," she snapped. "I know what you're talking about, okay? That doesn't mean that I believe about demons being after my ass."

Sam shrugged. "Can you think of any better explanation?"

Her glare kicked up about a dozen notches, but she didn't say a word.

"Yeah, that's what I thought," Dean said, and stood, pulling a container of salt out of his pocket. It wasn't a whole lot, and he'd have to go grab the big bag out of the Impala if he wanted to do more than piss a demon off, but it was a start. "So what do you say the five of us plan out a strategy to try to figure out how to get you out of this alive?"

For a long minute, she didn't move, just sat there glaring at the four of them.

Then, finally, she nodded.

"You're going to have to explain this a whole lot better," she said, voice hard. "Like telling me how the demons are involved in all of this, or why you're suddenly so sure that they're going to be here to take me now."

"I can do that," Sam promised, and immediately launched into the explanation of this whole mess. And Dean was pretty sure that he was going to go with the short version, but it still sounded like it'd take longer than Dean wanted to stick around to listen to, so he didn't bother to sit back down while Sam rambled on. Instead, he wandered his way through the house, mentally noting all of the different entrances they'd have to block with salt if they wanted to barricade the house, trying to map out the route that the demons might take when they came to steal her away.

A moment later, he felt Cas walk up behind him, his arm pressed against the side of Dean's. Neither of them said anything, but Dean took a moment to glance over and nod at Cas, and Cas smiled slightly as they continued through the house.

They ended up back in the living room just as Sam was finishing up his sparknotes version of Azazel's story. Lily was curled up in a ball in the armchair by now, her arms wrapped even tighter around herself in a way that made her look way smaller than she had before, and that was saying something. But her eyes were locked on Sam's face, and judging by the way she was staring, Dean would say that she realized that everything that Sam had told her was true.

"So, will you let us stay here and protect you?" Sam asked. He was leaning forward, elbows on his knees and watching her closely.

The answer had to be yes. Who in the right mind would know that monsters were after them, know that there were people who wanted to keep them safe, and still turn this offer down?

Apparently Lily was exactly the kind of person to do that, because her mouth pressed together into a thin line, and she looked away. She didn't outright say no, but that sure as hell wasn't a yes.

Well, whatever. They didn't have time to wait around for some girl to decide whether she wanted them to save her ass. Dean turned to Sam, not waiting for her to make up her mind, and said, "We should decide how much demon-proofing we want to do." On one hand, they had to find a way to keep this girl safe, even if she was doing the emo thing and looked like she didn't want to be rescued. That had to be the priority, meaning that they needed enough salt and sigils to keep her out of trouble. But at the same time, if they wanted to kill Azazel, then tonight would be the best night to do it. And for that, it would be better if they didn't do anything to keep the demons out, so that Azazel never realized that anything was suspicious. Meaning that they were going to have to decide which strategy they wanted to go with.

Okay, maybe that would be something to talk to Lily about, considering that she was the one who would actually be in danger. Only if she was going to cooperate, though.

"We should also ensure that you cannot be possessed," Cas said, sending a concerned look in Lily's direction. There was a blue pen sitting on the coffee table, and Cas picked it up and stepped toward her. "There are sigils that can be drawn on the skin in order to prevent demons from being able to possess you. I can-"

Cas was maybe five feet away from the chair when Lily's head quickly jerked up, and she shook her head wildly, shoving her hands behind her back and flinching away. "Don't touch me," she snapped, so fiercely that it made Cas freeze immediately, the worried look on his face immediately tripling.

"Why?" Cas asked, and held the pen up so that she could see it, like he was trying to reassure her that it wasn't dangerous. "I understand that you may not like having someone draw on your skin, but I guarantee that I will do it quickly, and it will do much to keep you from harm."

"You don't want to touch me," Lily said, and this time, there was a different edge in her voice, like her words were less of a command and more like a warning.

Sam scooted forward slightly in his seat. "Why not?"

Lily's mouth twisted. "Because people touch me and they die," she spat. "That's what my power is, okay? So trust me when I say that you should stay back."

Dean quickly backed up a few steps, though Cas just stayed where he was, considering her. "Alright, then," he said, and held then pen out toward you. "I'm going to throw this lightly in your direction, if that is okay?" Lily frowned, and didn't say anything. After a few seconds, Cas evidentially decided to take that as a yes, because he tossed the pen into her lap, then unbuttoned the top of his shirt and pulled it aside to show her his tattoo. "You can draw this symbol onto your own skin, then," he said, then tilted his head and added, "Actually, I believe that we have charms in the Impala that were engraved with this symbol. It wouldn't be permanent, but that might be a better way to protect you. That way, we won't run the risk of you drawing the sigil incorrectly."

Lily stared down at the pen in her lap, and made no move to pick it up, or to do anything with it at all.

Cas frowned. "Is something wrong?"

"You don't have to help me, you know," she said harshly.

Cas' frown just deepened, and he shook his head, looking completely confused. "Azazel will take you if we don't," he said slowly. "That's reason enough for you to need our help."

Lily shook her head, which wasn't a surprise to Dean. He'd known that that wasn't what she'd meant. He also knew that they didn't have time for any of this martyr, I-don't-deserve-to-be-saved bullshit, so he decided to cut right to the chase. "Listen, we've been trying to kill this demon for out whole lives, and it's going to be here, coming after you, tonight. So sorry, but I don't care what you have to say about this, because we're not leaving until this bastard is dead."

Cas and Sam both turned and frowned at Dean, definitely looking like they didn't approve, like he should've been more sensitive to her feelings or some shit. Lily, though, nodded slowly. "Fine," she said. Her voice was stiff, and she wrapped her arms tighter around herself, but at least she was agreeing. She glanced over all four of them, her eyes flickering from person to person, then toward the salt that Dean was still holding. Finally, she took a deep breath, and raised her eyes to meet Dean's.

"So," she asked, "what do we do first?"