I drifted off somewhere between beating myself up again for taking the Mark and wondering if I should go to Cougar's room and let him make good on his threat. The alarm went off, jolting me awake. I hate those things, I also hate mornings just on general principle. I rolled over, turned it off and saw that Sam was still asleep, or pretending to be.

"Hey!" I chucked a pillow at him.

"Mrhmghm."

That was about all I made out, "Wake up, time to move."

"I'm up, I'm up." He rolled over and looked up at the ceiling.

"Roy still with us?"

"Yes."

"You don't sound all that thrilled about it."

"I'm not. Are you?"

"No, didn't want to drag him this far down."

"Me neither. He has his bow in his car, said he's more comfortable using that then a gun. I gave him a machete and some knives from our stash." He sat up.

"Hope he's at least half as good with that bow as Oliver is or he'll be a liability."

"Yeah, I know. I'll go clean up, we were up late talking. I'll text him, see if he's up."

"Cool. I'll call her and see what's going on."

He nodded, grabbed some clothes and went into the bathroom. I called her.

"Morning." She sounded wiped out.

"You sounding like that already doesn't bode well for the rest of the day."

"I got sleep, just not good sleep. Give me an hour, Cougar and I will meet you in your room."

"You sure you don't want to snoop around town first?"

"She's in those woods, trust me." She'd gone from wiped out to tense in about five seconds.

"Vision, hunch or both?"

"Hunch, backed by what Cougar told me when he got back from Jim's place. Someone tried to take them out."

That got me moving. I sat up and swung my legs off the bed, "What? Are they all right? Why the hell didn't you call me?"

"Cougar took care of it. Someone took a shot at them, he tracked them into the hills for an hour or so; didn't see them but saw enough hints. She's there, she has friends with her and it's not going to be an easy hike. Didn't tell you last night because there was no point. I'm not taking us into the hills at night where she knows the lay of the land and we don't. I need an hour to prep a few things. See you then." She hung up. As much as I care about her, the whole take charge and hang up on me gets downright irritating after a few times. This was her world, I trusted her but I've never gotten used to someone other than Dad giving orders and he's been gone for years. It's probably good for me, give me an idea of how Sam felt growing up and all that. I looked at it that way for about three seconds, didn't help. Since I was awake and wasn't going to be able to doze after that conversation I stood up and grabbed some of the food Sam had picked up. I was chowing down on some sort of pastry thing when he came out of the bathroom.

"Roy's up, he'll be over in a few. What's going on with Coyote?"

"She'll be here in an hour, she didn't sleep well, oh and someone took a shot at Cougar and Jim last night. It's okay though because Cougar took an unscheduled hike into the woods and found hints that Leaping Deer and friends are there. Nothing big or anything."

"Uh huh."

His face did that forehead wrinkle, eyebrow thing he does when he's trying to decide how truly insane we are."So, how are you?"

"Just peachy."

"Right." Now he just looked concerned. "Are we talking about it or just barreling ahead like old times?"

"Barreling ahead, much more fun. Nothing to talk about." That got me a long stare. "Fine, nothing I want to talk about before we walk into an ambush."

"Okay, so more of an after narrowly escaping death again topic."

"Yup."

"Just so we're on the same page."

We just sort of looked at each other, wondering why the hell we were in yet another fucked up situation. "Coffee?" I asked.

"Sure, there was a place on the corner. You want to go?"

"Why not? Better than just sitting here." I remembered what Coyote usually got but figured I'd ask just in case she wasn't in the mood. I changed, grabbed the keys and walked to Coyote's room to see if she or Cougar wanted something. I'd ask Cougar face to face but didn't feel like pressing my luck after our earlier conversation. I was about to knock on her door when I caught a hint of sage, her curtains weren't quite closed so I peeked in. She was kneeling, swaying back and forth, eyes closed and there was a small trail of smoke rising from a bowl on the ground in front of her. The bowl wasn't the only thing on the ground, I saw the edge of at least one small throwing axe laying between her knees and the bowl. What the hell?

"She's blessing them." Cougar's voice came from behind me, I stopped myself from throwing an elbow into his throat, barely. I have no idea how he moves so damn quietly. I've got good instincts and I hadn't even felt him, considering his earlier threat I found that a bit unnerving.

"Want coffee?" I asked.

He looked confused, "You're not asking why?"

"What's the point? She'll tell me when I need to know and you'll follow her lead." That made him think, but he didn't push it.

"Yes, double shot espresso. She'll take the same." He started reaching into his back pocket.

"On me. Back in a few, I'll drop them off at your room if you're not in mine." I walked by him and got into Baby. When I looked back towards the hotel he was leaning against the wall, watching me. I usually don't care all that much about what people think about me, and I sure as hell couldn't blame him for being pissed for what I put her through, but it was good to know that I might have made him reconsider wanting to kill me seeing as how we were going to be fighting on the same side of things.

The people at the coffee place moved fast so I made it back in less than thirty minutes. I got Roy some plain black coffee, he seemed to always order that. Sam and I usually went for triple shots on jobs like this. Nothing says killing monsters like caffeine fueled adrenaline rushes after yet another night of crappy sleep. I went to our room first, Roy and Sam were pulling all the obits and such off the walls and packing them away.

"Sam, our usual," I handed him his cup, gave Roy his and heard a knock on the door. I'd left it open but apparently Cougar had decided to not scare the hell out of me, again. "These are yours." I gave him the two cups.

"Thanks." He stood there for a second, "Did she tell you about the attack on Jim?"

"She said someone took a shot at you two, she didn't go into details."

"You don't have a lot of experience tracking people in the woods do you?" He asked.

"I've picked some up," No need to try to explain Purgatory. Sam shook his head but Roy surprised us.

"Oliver has taken me out to the woods around the Lake House for some pretty intensive training, so I've got some."

Sam had told me more about how Oliver had helped him after I'd gone to Hell. The way he described how Oliver pretty much became one with the forest sounded a lot like me in Purgatory. I know Oliver well enough to know how intense an intensive training from him would get. Looks like Roy was going to be a lot better off than I was thinking.

"These people with Leaping Deer, they are Warriors," Cougar continued, "Twisted and dark true but they are following the old ways. Once we get into the woods I'll take point. I have been tracking things since I could walk along with hunting and training in the old ways, even with all that finding their trail was a challenge. They are waiting for us, she knows we are coming. I am sure of that now."

I really didn't like where this was heading, "Why am I getting the sense that this is some sort of show down between her and Coyote?"

"Coyote is one of the few that could stop her."

"So why isn't anyone else from your people helping out?" Sam asked.

"Not all of them think that stopping her is the right choice. They won't fight her but..."

"They're selfish cowards?" I suggested, not the least bit sarcastically of course. He didn't really appreciate that.

"Yes. I'll take this to her. We will be back soon." He shut the door behind him.

Sam hadn't missed my tone, "That part of the thing we're not talking about?"

"Yup. Roy, you'll be riding with us. If shit goes south you're safer with us then on your own on this one."

He didn't argue, "All right."

We drank our coffee and wiped out the rest of the food Sam had gotten for breakfast then Coyote and Cougar showed up, I had to stop myself from staring. Coyote has various versions of "going Native" as she calls it depending on the situation. Usually she's in jeans, a t shirt or comfy button up shirt and boots. I've seen her dressed up on three occasions, once when she had to prove her worth to some assholes back when we did the vision thing all those years ago, once when I showed up somewhat unannounced and her and Rising Dove had just gotten back from some sort of tribe meeting and then when Rising Dove died. I got there the day after the funeral, she had to be recognized as Shaman of the tribe and was in full on Native ceremonial dress for that, down to the feathered headdress. When I saw her like that, saw what path she was on I knew that it would be one of the last times I saw her, even without our talk. She had a position of importance, her people needed her and there was a segment of them that weren't too fond of me. There had been plenty of resistance thrown her way ever since she started training with Rising Dove, you'd think once she became Shaman it would go away but people don't usually work like that. I didn't actually attend the ceremony, I watched from a good distance away but I still got looks thrown my way, the not so veiled insults as people walked by. I didn't react, didn't even let them know I cared. They could say what they wanted about me, it was the ones who said shit about her that I had to fight the urge to put them in their place. So it was really no surprise when she told me to make a choice, I'd pretty much made up my mind by the time that ceremony was over. I just didn't want to spring it on her when she was still dealing with Rising Dove's death.

How she looked when she walked in was somehow even more dramatic than how she looked that day. True she didn't have the headdress on, but that didn't seem to make much of a difference. Her outfit was white with bold red, blue and yellow stripes that ran across her chest and down the side along with a wide variety of Lakota symbols scattered in between the stripes. The sleeveless top was one of those square necked jobs and it the bottom of it landed on her thighs. I spotted at least one Thunderbird worked into the shirt along with several crossed arrows and a few other things as well. Although the shirt was sleeveless black and grey feathers hung from white wrist guards that ran the length of her forearm and there was colored strips of leather were attached to the bottom of her shirt and reached almost to her knees. The pants were just as colorful and she was wearing moccasins, not work boots. Her hair was split into two braids which had feathers and beads worked into them and she was wearing one of those chest pieces you see the pictures of. They're made with those longer white beads and seem to act like chest plates more than necklaces. She still wore the silver armband her father had given her all those years ago along with the necklaces and pouch she'd been wearing when we met up last night.

Cougar loomed large next to her. He was in a long sleeved, blood red shirt, with a full array of those white beaded chest plate pieces hanging from his neck. His hair was still down but several white, grey and black feathers were worked into the hair around his face and brushed his collar bone. Yellow, almost gold colored bands of fabric wrapped around his sleeves directly above his elbows and he was wearing a beaded choker around his neck. His pants were brown with red and yellow fringe running down the sides and tucked into mid-shin high moccasins.

I felt like I had been thrown back in time a few hundred years and I began to understand just why the Natives had been so feared and respected as warriors back in the day. It wasn't just the clothes, it was this sense of resolve the two of them had. They'd never break, never give up who they really were no matter what was done to them. I looked at Sam and Roy, they'd been caught off guard just as much as I had. Sam covered it a bit better than Roy.

I fell back on my tried and true method of dealing with things like this, "Guess we're not going for subtle then?"

I'm not sure why that struck her as funny but she lost the stony faced look and a smile worked it's way around her lips. "Not so much. We have a few more touches to do once we get out there."

"You don't think you're making enough of a statement as it is?"

She sobered back up, "It's not just about making a statement. There's other reasons."

Shaman stuff then, great.

"We ready to roll?"

"Almost." She set her bag down, pulled out three of those throwing axes, check that, tomahawks and set them on the table. They had red leather cord wrapped around the grip which three red feathers were attached to. "Here, don't use these unless I tell you to. They're designed to take down a certain thing which I hope to hell she doesn't use."

"Which is what exactly?" Sam pressed.

"Remember when I mentioned that she could use people's Warrior Spirits against us?"

"Yeah?" I really didn't like where this was going.

"If that happens, you have to use these."

"Are we killing souls?"

She met my eyes, I knew the answer before she said it.

"Technically yes."

Roy stared at the tomahawk and backed away. "You had better give me a real good reason why the hell I would do that. I'll only follow along blindly for so long."

It was Cougar who answered, "Because Roy, if you don't kill their Spirits, they will take yours from you. If we fail to stop her, the Spirits of all your people will be in danger. Your people corrupted and destroyed our Spirits with your treaties, your diseases, your alcohol, your lies. She seeks to return the favor. These things she's trying to resurrect, they will devour the Spirits of the young, the old, women and men, just as your soldiers did to us all those years ago."

"I, how? I don't understand.."

He really picked the worst case ever to start with, "Roy, remember how I was during that ritual?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, now imagine that there are a few hundred thousand pissed off spirits that are in that exact same mindset. Now turn them loose on the world."

He lost quite a bit of color as he worked that idea through his brain, "And that can actually happen?"

"Yes, trust me on this. I wouldn't be signing up for this if I didn't think it could."

"Same here," Sam added.

Roy took a long look at us, then shifted his eyes to Coyote who softened her gaze, "Roy, I know this is not something you've prepared for or a world you even know much about but for some reason you decided to join up with Sam and Dean. You had to know some of what they'd seen and dealt with, known about vampires and ghosts. The world you have lived in all your life is a small part of what truly exists and just like the world you know, this world has it's share of evil people and things who are bent upon the destruction of others. If you remove the supernatural element from it you'll see that it all comes down to the same choices that you've already faced."

"Yeah, but Oliver and I, we don't kill people."

"Have you never faced an adversary that the usual prisons couldn't hold?"

"Well, yeah but..."

She walked over to him and placed a hand on his shoulder, "Leaping Deer wishes to raise the dead to destroy the living. You can't put a ghost in jail. Those followers who choose to allow her to use them in such a way that their Warrior Spirit is corrupted will not stand down. These are not people like Jim who she bent to her will, these are people that volunteered. Think about it." She backed away from him and looked back at us. "We've got to get moving."

"Got it," I answered. "We've got the maps just in case."

Sam and I grabbed our bags and the tomahawks, Roy just stood there. I handed Sam my bags and the keys to Baby. "Go load up. Be down in a second." Sam nodded and the three of them left.

"It's not that I don't want to save people," Roy said.

"I know. Sam told me that you guys had a weird thing happen in Starling a few years back, guys hopped up on some drug?"

His face darkened, "Mirakuru, told people into irrational super soldiers. They were pretty close to unstoppable and driven by rage."

"Right, okay. Give me an overview on that."

"Short version, Oliver had an enemy that the drug turned completely nuts, he wanted to destroy the city to get to Oliver. So he killed Oliver's mom, injected the drug into a bunch of guys and let them loose. Took everything we had to stop them."

"This enemy that was running things, what happened?"

"Oliver stuck him on a deserted island in some sort of super secret prison."

For some reason it didn't surprise me that an island was involved. "What about the guys on the Mirakuru?"

"We found an antidote but some of them didn't make it," he admitted.

"This is the same set up, crazy bitch making people into something they're not. Pulling on their rage, hate, need for vengeance to twist them up, make them evil. Those guys on the Mirakuru, if you hadn't found an antidote you'd be looking at the same choice then that you are now. I'm not saying it's great choice but vamps, werewolves, hell most of the monsters we hunt were people once. In most cases, once they turn into a monster they can't be brought back. This is why I told you this is more intense than what you guys deal with back home. There is no monster prison, it's us or them, plain and simple. Leaping Deer won't stop, she can't be reasoned with, if she could Coyote would have done that already. Her followers? Same thing. I'll let you think for a few minutes but we're on the clock here." I was halfway out the door when his voice stopped me.

"Dean? Does this feel right to you?"

"She's killed five people, going to go for eight total and that's just the warm up. Her followers, the super dedicated ones, they have to know what she's planning. So yeah, as much as I don't want to destroy someone's soul, fact is by going along with her, they've pretty much already trashed what soul they had. Does it feel good? No. Does it feel right? Yes." If I had asked myself that question when I was staring Cain in the face demanding that he give me the Mark I probably would have saved myself a year of hell. That hadn't felt right or good. "But how I feel doesn't matter. What matters is how you feel."

"I can still see the wedding invitations that were on Rebecca's table. She won't ever get to send those."

"No, she won't."

"I'm in." I heard him pick the tomahawk up and then he was standing next to me. "Let me get my bow and a few other things from my car."

"Sure thing." I should have felt proud or something, he'd made the right choice after all, but I wasn't proud of him. I was too busy feeling sorry for him. I knew that what he'd end up seeing would scar him, change him and I was pretty sure it wouldn't be a change for the better.