Dean pressed down harder on the Impala's gas pedal as he took her over the winding country roads, taking comfort in the familiar rumble of her engine and the way she responded to his slightest correction of the wheel with instant precision. He could lose himself in the simple pleasure of driving, forget whatever thoughts were troubling him, forget that anyone and anything except him and his baby even existed, for just a little while.

Usually.

Yet Dean couldn't shake the sick feeling of panic swelling in his chest, couldn't keep from thinking about his friend locked up in that basement, and his brother who was trying to find a way to save the world from that friend, and the fact that they were running out of time, and the only way to get Cas to give in and stop the ritual might just be traveling down dark roads into his past that he'd tried to leave behind forever.

Dean tried not to think about the fact that he'd already been thinking it, even before the death toll started rising – that he'd already considered how easy it'd be to take advantage of the unusually human pain threshold Cas had at the moment, to use his own well-honed skills of painful persuasion to shatter Cas's resolve and just end this thing already…

He tried not to think about the fact, the certainty in the back of his mind… that with this much at stake, if it was anyone but Cas… he'd already have crossed that line.

Damn it, why can't he just listen to me? Dean slammed his palm against the steering wheel in frustration, the throbbing pain from the gesture a welcome, all-too-brief distraction from his thoughts. This is just like the last time… when I tried just talking to him, and it didn't work, and he killed who knows how many people, thinking he was doing the right thing, and…

… and I can't let that happen again. I can't. No matter what it takes…

Dean had been driving for about half an hour when he realized that as much as he dreaded it, he needed to turn around and head back to the cabin. Sam was still weak from the first trial, and with the frequent traffic from the various angels and demons that had been showing up in the past few days, Dean didn't feel great about leaving Sam there without backup for long.

Just ahead and to the right, Dean saw a sign for a gas station and convenience store. He still had about a quarter of a tank of gas, but he pulled into the parking lot anyway. He was aware that he was stalling for time, but couldn't really bring himself to care at the moment. As he slowed the Impala and prepared to pull up to the pump, Dean noticed a building just beyond the convenience store, with a lighted sign that read "TJ's Liquor".

Dean hesitated. To say that he and Sam had a lot to deal with at the moment was an extreme understatement, and Dean really needed to be clear-headed right now…

… not that the thoughts he was having while stone cold sober were all that useful. Or encouraging. Or fucking sane.

Encouraging, no… sanity's overrated, anyway… but useful… Dean, you know very well how… effective those ideas you took out of Hell can be…

Alastair's voice again, this time with the image of his face, smiling but bloodied, with a measure of fear in his eyes – and the thrill of pleasure and satisfaction Dean had felt at the sight...

Fuck.

The Impala's engine roared as Dean gunned it through the convenience store parking lot and brought her to a stop outside the liquor store beyond it.

It's been years since you were physically capable of getting drunk, he reasoned. Just something to take the edge off… help you focus a little and get through this… that's all…

The moment he stepped inside the liquor store, Dean realized that something was very wrong. It was completely silent, and there was no one in sight – at least, not until he moved closer to the counter and saw the still, lifeless body of the clerk lying on the floor behind it. The young man's dull eyes stared blankly up at the ceiling, and from where he stood, Dean could clearly see the bloody gash where his throat had once been – though there was a lot less blood on the floor around the kid than there should have been.

There was nothing that could be done for the poor kid now. Drawing his weapon, Dean made his way carefully through the rest of the store, a grim, leaden pit forming in his stomach with each new victim that he found – three in all, two men and one woman. But what little blood remained hadn't even dried yet, so Dean knew the attack had to have happened very recently – within the past couple of hours.

The absence of blood, the torn flesh at the victims' throats, all of Dean's experience and instincts told him that this was a vampire attack – except that most vampires he'd come across still preferred to hunt at night, and tended to keep a low profile in order to keep from drawing the attention of hunters.

Unless these are vampires that have spent the last who knows how long in a place where it's never really dark or light… Dean's stomach clenched, a heavy sense of dread sliding over him. Unless they're so starved for human blood that they don't care if they get caught… or worse, aren't afraid of anything… have gotten used to fighting things a whole lot scarier than human hunters…

Dean's mind flashed back to Purgatory, and the roaming packs of vampires he and Benny and Cas had run into on more than one occasion there.

No… not yet… the walls can't be coming down yet…

But… we don't really know when they're coming down, do we?

It was too late to do anything for the unfortunate shoppers who'd happened to be here when the vamps had attacked; so Dean knocked out the overhead security camera with the handle of a nearby broom, then took a couple of bottles from the shelves and headed back out to the car. He tossed them into the Impala's passenger seat and got inside, glancing across the parking lot at the convenience store and wondering if anyone inside had noticed anything strange from the shop next door.

Suddenly uneasy, Dean got back out of the Impala, favoring the element of surprise over her speed and power. As quietly as possible, he took a machete from the trunk and closed it again, then made his way carefully across the parking lot, stopping at the wall beside the large picture windows that made up the front of the store. It was only then that he realized: there were no people in the parking lot; the red Volvo he'd noticed at the pump when he pulled in still had the driver side door open and waiting for someone who was probably never coming back.

Dean carefully pushed open the glass door to the convenience store, wincing slightly at the tinkling bells that heralded his entrance. But as at the liquor store, there didn't seem to be anyone around to hear them. There were a few more people in this store than had been in the liquor store – all in the same condition. Dean had just crouched down to inspect the wound in the neck of an older woman when he heard a faint sound from across the room.

He rose to his feet silently, weapon ready in front of him as he carefully approached the source of the sound. Dean's stomach lurched as he rounded an aisle full of potato chips and candy bars, and found a young girl lying on the floor, a weak hand trembling against her gaping throat. Fearful blue eyes rolled toward him as he approached, and a choked whimper escaped her lips.

"Hey, it's okay… I'm here to help you," Dean assured her gently as he quickly knelt beside her, setting down his machete, pulling her hand away and replacing it with the firmer pressure of his own. As he did, his eyes were momentarily drawn toward the bright colors of the handmade braided bracelet she wore on her wrist.

Once she seemed assured that Dean was not going to hurt her, the girl's eyes shifted up and to her left, and she tried to speak, though all that came out was an agonizing rattle of weak, failing breath. There was an urgency in her eyes, a desperation to the way she grasped at his arm, and Dean instinctively ran his free hand through her hair.

"Shhh, it's okay… you're gonna be okay…" he soothed her gently, though his heart sank as he took in the blue tinge of her lips, and her wrist fell listlessly into his grasp, too weak even to hold it up any longer. Dean glanced in the direction she'd been looking, and saw that a few feet away from her lay the body of a man in a theme park t-shirt, jeans, and a baseball cap, his face still and frozen in horror.

A braided bracelet to match the girl's was on his wrist.

Dean felt sick as he returned his gaze to the girl. She couldn't have been more than twelve years old. Automatically, although he knew she couldn't see the man from her position, and she couldn't move, Dean found himself shifting a little to place himself between the girl and the lifeless body of her father.

There was nothing that could be done for him, anymore, but maybe… maybe…

"It's gonna be okay. I'm gonna get you some help, okay?" Dean promised, reaching for his cell phone with the hand that wasn't applying pressure to her throat. But before he could even get it out of his pocket and dial 9-1-1, panic filled the girl's eyes, as she struggled for one last, rasping breath that failed her.

"No, no, no," Dean muttered, gathering the girl up into his arms, tilting her head back, trying to clear her airways as much as possible. He leaned down over her, prepared to breathe for her if necessary, to keep her alive until help could arrive – but he went still an inch from her face, his heart clenching in his chest. The light had faded from the child's eyes, leaving them dull and blank and staring into nothing. Defeated, Dean dropped the phone from his hand, lowering his head and closing his eyes as he held the girl's broken body in his arms.

He'd arrived too late, after all. There was nothing he could do for her now.

Dean gently lowered her back down onto the floor, then rose to his feet slowly, his jaw setting with frustration and angry determination. He picked up his weapon and headed to the car with swift, purposeful steps, slamming the Impala's door with one hand and turning the key in the ignition with the other. As she roared to life and took off down the highway back toward the cabin, Dean reached for one of his pilfered bottles and took a long pull, relishing the burn as it poured down his throat.

Maybe there was nothing he could do for anyone, anymore. Maybe they'd hesitated too long, and it was too late to change what was going to happen.

But he'd be damned if he wasn't going to die trying.

Sam didn't find any more answers in his second Internet search than he had the first time around – no angel truth spells, and nothing that could mask the presence of something as powerful and ancient as the angel tablet from the likes of Crowley. Of course, it might have been a little easier to concentrate if he hadn't been interrupted with a new alert informing him of some new disaster every ten minutes or so: earthquakes, tornadoes, forest fires…

You name it, it's happening out there right now… which means we're running out of time.

It also might have been a little easier for Sam to concentrate if he hadn't been so worried about Dean.

His best friend's about to blow up the world – again. And there's nothing we can do about it, short of…

Sam's thoughts went unbidden to the article he'd found earlier, when looking for truth spells – a very different means of eliciting the truth from a reluctant angel than what he'd been looking for. Sam shuddered, trying to banish the mental images that accompanied the remembered words. He wasn't going to mention it to Dean. No, that was just one additional conflict that Dean shouldn't have to deal with.

This time, Sam was just going to make the call.

They weren't going there. Period. No matter what.

There has to be another way. There has to...

"No luck?"

Sam jumped, getting to his feet and spinning around to face Crowley, who had abruptly materialized behind him. The King of Hell had a somewhat bored expression on his lips, but his eyes were dark and troubled, and there was a tension in his expression that betrayed his worry.

Although Crowley seemed far more concerned with the impending Apocalypse than with the angel tablet at the moment, Sam immediately thought of his backpack, lying under the table, with the tablet inside. They could never be too careful with Crowley, and Sam wouldn't put it past him to use this situation as an opportunity to steal the tablet. With one hand, Sam reached behind him for the demon-killing knife he'd left there beside his laptop, holding it up and giving Crowley a cold smile.

"You might want to be careful who you go sneaking up on, Crowley."

Crowley's smile didn't falter. "You might want to be careful who you go threatening to kill, Moose," he retorted in a mild tone. "Considering that I'm here to help you…" Crowley gave an exaggerated shudder. "… as much as it grates me to say so." He paused a moment, glancing past Sam to his laptop screen before adding, "I see you've been keeping up with the events of the past few hours."

"Yeah." Sam sighed, turning his grim gaze back toward the screen and stepping a bit to the side, so that he could keep an eye on both it and Crowley at the same time. "It's getting ugly out there. We were hoping you might have some idea of exactly how much time we've got left."

"Exactly? No," Crowley replied. "But I can tell you this – it's started."

Sam's stomach dropped, and he frowned. "What does that mean?"

"There are already… gaps, in the walls. Creatures slipping through into the wrong worlds," Crowley explained. He nodded toward the laptop before going on. "News networks are covering the major natural disasters at the moment, mostly – which means a few stories are slipping through the cracks. Like random acts of violence that are difficult to explain in… human terms."

"Monsters?" Sam guessed.

"All manner," Crowley confirmed. "Fresh from Purgatory and ravenous for the flesh and blood humans they haven't had access to in centuries. And not just monsters, either. A class of second graders in Minnesota was found half an hour ago – all dead. Exploded from the inside out. Their teacher had her eyes burned from her skull. Sounds like a case of mass angel possession gone wrong to me."

Sam felt immediately, overwhelmingly sick. He sat back down in his chair, raking a shaky hand through his hair.

"People are dying, Moose – and not just your people, mine too. Hell itself is under siege at the moment. And business is depressingly slow." Crowley shrugged, an unhappy smirk crossing his lips. "No one wants to deal with the devil when the world's about to end. Which is why I thought it a good time to check in with our heroes and see what progress they've made." His smile faded as he concluded, "I'm finding it rather underwhelming."

"We're trying, okay?" Sam snapped. "We're doing everything we can…"

"No, you're not." Crowley cast a pointed glare toward the closed basement door before meeting Sam's eyes again, accusing. "Not everything."

Before Sam could respond, the cabin door opened and Dean walked in. The moment he saw Crowley standing there, he pulled out his gun and took aim.

"The hell are you doing here, Crowley?" he demanded.

"Talking to a brick wall, apparently," Crowley retorted, sounding extremely unimpressed. "Since neither of you seems prepared to do whatever it takes to find out how to stop this!"

Sam was distracted from Crowley's tirade, however, when his gaze locked onto his brother's hands, his stomach clenching with alarm. Dean's hands were trembling slightly on his gun – and they were coated with blood.

"Dean?" Sam stood up again, taking a step toward his brother. "What happened?"

"Vamp attack," Dean replied, grudgingly lowering his weapon and putting it away, keeping a wary eye on Crowley. He shook his head slowly with a grimace. "In broad daylight, too. Must have taken out a dozen people."

"What did I tell you?" Crowley held up a hand toward Dean, giving Sam an exasperated look.

Dean frowned. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"The walls," Sam spoke up quietly before Crowley could. "They're – they're already starting to come down."

Dean stared at him with a sort of sinking dread in his eyes – as if Sam was only confirming a conclusion he'd already reached. "Those weren't just ordinary vamps," he said, his voice shaking dangerously. "They were Purgatory vamps. What they did to those people…"

Dean shook his head, looking away. His gaze stopped on his own hands in front of him, and Dean froze, a slow swallow visible in his throat. Sam frowned, worried by his brother's demeanor.

"Dean…?"

"Bottom line." Dean's voice was low and hard, and it took Sam a moment to realize that he was talking to Crowley, not him. "How much time do we have?"

"Before it's too late to reverse the damage to the walls?" Crowley considered for a moment. "I'd say it's measured in hours now. Less than a day, certainly."

Dean didn't look away from his blood-stained hands, but he nodded once, slowly, taking in the information.

A heavy knot was beginning to form in the pit of Sam's stomach, and his words came out hushed and cautious. "Dean… what?"

Dean didn't answer for a moment, his hands slowly closing into fists in front of him – before he lowered them to his sides, squaring his shoulders and heading toward the basement door.

"Dean!" Sam raised his voice, alarmed.

"Finally, some progress!" Crowley sighed. "I'll leave you to it, then."

Sam had barely glanced toward him when Crowley vanished. Abruptly worried, Sam turned back toward the table and grabbed his backpack from under it, relieved to find that the tablet was still there – but Dean was still heading for the basement.

"Dean!" Sam called out across the room, and Dean stopped a bare step away from the door, not turning around, just waiting. Sam's voice was softer when he asked, "What are you going to do?"

"Whatever I have to," Dean replied, his voice low and trembling.

"Dean… wait…"

"We don't have time to wait," Dean snapped, looking up at Sam with anguished eyes. "You heard Crowley. We've got less than a day – and people are already dying. Children, Sam."

Sam hesitated. "Then – I'll go down there with you. We'll – talk to him, together…"

"No." Dean's tone was quietly adamant, leaving no room for argument, as he looked down. "You keep looking for an answer up here. Keep up the research. If there's any way to save the world – and – save Cas…" Dean cast his gaze up at Sam again, pleading, desperate, like a man walking to his own execution. "… I need you to find it, Sammy. Fast. Please."

Sam wanted to tell Dean to wait – but there was no time. He wanted to argue that there was another way – but they hadn't found one. Instead, Sam swallowed down all the useless words he wanted to say, and nodded resolutely.

"All right. I'll keep looking. I'll find something, Dean, so – so don't…" He swallowed, his mouth dry, his stomach roiling. "I'll find something. I promise."

Dean nodded once, wordlessly, before opening the basement door. Sam watched helplessly as his brother squared his shoulders, took a deep breath… and began the descent.