Dean eyed his brother carefully. He had woken up in a really pissed off mood and Dean knew that when Sam was that mad it was best to stay off his radar. He tended to get pretty nasty when he was in a bad mood.

Dean liked to joke he was PMSing, but he wasn't suicidal enough to say that when Sam was within earshot.

Sam had been fine the day before, but now he looked like he was on the warpath to deck someone. What the hell had pissed him off?

Dean really, really hoped it wasn't him pranking him with that stupid song...though the look Sam shot the radio said he wanted to use some of those demon-blood powers to set the thing on fire if he could.


Dean was so worried about his brother he didn't see the ball coming that killed him.

Death number 45. Sam was getting a little extreme to his treatment of an 'innocent' radio. Today he shot the thing until it shut up. The day before he somehow found a fireman's ax and chopped it into little pieces. The day before that he almost killed Dean himself when he threw it at the wall to the bathroom. Dean nearly pissed himself as the thing practically exploded into little pieces.

Naturally his new method of waking up made Dean a little jumpy around his brother. And probably would for a week unless Sam got out of this.

On the plus side, Rath (what he called his dark side since Sharon was actually Za'afiel's true vessel), had some rather amusing ideas of how to destroy that damn radio for the mornings.

Who knew that such a dark angel would have a real sense of humor?

As it was, it was only his frustration with this whole scenario that he finally agreed to see Truth rather than deal with the migraines anymore.

Though it wasn't until he realized what he was seeing that he realized what Rath had meant by 'seeing Truth'. Or that he even remembered about the seal he had taken inside himself in order to spare Sharon and her family. Removing it wouldn't kill him, but it would hurt like a bitch.

Recreating it, however, was doable.

So when he saw the pancake eater shine from an internal light with six massive white and gold wings on his back, he finally knew the culprit of his own personal hell. And it took everything in his power not to deck the bastard.

Fortunately Rath had a solution...even if it wasn't something he would have considered right off the bat.

He spent all of ten minutes in the 'bathroom', when in reality he was working out a way to retrieve a small bottle of what smelled like oil. It was something Za'afiel had been stockpiling for years, apparently.

Once he cornered the damn thing, whatever it was, he did what Rath told him to do. He threw the oil on him and brought out a lighter.

"What the heck was that for?" demanded the thing.

"That was for making me live through my brother dying fifty-seven times in a row, you bastard," snapped Sam.

The guy shifted and sniffed what Sam had thrown on him. He had to admit, that damn Trickster was a pretty good actor considering how he barely managed to hide the fact he was freaked out about the oil on him.

"Now I'm giving you two choices," said Sam darkly, his voice making it pretty clear how pissed he was.

"I'm listening."

"Either you drop whatever the hell this is and let us go, or..."

"Or?"

"Or I deep fry a six-winged chicken," said Sam flatly.

Whatever the Trickster was about say, it went out the window the second Sam said "six-winged".

He was staring at him pretty intently.

"What?" said Dean.

"How is it that you can see those?"

"Your wings are pretty damn big, even if they look like white with gold tips that's been sitting in the ocean for centuries and covered in who knows how many tons of fish crap," said Sam. Seeing the wings bristle, it was pretty clear he had pissed off whatever the hell this Trickster was. "So which one are you? Raven? Puck?"

The midget Trickster still looked pissed.

"I'm Loki."

"I thought Loki was taller," quipped Dean. He shut up after the look Loki shot him.

"So, why did you put me in your own personal recreation of Groundhog Day?"

"To teach you a lesson," said Loki, before he snapped his fingers and ending their discussion.

However Sam had the distinct feeling that this wasn't over. Not by a long shot.


He had definitely pissed off Loki but good. He killed off Dean with a random mugger, despite the fact that only a complete idiot would try to mug someone while the trunk was open and a whole shit ton of weapons were quite visible and ready for use.

He now had to try and track down the feathery bastard and beat the shit out of him. Loki still had no real idea how Sam could see his wings, but from the sound of it that was normal.

So when Bobby 'called' claiming to have found a ritual to summon the Trickster, Sam went for it.

But not before Za'afiel threw her two cents in.

I'd say it's about time we give him a taste of his own medicine, don't you? What would you say putting 'Loki' through the same darkness you endured in my realm?

What do I have to do? Because he's seriously pissing me off at this point.

Let me do all the work, and you get to enjoy the show when he realizes who he's actually dealing with.

At this point, he could care less what Za'afiel put Loki through. The Trickster had thoroughly pissed him off with that stupid Groundhog Day prank, and making him listen to 'Heat of the Moment' one too many times.

If he ever heard that song again it was going to be shoot first, ask questions later.

'Sam' stabbed Bobby the second he heard the requirements, knowing that he was still firmly in the illusion. Loki gave him an odd look, as if he couldn't believe Sam was that desperate to kill the thing that murdered his brother.

Before he could say anything, the air raid sirens that haunted Sam's nightmares started going off. Loki looked baffled, because he wasn't the one doing it.

"What's going on?"

"The darkness is coming...and you really, really don't want to be outside when it does," said Sam cryptically.

As the walls began to peel and the floor seemed to rot away, Loki went from baffled to startled. This was not part of his illusion, and he definitely wouldn't come up with something this creepy.

The atmosphere seemed filled with this malevolent presence, like he was a very tiny fish in a very big pond filled with a hungry shark or something equally predatory. The air had this distinct ashy quality too it, like there was a fire underground. The sky was pitch black without even a hint of light.

All in all it wouldn't have looked out of place in hell itself.

That was when Gabriel saw something on Sam's back that shouldn't be there. At all.

"Who are you?"

"Come now, don't you remember me? All the time we spent destroying Sodom and Gomorrah with Uriel? Sending that flood that nearly wiped out humanity?"

With each sentence Loki grew even more and more pale.

"Za'afiel."

"Oh good, so you do remember me...Gabriel."

Wait, THAT'S Gabriel?

Okay, so apparently the movies Legion and Constantine weren't too far off with how much of a dick he was.

"How did you get out?" asked Gabriel, clearly upset at being busted.

"This little hunter somehow managed to slip in with my true vessel, and made an agreement with me. I'd let the girl and her parents go in exchange for using him instead," said Za'afiel pleasantly.

"And he agreed to that?" said Gabriel incredulous.

"I never once lied. Compared to that bitch Ruby he knew I would at least keep my word, even if he wasn't happy about it."

Okay, Gabriel would concede that. Ruby was a liar and a manipulator, but Za'afiel at least kept her word, even if her methods left much to be desired.

"So how did he see my wings?"

"I stole the Seal of Metatron before I left. Not like Micheal even noticed it was missing," said Za'afiel. She was not so secretly amused by the look of disbelief on Gabriel's face.

"Wait...so that Sasquatch used the Seal to find out who I was hiding as? Do you have any idea how dangerous it is for a human to use something like that?"

"He didn't use the Seal, you idiot. He told me that he wanted to see Truth, so I tweaked his Sight."

Actually she just powered up the Seal in Sam's body, and it did all the work. However if it was left on too long then it would inevitably be stuck like that, and he would never be rid of the Sight.

About the only good thing was that the Seal itself protected him so long as he had it. It shielded him from the worst of the Sight.

Za'afiel sent Sam deeper into her private realm, so he didn't hear the rest of the conversation. However when he woke up, he was back in that motel bed again...and Dean was looking properly wary of his brother.

Then again Sam had used a baseball bat on the radio the last morning.

"You alright Sammy?"

"I'll be fine if we can leave this damn town and I never hear that song again," said Sam flatly.

"You're not going to use a baseball bat on the radio again are you?"

"I was thinking more along the lines of flamethrowers or guns," said Sam. All he would need is some hair spray or something equally flammable and a lighter.

Dean could understand his brother having a trigger when it came to that song, after hearing about the fact Loki had trapped him in an illusion where Dean was killed off in random ways at least 60 times before it finally broke.

Dean didn't know what happened to Sam, but he knew his brother had spent six long months trying to track Loki down to make him pay.

He just wished he knew what the deal was with all that talk about 'wings'.

The two of them drove off almost immediately. They could get something to eat later, when they were far, far from the town.

Though in the back of his mind, Dean worried for Sam. He was terrified his brother might go down a dark path if he left him alone.

He had no idea Sam was already so entrenched in darkness that there was almost no way out.


Sam took one look at the FBI agent, and immediately started chanting the exorcism under his breath. Ever since the Mystery Spot, he had been seeing things. Things that shouldn't be there. That shouldn't exist.

He could see Truth, as Rath had put it. He could see everything, even the things he really didn't want to see.

The demon vacated the now dead agent, who showed no signs that the brothers had done anything.

"Sam, how did you..."

Sam winced.

"Remember how I could see the Trickster despite the fact he was hiding? Apparently while I was stuck in there something happened to me, so now I'm seeing a lot of things I shouldn't," said Sam, half-lying.

"Wait...you can see a demon's true form?"

"Demons, hellhounds...the whole gambit. Even Ruby, which is why I've been avoiding her like the plague," said Sam.

"I don't know what the midget Trickster did to you in that stupid illusion, but if this keeps you away from Ruby then I'm all for it."

Dean didn't know what Ruby's game was, but he certainly didn't like her. At all. And the feeling was thankfully mutual.

"Actually, there is a way for you to see too. But it would take too long and you don't have the time," said Sam.

Dean perked up.

"What way is that?"

"There's a relic that dropped from heaven a long time ago called the Seal of Metatron. When it glows, it reveals the True nature of things, including those that are hidden from yourself. The thing is, only angels can use it or bestow it. But a replica of the Seal would give the one holding it a limited amount of Sight for a short span. Enough to see if there were demons around," said Sam.

"Why haven't I heard about this thing?"

"Because the relic fell in a place that's almost impossible to escape."

Dean looked, and really looked at his brother.

"Sam?"

"I'll explain more later. If we make it out of this. Bobby should probably hear this too, since he's the only one of us who might have heard about it."

After all, Bobby put in far more effort than John ever did, and he was the one that Sam saw first when he woke up. Odds were Bobby would know the name Silent Hill...and the history behind it.


Ruby didn't know why, but there was something...off...about Sam. His aura was dark. Too dark. Had he been drinking demon's blood without her convincing him? Where had he learned about the amplifying effects?

Either way it made her job that much easier.

"In order to deal with those demons outside, I'll need a virgin's heart," said Ruby.

"Yeah right, like anybody would still be a..."

Ruby stared at Nancy, the secretary.

"No way."

"Hell no. I'm not going to sit by while we kill someone just because you happen to have a spell to kill demons," said Sam.

Sam's aura grew darker, as if preparing for something. He had definitely been drinking demon's blood, because that was the only substance that could cause that reaction.

"So what's your plan then? Use your special little powers?" sneered Ruby.

"I was thinking more along the lines of luring them in here, then having the exorcism play on the speakers while you all use us as bait. Demons are idiots, after all," said Sam, openly insulting Ruby in the process.

Dean snickered.

"Good one."

"Like you're one to talk, drinking demon's blood behind your brother's back," said Ruby.

Sam blinked.

"Demon's blood? Why on earth would I drink demon's blood for?" said Sam, his voice filled with honest confusion.

"If you're not drinking demon's blood, then why is your soul so..." started Ruby, before she felt a pain in her chest.

"Why don't you ask Alessa that?" said Sam, staring at Ruby.

"Who's Alessa?" said Dean.

"The one before me," said Sam cryptically.

Alessa was Za'afiel's last vessel, though she passed on once Sharon came to claim the darkness that had been purified. Sam's darker nature could wield the same power, if he allowed it to train.

Za'afiel's nature didn't make him nearly as squeamish as finding out that he had the blood of the demon that murdered his mother in him. She, at least, did not lie.

Even if the truth hurt worse than anything. Even if he didn't want to hear it.

Ruby scoffed.

"Well if you aren't going to listen to reason, then let me out."

Sam went to undo the salt line, though he left a single cryptic message for the former witch.

"A word to the wise... it's better to be inside when they go off, otherwise he'll find you," said Sam.

Ruby had no idea what he was talking about.

At least not until she was already trapped.

Well played, Samuel. Pyramid will be delighted with the new toy you've delivered him.

I had a feeling he might. That body was just a husk, right?

The owner died long ago. There is only that demon inside.

"Sam?"

"Ruby's gone. Now we just need to worry about getting rid of the rest without killing the hosts," said Sam.

Dean's look clearly said they would be talking about this very soon.