SUNDAY

They had a narrow time window; it wasn't full dark until about nine, and the witch was expected within the hour. Fortunately, the golf club, realizing that nothing had been stolen on the previous break-in, had simply changed the oddly dysfunctional security cameras and cleaned away most of the devil's trap without taking more drastic measures. The hunters were very alert as they broke in and replaced the devil's trap – on the ceiling this time, since the paint probably wouldn't be dry by the time someone would be walking on it. But no police or private security came to interrupt them, and they were ready for the witch by 9:40.

The entrance to the parking lot was about a block away from their end of the parking lot, but it was obvious when she arrived. Dean opened the door of the car they'd stolen earlier long enough to stick out an arm and wave, and an old SUV drove in their direction, making so much noise it sounded like it had a diesel engine.

"She wasn't kidding about it being a piece of crap," Dean mumbled.

She pulled up next to their stolen car. Now would be one of the trickiest moments. Dean didn't want to be sitting in the car when they attacked, but if the woman was somehow using Sam's memories, she might recognize Dean and simply drive off, requiring a car chase and way too much attention. Not to mention that he didn't want her to see the handcuff around his wrist. So he waited until she was getting out of the car to get out himself, looking back into the car as he did, so that his face wasn't turned to her until she was almost right up next to him.

"Are you Ed?" she asked as he turned to her. Then her eyes narrowed. "Wait a – "

Dean seized her wrist and slammed the other cuff on it. Jim jumped up from behind the car and ran toward them. She snarled something in Latin and both them flew in opposite directions away from her, but the handcuff held, and as Dean slammed back against the car she was pulled off her feet.

Jim was staggered. He couldn't imagine anything slamming him around without physical force. Anyway, he couldn't remember it.

Dean was sitting on the ground between the cars, struggling with the witch, trying to keep a hand clamped over her mouth. "Sam!"

Jim snapped out of it, pulling the tie from Dean's FBI suit out of his pocket as he ran over to them. Cathy glared at him ferociously over Dean's hand as she bit it, and waved her free hand at Jim.

Agonizing pain in his knees, and Jim fell. But he had the presence of mind to fall forward, and crawled on his stomach toward them, on the ground between the cars. Dean pulled his hand out from between her teeth and just hit her hard on the back of the head. She made a startled choking noise as her head snapped forward, and now Jim was there to loop the tie over her head. He pulled the overhead knot tight so that the material went between her teeth and pulled back against her tongue, destroying her enunciation. He groaned in pain, but focused on grabbing her free hand.

Dean used his cuffed arm to put her in a chokehold, dragging her cuffed arm backward. "You know the quickest way to break a spell?" he gasped.

She went still.

"Let my brother go," he said.

She wiggled the fingers of the hand Jim held. Jim let her pull her hand loose, and she gestured. The pain stopped immediately and he sucked in air, both in amazement and relief.

Dean used his free hand to grab Cathy's free hand and force it toward Jim. Jim, very motivated now, grabbed a blue tie out of another pocket, put her hands together, and looped the tie around her hands, separating the thumbs from the rest of her fingers. It was another overhand knot, which Jim pulled tighter, wrapping the tie around her hands so that they were bound together and immobile.

Now that she couldn't just send a gun flying with a flick of her fingers, Dean got his gun out from behind his back and showed it to her. "We're going to walk into that building there," he said, "sit down and have a talk. You answer some questions, break some spells, you don't get hurt. Right?"

She said something behind the gag that sounded unfriendly.

"Is that a yes or a no?" Dean asked.

She looked at the gun, nodded.

Dean handed the gun to Jim, pulled the handcuff key from a pocket, and unlocked the cuffs, grunting and shaking his wrist. Jim sat on her legs as Dean did this, which made her snarl again, but Jim was taking no chances at this point.

"You were right," he told Dean. "We should've threatened her with the gun to begin with."

Dean gave a one-shoulder shrug. "She would've just sent it into the nearest sandtrap and we'd have wound up fighting anyway." He took the gun from Jim. "OK. Everybody up and move, nice and quiet."

They'd left the door to the maintenance building slightly ajar, so it was easy for Jim to move quickly to it, only a few yards' walk. Cathy followed, Dean jamming the gun into her back, and Jim took a quick look around and then closed the door securely once they were all inside.

The big room was floodlit, filled with riding mowers and other greenskeeping equipment. There had been a folding table and two chairs; the table and one chair was pushed against the wall, and Cathy, following Dean's gestured command, sat in the other chair.

She'd been carrying a black cloth bag with occult symbols over her shoulder, and it was hanging from her wrists now. They couldn't slip the bag off of her without unbinding her hands, so Jim got a knife from the weapons bag on the floor and cut the bag's strap. Then he got rope from the bag and bound her to the chair, Dean holding her at gunpoint the while.

Dean could see her better in the lighted building than he could outside. She was petite but full-breasted, wearing a long black dress with a lot of décolletage. Her eyes were large and dark, her skin pale and smooth. Her long rumpled hair was probably originally a medium brown, but the raven-black dye job was flattering. Her hairclips and earrings glittered with the showiness of real diamonds.

"I can understand what Warren sees in her," Dean said. "If you don't mind that she's a self-absorbed thief with a flannel mouth."

Jim snorted as he finished tying her. "Not my type. – Is she?"

Dean put the gun back in his waistband. "We'll talk about Ruby the demon later."

Meanwhile, Cathy had been observing the room's main attraction. The devil's trap on the ceiling was centered on the cord of one of the dangling floodlights, and Castiel stood directly under the light. His trench coat and suit jacket were nowhere in sight. His shirt collar was open – which made sense, since his tie was currently being used to bind the witch's hands.

He met Cathy's startled gaze with a look of contempt, shaking his head. He paced a couple of steps under the devil's trap, looked up at it with irritation – causing Cathy to look up at it as well – and shook his head again.

"OK, Cathy Corn from North Dakota," Dean said. "Let's talk. But understand something. Anything magical comes out of you, the gag goes back in and conversation ends. Got it?"

She'd decided on a tactic. She shrank back in her chair with a frightened little whimper and a tiny nod. Jim loosened the tie that was in her mouth and left it hanging in a loop around her neck.

She focused only on Dean, and spoke quietly. "Please don't hurt me."

Jim laughed explosively. "Says the woman who just kneecapped me!"

She continued to address Dean only. "You attacked me! I don't know what he told you, if he said I tortured him or – "

"He couldn't tell me anything. No memory. I had to chase all over the Midwest doing detective work. But I figured it out, so don't try to pretend you don't know what's going on."

"Please," Castiel said, "don't give me any credit. I love being completely ignored." His voice was calm, uninflected.

Dean cast a glance over his shoulder at Cas, then looked back at Cathy. "With some help from your demonic source." He looked back at Cas again. "Happy now?"

"Thrilled."

Cathy gave a contemptuous little chortle. "You're saying this is a demon? Shouldn't he have, like, horns or something?"

"Don't you know he's a demon? You've been rooting through my brother's memories, don't you know who he is?"

This was a key moment, and Jim, who was going through Cathy's bag, stopped and looked over. They had three separate courses of action laid out, depending on how much of Sam's memories she'd seen: One if she knew exactly who and what Castiel was, one if she had no idea, and one if she had only a confused idea.

"Why do you keep talking about memories? I don't have anything to do with – "

"Fine." Dean pulled the gun again.

"No, stop! I don't – OK, I do. I know some things."

"You've seen him in Sam's memories?" Dean asked, jerking his head toward Cas.

She gave a sigh and settled back, as much as she could. "I have. I mean, I think so. But look, you have to understand something about your brother. We need to talk in private. It's important."

"Not gonna happen. If you have something to say, say it."

She took a breath, looked around at Jim. "Please don't – I'm not trying to hurt you, he needs to know this." She looked back at Dean. "He's kind of – He's got some kind of delusions. Like him." She looked at Cas. "Sometimes he thinks that guy's an angel, sometimes he's this scary magical guy killing people. He has these – "

Cas' gaze dropped. He took a breath and got back into character as Cathy continued, " – these fantasies about being tortured by the devil. I mean, they're so real to him, they're like honest-to-God memories. Really sick awful stuff. I mean, I don't really try to get into people's personal lives. I'm not trying to blackmail anyone or anything."

Dean nodded slowly. "You have a way of focusing on just money and property."

"Yeah. Just the way you would on your own stuff. 'I need money, where do I have some?' 'Where did I leave the car keys?' Like that. I don't get into people's sex lives or their childhood or anything like that. I'm not evil."

"OK," Dean said.

"But I can't help seeing something about personal lives. And your brother – he's got all this shit that jumps up at you. And you really need to get him some help for it. He thinks about you being ripped up by invisible wolves. Or maybe it's like a hallucination. And the crazy stuff with him," glancing at Cas, "and these God-awful hallucinations about being tortured by the devil. I mean, I'm not saying you owe me anything, but maybe it's a good thing I did this. You should know he's got problems. Serious problems."

"Or," Dean sounded like he was presenting an alternative plan at a business meeting, "he was tortured by the Devil."

She rolled her eyes. "Sure. Which explains why he's standing there burned to a crisp with things growing out of his eyes and mouth."

A little revolted sound was jerked out of Jim.

She heard it and doubled down, leaning toward Dean as much as she could, her voice intense. "You're his brother, right? The two of you are, like, really close? You don't want him to get this crap back. You can tell him anything he needs to know about normal stuff, and get him to a doctor. Maybe he won't start developing these hallucinations again, they can give him meds or something."

"What a humanitarian," Dean said. "What about all the other people whose memories you stole?"

"What other people?"

"Come on, Cathy. Warren told us you have a whole spell book of them."

Her eyes narrowed. "Warren's a liar," she said, adding an adjective to "liar."

"No spell book in the bag," Jim said. "And no potion."

"We know you keep it handy," Dean said. "You laid out a highway patrolman, and I don't think you said, 'I have something to show you, just a minute while I go through my luggage.' So where is it?"

"What does the highway patrol have to do with it? There's no book. Your brother was, like, an experiment, the first time I did this."

Jim said, "You were just talking about how you focus on money and property with your other victims."

"No, I – Wait – Did I? I meant – "

"God, you're bad at this, Cathy," Dean said with amusement. "You may have mad skills as a witch, but you suck as a crook. Now give us the spell book and tell us how to break the spells."

"There is no spell book."

"Fine. I'll search you. I'm no gentleman. And even if I were, you're no lady."

"Or you could let me do it," Cas said. "It's not like I don't know everything about her anyway."

They'd done some practicing with Cas this afternoon, and had discovered that when he tried to "sound evil," he was hilariously awful. But when he simply said what a demon would say, in his normal, deep, almost emotionless voice, he was very convincing and could even be scary. Cathy looked over at him and sounded a little rattled as she asked, "What do you mean, know everything? You don't know a damn thing about me!"

"I told you she'd say that," Cas said to Dean. "She thinks she creates magic out of thin air."

"You do?" Dean asked her, as if he'd never heard anything that stupid.

"Not out of thin air. There's power out there, in the, like, ether of the universe. If you learn how to use your willpower, you can focus the universe's power and do things you want."

Dean turned to Cas. "Look, if she has no idea that her power comes from a demonic source, I don't see how you get her soul – "

"From a what?" Cathy yelled, as Dean continued, "and our deal is off."

"It's not a 'deal,'" Cas said. "And her ignorance about me doesn't matter. If she's using magic to hurt and rob people, she's mine."

"What the hell is this moron – "

Cathy broke off suddenly, looking at Cas, and smiled. "Oh, I get it. Trying to scare me. Oh, don't let the mean demon hurt me, I'll tell you everything! Well, there isn't anything to tell you. There's no spell book. And you know what? There's no demons either. So you can tell him to come out from under that devil's trap. No one's believed that crap since, like, the fourteen-hundreds."

"Look, Cathy," Dean said. "I'm gonna explain this to you. I want you to listen like your life depended on it. Demons exist. Andrealphus here is one. He's helped us out from time to time, but that doesn't mean we're best buds. So yeah, we decided to use him for leverage against you. We're going to exorcise him tonight, send him back to Hell."

"Maybe," Cas said.

"The question is," Dean continued, "does he get to go back there with you? Or does he go all by his lonesome? If he takes you along, he might get a better reception from the infernal torturers. Like bringing a hostess gift."

"Bull," she snapped.

"The good part is, Sam and me, we don't even have to have killing you on our conscience. We just push you into that circle, and whatever happens after that, that's on Andrealphus. He might just leave you alone."

Cas gave a tiny, almost inaudible, laugh.

"Or he might pull your soul right out of your body and drag it to Hell when we exorcise him. You know all the psycho delusions you saw in Sam's memory? Not delusions. That's what happens. If you hadn't pulled this crap on my brother, I might've just said, Shoot her, break the spell, maybe her soul has a chance. But you took my brother's memories that he was just beginning to deal with. Now he's going to have to face all that crap again like it's the first time. You robbed him. You robbed us. Sam maybe has some nice memories about me, because I like him, but I don't give a damn about – well, anybody else, really. And if you don't give us what we want, we'll give Andrealphus what he wants. Simple as that."

Cas smiled, and his eyes lit up, glowing an intense blue-white. Cathy saw it and started.

Then she swallowed and said, "Ooh. Special effects. Cool."

"Where's the spell book, Cathy?"

She tore her gaze from Castiel and looked up at Dean. "I left it in New York. I'll take you there."

He looked at her for a moment.

Then he said, "Sam?"

"Not a chance," Jim said.

"Andrealphus?"

"Untrue."

"OK, that makes it unanimous." Dean grabbed one side of her chair, Jim stepped up to grab the other, and they began dragging her toward Castiel, who seemed to be watching with mild interest.

"If he does something to me, you'll never know where the spell book is."

"Doesn't matter, remember?" Dean said. "The moment your soul's out of your body, all the spells are broken. Everyone gets their memory back. Brace yourself, Sam, just another few seconds."

By this time they'd pushed her under the devil's trap with Cas, and they both sprang out of it immediately so that the demon couldn't attack them. She looked up at Cas defiantly. He gave her a small smile and put his fingers on her temples.

Cas had told Jim that when he looked at Sam's soul, he'd done it as gently as possible, and that he intended to give Cathy a "more rigorous" examination. Remembering the feeling that a gentle examination was vibrating him out of his own body, Jim wasn't surprised when Cathy lunged backward in the chair and screamed. Even with just his fingers on her head, Cas was able to keep her from falling away from him, and she screamed again. "Stop! Stop it! Stop!"

Jim grabbed the back of the chair and pulled her away from Castiel.

She gasped, blinking hard, and screamed again. "What was that, you sons of bitches? What was that?"

"Well, that was magic, Cathy," Dean said. "Not much fun when it's used against you, is it?"

"Give her back to me," Cas said in a level tone. "We had a deal."

"We're going to follow through on a deal with someone tonight, Cathy. Either Andrealphus gets you and the spells get broken, or you give us the spell book and potion, you get to live, and the spells get broken."

"There's a pouch on my leg," she said sullenly.

Dean brushed back of the hem of her dress from her ankle.

"Higher."

In businesslike fashion, he lifted her skirt to show a thin leather pouch attached to her thigh with an elastic band. "Opens in front," he said approvingly. "She could be sitting in a car, pop up the skirt, get out the potion, and put the skirt back down without even unfastening the seatbelt."

The pouch contained a small book with a fabric cover and pages, sewn together by hand, and a shallow glass pot with a screw top. Jim put out his hand for the book and Dean handed it to him, then opened the jar to reveal a thick, sticky looking, dark green substance.

"Sure enough," Jim said, and pulled out of his jeans pocket the crumpled paper towel he'd been carrying around since last Monday. He held it next to the open jar; the dried substance on the paper towel was obviously the same.

"How does it work?" Dean asked her.

With anger, "Well, first you spend two years coming up with the potion."

"How diligent. And then?"

"You put some of the potion on someone's forehead, and it sparkles. You transfer it from their forehead to a page in the book. You keep repeating that until it doesn't sparkle anymore, that means the transfer's complete."

"And I just sit there and let you do that?" Jim asked.

She shrugged, as best she could. "They fall asleep."

"And wake up with no memory. In a strange place. Even if they're at home, it's a strange place to them."

"And they have no money," Dean said. "How does that work? Warren said that you said it had something to do with smell."

"Warren's a jerk." She looked up at Dean defiantly, lowered her gaze. "Dampen the page. Enough so the potion isn't completely dry and you can smell it. You inhale the scent while you say 'Money' or 'Car' or 'ATM' or something."

"And how – "

"Just a moment, Dean," Jim said. He was looking at the last smeared page of the book; there were a few blank pages after that. "I want to see if this works. There's a jug of water in the duffel, right?"

"Holy water, yeah. Any reason why holy water wouldn't work?" Dean asked Cathy.

"I don't know. I never tried."

"What a surprise," he said, and looked over at Jim, who was opening the jug. He splashed water over his fingertips and began patting the smeared page.

"What does it say on the top of the page?" Dean asked.

"Nebraska, Highway 281." Jim sniffed a little, dampened the page a bit more, then inhaled deeply as he looked at Cathy and said, "This woman."

Looks like she's alone in the car, but you can't take anything for granted. Check the back seat, be aware. Why would anyone in Witness Protection –

"Sam. Talk to us," Dean said. It was jarring, like being deep in a dream while someone tries to wake you up.

"Why would anyone in Witness Protection steal this car?" Jim said in a near whisper. "Might as well have a billboard on top."

He was teetering without realizing it. Dean took hold of him and guided him to the floor. His eyes were wide open but his gaze absent, as if he were watching a movie in a neighbor's house from across the street.

"Pretty girl. Watch the bag. That's moisturizer? The things women do – Flirta – "

Jim blinked, took a breath, looked around, his gaze focused now. "He was watching for a gun, or an accomplice," he said. "He wasn't expecting a flirtatious girl to put a blob of her gross-looking moisturizer on his head – that's what she told him it was. He pulled back, but he felt just a little cool dot," Jim tapped his forehead, "right here. She said 'Oblivion,' and that's it."

Dean looked at Cathy. "How do we break the spell?"

She waited for only a reluctant moment. "Burn the page."

Dean nodded. "Sammy, there's gasoline in the duffel."

"But not the whole book," Jim said. "This could be really useful in your line of work."

"Our line – " Dean began, then said, "You think?"

"Sure. Some demon has a hostage somewhere, some – guy has a doomsday weapon or something. You capture him, you don't have to spend a lot of time interrogating him. Just – "

He beckoned at the open jar, and Dean gave it to him, looking thoughtful. He asked Cathy, "Would this crap work on a demon possessing a human host?"

"How the hell should I know? I didn't even think demons existed until you let that one nearly kill me!"

"Oh. Yeah." Dean looked around. "Cas, you're free to go."

"Thank you." Cas walked out of the devil's trap.

Cathy's eyes widened, then quickly she affected indifference. "Shoulda known. You're bigger crooks than I am. How'd you do that – "

Cas rounded and stared down at her. His eyes were glowing again, but it seemed to be the expression on his face that silenced her.

"Demons exist," he said quietly. "As it happens, I am an angel. We exist as well, and when one speaks to you, you should listen carefully. You must stop living your life solely for your own gain at the expense of others. It is true that you have had difficulties in your past, but you exaggerate those in your mind to give yourself excuses for your behavior. Do not do that. You are traveling a road that will eventually, and surely, lead your soul to Hell. It is an isolated road, cold and lonely, as much as you will try to convince yourself that material goods are the only companions and comfort you require. You will inflict misery on others, you will live in misery yourself, and eventually you will damn your soul."

His eyes returned to normal. He crouched in front of her so that their faces were on a level, and his sad, serious expression was even more striking than his indignation had been. "You are still capable of forming bonds with your fellow humans, still capable of repentance. Please do not dismiss the chances you are given."

He stood and moved over to a riding lawnmower, where his suit jacket and trench coat were draped over the seat, out of sight.

Her eyes followed him. "So – the 'demonic source' for magic – that was just – "

He turned to her. "The power of magic is like the power of electricity. It is neutral. You can use it to light people's lives, or to burn and maim them."

"Don't know that many people who've ever used magic for good," Dean said. "We usually end up hunting them." He cast a straight dark look at Cathy.

Cas was putting on his jacket. "As with all power, the greater it is, the greater the chance that it will corrupt the person using it."

"What I don't get is why?" Jim asked. "Dean said you told Warren that you were broke when you were in Kansas City. You cleaned out – " he riffled the pages of the book – "all these people, and you were broke?"

"Some of the ingredients cost a lot," she said. "And I live in hotels. That way you can keep moving around. And there's room service. But it's really expensive."

"And a fondness for real diamonds doesn't help either," Dean said with amusement.

She looked up at him angrily. "Some bitch gets diamonds just because she married rich, why shouldn't I have them?"

"You must learn how unimportant these things are," Cas said forcefully. "You must learn it now. Or you will realize it in Hell."

"Why me?" Jim asked. "Did I look really rich?" Dean laughed.

"No, but – I was desperate. The Linda Hall Library is science and technology, I figured I might run across a rich engineer or head of a tech company or someone." She made a face. "Everyone else there that day was students, except for one old geezer with a shirt from the 1990s. At least you had a really nice watch."

"I did?"

"Tool of the trade," Dean said. "Where is it?"

"I got a hundred dollars for it."

Dean gave her a disgusted look.

She looked back at Jim. "After you went down to the Rare Book room, I used magic to get in there, but I wasn't expecting the woman down there who wanted to sign me in. So fine, I gave her a phony name and address so I could look at you while I walked around."

"Why did you disable the outside security camera and not the one in the reading room?" Dean asked.

She was astonished. "There's one in the reading room? Why not in the vault?"

"Well, there's probably one there too. My God, if it weren't for magic, you wouldn't be able to jaywalk without getting caught."

She looked resentful. "I'm not dumb. I know that if a guy's reading a book in Latin and making notes, he's got a good education. So I figured – good watch, good education – some money, anyway, interest in the occult, maybe he's got something I can sell Warren. When you left, I passed you on the steps pretending to cry. I had the feeling you were the type to follow a woman and sit on a bench with her and try and be all helpful."

"You took advantage of his kindness," Castiel said.

"Yeah, how terrible. 'Cause no one ever took advantage of me."

"All right," Dean said briskly, presumably before Castiel could attempt to save Cathy's soul with another lecture, "we know enough to get down to business. Keeping the book for future use was a good idea, Sam. Let's cut out the used pages and make a little bonfire on the concrete floor here."

"We should do just me first," Jim said. "In case she's trying to pull something on us, in case it's damaging, or something, to burn the page."

"I'm sure Cathy realizes," Dean was looking directly at her, "that if anything happens to you besides your memory getting returned, I send the angel away to take you to a hospital and the night ends very ugly for her."

"It'll be fine," she said hastily.

Jim cut the next-to-last page from the book; the heading said "Kansas City" and last Monday's date. He intended to lightly sprinkle the page with the gasoline, but he was nervous and wound up soaking it. Remembering how he'd been too distracted by the patrolman's memory even to stay on his feet, he sat near the page, put the potion jar on the floor, and struck a match.

Jim looked up at Dean, swallowed, said, "Here we go," and tossed the match onto the page.

Yellow flame with blue edges blossomed on the fabric, spreading to the edges, and there was a smell of burning gasoline and flesh. The sound of screaming, he was screaming, and Jess the love of his life was twisting a flaming knife in his gut and laughing.

"Sam!" He could hear Dean's voice from far away. But now he was remembering, the blurred half-conscious memory of Castiel pulling the worst of the insanity out of him, his own way of dealing with the rest of it, meditation, focus, focus on good –

"Give him a moment," he heard Cas say, and he felt Dean jostling him, taking hold of his shoulders. Dean waking him from nightmares and he would wake Dean from nightmares and all those laughable motel rooms and the Impala, the Impala –

"OK," he gasped to Dean, his vision beginning to clear, but things still sliding together in his head, crashing together like the world's most intense game of Tetris – Dad and Mom, vampires wendigos and werewolves, Stanford and Sioux Falls and Lawrence and Lebanon –

Sam looked at Dean in astonishment. "My God."

"Are you OK?"

"I am. I'm just – Wow." He sat up straighter, but didn't even try to stand yet. "I can't believe that was all gone. Incredible."

"Are you sorry it's back?"

Only a moment's thought. "No. Not that some of it isn't horrible. But it's me, you know, it's what I am. Hey." He pointed at Dean, with a chuckle. "You scared me, you son of a bitch."

"When?"

"Just now. You were trying to convince her that you'd let a demon kill her, telling her you liked me but you didn't give a damn about other people. I thought, 'My God, I've got a psychopath for a brother.'" He laughed breathlessly. "I've got a really good actor for a brother."

"Sometimes you have to scare the crap out of someone. Another tool of the trade."

Sam nodded, looked over at Cas. "Did I ever say thank you for absorbing the brunt of my PTSD?"

"Many times. But surely you remember – "

"I do, but, well – thanks anyway." Then, as he was looking at Cas, a new astonishment spread over his face, and he looked back at Dean with a grin. "Oh, you didn't bother telling me everything, did you?"

"Shut up," Dean informed him.

"OK." Sam rubbed his head. "There was something I was thinking, Jim was thinking, a moment ago, what – Yeah. Let's dampen each of these pages and get the victim's name before we burn it. That way we can follow up."

It turned into a small assembly line – disassembly line would be more accurate. Sam cut the used pages out with the knife, read the city and date out loud, dampened the page and breathed in the potion's smell, saying "My name," then said the victim's name as the memory came to him. Cas listened to the cities, dates, and names, standing with his hands in his coat pockets, keeping an eye on Cathy, watching the two brothers sitting on the concrete floor. Dean sprinkled each page with gasoline and added it to the growing heap of blackened cloth on the floor, blotting up excess gasoline, watching sparks to make sure they didn't land on anything flammable. Throughout, Cathy was so quiet that it was like she hoped they'd forget she was there.

Finally, Cas gathered the smoldering rags in his hands for disposal. Sam and Dean stood, Sam picking up the potion jar and Dean putting the water, gasoline, and matches back in the duffel.

Sam walked over to Cathy. He did it so casually that she didn't even notice the gob of potion on his finger until he moved it to her forehead.

She jerked back and started, "No – " as he touched her head and said, "Oblivion."

All of her muscles relaxed. She slumped in the chair, her expression vacant, eyes blinking slowly.

As she had said, the potion was sparkling. Dean held the book open and Sam wiped potion off of Cathy's forehead, transferring it to the first blank page. He kept dipping into the pot, putting potion on her forehead, lifting the sparkling potion from her and putting it on the page, until the page was almost covered and the potion on her forehead was just a dull smear.

"Let's clean that off," Sam said. "Leave as few clues as we can."

He rinsed his fingers and cleaned her forehead. She was sound asleep by then, so Dean unbound her from the chair and untied her hands, handing Cas' tie back to him, and taking his own tie from around her neck.

"How long do you figure until she finds her way back to magic?" Sam asked.

"Months, maybe years," Dean said.

"I was hunting a mugger within a few days."

"Yeah, but wanting to catch a bad guy is normal. No one around her is going to be saying, 'Gee, I wish I knew someone who could cast a spell.' They're going to be trying to figure out how she has head trauma with no signs of head trauma. I'm just sorry that she won't remember what Cas told her."

"It is possible that I touched her soul on a level below memory. But I doubt it," Cas said in a melancholy tone.

"Let's leave the door ajar, so she'll be able to leave when she wakes up," Sam said.

"You're a lot kinder – Oh, hey." Dean dug his phone out of his pocket.

"Who are you calling?"

"Police department of Aurora, Illinois. – Yeah, hi, there's a guy named Warren." Dean gave the address clearly. "He's been tied in a vault in his house for about thirty-six hours, him and his bodyguard, so probably a good idea to get over there and get him out. Might want to send a detective from Robbery over there, too, he might recognize some of the stuff on the shelves." He disconnected and looked a little disgruntled. "Now I've got to get rid of this phone. Let's get our stuff and get out of here."

They took Cathy's bag with them. Dean drove the stolen car, Sam riding shotgun, while Castiel followed them in Cathy's roaring SUV.

"Are you sure you're OK?" Dean asked after a couple of minutes of silence.

"Yes. I'm just still trying to – mesh Jim Hunter with me, I guess. I have the feeling there are lessons I should be learning from the whole thing."

"Like?"

"Well – I'm in the right line of work. Sometimes you wonder. Not only if you're right for it, but whether it's worth everything you have to go through."

"I know I'm right for it," Dean said. "But that second point, yeah."

"Sometimes I wonder. But the moment Mike told me that mugger had hit another customer of the club, I wanted to drop everything else – including figuring out who I was – to track the guy down. That's maybe one of those second-nature things, I do it even when I don't know that I normally do it, but also, I think, I have a real, a built-in – "

"Desire to see justice done," Dean said.

Sam nodded. "Yeah. And to be a part of a team. At the same time, I think it would be good for me to be by myself sometimes. There was something about that – no time pressure, focusing more on my own thoughts – I think that was good for me."

"Good for you? Except for the witch casting a spell on you that could have put you in prison for crimes you didn't do?"

"Yeah, except for that."

"It's dangerous for us to split up for too long, Sammy. This whole week proves it."

"Well – lots of things are dangerous." He looked over at Dean with a smile. "How about I go off by myself once in a while, and I promise not to talk to any strange women?"

"Well. I wouldn't block you that bad."

"I just think it might not be a bad idea for us to learn to be Sam. And Dean. Instead of just half of SamandDean."

"DeanandSam. And you're gonna have to give me some time to recuperate from this last little adventure in self-discovery before you take off on another one."

Sam chuckled. "Fair enough."

Then he looked straight through the windshield, because he knew Dean would be embarrassed, and said, "And another thing I learned is how grateful I am to be part of a team I respect, where I know the other guys are as focused on doing the right thing as I try to be. Even when we disagree on what the right thing is, Dean, I am always proud to be associated with you."

After a moment, Dean lifted his chin a bit. "Same here."

In a few minutes, they pulled up next to the Impala, parked on the edge of a large parking lot. Castiel had somehow beat them there, and they joined him in transferring the Winchesters' property from Cathy's car to the trunk and back seat of the Impala.

Dean shook his head as they finished by draping an open sleeping bag over the items in the back seat. "We're going to be cleaning up her mess for a week. We've got to get the stuff from the storage unit back to New York, got to mock up some paperwork so we can get the Coronet back from Chicago PD and tow it back to Lebanon, along with all the stuff she stole from the bunker."

"And – " Sam said.

"And?"

Sam looked at Cas. "I'm the one who just got over amnesia, right?" Then, to Dean, "Water monster in Rathbun Lake?"

"Crap. Yeah. I checked on that a couple of days ago, no deaths since the ones last week, but I've been pretty distracted."

"My research at the Linda Hall Library turned up something. Aldrovandi says these things are exclusively fresh-water creatures. He had a story about one who wandered into an estuary in Italy, where there was an inlet from the sea. It was found dead, with desiccated skin."

"Salt," Dean said. "We use a salt shooter on it."

"Maybe a couple of them. Did you get my weapons bag back from that fence?"

"Yeah, it's in the trunk with the other stuff from Illinois, and mine's buried in the back seat somewhere. We'll have to dig them out."

"But not now," Cas said. "We should put as much distance between ourselves and the witch's car as possible."

"Right," Dean said. "If we start now, we can be halfway to Iconium by – Hey!"

Sam was climbing into the driver's seat of the Impala.

"Slow down. Have I been drinking? Did I say I was too tired to drive?"

"Nope." Sam was grinning. "But I know you want to give a team member a break. Poor Jim Hunter never got to drive in his life."

"It does seem like the least you could do for Jim," Cas said. "He took good care of Sam."

Dean shook his head, rolling his eyes, as Cas wedged himself into the back seat between the recovered items and the door. "One hour. Then I'm back behind the wheel." He dropped into the passenger's seat and closed the door.

Sam started the Impala, smiled at the familiar sound, and looked over at Dean. "You'll have to take that up with Jim," he said, and headed for the highway.

.

.

THE END