I pinned my braid up in a coil so it wouldn't get in my way, since I'd had the time.

"You think masks would help?" I asked as we left, suitably armed, for Pestilence's apparent place of residence.

Sam shook his head. "No, the Horesemen's effects get inside your head. Chances are just being in his vicinity is enough."

"Mm. What a delight."

"So this is Dr. Evil's lair," Dean mused as he ogled the front of a nursing home with a pair of binoculars.

"Kind of more depressing than evil," Sam sighed.

"A lot of elderly folks resent going to nursing homes of any kind because they see themselves as having been shunted off 'to a place to die'," I remarked, relying on my own eyes to see the front, as we only had two pairs of binoculars. "Given that the average length of stay is about five years, clearly there's a correlation."

"Well the hearty and robust don't necessarily go into nursing homes, do they?" Dean replied, also grimacing. "God, I'm glad I won't have to worry about it."

A wry snort. No, probably none of us were. At least not in this life. The average life expectancy for a hunter was only thirties or forties.

"So," said Sam, getting us back on track. "We've got a whole building full of people. We don't know who's human, who's demon....who's Pestilence." He shook his head. "So what do we do?"

"Hang on...." Dean had spotted something. "Look. Video surveillance."

I shoved out the door. "Great. I got this. You two wait outside the door."

Men who were trained to look for trouble were less likely to get their hackles up when approached by a woman. So I hustled on in to the surveillance room as though being chased, and hastily shut the door behind me.

"Miss?" he asked, jumping at the noise. "Are you okay?"

"I'm sorry," I gasped. "A guy was chasing me, and I ran in here. I think he's followed me."

He stood from his rolling chair, hand going to his hip. "Now just calm down now, Miss. We'll get this sorted out. I'll take a look around the outside in case he's hiding anywhere."

I wasn't strong enough to knock a man out unless I was using my legs or had an instrument, so when the guard opened the door, one of the boys stuck a fist out and managed the job for me. I caught the man's head before it hit the floor, and dragged him up against the filing cabinets.

"That damsel thing just always works, doesn't it?" Dean asked, pulling up a chair before the many black and white screens.

I hauled out two more and set them up, claiming the rolling chair because it was cushioned and the other two weren't. We could trade off, if they asked. "That's why it's always 'ladies first'. Gets people's guards down."

And thus we settled in for the long haul.

I did end up trading the chair off, but not because anyone had asked. More like I worried about their backs and didn't want to bogart it. I kicked Dean awake first, because he was the one least likely to take care of himself, and nudged him out of his chair, replacing it with mine.

"So what are we even looking for?" Sam wanted to know, eyes red from staring at the minute figures on the screens.

"Well, he's Pestilence," Dean pointed out. "So he probably looks sick."

"Everybody looks sick," Sam pointed out.

"Perks of dying young," I muttered, fingers digging in a bag of lemon animal crackers. When Sam eyed them, and held out his hand, I dumped in half the bag. "Weren't the other two Horsemen wearing suits? Suit-wearing older gentleman with a self-important sneer. That narrows it down."

"All doctors look like that," Dean pointed out.

I shrugged. "My genius isn't consistent."

And so we tarried on.

"Hey," Sam said a few more hours later, and indicated a screen. I rubbed my eyes and sat closer, and Dean ambled back from where he'd been looking out the shaded windows.

He fit my description, and certainly was wearing no scrubs. The static interference on each of the screens seemed to follow his face, obscuring it from us.

I checked the bullets on my gun, Dean checked his, and Sam laid his hand on his knife. We headed out.

It didn't take long. "Do you hear that?"

Choking. Fear.

We only rounded one corner more, and I started to cough, my head pounding.

Another corner and the walls started blurring, and we saw a doctor and nurse lying stricken in the middle of the hallway. "He knows," I coughed, and stumbled. Dean caught me by the arm and righted me, but thumped sideways into the wall for support the moment he let go. Sam leaned on a credenza adorned with silk flowers, creeping his way past it.

"Just stick tight," Dean managed, voice corroded. "At least we're not eating handfuls of ground beef."

As, apparently, poor beleaguered Cas had been doing when he'd tried to take on Famine. I still shuddered at the thought, and at the rest of that case.

I nodded, wiping my mouth on the back of my wrist. My eyes were unable to focus, sliding erratically from place to place.

"Must be getting close," Sam said.

"You think?" Dean retorted.

We all of us were relying on the walls for support now. I could see them sweating. I could feel it on myself, and unbuttoned my shirt, letting it drop, trailing, to the floor behind me. I'd get it later or be dead. I had a tank top underneath, so the boys wouldn't be any more traumatized than we already were.

One of Dean's knees folded and Sam switched walls to lay a hand on his back, knife already in his other hand.

"Careful," I reminded him, not that I thought he really needed it. We'd all been raised with weaponry. We all knew how to handle it, even when we weren't in the best of conditions at the time. A poorly handled weapon, Dad used to say, was a weapon in the hands of the enemy. No matter whose fingers were on the hilt.

My knee cracked to the ground, but I was behind them and they didn't see. Dean hit the ground next, with Sam following as he tried to help right him, and fell over in the process, barely catching himself before his face met tile.

Sam's the one who managed to best right himself. I crawled to Dean and gripped handfuls of his jacket, trying to lever him at least into a sitting position.

A door near us swung open, and a hazy-faced nurse looked impassively out at him. "The doctor will see you now."

Well isn't that just a peachy and cheap-ass pun. I groaned, and Dean and I pushed off each other to stand, Sam already leaning in the doorway. My legs were shaking, my every muscle too. Gripping my gun was like trying to swordfight with a live fish.

The suited man sitting at the bedside of a dead woman grinned at us, expectant. "Sam! Dean! Tess! Come right in."

Dean made it to the doorway, right behind Sam, who had collapsed just inside it. I remained slumped against the outside wall, my lungs heavy and loose in my chest, as though filled with murky water. I heard dragging, and Sam's feet disappeared into the room. The demon nurse dragged Dean next. She then returned for me, gripping me by an arm and lining me up next to Sam, dropping me there on my face, opposite Dean. I tried to lift myself, and determined that I probably could, but decided not to try.

Ladies first.

"Hmm," Pestilence murmured. "You kids don't look well." To me, he said. "And some succumb so quickly, too."

I could see blood on the back of Sam's hand, where he'd wiped his mouth. He and Dean were both coughing it up. I felt it in my lungs too, and tears filled my eyes.

If I died in the dream, I'd die in real life, too. I could not die here.

Pestilence stood. "Might be the scarlet fever. Or ah....the meningitis. Oh! Or the syphilis." This one seemed to entertain him the most. Wasn't syphilis venereal? Of course that would please him best.

He stalked over to Sam and grabbed him by the hair. Why did the monsters always abuse Sam the worst? "However you feel right now," he informed us, lifting Sam's head back so they could see each other eye-to-eye. "It's gonna get very, very, much worse. Questions?" He dropped Sam's head back to the floor with a thump, and went to a side table, where he squirted sanitizer into his hands.

"Disease gets a bad rap, don't you think? For being filthy, chaotic. But really that just describes people who get sick." Pedantic, he continued. "Disease itself....very pure. Single-minded. Bacteria have one purpose: divide and conquer." He saw that Dean was stretching for the knife Sam had dropped, and lowered a foot onto his outstretched fingers, which cracked beneath the pressure. Dean groaned, choking again, the floor before him spattered in crimson.

"That's why in the end," Pestilence said, "it always wins." He kicked the knife away, where it spun up against my fingers, a taunt. "So, you gotta wonder, why God pours all his love into something so messy!" He shouted suddenly down at us. "And weak!"

Sam tried to get my attention, to make eye contact, but my eyes were so glassy. I could barely see, hardly move. I had to save it for when Pestilence was closer to me, or I could accomplish nothing.

"It's ridiculous. All I can do is show him he's wrong." He fastidiously placed his reading glasses upon his nose. "One epidemic at a time. Now. On a scale of one to ten....how's your pain?"

About a seven, so, all in all, not catastrophic. It was the type of pain that frightened me. All-encompassing, through every fiber and molecule of my being, every piece of me a thousand years tired and ready to give in.

The door flew open, and someone else stepped in. From here I could only see his feet.

"Cas?" Dean groaned.

Pestilence removed his glasses. "How'd you get here?"

"I took a bus." He looked down at the miserable lot of us. I think the blood had puddled out of my mouth and onto the floor. A very dignified way to go. Cas gestured down at us. "Don't worry I—" He coughed, a horrid, ragged sound, and thudded to his knees between Sam and I. He then looked, baffled, at the blood on the floor before him as well, now.

Pestilence, pleased, sank into a crouch in front of him. "Well, look at that. An occupied vessel, but....powerless. Oh, it's fascinating. Not a speck of angel in you, is there?"

Cas looked up at him, then lurched.

I swatted the blade toward him and his hand slammed down over it. He lunged upward, grabbing Pestilence by the wrist and forcing his hand to the table, where he dug the blade into his fingers.

"Maybe just a speck," he growled, as Pestilence screamed.

The demon went for Cas, throwing him back, then howled as her veins filled with gold fire, Cas having thrust the demon blade up into her chest. She slumped, and he pushed her aside to stand.

Pestilence's influence was gone.

I sucked in a breath, all at once feeling nearly as well as I had thirty minutes ago, just before the infection began to spread. Levering myself up onto hand and knees, I slapped my hand over the severed fingers and immediately took the ring. Sam and Dean scrambled to their feet.

"It doesn't matter," Pestilence whispered, clutching his bleeding hand, shoulders hunched. "It's too late." Then he was gone.

"Tess," Dean asked, "you good?"

"Yeah." I patted Cas on the back. "Well done, Angelman."

He returned the demon blade to Sam, who said, "It's good to see you, Cas."

Dean chortled. "Yeah, how was that bus ride?"

"Nondescript and with an odor of cigarettes."

My lips twitched as I wiped my hands off on the nurse's uniform, then my mouth and face on my arms, and my arms off again, because I'm efficient like that.

"Well," said Bobby, seated behind his desk. "Feels nice to strike a home run for once, don't it?" He twirled Pestilence's ring on the wood before him. Sam and Dean sat across from him, and I sat in the armchair a little apart, Sam's laptop balanced on my crossed legs, brow furrowed. Cas leaned tiredly on the mantle. Humanity must have hit him hard.

The boys were quiet. Dean toyed with War's ring, then tossed it on top of the map, next to that of Pestilence.

Bobby looked between them. "What?"

Sam took a breath. "The last thing Pestilence said.... 'It's too late.'"

Bobby's eyes widened. "He get specific?"

"No," muttered Dean. "We're just a little freaked out that he might have left a bomb somewhere. So please tell us you have actual good news."

My eyes flicked up from the troubling things I'd found, and I set Sam's computer aside, facing away from them, padding barefooted into Bobby's kitchen. I came back with a pitcher of iced tea and five glasses. "Supposed to drink your fluids when you've been sick," I said, filling them one by one and placing them before the men. "You especially, Cas," I said firmly. "You're not even used to humanity, let alone invasion by foreign particles."

He gave me a look, and obligingly took a sip from the glass. I left the pitcher on the desk and took my glass back to the armchair.

Bobby took a preparatory breath. "Chicago's about to be wiped off the map. Storm of the millennium."

God, they all looked so exhausted. But I pulled myself back to my research.

"Sets off a daisy chain of natural disasters. Three million people are gonna die." I did love Bobby's descriptions.

After a long wait, Dean said, "Huh," and laid his head back down on his arm at the desk.

Even Cas had his head resting on his fist, elbow on the mantle. "I don't understand your definition of good news."

"What he means," I said, typing away, "is news that may not be good necessarily, but it gets us further ahead in stopping the apocalypse, which is good. Big picture, my man. Big picture."

"Hm."

"Death, the Horseman," Bobby continued. "He's gonna be there."

"Drink your tea," I murmured, and the five of us took simultaneous sips. I was forgetting, too.

"And if we can stop him before he kick-starts this storm, get his ring back...."

"Yeah," Dean said with faux enthusiasm. "You make it sound so easy!"

Bobby spread his hands. "Hell I'm just trying to put a spin on it."

Which was nice, really. We all needed a good spin, these days. I smiled down at Sam's laptop. "Thank you, Bobby," I said, genuine. "Did you want any sugar with that?"

He waved a hand. "Nah, it's already cold. It'll only sink to the bottom."

True that.

"Well," Sam began. "Bobby, how—how'd you put all this together, anyways?"

I took a few pictures of the screen with my phone—about all it could do, really, this phone—and wiped my browser history, turning the contraption off.

Bobby was looking unsettled beneath the brim of his cap. "I had....you know...."

I lifted an eyebrow.

He twitched his shoulders. "Help."

A clatter from the kitchen. I must be the only one still fully cognizant because I had a handgun pointed in the direction of the man in the kitchen before I even recognized him. But then I sighed and put the safety back on.

"Don't be so modest," Crowley said, pouring himself a drink. Even I didn't like drinking that stuff.

Sam and Dean lifted their eyebrows at me now, evidently wondering why I got to be so peppy while they were still so downtrodden.

"Oh, sorry," I said, and worked a number of small bottles out of my pockets, tossing them to them. Five-Hour Energy. Not great, crash sucked, but if you needed an unreliable second wind....

"I barely helped at all," Crowley said, sauntering in with his short glass, hand in pocket.

Dean looked from Crowley to Bobby, who looked unhappy.

Crowley propped himself in the entry to the office. "Hello boys. Pleasure, etcetera."

I couldn't help liking Crowley, too, to be honest. He was efficient no matter what the cost. Cost to others, anyway. No one could claim he was ineffective.

And I'd long figured out that I counted as 'boys'. This was entirely fine with me. It's a mouthful to say 'ladies and gentlemen'.

Crowley took an exploratory sniff of his chosen liquor. Apparently he didn't much like that stuff either. "Go ahead," he prompted. "Tell them. There's no shame in it."

We looked back to Bobby again, the man in the corner with his dirty little secret.

Sam spoke first. "Bobby? Tell us what?"

Ah, I did appreciate the curl to that last word. He had a way with tone sometimes, Sammy did.

Bobby looked long at Crowley. Crowley smiled, satisfied, back. Bobby made a face. "World's gonna end," he reasoned. "Seems stupid to worry about one little soul."

Dean this time. "You sold your soul?" he demanded.

Even Cas looked disappointed. Well, he still had an angel mind trapped in his human body. Souls mean a lot to the messengers of Heaven.

"Oh," drawled Crowley. "More like pawned it. I fully intend to give it back."

Dean spun on him. "Well then give it back!"

"I will."

"Now!"

"Did you kiss him?" Sam asked.

"Sam—" Dean shot him a look too.

"Just wondering."

I shrugged. "For the sake of measuring consistency, now I'm curious too."

We all looked to Bobby.

He shared that look back with the lot of us. Cas, Dean, Sam, me. "No!" he burst out, exasperated.

Crowley politely cleared his throat, a sleeker phone than mine held up before him. On it was an unmistakable picture.

The boys' eyes narrowed, and then they widened.

"Why'd you have to take a picture?" Bobby asked him.

Crowley regarded the picture, and then him. "Why'd you have to use tongue?"

I cackled, delighted with this. "Because Bobby doesn't go halfway." I was not wrong on this.

Dean recovered first, much to everyone's surprise. "All right I'm sick of this." He stood, and strode over to Crowley. "Give him his soul back. Now."

"I'm sorry. I can't."

"Can't or won't?"

"I won't, all right?" he shot back. "It's insurance."

Dean turned confused. "What are you talking about?"

"You kill demons." Crowley's assessing gaze roved over all of us, for all of whom it being true. "Gigantaur over there is having a temper issue about it. As long as I have that soul in the deposit box...."

"You son of a bitch," Bobby growled.

Crowley did not appear to appreciate this sentiment. "I'll return it. When all of this is over, and I can walk safely away. Now do we all understand each other?"

I sighed, rubbing my forehead. "Yes, Crowley, thank you for casting further illumination on the situations of all present. Is there anything else with which either side would be willing to assist the other at the present time?"

Both sides stared at me.

"Okay great. Take some tea before you go," I said to Crowley, returning Sam's laptop to its bag and standing up to polish off mine.

He smiled with all the graces of a gentleman, and toasted me with a glass that had appeared in his hand. "Much obliged."

Dean muttered something to himself about packing up, and stomped out to the car.

"Bobby," I said, thumb tapping against my empty glass.

He rolled a sardonic gaze around to me.

I worked my lips back and forth. "Just don't die until we get it back, okay?" Sam's glass was empty, so I took it to the sink to rinse, then set off toward the back yard.

Crowley appeared beside me the moment the screen