"Got your blowtorch ready, Cas?"

The angel stood beside Dean at the back of the car, staring intently at the tool gripped loosely in his own hands. He frowned. "Yes..." he said. He looked up at Dean with squinted eyes. "However, I still don't see why we need them."

With a hand on the door of the trunk, Dean stared over at him. "It's the only way to kill one of these sonsabitches. You're an angel, I thought you'd know that."

"Have you explored the possibility that Sebastian Foley isn't a rugaru?"

"The hell are you talking about, Cas?" Dean took his hand away and furrowed his eyebrows. "He fits the criteria."

"I believe the only thing you have to rely on is his age."

"What are you saying? That we should go in, completely unarmed, and risk being eaten alive?"

Castiel carefully set the blowtorch back into the trunk. "Dean, what were we going to do if we went in there and Sebastian was human?"

"We'd have figured something out," he said.

The angel squinted.

Dean rolled his eyes. "Fine. What was your plan?"

"We should pursue this like we did with Ms. Zanetti," Castiel stated. "Posing as FBI agents."

"And if he's actually a rugaru?" he asked. "We go up there, we're lunch."

"I am an angel, Dean. I will protect us both."

Glaring, Dean put the torch back into the trunk. Castiel nodded, turned around, and started toward the apartment complex they had parked in front of. Dean snatched his demon-killing knife from the holder, shut the trunk door, and slipped it into his pocket. Then he followed Castiel, who had stopped by cement stairs to wait for him.

Castiel was the first to climb the steps with Dean close behind. Once at the top, he tried to move around the angel to ring the door bell, but Castiel blocked his path and knocked on the wooden door himself. Dean looked at him curiously, but the angel's gaze didn't waver from the peephole.

A minute passed without them receiving an answer. This time Castiel knocked a little harder.

Another thirty seconds went by.

"He's probably hiding," Dean said. "You stay here and I'll climb his balcony." He went over to the railing.

"I don't think that's such a good idea, Dean."

"And why the hell not?"

The door opened then, revealing an olive-skinned man with bags under his eyes. The worry lines and unshaven chin made him look much older than he really was. The man yawned, and Dean mentally checked him off the list, sharing a look with Castiel.

He blinked wearily at them. "Yeah?"

"Sebastian Foley?" Dean asked.

"Yes?"

Dean pulled out his badge. "Special Agent Mosley. This is my partner, Agent Moscone."

Mr. Foley looked at Castiel, and Dean realized that he hadn't taken his badge out. He nudged the angel, glaring at him. Luckily, he held his badge right side up that time.

"We have a few questions we'd like to ask you," he said, concealing his badge. "Can we come in?"

Mr. Foley frowned. "What is this about?"

"We're here concerning the death of Leopold Short."

The man's face instantly hardened. "FBI shouldn't be investigating an animal attack."

"We have reason to believe he was murdered."

"What reason?"

"That information is classified to the public," Dean said. "Can we ask you a few questions?"

"No." Mr. Foley crossed his arms. "I don't want to hear anything about that worthless douchebag. I'm glad he's dead. And maybe Linda doesn't want to believe it, but I know she's relieved that he's gone too."

"How can you be so sure?" Castiel asked.

"Because he was abusive," Mr. Foley spat. "He beat her and emotionally abused Lucille. He was a horrible person and he deserved what happened to him."

Dean raised his eyebrows.

"I'm not the one who killed him," Mr. Foley said. He frowned at the two of them. "That's all I have to say on the subject."

The door slammed in their faces.

Dean stood there, staring at the door. Then he made eye contact with Castiel, glancing back to the house one more time. He furrowed his eyebrows, turning to the stairs.

"He's not our guy," Dean muttered, heading for the car. "How is he not our guy?"

"Perhaps we aren't looking for a rugaru. Ellen and Jo themselves already discarded the thought of it being a wendigo or a rugaru."

"What else could it be?"

Castiel frowned. "There are things that can survive in this world not even you have the ability to understand. Dark things that thrive on different dimensions, that move from one parallel universe to another. It is possible that the Short family had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time when one of these beings surfaced."

Dean stared at him. "You're telling me that there are more supernatural monsters out there that can just pop up out of nowhere?"

"Most entities prefer to stay in the confinements of the cosmic plane they originated. But yes, you're right."

"Well ain't that a kick in the head," Dean muttered, shutting the car door behind him.

⛥⛥⛥⛥⛥

"I need your help."

Bobby huffed on the other line. "If it has anything to do with that angel, I already told you everything I knew."

"No, it's not that." He glanced over at Castiel. His blue eyes bored holes into the blank television screen across from him. Dean smiled. "We're actually..." Friends was the first thing that he thought of, but it definitely wasn't what he had planned to say. He stalled himself, wondering if that was true. Were they really friends? It wasn't something he really wanted to think too much about. Thinking of an angel, your guardian angel, as anything other than... Well, fake, was a still foreign to him.

"Oh, balls."

Dean looked away from him. "What?"

"You two aren't makin' babies over there are you?" Bobby asked.

"What? Bobby, gross, no, we're not – no." Almost unwillingly, his eyes snapped back to Castiel.

The angel stared at him. Head tilted, eyes squinted, brows furrowed.

Dean cleared his throat. "No," he said again. "We're hunting, Bobby."

"Hunting?" Somehow he managed to sound more shocked than if he'd been told that Dean really was banging an angel in a male meat suit. "You gave that up."

"It's a favor for Ellen and Jo," he said, taking a seat next to Castiel on the couch. "Whole family eaten in their backyard. We thought we were hunting a rugaru but the guy we got close to wasn't actually the culprit."

"You're having trouble hunting a rugaru? You really are rusty."

Dean rolled his eyes. "We're not so sure it's a rugaru anymore. Do you have any idea what else it could be?"

"Were there scratch marks on the body?"

"We already ruled out Wendigo."

"I wouldn't put it past you. You're back to amateur status, boy."

"Gee Bobby, I'm really feeling the love and support."

"I'm not here to pamper you, princess," Bobby said. "What makes you think that this isn't just a normal animal attack?"

"They were piled on top of each other afterward. You think an animal could stack them up like that?"

"Okay. Have you gone to the actual crime scene yet?"

"Well..."

The walls seemed to shake then, loud thumping noises coming from upstairs interrupting Dean's thought process. Dean stood up, staring at the staircase, heart slamming itself hard against his rib cage.

"I gotta go." He hung up and tossed the phone on the couch cushion.

Castiel was right by Dean's side. They glanced at each other, then Dean walked through the hallway and to the steps with Castiel close behind.

An ear shattering crash let them know that whatever was up there was in Dean's bedroom. Picking up his pace, Dean jogged up the stairs. Castiel must have started jogging too, because he could feel the angel right at his back the entire time.

They halted at the door frame. Inside his bedroom, standing on top of his mattress, was a monster he'd never seen before. It looked like something straight out of Dr. Moreau's island, but worse. Sharp, protruding teeth peaked out from the muzzle of a viscous wolf. It snarled and drooled, crouching down the best it could with a grizzly bear's torso. Slowly, the thing maneuvered itself off of the bed, standing low on its buff human limbs.

The creature stood up straight, puffing out its chest and extending brown feathery wings to their full length.

"What the Hell is that?"

Using its wings to propel itself across the room, the monster dashed toward Dean with one arm raised. Its hands were normal, human hands with the exception of rather large, sharp-looking claws. Dean ducked and jumped out of the way. He could feel the feathers glide across the top of his head. He landed on a cluster of broken glass below his window, the edges cutting through his clothes and digging into his skin.

"I..." Castiel squinted at the monster, who was now next to him just inside of the room. "I don't know."

"How do you not know!" He ripped the only shard large enough for him to wrap his fingers around out of his upper arm.

It stopped, turned its entire body to Castiel, and stared into the angel's eyes.

"Cas, get away from it!" Dean said, dropping the glass and diving for the gun under his pillow.

Castiel ignored Dean, instead taking a step toward the creature. Dean grunted, pointing the gun at the monster and shooting it twice in the wing. It howled in pain, stumbling backward until its body slammed against the door. Steadying itself, it flashed glowing green eyes at Dean and lunged for him again.

Dean shot it in the chest as it advanced, but the bullets seemed to do nothing but absorb into its furry body. He shot its wing again. This time the monster winced but did not stop. It tackled Dean, knocking the gun right out of his hand, rendering him helpless. Months had passed since he was last out there fighting without the help of a weapon, but he didn't think he'd lost so much of his previous knowledge. Not only on hand-to-hand combat, but with everything about hunting.

Then again he was fighting a ferocious monster whose existence an angel of the lord wasn't even aware of.

Snapping its pair of choppers in his face, the beast refused to relent even as Dean kicked and choked it. It growled and barked and struggled against his rough hands. Then, as if just remembering it was able to use other parts of its body, it sunk its claws deep into his shoulders.

Dean flinched, his entire body tensing. This thing was going to kill him. He was going to die and no one was going to know what the hell happened to him. He looked up at the creature through squinted eyes, still trying to hold its jaws away from him.

The tiny head of a wolf sitting on the giant body of a bear like that was at least comical. If anything, he'd be able to die in humor.

Dean tried in vain to knee and kick at it some more. With one clawed hand still stuck inside of him, it pulled the other out and raised it menacingly. The thick talons were dripping with Dean's own blood. He shut his eyes in anticipation, burrowing his fingers into the fur of its neck.

Then the creature was ripped away from his hands. His eyes flung open in time to see the thing smack into the opposing wall. It gave a pathetic bark when its back went into contact with the surface. He watched it slide to the floor with its wings wrapped around itself like a cocoon.

Castiel stood in front of Dean, but Dean's eyes never left the monster..

Slowly, it got up. With a whimper the creature stared at Castiel, looking as though it had been betrayed. Its wings briefly extended, then folded onto its back as it got on all fours and slowly walked toward the angel. The whimpers only grew louder under Castiel's cold stare. It averted its eyes to the floor, stopping in front of the angel.

Dean moved to sit up, which only proved to be a mistake when his sides started to sting worse than before. He groaned and applied pressure to the wounds, glaring at the creature at Castiel's feet.

The monster started growling when it noticed that Dean was still alive. It lowered itself to the floor, baring its teeth and snarling. It barked once, backed up two steps, and then shot forward.

Castiel outstretched his arm, stopping the creature before it got to Dean. Once its forehead collided with the angel's palm, a pure white, intense, blinding light burst from the point at which they connected. The light filled every corner of the room, forcing Dean to shield his eyes.

When he looked back up, the monster was gone.