(Book 5 Arrow/Spn xover) Family Is Who You'll Kill For

Preparations

Cas said nothing as he tried to force his mind back to the task at hand and what they needed to do. Save the anger, you'll need it later. He pulled his eyes away from the screen and for some reason the memory of watching Felicity guide Dig and Oliver through the city when he was here all those years ago came back to him. She wasn't wrong. God, talk about coming full circle. This time it's different though, we have some way to stop this, not like with his deal. I am not going to lose him again, not going to happen. Next step, what's the next step. "How many people do we need for this? I saw some sort of reference to that between all the gory details."

"Five."

"You, Dig, Oliver, Felicity and Roy. That covers it if they are willing to help."

"Sam, they're not prepared for something like this."

"We're short on options and time," he pointed out. "Name five other people who we could remotely trust to do this."

"You know I can't."

"My point exactly. Go see if Dean's back in his room, he needs to see this and I want to run the idea of having them help us by him."

"All right," Cas replied, then left the room.

He turned back to the ritual and shoved his emotions as far down as he could. He skimmed over the chant that the observers were supposed to recite and searched out the core of the ritual.

"The Lost One shall be stripped of his humanity, for only when he stares into the darkness of the Taint will he be able to extinguish it. The Sacrifice's blood must be mixed with the blood of the Lost One when the Taint is at it peak. They must succumb to the Taint together, for it feeds on the strength of their wills."

That makes no sense. If we succumb to it how do we fight it? Is he supposed to give me the Mark too? No, that can't be right. He read that passage and several others that seemed pertinent over and over till a blinking on the screen distracted him.

"Send it to me." Dean typed.

He saved the page and attached the file to the chat window. "You're not going to like it,' he typed back.

"Wasn't expecting to."

He waited for some response from Dean after he read it, about five minutes later letters started popping up. "Get Felicity back to hacking the Vatican as soon as you can and have Cas there right next to her," appeared in the chat window. "I don't care who you get to help but I'm sure Oliver and crew won't mind. Once we put this together Cas can heal me so we can get this done."

"Got it."

"And stay as far away from me as can until then."

"I know."

Cas walked back into the room as he hit send on the last message, the angel's face finally shifting into the more human, mobile version of itself Sam had gotten used to over the last few years. "He's worse than I thought and your guess about the warding was accurate. Somehow either the Mark or Cain's essence is indeed changing him on a structural level and if we take more than a few more days to set this ritual up I won't need to heal him. His wounds are close to halfway repaired already, which I didn't inform him of but I am sure he knows."

He ran a hand over his face, "Nyssa hinted at that too. Good to know, well not really. You didn't happen to.."

"It's in my car, he doesn't know that either. I can only hope the medication you are giving him is keeping him from sensing it's presence."

"Hey guys?" Roy said as he tapped on the door frame. "Food's done. I dropped some off for Dean already."

Poor kid, he's so out of his depth and he knows it. He's not backing down though. "Thanks Roy, be there in a minute."