"What should I do?" Castiel's voice was firm.
Liz smiled, and this time, there was a trace of appreciation in it.
"First, learn to use this knife." She gestured toward it. "Then come hunting with us. You'll learn quickly, angel."
The scratching of monsters outside the door continued.
Inside, Castiel tightened his grip on the bone knife, his gaze gradually turning resolute.
He was no longer that lost angel.
Nor was he that arrogant "new God."
He was simply Castiel.
A hunter who wanted to bring his comrades home...
There was no day or night in Purgatory. Time had lost all measure here.
Dean could only estimate by the exhaustion in his body and the healing of his wounds. He figured about three days had passed.
Or perhaps four.
On this dark-red, writhing land that forever reeked of decay, every second seemed stretched to its limit.
He and Sam stood back-to-back amid a pile of monster corpses.
The corpses were melting like wax figures under intense heat, pale yellow mucus seeping into the ground and being absorbed by the writhing organic matter.
The air was thick with the acrid smell of burning and the cloying stench of rot, mingling into a nauseating poisonous haze.
A fresh wound deep enough to expose bone had appeared on Dean's left arm. Sam's right leg had been pierced by a monster's tail spike in the recent battle. Though it had been pulled out, dark-red blood seeped out with every step.
"How many bullets left?" Dean asked between breaths, sweeping his gaze around them. New shadows were moving through the dark-red fog.
"Seven." Sam checked the shotgun. "Three salt rounds, four borax rounds. The knife's about done too."
The monster-hunting knife Grayson had forged for Dean was already chipped, its blade covered in fine cracks.