"You haven't changed Charlotte."

"You have. You both have."

She ignored the use of her old name, the name she had completely discarded five years ago with the death of her mother. Instead she took a sip of the tea, looking up at her father as he glanced at her. His hair was completely grey; remorse and guilt etched into his face, the lines making him look so old. The boy sitting on the sofa, eyes fixed to the TV was no longer a toddler, but had grown into a child. A faire child who, her father had told her, still did not speak. He looked nothing like her real brother, sitting in the car outside, waiting patiently for her to finish her work here.

She tapped her fingers on the table, eyes never leaving him. Five years she had waited for this moment. Five long years. Of course she hadn't changed; her aging process was slower than a mortal's, making her look only 18 when she had, six months ago, celebrated her 20th birthday.

"We thought you were dead."

"I know."

"Did you ever find…"

"No." The lie cut him off swiftly. She didn't want to think about that. Didn't want to think about her brother, dead at her hands.

A nod from him, slight confusion in his eyes. She knew he was remembering the funeral, when he'd seen them both in the trees.

She took another sip of the tea, detesting it and finding the usual blood-cravings filling her. Last time she'd seen him, he had been the monster. Now the tables were turned and she'd have her revenge.

Not long now. She told herself. Not long Shadow.

"Sam! We're meant to be on holiday, not working!"

Dean Winchester looked at his brother over the top of the car, as Sam studied the sheets of paper in his hands.

"So you just want to ignore it?"

Dean gave a light shrug. "Come on Sammy, let's hit the bars. Get some English girls!"

"Welsh."

"What?"

"We're in Wales Dean."

"So?"

"So the girls here are Welsh, not English."

"Does it matter?"

Sam lifted his gaze to look at his brother. His brother, who wanted to travel to Europe and see London, not some little sea side town in a little country that he didn't even know existed. But Sam had dragged him here after seeing the news, after realising what was going on here.

"It does to some of the girls."

"Right, whatever. So we going to hit the town or what?"

Sam let out a sigh. "Listen, we'll spend the night in a pub or something. Try to gather some information and…"

"You can gather the information."

"OK Dean. You get drunk, I'll do the work."

Dean grinned. "That's more like it. So where to Sammy?"


She stepped out of the house, smiling as she strode into the street, sliding on a pair of sunglasses. The late afternoon sun was low as she made her way to the car and opened the door.

"Done?"

Her brother looked up from the magazine, and she nodded.

"Done."

"Where we going?"

"Well fairy boy," She grinned at him, and he smiled softly back. "Thought we could go relax at the pub for a bit."

"Sounds like a plan."

She laughed as she looked at the teen. He'd grown up in a completely different world to her, where time passed much quicker, explaining why he was closer to her age than his changeling counterpart living with her father. He never spoke of his time in the fairy world, preferring to concentrate on the here and now, just glad to be with his sister after so long.

Four years ago she'd found him on the streets of Las Vegas, begging for change. He'd known straight away who she was. He'd been watching her.

They'd come a long way since then.

She found herself wondering where Poison and Blake were, if they were OK or still running from Vampire hunters.

She and Tim had left them in Vegas, when she'd decided to track her father down. He hadn't been in her home town. No, he'd moved. And now here she was in this sea side town, trying to figure out what to do now she'd completed her task.

Relax.

For a bit anyway. Then get on the move again. Where to she didn't know, but it would come to her. She was sure of it.

They pulled up outside the seaside hotel and entered it to get ready for the pub.

Starting from tonight, she would forget about the wreck that had been the first fifteen years of her life. She'd relax and let herself go, have fun with her brother. She'd forgotten how to have fun.

Dean tapped his fingers on the bar as he waited to be served. Finally he had his beer. He looked at the pint glass and smiled to himself, feeling slightly homesick for a bottle. "When in Rome…" He turned to the table and sat down, watching Sam type on his laptop.

"Sammy Sammy Sammy, relax!"

"You're the one relaxing Dean, not…" Sam stopped when he noticed the look on his brother's face. Dean had just taken a sip of the beer, and looked like he wasn't enjoying it. "What's wrong?"

"It's warm."

"Warm?"

"Yeah…as in, not cold."

"I know what you mean Dean." Sam rolled his eyes at his brother, before taking a sip of his own beer. "You're right, it is warm. Get used to it Dean."

"Well I'm not going to make…" Dean stopped mid sentence, glancing out through the frosted glass to the beer garden. "Well will you look at that."

Sam looked up from the laptop, towards the girl his bother was gazing at. Even through the glass he could see why she had caught his brother's attention. Her long black hair framed a pale face, striking red lips folded around the butt of a cigarette as she talked to a kid who could have only been about sixteen. Her eyes were hidden behind a pair of dark sunglasses, and absently Sam found himself wondering what colour they were.

He looked back at his brother, shutting his laptop as he did so. He knew exactly what Dean was thinking.

"Go on then."

"What?" Dean turned to Sam, almost unable to tear his gaze away.

"Go talk to her. I'll try and get some information about the people who have been killed and…"

"Thanks Sammy." Dean was already standing up, and before Sam could even finish he was out of the pub and making his way into the beer garden.

Sam packed up his laptop and made his way to the bar, determined to work on this case, even if his brother wasn't.

She flicked her hair behind her ear as her and her brother took their seats on the bench. Even now she wore the sunglasses, worried that her one red eye would draw attention. She would have to wait for the taste of the blood to disappear before she would be confident enough to take the glasses off.

Tim tapped his fingers on the table as she pushed his drink towards him. Slowly he sipped it, enjoying the taste in his mouth before swallowing. She watched him from behind the glasses, surprised at how easily it had been for them in the last few years.

It had seemed they were always on the run from someone; hunters and vampires both. But now…now they had a short stretch of freedom ahead of them. At least, they thought they did.

She didn't notice him until he had stood in front of her, asking if he could sit down.

"Sure." She took in his dirty blond hair, his hazel eyes and…something in them. She couldn't resist. She had to know…

So she kept him talking, chatted about where he was from, where she was from, the time she'd spent in America…

And all the time she was digging deeper and deeper into his brain, without him even knowing.

"Come on Tim, we got to go." She stood up after a while, smiling at Dean. "It's been great…here." She quickly jotted down her number and handed it to him. "Give me a call while you're still in town, yeah?"

"Sure." He smiled up at her, watching as she and her brother disappeared out of the gate and out of sight.

It was the image of the yellow eyed man that kept her awake that night as her brother slept. Of the burning woman and distraught father, of the dead brother and the pact. She wondered how long he had left, if he'd managed to escape the deal somehow.

Demons…

Well, who'd have thought that demons existed?

She slowly pondered over the Winchester boys as Tim's snoring echoed around the small room they shared.

It was obvious what they were here for.

Her.

Such a shame, and she liked Dean.

With a sigh, Shadow moved to the window and stood looking out at the sea, pounding against the beach with all the rage of an angry god. Hell. Demons. Spirits. All of them a part of the world she inhabited.

"Hell…"

She wondered if her brother was down there, if he was tortured every day, if he'd have to face that for eternity.

She closed her eyes, bowing her head and hoping against hope her brother was somewhere better.

"So each of the people who were killed were pretty shady characters."

"Yeah?" Dean leant back on the bed, hands behind his head as he listened to his brother, unable to get that girl out of his head. "Like what?"

"Well from what I've heard, the first guy to die was in his early 20's. According to rumours, he'd cheat on every girl he went out with."

"Right…not really shady though is it?"

"No but there's a pattern." Sam took a deep breath. "One guy beat his girlfriend, again young. He ended up killing her. Third one was nineteen, treated girls like shit." Sam shook his head, leaning back. "And another cheater."

"What do you think we're dealing with?"

"Vengeful spirit?"

"Sounds like it. So what's the next step Sammy?"

"Check the morgue." Sam rubbed his face, holding back a yawn. "Tomorrow."

Descending the stairs beneath the hospital, Dean couldn't help but let his thoughts wonder. They landed on her again.

He hadn't thought of a girl this much in…ages. Years it seemed like, but he knew it was a much shorter time than that. What was it about her? She was beautiful; true, but he'd met a lot of beautiful girls. Intelligent as well, but again; he knew intelligent girls. So why could he not stop thinking about her?

Sam pulled out the first victim when they had been left alone. The nineteen year old had been killed only a few nights before Sam and Dean's arrival in the small town, and his body was in good condition.

"Dean. Look at this."

Dean stood next to his brother, reading the card tied onto the toe.

"No blood." He moved quickly to the neck, and forced himself to move the boy's long hair away from his neck. "Sam. Fang marks."

"Well at least we know what we're dealing with." Sam shook his head, lifting a hand to his forehead. "Vampires."

"There hasn't been enough killings for a group."

"Right. So we're dealing with an individual. Should make things easier."

"No it won't." Dean lifted his head to look at his brother. "A group you can track down, find their hideout and wipe them out. A single vampire can blend into a crowd."

"Dean stop."

As Dean pulled over, the pair climbed out of the car and walked towards the crowd, standing at the edge, peering at the ambulance and police cars parked outside the small house.

"What's going on?" Sam asked, and the old woman standing next to him shook her head sadly.

"Father and child, dead." She let out a mournful sigh. "Don't ask me how, or why. All I know is he was a sweet child, didn't speak much but always smiling. And the father…the poor man. Five years he grieved for his wife. Came here to get away from it all."

Sam nodded, before glancing at Dean. "Doesn't sound like it's…"

Sam stopped, as he heard a small voice from just in front of the old woman.

"Well I heard they went in there and couldn't find a trace of blood in the room or in the bodies."

Dean raised an eyebrow, looking up at his brother.

"Our vampire strikes again then."

Shadow sat, staring in the mirror at her odd eyes. One blue, one a light green. She let herself smile, as he brother commented that she looked like David Bowie.

"Well I know what to dress up as for Halloween then."

"Yeah, if you could get your eyes to stay that way."

She turned back to the mirror, letting out a sigh. The joyful comments had altered her mood; changing the green eye to hazel. Her eye acted like a mood ring, though she couldn't even guess at the mood each colour meant.

"I wish we could just like…have a normal life, you know?"

Tim turned to his sister, standing behind her. "It'd never work. Mainly because I'm legally dead, you've been missing for five years and neither of us look our age. Plus the fact that you age slower and…"

"I get it Tim." She rested her elbows on the table. "Think we can try though, just while we're here?"

"Maybe." Tim placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Is that why you haven't been drinking as much?"

Turning her head away, she closed her eyes. "I don't want us to be found Tim. Not again."

"That doesn't mean you should starve yourself."

"We can stay here for a while, can't we?"

She sometimes felt unsure of their roles in the relationship; both had seen things mere mortals couldn't dream of, in their eyes age was reflected much older than they seemed. She could never be sure if she was looking after him; or he looking after her.

Sympathy for the Devil rang out in the small room, and Shadow glanced over her shoulder at the mobile phone. Maybe, just maybe, Poison had finally decided to phone her. "Tim, can you get that please?"

"Sure."

With a small nod, he walked to the bed and swiped up the phone, answering it quickly.

"Yeah?"

A small pause as Shadow turned to her reflection and began to brush her hair. She placed a hand under the ends feeling the hair between her fingers.

"Hang on a second." Tim covered the phone with one hand. "Shadow, it's that Dean dude."

"Dean?" She climbed up slowly from the chair, moving towards Tim and holding her hand out for the phone.

"Here she is." Tim handed the phone to his sister, his face devoid of any emotion. Another guy, another meal. That's all mortals were, to his sister. He'd learnt not to think much of them.

He sat down on the bed, crossing his legs as he studied his sister. She took her seat once again in front of the mirror, and even as he watched her eye changed to a light purple colour. Confusion entered his mind as his sister laughed and giggled; he'd never seen her like this. Not even with Poison. She was acting like a teenager, playing with her hair as she talked to the guy on the other end.

Finally she ended the call and turned back to the mirror, Tim watched her sister as she dug through one of the drawers, looking for her make up.

"I'm meeting Dean tonight."

"Another meal? So soon?"

"Not like that."

"Not tonight then?"

"Something like that."

"Don't tell me you like him."

"Why not?" She carefully leant forward, applying eye shadow carefully before starting on the mascara.

"Shadow!" He leapt off the bed, taking long strides towards her. "You've always told me that humans are food! We can't get close to them."

Shadow spun around, facing her brother. "This is different."

"Why?"

"He's a hunter."

"What?" Tim's face betrayed anger, as well as confusion. Taking a step towards her, he towered over, staring down at her dark eyes. "Shadow are you stupid? We don't want to be caught, or have you forgotten the conversation we had five minutes ago?"

"Poor little Tim." A sigh escaping her lips, she stood, flicking hair over her shoulder. "Don't you get it? If I keep him close, he won't hurt us."

"How can you be sure?"

"Trust me on this Tim." She stared back at the mirror. "It'll be easy."