Dean had asked me, "What happens to you if we go up against the Devil and loose?"

Honestly I was surprised he would even utter such a stupid question. I'd either be torn twelve ways to Sunday or be condemned to an eternity of torment. It's Lucifer. What did he think would happen?

I fed the boys a couple of lines, said something about a vacation, and got out of there before gigantor could load the Colt and try to shoot me again. I didn't go far though. Despite what I said, my house - with its Enochian wards and layers of magic - was about the safest place on the planet.

Too bad that wasn't saying much. If Lucifer wanted to, he could tear the place apart like paper.

I had to fight to keep my hands from shaking. Now that I finally got to meet the Winchesters face to face I had to admit, I was underwhelmed. They really were a pair of functioning morons, and here I was trusting them with my grand finale.

The only thing that brought me even a modicum of comfort was the knowledge that despite their idiocy, these two had one essential talent: beating the odds.

All I had left to do was hunker down with some good whiskey and wait.

The big showdown came and went. The night was quiet, but I could feel it. He was still out there. He was stronger than ever, and His attention was on me like a cold wind off the moors.

I turned my focus on the little coin my valet had hidden in the Winchesters' car. The gaudy vehicle was screaming up the I-49 towards Jasper, Missouri. I couldn't see in without going there, and there was no way I was leaving my house now. All I could do was listen, and though I could hear them both breathing just fine, they weren't talking.

So the Winchesters were alive, Lucifer was alive… did they actually manage to miss?

Now my hands really were shaking. I stood, downed the rest of my drink in one gulp, and got moving. So I placed my fate in the wrong hands. So the Devil was probably out to tear me a new one. There was no way I was going to sit around and wait for him.

I gathered the most powerful weapons I had to me, cast a few impressive spells. I would run. I would hide, and I would find some other way to deal with the damn Devil.

Only… I couldn't run…

I tried to teleport again, but nothing happened.

"Bullocks…"

Lucifer was right outside the front gate. He was calling me… not in a voice I could hear, but one I could feel, and the feeling was that I should go outside and meet my maker.

It was nearly impossible to resist.

"Get bent," I muttered to the empty room. My feet were sluggish at first, but they picked up speed as I ran to the basement. Escape tunnels. Gotta love 'em.

I came out in a dense stand of trees about forty feet from the back wall of my property. I wouldn't be seen coming out the hatch and I'd have a good head start in the direction of 'not where Lucifer is.'

"Hello Crowley."

"Bloody Hell!" Speak of the Devil, I came out of the trees and there He was with a bloody smile on his face like he was greeting an old chum.

To my vessel's eyes he was a man; blond hair, strong brow, horribly decaying skin. To me he was a world's worth of power and light condensed into a tiny, human sized space. Looking directly at him was like looking at the sun.

"I don't know why you're trying to run. I only wanted to meet you." He tilted his head and frowned, eyes glittering with concern.

My true form shuddered and swirled like a hurricane, but I didn't let it show on my vessel. Outwardly I was the picture of calm. I could try to attack him, but nothing I had on me was more powerful than the Colt. I would have to play along. "Um… How do you do?"

"My head hurts." He pointed to the middle of his brow. "According to Dean Winchester, that's your fault."

It was a short battle between fury and fear. Fury won out. "He... he told you?!"

Lucifer held up his hand and I froze… literally. It was as though I was trapped inside a block of invisible ice, unable to move. In some places it was so cold it burned; I could feel my vessel's skin charring black in several random spots. Only they weren't random.

No, no, no…

Those spots on my skin were covered in Enochian wards written so subtly that not even an Angel could detect them… and Lucifer was burning them off!

It only lasted a couple of seconds and he was talking again. "Dean didn't say a thing. It is simply that he's human. They're… easy to read." He flicked his wrist and I was dragged towards him until I was close enough that he clapped a hand on my shoulder. With only a thin layer of flesh between myself and God's Shiniest Angel, the cold became a million times worse. "You don't have to be afraid," he said gently. "Like I said, I only wanted to meet you."

I swallowed and found my voice; managed to croak out, "Why?"

"Because you rebelled." He said it like he caught his kid smoking. "And unlike my Father, I didn't give my creations that option."

I had to bite down on a curse. No wonder every other Demon was so creepily willing to dance to the Archangel's tune. They didn't have the freedom to do otherwise. Nothing but mindless slaves…

Lucifer said, "I'll admit, it did cross my mind to simply eliminate you."

He tightened his death grip on my shoulder and his other hand cupped the side of my face. I shut my eyes as I flinched away from my vessel's nerves. As much as I wanted to wrench the body out of his grip, it refused to do more than stand there and shudder.

I have never felt more trapped in my entire existence.

The Angel just kept talking. "Then I thought about it, and a Demon that can ignore all my failsafes and try to kill me? It should be impossible. I thought I should at least have a look at you."

I was startled by a tug on my ethereal form, and then a force gripped me tight and started dragging me out of my vessel. I desperately tried to cling to the safety of flesh and bone, but there was no use. Suddenly the empty body collapsed as I was forced outside; a mercurial cloud of red smoke trying to stream away into the night.

I was tethered, though… held in place by invisible bonds.

Without the filter of human senses, the world was light, shadow, and energy, with only the barest impression of the physical. Like this I had no filter, no protection against Lucifer's pure, burning light.

And here I thought Holy water was bad! This was like taking a shower in liquid nitrogen!

Only I had no skin to burn off; no nerves to kill. The agony was unchanging and unending and I was being pulled closer to the source.

"Shhh... Easy, easy. I know it hurts." Lucifer spoke only with his human voice, soft and cooing. If the Archangel inside made so much as a whisper right now I'd be destroyed. "I promise, I don't want to cause you pain, but I have to know."

I was directly in front of him now. Too close… too close…

He reached out and laid a rotting hand against me as though I was solid. I tried to shrink away, going from flowing smoke to a small, dense cloud of fog. It did nothing.

His Grace was millimeters away, barred from me by the thinnest layer of human skin. He whispered, "I'm sorry."

And then pain… agony beyond words, perfect and pure, lasting a moment and a millennia. Nothing in all of creation could cause such suffering. This was the brilliant light of God falling upon a shadow; searing it into oblivion.

But shadows are black…

Demons are black…

Lucifer's Grace withdrew along with his hold on me and I was allowed to limp back into my vessel. I was a wreck, weak and freezing, the ice burning me through to my core. I buried myself as deep down inside my flimsy shelter as I could get.

I stayed like that for what must have been an eternity, quivering as wave after wave of absolution rolled through me.

When I finally had the strength to reach out for my senses I expected to find myself lying in a thousand years of rubble and dust. Instead I found something much worse: Lucifer sitting in a chair a few feet away.

His head was down. His eyes pierced the pages of a very old and careworn copy of 'Paradise Lost.' Slowly he marked his place in the book and closed it. "You're awake?" He looked up and straight at me.

Something small and foreign fluttered in my chest like a trapped bird.

I tried to get up and as far away from him as possible, but I could only thrash in place. I stopped and examined my situation. We were in a dark old room of ancient stone, an actual torch in the wall providing the only light. It was the 'Decaying Castle Chic' that belonged to the royal chambers in Hell.

I was restrained by thick leather bonds etched in binding sigils. They held my wrists and ankles with a final strap across my chest, but I wasn't on a rack. I was strapped down yes, but on a wooden bed.

I was still in my expensive suit as well. Lucifer wasn't going to torture me in it, was he? That would ruin it!

There was that fluttering again as my eyes fell on an IV bag and the line stretching from it down into my left arm. The fluid that was pouring into me was dark, dark red. Blood?

Bullocks…

I suddenly knew what that birdy sensation was: fear. Not a strong sense of self-preservation, not a desire to avoid pain, but real human fear.

"You've been unconscious for three days," Lucifer said, drawing my attention back to him. The wave of absolute terror that washed over me was staggering. "At first I was afraid I had destroyed you, but you've exceeded my expectations."

"You touched me with your Grace!" How had he not destroyed me?!

His smile was unerringly proud. "And you withstood it. I wasn't sure - there's never been a red Demon before – but I had hope…"

He stood and came over to me, ran a hand along the edge of the bed. I started shaking and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't stop. It didn't even feel like I was in a meatsuit. I felt solid, alive, and oh so fragile.

"The blood is taking effect, isn't it?" He leaned in close to my face. It didn't hurt as much to look at him now, but that fluttering in my chest turned into an ache. I closed my eyes and turned my head away. He laughed. "Oh yeah. It's taken effect."

I was breathing too fast. The hammering of my vessel's heart echoed painfully through me as I struggled to bring some piece of myself back under control.

Lucifer started pacing around the bed as he said, "Did you know that when I set out, I wasn't trying to create Demons? I mean, why would I want to attach such hideous, broken things to my name? No, I was trying to perfect my Father's flawed little project. At the time I thought all those volatile feelings and emotions were the problem, so I removed them." He snorted. "I know, I know. I was being an idiot. But you, my little red wonder, have given me a chance to finish what I started."

He stopped at my left side and my eyes flew open when I felt his touch on my skin. The blood bag was empty and Lucifer pinned my arm down as he pushed my sleeve up and slid the IV from my vein.

I was overwhelmed with relief when he let me go.

"That should be enough for now," he said. He flicked his wrist and all the restraints that held me undid themselves.

"W… what are you doing?!"

"You've put so much care into your vessel," he said. He watched impassively as I got to my feet and scrambled backwards across the room. "It would be a shame to damage it."

Oh no…

My eyes stung and blurred in a way I didn't understand. "Please…"

"Sorry." Lucifer raised his hand and I was dragged outside again.

I wasn't tethered this time so I swirled around the room, frantically trying to find a way out. There was an iron barred window, an open door, a vent. I tried each of them, but a barrier kept me from escaping.

No salt. No Devil's Trap. It was something deeper… unperceivable.

I could practically taste Lucifer's amusement as he watched me panic. When I finally collected myself in a corner of the ceiling, he asked, "Are you done?"

His light didn't burn as much this time. It wasn't as cold.

He held his hand out to me. "Come here."

Up yours, mate.

Lucifer squinted at me, the tiniest of frowns on his face. "Crowley, either you come here, or I make you come here and this becomes way more unpleasant for you."

I was possessed by an awful swell of emotion. Apparently I couldn't escape the effects of the human blood simply by vacating my vessel. I was so afraid. I was so certain I wouldn't survive a second round of Grace. That agony… it would destroy me.

At the same time, I was filled with dread at the thought that Lucifer really could somehow make it worse.

Slowly, reluctantly I drifted from the corner and approached him. That infuriating Devil didn't move. He stood still with his hand out, waiting for me to touch him.

I hesitated, roiling in disgust as I realized he was treating me like a damn dog that needs training.

I was about to recoil, but Lucifer closed the gap and once again I was overtaken by that pure suffering.

When it stopped I collapsed to the ground; a pool of still, red mist. I was barely aware of being moved by a gentle force. I could sense my vessel as I came closer to it; safe… warm…

With my last ounce of strength I crawled inside and found a deep corner to curl up in.