"Hello, Sister Hannah, a bit late for a walk, isn't it?" asked the middle aged Sister Agnes, smiling sweetly at the young woman as she passed.
"It is never too late to do God's work." Sister Hannah replied, minding herself to keep her tongue in check.
Sister Agnes was a busy body, a gossip and tattletale. No doubt she would go running to Sister Superior Penelope the second she got the chance. The old stick in the mud had never taken kindly to her.
Although, Sister Agnes did have a point. It was well past two in the morning.
Sister Agnes nodded, bowing her head in agreement to Sister Hannah's retort, yet pursed her lips in a way that seemed to be tasting the words she would spread to Sister Superior Penelope.
Let her.
Sister Hannah knew that no matter how much Sister Agnes wanted to get her kicked out of the convent, or at least out of her eyesight, Sister Hannah and Sister Superior Penelope both knew that she had earned her place in the Sisterhood of the Guardian Saints several times over.
As Sister Hannah half jogged up to her sparse room in the Convent, she began to strip and disarm as she went.
Neither she nor any other nun in the convent wore habits anymore. Ever since the 1960s, the Sisters wore everyday clothes. There were zero restrictions as to what a nun could and could not adorn her body with.
Some old guard Sisters, like Sister Agnes, would still don the conservative garb if given the option. But even the most liberal of the nuns raised their eyebrows when they met Sister Hannah.
Sister Hannah had tattoos. Her wrists were adorned with the tattoo images of rosary beads while her shoulder boasted a detailed tattoo of Jesus on the cross. Not to mention the various scrawls of Latin along various regions of her flesh.
And while the tattoos could be forgiven, her nose and eyebrow piercing failed to find justification more than the fact that Sister Hannah liked the way they looked.
Yes, vanity was a sin, but there were worse things on this Earth than that.
Sister Hannah knew better than anyone.
As she bolted the door behind her, she swept a line of salt against the doorframe. Pausing only to greet the one-eyed cat that was purring contentedly on her bed, Sister Hannah opened her gun case hidden in the back of her closet. She replaced the salt pellets and silver bullets, once again unsuccessful in killing whatever it was that was ensanguining the homeless population.
Not a vamp. Sister Hannah had it on good authority that vamps were extinct.
She didn't have a great deal of time to dwell on the idea before there was a knock on her door. She didn't have to bother asking who it was. Only one person in the convent talked to her regularly, and it wasn't any of the Sisters.
She wordlessly walked across the room and unlocked the dead bolt, the echoing click giving invitation to her visitor.
Father Thomas walked in, careful to not upset the salt line as he entered. He took in Sister Hannah's tank top and skinny jeans with raised eyebrows and nothing else. He sensed that she was irritable after a dead end of a hunt. At the very least, the elderly priest understood her.
"Nothing?" he asked, without preamble. He had given her the job, after all.
"No." she grumbled, slamming the knife that was strapped to her waist down on the table a little harder than was absolutely necessary.
"Are you sure?"
Sister Hannah knew that the Father would chastise her for the glare she shot at him, but in the moment, she didn't care.
"You can understand why I'm concerned." Said the Father evenly.
"If you're talking about the shifter, you can keep it to yourself. " Sister Hannah said, matching the Father's cool tone. They'd had this fight before.
"I'm talking about the crossroads demon."
"I've already explained that." Sister Hannah said, turning away from the priest as she pulled the breast knife from it's hiding. "Those people knew what they were doing when they went to her. They voluntarily gave their souls to Hell. They made their beds, let them lie in it."
"Sister Hannah" snapped Father Thomas, "You and I both know that it is never too late for people to be saved. How dare you speak against your fellow men in this house of God. "
The priest crossed himself, then gave Sister Hannah a look that told her quite plainly that he expected nothing less from her. The petulant nun dropped to her knees and prayed for her own forgiveness.
The priest nodded in approval as she stood.
"I trust your judgment and abilities." Said Father Thomas, "I know that you would never do anything to allow evil to continue to flourish here, on this Earth that God has given us to protect."
"No, Father." Lied Sister Hannah.
The Father gave another of his signature curt nods before turning on his heel and limping out of her room.
Sister Hannah waited a beat to hear his footsteps limp down the hall.
She turned to the only other companion in her room, the one-eyed cat, scooped him up and placed him outside her door, giving him a kiss on his furry, purring head as she did so.
Finally alone, the nun pulled the out bowl she had stashed under her bed.
She had been unsuccessful in killing the demon that she had been looking for, but she had been able to get the last of the ingredients that she needed.
Pulling the bone of the long deceased Sister Eloise Mary from a bag in her pocket, Sister Hannah had everything she needed.
She finished off her summoning spell with a drop of her own, virginal blood.
The room stayed silent, but Sister Hannah refused to let her guard down. She had seen and done enough to know that this spell would work.
"Well," said an accented voice from a corner of the room, "Two hundred years in business and I can still be surprised. This, my dear, is quite a first."
The demon man cast his eyes around the house of God before landing squarely back on the unconventional nun who had summoned him there in the first place.
"You're a hard demon to track down," Sister Hannah said.
"Yes. I am." He said flatly. "Are you going to kill me?"
He didn't sound frightened, but bored.
"We both know that I can't, Crowley."
He gave a crooked smirk.
"Are you going to keep me here, as a prisoner?" he asked, pointing with his chin towards the salt line.
Father Thomas had thought she had done it as a way to keep demons out. In reality, it was a precaution to keep this particular demon in.
"I probably couldn't do that either."
"No, you couldn't." he said simply.
"I need to make a deal." She said.
"You could do that with any old crossroads demon, you didn't need to interrupt my very busy night. "
"No, it had to be you."
Crowley sighed, getting bored of Sister Hannah's cryptic clues.
"I need to get into Hell."
Crowley raised his eyebrows.
"You want to get into Hell."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"I need to find the soul of John Winchester. I've already heard that you can't pull a soul that has been sold to Hell up to Heaven. So, I want to go to him. Then we're going to break out."
Crowley smirked, amused by her honesty.
"Do you know how souls break out of Hell?" he asked.
Sister Hannah didn't reply.
"They come out as Demons." He said, smiling at the cruelty. "Why do you think anyone would ever go into the Pit? That's our little yellow brick road. There are traps, precautions. But those, those barriers separating there from here are nothing compared to the other Demons. Those motherfuckers will rip your delicate little soul to pieces, everyone fighting, tooth and nail, for a little freedom. Even Demons hate Hell."
"We could survive the pit without becoming Demons."
"You'd be the first."
"Then we'll be the first."
"So, what? You want me to take you into Hell?"
"And help us get back out."
"Why would I do that?"
"You're an ambitious kind of Demon. Are you really happy being Lilith's little sidekick?"
"It's comfortable." Crowley said, with a raised eyebrow.
"For now."
"And, what? You break out, not as Demons or anything that could actually be remotely helpful, and assist me to take over Hell?"
"Yes."
"Ok."
"What?" asked Sister Hannah, a little surprised that it had gone so quickly and smoothly.
"Deal." Said Crowley. "I accept your offer."
Now that the moment had come, Sister Hannah felt the first chill of regret, a twinge of doubt.
The demon stepped towards her.
She had spent her whole life fighting things like him.
Another step closer.
Poor Father Thomas had practically raised her, and here she was, in his house of the Lord, about to commit the greatest sin known to man.
The demon was right in front of her now, the green eyes of his host searching her face greedily.
Even John himself would slap her for even considering this. What if she couldn't find John in Hell? What if they couldn't break out?
He leaned in. The demon was about the same shape as John had been. His host was somewhere around the same age as John had been when she had seen him last.
John.
Sister Hannah closed the distance between their lips.
He felt human enough. Not that Sister Hannah had much more experience kissing men than she had with kissing demons. There was one thing that was still pretty well agreed upon in nun expectations.
She had only kissed one other man.
John.
Sister Hannah felt warmth in her building, yet it wasn't sexual, at least not entirely. It was almost like being pulled into the undertow of a warm wave.
The ground faded from beneath her.
It was a done deal.