PROLOGUE

The circumstances of one's birth are irrelevant. It is what you do with the gift of life that determines who you are. How strange it seemed that these words of wisdom came from an animated Pokémon movie and not from the mouths of real people.

Faythe was specifically bred with the purpose of being a prolific killing machine by the standards of both angel and demon alike yet with none of the weakness either group had and still retaining a human body. She had of course no choice in this matter seeing as she had not even been conceived at the point when some angel – a lower level guy by the name of Logan– came up with this idea, and by the point she was conceived it was already too late.

Apparently – Faythe learned later on – Logan had been overly invested with humans, or at least the few humans who called themselves 'hunters' and fought against the shadowy creatures that lurked in the dark corners of their lives. Logan was, among angels, an experimentalist. Other angels avoided him apparently, branded him insane. Faythe was inclined to agree completely.

Her mother, Rachel, had not been a devout woman nor had she been completely unholy. She was a hunter herself, but one who had settled down in a particular city and hunted things there around a day job. On Sundays she went to church and before bed she would pray. Maybe this was why Logan chose her.

He didn't come out and say what he was when he first approached Rachel. He waited until the third date – classy – before he told her he was an angel. Of course Rachel was sceptic right up until Logan preformed a not so minor miracle. He killed her cat, then brought it back. What on earth possessed Rachel to work with the angel who killed her cat (even if he brought it back) was beyond Faythe's comprehension. Either way she listened to Logan's proposal to create the ultimate weapon.

He got Rachel pregnant with a Nephilim, the off spring of an angel and a human.

But that wasn't the end of Logan's plan. Finding a demon was easy. Trapping a demon in their meat-suit was easy. Draining the demon of some of its blood every day for nine months was a little difficult, and once or twice Logan got frustrated and ended up killing the demon and had to replace it. Having Rachel drink demon blood every day while she was pregnant? That was as easily as simply explaining to Rachel what he sought of the child growing in her womb and she was having a glass of blood every day. After a week she was already an addict anyway, not that the angel had told her of the addictive side effects before serving it up to her as a beverage.

For nine months Logan visited Rachel and no one in heaven, not one of the other angels, seemed to notice what he was doing. Like previously stated they ignored him, he was insane.

And then the pregnancy went on longer than either Logan or Rachel expected. A month and half overdue Rachel resolved – without Logan's consent – to have the birth induced. The next time Logan visited her she was a mother resting in hospital with a new-born by her bed. Even induced the birth had been a laboured affair and took almost seventy hours. Rachel was exhausted.

Logan was disappointed. He peered into the cot beside her bed and the baby stared back up. The angel thought it kind of looked like a hairless ape, but then that was kind of what humans where, and the child was nothing of what he'd expected. He'd expected strength, power. What he got was 6lb 2oz of wrinkled pink skin that stared up at him with such dark brown eyes they nearly looked black. He couldn't even feel any power coming from the child. Perhaps he had been wrong, Logan thought as he and the child stared at one another, perhaps the combination of angel and demon DNA in a human child was not enough to imbue it with the power of both races… perhaps all it had done was cancel out any of the DNA and leave it simply a human with nothing special about it at all…

Logan was still standing in the hospital room when two more angels entered. He didn't need to turn around to know they were there. He sensed them, and the flickering lights would have been quite the clue if not. Logan smiled to himself. "Did you follow me, or where you sent?" he asked as he turned away from the child and took a step towards the two angels.

Neither of them answered him, but Logan shrugged nonchalantly anyway. "It does not matter none. My experiment has failed, the child is nothing."

The angels stood stoically, the one using a Doctor as his vessel spoke "Logan what you tried to create is an abomination."

"No, don't you see?" Logan scowled "if the experiment had been successful this child would have been the start of something new. A race of soldiers without the vulnerabilities of an angel or a demon and yet the powers of both…"

The two angels continued to stare. Logan deflated a bit and nodded at them. "My experiment is a failure, and if I am to be killed for this I only hope that you can understand why I tried…"

"We understand" the angel using a patient as a vessel said "but that doesn't make it right Logan. Come away from the child Logan, it is time you answered for your crimes."

Logan did not argue, did not even try to stay behind with his child nor for Rachel. He had not cared for either, only from what they could give him. He did however as his captors if he could have a moment with Rachel and though they did not give him a moment alone they did allow him to go over to the unconscious Rachel and in a show of uncanny gentleness he smoothed back a piece of her hair and pressed a kiss to her temple. The angels didn't know he had implanted a thought on the woman, nor did they see him slip something under her pillow.

When Rachel woke hours later she knew nothing of what had transpired in her room over the crib of her new born. She'd had the strangest dream about her angel though, that he had left a gift to protect their child… Rachel found the angel blade under her pillow and it set a seed of unease in her stomach. Still it was only once her child was six months old and she had seen hide nor hair of Logan that she realised she was alone to raise her child. A child that to her was quite obviously not human.

For six months she resisted naming her child, wanting Logan's input, but when he did not returned she chose what she considered an appropriate name. Because she had faith in her child being everything Logan dreamed it would be.

She named her daughter Faythe.

When the child was seven months old the angels realised that Logan's experiment had indeed worked. This child was showing remarkable abilities common amongst both angel and demons. Angel's watched as the mother tested the infant, they watched as she tried devils traps and angel banishing sigil's, holy water and salt. There was no effect on the child, besides some lethargy and a skin rash from salt.

It was decided that the child could become too powerful if she reached adult hood, and angels where sent to dispatch of her. Unfortunately her power seemed to cloak her from the detection of angels so they sent out entire garrisons to find her and her mother. Of course the power only cloaked the child…the mother was easy enough to find.

Castiel was the angel who found the abandoned cabin in which Rachel and her child where hidden. Uriel should have been with him but had left to deal with a particularly large group of demons who had also begun to track down the child and her mother. Castiel wasn't too concerned with this, it was just a baby after all and her mother was just a human. They posed him little threats.

And yet… when Castiel entered the house silently as the wind and stood over the crib with angel blade in hand something made him hesitate. It might have been that the baby was awake, he'd expected her to be asleep, but she stared up at him with deep brown eyes that could easily be mistaken for black. For a moment angel and baby just stared at one another.

"I'm sorry" Castiel found himself muttering as he raised his angel blade high above his head ready to bring it down on the child…

And she giggled, little hands holding her own feet, showing off her toothless gums and something popped in the room. Suddenly Castiel could sense the child when before she had been registering as nothing to him. Now he could feel her magic, he could sense the overwhelming power within her feeling both angelic and demonic and yet neither side was warring in her body. She was well balanced. She giggled again and Castiel found his grip on his angel blade loosen in hesitation…

He stared into the child's large eyes and found something he hadn't expected. Goodness. There was no evil in this child no matter what power or blood might run in her veins. Castiel dropped his blade.

This order didn't come from god. He knew that when he was sent out, all the angels knew that.

He wouldn't do it. He couldn't do it. There was something special about this child, perhaps not what Logan had been trying to create, but there was a plan for her. He could feel that much…

This order was not from god, and he would not feel bad about not going through with it.

Or would he?

He should just do it. This child might not be evil right then but she had the capacity to be the same as any other infant...

But perhaps not… perhaps with careful guidance…

Castiel continued to glare down at the child while waring with himself, and the baby started to blow raspberries and giggled before she glanced at him as if wondering if he found this as amusing as she did. Then she began to wave her arms in the air in the way Castiel knew as an infant seeking physical contact with a caregiver. He wasn't a caregiver… and yet he found himself scooping the child out of the crib before he actually registered what he was doing. He held her a little gingerly, more than aware that he could break her with a single wrong touch, and found one hand ghosting over her fragile head feeling her dark hair as soft as the feathers of his own wings. After a few moments she made a contented noise and he pulled her away from him to try gauge her mood from her expression.

And he felt something then, an air around this child… curiously Castiel tilted his head and pressed a hand to her chest. Ah…oh. He frowned. Someone had carved Enochian symbols onto this child. Castiel hurriedly put the child back down, contemplating… because he was sure, more than sure, that the angel Logan would not have bothered with carving protection into this child. And they did not feel like marks of protection…

Castiel frowned again, obviously someone had marked this child with something… his eyes widened, what if it was god? The power residing in this child, the combination of angel and demon and human, she should not have survived birth and yet nearly a year later she is perfectly healthy? Was this the will of his father?

Castiel took a step back, aware that Uriel would be finished with the demons soon and would be unlikely to question orders from their superior regarding a child he already condemned as an abomination… should he just let Uriel take care of it? …No. Castiel frowned at the child and, picking up his blade once more, took hold of a small arm and left a narrow cut down her arm. For a second the baby did nothing – and then she wailed. Castiel was unsurprised but he ignored her cries as he pressed his hand against the blood and healed her. At least now he had her blood as 'proof' he had 'killed' her. He removed his hand but scowled when he saw his blade, even after healing, had left a narrow silver mark on her arm. Apparently she was not immune to an angel blade.

Castiel moved to Rachel in the bed across the room. She had not even stirred at the cry of her child. Exhausted from running probably. Castiel pressed a hand to her chest to carve her with the Enochian symbols that would protect her from detection of angel or demon alike and then with a final long glance at the child he was supposed to kill he exited to shack.

At the edge of the forest, quite some miles from the shack, he met Uriel. He would have felt when the woman – if not the child since he should not sense her anyway - vanished from his detection. It would be easy to claim he had killed the child and her mother. Castiel stood beside the other angel. "Demons?" he asked.

"Vermin" Uriel replied "easily disposed. There is blood on your hand."

"The child. It's done." Castiel murmured looking at the blood on his hand.

"Then let us return home, I am tired of this marble" Uriel sighed. Together they left the vessels they had been using – two choir boys from a local church who'd agreed blindly, luckily since they had only used them for a few hours it was unlikely there would be extensive damage to them – and returned to heaven. Castiel often found himself watching the child he'd allowed to live curiously, though he never visited again.

Not until he decided the Winchesters could do with a helping hand years later.