(A/N for part 2: I must've rewritten this about five times, and it always turned out so much different, and I'm still not entirely happy with it... Also, some things may seem random or out of place, but nothing is random and everything has reasons! Mwahaha)

PS - Sorry this took so long, RL got in the way majorly...


Flashes of light, darkness, blurred faces, flames.

Pain everywhere. Throughout the body. Through the heart.

Screams and fire. Louder and bighter. Senses overwhelming. Heat engulfing. A recognition of burning flesh, and the cries of joy.

Why would anyone celebrate this pain?

Harsh words barked out like a curse. A final agonising scream as-

Sam blinked into awareness in the early hours of the morning. It was still dark outside, and Dean was snoring softly on the sofa to his left. He stretched his long limbs out, his joints popping, back aching and he started to regret letting Dean win last night's game of 'rock, paper, scissors' for the sofa.

Sam had always been more of a morning person his brother, and as such he made sure to wake up bright and early every day- when they weren't on a job, that is. The younger Winchester got up and made his way to the kitchen, where the coffee was already brewing.

He listened. There was no sound coming from anywhere in the apartment. Things must've quietened down last night after he drifted off. Kat had pulled the haggard stranger straight to her bedroom with no more than an apologetic shrug to Sam and Dean. Then the noise had started.

No, not like that.

Shouting. There was a lot of shouting. Most of it in a foreign dialect Sam couldn't even begin to understand, and he was pretty sure that Kat had this place soundproofed; otherwise they would probably have had to deal with complaining neighbours. The brothers had stared at each other in confusion for a moment, before settling down to sleep. Well, it wasn't as it speculating would do them any good. They could just find out in the morning.

Sam settled himself at the breakfast bar, grabbing yesterday's newspaper off a stool and thumbing through it, eyes instinctively scanning for anything that could indicate a possible job. There was a noise in the doorway, and Sam looked up to see Kat shuffling into the kitchen, dark circles under her eyes, making a beeline for the coffee pot.

"Didn't sleep well?" He asked with a smirk. She gave a good-natured 'humph' before settling into a stool opposite him.

"You could say that," she grimaced.

"You guys were quite, er... loud last night."

"Oh, you heard that, huh?" Kat groaned at Sam's raised eyebrow. "Ugh, it's just... family, you know?" she explained.

"Yeah, I can understand that." Sam replied, remembering some of fights he'd had with Dean. When his thoughts returned to the present, he saw that Kat had also been staring off into the distance. He didn't question her about it. If she wanted to tell him, she would.

"I am sorry about last night," she apologised. "I had promised to explain everything to you, before..." she trailed off. "Well, anyway when your brother wakes up we can pick up where we left off."

Sam's eyebrows knitted together, and he leaned forward on his elbows. "Kat... you're not a hunter, are you? Not our kind of hunter anyway, right?" He took her slow smile as confirmation and continued, "So what else is out there? What's in your world that's not in ours?"

Her smile turned into a fully formed grin in a split second. "He said you'd be like this." She whispered, almost to herself, before "You're intuitive, Sam. If you weren't what you are, you almost could have been one of us."

Sam ignored the cryptic answer, and kept his poker face in place as she continued. "My family, we're... I guess you could call us specialists."

"Specialists in what, exactly?" And there was that secretive smile again. Dammit.

"In things that never quite made it into John Winchester's diary."

Sam swallowed thickly, "You know about that?"

"I know about a lot of things, Sam. And your father was good, but no matter how hard he tried there were some things he couldn't kill, couldn't explain. That is our job. The records are unclear on exactly how it began, but centuries ago they discovered a bloodline that was not quite human, but neither was it inherently evil. There was a family, six brothers, who possessed skills humans could only ever dream of. They were faster, sharper and better fighters than anyone had ever seen.

It's not known how, but they became aware of certain... creatures, supernatural beings and they trained themselves to fight them. These beings were not only fierce but intelligent, and it soon became clear that not all of them were guilty of crimes against humanity. So, these six brothers made an accord with these other creatures, a set of laws declaring that anyone who killed, maimed, drank, raped, stole or even touched a human would be answerable to them."

"And let it be heard that whomsoever touch but a hair of an innocent, shall do so on pain of death without any hope of mercy or forgiveness" Sam and Kat both turned to the voice coming from the doorway. The man from last night stood there, in clean pyjamas, no trace of the blood from before.

Absently Sam wondered if Kat had some kind men's department store in her apartment, because this was getting ridiculous. Three different sized men, and she just happened to have something that would fit them all? Pfff.

"As much as I enjoy, taking a trip down memory lane, Kittums, couldn't we tell a story with a little more action? For instance, that one about the time Abe Lincoln and I went to a French whorehouse, but they were all midg-"

"Edward," Kat hissed, cutting off the man's ramblings, and gesturing towards Sam. "This is Sam Winchester. Sam, this is my, uh, distant uncle, Edward Ravencroft."

"Nice to meet you" Sam greeted politely, holding out a hand. Edward regarded him for a moment, before smirking, "You're taller in person" and proceeded to walk towards the fridge, ignoring Sam's still outstretched hand. Confused, Sam to looked to Kat, who silently mouthed don't ask.

"The original Brothers were awfully dull" Edward continued, head still stuck in the fridge. "Especially Jonothon. That man's idea of wit would have sent any sane person running for the hills."

"I thought Jonothon was your favourite?" Kat enquired.

Sam just sat there, completely mind-fucked. From what little Kat had told of her story, these events happened hundreds of years ago, and yet Edward was talking as if... No way. That just wasn't possible. And Sam was coming from a long life of experiencing the impossible, but this was just... no.

Edward re-emerged from the fridge, holding a strange concoction of ingredients that didn't look like would be very good together, replying "He was. The others hated me. And just because he was my friend doesn't mean he wasn't boring." He looked at Sam, then, a worried expression on his face. "I think we may have broken him, darling. Go ask the other one if he knows how to fix it."

When Dean had wandered bleary-eyed into the kitchen shortly afterwards, Edward had retreated back into Kat's room, and Kat continued her story. Dean listened intently, stuffing pancakes into his face, and apparently unfazed that he'd missed something.

"The brothers became a type of supernatural law enforcement, protecting humanity from what became known as the 'Immortal Races'. The Brothers themselves had many names, the best translations from the Old English are Night Shadows, or Daggers of the Night-"

"Catchy" Dean murmured, giving Sam a sidelong 'what-is-this-shit' glance.

Kat elected to ignore him, continuing "- and they passed the responsibility, as well as their enhanced genetics down, through the generations and the brotherhood has become a worldwide organisation, with several training facilities in different countries. But now we are known simply as Shadows. "

"Huh," Dean considered. "So how come we've never heard of you?"

"We are a very covert operation. We deal only with the immortal races, leaving the regular supernatural baddies to hunters such as yourselves."

"Wow. What a bag of dicks." Dean blurted out, unabashedly.

Kat shrugged, "It's tradition. The Laws of the Brotherhood are sacrosanct, and those of the bloodline must all swear a blood oath. We are bound by it until The Time."

"The Time?" Sam asked.

"There far more to this story than can possibly be explained in one sitting, but basically every generation there are six individuals of the Blood who come together to fight alongside one another. They are more skilled than the rest of their kind. And whatever brings them together; fate, destiny, divine intervention, call it what you will, has a plan for them. Their lives are not supposed to be consumed by violence and killing, it would only serve to drive them insane-"

At this, the Winchester brothers exchanged matching 'raised-eyebrow' glances.

"- and the Time comes when the Six have done what they were supposed to and they split up, scattering across the globe, attempting to assimilate back into regular society, and forbidden from ever contacting one another."

Something flickered in Sam's eyes as he interpreted the change in pronouns, and Kat could almost see the cartoon lightbulb above his head. "You're one of them, aren't you? One of the Six?"

Kat nodded. "And three days ago, one of my Brothers broke our Laws to meet with me. To tell me about you. And why I needed to protect you."

As it turned out, Kat's way of assimilating into society was to get a job as a the PA to a big city lawyer. She showered quickly and left to walk the five blocks to her office building. She told the Winchesters to make themselves at home, and to ignore Edward if he ever came out the bedroom. She never did say exactly who he was or why he was here...huh.

Dean grabbed a few beers out of the fridge and sat down in front of the flat screen, and Sam knew any attempt at a sensible conversation was gone the moment Dean uttered the words; "Dude, she has the Busty Asian Beauties Channel on this thing. Sweet."

Leaving the elder Winchester to his beer and porn- ugh, Sam shivered, that was not an image he needed in his head- Sam went into what appeared to be some kind of study. Bookcases lined the walls, and hello computer. Looks like its research time.

A few hours later, and Sam knew everything that was public record about Miss Katrina Summers. There was a fire in her childhood home when she was a baby. Father and twin brother presumed dead. Mother remarried and living in Washington with a museum curator. Moved around a lot as a kid, not a lot of close friends.

The yearbook he found on a shelf had only one picture of her in it, with two other guys who were on the swim team. It was a casual group photo at some kind of meet, and the young blonde –who looked more like a model than anyone Sam had ever seen, even through the grainy photograph- had turned to the side and a tattoo was visible across part of back. It looked like some kind of wings and strange lettering, but it was hard to make out.

He pawed through Kat's bookcase, fingers lingering over the tomes on law practice, the gold lettering on the spines calling him back to another life, a life he should have had with Jess... He shook himself out of those thoughts, Jess was gone, he'd never be a lawyer. Those dreams had all died in that fire at Stanford, and no good would come from dwelling on it any longer than he already had.

Kat's collection ranged from classic literature, to raunchy romance novels, to thick historical volumes and a lot of New York Times' bestsellers. She even had the full collection of works by supernatural fiction writer, Mason Reid. Sam had heard of him, Jess had loved his books, and always left them lying around the house. She'd tried, and failed, many times to get him to read the books, insisting that he'd "love them if you just gave them a chance, Mr. Smarty-pants".

He smiled fondly at the memory, and perhaps it was this nostalgia that caused him to reach out and pick up one the older novels, one with a purple cover, and a picture of a creepy old mansion on the front. He remembered Jess sitting on a lawn chair in the middle of summer, completely engrossed by this one.

He thumbed through it lazily, and stopped when he realized Kat had annotated, circled and highlighted things on almost every page. Odd. He kept flicking until he got to the front of the book, where he noticed the dedication. He heard Jessica's voice in his head saying "-and he must really love her, he dedicates every single book to her, but no one really knows what he's trying to tell. It's so cryptic, look."

Sam saw it in his mind's eye, as well as in front of him;

"As always, for Katrina

Don't worry, you're getting there."

Sam dropped the book. He grabbed another from the shelf, flipped to the dedications page;

"For Katrina,

Remember, don't let your guard down

And keep your eyes (and knives) sharp"

He looked through all of the Mason Reid books on the shelf, each one dedicated in the same way, "For Katrina" with an odd message following it. That coupled with the notes Kat had making, and things started to come together.

"Holy shit," Sam breathed as the realization struck him.

To be continued...