Tough talk was all well and good, but when I was out on my own I didn't feel quite so confident. It didn't take long to get back to that street. It was still light out, there were people mowing their lawns, walking home, talking to neighbours. They had no idea that just beyond the illusion they called reality, there was a much darker world just aching to bleed through and touch theirs. Humans were so ignorant, so stupid. It was a wonder they had survived as long as they had. Were it not for people like the Winchesters, they would be walking a fiery path through hell on earth by now.

I killed the engine on the bike and swung my leg over it. The side of the street where the victim had lived was curiously quiet. I left my helmet hanging from the handlebars, armed myself with as many weapons as I could slip into my belt and pockets, and then started towards the house. I was going to have to pretend I was FBI again to get past the mother, though I wasn't sure how I would convince her to hand over her child for an exorcism.

Fortunately, I didn't have to.

The kid ran out of the house to me while I was walking up the path. Tears streaked his cheeks and he wrapped his chubby arms around my leg, clinging desperately like I was his last hope in the world. Possessed or not, I was a sucker for a crying child. I dropped carefully to a kneel and held the child by the shoulders, "It's okay," I said softly, "I'm going to help you. What's wrong? Where's your mother?"

"Momma! Momma," the boy pointed back towards the house and then burst into tears. The demon didn't seem to be inside of him any more, so it must have jumped ship into her.

I couldn't take the boy inside with me, it was far too dangerous. If I had backup I'd have made him stay with them while I finished this alone. I brushed the tears from his cheeks gently with my thumbs and said, "I need you to go to your neighbour's house, can you do that for me? You go over there and stay with them until I come to take you home."

The boy nodded and ran. It had to be pretty bad if he was willing to run from his own mother like that. With each step I took towards the front door the butterflies inside of my stomach became more and more frenzied. I didn't know that I was doing the right thing, but it was too late to turn back now. Whatever was going on wasn't going to wait for us. I had to put an end to it before anyone else got hurt.

I had some idea of what I might expect upon entering the house, and I didn't think it was going to be pretty. Demons were never all that subtle. I steeled my nerves and kept my back to the walls, knowing full well that there may be more than one waiting on me, that this could all be some kind of a trap.

The living room was in chaos. Furniture had been broken and flung into the walls. The glass coffee table was in pieces, and Mrs. Harrison was tied securely to a dining chair in the middle of it all. Her captors were nowhere to be seen. On the surface it appeared they'd tortured her until she lost consciousness, and then simply moved on. Something in my gut told me this was not as it appeared. Still, I didn't want to leave her like that, and hurried to unfasten her bonds before I was confronted by whoever had left her in such a state.

"Hey, are you awake?" I asked when she stirred, "Come on, we have to get you out of here."

Her head lolled forwards and I groaned softly. I wasn't going to be able to carry her out and defend us both should the need arise. Maybe it would have been better to bring the others along. Then again, they had been all for waiting. By the time they'd decided to act, there was a good chance there wouldn't be anyone left to save.

The front door clicked and I froze. Light footsteps tentatively approached, and in the doorway the little boy appeared. I let out a sigh that was all at once relieved and frustrated. Okay so it wasn't a demon, but it was another person I was going to have to potentially take a bullet for. His eyes widened when he saw his mother, and he scurried over to us whereupon he clung to my leg again and trembled against me.

"It's okay," I assured him in a whisper, "No one is going to hurt you, I promise."

"I know," there was something about his voice I didn't like. The waver of fear was gone, and it was so clear and confident one might have mistaken it for the tone of an adult. I felt the white hot pain of the knife in my thigh before I saw it. He'd stabbed me! I forced him away so he staggered and fell onto his backside, then clasped a hand over the wound as it began to bleed profusely through my fingers. The boy laughed, a cold and cruel noise, and his eyes became pure black.

"You won't hurt me," he told me as I reached for my gun, "If you shoot then you'll kill the boy."

Sometimes it was easy to forget there was a human being trapped inside their own bodies during a possession. The urge to hang my morals was overwhelming, but I just couldn't bring myself to kill a child. Damned demons! I swore under my breath and sank to a crouch, finding it difficult to stem the tide of blood while I was putting weight on that leg. The boy came closer and brushed my cheek with his tiny fingers, "I was hoping to catch a Winchester, not a mongrel like you."

"Yeah well, that's life," I snarled back through gritted teeth, "You might know that if you were out of diapers."

The child slapped me across the cheek with impossible strength. I struck the floor hard, debris from the glass table slicing through my shirt and sinking into my arm. I winced and clenched my jaw, trying to ignore the feeling as best I could. The demon picked up its knife and drew it down across the woman's neck in a swift, clean motion. She gasped and gurgled, gulping in air uselessly as she bled out onto the floor. Her eyes were wide with fear, fixed on the face of her son before they became glassy and devoid of life.

"You little basta –" I began and was struck again. Child be damned, I wasn't going to let anyone push me around like this. I brought my hand up in swift motion and hit the demon hard across the face. God I hoped a neighbour didn't walk in on this. The demon didn't fall, they barely even flinched. In fact they smiled, then laughed. It was so creepy to hear that sound from a child.

"I thought," a voice said from the door, "I could trust you with this job."

The laughter quickly died. The man watching the pair of us had a British accent and wore a professionally tailored suit. He fiddled with his cuff absently, an air on nonchalance about him as if he'd walked in on the most mundane scene in the world. The demon gave him his full attention, and in a simpering voice explained, "I set the trap just as you said, and the Winchesters came, they did! But then this," he motioned to me, "Walked in instead."

"And you didn't think you should just turn her away at the door?" he asked before he shouted furiously, "Did you really think a second rate hunter like her would be as useful as a Winchester?!"

"No – I mean – yes, but I – they were with her, if we use her as bait to –"

"Enough!" the man snarled and waved a hand toward the child. Black smoke spewed from the boy's mouth as the demon was expelled. The man hadn't needed to utter a single incantation; he had exorcised the beast by his will alone. I'd never seen a demon do that before. The boy dropped to the floor, alive but unconscious, and now an orphan.

We were essentially alone, and the silence hung in the air between us, tense and strained. Inside I wondered if I could get a shot in at this demon, and if that would even do any good. His presence alone was oppressive, intimidating, terrifying. My breath caught at the back of my throat and my mind raced through everything I knew about finding the best escape routes, how to disarm an enemy, the weaknesses of demons. The more I thought of it, the more I realised I was in a fairly fatal situation.

"I know you," the demon told me in a light, conversational tone. It was like he didn't see the destruction around us, or the blood which carelessly spewed from my injuries, "There's something in your blood, something familiar..."

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

The man's mouth twitched into a satisfied smile, "Pendle, am I right? The Redferne family."

"Never heard of them."

"Oh, I think you have," he strolled over the broken glass and knelt in front of me. The man took my chin between his thumb and the crook of his forefinger in order to turn my head to a better angle, "There's definitely a witch in you... Something else too, from the looks of it..."

I grimaced as he pulled my hand from my thigh and ran his tongue over my palm. I was tempted to stab him just for the satisfaction it would provide. He wouldn't feel it, but I'd enjoy it. The man ran his tongue over his teeth and inhaled slowly through his nose, like some snob tasting a fine wine. After a short nod he said, "Skin walker, interesting."

"Take your damn hands off me!" I snarled.

He tutted like I was some precocious child having a tantrum and said, "I heard about a skin walker who turned hunter, you know? Met a sweet little witch, had a daughter," he leaned in close and whispered, "And I heard she went missing after a very nasty murder..."

"If you're going to kill me could you hurry it up?" I seethed, "Because your voice is really starting to grate on me."

"Oh no, pet, I'm not going to kill you. I wouldn't have any fun with that," he smirked, "Well, I probably will kill you, but not just yet. See, if you were here with the Winchesters, then that must mean you're a friend of theirs."

"Hah, you have no idea."

"Maybe not, but they are stupidly loyal to other hunters, and I think you might be useful."

"So what, I'm a hostage now?" I asked, "Bite me, black eyes. I don't do the damsel in distress act."

"I didn't say anything about being a hostage," he sneered, "But I figure you don't want them to know what happened to your step father. Because, in the end they're hunters, and you are a monster."

It was true, I didn't want them to know. It wasn't because they'd kill me. In fact, I probably deserved to die after what I'd done. I just didn't want to see the look on Bobby's face when he realised that the sweet little girl who had fallen asleep listening to him reading stories about monster lore was a monster herself. He didn't care about the blood that I had in my veins, but my actions spoke volumes about the darkness bubbling away inside of me.

"What do you want from me?" I asked, my voice trembling in my rage. I didn't think it was possible for me to hate myself any more than I did already, but clearly I'd been wrong.

"I want you to stay nice and close to those boys," his mouth brushed against my ear as he whispered the words, "The name's Crowley, and when I call on you, you'll come running."