Whoa, whoa, whoa, hiatus. Where'd you come from? Well, I'd like to say that I'll get back on a more regular update schedule, but let's be honest. I have no idea if that's the case or not. For those loyal readers, thanks for your patience. For new readers, welcome! If you've gotten this far, that must mean you like the story, or you wouldn't have read 17 chapters of it, right?

Chapter 18

Dean PoV

"Sammy, get behind this with me," I whisper shout, yanking him behind a dumpster with me. We've just finished painting all the witch's traps around the building, at each door and on the roof. Rowena isn't going anywhere. Bella and Charlie announce themselves so Rowena comes out of hiding inside the building. We don't want to go in after her, where she knows about every nook and cranny and may very well have the place booby trapped. No, we want her out in the open where we have the upper hand.

"Lassies, where'd ye get off to?" I hear a thick Scottish voice call out. "I heard that purple eyed witch drinker let ye out. He'll get what's coming to 'im, too." I chance a glance around the side of the dumpster and see a woman with long curly red hair and a full length blue gown peek out of the building. "Ye think ye can trap me with this?" she calls out again, staring down at the small trap at her feet. She pulls a blade out of her belt, kneels down and scratches away a bit of the trap. "I'm smarter than that, dearies. Surely ye must have learned that much at least." She steps onto the trap and then past it.

"I'm really not going to hurt ye… much... All I need is… your souls…" She whispered the last two words, but I'm close enough to hear.

I spot Bella hiding behind a large truck and she has a pair of iron shackles ready to grab Rowena. She's scanning the area trying to see where Sammy and I are hiding without also giving away her own position. I see her pull out her phone and tap the screen as if sending a text. She knows I keep my phone on silent during hunts, so this is a safe means of communication. I pull out my phone and see her text. "I don't think we'll get a better chance than this. I have the shackles. Can you and Sammy distract her?"

"On it," I reply. I stand up and walk towards the ginger witch.

"You!" she hisses and flicks her wrist, sending me into a brick wall, pinning me there with her magic. Well, this isn't the first time I've been flung about by some fugly monster. I doubt it'll be the last. "Ye're one of the Winchesters, aren't ye? I should have recognized ye when ye stupidly entered my faux shop. Guess I believed the rumours that ye're dead. What are ye doing here?"

"Apparently, looking for you," I tell her. I can see Bella and Charlie maneuvering about behind her. She's completely oblivious to them. I've never seen Bella move so stealthily before. Maybe it's something she learned while in the fairy realm. She has the shackles open and ready. I then see her eyes flick to my left where I know Sammy should be hiding, holding another set of iron shackles.

"Which one are you?" she demands.

I smirk. "The pretty one." She twists her wrists and I feel my intestines tie up in knots. The pizza that I was in the middle of digesting is now threatening to come back up. Bella pauses, her eyes showing her concern for me. I raise one eyebrow, hopefully letting her know that I'm okay. I've been through worse.

"Where's your brother?"

"Hell if I know," I reply. "We split up earlier today. Can cover more ground that way, y'know."

She rolls her eyes. "You're hunting me… solo? You have got to be the worst hunter I've ever heard of."

"But you have heard of me," I quip. I spot Charlie running into the building, Rowena none the wiser, while Bella is still behind her, half hidden behind the truck.

"Why are you hunting me? I haven't done anything… yet,"

"You're a witch, that automatically puts you on the list, sweetheart. We heard about you, so here we are."

She shakes her head. "No, no one knows about me. No one but… oh you've got to be kidding me. Fergus put you up to this didn't he? That good for nothing bastard of mine."

Fergus is Crowley's real name? Oh, I'm never letting him live that down. And if Bella's power over him lasts, neither will she.

As Rowena is going off on a tangent about her good for nothing son, and what a disappointment he's been, I slowly inch my way towards Sammy. I'm still pinned for the most part, but I can shimmy my way towards the alley bit by bit. Rowena doesn't seem to notice as she's still holding her fist up at me, but droning on and on about Fergus. Apparently he's been a thorn in her side since his birth.

"Look lady, I have no idea who this Fergus is that you keep talking about, but no one put us up to anything. You're a witch. We're hunters. Simple as that."

"Dearie, it's never as simple as that." Rowena realizes that we've moved quite a bit and spots Sam in the alley. He's holding up a gun at her. "You think that little hot stick is going to hurt me?" She steps towards Sam, but he's beyond the border of the large trap Garrett painted. She's stopped dead. When she looks down, all she can see is a red line with some symbols painted every few feet. "Oh, yer smart little things aren't ye. No matter. I'll eventually get out of this not so wee trap, and kill all of ye anyway. This doesn't take away any of my power, ye know."

"No, but these might," Bella says as she snaps a shackle on Rowena's wrist. Her timing couldn't have been more perfect. Garrett appears then and grabs Rowena's other hand so Bella can slap that one on, too. Now that she's bound by spelled shackles, her power over me fails and I fall to the ground in a heap, grasping my gut as my intestines rearrange themselves back to the way they were. "Dean, you good?" Remi calls out gruffly. She needs to maintain her hold on Rowena, but still wants to make sure I'm okay.

"I'm fine, Remi. Feel like I'm gonna hurl, but I'll be alright."

"What are these things?!" The ginger witch screeches, wringing her hands about. She tries to get the shackles off, but every time her skin touches one of the markings, it burns her. She's lucky she thought to wear long sleeves today, or her wrists would be rubbed bloody like Remi's.

"Iron shackles," Remi answers. "With various sigils carved into them. Sigils that you'll find make you completely powerless." She hands the end of the chains over to Garrett so he can keep a strong hold on her.

He yanks them a bit, making her fall to her knees. "That's for the vervain, bitch."

"I'll get you for this!" she shrieks. "Even these can't hold me forever, and ye can mark my words, dearies. You'll all be dead very, very soon."

"And the rest of New Orleans," we hear Charlie say as she reappears, having found the humans that were inside. Now that Rowena is shackled, her power over them is gone. Each of them take turns coming up and slapping her, punching her in the gut, and yanking out her hair. "That's right, Rowena. I told them to do to you what you did to them. Payback's a bitch, enit?"

Once they're done, Rowena stumbles to her feet. "And so what if I wipe this ruin of a city off the planet? No one will miss it. I should think you'd thank me. I am doing you the favor of killing the King of Hell, y'know…"

"Not even Crowley is worth four hundred thousand people," I tell her. "And yes, we would miss it. Hello… Mardi Gras, anyone?"

Rowena's demons show up then, ready to attack. They still want Crowley dead, and they for damn sure don't care about killing off this entire city. "Garrett, are their meat suits still alive?" Bella asks, holding out her hands as if to take the reins from him.

"Most of them, yeah," he replies.

"How can you tell?" I ask.

He shrugs. "Their blood smells different if they've already killed or fatally wounded their host."

"Remi, try it out," Charlie urges her. "You can do this."

Remi puts her hand up as if willing her powers of persuasion out of her palm. "The lot of you. Leave your meat suits and go back to hell. Don't ever come back." They all start screaming, but soon the tell-tale black smoke is billowing out of their mouths and finding the nearest crack in the pavement, sucking them back to hell. "That was easier than I thought it would be."

"How did you do that?!" Rowena demands.

"Probably the same way I was able to keep you from hurting me and Charlie," Remi responds. "Still have no fucking clue, though." She turns away from Rowena and towards her new vampire friend. "Garrett. Take care of that, would you? I'd like to be done with this."

"My pleasure," he hisses before jumping into the alleyway and sinking his teeth into Rowena's neck. The four of us turn away, not feeling the need to watch a vampire feed, even if it's off an evil witch. I think the sound of him gulping while she's screaming is going to haunt me for life, regardless of who she is and what she's done.

Then there's the matter of cleaning up the demons. A couple of the bodies are already dead, but most of them are still alive and confused as hell now that they're conscious again. Thankfully none of them saw Garrett feeding. Bella explains to them as delicately as she can that they were possessed, but the demons are gone now as is the witch that they were working for. A few of them thank us, some others run off, and a couple just stand there still stupefied. I don't think they speak any English. Charlie takes over and guides them away, using the little bit of French she knows.

"She's dead," Garrett tells us. "Now we have to burn her and lock the ashes in some kind of urn, right?" I pull the urn out of the duffel near me and show him. "Well, just so happens I know a guy who owns a crematorium." Perfect. We head over there and burn the bitch, making sure every bit is ash.

Just as we're tightening the lid on Rowena's iron urn, a woman appears out of thin air. "Now who the fuck are you?" I ask, pointing my rock salt gun at her.

"Fear not, Dean Winchester. I mean you no harm. I am Bella Swan," she states.

"Um, hello… I'm Bella Swan," our Bella replies, folding her arms across her chest. I glance at the other woman and see she's standing the exact same way. Both taking on defensive yet strong stances. No way… is this a future Bella that has come back to warn us about some horrible shit going down in the future? This woman looks to be in her mid-to-late-forties. She has the same shade of brown hair that Bella... er... Remi had before she dyed it purple, and her eyes are an exact match. I'll have to start thinking of our Bella as Remi so I don't get the two confused.

The woman smiles. "You are Isabella Swan. Daughter of Charles Swan and Renee Higginbotham, yes?" Remi nods.

"I am Arabella Swan, sister to Charlie Swan. I 'died' before you were born, so you never got a chance to know me. But I have gotten to know you from afar."

"Aunt Bella," Remi realizes. "Yes, my Dad named me after you, in a way. Renee didn't like the name Arabella, but she did like Bella, so they chose Isa for the beginning. So I take it you never actually died…"

"No… I simply turned seventeen and my powers manifested. I fulfilled my destiny and became a hunter. Seems like you have done the same just as your powers grew."

"Powers? What powers?"

Arabella smiles again. "You're a very powerful young woman, Bella. You can't even begin to imagine what all you're capable of."

"Why don't you tell me?" Remi asks. I'm still not sold on the idea that this is Remi's aunt and not her future self. They just look too damn much alike.

"The women in our family are Simagres," she begins. "Simagre is the Georgian word for a shield." Remi's eyes widen. "Our family emigrated from Georgia many years ago, when the Simagres were being hunted like witches. We came across the Black Sea, traveled through Romania and left Europe through France where we took on the name Cygne, which then was translated to Swan at Ellis Island in New York. Our Georgian name is Beyakus, which means White Bird."

"So when my Dad told me that we were French and English, he was wrong?" Remi asks.

"Technically," Older Bella replies. "When the Cygne family came to America, our papers said we were French. We couldn't have anything connect us back to Georgia, for fear of being killed by the Simagre hunters."

"I'm not human," Remi says, slightly dejected. She glances at me and I offer her a reassuring smile. I meant what I said the other day. No matter what she is, I love her.

"Not entirely true," her aunt retorts. "Simagres are humans. Many generations ago, one of our ancestors had a baby. The father of that baby was not human. Unfortunately record-keeping back then was not all it is today, so the origin of that father is not known. We suspect he was either an angel or a fairy, but stories vary depending on which Simagre clan you're from."

"Why don't we take this conversation to a less conspicuous venue?" Charlie suggests. It does seem odd to have our motley crew gathered outside a crematorium. It's not like it's a funeral parlor and we're going over plans for a deceased love one. No, we're just an odd bunch standing creepily outside this rather macabre building.

Pausing the story, we head back to our hotel, taking a few minutes to decompress and clean up after our defeating Rowena. Garrett promised to go back to the warehouse Rowena had been inhabiting and take care of the dead demon bodies, bringing them to the crematorium.

Ever since Remi came into my life, hunts have been both more difficult and simpler. She has a knack for getting herself into trouble, a danger magnet. I think she called herself that once before. But even though she puts me beside myself with worry, we have thus-far always come out on top, having defeated the threat, and rather easily. Yes she was locked in the fairy realm for six months, but in our world it was only a few hours. I could probably count on one hand how many hunts were taken care of in only a few hours.

Then with defeating Abaddon. Yes, it knocked her out for a week, but she killed Abaddon within minutes. It was like all the details were fed to us on how to defeat her. And now with Rowena. Once again, Remi was taken from me, but she survived, and came out of the ordeal with powers. While we don't have all the details yet on the nature of said powers, I think they're part of her to help us hunt. When I first met her, I thought she was a natural born hunter. Now, well, maybe that was always the case.

Once we're all cleaned up and sitting down in the common area between both rooms, Arabella launches back into her story. "It begins when the girl is in her eighteenth year," she starts. "Now I don't mean when you turn eighteen, but during the year before your eighteenth birthday." Remi gives her a quizzical look.

Arabella takes a deep breath. "Babies don't turn one until they've been alive for twelve months, yes?" Remi nods. "But that entire time period is known as the first year. In our culture, one's age is determined by the end of the year, not the beginning. Other cultures count differently.

"Anyway, for you, the abilities would have started manifesting once you turned seventeen, thus entering your eighteenth year of life."

Realization comes over Remi's face. "I moved to Forks after I turned seventeen. If what you're saying is true, then Edward would have been able to hear my thoughts if he'd met me before then, yes?"

Arabella furrows her brow. "Who is Edward?"

"The vampire I used to date and now want to kill," Remi answers, waving her hand dismissively. "He's a mind reader, but could never read my mind. My blood was also extra appealing to him, even though he wasn't a human drinker."

"Then yes, had he met you prior to entering your eighteenth year, he'd have been able to hear your thoughts, and you probably would have smelled different, too. One of the downsides of being a Simagre is that we are extra appealing to supernatural creatures. We stand out to them, be it our scent, or our looks or what have you."

"Isn't that kind of counterproductive?" Sammy chimes in.

Older Bella shakes her head. "No, on the contrary, being extra appealing to our targets makes it easier for them to be distracted. Yes, they head right for us, which could be catastrophic, but they ignore their self-preservation instincts and any traps we may have lain. Bella, if you were involved with a vampire after turning seventeen, I'm amazed you're still alive."

Remi grimaces. "He always did have impeccable self control. But he was the only one frenzied by my blood. The rest of them abstained just fine." Older Bella furrows her brow, confused. "They had been resisting human blood for a long time. Drinking only from animals. Oh, also, they're not traditional vampires. They're children of Diaman, I guess."

Remi's aunt's eyes go wide. "You survived an encounter with Children of Diaman?!"

"Um, yeah, we were with one just now, too," Remi answers. "Garrett, the purple-eyed guy with us at the crematorium. He's one of them. He only drinks from witches and demons, though. That's why his eyes are violet." Bella shakes her head in disbelief. "He'll be back momentarily," Remi adds. "He went to clean up the mess at Rowena's base of operations."

"I… I can't believe this. You must be more powerful than I thought."

Remi shrugs. She has no clue how incredible she is. "Garrett did tell me I smelled amazing, but that I was still safe from him. I sub-consciously created a forcefield around Charlie and myself when Rowena had us. She wasn't able to affect us with her magic and Garrett saved us. Once I realized he wasn't going to kill us, I felt the barrier disappear. That's when he said he could smell me. The shield thingy was blocking my scent."

Arabella nods. "Yes, I should think that even now your shield is blocking your scent somewhat. If any Diamanpire smelled me unshielded, I'd be a goner. I'm constantly shielding. They're so damn fast and strong, it's hard to get the upperhand with them." Diamanpire…. I like that.

"I have a question," Remi says, standing up and starting to pace.

"Just one?" Sammy mutters.

"So… you got these powers, faked your own death - she reportedly fell off a cliff - worried Gran and Grandad and Charlie, only to have become a hunter. You couldn't keep in touch with your family? Hell, I'm a hunter, too, and I call Charlie every week. Renee, too."

Looking down, Arabella responds. "I was told that letting them stay too close to me would put them at risk. Your Gran told me that. She was one, too."

"Wait, wait, wait. Gran was a hunter?!" Remi sits down on the chair in a heap, her eyes dumbstruck. "Is that how she died? Did something kill her?" Arabella nods once, solemnly. "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph." Remi leans back in the chair, letting her head flop over the back. "I just can't handle all of this."

"I got a room down the hall," Arabella tells her. "Would you like me to go for a while? Let you process and decompress?"

"What I'd like is for you to march your ass to Forks, Washington and say hello to your brother that has thought you dead for twenty odd years," Remi says rather maliciously. "I've got half a mind to pick up the phone and call him right now."

"Bella, please, don't," Arabella pleads. "I wouldn't know what to say to him. It's been so long. Plus, my enemies could use him against me."

Remi rolls her eyes and stands up. "Please. That's the nature of this job. Simagre or no. These guys are two of the best hunters in the world and they're not some part superhuman from some ancient magical clan from Europe. Being a hunter means putting your life on the line, and hoping that at the end of the day, you still have a place to lay your head. But if not, you keep on trucking. Gran made it work. She was happily married to Grandad, had two kids, had a grandchild. Sure the life may have killed her, but I'm told that's what happens. There's no happily-ever-after here. You just hunt until you become the hunted and then hope that you can take as many of the bastards to hell with you when they get you. Hell, Edward could go crazy right now and kill Charlie in some psychotic attempt to get me back. Does that mean I'd stop hunting? No. If anything it would probably renew my vigor to seek out and kill all things sparkly and otherwise out to destroy humanity."

"You're right Bella," Arabella concedes, eyes on the floor. "I should have found a way to keep my brother in my life, instead of keeping tabs on him and watching from a distance. After mom died, I just couldn't. I didn't want to lose him, too. Or you. And you were so young when she died."

"At least you admit it was about you and your feelings. You couldn't bear to lose more of your family, but did you stop to think what seeing you alive would have done for my dad? He would have been overjoyed to learn he wasn't alone. Grandad was gone, and then Gran. He thought he was the only Swan left, and you could have let him know that he wasn't. You could have been an active participant in my life instead of, I'm guessing, checking up on me every few years.

"I have about a million questions about this whole Simagre thing, but at the end of the day, family comes first. And until you come clean to my dad, you don't count as family. Everyone else in this room is family, though, and I would trust them all with my life. You… not so much. Not right now, anyway. You can see yourself out."

Arabella gives Remi a sad look but nods and gets up to leave. Sammy, Charlie, and I stay seated and silent as Remi's aunt leaves the room, closing the door quietly behind her. Meanwhile Remi has left the common area headed for our bedroom and I hear her flop onto the bed. "I'm taking a nap," she calls out.

"Well, that was… something," Sammy says, taking a deep breath. "Should I… start looking up Simagre lore? I mean, we've never heard of them before, but then again they're all apparently on our side. Maybe there's nothing to find."

I shrug. "I dunno Sammy, maybe there's something in the bunker. The Men of Letters seemed to have tabs on just about every supernatural being out there, the good, the bad, and the fugly."

"This is wild," Charlie comments. "I mean, first Remi finds out that her great grandmother was a woman of letters, and now she learns that on her father's side is this Simagre thing? I mean, what's going on? You guys, too. Didn't you find out that your mom was a hunter before she met your dad, who then became a hunter later in life?" Sammy and I both nod. "This is a little beyond coincidence at this point, don't you think?"

"Fate" Cas blurts, appearing out of nowhere again. He's not looking at any of us, but is once again staring at the damn painting. "God put your parents together, Sam and Dean. You already know that. He also ensured the Higginbothams and Swans would be joined, too. I don't know why. Took a while though. Charles Swan was not interested in Renee Higginbotham at first. To him she was too free-wheeling and flighty."

"He was right," I hear Remi's voice chime in. She steps into the room and sits on my lap. So much for her nap. I wrap one arm around her waist and rest the other on her thigh. "I was a toddler when she left him and took me to Arizona. So what happened that Charlie was willing to be with her? I mean, I can't think of any two more polar opposites than Charlie and Renee. Opposites attract, my ass. The only thing they've ever had in common was me, and they both parent so differently. Well, Renee doesn't parent at all, really. She's always treated me more like a little sister than a daughter. Charlie is more dad-like, I guess."

Castiel finally turns away from the painting and looks at Remi. "Cupid," he answers. Then he turns back to the artwork.

Remi leans back, as if shocked. "Cupid? As in little baby angels in diapers that shoot arrows with heart-shaped tips at unsuspecting people?"

"That's the commercialized version, but essentially yes," Cas replies, eyes still on the framed monstrosity. "They're a lower order of angel, Cherubs. Tasked with matchmaking. They're also very unpleasant to be around."

"Why is that?" Charlie asks.

"They're… friendly. Very, very friendly," Cas responds. "They're obnoxiously cheerful and greet you by giving you a tree hug."

I chuckle. "I think you mean bear hug, Cas."

He simply nods in response. "I have been wondering why Fate put the Higginbothams and Swans together. I guess they both had hunters," Cas muses.

"Cas, what do you know about Simagres?" Remi asks, getting up off my lap.

He turns to her. "Why do you know that word? Who told you about them?" Cas looks at her suspiciously.

"Well, apparently I am one," she answers. "My dad's long lost sister just showed up as we were finishing off Rowena and told me about these superhumans called Simagres. It explains the weird shit that's been going on with me, why supernatural gifts tend to not work on me, how I was able to resist being killed by the Diamanpires, and why I'm able to control demons."

Cas flashes over to Remi and stares into her eyes, much like he did when she inadvertently summoned Crowley. "This explains quite a few things," he says simply before disappearing with the flapping of his invisible wings.

"Where is it that he always disappears to?" Remi asks. "Is he going to Heaven or something?"

"With Cas, you never know," Sammy answers. "We love the guy and would die for him, but there have been a lot of ups and downs in our relationship over the years. He called me an abomination once. And based on how he was looking at you, he probably thinks the same thing."

This jogs a memory for me. "Did your aunt say that in your ancestry someone banged either a fairy or an angel and that's what started the Simagre thing?"

"I'm quite certain she didn't use those exact words, but yes. She said record keeping wasn't great back then so they didn't know exactly what impregnated one of my ancestors, but it was likely one of those two. Why?"

"Based on Cas' reaction, my money's on Angel. I'll bet Baby that one of your ancestors is a Nephilim."

Remi takes a deep breath. "Okay, I'll bite. What's a nephilim?"

"It's-" and I'm cut off by the flapping of wings.

"The unholy and unlawful offspring between a human and an angel," Castiel says, having popped back in.

"They're very powerful," Sam adds. "There aren't many around because of that. The angels have a law that any Nephilim have to be destroyed upon creation. And if possible, while in utero."

"But I thought angels were genderless," Remi comments.

Cas rolls his eyes. "We are, but the vessels that we use are human and have the necessary parts. Some angels, the bad ones that is, use this to their advantage. I've just been to find out who your ancestor is."

"The suspense is killing me, Cas. Who is it?"

A/N: Pronunciation of Simagre is see-mah-gray, FYI.