It had started out as a game, as a lot of these things did. Missy had a slumber party and invited her friends from school. Despite her protests, her mother insisted she invite Lisa, Missy's friend from elementary school. Lisa was not a part of the high school in crowd.

When the other girls giggled over boys and gave each other make-overs, Lisa hovered in the background. It was not until Missy produced the talking-board that Lisa got interested.

Hearing this, Dean groaned. "A Ouija board? Those things don't work."

At least, in his experience, they didn't. According to Lisa they did. The girls unwittingly attracted a demon, and the demon attached itself to Missy. For all her pretty face and popularity, Missy had a lot of insecurities as a teen. Her parents had been going through a divorce, and she was left having to care for a younger sibling as her mother's alcoholism worsened. The demon used her weaknesses against her.

"He told her he was a spirit, a ghost, and that he'd been a soldier killed in battle. He said all kinds of romantic stuff." Lisa shook her head and grabbed the door handle in a white-knuckled grip as Dean sent her little Chevy airborne over a small rise in the road. "I think – no, I know - she fell in love with him. But the thing was, she couldn't talk to him without me there."

"Why?"

"I don't know," the girl remarked miserably. "I've always been...special. I see things. Sense things."

"So the power was yours." Dean shrugged. He'd heard of other cases where a psychic's energy had been used by another. "She used you to have talking-board sex with her demon boyfriend. I get it."

He got it good too. If Missy was adept at using psychics as batteries, things did not bode well for Sam.

"Turn here. Yeah, but then, after we graduated, he started talking about how she could bring him to life. He told us what to read, how to work the ritual. We were – scared – to go through with it the way he said we should. We wanted to try an experiment to see if it worked. Missy had a puppy..."

"Derek, I presume?" Swearing, Dean wrenched the wheel around to make another turn onto a narrow dirt road leading out of town.

"Yeah. That's the name they agreed to call him."

"Not its real name of course."

Lisa shook her head. "He was pissed. We put him in the dog, and then we couldn't get him out again. That's when I found out what Derek really was and I tried to talk to Missy but she just..." She trailed off, and left it there. "I wanted out of it, but she wouldn't let me. Derek rarely let me out of his sight. I tried to run once and he hunted me down. They needed me to do the ritual again, help him escape the dog into a human. I couldn't do it. This is a small town. I know everyone. I couldn't do that do someone I knew." The girl plucked nervously at her hair, a frayed thread at the end of her sweater. "We tried to find someone else. We tried scrying, and divination, but come up with nothing. We thought if we got a little publicity..."

"So Missy wrote her story to lure someone in from outside."

"Yes. We waited months before you showed up, and when you did, Derek went nuts. Insisted on using your brother in the ritual, but we had to get you away from him."

Dean tightened his grip on the steering wheel and pressed his foot down harder on the gas. "Son of a bitch." A second later something occurred to him. "Wait. If she needs you to do the ritual. Why are you here?"

She didn't answer right away. He had to prompt her.

"Lisa?"

"The demon's real name Kokabiel" Her brows dipped low. "When Sam came, he said I wouldn't be needed anymore. I don't understand that."

"Me either," Dean said softly. "And I wish I did."

The little Cavalier's headlights barely illuminated the dirt road ahead of them. Lisa had pointed their way into the foothills of the Ozarks where the roads were narrow (if there were any) and the woods grew thick around them. If someone wanted to remain hidden, it would be the perfect place in which to disappear. What Dean did see, however, were signs that another car had come through this particular place recently – very recently – and it was a wide, heavy car. No doubt, it was his car.

"Take my brother, take my car. Now I'm really pissed," Dean muttered.

"Pull over," Lisa said suddenly. She'd been quiet for the last few miles and the sound of her voice startled him for a moment.

"What?"

"We're close. We'll have to go the rest of the way on foot or they'll hear us."

"Man..."

Dean eased the Chevy over to the narrow berm and parked it. He could see off to the side a narrow track leading up a hill into the woods. This, Lisa indicated, was the back way. The back way into what, she wouldn't say. All Dean knew is that it was going to require hiking up a hill, through the woods, in the dark. Not only was this something he hated doing, he felt as if it put them at a distinct disadvantage strategically. He'd almost prefer barging in the front door, guns blazing.

"Got a flashlight?"

Lisa shook her head, straightened her pony-tail, and headed off up the path. "Just follow the path."

"Or bug spray?" Dean added as an afterthought. The back of his neck was being attacked. "Dammit."

He scrambled to catch up with her, drawing his gun and releasing the safety as he went. She was already several paces ahead of him and moving quickly. For such a mousy, desk-bound girl Lisa was fit and fast. She climbed the steep, winding path like a little goat. Taller and heavier, Dean had a rougher time of it and after a moment was forced to abandon the notion of having his weapon drawn and ready. If he fell, he really didn't want to accidentally put a bullet in himself.

Just to prove this a prudent decision, the loose dirt beneath his feet gave way and he found himself backsliding down the hill on his knees. He dug in and righted himself, but not before giving Lisa even more ground. He could no longer see her in the dark. There would be no calling out to her either, as that might give them away. Dean had to settle with muttering curses to himself. This whole case sucked, he thought. He'd done more cursing in the last two days than he had all freakin' year.

His underlying concern was haste. He had seen how accurate Lisa's predictions could be, and if she saw Sam's death...

Heart pounding, Dean gritted his teeth and hauled himself up the trail. He was grateful when just a few feet further the slope leveled out and the going became much easier. Lisa was no where in sight, which didn't say much. It was a moonless night and the trees here furthest from the road grew tall, their branches thick with leaves. He could barely see a foot in front of his face.

At first he walked faster until, convinced the path was relatively safe, he felt confident enough to break into a jog. His confidence grew when he saw a faint, flicker of light up ahead and what he thought was Lisa crouched low at the end of the path where the woods opened up into a clearing.

Dean slowed his pace and drew his gun. He called her name in a barely audible whisper.

The crouching shadow turned its head. A bit of light caught its eyes, illuminating them. It answered Dean's whisper with a growl. This was obviously not Lisa. It was...

Derek.

"Shit."

He never got off a shot. In fact, he never even completed his curse. The rustle of leaves to his right caught his attention, distracting him. His vision only lasted a nanosecond, for that's all the time he got between seeing Lisa emerge from the trees and getting whacked in the forehead with a baseball bat.