Chapter 12: Dead Man Walking

A/N: Wow! This had taken me forever! I really like this chapter, so I hope you like it too. Please read, and then review. I really should study for French right now, but I don't study. To my favouritest reviewer, and craziness budy Carmen, you're so nice that you're a witch.

I walked through one darkened alleyway after another. I wasn't sure exactly where I was going. There was a goal in my in my newly demonic mind. I now knew that demons were very goal oriented. The goal was planted in my head. It was not my own. I knew it, but I did not care. I had to kill, and I had to do it now.

What I was doing was searching for the perfect victim. It wasn't my demonic lust for blood that was driving me to kill. That lust was there, but I was driven by something much more powerful. I knew that to be truly demonic, which was now my goal, I had to murder a human being.

I spotted a very dirty man with a tangle of black hair. Judging by the fact that he was skulking in a dark alley in the dead of night, he was certainly far from innocent. This would be the type of man who wouldn't be missed. I had found my victim.

Silently, I crept behind him. I knew he would scream the moment he saw me. I had to stay unseen until the last possible moment, for this man's scream would attract witnesses. There was another reason I didn't want him to scream. Unlike other demons, I would take no pleasure in his screams.

I was nearly next to the man now. My fangs were bared, and my claws were out. My eyes glowed a luminescent yellow in the darkness. The man had not seen me, or he would have screamed by now. I was prepared to kill him. All that was left was to actually do it.

"We have to go now!" Aidan yelled. Patience had been gone for ten minutes, and the only ting they had accomplished was to argue. Prue hated it. She, like her sister, was an empath. All of this anger was giving her a migraine.

"Please", she begged, "can we just calm down?" Grams was having almost as hard a time as Prue. She had come down from the attic, alerted by the extreme noise. He was acting as a reluctant mediator between her future great grandchildren, and their friend.

Grams was having a lot of difficulty understanding what had happened. From what she had gathered from the children's' yelling, Patience had somehow become evil. Judging by the children's' expression, this wasn't that strange of an occurrence. She still had no idea where the girl claiming to be Patience's sister had come from.

Melinda was doing her best to stay out of the argument. Prue and Aidan were at each others' throats and Grams was nervously trying to mediate. None of them were doing anything to find Patience. She had already tried to sense her, as she was the only one who could. What worried her most was that she couldn't sense Patience anywhere. It was as if her cousin had vanished.

She did have an idea. Admittedly, the idea was a bit of a long shot, and she didn't really want to call him. He could sometimes sense things that she couldn't. She bit her lip. Calling him was the only way they could find Patience. There was no other way.

" Leo!" she yelled. The others turned to stare at her, surprised that she had spoken. Leo appeared almost instantly, utterly bewildered. Melinda said, "You have to try and sense Patience."

It was a mark of what a good whitelighter Leo was that he didn't ask any questions. He closed his eyes and concentrated. Moments later, he opened his eyes and frowned. Melinda knew that whatever it was, it was bad news. Leo couldn't tell her what it was, for at that moment, Piper busted through the door.

She looked at Grams, and Prue, at Aidan, and Melinda. Finally, her gaze rested on Leo. She smiled brightly and said, "Hi Leo!" If circumstances hadn't been so desperate, Melinda would have been disgusted. Her mother was an awkward 15 year old, and she was looking lovingly at her father, who looked 30, but in reality was about 65.

She didn't really have time to think of the grossness of it all. Piper was gazing lovingly at Leo, but it wouldn't be long until she realized that all of them were there. Sure enough, Piper asked, "What's with all the people?"

Grams looked around desperately for help before she answered. "I'll explain it to you later. I promise." It was the worst explanation in the world, but Piper seemed to believe her. Still, she didn't leave the room, which was what they needed.

"Piper, why don't you go into the other room? I'll come by and talk to you later", Leo said. Piper blushed at being addressed directly by Leo.

"Okay", she said smiling. She drifted out of the room, humming quietly to herself. It seemed to Melinda like her mother had a little crush. When Piper was gone, Melinda wasted little time asking the question she had been dying to ask.

"What happened to Patience?" Melinda asked nervously Leo looked grim.

"I can sense her very faintly, but it's not strong enough to tell where", Leo replied. "The only way that would happen was…well…if she became a demon."

The man stopped to sit down on the dirty ground. I was still right behind him, and he still had not noticed me. I was in the perfect position to strike, and I knew it. A single swipe, and the man would be dead. Any other demon would relish the perfect kill. I hesitated, hovering over the man. I had to kill him…why couldn't I kill him?

It was what I wanted…wasn't it? 'It was', I told myself over and over again. I needed to kill him to prove myself a demon. I wanted to prove myself. Logically, it would follow that I also wanted to kill the man. The why was it so hard for me to do so?

I realized that I didn't really want to kill him. It was more that I needed to kill him. If I didn't kill him soon, I would revert to a regular human. Humans felt pain, and they got hurt. I didn't want to be hurt anymore.

The man had fallen into a daze. His head was resting against a cardboard box. From thing air, I materialized an athame. I let the anger course through me as it had before. I raised the athame, poised to strike. Without thinking too much, I plunged the athame into his chest.

He gasped, and opened his eyes. He reached for the knife trying to take it out. It was too little, too late. I listened to his pained gasps for breath for a moment. Then there was silence. He was dead.

I backed away…horrified by what I had done. I had killed, so I was a real demon now. My horror was accompanied by another feeling: power. I was powerful now, and I liked it.

I didn't know what to do anymore. I hadn't really though about what would happen after I had kill someone and fulfilled my goal. It wasn't as if I had anywhere to go. I couldn't go home anymore. Using my newly developed demonic senses, I tried to find a place that was safe for me. When I found it, I shimmered out.

I reformed in a dark and silent mausoleum. I was drawn to a particular head stone without knowing why. All I knew was that I was safe there. It was as if this stone would protect me. I brushed the dust off the inscription. It said: Benjamin Coleridge Turner, 1860-1888. This was where my paternal grandfather was buried.

The dark alley with the dead man was silent. No one had walked passed. No one would walk past this alleyway for hours. It would be morning before anyone noticed the body covered by a sheet. Through the motionless silence, the sheet ruffled ever so softly.

Slowly, the body beneath the sheet pushed it off. The sheet fell to the floor, and a seemingly normal man got up with a knife sticking out of his chest. If he had been a normal man, he would have been dead. This was no normal man.

With a grimace, he pulled out the knife and threw it to the ground. He gingerly rubbed the wound in his chest. As if by magic, the wound sealed itself. Even the blood disappeared. He brushed himself off, completely uninjured.

"The plan is complete", the man said into the night. He was gone in a shimmer.

I was sitting with my back to my grandfather's headstone. Tears flowed freely down my red cheeks. I didn't know what was happening anymore. Demons weren't supposed to cry.

All I knew was that since I had killed that man, I felt horrible. When I had gotten to this place, I had desperately tried to return to my human form. No matter how hard I tried, it didn't work. I was stuck like this. I was stuck looking like a monster.

Fleetingly, I though of going back home. I wondered what they would think of me now. Surely they would never forgive what I had done. It would be wrong for them to forgive murderers. That's what I was now…a murderer. I was disgusted with myself.

I looked down at my hands. They weren't hands anymore, but vicious claws that could rip someone apart. I had blood on my hands, both literally and figuratively. I had crossed the line between good and evil.

I roared, in a mixture of anger, pain, and horror. The windows of the mausoleum shattered outwards. There was no going back now…